the marquis's memory 5 Bonus just because

 

Chapter 5

 

“Poor old Pigeon is going to have trouble finding you somewhere to roost,” said Geoffrey. “Hey, Gaffer, how big’s your cottage?”

“Two bedrooms and a room in the roof,” said Gaffer.

“Well, maybe you’ll take my friend as a paying guest?” said Geoffrey. “You can both come over to the Running Buck to eat. What do you want for him to stay?”

“Dew yew be feeding me here, yew cin hev a dozen friends to stay,” said Gaffer. “Especially if we’m drivin’ over. I’ve grain and hay.”

Simon withdrew, with the Gaffer, leaving Geoffrey with his clothes, and a valise for Pip.

“Well, scrub, at least you should be able to change into a nightgown tonight, and then we can burn those old rags when you dress properly tomorrow,” said Geoffrey. “There seem to be three pairs of shoes for you in the hopes one pair will fit.”

“My ma said I should never undress in front of a man,” said Pip.

“Oh! She knew something about someone, I wager,” said Geoffrey. “I’m safe enough. But I tell you what,  if I close off the curtains on the side of the bed, you can get undressed and into the bed Pigeon made up on the floor, will that do you?”

“Yes, sir, thank you,” said Pip. “Grown men are… different. At least, you are, when I helped you with the piss-pot.”

“Of course, things do grow as you get older,” said Geoffrey. “When you reach the age to start to have to shave, and your voice deepens, everything else grows as well.”

“I… I see,” said Pip. “It’s all very confusing.”

“That’s one way to put it,” said Geoffrey. “Don’t worry about it; let things happen as they happen.”

Pip blushed, and nodded.

“I sometimes worry that there’s something wrong with me,” he said.

“That’s common enough,” said Geoffrey. “We can talk about it when we aren’t tired.”

“Thank you, sir, I think,” said Pip.

 

oOoOo

 

Suggs made a guess, that the Black Boy was named for Charles II, and so was likely to be a venue for the nobility, especially as it did not have any associations with housing the military, and enquired about Lord Calver here. Being a man who enjoyed sport, when it was not his duty to try to stop it, he was much entertained by the blow-by-blow accounting of the marquis’s fight with the local champion; and being more a man of the people, received the account which had not been told to milord’s well-known man of business, that this had enraged the pet of the fancy who had come to fight the local champion, and that Lord Calver had taken on the said pet of the fancy, his trainer, bottle-holder, and the titled gentleman who had put up the wager, and had flattened them all. Suggs decided that putting his lordship in a bad mood was a very, very bad idea, and that if the gentleman did not want to be found, well, perhaps he would compensate Ned Suggs for not finding him. Ned Suggs spent Tuesday night in Chelmsford, not having got that far on Monday, and learned much about Lord Calver, including that he owned a house on the Shotley Peninsula, which was occupied by a cousin of his. This, from a solicitor in Chelmsford, who acted for the Calver family, and, nominally, for one Philip-Paul Seward, mostly in settling money on those claiming paternity against the said Philip-Paul Seward, as set up in a trust by the late marquis, together with a generous stipend, on the understanding that he never came to London. Philip-Paul’s activities had been curtailed when he had contracted an impediment somewhat more hampering to his proclivities than the more normal syphilis, when his young bedmate of the time proved to be epileptic and bit clear off the organ which caused most of the problems. She had died of suffocation and head wounds, where Seward had belaboured her, but though her death had been hushed up, the locals looked on her covertly as someone akin to a saint. Suggs winced in automatic sympathy, and agreed that it couldn’t have happened to a better man.

 

 

oOoOo

 

Whilst Suggs was still travelling eastwards, on Wednesday, Geoffrey experienced the same wince when Simon shared what he had garnered of Seward with him.

“Well, I don’t see any reason to call on him, if the pater set up all that,” said Geoffrey.  “The scrub is too young to wince at that.”

“I shink he deserved it,” said Pip, who was beginning to lose the local vernacular for being in the company of educated men, but who still came out with the odd local idiom like the portmanteau word ‘shink’ for ‘should think.’  “Do you suppose he bleeds on the full moon? Is it something that is visited on his children even unto the third and fourth generation?”

