The Price of Glory (13 page)

She regretted this outburst immediately, though the woman who now joined her at the window was singularly capable of exciting as much irritation as sympathy, or indeed admiration, in Kitty's volatile breast. Mary Imlay, née Wollstonecraft, was one of her oldest and most esteemed friends, whose book on the Rights of Women had raised her to the status of goddess in the progressive circles to which they were both attached, though more recent experiences had diminished her to a more human condition.

Kitty grimaced in the direction of the child. “Hello, Fanny,” she ventured, with as much warmth as she could muster. The child answered with a sob and buried her face in her mother's shoulder, which, considering the amount of mucus that had lodged between her nose and upper lip, was probably not the best place for it. On the whole Kitty preferred small children to bulldogs but it was a close run thing. “Would you like a sweetmeat?” she enquired politely, recalling that they had a weakness for such delicacies. “You will find a bowl on the sideboard, I believe,” she instructed its mother. “And also a bottle of gin unless Izzy has used it to unblock the drains. Pour two large glasses and let us drown our sorrows together. Fanny may play upon the floor,” she added generously.

“Gin? Do you think we should?” her friend enquired with a resurrection of the worried frown, which had never entirely been laid to rest.

“What are your principle objections?” Kitty enquired dangerously.

“Oh, I did not mean to sound a prig but it is a bit early in the afternoon and people say it is bad for the com … com …” She caught her friend's eye. “Constitution,” she finished lamely.

Kitty regarded her sorrowfully. This was the woman widely regarded by the Enlightened as the Inspiration of her Sex. “Oh for God's sake, Mary, we all know it is the ruin of expectant mothers and I doubt it would do a virgin much good if she splashed it about too freely but ‘tis a bit late for you to worry about that on either score and there are worse things for the complexion, or ‘constitution' as you care to put it: poverty and a visit from the bailiffs being one … or two. But if you are that bothered, suck on a sugared fruit and I'll take my chances with the gin.”

Another knock came upon the door and a less comely countenance was thrust into the gap so recently vacated.

“Oh, Izzy,” beamed Kitty. “Well done. A glorious victory—or holding action, as I suppose we must call it. We were just about to hit the bottle, or at least I was. Will you join us?”

“Thank you, milady, but I won't, thank you very much, and nor should you this early in the afternoon, if you don't mind me saying so,” announced this paragon with a fierce glance in the direction of the sideboard as if it were personally at fault and would go the way of the rest of the furniture if it did not embark on a course of self-improvement.

“My goodness, what a pair of harridans!” exclaimed her mistress. “Goneril and Regan ain't in it. What time is it anyway ?” She looked to the mantelpiece but the carriage clock had suffered in the general drive for economy and the single pewter candlestick provided no intelligence on the subject.

“Time I was off to Berwick Street if I am to get the dinner in for I doubt your ladyship would thank me if I was to serve up chitlins, which is all that's in the larder at present, an' some mouldy cheese that I was saving for a rattrap. ‘Specially if we have got company, which I expect we have and you forgot to tell me about.”

Kitty regarded her thoughtfully. There had been a time when she had maintained a household of servants and not one of them would have addressed her in such a fashion, though she usually found it more of a diversion than not, there being little to rival it at present in the way of entertainment.

“Dear me, have we sunk so low?” she murmured. “Well, we have not ‘got company,' so far as I know, more's the pity, but let us not deprive the rats of their cheese, I beg of you, and though I confess I am wholly ignorant as to the nature of ‘chitlins' they do not sound at all appetising. So let us ‘eat ice and drink wine and be above vulgar economy,' as the Epicureans would say. And be damned to the consequence.”

“And what am I to use for money ?” demanded this amiable servant, who occupied the role of housekeeper, cook and general factotum in the much-reduced household, her considerable bulk and proficiency going some way to compensate for the lack of numbers, though her nickname—The Mountain—was derived less from her proportions, which Kitty would have considered impolite, and more in homage to La Montagne: the radical wing of the French National Convention at the time of the Terror.

