“I can hear you quite well a’ready.” Wild glared.
“—where they have develop’d some rather sophisticated scientific methods. As opposed to here—there’s a great deal of inefficiency in England.” Mandeville grimaced as if inefficiency were a personal blight. “I’m developing a treatise on this very subject, in fact.” He handed Wild a set of crumpled papers. A Remedy for Wastefulness*2 had been etched at the top.
“I believe these papers may assist you in your project. Perhaps your only hope, I should add. Ultimately, to be an entrepreneur”—he lean’d forward—“and you’ll mark my words if you want to ever be known as something other than the rat-faced fencer that you truly are—”
“—I’m quite handsome and smooth-faced,” object’d Wild. “And not a fencer any longer.”
“You’re missing my point. If you ever want to be something other than the fencer that you are, you don’t need to understand economics or trade or insurance, or anything of that nature. At bottom, an entrepreneur simply needs not be overly sentimental about”—Mandeville paus’d, tracing his finger on the dark wood of the desk—“blood.”
*1 A reference to an earlier case than the Zong (1781)? See M. NourbeSe Philip, Zong! (Wesleyan University Press, 2011), and Brenna Bhandar, “Property, Law, and Race: Modes of Abstraction” (UC Irvine Law Review 4, no 1, 2014). Also: Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market (Harvard University Press, 2000); the perpetuation of plantation slavery was based in a cruelty that exceeded simple economic rationale, though it’s not clear whether the author knows this.
*2 Author is most likely mistaken. Mandeville’s oeuvre—while it includes numerous disquisitions on efficiency and waste—contains no such title. This seems an honest mistake for the period, since an ordinary person would not necessarily have been able to avail themself easily of printed manuscripts.
Although, note—given the strictness of copyright law (viz., Statute of Anne, 1710)—perhaps the author was wary of naming another title here and this is meant as a misdirection?
9.
Jack and Bess were strolling the city, casing a ceramics-maker for a possible jilt. Since the Lighthouse Break, the centinels had spread thicker on the water. For months the river had been Chok’d full with activity at all times.
Centinel-boats circl’d the Plague Ships in unbroken rings. Each ship boasted a thick, impenetrable orbit of Security. Centinels call’d and shout’d out to the other crafts striving to navigate the river. Fishermen in punts paddl’d in terror from the muskets pointing at them. Sailors in larger craft buzz’d around decks, dragging masts and booms ’round the centinels screaming and threat’ning. Warning shots rang out when anything drew close.
The wind rush’d up the river, howling north, strewing a burnt flint Scent over the city.
Bess read to Jack from a broadside as they walked away from the shore towards St. Giles.
ADVICE TO PERSONS WISHING TO AVOID INFECTION BY THE PLAGUE
Orders Conceived and Published by the Royal Society of Physicians and the Lord Mayor of London, 12 November 1724
Additional Watchmen to be Appointed in the Parishes of Cripplegate, Spitalfields, and St. Giles
Given the increase in plague in Chandernagore and the East Indies—and the vast potential for the transmission of this plague by merchant vessel, not to mention in particular the lascar sailors swarming these parts—it is thought appropriate, and hereby ordered, that additional watchmen be appointed to the plague ships in the interest of the Publick’s Health. Centinels will also be appointed to the most populous and filth-ridden parishes of the city. Such watchmen ought to be persons of good credit and standing in the city, chosen and appointed by the Lord Mayor himself in consultation with the wardens of St. Giles Roundhouse and Newgate Prison. Any lascar found wandering in any parish without reason will be arrested and held for an indefinite period, or Banish’d from England at the Discretion of the magistrate. The watchmen are required to stand guard outside of any house suspected of infection and the persons so confined for a period of no shorter than twenty-eight days from the time of suspected infection. Such watchmen will be assign’d two to a house, one watch for the morning and daytime hours, another for the evening hours. All Business of the house will be conducted through the watchmen, and if any watchman is required to do Business at any distance from the house, he is to lock up the house with a padlock to the outer doors, and to take the keys with him.
