An Almond for a Parrot

by Dray Wray

  ‘Are you determined to vex me?’

  I told her how I had been wed at twelve and to that day had no idea who my husband was.

  ‘Is this another story in a similar vein to that of Mr Crease’s dog?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Both are true.’

  Hope told me to leave her alone so to pass the time I set about making a pack of cards with the letters of the alphabet on them. Shadow, a wig on legs, trotted into the drawing room, sniffed each card then looked up at me as if waiting for a question.

  Kneeling down, I asked, ‘When will Hope be married?’

  Placing a paw on each card he spelled out ‘SIX YEARS’.

  Impossible, I thought. Perhaps my question was too difficult. I tried another. ‘Will Mrs Sitton ever give her consent?’

  The little dog spelled out ‘NO’.

  I was about to ask another question when I heard someone behind me and Mrs Truegood said, ‘Tully, what are you doing?’

  I turned round to see my stepmother looking perplexed.

  ‘I wanted to see how clever Shadow is,’ I said standing up. ‘But his answers are puzzling.’

  Just then, Mr Crease came in and Shadow went straight to him, wagging his tail. Mrs Truegood let out a small scream.

  Her voice no more than a whisper, she said, ‘Crease, what trickery is this? Stop it this instant.’

  ‘I can assure you, madam,’ he said, ‘this is not my doing. I thought I was the only one able to see Shadow. But Tully has a gift. She saw him when she was but a child and again at the wedding breakfast. Even I can’t do what she can. She has the power to make him visible to others.’

  I didn’t understand and I understood less as Mrs Truegood backed towards the door.

  ‘Crease, stop this,’ she said again with more urgency. ‘Whatever conjuring tricks you may have developed, sir, you should not be meddling in the black arts.’

  ‘Madam, do you want me to ask him a question?’ I asked for surely they were making jest of me.

  ‘No!’ She paused and stared at me as if I was a stranger, then said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘When will Mrs Sitton agree to the marriage?’ I asked.

  Shadow spelled out ‘NEVER’.

  Mrs Truegood put her hand over her mouth. ‘Where is Mr Sitton?’ she said slowly to the dog.

  ‘AT SEA,’ he spelled out.

  The door opened, Hope entered and saw Shadow. She let out a most terrible scream and the little dog hid under a chair, while Mr Crease picked up my cards and handed them back to me.

  ‘Go to your chamber, Tully,’ said Mrs Truegood. ‘Stay there until I call for you.’

  She ushered me from the room. I felt wretched for I hadn’t meant to displease her in any way. Whatever I had done, I knew it was serious. That night, Mercy did not come into our bed and I felt I was being punished. Prue brought me a tisane, I drank it, and the bedroom door, for the first time, was locked.

  I woke the following morning with a throbbing head and knew even before I was fully conscious that something was wrong. The house had a quietness to it, the bricks holding themselves tight together, bracing for the storm within and the rain without.

  I went to dress, only to find that all my fine clothes had vanished right down to the last stocking and pin. All that was left was the rag of a dress I had been wearing when Mrs Truegood first came to the house. All calmness left me. I tried to open the door but found it still locked.

  It was noon by St Mary-le-Bow on Cheapside when Cook opened the bedchamber door. The silence was broken by my father bellowing at the top of his voice in the way he had before matrimony had tamed him.

  ‘Cook! More wine, woman!’ he shouted. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘Where’s Mercy? Where is everyone?’ I all but screamed.

  ‘Gone,’ was all she would say. ‘Gone.’

  Chapter Ten

  Tarts, The Common, or Country Fashion

  Take a fresh cream cheese, made the preceding day, or only made five or six hours before; mix a bit of butter and a few eggs with a little salt; make the paste pretty thick, and the top the same; bake it without glazing the top crust or border.

  I could not make head or tail of what had happened and why my stepmother and stepsisters had vanished. Surely Mercy wouldn’t have left me behind?

  Only three of Mrs Truegood’s servants remained and I begged them to tell me where she had gone, but they ignored my pleas. I asked for my clothes back but one of the footmen said my things had not been touched.

