Ace, King, Knave

by Maria McCann

  The door of Cosgrove’s opens and Edmund strolls out, accompanied by two well-set men in livery. A second brace of liveried fellows guards the entrance. Edmund frowns, studying the crowd; it is a moment before he again locates Blore and Sophia, after which he moves towards them, taking care, however, to keep behind the railings that separate him from the onlookers.

  ‘Come along, Madam,’ he calls, beckoning to Sophia. ‘Come away from that brute. You have leave from Mr Cosgrove to enter the premises.’

  Her mouth is disagreeably full of saliva, so that she has to swallow before she can whisper to Blore, ‘May I speak with him?’

  Blore does not answer. Some of the bystanders are calling out, ‘Come along! Come along, Madam!’ in high facetious voices.

  Dear God ─

  Her belly contracts and urges, propelling a sour, viscous brew onto the cobbles. Sophia hangs her head, panting. Fan’s pelisse has caught a splash or two, but nobody else was within range of the vileness: where Blore goes, others give room. Dreading a sudden yank upon her arm, she straightens herself, striving to keep pace with her captor.

  Blore ignores her plight, if he is even aware of it, and raises his voice again: ‘I see you daren’t come alone, Ned.’ The onlookers are laughing: some at Edmund, and a smaller number, close by, at Sophia’s clumsy attempts to wipe her mouth on her sleeve. Blore has never stopped moving forwards. He is now only a few yards from Edmund, continuing to bawl at the top of his lungs, rallying the mob to his side.

  Edmund’s face is frigid. ‘You’re detaining that lady against her will.’

  ‘You’re her husband, ain’t you? Come and rescue her! Step up!’

  Some fool is screeching, ‘Form a ring! Fair fight!’

  Frowning and biting a fingernail as the catcalls increase, Edmund moves back. He is plainly unsettled: at a loss how to deal. In all that perplexity, vanity and fear, is there, Sophia wonders, the smallest admixture of care for herself?

  At any rate, he appears to have reached a decision: his shoulders sit lower, his mouth twitches as if at a pungent witticism. When he raises his arms to the crowd, he might be Mr Garrick calming the pit at Drury Lane.

  ‘Friends! In the interests of fair play – dear to the heart of every Englishman – hear me out!’

  They are unsure what to make of him, Sophia can see: some of these people take a delight in pelting with filth anyone so finely clothed. But Edmund is Edmund, and possessed of all the charm that implies.

  ‘Let him talk,’ from the crowd.

  Blore sneers, ‘Why don’t you meet me, man to man?’ but Edmund has succeeded in catching the interest of those around. They may stamp him into the ground, thinks Sophia, but they’ll hear him out first.

  ‘He’s a regular sport, eh, ladies and gents? A fine fellow, because he takes advantage of his size to insult me, and insult the lady. But you’re deceived. Take another look at him – he’s a man you won’t often see by day.’

  Blore shouts, ‘Mind your tongue, whoreson.’

  ‘He’s a night bird – a resurrectionist! He digs up pretty wenches and brides just married, aye, and your infants at the breast, little angels, and sells ’em to be ottomised.’

  At once Sophia is conscious of a new sound issuing from the onlookers, a kind of spiteful hum. Even the most degraded wretches loathe the resurrectionists: Betsy-Ann told her that. Sure enough, a woman screams: ‘Shame on him! Shame!’

  ‘Scrag him!’

  Blore’s huge head swivels from side to side, weighing up the odds. With the prize-fighter’s sense of when to strike, he flings away Sophia’s hand and makes a rush at Edmund, the crowd leaping back. Edmund no longer seems to be enjoying his moment: he turns to flee but trips and sprawls on the flagstones just within the railings. Blore hurls himself over them, lands heavily on the other side, stumbles in his turn and falls beside Edmund.

  Sophia’s throat, which has been paralysed by shock, now opens up, enabling her to cry, ‘He’s armed! He’s armed!’

  The liveried servants run forward, seize hold of Blore and manage to pull him upright, upon which one of them is kicked and left doubled up on the cobbles. The other plucks at the back of Blore’s coat, trying to restrain him, and is flung off as a bull might fling off a terrier. By this time Edmund is likewise upright, but not escaped; Blore catches hold of his arm and the pair of them whirl round in a clumsy dance. The spectators close on them, presenting Sophia with a view of their backs. She stands helpless, clenching her hands.

