Too Great a Lady

by Amanda Elyot

  My arse was worked to the bone, and I’d scarce seen Jane Powell since my employment began, but I’d never been happier. And I didn’t give a fig if the people weren’t considered respectable, being theatricals. But suddenly, in early December, my duties once again returned to the domestic sphere.

  The household was in an upheaval over the unexpected arrival of the Linleys’ second son, eighteen-year-old Samuel, who had contracted a fever as a midshipman and was sent home to recover. Despite the illness that was taking its toll on his already-fragile physique, he was the most exquisite man I had ever seen, an angel incarnate with a milky complexion flushed rose with fever, soft golden hair that flopped impudently across his brow, and the palest blue eyes I had ever seen. I was in love from the moment I saw him. And Sam was as instantly smitten with me.

  “Let’s run away together, Emy,” he suggested. “I want to spend the rest of my life with the kindest, sweetest, prettiest girl in all of England.”

  “Take me with you on your ship,” I murmured lovingly. “If you was my captain, I’d sneak aboard as your cabin boy, just to be by your side, no matter where we went in the world. And if ’Is Majesty kicks up a rumpus about ’aving girls in ’is navy, then I’ll stow away!”

  Mrs. Linley—who, in a lifetime spent among performers, was no stranger to an employee falling arse over tit in star-crossed love—did not favor our match. A servant was still a servant and had no business to go about seducing the scion of the family.

  But it went hard with her to refuse her son when he insisted, with ever-weakening breath, that Emy Lyon be the only one to nurse him. I administered his physick, bathed his sickly body, cajoled him into taking nourishment, and sang him to sleep while he clasped my hand to his flushed cheek. When he was awake and sentient, with feverish kisses he would vow to wed me as soon as he regained his strength, so long as I understood that a sailor’s life was a hard one and his wife’s was too often lonely.

  “But one day, Emy,” he’d promise, clasping my hand in his cold, damp palm, “we will sail off together to a distant land where the sun always shines.”

  “I’ve never seen a place like that. Do you think such a paradise truly exists?”

  “I’ve been there. The water is warm enough to bathe in, and fruit as big as your head falls right out of trees shaped like monstrous upside-down umbrellas!”

  “Surely you are quizzing me, Sam! Your fever makes you delirious.”

  But God had other plans for Samuel Linley than a life on an island idyll with Emy Lyon at his side. Ten days before Christmas, He snatched the darling youth out of my arms and took him to His bosom. My heart cracked. I had been powerless to save him from the fever, despite my tenderest ministrations, and not only despised myself as a failure but also despaired of my ability to ever do a soul any good again.

  The family doctor, arriving for his daily visit, found me on my knees before Sam’s cot, clasping his lifeless torso in my arms. With the utmost gentleness, he sought to pry me away, but I grew hysterical. I could not accept that Sam was gone from this world, and with him all the love my young soul could ever express.

  Blinded by tears, I stumbled through the doorway, elbowing past the Linleys, who, upon hearing my sobs, had their worst fears confirmed. Racked with grief, I fled their home, racing across Norfolk Street until I turned the corner onto the Strand, where I could no longer see the house of death and sorrow.

  Four

  To a Nunnery, Go!

  “Mind the tom tit, luv!” shouted a gent just as I was about to stumble headlong into a horse turd. My eyes were so bedimmed with tears, I could scarce see where I was going. Responding to the unusual warning, I stopped myself short and picked my way over the steaming pile. “Tom tit?” I looked at the man, bewildered.

  “Cockney rhyming slang for what you nearly stepped in.” The fruiterer took in my tearstained face. “Well, aren’t you in a two and eight!” Another uncomprehending look won me the translation. “A state. Aren’t you in a state? ‘Two and eight’ rhymes wif ‘state.’ You’ll catch on soon enough.” He clapped a friendly hand on my shoulder and took a piece of fruit from his cart. “ ’Ere, ’ave an orange and tell old Simon Lovett all about it.”

