by Maria McCann
‘Some of the wealthier ones come very near it. It’s not unknown for the heiress to a city fortune, or perhaps a coal mine, to marry into an old family.’
‘Birth isn’t forgotten, Sophy, but the differences are less marked,’ Hetty agrees. ‘You must have seen for yourself at Bath, such a mingling ―’
Mr Letcher nods. ‘Quite so, my love. I don’t wish to be misunderstood – men of low birth who raise themselves by honest means are an asset to the nation – but what enables them to flourish also gives an opening to countless clever humbugs.’
‘Those we’ve always had,’ says Sophia. ‘Do you remember, Hetty, what Mama told us? About the woman who gave birth to rabbits?’
‘Lord, yes! Mary somebody.’
There is a little silence. Sophia imagines that all three of them must surely have the same picture in mind: that of a man-midwife groping under a woman’s skirts, pulling out torn gobbets of fur and flesh. It is an image unspeakably disgusting, especially if one cannot help, as Sophia cannot, speculating as to how the dead rabbits came to be where they were found. She is annoyed with herself for having mentioned the business at all: it has only served to distract them, once more, from the meal. Though perhaps, with such a picture in mind, it is as well not to study one’s plate too closely.
Mr Letcher says, ‘Such a crude sham as that, exhibiting a supposed monstrosity, might’ve happened in Shakespeare’s day. For an instance of modern charlatanry, look no further than Psalmanazar – have you read Psalmanazar’s memoirs, Mrs Zedland?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Meretricious. He crawls along the ground, lickspittle, repenting on every page, and at the same time takes care to show himself a prodigy and throw blame upon his schoolteachers. If everyone who suffered at school took it into his head to peddle such inventions, well ― !’ Mr Letcher shrugs, as if to say the result would be beyond even the invention of Psalmanazar himself.
‘He must’ve been clever, to gull so many people,’ Hetty remarks. ‘Had he not confessed, I wonder how long it would’ve continued?’
‘He had the makings of a scholar, or perhaps, with his fertile fancy, a poet. Such brilliant unscrupulous fellows are dangerous. Is the meat tender enough for you, Mrs Zedland?’
‘O, yes, excellent.’
‘And yours, my love?’
‘Tough,’ is Hetty’s opinion.
‘Mine also,’ remarks Mr Letcher, as Sophia wills him to cease chattering and address himself to his food. ‘Mrs Zedland has perhaps a younger bird.’
‘I miss our cook. Since we came away from home we’ve never had meat done half so well, have we, Letcher?’
‘Hardly surprising, when you think about it. Domestics have every opportunity to study the foibles of their employers, whereas it’s ten to one if we ever come here again. There are so many places of public resort in London.’
Let us eat the things and be done, Sophia prays. Hetty, who was never much interested in the topic under discussion despite having started it, imperfectly conceals a yawn.
A woman enters from the flagged passageway and settles at a bench about halfway down the room, her back to the company. Hetty purses her lips.
‘We should have gone to the Great Room. One can eat there.’
‘It was further to walk in the cold,’ says Mr Letcher. ‘And we are perhaps too late for refreshments.’
‘I’m sure the company would have been more respectable. No, Letcher, don’t stare.’
The stranger folds down her hood. Mr Letcher, already studying the newcomer in defiance of his wife’s instructions, turns back towards Hetty and Sophia. ‘Virtuous ladies have this one fault, that in their spotless chastity they are inclined to judge the rest of the Sex too harshly. May she not be waiting for her companions – as you yourselves waited for me?’
His wife raises an eyebrow. ‘You’re fond of teasing, Sir.’
‘Quite serious, I assure you.’
‘No, you’re not. You can’t possibly think so. What’s your opinion, Sophy? Can that person be respectable?’
Sophia strains for a better view of the woman’s features. The stranger has dark hair and a brownish complexion. As she shifts about on the bench, arranging her gown, something gleams along the side of her neck: some bauble dangling there.
‘I would say . . . not.’ Her voice is clear and controlled, yet there is a roaring in her ears. When she looks back at the Letchers they seem pale and far away, as if seen through a pane of green glass.
The landlord enters and approaches the woman. He bends down, insinuating himself towards her so as to speak without being overheard. Even so, the woman is offended. She turns to call him back and thus displays her full profile, including a large earring of black pearls.
