Fair Fight (40 page)

I slept in my old bed and found the kind of comfort that is threaded with sorrow. I went often to Mama’s room, just to sit. I had begun to find the dust-sheets soothing, the room turned to soft hillocks like the gardens after a snowfall. Sometimes I lifted the corner of a sheet and looked beneath, at the dresser or the chaise, but all was tidied away – there was no sense of Mama here as a real, breathing person. Besides, the furniture seemed sleeping; I could not help but feel that it would be kinder to let it all rest.

Granville came to visit me, as I should have guessed that he would, bearing tonics and sweetmeats. He did not seem to have wondered for one moment whether I would receive him. Though I had been gone some days, he had entirely lost his piteous air and was affecting a stern expression.

I took his basket. ‘Thank you. Your kindness is very much appreciated. You will understand that I cannot linger; my brother has need of me.’ I turned away, saying, ‘Pull the bell for Fisher and order anything you’d like,’ as though I were mistress of the house.

Granville caught my arm. I stopped, shook my arm as if he were a fly that had landed upon me. He removed his hand, both of us no doubt thinking of that other night, in darkness, in a different house.

‘This cannot continue. When will you come home, Lottie?’

‘I am at home,’ I said.

He did not stop me leaving the room.

Two days later he appeared again, with another basket and the same question.

‘I will not leave Perry,’ I told him, then.

‘What, is he so very ill?’

I looked at my husband. His face was exhausted, this time. His coat was dusty.

‘Come and visit him.’

Perry was sitting quite still before the fire, his chin drooping onto his breast. When Granville entered the library and spoke his name he looked up with a momentary expression of hope in his bloodshot eyes and then, on seeing my husband, dropped his head back down.

‘Old friend,’ Granville went over and took his hand. ‘What ails you?’

Perry, I could see, was readying to weep.

I left them.

When Granville emerged he came to find me. I was sitting in the parlour, embroidering, in dark silks of blue and grey, a scene depicting a country lane at night, where three hooded figures walked, the moon bright above them.

‘May I sit with you a while?’

I inclined my head and rang to have some refreshment brought. Granville sat opposite me. He looked wearier than ever.

‘Your brother does badly,’ he said.

‘I know it.’

‘I understand now why you stay here. But Lottie, you cannot mean to live here for ever. You must come home and be my wife.’

I only looked at him. I did not have any difficulty in meeting his eyes. He looked like a familiar stranger, if such a thing exists. His misery could not touch me. I was utterly indifferent to him.

‘You have the right to force me there,’ I said.

He did not look as though he had the stomach for it.

‘I wish you would come willingly.’

‘I don’t believe that I will ever come willingly.’

‘Never?’

‘I was unhappy in your house.’

‘Tell me how to make you happy, then. Tell me what you wish for.’

‘Do you want me home so badly?’

‘I do. I need my wife beside me.’

‘You have never needed me there, before.’

He sighed. ‘So many things are different now.’

‘I will consider it,’ I said.

‘I can see that you are changed as much as I am.’

‘I am. I am changed and I believe that I am changing still. I will not leave Perry as he is, and alone. I will not leave him to die, Granville.’

‘Curses upon George! If anything happens to your brother he will have it upon his conscience. He had better return soon.’

I thought of Mr Bowden on his plantation in the sunshine while my brother crumbled.

‘He may not,’ I said.

In thinking of the plantation, I realised that poor Mr Webber’s defeat meant that Granville had not taken my mama’s house. I thought of this while Granville sat opposite me, looking as though he feared I would at any moment kick him. I thought of it as I sat in my poor mama’s room, amongst the gentle shapes of her things. I thought of it in the evening, while Perry sobbed in my arms.

‘Where is he, curse him,’ he said, his voice full of tears and the cloth of my gown. ‘I swear, if only I knew when he would return, I could bear it. If only I knew what the devil he was doing.’

I patted his back. He seemed not my brother at all. I imagined him an infant, or perhaps a kind of creature. I thought about hope and what a weight it could be. I could not say that I would ever love Granville, and yet I had allowed him to hope. For my part, I had begun to notice a familiar sensation in those most feminine parts of me and thought that perhaps I was once again carrying my own hopes, though of course it was George Bowden, not Granville, who had planted them there. I could not help thinking,
If I only live in Mama’s house, I am sure my son will come safely
. Here was Perry, soaking my waist with his own agonised hope and I knew well enough how to end his suspense. Was despair preferable to hope? Sometimes, I thought, it must be. He could not, at any rate, go on as he was.

