“Egad, my dear Perdita, you cannot expect us to be the man’s nursemaid!” exclaimed the prince.
“But perhaps we can see to it that Ban does not drag you into the poorhouse with him,” soothed Fox.
The very thought of seeing the inside of a debtors’ prison once again chilled me to the marrow. It formed the chief subject of my nightmares, the reason I often slept so fitfully, even after the most satisfying lovemaking I had ever enjoyed.
Our wellborn friends were incapable of seeing Ban’s deepest vice as anything greater than mere folly. Certain they would win me over, a few days later Fox proposed that the seven hundred pounds in gambling stakes they won at Brooks be used to buy me a new equipage. The exterior of the shiny brown carriage was ornamented with colorful mosaics, while the silk upholstery, elegantly trimmed with pink and silver lace, was the color of fresh straw. Caricaturists had a romp depicting me driving my lover in the shiny vis-à-vis, captioned as “The Fools of Passion” or “Love’s Last Stake.”
But those who joked at my expense that I was dashing hither and yon in my new carriage begotten through winnings at the faro tables were penning fictions. I was too ill to take the air for very long.
Lord Cornwallis, no ally of mine, either, wrote to Ban’s father, Thomas, in Liverpool that on his word of honor, their wayward son would decamp for the Continent—France or Germany, if Jane Tarleton had her way—and reform himself, if the family should agree to cover Ban’s debts.
But the Tarletons’ position was that Ban’s family and friends had already helped him enough, and it was impossible for them to do any more for him; Thomas Tarleton’s edict was that Ban would just have to live on his pay. No alternative was acceptable.
The matter continued with no satisfactory resolution in sight. Careless as always with his papers, Ban left a letter lying atop a stack of duns. Dated June 29, 1783, his mother had written:
Your obligations must be met in full before you embark for the Continent. I know you believe your debts of honor—those incurred through wagering—are to be paid first or your character will be ruined forever, but as your mother, I would counsel you to first settle all of your outstanding balances owed to the trade—the sums due and owing for lodging, expenses for clothing and other habilements, food, &c. In any event, your father and I remain adamant that all of your fiduciary responsibilities must be completely discharged before you quit England. It is of little use to style yourself as Lt. Col. Tarleton abroad, if the smart military cachet you wish to maximize is lessened by your reputation as a debtor.
Speaking as your mother, I think it would be in your best interests to raise the thousand and distribute it equally amongst all of your creditors. However, Lord Cornwallis has impressed upon me the importance of seeing to it that your debts of honor are settled in full. This, with heavy heart will I do, so long as I bear no responsibility for the remainder of your debts. It is my understanding that these debts of honor you have amassed currently amount to approximately £1000. Although your father and I are well situated, this is a vast sum of money to acquire at once. I require six months’ notice to call in my money from interest for the 1000.
I must also add before I conclude this letter that it will give me real pleasure and satisfaction to hear that your connexion with Mrs. Robinson is at an end; without that necessary step, I refuse to secure the means of releasing you from your financial obligations and all my endeavors to save you from impending destruction will be ineffectual.
Your loving mother,
Jane Tarleton
Enraged, I confronted my lover. My knees wobbly with fear, my heart overflowing with trepidation, I said, “Do you not know how it makes me feel to read that your pecuniary salvation is predicated upon your severing our relations? Imagining you in India has filled my every atom with dread, depicting you on the Continent barely less terrifying. But to think that you would sell me for the means to pay your debts—for thirty tainted pieces of silver—!” I flung myself into his arms. “If you do not abandon me, she will not raise the funds you require to discharge your obligations.”
Ban nestled me in his embrace and covered me with a thousand kisses, one for each pound he owed to Weltje and Drummond. “I cannot leave you,” he swore. “You are as much a part of me as—” He glanced at his own hand, but unfortunately it was the mangled one.
“That is just what I fear,” I sobbed. “And it wounds me to the core to know that your mother, who has never even met me, imagines me a gorgon, a Circe, who has ensnared her son and enticed him into depravity and degradation. If she only knew it was domesticity that I have yearned for by your side!”
From dusk to dawn Ban vowed never to desert me; he would flout his family and find other channels through which to satisfy his creditors.
True to his word, he somehow convinced Cornwallis to sign the seven-hundred-pound bond to Weltje. I suppose his lordship feared that Weltje, as a long-standing confidant of the Prince of Wales, would destroy Tarleton’s reputation with His Royal Highness if my lover were to welch on his debt.
“Let me gratify my mother in one respect,” Ban begged me. “I will decamp to the Continent—but you must come with me. She need never know.” He must love me, I reasoned, for he had not replied to a single one of his mother’s letters in which she urged him to abjure me.
“I fear I am too unwell to leave the country,” I told Ban. “Such