It is that creature: Edmund’s creature. Her face is again obscured, this time by the landlord’s coat as he closes with her, and Sophia catches the words, ‘Aye, to be sure, but my money’s sound.’ The voice comes as a shock to Sophia: not the clipped city speech she anticipated but a soft burr. Surrrre. The whore is, or was, a countrywoman.
The landlord glances round at Sophia and Hetty, whose eyelids lower at once. Something more is said sotto voce.
‘What is it?’ hisses Mr Letcher. ‘I can’t hear as well as you.’
Sophia raises her eyes in time to see Hetty pinch him. The landlord seems to be expostulating with the woman. He takes her by the arm, attempting to raise her from the bench, only to have his hand violently flung off. From where Sophia sits the woman’s protest can be heard without difficulty: ‘Damn you, Robert, a few minutes!’
The landlord again glances towards Sophia’s party, evidently weighing which will be more troublesome, forcing this woman out of the door or letting her remain. At last he says in something like a normal voice, ‘Then what will you take?’
‘Lightning, hot.’ She fumbles for a coin. ‘And strong. The last was like drinking from the pump. And tell him Betsy’s here.’ The last word sounds like yur. In just that way do the village people speak in the hamlets around Buller Hall.
‘Charming company,’ murmurs Hetty. ‘Let us have our cheesecake and be gone.’
Sophia nods, blessing Hetty and at the same time repressing a fierce desire to reproach her: You assured me the place was respectable. Mr Letcher has adopted that benevolent masculine smile by which gentlemen hint that they are inclined to find the Sex too timid and prudish.
‘With all due respect, my love, she need not trouble us. One must mix a little in gardens of resort.’
‘Mix!’
‘I take back the word. We are not mixing at all, merely sitting some yards away. Did you know,’ he grins at them both, ‘that a lady strolling on the green here was once seized and embraced by a stranger? When she protested, the fellow said to her, You may now boast you have been kissed by Dick Turpin.’
‘I shouldn’t think she boasted of it,’ sniffs Hetty.
‘Oh come! It’s a distinction among such people.’
‘I thought you spoke of a lady.’
‘Mr Letcher,’ says Sophia, ‘will you be so kind as to go and enquire after the cheesecake?’ It is as much as she can do not to abandon her place and flee. As it is, and since Hetty and Mr Letcher have invited her, she sits, the prisoner of politeness.
Mr Letcher springs up. ‘I shall indeed.’
‘You seem not quite yourself,’ observes Hetty as soon as her husband is out of earshot. ‘Do you have your flowers, is that it?’
Sophia shakes her head. ‘O dear, Hetty, am I so very dull?’
‘Or perhaps we have unsettled you. Pay no attention to Letcher and me. We’re like two old pug dogs, we enjoy snapping at one another.’ Sophia sees Mr Letcher take up a bell from the counter: a brisk ringing summons the landlord. ‘What’s the use of being married if one mayn’t growl a little?’ Hetty continues. ‘Mama and Papa certainly made the most of it and I see no reason not to follow suit.’
‘And your mother-in-law? Is she also of the pug-dog persuasi
on?’
‘Only in appearance. But beware, Sophy, of mentioning her before Mr Letcher,’ Hetty lowers her voice to a thrilling dramatic hiss, ‘or we shall hear more of Tichborne’s cardoons.’
Despite everything, Sophia begins to giggle and then stops, as if slapped, as the door at the far end opens. The landlord brings through a steaming jug and tumbler to the solitary woman, then crosses to the counter to inform Mr Letcher that cheesecake will be served up directly.
‘As soon as you may,’ says that gentleman.
The landlord nods. ‘I beg your pardon, Sir. I was not aware of your being hurried.’
Sophia feels she could expound, as a Biblical text, the meaning of being ‘beside oneself’. She could start from the bench, leap out of her skin, yet she continues to sit, fists gripped beneath the table, forcing herself to keep still. She has at least the advantage of observing without being observed, but suppose the woman should turn, and look at her? In a minute or so, she surely will; if not before he enters, then after. She cannot imagine what else might follow upon his entrance: her mind refuses to contemplate the possibilities, except for the terrible certainty that the Letchers will be witness to all. Pug dogs! Now, Hetty, here is the Marital Quarrel Proper. What beast can you find, actual or mythical, that can reduce its clawing combats to a witty figure of speech?
