Meridon (Wideacre Trilogy 3) Read online

  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 th