‘For pity’s sake, it is only cakes,’ snaps Angelica. ‘The miserliness of tradespeople! It is quite astonishing, do you not agree, Bel?’ Those others in the shop – respectable ladies – turn to peer discreetly at the set-to, and less discreetly as it goes on.
‘Cakes,’ says the server sternly, ‘that have gone unpaid for since November. Not to mention three jars of peaches in syrup, thirty-nine jellies – and their glasses, not a one returned – one fancy Savoy biscuit measuring three feet high, seven cases of macaroons, and gills of fancy liqueur numbering –’ she pauses to draw breath – ‘thirteen in total. The entire sum owing is fifteen pounds and eight shillings.’
‘Is that all! For fifteen pounds you subject me to this?’
‘If I allowed every body to dodge their bill in such a way, where would I be?’
Angelica sighs. ‘Clearly there has been some oversight, and more likely on your part than his. Very well, then, put it in my name. I shall have my woman settle it up.’
The woman shakes her head. ‘If he cannot pay his bills, I deduce he cannot pay yours. Or have you income from other pockets too?’
‘How dare you!’
Bel touches her arm, her face downturned. ‘Hush, Jellie,’ she whispers into her stock.
‘Certainly not! Did you mark what she said?’ Angelica’s voice is high and shrill, and resonates through every cloche and tile. The company of sweet-eaters is beyond concealing its interest; gentlemen and women sit rapt. ‘How dare you, madam!’ Angelica repeats.
‘If you do not have the coin,’ says the woman, ‘I cannot help you.’ She places her hand on the half-filled tissue, and the paper crunches.
Angelica’s pockets contain a notebook with ivory leaves; a miniature deck of cards; a tin in which to collect errant pins; a small mirror in a case; a portrait miniature of dear Georgie; a length of red ribbon and a bottle of rouge. They do not, however, contain so much as a single dusty ha’penny. She has got so out of the habit of keeping money about her that she has almost forgotten its physical form: it merely drops from her lips as a casual flow of promises. ‘Why do you expect anybody to carry cash?’ she demands. ‘That is very revealing of your class.’
‘I have it,’ says Mrs Fortescue.
‘Oh, Bel, no—’
‘Comes to two shillings,’ says the woman.
‘For the biscuits?’ asks Bel softly, opening her purse. ‘No, no, I shall pay the balance.’ She darts before Angelica to lay the coin on the counter. Angelica’s ears look as if they have taken a dab of cochineal themselves, they are so unnaturally scarlet; a film of liquid wavers across her eyes as she watches the sugared parcel tied off with a length of red string. Then Mrs Fortescue presses it into her hands. ‘A gift,’ she says.
‘It must be a mistake,’ whispers Angelica as they leave at pace. ‘Surely a mistake,’ but she finds her hands are quivering and her brow cold with sweat. She remembers her wretchedness after the duke’s death was reported in the papers and his credit useless in shops, the bitterness in the back of her throat and the fluttering of her heart as if her terror had become trapped in her bosom like a bird in a chimney flue. She remembers also – an accident, she does not mean to recall it – once being small for her age, and walking the high street of the town where she was born with the buildings tall about her; the counter of the butcher’s shop, when she entered it, came to the height of her nose. The smell of blood and rancid fat.
Got any bones?
What’s that, little miss?
Bones, for the pot. Just bones. Any ones’ll do.
You Morgan’s girl, ain’t you? So your daddy’s not come home.
He’s making our fortune.
Oh, aye? And how will I make mine, if I give away all my scraps? Not good business.
I don’t want much.
What have you got? Not a coin on you? Now surely you have something you’d be willing to trade? No? A girl’s always got something.
And the world heaves.
‘Easy, dear, easy now.’ Mrs Fortescue has her arm around Angelica’s shoulders, murmuring in her ear as if she were a frightened horse. ‘Take a moment; take a breath or two.’
She gasps in air; feels better for it. She keeps her chin down for the street is busy and she is afraid to be recognised while in such distress. Presently she composes herself.
‘Shall we go home?’ asks Mrs Fortescue. ‘My house is not far.’
‘No, no. This need not spoil the day.’ She attempts a little laugh, which Mrs Fortescue pretends to find convincing. ‘’Tis one uppity shopkeeper, that is all. Let us go on.’
‘But perhaps—’
‘Deduce nothing from this!’ Angelica blots her forehead with her handkerchief. ‘Stay out with me, Bel; I never see you now-a-days. Take me to your favourite jeweller’s. I want something pretty to wear for Mr Hancock – diamonds, I think, and solely for my own satisfaction. He won’t know them from paste.’
‘Perhaps it were better if you hired a piece,’ Bel soothes her. ‘Or I shall lend you something of mine.’
‘No! I do not hire diamonds! I do not borrow them. As if I were some cit’s wife allowed to her one masque of the season! Come, Bel, I wish to buy something lovely – Rockingham is good for it.’
But each shop they go in they meet the same response; a discreet shake of the head, a draper running his finger down his ledger and saying sadly, ‘Madam, it is out of my hands.’ Rockingham’s name is not good in one single establishment along the length of Bond Street.
‘I do not know what has happened,’ Angelica says, quite numb with the shock of it, once they are back in the sealed cabin of her new carriage. ‘Sincerely I do not. Perhaps somebody has a vendetta against him?’
‘Somebody has simply tired of paying his bills,’ says Mrs Fortescue. ‘If they ever did.’
‘Oh no, that can’t be so. He has an allowance, you know. That is what we live on.’
‘An allowance! Which comes to no more than – what? A boy like that? – five hundred a year, I’d wager, and you have a bill for a hundred at the jeweller’s alone. See sense, Jellie. He has no means to pay anybody off.’
‘Christ.’ Angelica puts her head in her hands. ‘No, no. He has the means. He has kept me most comfortable – I have nothing to fear in the world.’
Mrs Fortescue raps on the roof of the carriage and leans out. ‘Twice around the park,’ she calls to the groom. She closes the window tight and takes Angelica’s hand. ‘My dear, those are exactly the sort of things they say.’
‘Not Georgie. You patronise me, Bel – no, ’tis true. Do you believe you are the only one who has a good keeper? I am at least as loved as you are, at least.’
There is a great deal of gentleness in Bel’s brown eyes. ‘Very well. Yes. He is a young man who has got into some financial trouble – who has not? This can be resolved.’
‘How?’
‘That’s his trouble, not yours.’
Angelica dabs at her eyes. ‘Oh, where is your feminine liberty now? I must simply resign my fate into his hands?’
‘I believe you did that the moment you took his word as sole assurance that you need not protect your own interests. Jellie, Jellie, do not cry any more. I did not mean to upset you. But if you have made yourself a chattel, his spending is hardly your responsibility. Nobody blames the coach-and-four if a gentleman cannot keep up his payments on them.’
Angelica gasps. ‘The carriage,’ she whispers with awful urgency. ‘This very carriage we now ride in! Hush, do not let our driver hear a word of this or else he will eject us onto the pavement, for I fear his wages cannot be paid.’