by Marele Day
Elizabeth knew how such things happened. Once she’d even come across a lady of the town in a darkened doorway with a customer. All that pushing and shoving, it looked like the customer was trying to cram a bolt of linen into a cupboard. Though she had seen it, she didn’t know how it felt. She couldn’t ask Mama, couldn’t imagine Mama doing it with Mr Blackburn, although by the grunts she heard some nights, she guessed Mama must. It was part of wifely duties. But Becky had performed the duty even before she was a wife.
‘What does it feel like?’ Becky repeated Elizabeth’s question. ‘It feels . . .’ she sighed dreamily, searching for words. ‘It is very . . . pleasurable. Like your bones are melting.’
That did not sound at all pleasurable. Elizabeth wondered if Becky meant the giddy, pins-and-needles feeling she had had that day when she opened the door to a man—James Cook. Elizabeth remembered every detail of that summer afternoon though it was five years ago. She’d been lying on the sofa in the front parlour, fanning herself with the time fan. Mama and Mr Blackburn were next door, in the Ship and Crown. They’d moved from Wapping to nearby Shadwell, to one of the tenements inherited from Samuel Batts, Elizabeth’s father, though of course on Mama’s remarriage her fortunes had become Mr Blackburn’s. Although the Bell had given them a good living, Mama maintained she was glad to be out of the alehouse but, having said that, she and Mr Blackburn seemed always to be in the Ship and Crown, its best customers.
Elizabeth was expecting Becky and, while waiting, she practised the art of fan fluttering used by ladies to convey thoughts. While not a lady, Becky knew how to flutter a fan. Fanning fast meant ‘I am engaged’, slow that ‘I am married’. Drawing the fan across the cheek meant ‘I love you’, opening it wide was a signal to ‘Wait for me’. Elizabeth wondered if the men that ladies addressed in this fashion understood, and where they learnt the language, not being ones to carry fans themselves.
Beside the sofa lay The Governess by Sarah Fielding, sister of Henry, a novelist himself and a Bow Street magistrate. Elizabeth had promised Becky not to delve too far into the novel on her own. They planned to read the story of Mrs Teachum’s female academy aloud to each other. Elizabeth treated herself to a delicious slice of orange, savoured the sweet taste of sunshine. What a pleasurable way to idle away the afternoon—a fan, exotic fruit, and a good novel at hand.
She picked up the book and began. Into the warm furry afternoon, into the little female academy, came the sound of firm confident knocking. Finally. Elizabeth went to the door to greet her friend.
It was not Becky at all, but a man. Tall, over six foot, a wide face with a firm confident set to his chin, and a well-curved mouth. Dressed in dark blue with white silk lapels and neckcloth. His eyes looked into Elizabeth’s, further than her eyes. Something inside her, of which she had previously been unaware, a closed tight bud, opened into a flower.
‘Elizabeth?’ he said, filling her name with breeze.
‘Yes,’ she replied, wondering who he was.
She felt her cheeks redden and tried to will the blush away, bowed her head, hoping he hadn’t noticed. But then it got worse, because in bowing her head she saw that she’d come to the door barefoot, her toes peeping out from the folds of her skirts.
He sensed her embarrassment and took a step back. ‘It’s James Cook, Miss Batts,’ he addressed her more formally. She heard the North Country in his voice, the gentle roll of the moors. She knew the name James Cook, Mama and Mr Blackburn sometimes talked of him, a seaman on Mr Walker’s ships. A man who would go far, according to Mr Blackburn.
‘Are Mr and Mrs Blackburn at home?’ he asked.
‘They’re next door, at the Ship and Crown.’
He stood there a minute longer in the doorway. Elizabeth waited. ‘I . . .’ he began, as if to tell her important news. ‘I hope to see you again, Miss Batts. Good day.’ He bowed deeply then was gone.
Elizabeth shut the door. She went back to the parlour. The novel was still there, the fan beside it. Everything looked the same except that James Cook’s presence seemed to fill the house. Perhaps she had dozed off and dreamt the whole thing. She’d had dreams like that, in which she opened the door to the unexpected.
