Meridon

37

I tumbled out of the carriage and up the broad stairs without a word to the butler or the footmen. I could have wept with my tiredness, there were some times when I thought I would never get my strength back. At those times, if I had been little Miss Sarah, a lady born and bred, I should have wept and taken the next day in bed, and the next, and the next after that.

But I was not one of the Quality, I was a hard little Rom chavvy and I would not rest. I let my new maid undress me, and tuck me into bed; but then I told her to call me at eight for I was going riding, and I ignored her murmured advice. I would get well by fighting through. All my tough work-hardened life I had got sick and got well again by fighting through. I knew of no other way. I did not even know when I was sick and tired deep into my very soul, and that fighting and struggling and trying would not make that any better.

I slept at once, as soon as the door closed behind her, and in my deepest early sleep I dreamed of a day of sunshine, when I rode by the sea and someone loved me. Suddenly, I started awake. I had heard something which did not fit with the usual night-time sounds. Soft footsteps past my bedroom door, a slight noise from the stairs and then I heard the well-oiled click of the front-door latch and a carriage drive away down the street. I guessed then that Peregrine had come back for something.

Some instinct, some old hungry Rom instinct made me raise myself half up on one elbow and stare in the flickering firelit darkness across my bedroom. Something was not right.

I pushed back the covers and stepped out of my bed, walked unsteadily across the room, opened my bedroom door and looked into the hall. It was all quiet down there. A footman dozing on a chair, the butler back in his own private room. I shrugged, and turned back for my room, irritated with myself for losing the rest I needed for some nervous fancy.

Then I heard a carriage draw up outside the house and saw the footman unfold himself out of the chair in a hurry and rush to the butler’s room. I turned, silent in my bare feet, and scurried back to my room, shut my door in a hurry and slipped back into my bed and shut my eyes to feign sleep. I heard the front door open and Lady Clara’s high-heeled slippers tapping loudly on the marble floor as she crossed the hall. I heard her ask the butler if I was well and his quieter reply. I lay still and listened for her footsteps to go past my bedroom to her own.

I waited until I heard her door close for the last time and I heard her maid sigh as she carried the soiled clothes down the corridor towards the back stairs where they would have to be washed and perhaps ironed overnight if Lady Clara wanted them in the morning.

They would all be in bed now, except for the kitchenmaid. Perry did not order his valet to wait up for him, a candle was left for him in the hall, and his fire was banked in to burn all the night and most of the morning in his empty bedroom. The last person working was the kitchenmaid – watching the copper in the kitchen and washing Lady Clara’s linen. She would wring them out and then leave them drying before she crept up the stairs to her little bed. Everyone else was quiet.

I slipped from my bed and threw my wrapper around my shoulders and stepped, quiet as a cat, barefoot to my bedroom door, opened it, listened. There were no lights shining, the house was in silence. I stepped delicately on to the carpet in the corridor and stole softly down towards Perry’s room. His door opened with the quietest click. I froze and listened. There was nothing. I opened the door a little way and slid inside and closed it carefully behind me. I stood in silence and waited. Nothing.

The flames flickered in the grate, a candelabra was by Perry’s bedside with three of the five candles lit. I lifted it and stood it on his washstand so I could have the best light, then I turned and opened his wardrobe doors.

He had been wearing his mulberry-coloured coat with the green waistcoat this afternoon, when I had told him our marriage contract had arrived, and the deeds with it. I opened his wardrobe door and the coat was hanging, along with twenty others on hangers. I put my hand in the right-hand pocket, and then in the left-hand one. I took the coat out of the wardrobe and felt in every pocket and I even shook the coat in case I could feel the weight of the bulky papers in some pocket which was concealed.

There was nothing there.

The deeds of Wideacre were gone. I laid the coat on the floor and smoothed my hands all over it, alert for the rustle of thick paper, waiting for the feel of bulky documents under my fingertips. The deeds were not there. I had known they would not be, but I still had held to a little flicker of hope. That was foolish of me. In the hard, hungry corner of my mind I knew the deeds were not mislaid. I knew I had been robbed.

I tossed the mulberry coat into the corner and took down another from the wardrobe. This was a fine ball coat of peach silk, wonderfully embroidered with green and gold thread, stiff with peach velvet at the collars and cuffs and the pocket flaps. I thrust my cold little hands into every pocket and felt thoroughly inside. I shook it hard in case I could feel the weight of the deeds. Then I spread it on the floor, careless of creases and smoothed it all over, feeling for the weight of the packet of papers which would give the owner title to my land, my land of Wideacre.