‘I may know where Mr Bowden is,’ I told him. ‘I will tell you all, if you will only sign over to me the house at Queen Square.’

Perry grew very still. ‘You know where George is?’

‘I do. You must sign the townhouse over to me, before I will tell you.’

He sat up and seemed to see me for the first time. He looked upon me with an expression of distaste.

‘Of course. You have never lifted a finger to further my happiness unless it held some benefit for you. You hold me while I grieve, you snake, and all the time you keep George’s blasted secret behind your poison tongue.’

Perry’s lip curled and his nostrils shuddered. He drew himself up in his seat and wiped his eyes upon his sleeve so vigorously that the skin around them flushed pink. He rang the bell, pulling the cord as though he wished to do it an injury, and Fisher appeared.

I stood, my head held very high.

‘Very well,’ I said, ‘I will leave. You need not have Fisher escort me out. And I will tell you where Mr Bowden has gone to. You are cruel to keep that house – you know that you do not want it – but I shall not be cruel, likewise.’

Perry huffed out a scornful laugh and drained his cup of liquor. ‘You have laid out your demands, you she-devil, and I will meet them. You shall have your house, and then you will get gone from this one. Fisher will play the part of witness.’

He slowly pulled himself to a stand, one hand on the back of the chair, and staggered across the room. He fetched the papers out of his desk without even troubling to conceal from me the secret drawer in his cabinet. The documents he slapped down upon the desk-top, and signed them so quickly, and so carelessly, that he spotted his breeches with the ink.

PART NINE

George

22

I
had gone to London to make my fortune, as so many young gentlemen had before me, and I had lost everything. Following Tom Webber’s defeat, I went back to Perry like a condemned man to the gallows. He greeted me sullenly with, ‘So you return, then. Let the bells ring out,’ and he pulled the servants’ bell for more brandy. He did not ask how Webber had fared.

I choked back a biting observation upon finding that he was not dead by his own hand, as promised. I had not the heart to fight him. I felt like taking myself to bed and staying there – I had never been disposed to melancholy before. Instead I took a seat by Perry and joined him in his cups.

Perhaps this will be my life
, I thought.
I will
become like Perry and we will die of drink together, in a puddle of our own mess.

That night we fell asleep in our chairs by the fire. I was woken by Perry’s screams, as the night-fears came upon him.

‘Arthur, no,’ he cried, again and again. His arms waved wildly, blindly, like a man attacked by bees. He did not seem to see me, even when I caught his wrists. Perhaps he thought his dead brother had returned to reclaim his lost inheritance – if I had been Arthur’s ghost I should have been unimpressed by the reputation my younger brother was bringing to the family.

In the morning – or perhaps it was the day after that – I sat down with the books and looked over Perry’s accounts. I recall that my head was swimming with exhaustion and the lingering effects of liquor and depressed spirits. Perry, I could see, was doing well enough financially. We could indeed continue as we were until we drank ourselves into our graves. I would never be more than Perry’s right hand, and perhaps had always been destined to be so, since that day at school, when I put out my fleshly right hand to be joined to him in blood.

These thoughts were so bleak that I determined to crush them in any way that I could contrive. To this end I attempted to persuade Perry to accompany me to the inn in the village, to get out from the air of Aubyn.

‘For what purpose? It is a God-awful hole filled with farmers and bad ale.’

‘For the change! To be somewhere other than here. I grow restless, Perry.’

‘Get you gone, then. I do not seek change. Get you gone, you weak-willed butterfly.’ He would not answer me more.

He would never seek change, but I must. I walked from the room and almost collided with Fisher, bearing two letters upon a tray.

The first of these was a note from Mr Tyne, the estate steward, informing me that in my absence he had taken the liberty of securing the rents from the estate in his own lock-box and would deliver them into my hands whenever I bid him do so. The second was a scrawl from Granville addressed to Perry, letting him know the sad outcome of the contest and inviting him to call when he pleased to collect his prize – the deed to the plantation in the sugar islands.

What man, just then, would not have had thoughts of betrayal? It was as though Old Nick himself had sent me the means to escape.

It is Perry who is weak-willed, not I
, I thought, as Blackbird’s hooves clipped smartly along the lanes toward Granville’s house. In my coat-pocket I carried the heavy purse containing the rents from Perry’s estate. I had strapped a valise to Blackbird’s saddle, containing a few other effects: my blue coat and a clean shirt, a cravat I was fond of and a snuff box I’d had from Perry a long time ago. This last was empty, save for the black dust of some ancient snuff collected in its corners. My own, more oft-used snuff box was in my coat-pocket. I had brought the other as being a reminder of Perry that was small enough to carry.

