I am thinking of my village near Bristol. The old couples sitting out the dances holding hands. Or running their humble smallholdings in mutual respect and liking.
‘Then perhaps we should all have been born commoners,’ Edward says. ‘So we might be happier.’
I smile at this. ‘I do not think you are formed for poverty.’
‘And you neither,’ he observes.
I move a little closer against him. Edward is so easy to be with.
‘It is so nice,’ I say, ‘to have you all to myself in the carriage. I cannot think of a better way to travel.’
The movement of his body against mine suggests I have surprised him.
He hesitates. Then he kisses my hair. As a lover might.
‘And what of our short marriage?’ he murmurs. His voice is thick and dark. ‘Are we all of convenience?’
I smile a little against the warmth of his body.
‘If we are,’ I reply, my eyes drifting closed, ‘then we are the most convenient arrangement that ever was.’
Chapter 28
I awake to the rocking motion of the carriage. Edward is smiling down at me.
‘How long was I asleep?’ I ask.
‘A few hours.’
I shake myself awake.
‘I am sorry,’ I apologise, ‘for I was supposed to be your entertainment.’
‘You were entertaining enough in your slumber,’ he assures me. ‘It is rather charming to watch how deeply you sleep.’
London is already coming into view. I blink, wondering if perhaps I have mistaken it.
‘We are back already?’ I say.
Edward nods.
‘What shall we do this evening?’ I ask, as the stalls and lanterns of King’s Cross twinkle in the dusk light.
‘There are many different entertainments we might be seen at,’ says Edward.
‘You are not tired?’ I ask, thinking he has not slept, while I did.
‘A little.’
‘But still you must go?’
Edward nods again.
‘What of you?’ he asks. ‘Are you not weary? It was a long journey today.’
I shake my head. ‘I have slept. And besides, I am never tired when I am with you.’
I realise I have said more than I meant to. But Edward’s face does not show he has perceived it.
‘Well then,’ he says, sitting up a little, ‘it grows late, but we can have the carriage leave us straight at some entertainment. What shall we do?’
I turn to him, surprised. I was not expecting to be consulted.
‘Surely you must know the delights of the city?’ he presses. ‘We shall go wherever you like.’
I smile at him uncertainly. ‘The truth is,’ I admit, ‘I know hardly anything of London. I stayed mostly inside the house at Mrs Wilkes’s. And in Piccadilly I stay in a few streets where there is likely trade.’
Edward’s eyebrows arch.
‘You do not know much of London? But there is so much to see. There are all kinds of entertainments.’ He takes my hands. ‘Shall we see the exotic animals on the Strand? Or go to a gambling house?’
He seems more animated now and it occurs to me that I afford a rather greater social freedom than a true lady might.
‘Are women allowed in gambling houses?’
He waves his hand in disdain. ‘Money decides the rules. You will see.’
I smile at the thought of visiting a fine gaming house with Edward. Like all street girls I have heard magical rumours of the large houses. That their walls are lined with sweetmeats and fine wines flow freely.
Then I remember. My dress is for daytime.
‘This dress is not suitable for evening,’ I say.
‘Does that concern you?’
‘It does not concern me,’ I say slowly, ‘but others will not like it. If I go to fine places in this dress, I will be chased out as a whore the moment you step away from my side. People will think I do not know how to dress at night. They will think I stole the dress.’
‘I did not realise that,’ he says quietly.
I shrug. ‘It is how things are. I do not mind.’
Edward frowns. Then his face breaks into a smile.
‘I have thought of a fine entertainment,’ he says.
I look at him in smiling puzzlement. I like him in this mood. He seems to have a boyish energy that I did not see before.
‘A place where it matters not what either of us wear,’ he adds.
I look at him waiting for enlightenment.
‘We are going,’ he announces, ‘to a masquerade ball.’
Chapter 29
‘I have always wanted to attend a masquerade,’ I admit, once Edward has given his driver instructions. ‘Is it as wild as they say?’
