by Edward Cline
“They were never tried for murder, Sir Henoch.”
“No matter, your lordship. There is not a gang in existence that has not committed the crime. It matters not what a murderer owned or accomplished before he condemned himself.”
“I agree with that sentiment, Sir Henoch. But the fact remains that they were not tried for murder. A trial might have revealed that the fault lay with the deceased, and not with the dock.”
“Perhaps, your lordship,” replied Sir Henoch. “But this is a moot point. They were hanged, and the justice of that provable murder was collateral with that required for their other proven smuggling offenses.”
Garnet Kenrick cocked his head thoughtfully. “A somewhat dangerous notion, Sir Henoch—‘collateral’ justice. It is the genesis of all sorts of government mischief; general warrants and writs of assistance, for instance.”
Sir Henoch hummed in apparent cogitation, then sighed and said, “To tell the truth, your lordship, this is a subject on which I plan to write a book someday. And, at the present, I reserve my energies for this tenure of talk for the benches of the Commons. You will forgive my reticence.” He smiled blandly, then put his glass on the sideboard behind him and clapped his hands once. “But—while his lordship’s mind grumbles in curiosity, my ear discerns the rumblings of bellies for sustenance of a more temporal fare! Please! All of you! Avail yourselves of the bounteous kickshaw which my lady has had prepared for the affair. And you will discover that the Pumphrett hospitality does not attempt to palm off slipslop on its guests. Our cellar’s stocks have been called nearly as superb as Robert Walpole’s!” He glanced once at his dazzling watch, and made his way through the circle.
As they moved away, the Baron asked his son, “What do you think of him, Hugh?”
“Sir Henoch is a sophist,” remarked Hugh.
“And a very crude one, at that,” chuckled the Baron. “An ostentatious, unsavory, rotund boor. If you called him a sophist to his face, in all likelihood, he would feel paid a compliment, knowing full well the meaning of the word.”
“If I were to write a satire, I would cast him as a simurg. You know, that Persian beast that can speak and seem to reason,” Hugh said. “Did you expect him to tell the truth about the Marvel fight and the trial?”
“No.”
“Then why did you bother to ask him for it?”
“Because a man of his stamp and manner often tells the truth with a lie. In this instance, he implied that the truth has been buried, and that he was one of the chief gravediggers.”
“Yes. He wriggled out of having to tell the story of how he caught Skelly.”
“He has had much practice in that art. He is in the Commons.”
“Are all the men who sit in the Commons of his stamp?”
“Not all, but too many. Some are less accomplished sophists, others more. While you are here, Hugh, take advantage of your privilege and observe Lords and the Commons in session.”
“I shall.”
The Baron put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Well, let us concede that Sir Henoch heard our own rumblings, and have a bite to eat.” He glanced across the dining hall, and over the heads of the throng espied his wife. In another corner of the room, he noticed Sir Henoch talking with Basil Kenrick who looked as though he were stoically enduring torture. Sir Henoch Pannell, after all, was a mere raised commoner. Garnet Kenrick smiled. “Ah, but there’s your mother, besieged by Lady Chloe and her clique. Shall we rescue her first?”
But Hugh stopped to ask, “Father, is it true?”
“What?”
“That Romney Marsh, an executed criminal, wrote Hyperborea?”
“Yes, Hugh. It’s true.”
“Did you know it when you gave me his book?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted you to form your own estimate of the work, without prejudice toward the author.”
“I suspected, in time, that it could not have been penned at Strawberry Hill.”
Garnet Kenrick laughed again, this time at Hugh’s allusion to Horace Walpole, the literary son of another late prime minister, who had built himself a “Gothick” palace in Twickenham. “Then, by whom?”
“By someone toward whom Sir Henoch and his ilk were mortal enemies.”
“As, indeed, Sir Henoch was.”