Granville was not within doors when I called, but the butler directed me to the nearby wood, where I found him walking rather aimlessly with his gun, his face as serious as ever. I took care not to show my surprise at seeing that my old friend’s eyes were ringed with the yellow-grey remains of a hefty pair of shiners. I could only assume that Webber had rebelled against his master, the faithful dog turned savage. Granville greeted me calmly enough and I fell into step beside him.

‘How do you fare, old friend?’ I asked him.

‘Well enough, though I am left the poorer. You have come to collect Perry’s prize, I don’t doubt.’

So he had not heard from Perry. A little of the anxiety about my heart released itself.

‘I have.’

Granville looked older. Defeat had drawn lines across his brow. We returned to the house and he very obligingly gave over the deed to the plantation made out only ‘to the bearer’.

‘Do not you name it,’ I said. ‘I think to sell it on, and Perry is in agreement.’

Granville only nodded and did as I asked. It was a sign of his low spirits that he did not even offer his opinion on the matter.

I rode away from Granville in a kind of numb fever. Emotions flitted across my mind, but I watched them pass through like the audience at a play; none of them landed for more than a moment. The trick, I thought, would be to get myself well away before the guilt descended.

I knew I could not go into my new life alone. I rode, therefore, toward the person I thought most likely to throw her lot in with a rogue. I rode toward Dora.

Upon passing the gatehouse at the bottom of Granville’s drive, however, I spied Mrs Charlotte Dryer. It seemed that fate had placed her in my way. Perhaps I was meant to take Charlotte with me; Charlotte, who had once been a player in that earlier gamble for my freedom.

She would not even think of accompanying me, though I entreated most earnestly. Instead she made me the sweetest goodbye a lady can make to a gentleman, and I had to be satisfied.

I rode away with a churning sea within my breast. I had longed for her and finally had my way. I had given her up for love of Perry, and lost him to his own nature. Now I rode away from both, toward an unknown future. I told myself firmly that I must resolve not to think of the Sinclairs, or their violet eyes, ever again. It was for the best; I would need a hardy maid with me in my new life, not a delicate lady. I would think of Dora, and grand houses on tropical plantations.

The bawdy house was not as inviting as once it had been. The cove on the door was the same as ever but within it seemed dirtier than I recalled, the young ladies more sour. There were only two of them there upon the bench. They looked up at me with that cold interest typical of whores.

‘Where is your mistress?’

I shook the dust of the road from my coat; the floor needed sweeping in any case.

‘Up the stairs,’ one of them said, and then seemed to rally her spirits enough to add, ‘but you don’t want her, sir. She’s just dropped an infant, she’s wide as a barrel.’ Both molls laughed.

I made them no reply but I was disheartened to hear of it. She had been swollen with child when last I saw her, but she had declared with the greatest confidence that she would shake it from her. I could not feel easy about taking a nursing mother aboard ship. Perhaps she would pass more easily as my wife, but to what cost? I would be burdened before I had begun.

Dora had evidently heard my steps approach but she still bid me enter as soon as my knuckles tapped the wood. The Dora I was used to would have made me wait until she had adorned herself with rouge and ribbons. This fact was sadly emphasised when once the door was opened; she was abed, with a babe at her bare breast. Her face was bare of paint and her hair needed reworking. The chamber was as unkempt as the rest of the house. Her expression upon seeing me went swiftly from ill humour to surprise. She had not expected me, that much was clear.

‘Mr George Bowden!’

I stood for a moment, assailed by the greatest doubts. She looked plain and brought down, like a housewife one might see on any street, lining up at the pump. Then I recovered myself. She could be made sweet again, away from this filthy house and the ugly creature at her breast. And I could not go alone. I was not sure I wished to go, if I must be entirely alone.

In the event she proved even easier to persuade than I had hoped. When once I had answered her questions enough she swung herself out of bed.

‘Here’s what I’ve been looking for, Mr George Bowden,’ she said, and called for one of the girls to take the babe from her. She never even asked to bring it. Best of all, she had the acquaintance of a captain due to set sail within days.