‘It is a very popular entertainment,’ he says. ‘And many aristocrats are quite brazen in their costumes.’
‘Do their masks offer true concealment?’
‘Yes.’
‘So that is why people might dress however they wish?’ I deduce, imagining anonymity must be a rare treat among the small world of London nobility.
‘That is so,’ says Edward. ‘They dress as anything at all. You will see milkmaids, highwaymen, kings and queens. It is quite a spectacular sight.’
I ponder this.
‘Then I understand why it is so popular,’ I decide.
‘Oh?’ He looks at me questioningly.
‘Aristocrats have so many formal rules,’ I say, remembering how strange I found all the customs at Mrs Wilkes’s. ‘Wearing disguise must be like a freedom.’
Edward laughs softly. His eyes look thoughtful. ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘I suppose it is. Although,’ he adds, ‘society ladies have a way of taking their formality wherever they go.’ He’s looking at me admiringly as he says this.
I squeeze his hand and stare out of the carriage.
This is a rich part of town. I am worrying again and my hand falls to stroke my blue skirt.
‘The masquerade is on Oxford Street?’ I add, repeating what he has already told me. ‘You are sure I will not be chastised for my day dress?’
Edward gently stops the movement.
‘At a masquerade, a girl who looks like you might wear a sack and be celebrated,’ he promises. ‘Everyone is in costume. No one should mind. You will see.’
I smile uncertainly.
‘What of masks?’ I ask, my voice rising in slight panic. ‘We have no masks to wear.’
‘Look out of the window. What do you see there?’
I have been so lost in Edward’s company that I have not been paying attention to the carriage’s bumpy journey over the London mud and cobbles.
I recognise Regent Street from seeing it the first time I arrived in the city. But unlike the wide expanse that receives public coaches in the daytime, the night-time route is decked in red lanterns announcing masquerades.
I peer closer. The streets are full of vendors selling flimsy masks and costumes.
‘They sell masks here?’ I say, turning to Edward in delight and then pressing my nose back to the carriage window. ‘Costumes too!’
Now I am excited. So long as we have costumes and masks, no one will know me for a whore. I could be anyone.
I grin at Edward.
He smiles back, then knocks on the top of the carriage. The vehicle slows to a halt. Almost immediately, vendors swarm towards the door.
Edward opens it and jumps down, but I hang back a little, intimidated by the rush of sales people. This is what gentry folk experience all the time, I realise. When their fine carriages are recognised for the vast wealth they carry.
Edward hands me down into the milieu of shouting voices and I cling close to him.
‘A mask, Your Lordship!’ shouts a gravelly voice. ‘I sell the best. And for the best price!’
‘Come with me, Your Lordship!’ presses another seller, pushing close. One tugs at my dress and I squeal in alarm, pushing tight against Edward. He looks down and his hand fa
lls to the sword at his hip.
Instantly the crowd of vendors shuffles back, though not far enough to give up a possible sale.
Edward’s eyes are on mine and I nod to show I am not frightened. He takes my arm firmly and guides me directly to a small shop, pressed back behind the rows of street stalls.
‘We will buy masks and costumes here,’ he says.
The mask sellers slip away disappointedly, realising Edward already has a place to buy.
I take in the building. It’s a low wooden half-timbered house. The kind London is packed full of. A swinging shop sign shows a picture of a costume and a mask. Edward knocks at the door, then opens it and hands me through.
I step into a musty-smelling paradise of strange garments, masks and veils.
‘It is like a conjurer’s shop,’ I say, as Edward comes in behind me.
‘That it is!’ announces a creaky old voice. ‘A conjurer’s shop, my dear! For lovely creatures such as yourself to cast their spells.’
‘Hello, Peters,’ says Edward, stepping forward to greet the man warmly.
‘Your Lordship,’ says the man, bowing.
‘You must call me Edward,’ he says, pressing the old man’s hand tightly in his.
