Ace, King, Knave (15 page)

One morning, he has just pocketed a letter to take to his master when he turns to find
Mrs
herself standing watching him. The woman steps forward, her fingers an eagle’s talons. Fortunate puts his own hand over his pocket to protect the letter nestling within.

‘What have you there?’

He manages to say, ‘Nothing.’ If only Dog Eye were present, to explain to her! Doesn’t she understand that the man must first look at these things?

‘Give it here,’ the woman orders. He still keeps his hand over his pocket, so she slaps him hard across the face: one, two. She will have to explain this to Dog Eye. She has disgraced herself. Handing over the letter, Fortunate lowers his eyes, watering from the force of the blows, so as not to witness her shame.

‘This is private, private!’ she hisses, one talon resting on the
Mrs.
She shakes the letter under his nose. ‘How
dare
you!’

Fortunate cannot find the words with which to reply. He cannot say he made a mistake, for he did not. The woman throws down the letters which are not
Mrs
on the table and, clutching the one she has stolen, runs with it along the hallway and up the stairs.

*

My dearest daughter,

Your last found us happy and well and we are glad to know that you and Edmund are likewise. I was a little concerned to hear that you had left the Baths. Papa, of course, told me not to fret – you know how foolish your old mama can be where her darling is concerned – and insisted there was nothing to worry about, merely a change of plan. He went so far as to scold me, but I could not be at ease until I heard more from you.

I hope you now see, as I do, how wise I was in raising you to understand a woman’s duty. You grew up in the knowledge that Papa must constantly occupy himself with the business of the estate, and were thus prepared for your present situation. I always say that nobody can understand the obligations of a gentleman who has not tried to live up to them. Persons who pass their days in idleness can have no notion of this but you and I have married men of quite another stamp: they have always some scheme, some object of charity or some project of improvement in hand, and are forever occupied. Few women are blessed with husbands of such an industrious character, and when we consider what a hazard every woman runs in the marriage-lottery, I am sure we should cheerfully resign ourselves to any little inconveniences. And to show that I can practise what I preach, I do not complain that I was unable to visit my chick before her husband whisked her off to London. We shall not be long parted, my love. I will be sure to come to you when a certain happy event approaches, if not before.

I hope, my darling girl, that you will not take it amiss if I own to some disappointment that your address is not a more fashionable one. I understood, as did Papa, that Mr Zedland’s town house lay a little nearer to St James. This is what we expected for you, but I find, from your Aunt Phoebe’s map of London, that you are rather on the way to Marylebone. (Phoebe insisted on bringing the map to show me:
plus ça change
!)

Still, a London house of three storeys is well enough. I was only in London once in my life, when I went to stay with Constantia, God rest her soul, but that was out of the Season, and besides, Town was not nearly so brilliant or elegant as they say it is nowadays. Who has called upon you, my love? Have you returned any visits? You must send me a regular bulletin of all your outings and entertainments.

Most of our affairs, alas, are very small beer. However, every dog has his day and every woman some news of real import, once in a while, so here is mine: your cousin Hetty is to be married by private licence to Mr Josiah Letcher of Cheltenham Spa – you will remember that Hetty has known this gentleman for several months now and both parties wish to dispense with the usual long engagement. Between boasting of Hetty’s brilliant match and complaining that the ceremony is to be a simple one, your Aunt Phoebe is grown quite intolerable. As for Hetty herself, she laughs and says she wonders how she will bear being called Mrs Letcher. Her Josiah has a fortune of £5,000 per annum and though not in his first youth is polite, mannerly and not an ill-looking man, so
entre nous
, I think she will bear it very well.

Though it is tedious to be obliged constantly to exclaim at her good fortune, I am of course delighted for Hetty. She is, and always was, far more agreeable than her mother. You may imagine, however, how Phoebe crows over me. Even when we were girls, the most beautiful doll, the most charming robes, must always be hers, and now it is the same with daughters! All day prattling of Hetty’s intended and scarcely a word to spare for your marriage – it is extremely provoking. But there. Hardly a girl in the county will marry as well as Hetty, to be sure, but if you, my love, are content with your bargain I have nothing more to wish for. And I am as sure as I can be of anything, Sophy, that you
are
content and will continue to be so. You were raised to surmount any little difficulty (you understand me) and a wife can come with no better recommendation.

