by Dray Wray
Not addressing me, he said to Mr Merritt, ‘That is his lordship’s carriage, is it not?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Mr Merritt.
‘Then what is it doing outside? Did I order a carriage? I did not.’
‘It is for Miss Truegood, sir,’ said Mr Merritt.
‘That woman is quite capable of going by stagecoach,’ said Mr Ainsley, still ignoring me. ‘It is far more appropriate to her station. Send the carriage back to the stables.’
In exactly the same tone as he always spoke, his voice never rising or falling, his temper never wavering, Mr Merritt said, ‘Until Mr Attaway has read his lordship’s will, all the arrangements that were put in place before his lordship’s death will be carried out to the letter.’
‘Are you disobeying my orders?’ asked Mr Ainsley, his lips pinched tight together, giving him the appearance of a rather ugly girl. He stamped his foot. ‘You had better watch your step, Merritt.’
Seeing that Mr Merritt was unmoved by his threat, Mr Ainsley turned so red that I thought he might well burst.
‘Witch,’ he hissed at me. ‘You should be burned.’
Mr Merritt took no notice and walked me to the coach, while from the safety of the house, Mr Ainsley shouted again, and louder, ‘Witch!’
‘I am sorry that he will be your new master, Mr Merritt,’ I said. ‘I think you would have fared better if Lord B had left his estate to his dogs.’
‘My lady,’ said Mr Merritt, bowing deeply, ‘it has been a pleasure to know you.’
Biting on the inside of my cheek so as not to cry I was relieved when, with a jolt, we set off.
I suppose it was a dangerous undertaking, maybe even foolhardy, to travel with so much jewellery and money on my person. I should have been far more concerned than I was, but perhaps not caring a jot was, ironically, my greatest weapon for we were indeed stopped upon the King’s Highway. It was approaching nine o’clock when the coach ran into trouble and the wheels became stuck firm in the mud. The footman helped me from the carriage and I stood on the side of the windswept highway while by the light of the postilions’ lanterns, he and the coachman pulled the wheels free. I was so lost in my own thoughts that I was totally unaware of a horseman coming up alongside us. Only when I saw the rider did I realise we were in danger. He wore a three-cornered hat, a kerchief across his nose and mouth and held a pistol.
‘Take down the trunks,’ said the highwayman.
‘No,’ I said, emphatically. ‘No.’
‘Madam, I advise you to keep quiet if you want to live.’
‘The trouble is,’ I said, ‘I’m not sure that I do. But I am positive that you will not take one shoe buckle from me while I am alive.’
The highwayman waved me aside with his pistol and again ordered the footman to take down the luggage.
‘Leave it where it is,’ I said and moved in front of the coachman, standing so that the highwayman would be forced to shoot me before anyone else.
‘Madam,’ pleaded the footman, ‘he will kill us all if we don’t do what he says.’
The highwayman hadn’t yet dismounted, which I, knowing nothing about these robberies, took to be a good sign. I could see that I was proving something of a conundrum for he appeared uncertain how to proceed. I can well imagine that he didn’t often encounter such determined resistance as mine – for I meant every word I said.
‘Your ring, madam,’ he said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘The same principle applies: you will have to shoot me first. There’s no other way you’re going to have it or anything else of mine.’
The highwayman laughed.
I took that as a cue to make our exit. ‘Is the carriage ready?’ I asked the shaking coachman.
The poor man looked as if he was about to piss himself. ‘Yes, my lady.’
‘Then take your position for we are leaving.’
‘If you move I will fire,’ said the highwayman.
‘Then I have the measure of you, sir,’ I said, turning my back on him, ‘for it shows you to be a complete coward. If you are to kill me, do it face to face.’
I climbed unaided into the coach and called to the coachman, ‘Drive on.’
Suffice to say we were not shot at and the highwayman did not come after us. I thought it best to find an inn for the night so that everyone might recover their wits. It had begun to rain when we reached the next staging post. Another carriage stood in the courtyard. We entered to find that all the rooms had been taken by a French lady and her daughter, who were in the back parlour with a constable for they too had met with a highwayman. I left my coachman and went into the parlour in the hope that I might persuade the French lady to relinquish one of the chambers for my use.
