Tuppenny Times

by Beryl Kingston

  ‘Sophie, my dear friend!’ Nan said, shocked by the confession.

  ‘I will tell ’ee this,’ Sophie went on, ‘since I have told so much. There is a room in our house which is kept locked, day and night, and I believe it is kept locked because it contains paintings which are simply too lewd and immoral to be seen. ’Tis a vicious man, despite his manifold talents.’ And now there was no doubt about the pain she suffered, for her face was riven with it.

  Whatever else, Nan thought, my Calverley en’t vicious. Foolish perhaps and weak, but not vicious. ‘Sophie my dear,’ she said with sympathy. ‘Would I could help ’ee.’

  ‘Well, as to that,’ Sophie said, reverting to her old light tone, ‘you could cut me another slice of that excellent fruit cake if you had a mind.’

  It was odd, and a little shaming, that Sophie’s revelation should turn out to be a comfort to Nan, but a comfort it undoubtedly was. As she drove to the Strand later that afternoon to see Mr Teshmaker as he’d requested, she was remembering her lover with renewed affection. Foolish perhaps, but always loving. Not a man to hurt her with vice or unkindness of any sort. Oh yes, indeed, they would do well enough.

  Mr Teshmaker was working quietly in his office, his neat head bowed over neat paper, the panels behind him smudged by the darkness of that winter afternoon. As soon as she entered, he rose in one swooping movement to glide to the fire and set a chair for her and make her welcome.

  Accounts were examined and found accurate, takings were discussed and pronounced acceptable for the season. Then she opened her more important topic.

  ‘I daresay you have heard my news, have you not, Mr Teshmaker?’ she said.

  ‘Madam?’

  ‘Mr Leigh has asked me to marry him and I have accepted him. How say you to that?’

  ‘I congratulate the gentleman to have achieved such a wife. ’Tis uncommon good fortune for him.’

  ‘And for me too I trust, Mr Teshmaker.’

  ‘Fortune,’ he said carefully, ‘devolves upon the husband. That is the legal position in this country at present. A wife has no legal rights at all, I fear, in the event of her marriage. She may not hold property. That passes to her husband, as does all her capital. In your case you would be signing over all your holdings in the company. Even the name, I fear, to which you would no longer be entitled. Of course Mr Leigh may wish to continue to trade under the name of Easter, since it is an established name and the one under which you are known. Howsomever, it is also possible that he may, at some future date, wish to sell the business.’

  ‘Oh no!’ she said horrified at the idea. ‘That he would not. I am sure on it.’

  ‘You would not ma’am,’ Cosmo said sagely. ‘That I am sure on, for ’tis your hard work which has made it what it is. But for a second party, it could well prove to be a different matter. Easy come, easy go, as the saying has it. Mr Leigh has a greater need of money than either you or your sons.’

  ‘How so?’ she said, for his words had been heavy with unspoken meaning.

  ‘As you are aware,’ he explained gently, ‘it has been part of my brief, for some considerable time now, to keep accounts of the daily expenditure of this firm. That being so, I have had occasion to notice such sums as have been credited to Mr Leigh, either by you, ma’am, or your sons.’

  ‘My sons?’ she said, very surprised by his revelation. ‘Why should my sons have given Mr Leigh monies?’

  ‘That I couldn’t say, ma’am. Howsomever, perhaps you would care to examine the records I have been keeping, facts being a deal more reliable than opinions, wouldn’t you agree?’ And he slid the account book across the desk and opened it for her perusal.

  She read it in complete silence and he waited, sitting still and watchful before her.

  ‘Well as to that,’ she said, when she’d finished, ‘’tis nothing new to me, Mr Teshmaker. I have known it for years. Mr Leigh is a spendthrift. What of it? I think no less of him for that.’ To see his faults laid so clearly before her had made her feel an overpowering sympathy for Calverley. He was under attack, however subtle, and so she defended him.

  ‘No indeed, ma’am,’ Cosmo hastened to agree, masking his disappointment. ‘I implied no criticism of the gentleman. The accounts were kept as a matter of course, as are all transactions for the company.’

  ‘Perfectly correct, Mr Teshmaker,’ she said. Then she dusted her hands against each other, swish, swish, by way of changing the subject, and Cosmo, discreet to the last, removed his offending evidence.

