An Almond for a Parrot Read online

  Mrs Inglis continued to visit and while time passed Pretty Poppet didn’t age. I decided it would be pointless to say anything more to Cook, for surely both she and Mrs Inglis could see her just as well as me.

  So it was that out of the rubble of neglect I slowly grew with a head full of recipes and ghosts.

  Chapter Three

  Three events stand out in the sea of sameness and have become magnified in my memory. Each in their way forecast the future and, although I didn’t know it, gave me a glimpse of what my life might hold.

  At eight years I was employed to clean the downstairs parlour – a gloomy, wood-panelled chamber that appeared to vanish into the darkness. Mr Truegood and his friends would meet there in what my father loosely called the Hawks’ Club. Its members were gunpowder-blasted mumpers, broken-limbed soldiers, sham seamen and scaly fish, all of whom had long left the shores of sobriety. Here they sang their bawdy songs, gambled and drank well into the night until they could see the silver of their dreams in the bottom of a pewter mug.

  The following morning it would be my job to bring a semblance of order to the chaos. I would find the chamber shuttered and through the shutters urgent pinpricks of light would show a yellow, wheezy fog that hung mournfully in the middle of the room, smelling of stale tobacco and defeat. I would polish the round wooden table, sweep the floor and lay the fire. This chamber in its various states of debauchery was my storybook. The main character the table itself, the empty plates and broken wine glasses spoke the lines and gave away the players of last night’s revelry. Among all the clutter lay treasure forgotten by these fuddled-headed gentlemen. A button, a snuffbox, a pipe in the shape of a man’s head: I would stash them away, pirates’ gold waiting to be reclaimed.

  One wintry morning I opened the shutters and saw, propped upright by the side of a chair, a wooden leg with a scuffed shoe attached to it. The leg was so finely carved and painted that for a moment I thought it to be made out of flesh and bone. I didn’t fancy touching it, so left it where it was and set about my work. My heart as good as stopped when I discovered a dead man sitting in the chair by the fireplace. He had his eyes wide open and was staring at me, his face whiter than Cook’s flour. I was about to call for help when his hand shot out and took hold of my arm. My cry was swallowed back down upon itself.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked the dead man.

  ‘Tully Truegood,’ I replied, feeling my legs to be made of marrow jelly.

  All his features were delicately rendered, each with a point to them. His hooked nose ended in a point, his chin jutted, even his ears appeared more pointed than the few ears I had seen before. I had no idea what an elf might look like but from the stories that Cook had told me I imagined that the dead man’s face couldn’t be so dissimilar from those of fairy folk. His eyes were set back into his face, his lip but a thin bow, his tongue the arrow. I saw now why I had thought him dead for his face was painted white and his almond-shaped eyelids had another set of eyes painted on them so that when they were closed they appeared open. The whole effect was most disconcerting.

  ‘Captain Truegood has a daughter,’ said the man. ‘Then you are the answer to the riddle. How old?’

  ‘Eight.’

  ‘Is there any more wine in that bowl, Miss Truegood?’ he said.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Then fetch me a glass and my leg, if you would be so kind, before the devil takes it to dance a jig.’

  The moment he spoke, all my fear of him dissolved into excitement. Having concluded that he was a character from a fairy tale, I was no longer afraid. Up to then most of my days had been humdrum to say the least; so much so that I was scarcely conscious of which month it was. I had lately in my childish wisdom fallen into a gloom at the thought that time might have forgotten me altogether, that I would never be pulled into the adult world. Perhaps the dead man was here to do just that.

  Once he had his painted leg back, he rolled up his breeches and I watched, fascinated, as he attached and strapped the wooden limb to his stump. When he stood and dusted himself down I was surprised by how tall he was, and that his clothes were colourful, his coat being striped. He squared his wig in the mirror.

  ‘You are no hen-hearted girl,’ he said, and whistled.

  I could not for the life of me see why he needed to whistle, but then, from the darkest part of the parlour, appeared a little white dog.

