The Farm Ch. 10

He started to wind up again when his wife came from the kitchen wiping her red hands on a cloth. "My lovely wife and reason for living. These men are hunting for Tom's friend."

"Hunting?"

Halden's eyes drifted to the folly-red fringe above the sparse lifted eyebrows.

"No, seeking's more the word. Needs to get the lad ta London and a dying uncle."

"Name?"

Halden was caught off guard. He grabbed the first name that entered his mind. "Rupert."

"Danny." She rubbed her red hand up a freckled arm.

"Yer right, my love. It was Danny that stood so quiet . . . ." And he was off winding through the evening again.

Halden smiled and drank and smiled again. March shifted from foot to foot in an anxiety to be off. At last he found a pause when Harry drew breath, and with thank yous and a tip, Halden and March escaped into the autumn light.

They took the right fork and the Growler bounced over a deep rut. March started. "Did ya ever see such a woman? Her arms was bigger than the smith's." Halden nodded. "And that fringe. Ain't seen nothing like it since Helen, er Hilda, er Hattie, er someone used to glue such a thing to her cunt for, what was his name? You remember. He were a judge. Loved a hairy girl." March slapped his thigh and cackled. "Mrs. F screamed like a scalded cat when she found it hanging from a meat hook, drying in the kitchen. Almost threw it on the fire."

"Shut ya face. We're almost there." Halden stopped the carriage. "Get out here."

"Why."

"So's ya can cut in from the side and have a look see whilst I talk to the good folks."

"Why does I have to walk in?"

"Do you want to distract them or look for Prize?"

March hopped down. "Hope they don't have a dog."

"Did you hear a dog last night?"

"No." He sounded doubtful.

"Now go."

March stepped into the woods. He hated the country.

An old man stood by the gate smoking a clay pipe. Halden pulled the reigns and leaned down from the box. "Good day to you, sir. Harry Smoke told me you might help me locate a young man name of Rupert."

The man listened to his short story and nodded and pulled on his pipe. "No one here by that name."

A woman came to the cottage door. "What's he want William?"

"Looking for a Rupert, Betty."

"A what?" She joined her husband at the gate.

Halden launched his story hoping to give March time to circle around. The old couple listened as Halden told of his search in the village and of the old man alone and dying. "Harry told me he saw someone that fit Rupert's description with your man, Tom, last night."

"Tan't our man. Tom's down to give a hand from the manor. That be Daniel went ta leave the harrow at Easter's smithy." William turned and called to the barn. "Tom, there's a man here needs ta talk with ye."

Tom emerged from the barn. Halden took his measure as he strode to the fence. His size impressed him. Broad of shoulder. Neck muscled. Near thirty he guessed. He'd give a good fight if March found Prize and it came to a struggle. Stealth, it came down to that.

Tom smiled and lifted his cap. "How can I help you, sir?"

"He's looking for a young man name of Rupert. Did you er Daniel hear of such a one in the village?"

Tom considered and scratched his head. "Ye lost him?"

Halden launched into his story again and Tom listened intently, twisting his cap in his hands.

"I'm sorry to tell ye I ain't heard of the lad." Tom looked down at his boots. He didn't like Halden's looks. The city clothes, wandering eye, and broken nose. Wished he'd brought the pitchfork with him when William called.

"Perhaps your friend, Daniel."

"Gone to hunt the pig." Tom cut him off. "Broke down the fence an' this good pig-killing weather." Tom scuffed his shoe in the dirt. "Will ye step down and wait, sir. Danny'll be home by dark or not too long after."

Halden thanked him and declined most graciously. He got directions to a place wide enough to turn the carriage and shook the reigns and started off. March met him down the road.

"What's ya find?"

March looked flushed. "Nothing." He climbed into the box.

"No lad named Daniel?"

March looked him in his good eye. "Saw a man like Prize out to the back."

"Leading a pig?"

March took his cue. "Big fucking hog. But it weren't Prize."

Halden sighed. "Mrs. F's going to have it for us both."

"Should we go to Leeshore?"

"And further tip Lord Downcliff to our inquiries?" 'Dull as a turd that March.' They grew silent.

March wanted to sing. He wanted to shout. He'd spotted him sitting out in the sun looking at the chickens. Prize. His Prize looking at the chickens and smiling, enjoying himself. Sweet as a peach. Not long now. His dick grew hard with the sight of him. His dick pushed against his trousers at the thought of him under him. His Prize. March shifted in the carriage box. 'Now who was the dull turd?' He was going to fuck them all in the Afterward. He's live on peaches.

