“I don’t believe you!” Miss Halperton replied with a curl of her lip.
“Well, there is one way to prove it,” Lizzie said irritably. “Pay me a ha’penny now. I assure you I will accept it with thanks.”
Miss Halperton gazed at her keenly. “I believe you are in earnest,” she blurted after a moment.
“I can’t wait around here all day,” Lizzie said, gathering her cloak about her. She had some dignity left to her and would wait no longer on this woman “I’ll bid you good day, ma’am.”
“Wait!”
Ignoring Miss Halperton’s cry, Lizzie started to hurry away. She felt suddenly overwhelmed with embarrassment over the role she had just played. When had she ever been so fanciful? What had she been thinking letting her imagination run riot like that, and even worse, giving voice to her suspicions which may well have been unfounded? She pressed her hands to her hot face and wondered if she was starting to lose her mind!
She almost screamed when a hand seized her elbow. Wheeling around, she found it was Miss Timms again. The poor woman was puffing and panting like she had run the entire length of a field.
“Please – ” she puffed. “Don’t run away – Miss Halperton – sends this – with her regards.” She held out a glove of sensible tan leather, and Lizzie met it reluctantly with her own mittened hand. After all, a ha’penny might come in useful at some point. The coin pressed into her palm felt a good deal more substantial than a ha’penny, however. Lizzie glimpsed it briefly before closing her fingers around it tightly. It was a golden sovereign!
Miss Timms was regarding her almost fearfully. “How did you know?” she whispered. “I never dared to speak of what I saw in the orangery.”
Lizzie stared back at her. “What did you see?” she could not prevent herself from asking.
“Mr. Abney and Miss Smith in an embrace,” Miss Timms confessed shakily. “But I knew that Miss Halperton would never believe me, and indeed I would never have had the nerve to tell her of it. She would have dismissed me in a towering rage at the very suggestion, but now …” She shook her head. “Do you know, I believe she will actually throw him over.” Miss Timms’ voice shook with suppressed emotion, and she dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. “I am so relieved, you cannot imagine! A gazetted fortune hunter, that’s what he is! And that cunning, sly wretch of a girl, dripping her poison into Miss Halperton’s ear. You cannot imagine the weight that has lifted from my shoulders at the prospect of their dismissal. Thank you, thank you a thousand times, thank you!” the poor woman twittered. “Your great gift is truly a blessing!”
Lizzie swallowed and wondered if Miss Timms would say if she knew it was only a reckless mixture of guesswork and instinct that had led her to the truth. Deciding such an admission would be ill-advised, she nodded at Miss Timms, and the other woman clasped her hands to her bosom and stood watching her with stars in her eyes as Lizzie made haste to disappear once more into the crowd. She would walk once around this busy arena and then make for the entertainer’s field.
That way she should shake off any other pursuers, she thought thinking for instance of a freshly spurned fortune hunter who might bear a grudge against her. She had entered the first of the entertainment fields now and gasped aloud to see how much busier it was today from the previous. Now there were people everywhere, as far as the eye could see; a teeming crowd of day-trippers on pleasure bent.
Lizzie felt her anxiety mounting as she picked up her pace and gazed about for a landmark she recognized. It did not matter how much she told herself she was being fanciful; she felt a sort of lurking dread sneaking up on her as she hurried around the field full of strange and bizarre attractions. Finally, she spied The Adam and Eve sign and realized where she was. Spinning around, she saw it, the Toomes’ boxing tent. This Easter Monday it looked full to capacity. In front of the booth, a tall, strapping brunette, her hair piled high on her head, stalked up and down, her voice upraised.
“Come and see the Harbinger of Doom!” she boomed. “’E takes on all comers, ’e’s not fussy! Fancy your chances, lads? Go three rounds with the Harbinger and win a pound for your trouble! Be a local hero! A legend in your own time, gents! Sir, you look a likely young bruiser, ever boxed?”
Lizzie watched her opportune a passing young man who seemed more interested in looking her up and down than trying out bare-knuckle fighting. And small wonder, for she was a handsome woman, Lizzie thought, though her dress was cut rather low and showed a good deal of frilly chemise along with her ample charms.
