The Blooding of Jack Absolute (12 page)

This groan came louder through the folds. This high the cave had become darker, and there was little air. It made him giddy,
the lack of it, and what there was so rich and dense. The undergarments ahead of him were, of course, not joined, something
else he had not known before he’d embarked on that first exploration the week before. Thus he only had to part the fold of
these smaller shifts which he did with gentle fingers. His palms spread to the side, pushing out the thighs just a little,
before his face pushed forward once again. He was nearly there, nearly drunk with the closeness and the glorious, now brandied,
musk of this place. Turning his head to the side, he nipped, very gently, that last fragrant inch of flesh then reached forward
…

He was nearly knocked backwards. Fanny had suddenly pushed off the edge of the table. As it was unlike her to rush so, he
was just about to mention it when the near darkness became complete, with the concertinaed hoops suddenly unfurling again
and the swathes of material dropping to the floor. She had stood up and he was crouched inside the tent of her gown.

‘Fanny! What …’ he gasped and then received a blow to his head through the silk that made him wince. But he didn’t attempt
to speak again, halted, not by the pain nor even the lack of air, but by heavy footsteps.

‘That idiot Carthew chose today of all days to have a stroke.’
Lord Melbury’s voice was trained to overcome the protests of the Opposition raised in the House. It easily pierced the layers
of cotton and silk.

He could not move. He was frozen there, on his knees, his arms now dropped and held to his side while Fanny pressed on him
from above. Glancing down, in the little light that spilled under the fringe of her dress, Jack could see that she was standing
on her toes. Scrunching his neck allowed her to at least settle. But she was still, essentially, sitting on his head.

‘Ah, my dear … I … I … am so delighted to see you.’

‘Yes, well, I cannot stay long. Lord Wolvermere’s backbone needs stiffening over supper. Infernal idiot wants to back down
on the Naval requisitions. I must away to White’s in … one hour. Plenty of time. Hallo, what’s this?’

Jack’s own backbone stiffened. He saw the shadow of feet moving past Fanny’s and he prepared for discovery.

‘Pot and Pineapple peaches! Did I send you these?’

‘You did, my love, ever thoughtful.’ Jack marvelled at the calm in Fanny’s voice. She was quite still above him, had not moved
since she settled.

There came the sound of slurping. ‘And I have excellent taste. Marvellous things. Uses good brandy rather than bad, that’s
the key.’ There was a pause while more peaches disappeared noisily. Then he said, ‘Why are you standing there like that, Fanny?’

‘Why? I … I thought I might recite to you.’

‘Recite? I had something rather different in mind. No time, d’ye see?’

‘Oh, only a short poem. I wrote it for you. Thought it might, uh, stimulate you. Knowing your love of such verse.’

‘Ah?’ The salacious tone of the monosyllable was clear. ‘Well, why not then? Long as it’s not too lengthy, eh?’

‘Sit, my dear. Sit.’

Jack felt Lord Melbury moving away. He had met him on several occasions as he was a great man of the theatre and patronized
a stable of playwrights as others might own
racehorses. Lady Jane had once been favoured until she failed to acknowledge the patronage with something other than words.
He was a big man, but nimble with it. He was also renowned as one of the best pistol shots in England. A thought that made
Jack freeze even more despite the growing pain in his legs and neck.

The sofa squeaked as His Lordship sat. ‘Very well. You may begin.’

Jack wondered what she was going to do. Recite something? She had been an actress after all. Or extemporize? She certainly
had the wit. But what she did do, Jack had not expected. For she suddenly leaned away from him as if reaching back, then straightened
again. Her voice, when it came, was quite clear.

‘“On a Religious Conversion by Candlelight,”’ she announced.

Jack’s first thought was … Plagiarism, by God! The damned woman had claimed this as her creation! Then, as she began to read,
he had two other distinct feelings. One at his groin, which had never really gone away since he’d woken up. And the other
higher up, in his throat.

Jack began to giggle. What was the woman playing at? He hadn’t written an epic poem but a sonnet. Sixteen lines, no matter
how slowly she took them. Sixteen and then Lord Melbury would seek the place that Jack had been denied by this interruption,
no doubt further inflamed by the sentiments he’d so skilfully rendered into verse. The more he tried to stop the giggles –
and he could tell by the poem’s increased volume that they were audible – the more they came.

Her rendition of the poem had become positively dirgelike.

