From Constantinople to Amsterdam, The Hague to Norfolk, and briefly to Whitehall to deliver the bulbs Ethan had given him. There, he was invited to the theatre to watch the latest play by Astrea and felt he couldn’t refuse. He found the play disturbing. While he thought it tragic, many in the audience found much to laugh about. He wished he had more time. There was much learned conversation to be had at court and he would have been interested to discuss the play, but he had his young, unwanted charge to consider. His self-imposed duty must come before his own interests. Besides, he knew himself to be very tired and he was not unhappy in the morning to turn his face at long last to home. If only he could walk in to find his son sitting in the kitchen, astonishing the servants with his escape. He could not avoid hoping. But there was no Abel waiting for him in the kitchen.
‘Where is Abel?’ asked Jane, as if Christopher might have him hidden in a pocket.
Christopher shook his head. He did not wish to explain his lack of success, nor the appearance of this lively, tousled cuckoo child. ‘This is Turlough. Please make him a bed in the attic, Jane. I have to make enquiries about his family, so I can return him to them, but I am so weary I must sleep before I can do any more.’
Sleep is what he did for many hours. He stepped into his familiar bed, noticing with pleasure how his furniture had been kept faithfully polished and the bed aired against his return. After so much salt water, mud and bone-aching jolting, it took him a little while to still himself. His body was soothed by the much-washed, butter-soft sheets, but his mind was still hearing the creak of the coach and the horses’ hooves splashing through the rain-soaked ruts. At last, the simple sounds of home entered his soul and he slipped, effortlessly, peacefully into sleep.
23
He woke late in the morning, luxuriating in being in his own bed. He stretched his long limbs out, smiling to himself as his toes met one of the familiar oak bedposts. There was something wonderful about being home. He felt safe, rested, and somehow his soul felt, if not exactly healed, at least soothed. Later he would think about the future. At the moment he was content to know that he had journeyed far, experienced much and had returned safe and well. Latterly, he had also faced some of his demons and won. Fate or God’s plan had sent him home via Holland to make his peace with Margarita’s parents. He had survived seeing his beloved’s face replicated in that of her mother. He had managed that difficult encounter and gone on to visit the very place in Norfolk where she had been laid to rest. Why had he spent so many years believing he would die if he had to go back? True, he had avoided going near the house. That still troubled him. The room where she died would always haunt him. But he had discovered his worst fear had no foundation. She had been buried in hallowed ground and, although his money had not stretched far enough to pay for a stone, the records could not lie. She was at peace and surely in heaven. With this knowledge, much of the weight he had carried for so many years dissolved into gratitude and relief.
He gazed up at the faded canopy of the old bed. For too many years guilt had infected the open wound that was his grief. Now, after more than a dozen years, perhaps he could begin to pardon his mistakes. He was tired, though rested – a dozen years tired. He felt tears leak from his eyes and turned over, letting them soak into his pillow. He wished her by him, but his grief was quieter now, less raw. There is no point in wanting anything from love. It is not a bargain. It is itself, and that is all. Anything else is a chimera.
She would not have agreed with that. She would have teased him, would have told him not to take life so seriously, she who was almost always merry. But she had been surrounded by love: her parents, friends, sisters and brother, and him. Everyone had loved her, even a king awaiting his crown. So, for her, love was something bounteous and it had been easy for her to shower a basketful over him, the shy, awkward young man by her side who wasn’t quite sure what he felt. She’d used it to make him happy, to see him laugh, which gave her pleasure. She had not experienced the loneliness of love.
