Ace, King, Knave (12 page)

‘Come,’ he urges, still stroking. ‘Since you’re a married lady, as you keep telling me, you need not be so very prudish. Shall we talk in earnest?’ Sophia wipes her eyes and nods. ‘We will shortly be in London. If you allow me to go about my business without prying, we may yet shake down well.’

‘But why must you be so secretive? Why do you speak of
your
business, not
our
business?’

‘I mean simply that the husband has his concerns, and the wife hers, and each contributes to the common good. Surely your papa doesn’t meddle in the kitchen?’

‘Nor does Mama,’ she corrects him in some indignation. ‘We keep a cook.’

‘Of course,’ says Edmund, looking nettled. ‘But the principle, you know ―’

‘Naturally Papa and Mama have their own affairs. But they’ve never kept things from one another.’

‘You may depend upon it that they have.’

‘No, never,’ Sophia insists, the tears drying in her eyes at the memory of their happiness. ‘A good wife is her husband’s staunchest ally, his truest friend. If you don’t think so, why did you ―’

‘Marry? How can you ask? It was because I found you irresistible.’ Again he touches her, this time with a hand on each of her upper arms. ‘Not desire intimacy? I was quite unable to rest, to sleep,’ his face is getting closer and closer to hers, his thumbs just brushing the sides of her breasts, ‘until I’d made myself your slave and your king.’

He reaches for his pocket, his hand skimming her as if by accident, and with a handkerchief dabs at her swollen eyelids.

Sophia sits motionless. In this precise fashion, during their courtship, he occasionally touched, or nearly touched, her bosom, or sometimes her neck: always with the lightest touch, in such a way that it appeared quite unintentional, a touch of which a lady could scarcely complain without appearing to protest too much. She recalls those orderly lists of objects to be ordered, purchased and repaired that filled his letters during that time. Was she herself entered in some private catalogue of his, some list in his brain, to be acquired if a price could be agreed?

But this is not the worst, not at all the worst. Possibly she herself never figured as an item on his list of desirables; it was a good marriage he desired, rather than Sophia.
Now
he speaks of hunger, of being her slave, but where was all his hunger
then
?

She remembers her own well enough, how longing for him threatened to overwhelm her: she was a fever patient craving water. Is it possible that he discerned that thirst and played on it, taking advantage of her naïvety to increase it by means that a more experienced woman would have laughed at? She can hardly bear to think so, yet she can hardly think otherwise. Those eminently proper letters: were they, then, composed for the eyes of her parents? He rated their wit no more highly than that, and (she thinks with a pang) he was right: the Bullers were quite satisfied with his productions.
Tête-à-tête
with Sophia, he had a fine time of it, laying on expertly with whip and spur until she was hard put to it to govern her feelings, but he never allowed himself to lapse into coarseness.

He has grown more careless since.

‘Perhaps you were right,’ Edmund murmurs, breaking away from her as the food is brought in. ‘Perhaps we could take a chamber.’ His voice softens, taking on the only kind of intimacy he will permit. ‘Should you like that?’

Sophia hesitates, understanding his purpose. She is to be contented, reduced, stupefied. How despicable, and how easy to acquiesce! Her body is as unquestioningly wedded to Edmund as he could wish, and the prospect of dry garments a powerful additional temptation.

She resists nevertheless. ‘I think
you
were right, love. We shouldn’t lose time.’

Her husband’s unprotesting nod only causes her a further pang.

The bread is hard, the chocolate tasteless and thin, but they devour both without complaint. Edmund caresses Sophia with his eyes; after the tempers of last night and the sulks of this morning, he is coquettish as a woman. It is hard to remain angry with a husband who gazes adoringly on his wife’s crumpled, inflamed features, particularly when that wife has just refused his amorous advances. Sophia feels her resistance softening like the bread she has dipped into her chocolate. This, and no other, is the man she has married. She can take only what he has to give, and must accept that his gifts are such shallow, impermanent ones as he might bestow on any woman: beauty, and the butterfly ability of bestowing pleasure. Are there women who would be delighted with such a spouse? If so, Sophia is not one of them; but she must learn to ‘shake down’, as Edmund puts it, relinquishing her hopes of a husband who would also be a trusted friend at her side. How strange! As an unmarried girl she imagined that it all came about quite naturally, once a woman had the ring upon her finger.

