She paused in her task, and craned to look into the mirror more closely. She turned from side to side, her fingers stroking her white throat.
‘I’m glad now when it comes time to light the candles ‒ I’ve grown afraid of the strong light. I don’t want the sun to shine too brightly because it will show the lines.’ She sighed. ‘I used to love the strong sunshine.’
She leaned back, away from the mirror. ‘I’m thirty-eight years old. That’s not very old, Jane ‒ but it’s too old to find yourself without money, or any prospect of it. And without a husband to find money for you.
‘I wonder if I’ve become foolish with age?’ she added. ‘I don’t even seem to have the judgment about men I used to have. Once I used to pick and choose … I was cautious enough to make certain that he was worth choosing. When it came to parting we did it amiably. My bills were paid, and there was a gift or two thrown in ‒ a necklace or a brooch. I used my head then … and planned. The pity of it is that I didn’t use it enough to save a little of what I had in plenty. When you’re young, you think you can never stop being young.
‘It’s a sorry thing to see a woman being a fool … and when you know it’s your own self being foolish, then it’s worse. I’ve watched myself making mistakes, and go on making the same ones again. I’ve picked the wrong men ‒ or haven’t even picked ‒ just let them happen along. A charming smile and a dash of wit was enough. All I needed at times was someone to make me laugh. A woman in business ought to know that she can’t afford luxuries like laughter. I can’t afford it.
‘Look at Ted O’Neill ‒ he’s another mistake. He’s good company ‒ he’s gay, and has spirit. And he has no money! He’s here in London trying to sell the last of the few acres of bog he’s got left somewhere in Ireland. And he’s barely got the price to take me to supper or to Vauxhall.
‘And yet I keep him round … fool that I am! I don’t know what else to do ‒ I couldn’t stand not having a man around me somewhere.’
She stood up. She was clever with her hands, and the artifice of the cosmetics looked almost natural. What she had said about the candle-light was true; now she looked no different from the woman who had come to The Feathers when Jane was a baby. She stepped into the white gown; her breasts, pushed up by the high tight corset, were almost completely revealed. It was the costume of the fashionable woman of the town, and she wore it to perfection. There was a sensation of anticipation in her movements, a little colour in her cheeks now that the day was finished, and the evening was come again ‒ she would laugh and be gay over supper, and afterwards there was the beckoning prospect of the gaming-tables.
Below they caught the sounds of O’Neill’s arrival, Patrick’s footsteps on the stairs hurrying to announce him. Jane watched the slight half-smile of pleasure widen on Anne’s lips. Everything she had said of herself was true ‒ she couldn’t stand not to have a man about her.
II
Anne’s household settled down to sleep. In the basement, the cook slept heavily in the arms of the stable hand who worked at the tavern four doors down the street; the room reeked of the gin they had drunk together. Above, in his narrow slit of a room that had once been a pantry, Patrick slumbered lightly, his ears ready to catch the first sound of Anne’s return. William lay with his legs curled up to make room for General who slept on the end of his bed.
Jane, with her hair washed and brushed, and wearing a nightgown of Anne’s, sat before her fire struggling with a letter to Sally Cooper. The room was cosy against the chill of the spring night ‒ not a luxurious room like Anne’s, plain curtains and a single rug before the hearth. But she found it oppressed her less than the costly and delicate beauty below ‒ she enjoyed the linen sheets and the good china washset without being frightened by them. Most of all she enjoyed the sense of space and privacy ‒ but all this was impossible to convey to Sally. She sharpened the quill again, and wrote a few more lines on the heavy, expensive paper Anne had given her. The words, written in her open, childish hand, looked stupid and ineffectual, she thought.
Earlier Patrick had brought her a toddy ‒ hot and strongly spiced with rum. She fought against her closing eyelids, and wrote steadily on. It had been Patrick’s last chore of the day ‒ unless of course, Anne called for anything when she returned; he would then be ready, in night-shirt and tasselled cap, to do what she asked. But when he brought Jane’s drink, he had a pleasant feeling of relaxation, and a need to talk. His homely face lightened with pleasure at the sight of Jane.
