Hugh Kenrick (14 page)

Reverdy jerked her hand away. “You are very presumptuous, Hugh Kenrick. Everyone says so.”

“It is no vice to be presumptuous,” replied Hugh gaily. “It is a foundation of civil society.”

“You are mocking me.”

“I like to see you frown.”

“A frown is a sign of agitation.”

Hugh shrugged. “Or of thought, or of anger, or of purpose…or of character.” Hugh smiled and studied the girl’s face in detail. The girl blushed under his scrutiny. “I am picturing you as you will be the next I see you, Reverdy. You will be a little taller, and your features a little sharper.”

The girl turned away. “You needn’t boast just because a famous artist has done you a picture. Father is hiring another artist to do ours.”

“Will he do one of you alone?”

“Yes,” she said proudly.

“I should like to have a picture of you.”

“Father would not approve of that—and he certainly would not pay for it.”

Hugh reached into his coat pocket and took out a golden guinea. He handed it to the girl. “Here. Give this secretly to your artist. Tell him that you wish to make a surprise present of a miniature to your father. Swear him to secrecy. I shall expect to see you in a fine locket when I return for the holidays.”

Reverdy Brune smiled with delight at the intrigue, then took the coin and slipped it into her other gloved hand. They sat down on a stone bench in a bower. She said, “You would think we were going to be married, Hugh Kenrick, the way you carry on.”

It was a superfluous comment. It was known by both of them that their parents desired such a marriage. The Brunes wished to marry into nobility, and the Kenricks wished to acquire some interest in the Brunes’ lands. More words had been exchanged between the sets of parents on the subject than by the subjects of the arrangement.

Reverdy abruptly looked straight at Hugh. She said, with some concern in her words, “Father says at the table that there may be a war.”

“That is the talk in our house, too.”

“Do you think your father will purchase you a commission in the army, or get you a place as a midshipman in the navy?”

Hugh shook his head. “No. He says I would do better reading the French, instead of fighting them. I agree with him.”

“Father says that General Braddock’s death should be avenged, and our country’s honor restored.” The girl paused. “It would be marvelous if you had a part in those things.”

Hugh shook his head. “My father says Braddock was a martinet and a fool who would not listen to the colonials about how to fight the French there. Our country’s honor?” He looked pensive for a moment, then shrugged. “I must first establish my own honor, before I devote concern to my country’s.”

“How selfish of you, Hugh Kenrick!” exclaimed the girl.

“I do not deny it,” he replied.

“You are shameless!”

“I have nothing to be ashamed of, least of all my honor.”

Reverdy Brune tapped one of her shoes in impatience.

Hugh grinned. “Have you any other sins to accuse me of, Reverdy? I shall admit to those, too.”

“You are mocking me again.”

“I believe that you enjoy being mocked—by me.”

Reverdy turned to face him, and she blinked at the laughter in his eyes. “And now you are showing conceit,” she said.

“Is it conceit that you mean, or self-assurance? If it is conceit, then you underestimate me, Reverdy, and I will be disappointed. If you mean self-assurance, then that is something you should cherish in a man, as a man should cherish it in a woman.” He reached over and took one of her hands from her lap. “I know that you feign humility to hide your own self-assurance. You will tell me some day, when you are able to, why you should wish to mask so alluring a virtue.” Then he raised her hand and kissed it again.

Reverdy Brune smiled in wonder at this observation, and forgot to withdraw her hand.

I
N THE FIRST WEEK OF
S
EPTEMBER, THE
K
ENRICKS BOARDED A CHARTERED
packet at Swanage, sailed to Dover, and there hired a coach to London. The coach reached the city two days later, crossed Westminster Bridge, and deposited them at Windridge Court, the name of the Earl’s wall-enclosed, terraced residence on the Thames near the York Stairs, only a few doors downriver from the palatial residence of the Duke of Richmond.

