Ace, King, Knave

by Maria McCann

  When she is almost upon them he turns round again. This time there’s no mistaking: he sees her. He says nothing but calmly hands his autem mort, if that’s what she is, up the steps. The blonde’s eyes, pale, discreet, flicker in Betsy-Ann’s direction for a second before she passes into the house and is visible only as the glimmer of a gown in the darkness of the interior. Betsy-Ann allows herself to stop and peer inside, frantic to see more, but the black returns with a maidservant. The two of them bustle to the carriage where the maid begins to load the boy with parcels.

  Betsy-Ann hurries away, her belly pitching about like a boat on the high seas. Married, Ned! She must be very rich. Catch him tying himself down otherwise: the Corinthian, that could have any ―

  Her face puckers as the truth hits her: not anybody. Any whore.

  She’s cold now. She wishes she’d never seen him, standing there with that bitch clutching his sleeve. What does she know about him, about ―

  Someone’s running behind her, alongside her. She turns her head away, but he falls into step.

  ‘Betsy! Don’t pretend you don’t know me.’

  ‘Ha!’ says Betsy-Ann, facing him. ‘Who’s ashamed to know who?’

  ‘You know I couldn’t,’ he says softly, taking her hand and smuggling a coin into it. Without looking at the coin, Betsy-Ann holds out her arm, opens her fingers and lets it drop. A guinea rolls across the pavement.

  ‘What a sulky child it is!’ exclaims Ned.

  She hadn’t bargained on a guinea. It’s a lot to throw away. She wishes she could run back and take it up, but pride forbids. It seems Ned is as proud as she, so on they go, leaving the money to be found by someone else.

  ‘The Prodigy’s looking well.’ He again tries to take her by the hand.

  Aye! Better than that piece of yours, thinks Betsy-Ann, flinging away from him. She says, ‘Let us be thankful for small mercies.’

  ‘Very high, though, ain’t she? Too grand to take a present from an old friend.’

  ‘I’ve no call for presents from,’ she allows the pause to develop, ‘strangers. Not even’ – another pause – ‘gentry.’

  He whistles. ‘Lord! I see there’s money in the resurrection trade.’

  ‘In the buttock business, too, they say.’ She walks faster. ‘I know a bitch, got fat as a Dutchman on it.’

  ‘How’s Sam? Out all hours of the night, eh Betsy?’

  His legs are too long, her feet too hot and painful. Betsy-Ann gives up the walking contest and stands facing him. Though she is tall for a woman, the Corinthian is taller. She can still refuse to look up, however, staring instead at one of his buttonholes.

  ‘You can go back,’ she says. ‘I won’t come this way again.’

  ‘But sweet girl, why ever shouldn’t you?’

  Because if you thought I intended to pay a call, you’d shite yourself.

  She says, ‘Because I don’t choose.’

  ‘There was a time when you liked my company.’

  ‘I did, but then you lost at cards.’

  ‘The heaviest loss I ever suffered.’ He bends his knees like a frog, drolly lowering himself until their faces are level. Betsy-Ann is amused despite herself but then she remembers something he once said: where women are concerned, laughter’s as good as wine. She keeps a stony face, arms folded against her chest.

  ‘Straight in to the kill, is our Neddy.’

  He wobbles, drops to one knee, puts a hand to the pavement and laughs in earnest. Unable to resist any longer, she gazes down at him. He has fresh lines around his mouth and mauve patches under his eyes. The eyes themselves are the same. That’s all that need be said of them. He gets to his feet, saying, ‘Ah, Betsy! You’re still a match for me.’

  Betsy-Ann motions with her head. ‘You’ve a match back there, I believe.’

  He doesn’t move. He’s waiting for some sign, but she refuses to smile and he is forced to get up at last.

  ‘Punt’s,’ he says. ‘Tonight. Failing that, tomorrow night.’

  Betsy-Ann looks away.

  ‘I’ll wait, Betsy.’

  ‘As you please.’

  ‘You won’t give me the meeting? Why not? Tucked up with Shiner?’ She does not reply. ‘You’ll have a better time with me.’ His finger just brushes her cheek, then the gentry-cove is walking back to his house.

