Fair Fight (9 page)

‘Then, do you bring him so that I will not ask you to share mine? Are you grown changed?’ I could see my friend bracing himself against my answer, even while his fingers plucked at my sleeve.

I leant toward him just a little.

‘If we were not watched now, I would kiss all this lunacy from you,’ I said.

We rarely spoke so explicitly. His fingers stilled upon my arm; his eyes grew soft.

‘I swear on your eyes, George, I only ever want you willingly.’

‘I will give you my eyes, if you want them,’ I said, to make him smile, ‘and you can wear them on a chain, like a watch. I give you my word, Perry, I brought him because I thought you would find him a merry companion. He is more of a rogue than he appears. We have the wildest larks when we escape school. I only wish you could be there.’

For a moment Perry struggled visibly with the notion of Granville and I having wild larks without him. Then he conquered himself.

‘Well then, let us escape the house and see what amusement there is to be found,’ he said.

We set out and simply strolled about, looking at everything there was to see; the quays thick with the masts of ships, the loads being pulled on sledges by sweating men, the women with trays of goods upon their heads, calling out their wares. We were all of us giddy with liberation.

I was eager for Granville to show his roguish side and was not long disappointed. We had taken a pint of ale and a pie in a chop house and were filling our pipes. Granville excused himself and stood. Perry and I watched, bemused, as he stepped over to a crowd of rough sailors gathered about one of the long tables. We could not hear what was said, but we saw Granville’s stiff bow and the surprise upon the faces of the coves he spoke to. Their expressions quickly turned to amusement, however, and one fellow, a dark-skinned cove in a captain’s hat, slapped Granville’s thin back hard enough that he bent under the blow. He came back to Perry and me as straight-faced as ever he was, but there was a gleam in his eye.

‘What do you think of this? That old captain has given me the direction to an easy house, where he says we might expect a fine welcome.’

We had never done more than visit the strollers of the docks, never had them do more than lay hands upon us. I cried out my agreement and turned to Perry. He nodded and smiled, but when the conversation turned and we began the business of finishing up our pipes I thought he looked a little sickly. I realised then that Perry might never have had a hand upon him but mine and his own. I smiled as fondly as though I were his elder, not a boy almost as green as he was.

The house was on Pipe Lane, not far from The Hatchet, where Granville so enjoyed the sawdust. It was a narrow, shabby-looking place, with a great brute standing at its door. Granville ascended the step quite as if he meant to walk past the cove without a word; he found his way blocked by an arm as big around as my waist.

‘Ho, sir,’ Granville said, ‘is this not an open house?’

The brute considered this. At last he said, ‘At this hour of the day it ain’t. And ’specially not to squeakers like you.’

‘Is my money not as good as the next man’s?’

‘It is if you have it,’ the brute replied.

Granville slapped his pocket so that the purse clinked.

‘Well, sir?’ he said.

‘That don’t change the hour, now, does it? All that does is show where I’m to reach to lift your purse.’ The brute laughed and, I must admit, Perry and I could not help but smile.

Granville was not at all perturbed.

‘If you would be so good,’ he said, ‘as to enquire whether the ladies should like an early visitor? If the answer is in the negative we will disturb you no longer.’

‘You ain’t got it in you to disturb me,’ the brute said, but he tired of his teasing and did then leave his post and disappear inside. We heard the scraping of bolts within as he secured the door. An inordinately long time passed, or so it seemed to me.

At length the bolts slid back and the brute appeared.

‘There’s three of the misses will see you, for a little extra coin.’

In the event there were four mollies waiting inside, in the company of an old bawd with the skewed and lumpen countenance that suggests that curse of Venus, the dread syphilis. The girls were handsome and looked clean enough – especially standing as they were beside that old crone – but one in particular I thought exceptional. She was not neat in her figure; her bosom spilled from her corset, her skirts swung about as she walked forward to greet us. Her face, too, was spilling over; full lips, heavy eyelids, rounded cheeks painted up high. What gripped me, however, was the look in her eyes – never had I seen such a lewd and worldly expression in a face so young. She was an angel, fallen as low as an angel could fall. She was beauty, made dirt. I was seized with an ache upon the sight of her. Granville’s face grew still in a peculiarly rapt expression I could feel mirrored in some measure upon my own countenance. Perry, by contrast, looked only frightened.

