Of Candied Sugar
Candies are different sugar works which are served to garnish dessert fancies; they are of many different kinds, made with any sort of fruit, though all are made much alike.
This is the age of deception, of wigs, paints and patches, where all that nature has generously given mankind is no more than a base canvas in need of enhancement. Most of us hide behind the painted visage, very few are seen for who we really are. This, sir, is my naked account. I stand before you as I am. Have a little more patience, for you are about to make your entrance on this stage to play a greater part than ever I would have supposed. I will try not to trip over myself in my haste to give you your overture, for first I must set the scene. You met me when the curtain had already risen and the show begun. You never knew what went on backstage to make it appear seamless, even magical. Let me tell you of my transformation; it was not as simple as it appeared.
I had imagined that Mercy would share my bed again now that we were once more under the same roof. Every night I waited, she didn’t come and I didn’t understand why not. She wasn’t unkind, never said she no longer wanted me, but there was an aloofness about her that hadn’t been there when we were in Milk Street.
‘Will I see you tonight?’ I asked her on one occasion.
‘No, I am otherwise engaged,’ she said, and kissed me.
In her wig and her fine suit of clothes, she looked the perfect young dandy. I longed for it to be as it once had been between us. Her distance upset me more than I had words to say. I felt my position at the fairy house was no more secure than a child’s loose tooth hanging in her gum. This was a whole new world to me and if I was flummoxed by Mercy then I was even more confused as to where I stood in relation to Queenie. As a stepmother she had been kind and solicitous in her care of me but here in the fairy house she, like Mercy, was preoccupied. I thought I knew the reason for the change in Queenie, if not in Mercy. It was on account of the appearance of Pretty Poppet.
I asked her who Mr Quibble was, and if it was he who had spent all that money on my lessons.
‘Tully,’ said Queenie, ‘I paid for your lessons. As for Mr Quibble, when he came to see me about you, I understood he was acting on behalf of a suitor. If I’m honest, I distrusted him. But that is all over and done with and best forgotten.’
To my surprise it was Mr Crease who was the kindest to me in those early days. He gave me time for my spirit, as he called it, to settle into the fairy house before we started to work together.
I had been there less than two weeks when Queenie surprised me with a small dinner party held in my honour. It took place in her private chamber, which she called the rookery. The rookery was painted midnight blue with tiny gold stars thrown all over it. The furniture too was gilded and the effect of the decor was to make you feel that you were inside a jewellery box. Tonight the room was glowing with the honey gold light of a hundred beeswax candles.
Hope’s skin was dusted white, her cheeks blushed rose, her gown cut so low that the tops or her nipples showed. Her hair was set high, her ringlets decorated with flowers, and I could well see why a man might lose a fortune to spend one night with her.
Mercy wore a banyan embroidered with artichokes, red high-heeled shoes and a cap hiding her hair. Of the three of them, Queenie was the most sober in a sack back gown and a lace cap upon her head. Champagne was served to us in tall, fluted glasses then, when we were all seated, Queenie gave a little speech.
‘Tonight each of us will tell you, Tully, a story of our own choosing. Each in its way will tell you more about us. All I ask is that you don’t judge us too harshly for no one is born a whore; circumstances more often than design cause us to trip and fall on an unseen step.’
Soup was served in the best china and I, loving a story, could have happily dined on words alone.
Hope went first:
‘I was raised by my aunt and uncle who ran a haberdasher’s shop in Bath. My aunt, a follower of Wesley, with a cruel misunderstanding of the Bible, never forgave me for being pretty. According to her Bible, vanity belonged to the devil and all artificial enhancement was an abomination that led man from the path of righteousness. This sentiment was strange indeed when all my uncle’s customers were courtesans, harlots and whores who spent liberally of their money, thinking nothing of ordering ribbons and lace bows by the box. It was due to their extravagance that the business flourished.
‘For my part I worked and slept in the shop. My education came from studying those fine ladies and their fashions. The more I watched the more determined I was to become like them for they had a freedom that virtuous wives could rarely claim.
‘By sixteen I longed to be rid of those hypocrites my aunt and uncle and be my own mistress. The opportunity presented itself when I was noticed by a Mrs Gaye, who had come from London to spend the summer in Bath.
