Lizard World (16 page)

’Twas
several months thereafter, at the dead of midnight and amidst the onset of a wintry inclemency of weather that froze the beggars on the streets and shook my windowpanes with a howling assault of sleet that chased away all hope of slumber, that my long service to his Lordship finally and formally began. For though another thread-bare autumn had past since I had endeavoured to induce this footman to my aid, yet in all this desperate interval of time he had not been pleased to seek me out as I had purposed.
Therefore still I languished in the cold penury of my garret, where oft as I lay abed hearkening to the bustle of the mice, the remembrance of his Lordship and this damnable, tardy footman ever haunted me. Nor was it the mere thought alone of the sumptuous elegancy of his Lordship’s house and carriage which so engaged my sleepless fancy, but above all else the curious nature of his hideous distemper and how I might come to learn the secret arts of the old hump-back’d German barber. For I had, long since, grown to despise the backwardness of my professors who, though they slowly learned the wisdom of the knife, still yielded overmuch to the antiquated tyranny of Galen. Indeed, old Galen and his dusty Latin were not more dead than my erudite professors with their useless sweats and purges and incessant talk of humours.

      
The clock, I say, had just gone twelve -- though I lay broad awake with the cold comfort of my thoughts -- when at the long last my friend Potter came a-knocking at my door. This block-head of a footman, whose changeable demeanour of insolence and servility I but too well recalled, was now all mealy-mouthed humility and craven pleasing. He much regretted, he said, that he had failed to pay his respects to me of late, but he had been much occupied by his duties and moreover indisposed with a painful paroxism of the gout. This and other such balderdash which I could nowise credit comprised the tedious preamble to his suit. At length, howsoever, coming to the point in hand, he alluded to his master’s illness, enlarging no further upon this subject save to say that his Lordship’s skin and tongue had worsened and that again he needed teeth.

      
Alas, had this not been the freezing cold of winter, I could full readily have answered this request. But now the hardness of the earth overmatched my feeble shovel -- and from the ill-conceal’d urgency of this footman’s manner I at once surmized that his master could scarce afford to wait the coming spring. Thus, once again, was I confounded -- quite entirely at a loss how I might ply my trade in this inhospitable season -- until, of a sudden, I again bethought me of poor Asa Stubbs, the late departed night-soil man whose splendid ivories I had brought to the apothecary some nine months past.

      
Poor Stubbs himself, forsooth, had given all he could. Nor, after nine months a-mouldering, would it have elsewise much avail’d to trouble him again. But it was the thought of Stubbs which remembered me, once again, of the piteous sufferings of his family -- and of the wondrous experiments of the admirable Fauchard.

      
Therefore I now told this cringing footman -- who all this mean while waited my response with hat in hand and downward eye -- that indeed full soon I would bring his master teeth. But, I said (and upon this point I was most emphatic) that the consideration I required for my labour was that I would, at long last, secure a place as physician in ordinary to his Lordship’s person. As for this present business, I said, I cared not a fart for a mere few shillings. Nay, this footman himself, by my good leave, should have the whole of it, since now it would content me to have my warm fare and lodgings in his master’s house.

Upon
the morrow morn, which e’en now, these many years later, I recall for its especial bitterness of cold, I was most excellent merry. The ice lay upon the river like a darksome pall, but inwardly I felt the thaw of spring. The long, raw and shivering walk to Half-Moon Alley took me amongst the most wretched sties and dissolute haunts of Lambeth, down stenchful streets o’ercrowded with harlots and fishmongers and crippled beggars, aye, and shabby rogues who would slit a throat for a farthing if they were not o’ercome by cold and drunken idleness -- until at length I did find myself, once again, at the sign of the Blue Hand.

