by Deryn Lake
‘With a very grand jete!’
They shrieked with laughter at their not-very-funny joke, then added, ‘Do spread the word amongst your friends and patients. We are taking over the meeting room in the Faneuil Hall. A great many officers are coming and this, together with plenty of the locals, should make a dance of much friendliness.’
‘May God be praised,’ said George unexpectedly.
‘What about women?’ asked John, very practical.
‘All the young ladies who dwell near the Common are coming. What about your young ladies, Mr Rawlings? Who will you bring?’
‘Lady Eawiss, of course. She will be top of my list.’ One of his eyebrows shot up and he saw that they were waiting for some sort of signal as to whether to laugh or weep. ‘And the gallant gentleman who escorts her hither and yon. This will leave pretty Miss Hawthorne to attend, and young though she is, my daughter shall accompany me – which will save either or both of us getting into trouble – and Miss Suzanne Hallowell, who may still be wearing a dark patch over her eye as Doctor Warren has recently operated on it.’
‘Do you mean to say he has cured her squint?’
‘It would not be right of me to comment.’
‘I think a lot of people will be there, particularly as we have a celebrity show number.’
John’s interest was aroused. ‘What is that going to be?’
‘Ah, that you must discover for yourself. We are bound by silence.’
And waving farewell to John and Jane, they continued to prance through the crowd, handing out leaflets and good humour wherever they went and occasionally kissing their pretty escorts.
As soon as John got into bed that night he drifted into a fitful sleep and dreamed of Coralie Clive. He wondered, even though unconscious, why he was so afraid of meeting her again. Then, in his dream, he was sitting in a chair and talking to someone of great wisdom. He did not know that it was Sir Gabriel, his beloved father – he could not see the person because of the light that shone around them, but he knew that it was someone who had loved him very much.
‘Love is like a river,’ he heard them saying. ‘The river can flow into tributaries. Therefore it is perfectly possible to love more than one person absolutely equally.’
‘Elizabeth was the love of my life,’ he heard himself argue.
‘But is she truly dead?’ asked the other person teasingly.
Now John was magically transported to a cliff top in Devon, looking down at the sea, the waves rolling and roistering as far as the eye could see. And there, way, way out, waving at him, he felt sure of it, was a figure with dark, wet locks clinging to her wave-soaked shoulders, the dying rays of the sun reflecting on her naked, sea-drenched breasts.
‘Elizabeth,’ he called out.
But she turned and vanished into the ocean, leaving him only with a glint of a fish’s tail as she disappeared into the spume.
He woke, gasping for water and feeling wretched. He sat up in bed and looked around him. The loft space was hot and sticky and he was lathered in sweat. He suddenly felt terribly homesick for London and Nassau Street and for all the people he had known and loved there. As soon as next spring came he would take the children and Irish Tom – if that would accord with the Irishman’s wishes – and set sail for England once more. But now was the wrong time of year to consider such things. Besides, as had occasionally happened in the past, John had the strangest feeling that all was not well with the citizens of the town. The arrival and invasion of the English troops had irked them, even though they were English themselves. But were they? John thought. The citizens of Boston regarded themselves as Bostonians, and the presence of the soldiers gave them an angry feeling of being spied upon. In the so-called Boston Massacre, a scuffle between a crowd spoiling for a fight and the British army, who had eventually fired upon them, a total sum of five people had been killed. But the town dwellers had thought it very savage that even one had been put to the slaughter. John could not put a name to it, but there was a general feeling of unease that was slowly beginning to grasp everyone in its whirlpool suction.
ELEVEN
The ball was both a jubilation and a calamity in one. First of all, everyone of importance, which included the younger set of educated ladies, together with all the gallant British officers and the hangers-on who enjoyed the chance of a free drink and a game of cards, came in abundance. They laughed merrily and roared with laughter when the master of ceremonies – some tired old danseur desperately trying to make his way in the Colonies – capered a step or two to show them how it was done, and they applauded vigorously as each new dance was announced.
The calamity was of a more subtle nature. The faces of the power people of Boston were missing: Dr Warren, Paul Revere and Sam Adams, that well-known rabble-rouser, his righteous persona spoiled by his disfiguring twitch, to name but a few. Their absence was notable and John Rawlings felt as if he had a stone in his stomach. Admittedly Joseph Warren was in mourning, but there was something far more sinister by their total marked nonappearance. This was a small declaration of war. Yet, looking round the room, John could see that he was alone in his anxieties. The officers clapped in time to the music, whirling the pretty young things of the town round and round until their skirts flew out and wild poppies flared in their cheeks. There was laughter and the sound of gloved hands meeting gloved hands, and the Apothecary was just beginning to feel a fraction out of things when Suzanne, wearing a black patch over her newly surgically treated eye, curtseyed before him and said, ‘Did I book you for the next dance, Mr Rawlings?’
‘Indeed you did, Miss Hallowell,’ he answered, bowing low, and took her arm as they formed up for an energetic hornpipe.