Now for the small beer! Mary-Ann cannot work from a pain in her back, which has gained on her to the point where she is fit for nothing but lying down. Had it been Sarah we might have suspected idleness, but Mary-Ann is such a good creature that we consulted Dr Chesse directly. He says she will not be well these four weeks. It is extremely trying but the poor girl cries out at the least movement, so there is nothing to be done but wait. Chesse thinks of cupping her. As if this were not enough, Rixam has been called home to his grandmother’s deathbed. I hinted at the great inconvenience to us but he said the old lady had raised him and he must not refuse. Your papa says that is quite right, but your papa does not concern himself with the management of servants. We make shift to rub along without Rixam, and have a daily girl standing in for Mary-Ann.

As you can imagine, we are all at sixes and sevens, but when we are back on our feet I intend to paper the breakfast room in silver and blue, or silver and salmon. Which do you think would go better? You have such elegant taste in these things.

Papa asks me to send his love. He says I am like all women, a great tattler, and insists I convey his compliments to Edmund as follows: ‘Hearty greetings to Yedmund,’ if you please! He means to tease me by sending such a rustic salutation, but we women are not to be had so easily, and I am sure my daughter will not fail me but will know how best to trim and turn it according to the London fashion.

Your loving

Mama

Sophia lays the letter on the bedside table and sits unmoving beside the bed. She seems to hear her mother’s sprightly, rallying tones but today not even a letter from Mama can raise her spirits.

Never, even in the face of such provocation, could she have imagined herself lashing out at a servant. The second blow was the more shameful of the two; the first resulted from a spontaneous eruption of feeling, but in striking the second, though she was still carried along by her indignation, there was an instant during which she knew what she would do before she did it. To find the boy in possession of what was hers, to witness that peculiar manner of his, and that wretched feint as he tried to cover up the letters, was intolerable, yet none of this can excuse her.

She does not imagine she has done him lasting injury. A gentlewoman is delicate and who knows what these blackfellows do in Africa? They are tough and stubborn: it is said that they eat one another. No, she has not inflicted any serious hurt on Titus. More shameful, infinitely more shameful, is the hurt she has done herself.

Sophia has always held the lowest opinion of those mistresses who, presuming upon their social superiority, conduct themselves in such a way as to nullify it. Whether it takes the form of assaulting the staff or engaging them in amorous intrigue, it invariably degrades all those concerned. While in the Pump Room at Bath, she happened to overhear some talk of a woman of quality infatuated with her footman. The talk was of a decidedly masculine nature: a great many coarse and suggestive terms were employed and Sophia hurried away, sickened that a lady could so forget herself as to furnish gossip to the likes of these.

To compound the matter, it is now clear to Sophia that Titus was acting on Edmund’s instructions, which means she has assaulted him for carrying out his duties. As a child she accidentally kicked a little pug bitch that followed her everywhere, and broke its foreleg. The dog had to be destroyed; Sophia mourned it for weeks. As Mama pointed out, it was a lesson in the folly of not governing one’s body. This is another.

Worst of all, it would appear that Edmund has been intercepting Mama’s letters, though she cannot conceive why he should. Their correspondence is as innocent as water; indeed, she has never hesitated to leave her letters, once opened, lying about where Edmund might pick them up. True, in this one there is Mama’s hint of ‘any little difficulty’, but that is quite inoffensive, surely? Particularly if its true significance is understood, for Sophia knows that Mama alluded principally to her ‘weakness’.

It would be of no use, thinks Sophia, for her mother to visit now. Now is too late.

A week ago, she would have come up here with her letter and read it stretched out on top of the bedcovers. Today the coverings have been pulled back and folded over the bottom of the bed, exposing the mattress in its black-and-white ticking.

The ticking is stained and gives off a peculiar mixed odour, one familiar to Sophia since childhood. Cologne has been rubbed into it, and orris, and cinnamon, despite which fragrant ingredients there rises from the mattress stuffing a fishy staleness, faintly but unmistakably suggestive of the pavement around a tavern in high summer.

