by DM Bryan
“Upstairs,” said the girl. She can command down here; Sarah must obey.
Somewhere on the stairs, under the full light of the clerestory window, Sarah turns to the girl and asks for a cup of portable soup, or failing that, a bit of bread and butter. She gets neither. The meal the girl brings up consists of dishes of conceits, one made of almond and another of caraway, and a plate of ratafia cakes. More tea. Sarah wants to complain that she is starved of real nourishment, but instead she sits under her bedroom window and chews. She takes her second tea alone. Elizabeth, it seems, is out calling.
When the girl comes to take away the empty dishes, she looks pointedly at the dresses. Sarah, ashamed of her transgressions, agrees to be put into the yellow gown. It fits snugly and the girl dresses her hair and brings her the glass. The dress looks well enough, Sarah supposes, and she accepts a portion of orange water in the folds of her arms and neck.
“You will look very fine in the candles,” says the girl, and Sarah supposes this to be her attempt at a compliment. Sarah thinks to learn her name, to ask after her mother and father, brothers and sisters, but lies down in her gown and naps instead.
e
Sarah wakes to the banging of footmen. The walls of her room are grey, the bed and window curtains the colour of dried blood. At the window, a gorget of dark sky shows, while carriage horses stamp and blow. In important journals and newspapers, Sarah reads of her sister’s salons—the clever company and the cleverer conversation, of the ban on card play and gambling, of the over-consumption of tea. She knows some of the company, and is even reckoned of it, but Elizabeth has refurbished her guest list of late, urging greatness forward and consigning meeker souls to the lumber-room. Sarah does not yet know her own fate. Perhaps it is well she chose the primrose dress.
She goes out into the stairwell and stands looking down. Elizabeth comes to the bottom of the stairs and looks up. “Come join us, Pea. The company arrives.”
“I am inconveniencing you—I should have come at another time.”
“Nonsense. Follow my lead, emulate me, and you will soon feel at home,” Elizabeth instructs now. She has not dressed grandly, Sarah notes, and yet looks sleeker, richer than she did before. Elizabeth’s informality sets the tone for her evenings—Sarah has read so in her periodicals—and guests arrive attired so that blood may flow, setting vital thought in motion. Some of the men even wear their blue stockings. In this house, intelligence is valued. Reason praised. Wit esteemed.
Elizabeth rustles away, but then rustles back—she has not said her all. Sarah remains at the top of the stairs, forcing her sister to tilt her head. Elizabeth subjects her to a quick appraisal. “You look very well, Pea, but your hair is askew. Has a pin come loose? I will send up the girl.”
Everything comes loose, thinks Sarah, in time. All this fine company will unspool. They will unwind in the drawing room, in the dressing chamber, in the great bedroom where you receive them in sparkling groups. Bits of thread, shards of bone. Humus and mould. Fortune and nature mistake us, every one—we are all gardeners in the end.
Elizabeth sends the girl. She comes heavily up the stairs and urges Sarah back into her room. “What have you done?” the girl says, holding Sarah at arm’s length. “How crooked you are,” and she sets about tugging and pinning. Taking hunks of Sarah’s hair, she pulls it so tight, Sarah’s face hurts.
“I suffer headaches,” says Sarah. “I cannot—”
“Better,” says the girl. “Your cheeks are pink.”
“I do not think I know your name.”
A worried line between the girl’s eyes. Her behaviour borders on the impertinent, and she knows it. A true Londoner, her face creases and stays creased. “Sadie,” she says.
“Sadie? Your name is Sarah?”
Sadie nods.
“Not Grace?” says Sarah.
Sadie blows out her lips in an exasperated way. “We have a Grace in this household,” says she, “You saw her with the tea things.” Sadie narrows her eyes. Sarah looks at the girl’s hair under the cream of her laced cap. Dregs, to Grace’s coffee.
“You don’t like Grace,” says Sarah. Not a question.
“She’s my sister.”
