‘But may I not …?’ Bridget gestures to the girls, the dresses, the sunlight, as if drawing his notice to what he might otherwise have overlooked.
He steps back from the door to let the girls see inside. ‘Crumbs,’ he says, ‘on the table.’ He tries to be jovial, but it takes an effort to keep the tremble from his voice. This is not his sphere: his dominion over Bridget ought to be at great remove, as God’s dominion over His subjects, with many intercessors before the one is necessitated to confront the other. And yet in this house there is not one intercessor, and so he goes on. ‘And her bed not touched since she left it – my dear young ladies, I trust none amongst you left your duties undone before you took your liberty?’
The maids are mute, Bridget too, an angry pink spot burning on each of her cheeks.
A fool, he thinks as his heart pounds, to be afraid of a mere girl.
But he cannot afford mutiny. And Sukie’s disappointment if Bridget were to quit his service, and the trouble of finding a new maid – for he has not the privilege of the circle of Deptford ladies, who advise one another which girls are reliable and how to train those that are not – even to think of it is to sense defeat.
‘Will you be sure and do your work the moment you are back?’ he asks Bridget. ‘And leave the kitchen as clean as Mrs Lippard would expect to discover it, were she to arrive tomorrow?’
The girls ripple their pleasure, but Bridget merely nods, already tugging her apron loose. ‘Of course,’ she says, and leans her broom against the wall. She retrieves from beneath the carver chair Sukie’s sprigged jacket, all screwed into a ball, and shoves an arm into its sleeve.
‘Well?’ he says as she knots its tapes across her stays.
‘Hmm?’
‘You’ve no thank-you for my kindness?’
She looks at him then, briefly and quizzingly. ‘Thank you,’ she says, ‘thank you, thank you, much obliged,’ fading away as she steps out of the door and closes it behind her. It becomes dark in the kitchen. Without, a shriek of laughter.
He takes himself back to his desk, and is much displeased.
FOUR
Mr Rockingham has observed, of course, that the austere Mrs Frost seems to have taken a dislike to him; he needed no more evidence than the tone in her voice when – the third consecutive night he spent in Angelica’s bed – she said, ‘Oh. Are you are still here?’ And now, a week later, he curls once more next to his lady while her erstwhile companion taps in vain at the door.
They are playing spillikins on a lacquered tray they have brought into the bed for that purpose, for as a pair their tastes lean towards the infantile and the trifling. He is resting his palm on the spot where Angelica’s hip becomes her thigh, and she is making a great flirtatious show of extracting a stick from the heap on the tray – a fatuous endeavour since they slide in all directions every time she giggles – when Mrs Frost taps again.
‘What is it?’ calls Angelica.
‘I need to speak to you.’
Angelica groans.
‘Tell her to go away,’ whispers George, inveigling a finger beneath her chemise.
‘In a moment,’ says Angelica. ‘Perhaps she has something to say for herself.’ She rolls over, and calls out, ‘What do you want?’
‘Come out here. I wish to speak with you.’
‘Whatever you have to say, it may be said in front of Georgie.’
The door opens a crack, and a small slice of Mrs Frost’s face appears at it. Angelica and her lover loll like sun-drunk seals on the shore, his hand half within her chemise. Mrs Frost fixes her eye to the wall somewhere to the left of the bed and says, ‘Mrs Chappell has sent a chair for you. You’re wanted at King’s Place.’
Angelica pauses. ‘Well! That is interesting!’ She has not seen Mrs Chappell since their disagreement over the removal of the mermaid, and her pride does not permit her to recognise the conciliatory nature of the sedan. ‘I shan’t go,’ she says briefly. She taps her index finger upon George’s lower lip. ‘She don’t deserve me.’
‘Are you certain you—’
‘Go away!’
The door closes abruptly. Without, Mrs Frost waits a moment. ‘The chair is here,’ she says.
‘For pity’s sake.’ Angelica rises and draws her wrap about her. ‘Take your turn,’ she says to Rockingham, nudging the tray of sticks towards him. ‘I trust you to play fairly.’ She pads in her bare feet out into the corridor, where Mrs Frost is waiting. ‘What are you thinking?’ she hisses.
‘I am reminding you of your duties,’ says Mrs Frost primly. Angelica seizes her elbow and fairly shoves her into the living room.
‘You have no right,’ she whispers furiously. ‘I have told you before; if Georgie is here you send callers away. No questions.’
‘Mrs Chappell may send for you as she pleases.’
‘Even after she was so fearful rude to me? I should think not.’
‘Do not disoblige her. She wishes to keep you in the fold, and you ought to be grateful for it. To be seen at her house – to hold your assignations there – ’tis a privilege …’
‘One I do not need,’ says Angelica. ‘Mr Rockingham is the sole recipient of my attention. Send the chair away; tell old Mother Chappell I’ll not pander to her any longer.’
‘And how are we to eat?’ demands Mrs Frost.
‘Oh, histrionics! How are we to eat! When have we ever gone hungry?’
‘We may yet.’
‘No, we may not. George takes care of us. And, Eliza, I know what you are about. You pretend your concern is with the money, and oh, how sensible and prudent you are, but that is not the case, is it? It is because he claims a greater part of me than you do.’
‘Nothing of the sort.’
‘You are jealous.’
‘I am trying to protect you.’
‘You! Protect me! I am the protector. I give you good clothes and a place to sleep in return for really very few demands on your time, and yet all you do is defy me. I think you forget sometimes where you would be without me.’
‘You are turning away good connections,’ entreats Mrs Frost.
‘On the shelf,’ Angelica taunts her. ‘That is where you would be. On the shelf like a pawned shortgown.’
Mrs Frost will not be provoked. ‘You are isolating yourself; you must stay in the favour of the world, and when you shut yourself away you—’
Angelica digs her nails into her palms. Her face is hot and her ears ring. ‘What would you have me be?’ she demands. ‘First I am putting myself about like a common drab, in your opinion, and I must find myself a respectable keeper; now I am true to one gentleman and you say I ought to be less discriminating. Which is it?’
Mrs Frost does not betray much anger, but her face is notably without colour. ‘How many nights this week have you gone out?’
‘I was out until dawn on Wednesday.’
‘With Mr Rockingham. You are never without him. You do not respond to invitations – you do not repay Mrs Chappell’s kindness; you are not at home to men who might really help you, who would further you in the world.’
‘I don’t want furthering. I want to be happy.’
‘You have chose the wrong man. This happiness is not of a sort worth having.’
‘Oh, get you gone, Eliza Frost. Get you gone. As if you would know anything at all about it.’
She flounces back to her chamber, her hair bouncing down her back, wiping her face on the sleeve of her chemise. Within, Rockingham sits up in the bed.
‘What is wrong, dear heart?’ he asks, and she sets about weeping again, noisily and messily. ‘Oh, come here, you poor creature,’ and he opens his arms up to her.
She gets onto the bed on her knees, and wilts against him. ‘She wants me to give you up,’ she sobs.
‘Is that what she said?’
‘Almost in so many words!’
‘And what did you tell her?’
She sits back, wiping her eyes. ‘Of course I said no. Of course. What pleasure would there be in this world for me without you?’
He wipes her tears with his thumb, which is no match for them. ‘Here,’ he says, and mops her face with the bedsheet. ‘Why don’t she want me with you?’
‘Oh, she is a sad, ignorant husk of a woman.’ She sniffs hard. ‘And also she is afraid about money.’