  There is a sudden loud report, followed by screams, including Sophia’s. With a roar, the crowd fractures, some pushing this way, some that. Does she hear the sound again? So many women are screaming that she cannot tell. Everywhere men are forcing their way through the crush, dealing with their neighbours as they might with so many senseless blocks. Sophia is knocked off balance, whirled among them like a bobbing cork: it is as much as she can do to avoid being pulled down and trampled.

  Someone is tugging at her bad arm. ‘He followed me,’ pants Betsy-Ann Blore. ‘Quick, come this way.’

  ‘What happened? Did you see?’

  ‘This way!’

  ‘Is Edmund hurt?’

  ‘For the love of Christ! I don’t know. Come, will you?’

  There is nothing to do but follow. Betsy-Ann leads her along the edge of the crowd, skirts the rear and travels by a circuitous route by three sides of the square before turning back towards Cosgrove’s. By the time they once more approach the railings the crush is greatly thinned. Even so, the scene outside that celebrated establishment now resembles a public performance, the lower sort flattened against the railings in their eagerness to miss nothing of the action while the gentler spectators, raised above the stage, have actually mounted their chairs for a better view, their faces pressed so tightly to the glass that they appear stacked row upon row. As a result, much of the light from the interior is blocked. Of Edmund and Blore nothing is visible: try as she may, Sophia is unable to see past the hats of those in front.

  ‘Let us through, if you please!’ bawls Betsy-Ann. Her strong arms and stronger voice make way through the packed bodies so that Sophia, following in her footsteps, feels she has exchanged captors, Blore brother for Blore sister. When they finally reach the entrance the remaining spectators are loath to give place. Betsy-Ann stations herself at the gap between the railings, surveys those nearby and lights on a small, dowdy woman. This person she shoves aside, ignoring her curses, and wedges herself into the place thus created, at the same time dragging Sophia in front of her, much as she might a child.

  From here Sophia can see her husband and Harry Blore stretched on the ground, so close together that Blore’s massive head, bloody and misshapen, rests in the crook of Edmund’s arm. Three liveried servants stand between her and the fallen men, blocking the way in case the mob should start to spill in there; three more are keeping a wary eye out for anyone who might vault the railings. One man is squatting, feeling Edmund’s neck.

  ‘His wife!’ Betsy-Ann shouts for the benefit of the servants. ‘Let her through.’

  At once those around them turn and gape. Sophia has the impression that they had forgotten that part of the story, and are glad to go on with it. The servants stay where they are, but one of them calls, ‘Is that correct, Madam? You are married to this gentleman?’

  ‘To Mr Zedland.’

  The man hesitates. ‘The gentleman who jumped the rails?’

  ‘The other. In the blue coat.’

  ‘That’s Mr Hartry,’ says the servant.

  ‘It’s the same man.’ She sees his distrust: who can blame him? She has given the wrong name, her plain clothing makes a poor show against Edmund’s fine coat and the servant perhaps witnessed her approach alongside Blore. She holds up her head and speaks in her most genteel manner.

  ‘This woman is the sister of the other ―’ No, she cannot call Blore a gentleman. ‘I’m aware that we hardly seem – all will be explained, but please, please may I go to my husband? I b
eg of you ―’

  She moves towards Edmund but the man at once blocks her. ‘I must ask you to stay back, Madam. The gentlemen are our responsibility.’

  ‘Has a surgeon been sent for?’ asks Betsy-Ann.

  The man nods. ‘I believe so.’

  Sophia clasps her hands in supplication. ‘Then for pity’s sake take him inside, before the cold kills him.’ A boy has arrived with lanterns and she can see a glistening dark stain spreading from beneath Edmund’s right armpit down the side of his coat.

  Another manservant, hearing this, proves more conciliatory: he assures her that both combatants are to be taken indoors as soon as hurdles can be procured. The ladies can rest assured that the greatest conceivable care will be taken, and he will personally enquire of Mr Cosgrove if they themselves may be admitted.

  ‘Tell Mr Cosgrove I’m Mrs Hartry,’ calls Sophia as he walks away. She watches the servant disappear into the house as if he were the one remaining hope of her life.

  ‘That’s the last we’ll see of him,’ mutters Betsy-Ann. He returns directly, however, to inform Sophia that she and ‘the other lady’ may accompany the injured gent and must give what information they can.