Northing.

I bundled the fine coat into a ball and tossed it into the corner with the other. I took down a third…and a fourth…a fifth. I took down every coat in the wardrobe and searched each one as if I thought I might find the deeds to Wideacre carelessly stuffed in a pocket. I searched as though I had any hope left. I had none. But I felt as if I owed it to Perry, to Lady Clara, to my own Quality self, to little Miss Sarah Lacey, that I should believe that the life of the Quality was not the life of the midden. I wanted to believe that Perry was not a drunkard and a liar, a gambler and a thief. So I gave every coat a thorough searching, as if I thought I might find something more than disappointment and disillusion in every fine-stitched empty pocket.

Nothing.

I started on the drawers next. In the top were his fine linen shirts. I lifted each one out, shook it out of the carefully pressed folds and waited in case the deeds fell free. I dropped each shirt behind me on a chair, one after another until the drawer was empty and there was a snowdrift of creased fine white linen on the chair and on the floor. I took the drawer out then and threw aside the little muslin purse of dried lavender seeds, lifted the sweet-smelling paper lining of the drawer, and rapped with my fingers on the drawer base, in case Perry had taken care with the title deeds to my land. In case he had prized them so well that he had wanted to keep them safe, concealed where no one could steal them.

I knew they had been stolen. And I knew the name of the thief. But still I searched each drawer of the wardrobe, and then I went to the washstand and cast out his shaving tackle and his sweet-smelling soaps. His toilet water and the soft muslin cloth which he used to sponge his face. Everything I cast on the floor so that I could pull out the drawer and see if the deeds were safely hidden there.

Nothing.

I went to his writing desk, in the corner by the window. It was packed with papers, writing of every kind. I carried one drawer after another and heaped them on the centre of the bed. Small pasteboard calling cards, snippets of paper torn from dinner menus, sheets from notebooks, hot-pressed letter paper, a little mountain of papers and every one of them a note of gambling debts, written in Perry’s careless drunken scrawl. A score of them, a hundred of them, a thousand of them.

I moved the candelabra to the bedside table and lit the two new candles so that I might see better, then I smoothed the paper into a pile and sat amongst them, at the head of the bed. I drew the candles closer and lifted the first piece of paper, smoothed it out, and lifted it close to my eyes so that I could read. I spelled out the word carefully, whispering under my breath: ‘Ten guineas George Caterham’. Then I laid it on a pile and reached for the next.

Minutes I sat there, taking one paper after another, smoothing it, struggling with the words, placing it with the others. All the time my brain was working, calculating, adding and adding until all the little pieces were in a pile and I knew Perry owed two and a half thousand pounds in gambling debts to his friends.

There was a bigger pile, of proper paper, not crumpled scraps. Now I started on this. They were receipts from moneylenders against security and charging usorious rates of interest. They took me a long time to struggle through, I did not understand the words they used, nor some of the terms. I pulled my wrap around me and settled back with my back against the chair in the wreckage of the room. The deeds might be among them. They might be hidden among them. The bed was piled with papers, the chair heaped with Perry’s shirts, the floor covered with his coats. It looked as if someone had wrecked his room in anger. But I was not angry. I had been looking for the deeds of Wideacre. I cared for nothing in the world but my land. And as the clocks struck two all over the house in sweet muted tones I sat again in silence and knew what I should have known all along. That I loved Wideacre, that it was my home. And the man who tried to take it from me was my enemy. That whatever I had lost in the past, whatever I might cling to in the future, Wideacre was my source and my roots. I needed it like I needed air on my face and water in my cup. I had loved my sister and lost her. Wideacre I would keep.

I sat very still and gazed into the fire as if I could see my future there. I thought, for the first time ever, about my mother, my real mother, and thought how she had planned for me to be found and brought to Wideacre to be raised there as a country child. I thought of what James Fortescue had told me, that she had loved the land and loved the people. I thought that one of her friends had been a Tyacke, kin to the first man I met when Sea took me to my home. And for the first time my hardened roughened heart reached out to her memory and forgave her for letting me go, for throwing me out into that dangerous world. I forgave her for failing me then, when I was new-born. And I gave her credit for trying to do the best for me by putting me in the care of the man who loved her, and bidding him teach me that the land belonged to no one.

I felt that now…I smiled at myself. The moment the deeds were held by someone else I felt that no one should hold them. But I thought it was not my simple quick selfishness which made me feel thus, I thought it was something more. A sense of rightness, of fairness.