17

Sam Shiner’s ma used to run a Puss & Mew. He’s told Betsy-Ann about this contraption more than once but tonight, since Harry Blore has come to sup with them, she must hear it again.

‘The old man knocked it up out of crates and sacking,’ Sam explains. ‘She’d stand inside.’ He laughs, to encourage Blore to do likewise. Betsy-Ann also laughs as she turns the beefsteaks, nicely floured and seasoned, in the pan. Her brother is like a bear, inclined to show his teeth when hungry.

‘Inside? What for?’ asks Blore.

Sam lays his finger alongside his nose. ‘You get your bucket of lightning and your measure,’ he imitates someone doling out liquid, ‘and wait till someone comes up. They can’t see your face behind the frame and they never say
geneva
or
lightning
or nothing, only
puss
, and you go
mew
.’

‘Why’s that?’ asks Betsy-Ann, seeing Harry at a loss. Her brother can be chuckle-headed but he hates showing it in company; it’s better for her health, and Sam’s, if she helps him out on the sly.

‘Nothing to swear to, Betsy.’ He turns back to Harry. ‘There’s a drawer in the frame, see, open both ends. The cull hears the mew, puts in a penny. Ma takes it out her end, puts a flash in its place. He’s under the sacking, he drinks up and he’s on his way. Nothing wrong here, nothing but a cove looking for his poor old cat.’

Blore lifts his glass with a dirty grin. ‘Freedom forever.’

‘Freedom forever,’ echoes Sam, and clinks with him. Betsy-Ann, crouching by the fire, raises her glass but takes no more than a sip as the steaks are just fit to be taken off and laid in the dish. Christ, if she should burn them now! Her hand slippery on the frying-pan handle, she lays the meat atop the onions and potatoes already prepared, and pours the juice over.

‘Something smells good,’ says Sam. Blore says nothing, but then she knows better than to expect compliments from him.

‘Was she ever nabbed?’ Betsy-Ann asks so that he can come to the next part.

‘You had to watch for noses. One day she’s on her pitch and a mort comes in.
Puss
, she says. My ma goes
mew
, takes the penny and hands over the dram. Next thing she knows the bitch starts screaming – This woman’s selling gin! This woman’s selling gin! – Ma didn’t know what to do with herself.’

‘Toddle,’ suggests Blore.

‘Can’t, not in the frame. She can’t get it off, neither, not quick enough, and she’s pissing herself for fear. Next thing she hears another shout – A nose! There’s a nose here! – and a sort of rushing noise, and then a screaming, terrible, like a scalded child, and people running. Then it all goes quiet. Nobody’s laid a hand on her. She unbuckles, climbs out. First thing she notices is the street. All empty.’

‘Empty! Fancy that!’ Betsy-Ann comes in on cue.

‘Next thing there’s this noise behind her. She looks round and sees a mort, must’ve been
the
mort, in the road.’

‘Dead?’

‘No, but all over blood, and crawling.’

Blore grunts. ‘Weren’t the Excise with her?’

‘If they were, the mob saw them off. My ma made herself scarce, I can tell you. She left the Puss & Mew standing with the lightning still in it, and the woman, dragging herself along, crying, Don’t leave me!’

‘They should’ve scragged the bitch. Her and all noses.’ Blore pours himself another glass, brimming, and downs it in one.

Betsy-Ann wonders why the woman thought Sam’s ma would stay with her. Perhaps when you’re dying you don’t know who you’re talking to, or you forget you’re a nose. Or you don’t care because anybody’s better than the company on the other side of that door.

Harry’s
should’ve scragged the bitch
gets on her nerves. He puts it about that he’s a regular trusty Trojan; for herself, she’d trust Old Harry himself before Harry Blore. Sam claims not to, either, but he doesn’t always act according.

