Fair Fight (14 page)

Once Arthur and Louisa were lost we did not go to the fair at all, but only watched what we could see of the flutter and fuss of it from the windows of the house. My duty then was to be companion to Mama, though she did not often wish me with her, and Mary’s duty was to be companion to me, though I wished for her company even less.

Once my aunt wrote to invite me to stay with them, but Mama, though she did not like to have me about her much, would not be parted from me either. She wrote back and told them that I was frail and that my health was poor. I only know this because I overheard Papa disagreeing with her over it.

‘Charlotte is a young lady, Lenora. She must be allowed to go out into the world.’

‘Don’t ask me, Charles!’ Mama said, and I could hear by her breathing that she was readying herself for a fit.

Papa did not press her and I stayed as dull as I was used to being. I was glad and sorry, both at once.

Perry and I tormented each other as much as ever we had. I had very little acquaintance; our teasing of each other, along with reading, drawing and embroidery, were amongst my favourite diversions.

When Mama gave me the task of ordering our dinner from Cook, so that I might learn the running of a household, my first thought was to order all those dishes that Perry disliked.

I sat opposite him and watched his expression sour as he saw the oysters come out. He could not very well refuse to be served, but neither did he eat them, and pushed them about on his plate. I watched my brother glancing at Papa from the corner of his eye, to see if he would be commanded to eat.

‘Why, Perry,’ I said, ‘do not you like what I have ordered?’

This earned me a disapproving glance from Mama, for it was not polite of me to speak without first being spoken to. I did not mind; it was wholly worth inciting her displeasure for the dawn of realisation on my brother’s face.

‘You will eat what you are served,’ Papa said, before Perry could reply.

He had no choice then and it was the greatest pleasure to watch him shudder as he swallowed. When the second course arrived Perry watched me like a cat at a mouse-hole, so that it was difficult to keep my expression smooth. When he saw the sweetbreads and asparagus uncovered, I could not help but smile.

‘Ah, excellent,’ Papa said, and I smiled all the wider.

‘A fair choice, Lottie,’ Mama said.

‘Thank you, Mama. You are as good a teacher as any young lady could wish,’ I replied, in my sweetest tones.

Perry looked at me with a resentful respect and I knew well that I had only driven him on to greater lengths. It was a competitive sport of the lowest kind.

After dinner he began by seating himself beside me on the sofa. I was knitting white lace from very fine thread, which I had lately learnt to do. Papa was already gone to his library, but Mama was with us, looking over a fashion paper sent to her by my aunt.

Perry leant in close to whisper, ‘Now, what would you say if I were to lose my dinner in your lap?’

I only smiled. He would do no such thing, of course.

Perry reached into his pocket and drew out a bundle, wrapped in a handkerchief, stained brown and sodden enough to drip.

‘Here is my dinner,’ he whispered.

He moved his hand as if to toss it into my lap. I was wearing pink muslin and could not help but jerk in my seat. He did not throw it, however, only laughed quietly.

‘Oh, don’t tease,’ I said.

Perry smirked and opened his hand; the gravy-soaked bundle dropped directly into my workbox, on top of the white thread-lace I had already sewn over countless, painstaking hours. The handkerchief unfurled to show a mess of sweetbreads. A single piece of lamb’s liver rolled out and dropped into a corner of the workbox.

Perry leapt to his feet before I could scream and cried out, ‘A superb idea, Lottie. Mama, Lottie and I would so enjoy it if you would play for us. Dear Lottie will sing.’

He skipped over to Mama’s side and took her hand beseechingly.

Mama agreed, and all I could do was flip the lid of the workbox closed and go to stand beside her at the spinet. Perry called out the names of his favourite songs and we played and sang for him, while all the time the juices of chicken gizzards and lamb’s liver were staining my hard work brown. I would have to throw it all away and begin again.

When I went to bed that night I left that foul bundle under Perry’s pillow, but it was little consolation. Ever after my workbox was to smell queer and rotten, no matter how often I sprinkled it with rosewater.

When I was almost seventeen, the pox came again. Pox will do that, you know; it sweeps through the country like a tide. Perry was in Bristol, staying with an old schoolfriend. Bristol had once again proved a safe place for my brother, even outside of Queen Square.

I knew it was coming. I felt it, creeping through the house. Every day I went, unbidden, to Mama’s side and one morning I found what I looked for. What I had not expected was that it would find Papa first.

