Black Ajax (6 page)

You don't need me, thank God, to describe Tom's fight with the Black Ghost, an' I would not if I could. To me, a child, it was a first glimpse into Hell, with a chorus of yellin' fiends transpo'ted in cruel delight as they watched my love bein' tortured an' mangled by that monster. I stopped my ears an' eyes, an' thought I must go mad, an' when I saw his poor body broke an' dyin' (as I thought) on the ground, I threw myself on him wishin' only that I might die with him. Worst of all was to hear his own master, who I s'posed loved an' cared for him, threaten to have him killed by inches, an' to see Tom, all bloodied an' beaten, drag himself up again to be sacrificed.

Then the serpent de la Guise came whisperin' at my ear, lispin' of freedom for Tom an' me, an' how I might put spirit in him. Between my crazy grief an' wild hope I did as he bid me, with no thought of my fear an' loathin' of him. An' Tom won, I can't say how, for I could not bear to see it. Then I knew such joy – for he was free an' would make me free also. I would have blessed de la Guise an' kissed his foot in gratitude, but he went quickly away.

Ganymede, who was de la Guise's yellow valet, put me in a carriage with Tom, to take us back to de la Guise's house, for Master Richard was in such an ecstasy at his vict'ry that he must stay behind to
celebrate, I s'pose, with his cronies an' such. I didn't care; I was with Tom, weepin' for happiness as I kissed his awful wounds an' comforted him, tellin' him of de la Guise's promise, an' how we would be free together – I, who hardly knew what freedom meant. Even Tom, dull Tom, knew more of it than I, for he put his great strong arm, with its cruelly broken hand, 'bout me, an' kept sayin' over an' over: “Free! Free! Free! Oh, li'l Mollybird, you my own woman now! My li'l princess, my true love!”

Yes, if there has been a moment in my life to call blessed, it was then, in that carriage rumblin' home to Pontchartrain, an' freedom.

They took Tom to the slave quarters to tend to his hurts, an' Ganymede gave me in charge of a tall mulatto woman who I guess was chatelaine. She turned me this way an' that, sniffed at my cotton dress an' old shoes as unfittin', and asked real cold when I'd bathed last. 'Twas only then, I think, that it came home to me that I was de la Guise's slave now, an' I
shivered
to think on't, 'til I remembered how kind he'd been at that awful fight. I was more scared of the mulatto woman's sour face an' bony hands, an' the big bunch of keys she carried like a jailer.

She gave me over to two black maids in dimitty dresses an' caps, such as I'd never seen, an' they took me upstairs to a room with a big bath on a tiled floor, an' washed me all over with scented suds. I felt like a princess then, an' thought I must be dreamin', in that wondrous house with its great hall an' sweepin' staircase an' lovely pain-tin's an' carpets an' marble columns such as I'd never 'magined. Why, I'd never seen a bathroom before, let alone thought to use one. Amplefo'th had seemed a palace, but it was a shack to this place, with all its luxur'ous appointments an' gilt furniture. It made me feel small an' frightened, 'til I remembered Tom was free, an' de la Guise would let him make me free, too.

After the maids had dried me I asked for my clothes, an' they snickered into their aprons an' said there was a fire in the room where I was to be taken.

“You ain't goin' need no clo'es tonight awhile, li'l honey gal,” says one. “Nor no night-rail, neether.”

“But don' fret yo'self,” says t'other maid. “You'll get plenny silk dresses by'n'by, an' ribbons an' fal-lals, sho' 'nuff !”

When I saw the bed-chamber I was left speechless, it was so grand an' tasteful, in the loveliest soft colours, peach an' pink an' ivory, with a mighty four-post bed hung in silks, and mirrors ev'ywhere, so that I was put out to see myself bare wherever I looked, an' pulled the sheet from the bed 'round me. The mulatto woman came in, an' slapped me for makin' free with the sheet, an' bid the maids put it back. Now I was real scared, an' like to cry when she pulled me by the arm to a little window in the wall.

“Stand there,” says she, an' slapped me again. “Keep yo' eyes open an' yo' mouth shet, or 'twill be the wuss for you, ye heah?”

