Old Glory

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘They have gone, Harry,’ the priest said.

  ‘Where?’

  O’More sighed. ‘They were taken by the redcoats. On a charge of having shared your father’s treason.’

  ‘Taken where?’ Harry shouted. ‘To Waterford? I did not see them there.’

  The priest sighed again. ‘I understand they have gone to Dublin. There was an intercession for them, by a friend of some standing, I believe, and the case has gone before the Lord Lieutenant. But I cannot be too hopeful for them. In time of war,and with so much …’ a third sigh.

  ‘Who did this thing, Father?’

  ‘Who can say, Harry? Who …’

  ‘You’ll tell me, Father. Who knew I was in Tramore, last June? Only my own family, and Bridget, and yourself.’ He wrapped his fingers in the front of the priest’s cassock. ‘You’ll confess to me, Father, or I will tear your head from your shoulders.’

  ‘It was not I, Harry McGann,’ O’More gasped. ‘Not I.’

  ‘Bridget?’ He could not believe it.

  ‘No. I do not think so …’

  ‘There is no one else.’ He released the priest and walked to the door. ‘No one else, Father.’

  ‘Some wives find it difficult to keep secrets from their husbands. It would not have been intentional, but …’

  Harry turned to look at him. ‘Tom Pollock? He was at sea that day.’

  O’More shrugged. ‘The Bonaventure came home that very night, after we had seen you. No doubt you had already left the inn. But no one knew that, Harry, save your family.’

  ‘By God,’ Harry said. ‘Tom and I sailed together for four years. He was my friend.’

  ‘He also married the girl to whom you were betrothed, and perhaps she confessed to him, as she confessed to me, that she would have run away with you, had you wished it.’

  ‘Tom Pollock,’ Harry said, the words dripping from his lips like vitriol. ‘He’s here, now?’

  ‘Harry, it is not your place to punish such as he. Leave him to God.’

  ‘To God? As he left my father and brother? My mother and sister and other brother? To God?9

  ‘Harry … whatever he has done, he is Bridget’s husband. She could never go with you if you killed him. He is the father of her children.’

  ‘Do you think I wish her to go with me?’ Harry snarled. ‘Her, or anyone?’ He ran from the inn, on to the street, where his men waited.

  ‘They’re watching us, Mr McGann,’ said the coxswain. ‘But not doing nothing about it.’

  ‘Well, you keep watching them,’ Harry told him, and strode up the street to the Pollock house.

  The door was open, and Bridget waited inside with her children.

  ‘I seek your husband,’ Harry said.

  ‘He’s not here, Harry.’

  ‘You’d lie to me, Bridget? Is there any reason why I should not kill you, as well? Or at least Tom’s son?’ He gazed at the boy, who buried his face in his mother’s skirts.

  Bridget returned his gaze. She was trembling, but she spoke evenly; she knew he was not a murderer. ‘I will not lie to you, Harry. Tom left when you rode into the village. He was mortally afraid.’

  ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘He …’ she bit her lip. ‘He took to the fields. He had no horse. But he hoped to obtain one from the squire’s stable. You’ll not catch him now, Harry. That was near an hour ago.’

  ‘What is an hour, to me?’ Harry asked, and turned for the door; Pollock might even be still at the manor.

  ‘Harry …’ she caught his sleeve. ‘I would beg for his life.’

  ‘Then beg,’ Harry said. He shrugged himself free, slammed the door behind him, and heard her sob as he did so. ‘Be sure no one leaves the town,’ Harry told the coxswain. ‘Post two men on the bridge.’

  ‘Aye, aye. But you, Mr McGann?’

  Harry mounted. ‘I have a visit to make, perhaps a journey.’

  The coxswain looked at the sun, now all but disappeared beneath the horizon. Then out to sea, where the sails of a large ship could just be seen, rounding the Saltee Islands. ‘It is past eight, sir, and there is the Bonhomme Richard. She will be here in an hour, and moonrise is before midnight. I pray you to remain, and seek your vengeance at a better time.’

  ‘I shall have my vengeance now,’ Harry said. ‘If I am not back by moonrise, forget me.’