  Under the servant’s watchful eyes, Sophia is permitted to approach. She sinks down and takes Edmund’s head in her lap, turning up his face towards her own.

  *

  For Blore, nothing can be done. A ball shattered his skull: it seems that life departed his frame even before he hit the flagstones. His huge corpse, rolled onto a hurdle carried by two grunting men, is taken into the house and an expressionless Betsy-Ann informed that until matters have been ‘looked into’ it cannot be fetched away.

  Blore thus disposed of, a hurdle is fetched for Edmund who, limp and bloodied, is brought inside the club. Greedy for scandal, gamesters pour out of the salon into the lobby: Sophia has a confused impression of stumbling between two long lines of faces. Not until she has gained the landing do the men drift back into the salon to resume play.

  In a private chamber on the first floor Mr Cosgrove, an undistinguished individual with red hands, receives her with courtesy and even kindness, begging her to make herself at home. He takes Betsy-Ann to one side, conferring with her briefly before returning to assure Sophia that help is on its way. In the meantime, the ladies are to have everything they need. Sure enough, servants arrive bearing port wine, and cordial, and biscuits, and spirit of hartshorn, and tea: an endless succession of futile comforts. So unobservant has misery rendered Sophia that she sees nothing in this but common humanity. It falls to Betsy-Ann to point out that Cosgrove’s attentions, though acceptable in themselves, are managed in such a way that Mrs Hartry and Miss Blore are never left alone with the victim.

  Their spying is of no consequence to Sophia. She arranges herself beside her husband, now laid on a truckle bed, and attempts to staunch his bleeding by pressing a pad of linen to his side. Though a maid has offered to take over this duty, Sophia refuses to let her. Already a heap of stained clouts is forming at her feet: the sight fills her with both dread and hope, for as long as he continues to bleed, Edmund’s heart still beats.

  Betsy-Ann is seated nearby, sipping at a glass of port wine. She has not spoken a word for some time, seeming wrapped up in contemplation.

  ‘What will you do about your brother?’ Sophia asks at last. ‘The funeral.’

  ‘He can go in with Keshlie.’

  ‘In your sister’s grave? Where is that?’

  ‘The poor’s pit.’

  Sophia winces.

  ‘You surely didn’t think I’d pay.’ Betsy-Ann drains the glass and sets it down with an air of defiance.

  Sophia wets a clean scrap of linen and begins to sponge Edmund’s temples. Her words, when they come, are calm and measured. ‘To forgive such a man as your brother must be difficult. But he can do you no wrong now, and has need of your prayers.’

  ‘He’s no need of anything where he’s gone.’

  Sophia lays down the linen. ‘How can you talk so,’ she exclaims, ‘when God hears your every word? Only think, your brother has gone before God guilty of self-slaughter.’

  Betsy-Ann starts. ‘He shot himself? You saw that?’

  ‘I saw the weapon.’ She shudders at the recollection. ‘He shot Edmund and then himself.’

  ‘What’s he done with the pistol then?’ Betsy-Ann is regarding her in a most peculiar manner. ‘They can’t find it. Not on the flags, not on Harry’s body.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Cosgrove said, when first we came in.’

  ‘But your brother showed it me.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to give your evidence,’ says Betsy-Ann. She rises and comes to feel Edmund’s hand. ‘He’s cursed cold. Don’t you think he’s cold?’

  Sophia is trying to remember precisely what she saw in the dark: a faint metallic gleam.

  ‘It could have been a knife,’ she says. But Betsy-Ann gestures towards Edmund’s wound and shakes her head.

  Despite the linen pad, the blood continues to flow. Sophia stands in order to press down more firmly. She holds out the linen to Betsy-Ann, thinking she might want to take a turn, but the other woman backs off, saying only, ‘He may yet come through it.’

  ‘If only he would, for just a few seconds! I could tell him I forgive him.’

  Betsy-Ann’s voice cracks like a whiplash. ‘And if he lives?’

  ‘If he lives?’

  ‘You’ll have him riding the three-legged mare, you and your Mr Gingumbob. Forgive him then hang him, isn’t that the plan?’

  Sophia stands astonished at the injustice of this, and at the naked animosity in Betsy-Ann’s sloe eyes. ‘But I told you,’ she said. ‘The plan was – is, to negotiate a separation. You were in agreement. Why, it was you that told me who he was!’

  ‘I wanted him bitten. That was my way.’

