Following some idle train of thought, my mind turned to the woman on the pony who had spoken to me about the river. What colour were her eyes? I had a picture of her face in my mind: her eyes were green, but not like Susannah’s, which sparkled with merriment. The woman’s eyes were a serious, dark green that did not provoke laughter, but only calm. (And the bosom! Like enormous blancmanges!—guiltily, guiltily I thought of burying my face in it, and other such embraces. Do better, man! Think instead of her kind voice, and her natural manner! And yet a woman’s body contorted before my eyes.)
There was a growing pain in my belly I had tried to ignore, but which had grown more and more persistent as I travelled. I became hot, and perspiration sprouted from my forehead. I went on confusedly, lost alternately in thoughts of the river-woman and a sorrowful fixation upon the gymnastic rabbit pie in my belly. I remembered the Urchin at the Royal once more and resolved to pay him the penny I owed him for his advice regarding the rabbit pie on my return journey. I thought that I really ought to take Urchins more seriously. No doubt they were worldlier than I.
It was on a long and sheltered stretch of road that I found myself compelled to halt Tigris with some urgency. She was too clod-headed to immediately obey my command, and so I half climbed, half tumbled from her as she wandered to a lazy stop. Sweating in hideous profusion, I catapulted the rabbit pie from me in two unspeakable ways. There was I, base human, in foul torment amongst the trees, as little jewelled birds hopped merrily beneath overhanging branches. Wiping my poor face with my handkerchief, which I looked at, then dropped in disgust, I staggered some little way farther into the trees, and undressed to sacrifice my undershirt for a viler Purpose I shall not here describe. Oh, shameful secret! My hands trembled so I could hardly button my shirt once again. The earth was hard, and I could not bury the undershirt, and so I folded it as neatly as I was able and left it by the discarded handkerchief as I wavered my feeble way back to Tigris. She was plucking with rubbery lips at a bush and demonstrating very little sensitivity to my bodily horrors.
My mother would not have approved of my leaving my soiled things there. Indeed, I did not approve of it either, but I felt so weak, and wished only to be gone. The rain will wash them, I said to myself, and someone will find them, and I wish that person well of them. Thus did I justify leaving such disgusting items for another to find.
I had no sooner pulled myself back into the saddle gone dark with rainwater than I espied a man on horseback waiting right ahead of me, quite in the middle of the road. I had been so downcast I had not seen him at all until I had the advantage of Tigris’s height. My first feeling was embarrassment, and a hope that he had not heard the horrible experience of the dual expulsion of bad not-rabbit from my guts. Was this my Cannibal, who had somehow acquired a horse? I should be ashamed if it were he. But I could see the man was not hairy enough. Indeed, though his face was shadowed, in fact it was Beasley, the rough man from the Royal, atop the fine grey horse I had seen tethered there. I urged Tigris to a walk and tried to turn her back the way we had come. Beasley slid a hand inside his coat. I wiped my damp brow with my coat sleeve and cast a longing look at my filthy handkerchief, which I could just see through the trees.
‘Halt, man! I do not wish you any harm,’ Beasley called. ‘Only come here and let us talk.’
I urged Tigris on, away, but the stupid Creature made the unwise choice to sidle to the roadside to nip at the bush once more. I did, with some tugging, eventually convince her to go forwards, but Beasley had had all the time he required to come at quite a leisurely pace close enough that I could count his eyebrow hairs. All I could think of at that moment was—my God, he is an ugly man! He had a great, jutting brow, topped with a single eyebrow creeping from ear to ear. His chin was identical to his forehead, only upside down, and his beard a thick hairy line, like the eyebrow, so the effect was of a man with his face half underwater, and reflected back up at him. This ghoulish Creature kept one hand loosely upon the reins, and the other inside his coat.
‘You are ill,’ he said.
‘Any man might become ill,’ said I, proudly.
‘It is dysentery.’
‘It is rabbit pie.’
‘Ah!—from the Royal. So much the worse,’ he said, smiling. ‘The woman does not use rabbit, you know. Still, I’m glad to hear you don’t carry a contagion.’
‘Is dysentery a contagion?’ I asked.
