Ace, King, Knave

by Maria McCann

  She turns out of the park entrance and into the thoroughfare, around another corner and into the street where he lives. The house is halfway up, on the right. Betsy-Ann goes straight up the steps and yanks on the bell rope.

  A maid, fair, plump and pert, stands gawping at her.

  ‘Here,’ gasps Betsy-Ann. She feels for her right earring, tears it off and flings it over the creature’s shoulder into the darkness of the hallway. ‘And here ―’ The other earring skitters away along the polished floor. She kicks off her satin shoes, put on fresh this morning in a spirit of holiday but soiled now with the earth of the gardens, and sends them after the earrings.

  The maid screams, ‘Fan! Quick!’ but, perhaps hoping more baubles will fly her way, doesn’t close the door.

  ‘Know me?’ Betsy-Ann pants. ‘Your master’s whore, that’s who I am, and these are his gifts.’

  ‘My master ―?’ Behind the maid, in the deep shadow of the hallway, Betsy-Ann can make out two gleaming dots that swim in the air, and below them a peculiar shape like a knot of linen. ‘Is it Mr Zedland you mean? Am I to give them to him?’

  ‘To Mrs Zedland. From her husband’s whore.’

  The dots vanish and return, like eyes blinking. They are eyes, she realises: the great dark ogles of the blackbird. He’s got up like a mourner and standing well back, only now becoming visible as her sight adjusts to the dim light inside. What she took for linen is just that, tied under his chin.

  The blonde is seized by giggles. ‘La! Madam! I can’t use such language to Mrs Zedland!’

  ‘What words you will, sweetheart, only be sure to say it.’

  There is a sound of heels striking on floorboards: another maid. A pale gown and apron surge forward into the light. The girl inside them elbows first the boy, then the first maid aside. She stands framed in the doorway an instant, her coral-coloured mouth fallen open, before wordlessly slamming the door.

  Betsy-Ann stands there on her exposed feet, the cold of the pavement striking up through her heels. A faint tittering leaks from within the house and a glance at the window to her left shows her both maids peering out from between the shutters. She’s fumbled it. She should have said nothing about whoring, only Take all this to your mistress, so the autem mort would be sure to see them.

  She’ll see them anyway. Let’s see what Mister Edmund Zedland can find to say about the earrings. If those sly bitches don’t pocket them.

  She walks away from the house, her stupid head held high. Now she’s done it. She’ll have to walk the rest of the way to Sam’s ken with only thread stockings between her flesh and the pavement: nothing for it but to make herself as hard as the paving stones. Her feet will be cut, what of that? All the more excuse to lie down and rest, but not yet: for the time being keep moving, keep moving.

  After three roads, her toes that were cold are warm. After five they are stinging. Another road. Halfway now. Her skin feels as if it’s being scraped off inch by inch; more and more often she has to stop, but when she does, she can’t rub her torn feet because of the filth sticking to them. Such tender soles. Time was, she could walk over rocks and snow. She didn’t know what it was to have a shoe on her foot.

  This is nothing. Soon be there. Another road. The ken is waiting with a hot fire – only think of that, girl, coal in the grate – and a bowl of water to bathe her blisters.

  Standing waiting at a crossroads, she feels something touching the ends of her toes. Stained with mud and blood, her stockings seem part of the street dirt, but she can make out something else there: a clot of fur, shit-coloured, run over so many times that the meat of the animal is long gone, the bones ground under the wheels of carriages. Only this scrap of pelt remains, so tattered that she can’t tell whether it was once a dog or a cat. She nearly trod in its soft uncleanness. Were she wearing shoes, she would have done so, and gone on regardless. As it is, she steps round the horrible pitiful thing, not liking to touch it, and as she does so the tears start up again.

  *

  Shiner’s at home, hugging the fire. There he was all the time, sitting behind the golden windows of domestic happiness, but somehow she left him out of the cheery picture, thinking only of her bowl of warm water. He looks up as she enters and she sees he’s mending his stinking coat.

  ‘I’ll do that for you,’ says Betsy-Ann.

  He lets the coat slide off his knee onto the floor. He’s staring at her: at her face and neck, at her stockings stained brown and red and grey.

