Fair Fight (20 page)

‘Your instincts are notoriously fallible,’ Perry said, but he would not lay a stake against me and he was in an ill humour for the rest of the evening.

I was truthful when I said that my instincts spoke in Granville’s favour this time. It was partly the cunning the cove had shown over the set-to at the fair; I did not believe he could fix such a fight as an English Championship, but I was forced to give him credit for ambition and ruthlessness I had not guessed he possessed. If Granville was determined to make his man Champion, I was determined to lay all I could on his having the outcome he wished for.

In the name of keeping hold of my funds, I ceased visiting the gaming houses. I ceased my pursuit of Dora. If I made my fortune I would be at leisure to pursue her in earnest, if I so chose. I knew myself sufficiently well to hazard that if I had the funds easily at hand to buy her, I might no longer wish to do so. I did not know what path I might find myself taking if I were free and independent; I had never been so before.

Perry seemed glad that I was content to stay at home with him. I spent all my days working hard at his investments, although I had a devil of a time eliciting any assistance from Granville; he was endlessly caught up in his schemes for his pug. I was happy enough feeling my way through the world of trade as best I could; I had learnt enough by then that I did not think I would ruin us and I wished Granville success in his training as heartily as I wished to make profit from investment. Every profit I took I squirrelled away, like a wife skimming the housekeeping money. I used the bank at Corn Street instead of a purse concealed up the chimney breast, but the principle was much the same. I had never shown thrift before and this was my first experience of the satisfaction to be found in watching my hoard grow slowly. I was amazed at my own patience and discipline in letting it sit there. If I had not meant to lay it all on Tom Webber’s fight – which would be the greatest gamble I had ever made – I should not have been able to bear it.

Meanwhile, Perry was coming to seem like an old man wearing a young man’s face as disguise. When we went out shooting he walked slowly and missed near every shot. He fell asleep at an hour ever earlier than the last. He still wished me in his bed but now he desired nothing more than that I hold him. He began to be beset by night-fears. He would wake screaming and sweating and have to be soothed like a babe. When, as occasionally happened, I wished to be intimate with him once more, though he was very obliging, he could not raise himself. He was very downcast then and would not take comfort, though when I put my hand to his cheek he took it from his face and held it. He would not meet my eyes.

‘You know what devils plague me, George,’ he said, and held his other hand out for me to observe. It trembled with a strange palsy.

I took it and pressed it together with his other hand, keeping both those dear hands in both of mine. They seemed to hum with shakes held still. At last our eyes met.

‘I cannot fight it, George. I do not wish to fight it.’ He had a curious expression; a mixture of defiance, shame and sorrow. I did not like to see it, I preferred him roaring and cursing. Perhaps I even preferred him soiling himself in the armchairs of gaming houses. I kissed him, unmindful of the sticky film that coated our unwashed mouths.

‘Do not you fight it then,’ I said.

For a moment his lip trembled and I wondered if he wished I had bid him have strength. Then he turned from me and pulled the bell to call for rum.

I began to see him as a babe in truth, and was astonished at what a proficient nurse I became. I kept my eye upon him, and it was I who called for him to be bathed – the butler and a footman together helping him into the brass tub – I who sat beside him and kept him merry in the water. It was I who watched what he would eat and when. I began to learn his habits as I had not before. He would not rise for breakfast, but when he did wake, he would take a glass of Granville’s recommended tonic: a glass of rum with the yolk of a raw egg stirred into it. If I could catch him in the early afternoon, after he had softened himself with brandy but before he fell asleep, he could often be prevailed upon to eat, sometimes in great quantities. Thus we began dining at an hour ever earlier, while gentlemen of fashion were elsewhere dining later and later. He grew disinterested in meat and developed a taste for pasties, and bread with butter and salt, which I ordered we keep a good supply of, even while the price of wheat rose.

