Ace, King, Knave (56 page)

Insufferably arrogant and blind, to ignore the advice of Mama, and of Hetty. With sickening horror she sees it all: she has allowed Betsy-Ann to insinuate herself – abject folly! – and this is her reward, and who knows how it will end?

The door of Cosgrove’s opens and Edmund strolls out, accompanied by two well-set men in livery. A second brace of liveried fellows guards the entrance. Edmund frowns, studying the crowd; it is a moment before he again locates Blore and Sophia, after which he moves towards them, taking care, however, to keep behind the railings that separate him from the onlookers.

‘Come along, Madam,’ he calls, beckoning to Sophia. ‘Come away from that brute. You have leave from Mr Cosgrove to enter the premises.’

Her mouth is disagreeably full of saliva, so that she has to swallow before she can whisper to Blore, ‘May I speak with him?’

Blore does not answer. Some of the bystanders are calling out, ‘Come along! Come along, Madam!’ in high facetious voices.

Dear God ─

Her belly contracts and urges, propelling a sour, viscous brew onto the cobbles. Sophia hangs her head, panting. Fan’s pelisse has caught a splash or two, but nobody else was within range of the vileness: where Blore goes, others give room. Dreading a sudden yank upon her arm, she straightens herself, striving to keep pace with her captor.

Blore ignores her plight, if he is even aware of it, and raises his voice again: ‘I see you daren’t come alone, Ned.’ The onlookers are laughing: some at Edmund, and a smaller number, close by, at Sophia’s clumsy attempts to wipe her mouth on her sleeve. Blore has never stopped moving forwards. He is now only a few yards from Edmund, continuing to bawl at the top of his lungs, rallying the mob to his side.

Edmund’s face is frigid. ‘You’re detaining that lady against her will.’

‘You’re her husband, ain’t you? Come and rescue her! Step up!’

Some fool is screeching, ‘Form a ring! Fair fight!’

Frowning and biting a fingernail as the catcalls increase, Edmund moves back. He is plainly unsettled: at a loss how to deal. In all that perplexity, vanity and fear, is there, Sophia wonders, the smallest admixture of care for herself?

At any rate, he appears to have reached a decision: his shoulders sit lower, his mouth twitches as if at a pungent witticism. When he raises his arms to the crowd, he might be Mr Garrick calming the pit at Drury Lane.

‘Friends! In the interests of fair play – dear to the heart of every Englishman – hear me out!’

They are unsure what to make of him, Sophia can see: some of these people take a delight in pelting with filth anyone so finely clothed. But Edmund is Edmund, and possessed of all the charm that implies.

‘Let him talk,’ from the crowd.

Blore sneers, ‘Why don’t you meet me, man to man?’ but Edmund has succeeded in catching the interest of those around. They may stamp him into the ground, thinks Sophia, but they’ll hear him out first.

‘He’s a regular sport, eh, ladies and gents? A fine fellow, because he takes advantage of his size to insult me, and insult the lady. But you’re deceived. Take another look at him – he’s a man you won’t often see by day.’

Blore shouts, ‘Mind your tongue, whoreson.’

‘He’s a night bird – a resurrectionist! He digs up pretty wenches and brides just married, aye, and your infants at the breast, little angels, and sells ’em to be ottomised.’

At once Sophia is conscious of a new sound issuing from the onlookers, a kind of spiteful hum. Even the most degraded wretches loathe the resurrectionists: Betsy-Ann told her that. Sure enough, a woman screams: ‘Shame on him! Shame!’

‘Scrag him!’

Blore’s huge head swivels from side to side, weighing up the odds. With the prize-fighter’s sense of when to strike, he flings away Sophia’s hand and makes a rush at Edmund, the crowd leaping back. Edmund no longer seems to be enjoying his moment: he turns to flee but trips and sprawls on the flagstones just within the railings. Blore hurls himself over them, lands heavily on the other side, stumbles in his turn and falls beside Edmund.

Sophia’s throat, which has been paralysed by shock, now opens up, enabling her to cry, ‘He’s armed! He’s armed!’

The liveried servants run forward, seize hold of Blore and manage to pull him upright, upon which one of them is kicked and left doubled up on the cobbles. The other plucks at the back of Blore’s coat, trying to restrain him, and is flung off as a bull might fling off a terrier. By this time Edmund is likewise upright, but not escaped; Blore catches hold of his arm and the pair of them whirl round in a clumsy dance. The spectators close on them, presenting Sophia with a view of their backs. She stands helpless, clenching her hands.

