The market folk were ranged behind long trestle tables set in a double row down the center of the square, while the Jews occupied the choicest positions, close against the barrier between the market place and the prison yards, where they could easily carry on their traffic in obscene toys with the French prisoners, giving smuggled brandy and dirty books in exchange for the toys. To get these places they scrambled for them at the opening of the market, while the prisoners pressed against the railings and cursed them for the manner in which they crowded the women out of the way, sometimes even oversetting them and trampling on them in their anxiety to snatch the most desirable places.
On that morning, truth to tell, I saw none of them; I had eyes for nothing save the main entrance to the market from the moment when the double sentries at the gate, seeing the small frigate made of bone that I carried, admitted me to the mud and deafening racket of the great square.
I can hear now, as though I still stood waiting among them, the howling of the Jews, the bellowing of the Devonshire wood and charcoal and poultry sellers, and the wild, coarse voices of the fish-women, in particular of a terrible old woman with stringy gray whiskers, who wore a fisherman’s boots and jacket and a dragoon’s forage cap, brimless, and boasted of a wide knowledge gained in unsavory ways. She seemed to be at my elbow with her screaming. Move as I would, her voice sliced perpetually into my brain, making an agony out of the waiting that was a torment in itself; waiting that seemed to hover on the edge of eternity.
It came to an end when, above the heads of the yellow-clad French prisoners at the entrance, I caught sight of a small three-cornered hat, like the one my father wore as a captain in the last war. I could not see her face, what with the guards at the gate, and the elbowing countrymen and French émigrés; but something about the hat told me it was hers, so I was prepared to see her and armed against the making of any sign of surprise. I had it in mind, as soon as I caught sight of her, to go closer to the gate, so she might have less distance to walk through the black mud that covered the entire market square; but when she had come far enough through the gate to let me make out her face, I saw she had seen me at once, and I forgot about the mud.
The yellow-garbed scarecrow Frenchmen swirled around her, offering their small wares, and I feared it would be necessary for her to stop and speak with them; but they fell away before her and she came straight to me, a half smile on her lips.
I looked at the frigate I had brought her. My hands were shaking, and I knew I must be careful not to break it. When I lifted my eyes again I saw that her green riding habit was spotted with mud. There was a dab of mud, a small dab, on her cheek, which seemed to me almost as white as the face of the figurehead on the Lively Lady.
“It has a green dress,” she said, then. “Is it for me?” She drew a deep breath and added uncertainly, as if she had half forgotten it, “Richard?”
I nodded, being in two minds what to say in reply, and so saying nothing.
“May I see it?” she asked. So faint was her voice that I barely heard her, what with the screaming of the fishwomen, the braying of the donkeys and the yammering of the crowd. She took it from me.
With the little frigate gone, I felt freer to think about saying something; so while she studied it, I coughed and said, “I knew you’d come.”
She seemed lost in contemplation of the toy. I was conscious of a movement beyond her. When I looked more carefully I saw a small, thin, bowlegged man, and behind his shoulder the head of a dog that stared at me and moved his nose as a dog will when uncertain. It was my dog Pinky; and in the moment I saw him he leaped outward and was snubbed by a cord fastened to his collar, so that he swung in mid-air, scratching and scrambling. I ran to him and found he had leaped from a small wooden seat, like an inverted bracket, strapped against the bowlegged man’s back, near his waist.
As soon as I got him in my arms he spread himself against my chest to root at my neck with his cold nose.
“Well,” I said, when I had my hand around his muzzle, so he could only he against me, snorting and jerking his head in an effort to free himself, “what’s all this?” I was speaking to Lady Ransome, but she had toned away and gone to look at the donkeys tied against the high granite wall.
The bowlegged man grinned and touched his hat. “ ’E wuddn’t ’a’ fell off, sir,” he said, “for anything ’ceptin’ ’is marster. ’E’s rid there for near a fortnit nah, sir, like a bloomin’ lamb. ’E’s a grand little dog with the ’ounds: tikes to it like a cat to a ’erring. Reg’lar little lion, ’e is!”
