Peter Wicked

by Broos Campbell

  Dick shook his head. “Doesn’t say. It’s just the one paragraph.”

  “Oh, for—it isn’t illegal,” said Mr. Towson. “Not in this state, begod! Good gracious, what’s this world coming to where a man can’t defend his honor without having to answer to trumpery? It’s a disgrace.”

  “I don’t believe it,” I said. “Crawley must’ve provoked him some awful.”

  Dick snorted. “Him! He probably figured that Wickett only fought Billy because he couldn’t get out of it. If he provoked him because he didn’t guess he had the stomach for it, it serves him right.”

  “That’s downright uncivil,” said Mr. Towson.

  “For shame, Dick,” said Mrs. Towson. “You ought to send him your best desires for a speedy recovery.”

  “You’re right,” said Dick. “I’ll send him a basket of oysters.”

  Arabella giggled. “June hasn’t an R in it. It’s no month to be eating oysters.”

  “All the more reason to send ’em,” said Dick. He went back to reading his paper.

  One good thing about it all, I thought: They wouldn’t be desiring Peter to return if they already had him in custody. I let the others talk. I watched Arabella watching Douglass, and I listened to him mewling when the conversation outdistanced him, and braying when he managed to catch a hold of it. She smiled at him with her lips half open, full and moist and shining in the light from the window, as if she was so enraptured by him that she couldn’t remember to close her mouth, and giggled at his jokes, and carried on so transparently that I wondered he didn’t tumble to it. But even Mrs. Towson listened politely while he nattered on about himself, and Greybar was a gray puddle of fur in his lap. Arabella had let go of my hand long since. I couldn’t wait to head out for Kentucky. I guessed maybe I’d better talk to Elver Towson again about money; maybe he’d have some ideas. At any rate I guessed I’d go in the morning, and Arabella could go hang.

  And then I ran into her in the upstairs hallway on my way to bed. She slowed as I passed, and her hair smelled like cedar.

  “If someone were to walk in the garden at midnight,” she whispered, “he might find something that would please him.”

  When the clock at the top of the stairs had whirred and clonged twelve times, I rinsed my face and teeth at the washstand, picked up my shoes, and crept into the corridor. I held my breath as I passed by Mrs. Towson’s room. A faint light came from beneath the door, and through the panel I heard Mr. Towson’s voice mingled with his wife’s. I grinned in the dark. “Go it, you old goat,” I whispered as I drifted down the stairs, thinking of Mrs. Towson instead of Arabella, till I remembered the mission I was on.

  Half a crescent moon peeped over the trees to the west. Crickets in the bushes stopped in midsong. I crept across the veranda and down the steps to the garden. I walked on the herbs that lined the path so as not to crunch on the oyster shells.

  An owl screeched from the other side of the house. It screeched again as it passed overhead and swooped toward the bay, a ghost in the rising mist. The crickets began chirring again as I stood there. Down in the cattails a late shorebird gibbered.

  The marble benches by the magnolia were soaked with dew. I put my foot on one, with my elbow on my knee and my chin in my hand, looking toward the bay but seeing nothing out there but a pale halo where the moon had dipped below the horizon. It faded. I turned to go.

  A shadow came toward me—Arabella in a dark cloak. She looked back toward the house, then at me, and then fumbled at her throat. Her cloak fell away and she put her arms around my neck and my hands were around her waist, her skin exquisitely warm beneath the thin muslin of her nightdress. Her breath was in my ear. She bit my ear and I kissed her throat and the sound of her kissing my ear snapped in my head. I put my left hand on her hip with my thumb in the depression by her belly, and I could feel soft curls there through her nightdress. My right hand pressed into the small of her back and then ran over the smooth muscles and the base of her spine and out over the excruciating curve of her buttocks. Before I knew what I was doing, my fingers slid into the warm furrow between them. Her breasts pressed against my chest and through my shirt I could feel her nipples hardening. I put my left arm around her lower back and with my right hand I lifted her thigh. She twined her legs around me, and her arms were still around my neck and her lips sucked on my lips and my tongue, and her hair smelled like the cedar box someone had brought me once, one of Phillip’s captains had brought it to me all the way from Tangiers, but she smelled like something else entirely, not entirely sweet but delightfully brown and rich and smelling like the sea and it was the most wonderful thing I had ever smelled.