  ‘I would be happier to accompany you, sir.’

  ‘Your duty is to remain here and keep the village quiet, cox. And then re-embark these brave fellows. That is an order. Now I must make haste.’

  He kicked his exhausted horse, and sent it up the road towards the fork, away from Waterford, and towards the Manor House. Because he sought more than Tom Pollock. The O’Rourkes’ hands were no less stained with the blood of his family.

  He galloped along that so well remembered pathway, crouching low to avoid low hanging branches, rounded the bend where Boru had died, his anger mounting with every hoofbeat, whipped his mount through the huge open gateway and up the gravel drive to the house itself. A footman emerged to take a hasty look at him, then ran back inside and closed the door. This was of solid oak and would resist even his charge, Harry knew, but he also knew the house very well, drove his horse round the wing and in a single bound crashed through the glass walls of the conservatory, scattering plants to left and right, overturning pots and benches. He leapt from the saddle, and another footman appeared in this doorway, armed with a fowling piece. Harry drew his pistol and shot him dead, leaving the horse loose, stepped over the body and into the corridor. Maidservants ran screaming before him, and he decided to settle with the domestics first, and followed them into the kitchens. Here there were a blunderbuss and a pistol, held by the butler and another footman.

  ‘Drop those popguns, or die,’ Harry snapped.

  They obeyed instantly, terrified of the huge figure, now with drawn cutlass, who towered above them.

  ‘Down there,’ Harry commanded, pointing his sword at the cellar.

  ‘Got you,’ shouted another footman, entering the room behind him, and hitting him over the head with a walking stick. Harry turned with a growl of anger, and the man started backwards, falling over his own feet and tumbling to the floor.

  ‘Pick him up,’ Harry told the other men. They seized his arms and legs and dragged him to the cellar doorway. Harry saw them through, closed the door and bolted it. Then he stepped through the curtain into the hall, and was blinded by an explosion as another blunderbuss was fired at him. But the shot merely splattered the ceiling, for as the footman had fired, he had been jostled from the side. Now he stared at Harry with terrified eyes, while Harry stared past him through the gloom — at Elizabeth Steyne.

  *

  ‘Harry,’ she said. ‘Oh, my God, Harry!’

  He reached forward, grasped the footman by the jacket, and dragged him into the pantry. He locked the cellar door, pitched the man down the stairs into the darkness to the accompaniment of a fresh chorus of screams. Then he bolted the door again. ‘How many others?’ he demanded.

  ‘He is the last, to my knowledge.’ Elizabeth stood in the doorway. ‘But Harry …’

  ‘O’Rourke?’

  ‘Has fled to his bedchamber and locked the door. Harry …’

  ‘Annie?’

  ‘Has done the same in hers, I think. Harry. You must listen to me. You must get away.’

  ‘Away? Where do I have to go, except where Tom Pollock is? Have you seen him?’

  ‘Yes.’ She was panting. ‘He came here, not half an hour ago, borrowed the squire’s best horse, and went off to seek help. Harry, the ostler has also gone. He rode out of here five minutes ago, with his boy. Harry, they will bring soldiers.’

  ‘Not if I catch them first.’

  ‘What with? Your horse has run off. And there is none here to match the one Pollock took, in any event. Harry, I have just saved your life from that blunderbuss. Will you not at least listen to me?’

  He had been striding towards th
e door to the yard and the stables. Now he checked, and looked down at her. And perhaps saw her, for the first time. Her hair was loose and flowing down her back in the most golden profusion. Her gown was also loose, in pale blue; he could swear she wore no corset, indeed, only a chemise beneath. Her face was far more beautiful than Catherine Falloux’s and her scent matched that of the Frenchwoman.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded, while a mixture of every passion known to man rippled through his veins.

  She gave a little shrug. ‘I came to visit Annie. And to see what I could do. But I was too late for your father.’

  ‘Annie,’ he said. ‘I should strangle her with my bare hands.’

  ‘Harry!’ She seized his arm. ‘She means you only well, believe me.’

  ‘As for O’Rourke …’ he turned towards the stairs.

