A Catch of Consequence

by Diana Norman

  He groaned. ‘You sound as if you’d been out to tea.’

  But she had enjoyed herself and continued to do so, more and more. Perhaps, if she’d been brought up by Temperance Burke in the Puritan tradition of thinking all enjoyment suspect, she’d have been less receptive to lovemaking, but her confidante in sexual matters had been Betty, the former slave, whose attitude was considerably less prohibitive.

  She’d nudged her husband-to-be in his bare ribs. ‘And so did you.’

  If there’d been a lingering suspicion that he’d married her from a sense of obligation, that night and all the subsequent nights swept it away. He loved her; she made him laugh, she made him happy; there’d been a great need in him and she fulfilled it. Whatever Rubicon he’d had to face in deciding to marry her, she could sense his relief that he’d crossed it.

  They were becoming very close, not just sexually. She was discovering that he was an extremely kind man. This had been oddly surprising, as if his ability to excite her could not co-exist with niceness, but already, for Aaron’s sake, he’d offered to set Dr Baines up in a London practice and, for Makepeace’s, had invited Susan Brewer to stay with them, suggesting he buy her a year’s pupillage with Mme Angloss who, he said, was the most influential adviser on fashion in England.

  Both had accepted.

  In one way this easy disposal of people, generous as it was, had been daunting. It brought home to Makepeace how powerful a position Sir Philip Dapifer held and how unfitted she was as his consort. She was used to the command of a small, bourgeois world; she had no guidelines to the society she was about to join now. He didn’t give her any, either.

  In bed in their cabin, she’d said: ‘What are you going to do with me?’

  ‘This.’

  All very pleasant but later she returned to the problem. ‘Ain’t you worried?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But what do you want me to be? What do you want me to do?’

  ‘That.’

  ‘In public?’

  In the end she’d got out of bed, put on a wrap, and pursued the matter out of his physical reach. ‘What I mean is, you’ll be entertaining royalty and such. I can pour the King a good tankard, but when it comes to—’

  ‘We won’t be entertaining royalty.’

  ‘Because of me?’

  ‘Because I’m divorced. The King and Queen are straitlaced about these things.’

  ‘Oh.’ That was a relief. Her respect for King George went up at the same time; she’d imagined a court of Nero-like depravity. ‘But you got Society friends . . .’

  ‘And we’ll be able to tell whether they’re friends or not, won’t we?’

  ‘But there’s fish knives and how to address a duke . . .’

  ‘Fish knives are definitely a problem.’

  ‘I mean it, Pip.’ For the first time she approached the nub of the business. ‘Your first wife knew all this taradiddle and I don’t.’

  ‘The first Lady Dapifer was an excellent hostess, marvellous with fish knives and, while I don’t like to speak ill of the divorced, she was also vicious and had the morals of an alley cat.’ He sat up and shook his head at her. ‘Procrustes, I don’t care. I don’t care.’

  She crawled across the bed to hold him.

  Afterwards, he said: ‘Ffoulkes’s opinion was the only one worth a damn and, if it’s any consolation, he’d have proposed to you quicker.’

  So that was all right. By the time she viewed London from the deck of the Lord Percy that morning, she was so armoured by love she was prepared to knock the lights out of any ogre it sent against her.

  Lieutenant Horrocks went about his business, Susan hurried off to finish her packing and brother and sister were left alone. ‘You ain’t scared, Aaron, are you?’ she asked.

  He shook his head. ‘Always wanted to be here.’

  ‘Good.’ She took in a deep breath. ‘I ain’t either, not now. What’s the bit about that woman answering her husband’s call? You know, from the play, you used to quote it about me and poor Captain Busgutt?’

  ‘ “Husband, I come: Now to that name my courage prove my title!’ ”

  ‘Got it right, didn’t she?’

  ‘Actually, Cleopatra was about to commit suicide.’

  Instantly, she felt ill-omened and took a precaution against bad luck.

  ‘I don’t think Lady Dapifer should spit over her shoulder,’ Aaron said. Like her marriage, her title impressed him but he also found it an inexhaustible source of amusement.

  ‘Who else’s am I going to spit over?’

