by Sara Fraser
Mother Bunch smiled archly. ‘Yeth, itth your turn now, you thauthy fellow,’ he simpered. ‘Itth going to be a thuccethful night for me, I’m thure . . . Itth a pity that you’re thuch a thad-looking dog. Or perhapth I might have been interethted in a thport with thome profit for yourthelf in it.’
Once more the table roared with laughter and the Governor’s pot belly shook as he slapped his plump thighs and bellowed, ‘’Pon my soul, sir! But you’re a droll, waggish fellow. I’ll be damned, if you ain’t!’
During Andrew’s three deals, Mother Bunch accepted the shuffle four times. The crowd switched their play to follow the fat man’s luck and twice Shimson was obliged to have more money brought to the table to pay the winning wagers. He found himself becoming worried, at this rate he could be a pauper by morning; and yet he could not catch the fat man cheating. It seemed to be one of those legendary, nightmarish runs of luck that the owners of gambling hells spoke of in hushed, mournful whispers. As Andrew reached the end of his deals and handed the cards to him, Shimson glanced at a man across the table to his right who had slipped into a vacated seat. His eyes met those of William Seymour. Shimson could not see Molly Bawn. As he went to look away, Seymour grinned wolfishly and nodded as if in triumphant dismissal. Shimson realized that he himself must now take some protective measures. He feigned a clumsiness in the shuffle and managed to tear the corners of two cards.
‘Goddammit!’ he exclaimed. ‘I beg all of your pardons, gentlemen. I fear that I’ve damaged the cards. With your permission, I’ll call for fresh decks.’
Before he could shout for a waiter, Andrew did a surprising thing.
‘There’s no need for the waiter, Master Shimson. I remember that I put those fresh decks you gave me in the table drawer.’
The drawer in question was some distance from the dealer and directly in front of Seymour’s chair. Shimson was for an instant a little surprised. He had thought that the drawer was not normally used. He shrugged. It was of no importance. He rarely took the deal at this table and was uncertain about the normal usages.
The drawer was opened and was full of packs of cards. Six were taken out and passed along the players so that they might confirm that the seals on the packs were intact. The packs were then passed to Shimson who broke them open. His momentary worry had gone. Andrew knew well that Shimson’s action in tearing the other cards was to enable him to introduce specially treated packs, and the man was surely too experienced to have erred. Quite possibly Andrew had put all the treated packs in that drawer purposely to avoid incurring any suspicion amongst the gamblers, by letting them pull out and select the packs themselves.
Shimson began to check through each deck to see that they were complete. As he checked his sensitive fingers and his educated eyes searched for the certain marks on each key card which would enable him to control the game sufficiently to gain an advantage. The cards riffled from his fingers in a continuous fluttering stream and as the stack in front of him rose, his stomach sank into a nauseous deep. These cards were unmarked. The certainty mushroomed that something was terribly wrong.
‘Andrew!’ a voice shouted deafeningly within his mind. ‘That bastard Andrew has gammoned me . . . Mother Bunch is only the decoy!’
*
Sarah had remained in the passageway behind the bead curtains, watching and waiting for her opportunity. It was a long and tiresome time before it came, and if she had not been patient she would have missed it.
Seymour and Molly Bawn wandered from table to table for some hours. Throwing dice for a while, taking some hands of French hazard, then passing into the Roly Poly room to cast a few bets on the wheel. All the time Sarah noticed that Seymour’s gaze constantly flickered towards the rouge-et-noir. Then, quite suddenly, Molly was alone. Sarah moved instantly. She came to the side of Molly, took a firm grip on the girl’s elbow and pulled her into the passageway.
‘No, Miss Sarah . . . No!’ Molly protested weakly, and tried to break free of the restraining hand.
‘Be quiet, you little fool!’ Sarah scolded and made the girl go with her to her private apartments above the club. Once inside she locked the door and forced Molly to sit down on one of the chaise-longues.
‘Here.’ She poured a large brandy and pushed it into the girl’s stiff fingers. ‘Drink this . . . it will steady you.’ She placed a chair directly in front of the chaise-longue and seated herself upon it.
‘Now, Molly Bawn,’ she said kindly. ‘I ask you, as one who is your true friend, to tell me what has happened to you during these past weeks.’