Most often the dreams were of the Bell. She recognised the alehouse but in the dream there were doors she had never noticed before. Sometimes the unexpected was pleasant, like finding her father on the other side. He had eyes the same deep blue as Elizabeth’s, a handsome man in fine clothes smiling at her. When she woke from those dreams she always felt happy and snuggled down under the bedclothes hoping to dream some more.
Then there were the dreams in which the unexpected was monstrous, how she imagined Bedlam to be. She had never been there, but she knew it was an entertainment that people paid to see—lunatics writhing in their cells and doing all manner of things. Elizabeth did not like it when the door opened to such spectacles and would try to wake herself up.
‘Elizabeth.’ Recalling how he’d said her name gave her pins and needles all over. She felt dreamy, alert, feverish, all at the same time. She wanted to see him again, but at a distance, to observe him without the flurry of blushing he had evoked. To watch and see whether her feelings were the same.
She picked up The Governess once more, touching its smooth leather cover, the sharpness at the corners. As she opened it, her hand swept down the smooth texture of the paper, caressing it. She saw the hard black letters but was too distracted to read. Mrs Teachum and her little female academy seemed a long way away.
Elizabeth let the book rest in her lap. She picked up the fan and slowly fluttered it, felt the movement of air on her face. She smelled oranges, the exotic fragrance of faraway places where the sun shone every day, and in winter the lightest of frosts descended to sweeten the fruit. Elizabeth. Now sequins danced in the breeze of her name.
Though James Cook had asked for Mama and Mr Blackburn, he had noticed Elizabeth in a way that their other friends didn’t, almost as if he’d been calling on her instead.
She heard noise and abruptly got out her embroidery. Fortunately the needle was still threaded, so it would not appear that she’d just started. It could only be Mama and Mr Blackburn returning. But what if James Cook was with them, what if they had invited him back for supper? Elizabeth felt a tingling in her chest, wanting and not wanting it to be so.
‘Becky has left already?’ asked Mama, giving Elizabeth a kiss on her cheek.
Elizabeth could smell the ale on her breath. She watched in case a guest trailed behind Mama, but there was no-one. ‘She didn’t come.’
‘But you had a visitor,’ said Mr Blackburn. Did he say it in a peculiar way? Elizabeth couldn’t tell.
‘Are you ill?’ Mama enquired, putting the back of her hand on her daughter’s cheek. ‘You feel quite hot.’
‘It’s been a warm day,’ Elizabeth replied. She made way for Mr Blackburn, who had deposited himself on the sofa to take off his shoes.
‘Ah, that’s better,’ he said, releasing the odour of his feet into the room. ‘You remember James Cook,’ Mr Blackburn continued, loosening his waistcoat. ‘He lodged with us at Wapping, when he was an apprentice on Mr Walker’s colliers.’
Elizabeth said nothing, head bent over her embroidery. As a child she was often in Essex with the Sheppards during the busy time when seamen lodged at the Bell. Surely she would have remembered if she had seen him before? But James Cook knew who she was, addressed her familiarly as Elizabeth.
As she stitched with the red silk thread she did arithmetic in her head, so much a part of her upbringing that she did it even without Mama’s prompting. She would count almost anything—the number of barrels on a cart, the number of masts she could see from the window. She even counted how many buttons Mr Blackburn had undone on his waistcoat. Four. Now the arithmetic was about James Cook. Making allowances for the weathering effect of sea and wind on his mariner’s face, Elizabeth judged him to be about twenty-seven years of age, fourteen years older than herself.
Perhaps she had missed some conversation because the next thing she knew, Mr Blackburn was saying: ‘He has joined the Navy. I asked him why, of course, seeing as how Mr Walker had offered him captaincy of the Friendship, and you know what he said?’
Elizabeth felt compelled to look up, as if Mr Blackburn was expecting her to know the answer, but he appeared to be talking to the air. ‘He said: “I have a mind to try my fortune that way”. Well, I suppose it’s better to volunteer than to be press-ganged.’
