This is a one of the Gresham lectures. It is by Bob Clarke who wrote a book called From Grub Street to Fleet Street, he is a little slow to start but once he gets into it he is very entertaining.
Wednesday 26 June 2013
Tuesday 25 June 2013
Polly Gold
An introduction to the chief female protagonist of Odes to the Big City, Polly Gold. A Votary of Venus residing near Covent Garden and one of the only characters with any common sense. This is here introduction (which interrupts a scene where the main character, Sidney is suffering from food poisoning).
Drawings provided by my mysterious Cecil Court Scribbler.
"As much as it may halt our proceedings to tear ourselves away from the scene at hand to focus on the appearance of Polly Gold, I feel that it is necessary. In a chapter such as this that deals with such ugly and malodorous events, it may be pleasant for our reader to take a little time to enjoy the beauty who has just entered our scene. Polly Gold was lithe and willowy, of unusual tallness so that she stood a good few inches above our hero. Her head was crowned with hair that fully complemented her name for it was not just a yellow or blonde but was tinted with a reddish hue that meant that it was truly gold. Her eyes were blue; soft, expressive and quick to smile. She was such as person that smiled in her eyes with more frequency than she smiled with her mouth. She was not just a beauty but beauty itself radiated out of her like the Sun, a common comparison but one that perfectly described the effect she had. It wasn’t just that she was lovely, it was that she conveyed lovliness on all the things she touched and lightened the air of all she stood near. So, as our dear reader imagines the events ahead, they can imagine it with a touch more beauty than they otherwise would have, even this one."
Saturday 22 June 2013
The Conclusion of the Ornamental Hermit's Tale
The first six months were the most difficult; I was constantly hungry, I was continually cold, the fires of my lust raged like the Inferno and my body underwent the pains and rigours of clearing itself of all the gin I had consumed. It was the first night as I lay shivering under my rags that I realised that not all my shaking was due to the cold. I thought about gin, the warmth that fills the belly, that fire that fills the soul and I yearned. Never have I yearned so. I needed it to warm me up, to raise my spirits, to make me forget where I was. All I could think as I twitched and quivered was gin. Gin, gin, gin, gin, gin.
The morning arrived, the birds sang and the sun began to warm the shady woods but I didn’t care, I lay and thought of gin. I sensed someone coming towards my hermitage but I didn’t open my eyes. I heard the thunk of a clay jug and plate being set down by me but I still could do nothing but shake and think of gin. I remembered all the times of spinning sickness followed by oblivion, times that I had regarded as the lowest in my life but were now elevated to something rich and heavenly. I may have lost my senses, I may have puked and pissed all over my garrett but I had that garrett to myself and I had gin. In the hermitage, I wasn’t even permitted to mew quietly to myself.
It was midday or so when I could open my eyes. I still quivered and my head felt like a weight upon my neck but I could focus enough to pour the water down my throat in one long stream. I then managed to chew a few bites of bread enough to squeeze them down my throat before laying back on my rags and twitching.
The sun was lowering when I saw the most incredible sight. Moving gracefully through the woods towards me was a pair of unicorn. I looked again, willing the unicorn to be horses. They were the size of a Shire Horse but sleek as Darley’s Arabian. Their muscles pumped under their skins which lightly covered legs of enormous power but their skins were not those of a horse, they shone. It was not the brash shining of a footlight, or the overwhelming glare of lightning, they glowed the way the pearls on the rich ladies used to glow when a candle lit them. Nor could I ignore the fact that the creatures had horns. Those horns started in the middle of their forehead and came out a length that was almost as long as their bodies; they started thick but spiraled off into a fine, sharp point, at once as gentle as a baby’s fingernail but dangerous as a sabre. These were not horses however hard I tried, they were unicorn and as I listened closely, I could hear them speaking.
“This isn’t what an Ornamental Hermit is supposed to do is it?”
“Perhaps not, but I’ve been watching him for days, he’s been very entertaining. Much better than Sir Tanghall’s hermit, his just sits and mopes and the Duke of Arbury’s keeps going to the public house.”
“I think your think your man might have known the inside of a few of those, I’ve seen men like this before at the prison.”
“You have? I thought it was some sort of religious thing.”
“No sir, nothing of that sort.”
