The Madam at the Establishment (Bawd)

Lyrics

[Intro]
In the parlor of Moorfields, 1670, winter's draft creeps through cracked panes.
Elizabeth Cresswell, active in the 1660s, counts her estate.

[Verse 1]
The ledger book lies open on the oak table,
worn from nights of quill scratches.
Entries in black ink: Lord such-and-such, three guineas owed,
dated December 12, 1673, after the raid.
She, the bawd, proto-businesswoman,
keeps the house of accommodation running,
twenty years and upwards, as she told the court.
Mrs. Quickly, Shakespeare's echo from the Boar's Head,
would recognize this parlor, the velvet curtains heavy with secrets.

[Chorus]
Oh, ledger, you silent partner,
holding the names, the debts, the discreet hours.
In your pages, the economy of desire,
from Moorfields to Clerkenwell, 1680s still.
Elizabeth, with her brass candlestick dripping wax,
lights the way for the sedan chair arrivals at midnight.

[Verse 2]
The iron keys jangle in her apron pocket,
unlocking rooms where spiced ale warms the blood,
mulled with cinnamon in pewter tankards.
Pepys wrote of these houses near the Thames, 1668,
where status met shadow, arranged by her hand.
Not medieval, but Restoration's edge,
she defies the bailiffs, claims her good estate.
The scent of rosewater and tobacco clings,
mixing with coal smoke in the hearth's glow.

[Bridge]
And the girls, nameless in the records,
'wenches' in the Old Bailey transcripts,
their lives tucked in your margins, ledger.
Cresswell trained them, so the satires say,
to turn even theft into profit, 1683 pamphlet whispers.
Mrs. Patterson listens now, intrigued,
by this woman's ledger-logic, centuries old.

[Verse 3]
Feel the woolen shawl's rough weave,
draped over a client's shoulders against the chill.
Hear the coins clink on the table,
the door creak under negotiation's murmur.
Elizabeth Cresswell, her quote in deposition:
I have kept this house, and got by it.
No shame in the quill's steady march.

[Outro]
The ledger closes, but the business hums on,
in Moorfields' midnight, 1670 forever.
Mrs. Quickly nods from the wings.