The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock

by Imogen Hermes Gowar

  ‘Time to make a change.’ Mrs Chappell snaps her fingers at Polly, who is feeding one of the lapdogs from her plate. ‘We are a venerable establishment.’

  Angelica is become quite jokeous: she remembers Bel’s observation, ‘Mrs Chappell is losing her touch,’ and determines to investigate it. ‘Venerable?’ she asks boldly. ‘Or démodée?’ To the girls she mouths moribund, but here she gets above herself: it is a hard word and they only stare at her.

  ‘Watch your mouth, madam.’ The abbess heaves in her chair. ‘When you have run a celebrated institution for thirty years, you may smirk all you like, but things being as they are, that nasty expression of yours does you no favours.’ Mrs Chappell settles herself again, clasping her hands over her bosom. ‘I know my business. It don’t hurt to look out novelties.’

  ‘Horrid competitive now-a-days.’

  ‘And yet mine is the only place with a mermaid. Such gaieties will be had.’

  ‘And what will this gentleman make of your sort of gaieties?’ Ought Angelica to better conceal her scorn? Mrs Frost thinks so, and creaks her cane chair with urgency. But to Angelica’s mind, the best way to achieve a thing is to behave as if it has already happened, and so she behaves as if she were queen of the Ton. She claps her hands and crows, ‘Oh, Mother Chappell, I can see him now, poor lost thing, hunting about the place for a bit of ale or pease porridge while the fine people disport themselves. And pity the lady who must be his nursemaid for the evening!’ She looks to the girls. ‘Which one of you is it to be then? Which of you must hold his silly hand all night while the fun goes on elsewhere?’

  ‘Mrs Neal,’ says the abbess with perfect serenity, ‘I require a particular favour of you.’

  ‘Oh?’ Understanding rises slow across Angelica’s face. ‘Oh no. Madam, not me.’

  Mrs Chappell adopts her most coaxing tones. ‘This gentleman, as I say, is new in the world. I wish you to pay a special attention to him, my dear heart, to put to use your great gift for hospitality. No body in my house is as expert as you are.’

  Angelica crosses her arms. ‘I’ll not be pimped.’

  ‘To be sure, to be sure. But you remember our agreement?’

  ‘This is beneath me,’ says Angelica. ‘You cannot think so little of me.’

  ‘’Tis just for one night.’

  ‘Even to be seen with a man like him for one hour will hurt my reputation. I am not a plaything for any drear arriviste to take his turn on.’

  ‘No, dear, no. But I will remind you that all the quality come to my establishment, and not one of them comes here. I extend to you the opportunity to be seen at the most exclusive party of the season.’

  ‘I ought to be your guest of honour,’ scowls Angelica.

  ‘No, dear. That is Mrs Fortescue.’

  Angelica searches for more words, but finds none. Eliza Frost rises from her chair with a suddenness that might bespeak a woman about to quit the room – it is only with effort that Angelica restrains herself from seizing her friend’s hand – but she is only going to shake cake crumbs into the cage of sleeping mice. Angelica turns sullenly back to Mrs Chappell. ‘What if I found I was unable to accept your very generous invitation?’

  ‘Well, then, we would find ourselves in a difficult position,’ says Mrs Chappell, who looks in fact as if her own position were never more comfortable. ‘I should think, given the situation, there would never be any more invitations extended to you.’

  Mrs Frost straightens up. She closes the latch of the cage.

  ‘We agreed,’ says Mrs Chappell, ‘that you would be available at my house when you were wanted there. I help you, do I not? I mention your name to my gentlemen; I host your meetings with them—’

  ‘No need to recall it to me.’

  ‘So you must help me in return.’

  Angelica considers, watched by Mrs Frost (uneasily), Mrs Chappell (coolly) and the girls (enquiringly). The mice are stirring and piping to one another; the dogs perk their ears; the shadows waver on the walls. She musters the broadest smile she has shown all morning. ‘I’ll take a glass of wine with the gentleman, and gladly. I like mermaids and I like parties. For a mermaid party I’ll tolerate far greater hardships than that.’

  ‘Ah, there’s my amenable girl. Much obliged to ye, Mrs Neal. You will go far, I never doubt it.’