      
Because, as I have told, the coldness of the season had played the very devil with my trade, I had not come by here of late. But in more temperate weather, of a Sunday, ’twas hereabouts, amidst the squalid clamour of these streets, that I made my round of visits to the grievous ill and hopeless poor who, for all my earnest care to succour them, too oft became the sad stuff of my specimens. ’Twas here, indeed, over a mess of porridge at the Blue Hand, that I had first made acquaintance of poor Stubbs. Poor, honest Stubbs must e’en then have been far gone with the canker that was to take him off: but still he had not shirked the foul drudgery of his night-cart, forasmuch as he had a hungry brood to feed and Goody Stubbs to oblige with ample gin. But now I could not dwell on fond remembrance, for the cold wind cut like a butcher’s knife and it behooved me to pay my respects to Mother Stubbs.

      
There being yet another furlong’s walk to Half-Moon alley, I now hastened my step and close wrapped my cloak about me. The better to endure the blowing cold, I fired my imagination with thinking upon the ingenious Italian who had fashion’d a second nose for a gentleman disfigur’d by the pox, and upon the resourceful Dutchman who had patch’d up a man’s skull with the thigh bone of a spaniel, and upon the venturous Frenchman Fauchard who, as gardeners do with cucumbers and lettuces, had transplanted living teeth. These and other such prodigies of surgery (which were the pampered darlings of my study) wondrously warmed my spirits -- until at length, thorough the vapour of my freezing breath, I saw the over-large wheels and copious carriage of a night-man’s cart.

      
The sorry jade which was wont to pull this foul wagon was nowhere to be seen. Yet an abundance of hay and horse-dung rimed with frost bestrew’d the cobbled alley. I knocked and was all but numb with waiting ere a coughing lad of some ten years unlatch’d the stable door.

      
The poor lad startled somewhat, I regret to say, when he first beheld my face. For ’twas he, I now recalled, who had admitted me that evening when I’d been summoned to look to the swelling of the night-man’s tongue. No doubt ’twas the remembrance of this sad event which engendered such alarm -- to soften which I offered him a lump of sugar, such a one as I always kept upon my person whensoever I tendered the unfortunate and sick. The lad now conducted me past the gloom of empty troughs and ruinous stalls and all this while I myself could not chuse but bring to mind how -- not a fortnight since I’d supped with Stubbs -- I’d come this very way and seen him laid so low. But presently the lad unlatch’d another door and at once I saw the piteous lot of them , four -- alas, not five -- figures hunched about a blazing fire.

      
The ragged young ones sported with a mouse upon the sooty hearth. Their Aunt Bessie stirred the pot and Goody Stubbs, her ankles big with dropsy, slumbered in her wicker chair. The pallet whereupon Stubbs had breathed his last was now but a melancholy shrine of wither’d flowers. I doff’d my hat and bethought myself how very brief is life’s travail and prayed that the Almighty, in His mercy and His wisdom, had vouchsafed poor Stubbs the care of angels and an everlasting rest.

      
’Twas Bessie, a good and simple creature -- and, by the by, as tender a piece as ever I set eyes upon -- who first took notice of my unforeseen arrival. I bowed and made bold to speak, but Bessie -- ever one to show concern -- bade me hold my tongue lest the old gammer be awakened from her sleep. Perchance, if the lad had not now most violently coughed again, I might e’en then have stepped back from the precipice of horrific sin on which I stood. But as it was, Goody Stubbs had waken’d up and all the several eyes of this poor family were fixed intentively upon me.

      
I begged their pardon, I said, for intruding upon their sorrow. But I had come to acquaint them of their most blest and singular good fortune. A mighty earl, I said, had -- by dint of my tireless entreaty -- at length granted me his gracious leave to offer their own dear Bessie a service in the scullery of his most honourable and noble household. Thus never again -- with noisome cart and heavy shovel unbefitting the gentle nature of the sex -- need she urge on her brother’s horse and perform the foul and strenuous labours of a night-man. Never again need this young lad and these two babes -- fair and innocent charges whom the cruelty of fate had entrusted to her care -- play at dismal games in filthy rags or go hungry to their beds for want of milk. Thus and much more I said -- a speech so evidently grateful to these poor creatures that, following upon its delivery, I gladden’d much to see their joyous faces.