Any persons refusing to remain within the shut-up house will be remanded to Bedlam.
Any person attempting to escape from a shut-up house will meet with violence. Any person walking within the bounds of the parishes of Whitehall, Christ Church, or Charing Cross without residence in said parishes will be determined a vagrant and a threat to the publick health of the parishes, and be remanded to Bedlam. Any person attempting to leave the City of London for the outskirts without reason of Employment will be halted by the Watch and returned to London or remanded to Bedlam. Any Vagrant Body who expires within the parishes of Whitehall, Christ Church, or Charing Cross will be considered property of the state. The body will be assigned to the proper and most convenient Authorities for examination.
—Lucius Peel,
Minister of Publick Health, City of London
“ ‘Publick’s health’!” Bess stabb’d at the paper with a finger. “ ‘Plague transmitters’!”
* * *
—
St. Giles was a vast battalion of workhouses, roundhouses, madhouses, and prisons. Here, the structures stretch’d further apart, leaving wider alleyways between—to prevent the Condemned of the prisons mingling with the condemned of the asylums and confecting together in one mad band of Outcasts.
A scrum of urchins flew by, bearing the purple marks of some vicious indenture on the backs of their necks and in their beaten Expressions. They slowed at the colossal workhouse doors, atop of which reared two marble lions—beneath them, the words Sloth Is Sin. The lions’ tongues unroll’d crepuscular carpets, yellow and white veins running through dark onyx (“Stolen from the cliffs off Chalcedon in Asia Minor, naturally,” Bess mutter’d under her breath). Hit by the sun, the tongues blackened to a deeper shade, lapping up Light. A clutch of centinels congregated around the closing doors, peering about like shite-addl’d flies. From the yard of the workhouse, sea-coal plumed up, vaulting into the open sky.
A sudden thunder squall—and now rain pelt’d the city in a cataclysm. Within moments, the sewers began discharging sweepings from houses, and hay and swill from the cow and pig carts into the streets, and the centinels, who seem’d to be increasing as they walked—posted on every corner now—took on Bitterer aspects, glaring out, eyes narrow’d against the downpour.
“Ne’er mind about the ceramicist,” Bess said, blinking rain out of her eyes.
They turn’d back towards the bat house.
Turn’d, in fact, to find themselves face-to-face with the beadle of St. Giles sitting at the threshold of the gaol, guarding the inmates with all the Conviction of a cud-munching cow.
This much you could easily tell (with apologies to cows) by his dull stare, his listless pacing of the Roundhouse doorway, and his featureless expression—his broad, empty face smooth as the iced-over Thames tideway during a Frost Fair.
“Name?” the cow shout’d out at them.
The beadle meant Bess. This was obvious from his fixation upon her.
“Name?”
“Don’t look up,” she said to Jack under her breath. “Nor say a word.”
They walked on.
The beadle tapp’d his pen on his ledger book.
“If you don’t give us a name we’ll have to assume you’re either mad—and remand you to Bedlam—or resisting, in which case we’ll increase the charge to Traitorous intent.”
“Intent for what?” Jack stupidly return’d.
“Intent to infect the people of London. She could’ve just gotten off an East India Ship, now couldn’t she. She could be ’fecting both of us right now, now couldn’t she. We’ve quarantine cells inside.” And now the beadle was rising, rearranging the folds of his tunic into his trousers, and reaching for his bully stick.
“Well,” Bess gritted through her teeth, “now we have to run.”
They accelerat’d down the lane, leaving the old beadle waving his stick and shouting for nearby constables. Bess was trying not to sob. Her feet were numb in Panic—she knew that she was moving, because buildings rushed past—but she could not feel her feet hitting the ground.
What is a quarantine cell?— What do they mean to do with anyone in there?— Transportation to the colonies?— India? (where I’ve never even been)— To the execution theater?