You should not be able to buy and sell the land people walk on, the houses they call homes. You should not be able to gamble it away, or throw it away. The only people who can be trusted with the land are those who live on it, who need it. Land, and air, and sunshine and sweet water can belong to no single person. Everyone needs them, everyone should be able to claim them.

I sat there in silence, in silence and weariness. And I wondered where in all of the gambling dens and hells of London Perry had gone with the deeds to Wideacre in his pocket and the desire to gamble making him mad in his head. I had known at once what Perry was staking tonight. He had gone out gambling with our marriage deeds and the deeds of Wideacre in his pocket. The imp of mischief which had made him slip them into his jacket had been born in the parlour when I stopped him drinking, had grown strong at dinner when his mama and I pulled him and worried at him like a pair of hungry curs over a strip of cowskin. Perry would never stand up to her. Perry would never stand up to me. He was a coward. He would lie and steal and betray us all as he sought to prove himself to us, in his hundreds of little vengeances.

And I knew where he was playing, too. I knew that his new-found friends, Redfern and Thomas, were bilkers. I had seen all the signs – Perry’s amazing luck which started when he met them, just as he came into his fortune. They called him ‘Lucky Havering’ he had told me and I had not thought quick enough with my clever cheating mind. They were gulling him and tonight, when he was drunk and peevish, they would spring the trap.

I gnawed on my knuckle and pulled one of Perry’s expensive coats around me in the darkness. I was racking my brains to think of a way to find him, to trace him before it was too late.

There was a sudden rattle against the glass. A tapping like hailstones. It was someone in the street outside, throwing stones up at the bedroom windows. My heart leaped for a moment, perhaps it was Perry locked out and afraid to wake the house by knocking. Another shower of stones came, and I jumped out of bed and crossed to the window, afraid for the glass.

The windows had been sealed shut, thick with white paint. I could not open them. I pressed my face up to the glass and squinted down into the street below. Whoever was throwing stones was hidden by the angle of the house, but then a figure stepped back into the road to look up at my window and I recognized him at once.

It was Will Tyacke, standing in the dark street like an assassin come to murder me.

I ran to the bedroom door and wrenched it open. I flew down the hall, my bare feet making no noise on the thick carpet, and pattered down the icy stairs. The front door was bolted and chained, but I had often let myself out for my morning rides, and I pushed the bolts back and unchained the door and threw it open.

I tumbled out on the stone step, wearing only my nightdress, my arms outstretched. ‘Will!’ I said. ‘I need you!’

He fended me off roughly, pushed me away from him, and with a sudden shock I saw his face was dark with anger. I fell back.

‘I’ve no time for that now!’ I said suddenly. ‘You may be angry with me, but there is something that matters more. It’s Wideacre. You have to help me save it!’

Will’s face was as hard as chalk. ‘I have come to ask you one question,’ his voice was thick with rage. ‘One question only and then I will go.’

I shivered. It was freezing, the pavements glistened with hoar frost. I stood barefoot on the stone step.

‘Do you know what stake your husband is using to gamble with tonight?’ he asked.

‘What…?’ I stammered.

‘Do you know what stake your husband is using, for his gambling tonight?’ Will repeated. His voice was very harsh, the whisper was charged with anger.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He came home to get the deeds. I have just found them missing.’ I put my hand behind me and gripped the knocker of the big black door so hard that it hurt. ‘D’you know where he is?’ I asked.

Will nodded. ‘I wanted to see you,’ he said. ‘I went to that woman’s party, where you were this evening. They said you’d gone home to bed. I thought I’d see his lordship instead, if I could find him.’ He paused. ‘I found him,’ he said. ‘He was in a new gambling club, in a mews behind Curzon Street, he was dead drunk, trying to play piquet. The gossip in the club was that he had won all evening but was starting to lose. The stake on the table were the deeds to Wideacre. Whoever wins them, wins Wideacre.’

We neither of us spoke. The wind blew icy down the street and I shivered but I did not step back into the hall.

‘It was not lost when you left?’ I asked.

‘No.’

‘Did you see him?’ I demanded. ‘Did they let you in?’

Will’s hard mouth twisted in a smile. ‘It’s not a gentleman’s club,’ he said with the precise discrimination of a radical. ‘They let in anyone who is rich enough or fool enough. It’s a mews turned into a club with a porter down at the bottom of the stairs, and where the grooms would sleep is where they play. It’s only been open a few weeks.’

My mind was spinning as fast as if I still had a fever. ‘Wait here,’ I said. ‘I’m getting my cloak.’