  ‘What the Deuce ― ?’ He stops, noticing her knotting-bag. She should’ve thrown it away. ‘Where are your shoes?’

  Her soles feel as if they have stones embedded in them. Possibly they have. With a groan that she couldn’t hold back to save her life, she hobbles to a chair. He comes over to her, kneels and cups one of her heels in each hand, raising them to peer underneath.

  ‘Christ, Betsy, you’re flayed! Where are your ―’

  ‘Nabbed.’

  Shiner lays down her feet on the boards, causing her to wince. ‘Did he chivvy you?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘There’s blood ―’ He puts up a hand to lift her hair, and grimaces. ‘Your ears are slit.’

  Betsy-Ann looks longingly at the fire, where a kettle is warming. ‘Put me some of that water in a bowl, will you?’

  He leaves his questioning for the moment so he can stand nurse to her, first wiping her swollen eyes, then sponging the blood off her earlobes. Betsy-Ann paddles her feet in the bowl, waiting for the remains of the stockings to soak off.

  ‘He never took your bag.’

  She was waiting for that. ‘I fell on top of it.’

  ‘Easy put off, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Someone was coming.’

  He pushes up her gown to unroll her stockings. ‘Everything you lost,’ says Shiner, ‘you got from Hartry.’

  He’s a noticing sort of man when sober. Betsy-Ann bites her lip.

  ‘Why’d you sport his things, when you’ve duds and trinkets I bought you?’

  ‘Because I had them. You saw my trunk when I came.’

  ‘You could’ve been arse-naked, Betsy, I’d have clothed you.’

  It comes to her that she’s thrown away all her favourites, all but the fawney and that only because it wasn’t on her finger. She raises one foot in the bowl. The stocking is about ready to come off. She peels it with care, cursing under her breath as water trickles along her calf and drops into the basin.

  Shiner says, ‘Your keepsakes didn’t bring you much luck.’

  He’s right. ‘Look at that. Like beef. I’m walking on beefsteaks.’

  ‘I’ve news for you, Betsy.’

  ‘Fetch me something to bind them, will you?’

  ‘It’s important. Sit and listen for once.’ He catches hold of her wrists. ‘Are you listening?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ says Betsy-Ann. ‘Only let me bandage my feet.’

  ‘They can wait. Let ’em wash a bit.’ He rises and goes to a chair a little further off. Betsy-Ann sits facing him, hands clasped to show attention.

  ‘I’ve gone back to Harry,’ he says, as if expecting praise.

  ‘I thought you would, when you considered of it.’

  ‘Welcomed me like a brother.’

  She snorts. ‘He’s never had a brother. You just remember Flash Tom Ball.’

  ‘No fear. I keep sober as a Methodist’s dog.’

  She is impressed despite herself. ‘How can you? Don’t it make you want to heave up?’

  ‘I could heave up just thinking of ’em – all maggotty – where’s these bandages you keep moaning about?’

  ‘Use wipers.’ The minute she says it she could tear herself, but Shiner walks into the Eye natural enough and doesn’t linger. He comes out with two big silk ones, a green and a blue, tossing them towards her so that they unfurl.

  ‘The King of England ain’t got silk bandages,’ says Betsy-Ann, swiping them out of the air.

  ‘Told you that, did he?’ He lifts the bow
l of water out of her way, upending it out of the window. She hears the contents crash onto the stones below. ‘But you’ve perhaps been in company with him, you and Hartry. I never mixed with the Quality, on account of my ma not being a whore.’

  She is at once on her guard. ‘Forget Ned, can’t you? Cheer me up a bit, I’m half crippled here.’

  ‘Hold your peace, I’m not finished.’

  His eyes have got that sticky look: something nasty coming. She rests her throbbing toes on a towel and waits.

  ‘I notice you’re busy lately. Goings out, comings in.’ He taps the side of his nose.

  Betsy-Ann laughs. ‘You sound like the Excise.’

  ‘And you look like a mort that’s seen bad company.’

  ‘Queer notion of company you’ve got – being knocked down!’

  ‘And losing his gifts. Unfortunate, most unfortunate.’

  She’s not going to answer that. Frowning, she dries off her feet and ties one up in the blue wiper. The green silk is larger, so she folds it over for comfort.

