Too Great a Lady

by Amanda Elyot

  “Well, as I say, I don’t begrudge it. Lud knows, it’s better than working your body to the bone in someone’s scullery or becoming a factory girl and turning into an old woman afore you’re twenty.” She glanced about before clasping my hands in hers. “Something terrible ’as ’appened, Emily. Last week your cousin Thomas—my sister Betty’s boy, I know you’ve never met ’im but ’e’s kin all the same—was taken by one of them press-gangs. Clocked on the head as ’e left a tavern outside Deal. It’s the war over in the colonies that’s to blame for all of it. A man’s afraid to stir out of ’is own ’ouse nowadays, for fear ’e’ll get ’imself pressed. Betty’s in a dreadful state. I wouldna moidered you about it, but seeing ’ow you know so many fine gentlemen these days, Betty and I was ’opin’ you could put a word in the proper ear and get young Thomas released. ’E’s only fourteen, gal, same as you. What right ’as ’Is Majesty to go about kidnapping young boys, I ask you?”

  “You told Aunt Betty I was a ‘nun’?” Suddenly I felt dirty, soiled by my present state.

  Mam looked pained. “I didn’t say as much right out, y’nau? I said you’d been lately introduced to a number of men of quality . . . and I conna say what she took from that.”

  I promised to think on how to help my cousin, but the truth of it was, I hadn’t a clue where to go or how to proceed. “Don’t go sending word to Aunt Betty just yet,” I cautioned Mam. “You know ’ow I ’ate to disappoint.”

  “You’re a good girl, Emily,” she said, taking a last look at my finery. With maternal concern she added, “And all I can say is that I do ’ope you’ve been disappointing all them beaux you’ve been entertaining!”

  Five

  A Bluejacket at Whitehall

  I resolved to begin my quest with a visit to the Admiralty.

  Whitehall was an easy walk from Arlington Street, and I departed unremarked from Mrs. Kelly’s, wending my way past the Spring Gardens Mews, taking the utmost care that the dust from the narrow, tree-lined lane would not mar my frock and slippers. But the three-storied Admiralty building, with its complement of sashed windows like so many watchful eyes, possessed a forbidding authority that nearly made me turn back from my purpose. Braving a nasty look from the poor man in the pillory, I took my fear in hand and crossed the way, striding through the entry between the imposing row of columns that shielded the raked cobblestone courtyard from the street. Venturing inside, I arrived in a black-and-white-tiled foyer. At least it provided a welcome respite from the stifling July heat.

  The place was silent as a tomb, except for a cacophony of discontented voices emanating from behind an open door; it was shut suddenly with such force that the sound reverberated through the empty corridor. Dashing past the glazed door of that crowded and smoky waiting room, I scuttled up a narrow marble staircase. Reaching the first-floor landing, I glanced down the corridor. Every door was closed and looked the same: polished oak with a brass handle. Each was unmarked and anonymous. There was no way of knowing whether the person behind it could entertain my plea.

  Daylight shone from a doorway nearly opposite me. Hoping to locate a friendly and sympathetic ear, I banished my trepidation and boldly approached it. A man in a blue-and-white naval uniform smoking a long clay pipe stood rapt in thought, his back to the door as he gazed out the window toward the verdant expanse of St. James’s Park. His powdered hair was worn long, in the sailor’s queue, and tied at the back with a length of black ribbon.

  “May I inquire ’oom I might be addressing?” I said, my words piercing the tranquillity.

  Startled, the man spun around to face me. “Captain Jack Willett Payne’s the name,” he answered reflexively, adding, “Damme, girl, you scared the bloody shit out of me!”

  It didn’t require half a year at Arlington Street for me to appreciate that I was not speaking to a gentleman. It was plain as an un-buttered bun. The man was relatively young, the south side of thirty for certain; no paragon, but pleasant enough to gaze on, although he displayed the early signs of dissipation: a ruddy countenance, a nose that betrayed a penchant for tippling—and though he was by no means portly, he’d begun to run to fat.

  “How the devil did you get in here?” He crossed the width of the room to brush past me at the doorsill and cast a glimpse down the hallway. “Deuce take it! Not a man at his post. I don’t suppose you saw any porters on your way up here.”