Lady Ransome came back to us. “He’s safe with Captain Nason, Mark,” she said. “Unleash him and leave him.” She drew another deep breath. “Look after the horses, Mark, and I’ll come out soon.”
He touched his hat and slipped the leash from Pinky’s collar. “Please to remember, m’leddy,” he said, “them horses got to walk back, and this moor ain’t no place after dark.”
She made no answer, so he touched his hat again and went spraddling toward the entrance, the little bracket sticking out from his back as though he were off for a load of bricks.
She looked up, as if waiting for me to say something.
“What’s the sense of having him ride on that shelf?” I asked, though I didn’t care why he rode on it.
“Because that’s how we carry them,” she said, moving her shoulder impatiently. “When a terrier’s what he should be, he’ll never give in, but runs with the hounds till he wears his pads to the bone; so we carry him on what you call a shelf till the fox goes to ground.”
“Then what?”
“Then,” she said, “he’s tossed off, so he can go down after the fox and fight him out.” She looked at me quickly from the comers of her eyes. “Lud ’a’ mercy!” she added, “I think you must be studying to be an Englishman, so you can spend your life talking about dogs and horses.” She raised the little frigate above her head, studying its delicate bone planking, and again there came into my mind the thought of her pressed against the old beech beside our mill creek in Arundel, laboring to carve her initials on it. It seemed strange to me that with all this turmoil surging around us I should be conscious of nothing but peace.
“I knew you’d come,” I said, forgetting I had told her this already; but it seemed she had forgotten it as well, since she said, “Did you?” without ceasing her study of the frigate.
“Yes,” I said, and could recall not one of the things that at some far day in the past I had planned to say to her.
She looked at me quickly, then slipped off her gauntlet, undid a button in the front of her long-skirted riding coat, and brought out a small package. “This is yours, Richard,” she said. She placed it on the deck of the little cruiser so I could take it without being seen. “I didn’t—I don’t know—I’ve wished I’d never taken it from you.”
I knew what it was; and I stared at it, lying there. It seemed to me I had wanted this miniature back more than I had ever wanted anything.
“Don’t you wish it?” she asked, in her soft, husky voice.
There was almost a breathlessness to her laugh when I snatched it up and buttoned it into the pocket of my shirt, where it seemed to lie against my breast like greatly needed armor.
“I’ve hated it,” she said, “ever since I took it from you. You said it brought you luck; and when you lost it, you lost your luck as well.”
“No,” I said, “we sank the Gorgon.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, “but after that! Dartmoor!”
“Well,” I reminded her, “you’re here, and I’ve got it back. That’s luck.”
“I’d have given it back before you—before you fought,” she said, “or on the Granicus, but I couldn’t. There was never a chance.” She stamped her riding boot in the mud. “That awful Captain Parker! That awful Captain Wise! They never left me alone!”
“Was that what you meant when Sir Arthur bought Pinky and you made a motion with your hand?”
“What motion?”
> “Why,” I said, “you had your hand at your throat; don’t you remember?”
She put her hand to her throat, staring at me.
“Yes,” I told her. “Like that. You moved your fingers a little. There was a look in your eyes—I thought you wanted to say something to me.”
“La! How could you remember a thing like that?” She put her hand on Pinky’s head; and Pinky, twisting suddenly, brought our hands somehow together. The unexpectedness of it gave me a start, and I couldn’t blame her for hurriedly making adjustments to her hair with the hand that had touched mine.
Embarrassed, we stood and looked at Pinky.
