The Gilded Lily

by Deborah Swift

  Jay laughed along with the rest of them. He seemed to find it all a cause for jest, and suggested that all the men might like to include some fanciful item in their family crest. Many lewd suggestions were made until Jay coughed and they all looked round at Ella, still sitting politely in the corner.

  ‘Another round. My deal,’ Sedley said.

  ‘Hey, where’s old Wolfenden these days?’ Wycliffe said.

  ‘Back on form,’ said Buckhurst with a grin. ‘You know he was months having treatment in the tubs for the French pox. And his face has rotted so much now that he had to get a silversmith to fashion him a new nose.’

  ‘Is it really that bad?’ Wycliffe asked.

  ‘He tried everything. Last I heard he was on doses of quicksilver. Made him retch for England, and cost him that fine racehorse he had. He was mighty cast down with it all. Still, it seems to be working, which he’s mighty glad about. Says he can’t afford much more treatment. Blames that French jilt on Lukener’s Lane.’

  They carried on playing, engrossed in the game, until Mohun said, ‘I’m out,’ and the rest threw their cards down on the table. Buckhurst raked in the winnings.

  ‘Pass us another drink,’ said Mohun. ‘Let’s talk about this idea we’ve got for the new play at Vere Street.’

  Wycliffe stood up, filled a glass and passed it over, and said to Ella, ‘My apologies, madam, I have offered you no refreshment. Would you like some wine?’

  Wycliffe was a short, slight man with a girlish voice. Ella was aware of all the gentlemen suddenly watching her, and she felt uncomfortable. Wine reminded her of her father and it made her retch. She did not really want any but thought it rude to refuse it, and she could not ask for ale – not in this company anyway.

  ‘A small glass, thank you,’ she said in her best accent. The men looked amused, and Wycliffe poured a thimbleful into a cup. ‘Is this enough?’

  Ella nodded, and they all laughed.

  ‘Only jesting,’ said Wycliffe, sloshing a generous measure into her cup and handing it to her. His hand was unsteady and it slopped into her lap. She hastily brushed it away, but there was a stain spreading on her borrowed red gown and nobody offered to fetch a cloth. There were no servants, they must all be abed. The tart smell of the alcohol catapulted her thoughts back to Netherbarrow, and her father.

  ‘Drink up,’ said Wycliffe. Ella obediently lifted the cup to her lips and, holding her breath, took a small sip. ‘Your good health!’ he said. ‘Now, how would you like to be on the stage?’

  ‘Beg pardon, sir, but I don’t know anything about it.’

  ‘Can you recite anything for us?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She looked to Jay in appeal, but his eyes were on Wycliffe.

  ‘Come on, you must know something. Any little ditty. What about a song?’

  Ella felt her stays digging into her ribs, she did not think she could sing. ‘I don’t know . . . I could try reciting “Maid in a Garret” . . .’ she said.

  ‘Fine, go ahead. Stand there.’

  She stood where he pointed, in the middle of the room, painfully aware that this was not at all what she had in mind when she climbed into the carriage on Friargate. She was not sure what they wanted but she began, hesitating over the first few words:

  ‘I was told by my aunt, I was told by my mother,

  That going to a weddin’ is the makings of another.’

  They were laughing uproariously already. She felt as if she were shrinking, getting smaller every moment like Hop o’ my Thumb. She hesitated.

  ‘No, no, go on,’ spluttered Wycliffe. ‘She’s priceless,’ she heard him say. She rallied herself by speaking a little louder.

  ‘And if this be so then I’ll go without a biddin’,

  Oh kind providence won’t you send me to a weddin’!’

  They sniggered and whispered one to another the whole time she was reciting. Wycliffe was crying with mirth, his hand clapped over his mouth. In a desperate attempt to salvage herself she tried making some gestures, as she declaimed:

  ‘Come rich man, come poor man, come fool or come witty,

  Come any man at all! Won’t you marry out of pity?’

  When she stopped they stamped and whistled, but fell to laughing with each other, not applauding her. She felt two inches tall.

  ‘I’ll marry you myself! Sure I will! How about you, Whitgift?’ Wycliffe said.

  He gave a tight-lipped smile, at which the rest of the company exploded into guffaws.

  ‘Still don’t think she’ll do, the fashion in the theatre is for dark girls – not yellow,’ said Mohun.

