Fair Fight (17 page)

It was a little like walking through a forest. Here and there the crowd thinned and I saw some piece of the fair: a woman holding a goose aloft to have its fat stomach poked by a thoughtful cook, the painted front of a gypsy caravan, and then the crowd closed up once more and we were lost in the limbs and faces and tall, damp hats. I did not remember the fair like this; in my memory it was bright and joyous.

‘Well, Lottie,’ Granville said, ‘what is it you wish to see? The learned pig, perhaps? Or would you like to see the wild beasts?’

‘The flying coaches,’ Mr Bowden said. ‘I am sure Mrs Dryer would enjoy being whirled through the air by the hand of a couple of ragamuffin boys.’

Perry thought this the most amusing comment of the day.

I did not reply. I thought perhaps I should like to see a learned pig. I was on the verge of asking to be taken there when Granville spoke.

‘Well, my dear, Henry shall take you to see any sight you wish. Make me a pretty goodbye, now.’

‘May I not stay with you?’

I had not expected that Granville would leave me. I did not like to be left in a crowd of strangers, with only a boy for chaperone. Henry was looking about himself eagerly, standing on his toes to peer over the heads of the crowds about us, his mouth slightly open. His damp hair fell into his eyes and he shook his head like a bull. He had forgotten he was in livery, after all; I could not trust him to be sensible.

‘We are going to the boxing booth, Lottie, it will be rough indeed.’ Granville spoke quite as soft as I, though the tone of his voice was not.

‘I shall not mind it,’ I said.

‘You must go with Henry; I cannot take you to the boxing booth.’

I felt my breathing grow ragged and my hands and face begin to tingle.

‘Please,’ I whispered, ‘I cannot be left here.’

I no longer wished to see the learned pig. I wished I was at home.

‘Well, Charlotte,’ Granville said, ‘you have chosen to be carried home again. Henry will take you to the carriage. Stephens can come back for us.’

‘Please,’ I said again, ‘I thought I might stay with you.’ My face was quite abuzz now with tingling. My cheeks were filled with bees. My breast ached and I was sure my spark of a child woke up and swam about, sickening me. I could hear my own breath.

‘Charlotte,’ Granville spoke slowly, ‘I brought Henry to accompany you. He will take you to see any sight you wish but you cannot come with me. It is too rough, you would be shocked indeed.’

‘You must not leave me,’ I said. ‘Indeed, you must not. I will be ill if you do. I will not let you leave me,’ I would not let go his arm.

Granville was silent a moment. Perry and Mr Bowden had gone ahead and now came back to seek us out.

‘What’s the delay, Dryer?’ my brother called.

Granville sighed. ‘This is a madness,’ he said. ‘If you find it distressing you must have Henry take you back to the coach. I warn you, Charlotte, I will not have a scene. You must remain composed or I shall be very displeased.’

‘I will not displease you,’ I said. ‘I give you my word.’

‘I do not want your word, Lottie, I want proof. Let your actions speak,’ Granville began to lead me off, ‘and for goodness’ sake, loose your hold on my arm. I have said I shall not shake you off. You need not grip me so.’

The interior of the boxing tent was thick with people. Granville kept a tight hold of me and together we followed my brother and Mr Bowden as they pushed us a path through the crowd. At length I was able to see the stage, on which there was a square of ropes, strung upon poles. We had not long to wait before two figures ascended there and faced each other with fists raised. This I had expected; that one of them might be a lady boxer, I had never in my life imagined. She made an indecent figure; her flannel petticoats had been pinned up and above her boots she was wholly naked to the knee. Her stays had been loosed. I could not stop staring at her. Her assailant was a great brute of a man; surely, surely, they could not really be meant to fight?

I turned to ask Granville if there were not some mistake, but he was conferring urgently with Mr Bowden.

‘I shall see the day saved,’ Mr Bowden said, and left us, working his way through the press of bodies. I watched him go; I thought perhaps he meant to talk to someone about the cruelty of setting a girl against such a brute, but he went, instead, to the side of a cheap-looking woman in a gown of the brightest pink. She seemed to know him; she touched his arm and tapped him with her fan. She smiled at him so flirtatiously that I looked away, embarrassed.

