by Jack Tunney
***
When Percy called that evening, Isabelle had no excuse not to receive him, with Papa home and sitting in the parlor reading his newspaper.
Percy launched into a spate of wheedling, trying to convince her to attend a boxing match with him. She shuddered as his face lit up at his description of what he expected to see at the championship event the next month. What attracted men to such unsavory pastimes? Why did he expect her to relish the invitation to accompany him? Would he attack her again tonight if she refused?
“Surely young ladies should not attend such lurid displays,” she answered his last plea in a soft voice, glancing at her father, hidden behind his paper.
“On the contrary, several very cultured women attended the last fight – uh, match.”
“Papa?” She turned to her parent for help.
He looked up, eyes glazed with inattention.
“What do you require, daughter?”
“Must I attend a boxing match with Percy?”
“He is your fiancé, my dear. I’m sure he knows best how you are to spend your time together.”
He paused to inhale a powder she supposed was snuff.
“Papa?”
“Do go ahead and attend,” he replied. “It will broaden your view of life.” He waved a dismissive hand.
Shock swept through Isabelle at her father’s off-handed agreement with Percy and her mouth dropped open. What was wrong with Papa? Had he no sense of her reluctance? Of propriety? Would he not take her part? Instead, he sat with his eyes closed, head thrown back as though he were too weary to concern himself with her troubles.
She turned her gaze upon her fiancé. His eyes glittered with excitement. She wondered if those “very cultured women” he had mentioned included his erstwhile mistress, Madame Wu. Was he still involved with the woman?
Isabelle suppressed another shudder. Consternation must be evident on her face, but it seemed to have no effect on the two men in the room. How unfortunate for her that Mama had chosen to attend a soirée with Lady Cuthbert this evening. Her female parent’s obsession with the upper crust was certainly working to Isabelle’s detriment.
“Give heed to your father,” Percy said. His voice had taken on a stern tone. “You will accompany me to the match tomorrow night. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it, darling. There are several sturdy fighters on the card.”
Match. Fighters. Card. The words had a stark, brutal sound. Her heart sank. What was her world coming to?
***
The events of the next evening were a complete confusion to Isabelle. As Percy escorted her down an aisle between chairs drawn into rows around a square elevated area enclosed with ropes, she felt her blood congeal at being in the company of so many rowdy men. Percy took her down to the front row, removed her cloak and handed it to her, and bade her sit beside a large male stranger who wore a bowler hat. Then her fiancé seated himself beside her without a further word and began to consult a program of the night’s matches.
Men throughout the room, including Percy, lit cigars in such a quantity that the air became hazy with smoke. Shortly after the rows of seats had filled, the program began with an announcement of the names of the fighters in the first match. Isabelle didn’t catch the strange names, partly due to the noise of cheers from the crowd. Then a bell went off with a loud clang, and she sprang to her feet in alarm, clutching her hat lest it fall from her head. Fire! She could not breathe for fear.
Percy made no move to exit the room, but instead hauled on her arm, so Isabelle sat down. The bell must not signal a fire after all.
“Watch the ring, my dear. You will enjoy this.”
So far, she had not.
Two men wearing large leather gloves on their fists, tight breeches, and very little else paraded around the roped enclosure that Percy had called “the ring.” The sight of the men’s naked torsos gave Isabelle a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. She adjusted her skirt and then gripped her white kid-gloved hands in her lap. A third man – mercifully clothed – whom Percy called “the referee,” made the fighters bump their gloves together, then they commenced to strike at each other, with some success at landing blows.
After a period of time, the bell clanged again and the half-naked men went to opposite corners to sit on stools and have the damage to their faces patched. A minute passed, the bell clanged, and the two fighters began moving around the ring again, fists up, guarding against blows. They moved close to the ropes near Isabelle’s and Percy’s seats.
