by Sophie Gee
Jervas had not been out half an hour when the skies opened again and the streets, barely drained off from the last downpour, filled instantaneously with mud and filth that swirled around the ankles of hapless pedestrians. Looking along the street, Alexander watched while a dustman, shin deep in mud, freed a blockage by pulling a decomposing cat from the street drain and throwing it to the side of the road. At last Jervas rounded the corner, his coat sodden, his wig flattened and leaning to one side, his stockings coated entirely in mud.
“Good God!” Jervas cried, coming in, “I never saw anything like it! A drunkard has vomited over our town and then taken to pissing upon us for good measure. The streets are running in sewage, with water over the ankle. I’ll swear that I had my foot caught around the puddings of a dog while I was crossing Albemarle Street.”
“Jervas, you have dirt even on the back of your cravat,” Pope exclaimed, as his friend removed his dripping surtout.
“Some empty-headed fop, employed in the vain attempt to save his shoes, rammed into me with the tip of a muddy cane that was tucked under his dainty arm. A wedge of cold filth, straight down my back!”
The wet articles were removed, and Jervas mounted the stairs to his bedroom, talking all the while. Alexander followed him, and the footman Hill came behind. They entered into Jervas’s dressing closet, a cozy space where he sat to read when he wanted to be out of the way of his servants and guests. His little collection of erotic paintings, which Alexander remembered having seen on his previous visit, was displayed along one wall. He wondered where Jervas had bought them, reflecting sardonically that it would cause quite a stir in Binfield if he were to attempt a similar display on the walls of his own chamber.
“Will’s coffeehouse is nothing to what it was,” Jervas said, turning his back to his guest while he fussed with his wig in the looking glass. “The coffee is Stygian; Beelzebub himself would send it back. I suggest that we go first to White’s, where we can take a cup without mortal fear.”
While Jervas and Alexander prepared to go out, Arabella was sitting languidly in her bedroom. She had received the usual round of billets-doux from her admirers that morning, men whose habit was to send letters out to all and sundry, hoping that one day the strategy would succeed in springing a mate. Arabella generally enjoyed them as a flattering diversion from the real business of securing her own suitor, but this week the billets had appeared almost malevolent; mockeries of her unattached condition.
For the hundredth time she ran over her conversation with Lord Petre. It had been exquisite but hopelessly brief, and it had given her nothing of substance. She longed to engineer a private meeting between them, but she felt her powerlessness to do so. It would only make her look a fool. As she turned these thoughts over in her mind, the chamber door opened, and Betty entered with a letter.
Arabella instantly recognized the coat of arms on the seal, and her heart gave a leap. Betty was looking at her expectantly, obviously thinking that she would tear it open then and there. But Arabella was determined that nobody should know what she felt. Drawing herself up proudly, she turned away, telling Betty to leave the note upon the dressing table and to help her with the final arrangements of her hair. When Betty had finished, Arabella asked her to take Shock for a walk through the house, instructing her to pay particular attention to his use of the stairs. Only when Betty had left her bedroom did Arabella take up the letter and open it with more alacrity than she had shown to any other task during the last two days.
“My dear Miss Fermor,” Lord Petre began. He recalled the occasion of their meeting at the Exchange, and complimented Arabella’s extraordinary beauty. He lamented that she had not adorned that or any other public place since the night of the masquerade, and he hoped that she would therefore attend the performance of Mr. Handel’s new opera in the Queen’s Theatre at Haymarket the following evening. To this he added, without any further gloss, a pair of lines from Rochester.
With the arrival of Lord Petre’s note, the landscape of Arabella’s social and sentimental universe changed in an instant. She had been invited to Mr. Handel’s Rinaldo by Martha and Teresa, who were going with their dull aunt and their insufferable friend Henry Moore—and until this moment she had not been planning to attend. Now she cast aside the discontent of the last days, and found herself overcome with feelings of excitement and anticipation. And yet for the first time in her life, she was uncertain as to what would be expected of her; how she ought to behave. She was about to embark upon something altogether new, and it gave her a feeling of delicious restlessness.