I shook like a willow, for fear an' 'mazement as I looked through the window into another room that was set much lower in the house so that I was lookin' down into it, an' the folks in it were 'way beneath me. There was de la Guise layin' at his ease in a silk dressin'-gown on a chaise longue, smokin' his cigar, but what robbed me o' breath was the two white ladies on a couch nearby. One was yellow-haired an' t'other red, an' they were painted an' patched to admiration. I had never seen anythin' in the world so grand an' beautiful an' stylish. I thought they mus' be real princesses, or queens even, an' couldn't think why they didn't wear hardly any clothes at all. I'd never seen white ladies near naked before, an' was wonder-struck to see 'em so pretty an' soft 'neath their clothes.

The room itself was sumptuous, with walls lined with gold satin, an' furniture looked soft enough to sink into. There were paintin's on the walls of more lovely white ladies, an' near the fireplace smaller pictures of white men half-naked, standin' in poses with their hands raised as I'd seen Tom stand when the sailor-man had been 'structin' him. There was the sweetest smell of perfume, and I remember thinkin' (God help me!) that Heaven must look somethin' like that room, an' angels like those painted ladies.

Then a door opened down there, an' my heart leaped, for it was Tom, with that Ganymede. They had washed him clean of blood, an' though there was a plaster on his cheek an' on his brow that was swollen, an' his right hand was bandaged, it was a joy to see him walk steady an' like his old self. He was taken all aback to see the ladies there, an' I could have blushed to see them sit up smilin' on the couch, showin' off their bosoms before a coloured man, so bold. Tom stood
confused an' put down his head, but I could see him givin' them a shot of his eye sidelong. De la Guise rose, very languid, an' looked at him, an' poor Tom stood mum, but couldn't keep from watchin' the white ladies.

“Well, Tom Molineaux,” says de la Guise, “so you are a free man now. And right nobly you have earned your freedom. Who taught you this, eh?”

An' he let drive his left hand an' hit Tom smack on the mouth, an' laughed. Tom made a mumble, an' de la Guise said he had been well 'structed, but had much to learn.

“How will you live now that you are free?” asks he. “Will you be a prize-fighter?”

“Yes, mass',” mutters Tom. I could hardly hear him.

“But here you may fight only black men like yourself,” says de la Guise. “Crude animals like the one you killed tonight.” 'Twas the first I'd heard of the Black Ghost bein' killed, an' I gave a little cry. The mulatto woman twisted my hair an' hissed at me like a cat to quiet me. “If you aspire to be a true boxer, you must fight white men, and you can do that only in England, which is the home of the Noble Art.” I doubt Tom had heard of England, for he was dumb.

Then de la Guise showed him the little pictures on the wall, sayin' that these were the great English champions. He called off their names, but I don't recall them, except one that stayed in my mind because it didn't sound English, but now bein' f'miliar with Spanish names, I b'lieve it was one such.

“Why, that man is half your size and weight,” cries de la Guise. “But he could
cut
you to pieces in moments!” Tom looked at the picture an' growled somethin' I couldn't hear, an' de la Guise laughed an' claps his shoulder.

“Wait until you face such a man, you'll learn different. But do you know, Tom, whenever that man fights he makes one thousand dollars? Sometimes two thousand, five thousand, even. Why, in England they think more of him than of their King! You know what a king is, Tom?”

“Like in stories mammy tells,” grunts Tom.

“Exactly so! Tom, you could fight like that man. You are strong and brave and supple. But you could learn only in England. Would you care to go to England, Tom?”

I could tell, from the jeerin' way he said it, an' the smile on those plump lips, that he was makin' game of him.

“If mass' say,” mumbles Tom, an' de la Guise laughed, mockin'.

“No, no, Tom, if
you
say! Why, you are free, and your own master. Would you like to live high, and do as you pleased, ride in a carriage, wear fine clothes, like this robe of mine – feel, Tom, how smooth it is.” Tom touched the robe like it was red hot, an' de la Guise spoke soft. “You could have white ladies, Tom, like these.” He fluttered a hand, an' the two ladies got up an' walked over ever so lazy-like. One stood before Tom, smilin' an' poutin', an' t'other came beside him an' put a hand on his shoulder, an' they fairly did languish at him. I could not believe my eyes, white ladies with a coloured man.

“Do you like them, Tom?” says de la Guise. “I believe they like you very much. Eh, my dears?”