He lay on the carpet beside the fireplace in Mama’s parlour, which I must cross to reach her bedroom. It was awful to see him upon the floor, where Mama’s little dog sometimes slept. His face was as flushed as Perry’s was wont to be, and his eyes half closed. I ran to him and knelt at his side. My hand hovered over his forehead; I did not think I had ever touched his face before. At last I touched him. His face was burning and slick with sweat.

His eyes did not open but he said, ‘Fisher, I should like to get up.’

‘It is Charlotte, Papa,’ I said.

He did not reply.

I tried to get him up alone but could not; he flopped wherever I did not hold him and was heavier than I would have believed. I rang the bell for a footman but it was Mary who came. All the footmen were gone.

‘Mary, help me get him up,’ I said.

She stood and bit her lip. She looked as though she would cry.

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘you help me now and I will let you go home. I promise you. Only help me get him into bed.’

Still she only shook and twitched about on her legs until I was ready to strike her.

Then we heard Mama’s voice calling out Papa’s name. She was confined to bed, big with child. I had been hoping, that summer, that she would be delivered of a girl.

‘Go to her,’ I told Mary.

She went and I rang the bell again. This time Fisher came and he, at least, did not hesitate to come to my side.

‘We must get him up,’ I said.

Before we could begin, Mary came back.

‘Mrs Sinclair is not ill,’ she said. ‘She asks, will we put Mr Sinclair somewhere clear of her.’

There was a day-bed only feet from Papa’s head. Fisher and I lifted him and laid him there, though I felt my arms strain under his weight. I drew the curtains to keep the light from Papa’s face.

‘I will go and see to Mama now.’

I straightened up and put my hands to my back. Mary jiggled about in that same, useless way.

‘Go home, Mary,’ I said, ‘and do not come back. I have no use for you. Run home and tell your mama what a coward you are.’

Her chin began to shake. I walked away so that I need not see her weep. I hoped she would take pox.

Within days we were only five in the house. Mama and Papa, both struck down with pox, myself, Fisher and Cook. Even the boot boy had fled.

I tasked Cook to set out cold collations for me, which I ate only when I grew so faint that I must, and broths for the invalids, which Fisher brought upstairs. Cook need never come out of the kitchens; it was only with these conditions that I prevailed upon her to stay. I could not dress myself properly without a maid and did not care. I wore my gowns buttoned only as high as I could reach and an Indian shawl to cover the gap at my back.

Mama’s anxieties were made the worse with fever.

‘Be careful, Charlotte! Be careful,’ she moaned.

I told her that the pox does not strike the same body twice. I told her to look upon my scarred face as proof that this illness did not signify certain death. I did not speak of Louisa and Arthur. I burnt endless pastilles to clear the air, though the scent of them brought back memories of my own sickness so vividly that my throat ached.

I went back and forth between Mama in the bed chamber and Papa in the parlour. I sponged their faces and tried to stop them scratching open the pustules. I tried to burst those that came inside their nostrils, to ease their breathing. I remembered how I had felt my very innards seething. I felt the pox rising on their palms, as hard as if there were pellets embedded beneath the skin.

In places my own skin had those pellets still, scattered amongst the soft, pitted scars, as hard as they had been when they rose during my fever. I sat beside Mama and Papa and never had a thought for myself, but as soon as I was alone for a moment my hands stole to my arms to press and squeeze at those little lumps beneath my sleeves. I had picked at my scabs when I was still recovering and had my fingers slapped for it; now my fingers went creeping again to the old, hard lumps. In my bed at night I could not stop myself picking at them with my nails, as frenzied as if I were gripped by a terrible itch. When I drew my own blood I felt only glad of it; I wanted never to stop until all my skin was lifted from my body. When the lump was opened and a waxy white kernel squeezed from its inside I felt only a dull kind of satisfaction at ridding my arm of that old, congealed sickness. I might have continued to claw myself until I was slippery with blood, if my parents had not needed me.

Papa’s decanter was on the sideboard. I dosed them both with brandy, and later I dosed myself. Mama always took a nip of brandy for her nerves. I had never taken strong drink before and the extraordinary heat of it caused me to choke in surprise. It was not long, however, before the world softened and warmed. I slept better, that night. I had dreams of Louisa, alive and running away from me across the gardens.

The doctor came, but would not even ascend the stairs to see them.

‘You might keep them cool, but there is little else to do for them, Miss Sinclair,’ he said, his eyes shifting over my own scarred countenance as though afraid to settle. ‘I have told Mr and Mrs Sinclair many times how strongly I favour variolation against infection, but they would not hear of it.’