Whatever the young man said, she laughed and tossed her head. “Maybe if you stop by later, my fine gent.” She winked and turned to hail another gaggle of young men. “You look the very thing, my lads, I’ll bet there’s a sports fancier or two between you. Surely you’ll be keen to see the triumphant return of Benedict Toomes himself to the ring?”
“Toomes?” repeated one of them, lowering his bottle of beer. “Thought he was in Newgate, last time I heard?” Lizzie could not help but wince at this as she slipped past them, making for the tent. “Bless you, luv, it weren’t Newgate,” the brunette started to explain, before noticing Lizzie. “Oi!” she yelled after her. “Where do you think you’re – ”
But Lizzie did not stop to listen. Instead, she hurried forward and ducked inside the opening. A heavy sense of impropriety descended on her as soon as she stepped inside the tent. For one thing, she was the only woman present that she could see. For another, the milling crowd was a rough company of men in flat caps, jostling and jeering without any discernible sense of propriety. Cigar and pipe smoke and curse words peppered the air, and she scarcely knew where to put herself as she looked about in vain for a face she knew, be it either her husband or new brothers-in-law.
Guessing that any entertainment must be at the front of the tent, she pushed forward, gathering the heavy folds of the black cloak about her and pulling the hood down low over her face. She did not make much headway, however, and it wasn’t long before she realized that the crowd was thickest in the middle of the tent.
She was a good five or six rows back from the front when she realized she could proceed no further forward and came to a halt. Going up on her tiptoes and peering over the shoulder in front of her, she made out an area in the center which was roped off. It was square in shape, and standing at one end was a figure she knew only too well. It was that of her husband, Benedict Toomes.
He stood bared to the waist with his arms folded across his chest as his brother Frank whipped up the crowd. Lizzie could barely make out his words the crowd was so noisy, but after a moment or two she managed to drown out the catcalls and laughter and to focus on Frank’s words.
“Here he is, gentlemen,” Frank announced. “Take your fill. The Harbinger of Doom himself! Benedict Toomes, fresh from his sojourn at Her Majesty’s pleasure!” A smattering of laughter greeted this witticism, and Lizzie was shocked to her core to hear such a thing joked about so shamelessly. His recent incarceration seemed to be a selling point rather than anything else. “Has prison softened him, gentlemen?” Frank pondered aloud. “Let’s find out. Surely there’s one amongst this fine company who will go toe-to-toe with this reformed convict who stands before us a new and better man?”
Another ripple of mirth and went through the crowd at these words. Benedict stood, coolly impassive. His cold eyes, though, passing over the crowd with a sort of calculated consideration that reminded her of a coiled snake which had stared at her once through the glass with a venomous intent that had filled her with frozen horror.
Was he sizing up possible opponents, she wondered, and gazed about her uneasily? What kind of fool would take one look at this man and think they wanted to tangle with him? If they had any sense of self-preservation, they would not set one foot over that rope.
To Lizzie’s astonishment, however, she noticed several flurries of activities in the crowd as men started stripped off their jackets and started rolling their sleeves, making for the roped off area.
Her jaw dropped in surprise to see at least three burly types approaching Frank who was clapping them on the shoulder, congratulating them on their courage and determining their experience.
When she glanced back toward Benedict, she suffered another shock, for instead of watching his competition, his hazel eyes were fixed now on her. Lizzie gasped and ducked her head. He surely could not have noticed her, she thought, clutching her hands into fists and wondering why her heart was beating so fast.
And why had she come over so bashful all of a sudden? He had told her that she would see how the boxing operated on the morrow, so it wasn’t like she was doing anything she ought not by coming here. When she had steeled herself to raise her eyes again, Frank was conferring with him and he was nodding in agreement over whatever was being said.
She breathed a sigh of relief and was then jolted again when the crowd started up as the first of the contenders stepped forward. “Give him a hiding, Dan!” yelled out a booming voice and several others joined it, raised in encouragement for the blond-haired chap who nodded and raised a large hand in acknowledgement of the crowd’s support.
