by Maria McCann
She swallowed down the gypsy. ‘Indeed I have, but,’ (did he read Harris’s?) ‘not all fit to be shown.’
‘You are certainly fit to show anything.’ She was unable to see anything of his breeches but his tense, slightly parted lips were almost as sure a sign: she had him. ‘Come, bring your cards away. We shall investigate these tricks of yours.’
He rose and Betsy-Ann with him, her ears buzzing. He took her hand as she had seen him take Jeanne’s.
‘Your fingers are cold,’ remarked Ned.
‘I warrant they’ll soon warm up,’ murmured one of the whores behind her back.
Oh Mrs Betsy, Mrs Betsy! In the morning, when trade is lax and they lie in bed, playing cards – in the evenings, when the bedsteads in the adjoining chambers slam against the walls, when the silence that follows is suddenly broken by the whop overhead of Selina’s birch twigs and the joyous whimper of an admiral – through the long dull afternoons while Jeanne DuPont sits in the parlour, scarcely bothering to sulk since she cares for no man – in the night, when Betsy-Ann wakes in the aching darkness, urgent to possess him again, taste him, draw him into her, lover with hair of night, pleasure overwhelming as night itself – when she weeps in the moment of dissolution – when she fears all other women.
Of all times, this is when.
23
The study, as her husband insists upon calling it, would scarcely pass as such with Mama and Papa: a cramped chamber, smelling of damp plaster and mildew. Edmund has furnished it with a heavy desk, a bookshelf so understocked that its paltry volumes huddle together for company, and a curious marble table which he tells her was brought from Italy by his grandfather. She is prepared to admit that the table might possibly have belonged to a gentleman but the room, as an ensemble, has not a genteel air.
Sophia is aware that, let ladies protest against bachelor seclusion as they may, they do not, as a rule, meddle in these masculine dens. The study is sacred, be it a shrine of wisdom, its shelves groaning beneath the outpourings of genius, or one of those less inspiring but more numerous hideaways where the walls bristle with antlers, the books gather dust and a welter of papers, disagreeably impregnated with tobacco, threatens to overflow and bury everything else.
Edmund’s study conforms to neither of these types. Long accustomed to Papa’s clutter, Sophia marvels at the barren expanses of desk and table. To be sure, there are the accoutrements of writing, the pens, paper-knives, pen-wipers and sand, but apart from these one might fancy her husband had never any business to contend with. That this is not the case she is only too often reminded by Edmund himself. Where, then, does he keep his documents?
Inside the desk? The drawers are locked but the top one, out of true with its frame, yields half an inch. Grasping the sides, she rattles it back and forth, hoping to spring the lock, but without success.
As the frail hope of ‘accidentally’ opening the drawer evaporates, Sophia feels herself at the border of an unknown and inhospitable region. So far she has been supported, even at her most wretched, by the consciousness of correct conduct, of an integrity that could call upon the entire world to witness her every act. From these bracing heights she is about to descend into the vulgar mire of jealousy and suspicion where spouse is synonymous with spy.
Can she possibly be justified in stooping to such means? Good wives have reclaimed bad husbands, but she has yet to hear of any instances where this was achieved by sinking to their level.
There is, however, the question of natural justice. For what was Woman created, but to be Man’s helpmeet? God himself assigned this role to the Sex, yet Edmund has deprived her of it. In breaking into the desk, she asserts merely her right to serve. She realises that her hands are trembling, and as she does so recalls how his arm shook in the street. Grasping a paper-knife with a tortoiseshell handle, she inserts the point where she judges the tongue of the lock to be, nudging this way and that, trying to coax apart wood and metal.
She makes a poor crackswoman. The knife blade snaps off and drops into the drawer. Sophia stares at the broken scrap of tortoiseshell in her hand. Then, rallying, she takes up a paper-knife fashioned entirely of metal and repeats the experiment. After some awkward efforts which bring on a cramp in her fingers, she is rewarded by a loud click.
The lock is sprung.
