Coromandel! (12 page)

They stood still, facing each other.

A moment of silence; then the applause exploded like a cannon. Jason stepped a pace back from the sudden fierceness of it. It was like anger, like a mountain falling on them, like a sword piercing in through clothes and skin to the pit of the stomach. Levoller’s face was pale, and his mouth wide open and bellowing meaningless words. They were all shouting, clapping, throwing clothes and money and hats with both hands, the golden rain of guineas bursting like hail on the stone floor. Jason stood with his chest heaving and his eyes wide. The gold was right; it made a good carpet for their dance; it was good and musical to walk upon. Dick o’ the Ruff was sweeping it up quickly into a small sack.

Lord Nailsworth was hugging Emily and shaking Jason’s hand and gabbing, ‘Never seen such dancing. Wonderful!’ Levoller was shouting in his ear, ‘More!’ Jason shook his head. Dick o’ the Ruff said, ‘Perhaps tomorrow, Master Levoller, if there is enough support.’

Levoller recovered some of his posed lassitude. He said, ‘Support? By’r Lady, I’ll empty Whitehall and bring them here.’

Lord Nailsworth stood up, clutching Emily’s arm. She said to Jason, ‘Good night. We did that well, didn’t we?’ She wrapped her cloak around her and went out on Nailsworth’s arm. Jason found himself alone in the small clear space by the musicians. He had left his hat--Dick’s hat--on the table where they had eaten the stewed eels. He went over to get it.

The woman at the next table was still there, still alone. As he took his hat she said, ‘Pray let me tell you that you and your sister dance like angels, sir. I have always liked to dance, but my husbands did not approve. I suppose you practise on board your ship?’ She had a round weatherbeaten face and round blue eyes set wide apart, and a snub nose and wide mouth.

Jason said, ‘What ship, mistress?’

‘Now don’t try to tease me, sir, just because I’m a lonely widow. I know you are a rich sea captain.’

Jason’s head still whirled with the dance and the applause and the golden money. He liked the woman’s face because it reminded him of Mother Bolling’s in Shrewford, but he could not think what she was talking about. He said, ‘I’m not rich, mistress. I wish I was, but I haven’t got but a few pennies except what people have just given us for the dancing.’

She looked at him closely, and his manner seemed to force belief on her; and at the same moment Jason remembered the foolish lie with which Emily had tried to impress Lord Nailsworth. His shoulders slumped, and the gaiety went out of him. He said aloud, ‘The damned trull!’

The woman said, ‘You mean Emily? Well, I never! But you ought not to speak of your sister like that.’ She shook her head reproachfully and said, ‘And all that about the ship was not true? Well, I never!’ She looked at him with an admiration that was not now mixed with her previous archness, and said, ‘Won’t you sit down, sir, and allow me to toast your health in a bottle of sack? My name is Dempster, Mabel Dempster.’ Jason said, ‘Thank you, Mistress Dempster, but I am very tired. I must be going.’

She fumbled in her purse and pulled out two guineas and slipped them into his hand. She said, ‘There. I didn’t give any before because I thought it was not right to throw money at a sea captain. But--’

Jason looked at the gold sprinkling his palm. Then he gave it back to her and said, ‘I don’t want any money. Please give it to someone else. Give it to the musicians.’

He went out, leaving Mabel Dempster staring in amazement after him. He ran down the street among the clanging Christmas bells.

The bells were silent, and Jason swam out of sleep to the sound of voices. He found he was curled up on the hard floor under the window, with a couple of blankets over him, and there was a harder white light that hurt his eyes, shining down on him from the ceiling. Emily and Dick o’ the Ruff were talking, Emily in her bed, Dick sitting on the edge.

Jason got up, yawned, and shook his heavy head. The snow lay thick in the street and on the window-ledges, and the sun shone, and people moved about soundlessly in the untainted whiteness.

‘You’re awake at last, are you?’ Dick said. ‘I want to talk to you.’

Jason said, ‘Can I have a drink of water?’

Emily showed him the jug on the table. He broke the thin ice on the water and drank. The water seared his throat as the hard light had seared his eyes. His tongue felt sticky, and his feet weighed a hundred pounds apiece.

Dick said, ‘Why did you run away? We could have got another ten guineas if you’d come round the tables with me later.’

‘I went just after Emily went,’ Jason said sullenly.

