The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock

by Imogen Hermes Gowar

  ‘Go on.’

  She shoots a glance at her erstwhile friends, who stand in perturbation and disgust. ‘I need you to marry me.’

  VOLUME III.

  ONE

  February 1786

  ‘Not possible,’ snaps Hester Lippard, who is wearing out the wheels of her carriage, she must so often fly to her brother’s house. She has not so much as removed her cape upon striding through his door, and remains immovable in the hall, which in-between place strikes him as a very unsatisfactory site for a row. ‘She’ll not live here.’

  Mr Hancock is in jovial spirits, not easily damped. ‘Good afternoon, sister. How do you today?’

  ‘Ugh! Not a grain of contrition! I never had you for a rake, sir, but you have not only taken a whore, you have brought her under this roof and now lavish her with Hancock money.’ She looks about herself, seeking evidence of his debauch: an abandoned garter, perhaps, or a brimming punchbowl. ‘Fresh paint, do I smell?’

  ‘We have undertaken some improvements.’

  ‘Oh, she has got her feet under the table! What liberty to take with a house that is not even her own.’ She is such a conduit of rage it is a wonder she does not catch alight.

  ‘’Tis my house,’ he says mildly.

  ‘Our father’s! Our grandfather’s! What are you thinking, to bring such a serpent into the nest? I suppose you would have Sukie ruined; that matters nothing to you.’

  ‘There will be no ruination,’ he says.

  ‘You will ruin us all,’ she pronounces with relish.

  ‘Sister, you are not dependent on me.’

  ‘I cannot hold my head up in society. I cannot! You go from bad to worse – do you think Mr Lippard’s clients do not mark it? “He acquires a sideshow one day; a mistress the next. What sort of family do you come from, Mrs Lippard?” That is what they ask me. Furthermore, the lady our William has been working on these last six months – at considerable personal expense – has turned very cool towards him indeed, and I cannot but suspect that this is as a direct result of your conduct. And you know William’s troubles in catching the eye of any lady, let alone one with two hundred a year settled on her; if she does not accept him after all this, the blame will be on you.’

  ‘So be it,’ he says.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘If that is how you will have it, I cannot help it.’

  ‘Oh, you are not one bit sorry! What has got into you?’

  Angelica is upstairs in the bedroom, pinning closed the bodice of her plain rust-coloured gown, Bridget having quit her to answer the door. She has been in the house only ten days, but she has already overseen the repainting of the dark bedroom panelling, and replaced the curtains and the hangings of the ancient bed with new ones of shining moreen; fine, to be sure, but not extravagant. In the shadow of growing ships she is in the midst of a sort of convalescence, sleeping early and long, and eating plain and honest foods like an invalid or a little child. Her dress is neat; her countenance natural; she lives very quiet and blameless in this sturdy ship-built house. Nothing is as grand as she has been accustomed to, but none of it can be taken from her: sometimes she walks from room to room touching the panelled walls, the heavy furniture, the whorled glass in the windows. She touches them lightly with the tips of her fingers, and thinks, this is mine, and this, and this. She may walk from her parlour (she has had it done in almond-green) into Mr Hancock’s counting-house any time it pleases her, and see his strongbox and his ledgers and his own buff-coloured back hunched over his desk, and although he does not make her feel the way certain other men have, it is sufficient that he is pleased by her; he wishes her there; he has chosen her as part of his home. The querulous agitation of her time in London has almost fallen away from her now; she has not felt moved to write to her friends, and she is grateful to have heard nothing from them.

  From two flights below, she hears the hectoring tones of a woman’s voice, and is in no doubt as to whom it might belong. She has not yet met Mrs Lippard, but from Mr Hancock’s description and Sukie Lippard’s demeanour she has surmised precisely what sort of woman she is.

  ‘Sukie!’ Mrs Lippard barks. ‘Susanna!’ and Angelica hears her stir in the parlour below.

  I shall go down too, she thinks to herself, and make myself agreeable to this lady. She fluffs her hair and ties her apron, and proceeds downstairs. Sukie is coming onto the landing, book in hand.

  ‘Is that your mother?’ Angelica asks.

  ‘How did you guess? Will you come down to meet her?’