Back on the landing, the noise of the company comes in waves. Sarah stands on the top step and progresses no further. Below, a door opens and closes. Voices drift up, talking and laughing. The scent of London in spring, moist and fervent, climbs the stairs to meet Sarah. Her mouth grows cottony and fills with the taste of metal. A mild nausea sprouts and grows. Sarah, out of habit, blames her head, but perhaps too many ratafia cakes and Sadie’s tight lacing are equally to blame. Still, she feels bilious.
Glancing down, she sees the wooden treads swimming before her eyes. Then they go clapping away, like crows on the wing. Like wavelets from a stone.
“You must come down, Pea,” says Elizabeth, looking up. Light streams from the drawing room. “Dr. Johnson has promised to give an account of the counterfeiting of the Cock Lane ghost.”
“In a moment,” says Sarah.
“Are you feeling unwell, Sarah. Shall I call a physician? We have several here, all of them eminent,” says Elizabeth, with an attempt at a laugh.
Sarah shakes her head. “I have a little lavender oil,” says she. “I need rest.”
“Oh, Pea,” says Elizabeth, returning to the drawing room.
Sadie, the girl, brushes past Sarah, heading down. Sarah stops her with her roughened fingers. “Girl,” she says. She won’t use the name—her own name.
“Yes, madam,” says the girl, bobbing neatly this time, her feet perching on the edge of the landing.
“Unpin me.”
Eyebrows crinkle the tissue of the girl’s brow. She says, without thinking, “But I dressed your hair. I laced your gown.”
“Undress. Unlace.”
“My mistress,” says the girl, “instructed me to make sure you come down.”
“Then we must both disappoint her.” Sarah examines the girl. “Are you afraid of your mistress?” she asks.
The girl shakes her head. Sarah cannot tell if she lies.
She leads the way back into her room, and stands obediently by the bed. Then, she lifts her arms so that Sadie can better find the pins that hold the stomacher in place. “Unpin me, or find me Grace,” says she. “She is the sweet-tempered sister, is she not—and you the virago.”
Sadie’s eyes grow wet as she undresses Sarah. Anger, Sarah thinks, not sorrow. She herself blinks and a penumbra of light appears around the candle on the ugly mantle. She thinks of Tidy in Batheaston, of Meg.
Before Sadie can finish, Sarah dismisses her, unlaces her own gown, and shrugging it off, leaves it, a pool on the floor.
e
The following day, Sarah calls at the sign of the Golden Head in Leicester Fields, a letter to Mr. Hogarth pinched between her fingers. It is the course of action she decides upon in the middle of the night, when she cannot sleep. She introduces herself, in her own name, writing, Dear Mr. Hogarth, some of the world has met me as the author of The History of Cornelia and A Journey Through Every Stage of Life, although no reader knows me by name.
She entreats Hogarth for advice on a project of her own. I have, she writes, made ventures into printed pictures before, but with no success. I hope you will condescend to draw upon your expertise to help one such as myself. My aims are charitable, not pecuniary, although the scheme itself must make its own way in the world.
The leather portmanteau remains in Hill Street. On Sarah’s back is Elizabeth’s primrose dress and the cloak her sister loans her when she hears Sarah is determined to go out.
Over the breakfast table, she’d apologized to Elizabeth for failing to appear at her salon, making much of her sick headache. But Elizabeth, acquainted of old with Sarah’s disinclination for company, only brushed away the topic, like so many crumbs of toa
st. Now, in the reckoning light of morning, Sarah cannot but entertain a little regret for the brilliant company she missed. Amongst such men and women of influence, she might have advanced her own interests, with or without Mr. Hogarth. But that is not her purpose, here in London.
Dear Mr. Hogarth, I should be delighted to tell you more of my projection, should you find time to see me. I am in town for only a short while, and for this reason, I push myself forward. I am told people of business may do as much these days, although I confess I am a little shocked at my own daring. I am, sir, a lady who is chiefest amongst your admirers, and, whatever the propriety of my act, I hope you will reward my enterprise as the world has rewarded yours.
At the sign of the Golden Head, a maid opens the door and Sarah tenders her letter. She has already determined she will not wait, but says she will return for an answer in the afternoon. Then, she retreats to the square and wonders what to do with her morning.
