“I say, old fellow—you wouldn’t think of making it a double wedding, would you? There’s my sister, you know . . .”
Melissa Stubbs was Malcolm’s twin, a plump and smiling girl, who was even now giving him an all-too-knowing eye over her fan from the terrace. For a split second, Grey teetered on the edge of temptation; the urge to leave something of himself behind, the lure of immortality before one steps into the void.
It would be well enough, he thought, if he didn’t come back—but what if he did? He smiled, clapped Stubbs on the back, and excused himself with courtesy to go and find another drink.
“You don’t want to drink that French muck, do you?” Quarry said at his elbow. “Blow you up like a bladder—gassy stuff.” Quarry himself had a magnum of red wine clutched under one arm, a large blonde woman under the other. “May I introduce you to Major Grey, Mamie? Major, Mrs. Fortescue.”
“Your servant, ma’am.”
“A word in your ear, Grey?” Quarry released Mrs. Fortescue momentarily, and stepped in close, his craggy face red and glossy under his wig.
“We’ve got word at last; the new posting. But an odd thing—”
“Yes?” The glass in Grey’s hand was red, not gold, as though it contained the vintage called Schilcher, the shining stuff that was the color of blood. But then he saw the bubbles rise, and realized that the fireworks had changed in color, and the light around them went red and white and red again and the smell of smoke floated in through the French doors as though they stood in the center of a bombardment.
“I was just talking to that German chap, von Namtzen. He wants you to go and be a liaison of sorts with his regiment; already spoken to the War Office, he says. Seems to have conceived a great regard for you, Grey.”
Grey blinked and took a gulp of champagne. Von Namtzen’s great blond head was visible on the terrace, his handsome profile turned up to the sky, rapt with wonder as a five-year-old’s.
“Well, you needn’t decide on the spot, of course. Up to your brother, anyway. Just thought I’d mention it. Ready for another turn, Mamie, m’dear?”
Before Grey could gather his senses to respond, the three—Harry, the blonde, and the bottle—had galloped off in a wild gavotte, and the sky was exploding in pinwheels and showers of red and blue and green and white and yellow.
Stephan von Namtzen turned and met his eyes, lifting a glass in salute, and at the end of the room the musicians still played Handel, like the music of his life, beauty and serenity interrupted always by the thunder of distant fire.
Author’s Notes and References
Most of my information on the mollies of London comes from MOTHER CLAP’S MOLLY-HOUSE: The Gay Subculture in England 1700–1830, by Rictor Norton, which includes a fairly large bibliography, for those looking for further details. (I was interested to see that—according to this reference—terms such as “rough trade” and “Miss Thing,” currently in use, were in existence during the eighteenth century as well.)
While most of the locations mentioned as “molly-walks” are historically known—such as the bog-houses (public privies) of Lincoln’s Inn, Blackfriars Bridge, and the arcades of the Royal Exchange—the establishment known as Lavender House is fictional.
While some characters in this book, such as William Pitt, Robert Clive, the Nawab of Bengal, and Sir John Fielding, are real historic personages, most are fictional, or used in a fictional sense (e.g., there likely were real Dukes of Gloucester at various points in history, but I have no evidence to suggest that any of them were in fact kleptomaniac.).
Other useful references include:
ENGLISH SOCIETY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY (from THE PELICAN SOCIAL HISTORY OF BRITAIN series), by Roy Porter, 1982, Pelican Books. ISBN 0-14-022099-2. This includes a good bibliography, plus a number of interesting statistical tables.
THE TRANSVESTITE MEMOIRS OF THE ABBЙ DE CHOISY, Peter Owen Publishers, London. ISBN 0-7206-0915-1. This book deals with the subject of the title, in seventeenth-century France, and is more interesting for the sumptuous details of the Abbй’s clothes than anything else.
THE QUEER DUTCHMAN: True Account of a Sailor Castaway on a Desert Island for “Unnatural Acts” and Left to God’s Mercy, by Peter Agnos, Green Eagle Press, New York, 1974, 1993, ISBN 0-914018-03-5. The (edited) journal of Jan Svilts, marooned on Ascension Island in 1725 by officers of the Dutch East India Company, who feared that his “unnatural acts” would bring down the wrath of God upon their venture, as upon the inhabitants of Sodom.
LOVE LETTERS BETWEEN A CERTAIN LATE NOBLEMAN AND THE FAMOUS MR. WILSON, Michael S. Kimmel, ed. Harrington Park Press, New York, 1990. (Originally published as Journal of HomosexualityVolume 19, Number 2, 1990.) This deals with the homosexual world in England (London specifically) during the 18th century, and contains quite an extensive annotated bibliography, as well as considerable commentary on the actual correspondence, which is included.
SAMUEL JOHNSON’S DICTIONARY. ISBN 1-929154-10-0. Various editions of this are available; a recent abridged version is done by the Levenger Press, edited by Jack Lynch. The original dictionary was published in 1755.
A CLASSICAL DICTIONARY OF THE VULGAR TONGUE, by Captain Francis Grose (edited with a biographical and critical sketch and an extensive commentary by Eric Partridge). Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. There are several different editions available of Grose’s original work (which the Captain himself revised and re-published several times), but the original was probably published around 1807.
DRESS IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY EUROPE 1715–1789, by Aileen Ribeiro, Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc., New York, 1984. Well illustrated, with an abundance of paintings and drawings from the period, and several useful appendices on eighteenth-century currency and political events.
Greenwood’s Map of London, 1827. This is the oldest complete map of London I was able to find, so I have used it as a general basis for the locations described. It’s available at a number of Internet sites; I used the site maintained by the University of Bath Spa: http://users.bathspa.ac.uk/imagemap/html.
The Malaria Cure. Finbar Scanlon’s notion of deliberately infecting someone with malaria in order to cure syphilis was a known medical procedure of the period—though not nearly so common or popular as the various mecury-based “cures.”
Oddly enough, in very recent times, a few observations have been made of people suffering from chronic infective diseases, who then acquire a separate infection causing extremely high fever (in excess of 104 degrees) over a prolonged period. Such fevers are very dangerous in and of themselves, but what was remarkable was that those patients who survived such fevers were in many cases found to no longer have the chronic disease. So there is indeed some evidence—though still very anecdotal at this point—to suggest that Mr. Scanlon’s remedy might well have worked. For the sake of Joseph Trevelyan and Maria Mayrhofer, we’ll hope so!
Transvestite. The use of this word as a noun dates only from the mid-twentieth century. The practice, however, is plainly a great deal older. Given Lord John’s Latin education, the use of this Latinate construction as an adjective—“transvestite commerce’’—is more than reasonable.
Also by Diana Gabaldon
Outlander
Dragonfly in Amber
Voyager
Drums of Autumn
The Fiery Cross
The Outlandish Companion