Chapter Nine
I bid you, Gentlemen, behold
This tale of Grecian woes unfold….
With an apology, the charcoal carrier stepped aside for Sarah to go through the narrow entrance. He even made a credible bow. Odd for someone of his station, she thought. She nodded vaguely and hurried inside.
She waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom, before setting foot on the stairs. The bells were chiming noon, and men of business had broken for dinner. The air of Fleet Street was heavy with the smell of beer and roasting meat. Some of that had followed her though the labyrinth of narrow lanes that led to Grudge Court.
Long before she reached the garret floor, though, the only smell she could distinguish was of unemptied chamber pots.
Her dose had passed off during the walk from Mrs Clapton’s. Her feet were back to murdering her. It would be a while yet—perhaps a long while—before she’d feel the warning trickle of sweat down her back, and the returning agitation of spirits. Until then, it would be no more than the dullness in which the very light of day seemed to come through smoked glass.
But a new thought popped into her head.
“O Jesus!” she moaned. She stopped her long climb and leaned for support against the damp outer wall of the building. At best, her one couplet would need redoing. She’d addressed the gentlemen: what about the ladies? Last time they’d been upset—and it was for less than overlooking their presence—the females in the audience had pelted the stage with menstrual rags.
Could she change “gentlemen” to “gentlefolk?” She could, if she didn’t mind ruining the first line. She thought again.
I bid you, gentle audience….
That tripped along. But where was a rhyme for “audience?” “Ornaments,” perhaps, or “permanence.” She knew it was neither of them.
His Lordship had agreed to get the Prologue into the newspapers. They would advertise it as by “L---d F-----t,” or just by “a Person of Quality.” The next issues would carry a letter of praise from Congreve. Another five guineas, and Dryden himself would put his name to a letter. Fremont wouldn’t allow anything but her best work to go out under his name. Samuel and the cash aside, no female writer—no writer of any sex—could afford to pass up that chance. She’d need to do better that this, and in time for Mrs Juniper not to go into one of her funny turns.
She was one flight short of her father’s lodgings, when a childish voice cut through the fog of her misery.
“Katamathete ta krina tou agrou,” it recited in Greek, though with much uncertainty of the accents, “pos auxanousin. Ou kopiosin oude nethousin.”
The boy stopped, then continued: “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin.”
“Why are you out on the landing, Stephen?” she asked. She hurried forward. She turned the corner to the last flight of stairs, and nearly fell over the other boys who were standing there.
“What the bloody fuck is going on here?” she shouted, her Prologue forgotten.
The boy at the top of the stairs had finished his turn with Polly. Sniggering, breeches still about his ankles, he looked down at Sarah. The boy behind him was already fiddling with his belt. She forced her way up the remaining stairs and pulled the waiting boy aside.
Her soft grunts muffled by the skirt pulled over her face, Polly lay with her stockinged legs apart. With every breath, her vast belly heaved and wobbled like a liver blancmange as it’s carried to table. Sarah bent down and slapped hard on the belly.
“Get off your back, you disgusting whore!” she hissed.
She paid no attention to the whimpered reply, and stood up. The girl got her head uncovered. Her mouth as open as her legs, she struggled to sit up. Once again, it was a failed effort. She rolled sideways, and, with a long farting sound, dribbled mess over the dirty boards.
“You can gather your things together and go.”
Sarah thought. “Don’t expect payment or a reference.”
She stepped back and glared at the boys. Her father might spend the rest of the day flogging their arses raw for this. Or he might not. Given the present state of his legs, he probably wouldn’t. Regardless of the boys, though, this was a fine excuse to be rid of Polly. If she started within the hour, she could be back in her village before nightfall.
Stephen turned his sheet of paper over. “Arketon te hemera he kakia autes,” he finished happily—“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
He put his hand up for Sarah’s attention. “Please, Mrs Goodricke, the Doctor’s busy. He sent us all out here with the maid. She was expressly told to keep us quiet.”
Now sniffing his fingers—just like that drunken chaplain—the sniggering boy nodded his agreement.
Polly did now sit up. “Don’t send me away, Mum! I promise I won’t be with child.”
Sarah paid no attention. Stepping past two other boys who’d drunk themselves too close to passing out to notice she was there, she turned the handle of the door that led to the family lodgings.