‘I shall, and fetch me a tot for Mr Wilkins,’ he added, nodding to the American Captain, still on the wheel. ‘Poor fellow, it may help to raise his mood.’
CHAPTER 21
From her position at the rear of the stage Emma couldn’t see much and her frustration ate at her loyalty to her mother’s wishes. The drapes hid the ceiling and the tops of the heads of the beauties in the alcoves, and all she ever saw was a back view of the nymphs that surrounded Dr Graham when he went on stage. She could hear enough though – the buzz of the crowd, the way it fell silent as Graham spoke, his opening words followed by oohs! and ahs! – reactions to the various demonstrations she ached to witness.
Her mother was behind her in the workroom, her task to ensure that everyone was correctly costumed now complete. It was then that Mary Cadogan would allow herself a little gin, a sip from the stone jar that she hid in her cupboard. There she would sit, staring into the middle distance, occupied with her thoughts and recollections, sipping until she dozed off. That was how Emma found her most nights, head dropped on to her bosom, eyes shut and a slight smile on her face, a woman seemingly contented, happy and mildly drunk.
Even now that they shared a room, Emma felt that they had never really talked, that they were as close as mother and daughter should be. There was too much hidden in her mother’s past. She had always been a distant presence, a provider of money, certainly, and orders as to Emma’s path in life. But the love Emma craved seemed missing.
The distance between them might have been tolerable if Emma had been happy at the Adelphi, but that was far from the case. In front of her all was light and noise, which she craved; behind the stage it was messy and dark, barring the candle that lit her lectern. Invisible to the audience she was not afforded a proper costume, and felt drab in the presence of the nymphs and goddesses, who attracted so much attention from the male members of the audience. Hints that she might move from backstage to stand in front as part of the show were firmly sat on by her mother.
The evening ended in a walk back to their lodgings and a meal. A candle was sacrificed so that daughter could read to mother before they repaired to bed. Mary went to sleep, but Emma lay awake and thought of the pleasures she had had in the past compared with the tribulations she endured now. She planned ever more elaborate escapes that took her to the far corners of the globe on the arm of the man of her dreams.
Kathleen Kelly was no prince, and her charm was directed towards profit not kindness, but when occasion arose she could act the part of Lady Bountiful. So when Emma turned up again, bundle in hand, outside the basement kitchen door, Mrs Kelly left her clients to their amusements and came down to her. What she found was a drab creature, both in her dress and her manner, far from the ebullient girl she had been intent on grooming.
‘Tut, tut, child,’ she said, lifting Emma’s chin. ‘You look peaked.’
Forced to look at the Abbess, Emma tried to make out what she was thinking. The older woman’s lips were pursed, her eyes narrowed, as though she couldn’t quite believe what she had before her. Kathleen Kelly was thinking about Emma’s eyes, seeing them with a just a little kohl top and bottom to frame them, thinking that they alone, regardless of the girl’s fine figure, would seduce any man, regardless of what clothes she wore.
‘I was not pleased to find you gone.’
The reply was bold and honest. ‘I wasn’t pleased to be away.’
‘Your mother is still with Dr Graham?’
‘You knew where we were?’
Mrs Kelly laughed. ‘God in heaven, child, of course I did. If you’re wondering why I didn’t come to get you …’
Emma recalled her mother’s warnings. ‘My ma said you would.’
‘Only to scare you child. Was I an ogre to you when you were under my roof?’ Emma recalled only amiability and attention, of the kind she should have had from her mother. ‘There you are. And I’m no different now. Have you eaten?’
‘No.’
‘Then set yourself down at that kitchen table and I’ll see you fed. I must go back upstairs, but I’ll be down presently to see how you’re faring. We need to have a little talk, you and I, don’t we?’ That earned a nod, as well as a feeling of gratitude. Emma had feared to be turned away. ‘You won’t run away, now, will you?’
Emma thought of the streets she had existed on when she left the Linley house, and the cold charity of that life. She could no more go back to that than to her mother and Dr Graham’s fanum.
