The girls subside.
‘It don’t sound like any mermaid I ever heard of before,’ says Angelica. For she was once a little child in Portsea, and there was held on a warm lap while sailors, joyful in their homecoming, danced and sang. And this small Angelica was bright-eyed in the firelight, her thumb in her mouth and her finger hooked over her nose, as they raised their voices to tell of the fair pretty maid who lured good men into oblivion.
It was the very jauntiest of all their songs, but, ‘Not that one,’ had said the owner of the lap, her voice a-buzz against Angelica’s infant cheek. ‘Not on a night so rough as this. ’Tis bad luck.’
‘Ah, love,’ said the sailors, ‘but aren’t we home now? So what is there to fear?’
‘There are other boats out there yet. There will be other voyages.’ The men fell silent, but in the days that followed the children of the town took up the tune. They trooped wind-whipped along the sea wall, clutching sticks and dolls in their cold-raw hands, and singing the forbidden song of the mermaid. The grey waves crashed below and they raised their voices to chant, ‘And three times round went our gallant ship, and she sank to the bottom of the sea, the sea, the sea …’
But Angelica’s recollections of her childhood are as slender as a vision, or a dream. They come to her in slivers, so prism-bright and peculiar as to make her shudder, for they seem to be from a life lived by somebody else.
Still, she says, ‘I have always wanted to see a mermaid for myself.’
‘And so you shall.’ Mrs Chappell pats her shoulder. ‘Its appearance is not what one might first expect, to be sure, but it is all the more convincing for that. We would not want Science confused with Art.’
‘How did you secure such a thing?’ asks Angelica.
‘From some wretched merchant, some cit,’ Elinor interrupts, ‘who is showing it off in the most dismal manner one can imagine. He has not the first idea what he has got.’
‘Oh, now, Nell, you mis-speak. He is not so bad.’
‘Aye, I mis-speak, for he ain’t even a cit. He is from Deptford, not a Londoner, and greener even than our Kitty here.’
‘Kitty is a sly little bitch,’ says Polly. ‘This gentleman is meek as a lamb – this newly-anointed gentleman, I may say, for is a veritable mushroom, sprung up overnight. He has a fortune now that he did not have this time last week and it increases by the day.’
Angelica sits up. ‘And what do you mean to do with him?’
‘Why, take him into hand,’ says Mrs Chappell. ‘He is an innocent in this world.’ Her pup Fox turns three times about in her lap, and she rubs its ear between her thumb and forefinger. ‘He is lucky to have met me.’
Angelica snorts. ‘Poor man. It will not last. Somebody will arrive next week with a wild boy or a dog that can climb up ladders, and his little bauble will be all forgotten.’
‘But when the sun shines, we will make hay,’ says Mrs Chappell. ‘I mean to hold a week of soirées and balls.’
‘Unlike you. You have favoured a more sober, discreet approach of late.’
‘Time to make a change.’ Mrs Chappell snaps her fingers at Polly, who is feeding one of the lapdogs from her plate. ‘We are a venerable establishment.’
Angelica is become quite jokeous: she remembers Bel’s observation, ‘Mrs Chappell is losing her touch,’ and determines to investigate it. ‘Venerable?’ she asks boldly. ‘Or démodée?’ To the girls she mouths moribund, but here she gets above herself: it is a hard word and they only stare at her.
‘Watch your mouth, madam.’ The abbess heaves in her chair. ‘When you have run a celebrated institution for thirty years, you may smirk all you like, but things being as they are, that nasty expression of yours does you no favours.’ Mrs Chappell settles herself again, clasping her hands over her bosom. ‘I know my business. It don’t hurt to look out novelties.’
‘Horrid competitive now-a-days.’
‘And yet mine is the only place with a mermaid. Such gaieties will be had.’
‘And what will this gentleman make of your sort of gaieties?’ Ought Angelica to better conceal her scorn? Mrs Frost thinks so, and creaks her cane chair with urgency. But to Angelica’s mind, the best way to achieve a thing is to behave as if it has already happened, and so she behaves as if she were queen of the Ton. She claps her hands and crows, ‘Oh, Mother Chappell, I can see him now, poor lost thing, hunting about the place for a bit of ale or pease porridge while the fine people disport themselves. And pity the lady who must be his nursemaid for the evening!’ She looks to the girls. ‘Which one of you is it to be then? Which of you must hold his silly hand all night while the fun goes on elsewhere?’
‘Mrs Neal,’ says the abbess with perfect serenity, ‘I require a particular favour of you.’
‘Oh?’ Understanding rises slow across Angelica’s face. ‘Oh no. Madam, not me.’
Mrs Chappell adopts her most coaxing tones. ‘This gentleman, as I say, is new in the world. I wish you to pay a special attention to him, my dear heart, to put to use your great gift for hospitality. No body in my house is as expert as you are.’
Angelica crosses her arms. ‘I’ll not be pimped.’
‘To be sure, to be sure. But you remember our agreement?’
‘This is beneath me,’ says Angelica. ‘You cannot think so little of me.’
‘’Tis just for one night.’
‘Even to be seen with a man like him for one hour will hurt my reputation. I am not a plaything for any drear arriviste to take his turn on.’
‘No, dear, no. But I will remind you that all the quality come to my establishment, and not one of them comes here. I extend to you the opportunity to be seen at the most exclusive party of the season.’
‘I ought to be your guest of honour,’ scowls Angelica.
‘No, dear. That is Mrs Fortescue.’
Angelica searches for more words, but finds none. Eliza Frost rises from her chair with a suddenness that might bespeak a woman about to quit the room – it is only with effort that Angelica restrains herself from seizing her friend’s hand – but she is only going to shake cake crumbs into the cage of sleeping mice. Angelica turns sullenly back to Mrs Chappell. ‘What if I found I was unable to accept your very generous invitation?’
‘Well, then, we would find ourselves in a difficult position,’ says Mrs Chappell, who looks in fact as if her own position were never more comfortable. ‘I should think, given the situation, there would never be any more invitations extended to you.’
Mrs Frost straightens up. She closes the latch of the cage.
‘We agreed,’ says Mrs Chappell, ‘that you would be available at my house when you were wanted there. I help you, do I not? I mention your name to my gentlemen; I host your meetings with them—’
‘No need to recall it to me.’
‘So you must help me in return.’
Angelica considers, watched by Mrs Frost (uneasily), Mrs Chappell (coolly) and the girls (enquiringly). The mice are stirring and piping to one another; the dogs perk their ears; the shadows waver on the walls. She musters the broadest smile she has shown all morning. ‘I’ll take a glass of wine with the gentleman, and gladly. I like mermaids and I like parties. For a mermaid party I’ll tolerate far greater hardships than that.’
‘Ah, there’s my amenable girl. Much obliged to ye, Mrs Neal. You will go far, I never doubt it.’
ELEVEN
October 1785