‘You.’
We both blushed, and turned coy.
‘Well, that does make things interesting,’ was all she had to say about this.
‘Won’t you get into trouble with your master if you stay out all night?’
‘Oh, he’ll take me back. He couldn’t find a nigger as cheap as me. He’ll hit me a few times and make empty threats to kill me, but that’s all. His bark is worse than his bite.’
‘So how did you escape the wagon wheel threat?’ I asked, astonished at all this.
‘A couple of Quakers came to my rescue. They’re the only decent people around these parts, present company perhaps excepted, of course.’
‘Don’t I look decent?’ I said facetiously, warming once more to the raillery of romance.
Sophie scrutinized my face for evidence of decency.
‘No, you just look odd. But decent is as decent does, and I must give you full marks for returning when you said you would.’ She looked back at Nancy, now busy with a late customer. ‘It shut her up, at any rate.’ Then she continued to weigh me up, but it was obvious from the frown on her face that she could not quite place me, ‘Perhaps you’re a Quaker?’
‘No, I’m not a Quaker.’
‘No, I didn’t think you were. Yet you can’t be a soldier – your hands are too white and your eyes are too full of inner doubt.’ Sophie pondered on, then came up with an idea. ‘Well, you are not from these parts, so perhaps you are a travelling clerk of some kind, an aide-de-camp or adjutant to some Revolutionary general, with a great future before him and a seat on a Revolutionary Council only months away.’
The relish with which Sophie expressed this hope was quite disheartening. My vanity was crushed, and my hitherto high opinions of Sophie were somewhat shaken. A committee man indeed! Me – a man of stirring action, who had already weathered more setbacks than Job. But I could not tell her yet what my real history was.
‘I am, Madam,’ I announced stiffly, ‘a poet and a bookseller.’
‘Lord,’ said Sophie, ‘You are odd!’ And then, with astonishing presumption, she took hold of my hand and led me away to her secret lair, which turned out to be a wooden bench beneath a Liberty Tree. ‘Come on, sweetie,’ she said, as I cast despairing looks over my shoulder in Dick’s direction. ‘I want to know all about you.’
The sweetie appellation immediately transported me back to Amanda Philpott’s garden, but this time the word held only excited fears for me. Seated together in stimulating proximity, I inhaled her blackcurranty fragrance and proceeded to feed her the same story I’d fed the tavern patriots. I felt bad about this, but there was little else I could divulge to a girl clearly keen on British removal from the colonies. She was impressed with the lies, however, and asked if I could obtain for her a cheap copy of Dolly Potter’s New Continental Cookery. I said I would see what I could do. Then she went into rhapsodies about New York and Philadelphia, and sighed that she’d always wanted to live in those places.
‘Philadelphia especially,’ she swooned. ‘All those lights, all those paved streets.’
‘Well,’ I said, puzzled at the lowliness of such enthusiasms, ‘come with me and you will see them.’
She looked at me narrow-eyed.
‘I swoon, Sir, at your offer. But I do not know you yet. If I come with you tonight, what is the betting that you will have your fun with me, get me pregnant and then dump me. Most men would.’
I was about to protest that I was not most men when she was off on another tack.
‘Besides, ‘tis only a matter of waiting here for the excitement to come to me. The British are coming, you know…’ She mimed with her walking stick the firing off of a musket, ‘…and I want to bag my share.’
‘Do you hate the British that much?’
‘Why do you ask that?’ she said suspiciously. ‘You’re not a Tory are you?’
‘No, I’m….’
‘Good, I can’t stand a Tory. Or, even worse, a Tory pretending to be a Whig, like most people around these parts. The British are monsters, and that is all there is to it.’
‘Well, I’m sure….’
‘What religion are you?’ Sophie demanded next, catching me completely off guard.
‘Religion? Well, er….I don’t know. I have never thought about it much.’
‘Think about it now.’
I tried to cast my mind back to my Twinkle musings, but I was as confused now as I was then. I improvised an answer as truthfully as I could.
‘Er…well…er…I am not a regular churchgoer, but I believe in a Creator and Providence….so what does that make me?’