Sarah has told Elizabeth nothing of her plans, only that she is engaged with a philanthropic matter all day. She knows her reserve injures her sister, for Elizabeth imagines herself necessary to every act of goodness Sarah contemplates. The ease with which Mrs. Edward Montagu obtains grants of money, and the size of those gifts, buys her a part in every action Sarah takes. And in every case but this one, Sarah, who understands that her pride deprives those who need help, concedes. Old women knitting gloves, poor maids sewing pockets, wronged girls righting themselves—women in scores owe much to good Elizabeth Montagu. She herself owes Elizabeth for intervening with their father over the matter of her allowance—and this itself strikes her as especially unfair. How wrong it is that Elizabeth, backed by the invisible frowning head of Edward Montagu, so commands her father’s conscience, while Sarah’s own pleas, undermined by George Scott’s lingering, husband-shaped shadow, caused him to shrink the annuity he allows her. Without Barbara to remind Sarah of the unevenness of life, and that she and good fortune are already acquainted, Sarah bristles, forgets to count her blessings. Instead, she remembers how she opened her mouth last night to apologize to the girl, to Sadie, but could not continue. London—or something like it—stopped her. She knows this is not the whole truth.
When Sarah realizes she has been walking with no attention to direction, she has already put Leicester Fields far behind. Now, the elegant box of St. Martin’s church appears before her. She turns onto St. Martin’s Lane and climbs the broad steps, to stand a while under the columned portico. The weather, so warm only yesterday, has turned, and she is glad of Elizabeth’s thick cloak. Her own, thoroughly muddied in the toppling of the coach, has been carried downstairs by Sadie or Grace—Sarah neglects to discover which—where it will be beaten, brushed, wetted, and brushed again to raise the knap. When Sarah returns to Bath, her cloak will put on a better show than it has in years. Everything Elizabeth touches is like this.
Inside the church, Sarah kneels in the black pews and bows her head. Eyes closed, she prays for as many people as she can recall—Elizabeth, Barbara, Meg, Tidy and the rest, the knitting old women, the drunken coach driver, Mr. Gotobed and his sweetheart, the sisters in Elizabeth’s household, the guests at her salon. Mr. Hogarth, of course. She commends them all to God and blames the weather for the feebleness of her prayers. St. Martin’s vaulted heavens hold clouds of damp. A chill rises from the flags.
Back in the street, the rain falls steadily, and Sarah pulls her hood up over her head. She continues down to the Strand, where she walks along graceful stone and brick buildings, all built in the new style. Shop windows vie for her attention, and she passes a wine merchant’s, a cheese-monger’s, and, across the narrow lane, a bookseller’s. Here, the window is all leather covers and gilt pages. Sarah steps inside, but when she observes the number of books, propped upright or lying open to display title pages, she grows anxious for Millenium Hall. Moving from volume to volume, taking care not to drop rain on the pages, she feels a rush of gratitude for Mr. Newbery and his fine frontispiece. Barbara is right as usual—the man knows his business.
She exits the bookshop and makes her way to the front of a hatter’s establishment, stopping before the window that had previously caught her eye. Between a drooping bonnet and a pert chapeau, she sees her own face reflected. She turns and reads the name painted on the swinging sign before the shop: Mr. J. Askew, Straw Hat Maker and, amused, she decides to purchase a hat for Lady Barbara.
When Sarah enters, a bell dings sweetly. A young woman, sitting in a chair at the back of the room, her elbows upon her knees and her head in her hands, rises as Sarah enters.
“Forgive me,” says Sarah, casting her eye over the chapeaux perched on carved wig stands, “but might I try that one?” She points to the window, indicating the hat she means. It has a wide brim, and around the crown, a blue ribbon, finished with a bow.
The girl retrieves the pert hat and gingerly pulls back Sarah’s wet hood. She settles the chapeau on Sarah’s hair and pats it into place. The scent and texture of straw are not unpleasant, and Sarah is pleased with her generosity in thinking of Barbara. Her friend will protest, but then she will wear it when they next venture out to church. The blue ribbon will suit her.
