by Edie Cay
Bess shook her head. “Can’t. Besides, that’s not how I am. I’ll go down swinging.”
John inclined his head just so, a puffed-up dandy sort of gesture that he must have picked up from his wife’s set. It made Bess’s heart swell with gratitude. He was moving away from her, but he was still her friend. Her always friend. John was a man who stayed. They didn’t all leave.
If she could show Os that she was like John, that she would stay, then he might stay with her, too.
By the time the sun was low in the sky, the crowd began to show, locals from the village and carriages from Town. It was strange to have to wait through the amateur fights to get to her mill. It wasn’t that she minded, but she’d never had a prizefight getting top billing. There were the regulars of the Fancy that she recognized in their finery, who frequented famous places like Gentleman Jackson’s on Bond Street. Then there were the middle-class gents that took lessons at different venues around London, including Tony’s, dabbling on the regular fight nights.
And then there was the rabble, the ones she loved best. The laborers, the miners, the ones who showed up ready to swear and sweat alongside the fighters. The ones that screamed and cursed, drank too much, and sang songs as they careened through the streets on their way home.
Tony pulled her over to the far corner, away from the raised platform that held the roped-off ring, away from the door where more and more people entered.
“How you feeling?” Tony asked, sizing her up.
She’d changed into her dark-blue boxing costume. It felt right to be back in it, with its loose-fitting shoulders and unstructured middle. There were no stays, leaving her chest binding to do its work. “As good as I could.”
“What you thinking?”
The boys fight finished, the young men clambering out of the ring, one with a fistful of money, the other leaning hard on a man who was likely his da.
She looked Tony square in the eye now, letting him see how tired she was, how alone she was. Os still wasn’t here, and that was breaking her heart.
“You’ve worked hard,” Tony said, bolstering her spirit.
“Five against one ain’t fair,” Bess said, referring to the fight with Jeffers.
“You held yer own as long as you could. Got Jeffers—that’s the important part.” Tony hoisted his trousers over his big middle, adjusting his clothes, which he only did when he was deeply unsettled.
“Got him?” Bess asked, searching her memory. “No, I blacked out. I remember lunging for him.”
“There was a big one who clanged you something fierce in the head to get you off Jeffers, to be sure. I don’t doubt that your memory is foggy about it.”
Bess pitched her voice low. A sudden fear sent cold lightning through her. “I didn’t kill him, did I? I can’t go to Newgate. Violet needs me—”
Tony pulled at his waistcoat. “I got it on reliable sources that Jeffers has disappeared. For good. And you ain’t going nowhere for nothing.”
More of her insides shifted, like stone blocks being pushed against other stone blocks. She hadn’t wished him dead. She had wished him to leave her and Violet alone. “But Tony, dead is dead, and—”
“It’s not that he’s dead.” Tony shifted, hitching at his trousers once again. “He’s on a prison transport under another man’s name. He’ll likely never return. He’ll likely die on the way over. You didn’t kill him. But I gave him a death sentence.”
“That’s what’s got you so bothered,” Bess said with relief. The man was still alive, but stowed away, heading to the opposite corner of the globe.
“It’s my job to protect you,” Tony said. “I know you aren’t needing it so much now, being all grown and such, but it’s still my job for when you can’t. If there’s slack, I’ll pick it up if I can.”
Again, her heart swelled. She had Tony and she had John, both of whom were willing to help no matter what. It’s just that they weren’t Os, and in her blindness, she hadn’t been able to see that they were doing what they could, the only way they knew how. Just like her.
She scanned the crowd for Os but came up empty. Her mouth went dry. She wanted him here. She wanted it so much, and she knew better than that. To want was to be disappointed.
The next set-to was another amateur fight. Two young men, both lanky in the way of youth, entered the ring. They stripped and should have gone to it, except one young man led with his fist so powerfully that the other fell down and the bout ended in less than a minute.
There wasn’t even any cheering. The fighter who won stared down at his opponent, just as dumbfounded.
“Well,” Bess said. “I suppose you never know what’s going to happen.”
