Fair Fight (10 page)

‘A house,’ I said, ‘at Clifton. How much would you say such a thing is worth, sir?’

‘I would say, perhaps the sum you have on the table before you.’

At this, the company laughed. I did not, however. For just a moment, I pictured myself declining politely, scooping my profit into a velvet sack and hiring a linkboy to guard my homeward passage. It would not have been sporting, and besides, if I won I should have several thousand pounds and a house at Clifton to keep it in.

‘Very well,’ I said, ‘the winner is to take all.’

I held out the leather pot, in which rested two ivory dice.

My feeling when the dice favoured me cannot quite be described. My mind seemed to split into two; one part could not believe it and was afraid to smile lest it turn out an illusion, whereas the other part of me seemed to say, yes, of course, I knew it all along. This second self was almost rendered bored by the sudden acquisition of wealth. It was he who drove me back again and again to the gaming table. He was never satisfied.

The gentlemen watching clapped and whistled my victory, and called out to ask Mr Dewsbury, did he really mean to see me go home with everything?

‘Indeed no,’ Mr Dewsbury said. He did not look so composed now. The skin beneath his left eye jerked as his nerves danced. ‘No, now that we have begun, Mr Bowden must see me to my end.’

Then, of course, a dozen voices enquired, whatever would he wager next?

‘Why, my home, of course,’ he replied, ‘my country seat. It is worth everything Mr Bowden has and more besides.’

I pushed the profit I had so recently taken back onto the table without a thought in my head. I believe I was afraid to think at all.

Mr Dewsbury cast; the watching gentlemen let out a soft, collective sigh. The dice had not favoured me this time.

It was dawn when we went to bed. I lay awake, Perry breathing loudly in my ear and the hounds by the hearth slumbering nearly as noisily. I could not stop thinking of how close I had come to making my fortune. I had made it and pushed it back, to be taken from me by the next roll of the dice. I could have bought racehorses; I could have driven a phaeton. I could have married some pretty wife and founded a dynasty, with a solid Bristol townhouse to leave to my eldest boy – I should not like to be parted from Perry, but to be my own man! Perhaps I should have had a country house built near to Aubyn. My younger sons would have had to find their own way, as I had done. I should have taught them to play hazard.

These thoughts had trudged through my mind so many times that they had worn their own groove, but now they had been made more lively by having had them so close. Who knew but that my chance might have been and gone, and I let it slip away?

I pushed my brow against Perry’s warm back, to still the thoughts. At last sleep overcame me and wove its own picture of a townhouse, an obedient family and a smiling wife with needlework in her lap; a wife so good and sweet that I should not care that her face was marked with the ghosts of smallpox. In my dream I sat at my own table and Miss Sinclair poured my coffee, not because she need – there was the vague form of a butler behind me – but because she wished to. It was so vivid that when I awoke I was surprised to find Perry, still sound asleep, sweating brandy into his nightcap.

I found, upon going downstairs, that it was already the dinner hour. Miss Sinclair was dining alone and seemed quietly pleased to see me appear. I wanted very much to say something pleasant but I was grievously affected by the excesses of the night before and could only stumble myself into my seat and call for coffee in a piteous tone.

I could not shake the last tendrils of my dream. Could it mean that in my most secret heart, I loved her? I could not tell. I felt only nauseous and bleary.

She cut her meat into tiny pieces. I found I watched her, even as I had to hold my head up on my chin. She sipped at her cup of wine slowly and where a drop marked her lip she removed it with the very tip of her pink tongue. She kept her eyes lowered, like a painting of humility personified.

She looked up and found my eyes upon her. She blushed and it lit her from within, making the pattern of her scars stand out like a Chinese lantern.

‘You must excuse me, I am unwell,’ I said, and fled, to lie on my own cool, rarely used bed, to let my head pound and my stomach swoop as it liked.

I could not deny that I felt drawn to her. I told myself that this was only because she reminded me so of Perry, that I lacked the company of merrier ladies and was flattered by her attention. It felt like an age since anyone had admired me, let alone in that becoming and unworldly way.

