by Edward Cline
Hugh took her hands and pressed their palms to his face.
They heard the swish of a gown, and turned to see Mrs. Brune standing in the hallway where they stood. They could not tell by her expression whether she was pleased or scandalized by what she had witnessed. “Milord, your guests are about to take their leave. Will you see them off?”
Hugh nodded. “Yes, of course.” He paused. “Please, Mrs. Brune, favor me by calling me Hugh.”
“I will so favor you, milord, when you are my son-in-law. Not until then.” The woman glanced at her daughter. “I hope, milord, you were not putting wicked thoughts into my Reverdy’s head.”
Hugh laughed. “No, Mrs. Brune, I was not. The thoughts were already there.”
Mrs. Brune blushed and her eyes grew wide. Reverdy hid a silent laugh behind her fan. Her mother turned with dignity and left the hallway.
Hugh said to Reverdy, “Good night, my wicked wife-to-be.”
“Good night, Hugh.” They both knew that she did not need to do it, but Reverdy solemnly bowed her head and performed a half-curtsy, then turned and followed her mother back into the supper room.
Chapter 28: The Olympian
THE NEXT MORNING HUGH ACCOMPANIED THE BRUNES AS FAR AS CANTERBURY, and stayed to see them depart in a Dover-bound inn coach. He would see Reverdy again soon, in another month, when he made the same journey back to Danvers.
On the coach ride back to London, Hugh’s mind was pulled by two passions: his future with Reverdy, and answering Vicar Faure. He was intrigued by how they vied for his attention. When he arrived at Windridge Court, he ordered a light dinner to be brought to his room, and went to work on an essay he was to present to the Society of the Pippin in two evenings. Vicar Faure’s pronouncements had given him a better idea for a subject, which was to discuss the link that John Milton, in many of his works, had made between tyranny and superstition. In the coach he had remembered a line from John Toland’s Christianity not Mysterious, a book in his collection that had been overlooked by his uncle: “To believe the divinity of Scripture, or the sense of any passage thereof, without rational proofs and an evident consistency, is a blamable credulity and a temerarious opinion.”
He also recalled something his father had written in one of his letters: “There are some five hundred and sixty members of the Commons, though no more than thirty understand reason, or even recognize it. The rest are cabbage heads. The thirty require only plain common sense on which to decide their actions or votes, reason clothed in good language. All the others are susceptible to flowing and harmonious rhetoric, whether it conveys any meaning or reason or not. These latter have ears to hear, but lack sense enough to judge; or, they have sense enough, but are hostile to reason because they have cut cards with the devils of complacency or vested interest. One or the other devil has claimed their souls, and has put a cork on their minds. Sir Henoch Pannell’s speechmaking can thereby be grasped and explained.” And this wisdom of his father’s prompted him to remember another of Milton’s truisms: “It is the vulgar folly of men to desert their own reason and, shutting their eyes, to think they see best with other men’s…”
Hugh worked feverishly on his address for the next two days, breaking only for short naps and wolfishly consuming plates of food. He was so caught up in his task that he sent word to Benjamin Worley that he would not be able to go to Lion Key. He was determined to build his arguments, complete the thought, and finish his labor. Nothing else mattered to him. He even forgot about Reverdy, until he would occasionally notice her locket suspended above his desk.
When he finished one morning, he forced himself to take a turn around Whitehall, to pay the servants, and attend to the duties of ownership. He did this to freshen his mind. When he returned to his room, he reread his work.
It was flawless, correct, and beautiful. “This is mine,” he said to himself. He felt tears well up in his eyes, tears of joy. Oh, what a blessing it was to be a man, to create, to labor and produce such a great thing—to be alive! It was a splendid thing he had done! He rose from his desk and looked down on the neat pile of paper before him with a smile and eyes narrowed in fierce, immaculate greed. He raised his arms in triumph, fists clenched, and laughed once. What a glorious thing is pride! It is almost an end in itself! No wonder churchmen preached against it! A truly proud man is not to be found in their flocks of souls humbled by the rumor of a great invisible wizard and the inexplicable! If it is a sin to feel such pride, then it is a sin to be a man!