The London that Hugh Kenrick saw every day from the carriage that he shared with his father, mother, sister, and uncle on its way to and from concerts, outings, and social engagements in the following three weeks was not his London. His London did not include the mountainous heaps of rubbish sitting in the streets, nor the streets obstructed by vendors’ sheds and stalls and the crowds drawn to them. It did not include the invasion of the thoroughfares by new houses, whose broad stone steps jutted abruptly into the course of wheeled traffic, often causing congestion and public disorder. It did not count the shells of ruined houses and sagging, windowless tenements in the worst districts, nor the mobs of ragged citizenry outside of them, and who called the shells and tenements home. It did not subsume the broken pavements and the small lakes of sewage that gathered in their depressions, nor the rotting hulks of expired horses, fed on by packs of wild dogs. It discounted the cacophony of street vendors hawking their wares and services, and shut its ears to the horns, drums, and calls of tradesmen and the general deluge of profanity. It did not countenance the teams of alert, feral thieves, pickpockets, and cutpurses, who would strike at the unwary or the careless propertied man or woman and vanish into the crowds with their booty: wigs, swords, purses, watches, lace cuffs, bonnets, silver buttons. It did not take cognizance of the innumerable, anonymous figures of men—and some women—propped up against or lying alongside the grimy brick and stone walls of dark alleys, some of them groggy with gin or opium, some unconscious and bleeding from a brutal robbery or assault, and some dead from starvation, bad liquor, exhaustion, or murder. It was not the London of the countless pairs of eyes that followed the rumbling passage of liveried carriages through disreputable neighborhoods with envy, hatred, larcenous intent, or, occasionally, with innocent wonder or
wistful hope.

These phenomena comprised the norm for that aspect of London, and were mostly noted, ignored, or forgotten by those for whom they were not the norm. From Hugh’s perspective, that London was the “is”; his London was the “ought.”

Hugh’s London was a fastidious milieu of fine proportions and elegant craftsmanship; of large, spacious, and airy rooms with carpeted floors, ample candlelight, and gay Chinese wallpaper. Of fireplaces designed by Robert Adam, laden with bronze neoclassical Greek and Roman statuary and flanked by framed botanical prints by Furber and Ehret and theatrical prints by Hayman. Of wide, linen-clad tables set with brilliantly painted Staffordshire porcelain and delicate chinaware from Chelsea, Derby, and Bow. Of stately grand balls and masquerades in the homes of the mighty and powerful. Of leisurely dinners and tea parties with neighbors and acquaintances, serenaded by hired musicians. Of afternoon salons with fellow aristocrats, and often with well-read merchants, manufacturers, and men of commerce and their wives, who, though drawn largely from the ranks of Dissenters and Nonconformists, were beginning to be recognized and granted grudging though civil entrée into polite, refined society by the upper classes, literati, and intelligentsia. It was the laughter, easy conversation, and sophisticated rapport that sparkled in these gatherings which became for Hugh the norm in relations between adults.

Hugh’s London included many circulating libraries, such as Fancourts, with its forty thousand volumes, and browsing in the second-hand bookstalls in St. Paul’s Churchyard and the Law Courts. It was pristine shops with bow windows that artfully displayed countless novelties and goods. It was family games on rainy afternoons, and, on “glorious days,” excursions up the Thames on private yachts with liveried watermen to row and lunch far upriver at a fashionable inn. In the evenings, it was family theatrics, the putting on of scenes from famous and obscure plays; Hugh himself had played Hamlet at the age of eleven, to the acclaim of his parents and their aristocratic friends. It was trips to the Tower to see exotic animals, and to Vauxhall, Ranelagh Gardens, or the Pantheon to socialize, to listen to orchestras play compositions by Rameau, Vivaldi, and Boyce, to view the work of new artists, to gather gossip or political news, to see and be seen.

It was the theater, to see
The Beggar’s Opera
, or
The English Dancing Master
, or some light farce at the King’s Theatre, and concerts by the Academy of Ancient Music and ballets by Gluck at the Haymarket Theatre.
It was Italian opera, some authentically Italian, the rest by Handel. It was attending services at St. Paul’s Cathedral and listening to a heavenly choir. It was the London of scores of clubs, some, like Samuel Johnson’s, built on dominating personalities and composed of men of like mind and scope of wit, and which usually met in taverns to talk about anything that struck the fancy: politics, mathematics, astronomy, America, women, literature, drink. Others, open to anyone who was a devotee to or dilettante in some field of knowledge, art, or science, no matter how general, eclectic, or arcane, usually met in drawing rooms or private libraries.

