Infernal Revolutions (23 page)

Within seconds there was an ‘Aha!' which made me peek out of my soft shell in curiosity. Eloise's formerly sweet features were twisted in malice as she greedily unwrapped a rumpled ball of paper, and took it with a candle to the windowseat. She read silently for a while with intense concentration and then – not entirely unexpected – she threw back her head with what I considered to be very forced laughter, having evidently found what she had been looking for. ‘My God!' she exclaimed as she shook her head in disbelief, eyes and mouth wide with horror. ‘This is absolutely appalling! Absolute drivel! Why, even Elzevir could write better than this.' Then, with apparent contempt but – I was sure – deep delight, she read out the words in very mocking tones:

‘Apart from the utter banality of its content,' Eloise mocked, ‘isn't rhyming
find
with
wind
taking poetic licence a little too far? Is it not pathetic in a man of your age, to want to cram in words merely because they look similar?'

I did not answer, realizing that I was under scornful rhetorical attack. However, apart from the admittedly crooked rhyme, I thought it sounded rather good and authoritative. Indeed, I was going to ask her to read it again, to savour once more my genius, when I realized she was reading from Alexander Pope's
Essay on Criticism
, which I had written out in New York to solace me on my adventures. What luck she had chosen that pocket to rummage in! Had she chosen the other one she would have unearthed the latest page of my
Night Thoughts
, and ripped that apart with equal vehemence.

All this was a great lesson to me, very salutary, both in the realm of romance and of poetry. First, it reminded me for the thousandth time that women (and indeed men) were not always what they first appeared; and secondly, that the public censure of critics was often motivated by private malice.

‘Good God!' she was exclaiming, reading on, ‘Absolute tripe!'

With great joy now, I encouraged her to continue, shamefully finding vindictive joy myself in hearing the great Pope taken apart. For had not I, of late, been coming round to the view that Pope was greatly overrated, and too remote from the messiness of life to be all that credible.

‘What about that second line though?' I queried with mock sensitivity, as if begging to be hit and hit hard, ‘The word
misguide
, for example. Don't you think that at least fits beautifully?'

I saw her eyes flit back shining to the top of the page.

‘No, I do not! I think it is the very worst word you could have chosen in that context! It shows a complete lack of sensitivity, of integrity, of intelligence, of…of…'

‘Yes?' I enquired eagerly, loving this.

‘…of…'

I looked deep into her eyes, imploring her to pile on the agony, but then noticed with a shock that they were filling with tears.

‘Oh what am I doing?' she sobbed, folding up the poem neatly and putting her head in her hands. ‘There's nothing wrong with the poem at all – ‘tis lovely, even if I cannot understand it.'

I was disappointed with this revised verdict, but I was touched by Eloise's magnanimity. My estimation of her shot up again.

‘Come back to bed,' I wheedled, very oily. ‘And bring that pillow with you.'

‘Not while you're in it, Harry. Loving friendship remember. I should never have got in there with you in the first place. I'm not Clara, after all.'

I fought back a groan of frustration.

‘But you cannot sit there all night.'

‘I like it here. I can see the stars.' And as if to prove it, she tilted her head and looked up sadly at the night sky.

I realized it was my duty to swop places, or at least offer to, but I could not leave my position until the mess beneath me had dried up.

I desperately wanted to sleep now, and write off the night as another disaster, but I could not do so until Eloise was settled. Again, in vigorous mockery, came noises from Clara's room; this time the deep, satisfied snoring of satiated lovers.

‘God, they can even sleep better than us!' said Eloise.

I was unhappy about the objective pronoun selected, but I kept my counsel, and spent the next hour or so advocating like a lawyer the advantages of coming back to bed. Eventually, helped more by gathering cloud than any convincing argument I could think up, Eloise returned to my side, turned her back on me, and fell asleep immediately, snoring profoundly. I turned over to do the same on my side, relieved it was all over, but found I could not sleep, my mind having been stirred to distraction by all the thinking I had been doing to get Eloise back to bed.

Eventually, however, I must have succumbed, for when I awoke it was daylight, and Eloise was busy at my bedside, painting my portrait.

‘I painted Dick yesterday afternoon,' said Eloise, staring hard at my nose, brush poised. ‘And now I want one of you.'

‘You painted Dick, did you?' I said, feeling myself stuck to the bed. ‘I did not know.'