‘Pick it up, girl, for Christ’s sake, I do have a supper appointment,’ came a bellow from the room.

Absurdity was mastering him. Air was scant enough in his cave and he was trying not to breathe too much as he feared it was
fuel to his laughter. He feared he was going to fall or faint.
He assumed she must have a plan for the sonnet’s end. He needed to stay conscious long enough to react to it.

The poem ended. Lord Melbury clapped. ‘Bravo, my dear, bravo. Exquisite sentiments, beautifully expressed. And you were quite
right as to their … effect.’ The floorboards creaked as he stood. ‘And now …’

It was then Fanny screamed. ‘Ahhh! What is that?’

‘Damn, what? Where?’

‘There, my Lord. There on the wall
behind you!’

The emphasis on the words was an unmistakable hint. And as she said them, the hoops were ratcheted up and Jack was exposed
to the light. He saw that his Lordship had taken the bait, half-turned away. The window was open. He made to rise …

And fell. The cerise stockings, which had slid down, had somehow become entangled around his ankles. Jack thumped onto the
carpet.

Lord Melbury turned. His face, which had often been likened to a fish in the broadsheets’ caricatures, took on an aspect of
salmon now, lower jaw dropping to his chest. Jack, half in and half out of the dress, smiled up. He couldn’t think of anything
to say. No one could, for what seemed like minutes but couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. Then everyone talked, or
shouted at once.

‘Young Absolute!’

‘My Lord.’

‘Of course, I can explain …’

But, of course, she couldn’t. Fanny had been a fair actress in her day but Peg Woffington could not have got away with this
one. Lord Melbury started forward, his face dangerously mottled and his large hands clenching and unclenching.

‘You puppy! By God, I’ll … I’ll …’

Fanny stooped, whipped her stockings away from Jack’s ankles. ‘Go,’ she hissed. ‘Go!’

Jack needed no further urging. He scrambled to the window, was through it and over the balustrade in a moment.
The vine provided handholds, though he eschewed nearly all of them, sliding most of the way to the ground. He exited as he
had entered; though now, as he ran down the garden, a furious voice followed him.

‘I know you, whelp, you and your mongrel family. And you will pay for this! By God, you will pay!’

‘… and let all ye who know, live with that knowledge in fear, for we – Wolf and Bear and Snake and Hawk – do this day, the
twenty-eighth of April in the year seventeen hundred and fifty-nine, declare the Ancient Order of Mohocks, that terror of
the London Streets in the reign of our late White Mother Queen Anne, to be revived.’

‘Ah-ha-ah-ha-HA-HA-HA!’

Marks’s deep voice soared. ‘We shall be as wild as our forebears who stalked from the Garden to the Mall. And we shall honour
those savages who dwell in the forests of our Colonies whose name we take.’

‘Mohocks!’ came the cry.

‘How shall we honour them, Bear?’ Jack shouted.

‘By performing their savage rites, Wolf,’ Marks replied.

‘Name them!’ Fenby and Ede – Hawk and Snake – called.

‘Rite One,’ Marks continued, ‘is already accomplished: “Purging in the Sweat Lodge.”’

That had been Marks’s idea. They had chosen the Old Hummum Hotel on the Little Piazza of the Garden to sweat, drink sherbets.
They had stayed a long while – the faces of three of them still testifying to the fact – before repairing to the room set
aside for them a cobble-stone’s throw away across the Great Piazza at the Shakespeare’s Head tavern. Jack and Marks
glowed a deep scarlet, while Fenby was forced continuously to take off his glasses and wipe away the steam. Only the Honourable
Ede had returned to his normal pallid hue. Nothing affected his porcelain countenance for long.

‘Rite Two: “Feast upon the turtle.”’

Fenby came up with that one. No one prepared turtle soup like John Twigg at the Shakespeare’s Head and they eagerly awaited
his entrance now.

‘Rites Three, Four and Five: the Stalking of the Squaws in the ancient hunting grounds of Soho; the trapping of the same and
then—’

The climaxing rite remained undeclared, due to the sudden opening of the door and the admittance of all the noise of the crowded
tavern. Each looked eagerly to what they hoped would be a soup tureen. But the hand of the man who entered was filled with
nothing bulkier than a slim book, bound in finest calico.

‘Gentlemen,’ the man croaked, ‘I think I have here all your hearts – and your loins – could ever crave.’

Jack stood, pulled out a chair. ‘Mr Harris, would you care to join us in a cup?’

