French whore-he would be off with his prayer book in one hand and a Roman crucifix in the other to do battle with one of Satan’s imps! For so he would regard her. Whereas I think she is just a meddler, and very attracted to Richard. Why can he never see that women fancy him? They do, Jim! You must have seen it for yourself.”
As both his bracket-faced spinster daughters had been in love with their cousin Richard for years, Cousin James-the-druggist had no hesitation in nodding emphatically a second time.
By the 27th of September Richard was soaked to the core in rum; when he received a note from Annemarie Latour saying that she was back in residence and dying to see him, he floundered from his chair and was off at a run.
“Richard! Oh, how marvelous to see you! Mon cher, mon cher!” She drew him inside, covering his face with kisses, took his hat and coat from him, purred and murmured and cooed.
“Why?” he asked, hanging back, determined this once to be his own man. “Why have I not seen you for a week?”
“Because Mrs. Barton has been ill and I have been with her-Willy should have told you. I asked him to tell you.”
“So far you have not dropped a single aitch,” he said.
“Because I have been with Mrs. Barton, ’oo-
Richard slumped onto the bed, feeling the rum. “Oh, what the hell does it matter, girl? I have missed ye and I am glad to be back. Kiss me.”
So they played at sex with lips, tongues, hands, wetness and fire, the sodden ecstasies of utter shamelessness. Hour upon hour, he upon her, she upon him, upside down, right way up, she fertile of imagination, he consumed to go in whichever direction she pointed.
“You are astonishing,” she said at the end of it.
His eyes were closing, but he summoned up a huge effort and kept them open. “In what way?”
“You stink of rum, yet you can still fuck-that is a
“You would know, my dear.” He grinned and did close his eyes. “It takes more than a few pints of rum to knock the stuffing out of me,” he said. “I have lasted a great deal longer than John Adams and John Hancock.”
“What?”
He vouchsafed no answer; Annemarie lay back against the soft pile of pillows and gazed at the ceiling, wondering how she was going to feel when this was over. When Ceely had persuaded her-assisted by several rouleaux of golden guineas-to seduce Richard Morgan, she had stifled a sigh, taken the money and reconciled herself to however many weeks of boredom. The trouble was that she had not been bored. For one thing, Richard was a gentleman. Which was more than she could say for that two-faced, double-gaited monster Ceely, who by profession called himself a gentleman yet would not have recognized one on the street.
What she had not counted upon was the victim’s attractiveness (to herself, however, she called it beauty). On the surface, a drab and genteel ordinary man of Bristol with no pretensions to fashion and no ability to turn heads. Then when first he smiled at her he seemed to whip a veil from his face, was suddenly strikingly handsome. And beneath the clothes of the time, designed to make all men look paunchy, round shouldered and sway backed, lay the physique of an ancient Greek statue. He hides, she thought, groping after the English adage, his light under a bushel. It is there only for those with the eyes to see. What a pity that he has never valued himself enough to stand forth. A superb lover. Oh yes, superb!
How then might she feel when all this was over? Not long now, depending upon how malleable Richard was- Ceely wanted it done soon, and the rum would be a great help. Her own part, she suspected, was a minor one, and she would never know the outcome. But playing that part meant goodbye to Ceely and to England. Her looks were still at their peak, she could pass for twenty even though she was thirty; between what Ceely would pay her shortly and what he had already paid her over the course of four years, she would be able to quit this country of dirty pigs and go home to her beloved Gironde, there to live like a lady.
For an hour she dozed; then she leaned over and shook Richard awake. “Richard! Richard! I ’ave an idea!”
His head felt swollen and his mouth was parched; Richard got off the bed and went to the white pitcher in which Annemarie kept small beer. A good beaker of that and he felt a little better, though he knew it would be several days before he cleared the rum from his system. If he stopped drinking it. But did he want to?
“What?” he asked, sitting on the bed, head in his hands.
“Why do we not set up house together? Mrs. Hale downstairs is moving out and the rent for two floors is only half a crown a week-we could move our bedroom down so there are not as many steps, and put Willy up here or in the cellar. His rent would be a help-he pays a shilling. Oh, it would be so nice to ’ave a proper establishment-do say yes, Richard, please!”
“I have not got a job, my dear,” he said through his hands.
“But I ’ave-
He took his hands away from his face and looked at her.
“I could say we were married, that would make it respectable.”
“Married?”
“Just to satisfy the neighbors, cher Richard. Please!”
It was difficult to think, and the small beer was making him feel a little sick; Richard grasped the proposition and turned it over in his befuddled mind, wondering if this might not be the best way. He was outwearing his welcome at the Cooper’s Arms-or else the Cooper’s Arms was outwearing him. “Very well,” he said.
She jigged up and down on the bed, beaming. “Tomorrow! Willy is helping Mrs. Hale move today, then he can help me. Tomorrow!”
The news that Richard was leaving stunned his parents, who looked at each other and resolved to say nothing against it. His consumption of rum between coming home and going to bed was greater than ever-if he transferred himself to Clifton he would have to pay for at least a part of what he drank.
“For I cannot deny my own son what he has here,” said Dick.
“You are right, it is too readily available,” Mag agreed.
So Dick lent him the handcart in which they fetched sawdust and provisions, watched a grim-faced Richard load two chests upon it. “What about your tools?”
“Keep them,” said Richard tersely. “I doubt I will need those kind of tools in Clifton.”
The house in which Mistress Latour and Willy Insell lodged was the middle one of three conjoined premises on Clifton Green Lane not far from Jacob’s Well. That the edifice had once been a single dwelling was patent in the narrowness of the stairs and the rough partitions which divided it into three separate sections, thereby increasing the rents. The boards did reach the ceilings, but were typically slipshod-full of gaping cracks and thin enough to hear a woman’s voice shrilling next door. Annemarie’s garret rose alone like a single eyebrow and had afforded a great deal more privacy, Richard now discovered as he surveyed her fine bed in its new location one floor down.
“Our lovemaking will be rather more public,” he said dryly.
A Gallic shrug. “All the world makes love, cher Richard.” Suddenly she gasped and reached into her reticule. “I forgot! I ’ave a letter for you.”
He took the folded sheet and stared at the seal curiously; not anyone’s he knew. But the front was clearly addressed-by the copperplate hand of a scrivener-to Mr. Richard Morgan.
“Sir,” said the letter, “your name has been drawn to my attention through the kind services of Mrs. Herbert Barton. I believe that you are a gunsmith. If this be true, and you are able to furnish good references and perhaps demonstrate your skills in my own presence, then I may have employment for you. Kindly present yourself at nine of the clock to my establishment at 10, Westgate Buildings, Bath, on the 30th of September.”
It was signed, in a shaky, unschooled hand, “Horatio Midder.” Who on earth was Horatio Midder? He had thought he knew the name of every gunsmith between Reading and Weymouth, but Mr. Midder was new to him.
“What is it? Who is it from?” Annemarie was asking, trying to peer over his shoulder.