He wiped his eyes. Into his head had flown the image of the young man he had shared a stable with during the war, when both had become separated from their regiments while foraging. What was his name? It had gone from him for a moment, though he would never forget the man. He remembered reading about his sad demise in a broadsheet Abel had brought him once. Abraham! Of course. That was it. Dear Abraham. There had been love in that one night. They had talked for hours and then lain down in the straw, trying to find enough space away from their horses’ hooves. They had taken off their coats and weapons, but kept them close, fearing discovery by the enemy. Christopher had fallen quickly asleep, but awoke in the night to find his companion’s arm thrown over him, breath close upon his neck. For the rest of that night they lay together, kissing, caressing, murmuring to each other in a sweet embrace. The next day they had both been shy. Christopher had wanted to give his companion a farewell kiss, but somehow, they had found themselves leading out their mounts, booted, with swords at their sides and neither had quite dared. Christopher had wished so many times that they had met again, wondering if Abraham had felt the same. He had told himself for years, when he happened to recall it, that their coupling had been no more than mutual comfort, sought in a time of war, but that had not been the whole truth. There had been something good about it, something that answered a question in his heart. Given a chance, he was sure there could have been a deep love between them, and today he found he could now at last admit that to himself. If he was unnatural to have found love with both a woman and a man then let the world condemn him, but he could not hate himself. Both had places in his secret heart and it was a kind of solace to him to admit it. These past few days had brought him to a reckoning, he supposed, and closer to a kind of peace about much that had happened in his life. He was letting much of the painful past go, making more bearable the unresolved loss of his son.
He sat up. A few of his books lay next to the bed. They were other companions he had missed, but before his outstretched arm could pick up the Donne, a sound floated up to him that had him instantly alert, his heart pounding with sudden joy and excitement. He was half out of bed before his brain caught up. He had in that moment forgotten Turlough, but it was that child whose voice he could hear in the garden, playing with the dog the inn had acquired in his absence. He sat back upon his bed to catch his breath. It was time he took hold of the day. There was much to do.
But there was not so much that Christopher needed to do. Since the dramatic downfall of Daniel Johnson and his family, there were no more sleepless nights, fearing attack. They were still poor, but life had been harder. Dario had changed from an anxiety-driven smuggler village to one that dozed in the righteous afternoon sun. Jane and William were more than capable of running the inn, although since Christopher had been shot and then been away, much of his garden had run to weeds. Only the vegetable plot thrived under William’s care. It was too late in the year to sow seeds, but Christopher hacked back the rampant undergrowth and cleared a plot for the few bulbs he had kept back from Ethan’s gift.
He spent no time with the little boy, leaving him entirely to Jane. It wasn’t that he didn’t care. He had bought him clothes, food and a passage to safety. He had even tried to comfort the child when he was fearful. But Turlough did not belong with him and Christopher did not want him. He had rescued a boy because he had been forced into it. Of course, he was glad that one less child should suffer, but given that Abel had not been there, who was to say that his choice was right? Had another boy been more deserving? Or with more potential? Could one he had left there have been capable of being the next Harvey, or Homer, or Raphael? These questions were unanswerable, and he told himself he was foolish to entertain them, but he couldn’t avoid them passing through his mind. Even if he had become fond of this particular child, the questions would remain, but he had not. Turlough was an unwanted obligation to deal with, and deal with it he would, even though he found the mere sight of him at the inn unbearably painful
. Every favour shown to the child by Jane wrenched at his heart because Abel was not there to receive it.
He had almost convinced himself that, because of his age, Abel would have been spared mutilation, but that led to more fevered speculation. He had now been to the East. He had seen a slave market and heard terrible stories of the treatment slaves could suffer. He knew it likely that his son would be worked to death on a farm or a building site, if he had not already died. It broke his fragile heart to know that he had perforce rescued the wrong boy, but in spite of that he still had a job to complete and could not allow himself to falter until it was done. In lieu of saving his own son, he must finish the task of returning another’s to his family.
Before tackling his garden, Christopher had written in haste to the village priest of the place where Turlough told him he belonged, but even after he had laid waste to the weeds, planted the bulbs and made plans for the next year he received no reply. He had written in English, having no knowledge of the Irish language. Perhaps he should have written to the priest in Latin. He knew nothing of Ireland, other than it having always been a troublesome land, which Cromwell had failed to tame.