  The dead man watched me as he clicked his fingers. The dog, obeying his master’s command, danced on his hind legs. Thrilled, I knelt, clapping my hands as the little white dog came to me and I held him in my arms as he licked my face. It made me laugh, and I closed my eyes and relished the feel of that soft tongue. When I opened my eyes again the dead man and his dog had gone. For a long while I wondered if I had conjured them up and if I had conjured the boy in the grandfather clock for there was no other explanation for the appearance of any of them. Perhaps everyone could do it and it was nothing to wonder at. I thought to ask Pretty Poppet next time she came with Mrs Inglis, but Mrs Inglis didn’t come again; she had been taken to the Fleet Prison for unpaid bills.

  I tried to ask Cook; but she huffed, and said, as she always said when there was no answer, ‘Butter and salt.’

  I count my life as having begun that day, the day I saw the little white dog. All before that I consider to be nothing more than an audition for the main play.

  The second event took place when I was nine. The boot boy, who was twelve, told me he loved me and wanted to see what lay under my skirts.

  I, being innocent, replied, ‘Petticoats.’

  ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘I want to see what is there after you have lifted them aside.’

  If this was what love was, it seemed a trifling thing to show him, and being curious as to what lay in his breeches, I agreed, if he would unbutton himself.

  I remember a pink plug tail that hung down and that I wasn’t much impressed. But a bargain being a bargain I duly pulled up my petticoats and was surprised to see the way the small shrivelled plug tail became all perky and stood engagingly to attention. After that I don’t think I saw him again, and lost all interest in the rising and falling of such a small drawbridge.

  By now my father had become attached to the whorehouse and addicted to the gaming tables so that his considerable fortune began by degrees to diminish. As it depleted, so did his servants, until there was only Cook and myself to run the house, and it was in these very diminished circumstances that the third event took place.

  I was twelve when I was married.

  Ah, sir, I see now I have your full attention. My unexpected wedding took place one Friday in the middle of the night. My father, roaring drunk and mighty out of temper, came all bellowing, sail flapping, into the chamber I shared with Cook. She, poor woman, did her level best to guide the Captain’s sinking wreck into a safe harbour.

  ‘No, sir, leave the girl alone,’ she said.

  But Captain Truegood was set on his course and neither the cook nor the devil was about to stop him. He was persuaded that he should at least wait downstairs until I was dressed.

  Sleepily, I put on my threadbare clothes, Cook put my hair into a cap and thus attired in the plainest of styles I went to join my father in the hall. Two sedan chairs and their porters were waiting. I could only think of the mess they had made of the white stone floor and wondered if my father had need of me to clean it after he and whoever his guest was had departed.

  To my astonishment it appeared that the second sedan chair was for me and for the first time in my life I was to be allowed out of the house. Where I was bound I had no idea and could not ask my father, for Captain Truegood had not left off his shouting at one and all to make haste. I remember the journey vividly, though having no knowledge of the city I had been born into I cannot say where I was taken other than it was a tall house where a great number of people were gathered within. Most lined the stairs. They were a motley crowd made more merry by the gin. Captain Truegood, still roaring, waved
his stick about, clearing lovebirds from the stairs for each couple seemed very free with one another.

  ‘She’s a bit on the young side,’ said one woman.

  ‘Do you know what you’re about?’ another asked me.

  ‘Let me pass, madam,’ thundered Captain Truegood, who, having hold of my hand, near as dragged me to the first floor and along an ill-lit corridor. Only when we were outside a door did he stop. Fumbling in his pocket, he took out a mask and told me to put it on.

  ‘All you need do is say, “I consent”, nothing more. Do you understand?’

  Not waiting for an answer, my father, swimming in wine, threw open the door and, tripping on the carpet, nearly capsized altogether. He was saved by a minister of the church.

  The chamber we had arrived in was empty but for a minister and a gentleman in a fine wig who appeared to be as drunk, if not more so, than my father.

  ‘You are late, sir,’ said the gentleman.

  He was dressed in a grand style in a brocaded coat. With him was a black spider of man who scuttled to a curtain at the end of the room where he seemed to take instructions and papers from someone before returning to the side of the grand gentleman.

  I knew that I was to be married, but which of these unpleasant-looking men I would have the honour to call husband I couldn’t say. The whole idea of being married was one I had given little thought to, but remembering my father’s words, I said nothing until I couldn’t help but speak. The room was in such darkness that for a moment I wasn’t sure what tricks the light played: for seated behind the minister was a shrivelled-up woman dressed in the dustiest of clothes.