Elizabeth, like all riverside dwellers, knew about the press-gangs. Hired thugs, Mr Blackburn called them, who dragged seamen off lighters and barges, came into the alehouses where they drank and rounded them up when they were the worse for wear. Word spread quickly along the riverside, and those liable for impressment made themselves scarce if they were able. Some dressed as women to avoid the gangs. Sometimes even landmen were impressed. ‘The worst of all,’ said Mr Blackburn, ‘they don’t know the ways of the sea and they don’t want to be there. A ship’s company needs to be tight, you don’t want a landman under your feet in a storm.’
Elizabeth continued with her work, the little cross-stitches forming into squares that would mark the edges of the eventual cushion. Mr Blackburn had now undone the buttons around the knees of his breeches and loosened his stockings. He was at home.
‘Even so,’ Elizabeth heard her mother say, ‘they’ll be looking for able-bodied men, what with the war coming.’
There was much talk of the war, a subject that ran through the riverside community like a rat, not always seen but ever present. England seemed to be perpetually at war with France. Whilst there were not yet battles in the Channel, fighting had already broken out with the French in the colonies, in Canada and in India.
‘It is yet to be declared,’ Elizabeth joined in the conversation, safe now that it was about generalities.
‘War is not an egg and spoon race,’ commented Mr Blackburn. ‘It always starts before it is declared.’ He helped himself to some wine from the decanter on the mantelpiece.
‘There’ll be prize money to be had,’ said Elizabeth’s mother, rubbing a spot on her cheek, ‘if they capture a ship.’
Elizabeth started threading dark green silk, to contrast with the red.
Mr Blackburn was warming to his subject. ‘I’d be volunteering myself if I was a few years younger and didn’t have . . . responsibilities,’ he said, looking fondly at his wife. ‘An able-bodied seaman can earn himself £100, to say nothing of the share what comes to the captain and officers. And I’ll warrant James Cook will be an officer before too long.’ He sounded as if he had picked the winning horse in a race.
Elizabeth studied the cross-stitches. They looked like little kisses.
‘He’s had schooling, he’s a hard worker,’ Mr Blackburn went on. ‘Even though he’s not a gent, with gent’s connections, he’ll be noticed. With his own skills, and a good patron, he will rise quickly in the Navy.’ Mr Blackburn had his legs stretched out in front of him, glass of wine the colour of mulberry juice in hand.
Elizabeth saw the black stain of his tongue when he spoke. She quietly moved her embroidery to avoid possible spills and bent her head to her work, wondering where James Cook was now. Why had he not come back with Mama and Mr Blackburn?
By the time she looked up again, Mr Blackburn was snoring happily on the sofa, Mama having removed his empty glass—though even in sleep, he had a firm grip on it.
After supper, Elizabeth climbed the stairs, undressed and put on her nightgown. She went to the window. It was only four days away from midsummer. Evening light still lingered in the sky, and the streets were busy. She hoped the press-gangs had finished for the day, though night, with the seamen drunk and off-guard, was a good time for them to do their work. Ladies of the town were after seamen too, and a drunken sailor often fell asleep before the deed was done, the ladies helping themselves to the fee nevertheless. Elizabeth watched one wench, a girl not much older than herself, making eyes at a sailor. He touched her breast, drew her close. She laughed saucily, her hands busy in his pockets. She hurried away on finding them empty and disappeared into the crowd.
Elizabeth got into bed. How cool and refreshing the bed linen was against her skin. It was the same bed linen she always slept in but tonight it felt different, almost as if it were waiting for her. She stretched out her arms and her legs, caressing every part of it. Her body seemed to be in motion, like the undulations of the river when a ship passed through. ‘Elizabeth.’ Once again she heard his voice, and took it into her dreams.
‘Careful,’ said Becky, veering Elizabeth away from a puddle on Oxford Street. Elizabeth had not seen James Cook since that day five years earlier but there had been news and that same giddy feeling rippled in Elizabeth every time she heard his name mentioned.
Not long after the official declaration of war in May 1756, Mr Blackburn had come in from the Ship and Crown to announce that James Cook had seen action. ‘His first fight at sea, in the Eagle. They took prisoners but the French ship sank. To think of that prize lying on the bottom of the Bay of Biscay.’ He shook his head at the pity of it.