‘I will have this girl for company,’ Granville told the old bawd.

‘And I,’ I said. ‘I will wait my turn and visit her likewise.’

The young whore shot me a hot glance when I spoke.

‘George,’ Granville had something like passion in his voice, ‘I should prefer you to take another. I must have this one to myself.’

‘Must you?’ the bawd said then. ‘How long shall you want her? Dora don’t come cheap, young sir, but she’s worth twice what I’ll charge you nonetheless. You’ve never in your dreams been pleased like it.’

I thought to protest; he was being absurd. Granville, however, was emptying his pockets.

‘That’ll not buy you more than ten minutes, lad,’ the bawd said.

‘Make it ten minutes longer and I shall put the coins into your hand this moment,’ Granville said.

‘You’ll do that whatever I say,’ the bawd replied. ‘You’re hot as Old Nick himself. But you’ll have your extra ten minutes, just for the brazen cheek of you.’

‘Thank you, good woman,’ Granville poured his pennies into her palm. He took my hand and pressed it.

‘George,’ he said, ‘take another one. I beg you, oblige me.’

I thought him ridiculous but the negro girl had by then caught my eye and was winking and smiling. I was beginning to feel nervous and thought she looked kind enough to guide me through the deed. Perry’s hand was seized by a busty, freckled creature and although he looked back at me, wide-eyed, he let her lead him. Anxious as I felt, it was nonetheless amusing to see his hesitating ascent behind her upon the stairs.

Afterward I was puffed up with pride, despite the event being less momentous than I had hoped. I came downstairs to find Perry waiting in the hall with the blackest look upon his face. He would not answer my enquiries as to his experience, nor what was the matter. I was forced to stand there, my thighs aching, with Perry burning with silent fury beside me.

Girls began to appear from the recesses of the house and came to take their seats on the bench in the hall.

Seeing us, they called out, ‘You’re young enough to go again, lads. I’ll show you what my sister there couldn’t.’

‘Hie, Sally, what d’you do to the boy? He’s sour as a crab.’

‘Did she bite you, dearheart?’ one said, coming toward Perry. ‘You’d do better with me, look,’ and she held back her lips to show the pink gums laid bare of teeth.

Perry muttered, ‘In a moment I shall strike them.’

‘You do that, dearheart,’ the toothless whore said, returning to her seat, ‘and Sam, on the door there, will have your mouth the match of mine.’

Granville took an age to reappear. When he did, he was so pleased with himself as to scarcely notice the strained mood.

‘Now we will go to The Hatchet,’ he said, as though he were expedition leader, ‘and finally see a prize-fight.’

‘I do not care for prize-fights,’ said Perry, who had never seen one.

‘You will care for the rum,’ I said.

My friend ignored me, but his face lost some of its sullenness and he followed behind us like a lamb.

That night was more pleasurable for my companions than it was for me. Perry pronounced the rum as fine as any he had ever tasted, though it was likely the cheapest that the innkeeper thought he could get away with selling. Perry addressed this observation exclusively to Granville and he kept up the game all the evening. He would not reply to any of my own remarks. When I put my hand upon his arm to lead him out to the yard and the boxing ring, he removed his arm from my touch and said,

‘You stink of bitch.’

He followed Granville out, without looking to see if I would follow.

When once the bout began, Perry cried out at each hit as enthusiastically as did Granville, and when our man won he slung his arm around Granville’s neck. I had placed my shilling upon the same cove, but Perry said not a word to me. My winnings were little compensation.

