The Strange Affair Of Spring Heeled Jack Part 12

The poet stood on tiptoe and peered over a wall of books at Burton, who'd absent-mindedly muttered "send him in" when Mrs. Angell announced his friend's arrival. It was plain that the great explorer was in one of his "scholarly funks"-as Swinburne called them-and was blind to all but the book in his hand.

"Boo!" said the poet.

"Moko Jumbi," announced Burton.

"Eh?"

The explorer looked up. "Oh, h.e.l.lo, Algy. There's nothing. No reference I can find that at all resembles Spring Heeled Jack with the exception of the Caribbean's 'Moko Jumbi,' which is represented in carnivals by stilt-walking dancers. The origin is definitely African. Moko is a G.o.d of the Congo region; the word means 'diviner.' As for jumbi,' I believe it roughly equates with the Arabian 'djinni' and probably has its origin in the Congolese word 'zumbi.' So: 'Diviner Spirit.' Interesting."

"Is it?" said Swinburne. "Why are you researching Spring Heeled Jack? Are you joining the Rakes? And why do you have a black eye?"

"The one gave me the other."

"What? What? Are you telling me that Spring Heeled Jack whacked you in the eye?" exclaimed Swinburne, moving around the books to sit in the armchair facing Burton's. His elbow caught a stack and sent volumes cascading to the floor.

Burton sighed. 'Do you consider 'whacked' to be a suitable word for an up-and-coming poet?"

"Shut up and answer the question!"

"If I shut up I can hardly-"

"Richard!" screeched Swinburne, bouncing in his seat.

Burton laughed. It looked like it hurt him; his upper lip curled, revealing over-long canines, and his eyes seemed to wince, as if seldom-used muscles had come into play. Three deep-chested barks, then the face fell back to its normal savage aspect and the penetrating eyes levelled at Swinburne's own pale green orbs.

"It's true, Algy. I was attacked by Spring Heeled Jack after leaving you at the Cannibal Club," he said, putting his book aside. He proceeded to describe the incident.

"Great heavens, but that's wonderful!" enthused Swinburne when he'd finished. "Fancy being punched in the head by a myth! I don't believe you, of course. Have you eaten?"

"I can a.s.sure you that I'm telling the truth and it felt far from wonderful. No, I haven't."

"Come on then-let's go for tiffin at the Black Toad."

Burton put the hookah aside and stood. "Very well, but go easy on the ale. Last time we lunched there, I had to carry you out over my shoulder."

"Funny." The little poet chuckled. "I don't remember that at all!"

As he leaped up, his foot clipped another pile of books and sent it cras.h.i.+ng down.

A couple of minutes later, the two men, with overcoats b.u.t.toned up to their necks, top hats at a jaunty angle on their heads, and canes swinging in their hands, strolled out of 14 Montagu Place and headed east toward Baker Street.

The fog had turned from a deep h.e.l.lish red to a pustulant pale yellow. People, animals, and vehicles moved cautiously through it. Sound was muted. Even the sudden report of a nearby velocipede's boiler exploding, and the rider's yells as his calves were scalded, sounded strangely m.u.f.fled.

"Algy," said Burton, "you've knocked around with a Rake or two. Why their enthusiasm for Spring Heeled Jack? What exactly is their philosophy?"

"They're extremists," declared the poet. "Anarchists. Nihilists. Very naughty boys. They claim that all moral codes and social conventions are entirely artificial and that by following them a man is willingly allowing his authentic ident.i.ty to be suppressed."

They crossed Gloucester Place and entered Dorset Street, Swinburne hurrying along with his characteristically springy step and nervous movements. As they pa.s.sed the corner, the sweet odour of roasting chestnuts caressed their nostrils; one of the rare pleasurable scents the streets of London could offer. Burton tipped his hat at the vendor.

"Afternoon, Mr. Grub. How's business?"

"Rotten! No one can see me in this blinkin' pea-souper. Can I do you a bag?"

"Sorry, old son. I'm on my way for a nosh-up at the pub!"

"Ah well. Enjoy, Cap'n!"

It was one of Burton's great talents, this ability to communicate with anyone, whatever their social standing. Some of his acquaintances sneered at it; they considered it indecorous to converse with the hoi polloi, but their opinions did little to influence him.