‘Edward then,’ agrees the man. ‘I knew him since a boy,’ he adds, gesturing the remark at me. ‘You’ll never find a gentler character or a kinder master.’
‘Peters used to work as our tailor,’ says Edward. ‘And for other families nearby.’
‘I was always the Hayses’ tailor,’ says Peters, setting his lip stubbornly. ‘Never did as good work as I did for the Hayses.’
‘And now you are a costumer?’ I ask, surveying his shop. I like the old man.
‘That I am, young miss,’ he says, scrutinising me. ‘Where did you find this lovely girl?’ he asks Edward. ‘I know all the society ladies and she has none of that mean cast about her.’
Edward laughs.
‘Can you find her a costume that will do her beauty justice?’
The old man eyes me thoughtfully. ‘No,’ he decides. ‘Best you clothe her as a nun. Else you will spend your night fighting off other men.’
I laugh at his flattery.
‘There you have it,’ says Edward. ‘A nun, we will dress you as.’ He is trying not to smile.
I shake my head. ‘I should have no fun at all.’
‘Well then,’ says Peters, ‘if it is fun you are after, then perhaps a nymph, or an angel.’ He draws out a very flimsy looking skein of material that hardly resembles a dress.
‘Do you wish to get me killed?’ says Edward, stepping forward and replacing the garment. ‘I will spend the night duelling if she wears that.’
‘A queen then,’ decides Peters. ‘She has a regal nature to her, do you not think?’
‘A queen of olden times?’ suggests Edward. ‘That would mean modest clothing,’ he adds approvingly.
But I am only half listening. I have spied a garment tucked in among a row of silk dresses. I dart forward and pull it out.
‘What of this?’
‘A shepherdess?’ asks Edward.
I nod, holding up the dress delightedly. I know how well it will look. It is not so flimsy as an angel or nymph, but I know it will flatter me.
‘It should remind me of my country origins,’ I say.
‘Very well,’ he says. ‘What costume should I choose?’
I frown thoughtfully. ‘Something very low,’ I say. ‘That is the fun of it, is it not? Lord Hays dressed as an ostler, or a footman. You will find out how the poor people are treated.’
‘That would be very dull,’ protests Edward.
‘Then you must be a shepherd,’ I decide. ‘To match me.’
He smiles at this. ‘Very well. We shall be a country couple together.’
‘It should be very different from your usual smart dress,’ I tease. ‘What should you do without your boots and buttons?’
‘The same as any country shepherd,’ he says. ‘I shall wave my crook around.’
Peters is already rummaging through his clothing and he produces another costume. A shepherd and a shepherdess. Easy garments for a country life.
Edward’s attire consists of rough brown breeches, a matching jerkin and a loose blue tunic to wear over the top. There are a pair of grey wool gaiters and a jaunty brown hat.
‘You will look very handsome,’ I say, looking at the clothes approvingly.
Peters hands me my shepherdess costume – a loose blue bodice splitting into four panels at my waist, a basic matching skirt and a white shift with long loose sleeves.
‘You may dress behind the curtain at the back,’ he says, pointing over my shoulder. ‘Your young lord will not mind dressing in front of me.’
I smile at them and head towards a thick curtain hanging at the end of the small shop. I duck behind it, and see a little stool and an arrangement of dried flowers – obviously Peters’s way of making his dressing area fitting for lords and ladies.
Quickly, I shed my clothes and put on the looser shift, the soft bodice and the skirt. I tie the ribbons at the back, thinking how much more comfortable I feel without the bones of my rigid stays keeping me upright.
I emerge to see Edward and clap my hands to my mouth in delight.
‘You look so … handsome!’ I exclaim, taking in the open shirt and his bare calves.
I walk nearer, taking his shoulders in my hands and turning him this way and that.
‘What a fine shepherd you make,’ I say, marvelling at the transformation.
Edward’s muscular arms and chest are prominent. And without his usual shoes and stockings he seems much younger. In peasant dress, his striking features seem even more captivating. The broad arch of his dark eyebrows and the sculpted height of his cheekbones catch the candlelight.
