Fair Fight (30 page)

I went back to the window. There was a figure in the yard, trudging slowly away from the house. The steps were unsteady, the hooded cloak pulled quite over the head. A cloth bag dangled from one hand. A few sorry strands of hair waved in the breeze. I strode back to the bell and pulled it as hard as I could. It rang just as it always did, faint and musical, in the depths of the kitchen. It did not sound at all as I felt.

At length Mrs Bell appeared.

‘I have seen Mrs Webber walk away from this house,’ I said.

‘She would not stay, madam, she is as wild as a heathen. You would not wish for her here, if you had heard the way she carried on.’

‘I made my wishes clear!’

‘Madam, she would not stay. We could not keep her if she did not wish to be kept. She ate porridge and then she would not stay for anything.’

I sat, heavily. I should never see her.

‘Send the doctor to the gatehouse then. I will do that much.’

At least I will have news of her
,
I thought
.
It was a sorry compensation.

If I had not insisted then and seen Henry sent out for the doctor, she might never have been found until it was perhaps too late. As the case stood, it was not the doctor but Henry himself who found her, slumped in the hedgerow. He behaved admirably; he made Mrs Webber comfortable on the grass verge and covered her with his own coat, before running back to the house to raise the alarm.

When I bid Mrs Bell make ready a room she looked thunderous.

‘Madam,’ she said, ‘consider. She’s a savage; the language she used, you’ve never heard the like. She should be brought to the gatehouse, surely. She cannot be part of a Christian household.’

I could do nothing more than repeat myself, ‘Get ready a room for Mrs Webber, Mrs Bell.’

Her mouth opened as though she would retort but I kept her gaze until my eyes began to water. When she turned and left to do as I bid her I felt suddenly exhausted.

I saw Henry still watching me and said, ‘What do you wait for? Go, take the dogcart and fetch her! And when you have brought her here, go back out for the doctor.’

He blinked and made haste from the room.

I watched Henry come into the yard and lift Mrs Webber gently from the gig. She was awake; I thought she protested. I could not see her face but her hands waved about his neck and would not settle. He turned his face away as though she would scratch him and carried her inside and out of my view. There came the sound of his feet upon the back stairs. I could not decide if I should go to look. Would it be proper? I could not tell. I had the strangest urge to check my face and hair in the glass, as though Mrs Webber were a lady visitor. At last my legs decided for me; as I heard Henry’s steps reach the garret above me, I hurried from my room and up the servants’ staircase.

As I reached the room I heard Mrs Bell’s voice.

‘There, you bad thing, lie still and be thankful Mrs Dryer has a soft heart.’

Then came some indistinct cursing; the words were lost but the venom in the tone caused me to pause at the threshold. She sounded like a savage indeed.

‘You may say so,’ Mrs Bell said, ‘but it is she who feeds you now and you will learn gratitude or be left to starve once more.’

Again the vehement muttering that I could not decipher.

When Mrs Bell cried out, ‘For shame,’ I suddenly knew that I had stood too long to raise my fist to knock. I could only steal back down the stairs, my heart thudding painfully. I had no sooner reached my own landing than Lucy appeared at the top of the main staircase. I could not tell if she had seen me appear through the servants’ door.

‘The doctor is come, Mrs Dryer,’ she said.

I made my back straight.

‘Send him up to Mrs Webber and when he has done, extend my invitation to take tea in the parlour,’ I said. My voice was more anxious than I would have liked it.

‘The footboy is to be commended,’ the doctor said, accepting another glass of brandy from the butler’s proffered decanter.

I nodded and smiled. I had been nervous before the doctor was shown in; I spent an age painting my face and neck. I did not know what humiliations he had seen when last he came upon me, bloodied and in a faint. I felt so flustered that I had taken up my embroidery just so that I would not pick at my scars. Once he was there, however, playing the dandy in his white waistcoat and carefully arranged cravat, I felt fairly well capable. I had only to do as I knew Mama would have done.

I smiled. ‘I am sure we will find reward for his heroism. Tell me again, Doctor, you say Mrs Webber has no fever?’

‘She is only weak. It is nothing a few hot meals will not cure,’ he said, taking out his snuff box and then, perhaps thinking better of it, returning it to his pocket. ‘She has been refusing to eat, in a fit of nerves over her husband’s absence.’

