10 January 1782
The drums rolled like thunder, interrupting the dance of the dryads. The girls froze, hands cupped to their ears in a variety of poses, amidst a glade of wooden trees with paper leaves. Artfully positioned silk garlands adorned the otherwise naked nymphs, their hair crowned with artificial flowers.
Pamela watched from the wings, heart beating, a little breathless. It was her sixth night in Mrs Havilland’s establishment, and already she knew the acts by heart. The brightly lit stage occupied one end of the ballroom. Beyond it, in the darkness, Pamela could see the glow of the gentlemen’s pipes, the flash of their pocket watches. Smell their scent.
From between the trees, a girl in a goatskin strolled, holding a bow, a quiver of arrows on her back. Cecily was a little older than Pamela, from a village to the east of London called Dagenham. Her hair was yellow as quince, her limbs long, dusted with gold. The nymphs ran to flank her, crouching on either side.
Next to Pamela in the wings stood George, a former town crier. ‘Behold the goddess Artemis,’ he bellowed.
Cecily made a show of bending to pluck a silk flower, giving the men a view that set them cheering. She aimed her bow at several members of the audience in turn, and they cried ribald compliments.
When the cheering died, Mrs Havilland walked onto the stage. Regally tall in rich purple silk, with petticoats of yellow crêpe trimmed with fine black lace, her piled hair was adorned tonight with a golden chain of enamelled flowers.
‘Gentlemen, I ask that you pay homage to Artemis, huntress of the forest.’ She waited again until the applause had quietened. ‘Many have attempted to storm Fortress Artemis, yet she stands before you inviolate, untouched by man. In three weeks’ time, we shall discover whether there is a stag among you worthy of this skittish fawn.’
Cecily ducked into a defensive crouch, her expression startled, bow ready. An appreciative chuckle arose from the audience.
George gave Pamela a nudge. ‘Ready?’
Oh, she was ready. Not that her costume had required much preparation. Her face scrubbed so her skin shone, cheeks pinched to a healthy glow. Her dress thin, made of brown cotton, not unlike the one she’d worn on her arrival. Bare feet. Her ebony hair unwashed and tangled.
On the first night, she’d thought she’d be a laughing stock. She looked like a drudge. Why couldn’t she be the goddess Artemis? She’d complained to Mrs Havilland and received a sharp response. Yet at the end of her performance, much to her astonishment, the ballroom had resounded to the gentlemen’s cheers.
Even Mrs Havilland had softened: ‘You made a good start, child, but there is room for improvement. Put in the work required, and by the end of next month, they’ll be queuing all the way to Ealing Common.’
Since then, she had only got better. Pamela stood back as Cecily hurried past her, off to the audience room, a swift pat for luck. The curtain had come down, and the orchestra played a rousing refrain. On stage, Mrs Havilland’s footmen were hastily rearranging the tableaux. A stove, an oaken table, a chopping board, a chair. The floor sprinkled with flour and vegetable peelings. In need of a maid.
The curtain rose and the room filled with an expectant hush.
‘Behold,’ George bellowed, ‘the maidservant, Pamela Andrews. Her beauty matched only by her virtue.’
She stepped out onto the stage, and applause swelled like a choir. Taking up her broom, she swept the floor, while the fiddler played a jaunty tune and the men clapped along. The oddness of it all still tickled her. To leave the house in Cheapside to perform a facsimile of her chores here for a paying crowd? Yet she’d never been appreciated at the house in Cheapside like this.
George gave a signal in the wings, and she walked to the table. The music took on an ominous note.
‘Behold, the rakish squire, Mr B.’
The ballroom echoed with hoots and hisses. Peter Jakes would be creeping towards her from behind, wearing an oversized periwig and a suit of maroon velvet, a pillow strung under his coat to plump him out. Pamela chopped a carrot as the hoots increased in volume.
He was directly behind her now. Pamela could smell onion and porter on his breath. She tensed as he seized hold of her, pressing his lips against hers, sliding his tongue into her mouth, though she’d told him not to. Her arms flailed, and she pricked him with the knife, a little harder than she was supposed to. He released her with a shout, and she staggered to the front of the stage.
For a moment her mind went blank, though she’d sat up late learning her lines. Relief washed over her as it all flooded back.
‘Sir, you are Lucifer himself in the shape of my master, or you could not use me thus.’
Jakes gripped her by the arm, digging in his fingers so it would bruise. ‘Since you take me for the Devil, how can you expect any good from me?’
She hung her head. ‘I will bear anything you can inflict on me with patience even to the laying down of my life. But I cannot be patient, I cannot be passive, when my virtue is at stake!’
Applause, the loudest she’d had yet. Jakes grimaced and seized hold of her dress with both hands. The bodice had a false seam secured with pins, and the garment rent in artful tatters, exposing her bubbies.
A collective intake of breath. A cymbal crashed. Then she pulled her dress together, so they’d have no more than that one tantalizing glimpse. Gazing out at the gentlemen from beneath her eyelashes, summoning a tear, she made her appeal: ‘I am truly sorry for my boldness, but indeed he doesn’t use me like a gentleman. I trust that God will deliver me from this Philistine.’
Stamping their feet, the room vibrated to the sound of their acclaim. She basked in their desire, holding the gaze of the gentlemen who looked the richest, as Cecily had taught her. Then she caught sight of another man, and though he had few outward signs of wealth, found she could not look away.
His scarlet redcoat marked him out as a soldier. She knew about them, but this one couldn’t be more different to the coarse infantrymen on leave she’d encountered around Cheapside. Sleek. Well groomed. An officer. A gentleman.
He grinned at her, a flash of white teeth. His blond hair cropped short, in the new style she rather liked. A long lean body and a long lean face to match. What looked like a duelling scar cut through the outer edge of one of his eyebrows. A handsome devil, and he knows it. It was a favourite phrase of Rachel the cook’s. She said it like it was a bad thing, and yet somehow him knowing, and Pamela knowing that he knew, only made her pulse beat a little faster.
Mrs Havilland walked on stage to list her virtues, and Pamela’s task was to stand mutely, gazing at the floor. But she couldn’t resist another glance at the soldier, and this time when he grinned, she smiled back. As she walked meekly off the stage, to another round of heady applause, she sent up a prayer to Artemis, goddess of virgins: Let it be him.