I did all these things and gladly, even as I poured my remaining energies into the financial arena. I cared for him with all my waking day, yet somewhere below my attachment to my friend, I wondered if I would do those things when once I had made my fortune on Tom Webber’s victory. Would I flee my duty? Would I, with choice laid out before me, choose this life, watching Perry dwindle? The thought would not be still and its stirring in my breast caused me to kiss him ever more tenderly.

The London fancy had decreed that Granville must bring Webber to London, to the Fives Court. There he was to be set against the beefiest coves that London had to offer, and when once Webber had bested them – as I felt sure he must do – then he would be declared a fit contender for the Championship of England, and be allowed to try for the greatest prize of all.

Granville came to bid us farewell and I assured him that I would arrive in London in good time for the final bout. I was bound and determined to go – I should not miss the Championship bout for the world. Perry refused to consider the journey on his own behalf and I decided not to press him. Granville, too, seemed relieved. I knew well enough that he was afraid that Perry would humiliate himself; it was a reasonable enough fear to harbour, in all honesty. Granville was visibly anxious that the London fancy should welcome him – I had a few doubts in that quarter, but held my peace.

I went, once, to visit Mrs Charlotte Dryer, to ask after Granville’s progress and enjoy a little feminine company. I was struck by how changed she seemed. She was not the shy, blushing creature I was accustomed to. She met my eye. She seemed more awake, somehow. She looked at me as though she was appraising the cut of my coat. She was wearing a gown, I saw, cut in the new style, of draped white muslin, very flowing and cut low across the shoulders. I thought it very becoming and told her so. She barely dropped her gaze when she thanked me. Her shoulders were dimpled with scars, but very white. I had never seen her shoulders before, I realised then.

‘Shall we take tea?’ she said, ‘or should you like something more interesting?’

I could not tell if this were flirtation. Miss Sinclair – Mrs Dryer – had always been either blushing or brazen; one extreme to the other.

‘I will take tea, if you will be good enough to serve me,’ I said.

‘Then will you think me rude, if I take wine?’ she asked.

I immediately said that if she wished for wine I would join her, and the bell was duly rung.

‘Now, you must tell me all that you have been doing,’ she said.

I could scarcely think of a thing to tell her, suitable for a lady’s ear. In the end we discussed music and so passed an hour pleasantly enough. Mrs Dryer drank more wine than I had ever seen a lady take. She grew pink about the face, but remained perfectly steady – steadier, indeed, than I did myself. I left her feeling very queer, as though someone had picked up my thoughts and shaken them like a box of sand, so that they settled in a new way.

I was still raising all the funds I could in preparation for the fight. I had recently had an epiphany regarding profit; I took half of the profits made on any investment and returned to Perry’s coffers the capital, as I always had. However, in the matter of a sale, the profits were less clear. I was thinking then about land; Perry had inherited vast tracts of land, much of which was tenanted and brought in good rents. However, there were swathes of it that were turned over to woodland and these brought us nothing but a place to hunt birds. We never walked half the wood Perry owned, not anywhere close to half. I sold just a few acres of the furthermost edge, where likely neither of us had ever been. Since Perry received no income from the woods and had paid nothing for them, having inherited them, I reasoned the whole price could truthfully be called profit. Half the money paid was then my own – and all of it was to be laid on Tom Webber’s victory. My bank balance climbed steadily; it was almost as thrilling as watching coins mount up on my side of the baize.

I readied myself to leave Perry and go to London. I was both eager to go and anxious about abandoning him.

‘Will you be well, old friend?’ I put my hand on his arm.

We were sitting together on the settee. I had wrapped him in a rug; he had begun to get very cold in the evenings and seemed unable to get warm. I would ride out in the morning.

‘I will be exactly as well as I am now, George. I wish you would stop talking about it.’

‘I only wish to put my mind at rest. I hate to leave you.’

‘No one is forcing you to London.’

‘I go for Granville.’

‘You go for gambling! I wish you would not pretend to higher motives. You would not notice if Granville was in London or India, if only your bet came good. You would not even notice if I was here when you came home, if your win was enough.’

‘You do me an injustice.’