Jane and William had saved some small store of money from their judicious running of the inn so there was enough to pay for Turlough’s passage home and for Christopher to accompany him. For, as he told them, ‘Having brought him all this way I cannot now but finish his deliverance in a proper manner. I cannot allow such a young child to travel alone nor will I be comfortable until I see him properly restored to his family.’
He suspected that the money had been saved to pay for a suitable homecoming feast for Abel, but he could not help that. Leaving the child at the inn, Christopher went to Chineborough in search of a ship and information. He was pleased to discover a lively trade in sheepskins and leather goods between Cork and Chineborough and, if he was not too particular, passage could easily be found. Turlough had mentioned Cork as his home and so this seemed ideal. Christopher paid for their passage and went home to make ready for the journey. Turlough was overjoyed.
‘I will see my dog again!’ he said, stroking the ears of the dog that lived at the inn. ‘And my ma.’
He hugged Jane, who over the course of a few days he had already become fond of, and William shook him seriously by his little hand. Christopher almost objected when Jane packed an overly generous number of honeyed cakes for the journey. He couldn’t help recalling that throughout Abel’s young life such things had been beyond their getting, though since Turlough’s arrival it seemed they could afford a comb for the kitchen. He knew he was being unfair. The Rumfustian was doing better and it was natural, he supposed, for a woman like Jane to want to fuss a child, but it was hard to know that his son had been denied such things. He managed to hold his tongue because in his heart he knew that Jane would have lavished much more than honeyed cakes on Abel, should he have returned. Indeed, that honey had probably been bought in the expectation of his son’s rescue.
The wind was favourable and the journey not too irksome. In truth, Turlough’s excitement infected Christopher at least a little. Having seldom crossed the sea before his voyage to Constantinople he found he had become something of a sailor and that it agreed with him. His exile as a young man in Europe had made him wish never to travel again, but now, to his surprise, he found he was enjoying another journey. With his new-found confidence, Christopher hired a horse and obtained directions to the small fishing village near Cork from which Turlough had come.
‘But you’ll not find a soul there,’ the owner of the stables told him. ‘Since it was raided by pirates some while back, no one lives there any more.’
‘There must be some who avoided capture,’ said Christopher. ‘I am come to return this child who was taken to Constantinople and who I was able to release. Surely he will have family there still?’ He felt his heart sinking, as Turlough’s mouth turned down and tears rolled from his eyes.
The man looked at Turlough and then back at Christopher with both astonishment and scepticism. ‘What’s his name?’
The child answered for himself. ‘Turlough O’Reilly.’
The man began to speak to him in his own language, and Christopher waited, trying to remain patient. ‘There are O’Reillys farming inland from the village,’ the man told Christopher at last, gazing at him with more respect. ‘They may know what happened to his parents or be prepared to take him in. Take the coast road west out of the city. Once you reach his village, turn inland. Do you have a pistol?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then keep it ready. English voices are not well received in the country. Get the boy to speak for you. That would be best. And look after the horse. I’d like him back.’
After the bustle of the city, the coast road was eerily deserted. Every small house they came to was empty. Christopher remembered what Ethan had said about the south coast of Spain, deserted because of the raiders. The people here had, perhaps, abandoned their homes because of the pirates, though he had heard tell that Cromwell had also terrorised this beautiful land not so many years ago.
When they reached his village, Turlough cried to be put down and so Christopher did. ‘Be careful,’ he warned, but the child ran heedlessly down the deserted street, past several smoke-blackened cottages, calling for his ma. Christopher followed slowly on the horse. At last the child came to his own home. It had not been burnt, but there was no sign of life. Several hooded crows flapped lazily away from a collection of old bones that lay near the threshold. The flesh and most of the skin had long gone, but the bones were about the size of a dog.