  ‘Now what are we to do?’ Billy said, when the lawyer had reported his lack of success. ‘We must speak to her now, surely.’

  ‘I will speak first,’ Johnnie told them. ‘There is another way to be tried. Wait until Annie is arrived. The wedding ain’t till the middle of January. Mama told me yesterday. A lot may happen in a month.’

  ‘Let us hope so,’ Cosmo said.

  Annie Hopkins arrived late in the afternoon next day, her advanced pregnancy wrapped so stoutly in greatcoat and travelling-rugs that she looked like a Christmas pudding, with James anxiously protective beside her, and Thiss and Bessie and Pollyanna and young Tom to carry her luggage. Jimmy had been a dear, good little boy all the way, sitting on Bessie’s lap and playing with his toys, she said, and, yes, they were all well, and she was as fit as a flea.

  The house in Cheyne Walk was suddenly full of activity, as servants ran to stoke fires and carry hot water to the bedrooms, and Thiss staggered in and out of the front door with carpet-bags and trunks and hampers, declaring cheerfully that it was ‘like movin’ a regiment’. But after an hour’s happy chaos, Bessie took Tom and Pollyanna and little Jimmy away to the nursery for tea, and Thiss went off to see to the horses and Nan was alone with her daughter and her son-in-law at last.

  She told them her news as casually as she could, for she was still tender after the shock of that account book, and felt she had to protect herself a little against the possibility of disapproval. But she needn’t have worried, for Annie’s reaction was immediate and unequivocal.

  ‘My dear, darling Mama,’ she said, throwing her arms round her mother’s neck and hugging her as well as she could with the bulk of the baby in between them. ‘Oh, I am so happy for you! When is it to be?’ And she was delighted to learn that Calverley and her mother had decided to delay their wedding until her baby was born. ‘Oh, how very dear of you,’ she said. ‘January the sixteenth is a perfectly splendid date, for I shall be up and about by then.’ The baby was to be born in Chelsea so that Nan could look after little Jimmy while his mother was in bed. ‘What will you wear Mama? One of the new silks perhaps?’

  Her enthusiasm was like a tonic. Soon the two women were discussing clothes and planning a trousseau, and Nan grew pink-cheeked with pleasure and very nearly certain that she had made the right decision after all.

  ‘What a Christmas it will be,’ Annie said rapturously, ‘with a baby to look forward to and a wedding to plan. Oh, I love weddings Mama!’

  And it was an excellent Christmas, even though the weather was miserably cold and Calverley didn’t get home. He sent a letter which arrived on Christmas Eve, sending his ‘fondest love’ and his ‘most abject apologies’, but by then Nan was so caught up in the festivities she felt little more than a passing sadness at his absence. He would return in time for the wedding and that was what counted.

  The Reverend James Hopkins caught the afternoon coach back to Bury so as to be in Rattlesden in time for midnight mass. ‘I shall return immediately after Epiphany, my dearest,’ he promised, kissing Annie goodbye. ‘I leave you in the best of care, I know, but I shall be anxious until I see you again. You will be sure to eat well and keep warm and avoid chills, will you not?’

  ‘You have my word,’ Annie said.

  ‘Oh, my love,’ he said, gazing at her earnestly, ‘what if the child were to come early?’ For it was expected in the first week in January.

  ‘The midwife will attend me whenever it is born, my dearest. All wil
l be well.’

  ‘I shall worry about you.’

  ‘Go now, James, my dear,’ she urged, pushing him towards the door, ‘or you will miss the coach.’

  ‘I shall return immediately after Epiphany,’ he repeated.

  But the weather was to make a nonsense of all their plans.

  Christmas Day was dank and cold, but with blazing fires in every room and piping-hot food at every meal none of them noticed it. They walked to church warm with excitement and returned on the trot warm with singing, and for the rest of the day they sat snug and enjoyed one another’s company, eating their huge Christmas dinner, playing cards and charades all afternoon and finishing the day with carols and hot punch and mince pies. It wasn’t until she got to bed very late that night that Nan realized that nobody had said a word about Calverley all day long, and what was worse she hadn’t even given him a thought herself, but by then she was so tired and so happy she thought little of it.

  The next morning they woke to a thick fog.

