Windsong

by Valerie Sherwood

  ‘Your blue hat is a perfect match for your dress and so are your gloves,’ style-conscious Reba remarked, looking at her friend as they climbed into the waiting carriage and Carolina told the driver to take them to the nearest coffeehouse, ‘I’ll warrant it cost you a pretty penny to match them up,’ she added shrewdly.

  Carolina was glad to slide into a discussion of clothes and how dreadfully much things cost because it had come to her unhappily that she had so much to hide she couldn’t really enjoy her meeting with her old roommate from school. But after the carriage driver was dismissed (by Reba’s airy, ‘Oh, pay the man! You can always take a hackney coach back to wherever you came from when we’ve done!’) her curiosity overcame her.

  ‘Reba,’ she began hesitantly, ‘Jenny Chesterton called you “the Fleet Street bride”. Are you really? A Fleet Street bride, I mean?’

  ‘Yes, I am and Jenny never lets me forget it,’ said Reba in a resigned voice. ‘She thinks it’s hilarious.’ She took a long swallow of coffee. ‘You see, Robin came back - ’

  ‘Your marquess?’ cried Carolina. For Reba had considered herself betrothed to the Marquess of Saltenham - until he had gone away and deserted her. ‘You mean you’ve actually married him?’

  Reba gave her a jaded look and stirred her coffee. ‘Well - in Fleet Street,’ she said.

  ‘But where is he? And why are you living at Jenny Chesterton’s if you’re - ’

  ‘Because Robin went away again. Leaving me no money - nothing. Oh, Carol, it’s a long story. After you left - ’

  After your mother had me dragged aboard a ship and sent back to the Tidewater! thought Carolina.

  ‘ - Mother dug up a “suitor” for me - oh, the worst you could possibly imagine!’

  Carolina could imagine some pretty bad ones, but she forbore saying say. ‘What was wrong with him?’ she asked mildly.

  Reba lifted a disdainful shoulder. ‘He was dreadful! He was fat - simply huge. Mother called him portly but he was enormous - three chins, no, four! He’d have squashed me if we’d ever gone to bed together! He couldn’t drink without spilling his wine - or eat without dribbling gravy down his shirt! When he laughed his stomach shook like jelly and he insisted upon calling me “his little Rebakins”! Can you imagine going through life as “little Rebakins”?’ She paused in solid fury and Carolina tried not to laugh.

  ‘I take it,’ she said in a smothered voice, ‘that you did not marry him?’

  ‘No, I did not indeed! Even if he was a baronet! My mother would sell me to the Devil if by doing so I’d gain the title of “Lady” before my name!’

  Carolina knew that to be true. Reba’s mother was the worst termagant and social climber she had ever seen. ‘But surely if she knew that your marquess wanted to marry you - ’

  ‘Oh, he didn’t - and he hasn’t.’ Reba sighed. ‘Except for Fleet Street.’ She swallowed the rest of her coffee in a gulp, looking around her restlessly and said, ‘I think I’ll have them put some brandy in the next cup.’

  Carolina gazed at her friend sympathetically. This was obviously a tale that one needed fortifying to tell.

  ‘He has hoodwinked me again,’ Reba explained ruefully. ‘I do not know why Robin can always fool me, but he can. I childishly believe everything he says - like that wild tale that when his wife died he’d come back and marry me!’

  Carolina doubted if the Marquess of Saltenham had ever really made that specific promise but at least Reba had deluded herself into believed he had. ‘But he did marry you,’ she pointed out. ‘At least in Fleet Street.’

  ‘Oh, yes. At least in Fleet Street - and that is why my mother has disowned me. She considered me “ruined” and she thinks I sold out too cheaply. And that is something she cannot forgive.’

  Carolina remembered the harridan who was Reba’s mother. She could well believe it!

  ‘You see,’ confided Reba, sipping the coffee and brandy that had just been brought, ‘we were all to leave Essex for Bath because that is where that repulsive suitor mother had dug up for me has his “seat”. But the night before we left we had a visitor and he mentioned casually that he hoped to collect some bad debts - notably those from the Marquess of Saltenham, which were considerable, and I said, “Oh, is he back in London, then?” and our guest said indeed yes, and storming through the town like the rakehell he was. So the next morning before the family was up, I put what clothes I could into a saddlebag and rode for London.’

