Infernal Revolutions Read online

  I decided to ignore the fellow, feeling nothing was to be gained by remonstrating with him. Besides, my hunger was now so great I feared I’d have a sudden apoplexy unless a piece of pie hit my stomach within the next ten seconds.

  ‘There y’are,’ he said, setting the steaming plateful before me.

  I tucked in with great relish there and then, no doubt to the chagrin of any watching neighbours, who would hardly want to encourage such low-bred traders as the pieman. Indeed, I did not want to encourage him myself, for he was the most loathsome specimen of humankind I had ever seen, but the satisfying of hunger came before the responsibilities of neighbourliness. So I munched on until the pieman, with a malicious gleam in his eye, spat out words that staggered me.

  ‘That’ll be six shillin’s.’

  I sprayed him with about a crown’s worth of chewed pastry.

  ‘Six shillings!’

  ‘Seven. Seven shillin’s, I said. You didn’t hear me properly. Seven shillin’s. Didn’t I say seven shillin’s?’

  He turned for corroboration to a rickety lout who was hovering about suspiciously.

  ‘Oh aye,’ said the lout, staring at a dead dog on the road. ‘Seven shillin’s.’

  I was aware of people gathering, all of whom looked pregnant with the phrase seven shillin’s.

  This was something akin to highway robbery, and I was torn between indignant anger and lust for the remainder of the pie. However, having recourse neither to a troop of dragoons nor a bunch of my own hefty retainers, I realized I would have to pay the scoundrel his money if the swelling mob was to be appeased.

  ‘Seven shillings then,’ I said, trying to recover my calm. ‘Any increase on seven shillings before I go indoors and get it?’

  ‘You mean you don’t have any money on yer?’

  ‘I came out with the intention of purchasing a snack meal, not the crown jewels.’

  ‘Don’t know if we can allow yer back indoors. I mean, what if yer don’t come back?’

  ‘Then you lose approximately a penny, and have the moral right to stone my house.’

  The crowd, increasing all the time, seemed keen on this offer.

  ‘But that won’t help me, will it? I’ll still have lost money for a good pie. And I’ll probably get ‘ung if I’m caught stonin’ yer ‘ouse.’

  ‘Well,’ I laughed gaily, ‘the problem is of your own making. Charge me the correct price for the pie and you have nothing to fear.’

  ‘You think I have anything to fear now?’ he leered evilly, revealing dangerous Bedlamite tendencies. ‘From a perfumed little puffball like you? Besides, THIS IS THE RIGHT PRICE!!’

  He screamed these words out with such startling venom that I jumped backwards and accidently jerked an elbow straight into the face of a fat old woman, who groaned and held her hands up to her face in a most dramatic fashion. The men around her, outraged at seeing a woman not their own so ill-treated, vied with each other to jostle and strike me. Then, to my horror, something greasy and stinking was rubbed into my hair. I put my hand in it, sniffed it, and confirmed that ‘twas indeed excrement, though from which species I could not determine. Losing all pretence of composure now, I struck out blindly to free myself from their dirty grasping hands.

  ‘All right!’ I cried, desperation in my voice. ‘If you leave me alone I will go inside now and bring you the money. I can do no more.’

  ‘What’s ‘ee got valuable on ‘im?’ someone called out.

  ‘Nothing,’ I answered for him, holding up my bare hands for inspection.

  They went through my pockets anyway, and pulled out a snotty handkerchief and a piece of sweetmeat. Only the latter item was regarded as reasonable booty, and the chief searcher wolfed it down instantly, although had they examined the handkerchief they would have found that it was worth a goodly sum, being made of the finest Spitalfields silk. Fortunately, a very bad cold I’d had the week earlier had obliterated all signs of quality.

  ‘Very well,’ consented the pieman, ‘Go inside and get the money. And be quick about it. The bloody dragoons will be here soon.’

  Thankful that the whole incident would soon be over, and I’d get a chance to clean the mess out of my hair, I forced my way through the scuffling mob and eventually reached my door.

