The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock

by Imogen Hermes Gowar

  ‘Aye, indeed I am.’

  ‘You did not protect her today.’

  He sighs. ‘My sister is a remarkable difficult woman. If I give her her own way, that is not to say I have capitulated to her.’

  ‘Tsk! Hark at yourself.’ She climbs into bed beside him, and after a moment he turns to her admiringly.

  ‘Indeed, Mrs Hancock, you may effect all sorts of things that I, a man, may not.’

  ‘Huh. And think what you may do, that I may not.’

  ‘You have a delicacy to you that I cannot emulate, and an understanding. I did not see Mrs Lippard so placid as she was today in many years. I am glad to have you here.’ Indeed, he thinks, it becomes clearer by the day that he ought to have had a wife years ago. It seems to him that what they achieve together is much more than double what they might alone.

  ‘Oh, I am accustomed to her sort,’ says Angelica. ‘It is easy to please her – every body wants the same thing, when it comes to it.’ She bites her nail and wriggles deeper under the covers. ‘But she was right on one count, sir: you did choose me over Sukie, and I wish you had not.’

  ‘You are my wife, and she is not even my daughter. If her mother wished to remove her, what was I to do?’

  ‘The child has been moved about according to convenience for years, I believe; she ought to have one place where she lives and is part of the household.’

  ‘Soft-hearted! If there’s work to be done in one house and she sits idle in another, where is the sense in it? Until she has a family of her own, she must make herself useful in this one.’

  ‘But you are soft-hearted,’ says Angelica, nudging herself beneath the crook of his arm. ‘I do not think you would be without her.’ She will not confide in him that she needs Sukie very much; that the girl knows a great deal about the running of a house while she herself knows nothing at all.

  ‘But what of your promise to educate and refine her?’ he scoffs.

  ‘An investment. The cleverer she is the better she will marry. Good returns, one day.’ She is yawning now, her head a weight she is less inclined to hold up. ‘I shall find tutors for her.’

  He hesitates. The cat creeps from beneath the bed and springs up upon it; she wades across the bedclothes at their feet. ‘Not the – not the same ones as teach – as teach Mrs Chappell’s charges?’ he asks nervously.

  The cat is turning round in circles, kneading the counterpane, and Angelica feels the spirit of Bel Fortescue rise up in her: ain’t it all to the same end? Instead she shakes her head. ‘You’ve nothing to fear, sir. Here –’ and rolling over turns her face frankly to his – ‘you did a fine thing today; you defended your household. Eventually. Is that not an auspicious beginning to our marriage?’ This she means most sincerely; it is a novelty and a relief that the man who now keeps her refuses to deny her. She could not have borne another turncoat of Rockingham’s sort. She clasps his hand above the covers and pats it gently; they smile at one another, the very picture of mercantile happiness. ‘Let us waste no more of the candle,’ she says.

  TWO

  March 1786

  It happens that a gentleman named Mr Brierley is one day caught in flagrante with his horse-boy, or some say his horse, but either way such prurient interest in the dealings of strangers has no place in this story. It only signifies at all because after this Mr Brierley hanged himself, the extent of his debts was revealed, and his widow put his house and all its contents up for sale for a very reasonable price. This news catches the ear of Mr Hancock as he goes about his business one morning.

  ‘I shall buy it for you,’ he says to his wife at breakfast.

  ‘Oh no,’ she says. ‘Not on my account. Not for me.’

  She is remarkable pretty, he thinks, pink-cheeked and plump and comfortable in her sprigged white morning dress, and her habits are pretty too, for after his morning’s work she has him join her in her bedroom at ten or eleven for tea and hot rolls. He sits gingerly on one of the spindly chairs she has had brought in, with his legs splayed out one on either side of the tiny round table, and holds his tea bowl between finger and thumb, while Angelica – not long out of bed – helps herself to butter and marmalade. Breakfast is a novelty for her, she rarely having risen before noon in her old life, and he likes to watch the seriousness with which she eats warm bread and cold preserves.

  ‘I promised you better,’ he says. ‘I did not mean you to live in Deptford.’

  ‘Well, I am content.’

