The Penny Heart (33 page)

Without a sound Peg made her way downstairs, feeling mighty low in spirits. After dinner she had set off upstairs after her master and mistress, as noiseless as a house-cracker on the prowl. Tiptoeing past Mrs Croxon’s closed door, she heard the creak of the bed. She darted into her mistress’s dressing room. The fireplace shared a chimney with her mistress’s chamber, so she knelt in front of it, listening hard.

Another creak, and was that a whimper from Mrs Croxon? Come on, Michael Croxon, she urged; show yourself a man. And the mistress had certainly looked come-at-able tonight, for some York hairdresser had curled her hair in an elegant tumble; and as for that wide-brimmed hat with the fur, she couldn’t wait to give that a try-out. Why, she was quite the Town-Miss these days, judging from her letter home from York. His Nibs had been frantic that she might not come home at all.

Mumblings and groans reached her from the black depths of the fireplace. It must be Mrs Croxon’s first time, of course. Who cared if she got a stinging between her skinny legs? Peg stared into the sooty grate as the remembrance of the true reason she had left Aunt Charlotte flared up fiercely from the past. It was a matter she generally tried to forget, that Charlie had been more than her first sweetheart, he had been her saviour. She had been about fourteen when Aunt Charlotte told her that a doctor gentleman wanted to examine her, but it was nothing to fret over; he just liked to cuddle a girl and give her a silver sixpence. A silver sixpence, and nothing to skrike about.

The gentleman had been a sweating hog, who panted mouldy breath all over her till she felt quite sick. She tried to hold her breath, but the pounding of his tailpiece inside her had gone on and on till she thought it would never end. She had got her sixpence, but even then she knew she’d been gulled. Thirty thieving guineas Aunt Charlotte had got for her maidenhead. Thirty pound, twenty-nine shillings and sixpence – that was how much Aunt Charlotte had fleeced her for. So much for the honour of a roguess.

‘I ain’t doing that again. You want it, you do it,’ she’d yelled into Auntie’s face. ‘I’m not going to be one of them worn-out slip-slops like them upstairs.’

‘Well, how you going to keep yourself then? Ma Brimstone don’t take lodgers what don’t pay.’ She pulled a grumpy face. ‘I knew you’d be trouble. You got looks enough to make a living just from laying on your back—’

‘I’m not daft. Them girls can’t never leave here, can they, with what Ma Brimstone charges ’em for lodging and silks and all? They’re up to their eyes in debt, and the bully boys’ll catch ’em if they try to run for it.’

She had caught the old cook out. ‘You brazen little bitch,’ she’d said with a fond sigh and ruffle of her hair. ‘Like me, in’t you? All brain sauce. But you ain’t got no choice, dearie. You been bred up to be a Nanny House girl.’

That was the true reason she had made Charlie’s favourite sweetmeats, her fingers trembling as she rolled the nutty mixture. Sweating with misery, she’d wagered her future on those Little Devil sweetmeats. And she’d always been grateful to Charlie for taking her on, of pressing her up against the wall of Jerusalem Passage, his mouth rich with chocolate, her eyes tightly closed against the pity in his gaze.

Now that was peculiar – they were conversing behind the grate: His Nibs as husky as a hound, his wife replying, genteel and slow. She hadn’t expected that. Sternly she told herself the job was done, the mistress was plucked; there was no turning back. Nevertheless, she felt collapsed, like an empty sack of meal, as she set off on a silent search for the writing box. And there it was in Mrs Croxon’s trunk, the little beauty. Only, damn the article, it was locked as tight as a clam. Stow it, where was the key? Where did she hide the infernal thing? On she prowled, down to the kitchen, pacing uneasily. Then that baggage Nan had the frontery to say she’d had a queer turn in the scullery. ‘I can’t be lifting the copper no more. Not at my age,’ she’d said, her jaw hanging slack.

‘Maybe this will help?’

She’d pinched Nan’s arm, only for a second, mind. That had got the old dish clout hopping like a flea. A nip’s the best cure for idle hands, Aunt Charlotte had always said. When she’d worked in the kitchen at the Palace she’d been all over bruises.