The ladies began to pet Tom an' caress him, an' the yellow-haired one was strokin' his arm, exclaimin' how strong he was, an' the other kissed his mouth an' clung to him. I was sick to my stomach to see white ladies so demean themselves, but de la Guise laughed and said he must not fear them, for they admired him and yearned to give him pleasure. Tom began to shake an' stare like a wild thing, an' then they left plaguin' him an' de la Guise asked him again if he liked white ladies. Tom stood dumb, gaspin' and all a-tremble, an' de la Guise struck him in the face to make him answer.

“Reckon so, mass',” says Tom, shakin' fit to die.

“Better than your little Mollybird?” asks de la Guise, an' my heart went cold as he glanced up at my window. Then he nodded to the ladies, an' they came close to Tom again, pesterin' an' cooin' like doves.

“Surely not?” says de la Guise. “She is waiting for you, Tom, in this house. Come with me now, and you may take her away, free, the two of you. I promised her you should have the money for her purchase.” Oh, that soft, lispin' voice might have belonged to the fiend that tempted Jesus. “Or, if you please, you may stay here awhile with the white ladies. Choose, Tom. Which shall it be? One or the other. Sweet little Mollybird, or these loving white ladies?”

The mulatto woman had my hair in her grip, an' a bony hand 'cross
my mouth to stifle my cry. 'Twas like a nightmare as I heard de la Guise repeat that vile, evil offer, an' through my tears I could only watch helpless as Tom, the poor mindless fool, went where his blind lust took him, an' let those white harlots embrace him an' draw him down unresistin' on their couch.

Must I tell you what I suffered in that moment? I think not. To say my heart broke – what does it mean? Yet 'tis all there is to say. Mollybird began to die in that moment, Mollybird the simple, trustin' little yellow gal. She's been dead many, many years now, her an' her broken heart, an' Senora Marguerite Rossignol, who has no heart, can say: what use to blame Tom Molineaux for bein' what he was? You'd as well blame a
baby
for crawlin' to a shiny toy. 'Twas no real choice that temptin' toad offered him, 'cos like a baby he didn't have a mind to choose with. Only a body.

I remember crouchin' by the bed, with the fire so hot to one side o' me, an' all cold on t'other, an' then de la Guise was in the room, speakin' to the mulatto woman.

“She saw and heard? Everything? Oh, excellent!” He went across to the little window, an' stood lookin' down, an' gave a little yelp of laughter. Then he turned to the mulatto. “Presently, have Ganymede pay those two, and put that animal into the street. Now go. I am not to be disturbed.”

He came an' stood over me, still smilin' with those hateful snake's eyes, an' nibblin' at his lip. I was too numb with mis'ry to think even, let alone wonder that any man could be so cruel as make me see what I had seen.

“Poor little golden nymph,” says he in that jeerin' lispin' voice. “So exquisite. So forlorn. Beauty, abandoned by the Beast. What would you? A brute has the appetites of a brute. But can she guess, I wonder, how great a favour the Beast has done to Beauty? What would freedom have brought her, with such a creature? What would her fate have been, eh?”

He bid me rise, an' I was too broke in despair to disobey, or even to shrink when he began to stroke my lips an' cheek with those soft slug fingers. Then he bid me walk 'cross to the door, an' back again, watchin' me with that gloatin' smile. “Perfection,” says he, sighin', an' took my hands an' kissed them, an' at that I began to cry an'
shake with fear at last, an' begged him to let me be, an' he began to laugh.

That, I think, is as much as I care to remember for you. No more is necessary, for I have told you all that I know of Tom Molineaux. The transfo'mation of Mollybird into Senora Rossignol, by that scented vermin de la Guise an' others, I am happy to leave to your 'magination. He was right, of course. I should be grateful to Tom. If he'd been true to Mollybird, there'd ha' been no elegant coloured lady, with her fine house an' servants an' carriage an' all, inquirin' of a gennleman visitor if he would care to partake of a service of aft'noon tea an' pastries … If you'd be so kind as to draw the bell-rope yonder … ?

