Ace, King, Knave

by Maria McCann

  Is he trying to get her with child? A beloved infant would give him a powerful hold over both her and her parents: at the least displeasure, he could threaten to take the little one away. Her continuing resistance, then, is a question of great importance, to which she must give serious thought.

  Yet even in the act of grappling with it she is distracted, forced to concern herself with all that other business. Her scrutiny of the contents of Edmund’s desk was enough to show that he has made away with money or, at least, neglected to acknowledge its receipt. He has meddled with her letters to Mama and Papa, and gone so far as to substitute compositions of his own. It is an extraordinary thing to contemplate. Are the servants his confederates in that also? Lord! To think of herself snared like poor Clarissa Harlowe, surrounded by false friends – though if that be the case, the servants have performed their parts wretchedly, for she trusts none of them.

  No: no domestic has duped her into misplaced confidences, and that is some comfort. She has kept her own counsel throughout, and – setting aside this morning’s desperate shift – her dignity. As she contemplates her condition, it is borne in upon her that for an innocent and friendless lady, she has not, after all, done so badly. What folly, to fancy that a wife could reform such a creature as Edmund! The woman who could attempt it must possess dauntless courage, peerless virtue, the most entrancing beauty, the patience of Griselda, all the intellectual acuity of the one sex and the tenderest loyalty and devotion of the other. Which is to say, such a woman does not exist.

  Since Edmund is not here she may as well drink his chocolate along with her own. As she sips at it, with a sense of having merited this small indulgence, a course of action presents itself. Papa may be about to send more money; if so, he must be prevented.

  Fan, when rung for, reappears with unusual briskness – for all the world as if she has been lurking about the corridors – and an inquisitive, impertinent look. Sophia cannot judge whether the impertinence is deliberate insult or unwitting honesty: perhaps Fan is merely a bad actress.

  ‘Help me dress,’ Sophia says.

  She cannot fault Fan in this duty: the maid is deft and painstaking. Even so, Sophia has to master a sharp revulsion at the touch of her fingers. She studies Fan’s reflection in the closet mirror. The girl’s pale skin is not unlike her own – one would wager that even as a nursling, Fan never had pink cheeks – but then her hair forms a pleasing contrast. Lack of contrast is a sad fault in Sophia’s countenance. Fan has dark blue eyes, the brows curved as if in mockery; her nose is tip-tilted and it is these features, Sophia realises with surprise, that give her an expression of impudent amusement: do as she will, Fan cannot look otherwise. There is nothing impudent, however, about her mouth. It is a rose petal, a mouth made for kissing. Where once Sophia had utter faith in her husband, she now finds it impossible not to speculate on his dealings with the maidservants. So it is: one takes on the moral hue of one’s companions.

  Dressed and with her hair tolerably arranged, Sophia goes with some trepidation to Edmund’s study, the door of which stands open. His desk appears just as she left it. She is tempted to enquire of the servants as to his whereabouts, but that would be at best a lowering of herself, at worst disastrous. Instead, she returns to her chamber and sits motionless awhile, thinking, before rising to fetch her pen.

  My dearest Father and Mother,

  Before you read further, I must beg that you will do nothing in haste as a result of reading this letter. I urge this lest natural indignation should overwhelm your judgement. Pray take time to consider. Consult with one another and with Mr Scrope. Above all, do not reply to me as affection might dictate since I am not mistress of my own correspondence.

  I have not time to explain all, but trust to your faith in me and your knowledge of my character. You know that even as a young girl I was never given to vapouring and exaggeration, but ever sober, discreet and rational.

  It is with regret that I inform you that Edmund is a dishonest, dissolute man. I believe him to be reading my correspondence, concealing letters from my family and even forging replies in my name; he has in his possession a sunflower seal exactly like my own. Did you, Papa, receive a letter in which I wrote of a visit to Ranelagh? If so, it was a brazen invention. I have never been at Ranelagh, nor have I ever urged you to repose more trust in Edmund, as one of your letters to me seems to indicate.

  I also understand that Edmund has failed to acknowledge receipt of monies. Were I you, my dear parents, I should send nothing more and repose no faith in any document produced by my husband unless backed by a man personally known to you and of proven shrewdness and integrity. Be sure he possesses both qualities: integrity alone will not suffice.