Emily looked rosy and pretty and innocent in the big bed, sitting up with a blanket round her, and over that, her cloak. Jason had been asleep in Dick o’ the Ruff’s bed when she came in late during the night. No one had showed him any other place he could sleep, so he’d climbed angrily in there, muttering, ‘Let the bastard pull me out and see what happens.’ But it was Emily who came and whispered for him to get out or Dick would kill him. He’d cursed her for a whore; she’d dragged him out, and down to her room. The sleet had already turned to snow by then. There was snow on her cloak and on her big, sweeping hat. She’d told him to sleep in the corner, and no tricks. He’d shouted that he wouldn’t touch her with a dung fork. Someone had knocked angrily on the ceiling below. Then she’d tried to kiss him, and told him she did not love Lord Nailsworth or any of the men, that this was only a stepping- stone to something better. She was making a lady out of herself. Couldn’t she have dreams too? What in damnation was this Coromandel but a dream? Only, a woman couldn’t go out seeking Coromandel. He had refused to be softened and refused to sleep in the bed with her, though she was tearful and drunk; and had lain down on the floor.

Now Emily said, ‘Dick’s arranged about our dancing.’

Dick said, ‘Yes. I talked with Jemmy that owns the Cockpit, till four this morning. You and Emily will dance there twice a night every night except Wednesday and Thursday. Jemmy’s going to put out handbills round the town. He’ll put up his prices for wine and food, and he’ll pay the fiddler and the drummer.’

‘But he’ll make more out of the cocks, too, won’t he?’ Emily said keenly.

Dick said, ‘Yes, that’s why I’m only going to give him ten per cent of what we make, and nothing to the musicians. You two take half the rest between you, and I keep the other half.’

‘Half!’ Emily said indignantly. ‘You only take a third of what I get now.’

Dick said, ‘You’re just a stupid whore, Emily. This is different. I’ll have to have more men. You don’t think the Rakes and the Frogs and John Ames’s crew are going to stand by idle, do you? I’ll have to find another three bullies and keep them in the Cockpit every night. But I’ll give you a guinea out of every six that we take from the drunks--between you, that is. Only I’ve agreed with Jemmy that we won’t rob or kill anyone in the tavern or as far as the end of the street either way. And, you’--he turned to Jason--’don’t forget to hand over to me a third of anything you get privately, same as Emily does. I pay the rent here.’

Jason said, ‘Only women are whores.’ He looked bitterly at Emily.

Dick laughed shortly and said, ‘Don’t play baby to me. I saw you with Old Popeyes last night. You’ll get a hundred out of her unless you’re a fool.’

Jason said, ‘Popeyes? Do you mean Mistress Dempster? I wouldn’t take any of her money. I thought she looked kind and lonely.’

Dick said, ‘Jesus’ bones, I believe he’s real. Listen, you do what she wants. Blow the light out, and you’ll find she’s no worse than a sheep. Swyve her upright, sideways, and endways, and make it ten guineas a crack. She’s rich as an earl, married two city merchants who both died. Ever since, she’s been spending her time in the taverns. She’s picked up dancers and bear-leaders and fiddlers and bullies and cockhandlers and poets. I know fifty men who’ve dug into that old bag of tripes.’

‘She’s lonely,’ Jason said furiously.

‘Christ and the Virgin, what do I care if she’s lonely? Do what you’re told.’

‘I won’t!’ Jason said. ‘And I’m not going to dance for money.’

Dick p’ the Ruff got up slowly. He drew back his lips, and his nose came down to meet his jaw. He said, ‘You are. I say so.’

Jason said, ‘I don’t like it, and all the other things you’ve been talking about. Why, you’re no better than a pimp and a robber and a--‘

There was a dagger at his throat, the blade glittering like the hard snow-light on the ceiling. Dick said, ‘How would you like your nose cut off?’

Emily shouted, ‘Stand still, Jason! He means it. Dick, please go away and let me talk to him.’

For a moment longer Jason looked into Dick’s hard eyes. He was a rat, and Jason hated him but was afraid to move. Dick would kill him and feel no worms of death, no pity, no shame. Dick put the knife away and swaggered out, saying, ‘When Dick o’ the Ruff speaks, don’t argue.’ Jason glared at the huge white ruff as it disappeared. A rat--vain, ferocious, criminal, but terrifying.

Emily swung her legs out of the bed, put up her hands, and caught Jason’s. She said, ‘Jason, please do what he wants. For one thing, he will really kill you if you don’t. And don’t you see that this is the only way I can get away, get up from what I am doing now? If people will pay to see us dance, why don’t we let them? One day I’ll grow old and get like the women you see by the river in the mornings, who hang about the taverns for scraps of food because not even a drunken sailor will pay a penny to lift their skirts. But this way we can make a lot of money quickly. You can go to Coromandel. I can buy a farm and have chickens and pigs and a riding horse.’