  ‘Shame,’ said Buckhurst. ‘It would have been a good advertisement for that knocking shop of yours, Whitgift. You got any dark girls?’

  Jay had no time to reply before Wycliffe said, ‘Hey, Sedley, did you see Fanny Gurney at the old tennis court?’

  ‘What legs!’ Sedley said, pointing his toe in mimicry.

  ‘I’d give her one!’ shouted Buckhurst.

  Ella seemed to have been forgotten already. She went back to her chair, relieved to escape the focus of their attention. But it was short-lived.

  ‘Hey, you’re not drinking,’ Buckhurst said, spotting her half-empty glass. ‘Drink it up now, like a good girl.’

  Ella took a deep breath and drained the rest of the cup. The smell of the liquor made her feel ill. It tasted sour on her tongue. Wycliffe took the glass out of her hand and refilled it, passing it back to her. She looked down at it helplessly, unable to drink it.

  ‘Oh, fellows,’ Mohun said, ‘I’ve just had a snappy idea. It’s Allsop’s birthday next week and we’re meeting him in the King’s for a few. Wouldn’t it be a caper to have your yellow-haired girl recite her poem. A bit of entertainment. If it goes down well, you never know, I might reconsider, put her in my new play,’ said Mohun.

  ‘I’m not sure she will be to Allsop’s taste,’ Jay said, looking discomfited.

  ‘Fiddlesticks. Of course she will. What could be better?’ Wycliffe said.

  ‘I don’t think Allsop cares—’

  ‘Oh, don’t be a spoilsport.’ Wycliffe turned to Ella. ‘That’s settled then. Jay will bring you over in the carriage and we’ll drive you over to Allsop’s later to surprise him. Get her to wear something pretty, Jay. Mr Allsop likes ladies to look pretty.’

  ‘I will make sure she is suitably dressed,’ said Jay tersely.

  Ella brushed at the stain on her skirt again. She was nervous. She had never heard of Lord Allsop, but the men of the Wits club had a reputation. Buckingham had set it up, and he was known as a rakehell. People had lost count of the number of mistresses he had. One of them had even been set up in a house of her own, but there had been wild talk of kidnappings and rape too.

  It would not be wise to refuse, and half of her was curious. After all, Allsop was probably a wealthy man. But a part of her warned her to be wary. She looked over to Jay for reassurance; she sensed he had not been so keen on the idea of her meeting Allsop. It gladdened her that he was protective of her reputation. After all, he was likely taken with her himself. She cast him an alluring glance. But Jay was staring morosely out of the window into the dark, a glass of wine at his lips.

  The wine had started to go to her head. She couldn’t think straight. She reached as if to put the wine cup down on the side table, but Buckhurst saw her and said, ‘Not wasting it, are you? Here.’ He took a great swig from her cup, before passing it back to her.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ said Ella, trying to push it back to him, ‘but I’ve had enough wine.’

  ‘Enough wine! One can never have enough wine, isn’t that right, Wycliffe?’ Buckhurst said.

  ‘Quite right,’ Wycliffe said.

  ‘Mr Allsop will expect you to drink with him, make sport and be merry. He won’t want sour-faced abstainers at his party. We had enough of all that in Old Noll’s day,’ Sedley said.

  Jay was looking at her, frowning. Ella coloured. She was already too hot, and the powder sh
e was wearing made her face feel tight. She fanned herself with her other hand. Her head was swimming. Nauseous, she gritted her teeth and drank the cup to the dregs through barely parted lips.

  ‘There you are, see,’ said Buckhurst.

  Jay smiled thinly. Ella sat very still, feeling her stomach heave and the bile rise to her throat. She swallowed it down. She heard Sedley say, ‘Thanks for the loan, Whitgift. You’ll get it back when my new play is produced. I’ve brought you that chased silver salver we talked of. It’s on the console in the hall.’

  ‘Very good. Nice to do business with you. It will be part of my private collection. I already have a silver salver in a similar style. Embossed with a hunting scene – a stag at bay, and hounds, most lifelike.’