  ‘And for Sukie –’ who has not joined them; who is still, in fact, surly about him – ‘we must increase her opportunities to meet fine people and cultivate herself.’ Privately, he is anxious that now her head has been turned with Angelica’s promise of dancing lessons and French tutors, his niece will be satisfied with nothing less; he furthermore feels a certain guilt that he did not think to offer her such things himself. ‘We can do better,’ he says, ‘and we ought. I am not what I was, Mrs Hancock. I am a landowner now, and a landlord: my properties in Mary-le-bone go up at such a pace that I may soon remove myself from the business of the city entirely. ’Tis absurd,’ he persists, ‘for a man of my fortune to continue to live in a house like this, and more so now with a wife such as you. Every day I look at you sitting by the fire and I say to myself, a beautiful gem needs a beautiful setting.’

  ‘Oh, go on with you. I told you, I am perfectly content.’

  ‘Contentment is a start,’ says Mr Hancock, ‘but I shall make you happy. I shall give you everything you want.’

  ‘There is no such thing.’ She is buttering another roll. ‘There is always more to want.’

  He is not sure what to reply. He smiles with his mouth half-open like a big dog confused by its mistress’s command: he waits amiably for her to say something more intelligible.

  ‘And how can I believe a thing you say,’ she teases, ‘when you have never yet produced the mermaid you promised me?’

  ‘You are impatient. The mermaid is impending. It is being brought home aboard the Unicorn.’

  ‘And where is the Unicorn now?’

  ‘Unaccounted for,’ he admits. ‘But this is not concerning. It was an unusual voyage for Jones. He must be on the home stretch by now.’ He must be, else where could he have got to?

  ‘Mermaids wreck ships,’ she says.

  ‘Don’t say such things,’ snaps Mr Hancock, rapping hard on the table. ‘Even in jest.’

  ‘Oh, don’t look at me so, you great thing. So I never had my mermaid, well, I never was Queen of France either, and yet here we are doing quite well for ourselves. That ship will come safely home, and whether it has a mermaid on board or no, it hardly signifies. I have married you after all. You buy a house, sir, if you wish, and I shall come with you and be very happy in it, I am sure.’

  ‘Sure! I have never been surer,’ he says, perking up. ‘I think you underestimate how much you will like it.’

  She raises a hand to quiet him. Butter glistens on her wrist. She is frightened by strong emotion; the word happiness frightens her, the way love does. She wants nothing so volatile.

  ‘We must live within our means,’ she says.

  ‘That ain’t for you to worry about.’

  ‘Please, Mr Hancock. Do not get into debt. I’ve no need for grandeur; if we are to find a new house, let it suit us just as we are.’

  ‘You are a most sensible woman.’ And what a pleasant surprise to him is their harmony. The texture of those early days with Mary, which he did not know he had forgot, comes rushing back to him of late: it is the sensation, most of all, of not being habitually alone. The absent-minded reaching of her hand to his; the quiet clearing of her throat heard from another room; the half-surfacing from sleep when she rises to piss in the night. And having a listener, to hear a joke or trouble over a problem, and always take his part. Angelica is not Mary; nothing like; but the many acts of being a husband to this second wife remember the first to him, and make her vivid in his mind again.

  There is a tap on the door
and Bridget puts her head round it.

  ‘A letter here for you, missus,’ she says.

  ‘For me? Not for Mr Hancock?’

  ‘For you.’ Bridget brings it to her. ‘There is a boy outside awaits your reply.’

  The paper is heavy and stiff, impossible to stuff into a pocket and forget about. Angelica brings it up to her face to better inspect it. ‘I do not recognise the seal.’ She slides her thumb under it. ‘This is unusual. Who is writing to me?’

  Her heart makes a little squeeze: what if it is somebody from her past, a man, what if it is her George (her George! Her George!), what can he want with her, oh, what does he say? Bridget is hovering with idle interest; Mr Hancock is staring out of the window and tapping his teeth, but surely he must see any moment …

  My dear Girl,

  (But the writing is not his; it is rapid and neat and free of error. The creamy paper shows neither blotch nor smear. This is not young George Rockingham’s work.) Forgive me my long silence. I think of you often and fondly, and now find myself at leisure to visit you. If it be agreeable to you I shall arrive at four o’clock today for Tea.

  Your old friend,

  Eliza Frost

  ‘Mrs Frost.’ The words tip out of Angelica on a great exhale. ‘Mrs Frost has written to me.’

  ‘Is that so?’ says Mr Hancock.

  ‘She puts her address as St James’s, look. I think she will have very easily got herself a good position. What would you wager? That she is a housekeeper now? That is a job to suit her. I wonder if her employers know she is using their boy for her own errands.’