  ‘He is not your enemy. Sean is responsible for what has happened. No one else.’

  ‘But he is not here. I am not that fortunate.’ His shoulders slumped. ‘I seek only to destroy. There is nothing left to me. Were I a man, I would set a torch to this house and destroy everyone in it.’

  ‘Because you are a man, Harry, you will not commit such a crime. That were the act of a monster.’

  He stared at her, taking her in for a second time. ‘Do you not suppose I am a monster? Should I not act the monster to you? You are another man’s wife. But so is every woman I have ever held in my arms, save for the most common whore, the most savage cannibal. Are they to be the limits of my love?’

  She released him, and backed away from him. ‘Harry …’

  He stepped towards her, and she backed away even more, into the parlour, where there was no escape. ‘Ten years ago,’ he said. ‘I wanted you. That want has brought my family to this. To utter destruction. Should I not now do as I wish with you, and then squeeze life from your body?’

  Her chin tilted upwards as she gazed into his eyes. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, do as you wish with me, Harry. Because I have also waited ten years for that. Do as you wish.’

  He reached for her, and she came, willingly enough. He did not know what he wanted to do to her, but then, he did not know what he wanted, in any direction. He knew only despair, and savage anger, an understanding that there was nothing left for him to live for, and that therefore he might as well accomplish the only thing he had ever truly wanted to do, and then die.

  He held her against him, and kissed her mouth. She gasped, perhaps because she had expected to be hurt, and he was so surprisingly gentle. To his own surprise. He had meant to hurt her and could not. But he also meant to possess her, with all the pent up anger and frustration which was raging through his frame, the mixture of self horror and sexual lust which turns victorious soldiers into devils. While he kissed her his hands slid down her body to her thighs, and he lifted her from the floor. Another man’s wife. But they were all, other men’s wives. Harry McGann had none of his own. Nor would he ever, now.

  Still kissing her, he carried her across the room to a settee, sat her down, and knelt before her. She was panting now, a mixture of apprehension and desire … but no fear. He realised that she also felt no guilt nor disgust, either; perhaps she had waited all her life for this moment.

  His hands went down to her ankles, sought the flesh beneath the gown. At home, on an August afternoon, she wore slippers but no stockings, a single shift beneath her gown. His hands slid up her legs, sweeping the materials with them. His fingers coursed over her knees and then her thighs, moved over to the front to part them; there was no resistance. He had never seen her legs before. But they were as perfect as he had always imagined them to be. He lowered his head to kiss the silky curls at her groin, and felt her tense, and then slowly relax. Her skirts lay on his head, now, and he could not see, but he could feel her move. Partly because of his kiss, and partly because of what she was doing. Perhaps she was reaching for a weapon, and would now stab him. He did not care.

  More material gathered on his head, and she moved, sideways. He looked up, and realised that she had been unbuttoning her gown. He released her, and she slowly stood up, staring at him as she did so. The gown slid from her shoulders to the floor, and the shift followed. Elizabeth Steyne was naked before him. But, naked before him, she was Elizabeth Bartlett. And she was more beautiful than he had ever hoped, even in the now almost total darkness. He put his arms round her thighs to kiss her again, hold her tightly against him, and she allowed herself to fall back on to the settee. He sat beside her, and kissed and stroked her breasts, felt her hand sliding down his stomach. She touched him, almost as if by accident,and withdrew as if stung. He held her hand and replaced it, and then fell backwards himself. She hesitated before obeying his unspoken command. Sweeter lips than ever offered by Catherine Falloux.

  He held her shoulders and brought her up the settee, allowing her body to slide over him, until her lips were on his. One leg fell down, and she was straddling him. She opened her mouth as if to speak, and he kissed the words away before she could utter them. He entered, slowly, afraid of hurting her where only a few minutes before he had sought to. But she was wet, and eager. She allowed him in for as far as he could before she moved at all, then her body surged against his, and again and again, and he felt the sweat standing out on her shoulders, as her hardened nipples seemed to imprint themselves on his chest. She sobbed, and dropped her head beside him, and was convulsed in a series of shudders, accompanied by low moans, while he also came, and came, it seemed for several minutes of long delayed exploding desire.

