by Sophie Gee
Petre handed Arabella into the carriage, and gave directions to the cookshop in Chancery Lane. “I hope that I shall one day take you to a most luxurious dinner,” he said, “but I assure you that you will never have one tastier than this.”
Arabella guessed that Lord Petre had chosen a place where they would not run into their acquaintance, though she had heard that other girls dined with young men to whom they were not yet engaged. But usually in little groups, she reflected, and at more reputable establishments. But when she saw the shop she realized that Lord Petre had chosen a perfect end to their day of adventure.
A small crowd was gathered outside when they arrived, chatting as they ate their penny dinners. Lanterns hung from long steel hooks and warmth burst forth from the shop’s ovens to greet passersby. The front counter on the street was packed with a miscellaneous collection of men and women, calling out to each other between their mouthfuls of food. The diners were mostly shopkeepers and tradesmen, or servants with coarse napkins tucked around their necks to save their livery. The crowd stood back as Lord Petre and Arabella stepped down from the carriage. One or two people bowed; there were murmurs of “M’lord,” “M’lady,” and a cheeky “Look out: Quality’s here,” perfectly audible.
Along one wall of the shop a fireplace held five spits of gleaming meat, and there was a wooden counter where the proprietor and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas, labored mightily with hot knives, mustard, and rolls. A boy with sweat gleaming on his pink young forehead stood next to the fire to turn the roasting joints. Between turns, he played with the cookshop dog, whose job was to make sure that the floorboards were kept clean. It seemed likely to Arabella that this was the only surface of which such a claim could be made. The proprietor’s daughter stood sulkily at one end of the counter while Mrs. Thomas directed her to clear the tables of tankards and wooden plates, but she sprang to life each time a male diner walked past with a friendly wink and a “Hello, Poll!”
Arabella smiled at Lord Petre as he led her to the counter.
“What a delightful place!” she said.
“Choose whichever meat you have a fancy for, and Thomas will carve you off the part that you like best,” Lord Petre said. Mr. Thomas stood in front of Arabella with his wig plastered to his forehead, his red cheeks squeezing out beads of sweat as though through the mesh of a sieve. He drew his gleaming knife slowly across a sharpening steel. Instinctively, Arabella took a step backward, but seeing Lord Petre shake him by the hand and give him a shilling, she came forward again, a little chagrined.
“What are the meats today, Thomas?” Lord Petre asked.
Mr. Thomas laid down his steel and gave his forehead a hearty wipe with a cloth that was tucked into his apron. “Beef, mutton; very nice veal, my lord,” he announced proudly. “Our own pork, very tender, and then that’s beef again at the end.” The meat rotated above the fireplace, dripping juices into pans below that fizzed merrily on the flames. The flesh was glossy with basting, crackling along its roasted sides.
“I shall have pork, Thomas,” said Lord Petre, “and veal for the lady,” he added when Arabella had chosen. From the rear of the shop a guest called, “Two more bottles of beer, Poll, and sharpish.”
Lord Petre glanced over at the man. “A regular diner, Thomas?” he asked affably, as the host began to slice the joints.
“Every week, my lord, and always in a new coat.” Lord Petre craned his neck back a little to observe the gentleman’s attire. “Made his money in slaves, so they say,” Mr. Thomas continued. “But he’s always bringing some nasty foreigner in here to spit on my clean floors. Tonight it’s a Frog—last week it was a fat Dutchman who stank of cheese.”
Mrs. Thomas gave her husband a shove to silence him, and called out, “You heard the gentleman, Polly! Peter, mind you watch the fire and don’t be feeding good meat to the dog.” She turned back to her customer. “Yes, Mr. Watkins, what can I do for you today?” she asked with a smile.
Thomas deftly sliced great quantities of flesh onto a wooden salver, sprinkled it with a little salt, and added a spoon of mustard from a large pot. On a separate plate he put four or five bread rolls, warm from the oven, with a wedge of butter.