  ‘Who is that?’ I asked.

  The minister turned and seemed shocked to see her there. ‘That,’ he replied unsteadily, ‘is my wife.’

  ‘Then, sir,’ I said, ‘I am afraid she is dead.’

  The remark was greeted with laughter, not from the minister or my father or his pissed acquaintance but from the folds of a curtain. A young gentleman, also wearing a mask, stepped out into the light and stood beside me.

  ‘Of course she’s dead,’ he said, his words slurred. ‘Marriage is murder.’

  Whether or not the minister heard I wasn’t sure, but much to my father’s fury it made me giggle. Everyone was drunk except me and the minister, and I wasn’t sure how sober he was. Surely, I thought, a wedding this soaked in liquor could never be considered binding.

  The minister raised his eyes to the high ceiling as if hoping to find a god to calm him and said, ‘My wife has been shown to me this night. It is a sign to remind the living of the passion to be found in life and the brief amount of light there is before everlasting darkness.’

  ‘On with the thing, sir!’ shouted my father.

  ‘This is no time for ghosts,’ said his brocaded friend.

  The minister, somewhat shaken, went on, though every now and again he glanced uneasily behind him to where his dead wife sat watching.

  The wedding service consisted of nothing more than the young gentleman and myself giving our consents and signing the papers that the black spider eagerly put before us.

  And that was that. I never saw my bridegroom’s face, nor was I informed of his name, nor the purpose of such a hasty marriage. Cook told me the next day that my husband had gone to join the navy and I need think no more about it.

  ‘With luck,’ she said, ‘you will be a respectable widow by the time you’re fifteen.’

  I mention these three events only because by the time the years had chased the child in me away I saw all too clearly how the upturned cart of my life was settled. I was destined to live out my days emptying my father’s chamber pot and serving him his meals. This may well have been my fate, but it was at this very low juncture that the tide changed in my favour.

  Chapter Four

  My father was to remarry.

  When I heard the news that I was to have a stepmother I was completely flummoxed. I could only assume that this lady, whoever she was, must be wealthy and my father had tricked her into believing she was marrying a respectable merchant. There seemed no other explanation for her acceptance of such a foolish proposal.

  By this time, I was sixteen and had by degrees taught myself to read from cookbooks, discarded newspapers and the salacious pamphlets that Captain Truegood regularly purchased. It was in one of the newspapers that I had first come across advertisements by gentlemen for wives and occasionally by women in want of a husband. I made up one I thought my father might have written if he had resorted to writing to the paper in search of a wife. I read it out to Cook and it tickled her fancy no end.

  An Invitation To The Ladies.

  A captain who left the Navy to become a merchant finds himself shipwrecked on dry land with a wet whistle that can never be satisfied. Losses and crosses have reduced his fortune to no more than his wardrobe, a diamond ring, a gold watch and an amber-headed cane. In addition to the above he has a flaxen full-bottom, flea-ridden wig befitting a man of his age and position. I plead to the generous ladies of the cities of London and Westminster: SAVE ME. Letters to be sent to Truegood, Milk Street at Cheapside.

  Cook told me only three days before the wedding that my stepmother-to-be had two daughters of about my age. That went some way to explain her decision to marry. Perhaps she wasn’t wealthy after all and was in search of respectability. Between you and me and a four-poster bed, there was little to nothing to recommend my father.

  On the day of Captain Truegood’s nuptials he, was surprisingly sober and dressed in his flaxen full-bottom wig and his best suit of clothes. He stood in the hall clutching his amber-top cane, tapping it on the barometer and bellowing as if there was a house full of servants, not just Cook and myself.

  ‘Everything is to be shipshape,’ he roared. ‘I am off to be married.’

  No one replied, only the front door groaned as it was closed.

  There was a wonderful peace to our house, as there always was the moment the captain left. I could almost hear the walls let out a sigh and settle back to relish their bricks, bones and plaster conversations. It was at these moments that the house became bearable; the quiet peace of it, the enticing smell of fresh bread wafting from the kitchen. I thought I would have the best part of the morning to enjoy the silence before Captain and the new Mrs Truegood returned.

