Simeon has access to the date books: the men pay more, he knows, but fewer of them choose her. ‘This is a good position,’ he says. ‘Be grateful.’
‘You speak as if I were a servant,’ she says.
‘Not at all. You are singularly positioned to become something else entirely.’ He is turning his gloved hands over one way and the other in front of his eyes, inspecting them for smuts. ‘I mean only to be a friend to you,’ he says.
‘I would advise you to abandon that ambition.’
‘Only there are not so many of us in these parts,’ he says.
‘Us?’ Her nostrils twitch with annoyance; she shakes her head and pulls her pelisse around her as if she were about to leap from the carriage. ‘No, no, sir,’ she says as he darts forward to take her hand, ‘you and I are not the same at all.’
She does not know why she does it. One moment she is holding the bordaloue still in her lap, the next her arms shunt back as if they were sprung, and the vessel tips forward. Its lid falls first; its contents hurtle sparkling behind it.
Simeon lets out a cry, and leaps back, but there is no avoiding it. The urine splashes off the pavement; it soaks his stockings and spatters up his breeches, and sends the dogs capering in terror back into the house, a trail of wet paw-prints behind them. Even Polly, elevated within the carriage, is not spared; it catches the edge of her pelisse and the hem of her gown. Shards of porcelain zing in all directions, like an egg dropped.
‘What have you done?’ cries Simeon, dancing on the spot for sheer horror, the drops flying from his calves. Seeing that his gloves are also caught he utters some inchoate disgust and shakes one hand, then the other. Fragments of the pot are scattered across the steaming flagstones. ‘Mrs Chappell will have you pay for this,’ he says, more in reproach than anger.
‘I do not care.’ Now she does jump down, and strides past him towards the house, her little slippers dancing smartly around the pool.
Simeon, alone, hooks his thumb beneath the cuff of one glove, and peels it from his hand with great fastidiousness. He lets it drop to the pavement, then flings down the other. He tuts, nudging them with his toe, but when he turns around he sees that Polly has not gone into the house. She is standing by the railings, watching him. There is a peculiar dark look about her, as if she might be about to run.
‘Go on,’ he says, and is relieved when she turns reluctantly again to the door. ‘Go on, inside. You’re not to loiter about out here – do not make it worse.’
TEN
December 1785
‘I do not understand why you have to go now,’ says Angelica, following Rockingham into the parlour. ‘It is so nearly Christmas. The entire Ton is only just arrived; everybody is here. There is so much fun to be had! So many parties!’ Well might she be wistful: this is the first season she has been in London for some years. There are new dances to learn, new faces to acquaint herself with; new amusements at every turn. And then she misses her old circle: the rupture between herself and Mrs Chappell is not mended, and Rockingham will not let her very near his own friends. It is my life with the duke all over again, she thinks crossly, and then knocks the thought from herself. It is not like that.
Now he says tersely, ‘I’ve no choice.’ He is dressed for the road, having received an unmannerly letter from his uncle summoning him in the most muscular of tones to appear before him. ‘Still I cannot think who has written at such length to him about my dealings with you,’ Rockingham says as he strides about in search of his watch – his handkerchief – his pocketbook. ‘Somebody has dripped poison in his ear.’
‘Who could wish us harm?’ says Angelica, only lately out of bed, with her curls in her cap and her wrap pulled tightly against the cold.
‘You are sure not one of your old beaux? Trying to get me off the scene?’
‘No, no!’ She follows him, and presses into him so the folds of his travelling cloak fall about her. He smells of wool and of horses, and of the pastries and parched meats that must accompany a long journey. Outside the sky is lowering and dark, and what little light survives it is lead grey and dismal.
‘Hmm.’ He rests his chin on the top of her head. ‘Well, ’tis a damnable nuisance. The old fool has been well and truly convinced that you are leading me astray, and yet it is I who must make it right. Who would write to him so?’
‘It must be one of his old friends in Parliament. Brr,’ she shivers, nestling closer and drawing her arms around his waist, ‘’tis colder than Greenland. How will I stay warm all alone in my bed?’
The thought of it inflames him; she permits him to press his hands over her waist and slide them up her ribcage to her breasts. ‘Confound it!’ he sighs. ‘I desire to leave you as little as you desire me gone – but this is the only way. In person I can convince my uncle of anything. Perhaps this is fortuitous; I shall persuade him to increase my allowance …’
‘… and we may take our own house?’
‘Yes, indeed.’ He kisses the tip of her nose.
‘At last!’ Her three Dean Street rooms are crammed with luxury of every sort. The curtains are heavy brocade, riotously worked with birds and flowers, with a great fringed pelmet overhanging, and her cabinet has more glasses in it than she can possibly drink from, their slender stems marvellously wrought with twisted strands of white glass, fine as lace; and rummers etched with roses; and jelly-glasses crammed into every corner, stickily collecting fluff and soot. There are shawls flung on every chair as if once she has discarded one she will not wear it again; a mahogany box spills lovely painted slides which would shine upon the walls, if their radiant surfaces were not cracked and blotched; a clavichord sheds sheets of music of every sort. Views of Greece and Italy jostle the walls; flowers wilt; fans lie crushed. Mr Rockingham’s love is measured out in countless trinkets and sweetmeats and scent bottles, and Angelica hoards them all, and sends out for more.
‘You must be patient,’ he says. ‘These delicate matters take some tiptoeing around. I shall be gone a few weeks, perhaps a month, if you can bear to be without me so long?’
‘A month? Oh, but that is …’ She crushes herself against his chest, speechless at the prospect. ‘And you would have me spend Christmas all alone.’
‘We’ll have fun together all the year – what’s Christmas to us?’
‘Why, only the best part!’
He tips her chin up to his face. ‘Trust me, my angel. Endure this for me.’
‘I shall miss you,’ she whispers.
‘And I you, poor darling. But think what it will do for us!’ He steers her towards the window. ‘And look, what I leave you with in my absence.’ Yonder in the frosty street is a carriage painted shining almond green, and its doors have angels painted upon them. It is hitched up to two handsome greys, who stamp and shiver in the cold.
‘Oh, Georgie!’
‘You shall have the hire of it, if you like it.’ He waves a hand imperiously and the coachman flicks his whip; the carriage moves onward. ‘I could not leave you with no transport of your own, on such a cold winter. You’ll travel by chair no more.’
‘I never saw the like!’ She rode in better when she was kept by the late duke, but there is no profit in saying so. ‘Oh, how will I thank you?’
‘I have conditions,’ he says.
A moment in which she studies her own fingernails. Then, ‘Aye, name them.’
‘You may ride out all you like,’ he says, ‘but not to any of the pleasure gardens—’
‘Ah! In midwinter?’
‘Not to the Pantheon, then, smart-mouth, nor to any parties at all. I shall have you go nowhere there is drinking and gambling and dancing.’
‘No dancing? Now, Georgie, allow me a little fun – you would not grudge me a night or two’s society? And all through Christmas! All through Twelfth Night, I am to go nowhere?’
‘I’ll not have you catch other men’s eyes. This is a licentious time of year.’
‘But my eyes are all for you.’