“It’s nothing to me anyhow. I paid to be entertained and I have been, though I must confess myself a little disappointed to find he was not in religious ecstasy.” The unicorn turned to go and I want to call out to them to help, I want to shout in my pain and agony but even in my weak state I am fearful of somebody watching me and telling.
It was a week after I saw the unicorns that I woke up feeling clearer then I have ever before, as fresh as a new spring morning but also more hungry than I can ever remember. I went over to the lake and splashed water over myself, clearing the corners of my eyes and wetting my face. Then I returned to my hermitage and sat with my Bible and read until Mary came with my regulation of food and water. I heard her crashing through the bushes before I saw her and when I did, she was beautiful. She looked fresh, fresher than a new spring morning, fresher than I swim in the Bath Spas, fresher even than Eve on that first morning. My pleasure was increased by the bowl of food she was carrying and the jug of water.
“You are not smiling are you Mr Hermit?” she teased, “because a smile is a form of communication you know.” I knew very well and that an eye could say ten thousand words and I knew that my cock was also communicating strongly but I tried to take the happy expression off my face and resume my neutral, hermitlike and thoughtful one. “You have much reason to be happy,” she said. “You look extremely well.” She set down the crockery, nodded politely and walked back off. The food consisted of leftovers, but good leftovers; good bread and even a little beef. I ate heartily, biting large and chewing little, whilst reading about John the Baptist in the desert and thanking God that I did not have to live on a diet of locusts and honey.
I had the most pleasant morning imaginable but as midday and then late afternoon approached, I felt a hunger that grew into a profound ache. As I had once longed for gin, now I longed for food and I decided that it was time to properly explore my new abode and, if possible, find something to defeat my roaring hunger. I spent the morning collecting mushrooms and eating almost ripe plums and waiting for my improvised coney trap. It was long after evening when I finally caught one and I carried it and my mushrooms home in triumph where I cooked them over the fire and cooked the mushrooms with the rabbit. I sat full and happy and returned to my Bible, which I had decided to read straight through.
Mary woke me the next morning by prodding me with her foot, I looked up at her healthy face but noticed her empty arms.
“Master has told me to inform you that if you do decide to live off the land, you shall get no more vittles from the kitchen.” She walked off, leaving me with no food or drink to look forward to till the next day. I spent that day hungry, as I spent every day since, rationing out my food and drink to last me through and concentrating instead on my reading and pondering. Although I didn’t know any Latin, I read those books also, guessing at sense and meaning as close as I could but coming up gibberish. Thus did I spend my years.
After the novelty of my being had vanished I lived the next few years like a stray dog permitted to live in my little part of the grounds. Most people who saw me now, saw nothing more than a scraggled cur; the rich sneered at how I had sold my humanity and the servants resented the fortune I would later receive as money for nothing.
I grew to live like a dog also. Flies and insects that took up residence in my beard and hair constantly pestered me but I was too weary of life to wash them out. I regularly patrolled the area in which I was allowed, urinating on trees to bushes to keep the foxes out. Although I lived like a dog, I did not grow cynical, instead I fell in love.
Mary was assigned to bring my food to me every morning. Each night as I went to bed I would have difficulties sleeping before falling into dreams filled with her face, nightmares where I spoke and spoke but she could not hear me. When I awoke with the birds, I lay with my eyes shut, waiting for her to knock on my table, a needlessly polite gesture for a man who’s abode only had three walls. Those meetings in real life were worse than the ones in my dreams, in my dreams she simply could not here me but in reality I was unable even to speak. I considered talking to her, if not speaking I considered scratching a message on the mud floor of my hovel but I knew I would not be able. If I broke the first commandment of my hermitage then the years I had spent alone, hungry and worthless would have no purpose or benefit.
I had a plan, or as close to a plan as my increasingly addled mind would allow. I had been counting the days internally and knew when my contract would be finished. I would stand, I would take Mary’s hand in mine, declare that I was now the owner of five-hundred pounds, that I could shave and wash and wear fine clothes and that I would like nothing better than for her to join me as a wife. We could set ourselves up in comfort and the thoughts I had been thinking all those years could provide enough copy as would maintain our wealth. I would eschew acting, gin and all wrongdoing and we could live a rich and virtuous life together.