‘You remind me of a pastoral portrait,’ I say. ‘The kind painters make to show idyllic country life. With impossibly handsome men. Here,’ I add, reaching to pull the ribbon from his brown hair. It falls in a thick curtain around his jaw and I tuck it back over his ears. ‘Now you are truly a shepherd,’ I say.
There is a mischievous glint in Edward’s eye and I realise Peters is looking at us with a sentimental smile.
I take a hasty step away and smooth out my dress.
‘I like you very well as a shepherdess also,’ says Edward, his hand moving to my soft-fitting bodice. ‘Though you will have to stay close at my side. I do not want some jealous man kidnapping you.’
I laugh, remembering when we first met. How he didn’t believe my story of being seduced at a masquerade.
‘I should not be fooled for a second time, My Lord,’ I promise. ‘I can assure you I am most wary of men in masks.’
Peters is manhandling a large mirror and we both turn to see.
For the briefest of moments, I think I am looking at a painting. A country idyll with a happy husband and wife in their farming clothes.
Unexpectedly it gives me a stab of pain. This was once a dream of mine. Long before Mrs Wilkes. Before Kitty and Rose and Belle and Harriet.
It is as though someone is mocking me. Holding up my girlish fantasy now I am a whore.
‘I think I might give up the estate and take to herding sheep,’ announces Edward. ‘If this is how well my wife would look, it should not be such a bad life, should it, Peters?’
Edward looks to include me in the joke. But as he catches my eye, his smile falters.
I realise I have not taken care to hide my feelings. With difficulty I manoeuvre a practised smile into place.
‘We are missing only our flock of sheep,’ I say, laughing lightly. Edward is puzzled for a moment and then his gaze returns to the mirror.
I take in my reflection anew, twisting my thoughts away from memories and into the present.
Without rigid stays and petticoats, the true shape of my body is unavoidably on display. I have never felt so naked. My street girl clothes are designed to show as much of my breasts as possi
ble. But they conceal other aspects of my figure.
In contrast my shepherdess skirt ends mid-calf, showing a great deal of leg, and my feet are bare, adding to the effect of partial dress. I rather like it, I decide, for all the indecency. The costume has a simple loveliness. From a time before women wore wigs and gloves and seven petticoats to fan their skirts out wide.
‘You must have a hat,’ decides Edward, selecting one from a wooden crate on the floor. It is an old style shepherdess hat – far smaller than the one I usually wear and tied with a jaunty blue ribbon.
Edward places it on my head and gently fastens the ribbon in a large bow under my chin.
‘There,’ he says, taking a step back to admire. ‘Now we might see your lovely face, with all those curls around.’
I smile, looking in the mirror uncertainly.
‘I need a mask,’ I say.
‘I had forgotten,’ says Edward. ‘What a shame to cover you up. Might we have two masks?’ he asks Peters. ‘And veils too. We shall go in absolute disguise,’ he adds to me. ‘You will see the fun of it.’
Peters produces two plain black masks, with hanging veils, and we secure them on our faces. Now the pastoral scene in the mirror has turned dark. The shepherds have a devilish look.
‘You see how no one will know you?’ asks Edward.
I nod, taking in my reflection.
‘See how her brown eyes sparkle behind the mask,’ observes Peters, sounding pleased. ‘It is a very pretty shepherdess you have by your side, Lord Hays.’
Ordinarily I might blush at such a compliment. And in a rush I understand why masquerading is such a popular activity. To be so completely disguised is liberating.
‘Are you ready?’ asks Edward, assessing my costume with pleasure. ‘I am going to show you what London entertaining is all about.’
I nod, a slow thrill creeping through me. Tonight, I can be anyone I want to be.
Chapter 30
On Oxford Street two solitary giant torches flame as beacons. The Pantheon rears white against the dancing light. Its many large rectangular windows have thick damask curtains concealing the intrigue of the interior.
Masquerade: Can a street-girl become a lady? Page 14