  Within a quarter hour, the costermonger had become my Samaritan, offering me a job as an orange girl. I trolled the streets near the Covent Garden Market, attracting customers with a pretty smile and sometimes a wink, and by announcing my presence with a far sweeter voice than any of the other costermongers possessed. As soon as my tray was empty, I’d return to Mr. Lovett’s barrow and restock. But by the end of the day, my shoulders felt as though I’d been carrying the weight of the world on them, my back ached, my legs and feet protested with every step, and—lacking a shawl to protect me—the late-December chill was piercing my bones.

  Mr. Lovett had made me purchase the fruit from his stall at cost with the money I’d earned from selling it in the confines of the market earlier in the day. Whatever I made off the contents of the last tray of the day would go into my own pocket, and I was to show up at Mr. Lovett’s barrow first thing in the morning with my empty tray and we’d set to work all over again.

  There was no place to rest. I tried to bribe my way into a sedan chair, just until someone called for it, but the men wouldn’t hear of it, though they crudely indicated that if it was a lie-down I wanted, they’d be happy to find a more secluded place to accommodate me.

  At the corner of New Compton Street, I found a free post. At least it might provide a bit of support for my groaning back, so I leaned against it for a while. A man approached and asked my name. “Emily,” I replied. I have no idea what made me say that; looking back on’t, I expect I didn’t want to give him my real name, for he had no business learning it. Thinking, rightly, that I might be hungry, he offered me some biscuits, which I hastily devoured. Then he claimed my acquiescence as his due to engage me in conversation. Pressing his suit, he inquired whether I would still be there at eight in the evening; and not as yet having searched for a place to lay my head, I sighed and replied in the affirmative. I suppose he mistook it for a trollop’s response, for with a quick glance at his watch fob, the gentleman hurried off, expressing the fervent wish to encounter me again.

  A passing chaise kicked up a cloud of dust, and I began to choke. A few feet from my post, the carriage halted suddenly and a handsome woman of indeterminate years descended, making straight for me in an enveloping miasma of rose water. Much of her face was obscured by her voluminous feather-trimmed bonnet, but a peek under its wide brim told me she was no more a stranger to paint and powder, not to mention patches, than any actress at Drury Lane. Certainly, she was a lady of quality; only the finest women replaced their shorn eyebrows with toupees of mouse fur.

  “You look like you could use a warm meal and good wash, my pet.” Her lilting brogue was sympathetic, and strangely comforting to my ears. I marveled at how, when she knit her brow, the toupees behaved just as if they were her own hair. “What have you had to eat today, luv?”

  “Biscuits,” I mumbled. “And an orange.”

  “How would you like a hot joint instead?” My eyes widened; I could smell it, taste it in the back of my mouth. “Cat got your tongue, lass?”

  “N-no. I would love a bit of meat, Your Grace.”

  The woman laughed heartily. “Your Grace! That’s a good un.” She extended a hand, gloved in lavender kid. “I’m Mrs. Kelly, and I’m no duchess, though my friends do call me an ‘abbess,’ seeing as how I make it my business to take care that uncommonly pretty girls like you—specially those innocent lambs from the country, as I can tell you are by your accent—aren’t left to starve on the streets of London, prey to the passing fancies of unscrupulous gentlemen. Especially with the winter coming on. Tell me your name, my pretty child.”

  “Emily. Emily Lyon.”

  “Well, Miss Lyon, I consider it my duty to take you under my protection; truth told, I couldn’t live with myself another hour if I didn’t see to it
that you were properly fed and clothed by nightfall.”

  I still had Mr. Lovett’s tray about my neck. ’Twould have been proper to return it to the fruiterer on the morrow with my thanks for his kindness and trust in me, and yet here was an opportunity for a warm bed. Still . . . “Are you taking me to a convent, then? For hungry and tired as I am, I assure you I have no wish to—”

  “You’ll find my ‘nuns’ have more freedoms and pleasures at their disposal than any of their ilk, my pet. If you enjoy fine frocks, the loveliest in London will be made to fit your charming figure. Should it be entertainments you fancy, the delights of the gardens—Kensington, Ranelagh, Vauxhall—shall be your Eden. If you’ve an epicurean bent, the best meats and dainties, confections and ices—not to mention such copious quantities of champagne as might fill your dainty slippers—will tempt your palate.”