  ELEVEN

  October 1785

  It is a curious thing that while the mermaid has been so celebrated – both on the lips of citizens and in their broadsheets – Mrs Hester Lippard has been utterly silent. In his more hopeful hours Mr Hancock permits himself to believe that perhaps news of his strange cargo has bypassed her entirely; it is more likely that her opinions are too numerous and blistering to entrust to folded white paper. By the first Thursday of the month, the day of her accustomed visit, the absence of her correspondence is as tense as the air before a summer storm.

  Dreading the conversation which must follow, he takes a hansom all the way from Clerkenwell, an expense that weighs heavy on his conscience despite his new wealth, and – the traffic on the Strand being as it is – takes very little time off the journey. He knots his fingers and drums his feet on the boards as the cab rattles down Butt Lane – Mr Hancock bouncing about in the carriage like a pea in a hatbox – through a vista of gentle green fields. The new-built houses here are marvellous genteel: they stand alone, or in terraces of two or three, with large windows and an aspect across pleasant orchards and market gardens to the haze of London on the far horizon. Mr Hancock, agitated as he is, must cluck with pleasure as he passes Hancock Row, now let out to comfortable sea-captains and shipwrights and even a dancing-master at very satisfactory profit. There will be more of this sort now, he thinks. Hancock Street! The most exclusive address in Deptford.

  As they approach the dockyards, the houses become smaller and more densely built; low dwellings with clapboard fronts and papered windows. A mere fifty feet from Mr Hancock’s own street, a group of shipbuilders idle at the crossing. Two are peeling off from their comrades, returning to their homes where there must be bread and bacon laid out on the table, and wives waiting to pour a draught of beer. But they linger even so, touching the brims of their hats laconically to the coachman while one finishes a story and all laugh together in their comradely circle.

  The coachman makes to touch his whip to the horse’s flank, but Mr Hancock raps on the roof and leans out of the window.

  ‘Hold back so they may pass,’ he calls.

  ‘Why, they are not going anywhere,’ says the driver. ‘’Tis my right of way.’

  ‘Not here. They cross in their own time.’ In Deptford, traffic makes way for shipbuilders just as they say in Hindoostan the cattle are permitted to wander and lie where they will, no matter the industry about them. ‘The world depends on fine strong ships,’ Mr Hancock says cheerfully as the horse stamps and snorts on its tight rein. ‘The skill of those good men fills every belly in London.’

  ‘I fill my own belly,’ mutters the driver, but he waits as the good men now take their leave of one another, stopping in the middle of the road to raise a farewell hand.

  ‘Obliged to ye,’ they nod as they pass, betraying yet no urgency.

  Mr Hancock, his elbow hooked over the window frame, catches the eye of their leader Jem Thorpe, whose masterpiece some twenty years back was the cabin of the lamented Calliope. His wig is flecked with sawdust, and he swings a string bag of the wood trimmings swept up from the workshop floor.

  ‘Jem!’ calls Mr Hancock. He cannot help himself; the thought of Hancock Street is too beguiling to keep a secret. ‘Hallo there! Jem! How’s trade?’

  ‘Steady.’ He holds his hat up to shade his eyes. ‘For now.’

  ‘Aye, there’s a rare thing.’ Mr Hancock does not like to leave Hester unsupervised in his house to stalk about his parlour, peering at his china and his tobacco and the spines of his books in her hawkish manner. She may by now have found her way into the counting-house and be running her finger down the e
ntries in his ledger. He loathes her oversight of his house, but he dreads also being with her; he ought to hurry back, but a conversation such as this one – authoritative, masculine – may serve to bolster his pride before she sets about dismantling it. ‘And the Admiralty are seeing you right?’

  ‘Tsk! Worse than ever!’ Jem steps up conspiratorially. ‘Ever a-snibbeting over wages and perks and hours. The best shipbuilders in the world, we are; they cannot get a better job from anybody but they would not pay us what we are worth.’

  ‘It was always the way,’ Mr Hancock nods sagely.

  ‘We should have downed tools ten years ago, when Woolwich did.’

  Mr Hancock shudders. ‘That was a bad time.’ His neighbours’ passionate unionising fills him with anxiety; perhaps, indeed, the order of things is not satisfactory, but order must nevertheless be maintained. If not, what is there?

  ‘Aye,’ says Jem, ‘very bad, to crush citizens who speak their minds rather than pay them any heed.’ He spits into the dirt at his feet. ‘It’s not only those at the top who keep things as there are – power’s a contract drawn up between all classes of men. There’ll be trouble yet, you’ll see.’