The drawer is full to the top with papers, packed tight without more division than an occasional ribbon. Plunging her fingers into the mass as if into a heap of lace, she snatches it up and carries it to the marble table, where, scarcely able to see for the excited throbbing in her neck and head, she begins to riffle through it without bothering to sit down. The first thing she finds of any interest is a letter in Papa’s handwriting, addressed to herself.
She must remain calm. Forcing herself to breathe as deeply as her stays permit, Sophia reads:
My dear Daughter,
Had we not received the account of your excursion to Ranelagh, I might well fear for your health. My child, you do not write often enough, and when you do take up your pen you do not reply to my questions, or reply to no purpose. Excuse my writing to you in such a tone now that you are mistress of your own household, but these are matters of some importance.
Let me ask you again. Has Edmund collected from my representative the sum of 1000L, as agreed? Pray demand of him whether he has done so. Bracknell tells me it has been signed for, though from Edmund himself I have received no acknowledgement. London being home to such rogues as we daily hear it is, I cannot be easy until I receive confirmation in Edmund’s own hand and am certain that he, and no other, took possession.
I am afraid, my dear, that your husband is sadly careless as regards business. You cannot but be aware of it since my last letter. If you are content that he should handle your monies in this come-day-go-day fashion then I must tell you plainly that you are not so awake to your own interests as I could wish.
Since your departure from home, I find that I have written to you four times on matters of some importance. My first two remain unanswered; your answers to the rest are barely satisfactory. Your repeated urging that I should not trouble Edmund does me an injustice on which I will not dwell except to say you are now out of the honeymoon and should not conduct yourself like a lovesick miss
Surely Papa is mistaken, and is recalling some letter from Cousin Hetty? Sophia has never written of a visit to Ranelagh, for the simple reason that she has never been there; nor has she urged her father not to trouble Edmund. But then Papa is liable to grow muddled in recalling conversations, misattributing words and sentiments; Mama often rallies him on it.
There is an omission more unsettling than any of this. In her last letter home, Sophia confided to her mother some of her perplexity concerning the departure from Bath; she even hinted that Papa might make enquiries as to any young heir that had lost heavily around that time. Of all that, Papa makes no mention. Out of discretion? If so, he does well to be discreet since Edmund plainly read – and confiscated – the letter she now holds in her hand.
What else has he confiscated?
She puts Papa’s letter into her bosom to finish reading later, and continues to look through the pile. She is not the only person whose correspondence Edmund holds in his possession. There are a great many documents addressed to, or signed by, one Hartry: IOUs, bonds, bets signed and dated, some of them years before, some in the last few weeks. Of Mr Zedland himself there is no mention. Is this Hartry a relative of his, or has Edmund perhaps inherited the debts of a stranger? Is this the fruit of his mysterious win at Bath?
There is one note a single line long:
Ready in four days & sent directly. Shiner.
Evidently this Shiner person has a bent for the laconic, though the script – unlike the style – is exquisitely formed. Since the writer appears to be some kind of tradesman, she wonders at the familiar tone Edmund suffers the fellow to adopt.
She reads on, turning up each sheet as she goes but finding nothing of especial interest until h
er eye again falls on the word Shiner, this time coupled with her own surname:
Mr Hartry bets Mr Shiner five guineas that the Buller is broken into before New Year’s Day, with or without benefit of clergy.
E. Hartry
S. Shiner
The word paid is dashed across this in a bold, flowing hand that Sophia knows well from her own correspondence. She stares at the words broken into. They dance about the page, flinging themselves in her face and dropping back again: broken into. broken into. What this Shiner and Hartry have to do with her she has not the faintest notion. She wishes she were equally ignorant of the nature of their wager, but the sense forces itself upon her.
In a stinking necessary house she lifts her petticoats as men’s faces leer at her between the bricks. She whirls about, shamed and defenceless, as on every side they whisper and point and laugh.
The wager was made in August, the month when Edmund rowed her on the lake. How respectfully he handed her into the boat, first mopping its floor with his lawn handkerchief lest her shoes should be wetted, while all the time in his club he was making her the common talk of such creatures as this Hartry and Shiner: O, the duplicity, the heartlessness of the male sex!
