‘Why, ’tis not going anywhere.’
She shudders, and brings the snuffer down on the flame.
He makes his habitual nightly round of the house, candle aloft: through the kitchen to bolt the doors and shutters there, while Bridget makes ready her cot in the corner; then up the stairs with Sukie’s skirts rustling at his heels to see that all is secure. They do not speak as they damp down the fire in the parlour and make fast the door leading to the attic so no thief picking his way along the rooftops may opportune himself.
When all is tight and dark, Mr Hancock repairs to his room on the second floor and draws the bolt to. He hangs his breeches and stockings on the chair as the building relaxes into silence: the grunt and sigh of its joists; the blunder of the wind in its chimneys. He is parting the curtains of his bed when he hears the stairs creak. He stops, and strains to listen. They creak again; closer; at the turn of the stair before the first floor, he judges, where the banister rail rattles in its fitting. From the locked and lightless rooms below, something approaches.
With his shirt hanging about his knees, he goes to the door and listens. Somewhere below him, a tap, a scratch, a fingertip on wood.
Through the floorboards he hears Sukie whimper; she has heard it too. Now she is moving across her own bedroom floor. The nape of his neck prickles. Surely she will not investigate. He is charged with protecting her, and yet even as her latch clicks he is rooted to the spot.
A whisper below: ‘I am so glad you are awake!’ It is Bridget. Of course – who else would it be, what other souls wander the house at this hour?
‘You scared the wits out of me,’ Sukie hisses.
‘Aye, well. Think how I feel. I’ll not sleep a wink, with that thing so nearby.’
‘Ain’t it peculiar?’
‘It’s not Christian, any body can see. Now, Sukie, what if it comes for us?’
‘Bunk in with me. We’ll take turns sleeping while the other sits watch. Now hush, hush, don’t wake Uncle.’
And the latch clicks closed. Below he hears them whispering yet, excited sibilances that dissolve into silence. Closing his eyes to his candle he seeks the sense of young Henry, some friendly companion to stand with him in the dark, but nothing comes. He takes to his bed alone.
FOUR
‘Eliza!’
It is noon and Angelica is awake. After Mrs Frost left her she entertained a group of gentlemen with much merriment until three in the morning; she sits up in bed hot and cross, and desirous of a saucer of tea. ‘Eliza!’ she calls again.
There is no answer.
She rises, her chemise wrinkled and bunched about her thighs, and trots into the dressing room. The table is still skewed in the middle of the floor, and Mrs Frost’s cot is cold and empty, the counterpane pulled up smooth to the bolster.
‘Now surely she cannot have stayed out all night,’ mutters Angelica, ‘for where would she go?’ She does not allow herself to think, perhaps she does not mean to come back, but the notion nevertheless flutters behind her ribs. She walks into the parlour – which is disordered from the night’s doings, the cushions tumbled on the sopha and scattered glasses sticky with ratafia – and even into the scullery, sighing, ‘Eliza, Eliza,’ for she already knows her search will be fruitless. This has never happened before, nor anything at all like it. She stands in the middle of her large room and tugs at her fingers until the joints go pop: her old friend Bel Fortescue will call for her soon, and the eyes of old friends are the keenest of all. Furthermore, while Angelica’s aristocratic keeper is reduced to worm-fodder, Bel’s is vital and prospering, and cherishes her as passionately now as the day he first met her. ‘I’ll not be her sorry friend,’ mutters Angelica. ‘I am every bit as good as her.’ And yet she has been abandoned to manage her appearance all alone.
Her curls are still fresh and want only a fluffing, which is hardly beyond her powers. And she casts about for what she can wear that might be donned without Mrs Frost’s helpful hands and careful eyes. What a boon, then, is her own Perdita gown, for once she has pressed her waist into the faithful clasp of her pink silk stays, she effects the gathers of white muslin with only little trouble, and conceals her mistakes with a wide blue sash. Lesser women might take fright at so scant and humble a gown, but Angelica, lovely in both face and figure, requires no embellishment of dress. She is easy as a nymph in her soft drapery.
‘And so ’twas more easily done than I feared,’ she congratulates herself as she crouches before her displaced dressing table, tapping rouge into her cheeks. And she is well satisfied with herself, and misses her companion not one bit.
Bel Fortescue, when Angelica climbs into her carriage, surveys her gauzy dress with only a flicker of humour. ‘What nakedness, Jellie,’ she murmurs, for she is naturally soulful even in amusement. She is a small little woman with treacle-brown eyes, a comrade in the Cyprian corps for ten years or more. Her face is round and her chin is pointed; she has a little flat nose like a child’s and her hands are childlike too, small and tidy. Men have wept for her grave sweetness, but if any have come to her in the hope that she will be like a child in all respects, they have been disappointed. For even as a girl of sixteen Bel was a queen of self-possession; as a grown woman she is untouchable. Her clever earl, although he has furnished her home and filled her library, dares not beg entry to her bed.
‘What, this?’ Angelica plucks at her muslin, kept upon her body by such slim strings. ‘I think it the most practical thing I ever came upon. So simple, so light.’
‘So simple and light,’ says Bel, ‘’tis hardly there at all.’
‘I have worn less.’
‘Not on the Mall.’
Angelica puts her nose in the air.
‘Oh, dear heart,’ says Bel Fortescue warmly. ‘I am glad to see you so much yourself.’ In the depths of her dispossession, Angelica once allowed herself to weep sincerely in her friend’s presence; this was a mistake, for Bel now searches her face for sorrow with a great intensity, and puts a hand on her arm. ‘You are well, are you not?’
‘Oh, most robustly!’ The carriage is built so as to be smooth in its movements and almost silent; done up in pink silk so they nestle like pearls in an oyster shell. Its windows are small and curtained, but Angelica peeps out as they roll past the great things of Piccadilly. ‘Now, Bel, who is about? You must tell me. There are a great many old friends I am anxious to restore my connection with.’
‘’Tis very quiet, as yet. Parliament ain’t yet convened; nobody of remark is returned for the season. You could afford to stay a little longer in seclusion, if your nerves …?’ Bel’s solicitude is too much.
‘I am here, am I not? Perhaps it were better I arrived before the rush; I do not like to be the last person into a room.’
‘Nobody would have blamed you,’ Bel persists, ‘if you had remained in the countryside. We understand.’
‘Ugh! I had died if I had stayed there one moment longer! I do not like the countryside, Bel; there are too many animals and the light is not flattering.’
‘But you know that you—’
‘And how low the ceilings are there! Why, I am glad to be back in the midst of things. Where are we going?’
‘Berkeley Square.’ Bel’s eyes shine. ‘I am taking you to Negri’s to feed you sweetmeats.’
‘Oh, Bel!’ Angelica clasps her hands.
‘I know what you like – jellies, syllabubs, biscuits. I daresay there are few enough of those in the countryside. Here, has Mrs Chappell visited you lately?’
‘Ah! Now we get to the heart of it. And what is it to you?’
‘I am interested. Were I still a gambling woman, I’d hedge that she would get her claws back into you, once you were at liberty.’
Angelica sighs. ‘She came yesterday.’
‘And you told her …?’
‘I refused to go back to her.’