Just focus on running. We’re younger, nimbler than all them. We know the alleyways. They don’t.
Jack was pulling her down Crab Alley and out the other side—going ’round a long and labyrinthine way, darting past the Cimmerian shanties heaped upon one another in the gloom. “I’m sorry,” he shouted, his voice hoarse. “I’m sorry.” The primeval spires of St. Giles-in-the-Fields thrust up from the huts of Tottenham and Oxford Street. Moans and caws of organ notes exploded against the lowering afternoon clouds.
The storm turn’d more violent, with lightning blasting a nearby coach-house completely apart— They ran through lanes of broken brick and shattered glass with the winds growing higher.
* * *
—
Bess was running and she was falling out of time—emerging into a different one. Part of her was running, and part of her had been sever’d from the part that was running. This other part was looking at her, and she was looking at it—just ahead, turn’d back towards her, floating up and gaping back— This other part of herself was Unrecognizable—it had wild, staring, terrified eyes—it hung in the air—it was very very afraid— And she was afraid—looking at it gawping at her in Alarm and Fright—of it.
Slowly, slowly, the din in her head part’d just slightly, and she heard familiar sounds. The other bats, Jack. She was on her street. How did I get here? How much time has passed? She looked up. The split part of her was still there. Floating in front of her, staring at her, still unblinking. She look’d it in the eye. She forced herself not to look away. She welcom’d the split part back, coax’d it like a deer at the fenshore with a handful of uncooked oats. Coax’d it the way she coax’d Jack into his Body when he’d ducked down deep somewhere else. Coax’d it the way her mother and father did for her on days when the other fen children had been Cruel.
She let the sound of voices calm her. She felt her heart slow.
* * *
—
Rain summoned a tumult of noise outside the windows, but inside, the bat house was quiet. The Lady Abbess was setting tea on the fire for her morning review of the previous night’s accounts. She did not look up at them.
They picked their way, sopping, up the stairs.
Threw off their wet cloaks, and Bess headed towards the bed. Jack stood at the edge of the mattress, dripping onto the floor.
“I’m sorry,” he choked out, again.
“Jack”—her voice was thin, exhausted—“I thought we’d talked about this. If you ever again don’t heed me in public…” She trail’d off, gaping around the room.
Everything had been gone through. Clothes, lotions, trinkets thrown, torn, trampled. The chamber pot used and left dirty.
Jack went to the pot, toss’d the urine out the window. He did not want to use his handkerchief to clean the bowl. Stood with it in his hand, staring at her with sorry eyes.
When she didn’t speak, he continued to tidy the room, his eyes stinging with rain and wind and dust and the sharp hit of lingering centinel-piss. Bess had curled in on herself in the bed. After he was done picking up, he sat at her side.
“The Abbess must have told them,” he said. “Those latest orders,” he continued needlessly, referring to the broadside. Bess didn’t acknowledge him.
They’d have to find somewhere else to stay. This much was clear. Soon as possible. They shouldn’t even be there right then, but Bess was already huddl’d under covers.
“I’ve come so far just not to die, and now—”
“Where will we go?” He and Bess were two dust motes being batted about in a howling Storm of surveillance, of centinels, and cruelty.
“Dennison’s,” Bess said. “Jenny.”
Of course she’d thought this through.
“And another thing. I’ve been thinking—”
When has she had time and the presence of mind to be thinking?
“Waste,” she continued, sitting partially up, and pulling the edges of the coverlet onto her glistening, rain-spatter’d shoulders, “is chaff, refuse. Like what you’d not eat of a grain stalk, and have no use for otherwise; those bits of outcast substance. That’s waste. So, The House of Waste? Perhaps a house of refuse or somethin’. Then the Elixir is…waste? I don’t know what else to make of it.”
Dear God, she’s been theorizing through all of this. Conducting study at the crosshairs of violence—spinning speculation from wreckage.