  ‘Well.’ Mr Hancock drums his fingers on the sill. ‘Are you averse to bringing your work ashore?’

  Mr Thorpe considers. ‘House-building, is it? For you? I suppose you are speculating again.’

  ‘Indeed! For I have come upon some money I did not expect.’ He waits for Jem Thorpe to pursue this tantalising hint, but he only smiles, and inveigles his fingers under the edge of his wig to meet an itch. ‘Building is the best investment in our modern times,’ Mr Hancock blusters on. ‘Unlike ships, you will always find houses in the same spot you left them. You ought to do it yourself.’

  ‘I, a landlord? I shall have to think on that.’ One of the horses snorts and tosses its head. Jem studies his nails. ‘Very well, sir, when my work dries up you may expect me.’

  ‘Whenever you are at your liberty.’

  ‘And my team …’

  ‘I leave that to your discretion.’ The shipwrights are a loyal tribe; one does not prosper without his brothers. This accounts for their Wesleyan tendencies.

  ‘Good.’ Mr Thorpe clears his throat. ‘Thank you, Mr Hancock. This sets my mind a little easier.’

  ‘Think nothing of it. God go with you, Jem Thorpe.’

  ‘And with you, I’m sure. Good day.’ Mr Thorpe turns off down the lane, striding firmly over the rutted mud and greasy puddles, swinging his wood chips to steady himself.

  ‘Now drive,’ says Mr Hancock, rapping his cane on the cab ceiling, ‘for I am in a fearsome hurry. Buck up now, sir, for the love of Christ!’

  And they draw up to Union Street, which was – until the arrival of the stucco palaces on Butt Lane – the very finest address in Deptford. Lintels carved with swirling foliage and precarious cherubs protrude one by one by one from uniform brick fronts in the most pleasing rhythm, but the driver remains undazzled. In London there are streets upon streets of such harmonious proportion; any common weaver or pickle-bottler might live in such a place.

  ‘Two shillings sixpence,’ snaps the driver.

  ‘And worth every farthing. Allow me to …’ He digs in his case and retrieves his tiny brass scales, true to a grain of sand and certainly to a clipped coin. ‘Now just one moment …’ He sits bolt upright in the back of the coach, furrowing his brow and willing his scales true with such fervency that his eyes start to cross.

  ‘I’ll take my chance on the coin,’ says the driver.

  ‘’Tis as much for your own benefit as for mine,’ says the merchant. ‘You earned the full payment for your troubles, did you not?’

  ‘I’d not argue with that.’

  Eventually the balance is weighed and paid to the satisfaction of all parties, and Mr Hancock may at last quit the coach, and the coachman quit Deptford, vowing never to cross the river again in his life.

  In the house, he hears his sister’s voice before he sees her.

  ‘A mermaid?’ she barks. She stands at the turn of the staircase, her dress shrouded in a coarse linen work-apron, her hands on her hips. ‘A mermaid! What were you thinking?’

  ‘How did you find out?’ he asks weakly.

  ‘As if it could have passed me by! Mr Lippard saw it in the Gazette the very morning it came in. Now did you know anything of this? says he. It cannot be, says I, for the Hancocks are respectable people …’

  ‘I know,’ he sighs. ‘Sister, it was hardly my choice.’

  Sukie appears behind her, clutching her pencil and swollen pocketbook, her hair tucked under her cap and her shoulders slumped. He tries to catch her eye but she’ll none of it, only turning the corners of her mouth down a little further.

  ‘And this one,’ snaps Hester, ‘told me nothing of it, although she knows her own fortune depends entirely on this family’s reputation.’

  ‘She was ignorant of it,’ says Mr Hancock. Sukie’s eyes widen. ‘I kept it from her entirely.’

  ‘Lies! You had her selling tickets. There for anybody to see, as if she were no better than a carnival girl. Mrs Williams saw her with her own eyes; counting out money easy as anything, she told me, talking and laughing with any man that lined up.’ Sukie’s cheeks are scarlet. She drops her head. ‘What will people think of her? Hmm? Do you think of her reputation?’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘No, I did not think.’ Regretfully, he climbs the stairs towards them. Even now that they are both old his spirit flinches from Hester as his body flinched when he was a little child and she a great girl of sixteen: then, her grip was too tight on his wrist, her step too brisk to keep alongside, and she wiped his face but never kissed him, and taught him his prayers and letters with no satisfaction in his progress but only relief at her duty being done. She is now fifty-five, as straight and cool as a steel pin, with ten fine children to exert her will upon the world.

