The Skull and the Nightingale Read online

  The Skull and the Nightingale

  Michael Irwin

  Dedication

  For Stella

  Epigraph

  There is no difference to be found between the skull of King Philip and that of another man.

  —SAMUEL RICHARDSON, CLARISSA

  Contents

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Map

  Chapter 1

  It was a breezy day in March when I returned to London from two years of travel, my age twenty-three, my prospects uncertain. I refreshed myself with coffee at the Roebuck before making my way to Fetter Lane, and the office of my godfather’s agent, Mr. Ward. Conceivably, this gentleman might be about to determine the future course of my life in twenty words. I paused at the entrance to his premises to assume unconcern.

  He lurched up from behind his desk as ungainly as ever, a big fellow, with a head like a horse, and a gloomy eye.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Ward. I am glad to see you well.”

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Fenwick. I have been expecting you.”

  When we sat down there was a silence. I looked to him for more, but his large face was expressionless. Apparently it was for me to lead the way.

  “I hope that my godfather is in good health.”

  “I have heard nothing to the contrary.”

  Mr. Ward had ever been a sparse talker. I tried again.

  “Have you instructions for me?”

  “I have. Your former lodging with Mrs. Deacon has been prepared for you. I will send to Mr. Gilbert tomorrow to let him know that you have returned.”

  “You have nothing further to tell me?”

  “Not at this time.”

  It seemed that the uncertainty was to continue.

  “I shall, of course, be writing to him myself.”

  “I had assumed as much, Mr. Fenwick.”

  Old Long Chops was formal as an undertaker. Determined to strike a spark from him, I brightened into affability.

  “Tell me, Mr. Ward, do you not find me wonderfully improved by my grand tour?”

  He surveyed me grudgingly till a brief gleam lit his glum face.

  “I see you are elegantly dressed, Mr. Fenwick. The other improvements may require a little more time to take in.”

  It was a slight enough stroke, but it gratified him to the tune of a quarter smile. I felt sufficiently rewarded: but for my question he might not have tasted such merriment all week.

  “You laugh at me, Mr. Ward,” said I ruefully, as though he were a jolly dog. “If I am to spend much time in London, I shall hope to show you the progress I have made.”

  He ignored my hinted question.

  “You do me too much honor, Mr. Fenwick. But if you speak to me in French, you will receive no reply.”

  This second sally gave rise to the rare full grin, uncovering his big yellow teeth. I chuckled a response to confirm that we were on friendly terms. After all he might one day prove a useful ally. Knowing that I would learn no more, I took my leave.

  At least the news had not been bad. There would be a period of suspense as messages went to and from Worcestershire: meanwhile all my possible futures still lay open. The lodgings in Cathcart Street would suit me well enough: I had stayed with Mrs. Deacon before leaving for France, and found her courteous and discreet. I could lie low in her house until I heard from my godfather, adjusting myself to English ways again and tuning my tongue to my native language.

  When I had exchanged courtesies with Mrs. Deacon and sent for my luggage, I sat down in my parlor to write a letter.

  My dear Godfather,

  I returned to London this afternoon from the travels which you so generously enabled. Mr. Ward advised me that I should take my former lodgings with Mrs. Deacon and await your further instructions.

  The last communication I received from you found me in Rouen, on the final stage of my journey home. You were at that time, you reported, in good health, and were kind enough to say that you looked forward to seeing me on my return. When we meet you will find me, I hope, better informed and a little less awkward. Your generosity would have been ill rewarded if that were not the case. In my letters to you I have attempted to convey something of what I have acquired. I can now converse fluently in French and tolerably well in German and Italian. My knowledge of the history, politics, and arts of the great European countries has been greatly enhanced.

  When last in London, I was still something of a young country colt. I had exuberance without discipline, curiosity without direction. I hope my two years of travel have made me more reflective and purposeful. At the very least I am improved in deportment and address.

  These claims may seem idle boasts. I would hope to make them good in conversation when I have the pleasure of seeing you—the godfather whose generosity to an orphan has done so much to improve his lot and widen his prospects.

  I will remain in London and await further directions. Since a defined period of education has now come to an end, you may imagine that I look forward with eagerness and some little anxiety to hearing what advice you now have for me.

  I remain, &c.

  The composition of this grave epistle was accompanied by a facetious mental commentary. Much of the knowledge I had acquired related to activities that I would not have cared to discuss with my godfather. I was mimicking the cadences of respectability.

  But I was dissatisfied with the letter even as I wrote it. It was too priggish, too fulsome: it lacked the playful touches that I fancied Mr. Gilbert relished. The two-year absence had put me out of practice: I looked to recover the appropriate tone when I saw my patron again and could adapt my conversation to his responses. Perhaps it had been advisable, at this stage, to err on the side of seriousness. He was a formidable old gentleman in his way, not to be taken for granted.

