by Amanda Elyot
“Do you mean Lady Chatterton’s ball at Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens?”
Mary nodded. “Yes, I think that was it. Sounds about right to me.”
“My aunt and I were invited as well. I had not intended to leave Miss Welles’s bedside while she was still infirm; yet honor and duty now impel me to ride to London in search of her. Ordinarily, Lady Chatterton’s midsummer masquerades are not to be missed. It gives her an opportunity to exercise her passion for Shakespeare. Every guest is exhorted to arrive in costume, dressed as his or her favorite Shakespearean character.”
“Then is Lady Chatterton an actress, your lordship? Like Mrs. Jordan or Mrs. Siddons? Miss Welles is very fond of Mrs. Siddons,” Mary added, tearing up at the woeful thought that she might never again see her beloved mentor.
Darlington smiled and offered the maidservant a linen handkerchief. “Lady Chatterton is a great patroness of the arts who once had aspirations in that direction, I believe. But it is not seemly for a noblewoman to appear upon the stage, so she contents herself with entertaining those she would consort with, in addition to lavishing upon her favorites extraordinary sums of money to ensure their welfare and their livelihood.”
He would have to postpone his journey to Canterbury. Locating Miss Welles before she fell prey to the more unscrupulous and unsavory of London’s residents took precedence over his petition. Darlington rang the damask bellpull. “Whether or not my aunt Augusta wishes to join us is of no concern to me,” he muttered. “But Miss Welles’s safety and well-being are of paramount importance. Mary, tell your mistress that I will offer my coach-and-four for the expedition,” he said, and seizing upon an alternative plan, added, “and if we cannot find Miss Welles in advance of Lady Chatterton’s masked ball, no doubt there will be plenty of my acquaintance in attendance whom I can enlist to aid in our search.”
Mary nearly threw herself at the earl’s feet, thanking him profusely. She knew he would be their champion, just like the ones in the stories about the Middle Ages that Miss Welles used to tell her. With her heart now somewhat lighter, Mary scampered back up Brock Street to give Lady Dalrymple the good news.
“GARDY LOO!” a woman shrieked at the top of her voice, just before the steaming, reeking contents of a brass chamber pot were emptied into the street below. Those who seemed to have taken notice, stepped away from the sidewalk, such as it was, and moved toward the muddy street, only to be nearly overrun by a small child pushing a heavy wheelbarrow laden with nuts.
Never before had C.J. experienced anything like this teeming flood of humans and beasts, of cries and shouts of commerce and of consternation, and of smells both pleasant and assaulting to the nostrils.
At the side of Gun Lane, a young girl baked potatoes over a coal stove that threatened to roast her in the summer heat, while a carman shouted at her, “Stand up, there, you blind cow! Will you have the cart squeeze yer guts out?”
Singing samples of his wares, a ballad seller knocked from door to door of the crowded buildings, best described to modern sensibilities as tenements, while in perfect harmony a tinker cried, “Pots to mend!” banging on a kettle with a hole in its dented bottom.
In Spitalfields Market, as the afternoon drew to a close, merchants, keen to close out transactions and rid themselves of their stock before nightfall, called out bargains on carp and pickerel. “Two for a groat! Four for sixpence! Mackerel here!” A man in black gabardines and a skullcap bought some carp. “For mine wife,” he said to the vendor in a lilting accent. “By you, she says, it’s always good.”
The stench of tanned leather displayed on wooden dowels in makeshift open stalls, combined with that of fish, fresh or otherwise, nearly caused C.J. to retch until the pungent aroma of strong, hot brew from a nearby coffeehouse overpowered the competing odors.
“Knives to grind!”
“Pots to mend!”
“Buy my flounders!”
“Buy my maids!”
A painted ancient announced the availability of her human wares as a well-turned-out wench, full of face and figure, reached for a gentleman’s sleeve. “Come, milord, come along. Shall we drink a glass together before sunset?”
Amid this hurly-burly stood a do-gooder atop a soapbox struggling to be heard above the din. “Gin is the principal cause of the increase of the poor, and of all the vice and debauchery . . .”—he paused to eye the whore, her fresh prey now fully within the grasp of her lacquered talons—“. . . among the inferior sort of people, as well as of the felonies and other disorders committed about London!”
