Meridon (Wideacre Trilogy 3) (52 page)

So far I had seen nothing. At the end of the game I was eight guineas down to Captain Redfern. Perry had lost ten. I could not see how they did it. As far as I could tell Perry had lost by simple incompetence. He was not able to remember what cards had been played and who had called the suit. The tricks he had won had come from luck – a high card in the right suit.

In the second game I saw it. I should have spotted it at once. I had watched card-sharpers at work all my life. These two had, no doubt, a repertoire of all the tricks: dealing off the bottom, marked cards, hidden cards, stacked decks of cards. But with Perry and me in the game they worked as a simple team. I remembered my da at the steps of the wagon sitting me opposite him and holding his mug of tea up to his ear, ‘Ear means ace,’ he had said. ‘Ear: Ace. Mouth: King. Shoulder: Queen. Easiest trick in the world, Merry. And don’t you forget it. Right hand red. Left hand black. Hands clenched looks like a club, see? Third finger on thumb looks like a heart, see? Hand out fingers together looks like a spade. Fingers open looks like diamonds. Easy.’

I never thought I should thank that man for anything in the world. I never thought he had given me aught worth having. But in that dirty smoky little club I bent my head to hide my smile.

I had them. The two damned cheats who were robbing me of
my land. I knew what they were doing. Whichever of them had the best cards of any suit signalled to the other. One or other of them could keep ahead of the game to win the deal most times. They could let me and Perry win from time to time to keep our interest in the game and our hopes up. The first trumps were called by cutting the pack and they could cheat on that by stacking the pack if they needed. Most times they would not need. It was a simple game and a simple cheat.

And all it needed was a simple opposition.

They were using the code my da had taught me. I watched them under my lowered eyelashes and smiled inwardly. I could read it as well as they. I could see that Bob Redfern had high diamonds, and that was why the captain called diamonds when he had only one or two in his hand. I knew then to use my low couple of diamonds to trump tricks to keep myself in the game.

They were going for me. For my little pile of guineas. Perry’s miserable bewailings of his luck meant nothing to them. He would scrawl some more IOUs as he staked more to try and win back Wideacre. But they had sucked Perry dry for tonight. The IOUs were well and good but they preferred gold – like mine; or deeds to property – like Perry’s.

I held them off. I lost a guinea at a time, slowly, slowly, until I took their measure. I watched them. I did not have the time, nor did I think to watch Perry.

The table suddenly jolted as he pushed it back.

‘I won’t play any more!’ he announced. He rocked his chair back and then dropped it foursquare on its legs. He scowled around at us, I saw his lower lip trembling and I knew he was sobering fast. I knew he was realizing what he had done.

‘Jolyon,’ he said piteously to the captain. ‘Jolyon, for God’s sake take my IOU for the deeds. I should never have put it on the table. You should never have accepted it.’

The captain smiled but his eyes were cold. ‘Oh come now,’ he said. ‘You won a fortune off me at Newmarket. A fortune in gold too! Not some damned place miles away in the countryside entailed to the hilt. It’s the luck of the game lad! And my God! What a gamester you are!’

‘Never seen a finer one,’ Bob Redfern corroborated at once. ‘Never seen a finer.’

Perry blinked rapidly. I knew there were tears in his eyes. ‘I broke a promise,’ he said. ‘I promised…a lady…that I’d not gamble with those deeds. It was only owing you so much, Jolyon, and thinking it would be a fine thing to stake Wideacre to clear all the debts in one gamble that led me on. I shouldn’t have done it. I hope you’ll accept a draft on my account instead.’

Captain Thomas rose to his feet and clapped Perry on the shoulders.

‘Surely,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Surely. I’ll attend you tomorrow, shall I, old fellow? I’ll come around to your house at noon, shall I? I want you to see a new hunter I have, I fancy you’ll like him.’

‘And I can clear my debt with you then, can I?’ Perry demanded urgently. ‘You won’t let a day go? And you’ll keep the deeds safe?’