“Money ?” Her employer appeared taken aback for a moment but she quickly rallied. “Why, tell them you will pay them at the end of the month,” she suggested. “Is not that the way it is usually done?”

“And have them laugh in my face. This is Soho, milady. They don't hold with credit round these parts. And I doubt I'd have much joy in St James's neither, the way things is going,” she added darkly, “'less they take me for a harlot.”

Kitty regarded her askance. “My dear Izzy, I do not suppose the residents of St James's would take you for any such creature. I am persuaded you are thinking of Haymarket. However, we shall not put it to the test. Mary, my dear, lend us a shilling ‘til the end of the week, will you? So dearest Izzy may replenish the larder.”

This with one of her brilliant smiles at “dearest Izzy” who responded with an even deeper scowl. “And how far do you think that will go?” she demanded. “You know how much a standard loaf costs these days?” Kitty shook her head wonderingly. “Three shillings and thrippence. And if this war goes on much longer we'll be eating urchins off the streets, like the Frenchies.”

“I will go and get my purse,” Mrs. Imlay assured her hastily, practically running from the room but returning immediately to scoop up the child who had begun to howl alarmingly.

“Thank you, Mary,” said Kitty when she returned and the servant had departed on her mission with three silver half-crowns that she said would
“do to be going on with.” “
I will pay you back as soon as I have the money from Christie's. That should clear most of my debts, though after that I fear I shall have to take in washing for we have nothing else to sell.”

She spoke lightly though she was more distressed by her present financial state than she was prepared to reveal in the face she presented to the public or even her closest friends. While her political views were widely regarded as radical, even Revolutionist, she had always lived in some style. Her family were Huguenots: French Protestants who had settled in New York and prospered there, largely in the shipping trade. As an only daughter she had been greatly indulged. Indeed, despite the failure of her marriage to an English naval officer, she had been sustained by the family wealth until almost a year ago, maintaining a large house in St James's and entertaining lavishly, but the collapse of her bank and other losses occasioned by the present war had caused a considerable reduction in her circumstance.

“Well, you still have a husband,” her companion reminded her unwisely, “and a loyal, loving family that will support you.”

“They have enough problems with the war,” replied Kitty sharply. “And I would never ask Michael for money. Please do not look at me like that; it is not from pride, I do assure you.” She considered. “Though it is possible shame comes into it somewhere. Besides he hasn't got any. None to spare, at any rate.”

“Would you not consider living with him again?”

“What? In Sussex? With all those sheep? I'd rather cut my throat. In any case, I doubt he would have me.” She paused for a moment and then added in a different voice. “I have not told anyone this, Mary, and I count on your discretion, but he is contemplating a divorce.”

Her friend's eyes widened appreciably. “He told you that?”

“Not in so many words but I know it is in his mind.”

“But, why ?”

“Oh you are so kind, Mary. I positively blush.”

“I do not mean that he would find it possible to live with you.”

“Ah. Not so kind.”

“I mean you already live apart. Why should he wish to contrive a divorce?”

“Because he may wish to remarry.”

“Oh. And is that possible?”

“Well, it takes an Act of Parliament in England, I am told, which is an expensive procedure and causes a great scandal, as you might imagine, for the only grounds, other than consanguinity and attempted murder, appear to be the wife's adultery—male infidelity being considered perfectly acceptable from the legal point of view.”

“But can adultery be proven?” Mary flushed deeply when she realised what she had said. “I mean, generally speaking.”

Kitty regarded her friend archly. “
‘Generally speaking,'
it is not beyond contrivance, if the husband has the means to purchase a good team of lawyers and a handful of plausible witnesses. Of course, the servants are always a good source of information on that score. I think I may rely on Izzy but there are others who might be tempted by the prospect of remuneration and a brief period of celebrity, for the proceedings are widely reported, I am assured.”