Isabelle covered her face with her fingers and squeezed her eyes shut as the burly dark-headed man launched a powerful blow toward his fair-haired opponent. The squishy sound of the glove hitting flesh made her stomach roil. What if she became sick in this smoky den of iniquity?
She turned her head within her fingers’ lattice-work mask and opened her eyes to look at Percy. He scowled at the men in the ring, his mouth contorting in reaction to each blow. Did he even remember her presence? She had never seen this aspect of his personality before.
Soon Isabelle tired of looking at the over-stimulated man who commanded her future. She turned to face the ring, although her fingers provided a sketchy screen between herself and the disgusting display within the roped enclosure.
The din of the crowd rang in her ears. Surely I’ll be deaf before we leave, she thought. What do men find attractive about brawling? The two fighters grappled in one corner of the ring, their upper bodies glistening with sweat. Isabelle retreated from the unseemly sight by closing her eyes again.
The match continued. Blows upon flesh assaulted her senses. She felt the movements of the leg of the man sitting on her left against her own limb. Percy’s outcries added to the barrage against her sensitive nature. No proper lady should have to endure such indignities.
Her arms ached with the effort of keeping her face covered. At last she had to lower them into her lap. Closing her eyes so tightly made the bruise on her cheek ache as well, and she finally opened them.
The prizefighter whose long fair hair was tied back with a black ribbon stood where she could see the muscles in his unclothed back rippling as he struck the swarthy dark-haired man. The opponent’s head snapped around and blood flew from a cut above his eye.
Isabelle gagged. She really would be sick if this kept up. How long did these “matches” last?
At her side, Percy yelled, “Kill him! Kill him!”
Isabelle shuddered. Did he really lust for the death of one of the men? That seemed unreasonable. Gall rose in her throat as she remembered when Percy had balled his fist and flailed his arm at her cheek, making her cry out in pain. In the interval since Percy has struck her, the resulting bruise had become a purplish yellow blotch on her cheek. In order to make a presentable appearance for this odious event, she had been obliged to apply a great deal of powder to her face.
She glanced up as a wall of sound buffeted her ears. The dark-haired man seemed to have the upper hand. He pummeled the other fighter mercilessly, his blows keeping the man firmly against the enclosure’s ropes. He swung his right arm in an upward movement, and the fair man’s body jolted toward the ceiling, then fell to the floor.
“Jolly good uppercut!” the man on Isabelle’s left yelled as he rose, brandishing his bowler in the air.
Percy yanked Isabelle to her feet. “Did you see that?” he yelled in her ear. “He’s a slugger!”
The crowd of men stood as well, their enthusiasm carried away by the scene in the ring. All made some sort of noise: some hissing, others booing, a few applauding.
Across the ring, a woman with slanted eyes and a feathered head covering did not participate in the revelries. Instead, she stared at Isabelle, her face a mask of malevolence.
Isabelle freed herself from Percy’s grasp and sank into her seat. Madame Wu? Her blood ran chill and she shivered, although the room had heated almost to the point of being unbearable.
The referee shouted “Ten!” He raised the arm of the dark-haired man overh
ead. Patches of blood marred the leather of the fighter’s glove. The referee led him about the ring. Evidently the dark-haired fighter had won the match by sending his opponent into unconsciousness. The blond man’s sprawled body still lay on the floor where two men huddled over him, trying to bring him back from his sorry state.
“Uppercut,” the man next to Isabelle had said. Did each prizefighting blow have a name? Was that what had finished the blond man, a blow called an uppercut?
***
The next morning as they sat with their hand work, Mama didn’t want to discuss Isabelle’s evening. “Ladies do not converse about prizefighting.”
Aggrieved, Isabelle answered back. “Why were you out with a lady when I needed your support, Mama? I didn’t want to attend.” As Mama fixed a baleful eye upon Isabelle, she almost wished she had said nothing.
She stared back however, her anger growing until she felt incensed enough to be reckless. Throwing caution to the wind, she brushed back her concealing curls and said, “Did you know that Percy struck me?”
