Ace, King, Knave

by Maria McCann

  The woman screams. The man leaps up and Fortunate hears them both running away, smashing through the bush. He strains to call to them, beg them to come back, to untie him, but all he can do is grunt. Something more terrible than the kidnappers is here: the breathing of a huge beast, coming closer. In despair he beats at the ground with his head, weeping, and now he knows he is going to be sick ―

  He wakes in a thin, spent, morning. English morning is spent before it begins. He knows where he is without opening his eyes, by the chill on his cheeks and the constriction of the bedclothes. It is this, perhaps, that made him dream of the sack.

  Wakings are never joyous here, with those thin brown birds crying on the rooftops. Englishmen are proud of their marvellous inventions. They are indeed inventive, perhaps because they have been given so little in the way of nature. At this moment, however, Fortunate is relieved to see from his window a sky the colour of steel. He kicks at the sheets, letting the heat and stink of the sack drop away from him. Even now he can feel his body thrash inside it, waiting to be made prey, but as the seconds pass and the familiar dreariness reasserts itself – there is his cup of beer on the sill – his breathing slows.

  The dream was perhaps an omen: he will be kidnapped again. In Annapolis there was a slave freed by one white man and given papers, only to be captured by more whites as he went about his business. His papers were torn in pieces and they shipped him to another place.

  Might it be that the true dream was lost in waking? Suppose he had slept all the way through. A friend might have come and untied him and the child, and taken them back to their homes.

  His gaze falls again on the cup of beer. No: that is solid and real, and his village is now the dream. He has travelled too far, passing through the hands of too many masters, for even his brothers to find him.

  8

  Bath is both better and worse than Sophia imagined. The architecture is certainly magnificent, so imposing as to inspire awe: at the New Hospital she stands staring upwards, admiring the purity of its lines. Above, clouds race away from her over the roof, making it appear that the façade is leaning forward. Knowing it for an illusion, Sophia half-closes her eyes and permits herself a frisson: she is about to be crushed beneath its stones.

  ‘It appears you are a convert to the classical,’ murmurs Edmund.

  ‘A convert?’

  ‘You said you disliked copies. Fakery, I think you called them.’

  ‘Did I?’ Sophia cannot remember any such conversation; so much has happened of late.

  ‘Properly considered, of course, everything in life is a copy,’ her husband remarks. ‘Take a common sparrow, for example: the very spit, as they say,’ his eyes sparkle playfully at this vulgar term, ‘of its parents.’

  ‘What of human beings? We are not so easily coined.’

  ‘We men and women make a sad blunder of our copying, taking our nose from Great-Grandmama, our hands from Papa, and so on. A hotchpotch of styles without taste or discrimination.’

  She does not care whether he talks sense or nonsense, since all is done to amuse her. Walking in sunlight, glanced at by fashionable strollers, the acknowledged choice of this adorable husband, Sophia is in her earthly paradise and in some danger, not of falling masonry, but of fainting away from sheer bliss.

  Her happiness, however, has not blinded her to the less savoury aspects of Bath: the crush of the assemblies and bathing places and the manners, if one can dignify them by such a name, of some of the inhabitants. Edmund wished to take their honeymoon here so that he might attend to some urgent business before continuing to London; though Sophia’s one desire is to oblige him, she had no notion, until now, of the promiscuity of the place. Impossible for a lady of any delicacy to immerse herself in the baths, sousing in a pickle of diseases next to hags whose protruding bones would qualify them as painters’ studies for Death at the Feast. Figures yet more repulsive, infected with racking coughs and open sores, crowd in on each side and worst of all are the blades who strut alongside the waters, quizzing any lady possessed of personal attractions. Some of these go so far as to pass remarks; Sophia has heard that one of them was thrown into the water, fully clothed, for his temerity.

  Altogether the baths present a disgusting spectacle, one that offends the nose as painfully as the eyes. She had imagined a pageant of health and beauty, of Apollos and Aphrodites, and blushes every time she recalls her folly, thankful that at least she did not confide these niaiseries to her husband.