“But that is despicable—and is there no other way ?”

“Well, now I come to think of it I believe the wife can make a counter-claim of impotence. Of course, there being no other way of providing evidence, the husband would have to agree this to be the case and most men would rather have their tongues cut out or have hot coals applied to their private parts. However, there are precedents. A husband may, for instance, without the least dishonour, agree that he is impotent where his wife is concerned, but not with his mistress, or any other creature.”

“Oh, Kitty. What vipers they are.” The colour went from her face save for two small red spots high on her cheeks. She shuddered. “Is there no limit to the pain they will cause in the pursuit of their unbridled lusts?”

“Well, I am not sure lusts come into it, unbridled or otherwise, though I could be mistaken. The lady he has in mind comes with a not inconsiderable fortune attached. And he needs the money. For his sheep.”

“Oh, that is all right, then. Dear God. Was there ever such a race of money-grubbing cowards and philanderers? Does Nathan know aught of this?”

Kitty grew more sombre for she had not seen her son in almost a year and had heard from him only fleetingly by letter. She was in constant fear of a message from the Admiralty informing her of his demise off some distant shore.

“I have no idea,” she replied shortly. “But I expect he would not wish to take sides.”

“Well, at least you do not have to support him as well as yourself,” said Mary, glancing at her own child who was sucking at the tassels of the curtain for want of better nourishment. “And you still have your pride intact. Which is more than I can say.”

“Oh Mary. What have you to be ashamed of? It is not your fault that … that …”

“That I married a scoundrel. A liar and a cheat. A mountebank. If, indeed, I did marry him for he now tells me it was not a proper ceremony at all but only a ruse to mislead the French authorities. And I have no more legitimacy than a mistress. An abandoned mistress at that.”

“Oh, Mary, I am so sorry, I should never have mentioned it. Why did I? Only a moment ago we were talking about chitlins. What are chitlins, anyway, do you know?”

“Pig's entrails,” Mary informed her wisely. “I had them as a child when we lived on the farm in Wales and had nothing else to eat.”

“Oh.” Kitty looked faint. “I have led such a sheltered life.”

“You do not know the half of it. I thought then that I could never sink so low. And yet I tell you, Kitty, I was happier then than I am now.”

“Oh, how can you say that, Mary, after all you have achieved?”

But this did nothing to cheer her. Indeed, she looked as desolate as Kitty had ever seen her.

“I have let myself down. I have let my friends down. I am so ashamed. I often wish I were dead.”

Kitty regarded her worriedly but before she could compose a reply they heard the sound of the front doorbell.

“Oh God, are they back already ?” She moved hastily away from the window.

“It is probably Izzy come back from the market,” Mary answered dully. “I will go and let her in.”

“No. It is too early. Besides she would not ring upon the front door.” Kitty peered cautiously over the windowsill. And then she was running across the room and down the stairs leaving the trace of a scream in her wake and the baby's frightened howl lagging behind it.

N
ATHAN
SUCCUMBED TO THE
INDIGNITY
of having his chin grasped firmly in his mother's hand and twisted violently to the left so she could the better examine the livid gash above his right ear with the marks of McLeish's neat stitches still clearly visible in the shaven patch of scalp.

“It was a glancing blow,” he assured her. “A spent round. Looks far worse than it is. The hair will grow over it in no time.”

Nathan's account of his experiences on the shores of Quiberon was, of necessity, circumspect. His mother could, at times, be discreet but it would be unwise to count on it and she kept notoriously bad company.

“But what on earth were you doing on a beach in France?” she demanded indignantly. “Do you not know we are at war?”

Not for the first time in his life Nathan was rendered dumb by a logic that had confounded older and wiser minds than his own.

“You could have been killed,” she admonished him, letting him have his chin back.

“Unhappily the government do not seem to be aware of this possibility,” Nathan admitted. “Or else are indifferent to it. However, I was merely stunned and one of my officers insisted upon having me carried back to the ship.”