Ace, King, Knave (59 page)

Most of her stash is still sewn into her petticoats. Suppose she took the mail coach to Bristol, where the cousins lay up over winter? She’d have her own people around her – and once they’d got their hands on the gold, there’d be precious little meat in the pot, and everyone’s nose poked into her business. She hasn’t crawled out from under Kitty and Sam, only to be pushed around by the likes of Ben and Davey. You can starve in Bristol, same as here. She’s seen them propped against walls, too weak to beg.

Shuffle. A
straight
shuffle, so the cards tell true.

Her gold won’t last forever. If she could only settle the business – get behind the counter of a pretty little shop, say – she’d be made. Queen of her premises, showing folk the door, should she choose.

There’s no Knave of Hearts in this pack, no Pam neither. Where’s he now, Dimber Ned?

Seven-card horseshoe. First up: King of Cups, reversed. One who takes good care of himself, leaving others to sink or swim. Not much to puzzle her there. Next, Five of Batons, also reversed. Lawing, cheating, trickery. No surprise there, either.

She hopes there won’t be too many of these reversed cards. They are always unlucky. Still, it’s only Past and Present: what matters is Future. She slides her finger under the Future card and turns up . . . two. Two of them! Never in her life has she fumbled the Tarocco like that: is there some special meaning in it? Three of Cups, upright; Four of Cups, reversed. So close together, Three and Four! Had it been Cups and Swords, now, she’d try to read them together, but these might just be a slip of the fingers, two cards stuck together through all the shuffling and come out here. The question is, which is the true card? Not the Three, surely. That means kinchins, and here she sits with her rags on.

So: Four of Cups, Reversed. Too much of a good thing, leading to sickness, weakness, punishment.
Blushing like port wine
, says a sly voice in her head. But this is the future. Ned has no future. It’s the first time she’s had that thought. She sits motionless a while, taking it in.

Suppose it should be her own sickness, and she like Lina Burch, headed for the Lock? She shudders. Come spring, Lina will be walking carrion, earning her bread by frightening off cullies until some furious whore throws her a shilling. Four of Cups is Lina’s card. Though it won’t be Betsy-Ann’s, not in that way, because she’d kill herself first.

Having two cards queers the reading. She’s begun to wish she’d never opened the pack: the future seems shrunken now, gelded of the magic she sensed when looking out of the window.

Never mind, on we go: Five of Coins, ruin but with hope. To hell with hope, better have no ruin, then you don’t need the hope. Should she just stop reading – no, get it out, know the worst. Six of Coins, a giver. Last card. Seven of Cups. Chance of great fortune, easily missed. And how in Christ’s name is a poor mort to know it when it comes? As if she hasn’t spent her life trying. Everyone in Romeville, from Cosgrove to the man with the talking dog, they’re all watching for the Great Chance. The Blores came here in search of theirs, and look at them now: she’s the only one left above ground.

There was the night at Haddock’s. That seemed like it, at the time. Perhaps her chance wasn’t Ned but Mrs Ned, all along. Either way, she’s missed it. The wind’s changed, Mrs Ned won’t pay. She heard it in the noise of the carriage, rattling off.

Four of hers have died here: Mam, Keshlie, ugly Harry and Dimber Ned. Shouldn’t such things, as much as your birthplace, count as a parish settlement? She’s heard that carters pick up young runaways trudging the roads and fetch them into Romeville. The fee is the usual thing, after which the chit is said to be ‘made free of the cart’. When you’ve seen as much as she has, and lain with as many men, you’re surely made free of the Town.

Lord, what care my mother takes! Could she but procure herself a Hottentot.

He was Kitty’s son, yet he was more besides. He had his moments of kindness, it’s only right they should be remembered. Does The Cunt in the Wall now boast a Hottentot? That Betsy-Ann doesn’t know the answer, that she herself escaped the place and will never go back, is owing to him.