Benedict still had his arms folded as Frank led the newcomer into the center and pointed to something on the floor which Lizzie could not see. He seemingly positioned himself against it with his fists upraised, and Frank turned beaming to the audience.
“Gentlemen, if you will please show your appreciation for Mr. Daniel Smith of the parish of Spitalfields in this here great City of London.”
A cheer went up, Lizzie supposed from those fellow inhabitants of that borough, or perhaps anyone who associated themselves with either the East End or London itself. To her surprise, Benedict did not immediately join his opponent in the center of the ring, and a good deal of the spectators seemed to surge toward another corner of the tent where she now noticed Jack Toomes was set up on the top of a packing case. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask the man next to her what was occurring when the fog lifted. They were gambling on the outcome, she realized, watching Jack draw a notebook out from his waistcoat and start making notes as he took bets from the men milling around him, holding their money aloft as they called their wagers.
Hearing Frank’s voice raised above the babble, she realized he was extolling Mr. Daniel Smith’s various qualifications as a fighter. Apparently, he was the owner of a meat cart and used to hefting about great carcasses over his shoulders as part of his daily toil. That accounted for the strength of his build, Lizzie supposed.
Frank drew the audience’s attention to Smith’s great fists and the musculature about his neck, which was, Lizzie noticed, rather over developed. It made him look like he did not have much of a neck in her opinion. A babble of heated discussion rose up to the roof of the tent as the crowd debated his points.
“I like the look of the fellow!” a man on the other side of her yelled in his companion’s ear. “Looks a steady chap. Great, mighty thews on him. Don’t like to tell you your own business, Nat, but maybe he’ll give Toomes a run for his money. What do you say?”
Glancing over, Lizzie saw his friend was wearing an improbably colored yellow tailcoat teamed with a waistcoat of blue and silver decorated all over in the pattern of seashells. He looked amused by his friend’s opinion. “Care to make a wager on the outcome, old boy?” he suggested.
The first man turned cagey at this, fingering his chin. “Dash it, Nat, I promised Maud I wouldn’t speculate,” he grumbled. “But I suppose, if it’s just between the two of us …”
Bit by bit, the buzz died down, and the press of the crowd returned as all bets were laid. Lizzie noticed Jack’s broad grin as he nodded in reply to Frank’s look of enquiry.
Finally, Benedict lowered his crossed arms and deigned to join his opponent in the center of the tent. He, too, seemed to line himself up with what Lizzie could only guess was some mark she could not make out from her vantage point.
To her mind, his body was a good deal better proportioned than the other man’s and put her rather forcibly in mind of some ancient Greek statues she had once viewed in a museum before her aunt’s muffled shriek had alerted her to the fact that particular exhibition was not intended for a lady’s eyes. She had been hastily redirected to a textile display upstairs instead.
Still, she had filed it away in her memory and called it forth now to compare the body of Benedict Toomes to those highly idealized depictions of masculinity carved in white marble. She did not think he suffered by the comparison in any way, she reflected as her eyes traveled over his broad shoulders and well-muscled arms.
Unbidden, she remembered just how it had felt to be pressed up against that warm, tanned flesh when she awoke that morning and felt her face grow hot. Oh dear, she thought, when had she started noticing such things? Before the shocking event at Sitwell Place that fateful night, she had thought the Reverend Milson was the height of manly perfection and that had been based purely on his moral superiority and supposed piety.
If anyone had told her she would be ogling Benedict Toomes’ bare chest a mere week later, she would have laughed such an idea to scorn.
When he assumed the stance, hunching over and raising his fists, it seemed to Lizzie he held them a good deal closer to his head than his opponent. To Lizzie’s surprise, it was Mr. Smith who threw the first punch, wielding his meaty fist like a sledgehammer.
“That’s it, man!” her neighbor bellowed, making Lizzie jump and turn her head. “Let him have it!”
Benedict neatly ducked, avoiding the blow, his left fist snaking out with a counterpunch to the other’s ribs that Smith absorbed with a grunt.