‘Well ‒ is it writin’ y’ are, now? That’s grand ‒ that’s grand! Master William, now, he’s a great hand with a pen too. Sure, learnin’s a wonderful thing, for them that has it!’
He set the toddy before Jane, and backed reluctantly towards the door. ‘Is there anythin’ else y’ll be needin’, Miss Jane? Sure y’ll not hesitate to call upon me, now, will y’?’
Jane smiled faintly at his anxious and eager expression. ‘Thank you, Patrick. I have everything I want.’ She gestured towards the room. ‘You’ve made me very comfortable here.’
‘Sure, ’tis a pleasure, Miss Jane ‒ ’tis wonderful that y’re here now. Master William ‒ he’s a mite lonely from time to time, poor wee soul. It’s grand that y’ll be company for him. And the mistress, too … maybe you could …’
‘Maybe what, Patrick?’
‘Well … she’s not strong, Miss Jane, as you’ll have noticed. So thin she is, and she’ll take no rest a’tall. An’ as for eatin’ … why the sparrows do better! If you could just persuade her now an’ then t’ take a little more nourishment, t’ sleep a little longer ‒ maybe in the afternoons …’
‘I’ll try, Patrick … I don’t know. My mother’s not a woman who can be told to do things.’
‘An’ don’t I know it, Miss Jane,’ he sighed, with the look of one whose patience has been tried beyond the point of speech. ‘I don’t expect her to listen to an ignorant fella like myself, but I thought if y’ just spoke t’ her, tactful-like. He spoke with a kind of agonized concern.
‘You worry about her a great deal, Patrick …’ Jane said gently.
‘An’ sure, who wouldn’t … the precious soul that she is.’ He looked at her solemnly. ‘I don’t need to tell y’, Miss Jane, that yer mother’s the greatest and the kindest lady ’twill ever be me privilege t’ know. She has the goodness of an angel.’
Jane looked at him silently, her eyes urging him to go on.
‘I have reason enough to remember her goodness … she took me in when I was dyin’, Miss Jane. I came over from Ireland one terrible bad winter … the harvest had been worse than nothin’, and there was terrible hunger through the land. There were too many of us already for the farm t’ feed, so I took the few shillin’ I’d got, and came to try me luck in London. Well, there was I, a raw Irish lad, green from the farm, and it wasn’t long before me money was taken from me, and I was walkin’ the streets hungry, like any other beggar. There was a terrible lot o’ beggars on the streets that winter, Miss Jane. An’ I was ill, too ‒ a lung fever that came on so quickly I didn’t know what hit me. The mistress found me on her doorstep, half dead, one morning when she was returnin’ from a party. Nothin’ would do her but that I must be taken into the house, and a doctor called ‒ in the middle of the night, Miss Jane! ‒ for a poor fella like meself! I tell y’, that woman’s an angel! The best foods I had until I was better ‒ an’ me so weak I couldn’t stand on me two feet for long after that night. I swear to y’ Miss Jane, that I would have been dead by mornin’ if she hadn’t taken me in. I was past knowin’ what was happenin’ to me then, but I knew it later, believe me.’
‘And you’ve stayed with her since?’
‘Could I think of leavin’ her? ‒ specially now when she needs me? I’ve been with her thirteen years ‒ good years and bad ones. I was with her when Lord Hindsley was drowned, and when Master William was born. Oh, her grief over that was somethin’ terrible. If I could have given my life to bring him back I would hav
e done it, Miss Jane. The other servants ‒ they’ve come and gone, but I’ve stayed because she needs me.’
‘You haven’t wanted to marry, Patrick? ‒ to have your own life …’
He looked at her in wonderment. ‘Sure, where among all the dirty trollops about here could there be anyone even a little like the mistress? Sure, it would sicken me stomach to have to look at another woman about me who wasn’t like her ‒ she’s such a lovely lady, Miss Jane.’
‘Yes …’ she said softly. ‘Yes, Patrick, she is.’
