The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock

by Imogen Hermes Gowar

  ‘Go ahead. It is your mermaid. Pick it up.’

  And so he must. He takes its tail in his two hands, and its scales rustle in his palms. It is so dry and so frail he suddenly has a peculiar urge to dash it to the ground, but he does nothing. ‘Complete even to its fingernails,’ he whispers. There are wisps of silky black hair on its head. He cannot think what to feel: surely this thing was a living being once.

  ‘But what am I to do with it?’ he ventures. ‘This is not what I ordered. I shall have to disappoint a great many people.’

  ‘They must expect disappointment every now and then. That’s the nature of our business.’

  ‘But this is unprecedented! My ship is sold voluntarily by its captain, who uses the proceeds to buy – on my account – the most dismaying oddity? Who will sympathise with that? Who will invest in my ventures again if I cannot assure them my ship is in safe hands?’

  Captain Jones rubs the back of his neck. ‘I did not think of that.’

  Exasperation fizzes. ‘Tysoe, Tysoe! A year and a half you have had to think on it! You abandon these knotty points to me, as you always have.’ The tap of Sukie biting her nail recalls to him that she and the maid still linger. Mr Hancock does not mind discussing business in front of Bridget, who has neither the reason nor the interest to note it, but as for Sukie … ‘Out, girls,’ he says, setting the mermaid down gently on the desk.

  ‘But may we not—’

  ‘This is talk for men. You’ve your own duties to see to, have you not? Go, go.’ He ushers them out protesting anon; after bolting the door he turns back to Captain Jones. ‘Why would you think this a cargo I would be glad to receive? I have no expertise—’

  ‘What expertise?’ Captain Jones says sharply. ‘There is no expert in the world on this topic. It is a genuine mermaid, it’ll want no extra work on your behalf. Only a fool could lose money on a mermaid.’ He rakes his fingers through his hair. ‘Only a fool could be angry to get one!’

  ‘But what am I to do with it?’

  ‘Why, exhibit it!’

  ‘I am not a showman,’ says Mr Hancock primly. ‘I shall notify the Royal Society. This must be an important development for science, and I am not a scientific man either.’

  Captain Jones waves his hand in disgust. ‘And then how will you recoup your costs? Listen, ’tis common sense. Find a coffee-house, charge a shilling per view, and say three hundred view it in a day – I am being conservative – why that is ninety pounds in a week.’ Seeing Mr Hancock shake his head, he hastens on. ‘You might tour the country with it. Take it to fairs. The provinces’ appetite for such things has never been quenched.’

  ‘Ninety a week, though?’ wonders Mr Hancock. He rents out each of the houses on Hancock Row – his modest empire of six dwellings on Butt Lane – for thirty-five shillings a month and thinks himself rich.

  ‘Four thousand a year. Again, I am being conservative.’

  This figure takes his breath away. That such an insignificant thing might hold such riches. ‘And ’tis mine?’ he croaks. He looks at the mermaid where it lies, tiny and frail; reaches to pick it up; mistrusts his hands and retreats once more.

  ‘’Tis yours. Not your partners’, not your investors’. Only yours.’ He has nobody to consult with. His partner, Greaves, with whom he shares offices and sometimes ventures, has taken the Lorenzo to what now designs itself the United States. There is old business to salvage there, new opportunities to seize, but Mr Hancock himself has no stomach for the America trade. Since the war such defection feels personal, and painful, and so his business with Greaves diverges evermore. Even if he were here, what could his advice be?

  Hester, then. What will she say to his acquiring such a freak? ‘The Hancocks have never run a circus,’ her voice intrudes as if she were there at her elbow. ‘We are reputable merchants of the finest wares; we do not deal in novelties. You will make us a laughing-stock.’ Mr Hancock stares at it.

  ‘What did you spend on the damn thing?’ he asks at length.

  ‘Twelve hundred. Now, now, do not look so – it was cheap at the price.’

  ‘And you sold the ship for …?’

  ‘Six thousand.’ To his credit Captain Jones betrays some fear. ‘I had no choice! As God is my witness, you would have approved had you been there.’

  Mr Hancock feels numbed, as if ice-water filled his veins. ‘The Calliope was worth eight thousand,’ he says softly, ‘with her new mainmast.’

  The captain hangs his head. ‘I know it. She was a fine girl; I was sorry to part with her.’