Shaken, she reads on. The next few documents are deeds to Wixham in the county of Essex and these, at least, bear the name Zedland. Then come bills for shoes, gloves and a laced coat, followed by a sheet of calculations hastily scribbled down, various sums crossed out and others altered. On turning this last over, she finds a further letter, undated and written at speed, to judge by the frequent blots:
Child (for so you are to me, and ever will be, no matter how grown you think yrself),
I must ensist on telling you that you are headed the rihgt way to make yrself a most confirmed laughing-stock. To let a woman so tye you up! In a green youth there would be excuse for it, but in you it is not to be born. My indulgence has made of you a more finished man of plesure than fellos twice your age. My reward is that you help her away from me and set yrself up as her keeper, you dote on the creature like a raw schoolboy, ready to kiss the feet of any dirty trull that will obblige him.
Now I hear that you are promesing her marriage. Am I to believe you in earnest? Do you fancy I sent you to the varsity and to Paris, only so that you could wed a tinker?
Rest asurred (for now I come to it) that if you are so mulish I must needs stop yr allowence. Aye, let Madam earn it, and we shall see if she continues so lovesick.
Believe me when I say that I would not willingly see you reduced. I am ready to shower gold on you, only I would have you be wise and do as yr betters do. When you tire of the piece you will be ready to bite off yr tong, to think what you through away and will not have again. Picture yrself 10 years from now, chaned to a stinking gypsy and her brood; then fancy yrself with a rich wife, a purse full of gold and all those advantages my influence can secure. Though they are in no hurry to claim ackwaintance, I have some of the most celebrated persons of the Age in my pocket. Only consider what they have in their power to bestow, both now and in the future, and wether you can afford to turn up your nose at it. Should you not laugh to see another so infatuated and behaving so extravagant?
My son, this wench has sadled you and rides on your back. Only throw her and you will again walk easy. You make yrself ridiculous in the eyes of the world, enslaved to such a commen creature: I have now in my employ a pair of sisters something in the style of your Mrs Betsy, only far superiour. They come as a set, one most acrobatic and lassivious, the other the cunningest flute-player that ever made a man’s eyes roll in his head. A vicount pays 200L for an hour of their company but you, that are Freeman of the House, may flitt from flower to flower sipping necter where you will. Come, try if these girls do not make you happy. Did ever parent make a kinder offer to a son? Sure most young men would give their eyes for it! Did you but know yr good, you were better apprentised to my trade than to cuckoldry, penury and a housefull of brats.
Yr affect. parent,
K. Hartry
Never could Sophia have imagined such wickedness. It is beyond anything: a father enticing his own son into debauchery! There are other letters in the same hand and these she pushes aside unread, not without a sense of contamination from their very paper and ink. So this is the company her husband keeps, unknown to her – this monstrous Hartry and his son. Supposing Mrs Hartry alive, and possessed of any womanly feeling, how the poor creature must have suffered to see her husband’s profligacy begin to show, like spots of decay, in her child. Even the love affair of which the father wrote was evidently of a coarse and carnal nature. Only suppose if she, Sophia, had a son, and Edmund should ―
Edmund. He said he would be out tonight, but he has been known to change his mind, particularly if the weather turned cold. Suppose he were to return? She has now worked her way through about half the mass of papers. Should she take some of them away with her? Caution urges staying where she is: from this room she can hear the front door, which allows her time to press them back into their hiding place. Once remove a document, and who knows when she will have the opportunity to make the return?
How, though, will she explain the unlocked drawer? Directly Edmund finds it, she stands detected. She feels at the back of the drawer, finds the snapped-off tip of the letter-opener and slips it into her pocket. The lock itself appears uninjured. If so, and if she can find a key, all may yet be well. The maid (Sophia blushes) can be blamed for the damaged paper knife. Some tale about dusting – clumsiness – she will make it up to the girl.
