‘Good day,’ she says, smiling. She has had a gold tooth put in.
‘’Tis you.’
‘So it is. I was passing, and I thought – how nice it would be. My old friend.’
‘You were passing? What were you passing to? The victualling yard? The tannery? Did you think to buy yourself a barge? I cannot imagine, Mrs Frost, what can have made my house convenient to you.’
Mrs Frost gives a laugh she has spent some time working up to sound bell-like. ‘You are a sharp one. All right, I have come to visit you. I wish to speak with you. May I come in?’ She is already stepping past her. ‘Upstairs, is it? To your dear little – ah – parlour?’
‘I cannot offer you tea,’ Angelica says, following her up. ‘I have sent my maid out. She is taking contributions to the poor. Mr Hancock and I have been blessed with far more than we need.’
‘I see, I see.’
They sit down together. Mrs Frost gives Angelica a long, shrewd look, as if she were a favourite schoolmistress dealing with an unruly pupil.
‘You think I have abandoned you.’
Angelica frowns.
‘You believe I have profited from you and then cast you aside. Ah-ah-ah, do not speak yet, hear me out, my dear. For this is not so. My dove, this is not so. I have not forgotten you, not for one moment. I owe everything I have to you.’
‘That part is true.’
‘I freely admit it. It is all I speak of when I am in London. Everybody knows. But since I was separated from you – oh, I wept for you, I thought of how lonely you must be here, and how cruelly we had been separated.’
‘You could have come too. He offered. You would not come.’
‘Angelica, you had to think of your own interests. You do not need to be ashamed of that. I forgive you.’
‘You would not come with me.’
‘Since your fortunes turned –’ Mrs Frost raises her voice a little – ‘all I have thought about is how to restore you to your previous position. You took such a fall. I have been striving to create a situation you might return to.’
‘But I live here now.’
‘Exactly. I can get you out.’ She leans closer, a gust of violet pastilles and tooth decay. ‘My big house, my lovely grand house – you will have everything you need. Your own apartment, a little servant of your own – an Abyssinian boy, like you always had a fancy for, and we shall get him up in livery, and you can teach him tricks. I can do that for you. And you can keep your own hours, and go to the theatre every night of the week.’
‘But I am quite happy here.’
‘You need not adopt such a front with me. I know you.’
‘You know nothing. I do not want to come away from this place.’
‘You would not credit how many of your old friends are dying to have you back. They always ask me, “That Angelica Neal, when will she return to us?”’
‘And yet I have heard from none of them.’
‘I can give you very good rates. Better than the little girls I am taking on, and I know you will have no trouble earning. You could buy yourself out whenever you liked.’
‘You wish me to become a whore?’
‘I would not say whore. You never were a mercenary, I know that. You would never be obliged.’
Angelica is stupefied. ‘You wish me to become a whore in your establishment?’
‘It is the least I could do for you. You would be absolutely free to choose. I have so many charming girls, and they will really do anything they are told, but not one of them is established. If we had a – a figurehead, a famous name, just to draw people in …’
‘No. Oh no, no. I am finished with all that, Mrs Frost.’ She stands up. ‘Please leave.’
‘It will always be there for you.’
‘I am married.’
‘What, forever?’ A vein on Mrs Frost’s temple begins to twitch. ‘How long do you believe you can do this for? This piffling little house, that idiot man. I suppose you think you are virtuous. Well, you are not. You have merely lowered your expectations. Brown paint and oilcloth, Angelica Neal? This is not you.’
‘I think you are jealous.’
‘Jealous? Why? Because you are pretty? Because you are married?’
‘Jealous. You arrive in my house all puffed up like a cat who has run into a terrier, and you try so very hard to persuade me that I am nothing and you are something that in the end I simply cannot credit it.’
‘Do you know,’ says Mrs Frost, ‘how they speak of you? “That Mrs Neal,” everybody says, “who stooped to marry a nobody. Who threw away all her opportunities; who could not tolerate the difficulties of this life she chose.” You are a laughing-stock, my dear.’