Granville affected not to notice Perry’s coldness toward me, but I could see his pleasure at being made favourite. For my part, I had never known jealousy like it – I thought I might at any moment cast up my supper. I had never been anything but the first object of Perry’s heart. I was so low over it that I was afforded only the meanest kind of satisfaction to see Granville trying to carry Perry’s weight about his shoulders as the bigger boy grew progressively more soused. We stayed so late – I, most reluctantly – that we had to hire a linkboy to walk ahead of us with a light, so that we should not be robbed by footpads. We made slow progress, Perry wanting to stop at every chop house and having to be coaxed onward by Granville, bent almost double under his arm. They veered wildly across the roads, for Granville was not strong enough to counter Perry’s floundering progress. I walked behind them, cursing them for their slowness but too bloody-minded to assist.

I was angry and drunk enough when I finally got into bed that I almost wept, but then the spinning of the chamber took my attention and I fell into a sickly slumber.

I woke to find Perry climbing in beside me and laying his head on my chest. I was relieved, but so sick from the liquor that just the movement of him was enough to send my stomach pitching. I wrapped my arms about him as though he was a life-raft upon the ocean of my nausea, and at last we slept again.

That was my last year of schooling. The next year, for want of any better idea, I took a place at Oxford, studying law, which did not suit me. I wished, rather, to find a young lady of fortune and make her my wife, so that I need not be a lawyer at all. My motivations were not entirely mercenary. I hoped for love, as all young men do, but I did not mean to lose sight of the practicalities. I had a devil of a time. I was invited to dinners and parties by families acquainted with my own, but if ever I seemed to be forging a particular friendship with a young lady I found the invitations died away like autumn leaves. I had not solidified my prospects; those watchful mothers had grander ideas than a fourth son, not yet finished with his studies.

My own mother spared barely a thought for me, now that my eldest brother, John, was to be married. She talked endlessly of the wedding and the couple’s future happiness.

Well might they be happy
, I thought,
with an estate to inherit
.

I was sure that my mother could have assisted me in finding a suitable bride, had she cared to.

When, on a visit home, I raised the subject, she said only, ‘Study hard, George, and see that you become an asset to a marriage, rather than an encumbrance.’

My brother, Charles, having overheard, took the first opportunity to whisper to me, ‘Do you look to marry, George? Would you give up your games of backgammon with Perry Sinclair?’

I affected not to know what he meant, but I was made uncomfortable by it. Charles had the acquaintance of many of my old school fellows and it was not the first such comment to drop from his lips.

When Perry’s letter arrived at my Oxford lodgings, bearing the sad news of the loss of his parents, I barely vacillated. The morning saw me with my trunk lashed to the roof of the mail coach, on my way to my friend’s side, my studies abandoned. I had learnt all I thought likely and I knew I should not make a good lawyer – I hoped instead to be a good friend. Let my brother whisper what he would, I knew where I belonged.

In a strange stroke of fate it had been Granville who had seen my friend saved. Yet again Perry had been in Bristol, this time visiting Granville, when sickness found the Hall. Miss Sinclair, I understood, had been left to nurse her parents and see them laid to rest, with only the company of those servants too loyal to flee; it made an unsettling picture. During the first weeks I spent at the Hall, Miss Sinclair kept to her chamber and was said to be too grieved to receive company.

Perry felt the loss of his parents keenly. I had always known him to be passionate; my friend loved with a fierceness that I rarely felt burn in my own breast. Now he plunged into darkness and drank rum as though it were wine. His eyes acquired a deep sadness that looked incongruous in his youthful face. He took no interest in the affairs of the great Sinclair estate, now left entirely in his hands. It was curious to be in that great house and know Perry to have sole charge of it; I kept expecting to meet Mr Sinclair around every corner. No one would ever again tell my friend what he might or might not do, and while I lived under his roof the same freedom was mine. What little discipline I had learnt was free to fall away entirely, and if I was to have reason to mourn the loss of it, well, that would come later.

5

U
pon my honour, Perry’s pain was my own; yet I envied him. In my darker moments, I felt that I should have made no ceremony of forcing my father and all three of my brothers over a cliff-edge, to be in Perry’s place, with a fortune of my own and a grand, ancient Hall to govern. I tried to conceal my envy; I was ashamed, indeed, to carry such ugly sentiments, and spent many hours attempting to lift him from his melancholy, with good wine, gaming and jest.