A servant knocked on his door and announced that a “negro gentleman” had called. Hugh had even forgotten Glorious Swain and his promise to meet him in front of a toy shop on the Strand before the Society convened tonight. Hugh threw on his coat and hat, rolled up his essay, and rushed out.
“I’ll be gone for a month or so,” he said to Swain as they walked up Whitehall Street to Charing Cross and the Strand. “In Danvers.”
“I’ll envy you for being away from London in August,” said Swain.
“I must apologize for having forgotten our rendezvous.”
“It must have been something important that made you forget.”
“It was,” sighed Hugh happily.
Swain glanced at his friend in the early evening light. He chuckled. “You are in love, my friend. Your eyes have that special set I know so well.”
Hugh grinned in concession. “My betrothed was a guest for the last few weeks, together with her mother and brother. You’ll meet her some day.”
“She must be an exceptional woman to solicit and encourage your attentions.”
“She is.” Hugh shook his head. “But—I am in love with other things, too, Mr. Swain.” He brandished the rolled-up essay. “Wait until you hear my address! I surprised even myself, this time!”
“What is the subject?”
“Milton’s notion of tyranny and superstition, and how he thought they were inseparable monsters. It meant rereading Paradise Lost, A Second Defense, and The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth. It was quite a task. I have slept very little. I’m glad I had no school chores to complete. They would have suffered.” Hugh asked, “Who is chairman of this meeting?”
“Steven,” said Swain. “And it is Mathius’s turn to be secretary.”
* * *
“…And so, one can see the influence of Plato even on Cicero, who wrote that ‘the world which we see is a simulacrum of an eternal one.’ The arm of the past has not always had a benign effect on our age. No one today, not the basest criminal, nor the most enlightened lord, asks why a sovereign is credited with special sight and intelligence, and not a common man. The notion supposes that a sovereign is privy to a more perfect world and a more perfect order. The claim is unfounded, yet is asserted by any sovereign or prince or group of men who wish to rule a nation. They proclaim, ‘We are the special hosts of perfect wisdom and flawless, temporal action. Question not our edicts and actions, even though they may impinge upon your life and liberty.’ Is this not the argument of the Crown, whether or not divine origin or inspiration or purpose is claimed?”
Hugh paused to assess the effect of his words on his auditors. Seven intent and expectant faces waited for him to continue. The din of the Fruit Wench was a distant sound not heard by any of the men. The scratching quill of Mathius, as he took down Hugh’s words in the Society ledger, was the only intrusive thing heard by the group.
Hugh continued. “Now, we are either true to the world as we find it, or we defer to the vision of one who denies that our existence is the end of all life. Milton was a great lover and advocate of liberty, but he, like his predecessors and successors, was not wholly immune from this Corpus Mysticum—that is my term for the phenomenon—and his wonderful works are corrupted by a belief in a temporal philosopher-king, or in a manly viceregent over the rest of his fellows. I have read nothing in the sophist whirligigs of casuists and theologians that cannot be reduced to the level of palmistry, or tarot cards, or magician’s tricks. It is a great
jumble of sea-devils, that whole mass of cobwebbed literature arguing for this or that God, or for this or that prince or king or protector. The tentacles of these hideous creatures are intertwined in a thousand Gordian knots! But once one has detected and exposed a single fallacy in that maleficent lore, why must one bother to master every twist and turn of those tentacles? The untying of one will unravel the others, and free one to go on and scale the heights of Olympus!”
Hugh put down his essay, bowed once to indicate that he had finished, and sat down. He tasted his tankard of ale to soothe his dry throat.
The others were quiet. Mathius, who sat at the opposite end of the table, dipped his quill into an inkpot and continued his note-taking. The sound of his quill across the ledger page seemed to drown out the voices, laughter, singing, and clatter of china, metal, and pottery in the tavern. As he dipped his quill once more, he looked up and said, “I am nearly finished here, sirs.”
