Mr Bishop and the Actress (5 page)

‘And you’ll dine with us, ma’am?’ Mr Bishop senior asks as his wife pauses for breath.

Harry looks horrified.

‘That’s most kind, sir, but I should not wish to intrude. I know you will want your son to yourselves. I beg you will excuse me.’

‘We’ll send a footboy with dinner to your room,’ Mrs Bishop says. ‘You can’t eat in the taproom; it’s not fitting.’

Harry

Good God, you would never think a whore graces the establishment. Yet my father, who had eyed her ankles the whole time – and very fine ankles they are too – makes much of what a polite young lady she was and how her manners matched those of the finest in the land, although I am not sure how he has come to this conclusion. My experience has been that the higher the personage, the worse his or her manners are, particularly inside their house.

My mother raves in an equally idiotic way of her gown and bonnet and whether her presence will make Bishop’s Hotel fashionable. ‘But mind you, Harry,’ she says out of the blue, ‘you can’t go falling in love with her. She’s far above the likes of us.’

‘Don’t worry, Ma. I can’t afford her.’

‘What a thing to say!’ my mother screeches. ‘Shocking!’

‘She’s the lady in the fashion papers?’ our waiter, napkin over his arm, rouses himself from picking his teeth at the sideboard.

‘Attend to your business and stand up straight,’ I instruct him. ‘Yes, she is a woman of ill repute but regretfully her former protector could not afford to house her elsewhere.’

‘Oh, we don’t intend to charge her,’ my father says. ‘Maybe if a newspaper knew she were here—’

‘Absolutely not!’ I say.

My mother frowns. ‘I don’t think that is fitting, Mr Bishop. Surely you can tell the poor dear has a broken heart.’

‘How, ma’am?’

‘Oh, stop.’ My mother swats at me with her napkin. ‘She’s a brave girl, but you men cannot know the suffering of a woman’s heart.’

My father belches.

I’m tempted to do the same.

‘Would you like me to look at the accounts, Pa?’ I lift a hair from the gravy on my plate.

He brightens. ‘Would you, my boy? I’ve been having a bit of trouble.’

Oh no. What am I letting myself in for? I have long experience of my father’s bits of trouble within the ledgers.

Several hours later numbers dance up and down columns, switch sides mysteriously, and blur in front of my eyes. I remove my glasses and rub my eyes.

‘This is a mess, Pa.’

‘Oh, lord. That bad? She won’t give me a moment’s peace.’ My father relights his pipe, elbows on the kitchen table. By the hearth the kitchen boy sleeps on the flagstones, several of the cats curled up with him.

‘Then let Ma keep the books.’

‘I couldn’t do that.’

I don’t argue. I know from long experience it’s hopeless. ‘I think the cook is ordering extra butter and selling it. He’s bought enough butter in the past month to float this hotel down the Thames in a sea of grease, yet there’s precious little in the kitchen. You need an abacus, Pa. You keep making mistakes when you add.’

‘Ten fingers are good enough for me, son. They were good enough for my old dad.’

‘He was missing a thumb.’

‘True, true.’ He nods through blue clouds of smoke.

I blow on the ink in the ledger to dry it. I have solved some of the problems, but I know that once my father is let loose on it again mathematical chaos will reign once more.

Above our heads a bell clangs.

‘Room sixteen,’ my father says without bothering to glance at the row of bells. He knows the chime of each one the way others recognize voices. ‘Mrs Wallace.’

‘I’ll go.’

I don’t need a light for the stairs and corridors that I’ve trod all my life. The hotel is mostly quiet now, and I wonder what Mrs Wallace can require so late – although for her probably it is the time of night when parties and entertainments begin.

I tap at the door.

The door opens a crack and there she is, her face illuminated by a candle. ‘Oh! Mr Bishop.’

‘You expected someone else, ma’am?’

‘I rather hoped it might be a female servant. But no matter. I can manage.’

Lewd thoughts of stays and stockings and other female mysteries dance through my mind.

‘But never mind. Come in and drink a glass of wine with me.’

‘Well, I . . .’ I can hardly make the claim that Bishop’s Hotel is a respectable establishment, since it really isn’t; certainly it isn’t one now.

‘Come in.’ She smiles and tugs at my sleeve. ‘We got off on the wrong foot, Mr Bishop, and I want to let you know I’m not that bad.’

‘I never said you were.’

