This Other Eden (22 page)

London

Late
Spring

1791

A
MAN OF INTELLIGENCE and vision like William Pitch knew precisely what was
happening. He didn't like it, but what could one man do?

By
late spring of 1791, the liberal toasts to the Fourteenth of July and the new
French Constitution came fewer and farther between. The eloquent and able Count
de Mirabeau was dead, the zealots at the wheel. As the rumblings increased,
even the poet Wordsworth crept back to Cocker-mouth after having penned, as
tribute to the Revolution, "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive."

Unfortunately
the bliss had not materialized. Louis and his Hapsburg Queen stood in
ineffectual silhouette against the spreading fires. William also knew precisely
the meaning behind men like Danton, Robespierre, Marot and Carnot. He knew
further that France was rapidly becoming a nation in arms and that it was only
a matter of time before England would either have to confront those arms or bow
before them.

He
had heard, in city coffeehouses, frequented by politicians and men of letters,
the angry and overheated talk, a small English liberal leaven amid the solid
English conservative mass. Dangerous radical workingmen's clubs were springing
up in principal towns, generally under middleclass leadership. According to
William's sources, they kept a close correspondence with the Jacobins in Paris.
These agitators formed a small but vociferous minority of the British public
and William knew that eventually the government would have to take drastic
action against them.

William
knew all of this and a great deal more. What he did not know, and what was now
causing him great pain, was which side was right. The people or the government?
Never before had he considered himself an equivocator. His editorials had power
because of the weight of his conviction. Now? He simply didn't know. And
because of his dilemma, he had refrained altogether from taking a firm
editorial stand, and his paper was foundering, his staff outraged.

Such
was the chaos within William himself as he walked home on a calm spring evening
after a most difficult day. The air was fresh with budding lilacs along
Southampton Row, a pleasantly rural street with great empty fields interspersed
among a few tentative shops. Climbing a slight hill, he could just see the
British Museum Library straight ahead, standing eloquently in the spring dusk
with its huddle of sheds and sidings that reflected the last rays of afternoon
sun. Perhaps the world yet was full of promise, with a few quiet hours in which
a man could coax a semblance of peace. Certainly this moment held promise, this
brief respite of a mile which stretched between his offices and his home, a
kind of no-man's land in which he could recover from the rigors of the day, the
peculiar sensation that he had, somehow, overreached himself, that he had not
really progressed very far from that abandoned lump of disinherited flesh which
had been left on the steps of the foundling home.

At
the corner of Great Russell Street, he stopped. A cow in the pasture nearby
lowed mournfully, her udders full to bursting. She needed relief, as he needed
relief. Even his salon was no longer the gay, witty, diverting place it once
had been. Now it was an angry arena for the discussion of politics, men,
friends once, shouting angrily across the room, taking the government's side,
then the French side, the women retreating, perplexed, into a kind of dull
stupor.

The
cow cried out again, a low prolonged moan, begging for relief. Standing in the
early dusk, William felt like crying out. What was ahead of him this night?
What had he yet to contend with before he could slip into the tossing interval
he now called sleep? Then he remembered. The Masquerade at the Pantheon on
Oxford Road. A post-Lenten ball. In the past, it had always been an occasion
for great celebration, a joyous evening of music and dancing, and the fun of
disguise.

Now
he knew precisely what it would be, a lifeless occasion, a government agent
behind every mask, the peers keeping to themselves, right on one side, left on
the other, in an angry and suspicious atmosphere.

He
cursed beneath his breath. The cow persisted in its misery. Why didn't someone
come?

Ahead
by about a hundred yards, he spied his house, usually a welcome sight, the
proverbial Englishman's fortress against the onslaught of weather and a
changing world. Even that was no longer true. Jane had changed, had grown
suspicious and irrational. Their arguments over the status of the younger
sister had long since passed the point of productivity. Determined to make her
a servant, Jane had succeeded, and the girl, showing few signs of the will that
had first attracted William, had succumbed, as though willing to submit to
anything as long as there was peace. He had seen her only rarely during the
last few months, some instinct warning him to keep away, that first evening's
excitement over the Orrery still a potent memory.

The
girl's constant companion was Sarah Gibbons, and she seemed content with the
scullery and the severely plain, high-necked dresses with which Jane had
provided her. Millie, having stayed on with her ailing aunt in Brighton, had
now been replaced entirely by the curious younger half-sister who went efficiently
about her chores.

Still
looking ahead to his house, he saw someone sweeping the front stoop. He looked
more closely and smiled. Perhaps in thinking about her he had caused her to
materialize. There she was, a small distant figure, clothed in black, expertly
wielding a broom, bending her ruined back over the chore at hand so that he
might have a clean threshold to cross. Curious! He had never seen her sweeping
at this hour before. Suddenly he felt a peculiar surge of gratitude. He paid
her nothing at Jane's insistence, yet the girl worked hard from morning to
night on his behalf. He watched her a moment longer, then quickly reached out
and plucked a half a dozen ripe lilac plumes from a bush, a very handsome and
instantaneous bouquet which he hid, schoolboy fashion, behind his back.