The cheesecakes are at last brought to the table. Sophia partakes mechanically, unable to taste hers. Still the wretched woman sits there, sipping what looks like a glass of water. She commences twisting her fingers in her hair, evidently as impatient for the arrival of her friend as Sophia is filled with dread. Possibly (now comes a choking sensation in her throat and chest: is this hysteria?) the woman is not accustomed, any more than Hetty, to being kept waiting.
The door shudders as if about to open. Without her volition, a faint cry escapes Sophia’s lips. She endeavours to mask it by staring ahead of her, but Hetty is too observant.
‘What is it, my love?’
Sophia, transfixed by the still-opening door, can neither speak nor look at her.
‘My cousin isn’t herself, Letcher. We should take her home.’
Mr Letcher, impeccably bred, at once pushes away his plate. ‘My dear Mrs Zedland, I’m at your service. Shall I ask the landlord to send for a chair, or would a walk be of more benefit to you?’
It is too late for either. Disaster is upon them: Edmund stands poised in the doorway, smiling towards the woman who now rises to greet him.
‘One of your gentry, Letcher,’ Hetty whispers, causing her husband to glance round.
‘Well, and has he not a genteel air ―? Now, my dear Mrs Zedland, do you feel that some fresh air might revive you? We can come in again directly.’
Sophia can only shake her head. Edmund has seen her: his hand flies to his neck as if he, too, is threatened with asphyxiation.
‘Handsome, I allow,’ says Hetty. ‘Well, my love? Are you able to walk home, do you think?’
The choking obstruction in her own throat is going down, for Edmund also appears confounded, caught so thoroughly off guard that his expression alters with the fluidity of quicksilver. She could, without difficulty, reproduce and annotate the contortions of his features: Plate the first, the arrogant smirk of the expectant man of pleasure; Plate the second, the start upon finding himself observed. Plate the third (in colour) affords some inadequate notion of the flush briefly exhibited by the gentleman in question (O, Edmund! ― so very briefly, given the shameful situation in which you find yourself) while Plate the fourth admirably sets forth the harrowed expression of a man who must greet one woman and cut another and is having the Deuce of a time choosing, not least because he cannot be certain – given the company in which he finds her and the damnably tall and solid whore standing plump between them – that his wife wishes to acknowledge him.
This last insight inspires Sophia to an action deceptive in its simplicity: she stands and waves, her face brightening with innocent happiness. All happens so quickly that she scarcely knows how; as when playing a familiar piece of music, she holds to what she must do, and does it. ‘Why,’ she exclaims, ‘here’s Mr Zedland!’
Edmund favours her with a look of unmixed loathing, immediately dissolved in a smile of such sweetness that Sophia can almost feel Hetty’s astonishment. See it, she dare not: exchanging glances with Hetty is out of the question. She is acutely conscious of herself as one of three women, each studying her husband’s advance from the far doorway towards the chimney. The stranger is still standing, however, her back turned to the onlookers, and as Edmund approaches she moves into his path.
The crisis is come: how will he meet it?
Edmund glares at the woman, defying her to approach any nearer. His presence of mind, once regained, is astonishing. Sophia understands, as the stranger surely must, that his affronted stare is a warning, but what casual onlooker could see it in its true colours: not the disdain with which respectability turns from encroaching vice, but the signal of an accomplice? The woman stops, plucking at her hood in a gesture of confusion. At that instant Sophia recognises that her own greeting, apparently so innocent, was intended to shield not only herself but Edmund. Without giving conscious thought to the matter – there was not time for that – she has shown her husband a way out that can be seized upon only by sacrificing the other.
Edmund does seize upon it. He becomes a gentleman affronted by vulgar impertinence, swerving round the creature as he might sidestep some nastiness upon the pavement. His face, now somewhat pale, conveys his habitual sang-froid as he approaches the company with an easy, gentlemanlike air, greets Sophia and is presented to the Letchers, to whom he extends his hand.
