Black Ajax (14 page)

So that, my industrious inquirer, was his first fight, and I trust you've sense enough to see that the change it wrought in Tom was a sight more remarkable than the mill itself. It was like taking the hood off a hawk: he'd stood up in an English ring, against a white pug, tested his skill and strength, heard the screaming worship of the crowd, and got thoroughly drunk with bounce and conceit. More than that, he tasted the first fruits of victory in hard money … but I'll tell you
about that when you've done your duty with the brandy … fill up, man, I won't dissolve!

There was a mighty crush at the Nag to toast his triumph: the swell crowd with Alvanley, Sefton, and Mellish to the fore, lesser lights of the Fancy, and the raggle-taggle hoping for free drink from the winning patron. Richmond, half-sour-half-pleased at Tom's showing in the ring and his antics afterwards, handed him the subscription purse of forty guineas, to which I added a cool hundred – I cleared three thou' in stakes on the fight, and Bill a hundred or two – and our sable hero was so moved that he danced before the counter, snapping his fingers and singing a darkie jubilee, to wild applause. Then he spread the rhino on the table, roaring to the customers to admire it, tucking flimsies into the bosoms of the tap-wenches (all of whom had backed him with their ha'pence), and calling for drink for the company. I put a stop to that, reminding Bill it must be to my account, and damme if Tom didn't claim priority until Bill spoke a sharp word in his ear, at which he had the sense to pocket his blunt with a show of boisterous comedy that still had a gleam of defiance in it.

There was no damping him, though. When Egan quizzed him, scribbling away, about the Bristol Man, our gladiator dismissed him with a wave, and announced that he was ready to back himself with his newly-gotten winnings against any pug, light or heavy, in the country. “They sayin' Mistah Jem Belcher an' Mistah Gregson retired!” cries he. “Guess they knows what's good for 'em, but ifn they gits tired ale-drapin', Ah's heah!” Dutch Sam was “on'y a lightweight, an' Ah reckon he's too well 'quainted wi' this already!” sporting his right to renewed cheering. “What's that? You say Mistah Tom Cribb was at the mill today? Well, lan' sakes, think o' that! He ain't heah now, is he, 'cos Ah'd sho' like to interdooce maself !” Both fists flourished, with great grinning and eye-rolling, and the welkin fairly rang. The Corinthians laughed, the common herd hurrah'd and raised their pots, the Cyprians pressed about him, and one bold painted trollop begged to feel his biceps, squealing with admiration. Tom stood like a beaming black colossus in the midst of it, planting smacking kisses on the
titters
who clung to either arm, detaching himself only to quaff the magnum of fizz which Alvanley had presented; he did it by clapping the bottle to his lips and draining it, while the mob cheered and stamped, and
having gasped for breath, demanded: “Can Tom Cribb drink thataway, hey?”

“Wonderful what a good mill can do, eh, cap'n?” says Pad Jones.

“Dam' nigger mouth!” growls Richmond. “To hear him ye'd think he'd beat Broughton!”

“Why, Bill, it's but fighter's talk,” says Mellish, who had come to our corner. “He's only a black child, man, after all.”

“'E ain't that childish,' says Pad, and I saw he had a grim eye on Tom and the mollishers, who were now paying attention to Tom's thigh muscles and screaming when he demanded, with roaring ho-ho's, to return the compliment.

“Bit of a
mutton-monger
, I shouldn't wonder,” laughs Mellish. “Well, Pad, you'll just have to prime him with raw eggs, stout and oysters, what?”

Then Sefton called for silence, and pledged Tom as “the newly-come American hero” who had made such an auspicious entry to the English ring, and must, he did not doubt, add lustre to the laurels of our grand old game – which I thought damned handsome of him – and the toast was drunk with three times three. Sefton shook his hand, and I heard Richmond curse under his breath when Tom took it, bold as you please, man-to-man, and clapped Sefton on the shoulder (at which my noble earl raised an eyebrow, with a glance at his collar to see that Tom's sooty daddle hadn't creased Scott's best superfine). I saw Alvanley's lips twitch, and Mellish muttered “I say!”, while Richmond ground his teeth.