  Mr Hancock puts his hand to his face. ‘So why did you?’

  The captain takes a bill from his breast pocket and smooths it out carefully, holding it up to the light, his eyes conciliatory. ‘There’s a strongbox for you with four thousand eight hundred in’t, all accounted for after I paid off the crew. I am an honest man.’ He raises a hand to halt Mr Hancock’s indrawn breath, and continues with insistent cheer, ‘That will reimburse all your partners’ investments on this voyage. You’ll not lose face.’

  ‘But you have lost me two thousand, and another two thousand in goods as ought to have come back with you. And you have lost me my ship.’

  ‘Hancock, I swear. The mermaid … ’tis not a bag of magic beans, you know. There is real worth in this venture, if you will only take a chance on it.’

  Mr Hancock sighs. ‘I do not like chance. I try to be a steady man.’

  ‘Well, ’tis out of your hands now.’ Mr Hancock could strike him, the man is so provoking in his optimism as he declares, ‘Providence has taken your ship, and given you a mermaid instead.’

  ‘You did that.’ He rises. ‘Time you took your leave, I think.’ He unbolts the door and passes ahead of his friend into the hall, where he finds the girls engaged in a level of industry unlike them even in broad daylight, and certainly at such an hour: Bridget dusts the banister with vigour and Sukie counts and re-counts the candles in their sconces.

  ‘Come, Hancock,’ Captain Jones pursues undeterred. ‘Why not try it? Just for some little time? Recoup the cost of the ship – recoup it double – and then sell the little wretch on. It won’t take no time.’

  ‘Will you stay to eat?’ pipes Sukie, making up for her earlier dumbness. ‘Or sleep here tonight? I can have a bed made up.’ The guest bed is always made up, as she well knows: it only wants for Bridget to sprinkle the stale sheets with lavender water.

  ‘No, thank you. I am anxious to return to my wife.’ Captain Jones’s smile is fond and sad. ‘I have not seen the smallest of my children since it was five weeks old, and now I hear he is a hearty little fellow, and can kick a ball, and count to eighteen. I shall push on to Woolwich tonight if it makes no odds to you.’ His hand is on the latch; he steps out into the night. ‘Now, Hancock, think about what I have said.’

  Mr Hancock turns his face away. ‘Aye,’ he mumbles, ‘I’ll think on it.’

  ‘We must celebrate this!’ Jones grins confidingly. ‘I’ve a mind to show my face in London again. All through this voyage I was sustained by the memory of a happy few hours I spent at a bathhouse on Long Acre. Is not a bagnio the perfect place to celebrate a mermaid?’

  ‘Hush you, there are girls indoors.’

  ‘Goodnight, sir. Goodnight!’

  Mr Hancock locks the door carefully. In the counting-house he finds Sukie and Bridget squashed into his great chair at the desk, resting their chins on their arms as they stare at the mermaid. Bridget is yawning mightily, but Sukie’s frown is alert.

  ‘Begone,’ he says. ‘You are about my feet too much. ’Tis time you were a-bed.’

  ‘What is a bagnio?’ asks Sukie, stretching her legs out before her.

  ‘A place where gentlemen go to get cupped.’ He shepherds them away from the desk. ‘And bled, and bathed – and suchlike. Healthful.’

  ‘I see.’ She is taking the snuffer to the candles while Bridget extinguishes those in the hall. He, nightlight in hand, bolts the shutters. ‘And the mermaid,�
�� she continues, ‘will it make our fortune?’

  ‘We do make our own fortunes.’

  ‘The sea-captain said a great deal of money.’

  ‘Well, what does it signify? You are just a little girl of this house; if you are keeping the bills in order and timely it is of no importance to you how much or little else there is in the pot.’

  ‘Mother says ’tis a dreadful discourtesy to keep women out of the accounts. For if they are to be ruined they’ve a right to know about it.’

  ‘Nobody is to be ruined,’ he grunts. ‘And you are to tell your mother nothing of this.’

  ‘It is all of our concern. My papa’s investment—’

  ‘His investment is safe; if it is not he may take it up with me himself. Now I’ll hear no more of it.’

  She turns as she stands at the very last candle, half her face lit up and her hair floating in illuminated wisps. Her eyes flick to the dark desk where the mermaid’s crooked fingers are silhouetted. ‘And do we just leave it in here all night?’