‘You have made a quite serious misjudgement. My husband has bought me my own house. Greenwich. We are rising in the world. I do not need you, or Mrs Chappell, or any body. I am free.’
‘You are helpless. You are kept. You go where you find yourself best supported, as you always have; perhaps you mistake this for independence, but you are still a whore.’
Angelica slaps her, quick as a whip. ‘Out. Get out. Get out of my house.’
Mrs Frost shows no agitation. She saunters across the room, Angelica’s palm print blooming faintly under the crust of lead white.
‘Out,’ says Angelica, louder. She snatches up the broom from the landing and comes at her as if she were chasing out a black-beetle; Mrs Frost shrieks and leaps, and darts for the stairs, but Angelica pursues her, beating at Mrs Frost’s skirt with the broom all the way down, until by the last step the wretched bawd has completely lost her composure and yelps, ‘Let me go! Let me go!’ She hurls herself out of the door and onto Union Street, where the footman urinates dreamily in an alley and a stray dog urinates against the wheel of her carriage. ‘James! James, get back to your post. We are leaving.’
Angelica’s face is red and her eyes are gleaming; her yellow hair is bursting out from under her cap. She stands on the step, brandishing her broom, and shrieks to all around, ‘This woman is a bawd! She runs a most disreputable nunnery, and she condemns me – me! – for my honest situation.’
Those few people walking in Union Street – and it is a fine street, home to gentlefolk – turn to stare. Mrs Frost is scrambling into her carriage, slipping and snatching in her agitation. Faces appear at windows, and a boy puts down his barrow of dung to watch.
‘An old spinster getting rich off pretty girls,’ continues Angelica, quite hoarse. ‘She sells other women’s virtue but retains her own, now tell me, do you think that is fair? Do you think it is possible?’ The footman flicks the reins and the carriage bounces down the street. ‘Go!’ Angelica shrieks. ‘Don’t come back here! This is no place for you!’
Bridget, returned from her errand to the sheetless poor, is hurrying down the street: Sukie, some distance behind, breaks into a run, lamenting, ‘Oh, no, Mrs Hancock, not in the street!’
They gather about her in breathless consternation. ‘What has she done?’ asks Bridget.
‘Come inside, I beg you,’ whispers Sukie, pulling her to the threshold, but Angelica is rigid with rage.
‘I will see this woman off first!’
‘Come inside,’ says Bridget. ‘She is gone. Madam, she is gone.’
They take Angelica by the arms and gently but firmly steer her into the house. ‘Bolt the door,’ she says once they are inside, her face remarkable pale and remarkable still.
‘What happened?’ asks Sukie, putting a shawl about her aunt’s shoulders.
‘She is a vile, coarse woman. This is a respectable household. My husband is a gentleman.’
‘Of course. Come into the kitchen. Sit down. Let me get you a drink. I can make you a caudle.’
‘I am all right. Only shaken. I saw her off, girls.’ She wipes her eyes with the back of her wrist, and grins. ‘She will not come back here. But I shall give you some advice, and you will both do well to heed me. Hold on to your virtue. Hold on to your virtue because do you know why?’<
br />
‘Well, yes,’ says Sukie, who has read many books on the subject, ‘because—’
‘I shall tell you why. Because if you do not, it is snakes like Mrs Frost who will profit by it. And that, mark my words, is if you are fortunate. Otherwise you will find yourself in the care of a man who goes by the name of Crusher or The Gent. And these are not good people. And you will not take any part in encouraging them.’
‘No, I shall not.’
‘No. Learn from me. Now I shall take that caudle.’
SEVEN
April 1786
One morning in mid-April, Angelica says to herself, it is time I accepted that I am pregnant.
She is in bed at the time – Mr Hancock having risen for the day – sitting up to watch the white clouds chase one another across the sky outside the window, and the thought leaps into her head very suddenly and perfectly formed. Everything becomes clear. She realises that beneath the surface of her mind she has been thinking and counting and puzzling for some time; that she knows her own symptoms perfectly well, and that the plain fact of her impending motherhood has sat unattended for quite long enough now.