The next match got set up hastily, the men facing off and exchanging blows round after round. Across the way, Mr. O’Rourke and Bridget Kelly appeared. She wore a pretty green dress with white embroidery, her long hair down, curling around her breasts in a way that could be nothing but intentional.
Again, it irked Bess. This beautiful woman, a fighter, but controlled by a man for his own personal gain. What did he have over her? If she was truly a fighter, she could get herself away from him, couldn’t she?
But Bess knew just as well as anyone that there were other ways to hold a person to you. It wasn’t always brute force.
Back in the ring, the men were having a hard time getting up from their kneemen. Both fighters were tired, limbs dragging, faces bloodied.
“I’d say it’s time,” Tony said.
Bess nodded. A final glance at the crowd showed that there was nothing left to wait for. Os still hadn’t arrived. She would be doing this herself, then, and she would try to get over that empty feeling inside her chest.
Instead of crying or wishing things were different, she ducked behind Tony and John to start moving her limbs. Her shoulders felt stiff and hard. Her fists hurt from swollen knuckles. But she started her exercises. And it felt good to focus in like this, to start the way she always did. She missed the rest of their usual mill gang, Basil, Caulie, and the boy Perry, all the familiar faces. That was the trouble with out-of-town mills.
After a while, John came over to help her. She threw jabs at half-time pace, feeling the motion in her body, reminding herself where the power was in her arm, and how to transmit that to her target. This was a mill just like the hundreds of other mills she’d fought in her life.
“Good?” John asked after a quick combination.
Bess nodded. She was calm. She was ready. This was her career, her job, her body. This was her, all rolled into one. It was all she ever could be.
Just then, Caulie appeared out of the crowd, pushing his way towards them. “I didn’t think you were going to make it,” John said.
“You wouldn’t believe the carriages coming out here! No one wants to miss this one,” Caulie said, turning to Bess. His grin was wider than the Thames. “This is it. This is the kind of crowd you can retire on. I’m not sure even John has had this kind of prize.”
The money was being sorted up in the ring. Just a few more minutes. Still no Os. Bess told herself not to hope.
Caulie and John were talking about traffic, the carriages, the clogged up roads, the over-packed inns. Tony watched her.
“You can only give what you got,” Tony said.
Bess nodded, swallowing past a lump in her throat. And then it was time. The crowds parted for her after the caller up in the ring introduced them. There was the usual patter—not as good as Basil, but more polished. She didn’t listen. She couldn’t listen.
John and Tony followed her, the two members of her odd little family, her kneeman and bottleman respectively. She climbed up into the ring, where Bridget Kelly was already playing to the crowd.
Bess scanned the room for what she told herself was the last time, now that she could see from a better vantage point. She saw O’Rourke working, chatting with men in well-tailored suits, all of whom watched Bridget Kelly with a leer that made Bess’s lip curl.
A
lso in the crowd was Pierce Egan, the journalist who wrote about the sweet science. He was obsessed with the sport but never included the ladies’ fights. Maybe tonight would be different. Maybe he would see them not as bed-companions but as athletes.
Back in the corner with the Fancy, she spied Lord Andrepont, Lord Kinsley, and a hooded Lady Kinsley. She was surprised to see them out, surprised that Lady Kinsley would come all this way. But the woman had spoken about wanting to see more of the world. Perhaps a boxing mill north of Islington was far enough.
There were lewd shouts at Bridget, cruel shouts at Bess. Betting slowed, signaling time to start. The women retreated to their respective corners to peel. It was the part Bess hated. John had gotten to the point where taking his clothes off in front of everyone was a playful act. Depending on the crowd, he could get them laughing or hooting. But Bess couldn’t help but feel judged.
In the opposite corner, Bridget Kelly pulled off one sleeve of her dress, giving the crowd a coquettish smile as she did so. It was all Bess could do to keep from spitting in disgust.
“It’s fine, Bess,” called John. “No one is looking at you anyhow.”