  There is much to be thankful for, much to enjoy. The weather is tolerably fine, and the Zedlands have bright and airy lodgings. Though Mr Derrick, the Master of Ceremonies, cannot be termed a handsome man (being as he is, carroty, undersized and undistinguished), he is remarkably civil and attentive to the needs of the ladies, among whom he has got up a regular cabal; to the ladies, indeed, he is said to owe his election. The ‘Little King of Bath’, as he is called (the title ‘King of Bath’, without the diminutive, being reserved for the late lamented Beau Nash) has persuaded Sophia to subscribe to the reading room, where she has made the acquaintance of Mrs Chase, a gentlewoman from Oxford. Mr Chase, like Edmund, must attend to his affairs, so the two ladies are often to be seen strolling about the town together, admiring the fashions. Sophia is glad to have a particular friend, or as near to one as Bath can provide. Though she attends the balls and suppers – which here rank almost as a species of religious observance – she finds them wanting, with too much heat, crush and stink for perfect enjoyment. Indeed, if the truth be told, her most sincere pleasure in such gatherings is occasioned by the admiring glances Edmund draws wherever he goes.

  ‘Who was the lady who opened the dance on Tuesday night?’ she asks Mrs Chase during one of their walks. ‘I thought her elegance remarkable.’

  ‘I didn’t catch her name, any more than you. Some baroness from Prussia, I believe.’ Mrs Chase makes so little effort to conceal her yawn that it is almost rudeness. ‘Entre nous, don’t you find minuets tedious? One couple creeping in circles while everyone else has to wait. And I’m afraid I can’t agree with you. I found nothing remarkable in her.’

  ‘Not for a young girl, perhaps, but for an elderly lady she was so light and elegant! I admire anyone who excels at the minuet. As a girl I was praised for holding myself well, but the despair of my dancing-master – he once said I should pray never to be first in company, for I could never open a ball.’

  ‘An insolence for which I should have boxed his ears,’ declares Mrs Chase. ‘Shall we take a stroll along by the Circus?’ They turn into Gay Street and Mrs Chase continues, ‘The minuet is undoubtedly an ordeal. When I remember my first time! My word!’

  ‘It’s not so much the dance itself as the scrutiny of the company.’

  ‘Quite. One may perform correctly with the dancing-master and then make a horrid bungle in public. And then, one is holding up the contredanses, and everybody knows how much the young people love those. Some of them barely sit down all evening.’

  ‘They give themselves excellent appetites. I myself saw a young man put away so much ham at the supper-table, I quite feared for his health.’

  ‘Mr Zedland dances extremely well, does he not?’

  ‘I only wish I were equal to him.’

  ‘Nonsense! You’re quite comme il faut. And another thing, have you noticed how Mr Derrick manages his partners?’

  ‘Manages?’

  ‘When he leads a lady to open the ball, he inclines his person ever so slightly in the desired direction, in case she should be unsure. He does the same with his eyes. Watch him and you’ll see what I mean.’

  ‘He has certainly an expressive glance,’ says Sophia, thinking of the first time she and Edmund met with Mr Derrick. The Irishman’s eyebrows positively leapt up at the sight of her husband, as if he had sighted an old acquaintance. She remarked on it later to Edmund, who laughed and said it was such ingratiating habits that made Derrick the pet of all the women. ‘But I’m not sure I should care to be he
lped. It throws doubt on the lady’s breeding, and before all the company.’

  ‘O, he’s much subtler than that! I pride myself upon being observant, but I’d watched him several times before I noticed. And you must know, if he offends he can always find a way of flattering.’

  ‘You mean in verse. Mr Derrick is a poet, is he not?’

  ‘Hum! Every Irishman fancies himself a poet.’

  ‘You’re not of his opinion, then.’

  ‘I don’t know anyone that is. He’s yet to find a patron. Nash, now – Nash stuck to his business, he minded his suppers and his card tables. Try as he may, Mr Derrick will never measure up to him.’

  ‘One hears so much about the Beau. I wish I could’ve met him – though of course Mr Derrick fulfils his duties very well.’

  ‘No comparison between the two. Nash had extraordinary spirit – if, that is, we speak of him in his heyday. He grew quite disgusting towards the end of his life.’

  ‘Disgusting?’

  ‘Well – shabby, you know. He was dreadfully old and impoverished.’