The first time it happened Edmund behaved with consideration. True, he swore upon discovering the wet sheets and talked vulgarly of stinks, but on perceiving the acuteness of her distress he softened and put his arms around her. He said such things might happen to anyone once in a while; her initiation into wifehood, and then the arrival of her flowers, had most likely done the damage, and if she took care next month it need never worry her again. He stroked her hair, like a kind husband, while Sophia trembled.

But her body’s sluices, forced open by the weight and press of water, cannot now be closed. Since then it has happened twice more, and last night Edmund was not kind; quite the contrary. He called her a ‘bog-house’ and other names too painful to be recollected. Under this provocation, Sophia too became contrary and her eyes remained as dry as her nightgown was wet. Edmund pulled away to the far side of the mattress, dragging most of the bedding with him, while for the rest of the night Sophia lay rigid, uncaressed and uncomforted.

At breakfast this morning Edmund appeared haggard, decidedly
not plump currant.
Though similarly jaded, Sophia had spent the sleepless hours in thinking matters over, and now drew up her forces.

‘Edmund,’ she began, seeing him withdraw behind his morning newspaper, ‘may we not discuss this?’

His voice was disdainful. ‘To what purpose? The thing is evidently beyond your control.’

‘Indeed it is, yet I’d do anything to cure it. Surely you understand that.’

Edmund snapped the paper out, spreading it wide, his knuckles presenting themselves to her like those of a pugilist. Tentatively, Sophia reached out to touch them. ‘Edmund, please don’t sulk. It’s unworthy of a gentleman.’

‘Do you consider yourself a gentlewoman?’ murmured Edmund, flipping over a page. ‘Your habits would shame a tuppenny bunter.’

Sophia withdrew her hand. ‘I’m at least sufficiently refined not to be acquainted with blunters, whoever they may be.’

‘Permit me to enlighten you.
Bunters
are depraved creatures so low most men won’t touch them, but even they keep a dry bed.’

Sophia fired up. ‘How dare you mention me in the same breath as those women! I’m not depraved, I’ve a weakness, an
affliction
. You knew all this before we married.’

Edmund lowered the paper, his eyes so hard and dark that they resembled knobs of polished jet pushed into the flesh of his head. He surveyed her at length before saying,

‘Knew?’

Sophia’s cheeks, neck and bosom grew hot, her hands icy. Her entire body seemed about to disintegrate but she managed, by clinging to the chair-arms, to hold herself upright. ‘Yes, indeed,’ she insisted. ‘You were informed by Papa.’

He stared at her in frank, if hostile, astonishment. ‘Is that what he told you?’

Sophia put a cold hand to her throat to soothe the flaming skin there. She was quite unable to speak.

20

God Rot Samuel Shiner

She’ll have it stitched on a sampler, one of these days, and pinned over the mantelpiece. It’s now over a week since Betsy-Ann last clapped eyes on her keeper, if she can still call Sam that. Devil a penny has she had from him since then; she’s keeping herself. Even though his absence means she no longer has to share his bed, she feels the insult.

The night he brought her back from Laxey’s, he was at it directly they got under the quilt, poking and poking, veins on his temples standing out so much she could see them even by candlelight. Betsy-Ann pictured herself taking a pin and pricking one of them – he was so far gone in rut, she wondered if he’d even feel it. The drink made him a slow finisher, though, and she was sore by the time he got there.

Now, remembering that sudden urge to prick the veins, she shudders. Where did it come from? It seems to Betsy-Ann that Sam’s nastiness is seeping into her: the nightmares she has! Never in her life has she dreamt such things, not even during those first days at Kitty’s. She wasn’t capable, but she is now. Last night she dreamt she saw the crew lever up a coffin lid. Underneath was a crumbling heap of soil that crept and rippled as if full of worms. ‘Far gone in corruption,’ said Sam, and she realised that the soil was a woman’s body, and the ripple in it an unborn babe, still living. A tiny, wizened face, like a monkey’s, poked out of the heap. Someone cried, ‘A turnip-baby!’ and the crew sliced it out of her with their spades. Betsy-Ann woke sweating fit to beat Sam himself, fit to beat Old Scratch. No, she doesn’t miss sharing a bed. She’d just like to know he’s still alive. Ten to one he is – sitting in a flash house, calling for nantz, most likely – but sometimes it’s the long odds that come up, and Sam’s in very bad company. She’s warned him about Harry, how if you anger him he sometimes smiles but keeps score, all the same.