Polly leaned against the wall near a hogshead of ale, talking to a girl whom Arabella recognized as Molly, the wench from Fowler’s glove shop. Mrs. Thomas looked at the girl resentfully, and Arabella guessed that Molly was a regular visitor, but one whose friendship was not much encouraged. The pair giggled volubly, and whenever a customer called out for more refreshment, broke into fresh laughter. When she turned around to look at a young man who had called out from the other side of the room, Molly’s gown fell open from her petticoat, revealing that she was pregnant.
That was why Mrs. Thomas was unhappy about the girls’ friendship, Arabella thought. Naturally, they would not want their daughter getting into the same sort of trouble. It was strange to think of girls like Polly Thomas having parents—who would decide that Molly Walker was a bad influence, or who would make sure that she did not stay out too late at night. It was more than her own parents did. She supposed that girls from her station were expected to know how to behave on their own. She wondered fleetingly what her maid Betty’s mother and father would be like, but her imaginings were broken off when Lord Petre took her arm to lead her to a table.
Polly sashayed up to them as soon as they were seated, and slung two mugs of ale onto the table. Lord Petre gave her a penny, and she shot a saucy look in Arabella’s direction. Arabella ignored her.
“Eating with fingers—how novel,” she said. “What a charming place this is.”
“Charming because you are here, Arabella,” Lord Petre answered, looking at her with renewed admiration. “It is a wretched enough spot when one dines at noon in company with fellows from the Exchange. But now I shall always think of you sitting here in a blue silk manto gown, eating oiled veal with your fingers and drinking a mug of ale. I shall henceforth be happier in this little corner than anywhere in London, for I have been happy here with you.”
At that moment, Arabella thought that she had never in her life tasted nicer meat, nor drunk sweeter ale, for as she heard this speech, she knew that Lord Petre must be in love with her.
Later, as they left the cookshop, two familiar figures stepped through the door: Charles Jervas and Alexander Pope. They were deep in conversation; Arabella could hear Alexander saying “—but if it runs to a second edition, I shall have to see that booksellers other than Tonson begin to stock it,” and it looked at first as though they would not stop.
But Jervas saw her and called out cheerfully, “Good evening, Miss Fermor! I commend your bravery in visiting such a spot. Barely one woman in a thousand would attempt it, but your courage was well answered, I’ll wager.”
Arabella curtseyed to him, and as she did so, he addressed Lord Petre. “How do you do, my lord?” he said, with a low bow. “Miss Fermor has been well championed in her adventure, I see.”
Alexander had been standing to one side, but he stepped forward and bowed to Lord Petre. “Good evening, my lord,” he said.
“’Tis a shame that we are this moment leaving, for we might have dined together,” Lord Petre replied. But since the shop was crowded, and hungry diners on either side jostled them, Arabella and Lord Petre made their exit.
In the carriage, she said, “If we had to run into our acquaintance this evening, I am glad that it was only them. Mr. Jervas will be discreet, I think, and Alexander Pope will have nobody to tell except my cousins.”
“Well, I do not mind if the whole world knows that I sat in Thomas’s cookshop with Miss Arabella Fermor,” Lord Petre said with a complacent smile. “Everybody who sees you is half in love with you—if I am the lucky man who takes you to dinner, so much the better. You may be sure that little Alexander Pope thinks that you are beautiful. He was probably jealous!” Arabella laughed at the idea.
It was not until he drove home alone later on that Lord Petre reflected on the in
cidents of the day, which served to fix the momentous one—Arabella’s glorious seduction—more firmly in his memory. The scene with the butler and the dung carter, the man calling aloud for beer in the cookshop, and Mr. Thomas’s comment about his companion, “the Frog.” The Frog had looked oddly familiar, though Lord Petre had not been able to place him. And it was strange, too, seeing Molly Walker and Arabella side by side once again. Now he felt a possessive pride in Arabella, and Molly had seemed like a stranger. He felt nothing of the old frisson when Molly caught his eye. Their affair was long in the past—thank God! Molly looked as though she would burst; she must be close to her confinement. He thought about who the father of the child might be. She had been abed with a man named Fitzjames immediately after their own affair was ended; it was probably he. He wondered idly if Douglass was among Molly’s recent bedfellows.