‘When you were asleep. I painted it on Clara's behalf. I was going to paint yours last night, but what with all the trouble…'

‘Aye, well,' I said quickly, wanting to sweep all that under the carpet. ‘Misunderstandings happen.'

‘But I really am very fond of you, Harry, and I hope we part as good friends. Who knows, perhaps we will meet again before you return to England.'

‘I hope so,' I said, lying, but pleased at the decorous outcome of the affair. ‘So, can I move and get dressed now?'

‘Oh yes, I have you now. You will be with me forever.'

Wonderful, I thought, standing up to boldly piss in her pot, and at last mix my fluids with hers. Dressing, I felt another urgent desire come on, but, a true gentleman, I decided to save relief of that for the orchard. Soon, ‘twas time to take my leave.

‘We part as friends then?' I said, hearing horses being prepared outside.

‘As
loving
friends,' she said, smiling.

I thought of advancing for a loving kiss, but decided against it. My poor pistol had been teased enough.

‘I made her squeak, all right. My first American filly, that.'

‘Yes,' I said, tight-lipped.

‘Certainly an experience of greater, er,
something
than usual…what's the word I'm looking for?'

‘Noise?'

‘No, of greater…
depth
…than usual. I feel utterly contented.'

‘Excellent.'

‘Didn't hear much action from your room.'

‘No, we were too busy discussing art and poetry and philosophy to indulge in animal gratification.'

‘She had the painters in then?'

I gasped.

‘How on earth did you know that?'

‘Clara told me. Apparently ‘tis always the reason Eloise gives to avoid sex – though if she knew anything about it, she would make a special effort to have sex at

precisely that time. Not, of course, that it was anything but an excuse to prevent you from getting your wicked way. I told you you were wasting your time with her.'

I wanted to confirm that the painters were indeed what I thought they were, but I feared ridicule, so kept quiet on the score.

‘Well, you've probably got the pox now,' I consoled myself, ‘or the clap, or the gleet, or the pintle-blossom.'

‘Worth every burning second,' said Dick smugly.

‘You will not say that when one or both of your nags swell to the size of a pumpkin, and aches and pains burn through your very blood.'

I took great exaggerated lungfuls of sweet air, and began to feel better.

‘Put nothing in, get nothing out, is my motto. One must take one's chances until a universal cure is found.'

‘Or perhaps you have given her the syph, which is even worse,' I mused. ‘After all, the British Army has visited the French disease on many an innocent community in its time. No wonder people hate us.'

‘Stop making rules for games you don't play,' said Dick hotly. ‘I do not have the syph and there's an end of it.' He hawked, and a ragged oyster span to the ground, expressive of his disapproval.

‘If you are going to be doing this sort of thing all the time,' I persisted, ‘you should get a supply of sheep's guts or silk handkerchiefs. Prevents doubt and shows respect for the future generations of this country.'

‘Oh aye, and where am I going to get those things from around here?'

‘Sheep and fops respectively,' I said, with devastating simplicity.

‘I bet you play cricket, don't you, Harry?' said Dick, after a few moments of brooding, during which time which he evacuated a whole oyster bed that had settled on his lungs.

‘Why do you ask, Dick?' I said, delighted that I had managed to tame the dog, and remembering with fondness the swathe I used to cut on Hove Common, a dashing, cravatted, floppyhaired rapscalion of a fielder. ‘Because I am elegant in both mind and body?'

‘No, because you are such a loathsome prig.'

This was not the response I had expected, and it subdued me mightily, so that for the next couple of miles our slow trot northwards along the post road to Hackensack was conducted in silence. Growing more confident in my horsemanship, however, I was able to look up occasionally and use the time to admire the countryside, which remained fine and fertile, liberally dotted with barns, granaries, dense orchards and comfortable sandstone houses. Huge pine forests shimmered blue and green far to our left, a sign perhaps that we were heading for a wilder terrain, while over to our right an enormous flock of crows descended menacingly on a defenceless field. Above all sailed stately white clouds of such girth that just one looked as though it could plunge Sussex into darkness for a week. There was definitely a different feel to the American countryside, even though, item by item, there was nothing in it not seen in England. This perplexed me, and I wondered idly what the difference was. Perhaps, as those alarming Indians believed, the land did have a spirit, in which case ‘twas certainly a wilder, more rugged one than anything I had experienced on the strand at Brighthelmstone. Another observation of mine was that there was not much here in America for a Night Poet to brood upon, except a depressing absence of Melancholy. There were no overgrown ruins, no mouldering graveyards, no misty castles, no deserted villages, no madhouses. In a sentence, if I were to live here, my subject matter would be gone, and I would wallow miserably in a land where poesy was as welcome as the scurvy little monsters that ended our silence.