  ‘A stag, you say.’ Wycliffe smiled at Jay, a complicit smile that was not lost on Ella. Jay looked down, a faint tinge of pink washed over his face. He busied himself pouring another drink. Wycliffe moved to the cask too and wound his arm around Jay’s waist before tilting his head up to kiss him on the neck. His lips lingered there. Jay’s hand moved slowly around Wycliffe’s back, hitched up his coat and rested on his buttock, where his fingers traced long slow circles.

  Ella dabbed her forehead with the back of her arm. She felt sick and faint. Her brow was clammy. The point of her wooden stomacher pressed into her belly so that she shifted uncomfortably on the chair. There was a humming in her ears and the candle flames turned hazy and began to swim before her eyes.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said. She stood up shakily and hurried out of the room onto the landing, where she tottered down the stairs to the chilly hallway. There she clung to the newel post of the staircase and gulped great breaths of cold air.

  Jay did not follow her out. A manservant, who must have heard the bang of the door, appeared from downstairs. His demeanour was frosty.

  ‘Is anything the matter, madam?’ he asked.

  ‘I feel faint,’ she said. ‘Get us some water from the kitchen, will you?’ She did not bother to disguise her country accent.

  The servant glared at her, bowed and went back down the dark stairwell. Ella tasted his disapproval though he had not spoken. He thinks I’m a jumped-up bitch, she thought, and who can blame him? Having to wait on the likes of me. I’ll bet he’s straight downstairs to tell all the kitchen staff.

  She longed for the companionship of being in service. She pictured the chats around the kitchen table, the easy gossip, the sense of camaraderie. She had a sudden urge to follow him downstairs. She imagined loosening off her tight stays, sitting comfortably with the rest of the servants over a jug of well-watered ale. But she had put herself above all that. Or perhaps beneath it, she did not know.

  She held more tightly to the banister. Her sickness was fading and her head felt clearer, but she did not want to let go. She was stuck, caught between the glittering fashionable world upstairs, where she was evidently an object of derision, and the world downstairs where she had betrayed her class.

  The servant handed her a chipped earthenware cup of water. He had not bothered to put it on a tray. It was a deliberate insult. She took the cup anyway and drank it down in one. The cold water revived her determination.

  ‘That will be all,’ she said, in her best clipped accent, thrusting the empty cup towards him. The man took it, but looked up at the sound of footfalls upstairs. Above, she heard the door open and voices saying goodnight as the men prepared to depart. Her shoulders sank with relief.

  ‘Turner. Have the carriage brought round,’ shouted Wycliffe.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The servant melted back downstairs.

  ‘Here,’ said Jay, thrusting Ella her cloak, ‘get in the carriage.’ She put it on, her eyes downcast, and went outside onto the street. The carriage rolled up in front of her and she climbed awkwardly in.

  A few moments later Jay joined her. She could not see his face in the darkness and he did not speak. She moved away from him in the carriage until her shoulder was jammed hard against the door. Only when they arrived back at the chambers did he say, ‘It is a shame you were unable to impress my thespian friends. Mr Wycliffe is generous to those he favours. If you do not please Allsop and my friend Wycliffe is disappointed again, then I am sure I can persuade the wigmaker to take you back on.’

  The sun crept in with a watery glow through the window, and Sadie threw back the sacking to let in more of its light. The river was empty of boats this morning, of skiffs and wherries and barges, and there were none of the usual hoots and bells and whistles. It was icy too, the sky a sudden unexpected blue. Yesterday, when the scavengers walked along the shore she could hear the crunch of ice breaking under their feet. The sounds were clear and sharp. She heard the cries of the milkmaid and the aleman too and licked her dry lips. She had taken nothing to drink since Ella left. There was no ale and even the pail was dry; she had looked at it countless times.

  She had eaten well, the bacon and bread had been tasty, but had only added to her thirst. She went over to the door and pushed against it, in case by some miracle it might open. Of course it didn’t. Ella had locked it as she said she would. Sadie began to get concerned. She roamed the room, unable to settle back to her knitting.

  By afternoon there was still no sign of Ella. What on earth would she do if Ella did not come back? She had not even heard any noises from below, and she missed the constant barking of Ma Gowper’s cough. What if Ella had been discovered somehow and caught, and was in prison unable to get a message to her? In her mind Sadie pictured the bouncing girl with the brown hair, rosy face and a cheeky grin. The sister she knew from Westmorland. Sadie shook her head, as if to rattle that picture free. She replaced it with the picture of the white-faced Ella in the blue gown.