For a few moments the girl sat staring blankly down at the tapestry carpet. Then she broke and wept bitterly. The tears streamed down her face and the sobs choked her throat, but still she held the glass of brandy before her. Sarah took the glass and moved to sit beside Molly, cradling the girl in her arms and rocking her as if she were a child.
‘That’s it,’ Sarah crooned. ‘Weep . . . weep all the pain away. I’ll take care of you, never fear. Weep child. Weep.’
As her sobs stilled, Molly began to tell her story. Of how she had met Seymour, and of his courtship. How she had come to love him deeply and think him a kind and good man. ‘But he’s served me cruel bad, Mistress . . . He’s bin like a devil, like Old Nick hisself to me. He took me to London and ’im and that fat barstard ’e’s wi’, they served me as if I was an animal . . . Worse than that even.’ The sobs tore from her once more, loud and harsh and heart-broken.
Sarah’s anger came hot and strong. ‘They’ll not touch you again, Molly,’ she promised fiercely. ‘Nor any other poor wench either, I’ll see to that. I swear on my mother’s grave that I’ll make them pay for what they’ve done to you.’
Molly straightened to look with frightened eyes at her friend, her paint and rouge a smeared mess from her tears.
She shook her head fearfully. ‘No Mistress. Doon’t you go near them. You doon’t know that devil like I do. He told me that he was a merchant called Brady, but I found out that his name’s Seymour, and that he’s running from the army. He means to ruin you, Miss Sarah. I doon’t know why, but he hates your very name, so he does. He’ll kill you if he can, I’m sure of it. Just as he’ll kill me, now I’ve told you all this.’ Her face crumpled piteously and she started to weep in abject terror.
Sarah calmed the girl, murmuring gently to her and stroking the pale neck and shoulders where the livid fresh bruises and weals were barely hidden by the thick layers of powder and cosmetics.
‘But why are Seymour and the fat man playing at the rouge-et-noir?’ she questioned. ‘It’s not possible to cheat successfully there, if it is by cheating they intend our ruin.’
The girl sniffed and drew a gasp of breath. With a tremendous effort she steadied herself long enough to say, ‘The priest, the thin dark ’un. He’s in it wi’ ’um.’
‘Andrew?’ Sarah said incredulously.
‘Yes, Mistress, that’s his name ain’t it . . . Andrew.’
‘Shim must know of this immediately,’ Sarah told her. ‘You’ll stay here in this room, Molly.’ She handed the girl a key. ‘Unlock the door and let me through. Then lock it behind me and don’t open it again until I come back. Don’t open it for anyone or anything until I return myself, do you understand?’
Molly Bawn nodded and made a pathetic attempt to smile. ‘Thank you for being so kind to me, Mistress Sarah.’
Sarah smiled back at her. ‘There’ll be time enough for gratitude later, Molly, and if it comes to that, then it is I who owe you thanks for bringing me this information . . . Now I must go to Shim.’
*
Shimson fought for control and mastered himself so that only a very careful observer would have seen any indication that something was seriously amiss. He shuffled and offered the cards. Mother Bunch leaned forward so that the rolls of fat pushed up to his pouter chest by the corset threatened to burst his tight-stretched shirt and waistcoat.
‘Yeth, thir, I’ll take it . . . my fingerth are itching
for more of your gold.’ His tiny eyes, almost buried in the vastness of his face twinkled happily as he finished the shuffle and handed the cards back. ‘Well, I mutht confeth, I don’t remember ever enjoying a game of cardth more than tonightth game. I mutht return here very thoon.’ He winked archly at Lord Harcourt. ‘What thay you, your grathe?’
The Governor’s plump chins quivered as he laughed uproariously. ‘’Pon my soul! But you’re a tonic, sir . . . Dammee if you ain’t.’ He asked the table to confirm his words, ‘A regular tonic, ain’t he?’
‘May we have your wagers, Gentlemen,’ Shimson requested, and the gamblers waited to see which way the fat man would bet. With an air of doubtful reluctance he selected a single guinea from the money in front of him and placed it on the black. A collective sigh came from the absorbed spectators. Mother Bunch smiled and cocked his head as he peered around at the eager faces.