Sophia scarcely need watch him work his charm upon them. It seems Hetty now considers him well enough bred, for her cheeks have turned the prettiest rose-pink conceivable. Possibly she is trying to recall what cutting remarks she passed upon him before he was introduced as her relative by marriage; Sophia cannot give Hetty’s pinkness her full attention, however, while the rejected woman, her face once more concealed, stands at the tavern table as if, like Lot’s wife, she has been turned to salt.
Unlike that Biblical lady, the stranger has refused, until now, to look behind. Upon hearing Edmund’s genteel murmur, she turns her neck a little. Her eye, set in a face hot with humiliation, catches Sophia’s. Why, Sophia thinks, perceiving unfeigned misery, she loves him! The coarse lips are twisting in a fashion that she knows only too well: the creature is on the brink of tears. Go then, Sophia silently urges her. What can you do by remaining here? It seems her rival has reached the same conclusion, since she takes one last swig from the glass and leaves the room via the passageway. Sophia is filled with a sensation rather like that experienced on narrowly missing a smash-up in a coach: relief mingled with a curious disappointment.
‘. . . invited by a friend in the course of business,’ Edmund is saying.
‘A game or two sharpens the mind,’ offers Mr Letcher.
Edmund nods. ‘Indeed.’
‘Though the dissipations of London being what they are, I imagine one must be on guard, and take care always to play with honest persons.’
‘I see you thoroughly understand the matter, Sir,’ says Edmund, quietly amused. ‘For myself, I never engage with any other kind of player.’
The three of them appear in excellent humour: already Edmund has turned the Letchers outside in.
‘Who was that person?’ Sophia interrupts.
‘Person, my love?’
‘That woman at the table there. She looked as if she knew you, I thought.’
Edmund shrugs. ‘Did she? I paid no attention.’
‘She quite stared at you, Edmund.’
Again that flash of hatred. It vanishes away as soon as seen and Edmund exchanges a glance with Mr Letcher. ‘My dear,’ he explains as if to a child, ‘she was doubtless one of those females who haunt public places in search of prey. Any man with a coat to his back is considered in the light of
a potential protector.’
‘Had she known of your marriage, my dear, and the warm affection in which you hold your spouse,’ Sophia cannot forbear replying, ‘she would be persuaded of the futility of any such hope.’
There is a stricken pause in the conversation. Edmund seems considering how he might give a complimentary turn to this last speech, perhaps something about his known loyalty and uxoriousness, but before he can make the attempt Hetty exclaims, ‘Such a pity we are too late in the year for Ranelagh! But there, fashion rules everything these days.’
Mr Letcher comes to her aid. ‘You know very well, my dear, that it always has. I confess that, in this instance, I think fashion and common sense are in accord. We have not the climate for outdoor entertainments so late in the year.’
‘I agree, Letcher. This room is certainly warmer than the Rotunda would be. And we should not see the ton, even in season, for they scarcely appear until ten. Such a ridiculous habit, Sophy, do you not think so?’
‘Not more ridiculous than many farces acted in Town,’ answers Edmund, before Sophia can speak. ‘Both in the theatres and out of them.’
The four of them search one another’s faces and, finding no inspiration there, sit down to make the best of it.
39
Betsy-Ann runs through the gardens blubbing, until a pain in her side forces her to slow to a walk. It’s a warning to her – a mercy – she could give him the trick, nothing’d come of it – he’d give nothing, not he – not a smile. To look at her like that! – cast his lot with his autem mort – with his ma – he’d as soon set her up as, as ―
O, to be a man!
How she’d mill him! Punch out his lights!
She can hardly breathe for crying but she hurries on as best she can, wiping her face against her sleeve. Then, as the crying fit spends itself, a voice starts up within her, whining and pleading:
Sure he’s sorry for it now. What could he do, but go to her?
Where does it come from, this feeble voice? It’s as if some gentry-mort, all meekness, stands wringing her pitiful hands: O, she whimpers, be kind! Never stoop to revenge! O, he loves you best! He suffers as you do! She knows it now: it’s the voice of one Betsy Nobody (since she was never known, even amongst the sisterhood, as Betsy Hartry), bilked of her Spanish trick, not a gown or a greyhound to show for her pains. But Betsy-Ann Blore, termagant sister of Harry Blore, rounds on her, whip in hand, and with a stamp of her foot she drives away the simpering bitch: Madam, he’s known for it.