Tuppenny Times

by Beryl Kingston

  ‘Such beauty!’ he said taking her gloved hand and kissing it. ‘You will dazzle the company, ma’am. My life upon it.’ And he sounded as though he meant it.

  She arranged her shawl about her shoulders, touched the ostrich feathers in her hair, rather apprehensively, found her fan and picked up her reticule from the table where it lay ready packed with handkerchief and cachous and spare hairpins.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, taking his proferred arm and thinking, as ready as I shall ever be.

  It was a marvellous evening, despite her misgivings. For a start there were so many people in the Assembly Rooms she knew, and most of them seemed pleased and not at all surprised to see her. London society had taken to the seaside en masse, bringing the latest dances with them, and a band that could play them properly. In fact the second dance that the lieutenant had marked on her card was one of the new shocking waltzes, the dance that required the men to hold their partners firmly round the waist all the time, and was causing such annoyance among the older members of society. What could be better?

  She stepped out onto the floor in a dream and was soon in a delicious trance, with her feet spinning almost as wildly as her head, breathing in his lovely well-laundered scent, with his hand firm in the small of her back, and her body swaying against his at every turn. Bliss!

  At the first interval they drank punch with three of her customers and made polite conversation and were rather circumspect, but at the second, when they had both danced until they were breathless, he suggested that they should take a turn in the air.

  ‘’Tis a warm night,’ he said. ‘’Twill do no harm, I warrant you.’

  She would have gone with him if an icy wind had been blowing. But he was right, it was a warm night and a magical one. The dark beach was full of cooling couples, strolling along the sands or ambling at the water’s edge, silvered by moonlight. They could smell the sea although they couldn’t see it, since it was as black as ebony except for its little white fringe of tumbling waves and a huge shimmering pathway that glittered across the darkness towards a full moon like a huge silver platter. The night sky was a velvety dark blue, pointed with bright white stars, which seemed to Nan more distant here beside the sea than they had ever been in London.

  ‘True,’ he said, when she commented upon it. ‘’Tis the quality of the air. Smoky air makes it difficult to judge distance, as any gunner would tell you.’

  That was something she had never considered. ‘A battle must be a fearsome thing,’ she said, thinking how very brave soldiers must be to withstand it.

  ‘No,’ he said, and how noble he looked as he spoke. ‘There is no time for fear once a battle begins. You are too hot and things happen too quickly. You act by instinct, which,’ changing his tone and giving her the benefit of his most tender glance, ‘to my way of thinking is the very best way to act.’

  ‘At all times?’ she asked, made eager by the sensuous tone of his voice. He spoke as though he was stroking her with words.

  ‘Oh yes, my dearest. Instinct and love being kith and kin, the one will speak as true as the other, don’t ’ee think so?’

  He was holding her right hand in both his, and slowly unbuttoning her glove, stroking her wrist with his fingers.

  ‘Does love never lie?’ she asked tremulously, for he was easing the glove from her hand softly and gradually, gazing into her eyes all the time, and the combination of amorous look and gentle movement was making her shiver.

  He lifted her hand and kissed her palm, lingeringly, his lips tantalizingly warm. ‘Do your senses lie, my dearest one?’ he said softly and now his mouth was within inches of hers, and they both knew how very much she wanted to be kissed.

  ‘I think not,’ she whispered, caught in the double spell of moonlight and strong sensation.

  ‘And now?’ he whispered, before he kissed her. Oh, such sensations, her breast lifting towards him, her body opening and aching as he kissed and kissed and kissed again.

  ‘Now, now, now,’ she said, hardly knowing what she was saying, but telling him everything he needed to know by the eager pressure of her lips.

  He stopped kissing her, and lifted his head to look down at her, holding her about the waist, close and warm and exciting. ‘Ah, if only …’ he sighed.

  ‘If only what?’

  ‘If only I were not in barracks, my love. ’Tis a torment not to continue. You must know it. You tempt me beyond restraint, you beautiful, beautiful creature. If I only had rooms …’

  ‘I have rooms,’ she said.