‘I’m only teathing you, you thauthy fellowth,’ he simpered and used both of his pudgy hands to push his large pile of winnings forward on to the red patch. ‘Thith ith the one to win, I fanthy.’ There was a lash of viciousness in his voice.
The entire table followed suit and the money poured on to the red patch until its colour was almost hidden. Shimson felt the sweat burst from all the pores of his body. There was, he calculated, near to six thousand guineas wagered on the next coup.
‘If I lose it’s all up with me and the club,’ he thought. ‘But how in hell’s name can they cheat on this? Is that fat pig merely taking a gamble?’
It took all his willpower to prevent his hands from trembling. He glanced at Andrew, who sat staring at the money, his mouth slightly open and his eyes mirroring his greed. Shimson’s gaze switched to William Seymour. The lean cruel face wore an expression of gloating triumph and, even as Shimson looked, a tiny muscle started to throb erratically at the side of the pale grey eyes.
The Hebrew drew a long breath. ‘Ah veil, gentlemen,’ he said quietly. ‘Here ve go . . . All aboard the carousel.’ The cards flicked over. King of spades . . . three of spades . . . king of diamonds. His beringed fingers toyed for a moment with the next card . . . Any eight or above and he had a chance. He turned the stiff pasteboard and placed it neatly to the side of the others, then looked. It was the eight of hearts. Total, thirty-one. Shimson’s held breath gusted out noisily and he felt weak with relief. A collective groan of disappointment dragged around the table.
His heart light, Shimson dealt the second row. Four of clubs, nine of diamonds, five of clubs, six of spades and another king of diamonds . . . Total thirty-four.
‘Four . . . black wins,’ Shimson called joyously and flashed a smile of victory at Mother Bunch. The smile faltered on his lips as the fat man shook his great head ponderously, then lifted both hands high to gain the crowd’s attention and shouted.
‘Your Grathe! I beg you to check thothe cardthe . . . I fear we have been gulled, gentlemen. That deck ith packed.’
The Governor’s genial face was thunderous. He snatched the cards and looked at them closely. Shimson’s bewilderment only lasted for a split second. He glanced at Seymour, Andrew, and Mother Bunch in quick succession and knew with sickening certainty that they had tricked him utterly and completely. Without a doubt, the cards would be marked, only in a code not known to Shimson and since he had not known what to look for, he had allowed himself to be fooled into thinking the cards were unmarked.
The Governor suddenly cursed aloud, and pointed to the backs of some court-cards, they all bore a similar minute irregularity in one part of their ornate back pattern. The other cards did not bear that irregularity. There was a hush, then came a babble of cursing, shouting, threatening voices.
It was at that precise instant that the old ropelock holding one of the vast, heavy chandeliers slipped a ratchet, caught, then slipped three more in a split second and broke. The chandelier tumbled in a whoosh of fire, and the lamps smashed across the dice table, chairs and carpet.
On the impact the flaming oil exploded in all directions. Women screamed in terror as the gouts of fire landed on their gowns to set the flimsy cloth ablaze. Men shouted in agony as more gouts of fire hit faces, hands, and powdered heads. The hangings and varnished, polished furnishings, tinder dry from the constant heat of the room, took fire like matchwood and in only seconds the salon was filled from end to end with flame and smoke. The crowd stampeded in panic, chairs and tables were sent crashing over, glasses and bottles smashed and crunched underfoot with the debris of sweetmeats and food. A woman tripped on her own gown to fall headfirst into a pool of flaming oil and shrieked hideously as her gown and turban became part of the flames. A man was sent flying by a roundhouse blow as he struggled to get through the main doorway, he staggered backwards and fell over a broken table; for a moment his body blocked the crowd as it struggled to escape, then he vanished beneath the trampling feet.
Some of the cooler heads paused before joining the stampede from the salon to snatch up some of the gold guineas and banknotes which had been sent spilling across the floors in the mad panic. William Seymour was one of them. Coolly and calmly he began to fill his pockets from the money abandoned at the rouge-et-noir table. Shimson Levi sat in his dealer’s chair and watched him. The crowd was now splitting into two segments. One, the largest, was a screaming, bellowing, fighting, heaving mass at the main doorway. The other was a line of sheer terror running the gauntlet of the flaming private passageway. The area around the great table gave the curious illusion of an oasis of peace and tranquillity.