—And now Bess felt sleep coming like a far-off Footfall. One advancing on her with impossible speed. She did not know, in fact, if it was sleep or it was death. Whate’er it was, she welcom’d it. And then it was upon her, grabbing her like an angry Flower, and Bess was far too tired to be afraid. She want’d to hang her head on its crimson breast and slip away.
But she shook herself wakeful.
“Jack, if they do imprison me—quarantine me—whatever it is they wish to do—”
“They won’t!” he shrieked.
“You’re the clunch who spoke to the beadle in the first place, e’en when I told you not to. So listen carefully now. I don’t know what is coming for me. The town’s in no way safe. If they imprison me or kill me—I want you to know everything.”
10.
I am one of the only Survivors of the Fen-Tigers, a dwindling band of Freedom fighters. Back then the fens were beautiful, bountiful. My parents reviled monied society, and we lived in the traditional fen way: creaking about on stilts, cobbling together an amphibious huts and outbuildings, hunting with spears.
I spent my days stamping about the muck and picking at the soaked pudding of rotting waterlife all around. I was trained up in my parents’ adherence to James Nayler’s Protestant philosophy of free Love. My mother was Anglo—my father a lascar sailor, self-emancipat’d (or “jumped ship,” as the centinels called it) from the East India Company upon arrival in London. Ship life was a hardship near inconceivable to those who’d never seen it; for a lascar torn from Srihatta and pressed to labor, immeasurably more so. My father shudder’d when he recalled to me the thin breeches allotted for shipboard wear in the Atlantic’s stinging gusts, the rotten meat the lascar sailors were provision’d, the tight hot hold at the very lowest decks of the ship. Many died en route.
On arrival in London, my father’s captain inform’d him he’d been contracted to another vessel for a hard run up the coast. It was October. The Atlantic had already begun to show ice crystals scattered in the foam. My father—dwindl’d to bones already—knew the journey would mean the death of him.
And thus, my father—effective with constellations and confident of foot—fled London and made his way to the fens, where he’d heard a Body might live free. There he met my mother. Together they fell into raptures both spiritual and physical.
My parents lived in an Intoxication with the world—develop’d secret languages, family rituals, paeans enacted between the three of us and the frogs and salamanders who were to be found occupying the dank crevices of our stone hut. I was raised up to know and practice Naylerism, as that wa
s the religion of the Fen-Tigers, and it seem’d my father had come to it, through love or exigency I did not ask and he did not say. He did not pray to either God—although my mother did—but he was insistent that at some root there was no contradiction: Naylerism and Mahometanism were so aligned in spirit of care for the poor that any persons who believed otherwise were sad and ignorant.
We lived under constant threat of the surveyors—my parents didn’t believe in protecting me from hard truths. We watched, in Horror, as the surveyors came in to Drain the fens, build weirs and sea-walls to divert and control the flow—desiccating the Floodplains to create pastureland for sheep and cows—rich meat for rich men—while the local folk starv’d.
Even in my early years, my mother was readying me for battle. She would quiz me over my morning oats.
“What is it that the surveyors wish to do?”
“To make our fens into pastureland for sheep.”
“And then?”
“To slay the sheep for the supper of prideful men.”
“Aye.” In these conversations, my mother radiat’d an inner Light, full of purpose. “And what of the fens?”
“They’ll dry up, die.”
“And what of the Fen-Tigers, our friends and families?”
“We starve. No fishing; no reed-trade.”
“But before ye starve? What do ye do?”
“Hunt harder?” I would try, beginning to despair.
“But they dry up the fens ’til there’s no fen left.” My mother was not Evasive in her truths. “What would ye do then?”
“Scavenge rotten fishes?” I would say, close to tears. “But this is not going t’ happen because the Fen-Tigers will fight them off!”
My mother would deliv’r even the hardest information with a kind eye. “Ya, we will fight. But—so we fight—and we kill ’em all—ev’ry last Surveyor—”
Confessions of the Fox Page 19