  Now whether in my frenzy for a pie I’d let the door come crashing to, or whether one of the villainous-looking dogs loitering around the steps had shut it for me, I do not know, but it was undeniable that the door was locked. Worse, there was no-one inside to open it for me, and the key was in my garret. Starting to panic, I shouted up at my neighbours for help, but no-one replied, even though I was sure they were in. Desperately, I barged the door with my shoulder, then kicked and scrabbled at it – but ‘twas all to no avail. A tremor went through me as I turned round and miserably surveyed my fate. From my elevation on the steps I could see that the street was now completely blocked by the milling throng, with every constituent head turned towards me. To the sides of the crowd there was an appalling pile-up of coaches and sedan chairs, with much whipping of horse and human flesh going on. The shouting and swearing was terrific, making me wonder how England ever came to be classed as a Christian country. Searching for the instigator of it all, I tried to pick out the pieman in the crowd, only to see him hastily manoeuvring his cart into the area where the bodies were packed thickest. He appeared to have lost his nerve, and written off his vast profit. But that did not help me – the Mob sensed blood, and the Mob, by the looks of it, intended to get it.

  Hemmed in on all sides, my line of communication with the pieman lost, I could

  barely think straight for fear. There was no-one to whom I could explain my predicament, although a few in the crowd must have heard something of the original dispute, for they began to chant ‘Seven Shillin’s! Seven Shillin’s!’ This was soon taken up by the whole Mob, and I found myself arraigned before them on charges of grand larceny. Stones began to fly at frightening speed past my head, hammering against my door or shattering the ground floor windows that Mr Hewitt, my landlord, had only just replaced. One hit me on my shoulder and numbed it. Then something solid and warm flailed into the side of my head, accompanied by a noisome smell that overpowered even my pervasive aroma. I looked down and saw the dead dog lying at my feet, bloody innards all over the place. I was still staring at it when I was grabbed by two ruffians and frogmarched into the thickest region of the crowd. A small clearing miraculously appeared, in the middle of which stood the snarling mob leaders and a filthy bare-chested man, who had about him a tar pot, a pair of scissors and a bucket of feathers. At last it became clear what my fate would be.

  Hardly able to believe what was happening, I made a final despairing wail.

  ‘I have no money! I tell you I have no money! But if you will only wait I will get it for you!’

  But they only laughed, and the man stirred the pot with his stick.

  I had reached the point of wondering how long it would take for my hair to grow again, when I heard a voice more dominant and educated than the rest shouting ‘Let me through, you devils. Let me through!’ The voice got louder and louder until there swaggered into the tarring circle a strapping youth in a blue frock coat. He had smouldering eyes, swarthy skin, and thick dark hair drawn back into a black bow. Easily a six-footer anyway, his confidence and verve gave him the stature of a giant. As awestruck as I, my tormentors stopped their work to regard this phenomenon, who in turn coolly regarded them back. Then, situation weighed up, he stepped forward to break the tension.

  ‘YOU FUCKERS!’ he roared ferociously, before striking one of my captors in the face with a mighty blow of his fist. The man staggered, groaned and covered his face with his hands. A few moments later blood, cartilage and what looked like bits of eyeball started to ooze out from between his fingers. Practised themselves in the art of aggression, the immediate crowd seemed unprepared for this yet higher level of violence. Gasping with horror at their ringleader�
��s literal loss of face, they began to shrink back both mentally and physically. But the giant newcomer had only just started. The man with the tarpot was his next victim, having it tipped over his head in classic comedy manner. Then ‘twas the turn of the frogmarchers, who had their faces crashed together in a spray of flying blood and teeth. Finally, as if for dessert, a couple of drunken roughs were despatched with pistonlike blows to their bellies. Soon there was no-one left with the taste for a fight, and I was led away by the youth through a cowed and disappointed mob.

  ‘My name is Burnley Axelrod,’ said my hero, tossing aside an old crone who could not get out of our way quick enough. ‘Perhaps you’ve heard of me.’

  I couldn’t say I had, but he didn’t seem disappointed.

  ‘Your name, Sir?’ he demanded of me.

  ‘Harry Oysterman, and I really am most grateful for what you’ve done.’

  ‘Nothing to it, laddie. I like nothing better than a good fight anyway. Stirs your blood in a subtly different way to liquor, whores and cards. A large intake of all four every day and I’m the happiest man alive. Two out of four and I’m middling. None out of four and I’m dead. Now come with me and let’s get that bloody mess off your head. You smell worse than a slave ship.’