      
How, then, did it grieve me to bear the woeful tidings that, in order to open up this wondrous prospect of employment, it would, lamentably, be needful to draw out all of Bessie’s teeth. Alas, the joy which, but a moment ere this, had animated the faces of this pitiable family had now given place to dole and horror. And yet, but another moment thereafter, this very same dolorous dismay had itself been succeeded by a turmoil of conflicting sentiments. Bessie, to be sure, remained steadfast in her demeanour of chagrined horror. But Goody Stubbs, doubtless thinking only of her family and fearful that they might lose so capital a boon, gan now, most vehemently, to chide poor Bessie for ungenerous reluctance.

      
Things, indeed, had now come to so unfortunate a pass -- with accusations and tears and sad recriminations -- that presently, once again, I begged their leave to speak. I regretted, I said, such discord and abominated the very thought of Bessie’s least discomfort. But was it wise to refuse the gifts of Providence and to cast off prudent reason? Albeit, I agreed, the forfeit of Bessie’s teeth was much to be deplored, how much worse, I feared, would be the dark and certain fate that would befall her loved ones if she failed them. For I grievously misdoubted that these twin babes, charming lasses in whom beauty’s rose was now yet in the bud, should far too soon, for want of bread, be reduced to beggary or thievery -- or else to pox’d and ceaseless harlotry. And what of this young lad -- ill and troublesomely pale? As if it were not calamity enough that he had lost his dearest kin to death, was it not pitiably clear that, without a sufficiency of food and a cloak to warm his ailing frame, he full soon would follow after? Nor was this old and venerable matron the less to be lamented. With the loss of so many cherished friends behind her and nought else but the horrors of the grave ahead, how would she face her hastening decease without the small and harmless comforts of old age?

      
No sooner had I ceased from speaking, than Bessie gan to sob most violently and -- in a manner so affecting that I as well could not forbear to weep -- to clasp her tearful embrace round the necks of her fond and hapless family. For rather than desert them to a miserable futurity -- against which, in good conscience, I could not have chosen but to warn her -- she now had quite resolv’d to sacrifice her teeth.

And
so it befell that evening, when again I betook me to my lodgings, that his Lordship’s footman paid his cringing court to me and yielded to my terms. At the very first, to be sure, the damned rogue had the temerity to say that he had as lief draw Bessie’s teeth himself. But since I required still some surety for our bargain, I told him that only I, by his good leave, would be the lady’s surgeon -- and that, by the by, I had promised her a service as a scullion.

      
Thus it was, upon the morrow, in the biting cold of ruddy dawn, that Bessie bade farewell to her beloved and unfortunate relations. How well do I recall that piteous parting: Goody Stubbs plied Bessie with no end of out-worn garments; the clinging babes, meseemed, would never leave off howling; and all this while Bessie wept, the sharp wind blew, and a coach and four -- by reason that his Lordship’s teeth required no less worthy a conveyance -- awaited next their door-stead upon the icy cobbles. But at long last the urchins waved their soil’d handkerchiefs, Simkyn Potter cracked the whip and the black stallions clattered off.

      
The sun, I shall ever remember, arose in blazing glory o’er the house-tops of the waking city. Never had St. Paul’s seemed so splendid in the morning light. As we wheel’d along past the silken beaux and fine ladies at Whitehall and on St. James Square, how should I then have known that amongst such persons of quality as these I full soon would play my part? For from this happy event, indeed, I date all the prosperity and honours of my later life. How then did I praise the Almighty and rejoice that, through His Mercy, I had likewise prevailed to secure my misfortunate companion a place in his Lordship’s household -- albeit, regrettably, it would needs be among the very most wretched sort whose charge it was to scrub the floors, launder the linen and attend to the cleanliness of the chamber-stool. But for what small good I had accomplished I had no need of thanks: the fullness of my heart was recompense enough. And when, sooth to say, I coach’d betwixt those iron gates that had so long been closed and I beheld at last those lofty columns and that massive portal -- and what effect this sudden elegancy had upon my fair companion -- I confess that I myself shed tears of joy to be the humble cause of such o’erflowing happiness.