‘Is it not? When one man falls ill with it, his fellows fall ill with him. Therefore, it is a contagion.’
‘Unless it is caused by some influence they all share in common, like bad water, which is what I am led to understand is the case.’
‘Perhaps you are led to understand wrongly. Scientific Discourse aside, if it is not dysentery, then I shall not become ill from your things, and so I am glad.’
‘You should not become ill from them, anyway, for you have no cause to be near them,’ I said. ‘Who are you to speak to me?’
‘In fact, who are you?’
‘A traveller,’ I said. ‘An honest Englishman. Can you say the same?’
‘Why should I wish to?’ he asked, and then said, ‘Oblige me.’
‘How do you expect I might oblige?’ I asked.
‘Well, I put it incorrectly. Actually, it is I who will oblige you. Do you know,’ he said, with a conversational air, ‘your horse is stolen?’
‘No—no, she is not!’ I said. ‘I bought her this morning—indeed—there are Witnesses to this.’
‘Oh, I am sure there are,’ he said. ‘It was a German fellow, was it, who sold it to you?’
‘Yes, he was German …’
Beasley gave a great shout of laughter. ‘That is my dear Engel. He is a thief—or, well, not a thief, but deals with thieves. He is a dealer of stolen horse-flesh. Very well-known as such. I suppose you bought her hastily, in some dark alley?’
I felt the slow creep of dread sucking away the urgency of my fear, leaving something insidious worming about within me. ‘Even if you are correct, sir,’ said I, ‘and I have made a mistake, it is an innocent one, and no just Law would incriminate me.’
‘I sincerely do not know how you could be in this place and yet believe the Law has any aroma of Justice about it.’
Indeed, the lingering horror of the Chain-Gang I had witnessed upon that very road was with me still.
‘If I bought the horse fairly, and in good faith, and without knowledge she might be stolen, and if I surrender her to the authorities if asked, how can I be accused of any wrongdoing?’
‘Well, you know now the beast is stolen, and yet you ride it. Is that not wrongdoing?’
‘Forgive me, sir, but I have only your word for it that she is stolen,’ I said.
‘Why should I lie?’
‘You told me yourself you had no desire to call yourself an honest Englishman.’
‘Perhaps I am an honest Vandemonian.’
‘I have been given to understand there is no such thing.’
Beasley laughed once more. ‘You and your understanding of things!’
‘In any case,’ I said, ‘this trouble is mine, and has nothing to do with you.’ I thought once more of the river-woman’s deep green eyes and was bolstered by the memory of their sweet calm. ‘Permit me to go on.’
‘Oh! I shall, by and by,’ said Beasley. ‘This trouble of yours, as you acknowledge it is, is easily resolved, to the benefit of both. Let us come to an arrangement, like civilised men. You are in grave peril, sir, of Arrest and Confinement, if you are caught with such expensive stolen goods. And once you are arrested here—why, the road forks, and you are as likely to descend to degradation, Cannibalism and the gallows as ascend to Freedom and Landholding. I will take the beast from you, and you will be safe.’
I looked about me. ‘But if the danger is so great, why do you wish to take it on yourself?’
‘Well, I will have the horse.’
‘Then I might as well keep her, if she is worth having, as I have pa
id for her.’
‘No—you do not see. You are a stranger here, and have an air of Innocence about you, and Newness. I can profitably rid myself of the beast without recapture.’
‘But I will have neither the horse, nor the profit.’
‘What is Liberty worth to you?’
‘Come, sir,’ I said. ‘You will have nothing of me. Not even if you had offered to buy her! I have need of this horse.’ And I nudged Tigris to walk on.
Beasley removed his hand from his coat to show me a pistol. ‘Oh, just give me the fucking thing,’ he said.
My heart jumped into an enormous pounding that made my hands tremble. I had a pistol myself, in fact, but it was unloaded and buried deeply within my saddle-bag. I had, up until this moment, been toying with the idea of declaring myself a Pacifist and doing away with it altogether. Simpleton! ‘Take it away, man, take it away,’ I said. ‘Please, take it away.’
Beasley smiled and settled back into his saddle, bringing the pistol to his waist.