After a moment, Steven remarked, “Olympus—or Tyburn Tree?”
“By God, what a provocative position!” exclaimed Claude.
“It skirts the hem of perdition!” said Elspeth.
Abraham frowned. “What you posit,” he said, “needs system.”
“Agreed,” said Hugh, knowing this was only the opening of the discussion. “What I have asserted here, is but a beginning.”
Mathius glanced up from his task. “’tis but the gurgulations of unformed and unconnected opinions,” he ventured.
“I disagree,” replied Muir. “I see in it the elements of an extraordinary but unassembled orrery.”
Tobius looked thoughtful. “Do you presume to criticize Milton?”
Hugh said, “I cannot fault him for his imperfect knowledge. As our own knowledge of liberty and man is imperfect, his was more so. What I am saying is this: Every good point he makes on liberty, tyranny, and superstition is an echo of Aristotle, and a premonition of Locke. Every flaw, inconsistency, and concession to kings and power is an echo of Plato, and a premonition of Hobbes.”
“Where would you place our own Mr. Hume?” asked Claude.
“He is an apotheosis of cynicism and skepticism. It is easier for many men to doubt than to be certain of a thing, easier to defer to authority or popular concurrence than to trouble themselves with establishing individual certitude. Mr. Hume, from what little I have read of him, seems destined to become the patron saint of the sluggish of mind and those who are dedicated to doubt and humility.”
“Still, one could take exception to your remarks on Milton,” said Tobius.
“I esteem him no less than do you, sir,” answered Hugh. “But, in all his works, he labors to found liberty and right on Scripture. He had not the advantage of reading Locke. I say that if liberty and her sister freedoms are to be better founded and made proof against tyranny, we must avail ourselves of another catapult of reason than Scripture. That is, nature itself, and man.”
“That has always been our Society’s goal,” said Abraham. “To divorce man and his purpose from Scripture and the prerogatives of priests and princes.”
“On this point, we are all united,” seconded Tobius.
“Are we?” asked Mathius. He had put down his quill, and sat forward with his hands folded before him on the ledger. He glanced from face to face. “Is there room here for dissent, or must we all submit to our own abbreviated form of ‘popular concurrence’?”
Steven gestured with his hand. “What is your difference, Mathius?”
“Speak your mind,” urged Tobius.
Mathius said, “Thank you, sirs.” He looked at Hugh. “What, Miltiades, have you to say about our living sovereign? Not about some cold, abstract personage, as you excoriated just now, but His Majesty?”
Hugh shrugged. “Only that I have a wonderment about whether or not he is necessary. He consumes large amounts of Crown revenue, but does nothing.”
“He is the symbol of our unity, sir. He is sovereign.”
Hugh shook his head. “Our minds are our sovereigns, sir, and cost no man a farthing to employ or enjoy. A man’s mind commands a realm greater than that ruled by any man in St. James’s Palace. That is a more practical unity.” Mathius looked doubtful. Hugh explained. “What else could tell you how to live? Say, to buckle your shoes? Pull up your hose? What to eat? To walk? All that we do, every day, is commanded by our minds. You could not afford the bales of paper to record every little action that is directed by your mind on a single day. His Majesty, however, commands nothing.”
“These are trifles you cite, sir,” scoffed Mathius.
“Then let us broaden the vista. Does a sovereign proclaim to a cobbler which leather to fashion into shoes? To a brewer, how long he should boil his hops? To a clockmaker, how to arrange his cogs and wheels? To a physician, which powders and herbs to prescribe?” Hugh gestured with his hands. “The instances are infinite in number, sir. At what point in any of them does a sovereign enter?”
Mathius narrowed his eyes, but averted Hugh’s. “Are you claiming, perhaps, that we have no need of a sovereign?”
The men at the table stiffened at the question. It was a question none of them had ever dared ask or answer, except in his own mind.
Hugh held Mathius’s unwavering, challenging glance. “I am saying that a king has very little to do with our lives, except to impose on us an extraordinary and burdensome cost.”