‘Too kind.’ The voice near a whisper, the head inclined, he slid into the proffered seat. It was always a confused area of
etiquette where this man was concerned. He was, after all, the head waiter here; but he was also one of the true powers of
the Piazza and thus of London. He claimed to be an Old Westminster, his word on it never challenged, certainly not by Jack
and his friends who benefited so much from the association. The Shakespeare’s Head was one of the most popular of taverns,
yet Harris always found them a room – for the sake of the Old School.

‘Some ale, Mr Harris?’

A thin, white hand was raised palm out before the face. ‘No ale, indeed. When one is a martyr to the Stones, as I am, one
watches one’s volume. But I have taken delivery of a fine Armagnac, if you gentlemen …’

Ede gasped, for he was especially fond of such distillations and Harris was known for smuggling in only the best from the
country with which England had been at war for three years. But Jack interposed. ‘No hard liquors, thank’ee, sir. As you know,
we need clarity for what is ahead.’

‘Ah, yes, the Initiation.’ The way the word was breathed out between scabrous lips made Jack shudder slightly. He had no doubt
as to the cause of Harris’s ‘martyrdom’ for his so-pale face was studded with eruptions that the thick, rouged powder only
highlighted, the visual expression of an internal malady. The man was plainly poxed; which, given his honorific title – ‘Pimpmaster
General of London’ – was scarce surprising. It reminded Jack to sift all advice given; for if Harris had been before, he wanted
none of his Mohocks to follow after.

‘Yet do not let us stop you.’ Jack signalled to a boy servant in the doorway. ‘A glass of Armagnac for Mr Harris and more
…’ He indicated the empty jugs.

‘You are kind. Yet I cannot stay long. Tonight, in the Burbage Room, there is a gathering of the Senior “Cyprians” and they
will demand my attendance.’

All there knew to what he referred, for Harris hosted a weekly meeting of the top whores where all ‘matters pertaining’ would
be discussed, interlopers dealt with, gentlemen with bizarre requests found a willing partner for a suitably high fee. A fee
from which Harris would take a considerable cut.

‘An opp … opp … opportunity, Jack,’ declared Fenby. ‘We can accomplish Rites Three, Four and Five under one roof. As if we
were at F … Fortnum and Mason’s.’ He gave a nervous laugh.

‘Oh, gentlemen,’ breathed Harris. ‘The Cats next door would not serve your purposes so well. They are … venerable, to say
the least. And Peep o’ Day Boys such as yourselves deserve something more … succulent. Some fresh tit up from the country,
eh? Eh?’

The young servant returned with the porter and Armagnac. The latter was raised while ale was swiftly poured out.
‘Gentlemen,’ said Harris, regarding them fondly over the lip of crystal. ‘To the Night of the Mohock.’

‘Mohock!’ came the cry as bumpers were swiftly drained, then banged upon the wood.

Harris set his down gently, rose. As he did, he pushed the book toward Jack. ‘This is fresh from Digby’s Press in St Paul’s
Churchyard. I will leave you to its perusal. I have taken the liberty of marking, in red, certain entries. I have not got
out to visit them myself, alas, given my recent struggle with the Quacks. But my diligent scouts tell me those indicated are
the cream of a very fine crop. The cost of the book will, of course, be added to your bill. Gentlemen.’ With a bow, he was
gone, passing another servant in the door who entered with the turtle soup.

As Marks ladled from the tureen, Jack lifted the book, and despite his eagerness, opened it carefully, spreading out the pages
from the centre so as not to break the spine. The volume was worth the care, Digby’s the finest printer in London. After all,
only the best would do for
Harris’s List of Ladies,
the
sine qua non
of Whores’ Directories, in which Fanny had once appeared.

With the book in one hand, Jack slurped as he studied the listings. Each entry bore at least an initial, though a name often
followed the Miss or Mrs. A price range was given, set sometimes by duration, sometimes by peccadillo or speciality. Yet the
body of the text was reserved for the delights on offer, delineated in the purplest of prose which seemed to prove that its
author, ‘John Harris, Esquire’, had indeed had a classical education.

They had decided that each would choose for another and drawn their victim’s name from a hat. Jack had got Fenby and he swiftly
found the perfect entry. He took pity on his friend’s nerves by selecting someone who was not so old or experienced that she
would terrify the little fellow. But she also had attributes that would turn the encounter into a good story.