by Diana Norman
What’s a water closet? ‘Oh, piss in the pot, Josh.’
They left him to it and went down to the next floor where Susan had been allocated a guest bedroom panelled in powder-blue flock matching the coroneted tester and coverlet of the bed. A maidservant was unpacking Susan’s boxes and traps that had been piled neatly in the middle of a silk Persian carpet.
Miss Brewer winked at Makepeace and gave a die-away sigh. ‘I guess this will have to do,’ she said. Makepeace winked back. Good girl.
Aaron was being accommodated in equal luxury. He bade his sister goodnight, went into his room and then reopened the door to utter an Indian war-whoop at Mrs Peplow’s retreating back that sent chandeliers tinkling and stiffened the housekeeper in her corsets. Makepeace grinned, her brother was back to form.
A corridor ran off the gallery to a wing of the house. ‘The family apartments, madam,’ said Mrs Peplow. She hesitated by a door and then opened it. ‘The Yellow Room.’
Makepeace looked in. Yellow was too crude a word for the first suggestion of dawn, neither acidic nor honey, that some Chinese dyer had transformed into wallpaper and which an artist had then brought alive with flowers and long-legged birds. Apart from Makepeace’s stained and battered holdall on the golden carpet, every piece of furniture, every hanging complemented the surrounding paradise. It was like stepping into spring; it smelled elusively of bluebells; it was exquisite.
‘No,’ Makepeace said.
‘It’s your room now, madam.’ The woman was smirking.
‘No.’
‘Then I don’t know where, madam. There’s only the master’s room further along.’
Hadn’t they slept together? Or did this class keep separate beds?
‘Show me.’
Dapifer’s apartment had a Roman motif and could have housed the Praetorian Guard. Makepeace settled herself and her holdall in its ante-chamber which served as a dressing room and contained a divan. ‘This’ll do.’
‘Very well, madam. Should you need anything more, there is a bell pull in the corner. And a bagnio through that door.’ Mrs Peplow twitched her nose. ‘Perhaps madam would wish to take a bath?’
The inference was she needed one. Which she did, but damned if she’d take it at this woman’s instigation. ‘No, I thank you.’
‘As you please, madam. Shall I send your maid to assist you in undressing?’
‘What maid? Oh, Betty. She ain’t my maid.’ Makepeace smiled at the woman—a last attempt at rapport. ‘I take my own clothes off.’
‘I’m sure you do, madam,’ said Mrs Peplow with meaning, and went.
You sailed into that one, Makepeace Burke. Was this how it’d be? A battle of broadsides?
To cheer herself up, she explored, stroking materials, sniffing, opening cupboards and doors. This, then, was a water closet, a little room with marble pavement and walls, glided plaster ceiling and a painting of disporting nymphs to look at while you sat. What you sat on was a mahogany seat over a marble bowl with a hinged metal pan in its base.
Makepeace studied it, then tentatively pulled at a handle which stuck out from an arrangement at the contraption’s top. Immediately the pan tilted downwards; she glimpsed a water-filled tank below before it tilted back into its place. So that’s how it worked. She saw no advantage to it—some poor soul would still have to clean the pan and empty the tank below.
And this door . . . here, oh Lord, here was the bagnio. She’d expected it to be improper, associating it with ‘seraglio’, a word much used by Rev Mather in the condemnation of sin.
It was improper. Marble again. A tiny double staircase led to a plinth on which stood the statue of a naked youth and from which another flight led down to a plunge bath big enough to swim in. Coloured towels—she’d thought they only came in white—rested in piles on glass shelves decorated with bottles of Eastern allure and mystery.
It was a long way from a tin tub on the occasional Sunday morning in the Roaring Meg’s kitchen.
As in a trance, Makepeace retreated to the dressing room and tugged the bell pull. ‘I will bathe, Mrs Peplow, iffen you’d fetch the water.’
After all, there was no need to cut off her nose to spite her face and it would be some gain to see the woman carrying buckets, she was hefty enough.