She sets down her Tarocco and takes up the deck with the soldiers and the dancing ladies, flicking through until she finds Pamphile. There he is, the little devil, with his melancholy, lascivious phiz. She sets him aside to look at awhile. Then she places him back in the deck and practises shuffling, again and again, turning him this way and that, keeping him always under her eye.

Glossary

This glossary includes cant, slang, archaic words and the French with which elegant speakers peppered their conversation. Expressions still current, such as
memento mori
and
frisson
, have not been glossed.

The primary source is Grose’s
Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
but many of the expressions used were current much earlier; some, such as cove and dimber, date back to the seventeenth century or before.

à la mode
   in the fashion

Abbess
   bawd

active citizens
   body lice

au fait
 
   knowledgeable

autem bawler
   parson

autem mort
   1) wife 2) female beggar impersonating a desperate wife with small children
autem
   church

bagnio
   a cross between a Turkish bath and a sex hotel, extremely
expensive

bantling
   child

baubles
   testicles

bel canto
   Italian style of singing
bibelot
   ornament

bilk
   cheat

billet-doux
   love letter

bing avast
   steal away, clear off

bishop
   hot drink made from wine, fruit and spices
bitch booby
   female bumpkin

bite
(
noun/verb
)   a theft or trick; to steal or trick
blood
   riotous disorderly fellow

blowen
   disreputable girl; whore; thief’s mistress
blunt
   money

bob
   trick, criminal racket

bonnet
   a decoy who distracts attention away from his cheating partner
books
   playing cards

boozing-ken
   drinking den

bubbies
   breasts

bubble
   cheat

bubble and squeak
   beef and cabbage, fried up together
buck
   notable debauchee

buggeranto
   sodomist

bullybacks
   ‘bouncers’ in places of entertainment
bunter
   1) a rag picker 2) the lowest and most desperate kind of prostitute
buttock ball
   sexual intercourse

cackler
   preacher

candid
   generous, ready to think the best of others
cant
   criminal slang

canting crew
   criminal fraternity

chaunter cull
   composer of songs for street musicians
cheese it
   shut up, keep mum

chivvy
   cut

clog
   burden, impediment

closet
   private space within a bedchamber
comfits
   sweets

comme il faut
   as it should be, as one must
Corinth
   brothel

Corinthian
   debauchee

cove
   bloke

Covent Garden Ague
   syphilis

cracksman
   safebreaker

crew
   gang

crib
   grave, graveyard

cull(y)
   a prostitute’s client, or a woman’s dupe
cundum
   condom

Curse of Scotland
   the nine of diamonds
Cyprian
   prostitute

dairyworks 
  breasts

daisy
   naïve person

damper
   snack

darby
   money, cash

darkmans
   night

dell
   girl, young woman

déshabille
   undress/casual dress
de trop
   superfluous

deuce
   in cards, the Two of any suit.

Deuce, the
   the Devil

dimber
   beautiful/handsome

dinner
   the time of this varied, but was generally much earlier than our modern ‘dinner’ (see ‘supper’)
doe 
  mistress

done brown
   cheated

drab
   prostitute

drug
   drag, hindrance

duddering rake
   lewd, filthy, extreme rake
duds 
  clothes

dummee
   pocket book, wallet

dun
(
noun/verb
)   person who collects debts; to collect a debt

enceinte
 
  pregnant

ensemble
   (here) overall effect

entre nous
   between ourselves
ergo
   therefore

fam
   hand

Farmer George
   George III

fawney
   ring

faytour
   counterfeiter, forger

fingerpost
   parson

fire priggers
   thieves preying on victims of domestic fires
flash
   1) knowing (the opposite of ‘flat’). ‘To patter flash’ = to speak the slang of criminals, the ‘cant’

2) a glass of gin (‘lightning’)
flash house
   a gathering place for criminals, especially thieves
flash kiddey
   young thief, often with the sense of ostentatious style
flat
   naïve person, fool

flesh-hound
   man in search of sex

flowers
   menstrual period

fly
   knowing

flyer 
  ‘knee-trembler’