The Covent Garden Ladies: The Extraordinary Story of Harris's List (14 page)

Every lady of the town would have wished for a lover a pliable as Tracy. As Charlotte soon learned, a smitten keeper tipped a relationship’s
balance
in his mistress’s favour. With her basic needs addressed and no real ties of affection to her paramour, a small window might be opened through which she could manoeuvre just enough follow her own desires. However, in order for the scheme to work, the business of intimacy could never be confused with that of love. Charlotte’s duty did not lie in loving Tracy but in convincing him that her devotion was felt as deeply as his, a skill for which the most renowned courtesans were famed. After a number of years of experience in the field, Charlotte had tuned her repertoire of coquettish expressions finely enough to lead any of her patrons in a merry dance. As might be expected, the Beau followed along willingly and allowed his mistress absurdly extravagant liberties at the expense of his purse and his reputation. According to
Nocturnal Revels
, ‘she had him so much at her command that she could fleece him at will’. Furthermore, Tracy openly permitted it ‘without upbraiding her’.

The Beau had fallen prey to the protocol of the day, which demanded that a modish gentleman keep his mistress fitted out in suitable luxury. In a vain, consumption-driven society, even the appearance of a man’s lover spoke volumes about his own status and wealth. The agreement to retain Charlotte in a state of high-keeping would have therefore involved the provision of a number of requisite ‘extras’. Like all Thaises of the highest order, Charlotte jolted over the cobbled streets in her own ‘chariot’, driven by her own horses. Whether these were purchased for her by Tracy or some other admirer, these extravagances required maintenance and upgrading where necessary, as did Charlotte’s personal appearance. Her position as a ‘nymph of the highest order’ demanded a constant supply of new clothing: stylish gowns for the theatre, for strolling in the park or for entertaining her lovers at home. Each carefully planned ensemble was the sum total of numerous equally expensive parts. It was not simply her variety of frocks that displayed her radiance but her aprons, underskirts, decorated stomachers, ruffles, ribbons, gloves, stockings, shoes, buckles, capes, hats and muffs. This was before her jewels, snuff boxes and dainty fob watches were considered, most of which she would have expected to receive as gifts. Anything else Charlotte required for her extravagant lodgings, the vast amount of food consumed at her table,
the
bottles of port and wine, the servants to commandeer her kitchen, a hairdresser to fix her coiffure, maids to light the fires in her grills, to squeeze her into her stays and sew her into her bodice, were to be paid with virtually unlimited credit drawn on her lover’s name. The Beau’s mistress could match his profligacy, purchase for purchase. She took advantage of his generosity to run up enormous bills all over town for silks, tableware, and haberdashery. After shopping to her heart’s content, if the rare event arose that she found herself without immediate funds, Tracy again made himself her pliant poodle. According to the
Nocturnal Revels
, Charlotte was frequently seen ‘calling upon Bob at his chambers in the Temple, dressed to the greatest advantage’. Her ploy was to:

pretend to be in a violent hurry to go to the play or some other public diversion; when having by these artifices … influenced his passions she would not stay a moment unless he would toss up with her for a guinea each time. To this he readily yielded, for the sake of her company. Whenever she won, she always took it; when she lost she did not pay. By these means, in about a quarter of an hour, she would ease him of all his ready money then bounce away and laugh at him.

If Mrs. Ward had warned her daughter against growing too complacent in the arms of an indulgent keeper, Charlotte had failed to listen. During the years of her youthful bloom, she chose to live only for herself and her pleasures. While she harboured no love for the man who had purchased for her her freedom, her heart was not entirely devoid of affection for others. Although it may not have been advisable for a woman of Charlotte’s occupation to fall in love, this did not mean she was not susceptible to it. The undiscerning heart was the curse of ladies of pleasure, as it was liable to fix its sights upon the wrong sort of man. If she was foolish enough to allow it to interfere with her judgement, she could find herself thrust into poverty or an abyss of heartbreak. Unfortunately for most prostitutes with ambition, their lives were peppered with unsuitable candidates who often proved too great a temptation to avoid. These were usually men who, not unlike them, had little claim to any fortune. As younger sons with
no
inheritance, struggling half-pay officers, clergymen with insubstantial livings and members of the precarious middle classes, wealth and its acquisition governed their lives. For many, their only hope of leading a comfortable existence relied on making a good marriage to a sufficiently financed woman. They would never be adequate keepers for expensive cyprians. The most enticing beauties, the Kitty Fishers and Fanny Murrays, were simply out of their league. This, however, was no deterrent to genuine affection taking root where it shouldn’t. Impecuniousness did not make them any less physically attractive or kind or humorous or irresistible to professional ladies who should have known better.

