by Sarah Burton
When Roger came down, Dr Rookham and Mr Fluke had already arrived and I made sure I was busying myself making them comfortable and appearing not to notice him come in. Mr Fluke asked me under his breath whether “those patched and painted little trollops” were expected with Roger, and I said I thought Miss Sylvia and Miss Melissa were indeed invited, and then talked to the elderly gentlemen of the weather, which was unseasonably hot for early May, and of how parts of the town stank abominably as a consequence, the street-rakers never seeming to keep up with the level of filth and rubbish. I kept on like this as I was determined that Roger should have to address me before I seemed to notice him. I was aware of him standing behind me and still did not turn. He coughed. I finally condescended to acknowledge his presence, and turned to face him, with a prepared and pleasant smile on my face.
“Cousin,” he said, bowing.
I made sure I looked him full and steadily in the face before dropping a curtsey. I was delighted to note that he looked thoroughly uncomfortable and even afraid. I made sure he was aware that my gaze never dropped from his face as he saluted the senior gentlemen, who received his greeting with their usual courtesy, though it was clear to me now that neither of them had the slightest affection for him.
Evelyn also greeted him politely but as one who knew he was better kept at a distance, and Aunt Madge, who I saw had indeed been crying, seemed to behave towards him with unusual indifference. I realised, with some unbecoming elation, that Roger began to understand that no one liked him. I began to feel the hard glitter of revenge course through my veins: it was an unfamiliar and heady sensation to me to feel exalted because of another’s pain.
Indeed it was pathetic to see him work so hard at being jovial, and I realised that two things were missing which usually oiled the wheels of his conversation. One was drink – Roger was, for once, and probably at my aunt’s insistence, stone cold sober (this he remedied as soon as we sat at table) – and the other was Frederick, who I now understood tended to mitigate any unfortunate circumstance Roger got himself into. As well as being sensitive to his brother’s failings, and willing to compensate for them or distract from them, he also supplied a foil to Roger and a butt for Roger’s jokes. Also, as I guessed Sylvia carried Melissa around with her because she benefited by the comparison, so Roger shone brighter next to Frederick. On his own he began to cut quite a sorry figure.
Sylvia and Melissa then arrived and after greetings had been exchanged, Sylvia immediately drew Roger aside and they whispered together. When Roger quit her side and approached his mother I made my move and presented Sylvia with the fan she had left behind last time. She looked at it as if it were a strange and foreign thing and then looked back at me.
“I understand you have been unwell,” she said. “I trust you are quite recovered?”
“Oh, quite, thank you,” I said.
“They say the plague is in town,” she said.
“Oh?” I said. “I had not heard of it.”
“Oh yes,” said Sylvia. “Several people have died. Above forty I believe.”
“Pish!” said Melissa. “There are plague cases every year. And in any case, it’s only in St Giles. When you see how such people live it’s no wonder.”
“Yes,” Sylvia agreed, looking at the fan again and then at me. “It mainly affects the poorer sort. Please keep it,” she said.
I believe I succeeded in concealing the effect of Sylvia’s insult upon me and politely insisted that she took the fan back.
“Indeed, no,” she said. “I have above a dozen at home, and I doubt you have one.” With a glacial smile, she turned away to indicate she had finished with me. I slipped the fan into my pocket thinking I should never like to use it now.
As usual, the conversation at the table became more voluble as each bottle was consumed. Roger was becoming increasingly loquacious with each brimmer, and I noticed my aunt place her hand on his arm when he reached for another decanter. “Zounds, Mother, it is a special occasion, is it not?” I heard him say.
In a low voice I heard my aunt say they had agreed not to mention it before the guests, but I could not catch the reason why, nor what it was. Roger seemed to pooh-pooh her and rose unsteadily to his feet. Raising his glass aloft he said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to propose a toast to Sylvia, who has done me the honour to agree to become my wife.”
I think everyone was shocked and surprised, but a quick glance round the table told me that this was no surprise to either Aunt Madge or indeed to Melissa, who seemed ready to burst into tears at her friend’s great good fortune. Sylvia smiled graciously. Seeing that everyone looked to her for their cue, my aunt composed her features, raised her glass and wished them great happiness, though I perceived tears in her eyes not of the happiest kind.
“May I enquire,” said Dr Rookham, “when this happy event is to take place?”
“This morning!” volunteered Sylvia. “You see before you a bride of only some hours!”
Again this news was shocking and surprising to most of us and once more Aunt Madge had to lead in congratulations.
“Welcome to the family, my dear Sylvia,” she said.
General conversation then broke out, and I observed Mr Fluke lean over to Roger and say with a grin, “Tonight’s the night, then, my boy?”
“Indeed, sir,” replied Roger, drinking deeply and setting down his glass rather heavily. “Tonight’s the night.”
He smacked his lips and the room vertiginously dropped under my feet; swimming before my eyes was Roger’s face, huge, distorted and horrible. I am not sure I actually fainted as I was dimly aware of activity around me. Evelyn and Dr Rookham rushed to my side and pulled back my chair.
“The plague!” shrieked Sylvia, leaping to her feet. “I knew it!”
