Lady Susan Plays the Game (37 page)

It was drizzling as Lady Susan arrived in London but she didn't notice it. At Churchill it had not rained or sleeted every minute and it probably rained no more in the country than in town; yet she had a sense of rain running incessantly down the windowpanes. The combination of wetness and too much vegetation, whether at Langford or Churchill, reminded her of summers in Bury. That was enough. The very name brought with it long vistas of boredom. She remembered betting that a drop of water would fall from the icicle on the school window frame before she counted to ten.

The carriage drove directly to the new lodgings in Upper Seymour Street where she prepared to settle in at once. The landlord was gracious: the Johnsons' expensive chariot had done its work when the rooms had been taken. Also, Alicia Johnson had inspected the place carefully, thus conveying to the owner the importance and discernment of his new tenant.

The apartment must be more expensive than she ought to afford, mused Lady Susan, especially with the ambitious wardrobe she was imagining, but she put the matter out of her mind. Manwaring would do anything, of course, if she were really in need, but, while things were so tense between him and his wife, this was out of the question. And, if Lady Susan were to allow a favour, the subtle play of domination would be marred.

She had been in Upper Seymour Street only a few hours, breathing the welcome dust of London through the slightly open window, filling her ears with street noises, so preferable to the chattering of cold birds, when Mrs Johnson was announced.

‘Oh my dear Alicia, how wonderful to see you. I owe you such gratitude …' began Lady Susan.

Her friend interrupted, ‘Happy to see you, of course, delighted, but I have such miserable news. Mr Johnson has heard you are come – I am not sure how he does it – and suddenly the sciatica is too bad for him to travel to Bath for his gout after all, so he's staying at home. He gets his symptoms to plague me, I know he does. He's had himself moved down into his study quite in the middle of the house, and I'm supposed to be his nurse instead of those ghastly sisters. It's all too absurd. I've crept out now but I can't stay. Oh this isn't what I wanted at all! I so looked forward to our time together. It's as much to make me scream with rage.'

‘Don't do that, Alicia,' said Lady Susan smiling. ‘Keep the screams for your spouse. He makes such a virtue of patience he would be bound to bear them stoically. But you
would
marry an old man.'

‘I would and I did. You know I had little choice – I have not your beauty, dear Susan. And, to tell truth, it's in the main comfortable enough except when it deprives me of you. But I must go. I don't know when I can come again but I will soon. Meanwhile you must see Manwaring – I can't entertain him with Mr Johnson now so close by. He's so amorous he needs quieting before he betrays you both – I mean Manwaring, of course.' And, with a hasty embrace, she dashed out to her chariot and was gone.

Scarcely had she left, and Lady Susan taken a moment to order a dinner at about six for the journey and sights of London had given her an appetite, when Manwaring himself was announced.

He was as affectionate as she remembered, though seeming a little older. Memory played tricks. But he was a very welcome sight. After much embracing, much planning of afternoon romps and outings from town, Lady Susan was eager for him to be off. ‘You must go. Mr Johnson is still in London and I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't employ spies to watch my lodgings.'

Manwaring took no notice but continued to press her tight, pulling at her shawl to feel her naked shoulders. She tried to push him away, continuing, ‘Oh yes, he will know them. He may even have had his wife followed when she took them. She's the dearest woman but not always on her guard. And there's your family. Charlotte may be a bore but she's not quite a fool and with Mr Johnson's help she could yet prove formidable.'

‘They don't speak,' he replied, his voice muffled by her lacy trimmings. ‘Anyway I don't care a fig for her, not this,' and Manwaring snapped his fingers, then curled them round into a sharp caress of Lady Susan's neck.

They were beginning to excite each other but she remained resolute. After more embraces, he left with such a fondness in his face as expressed his feeling to any passer-by. As he went down the steps, he looked up longingly at Lady Susan's first-floor windows.

