Authors: Maria McCann
‘That all you can say for him? Can’t be a patch on Ned, then.’ Knave of Hearts. Betsy-Ann could strangle the old bitch.
‘Dimber cove, our Ned,’ the Mother goes on. ‘Girls fighting over him before he was old enough to do the deed. You’d have wed him, eh?’
Folk have been murdered for less. Betsy-Ann clenches her fists and says, ‘Sure enough.’
‘Ah, but he wouldn’t wed
you
.’
He’s kinder than you are, thinks Betsy-Ann. Might’ve turned out a marrying man, even, if you’d raised him away from here. Though in that case, Betsy-Ann would never have met him.
‘You know where he’s gone?’
The Mother shakes her swollen head. ‘Comes and goes. He knows this place is always here.’
More’s the pity.
‘If you see him,’ Betsy-Ann says as appealingly as she knows how, ‘will you tell him to come and see us? Me and Sam.’
‘Oh, me and Sam! Sam, especially,’ the Mother drawls. She’ll say nothing of the sort to Ned, they both know that; also that Betsy-Ann came here desperate for a glimpse of him.
‘Since we’ve always been such good friends,’ the Mother adds. ‘That all you come for? Eh?’
Until this moment, Betsy-Ann has sensed a change in the Mother, a change in more than appearance, but has been unable to say where it lies. With that
eh?
she knows: it’s in her talk. Kitty no longer tries to sound like the Quality. Her voice has a natural milk-and-honey sweetness – like her stupendous dairyworks, it was celebrated in
Harris’s
– and not so long ago she purred away in it like a woman of breeding, or tried to. Now she’s let all that go, and talks like what she is.
‘I wanted to see you, Mother. You was always good to Keshlie.’
Should her sister’s ghost hear that lie, Betsy-Ann can only hope she’ll forgive. Good to Keshlie! The best you can say about the Mother and Keshlie is that she didn’t gnaw the girl’s bones. Still Betsy-Ann holds on, unable, even now, to quit the Corinth, since any minute he might walk through the door.
‘Dimber little thing was Keshlie. She keeping well?’
‘Still dead.’ It is out of Betsy-Ann’s mouth before she can stop herself.
The Mother puts a hand to her heart. ‘God have mercy on us, of what?’
‘You don’t remember?’
The woman looks Betsy-Ann straight in the eye, just as she used to when her sight was perfect, and says, ‘A shame, a crying shame.’
‘Shame on them that did it,
I
say.’
‘Isn’t that the truth?’ the Mother sighs. ‘At least she had a shelter here in her time of trouble.’
Betsy-Ann nearly cracks, at that. But remembering the bullybacks sitting with their cudgels, she chokes out a civil farewell to Kitty Hartry and comes out of the panney into the damp dusk of the alleyway.
She’s been a fool, on a fool’s errand. She knew that’s what it was, but she came anyway. That’s how bad things have got.
10
To Fortunate Bath seems a wretched place, worse even than Buller where he lived with Mrs Sophia and her parents, for there were plenty of servants at Buller and they were not always unkind to him. For him, Bath is a city not of sociability but of loneliness. And then ―
In Milsom Street, walking behind the master and mistress, he glimpses a brown-skinned man in livery, strolling unaccompanied on the other side of the way.
‘Dog Eye,’ he says in his own language.
Dog Eye turns on him.
‘Master
, Titus.’
When they lived together in Romeville (another word he is forbidden to use) the name ‘Dog Eye’ made his master laugh. Everything must change now because of this miserable ghost, this ugly new wife.
‘If you would be so kind,’ Fortunate says, gesturing towards the brown-skinned man. The wife is pulling stupid faces but Dog Eye sees the thing at once and nods. By the time the woman can say, ‘My dear ―’ Fortunate is already gone, skipping over the stones towards the liveried man. He studies the stranger from behind as he approaches and a little mouse of disappointment gnaws at his heart: this person has an alien shape, an unfamiliar walk. Most likely he is not the brother Fortunate hoped to find. He may even be an enemy.
Someone nearby points at the two of them walking together, and calls out a jest or insult. The man he is following turns and looks at him in surprise.
Fortunate stammers, ‘Greetings. I hope you are well today, and that your family is also well.’