When at last Miss Sinclair began to venture into our company I thought her pleased to have me there. She was as melancholy as could be expected; she barely spoke, and when she did, seemed often at a loss for words. Like her brother, she was blessed with fair hair and even features; even pox-marked as she was, she would have been handsome, had not her eyes grown so dull. Even before her bereavement she had never been much in society and had not learnt the art of pleasant conversation as most young ladies did. Mrs Sinclair, God rest her soul, had kept the young Miss Sinclair rather too close, through grief at losing her other children.

The months passed, and I grew comfortable by Perry’s side, and by Miss Sinclair’s. Perry daily drank himself into a stupor and wept; I held him, smoothed his hair and often felt I might weep myself, to hear him. I provided him a listening ear and ensured that he took some nourishment besides rum-and-water. I acted as his walking-cane and, once he had fallen into slumber, I spent the remainder of the evening conversing with Miss Sinclair. Her sadness may have been the equal of Perry’s, but it took a quieter shape. She spent many hours staring out across the gardens, or into the fire. She grew thin, in body and spirit.

One morning, at perhaps ten o’clock, Miss Sinclair and I sat at the breakfast table, I making light remarks, she hollow-eyed and near silent.

Perry slept on upstairs – for it was becoming increasingly difficult to rouse him at any civilised hour, and I could not bear to see him wake before he had to. For a moment upon waking he would seem his old self, and then the grief would come over him, like the game one plays with babies, passing a hand before the face; happiness to misery. It was terrible to watch.

That morning Miss Sinclair would take only a little bread and butter. Only I made any use of the good spread of hot rolls and plum cake.

I was contemplating the best way to cheer her, when the butler, Fisher, entered and informed us that the estate steward, one Mr Tyne, was anxious for an audience with Perry.

Miss Sinclair’s face, always pale, now seemed almost green. She laid down her knife and looked at me beseechingly. I shrugged a little.

‘Mr Sinclair is indisposed,’ I said. ‘You know that well enough, Fisher. Why did you not say so to Mr Tyne?’

‘I beg your pardon, sir. Mr Tyne was adamant that if Mr Sinclair was not available, he must ask for permission to speak with yourself.’

Now Miss Sinclair regarded me with an expression of great hope. I sighed and put down my cake. Then I changed my mind and picked it up again.

‘Tell him I will be pleased to give him an audience when I have had done with my breakfast,’ I said, and was rewarded by Miss Sinclair’s sigh of gratitude.

‘Now, do try to eat,’ I told her, and was further rewarded by her sweet obedience.

Mr Tyne seemed a passionate cove, for all that he looked like a gentleman-farmer. He stood in front of Perry’s desk, where I had thought it best to receive him, and twitched as though he wished to pace about.

‘I’d like to know, sir, who it is I’m to report to now. I’m used to reporting to Mr Sinclair every week and here it’s three months gone by.’

‘I suppose,’ I said, ‘you must report to the younger Mr Sinclair.’

‘Well, indeed I’d like to, sir, but he won’t see me. There are matters I must have settled.’

‘Such as?’ I enquired. The cove was obviously desperate to tell me.

‘Such as the collecting of the rents, sir. I’ve collected them in, sir, just as I always do, but Mr Sinclair was always used to tallying the amounts and checking them off in his ledger, sir. And there’s another thing.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes, sir. It is the household accounts, sir. Mr Fisher was always to bring them to Mr Sinclair but not being able to do so, there were bills owing. I took the liberty of settling them, sir, from the rents –’

‘Excellent, excellent.’

‘Yes, sir. But the bills were higher than what they have been accustomed to be, sir, and I must have approval for it. The wine bill was near double what it was. And I must know, sir, that it’s all been for the family’s use and that none of the servants has taken advantage of poor Mr Sinclair’s passing, God rest his soul, to pilfer the wine cellar.’

‘I am afraid it is all too likely that young Mr Sinclair has made use of it all himself, as vast as the quantities may seem, Tyne.’