  ‘Why, ’tis not going anywhere.’

  She shudders, and brings the snuffer down on the flame.

  He makes his habitual nightly round of the house, candle aloft: through the kitchen to bolt the doors and shutters there, while Bridget makes ready her cot in the corner; then up the stairs with Sukie’s skirts rustling at his heels to see that all is secure. They do not speak as they damp down the fire in the parlour and make fast the door leading to the attic so no thief picking his way along the rooftops may opportune himself.

  When all is tight and dark, Mr Hancock repairs to his room on the second floor and draws the bolt to. He hangs his breeches and stockings on the chair as the building relaxes into silence: the grunt and sigh of its joists; the blunder of the wind in its chimneys. He is parting the curtains of his bed when he hears the stairs creak. He stops, and strains to listen. They creak again; closer; at the turn of the stair before the first floor, he judges, where the banister rail rattles in its fitting. From the locked and lightless rooms below, something approaches.

  With his shirt hanging about his knees, he goes to the door and listens. Somewhere below him, a tap, a scratch, a fingertip on wood.

  Through the floorboards he hears Sukie whimper; she has heard it too. Now she is moving across her own bedroom floor. The nape of his neck prickles. Surely she will not investigate. He is charged with protecting her, and yet even as her latch clicks he is rooted to the spot.

  A whisper below: ‘I am so glad you are awake!’ It is Bridget. Of course – who else would it be, what other souls wander the house at this hour?

  ‘You scared the wits out of me,’ Sukie hisses.

  ‘Aye, well. Think how I feel. I’ll not sleep a wink, with that thing so nearby.’

  ‘Ain’t it peculiar?’

  ‘It’s not Christian, any body can see. Now, Sukie, what if it comes for us?’

  ‘Bunk in with me. We’ll take turns sleeping while the other sits watch. Now hush, hush, don’t wake Uncle.’

  And the latch clicks closed. Below he hears them whispering yet, excited sibilances that dissolve into silence. Closing his eyes to his candle he seeks the sense of young Henry, some friendly companion to stand with him in the dark, but nothing comes. He takes to his bed alone.

  FOUR

  ‘Eliza!’

  It is noon and Angelica is awake. After Mrs Frost left her she entertained a group of gentlemen with much merriment until three in the morning; she sits up in bed hot and cross, and desirous of a saucer of tea. ‘Eliza!’ she calls again.

  There is no answer.

  She rises, her chemise wrinkled and bunched about her thighs, and trots into the dressing room. The table is still skewed in the middle of the floor, and Mrs Frost’s cot is cold and empty, the counterpane pulled up smooth to the bolster.

  ‘Now surely she cannot have stayed out all night,’ mutters Angelica, ‘for where would she go?’ She does not allow herself to think, perhaps she does not mean to come back, but the notion nevertheless flutters behind her ribs. She walks into the parlour – which is disordered from the night’s doings, the cushions tumbled on the sopha and scattered glasses sticky with ratafia – and even into the scullery, sighing, ‘Eliza, Eliza,’ for she already knows her search will be fruitless. This has never happened before, nor anything at all like it. She stands in the middle of her large room and tugs at her fingers until the joints go pop: her old friend Bel Fortescue will call for her soon, and the eyes of old friends are the keenest of all. Furthermore, while Angelica’s aristocratic keeper is reduced to worm-fodder, Bel’s is vital and prospering, and cherishes her as passionately now as the day he first met her. ‘I’ll not be her sorry friend,’ mutters Angelica. ‘I am every bit as good as her.’ And yet she has been abandoned to manage her appearance all alone.

  Her curls are still fresh and want only a fluffing, which is hardly beyond her powers. And she casts about for what she can wear that might be donned without Mrs Frost’s helpful hands and careful eyes. What a boon, then, is her own Perdita gown, for once she has pressed her waist into the faithful clasp of her pink silk stays, she effects the gathers of white muslin with only little trouble, and conceals her mistakes with a wide blue sash. Lesser women might take fright at so scant and humble a gown, but Angelica, lovely in both face and figure, requires no embellishment of dress. She is easy as a nymph in her soft drapery.

  ‘And so ’twas more easily done than I feared,’ she congratulates herself as she crouches before her displaced dressing table, tapping rouge into her cheeks. And she is well satisfied with herself, and misses her companion not one bit.

