by Maria McCann
Later, as the shrieks started and the charging about, she saw a flash hang in the tree like a star. That’d be the second shot, the one that dropped Harry. If the boy was up there, he’d have leaped from the branches and been away almost before the star faded.
Ned said the boy was entirely his. Why, then? Unless it was Harry he wanted dead. Harry was known at the house. It comes to her that the boy meant to defend Ned, and his first shot was a bungle. If anyone has him strung up for that, it won’t be Betsy-Ann Blore.
His master’s just as dead, though. O Ned, clever Ned! To die of a bungle!
Can’t you forgive him, Mrs Zedland said.
No, she can’t. She loved him to the bone. Can’t hang over him like you do, repent, repent. She peached on him, couldn’t sit forgiving him for very shame, though you’re no better, sitting there blubbering with your Mr Gingumbob primed and ready to go off, shame indeed, do you know the meaning of the word?
What sort of funeral will they give for Dimber Ned? She won’t be invited. Suppose Kitty Hartry turns up? Rum doings, if she does! Good as a hanging! She manages half a smile before the pains start up inside her throat, and the tears.
*
‘I told her you’d be trouble,’ says Clem.
Fortunate stands grey and forlorn, bent and aching from the hours passed in the porch of the Spyglass.
‘Where you been, then?’
‘In Town.’
‘Don’t give me your lip. In Town!’
‘I can’t say the place.’
‘Don’t suppose you saw much of it,’ says Clem. ‘I hear you got a gentleman friend. Well, whatever else your friend pays for, he don’t pay your wages here.’
‘I will stay now. Stay inside.’
‘If you’re allowed to, which I sincerely hope you ain’t. I got my eye on you.’ At last Clem moves aside to allow Fortunate to enter, though his voice pursues him along the passageway: ‘Beats anything for impudence. One day in the house ―’
Dog Eye falls.
Fortunate runs up the stairs to his chamber, stumbling, crying out as he bangs his knees on the steps.
Alone, he wets the comb and applies it to his head, persisting this time though it pulls out his hair by the roots. He rubs water over his face. His eyes are swollen: he bathes them, begins to weep again, rubs them on his sleeve, weeps. Dog Eye falls.
Dog Eye falls.
*
Papa and Mama have travelled with Rixam, who is despatched the following morning to Cosgrove’s to reassure the proprietor that he will not be left with a dead man on his hands, while Papa accompanies Sophia to the nearest church. Should the funeral be that of Mr Zedland or Mr Hartry? Mama thinks Zedland less mortifying for Sophia, though Papa, with his strong legal brain, points out that if the marriage is to be proved void, it would be as well to bury a Hartry. Sophia, for her part, is nervous that an interment under that name may attract the K. Hartry whose letter remains engraved on her memory as the quintessence of filth. She wonders how many other names Edmund has gone by, and for what ends.
The minister is not eager to have Edmund, whether Hartry or Zedland, interred in his churchyard. He begins to explain about parish settlements but Papa, though not a native of London, carries a panacea in his pocket. Soon the man is in possession of a generous donation and of his Christian charity prepared to preside over the burial of a murdered stranger.
‘After which,’ says Mama when they are all together again, ‘you shall come home to Buller and endeavour to be cheerful. Hetty is to visit, and we plan an excursion when the weather improves.’
Sophia cannot exert herself sufficiently to feign gratitude. Her feelings, raw, ragged and muddied, absorb her entirely. At times she experiences a dreadful, corrosive pleasure of which she had not thought herself capable: he is dead, I am free. At others she is choked with grief for her early love, for the time on the lake that can never come again. Self-torturing, she recalls every seductive smile, every affectionate gesture: there is no coldness, no cruelty in the Edmund whose charmed ghost stalks her memories, only misunderstanding. She wrings her hands to think that he has gone before his Maker with so stained a soul, and prays the Lord to have mercy on him. Though what use is that? God does not revise his judgments to please the living.
Lastly comes the most terrifying suspicion of all: a sense that with all its misery and wickedness, this episode may yet prove the most vital and engrossing chapter of her life, to which the rest will prove mere epilogue.
*
With care, Betsy-Ann unwinds the silk wiper from the Tarocco.
She had a pain this morning, a visit from her red-headed friend. First time she’s ever been sorry. Mrs Ned has at least that much of him: there, she holds all the aces. What if it’s a boy, though, and the boy grows up a Hartry, with his papa’s pleasures and pastimes!
How will Mrs Ned like that?
Strange to sit here, doing nothing. Having been bounced, all her life, from one beating to another – bounced by hunger, by lust, by hopes that were nothing but chaff, in the end – she finds herself with no one to fear or depend on. Outside the window the very air is blank, white with frozen mist.