Tears blinded her eyes, but she heard her mother’s harsh inhalation.
“Daughter,” Mama said, her voice low and bitter.
“I don’t want to marry Percival Egmont. You would not either, had you seen him last evening. He acted the part of a brute. And his m-m-mistress attended, glaring at me as though she wished me to die on the spot.”
“Daughter,” Mama repeated. This time her voice held tears.
“Are you going to allow Papa to bully me into a marriage filled with brutality and infidelity?” She stopped speaking as her eyes cleared and she saw her mother’s anguished face. “Mama.” She scarcely whispered now. “Did Papa ever…?”
The answer of years full of mistreatment was written large upon her mother’s face.
Mama bowed her head and murmured, “I should have married Carl Owen.”
Isabelle inhaled sharply. She had not expected such a confidence from Mama. She listened, fascinated, as breathless words poured from her mother’s lips, spilling out as though she could no longer contain them.
Mama told of crossing the country on a freight wagon in the company of a young man named Carl to whom she was betrothed, along with several neighbor families from their former home in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. She said her pride had led to a fight between her betrothed and herself. In a very public way, she had spurned his love, accusing him of neglect, even though he had been absent working to build a home for them. She supposed he found another bride to put in her place.
Although Mama paused and turned her face aside, Isabelle saw her cringe.
Mama began again. Her chosen husband had not treated her as well as she had expected he would. At one time he had gambled away much of the money provided by his father for their living, and she had been obliged to curry favor with ex-patriot British gentry to secure loans that had taken years to repay.
He was unfaithful to her, which damaged her health to the extent that there had been only one offspring from their union.
He also found occasion to strike her. Mama brushed aside a lock of hair, showing Isabelle a bruise of her own. “I don’t think he is spiteful. He simply cannot control his anger.” Mama let her hair fall into place.
Isabelle sat mute, the horror of her mother’s admissions too great to allow any response.
A few seconds later, Papa entered the parlor, and Mama’s face drained of color.
Isabelle moved to her mother’s side and, bending as though to kiss her, muttered, “I don’t believe he heard us.”
“What do you require, Cecil?” Mama wrung her hands. Isabelle returned to her chair and silently resumed her embroidery.
“I’m going out this evening.”
“I appreciate your consideration in telling me. Do you wish my company?”
“No.” He looked over at Isabelle. “Will you be at the prizefight tonight?” he asked her.
Isabelle swallowed. The last thing she wanted to do was endure another bout of frenzy that would result in another smoky, ruined dress, and a sick stomach and heart. “I don’t think so, Papa.”
“I believe Percival expects you to accompany him. You’d do well to prepare to go.” He turned away, and as quickly as he had come, he was gone.
Isabelle squirmed in her seat. Mama’s story of her perfidious actions toward her betrothed was one she had never heard. She only knew the more familiar tale of how Cecil Gilbert had won Ida Hilbrands and swept her away with him to San Francisco after a fancy wedding in a town called Pueblo. Now, it appeared, Mama regretted her decision, and had done so for some time.
Must I marry Percy? Isabelle squeezed her hands together. I don’t love him. He does not honor me. Is he is still carrying on with...Madame Wu? Another question came to mind.
“Mama?”
“Yes?” Mama’s face had regained its usual coloration.
“Will you leave Papa now that you have told me? How unhappy you are, I mean.”
Mama didn’t answer right away. She rose and paced the room. After a few moments, she stopped in front of Isabelle’s chair. “It is too late for me to leave him. The funds your father’s family provide do very handsomely for us, now that he has quit gambling. Aside from that, I have no skill in making my own way.” Mama returned to her chair, and sat as still as though she had turned to marble.
Isabelle considered her mother’s words. If Mama remained trapped in her horrid arrangement by choice, what hope did Isabelle have for her own future? She steeled herself to ask the question burning a hole in her heart. She breathed deeply for a while. Perhaps doing so would clear the vapors clouding her brain.