“Hold your tongue you foolish woman,” snapped Roger. “It’s not the plague, she has fainted merely.” He pushed back his chair and stood up. “I will carry her up to her room.”
“No!” said Evelyn sharply. “H, dear, can you stand?”
I found that I could.
“I think I need to lie down, only,” I said, and Aunt Madge sent for Cook to make me some eggnog, while Dr Rookham held the door open for Evelyn and myself.
As everyone was occupied in helping me, I heard Roger say, “It is the shock, merely.”
“What shock?” said Sylvia.
“That we are married, you halfwit,” was his unguarded response.
“Why should that be a shock? To her?” She received no answer. “Roger?”
“I believe the child may have conceived an affection for me,” he mumbled, confirming my suspicion that he would have attributed any claims I might have made against his behaviour to my own feelings for him. It was a most disgusting thing to hear pass his lips, as well as quite ill-advised on his part and made me feel sick again.
“An affection?” hissed Sylvia. “What kind of affection?”
“Oh, an infatuation, merely,” Roger hissed back, digging his grave deeper and deeper.
Evelyn took me to our room and made me lie down though I assured her I was quite well. She blamed herself for letting me come to dinner when I had been so ill so recently. Once Cook had brought me my eggnog and Evelyn was satisfied I was comfortable, they both left me.
I lay there listening to my heart thudding until it slowed to a more regular beat and then must have fallen asleep. I woke to hear the bells of St Mary-le-Bow and knew it was eleven o’clock. I was hungry, as I had hardly eaten anything, and so began to make my way downstairs.
Crossing the landing on the next floor I could not fail to hear the rumpus going on in Roger’s room. The tone was clearly that of people trying to argue quietly and as we passed I discerned only scraps, including “that little slut” and “in my condition” in Sylvia’s voice, and “hold your tongue, madam, or I’ve something here will stop it,” and then laughter, from Roger.
When I look back on that eventful night now, all this seems trivial. For even
as we lived our little lives and fought our petty battles, death stalked the city, and soon would ride triumphant through the streets.
13
Almost daily noisy interviews took place between Aunt Madge and Roger behind closed doors over the next days, and it was a small matter, between what was audible and what Aunt Madge conveyed to us, to infer that Roger’s marriage was unsatisfactory to her on almost every point. He had not consulted her on his choice of wife. He had thrown up his studies at Oxford. He had no plan as to how to keep himself. He had made no effort to find lodgings for himself and his new bride. Yet though Aunt Madge sustained all these objections to the match, she now took the philosophical view that it was done, and they had to make the best of a bad job. However, it soon became clear that, however much of a philosopher Aunt Madge might pretend to be, she was far from happy living under the same roof as her son and his new bride, who now took marital discontent to hitherto uncharted heights.
After a fortnight of living as a married couple at Cheapside, Sylvia announced she was confident she was with child, which seemed mighty fast work, and Evelyn and I looked at each other but said nothing. It was small wonder Roger had married in such a hurry. It was clear that if he ever liked Sylvia, he did not now, and would mope round the house (for she did not like him to frequent his old haunts) complaining to anyone who would listen, usually the footmen. I once caught sight through the kitchen doorway of the Potters entertaining the other servants with their clowning, playing Roger and Sylvia as if on the stage.
REG: (A lace doily on his head as Sylvia): I curse the day I gained the vile, detested name of wife!
TED: (A poker through his belt as Roger): And I curse the day I ever committed the hateful crime of matrimony! (He pretends to drink from a bottle.)
REG: Before we are wed you treat us like queens! But the hour of matrimony ends our reign! I was warned ’tis so and ’tis true! I have been such a fool!
TED: There, wife, you have truth. You have so little brains that a penn’orth of butter melted under ’em would set ’em afloat. (He pretends to drink again.) You took a knock in your cradle I warrant.
REG: Oh speak not to me of cradles! Oh, you beast, you sot! Brute, rogue, poultroon! Thou art a rogue, a hector and a shab! Oh scanderbag villain! (Takes the bottle and drinks also.)
I took care not to be seen witnessing this pantomime, as it would not have done to laugh at Roger and Sylvia before the servants.
A circumstance concerning problems with her estate in the country gave Aunt Madge what Evelyn and I thought an ideal opportunity to absent herself for a while, and at least gain some respite from the continual torment of living under the same roof as the happy couple. At first she protested she could not leave London, but finally we extracted a promise that she would at least consider whether, for her own health and ease, it would be better for her to go out of town for a period.
One morning she called us to her. She appeared to have had little sleep and indeed we had all been aware at some point during the night of Sylvia screeching and Roger crashing about cursing.
“My dears, I am taking your advice and will go into Gloucestershire. I am most reluctant to leave you behind, but I will be frank with you and own that I do not wish to leave Roger and Sylvia in charge of the house. Roger will nominally be in charge of course, but I know you two will look after things and make sure the servants keep to the mark – for I fear they do not respect my daughter-in-law any more than they do my son – and also that they suffer no abuse. You can send to me at any time and I shall not be gone long. Perhaps no more than two weeks. Is this plan agreeable to you?”