  ‘Listen,’ Sam says as she ties the ends of the green one together. ‘What’d you say to his fams?’

  ‘Ned’s?’

  ‘You know who I mean. Delicate, with an elegant motion, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Anybody would.’

  ‘Well,’ says Shiner, ‘on account of those nimble fingers of his, I ’prenticed him to another trade.’ He grins to see her start. ‘He never told you, eh?’

  ‘Ned, a trade? What trade?’

  ‘He got pretty cunning, too – not a patch on me, but tolerable. Now, Betsy, you’re a game bird. Ten pounds says you can’t name Ned Hartry’s other trade.’

  Never has he talked to her like this. There’s more in it than jealousy: she expected him to throw Harry’s spying, and what he saw, in her face, but he seems to be taking a different tack entirely, leading her sideways towards something. Some trap?

  ‘You had him beat to nothing, you say.’ She pretends to consider. ‘That’ll be boozing, I reckon.’

  ‘O, you’re sharp, Mrs Betsy! Watch you don’t cut yourself. Now tell me how it was that Dimber Ned went penniless to Bath and came back spliced. Did he live on air?’

  ‘Gaming, he said.’

  Shiner raises his eyebrows. ‘With nothing to stake?’

  ‘Then he had a bit put by. How would I know?’

  ‘No, how would you?’ He lets that sink in. ‘Let’s say his new papa wants to see mortgages, deeds. Papers. How’d he come by those?’

  ‘Had ’em drawn up by a faytour, like anybody else. I wish you’d lay off, Sam. I want to lie down, rest my legs.’

  ‘He needed a trusty to back him.’

  ‘You helped him to a faytour.’

  ‘I said you was sharp. When he wanted papers, he knew where to come.’ He holds up his damaged hand, flexing the fingers before her eyes.

  Betsy-Ann sits bolt upright. ‘You’re the faytour?’

  ‘Even now I can draw. As you may recall.’

  ‘So where’s your kit?’ She stares round the room before turning triumphantly back to him. ‘You liar! You never had any.’

  ‘Now there, gents, we see the weakness of the Sex. Goes upon appearances.’ He comes up and pushes his face into hers so that Betsy-Ann is forced to drop her eyes. ‘I’ve no kit now and nothing was kept here. More than that, you’re not in a position to know.’

  She stares down at her bound feet, seeing not the blue and green bandages but the portrait he made and destroyed. ‘Are you still a faytour?’

  He shakes his head. ‘Takes more than a lump of coal.’

  ‘Why didn’t Ned draw up the papers himself?’

  ‘He’d nothing ready. And he hadn’t my ability.’

  No doubting him now. To think of the pair of them working together for the marriage, and she never once suspecting.

  ‘Damnably stupid, your Zedlanders,’ he remarks, as if reading her mind. ‘I’d barely time to dry the ink. I warned Ned, if they so much as sniffed at it, he’d have to toddle.’

  ‘They didn’t sniff?’

  A satisfied smile. ‘Swallowed it down like melted butter.’

  ‘Did he pay you out of her fortune?’

  ‘Not entirely.’ He gives the queerest look, of cruelty and pity mixed. ‘You always did wonder how I won you, eh? How I beat the great Ned Hartry.’

  Betsy-Ann leaps upright but Sam also rises and flings her backwards so that she falls against the table, crying out as her torn soles scrabble on the floorboards. She manages to pull herself back into the chair, drawing up her arms and knees for protection.

  ‘Now, don’t run away, Betsy.’

  ‘Not another word!’ she yells. ‘Not a word!’ and covers her ears. Shiner seizes her fingers, bending them backwards so that she is forced to let go.

  ‘Sharps playing sharps,’ he murmurs. ‘What a fancy!’

  ‘You forced him into it.’

  ‘We had an understanding. Though I shouldn’t say he agreed to the conditions.’ He leans forward, his expression gleeful, and drags down her hands until they are resting in her lap. ‘He proposed ’em. His notion entirely.’

  Her mouth is too dry to spit at him.

  ‘He was that sick of you,’ Shiner goes on. ‘But we know our Ned, don’t we? Liable to come sniffing round again. He swore his solemn oath to keep away.’