  ‘Oh, Ell,’ she whispered, ‘where are you?’

  Chapter 32

  Ella had overslept. Usually the light woke her, and the distant crowing of cockerels. Then she would stretch her bare toes in the soft warmth of the blanket and have a few moments wallowing in bed before getting up to begin her vigil at the mirror.

  Today, however, she was woken by a sharp hammering on the door.

  ‘What is it,’ she croaked, half asleep. Her voice didn’t seem to be working properly.

  ‘I’m off now,’ shouted Polly.

  Ella did not reply, just turned over in bed, hugging a bolster closer to her chest.

  Polly shouted again. ‘Corey, Jay Whitgift wants to see me in his chambers. I’ve turned the notice on the door, so you’ve got a few minutes before he does his rounds.’

  Ella was confused. She jumped up and ran to the window in her shift. The sundial on the wall showed after noon! She looked at it again. That couldn’t be right. Downstairs the frosty yard was full of carriages.

  ‘Christ almighty,’ she said.

  She ran over to the mirror. The picture was all too clear. She looked dishevelled, like a harlot. After the disastrous evening at Sedley’s she had fallen into bed at four in the morning without bothering to wash her face or tidy her hair. Now her hair was like a stook of straw, her face smeared with black soot where it had run from around her eyes. Her head throbbed as if a hedge-layer wielded a mallet inside it.

  ‘Meg,’ she cried, throwing on her petticoats. Where on earth was she? She rang the bell.

  ‘Yes, mam?’ Meg’s face appeared round the door, a shawl tied round her head and shoulders.

  ‘You stupid girl. Why weren’t you here earlier?’

  ‘You didn’t ring, mam.’ She was staring at Ella’s face with curiosity.

  Ella lashed out, slapping Meg a stinging blow on the arm. ‘That’s for your cheek. You know I always need you to lace me up at nine o’clock.’

  Meg gulped as if she might burst into tears.

  ‘Don’t just stand there, get on with it. No – not the red, the blue. The blue! Over there, you maggot brain! And hurry.’

  Ella fidgeted as Meg struggled to lace her into her dress, and when Meg took a comb to her hair screamed at her when it snagged. Wh
en she next looked round, Meg had slunk away. ‘You’ll be out, my girl,’ she muttered fiercely under her breath.

  Ella leaned towards the mirror, hastily slapping on another layer of ceruse. She had a pimple coming on her chin, so she covered it with a heart-shaped patch. Her hands shook. Her eyes were bloodshot and still half closed. She dropped some of the stinging nightshade into each eye and was rewarded by her pupils becoming enormous. It made the room slightly blurred, softer round the edges. She finished her toilet hurriedly, scrubbing salt over her teeth to take away the rancid taste in her mouth. In case the smell of liquor lingered, she dribbled cologne over her chest.

  By this time the shadow on the dial had crept to half after twelve. ‘Oh God – Sadie,’ she said under her breath. There wasn’t time to go to Blackraven Alley now. She’d have to go at night, after work. She glanced out of the window to see Jay walking across the yard as he usually did, making his lunchtime rounds. The sight of him made her shrivel inside with shame. To think, she had set her cap at him, when the signs were written all over him, plain as plain, that it wasn’t the girls he was after. The vision of being Ella Whitgift crumbled into dust.

  She shot downstairs, turned the notice on the door to ‘Open’ and took up her place behind the counter. She mustn’t lose her position. It came to her in a flash that her charm would be no use in a tight corner – not with Jay Whitgift. Why had she overslept? Stupid Meg should have woken her.

  It was a bad start to the day, like waking to find the fire had gone out. The fear of losing her position made her light-headed. Her thoughts slid back to Sadie waiting for her at Blackraven Alley. Surely a few more hours wouldn’t matter. After all, she had plenty to keep her occupied. With any luck, by the time Ella arrived, she might have finished the second pair of stockings. But even this thought discomfited her.

  She felt bad about her arguments with Sadie, it rankled like a broken bodice-bone. She had thought her younger sister’s opinion of her to be of little account, but now she was surprised to find that it mattered. It was not something she was used to, Sadie calling her names. She pictured the small damp room above the Thames and Sadie’s expectant face. Unaccountably, it made her feel angry. It’s not my fault, she thought; she’ll have to wait.