‘As safe as a babe new-born!’ the Captain said. He guided Perry to the door carefully and the porter swathed him in his silk-lined evening cloak. ‘Mind your step as you go home, Perry, I want you in one piece for tomorrow!’

Perry paused at the top of the stair, his mouth working. ‘You won’t fail me, Jolyon, will you?’ he asked. ‘I promised her, I promised this lady most especially…’

‘Of course,’ Jolyon assured him. He waved his cigar and we heard Perry clatter down the stairs and then the bang of the outer door as he went out into the streets.

The captain and Bob Redfern exchanged a slight inoffensive smile. They’d let Perry redeem the deeds for Wideacre only when they had priced the estate and checked its value.

I laughed aloud, like a reckless boy: ‘Gambling for land, are we?’ I demanded. ‘Well, I’ve a fancy to win some land! What d’you say I put my place against this place of yours?’

The captain laughed as careless as me, but I saw him shoot a quick, calculating look across the table at me, and also at Will.

‘And you, Will!’ I exclaimed. ‘Come on! It’s not often we
come to London, and to be in a gentleman’s club and with a chance to win a fortune and all!’

Will straightened up reluctantly. ‘I’d not put Home Farm on the table, not for all the money in the world,’ he said. ‘And you’d be mad to put your estate up, Michael. Why, you don’t even have the deeds yet, your pa’s shoes are still warm.’

I thought that was pretty fast lying for an honest farm manager but I kept my eyes down and I laughed defiantly. ‘So what?’ I challenged. ‘It’s mine right enough, isn’t it? And why should I want to be buried in the country for the rest of my days?’

I turned to the captain. ‘It’s the sweetest little estate you ever did see, just outside Salisbury,’ I said. ‘Not one good thing have I had out of it in my life. My father scrimped and saved and bought one little parcel of land after another until he had it all together. Not one penny would he spend on me. It’s only since his death I’ve been able to go to a half-decent tailor even! Now I’m in London I’m damned if I’ll sell myself short. I’ll put Gateley Estate on the table, up against your – whatever it’s called – and let the winner take both!’

‘Not so fast,’ the captain said. ‘Lord Perry was anxious that I keep the deeds safe.’

I shrugged. ‘I’ll sell them back to him, or gamble ‘em back to him, never fear,’ I said. ‘You talk as if I’m certain to win. I surely feel lucky!’

Will came forward softly. ‘This is madness,’ he said aloud. ‘You’ll never gamble your inheritance. The rents alone are worth four thousand pounds a year, Michael!’ In an undertone, for my ears alone he leaned forward and hissed: ‘What the devil are you playing at, Sarah?’

I leaned back in my seat and beamed at him. I had that wonderful infallible feeling I had known when I saw Sea for the first time and knew that he would not throw me.

I winked at the captain. ‘I don’t live like a rustic!’ I said. ‘I’ve come into my own at last, I’m ready to play like a gentleman, aye and live like one too.’

‘Well, good luck to you!’ said Bob Redfern. ‘Damme that calls for a bottle. Are you drinking burgundy, Mr…Mr…’

‘Tewkes,’ I said at random. ‘Michael Tewkes, Esquire, of Gateley, near Salisbury. Glad to meet you indeed.’

I let him take my hand, it was still as rough and as calloused as any working squire. They had cut my nails short in the fever, my grip was hard.

A fresh bottle was bought, and a new pack of cards.

‘What’ll it be?’ asked the captain. His eyes were bright, he had been drinking all evening but it was not that which made him pass his tongue across his lips as if for the taste of something sweet. He could smell a pigeon ripe for the plucking.

‘Michael, I promised your mother…’ Will said urgently.

‘Oh, sit down and take a hand,’ I said carelessly. ‘This is a jest between gentlemen, Will, not serious play. I’ll put my IOU for Gateley on the table against this other estate. If I come home with a house and land in my pocket d’you think anyone will complain? Sit down and play or sheer off!’