Black? What black? Ah, Molineaux, the fellow who gave Cribb pepper and a half …
that
black. Should think I do remember him. Made a rare packet of
rhino
out o' the brute, cost old Crocky and Jew King a fortune, wept all the road to Jerusalem, ha-ha! Aye, a sound investment, Black Tom, knew it the moment I clapped eyes on him, at the old Nag and Fish – the Horse and Dolphin,
^*
you must know it, in St Martin's Street as you come off Leicester Square … no? Gone now, I dare say, but 'twas there I launched Tom on the road to Fistic Fame, as Egan would say, for 'twas my word that swayed Richmond, no doubt o' that. It was his
ken
in those days, where the sporting set was used to play cricket in the back field … oh, Alvanley, Sefton, poor old Berkeley Craven (blew his brains out over the '36 Derby, affected ass), Mellish, Webster, God knows who. I played a single-wicket match there once against Byron, the late poet. Odd fish, bit his nails, wore curl papers in bed to give his manly locks the romantic twist, got in a fearful wax 'cos I called him Sleeping Beauty … not a bad bowler, mind; not in Brummell's parish, but too good for me. No, boxing was my game – and milord Byron wasn't up to my snuff there, I can tell you, gamecock though he was. Small wonder. Why, I was the best amateur miller of the day, bar Barclay Allardice. I floored Cribb … once. Shan't tell you what he did to me …

Did I
know
Molineaux? Good God, man, I told you I
remember
him, but one don't
know
that sort of specimen. Nigger pugs, what next? Anyway, what the devil is he to you, whoever you are? Who let you in here, for that matter? You ain't a patient, are you? Or one o' those damned mealy brain-scrubbers? No … you don't have the

style to be barmy, and not sly enough for a pill-slinger … damn them all …

Ah, the Superintendent let you in, did he? And said you might talk to me? Burn his blasted impudence, never asked my leave – who the dooce does he think he is, my keeper? Aye … that's precisely what he
does
think, rot him. Well, let me tell you, sir, that my
apartments
are
not
to let, like most of 'em. I am one of a select band of gentlemen resident in this charming rural establishment because we have lost the battle with delirium tremens – temporarily, I hasten to add – and are in need of a breather between rounds, so to speak. We are here of our own free will, at exorbitant rates, have the freedom of the grounds, do not consort with the loonies, and … I say, you don't happen to have a drop of anything with you, I suppose? Flask, bottle, demijohn, something of the sort?

Ah, pity. We might have spent a convivial hour discussing thingummy … Molineaux, did you say? Interesting aborigine, that … don't suppose there's a man in England could tell you more of his doings, in
and
out o' the green fairy circle, than I … oh, the old pugs, to be sure, but their wits are addled, and fellows like Egan and Hazlitt would just rap a deal of romantic nonsense. They don't know the story of Barclay's gloves, or Joe Ward and the bullets, or how that ass Sefton came within an ace of challenging Prinny to a duel – yes, over Molineaux, I do assure you – or the indiscretions of Lady … ah, but we shan't mention names, what would they say at Almack's?

Yes, we could have had a jolly prose together … but I cannot abide
dry
discourse, what? So, good day to you … don't roll your eyes or laugh too loud on the way out or they'll clap you in the comic box before you can say “Bender!” Adieu, adieu …

What's that? You could call again after luncheon … with a spot o'
lush
, no doubt. My dear fellow, what a capital notion. Put 'em in separate pockets so that they don't clink … the attendants here have ears like dago guerrillas, 'tis like being in the blasted Steel … Better still, tell you what – see down yonder, past the trees, there's a gap in the fence that our turnkeys haven't twigged yet, much frequented by the local mollishers – personable young females of loose conduct, sir, who disport themselves with us wealthier inmates, for a consideration.
Gad, the state of the country! I shall be there at two, you can run the cargo in safety, and we shall not be espied or
earwigged
…

Damn you, did I say two o'clock or did I not? Already? Gad, how time flies. Well, thank God you weren't beforehand … You'd best be off, m'dear – here's a guinea for you. Tomorrow at six, mind … There she trips, my village Titania … sweet seventeen and goes like a widow of fifty. Don't look askance at me, sir, if you were in this bloody bastille you'd be glad of a tickletail yourself. Now, have you brought … oh, famous! Sir, you are a
pippen
of the first flight! Brandy, bigod, that'll answer. Fix bayonets and form square, belly, the Philistines are upon thee … Ah-h-h! Aye, that's the neat article. Sir, your good health …

Now, tell me, how did you get my direction in the first place? My
son
? 'Pon my soul, that was uncommon condescending of him; he don't use to oblige strangers, unless … didn't lend him money, did you? You married? Ah, you have a sister … oh, charming fellow, absolutely, quite the military lion, too. Taking her to see the hippopotamus, is he … and then to Astley's? I see … oh, couldn't be in better hands. No need for you to race back to Town …

