Page 65 of A Gentleman Never Keeps Score
Later, when Nick and Kate had gone home to their rooms, Sadie had gone upstairs to put the baby to bed, and Alf had gone out, Sam and Hartley were left alone in the empty barroom.
“I met with a new solicitor,” Hartley said. “After all is said and done, I’ll have about two thousand pounds left.”
“Oh?”
“And I don’t want it. I want to stand on my own feet. I’ve given five hundred pounds to Sadie, because it’s the sum she would have had as a dowry—an entirely inadequate dowry, I might add. Also, I signed the deed to the Brook Street house over to Ben, so he’ll get the proceeds from the sale.”
Sam nearly choked on his beer.
“It’s not that dramatic,” Hartley went on. “If I know Ben, he’ll spend the majority of it on urchins and stray animals, but he’ll keep the rest safe for a rainy day. So that means if Will or I ever fall on hard times, we’ll at least have that recourse. I know I said I wanted to stand on my own two feet, and you likely think being able to run to my brother is cheating, but—”
Sam held up his hand. “I don’t think it’s cheating. I’d want you even if you were swathed in furs.” That was no more than the truth, but Sam was grateful Hartley had given up some of his wealth and status to join him on a more equal footing.
Over the next fortnight, Sam realized that the new tavern was getting fixed up so quickly because somebody was greasing the wheels.
“How much did you pay that glazier?” Sam asked Hartley. “When I talked to him, he said he couldn’t be bothered until Thursday next. But when I came in this morning, I find I have three new windows.”
Hartley had been attempting to hang a picture, but he let the hammer fall to his side. He gave Sam a smile that might have looked sly if not for the plaster dust on the tip of his nose. “I didn’t pay him anything at all. If you want to know more you’re going to have to talk to Kate. And that’s all I’m going to say on that subject.” He closed his lips tightly and mimed turning a key in a lock.
“I’ll have the truth out of you later,” Sam muttered.
“I’ll bet you will.”
Sam stepped out onto the street, ducking under a ladder that was propped against the side of the building. A freshly painted sign swung above the entrance. Instead of a picture of a bell, it bore a bright orange fox.The Fox, it read. And stenciled on the door were the words:
The Fox
Public House
Samuel Fox, Publican
It still felt both silly and more than a little prideful to name the place after himself, but his brother and Hartley had insisted that he was the main draw.
He found Nick in the kitchen beside the old Bell, packing tankards and dishes into a battered old crate. “What’s this about the glazier?” Sam asked. He spotted the peeling paint on the wall and thought of something else. “And the paper hanger and plasterers.”
Nick looked up from the crate. “Kate,” he called. “What day is it?”
Kate appeared from the back room, where she was packing up tankards and dishes and anything that could be salvaged and moved to the Fox. “The twentieth of December.”
“You owe me three bob,” Nick said.
Kate looked at Sam. “Blast. I had bet you wouldn’t figure it out until Christmas.”
“Figure what out?”
“Kate’s running a racket,” Nick said. “She’s got all the regulars pitching in whenever your back is turned.”
“It’s not a racket,” Kate protested. “Not really, at least. But everybody wants the Bell—or the Fox, rather—to be up and running as soon as possible. The King’s Arms over in Popingjay Court has a nasty barman who pinches girls, and the Bull’s Head in Gough Square serves watered-down ale. But really, people miss one another. That’s what we all liked about the Bell, seeing one another, and seeing you.”
Sam felt his face heat. “That’s all very nice, but it doesn’t explain about the workmen.”
“Well, I was at a lying in for the glazier’s sister-in-law. Her husband is a paper hanger, and they’ve all been living together in a pair of rooms because last summer the brother-in-law fell off a ladder, broke his leg, and has been out of work since. So I told the glazier that we’d find work for his brother-in-law if he took care of the windows first thing.”
“And the plasterer?”
“Alfie did it, along with some help from Johnny Newton. Johnny was looking for work down at the wharves, which I suppose is a step up from picking pockets or whatever it was he was doing before. But his mother wanted him out of harm’s way, so he plastered and whitewashed the entire ground floor.”
“How come I didn’t see any of this?”