The captain smiled sympathetically at Will. ‘It’s a hard row, keeping a young man out of trouble,’ he said. ‘But we’re all friends here. We’ll put the deeds on the table if that’s your wish. But we’ll have a gentleman’s agreement to buy them back at a nominal sum. No one is here to be ruined. All anyone seeks is a little sport.’

Will unbent slightly. ‘I don’t mind games of skill,’ he said stiffly. ‘Games of skill between gentlemen for a nominal sum.’

‘Slow coach!’ I said easily. ‘Captain, get me a sheet of your paper and I’ll write out the deeds of my land fair. We’ll put them on the table with Lord Perry’s farm and they can be the stake.’

‘I’ll put my hundred guineas in,’ Will said, warming to the game.

‘Dammit so will I!’ said Bob Redfern as if he had suddenly decided. ‘I could do with a little place in the country!’

Will checked at once. ‘The properties to be re-sold at once to their rightful owners,’ he said.

Bob Redfern smiled. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘For a nominal sum. This is but a jest. It adds zest.’

‘For God’s sake, Will, we’re in polite society now,’ I hissed at him. ‘Don’t count the change so!’

Will nodded abashed, and watched as I wrote out a brief description with a line-drawing of what was, in fact, Robert Gower’s farm. I chose it on purpose. It looked real. My da always used to say, when you’re getting a gull, tell him a story as straight as you can. I thought of him as I drew in the river which flowed near the bottom field.

‘Pretty place,’ the captain said approvingly.

‘A fair stake, for a jest,’ I said.

Bob Redfern leaned forward and dealt the cards with his swift white hands. I dropped my eyelashes and watched him like a hawk.

I was not a card-sharper, I was a horse-trainer, a petty thief, a poacher. I could call up a show or ride a horse for money. I could take bets, make up a book, drug a bad horse into steadiness, or ride a wild pony into the ground for a quick sale. Here, in this London club, with a man’s hat pushed back on my forehead, sprawled in my chair like a flushed youth, I was in the grip of men who cheated at cards for a living, and for a handsome living. I was the pigeon here. The little skills I had learned at Da’s knee would not preserve me from a thorough plucking if I stayed too long. Whatever I was going to do I had best do quick.

News of the bet had spread to other parts of the room and several gentlemen had quit their own games to come and watch ours. I didn’t know whether any of them would signal to Bob or Jolyon what cards we held. I didn’t dare wait to find out. There was no time, and I did not have enough skill. For the first time in my life I wished with all my heart that my da was at my side. He was no artist, but he could spot a cheat. And I did not know if they would use the same signals with others watching.

They did. The first tricks I saw them do it. They moved like gentlemen, that was what made it alluring. When you saw Da pinch his ear or scratch his shoulder it looked foolish, as if he had nits. But when Captain Thomas brushed his collar with the tips of his fingers he looked merely debonair. I risked a quick glance at Will, he was scowling over his cards. He would know they were cheating but he would not have a clue how it was done. I could not hope that he would have wits quick enough to follow me. He had not had the training, he was no easy liar, no quick cheat. He did not know how to do it. I should have to do it alone. I should have to do it quickly. I should have to do it now.

They were going for me, for the convincingly pretty little farm I had drawn for them. All good card-sharping is a war of imagination in which the card-sharp convinces the pigeons of two things at once: that he is honest, and that they are skilled. I watched them under my eyelashes and saw that they thought Will too staunch, too unwilling, possibly too poor for their skills. But I was a flash young fool. They looked from the little roughdrawn map to my open eager face and licked their lips like hungry men before sweet pudding.

I tapped my cards on the table and shot a look at Will. ‘Seems you were right, Will,’ I said. ‘I’m well out of my depth here.’

Will kept his eyes down and his face still, but he must have been reeling at my sudden change of tack.

‘Let’s finish this game and be off then,’ he said. He glanced at Captain Thomas and Bob Redfern. ‘Begging your pardons, sirs, and thanking you for your hospitality. But I promised this young man’s mother I’d bring him safe home. Aye, and with his inheritance safe in his pocket.’