  As if this were not enough, I suspect Edmund of keeping a mistress. He certainly conducts correspondences calculated to disgust any well-formed mind.

  I shall put this into the Receiving House at the Three Castles, Marybone. Reply to me there. Though for the sake of appearance you must, if you please, continue to write to me at home, be sure to make no mention of any of this.

  Your unhappy

  Sophy

  27

  Betsy-Ann shakes out her bag of wipers onto the floor, taking stock and tutting: some of these patterns are going out of fashion, even among the poor. She begins to pick out the worst, then tumbles them all back into the bag and tosses it aside. Look here! She unwraps a watch, winds it and listens to its calm, measured tick, regular as music, as rich people’s lives. Somebody risked a ride on the three-legged mare to lift this and she herself paid a good price. So why leave it here, going to waste?

  ‘I don’t know, I’m sure,’ Betsy-Ann says aloud. She lays the watch back with the rest and stands, arms hanging at her sides, staring at the dingy walls of her hidey-hole. Someone else used it before her: there’s a tally marked on the plaster, first fourpence a week, then fourpence-halfpenny. For what?

  She used to turn a tidy profit. Still could, if she wished. She’s never precisely let it go, never come to what you might call a decision; she’s merely grown sick of it. Too much haggling, what with the buyers and the sellers, and then the trudge through the city with her bottles, the other articles tucked underneath. The lightning always sells, at least. Some things never go out of fashion.

  There was a time she couldn’t call her arse her own, when she’d have got down on her marrowbones and prayed for a snug little ken like this and a cart to flog goods from, yet Sam Shiner’s managed to sour it all. She’d a bellyful of him even before she met up with Ned again, and now what’s Sam playing at, to stay away so long? She’d wager a guinea he’s not coming home, not ever – that he’s Harry’s man now, body and soul – except that he’s got a knack of turning up when least expected. It’s an instinct, the sharp’s instinct for catching you off guard. Unless Ned opens his arms and his purse, she’s not about to pack her box and walk out of the door, for fear of meeting Shiner, coming in. And a fine rumpus there’d be then!

  She sees now how foolish it was, telling him she could always find the rent: he’s taken her at her word. If she’d trusted him entirely she’d be in Queer Street, but Betsy-Ann Blore, thank Christ, is not such a daisy. At the side of the hearth there’s a loose board she can pry up and underneath (not in the Eye, that’s the first place he’d look) she’s stashed about thirty guineas, all taken from Sam, a bit here, a bit there. Thirty, and he’s not even noticed: the resurrectionists must be coining it. And you have to ask yourself, after that: Where’s the rest going?

  He’s boozing away every penny or he’s set up a new woman. Or both.

  She comes out of the Eye, closing it with care so that the edge doesn’t show. On the table stands a bottle of ratafia, brought this morning by a boy she’d never seen and isn’t likely to see again. There’s a card tied round the neck, with writing. It’s a ticklish business, not knowing what might be on there, to ask someone else to read it for her.

  The name always comes last, she knows that much. With scis
sors she snips away the final word of the message, trimming the card evenly to disguise the cut, then goes to the door.

  ‘Liz? Liz!’

  The stairs yawn beneath her, swallowing up the light. She’s about to go in again when she hears a shuffle of feet and the crone’s laboured, whistling breath. Liz hasn’t enough puff to climb and talk at the same time.

  ‘Up here, if you please,’ says Betsy-Ann, who can now pick out a patch of shadow approaching from below. Though familiar, the woman’s wheeze disturbs her; it’s as though she herself can’t breathe freely as long as she’s aware of it.

  ‘Mrs Shiner,’ gasps Liz, emerging from the darkness. ‘You want some lightning. Perhaps.’

  ‘Not today,’ says Betsy-Ann. ‘Here, Liz, you can read, can’t you?’ Too late, it comes to her that she could have asked this before the woman dragged herself upstairs.

  ‘My man. Taught me.’ Liz flashes a hideous smile from between grey lips.

  ‘Come in, Liz. You was spliced, eh?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Sixteen years and more.’

  ‘Kinchins?’

  Liz shakes her head. ‘All the boys was took, and then my husband was took.’