Lizzie watched as Benedict sidestepped and bobbed, avoiding his opponent’s heavy roundhouse swings as he moved around him, jabbing him far neater blows to the jaw that made Smith’s head snap back but did not seem to inflict any great damage to the other man’s great slab-like face.
“Damned fellow’s as slippery as an eel!” her neighbor objected bitterly as his friend in the flowered waistcoat chuckled, striking a match to light his cigar.
“I believe Toomes is an exponent of Mendoza’s scientific method,” he said, puffing elegantly on a slim cheroot.
“Aye, but if Smith were only to land one good solid haymaker, that’s the thing,” the first one said plaintively.
Lizzie could not help but agree. Every punch the meat-carter threw looked to be enough to knock a man clean off his feet, whereas Benedict’s looked more like to sting, than render a man wholly insensible.
“Just you wait,” the second man predicted, blowing out a plume of smoke, and indeed after several minutes of this, it seemed even to Lizzie’s untutored eye that Benedict’s actions were becoming quicker and more decisive as his opponent’s efforts grew clumsier and started to lack conviction as he ran out of steam. The crowd grew louder in its shouts of both encouragement and derision.
“Damn me, but that brute’s as slow as a carthorse!” complained Lizzie’s neighbor. “I was sadly misled by his bulk and sinew!”
“Don’t mistake the fact, Toomes has a commanding left,” his companion corrected him. “And is defensively very sound. In a regular mill, your carter would be lethal. Against a professional however…” he shook his head. “He’s entirely out of his depth.”
Lizzie could only be grateful that she had happened to stand next to someone who knew what he was talking about. Otherwise, she surely would have been as ill-informed as the first gentleman and thought the eventual outcome determined by a lucky punch.
Though she found it hard to follow the blur that was Benedict’s left fist, she could see, with the help of these pointers, that the combination of his defensive right and the way he moved his body about ensured that he received minimal punishment while inflicting maximum damage.
Another minute of this had Lizzie wincing in sympathy for the carter, who slipped down onto one knee, not once, but twice under the steady onslaught. Each time this happened, Benedict stepped back, and Frank stepped forward. Lizzie guessed the olde
r Toomes brother was talking to Smith who furiously shook his head and clambered to his feet to the approving cheers of the crowd.
Each time, the burly carter positioned himself in the center of the square again, although by the third time, he seemed to have some difficulty in finding the right place, and a trickle of blood ran down the side of his face, making him squint his eye.
“Poor chap’s done for,” the fancy waistcoat sighed. “Just won’t accept the fact.”
“Damn and blast it,” the first objected. “Great, hearty fellow like that should have a jaw of granite!”
“He does, Barney, you fool,” his companion said affably. “If he did not, he would have been down in the first minute.”
Lizzie cast a curious glance their way and caught the eye of the natty dresser. He winked at her and tipped his hat. Had he realized she was listening to every word he spoke? Lizzie flushed and faced resolutely forward. How embarrassing. Though, she comforted herself, it was practically impossible to follow social conventions in such an environment.
It was just as well she turned back when she did, for the carter was attempting to struggle back to his feet again. When it became apparent that he could not manage it, Frank Toomes came forward and, crossing his forearms together, pulled both hands in a downward motion. A groan went up from the spectators.
“It’s over,” said her neighbor sourly. “Deuce take it, I should have listened to Maud!”
Lizzie ignored him, watching Frank hook his arms under the fallen man and drag him to the side where his friends crouched over him, splashing water in his face, and arguing hotly among themselves.
“A most valiant effort, I’m sure you’ll all agree!” Frank cried, returning to the center. “Mr. Daniel Smith, gentlemen! One of Spitalfields finest! And only the first of our three volunteers!”
“Oh?” murmured Lizzie’s neighbor. “Maybe I’ll recoup my losses, Nat, what say you to that?”
His friend merely laughed. “By all means, Barney, though I should probably warn you that the next two will suffer the self-same fate.”
A Substitute Wife for the Prizefighter: A Victorian Romance Page 10