Charlotte Hayes certainly should have known better when chance threw the impoverished Sam Derrick in her path. The circumstances of their initial acquaintance are, and will probably remain, entirely unknown. It is likely that they would have recognised one another in passing for some time before their fates intersected. As frequenters of the Piazza’s attractions, they may have greeted one another below the signs of the Shakespear’s Head and the Bedford Coffee House, exchanging pleasantries and flirtatious jests. Sam had arrived in London at the height of Charlotte’s glory and undoubtedly he, like other gentlemen, would have watched her holding court in the theatre boxes. Together, he and Tracy would have admired her, dissecting her beauty and speculating on her accessibility. When the wheel of fortune spun in the Beau’s direction and enabled him to purchase her favours, Sam glowed with jealousy. Of all the celebrated beauties with whom he nurtured friendships, he could lay claim to none of them exclusively. While Lucy Cooper humoured, fed and occasionally honoured him with carnal privileges, he could never attain the title of being her sole keeper. Nor was this to be the case with any of the ambitious votaries of the Piazza.

As a companion of Tracy’s, Sam would have been brought tantalisingly nearer to his friend’s mistress as she accompanied him on his public outings. Charlotte’s friendship and affection for Sam, who cut an otherwise unremarkable character next to his dashing companion, would also have been given the occasion to ripen. How Sam could pose a challenge to wealthy lotharios like Robert Tracy
for
the attention of women like Charlotte Hayes remained an endless source of mystery to male acquaintances. In spite of being described as ‘of a diminutive size, with reddish hair and a vacant countenance’, Sam’s record for intrigue was impressive. ‘It might be supposed, from the universal partiality of the ladies to him, that his person was so comely and elegant as to be irresistible’, wrote the author of a piece in
Town and Country Magazine
: ‘But this was far from the case.’ Where the male eye saw only an unwashed, penurious and puffed-up peacock, women admired something entirely different, commenting that he was ‘a pretty little gentleman, so sweet, so fine, so civil, and polite, that … he might pass for the Prince of Wales’. Sam’s appeal was not so much his dress or his physical appearance, but rather his charm. His gift of the gab was unrivalled, unbeatable, so enchanting that his manner and words could sway both men and women alike, or, as Tobias Smollett gushed: ‘He talks so charmingly, both in verse and prose, that you would be delighted to hear him discourse.’ It was those who had seen Sam at his worst, his comrades with whom he shared many a bottle and who had spied him sleeping on the streets, that could not conceive of the attraction. In the company of women and potential patrons, however, Sam could fashion himself into another person, one whose ambition it was to be recognised as ‘a man of the most gallantry, the most wit, and the most politeness of any in Europe’. As an actor by nature, he had no difficulty playing both roles.

Sam’s gallant side undoubtedly was responsible for winning Tracy’s mistress away from his friend’s handsome company. How precisely their relationship evolved from polite friendship into a full-blown love affair will remain a story that both have taken to their graves. They have not so much as left us a clue about the duration of their romance. We know only that it smouldered between the years of 1751 and 1756, but for how many months or hopeless years it continued is a mystery. For at least some part of this period, Sam’s love for Charlotte was of the fervent variety. Long after their ardour had burned out, she remained as his one great passion, the woman whose tender memory haunted him even in the final hours of his life. In his eyes she would always be ‘as desirable as ever’, irrespective of age,
or
the deterioration of her beauty. When they parted it was as friends. Derrick never said a word against her and always wished her well. Looking back, he remembered ‘My old friend and Mistress Charlotte Hayes’, not only with adoration but with a gripping sense of remorse.

But what did Charlotte feel for Sam? How deep her emotions ran and how sustainable they remained over the course of their romance is also unknown. Her behaviour, however, leaves some evidence as to the sentiments of her heart. At the outset of their relationship Charlotte was prepared to risk her income and possibly even Sam’s life by entering into a liaison. Their very willingness to conduct an affair under a roof financed by Tracy’s money demonstrates a certain hot-blooded heedlessness. Although duelling had officially been outlawed, it was not unusual for gentlemen to find themselves drawing pistols over lesser breaches of honour. Neither Sam nor Charlotte could possibly have known how Tracy might have reacted to their betrayal. As it happened, her keeper was of the lenient variety. It seemed that the liberties Tracy permitted his mistress with regard to her expenditure also extended to her private passions. Love had once again immobilised the Beau’s powers of reason. Inevitably, when the gossip of Charlotte’s escapades reached Tracy’s ears he refused to acknowledge it. While the rakes and harlots of Covent Garden laughed at his expense, he simply shrugged in disbelief.