‘I have nowhere to run to,’ she replied truthfully.
Mrs Kelly didn’t return, but sent a servant to say she was too busy, and that a bed had been prepared for Emma in the attic. Even going up by the back stairs she could hear the gaiety of the ground and first-floor rooms: laughter, singing male and female, the smell of food mingled with perfume and pipe tobacco, which suddenly made her feel at home. The attic was the same: familiar, a place of security. The other beds might or might not be occupied later by those working below, but right now she was on her own, and that was delicious in itself.
‘Well gentlemen,’ said Kathleen Kelly, when most of her clientele had departed and only those she called her stalwarts remained, ‘I have some good news for you. A little flower you were keen to pluck, who chose to abscond, has returned to take her place under my roof. You will remember her, I’m sure, young Emma, with that flaming hair and those green eyes.’
‘Intacta, still?’ asked Jack Willet-Payne, a naval captain with a florid complexion and a loud, braying voice.
‘I believe so, and will know for certain in the morning.’
‘Then the bids will stand?’
The questioner, Capscombe, was a petty sessions judge, a grey wizened creature with rheumy blue eyes and purple-veined skin, really too old for the task of deflowering such a morsel. But he had bid the most, and wished to know how he stood. The rest of the dozen or so were men of property or business, all of whom had homes to go to, all of whom preferred to be here.
‘They will,’ Mrs Kelly replied, ‘but the opportunity is still open.’
‘Then you are undone, Capscombe,’ hooted Jack Willet-Payne, ‘for I have just had some of my affairs resolved in the article of prize money. My American captures have paid out.’
‘You’ll need deep pockets, Payne,’ replied Capscombe, with little humour.
‘I have those, man, and a breech deep enough to put your oversoaked prunes to shame.’
‘Spurting salt water, I don’t doubt.’
‘Spurting none the less, Judge.’
‘Gentlemen, I am put to the blush by such exchanges.’
No one was ungallant enough to say that she could blush all she liked, for under all that powder they would never observe it, and they knew she was no stranger to ribald conversation, so matters carried on in the same vein until it was time for each to go his separate way.
‘I mean to have her, Kathleen Kelly,’ whispered Jack Willet-Payne, as he made his final farewell.
‘What, Jack?’ Mrs Kelly replied, well aware that he was drunk. ‘Would you make all my other nuns cry for the want of your attention?’
‘Never in life. You can tell them all that after I aim my cannon at our nymph and board in the smoke, it will be back to a general fleet action damned smart.’
Her smile never wavered as she took his arm to see him down the steps to the street, but in her heart she hoped that some other suitor would come forward for Emma. She liked many of her clients for themselves, but Judge Capscombe and Willet-Payne were not among them. Not that they’d ever know – she was too much the professional for that. But the judge was a man of jaded tastes, like to indulge in sodomy when no virginity was on offer, while Willet-Payne was a braying oaf and, from what some of her nuns had told her, a log of sodden wood when it came to the point of congress: heaving, selfish and damned slow with it.
At least whatever Emma faced would be less of an ordeal than Mrs Kelly’s own, raped by her brothers and run from a sod hut where her father
seemed set to follow. Now, one of her footmen was waiting to hand her a candle, to follow her up the stairs and extinguish those in the sconces behind. In the parlours the cleaning was finished, the white damask cloths drawn, bottle and glasses cleared away.
‘Young Emma Lyon will need a dress for the morning. See that one is put out for her.’
Kathleen Kelly beamed at Emma, having made her twirl round in the dress she had been given. The girl stopped before the long mirror to inspect her own image, which pleased her mightily. She looked and felt wonderful.
‘Well, young lady, I’ve always thought that a light cream colour was just right to set off your eyes.’
The dress was of silk overlaid with muslin, low cut at the front to show her décolletage to perfection, gathered at the waist by a silken burgundy cord. Mrs Kelly’s own maid had dressed her hair high on her head, twisting plaits to support the mass of curls that accentuated her long neck, and showed clearly the full roundness of her unblemished jaw. How different from the plain flannel garment she had arrived in the night before.