Seymour suddenly became aware of the Hebrew staring at him. He looked up and grinned savagely into Shimson’s eyes.
‘I knew my day would come, Jewboy,’ he sneered. ‘You should have remained with your old clothes . . . When you next see that whore, Sarah Jenkins, be sure to tell her that it is William Seymour who has ruined her.’
A growl started rising from the innermost depths of Shimson Levi’s being and crimson hate filled his sight. Using the chair as a springboard, he launched himself across the table at the other man. They grappled ferociously, hands locked in death-grips about each other’s throats, and stumbled to fall and roll in their deadly embrace over and over and over through the pools of flame and smashed glass and smoking blazing furnishings.
Sarah heard the noise and smelt the smoke as she started to descend from the top floor. She went only far enough to see men and women hurling themselves down her private staircase with clothes and hair smoking and smouldering then she ran back upstairs. She knew only too well that the centuries-old, ramshackle house would burn as rapidly and fiercely as a pitch-soaked pine needle.
She hammered on the locked door. ‘Molly! Molly, quick! The house is afire. Quick girl! Quick, or we’ll both be dead.’
Molly was sitting on the chaise-longue, the bottle of brandy tilted to her lips. She took a long slow drink, ignoring the increasingly frantic hammering and shouting of Sarah. She was trying to decide whether she wanted to live or die. She feared that the Fat Man had infected her, but what was worse was the damage done to her whole being and spirit by William Seymour.
‘Why keep on bleedin’ living?’ she asked herself.
The flames smothered the passageway and started to claw both up and down the staircase.
Sarah saw the fearsome glare and screamed out, ‘Molly, would you be the cause of my death?’
The girl listened and heard the snapping of the fire and smelt the acrid smoke. Sarah screamed again.
‘Molly, for the love of God, come now! Or we’re both dead.’
‘Bollocks to it!’ Molly Bawn’s fierce spirit resurrected itself. ‘Life’s no bleedin’ good . . . But frying is worse.’
She tossed the bottle from her and ran to unlock the door. The fierce heat and smoke assaulted her throat and flesh and she coughed violently.
‘Come on Molly, run! Run!’ Sarah gasped, and dragged the girl behind her, down through the choking heat and smoke and scorching flames and out amongst the milling crowds in
the cold dampness of the street.
Once she could breathe, Sarah looked at The Golden Venture. It was blazing from top to bottom. She saw one of the priests and shouted, ‘Where’s Shimson Levi? Did he get out?’
The priest was shamefaced. ‘I dunno for certain, missus . . . I ran for it meself . . . But they do say as how he’s still in there. Fightin’ wi’ a tall cove wi’ fair hair.’
‘Yer, he was fighting wi’ a fair-haired cove all right. I saw um,’ a waiter put in. ‘But I’ve not sin either on ’um come out . . . And I ben watching all the time. I reckon they’ve croaked it.’
Sarah’s heart started to thud as if it were trying to destroy itself. She knew instinctively without needing to ask further, or to go along the burnt and wailing rows of casualties of the fire, that Shimson Levi and William Seymour were inside that inferno, which was also their funeral pyre.
The alarm had been raised and from all over the town and dockyards men came rushing with grappling irons, axes, leather hoses, buckets and hand-driven pumps . . . But all their efforts were to prevent the conflagration spreading to engulf the whole area. For already inside The Golden Venture the sounds of crashing beams and the thick billows of smoke and sparks gushing from the smashed windows showed that the club was doomed.
All through the remaining hours of darkness, Sarah Jenkins and Molly Bawn, their dresses torn and filthy, their hair and skin layered with fine ash, their eyes red with heat and smoke, stood side by side and watched their dreams slowly crumble to a heap of charred, smoking rubble.
Chapter Thirty
‘What will you do now, Molly?’ Sarah Jenkins asked. In the cold grey light of the dawn, both women looked haggard and bone-weary. The young whore yawned and rubbed her sore eyes with both hands, leaving patches of grey-black ash powder mingled with the rouge on her cheekbones.