"The difference between a True Libertine and a Rake," said Swinburne as they moved on, "is that the one is concerned with how and what an individual should contribute to society, while the other is concerned only with how society shapes the individual."

"You make the Libertines sound rather virtuous. That's not their reputation."

"No, no! Don't misunderstand me! Both branches of the movement are thoroughly disreputable by the fabled Mrs. Grundy's puritanical standards. Our mystical mother of propriety stamps her little foot at the merest whiff of scandal; and the Libertines stink of it, not least because s.e.xuality is a focal point for their cause. They identify it as the area where the Empire's hypocrisy is most apparent; and they are wickedly unrestrained in their support of eroticism, p.o.r.nography, pederasty, de Sade, and all manner of vices."

A gentleman walking past at this moment muttered, "I say!" as he caught some of the poet's words. Swinburne chuckled and raised his voice so that other pa.s.sersby might hear.

"The True Libertine points to the thousands of prost.i.tutes on London's streets and says: 'Look! s.e.x for sale! This is what these woman-and men!have resorted to in order to survive in this so-called civilisation! Where are your much-vaunted morals now, Society? Where is your restraint; your puritan ethic? And these prost.i.tutes have customers! Men whose s.e.xual tastes cannot be satisfied within your rules of so-called decency! You, Society, generate the very thing you denigrate Burton glanced around as heads turned and disapproving glares were cast at his companion. Swinburne continued regardless, sermonising with more than a little relish.

"The Rake, meanwhile, celebrates the s.e.xual act as the one place where men and women are literally and metaphorically stripped naked and reduced to their purest nature-I mean 'pure' in the sense of unaffected; the one occasion when we are most liable to shed the artificial skin of Society and gain a sense of our own fundamental ident.i.ty."

The two men turned right into Baker Street.

"The Rakes say of shame: what is it? Of virtue: we can miss it. Of sin: we can kiss it. And it's no longer sin!"

Burton gave a derisive snort. However, after a moment of thought, he conceded: "I can sympathise with the general sentiment. Any intelligent man can see that the hypocritical politeness and studied mannerisms of our civilisation suppress and oppress in equal measure. They certainly serve to obliterate difference, enforcing a regime that discourages intellectual, emotional, and s.e.xual freedoms. Far better for Society that its citizens are built according to its dictates, rather than in their own image. It makes them better slaves."

"Hear! Hear!" agreed Swinburne. "Those who allow their ident.i.ty to be formed by the Empire are nothing but the willing fuel for it! This is why the Libertines, and the Rakes in particular, offend, disconcert-even frightenpeople. The movement pushes at boundaries that the ma.s.ses aren't even aware of until they are pushed; and it is those boundaries that define most people's ident.i.ties and which tell them that they're a valued member of a stable society. People like to feel wanted, to know they have their part to play, even if it's only as fuel for the Empire's furnace! My goodness, look at that!"

Swinburne pointed to where an elephantine shape was emerging from the miasma. It was one of the new dray horses-a mega-dray-which the Eugenicists had recently developed. These gigantic beasts stood fifteen feet high at the shoulder (measuring them in "hands" had been deemed ridiculous) and were immensely strong. The cargo wagons they towed were often the size of small houses.

Burton and Swinburne pressed against the wall of the building beside them as the towering animal plodded closer, trying to move as far from it as possible; and with good reason, for mega-drays had no control over their bladders or bowels and were overproductive in both departments. This had proven a serious problem in London's already filthy streets until an enterprising member of the Technologist caste had invented the automated cleaners, popularly known as "litter-crabs," which now roamed the city every night scooping up the mess.

Sure enough, as the horse came abreast of their position, towing an omnibus behind it, large boulders of manure thudded onto the road, splattering across the pavement, narrowly missing the two men.

The mega-dray faded into the lazily swirling pall.

Burton and Swinburne walked on.

"Where does Spring Heeled Jack enter into it, Algy?" asked the king's agent.

"According to the Mad Marquess," answered Swinburne, "if we transcend the borders that define us, we will gain what he termed 'trans-natural' powers. Spring Heeled Jack jumping over a house, he maintained, is an ill.u.s.tration of this, for Jack is the ultimate example of a being who dances to n.o.body's fiddle but his own-law or no law, morals or no morals. This freedom is, apparently, the next step in our evolution."