  Alarm bells went off at these words, for I now realized I was in the company of one of those upper-class army hedonists who so used to terrify me in the days when I promenaded the town with my mother. Great big lawless vandals they were, with as much capacity for mayhem as the Mob itself. Admittedly, there was no sartorial proof of his being an army man, but his whole demeanour screamed it out; there was no way this lad sat behind a desk decomposing. Theoretically, I greatly admired his vivacity and bravery, but now he’d played his part and rescued me I would much rather he left me alone to settle my nerves with a favourite garland of poesy. This was my tried and trusted method of regaining composure, and I was apprehensive about what further character dislocation would do to me. Courtesy, however, demanded that I accept his ablutionary offer, so I trotted along after him like a little lamb who had been rescued from the wolves by a bigger wolf. I hoped he was not taking me far.

  3

  The Old Ship Hotel

  ‘Come on, come on,’ cried Mr Axelrod impatiently. ‘Make way, dammit!’

  Quaking in the passenger seat of his phaeton, I clung on tight as he used his whip and a pair of Cleveland bays to cut his way through the thinning crowd. Shrieks and curses rent the air, and on several occasions I was almost tipped out of my seat as the carriage trundled over some groaning prostrate body. Eventually, however, we were free of obstructions, and we shot off at a furious pace down to the seafront. There we turned left and drew to a halt at the Old Ship Hotel, a thriving hostelry since Dr Richard Russell had pontificated on the efficacy of seawater bathing back in the fifties.

  ‘Oh no,’ I protested, ‘I cannot go in there with my head like this.’

  ‘Nonsense, Sir. ‘Tis only a short walk up some stairs to my room. No-one will see you.’

  We entered just as a bevy of parasoled beauties were emerging for their afternoon stroll, gorgeous in their assorted silks. They saw Mr Axelrod, and giggled flirtatiously. Then they smelt me, and reached for their pouncet-boxes. I was mortified.

  ‘We cannot all smell as sweet as you, ladies,’ joked Mr Axelrod. ‘Some of us are the victims of Mob violence.’

  ‘Why, I cannot imagine you being a victim of Mob violence, Burnley,’ jousted the most devastating of the beauties, all oeillades behind her gloved hands.

  ‘No, Madam, neither can I.’

  ‘Then what happened? We heard there was some commotion in West Street…’

  This was the cue Mr Axelrod wanted, and he went on to recount his version of events in agonizing detail while the ladies studied me with distaste. Discreetly, I tried to fight off the flies that were clouding round my head.

  ‘Still,’ concluded Mr Axelrod, ‘that’s life. Now, if you’ll excuse us, I must get Mr Oysterman here washed and changed before those flies eat him alive.’

  ‘Oh Burnley, you are so brave,’ sighed the devastating one. ‘Wait till I tell Mama.’

  ‘I will be glad to tell her myself, Madam, if you’d both care to join me for dinner tonight.’

  ‘Oh!’ cried the girl, overwhelmed at the offer, ‘Yes I would love that. Oh!’

  The only-slightly-less-devastating others giggled and led her away down the street. All said goodbye to Mr Axelrod; all ignored me.

  ‘Look at the little fillies,’ growled Mr Axelrod as he watched them depart. ‘All here for the season, all in season. Ripe for the prising open.’

  A blunt knife myself in that regard, mad heiresses excepted, it was nevertheless clear from Mr Axelrod’s knowing inspection that he had devoured more than a few luscious oysters in his time.

  ‘Ever had Mother and Daughter in one bed, Mr Oysterman?’

  Surprised at the question, I nervously confessed not.

  ‘Highly recommended. Piquant, yet at the same time deliciously sordid. Also wins you a pipe of port at regimental HQ if you can get them both up the spout. Still, that’s for later. Come on, let’s get you in.’

  Enlightened, I followed him into the gloom of the hotel, where I was immediately introduced to a passing waiter.

  ‘Jeremy, this is Mr Harry Oysterman, a gentleman I rescued from a spot of bother on West Street.’

  Nostrils flickered first, then recognition.

  ‘Oh, you’re him, aren’t you?’

  A hand was laid gently on mine, and Jeremy’s eyes looked up at me saucily.

  ‘Who?’ I said, worried.

  ‘That boy who’s always trudging along the beach. We see you most days from the dining room. I’ve tried waving, but you seem to be lost in a little world of your own.’

  ‘I did not realize I was under such scrutiny,’ I said, horrified.

