Fair Fight (43 page)

‘Go on, Henry,’ I said. ‘Tom will let you in.’

He looked at us once and then nodded, and went to knock at the convent door. We watched Tom open it, the babe at his shoulder, and relief at clapping eyes on Henry writ all over his bandaged face.

‘Do not you go inside?’ Mrs Dryer asked.

‘And leave you here, thinking ill of me?’ I’d not realised till then that I’d missed her company. I knew I’d hate her to think me so vicious, even if I’d been ready to take his eye out an hour before.

‘I, think ill of you! It is you who must think ill of me.’ She put her gloved hand to her breast.

That had me fuddled. ‘What can you mean, Mrs Dryer?’

‘I left you behind, in London.’

‘We got home safe, didn’t we?’

‘Yes! That’s just it, Mrs Webber. You must believe me; Mr Dryer threatened to leave us all if I stayed behind. I came on condition that he saw you carried home.’

She leaned forward and spoke pleadingly. She didn’t seem to feel the least hurry for the sake of her husband, bleeding himself to death in our parlour.

‘Well, I hardly thought he’d done it on his own account. I knew you’d a hand in it, Mrs Dryer. I should’ve thanked you before now.’ I didn’t know if that was the truth, or not. I’d been so upset over Tom’s eye, I’d hardly given anything else a thought.

‘Thank me? Forgive me, only.’

‘What can you mean? Forgive you what? Didn’t you nurse me back to health? You’ve been as kind as anyone ever has.’ That, at least, was true.

‘I abandoned you. I didn’t give orders for white cullis. I thought, when you wouldn’t call on me, you must be resentful indeed.’ She spoke to her clasped hands, her voice very low.

‘Call on you? But Mrs Dryer, I didn’t know you were in Bristol.’

‘Not at Bristol. At The Ridings. When you came to fetch your belongings. I went to the gatehouse and all was gone and you had not called.’

‘I can’t say I know what you’re running on about, Mrs Dryer. You took me to London, and the trunk came with me.’

Now she gasped. ‘I did not know that was all you had.’

I laughed, then. ‘Poor, ain’t we? That was the whole of it.’

‘Can you really mean that you never came back to the gatehouse at all?’

‘Mrs Dryer, I don’t wish to give offence, but if any man tries to take me back there I’ll knock his head off.’

‘I share your feelings there.’ She gave a small smile.

‘Now, are we friends enough that you’ll come in? I didn’t run to fetch you only for your husband to pass over into the afterlife while we sit here gabbing.’

I thought that’d be it settled but she shook her head.

‘I had better stay here. Your sister would not like to see me.’

I gave a bitter laugh. ‘My sister! You’ll not meet her. She’s run off. She’ll not be back in this lifetime.’

‘Was it not she, then, who attacked Mr Dryer?’

I thought then how brave she was to come at all, thinking Dora still here and murderous with it.

‘Haven’t I said? He fell and hit the glass of the bowl. I didn’t tell you a lie.’

Finally she smiled a true smile. ‘I could not have blamed her, you know, if she had.’

‘Come you inside.’

Tom was pacing up and down the hall, jogging the babe against his shoulder to shush it. Without my asking he went to the door and stood on the front step, to watch over the carriage. Henry followed him. He was goggling Tom just as he had when he used to bring us food. I could tell he thought my husband the hero, eye or no eye.

Mr Dryer still sat in the parlour, his head bandaged and hung forward on his neck. He looked to be out for the count. Jacky sat next to him, murmuring, ‘There, there, there.’

Seeing him, Mrs Dryer only said, ‘Henry and Tom can lift him between them, I’m sure.’

‘You took the glass out,’ I said to Jacky.

He held it up for me to see, like a conjurer pulling a silk hanky from your ear. After all that it was almost blunt, not a triangle but a ragged square. Here we were thinking Mr Dryer stabbed in the skull and it could only have stuck into the skin.

‘Didn’t he bleed a lot, for that little piece,’ I said.

I thought,
Perhaps enough to die of it
, but I didn’t say so.

They’d bound the wound with paper and a pad of salt and ashes. All we could do then was hope.