‘Perhaps I will not be here,’ he said, in the mournful voice I had come to loathe. ‘Then we shall see where your heart is. You will go straight back out to the tables.’

Although I protested and stroked him into placidity, a small piece of my heart thought,
Why don’t you make haste to suicide, since you threaten it so often?

As travel-worn as I was by the time I arrived in London and found my lodgings, I was determined nonetheless to have some merriment. I had been starved lately of entertainment. Perry was not hanging about my neck and I could trust that his reputation had likewise been left behind. I went, therefore, to the Fives Court, to find Granville and his hulking protégé.

What a place it was, galleries and boxes and a ceiling as high as a good-sized church. The roped stage and the scent peculiar to the noble art, of fear-sweat and masculinity, were all that marked it out as the palace of pugilism; otherwise it could have been a theatre or perhaps even an opera house. It was a great distance removed from The Hatchet Inn. It was The Hatchet I thought of when I stepped inside that thronging hall however; The Hatchet, and Granville as a young lad, smelling the sawdust. I wished for a moment that I had been with him when first he laid eyes on the Fives Court. I could imagine him perfectly, the subtle sparkle that was all one could see of Granville overwhelmed.

The place was fairly full and I perceived, now that I took the time to look about me, that here was another sign that I was back in the world of prize-fighting; gentlemen were seated together with pugilists and common men, almost as though all were equal. I say almost, because of course the obligatory forelock-tugging and deference went on, but with a remarkable air of holiday about it.

The Fives Court being so large and well populated, it took me some time to spy Granville, even with the hulking presence of Webber beside him. In that hallowed hall of pugilism there were more coves built on Webber’s grand scale than in any place I had ever been, so that he was less of a landmark than usual. And Granville! As I approached I was astonished to see that the cove had cut his hair into short curls and had topped it with a tall hat that was very nearly fashionable. His coat, while as sombre as ever, was nicely made and double-breasted, with a fur collar that shone like the coat of a racehorse. When I hailed him, somewhat tentatively, as if it might not be he – though I knew it must be, for by then I had clearly identified Webber – he turned and I saw that he had even found a cravat that did not entirely shame him. He looked like a glossy little blackbird instead of a dusty crow. It was quite a sight. Webber, too, was made nicer than I was used to seeing him, though Granville’s dull taste was evident in every stitch the cove wore. The plain costume was fitting, however, in a man of his station. He looked like a young clerk, if ever one had lived that had been built so large.

Granville seemed not the least surprised to see me.

‘Ah, George,’ he said, as though he had been expecting me every moment.

Webber stood so that I might have his seat – for there was not an abundance of chairs in that place – and Granville sent him to procure some porter for the three of us saying, ‘And some kind of victuals, for George will be hungry.’

Webber bowed and went off like an amiable hound.

‘He is a marvel, George,’ Granville said, turning to watch his progress through the crowd. As he went I saw him stopped repeatedly by coves wanting to shake him by the hand.

‘He is certainly popular,’ I said.

‘He is the darling of the fancy. I have to be constantly on my guard against vanity. Other sponsors treat their fellows like gentlemen, you know. I think it a very great mistake. Let him break his servitude with victory only, that’s my thought upon the matter. If I allow him his head now he will grow wild; I have seen it happen.’

‘You are wise, I am sure,’ I said.

Granville was more loquacious and at ease than I had seen him for years. I noticed a fair amount of hat-tipping and bowing exchanged between my friend and the gentlemen that passed by our seats, and concluded that Granville’s new costume and his promising pupil had done much to secure him the acceptance he had been after.

Webber found us again, accompanied by a boy bearing a tray of much welcomed sustenance. Once the lad had divested himself of his burden he made it his business to find a stool for Webber and, once found, presented it to him with a decided air of hero-worship. Webber, for his part, only took the stool with quiet thanks, and smiled as the lad saluted and ran off. The stool was only a little three-legged thing and the cove looked precarious sitting upon it, large as he was, but I thought that Granville was right; there was an air of humility about him that was pleasing to see.