Well, now, since we have time before us, I tell you what – ne'er mind questions, I'll recollect, and you can take notes. Capital … Now, you're too young, I take it, to remember London in the old days – in the French war, I mean, before the Regency? Just so. Well, if you're to understand about Molineaux, and how he came to make such an almighty stir, and so forth, I must set you right about that time. 'Twas as different from today as junk from Offley's beef. Free and easy and jolly, no one giving a dam, churches half-empty and hells packed full, fashion and frolic the occupations, and sport the religion. Boney might be master of the Continent, and Wellington hanging on by his eyelids in Spain, but they were the deuce of a long way from Hyde Park and the night cellars; the many-headed might be on short commons and the government in Queer Street, but when were they not, eh? A few sobersides fretted about morality and revolution, but since most o' the country was three-parts drunk, nobody minded them. The Town was on the spree, and we were “on the Town”.

Hard to swallow, eh, for your serious generation, taking your lead
from our sedate young Queen, God bless her, and her pump-faced German noodle – ah, there's the difference, in a nutshell!
You
have the muff Albert, God help you, pious, worthy, dull as a wet Sabbath and dressed like a dead Quaker;
we
had fat Prinny, boozy and cheery and chasing skirt, in the pink of fashion as cut by Scott and approved by Brummell. That's the difference thirty years has made. Your statesmen don't gamble or fight duels; there ain't one trace-kicker among your Society women; royalty don't fornicate or have turn-ups at coronations nowadays; and what noble lord trains a prize pug or flees to France with the duns in full cry? Where are your dandy Corinthian
out-and-outers
, dazzling the
ton
, sparring with the
Black Beetles
or charging Kellerman's cavalry, breaking their necks over hedges, and all for the fun of it? Or your peep-o'-day Quality beauties, with their night-long parties, but fresh as daisies in Hyde Park by day? Or your high-flight Cyprians, rising by wit and beauty from nowhere to enchant the bucks and set the scandalised tea-cups rattling from Apsley House to Great Swallow Street?

No, they wouldn't suit in this stale age, for they were a different breed, male and female. I don't see the like today of Moll Douglas or Caro Lamb, or Jane Harley – Lady Oxford to you, who had so many brats by assorted sires they called 'em the Harleian Miscellany – or dear Hetty Stanhope, even, who decamped to be a Turkish sultana, as I recall. Women had style, then, as well as beauty. And men today are so damned
sane
and proper, not like Camelford, who went to France in disguise to try to murder Napoleon, or Jack Lade who married a highwayman's wench, or my chum Harry Mellish who locked Clarence in the roundhouse and once lost forty thousand pounds on the roll of a single
dice
, or the three Barrymores – Hellgate, Cripplegate, and Newgate, so Prinny called 'em, and their noble sister was Billingsgate, on account of her fishwife tongue. Aye, it was a different age, gone now – and good riddance, you may think. But if it was wild and reckless, it was alive, with spirits that England couldn't accommodate today. It was ready for any kind of lark and freak, and to hail the likes of Tom Molineaux as a nine-day wonder.

He wouldn't be that nowadays, I can tell you. Not to the modern taste, any more than the bucks and beauties of his time would be.

Why's that, eh? I'll tell you why your age is different, and staid,
and settled. It's 'cos you ain't had a good war in years; you han't peered into the abyss and looked death and ruin in the face. We did, with Europe under the Corsican's boot, the French at our gate, and Old England on the lion's lip. You may say now that the crisis was passed by '10 or '11, but we didn't know it. We'd just seen the finest force that Britannia ever sent overseas, forty thousand strong, wrecked at Walcheren, and our battered Peninsulars being driven back to Portugal. The devil with it, we said, we'll beat 'em yet, and whether we do or whether we don't, we'll eat, drink, and be merry, for 'tis all one. That's why England was full of sin and impudence, then.

No doubt you think our great concerns should ha' been Boney, or the Luddites, or when the King, poor Old Nobbs, would lose the last of his wits (such as he had), and whether Prinny would bring in the Whigs. Those are the matters treated of by bookworms and historians and fellows of that sort, who regard 'em as the burning topics of the day. Not a bit of it.

What d'ye think was the talk of the Town when I came back from the Peninsula in '09? Aye, I was invalided home after Talavera – that was the excuse, leastways, but the fact was I'd fought four duels in three weeks, and Old Hooky wouldn't stand it: swore I did our own side more harm than Victor. Damned sauce. I'd done the Frogs harm enough, and he knew it.

