A Catch of Consequence. Diana Norman

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СКАЧАТЬ extraordinary of all was Makepeace Burke, dominating not only this stage but, now, the one he had left behind in England, bustling irreverently onto it, provincial, unpolished, brave, smelling of fresh air, and with a validity that made the painted scenery of London Society appear stale in contrast.

       You struggle ’til the Lord sounds the last trump.

      What was amazing was that she’d invested him with the will to do it. The lassitude induced by sickliness and, later, his marriage, left him when she entered the room. Life, purpose, bustled in with her.

      Even more surprisingly, God knew how, that gawky body of hers had revived the old Adam in his. Just as he’d begun to think he’d lost the lust for women, a tavern-keeper in appalling clothes was concentrating his mind on what lay underneath.

      Dapifer gritted his teeth. The best return for what she’d done for him was to leave her alone. The lemans introduced to Society by some of his fellow bucks embarrassed themselves and everybody else; unfair to do that to her.

      What could he do for her? More a matter, he supposed, of what she would allow him to do. Wait and see what transpired; he wasn’t returning to England yet, he could stay on in Boston for a while, keep an eye on her, make sure …

      The feather on the Indian’s headband, livid in the twilight, had suddenly twitched. The fellow was growling softly, looking to his right across the slipway to the neighbouring quay, to where a shape had waited and listened in last night’s shadows. Somebody was there again.

      Dapifer lost his temper. He leaned out of the window. ‘I’m going. D’you hear me? In the name of God, leave her alone!’

      Two boatloads of soldiers arrived at the jetty just before midnight, packed upright and rigid, like bottles in a crate, until an officer’s shouted order set up a clatter of disembarkation that could have been heard at Cape Cod.

      Makepeace moaned; there went secrecy. She met them on the jetty, looking for Aaron. A graceful civilian in a feathered hat was being bowed up the steps; the Lieutenant-Governor himself had come to recover his errant guest. For a man whose gubernatorial estate, like his own house, was in ruins, he retained a statuesque calm.

      She tried to waylay him: ‘Excuse me, sir …’ but was pushed aside by a soldier’s musket. The men were tense at having to land on what the last couple of nights had proved to be hostile territory. Nor did Makepeace’s face – which suggested she was welcoming the Mongol hordes – reassure them.

      She stood back until the last man had tramped past her. There was no sign of Aaron. She went inside, pushing her way through a taproom used to natural dyes and comfortable conversation and now ablaze with red and blue and metalled with gun barrels and iron-tipped boots. There was a new and harsher smell, gilt braiding, sweat, the wax they used on their belts and the sausage rolls of hair above each ear. Sir Thomas Hutchinson was embracing Dapifer like a returned prodigal son, ‘Sir Philip, we have been most concerned,’ and behind him, shifting from foot to foot, impatiently waiting to do some greeting of his own, was a sinuous little man clutching a hamper of clothes.

      She managed to struggle through the soldiery. ‘Excuse me. Where’s my brother?’

      The Lieutenant-Governor looked down. ‘Ale for these men, my good woman.’

      ‘Sir Thomas,’ Dapifer said, ‘I should like to present my saviour and our hostess, Miss Burke.’

      Instantly there was a bow. ‘Miss Burke, we owe you a debt of—’

      ‘Yes,’ said Makepeace. ‘Where’s my brother?’

      Dapifer explained. Sir Thomas declared himself at a loss; so did the officer in charge. A sergeant eventually said, ‘The lad as fetched us? Still rowing, I reckon. Came back in his own boat. We passed him.’

      Makepeace was comforted; it would take Aaron longer to cover the stretch of water from Castle William than for the swift launches of the army.

      ‘May the company be provided with the wherewithal to drink your health, Miss Burke?’ Sir Thomas was all charm.

      ‘Who’s paying?’

      He blinked. ‘I suppose I am.’

      While she, she supposed, ran a public house and was obliged to serve paying customers. Grumbling, she called Betty and the two of them went to the barrels.

      The writhing little man with the hamper saw his chance. ‘Now then, Sir Pip, we managed to rescue some of our habiliments from the ruin those savages made of poor Sir Thomas’s house. What a night, I thought our last hour … The whole town turned into cyclopses and swine! The language, my dear, and the nastiness …How I saved our things I’ll never know … and what have we been doing to our poor arm? And that coat? Never mind, I’ve brought—’

      ‘Not now, Robert,’ Dapifer said.

      Sir Thomas was explaining the size of the contingent he’d brought with him. ‘I’m deploying armed men round the town but if trouble breaks out again tonight, I shall have to ask London for troops. The Lord Percy is standing by to take my dispatches to England tomorrow. The first I sent went down with the Aurora, of course, but—’

      ‘What did you say?’

      Makepeace, glimpsing Dapifer’s face from the other side of the room, shoved a tankard into a waiting hand, and elbowed her way towards him.

      ‘… tactless and unthinking,’ Sir Thomas was saying. ‘My dear fellow, I’m so sorry. I should have told you at once. Yes, I fear she went down almost as soon as she got out of the bay – heat causes unexpected squalls in this part of the ocean and they say she was over-canvassed. They’ve found only wreckage, I fear, no survivors …’

      ‘Leave him alone,’ Makepeace said, moving in, but the man Robert was before her.

      ‘This way, Sir Pip.’ He looked round for an escape route, nodded as Makepeace pointed to the kitchen and guided his master to it.

      Sir Thomas, elegantly sad, watched them go. ‘Such a loss, Lord Ffoulkes. They were great friends, great friends.’

      ‘Broke it to him gentle, though, di’n’t you?’ snapped Makepeace and returned to the task of drawing and handing out ale pots, seriously considering the possibility that she and the Roaring Meg had been magicked into Hell. The last normality she could remember was pulling up lobster from the waters of the Bay forty-odd hours ago, as if her subsequent action had caused the earth to jump and shake disasters down on her head like rocks from an eruption. Day before yesterday her life had been neatly patterned, not happy perhaps – whose was? – but bearable, useful. Tonight, because she’d acted the Good Samaritan, she stood stripped of everything she’d previously counted good.

      And what in exchange? An ecstasy so acute that she suffered for the man who’d just been stricken as if they were twinned.

      ‘And now having to serve you buggers,’ she said, slopping another tankard into another fist. ‘Ain’t I lucky?’

      ‘I hope you are, miss,’ the redcoat said, fervently. ‘We was goddam thirsty.’

      ‘Don’t you swear in this house,’ she snapped at him.

      As СКАЧАТЬ