  Dr Baines joined them to say goodbye. He was going home to Edinburgh before returning to London and the Harley Street practice Dapifer had promised him. His farewell to Aaron was affectionate—on Aaron’s part almost tearful—and larded with medical do’s and don’ts. To Makepeace he was courteous, if reproachful. ‘May ye prosper in your chosen path, Lady Dapifer.’ She was afraid she’d hurt him but there was something else to him . . . a touch of relief? She was irresistibly reminded of Pentecost Pringle, one of the Meg’s customers, who’d constantly and mournfully excused his bachelorhood ‘acause her I loved married another’, while enjoying every minute of it.

  Dapifer came up to say it was time to go. Soberly, he offered her his arm. Soberly, she took it. Knowing what she knew of their nights, the enforced propriety of their behaviour in company still enchanted her like a secret naughtiness.

  The gangplank remained obdurately stable beneath feet expecting it to roll.

  Robert had been told to send carriages to the quayside but none were in evidence so a coach had to be hired. Luggage and Tantaquidgeon were placed on top, the rest of the party squashed inside.

  It was a measure of London’s extraordinariness that the sight of a large Red Indian, complete with feather, sitting atop a vehicle did not attract more attention than it did. There were a few stares, occasionally rude boys ran alongside shouting unintelligible Cockney things, but the circus provided effortlessly by their streets seemed to have sated most Londoners’ ability to be surprised at anything.

  It didn’t sate the Americans’. An elephant was being taken for a walk on Tower Hill and in the course of the City’s mile Makepeace, peering over the head of Josh, who sat on her knee, saw pigtailed Chinese, gaberdined Jews, astrakhan-hatted Russians, an Indian robed like a maharajah and another in a loincloth. Countrywomen sold apples to the occupants of gilded carriages; wraithlike women shouted out the price of their bodies. Negroes with slave collars, dressed like princes; free negroes in patches; beadles in tricorns; aldermen in scarlet; running footmen in wigs; two dancing bears; a snake-charmer; lawyers clutching briefs: all of them bustling about their business and expecting others to be about theirs.

  There was no comparison with Boston here: poverty was too deep, riches too extravagant, thoroughfares too dirty, too grand, too narrow, churches horrifyingly old and astonishingly beautiful crammed about by stalls. Trades came in blocks, with their stench and noises: Smithfield mooed and baaed and ran with blood; Poultry held them up to let by a flock of turkeys with their feet tarred into boots. One street seemed entirely given over to the melting of metal, another ticked with clocks.

  When they reached Temple Bar, Makepeace sat back to rest from astonishment. Dapifer paused in his commentary: ‘Will it suit?’

  Aaron spoke for them all. ‘ “Behold, the half was not told me.” ’

  Once out of the twists of the Middle Ages, the going became straighter and more genteel but just as congested, this time with shoppers, playgoers and carriages delivering well-dressed men and women to their clubs. In the hot evening Piccadilly smelled like a stable from its thickening carpet of horse manure.

  The coach turned north into gridlike squares of restrained elegance, where the tall houses, still too new to be polluted by the rest of the city’s grime, commanded unperturbed views of trees and flowers.

  ‘Grosvenor Square,’ Dapifer said, ‘and this is Dapifer House.’

  The mansion
they had stopped at dominated the row on this side of the great square with a pediment and six-columned façade.

  Robert had been looking for them and came down the steps at a flurried run. He and Dapifer held a whispered conversation at the coach door. Not invited to descend, the rest of the party kept their seats, querying each other with their eyebrows.

  A woman appeared in the doorway, smiling, holding out her arms. ‘Husband,’ she called. ‘Welcome home.’

  It was a pretty sound and it carried. For Grosvenor Square it promised interest; heads appeared in some of the windows. For those who’d been in the Roaring Meg on the night of Boston’s bonfires and heard the fluting cry of Makepeace’s name it was a reminder of something else.

  She came down the steps as prettily, holding her skirt up over little tripping feet and stood on tiptoe in an effort to kiss Dapifer’s cheek. He moved back out of the way so she continued forward to the coach and stood on its step to look in, extending a hand as frail as a frond.