Douglass—of course! That was where he had seen the Frenchman before. He was Douglass’s friend Dupont, the slave trader, the man from the Exchange. He deals in cargo that is as black as cinder, Douglass had said, or some such phrase. And he had been dining with another slaver tonight, the man with many coats. Lord Petre kicked himself that he had not thought of it until now, but it made no difference in any case. He would hardly have introduced Dupont to Arabella, though he could not help but laugh to think of the conversation that would have ensued had he done so. The image made him want to see Arabella again as soon as possible.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Ev’ry eye was fix’d on her alone”
Several weeks passed. March became April, and April early May. The sky rolled off its sodden tarpaulin to reveal the pale blue of spring, a delicate net of high cloud ruffled by the breeze. The grass once more began to breathe; birds darted from twig to twig; the river ran strong and full. Along the edges of the great squares, through the parks, and in the fields and meadows, trees shook out their early leaves, crumpled little rags of tender green. Daffodils bobbed their heads, their ears blown back by the spring air. Blossoms enveloped the trees like overnight snow, hanging crystalline upon the branches, only to fall in heavenly scented drifts that whitened the ground. Windows opened; coats were thrown off precipitously. Deer leapt, cowbells jingled. Summer was on the march.
On a glorious morning in late May when the sun came up bright and warm, St. James’s Park was at last in full, perfect leaf. Its walks were filled with ladies and gentlemen of the court grouped in threes and fours. Stands of women blazed like tulips in their bright silk gowns, lapdogs darted like butterflies, and gentlemen stood as though they were gardeners looking in rapturous admiration at the blooms that their lavish attentions had summoned forth.
Arabella had arranged to walk that morning with the Blount sisters. She had suggested St. James’s Park because Henrietta Oldmixon and Lord and Lady Salisbury were to walk there with Lord Petre, and Martha announced that she and Teresa would meet Alexander and Jervas there, too.
When the girls had been walking for about twenty minutes, Alexander and Jervas appeared from behind a group of trees. Alexander was talking away animatedly, heedless of the fact that they were walking near the low branches of a spreading elm. Jervas turned to avoid them, but Alexander walked on, slipping under the boughs easily, and continuing to chatter brightly to the now absent Jervas. Arabella laughed at the sight.
But she stopped smiling almost immediately, for Alexander had walked straight up to Lord Petre, who approached from the opposite direction with Lord and Lady Castlecomber. Lord Petre wore a suit of cream-colored silk, embroidered with a pattern of crimson tulips—how great a contrast it made with Mr. Pope’s coat, she thought, cut from a blue material that had been briefly in fashion two years before. They bowed to one another: Lord Petre’s elegant swoop; Pope’s awkward little bob. To her disappointment she saw that Henrietta and the Salisburys were nowhere in sight.
As she walked closer she could hear Lord Petre saying to Pope, “I see that you are still in town, sir, with or without your father’s blessing.
“But tell me, Mr. Pope,” Lord Petre continued, “when will you write a poem about your friends? We long to read great verses about ourselves!”
Pope smiled, and swaggered a little, obviously delighted to be considered Lord Petre’s friend. He stumbled out a gallantry in reply, and Arabella almost felt sorry for him. She hoped he realized that the baron was only being charming; of course they would never be more than polite acquaintances.
At this moment Arabella caught Lady Castlecomber’s eye, and Charlotte came to greet her. But when she asked Lady Castlecomber how she did, Arabella thought that she detected a note of superiority in the other’s response, and felt a sudden jealous impulse to say something spiteful.
“I did not see you at Lady Salisbury’s levee last week,” Arabella said. “Was not she once a particular friend of yours?”
“And is so still,” Lady Castlecomber replied with distinct reserve. “But I was with my husband in Ireland. Lord Castlecomber travels a good deal,” she added, and then, “Do you travel often, Miss Fermor?”
“I was at school in Paris for many years,” Arabella replied.
“Ah, then you have not been there recently,” Charlotte countered, smiling as Lord Petre joined the group.
He shot Charlotte a warning glance and offered Arabella his arm.
“What need have we for Paris when we have St. James’s Park in the spring?” he asked, and led Arabella away.