  Carolina studied her friend curiously, trying to imagine Reba leaving most of her fine clothes behind and fleeing the great house her father had bought in Essex, mounting a horse and riding away into the dawn from all the luxuries that meant so much to her. She had somehow never imagined that Reba would run away. Stand and fight perhaps - but not run away.

  ‘And you came direct to Jenny Chesterton?’ she hazarded.

  ‘Yes, I did.’ Reba nodded vigorously. ‘I asked her where Robin Tyrell might be living now - I was sure her friend Lord Ormsby would know - and she was glad enough to tell me. She said I might bring Robin to her gaming house now that he was in funds again! So I betook me to his inn and told him that I was quite desperate - indeed that I had run away from home lest I be forced into marriage with a monster, and that I did not know where to turn.’

  Reba’s russet eyes sparkled and her face flushed, seeming to cast rosy highlights on to her auburn hair.

  ‘And of course he took you in at once?’ Carolina divined drily.

  ‘Oh, yes, at once. And at first it was all very comforting. I told him of course that I couldn’t live with him at an inn. And’ - she cast a quick surreptitious look at Carolina’s new clothes - ‘he found a glorious place for us on London Bridge, a tall house built on one of the sterlings and overlooking the river to the east. He had half the tradesmen in London busy redecorating it. I spent positively days with the drapers and bought all my dishes fresh off a ship - delftware.’

  ‘Then Jenny was right? He was in funds, I take it?’

  ‘Oh, yes. At least at first.’

  ‘And so you gave lavish dinner parties and invited all his friends?’ asked Carolina, amused.

  ‘N-no,’ admitted Reba, avoiding Carolina’s gaze. ‘Robin wouldn’t have people in and he refused to go out, he said he’d rather have me all to himself. At first that made me happy, because I knew Mother would never find me hidden away like that - but whenever I mentioned marriage, Robin would always turn me off and talk about something else. Until finally in desperation I mentioned Fleet Street and he was willing enough to go there.’

  Carolina felt a little chilled. ‘And then . . . ?’

  ‘And then nothing.’ Reba’s voice went flat. ‘One day he just - left. He suggested I go shopping and as you know, I never could resist that. When I got back he wasn’t there - and all his things were gone. He had paid up the rent for a month - I’ll give him that - but there wasn’t even a note. I looked for him everywhere but he seemed to have disappeared.’

  And that was doubtless the usual fate of Fleet Street brides, thought Carolina, unnerved.

  ‘Did you - go back to Broadleigh then?’ she asked, using the name of Reba’s father’s house in Essex. ‘Or did you try to join the family in Bath?’

  ‘Oh, they were back from Bath by then.’

  Carolina waited. The serving girl brought more coffee laced with brandy. Reba tossed it down at a gulp. ‘I went back to Essex - at least I tried to. But I was turned away at the door. Even poor old Drewsie wasn’t allowed to speak to me!’ (Carolina remembered Drewsie, the housekeeper at Broadleigh. The only person I can confide in, Reba had called her.) Reba sighed. ‘So I came back to London and the rent was due and I had no money and I didn’t choose to go on the streets for a living, so I bethought me again of Jenny Chesterton who had turned a scandal that ruined her school into a tidy business.’

  ‘But only because Lord Ormsby backed her,’ muttered Carolina.

  ‘No matter how she got the backing,’ Reba countered realisticall
y, ‘she got it. And so I went to see her again and she has given me employment - of a sort. At least, I get bed and board and such tips as the gentlemen care to give me.’ Seeing that Carolina was looking at her in horror, Reba gave a short laugh. ‘Oh, don’t look so shocked, Carol. I’m not a prostitute - not yet anyway! I’m a sort of - shill. I egg the gentlemen on, to bet more recklessly. They play all manner of card games at Jenny’s - whist, primero, cribbage, ombre - and of course most gentlemen like to dice.’

  ‘You play, then?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘But - but don’t you lose sometimes?’

  ‘Oh, if I play I only play with their money,’ said Reba indifferently. ‘And I’m not allowed to keep my winnings if I do win. Jenny comes round afterwards, after the tables have closed for the night, and gets it from me.’

