manners? But that, he realized now, was a Trevillian in complete control of a situation. The man had no genuine sinew, he was a fraud in every way.
“ ’Tis a fair offer, Richard,” said Willy Insell timidly.
“Very well,” Richard said, and got off the bed. “Dress yourself, Ceely, ye look ridiculous.”
Having scrambled any old how into his plush jade green outfit embroidered in peacock blue, Trevillian followed Richard into the back room and sat down at Annemarie’s desk. Hopeful that he would see a share in Richard’s windfall, Willy Insell followed; what Willy did not realize was that Richard had no intention of cashing any note of hand. All Richard wanted was to make the fellow sweat over the next few days at the prospect of losing ?500.
The note of hand for ?500 was made payable to Richard Morgan of Clifton, and signed “Jno. Trevillian.”
Richard studied it, tore it up. “Again, Ceely,” he said. “Sign it with all your wretched names, not half of them.”
At the top of the stairs the temptation was too much; Richard applied the toe of his shoe to Trevillian’s meager buttocks and sent him pitching down with a roll and a somersault, the noise of his body when it struck the flimsy board partition echoing like thunder. By the time he reached the tiny square of hall, Trevillian was yelling at the top of his lungs. No cool excise defrauder now! He tugged at the door and fell into the lane, weeping and howling, there to be succored by all the neighbors.
Richard shot the bolt and went up the stairs to Annemarie, but without Willy Insell, who scuttled down into his cellar.
She had not moved. Her eyes followed Richard as he crossed to the bed and picked up the hammer again.
“I ought to kill you,” he said tiredly.
She shrugged. “But you will not, Richard. It is not in you, even with the rum.” A smile tugged at her mouth. “Ah, but Ceely believed for a moment that you would. A surprise for that one, so confident, so full of himself, so fond of complicated schemes.”
He might have fastened upon this remark as betraying a more intimate knowledge of Ceely Trevillian than a chance encounter in a bed, but someone was pounding on the front door. “Now what?” he asked, and went downstairs. “Yes?” he called.
“Mr. Trevillian wants his watch back,” said a man’s voice.
“Tell Mr. Trevillian that he can have his watch back after I have had satisfaction!” Richard roared through the bolted door. “He wants his watch back,” he said as he re-entered the bedroom.
The watch was still lying on the window-sill, though the fob and purse had gone.
“Give it back,” said Annemarie suddenly. “Throw it out the window to him, please.”
“I’m damned if I will! He can have it back, but when I am good and ready.” He picked it up and examined it. “What a conceit! Steel. All the go, top of the trees, very dapper.” The watch went into his greatcoat pocket alongside the note of hand.
“I am out of here,” he said, feeling very sick.
She was off the bed in an instant, throwing on a dress, shoving her bare feet into shoes. “Richard, wait! Willy, Willy, come and help me!” she called.
Willy appeared as they reached the bottom of the stairs, face dismayed. “Here, Richard, what are ye going to do? Leave be!”
“If it is Ceely ye’re worried about, there is no need,” said Richard, stepping into the lane and inhaling fresh air deeply. “He ain’t here now. The performance stopped two minutes ago.”
He set off toward Brandon Hill, Annemarie on one side of him and Willy on the other, three vague outlines in the pitch darkness of a place not lit by any lamps.
“Richard, what will happen to me if you go?” Annemarie asked.
“I care not, madam. I did ye the honor of allowing Ceely to think ye were my wife, but I’d not have the likes of you to wife, and that is the truth. What will change for ye? Ye’re still in employment, and Ceely and I between us have seen to it that your reputation is pure.” He grinned mirthlessly. “Pure? Madam, ye’re a black-hearted whore.”
“What about me?” Willy asked, thinking of ?500.
“I will be at the Cooper’s Arms. With the Excise case still coming up, we have to stick to each other.”
“Let us see ye over the hill,” Willy offered.
“No. Take madam back to her house. It is not safe.”
Thus they parted in the night, one man and the woman returning to Clifton Green Lane, the other man striding off along the Brandon Hill footpath, heedless of its dangers. Mrs. Mary Meredith stopped outside her front door, glad she had arrived, but wondering at the fearlessness of the walker, whose companions had left him. They had been talking in low voices and had seemed on excellent terms, but who they were she had no idea. Their faces were invisible on this late September evening.
Too empty to be sick, Richard stumbled home feeling the rum far more than he had in the heat of that confrontation. What a business! And what was he going to say to his father?
“But at least I can say that the fire is out,” he ended a letter to Mr. James Thistlethwaite the next day, which was the last day of September, 1784. “I do not know what came over me, Jem, save that the fellow I met inside myself I do not like-bitter, vengeful and cruel. Not only that, but I find myself in possession of the two articles I want least in the world-a steel watch and a note of hand for ?500. The first I will return as soon as I can bear to set eyes upon Ceely Trevillian’s face and the second I will never present to his bank for payment. When I return the watch I will tear it up under his nose. And I curse the rum.
“Father sent a man over to Clifton for my stuff, so I have not set eyes on Annemarie, nor will I ever again. False from hair of head to hair of-I will not say it. What a fool I have been! And at six-and-thirty years of age. My father says I should have gone through an experience like Annemarie at one-and-twenty. The older the fool, the bigger the fool, is how he put it with his usual grace. Still, he is an excellent man.
“The business has made me understand much about myself I had no inkling of. What shames me is that I have betrayed my little son-thought not a scrap about him or his fate from the time I met Annemarie until today, when I woke to find her spell no longer upon me. Maybe a man has to have one fling of a sexual sort. But how have I offended God, that He should choose this time of loss and grief to try me in such a horrible way?
“Please write, Jem. I can understand that it might be very difficult to write in the aftermath of our news about William Henry, but we would all like to hear from you, and worry at your silence. Besides, I need your words of wisdom. In fact, I am in
But if Mr. James Thistlethwaite intended to reply, his letter had not reached the Cooper’s Arms by the 8th of October, when two sober-looking men in drab brown suits walked into the tavern.
“Richard Morgan?” asked the one in the lead.
“Aye,” said Richard, emerging from behind the counter.
The man came close enough to him to put his right hand on Richard’s left shoulder. “Richard Morgan, I hereby arrest ye in the name of His Majesty George Rex on charges laid by Mr. John Trevillian Ceely Trevillian.”
“William Insell?” he asked then.
“Oh! Oh!” squeaked Willy, cowering in his corner.
Again the hand on the shoulder. “William Insell, I hereby arrest ye in the name of His Majesty George Rex on charges laid by Mr. John Trevillian Ceely Trevillian. Come with us, please, and do not try to make trouble. There are six more of us outside the door.”
Richard held out his hand to his father, standing thunderstruck, and opened his mouth to speak before he realized that he had no idea what to say.
The bailiff dug him sharply between the shoulder blades with the same hand he had lain upon Richard’s shoulder. “Not a word, Morgan, not a word.” He stared around the silent tavern. “If ye want Morgan and Insell, ye’ll find them in the Bristol Newgate.”
PART TWO