  A Chester lass of thirteen, even one who has spent several months in the service of theatricals, must be forgiven for entertaining Mrs. Kelly’s rather convincing pitch that such nunneries existed within the confines of London and that an “abbess” might parade the streets in her own barouche, attired and painted like a stage actress. The vast capital offered surprises at every turn; thus I was prepared to accept Mrs. Kelly as a genuinely charitable woman and her establishment as a respectable place for unmarried young ladies. A cannier wench than I would have recognized that the triumph in her eyes betrayed her pleasure at having made so quick a conquest.

  Her house on Arlington Street in fashionable St. James was but a stone’s throw from Piccadilly, and just around the corner from the Green Park. A door the color of Sam Linley’s Royal Navy coat marked the entry. Inside, all was grace and elegance. Well-dressed young women, not much older than I, sipped tea from delicate china cups as a handsome mulatto girl seated at a gilded harpsichord entertained them with soft melodies. The entire “nunnery” smelt of flowers, whether emanating from the sumptuous displays of fresh blooms that could be found on every little table and mantel (how she got them in December I couldn’t begin to imagine), or from the perfumed beauties themselves, for the girls were apparently quite liberal with their scent bottles. Mrs. Kelly ushered me up a flight of stairs, leading me to a tiny bedroom at the back of the house: a modest, though prettily appointed, chamber.

  “You’ll sleep here for the nonce,” said Mrs. Kelly. She pointed to the ceramic ewer and basin. “Have yourself a good wash and I’ll see to it that you get a more suitable frock. Dinner for the girls who aren’t yet spoken for is in half an hour. In the morning, after you’ve gotten a good night’s rest, I’ll explain your duties.”

  I commenced my unusual employment for Mrs. Kelly as a glorified domestic by day. Toward evening, she had me change out of my gowns and into an exotic costume, usually consisting of a short jacket, cut to push my breasts out as much as possible, and pantaloons, split at the sides to reveal the entire length of my legs. I resembled something out of a Turkish hareem, or a Drury Lane production of The Arabian Nights. Sometimes Mrs. Kelly would have me wear an elaborate gown that looked much like those of the other girls from the back, but it was cut short at the front, exposing the entirety of my legs (clad in white stockings to the thigh, and silk-heeled slippers) and just brushing the bottom of my bare quim as I sashayed through the salon offering brandy and tobacco to the evening’s guests. Mrs. Kelly had made it plain that these gentlemen were free to look, but not to touch, as my virtue remained unsullied. At first I balked at such displays of my charms, but it did not take me long to grow accustomed to the mode of life at Arlington Street. For much of the time, very little was demanded of me, other than to be an ornamental beauty, and I enjoyed being admired. I was well dressed and accoutreed, and well fed, with a soft place to lay my head; all things considered, it was a situation that was vastly preferable to any I had previously undertaken, including life at the Linleys’.

  Men of all stripes—politicians and parliamentarians, barristers and bankers, actors and actuaries, from the self-made merchant to the idle heir, and even a celebrated London physician—were well acquainted with Arlington Street. A gentleman of the town attached no shame to a visit to Mrs. Kelly’s. There he would meet a multitude of beautiful young ladies, some as accomplished at the pianoforte as they were at flirtation or French. The establishment was in general respects not a brothel, but a rather respectable place to find an evening’s entertainment. What the gentlemen purchased was the pleasure of our company. What then took place beyond Arlington Street was understood betwixt each couple and carefully negotiated with Mrs. Kelly in advance. The gentleman might enjoy a meal with a girl on the premises, or invite her to join him (with or without his comrades and their own companions) in a rustic pic-nic or a fashionable stroll in Kensington, a pleasant afternoon of boating in Marlow or Henley, an evening of dancing and frivolity at Ranelagh (more aristocratic) or Vauxhall (more lively), or even a trip to the theatre. Such a treat it was for me to see the plays at Drury Lane from a box instead of backstage, and dressed as fine as any of the actresses I was watching.

