Mrs Fortescue is entirely too polite a person to laugh or grin immoderately, but she straightens the flounce at Angelica’s shoulder. ‘Good.’
Angelica, for the first time, catches her amusement. ‘Bel, think what it would be like!’ she exclaims. ‘At my age! Being as I am!’
‘A poor choice,’ nods Bel soberly. ‘A most diminishing choice.’
‘She will let me set my own prices and I’ll dine at her table, and we’ll be best of friends …’
‘… and then she’ll invoice you sixpence for the bowl of oranges she put in your room!’
‘Yes, indeed, and as a kindness she’ll have her woman get a stain out of my dress …’
‘… so that’ll be half a crown on your account.’
‘And every time I take a glass of sherry she’ll make a note.’
‘The fresh bedclothes! Oh, do you remember?’
‘Clean sheets every day!’ It has been a long time since Angelica last had the opportunity to air her grievances, and she snatches joyfully at her friend’s hand. ‘She would keep me her slave by the laundry bills alone. If my duke had not bought me out the last time, I cannot think I would ever have got away. Bel, I cannot do it again; I cannot be so servile. Am I wrong? Is this my most prudent choice?’
‘No, no. If we had wanted to be so closeted we would have stayed at home in our villages, ain’t that so? Besides –’ she glances quickly at Angelica – ‘I begin to suspect Mother Chappell is losing her touch.’
This is too far for Angelica to follow her. ‘Oh no,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘No, I do not think that can be so. Mrs Chappell is the premier abbess in all of London.’
‘She was,’ says Bel. ‘She is an old woman now. She cannot fathom the desires of the world as she could twenty years ago. There are younger madams coming up, while she depends on her old faithfuls.’ Thought animates her little person as she speaks: now her eyebrows lower in a frown; now she spreads her palms as if to gauge the balance of her argument. ‘Of course she has as fine an eye for beauty as ever she did, but lately I see she also has an eye for girls who will do as they are taught and no more. They do not transcend her the way they used to – the way they ought to. They are the most cultivated and educated whores in London, but a whore is a whore is a whore, ain’t that so?’
‘I daresay,’ says Angelica. ‘Why does she want me, then?’
‘You,’ says Bel, ‘have a genius that cannot be taught.’
Angelica wriggles in her seat. ‘I do?’
‘Yes. ’Tis what makes you a courtesan and not a jade.’ She leans forward in her seat. ‘Mother Chappell no longer dares take on girls with that genius, for she is afraid she cannot mould them. She hopes your attachment to her will make you biddable; that is precisely why you must not return to her.’
‘Oh.’ She thinks for a moment. ‘Eliza says I ought.’
A shadow of disdain touches Bel’s face. ‘You still keep her with you?’
‘She has nobody else.’ Angelica does not mention Mrs Frost’s defection; she does not wish even to think of it.
‘She is a fearful woman,’ hisses Bel, seizing her wrist. ‘She seeks to make you less than what you could be. As Mrs Chappell does. This is the problem with women. Men are not fearful; they build one another to greatness. Women believe their only power is in tearing one another down.’
‘Quite! Quite! So I need your help. If I am to remain independent from Mrs Chappell I had better start making independent connections.’
‘I know a gentleman. Not your sort,’ Bel adds hastily. ‘But he admires you and you might favour him with a few hours’ company. The playhouses are opening again, are they not? Well, he has a box at Drury Lane.’
‘A good box?’ Angelica asks suspiciously. ‘One fit for me to be seen in?’
‘You never wonder whether you are fit to be seen in it.’
‘Fool; I know I am. I am fit to be seen in the box of the Prince of Wales himself if he would only extend me the invitation.’
‘Mr Jennings will have you, I know,’ says Bel. ‘He is a rogue – but not so much of a rogue – if your object is merely to broadcast your return, he will suit you very well. I shall write and have him keep a seat for you tonight.’
Angelica squeaks. ‘Oh, Bel! Thank you!’
‘Only behave yourself, and do not give me cause to regret it.’ The carriage grumbles to a stop in the shade of Berkeley Square, and Bel’s face clears like rainclouds chased away. ‘And ah, we are arrived! What will you have? My man can run in for the order.’
‘What, and lose the pleasure of browsing?’ Berkeley Square is a parade ground waiting for Angelica’s feet. ‘I want to go in there myself.’
‘Oh, please, do not make me. I cannot bear to be looked upon any more.’
‘Come, Bel!’
‘Why can we not take it away and eat it in the carriage?’
‘Because that is not why we are here.’ Angelica’s mouth takes a stubborn set; Bel affects not to see, but she cannot ignore her friend’s hand tightening on her wrist. Angelica takes a breath. ‘I have been away so long, Bel,’ she says, and now she breaks her gaze. ‘I need this.’
‘Oh, Jellie …’
As they descend, people turn to look at them; genteel girls nudge one another, and wives touch their husband’s shoulders.
‘Do you mark that?’ whispers Angelica. ‘We are retreated from the world and yet still we are not forgot. Don’t it please you?’
‘Not particularly,’ says Mrs Fortescue. ‘They have left off abusing me as a Jezebel; I suppose that is something.’
‘I like it,’ says Angelica, shifting her hips so the soft froth of her dress swirls around her legs, which are entirely naked save for her stockings and slip and two layers of muslin. What a thing it is, to be walking once again in London, furthermore in the company of the most gossiped-of lady in town, and looked at, looked at, looked at!
The bubbled-glass window of the confectioner’s is lined with tall jars filled with sugarplums of all kinds, all lacquered and sunrise-tinted, and a multitude of sugar sculptures that shimmer like ice, and a palace cast from jelly, glass-clear, with tiny air bubbles frozen about the redcurrants and apricots and grapes suspended within.
Inside, it is a veritable temple to sugar which betrays nothing of the heat and toil – the boiling and skimming and coaxing and measuring – that must go into its making: everything here is cool and sparkling, with knots of gentle women and men chattering cordially at the marble tables. The back wall is lined with bottled liqueurs and syrups of all colours and all flavours – bergamot, muscadine, cinnabar, rose – and frothy-headed syllabubs are lined up on slabs of chilly marble, and from the back room comes an endless processions of fine things. Striped jellies are borne forth to the chattering diners beyond; sparkling sherbets, little frozen bombes and mice and lions and turrets. On the counter, glass salvers are piled with cakes and fancies: tiny amber caramels and tarts of translucent custard, and leathery fruit-paste jumbals contrived in true-love knots. Angelica’s favourites are the millefruits, crisp clouds fragrant with orange-water, their surfaces rugged with cochineal and gold leaf and almonds and angelico.
‘Like jewels,’ she sighs. ‘Delicious little carbuncles. I shall take some home with me.’ She knows from the air of the room that she is being watched and listened to; the conversation is not the same busy lapping it was when first she entered it, and as she moves towards the fruit display she hears the rustle of sleeves and cravats as their owners shift to keep their view. The confectioners, although their real talent lies in marrying fruit to alcohol, sugar, cream, are wise enough to present the finest offerings from London’s gardens and hothouses in their most virgin state: peaches and plums ripe to bursting; tangles of redcurrants; polished strawberries; melons breathing their musk out in great waves, pineapples wound about most artfully with vines. ‘Oh! Pineapples!’ Angelica cries. ‘Bel, I want one.’
‘Now is your chance.’