When the day arrived, Mary was late with my food. At first I was concerned until I reasoned it out that as my contract was over, I would no longer be given the scraps from the table. I stood up, creaking with vastly aged bones and walked through the brambles and bushes and back into the formal garden I had hardly seen in the time of my incarceration. I walked confidently as I could on my overgrown toenails, frightening the gardeners and causing everyone to run from me. I opened the back door of the house and followed the sound of breakfast where I found Lord Broadfield and his family being served by Cullins the footman, Mary and other staff I had never seen. There was the sound of dropped silver knives as I entered and all mouths were agape.
“Lord Broadfield,” I said, my voice sounding cracked and foreign. “I have served my time as you have requested. I have pondered and considered as requested and I have read the Bible umpteen times through, I request my reward, the occasion to bathe and smarten myself up and the loan of some clothes. I also request Mary’s hand in marriage, so we can live like gentlefolk on my five-hundred pounds.” I bowed a low bow to Lord Broadfield who tipped his head to me.
“Cullin’s, who is this fellow again?” he said.
“Your ornamental hermit, my Lord.”
“Oh yes, I remember, dirty man in the garden. Do you remember this agreement I had with him?”
“Yes, my Lord, were he to stay in silent hermitage for five years he would be given five-hundred pounds.”
“Oh yes. I remember, it was on April the 15th, I had won that tremendous bet on the fly racing. What is the day today?”
“April the 14th, my Lord.”
“April the 14th? So it has not indeed been five years then?”
“No, my Lord.”
“Well, what provisions were I to take if he failed his task?”
“You were to through him out as he stood.”
“Have it done.”
“With pleasure, my Lord.”
So I was cast out of the house, filthy and in nothing but my hessian sacks, left to shout my message to any that will hear me. Cold and alone, an ornamental hermit on the steps of St Paul’s in Covent Garden
HERE ENDS THE HERMIT’S STORY.
Wednesday 19 June 2013
The Ornamental Hermit's Tale Continues
As much as I had pretended to gentility and counterfeited its like upon the stage; nothing could have prepared me for the inside of White’s Chocolate House. The hushed tones of subservient lackeys contrasted with the ring of privileged laughter and combined with the clinking of chocolate equipage created a fog of sound. The smell of warm chocolate was so thick and heavy that I felt I could have forgone all meat and lived off that vapour alone.
I was led, pushing my way through clumps of chairs and around tables, to a fine, old skeleton with an inquisitive, protruding nose that thrust upwards as if it owned the sky yet brought down to earth by a brown ring around the nostril of expensive, finely-ground snuff. He wore a fine wig, curled and powdered, looking like a fat contented ewe on the promontory of his head.
“A candidate for your new position, my Lord”.
“My new position,” said Lord Broadfield, slurring the last word. “I haven’t fired anyone recently, what new position would that be?” He jerked his head round, jutting his nose like a woodpecker.
“For your Ornamental Hermit, My Lord,” I said quietly.
“Oh yes!” He exclaimed. “I’d forgotten about that. Come, come lad, let’s have a look at you.”
I was ushered in front of Lord Broadfield, where my teeth were examined with a peculiar squinting look that may have owed its origin to concentration or drink. I did my best to project hermit-like qualities the Lord continued his peering.
“Yes, yes,” he nodded. “I think you will do nicely. Tell me, do you always wear this exquisitely gloomy hang-dog expression.”
“This is my normal expression, My Lord.”
“Excellent. I think you shall do nicely. Report to Cullins and he shall take you back to my estates and get kitted out. I want you deep in contemplation by the time I return to the country.”
“Thank you, My Lord. I have but one question.”
“What is that?”
“What does an ornamental hermit do?”
“Do? Why, he does nothing. He contemplates, as far as I am led to believe. He contemplates and he doesn’t shave or cut his fingernails, nor does he speak.”
“For how long?”
“How long?” He taps his teeth with his finger. “For five years. That seems a fine time to have someone contemplating in my garden. Five hundred pounds for five years, I like that, it’s tidy. I pre-ordered a hermitage ready for you, it should be complete already. Now hurry along, and no speaking now.”
I nod my head and follow the White’s employee to a footman in scarlet livery. The White’s employee explains who I am, why I cannot speak and what Lord Broadfield wants done with me. The footman looks surprised but resigned and he gives me directions and money to hire a horse to Lord Broadfield’s estate where my needs will be taken care of afterwards. I open my mouth to thank him but he shakes his head sharply and motions me to the door. The night not being the best time to start a journey, I pace the streets I went to Covent Garden and slept under the portico of St Paul’s before hiring my horse and taking myself to Lord Broadfield’s Sussex estate.