  Perversely pleased to be breathing smoky London air once more, I refused Mrs. Deacon’s offer to prepare me dinner and strode out through the teeming, noisy streets. The wind had strengthened, and the big shop signs were swinging and creaking overhead. My destination was Keeble’s steak house near the Strand, which in former days I had often visited with my friend Matt Cullen. With a nod of greeting I took a seat at a table three quarters full. It quickly struck me that my fellow diners were talking with particular animation and vigor. I concluded, rightly as I later learned, that this was one of the regular meetings of a Conversation Club. Without attending to what
was said, I was content to be, once more, sitting in a haze of English words and phrases. I let the talk wash over me and fancied myself linguistically refreshed.

  Whatever my future course, for the time being it was comfortable to be home. Weary from travel, I drank some wine to feed my reflections, and became pleasantly bemused. What would my godfather have to say to me? Where would I be two weeks hence? Was I to be condemned to rural life? The previous morning I had been conducting my business in French: would I ever have reason to speak that language again? Hereabouts my idle stream of thought circled into an eddy. I wondered in what corner of my skull the unspoken language would be stored. How could such multifarious knowledge, such haystacks of nouns and verbs, such ladders and bridges of number and gender, be folded away into an unseen space? I pondered the paradox until my head swam—indeed I must have been grinning at my own bewilderment, for a voice cried: “To judge by the smile, this young fellow is happy in his meditations.”

  I came out of my reverie to see a dozen faces around me, chewing, drinking, talking, and laughing.

  “Gentlemen,” I said, “you must excuse me. I was lost in thoughts about the mysterious operations of the human brain.”

  “Beware!” cried one of the number. “I smell a virtuoso. Keep your headpiece out of his hands, or he’ll be at it with microscope and scalpel.”

  “Never fear,” said I. “I am an idle speculator under the influence of wine.”

  “Then fill your glass,” said another, “and take us with you.”

  I had no great desire to converse, but it seemed churlish to stay silent.

  “My thoughts were of this nature. If any one of our company were now to attempt to write down all the words he knew, he could spend the entire night in the undertaking. By the morning, with his task far from complete, the fruit of his labor would already be a thick wedge of manuscript. Yet his brain would need no replenishment. Where has he been storing this copious knowledge, now translated into a material mass? And how can he dispense it yet still retain it?”

  The company seemed pleased by the problem. After a pause, someone said:

  “As to the former question one might proceed by a course of elimination. To begin facetiously: my poor uncle lost three limbs at the Battle of Blenheim, yet his memory was unimpaired. It seems that the storage place you seek is to be found in the head or the torso.”

  “There is no need for such questions or such reasoning,” cried another. “We already know that the mind is the seat of reason and memory.”

  “Indeed we do,” said I. “But although I am no anatomist, I believe that the contents of the skull are as unmistakably material as the limbs the gentleman referred to. How are we to account for the unique receptivity of this particular physical organ, its spongelike capacity to contain words, concepts, and images?”

  Several tried to speak, but were overridden by a bony fellow with a big voice.

  “We discussed such matters a year ago. I posed questions similar to your own—and was denounced as a materialist and an atheist for my pains. But I refuted the charge very simply. The Almighty works miracles with material substance. If an acorn can contain a future tree, surely a human head can contain the contents of a dictionary?”

  Fired up by now, I struck back: “You explain one mystery by appealing to another. If the unfathomable powers of omnipotence are to be invoked, there is an end to all debate.”

  These words produced uproar, and during the heated exchanges that ensued I paid for my entertainment and slipped away.

  It was a dark, boisterous night. I made my way back toward Holborn along busy thoroughfares, clutching my hat whenever I turned a corner into a gust of breeze. North of Lincoln’s Inn Fields the streets were quieter and but feebly lit. I was brought up short when a haggard girl stepped out suddenly from the end of an alley, crying: “Come this way, sir!”

  “Not tonight, I thank you,” said I, affably enough.

  “No, no”—in a frantic voice—“I need help. My child . . .”

  She turned hurriedly into the alley, and I followed, willing to be of assistance if I could. But after a few yards she turned about, clutched my greatcoat, and shouted “Rape! Rape!” At once a heavy brute of a man sprang from a doorway brandishing a cudgel. Startled as I was, I found myself protected, as in certain previous physical encounters, by an instant blaze of animal rage. Half avoiding the bully’s blow, I seized his coat and rammed him back against the wall. He raised his club again, but I checked him with a punch to the belly, and then struck him a dowse to the chops that smacked his head back against the brickwork. The intending robber staggered sideways and stumbled to his knees. The girl leaped at me, scratching with both hands, but I wrenched her away and threw her on top of her fallen protector. Without waiting for more, I hastened away.