‘There’s no one here,’ said Christopher, anxious for the little boy not to recognise the bones as the remains of his pet. ‘We must go on to find your family.’
In later years, whenever Christopher had occasion to recall this search he remembered the bravery of the little child, who called out at every farm to protect Christopher and to ask about his lost family. All Christopher could do was to smile encouragingly at the suspicious people and hope for the best. No one spoke English or would admit to knowing the language. At the third little farm Turlough looked resigned.
‘This is my aunt,’ he said, not looking at the careworn woman at the door. Unshed tears filled his eyes, but he blinked them away. ‘She says she will be my ma.’
Christopher tried to ask Turlough gently about what he had discovered and whether he was happy to be left here, but it was beyond the child to reply. Instead, he wriggled to be put down and that action spoke for him. Christopher handed Turlough the remaining honey cakes, telling him to be sure to share them with the toddler who gazed up at them, his dark eyes huge in his grubby, pale face. He handed the woman the bundle of Turlough’s clothes, and, wondering whether to embrace the little boy or not, ended by giving him an awkward hug, which Turlough returned with embarrassing passion. Christopher found himself handing more coins than he could afford to the woman, hoping the gesture was not misunderstood, not being sure himself what he meant by it, except that the woman and her homestead looked even poorer than he had been at his most destitute.
He had not dismounted throughout the exchange and when he looked back after walking the horse a few yards from the house, Turlough and the woman had already disappeared inside. Christopher had done his duty as far as he possibly could. There had been a few scrawny chickens pecking at the door and a little red and white cow peering over a stone wall. He reminded himself that the family might have looked ragged to him, but there would be precious milk and eggs, and no doubt a dog or two around for Turlough to love. It would be a healthy life in this beautiful green countryside, back where he belonged.
Mindful that he now had no native to speak for him, Christopher urged his horse into a canter. When he regained the empty coast road, he allowed the beast to trot and arrived back in the city of Cork with no mishaps. There were plenty of English voices there and it was a simple matter to find lodgings for the night and passage home the next day. He was woken very early by
the unaccustomed noises of the port. Immediately, he recalled that night’s dream; indeed, it felt as if his waking had disturbed it, before it was quite ready to end.
He was in the theatre, but not in London, as recently. It was more like some country performance where everything was rough and unfinished, but he had never experienced such a thing in his waking life. The play was, he knew straight away, about him, but not seen from his point of view.
Centre stage, under a sign that read LONDON, the swarthy king was being restored to his rightful place after years of exile. Most of the audience cheered. He took the painted orb and sceptre and sat, careful to keep the ill-made throne from tilting. Far to the right, Norfolk lay, where Christopher, with theatrical gestures of affection, kissed the actor portraying his grotesquely pregnant wife. Lewd comments were offered by the audience, who were thoroughly enjoying the show. Mounting a hobby horse, Christopher galloped across the stage, pausing only to doff his hat as he passed the King. He arrived stage left at Dorset, where, before a painted coastline, seagulls jerked on strings, their joints creaking like mewing babies. Abandoning the horse, Christopher jabbed enthusiastically at the planks with a child’s spade, to mime finding at least some of the coins he had hidden with his father during the war. More cheers and laughter as, capering with glee, he stuffed the discovered money into a purse, into his pockets and even under his hat.
While the actor playing the King sat in state, bestowing gracious smiles on the audience, Christopher spilt money into the apron of a Dorset innkeeper. Soon, the man was staggering with exaggerated pleasure at his new-found wealth. He handed a model of his inn to Christopher, who tucked it under his arm before leaping once more astride his horse. He began to trundle back across the stage, urging his steed to ever greater effort by thrashing its wooden flanks with his hat. Their progress was slow. In spite of Christopher’s eagerness to rejoin his wife, he stopped in London to buy her ribbons, a hat and an embroidered pair of satin shoes – all of which he showed off to the audience as an infant might delight in showing his parent a pebble.
The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan Page 22