“Well,” I said, when we had been silent overlong, “that night on the Granicus, in my berth, I’d have sworn I heard your voice close by my ear. When I tried to go to you in the morning I couldn’t. The sentry wouldn’t let me. I wanted to see you. I wanted—I wanted—”
“Yes,” she interrupted me. The huskiness was in her throat again. “I—I wanted you to have the miniature. I wanted you to know I felt badly, Richard. It was our fault. It was my fault. You’d be free now if—how could I know you’d—I’d never—”
“Look here,” I said. “Put these ideas out of your head! It was the fog. It was the fortunes of war. Nobody can tell what’ll happen in war times. If Rowlandson Drown had stopped to hang up his jacket before he came on deck, he mightn’t have been killed. Our mast might have been more stoutly fished, and we’d have got clean away. But Rowlandson wasn’t to blame for not hanging up his jacket.”
She raised her eyes to mine. They seemed to swirl like the swift water of the Arundel River on an August day.
“Don’t cry here,” I said. “Look at the green dress of this figurehead. It seems years ago that I first saw your green dress. It’s a beautiful color—green. Do you remember telling me I couldn’t pronounce the name of my own home?”
She smiled tremulously. “Of a Rundle!” she whispered. “I’ve learned a lot since then.”
“What have you learned?”
“Oh, la! I’ve learned Baltimore gentlemen are taught to fall in love at first sight, and why beech trees are planted in America.”
My thoughts skipped about, evading me. “Did you ride from Exeter this morning?”
“We were away before sun-up,” she said. I had a sudden picture of her, small and gallant in her saddle, outlined against a golden sunrise.
“For God’s sake,” I begged her, “tell me things I want to hear. The day’ll be gone before you know it.”
“What shall I tell you?”
“There’s something wrong with you. I see it in your eyes. You’re thinner. Your eyes are hurt all the time. If there’s—if there’s something in your life you can’t bear-”
At that she stood straighter and seemed haughty. “I think you misunderstand,” she said. “I came to-day to let you see your dog again and to ask if there’s anything I could do for you, because I had your acquaintance in America.”
“Well,” I said sadly, “there’s one thing you didn’t learn. Somebody should have told you an American can’t be made to feel like a whipped dog by calling him ‘my good man.’ ”
“What do you mean?” she asked. “How could I call you ‘my good man?’ I’d never say it.”
“It was in your voice,” I told her. “You were kicking me out of your way for saying something you thought presuming and too intimate.”
She stamped her foot. “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare! I kicked you out of my way! II” She stopped and looked at Pinky. “No,” she added, softly, so softly that I held my breath for fear a word might escape me, “no, Richard.”
“Well—” I said—“well—”
“It’s only that you don’t understand the English, Richard. I’ve had the thought that you think hardly of Sir Arthur, but he’s a fine honest man and a just man. He’s kind to animals, and religious, and it’s a great honor to be his wife.” I thought she flushed a little. “He’s a believer in Joanna Southcott. The newspapers are full of her prophecies, and he’s gone up to London to see her.”
“Has he?” I said feebly. Then, in spite of me, I laughed, and perhaps the laugh was unpleasant.
“Please be kind to me,” she said. “I’ve ridden a long way to see you, and now there’s so little time!”
I fear I laughed again, and more unpleasantly, but I was ashamed of it. “I’ll be kind in the way you mean,” I said. “I’ll make no words to trouble you.”
At that her under lip trembled; she was all compassion. “Strange, isn’t it?” she whispered. “Strange I should be asking you for kindness, poor prisoner!” Then she went on, speaking low and rapidly, “I can’t be very kind to you; I can only do what I can: that’s to bring your dog to see you and tell you a friend thinks of you, Richard. Your friend would help you get away if she could.”
I looked down at her little boots that were sinking in the mud. “I’m afraid you mustn’t stay much longer in this cold.”
She laughed ruefully. “The cold’s nothing, but there are pixies on this moor, and everybody says you mustn’t be caught on it after nightfall.”
“What in God’s name is a pixie?” I asked her, and regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. “Don’t tell me! I don’t want to know what a pixie is! Tell me something I can think of in this damned prison! How do you live? What do you do all day? Who do you talk to and what do you talk about?”
