The Penny Heart (9 page)

‘But who will tend to me?’ whined my father.

Mr Croxon turned back to him. ‘Any kin of mine will live decently; do you understand that, Moore? We will hire you a servant.’

‘I’ll not have that,’ my father began. ‘Grace is no expense, like some hoity servant. I’ll not keep a slave—’

‘Listen, Moore. I’ll settle ten pound a year beer-money on you. Well?’

‘You sure he’ll take my daughter?’ my father said, pursing his loose lips as if he tasted bitter aloes. ‘She’d be summat of a gawk beside your fine lad.’

I stared into my lap, mortified.

‘He’ll have Grace – aye, he will,’ replied Mr Croxon, eyeing me somewhat like a dealer at a market. ‘She hides her light beneath a bushel, but a quiet girl will suit our Michael. I’ll get my lawyer to look into it. Shake on it, Moore?’

I heard Father spit in his palm, and saw Mr Croxon’s distaste. I rose and retired to the kitchen, but my hands could not lift a plate for trembling. I slumped on the stool by the fire and raised a glass of ale to my lips. But for the first time I tasted its cheapness, and spat it back into the glass. Everything about me was displeasing – the halfpenny twists of tea on the broken shelves, the smoke-stained hearth, the drab and damp-patched kitchen itself. I scraped the congealed pease and bacon into the fire, where it smoked and spat.

To my astonishment, I understood my morning’s dream foretold a blissful future. I allowed myself to sink into a daydream; of another life opening before me, of respectability and riches, at my shoulder a vague silhouette of a man, as yet featureless, but fashionably clad. Someone kind, civil and – dared I hope? – eager to cherish and love even me.

6

The Thames to Manchester

Summer 1792

~ To Make Virgin’s Milk ~

Take equal parts of Gum Benjamin, a fragrant resin from the meadows of sunny Sumatra, and Storax, the Sweet Gum of Turkey, and dissolve them in a sufficient quantity of Spirit of Wine. The Spirit will then gain a reddish tint and exhale a fragrant smell of tropical balm. Place a few drops into a glass of clear water and by rapid stirring the contents will instantly become milky. The mixture is used successfully to clear a sun-burned complexion and give a spotless white tint, for which purpose nothing is better, or indeed more innocent and safe.

A most superior mixture, Mrs Quinn of the Theatre Royal

It was drizzling when they reached the Thames. Mary stood at the rail, letting the sooty rain patter across her face, blessing the grey sky and the shiny quay. Though it was afternoon, it felt to her as though she viewed the world through the bottom of a brandy bottle, she had grown so used to the sun, a golden ball in a hot blue sky. Yet even under cloud the port was a lively scene; sailors scurried about their ships, beggars worked the crowd, a gaggle of mudlarks scavenged along the shoreline. It was all quite astonishing after months of flat sea and sky.

As for the parson, he was still laid low, waiting in his cabin to be carried to a hospital.

She fingered the coins in her pocket. The crew had made a collection for the orphaned missionary’s daughter. She would have liked more than fifteen bob for that spanking tale of a native kidnap, so maybe some of the crew hadn’t been taken in after all. But none of that mattered now. She had the means to find Charlie and plan the next throw in the game.

Once off the ship, she felt like a spinning top, rocking on the hard ground. Alone, she made her way up a promising alley, past smoking fires and whining dogs. Hawkers crying their wares clashed with ballad singers and the thumping hammers and creak of heavy wheels. It came back to her, that this was how it was in a noisy crowd, with all the folk distracted you could become anyone you fancied. Patting her pocket, she remembered Flora’s brooch and, after poking free the reverend’s picture, she cajoled another ten bob from a pawnbroker. Pausing to warm her hands at a brazier, she looked quickly over her shoulder, then dropped the tiny portrait into the fire. It burned blue for a moment and then shrivelled blackly into smoke. Fare thee well, Reverend Pilling. And Flora Jean Pilling, and the whole preachifying lot of you.