She was a small, birdlike woman. Her clothes were in a sorry state and her face was caked in mud. In her hand she held her false curls; the young lady with her was clutching a rosary. She was deathly pale and her gown was torn.
‘We were robbed. I lost everything – and my curls – look what the monster did,’ said the French lady shaking her false hair at the constable. ‘We were in fear of our lives.’
As she said most of this in French, the poor man understood very little.
‘Please, madam, speak more slowly – and in English,’ he said.
‘We were in fear of our lives, mon dieu.’ Turning to her daughter she said, ‘This is a terrible country. We should not have gone to Bath – it is a dirty, provincial place with houses that look like hospitals. Even the baths themselves were dirty – like the English. This is a country of barbarians.’
She stopped when she saw me, and I curtsied and asked her in French to explain what had befallen them. It seemed that the same highwayman we had encountered had collected a fair prize from this lady.
‘We were robbed of everything, everything I tell you. I have nothing left.’
‘Then, madam,’ I asked, ‘how do you intend to pay for all the chambers you have taken?’
The poor woman hadn’t thought of that and it set off another bout of protesting that she wanted to be home, away from these savages.
‘Maman,’ said her daughter, ‘calm yourself.’
At least she possessed some manners, which her mother was most decidedly lacking.
The innkeeper burst into the parlour. ‘Is it true, madam,’ he said to me, ‘that you too were attacked on the highway?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘And everything taken?’ asked the lady.
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘Nothing?’ she said, outraged. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Whether you believe me or not, I need a chamber for the night and have the means to pay for it. As you have nothing, I’m afraid you will have to rely on my charity.’
Every inch of her bristled. I could see she was a woman who was rarely defeated. Her daughter was still fingering her rosary and muttering Hail Marys. I was too exhausted to be bothered further with their drama. They struck me as tiresome women.
The next morning, I breakfasted, settled my bill and that of the French ladies and, as soon as it was light, set off again. As we journeyed towards London on that sad October day, I had time to contemplate all that had passed and all that lay ahead. I had enough money to be independent of Queenie and the notion of renting rooms in St James’s had a certain charm. I may well have been tempted if it hadn’t been for the spectre of my ne’er-do-well husband, Captain Spiggot, who cast a long shadow over any hope of freedom.
London has a stench to it that floods the senses the minute you arrive; a perfume of which only those born in this cesspit of a city have any fond remembrances. A cold, autumnal nip was in the air and the mellow mist that journeyed with us from the countryside had, by the time we reached the metropolis, gathered itself into a grey, foggy veil, shrouding the city into a half-forgotten thing.
I arrived at the fairy house, having first deposited my jewels with Mr Little of Coutts in the Strand. With the departing of the coach the last ribbon that connected me to Lord B had be
en severed.
Writing of Lord B has brought on a great melancholy in me. I regret much that I never told him I loved him, for in my naivety I thought then that the heart could love only once. I see now that I have loved three people: none of the loves were the same and each is held in a different chamber of my heart. Mercy, Lord B. In the largest and least furnished chamber by far is the love I have for you. It has little more in it than a bed. How strange to have given you the lion’s share of my heart when you have done so little to deserve it and I know so little of you.
Chapter Forty
So, with the death of Lord B, a new chapter of my life began.
Queenie was in the rookery with Mr Crease when I arrived at the fairy house and, seeing me, they rose as one. Mr Crease bowed, the striped fabric of his coat swirling about him. He closed his eyes so that his painted ones might see me all the better.
‘What was I telling you?’ he said to Queenie. ‘And I was right.’ I could only suppose that I had been a topic of conversation. Not bothering to explain the meaning of the sentence he carried on, ‘You look remarkable, Tully: your complexion, your style, have a wit and gravitas that is much to be admired.’
All the while, Queenie was summing up my assets and, finding that they amounted to a lot more than they had done when I left, came to greet me.
