by Tim Jeal
Only later did she suddenly feel resilient and confident again. Had she really thought only of loneliness and desolation, when for the first time in years she had done something to change her position? She shook her head in amazement, and then lowered the window and shouted to the second postillion to stop. Then she turned round and called out:
‘Cooper, you must be cold. You may sit with me.’
Lucy clambered down from the rumble and got in diffidently. Helen could think of nothing else to say, so looked at the passing country outside.
5
Friday night was always a significant one for George Braithwaite since it marked his weekly visit to Bentley’s gambling hell. Because of his limited means, Tom Strickland had never thought it likely that he would be invited to accompany George in the pursuit of this particular pleasure; but, when the unexpected had happened, he had accepted. Although he had no intention of risking his own money on the tables, ever since Crawford’s plea for information during the riot, Tom had made a point of talking with George whenever the opportunity arose, in the hope that he might let slip unguarded remarks about his father’s election methods. Already Tom suspected that Joseph Braithwaite was employing intimidation: mainly threatening not to renew shopkeepers’ leases unless they voted for him, and from several things George had said, when drunk, Tom also guessed that those voters, immune from threats, would be bought. Yet, even if these suspicions became more definite, Tom was not sure that he would have the courage to tell Crawford what he knew. If Joseph ever found out about such treachery, his desire for vengeance would surely not be sated by a mere withdrawal of patronage. ‘Accidents’, which had befallen several of the leaders of the strike, were clear warnings. For the present, Tom told himself, he was finding things out purely for his own edification.
Having left George’s brougham in the stable-yard at the Green Dragon, Tom followed his patron’s son into the High Street and walked beside him past the darkened shop windows, heavily shuttered after closing since the start of the recent disturbances. Across the echoing street a watchman with a lantern was methodically examining the chains and locks, checking that all was secure. In the exclusively working class districts of Rigton Bridge, down by the mills and south of the river, the gin shops would still be crowded and noisy, but here, in the old town, the final stroke of eleven from St John’s church lingered and died over silent empty streets.
Near the old Corn Exchange and the Assembly Rooms they cut through a cobbled alley and down the ill-lit Cockpit Steps into Lower Street, where the gas-brackets were less frequent and the uneven setts sloped down towards the centre of the street forming a shallow drain. The smell of stagnant liquid and garbage mingled with the haze of coal smoke in the damp night air. Tom started as a rat scuttled across the narrow opening to a hidden court.
They passed a pawnbroker’s and a tailor’s before George stopped to listen outside an apparently closed cigar shop. Above, the first floor windows were shuttered but Tom could just hear the muted sound of voices from within. An alley ran to the side of the shop and facing onto it, in an otherwise grimy blank wall, was an unexceptional-looking door. George pushed it open and they entered a narrow passage lit by a naked gas-jet high up on the wall beneath the sooty panes of a cracked fanlight. Ahead of them was another door with a small metal grille. Lifting his cane, George rapped on the grating and was soon rewarded by the appearance of an ugly flat-nosed face pressed against the bars. A moment later the bolts were shot back and they were ushered up a flight of stairs to a landing where another former pugilist was sitting hunched over a desk; unlike the doorkeeper this man was smartly dressed in a black tail-coat with a rose in his buttton-hole and next to it a spotted cravat held in place by a large gold pin. After signing his name in the book and handing over a sovereign, George led Tom through a green baize-covered door into a long low-ceilinged room, which evidently occupied the entire space above both the cigar shop and the tailor’s next to it.
The furnishings were certainly nothing like the splendid many-mirrored, red-carpeted, plush and gilt of the St James’s gambling hells but, for a town like Rigton Bridge, George considered Bentley’s a very satisfactory substitute. Immediately in front of him was the oval hazard table and at the far end of the room, scarcely visible through the clouds of tobacco smoke, were tables for roulette and rouge et noir. On a long side-board were dishes of cold game, beef and ham, with a fine supporting cast of salads, preserves, creams and jellies. All this food was provided free for the players, as were cigars but not wine. George glanced at Strickland and was pleased to see that he seemed impressed.
The hazard table, lit by a green-shaded gasolier, was the centre of attention for the thirty or forty gentlemen present – most of them officers in the 22nd Hussars, recently arrived from London to do garrison duty in neighbouring Oldham. Bentley, himself, was as usual the principal croupier at the hazard table and, as George heard his rasping and slightly breathless voice, he felt a pleasant flutter of anticipation in his stomach.
‘The caster is backing in at seven, gentlemen. I’ll take on the nick.’
Then the rattle of dice, the bang of the box on the table, the quick announcement of the point and the raking in of counters from the losing columns. In this room, during the week of Rigton Races, George had once won almost two thousand pounds and had lost as much on other occasions. As always, Bentley was watching the betting habits of his clients: noting lower stakes, or too feverish a reaction to a lost point; if such symptoms coincided with less punctually paid cheques, not many days would pass before the gambler in question would be refused admission by the doorkeeper. George admired Bentley for knowing his business so well.
