‘I do not believe that can be the solution.’ Down the stairs comes Mrs Lippard and Sukie weeping beside her. ‘Say something,’ hisses Angelica, but her husband tugs at his stock and utters not a word.
‘Sukie,’ Mrs Lippard sings out, ‘mark this! He has chose the whore over his own flesh and blood. ’Tis hardly to be credited, but there it is.’
Young Sukie looks crushed as a lawn cap after a day at Bartholomew Fair. She cups her hands over her face. ‘Do not let her take me away,’ she says. ‘Oh, Uncle, tell her no.’ Bridget cannot restrain herself from bursting from the kitchen and forcing herself past her master into the midst of the scene; the girls cling to one another and lament in harmony, while Hester Lippard hauls dauntlessly at her daughter’s arm.
‘Uncle, Uncle, do not let her!’ Sukie weeps, but it is Angelica who steps forward.
‘Stop,’ she says in a tone of great command. ‘Stop now and listen to me.’
Mrs Lippard, affronted, turns to her. Sukie’s spasmodic gasps are all that can be heard. ‘What do you want?’ asks Angelica.
‘Why, to preserve my daughter’s virtue.’
‘That ain’t in question.’
‘I don’t believe you. Besides, it is how things look.’
‘Aye, appearances are everything. So how can we improve hers?’ Angelica glances at her husband. ‘Society is wont to overlook all sorts of failings and peculiarities where money is involved.’
‘What are you suggesting?’ he asks sternly.
‘Aye, I should like to know,’ says Mrs Lippard.
‘Well, what is settled on her future at the moment? Do not tell me; you have, what, six other daughters? I expect they have already had the lion’s share of what even the most dedicated of parents can afford to put by.’
‘Her prospects are not as good as our eldest’s were,’ Hester Lippard admits.
Angelica shakes her head. ‘And their husbands, I suppose, deplete your fortune by asking for more investment …’
‘How can we refuse when they have our daughters, our grandchildren to support?’ laments Hester. ‘Young men today manage their money very ill indeed.’
‘And so what will be left for your Sukie?’ asks Angelica. ‘The future of the youngest child is always so tenuous, so vulnerable to Fate’s caprice. I cannot imagine your guilt and trepidation.’
‘But my brother has always sworn he will put in for her.’
‘Aye, and that he will.’ Angelica smiles with beatific cheer. ‘I will make sure of it, I give you my word. In fact I can vouch for—’
‘Mrs Hancock,’ he warns her. He is shy of Angelica’s lavish bent. What might she promise on his behalf?
‘… well, I feel sure we can come to a very satisfactory agreement. Come, Mrs Lippard, shall we talk this out properly upstairs? You have been on your feet so long, it is time to sit down and take some refreshment at least. Bridget –’ she perks an eyebrow at the girl, whose face is still buried in Sukie’s shoulder – ‘biscuits, if you please. And hot water to the parlour. Sister, would you follow me?’
And in the almond-green-painted parlour, at the brand-new tea table with its pristine little tea bowls, these ill-matched sisters-in-law talk out every possible inch of Sukie’s bridal portion and her illustrious future, while Mr Hancock sits by with his books and his pipe, nodding to their requests or drawing his brow into a frown as he scratches out more numbers. Mrs Lippard laments her woes and Mrs Hancock soothes her.
‘Oh, I know, I know – a dreadful state of affairs – how you have borne it so long – but this generation is so different – I’d never have had your patience, Mrs Lippard, certainly I would not.’
Once they are finished it is agreed that Sukie Lippard will be a great deal richer than she had ever hoped to be.
‘As to her education …’ says Angelica.
‘’Tis done,’ says Mrs Lippard. ‘Her school could do no more for her.’
‘I learned nothing,’ growls Sukie.
‘You read every book they had.’
‘If I had known there were so few, I would have read slower.’
‘Well, book-learning is not very useful,’ says Angelica, ‘and easily faked when the effect is required. I thought more that I would engage a dance master. Her deportment, Mrs Lippard, shows promise: I feel her walking and general grace of movement could come on considerably with very little encouragement. And a singing teacher too, and let us not have her neglect her pianoforte, for that is where so many girls betray their lack of polish. One always wants a Frenchman for music lessons. Leave that to me, leave that to me, I know people.’ She leans back in her chair, eyes bright. ‘Is your mind any more at ease?’
Hester Lippard has begun to convince herself of the advantages to keeping Sukie in her brother’s house. To be sure, the girl has plenty more to learn, and Mrs Lippard has not the time to teach it all to her. And she hates to see any child of hers underemployed, when there is work for them elsewhere; and what would she do with Sukie under her feet in Southwark; and she has not even considered yet the expense of laying another place at the table when she already has sons and daughters-in-law and apprentices and servants to feed.
‘But her moral education. Her spiritual well-being,’ she hazards. ‘The child’s soul …’
‘Fortuitous we are so well placed for two churches. Not to mention our Quaker brethren, and I declare I never knew such an infestation of Noncon tub-thumpers as I find here. Her soul will be spoilt for choices.’
‘And you …’
Even now Angelica does not lose her composure. She tips her head and smiles. ‘I understand your concern, Mrs Lippard. But look at me.’ She gestures to her plain gown, her unpowdered hair, her entire cleanliness and delicacy. ‘Trust your eyes, madam, you see I am not so unlike you. And even a Magdalene can be redeemed. Say, that will be a fine lesson for her soul.’
Mrs Lippard, looking at her obediently, is filled with suspicion. But then she is suspicious also of many of the women she knows. And if Sukie were to be removed from this house, her means of intelligence would be vastly diminished.
Yes, it is better to arm oneself with knowledge. Sukie is hardly in harm’s way. She is not starved or beaten; she has a room of her own and an opportunity for a comprehensive education. As for what she might see or hear in the home of a renowned harlot, well. Children are robust. When one tots it all up, it would be the crueller thing to deny her this opportunity.
Mrs Lippard concludes that her daughter has the moral integrity to withstand temptation and debauch. One might even consider it a test; if she falls, well, that is an indictment on her inborn moral weakness, from which no body could save her.
‘She’ll stay,’ she says. ‘But if I hear one thing that is not to my liking …’
‘You will not,’ Angelica assures her. ‘We are a family of scrupulous morals. You will not regret this, madam, we will make a triumph of the child.’
Mr Hancock is somewhat surprised by his niece’s subsequent demeanour towards him. He has never been so out of Sukie’s books before, and is chilled by the glower she fixes upon him before retiring to her window seat, never to speak again all evening. She thinks I did not stand up enough for her, he frets. He tries to broach the subject with a jovial nudge in the ribs: ‘Well, ’twas all to the good in the end, eh?’ but she does not dignify him with any response at all.
‘I wish she did not take it so hard,’ he says to Angelica when they are in their bedroom. ‘She acts as if I threw her out.’
‘You responded very poorly indeed,’ says his wife, tucking her thickly plaited hair into her nightcap. ‘I was positively ashamed.’ She puts her hands on her hips, but there is no anger in her strictness, and her body most inviting where her chemise strains across it. ‘You are not to go on in that manner any longer. You told me, before we married, that you were determined to protect Miss Sukie, and have no misfortune befall her.’
‘Aye, indeed I am.’
‘You did not protect her today.’
He sighs. ‘My sister is a remarkable difficult woman. If I give her her own way, that is not to say I have capitulated to her.’