The chaplain’s words are lost on Ned. They’re nothing but random noises that prolong his life a precious moment more: he doesn’t even hear them. Nor does he have any clear perception of the crowd before him. He doesn’t notice Banks, Mendoza or Smirke, nor Billy Boyles, Adonais Brooks’ footman or the old harridan who’s haunted him since he drew his first breath in a cold crib of straw. He is looking back at his tracks in the snow, the last physical evidence of his willed existence, already filling with fresh white powder.
“—through the merits and death and passion of Jesus Christ—”
Ned closes his eyes, fighting for control. He thinks of Fanny, Barrenboyne, the clarinet. Music, color and movement. Of running, bursting his bonds, leaping a horse and charging off down the street, the wind in his hair. .
“—Lord have mercy upon you, Lord have mercy upon you all.”
. . where is he now? They’ve cut the horse down, their hands round his throat, but Boyles — yes, Boyles — fires into the crowd and Ned is up again, legs pumping, carrying him up and away from the dismal walls of Newgate and the shadow of the gibbet. .
But Ned Rise is not running. He is hanging. Choking on his own vomit as it rises, catches in his throat and drops back to constrict his lungs. Below him, sorrily, futilely, Billy Boyles swings from his legs, crying like a baby, while somewhere off to the left the dwarf shouts out: “Fuck the Virgin Mary!” And then all is calm, and all is dark.
♦ WATER MUSIC ♦
Christmas, 1797.
It’s been a year of victory and defeat, of bold offensives and timely retreats. Thus, Napoleon has whipped the Austrians and annexed the major part of Italy, while Walter Scott has thrown in the towel with Williamina Belches and nuptialed Margaret Charpentier on the rebound. In Hampshire, Jane Austen, disappointed by the rejection of “First Impressions” (should she retitle it?), has churned out a gothic tale, “Northanger Abbey,” and begun a little didactic romance called “Eleanor and Marianne.” Horatio Nelson has been knighted and promoted to the rank of admiral for his part in the crippling of the Spanish fleet at Cape St Vincent, and John Wilkes, the fire breather, is succumbing to the weight of the world and will be dead inside of twenty-four hours. The Dutch have been prevented from landing a French army in Ireland, but the Irish are insurrecting nonetheless, and Pitt, desperately trying to effect a consolidation of England and Ireland, is exciting his monarch’s ire over the question of Catholic emancipation. In the midst of all this, Coleridge and Wordsworth are quietly putting together a book that will break the back of neoclassicism as neatly as a gourmand breaks a breadstick.
But this evening, despite the turmoil of the times, the beau monde has gathered at Covent Garden for a Christmas concert featuring selections from Handel’s Messiah. Outside, the snow lies thick on the cobblestones, in the gutter, in the branches of the trees; inside, the nobs of London bask in the glow of their own sunny faces. King George is there of course, accompanied by Queen Charlotte and their daughters. He has not been looking well of late, and his ministers fear that he may once again be falling prey to the madness that put him out of commission in ‘88 (a madness that prompted him at one point to attempt to throttle the Prince of Wales over the question of succession to the throne). In another box, the Prince is entertaining one of his father’s greatest antagonists, Charles Fox, and the young arbiter of fashion, Beau Brummell. Behind them, the hall is packed. Fanny Burney is there, the Duke of York, Peg Woffington, Lord Hobart. Wilberforce the Abolitionist settles himself in the back row, along with the Bishop of Llandaff, member in absentia of the African Association, while the Countess Binbotta, as sleek and smug as a full-bellied shark, makes a show of offering her heartfelt thanks to William Pitt and the Lord Mayor. Throughout the hall there is a rustle of silks and ornamental swords, the sound of subdued chatter, sniffling, discreet coughs. The scents of lilac water and eau de cologne thicken the air.
Mungo Park, seated at the right hand of Sir Joseph Banks, is feeling a bit giddy. From the moment he took his brother-in-law’s hand in the predawn quiet of the museum gardens, he has been thrust into a vortex of activity, a constantly accelerating round of good cheer, congratulations, beefy faces and raised glasses. Roast goose with Dickson and Effie, punch, Yorkshire pudding and rum cake with Sir Reginald Durfeys, a tree full of candles, snatches of forgotten song, three slices of mince pie and brandy at Sir Joseph’s, a welter of parties, coaches, snowy streets, slapped backs and extended hands — and now this. He is delighted, upset, comforted, dyspeptic, exhausted, exhilarated. As soon as the word got out, the members of the African Association had flocked to him, eager as schoolboys at a rugby match, probing with their animated faces and thousand-and-one questions. Did the negroes slice steaks from living cattle and eat them on the spot? Were the cities made of gold or dung? How wide was the river? Was it commercially viable? Were the hippogriffs a problem?
This is what he’s wanted, this is what he’s dreamed of. He’s the talk of London, a sensation, the cynosure in this galaxy of pole stars. But he is tired, bone-tired. Banks is at his elbow with yet another introduction, and he can barely hold his head up. “Oh Mungo, have you met the Duke of Portland?” the languid aristocratic tones bathing the name in syrup, “This is the fellow I was telling you about, Duke — been to the Niger and back. . this morning. . east! Flows east!”
But then, mercifully, the lights dim, the conductor mounts his podium and the opening strains of the “Sinfonia” sift through the hall. The effect on the explorer is instantaneous. The sound of strings, organ and trumpet is an anodyne, washing him in the sweetness and light of civilization, whispering of precision and control, of the Enlightenment, of St. Paul’s and Pall Mall, of the comfortable operation of cause and effect, statement and resolution. He is back, at long last he is back. Back in a society where the forms are observed and love of culture is a way of life, a society that nurtures Shakespeares, Wrens, Miltons and Cooks. Hail Britannia, yes indeed.
When he looks up, the bass soloist is fulminating against “The people that walked in darkness,” and Mungo thinks of Ali, Eboe, Mansong, the chaos and barbarity of Africa. But then the chorus comes in like a thunderbolt to drive back the darkness with the joy and intensity of “For unto us a child is born” and he feels that he’s never heard anything so beautiful. And now the soprano is opening up, soaring like an angel, the pageant unfolding, a venerable old story of shepherds in their fields and the glad tidings of mankind’s redemption. When the alto steps forward to begin her recitative, “Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened,” Mungo finds himself thinking of Ailie. The soloist is slight, built like a boy, her black hair coiled in a chignon. Mungo’s eyes are closed, there are children on the undersides of his lids, a stone house, Ailie at the door — but then he’s jolted back to consciousness by a grating cacaphony, some disturbance in the front row, someone. . someone shouting down the soloist!
It is the King, on his feet, calling out the name of a composition like a drunkard in a tavern. The audience is stunned; the courageous little alto falters but continues, her voice ringing out over the harsh persistent cries of the King. His Royal Highness seems to be calling for an earlier piece, a favorite of his great-grandfather, and now the Queen is on her feet tugging at his sleeve, and Pitt is running down the aisle, the orchestra losing heart as the red-faced man in the silver wig keeps shouting for “Water Music, Water Music, Water Music!”