Fair Fight (39 page)

He knelt in front of me and again took my hand.

‘I wish that you would call me George.’

I watched him lift my hand to his lips with a sensation most strange; perhaps, a kind of satisfaction. His eyes seemed pleading over it.

‘If I call you George will you explain, or let me go?’ I said, at last.

‘You have my word.’

‘Well, then. Why have you come to find me, George?’ I blushed, and wished I did not.

‘Oh, dear Charlotte. Lottie. I have come to . . . oh, by God, I am a fool.’

He sat back, fetched a hip flask from his jacket pocket and drank from it.

‘What have you there?’ I asked, though I could smell the rum plainly.

‘Rum, only. I beg your pardon. My nerves, you see.’

‘May I?’

His eyes widened, but he passed the flask to me. I put it to my lips, and then, when I felt the good heat of it, I put it to my lips once more.

‘Please,’ I said, ‘only say what you have come to say so that we might both be freed from suspense.’ I let my voice grow light and teasing, most unlike myself.

‘I am leaving here, Charlotte. I am going away. I wish you to come with me. There, it is said.’

He took my hand once more and looked up at me like a puppy. Again, I took my hand from his, although this time I did it slowly, sliding my own fingers over his palm as I went.

‘I, go away with you! You have run mad,’ I said. I was enjoying myself scandalously. I felt as though we were reading lines from a book.

‘I have not, indeed I have not.’ He really was most appealing when he looked so.

‘Then you are come to tease me.’

‘Never.’ His cheeks grew pink. ‘I have always loved you, Lottie. You should have been Mrs Bowden instead of Mrs Dryer – it was only your brother that prevented it.’

‘Oh! Why tell me such things? It is too late, too late.’ I pressed the back of one hand to my brow – it seemed the correct thing to do at such a moment.

He took the flask from my fingers, drank from it, coughed and passed it once more to me. I took it gladly and drank until it was empty and my throat aflame.

‘I am going away,’ he said, again.

I looked at him, sitting at my feet, his hair disordered, nervously wetting his lips with the tip of a very pink tongue. He was a fool, but he was still the most handsome man I had ever known. My husband was not handsome, nor kind, nor constant. Both my husband and my brother would curse to see me now.

I looked at Mr Bowden for one long, delicious moment.

‘Let me make you a farewell,’ I said.

He shook his head to protest but I put out my hand.

‘Come, George.’

He took it. I stood and led him up the stairs. He followed me so quickly that he trod upon my skirts and had to catch me when I stumbled.

How can I explain what that afternoon meant to me, having known only Granville? At first Mr Bowden – George – was fearful that I might change my mind and begin to scream. Once he understood that I would not – well, I can only say that I had never known that the whole business could be so joyous, so absolutely free from all the usual tethers of propriety. I felt myself grow animal, unthinking. It was nearly as exciting as boxing.

Once it was done I lay on that bare straw mattress and watched him dress. I felt like a contented farmer’s wife, watching him button his shirt under those beamed eaves. I felt like stretching, like a cat. I did not even mind my scars. There was nothing left to blush at, after what he had shown me. I had never been so exposed and so comfortable, at once. He had touched parts of me that no other hands had found before; I felt like treasure unburied. He had lightly touched the fading bruises at my throat and said not a word, only quivered with feeling and kissed me the more ardently.

‘You must come with me,’ he said now. ‘I have a plantation in the sugar islands. It will be all mine – ours – you would be my wife. They will none of them know who we were before we came.’

I could only laugh. ‘Mr Bowden, George, that is a very great sin.’

‘Misery is the greatest sin! I have condemned us both, but I will free us now. Come with me, Charlotte, I beg you. Think of it, only – we shall both be set free.’

He came to my side and leant over me, his breath tickling my ear.

‘I have a grand house there,’ he whispered, ‘and I shall get us a carriage and horses – you shall have a horse like the mare I bought you once.’

‘Locket.’ I found myself whispering too.

‘Yes, Locket, I had forgot that was her name. I will get you so many things, Lottie –’

‘George, I cannot.’

‘You shall be mistress of a fine house in glorious sunshine. I have taken it from your husband.’

‘From my husband?’ I felt myself grow still.

‘I won it, rather, when his boxer failed.’