The man says something in English.
‘I don’t understand you,’ says Fortunate.
Something more, and now the man speaks with a kind of scorn. It is no use. He turns back, dragging his feet, to where the master and mistress are waiting.
*
Sophia and Edmund are seated in the morning room. The fire is lit, giving a cheerful air, and on the spotlessly appointed table sit chocolate, coffee, eggs and buns. This ritual of breakfast should flood Sophia’s soul with deep wifely joy and would doubtless do so, were she not quarrelling with her husband.
‘You really mustn’t ask me to dispose of him in Bath,’ Edmund says. ‘He’ll be better placed in London.’
‘There are respectable families here.’
‘Indeed there are. But my love, only consider. Servants have their societies, as we do, and in Town there are clubs for such as he. Here is nothing of the sort. You saw how pitifully he ran after that other blackfellow.’
‘He should have stayed with us.’
‘Into every life a little joy must come,’ says her husband. ‘They have feelings, like Englishmen.’
‘You believe me to be unkind, Edmund, is that it?’ Sophia feels tears start to her eyes. The weakness humiliates her, but is beyond her control. At the merest hint that Edmund might consider her less than perfect, she finds herself on the point of dissolving, just as she would dissolve, as a child, when reproved by Papa.
He spreads his hands in a gesture of denial. ‘Not at all, my dear, I would simply ―’
‘How many boys in his position draw wages? And yet he’s discontented!’
‘Has he said so?’
‘There’s something about him. A sulkiness. Imagine how he would be if he had nights off, and subscribed to societies! Papa says it’s a cruelty to bring them here. Mixing with freeborn English servants only makes them envious.’
‘Papa’s thoughts do him credit, as always, but I can perhaps claim greater experience. House slaves require patience at first.’
‘I know that, Edmund! Our people at home will witness that I have always been considerate of their needs, provided those needs were legitimate.’
‘Of course. You are the most indulgent of mistresses, to them and to me.’
Sophia sees that he wants to kiss her into quietness but she is too far gone for that; she must have her way or feel herself unloved. At the same time, she is hot with shame. Tearful, bickering, demanding proofs of affection: this is scarcely how she pictured herself as a spouse. There was a time when she looked forward to the wifely pleasure of submitting her will to Mr Zedland’s, but then she never imagined he would be like
this
.
‘Then you’ll place an advertisement?’
‘Once we get to London. Not before.’
Since they came to Bath Edmund has shown an occasional propensity to strike up acquaintance with persons lacking manners and education, in defiance of the distaste expressed by his spouse. She has ruefully accepted this tendency to
dabble in the mud
, as she expresses it to herself, but that he should side with a servant, no,
slave
against her is something new and alarming.
‘To hear you talk,’ she mutters, ‘anyone might think you cared more for this boy than for your wife.’
‘I don’t propose to set up Titus as a mistress,’ he says, as if to laugh it off.
‘But what of
my
feelings, Edmund? Is it not mortifying to have one’s servant run away in the street? There are perfectly good arrangements here. I’m told there’s a bureau where ―’
‘I’ve agreed to be rid of him!’ her husband exclaims. ‘So far you’ve carried the day. Now be wise.’ He snatches up
Pope’s Bath Chronicle
from the table and erects it as a screen between them.
The air of comfort that formerly invested the room has fled. The large window, fresh paintwork and tasteful green-and-gold paper no longer lap her in their protective elegance; sorrow and anger have invaded her sanctuary, and perhaps just a
soupçon
of fear. Edmund is a gentleman, yes, but first and foremost a man, and a man likes to be master. He has always behaved with gentleness towards her (apart from
that time
) but in his last speech he distinctly raised his voice and she does not at all care for ‘be wise’, which smacks of Bluebeard.
On the table between them lies a silver chocolate pot. Sophia takes it and pours for both.
‘Will you have a Sally Lunn? I’m told they make an excellent breakfast, and these are fresh.’
The
Chronicle
quivers as he turns a page. She has never known him sulk before, and the tears she has so far resisted begin to slide down her nose. She tries to dab them away with her handkerchief while she is screened from his sight but a sniffle betrays her.
Edmund lowers the paper in order to peer at her. ‘What folly!’ he exclaims. ‘All I wish is to treat the boy with common humanity.’