  Angelica now being a wife, with all the necessary equipage, she keeps a silver pencil chained to her waist. Licking the nib, she hesitates.

  ‘What shall I say?’

  ‘Beg pardon?’

  ‘She wants to visit me this afternoon. What shall I tell her?’

  ‘Well, tell her yes.’

  ‘She never wrote to me before.’

  ‘Perhaps she was not at liberty to do so.’ Mr Hancock is not paying much attention. Angelica swallows to shift the bitter taste in the back of her throat. Why now? She puts her pencil down.

  She has a half-feeling, a bad feeling. If she were able to pin this feeling down and regard it properly, she might see that the thought of seeing Mrs Frost makes her nervous. But Angelica’s head is full of many feelings that she is unable to inspect.

  She picks up her pencil again. Aloud, she says, ‘I would like to see Mrs Frost again. She was my dear companion. She understood my hair.’

  THREE

  Mr Hancock meets with Mrs Brierley’s agent on the edge of Blackheath, a wind-churned yellow plateau that drops away into the trees towards Greenwich. ‘Fashionable,’ remarks the agent, who has heard of Mr Hancock and believes he has identified him as a man out of his depth.

  ‘Very fashionable,’ Mr Hancock agrees, ‘which will please my wife. She likes to be in society.’

  ‘I daresay,’ murmurs the agent; adding with absolute courtesy, ‘The barracks are only across the heath.’

  Does Mr Hancock hesitate? Perhaps his attention is only plucked away by the flight of a jay from one tree to another. For a moment his eyes track it, and then his big red face crinkles with pleasure.

  ‘Such unspoilt countryside,’ he remarks. ‘Very pleasant. Very fine.’ He stands for some moments looking about himself, with his fists wedged in his pockets, the wind whipping at his old stuff jacket. Then he turns his eyes mildly back to the agent. ‘Let us see if this house is fit for Mrs Hancock. Lead the way, sir.’

  They go through the gate and up the drive. The house Mr Hancock will buy is white and square, with five bays most regularly spaced. The agent means to open the front door with a flourish, but the lock is stiff and the hinges in want of oil, and after a struggle he manages it with more of a clatter and a heave. He ushers Mr Hancock into a large atrium with a chequerboard floor and dove-grey panelling. If he had hoped to dazzle this drab, paunchy man, he must be disappointed, for Mr Hancock goes undazzled: he follows his guide through high-ceilinged rooms, their steps loud amongst the dust sheets, and is inscrutable.

  ‘Elegant proportions,’ the agent prompts him from time to time, or, ‘No expense spared. À la mode, à la mode,’ but Mr Hancock knows this already, and at any rate is not very interested. He remembers Angelica’s instruction – ‘just as we are’, blotting the butter from her wrist – but he cannot help but inspect the house as he would some consignment of Macao porcelain: not as a consumer but as a gatekeeper. In such a situation, Mr Hancock’s first thought is never, do I like it? but only, is it correct? And since he sees that it is indeed correct, that this house – with its library, its stables, its six fine bedrooms, not to mention the fleshy ladies painted on the music-room ceiling – is exactly the sort of house Angelica Hancock, the wife of a rich gentleman merchant, might be expected to own, this leads him to his next question: is it quality? He taps away at the skirting boards and gets down on his hams to inspect the parquet, and he asks tiresome questions that the agent cannot answer. ‘The marble, it’s Italian? What workshop made the bedroom set? Will these stains come out?’

  ‘We might offer you a good price for Mr Brierley’s horses and phaeton,’ says the agent recklessly, but Mr Hancock grunts, ‘Yes, yes, we shall need those,’ and goes back to checking the French windows for draughts. ‘I hope the kitchen is well appointed. An unhappy cook is a bad cook.’ This pearl of wisdom is one of Hester’s.

  Finally, they process through the garden-room doors to the steps at the back of the house. It is a cool bright day but the marble has taken the sun, so that a warm haze wavers around Mr Hancock’s stockings and brings out the sweat in the crooks of his knees. The lawn slopes steeply away from the house until it is swallowed up by trees, and the view towards Greenwich – of treetops and fields – is hazy and blue-tinged. On the horizon, the Thames glitters, white sails puffing across its surface as vague as angels.

  ‘Well?’ says the agent.

  ‘It all seems in order.’