She flops onto her back, resting her hand on her stomach – which has always been a plump little stomach, so there is little to discern, although she feels it well enough – and says to herself, this is absurd. In Dean Street she would have been more vigilant; she would have understood at once what was happening. In Dean Street I would never have allowed this to happen, she thinks, and feels stupid, because her instinct to obstruct this sort of development is no longer suitable for her situation. However, she cannot think how else to feel.
Angelica knows prophylaxis the way other girls know the catechism. She keeps a vinegared sponge in her cabinet and knows what to do with a cundum. She can time a gentleman’s withdrawal to the most exquisite second; she will accept his spending on whichever part of her person he most admires; in exceptional situations she will indulge in the Frenchman’s vice. In the event of an oversight she might calmly draw herself a scalding bath and a quart of gin, or in a case of greater urgency call in on Mrs Chappell to acquire from her a good purgative. If further aid were required, she would not find herself abandoned; every woman she knew had a little piece of advice, or a commiseratory glass of sack, and word would be passed round until the proper expert with the proper equipment were found. It would not be pleasant – and some times less pleasant than others – but it would all be settled after one small burst of activity and anxiety; all would be well, and all concluded to her own choosing.
Now, friendless and without the first idea of how to find a midwife specialising in live births, Angelica is out of her element. What shall I do? she panics, over and over, and can only conclude, I can do nothing. I must do nothing. She can only wait for this baby to be born. It agitates her, this lack of agency; she feels itchy and restless, she flops about in bed, and then she gets up and paces the room. If such a significant thing is really to occur, why does she not have more to do?
This, she realises, is the end of Angelica Neal, and the cementing of Mrs Hancock. She had anticipated only that marriage would deliver her from her old situation; in fact it has transplanted her to another, that knits itself under her very skin and alters her every day. More has slipped from her control than she had expected, and now she sees that as the months and years pass it will only slip further. She will never be simply her own self in the world again; the courtesan Angelica Neal, a personality all her own, is being parcelled up and claimed by connection upon connection. She is ‘wife of’ and ‘aunt of’; later she will be ‘mother of’ – perhaps some energetic young man whose achievements will never be traced back to she who birthed him. These claims upon her will only multiply – she will be mother-in-law, grandmother, widow, dependant – and accordingly her own person will be divided and divided and divided, until there is nothing left.
‘Well, I have done it now,’ she says.
She pulls her shawl around her and puts on her slippers, and trots down the stairs to her husband’s counting-house. She taps on the door.
‘Come in,’ he calls.
She opens the door. He is hunched over his desk as usual, wigless, absent-mindedly rubbing the cat under the chin. The little creature has squeezed her eyes shut in her pleasure, paws folded one over the other.
‘Good morning,’ says Angelica.
‘Good morning.’ He does not look up. He works his way around the cat’s jaw with the tips of his stained fingers, and then begins to stroke her behind her ears. She purrs thunderously.
Angelica’s stomach is a-flutter with nerves. ‘Are you ready for breakfast?’
‘Oh – ah, let me see.’ He rummages through his papers with one hand, the other never leaving the cat. ‘I am particularly busy today. Perhaps – perhaps I shall dine with you?’ He glances up to catch her eye apologetically. ‘So much to do, my dear.’
‘Mr Hancock,’ says Angelica more firmly. Then she realises that she does not know what to say. ‘What would you …?’ she tries. ‘I mean, if you were … I think that I …’
He turns round to look at her, his arm hooked over the back of his chair. ‘Spit it out,’ he says.
‘I hardly know how.’
‘’Tis not bad news?’
‘No, no. No, no, no. Good news. I venture you will like it very much.’ She realises that her face is hot; she is blushing, and her cheeks have leapt into a grin. The anticipation of his joy makes her feel giddy. ‘Mr Hancock,’ she tries again, clasping her hands behind her back, ‘Oh, sir, I am in for it!’
‘Beg pardon?’
‘I am in the way of increasing!’
‘You are—?’
‘A baby! We are going to have a baby!’