  “I saw no one, your lordship.”

  “Capital! Then no one will see you leave!” As he gripped my elbow to escort me away, his eyes strayed to my bosom, only partly obscured by the organza fichu.

  I seized my opportunity. “Sir, my name is Emily Lyon and I come about my cousin Thomas Kidd.”

  “What about him?”

  “Let me step inside and tell you. Please, sir. I won’t be taking too much of your time.”

  The captain stole another glance down the length of the corridor before waving me into the room, locking the door behind us. “Sit down, Miss Lyon.”

  I perched on the edge of a chair, overwhelmed at first by the grandeur of the room. The walls were polished oak from top to toe, with a high coffered ceiling, while richly carved cherubs cavorted about the fireplace amid nautical paraphernalia; the carved sextants and compasses looked so authentic, I wondered if they might actually work. Surely there were churches that weren’t half so magnificent.

  Recovering my wits, I recounted the particulars Mam had related to me in Kensington Gardens, then threw myself on his mercy.

  Captain Willett Payne sucked his teeth and looked studious. “Accepted the king’s shilling, did he? Where are you from, girl?”

  “Flintshire, sir. But my cousin was taken in Deal, where my aunt Betty lives now. I’m certain ’e wouldn’t’ve downed that pint of beer if ’e’d known ’e was being tricked. Please, Captain, there must be something you can do about it!”

  “Releasing a press-ganged youth is outside of my purview, I’m afraid, Miss Lyon.”

  “But there must be something—you’re an important man, Captain Jack, I can see it. . . . Why, ’ere you are in this splendid room with its carvings and its Turkey carpet—and you’ve got three windows! A man such as you makes a suggestion and people listen to ’im, I’m sure of it.” He made to protest again and I grew more desperate. “If you can’t ’elp my cousin Thomas, I don’t know where else to turn!”

  “Good God, child, don’t look like such a frightened rabbit.”

  “ ’E’s but a boy of fourteen, no older’n I am, your lordship. And my aunt Betty being widowed and all, and what with ’er eyesight failing these past five years, Thomas is ’er only hope of putting bread on the table and seeing ’er through ’er declining years.”

  Without taking his eyes from me, he opened a pretty wooden chest and withdrew a cut-glass decanter and two sherry glasses, which he filled to the rim. He offered me a glass, and watching him down the contents of his own in a single draft, I made to imitate him, enjoying a pleasantly searing sensation as the sweet amber liquid slid down my gullet.

  Captain Willett Payne refilled his glass and, taking the decanter with him, approached my chair. Placing himself between the long table and my legs, he bent down to pour me another glass, which permitted him an excellent view of my bosom. “Drink up!” he urged. I downed two more glasses of sherry in quick succession, keeping pace with the captain. He slid an open nautical chart farther down the table. “You’re quite a handsome young lady, you know that?”

  “Thank you, Captain.” Suddenly I felt rosy all over. I’d been tipsy before, but usually on champagne or claret, and always when high times and plenty of guttling were on the bill of fare. I was unused to imbibing this early in the day, and on an empty stomach; the sherry was having a powerful effect on me. I struggled to keep my head.

  Suddenly, I found myself pulled to my feet and pressed against the captain’s body, forced into a semicircular niche at the end of the table from which I could not escape. “And I might be able to effect . . . your cousin—w
hat’s his name?”

  “Thomas. Thomas Kidd, first of Hawarden and late of Deal.”

  “Young Master Kidd’s . . . release . . . if you could see your way around helping me with something.”

  “ ’Ow could I possibly help you?”

  Captain Willett Payne drew me closer. “Don’t play innocent with me, Miss Lyon. You know perfectly well how you can help me.” He boldly insinuated his hand under my bodice and, forcing his way beneath my stays, pressed groping fingers against my bare flesh. “Nicely made, too,” he added, groping for my other breast. With a sudden motion he flipped me around so that I was pressed against the grand mahogany table, and he roughly unlaced my gown and stays, pulling them, along with my chemise, down over my naked shoulders. His hands once again found my breasts. “Yes . . . I believe you’re going to be most accommodating to your Captain Jack.” Soon tiring of this activity, he flipped up my skirts, shoved away my cork bum roll, and, cupping the globes of my arse, declared, “Most accommodating indeed.”

