Deborah Goes to Dover Read online

  The guard on the up coach blew a cheeky tootle on his horn and left the stricken Tally-Ho to its fate.

  The inside passengers were battered and bruised but no bones had been broken. The outsiders had been thrown clear onto springy heath and had also survived without much mishap. Their angry voices berating the coachman reached the ears of the insiders as they struggled to disentangle themselves. Then they were all mixed up again as the outsiders, guard and coachman, having cut the plunging horses free, pushed the coach upright again.

  Hannah banged her head on the floor and tried to push Mr Osborne from on top of her. Mrs Osborne was screaming like a banshee and Mrs Conningham had fainted.

  When they were all finally back in their seats and Hannah had revived Mrs Conningham by putting her ever-ready vinaigrette under that lady’s nose, the door was opened and the outsiders tried to climb in to take shelter from the rain. But much as Hannah would have liked to shelter Benjamin, the rest protested violently. The outsiders had paid for outsiders’ places and were wet anyway. Let them stay outside!

  Benjamin poked his head through the window to tell Hannah that the guard had ridden off to Rochester, a mile away, to get help.

  ‘We’ll never reach Dover alive at this rate,’ said Mrs Conningham. Hannah thought she heard Abigail whisper, ‘Good’, and despite her own discomfort, Hannah’s interest was revived. What was there about this visit to her uncle’s which so obviously depressed poor Abigail?

  After an hour of shivering and trying to keep warm and talking in miserable whispers, as if the rain would hear them and never go away, the coach door opened and the coachman said proudly, just as if he had not nearly killed them all, that the landlord of the Crown at Rochester had sent carriages to convey them to the inn.

  Hannah stepped down into the rain-swept landscape. She was very cold indeed and her head had begun to ache. She gratefully accepted Benjamin’s arm and allowed him to assist her to one of the carriages from the inn. Benjamin climbed in after her, saying, ‘I ain’t walking. There’s room enough for all of us.’

  ‘Poor Benjamin,’ said Hannah contritely. ‘Servant or not, you should have been travelling inside with me. Your livery must be ruined. You should have had a greatcoat.’

  ‘It’s this poxy English weather, modom,’ said Benjamin gloomily. ‘Warn’t it lovely and fine the day afore we left?’ His clever mobile face looked like that of a sad clown. Water was running from his powdered hair, and the shoulders of his black velvet livery were being covered in a sort of Yorkshire pudding of water and flour.

  Rooms at the Crown had been reserved for the shattered passengers, with the exception of Mr Osborne and his wife, who had reached their destination and left for their home, Mr Osborne threatening to sue the stage-coach company.

  Hannah shivered as she removed her bonnet and then set about changing her clothes. Her head felt hot and heavy and her vision was blurred. She made her way down to the dining-room. Benjamin looked at her sharply and said, ‘Anything amiss, modom? You’re as red as a lobster.’

  ‘I shall come about,’ said Hannah vaguely. She was very hungry, but as soon as the excellent meal was placed in front of her, her appetite seemed to flee. She gave an involuntary shiver and stared at her food.

  Benjamin, standing behind her chair, leaned forward. ‘It’s off to bed for you,’ he whispered fiercely. ‘Come along!’

  Hannah meekly allowed her footman to lead her upstairs. ‘Get into your night-clothes,’ ordered Benjamin, stirring up the fire. When he had left, Hannah undressed in a daze, put on a night-dress, tied on her nightcap and climbed stiffly into bed. The next thing she was aware of was Benjamin’s anxious face swimming in front of her through a sort of red mist and his voice telling her the doctor was on his way.

  Hannah lay in the grip of a raging fever for two days, nursed by Benjamin. During the middle of the second night, her fever broke and she fell into a deep refreshing sleep. When she awoke, Benjamin was there to give her newspapers, novels, and a basket of fruit. ‘You are a good boy,’ said Hannah feebly. ‘Fetch my reticule and I will give you some money.’

  Benjamin hesitated and then said lightly, ‘I already took the money from you, modom, you being too ill to know anythink.’