You see, there was a nice etiquette in the Fancy, where the highest in the land were on terms with the pugs – why, they drank together, and sparred together, and gossiped together, easy enough, in a way that foreigners with their rigid distinctions could make nothing of. But there was a line that neither ever crossed. The Quality never condescended, and the pugs never presumed; each respected the other, and kept his station. Tom, blast his impudence, treated Sefton as an equal, and I knew, from the cock of his woolly head, and the look in his bloodshot eye,
that he knew better
. Dammit, he knew what he was, and what Sefton was, and he'd seen enough at the Nag and Blower, where the classes mingled, to know how peers and pugs conducted themselves. But his victory, the plaudits, and the consciousness of
what he, Tom Molineaux, was and might become, had gone to his head altogether. I'd seen the beginnings of this intoxication after the mill, in his familiarity to me, his amusement at Richmond's expense, his roaring and bragging celebration, and now in his “Why, that's fine, milord, that's jus' fine!” as he slapped Sefton on the back. Richmond could have killed him, and I resolved to be elsewhere when he spoke his mind to our cocksure gladiator, for I guessed he'd get only sauce in return, and 'twould do my dignity no good to be on hand. So when Sefton and the other swells took their leave, I too brushed, leaving Tom to his boozy revels among the mollishers, Richmond preparing to pitch into him, and Pad Jones looking decidedly blue.

The fact was, I didn't mind. I'd got unto myself a fighter who'd be the talk of the Town, and if he chose to give himself airs or kick up larks, why, the Town would talk all the more. A prize pug, and a black one at that, who tweaked the Quality by his presumption, would be a novelty, and a refreshing one – not least to me, for when you've had to scheme your way into the
ton
it's capital fun to see those who were born to it having their fine feathers ruffled. I promised myself some quiet amusement in parading Tom through the haunts of sporting fashion – well, I might be his backer, but I wasn't to be held accountable for his manners.

If soldiering teaches you anything, it's to lose no time, aim high, and strike boldly, so before bedtime I sent a note to my old cricketing acquaintance, George Brummell, begging his assistance in a toggery matter, which I was certain must fetch him. Sure enough, he rolled up to my rooms in South Street at eleven the next morning, exquisite as always, yawning and demning the dem' dawn, and I drove him round to the Nag, confronted him with Tom, and told him what was afoot.

“Gad's me life!” says he, dropping his eye-glass in disbelief. “You want my advice in rigging out
that
? Buckley, have you no mercy, dammit? At this time of day, too, without warning! Richmond, a glass of brandy! I feel quite loose!”

“He ain't that frightsome,” says I, although Tom was showing the effect of his night's mop, red-eyed and shocking seedy. “And you won't find a finer figure for a swell case anywhere, I'll be bound. Which shall it be, George – Scott or Weston?”

He choked on his brandy. “It's a dreadful dream,” says he. “Curse me if curried lobster ever passes my lips again.” He took another shot of his glass at Tom, who was glowering like Apollyon. “No, begad, he's real!
Quel visage!
My dear Buckley, are you mad, or castaway entirely? Who in his right mind could present that monstrosity to Weston or Scott?”

“Nobody but Brummell,” says I. “Come, George, forget his phiz and consider the rest of him. Why, he's a snyder's delight. Anyway, it's for a lark. And Scott would tog out a Barbary ape if you gave the word.”

“A happy comparison,” says he, but his lips twitched; he was all for fun, in his quiet way, and the kindest soul alive. “But I'll be shot ere I drive down the
Grand Strut
with him.” He hopped down, shook hands with Tom, complimented him on his victory – trust George to be beforehand with the
whiz
– and walked slowly round him, quizzing up and down. “Dam' fine leg, but those Guardee shoulders will need accommodation. Aye, Weston, I think; his sleeves are altogether inspired these days, and we'll catch him while the fit lasts.”

So to Weston we went, and such was the power of George's name that they never blinked an eye. Under his supervision they measured and chalked and pinned and jotted their notes, and Tom, who had been so full of buck the day before, stood mute and wary in their midst, while Brummell discussed collars and pockets and buttons, and how the pantaloons must fit like a skin and yet give complete freedom of movement, to which Weston's minions nodded and exclaimed in reverence as though it had been the Sermon on the Mount. I stood it for about an hour, by which time George's coat was off and the floor was knee deep in paper and bolts of cloth, and one little
snyder
was in tears and ready to fall on his scissors. I suspect they were still at it by candlelight, and to some tune, for when they screwed him into the duds next day Tom was the bangest-up Corinthian you ever saw. The coat was a marvel of pale grey superfine – I'd thought a red or blue would have suited, but Brummell swore there wasn't another rig of that peculiar grey between Soho and the Serpentine.

“Except his Royal Highness's,” says the snyder-in-chief, in a voice of doom.

“Cut by Scott, so it don't signify,” says George. “Now, then, the
neckcloth … Waterfall, Mail Coach, Osbaldeston – no, demned if I don't make him one of my own! The Molineaux, begad! Ah, Tom, Tom, you'll live in song and story!”