At last the food is on the table. There are the beefsteaks nicely smoking in their dish, bread, butter, wine, stewed mushrooms, buttered cabbage, some cheese and pickled salmon and an almond pudding (fetched in by Liz this morning from the pastrycook’s). It’s a mystery to Betsy-Ann why the men are eating with her. As a rule Harry conducts his business in his own ken, along with the rest of the crew. She’s already asked Sam what the rig is but he won’t tell her; he just says, ‘Never trouble yourself,’ and laughs.

‘Here’s to greatness,’ says her brother. He’s forever making toasts, these days: Betsy-Ann wonders when he took up the trick.

The talk dies down as the three of them settle to the meal. The men eat noisily, Blore in particular: he half-chews his food with an open mouth and then swills it down his throat with wine. Betsy-Ann’s never prided herself on her refinement, never been in a position to, but she hates that
squish, squish
, like a bloody cow on the cud. She turns her face away, towards the fire. Brisk and clear it is, just the thing for beefsteaks. She draws comfort from its snapping flames, from the plump coal-sack in the corner and from the Eye whose contents Blore has never seen. There is also, under a floorboard unknown even to Shiner, a stash of darby, sweetly conveyed from his pockets whenever he comes home drunk as David’s sow. Lately this stash has been growing apace. Betsy-Ann often thinks of it as she goes about her daily round and is filled with a pleasurable sense of virtuous enterprise, the independence of the true-born Briton.

The beef is tender, rich and savoury. Harry would as soon think of flying as of giving her a word of praise, but he can’t hide the satisfaction in his face. Sam’s winking and smacking of his lips doesn’t count, since it’s only done to cry up the food for Harry’s benefit. She’s been busy all day and could really go at her portion, could tear at it, but for the fact that every so often she becomes aware of the hogo in the room. When Blore arrived she made sure that the fire was up and the place snug, and asked him to take his coat off. She laid the coat in the corner of the room, as far from herself as could be, but even there it makes itself known. Then there’s the foulness of their shirts and trousers, and even their skin. She doesn’t notice it as much as she used to, and that bothers her: does it mean she’s begun to stink likewise? Sam and Betsy, a pair of corpses lying side by side.

So far, however, this looks like a good night, even allowing for Harry. Sam’s taking just the right amount of drink: with luck he’ll get to bed peaceable but limp, which is how she likes him best.

In fairness, she thinks, Sam was never Mr Lushington, no more than Ned Hartry. No sharp can afford to be. It’s the resurrection business that’s turned him lushy. At moments like this she feels sorry for Sam. Things haven’t turned out right for him, either. But then, happening to look up, she sees the greasy blond hair stuck to his skull – the fashion of leaving off the periwig doesn’t suit him – and remembers how stubborn he can be, about her learning to write, and about more important things. She offered to stand banker, but he
would
go in with Harry. Ned would’ve shaken hands on it. He understood what she was capable of, what she was worth.

‘Sing us a song, our Betsy,’ says Harry Blore. ‘Sing
The Merry Maiden
.’

Betsy-Ann is startled. The drink’s surely knocked him back; he said ‘Our Betsy’ just as he used to when they were kinchins. As for
The Merry Maiden
, it’s not worth singing.

‘Go on, Betsy-Ann,’ says Sam, nodding.

If Harry said, ‘Down on your back, Sis, and throw your gown over your head,’ Sam’d probably nod in just that way. And hold her arms while he was at it.

‘I forget the words.’

‘Go on, it’ll come to you.’

Betsy-Anne clears her throat.

It was a merry maiden,

A maiden, a maiden,

It was a merry maiden,

In a garden so fine.

Now which of you young men,

You young men, you young men,

Now which of you young men,

Will take me for his own?

O shall it be the sailor,

The sailor, the sailor,

O shall it be the sailor,

With his eyes so blue?

Or shall it be the soldier,

The soldier, the soldier,

O shall it be the soldier,

Whose heart is so true?

My father is . . .

‘Lord! What was the father at . . . ?’

Blore says, ‘A-reaping.’

My father is a-reaping,

A-reaping, a-reaping,

My father is a-reaping,

To bring in the wheat.

My mother is a-spinning,

a-spinning, a-spinning,

My mother is a-spinning,

So fine and so neat.

Up steps a bold young lover

A lover, a lover,

Up steps a bold young lover,

And his heart was on fire.

‘Sweet maiden I must have you,