Jack, Knave and Fool (3 page)

The Crown and Anchor is like unto many a tavern and inn in London, though more respectable than most. What sets it apart from all, however, is the great ballroom at its rear. At the head of it there is a stage, where at that moment, music stands and chairs were being assembled for the evening’s entertainment. The floor of the ballroom (on which there would be no dancing that night) was crammed with tables set so tight there was bare room enough for servers to pass between. Yet pass they did, for dinner had begun at many of the tables, and at the rest wine flowed freely. Arranged so, as many as four hundred could be seated in the grand ballroom, and it appeared that near that number were already present.

Annie and I stepped forward, for our eyes were keener than Lady Fielding’s, who was a bit shortsighted. We swept the assembly back and forth until at last my gaze fell upon a familiar figure, standing and waving to us from a near-empty table quite near the stage. It was unmistakably that of Mr. Gabriel Donnelly, formerly ship’s surgeon, now recently appointed (through Sir John’s intercession) as medical advisor to the coroner of the City of Westminster. I waved back and bade all follow me.

Wending our way through a narrow, devious path, squeezing past servers and many engaged in idle conversation, we came at last to the table where Mr. Donnelly and Mr. Oliver Goldsmith, the noted author, awaited us. Both were standing, smiling, greeting us in the most welcoming manner. How good it is to be among friends on such occasions. We seated ourselves, and at once the talk did bubble up as from a fountain.

Mr. Goldsmith jested about Mr. Donnelly’s sudden rise in society: “So many invitations has he now that he has quite forgot the taste of his own cooking.”

“What was ill to the taste is well forgotten,” said the surgeon. “In all truth, dear friends, you should know that Noll here —that is, Mr. Goldsmith —has connived most of these invitations for me, certainly those to the grandest houses.”

“But do tell, Mr. Donnelly,” inquired Lady Fielding, “areyou now well set in your new surgery?”

(At year’s beginning, Gabriel Donnelly had moved from his small place located in a walk-up in Tavistock Street to more spacious and altogether grander quarters in Drury Lane, formerly the surgery of the late Dr. Amos Carr.)

“Ah, very well indeed,” said he. “There is a waiting room of larger size for my patients —and the living quarters are separate and quite commodious. It is indeed a proper surgery for a better clientele.”

“And has such begun to appear?” asked Sir John.

“Oh, certainly, yes. I seem instantly to have inherited all the late Dr. Carr’s patients.”

“And shocked they must have been at his — ” Sir John searched a moment for the proper word. “At his sudden passing.”

“Ah yes, each must discuss it with me.”

“And has his ghost come to visit?”

“Not a bit of it. I’ve erased all trace of him—with alcohol and strong soap.”

“But,” said Mr. Goldsmith, “he is far too modest. Already his ascent into polite society has brought him patients of the gentler sort.”

And though his eyes twinkled at having spoken thus, his meaning eluded me, and perhaps it was so with the rest in our party, as well.

Perceiving this, Mr. Goldsmith leaned across the table and said in a stage whisper loud enough to be heard over the din of the crowd, “The … ladies, friends, the ladies. They seem to flock to him with all manner of ailments —a positive epidemic of female troubles of every sort seems to have hit the best houses in London. He brings it with him wherever he goes.”

A distinct blush did then appear upon the cheeks of Mr. Donnelly. We all laughed wickedly at his discomfiture. Thus was he forced to confirm Mr. Goldsmith’s tale-tattling. “There is some truth to it,” he admitted. “I’ve had a dozen new patients this past week. All but two of them are women. It’s taken some effort and no little study to keep up with their complaints. After all, I began my career in medicine as a ship’s surgeon, and there was precious little call for such knowledge aboard a man-of-war. Apart from birthing a few babies in Lancashire I’d not had much experience.”

“There was my dear wife Kitty,” put in Sir John. “You alone diagnosed the truth as to her situation.”

“And, as I have heard often from Jack,” said Lady Fielding, “you greatly eased her passing, may God rest her soul.” There were solemn grunts and pious nods around the table until she resumed on a note no less serious but not so somber: “Indeed, I believe Mr. Donnelly should do well as a doctor to women. I observed him during his visit to the Magdalene Home just before Christmas. He has a sympathetic manner with his patients, but above all, he listens. What women want most is to be taken seriously”

“Hear! Hear!” came the impetuous cry from her who was seated next me.