Burton shook his head. "Being liberated is one thing; s.e.xually a.s.saulting young girls is quite another," he objected. "By G.o.d! Poor old Darwin's theory seems to have proven dangerous for everyone. It's all but destroyed the Church; Darwin himself has been forced into hiding; and now it's being used to justify s.e.xual aggression against innocents! Surely, Algy, such acts are indicative of regression rather than evolution? If we must remove suppressions in order to evolve-and in that much, I agree with the Rakes-should there not also come a self-generated code of conduct that disallows such acts of depravity? Evolution should move us away from animalistic behaviour, not toward it!"

Swinburne shrugged and said, "The Rakes specialise in being b.e.s.t.i.a.l. They glory in perversion, black magic, drugs, and crime. They want to break taboos, laws, and doctrines, all of which they view as artificial and oppressive."

The Black Toad came into sight.

"Praise the Lord!" enthused Swinburne. "I'm parched!"

"Can you last a little longer?" asked Burton. "I have it in mind to bypa.s.s this place and walk on to the Hog in the Pound on Oxford Street."

"Ah, you want to see the birthplace of the Libertines, hey? Certainly, let's leg it over there. But why the sudden interest, Richard?"

Burton told Swinburne the story of Spring Heeled Jack's tenuous connection with Edward Oxford.

Half an hour later, they arrived outside the Hog in the Pound. It was a dark, overweight building; ancient, timbered, crooked, and begrimed. A litter-crab had broken down in the road outside the premises and curious onlookers had gathered around. It was collapsed with its four right legs curled underneath. Half of the thin litter-collector arms on its stomach had been crushed or bent out of shape, and steam wafted sluggishly from a split in its raised side. One of the left legs twitched repet.i.tively.

Swinburne giggled. "You see," he announced at the top of his voice. "The spirit of the Libertines still haunts the Hog in the Pound! All machines that pa.s.s here must surely die! Hoorah for art and poetry! Down with the Technologists!"

They entered the public house and pushed through the dimly lit, lowceilinged taproom-where a thirsty mob of manual labourers, clerks, shopkeepers, businessmen, and city gents were swilling away the soot that lined their throats-to the parlour, which was considerably lighter and less well attended. Hanging their coats and hats on the stand beside the door, they crossed to a table and made themselves comfortable. A barmaid took their order: a gla.s.s of port for Burton and a pint of bitter for Swinburne. They both chose steak and ale pie for their meal.

"So this is where it all happened," observed Swinburne, looking around at the smoke-stained, wood-panelled chamber. "The very room where the Mad Marquess preached to his followers."

"A sermon of lawlessness, madness, and self-indulgence, by the sound of it.

"Not to begin with. At first it was fairly mild Luddite stuff. Machines are ugly. Machines steal our jobs. Machines dehumanise us. The usual sort of thing. Personally, I think the marquess was pandering to the crowd; I don't think he much believed in his own preaching."

"What makes you say that?"

"The fact that he was known to have struck up a close friends.h.i.+p with Isambard Kingdom Brunel back in '37. They were often seen together at the Athenaeum Club. If Beresford was truly a Luddite, why the blazes was he so often seen in deep conversation with the leader of the emerging Technologist movement?

"By '43, if I remember rightly, he stopped railing against the Technologists altogether and, instead, introduced the idea of the trans-natural man. That became his obsession, and he became much more the extremist. Ah! The drinks! Thank you, my dear. Cheers, Richard!"

Swinburne took a gulp from his pint, which looked enormous in his tiny hand. He wiped froth from his upper lip then continued, "Delicious! The problem for the marquess was that most of his followers were more interested in opposing the Technologists than they were in all the evolving-man bunk.u.m, so in 1848, a more palatable version of his preachings was developed by a small breakaway group, comprised of painters, poets, and critics, and led by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and my friend Dante Gabriel Rossetti."

"The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood."

"That's what the core group call themselves, though they and their many followers have more generally become known as the True Libertines. Over the past twenty years or so, their brand of Libertarianism has transformed into a celebration of the so-called n.o.bility of the human spirit. They look at the humble labourer and declare that he is a thing of beauty, this hard-done-by man, whose very existence is threatened by the ugly, job-stealing machines."

He grinned. "I must admit, though, that the True Libertines are mostly the listless elite, foppish painters, languorous authors, lazy philosophers, or half-mad poets like me. They-perhaps I should say 'we,' for I do count myself among their number-we would rather wax lyrical about the labourer than actually pick up a shovel ourselves."

