‘And a weight in your purse, to advertise my services,’ Angelica says, smiling her finest.
Mrs Chappell is an expert in frank conversation, but usually on her own terms. ‘Certainly not,’ she splutters. ‘Certainly that is not my first concern. And what of it? ’Tis protection I offer you, first and foremost. Think of it, dear. A dedicated physician; a steady flow of the right sort of men; the wrong sort gain no admission. No bills. No bailiffs.’ She is watching Angelica carefully, intent as a she-cat at hunt. ‘It is a dangerous city we live in.’ She pats Angelica’s hand once more and continues jovially, ‘And when you find a new protector – well, say no more. You will be released from my service in a moment.’
In the corner, Mrs Frost’s face is a picture of desperation. She is trying to catch Angelica’s eye, but Angelica cannot look at her. She thinks, I am not so young as these girls. I have only a few seasons left to show myself at my best.
At length, she says, ‘I knew you would ask me back. And, madam, I am grateful for your remembrance of me. You are a true friend.’
‘I mean only to help you, my pet.’
Angelica swallows. ‘Then may I direct your help to where it is most needed?’
This is a request not many mothers are receptive to. Mrs Chappell hems.
‘As a prudent businesswoman,’ says Angelica, ‘I trust you have carefully considered where my value lies. Is it in my continued presence in your house? Or is it in my rising in the world?’
She pauses. She watches the pulse quivering in Mrs Chappell’s jowls. The girls look on, complacently fed and clothed. Mrs Frost has taken her seat on the little stool by the door. Now Angelica sees her press her hand to her bosom, in fact to the hidden pocket in her stomacher, where she keeps her dwindling pad of banknotes.
‘I propose a middle way,’ she says. Nobody speaks. The next leap is a great one for her, but she waits three, four seconds before continuing slowly. ‘I mean to trade on my own bottom. ’Tis the right moment for me, surely you see that.’
Mrs Chappell considers. Her tongue – surprisingly pink, surprisingly wet – flicks briefly across her grey lips. She says nothing.
‘As a friend,’ Angelica continues, ‘I will do you the favour of appearing at your house. You may have it known that you can send a chair for me any time it pleases the company, but in return I want my liberty. I trust that the next few years of my life may be very fruitful: I have proved myself a good mistress, and for the right gentleman I can be so again, if I am free to receive him.’
‘You think you are able to make your way alone?’
‘Not all alone. Madam, I shall need your help. But you launched me in this world; would you not have me press on? And to what would I owe my success, if not your methods?’
The abbess’s smile is slow in coming, but when it does she fairly beams. Her gums are pale and expansive, her teeth as yellow and oblong and all-of-a-type as the keys of a harpsichord.
‘I have trained you well,’ she crows. ‘You are no mere whore – you are a woman of substance, as I always hope my girls will be, as fine a little frigate as ever I launched on London town. Kitty, Elinor, Polly – especially you, Polly – mark this. You have the opportunity to ascend, girls, and ascend you must. Ambition! Always ambition! No streetwalkers, mine.’
Angelica’s heart pounds under her stays. For a moment the world swims around her: she has never dared talk back before. After Mrs Chappell and her girls have left, waving and calling out endearments, she flings herself down on the sopha in jubilation.
‘This proves it,’ she says to Mrs Frost, who is clearing away the tea things in quick, jerky movements, her head down. ‘She cannot afford to make an enemy of me. She gives me my way.’
‘You should not have rejected her,’ says Mrs Frost. Her lips are tight, her words little.
‘Eliza?’ Angelica sits up. She tries to peer into her friend’s face, but she will have none. ‘Oh, Eliza, you are angry with me.’
‘You might have considered our security,’ spits Mrs Frost.
‘We are secure. Or we will be. If I did not believe so before, I do now; Mother Chappell has an instinct for success.’ She does not like her friend’s brand of cold, tense rage: she rises and follows her across the room, beseeching, ‘My dear, my dove, sit down here with me. Come, come.’ She takes Mrs Frost by the shoulders and tries to steer her to the couch, but she is rigid as a Dutch doll under her cotton and calamanco. ‘I swear to you I will keep us safe. We are on the up, you and I.’
It is as if she is a ghost, her voice unheard, her touch unfelt, while Mrs Frost ties her apron a little tighter around her waist, picks up the tray of the whores’ leavings, and removes from the room.
‘Oh no, no,’ says Angelica. ‘Do not leave me in this manner. Have pity.’ But she hears Mrs Frost’s steps retreating without so much as a pause, and reminds herself, she will be enjoying this. I, begging her. What nonsense. Out loud she spits, ‘Suit yourself!’ and then, going to the head of the stairs, shouts down, ‘You are a foolish, stubborn woman! Surely you are.’
But Mrs Frost is long gone.
THREE
In the evening, Mr Hancock stays in by the fire with his niece Sukie as he has all week.
‘Would you not go to an alehouse?’ asks Sukie, and she can hardly be blamed, for he is not restful company. He cannot remain in his chair three minutes before rising as if a wasp has crept under his seat, to pace the parlour opening and closing boxes whose contents he has made himself familiar with five times over already; he leans upon the mantel and opens a book but its pages are gibberage to him and he lays it down again. Twice he goes to stand on the landing and has Bridget the maid hammer at the front door from without to satisfy him that no caller could possibly go unmarked. ‘A few hours will not hurt,’ Sukie pursues, thinking wistfully of her own plans for the evening, viz.: to make free with his tea caddy and skim spoonfuls of cream off the milk basin in the larder.
‘But if there is news of the Calliope, and they cannot find me …?’
‘I should like to meet the man who ever succeeded in hiding in this town.’
‘Hmm.’ He sits down, his chin on his fist. Then he stands up again. ‘Perhaps I had done better to have remained in the city. In the coffee-house, they will have the most reliable news.’
‘Uncle, what difference does it make?’ says Sukie. ‘If word comes tonight, what can be done before the morning?’ She is shrewd, like her mother; she quirks her eyebrow in the same way.
‘I will know,’ he says. ‘I cannot be easy until I know.’
‘And you are making certain that nobody else can be either. Sir, we may hear nothing for a good long time …’
‘No. It will be soon. I am certain.’ And yes, he is quite certain. Every nerve of his body hums like a strung viol. He advances upon the window and looks out onto the darkening street.
‘Your ceaseless mooning!’ she exclaims, a phrase straight from her mother Hester’s mouth, and his muscles go tight, for her white cap and pursed lips have melted forty years from the room as if she were his great sister and he a little boy. But Sukie sparkles with mischief. ‘Aren’t I just playing?’ she says, and he is so relieved to breathe again that he lets out a guffaw.
‘You saucy miss,’ he says. ‘What if I were to tell her how you ape her?’
‘Then I might tell her of all the time you spend in taverns.’