“No,” she said, “there are things I must ask. Do you know it was two years and three weeks ago to-day that I came to your house in Arundel?” She pronounced it “a Rundle,” like one of our Arundel people. “I’ve often wondered what the winters are like there? Is there a sweet smell to the air always?”
“Wait,” I said. “How can I—”
“There’s something I must say to you, Richard,” she said. “This little boat—”
“It’s a frigate.”
“I know,” she said, “I know, Richard. Some other time. You can teach me these things some other time. I want to know them. But this little boat: I must speak about this little boat. You bought it, didn’t you?”
“Well,” I told her, “that’s one thing to be thankful for. My mother made me promise to carry money in a belt whenever we chased a sail, and by the grace of God it hasn’t been taken from me. The little frigate is nothing. It’ll remind you of American sailors.”
She nodded and looked at me strangely, and in some way I knew she had next to no money with her: that the horse-faced Sir Arthur allowed her to have none.
“Now,” I said, “here’s something. No letters go out of this prison without being opened. Can you write my mother for me?”
“I’ve written already,” she said. “I’ll write her again.”
“Tell her I’m well. Tell her I’ll be home again some day—perhaps sooner than she looks for me.”
“Ah, I hope so!” She leaned close to me, bending her head over Pinky’s. Then, tousling him with her fingers, “Listen,” she whispered, “I’ve wrapped a map in your package. It’s forty miles to Exeter. There are press gangs at Plymouth and Teignmouth, and a watch is kept at Tor Bay; but Mark Tate, that man who carried Pinky, is a good man. He’ll do anything for me. He takes his beer at the Goose with Three Heads, near Ransome Hall, almost in Exeter. It was Mark who brought the letter here. If you can reach him—”
“No,” I said quickly, and in as low a voice as hers, “I’m planning with a Frenchman. I think it’ll come about that way, through France: through France; but you know how I thank you, and I’ll keep the dear map, as I keep the little picture.”
At that I think she was disappointed, and yet glad I had better plans than hers. She sighed. “I fear your friend is useless to you, Richard.”
I made bold just to touch her hand. “You haven’t told me what you do all day and what you--”
But at that I saw the man Mark Tate close by us.
“Beggin’ pardon, m’leddy,” he said, shooting an apologetic glance at me, “but
it’s gettin’ on in time. This moor ain’t no place after dark, m’leddy, an’ we’m near to forty mile to make. Hard going too, m’leddy, the first of it.”
“Yes, Mark,” she said. “Take Pinky. I’ll follow in just a moment; in just a moment, Mark.”
He took the dog from me, touched his hat, and spraddled away. Pinky, squirming in his arms, got his forepaws on Mark’s shoulder and stared back at me, his brow wrinkled and his ears held high. He whined sharply.
She fumbled with her gauntlet. “I suppose I may never see you again.”
“That might be,” I said.
She gave me her hand. It was as cold, almost, as a bit of ice.
I wanted to say more to her. It seemed to me we were standing there together in the mud, waiting for me to find words to say to her; but I could not even speak a farewell, and only formed “Goodbye” with my lips.
I swallowed hard and tried again. “Emily!” I said. “Emily—” But I could get no further.
She turned a little from me, and my eyes clung hungrily to the picture of her that was within them—her little figure straight as a lance in her three-cornered hat and her wide-skirted coat and her riding habit looped up on her hip, out of the way of her small muddy boots.
“Ah, thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you!”
She drew her hand from mine, smiled as though we had met for a moment on the street; then turned and left me.
XXV
THERE were prisoners packed against the railing between the prisons and the market place on the morning of the twenty-first of May: prisoners peering from the end windows of every prison house, and crowded on the prison roofs; for on that day the first draft of Frenchmen, five hundred of them, passed through the iron-studded gates and down the road toward Plymouth; and if there’s a sight to make a man sick and desperate, it’s to see others march away to freedom while he stays behind.
The Lively Lady Page 25