‘Are you a rich man, sir?’
Below, he twists the brim of his hat in his hands, and looks bashfully about himself. There are a great many people watching with interest. ‘I presume to say – why, yes – yes, I believe I am.’
‘So money is no object to you? Well, it don’t signify, for money is not what I want.’ She taps her index finger against her bottom lip. ‘Let me see. I want … your mermaid.’ Taking mastery over her amusement, she leans an inch further out from the window. ‘Give me your mermaid and I’ll give you an hour.’
Even from such a distance she sees his face drop.
‘What?’ she asks. ‘You do not think me worth the price?’
Mr Hancock frets below. ‘A sorry specimen of a man,’ whispers the lieutenant, whose fears are now by some measure allayed. ‘Surely you would not let him touch you.’
‘Shh!’ Angelica twitches. To her erstwhile suitor she calls again, ‘Well?’
‘The truth is, madam, I have sold it.’
‘Sold it! Well, that is a tragedy! For, you see, mermaids are my sole currency at this moment, the economy being what it is.’
‘I could offer you a great many other things,’ he blunders. ‘I am perfectly a match for any body else who calls on you.’ At this George snorts, but Mr Hancock, unknowing, adds, ‘I am speculating.’ He puffs up; the vision of his building project shimmers before his eyes.
‘Only a mermaid will do,’ says Angelica, and he regards her with redoubled hesitancy.
‘I think you are playing with me.’
‘Not at all! Ask any body. I am hard to come by.’
She rocks forward, her pale shoulders emerging from the shawl, her hair spilling over the windowsill. They regard one another for some long time.
‘Very well,’ he says. ‘You must excuse me. I have an important errand to run.’ He puts his hat on and hurries away through the crowd, something he seems to be physically unused to, for he moves at a sort of duckling scoot. Angelica is seized by laughter.
‘There!’ she cries, turning back into the room. ‘Does that satisfy you both? I have accepted the overtures of another man –’ she nods at Mrs Frost – ‘but the terms –’ winking at Rockingham – ‘are impossible. So, there you have it! Bring me my wrap, Eliza, I am icing over.’
‘You should not treat him so,’ says Mrs Frost. ‘He is a decent man.’
‘That’s as may be,’ says Angelica, threading her arms into the sleeves held out for her, ‘but I have no use for him. Georgie wishes to become my sole protector, is that not wonderful?’
‘Really?’ Mrs Frost turns to the lieutenant. ‘What are the terms of your agreement?’
‘I have not thought yet,’ he says.
‘Well, you ought to. We can have the lawyer come this very afternoon to draft a contract.’
‘… lawyer?’ he echoes stupidly. ‘I had not … you see, I never did … is it necessary?’
‘Christ, no!’ laughs Angelica. ‘Eliza is taking everything too seriously; that is what she does, you know. I do not need any formal agreement; I know you will take care of me.’ She comes to nestle again beneath his arm.
‘He is either settling money on you or he is not,’ says Mrs Frost. To the lieutenant she says, ‘She will need an annuity; two hundred a year would be a tolerable start – but only a start – and she will want a dressing allowance additional to that sum. You cannot expect her to remain exclusive to you for anything less.’
The young man is beginning to look rather pop-eyed; he seizes Angelica’s hand and clings to it more in terror than affection.
‘Eliza, you are making me out a mercenary!’ says Angelica. ‘I trust him. We love one another. Can he not simply pay for what we need?’
‘Certainly not,’ says Mrs Frost. ‘I am not creeping for his approval every time we want lace for our caps. He has not the first idea how a household is run; why involve him in such female things?’
‘I am still here in the room, you know,’ says the lieutenant. ‘If I had thought this would be so troublesome I would not have suggested it. Here –’ he digs in his pocket – ‘take this for your housekeeping.’ He hands over a fistful of crumpled notes with great carelessness. ‘It makes no odds to me.’ He fishes in the other pocket and comes up with a handful of loose coin. ‘My takings at Almack’s are excellent; if you want more you need merely apply to me.’
‘There!’ says Angelica as Mrs Frost smooths out the notes, which amount to one hundred and seven pounds and a French livre. ‘You see? Why must you make it so unpleasant?’
‘I am being prudent,’ says Mrs Frost, tucking the money away in her pocket.
‘You are making trouble.’
‘If you would credit it, I mean to save us all trouble. None of us may know what lies ahead.’
‘Peculiar, then, that you act as if you do.’
‘And this,’ says the lieutenant, ignoring her, ‘is for you, my sweet.’ He rummages again in his pocket and draws out a black leather box with gold tooling.
‘Georgie!’ coos Angelica. ‘What is it?’
‘Open it.’
The lid slides back on its hinge. Within is a little pin, formed in the shape of Cupid’s dart, and studded all along its length with real diamonds.
‘Oh, George!’
‘For Eros has smote me with his arrow,’ he whispers.
Mrs Frost shudders. ‘Who did you win that from?’ she asks.
But Angelica has flung herself into George’s arms and is kissing him backwards into the bedroom, murmuring, ‘Oh, you are so kind – so good – our first piece of jewellery – my own darling – real diamonds. Not paste, Eliza! Not paste.’
SEVEN
Mr Hancock makes it his business one afternoon to seek out Captain Tysoe Jones. This is very easily done, for when on shore Captain Jones is a regular patron of the Pelican at Wapping, and today is seated –– as has been his habit since he was a young man – in the great bow window overlooking the river. He favours this spot for the fine view it affords of Executioner’s Dock: Captain Jones is partial to all forms of public entertainment, but most especially to the jig that is enacted on this foreshore several times a year at the end of a short rope. The tide is mercifully up when Mr Hancock arrives, so that the gibbet is all but submerged, and only bloated piratical fingertips breach the surface of the water. Captain Jones himself is surrounded by watermen in gaudy green jackets, for those of his family who do not venture upon the sea still heed the call of some lesser water gods, and ply their trade upon the river: when he sees Mr Hancock, he rises in surprise.
‘Oh, you are come back?’ he cries. ‘Come to thank me for that creature I brought you? Aye, I’ll wager your mind’s been changed on the profitability of mermaids since last we met!’
‘Well,’ says Mr Hancock as they depart the tavern and set to strolling along the waterfront, ‘it served me better than expected.’
Winter is drawing in upon them; the water is flint-coloured and so is the sky, and there is a flinty coldness in the air. Captain Jones chortles, and seizes his friend’s shoulder. ‘Did I not tell you? No body speaks of aught else. Everywhere I go – Woolwich to Richmond – every body has seen the thing, and if they have not seen it they affect to have. I brought you a marvel, certainly I did.’
‘Aye.’ Mr Hancock walks a few steps in silence. ‘And now I desire another.’
‘Another mermaid?’ asks Captain Jones in consternation.
‘That’s so.’
‘But you did not want the first one.’
He shrugs.
‘“Tysoe,”’ mimics the captain. ‘“Oh, but what shall I do with this thing? I am no showman, Tysoe!”’
‘I have changed my mind,’ says Mr Hancock firmly. ‘I want one.’
‘Do you apprehend – surely you know that it was a chance in a million that I came upon the last one? I do not expect to see another in this life or the next.’
‘If it can be done once, it can be done again.’