Ace, King, Knave (53 page)

Downstairs the tavern is almost empty. Last night’s revellers are at home, nursing their heads. Clem can be heard outside the window, telling someone to leave that one on the side.

The woman sits behind the counter, heeling a man’s sock. It is a strange choice of task, when all around her the room is dusty and stained, and the serving-bar, as he can see from where he stands, is sticky with spills.

She looks up as he approaches. All he observed of her last night was her seeming good will. Now he notices her hair, which is as dark as his own. Its natural form seems to be straight, but it is piled up on top of her head, stiff and dull, and fixed in place with pins. She has a pale, pleasant face, not distinctive in any way but mild and womanly. As soon as she smiles, the effect is ruined by a mouthful of brown, jagged teeth. Fortunate keeps his distance, wary of her breath.

‘I trust you slept well.’ She looks as if she might laugh, after saying that. ‘Will you be staying on another night?’

She might mean only to tease him for sleeping late, but it strikes Fortunate as a good idea. He needs another day of rest and food to make him strong.

‘Another night, yes.’

‘I’ll trouble you to pay for the two of ’em now. And will you want feeding? Breakfast, dinner?’

‘Yes. Please.’

He is embarrassed, at first, about bringing out the coin from his pocket, until it strikes him that his embarrassment is pointless. He must carry the money somewhere about him. If these people intend to steal it they will find a way.

‘My!’ she says, seeing the gold. As she is giving him his change, Clem enters and nods.

‘Here’s our young gent back,’ says the woman, as if she had not seen her husband’s greeting. Clem understands something by this, for he turns and looks Fortunate up and down.

‘Too small,’ he says, shaking his head.

‘But a draw. Trust me.’

Plainly these two have discussed him while he slept. He wonders if they have advertised him, and if the Pinched Wife is already on her way.

Perhaps he is to be robbed and murdered. The tavern is in the familiar style: he must be in Romeville, now, where a man with money is surrounded by false friends. He should have thought of this before.

The woman says, ‘You look to me like a good-natured lad. And an honest one.’

‘I am honest, Madam.’

‘I hope you are, ’cause I’m about to make you an offer.’

‘To buy something from me?’ he says, the shoes pressing on his flayed heels.

‘Am I right when I say you’ve been in service?’

‘Yes.’

‘There you are, Clem! Knew it by the clothes.’

‘I have good shoes,’ he says hopefully.

‘Are you in a place now?’

He shakes his head.

‘Are you in search of one, then? Clem and me was wondering.’

Somehow he does not think Clem wants him. He says, ‘To work?’

‘Naturally to work. And live in. You’re lucky, see.’

How can she know that his name, in his own language, means just that? Then he realises: she means he’ll fetch in the customers.

‘Mornings and afternoons, it’s mostly dead.’ She waves towards the empty benches. ‘Evenings we’re as full as we can handle, you’ll have to be nippy. Know the trade?’

He shakes his head.

‘It’s only serving food and drink.’ She grins, showing her horrible teeth. ‘I’ll show you what to do. If you want the situation.
Do
you want it? Don’t say much, do you?’

She hasn’t given him a chance. ‘I shall work for you, Madam, if – if I have something.’

Her eyes narrow. ‘I hope you ain’t one of these saucy blacks, Mr Lucky.’

With care he slides off a shoe and shows her one of his heels. His stocking is worn through, showing tortured flesh bright and angry with pain. The woman whistles. She bends and picks up the shoe he has taken off, sees the bloodstains and says, ‘Sweet Christ.’

‘They hurt me.’

‘Aye! They would! Well, I know a woman who’ll fetch you something.’

‘Shall I work without shoes?’ He asks knowing that London people set great store by these things but she shrugs, as if to say it’s of no importance. What matters, he concludes, is his complexion.

‘What shall I call you, Madam?’

‘Keep with
Madam.
That’ll do. My name is Mrs Harbottle.’

‘You are married to Mr Clem.’

‘Lord, no! What gave you that idea?’ she giggles. ‘Mr
Harbottle
was my dear dead husband.’

Fortunate sees how it is. She believes that if the words are not used, the thing will not be known.

‘And you? What’s yours?’

He is about to say
Titus
, but why help the Pinched Wife to find him? ‘Lucky is a good name. Shall I start today, Madam, and not pay my shilling?’