Hugh looked troubled. “It explains the tone of the novel—a story written from the perspective of a man utterly outside the pale of society. Yet, it is a joyful novel, an exciting story. It is, somehow, the most moral story I have ever read. It could not have been written by a criminal.” He shook his head. “I am surprised that it was not suppressed.”
“But it was. When we went to St. Paul’s Churchyard and Duck Lane, did you notice any second-hand copies of Hyperborea there waiting to be perused?”
“No.”
“That is because the surviving copies are in hiding, waiting to emerge from their own caves. Someday, Hugh, our country will be of a mind to allow you to flaunt your own copy.”
Hugh did not pursue the subject. As he and his father crossed the room they encountered the Baron and Baroness of Marrable and their retinue. Garnet Kenrick was obliged to introduce his son and allow himself to be drawn into a discussion of the “pistole fee” affair between Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie and the Virginia House of Burgesses.
Later that evening, Garnet Kenrick paid Lady Chloe another five guineas to have her orchestra play Vivaldi’s “Echo” Concerto. He told himself that he wished to see the delight on his son’s face when the piece was played; but he admitted to himself, in the course of the performance, that he had wished to hear it, too.
“Why did you annoy Sir Henoch?” asked Basil Kenrick when he, his brother, and Effney Kenrick were alone in the orangery of Windridge Court. “He said that you as much as called him a liar, and in front of witnesses.”
“Because he is an objectionable, slithery snake, Basil, and he needs regular whacking. Also, I wanted the truth about the Skelly gang. He knows that truth.”
“But the truth is known, dear brother. Why would you presume that it was not?”
The Baron shrugged. “Look at Sir Henoch, Basil. Can you imagine him serving as a model for a painting entitled Allegory on Truth?”
The Earl dismissed the subject. “Pshaw! I don’t care what his character is or is not, dear brother. All he need do is take his cues from Hillier come the voting, and that is the limit of my interest in him and the Skelly gang and the rest of it.” He paused to glare at his brother. “And another thing, Garnet. Please don’t advertise the fact that you esteem Hyperborea and its author. Sir Henoch mentioned what you said to him, and he was quite amused. Why on earth would you own to such a thing?”
The Baron looked thoughtful for a moment, then answered, “Justice, dear brother.”
When he was alone in his room that night, Hugh took out his copy of Hyperborea and reread large sections of it and tried to accept that this greatness was authored by a criminal. He could not reconcile the two things; which led him, because he would not question the greatness of the novel, to question the notion of criminality. He fell asleep in his bed, a volume open on his chest, and the candles in the sconces above him sputtered out.
Chapter 12: The Apprentice
“THE CITY IS RICH IN TEMPTATIONS AND DISTRACTIONS.”
Garnet Kenrick had no specific temptation or distraction in mind when he cautioned his son about London. He was, however, certain that Hugh would not succumb to the vices that usually lured aristocratic boys from their duties and obligations: whoring, drinking, gambling, and a multitude of other reckless, inane, or expensive diversions. He did not expect to receive a single letter from his son begging for money, nor from shopkeepers dunning him to pay the boy’s debts. Neither he nor his wife could even imagine what would be tempting to Hugh.
“If he would not bow to dissipation and frippery in the person of His Grace the Duke,” explained the Baron to his wife a
few evenings before they left London and their son behind for the journey back to Danvers, “it seems hardly likely that he would be seduced by the middling sorts of the same things. He has set his own course.” He paused in thought, then looked at his wife in mild astonishment. “He is somehow dumb to the things that most of us must invent rules for or against.”
Effney Kenrick nodded in agreement. “It’s not that possibility which worries me,” she replied. “It is that London will not be seduced by Hugh…”
“What an extraordinary notion, my dear!” exclaimed her husband. “Why should London be seduced by Hugh?”
The Baroness watched the lanterns of a waterman’s boat drift by on the black Thames beyond the window of their bedroom, and composed her thoughts. “There are times, Garnet, when I have glimpses of a vision of Hugh as a full man, and then he becomes a measure of what all men should aspire to be. I can’t say why I think of him that way; it somehow seems logical, and inevitable. And I know that most men either will be blind to him, or fearful of him. Or both.”