‘Yes, sir. But if you could just look over the numbers, sir? And perhaps, the servants’ wages?’

And so it was that quite by accident, I became Perry’s agent in the running of the Aubyn estate. I was making myself of use – indeed, was of more use than I had been in my life before. I found great satisfaction in the sensation, and in being able to respond at last to the letters my mother had been sending. She had been furious to hear that I had given up my studies, and my new position went some way toward mollifying her.

Granville, all this time, was busy making himself rich, a skill inherited from his merchant bloodline. Such an instinct did he possess that when Granville Dryer put his coin to a venture, other gentlemen rushed to do the same. At only twenty-three he was invited to join the Merchant Venturers, the influential Bristol society of gentlemen. His costume remained as spartan as ever it had.

With a genius of trade as an intimate friend, it made the plainest sense to follow him in investments, though the only money I had to play with was Perry’s. I had only the most meagre personal allowance from my father. We would sit at table and Perry would drain the wine flask, while Granville and I ironed out the details of ships and stocks. The machinations of trade and investment were simple enough to follow, after my training in the dry codes of law.

I made sure Perry was informed of every investment I made. He would always clasp my hands and say, ‘You care for me so well, George,’ but if I brought the matter up again, to tell him some new detail that had arisen, more often than not he would have forgotten entirely what had gone before.

For my services, Perry granted me a share of the profits I garnered him, though I had a devil of a time obtaining his permission for it. Not through his being a miser, but because he refused to discuss anything but gaming, hunting and liquor. More often than not his response was to say,

‘Take what you like, my dear friend. Take it all. I would see you happy.’

At last I persuaded him to agree that I should take a half-share. Perhaps that seems a rather hefty portion but, I reasoned, without my services the entire estate would have crumbled.

I took my share, more often than not, to the gaming tables. Perry joined me at every opportunity, and gave himself over to the bottle, as I did to the baize. I could not stop myself playing until every last shilling had rolled away.

We went often to Bath and occasionally to Bristol, where Granville kept lodgings. Granville had kept up his obsession with the sweet-faced whore. He visited her as often as another man sees his wife, and spent as much of his fortune in so doing, I didn’t doubt. Perry and I never did visit that house again in the capacity of customers but we accompanied Granville there in pursuit of his other hobby – a young lady-pug. We were always ready to see her set to, for there was something in it for each of us; Perry had his drink, Granville his pugilism and I, of course, took the greatest pleasure in placing a wager upon the outcome.

Besides my own company, and what she saw of her brother, Miss Sinclair had very little society. When once her aunt and cousin called, she begged illness and would not come downstairs. I said nothing of it, but I wished she would show herself and perhaps be made merry.

I came to look forward to our mornings together. Because Perry rarely rose in time for breakfast Miss Sinclair and I were usually alone, an intimate experience for the unmarried. I would lie abed when first I woke, and try to compose little witticisms to cheer her.

One afternoon found all three of us at dinner. Perry was with us and was at his best, as he often was before he sank too deeply into his cups. At such moments it pained and delighted me to see him; I mourned the merry boy that he had been almost as deeply as he mourned his parents.

He was talking excitedly, making expansive plans to stock the woods with pheasants.

‘We shall have thousands of the creatures. Arrange it, George. Thousands! We shan’t need beaters, they will be so thick upon the ground. I want every pheasant in the county under my trees.’

‘Then,’ I said, ‘we will be the only coves in the county with a bird to shoot at.’

‘We will,’ Perry said. ‘Every huntsman in Somerset and Wiltshire will be pounding at our door. We shall hold daily hunting parties, and you and I will be crowned with feathers, George.’

Seeing Miss Sinclair’s look I was moved to say, ‘You need not fear, Miss Sinclair; the gentlemen shall not bring their wives unless you wish it.’

Her expression was strange, and I was not sure whether I had reassured or humiliated her.

In an attempt to soothe her, I took the liberty of cutting her orange into small pieces and dressing it with sugar. My mother was fond of having her orange prepared thusly.