Talavera … Gad, that was the day. Who's heard of it now, the Spanish Waterloo, where the Peninsular war trembled in the balance? If we'd lost, Spain was lost, and perhaps the war; Wellesley would never ha' been Wellington, that's certain, and Boney would ha' conquered Russia. Talavera … heat, and dust, and bloody bayonets. Wellington vowed it was the most desperate fight he'd ever seen, with Victor outnumbering us two to one – aye, we proved that one Briton was worth two Frogs, that day. Good men, though, those same Frogs – d'ye know, there was a truce in the midst of the battle, when we and they watered our beasts together in the Portina brook, and exchanged snuff and civilities? Old Villatte, who commanded their cavalry, was there, and offered “King” Allan of the Guards his flask. King sluiced his
ivories
and shook hands.

“Thank'ee,
mon general
,” says King. “Hot day, ain't it? Why don't you go home?”

“Apres vous, m'sieur,”
grins old Villatte, and everyone burst out laughing, and our rankers and the French
moustaches
were swapping fills o' their pipes, and we cheered each other back to the lines.

Then they came at us like tigers, as only Frogs can, with “Old Trousers” thundering along a two-mile front, that huge mass of infantry tearing a great hole in our line. Fraser Mackenzie's Midlanders held on like bulldogs, it was touch and go, and then Victor let drive at our left flank below the Medellin Hill, and I thought we was done for.

“Now or never!” cries Anson. “Off you go, Ponsonby!” and away we went, 23rd Lights and German Legion, knee to knee against that huge tide of Froggy horse in the valley, with the trumpeters sounding charge. We were going full tilt when the hidden gully opened almost under our hooves, and “Hold on, Flash!” bawls Ponsonby, but my hunter was over it like a swallow, and the rest came jumping or tumbling after, and we went into their Green Chasseurs like a steel fist, sabres whirling and fellows going down like ninepins, such a turn-up as you never saw. There was a French square behind us, and great waves of their cavalry before, two hundred of our 23rd boys went down, but we scattered the Chasseurs, and then their Chevaux Legers and Polish Lancers broke over us like a tide, with those damned whistles in their helmets wailing like banshees. I took a lance in the leg and a cut on the neck – see here – but was holding my own till my poor little grey went down and some blasted Pole put a bullet through my sword-arm.

Time's up, Flash, thinks I, you won't make scratch this time, for what was left of us was being trampled underfoot, but they took me prisoner, along with a few others, and I was exchanged next day, leaking like a cracked pot. But they hadn't turned our flank, bigod, and our centre held, Froggy drew off with his bellyful, leaving seven thousand dead to our five thousand, Old Hooky ceased to be Wellesley and became Lord Wellington … and that was Talavera.

You know what came of it … we lived to fight another day, Hooky withdrew to Portugal,
foxed
Massena with Torres Vedras, and held French armies in Spain that Boney could have used in Russia where he froze to death, France was beat – and all because the Light Brigade crossed that gully, perhaps. I like to think so, at all events; worth being skewered and trampled, what? In the meantime, I came home … now,
where the devil was I, before you reminded me of the Peninsula?

Ah, yes, I was asking what you supposed the
buzz
was in Town that autumn of '09? The war? The King's madness? The Cabinet? No such thing. The name on every lip wasn't Talavera or Hooky or Boney, but Mary Clarke – and I'll lay a million to a
mag
you never heard of her, eh? I thought not.

Ah, Mary! She was the sweetest little nesting-bird, and my first love 'fore I went to Spain – well, one of 'em. Shape of Aphrodite, sassy as a robin, and devoted to the study of cavalry subalterns – when she wasn't accommodating the Duke of York, that is. She was his prize pullet, you see, and we lesser lights (I was a mere cornet of horse then, but she was
nuts
on me) had to slip in at her back door in Gloucester Place like so many
area sneaks
. Gad, she was the bang-up
Cyprian
, though! Ten horses, three cooks, twenty servants, dined off a French duke's plate, and entertained like a bashaw's niece – York gave her a thousand a month, and you may believe 'twasn't enough. So dear Mary set up shop selling Army promotions, slipping the tickets for York to sign when he was too
lushy
or
baked
with her fond attentions to notice, I dare say. Oh, a prime
racket
she had, until some parliamentary pimp blew the gaff.