Beau Brown by Nina Clare

Author:Nina Clare [Clare, Nina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: lost&foundStories
Published: 2021-11-19T00:00:00+00:00

It was true that Symes had an uncanny way of knowing everything, Henry admitted to himself, for he did not even have to enter the shady doors of the Crook and Fleece to find Ralph, for as he neared the inn, he met a bulky figure shuffling along in a battered old tricorne.

‘Master Tandy?’ It was the hat that gave Ralph away. He would not have recognised this dejected person as young Ralph Tandy without it. A row of brazier lights on the wall behind Ralph picked out his silhouette.

Ralph looked up, his face distorted by the flickering shadows.

‘What the deuce are you doing here?’ he slurred.

‘Just out for a stroll, Master Tandy. Shall we walk home?’

‘Gerroff,’ growled Ralph, as Henry tried to steer him out of the way of a pile of horse dung at the edge of the street. ‘Not going nowhere wiv you, you niffy-naffy cabbage head.’

Henry ignored these juvenile insults and tried again to steer Ralph out of the road. Ralph did his windmill impression, his arms waving wildly, and Henry darted out of the way to keep from being hit. He waited until Ralph had exhausted himself and finished bellowing his stream of unintelligible oaths. When the tantrum was over, Henry quietly took Ralph’s arm to lead him home like a child. After Ralph had emptied the contents of his stomach near a horse trough outside St. Anne’s and splashed his face from the pump, he was better able to talk without a slurred stream of nonsense.

‘I’m ruined,’ he moaned.

‘How can you be ruined?’ said Henry. ‘I thought you had no money to play with in the first place?’

‘Borrowed it.’

‘From who?’

‘Lender in Dudley Street.’

‘Not one of those disreputable lenders?’

Ralph groaned.

‘How much did you borrow?’

‘Five hundred.’

‘And how much did you lose?’

A pause. Another groan. ‘Eight.’

‘Eight hundred? Pitié moi!’ Henry could not keep the shock from his voice. He stood stock still, absorbing this calamitous news. Eight hundred was a fortune, and no doubt it did not include all the interest a profiteering lender would demand.

‘Pa will pack me off to the army for sure.’ Ralph leaned his head against Henry’s shoulder. ‘That’s if he don’t let me get carted off to the Marshalsea just to teach me a lesson.’ Ralph swayed unsteadily. ‘Not sure which is worse, army or jail.’

‘The Marshalsea is a prison?’ said Henry slowly. Ralph swayed again as though he was going to collapse at any moment. ‘Let me get that carriage,’ Henry said, seeing a hackney draw up on the other side of the street. ‘You’re not fit to walk.’

All the way back to Hanover Square, while Ralph groaned and moaned, Henry thought miserably that it would not just be Ralph who would be sent packing by Mr Tandy, it would also be himself. All Mrs Tandy’s optimistic plans for Henry being set up in a successful business of his own were now dashed. He was on the brink of finding himself homeless and friendless once again now that he had failed to keep Ralph out of gambling trouble.

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