‘Now, disport yourself on that chaise and let’s see how it appears.’
Emma complied, sinking on to the buttoned dark brown velvet that covered the seat, one arm raised to rest on the high back, her hand flopping at the wrist though the placing of the fingers was controlled. She leant into the back to appear relaxed, the picture of what she imagined to be elegance.
‘God in heaven, girl, you’re a natural.’ Emma sat forward excitedly to offer her thanks, only to be ordered abruptly to resume her original pose. ‘Never forget that you are on show at all times, Emma.’
‘Am I to be on show?’
The well-powdered face creased into a frown, and the heavy silk dressing gown swished as Kathleen Kelly began to pace up and down. ‘Sure, I doubt you’re as innocent as you make yourself out to be.’
Emma couldn’t help the way she used her long eyelashes then, as if to denote innocent wonderment, but instead of being angered by it, Mrs Kelly let out a raucous laugh so coarse in both volume and tone as to leave no doubt that, dress and powder as she might, Kathleen Kelly was no lady. The laughter died to be replaced by a more serious look.
‘You aware that I do what I do, girl, for profit?’ A maidenly drop of the eyes and a bow of the head acknowledged that Emma did. ‘And so will you! I know my trade, Emma, just as I know that there are a thousand ways for a woman to ensnare a man. I said a moment ago that you were a natural and you are. Sure, you have artifice by the cartload, and a beauty that leaves you free not to speak at all. But there are tricks. Shall I run through a few for you?’
To see this much older woman acting the coquette looked strange to Emma; the fingers snatched to pursed, virtuous lips, the arm thrown across eyes in a head bent ready to weep, the hurt look that proceeded a turning away so swift it was like the reaction to a slap, and finally the sinking to the knees in supplication. Then Mrs Kelly rose and looked hard at her newest nun, clearly pleased by the look of wonder on the young face. ‘I know them all. Sure, I’ve seen them time and again, an’ it never ceases to amaze me that the poor creatures fall for it.’ She gave a satisfied sigh. ‘But they do and I’m grateful, for it has seen me into a life of comfort. I may want for many things Emma, but money will never be one of them.’
Emma’s eyes could not help but see that comfort around her; the room, the polished furniture, the sheer luxury. ‘Then you are to be envied.’
‘I think I am. And I think that you want what I have.’
Emma blushed, which produced another unladylike cackle. ‘Sure, that’s the prettiest yet, those rosy cheeks. If you can command that to order you’ll have me paying for your company.’
Mrs Kelly replied to the knock at the door with a sharp command, and a slip of a girl, no more than twelve years of age, garbed in drab grey, entered with a tray. ‘Tea!’ she exclaimed, as the tray was put on a side table. ‘Wait!’
The girl stood rigid, her eyes fixed above the heads of the two women in the room.
‘That was you, Emma, not six months gone, though I grant you filled out the servant’s dress a bit more.’ Kathleen Kelly walked behind the child, who showed real fear in her face. ‘Three days she’s been here, this Hilda, not knowing what to make of the place, have you girl?’
A slight shake of her head was all the response Hilda could muster.
‘A saint’s name that, a good Catholic name. All her life she’s been lectured about sin and here she finds herself surrounded by it. Lectured but not free of it, are you, Hilda?’
The serving girl’s voice was almost a whisper. ‘If you’re hoping to persuade me—’
‘Don’t interrupt! Mrs Kelly snapped, then resumed her normal tone, glancing at Emma. ‘This child’s father sold her to me, bonded her to my service. But he had to tell me, as he haggled for a price that she had known men. That she was no virgin. What men? Him? His friends? An uncle or the priest supposed to care for her soul? Him, I’ll wager.’
The cruel tone was having the desired effect. The slim unformed body began to shake. ‘Don’t cry, Hilda. Don’t you dare cry. Look hard, Emma, and when the time comes to choose the course of your life recall this moment. You may go, Hilda.’