“Thank you, Annie,” said Lady Fielding with a gracious nod.

Then from behind, a new voice: “Jack, dear fellow, is it you?”

Yet Sir John recognized the voice before I could turn and identify the face. He was up on his feet, thrusting out his hand toward the speaker. “Alfred Humber! How good to meet you— and where better to find you than here at the Crown and Anchor.”

“We were regular Sunday attendants tor a while.

“And then I found my Kate. You met her at our wedding reception.”

“Of course, of course/’ said Mr. Humber.

He bowed as low as his considerable girth permitted and bestowed a kiss upon her hand. And then did Sir John introduce him around the table and invite him to take a place with us. As it happened, he chose to sit next to Mr. Goldsmith just as two servers came our way and, without a word, slammed down our dinners before us; they left as they had come, at a run. It all happened so swiftly and with so little ceremony that we could not but laugh.

“Well, Mr. Humber,” said Mr. Goldsmith, “we seem to have exhausted a bottle of wine already. Will you open another?”

“I should be happy to do so, sir.”

As Mr. Humber busied himself with cork and corkscrew, Mr. Goldsmith asked him if he was in trade.

“In a manner of speaking, yes I am, sir. You might say that I am in the money trade. I am a broker at Lloyd’s Coffee House.”

“Aloney, is it? Now, that is a topic which interests me greatly. I sometimes have sums to invest. How might I put them best to work?”

Thus did Alessrs. Humber and Goldsmith begin a conversation which lasted through dinner. The unfortunate Goldsmith, who died deep in debt but a few years later, ever had dreams of making a great fortune. The investments he spoke of were mere fantasies, I fear. But poor man, he did wish to be well informed when and if the opportunity to invest should ever come his way.

The meal put before us was something better than I had expected. In order to serve so many, plain fare must be offered, and plain fare was what we got. It was not such as we were used to at home from Annie, whose ordinary stews were spiced to a delicious piquancy. Yet our plates were well heaped with good English beef, and beside was a good chunk of: pudding and atop all a sauce of beef drippings; there was bread on the table tor sopping. And so, while what we were offered may have been no feast, we were given plenty, and what we ate was good.

As we dined we watched preparations proceed upon the stage for the concert. The musicians began to file out from a door in back to take their places. At last the clatter of hundreds of knives and forks upon plates began to subside, and a round and red-faced man came forward whom I presumed to be the master of the ceremonies. He held up his hands, asking for silence, and waited until the deep hum of conversation had subsided somewhat. We sat so near the stage that I was able to make out the veins that showed upon his swollen nose.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he shouted out to the audience, “and especially ladies, as you no doubt know, the Ode for St. Cecilia j Day, by George Frederick Handel is on our program for this evening. But due to the inclement weather we have lately had this winter season, the soprano section of our choir has been some little depleted. In short, I appeal to you, the ladies of our audience, for volunteers to augment our soprano section. The choirmaster informs me that even if you have not previously participated in the singing of this great work, music will be supplied, and you will be drilled in your part before the performance. So … please? Are there some of you out there? Volunteers who wish to take part in this great occasion?”

At first there seemed to be none. But then a woman, no longer young, rose from a table at the far side and marched resolutely up the stairs her side of the stage.

Then did Lady Fielding lean forward and say most earnestly: “Oh, Annie dear, you go. You have such a lovely voice. Yours would help them immeasurably. “

“Oh, ma’am, I can’t! I couldn’t!”

Then, from the stage: “Are there no more? I’m told we need at least two more, and five in all would be best.”

Another came forward from the rear of the ballroom.

“Please, Annie, do it for us,” said Lady Fielding. And Mr. Donnelly and Mr. Goldsmith, who to my knowledge had never heard Annie sing, joined the importuning chorus.

“But I don’t read music,” wailed Annie quite miserably. “I’ve never even heard the piece.”

“We have one here!” called out Lady Fielding loudly. “We have a volunteer!”