I am not expected, and am disallowed entrance as a poor, dumb beggar. I tried to explain but mindful of my Five Hundred Pounds, I dared not speak. My hired horse returned to a correct agent, my ready money dissipated and with no ideas of what to do next, I settled against the wall of the estate and tried not think nor sob, as one would have led me to the other. It was then that an angel appeared with a small loaf of bread and a little cheese. She was dressed simply, more likely a maid or some sort of lower servant. I snatched the food and started to bite big chunks from the bread, nodding my thanks because my mouth was too full to speak. Then she told me that the meal I was devastating was her own lunch and I felt guilty at my rapaciousness. I motioned to her to stop so I could swallow the bread that had become a thick wadding in my mouth and then thank her properly but as I did, Cullin’s, the footman from White’s Chocolate House thundered to the gate.
“Mary, Has this man spoken?”
“No, we think he’s a mute beggar.”
“This is our new hermit, he is not permitted to speak for the next five years. If he had spoken, he would have lost a position and five hundred pounds. Go inside and inform the staff, I shall make the hermit comfortable,” the footman smiled, “as comfortable as he shall be in the next five years at any rate. Come, hermit.”
Cullins walked his horse and me through the gate and handed it to a stable boy. He called me to follow him out into the grounds. I was born in a village and have travelled up, down and across this fair land but I had never seen land that had been so planned and commanded. There was a lake, twisting and turning just as a real lake does but each twist revealed a new vista to look out at. It was like walking through a print shop of sublime sights rather than a real place. My sentiments were moved with each new sight. It was in a part of the garden that had been bullied into growing immaculately unkempt that I caught sight of the place that was to become my home for the next five years.
It looked like a ruin of antiquity that had been left to grow bindweed, columns rose to nowhere and statues lay around with the faces smashed. The room itself was small, only six large paces from one end to the next and open to the elements on one side. There was a small nest of blankets designed for my comfort and a bookcase with a number of tattered volumes on it. Behind the temple lay a small hole for my convenience, my modesty protected only by the bushes overgrown in that area. That was all.
Cullins explained the rules in more detail. I was to keep to my hovel at all times, where I was to read the volumes and appear in deep thought. I was not to cut my hair or nails and I was only to bathe occasionally, using the lake for that purpose. Finally, I was to wear one outfit of clothes, which I would have refreshed every six months. If I was to stray, it was not to be beyond the unkempt area of the grounds because my appearance would look inelegant with the order of the other designs. Each morning, food would be brought to me, which I was to ration throughout the day. The most important rule, to be maintained above all others that I was not to speak, write, gesture or communicate in any way whatsoever. Failure to keep to this cardinal rule was expulsion from the garden in the rags I had on and nothing else. He smiled slyly at me and informed me that he would take particular interest that this rule was kept. I crouched into my hovel and examined the bookcase at the tomes, which were to be my only comfort, and company for the next five years. There was a Bible in English and the rest of the books were in Latin, a language I knew not. I began to worry that the next five years may pass very slowly indeed.
I was distracted from my apprehensions by Mary, the maid who had previously fed me, running towards my new home carrying a bundle of hessian sacks. These sacks turned out to be my new clothing. One had holes cut in the top and sides for my arms and feet, another was slit open with holes for arms like a jacket and another was a loose bolt of material to wrap around me however I saw fit. They were thrown to me.
“Change,” the footman commanded. I looked towards him and Mary before creeping under the bundle of cloth and fur that was to serve as my bed and changed with as much dignity as I could muster. The sacks were rough and irritated my skin, my legs and feet were bare and I felt ridiculous. Even Robinson Crusoe had dressed with more dignity and comfort than I and he had lived in a land far from comfort and civilisation.
“Let’s look at you,” he said. I stood up, the housemaid hid her face and smiled. “No, not right yet,” he footman said, striding up to me. He grabbed me, pulled me out of the hovel and towards a patch of mud, shoving me in it and shouting at me to roll around. I lay still, like a frightened dog so he started to kick me until I rolled around in the mud.
“A hermit needs to be filthy,” he shouted at me. Mary begged the footman to leave me alone and he allowed me to stand up, as dignified as I possibly could.
“Come on, we have work to do,” the maid said and the two strode off, she offering little backwards glances towards me as I stood still and tried to calm myself down.