  ‘You never think,’ Hester goes on. ‘You take no care at all. Those things that are said about a young lady are not easily forgot, but you do not care—’

  ‘Come, take your ease,’ he sighs.

  ‘And I, who have devoted my life to this family, these children, for it to come to this?’

  ‘Where is Bridget?’ He squeezes past her and leads the way to the parlour. ‘Have her bring us water for tea. You must be ready for some refreshment.’

  Mrs Lippard objects to the practice of afternoon tea – perhaps rightly since its cornerstones are idleness, sugar and gossip – but nothing else is so conducive to a tête-à-tête, and she has a great deal to get off her mind. As all the rooms in the house, the parlour is small and narrow, its panelling stained a prudent tobacco colour to conceal the soot that the fireplace fails to draw. The tea-table is rackety and unfashionable, the service older than any Hancock now living, its thick off-white glaze daubed with blue intended to recall Chinese scenery. If it were ever a convincing counterfeit for the shell-thin luminous porcelain Mr Hancock now-a-days imports in quantity, its time has passed. A chip in the rim of the sugar bowl reveals coarse earthenware beneath.

  Mr Hancock watches his sister’s eyes sweep all before them. She has seen – he knows – the floss of cobweb on the wings of the seraph at the top of the stairs, which Bridget cannot reach without standing on the three-legged stool. She has seen the door to the kitchen left ajar and beyond it the door to the yard wide open for any stray dog or child to chance their luck. She has seen that the skirting was not scrubbed before its last painting, and so its surface is now for ever granular with trapped dust. She has seen things that he himself has not yet seen, and which he will discover with regret and agony after she has gone: she has seen, and he knows he has been found wanting.

  Bridget trundles in with hot water in its pewter vessel, and Mr Hancock is proud of how well she remembers her place, for although she flicks a few appealing glances to her friend Sukie, she says nothing, and leaves dutifully.

  ‘I want you to set up an order with the butche
r,’ Hester says. ‘Meat to be delivered every week. Make a note, Sukie. Tuesdays: meat.’

  ‘Oh no,’ he says, ‘I’ve no need for that. It makes needless trouble; ’tis only the three of us here, counting the girl, and I am out often enough. We buy it as we need it.’

  ‘Spoken like a man!’ snorts Hester. ‘This is the sort of woeful disarray I cannot stand for. Not a thought for household economy; never knowing today what one will eat tomorrow. For shame, I never heard the like.’

  ‘But who will eat it all?’

  ‘I hardly care if it gets ate, or by whom,’ says Hester firmly. ‘Sukie needs to learn. And it will bring an orderliness of time that your lives are sadly wanting of at present.’ She sighs. ‘Sometimes I cannot judge which of you is the less grateful. You encourage one another in your lack of care. I know that the fault with Sukie is not in my rearing, for all her sisters are a credit to me, but this one … When I saw the state of her cuffs today …’

  ‘Sorry,’ says Mr Hancock immediately, although he can hardly be found accountable for such female concerns.

  ‘Consider,’ Hester says, ‘that linens lie immediately upon the skin, and so what are people to think when they observe a cuff as filthy as hers were this morning?’

  ‘That I had no time to change them after scrubbing the stairs,’ growls Sukie, staring studiedly out of the window. ‘That is what they are to think.’

  ‘What were you about? Scrubbing the stairs with your good cuffs on, which cost three shillings at the last May Fair, and which you will certainly not see the like of again unless you can pay for them yourself?’

  ‘Trying them out,’ whispers Sukie.

  ‘This is very regrettable,’ says Mr Hancock helplessly.

  ‘Regrettable is the least of it. I am ashamed to be associated with this household sometimes, I truly am, and sorely grieved to connect my husband Lippard’s name with such slatternliness.’

  Sukie twitches most briefly, as if nipped by a flea.

  ‘And see what you have done now!’ Hester remembers the original reason for her exercised temper. ‘You have gave up your finest ship for a folly, and you exhibit it around the city like a gypsy showman!’