‘Mama feared it,’ I said.

‘It would have been considerably less fearful than this sad outcome,’ he said, as if he knew them lost already.

The next morning Papa opened his eyes and I thought he seemed to know me, but instead he called out for his land steward, Mr Tyne.

‘What is it, Papa?’ I asked him. ‘Can I take a message to Mr Tyne for you?’

Papa closed his eyes.

‘He will not have the sense,’ he said, and very soon afterward slept. He would not wake again.

Of our papa’s last words my brother said only that Mr Tyne need not have sense, as he, Perry, would have the managing of the estate. I did not find I cared. My pain at the loss of Mama is perhaps best left unspoken, though she had not always liked me. My brother could not suffer me to be near to him, so little control could I keep over myself.

8

T
here is a good reason that the first stage of mourning is described as deep. I could not pull myself up from it long enough to care for myself, only sat in my chamber, dosing myself with brandy from Papa’s decanter.

My aunt came and stayed some weeks, and grew exasperated at last with how dull I was grown. When she left she tried to persuade me to accompany her, but only a very little refusal was enough to silence her.

‘Then you must come to us when you are out of mourning,’ she said. ‘We must find you a match, Lottie, for you would not wish to live for ever on Perry’s charity. You must ask him to let you come to us. I am sure he will agree.’

That was my situation; I was to live on Perry’s charity. If I wished to do such a common thing as pay a visit to my aunt, his was the permission I must have.

Mary did not return, but another maid appeared to bring food and see to my fire. If she had not I should have sat there until I froze or starved. My aunt left her, I think, when she went home.

I spent long hours sitting at my window looking out at the yard, where the servants walked about at their tasks as though the world went on. Sometimes I went to Mama’s dressing room and stood amongst her things. This I did to torture myself. I would stand there until I felt my knees begin to fail under the weight of grief. Then I would return to my room. I did not like to weep in Mama’s room; I knew she would not like to see me cry.

I went to Papa’s library and liberated another decanter, of rum, this time. When that one was gone I sent for wine. I clawed at my arms until I had turned the lumps to pits. Then I took to removing my stockings and began the same treatment upon my legs. My fingernails were as rimed with blood as a butcher’s. That, and the taking of strong drink, was all that could rouse me to move.

I did not know what Perry did while I sat in the window. It was spring before I began to look about me again, and I found that we had company.

Mr George Bowden was an old schoolfriend of my brother’s and had long been a visitor at our house and a favourite of everyone’s. Every summer, Louisa and I had been used to follow him about, laughing and teasing him. Louisa did so because she declared that she loved him and meant, someday, to marry him, and I because I could see that it infuriated Perry. My brother had always been jealous over his toys or his pony. He was incensed at having to share the attentions of his friend with his two younger sisters.

It was Louisa I thought of, once I came downstairs and found Mr Bowden at our table and living in a chamber opposite Perry’s. Perhaps he had been there all the winter, I did not know.

On one of the first occasions that we all three sat at table, Mr Bowden gestured for wine and addressed me with, ‘Shall I have the pleasure?’

Perry, who had only moments before been trying to bring me to smile by recounting a joke, immediately grew as sour as if he’d swallowed a lemon.

It was a dull kind of habit, more than anything, which drew my response.

‘Oh, Mr Bowden, how kind.’

Ever after that, I watched my brother, whenever Mr Bowden spoke to me. Perry clearly considered that his friend had come to comfort him alone and begrudged sharing even a drop of that solace with his sister.

Teasing Perry was better than any tonic. When Perry remarked, upon seeing Mr Bowden hand me an orange sprinkled with sugar, ‘Sweet dressing cannot mask a sour nature,’ he looked so vexed that I could not help myself simpering at Mr Bowden and then feeling ashamed at making myself so cheap.

It could not be denied that Mr Bowden was handsome. He had lively brown eyes and wore silk stockings even on ordinary days. He had a beauty-mark grown naturally upon his cheek, exactly where one might choose to paint it. His hair he cut in short curls and left off hair powder, which I thought daring. Beyond appearance, however, I found him lacking. He was too shallow to love; a pretty picture hanging upon a blank wall.