‘Point it away!’ I cried. ‘You will be sorry indeed if you shoot me!’ I do not mind reporting that I was fearfully agitated and most dreadfully frightened.
‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘I do not wish to do it. It would be a waste.’
‘I mean you will be arrested! There are two Soldiers very nearby—and a Gang entire of the most wretched convicts! They will hear the gunshot and I am sure there will be no escape for you!’
‘Oh, there just happen to be Soldiers abroad, just when you need them?’ he said. ‘That is exceedingly convenient, for your purposes, and not at all for mine.’
‘I passed them on my way here. They were digging a ditch, I think.’
‘Do I look like a Fool to you?’ he asked. The answer was, of course, No, but you do look like a Horse Thief, although I did not say it. ‘I did not see a Road Gang, and I was only an hour or two ahead of you on the road. Cheer up,’ he went on. ‘Some men have got no legs, or have dysentery. And look at you! Two good legs ending in two good boots! And not a hint of dysentery!’
This was madness. Did he want my legs and my boots, too? I slid ungracefully from the saddle and became entangled in the stirrup. As I hopped, Beasley kept the pistol coolly trained on me.
‘There,’ said I, at last. ‘Let me take my things, and I will leave you, and we will part in peace.’
‘What is in the saddle-bags?’ he asked.
‘Nothing of any value,’ I said. ‘A few poor items of clothing and a water bottle. Mere odds and ends.’ It was true; the things of value that I had—my coins, the portrait of Susannah in its golden case, my letter of credit, and the letter I carried for Maryanne Maginn from her elderly Relative, Mrs Prendergast—I carried about my person.
‘Where is your money?’ asked Beasley.
‘I have but little with me.’
‘How much?’
‘Look here, Beasley—and you see I know your name,’ I said. ‘Will you leave me with nothing?’
‘Show me your things,’ he said, and hurried me with his gun. ‘I am not unreasonable.’
I was thus obliged to take down my saddle-bags, clumsy with fear, and lay all my possessions upon the road. A pall of sorrow came over me as I beheld this pathetic scene: a pair of trousers; some woollen socks; a shirt; sundry personal items; some tobacco; my water bottle; a deck of playing cards with women in various states of undress and contortion printed upon them, much thumbed, which had been pressed upon me with the harpoons; my pistol, and such. All I called my own in that land, arranged upon the dirt!
As I had prepared to leave England, which I had done at some short notice, I had taken the decision to pack lightly. This was upon the advice of a Reverend who was introduced to me because of his past travels to the Southernmost Colonies. As such, after deep discussion with my father’s valet, who was lent to me for the occasion, I took with me one evening suit with tail coat, one morning suit, one afternoon suit, a new gabardine topcoat and my good fur overcoat, which I had had for years but which yet served me well. I brought only one pair of shoes for the evening, and one for the day, and a pair of sturdy walking-boots, one top hat, one broad sun hat, and the usual ties and cravats and personal items, as well as the items for sleeping and the toilette upon which I shall not elaborate. And yet this simple paraphernalia was diminished in one misbegotten night around a card table, after which I limped away with my two harpoons, and only the clothes upon my person and the very poor array described above left to me.
‘I will take those socks,’ Beasley said, jabbing his weapon at them. ‘And the trousers and shirt. And the tobacco. And the pistol. Why did you not have that to hand? You might have shot me, and kept your horse—fool. And the cards. You may keep everything else.’
It felt a disproportionate labour to pack my things once more and sling the bags over my shoulder.
‘Pass me that,’ he said, indicating the pistol. He took it into his dirty hand and gave it an expert looking-over, his stout fingers amazingly agile on the weapon. ‘Have you anything for it?’
‘What?’ I asked wearily.
‘Ammunition? Powder?’
‘I have not.’
‘What use is it then?’
‘At present, it is of no use.’
Beasley lifted his coat and tucked the pistol into his belt. I supposed he would find a use for it. ‘Your fur coat is very handsome,’ he said. I began to drop it from my shoulders, and he laughed. ‘Keep it, you soft ass. You shall be cold indeed to-night. And what are you carrying about your person?’