Instead there was a smile. Like the Sphinx, Mrs Peplow held all the answers. She crossed to the bagnio, bent over the bath and did something that resulted in a rush of water and steam. ‘We call it plumbing, madam.’
Makepeace called it the eighth wonder of the world. She was awestruck and couldn’t pretend she wasn’t. When the housekeeper had gone she rushed to spreadeagle herself over the side of the bath to see how it was done. Underneath each of two cunning caps shaped like dolphins was a cock, one permitting a flow of blisteringly hot water, the other cold.
They’d raised water to first-floor level and heated it.
The system wasn’t perfect; by the time there was enough water to reach her middle, both cocks were running cold but long before that Makepeace had covered the statue’s eyes with her petticoat and was floundering naked in soapsuds, unguents and the future.
However, once she’d closed off the magical water, the present flowed back in. She leaned back in the steam to consider it.
A sour place, England. ‘Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.’ For all the marble and gold herewith, hatred was what she’d encountered so far.
Oddly enough, the fracas with the previous wife outside the house had upset her less than the reception she’d received inside it—she’d relish the picture of that bloody little marmoset swinging helpless on the coach door for the rest of her days.
What she hadn’t reckoned on was the servants’ attitude. She couldn’t understand it; she’d always got on well with those she’d employed at the Roaring Meg. She’d expected to be looked down on by the society Dapifer moved in but her rebuff by the housekeeper, and the behaviour of the footmen at dinner and of Robert, showed she had no friends among his staff either.
The first Lady Dapifer, she thought, must have been an exquisite employer along with all her other exquisiteries for her people so to resent her successor.
To hell with her. She hadn’t been an exquisite wife.
But it was going to be a desolate business and she was suddenly racked with longing for the Roaring Meg, racked again that it didn’t exist any more. Hatred there, hatred here. Lord, why d’you allow so much hatred?
The water was growing cold. Makepeace wiped the tears from her eyes with one of the beautiful towels and wrapped it round her. Dapifer’s room was still empty. She found one of his robes, enveloped herself in it and went downstairs to find him. Her bare feet on the cold stairs were as noiseless as the rest of the house. The servants had gone to bed.
He was still sitting in the dining room, a decanter of port and a glass in front of him. He had a document in his hand and was slowly tapping the table with it. She took a chair beside him.
He didn’t look up. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Bathing. There’s this bagnio upstairs, it’s a wonder.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The first Lady Dapifer had it installed. Very far-sighted, the first Lady Dapifer.’
You’re drunk. She wondered how she knew; his voice and eyes were as steady as the hand which kept up its regular beat with the document, but he was drunk.
‘What’s her name?’ she asked.
‘Who?’
‘First Lady Dapifer. What’s she called?’
‘Her name,’ he said, ‘is Catherine. They call her Catty. Everybody calls her Catty.’
Not surprising, Makepeace thought. ‘Servants and all?’
‘They addressed her as Lady Dapifer.’
‘Not madam?’
‘Lady Dapifer.’
So that was cleared up. ‘What’s the matter?’
He held out the letter. ‘This is from her. She’s had it sent round by messenger. Quick work. She says she
will be petitioning for divorce on the grounds of my bigamy.’
She tried to take it in. ‘Bigamy?’
‘With you. Maintaining that she’s still married to me.’ He wouldn’t look at her. Paper hit-hit against wood in a slow, regular rhythm that attacked the nerves.
‘But you divorced her.’
‘Always a gamble. Legal opinion’s divided on whether an American divorce pertains in this country. Fact is, my solicitor wasn’t happy about it.’ He was speaking with careful and remote judiciousness, like a judge delivering an opinion with which he was not overly concerned. ‘Took the risk. Didn’t want our dirty laundry hung out before great English public. More a nominal gesture—had no intention of marrying again.’
‘She agreed to it, though.’
‘Oh yes. Signed her permission, confessed to adultery, would comply with the decree.’ His fist crashed down on the table, making its epergne and Makepeace jump. ‘Should have known. Never kept her word. Should’ve known.’
‘Can she do this?’