Mr Bowden’s presence, and the mild weather, turned my grief from a frozen weight to an ache behind my eyes. I began to leave off drinking liquor in the day time, unless I awoke feeling very melancholy. Perhaps because Mr Bowden stirred in me, not love, but an awareness of the existence of handsome gentlemen, I found I grieved for my own lost face, though I knew I was ungrateful to God. I left off clawing at my scars and in penance began to massage my limbs with a liniment of juniper and hawthorn.

I never refused Mr Bowden’s invitations to go walking or driving. I could not have passed over the opportunity to see Perry’s expression drop. I did find that once we were away from Perry’s company, Mr Bowden began to seem tiresome. That is not to say that I did not sometimes find him flattering; he said that mourning colours became me, making my hair and eyes brighter by comparison. He called my pox-marks stars upon a daylight sky. He said that when I came out of mourning he would be sorely tempted to run my brother through with his sword, just to see my fair hair falling against my black cloak. That little witticism made me laugh aloud in surprise.

The day came, however, that we were walking in the parkland together when the breeze sprang up cold. He drew me into the trees for shelter and there put his hands tight around my waist and looked close into my face. I could not believe he should wish to do such a thing. I was so astonished that all his flattery had led to something of substance, that I did not stop him when he put his lips to mine. His lips were warm and drier than I had thought they would be.

I could not help but be pleased, but on whose account was the pleasure? Was it only that I knew how furious Perry would be to know it? Was it for the sake of my own vanity, that a gentleman should wish to kiss me? Could it be that without knowing it, I loved Mr Bowden? I drank a jug of wine, just in order that I might not think of it, and stayed in my room until the morning.

I awoke with the expected headache from the wine, but beneath this I was filled with a determined joy. Why should I not have whatever happiness was available to me? I found, that morning, that I was glad to see Mr Bowden, for his own sake. Perry was still abed; I accepted Mr Bowden’s invitation to go riding simply because riding would be a pleasure.

I had never been taught to ride. Mr Bowden sat me upon his own horse, Blackbird, and led her about the park. He did not laugh when I grew nervous and clutched at the pommel, only slowed the pace until I grew calm.

Finally I rode her alone, with Mr Bowden beside me on one of Perry’s horses, and the sun warm on my face. He did not ask me to go above a walk. The smell of the grass, horse and leather combined to make the sweetest perfume. I loved the freedom, the slight fear that I would fall, the feel of the animal beneath my legs. We sang as we rode and I did not care that my voice screeched.

One morning I came down to find him waiting at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at me with an expression of great excitement.

‘Come with me,’ he said, and held out his hand.

I took it, conscious all the time of the lumpen skin beneath my glove.

‘Where are we going? What about breakfast?’ I said.

‘Breakfast be hanged.’ He led me to the door.

‘It is raining,’ I said, but he only held his coat above my head.

‘Come, be quick.’ His eyes were laughing beneath the coat.

I laughed with him and together we ran to the stables. The groom looked surprised and a little disapproving to see us arrive so, which made us laugh the more.

‘Now look,’ he said, and pointed to a horse I had not seen before, holding her elegant head above the half-door of her box.

‘Oh, how lovely,’ I said.

She was the dearest chestnut mare, with docile eyes and a shining mane.

‘She is yours,’ he said, leading me toward her.

‘No,’ I said, ‘not mine. She cannot be.’

‘She is, indeed. This is the first of the gifts I mean to give to you; a loyal friend and the freedom to ride. Do not you be afraid. I will teach you all you need to know.’

‘Oh, Mr Bowden,’ I said, for I still could not feel steady calling him George. ‘I do not know what to say.’

‘Only tell me you are pleased with her.’

‘I adore her above all things.’ I put my hand to that velvet nose and she dipped her head to me.

‘Not all things, surely?’

‘Yes, I do. And I promise you I shall, always.’

He took my hand and turned me so that I might face him. ‘Do not you make that promise. Perhaps, instead, there will be a different promise you might make, in time. In the meantime you may love her. Her name is Locket, for she carries precious things safely.’

Lying in bed at night, I took out that moment in the stables and looked it over. He had as good as asked me to marry him. He had, surely. I knew, as though I had decided it long before, that if he asked me, I would accept. I could not expect better, scarred and hidden away as I was. I could not pretend to find him unattractive. To be the wife of a handsome fop was far more appealing than to be a spinster thrown on Perry’s charity.

Even without those thoughts to unsettle me I could scarce sleep, so eager was I to go out and stroke Locket’s soft nose. I had meant it when I said that I loved her. I almost loved Mr Bowden, for giving her to me.

