Red Jack's Daughter

by Edith Layton

  Maria drew herself up and gave back a haughty stare. “Don’t come heavy with me, Mother. I know what side my bread’s buttered on. Just because you’ve lost a chick is no reason to eat me!”

  Mrs. Carey paused for a moment before she reentered the coach. Then she said bitterly, “Aye, sweet little Maria would never cross me. Still, you’re right. The world’s full of pretty young baggages. As you should well remember, my dear.”

  Maria stood awhile lost in thought after the coach had driven off. Then she shrugged again and came back to the room where Jessica stood, still fearing to move a muscle.

  “That’s a debt paid, and in more ways than one,” Maria said almost to herself as she took the coins out and recounted them. Then she gave Jessica a bright look and laughed. “You can breathe again, ‘Mary,’ it’s all over now.”

  “Thank you,” Jessica said rapidly. “It was more than good of you to hide me and counsel me so well. I’ll go now and I promise never to forget you for your kindness.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t do that.” Maria laughed. “For the old cow didn’t half-mistrust me. She’ll keep an eye peeled for you a good while yet. No, you’re safer to stay with me till evening. For that’s when the trade picks up and she’ll have to be back at her house, and she’ll need her bully boys about her.”

  “But even if they do lay hands on me,” Jessica said bravely, “I shall set up such a ruckus as they have never heard. And surely you could notify my friends if I left an address with you. Or I could convince them that I want no part of their plans.”

  “You’re so wet around the ears I wonder that you didn’t swim up the street,” Maria chortled. “Set up a ruckus? But there’s always some sort of to-do around here. And as for your reasoning with that lot, I tell you, missy, that it can’t be done. No, they’ll give you a nice cool drink, or some such, and before you know it, you’d be walking on the ceiling, doing anything they asked, never knowing what you were about. And when you did know, a few days later, it would be far too late to send for help. There’d be no help for it. No, love, that’s their way of business, and business is what they’re about.”

  Jessica gave Maria such a look of consternation that the older woman laughed again.

  “Well, you do have a choice, sweet. You can either rest here with me, or go and take your chances with Mother. It’s all the same to me.”

  “You must think me very ungrateful,” Jessica began, embarrassed at how easily the other woman had read her discomfort with her surroundings.

  “Oh, yes, to be sure,” Maria mocked as she turned and lit a fire in her small grate and began to assemble the makings of small tea. “I am shocked at how any young woman of breeding could possibly not wish to remain with such a fine lady as myself. Give over, do, love. Why should you want to stay here with me? But you may as well have a seat. I’ll brew up a nice cuppa.”

  Jessica sat and wondered at the chameleon like affect of her hostess. One moment she seemed no more than a low slattern, but the next she could affect accents of high gentility. Jessica was unsure of how to ask any questions without giving offense, and it was not until her benefactor sighed and came to sit down at the table with a steaming pot of tea that she spoke again.

  “I owe that old witch a thing or two,” Maria brooded as she poured Jessica’s tea into a simple white mug. “For there was a time when I was down on my luck and so muddled that I even asked her if I could work in her house till I got on my feet again.”

  Jessica’s tea splashed in her cup as she realized just what her hostess’s occupation was, but Maria didn’t seem to notice, she was so deep in recollection.

  “And the old sow said as how I was too old and washed out to work for her. I ... too old and washed out! Ha,” Maria said, boiling with remembered resentment. “I, Maria Dunstable, who once was the toast of Covent Garden. Well, it’s a lucky thing that the old besom’s eyes is as bad as her business, or I’d have been for it. I got myself together again, straight off, and I’ve been doing well on my lonesome ever since. I daresay it won’t be long before I’m back up on top again.”

  But chancing to glance at Jessica’s white face, she misread the look of consternation and sighed again. “No, I suppose you’ve the right of it. Those glory days are gone forever. It’s my teeth, I daresay. But as soon as I get some gold together, I’ll take myself off to a surgeon in town who can make up some crockery to disguise what I’ve lost. Then, you’ll see who rules the roost.”