Arabella could not bear to be indoors, but there was little to do. She could buy something new to wear when she saw him, yet she feared that it might make no impression. She could prepare herself for the meeting tomorrow night, and yet still be taken by surprise. She could not be steady. After a short time, she rang her bell for Betty, and when the maid entered she announced, “There are no more silk stockings in my possession! We must go out to get some the moment that it stops raining.”
As it happened, Betty knew that Miss Fermor was well supplied with stockings, having taken a pair of her best to wear to the tavern and the playhouse earlier in the week. But she knew better than to correct her mistress on matters of dress.
Arabella was attired in a pale blue gown. She had been expecting to spend the day indoors, receiving a visit from old friends of her mother’s, and the dress was unsuitable for wearing out in wet weather. But although it was still threatening rain, she decided not to change her apparel; it seemed now more important than ever to be faultlessly arrayed when she appeared in public. She asked Betty to bring her frieze cape and muff. She knew that it was a terrible choice for rainy weather, when the water would ruin the nap of the fabric. But it was new, and she looked well in it, and she could not resist the temptation it presented to her newly roused spirits.
Taking her umbrella from the servant who opened the front door, Arabella prepared to step onto the street. She saw with dismay that the cobblestones were running two inches deep in muddy water, and realized that she would have to change into patten clogs. Their wooden soles would make her look like a horse when she walked, but she was not likely to meet any acquaintances on the streets of St. James’s this morning. Still, she kept her frieze cape on, just in case she did.
When she had at last struggled up to Piccadilly, she opened the door of the hosier’s shop, looking a great deal less presentable than when she left the house. To her dismay, she discovered that Lady Castlecomber had arrived only a moment before, accompanied by two footmen: one holding an umbrella above her head, the other lifting her skirts from the level of the ground. Like Arabella, she was wearing a cape made of frieze, though hers looked quite a lot nicer on account of having remained dry. Arabella looked around the shop desperately, hoping that she could avoid speaking. Perhaps Lady Castlecomber would not remember her, Arabella caught herself wishing, before realizing that this would be an even more humiliating turn of events. But Arabella checked herself. She had nothing to fear. If there was anxiety in the exchange, it should all be Charlotte’s: What if Arabella, in a fit of spite, were to let Lord Castlecomber know of the affair with Lord Petre? The thought made her smile as she turned to greet her rival.
“Good day, Miss Fermor,” Lady Castlecomber answered. “What a lovely cape you have. Such a shame that its nap got wet. No stuff is worse than frieze in wet weather, though I could not resist it, either. Are you going to Lady Salisbury’s levee? I hope that you will ride there with me.”
“Alas, I have only the shoes that I am wearing,” Arabella said. “Much as it would give me pleasure to accept your invitation, I shall not do so.” She turned away from Charlotte to hide her expression. She had not been invited to the levee, and she knew that the Salisburys were friends of Lord Petre’s. She had seen him speaking to Lady Salisbury at the masquerade.
“I was envious of your pattens the very moment I entered the shop,” replied Lady Castlecomber pleasantly. “They
are the only thing for a day like this.”
Arabella glanced down at Lady Castlecomber’s feet and saw that she was wearing a pair of heeled leather shoes, as unspoiled as her coat. She bit her lip, resenting Betty’s even stare from the doorway, so plainly curious to know the cause for Miss Fermor’s embarrassment.
She walked over to the counter where the most expensive stockings were displayed, but then checked herself. She must wait for Lady Castlecomber to leave. She felt a fool turning over the goods idly, as though she did not know what to buy, but she ought not be seen making an extravagant purchase on the day before so seemingly insignificant an occasion as the opera; it would give the impression that she was angling for a gentleman’s attention. At last Lady Castlecomber said good-bye and quit the shop.