Walking back towards my hovel, I stood barefoot on the prickle of a bramble. Leaping in the air, I had to suppress every desire to shout and scream out loud, forcing every curse to bellow silently. I hobbled back to my rags and tried to prise the prickle out of my foot with my hands. Somewhere I heard laughing. So began my life as a curiosity.
Sunday 16 June 2013
A Chunk of my new novel (part one).
The next few days I shall post a section of the novel I am currently working on. This section deals with The Ragged Street Preacher, who instigates the climax of the novel. This will be posted in three instalments and this is the first one.
All comments are very appreciated.
Containing many scenes that are greatly pathetic for the Discernment and Enjoyment of those with Great Sensibility.
I was born in the Village of Willesden, which lay within a few hours ride of the City of London and was formally a place of Catholic pilgrimage. After the Catholic Church had been ejected from this country, the statue of the Black Madonna, which had been in the village for as many years as could be remembered, was destroyed and the shrine pulled down. In its place the village grew into a hotbed of levellers and fifth monarchist men, my Father being the grandson of one of their leaders and was a strict puritan himself,
I spent my childhood in fear of my father, especially when he talked about the evils of the City. When he ranted, he always talked about dens of vice where loose women parade on the stage in revealing clothes, while the men strode forth in tight breeches, making loving eyes at the women and gyrated their hips. At these dens of sin, oranges were eaten and orgies enacted. Words with the power to thrill and excite the audience were thrust into the auditorium in thundering voices. These were places of deception and wrongness, they were places where Satan stalked the stalls, luring the hapless individuals away from the narrow path of right. They were called Theatres.
The more my Father raved against the theatres, the more I wanted to be part of them. Where my Father saw Deception, I saw the magic of Transformation; where my Father saw Lewdness, I saw honest acknowledgement of Human Sexuality and where my Father saw only drunkenness and chaos, I saw the joy of creating, of presenting, of performing. I wanted nothing more than to become an actor, an ambition that my Father would have heartily disagreed with.
When I was sixteen, an acting troupe entered our village and set up on the common. My Father led the protest against the actors, loudly declaiming the facts of their evil while they performed, until the audience grew unhappy and forcibly ejected him. During the second performance, my Father instructed me to enter the field in which they performed and to throw rotten fruit at the actors but when the time came I couldn’t do it. I stood at the front, my mouth open wide, as Hamlet saw the ghost of his own Father wander the lonely battlements; I gasped as the old man was pierced through the curtain and I wept as the young lady lost her mind slowly before drowning in a brook. Rather than denounce the actors and throw fruit at them, I went right up to the chief of them and asked him if I could join them on their journey. The lead actor was a kind man, who could obviously see in my eyes the desperation with which I wanted to be one of his number and accepted. From that night I became and actor and the most wonderful part of my life began.
The troupe travelled around the country and I with them. At first I only played small parts, I carried spears and played the servant. As I grew to feel more comfortable and learned the techniques of fine acting, I began to discover I had a talent for fine comedy. This first showed itself as I played comedy servants and soon as I played comic Gentleman. As I learned to act the gentleman for the stage, so I learned to act the Gentleman off it. I became sought after by every maiden in every town we visited and soon I was affianced in almost every big town on our route. I also learnt the pleasures of wine and with it, the pleasures of singing and throwing up. However, even as much as I caroused and learnt all the evil habits that my Father had promised me, I prayed every night and attended Church every Sunday, even being kicked out of one company for refusing to perform on a Sabbath. Even more galling to me was the fact that I was yet to perform in the centre of all theatrical achievement, London. I joined another troupe until I was within spitting distance of the city before eloping from the company and walking straight to Drury Lane.
The owner of Drury Lane at that time was a prating, preening, precious coxcomb who barely looked at my audition before telling me that a career on a London stage was not one that I could ever hope to have. Later, I realised that my stage character of the foppish gentleman was one that the owner had himself specialised in and so would not want anyone like me in company to steal the attention away from him. At that time, I wandered dejected to the other theatre on Lincoln’s Inn Fields to try my luck there. Unfortunately, there was no place for me in that theatre either and so I entered London, my ambitions already crushed and my savings dwindling. To make money I performed in nasty shows, low cheap pantomimes performed for gaping ninnies at places like Moorfields and Spittlefields. Had I grown up sure of my talent as a performer I may have had the resilience required to keep trying my hand at the London Stage, but as I was, I could only become more dejected and degraded until I found myself in that area of London called Alsace, where the debtors hide from those wishing to throw them in the spunging house.