  Jessica eyed the other woman. It was true that the two missing teeth disfigured her, but even if there had been no gaps in her smile, her lined face, bulky form, and strange overdyed hair would have been enough to discourage compliments. Wisely, Jessica said nothing and only sipped at her tea.

  The older woman made a slight face and then said defensively, “I was on top once, you know. That’s a gospel truth. I danced at Covent Garden in the opera. Soon as you could stare, I was set up in my own apartments by a nob. But that wasn’t the half of it. I trafficked with nothing but Quality for a while. Aye, I was in the keeping of a Duke! Jason Thomas, Duke of Torquay. He was a right one, all right, but fickle, you understand. We parted best of friends, we did. No sooner had he shown me his back when I was snapped up by the Marquis of Bessacarr, and then his friend, Lord Hoyland. I lived in style, my girl, and don’t you forget it.

  “But,” Maria said in a diminished voice into the silence that had fallen when Jessica had no idea of what to reply, “I didn’t play my cards right. That’s the truth, too. You have to be as wily as a politician, that’s what counts. And I let my heart rule my head. And here we are,” she said broodingly.

  After staring for a space, she looked up at her guest. “But here I am giving you my life’s story and I don’t even know your name or your game. Whatever brought you here, missy?”

  Jessica cleared her throat and began to introduce herself. Before long, she had lost her shyness at finding herself in such a bizarre situation. Somehow there in the close room, with an interested listener—and one, moreover, who knew what sort of questions to ask and seemed to make no judgments—Jessica found herself unburdening her story. As the afternoon dwindled, she told Maria of her childhood, her father, her visit to London, and her present circumstances. She was careful, however, even in the thick of her narration, not to name names, for somehow she felt she should shelter Lady Grantham and Ollie and the others from random gossip.

  When she had done, her hostess peered at her closely. “Go on,” Maria breathed. “You call those problems? My Lord, I would give anything to have your sort of troubles, Jess.”

  “But they’ve none of them been honest with me,” Jessica protested, dismayed that Maria should feel she was enormously privileged to be in such distress.

  “Oh, get away with you.” Maria laughed harshly. “You’ve got a fortune coming to you. You’ve got looks. You’ve got a parcel of Quality gents falling over each other to get to you. What else could you want from life?”

  “I don’t know,” Jessica said somberly, “but surely, I do know that I don’t want to marry. Or to be ordered about until I do know what to do. Can’t you see that?”

  “Don’t fancy men?” Maria asked knowingly. “Well, there’s a hurdle, all right. Got a girlfriend you want to set up as a life’s mate, then? I can’t see anything in that, myself, but it takes all kinds.”

  Jessica’s cheeks flushed bright. “Oh, no,” she exclaimed, “never, that’s not it at all. I just want to be...” And then she began to laugh a little wildly. “There’s the point, Maria, I don’t know quite what I do want.”

  “Well, Jess,” Maria said, rising and bearing the cups off to the basin, “it’s a problem I’d give the world to have. That gentleman that told you as how it’s a hard world for a woman alone wasn’t half-right. Of course, if you play your hand well, it’s all gravy. But I can’t see you setting up as a Cyprian. And I can’t see you going on alone, because it’s clear you’re not wise to the time of day, love. No offense, but I think you ou
ght to just pick the best of the lot and get shackled. To that young fellow from your village. Or to that Alex you keep going on about. Seems to me you have a care for him.”

  “Lord Leith?” Jessica gasped, so overwhelmed at Maria’s misinterpretation of her complaints that she forgot discretion. “Why, he’s the worst of them all.”

  “Lord Leith,” Maria asked, turning about to stare at Jessica. “Oh, that’s flying high. Never say he’s the chap you were complaining of?”

  Caught by her hostess’s glittering eyes, Jessica only nodded.

  “Top of the trees he is,” Maria said excitedly. “Oh, he’s high as the Regent. One sees him everywhere. He’s got that shrewd piece Libby Kenton in his keeping now. She puts it about that she’s Lucille LaPoire, but she’s no more a Frenchie than you or I. Friend of “Harry” Wilson’s and as wise as owls, she is,” Maria said enviously.