On reaching the main street, the crowded mass of it all – people, animals, carriages – was like a hard slap in the face. London was not her territory, and to her eyes it had grown tenfold since she’d last seen it from a prison cart. Exhausted, she stumbled onto the cheapest stage coach just before nightfall, huddling into a corner and settling behind a mask of sleep to avoid her fellow travellers, stinking of wet wool. She dozed there for a night and a day, stirring as the horses were changed, blinking at sudden blazes of light, tossed by jolts, and startled by disembodied yells. There was little conversation, for everyone stood on their rank. England again, she thought sourly, she had forgotten all that codswallop of bowing and curtseying, and kiss my arse.

*

As the coach slowed at Rugby she touched the coins in her skirt, but could not bear to part with what was left of the lovely chink. Catching the eye of a pock-faced man with a gold watch, she made a performance of stretching herself awake so as best to show her bosom. Dismounting, she pretended to stumble and grasped his arm, leaning against him as he fussed over her. Inside the inn, she spun him a yarn of a dying sister and a wicked mistress who owed her a year’s wages. Her reward was a supper of hot tea and salty, slippery butter on white bread. At supper time, he insisted on treating her to hot bacon collops. The smoky, sweet pork was so good she found it hard to listen to Mr Reuben Weetch’s ramblings – he had a dull wife and some unfathomable trade up Preston way. Dreamily, she let him stroke her hand in a corner of the parlour, wondering if he would stretch to currant buns.

Weetch at least reassured her of her power to pull in a gentleman, for the only mirror aboard the ship had reflected back a sun-blistered stranger, her hair a mixture of copper and straw. How had her bonny flame-haired self turned into that?

Alighting at Manchester, she allowed Weetch a short farewell in an alley by the stables. She let him maul her until the coachman called for all to board. Then she speedily sent her hand on an investigation of his breeches.

‘You must go,’ she sighed, hearing the final call for all passengers.

‘I must see you again,’ he groaned, his head lolling back against the wall. ‘I know it is only two days, but I have developed such a strong affection—’ What a dossuck! She bit back a laugh as she rapidly fabricated a false address. ‘Don’t forget to call, my dear,’ she cried as he hurried to board, blowing her a kiss.

After watching the coach disappear, she emptied his purse of a grand haul of 17s 9d. Not wanting ever again to risk being nabbed by the Justices, she cast his purse away into the canal.

Manchester was larger and taller than she remembered it, five-storey brick warehouses and manufactories rising high into the sooty sky. Bustling past the streams of workers rushing hither and thither to the clamour of ringing bells, she wondered at their stupidity. Whey-faced and poor, they were of no more interest to her than the rats scurrying about the heaps of cinders. Instead, she watched herself in a new glass window, mortified by the outmoded appearance of Flora Pilling’s tartan gown. Charlie was always a flash fellow, and he had revelled in her firecracker looks.

At the Theatre Royal she searched out a certain Mrs Quin. The woman had long had a reputation for restoring the appearance of theatrical persons ravaged by gin and fast living. In the dusty chambers beneath the stage she found the watery-eyed Irishwoman, an array of pins in her cap, and scissors swinging at her waist.

All the way to Spring Gardens Mary rehearsed the patter under her breath. Now it came out almost as good as ever.

‘Mrs Quin, is it?’ she asked in a low, honeyed tone. She bobbed demurely. ‘As you can see, I’ve been a time out in the Indies and find myself rather afflicted by the climate. And next week the man I’m to marry will call upon me.’ She bit her lip and affected a poignant expression. ‘Mrs Quin, I hear you are the best there ever was with hair and paint. I wonder, could you help me back to the fair-skinned, red-headed girl he remembers?’

Mrs Quin led Mary to a dirty pane of glass and considered her crimsoned skin. ‘Holy Mary,’ she said in a husky rasp. ‘It’s a box of powders I have, not a box of miracles. But perhaps I can sort you out – for a man’s eye, at least.’