  Angelica is not yet decided about Sukie, and principally because Sukie seems not yet decided about her. She finds she can do nothing in the girl’s presence without scrutiny; whatever she gleans from watching this newcomer butter a roll or read a book, shake the dust from her cape or close the shutters, she voices none of it. There is no mistaking she has seen more than Angelica had intended to show her, and this is discomfiting.

  ‘What have you told her about me?’ she ventures now. Sukie walks before her down the stairs; Angelica cannot see her expression.

  ‘I? I don’t tell her a thing.’

  ‘Sukie.’ Hester Lippard stands at the foot of the stairs. ‘You condescend to join us.’

  ‘I was in the parlour,’ says Sukie. ‘The fire is burning. Why do you not come up?’

  ‘Oh, may I? Dare I? Is’t not her house now?’ as Angelica comes into sight. She turns back to Mr Hancock. ‘This is your jade? All these years you resist the expense and trouble of bringing a wife into the house and yet you will install a mistress?’

  ‘She is not my mistress,’ says Mr Hancock. ‘She is my wife.’

  Angelica has never seen the blood leave a person’s face with such rapidity. Mrs Lippard, in the first place less than ruddy, becomes positively green. ‘You are not serious,’ she whispers.

  Angelica descends the last few steps with her arms outstretched. ‘Good afternoon, Sister,’ she cries. ‘I rejoice in calling you my relation. I have heard so much about you and it seems it is all perfectly true.’

  Hester is not so numb as to demur a response. ‘You are not much like your picture. But then you are clothed.’

  Angelica knows about women and their empire-building. She knows also that a woman in perfect control of her fate never resorts to rudeness, and this gives her a small glow of satisfaction. She clasps Mrs Lippard’s hand and smiles her most honeyed of smiles. Sukie is dumbstruck; she can only snigger with shock.

  ‘I do not know what you are laughing for,’ says her mother. ‘’Tis your portion he is throwing away; all the fortune your grandfather spent so long building up, and we shall never see any of it once she is done.’

  ‘I have made a great deal of money on my own account lately,’ interjects Mr Hancock.

  ‘Whatever you make, she’ll spend double,’ snaps Mrs Lippard, and returns at once to her interrogation. ‘Married when? How can this be?’

  ‘Three days ago. Quietly, before breakfast—’

  ‘Oh, this is too much. A legal marriage?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘I don’t think so. No banns were read. I’d have heard of’t at once.’

  ‘Oh,’ interjects Angelica, ‘we wed by licence. So much faster. And how vulgar, to have one’s private business broadcast for gossip.’

  ‘Proud, are you, to have private business not fit to be spoken of in church?’ Hester returns her attention to Mr Hancock. ‘So she snared you well and truly! Paying honest money to rush this wedding through; I suppose you did not pause to wonder how many husbands this whore may already have.’

  ‘Will you stand for that?’ his wife demands. ‘You’ll let her offend my honour so?’

  All the women stare at him: Sukie quite rapt – echoed by the half of Bridget’s face peeping round the kitchen door – Hester and Angelica twins of female affront. He has been afraid of Hester’s wrath since infancy, but that of his new wife is yet untested. Her eyes have a virago flash to them. Her hair seems to puff itself larg
er; her skirts prickle.

  Hester, seeing his hesitation, warms to her theme. ‘Where is her bridal portion? How is she a helpmeet when she brings you only debts? And you will raise up the bastard children you get on her from your pocket alone? How will—’

  He has heard quite enough. ‘No, I’ll not stand for it,’ he snaps. ‘Mrs Lippard, you dishonour my wife. It will not do.’

  ‘Oh! I like that! I dishonour her?’ Hester affects to reel in shock; Angelica claps her hands and clasps them under her chin.

  ‘And yourself too,’ says Mr Hancock, spurred on by his wife’s pleasure, ‘speaking so rudely of a lady who has welcomed you into her home.’

  A vein in Mrs Lippard’s temple is twitching. ‘So be it. If you won’t eject this woman from the house, I have no choice but to remove my daughter from it.’

  The entire company gasps.

  ‘Now, Hester, there is no need for that.’

  ‘Come, Sukie,’ says Mrs Lippard as if he never spoke at all, making to seize her daughter’s arm, ‘I am taking you home.’ Sukie lets out a little shriek and, breaking free, scampers back up the staircase. Mrs Lippard turns to Mr Hancock. ‘She’ll stay not a minute longer. I’ll have no daughter of mine in so poisonous an environment.’

