I made her an ice of fresh, creamy custard seasoned with vanilla seeds; the vanilla would at least counterbalance the sharpness of the gherkins. But she was still not happy.
‘You are making me fat,’ she grumbled, even as she ate it. ‘Fat and deformed.’
‘It’s the baby that does that. You’ll lose the fat soon enough after it comes.’
‘No man in London will look at me, much less the king. I am hke a pregnant sow. He has started calling me “Fubs”.’
‘Fubs.>’
‘Or “Fubsy”. It means chubby-cheeked, apparendy.’
‘Then it sounds as if pregnancy has not diminished his fondness for you.’
‘He pinches my cheeks, exclaims over my belly, and then saunters off to spend the night with his actress. Fondness is no good to me. Fondness will not compensate for the perfidy of the French fleet. I don’t need fondness. I need desire. I need infcitucition.'’
‘On the contrary. Any man can be infatuated; to be fond as well suggests that his feelings will last. Be patient. When the baby is born he will come back to your bed soon enough.’
On another occasion she said, ‘I have been too naive. If I am to keep him in future, I must learn some tricks.’
‘Tricks?’ I said, although I knew exactly what she meant.
‘Before, I trusted to my innocence, just as you suggested. But now I can no longer be innocent, I will have to be cunning.’
‘And how do you intend to learn these tricks.^’
‘You must teach me, of course.’ She saw my look. ‘Not like that. You must explain it: where I am to go, how I lie, what I must say. I know thie basics now: it will be easier for me^to grasp what you are talking about.’
I could refuse her nothing. And so we clambered onto her bed, the door shut and bolted against the spies amongst her ladies, and she puffed and waddled her way through the various postures of love under my instruction. We were both fully clothed: she was heavy and pregnant; perhaps not surprisingly, there was not a scintilla of amorousness in either the occasion or her manner, until at last I could not help but add, ‘Of course, with him you will be loving, as well.’
‘Loving.^’
‘You know - eager. Smiling. Murmuring endearments.’
‘That too?’ She seemed perplexed. ‘It is not enough that I do all this? I have to seem as if it delights me?’
‘Of course. Your eagerness is the greatest compliment you can pay him.’ I took a gherkin from the plate. ‘Imagine that this is the king.’ I dipped it into the dish of ice cream. ‘Imagine that he is covered in the flavour you most desire - that you are craving him more than anything you have craved in your pregnkicy.’ I handed it to her.‘Now try.’
She tried: her tongue came out, and hcked around the gherkin’s head, she glanced at me, to see if she was doing it right, and for a moment the green eyes were filled with such unmistakeable lust that I could not breathe.
Then, her mouth still full of ice cream, she started to laugh. She put the back of her hand to her mouth as she swallowed. When she could speak she said, ‘So that, I take it, from your face, is an appropriate look of overwhelming desire?’
‘Yes,’ I said hoarsely. ‘What were you thinking?’
‘I was thinking of the ice cream, and that it would soon be all gone. And then I felt a bit serious, and I rolled it around my mouth, and it wm all gone.’
Do that, I said with a sigh. ‘Do it just like that, and he will think that you a^ore him.’
Back at the Lion, I ordered Hannah to my room.
‘I suppose you know some tricks?’ I said curtly.
‘Tricks?’
‘Embellishments. Extras. Like they do in France.’
‘I know how to make a fricassee, if that is what you are asking.’
‘You know very well it is not.’
‘Yes, I do know. But I wanted to see if you would smile,’ she said mysteriously.
I grunted. ‘I will pay you extra.’
‘That is very generous, but I am afraid I cannot help you. If you want French tricks you will have to find a Frenchwoman.’ She hesitated. ‘But perhaps you already have.’
I glanced at her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Only that whatever it is you do at court does not seem to make you very happy.’
‘That is none of your business.’
‘Of course,’ she said, her expression unreadable. ‘It will just be the usual, then, I take it?’
‘Yes. The usual.’
The usual, conducted in the usual silence. The usual chink of coins. The usual tears on my cheeks, before the brief oblivion of sleep.
When I woke I discovered to my surprise that it was past three o’clock. I went to the window, and for a long time I sat there, on the window seat, looking down at the people going about their business in the street.
Then I saw Hannah, coming out of the inn yard. I would prob
ably not have noticed her - she was wearing a dark cloak with a hood that was pulled up over her hair - but as she turned to look up and down the street I happened to glimpse her face quite clearly in profile.
In her hand, clasped tight, was a purse.
Something', I do not know what, exactly, made me curious about where she was going. Putting on a coat, I hurried downstairs. I had seen the direction she had taken, and it was no great difficulty to catch up until I was walking about ten p^ces behind her.
I noticed how many people greeted her as she passed, not effusively but with a nod or a small gesture of recognition. And then there were some, both men and women, who stopped, and shook her hand.
I remembered Cassell’s words. They refuse to bow to any man, since they say all are created equal.
Hannah was evidently in a hurry, however, and did not pause long to exchange pleasantries. After about five minutes she turned into an alley which was lined with tiny shops selling books and maps. At the far end, she slipped into one of the smallest. It seemed that whatever she was doing in there was the purpose of her journey, as she did not come out for several minutes. I waited until she had turned the corner, then went into the shop myself.
It was even smaller than it appeared from the outside. Books covered almost every surface. But on the counter, unrolled as if it had recendy been placed there, was a map. I bent down to examine it. At the top was an inscription.
A New and Accurate Map of the World. Drawn according to the truest descriptions, latest discoveries and best observations that have yet been made by Englishmen or strangers.
‘It is the one they are all after,’ the shopkeeper said, seeing me looking. ‘Based on John Speed’s own projections. Look, it even shows the island.’
‘The island?’
Of California.’ He pointed. ‘And here — if Sir WiUiam Penn has his way, all this will be New Wales.’
I looked at the map, searching for some clue as to why Hannah should have been interested in it.
‘Have you a passage booked?’ the bookseller enquired. ‘Well, when you are ready to book one, come to me. We do easy terms. A deposit, and then a small payment every month. The boat belongs to my brother-in-law: it is the finest in Bristol—’
I suddenly realised what this must be about. ‘The woman who was here just now. Was she buying a ticket?’
He shook his head. ‘She bought hers a year ago. She should have sailed last May, but she fell behind. Now she only has another six to make, and she’ll—’ He stopped, suddenly aware that my interest might not be just that of a casual customer. ‘Was there anything in particular you were interested in?’ he said, rolling up the map with that chilly politeness the Engfish do so well.
So Hannah was emigrating to America. I should not have been surprised: it was where all the malcontents and miscreants ended up. And if she was paying for it by whoring, well, that too, was hardly any of my business.
All the same, I felt uneasy. Now that I knew why she needed the money, I felt somewhat ashamed of what she had needed to do to get it. And - rather to my own surprise - I found I was a litde envious of her too: not of what she had done, but that she had been able to do it: that she had been able to see a choice and take it, instead of being always at the beck and call of ministers and kings.