  So Hannah rested and read and was brought light meals by the inn waiters during the rest of that day. The only thing to worry her as she blew out her candle at night was that Benjamin had mysteriously disappeared and that he had lied about taking money from her reticule, for he had taken none at all.

  The next day, she felt almost well, but worried. There was still no Benjamin. The inn servants said they had not seen him and his bed had not been slept in.

  Early that evening, she received a visit from Mrs and Miss Conningham and Captain Beltravers. They said the roads were still bad after the downpour and they would be obliged to stay at the inn for a few more days but that the coach company was expected to pay for everything. Hannah asked them if they had seen her footman, but they shook their heads.

  Hannah was just deciding to try to read herself to sleep when there came a scratching at the door and the captain walked in. ‘I could see you were worried about your footman,’ he said, taking a chair and placing it beside the bed and sitting down.

  ‘Have you news?’ asked Hannah eagerly.

  ‘I have debated with myself whether to tell you or not, whether to leave you to worry about his absence, or to worry you with what has happened.’

  Hannah struggled up against the pillows. ‘Oh, do tell me, Captain. You must tell me now. I have it. He has been gambling.’

  ‘So I have heard. There was to be a prize-fight here tomorrow and the town is full of the Quality. Randall was to fight Chudd, but Chudd is ill and unless a substitute is found, the fight will be off. But meanwhile, all the Fancy are in town with money to burn. Your footman got into a game of hazard dice and the stakes were high. He lost.’

  ‘How much?’ asked Hannah.

  ‘Nine hundred guineas.’

  ‘But he cannot possibly afford that!’

  ‘Which may be the reason,’ said the captain, ‘that he has disappeared.’

  ‘He would not,’ said Hannah. ‘He would see me first. He must know I would always help him.’

  ‘If he is the hardened gambler he appears to be,’ commented the captain drily, ‘then you would be throwing good money after bad.’

  After Captain Beltravers had gone, Hannah lay and thought about Benjamin. She knew if he had really gone away that she would miss him dreadfully, miss his cheeky good humour and his loyalty. She still felt weak and a large tear rolled down her thin sallow cheek.

  Lady Deborah struggled awake the next morning to find her brother shaking her. ‘What’s amiss?’ she demanded crossly.

  ‘That fight, it’s still on,’ he said. ‘You’ve always wanted to see a prize-fight. Now’s your chance. Get dressed.’

  Lady Deborah’s blue eyes gleamed with excitement. ‘Who is fighting Randall?’

  ‘Some unknown.’

  ‘Brave man! You said Randall was a killer.’

  ‘If this unknown beats him, he stands to gain a purse of a thousand guineas. Hurry up. It’s on Gully’s Field and if we don’t move quickly, the roads will be jammed in every direction.’

  * * *

  The Earl of Ashton was also roused early by the arrival of an old army friend, Mr Peter Carruthers. ‘What brings you here, Carruthers?’ asked the earl. ‘Not that I am not delighted to see you.’

  ‘You’re really out of the world,’ said Mr Carruthers with a grin. ‘A prize-fight. A mill. And nearly on your own doorstep.’

  ‘Who is fighting whom?’

  ‘Randall was supposed to be fighting Chudd, but Chudd is ill, or so he said, and some unknown has stepped into the breach.’

  ‘More fool he,’ commented the earl. ‘Do you really think it worth the effort of watching a possible amateur be massacred by Randall?’

  ‘If it turns out to be bad sport, we can always leave
,’ pointed out Mr Carruthers.

  The earl decided to go, more because he found to his surprise that he had been lonely and was sick of his own company. Peter Carruthers was a tall, lanky, easy-going fellow and just the sort of company the earl felt he needed. The sun was shining and he wondered for a brief moment whether he ought not to ride to Downs Abbey to see how those spoilt brats of Staye’s were surviving, but in the next moment, decided against it. Soon he and Mr Carruthers joined all the other carriages making their way to Gully’s Field outside Rochester.

  Hannah Pym arose early and went out into the cobbled, rain-washed streets of the old town of Rochester. She had not had breakfast. She did not feel like eating. She planned to walk about the town, just to see if she could find any clue to Benjamin’s whereabouts. The sum he had lost would take a great chunk out of her inheritance, and though she cursed Benjamin in her heart for his gambling, she knew she would gladly pay it to get him back again.