Before he had time to answer I turned and raced back upstairs. I pulled my cloak from the wardrobe and I pushed my icy feet into my riding boots. I was not tired now, my head was thudding with anxiety and I was shuddering with the cold, but I was in a mad rush to get downstairs again in case Will should leave, without waiting for me.

I snatched a purse full of guineas from the drawer in my desk and clattered down the stairs, hardly caring how much noise I made.

Will was still on the doorstep.

‘Come on!’ I said, pulling the door shut behind me and starting down the street at a run. ‘Is that your horse?’

Will’s big bay was tied to the railings. Will nodded and unhitched him. At my nod he threw me up to the saddle and then swung up behind me.

‘Where to?’ he asked.

‘The stables,’ I said.

We trotted around to the mews, the horse’s hooves clattering loudly on the frozen cobbles. A dog yapped inside, and we saw a light go on. I banged on the stable door and I heard the horses inside stir, then I heard someone coming down the stairs from the sleeping quarters above the stable and a voice, gruff with sleep, shout: ‘Who is it?’

‘Lady Havering!’ I yelled back. I could feel Will behind me stiffen with anger at the title, but the groom pulled back the bolts of the door and poked his head and his lantern out through the gap.

‘Lady Havering?’ he asked incredulously. Then, as he saw me, he tumbled out into the street. ‘What d’you want, your ladyship?’

‘I want to borrow your best suit, your Sunday suit,’ I said briskly. ‘I have need of it, Gerry, please.’

He blinked, owlish in the lamplight.

‘Quickly!’ I said. ‘I’ll change in your room. Give me the clothes first.’

Will dropped down to the ground and lifted me down.

‘You heard her,’ he said to the man. ‘Do as she says.’

The groom stammered, but turned inside and led the way up the rickety stairs.

‘There’s the suit I had for my brother’s wedding,’ he said. ‘He’s a tailor, he made it up for me special.’

‘Excellent,’ I said. The smarter I looked the more likely we were to pull this off.

He went to a chest in the corner of the room and lifted it out reverently. We were in luck so far, he had kept the linen with it, and a white cravat. It was a suit almost as good as a gentleman’s; in smooth cloth, not homespun. A dark grey colour. You’d expect a city clerk to wear such a suit, or even a small merchant. If Perry’s club would admit Will dressed in his brown homespun, they’d certainly admit me in this suit, if I could pass for a young man.

There was a tricorne hat with it, in matching grey, and I could swing my own cloak over the whole. My boots would have to serve. I did not want to borrow the groom’s shoes with shiny buckles, they would be obviously too big for me whereas the jacket and trousers just looked wide-cut.

I dressed as quick as if I were changing costume between acts and clattered down the stairs as Will and the groom were leading his bay horse into the stables. Will stared at me and the groom gaped.

‘My God, Lady Havering, what are you about?’ the groom exclaimed.

I brushed past him and swung my cloak around myself.

‘What d’you think?’ I demanded. ‘Would I pass as a young man, a young gentleman?’

‘Aye…’ Gerry stammered, ‘But why, your ladyship? What are you about?’

I gave a low laugh, I felt as mad as I had been with my fever.

‘Thank you for the loan of your suit…’ I said. ‘You shall have it back safe. Tell no one about this and you shall have a guinea. Have Sea and the bay ready for us at daybreak. Wait up for me.’

He would have answered, but I turned on my heel, Will at my side. His smile gleamed at me in the moonlight. I grinned back. It was good to be out of the house, and dressed easily again. It was like an enchantment to be with Will in the dark deserted streets of London. I laughed aloud.

‘Lead the way,’ I said. ‘To Perry’s club, as fast as we can.’

Will did not wait to ask me what I planned. I had known months before that moment that I loved him, but when he nodded with a smile, I loved him even more. For the way he turned and started down the street at a steady loping run, even though he did not know what the devil I was planning.

I was only half sure myself.

The new club was only minutes from home; Perry had taken a cab to it, and would have planned to reel home later. As we turned around the corner from the broad parade of Curzon Street we went arm in arm and strolled to the dark doorway, as leisurely as lords.

‘This is the place, Michael,’ Will said loudly. His voice was as clear and as commanding as a squire in the saddle. I had to bite back a smile.

‘Bang on the door, then!’ I said. I made my voice as deep as I could, and I slurred as if I were drunk. ‘Bang on the whoreson door!’

It swung open before Will raised his hand. The porter inside, dressed in a shabby livery which looked as if it had been bought off a barrow cheap, smiled at us. He had a tooth missing. He looked an utter rogue.

‘This is a private club, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Private to the gentry and their friends.’