  Bel Fortescue, when Angelica climbs into her carriage, surveys her gauzy dress with only a flicker of humour. ‘What nakedness, Jellie,’ she murmurs, for she is naturally soulful even in amusement. She is a small little woman with treacle-brown eyes, a comrade in the Cyprian corps for ten years or more. Her face is round and her chin is pointed; she has a little flat nose like a child’s and her hands are childlike too, small and tidy. Men have wept for her grave sweetness, but if any have come to her in the hope that she will be like a child in all respects, they have been disappointed. For even as a girl of sixteen Bel was a queen of self-possession; as a grown woman she is untouchable. Her clever earl, although he has furnished her home and filled her library, dares not beg entry to her bed.

  ‘What, this?’ Angelica plucks at her muslin, kept upon her body by such slim strings. ‘I think it the most practical thing I ever came upon. So simple, so light.’

  ‘So simple and light,’ says Bel, ‘’tis hardly there at all.’

  ‘I have worn less.’

  ‘Not on the Mall.’

  Angelica puts her nose in the air.

  ‘Oh, dear heart,’ says Bel Fortescue warmly. ‘I am glad to see you so much yourself.’ In the depths of her dispossession, Angelica once allowed herself to weep sincerely in her friend’s presence; this was a mistake, for Bel now searches her face for sorrow with a great intensity, and puts a hand on her arm. ‘You are well, are you not?’

  ‘Oh, most robustly!’ The carriage is built so as to be smooth in its movements and almost silent; done up in pink silk so they nestle like pearls in an oyster shell. Its windows are small and curtained, but Angelica peeps out as they roll past the great things of Piccadilly. ‘Now, Bel, who is about? You must tell me. There are a great many old friends I am anxious to restore my connection with.’

  ‘’Tis very quiet, as yet. Parliament ain’t yet convened; nobody of remark is returned for the season. You could afford to stay a little longer in seclusion, if your nerves …?’ Bel’s solicitude is too much.

  ‘I am here, am I not? Perhaps it were better I arrived before the rush; I do not like to be the last person into a room.’

  ‘Nobody would have blamed you,’ Bel persists, ‘if you had remained in the countryside. We understand.’

  ‘Ugh! I had died if I had stayed there one moment longer! I do not like the countryside
, Bel; there are too many animals and the light is not flattering.’

  ‘But you know that you—’

  ‘And how low the ceilings are there! Why, I am glad to be back in the midst of things. Where are we going?’

  ‘Berkeley Square.’ Bel’s eyes shine. ‘I am taking you to Negri’s to feed you sweetmeats.’

  ‘Oh, Bel!’ Angelica clasps her hands.

  ‘I know what you like – jellies, syllabubs, biscuits. I daresay there are few enough of those in the countryside. Here, has Mrs Chappell visited you lately?’

  ‘Ah! Now we get to the heart of it. And what is it to you?’

  ‘I am interested. Were I still a gambling woman, I’d hedge that she would get her claws back into you, once you were at liberty.’

  Angelica sighs. ‘She came yesterday.’

  ‘And you told her …?’

  ‘I refused to go back to her.’

  Mrs Fortescue is entirely too polite a person to laugh or grin immoderately, but she straightens the flounce at Angelica’s shoulder. ‘Good.’

  Angelica, for the first time, catches her amusement. ‘Bel, think what it would be like!’ she exclaims. ‘At my age! Being as I am!’

  ‘A poor choice,’ nods Bel soberly. ‘A most diminishing choice.’

  ‘She will let me set my own prices and I’ll dine at her table, and we’ll be best of friends …’

  ‘… and then she’ll invoice you sixpence for the bowl of oranges she put in your room!’

  ‘Yes, indeed, and as a kindness she’ll have her woman get a stain out of my dress …’

  ‘… so that’ll be half a crown on your account.’

  ‘And every time I take a glass of sherry she’ll make a note.’

  ‘The fresh bedclothes! Oh, do you remember?’

  ‘Clean sheets every day!’ It has been a long time since Angelica last had the opportunity to air her grievances, and she snatches joyfully at her friend’s hand. ‘She would keep me her slave by the laundry bills alone. If my duke had not bought me out the last time, I cannot think I would ever have got away. Bel, I cannot do it again; I cannot be so servile. Am I wrong? Is this my most prudent choice?’