  The town was full of bustle and noise and carriages. The prize-fight, Hannah remembered. How gentlemen could find pleasure in watching two men beating each other to a pulp was beyond her. She searched and searched, asking for news of Benjamin in inns and taverns. The town began to empty and wear a deserted air as all the carriages bearing the prize-fight enthusiasts rattled off.

  Shabby men and women had been going around the streets handing out what looked like playbills. One fluttered along the street and caught on Hannah’s skirt. She plucked it off impatiently and was about to toss it away when the cheap black lettering on it leaped up at her.

  ‘Mr George Randall, Pugilist Supreme, to fight Mr Benjamin Stubbs, the London Gentleman.’

  Her heart in her mouth, she read on. The fight was to take place at ten o’clock that morning in a place called Gully’s Field. She glanced at the watch pinned to her bosom. Eight o’clock. If she had asked for a footman called Benjamin Stubbs, someone might have put her wise earlier, but all she had done was give a description of the missing Benjamin, not his name. She asked back at the inn for directions to Gully’s Field and learned it was six miles off to the north of the town. Hannah knew she had no hope of hiring any sort of carriage or even farm cart, as every vehicle in the vicinity would have been taken up. Setting her lips in a grim line, and holding a serviceable umbrella like a club in one hand, she set out walking the long road to Gully’s Field.

  2

  If thou love game at so dear a rate,

  Learn this, that hath old gamesters dearly cost:

  Dost lose? rise up: dost win? rise in that state,

  Who strive to sit out losing hands are lost.

  George Herbert

  Boxing had reached the zenith of its popularity. Patronized as it was by royalty, nobles and commoners alike, a prize match could bring thousands flocking to the scene.

  Lady Deborah Western was beginning to feel a trifle uneasy, but glad she was wearing men’s clothes. Any lady attending such an affair would surely cause a scandal. She and her brother were fortunate that they had arrived early enough to secure a place for their carriage at the ringside. By the time the fight was due to begin, the carriages were ten deep around the ring and thousands of foot spectators were spread up the sloping hillsides round about which turned the field into a natural amphitheatre.

  All about Lady Deborah, voices loud in boxing cant traded their knowledge. The odds were stated in quaint terms. It was, ‘Chelsea Hospital to a sentry-box on Randall,’ or ‘Glass case of ’51 to a cucumber frame on the unknown.’ The faces of the boxing heroes were frontispieces or dial-plates; their mouths, potato traps, gin-traps, kissers, or ivory-boxes; their heads, nuts, nobs or knowledge boxes; their blood, currant juice or claret; their eyes, ogles or optics; their stomachs, bread-baskets or victualling offices; and their noses, conks, snouts or smellers.

  Even the newspaper reports were written in cant. Lord William had shown his sister a report of a prize-fight which described the arrival of the boxers as, ‘The men came to the scratch, with good-humour painted on their mugs.’

  Then Lady Deborah noticed a movement and fuss about the shabby carriage next to her. The man at the reins seemed to be about to move off. Wondering that anyone, having secured such a prime place, should forgo it, she watched in surprise. Just as he was ready to drive off, a smart racing curricle with two men in it drove right across the ring. The stewards held up the ropes. The carriage next to her drove off and its place was taken by the curricle.

  ‘Clever way to secure a good place, Carruthers,’ said one of the newcomers.

  ‘Oh, Parsons is a good fellow,’ replied the man called Carruthers. ‘I paid him well to be here early so that we should get the best view.’

  Lady Deborah eyed Carruthers’s companion and she jogged her brother with her elbow. ‘Ain’t that old Puritan Ashton in beside us?’

  Lord William looked across her and hissed in dismay. ‘Sure it is,’ he whispered. ‘Looks like the devil, don’t he? I remember those green eyes of his. Pull your hat down over your eyes, Deb. If he recognizes you, he’ll give you a jaw-me-dead and spoil our fun.’

  Mr Peter Carruthers took out his quizzing-glass and looked about. He studied the twins in the next carriage. ‘Beautiful pair of lads,’ he commented, ‘although the one near you is a trifle girlish. Could do with toughening up.’

