MASQUES OF SATAN (15 page)

‘After a fashion, Mr Jones. In a sense. I understand you have in the past undertaken translation work?’

Jones was downcast. He had done translations in the past. His
Memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini
had sold extremely well, though he himself had seen few of the profits. But this was hack work and he thought he had done with it.

‘I did some work at one time, from the Italian and the French. I now concentrate on my own writing.’

‘Quite so. Quite so,’ said Mr Honeyburn with a smile in which Jones thought he could detect mockery. ‘However,’ he continued, taking out a large lawn handkerchief with which to wipe his lips, and perhaps, in addition, to conceal their cynical curve from Jones. ‘If the work were specialised and the rewards were commensurate, you might consider such an undertaking?’

Jones, who had recovered his composure, asked Mr Honeyburn precisely what he meant.

‘My little firm,’ said Mr Honeyburn, ‘is called the Savoy Press. We specialise in limited editions of unusual — you might say curious — works for a very select clientele. Handsomely bound, printed on the very finest paper, illustrated by the most distinguished black-and-white artists. These are editions designed to grace the library of the connoisseur, you understand.’ Jones nodded, for he did understand. ‘If I were to ask you in the first place to take a look at a work, merely to give me your opinion upon it. There would be a fee of — shall we say? — ten guineas. Then, if you were to decide to undertake the work, a further advance of twenty? Would that suit, Mr Jones?’

Without waiting for a reply Mr Honeyburn took a bundle of papers from the capacious inside pocket of his Inverness cape and presented it to Jones. It was a manuscript written in a modern hand and it was French. Jones glanced at the title:

L’école des filles, ou Le châtiment de Vénus

‘Copied by hand from a rare book,’ said Mr Honeyburn. ‘The owner was unwilling to allow the original out of his possession.’

Jones looked at the papers while Mr Honeyburn counted out ten guineas and placed them on the table in a shaft of sunlight where they dazzled the eye.

‘No obligation, you understand,’ said Mr Honeyburn as he rose to take his leave. ‘I wish you a very good day, Mr Jones.’

When Mary came home from her mother’s with Sophie, they were able to send out for food from a nearby Italian restaurant; and Mrs Crace’s rent was paid in full.

* * * * *

The following afternoon a messenger boy called with the twenty guineas and a note from Mr Honeyburn which read: ‘Herewith the advance, as promised, for your translation of
L’école des filles
. A further ten awaits if you can complete the work inside a week.’ Jones accepted the twenty guineas but with misgivings, because Mr Honeyburn had so arrogantly assumed that he would accept the assignment.

Jones worked rapidly, not only for the ten guineas, but because he wanted to have done with it.
L’école des filles
was, thankfully, a short piece and no worse than countless other works that Jones had encountered on the private shelves of so-called ‘connoisseurs’. All the same, Jones took great care to ensure that Mary should not see what he was writing.

At the end of the week the same messenger boy called again to take his manuscript away. He had come with a purse containing thirty guineas and a note from Mr Honeyburn which read: ‘The additional twenty is the advance for an Englishing of the work my boy will now give you.’

As Jones looked up from reading the note he saw that the messenger boy was holding out a parcel to him. For the first time Jones scrutinised him closely. The ‘boy’ was a little over five feet tall, and it was difficult to tell his age, he might have been anything between twelve and twenty: the features were young, but the expression was old, somewhat weary and wasted. His body seemed stunted and twisted out of true, like a tree that has been forced to grow between rocks on poor soil. Jones took the parcel from him and thanked him, at which the boy turned to go — but Jones stopped him.

‘Wait! I haven’t decided to take this yet,’ said Jones with what he knew to be a meaningless gesture of resistance.

The manuscript in the parcel was another transcription in the same modern hand as
L’école des filles
. On the title page had been written:

Amélie, ou Les cent caresses du Charnier

par L’Abbé Boullan

‘Amélie, or The One Hundred Caresses of the Charnel House.’ What horror was this? Nevertheless Jones dismissed the boy and kept the manuscript. In a short while he had become used to being able to buy his wife and child pretty things, and was looking forward to entertaining some old friends at Romano’s or the Caf… Royal; so he put the guineas into his pocket and stuffed the manuscript into the drawer of his writing table. He would work on it when he could be sure of being undisturbed, at night, with only the maundering cries of drunken wasters in the court below for company.

The translation took longer than he expected because of the irregular hours at which he undertook the task, and because the manuscript itself was a vile thing. He read in it what he had never read before and hoped would never read again, but he persisted. He was keeping his wife and child from poverty, and he hoped thereafter that Mr Honeyburn would reward him with some more congenial occupation for his talents.

A fortnight passed before, one afternoon, Mr Honeyburn’s boy came to collect the manuscript. Jones, who had been spending rather freely over the last few days was looking forward to further remuneration, but the boy had no message from his master and no more money for him. Jones was enraged: the demeaning drudgery of the last few days had made him feel entitled to at least a further ten guineas. With a great show of indignation he refused to let the minion have the manuscript. The boy was at first utterly bewildered: his mean hollow-eyed face looked aghast. Jones was beginning to feel pleased with himself when he saw the boy’s face change into a mask of malignant hatred. The imp hissed and spat, then fled.

Jones was horrified by what had happened, and for the rest of the day lapsed into gloom and torpor, afraid now that Mr Honeyburn might pay him another visit. He railed against the fate which compelled him to do such miserable work, simply to feed his wife and child, and he thought again of Jocelyn Slade. Somehow Slade was responsible for his situation, Slade and a world which valued dross before beauty.

