The Skull and the Nightingale. Michael Irwin

I represented myself as a young fellow still making my way in the world, well provided for but (alas!) in no position to commit myself to a settled way of life. Miss Kitty’s sketch of her past was the stuff of a country ballad. She had left her native village for love of a soldier who had promised marriage but then deserted her. It would have gone hard for her had she not fallen in with Jane Page, who had secured her some trifling employment in the theatre. Since then she had advanced in her profession, and had hopes of rising further.

       You may wish to know something of her appearance. In person she inclines to be slightly plump, but in that pleasing way that seems to be the effect of youthfulness only. She has large blue eyes, a clear complexion and a ready smile often followed, however, by a lowering of her eyes, as though she is in doubt that she may have been too forward. In manner she is open and candid, a quality in the fair sex that has always attracted me.

       When considering her career in London she was thankful, she said, for her good fortune, because she could have fared far worse. On the other hand she had broken all ties with her parents, her prospects in the theatre were uncertain, and she could not but feel anxiety concerning her future. (When I referred, in studiously general terms, to the most notorious perils of her profession, she replied ‘What would I know of those, sir?’)

       It was perhaps droll that we each affected simplicity while signalling to one another as directly as circling animals. Our attempted deceptions (and self-deceptions) were mutually apprehended and tolerated. The common ground to which we tiptoed our way was the fiction that we were like-minded innocents from the country, ill at ease in this unfeeling town. What Miss Brindley wants, of course, though she cannot say as much, is a wealthy husband, or failing that, as will most probably be the eventual case, a sufficiently wealthy protector. There are members of her profession who have achieved as much. My hope, and in effect my offer, was that at this early point in her career I could offer her a companionable and moderately remunerative apprenticeship for the future to which she aspires.

       I have written more glibly than I feel, representing Miss Brindley, her charms and little stratagems, as also my own pursuit of her, with irony and a hint of derision. However, I have another perception of a warmer and more generous kind. After all there is a natural charm and even innocence in her disposition. I am surely not the first man to have had a conversation of this kind with her but, equally surely, I am by no means the twenty-first.

       By the time we parted we had reached, as it seemed to me, an understanding as to the immediate future course of our relationship, and this with no hint of a leer, a smirk or a double entendre. The young lady will surely have observed that I was powerfully aroused by her; yet on quitting her apartment I ventured only to kiss her small hand.

       When I come to do more you will hear further from

       Yours, &c.

      Mr Gilbert’s reply must have been written very soon after he had received my letter:

       My dear Richard,

       It would appear that you have been living a full and varied life in London, very much along the lines I would have hoped.

       However I now feel the need to discuss with you directly certain issues arising from our project. I would be obliged, therefore, if at your earliest convenience you could arrange to pass a few days here at Fork Hill.

       I remain, &c.

      I took the coach the following morning.

      6

      So it was that I returned to Fork Hill House some six weeks after my previous visit. When I had shaken off the stupefaction of the journey, and washed the odours of it from my person, I felt flushed with vigour and ready to face any challenge that might lie in store. I was no mere supplicant, but a young man of some little consequence, Mr Gilbert’s personal emissary from the capital. The bedroom I had occupied in March had been prepared exactly as before, as though it were now reserved for my exclusive use. The servants greeted me with smiles of recognition, pleased that I remembered their names. Even the great dogs licked my hand and waved their tails in welcome. I was encouraged to have become, to this small extent, an accepted member of the household.

      Mr Gilbert was, as ever, politely formal, but I sensed a suppressed excitement underlying the courtesies. His glance was more restless, his words came more quickly.

      ‘We must talk,’ he said, ‘and at some little length – but not for a day or two.’

      The change I felt in myself was mirrored in my godfather’s estate. The garden in front of the house was a blaze of spring flowers, golden and red. At the rear the expanse of his land was no longer held at bay by a palisade of black branches but merged into a surrounding sea of green leaves. I wandered out, as before, towards those woods, exulting in the clean air and warm sunshine. In the fields there were scores of white lambs, cropping the grass alongside their dams. Here was a true pastoral scene, where my Kitty would have been at home as shepherdess. Bird songs trilled around and above me, a sound I had scarcely heard in London, and I was inhaling the sweet scents of growth rather than the stench of refuse. If this was the healthy life, as I felt it to be, then surely London, with its din and stink, might threaten illness, mental if not physical. My mind seemed clearer here.

      Borrowing a horse from my godfather’s stable I rode out to explore the surrounding countryside, something I had never attempted before. It was a fertile, secluded region, the nearest town being five miles away. To ride again was a release – how much more pleasing to be in partnership with a horse than to have it haul your carriage like a slave.

      I was happy to amble at random, thinking about the days ahead. What conversational manner should I adopt when talking to my godfather? My former style – deference with an occasional glint of spirit – seemed inadequate to the changed situation. Too much in that vein and he might conclude that I lacked the mischief to be a bold participant in London life. Should I speak more freely, even suggestively? I would need to stay alert and be guided by Mr Gilbert’s response.

      I rode through Fork Hill itself, a straggling hamlet a mile from my godfather’s house. Passing the churchyard I heard my name called, and looked around to see Mr Thorpe, the clergyman I had met on my previous visit. I dismounted to shake his hand, and we stood conversing in the shade of a huge oak tree, while my horse grazed the verge.

      In the open air, fresh from hauling a fallen gravestone upright – his task when he had seen me – he looked younger and more vigorous than I had previously taken him to be. And so I told him, emboldened by the fact that he seemed a friendly fellow, pleased to enjoy the distraction of a chat. When I asked him whether he did not find life in a secluded parsonage a little dull, he gave the question thought.

      ‘I would once have done so. At Oxford I was considered a lively spark. But since coming here I have been at pains to accept my destined place.’

      I pursued the point, perhaps in tactless terms: ‘Is that not rather as though a butterfly should become a caterpillar?’

      Thorpe did not take offence: ‘Better a healthy caterpillar than a bedraggled butterfly. I hope to marry one day. My wife will be a parson’s wife, and my children will be a parson’s children. Then the transformation will be complete.’

      When he hinted a question concerning my own prospects I said something to the effect that these were at the mercy of my godfather.

      Thorpe nodded. ‘I understand you. In these parts we are all beholden to Mr Gilbert, and must study to deserve his good opinion.’

      We smiled, in mutual understanding, and I parted from him cordially, pleased to have found a possible ally in this unknown territory.

      Within three days of my arrival my godfather again hosted a dinner. To my surprise the guests were as before, save only that Thorpe was absent.