“Am I obliged to marry Percy?” she blurted at last. “Does Papa’s word to Percy matter if I cannot stomach the match?”
Mama stirred and turned her head toward Isabelle. It seemed that the oxygen in the room had all evaporated as she stared at Isabelle.
Finally, she opened her mouth. After two heartbeats, she spoke. “I regret that you have lost respect for your father because of my disclosures.” She paused again. “That is one reason I never divulged my secret to you. You must respect your father.”
Respect him! Isabelle wasn’t sure she could share the same living quarters with Papa now that she knew of the indignities he had heaped upon her mother. Affairs with other women. Gambling away their means of living. Hitting her behind closed doors.
It appeared that Mama expected an obedient answer, but Isabelle said, “You must give me time, Mama. Your revelations have shaken me.”
Mama made a sound so weak in reply, it was as though all her strength had oozed from her body with the order.
Isabelle rose and went to kneel at her mother’s side. She cast around for something to say to raise her mother’s spirits. She finally asked, “Are your parents alive?”
Mama looked up, clearly startled. “I’m not sure. I haven’t heard from my mother in several years.” She bowed her head. “I was ashamed to answer her letters asking after my welfare.”
Isabelle laid her hand on Mama’s arm. “You must write. Repair the bridge, if possible.”
“The bridge.” She nodded. “I have neglected telling you about your grandparents, Isabelle. I suppose you thought you had none.”
“I knew about the ones in England.”
“Of course you did. Your father always spoke of them.”
“What are your parents like?” Isabelle rose and pulled a chair close to her mother’s.
Mama smiled a little. “Papa was tall. He had dark hair, and a little mustache.” She placed her finger above her lip. “He was careful with its grooming. He blustered a bit, but he was very fond of his daughters.” She looked across at Isabelle. “He had five daughters, you know. I was the second.”
Isabelle nodded to encourage her to continue. The subject of family had always been interesting to her, but she never had learned this much at one sitting.
“Mary was my older sister. She married a man named Rulon Owen when the lat
e war began.” As she continued, her voice became thoughtful. “She never saw him again…”
“Oh no! He died?” Isabelle imagined the worst, that Mary was left alone to grieve her loss.
“No dear. He returned toward the end of the fighting, badly wounded.”
“And then he died from his wounds?”
Mama fiddled with her fingers. “He lived.” She pulled her shoulders forward, as though to shield herself from pain.
Isabelle held still. Mama clearly had more to say, but she was taking a very long time to say it, as though she had to work her way through cobwebbed memories.
“I was behaving badly at the time. It’s a wonder Mary ever spoke to me again.”
“What do you mean?”
“I stole something precious to her and kept it for myself. She didn’t know about it for ages. When she discovered I had taken her love letter from Rulon, and worse yet, read it, she was furious.”
“Mama! How could you?”
“I was jealous. All the young men were off to war. I wasn’t old enough to have a beau, of course, but that didn’t prevent my feeling left out.”
Isabelle thought that over for a moment, then asked, “Did you get along with your other sisters?”
“Sylvia was tolerable. She was next younger than me. India was too young for me to care about. Eliza was the baby. She was born after Rulon and Mary were wed. Mother acted badly, herself, in her treatment of Mary. I believe some women are affected in that way when they are... breeding.”
“Mama, people don’t say ‘breeding’ anymore!” Isabelle gave in to a titter of laughter, then sobered as her mother replied.
“What do they say, daughter?”
Isabelle felt her face warming with chagrin at her outburst. She couldn’t bring herself to talk casually about a subject she held precious in her heart, hoping that someday she would bear a child of her own to a husband worthy of the name. “Never mind that. Did Mary have a child after her husband returned?”
Mama picked at a piece of lint on her skirt. “She began breeding from the first. The child was born while her husband was absent. It was a terrifying experience for me.”