‘Heavens,’ I said. ‘I never imagined Mrs Webber to be prone to nervous fits.’

‘I am afraid all creatures of your sex are vulnerable to attacks of nerves, my dear Mrs Dryer.’

‘I see. May I be assured that with a little care and nourishment she will be perfectly recovered?’

‘You may be easy that you have done all you can, Mrs Dryer. A woman does not let herself starve without being sinfully wilful. I understand that she grievously abused your staff when they attempted to extend a charitable hand.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I understand that she did.’

‘Do not feel, in this case, that you need be too gentle. In fact, Mrs Dryer, I recommend that she be given nothing too fine to eat and be left quite alone, to think upon what she has done. You might consider that she be whipped.’

An image rose up before me of Mrs Webber in the prize-ring, blood-soaked and swaying on her knees.

‘I am not sure,’ I said. ‘My husband may be home soon, you know. I should prefer that all was tranquillity for his return. He thinks so highly of Mr Webber, you see. I am sure he would want Mrs Webber made calm and well.’

Now the doctor looked thoughtful. ‘Of course, of course, there is Mr Webber’s training to think of. I have been following it with great interest myself. Perhaps in this one case sportsmanship must take precedence over the moral lesson. Tell me, Mrs Dryer, have you news of your husband’s progress?’

‘He does not write to me of sporting matters.’

Granville’s infrequent letters were as stiff as his conversation –
The weather continues cold. I do hope you are not idle, &c.
My replies to him were not much better.

‘No, no. I can imagine not. Well then,’ the doctor’s eye had taken on quite a different light, ‘if she will not recover herself willingly we may be forced to step in.’

‘I do hope that won’t be necessary, Doctor. Do you think I might visit her myself and attempt to bring her to reason?’

‘If you feel comfortable in doing so, you may be the person best fitted, Mrs Dryer. Speak to her of a woman’s place, of acceptance and duty. You are too good, Mrs Dryer. Too good indeed.’

I was too good, then.

When next I climbed the servants’ stairs, I walked with a surer step, for this time I went on the advice of the doctor. Before me, the ribbon at the base of Henry’s neck quivered with each step that he took. He was carrying a laden tray and went slowly.

The tray held bismuth salts for Mrs Webber’s stomach and a tincture of valerian for her nerves. There was also a good bowl of the white cullis I had ordered for my own supper and a slice of the plum cake I was so fond of eating when I felt melancholy. Mrs Bell could not stop her mouth twitching when I ordered this, but neither could she disobey me. I thought even the most wilful woman could not deny herself such a treat.

I was exceedingly nervous. The very word ‘wilful’ had set my heart to fluttering.

When I declared my intention that morning Mrs Bell had protested again, ‘Oh, madam, she’s a heathen. It couldn’t be proper.’

‘The doctor himself advised that I visit her and talk to her of duty,’ I said. ‘I shall take Henry with me; Mrs Webber owes him her thanks, and perhaps her life.’

In Granville’s absence I was daily becoming more mistress of my household. I had never thought it was he that kept me so meek.

Henry knocked upon the door. There was no reply. He turned to look at me.

‘Go on,’ I said, ‘call out.’

‘Mrs Webber,’ he called, through the wood. ‘We’re come to bring you food. Your mistress, Mrs Dryer, is here.’

He opened the door as cautiously as if he thought she might fly at him.

The first thing I noticed was the smell of her: damp cloth, stable cats and sour milk. She lay on her side with her back toward us, very still under the grey blankets.

Henry put the tray upon the floor, there being nowhere else to put it. The only other furniture in the room was a stool and a washstand. The walls were bare but for a cross made of woven straw, held up by a nail. I wondered if all the garret rooms were so sparse. How strange it was never to have been here before. The dust made fairies in the light from the narrow window. Even beneath the blankets I could see that Mrs Webber’s shoulder blades were sharp as twin axes. I recalled her being stocky and as solid as a wooden doll. I was suddenly seized with the idea that this was not her. I had not seen her face from the window. Perhaps she was a beggar girl, only calling herself by Mrs Webber’s name.

Henry was again looking at me for instruction.