  Shocked weren’t in it—I was scared. But I didn’t want to be anywhere else, I tell you. I turned and set her on one of the marble benches, her bare feet slipping at first, and she knelt on the bench and her mouth was still melting into mine but now she could run her hands over my body and she thrust my shirt open and ran her nails excruciatingly down my chest and I wondered who she’d done this with before.

  “We oughtn’t,” I said. Her nightdress was up around her thighs, and my hand was sliding around like butter in a skillet.

  “That’s so,” she breathed. “We really mustn’t.” She took my hand and pressed it deeper into herself. It was like getting a handful of hot custard. Then she squirmed away from my fingers and stepped off the bench. She came around it toward me, and as I wrapped her in my arms she turned her back to me.

  I reached around her and cupped her breasts. The nipples were like thimbles under my palms.

  She grabbed my hands and held her elbows tight against her sides and folded her arms, trapping my hands.

  “Sorry,” I said. I tried to take my hands away but she held onto them.

  “Nothing to be sorry about.” She said it resigned, like she suffered from hurts I couldn’t begin to fathom.

  “I guess you’re in love with Roby Douglass.”

  “I hate him.”

  “Then make him leave.”

  “Silly! I shall marry him.”

  I pulled free and tucked my torn shirt back into my waistband.

  She tilted her head back and leaned against my chest. She looked up at me. “I thought you knew.”

  “I had an idea we was going to be married.”

  “Oh, what a lunkhead you are.”

  “Me!”

  “Shhh!”

  A light flickered upstairs behind Mrs. Towson’s curtain. A figure moved against the light, and then withdrew as Mrs. Towson’s voice rose angrily. The words weren’t clear, but I could hear the tone of it just fine. She was delivering an ultimatum of some sort.

  “So that’s what you’ve been playing at,” I whispered. “That’s why your father’s been treating me so. I couldn’t understand his reserve before, but now I see. He played a joke on me today. He had me in his study to discuss a little business proposition. He told me you and Douglass was going off riding. He meant for me to catch you. I wondered why he laughed when he said it. Well, I see the humor in it now.”

  She had gathered up her cloak again and pulled it around herself. “Don’t be beastly. Do you have any idea how hard it is to fall off a sidesaddle? On purpose, I mean, without breaking your limbs?” She wiped at her eyes.

  “What in the tarnel hell has got into you, Arabella Towson?”

  She shivered. “You—I thought—You’re nearly broke, and—”

  “I have some prize money.”

  “You don’t have a position. The navy doesn’t want you after the scandal you caused with the duel—”

  “The scandal I caused!”

  “And your family’s business is nearly bankrupt. Everybody knows—”

  I squawked.

  She held a frantic finger to her lips.

  “Hush.” She looked up at the house, but all was dark and quiet. “Well, I don’t know who caused the scandal, dear sweet Matty, and I don’t care. But you can hardly expect me to marry you with that cloud over your head
.”

  “Then why did you ask me to meet you here?”

  She leaned harder against me. “Because . . . I love you.” She used a little-girl voice.

  I stepped away from her, and she fell on her rump.

  “Oh!” She sniveled for a while. Then she wiped her eyes, straightened her back, and said, “Then I must get Papa to shoot you, or Dickie.” She waved her hands around. “I mean, get Dickie to shoot you, not get Papa to shoot Dickie. Here, help me up.”

  I pulled her to her feet. “You do love me.”

  “I do not.” She passed the back of her hand across her nose.

  It would be a grand gesture to kiss her tears away. Snot shone on her upper lip.

  I spent the night on the dock, looking at the fog and listening to the bullfrogs groaning in the marsh.

  Saying good-bye was harder than I thought it’d be, not just because I hated to leave when things was getting interesting but because it had begun to dawn on me that striking out on my own down the Mississippi, with no prospects before me but a vague idea of finding a place for myself in the western wilderness, was ridiculous. Even Dick had said it was a crazy idea, and he was usual up for all kinds of foolishness. Elver hadn’t mentioned money again, and I didn’t guess he would unless I brought it up first.