By the time Arabella and Betty left with their package of new stockings, the rain had eased to a drizzle, and they had not gone ten yards down Piccadilly when Charles Luxton, the modestly entailed gentleman with whom she had danced at the ball, drove by in his carriage. Seeing her, Luxton stopped and stepped out of his vehicle into the wet street, insisting on handing her in. He shepherded Betty in behind and then jumped inside, declaring that he would drive Miss Fermor home safely.
No sooner had the door closed upon them than Charles leaned toward her with red-faced eagerness, delighted to see her, and saying that he wanted to speak privately. Arabella, tired out from her morning, moved away from him, a headache beginning to strike at her temples as she pressed back against the carriage side. She had not expected this. She had barely even considered Charles Luxton a suitor—let alone a man on the point of declaring himself. She had danced with him only once at the ball, and she had not seen him for months before that. She could not bear to hear his ardors when she had just been reminded of Lord Petre’s intimacy with Charlotte Castlecomber. But Charles insisted upon speaking. Stammering slightly with unaffected bashfulness, reaching toward her, he told Arabella that he was to become the happiest man alive.
“Miss Fermor—I hardly know how to say it—but I long to tell you!” he breathed. “I can think of nothing else. This morning I applied for permission to marry Miss Emily Eccles, my distant cousin, whom I have admired ardently for many months. And permission has been granted!” His brow, which was damp from the rain, glowed with sincerity and warmth as he spoke, almost causing the windows of the carriage to steam over.
Despite herself, she heard it with a shock. Of course she did not want to marry Charles, but not even to be asked! How entirely she had misunderstood his motives for stopping. She attempted to collect herself so that she might respond properly to the news.
“The person who marries you, Mr. Luxton, must always be sensible of the greatest good fortune,” she said. As she spoke, she remembered that she had met Miss Eccles once or twice in the country the year before. How amusing that Charles had entertained a moment’s doubt of his offer being accepted.
But Charles, who was always so much kinder and more generous than Arabella remembered, said, “When you become acquainted with the lady in question, Miss Fermor, you will see that the good fortune in this matter falls entirely to my share.”
When the carriage arrived in Albemarle Street and stopped outside Arabella’s town house, Luxton sprang down and escorted her to the front door. As he bowed good-bye, and returned smiling to his carriage, Arabella felt a most unexpected twinge of regret. What a strange morning it had been. The elation brought on by Lord Petre’s note—and the humiliation of seeing Charlotte Castlecomber on her way to Lady Salisbury’s levee. It had reminded Arabella once again that her position was precarious, and, for an instant, she wished that kind, good-natured Charles Luxton might have done for herself. To be settled; to be secure. But she knew that it could never have been; even while she watched him return to his carriage, she felt a pricking of amusement to see that he turned his feet out and bobbed his head enthusiastically as he walked. And as she handed the troublesome frieze cape to a footman and instructed him to see what could be done with it, Arabella decided that she was pleased to hear of Luxton’s engagement to Emily Eccles. Had Charles inherited a larger fortune, he could have married very well indeed. But it was nice to know that in spite of his being poorer than he appeared, he had found a woman with whom he believed that he would be happy.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“The wise man’s passion, and the vain man’s toast”
White’s Chocolate House, at the end of St. James’s Street near the palace, was not a place that Alexander would ever visit upon literary business. His acquaintances in the literary world thought of St. James’s as a sink of aristocratic indulgence that would ring devastation upon any traveler who crossed its bourn. They would often speak of the region and its inhabitants with high-minded disdain: “His poems are trifling, and his prose crude. He lives in St. James’s, of course.” Their affectation incited in Alexander something very close to rage against his fellow scribblers. Why could they not acknowledge their envy of the rich and powerful, as the rest of the world was content to do?
Jervas and Alexander entered together and were greeted by two schoolfriends of Jervas’s, Harry Chambers and Tom Breach. Harry invited them to sit down in a pair of empty chairs, moving his muff off one of the seats with a great smile of accommodation. Tom asked if he could fetch Jervas and Pope coffee or chocolate, glancing doubtfully at Alexander as if to inquire whether he had ever heard of either beverage. Jervas said that he would take chocolate; Alexander, bohea.