Though the middle drawer is also locked, its contents can be exposed by lifting the top drawer clean out of the desk, thus revealing two rings and a stub of wax. There is, alas, no spare key. Sophia picks up the first ring, expecting to see the turtle-dove device that always appeared on Edmund’s letters during their courtship. Instead she beholds a carved sunflower precisely like that on her own seal ring, the one she inherited from Grandmother Cotterstone. Sophia’s ring is of bluejohn. This one has a dull reddish stone, perhaps carnelian, but as far as her eye can judge, it is the very same design.
There is a piece of paper shoved to the back of the drawer. She pulls it out and is faced with the words
Sophia Zedland
Sophia Zedland
Sophia Zedland
– followed by a few sentences of no great import but painstakingly inscribed in a character identical to her own. The proof is damning: here lies the explanation, dreadful though it is, for Papa’s confusion. Sophia’s breath seems to come through layers of muslin, as if she were straining the air, and she can hear her own gasps as if made by another person. Is this hysteria? Not at all. Sophy is rational.
Papa has been reading not Sophia’s letters but Edmund’s.
It is some minutes before she can command herself sufficiently to continue. The third and last drawer is unlocked and empty. Sophia turns back to Papa’s letter and reads through to the end. He does not continue to scold her but offers the ‘small beer’, as Mama called it, of a country household: Mary-Ann’s back is improved, Rixam’s grandmother has left him 20L. Sophia is not greatly cheered by Rixam’s good fortune. She returns the letter to its place in the pile and closes the drawer, then hurries to her boudoir where she snatches up a handful of hairpins.
Eleven o’clock finds Sophia kneeling by the desk, hairpin in hand.
Midnight finds her, a prey to violent headache, in bed and endeavouring to sleep. The drawer is locked. Outside in the yard, bent pins and a broken paper-knife sink down in the privy-pit.
Edmund is still not home.
24
Punt’s Coffee House makes itself known a hundred yards away, sudden heaves of heat and laughter pushing aside the cooling air each time the door opens. Betsy-Ann knows it of old: a nest for night birds, both cocks and hens.
Ned’s there already, sitting some way off and watching the company. As he sees her approach, he turns the familiar smile full on her and despite herself, Betsy-Ann feels her hea
rt kick.
He takes her hand and kisses it. ‘Here have I been in a cursed funk.’
‘What, you?’ says Betsy-Ann, sitting down.
‘I thought you might be afraid to come.’
Who does he think he is, Old Harry? She has sufficient courage to share a pot of capuchin, at any rate, and drinks from his used cup, the sweet milky coffee coating her tongue. This is a time to listen, not talk – what’s his lay? – but now he has her here, Ned seems ill at ease.
At last he ventures, ‘Queer times, eh?’
‘I’ve seen worse.’
‘And better. Speaking for myself, that is. Who’d have thought it, you with Sam, and me ―’
‘Spliced?’
‘Damnably spliced.’
So she was right. She wonders if his autem mort is One of Us, as Harris’s calls it. She didn’t look the type, but on consideration Betsy-Ann’s not so sure. It’s possible to drown the whore in the wife. It’s been done.
He says, ‘I see you’re curious, Mrs Betsy.’
‘How?’
‘Your eyes are all slitty.’
Too sure of himself by half! Betsy-Ann at once yawns in his face. He sees his mistake and says coaxingly: ‘I flatter myself the tale isn’t without interest. She’s from Zedland, where the fine big wenches grow.’
‘Is that why you went, then? To get married?’
‘Nothing further from my mind, I assure you. When I binged avast, I hadn’t the price of a hat.’
‘You, Ned? You’ve never gone short in your life.’
‘Ah, Betsy!’ He makes sheep’s eyes at her. ‘You know I have.’
‘You’ll be telling me she’s a fortune, next.’
‘You are at liberty to laugh, Madam,’ he says, but good-humouredly.
‘That’s a mercy. Might burst myself otherwise. So, let me see: you went there penniless and married an heiress.’
He grins. ‘I grant you not every man could’ve done it.’