No one came to the girl’s rescue. The fight began, though I could scarce believe it even as I watched.

The ogre bore down upon her with his fists. I gasped as she ducked away, narrowly avoiding the blow, my own head jerking in sympathy with hers. She was a stout enough girl but the man assaulting her was built uncommonly large. With her jerky, frightened neck, she looked enough like a goose that I found my mouth twitched as though I wished to laugh.

She hit out at him, once, twice, again, again. I held my breath. When at last he hit her in earnest my heart beat so hard it seemed as though I felt the blow.

She fell back, as anyone would, and when she stood I saw that her lip having swollen and split, the white handkerchief around her neck had been spoilt by fat drops of claret red.

The old lady came to lead her away. I put my hands to my eyes in a kind of relief. I had not thought it would be over so soon.

When I looked up once more I saw that she had been led, not away, but back to face him. She stood with her head high and her eye fixed upon his, like the engraving of Joan of Arc in Papa’s book. Her own fist looked to be bleeding beneath the strange, bulky gloves she wore upon her hands; thick trickles ran from beneath the padding to streak her arm. As they began again and she hit out against him, blood sprayed across his cheek. Where her hand met his face, an imprint of her glove remained, set in scarlet.

Again she hit out – so fast! – and once more her padded hand left its red seal on his huge cheek. The ogre seemed scarcely to feel it, her size being so incomparable to his own. She seemed to be dancing, toward him, away. He turned as clumsy as a drunken bear, his great head swinging to follow her.

She was a scandal. I thought,
She is barely a woman at all
.

Her face was fierce with concentration. She looked not at all ashamed to have so many sets of eyes upon her. She paid no attention to the blood, though she was so spattered and streaked that I could not have said from whence it all sprang. She seemed hardly to notice the crowd at all, though they shrieked and bellowed unbearably.

My husband had forgotten me; all of the men were captivated by the action on the stage. My husband seemed to have a great many things to say to my brother, though I could not hear what he said. The noise of the crowd was very great.

I was jostled from all sides and most especially from behind, as the greedy congregation pushed ever closer to the ring. The gentleman beside me, a stranger, was forced to be always knocking his elbow against my arm. He apologised so many times that I almost ceased to hear him. He could not help it; he was jostled in his turn. Packed so close as we were, a foul mist steamed from a hundred coats and cloaks. I put my hands upon my stomach to protect my child.

In the ring the combatants began to circle one another. Sweat ran into the girl’s eyes and she wiped the back of her glove across them, leaving a crimson streak. If she slowed her dancing she would have not the smallest chance against him.

Granville seemed not at all disturbed. My husband came so often to the boxing that perhaps the fate of one small girl held little interest. He barely noticed my own discomfort until I was quite pushed against him. Then he was forced to pay attention and drew me in between himself and Perry, to shield me as best they could from the crowd. He pulled at my arm to bid me move. I did not know where he was taking me; I did not know that I wanted to leave sight of the girl. I kept tight hold of my skirts and turned my head to see the stage. The moment I was safely between them I turned my full attention back to the dreadful scene before us.

Above my head my brother said, ‘Fifty guineas I have laid on this one, Dryer!’

My husband replied. I was not sure, for he spoke more softly than Perry, but I thought he said, ‘The end is certain.’

I thought he meant by this that the giant would kill her; I began to believe that he would.

Perry was shouting at the fighters, adding his own calls to those of the rough crowd. I was thankful that Granville did not call out, though he had a feverish pleasure in his eye that I was unused to seeing.

The girl’s right hand was surely lamed as well as bloody; she held it strangely and seemed to be favouring the left. Her blows were meeting their mark but looked to be so little felt that the force driving them could not have amounted to much. The hulk in the ring accepted her strikes upon him as though they were kisses. At last he hit her so suddenly, so brutally, that I heard myself scream aloud. My heart knocked in my breast like a bird flying into a window.

She fell. Her arms jerked as her knees buckled and then she was gone from view, collapsed behind the crowd. I found I was breathing rather too quickly. My face was tingling once more. Granville turned to look at me and I summoned a kind of smile for him. It did not feel true upon my lips but it satisfied him enough that he turned his attention back toward the stage.