It was as though he had opened a window in winter; all the warmth and softness was snatched away. I sat up so quickly that he was forced to draw back or be struck by my head as I rose.

‘You wagered against poor Mr Webber?’ I had not known I could sound so forbidding.

‘It is the sport, Lottie. Of course, I pity the fellow now. But I have taken a fine house! We shall be so happy.’

‘No,’ I said.

‘You do not mean it, you are only surprised. I cannot blame you.’

‘No, Mr Bowden.’

‘Please, I know you do not love Mr Dryer.’ He reached out his hand and let it hover, quivering, in the air between us. I would not take it.

‘I wish you would leave,’ I said.

‘I will not believe you! You must come.’

‘I tell you, I will not! Do not ask me again.’

Now I got up and pulled my petticoats down. I found my gown and stepped into it, despite my untied stays.

I turned my back to him. ‘Assist me, please.’

I felt his fingers come upon the laces of my stays and pull. He did not pull them as tightly as he should, but I said nothing. Next he began, fumbling, to work upon the buttons of my gown. I was glad to have my back to him. I thought that if I looked at him I might strike him.

‘Very well,’ he said, behind me, ‘I will go from you. You may never lay eyes upon me again, you know.’

‘Then I wish you a safe journey and a happy life, Mr Bowden.’ I did not turn, although he had finished with the buttons.

‘You are cruel! Can you really send me from you?’

I would not reply but only picked up my shoes and, carrying them, walked to the door.

‘Then promise me one thing, Charlotte, Mrs Dryer. As a parting gift. If ever you loved me, grant me one favour.’

I turned and regarded him with a gaze I knew to be hard. He stood with his hat in his hand, his eyes as wide as he could make them. I only waited. At last he sighed and seemed to give up.

‘Take care of your brother,’ he said. ‘He is lost, and will be even more so when he finds me gone. Please, promise me only that. Watch over him as I have done.’

I had expected something else, I knew not what.

‘If he will allow me I will do it,’ I said.

‘You are too good.’

He rushed to me again and put his hands about my waist. He drew me to him so firmly that I could only allow it, or cry out. I stayed silent, but I felt how unyielding was my body.

‘Please,’ he said, ‘only one kiss, upon your lips? For a farewell.’

His kisses had been delicious an hour before. Now he pressed me against him too feverishly; I could not breathe. I was dizzy when at last he released me.

‘You will not change your mind?’ he said.

‘Goodbye, Mr Bowden.’

I opened the door and left him there. I did not look back at all. My lips tasted sour, no matter how I rubbed at them.

I did not go to visit the Webbers at Bristol; I was grieved that they had been to the gatehouse and come away without seeing me. However much I had hoped to see them, I was also afraid to go to their house, in what I thought must be a disreputable part of Bristol. I did not know what I should do, were I to come upon Mrs Webber’s sister there. I was afraid, too, that Mrs Webber would be angry with me, or that I would find our friendship changed. I was a coward and had forgotten how bravery was to be done. To make up for failing in my promise to help nurse Mr Webber, I honoured the promise I had made to Mr Bowden.

I was by then desperate to escape Granville’s company. He was still following me about the house, asking me to ride or walk out with him. I refused it all, and still he would not give it up.

‘I will go to visit Perry,’ I told him, at last. ‘You need not accompany me.’

His mouth twitched, but he did not stop me, nor claim greater need of the carriage.

‘I hope it will make you happy,’ he said. His tone was piteous.

My feeling as the carriage began to move was one of glorious release. I watched all that passed outside the window as avidly as though it were a play.

I realised as we began the familiar, curving approach to Aubyn Hall that I had not been there in an age. When I had seen my brother in recent months he had been a guest at our table, and even those visits had fallen away considerably. I felt a great affection for the place, coming to it now. Whatever it had taken from me, it would always remain my childhood home. Louisa’s feet had walked these garden paths, Arthur had run across the lawns. My papa’s touch was here, where he had ordered the extension of the yew alley, grown faster now than I suspected he could have dreamt. Here, where the carriage drew up, was Mama’s taste, the cheerful yellow curtains at the breakfast room window. Had I visited Aubyn without Granville, in all our marriage? I could not think I had.

Fisher greeted me with as warm an expression as a butler ever allows himself, and showed me into the parlour.