Prize felt his skin crawl. He felt eyes on him. Licking at him. He looked toward the barn where Tom loaded the barrow with dirty straw. He must have imagined it. His eyes caught the movement. Something beyond the barn in the bare saplings and weeds. March. He looked at him with hungry eyes. Prize tried to run, yell, scream. He opened his mouth and no sound emerged. He remembered the smell of him. Stale, dirty, rank, and a touch of decay. March lifted his finger to his sunken lips, smiled, winked slowly, and gave his crotch slow strokes. William called from the front of the cottage and Tom leaned the pitchfork against the barn wall and left him with March and his eyes like pits. Prize's eyes followed Tom as he moved to the cottage and rounded the south wall taking safety and hope with him. When he looked back, March was gone. The barn gaped at him with a toothless, fetid smile. The world started to tip and turn black.

***

That lazy nephew, Rupert, was at it again, soaking his arse and she'd had enough. Mrs. Featherwink didn't knock. She pushed the door open to confront his majesty in the tub in his room. 'Using her Crippled Doris to lug hot water up three flights so he could soak his arse of gold.'

"Auntie Featherwink." Rupert's voice soared high with fear. "What's it ya need." He sat chest deep in hot water. Steam rising carrying the odor of pennywort.

"I want to see yer arse. That's the one that's so sore ya made Doris climb up here with water heated at my expense."

Rupert blanched and reached for a rough piece of cloth to cover his groin. "It's nothing, Auntie F. I, well I have a spot that needs a bit of a soak."

"And ya need to soak it in yer room. Let me see it. Let me see what requires a tub of hot water when a bucket will hold an arse skinny as yers." Mrs. Featherwink stood at the edge of the tub and stamped her foot. "And what's been making yer ass sore when I've only collected money fer yer fuckin' mouth?"

"It's nothing. Really."

"It's not a tub full of nothing. Get on yer belly on the bed." Rupert complied slowly and trembled. Water dripped from his dick and hairless balls as he moved to the bed.

He turned and tried once again. "Auntie F, it'll be fine once I've given it a soak and rest."

Placing a hand between his shoulder blades, Mrs. Featherwink pushed Rupert belly down on the bed. "Don't clench up on me." She kicked his legs apart and pulled at the buttocks spreading them with her plump fingers. There by his pretty pink ring was the hole seeping yellow puss. Big as a penny and deep. 'Pox.'

She withdrew her hands in horror and smacked him hard on his back. "How long?" But she knew the answer.

"It just showed up there. Just found it."

"Liar. Fucking little liar." She hit him again. "Bring that into my house, you syphilitic little shit." She struck him again and again with her dimpled hands. "My reputation, you poxy little whore."

"It ain't, Auntie. One of them peacock feathers got poked into me at the Ganymede by some punter trying for a free poke. It festered like. Went deep in."

Her hand wasn't enough. She picked up the long-handled bath brush and hit and hit. Rupert thrashed and squealed beneath her unable to rise. Mrs. Featherwink climbed on to the bed on her knees and let the brush fall. Rupert tried to cover his head but pulled his hand away when the flat of the brush cracked on his knuckles. He pushed himself up from the yellow coverlet, throwing his great aunt rump first against the headboard. It cracked. She shoved back on him in a second. In her efforts to keep Rupert pinned, she pushed against the headboard with the heel of her tiny boot. It gave way. Her foot was stuck in a hole of shattered plaster and paint. She yanked it free ripping her stocking and cutting her leg.

Rupert forgot the brush and stared in anguish at the hole in the false panel of the headboard. There was the rustle of paper. The soft clink of coin on coin. Mrs. Featherwink turned and saw the spill. Her treasure. She launched at him with grim purpose and the bath brush. Rupert pushed himself free and backed away, his face twisted in fear. His great aunt advanced like a steam locomotive and butted him in the midriff. Rupert staggered back, hitting the tub with his calves, he lost his balance, and fell backwards with a great splash. Water sloshed over the sides. His head struck the rim. She was on him her hands clutching at his ears, up to the elbows in scummy water. She pushed and locked her arms. She didn't yell or curse. She pushed. Rupert's legs thrashed. A hand caught in Mrs. Featherwink's bodice and ripped it to the waistband. Her right breast tumbled free, large and purple veined, long hairs grew from around the areola. The last thing Rupert saw, long hairs waving on the water and a dark nipple big as a rotting cherry bobbing toward his mouth past the last bubbles.