  Sophia is gazing about her at the many elegances of Gay Street when Mrs Chase passes this verdict. ‘What, after such fame! And after doing so much for the town?’

  ‘Ah, but you see, he was an inveterate gamester! Such people can’t be helped.’ Mrs Chase lowers her voice. ‘They say the Papjoy has gone to live in a hollow tree.’

  ‘The Papjoy ― ?’

  ‘His mistress.’

  ‘Mistress?’ Having always heard Beau Nash spoken of as a pattern of good breeding, Sophia is taken aback. ‘I thought he was infirm and elderly.’

  ‘The lady was neither. Not a third of his age, I should think.’

  ‘But how could she live in a tree? The meanest necessities – her gown, even ― ? No,’ Sophia shakes her head, ‘I find that very hard to believe.’

  Mrs Chase shrugs. ‘She can never have been a creature of any refinement. Still, to be reduced to that! One can only thank Heaven that our husbands are a steadier sort of men.’

  Sophia does indeed thank Heaven for her husband. This is the month of honey and, despite all the entertainments of Bath, she is happiest when the two of them are shut up in their lodgings together. Mama was right: the wedding night was not something she would care to go through again, but dear Edmund, though evidently filled with the ‘voluptuous sensations’ of which Mama had spoken, was so inexpressibly tender afterwards that Sophia, recalling it days later, feels her eyes stung by tears.

  They had dismissed the maid. Having kept herself thirsty since afternoon and made frequent visits to the privy, Sophia felt safe from the possibility of accident but trembled nevertheless when Edmund climbed into bed beside her saying, ‘Man and wife! Nothing between us now, my sweet!’

  She had not thought they would take off their nightgowns. She glanced shyly at his dark, agile body, uncertain what was permitted her and still less certain that her own flesh could accommodate his.

  ‘Pray don’t be afraid,’ he whispered. ‘You’re not, are you?’

  She dared not say how afraid. He seemed as if he would lift her chin and kiss her but she hid her face in his neck. They lay clinging while Edmund caressed her so delightfully that Sophia could not hold still in the bed, and then he kissed her, and again began to caress, in a bolder way, and finally rolled her onto her back.

  It was every bit as terrible as she had feared. At the dreadful moment when she understood that he was not going to withdraw again, but would press further and further in, she could not repress an animal whimper. Afterwards he spoke of the delight she had given him and his regret that, ever since our first parents were obliged to quit Eden, a bride’s joy must be mingled with this little hurt, for which, however, he loved her all the more since it proved she belonged to him alone.

  ‘Had I stopped, my darling,’ (a kiss) ‘it would all be to do again.’ (Another kiss.) ‘This was kinder, it was indeed, and with time you will find it so. Every woman finds it so.’

  She was comforted to hear him speak so like Mama, still more to find, after two days, that the pain ‘went off’ just as he and Mama had promised. Not until some time later did she begin to wonder how her husband could pronounce so confidently upon such a topic. But then Mama herself had presumably voiced what was common knowledge, and men, having so much freedom in comparison with women, and better schooling, must necessarily learn a great deal more.

  *

  The happy couple sit side by side in Mr and Mrs Chase’s apartment, admiring its situation whilst partaking of what Edmund somewhat inelegantly refers to as a ‘damper’ of sandwiches and madeira.

  ‘Bath society is not of the most refined,’ says Mrs Chase. ‘Entre nous we can all agree upon that. But I assure you my health has benefited immensely, immensely. Public entertainments one can dispense with, after all. Like-minded friends’, she smiles at Sophia, ‘are all I require for perfect contentment.’

  Mr Chase, less easily contented, is eager to make up a card table. ‘Come, Zedland,’ he urges, ‘be a sport. We shan’t play deep.’

  Edmund’s smile sends waves of delicious weakness through Sophia. ‘I’m afraid you must excuse me. As a boy I was fond of cards but I never developed the taste for gaming ―’

  ‘Don’t call it that!’ Mr Chase rallies him. ‘Low stakes, between friends, in the company of the ladies?’

  ‘I believe ladies game. But you mistake me. I would censure no man’s pleasures. I was only going to observe that gaming bores me and so, dear fellow, it was out of the purest selfishness that I declined.’