We carried him out and Tom, Jacky and I watched the carriage drive away. All the night and the next morning we were in anxieties that Mr Dryer would die, or call us murderers. I wished we’d spoken more with Mrs Dryer when she’d come. All I could think of to do, while we waited for word, was finally to set about cleaning Ma’s room. I didn’t want Jacky with me for that work. I tasked Tom with keeping the lad busy and away from the garret.

‘I’ll think of some job for him,’ Tom said. ‘He wants to fetch for me all day. He puts me in mind of a goblin butler.’

I laughed at that. ‘I’d warrant that he nursed Ma for that long, he doesn’t know what else to be about.’

‘I don’t need nursing; I lost an eye, not my legs.’

‘You play invalid for him, Tom. He needs to be useful.’ I didn’t say,
and you need to rest
, but I was glad to see Tom sit back and how eagerly Jacky ran for him.

It was devilish foul in Ma’s garret. Damp filth coated the underside of the mattress and all the corners were clogged with greasy, ashy dust. I kept a rag tied about my chops and went as quick as I could. I’d not let Tom inside, for fear of him taking an infection from the bad air. I burned sage. I scrubbed all I could reach with lye, till my hands cracked and bled.

I thought of Ma, holding out that tooth, saying,
It’s less than you’re owed
. I didn’t know what I was owed, but I meant to have what there was and make the best of it.

Of Ma’s things, I sold whatever I could. What I couldn’t I burned in the yard in a damp, smouldering bonfire.

Jacky came out and stood beside me as her bedding went up slowly, in choking black smoke.

I was standing watching the flames stubbornly eat at what was left of Ma’s sickness, when a damp hand stole into mine. I let it stay. I didn’t look at him, just held his paw, watched the fire and thought about the foul marsh under Ma’s bed. Jacky had been used to crawl under there.

‘You’ll be well with us,’ I said, as if to the air.

‘Will you send me away?’ he said.

I looked at him just as he stole a glance up at me. He wasn’t as pale as he’d used to be. Tom was beginning to tease it out of him and I was feeding him all I could afford. I’d been selling everything that was left in the house; only the Lord knew what we’d do when I’d cleaned the place out. But one thought had begun to snake about my mind as I’d sweated and scrubbed and it was this: if Ma was dead and Dora gone, was the convent mine?

‘Jacky, as long as I’ve money enough to keep you, I will. There. It’s all I can say.’

‘I know where money is.’

‘What can you mean?’

‘I know where Ma hid it. She said she’d see me hung for a thief if ever I touched it, but I know where. But you have to swear home.’

‘Swear what?’

‘You won’t turn me out, nor hang me neither.’

‘I won’t do either of those, money or no. I’d only see you turned out if Tom and I was forced out with you, you know.’

He made me spit on my hand. Then he pointed at the fire.

‘In the fire?’

Jacky got a stick and poked about the burning mattress till he turned up a cloth bag, just beginning to catch. It was lucky for us that it’d been so damp and never did do more than smoulder. There was enough to see us safe for a little while longer, at least.

The next day there came a knocking at the door. I went to answer it with a pressing in my chest like air that wouldn’t breathe out. As soon as I saw Mrs Dryer upon the step, I knew he wasn’t dead. Her face was too clear for bad news.

‘Henry is driving the carriage around to the back,’ she said.

I called to Tom to open the gates to the yard.

She was shy, now it was daylight. I invited her in, shy myself when I realised truly what house she was come to. She’d thought of it too, I could see it in the secret way she tried to look over everything.
Go on
, I wanted to say to her,
look over the whole place if you will. Here’s where your husband spent the days he wasn’t with you.
I didn’t want to say that to hurt her, only because I thought she wanted to do it and thought she’d better not, and I’d never have minded. Of course I said nothing. I’d learned enough manners for that, at least.

‘He’s alive, then,’ I said, as I led her to the kitchen.

‘I’m afraid so,’ she said.

I laughed. ‘I never thought to find myself praying for Mr Dryer’s health. Does he say we meant to hurt him?’

‘No. He called it an accident when he spoke with the doctor. I will see that he does not change his mind.’