She hoped there were indeed no spies present. Wisely she stood behind the curtains just out of sight, so that he couldn't get a glimpse of her and blow a kiss through the watching street. She must tell him to come more discreetly next time. Men had so little sense.
That night after her early dinner she was at Lord Godring's faro tables, where she was addressed by Lady Glint as if she had never been away. To Lady Susan too it seemed as though she had hardly left London. The smell of the new packs delighted her, while, after so long in the pastel greys and greens of the countryside, the whole room seemed vibrantly scarlet and black, quite unlike the dim musty redness of the Churchill stairway: full of fiery candles and hangings that picked out the colour of the cards.

She had wondered momentarily if Manwaring would be there. But he did not often move in her circles and in any case he didn't much care for cards. His betting was done on cricket at White's where he and his friends tried to bribe the players. The losses he'd told her about suggested he'd had little success. One famous loss had been due to the Prince of Wales, who had bet on the other side: it was assumed that the Prince could pay bigger bribes.

Would she win tonight? Some people claimed that the bank at Lord Godring's was thoroughly rigged, but she paid no mind to this. She hoped and always hoped again. She laid her bets on a card in the suit painted on the table. At once her heart began beating faster. Some minutes later the bank had won half the money and she had lost. But the night was only beginning.

Her luck did not improve. She felt too elated to play carefully; her bets were too high and she lost high. The bill from Reeve & Reeve would cover her losses; there was nothing to worry about.

Jack Fortuny was watching her. They had greeted each other when she entered the room. She realised how much she'd missed the familiarity of her old London friends, especially this one.

He didn't play these days, as if his professional period – if professional it had ever been – was in the past. He was a strange man who often seemed to know her better than she knew herself. She'd never loved him but she was as fond of him as any person she knew and would have lamented his absence.

She would allow herself one more game. She played – and lost.

The candles were sputtering; she was aware of men in the shadows flickering in and out of focus. Once more she saw Jack Fortuny talking to someone whose body was partly
hidden from her. Why did he not come over to her again? She was flirting a little with Lord Godring, who was leaning too closely over her bosom while he made his risqué puns. Jack Fortuny could not have been put off by this. He had often watched her with other men and comically remarked on honeypots. Why did he stay in the shadows? What did people hide there – secrets, sadness, just a clumsiness they didn't want exposed? But Jack Fortuny was all grace and charm. None the less she wished she had better sight.

Then suddenly he was beside her and the man he'd been speaking to was no longer in the room.

‘I have hazarded too much,' she said as she extricated herself from Lord Godring.

‘You have, your ladyship,' Jack Fortuny replied with his arch smile. ‘But you have a draft that should cover most of what you have lost. And I'm sure that source can be touched for more.'

She was startled. ‘How do you know … ?' she began, then stopped. For a moment she wondered. But, no, it couldn't be. Jack Fortuny never commanded funds he could distribute so largely.

‘A guess, Lady Susan. I am a man of guesses and chance – as you know.'

Of course he was a man of secrets, she knew that, but she had assumed he shared them with her when they concerned herself. She shivered just a little. Her habit of averting her eyes from difficulty had served her well, but she sensed there was something she should look into. Did it concern Jack Fortuny, herself, her plans or her past? The uneasiness was unusual, unexpected, almost threatening. She let her mind rest on it. She now knew what it was: the money. There was something strange about these unanticipated bank drafts. Her letters to Burnett concerning the matter went unanswered. That in itself was odd considering how deferential the lawyer used to be to her family, although she did remember his ridiculous demeanour when revealing the will. She must know more.

A few hours later, when the morning was far advanced and she had rested, Lady Susan sent Jeffrey with a message to the offices of Reeve & Reeve in Chancery Lane, telling him to deliver it and to avoid speaking to anyone. He would only get muddled. Then she followed the message with herself. If Burnett would not answer her letters, she must make other enquiries.

Mr Reeve was a little round man with a tight waistcoat straining over a bulging belly. He nodded and smiled and told Lady Susan that coincidentally there was now another draft for her; it had arrived that morning.

‘From where exactly has it come?'