  ‘Do you mean it?’

  ‘Yes, oh yes.’

  ‘You do not fear scandal?’

  ‘Oh, what of that?’ she said tempestuously. ‘I could dare any scandal to be loved so.’

  ‘Should we return to the ball, think ’ee?’ It was an unfair question because he was kissing her neck and stroking her thighs.

  So they went back to the Royal Terrace, and although the landlady gave them a knowing leer, neither of them took any notice of her. There were other things to think of.

  They didn’t bother to light candles either, for the moon provided all the light they needed, and the place all the privacy. They were alone and unbridled and could kiss and caress as they pleased. Her shawl and ostrich feathers and his fine jacket were cast aside like rags, and somehow or other he had unlaced her gown while they were kissing. She had enough wit left to admire the skill of it even though her senses were swirling with the powerful sensations he was arousing. But when he lifted her clothes, gown and chemise and all, sliding his hands in a long caress up and up over her thighs and her belly and her breasts until the folds of cloth had been thrown away behind her head, she was lost to the moment, unable to think, abandoned to feelings so strong they were making her tremble. He held her face between his hands and kissed her deeply, and she answered him with a passion that surprised them both.

  ‘Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,’ he crooned, stroking and kissing. ‘My beautiful love, now I must love you. I must, must.’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ she said as they tumbled into the covers.

  She had opened for him again. She wanted him, wanted him. ‘Yes, yes, oh yes.’

  And his member was an arrow piercing her with pleasure, strong and demanding and warm as fire, driving her up and up until the pleasure exploded into ecstasy, sweeter and more overwhelming than anything she’d ever known.

  She must have fallen asleep and slept for some little time, for she awoke with a start to the sound of church bells ringing riotously and for a few minutes as she swam luxuriously back to consciousness she thought they were ringing for her, and wondered who had told the ringers of her triumph. Then she realized what time it was and wondered why church bells were being rung in the middle of the night? And cannon being fired, too. Surely that low boom was a cannon.

  The room was bright with moonlight and the lieutenant was standing beside the window looking out. He had put on his trousers and draped his jacket about his shoulders like a Hussar, but his chest and his right arm were still beautifully naked, the dark flesh edged with shimmering whiteness.

  ‘What is it?’ she said sleepily.

  ‘They are going out to meet the King,’ he said, still gazing down onto the promenade. And now she could hear footsteps on the pebbles below them and the murmur of greetings.

  She got up and wrapped her nightgown about her, and went to stand beside him to see for herself. The sky was lightening with the approach of dawn.

  ‘He was expected at three or thereabouts,’ he said. ‘He keeps good time.’

  Lamps were being lit all along the promenade and the crowds below them increased by the minute. The night air struck cold on her heated flesh so that she gave an involuntary shiver. ‘Take my jacket,’ he said, wrapping the thick coat about her shoulders, and she was warmed by the cloth and his consideration.

  ‘Will he be long, think ’ee?’

  ‘They have sounded the cannon, so he must have passed the ridge.’

&nb
sp; They stood side by side on the balcony, calm and beautiful with satisfied passion. ‘I do not know your Christian name, Mr Leigh,’ she said, feeling uncommon daring to be suggesting that he should tell her.

  He seemed to approve of the new style for he smiled. ‘Nor I yours.’

  ‘I am called Nan.’

  ‘And I am Calverley,’ giving her a little bow, ‘your most obedient …’

  At the far end of the promenade people were cheering. ‘There they are,’ he said, as four dusty, old leather coaches came trundling along the road, creaking and rattling. They passed directly underneath the balcony, and a white hand waved lethargically from the second one and then they were gone and the excitement was over. It was a decided anticlimax.

  ‘I would have thought the King would be more grand,’ she said as they walked back into the sitting-room.

  ‘In Weymouth,’ he said, putting on his shirt, ‘he is old farmer George on holiday.’ He was reaching for his stockings.

  ‘You have to leave?’ Even the thought of seeing him go was making her feel miserable.