‘You threatened me.’
‘I did no such thing.’
‘You said to be wise.’ As if to prove that she is not, she now cries as heartily as a child, and brings on a fit of the hiccups. Sighing, Edmund lays down the paper, comes to Sophia and puts his hands on her shoulders.
‘Your pretty eyes are all puffed up.’ She closes them; he bends to kiss their swollen lids. ‘As if I would threaten you! My sole aim in acquiring Titus was your amusement and pleasure. We’ll leave him at home in future, and directly we get to London you can be rid of him.’
As soon as he says this, she realises how much of her anger has been made up of humiliation. Titus hidden is infinitely more bearable than Titus on the streets of Bath. Her husband puts his arms around her and draws her to him. ‘Is it a bargain?’
A run of hiccups prevents Sophia from answering in words. She nods.
‘Very well,’ says Edmund, releasing her. ‘We have now gone the customary number of rounds and honour is satisfied. Let us shake hands like sportsmen and have done with it.’
‘Oh,’ she gasps between spasms, ‘don’t make us boxers! We’re lovers!’
‘You wish to fight it again under lovers’ rules?’ He sits down and stretches lazily in the chair. ‘Very well. After breakfast I shall issue a formal challenge. You shall be made to feel the extent of my powers.’
Sophia’s insides seem to be dropping away. She has not so much as hinted to Edmund concerning the ability of certain expressions (
voluptuous sensations
,
made to feel my powers
) to demolish her defences and yet he hits upon them with surprising frequency, almost as if he guessed their impact.
‘We’re pretty well matched for obstinacy, if it comes to that,’ he observes, helping himself to a Sally Lunn. ‘I was shamefully spoilt as a boy. But I flatter myself it has stood me in good stead.’
Sophia hiccups.
‘I know a cure for that, too,’ adds Edmund.
11
Something disagreeable occurred this morning. After browsing in an establishment offering the sweetest imaginable stuffs for gowns, Sophia had left the premises and was meditating upon the price of Honiton lace when she became conscious of someone calling after her: ‘Mrs Zedland! Ma’am!’
It was the shop’s boy. She waited as he came puffing up, carrying her knotting-bag, which she now realised she had left behind on the counter. Having only recently taken to the fashion of carrying one, she had not even missed it, and as she rewarded the boy with a penny (he knuckled his forehead in rather an oafish fashion; perhaps he had not been long employed there) Sophia was sobered to think how easily the bag might have been lost, containing as it did her door key and a letter from Mama bearing her address in Bath. A thief possessed of this one little item would have everything he needed, entirely as a result of her carelessness.
However, all was well that ended well. She tucked the bag under her arm and was wondering if she should visit the subscription library when she became aware of a person strolling alongside her. He was emphatically a
person
, this stroller: nobody would ever have mistaken him for a gentleman. She slowed down, only to find that he did likewise and had every appearance of intending to strike up conversation.
Accustomed as she was to visiting the poor of her parish, Sophia had yet to see anyone as degraded as this individual. His hair – smothered in stale powder – was arranged in an affected manner, his coat ill-fitting and not over-clean and his manner of eyeing her offensive in the extreme. She had, of course, been long enough in Bath to know that living there entailed exposure to people so vulgar as to imagine a respectable woman might be ‘picked up’ on the public pavement. It was a common enough nuisance: one that could sometimes be resolved with tact and at other times required a degree of plain speaking. There was as yet no cause for distress. She was walking along a fashionable street, with people of taste and breeding all around.
She resolved first of all to try if she could rid herself of the creature by her own efforts. Increasing the speed of her walk, she pointedly transferred the bag from her right arm to her left, away from him. He was not to be dislodged, however, and continued to walk alongside her until they reached a less crowded section of pavement. He had, it seemed, been waiting for that. Before they came up with the next strolling group of ladies and gentlemen, he addressed her, saying, ‘Zedland?’ He seemed to find the name amusing. ‘What’s the bite?’
At least, that is what Sophia thought he said. The only thing she could have sworn to was her own name, which she now realised he had heard from the shopkeeper’s boy.
‘Rum dell,’ the man said, appraising her from head to foot. ‘Rum duds. Take a flash wimmee?’
What language was this: Dutch? German?