Hugh’s London left him little time to himself—to read, to think, to enjoy his own company. He did not much mind his London, but it left him tired and secretly anxious for the day when his parents and uncle would depart for the journey back to Danvers—and he would be left alone, with only a deferential valet and the obliging Mr. Worley to oversee his daily life. But his parents, usually content with rural Danvers, on this occasion could not be sated by all that London had to offer, and so extended their stay by almost three weeks.

Hugh was taken by his parents to the School for Gentlemen and introduced to Dr. Comyn and his staff of instructors. There Dr. Comyn submitted him to a brief oral examination, audited by his parents and his future mentors. Hugh stood before a massive desk and answered questions put to him by the berobed scholar.

“What is a serpent, and who invented it?” asked Dr. Comyn.

“It is a wind instrument, sir,” Hugh answered, “eight feet long when unraveled, and encased in leather. It was invented by Guillaume of Auxerre, in 1590.”

“Name the ‘good’ emperors of ancient Rome.”

“There were five, sir: Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius.”

“What is pi?”

“A letter, the sixteenth, in the Greek alphabet. It also serves as a symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, whose value is three-point-fourteen.”

Dr. Comyn grinned. “Who was Theophilus?” This was a favorite trick question of his. No prospective pupil had ever correctly answered it.

“Which one, sir?” asked Hugh.

Dr. Comyn grunted surprise, while one of his instructors muttered, “Bravo!”

“Any or all, milord.”

“Theophilus the Presbyter in the eleventh century set down the rules for the building of cathedrals and the design of stained glass. Theophilus, emperor of Byzantium in the ninth century, persecuted thousands of idolaters. He was somewhat mad, sir.”

Dr. Comyn bestowed a benevolent smile on the boy. “Well, one last test, milord. A mundane one, I fear. Describe the earldom of Danvers.”

Hugh glanced at his parents, startled by the request. He recited, “The earldom of Danvers consists of the parishes of Danvers, Todd Matravers, Onyxcombe, Cryden Abbas, and Chalkbourne. The first three parishes lie in the heath land, Onyxcombe and Chalkbourne on the chalk downs. They were originally Saxon estates that pledged fealty to William the Norman; each parish sustains a market town of the same name. The earldom is rent roughly in half by the Onyx River, which is formed by the confluence of numerous brooks and streams, which themselves emanate from underground springs in the heights beyond the chalk downs. It is so named because at certain points, and in a particular light, its waters appear black. The Onyx joins the River Piddle some miles west of Poole. Agriculture is the earldom’s chief occupation. Quarrying and fishing are its other chief sources of revenue.”

Dr. Comyn nodded, smiled, and addressed a beaming Garnet Kenrick. “You would be surprised, your lordship, at how many young gentlemen do not know their own homes.” He extended a hand to Hugh. “You have displayed an admiral stock of knowledge, milord. Welcome to the school.”

*  *  *

From all this whirl of social and familial activity, one incident fixed itself in Hugh’s memory. It occurred at a concert given by a neighboring family of the Kenricks, the Pumphretts, who owned Bucklad House next door to Windridge Court.

Bucklad House had undergone lengthy renovations, and the Pumphretts wished to mark their completion with a concert, to which were invited a list of London worthies. Lady Chloe, wife of Sir Henoch Pannell—who was Baronet of Marsden in Essex, Surveyor-General of Harwich in Suffolk, Gentleman of the King’s Bedchamber, and member for the pocket borough of Canovan in the Commons—was the mover behind this event. A donation of five guineas per person was levied, the receipts to be given to
Lady Chloe’s own organization, the Westminster Charity for London Waifs. “She’s doing her penance early,” confided Sir Henoch with sly derision to friends in the Commons who had been invited to the concert, “so that she may enjoy the rest of the season without the encumbrance of conscience. She is essentially a
moral
woman.”