Mathius shook his head. “Quite the contrary, sir. A sovereign is the keystone of any reasonable polity. Thus the extraordinary cost, which may be a burden to some.”
Hugh sat back in his chair. “The evidence does not support your statement, sir.”
Mathius sighed. “To a mind so young and impressionable as your own, sir, it is not evident, I concede. But while it is the purpose of education to put the evidence in it, as forcefully as possible, clearly your education has failed in this respect.”
All the other men frowned. Steven said, “Mathius, that is a personal attack, and is not permitted in Society discussion.” He glanced at Hugh, then back at Mathius. “You will please apologize to Miltiades.”
“I will not, sir,” retorted the offender. “It is one thing to meet for informative speculation on serious matters. It is another to speak blasphemy and sedition, as this young gentleman does this evening, and in doing so solicits our willing complicity.”
Claude barked a laugh of contempt. “If we limited ourselves to what you misconceive as ‘informative speculation,’ sir, we should be no better than a chess club. I, for one, would resign.”
“And I,” added Abraham.
“I stand by my charge,” said Mathius, looking at Hugh.
“You must present your evidence,” replied Hugh.
“No, sir!” exclaimed Mathius, rising from his chair in agitation. “You must find better instruction!” His expression changed into one of barely disguised malice. “Is it merely the sovereign you question, sir, or is it the Crown itself?”
“You needn’t answer that question, Miltiades,” said Steven.
“No, he need not,” seconded Tobius. “The question need not be recognized.” The other men nodded in agreement. Tobius rose and turned to Mathius. “Mathius, are you ill? What has taken possession of your mind?” he asked, some anger in his words. The men of the Society had had heated discussions in the past, but had never descended to personal invective. It was a serious infraction of the Society’s rules. A second offense by a member resulted in automatic dismissal, and the members moved the venue of their meetings to another tavern or coffeehouse. This had happened only once before, ten years ago.
“Do you begrudge Miltiades for his ideas, or for his youth?” asked Muir.
“We are your friends, Mathius,” said Elspeth. “Tell us what burr sits beneath the saddle of your senses.”
“The buckram of patriotism is most unbecoming to you, sir,” commented Claude. “It does not sit well on active minds.”
Mathius paused before answering. He suddenly fell back in his chair, put his han
ds over his face, and gave a heavy sigh. He dropped his hands and looked around at his colleagues with a pained expression. “I…I am very sorry, sirs, for my outburst. I have been, these past weeks, in the grip of a fever of grief. You see, my dear, beloved wife…left this world…and it seems that a part of me has left with her…I have not been myself…not good company to anyone…I even struck a beggar who asked me for a pence this morning…” He faced Hugh. “My most humble apologies, sir, for my words to you. I fear I have insulted you beyond forgiveness.”
Hugh nodded once. “I was not so much offended by your words, sir, as surprised by your manner. I accept your apology.”
The men around the table sighed in relief. Steven rose and bowed to Mathius. “Our sincere condolences, Mathius. I am certain that the loss of your wife is as much a blow to you as the loss of your company would be a blow to us.”
“Hear! Hear!” agreed the men.
“What did she die of?” asked Tobius.
Mathius shook his head. “Some pox or other,” he said with a sigh, “one that rotted her innards and inflamed her skin. I paid three surgeons to treat her, but they could make nothing of her condition, though they charged me a small fortune for their coincidental remedies. She was in agony, and in the end, insensible to everything around her. One morning, as I was giving her water, her lips refused to part, even though a moment before she had asked me for a drink…her first words to anyone in days.” Mathius seemed to be seeing the scene as he spoke of the event, then he rested his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands again. Abruptly, he turned away.
Steven glanced around the table, then rose. “Gentlemen,” he said with reluctance, “I move that we end this meeting. But, before we depart, we should settle on a date for our next supper, and also…well…help to defray our friend’s expenses, for, as we all know, death is a costly affair, to the soul, and to the purse.”