  *

  Her surges grew less violent, and slowed, until she lay still, gasping, inflating her lungs and her breasts against his, her entire body against his, belly on belly, thigh on thigh, crotch on crotch. But slowly that too subsided.

  They lay against each other, for how long Harry did not know, or care, although he was aware that the darkness was deepening. In the distance he heard a faint drumming; the manservants, no doubt supposing him gone, were trying to break their way out of the cellar. But they would not succeed; they could only approach the door from inside one at a time up the narrow steps. Nor would he have cared if they had all suddenly appeared above him. If he was to die, this night, he could not do so more pleasantly than holding this woman in his arms.

  ‘Harry’ she said. ‘Oh, Harry. What a fool I have been.’

  He stroked her hair.

  ‘I chose the form, rather than the substance. And grievously have I suffered for that mistake, Harry. Harry, promise me you will never let me go again.’

  He looked down at her. ‘You have a husband.’ How the phrase seemed stuck to his tongue.

  ‘I have a master, Harry, not a husband. Now I would be set free.’

  ‘And your children?’

  ‘I have no children. He …’ she hesitated. ‘He scarce uses me properly with sufficient regularity to enable that. Even were he capable, which I doubt, after the life he has led.’

  ‘And what of the life you would lead with me?’

  ‘It will be the most glorious I can ever have dreamed of, no matter where it may lead me.’

  ‘Even to the gallows?’

  ‘Even there, if I can stand there beside you.’ He smiled, and kissed her, and saw the glare of a candle in the hallway. He pushed her up, reached to the floor for his sword, gazed at Annie O’Rourke. Her eyes were big as saucers as she stood above them. ‘Oh, Lizzie … and Mr McGann! Oh …’

  Harry pulled on his drawers, while Elizabeth also sat up, but did not bother to dress. ‘One of your people is dead,’ Harry said. ‘Oh,’ Annie said again.

  ‘I had meant to kill them all. Yourself and your father included, Annie. But Liz talked me out of it.’

  ‘Oh, Lizzie,’ Annie said. It was difficult to decide whether she was thanking her, or reproaching her for what she had so obviously been doing.

  Either way, Elizabeth chose to ignore her. ‘Now you must leave, Harry,’ she said, at last reaching for her clothes. ‘We must leave.’ />
  ‘We?’ He frowned at her.

  ‘I have told you, I will not let you go again.’

  ‘That is madness. I must go to Dublin.’

  ‘Dublin?’

  ‘My mother and sister are there, and my remaining brother. About to be hanged like my father.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No. I have seen the Lord Lieutenant. He is a friend of my … of Lord Steyne.’

  ‘You mean you are the powerful friend who interceded for them? Oh, my darling girl. But … they are still awaiting sentence, Father O’More told me.’

  ‘The Lord Lieutenant has promised them mercy. Transportation. Nothing more.’

  ‘Transportation?’

  ‘They will live, Harry! Where you will be able to find them, in safety, and reclaim them. To go to Dublin would be to commit suicide. To remain here will be to commit suicide. To …’ she stared at him, as they heard the sound of hooves,already on the drive. ‘Oh, my God!’

  ‘Tom Pollock!’ Harry said. Hastily he finished dressing, drew his sword.

  ‘But he’s not alone,’ Elizabeth said.

  Annie ran to the window, while Elizabeth blew out the candle. ‘Redcoats,’ Annie muttered. ‘Dragoons. There must be fifty of them.’

  Harry stood beside her, and felt a huge lump forming in his stomach. Only a few minutes ago he would have welcomed death. Now …

  ‘You must get away,’ Annie said. ‘Where is your horse?’

  ‘Run off.’

  ‘Well, then, the stables …’

  ‘There is no time,’ Elizabeth said. ‘We must hide you. Annie …’

  Slowly Annie turned back from the window.

  ‘I love him, Annie,’ Elizabeth said. ‘God, I love him. I will go with him to the ends of the earth. Do not betray us, Annie. He has always been our friend.’