Captain Thomas cracked a laugh that made the dusty chandelier tinkle. ‘You’re a bear leader, sir!’ he cried. ‘I think Mr Tewkes here is a very sharp player indeed!’

He switched the card he was about to play for one further away from the cleft of his thumb. It was a low trump. He probably knew I had higher. I took the trick as he had intended.

‘Look at that now!’ he said. ‘I missed that you had a trump that high, Mr Tewkes.’

‘Let’s have another bottle,’ Bob Redfern said genially. ‘Up from the country you should enjoy yourselves gentlemen! A shame to go home with no tales to tell! They’ll open their eyes when you tell them you played here, I warrant!’

Hearts were trumps and I had two or three low cards. I led instead with a King of diamonds and everyone followed my lead with lower cards except Captain Thomas who discarded a low club card, giving me the trick. After that I drew out their low trump cards with one heart after another until all I had left in my hand was the Jack of spades and I gambled on no one having higher. But Captain Thomas had the Queen and at the end of the game we were neck and neck for tricks.

‘I think we should go now,’ Will said. ‘It’s a fair ending to a good jest.’

I laughed excitedly and hoped my colour was up. ‘Leave when I’ve hit a winning streak?’ I demanded. ‘Damme no, we won’t! I won’t leave this table until I’ve had a crack at winning that little farm in Sussex. It’s only a jest! And the night’s young! And the cards are going my way now! I can feel it!’

‘Oh, you’ve a cardman’s instincts,’ Redfern said wisely. ‘Sometimes I feel that too. You just know that you cannot lose. I’ve had that feeling once or twice in my life and I’ve left tables with a fortune in my pockets! It’s a rare gift that one, Mr Tewkes…may I call you Michael?’

‘Oh aye, Bob,’ I said carelessly. ‘You believe in luck, do you?’

‘What true-bred gambler does not?’ he asked smoothly. He shuffled the cards and I picked up my glass and drank, watching him around the rim.

Then I saw it. He had picked up the discarded cards and flicked out of them a selection of cards into his right hand, palmed them in his broad white hand. The backs looked plain enough to me but they might have been marked so he could tell the picture cards from the rest. Or they might have been shaved thinner – I couldn’t tell from looking, I would only be able to tell from touch when the deal was mine. And I would have to wait for that. He shuffled the pack with vigour, the ruffles from his shirt falling over his working hands. He was not too dexterous, he was not suspiciously clever. It was an experienced player’s honest shuffle. He passed the pack to me for me to cut. My fingers sought for clues around the cards in vain. There was no natural point to cut to, he had not shifted the deck or made a bridge to encourage me to cut where he wished. Nothing.

I cut where I wished and passed it back to him. Then he dealt. What he did then was so obvious and so crass that I nearly laughed aloud and stopped longing for my da, for beside me was a man as greedy and as vulgar as my da ever had been. And I had his measure now.

He had not stacked the cards, he had not made that instant calculation of where the picture cards would have to be inserted into the stock of ordinary cards in his left hand. He just thrust the picture cards on top of the deck and dealt a selection of the cream of the pack off the top to me and Will, and off the bottom to him and Captain Thomas. It was a childish simple cheat, and my glance shot to Will to warn him to say nothing when he saw it.

I was safe enough there. Amazingly, he did not see it. Will was indeed the honest country yeoman and he watched Bob Redfern’s quick-moving hands, and collected his cards as they were dealt, and never spotted the movement where Bob’s long fingers drew from the top or the bottom of the stack as he pleased.

I glanced cautiously around. No one else seemed to have seen it either. It was late, they were all drunk, the room was thick with smoke and shadowy. Bob’s shielding hand hid everything. Only I saw the quick movement of his smallest finger on his right hand as he hooked up a card from the bottom of the pack for him and his partner so that they could ensure that they would lose to us.