‘You didn’t have to.’ But she opens the door a little wider and I enter the bedchamber. In the shadows the huge bed looms.

A small table with the remains of dinner and a half-drunk bottle of wine stands in front of the fireplace that has burned down to a red glow.

‘You have only the one wine glass,’ I say. ‘I’ll go—’

‘Oh, nonsense. We’ll share. See, I shall drink from this side, and you from the other.’ She refills the glass. ‘To your health, sir.’

After she has drunk she hands me the glass and I’m sorely tempted to put my lips where hers were.

‘I like Mr and Mrs Bishop,’ she says.

‘What!’ The mortifying image of my father supping tea from his saucer and my mother talking on and on, recounting embarrassing episodes of my childhood, come into my mind.

She smiles. ‘Oh, I know you didn’t want to bring me here, but beggars can’t be choosers, can they? If I’d known before what Charlie’s family had planned, I’d not be at such a disadvantage. Look, Mr Bishop, I’ll sell one of my gowns to repay you.’

‘I assure you my employer can—’

‘I know Charlie didn’t have any money.’

‘I insist. You owe me nothing, ma’am.’

‘Thank you.’ She bows her head. ‘I thought the raisin pudding very fine.’

‘Yes, it was.’ I’m tongue tied. ‘Well, I thank you for the wine, Mrs Wallace. I intend to leave early tomorrow so I should . . . I should . . .’

‘Do you wear those spectacles all the time, Mr Bishop?’

‘Yes, except when I’m in bed.’

She smiles and rises to her feet. She reaches for the spectacles and removes them.

Harry

A
revelation! Oh, heavens, had I but known! The ecstasies of the night are beyond my wildest and most sensual dreams; the beauty of her form, the exquisite fragrance of her person; the sweetness of her limbs and the wonder of her lips! I am overcome! Now I know what all poetry, all music is about (with the exception of vulgar street ballads although I come to those with a new understanding)! Oh, goddess! Adored, divine being!

Sophie

For a first time I suppose he did not acquit himself too badly.

Sophie

A
new profession
. Bishop’s words echo in my head. I cannot saunter to a club and, over brandy and cards with my privileged friends, reveal that I am in need of a
position
, some gentlemanly sinecure without a hint of labour or trade. The possibilities for a female, particularly a female of middling origins and poor reputation, are dire. With a loan I could maybe start a shop; with luck, and some fabrication of references, I might take on a new identity as a genteel sort of servant. My experience of marriage is such that I do not wish to repeat it, even if I were to find a gentleman willing to take me on, and neither of the above professions open to a woman in my circumstances hold much appeal for me. Or there’s the theatre again.

I spend the morning skulking in my bedchamber, avoiding the sharp-eyed Mrs Bishop who doubtless knows I have spent the night fornicating with her son (I am afraid she may thank me for it), before setting forth to pay a call in the fashionable part of town.

It is time to ask advice of an old friend.

‘Mrs Wallace?’ The butler’s eyebrows perform a positive ballet of contempt, amusement, and innuendo. How provoking that he should read the gossip papers – I shall have to mention to the Countess that her servants are underemployed.

‘Is her ladyship at home?’ I peer past him into the glory of gilt and marble that adorns the Earl of Dachault’s hall, wondering if I am ever to get any further inside.

‘No, ma’am.’

‘Then pray ask if she is at home to Mrs Wallace née Sophie Marsden.’

‘Sophie Marsden,’ he repeats.

I tap my foot. ‘If you please. We were at school together. Why, the stories I could tell you . . .’

The butler looks alarmed but opens the door a little further. I gain a foothold on the elegant marble flagstones.

‘Wait here, if you please, Mrs Wallace.’

I am left standing in an entryway that has the dimensions of a small church. Marble pillars stretch to a painted ceiling that makes the tester of my bed seem modest; gilt abounds, cherubs frolic, and a footman stands guard preventing my entry into paradise as surely as if he held a flaming sword.

Stately footsteps approach, echoing from the cavernous depths, and the butler makes his way towards me with a ponderous dignity. ‘Her ladyship will receive you . . . ma’am.’ There’s just a moment’s pause, enough to convey a whole universe of dismay and disapproval.