‘Oh!’ He rises from his seat in one movement; the cat flees and the ink bottle overturns. He takes Angelica in his arms, kissing her face and hair. ‘My little pigeon. My darling. What news. So clever.’
‘I am pleased,’ she says tentatively. Then she says again, ‘I am pleased,’ because it is true. She has made an unremarkable middling type of man weep with the most innocent joy; this is something to be pleased about. If she is to deliver a child, it might as well be to the sort of man who will dote on it.
‘When?’ he says, clasping her elbows.
‘In time for Christmas, I think.’
‘Oh, my dear. We shall be so happy. You and I, my little wife, and a child of our own. I could not want for more.’
‘Nor I,’ she says.
‘I told you I would make you happy. You are more than content, are you not?’
‘Oh, sir.’ She dabs her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘Of course.’
EIGHT
That very same night, Mr Hancock sends out for sugarplums and meat pies, and for neighbours to join in his pleasure in a private, friendly gathering. He also sends for his sister Hester, who, although she strives to be cordial, cannot help hissing to him upon her arrival, ‘How can you be sure ’tis yours?’
Those others in attendance are a motley group; from a nicer class of Deptford folk than those Mr Hancock has habitually gone amongst, for his star is rising. The tenants of Hancock Row are all there – or rather, the gentlemen are: the dancing master; the doctor; the fellow who has very lately opened a teawarehouse on Butt Lane itself. Jem Thorpe and the Master Shipwright are present also, frowning at the company. It used to be that there was only one sort of man in Deptford society: clever with his hands and with a mind for figures, whose living, if it did not come out of a ship, was no living at all. These land-locked leisured citizens are a breed quite apart. Where have they sprung from, and what can be made of them?
There is one thing they agree on, however: they have all, to a man, presented themselves alone without wives, sisters or children.
‘Say,’ says Mr Hancock, ‘what’s this? This company is very short of ladies.’ The new friends clutch their rummers and smile nervously, murmuring their apologies. ‘What?’ he asks. ‘Speak up, speak
up! Not one of you can finish a sentence.’
Angelica, taking his elbow, steers him into a confiding huddle. ‘Their wives will not be about me,’ she whispers.
‘No! But that is absurd.’
She shrugs. ‘Perfectly sensible. I am not decent company.’
‘You are my wife, are you not?’
‘Aye, but …’ she sighs. ‘They will not wish to meet me. And their husbands will not wish it either,’ although when she turns around she finds them all craning and staring to see her, for they have heard of her, and seen her likeness shared around. ‘You may be certain that they are under the strictest instructions to remember everything they see, that they might describe it in great detail when they are home.’
‘But – will they never visit? You must have female society.’
Angelica has a great wish, all of a sudden, to see dear Bel, to ask her, how did you manage this? Bel would have an answer; Bel would be kind. But then, Bel’s cohort are all gentry, titled and landed. They are not the wives of middling provincial men; they are a breed quite apart. ‘Maybe they will unbend,’ she says. ‘I shall endeavour to be their sort. If I make a good impression tonight they cannot take against me, I am sure.’
Sukie, setting up the clavichord, watches them whisper together; her uncle’s eyes very fond upon his wife. She does not find Angelica onerous company, but she is crestfallen that Mr Hancock’s attention has so quickly been transferred; she had thought herself central to his life. That he seems so quickly to have forgot her is discomfiting.
‘Brandy!’ cries Mr Hancock, and thus they toast the coming child, he with his arm about Mrs Hancock’s waist, she blushing and pretty. Even Mrs Lippard smiles and laughs; the baby may be a mere tadpole, but it binds their union as nothing else might. There is no ousting Mrs Hancock now.
Bridget nips into the room, and tugging at Mr Hancock’s sleeve informs him that there is a gentleman for him at the door.
‘More visitors?’ says Mr Hancock. ‘What fun! Bring ’em in, bring ’em in!’ but when Bridget beckons him down into the hall, he finds it is only a messenger boy. ‘Are you wanting a reply?’ asks Mr Hancock.
The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock Page 33