Gambling constituted George’s only escape from his father’s influence and domination, being in direct opposition to Joseph’s thriftiness and puritanical condemnation of all forms of aristocratic profligacy. Because the past few weeks had been particularly harrowing, George’s favourite pastime had become still more important to him. Not only had his father forced him to sue the Independent against his own judgment, but he had also given him the dangerous and delicate task of negotiating with the secret confederacy, into which the recently qualified voters had banded themselves for the purpose of selling their votes collectively and thus obtaining a higher price for them.
George watched the play in silence, savouring the moment. How much would he bet? Which game would he play? Would he terrify the other players by taking astonishing risks? His heart had started to beat faster, but the sensation was still agreeable and one to be relished. In a moment he would decide. After the next throw. His heart beat slightly faster as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick wad of notes. A thousand pounds. His breath came faster and a sudden surge of intense and yet fearful excitement sent a shiver down his spine. As he moved towards the cashier’s table to get his counters, he was free of all other thoughts and cares, above all free of his father.
He was checking his counters when he felt a hand on his arm and, thinking it was Strickland, without looking round thrust out five guineas in ivory disks – after all the man ought to have something to play with – then George froze. Magnus Crawford was looking at him with an amused smile.
‘I’d quite given you up, Mr Braithwaite. I came yesterday too; but now you’re here, perhaps we can talk.’
He indicated a small side-table, on which stood two glasses and a bottle in an ice-bucket. George felt angry to be interrupted at such a moment, and, at the same time, acutely uneasy. The last person he would have wished to see in his favourite haunt was Magnus Crawford. In a matter of seconds all his pleasure and anticipation had been destroyed. Instead he found himself thinking of Crawford’s humiliatingly decisive behaviour during the riot, and worse than that of Catherine. Only on his evenings at Bentley’s could George ever manage to forget the misery which her refusal to give him an immediate decision caused him. What the hell could Crawford want in any case? George did not care to admit it to himself, but he felt a
fraid.
‘I don’t come here to talk,’ he replied gruffly. ‘Hardly the place for it.’
‘It suits me well enough. Not many places I’d find you alone.’
George was rattling his counters impatiently in the palms of his hands, when a sudden recollection made him gasp at his former lack of confidence. Charles Crawford had told him that his brother had returned home almost penniless.
‘Some throws with you, Mr Crawford? Play first and talk later.’ He had said this firmly to make it clear that this was his condition for a conversation. Noting Crawford’s hesitation, and knowing that he was proud, George added in an undertone: ‘Low stakes, if you like.’ Seeing Crawford grow pale, George knew that he had found his mark. He wouldn’t be so condescending after he’d lost heavily.
Magnus saw at a glance that Braithwaite was holding something approaching eight or nine hundred pounds in counters. The seconds dragged on and Magnus experienced the same terrifying indecision he had known years ago at Oxford before starting to play; the identical choking tension was there – tension in the end acute enough to make delay unendurable and a decision almost involuntary; a card snatched on impulse, mechanically, as if by a stranger. Afterwards relief would be as great as fear. Magnus felt a sickening giddiness and a tingling sensation in the back of his thighs. His decision had been made before he knew it.
‘Well?’ George inquired with a hint of derision.
Refuse, Magnus told himself. Make a cutting remark about a man’s means having little to do with his courage and still less with his common sense. But instead he returned Braithwaite’s gaze and walked over to the cashier’s table. When he sat down at the hazard table he had signed a cheque for four hundred pounds and now ranged that quantity of counters in front of him in three neat piles. He had felt an unreal detachment as he had made out the cheque but now panic fluttered in his chest, spreading an alarming weakness to his limbs. He was sure that if he tried to hold out his hand, it would shake uncontrollably. Just this fear when he had stepped out from the front rank of his men and walked forwards alone towards the ragged rebel line strung across the dusty white road. Only a fool, he told himself, would have tried to talk a crowd into dispersing before shooting first … a gamble. The agony had passed the moment the first bullets sang past his ears. And now with about half his assets on the table in front of him, Magnus prayed for the tension to snap and play to begin.
‘You’d like to be caster, I suppose?’ asked George, with the same trace of superiority.
‘You may have the dice, Mr Braithwaite,’ Magnus replied, amazed as he said this at his folly. George could now choose how much to put down and Magnus would have to match it with an equal sum. Pride, the insanity of pride, and yet Magnus did not repent. If George ever had to gamble with half his fortune, would he ever remain as outwardly calm?
Silence fell as George placed counters to the value of two hundred pounds in the central circle. Magnus pushed forward the same number. Bentley impassively flicked a few stray chips over the line with his rake.