‘A little money,’ I said. I did not tell him of the Letters.
‘How little?’
I had grown so very tired. I removed my money-pouch and tossed it to him. ‘Take it.’
‘I had thought to let you keep it also, but very well,’ he said. ‘Take down these queer-looking irons from the beast’s saddle, and you may be on your way.’ By this he meant my harpoons.
‘You may keep those,’ I said. ‘I have done with them. I give them up to the Universe.’
‘I do not fucking want them, and neither does the Universe,’ he said. ‘Take them and go.’
I thought I had had hard times in my life before, but that moment was the culmination of all suffering for me: all the broken bones, the cuts, scrapes, scalds and illnesses, the heartache, the loneliness and the fears of my young life had left me standing in the road, rain in my boots, with my saddle-bags and harpoons over my shoulder, watching Beasley ride away, leading Tigris by her reins along the road towards the Chain-Gang and those two Soldiers.
‘How do you know the German?’ I called.
‘I supply him, from time to time,’ Beasley shouted back, and saluted me, and was gone.
I released good Tigris in my heart, and consigned Beasley to his fate.
The evening dragged over me. Slow as it was, I was slower still, burdened by bags and harpoons and sadness. What must have been outwardly a journey of some hours stretched into an eternity of torment for me. The sun succumbed to oily clouds, and my heavy step grew heavier and heavier, until at last it stopped, and I turned, and began to plod back the way I had come. I went painfully on, cursing myself with very hard words, until I returned to the place where Beasley had accosted me. I had thought I should have trouble finding it once more, but the handkerchief and undershirt I had abandoned glowed whitely in the darkening shadows. I bent, and took up the encrusted handkerchief, which Mamma had edged and embroidered with my initials in lovely and curling green thread, and turned and plodded once more northwards. I had thought I might wash the handkerchief in the river, but the trees had grown so thick I could scarcely even see it. Instead, I folded the fine white linen as tightly as I might, and buried it deeply in my coat pocket.
The mist coiled and surged around my knees, and the hills shrugged into night, slow waves of darkness blotting out the stars. The rain had softened into a fine mist. Perhaps Mr Green had been incorrect in his forecast of a worsening night.
The stars are fri
ends when one is from the countryside. Or they are reference points, if one is not amiably disposed to the sky. One often has little other diversion in the evenings than to look at them, unless one is excessively fond of parlour games, which I (rightly) am not. And it was the stars on my voyage south that had first truly indicated the strangeness of my journey. Night by night, I had watched my familiar old constellations wheel away and a strange spill flood in their place.
Although I knew it was not there, I looked for the North Star as I walked. Stars are not Indifferent Celestial Bodies, after all, but symbols of all the values and qualities we little persons create for them. I suppose, at that moment, I wished for something constant. Yet all I had were the freezing vaults of the southern sky, silver, green and black, and the moon, a worn coin. Think you the moon is constant? Not at all! The moon is capricious and changeable as—woman! my father would have said, but I do not like him, and am not like him, and so I say: the moon is capricious and changeable as the Economy.
The trees had slowly leant in once more until little of the hills remained. Night’s many limbs had unfolded and stretched and filled the spaces between the trees. I could see enough to put one foot in front of the other, but my Cannibal loomed in my mind saying, over and over, You Shall Be Eaten Alive by the Tiger-Wolf, for One. I distracted myself from this terrible fate for a time by furnishing the forest around me with the old familiar trappings from Home. I positioned Mamma’s red-and-gold-striped chaise longue by the way up ahead, leaves drifting down onto the silk. As I trudged past it, I said to myself, Well, I could rest myself here, but I have somewhere to be, and so I shall continue on instead. With my mind’s eye, I hung the dark portrait of Sir Edwin, my grandfather several times removed, upon a particularly large and gnarled tree, and put the hearth and mantelpiece from the library beneath it. However, this brought suddenly before me a vision of my father, positioned in his great armchair before that very hearth, where he was wont to rest and read and sip brandy in the evenings. The vision of my father gave me such a supercilious look I left off my imaginings at once, with a pang of shame.
A Treacherous Country Page 5