‘What are these damn things?' cried Dick, slapping another tiny blood sac against his skin. ‘Plaguey nuisances whatever they are.'

‘I think they must be the
mosky-toes
I have heard spoken about. Bloodsuckers with wings. The snipers of the saltmarshes. Should be less around the further north we go. Oww!!'

I was appropriately bitten by one, as was my horse, and then it became apparent that we were under concerted attack. Galloping away from them, we continued to ride hard (good practice for me anyway) until ‘twas time for a rest and a little refreshment, which we took under the shade of a hawthorn bush. Aglow with exhilaration and pride that I had managed to stay on the horse, I delved into the wine and sandwiches kindly provided by Mr De Witt. Then I turned my attention to the information he had provided about the Rebel army, and asked Dick what we should do with it.

‘Nothing,' said Dick, ‘Even if we had anyone reliable to pass it on to, the information will be out of date by the time it is received. That is the trouble with this war – though the nobs cannot see it – the place is too big. Information is bound to be out of date before you get it. Added to which there is a whole mental and physical ocean between our leaders and our leaders' leaders. ‘Tis ridiculous to think we can win such a war. Obviously, if we could just herd all of the Rebels onto a battlefield and pit our lads against them – even if we had just a quarter of their number – we would win easily, but as it is, ‘tis pointless. They slip away into the forests, then slip out again when the immediate danger is gone. You cannot fight a war far from home and expect to win, it stands to reason. Why, after all, was the Spanish Armada defeated? ‘Twas not because we had superior ships or seamen, ‘twas because…'

‘We were,' I disputed hotly, shouting. ‘We were superior seamen!' Having read much about this very topic as a schoolboy, I was blazing at this slur on our national character. ‘We raided Cadiz easily enough, and Santo Domingo, and what about the great victories at Santa Cruz under Admiral Blake and…and…Quiberon Bay under Sir Edward Hawke? What about them?'

‘Yes, but they were mere scuffles. You can win a scuffle or two far from home, but not a whole war. There is always the communication and the supply-line problem. Now if I were Lord North or the King, or whoever is in charge of this fiasco, I would say to the Howe brothers, “Right lads – hold New York and the Hudson River forts, just hold the line, but don't go on the offensive. Meanwhile we will take the damned taxes off over a number of years, and by, say, 1800, we will withdraw our presence completely, and they can have their bloody country all to themselves, to ruin as they wish.” That should prevent bloodshed, and give the Patriots and the Loyalists time to sort out their differences. If they still persist in their mutual hatred, then there is always Canada to send the Loyalists to; plenty of space there if they don't mind a bit of cold.'

‘It would not do any good,' I said, now vengeful and arguing for victory. ‘The Patriot leaders want independence now, while they are still alive, so they can get all the glory and the power. In my opinion, ‘tis not love of their country that motivates them, but greed and vanity and the gaining of revenge on rich Tories like old De Witt. Besides, conflict for the sake of it is very enjoyable when you have nothing better to live for. Tom Paine would not wish to go back to being a tax-collector or corsetmaker, I suspect, nor Thomas Jefferson a slavewhipping business failure, nor George Washington a dull farmer in Virginia. Also, there are too many vested interests for our lot to give the country away voluntarily. In fact, thinking about it, that is what we are risking our lives for – to protect the wealth of the English landed gentry.' I took out my pistol and started giving it a bit of a polish. ‘Of which, of course, I could have been a member.'

‘Could you?' said Dick, turning to me sarcastically, ‘could you really? Why, I never knew that before. Pray tell me about it in more detail.'

I suspect Dick was now trying to change the subject, angry at having been comprehensively routed by the superiority of my political analysis. I did not take the bait, but calmly polished on.

‘So, Dick, if we are doing nothing with the information we are collecting, remind me again why we are continuing deep into Rebel territory.'

‘Adventure, my son. Life itself.'

‘Ah yes, but push Life too far and you get Death.'