  21

  Here comes Edmund, scuttling along, pushing his way through the crowd: does he imagine he has fooled her? He shook when he saw that woman; she felt the spasm, mastered directly but still perceptible beneath her hand.

  At once Sophia half-turned, on her guard. From the corner of her eye she spied a motionless female figure some yards away on the pavement. One glance told her enough. The creature was hard-featured but tall and striking, possessed of a certain degraded attractiveness.

  Though Edmund is almost at the house now, his wife continues to stand at the bedchamber window, absently examining an almond-shaped flaw in the glass. The strange female carried a basket of some sort. If one were to judge kindly, one might describe her as a costermonger, perhaps. Whatever she is, it seems she is also an acquaintance of Edmund’s, of a kind not too difficult to guess. It appears he has told her where his, no, their new home is situated. The insolence of the wretch, tripping by, peering into the windows! – spying on me, Sophia thinks. She reaches up to the shutters and pulls them across.

  Downstairs the front door clicks. He must think her deaf. From this very window she watched him stride off in pursuit. Now he is returned, he will doubtless hurry to her as if to prove he has been within walls all this time – yes, here he comes, panting up the stairs. Sophia moves to the toilet table and pretends to examine her hair.

  ‘My dear,’ says Edmund, peering round the door, ‘I hope I don’t disturb you.’

  ‘Not at all.’ She is surprised to be able to throw such a congenial note into her voice. ‘What is it?’

  ‘An infernal nuisance. I’ve business with – why in the devil’s name are the shutters like that?’

  He enters the room and crosses to the bell-pull.

  ‘Pray don’t ring, Edmund, I myself closed them.’

  ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘To adjust my stockings. Gracious, how you puff! Are you well?’

  ‘Perfectly well. I’ve business with ―’

  ‘Forgive my interrupting, my dear, but you’re quite out of breath. If this is the result of climbing the stairs we must call in Dr Peck. You would not wish to have a consumption, I think.’

  His eyes glint.

  Sophia returns him a wifely, benevolent smile. ‘I myself can climb the stairs without discomfort, Edmund, and you know how tightly I lace. Pray listen to me for once.’

  ‘Yes, yes! Let him Peck me by all means. But listen, my love, I forgot to tell you I am to be at the coffee-house tonight and tomorrow night.’

  ‘I hope you will not, though,’ says Sophia. ‘You can bring your friends here, surely? I should very much like to meet them.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call Hallett a friend – a tedious fellow. I should be sorry to thrust his company on you,’ says Edmund, as solicitously as if he had not compared her to a tuppenny – what was it?

  ‘But Edmund, consider the dirt. You’re too careless of your health. One risks infection in coffee-houses and jelly-houses.’

  She gazes innocently at her lord and master. During their early days here, meeting him coming out of such an establishment, she had implored him to retrace his steps and accompany her inside so that she, too, might sample the jellies. Edmund refused with an emphasis that at once roused her suspicions. She did not enter the jelly-house, and just as well; she has since learned that such establishments are a favourite haunt of degraded women.

  ‘This isn’t the season for plague,’ says Edmund.

  ‘There are other contagions.’

  ‘If they can be avoided by staying out of coffee-houses, Madam, you are quite safe, but am I never to go abroad? That would be absurd.’

>   ‘Of course you may,’ protests Sophia. ‘But I might equally ask, what of me? I’m forever alone here.’

  Edmund groans. ‘That again! Well, you must bicker with me later. I haven’t time for it now.’ He moves towards the door.

  ‘Pray wait, Edmund, you’re always rushing off somewhere! I’ve something to ask you. Why should Titus take up Mama’s letter?’

  He does not hesitate. ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you, my dear. I saw no letter.’

  ‘Perhaps not, and yet there was one. The boy had it in his pocket.’

  ‘And forgot to bring it you?’ Edmund tuts. ‘He’s begun to slack. I shall have a word.’ Having outfoxed her on the matter of the letter, he again makes for the door.

  ‘Thank you,’ says Sophia. ‘O, and Edmund?’

  Her husband turns with a fixed smile.

  ‘I understand that just before we came to London, you had a lucky evening at the tables.’