Thank the lord they were saving money on the lighting and the hall was illuminated only by a single candelabra, and two of the candlesticks were guttering. My face under the hat was in shadow anyway; he was looking mainly at the cut of my coat which was good, and assuring himself that, although we might look like rustics, we were neither of us the watch come to check on this new gambling hell.

‘I’m an acquaintance of Sir Henry Peters,’ I said, braggishly, like a young man. ‘Is he here tonight?’

‘Not tonight,’ said the porter. ‘But please to come in, there is a small, a very small membership fee.’

I put my hand in my pocket and at his mumble of two guineas each I tipped the gold coins into his hand. His eyes gleamed at the weight of the purse as I tucked it back inside my cape.

‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘Most certainly, this way.’

He led the way up the rickety stairs to the upper floor. I could hear the sound of voices and the chink of bottle against glass. I could hear Perry’s own voice say, ‘Gad! Against me again! My luck’s sick as a dog tonight!’

I hesitated, wondering how drunk Perry was, whether he would see my face under the heavy tricorne hat and cry out in surprise. But then the porter pushed open the door and I saw how dark and smoky it was inside, and I went on, fearless.

The smoke hung like a pall in the room, cigar smoke in thick wreaths. The stench of it made my eyes water as soon as I stepped inside, but I saw how it darkened the room so that the gamblers were squinting at their cards. No one even noticed us.

‘Waiter!’ Will said behind me.

The man appeared and Will ordered a bottle of burgundy and signed for it with a flourish. He did not once glance at me for approval. You would have thought we had been bottle companions, gambling and wenching together for years.

The porter had gone across the room to whisper in the ear of a man who was sitting sideways to the door. He glanced up towards us and rose to his feet, came across the room twirling his glossy red mustachios. ‘Captain’ Thomas, I bet silently with myself. And as like a captain in the cavalry as any fool and coward can reasonably appear. His partner at the table stayed seated. I guessed that would be Bob Redfern.

‘Morning gentlemen,’ he said. He even had the voice to perfection, the cavalry officer’s confident drawl. ‘Good of you to come to my little place here. Can I interest you in a game?’

I hesitated. I had not thought further ahead than to get to Perry before he gambled Wideacre away for ever. But he was deeper in than I had dreamed. Captain Thomas was not running a cheap little fleecing here. This was a well-staffed club with three servants at least within call and a dozen wealthy patrons, most of whom wore swords.

I looked around quickly. With his back to the entrance, slumped in his chair, was Perry. His golden curls looked dark and dirty in the flickering candlelight, his head was bowed as he stared at his hand of cards. The empty place opposite him, which had been the captain’s, was surrounded with a pile of papers and gold coins. They were unmistakably IOUs from Perry. Any one of them might be the Wideacre deeds, and Will and I were too late.

‘You certainly can,’ I said. My mouth was very dry, and my throat too tight. My voice came out a little higher than I meant, too girlish. But it did not tremble. Beside me I saw Will shift a little, like a wrestler places his feet when he is ready for a fight. I reached back to the table where our wine was poured and took a gulp.

‘What’s your game?’ I asked. I nodded towards Perry’s table with assumed confidence. ‘What are you playing?’

‘Lord Havering and I were playing piquet while waiting for a partner for whist. Perhaps you and your companion…?’

He glanced at Will who swayed on his feet. ‘I’ll sit this one out!’ he said hastily.

‘Well, let me introduce you then to Mr Redfern who will take a hand with us,’ Captain Thomas said smoothly. ‘I’m Captain Thomas, this is Lord Peregrine Havering.’ Perry glanced up, his blue eyes hooded. He blinked owlishly and slumped back down again. ‘And this is Mr Redfern. Play whist, Bob?’

Perry straightened, he looked bemusedly at me, blinking like a daylight owl. I tensed. He had seen me dressed as a lad before, that spring morning in the Havering woods when he had thought we might be friends. He stared at me.

‘Do I know you?’ he asked confused.

I nodded confidently. ‘Aye, but I doubt you remember, my lord. We met at Brighton races, at the start of last summer. I was with Charles Prenderly, staying at his house.’

‘Oh,’ Perry said blankly. ‘Beg pardon. Of course.’

‘Will you play whist, my lord?’ Captain Thomas asked.

Perry blinked. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Got to keep the same stakes. Got to have a go at winning them back. Daren’t go home without them. That’s a fact.’

Captain Thomas shot me a rueful look. ‘His lordship’s dipped deep tonight,’ he said. ‘He wants his revenge from me.’