“That’s syphilis,” said Geoffrey. “Don’t worry; even if he caught syphilis, I doubt he had it when you were conceived. And you’d not be very healthy if he had, if it had passed on. I don’t know what anyone has told you, but, well, essentially he’s just lost the means to rape and menace women. He’ll have to pee at the squat, but he hasn’t in any way become a woman, to bleed monthly, any more than castrati do. I don’t think you’ve had much of an education.”

“Only what the vicar says in church,” said Pip.

“Well, anything the current canting fool says is likely to be a load of nonsense anyway,” said Geoffrey, who had taken against the Reverend Coot.  “Men and women are built differently to be able to come together to make babies. We make seed in the scrotum and plant it via our, um, best friend, who goes into a special cavity women have behind where they pee from.  They bleed from there once a month because every month, their body gets ready to have a baby, and if no seed is planted, then what’s ready for it just dissolves into blood and comes away. The process is supposed to be pleasurable for both parties, but men who force themselves on women, which is cowardly and unmanly, can make it painful and degrading. If your mother said anything, and judging by what you have said of the man you call ‘Da,’ I doubt she had a good time, and her experiences are not to be relied on. It’s the responsibility of a real man to see that a woman has a good time, and that means touching her and making her feel good before shoving it in and taking your pleasure. It should be shared.”  He smiled at a blushing Pip. “I know, it sounds pretty gross, but at least now you’ve had what is known as ‘the talk’ you have some idea of how it works, in broad. You can always ask me questions.”

“I think I want to go and be alone for a while and think about things,” gasped Pip.

“Of course you do,” said Geoffrey. Pip fled.

“I bet you never thought you’d be giving ‘the talk’ before you even got married, never mind produced sons,” sniggered Simon.

“I’m glad you didn’t die of mortification when Papa had to do it for you because yours died before he could, and your mother’s vague flutterings with fear of disease plus those bullies at school left you thinking that women had teeth inside,” said Geoffrey.

“Mortification, nothing; I was extremely grateful to your father,” said Simon. “Do you suppose the poor brat does have any syphilitic symptoms?”

“He’s rudely healthy, I’d say it was highly unlikely,” said Geoffrey. “Inadequate parenting, a fool of a vicar, and probably picked on by other boys if he isn’t developing much yet.”

 

oOoOo

 

Pip fled to the haven of the pigstye, and, in its dark, private confines, went exploring inside the borrowed breeches and drawers. Certain things became much clearer  and Pip started wondering what questions to ask his lordship, if any. And whether such a kind man would care about a ward’s rather intimate concerns.

 

oOoOo

 

Suggs’s progress east was slowed by stopping to ask about the gentleman with the bang-up team of bright bays, and he came into Much Haddington, where the inn stood, with roads to Less Haddington, where Seward lived, Haddington St. Martin, which sprawled into Much Haddington after the manner of an inebriated consort, and Cross Haddington, which consisted of the church on the hill, and a selection of cottages at its base, and on the shore road claimed by Sarey, the sow.  In Sugg’s estimation, a young man who was already angry would not go to see his essential pensioner, unless he hoped for an excuse to lay him out as well; but he would probably put in at the inn.

A long heavy wet had his name on it inside, in any case, he thought.

Suggs walked into the inn.

Here, he saw not one gentleman, but two; one, sandy-haired and with good nature written all over his features, fine, but not fashionable clothes, and an air of cheerful acceptance of life as it came. The other was taller, even seated, wiry without being skinny, muscles filling the skin-tight jacket, a neckcloth tied in the Mathematical, but without points to his shirt as high as some men of fashion wore them, biscuit-coloured inexpressibles, hessian boots – Geoffrey had been pleased that Simon had packed his boots – and one or two fobs and a quizzing glass on his watch chain. He had dark, curly hair, a high, straight nose, and grey eyes which shot a piercing look at Suggs. He matched the description.

Whether the gentleman with him was a local gentleman or otherwise, Suggs did not know. But he doffed his hat, and approached both.