When she was certain he wouldn't jump from the tub, that he rested below the scum on the water finally stilled, Mrs. Featherwink staggered back to the rumpled bed and counted the money. Half, only half. Rupert wasn't going to tell her where the other half of her fortune lay now. Rupert floated in the cloudy water. "Fool." She stacked the pillows in front of the hole in the headboard and began scooping her half-fortune into her wet apron and tied it securely. She lifted her skirts and used her petticoats to tie the coins and bills tightly between her thighs against her quim. It felt solid and good there. Better than any man. More reliable. Harder.

She pushed her hair off her face. She tucked her great tit back into the bodice. She walked straddle legged to the door and called Miss Liz. The soon-to-be-vacant room to hold Prize. He was an earner. She'd sell Rupert's clothes. The no-good loved his tailor more than God. The hole in the headboard easy to cover with a mirror. No need to purchase a new one. Wrap Rupert in an old blanket and move him to the cellar. The coverlet was just a bit wet. Have Halden dig a trench in the cellar for Rupert's body. In all, not a bad day. She possessed a plan. The future much rosier. She was halfway there.

***

The printer did a fine job. He'd simplified the portrait but caught the essence of Maycott, Alonzo's Maycott. Alonzo added the words, missing and reward. No amount. He took a handful with him as he began his rounds beginning near the waterfront where he surmised Maycott entered London.

The Brunswick Dock, St. Katharine's Dock, London, East Indian Dock, from the Tower to Blackwall, he held up his handbill to sailors, merchants, ragged freemen, whores, loafers at the kiln used to recover damaged tobacco. None knew the face. Everyone said they knew him for a price. Sailed for America, Australia, India, Hong Kong, Africa. Married to his sister. Died in a knife fight. Living just down that way. What's is worth. What's it worth to ya. He began to work his way to the taverns and inns. He grew thin and his wife nagged that his health was at risk not just from overwork but from those who made their living preying on unsuspecting good men such as he who entered the warren of alleys around the vast dock system. "One more day, Pet, then I'll try the morgues and Bizzies again." Alonzo pulled at his side whiskers. That avenue held little hope, he feared. He'd left a handbill with the local Bills and at the morgues. They didn't know the face. A small relief.

The woman who greeted him as he entered the sailors' inn examined the picture and called to her man. They were sure, dead sure, that he was very like the quiet young man who rented a room for a week more than half a year ago.

"Him that went out one night and didn't return." The husband held up a finger and rummaged under the counter and produced a soft package done up with brown paper and dirty string. "This is all what he left."

Alonzo's hands shook as he reached for the bundle. The innkeeper pulled it from his reach. "Sez reward on your handbill."

"That's not a man," Alonzo retorted, nodding at the bundle.

"No."

"Could be nothing."

"Open it. He ain't been back for it and I've kept it here for 'im these seven months." Inside lay a kameez and shalwar folded carefully. Folded with care. With love. Alonzo's heart leapt. 'He was here. Seven months gone. But here once.'

"What do you remember of the man?"

"What's it worth to ya?"

Alonzo pulled a two bob bit from his vest pocket and placed it on the counter and slit it toward the man. "For the clothing." He looked him in the eye. "Now what do you remember about him? Where was he going?"

The hand moved toward the money. "Quiet man. Spent his days in the room writing. Went out one night. Told him not to. Never came back."

"Do you have what he wrote?"

"No. Used the papers to start the kitchen fire."

Alonzo leaned across the counter. "Do you remember what was on the papers?"

"Didn't read em. Just found balled up stuff he didn't want."

"His eyes was a most beautiful blue." The woman spoke at last. The man turned and nailed her with a cold eye. She retreated from the room. All his questions answered in monosyllabically. Maycott didn't meet anyone. He didn't receive any letters. He could take the dirty rags Maycott left.

Alonzo placed a half-crown on the counter and his card. "Send me word if he returns. There's five pounds in it for you." The coin disappeared.

It was a start and as Mr. Alonzo Tidewell walked; elation lifted him. He clutched the hastily wrapped parcel to his coat and headed back through the crowded streets to his office where he could examine the contents more closely. "Phillip Alexander Maycott, where'd you go?" A woman turned and gave him a startled look. He tipped his hat and hurried on.