  ‘Then you don’t have to - ’ The words stuck in Carolina’s throat.

  ‘I don’t have to sleep with them, no. And I wouldn’t in any case. Rather than do that, I’d sell myself to the highest bidder! And there’d be bids too,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘But I can’t seem to forget Robin. I keep feeling he’s coming back, that I’ll see him again.’

  There didn’t seem much chance of that but Carolina didn’t say so. ‘What do you see in Robin?’ she asked. ‘You were angry but not really broken up when he left you before.’

  ‘I know.’ For a moment a baffled look passed over Reba’s countenance. ‘I’ve asked myself that very question. Robin grows on you - at least he does on me. And’ - she sighed - ‘I would so love to be a marchioness!’

  But somehow that last did not ring true. Carolina guessed that Reba had fallen in love, really in love for the first time - and she just couldn’t give up. Her marquess enjoyed sleeping with her and Reba kept feeling sure that next time, next time he’d propose . . .

  ‘I’m a Fleet Street bride too,’ she confided, to make Reba feel better, for misery usually loves company.

  ‘You’re - !’ Reba’s laughter pealed. ‘And I sit here feeling sorry for myself!’ she gasped, still laughing. ‘And here we’re in the same boat!’

  ‘Well, not quite,’ said Carolina uncomfortably, noticing uneasily that Reba’s sudden shout of laughter had caused heads at nearby tables to turn in their direction. ‘We’re still together.’

  ‘For the present!’ was Reba’s sardonic comment.

  Carolina’s face reddened. Reba had a right to jab at her.

  ‘Well, why don’t you bring him to Jenny Chesterton’s?’ prodded Reba.

  ‘Oh, I -I don’t think he’d go.’

  ‘One of those, eh? Pious about everything except making an honest woman of you?’

  Carolina thought in panic of her buccaneer, whom she must not betray by her casual talk. ‘I - suppose you could say that,’ she lied.

  Reba noted the reluctance in her manner. ‘Well, there’s something wrong with all of them,’ she said flippantly. ‘Robin is a rake. Your - what’s his name?’

  ‘Ryeland Smythe,’ supplied Carolina promptly. After all, she had married Rye in Fleet Street under that name!

  ‘So you are Mistress Smythe now.’ Reba smiled broadly. ‘I can see it won’t do to introduce this upright gentleman to a woman who’s a shill at a gaming house!’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure he’d like you,’ Carolina said hastily. ‘It’s just that - ’

  ‘I know,’ interrupted Reba. ‘You don’t have to explain. They’re all like that.’ Her auburn brows drew together in a deep frown. ‘Men! I hate them!’

  All except Robin, Carolina thought pensively. And that's because you’re in love with him. She wondered if Reba, under her defiantly hard exterior, would ever admit that even to herself . . .

  ‘Perhaps your mother will change her mind and forgive you,’ she said, feeling helpless.

  ‘Only if I bring in Robin,’ said Reba. ‘When Mother found out I’d been married in Fleet Street and was living with a man in London, she sent me word never to darken her door again. The only way I could ever go back there would be as a bride - a marchioness.’

  Which they both knew was never going to happen. They fell silent, toying with their coffee cups.

  ‘Well, tell me how you met this Ryeland Smythe,’ said Reba, breaking the silence.

  I met him at a gaming table at an inn, Carolina thought. In an ice-green satin suit that you lent me - a suit that belonged to your Cousin George! ‘I met him on shipboard.’ She was fabricating quickly. ‘He was travelling with his sister. She doesn’t really approve of me, so that’s why . . .’ She let her sentence trail off unhappily, hating to tell Reba these lies.

  ‘She doesn’t approve of you? Say no more!' echoed Reba, again draining her cup.

  ‘Reba, could I lend you some money?’ asked Carolina after she had paid for the coffee and they were outside trying to hail a hackney coach for her.

  Reba shook her head. Reba had always been proud, Carolina remembered with a sigh. 'Haughty,' the girls had called her in school.

  ‘Well, isn’t there something I can do?’ she asked just before she clambered into the hackney coach that pulled up beside them.

  ‘Not unless you can find Robin for me and persuade him to marry me!’ said Reba with a puckish grin.

  I wish I could! thought Carolina.