  ‘Do you think…’ I asked Cook. She had just taken a batch of fresh-baked rolls from the oven and I was putting them on a wire rack to cool. They smelled so good that my mouth watered and I slipped one surreptitiously into my apron.

  ‘I saw that, miss. Now put it back.’

  Reluctantly I did as I was told and she huffed.

  ‘Do you think – ’

  ‘I try hard not to,’ interrupted Cook, stuffing a fowl.

  ‘Do you think that my father will tell my stepmother that she has a stepdaughter?’

  Cook was never a great conversationalist and my question was greeted by a grunt, which I took to mean ‘no’.

  I sighed. I had asked as I was certain that it would come as something of a shock to my father’s new wife for I doubted that he had told her of my existence. The reason, I supposed, was that he had so long persisted in treating me as a servant that he must have felt it to be the truth. Quite why he saw me in this unfavourable light I have never fathomed. I didn’t think for a moment that my stepmother’s discovery that I had sprung from Captain Truegood’s loins would go in my favour.

  ‘Do you think I will be asked to leave?’

  ‘Leave where?’

  ‘Leave here.’

  ‘What? You buffle head, of course not. What would you do?’

  ‘Be my own mistress,’ I said, ‘for I am determined not to be beholden to a man – especially one like Mr Truegood.’

  ‘I have no time to listen to this stuff and nonsense.’ Cook softened. She took one of the rolls and handed it to me. ‘Help yourself to butter then go and see if the canaries are still alive. I’ll call you if I need you. And try to bring some r
eason into that muddled head of yours.’

  All that was left of the grand furnishings in the blue chamber was a four-poster bed. The chamber smelled of oranges and cloves just as it always had done. When I was little I would sit at the table with Cook, my fingers hurting as I pushed cloves into the orange flesh, releasing its puff of perfume. I felt cross at the idea of anyone else occupying this chamber, removing the veil of my mother’s ghost by their presence.

  I opened the shutters and sunlight showed up the shabbiness of all within. It was only in candlelight that the chamber had any pretence to grandeur. I took the cloths off the two cages, pleased to see that the canaries were alive, and put them in front of the window where the birds started to sing, their bright yellow in such contrast to the blue.

  Satisfied that all was as it should be, I resigned myself to the fact that I would no longer be able to come here. I took a last glance at the antechamber. The only piece of furniture there was my mother’s full-length looking glass.

  I decided then that this was perhaps the only opportunity I would have to take stock of my figure. I had read somewhere that an accomplished young lady should be able to play a musical instrument, speak French fluently and dance. I could do none of the above. The writer also said that a good figure and a pretty face could outshine all these achievements.

  My father, in his drunken wisdom, had decided not to waste his money on my education. He strongly believed that knowledge gave women the wrong ideas and made them a nuisance to their husbands. I cannot tell you how much I longed to be in charge of my own destiny. Never again did I want to be beholden to another soul. I had lived sixteen dull summers subjected to the tempestuous seas of my father’s ill-spent fortune and if I was ever allowed to have a life I did not want to be held prisoner by another man’s purse strings. In short, I was determined to earn my own way in this topsy world.

  If there was a time for an honest appraisal of my assets, surely it was now, there being no one else in the house apart from Cook. I undressed and for the first time stood as naked as Eve before the mirror and studied myself in the long glass. I had rounded ivory globes that sat well, but I thought were a little too large for such a trim waist, though they did have pleasing rose petal nipples. I had a flat stomach, and a dark, soft covering of downy fluff hid my Venus mound. As for my shoulders, they were not too bony, more soft as was the fashion of the day. Those at least I thought were passable. My legs I decided were shapely. I had fine ankles and slender wrists, all of which I put down to being in my favour. But my face was the greatest disappointment. I could tell I was not destined to be a beauty. It was long, as was my neck; my nose, alas, seemed snubbed. I had thick eyebrows that met in a bow in the middle and lips too full. My teeth I deemed to be my only asset worth a mention: they were neat and white. I felt the whole composition had been put together in a clumsy, ill-thought-out manner. The portrait was framed by thick, unruly hair of a mouse-coloured hue. The only striking quality about my looks, or so I thought, was the colour of my eyes. They were green and my skin alabaster, which was not due to any design but by the mere fact that I had hardly seen any sunlight since the day I was born.