He left then, happy and complete because he had been permitted to talk about Anne. Jane went back to her letter thoughtfully. There were so many things to try to tell Sally apart from the bare fact that she was here, with Anne. There was this new side of Anne which Patrick had revealed, the compassionate woman behind the frivolity, the tender mother to William … there was this strange household itself, running on debt, and the whim of the cards. There was also the new experience of Blake’s Reach, of the existence of a family back in Anne’s past. There was too much to tell. In the end she wrote to Sally a self-conscious letter, telling her the details of the trip, and begging for news of Harry Black. She was dissatisfied and unhappy with it as she pressed down the wax with Anne’s seal.
She fell asleep conscious that she was under Anne’s roof. Patrick’s toddy did its work even against the current of excitement which made her restless and wakeful. But she dreamed as she slept, and her dreams were not only of Anne, but of William also. She saw them both, walking by the sea, wrapped in the mists of the dream, and they entered together the house that William had called Blake’s Reach. She herself stood by the gateway, and watched them enter; they didn’t see or notice her, and she knew that she was an observer in the dream, and not part of it.
The grey dawn was breaking over the house tops when she woke briefly to hear Anne’s subdued voice, and the deeper one which belonged to Lord O’Neill. Then she turned over and slept again, quietly this time, and dreamlessly. The noise of London’s early morning began to stir about her.
Four
Jane had to lift her skirts high above the mud. Jerome Taylor had tried to insist on her staying in the carriage until they reached the other side of the square where the arcade was; but, of the London she had so far seen, Covent Garden remained Jane’s favourite place, and she had overridden his objections, and dismissed the hackney carriage, determined this time to walk among the stalls herself. It was her third visit here, and she looked about her, pleased by her growing sense of familiarity. Jerome held her anxiously by the elbow; William walked on her other side, his face bright in the midday sun. She found herself studying the porticoed entrance to the great church, which dominated the square, with interest, and some affection. It was a fine thing to be able to recognize a London landmark.
‘Do you like it, Miss Jane?’ Jerome Taylor murmured close by her ear. ‘It was built by Inigo Jones.’
Jane had never heard of Inigo Jones, but obviously his work was something to admire, so she craned to look at the building through the almost solid masses of people and traffic, of carriages, carts and wagons. Strangely it did not seem at all aloof from the teeming activity surrounding it. She thought it joined with nice harmony into the arcaded shops that formed the side of the square. In the centre of the Garden were the wooden stalls of the vegetable sellers, the fruit sellers, the herb sellers ‒ and overhead the pigeons wheeled and circled in endless monotony, their raucous cries mingled with the rapid voices of the humans who jammed the narrow alleys between the stalls. There was din and confusion ‒ there were more people than Jane had ever seen together at one time. There was the strong odour of rotting food, and sweaty, unwashed bodies, of decaying clothes and grease. There was also the occasional whiff of scented hair pomade as some young man of fashion strolled by; there was the smell of London grit.
Jerome gripped her elbow more firmly as they stepped out into the stream of traffic to cross to the arcade; William also reached up, with an air of protectiveness, to take her other arm. Gradually they worked their way across. The ringing curses of hackney drivers, and the derisive laughter of the barefooted street urchins who dashed almost under their wheels were all about them. Underfoot, the cobbles were slimy with squashed, rotting vegetables and manure. In the arcade were the coffee-houses, the music and print shops, the open doorways where the prostitutes lounged, waiting for clients. Above almost every shop were the bagnios where a couple could remain undisturbed for an afternoon or a night. At the back of the arcade were the crowded lanes and alleys where the brothels and bawdy-houses flourished. It was an evil and noisy place, a hub for the city’s teeming life. Jane’s senses explored it wonderingly.
A tattered woman whose face was both young and old beneath its filthy cap, thrust a bunch of sweet-smelling herbs towards her; a peddler tried to sell her a brilliant blue bird in a cage; the bird was huddled miserably on the perch, shivering. William suddenly pulled his hand free and ran back to the woman. He fumbled in his pocket for a penny, and the woman favoured him with a grin which showed her broken teeth.
‘Gor blessya, luv!’ Her breath reeked of gin.
William gave the herbs to Jane, pleased that he, and not Jerome, had thought of buying them.