As if to prove his point, the general cacophony was shattered by the cry of “Stop thief!”
C.J. looked up to see the old Jew who had purchased the carp take off through the market after a slip of a lad, but he was no match for the child’s age and speed. Down he went, his precious package trod in the mud by a dozen passersby, eager to catch a good view of the show. “My watch!” the man cried, pointing after the boy, who had slipped into a narrow alley, probably gone forever.
Would no one else help this man? C.J. was amazed at how such a crowd could gather for the spectacle, and yet not one of them offered him a helping hand or a sympathetic look for his plight.
“It’s just a dirty Jew,” a man of roughly the same age said dismissively when he saw the victim’s gabardines. The good Christian spat in the dirt.
Surprisingly unflinching, the robbery victim retorted by releasing a series of epithets in a strange, foreign tongue. She offered her hand to the man, who was trying in vain to brush the dust from his garments. “May I help you, sir?”
The gentleman looked as though he was not particularly keen on taking a woman’s hand. “I am well enough,” he said, getting to his feet on his own. “But I am appreciative of your courtesy. In this town such things are not expected.”
“I have just come to London this afternoon.”
“You’ll learn,” the Jew said bitterly.
Unthinking, C.J. extended her hand again in order to introduce herself. “Cassandra Jane Welles.”
The man looked kindly at her now, but still refused to touch her. “Moses Solomon.”
“Perhaps you can help me, Mr. Solomon.” C.J. recited the address she was seeking.
“Hmmm.” Solomon tugged at one of his peyos, the long curls that he had wound around his ears. “It’s in Old Jewry Street. You’re not far from there. But then again, you’re not near.” He gestured down the road. “To the south and to the west. Cheapside. You don’t know where you’re going, do you?” C.J. shook her head. “Probably where the little pickpocket went with my watch. Mathias ben Ezra’s. It’s a pawnshop. But ben Ezra does his business under the name of Mathias Dingle.” Solomon stroked his beard. “A wolf in sheep’s clothing, he thinks he is. He’s fooling no one. What, you don’t take my meaning, miss?” Receiving another uncomprehending reply, Mr. Solomon elucidated further. “He’s a Jew. Like me. Dingle,” the man scoffed. “He’s no more a Dingle than I am a Digby.” His reference to the Digbys caused C.J. to wince. “You’re not as lost as you think. Walk with me, Miss Welles. I’m going only as far as the shul, but you’ll be halfway there. I hope you’re a good walker. By sundown, ben Ezra—Dingle,” he snorted, “will be closed for Shabbos.”
Moses Solomon led C.J. through the narrow streets of Whitechapel and Spitalfields, the old Jewish Quarter of London, amid the babel of several tongues being spoken at once, street musicians plying their trade on pipes and tambourines, the toll of churchbells, and the cries of vendors purveying hot and cold foodstuffs of all varieties. At a muddy intersection, a youth set off something like a bottle rocket, and as the flare shot into the darkening air of early evening, an assembled crowd cheered him on, begging him to ignite another.
Mr. Solomon halted in front of an unimposing façade tucked into a narrow lane. “This is Bevis Marks, where I take my leave,” the Jew said. He pointed toward the end of the lane. “That is St. Mary. Follow the street south to Leadenhall. As you walk toward St. Paul�
�s Cathedral, Leadenhall becomes Cornhill, which becomes Poultry—in Cheapside. From Poultry, a little street you’ll find if you turn north toward the old London Wall. This is Old Jewry. The address you want is there. And now, I bid you yom tov.”
As Solomon entered the synagogue, C.J., repeating the Samaritan’s directions in her head, hastened toward her destination.
Alas, although she walked as quickly as she could manage, she did not reach Old Jewry Street until dusk, and Mathias Dingle’s pawnshop was shut tight. Through the dusty leaded panes she could see an array of assorted bric-a-brac: seven- and nine-branch candelabras, musical instruments, gold pocket watches, porcelain snuffboxes, strands of pearls, and brooches encrusted with precious gems. Above her head hung the pawnbroker’s symbol, the pyramid configuration of three balls, and a painted sign reading DINGLE’S.
