Michael Irwin - The Skull and the Nightingale

Unexpectedly Mr Gilbert changed his tone, surprising me with a compliment: ‘You conducted yourself with credit this evening. I observed you closely. You were polite to Hurlock, attentive to Yardley, good-natured in your concern for Mrs Quentin. You sang pleasingly. Yet you were detached. You were forming judgements. The young man I saw was the young man who writes me letters.’

He turned to interrogate me.

‘How would you describe yourself? I see that you are courteous, shrewd, amiable. What other qualities would you claim?’

I knew that my answer should be no less forthright than the question.

‘Let me set aside false modesty. I am physically vigorous. I cannot claim to be a scholar, but I am reflective and read quite widely. I can adapt myself to most kinds of company. I am sensual, probably to a fault. By temperament I am cheerful and amiably disposed, but I can have darker moods – even fits of rage.’

Mr Gilbert nodded, as though I had said nothing to surprise him.

‘You are not afraid to take risks?’

‘No.’

‘You have a relish for unusual situations?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you be ruthless?’

This question called for a little thought.

‘I believe I can.’

I wondered at these questions. Was I to be asked to stage a robbery, or an assassination? But Mr Gilbert let the matter drop as suddenly as he had broached it, and poured more port. One of his great black dogs padded silently from the house and laid his head on my godfather’s knee. I felt at ease – even exhilarated. What a singular exchange this was, under the stars, our words punctuated by stirrings of twigs in the breeze or the occasional scuttling of a rabbit. Where would it take us next? In the moonlight my godfather, with his pale face and small wig, had a ghostly luminosity that seemed to render him more dominant. Fondling the dog’s ears he spoke again, this time ruminatively: ‘I lost another neighbour, Squire Warhurst, last year. By all accounts he died a good death, praying to the last. He was confident of admission to Heaven, and Parson Thorpe endorsed that expectation. His soul may be there as we speak. Yet the man was a bully, a glutton and a hell-bent whoremonger till mending his ways at fifty, following a stroke. If Warhurst has been saved I can feel guardedly optimistic as to my own prospects.’

He broke off: ‘You suspect that I am facetious?’

‘To be candid, sir, I was not sure.’

My godfather smiled faintly. ‘I am not sure myself. But seriously, or half-seriously, I reflect that the years and capacities I have left are insufficient for me to emulate this man’s sinfulness, even if I wished to do so. May I not, then, indulge myself a little? A very little?’

After a hesitation he continued, as though lost in soliloquy: ‘A man may avoid the sin he is too timid to commit. In such a case, surely, the professed belief is mere faint-heartedness. Might not the Almighty deem that the fellow has been cowardly rather than virtuous? Might not the eternal reward be curtailed accordingly? If so, the poor devil would be twice deprived – in this life and again in the next.’

I tried to meet the challenge: ‘Then you believe in an after-life?’

‘Of course.’ A pause. ‘From time to time.’

Somewhat baffled by now, I tried to exert myself: ‘Sir, I am not sure where your remarks are tending.’

‘Then I must make myself clear.’ My godfather drew a breath and spoke out with decision. ‘The case is this. I have preserved appearances for so long that none of my neighbours know – indeed, I scarcely know myself – what lies below the surface of my character. Caution and good fortune have protected me, but they have protected me too far – protected me from life itself. I have never married, never fathered a child, never broken a bone, or so much as seen a corpse, save on a gibbet. I live in a great house defended by servants and dogs. The price I pay for my safety is imprisonment of a kind. I need a window in this confinement, a window through which to see a wider life.’

‘Were you not saying as much to me on my last visit?’

‘I was, but I wish to go further. There lies the point – I wish to go further.’

He took a full mouthful of port. By now he was agitated, his breathing quicker.

‘I invited you to describe the life of London. But as I read your letters I came to recognize that I seek something more particular – the recklessness of personal doings. Do you follow me?’

‘I think so, sir.’

‘I wonder if you do …’ His tone changed. ‘Let me say that I like the sound of your friend Mr Crocker. I have a taste for situations where normal conduct breaks down – where there is excess and abnormality. Perhaps you inferred as much.’

‘I did.’

‘Where Yardley is interested in plants and animals, my study is human conduct, the Passions: Vanity, Greed, Avarice, Rage, Lust …’

Mr Gilbert enumerated these qualities with emphasis, speaking so fervidly as seeming to reveal a passion of his own. He leaned towards me across the table.

‘I propose an experiment. Life has slipped past me half unnoticed. I am tormented by a restlessness that I cannot subdue. I would wish my final years to be more vivid, more diversified, more – pungent. In short’ – he rapped the table – ‘my project is in some sense to live again. I would hope to live differently and dangerously – through you and through your exploits . I am not so old that reports of mischief and gallantry will fail to warm my blood.’

He checked himself, and resumed in more measured tones: ‘I may no longer be robust but I am far from frail. The connoisseur who cannot paint may yet enjoy a picture. I aspire to be a connoisseur of experience – but the experiences will be yours.’

He sat back and looked at me. ‘I await your response.’

‘I must consider, sir.’

I spoke mechanically, but was incapable of considering anything, being lost in the situation. The moon shone down on us still. There were servants asleep in the dark house, birds and animals at rest all around us in their lairs. And here in the sweet-scented night air we were meditating the most eccentric of transactions. Was there, at that moment, any man in England engaged in a stranger conversation?

‘Why do you smile?’ asked Mr Gilbert.

I found myself laughing aloud with real gaiety, as I might have laughed with Matt Cullen – something I had never previously done in the presence of my godfather.

‘I beg your pardon, sir: I was not aware that I was smiling. The reaction was involuntary. It means that I welcome your proposition.’

‘I am glad to hear it. But you will no doubt wish to ask me questions.’

Indeed I did; but the most obvious inquiry – ‘How am I to be rewarded?’ – seemed below the dignity of these intimate exchanges. I tried to think.

‘How far will I be expected to go?’

‘As far as you see fit.’

‘Then I may, for example, go further in my pursuit of Miss Brindley?’

‘Much further.’ Mr Gilbert leaned forward again. ‘Your first account of this lady, in her pastoral guise, spoke directly to me. As a young man I found myself plagued : – the word is not too strong – by the pastoral. Art, poetry, drama insisted that love should be idyllic, Arcadian. The reality fell far short. The physical encounter could not match the rhetoric.’

He glanced at me wryly: ‘If you ever feel such qualms I fancy that your physical appetites can usually over-ride them.’

‘I have found that to be the case.’

The port had had its effect. We were smiling now, positively conspiratorial.

‘At the other extreme from pastoral fancy,’ said my godfather, ‘it seemed to me that after your duet Mrs Hurlock was looking at you with a kindly eye.’