My good feeling vanished entirely the moment I stepped inside. The house was not changed in any perceptible way and yet, something was different. All was clean enough, all the furniture laid out the same as it had been when last I visited – but perhaps it was this very sameness that oppressed me. Perry could not fill such a house all by himself. Probably no feet but the maid’s had been into the parlour in weeks.

At last, after what felt a long time, Fisher returned.

‘He will see you, madam. I feel it my duty to say to you that Mr Sinclair is somewhat indisposed just at the moment.’

‘Is he ill, Fisher?’

‘He is . . . not quite himself, madam. He is in the library.’

‘Thank you, Fisher. You may take me to him.’

I followed his straight back out of the parlour and up the stairs to the library. Our steps sounded very loud. Fisher knocked once and swung open the library door.

‘Mrs Dryer, sir,’ he said.

Perry was sitting beside the hearth, a rug over his knees like an invalid. He gave a weary nod upon sight of me, as though I came to pester him daily. He was clean-shaven, but his face had lost weight, making his eyes seem too big. His cheeks, always so quick to flush, were tinged with yellow. A spider’s web of broken veins crawled across one side of his nose. I would not have believed, if I had not known, that here was a man not yet thirty. I looked at Fisher in surprise but he was as expressionless as ever.

‘So you come to visit me, sister?’ Perry smelt as though he had bathed in liquor.

‘I wondered how you did,’ I said. ‘Fisher, I would like a drink. Ratafia, if you have it.’

‘Yes, madam. Anything for you, sir?’

Perry looked at the decanter at his elbow. It was half full.

‘Not yet,’ he said.

I sat opposite Perry, in a winged chair that smelt unpleasantly of cigars.

‘How do you do, Perry? Your colour is bad.’

‘Then I am in your likeness, my poxed sister.’

I made no reply. At last he sighed and shuffled about in his chair as though he could not be comfortable.

‘I do badly,’ he said. ‘I cannot find George. Is he with your husband, do you know?’

‘No, not with Granville.’

‘Damn his eyes!’ Perry jerked so suddenly that he soused himself with liquor from his glass. ‘He knows I cannot do without him! Rot him, I was sure he was with Granville. Perhaps, then, in Bristol, gambling away what remains of his sorry life, bastard that he is.’

He tipped the dregs of the glass into his mouth and poured himself a generous replacement.

‘What can you mean, to say you cannot do without him?’ I did not mention Perry’s foul language.

‘Look at me,’ he held out a shaking hand. ‘I cannot be steady, I cannot sleep. I am alone here. He has left me.’

He began to weep. I was frozen with the horror of seeing him reduced so terribly. At last, when he put his face into his shaking hands I stirred myself, crossed to him and put my hand upon his shoulder. Immediately that he felt my touch he stiffened and then, in one jerky movement, threw his arms about my waist and began to cry in earnest. I stroked his hair. There was something encrusted in it. Behind me I heard Fisher enter quietly and put a drink for me upon the small table. Before he could slide away I turned my head.

‘Fisher,’ I said, ‘my brother is not clean. His hair needs washing.’

‘Yes, madam.’

‘How can you leave him so?’ I was growing angry with the sheer unexpectedness of the situation. Perry had grown still but would not loose his hold nor take his face from where it pressed against my waist. I could feel a dampness there, from his eyes and, perhaps, his nose.

‘Mr Sinclair prefers not to be bathed, madam.’

‘He will be bathed now. Make the water hot and perfumed. Perry, you are to be washed. Do you understand? And then we will have something nourishing for dinner.’

Perry looked up at me and wiped his eyes with his tremulous fingers.

‘Will you stay with me?’ he asked.

‘I will.’

‘Until George comes home again?’

Ever since we had returned from London I had wondered where on earth I could go besides my married home. What could be more proper than a sister, caring for her invalid brother? My husband could not order me home from here. Surely he could not.

‘I will not leave you while you need me,’ I said.

I spent many days at Perry’s side, though often he hardly noticed I was there. At other times he cried out for me and sobbed in my arms until my gown grew sodden with his tears. It was a welcome diversion to be of use to him, but oh, how strange and awful to be nursing my last surviving relative in the house where first Arthur and Louisa and then my parents were lost. Perry was not ill in the conventional sense, but I could not help but think that I was watching him slowly loosen his hold on the living world. He was awake only when he could not help it and all the time strove for unconsciousness.