‘Wake her,’ I said.

Henry looked surprised but moved toward the thin, still figure on the cot-bed. As he did so the figure spoke.

‘I ain’t sleeping, but I would be left alone.’ The accent was as thick as fur.

She did not turn to look at us. I knew then it was she, and as uncivilised as Mrs Bell had painted her.

‘Your mistress says you’re to talk to her,’ Henry said.

‘I ain’t got no mistress.’

Now she turned over and sat up as though it pained her to do it. She was terribly thin but somehow more fearsome than she had been when she stood upon a stage with blood spattered across her dress. The skin beneath her eyes and in the hollows of her cheeks was as dark as a bruise. There was as much hair escaping her cap as kept in it, and it hung about her face in lank strings. I had not known before that her nose had been knocked off to the side. I wondered if I had witnessed the hit that set it so, that day at the fair.

‘How can you say such a thing?’ Henry said, fetching the stool for me and placing it a good distance from her bed. I sat gratefully enough; my legs were weak.

She made no reply so he said, ‘Look here, what good Mrs Dryer’s brought you.’

Now she dropped her eyes.

‘I never asked for charity.’

‘I’m sure Mrs Dryer didn’t ask for a filthy wretch to come begging at her door, but there you came. Now, you speak nicely.’

‘I didn’t beg! I came to ask the way to Bristol. If I was only stronger I’d be on my way there now.’

When she spoke that little speech she raised her head and I saw what a puzzle were her teeth; they seemed to gather into clumps, with great gaps between. She looked straight at me, with a hopeless defiance. She knew nothing about me. She could not know that I had seen her at the fair, that I had stood before the glass and pretended to stand as she had stood. I could say nothing of this, of course.

Instead I said, ‘If you wish to go to Bristol I will have you brought there, as soon as I know you are made well. Now please, eat, I beg of you.’

She eyed me then with even greater distrust. I thought,
She is like a neglected dog, or an unbroken horse. I must be gentle and slow.

As if sharing my thought, Henry picked up the tray and hesitantly put it upon Mrs Webber’s lap, all the time watching to see if she would knock it from his hands. The moment it was before her, however, she seemed to lose her fire. She closed her eyes and I saw her sigh and her nostrils flare. A good steam rose from the bowl; the scent of white cullis will always speak straight to the stomach. She picked up her spoon and began to eat with hands that shook a little so that drops fell all the way from bowl to mouth. She did not even look to see if she spotted herself.

‘Leave us, Henry,’ I said.

‘Are you sure, madam?’

‘Mrs Webber will be quite safe with me, Henry,’ I said, though it was the other way about that I thought he was uncertain of.

Henry had no choice but to leave, though he seemed to wish to say something. I had forgotten that Mrs Webber owed him her thanks. When once the door was closed behind him I grew quiet and still. I had grown used to the scent of her. The only sound was the drip and splash of Mrs Webber spooning her supper. Her face was covered with a ghastly sheen and she seemed to be breathing raggedly. She was racing to eat as though she feared that I might snatch the bowl from her.

At last she slumped back upon the pillows and closed her eyes. She had only eaten half of the cullis but looked sicker than she had before she began. I did not know whether she was sleeping, nor even if she knew I was still there. Since she took up her spoon she had not once looked at me, nor thanked me. She had not touched the cake.

Without opening her eyes she said, ‘That’s the best thing I ever ate.’

‘It is a particular favourite of mine,’ I said.

‘What is it?’ She had her eyes closed still.

‘It is white cullis; bread soaked soft in veal broth, cream and I don’t know what besides. Have you never had it?’

‘Never.’

It was curious to be conducting a conversation with someone who looked like a perspiring corpse.

‘Have you had done with it?’ I asked. ‘Shall I have Henry fetch the tray?’

Her misshapen pugilist’s hands stole back to the edges of the tray and gripped it tightly.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I can finish it. I only need a moment’s rest, look.’

‘It is very rich,’ I said.

There was a silence so long I thought she must have fallen asleep in truth. At last she said,

‘If I was a proper lady I’d eat white cullis every day.’ She spoke dreamily.

‘While you are under my care you shall,’ I said.

She opened her eyes a little and turned her head to look at me.