Riot Most Uncouth Read Online Free Page B

and not be victim to circumstance.”
    The crowd at his feet raised their glasses. “’Ave at ’em, Mad Jack!” shouted one of the drunks.
    â€œI am not a fool, so I submit that I will live forever.” With this, my father grabbed the girl by the throat and kissed her, hard on the mouth. “The rest of you bastards can give my regards to the Devil.” He pressed the champagne bottle between the girl’s thighs, and she gasped at the touch of the cool glass.
    I dodged among the crowd and grabbed at his hand. “I want to live forever, too, Father,” I said.
    He looked down at me, and his upper lip curled. “Who let you out of your room?” he asked. Then, with a violent wave of his hands, he summoned one of the nearby servants. “Fetch my stupid cow of a wife.” He dismissed the girl on his lap with a slap to her rump and made a show of rolling up his shirtsleeves.
    My mother appeared a few minutes later, clad in her nightgown, her hair disheveled. Unwelcome at my father’s party, she had been asleep. “Why are you out of bed, little George?” she asked me.
    â€œHe is out of bed because you are so bloody worthless that you are incapable of putting him in his room and locking the door.” He rose from the chair and struck her face with the back of his hand. She fell to the ground. The party guests burst into laughter and applause.
    â€œYou continually embarrass me with your inability to perform the simplest tasks,” he said. “I ask so very little of you, and yet I get even less.” He grabbed me roughly under my arms and carried me back into the house. My mother followed, sobbing, behind him.
    â€œFather, you’re hurting me,” I said.
    â€œI ought to put you in a sack and drown you in the river,” he told me.
    I wanted to cry, but I was too scared. He threw me on the floor of my room, and my bad leg twisted under me as I fell. The door slammed, I heard the key turn in the lock, and I was alone.
    In the hallway, he was still yelling. I couldn’t make out all the words, because the door was heavy and the guests had followed us down the hall, making noise and hooting. But among his shouts, I understood “deformed,” “lame,” and “disgrace.”

 
    Chapter 5
    I have got a new friend, the finest in the world, a tame bear. When I brought him here, they asked me what I meant to do with him, and my reply was, “he should sit for a fellowship. …” This answer delighted them not.

    â€” Lord Byron, from an 1807 letter to Elizabeth Pigot
    Though Trinity College had failed me in many ways, the school had at least attempted to provide accommodations that were not totally insulting. My rooms were in Nevile’s Court, by far the most prestigious residential building at Trinity, which was the most prestigious college in Cambridge. Sir Isaac Newton himself had dwelt in this very edifice, and had calculated the speed of sound by timing the echoes of his footsteps in the north cloister. I was close to the riverbank, where I could swim. The other building residents were gentle and well heeled. Except, of course, for the bear.
    I was also relieved of the obligation to take meals in the common hall, when I preferred to dine alone or entertain guests in a more intimate atmosphere, for my suite had a kitchen where my servant could work his alchemy, and a dining room that was adequate for the presentation and enjoyment of fine cuisine. My table was large and constructed with consummate skill from fine, even-grained hardwood. The linens and the silver were of exquisite quality. Were it not so, I would have been embarrassed to play host to so distinguished a personage as the Professor.
    Despite the sumptuous feast Murray had prepared, our mood was not celebratory. The murder of Felicity Whippleby had irreparably ruined my morning, and Mr. Burke’s arrival marked the start of something that was likely to