‘And I told you,’ she said to Mr Crease, ‘that Tully Truegood was going to be a beauty and I was right.’ She paused a moment as if she had just seen a speck of dust in my eye that worried her. ‘You haven’t become puritanical in your grief, have you?’
There it was again: the old harsh Queenie, the voice that brokered no arguments. This was a whorehouse and I would be a fool to forget it.
‘My circumstances wouldn’t allow me to,’ I said.
She waved her hand as if brushing such unpleasant thoughts aside, and said, ‘Lord Barbeau never bothered to teach Kitty Lay anything as far as I can tell. She remains, alas, as empty-headed as a bird’s nest. You must have meant a lot to him.’
I nodded and said, ‘I loved him, too.’
Queenie put her arms about me and kissed me on the cheek. ‘A diamond in your heart, that’s what his memory will be, to give you courage whenever you need it.’
I looked over her shoulder to where Pretty Poppet stood and thought that the girl was like a shard of glass in Queenie’s heart, jagged and relentless.
Queenie returned to the safety of her chair, in fear, no doubt, that another uncontrolled emotion might inconveniently slip from her.
‘You haven’t come back a day too soon,’ she said. ‘Not a day. Bethany has as good as meddled with a hornets’ nest and now we have a swarm buzzing about our ears.’
‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘what are you talking about?’
‘My love,’ said Mr Crease to Queenie, ‘Tully knows nothing of this scandalous contest. But used to our advantage, it could bring about a meteoric rise in the career of a certain beauty that is standing before us. I hear the jingle-jangle of coins. Money, Mrs Gibbs, the shit of life.’
‘Enough of this nonsense,’ I said. ‘Kindly explain yourselves.’
Mr Crease laughed. ‘Listen to that, madam. There is the voice of authority where before there was only the bleating of a lamb.’
‘Oh, be still,’ said Queenie and sighed. ‘Let me explain. Bethany, in what I can only suppose was misplaced wisdom, told her spark, a dull man by the name of Mr Spencer, that Mrs Coker had given you a pearl hand. Mr Spencer has a great weakness for gambling and he immediately bet Bethany five hundred pounds that Kitty’s was still the only hand in the business worth mentioning. Like a complete idiot, Bethany took him up on the gamble. She can ill afford to lose five hundred pounds and I can ill afford unwanted tittle-tattle. Nevertheless, it was agreed that the contest would be held the day after you returned, when the thing could be proven once and for all.’
I laughed. ‘And how are we to prove this?’
‘Kitty has set down that the number of strokes necessary to bring a man to that delicate point is fifteen. If you have a pearl hand, you should be able to make a man reach the same melting moment just by resting it on his truncheon. And that is all you will be allowed to do.’
‘Oh, feathers and dust,’ I said. ‘That’s near on imp – ’ I saw the look on Mr Crease’s face and stopped. ‘I have never managed such a thing. Cannot this folly be put off a little longer?’
‘I think not,’ said Mr Crease. ‘The sooner this business is out of the way the better. I suggest tomorrow night.’
It made me smile to think what Lord B would say to such idiocy.
‘Nous nageons dans un flot futile,’ I said.
‘French!’ said Queenie. ‘You speak French?’
‘Un peu,’ I said.
That first night in the fairy house, Hope and Mercy were both away and Bethany, knowing the trouble she was in, contrived to be absent when she heard I was back. I wondered how I might prepare for such foolishness and in the end decided to concentrate on my looks, for they would play the greater part in this exercise. Signor Florentini spent near the entire afternoon attending to every little hair and, when finally I was dressed, Queenie came to give her opinion on my appearance.
‘Most à la mode,’ she said. ‘Though is not the kerchief unnecessarily modest?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Tully, we are not in Bath. This,’ said Queenie, taking it away so that my nipples were on display, ‘is far more what the occasion requires.’
My maid declared that the gentleman’s heart would melt.
‘I hope not just his heart,’ said Queenie, dismissing her.
I looked in the glass and added some powder to my neck and breasts.