The smile that lit the older woman’s face as the girl left was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. ‘Now, Emma, I shall pour you some tea, and then we can discuss the arrangements I have made for you.’
Emma wasn’t sure if going to the kitchen instead of her room was a way to avoid thinking about what Kathleen Kelly had said. Not that it had come as a shock. She had known before she rang the bell at that basement door what she was letting herself in for. After all, her mother had made it plain enough. But, still, the bald statement that she was to be auctioned like some prize bull at a county fair took away her breath.
‘Hilda.’
The girl looked up from the mixing bowl, her eyes red with crying. Emma wanted to tell her that Kathleen Kelly had only been cruel to Hilda to increase the pressure on her. But she couldn’t.
‘When you are free of your chores, would you care to come up to the top floor and try on some of my dresses? We could talk if you like.’
Hilda looked at her in a way that made the words seem absurd, then went back to her mixing.
‘You could choose to go from here if you wanted.’
‘How can I,’ Hilda spat, ‘being indentured? I’ve been bought an’ must stay.’
Emma turned away from the loathing in her eyes, the jutting jaw and disapproving mouth. She fingered her silk dress, wondering if she, too, was indentured.
‘I often wondered, when I first enjoyed a tumble with your father, if there was any change in me afterwards that people could see.’
Emma hadn’t noticed her in the doorway, and her heart jumped as her mother emerged and spoke. She seemed smaller somehow, her face more lined, her staid clothing adding to the impression of someone shrunk from former distinction. But her eyes were still as penetrating as ever. That, added to a determined stance, made her seem quite formidable. Emma fought to compose herself, to show that she was not afraid.
‘And was there, Mother?’
‘Should I call you Miss Hart? That is how you style yourself now, is it not?’ Emma nodded, but declined to add that she had changed her name only because her parent had set the example. ‘I will not enquire if your first experience of a man was pleasant.’
‘You may, if you wish, and I will tell you that it was most pleasant.’ The eyes were hard and unblinking to support the lie. ‘Captain Jack is a gentleman.’
Mary Cadogan raised one eyebrow. ‘He was never that when I knew him.’
‘You knew him?’
‘He’s a rake, girl, and has been since he was a mere midshipman. Being a bosom friend to the Prince of Wales makes no odds. There’ll not be one of Kathleen Kelly’s nuns has not suffered his attentions, and they would tell you so if you asked them.’
Emma was damned if she was going to tell her mo
ther just how unpleasant it had been, not just the searing physical pain at the loss of her virginity, but the boorish behaviour of the man who had won her in the auction. He had been drunk from his victory celebration, where he had crowed over the losers while filling the entire assembly, himself included, with claret. Then he had insisted on showing off his conquest in half the bagnios and coffee-houses in Westminster. In each one he consumed more claret, braying that he was about to pluck the sweetest flower, which left the object of this intention blushing and crushed. Everyone who knew Jack Willet-Payne bellowed crudities and traduced his prowess, offering her a better awakening to the joys of the bedchamber.
His gross consumption of drink had spared her on that first night, apart from ten minutes of painful rumblings, after which she lay sleepless due to the resounding snores of a companion who made her think of a beached whale. He lay, his great white belly free from its corset, rising and falling, arms akimbo, breeches half undone, as he sought by sound alone to dislodge the rafters from the ceiling above. He took his prize in the morning, his breath stinking fractionally more than his heaving body, the voice by her ear cursing his lack of spark one minute, the next mouthing filth to aid his purpose. Then it was her screams that sought to loosen what his snores had failed to fracture the night before.
‘Then he has changed,’ observed Emma’s mother.
He had thrown the bloodstained sheep’s intestine at Emma with a command of such insensitivity to see it washed that she had wondered about crowning him with the now redundant warming pan. She might have done it if the pain inside her had not rendered her almost immobile.
On a Making Tide Page 28