They were both gasping by the time the music ended and this, indeed, was the cue for the musicians to take their rest. During the break little chairs were brought from the back of the hall and curtains were drawn closed on the small stage at the end of the room. So this, John guessed, was to be the entertainment that the two lads had been talking about. Struck by a premonition that it was going to involve Coralie, John saw Suzanne to a chair and then receded to the shadows at the back, where he stood trying to look inconspicuous.
The master of ceremonies mounted the stage via a small ladder and said in a somewhat enfeebled voice that he now craved silence for a former artiste of the London stage who would be reciting a few words. There was some half-hearted clapping and then all the candles were doused. In the sudden, shocking darkness John drew a breath as the curtains swished back and his former lover, clad in deepest crimson, spoke in a thrilling voice. It was a sound rich with all the beauty that the theatre had rounded in it over the years, yet, deep within its timbres, there lay the whole human experience of laughter and pain, of death and birth. John felt a tear trickle down his nose as he stood in the shadows and listened.
‘Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Hark! Now I hear them,
Ding, dong bell.
Coralie repeated the last line several times and then finally sang it in a deep, unearthly tone. There was total silence when she finished and then those handsome officers and flibberty-gibbet young ladies all burst into a wave of applause that seemed to bounce off the very walls. John brought his hands together but felt so deeply moved that he could clap little, weeping quietly as he was. Why was he such a sentimental old fool? he asked himself. He had no answer for it was indeed the truth. The more of life’s vicissitudes he survived, the easier he found it to cry at the beauty that living had to offer.
Coralie, who had risen and walked to the front of the stage, looked round the silent audience and then said, ‘A song for all those who have experienced the pangs of being in love.’ She glanced around t
he room and John, snuffling discreetly into his handkerchief, could have sworn that her gaze was fixed firmly on him as she began.
‘O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O stay and hear! Thy true-love’s coming,
That can sing both high and low;
Trip no further, pretty sweeting,
Journeys end in lovers’ meeting,
Every wise man’s son doth know.
What is love? ’Tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter:
What’s to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty,
Then come kiss me, sweet-and-twenty:
Youth’s a stuff will not endure,
Not endure.’
The very words could have been meant for him. What she was saying was that she knew he was there, in the town where she lived, so why waste any more time in pretence? Why not come and see her, at least? As the applause rang out, long and deep, John made for the stage. But the curtains had swirled shut and he had to push past members of the audience as he looked for a back way in. He could not find one. Eventually he got hold of the master of ceremonies who told him, much flustered, that Madame Clive had already left the hall. Dashing into the street, John glimpsed the back of a coach vanishing in the distance and knew at once that it belonged to Coralie’s neighbour, the elegant John Hancock. He looked around him with a determination borne completely of frustration. He saw a horse tied to a hitching post and approached it. It was asleep but opened one ferocious eye as he drew near.
‘There, there,’ John said soothingly, ‘I’ll return you to the post, I promise. I’m a friend of your master’s.’
The horse gave a mighty snort and John quailed. His lifelong experience of maddish horses had made him nervous of the species, but he was compelled by despair. He got his foot in the stirrup and, with the reins in one hand, attempted a lithe leap into the saddle. This was not to be. The horse was off at considerable speed before he had even got his other leg across.
‘Oh, help!’ shouted John as he tried desperately to sit down while Boston flew past him at an alarming speed.
Eventually he got some sort of control – if one could apply that word to getting both feet in the stirrups and pulling at the horse’s mouth until it reduced speed somewhat. Fortunately the creature headed in the direction of the Common and John guessed that its owner was one of the officers stationed there. He was just wondering how to pull the animal to a halt when the problem was solved for him. A quartet of riders came towards him, trotting quite fast. The beast John was riding came to an immediate halt and John flew off, over its head and into a nearby hedge, landing none too comfortably on his arse. The four horsemen laughed softly as the Apothecary’s angry face appeared out of the shrubbery. One of the group, a tall, elegant soldier who looked as if he had been born in the saddle, leaned forward and asked, ‘Are you all right, my friend?’ in a broad Scots accent.
‘Never better,’ John replied acidly.
The four soldiers laughed again. ‘Yon horse is a bit of a devil.’
‘You know him then?’
‘It’s a she actually – wee Mhairi. She belongs to the regiment.’
The Apothecary shook his head. ‘Talk about your sins will find you out.’
But the quartet were no longer listening and, having raised their whips to their caps in salute, they rode on their way.
John picked the grass from his jacket as best he could but realizing as he did so that he could say farewell to this, one of his favourite suits in cherry satin and tight black breeches. No amount of cleaning would ever remove the grass stains. He turned to the horse, which was regarding him with a baleful eye.
‘Well, goodbye Marie, or whatever your name is. I hope your owner finds you. No need to give him my apologies. I got my comeuppance in full.’
And with that, John set out with a limping gait towards Coralie’s house.
TWELVE
The same black servant answered the door and stood, huge eyes rolling nervously, while she listened to what the Apothecary had to say. Finally she spoke. ‘Madame Clive has gone to bed, Sir.’