  The smile dissolves. ‘Pray who ―’

  ‘I heard from a neighbour in Bath.’

  ‘Some time ago, then,’ says Edmund, as if Sophia, rather than he himself, must offer excuses for not having previously mentioned it.

  ‘I wished to leave matters to your own judgement. As your wife, I naturally thought you would tell me. When you saw fit.’

  Edmund appears to consider a moment before he sighs, closes the door and throws himself into one of the chairs.

  ‘I suppose I’m to blame,’ he says, crossing his right ankle over his thigh and glancing down at his stocking where a speck of dirt has dried on the calf. Edmund scrapes at it with a fingernail. He is consulting with himself as to what he should say: Sophia knows this as surely as if she could cut a hole in his brain and look inside. She observes his pallor and the heightened brilliance of his eyes. How unjust it is, she thinks, that his failings do nothing to render him less beautiful.

  At last he is finished with the soiled stocking. ‘You’re aware that I’m not in the habit of gaming. I consider it a frittering away of a man’s goods along with his peace of mind.’ Sophia waits, outwardly patient, while he runs through his rigmarole. ‘The thing is, Sophy, I ran into an old friend. I couldn’t take coffee with him just then, or my man would’ve given me the slip, so he suggested I get my business over with, then accompany him to the tables.’

  ‘Could you not tell him how much you dislike it?’

  ‘You don’t understand how it is. At school, Thompson behaved towards me with the greatest kindness.’

  ‘Then you could not refuse?’

  ‘No,’ he says gently. ‘And we played very low.’

  ‘You did well,’ says Sophia, wondering what is coming next.

  ‘A married man has no business to do otherwise. At any rate, in comes a drunken whelp bent upon making an exhibition of himself. Seeing us play low, he began abusing us to the company as miserly beggars. He galled me, and I therefore consented to stake him ―’

  ‘When you can barely play?’

  ‘O, he was too far gone to be dangerous. I had only to keep my head.’

  ‘That was prudent of you, I suppose, but was it honourable? To play with someone so young and foolish?’

  Edmund looks impatient. ‘Good God, would you rather I had lost? A gaming table isn’t a nursery! A man who goes there is responsible for himself.’

  ‘But he’d been drinking.’

  ‘So had most of the company. I don’t know how you picture the tables – surrounded by maiden aunts, perhaps, and Methodist preachers – but I assure you it’s quite usual.’

  ‘If this be all,’ says Sophia slowly, ‘I cannot conceive why we should have fled Bath.’

  ‘Directly I had revenged myself, his friends informed me he was not yet of age. I said it was a riddle to task the Sphinx how a man could be old enough to play, but not old enough to pay. This bon mot they failed to take in the right spirit.’

  ‘You were playing deep, then, and won a great deal of money?’

  He flashes her a smile. ‘Yes – had I insisted on my rights. But I settled with them for less and trust that will be the end of it.’

  ‘Why wasn’t I told?’

  ‘My dear girl, it was scarcely business for a young lady, much less one on honeymoon.’ He rises. ‘I succeeded in shielding you and we may now look on it as something past and forgotten.’

  ‘May I at least know how much you received?’

  ‘Twenty pounds. A pittance, considering,’ and with a determined motion he flings open the door and is gone.

  Considering what? It seems to Sophia that there is much to consider. Of one thing she is certain: Edmund is lying: lying as regards the departure from Bath and also concerning Papa’s letter.

  That woman in the street: does she know the truth of it? The thought brings on a familiar ache in her throat. She was raised to consider a wife as her husband’s truest and most trusted friend, his beloved support, the intimate partner of his heart. Edmund has not merely declined her offerings, he has trampled them underfoot.

  Her position as his wife, in some respects so baffling, is in this respect only too plain; yet what use is it to sit here and weep? She has made her bed, as they say, and must lie on it – but she need not hang herself in the bedlinen. I will not cry, she thinks, and gives a vicious tug at the bellrope. By the time Fan answers, Sophia’s eyes are dry and her voice level.

  ‘Send Titus to me directly.’