‘Six’s the main,’ called out George as he threw the dice. Double sixes, double threes or a two and a four would give George all the money in the middle. Magnus did not look as the dice thudded onto the green cloth but he let out a long breath as he heard Bentley rasp out:
‘Seven’s the nick, gentlemen.’
Since George had not managed to throw the exact main he had called, Magnus took that main for his chance, and his opponent adopted seven, the number of his second throw, as his new main. The odds were calculated so that a player could win or ‘nick’ all the money with other combinations, eleven was a nick to a main of seven, just as double six was a nick to the mains of six or eight. Others were now placing side bets on the columns. The dice were replaced and Braithwaite threw again. A five and a six.
‘The caster nicks it at eleven,’ announced Bentley, pushing all the counters across to Braithwaite. Almost all the side bets, Magnus realised, had been laid against him; as he looked at the exultant faces of the winners he saw Strickland walk up to the table; he had not noticed him before, but supposed he had come with George. The caster had three throws for a complete ‘box hand’, so Braithwaite had a final throw to clean out his opponent. He laid down a further two hundred and shouted:
‘Seven’s the main.’
This time he won outright with a six and an ace. This shattering loss was so sudden that Magnus hardly took it in until Bentley had raked away the counters to George’s side of the table. Only when this had happened did Magnus see that Strickland had placed a twenty-pound bet against his patron’s son; this would be a heavy loss for a man of his vocation. George handed the dice box to Magnus:
‘Your throw, Mr Crawford,’ he said, trying in vain to conceal the satisfaction he felt. Magnus wrote out a promissory note and handed it to Bentley, who stared searchingly at him before allowing him three hundred more in counters. If these were lost, there would be no others. He watched George’s stubby white fingers idly drumming the table by his large pile of chips.
‘Some new dice, please,’ Magnus said to the second croupier, more in the hope of changing his luck than because he thought the old ones were cogged. ‘A cigar,’ he added, once the replacement dice were in the box. Only when the cigar was between his lips and he had taken several unhurried puffs, did he pick up the box and lean forward to place two hundred in the circle. Such sums were lost and won often enough in Pall Mall or Hanover Square, but in Rigton Bridge the absolute silence of the crowded room was a tribute to the unprecedented scale of the betting. Had any of the bystanders realised that Magnus was now committing very nearly every penny he possessed their amazement would have been still greater. Braithwaite, who now had just short of fifteen hundred pounds in black, green and red counters, could afford to look nonchalant as he matched Magnus’s sum. As Magnus raised the box the only noises audible were the hissing jets of the gasolier overhead and the rattling dice.
‘Nine’s the main,’ he cried as the dice rolled, toppled and finally fell into place. His mouth was agonisingly dry and the box almost slipped from his hand, so moist had it become with sweat. Magnus had thrown a five, so that now became his main, while George took nine as his. As he shook the box Magnus did not think of winning, but wondered how he would be able to reach the door without his face betraying the crushing magnitude of his loss. Before he released the dice he saw that once again Strickland had backed him and was comforted that one or two others were doing the same. Perhaps after all he did not look like a man whom luck had utterly deserted. Even while the dice were falling Magnus saw the needed patterns passing before his eyes, double fives, two and three, or four and one, and then the dots at last resolved themselves. A sudden roar of talk and exclamation broke as the spectators and side-betters saw that he had thrown three and two.
‘The caster has nicked it at five, gentlemen.’
For the first time Magnus saw the incredible sight of counters passing to his side of the table. But his confidence was checked when with his last throw he achieved deuce aces, thus losing his own and Braithwaite’s two hundred pounds to the house. He was now down four hundred and had three hundred left. He had turned catastrophe into a less serious disaster, but disaster none the less. George was fiddling with the gold chains across his damson-coloured flowered silk waistcoat.
‘What about it, Mr Crawford?’
Magnus had known from the moment he asked that he would hand him back the box; he would either win back his loss or lose everything. This time Braithwaite staked three hundred and for the second time that evening there were no counters left in front of him as Magnus matched the bet. It cost him no effort to imagine how George would enjoy telling Charles about his triumph and how his brother in turn would take grim delight in informing their father; but worst of all was the certainty that a loss during this ‘box hand’ would destroy every plan he had made. This was where his idiot scorn had got him, his disdain for the man had not even permitted him to allow Geo
rge the spurious satisfaction of goading him a little with his superior wealth. So he had taken up his challenge on that hopelessly unequal ground. If he lost again George would offer to accept a written note and then another if he lost again. The thought almost made Magnus’s stomach turn over. Two hours ago his thoughts had ranged across the town calculating quite different risks, trying to predict every possibility involving the strikers, the candidates and the military, but now all he saw, and it seemed would ever care about, centred on the pool of light cast on that green oval table with its delicately demarcated circle.