  If I kicked him in the shins—or higher—and bolted for the door, my cousin’s hopes would be dashed forever and I knew it, yet I knew just as well that my submission also guaranteed nothing. A man who’d abuse the privilege of his office to fornicate with a helpless (or hapless) petitioner, no matter how long her hair or bright her eyes or high her bosom, was not a man of honor.

  He bent me over the table and I stifled a cry as he made to enter me, muttering imprecations of surprise when he realized that my unyielding quim was virgin territory. The discovery fired up his blood even more, and I released a yelp of pain when after several repeated attempts, a powerful thrust pierced my maidenhead. My sweating hands gripped the top of the table, while Captain Jack tried to grab hold of my breasts without releasing the position he had fought so hard to gain.

  “Tighter . . . than a . . . hen’s . . . arse,” he grunted between thrusts.

  “ ’Ow . . . would . . . you . . . know that?” I gasped as he drove me once more against the table.

  “Figger . . . of . . . speech!”

  The pounding seemed interminable. I derived not a whit of pleasure from it, and had no way of knowing whether Captain Jack’s catalogue of guttural rumblings during this unpleasant assault was an indication that he was well on the road to the ultimate expression of ecstasy. Somehow, he managed to pour, and then toss back, another glass of sherry without missing a stroke, then picked up speed, his thrusts matching his panting breath, gasp for gasp. With a loud groan, he near to collapsed on top of me, crushing my breasts against the tabletop. A moment or two later, he pulled away. Humiliated, I scarce dared to turn around and look him in the eye.

  He had already straightened his clothing. “Here. Clean yourself up.” He tossed me a white handkerchief, and I wiped my legs and quim and handed back the bloodstained cloth, which he took between thumb and forefinger and dropped onto the pile of glowing sea coals. I straightened my skirts and turned my back on Captain Jack again. “I’ll need ’elp with this,” I said, indicating my gown and stays. He relaced me, then, seating himself behind the table, sharpened a quill and removed a sheet of parchment from a large folder. I stood and watched him write something, to which he added his signature and affixed an impressive-looking seal; then he sanded the paper and waited for the ink to dry before addressing me.

  “This, Miss Lyon, is an official instrument of release for one Thomas Kidd.” He folded the paper and sealed it with a wafer. “It will be delivered this afternoon to Lord Sandwich, the First Lord of the Admiralty.” He glanced about the room, and his gaze landed on something outside one of his windows. “You are quite an astute—as well as an exceedingly obliging—young woman. The First Lord does not, as a rule, concern himself with the manning of a vessel below the rank of captain; however, I am persuaded to present him with the particulars of your cousin’s situation, and, adding that I am an especial friend of one of Master Kidd’s nearest relations, have requested that the youth be released and returned forthwith to the bosom of his family.”

  “I would take pains to thank you for’t, Captain Jack, but I ’ave already done so for these past ten minutes!”

  The captain took a moment to think on what I had said, then bosted out into a braying laugh. “By gad, girl, you’re something different! By all that’s holy, I won’t forget you if I live to see a hundred!”

  He escorted me to the door, and checked the corridor before letting me leave. “Bloody porters. Still nowhere to be found,” he muttered. “Probably sleeping one off in a closet somewhere.” He gave my arse a playful smack, tho’ I could scarce feel it through my skirts. “Mind the captains’ waiting room on your way out. Now off you go, girl. In your prayers tonight, don’t forget a little mention of old Jack Willett Payne.”

  “Believe me, sir, I will remember your name tonight and forever!”

  I raced back to Mrs. Kelly’s and made immediately for my room, where I gave myself a proper wash and changed into an afternoon frock, suitable for taking tea in the downstairs salon. I rapped on the door to Sophia’s room and she opened it and pulled me inside.

  “Well?!”

  “I did it!”

  She clasped me about the waist. “O happy day!”

  “Not quite.” Suddenly I burst into tears.

  “What is it, lovey? What’s happened?” She knelt down and took my hands in hers.