Sophie pondered, sifting through various creeds in her head.
‘I think perhaps you’re a Deist, with a little Fideism on the side.’
I glowed with pride, having never considered myself such an important person before.
‘A man should know what his beliefs are,’ she added, swinging her legs beneath the bench and gazing out at the passing crowd. ‘They give him a bit of anchorage in the world.’
‘So,’ I said, glad that the interrogation appeared to be over, ‘that is me in the proverbial nutshell. What is your story?’
‘My full name,’ she announced grandly, ‘is Sophie B. Mecklenburg.’
‘That’s a big name for a little girl.’
‘Don’t patronize me, Sir. I get enough of that at home.’
‘Mecklenburg, Mecklenburg…’ I pondered, chastened, ‘…that sounds familiar. Isn’t it the family name of our Queen?’
‘Our Queen? Our Queen?’
Sophie’s eyes blazed.
‘We don’t have a Queen any more. I’d have thought a Patriot bookseller, whose business and livelihood has been ruined by the British locusts, would know that better than anyone.’
‘Of course,’ I muttered humbly. ‘But old habits die hard. The Queen of England, I meant. Farmer George’s wife.’
‘I don’t know and I don’t care,’ snapped Sophie, as if she both knew and cared. ‘’Tis an honourable old name from the Palatine region of Germany, and I like it. Or did, until you made that reference. I wasn’t named after her, you know; she was named after me!’
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ I soothed, careful to keep patronization out of my voice. ‘’Tis a lovely name. And the B? What does that stand for?’
‘Belinda,’ said Sophie, after some hesitation. ‘Though I used to think it stood for Bastard, because that’s what I am, you know, a bastard.’
Had Sophie said this in a Brighthelmstone salon, there would have been a crash of falling gentility, but out here under a Liberty Tree it seemed the most natural revelation in the world. At this rate I’d know everything about her in half-an-hour, and still have time to join Dick for supper.
‘Literally or figuratively?’
‘Certainly literally. And figuratively too, some of my friends say. Though you wouldn’t think that by looking at me, would you? Sweet girl like me, and all that.’
‘Have you never met your father, then?’
‘Oh yes, I meet him every day. He’s my master, Mr Placquet. He denies it, of course, but I’m sure ‘tis him. I’ve got his nose, you know.’ She rubbed the feature alluded to, and sighed. ‘Yes, my mother was a maid in his service. Her husband died from the Bloody Flux on the voyage over from Germany. She died of smallpox a year after having me. Smallpox or shame anyway. Who knows, except my mother? This is her, look…’
She opened up a locket hanging from her neck, and after I’d finished peering deep into Sophie’s cleavage, I looked in. It was another Eloisian-type miniature of nobody in particular, with curls on top. I expressed my unconditional approval.
‘The locket’s definitely from Germany anyway – see, engraved on the side, KARLMEISTER, DRESDEN – so it might be a genuine family heirloom.’ We stared at it for a few moments before Sophie snapped it shut without sentimentality. ‘But I’m keeping it, heirloom or not. Only piece of jewellery I
have – ‘tis my dowry.’
The word dowry lingered in the air between us, vibrating with a life of its own.
‘Anyway,’ went on Sophie, ‘now Mr Placquet’s son Verne is trying to do the same with me. It could go on till eternity unless someone breaks the chain by giving birth to a baby boy.’
‘And what sort of work do you do for your master?’
‘Oh, everything. I spin and weave. I clean pewter. I set dye. I make candles. I cook and wash. I milk cows. I’m a domestic drudge, in short. He gets his money’s-worth out of me, and no mistake. He makes my blood seethe, just like those vermin there…’
Sophie nodded over to the road, and watched with interest as a refugee wagon rumbled west, all its pots and pans and furniture rattling. When it was as near as it would get, she cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled ‘COWARDS!!’ at the top of her voice. ‘STAY AND FIGHT LIKE THE REST OF US!’ she added, her torso tilting forward with the effort of the call.