There is a sudden loud report, followed by screams, including Sophia’s. With a roar, the crowd fractures, some pushing this way, some that. Does she hear the sound again? So many women are screaming that she cannot tell. Everywhere men are forcing their way through the crush, dealing with their neighbours as they might with so many senseless blocks. Sophia is knocked off balance, whirled among them like a bobbing cork: it is as much as she can do to avoid being pulled down and trampled.

Someone is tugging at her bad arm. ‘He followed me,’ pants Betsy-Ann Blore. ‘Quick, come this way.’

‘What happened? Did you see?’

‘This way!’

‘Is Edmund hurt?’

‘For the love of Christ! I don’t know. Come, will you?’

There is nothing to do but follow. Betsy-Ann leads her along the edge of the crowd, skirts the rear and travels by a circuitous route by three sides of the square before turning back towards Cosgrove’s. By the time they once more approach the railings the crush is greatly thinned. Even so, the scene outside that celebrated establishment now resembles a public performance, the lower sort flattened against the railings in their eagerness to miss nothing of the action while the gentler spectators, raised above the stage, have actually mounted their chairs for a better view, their faces pressed so tightly to the glass that they appear stacked row upon row. As a result, much of the light from the interior is blocked. Of Edmund and Blore nothing is visible: try as she may, Sophia is unable to see past the hats of those in front.

‘Let us through,
if
you please!’ bawls Betsy-Ann. Her strong arms and stronger voice make way through the packed bodies so that Sophia, following in her footsteps, feels she has exchanged captors, Blore brother for Blore sister. When they finally reach the entrance the remaining spectators are loath to give place. Betsy-Ann stations herself at the gap between the railings, surveys those nearby and lights on a small, dowdy woman. This person she shoves aside, ignoring her curses, and wedges herself into the place thus created, at the same time dragging Sophia in front of her, much as she might a child.

From here Sophia can see her husband and Harry Blore stretched on the ground, so close together that Blore’s massive head, bloody and misshapen, rests in the crook of Edmund’s arm. Three liveried servants stand between her and the fallen men, blocking the way in case the mob should start to spill in there; three more are keeping a wary eye out for anyone who might vault the railings. One man is squatting, feeling Edmund’s neck.

‘His wife!’ Betsy-Ann shouts for the benefit of the servants. ‘Let her through.’

At once those around them turn and gape. Sophia has the impression that they had forgotten that part of the story, and are glad to go on with it. The servants stay where they are, but one of them calls, ‘Is that correct, Madam? You are married to this gentleman?’

‘To Mr Zedland.’

The man hesitates. ‘The gentleman who jumped the rails?’

‘The other. In the blue coat.’

‘That’s Mr Hartry,’ says the servant.

‘It’s the same man.’ She sees his distrust: who can blame him? She has given the wrong name, her plain clothing makes a poor show against Edmund’s fine coat and the servant perhaps witnessed her approach alongside Blore. She holds up her head and speaks in her most genteel manner.

‘This woman is the sister of the other ―’ No, she cannot call Blore a gentleman. ‘I’m aware that we hardly seem – all will be explained, but please,
please
may I go to my husband? I beg of you ―’

She moves towards Edmund but the man at once blocks her. ‘I must ask you to stay back, Madam. The gentlemen are our responsibility.’

‘Has a surgeon been sent for?’ asks Betsy-Ann.

The man nods. ‘I believe so.’

Sophia clasps her hands in supplication. ‘Then for pity’s sake take him inside, before the cold kills him.’ A boy has arrived with lanterns and she can see a glistening dark stain spreading from beneath Edmund’s right armpit down the side of his coat.

Another manservant, hearing this, proves more conciliatory: he assures her that both combatants are to be taken indoors as soon as hurdles can be procured. The ladies can rest assured that the greatest conceivable care will be taken, and he will personally enquire of Mr Cosgrove if they themselves may be admitted.

‘Tell Mr Cosgrove I’m Mrs Hartry,’ calls Sophia as he walks away. She watches the servant disappear into the house as if he were the one remaining hope of her life.

‘That’s the last we’ll see of him,’ mutters Betsy-Ann. He returns directly, however, to inform Sophia that she and ‘the other lady’ may accompany the injured gent and must give what information they can.

Under the servant’s watchful eyes, Sophia is permitted to approach. She sinks down and takes Edmund’s head in her lap, turning up his face towards her own.