***

Mrs. Farnham's salon dragged on and Gordy suffered through it on the brocade seat. He did it because Farnham promised him an evening of entertainment to make all the suffering worth his while. The sherry and tea, the dotting mothers and their daughters. The daughters with their weary piano or harp or, God help him, violin renditions of insipid romantic music. A slightly sharp version of The Linnet sung by a rosy-cheeked woman of eighteen. Her mother watching with a tear in her eye.

Gordy knew if he had to listen to more he would soon have a tear in his eye. He looked around the room surreptitiously and spied two late arrivals, an old woman leaning on her cane and her companion. The companion stood with her hands quietly folded, black hair and blue eyes, tall, thin, composed, and amused by the song or the singing or Gordy's discomfort, not too young or too old. She had that look about her so common among women of good birth forced to sustain themselves by hiring out as a companion to dowagers of secured wealth. He caught her eye and the smile dancing on her lips disappeared. She fastened her gaze on the singing bit of fluff and composed her features. The old woman patted her hand and gave an insipid smile.

He decided there that Farnham's mother must arrange an introduction and find out about her background. It wouldn't be easy with so many eager mothers on the prowl, husband hunting for their daughters. He sent Farnham on his mission. He smiled and drank more tea.

Miss Caroline Rockby, age twenty-four, good family, no money, father's estate gone to a cousin at her father's death, companion to Lady Billingswoth. And so the introduction was made. The handshake firm, the smile, well, it was amused and touched with irony. The bulwark of Lady Billingswoth extended her hand to him and eased back into her chair and read him like a sojourner's map, eager to join the game. "She reads Auston to me and Byron. Her father had her educated. She is my anchor and my chief entrance to the world." The dowager lifted her ivory fan like a shield wall. "We'll meet later, good sir, when the extremities of the day do not intervene."

Later as he bent over the hands of the proffered virgins and listened to their vapid chatter and looked into the tide pools of their shallow eyes, he felt the pull of the quiet woman in navy and eggshell-white, the small cameo at her neck. He wanted to converse with her about things, things the fluffy bits at the salon had neither the capacity or will to understand. Gordy smiled and moved on. Gordy was pleased. It was a beginning.

Fights, that was Farnham's idea of a reward for attending the salon. In a warehouse down by the docks, men of all classes bet on the combatants. Bare knuckled, no rules, men stood toe to toe and pounded on each other until one fell or turned the white feather. Some of them fought for money. Some fought to prove they were the toughest. Some fought because they were angry. Some fought because they were weak. Some fought in desperation. They fought and the crowd urged them on. Gordy along with them. Farnham selected his reward well. Gordy loved it. He bet. He shouted. He pressed against men excited by the brutality and the blood.

A young man stepped into the area set aside in the cold, acrid warehouse. It smelled of tobacco smoke, dirty bodies, blood, wet wool, and men. Men aroused by violence. Stripped to the waist he stood lean and hard, hands raised, meeting the wave of voices. From the crowd, his challenger strode out stripping off his shirt. A bright blue sash around his thick waist. The man was massive, beefy and tall. Thick dark hair sprouted from his pale back and shoulders. Bald head and large mustache and sideburns. The odds takers called him Russian. Bets were taken and the odds highly in his favor. They toed the line. The first punch left a cut over the young man's eye. He punched his opponent in the midriff, a poor choice. The bulk of the man absorbed the punch in a ripple of fat and muscle. The next punch doubled the young man as it landed on his midsection. The sound of flesh on flesh and grunts of punches given and received mixed with the rumble of voices. A woman's high laugh knifed through the male sounds. The young man tossed his hair and sweat from his eyes and stood for the next blow. The blood slid down his cheek from the cut above his eye.

Gordy grabbed Farnham's arm. "He's going to kill him."

"No, no. He only has to last five rounds. It's nothing. The main event build up."

The crowd screamed for blood. Animal sounds from human lips. They called for the man's defeat. Money exchanged hands. The bets were not for who would win but for how long he would stand. The young man stood through three rounds. The bald man began to sweat. A blow landed harmlessly on the shoulder of the young man. His next punch broke the Russian's nose and he lunged, taking the young man to the dirt floor. Spectators roared and stood on their toes to get a better look. The man pulled from the ground and propelled back into the fight. They kept him from staying down. Farnham pushed the silent Gordy to the far edge of the action.

"Away, move away." Farnham kept pushing.

The fight spilled out into the watching men. Shoving turned to punches in the crowd. Gordy found himself on the edge of the mob with Farnham still pushing at him, moving him to the exit. He pushed to return to the makeshift ring.