The following morning he remembered that Mr Honeyburn had given him his business card. 7A, Lupton Court, Gray’s Inn Square was the address printed upon it, and Jones resolved to make his way there to confront his paymaster. What he would say to him he did not know, but he felt that an encounter would relieve a pressure on his mind which had been mounting for some days.

It was hard to find, for Lupton Court, now long vanished, was in a tiny alleyway off Gray’s Inn Square. It had been built in the early 1700s of dark red brick and its ancient pedimented doorway of worn limestone was slightly crooked, as if it had been pushed out of alignment by a careless giant in the distant past and never put right. Mr Honeyburn’s chambers were on the first floor, to which an ancient porter who had answered the front door showed him. As soon as he had directed Jones to the landing and the door marked 7A in black paint, the old man shuffled off down the stairs with surprising speed.

Jones hesitated at Mr Honeyburn’s door. He listened for the reassuring sound of activity within, but heard nothing, so he knocked.

The voice of Mr Honeyburn bade him come in, and he entered a large room, panelled in ancient wood, with an elaborate plaster ceiling now yellow with age. Mr Honeyburn sat at a desk facing the door, but otherwise the room was sparely furnished, the only bright colours emanating from the Turkish rug on the dark wooden floor.

There were books everywhere: crammed on to sagging shelves, piled into little columns on the floor like the exposed brick supports of a Roman hypocaust, leaning drunkenly against each other in the window seats, sprawling over the papers on Mr Honeyburn’s desk.

Apart from the books there were no signs of the normal activities of a publishing house. The proprietor of the Savoy Press seemed to be there alone, operating his business without assistance. He sat quite still behind his desk staring at Jones who stared back.

‘Sit down, Mr Jones,’ said Mr Honeyburn at length. ‘What have you come for?’

Jones produced the manuscript of his translation of
Amélie, ou Les cent caresses du charnier
and muttered something about having come for his money.

‘Do you consider your fee to have been inadequate, Mr Jones?’

Jones made no reply. Mr Honeyburn waved him to the one chair which was not occupied by books; Jones sat down and, for want of anything better to do, looked about him.

‘It is an interesting place, don’t you think, Mr Jones?’ said Mr Honeyburn with sudden geniality. ‘These stones, you know, are steeped in history. Some years back the remains of a Mithraic temple were found when they were digging out the cellars of this very building. Remarkable, don’t you think? Now tell me how I can be of assistance to you. What is it that you want?’ Mr Honeyburn leaned his elbows on the table, put his finger tips together and looked at Jones steadily over the top of them. It was a gesture which reminded Jones of his father when he was trying to extract a confession from him. An atavistic urge compelled him to respond by laying bare the most secret desires of his heart.

‘I want to work,’ said Jones, ‘and to profit from my work.’

‘Then what is preventing you?’ said Mr Honeyburn.

So Jones told him how hard he had worked, how gifted he was and how little he was appreciated. He told him about the bad luck he had endured, and about the folly of reviewers and publishers in ignoring his claims on their attention. He told Mr Honeyburn also, though he had not intended to, about Jocelyn Slade, their rivalry, and Slade’s infernal, unmerited good luck. Mr Honeyburn nodded several times and leaned back in his chair as if preparing to deliver a homily. Once more Jones was reminded of his late father.

‘My dear Mr Jones,’ said Mr. Honeyburn, ‘you must know that there are people in this world to whom we are secretly bound, as if by a silver cord. If those two people so bound are in harmony, then that silver cord may be a source of strength to them both, but if not, then one will draw strength from the other — it may be unconsciously — so that the other fails and withers. This Jocelyn Slade is clearly your own particular nemesis. When such a creature is found out there is only one thing to do.’

‘What is that?’

‘The cord must be severed.’

‘But how?’

Mr Honeyburn smiled, took out his gold watch, glanced at it, and returned it to his waistcoat, then he rose and went to a small, brass-bound mahogany cabinet that was resting on a side table. He unlocked it with a key on his watch chain, and from it removed a bundle of papers tied with ribbon.

‘See what you can make of this, but take care! It is an original manuscript, probably the only one in existence.’

The paper was good but ancient and yellowing. The writing on it, in faded sepia ink, was in a refined late eighteenth century hand. On the first page was written:

Le couvent d’Astaroth, ou Les malheurs de l’innocence

par D. A. F. Marquis de S.

As Jones speculated on his coming ordeal with ‘The Convent of Astaroth, or the Misfortunes of Innocence’, Mr Honeyburn was putting twenty gold sovereigns into a leather purse for him. He said: ‘Twenty more if you finish by the end of the month. Do not seek me out again. I will send word to arrange a meeting.’ Jones, with a pious thought for Mary and the child, took the purse, the manuscript, and his leave of Mr Honeyburn.

Le couvent d’Astaroth
proved to be worse even than
Amélie, ou Les cent caresses du Charnier
. 
Amélie
, it was true, detailed more and fouler incidents, but
Le couvent d’Astaroth
presented itself as a work of philosophy. In between recounting acts of unspeakable cruelty, it set out a creed so vile and heartless that Jones had to force his pen to render it into clear English. Every instinct recoiled at the refined barbarism in which it luxuriated; at the same time Jones found himself bored by the self-opinionated prosing of the author, who evidently thought himself a Rousseau or a Voltaire. Jones did not persevere with it simply for the jingle of sovereigns in his pocket, but out of an obscure sense of destiny. When he had completed the work he knew he would be sent for, at which time something would happen to change his situation. And so it was that, a few days after he had finished the translation, a telegram came from Mr Honeyburn asking him to meet him in his chambers in Lupton Court at eleven o’clock that night.