‘Oh, dammit all,’ John said loudly. ‘I thought she wanted to see me. I really did.’
He took his hat off – battered and ridiculous after his fall – and threw it on the floor in a gesture of impatience he hadn’t used since childhood. He had never felt more frustrated in his life. He wanted to talk to Coralie – she whom he had been avoiding for months – and discuss their old situation and whether there was any point in resuming their relationship. As if to tease him, at that moment there came the sound of a low laugh and his gaze lifted to the balustrade that ran round the first floor above. She was there, standing in the shadows, the crimson dress gone and a negligee of white flung over her shoulders.
‘Coralie,’ he called out. ‘Was that last poem meant for me?’
She laughed again. ‘Of course it was, you sad creature.’
He stood, poised, on the bottom step. ‘Sad? Why?’
‘You have been in Boston all this time yet never came anywhere near me.’
He hesitated. ‘I had my reasons.’
‘May I know them?’
He ascended a stair. ‘Of course.’
Coralie looked down to the hall where the black girl was still waiting. ‘That will be all, Binnie. You can show the gentleman up.’ And with that she turned and walked away, only the point of her candle giving him a clue as to where she had headed.
John mounted the stairs as fast as was possible after the aches of his recent throw, but all was now dark. ‘Coralie?’ he whispered.
Right beside him, she chuckled and he nearly jumped out of his hide. He put out a hand and encountered a breast, as warm and round and cuddly as it had always been. That was enough. Months of locked-up passion, of wanting, of being too caught up with memories of Elizabeth to make a move in any direction, broke down at last. John kissed Coralie as if it was the first and last kiss he would ever give. Only it wasn’t, of course. As he followed her into her bedroom and as they looked at each other by candlelight, it was as if they gazed on one another for the first time. The passing of the years did not show to them. They did not notice the grey hairs amongst the others, the extra lines around their eyes. All they could see was their old passion and in this way, with John once again inside her warm, receiving body, they became lovers. In the darkness of night he held her in his arms as both remembered the past.
He would have left at first light but she woke and asked him why he was getting dressed. ‘Because, sweetness, I have my children to attend to.’
She laughed. ‘But you forget that one of them boards with me. As for the twins, I will send my servant on horseback to escort them to school.’
‘And what about their breakfast?’
‘The slave, my Abraham – without whom I could not live – shall carry a note listing their requirements. And surely your housemate can open the shop without you.’
‘Yes, she can. But she runs the teahouse and has other tasks, if you follow my meaning.’
‘I don’t exactly, but you can explain over breakfast.’
They talked while they ate but mainly they looked at one another. Coralie thought back to their first meeting, all those years ago in the Vaux Hall Pleasure Gardens, and a smile twitched at her full and beautiful mouth. She had saved John’s life on that occasion, running after a murderer in her high fashionable heels. How old had he been then? Nineteen, twenty? But even now, in his early forties, there was much about him that was still the same. The lovely curly cinnamon hair tied back and not bewigged had streaks of grey but the bold blue eyes still sparkled with curiosity and, Coralie believed, would never grow old – too full of interest in the world, and mischief, to allow their owner to fade. John’s body was more mature and tougher – all the months of walking after the shipwreck had served him well. And there was one part of it that was just as she remembered it: a giver of delight and pleasu
re to the opposite sex. Feeling rather old to be doing so, Coralie blushed at the thought. Fortunately, John was, as she remembered clearly, stowing away a large and hearty breakfast, and did not notice.
He looked up at her and smiled. ‘You haven’t changed, you know.’
‘I was just thinking the same about you.’
‘Nonsense, you were attacking a ham.’
‘D’you know, I believe we have had this conversation before,’ Coralie said wryly.
‘We have. Many, many times.’
‘Oh, dear, I’m not beginning to bore you already.’
John shook his head and winked as she gave him a ravishing grin.
‘You will never bore me, John. Still the same old you. Crooked smile, eyebrows flying, moving about like a hare.’
‘Lord, sounds like a dog.’
Coralie laughed aloud, joyfully, with great mirth, then her expression changed. ‘You know that my daughter died?’
‘No, I didn’t. I’m so sorry. Tell me of it.’
‘She took to drink, severely so. Of course, being female she could never inherit my husband’s title or estates. But she resented that and was more full of spleen than ever.’
John put out a hand and laid it on Coralie’s arm, shifting his chair so that he was almost sitting beside her. She looked down at all the bright china on the table as she spoke.
‘To cut a long and bitter story short, she married at seventeen. A wastrel of a boy, a drunken whoremonger, who lost a fortune at cards and saw her as a way out of his dissolute life.’
‘What happened?’
Coralie looked up and John saw that tears had formed in her green eyes.
‘Nobody knows. They must have challenged one another to a race – or something like that anyway. They took two horses and galloped over the South Downs, going hell for leather, and that was how they were found the next day. Both lying dead, the horses standing under a nearby tree. They had bled profusely from wounds that nobody knew how they had got. I think they stabbed one another in a rage of love and hate.’