And so, with the reluctance of one condemned, Annie was forced to rise. Saying nothing more, she left our table and climbed the stairs our side of the stage as one might to the scaffold. In spite of repeated invitations, no further recruits could be pulled from the great crowd, so at last the three were trundled off through the door at which the musicians had entered.

Then did the master of the ceremonies look about him, and making certain that the members of the orchestra were all in their places, he took a step forward and then he bellowed forth even louder than before: “To those of you who come regularly to these Sunday concerts, the man I am about to introduce needs no introduction. He is a great patron of the arts in general, to the art of music in particular, and to these concerts in specific. For two years now he has inspired and guided us with his interest and, not least, has supported us generously from his pocket whenever attendance flagged and it became necessary. We at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, and you who are supporters of the Academy of Ancient Music, owe him a great debt. Let us all give witness to that with a great sound of applause for our patron, Christopher Paltrow, Earl of Laningham. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Lord Laningham.”

The applause that followed this fulsome introduction seemed somewhat meager and merely polite. Nevertheless, the man for whom it was intended took no offense at that. He bounded up from his table at the far side of the stage and, bearing a ceremonial staff of some sort, hopped up the stairs with surprising agility. He was a man who had, I judged, entered his eighth decade, or so the deep lines in his face did suggest. His movements, while not those of a young man, were somewhat forced, as if he were one who wished to appear young and vigorous still.

“I must apologize for him,” said Mr. Humber to the table, in a voice perhaps too loud. “He does make an awful fool of himself.”

Lord Laningham would then speak his piece before the music could begin. Yet it was brief. “Dear friends of ancient music, we have a fine program for you this evening, we do, and all of it by our favorite, Mr. Handel, may the good Lord keep his soul. Well, there’s the Ode for St. Cecilia j Day, of course, but that’s a bit later.” He stopped a moment, hemmed and hawed, then turned and sought the aid of the musicians. “Ah yes, we begin with two of Mr. Handel’s grand concertos, the first two, I’m told, of… what is it now?” Again he turned to the orchestra. Then: “Of Opus three, I’m told. Mr. Concertmaster?”

With that, Lord Laningham withdrew to a chair of honor placed before the orchestra and facing out toward the audience. He seated himself but kept in hand that staff with which he had ascended to the stage; it was gilt-painted and had at its upper end a round bulb of good size, such as would fill a man’s hand.

The concertmaster, which is to say the violin player nearest us, stood, taking the attention of the musicians, and began them on the first piece of the program. Remarkable it was how all managed to start together under his direction; once they were playing, however, he seated himself and played as one of the many. Indeed there were many — thirty-three, as I counted them—divided between strings and horns of every sort, with stringed instruments somewhat in the majority. Remembering Annie’s objection to the loudness of the music, I admitted that while that was true, there was a certain grandeur in that greatness of sound. I liked the way it changed from loud to soft and back to loud again; thus also with the pace of the music, going for a stretch at a dignified, funereal gait, then unexpectedly breaking into the swift movement of some dance, a jig or an allemande.

Lord Laningham himself had a great preference for these sprightly parts. When they came, he was moved to jump from his chair and begin beating his staff upon the stage floor in time to the music —though not, alas, in strict time. I noted that often the musicians would look up at him in annoyance as he banged and capered about. Yet he, it seemed, was having a grand time oi it; so completely did he give himself to his performance before the orchestra that in the space of two concerti grossi (which may have taken hall an hour to perform) he had quite exhausted himself. Beckoning a server to him, he gave quite detailed instructions to the fellow and then pointed back to the table whence he, Lord Laningham, had come. In a moment the server had returned with a newly opened bottle of wine and a glass. The lord did wave away the glass but took firm hold of the bottle and took a deep swig from it. With his thirst temporarily slaked, he sat and rested as the choir began to file in.

There was a space often minutes, perhaps as many as fifteen, between the first and second parts of the program. (I later learned that there was a third part planned, selections from the Water Miuic, always a great favorite with attendants of the concerts.) During this time musicians left their chairs and milled about. A few left the stage altogether, perhaps answering calls of nature. The choirmaster conferred with members of the choir who had grouped around him. Annie, a bit shorter than most, was near invisible in the crowd. Through it all, Lord Laningham sat, fortifying himself from time to time with a swig from the bottle.