  ‘What a mercy we’ve cold meats a-plenty to keep us going fer a day or two,’ Bessie said. ‘I shouldn’t like to be out in that lot an’ that’s a fact.’

  ‘Let’s hope ’tis clear before any of us need to travel,’ Nan said.

  But it got steadily worse, and by the third day, when she and Johnnie had to leave the house to attend to the stamping, it was a real pea-souper. Coils of sulphur-coloured vapour heaved against the window panes like a nest of ghostly serpents, and the candles gave out such a reluctant yellow light that even indoors they could barely see what they were doing.

  Outside, it clung and persisted and thickened. It was so bad on the fourth morning that Matthew had to walk beside the horses with a lantern, simply to get her from his shop to her headquarters.

  ‘My heart alive, Mrs Easter, ma’am,’ he said thickly through the mound of mufflers protecting his nose and mouth, ‘tha’s a fog an’ a half, an’ no mistake. You can’t see hand in front of your face.’ And he held his own hand out before him to prove his point.

  Nan watched as his dirty glove disappeared into swirls of even dirtier yellow-grey vapour. ‘I will make what haste I can Matthew,’ she promised. ‘’Tis no weather to be out of doors.’

  It was a sentiment shared by everybody in the city. Beasts were still driven in from the outlying farms for slaughter at Smithfield and vegetable-carts gloomed in through the murk towards Covent Garden hung about with lanterns like lurching will-o’-the-wisps, but those who had no need to stir abroad stayed in their darkened houses and huddled beside the fire.

  And so the old year ended in gloom and the New Year of 1814 began. Epiphany came and was celebrated in Chelsea church even though the fog was so thick the congregation could barely see their priest through its vapours. But although Annie sat by the window all next day peering into the murky darkness, there was no sign of her dear James. ‘If he don’t hurry the baby will be here before he is,’ Annie said.

  ‘He will come as soon as ever he may,’ Nan said. ‘Coaches en’t running yet awhile and he could hardly walk all the way. We must have patience, I fear.’

  ‘I miss him so much,’ Annie said. ‘’Tis the first time we’ve been parted for more than a half a day since the day we were married.’

  ‘I miss Mr Leigh,’ Nan said, but even as the words were in her mouth she realized that they weren’t true. She’d hardly missed him at all, she’d been so happy surrounded by her family. ‘This ol’ fog can’t last for ever. That’s one consolation.’

  Another, which she kept to herself, was that the weather had removed any necessity for her to make a decision. She felt that her future was being decided for her, by sulphur fumes and chill. If Calverley returned in time for the wedding, she would marry him, if he didn’t perhaps she would think again. In the meantime there was nothing any of them could do except wait, Annie for her baby and the Reverend Hopkins, she for Calverley and her wedding, London for the long-expected peace and better weather. It was as if the fog had entered her mind, numbing rational thought.

  John Henry’s mind was as clear as daylight. The fog was a blessing in disguise, he explained to Billy, for with luck it would maroon the contemptible Mr Leigh in the wilds of Scotland where he couldn’t marry their mother. But they should not grow complacent. No indeed, they should take advantage of the opportunity it offered.

  Billy had chilblains and a cold in the nose and wasn’t at all sanguine about their chances of success. ‘He’ll barry her, you’ll see,’ he said. ‘I’d bet boney on it.’

  ‘Not if we use our wits,’ Johnnie said. ‘I intend to speak to her after dinner tonight. Then it’s your turn.’

  It was an uninspiring dinner that evening, for the last of the Christmas meats had been eaten and boiled mutton seemed poor fare by comparison. When the dishes had been cleared and Annie had retired for her rest, Nan poured brandy for herself and her sons. ‘’Twill be warming,’ she said, ’and ’twill settle some of that grease. Mutton fat lies uncommon heavy on a stomach. My heart alive this fog’s gone on a mortal long time.’

  Johnnie looked at his mother seriously over the rim of his glass. ‘When it does lift Mama,’ he said, ‘Billy and I will have to start looking for a job.’

  ‘A job!’ she said. ‘What sort of squit is this?’

  ‘It ain’t squit, Mama. We’ve a living to earn.’

  ‘And the family firm en’t good enough for ’ee. Is that it?’