  Such a fury had surged in me that I walked an extra mile, at top pace, to allow my pounding heart to settle. It had been a sordid episode, but before I reached Mrs. Deacon’s house I found myself recovered from it and not unsatisfied. The first evening of my return to England had called into play some of the aptitudes fostered by my travels. I had taken a lively part in impromptu discussion and then shown that I could hold my own in a street fight. It seemed that I was resourceful, a young man of parts.

  Next morning I winced a little on rising. There was a stiffness in my shoulder and a handsome purple bruise on my ribs. It would take me a day or two to shake off these effects. Through the window I saw rain, which suited my mood well enough. Here was a stasis in my life, an interlude between the acts: I could make it a time for recuperation and reflection. I knew where I would be likely to find some of my former Oxford companions, but felt no inclination to seek them out. How could I answer the questions that would greet me until I knew what was purposed for my future and what sort of figure I was likely to cut? Matt Cullen I would have been glad to see, for he was a man I could laugh with, but our correspondence had lapsed, and I knew nothing of his whereabouts.

  All morning I stayed within doors, completing the journal which I had kept during my travels. The parlor in which I was writing had a mirror at one end in which I several times caught my reflection. At length I rose to study myself more minutely and at full length. In figure, I would pass muster, being above the common height, vigorous and well knit, but my face seemed to me too open, too youthful, redeemed from blandness only by strong brown eyes. Given the common belief that a man’s character can be deduced from the front portion of his head, this could be a disadvantage. I practiced certain expressions—attentive, amused, eager—and found the case somewhat improved. I could assume a variety of responses that might make me appear an agreeable companion. In repose, however, my face seemed a tabula rasa, awaiting the imprint of further experience.

  The rain continuing, I worked diligently at my journal, bringing the record to a conclusion with my arrival in Dover. It was convenient that the combination of vacant time, rough weather, a bottle of ink, and the wing feathers of a goose had enabled me to capture my recollections before they were lost—I had always been quick to forget. My life being thus far in order, I was ready for what was to come.

  Cathcart Street was in a quiet neighborhood, but there was noise enough from it to bring me to the window more than once. The kennel down the middle of the road was swollen by the rain into a thick black stream, lumpy with refuse. Pedestrians in sodden clothes struggled sullenly along its edges, forced close to the walls. It was a dismal sight: there was much to be said for loitering within, warm and dry.

  Later in the day, tiring of my own company, I made occasion to take tea with Mrs. Deacon. Although I had lodged in the house before, I knew nothing of her beyond the fact that she was a widow, with a young daughter named Charlotte. In conversation she proved civil and shrewd, but maintained a certain reserve. It was this quality, perhaps, that caused me to see her as a handsome woman of forty, looking younger than her age, rather than as inde
ed a younger woman. Her composure suggested a lack of interest in any physical attraction that she might possess. I was unsure whether to play man of the world or affable young fellow. It was by chance that I found the less formal direction.

  “Do you know Mr. Gilbert?” I inquired.

  “I knew him years ago. If he communicates with me now, it is through Mr. Ward.”

  “Then the messages will be brief. Yesterday he offered me but fifty words.”

  She smiled. “So many? Then you can count yourself a friend.”

  “Tell me, Mrs. Deacon,” said I, “how do you think this taciturn gentleman passes his evenings?”

  She considered. “He sits in an armchair and reads a big black book. When it grows dark he walks the streets with a big black dog.”

  “But what is in the book he reads?”

  “Nobody knows. It is one of his secrets.”

  This time we both smiled.

  I was glad to have hit on this vein of whimsy in my landlady’s disposition, and to find myself easy in her company. Later that night, my imagination stirred by wine, I tried to envisage the warm body beneath the long dress. I liked what I saw with my mind’s eye, but suppressed the picture as unsuitably distracting in my present situation.

  After two or three days of idleness I grew restless. I was in the unsatisfied state produced when the mind teems with questions to which there are no clear answers. Having had no living relatives since the age of ten, I was accustomed to a solitary existence. Reserve and self-sufficiency were almost the only qualities I had in common with my godfather. But I fretted at being becalmed. Ambition assured me that Mr. Gilbert would not have paid for my education, and sent me to the great cities of Europe unless he had substantial future plans for me. But circumspection reminded me that he was an enigmatic man whose patronage had been conferred from a distance. Although he had rescued me when I was homeless, he had scarcely ever spoken of my parents, who had been his friends, and although he had countenanced occasional visits to Fork Hill House, he had never encouraged me to stay for more than a few days at a time. At Oxford, therefore, I had been at pains to say nothing of my upbringing, not caring to admit that I had neither family nor home. Appearances had been preserved by bluff and evasion, but the constraint had been wearisome.