  ‘Then where are they?’ I asked and to that there came no answer.

  They gathered together all that belonged to their mistress and departed, taking the yellow canaries too. I decided I would follow them but my father took the precaution of locking all the doors after they’d left.

  ‘Don’t think that you have any sympathy from me,’ he bellowed. ‘You have brought this on yourself.’

  ‘How? Please tell me how?’ I said, but he would not.

  Perhaps, I thought, Mrs Truegood had spied on Mercy and me and been so horrified by what she had seen that she had taken her daughters away.

  I hoped that Cook might have some inkling as to what had passed but she seemed to know nothing.

  ‘And my clothes are gone,’ I said.

  ‘The master had me sell them this morning,’ she said. ‘All hope is gone.’

  ‘And Mercy, too,’ said I.

  ‘Butter and salt,’ she said. ‘Butter and salt.’

  ‘What does that mean? You always say it and it means nothing.’

  ‘Butter and salt in the right proportion means a good life. Too much salt and all is ruined.’

  Like so much of what Cook said, this only possessed a pepper grain of sense and brought little comfort.

  Until Mrs Truegood had arrived, my life had been filled with nothing more than half-formed dreams, but never had I felt as desolate as I did then. The memory of the handsome stranger was now but a patch of blue sky vanishing among thunderous clouds. And the thought that I would never see Mercy again near broke my heart.

  It was not long before the house went to rack and my father to ruin. Cook fell back upon her grubby apron and untidy ways. Even the spit-roast dog had vanished along with all the other conveniences and Cook whiled away the hours turning the spit, roasting and burning the meat in equal measure. Thirsty work, she said, that was only eased by gin.

  Many times I thought of running away but my father took to being my jailer with more vigour than he had ever shown when a merchant in bricks.

  I once read that when Vikings faced defeat in battle they set their ships ablaze. Mr Truegood must have read that too for he seemed determined to cast himself upon the bonfire of bankruptcy. Never one to miss out on pleasures he reinstated the Hawks’ Club. His wayward, sea-salty friends reappeared to help him light the fuse to his inevitable ruin. Like it or not, and I can assure you, sir, I liked it not, I was dragged down into the ashes with him.

  The taste for such luxury as Mrs Truegood had shown me had spoiled me for all else. I had lived less than three months in the light and the rest of my days rolled out before me in a never-ending line of chamber pots filled with my father’s shit.

  Summer crept along, heating up the streets, heating up the house. Everything was stagnant apart from the hornets’ nest in the attic where I had been ordered to sleep with Cook as before. What, I asked myself, would happen if I stood very still in the blue chamber? Would life pass me by altogether until I turned to dust? I missed Mercy. What hurt the most was the thought that I had meant nothing to her. That alone was a splinter in my heart.

  There was no money for meat and vittles, there was no money for wine. There was no money for the removal of the hornets’ nest. Cook and me had to move out of the attic. It had become unusable, filled with the incessant angry whirling of hornets’ wings. It came to symbolise everything that was rotten in our house.

  The merchants soon refused to give my father any more credit. He only minded about the
wine merchant. It was in want of alcohol that he sent Cook to hire some clothes for me so that we might see the wine merchant together. The thought of being out of the house raised my spirits no end and I saw it as a chance of escape. Before leaving I had had the wit to snatch up the book my dancing master had given me. But Mr Truegood kept his hand on my arm with the ferocity of a crab. There being a customer with the wine merchant, we walked back and forth outside shop until Mr Truegood was certain there was no one else inside but the wine merchant.

  ‘Tell him…’ he said as he pushed me at the door, ‘tell him to deliver the wine and you will be the payment.’

  My only hope was that the dancing master’s book might have some currency. The wine merchant sat behind his counter, an owl in an ivy bush, so woolly was his wig. He had the startled look that owls have when light is shone upon them.

  ‘Not another bottle until my bills are paid,’ he said. ‘One way, or another.’