Again she favours him with her dreadful smile. ‘It’s after four, did you know that? Come down to the kitchen.’

After breakfast, if food eaten in the afternoon may be so called, she takes Fortunate back to the bar to teach him his new trade. Demand is mostly for gin, but he will also be asked for wine, port wine, rum, beer, brandy, ale or porter. Some people, says Mrs Harbottle, can’t drink like Christians but must invent ‘such nasty slop as you couldn’t pay me to swallow’. The nasty slop she has in mind is huckle-my-buff, which turns out to be hot beer with eggs and brandy.

‘But there,’ she says, winking, ‘I let the world go by.’ He understands that the mixture is profitable. ‘Anything you don’t know, you’ve only to shout out.’

It is well for him that business is slack and his mistress easy-going, for he is sorely tested. It is not that he is too small, as Clem feared. He is quick on his feet – once the shoes are off – and quite strong enough for the work, but there is one thing he cannot help: he is a person not used to drinking.

Each time someone places an order there is immediate silence, followed by cheers and groans and the sound of coins being swept up from the table.

‘Not know swizzle!’ somebody cries. ‘Sure the man in the moon knows swizzle!’

It seems they are laying money on him. A few times he surprises them: once, with French Cream, because he heard Eliza and Fan talking about it, and again with Bristol Milk, or sherry-wine, because some of Dog Eye’s women drank it, long ago. Most of the time he is at a loss, and they bait him with their hotpot, stitchback and callibogus, their stewed quaker and red fustian, their kill-devil, bishop and bub, besides many more names heard and forgotten as he scuttles about behind the bar. He fumbles, spilling the drink, while Mrs Harbottle stands by laughing.

When they have gone it is a different story. ‘Mixtures is one thing,’ she says, ‘but not to know heart’s ease! You’ll have to do better than that, my lad. And I showed you how to do three threads, and no sooner was it done than you asked me again!’

‘I am sorry,’ he says, humiliated that in his hurry and confusion he forgot the recipe. To her this space behind the bar is home, easy and familiar. To him it is rows of casks and bottles covered in strange markings, hard to remember even without men betting on the outcome.

‘I thought you was in service?’ She looks now as if she repents of hiring him. At the thought of being thrown onto the streets, tears prick his eyes.

‘All right,’ she says, more gently. ‘You shall have law.’ She hands him a glass of Bristol Milk. He sips, a mouthful of sadness: it takes him back to Dog Eye’s lodgings, before the marriage. That time will never come again, he thinks, and then: No, I will find him.

‘You know it, eh? Was you ever on a Bristol slaver?’

If the woman but knew what she is asking! He arrived in Annapolis so stupefied, he would scarcely have noticed had he stepped in a fire: how should he concern himself with the name of a port in England? He says, ‘I knew no English then.’

‘Nor much now,’ she answers pertly, as if expecting him to laugh. ‘Well, Mr Lucky, I shall have to drill you. We’ll start with gin and the rest can come after. And you needn’t fill the jugs so full – see here.’ She takes one and shows how far the drink should come up the sides.

Some bucks enter, already swaggering drunk. One calls for kill-priest and gages, and Mrs Harbottle serves him. She waits until the men are settled and drinking toasts –
To Mother Hartry and her chicks! To the best cunt in Christendom!
– before telling Fortunate, ‘I won’t put you on tonight. You’re not up to the game.’

He is indignant. ‘I can learn, Madam! It’s when the men lay wagers ―’

‘Don’t get your back up. Who are you, Tender Parnell?’

‘Who is that, please?’

She rolls her eyes. ‘Tender
Parnell
, that broke her finger in a posset drink!’

‘I never heard of this lady.’

‘She’s nothing, she’s – O, never mind! The thing is, you mustn’t mind their sport. You can go now.’

‘I must leave?’

‘I’m giving you time off, simpkin. Stay in the chamber, go out, whatever you please. Tomorrow you start in earnest.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And wash your hands and face before you come down, and comb that wool of yours. You’ll feel a sight better for it, and Lord knows I shall.’

*

After these few hours, who knows when he will next be free to walk about? There is always the chance of finding his master, even in an hour.

Once outside, he studies the front of the tavern so as to know it again. Its sign shows an important-looking metal tube floating amid moon and stars, with faded gilt lettering underneath.