The Pumphretts, into whose family Pannell had married shortly after his triumphant return to London following his erasure of the Skelly gang in Cornwall, were the owners of Bucklad House, and had underwritten almost the entire cost of its renovations. Gervase Pumphrett, Lady Chloe’s father, had insisted on this arrangement to ensure that the Pumphretts retained some property in the family’s name and thus prevent Sir Henoch from claiming that his money kept up the place. Sir Henoch had contributed some funds to the rebuilding of its stables. He stayed at Bucklad House when he attended sessions of the Commons or saw to his other official business in the city.

He and Lady Chloe resided at Pannell Hall in Suffolk, but Sir Henoch had his own modest lodgings in London, in Canovan itself; he was, in fact, that borough’s sole enfranchised resident. Here he rendezvoused with fellow gamblers, wenches from the street, and courtesans from the best parlors, with smugglers and other figures of the netherworld, and with other members of Parliament to plot strategy. This was the norm for many members of Parliament, to have a refuge from public dignity. His faction in the Commons was ultra-conservative; he was its “whip.” He was Whiggish when it was expedient, Toryish when it suited his purpose, even though the defining line between the two parties was growing more blurred as parliamentary Whiggism absorbed tradition-bound Toryism.

Baron Garnet Kenrick and his wife had been reluctant to accept Lady Chloe’s invitation; she bored them, and her husband was a coarse, indelicate, and rude man. And they had wanted to rest a full day before beginning the arduous journey back to Danvers. But the Earl wished to cement a subtle if unacknowledged political alliance between his Tory colleagues in Lords and their counterparts in the Commons. “There are moves in the lower House to raise the land tax and lower the gin excise,” he explained to his brother. “There are bills being talked about that would also lower the customs on Irish lace, Dutch tile, and Spanish oranges. Sir Henoch’s party can defeat them, or at least see that the sting is taken out of them. We must show our good faith to him. All of us, even Hugh. He is a caitiff and a rake, but in his plebeian realm he wields an effective mitre.”

And so the Kenricks, dressed in their best finery, early that evening trooped next door to Bucklad House to join a throng of other guests, few of whom attended because they relished the program of music or pitied waifs.

The group of musicians who comprised Lady Chloe’s little orchestra was as fine as could be hired and assembled. Besides a tenor and a soprano to sing the arias and duets, it even counted moonlighting members of the Royal Band, the king’s own orchestra. “His Majesty would not call them an orchestra,” whispered Lady Chloe to Effney Kenrick before the performance, “even though the Band features players of strings. I fear that the strings are not often called on to help serenade the royal ear at the Queen’s Palace.”

Effney Kenrick nodded sagely, and stifled a yawn.

The orchestra played little-heard compositions by Corelli, Torelli, selections from Gluck’s operas, and a single opus of Scarlatti’s. Sixty-two guests crowded into the new dining hall, which could also double as a ballroom. The chairs were comfortable, the servants attentive, and the room made warmer by the diverting French and Italian tapestries on the walls. The odors wafting from the buffet in an adjoining room were torturously enticing and were responsible for an impatient and unabated rustle in the audience.

It was during the merciful “intermission” that Garnet Kenrick and Hugh chanced to join a circle of guests gathered around Sir Henoch in an anteroom. Sir Henoch, who had once lived an austere, almost monkish life, this evening sported a burgundy velvet suit, three diamond rings on his fingers, and, next to the medallion of his baronetcy on his frock coat, another scintillating ribbon and orb which looked like a royal decoration, but which was actually a gold De Charmes pocket watch set with diamonds in the face, one for each hour. His powdered wig, by the fashionable French wigmaker de Gonville, had cost seven guineas, his gold-edged tricorn fifteen. He was determined to make an impression.

An exchange of remarks on Braddock’s defeat in Pennsylvania and the looming tasks of financing and planning the impending war with France led to other matters. “Marsden? It was a pitiful collection of superannuated huts, inhabited mostly by lazy cottars, when I was raised. But these have lately been converted into cloth factories, in which I have a not insignificant interest.” Sir Henoch smiled, then managed to swallow a burp. He had been drinking, and stood with a glass of claret in hand. “I am the first baronet of the place since Bowler Ricks, my most immediate predecessor,
expired in the third year of Charles the Second’s reign,” he boasted without prompting.