The Baron grunted. “They are that now. Except for his friend, Roger.”
“I am afraid that Hugh will be solitary all his life. Surrounded by people, but essentially alone. And unhappy.”
“I fear it, too, Effney. But if he becomes such a man as you envision, then solitude could not crush him.” The Baron shrugged. “Else, he could not become such a man.” He rose from his chair and joined his wife at the window. From behind her he put his hands on her bare shoulders. “And—there is Reverdy. A sweet girl with will and gumption. She should provide him with solace in his solitude.” He kissed his wife’s neck. “As you do me, my dear.”
“That is my earnest hope, Garnet,” said the Baroness with wistful conviction.
* * *
In the third week of September, Hugh’s new life began. His mother bade him a tearful farewell, his father a comradely one. His uncle warned him to mind his manners and read his Bible, while his sister, Alice, asked only if she could ride his pony. And then the carriage was gone. It was a Monday morning. Hugh’s valet escorted him to Dr. Comyn’s School for Gentlemen.
His life for the next two years was almost evenly divided between Whitehall and the Lawful Keys in the Pool of London. That is, between the sedate, civil, and orderly routine of his home on Windridge Court and the academy, and the maelstrom of mercantile commerce below London Bridge far down the river.
Each morning, a little after sunrise and after breakfast, Hugh walked with his valet, Hulton, to the school, which occupied a three-story building on nearby Chapel Mews. The valet’s escort was necessary to discourage footpads, thieves, and rogues who might recognize in Hugh’s finery the material for kidnapping and ransom. The valet carried a cudgel and two pocket pistols, and Hugh his own sword.
The school, staffed largely with Dissenters, Quakers, and other non-conventional academics and instructors, encouraged free thought. Pupils were prompted to do their own original thinking above and beyond the wisdom they received. Almost anything was tolerated, so long as it could be founded on cool reason. Ironically, it was a past mathematics instructor who gave Dr. Comyn’s school its unofficial motto: Question your time, take a foothold outside of it, and acquire a perspective. This was advice Hugh could heed, and he took it seriously.
In the school he sat at his own desk with other young gentlemen in a single room, auditing the lectures of a succession of instructors, breaking for tea, dinner, and exercise in a gymnasium. He dutifully construed Latin, annotated Milton and Pope, struggled with French and German, and mastered algebra and geometry. He wrote a brilliant essay on modern European history in the style of Polybius’s “The Constitution of the Greek City States,” comparing France, Prussia, the Netherlands, and England with Athens, Sparta, Thebes and Crete. In another paper he paraphrased Isocrates, and was asked by his pleased instructor to read it to his fellow pupils.
“England has so far out-coursed her companion nations in thought and deed,” he wrote, “that her champions are masters of all. Because of her universal repute, ‘English’ is not so much a term of birth as it is one of attitude and mental comportment, and is the stamp of a universal culture rather than a term of descent.” He had added, “Diderot and d’Alembert and their fellow Encyclopedists could be called ‘English.’”
“But we are at war with the French,” protested one of his fellow students.
“But not with the Encyclopedists,” replied Hugh. “This should comprise a portion of our pride.”
“This is true,” remarked the instructor. “Diderot does not bear arms. His own king is a greater enemy to him than we could ever be.”
Another assignment, however, left this same instructor curious. He had given his pupils the task of translating the Magna Carta from the Latin, and of appending to the translation a précis of its history. Each pupil was asked to recite his précis in class. In the course of his recitation, Hugh said, “The Great Charter was invoked by Simon de Monfret in 1265 to call a parley of the barons. It was subsequently confirmed by Edward the First in 1297.” Then he paused and looked thoughtful. “The best that can be said about this period of our nation’s history is that the numerous depredations were committed by Normans and Angevins, who were the descendants of the invaders. But their system of rule was taken into the bosoms of Englishmen, and this system was not rejected in any principal sense. When the barons obliged King John to sign the Great Charter, they were and remained barons, and a baron was a rank foreign to this island until the Conquest.”