I called for a bracer of rum and talked to myself sternly. I reminded myself that Perry would certainly object to my forming an attachment to his sister – could I bear to cause my friend a moment’s pain, after all he had suffered already?

It was at that moment, however, that the sense of the thing burst upon me. For some time I had feared that I had before me two choices: find an heiress to be my wife and be separated from Perry more than I would like, or stay beside him, accepting my lot as companion and agent, never to own an estate of my own or gain the full respect of my family. I had been considering the matter from the wrong angle; I had omitted the enormous advantage of an attachment to Miss Sinclair. You will see that I am not so calculating that I had ever thought of it before this moment. I knew from my work as Perry’s agent that, through some long-ago dispute amongst cousins, the Aubyn estate had a broken entail. The last will of Mr Sinclair stated that if Perry did not produce children, the estate was to fall into the hands of Miss Charlotte Sinclair’s first-born son or, should she fail to be delivered of a male heir, into the care of her husband, to be kept in trust for her daughters. If I felt affection for Miss Sinclair, if Perry could be made to agree, why should I not be that husband? I need never be away from Perry for a moment, safe in the knowledge that even if, God forbid, I should lose him, my place and my home would be secure. My mother was right; it would be a desirable match; the difficulty would lie in convincing my old friend Perry of it.

I began that evening, when Perry and I retired to a country tavern that kept late hours. I felt somewhat fragile, but the very air of the establishment soothed me, with its scent of roasting meat and the low tones of the conversations of men.

When the boy had put the platter down in front of us, and Perry had begun to tear at it – he occasionally abandoned his manners when there were only the two of us – I felt brave enough to test the water.

‘I have had several letters of late, from my mother. She is after me to marry.’

Perry snorted in derision.

‘Well, quite,’ I said, ‘but she will not let the matter alone.’

Perry looked at me, the grease upon his face shining in the lamplight, the chop in his hand.

‘Has she lost her wits? You cannot afford to keep a horse unless I stable it for you. How does she propose you keep a wife?’

This was true; my gaming debts were grown to embarrassing proportions. Furthermore, I could not think how I had expected my mother’s wishes to carry any weight with Perry; we had always done exactly as we liked.

‘She does not say,’ I said. Then, because a bloody-minded part of me would not lie down so quietly, ‘Although, I must say, I do sometimes feel . . .’

‘What? What the deuce do you feel?’

‘You know very well, as you must feel it yourself.’

‘Oh fie,’ Perry said. ‘Nonsense! Nothing could be more proper than your working as my agent, in my investments. They could hardly have hoped for better when they sent you to school, dunderhead that you are.’

‘I? I was never caned for failing to locate Portugal on the globe. But I am not speaking of that.’

‘What, then? You cannot mean that you are afraid? This is the modern day, George. No man of good breeding will face the gallows for a companionship such as ours. It is not as though we were picking up boys at the madge houses.’

‘No, not that. I meant, sometimes I think I should like to have a son.’

‘A son would not be worth the price paid to acquire him, old fellow.’ Perry began again to eat. His hair, which I had recently persuaded him to cut in short curls, flopped over his brow in a fetching tangle. I reached out and tidied it. Perry sat still for me, the chop poised in his hand.

‘I do not know that I would mind so much,’ I said.

Perry laid the bone down and wiped his fingers upon the tablecloth.

‘Let us not dance about any longer, George. If you wish to leave me, you must do it yourself and be damned. Do not look for my blessing in it.’

I laughed as carelessly as I could.

‘Upon my honour I shall never leave you,’ I said. Then, very low, ‘They shall rip my fingers from your cold hand or bury me with you. Do not you understand?’

‘No,’ Perry said, ‘I do not. I am not sure you understand yourself.’

‘Perhaps I do not,’ I said. I could not bear to go on any longer. ‘I wish I could learn to hold my tongue.’

‘Hold it now, then.’ Perry turned back to his plate.

We drove home and sat up into the small hours, drinking brandy before the fire in Perry’s library and placing wagers on foolish things. We had a book in which we wrote them down.
I, George Bowden, wager one guinea against Peregrine Sinclair’s finding where I have hidden his snuff box tonight. Or, I, Peregrine Sinclair, wager two pounds that George Bowden cannot ride the new colt ten minutes without use of the reins
.