In fact, she’s not precisely doing nothing. She’s thinking. Not about Sam, or Harry, or Mrs Ned or even Ned himself – though he breaks in all the time, can’t be helped – but about Betsy-Ann Blore, with no support but her own two legs. What’s to become of her? Fancy – from the wagon to Denman’s Buildings, all that long, long road just to find this shabby stopping-place! Though it’s quiet enough, and the window frames snug. She can dig in here awhile, alongside of Mrs Sutton, or she can go elsewhere.
She’ll be the one to decide. There’s no part for her to play, now: her life is as unshaped as all that whiteness hanging in the air. This must be how it feels to be rich. Though even the rich play parts, and fall into traps. Some of them fairly fling themselves in.
Most of her stash is still sewn into her petticoats. Suppose she took the mail coach to Bristol, where the cousins lay up over winter? She’d have her own people around her – and once they’d got their hands on the gold, there’d be precious little meat in the pot, and everyone’s nose poked into her business. She hasn’t crawled out from under Kitty and Sam, only to be pushed around by the likes of Ben and Davey. You can starve in Bristol, same as here. She’s seen them propped against walls, too weak to beg.
Shuffle. A straight shuffle, so the cards tell true.
Her gold won’t last forever. If she could only settle the business – get behind the counter of a pretty little shop, say – she’d be made. Queen of her premises, showing folk the door, should she choose.
There’s no Knave of Hearts in this pack, no Pam neither. Where’s he now, Dimber Ned?
Seven-card horseshoe. First up: King of Cups, reversed. One who takes good care of himself, leaving others to sink or swim. Not much to puzzle her there. Next, Five of Batons, also reversed. Lawing, cheating, trickery. No surprise there, either.
She hopes there won’t be too many of these reversed cards. They are always unlucky. Still, it’s only Past and Present: what matters is Future. She slides her finger under the Future card and turns up . . . two. Two of them! Never in her life has she fumbled the Tarocco like that: is there some special meaning in it? Three of Cups, upright; Four of Cups, reversed. So close together, Three and Four! Had it been Cups and Swords, now, she’d try to read them together, but these might just be a slip of the fingers, two cards stuck together through all the shuffling and come out here. The question is, which is the true card? Not the Three, surely. That means kinchins, and here she sits with her rags on.
So: Four of Cups, Reversed. Too much of a good thing, leading to sickness, weakness, punishment. Blushing like port wine, says a sly voice in her head. But this is the future. Ned has no future. It’s the first time she’s had that thought. She sits motionless a while, taking it in.
Suppose it should be her own sickness, and she like Lina Burch, headed for the Lock? She
shudders. Come spring, Lina will be walking carrion, earning her bread by frightening off cullies until some furious whore throws her a shilling. Four of Cups is Lina’s card. Though it won’t be Betsy-Ann’s, not in that way, because she’d kill herself first.
Having two cards queers the reading. She’s begun to wish she’d never opened the pack: the future seems shrunken now, gelded of the magic she sensed when looking out of the window.
Never mind, on we go: Five of Coins, ruin but with hope. To hell with hope, better have no ruin, then you don’t need the hope. Should she just stop reading – no, get it out, know the worst. Six of Coins, a giver. Last card. Seven of Cups. Chance of great fortune, easily missed. And how in Christ’s name is a poor mort to know it when it comes? As if she hasn’t spent her life trying. Everyone in Romeville, from Cosgrove to the man with the talking dog, they’re all watching for the Great Chance. The Blores came here in search of theirs, and look at them now: she’s the only one left above ground.
There was the night at Haddock’s. That seemed like it, at the time. Perhaps her chance wasn’t Ned but Mrs Ned, all along. Either way, she’s missed it. The wind’s changed, Mrs Ned won’t pay. She heard it in the noise of the carriage, rattling off.
Four of hers have died here: Mam, Keshlie, ugly Harry and Dimber Ned. Shouldn’t such things, as much as your birthplace, count as a parish settlement? She’s heard that carters pick up young runaways trudging the roads and fetch them into Romeville. The fee is the usual thing, after which the chit is said to be ‘made free of the cart’. When you’ve seen as much as she has, and lain with as many men, you’re surely made free of the Town.
Lord, what care my mother takes! Could she but procure herself a Hottentot.
He was Kitty’s son, yet he was more besides. He had his moments of kindness, it’s only right they should be remembered. Does The Cunt in the Wall now boast a Hottentot? That Betsy-Ann doesn’t know the answer, that she herself escaped the place and will never go back, is owing to him.
She sets down her Tarocco and takes up the deck with the soldiers and the dancing ladies, flicking through until she finds Pamphile. There he is, the little devil, with his melancholy, lascivious phiz. She sets him aside to look at awhile. Then she places him back in the deck and practises shuffling, again and again, turning him this way and that, keeping him always under her eye.
Glossary
This glossary includes cant, slang, archaic words and the French with which elegant speakers peppered their conversation. Expressions still current, such as memento mori and frisson, have not been glossed.