  ‘Oh no!’ he said passionately. ‘’Tis the best firm in the City. I would work for it gladly, all my life. Howsomever …’

  ‘Howsomever? There en’t no howsomever so far as I can see.’

  ‘While the firm belongs to the family,’ he said speaking slowly because he was struggling to find just the right words to convince her, ‘none of us need fear, or look for work elsewhere, for we work together, as a family firm, each of us doing our best for the good of the others, to increase trade, to grow richer, confident, d’you see, that we shall all benefit.’

  ‘Oh, I see how it is,’ she said. ‘You fear that Mr Leigh will change things once we are married.’

  ‘It is possible.’

  ‘Well, ’tis all squit, let me tell ’ee. There’ll be no changes while I’m head of the firm. Leastways, no changes we don’t all want.’

  ‘But you will not be the head of the firm, will you Mama? Not if you marry Mr Leigh.’

  ‘Bah!’ she said furiously. ‘I never heard such foolish talk. If that’s all you’ve got to say, I may part with your company, for Billy can talk to me for the rest of the evening. Good night to ’ee.’

  ‘I bean the same thig, Mama,’ Billy said.

  ‘Then you can be off with your brother,’ Nan said, waving her brandy glass at him. ‘You make me mad, the pair of you.’

  They put down their glasses and crept to the door, defeated.

  ‘And let me tell ’ee,’ she said. ‘I will marry whom I please.’

  ‘Then we must work elsewhere,’ Johnnie said coldly, and left the room before she could berate him any further.

  ‘Oh Johnnoh!’ Billy said when they were both safely upstairs in his bedroom. ‘She’ll barry him as sure as fate.’ And he blew his nose like a trumpet.

  ‘The battle ain’t lost till she’s at the altar rail,’ Johnnie said grimly. ‘And at least the weather’s on our side.’

  Chapter Forty

  The weather continued to be an ally to John and William Easter. There was still no sign of Calverley Leigh and no news from him either, and fog was to obscure the lower reaches of the Thames valley for another six days. And then, when it finally dispersed, dissolving as insidiously as it had gathered, it was replaced by a biting cold and a sky the colour of pewter and the first ominous flurries of snow.

  The city was filthy. Brick walls oozed into a cold sweat, soot-black and oily, streets squelched with evil-smelling mud and well-trodden horse-dung, beggars were mud statues, caked in grime from matted hair to scabby feet, and the cesspits, which hadn’t bee
n cleared since the fog began, were so foul they could still be smelt more than half a mile away if the wind was in the wrong direction, and Bessie declared you couldn’t get away from them no matter where you went.

  Nan Easter made no attempt to get away from anything. She hired six more maids-of-all-work, rolled up her sleeves and began to set her house in order, starting in the bedrooms and working downwards. Annie’s baby could be born any day now and she had no intention of allowing her second grandchild to arrive in a dirty house. Hard work kept her mind away from Calverley and her marriage and the worsening weather outside her windows, and besides, she couldn’t abide filth. The dining-room floor was being sand-scrubbed on the afternoon that the Reverend Hopkins finally arrived at Cheyne Walk, mud-caked and bone-weary, visibly drooping with fatigue.

  ‘The roads into London are well nigh impassable for snow,’ he told Nan and Annie as they rushed to attend to him. ‘There are drifts six feet high on the Norwich road. There isn’t a coach can get through.’

  He’d been on the road for nearly four days and had an uncommon hard time of it. ‘On the second coach a blizzard blew up and we were stuck in a drift for hours,’ he said. ‘The men from the nearest village had to walk across the snow on planks in order to dig us out. I have never experienced such a journey in all my life.’

  ‘Oh, you foolish creature,’ Annie said, chafing his cold hands. ‘You should have stayed at home in the warm until the weather improved.’

  ‘I missed you too much, my love. You and little Jimmy. I thought of you every hour of the day, and most hours of the night too, I must admit, wondering how you were and if the baby were born. I cannot bear to be apart from you, and there’s the truth of it.’

  ‘You are the dearest of men,’ Annie told him most lovingly, ‘but now you must wash and change into warm, clean clothes or you will take a chill.’

  So he went obediently to do as she said. And watching them, Nan was touched by their concern for each other. He came all that way, she thought, through blizzards and snowdrifts just to be with my Annie. And Calverley hadn’t even sent a letter.