I pushed my hat back carelessly on my red curls. Building inside me was a mad recklessness I had never known before. The hard-working, tough little child seemed to be melting, in this most unlikely moment. I felt as if I could have laughed aloud. My whole life was on the table of a common gambling house, my legal-wedded husband dead drunk and defeated before me, the only man I loved tense as a twitched horse behind me. I tipped back my head and laughed aloud.

‘Maybe I’ll bring him luck!’ I said. ‘Will you play whist with me, m’lord?’

Perry blinked, his rosebud mouth down-turned as if he felt like crying. ‘Shouldn’t change the game,’ he said. ‘How can I win it back if we change the game?’

Captain Thomas hesitated. Perry could turn nasty if he was not humoured, but the porter would have whispered in his ear about the heavy purse in my pocket and how it chinked with gold. Perry’s friend Charles Prenderly was a wealthy young man. Any bilker would keep a friend of his at the gambling table if he possibly could.

‘Well, keep the stakes,’ I said cheerfully. The insane temptation to laugh aloud kept rising up in me. I was Meridon the gypsy tonight indeed. No land, no husband, no lover, and no chance of getting out of here without a thorough beating if I set a foot wrong. ‘Keep the stakes as they are, I’ll buy into the game. Then m’lord can win his fortune back if the cards fall his way.’

Captain Thomas gleamed.

‘I’ll buy in, too,’ said Bob Redfern quickly. ‘Say a hundred guineas, captain?’

I reached into my purse and counted out the coins. I held the purse still this time so that they should not see that it was near empty now. This was my stake for Wideacre. I would only have one chance.

Will lounged over to the doorway with his glass of wine to watch the play. His mouth was set hard and I saw him swallow. He had no gambling instinct, my solid Will Tyacke. I slid a wink at him and he scowled a warning at me. He had no idea what I planned to do.

Captain Thomas slid some counters across to me and to Bob Redfern. Perry had a handful in his pocket. He brought them out and turned them over and over as if he had hoped they had bred into more in the darkness of his pocket. Even in my fear for Wideacre I had a second’s pity for him. He had lost everything tonight, and he still only half knew it.

Captain Thomas dealt. I watched him as he did so. It was a straight deal as far as I could tell. Clean cards, new pack, dealt from the top. He pushed the pack to Perry who cut the cards to choose suit. Diamonds.

I had a moderate hand and I won a couple of tricks and lost a couple. I did not care much during this game. I wanted to see how they worked. The deal passed to Perry and he fumbled with the cards but got them out. Bob Redfern called the suit. He called clubs. I had a wonderful hand. I won four of the six tricks and the deal and the calling of the suit came to me. I called clubs again for a mixed hand and took two tricks. Bob Redfern took three, and took the call for the next deal.

So far I had seen nothing. At the end of the game I was eight guineas down to Captain Redfern. Perry had lost ten. I could not see how they did it. As far as I could tell Perry had lost by simple incompetence. He was not able to remember what cards had been played and who had called the suit. The tricks he had won had come from luck – a high card in the right suit.

In the second game I saw it. I should have spotted it at once. I had watched card-sharpers at work all my life. These two had, no doubt, a repertoire of all the tricks: dealing off the bottom, marked cards, hidden cards, stacked decks of cards. But with Perry and me in the game they worked as a simple team. I remembered my da at the steps of the wagon sitting me opposite him and holding his mug of tea up to his ear, ‘Ear means ace,’ he had said. ‘Ear: Ace. Mouth: King. Shoulder: Queen. Easiest trick in the world, Merry. And don’t you forget it. Right hand red. Left hand black. Hands clenched looks like a club, see? Third finger on thumb looks like a heart, see? Hand out fingers together looks like a spade. Fingers open looks like diamonds. Easy.’

I never thought I should thank that man for anything in the world. I never thought he had given me aught worth having. But in that dirty smoky little club I bent my head to hide my smile.

I had them. The two damned cheats who were robbing me of my land. I knew what they were doing. Whichever of them had the best cards of any suit signalled to the other. One or other of them could keep ahead of the game to win the deal most times. They could let me and Perry win from time to time to keep our interest in the game and our hopes up. The first trumps were called by cutting the pack and they could cheat on that by stacking the pack if they needed. Most times they would not need. It was a simple game and a simple cheat.

And all it needed was a simple opposition.

They were using the code my da had taught me. I watched them under my lowered eyelashes and smiled inwardly. I could read it as well as they. I could see that Bob Redfern had high diamonds, and that was why the captain called diamonds when he had only one or two in his hand. I knew then to use my low couple of diamonds to trump tricks to keep myself in the game.