‘And my hair? Back to a flaming red?’ Mary pulled off her cap.

‘That’s the easy part, dearie. But I’d be wanting half a crown for the sorting of yous.’

‘As much as that? There’s one thing more.’ She had glimpsed a room filled floor to ceiling with clothes, as well as promising baskets and boxes. ‘I’ve grown rather behind times with the fashions – would you be kind enough to sell me some of those clothes you keep for the plays?’

‘You’re in a right fix, ain’t you? But if you be having the price, I’ll be selling you the rig-outs.’

In a comfortable chamber arranged with large mirrors, Mrs Quin began her work. Inside her famous box of tricks were dozens of compartments, containing pots and tins and brushes. First, she applied a chalky liquid to Mary’s skin, cool at the start, but rapidly tingling warmly.

‘I’ll leave the Virgin’s Milk to get to work. Now let’s get your hair on its way,’ she said, slathering it with a high-smelling purplish dye.

Mary sat back sleepily, willing the lotion to bleach her complexion. On the walls above her were portraits of actors – cheap prints pasted on the lumpy walls. She fixed upon the image of a large-eyed beauty with waist-length black tresses and a flowing gown like a priestess. The actress stared out from the print, holding aloft a grinning mask.

‘That’s Liza Farrell what was, Lady Bedford as she is now,’ Mrs Quin confided. ‘I had the honour to dress her hair one season. When she played Lady Macbeth she was the horriblest murdering heathen you ever set your eyes on. By Jesus, she was a marvel on the stage.’

To be an actress, Mary marvelled silently. What a life that would be.

Mrs Quin set her head on one side. ‘You know what, dearie? The ways I seen her – weary to her boots and washed of her paint – you might have walked past her and never cast a second glance. But she had what the great ones have – whatever she set her will to do, she done it. Dragged herself up, mind, she used to jig in the streets of Cork City for pennies. Would you look at her now? Married to Lord Bedford. The way she done it, she sweet-talked herself to becoming the first Lady Bedford’s favourite friend, forever whispering in her ear what grand improvements to make to her grand estates, and all the while tumbling his lordship on the sly. Clever as a cuckoo she was, feathered her own nest before she pushed the old bird out. And near every week, they write her name in the newspapers.’

There was a great deal of sharpery in it all, Mary concluded; not only on the stage, but off it, too.

‘Now I’ll be off to fetch the mending,’ the dresser said, ‘so I’ll just be leaving this lot to do its work.’

She must have nodded off, for her head jerked suddenly as she sprang awake. In the mirror she saw a bleached skull, its hair a mass of ruby tendrils hanging almost to the floor. A bead of dye like a crimson tear trickled slowly down the brow. It was a vision of terror: a death’s head peering out from tangles of bloody gore. A memory seized her, a memory of so much blood that the shock had almost killed her. Even in that stuffy room, goose pimples rose all over her skin.

In a moment she had wiped the crimson drip away, and she was once again a woman painted with dye and lotions. She must banish those bothersome memories far away, across the ocean in that other world. Still, there was a bony look to her face, in her sunken eyes and sharp cheekbones. It was that starveling look she knew too well.

She sent a serving girl out to fetch some food. A beef pie, bread and butter and plenty of the sweet stuff that she loved. She devoured a treacle pudding, closing her eyes to savour every sticky crumb. Sugar. How she had craved the stuff. Though her belly was full, still she helped herself from a paper bag of sugarplums, globes of candied fruits that made her cheeks bulge. Was this happiness, she wondered? She was full of food again, and as sleepy as a suckled child. She pictured a well-stocked larder, and the chance to make all the delights in
Mother Eve’s Secrets
. She would help herself to the best, of course, for she who stirs the pot never starves. A comfortable future lay before her, all for the taking.