Through the kitchen window I could see Tom, greeting Henry in the yard. They looked very alike just then, though they differed so in size. They both had such open faces. Before any time had passed at all there came the muffled thud that meant they’d begun fibbing at the dummy.

‘I hope they take it gentle,’ I said.

‘How is Tom?’ she asked. ‘I have had him in my prayers every night.’

She looked so much like she meant it that I felt my eyes get hot.

‘He does well enough,’ I said, and still afraid that I’d weep, I went and picked up the babber from his basket.

I brought him to her, wrapped up in his blanket. Mrs Dryer moved to take the corner of blanket away from his face but I moved first and put his warm, sleeping body in her arms. Her arms tightened about him natural as breathing.

‘Oh, Ruth. What is his name?’

Just watching her soft mug it came to me, clear as day.

‘My sister left him,’ I said. She looked up then and I nodded. ‘I can’t expect she named him. No doubt someone will, when we know what’s to be done with him.’

‘Why, what shall become of him?’

‘There’s a woman on the street’s been nursing him when she can, and the rest of the time there’s goat’s milk.’

‘I am sure you will take good care of him,’ she said, in a quiet voice.

‘If you won’t have him, then I must.’ I couldn’t stand to go softly.

She shook her head. ‘You know that I would like to.’ She didn’t sound as though she meant to, though.

‘Will you not, then?’

‘How can I?’

‘He’s your husband’s son.’

She only shook her head again. She didn’t lay him down, though, when we went out to the yard to watch Tom teaching Henry. She stood with him held against her, his little head on her shoulder, and she made sure she stood far enough from the action to keep him clear. She kept hold of him through the whole of Henry’s lesson and afterward, when we sat at table. The babe stirred and woke and I silently blessed him that he didn’t wail. I fetched him some goat’s milk and showed Mrs Dryer how he’d take it dribbled down the handle of the spoon.

‘What will you do now?’ she asked us.

‘We don’t know as yet, Mrs Dryer,’ Tom said. ‘I think we’d all like to keep the house nice now. We’ll know in time how it’s to be done. There’s a little money left to us by Ruth’s ma, God rest her and keep her.’

Mrs Dryer looked sorrowful. ‘I cannot help thinking that my husband owes you some assistance.’

Tom shrugged. ‘It was never agreed that way.’

‘You must be compensated, at least, for the eye.’

I could see Tom about to argue that she needn’t fret, so I said, ‘We won’t look for it, Mrs Dryer, but we’ll not turn it away if it comes.’

‘I cannot help but feel it is owed,’ she said. ‘I cannot begin to pay Mrs Webber all that I think is due to her on my own account.’

‘I can think of one favour you can do me.’ I looked markedly at the babber on her knee. She didn’t reply.

When it came time to leave she was still holding him.

I said, ‘Jacky, go and say goodbye to the babber.’ I didn’t say, your brother.

He went and stood near to Mrs Dryer’s chair, looking at her with his queer eyes, till she held the baby out, and then he bent and put his lips quickly to its head. She looked almost as though she’d like to stop him.

‘We will come again soon,’ she said, at the door. ‘Perhaps just Henry, the next time.’

‘You come whenever you like, Mrs Dryer, or send Henry alone,’ Tom said. ‘You’re always welcome here, the pair of you.’

‘God bless you all,’ she said. She still held him pressed against her. I could see his little mouth open and working at the cloth of her gown.

‘Go well then, Mrs Dryer,’ I said, ‘and Henry. And little . . .?’

‘Arthur,’ she said. She was blushing but she didn’t drop her eyes. ‘After my brother.’

PART ELEVEN

Charlotte

24

I
had Granville put to bed in Perry’s old room, and dear Henry offered to sleep on the daybed in the dressing room, in case he should call out in the night.

I went to my own bed full of conflicting feeling. How lucky it was for Granville that I had been already at Queen Square. I could not wish him to die, now that he was here; how might I have felt, however, had I been unable to come to his rescue? How would it have been to wake at Aubyn Hall to a note informing me that I need never see my husband again? In what measure would relief have weighed against sorrow? I could not know.

The next morning Granville was much recovered, although too weak to rise. I went to him and he looked at me with a wretched smile, like a little boy fallen from a tree he had been forbidden to climb.