  Reba said goodbye and turned away, walking back towards Jenny Chesterton’s. From the coach Carolina watched her go, stared at her straight-backed form until she was out of sight. That slight swagger wasn’t fooling her. Reba needed help and needed it badly. But she wasn’t going to accept it - not from her. At least not in the form she had offered . . .

  Carolina leaned back and thought about that as the twisted streets and alleys of busy London jolted by. Poor Reba, waiting for a man who was never coming back to her - or if he did, would only leave her again . . .

  Carolina was very quiet that evening at dinner, only picking at her bullace cheese and strawberries and completely ignoring her delicate and tasty Dover sole. Asked how she had spent her day, she said vaguely that she had been shopping for ribands but had not liked the selection. She dared not tell them where she had really gone.

  ‘If you’re tired of the fare here,’ Rye suggested, noticing how she hardly touched her dinner, ‘we could go to Greenwich for whitebait tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, that would be nice,’ she agreed in a flat voice, for her visit with her old school friend had depressed her and not even the promise of such a popular delicacy as whitebait could bring a smile to her face.

  Not for worlds would she have admitted to Rye when he gave her a puzzled look that night before they went to bed that her sadness stemmed from having - on the day of her own Fleet Street wedding - met another Fleet Street bride.

  PART TWO

  The Ambassador’s Lady

  An old love may be half forgot

  When a hot romance is new,

  But when that old love returns again

  Will it be off with the new?

  LONDON, ENGLAND

  Summer 1689

  17

  As it turned out, they did not go to Greenwich to eat whitebait after all. For the next morning, while Rye was still occupied with matters regarding the Sea Waif and her crew, Andrew hired a carriage and took the girls sightseeing again through London’s half-moon streets and serpentine alleys and long tortuous lanes.

  They passed Newgate Prison and watched in horror as a cartload of bawds was driven in, one of them sobbing as if her heart would break, one doing a drunken jig and almost toppling out of the cart, others waving and throwing up their skirts, and one calling out plaintively to Andrew that she’d give him a better time than ever those whey-faced wenches with him could if only he’d rescue her from this cart! Andrew’s face reddened and he drove smartly past. They clip-clopped round the cart to the accompaniment of raucous female laughter.

  Those women were - awful,’ breathed Virginia once they’d gone by.

  I’ve seen worse on Tortuga, Carolina thought ruefully. At least
this lot looked relatively clean! It came to her suddenly how much broader her experience was than Virginia’s. ‘We should take you past the debtors’ prison, Virgie,’ she murmured. ‘Fleet Prison.’

  Andrew gave her a nervous look. ‘I’m afraid Mistress Virginia would be shocked by what she might see outside its gates,’ he interposed hastily.

  ‘Why? Why would I be shocked?’ demanded Virginia, fascinated.

  ‘Because ’tis said to be the greatest brothel in London,’ Carolina told her demurely.

  Virginia gasped and Andrew promptly launched into a determined - and much safer - discussion of London’s Wall, which left Carolina yawning. ‘And there’s another famous place you might like to see, Mistress Virginia,’ he suggested with a chiding look at Carolina - and drove them to Moorfields. Before the entrance to Bethlehem Hospital on Moorfield’s southern side, he drew up.

  ‘This is the famous Bedlam, where the lunatics are housed,’ he told them, and with a wave of his hand indicated the large figures that hovered over the gates. ‘One represents Melancholy - the other Raving Madness,’ he told them grandly.

  ‘Bed - Bedlam, did you say?’ gasped Virginia. She caught Carolina’s twinkling glance and suddenly both girls burst out laughing.

  Andrew looked hurt. ‘‘Tis considered an interesting place,’ he said, offended.

  ‘I-I’m sure it is, Andrew,’ gasped Virginia, laughing so that tears ran down her cheeks. ‘It’s just that we know of another place called Bedlam, Carolina and I!’ And she went on to tell him - rashly, Carolina thought - how their first home on Virginia’s Eastern Shore had been nicknamed Bedlam for the wild goings on between their parents.

  Andrew, whose world was rather narrow and whose breath was quite taken away by Rye’s exploits, blinked at this startling recital. ‘You have an interesting family, Mistress Virginia,’ was his wary comment as they rode away.