  ‘God bless their souls,’ Betsy-Ann rattles off. ‘What about girls, Liz? Got any daughters?’

  But Liz doesn’t seem interested in daughters. She’s looking round the room as if to spy something out. Betsy-Ann can guess what’s next, and sure enough, it comes: ‘How’s Mister Shiner keeping? He well?’

  ‘Thriving, thriving. Sit down a minute, get your breath,’ Betsy-Ann coaxes. ‘I want you to read something for me.’

  ‘And you, Mrs Shiner, did you never “sprain your ankle”, eh?’

  ‘No, never.’

  Only once did she get a bellyful and that was lost; it came before its time, a stunted rat of a thing, one day when Sam was out. Betsy-Ann hadn’t even told him she was in the family way: she couldn’t have endured his preening and pawing. She kept the wizened creature, bound up in a shawl, inside the Eye until she could find opportunity to drop it in an alleyway. She’d no wish to be tied to a bantling, not in her line of work, it would only be a clog hung on her. Yet afterwards, there was a sadness she hadn’t looked for.

  Liz coughs again, spraying the table with saliva. Betsy-Ann wipes away the flecks with her apron.

  ‘Can you read this, Liz?’

  The old woman holds the card at arm’s length and squints at it. ‘Maddox. Six o’clock. In a chair.’

  ‘Maddox? I don’t know any Maddox.’ Unless Ned is teasing her, writing to her under a different name? But what’s this about a chair? Sitting in a chair?

  ‘I will settle all,’ Liz says.

  Betsy-Ann stares blankly at her.

  ‘On the back.’ Liz taps the card. ‘I will settle all, it says.’

  ‘Maddox.’ Betsy-Ann frowns, then fetches two glasses from the mantelpiece. ‘Take a drop with me?’

  A rich scent like that of Bakewell tart fills the room, sending Betsy-Ann straight back to Kitty’s parlour.

  The old woman’s eyes glisten. ‘O, my! Does you good to smell that!’

  ‘Did you never taste it?’

  Liz shakes her head.

  ‘Ratafia,’ says Betsy-Ann, pushing the glass towards her. She watches the scrawny throat rise and fall.

  ‘It’s very good, Missus.’ Liz looks again at the card. ‘He makes his M like an H.’

  He? Betsy-Ann’s stomach tightens. A very small word – Ned, say – spilt from Liz’s grey lips at the wrong moment, and Sam Shiner might come awake in a way altogether to be reckoned with.

  ‘A cove, is it? How’d you know?’

  ‘A woman writes more finicky.’

  ‘Ah . . . He makes the what?’

  ‘M like an H. Maddox looks like Haddox.’

  ‘Haddox. Six o’clock.’

  ‘Is he sending you fish?’

  ‘In a chair? A sedan chair, could be?’ She pictures the chair-men’s disgusted faces and in laughing it comes to her: Haddock’s Bagnio.

  ‘It’s a puzzle,’ she tells Liz, refilling the glasses. ‘Never mind, here’s to good cheer and good neighbours.’

  ‘May we ever have both,’ says Liz, who looks as if she’s never had either. When she has finished her drink she shuffles her way downstairs, hugging the banister as she might hang on to a boon companion. Shutting her out, Betsy-Ann takes another swig of ratafia and leans back against the door, lost in remembrance.

  ‘In your bagnios the cry is all for ratafia. Nothing is so eagerly sought after, or brings to such a perfection of enjoyment.’

  The Mother’s voice had been compared, by some sentimental sot, to the sweetness of the harpsichord. Her girls, better acquainted with the screeching end of her tongue, seized every opportunity to jeer this notion, yet there was something in it: Kitty’s speech could charm the surliest culls, including the one seated opposite. Betsy-Ann herself could do nothing with him, but his frown had softened the instant Kitty began to speak. Possibly he was a fellow of a musical turn in whose mind Kitty figured as a kind of speaking harp, as in the story of Jack the Giant Killer, fitted out with a woman’s head and bubbies.

  ‘Its benefits are so well understood in those elegant establishments that nobody now questions them,’ Kitty continued. To Betsy-Ann, perpetually hungry, her purring suggested not music but cream and sugar and eggs and wine, beaten up with spices into a thick, intoxicating draught. ‘I confess myself surprised you should find ratafia at all out of the ordinary, but perhaps,’ the voice was now shading into a rich, deep caramel, ‘it is a thing out of your experience. In which case, you are to be envied, as having the most delicious discoveries to make.’