  “In his keeping?” Jessica asked, forgetting her resolve not to mention any of her acquaintances to Maria, and only catching onto that one salient fact. “He has a female in his keeping?”

  “Oh, Lord love you, Jess. You’re green as sour apples. Of course, he does. All the Quality does. Don’t you know anything?” Maria laughed.

  And suddenly affecting a motherly air, Maria sat down with her young guest again. There, as the evening drew close, Maria sat at her small table and patiently explained the ins and outs of the world of the demi-rep to Jessica. She was flattered and pleased by having her young friend’s absolute attention, and so she carefully explained the hierarchy of her profession to the rapt girl.

  Jessica sat still, only silently moving her lips now and again, as though memorizing the information. Maria began at the bottom, telling wild tales of such low females as the infamous Flashy Nance, Dirty Suke, and Billingsgate Moll. These graceless females frequented the lowest sort of establishments and would sell their admittedly inferior persons for as little as a draft of Blue Ruin, or Giniver, Maria explained. Then she waxed rhapsodical as she detailed the exploits of such successful and admired harlots as Brazen Bellona, the famous Harriet “Little Harry” Wilson, and of Lucille LaPoire, and of their traffic with the gentleman of the Ton. She spoke lovingly of their jewels, their gowns, and their houses in the best part of town.

  Only once did Jessica’s instructor drop her gaze and look aside. And that was when she admitted that for the moment, she herself prowled the alleys alongside Covent Garden and other theaters, rather than actually attending the opera or theaters, as her more exalted sisters did. But, she then added cheerily, that was, of course, only for the moment, as her luck was sure to turn.

  Jessica ignored these rosy visions and asked in bewilderment, cutting across ruminations about the change in fortune sure to be brought by fine false teeth, “But do all gentlemen have such females in their keeping?”

  “Lord love you, Jess.” Maria laughed. “No. But there’s enough that do to make business for the likes of us. Now as to your fine Lord Leith,” she commented, watching at how her young visitor’s eyes would open at each mention of that gentleman’s name and playing to her audience as only an ex-performer could, “he’s had many a choice piece under his wing. And not all of them working girls, if you catch my drift.”

  As Maria began to prepare “for the evening,” as she obliquely put it, by applying a heavy coating of unguents and salves to her already encarmined features, she rattled on to Jessica about the Society females—widowed, bored, or just “out for a lark”—who were known to accommodate wealthy lovers. By the time the sun had set and only a faint afterglow gave testimony to the vanished day, Jessica had amassed a quantity of information about the love lives of the Aristocracy.

  Jessica had at first been embarrassed, then shocked, then curiously enraged by the foibles of the males of the Ton that had been so carefully detailed for her. The fact that Lord Leith had a famous mistress whom he visited as frequently as he visited his aunt, caused Jessica more difficulty than if she had been told that he had a wife stowed somewhere in the countryside. So it was with a mixture of self-righteous anger and shame that she prepared to at last return to Lady Grantham’s home. She faced the fact that they would all be appalled at her disappearance for the day with stomach-churning dread, but clutched close the evidence of her prime antagonist’s double life with a certain mean triumph. Let him rail away, she thought as Maria went to the door to spy out the land, never thinking of Ollie or Lady Grantham’s or even Tom Preston’s reactions, I now have ammunition enough to last through a week of warfare with him. And, she thought as she stepped out the door, Red Jack always said that well-armed is half-won.

  Jessica had left off her bonnet and concealed her hair beneath a borrowed scarf of Maria’s. As they walked swiftly down the low streets, Maria whispered reassurance. “Trade’s picking up now. Mother Carey’s got too much on her mind to seek out one stray female. Just walk beside me and keep your head down.”

  They had not gone too many streets when Maria nudged Jessica in the ribs, causing her heart to leap up as she looked wildly about her.

  “See how you’re costing me business.” Maria laughed low in her throat as a poorly dressed fellow stared after the two of them, hesitated, and then walked on away from them.

  “Not that I’d have anything to do with such a paltry fellow. But you have to walk alone to stir up business. Two’s a pair, one’s fair game, you see,” Maria said.