  He eyed my assets, which the ill-fitting gown showed immodestly well. I had a nasty feeling that ‘another’ would have a Mr Smollett approach attached to it, and I put the book on the counter and asked if it would pay a part of the bill. The wine merchant sighed.

  ‘I have prayer books from all the drunks in London. I don’t need more.’

  But he opened the book and stopped. On the front page was an illustration that had arrested me when I first saw it. It showed a woman undone, her pretty breasts all pert, her nipples pointing up to heaven, her legs lusciously parted, and between them was her maid, kissing that most tender spot. It made me sad to remember how Mercy was so expert in this. The wine merchant’s eyes widened and he cleared his throat. Quickly I took the book back.

  ‘Forgive me, sir,’ I said and made to leave. ‘It was foolish to ask.’

  Outside I could see my father, his face red with rage, waving his arms and shooing me back.

  ‘Not so hasty,’ said the wine merchant. ‘If you would show me the book again…’ I could see where this was leading. A customer tried to enter the shop and the wine merchant said firmly that it was closed. ‘I will take the book in lieu of payment this time, Miss er, er…’

  ‘Truegood,’ I said, handing him the book.

  ‘The book and one kiss. But if the old devil runs the bill up again I will take from you the pleasure to be found in… in… this illustration.’ He showed me Plate Three. It was without doubt the dullest of all the illustrations to be found there: a man flattened out on top of his lady, his breeches round his ankles and only a small part of his carrot inside her. He looked in ecstasy; she looked bored.

  I agreed to the wine merchant’s terms. So this was what it was to be a whore.

  ‘Seal the bargain with a kiss,’ he said.

  I had never kissed an owl before but I imagine the wine merchant and an owl might have more in common than either would have expected. I pulled away for want of breath. He still didn’t let go and his hand found its way under my skirt and petticoat and I having nothing on that would stop his hand from further roaming it went straight to the point.

  I eased myself away and left the order for the wine on the counter.

  ‘When he has drunk this,’ said the wine merchant, ‘I will be needing proper payment.’

  I left him smelling the tips of his fingers.

  By the time the wine had run out my father had gambled everything away.

  It was the morning that the grandfather clock was removed that marked the end of my time in Milk Street. I had forgotten all about seeing the small boy trapped inside until Cook mentioned it.

  ‘Do you remember when you saw the boy inside the clock?’

  ‘Did you see him too?’ I asked, for she had never said.

  ‘I don’t know. It was so long ago. Perhaps…’

  Two servants turned up with a cart to take away the grandfather clock. My father, drunk and maudlin, showed them upstairs to where the clock stood.

  ‘Handsome,’ said one of the men.

  The other opened it to take out the pendulum and the weights and he was there, the small boy, curled up, cowering, waiting to be hit.

  I held my peace, my heart beating, then my father said, more to himself than to anyone else, ‘I used to hide in there when I was a lad, to keep out the way of my father’s temper.’ He stopped, moved back in surprise, and was saved from falling over the bannister by one of the men.

  ‘Careful now, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Did you see that?’ my father asked. ‘Did you see that?’

  I had seen.

  ‘See what?’ said the other man.

  My father looked at me. ‘Did you see?’ he said. ‘Did you see the boy?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I did.’

  ‘It was me,’ shouted my father. ‘It was me – Samuel. Me…’

  His eyes filled with tears.

  Now, wouldn’t that make a rounded tale, sir, if finally my father had become regretful of how he had treated his one and only child? Perhaps in a pantomime such tales run round that way. Not in this one, I assure you.

  Chapter Eleven

  Fowls in a Plain Way

  Prepare the fowl for roasting and make a sauce with the liver, parsley, shallots, a bit of butter, pepper, salt and a little basil; stuff the fowl with it, and roast it wrapped in slices of lard and paper. When three parts done, take off the paper and lard-baste it all over with yolks of eggs beat up with melted butter, sprinkle crumbs of bread over it, in abundance, and finish the fowl to a fine yellow colour. Make a sauce with a bit of butter, one chopped anchovy, a few capers, a little flour, two spoonfuls of broth, nutmeg, pepper and salt; form a liaison like a white sauce and serve it under the fowl.