  “I won Tom’s release, but I lost—” I looked into her face and tried to stop my lip from trembling. I could more easily have reconciled myself to the surrender of my maidenhead to one of Mrs. Kelly’s patrons—though I’d hoped to somehow avoid it—than suffer the rape I had endured to save my cousin. “I’ve got to find a way out of ’ere,” I announced. “As soon as I possibly can without arousing suspicion. The abbess will think I’ll ’ave been fooling ’er deliberate all this time and taking advantage of ’er generosity. There’ll be ’ell to pay, I know it!” My tears commenced afresh.

  “Shhh, Emily. Take a deep breath and try to calm yourself. There are ways around it, you know, and none will be the wiser.”

  “Mrs. Kelly will be. If you know the tricks, it’s certain she knows the same and more besides.”

  Sophia remained unsuccessful in her repeated efforts to soothe my fears. From that hour I resolved to be alert to the slightest opportunity that might present itself, allowing me to quit Arlington Street without the distasteful necessity of returning to my former life in service. Having enjoyed a grander existence for the past half year, I would sooner be damned than regress my state!

  Six

  The Temple of Health

  I began to notice the numerous handbills advertising the edu cational lectures and beneficial cures offered by Dr. James Graham, at the Temple of Aesculapius—also known as the Temple of Health—located at the Adelphi on the Royal Terrace in Bond Street. I even puzzled my way—for I read so poorly at the time—through Dr. Graham’s pamphlet on “The Wondrous Effects of the Celestial Bed in the Curing of Impotency and the Sustaining of Life.” A night’s enjoyment of the healthful pleasures of the famed Celestial Bed could be had for a mere fifty pounds. What must such a contraption look like? I wondered. Fifty pounds was a king’s ransom! Although his methods had become all the rage among London’s wealthiest and most glamorous citizens, thanks to the patronage of the vibrant and popular Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, it was a matter of opinion about town whether the doctor was a quack or a genius.

  Having resolved to attend a lecture, I encountered no difficulty in securing an escort from among Mrs. Kelly’s patrons; yet I had not realized, until I witnessed it with my own eyes, that the real entertainment took place after the five-shilling scholarly presentation, a lengthy program of a decidedly more sensual (and dearer) nature. Beautiful young women, scantily attired in shifts of the sheerest muslin, struck classical attitudes while—with a liberal employ of sexual innuendo—Dr. Graham, clad like a clergyman in a black frock coat, demonstrated the healthful benefits appertaining to the espousal of mud bat
hs and his radical new electrical treatments.

  Back at Arlington Street, unable to sleep, I replayed the events of the evening in my mind, and a course of action revealed itself to me with all the force of Dr. Graham’s lightning rods. The doctor was himself a patron of Mrs. Kelly’s! Although, to my knowledge, he never privately entertained any of her “nuns,” he did enjoy the hospitality of the salon at least once a week, if not oftener. I would audition to be one of the doctor’s singers, without his even suspecting my intentions!

  Whenever the doctor visited us at Arlington Street, I would stand by the spinet, assuming a posture similar to that of the doctor’s Grecian Graces. Though I looked nothing like them, girded in my heavily boned corset, my brocaded hips festooned by panniers, I delivered my songs with immeasurably more expression in my face and limbs.

  But after the elapsing of two weeks, the doctor did not take the step I had so anticipated in my design, and my fear was mounting that my plan might fail. A few afternoons later, I paused in the middle of one of my ballads and confessed that I was suffering the ill effects of a sore throat.

  Quitting my place beside the harpsichord while the mulatto continued to play, I drew aside the good doctor and asked him if he might be prevailed upon to prescribe a remedy for my condition. I endeavored to engage his interest further by informing him that my visit to the Temple of Health as a mere spectator had inflamed in me a passion to know more about the medical arts and sciences of which he was such a learned practitioner.

  “Alas, my responsibilities ’ere do not permit me to attend your lectures as often as I would wish,” I sighed prettily. “For I am at the disposal of any of Mrs. Kelly’s gentlemen who wish to enjoy my company, and the better part of them would sooner dance and drink the night away at Ranelagh or Vauxhall than spend it in more intellectual pursuits.”