  ‘Nothing escapes the notice of a waiter, Sir, nothing.’

  If that was the case, then he knew full well my purpose for trudging along the beach: to catch a quick eyeful of a bathing beauty the split-second between her appearance from a bathing machine and her disappearance in the ice-cold water. ‘Twas a very hot little world I was lost in, and I wished the saucy dog would shut up about it.

  ‘And Mr Kettle says he’s seen you on several occasions loitering around the graveyard.’

  ‘Aye, my mother’s buried there,’ I lied, feeling more uncomfortable by the second.

  ‘Is she?’ said Jeremy ironically, ‘Oh dear. Well, at least we know now.’

  ‘Indeed we do,’ said Mr Axelrod, thankfully not interested in local gossip of this sort. ‘Now, he is in need of a wash, as you see, so while I show him up to my room perhaps you would be kind enough to bring up more water.’ Jeremy nodded, and was about to set off when Mr Axelrod called him back. ‘Any new beauties arrived since this morning, Jeremy?’

  ‘None yet, Sir, though rest assured I will let you know as soon as they do.’

  ‘What about that one I pointed out yesterday?’

  ‘Lady Dartington’s daughter? Still here, Sir.’

  ‘Good, good. Now, Mr Oysterman, let us get you cleaned up.’

  I was led upstairs to a sunny room overlooking the sea. ‘Twas admirably spartan apart from a clutter of military paraphernalia in one corner, a vast array of empty wine bottles in the other, and a few books on a shelf above the bed.

  ‘You’re in the army then?’ I decided to ratify.

  ‘Yes, I am a cornet in the King’s Dragoon Guards. I could have waited until a higher rank became available, but as it is action I want, a cornetcy is perfectly satisfactory for the time being.’

  I was about to ask what a cornet was when my head was seized roughly and plunged into a basinful of tepid water. Five gasping, thrashing, spluttering minutes followed, at the end of which I was allowed air and a towel.

  ‘There, that’s the bulk of it off. One more wash with the fresh wat
er that Jeremy brings up and you will have cleaner hair than most of the women here. But I’ll leave you to do that for yourself; I’ve got business to attend to. Come down and join me for a cutlet and a bottle when you’ve finished.’

  Still without sufficient breath to speak, all I could do was nod vaguely until I heard the door slam shut. Then with the towel I rubbed my hair until damp and sat down on the bed to await Jeremy’s arrival. As I was still waiting five minutes later, I decided to beguile the remaining time by examining the contents of the room. Moving first to the stack of weaponry, I proceeded to pick up and fondle a pistol, a sword, and a dagger respectively. Thrilling at such fearsome instruments of butchery, I did a quick pirouette around the room with each weapon, imagining the damage they could do to the pates of piemen, before the increasing weight of them induced such a vile aching in my writing arm that I had to desist. But the relief with which I turned to the books on the shelf was short-lived. Far from being the comforting volumes of verse I had hoped for, all but The Lives, Adventures & Sharping Tricks of Eminent Gamesters were foul yet fascinating treatises on the sexual arts. There was A List of Sporting Ladies, A List of Covent Garden Ladies and Chelsea Tarts, The Whoremonger’s Guide to Sussex, and Ladies of Delight for Gentlemen of Intrigue. Trembling both with excitement at the descriptions, and horror at the possibility of finding my mother’s name inside the well-thumbed pages, I read the most intimate details about courtesans, whores and mistresses until I was red, flustered and hot, and not just in the face. Indeed, I was so absorbed in imagining the reality of Lady Emma Dympleton’s highly-recommended ‘coral-tipped’ clitoris that I did not notice Jeremy’s entrance.

  ‘Ah, I see you’ve succumbed to temptation, Mr Oysterman,’ he said, setting down the fresh bowl of water by the washstand. ‘But then who of us is not insatiably curious about the hidden workings of the opposite sex?’

  Jeremy himself, judging by the yearning look he gave my groin as I hurriedly put the books back on the shelf; but as I did not intend to satisfy whatever curiosity he had about me, I quickly sent him away and locked the door before continuing with my ablutions, which now had an extra element of ritual cleansing about them. It took a good half an hour before I was sufficiently cooled to go downstairs and rejoin Mr Axelrod, who I found at a table fit for Belshazzar in the corner of the dining room.