‘After a few weeks like this I might not want to go to Coromandel,’ Jason said slowly, remembering the terrifying, sick ecstasy of the applause. ‘And you’ll never go to a farm.’

She was silent. Jason insisted, ‘Would you?’ There were tears in the comers of her eyes, and he felt the flutterings of love in his stomach. She needed looking after, protecting from Dick and Lord Nailsworth and all the rest of them.

She muttered, ‘Perhaps not. But what is there better than this? You meet anybody and everybody here. Whatever you want to dream about, it’s here, only better. I saw a play at the theatre--Will Shakespeare’s
A Winter’s Tale
--and afterwards I felt bigger and better than I am. Perhaps I’ll be able to buy a farm one day.’

Jason said, ‘Didn’t you say that one of those men in the Cockpit was an India merchant?’

She said, ‘Yes. Nathan Wigmore--five-handed old bullfrog that lives in Leadenhall Street. But don’t go to Coromandel yet, Jason. Stay here and dance with me. It’s the only way you’ll get the money.’

Jason thought of the dancing, and of Emily. Perhaps he would really fall in love with her--and then what would happen to them? He would like to see
A Winter’s Tale
. What kind of tale was it, and why did it make Emily feel bigger?

He said, ‘I’ll stay and dance with you for a few weeks, Emily.’ She jumped up and flung her arms tightly round him. ‘But I won’t do anything of the other. I won’t take a penny from Mistress Dempster or any woman.’

‘Oh, don’t be a silly,’ Emily said. ‘You wait till some of the Court ladies come after you. But don’t you dare fall in love with any of them. Promise!’

Jason said, ‘I don’t like to see you going with Lord Nailsworth. I don’t like him. And why did you go up to Dick’s bedroom last night when you came in?’

She jerked away from him, her heavy golden hair flying out above her shoulders, and snapped, ‘Oh, go away. Mind your own business. I don’t care who you fall in love with.’

He let go of Emily’s hands and stood with his own right hand over his heart, bowing slightly, smiling lightly at the applause. After two weeks he had come to listen closely to the texture of it. Usually, like tonight, it was deafening and close-knit. Three evenings ago it had been as loud but not so forceful, and there were holes of silence and half-hearted cheers among it. That night he had turned quickly on his heel and left Emily standing alone. It had been her fault. She danced well, but sometimes she had other things on her mind--how she looked, whether Lord Nailsworth and the rest of the Whitehall crowd were in their places, whether Levoller had brought the Lord Chamberlain. They might yell at her legs and gape at the straining breasts under her dress, but he was the dancer of the two of them. They must practise a new step he had worked out.

He left her and walked by habit to the far corner and sat down at a small table there. Mistress Dempster said eagerly, ‘You were better than ever, Jason. There’s cold roast beef tonight. Will that be enough? Do you like cold roast beef?’ Jason said, ‘Very much.’ He smiled at her and picked up a slice of beef and ate it. He ate only lightly before the first dancing nowadays, and then took another light meal after the second dancing. He did not want to be with Dick o’ the Ruff more than he had to; Emily still went out with Lord Nailsworth as soon as the dancing was finished, ignoring the cold look he fixed on them; and Mabel Dempster liked to give him food and drink. She was a nice woman, and comfortable to be with. She was sitting back now and watching him eat, her hands folded in her wide lap.

She had told him a lot about herself in these two weeks. As Dick said, she had been widowed twice. The second time she had suddenly decided to do what she really wanted to do instead of what her relatives and her husbands’ relatives thought she ought to do. She liked taverns, music, food, and drink. She liked being with men--but she did not talk about them much and had never, so far, made any effort to seduce him. She had tried to give him a jewelled dagger, which he had refused. He let her pay for these late suppers, though.

He finished the beef and sat back, stretching luxuriously against the wall. She said suddenly, ‘I have never met anyone like you, Jason.’

Jason said, ‘You’ve been lucky.’ God’s blood, he hated himself sometimes.

She said earnestly, ‘No, no, I’ve been terribly unlucky. You don’t seem to want to order me about, and you don’t want to take my money. All the men I’ve known have wanted one thing or the other. I loved them all, but they never loved me. There must be something wrong with me--but I don’t feel wrong inside.’ She dabbed her eyes, and Jason made a sympathetic noise.