It must have been a few months later that Mr Blackburn, knocking on his own door because he was too drunk to open it, fell into the house with more news of the Eagle. He had been celebrating and reeled around the parlour. ‘The Eagle put a broadside into the Duc d’Aquitaine. A change of captain, a change of luck. Hugh Palliser’s the new captain, a Yorkshireman like Cook, though a few steps further up the ladder. James Cook got his prize money this time.’ Despite his groggy state, Mr Blackburn was able to describe the battle minutely, as if he’d been there himself. The Eagle had sustained damage—a shot through the foremast and the sails almost rent to rags.
‘Is he safe?’ Elizabeth had found herself asking.
‘Safe? Of course he’s safe,’ said Mr Blackburn. ‘The man’s an oak. It’ll take more than the French to cut him down.’ The last Elizabeth heard of James Cook, he had gone to fight in Canada.
Now Elizabeth and Becky skirted around a lady and gentleman admiring prints in a shop window. A giddy feeling was a world away from the pushing and shoving Elizabeth had witnessed in the darkened doorway. Neither seemed an appropriate basis for marriage. Elizabeth saw from Mama and Mr Blackburn that marriage was a companionable, sober affair, though perhaps in their case, sober wasn’t quite the right word. Elizabeth did not fancy marrying any of the riverside boys who came calling on her. The only possibility was Frederick, son of Reverend George Downing, who lived near the Sheppards in Essex. Frederick was destined for the law. Reverend Downing said that a lawyer in the family was the only one you could trust, all the others were intent on ‘wresting land from its owners and thieves from the gallows’. Elizabeth had known Frederick since she was a child and had let him play with her letter tiles. She could easily see herself setting up house with him. He was companionable, and she loved him as a brother. Perhaps if she married him, she would learn to love him as a husband.
Whoever she married, Elizabeth wanted children. Unlike Mama, she would have more than one and they would not be monsters like Becky’s two young brothers—Elizabeth would see to that. They would be well behaved like Uncle Charles’s two little boys, Isaac and another Charles. She remembered when they were babies, the way they softly smelled of milk when she cuddled them.
Elizabeth’s thoughts of babies were abruptly interrupted by a couple of dandies sauntering along Oxford Street. ‘A fine pair,’ said one of them, veering close to the girls, practically forcing them onto the road. Elizabeth wasn’t sure whether he meant the two of them, or Becky’s bosoms, which wobbl
ed like jellies as she walked. Although Becky knew as well as Elizabeth that such advances were best ignored, she said, ‘For heaven’s sake!’, affecting a disgusted tone and giggling as she would have done at school, not like someone who was about to become a wife and a mother.
Elizabeth directed her closer to the shops, reminding her of the task at hand. Nevertheless, Becky dawdled, looking in every shop window at everything from prints to frivolous hats.
They inched their way towards the glass and crockery shop, sidestepping muddy puddles and the advances of even more young bucks. Finally, Elizabeth and Becky arrived at their destination. Such a dazzling display in the bow windows, with light bouncing off crystal wine glasses and decanters, and cups and plates gleaming. It was all so splendid.
Inside, an Aladdin’s cavern awaited, lit by a magnificent chandelier from the high ceiling. The shop shelves were full of more sparkling glasses and decanters, and sets of crockery. There were pieces from the factories in Limehouse and Bow, as well as imports from China. English and imported alike bore the fashionable Chinese chrysanthemums.
‘I’m going to buy huge glasses that will take a whole bottle of wine to fill. What about you?’ Though Becky whispered, her voice carried to the woman behind the counter. So many of the shopkeepers were women nowadays, with the men away at war. She cast a quick glance at the two young women, on the lookout for shoplifters.
‘A teapot,’ said Elizabeth.
While Becky deliberated, going from one set of glasses to the next, Elizabeth fixed on a beautiful porcelain teapot from China. Its creamy whiteness was decorated with a central band of red diagonal lines filled in with green petals, the band punctuated by red flowers with yellow at their centres and around the edges. Smaller red flowers decorated the spout, which came up on the diagonal from the body of the pot. Near the top of the pot was a band in a more muted red, featuring the same small red flowers, this time with blue and green leaves. Red flowers bloomed on the lid, which had an elegant nob shaped like a thimble.