  Bemused, Aaron shook it.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting so many Americans,’ she said, ‘but how delightful that you’ve brought your own totem pole with you. Robert’s told me about you, my dear . . .’ This was to Makepeace. ‘What an interesting style of dress—and a little piccaninny on your lap, how free-thinking.’

  ‘Exquisite’ was the mot juste, pinning her delicacy and petiteness; cloudy dark hair was set off by a primrose gown and her scent had the fleeting sweetness of bluebells. She had animal quickness with a smile of tiny, white, backward-sloping teeth.

  Makepeace knew she’d been born to hate her. It wasn’t for the insults or because this little weasel had shared Dapifer’s bed. If they’d merely passed in the street, each would have sniffed the other out—they were the other’s antithesis.

  Drums smeared with blood and howling for sacrifice coughed along the square’s frontages. Small shapes hunted with stone-tipped spears through the bushes of the central garden. The two warriors from opposed tribes watched each other’s eyes for the opportunity to kill.

  ‘Oops. Sorry.’ Makepeace had opened the carriage door so that her enemy was forced to cling onto it like a monkey, and be swung ridiculously outwards.

  Makepeace descended. ‘Want some help?’ But Robert had run forward to lift his former mistress down.

  ‘I told you to leave the house,’ Dapifer said, quietly.

  ‘What?’ The first Lady Dapifer was brushing herself down, her eyes still on Makepeace.

  ‘My letter with the divorce decree told you to leave this house. I hope you received it.’

  ‘I believe I did, dearest, but I must have got bored before I reached that bit.’

  ‘Leave now.’

  ‘Very well, my darling. Where to?’

  ‘Great Russell Street. I’ve given you Great Russell Street.’

  ‘Thank you, dearest. Robert, run and tell Maria that Lady Dapifer wants her things packed. I’ll sit here and wait. Oh, and have the carriage brought round. May I have the carriage, Pippy dear? Or should I carry the trunks on my head, like your Red Indian friends?’

  She returned to the steps and sat on them, arranging her skirt.

  Dapifer addressed the coach: ‘I apologize. I’m afraid I must ask you to wait here.’ He didn’t look at Makepeace who retreated back into the coach.

  A weeping maid with hatboxes put them on the steps, followed by a train of footmen with luggage. She was already packed, Makepeace thought.

  Every window in the row now had heads peering out of it. Residents came out of the houses. The square had spawned people, chimney sweeps, footmen, maids. Passers-by stopped; carriages drew up so that their occupants could ask why a so-obviously forlorn and delicious little creature was being evicted. Robert ran back and forth, windmilling signals of distress and loving it.

  A female neighbour, somewhat untidily dressed for a ball, hurried solicitously round to the figure on the steps—‘My dear, my dear’—and was waved away. The first Lady Dapifer needed no help; she was managing nicely. It was the man standing and watching, arms folded, by the hired coach and those inside it, who appeared boorish.

  Makepeace felt larger and lumpier than at any time in her life. I look stupid. Tantaquidgeon on the roof looks stupid, we all look stupid. The bitch.

  It was an exercise in humiliating that touched genius.

  The neighbour ran to Dapifer. ‘Sir Philip, will you let this happen? Your own wife?’

  ‘Go away, Lady Judd.’ He said it softly but Lady Judd backed away.

  Tell her, tell her that hag’s not your wife any more. Perhaps he couldn’t, perhaps if he said anything he’d lose the control that was reining his fury in. Makepeace could feel it radiating from him and loathed the woman who was hurting him, resenting that she could hurt him—even hatred argued intimacy.

  After nearly half an hour a coach with a gold emblazon on its doors drew up. It was directed to move along a little so that it did not obstruct the crowd’s view of a pathetic farewell between erstwhile mistress and staff.

  As it left the square, the two Lady Dapifers were level with each other for a moment. The first smiled.

  When they were all going into the house, somebody in the crowd threw a lump of horse manure which hit Dapifer on the back of his coat.

  The entrance hall was chillingly beautiful and as high as the house itself. It was lit through a glass dome roof from which hung a great glass and filigree lantern. An oval staircase, cantilevered and in marble with a wrought-iron balustrade rose to a gallery of rooms.