Back in her quarters, Peg got Mrs Croxon’s green sprigged gown out and had another go at removing the stain on the taffeta skirts. She had dabbed it with lye, but still it wouldn’t budge. On days like this she grew weary of the serving life. Who did they think she was, a dog to jump at everyone’s whistle? Prattling away they had been upstairs, in that big feather bed. Perhaps she should have joined Ma Brimstone’s girls after all. By now she might have snared a lord or some other rich booby. Still, she’d shunned the bunter’s life to be with Charlie. But even Charlie had not stood loyal. Grimly she remembered that pair of blue garters dangling over his looking glass.

The same old sing-song of notions sprang up in her brain, ringing around and around like a marching tune: that if anyone deserved the good life it was her. One day they’d all be humbled all right, like those fancy lords and ladies of France whose heads were being sliced off like stooks at harvest-time. What was it the lags at the Colony had toasted, as they raised their grog? ‘May all crowned heads roll, damnation to the lot o’ them. The Tree of Liberty, lads!’ She picked up the gown and pulled it roughly over her shift. Why should she give it back? It suited her better than her mistress, who hadn’t even twigged that Peg had used a conjurer’s trick to make her choose her favourite shade of green. When two muslin samples had arrived, she had held out the lilac and green and asked which one she should send back. Mrs Croxon had hummed and hawed and finally pointed at the green, so she’d sent that one back all right – sent it straight back to be made up.

In her looking glass the stain looked even nastier. She pulled the gown off and hung it on a hook. For a long while she inspected herself in the mirror, tossing her hair and making proud faces. Why, Mrs Croxon was a gawky girl beside herself. She deserved better than Mrs Croxon’s cast-me-downs. Taking the sharp penknife off her chatelaine she tried to cut the stain out, thinking she might patch it from the hem. Then, in a fit of impatience, she ripped at the stain and tore it right down the front, the silk tearing with a high-pitched screech that satisfied her greatly. Mrs Croxon, Mrs Croxon, she chanted, slashing the whole frock into a frayed mess. And it wasn’t just the mistress that was bothering her; there was that other one too, hanging from the ceiling. The one that wouldn’t go away. The one that always taunted her in the corner of her eye but vanished if she turned to make a proper sighting. With vicious pleasure she hacked the gown to ribbons. Then she sat down, panting a little from the exertion.

A while later she came to herself, feeling tired and shaky. In front of her lay a heap of tatters – the lovely five-guinea dress was fit for nothing but the ragman. She blinked and yawned, not at all sure why she’d had that giddy fit. Then she remembered, vaguely, like a long-ago dream. She had fancied her mistress was wearing that dress as she stabbed and stabbed at it. For the two of them had sounded happy together, sporting limb about limb in that lovely feather bed.

It was enough to make Peg sick, seeing the mistress panting after His Nibs like a wide-eyed doxy. True, she did keep Mrs Croxon well dosed with Hystericon, so she scarcely noticed what was happening in the very same room. Though she did at least wake up when the goods began to arrive from York. Such lovely stuff there was, and all of it the very finest. There were even gifts: for the master a pitch-green riding coat and boots of mirror-shining leather. For herself a caddy of Souchong tea, that was so fragrant she rationed herself to a dish a day. When the master returned to Manchester, Mrs Croxon again fell in the dumps. Peg tried to interest her in trimming her older hats, for she had bought some lovely ribbons and feathers, but the woman couldn’t settle. Then, to her surprise, Mrs Croxon asked if she could paint Peg’s portrait.

Peg was unpacking a set of glorious gilt candlesticks in the dining room. A moment earlier, she would have said nothing could have excited her more. But a portrait done of herself? ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, setting the last one down with care. ‘I always fancied having a go at that.’

*

Peg tapped at Mrs Croxon’s attic door, her complexion smoothed with a liberal dollop of Pear’s Almond Blossom. She brought an offering too; a plate of airy caraway seed cake. But it was wasted on Mrs Croxon, who took only a hurried bite, so anxious was she to get started with her blessed paints and pencils. Half an hour, she’d beaten those eggs. And, damn her, the mistress had complimented Nan’s Omelette of Herbs that very day.

‘I always fancied being done like one of them actresses,’ Peg announced, catching her reflection in the glass and moving her head to find her best profile. ‘Can you not do me like some famous character, wearing robes and all that?’