Frustrated and exhausted, and straining from too much exertion so soon after her accident, C.J. continued to walk toward St. Paul’s in the hope that she might find a place to rest. It seemed that the logical next step was to find someone who might have heard of her “father,” the Marquess of Manwaring. C.J. remembered that he lived in London but knew not his address or whether he was even in town. She stopped at the cathedral to sit for a while and to soak in the restful ambiance. After the clamor of Spitalfields, she craved a more meditative pace. Had she felt heartier, she might have climbed all the way up to the Whispering Gallery.
At least this time, C.J. had arrived with money in her purse. Close by, in Fleet Street, she sought a pub that seemed pleasant and safe enough. In an attempt to blend in, she ordered a drink. As C.J. nursed her glass of ale, praying that the few sips would produce no ill effect on her pregnancy, she scoured the room for faces she might find familiar, portraits from histories read in her other life now appearing in the flesh. Who were the yellow journalists of the day, she wondered, who noisily regaled each other with war stories in the crowded wooden booths?
“All alone tonight, miss?” the publican inquired.
To dispel any assumption that she was an unsavory trollop, C.J. replied, “I am looking for my father, the Marquess of Manwaring. I am told that he . . . frequents this establishment,” she lied. All C.J. knew of Albert Tobias’s habits was that he was a great habitué of taverns, so she hazarded a guess that this might be one of them.
“Not here, I’m afraid,” the barkeep said. “Not regularlike. But just down the road at the dram shop—” He scratched his head. “This here, The Broken Quill, this is for li-te-rary folks. But your da, he likes to raise a glass with the theatricals at The Blue Ball or over at the Nelly Gwyn.”
“Naw, ’e’s ’ome in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, nursing ’is gouty foot, ’e is.” A scrawny man at the far end of the bar piped up and joined the conversation.
“I have not been to London in so long,” C.J. said truthfully. “I wonder if you might direct me to him.”
“Go to it, Timothy! Used to carry hack chaises in his younger days,” the bartender told C.J. “Knows these streets like the back of his sorry hand.”
Eager to be of service, and after treating C.J. to her ale, her new drinking companion escorted her to the street, then pointed the way up Chancery Lane to the Stone Buildings. “You take care now, there’s a good lass,” the lonely tavern rat said, a bit sad to lose his new acquaintance so soon.
“MY DAUGHTER!” the marquess cried joyfully, enfolding C.J. in his arms, to the perplexion of his maidservant, Mimsy, who had never heard tell of such a person. Manwaring limped down a dimly lit corridor that opened onto a room of modest proportions. “Miss Welles, isn’t it?” he added, after the maid’s departure. “Such an extravagant surprise! What brings you to London? Wait—don’t tell me just yet—we must discuss it at great length over adequate refreshments. Might I interest you in a brandy?” he asked, pouring a healthy dose of the amber liquid into a crystal snifter. He rolled his hands around the bowl of the glass and handed it to his “daughter,” then refilled his own glass and motioned for C.J. to sit beside him.
She drew up the leather ottoman. “I received rather a curious note . . . Papa,” C.J. began. “It seemed to indicate that my amber cross has a past—a history—in which the writer of the note, who did not sign his name, feels I should take a keen interest. Have you ever heard of Mathias Dingle? Or Mathias ben Ezra?”
The marquess crooked his right forefinger and took a pinch of snuff. “A Jew?”
“I have no idea. I have never met the man. But he appears to be the proprietor of a pawnshop in Old Jewry. In Cheapside.”
“My dear child.” Manwaring sneezed. “Excuse me.” He withdrew a large white handkerchief from the deep pocket of his banyan and blew his nose loudly. “My dear child, I have been acquainted with so many shylocks in my lifetime—onstage and off—that I cannot rightly say offhand if the name rings a bell. Dingle won’t be open for business again until Monday morning—the Jews are not permitted to open their shops on our day of rest—but don’t look so crestfallen, my dear. What say you make the best of it and provide a poor soul with a couple of days of your delightful companionship?”
“Well, it’s certainly a pleasure to see you once again,” C.J. said, pretending to sip the liquor.
“We’ve got quite an extravaganza to attend tomorrow night at the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.” Manwaring rang the little silver bell that rested on the table by his elbow. “Mimsy,” he said when his maidservant appeared, “run to Lady Chatterton’s with a message from me. Inform her ladyship that my daughter, Cassandra, has just arrived from Bath, and that I would be a rude mechanical indeed to attend her masquerade without the company of my long-lost child.”