*

For Blore, nothing can be done. A ball shattered his skull: it seems that life departed his frame even before he hit the flagstones. His huge corpse, rolled onto a hurdle carried by two grunting men, is taken into the house and an expressionless Betsy-Ann informed that until matters have been ‘looked into’ it cannot be fetched away.

Blore thus disposed of, a hurdle is fetched for Edmund who, limp and bloodied, is brought inside the club. Greedy for scandal, gamesters pour out of the salon into the lobby: Sophia has a confused impression of stumbling between two long lines of faces. Not until she has gained the landing do the men drift back into the salon to resume play.

In a private chamber on the first floor Mr Cosgrove, an undistinguished individual with red hands, receives her with courtesy and even kindness, begging her to make herself at home. He takes Betsy-Ann to one side, conferring with her briefly before returning to assure Sophia that help is on its way. In the meantime, the ladies are to have everything they need. Sure enough, servants arrive bearing port wine, and cordial, and biscuits, and spirit of hartshorn, and tea: an endless succession of futile comforts. So unobservant has misery rendered Sophia that she sees nothing in this but common humanity. It falls to Betsy-Ann to point out that Cosgrove’s attentions, though acceptable in themselves, are managed in such a way that Mrs Hartry and Miss Blore are never left alone with the victim.

Their spying is of no consequence to Sophia. She arranges herself beside her husband, now laid on a truckle bed, and attempts to staunch his bleeding by pressing a pad of linen to his side. Though a maid has offered to take over this duty, Sophia refuses to let her. Already a heap of stained clouts is forming at her feet: the sight fills her with both dread and hope, for as long as he continues to bleed, Edmund’s heart still beats.

Betsy-Ann is seated nearby, sipping at a glass of port wine. She has not spoken a word for some time, seeming wrapped up in contemplation.

‘What will you do about your brother?’ Sophia asks at last. ‘The funeral.’

‘He can go in with Keshlie.’

‘In your sister’s grave? Where is that?’

‘The poor’s pit.’

Sophia winces.

‘You surely didn’t think I’d pay.’ Betsy-Ann drains the glass and sets it down with an air of defiance.

Sophia wets a clean scrap of linen and begins to sponge Edmund’s temples. Her words, when they come, are calm and measured. ‘To forgive such a man as your brother must be difficult. But he can do you no wrong now, and has need of your prayers.’

‘He’s no need of anything where he’s gone.’

Sophia lays down the linen. ‘How can you talk so,’ she exclaims, ‘when God hears your every word? Only think, your brother has gone before God guilty of self-slaughter.’

Betsy-Ann starts. ‘He shot himself? You
saw
that?’

‘I saw the weapon.’ She shudders at the recollection. ‘He shot Edmund and then himself.’

‘What’s he done with the pistol then?’ Betsy-Ann is regarding her in a most peculiar manner. ‘They can’t find it. Not on the flags, not on Harry’s body.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Cosgrove said, when first we came in.’

‘But your brother showed it me.’

‘Then you’ll have to give your evidence,’ says Betsy-Ann. She rises and comes to feel Edmund’s hand. ‘He’s cursed cold. Don’t you think he’s cold?’

Sophia is trying to remember precisely what she saw in the dark: a faint metallic gleam.

‘It could have been a knife,’ she says. But Betsy-Ann gestures towards Edmund’s wound and shakes her head.

Despite the linen pad, the blood continues to flow. Sophia stands in order to press down more firmly. She holds out the linen to Betsy-Ann, thinking she might want to take a turn, but the other woman backs off, saying only, ‘He may yet come through it.’

‘If only he would, for just a few seconds! I could tell him I forgive him.’

Betsy-Ann’s voice cracks like a whiplash. ‘And if he lives?’

‘If he lives?’

‘You’ll have him riding the three-legged mare, you and your Mr Gingumbob. Forgive him then hang him, isn’t that the plan?’

Sophia stands astonished at the injustice of this, and at the naked animosity in Betsy-Ann’s sloe eyes. ‘But I told you,’ she said. ‘The plan was –
is
, to negotiate a separation. You were in agreement. Why, it was you that told me who he was!’

‘
I
wanted him bitten. That was my way.’

‘Not at first ―’ But seeing the other woman’s expression, she realises there can be no reasoning with her, and is forced to change tack. ‘Look how reduced he is,’ she says softly. ‘We can both forgive him.’