‘Peg, it is you I am painting. Look up at me – that’s it – no, with your usual expression. I need you to be true to yourself.’ Mrs Croxon was holding up a pencil like a measure, looking at her with faraway eyes. Naturally, she wanted to paint her as a nobody; a downtrodden domestic. What sort of picture would that be, with her lovely red hair tucked under her cap, instead of cascading down her shoulders? It mortified her, it truly did, to be painted in servants’ drabs.

‘Stop fidgeting, Peg. I’ve barely begun.’ Her mistress looked up from her scribbling with a frown. ‘Tell me about yourself. It will help me portray you if you talk to me.’

Peg stiffened. She liked to be the one asking questions.

‘Come along – it will pass the time. Were you born and bred up here?’

Even that was a tricky point. ‘Not likely, Mrs Croxon.’

‘Where then do you hail from?’

When fabulating, keep close to the truth, Charlie always said. ‘I once lived in Manchester.’

‘And what brought you here?’

That stumped her. She hesitated; thinking, calculating.

‘Never mind,’ her mistress sighed.

After a considering pause, Mrs Croxon spoke again, very warmly.

‘I must thank you, Peg, for all your help with the house and—’ she smiled conspiratorially, ‘—the advice you gave me. It has all worked in a most satisfactory manner.’

‘So all is – going nicely between you?’ she inquired. As if anyone needed to ask. The master and mistress shared a chamber regularly, maybe every third night now. She had checked the bed linen herself.

‘I know we call you “Mrs” in respect of your position. But tell me, have you ever been married?’

Peg’s mouth closed like a solid door. ‘No.’

‘But you have had proposals?’

She sighed loudly and twisted her lips in distaste. ‘Oh, I’ve had a few offers.’

‘Poor Peg; never to have known love. You must seek it out. Love is life’s greatest blessing.’

Mrs Croxon continued sketching in a silence that stretched like cat-gut between them. Not found love? What rot! Jack had been her truelove, he had come back to her, damn it, after all her troubles at Sodom Camp. It had been at poor Brinny’s flogging, after her pal had gone on a hunger-crazed rampage through the camp. Brinny was to be lashed before a gathering of skull-faced, tottering convicts. The marines, almost as skeletal in ragged pink coats, beat their drums while Brinny’s sentence was read: a mere fifty strokes compared to the thousands of lashes the men might endure. Brinny fought gamely as she was tied in place. Each time the tarred and knotted cat-o’-nine-tails was swung upon her friend’s back, she had tried to stifle the sound of fifty cat-like shrieks.

‘Annie Mobbs is dead of jail fever,’ Jack told her later, as she dabbed saltwater on Brinny’s shredded back. It seemed his Devon doxy had snuffed it, just one week after falling ill. Jack himself was all bones and knuckles, his teeth over-large and his once flaxen hair, brown and stringy. Yet who was she to pick fault? She was blistered and flaking away, her body like a risen corpse, her rags leathery brown.

When she had been stronger, she might have put up a brave show, and made him grovel. But across the camp ground Stingo cast looks like poisoned darts at them. So the Tawny Prince did listen: her prayers for Annie to die had been answered. Passing the blood-stained clout to Ma Watson, she raised herself to standing, swatting away the frenzy of flies. Though her own hand was claggy with blood, she grasped hold of Jack and silently followed him to his hut. The next day Brinny mercifully snuffed it, and a few weeks later Ma Watson gave up the ghost, accidentally left to wander on the beach at the end of the day, there being none of the old crew left to look out for her.

Jack’s hut was no more than a few planks of rough board with a dirt floor, but it was theirs alone; a sanctuary from hollering and drunken carousing. The scum of exhaustion began to lift from her thoughts and her old clear-sightedness returned. She persuaded Jack to go out with the fishing crew at night, dragging the seine nets through the inky waters. Soon the hut filled with the smell of crisply roasted fish and, afterwards, with full stomachs, they could talk without listening ears. They were newly rich too, for the extra fish Jack smuggled could be traded, food being the only currency left in the colony. At last she had gained proper standing in the camp, at the side of a smart loyal man.