It was as I was in this labyrinth of those who do not wish to be found that I saw an advertisement.
REQUIRED
A MAN OF A LEARNED DISPOSITION, SOME KNOWLEDGE OF RELIGION AND MELANCHOLY COUNTENANCE TO TAKE THE POSITION OF ORNAMENTAL HERMIT AT THE ESTATE OF LORD BROADFIELD.
500 POUNDS TO BE GIVEN TO THE SUCCESSFUL APPLICANT ON COMPLETION OF THE JOB’S SUCCESS CRITERIA.
APPLY TO LORD BROADFIELD AT WHITE’S CHOCOLATE HOUSE ON PALL MALL.
It struck me with enormous force and clarity that this was the best route out of my poverty and towards my dreams. With five hundred pounds I could make such a grand figure for myself in London that the theatres who had ignored me would have to take notice. I was also pleased to note that my upbringing had given me knowledge of religion, my career as an actor allowed me to counterfeit any knowledge I would be required to have and that my recent misfortunes had leant me a very melancholy appearance. What’s more, I was delighted to be given a position that would allow me to indulge in my religious proclivities and give my body a much needed break from its customs of drinking and fornication. I went immediately to White’s Chocolate House and told the doorman I had arrived to apply for the position of Lord Broadfield’s Ornamental Hermit.
As much as I had pretended to gentility and counterfeited its like upon the stage; nothing could have prepared me for the inside of White’s Chocolate House. The hushed tones of subservient lackeys contrasted with the ring of privileged laughter and combined with the clinking of chocolate equipage created a fog of sound. The smell of warm chocolate was so thick and heavy that I felt I could have forgone all meat and lived off that vapour alone.
I was led, pushing my way through clumps of chairs and around tables, to a fine, old skeleton with an inquisitive, protruding nose that thrust upwards as if it owned the sky yet brought down to earth by a brown ring around the nostril of expensive, finely-ground snuff. He wore a fine wig, curled and powdered, looking like a fat contented ewe on the promontory of his head.
“A candidate for your new position, my Lord”.
“My new position,” said Lord Broadfield, slurring the last word. “I haven’t fired anyone recently, what new position would that be?” He jerked his head round, jutting his nose like a woodpecker.
“For your Ornamental Hermit, My Lord,” I said quietly.
“Oh yes!” He exclaimed. “I’d forgotten about that. Come, come lad, let’s have a look at you.”
I was ushered in front of Lord Broadfield, where my teeth were examined with a peculiar squinting look that may have owed its origin to concentration or drink. I did my best to project hermit-like qualities the Lord continued his peering.
“Yes, yes,” he nodded. “I think you will do nicely. Tell me, do you always wear this exquisitely gloomy hang-dog expression.”
“This is my normal expression, My Lord.”
“Excellent. I think you shall do nicely. Report to Cullins and he shall take you back to my estates and get kitted out. I want you deep in contemplation by the time I return to the country.”
“Thank you, My Lord. I have but one question.”
“What is that?”
“What does an ornamental hermit do?”
“Do? Why, he does nothing. He contemplates, as far as I am led to believe. He contemplates and he doesn’t shave or cut his fingernails, nor does he speak.”
“For how long?”
“How long?” He taps his teeth with his finger. “For five years. That seems a fine time to have someone contemplating in my garden. Five hundred pounds for five years, I like that, it’s tidy. I pre-ordered a hermitage ready for you, it should be complete already. Now hurry along, and no speaking now.”
I nodded my head and follow the White’s employee to a footman in scarlet livery. The White’s employee explains who I am, why I cannot speak and what Lord Broadfield wants done with me. The footman looks surprised but resigned and he gives me directions and money to hire a horse to Lord Broadfield’s estate where my needs will be taken care of afterwards. I open my mouth to thank him but he shakes his head sharply and motions me to the door. The night not being the best time to start a journey, I pace the streets I went to Covent Garden and slept under the portico of St Paul’s before hiring my horse and taking myself to Lord Broadfield’s Sussex estate.