Alexander watched this little exchange with interest. He had wondered why Lord Petre excused himself so quickly from their own conversation—now he understood, and admired the baron for his swift action. For the first time Alexander felt an impulse of sympathy toward Arabella; even she needed to be rescued occasionally. He recalled the expression on her face when they met in the cookshop: until then he had not thought that Arabella Fermor was capable of looking discomposed.
And yet she appeared to have supplanted politics as the focus of Lord Petre’s interest. When Alexander greeted Lord Petre, there had been no trace of the consciousness and anxiety that he had betrayed in the coffeehouse with John Caryll. And though Douglass was in the park this morning, too, Lord Petre seemed to take no notice of him. Alexander felt a moment’s thankfulness to Martha for stopping him telling Teresa about the Petre family’s Jacobite past.
Teresa had positioned herself on the edge of Lord Petre’s circle, obviously hoping to join his conversation with Arabella. But she was left standing alone and Alexander saw her glance around to see if her exclusion had been noticed.
He caught her eye. “Will you take a turn with me along the Lime Walk?” he asked.
She smiled gratefully. “Alexander!” she exclaimed. “I am so pleased to see you.” She was about to take his arm when they heard a gentleman’s voice behind them. Alexander turned to discover Douglass standing not five inches away.
“Come for a walk with me along the lime-tree avenue!” Douglass commanded Teresa.
She hesitated, torn between the two men. Then she saw Arabella glance over from her position beside Lord Petre. The look decided her.
“I thank you, Mr. Douglass,” she said, and took his proffered arm. But suddenly she turned back, pulling away to put a hand on Alexander’s arm. “I am sorry,” she said. “I wanted you to come, but—”
Douglass impatiently drummed his fingers on his thigh.
“Do you mind?” Teresa said to Alexander, but then her face cleared. “Here is Martha just come up!” she said. “Why do not you walk with her?”
Martha looked stricken. “I did not come to ask—” she began, but Alexander cut her off.
“Enough, Patty,” he said, offering her his arm. “The morning is too glorious to waste upon trifles. Will you walk with me to the water garden?”
With a smile divided between resignation and pleasure, Martha took Alexander’s arm.
Between Lord Petre and Arabella, meanwhile, anticipation had been gathering like a heat haze. Already Arabella had noticed other women watching them, curio
sity and envy stamped on their faces. By rescuing her from the exchange with Lady Castlecomber, Lord Petre had declared himself publicly to be her champion.
“I see that our friends have deserted us,” he observed with an ironic smile, as soon as they were out of earshot. “’Tis hard to know whether they are motivated by feelings of malice or kindness. But from what I know of them, I venture to guess that it is the former.”
“Shall we ramble about the park, as they do in Lord Rochester’s poem?” Arabella asked.
“I don’t believe that they were rambling, strictly speaking,” he answered.
“Well, I did not think that we would ramble, strictly speaking.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Shall we walk in the shade of the avenue?”
“There are so many people about; it is like Covent Garden on a Monday morning. The meadows are more…rustic.”
“If we are secluded, my imagination will turn to country pleasures,” he said.
“I have never known any pleasure in the country,” Arabella answered. “I assume, however, that you are making coy reference to the rustic indulgences of nymphs and swains—not to mornings spent visiting the Catholic cousins.”
“Your Catholic cousins are unlikely to approve your wandering in the meadows of St. James’s Park,” he replied. “Indeed we know of at least two of them walking nearby, who would object strenuously to your straying from these familiar paths. Were I a gentleman, I would deliver you safely into their hands, before further mention of rural sports provokes me to run you to ground in plain view.”
The large open meadows around St. James’s Park were used as a pasture for dairy cows. The grazing land extended out beyond Buckingham House toward the village of Chelsea, and north beyond Piccadilly, where the fields of Hyde Park joined the Pasture Grounds above St. James’s. Morning and evening, herds of cows were brought in for milking in the sheds dotted around the pasture, where by day the milkmaids, clad in white aprons and caps, labored to produce pails of milk, packets of butter, cream, and fresh cheese.