  ‘She does not want to go,’ says Angelica, but Mrs Lippard sets off up the stairs in pursuit of her daughter. A great clattering and scuffling ensues as Sukie ascends further; their skirts may be seen flapping between the banisters.

  ‘Christ –’ Angelica pats about her person for her fan; finding that she has none, she wafts herself with her hands – ‘I had expected a quieter life for myself.’ Upstairs mother and daughter can be heard squabbling furiously. ‘Well?’ Mr Hancock remains where he is, frozen it seems. ‘Are you going to settle this?’

  ‘This is not for me to meddle in.’

  ‘Meddling! You are the man, are you not? Your word will settle this.’

  He looks at her helplessly. ‘Let her have what she wants.’

  ‘And what about you?’

  ‘Hush!’ He squirms in his awkwardness. ‘I’d not lose Sukie for anything, but my sister is not to be reasoned with at moments such as these. Far better to give her what she wants and retrieve the child another day.’

  ‘I do not believe that can be the solution.’ Down the stairs comes Mrs Lippard and Sukie weeping beside her. ‘Say something,’ hisses Angelica, but her husband tugs at his stock and utters not a word.

  ‘Sukie,’ Mrs Lippard sings out, ‘mark this! He has chose the whore over his own flesh and blood. ’Tis hardly to be credited, but there it is.’

  Young Sukie looks crushed as a lawn cap after a day at Bartholomew Fair. She cups her hands over her face. ‘Do not let her take me away,’ she says. ‘Oh, Uncle, tell her no.’ Bridget cannot restrain herself from bursting from the kitchen and forcing herself past her master into the midst of the scene; the girls cling to one another and lament in harmony, while Hester Lippard hauls dauntlessly at her daughter’s arm.

  ‘Uncle, Uncle, do not let her!’ Sukie weeps, but it is Angelica who steps forward.

  ‘Stop,’ she says in a tone of great command. ‘Stop now and listen to me.’

  Mrs Lippard, affronted, turns to her. Sukie’s spasmodic gasps are all that can be heard. ‘What do you want?’ asks Angelica.

  ‘Why, to preserve my daughter’s virtue.’

  ‘That ain’t in question.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. Besides, it is how things look.’

  ‘Aye, appearances are everything. So how can we improve hers?’ Angelica glances at her husband. ‘Society is wont to overlook all sorts of failings and peculiarities where money is involved.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’ he asks sternly.

  ‘Aye, I should like to know,’ says Mrs Lippard.

  ‘Well, what is settled on her future at the moment? Do not tell me; you have, what, six other daughters? I expect they have already had the lion’s share of what even the most dedicated of parents can afford to put by.’

  ‘Her prospects are not as good as our eldest’s were,’ Hester Lippard admits.

  Angelica shakes her head. ‘And their husbands, I suppose, deplete your fortune by asking for more investment …’

  ‘How can we refuse when they have our daughters, our grandchildren to support?’ laments Hester. ‘Young men today manage their money very ill indeed.’

  ‘And so what will be left for your Sukie?’ asks Angelica. ‘The future of the youngest child is always so tenuous, so vulnerable to Fate’s caprice. I cannot imagine your guilt and trepidation.’

  ‘But my brother has always sworn he will put in for her.’

  ‘Aye, and that he will.’ Angelica smiles with beatific cheer. ‘I will make sure of it, I give you my word. In fact I can vouch for—’

  ‘Mrs Hancock,’ he warns her. He is shy of Angelica’s lavish bent. What might she promise on his behalf?

  ‘… well, I feel sure we can come to a very satisfactory agreement. Come, Mrs Lippard, shall we talk this out properly upstairs? You have been on your feet so long, it is time to sit down and take some refreshment at least. Bridget –’ she perks an eyebrow at the girl, whose face is still buried in Sukie’s shoulder – ‘biscuits, if you please. And hot water to the parlour. Sister, would you follow me?’

  And in the almond-green-painted parlour, at the brand-new tea table with its pristine little tea bowls, these ill-matched sisters-in-law talk out every possible inch of Sukie’s bridal portion and her illustrious future, while Mr Hancock sits by with his books and his pipe, nodding to their requests or drawing his brow into a frown as he scratches out more numbers. Mrs Lippard laments her woes and Mrs Hancock soothes her.

