‘That part is true.’
‘I freely admit it. It is all I speak of when I am in London. Everybody knows. But since I was separated from you – oh, I wept for you, I thought of how lonely you must be here, and how cruelly we had been separated.’
‘You could have come too. He offered. You would not come.’
‘Angelica, you had to think of your own interests. You do not need to be ashamed of that. I forgive you.’
‘You would not come with me.’
‘Since your fortunes turned –’ Mrs Frost raises her voice a little – ‘all I have thought about is how to restore you to your previous position. You took such a fall. I have been striving to create a situation you might return to.’
‘But I live here now.’
‘Exactly. I can get you out.’ She leans closer, a gust of violet pastilles and tooth decay. ‘My big house, my lovely grand house – you will have everything you need. Your own apartment, a little servant of your own – an Abyssinian boy, like you always had a fancy for, and we shall get him up in livery, and you can teach him tricks. I can do that for you. And you can keep your own hours, and go to the theatre every night of the week.’
‘But I am quite happy here.’
‘You need not adopt such a front with me. I know you.’
‘You know nothing. I do not want to come away from this place.’
‘You would not credit how many of your old friends are dying to have you back. They always ask me, “That Angelica Neal, when will she return to us?”’
‘And yet I have heard from none of them.’
‘I can give you very good rates. Better than the little girls I am taking on, and I know you will have no trouble earning. You could buy yourself out whenever you liked.’
‘You wish me to become a whore?’
‘I would not say whore. You never were a mercenary, I know that. You would never be obliged.’
Angelica is stupefied. ‘You wish me to become a whore in your establishment?’
‘It is the least I could do for you. You would be absolutely free to choose. I have so many charming girls, and they will really do anything they are told, but not one of them is established. If we had a – a figurehead, a famous name, just to draw people in …’
‘No. Oh no, no. I am finished with all that, Mrs Frost.’ She stands up. ‘Please leave.’
‘It will always be there for you.’
‘I am married.’
‘What, forever?’ A vein on Mrs Frost’s temple begins to twitch. ‘How long do you believe you can do this for? This piffling little house, that idiot man. I suppose you think you are virtuous. Well, you are not. You have merely lowered your expectations. Brown paint and oilcloth, Angelica Neal? This is not you.’
‘I think you are jealous.’
‘Jealous? Why? Because you are pretty? Because you are married?’
‘Jealous. You arrive in my house all puffed up like a cat who has run into a terrier, and you try so very hard to persuade me that I am nothing and you are something that in the end I simply cannot credit it.’
‘Do you know,’ says Mrs Frost, ‘how they speak of you? “That Mrs Neal,” everybody says, “who stooped to marry a nobody. Who threw away all her opportunities; who could not tolerate the difficulties of this life she chose.” You are a laughing-stock, my dear.’
‘You have made a quite serious misjudgement. My husband has bought me my own house. Greenwich. We are rising in the world. I do not need you, or Mrs Chappell, or any body. I am free.’
‘You are helpless. You are kept. You go where you find yourself best supported, as you always have; perhaps you mistake this for independence, but you are still a whore.’
Angelica slaps her, quick as a whip. ‘Out. Get out. Get out of my house.’
Mrs Frost shows no agitation. She saunters across the room, Angelica’s palm print blooming faintly under the crust of lead white.
‘Out,’ says Angelica, louder. She snatches up the broom from the landing and comes at her as if she were chasing out a black-beetle; Mrs Frost shrieks and leaps, and darts for the stairs, but Angelica pursues her, beating at Mrs Frost’s skirt with the broom all the way down, until by the last step the wretched bawd has completely lost her composure and yelps, ‘Let me go! Let me go!’ She hurls herself out of the door and onto Union Street, where the footman urinates dreamily in an alley and a stray dog urinates against the wheel of her carriage. ‘James! James, get back to your post. We are leaving.’
Angelica’s face is red and her eyes are gleaming; her yellow hair is bursting out from under her cap. She stands on the step, brandishing her broom, and shrieks to all around, ‘This woman is a bawd! She runs a most disreputable nunnery, and she condemns me – me! – for my honest situation.’
Those few people walking in Union Street – and it is a fine street, home to gentlefolk – turn to stare. Mrs Frost is scrambling into her carriage, slipping and snatching in her agitation. Faces appear at windows, and a boy puts down his barrow of dung to watch.
‘An old spinster getting rich off pretty girls,’ continues Angelica, quite hoarse. ‘She sells other women’s virtue but retains her own, now tell me, do you think that is fair? Do you think it is possible?’ The footman flicks the reins and the carriage bounces down the street. ‘Go!’ Angelica shrieks. ‘Don’t come back here! This is no place for you!’
Bridget, returned from her errand to the sheetless poor, is hurrying down the street: Sukie, some distance behind, breaks into a run, lamenting, ‘Oh, no, Mrs Hancock, not in the street!’
They gather about her in breathless consternation. ‘What has she done?’ asks Bridget.
‘Come inside, I beg you,’ whispers Sukie, pulling her to the threshold, but Angelica is rigid with rage.
‘I will see this woman off first!’
‘Come inside,’ says Bridget. ‘She is gone. Madam, she is gone.’
They take Angelica by the arms and gently but firmly steer her into the house. ‘Bolt the door,’ she says once they are inside, her face remarkable pale and remarkable still.
‘What happened?’ asks Sukie, putting a shawl about her aunt’s shoulders.
‘She is a vile, coarse woman. This is a respectable household. My husband is a gentleman.’
‘Of course. Come into the kitchen. Sit down. Let me get you a drink. I can make you a caudle.’
‘I am all right. Only shaken. I saw her off, girls.’ She wipes her eyes with the back of her wrist, and grins. ‘She will not come back here. But I shall give you some advice, and you will both do well to heed me. Hold on to your virtue. Hold on to your virtue because do you know why?’
‘Well, yes,’ says Sukie, who has read many books on the subject, ‘because—’
‘I shall tell you why. Because if you do not, it is snakes like Mrs Frost who will profit by it. And that, mark my words, is if you are fortunate. Otherwise you will find yourself in the care of a man who goes by the name of Crusher or The Gent. And these are not good people. And you will not take any part in encouraging them.’
‘No, I shall not.’
‘No. Learn from me. Now I shall take that caudle.’
SEVEN
April 1786
One morning in mid-April, Angelica says to herself, it is time I accepted that I am pregnant.