The weather was poor and I could not ride for the first few days after she came but each morning I was there, gazing into her soft eyes. I sent for the dressmaker and gave her one of my walking gowns to make over into a riding habit. I ordered a hat with a feather. I ordered black, but because it had been three full months since poor Mama and Papa were lost, I had blue and grey ribbons put around its brim.

Perry was in a dark humour, stamping about the house, cursing at the servants. When I passed him in the hall one night on my way to bed, both of us with candles in hand, he reached out and gripped my arm at the elbow.

‘Let me go,’ I whispered. I felt, instinctively, that I should not raise my voice; the battle between us had always been a private thing.

‘You let go of George!’ Perry’s whisper was almost as loud as his speaking voice. ‘You have always bothered at him. You leave him alone, Charlotte.’

‘He comes to find me,’ I said. ‘Why should he not? Did you think he would be satisfied to be always with you? Of course he seeks feminine company. You are not enough for him.’

I had meant, not enough of a companion, but I saw something in Perry’s face – wincing pain, and shame, and fear – that made me stop. I felt my mouth drop open like a simpleton. I closed it quickly.

‘You leave him be,’ Perry said again, his fingers digging into my arm. ‘I will find some way to be rid of you, otherwise. You can go to our aunt. You can go into a nunnery. I warn you, Charlotte. Do not cross me.’

The words were on the tip of my tongue,
Can you really think he loves you? You are as foolish as Louisa was; he has as good as asked me to marry him –

But Perry had about him a quality I could not name, and I found it frightened me. I wrested my arm from his grasp and hurried up the stairs, the flame of my candle jumping as I ran.

I avoided Perry all the next day. I took breakfast in my room, and as soon as I was dressed I went to the stables.

The groom smiled to see me hurrying in from the rain. He had lost his disapproval in the face of my devotion. He gave me a soft brush for Locket’s coat. I brushed her as he showed me, good firm strokes. I meant to look after her.

‘It does my heart good to see you smiling, Miss Sinclair,’ he said.

‘Who could see Locket and not smile?’ I replied.

‘She’s a pretty little beast, right enough,’ he said. ‘You deserve a bit of happiness, if you’ll excuse my saying it.’

I nodded. While I was with Locket I felt that I, and all the world, could be as good and simple as she. The moment the groom went about his business, I planned to fling my arms about her neck like a child.

‘Mrs Sinclair was quite the horsewoman when she were young,’ he said, then.

‘Mama never rode,’ I said.

Locket, seeing that my attention turned from her, pushed her nose into my hand. I rewarded her with a flurry of caresses.

‘Oh, she did when she were young, Miss Sinclair. I’d not lie to you. She followed the hounds a fair few times, as well.’

After that I longed to ride even more.

That evening the gentlemen stayed locked in the library, in a cloud of cigar smoke that drifted through the halls. I ate alone and retired to sit in my window seat and pray that the night be clear and the morning fine.

The yard looked changed at night, a spread of shadows; the line of the pump blending into the black wall of the stable, the top of the gate become a shelf for the darkening sky. The rain was easing into a fine drizzle. I opened the window by myself; I did not like to have the maid spoil the deep quiet of my chamber just then, and I found I enjoyed the effort of it, turning the key and heaving the rope that pulled the sash. I let go too fast and the rope ran against my palm with a strange and shocking heat.

The night air was chillier than I had expected. It came straight through my shawl and made me aware of my skin, all over. I leant into it a little, just so that my face was where the glass had been. I smelt wet straw and clean earth.

At that moment I saw Perry picking his way across the cobbles, taking care not to slip. He was bareheaded and his hair showed bright in the swinging lantern light. His step tilted and lurched as the wine unbalanced him. He walked directly to the stables and I heard, quite clearly, the wood-on-wood of the bar being lifted and the open and close of the door.

A great dread started up in the pit of my stomach. Perry had always known how best to hurt me and he was not one to let a chance go past. If I loved Locket, she could not be safe.

I sat a moment, caught between fear and action, and then I moved so quickly that I hit my elbow against the window coving. I went from the room and down the stairs. The hall was empty. I went toward the music room, where French windows opened onto the garden. I could hurry around that way, and through the gate to the stable yard.

The music room was empty, the hearth dark. The only light came from the windows but there was moon enough that I could make out the tables and chairs that I must not collide with. The dark and the quiet made the queer urgency in my breast all the sharper. I went quickly to the French windows; this time, however, I found them locked for the night.