  I was something of a “nun in training,” for I was permitted to be engaged for an outing, but not to go upstairs with a gentleman, nor to repair to a similar location of his choosing. I learnt that it was not uncommon for Mrs. Kelly to “rescue” a girl as young as I. One of the “nuns,” who called herself Sophia though her given name was Mary Ann, had been taken in by Mrs. Kelly when she was only twelve. She had been there four years when I arrived and retained a very practical and decidedly unromantic view of things.

  “It don’t matter if he fills up your cunny. The important thing is for him to fill up your pockets.” She and the other “nuns” schooled me in the rudiments of “romance,” demonstrating their jades’ tricks on an exotic yellow-skinned fruit called a banana. Under their aegis I also learnt exercises that strengthened my cunny muscles, that I might provide my lover with the most tantalizing massage—a lesson I could practice in utter secrecy, even in a seat at the opera! They also taught me how to pleasure a man in every way beyond the obvious: how to capture his full attention with the merest glance or the slightest touch, and how to maintain and nurture his fascination; how to listen to him with every sense alert and alive, to learn his moods like the weather and then be able to effortlessly shift mine to suit them, to make each admirer believe that he was the most interesting and appealing creature on God’s earth. “And when you disagree with a remark, unless it is cruel, don’t let on, for it costs you nothing to agree, but may lose you everything to venture your dissent,” Sophia counseled. “A man requests your company and pays handsomely for’t because you make him feel like a king, not because you remind him that he’s the ignorant dolt his wife thinks he is!”

  “And then, of course, you’ve got to bathe regular!” the girls would laugh. “Armpits, quim, and arse as clean as a pennywhistle; bubbies you could sup off of; teeth polished; hair clean, and dressed with fresh powder and just enough pomade—no man likes a handful of bear grease—and be sure the scent is subtle. Rose water and bergamot, when used judiciously, are the most favored. And if the gent stinks to heaven, suggest a remedy: turn the washing of their parts into a tantalizing pleasure.”

  By the latter part of the spring, Mrs. Kelly’s hints about my “promotion from postulant” grew increasingly more frequent and less couched, and it was impossible for me not to be anxious about the impending event. I knew that since my arrival men had been bidding for my virginity and that my benefactress was allowing the process to tarry in order to press her advantage to the utmost.

  Would I like the man who would eventually win the right to deflower me? If he was as lively and well made as Lord L—ton, I should not much despair of the momentary twinge of pain Sophia had described, for she also made the act of coupling sound quite pleasurable as long as the man was as gentle as he was lusty and as clean as he was endowed, “in his ‘privy purse’ as well as in his wallet.” The Neapolitan Prince An—otti was rather dashing in his way; in fact I very much en
joyed the week we spent almost exclusively in company, enjoying the pleasures of Vauxhall every night, for many baci were then freely exchanged. Bartholomew Hack—ley, Bt., was a bit too effete for my taste, having returned from the Continent a complete Macaroni, with a foot of false hair to rival Mrs. Kelly’s piled upon his head, his high, stiff collars and cravats, his yellow striped waistcoats cut so slim that he was compelled to make use of a pair of stays beneath ’em, breeches that left nothing to one’s imagination, and a silly high hat that somehow managed to stay perched atop his ridiculous perukes. Yet the young baronet was not the worst of the lot; if my champion should be someone like the wizened Duke of D—shire, with a pallor as yellow as his teeth and breath as fetid as a bucket of slops, how could I bear it?

  One afternoon, whilst I was walking in Kensington Gardens on the arm of one of my admirers, I spied an agitated figure rushing toward us.

  Mam! How had she discovered where I’d been and where I was that very hour? There had been no communication between us since I’d worked for the Linleys. I told my companion that the approaching woman was a servant of my acquaintance and begged a moment or two of leave to converse with her.

  Rather than quickening my own pace, which would demonstrate to my cavalier that something was amiss, I maintained the demeanor of a lady of quality, as I had been schooled, strolling languidly toward a knot of trees where Mam marveled and clucked and tutted over my new turn of fortune. “So long as you’re ’appy, I don’t begrudge it, Emy, girl—”

  “I’m Emily, now,” I told her. “It just popped out of my mouth one day and I thought to keep it. Leastways,” I added, smoothing my gloved hand over my skirts, “Emily’s more elegant.”