  ‘I might direct your attention to the folly,’ says the agent, pointing to a tiny Palladian temple that crouches half-concealed by the underbrush. ‘Not just any folly,’ he continues, ‘for once inside – no, I shall show you. Come.’

  The grass is soft and dense under Mr Hancock’s boots. It is the correct type of grass, he observes, not prickly and faded such as animals are grazed upon, but lush as new-dyed wool. For a moment he sees it lapping a child’s bare feet. ‘What grass is this?’ he asks. ‘Where can the seeds be got?’

  ‘Why, only grass,’ says the agent in surprise. He must not know the other sort: for him, all grass is for lounging on. Nobody has tended to it for some time, and as the lawn inclines towards the folly’s shaded corner the grass grows longer, closing with a velvety swish around the men’s ankles, still earth-cold at its roots, so Mr Hancock’s shoes come up stained with dew and mud. What he sees, in his mind’s eye, is a child’s feet – running feet, running under the hem of a white nightgown, running alongside him through the hissing grass. He hears a little gust of excited breath, and catches the flash of rosy toes, and thinks, although it has never occurred to him before, this is the life I might have given my Henry. In the other version of his life, in a garden like this one, a child is hurtling down the hill and into his arms: he feels its meagre weight thud into his chest, its hot cheeks against his face, its delicate ribs and pounding heart against his palms.

  And then he realises, it is not too late. This ghost of a moment is not one that is lost, but one waiting to happen. He has a wife, does he not? He has a fortune, and soon he will have a fine house. Why, then, is the possibility of a child truly so unreachable? It is all before me. It has been waiting for me here all this time. This is what Mr Hancock is thinking as the agent leads him between slender Doric pillars and across the threshold of the folly.

  It is musty inside, with the dense damp cold of a place that rarely sees sunshine. The crumbs of last ye
ar’s dead leaves are accumulated in the corners and against the legs of a large stone bench. The floor-tiles are cracked and dirty, and the seashell-shaped niches that line the walls are empty, save one, where a trapped gust of wind makes the bleached vertebrae of a pigeon chatter like teeth.

  ‘It wants a good scrub,’ said Mr Hancock. ‘Is this what you brought me to see?’

  ‘Certainly not, sir. There’s more.’

  And indeed there is, for behind the bench is an alcove, and in the alcove – black with soot and gauzy with cobwebs – is the entrance to a tiny spiral staircase.

  ‘Is it the coal hole?’

  ‘No, no. This, sir, is the Curiosity.’

  ‘The Curiosity?’

  ‘An oddity, merely. Something to see. Go on, sir.’

  The stairs, vanishing into darkness, are narrow and uneven. There is a smell of wet stone. ‘You want me to go down there?’ Mr Hancock asks.

  ‘You’ve looked over the rest of the place thoroughly enough,’ says the agent balefully. ‘I thought you would want to see it. It is the only irregularity in the whole property.’

  ‘Very well, very well.’

  The agent rummages through his pockets with little urgency before producing, from one, a tinderbox, and from the other, a stump of tallow candle. He hunches over this equipment and huffs, his hands cupped around it as if concealing a secret. Once he gets a light he holds the candle up in his fingers, inspecting the flame. ‘That will do,’ he says. ‘You’ll not need it very long. Go down and take a look.’ He puts the candle stub into Mr Hancock’s hand, and propels him to the top step. ‘Excuse me if I do not join you. It is not very clean.’

  The extra light does not reveal much: the stairs creep steeply out of sight between walls and ceiling daubed with rough plaster, which as he descends the first few hesitant steps gives way to – what? Lumpy medallions, as if the wall were built from flint, or is it – no? – yes? – seashells. Yes, seashells indeed, caked with dirt, and when he buffs a little away he sees that they are not exotic specimens, not worth displaying, but mussel shells, cockle shells, oysters and winkles, the leavings from a thousand humble dinners. The next thing he observes is that these are not haphazardly jammed into the plaster, but carefully arranged: concentric circles of mussel and cockle and mussel again; chevrons and stripes and rosettes. The stairs are narrow and uneven, so he feels hobbled: he presses himself against the inside wall, fingers spread helplessly as he lowers his feet out into the darkness, groping for the next step if it exists, if he can trust it with his weight. Shale slithers under his feet: for a moment he loses his balance and tumbles, his heart leaping into his throat as he sees his own death rise up to meet him. He had not expected it to be so soon. He had not expected to come to it with such terror.