That was a sight, Beau Brummell, the dandy of dandies, arranging Tom's neckercher, folding and twitching and stepping back to consider before adjusting a crease just so, and that dreadful blackamoor map grinning above the snowy linen. For now that he had grown used to being in a tailor's shop (where I'll swear he'd never been before) he was back in his cheerfuls again, craning to observe his reflection and giving little chuckles of pleasure. And didn't he cut a figure, just, for if Nature had played him scurvy in the feature department, she'd done him proud beneath the neck; I never saw a frame better designed for the snyder's art, with those splendid shoulders and neat waist, and when he stood forth with Weston's superfine showing never a crease, his white pantaloons tight to perfection, the top boots gleaming, and George's creation billowing beneath his chin, the minions were in raptures, and Brummell admitted that he might very well do.

“Demned if I ever saw a neater fit beneath the shoulder,” drawls he, “and that's the sticking point, eh, Weston? Very creditable, quite in the – good Gad!”

He went pink, for in considering the rig-out he'd fallen into his critical pose, head back, one foot forward, and tapping a finger on his chin – and damned if Tom wasn't doing likewise. Like all blacks, he was a born mimic, and 'twas the most comical sight to see those two immaculate figures viewing each other identical, the pale fine-featured Corinthian head on one, and the grinning black savage on t'other. George threw up a hand in surprise, Tom did the same, George turned to me, Tom followed suit, and George burst out laughing.

“I'll be demned! I say, Buckley, don't for any favour give him an eye-glass, for if he sports it at our swells I swear there'll be a revolution! And no hat, mind, or the effect will be spoiled. Now, he's all yours, my boy! I'll leave you to stump the
pewter
. Well done, Weston! Good day to ye, Tom, and keep your chin clear o' that neckercher!”

Tom swept him a most elegant bow, crying: “'Bliged t'ye, Mistah Brummell!” and preened himself before the mirror, turning this way and that to admire the hang of the tails, and all as to the manner born. I had the deuce of a job to get him out of the shop.

Native sense warned me that I'd be best not to exhibit my protege in the Park at the “bitching hour” of five, when all the Quality turned out to see and be seen. Ten years later, in the Tom-and-Jerry days, when the vulgar horde had come West with a vengeance, and the Park was a jamboree of both nobility and flash, dukes and tradesmen, town tabbies and trollops, it would have suited, but not in the war time. The Park then was exclusive to the
ton
, and the commonalty kept clear of it in the afternoon when the titles promenaded in fashionable array to gossip and sneer, the bucks on their bits of blood and the ladies in their
vis-a-vises
. The gargoyle frontispiece of blackamoor Tom, attired in Weston's finest, would have been decidedly
outre
in that company – I shuddered at the thought of encountering Queen Sarah and her Almack's Amazons, and having my great piccaninny beaming and crying: “Halloo, gals!” So I tooled the curricle discreetly along Park Lane, or Tyburn Lane as my guv'nor used to call it, and into the north end of the Park about noon, when the more select females would still be at their toilettes, and most of the traffic was of the sporting set. I wanted Tom to be seen, you understand, but not so much as to draw frowns.

He was in capital spirits at first, well pleased with his new
togs
, beaming affably to the carriages and riders, admiring the fine trees, and exclaiming at the cows and deer browsing by the walks. He attracted much attention, the riders reining up to stare and the carriage females all a-titter and turning their heads. I acknowledged acquaintances, but didn't stop to chat, content to let Tom bask in the world's regard, which he did in gallant style, nodding and waving, and telling me this was “real supernaculous”.

After a while, he seemed to smile and wave less often, and by the time I wheeled in at Tattersall's Corner he had fallen silent, brooding at his boots. I thought the sight of the Horse Capital of the World, with all its colour and bustle, might revive his interest, but no such thing. It was an auction day, and the enclosure and club-room were crowded with the horsey
ton
, the bucks and squires with their grooms and tigers, and the great press of jockeys and touts and
blacklegs
, all come to gossip of turf and hunt and view the four new Persian prads just come from Asia, and wag their heads over the bidding; it was lost on Tom, although he was still the focus of all eyes. I made him known
to a few, and he barely grunted; when I pressed him to a glass of arrack and a sandwich, he shook his head; young Dick Tattersall (they call him Old Dick nowadays, by the way) came down from his table all smiles, for he was a keen amateur miller, and anxious to meet the new aspirant, but all he got from Tom was a nod and a mutter.