  ‘Oh, I know, I know – a dreadful state of affairs – how you have borne it so long – but this generation is so different – I’d never have had your patience, Mrs Lippard, certainly I would not.’

  Once they are finished it is agreed that Sukie Lippard will be a great deal richer than she had ever hoped to be.

  ‘As to her education …’ says Angelica.

  ‘’Tis done,’ says Mrs Lippard. ‘Her school could do no more for her.’

  ‘I learned nothing,’ growls Sukie.

  ‘You read every book they had.’

  ‘If I had known there were so few, I would have read slower.’

  ‘Well, book-learning is not very useful,’ says Angelica, ‘and easily faked when the effect is required. I thought more that I would engage a dance master. Her deportment, Mrs Lippard, shows promise: I feel her walking and general grace of movement could come on considerably with very little encouragement. And a singing teacher too, and let us not have her neglect her pianoforte, for that is where so many girls betray their lack of polish. One always wants a Frenchman for music lessons. Leave that to me, leave that to me, I know people.’ She leans back in her chair, eyes bright. ‘Is your mind any more at ease?’

  Hester Lippard has begun to convince herself of the advantages to keeping Sukie in her brother’s house. To be sure, the girl has plenty more to learn, and Mrs Lippard has not the time to teach it all to her. And she hates to see any child of hers underemployed, when there is work for them elsewhere; and what would she do with Sukie under her feet in Southwark; and she has not even considered yet the expense of laying another place at the table when she already has sons and daughters-in-law and apprentices and servants to feed.

  ‘But her moral education. Her spiritual well-being,’ she hazards. ‘The child’s soul …’

  ‘Fortuitous we are so well placed for two churches. Not to mention our Quaker brethren, and I declare I never knew such an infestation of Noncon tub-thumpers as I find here. Her soul will be spoilt for choices.’

  ‘And you …’

  Even now Angelica does not lose her composure. She tips her head and smiles. ‘I understand your concern, Mrs Lippard. But look at me.’ She gestures to her plain gown, her unpowdered hair, her entire cleanliness and delicacy. ‘Trust y
our eyes, madam, you see I am not so unlike you. And even a Magdalene can be redeemed. Say, that will be a fine lesson for her soul.’

  Mrs Lippard, looking at her obediently, is filled with suspicion. But then she is suspicious also of many of the women she knows. And if Sukie were to be removed from this house, her means of intelligence would be vastly diminished.

  Yes, it is better to arm oneself with knowledge. Sukie is hardly in harm’s way. She is not starved or beaten; she has a room of her own and an opportunity for a comprehensive education. As for what she might see or hear in the home of a renowned harlot, well. Children are robust. When one tots it all up, it would be the crueller thing to deny her this opportunity.

  Mrs Lippard concludes that her daughter has the moral integrity to withstand temptation and debauch. One might even consider it a test; if she falls, well, that is an indictment on her inborn moral weakness, from which no body could save her.

  ‘She’ll stay,’ she says. ‘But if I hear one thing that is not to my liking …’

  ‘You will not,’ Angelica assures her. ‘We are a family of scrupulous morals. You will not regret this, madam, we will make a triumph of the child.’

  Mr Hancock is somewhat surprised by his niece’s subsequent demeanour towards him. He has never been so out of Sukie’s books before, and is chilled by the glower she fixes upon him before retiring to her window seat, never to speak again all evening. She thinks I did not stand up enough for her, he frets. He tries to broach the subject with a jovial nudge in the ribs: ‘Well, ’twas all to the good in the end, eh?’ but she does not dignify him with any response at all.

  ‘I wish she did not take it so hard,’ he says to Angelica when they are in their bedroom. ‘She acts as if I threw her out.’

  ‘You responded very poorly indeed,’ says his wife, tucking her thickly plaited hair into her nightcap. ‘I was positively ashamed.’ She puts her hands on her hips, but there is no anger in her strictness, and her body most inviting where her chemise strains across it. ‘You are not to go on in that manner any longer. You told me, before we married, that you were determined to protect Miss Sukie, and have no misfortune befall her.’