  ‘I fear so, sweetheart. I am on duty at six. I will return so soon as ever I may, depend upon it.’ Over in the old town the church clocks were striking four.

  He looked very handsome in his uniform. ‘I love you so much,’ she said.

  ‘Then kiss me goodbye and sleep again,’ he said, brisk and businesslike, as if clothes had put formality between them.

  ‘You will return?’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘I could not bear to be cast aside,’ she warned as they walked to the door. ‘Not now.’

  He kissed her again, lightly. ‘Never fear,’ he said. And was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  For a moment when she woke the next morning Nan didn’t know where she was. Then she remembered her children, and despite all the pleasure of the night before, or perhaps because of it, she felt guilty because she’d left them behind in Chelsea. She missed the sound of their voices and the thump and patter of their feet and she wished she could know how they were. And because she was missing them so much, she turned her thoughts quite deliberately to her business affairs and wondered whether Thiss had managed to get the papers stamped in time for the first delivery, and whether he would really have enough expertise to order the right number. And behind her thoughts, the sea hissed across the shingle and the gulls mewed and shrieked and something was rattling with an unfamiliar insistent rhythm.

  It was somebody throwing pebbles at the window. She could hear the sharp patter of the little stones and then the long descending rattle of their fall. And singing. ‘Nan, my Nan, sweet Nan arise, See the sun is in the skies, Trip my sweetheart, join your love, Nan sweet Nan.’

  It was glorious, glorious morning and he had kept his promise and come back. She threw the covers aside and ran from the bedroom, bare-footed and hair streaming, to fling back the shutters and lift the window and lean out to greet him.

  ‘Good morning to my love,’ he called, bowing like a courtier.

  She was ridiculously happy at the sight of him, looking up at her in that bright, beautiful uniform with the white sea shining like mother-of-pearl behind him. ‘I thought you were on duty,’ she said.

  ‘I have sneaked an hour away, and all for love of you, “Nan sweet Nan!”’

  ‘Hush up,’ she said lovingly. ‘You’ll waken the house.’

  ‘Dress,’ he ordered. ‘Make haste. I have a sight for you to see.’

  ‘You are sight enough for me,’ she said, leaning over the balcony towards him.

  ‘I would sooner touch than see, sweetheart,’ he said, smiling at her, ‘so hasten down, I prithee.’

  How could she refuse such an invitation? She was dressed in three minutes and down the stairs in two, to be caught in his arms and held against his lovely warm chest and kissed most satisfyingly, once, twice, three times, oh, more times than she could count, and regardless of the stares of the early morning promenaders. What bliss! And then they were off over the pebbles and along the beach, hand in hand and skipping like children, and she was giggling because she felt so happy.

  They stopped beside the harbour wall, where she’d stood for her first view of the town yesterday afternoon. Was it really only yesterday afternoon? It hardly seemed credible, so much had happened. ‘So where’s this ol’ sight you promised?’ she teased. The promenade was full of genteel strollers, parasols already in use against the early morning sun, and there were poor folk and fisherfolk leaning against the harbour wall, and the king’s modest house was surrounded by red-coated guards, standing four deep and more or less to attention, but there was no sign of anything that could be called a ‘sight’.

  ‘Patience,’ he said. ‘You shall see if you wait a little.’

  But waiting was intolerable. She was far too excited to wait for anything. ‘Tell me what ’tis,’ she begged.

  ‘There’s a price,’ he teased, catching her about the waist.

  ‘Name it.’

  But he didn’t need to. They were kissing already. And while they were still rapturously mouth to mouth, the sight commenced.

  There was a scuffle of kettledrums from the other end of the promenade and a wailing tune began, shrilled on fifes and fiddles, wavered a little, gave a shriek and several hiccups and became a march. At the sound of it the promenaders rushed to take up positions on either side of the royal guard and a group of very important-looking females went stomping down the beach towards the bathing machines, where they proceeded to remove their shoes and stockings and to loop up their skirts like fishwives.

  ‘What are they doing?’ she asked, intrigued and amused.

  He put a finger across her lips, but it was more a caress than an admonition. ‘Watch!’ he said.