They entered The Bedford Coffee House. It was dark inside; and they felt rather than saw the sawdust under their feet. The day’s newspapers were spread on the table they were given. Jane blinked rapidly in the dimness; there was almost as much noise here as in the Garden. Men argued furiously, and in the same breath called amiable greeting to acquaintances across the room. The waiters sped about in dirty aprons. Jane wrinkled her nose a little thinking of how Sally Cooper would have disapproved of the musty atmosphere. But when the chocolate was served it was delicious ‒ sweet, hot, and as thick as syrup. They sipped it contentedly, making some cohesion now out of the din. At the table next to them a thin, middle-aged man sat writing at a steady pace, taking no notice at all of the traffic and the talk surrounding him.
Jerome leaned towards her. ‘It’s probably a pamphlet or gossip-sheet, Miss Jane. They sit in places like this and collect their information.’
There were only two other women in the room. It was too early for the fashionable women of the town. The Covent Garden coffee-houses were the last calls on the long way home to bed. When the more respectable places had closed their doors, the arcade and streets of this district sprang into dubious life. Often liveried coachmen and the carters bringing the early produce to market crossed angry words in the grey dawn. The Bedford was one of the most famous of the shops ‒ the wife of the proprietor ran the largest bawdy-house in the town. Jane knew that Anne came here sometimes to listen to the newest piece of scandal, lingering to read the latest pamphlets which thundered against the Jacobins until the light grew strong over the steeple of St. Peter’s. Jane remembered how often Anne had spoken of The Bedford in the past; it was the place where high life and vice rubbed shoulders with the greatest ease.
Jane turned from her scrutiny of the man at the next table, and began to examine the room again; a low red fire burned in the great hearth. Over the years the smoke from it had blackened the panelled walls, and dimmed the vivid colours of the lewd painting that hung over the mantel. Jane studied the picture ‒ in Hampstead there had never been a painting like this one exhibited in public view. She turned and found Jerome’s eyes on her. He reddened, and looked down at his cup.
She had been in Anne’s house for over four weeks, and March had passed into April. From the first day, the ease and softness of life in Anne’s household fitted Jane like the gowns she had made over for herself. She learned that it was possible to sleep after the sun came up, to expect hot water waiting when she did rise; she put goose grease on her rough hands and watched them grow soft and white, the bruise around her eye had vanished. Jane knew she enjoyed this sense of ease, but it never became wholly real to her; daily she expected it to end.
Jerome Taylor was a part of the new life. F
rom the first day when they had passed each other on the stairs he had invented every kind of excuse to be in her company. She grew used to seeing his eyes follow her ‒ but, without knowing the reason why, he irritated her vaguely. Perhaps it was because she had always imagined a scholar would have no thoughts to spare for women. But he was handsome in a quiet way, and had pleasing manners ‒ and quite obviously he spared time to think of her. She needed friends in this new world, so she smiled on him, and accepted his stammered compliments. In return he gave her a gentle devotion.
The days passed and inevitably she began to grow restless. There was not enough occupation for her energies in the house ‒ the gowns Anne had given her were all renovated, and she had finished all the mending that had piled up. With Patrick’s help, she turned out cupboards all over the house, settling order into their chaos, and at the same time earning the hatred of Anne’s slatternly cook. The time began to pass heavily, because life at The Feathers had never trained her to sit in the white and gold drawing room with a tapestry frame. Anne’s round of activities was ceaseless; she was happy and light-hearted because the luck seemed to be with her and she gaily attributed this change to Jane’s presence. She paid a few of the most pressing debts to get rid of the dunners, and ordered the gown she had admired from Seiker’s ‒ also one for Jane. Jane was pleased by Anne’s good-humour, but a sense of guilt gnawed at her. There was no sign that Harry Black was going to make charges, and she worried less about the danger from that direction. With this gone, the days stretched before her idly.
At last, a little desperate, she went to Anne and suggested that she must find some employment. It would have to be somewhere away from London ‒ Anne’s reputation and her methods of getting money would make a situation in London nearly impossible. Her fine gowns and her hands that grew always softer were no help either. Anne shrugged her shoulders.
Blake's Reach Page 7