  The Earl of Ashton looked at the pair just described. His face hardened. ‘That, my dear friend,’ he said loudly, ‘is none other than Lord William Western and his sister, Lady Deborah. The young whelp has dressed his sister in his clothes and brought her to a prize-fight.’

  His voice carried to the other spectators hard by and Deborah suddenly found herself the focus of much attention, followed by loud taunts. A pair of fine legs in skin-tight breeches occasion no comment when supposed to belong to a man, but when it is revealed the delectable limbs are those of a lady, coarse remarks are apt to rise all round. To Deborah’s burning ears came lubricious suggestions about where the gentlemen would like to find those legs – tight around their necks being the general and loud opinion.

  She felt tears of mortification rising to her eyes. If only the fight would start so that her tormentors would leave her alone. She cursed Lord Ashton. She felt sure he had revealed her identity quite deliberately. Lord William was almost as miserable. He could not call them all out for insulting his sister. He was made even more miserable by the knowledge that he and his friends would no doubt bait any lady just as much had she attended a prize-fight dressed like a man. There was no way they could retreat until the fight was over.

  And then, to Lady Deborah’s relief, a hush fell on the crowd as the two fighters walked into the ring. Then there was an outcry. For the champion, Randall, was all that a champion should be, squat and powerful with a Neanderthal jaw, but the unknown, Benjamin Stubbs, was tall and slim. The odds rose high in favour of the champion.

  ‘My money’s on Randall, and so is everyone else’s,’ said Mr Carruthers gloomily.

  ‘I think I shall back our unknown,’ said the earl. ‘But let’s see how he strips.’

  Benjamin removed his coat and handed it to his second and that was followed by his ruffled shirt. His chest was white and hairless and his arms were sinewy, but he cut a poor figure beside Randall, who had a mat of hair on his chest like a carriage rug and whose arms were as thick as tree trunks.

  ‘Not much sport today,’ said Lord William, leaning forward, and Lady Deborah heaved a sigh of relief and prayed it would all be over quickly.

  It was a beautiful morning, clear and still, with a delicate fuzz of new green leaves covering the trees on the hills above the ring. Great fluffy clouds sailed across a clear blue sky and the air was warm and sweet.

  The contestants squared up to each other, the handkerchief was dropped and they set to. The couple sparred for a few minutes. There was deathly silence. Then Randall, moving with amazing speed for so heavily built a man, put two dextrous hits through Benjamin’s guard, hitting him in the mouth and the throat at the
same minute. Benjamin fell like a log, covered with blood, as cheer after cheer for Randall rent the air.

  Lady Deborah closed her eyes and prayed she was not going to be sick.

  Benjamin had been sponged down and was squaring up gamely for round two when a woman could be heard shouting from somewhere behind in the crowd. Painfully glad there was at least one other female present, Lady Deborah opened her eyes, only to see Randall punch Benjamin on the side of the head and send him reeling.

  And then a middle-aged woman carrying a large umbrella erupted into the ring like a fury. She marched straight up to Randall and brought her umbrella down on his head with a resounding thwack. Hannah Pym had arrived.

  Her umbrella dated from the last century. It had an oilskin covering, heavy iron spokes, and a silver head in the shape of a grinning dog.

  The Earl of Ashton ran lightly into the ring and approached the group of gesticulating stewards who had gathered around Hannah and the fighters.

  ‘Leave my footman alone, you great bully,’ howled Hannah.

  ‘It’s all right, modom,’ said Benjamin. ‘I said I was going to fight. No one pressed me into it.’

  ‘You had better come with me,’ said Lord Ashton. ‘You cannot stop a prize-fight or there will be a riot and many people might be killed.’

  ‘Yes, please go,’ said Benjamin. ‘Ain’t nothing you can do now.’

  Hannah looked around wildly. Lord Ashton took her gently by the arm. ‘There is a lady in the carriage next to mine,’ he said. ‘I suggest you join her.’

  Lady Deborah watched them approach. Lord Ashton came right up to her and said, ‘Since you have had the temerity, the folly, to appear here, the least you can do is offer some protection to this lady.’