The compliant and extremely energetic Mimsy sped out of the house like a squirrel after a November acorn.
“Quite a woman is Lady Chatterton,” the marquess told C.J. “Extremely generous patroness. A widow. Just turned forty but still has all the bloom of youth. Has had an eye for me for some time now.” He winked at his “daughter” and took another pinch of snuff. “What’s the matter, child? Don’t think I can still attract the ladies, do you? I’m barely fifty. Clementina once traveled to Bristol to see my Dogberry. Says she’ll do anything for me. Except marry me—until I’ve got my reputation back, she says. Drink up, now.”
“I’m sorry, Papa. I’m unused to brandy, and while I’m sure it’s of the very finest quality, I fear that it’s a bit too strong for my taste.”
“More for me then.” The marquess downed C.J.’s brandy and immediately refilled his own glass to the heart of the bowl.
Manwaring stood at his sideboard and sighed like a man in love. “There haven’t been many, Cassandra, who would sully their character by hobnobbing with the likes of me, but Clementina—Lady Chatterton—has always been in my corner.” He sank back into his chair and patted his large belly. “’Course, whenever she invites me to one of her soirees, it’s always to be a masked ball,” he laughed.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING an engraved invitation was delivered to C.J. at the Stone Buildings. “‘Dress as your favorite Shakespearean character,’ ” C.J. read. “Whatever shall I wear? Who are you going to be, Papa?” she asked the marquess.
Manwaring puffed out his chest. “In the role for which I was greatly renowned in the provinces . . . in my soberer days. I shall go as Bottom the Weaver.” C.J. laughed. “I was verrah, verrah good, I’ll have you know,” he retorted, thinking his “daughter” doubted his fine thespian talents.
“I do not disbelieve you. On the contrary, I was thinking it was perfect casting,” C.J. rejoined, smiling. “But who shall I be?”
“I think you should go to Lady Chatterton’s Midsummer Night’s Masquerade dressed as a dutiful daughter. What think you of some very attractive seaweeds? You would be quite a fetching Miranda.”
C.J. wrinkled her nose. “Ugh! Miranda is far too insipid for my taste.”
“She’s a good daughter, though,” Manwaring protested. “Then what about Cordelia? Now there’s a loyal daughter f
or you.”
“I’ll be hanged first,” riposted C.J.
The marquess led C.J. to a roomful of costume pieces and accessories, a veritable treasure trove of satins, silks, and velvets, of ruffs and cuffs and farthingales, of caps and helmets, staffs and swords of all variety. “I’m a bit of a hoarder,” Manwaring explained. “Many years ago, when you would have been but a very little girl, I did a season with the great Siddons. She gave me this piece as a gift for my collection. Said she was having a new one made, anyway, for her Rosalind.”
C.J. gasped and held out her arms to receive the purple velvet doublet. “Siddons wore this?” she said breathlessly.
“The very one. She was much thinner then,” the marquess said, appraising the size of the luxurious garment.
“Oh, may I really wear this?”
Her “father” nodded.
“Then it’s all settled. I shall go as Rosalind!” C.J. exclaimed, continuing to marvel over the opportunity to wear a costume that once belonged to the greatest actress of the day.
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, Mimsy opened the door to her master’s apartments at the Stone Buildings and gasped in amazement at the sight before her. Familiar with some of the personages in the doorway from his lordship’s theatricals, she found herself in the presence of Cleopatra and one of her handmaidens wielding an enormous ostrich- and peacock-plumed fan, most effective for chasing the city stench from the royal nostrils of the rather plump Queen of the Nile; an extremely statuesque—and aging—Titania; and a man in a filthy loincloth dripping with plants that resembled seaweed, but who appeared to be extremely fit and handsome under all the “dirt” that he had smeared across his bare chest, arms, and legs.
“May I help you?” Mimsy asked, recoiling from the live snake entwined around Cleopatra’s fleshy upper arm.
“I am the Countess of Dalrymple. Is my brother at home?” demanded the redoubtable personification of Egypt.
“Ohhh. Gone off to Vauxhall already. His lordship and his daughter. They took the boat over, as his lordship thought that the young ladyship would find the conveyance that much more entrancing, your ladyship.”