  Titus arrives with a shifty expression, as if conscious of wrongdoing, but then he has always something of that air. Mama maintains that any servant with a hangdog look is sure to prove troublesome. This boy was a folly from the beginning, but Edmund would have his way. He said he wished her to have all that was fashionable. And here she is, in a wretched house, in an unsavoury district, with a servant whose speech provokes ridicule in everyone who hears it.

  For an instant she is back in the boat with her intended, gliding over the Statue Lake, and with the recollection come sensations almost intolerable: a delicious tenderness, an exquisite longing to be dissolved into him, to exist henceforth only as that privileged slave, Mrs Zedland. A paradoxical longing. Such blissful solution was only possible, she now sees, in the dreams of Miss Buller, Mr Zedland’s soul being marked off from his wife’s as by a thick black line.

  The boy’s enquiring eyes recall her to the present.

  ‘Wait in the lobby and should anyone knock, come and ask me before answering,’ says Sophia.

  ‘Yes, Madam,’ he says. Plainly he finds it a curious commission, but it is not his place to hold opinions.

  ‘Well, go then! You may not stir unless to relieve yourself.’

  With Titus safely disposed of, she leaves her chamber and crosses the landing to Edmund’s study.

  22

  Betsy-Ann squeezes the cards together. The edges must be precise, just . . . She prepares, takes a deep breath, tenses. Springs them. They drop to the table, turning over as they go.

  Try again.

  No.

  Pushing them aside, she fetches a pot of ointment and massages her fingers, bending each one forward and back, stretching and loosening. That’s more like it. She pours warm water into a dish and scrubs at her skin until not a spot of grease remains, then again takes up the cards.

  Feel the edges . . . press, pinch and . . . spring.

  Nearly.

  Again.

  Nearly.

  She can’t have lost the trick of it, she can’t. She rubs her fingers, wiggles them, flexes.

  Again.

  The cards shoot from one hand to the other in an arc, a stream of paper in endless motion, court cards blurring into commoners. Her right hand glides along the pack, keeping up the pressure, until her left thumb closes over the last card, latching the pack snugly into her palm.

  Betsy-Ann sits motionless, letting out her breath. Not until this instant has she dared to picture failure. Mam’s voice, warning her: When I do it, child. When. Never say if.

  She can still do it. Will do i
t, will turn her hands, her clever hands, to work. Balancing the books! She smiles at her own joke and blinks her sight clear before preparing, once more, to make the spring.

  Again the bridge from hand to hand. She has the trick of the thing now, her fingers cunning, knowing the angle, sensing when.

  She was playing at Loo when he entered in search of Jeanne. That lady was already engaged. Betsy-Ann saw him survey the room as if seeking out a substitute; he seemed in haste, and not inclined to wait. Some culls made this part of the business insulting, had the girls been at liberty to feel resentment, by looking them over in a peevish fashion as if finding fault. Ned was a man of a different kidney, whose glance rather seemed to imply that he found each so enticing that he would dearly love to take them all upstairs directly, had nature but made man’s flesh equal to it.

  It was Betsy-Ann’s immense good fortune that she sat facing him and about to deal. She saw him consider the women at her table, held up her hands in a sudden motion to fix his attention and – frrrrip! – the cards, curving like the path of an arrow, shot from right to left.

  Ned’s gaze intensified like sunshine through a spyglass. Under the table, Betsy-Ann felt a girl kick her ankle. Her palms now sweating (for she had sprung the arc without time for thought and with a sense of staking her all) she laid down the cards as the others, exchanging the merest flicker of a glance, moved their chairs aside to make way for Kitty’s son.

  ‘A very pleasing trick, my dear,’ said Ned as he seated himself. ‘Pray show it again.’

  ‘Willingly, Sir, as soon as I can.’

  ‘Why not now?’

  ‘My hands shake afterwards.’

  ‘Then take your time,’ he said kindly. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Betsy-Ann.’

  ‘You talk like a country wench, how extraordinary! I never thought to see such a trick from a woman, still less from a bitch booby.’

  She flushed at that word. ‘My parents worked the books, Sir.’

  ‘Sharps?’

  ‘Fair people.’

  He laughed. ‘Lord, what care my mother takes! Could she but procure herself a Hottentot! And have you other gypsy tricks?’