We had been writing in this book for years and I liked to look back through past wagers as a history of our friendship. When we grew tired of thinking of foolish bets we burnt kindling in the fire, placing wagers on whose twig would turn to ash the quickest. I remember I won a few pounds in all, to add to my profits from the gaming house.

At length Perry grew sleepy, as was his way when he was deep in his cups. I sat, swirling the tawny liquor around the glass, and thinking of the innocent, slumbering in a chamber above us. I imagined how it might be to have leisure, night by night, to decide which door I chose; the brother or the sister Sinclair. I thought of all this as I sat by the fire, and I thought of it again, later, while Perry made his stifled sounds, closer to whimpers than pleasure.

‘Upon my word, George,’ he said at last, against my neck, ‘I could not bear to have you leave. I should rather come to the gallows than see you marry. I should hang myself if you did.’

‘My dear friend, no one is talking of leaving,’ I said, stroking the golden down that grew upon his shoulders. ‘I was rambling.’

That night I crept from Perry’s bed and into my own cool sheets across the hall.

I would like to say that I let the idea drop, but I found I must try for it, even to fail. It was no harm I would do Perry by it, and certainly I would do no harm to Miss Sinclair; I wished only to secure my own future. If I lost all at least I would have played for it. It had always been my philosophy that one must play, or be a loser two-fold.

When I arrived at the breakfast table I found that my old friend had roused himself, and would have noticed in so doing that I had left his bed and slept elsewhere. His very presence was a rebuke.

Even with the air of one wounded, Perry looked far fresher than I felt. He did not mention the matter – Miss Sinclair was with us, and the servants besides. Though unaccustomed to the breakfast table, he devoured every dish placed before him, chewing doggedly and refusing to meet my eye.

Miss Sinclair, beside him, was equally quiet and cut all her plate of bread and honey into exceedingly small pieces – almost crumbs – before she began to eat. To see the two Sinclairs together at that moment was a strange sensation; their eyes were so exactly the same shade of blue. They looked almost violet that morning, where the light from the windows caught them.

I thought,
Now I really must play for it
.

As soon as something is denied me, I feel I must have it. I could not help it – I did desire her on her own account. She was so pure that I could not believe that she had ever had an unwholesome thought. When I saw an object so unsullied and clean something roused in me and I was driven to spoil it. As a child in winter I would run about the garden paths, scuffing up the new snow before my brothers could reach it. I did not intend to spoil Miss Sinclair in any lasting fashion; only in the ordinary way that a man does a girl-bride.

I ate my own victuals and escaped to the library, where I spent an industrious morning on Perry’s business concerns.

After dinner, Miss Sinclair, Perry and I sat beside the library fire, Perry wielding the decanter with a generous wrist. At length he fell asleep in his chair. He looked even younger than his three-and-twenty years; too young, indeed, to be nodding off by the hearth like an elderly bachelor.

My eye fell upon Miss Sinclair. Her hair seemed to glow where the light of the fire streamed around the fire-screen she had placed to protect her face from the heat. She was working on a cushion cover with silk, embroidering a little scene. Her slim fingers moved deftly, although her eyes seemed dreaming. I found myself mesmerised by the sight of her. I confess that I had taken more liquor than perhaps I should.

I turned my seat a little so that Perry was obscured from my view by the chair’s high back; the actions of a guilty man.

‘What is it you work upon, Miss Sinclair?’ I asked.

She looked up and smiled at me so prettily that I heaved myself out of my seat, as clumsy as the liquor had made me, and came to sit closer to her.

‘They are a series of seat-covers,’ she said, ‘or I mean them to be a series, for I have only completed one. It is in my dressing room at present.’

‘And what is the picture upon it?’ I enquired, leaning a little closer to see. My eyes were not as clear as they might have been that night.

‘The first picture is called “the meeting”,’ she said. ‘It shows a young maid and a gentleman meeting in a country lane. This one,’ here she began to blush once more, ‘will be called “the courtship”, which name explains itself.’