‘So what? Better this way than in one of the pitched battles that are brewing, pushed around like a pawn by some raddled old general. At least here we have control over our own actions. Here we are knights of a sort, and have some freedom of movement to jump around behind enemy lines. Anyway, I have a hunger to see what a real Rebel town looks like, in case I decide to settle in one.'

‘I wonder if it's worth it though,' I said, Melancholy jumping out of the bush and taking hold of me like a wrestler. ‘I wonder if anything is worth it.'

‘Of course it is,' said Dick, ‘De Witt's was just the start, an appetizer for tastier things to come. Come on, let's get going.'

I groaned. An appetizer to Dick was an emetic to me, and I got back on my horse only with extreme reluctance. Indeed, as we approached the town of Hackensack I did begin to feel distinctly queasy, for it was here that the
Ax and Plow
tavern was situated, said by Mr De Witt to be a good source of rebel gossip, not least because it was the regular watering hole of the Hackensack Militia.

‘A good stiff brandy is all you need to revive your spirits, my son,' said Dick, reaching over and thwacking me across the back. ‘And a good woman. Don't you worry, Harry, I will help you get one at our next port of call. You will not die a virgin – that is a Lickley Promise.'

He jabbed his right thumb in the air and opened his mouth and eyes wide – obviously the mark of a Lickley Promise.

Tears of both gratitude and petulance pricked at my eyes, and I was too choked to elucidate a reply.

‘Because that is what a man needs – either one good woman or plenty of bad ones to keep him inspired and virile; and as I can tell you are not the wenching type, you do not have enough experience on your own to tell the difference. That is where my assistance comes in.'

‘I am the wenching type!' I insisted, ‘I am!'

‘You are not, Harry. Face the facts, man – ‘tis nothing to be ashamed of. Great men, truly great men, are never womanizers.'

‘They are not?'

‘Of course not. They have bigger things on their minds than the petty intrigues of whores. Their souls are so big that only good women can stir them.'

Did I not have
Night Thoughts on Melancholy, Indolence, Poverty, Disease, Madness & The Grave
on my mind?

‘Aye,' went on Dick, ‘if a good man meets a good woman, then look out world. Electricity. Sparks. In fact, that thunderstorm we heard about in New York – that was probably the result of a good man and a good woman meeting. Perhaps the fire was too.'

I was elated at this news, and laughingly wiped my tears away with the back of my hand. The sky was instantly bluer, the countryside instantly more golden, the picket fences instantly whiter. Just one good woman then would crack it.

‘Mind you,' added Dick, a martyr to the truth, ‘women do have a tendency to cuckold good men, and cling limpetlike to bad ones.'

‘Why is that, Dick? Why?'

‘Because a good man is a very complex character, not the simpleton he appears to the outside world. He is interested in many things, not just his wife, and therefore his wife, if a demanding one, will come to feel neglected. A cruising rake, sniffing prey, is then attracted. With his simple and achievable aims, the rake unleashes his well-honed honeyed phrases on the wife. He may attempt to seduce her by professing aims he doesn't have, he may even pretend to outnoble you, but you can be sure of one thing: he will get her in the end. And having nothing to lose with another man's wife, he can be as free as he wants with her in the bed or the hedgerow, and this lack of inhibition is just what the wife wants too. Her husband can't oblige on that score because he cares for her and considers her feelings, which is fatal as far as sexual abandon is concerned. And so he is cuckolded again and again. A good man always ends up as a laughing stock, Harry, among both men and women – they regard his lack of interest in what interests them as contemptible. Though of course, in the wider sense, everybody is a laughing stock to someone.'

Wondering what it would be like to be a laughing stock, I mused on the validity of these words. They would certainly explain why Vickie Tremblett fell so willingly into Burnley Axelrod's arms instead of mine; even though I wasn't married to her, the principle was the same.

‘I think I might already have met a good woman,' I sighed, feeling pleasantly romantic and lovelorn now that better things were on the way.

‘Who, Eloise? No, she wasn't a good woman, take my word for it. She was just playing at being a good woman. Christ, what good woman would cook her guests a squirrel pie when turkeys are roosting in the trees? I can tell that sort a mile away. Forget her, I say.'

‘She's probably crying over my memory this very minute,' I mused fancifully.

‘She won't be,' said Dick with confidence. ‘She'll be tucking into her dinner with added relish, swapping stories and laughing with Clara at all the slop they fed us. Most women are like that – fickle and heartless.'