A little glass, browned at the edges, sits on a curved sideboard, allowing Sarah a sight of her own face beneath its new cover. Sarah gazes but a moment before removing the chapeau. With less enthusiasm, she points to the second hat, the drooping bonnet, but the effect is the same. Straw and ribbon cannot disguise the lines in her cheeks, around her lips, the coarseness of her skin. Only the pockmarks, companions since girlhood, seem familiar.
“We can trim to suit,” says the girl, pointing to a flight of feathers so airy they might yet fly up to hover at the ceiling of the little shop.
Sarah shakes her head, and the other nods. “I do agree, madam, that a simple pleated ribbon is more refined.”
Sarah says, “may I try the one with the blue band again?”
It is a very pert hat, but gazing in the mirror, Sarah understands it is not the chapeau she wants to see. Rather, she longs for her own remembered face, round and solemn, dark eyed and red cheeked. She had imagined those features misplaced instead of lost. Now she knows that youthful countenance is gone forever.
“That is a very rakish headpiece,” says the girl.
“What did you call it?”
“Jaunty. What the French call debonair.”
Sarah removes the hat. Is that truly what people would say: oh how rakish she is in that number? How could she hold up her head after such a description?
“I should not wish to be compared to a rake.”
“Truly?” said the little milliner. “It is very a la mode to be a bit of a rogue.”
“Not where I come from,” says Sarah. “Where I come from, we think better of amusing ourselves by pretending to be worse than we are—we are quite bad enough already.”
She meets her own eyes in the mirror and feels a swell of self-pity, but it is the little milliner who begins to sniffle and wipe her eyes with the handkerchief she pulls from her pocket. It is the second girl Sarah has made cry in the space of a day.
How do I do it? thinks Sarah.
This time, Sarah does her best to condole the girl. She says, “Pay me no mind if I spoke out of turn. I did not intend to include others in my condemnation—only myself.”
“No,” says the hat-seller, “my mother would say the same. I should not speak so freely.”
“Perhaps not,” says Sarah, trying to sound mild.
“But it is London,” says the girl. “It’s the way people talk.”
“Still, you need not adopt their manner.”
“I do,” says the hat-seller. “For the business, you see. It is very bad, just now. In wet weather, who buys a straw chapeau? No one.” And she wipes her nose again.
I will have to buy the hat now, Sarah thinks, but when she inquires after the price, she know
s she will not. Instead of a hat, Sarah buys several yards of trim in two colours—a more reasonable gift to transport to Bath. And then she goes back into the drizzle with her paper package tucked deep in a pocket of the primrose dress.
Down the Strand she continues, past a pastry cook’s glazed window and the glinting interior of a sieve-wright. Tired, she pauses, wondering if she might yet return to Leicester Fields for her answer from the Hogarth household, but she knows she is still too early. While she is deliberating, the day darkens, and London gives a convulsive shake, like a wet dog. Rain flies in all directions, sprinkling her face and the shoulders of Elizabeth’s cloak. The shower decides her: she will walk back as far as St. Mary le Strand, and if it is still raining when she gets there, she will go into the church. It cannot hurt to spend the remainder of the morning with her head bent, even wordlessly. Then she thinks, especially wordlessly.
She begins walking, but almost at once she stops. A handbill has caught her eye. It flaps wetly from the post of a railing, the ink running in the rain. Even so, the printed drawing is still recognizable, and what it shows, makes her read the type below. When she has finished, she is all astonishment—the handbill is like a signpost from God, although Sarah knows she should not entertain such superstitious thoughts. Still, has she not just yesterday imagined herself in the heavy hide of a rhino? Elizabeth as a showily striped zebra? Barbara as a camel?
She glances about, looking for the inn whose name is given in bold type. She locates instead a small boy, sheltering in an inset doorway.
“Here,” says she, crossing to the child. She has not taken the sodden handbill from the post, as she should have. “Is the menagerie still about?”
“What—the one at Talbots?” says the boy, approving. Sarah nods, and for a farthing he takes her there.