Read Online Fair Fight by Anna Freeman - Free Book Online Page A

stools. Behind her was a pallet bed of rags and quilts. I stepped inside. The ceiling was close enough to reach up and touch, if I’d a mind to do it.
    ‘Your young fellow had best wait out there a time,’ she said. ‘He’s a bully one, ain’t he?’
    I looked back at Tom.
    ‘Go on,’ he said, ‘I’ll be in here,’ and he gestured into the tent, where the ring and the crowd waited.
    ‘Go on in and wait. I’ll not charge you a penny, neither,’ the old woman said, and laughed aloud.
    She turned to look at me and I saw that beneath the frilled cap and curled white hair she had a pug’s nose, broken and never made straight, just as mine was. My gaze went to her hands then, to see if the knuckles pushed up high as mine did, but she had on gloves and I couldn’t be sure.
    ‘Now, duck, I’m Mrs Narrow, wife of Mr Narrow who owns this booth. Now suppose you tell me your name and then we’re square.’
    ‘Ruth Webber,’ I said, for I’d long ago taken Tom’s name as my own.
    ‘Ruth,’ she handed me a pair of padded mufflers, ‘you’ll be what we call a novelty. That is to say, we mean to cheat a bit. Not so much, you know, as to be wicked, just so as the fancy sees a good show.’
    ‘I never have cheated before,’ I said.
    ‘Cheated, why that’s a strong word,’ Mrs Narrow said, though it’d been her word. ‘This is theatricals. You’re to win your fight, Ruthie, but at first you must seem to be about to lose it. Can you do that?’
    ‘Are all the fights at the fair theatricals, then?’ I was so disappointed as to be unsure that I wanted to go on stage at all.
    ‘My stars no, all the London boys are fighting to win, ain’t they? This is only a piece of play to warm the stage. Your swell fellow said you’d be good enough for this. Is he wrong? There’s a good purse in it for you.’
    ‘I’m good enough,’ I said, though what she meant by it I wasn’t sure.
    ‘You’re to seem to lose, then you’ll rally and take the fight. Fall at least once, duckie, and be sure not to knock yourself cold when you do. That would spoil it all.’
    I was more nervous now, everything about this being new to me. I wished I could just put up my fives and fight. I didn’t know how else it was to be done, after all. She sent me out then. There was a crowd as thick as fog. I pushed toward the stage and climbed up upon it so that Tom could find me and I was right to do it because he was there in a moment.
    ‘You’ll second me, won’t you?’ I said.
    ‘Let them tell me I mayn’t,’ Tom said.
    He’d barely ever seconded me before; Mr Dryer hadn’t liked to choose him at The Hatchet before we were married, and since then Tom had worked near every night on the convent door. He looked so gleeful now I had to turn my eyes from his face. It was making me churn inside with nerves. I didn’t tell him what Mrs Narrow had said. I wasn’t ashamed, or perhaps I was, but that wasn’t why I held my tongue. I kept silent because to speak it scared me, and because, if anyone should hear, the whole would be ruined and Mr Dryer would be sorry he’d trusted me. It caused me a little bitterness to think that Mr Dryer had sent me there to play a trick upon the fancy, not to fight in earnest. I wondered how much of the purse I could keep.
    I stood at the ropes, looking out at a crowd greater than any I’d stood in front of before.At last I spied Mr Dryer, in a tall hat, talking to another gent. It calmed me to see him, though he didn’t look at me. He’d a lady clinging to his arm; his wife, perhaps. Dora wouldn’t be glad to see her. I twisted to look for my sister but she wasn’t to be found. She’d sworn to watch me only because she knew I’d rather she didn’t; now she’d likely not be fashed to come, just when it would be most fun to have her there. These thoughts kept me from boiling over entirely. That, and Tom, who was silent and steady in my corner, waiting on one knee for me to sit upon the other. I left