‘Suffice to say that Mrs Gaye as good as bought me from my aunt and uncle to be her companion, or so she told them. She told me that if I was compliant she would take me to her bawdy house in London where, she insisted, I could make a small fortune for I had been blessed with a face and a figure to flatter it. She spent a fair sum of money in having me dressed and showing me off at the assembly rooms. It was there that I caught the eyes of two very handsome young gentlemen who were only a little older than me, and I much enjoyed their compliments.
‘Mrs Gaye could not have been more pleased, and that night she informed me that the two brothers, both lords, and a year apart in age, had each of them taken a fancy to me, but only one could have the honour of claiming my maidenhead. Being true gentlemen they said I was to choose and, far from feeling flustered, I felt nothing but excitement at the thought of earning my ticket out of that wretched town.
‘The following day we went to their house and were shown into a most elegant drawing room. In the past I had only visited such a house as this to deliver parcels, and there was I being served tea by a footman in white gloves. We waited until a servant came to say his lordships wished to speak to Mrs Gaye and I was left on my own although I could make out voices from the adjoining room.
‘When Mrs Gaye returned she told me how the game was to be played. She said it was unusual, but as long as I had no scruples she felt the thing would turn out very well. For the first time I felt genuine anxiety. I could not imagine what she meant. Before I had a chance to ask a bell sounded and the interconnecting doors were pulled back to reveal a black velvet drape that screened the room beyond.
‘I looked to Mrs Gaye, she smiled and assured me that I would find everything to my liking. Then, taking off my kerchief so that my bosom was more on show, said, “Never has a fair maiden been more blessed for the purpose of the day.”
‘Still there was no sign of the brothers. The servant closed the shutters and the room fell into darkness. Candles were lit and only when the servant had left did I see at my eye level two round holes in the velvet drapes. I really had no idea what to expect when through the holes appeared the most perfectly formed male appendages. Just the sight of them excited me beyond anything I could have imagined, both round tipped and pink with a pleasing thickness to them. I thought they looked quite edible.
‘“What do I do now?” I asked Mrs Gaye, and she, never short of imagination, whispered into my ear then left. In that time the two appendages had become disappointingly limp. I touched the tips of both and was pleasantly surprised at how soft they were, and found that once touched they both immediately resumed the upright position. I could not make my choice and said so. There came no answer and, feeling that these two maypoles were mine to play with, I kissed both. Then feeling a little braver I did as Mrs Gaye had instructed and took the tip of one into my mouth. I was delighted by the taste and the extraordinary sensation that it sent through my body. The other one fell a little, sensing that I hadn’t chosen him. Sad to see such a fine maypole lopsided, I kissed its soft tip, licking the dew that lay on its surface, and, finding it not at all unpleasing, my tongue licked it again. There was a groan from behind the curtain and I jumped backwards. I had completely forgotten that these two marvellous pieces of machinery belonged to anyone.
‘The servant reappeared and, as if it was nothing more than tea being served, announced that the choice was made. He took me upstairs to a bedchamber and the elder brother entered, wearing a long dressing gown. It flapped open and I recognised him by his maypole which sat among a glorious bushy mound of dark hair. He came to me, kissed me and slowly, taking great delight, he undressed me until I stood as nature intended, an Eve to his Adam. He led me to the bed and there lay beside me, stroking and kissing every part of me until I was as much on fire as he was and all the while the maypole waited to be danced around. I touched it and tenderly he asked if I would kiss it once more. I did and my hand instinctively found its way to the two globes that rested at the root of him. I was now kneeling, my backside bare and upright. I became aware that someone else was on the bed, his fingers finding the spot that I had made only recent discovery of, now caressing it and opening me up.
‘He held on to my hips and guided his sweet weapon up into the folds of my purse and, successfully finding the passage, slowly pushed the tip of his engine deeper into me. My mouth was still round the elder brother’s maypole, my tongue performing a minuet on his tip, and so it was we all three were lost in transportations of pleasure until we found exquisite release. And I had found my release from Bath.
‘I never went to Mrs Gaye’s bawdy house. She had performed her role. A month later, being the mistress of two of the most delightful and eligible dandies, I was taken to London, set up in a house with servants and given the heady sum of one hundred and fifty pounds a year. I can truly say that for two years never had a woman been more satisfied in bed or better exercised in the arts of Venus than I was.’
The soup plates were cleared at the end of Hope’s story and all questions barred.
‘This, Tully,’ she said, ‘is just an hors d’oeuvre.’