I was not expected, and disallowed entrance as a poor, dumb beggar. I tried to explain but mindful of my Five Hundred Pounds, I dared not speak. My hired horse returned to a correct agent, my ready money dissipated and with no ideas of what to do next, I settled against the wall of the estate and tried not think nor sob, as one would have led me to the other. It was then that an angel appeared with a small loaf of bread and a little cheese. She was dressed simply, more likely a maid or some sort of lower servant. I snatched the food and started to bite big chunks from the bread, nodding my thanks because my mouth was too full to speak. Then she told me that the meal I was devastating was her own lunch and I felt guilty at my rapaciousness. I motioned to her to stop so I could swallow the bread that had become a thick wadding in my mouth and then thank her properly but as I did, Cullin’s, the footman from White’s Chocolate House thundered to the gate.
“Mary, Has this man spoken?”
“No, we think he’s a mute beggar.”
“This is our new hermit, he is not permitted to speak for the next five years. If he had spoken, he would have lost a position and five hundred pounds. Go inside and inform the staff, I shall make the hermit comfortable,” the footman smiled, “as comfortable as he shall be in the next five years at any rate. Come, hermit.”
Cullins walked his horse and me through the gate and handed it to a stable boy. He called me to follow him out into the grounds. I was born in a village and have travelled up, down and across this fair land but I had never seen land that had been so planned and commanded. There was a lake, twisting and turning just as a real lake does but each twist revealed a new vista to look out at. It was like walking through a print shop of sublime sights rather than a real place. My sentiments were moved with each new sight. It was in a part of the garden that had been bullied into growing immaculately unkempt that I caught sight of the place that was to become my home for the next five years.
It looked like a ruin of antiquity that had been left to grow bindweed, columns rose to nowhere and statues lay around with the faces smashed. The room itself was small, only six large paces from one end to the next and open to the elements on one side. There was a small nest of blankets designed for my comfort and a bookcase with a number of tattered volumes on it. Behind the temple lay a small hole for my convenience, my modesty protected only by the bushes overgrown in that area. That was all.
Cullins explained the rules in more detail. I was to keep to my hovel at all times, where I was to read the volumes and appear in deep thought. I was not to cut my hair or nails and I was only to bathe occasionally, using the lake for that purpose. Finally, I was to wear one outfit of clothes, which I would have refreshed every six months. If I was to stray, it was not to be beyond the unkempt area of the grounds because my appearance would look inelegant with the order of the other designs. Each morning, food would be brought to me, which I was to ration throughout the day. The most important rule, to be maintained above all others that I was not to speak, write, gesture or communicate in any way whatsoever. Failure to keep to this cardinal rule was expulsion from the garden in the rags I had on and nothing else. He smiled slyly at me and informed me that he would take particular interest that this rule was kept. I crouched into my hovel and examined the bookcase at the tomes, which were to be my only comfort, and company for the next five years. There was a Bible in English and the rest of the books were in Latin, a language I knew not. I began to worry that the next five years may pass very slowly indeed.
I was distracted from my apprehensions by Mary, the maid who had previously fed me, running towards my new home carrying a bundle of hessian sacks. These sacks turned out to be my new clothing. One had holes cut in the top and sides for my arms and feet, another was slit open with holes for arms like a jacket and another was a loose bolt of material to wrap around me however I saw fit. They were thrown to me.
“Change,” the footman commanded. I looked towards him and Mary before creeping under the bundle of cloth and fur that was to serve as my bed and changed with as much dignity as I could muster. The sacks were rough and irritated my skin, my legs and feet were bare and I felt ridiculous. Even Robinson Crusoe had dressed with more dignity and comfort than I and he had lived in a land far from comfort and civilisation.
“Let’s look at you,” he said. I stood up, the housemaid hid her face and smiled. “No, not right yet,” he footman said, striding up to me. He grabbed me, pulled me out of the hovel and towards a patch of mud, shoving me in it and shouting at me to roll around. I lay still, like a frightened dog so he started to kick me until I rolled around in the mud.
“A hermit needs to be filthy,” he shouted at me. Mary begged the footman to leave me alone and he allowed me to stand up, as dignified as I possibly could.
“Come on, we have work to do,” the maid said and the two strode off, she offering little backwards glances towards me as I stood still and tried to calm myself down.
Walking back towards my hovel, I stood barefoot on the prickle of a bramble. Leaping in the air, I had to suppress every desire to shout and scream out loud, forcing every curse to bellow silently. I hobbled back to my rags and tried to prise the prickle out of my foot with my hands. Somewhere I heard laughing. So began my life as a curiosity.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)