I had good hands during the game. Good cheating hands. Nothing too flash, nothing too stunning. I fidgeted a good deal, and by holding my breath once and squeezing out my belly I made my face flush when Bob dealth me the Ace of trumps. I won by three tricks ahead of Will and there was a ripple of applause and laughter when I crowed like a lad and swept the heap of IOUs and the tied roll of the Wideacre deeds towards me.

At once a waiter was at my side with a glass of champagne.

‘A victory toast to a great card-player!’ Bob said at once, and held out his glass to drink to me.

Will looked surly. ‘We’d best be off now,’ he said.

‘Oh, drink to my victory!’ I said. ‘You shall come with me to Lord Perry in the morning for him to buy back his farm. How he will laugh! Drink to my victory, Will! It’s early to go yet!’

‘And gambling’s in the air!’ Captain Thomas shouted joyously. ‘I feel my luck coming back! Damme if I don’t’! Stay with your luck, Michael! Dare you put both your properties on the table…your new farm and your own place at Warminster?’

‘Against what?’ I demanded with a gleam.

Will said ‘Michael!’ in exactly the right mutter of anguish.

The waiter filled my glass again, the voices seemed to be coming from a little further away. I cursed the wine silently. I was not used to it, and I was still weak from my illness. Much more of it and I would be in trouble. ‘Damme! This place!’ Captain Thomas yelled.

There was a roar of approval and laughter, and shouts to me: ‘Go on, country squires! Take the bet! Let’s hear it for the Old Roast Beef of England!’

‘I’ll do it!’ I said. I slurred my words a little. In truth I was acting only slightly. Will’s dark look at me was not feigned, either.

I piled the deeds back into the middle of the table again, and Captain Thomas scrawled something on a sheet of headed notepaper handed to him by the waiter. Bob and Will added their IOUs.

‘Your deal,’ Bob said to me. He gathered up the tricks loosely, and pushed them towards me. I took a deep breath and patted them into a pack. I slid my fingers along the sides. I shuffled them lightly. I was pouring my concentration down into my fingertips. It was possible that the pack was a clean one. With the partnership they had of cueing to each other’s cards, it might be that the pack was unmarked. And the dealing from the top and the bottom ploy looked very much as if they used no sophisticated tricks.

Then my fingers had it. Just a touch of roughness on one side of the cards, as if a very fine needle had just pricked the veneer of the surface. They had only marked one side too, so sometimes the mark was on the left, sometimes on the right, and it was hard to tell.

‘You’re scowling,’ Captain Thomas said. ‘All well with you, Michael?’

‘I feel a bit…’ I said. I let my words slur slightly. ‘I will have to leave you after this game gentlemen, whatever the outcome. I’ll come back tomorrow.’

‘Surely!’ Bob said pleasantly. ‘I get weary this time of night myself. I know what you want lad! Some claret! Claret’s the thing for the early morning.’

They took my old glass of champagne away and brought a fresh one filled to the brim with the rich red wine. Will’s face was frozen.

While they were fussing with the wine I was quietly stacking the deck. I thought of Da. I thought of him in a new way – with a sort of rueful pride. He had played on upturned barrels for pennies yet he would have scorned to deal off the bottom like these fine cheats had done. Not him! When my da was sober and cheating he counted the number of hands to be played, the number of players and stacked the deck so the cards would fall as he wished to the players he wished. While they tasted the wine, and quarrelled as to whether it was cool enough, I counted swiftly in my mind, seven cards to each player, the second hand as I dealt it to be the strong one. Strong cards must occur every four cards at the right time for me to get them to Will who was sitting opposite me. Thus in the first deal there had to be a strong card at number 2, number 6, number 10, number 14, number 18, number 22, and number 26. I felt for the marked cards. I thought they had only marked Aces, Kings Queens and Jacks…there didn’t seem to be more than twenty-eight marked cards.

‘Ready, Michael?’ Bob said pleasantly. I shot him a quick look. He had not been watching me. He was smiling at Captain Thomas, an honest neutral smile, which passing between those two said, clear as a bell, ‘We have them now.’

I riffled the pack. It was stacked as well as I could do, in the time I had, and I was not in practice as I had been when I was Meridon.