‘There is, my beauty,’ said Queenie, ‘a rather special visitor here tonight for the first time. He heard of you in Bath and has a great desire to meet you.’
Sensing that I was not overjoyed at the prospect, she added, ‘He has the way, withal, to elevate you in the world.’
For the purposes of my narrative, this gentleman will be known only as the Duke of H, for he was related to the royal family and the last thing anyone would want is that they be brought into this scandalous affair.
I had a feeling that Queenie had already negotiated my services. She patted my hand. ‘Of course, Tully, you will meet him first and then make your decision. But I must remind you that without a protector you are far more vulnerable to the attentions of Captain Spiggot.’
The drawing room was to be used for the contest and a small stage had been constructed so that everyone there would be able to judge the competition for themselves.
I told Mr Pouch to call for me after Kitty had arrived.
By nine o’clock there was quite a crowd and the atmosphere was most jolly. I watched, unseen, from an anteroom as champagne flowed, much to the delight of Queenie’s regular guests and those who were there for the first time. There was a carnival atmosphere about the place – I had almost forgotten how lush and loose these soirées were. Voices rose and fell then swirled again on a wave of wit and a splash of drink. The discussion centred on who the two gentlemen should be and those who supported Bethany strongly disputed that either of the participants should ever have enjoyed Kitty’s services.
‘That doesn’t leave us much choice,’ said one gentleman. ‘Who here hasn’t known that wondrous hand of hers?’
Finally, two gentlemen stepped forth. Both swore on the Harris List that they had never had the privilege of knowing Kitty’s palm. There was a general agreement that the two libertines were good for the sport and both were more than willing for their appendages to be used to settle this most unusual of bets.
‘The one to the left,’ whispered Queenie to me, ‘is the Duke of H.’
He was about five and thirty, with babyish features that age would not be kind to. In truth, I was not taken with the Duke of H, and I doubted that I ever would be.
Kitty was already on the stage, dressed in a garish costume and with too muc
h rouge upon her cheeks. She lifted a glass of champagne high and then drank to the company. There was no doubt that the gamblers in the room had already decided the winner was a foregone conclusion.
‘This,’ she said, waving her hand, ‘as many a gentleman here could testify, is my speciality, and any of you who are fool enough to believe that a cheap actress is able to endow a tart with a pearl hand is a real lobcock.’
There was raucous laughter and I wished that there was no need for this trite piece of theatre.
Mr Crease, who was acting as Master of Ceremonies announced, ‘The one and only Miss Tully Truegood,’ and it was then that I made my entrance. Kitty stared at me aghast. ‘You are Tully?’ she said.
Everyone had turned round and Hope, seeing me for the first time in a year, rushed up and gave me a kiss.
‘Oh, my ninny-not – look at you!’
Mercy led the clapping as I took my place on the stage.
The two volunteers came up and were greeted by whooping and cheers.
Mr Crease put a screen between the two gentlemen so neither would receive any additional stimulation. He banged a gong, the gentleman on the right undid his breeches, his weapon already hard, well inflamed by the thought of what was to come. Kitty, with a pride that had to be admired, went vigorously to work. After what I took to be fifteen strokes, there was a sigh, and Mr Crease announced, to more cheers, that the point been achieved. Kitty stood and announced herself the winner, but Mr Crease declared that I was yet to play my part.
While Kitty had been employing her overused hand, I had taken the opportunity to look my gentleman in the eye. He was no more handsome close to than he was from a distance, puffy of skin, with more than a glimmer of arrogance about him, and I could see that he did not believe in such a thing as a pearl hand. He undid his breeches, seemingly proud of the fact that his weapon had not been so easily moved. The more I looked at him, the more I knew I had him, all of him. I saw him rising, could feel his cock yearning to be touched, just once. Still I kept my eyes locked upon him until the laughter had gone from them and something more animal, more essential had taken its place, and I knew he could not hold out any longer. It was then that I rested my hand upon that quivering engine. He let out a gasp of surprise and an arc of fluid that proved more sufficiently than anything else who the outright winner was.