That was the truth. The crowd had gone silent, the air thick with lust, watching Bridget Kelly shimmy the top portion of her dress down. Of course, she didn’t wear any chest bindings, and her chemise was so thin a person could read the newspaper through it at five paces.
Bess undid the front buttons of her boxing costume. Lord Denby had custom designed it, making it easier for Bess to undress when she needed. The small buttons were hidden by a flap so they weren’t unsightly, just unexpected. She pulled down the tapered sleeves and tucked them neatly about her waist. Her chest bindings were tight and well-fitted. Her chemise was tucked the way she liked. She felt right in her body, if only she could get right in her mind.
Bridget Kelly sauntered to the center of the ring, where the lines were drawn. Bess met her there. The referee was called off to the side for another round of bets. Lavender-and-yellow bruises littered Bess’s body. She had no doubt that changed the odds.
“Are you well?” Bridget Kelly asked, eyeing the bruises.
“Well enough,” Bess said.
“Quite a crowd,” Bridget Kelly said, looking around, giving a dimpled smile to every man who wanted one.
“You work it well.” Bess tried to keep the disdain out of her voice but knew she had failed.
“Someday my tits will sag, I’ll lose my teeth, and my nose will be broken,” Bridget Kelly said. “It’s my job, and I’ll make the most of it so that I don’t die in the gutter.” She kept her eyes on the crowd while she spoke. “You can look down on me if you like, but O’Rourke takes care of me.”
Bess scowled at the men instead, her hands on her hips. “It’s not that I look down on you, it’s that O’Rourke makes you a mockery of the sport.”
That made the Irish lass laugh. “As if we aren’t already a mockery. I know that man right there.” She pointed out Pierce Egan. “He’s the one to make a pugilist famous. And you know what? He won’t write about women in the ring. He’ll ask how much I cost for a tumble, but he won’t waste a single drop of ink on either of us.”
“Just because some jumped up pig-widgeon don’t write about me, that don’t make me less of a pugilist,” Bess said. “I don’t care if Egan dies shitting himself in the gutter. I fight because that’s what I do, that’s who I am. And women who fight as an advertisement for their bed make light of how hard I work.”
“You think I don’t work hard?” The Irish lass turned her large, doll-like eyes on Bess. They were ringed with kohl. “That all day today I’ve been applying creams and potions to my face and my body while you went for jaunty nature walks? Not only do I train like you, I also have to primp and massage and soothe every tired line in my face.”
“You don’t have to,” Bess said.
“And you don’t have to train so hard,” she said. “It’s different ways of surviving. I don’t know anything about surviving London, and you don’t know anything about where I come from. We’ve done what we had to, and that’s led us to here, this moment, in this ring.”
There had been times in Bess’s life where she was near starving. She’d stolen, both kerchiefs and bread. She’d hitched up her skirts when she’d been desperate and the money had been right. If she’d been born with a face like Bridget Kelly’s, with her beautiful green eyes and thick blonde hair, would she have found that working on her back was more lucrative?
“I’ll give you that,” Bess said, sticking out her hand. Bridget Kelly took it and shook. “Now let’s make gobs of money.”
Bridget Kelly threw her head back and laughed. Then the woman wiggled her rump for the crowd and Bess rolled her eyes.
“Why is one of ’em pretty and the other looks like a right dog’s dinner?” yelled a man in the crowd.
Bess heard him and turned. “Shut yer stinking gob, or I’ll put my fist so far up yer arse you’ll wish you had a right dog’s dinner to help you shit it out!” Then, out of the corner of her eye, Bess spotted Os. Her heart leapt and cool relief washed through her. He was here. He was with her. John, Tony, and finally Os. A tension that she’d held close in her shoulders disappeared. She could do anything now.
But he wasn’t alone. Os ushered in a well-dressed genteel woman and a young man that Bess vaguely recognized. The woman, in a dress that rivaled one of Lady Lydia’s, looked absolutely shocked by Bess’s outburst. Well. Some things couldn’t be helped. This weren’t the place for gently-bred folk.