‘Ah yes.’ He nodded, still without looking at her. ‘That’ll be interesting. Whether an English court upholds a New England decision, whether Parliament upholds it. Got to be done through Parliament. Private bill. House of Commons’ll be full that day. Spectator sport, that’ll be. Better than bear-baiting.’
The statues in their niches at the end of the room were staring at her. Didn’t they ever get dressed in mythology? Very cold, mythology must have been. I’m cold.
He wasn’t looking at her; he didn’t want her to look at him. She thought: He’s ashamed because he’s been a fool. Well, he has. She said: ‘She wants money, doesn’t she?’
‘For dropping the case? I imagine so.’ The tap of the letter against the table redoubled for a moment and then resumed its steady beat. ‘Given her a bloody great settlement already but she’s profligate with money. In effect, this bit of paper’s a demand for what I imagine will be a ruinous sum.’
‘Stand and deliver.’
He nodded. ‘Pay or publicity. Good case she’s got now. Even if I counter petition it’s only my word against hers. No reliable evidence of her adultery any more, y’see. Ffoulkes is dead, the only other witness is dead.’ Dapifer’s mouth twisted; she assumed he was smiling. He said: ‘I’ve been talking to Robert. He commiserated with her on Ffoulkes’s death. She laughed.’
Makepeace leaned across the table, took the letter away from him and put it out of his reach.
‘She laughed,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘ “A spaniel, a woman and a walnut tree. . .” Should have beaten her but tried to spare her, y’see. Ffoulkes warned me. “She wouldn’t spare you, old man. Don’t turn your back on her fangs, Pip, that’s a snake needs killing, not scotching.” Wouldn’t listen. Made him go to America with me to give evidence. Killed him.’
She put her hands round his face and turned it to her. His eyes were appalled and appalling. He said: ‘Drowning again, Procrustes. And this time dragging you under with me.’
‘Oh no, you ain’t. We’re going to fight her. Pay her off and she’ll only ask more. I’m your legal wife and we’re going to prove it.’
‘Didn’t want this for you.’
She said what he’d once said to her: ‘I don’t care. Pip, I don’t care. We got each other, we’re going to fight her and we’re going to win.’
Somehow she got him to his feet and up the staircase. After she’d put him to bed she sat beside him until he went to sleep. She sat on, listening to his breathing, as she’d done in her room at the Roaring Meg.
Ain’t fair, it ain’t fair. He’s a good man. What did he do except marry the wrong woman?
It was a sad moment of realization, too, that he was vulnerable in being so näıve in this matter. Sailing off to America to procure a divorce that might or might not be valid in his own country . . . that was something she herself, so less sophisticated than he was, would not have done. I’d have made sure, by Hokey. Protecting the name of his undeserving wife was one thing, carelessness another. But, as he’d said, he’d not expected to marry again.
She got cross. Adultery was adultery. Divorce was divorce. The marriage had ended; effectively when Catty had been caught copulating with her husband’s friend, officially in New England. If English courts didn’t recognize a legal American decree, it was another example of the mother country’s scorn for its colonies.
It was beyond her comprehension that a wife would wish to insist on a marriage the husband didn’t want and which she had already betrayed. Without understanding the talk of courts and procedures, Makepeace’s practicality told her money was at the bottom of it. Catty Dapifer was demanding Danegeld. Pay me and I’ll go away. But the Danes hadn’t gone away until King Alfred—the Rev Mather’s history lessons had been admiring of Alfred—fought them. Why should Dapifer pay that corrupt little besom for sleeping with another man?
Fight, yes. She could say that, but she couldn’t help him do it. She was out of her depth in this world of his, even a liability. If it came to a judgement between the two of them, what sort of image would she herself present, a tavern-keeper, compared to the exquisite Catty?
Makepeace was settling her mind to the assumption that, in the end, what it came down to was a duel between herself and her predecessor. It was all she could cope with; it made her feel better.
Puritan upbringing had its faults but it imbued its children with the knowledge that the survival of their forebears in the wilderness was proof that they were Jehovah’s favoured people. They grew up assured that in His sight neither riches nor titles prevailed against godliness. Such knowledge buttressed Makepeace now. God was on her side; she was the better woman.