  I found Roby Douglass around the side of the house. He was alone for once, and happier than a dog with two tails when I told him the news. “Good!” he said, “that’ll save me the trouble of calling you out. I feared I would have to before long. I’m a crack shot, you know. I only restrained myself on Arabella’s account.” He clapped his hands like it was his birthday. “Oh, the insults I endured! But that’s all in the past, old man. I can be big about it. Yes, sir. Put ’er there.”

  I submitted to his clammy handclasp and smiled while I did it. Him with his rash of pimples and his furry teeth—I didn’t know who I was sorrier for, him or Arabella. I looked down at Greybar, who was bonking his head against Douglass’s ankles.

  “You’ll want Greybar,” I said. “That’s all well with me. You can have him.”

  He looked at me like I puzzled and amused him at the same time. “I don’t want your fool cat,” he said, and gave him a kick.

  Greybar dodged it easy enough, but it was the principle of the thing. I looked larboard and starboard, and aloft and alow, and weren’t nobody around to tell me different. So I knocked Roby Douglass into a rosebush. He couldn’t have looked more surprised if I’d grown hooves and a pointy tail.

  “You want to call me out,” I said, leaning over him, “I’m choosing swords. I got a good one I already used on a couple fellows. The scratches you got from them thorns ain’t nothing like.”

  But I knew he wouldn’t say boo to a goose. Greybar followed me into the house.

  I found Elver in his study with his whiskey. He was gazing out his window at the rose bushes.

  “I detest the fellow,” he said, “but Arabella has expensive tastes. And between you and me, son, I think she would have used you badly. She’ll make a cuckold of her husband—hear you me. I’d rather it was Douglass than you.”

  I put my hands behind my back and stood up straight. “Mr. Towson, I’ve reconsidered your kind offer to invest in my venture out west—”

  “Now there’s a coincidence,” he said. “I’ve reconsidered it, too. I’ve decided to invest elsewhere. Good day to you, Mr. Graves.”

  I spent the rest of that last morning with Mrs. Towson in the drawing room, standing uncomfortably in my dress uniform with one arm cradling Mr. Towson’s old cavalry saber, which she had insisted I pose with despite my protests that it was entirely the wrong sort of sword and I had a perfectly good one already. I had even brought it downstairs to show her.

  “That horrid thing, with the memento mori on the handle?” she said, looking at it lying on the settee. “I’ll not paint you holding that.”

  “It’s become sort of my visiting card,” I said. “I don’t rightly know that anyone’ll know it’s me without it.” She gave me half a frown, and I realized what I’d just said. “I mean, of course they’ll know it’s me from the painting. Of course they will—it’ll look like me,” and after she let me sweat a bit she laughed outright, and I let her make me hold the sword the way she wanted it.

  “Besides,” I said, “I could always cover the pommel with a sword knot.” Elver Towson’s saber had a beauty, of soft, heavy blue rope worked with thread of gold.

  She gave me a secretive smile.

  “That ain’t a hint,” I said, all in a hurry. “And anyway, I’m not sure as I like this business of sitting for a picture in a midshipman’s uniform. I aim to be a lieutenant again pretty soon.”

  “Oh, that’s well enough,” she said airily. “I intend to add an epaulet or two anyway.”

  She took my free hand and placed it palm upwards on a waist-high marble-topped table. She’d scattered the tabletop with old maps and charts, and we managed to knock a sheaf or two of them off before she got me the way she wanted. Finally she stuck a brass telescope in my hand and commenced to sketching my likeness with charcoal into a fresh canvas.

  “It’s just as well, really,” she said, gazing at her sketch with her head tilted. Then, “No. No, it’s not just as well. It’s sad, is what it is. So unnecessary. It was Elver’s decision, dear heart, not mine. I hope you understand that. You will always be welcome here, but now—oh, now it will always be uncomfortable, won’t it? You’ve moved, dear. Tilt your chin a little to the left. That’s right. Ah me, I’ve made such a mess of it.”

  “You! You didn’t do anything wrong. It was me.”

  “No, sweetness, I mean I have made a mess of the sketch. No matter; we’ll just start anew, that’s all.” She rubbed at the canvas with a rag. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could start over as easily as this? Just wipe away the missteps and sketch again until we have a good foundation, and then begin painting. But we get so caught up in the missteps that sometimes we never even get to the painting. I have been painted, you know.”