They were going for me. For my little pile of guineas. Perry’s miserable bewailings of his luck meant nothing to them. He would scrawl some more IOUs as he staked more to try and win back Wideacre. But they had sucked Perry dry for tonight. The IOUs were well and good but they preferred gold – like mine; or deeds to property – like Perry’s.

I held them off. I lost a guinea at a time, slowly, slowly, until I took their measure. I watched them. I did not have the time, nor did I think to watch Perry.

The table suddenly jolted as he pushed it back.

‘I won’t play any more!’ he announced. He rocked his chair back and then dropped it foursquare on its legs. He scowled around at us, I saw his lower lip trembling and I knew he was sobering fast. I knew he was realizing what he had done.

‘Jolyon,’ he said piteously to the captain. ‘Jolyon, for God’s sake take my IOU for the deeds. I should never have put it on the table. You should never have accepted it.’

The captain smiled but his eyes were cold. ‘Oh come now,’ he said. ‘You won a fortune off me at Newmarket. A fortune in gold too! Not some damned place miles away in the countryside entailed to the hilt. It’s the luck of the game lad! And my God! What a gamester you are!’

‘Never seen a finer one,’ Bob Redfern corroborated at once. ‘Never seen a finer.’

Perry blinked rapidly. I knew there were tears in his eyes. ‘I broke a promise,’ he said. ‘I promised…a lady…that I’d not gamble with those deeds. It was only owing you so much, Jolyon, and thinking it would be a fine thing to stake Wideacre to clear all the debts in one gamble that led me on. I shouldn’t have done it. I hope you’ll accept a draft on my account instead.’

Captain Thomas rose to his feet and clapped Perry on the shoulders.

‘Surely,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Surely. I’ll attend you tomorrow, shall I, old fellow? I’ll come around to your house at noon, shall I? I want you to see a new hunter I have, I fancy you’ll like him.’

‘And I can clear my debt with you then, can I?’ Perry demanded urgently. ‘You won’t let a day go? And you’ll keep the deeds safe?’

‘As safe as a babe new-born!’ the Captain said. He guided Perry to the door carefully and the porter swathed him in his silk-lined evening cloak. ‘Mind your step as you go home, Perry, I want you in one piece for tomorrow!’

Perry paused at the top of the stair, his mouth working. ‘You won’t fail me, Jolyon, will you?’ he asked. ‘I promised her, I promised this lady most especially…’

‘Of course,’ Jolyon assured him. He waved his cigar and we heard Perry clatter down the stairs and then the bang of the outer door as he went out into the streets.

The captain and Bob Redfern exchanged a slight inoffensive smile. They’d let Perry redeem the deeds for Wideacre only when they had priced the estate and checked its value.

I laughed aloud, like a reckless boy: ‘Gambling for land, are we?’ I demanded. ‘Well, I’ve a fancy to win some land! What d’you say I put my place against this place of yours?’

The captain laughed as careless as me, but I saw him shoot a quick, calculating look across the table at me, and also at Will.

‘And you, Will!’ I exclaimed. ‘Come on! It’s not often we come to London, and to be in a gentleman’s club and with a chance to win a fortune and all!’

Will straightened up reluctantly. ‘I’d not put Home Farm on the table, not for all the money in the world,’ he said. ‘And you’d be mad to put your estate up, Michael. Why, you don’t even have the deeds yet, your pa’s shoes are still warm.’

I thought that was pretty fast lying for an honest farm manager but I kept my eyes down and I laughed defiantly. ‘So what?’ I challenged. ‘It’s mine right enough, isn’t it? And why should I want to be buried in the country for the rest of my days?’

I turned to the captain. ‘It’s the sweetest little estate you ever did see, just outside Salisbury,’ I said. ‘Not one good thing have I had out of it in my life. My father scrimped and saved and bought one little parcel of land after another until he had it all together. Not one penny would he spend on me. It’s only since his death I’ve been able to go to a half-decent tailor even! Now I’m in London I’m damned if I’ll sell myself short. I’ll put Gateley Estate on the table, up against your – whatever it’s called – and let the winner take both!’

‘Not so fast,’ the captain said. ‘Lord Perry was anxious that I keep the deeds safe.’

I shrugged. ‘I’ll sell them back to him, or gamble ‘em back to him, never fear,’ I said. ‘You talk as if I’m certain to win. I surely feel lucky!’

Will came forward softly. ‘This is madness,’ he said aloud. ‘You’ll never gamble your inheritance. The rents alone are worth four thousand pounds a year, Michael!’ In an undertone, for my ears alone he leaned forward and hissed: ‘What the devil are you playing at, Sarah?’