  Jessica ducked her head, but this time in shame as she recalled how she had fought for the freedom to walk alone, never knowing that it was not mere masculine prerogative that had caused her to be given that edict.

  The evening was growing cool when the ill-matched pair finally reached a street that Jessica recognized. She was wondering at how she could dissuade Maria from actually walking her to Lady Grantham’s door and also castigating herself silently for even thinking of such an ignoble action after all the older woman had done for her, when she heard her own name being called frantically. She flinched for a moment as the high-wheeled coach drew to a sudden stop at the curb and the driver tossed the reins to his tiger and leaped down to the pavement.

  “Jessica!” Lord Leith shouted. “My God, Jessica, what has befallen you?”

  She looked up and in the dim light saw nothing but deep concern and fear barely held in check upon his pale countenance. He had clasped her two hands in his own as his troubled eyes searched her face.

  As she did not immediately answer, he went on gently, “What’s happened, Jessica? Are you all right? We have been searching the streets all day. We were about to bring Bow Street in. What’s happened, can you tell me?”

  “I ... went out to see about securing other lodgings and became lost. Miss Dunstable here, she, ah, sheltered me till now. For you see, my Lord, there was this woman, a Mrs. Carey, who meant me ill, and Maria here ... Let me make you known to Miss Maria Dunstable, my Lord,” Jessica went on, remembering her manners. After Lord Leith muttered “Servant” beneath his breath as his gaze quickly encompassed her companion and flew back to Jessica, she went on with a little less heart, “I had to wait till evening to be sure I was not followed. Oh, it’s all been a mull, Alex,” Jessica said on a frightened gulp, “but Maria did help me and I am all right. And very sorry,” she added in a whisper, “to have upset anyone.”

  After a moment’s silence, Lord Leith’s face set into strong immobility. “I see,” he breathed. “Very well, then,” he said in a voice of command. “Jessica, please get into the carriage and I will see you home in a moment.”

  Jessica took a deep breath, turned, and said softly to Maria, “Thank you, Maria, for all your care.” She put out one gloved hand and solemnly shook hands with the bemused Maria. “I shall never forget your kindness. Oh,” she added as she was about to enter the carriage, “I wish you great good fortune. Tonight and every night.”

  As she disappeared into the vehicle, Maria looked up at the tall gentleman, and seeing his barely contained emotion, she laughed and said in a friendly low voice, “Nev
er fear, my Lord, I kept her snug and safe as the minute she left you. She’s a bright little article, but she oughtn’t be let loose by herself. She’s got no more idea of how to go than a day-old chick.”

  “Mother Carey had her eye on her?” he asked.

  “Aye,” Maria said, smiling, “but I outfoxed her.”

  “Then we owe you a great deal,” he answered, and taking out his purse, pressed a quantity of notes into her eager hand.

  “Lord!” she exclaimed, examining her bounty in the dim light. “And here I thought my virtue would be its own reward” She preened saucily, giving him the full splendor of her gap-toothed smile. “But perhaps you’d like to know my whereabouts so you can see what good use I’ve put to the windfall?”

  “Thank you, Miss Dunstable,” he said, permitting himself a rueful smile as well, “but I believe I’ll have my hands full enough as it is without another distracting female to contend with.”

  Maria gave him a long appreciative look. Then she sighed. “Nicely said, nicely done. I’ve never been turned down so prettily. Jess don’t know when she’s well-off, does she? Well, I thank you, my Lord. But go easy with her. She’s only a babe, you know.”

  “I know.” He smiled.

  “And she has more of a care for you than she knows,” Maria said slyly.

  “Now, that I didn’t know,” he answered.

  Maria gave him a wise look. “For all she’s a green goose, she’s got eyes, hasn’t she?” she simpered. And then she bobbed a curtsy and, smiling radiantly, backed off the way she had come, melting into the shadows as she hurried home with her booty.

  He stared after her for a moment and then entered the coach. He gave Jessica only one cursory glance as he settled himself. Seeing how she sat straight and silent in the farthest corner, he only spoke once to her as the horses began to move.

  “We’ll talk Jessica,” he said softly, “when we get home.”