  “Yes, I’ve admired it many times.”

  “Have you?” She looked at me absently, and then smiled up at her portrait above the fireplace. “No, not that one, though I admit I’m fond of it. A bit prissy, I think, but it flatters me. No, I was thinking of a series I posed for when I first met Mr. Towson. Actually, that was how I met him. I lived in Paris when I met him. Did you know that?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “If you must scratch, please do so instead of fidgeting. There. Your right hand is out of place. No, let me show you.” She came out from behind her easel to readjust me. Her hand lingered a moment on mine. She smiled. “There. Stay just so, please. Yes, I was a painter of some promise,” she said as she resumed her seat. “To dabble in painting is proper for a young lady, but oddly enough to be good at it is not. I was quite good. I am not being immodest, I think—I’ve heard you admire the still lifes in the hall. I hope you didn’t know they were mine.”

  “No, ma’am, I didn’t. I especially admire the plums with the earthenware jar. You sure captured the blue dust on ’em.”

  “Thank you, dear. I do believe your admiration is honest and not just flattery. In that case, I would be honored if you would take it for your own. You’ll have a house one day. Send for it then, and it will be yours.”

  “I’d treasure it.”

  “As I treasure you. You know, Matty, I am aware of your regard for Arabella. You have made that plain enough. But she is a ninny.” She frowned past her canvas at me. “You needn’t defend her to me. I was very much like her once. Or she is very much like I was, take your pick. I know I seem flighty at times, but I see what goes on around me. I had her same dilemma when I was just her age, and I solved it the way she tried to. I was in love with a beautiful man, but he was not the sort of gentleman my parents wished me to marry. For one thing, he was already married. For another, he was more than twice my age.

  “The man my parents had picked out for me was an absolute toa
d.” Her mouth broadened and grew ugly around the word. “Even more repulsive than Mr. Douglass, if you can believe it.” She smiled faintly, and her lips grew plump again. “The man I chose for myself was entirely a nobody, a dashing fool on the loose in Paris. Full of all sorts of dangerous revolutionary ideas. And an American, to boot. Well, I was gently raised, of course, in Virginia, and my parents hadn’t taken me to France to marry a Yankee Doodle. We were Tories, Loyalists, and we had lost our lands in America and a good deal of our fortune.

  “His wife had given him a daughter the previous autumn. It was a dangerous birth, her second, and she could no longer accommodate him. She never rose from her bed again.

  “Your left arm is drifting, dear. Raise the sword up. There.” She rubbed at the canvas with her cloth and then commenced again with her charcoal. “I suppose you’ve also admired the Aphrodite in Mr. Towson’s study. Now you’re blushing, dear, so I’m certain you have admired it. Or examined it, at least.”

  “Admired, examined. I—yes.”

  She smiled. “It was painted from life, and yes, I was the model. One mustn’t be shocked—to find models, a painter must often pose as well. There can be no modesty in pursuit of art. It’s quite usual in Europe, I assure you. And it can be useful, too. It was how I assured my marriage to that beautiful man instead of that insufferable scrub I spoke of. My husband painted it, though I think maybe he has forgotten the circumstances behind it . . . or what transpired during the painting of it, I dare say.”

  She looked up from her work. “Do I disappoint you? Shock you?”

  I shook my head. After last night with Arabella, I calculated it’d take a lot for someone in that family to shock me.

  “I mention it for a reason,” she said. “My husband has forgotten many things over the years, but I never thought he would forget that. I know perfectly well what happened between you and Arabella in the garden.” She rubbed her brow, leaving a comma of black soot. “Elver was determined to go downstairs and ‘catch’ you, as he said. I reminded him of how he seduced me. Even if he didn’t still believe he seduced me, naturally he would never admit that I might’ve had some volition in the matter. Men think only they have desires.” She smiled, and then the smile faded. “I told him that if he went down and disturbed you I would leave him. I was quite adamant, and he believed me, if only for a short while. But Matty—” She shot me a look so filled with woe that my heart just about jumped out of my shirt. “Oh dear love, whatever dissuaded you?”