I leaned back in my seat and beamed at him. I had that wonderful infallible feeling I had known when I saw Sea for the first time and knew that he would not throw me.

I winked at the captain. ‘I don’t live like a rustic!’ I said. ‘I’ve come into my own at last, I’m ready to play like a gentleman, aye and live like one too.’

‘Well, good luck to you!’ said Bob Redfern. ‘Damme that calls for a bottle. Are you drinking burgundy, Mr…Mr…’

‘Tewkes,’ I said at random. ‘Michael Tewkes, Esquire, of Gateley, near Salisbury. Glad to meet you indeed.’

I let him take my hand, it was still as rough and as calloused as any working squire. They had cut my nails short in the fever, my grip was hard.

A fresh bottle was bought, and a new pack of cards.

‘What’ll it be?’ asked the captain. His eyes were bright, he had been drinking all evening but it was not that which made him pass his tongue across his lips as if for the taste of something sweet. He could smell a pigeon ripe for the plucking.

‘Michael, I promised your mother…’ Will said urgently.

‘Oh, sit down and take a hand,’ I said carelessly. ‘This is a jest between gentlemen, Will, not serious play. I’ll put my IOU for Gateley on the table against this other estate. If I come home with a house and land in my pocket d’you think anyone will complain? Sit down and play or sheer off!’

The captain smiled sympathetically at Will. ‘It’s a hard row, keeping a young man out of trouble,’ he said. ‘But we’re all friends here. We’ll put the deeds on the table if that’s your wish. But we’ll have a gentleman’s agreement to buy them back at a nominal sum. No one is here to be ruined. All anyone seeks is a little sport.’

Will unbent slightly. ‘I don’t mind games of skill,’ he said stiffly. ‘Games of skill between gentlemen for a nominal sum.’

‘Slow coach!’ I said easily. ‘Captain, get me a sheet of your paper and I’ll write out the deeds of my land fair. We’ll put them on the table with Lord Perry’s farm and they can be the stake.’

‘I’ll put my hundred guineas in,’ Will said, warming to the game.

‘Dammit so will I!’ said Bob Redfern as if he had suddenly decided. ‘I could do with a little place in the country!’

Will checked at once. ‘The properties to be re-sold at once to their rightful owners,’ he said.

Bob Redfern smiled. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘For a nominal sum. This is but a jest. It adds zest.’

‘For God’s sake, Will, we’re in polite society now,’ I hissed at him. ‘Don’t count the change so!’

Will nodded abashed, and watched as I wrote out a brief description with a line-drawing of what was, in fact, Robert Gower’s farm. I chose it on purpose. It looked real. My da always used to say, when you’re getting a gull, tell him a story as straight as you can. I thought of him as I drew in the river which flowed near the bottom field.

‘Pretty place,’ the captain said approvingly.

‘A fair stake, for a jest,’ I said.

Bob Redfern leaned forward and dealt the cards with his swift white hands. I dropped my eyelashes and watched him like a hawk.

I was not a card-sharper, I was a horse-trainer, a petty thief, a poacher. I could call up a show or ride a horse for money. I could take bets, make up a book, drug a bad horse into steadiness, or ride a wild pony into the ground for a quick sale. Here, in this London club, with a man’s hat pushed back on my forehead, sprawled in my chair like a flushed youth, I was in the grip of men who cheated at cards for a living, and for a handsome living. I was the pigeon here. The little skills I had learned at Da’s knee would not preserve me from a thorough plucking if I stayed too long. Whatever I was going to do I had best do quick.

News of the bet had spread to other parts of the room and several gentlemen had quit their own games to come and watch ours. I didn’t know whether any of them would signal to Bob or Jolyon what cards we held. I didn’t dare wait to find out. There was no time, and I did not have enough skill. For the first time in my life I wished with all my heart that my da was at my side. He was no artist, but he could spot a cheat. And I did not know if they would use the same signals with others watching.

They did. The first tricks I saw them do it. They moved like gentlemen, that was what made it alluring. When you saw Da pinch his ear or scratch his shoulder it looked foolish, as if he had nits. But when Captain Thomas brushed his collar with the tips of his fingers he looked merely debonair. I risked a quick glance at Will, he was scowling over his cards. He would know they were cheating but he would not have a clue how it was done. I could not hope that he would have wits quick enough to follow me. He had not had the training, he was no easy liar, no quick cheat. He did not know how to do it. I should have to do it alone. I should have to do it quickly. I should have to do it now.