‘I am very grateful to you, Lottie,’ he said. ‘You are too good.’

‘I did only what anyone would. I would not leave any man to bleed if I might carry him to safety.’

He looked even sorrier then, but I could not summon any softness for him. I called for the doctor, instead. Let him be soft in my place.

I stayed throughout the doctor’s visit. There had been an accident, I explained, when my husband went to enquire how Mr Webber did. I looked hard at Granville when I said the word ‘accident’, but he only nodded.

‘I mean to visit them tomorrow, to express our thanks,’ I said.

Granville’s face twitched but he did not speak out against it.

‘You should indeed,’ the doctor said. ‘The dressing they applied to the wound was most thoroughly done. It almost certainly saved Mr Dryer’s life.’

I noted the glower that crossed Granville’s face.

‘I will be sure to tell them so,’ I said.

The next afternoon I returned to Queen Square with Arthur warm in my arms, his fat hands tangling in the fringe of the shawl that I had pulled from my shoulders to wrap him in. I knocked upon the door of my own house, Henry beside me, and when Bede came to admit me I pulled back a corner of the shawl to show Arthur’s pink-cheeked face.

‘I mean to keep him, Bede,’ I said. ‘He is the child of a friend fallen on hard times. We shall keep him and raise him a gentleman.’

Bede, being a butler of the first class, did not even show surprise.

‘It will be a great pleasure to serve the young master,’ he said.

If only Granville would be so easy! I knew I should have to fight him over it and I was ready to do so. I wanted Arthur as much as I had ever wanted anything. I did not care a bit who his mother had been; perhaps I should have, but I did not. I would be his mother now.

I could not help but be fearful, however. The house had been signed into my name, but it was Granville’s money that we lived upon. My husband’s recent attentions had not been entirely unwelcome – it was his good will that allowed me to live so freely in my mama’s house. He could make matters very difficult for all of us, if he so chose.

I left Arthur kicking his little legs on the hearthrug, under Henry’s watchful eye. Then I took a deep breath and went up to Granville. I stood a moment to gather my courage. I made myself stand very straight. I knocked gently upon the bedroom door. There was no reply. Slowly, I turned the handle and opened the door a crack. Granville was sprawled across the bed as though he had tried to rise and fallen back. His face shone with perspiration, the skin a bloodless white. His mouth hung open and his breath came loudly.

It sounds foolish now, but for a moment I thought,
He has done this to punish me for bringing Arthur home
. Then I came to my senses and cried out for Bede, for Henry, for a doctor.

And so I have made a new household and all in it is different, though many of the players stay the same. We are told that Granville has taken blood poisoning. He lies feverish in Perry’s old room, and all of us about him wait for an improvement or a decline.

I could not think what else to do but have The Ridings shut up and summon Mrs Bell to play nurse. There is still no love lost between us, but I could not think of anyone preferable. She takes no interest in the running of the house, though we are not so organised yet as one might hope. When I told her that I have learnt the keeping of the accounts – which is not so very difficult, after all, with Bede beside me – she said only, ‘As I am sure you should, madam,’ and sounded sincere.

She stays always in Granville’s room and treats him most tenderly; mopping his brow and trying everything she can to tempt him to drink broth. It is all he is allowed, of course, being taken with fever. The doctor comes almost daily to bleed the poison from him, and Mrs Bell engages him in conversation, as much as he will allow her. She will even talk to me, given the opportunity. She tells me of every rise or fall of Granville’s appetite, every turn of his fever, every movement he passes, and all in hushed and serious tones. She has never spoken to me so much before. I think she is almost happy, now that she is nurse to him again.

Sometimes he seems to rally and we all think he will recover, and then he seems again to sink and will hardly wake for days. When he is strong enough I go to him, and sometimes take Arthur with me. I have explained to Granville, several times, that I mean to raise the child he got on his mistress. Sometimes I think he understands and sometimes I am not sure. He is not strong enough, in any case, to quarrel with me.