  The fife band came to a halt alongside the guards, where after some arm waving which was, presumably, a discussion, it played a selection of sea shanties more or less in unison. And then the troop sergeant bawled and the guard sprang to rigid attention, and a short stout man wearing a red velvet banyan, and Turkish slippers and a turban, emerged from the side door of the king’s house, followed by a creep of courtiers and several giggling ladies in silk day-gowns. He trotted across the promenade towards the beach, nodding at the crowds as he passed. King George III was going to take the waters.

  ‘Long live King Jarge!’ his subjects cheered, as he struggled up the steep steps into his bathing machine and the bathing women rolled up their sleeves and assumed grim expressions and Nan watched. Then to her great surprise, the fife band waded into the sea, polished boots, white breeches and all, still playing their shanties.

  She began to giggle. ‘Oh, what foolish critturs!’ she said. ‘To wade in cold water at this hour of the morning. That’s downright ridiculous, so it is.’

  ‘There is better to come, according to the seventh Hussars,’ Calverley said, cuddling her. ‘You wait and watch.’

  So they waited while the band played as well as they could with the waves lapping their thighs, and presently their portly monarch emerged on the seaward side of his machine, now as naked as a baby and very pink, and wobbled his way down the steps towards the water, the folds of his belly swaying with the effort he was making. When his toes touched the water, he looked as though he was shivering, but the bathing ladies had no pity for him. They seized him roughly by the arms and dunked him like a doughnut. And at the exact moment when his head disappeared under the green water, the band struck up the first notes of ‘God save the King’. Nan laughed until the tears ran down her cheeks.

  ‘My heart alive!’ she said. ‘I never seen nothin’ so ridiculous. Oh, poor old king! What he want to go and do a thing like that for?’

  ‘’Tis for his health,’ the fisherman standing next to her explained. ‘They calls it the sea cure. ’Tis uncommon popular hereabouts. All the physicians recommend it.’

  ‘They would,’ Nan said. ‘Poor man!’

  The poor man endured his immersion patiently, shaking the
water out of his eyes like a dog as he emerged, and was then dunked for a second time, and a third, and a fourth, at which point his face was flushed quite purple and he seemed to be waving a royal hand at his tormentors as if he were begging them to desist.

  But there is no one quite so determined as a woman who knows she is doing you good, particularly when the doing is painful, so his appeal fell on deaf, damp ears. While his subjects cheered and laughed and cat-called, and the leader of the pipe band sniggered, he was pushed under water twice more.

  ‘Poor old Jarge,’ the fisherman said. ‘He do take his pleasures serious.’

  By the time the royal spectacle was over and several other members of the court were emerging from their bathing machines in various states of nudity and trepidation, the crowds were beginning to disperse, and Nan was quite weak with laughter. ‘Time for breakfast,’ Calverley said, and they went off to a coffee-house to enjoy it together.

  Oh, there was so much to enjoy together, even though he had to leave her from time to time to attend to his duties in the barracks. On the second evening they went to the theatre and agreed that the play was a foolish trifle, on the third to another ball in the Assembly Rooms where they were entertained by friends new and old and mocked every gouty dancer in the place. One afternoon they went to a cock fight, where they were both splashed with blood and Calverley lost a great deal of money through betting on the wrong birds, and every morning they rode along the wide beach in the sunshine, laughing and talking and happily energetic. And every night he escorted her back to her lodgings and up to her bed where they played and loved until their senses were sated and they were both quite satisfied. It was a joy to be alive. Particularly now that she had taken the precaution of buying a sponge and vinegar to protect herself against the possibility of any unwanted babies.

  On the fourth day the first batch of papers arrived from Thiss in London, and with it a rather odd letter.

  ‘My best respects to e Mistress Easter you shd know things aint what they shd be here abouts not meaning to corse alarum and not putting too fine a point on it Mistress Dibkins she aint what she was no more nothing to corse alarum. Mrs Easter we hope she aint on her way out we all felt you shd know of this. Other matters are not easy which may wait yr attention.