Apparently
engrossed in the task at hand, she gave no indication that she was aware of his
approach. As he drew nearer, his foot cracked a twig. She turned sharply, a
guarded expression on her face at first, then a smile that was ready and
winning, but at the same time uncertain.

He
found such uncertainty touching, mirroring his own, and crossed directly over
to her, his boots striking harshly on the pavement. Lifting a hand to his
forehead in a kind of salute, he produced the lilacs and handed them to her.

She
glanced over her shoulder toward the house as though she'd learned to live with
prying eyes. She looked at the lilacs longingly, but something prevented her
from taking them. It was only after he thrust them at her a second time that
she accepted them. "I'll arrange them for the dining room," she
murmured.

"No,"
he scolded. "They're for you. For your room, or Millie's, or
whoever—" He shook his head and looked heavenward as though seeing Divine
guidance in the awesome task of keeping his staff in order.

Again
she smiled, as though understanding his dilemma. "The room's mine
now," she said, sniffing the flowers. "Millie's not coming
back."

"And
good riddance," he said.

The
flowers fascinated her so that she hardly seemed to hear his small jab. Still
clutching the broom in one hand, she looked uneasily about, as though uncertain
just what she should do next.

Curious,
he felt embarrassed himself, standing on his own stoop, a man renowned for his
wit and efficiency of conversation now tongue-tied.

"So!"
he said finally, foolishly, as though some great matter had just been resolved.

She
looked timidly up at him, her normally blue eyes mysteriously taking on the
violet hue of the lilacs. Then, as though she too felt the need for
conversation, she asked, "How did France misbehave today, Mr. Pitch?"
There was a lightness in her tone which belied the weight of the question.

He
smiled indulgently. "And what do you know of France?"

She
laid her broom aside as though he had challenged her. She proceeded to
rearrange the lilacs, speaking softly, almost apologetically. "I know that
their revolution as a few men conceived it is not going well." Briefly she
raised her eyes as though to monitor his reaction. "They lack a
Cromwell," she said, frowning at the lilacs. "I know that Robespierre
will try to become one, but he'll fail, and that sooner or later English lilacs
will die for no one will have the time to plant or cultivate them." For
the first time she smiled directly at him. "Except the women," she
added pointedly. "It seems we always have time for such occupations."

His
mouth was open, but he could do little to alter his foolish expression. It was
as though she were stirring for the first time from a long sleep.

"And
what else do you know?" he prodded.

She
hesitated. "I know that the editor of
The Bloomsbury Gazetteer
has
weakened his position by refusing to take a firm stand, that his enemies may
find him vulnerable now and try to take the lead in controlling opinion."

"What
in the—" He stepped back, impressed by the precision of her thoughts and
the incisiveness of her attack on him.

Quickly
she reassured him. "I only speak because you ask me to, Mr. Pitch. I can
remain silent just as easily. Whatever you wish—" She gave a shrug, then
bent over and placed the lilacs on the step.

As
she reached for the broom, he protested, "No, leave it."

She
obeyed without question and stood almost primly before him, her hands empty of
all encumbrances, as though she were accustomed to speaking her mind,
accustomed to people listening.

Still
astonished, he continued to shake his head. She was like a very skillful
actress whose repertoire included a variety of roles, all of which she was
capable of playing simultaneously to the confusion of her audience.

He
asked, "Where did you learn of Cromwell, and where Robespierre?"

Something
in the orange dusk caught her eye and fancy, a bird perhaps, he didn't bother
to look. But she did, speaking only as an afterthought, as though the greatest
fascination of the moment flew above her. "I learned of Cromwell from my
teacher," she said vaguely. "And I learned of Robespierre from
you."

"From—me?"

"From
your paper," she corrected. Having lost interest in the sky, her smile was
quick. "It's always in the parlor, and it's not such a long walk from the
kitchen to the parlor." She shook her head, the grim chuckle of a person
who in truth found no humor in what she was saying. "I always read it if I
can get to it before Sarah does. I'm afraid she finds it appropriate only for
cleaning out coals and wrapping fish bone."

It
occurred to him to promise her a clean newspaper all her own from now on, but
in the astonishment of the moment he had another question and felt a keen
compulsion to ask it. "This—teacher," he began, "the one who
told you of Cromwell. Your father?"

All
traces of humor left her face. "No," she said, moving away from him a
few steps, averting her face. She continued to walk as though it were now her
intention to walk away from him and the question.

He
followed a respectful distance behind her almost to the end of the fence. Just
when he was of the opinion that perhaps he should retract the question, she
turned to him, the smile again on her face, not quite as dazzling as before.

"Not
my father," she said. "An old woman. Named Jenny. Jenny
Toppinger." She looked straight at him as though intensely proud.
"Jenny lived in Bath when she was younger and taught the children of the
court whose parents had come to take the waters. The Duke of Salisbury tried to
buy her once, as a permanent tutor to his children." Again she had a firm
grip on her feelings and proceeded with all the lightness and gaiety of a
child. "But do you know what she told him?" It was a rhetorical
question, requiring no answer and he gave none. "She told him that goats
and horses could be bought and sold, but that he diminished himself by asking
such a question of another human being." She laughed openly. "He
wanted her more than ever then. But he didn't get her." The light of pride
shone in her eyes as she added, "I did. For nothing."