  Susan Brewer opened her mouth to express wonder but after the first ‘Oh my’, shut it again. This was not the moment.

  An incredibly old, powdered footman, looking as if he’d collapse under the weight, relieved them of their wraps. Another comforted a maid on the verge of hysterics. A large and severe woman came forward. ‘Welcome home, Sir Philip.’

  ‘Makepeace, may I introduce Mrs Peplow, my housekeeper. Peplow, this is Lady Dapifer.’

  ‘How de do, Mrs Peplow. Hope we ain’t a bother to you.’

  The housekeeper addressed Dapifer: ‘With such little notice, I fear there is nothing in for dinner, Sir Philip. Madame was going out.’

  He didn’t notice the snub to Makepeace, he was struggling out of his manured coat, helped by a footman. ‘Serve whatever you’re having.’

  ‘Yes, Sir Philip. Do I assume that the darker persons in your party will be eating in the basement?’

  ‘Tonight they will dine with us.’

  ‘The feathered gentleman too?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Peplow. Yes.’

  Hot water and towels were provided in a small room off the hall so that they could wash their hands before proceeding to the dining room, a vast place of maroon and gold.

  It was a gruesome meal. Dapifer barely spoke. The effect of whatever he was thinking clenched his face into straighter lines than his usual mock dejection allowed and had the effect of rendering him conventionally handsome. Susan was the only one to rise to the occasion with chatter that became more maniacal as nobody joined in.

  It was the first time Tantaquidgeon had eaten in any other formal company than his tribe’s and he refused to do it sitting down; his plate had to be served to him in a corner of the massive room by a footman who wanted to press napiery and cutlery upon him until Dapifer sharply told the man to desist.

  The array of cutlery was, in any case, as bewildering as Makepeace had feared it would be. She took the bit between her teeth, a fork in her hand and followed Betty’s example of using it for everything.

  The only person at the table enjoying himself was young Joshua who was staring around him with the disbelieving joy of a creature returned to the wild after incarceration. He kept squeaking and drawing Makepeace’s and his mother’s attention to details of the room that caught his attention: the superb coffered plaster ceiling, painted panels on the walls, the gilt-backed chairs, the statuary in their niches at the far end.

  Makepeace had no kn
owledge of design; the room oppressed her and she found the paintings and statues somewhat shocking, but she was aware that it was magnificent. It was the only heart-warming thing of the evening that this child of Betty’s, never having been exposed to interior architecture more elaborate than North Street’s plastered church (well, I ain’t either) reverberated from the room’s beauty like glass to a high note.

  There was nothing wrong with the food. Smoked fish, pâtés, oysters, buttered shrimp, roast beef, capons, broiled mutton, pastries, flummeries . . . Makepeace caught Betty’s eye: if this was what the servants ordered for themselves they were living high off the hog’s haunch. She and her cook watched how much was taken away; they could have fed half Boston on it, let alone a household.

  If I was running this here establishment . . . It occurred to her that, as the new Lady Dapifer, she was.

  Since everybody was tired, the housekeeper was ordered to show them to their rooms. Makepeace went with them, leaving Dapifer still at the table.

  Portraits of past Dapifers lining the staircase wall looked down their noses as she and the others followed Mrs Peplow to the gallery. Makepeace took against them. Her own pilgrim ancestors had defied bullying by men and women of this species and, by God, so would she. If the English were trying to intimidate her—and they were—they’d chosen the wrong American. Any sauce from you lot and I’ll spit in your eye, she thought.

  She glowered at the housekeeper’s ample backside ahead of her. Yours an’ all.

  Actually, Peplow had done well by them. Betty and Josh had an attic room considerably better furnished than the Roaring Meg’s, and so did Tantaquidgeon, though whether he’d stay in it was a different matter.

  Joshua, hopping from foot to foot, tugged at Makepeace’s sleeve. ‘Where can I piss?’

  She’d been wondering the same herself. Was there a privy in the yard? If so, where was the yard? During the meal she’d been shocked when a footman opened one of the dining-room cupboards to see a chamber pot in it—a most insanitary arrangement in her view.

  Mrs Peplow pointed grimly to the underside of the bed. ‘Unless, madam, you wish your people to share the use of your water closet.’