“I’m supposed to be looking for a man named Geoffrey Calver, Marquis Calver,” said Suggs, hesitantly.

“Simon Endicott, at your service,” said Simon.

“Well, I’m still recovering from a concussion which robbed me of my memory,” said Geoffrey. “Am I supposed to be someone worthy of being taken up by Bow Street? Your Occurrence Book is showing. And I’d like to look at it, if you please to check your bona fides.”

“Certainly, sir,” said Suggs, handing over the book. Geoffrey read it out.

“Edward Suggs, age two-and-thirty, five feet seven inches, brown hair, pale complexion, blue eyes, no distinguishing features.  Well, that could be about half the male population of London, but it fits you well enough. Did I see you riding in on Hercules?”

“Yes, my lord; I intimated that being loaned a horse would aid in my search for your lordship,” said Suggs. “And you’ve given yourself away by knowing the horse.”

“Damn, that was foolish of me,” said Geoffrey. “You want to sit a little back in the saddle; you’ll find it more comfortable, and so will Hercules, but you don’t ride too badly, and you’ve light enough hands. My mother had no right to loan him out to just anyone, but I won’t get too sore since you don’t appear to have upset him.”

“He’s been educating me,” said Suggs. “Shifting to put me where he wants me.”

Geoffrey laughed.

“Well, you seem to be learning.  So, is the dowager charging me with dereliction of duty, theft of my own jewellery, murder of her aspirations, or just disobedience to her will?”

“I’m not sure, my lord, but I will say, her concern seemed to be more for your failure to comply than fear for your safety,” said Suggs. “She seemed to think you might have gone off to live fifteen days somewhere in order to marry someone unsuitable.”

“That’s a bloody good idea,” said Geoffrey. “I wonder who is the most unsuitable, an impoverished parson’s sister, or her sow?  I can’t see Sarey going willingly to the altar without eating the veil and bouquet.”

“You’re an idiot, Hedgehog,” said Simon.

“Yes, but at the moment, I’m a happy idiot, whereas if I return home, I shall have to make the choice of whether I merely banish my mother from any property in which I am staying, make her live in the dower house in the fens, or put her in the charge of a sturdy nurse as plainly insane,” said Geoffrey. “Do you know why I left in a temper, Suggs?”

“The lady was not clear on the subject, my lord,” said Suggs.

“Mr. Jefferson. I am living as Mr. Jefferson,” said Geoffrey.

“The problem is, that I have been paid to find you,” said Suggs, apologetically. “And my reputation is at stake, and hence my likelihood of being hired again. It’s nice to get the extra pay,” he added.

“Well, let me see,” said Geoffrey. “If you lost my trail after Chelmsford, it would not be unreasonable to go on to my seat at Akenheth-in-the-Marsh, to check I had not gone there. Hercules is a comfortable ride, you get six or eight days holiday, as many guineas, and I get some time to heal from my accident, and regain my equilibrium over my mother presenting me with the bride she had chosen for me, whom I would not marry if my only alternative was celibacy. Um… would you be open at all to any kind of incentive?”

“I wouldn’t take a bribe over a criminal matter, Mr. Jefferson, but I’ve fewer scruples in a civil matter where nobody is being hurt,” said Suggs.

“Well, would fifteen guineas buy your co-operation?” asked Geoffrey.

“That would buy a lot of co-operation,” said Suggs, gratefully. “I should probably talk to your connection, Mr. Seward. I can use that to give a reason for looking further, for I assume you have not spoken to him?”

“Not without coercion,” said Geoffrey.

“Good; then he will deny that you are here,” said Suggs.

“Oh, very good,” said Geoffrey.   “Eh, good luck; if he offers you violence, I’ll compensate you.”

“That’s ominous. I can take care of myself, however,” said Suggs. “He won’t dare assault an officer of Bow Street.”

“I hope not,” said Geoffrey. “Join us for a drink? Have you eaten?”

“I don’t mind if I do,” said Suggs. “I’ve been on the road since six.”

“Oh, then you’ll be glad of luncheon,” said Geoffrey. “You’ll enjoy Jinny Pigeon’s raised pies.”