  The cull, who a few minutes earlier had been about as gentle as a prison door, was already dissolving in the flood of sweetness unleashed upon him. Despite Kitty’s show of surprise, he was to her that stalest of things, the timid fool wishing to be a dog upon the town, yet shocked – as well he might be – by the price of ratafia. The women, understanding all this as if he had shouted it from the rooftop, waited while he went through the usual calculations.

  He said, ‘The girl may have it and welcome’ (Betsy-Ann lecherously licked her lips to show the wisdom of his decision) ‘but for myself, I find the taste perfectly nauseous.’

  He thought he’d got himself out of it. Poor fellow! So far Kitty had only been sparring; now she closed with him in earnest.

  ‘Most gentlemen are of your opinion, at first, but with a little experiment, a little experience, they come to appreciate its benefits.’ She turned on her prey the smile which, along with the voice (and other less mentionable talents) had made Hartry one of the most celebrated names of her day. ‘Ratafia, Sir, is an inestimable boon to the male sex. Let a lady partake of a glass or two and she is pleasantly warmed and tickled, you might say.’ She bent towards the man and murmured confidingly into his ear. ‘That, in itself, is such an incalculable advantage to her lover that sometimes’ (a plaintive sigh) ‘I quite accuse myself of treachery towards the Sex, for so rigging the odds in the gentleman’s favour.’ Not even the stupidest cull could be expected to swallow this and Kitty did not intend it; her face, dimpling with wicked wit, invited anyone who heard her to share her in the joke. ‘But Sir, a lover wise enough to join with his lady, and partake of a glass or two, profits ten times more. The refreshment cheers – strengthens – fills him with courage for the amorous combat. The mature devotee of pleasure finds himself flush and sturdy with regenerated youth. As a certain lord said to me the other day, ‘O Mrs Kitty! I haven’t ridden so long and hard since I was sixteen!’ – and his lordship is seventy-two.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s of the greatest service to him. But if I may speak, Madam ―’

  Kitty cut him off. ‘None of the cognoscenti would omit to take a glass or two. Why, Sir, they consider it as indispensable as rum before a naval battle – and you know, Sir, our navy is the terror of the world.’

  Surely this must settle the
business; but no, the man stared down at the carpet and would not be budged. Betsy-Ann perceived, by a hardening line at the edge of Kitty’s mouth, that her employer was almost out of patience (a commodity in which she was never overstocked), and indeed, at this instant Kitty made a furtive sign to someone nearby. At the same time she began urging loudly, so that others could hear: ‘My dear Sir, consider what you are about! You make yourself too ridiculous. You may shopkeep all the rest of the year, if you must, but a debauch is not a time to pinch and scrape.’

  As many a plucked heir knows to his sorrow, it is easier to shame a man into extravagance than into virtue. Though he continued to study the floor, the quarry’s cheeks grew hot. ‘Ratafia may be of benefit for elderly gentlemen but in my case – at least, I am not aware ―’

  A big-built young buck, already stripped to the waist by a girl who was clinging to him and fiercely kissing his chest, appeared to have been listening to the lecture, for at this moment he interrupted.

  ‘If I don’t mistake, Sir, you were speaking of ratafia.’

  The cull did not reply, so Betsy-Ann put in innocently, ‘Why, yes, Sir. Do you care for the drink?’

  ‘Worth a hundred pounds a glass. Puts a prick on a man like the town bull.’

  The cull looked up.

  ‘Don’t you take no more though, John,’ pouted the nymph, ‘or you’ll be needing two of us,’ and she tugged jealously at his arm, as if unable to spare him even long enough for such brief talk. The young man shrugged amiably, as if to say Such is the penalty for possessing such attractions as mine, as she pulled him away and up the gilded staircase to Kitty’s private rooms.

  ‘You seem thoughtful, Sir,’ remarked Kitty. ‘You have perhaps seen that gentleman before?’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ said the cull wonderingly. ‘Going upstairs with that girl, there ―’ He pointed to another whore and broke off, harpooned by envy.