The primary source is Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue but many of the expressions used were current much earlier; some, such as cove and dimber, date back to the seventeenth century or before.
à la mode in the fashion
Abbess bawd
active citizens body lice
au fait knowledgeable
autem bawler parson
autem mort 1) wife 2) female beggar impersonating a desperate wife with small children autem church
bagnio a cross between a Turkish bath and a sex hotel, extremely
expensive
bantling child
baubles testicles
bel canto Italian style of singing bibelot ornament
bilk cheat
billet-doux love letter
bing avast steal away, clear off
bishop hot drink made from wine, fruit and spices bitch booby female bumpkin
bite (noun/verb) a theft or trick; to steal or trick blood riotous disorderly fellow
blowen disreputable girl; whore; thief’s mistress blunt money
bob trick, criminal racket
bonnet a decoy who distracts attention away from his cheating partner books playing cards
boozing-ken drinking den
bubbies breasts
bubble cheat
bubble and squeak beef and cabbage, fried up together buck notable debauchee
buggeranto sodomist
bullybacks ‘bouncers’ in places of entertainment bunter 1) a rag picker 2) the lowest and most desperate kind of prostitute buttock ball sexual intercourse
cackler preacher
candid generous, ready to think the best of others cant criminal slang
canting crew criminal fraternity
chaunter cull composer of songs for street musicians cheese it shut up, keep mum
chivvy cut
clog burden, impediment
closet private space within a bedchamber comfits sweets
comme il faut as it should be, as one must Corinth brothel
Corinthian debauchee
cove bloke
Covent Garden Ague syphilis
cracksman safebreaker
crew gang
crib grave, graveyard
cull(y) a prostitute’s client, or a woman’s dupe cundum condom
Curse of Scotland the nine of diamonds Cyprian prostitute
dairyworks breasts
daisy naïve person
damper snack
darby money, cash
darkmans night
dell girl, young woman
déshabille undress/casual dress de trop superfluous
deuce in cards, the Two of any suit.
Deuce, the the Devil
dimber beautiful/handsome
dinner the time of this varied, but was generally much earlier than our modern ‘dinner’ (see ‘supper’) doe mistress
done brown cheated
drab prostitute
drug drag, hindrance
duddering rake lewd, filthy, extreme rake duds clothes
dummee pocket book, wallet
dun (noun/verb) person who collects debts; to collect a debt
enceinte pregnant
ensemble (here) overall effect
entre nous between ourselves ergo therefore
fam hand
Farmer George George III
fawney ring
faytour counterfeiter, forger
fingerpost parson
fire priggers thieves preying on victims of domestic fires flash 1) knowing (the opposite of ‘flat’). ‘To patter flash’ = to speak the slang of criminals, the ‘cant’
2) a glass of gin (‘lightning’) flash house a gathering place for criminals, especially thieves flash kiddey young thief, often with the sense of ostentatious style flat naïve person, fool
flesh-hound man in search of sex
flowers menstrual period
fly knowing
flyer ‘knee-trembler’
follower servant’s suitor
foyster pickpocket
frig masturbate
frisk search (a till or a person being robbed) funk panic
gammon nonsense, rubbish
garden thrash contemptuous term for vegetables gentry-cove gentleman
gentry-mort gentlewoman
gingumbob thingummy
glim partially concealed lantern, ‘dark lantern’
Grand Tour European trip, part of the education of young gentlemen guinea gold coin worth £1.05
Harris’s (List) a catalogue of prostitutes, with their prices and specialities, anonymously edited by Sam Derrick. From 176
1 he took up the ‘day job’ of Master of Ceremonies at Bath and Tunbridge Wells while continuing to edit Harris’s, something that only became public knowledge after his death.
hartshorn ammonia used as smelling salts high toby/toby man highwayman
hogo stink
hollow leg man with huge capacity for drinking
in keeping (of a woman) financially supported by a lover in the straw pregnant
Jack Ketch traditional nickname for the hangman jerry chamber pot
keeper man supporting a mistress
keeping cully dupe supporting an unfaithful mistress ken house, dwelling
kiddey see flash kiddey
kidney disposition, principles or humour kinchin child
knotting-bag a workbag, used by some women as a handbag
large, a the corpse of an adult
lay enterprise, pursuit or attempt
les domestiques the servants letch kink, perversion, particular attraction lift pickpocket
lightning gin
link-boy boy carrying a torch, or ‘link’, who could be hired to guide pedestrians Lock Hospital hospital for the treatment of sexually transmitted disease loobies bumpkins
lush (noun/verb) a drinker; to drink lushy fond of drinking
ma femme my wife
Magdalene House charity which rescued prostitutes make someone easy kill someone
man of honour libertine
man of spirit debauchee
mantua-maker dressmaker
marrowbones knees
middling sort middle class
mill beat
Miss Laycock a woman’s sexual organs monosyllable, the a woman’s sexual organs mort woman