I went to deal.

‘Cut,’ Captain Thomas reminded me.

I flushed. ‘Oh yes,’ I said.

They cut before they dealt in this club. Captain Thomas was waiting for me to cut my carefully stacked deck towards him so that the cards I had prepared for Will would be cut to the bottom of the deck where they would go at regular and surprising intervals to any one of us.

‘Agent shifting cut,’ I heard Da’s voice in my head. I saw his dirty hands squaring up a pack on the driving seat on the front of the wagon. ‘See this Merry? D’ye see?’

It was a tricky move. Da used to bodge it, I learned it from watching him failing at it. I glanced around. It was growing light outside but it was still dark in here with the thick musty curtains at the window. Someone at one of the tables was disputing a bill and people were glancing that way. I looked at Captain Thomas.

‘Trouble?’ I asked, nodding towards the table. Captain Thomas looked over. A man had lurched to his feet and tipped the table sideways. I grasped the pack in two hands, my left holding the top half of the pack, and my right holding the bottom. With one swift movement I pulled the bottom half gripped in my right hand and put it towards Captain Thomas.

‘Nothing really,’ he said looking back. He completed the cut, moving the half-deck which was furthest from him on top of the one nearest to him. Without knowing it, he had put my stacked deck back together again. And no one had spotted it.

I heard my heart thudding loud in my ears, in my neck, in my throat. So loud that I thought they would all hear it over the jostle and confusion of the drunk man being thrust down the stairs and out into the street.

I dealt with a trace of awkwardness and the cards lay on the table. Will picked up his cards and I saw his eyes widen slightly, but his hand outstretched to the wine glass did not tremble.

He won, of course.

I saw Captain Thomas squinting at his cards, and at the backs of Will’s. I kept my cards low, held in my cupped hands in case there were markings in the back he could see. I watched the two
of them warning each other to call spades for trumps, or diamonds. Hearts or clubs. It would make no odds. Will had a King, a Queen or an Ace in every hand. The other good cards which I had scattered around the table were just to dress the act.

They couldn’t nail it. They were so sure of me as a pigeon. They had seen me shuffle clean enough, and then they had seen me cut. And they believed, as many fools before them have believed, that you cannot stack a cut.

I slid the last card across the table. Captain Thomas took the trick, it was his third. Will had five, Bob Redfern had three tricks, I had two. Will was a truly awful card-player; with the hands I had given him he should have wiped the floor with the three of us.

‘I’ve won!’ he said incredulous.

Bob Redfern was white, the sweat on his forehead gleamed dully in the candlelight. He slid the heavy document of the deeds of Wideacre across the table to Will. I pushed the deeds of my farm, and the paper for the club, and Redfern’s IOUs.

‘I’m done for tonight gentlemen!’ I said. My voice came out a little high and I took a breath and clenched my fingernails into my palms under the table. I was not out of the ring yet. I rubbed my hand across my chin as if I were feeling for morning beard growth. ‘I’ve won and lost a property, and lost my own as well! A great night! We shall have to settle this very day, Will.’

Captain Thomas smiled thinly. ‘I shall call on you,’ he said. ‘Where are you staying?’

‘Half Moon Street,’ I said glibly. ‘Just around the corner, with Captain Cairncross at number 14.’

He nodded. ‘I’ll call on you a little after noon,’ he said. ‘And I’ll bring Lord Perry. We will all need to settle up after tonight!’

There was a murmur from the men all around us.

I smiled around at them. ‘It’s been a hard gambling night for me!’ I said. ‘Not often I get to play in such company as this. I shall come back tomorrow evening if I may.’

‘You’d be very welcome,’ Captain Thomas said pleasantly. His bright eyes above the curly mustachios were cold. ‘Play always starts around midnight.’

‘Grand,’ I said.

Will got to his feet, as wary as a prize-fighter in an all-comers ring.

‘My cape,’ I said to the waiter behind me.

Will tucked the precious deeds deep into his jacket, and shovelled the other papers and guineas on top of them.