Henry I have here as footman. I have told him that I would consider releasing him from service, setting myself up as guardian to him, perhaps. I offered him the opportunity to go to school, if he wished it, though he is fifteen already. He replied that he preferred to earn a wage, and to be his own man. He sees nothing to be ashamed of in the life of a footman. I suppose that when one comes from a family of farmhands, as Henry does, it is a rise in the world. I can see that he admires Bede; he watches him as carefully as he used to watch Ruth when she sparred. On his half-day he goes to visit the Webbers, so he has not given up his training entirely.

I have given up mine, however; I could not risk dashing my hopes of carrying this child. I am determined that no one, not even George Bowden, should ever know of its real begetting. I try not to think too much upon what to do, if Granville recovers and doubts my fidelity. Perhaps I might tell him that he lay with me in his fever. It is a revolting notion, but it is all I can think of. He can hardly disprove it; he does not know where he is, half the time.

I have been decorating the house. I had always imagined that if I had my own house I should want some of Mama’s things, from Aubyn Hall. This house is so full of her already, however, that I haven’t felt I need to. Instead I work to clean and brighten what is here. I think of what Mama would have liked, and, which is more delicious, what I should like.

I daily walk out into the wide lawns of Queen Square, and when Arthur is bigger he shall run under the trees there, perhaps with a little dog. We breathe the scent of working Bristol, though I still have fresh flowers brought into the house, for Mama. She would not have liked the smell of the river to be a welcome guest.

The other ladies of the square have begun to call upon me, although thankfully not too often. Granville serves as my excuse. I think, in time, I shall come to like one or two of them; one lady in particular, Mrs Grieves, very young and merry, despite her name. She came to call and found herself sitting beside the cushion I embroidered all that time ago, depicting Mrs Webber, standing ready at scratch. She picked it up and admired it.

‘Oh, I do think this fine, Mrs Dryer. Is it your own work?’

‘Why, yes,’ I said, ‘but I do not believe it very accomplished. The pose, you know, is all wrong. She has left her face quite unguarded.’

At that Mrs Grieves laughed so heartily that I added,

‘Some brute will knock her teeth from her mouth, if she does not take care.’

She shook her head and declared me great fun. I have not often been called fun. Perhaps, next time she calls, I will show her the piece depicting three hooded rogues, walking at night down a country lane. It is nearly completed.

I think, once my baby is safely arrived, I shall buy a horse and ask Mrs Grieves if she might care to ride out with me. I shall ride, with or without a companion. I will buy myself a soft-eyed mare and guard her with my life.

I have heard of a newly arrived family with six young daughters and two of them pox-marked. I think I shall call upon them as soon as they are settled. I hope I can be of service to those little girls.

Arthur is my joy. That woman is gone and she has left me a wondrous gift. I may have saved him from a life of the most terrible sin and he, in turn, has rescued me from a slow and dreary death. Perhaps, in choosing him, I have made him more mine than anything has been my life long, though I did not bear him. I spend hours in his nursery; although I am sure that his nurse would rather I did not. I have found for him the plumpest, most kindly wet-nurse I could, but I am jealous of every moment that she has him. I cannot help it. I plan that if Granville recovers he should teach Arthur trade, and to be a good man. I hope he will be a good man, with none of his mother in him.

Perry has regained some of his strength. He is certainly drinking less liquor. I don’t imagine that he will ever give it up entirely, but I have it on good authority – Granville’s word, and Fisher’s – that Perry has not been really drunk since I left Aubyn, after he learnt of George’s betrayal. He is bent on finding him. I don’t know what use it could be, nor how likely he is to succeed. He has ceased to suffer my company, in any case. I have called upon him once or twice and found him quite as determined to offend me as he ever was. Sometimes I have returned his insults, but he is still so diminished and his weaknesses so apparent that I feel cruel and leave off long before he would have had done, had our positions been reversed.

I put my hand upon my belly and feel the round push of it, firm and alive. I feel this one waiting to come home. I hope my child can feel my hand, this early caress. I hope she is a little girl, and that I can name her Louisa. I think perhaps, Louisa Ruth. I hope so much to be delivered of her safely. Although it is still early I imagine that I can feel her there, the secret curve of her body beneath my skin. I think,
She is not sleeping; she is waiting with her eyes open in the dark
.
I think she will be a fighter, and never lie down for anyone else to tread upon her. I hope for so much for her. In so many ways now, I hope.