I had played all I had in my hand, and come out the victor. This thought beat a tattoo in my breast as the ship gained speed and the high cliffs of the Avon Gorge began to slide by. I stood at the ship’s rail and laughed as we passed the Hot Well, and then the houses of Clifton, shining pale in the sunlight atop the cliffs. I would never walk there again and I did not care a fig. Dora was warm in my arms and as she pressed against me I could feel the edges of the folded deed to the plantation, tucked inside my waistcoat. First Bristol, then the coast of England slipped behind us, and I stood at the rail for hours without tiring, my exultation only matched by the wind. I did not allow myself to think of the Sinclairs. I looked only toward the horizon, beyond which lay my future. We stood at that rail, heedless of the wind’s teeth, until the sky grew dark. Then we went below to the captain’s table and dined as well as one does on a ship just out of port, with the food still fresh and the rum dispensed as liberally as ale.

The elation did not last past that first evening. I awoke the next morning to the sound of Dora breathing heavily upon the bunk below and the guilt sharp as acid in my stomach. The weight of it advanced and retreated all day, in rhythm with the rolling of the waves and the nausea. I had never liked to feel confined, and a ship is one of the most limited places one can be. I felt trapped by the sea, and by Dora, and by my own actions. Now that I could not go back I was not sure, after all, that I wished to go forward. It was a miserable sensation.

I had never been so long in Dora’s company before. She could not stop talking about what a lady she would be. This soon became tiresome; I grew short with her and she grew sulkish. We were each of us only appeased when I desired her again and made her sweet by promising that she should have whatever she wished when we reached port. Then she would relent and remind me why I had brought her there to begin. When once I had done, however, she would begin again upon her imaginings of laces and jewels, and I would feel my irritation come stealing over me like a tremor.

Dora delighted in thinking of Granville’s wrath upon discovering us gone, and the trick I had played upon him. She liked to have me fetch out the deed, so that she might cackle over it anew. I cursed myself for telling her of it; I despised her for her glee and myself for bringing it about. The taste of betrayal rose higher into my throat with every peal of her laughter.

For my part, I had begun to feel anxious at the thought of Granville’s discovering us gone. Would he let us go? Would he remember the name of the island we sailed for, although he had always forgotten it before? Perry, I thought, would surely not stir from the bottle to chase me. Granville, I was less sure of. The plantation could not be called his, any longer. That I had stolen from Perry. But Dora – would Granville throw her off, or set out to bring us back? I could not help but wonder if my plan for escape had not, after all, been ill thought out.

I sought distraction and found that many of the sailors were pleased enough to game with me. By the second day I had several men already in my debt. I should have to wait, however, until the voyage ended and they received wages.

We dined again with the captain. I had known, of course, that Dora had his acquaintance from her time at the bawdy house, but I began to feel, as I sat in their company, that they were too well acquainted for my comfort. There were looks passed between them and an edge to their laughter. The captain told tales of his encounters with pirates and press gangs, which, by the way he looked hard at me, I thought were meant to frighten. Dora was amused by everything he said, and poured the rum into my cup as insistently as Perry once had. I retired to bed much fuddled with drink, and hardly sure whether the ship dipped and swayed or it was I who was unsteady.

On the third evening at sea I could not find Dora. It was the most infuriating thing – there were after all not many places to go, aboard ship. My urge to hunt her out made me feel as though I were become Perry, when he would call my name anxiously if I so much as stepped into the next room.

I did not say anything of Dora’s absence to the captain at supper, and neither did he mention it to me. We sat opposite her empty chair and did not refer to it once. I could not have said why he kept silent, but for my own part, I had already grown to dislike him so much that I could not bring myself to admit that I could not say where the woman I was calling my wife might have hidden herself. The captain looked at me over the rim of the cup with an expression I thought might be mocking.

I spoke to him as pleasantly as I could. I had no other option; I was trapped until we made land on the Cape coast, in five or six weeks’ time. Then, of course, we would have another eight weeks at sea, before we reached the sugar islands. The journey ahead seemed a long one indeed. I had to hope that I could earn the captain’s respect, or at the very least his forbearance, in order to make the time tolerable.

At length he suggested that we go up on deck and smoke under the stars, as the night was a still one.

‘You’ll not see a finer sight than the ocean in darkness, with the moon sparkling the waves,’ he said.

‘I shall be delighted to see it,’ I said. ‘Lead on.’

I found that I had to hold onto the wall as we went.

As soon as we ascended to the deck I saw Dora, huddled in a cloak, watching the sea. The night was not as still as I had thought it, and the ship rolled in great, lazy swells that made walking gracefully an impossibility. I excused myself from the captain and went to her as nicely as I could. She came toward me and I grasped her by the arm.

‘Where have you been? I have been looking for you an age.’