At last I saw her stand, leaning on the arm of the old woman with the dirty apron. I couldn’t imagine how she managed it. The old woman led her, not out of the ring, but into the corner, where a man waited on one knee. The girl sat upon his other knee as a kind of stool and drank from a bottle the old woman offered her. She allowed the old woman to wipe the blood from her face. Her shoulders slumped. On the other side of the ring the brutish fellow balanced upon the knee of one of his fellows. He looked ridiculous there, like a giant child upon his papa’s lap.

Soon enough a ridiculous man in an ill-fitting wig entered the ring to call out, ‘Time!’

The old woman took the girl’s arm and she rose and allowed herself to be led back toward the waiting brute.

I did not scream, only closed my eyes. In that moment all the thrill was gone; I was near to begging Granville to take me from that place. My tongue was only kept still by the knowledge that it was not to be Granville but Henry who would lead me out. Henry was near enough a child; he could not keep me steady. I held my husband’s arm like a blind woman. Granville did not appear to notice my distress. Perhaps he took my silence for enjoyment.

I could not understand why the old woman kept leading her back to be beaten. I could not imagine what had driven her to stand up there, to show her legs and to be made foul with blood. I could not fathom it. I thought perhaps I could not stand it.

I opened my eyes in time to see the beast on the stage swing his gloved hand, a monstrous thing like a boiled ham, and seem about to strike her once more. She danced back and he followed her. Her hands moved in the air too fast to see; one moment she had swung out her lamed right hand and struck at his arm, the next she had given him such a blow that his face was driven to the side, his ruddy cheeks wobbling with the force of it. A startled breath was forced out of him, his lips seeming to fly forward from the bones of his face.

The crowd roared, I screamed, and on the stage the lady boxer shouted with us. Before her opponent could regain his senses she had struck him upon the other cheek, sending his head to the other side. This time a tooth soared out of his mouth, trailing an arc of blood and spittle. I did not see it land.

I could not tell any more how much of the screaming came from my own mouth. I was borne up on the swell of it, I was the sound. We were all howling together, the poor and the quality, the boxing girl and the beast inside my breast. If she was a madwoman then we were all of us with her and I had never felt such savage elation, nor known that it existed.

I was dancing with excitement; I could not help myself. The floor of the tent was even fouler than the fairground proper. I moved my feet just a little but being in pattens and the mud being what it was, I stumbled. Granville was obliged to steady me. As I raised my head, the brute recovered enough to raise his hand once more and this time sent it crashing into the side of that young girl’s head.

‘Oh!’ I cried. ‘Oh, she will be killed!’

Mr Bowden laughed, ‘I believe she will!’ as though this were an act in a play.

The girl had fallen, I was sure of it. I could not see her. The vast back of her persecutor obscured my view. I fancied he was leaning over her.

I buried my face in my husband’s shoulder, careless of the paint from my brow marking his coat. I felt sick at it all; I did not want to see.

‘Steady,’ Granville muttered. ‘See it through, steady now.’

The crowd screamed. Something had happened, but what?

‘He has her now!’ someone shouted. I could not see. I could not raise my head.

The crowd was louder than ever, a rabid yammering. I felt I might at any moment begin to howl again myself, my throat felt thick with cries unleashed. I did not know what kind of cries they were; indeed I believed I might begin to laugh. He had her now. Had I been asked, I could not have said whether I wished to see her saved or slain.
She will be killed
, I thought,
she will be killed
. The idea tormented and thrilled me in equal measure. I kept my eyes shut against Granville’s shoulder. I had seen hangings that had affected me less.

‘God be damned!’ Granville shouted. He thrust me away. I staggered a little on my pattens and clutched at his arm. He let me hold it but I had never seen my husband’s face so enraged. He was not angry with me; his eyes were fixed upon the ring.

I turned my head to see the girl in the arms of the old woman, who seemed bowed under her weight. The man who had so gallantly given her his knee held her hand. Her head hung on her neck, now flopped forward, now rolling back as the old woman tried to rouse her. I thought perhaps she was dead after all.