While Tracy looked the other way, Charlotte flaunted the rules of intrigue, tentatively at first and then with flagrant abandon. While it was commonly understood that women of her position always kept an eye to future possibilities, it was generally perceived as good form for those in high-keeping to exercise a hint of prudence when pursuing additional amours. With rented lodgings in Pall Mall and a household to maintain, it was best to have a list of ready candidates for the position of keeper if she should happen to find herself suddenly out of favour. Between visits from Tracy, to whom her primary responsibilities lay, Charlotte would have been able to pursue a relationship with a ‘favourite’ or ‘favourites’ of her own choosing. Her favourite in this case happened to be Tracy’s friend, Sam Derrick. Those men who occupied this honoured position were
made
to follow a discreet protocol. Sam would have found himself in a similar position to William Hickey, the favourite of cyprian Fanny Hartford. Although Fanny was in keeping by another man (whose name she refused to reveal), Hickey made himself a regular visitor when his rival was not around, and on one occasion even found himself having to slip out of bed and into the adjoining closet when Mr—popped in unexpectedly. Although keepers would have demanded fidelity from their mistresses, few would have trusted the objects of their passion to maintain it, making jealousy and suspicion a common feature of such relationships. Provided a mistress’s indiscretions were conducted behind closed doors and not blatantly in the public gaze, there might exist a possibility of forgiveness, but when she took her pleasures openly her behaviour became an act of gross defiance.

Observers of the convoluted triangle that had evolved between Charlotte, Sam and Robert Tracy blamed only the Beau for the feckless management of his mistress. The situation took a spiteful turn when Charlotte began to publicly parade her romance with Sam. Her experiments with Tracy’s tolerance had degenerated into a campaign of humiliation. As one gossipmonger wrote: ‘When she had an inclination to enjoy the company of her favourite man, she would take him to the Shakespeare or the Rose, and regale him at the Beau’s expense in the most sumptuous manner’. To add insult to injury, she would then present Tracy with an exorbitant bill. On more than a few occasions, after ‘having very simply given her credit at those houses’, Tracy was accosted by taverners for sums of thirty or forty pounds, ‘when he thought there might be a score of four or five’. What precipitated Charlotte’s attack on her keeper’s reputation can only be imagined. Her behaviour speaks of resentment or revenge. Although the details of their sexual arrangements are never revealed, even women of Charlotte’s elevated standing could find themselves the recipients of violent beatings and degrading sexual practices. Charlotte’s fashionable contemporary, Ann Bell, was a victim of her wealthy lover’s abuse. After being anally raped, Bell was repeatedly slashed with a penknife and had her hands broken before being dumped in one of Covent Garden’s most up-scale bagnios. She would
not
have been the first, nor was she to be the last, who suffered such treatment at the hands of a keeper. While it is possible that some degree of foul play may have been responsible for encouraging Sam’s participation in Charlotte’s scheme, it is equally probable that jealousy alone drove him to it.

Upon entering into a romance with Charlotte, Sam would have been forced to recognise that theirs could never be an exclusive relationship. Not only was Charlotte bound by circumstance to share her body with his friend, Robert Tracy, but she had to cultivate the interest of other possible keepers in the event that the Beau should tire of her. Derrick’s position would not have been so threatened by the existence of these peripheral admirers, but rather by the unavoidable reality that Tracy owned Charlotte. With the ability to buy her security and affection, the Beau would always possess the upper hand. In spite of Sam’s faith in the receipt of his inheritance, his wealth would never match that of his friend’s, nor of Charlotte’s other admirers. Sam’s position was unwinable, and one which forced him into taking a back seat in Charlotte’s life from this position he stepped into the role of protector. According to the
Nocturnal Revels
, Sam’s presence in his mistress’s house was felt by all who visited there. Derrick was quite regularly to be found lurking somewhere under her roof or ‘enjoying the run of Charlotte’s kitchen’. When there was no danger of Tracy appearing to demand her company, he bedded down with Charlotte, living partially as her lover and partially as her green-eyed lodger.