They were just settled when Harry remarked, “But your wig is still perfectly curled, Charles, in spite of this devilish weather. Surely you did not buy it from Monsieur Duvillier, you extravagant dog!”
Jervas denied it. “Even I do not travel to Paris for my wigs. But I will allow that it is my second of the day,” he confessed. “I was soaked to the skin this morning.”
“This is my second shirt!” Harry sympathized. “I wore fifteen last week, and I would not be at all surprised if it were twenty this time.” He took out his snuffbox and gave it a careless tap; then he lifted the lid. Tom, who had returned with the drinks, looked at him with surprise.
“It is the fashion to tap the snuffbox before opening, Tom,” Harry said with a lazy smile. “I cannot show you here, but if I were to do the same thing at the play, twenty woman would turn toward me upon hearing the sound.”
“Oh, Harry,” Tom replied. “How dedicated a follower of fashion you are. But the gentleman leaning upon the counter has stolen a march on you, for he is already wearing red heels, though it is not the evening.”
Harry gave a grunt of disbelief, and craned his head around to look at the offending shoes. “But you will see that he also has a shoulder knot,” he added with a meaningful glance at Tom; the man in question was an unspeakable vulgarian.
Alexander was pleased that Jervas had brought him to White’s and given him the chance to observe the absurdities of Tom and Harry’s conversation. He wondered whether it might be the sort of thing he could work into a new poem—even Tonson would have to admit that readers would be diverted—everybody liked to read about characters whom they recognized. But how could it be done? When people talked in poems, it was not in the colloquial language of everyday speech; indeed he could not think of a modern poem that concerned itself with daily life at all, least of all to laugh at it. Alexander looked at Jervas sitting and smiling at the pair’s careless banter, giving every appearance of unironic enjoyment. It would never occur to Jervas, of course, to make fun of men like Tom and Harry. His paintings were not satirical; he was far too reverent an admirer of the fashionable world to mock its absurdities. Jervas asked Tom what news there was from the town.
“I called last Wednesday upon my Lady Purchase, but found her not at home,” Tom said with a yawn. “And yet she was standing at the window of the drawing room, looking down upon me quite clearly while the servant spoke.”
“Lady Purchase is at home to visitors only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I am not at all surprised to
hear that she would not see you,” Harry drawled in reply, looking down to smooth his stockings more evenly over his legs. “It is a rule very strictly observed. My Lady Sandwich regards it as such a point of good breeding that on days when she is not officially ‘at home,’ she denies herself to visitors with her own mouth.” He finished with his stockings and leaned back in his chair.
“I can hardly believe that my Lady Sandwich is still able to move her own mouth,” Tom rejoined, “she is so varnished over these days with paint and powder.”
“Tom—do not pretend to be innocent of the devices of women,” Harry bayed in reply. “You are an artist, Charles, and will know how it is done—do not all women wear faces that are painted on in the morning and washed off again at night?”
Jervas knew better than to proffer his own observation, saying instead, “I’d rather hear about your adventures in feminine painting, Harry!”
“Mine are nothing in comparison with my friend Dicconson’s,” Harry replied, still in the same offhand tone of voice. “Do you know him, Charles? Excellent chap; always ready to buy a man a drink. He swears that he never saw his wife’s face until he married her. Her skin is so battered about from makeup that when she wakes in the morning, she scarcely seems young enough to be the mother of the woman he carried to bed the night before.”
Alexander was listening to this conversation, much amused, when Harry suddenly changed course. “Tom,” he exclaimed, “there is an elderly gentleman coming toward us in a waistcoat that must have been made half a century ago. I believe that it is William Wycherley.”
“Wycherley the dramatist?” Tom answered. “Don’t be a fool, Harry. The Country Wife was presented in the theaters forty years ago. He must be dead almost as long as Shakespeare.”