"You don't fool me, little 'un," said Burton. "You're a half-a.r.s.ed Libertine at best!"

"I confess-I'm merely a dabbler!" The poet laughed. "Anyway, to get back to the subject of my little discourse, Henry Beresford and his remaining supporters renamed themselves the Rakes and the rest you know: they're a bunch of lawless rascals who delight in mischief. And, of course, they received a huge boost when Darwin published The Origin of Species. Who needs morality when G.o.d is dead?"

"I wonder what Darwin himself would say about it?" pondered the king's agent.

"Perhaps he'd agree with your theory of a natural system of justice; the idea that we all have an individual built-in moral sense which brings rewards for our good deeds and punishments for our bad. I suspect he'd see it as a function that a.s.sists in the survival of the species."

"Maybe so, if he's still alive. With every religion declaring jihad against him, he might have discovered that scientific realism can't protect against the vengeance of a dead G.o.d."

"Do you believe the rumours that the Technologists are sheltering him?"

It wouldn't surprise me. Francis Galton, the head of the Eugenicist faction, is his cousin. But back to the Rakes, Algy-do they still idolise Spring Heeled Jack?"

"If anything, more so. Their new leader, Beresford's protege, is more extreme even than he was."

"And who is this new leader?"

"You know of him. His name is-Ah-ha! Here's the food!"

The barmaid placed a steaming plate before each man, laid cutlery on the table, and asked, "Another round, gents?"

"Yes," said Swinburne. "No. Wait. Bring us a bottle of red wine instead. Does that suit you, Richard?"

Burton nodded and the barmaid smiled toothily and departed.

"Oliphant," declared Swinburne.

"Pardon?"

"The leader of the Rake faction for the past two years: Laurence Oliphant."

By midafternoon, the fog had turned a rusty brown and flakes of soot were once again drifting lazily through it.

Swinburne got drunk and staggered off into the smothering murk with no clear destination in mind. He would undoubtedly end up unconscious in a gentlemen's club or brothel; his behaviour had been deteriorating these past weeks.

What that lad needs, thought Burton, is a purpose.

The king's agent had managed to talk with the manager of the Hog in the Pound before departing. He'd learned that the original owner of the pub-the man who'd employed Edward Oxford and witnessed the birth of the True Libertines and Rakes-was named Joseph Robinson.

"He's an elderly gent, now, sir," the manager had advised. "A few years back, 1856 it was, he tired of the daily journey to and fro-he's always lived in Battersea, you see-so he sold up and bought himself a public house closer to home, a nice little place called the Tremors."

"Strange name for a pub!" Burton had commented.

"Aye, 'tis. If you ever go there, ask him about it-there's a story!"

Burton got home at six and hadn't been there for more than ten minutes when a loud detonation sounded outside the house. It was followed by the clang of the doorbell. A minute later Mrs. Angell knocked on the study door and announced the arrival of Mr. Montague Penniforth, "who's leaving a trail of soot on the carpet."

The doorway darkened behind her as the giant cabbie ducked and stepped through. He was wrapped in a calf-length red greatcoat, beneath which he wore white breeches, knee-high boots, and a tricorne hat, all peppered with black flakes.

"I'm sorry, good lady," he said. "My mistake. Forgot to wipe me feet. You see, I'm preoccupied, like, on account of the fact that me crankshaft just broke and flew a good forty feet in the air afore it came back down to earth in three pieces."

He shrugged at Burton, who was seated at the main desk. "I'm sorry, guv'nor, but I don't think I'll be takin' you anywhere 'til I get the bleedin' thing replaced; beggin' your pardin for the bad langwidge, ma'am!"

Mrs. Angell sniffed and muttered, "I wouldn't mind so much if they were normal-sized feet!" and glided out of the room with a haughty air.

Burton stood and shook his visitor's hand. "Hang up your hat and coat, Monty. A brandy?"

"Don't mind if I do, sir."

Burton poured a couple of generous measures and, after Penniforth had divested himself of his outer layers, handed him a gla.s.s and gestured to one of the armchairs by the fireplace.

The men sat opposite each other and the cabbie gave a satisfied sigh.

"Blimey," he said, "takin' a brandy in the house of a toff-who'd have thought?"