‘Prithee, friend,’ he hails a man on the other side of the way, ‘what is this?’

‘The Spyglass.’ The fellow clears his throat, about to say something more, but Fortunate thanks him and hurries away, not wishing to be delayed by questions about what brings him here or where he was born. His purpose is to walk as far as possible and he is on the watch for details that might guide him back to the inn: a humped railing like the top of a bridge, a shutter hanging loose from one hinge.

The Spyglass has not a good situation: the further he travels, the more prosperous the houses. A very little distance and they have gardens in front, with railings to keep out such as himself – but then he remembers he is no longer a beggar, and has a bed to go to.

No shoes, however. He looks down at his feet, the toes caked with greyish dirt. There is nothing disgraceful, at home, in going barefoot. Nobody, not the most important man of the village, would think of desiring such foolish things as wigs and shoes, yet Fortunate has learnt to be ashamed without them. Even his feet have made peace with the things: since he took off that last torturing pair his flesh feels exposed.

If he were to go home now, would his little sister know him? Has his voice become foreign? He turns over the old words in his head, not daring to say them aloud. They seem thin and flat, the strength gone out of them. They have been pushed aside, crowded out by words unworthy of attention: kill-priest, gage, nantz. Tender Parnell.

Does he see Dog Eye that day? His feelings, as well as his thoughts, are so stirred, perplexed and muddied afterwards that he cannot be sure.

He is pushing along on his miserable feet that can never be contented, either in shoes or out of them, and looking for a place, not too dusty, where he may sit and rest. At length he comes upon a disused horse trough, drained of its water by a spreading crack along the bottom. It stands where a lane branches off towards some fields, and here he seats himself, swinging his legs in the air.

The bushes along the lane have been cut back, perhaps to discourage robbers. In the distance he can make out what must be another inn, and in front of it, despite the time of year, men playing bowls. Comfortable men: men not obliged to work, who can afford the time to stand in a garden throwing a wooden ball. Men with warm coats and well-broken-in shoes. Blissful men!

Though the lane is deserted – he supposes not many people wish to go that way – a carriage is rattling along the main road in the direction of the Spyglass. It pulls up just past the entry to the lane. The coachman glances at Fortunate, half-lying in the trough, and looks away again as if the sight pains him.

The blind is lowered. ‘Go back, Tufts!’ a man cries. ‘
That’s
the place the gentleman said. Turn off there.’

‘He did indeed, Sir. But it’s out of our road.’

The master groans. ‘Why the Deuce didn’t you say so before?’

‘Begging your pardon, Sir, I wasn’t aware, not precisely.’

‘Not precisely! You’ve lost us again, you boneheaded booby!’

The driver mutters under his breath. Fortunate thinks it would give the man great pleasure to lose carriage, master and all.

‘Is there no fingerpost?’ a voice enquires from within.

‘Not unless you consider a drunken blackbird as one,’ the man replies drily, ‘which for my part I don’t.’

‘A drunken blackbird!’

The carriage tilts as both occupants press to the window. Fortunate can see only the near one, a jolly fat fellow with a double chin, but he is caught by the sound of the other voice, which resembles Dog Eye’s. The fat man cries out, ‘As I live and breathe, sitting in a trough in the middle of nowhere!’

‘What, sousing himself in this weather!’ comes the voice from within.

The first man shakes his head. ‘No water in it. I say, fellow,’ he calls down from the window, ‘you’ve been going it, haven’t you?’

‘Sir?’

‘He doesn’t understand me, you see,’ says the man.

‘He’s drunk the trough dry at any rate,’ comes the other voice, sounding so like Dog Eye that Fortunate must see for himself. He scrabbles out of the trough onto the verge of the road, but can see only the first man and beside him, a dark shape.

‘It’s Titus, Sir!’ he calls. ‘Your servant, Titus!’

‘Titus,’ says the fat man, raising an eyebrow as if surprised he has a name at all. ‘Had you a servant of that name?’

Fortunate strains his ears but catches nothing of the reply. A gloved hand is put out of the carriage window. ‘Here, my fine fellow, and my advice gratis – leave off idleness.’

A penny drops onto the verge. It is followed by a gold coin that soars, spinning, out of the window and into the trough. The fat man turns to his unseen companion.