  ‘He foxed you there,’ she retorts.

  ‘We both foxed you, Betsy. Did you never wonder how I beat him?’

  ‘Ned was in his cups. You couldn’t touch him otherwise, he’s a prince to you.’

  His mouth twitches: that hit home, all right. But he masters himself as befits a sharp and says, ‘Don’t flatter yourself, girl. We settled it long before. Your prince was for handing you over like a breeding sow. It was I proposed the sham wager – by way of a kindness.’

  If he did feel kindness towards her, he’s run through his stock long since. But O, it fits, it all fits: how long did she go on like a daisy, lamenting Ned’s bad luck?

  Sam snorts. ‘You may thank your stars I’m a patient man. Haddock’s, if you please!’

  For a moment she’s silent. Her insides are empty: she could be one of Sam’s cadavers, scooped out on the slab of some doctor. It won’t last, she knows: soon the pain will start up, like coming back to life with the knife already in her. While she can still think, and while Sam’s in gloating mood, she must ask more.

  ‘Why’d Harry peach on me?’

  His eyes gleam. ‘You just chanced to be there. Didn’t Prince Ned explain? Harry advanced him the readies, at interest, to get started in Bath.’

  ‘He hasn’t paid?’

  ‘Cursed clever of His Highness,’ Sam says with bitter contempt. ‘If he lives to boast of it.’

  And there she was, flinging an earring or two through his door. She needn’t have bothered. A stink of death, a swaggering, grinning vengeance, dogs him through the streets, sends him dodging into alleyways.

  How, in the face of all this, could he pick up with her again? She can scarcely believe it. Surely this story’s lies after all, nothing but Sam Shiner’s spite?

  No. It’s of a piece: Ned shies away from Harry. He won’t come near this place: that, she’s seen for herself. Events shift about, slippery, as she tries to join them up. What is Ned’s situation? He spoke of creditors – claimed to need the Spanish trick before he could set her up – but he also told her he’d pocketed the dowry. If that’s true, and he cares nothing for the autem mort, what need of his play-acting in the Rose of Normandy?

  Where he chose to cut her.

  Like Shiner, she can’t fathom why Ned would shower blunt on her, treat her to the bagnio, rather than settle with such a creditor as Harry – unless it was in the nature of bait, setting a sprat to catch a mackerel.

  Such a promising start she’d thought it, as good as a declaration. The ratafia, the chair ride, the pleasures of the long night. He was tender: he played her, flattered her, watching his chance.
Did he even enjoy the debauch? She winces at that thought. But yes, he relished it – as a man might relish a syllabub, no sooner consumed than forgotten. Even then she should’ve seen the way things were going: he told her to get from under Sam Shiner, but he wasn’t having any, O no! And if she hadn’t weakened, hadn’t half-promised the trick? She wouldn’t have seen Ned again.

  So far they’ve come no further than talk: a ken far from Sam and Harry’s haunts, where she could feel safe. Her life in keeping resumed, with the only keeper she’s ever desired . . . She was ready to give up her last trump card, hoping for much in return: aye, so much gammon and moonshine!

  She bites down hard on her lip: Shiner won’t have the pleasure of watching her cry. This is how the world works, why did she ever think otherwise?

  Besides, she’s seen something she never glimpsed before: for Ned, half the zest of the thing lies in baiting other men. Parading her before Shiner, then handing her over only to return and cuckold his old partner. As for his dealings with Harry – paying back the brother by cheating the sister, what a bite! He makes it his sport to tease them, dangling just beyond their reach, as he dangles beyond the reach of his autem mort.

  And beyond hers. Her cheeks flush at the thought. She’s never been in the pillory but she fancies it might feel like this: stripped to the waist, bucks in the crowd laughing and pointing. Fear and pain and perhaps pissing yourself in full view of the crowd. Not a friendly face in sight but mouths agape, eager to lap up your suffering and shame.

  She bites down harder still, telling herself she’s not in such a plight as that, nor so foolish neither. No woman has Ned’s heart. To each he tells a different story. He’s either too deep to fathom or so shallow there’s nothing in him: a man cut from paper. The autem mort, though, gave him everything she had.