  ‘Not at first ―’ But seeing the other woman’s expression, she realises there can be no reasoning with her, and is forced to change tack. ‘Look how reduced he is,’ she says softly. ‘We can both forgive him.’

  ‘Not I,’ says Betsy-Ann. ‘And I’m not a-going to hang over him pretending. Though I could talk as soft as you, too, with a Mr Gingumbob to tie the noose for me.’

  To this Sophia can find no reply. She could do very well, at the moment, without the company of Betsy-Ann Blore.

  The surgeon is a man of middling age, whose florid and corpulent person attests to a thriving practice. Rubbing his hands together to warm them, he approaches the truckle bed.

  ‘May I present myself? Mr Wilson, Madam, come to be of assistance to Mr Hartry.’

  As Sophia stands to greet him, blood drops from the cloth she is holding onto the carpet. ‘I am Mrs Hartry. This lady is Miss Blore.’

  The surgeon looks from one shabby woman to the other. ‘Indeed,’ he says. ‘Well. Let us lose no time.’

  He feels for Edmund’s pulse.

  ‘Will he recover?’ Sophia asks. ‘Will he know me?’

  ‘Shhh ―!’

  They are obliged to wait in silence. Letting Edmund’s wrist drop back on the bed, the surgeon frowns. He proceeds to thumb open each eyelid, peering close as if to read inside Edmund’s brain. To Sophia there is something nightmarish about the eyes thus exposed: glaring and blind as the rolled-up eyeballs of a poisoned dog Radley once showed her. She is relieved when the eyelids are thumbed down again.

  ‘You didn’t think to take off his coat and shirt?’

  ‘I was afraid of hurting him. Of doing harm, I mean.’

  ‘He was insensible, then, at first?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘Has the bleeding decreased at all since he came in?’

  ‘I can’t tell ―’ Her voice cracks. ‘I’ve tried to staunch it.’

  ‘You’ve done no harm, Mrs Hartry, and may have done good,’ says the surgeon, relenting. With a pair of silver scissors he commences snipping at Edmund’s coat, pausing only to order the maids to bring
in more coals. ‘He must not be allowed to lose vital warmth.’

  ‘I said he was cold,’ observes Betsy-Ann.

  Edmund’s coat and shirt are cut away at the front. Taking a fresh clout, the surgeon cleans the wound with deft swabbing movements.

  ‘If you would be so good as to help me turn the patient.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m able to.’ Sophia blushes at her uselessness. ‘My shoulder ―’

  ‘Here,’ says Betsy-Ann Blore. She holds Edmund up so that the surgeon can cut away more of his clothing. Seeing the sheet beneath soaked in gore, Sophia gasps.

  ‘Just keep him there, miss,’ says the surgeon.

  Despite welling blood, the injury to Edmund’s breast is small, even neat. Now Sophia utters a cry of incredulous horror: the flesh of his back is torn open, scarlet and ragged as beef. She thought she was helping, dabbing at what now seems the merest scratch, while all the time ―

  ‘Dear God!’ she wails.

  Betsy-Ann has turned her face aside.

  ‘It’s a nasty one, right enough,’ Mr Wilson says coolly, as if examining a sprain.

  ‘Is it?’ A stupid question, but her voice has grown so feeble and husky at the sight of Edmund’s insides obscenely exposed to the air that perhaps the surgeon did not catch it.

  ‘The ball flattens, you see.’ He indicates the wound in Edmund’s chest. ‘He was shot from front to back.’

  ‘Will he have to be cut, Sir?’ Betsy-Ann’s voice is hardened by the strain of supporting Edmund’s torso upright.

  The surgeon continues to dab and wipe. At last he is finished, and gives the signal for the patient to be returned to his original position. As Betsy-Ann lets him down, Edmund utters a peculiar groan.

  ‘Is he in pain?’

  ‘Only in a manner of speaking, Mrs, er ―’

  ‘Hartry.’

  ‘Mrs Hartry. Your husband is like a man asleep. Sensation is faint, as in a dream, and passes in an instant.’ He holds up his hand for silence. ‘There. You perceive he has ceased groaning.’

  Betsy-Ann Blore looks as if she has heard such comfort before, and found it barren. She repeats, ‘Will he have to be cut?’

  ‘The ball’s already out. But there’s splintered bone – a tricky business – and bleeding in the lungs.’