We said that it was, and she should not trouble herself about us, as we could manage things perfectly well, and she should stay away as long as she wanted to. We eagerly agreed as to tell truth we were most concerned about our aunt’s well-being, for she had not seemed truly herself since Roger’s marriage.
“There are two further things,” she said. “Firstly, if I am delayed, or any unforeseen circumstance occurs – should I be taken ill, for example, and unable to return for a time – I would like you to continue with the monthly dinner. I do not wish to abridge you two girls of any pleasure, and besides, Dr Rookham and Mr Fluke will prove true friends to you should you need to apply to them for assistance of any kind. I have corresponded with them both and they have readily agreed to watch over you in an avuncular capacity. You may depend on them.” She stopped and looked earnestly at us and I could tell she was still debating whether she should leave us.
“Be perfectly easy, Aunt,” Evelyn said. “We will do as you ask, of course.”
“What is the other matter, Aunt?” I asked. “You said two things.”
“Yes, I did.” Aunt looked out of the window, took a deep breath, and then turned her attention back to us. “I want you to especially have an eye to Sal and Joe’s well-being.”
“Aunt,” I ventured, “you are as kind-hearted a person as ever I knew, but there are thousands of children in London in the same condition as you found Sal and Joe. May I ask why you particularly took in two blackamoor children?”
“Blacks and tawnies as well as whites are descendants of Adam, H,” said Evelyn primly.
Aunt Madge did not answer straightway, but indicated to Puss that he would be welcome on her lap and up he sprang. She pulled on his ears which I knew gave her, as much as him, much comfort.
“This is a delicate matter,” she said at last, “and I have to trust you with a great secret.” She sighed and beckoned us to sit close to her which we, much intrigued, did. She put her arms round our shoulders and went on in a low voice. “Though they do not know it, and even Frederick and Roger do not know it, those children are, in a manner, your cousins.”
Our faces told her that we were none the wiser.
“Oh dear,” she said, and reached for her glass of Canary and went on: “Your uncle you know was in spices and travelled halfway round the world in pursuit of his trade. It happened that he had another… another kind of wife… and these were his children. I did not know of their – or their mother’s – existence until I came across some papers after his death… The other… kind of wife… died of a fever, and her people rejected the children, and they were like to starve, so your uncle brought them to England. He told me nothing of all this, of course, as he thought it would hurt me, as indeed it would have, as he and I had no children together.” This was the only point at which her composure threatened to disintegrate, but she regained herself at once. “I discovered he had been paying a sailor’s wife to look after them, but when he died and the money stopped, she turned them over to the poorhouse in Portsmouth. That is where I found them, and brought them here.” She seemed to consider her empty glass, before adding, as an afterthought, “Only Cook knows.”
Evelyn and I were speechless for some moments. Then Evelyn, who always seemed to know the right thing to do, kissed our aunt and said she could rely on us both to protect our little cousins and to keep their history secret. We redoubled our assurances the next day as we waved our aunt off. As her coach went out of sight, we little guessed that the three of us would never be together again.
14
We had the household well organised by this time and had more leisure hours than hitherto, so went to confer with Cook about some special dishes from “the girt book” for the forthcoming dinner party. In the event, Sylvia made her excuses and remained in her room (she did indeed vomit most strenuously throughout the early months of her pregnancy) and Roger simply did not turn up.
By this time Roger and Sylvia had nothing more in common than their name and their misery. As soon as Aunt Madge had departed, Roger liberated himself from any pretence at husbandly dutifulness, and went out early and often. This meant we were left alone to entertain Sylvia, which did not discommode us too greatly in the mornings, as she rarely rose before noon, and after that she did not want our company any more than we wanted hers, though, because she looked for no employment, her time lay
heavy on her hands, and she often sought us out if only to have someone to bear witness to her vexation.
As a result, we often took refuge in the kitchen, where we knew Sylvia would never deign to descend, and were treated to Cook’s insights into life. Roger, she said, had always been a bad ’un. She showed not the slightest interest in Sylvia, although warned us about the terrific expenses of motherhood where a lady of quality was concerned; there would be cawdles, wines, sugar, soap, nurse, pot, pan, ladle and cradle needed, as well as fire and candle, a coral with bells for the child to rattle and twenty more odd knacks, whereas less fine children made do with tit, she said, and thrived just the same. She warned that, when the time came, our aunt could expect “an apothecary’s bill more barbarous, even, than Roger’s tailor’s.”
One night Roger came home just as Evelyn and I were locking up and told us some of his companions were joining him and we had best take ourselves to bed. He was already in his cups and knocked a candlestick over without seeming to notice, so Evelyn righted it and told me we had best stay awake until the revellers had gone, to be sure Roger did not set the house alight. Once Roger’s guests had arrived, we settled ourselves on a couch on the first floor landing, where we could see into the hall and not be observed. The door to the dining room, where they assembled, being open, we could plainly hear most of what was said.
“So where’s the lovely Sylvia?” asked one, who from his high voice I recognised to be Jack from the first night at the playhouse.