She hoped the woman wasn’t another like Miss Manchester. Some beauty who was everything Bess was not. Here she was, half-dressed and screaming obscenities while the other woman hid demurely behind an ornately embroidered fan.
“Focus,” John called from the corner.
The set-to began, the referee calling it, the women toeing the line. Bridget Kelly was fast. Her shifts were subtle, which meant Bess couldn’t land anything. But Bess also couldn’t afford too many facers.
Was that Os’s mother? Or was she his mother’s madam? Or yet another former lover come back from Manchester?
Bridget Kelly landed an uppercut on Bess’s left side, setting off searing pain in her ribs. Breathing through the pain, Bess knew she had to be quicker. But this was the match: with all of Bess’s handicaps, from her injuries to the no-face targets, could she win?
Yes. The answer had to be yes.
Bess threw a quick combination near Bridget Kelly’s face, one that would set her off-balance, knowing the deal. Then, when her hands were up protecting, Bess went to town on her torso, pummeling at half-strength but full speed. She needed to get the shots in now so that Bridget Kelly might feel the soreness at the end of the match. When her opponent finally crunched down, shifting her elbows to block Bess’s blows, Bess turned slightly, knocking Bridget to the ground.
“End Round One,” the referee called. “Thirty seconds!”
Both women retreated to their corners. John kneeled, one leg down, one up, and she sat on the chair that his knee made. Tony handed her a small beer.
“Good strategy,” Tony coached. “No face shots is a hard call.”
“No face shots? That’s impossible.” John shook his head.
“My ribs hurt,” Bess said.
“Don’t be afraid to dance away if you have to,” Tony said.
Bess gave him a look. They both knew that crowds didn’t like it when a fighter danced away from the blows. It wasn’t noble, and it wasn’t how an Englishman would fight. But it would let her last longer. Her injuries wouldn’t magically disappear so that she could have her stamina again. Shifting away so hard was a foreigner’s game. Bridget Kelly would be allowed, but not her. She glanced down at Pierce Egan, the unofficial bard of pugilism. He wasn’t writing about her anyway. He likely wouldn’t include this fight in any of his volumes of Boxiana, and she would be left out of history no matter what she did.
Bess set her jaw. She would survive, like alw
ays.
The women returned to the line. There was a hardness to Bridget Kelly’s mouth that made Bess think she was angry. That maybe O’Rourke had said something, or maybe it was that she’d lost the round. Or maybe she didn’t like knowing she’d been a cheater all this time.
Bridget Kelly threw the first jab. Bess shifted away, careful not to dance too much. This was still a London crowd, and they didn’t take too kindly to non-London-style fighting, even if she was one of their own.
Bess returned with a quick combination, which Bridget Kelly danced away from. There was audible scorn from the crowd, but the fighter took a moment to give a quick hip cant and rump shake. Bess took the opportunity of her divided attention to play the same maneuver as last time, a few fakes to the face, then pummel her midsection. Bridget Kelly blocked all the faster and charged into Bess, fists flying.
There were stars in Bess’s vision. One of Bridget Kelly’s jabs caught her jaw. Already sore, this time it felt like she might lose a tooth. But she kept on her feet, stepping back, letting the fight come to her.
Lightning fast, Bridget Kelly caught her in the breadbasket, and it dropped Bess to her knees. There was blood in her mouth. She spat.
“End of Round Two,” the referee called as Bess struggled to her feet. The pain in her ribs, echoing in her face, was harsher than she’d imagined this early in the fight. “Thirty seconds.”
Bess sat on John’s knee, accepted the small beer from Tony.
“That’s got to stop,” Tony said. “You can’t let her get any more shots in. You can’t handle the damage.”
Bess nodded.
“She protects her right shoulder. It’s a reach, but if you can get to it, it may help. Maybe an old injury, something. But she definitely hides her right side. I noticed it when she walked in. It probably hurts all the time.”
Again, something she should have noticed herself, but she was distracted. She returned to the line, watching Bridget Kelly’s walk. It was true—the other fighter subtly favored one side.