Some of the pupils who were baronets themselves gasped. The instructor cleared his throat. “You question your own heritage, milord. Do you not find that an unseemly notion?”
Hugh shrugged. “I have made a pertinent observation, sir,” he replied. “I cannot answer for my heritage or my lineage. Only for myself.”
“That is a leveling notion!” accused one young baronet.
“A republican notion!” chimed another.
“But a true observation nonetheless,” answered Hugh.
The instructor quelled the uprising by rapping his pointer once on the floor of the dais. “Those who dispute the truth of milord Kenrick’s observations may procure for themselves copies of Henry Care’s English Liberties, Rapin-Thoyras’s History of England—the Tindal translation—or Nathaniel Bacon’s Historical Discourse of the Uniformity of the Government of England. These are but three of a shelf of works that make the same assertion. Copies are likely to be found in the inventory of any reputable bookseller in this city.”
On another occasion, Hugh wrote an essay on the career of King John, to which he appended an aside on the distinct differences in meaning between the terms “King of the English” and “Rex Angliæ.”
“The first term means ‘king of the conquered.’ The second term means ‘English king.’ King John signed the Great Charter ‘Rex Angliæ.’ There is, therefore, some credence in modern historians’ arguments that the use of the second term marked the true beginning of our nation.”
Later in the aside, he commented: “I cite Edward the First, who, in issuing a writ for parliament, employed a phrase whose literal meaning must have eluded him, in regard to Philip, King of France, who was threatening to invade this island: ‘If his power is equal to his malice, he would destroy the English tongue from the earth.’ If his power is equal to his malice: What an odd thought for a sovereign to have, especially this one who is also called Longshanks, who was constantly at war with the barons, who persecuted Jews and goldsmiths, who killed Llywelyn, the Prince of Wales, and had his brother David executed by all the means it is possible to kill a man, and who executed William Wallace, the Scottish patriot. Why, here was a king moved by malice! His power might have been equal to it, had the barons submitted to him.” Hugh ended the aside with another observation: “I think it ought to be the goal of Parliament to disempower the malice which can rule and ruin the nation, or even a single man, or group of men, such as the Jews, Catholics, and other Nonco
nformists. Yet, what I note in my readings is an unending struggle between members of that august body to apply their malice by wresting power from the King, so that they themselves may exercise it, and those who seek, too often vainly, to stem that malice by checking that power.”
His modern history instructor said to Hugh in private: “I shall not require you to read this work to your fellow pupils, milord. It would…well…cause a stir. It is, however, worthy of Addison, or Sidney, or Locke. But, pray, milord, do not voice these sentiments until you speak in Lords, or in a pamphlet.”
Hugh was a competent fencer before he left Danvers. Under the tutelage of the school’s fencing master, he became an excellent foilsman. He applied himself in this art as earnestly and eagerly as he did in his other studies. Once, during a session with the master, Hugh startled the man by asking him, “Is it not true that the skills I learn here will help sharpen my thoughts?”
The fencing master, an Italian who fashioned his own foils and supplemented his school income by teaching French and Continental manners to other aristocrats’ children, drove Hugh back across the polished floor of the gymnasium with a series of savage thrusts and counter-parries. “Not without your conscious design, sire. There exist connections and applications between the art of the rapier and the art of the mind that you must forge with your own head.”
“Cicero!” exclaimed Hugh as he parried a thrust aimed at his heart.
The Italian responded with a half-circle feint of his foil that sent Hugh’s foil flying through the air to clatter on the floor. “I recommend Cicero, sire,” he said, planting the tip of his foil over Hugh’s heart. “I am master of the blade; he, of rhetoric.”
Hugh smiled. “Then I must learn to wed you and Cicero.”