After all, Catty’s challenge had been issued in Grosvenor Square—England’s age-old sneer against the colonial. All the impotent fury of her countrymen returned to Makepeace as the contempt in which they were held came to be personified in the beautifully dressed figure of one woman.
By God, I’ll show her I’m her equal.
Not just her, either.
Since she’d set foot in this damn country, she’d been shown no respect by anyone, high or low. Well, they could start now.
Carefully, so as not to wake him, she kissed her husband’s forehead, then she went out, closing the door behind her. In the dressing room, she crossed to the bell pull and rang it. Rang it again, and went on ringing it.
After a while, she heard angry feet thumping along the corridor.
‘Yes, madam? What now?’ Mrs Peplow was in a flannel nightgown and curlpapers.
‘Yes, Lady Dapifer,’ Makepeace said.
‘Eh?’
‘Say it.’
Mumble.
‘Bit louder.’
‘Yes, Lady Dapifer.’
‘You remember it. That’s all, Mrs Peplow. Goodnight.’
The second Lady Dapifer had gone to war.
BOOK TWO
London
Chapter Eight
ON entering the salon, Mme Angloss gave a dramatic stagger. ‘Mon dieu, quelle rousse. Qu’est qu’on peut faire?’ She walked round Makepeace as if assessing horseflesh.
‘I thought green,’ Makepeace ventured.
‘Indeed? I do not.’ It had become fashionable for an expert to be rude and Angloss was all three. At least, it was fashionable to call her in; she herself was as modish as a chimney brush which, with her untidy black hair, olive skin and thin body, she nearly resembled. She was the first woman Makepeace had seen since arriving in England not wearing hoops, favouring instead what looked like a black silk sack and knobbly jewellery.
Left to herself, Makepeace would have given the job of choosing her wardrobe to Susan Brewer but Dapifer had said no. ‘Too provincial yet. Give her a year with Mme Angloss and then we’ll see.’
Susan’s pupillage had already begun and her obsequiousness to Mme Angloss suggested she was happy to give herself up to what, as far as Makepeace could tell, was black slavery.
‘Sakes, she’s the tsarina of haute couture,’ Susan said when Makepeace had wondered whether she did not object to being called ‘Brewer’ and ordered about like a dog. ‘She’s even famous in Boston. Wait ’til Auntie hears I’m her ’prentice.’
Susan and a depressed-looking seamstress were now running back and forth to the entrance hall where hat boxes, dress boxes, shoe boxes, boot boxes, wicker hoop cages, swathes of materials, cards of buttons, ribbons, lace, were being delivered by manufacturers anxious to comply with Mme Angloss’s wishes and gain Dapifer custom.
The matter was urgent. Makepeace could not appear in public until she was suitably dressed.
It had been a bone of contention between her and her husband that she should appear at all. ‘I ain’t a public person.’
‘What are you going to do? Rattle in a closet like a skeleton? I don’t happen to be ashamed of you.’ He’d recovered his self-possession though the prospect of the publicity attached to fighting his first wife through the courts was horrific to him.
‘But ain’t we persona non whatsit?’
‘That’s at Court. But the Court is not Society, in fact the two are inimical; Their Majesties being undoubtedly worthy but undoubtedly dull. I think you’ll discover that there are still some among the powerful eager to make your acquaintance.’
‘Glad to hear it.’ It had been established between them that in the forthcoming divorce battle they would need all the allies they could muster, especially in Parliament. But privately she thought: They ain’t falling over themselves. (So far not one invitation had been delivered to Dapifer House.) Even next-door don’t talk to me.
Accustomed to a community that chatted over the yard fence, the silence of her neighbours was thunderous in Makepeace’s ears. At least, it was silence only as it extended to her; actually, the Judds on her left were a noisy family with an apparently inexhaustible supply of leather-lunged children. To hear their play over the other side of the wall dividing the two properties accentuated her own exclusion and it broke her heart to watch Josh listening to it as he wandered alone among the neat parterres of the Dapifer back garden.