  That evening, Mr Truegood held the last of his parties. He had been drinking his sorrows away most of the afternoon and by the time his gambling companions arrived, whatever rational thoughts his head might have possessed had long been pickled.

  He shouted down to the kitchen that I was to serve his guests tonight and, if I didn’t, then the dress, the stockings and the rest of the clothes he had hired for me would be returned to Mrs Phelps’ shop. I knew well that come high tide tomorrow they would be gone anyway. When the bailiffs arrived to take Mr Truegood to the sponging house, at least Mrs Phelps’ clothes would be returned in a better state than I had found them. I had spent a great deal of time cleaning and mending the dress. The lace edging being good for nothing but cobwebs I had carefully removed it and wore the dress plain. The stomacher I laced tight causing my bosom to be pushed up high.

  I had never before had to serve my father. It had always been Cook’s job, and mine was to clean up after him. Now I seemed to have inherited both ends of the leaky old donkey. If Cook had been conscious it might have helped, but she was out cold by the fire, a tumbler of gin beside her.

  ‘Tonight,’ declared Mr Truegood, ‘I will win it all back – every penny.’

  ‘Perhaps, sir,’ I said, ‘it would be best to leave off the cards.’

  ‘Who are you to tell me what to do?’

  Seeing he was set to gamble away what little was left of nothing, I said no more.

  The ragtag members of the Hawks’ Club turned up and sat crouched over their cards with such expression as if their very life would be judged by a winning or losing hand.

  ‘He is late,’ said a card player.

  ‘He will be here,’ said my father.

  I went to the kitchen for more wine and brought up as well a board of ripe cheese that I had picked two maggots from, and bread on the cusp of turning green. Candles are a luxury that the bankrupt can ill afford and therefore the chamber had more of the dark about it than the light. So dark it was in fact that I did not at first see the newcomer seated at the card table. His clothes showed that he was a dandy and spoke of wealth that shone bauble-bright.

  My father had started well and won ten guineas but, being born a fool, was determined to stay true to his origins and with the next hand lost all he had gained.

  ‘Come, I will pl
ay again,’ said my father.

  ‘With what, sir?’ said the dandy. ‘It appears to me you have nothing left to gamble with.’

  ‘I have that, sir,’ said Mr Truegood, pointing at me. ‘Thirty guineas is the rate for a virgin and she has never been touched.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Pox free, I promise you.’

  ‘If she is a virgin that goes without saying,’ said the young rake.

  I thought this is how slaves must feel when they are brought to the market. My would-be seducer never once looked in my direction but with a shrug of his shoulders he agreed.

  I didn’t want to stay and watch my fate being decided by such a hopeless gambler as Mr Truegood and was edging towards the door when he growled, ‘Stay where you are.’

  The other gamblers became quiet when Mr Truegood lost his bet and with it his daughter. He rose, unsteady on his feet, and stood near the fire staring at the coals.

  ‘Take her,’ he said. ‘But thirty guineas doesn’t include her clothes. I will need twenty-six pounds for them. Are you willing to pay extra?’

  ‘No,’ said the rake. ‘The bet was Miss Truegood’s virginity, not her clothes.’

  ‘Leave them upstairs,’ said my father to me.

  ‘But what am I to wear?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘You won’t be needing them.’

  I turned to the rake to see if he had any opinion on my garments. He said nothing.

  My father’s friends sat round the gaming table studying their wine glasses as my father rejoined them.

  ‘Go and change,’ he said. ‘Make haste. I’m sure the young gentleman doesn’t have all night.’

  I stayed where I was, aware of the anger that was growing in me, and stared at Mr Truegood. If he wanted his clothes he could have them here and now. I started to undress.

  ‘What are you doing, girl?’ he said, looking at me in horror as I unlaced my stomacher, took off my dress, my petticoat and my chemise, letting each item fall to the floor. ‘Have you no modesty?’

  ‘Have you no morals?’ I replied. ‘If you are willing to gamble away my maidenhead, what use, sir, is modesty to me?’