Miss Sinclair thanked me sweetly, not quite daring to meet my eye. A blush spread across her cheeks and down her neck, making the scars even more apparent, white against pink.

I thought,
Oh ho, Bowden, you have an admirer here
.

I could not help but feel a little thrill. I had been so little in the company of young ladies.

I saw Perry mark her look, and I saw, too, his old jealousy rouse itself. For the rest of the meal I was careful not to pay Miss Sinclair any further special attentions.

I was obliged to attend my brother John’s wedding, a week or so later. When, as I had known he would, my brother Charles made a comment about my finding a place at Aubyn – ‘Old habits die hard, do not they, George?’ – I replied that he was as ignorant as he was ugly, and that I had been spending the bulk of my time with Miss, rather than Mister Sinclair. He laughed aloud to hear it, and clapped me upon the back. He called me a rogue. It was a new, and not unpleasant, sensation.

I had not been back at Aubyn a week before I received a letter from my mother.

Charles tells me that you seek to attach yourself to Miss Sinclair. It would be a desirable match for you, George. I should be delighted if your wishes were to be realised. I confess myself rather relieved that it is love that has drawn you there rather than a dearth of ambition. Perhaps you will return to your studies after you are settled.

I almost wished that it was true. She had never been so pleased with me before.

That very evening Perry and I repaired to a gaming house in Bath – one of those places the newspapers liked to call a ‘modern hell’. There was nothing so very hellish about them, except the smoke – though it was pipe-smoke, rather than brimstone. That night we patronised Mr Wiltshire’s Rooms, though we were as likely to go to a half-dozen such as that one. They were all alike; an abundance of good upholstery and grand chandeliers bearing twenty or so candles a-piece. A pretty enough setting in which to lose one’s fortune, and many had done exactly that, and gone home thousands of pounds the poorer.

I played at hazard that night and at some ungodly hour there came a moment when I found myself gaming against a Mr Dewsbury of Stroud. This elderly bachelor was familiar to all the patrons of the gaming houses, and Perry and I had made his acquaintance with interest. It was well known that Mr Dewsbury had a bosom companion, Sir Samuel, and that neither gentleman had married, each having found the company of ladies to be wanting, in comparison to that of his friend. Although they were occasionally the objects of gentle ridicule, they were not without the respect of their fellows. One could not help but admire them, for Mr Dewsbury and Sir Samuel were both first-rate gaming men. I had once watched as they shook hands upon a wager of twenty thousand pounds, over the matter of whose ship would come in first to the Bristol docks. It seemed they were both waiting for ships to arrive, in which they had some interest. Both ships were late, perhaps lost at sea, and instead of wringing their hands they laid down a sum well over the value of both ships combined and made the wait into a race of the greatest suspense. Should I have been in their position I would not have hesitated to do the same.

That night Mr Dewsbury was losing heavily but would not quit the table. I, who had started with nothing more than fifteen guineas, had been blessed from the outset. The coins on the table had almost entirely begun in his pocket, but surely and steadily crept to my side. At last he had nothing more to bet.

‘Well, sir,’ I said, ‘do you give over now and go home to your pipe and your porter, never to play again?’

‘I could do that, certainly,’ Mr Dewsbury said, ‘or perhaps I should make one more attempt to win back what you have so neatly taken, eh, sir?’ He looked not at all concerned.

‘Upon my word, if you wish to play, I should never deny you the opportunity,’ I said. ‘If you have a purse in reserve about your person, pray reveal it and let us commence.’

‘I have no hidden purse, Mr Bowden, sir,’ Mr Dewsbury said. ‘No, I mean to write you out a bond. Will you take a promissory note by my hand?’

‘I will, of course,’ I said, ‘from such a gentleman as you. How much do you wish to wager, good sir?’

‘I shall write you out a bond,’ he said now, ‘for the deeds to the house I have lately built at Clifton.’

At this the coves idly watching our play grew attentive. It is these moments of high drama that keep one going back to the gaming houses. Without a word spoken – no one would wish to break our concentration – other fellows picked up the atmosphere, as a hound does a rabbit’s scent, and soon a crowd had gathered.