‘My lady, I am not at liberty to divulge this. Please to ask your lawyer, Mr Burnett.'

‘But my lawyer declines to reply to my letters and in any case he had informed me that my husband's estate' – she stopped – ‘that is, I understood there was a lack of immediate income from our estate.'

Mr Reeve looked up at her in what she assumed to be a meaningful way. ‘We can, of course, know nothing of that,' he said in a low, almost cunning voice.

This was infuriating. ‘What can you mean?' she cried. ‘The money is surely from the estate.'

Mr Reeve smiled a little nervously. ‘Just so,' he said, ‘the money is at your ladyship's disposal.'

There was nothing specific to be got from him. She suspected he didn't in fact know as much as she'd supposed. She went down the steps of the offices with the new bank draft in her hanging pocket. It almost precisely covered her debts of last night. The remainder of the earlier money was still intact – as of course were a good many debts. That was something but, for life in London as she meant to lead it, the money would not stretch very far.

She was sure now that there was a mystery. She thought again of Lord Gamestone. He had sent her word and, for old time's sake, they had planned a supper
à deux
in the next few days. Could he actually be the source of the money? No, the notion was ridiculous. She had tired of him and he of her. Apart from old Lady Heton, who had only just caught up with the gossip and thought his lordship was being kind to a poor widow, no one bracketed them together any longer. Besides, hadn't Alicia said he was with the Pulteney girl?

She set off back to the lodgings to rest for the evening's entertainment. The party was to be a select one with the new Italian singer who had been brought to London from Rome through enemy country and over a Channel bristling with French warships. For this gala evening Lady Susan was particularly wanted, someone had scrawled on her invitation card.

She was being helped out of her outer clothes by Barton and preparing to put on something loose when Manwaring was announced again. He entered shrouded in a large greatcoat. Given the mildness of the day, she assumed this was supposed to be a disguise: it drew a good deal of attention to him.

So concerned had she been with her own affairs last evening and today that she had from time to time forgotten him. But she now felt a rush of affection, even though his arrival was unseasonable and his apparel a little absurd. She was tired but not too tired for what he promised.

They repaired to her dressing room. Barton took her mistress's clothes away to check which items needed mending. She had had to mend many broken clasps and ties while at Langford, so many jagged rips, which argued much carelessness. There had been no such need in Churchill, for which she'd been grateful.

Her ladyship's ribbons and ties could tell a tale
, thought Barton wryly as she went downstairs to the basement where clothes were washed, ironed and mended. In general she had a pretty good idea how things stood with her mistress but it would be worth her place to make clear her knowledge; so she agreed readily to whatever unlikely errands were proposed for her when Lady Susan wanted her out of the way. She was still feeling the glow of being back in the London streets and away from the dirt lanes and disappointments of the country. Besides, she could see that her mistress was also refreshed, and Lady Susan tended to pay some of her arrears of wages whenever she was especially enjoying herself.

Afterwards, in the rumpled sheets and with a glass of canary wine in hand, Lady Susan and Manwaring chatted amicably together. Both were a little sore where they lay. As they grew calmer, Lady Susan's mind reverted to her own affairs.

‘But really I have to get rid of her,' she remarked abruptly. ‘Frederica must have Sir James.'

‘Don't talk of the girl,' replied Manwaring planting his finger across her mouth. ‘She has caused us quite enough trouble already.' He closed further protest with his lips.

Lady Susan assumed there'd been other women in Manwaring's life but she felt sure she was the only one now. His passion remained intense; she exhaled slowly with the pleasure of it.

Neither wanted to part, but Lady Susan insisted. She knew it made the next meeting more delicious. She doubted that Manwaring felt the same: he was so voracious, so insatiable. But he had to go – and go discreetly this time. The day spread out before her. Ahead of the musical soirée, she was planning to meet Alicia Johnson at Ackerman's, then bring her back for tea in her lodgings. Mr Johnson could not forbid his wife looking at fashionable prints and he need not know in whose company she viewed them.