  Mrs Chase looks pained. ‘Pray don’t press our guest, my dear.’

  Her husband says, ‘Forgive me, I had no intention of pressing,’ but it is plain that he is in a huff. There is a distinct awkwardness until Sophia declares herself willing to play, should her husband have no objection.

  ‘There! We can have a very satisfactory game with three,’ says Mrs Chase. ‘Mr Zedland may look on, or read the paper, as he pleases.’

  But Edmund now stands pulling on his fingers. ‘I have no desire to be unsociable. I may play a hand or two.’

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ says Chase. Sophia thinks he may regret his enthusiasm when Edmund, asked to shuffle, bungles it so badly as to drop several cards to the carpet. He has to sweep them up, laughing with embarrassment, before the game can begin.

  Mr Chase wins the first trick, Mrs Chase the second. The third goes back to Mr Chase, the fourth and fifth to Sophia.

  ‘Bravo!’ exclaims Mrs Chase. ‘Sophia will win at this rate.’

  The next trick goes to Edmund, the one after that to Sophia.

  ‘You could’ve had that, Edmund!’ she cries before she can stop herself.

  ‘I think not, my love; I’d only a tray.’

  ‘So you did,’ says Sophia, whose love will not let her expose him, but Mr Chase is less delicate.

  ‘She means that you laid a queen on a deuce last time. That queen, Sir, was thrown away.’

  ‘I know, in principle, how the thing should be done,’ Edmund admits, looking down at the table. ‘But I find such limited pleasure in the game that my concentration leaves much to be desired.’

  ‘Possibly the case is vice versa: there must be an intelligent interest before pleasure can follow,’ Mr Chase suggests, and Edmund’s eyes take on the hard, shiny look of polished jet.

  The game continues.

  ‘Mr Chase, you wicked man!’ his wife teases. Indeed, it seems Mr Chase is a player of some skill, for the other three cannot match him. Sophia deals, then Mr Chase, then Mrs Chase. Edmund, who has won only two tricks, seems half asleep.

  Mrs Chase yawns. ‘What do you think, Sophia, is low play not tedious? What do you say to doubling the stake? It may possibly wake up Mr Zedland.’

  Sophia is taken aback. Of the last four tricks, Mr Chase won three and Mrs Chase one: in these circumstances her hostess’s proposal strikes her as downright uncivil.

  ‘Treble it,’ Edmund replies
before she can gather her wits. Sophia turns to him in dismay but he refuses to meet her eye.

  ‘Treble it is, then,’ says Mrs Chase.

  Edmund takes up the cards and again drops some of them. Sophia sees the King of Spades flip over in the air; Edmund snatches up the card and jams it into the middle of the deck.

  The cards are dealt, not without a great deal of fumbling. Unreservedly as Sophia adores her husband, she feels a twinge of humiliation, not unmixed with dread: perhaps his father should have taught him cards rather than rowing. She picks up her hand to find the King of Spades in the middle of it, flanked by the King of Hearts, the Ace of Clubs and the Ace of Diamonds.

  ‘Thank you, Lord,’ she prays and at once blushes since God surely disapproves. She was able to convince herself that low play was nothing, a mere friendly amusement, but this is indubitably Gaming. She is disappointed in Edmund, who must have taken more madeira than is good for him since he looks ready to drop forward onto the table. The Chases, too, appear to regard him with some unease.

  Sophia wins the next three tricks and Edmund the two after that.

  In the next round, with Sophia dealing, each player wins a trick apart from Edmund, who wins two. The Chases shuffle and deal: honours are equal. Edmund again shuffles awkwardly, apologising for his ineptitude and reshuffling several times to make up for it.

  Sophia gapes at her hand. She has again received the King of Spades, this time flanked by the King, Queen and Ace of Clubs and the Ace of Hearts. Blinking with disbelief and a sense of unmerited good fortune, she goes on to win four tricks in a row. The remaining tricks are won by Edmund. The Chases appear to have had no cards worth holding.

  From now on, the wind of good fortune sets in one quarter of the compass: Sophia’s. Kings and Queens flock to feed from her hand, Aces rarely desert her courts and the tricks mount at her side of the table.