I bestow a smile upon him and the footman, who slowly turns a crimson that matches his livery. And then I follow the butler up the wide marble stairs, past portraits of solemn bewigged ladies and gentlemen, and, once we have reached the first floor, down an imposing gallery. The butler opens a door and shows me into a room furnished in the most fashionable style – everything restrained and classical, with light pouring in from tall windows. A pack of small dogs run towards me in an unrestrained and decidedly non-classical way, yipping loudly, tails wagging, while their owner, seated on the sofa, stares at me in amazement. ‘Sophie,’ she says. ‘Is it truly you?’

It’s Claire, Countess of Dachault, a little plumper than when I last saw her hanging from a bedroom window at Miss Lewisham’s school fifteen years ago. She snaps her fingers and the dogs run back to her; Claire always liked others to do as they were told.

‘My butler said you were here to blackmail me,’ she adds, as a spaniel jumps into her lap.

I rise from my curtsy. She doesn’t sound particularly friendly, but she has admitted me to her house, and that is a good sign, and I think, but I’m not sure, that she is joking about the blackmail. There is a lady beside her, who is not so fashionably dressed and who has a definite frown upon her face.

‘How are you, Claire?’ I ask, wondering if perhaps I push myself forward in using her Christian name. ‘You’re looking very well.’

I now realize the other woman is Lizzie, who promised to be friends with me for ever, but who now looks distinctly hostile.

‘Who would have thought you were to become so fashionable!’ Claire continues.

Not fashionable enough, or possibly a little too fashionable, to be invited to her ladyship’s soirées, I think, but I keep that to myself. Claire continues to inspect me, and I her – I think I am marginally better dressed although she has a few major advantages, such as a roof over her head, a husband, and a title.

‘You must have some tea,’ Claire says. ‘Do come and sit down. Never mind the dogs, they growl only for show. Now, tell me what you were to blackmail me about. Yes, Lizzie, what is it?’

‘Excuse me.’ Lizzie stands and walks past me out of the room, banging the door shut behind her.

Well.

‘I think she’s still cross that you never told us about the wedding night. You were supposed to, you know.’

‘Oh. Was I?’ I giggle. ‘The Captain really didn’t know what he was about. It was quite embarrassing and he went into a sulk when I laughed and got drunk. He got drunk, I mean, not me.’

Claire stirs the teapot. ‘Oh, I had to tell Dachault what to do. Apparently his mother had given him some very odd advice about how to ensure a son would be conceived.’

‘Really? What?’

‘It involved a poultice on his – now, Sophie, you’re not really going to blackmail me, are you?’

‘Lord, no.’ I accept a cup of tea from her. ‘I just said that so the butler would admit me.’

‘Well, of course I’m delighted to see you. But why, after all this time? Why, it must be fifteen years.’

I sip tea as I consider my answer. I could make a plea for the promise of eternal friendship we swore, but sooner or later I would have to admit that my motivation was rather more mercenary, or practical, to say the least. Besides, neither Claire nor Lizzie has made an attempt to see me in London – and Claire is high enough in the ton that she could consort with anyone, whatever their reputation. Lizzie, I seem to remember, married some sort of clergyman, and is probably more concerned with appearances.

So I decide to go straight to the point. ‘I seek your ladyship’s patronage.’

‘My patronage? Why? I thought you did rather well with, ah, the patronage of gentlemen. Even Dachault says he couldn’t afford you. Not that I’d let him, of course. I see to it that he keeps busy with the House.’

I don’t want to tell her about Bishop and how his words intrude inconveniently upon my mind. Doubtless Claire knows about me and Charlie, for we have been seen together at fashionable spots and reported upon frequently in the press, as ‘the notorious Mrs W—’ and ‘the juvenile Mr F—’.

‘Claire, the truth of the matter is that I’m past my prime, and since marriage is out of the question, I must seek another profession.’

‘Ah.’ She smiles with great enthusiasm. I remember how Claire loved to concoct schemes – it was she, after all, who organized my elopement. She beckons to the footman who stands by the door.

For one horrible moment I wonder if she is about to have me thrown from the house, but instead she says, ‘Peter, pray ask Mrs Buglegloss if she will join us. And fetch an onion from the kitchen.’

‘How would milady like it prepared?’

‘Peeled and raw,’ she says. ‘And hot water, too, we need more tea.’

Has she gone quite mad?

‘You must repent,’ she says after the footman has left, ‘and Lizzie will do the rest.’

‘But I don’t feel like repenting. No one has asked Charlie to repent. Why should I? And Lizzie’s married name is Buglegloss? That is ridiculous. And she clearly doesn’t approve of me, Claire, so I should let her alone.’