There was no response from anyone in the wagon, which did indeed have a curiously furtive look about it. ‘Wonder there’s not a slime trail coming from that,’ Sophie remarked conversationally as she sat back on the bench. ‘I would spit on them if I was not such a little lady.’
‘Belinda’s a fine name though,’ I said, a sudden thought making me return to the matter in hand. ‘In fact Belinda is a wonderful name – ‘tis the name of the heroine in my favourite Pope poem, The Rape Of The Lock.’
‘Well, you’re not raping me, sweetie, no matter how many books you’ve read. Anyway, Belinda’s only my middle name, and I prefer B to Belinda. Write a poem about a Sophie if you want to woo me – and I assume you do or you wouldn’t have come back, would you?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘and I will write a poem about a Sophie.’
‘It has to be original, though. ‘Tis not the same having a poem dedicated to you at second-hand. I get hand-me-down clothes; I don’t want hand-me-down poems. The problem is – you being so clever and me being so stupid – you might already know a poem about some Sophie or other, and palm that off onto me. I’d never know the difference, would I? That’s what Verne would do if he knew how to write.’
I was already jealous of the illiterate, cowardly, but no doubt vigorously handsome Verne.
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ I protested, almost crying with integrity, ‘No, not I.’
Sophie laughed with delight, and called me a sweetie with great tenderness. I ventured a kiss. I was rebuffed by a playful poke in the eye. Emboldened nevertheless by the sweetie still lingering in my ears, I tried again. I was not rebuffed this time, and I was granted a smacking kiss full on and just inside the lips. In the distance someone, perhaps Nancy, wolfwhistled saucily. Then a terrible screech, as of a cat having its guts ripped out, pulled us apart most painfully. Terror turned to resignation upon realization that ‘twas merely a fiddler tuning up on the green behind us. Moments later a tune of sorts appeared, accompanied by a surge of shouting and clapping. The dancing, it seemed, had begun, and my life, I could not help thinking presumptuously, had begun with it. It was a shame in many ways, therefore, that it would end when Sophie discovered my true identity. Putting such troubling thoughts aside for the time being, I crooked my arm for Sophie to take, and escorted her to the grassy dancefloor, a Bookseller and his Bobbing Moll, intrepid Pursuers of Happiness in the Land Of Liberty. Of the hackneyed Revolutionary triad, only Life seemed in short supply.
Jostling with sturdier, more accomplished dancers, we nevertheless soon elbowed out a space for ourselves, and partook fully of every hoedown, jig and hay on offer. By the time we paused for rest, the stars had come out, along with trestle tables full of pies, puddings, and fowls both boiled and roasted. Helping ourselves to the food, and washing it down with pewter tankards full of spruce beer, we were soon revived enough to re-enter the fray.
This time the fiddlers seemed to be playing even faster, so that our dancing soon resembled a Dionysian frenzy; indeed, the pace was so frenetic that at times only Sophie’s desperately clutching fingers about my neck prevented her from flying off into the crowd.
‘Look at that Bookseller go!’ called one cheering, stomping onlooker, who, after several revolutions of the circular kind, I recognized as Half-Cock Henderson, looking well the worse for drink. Around him stood other beaming, sweating, swaying members of the Hackensack Militia, and they proceeded to perform the courtly hand roll in my honour. I was most touched, and would have responded in kind, had Sophie’s life not depended on my continued concentration on the dancing.
‘Know them, sweetie?’ laughed Sophie in my ear, after I had brought her safely in to land.
‘Lads I met earlier in the tavern. Hackensack Militia boys.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Sophie, twisting her head round to view them. ‘Fools playing at being soldiers, for the most part.’
‘I quite like them.’
‘And the British will like them even more,’ said Sophie, returning her attention to me and the dance in hand. ‘Can’t see Saul Pipe and company putting up much resistance to their regimental dog, let alone a bayonet charge.’
Making a mental note of Sophie’s backseat-driving tendencies, I suggested we take another rest and sup some more beer. Whilst we sought a seat, we encountered again the performing dogs, who walked past on their hind legs with their noses in the air, for all the world like a couple of disapproving dowagers. How Sophie and I laughed, and bonded more tightly! Then, as we drank under the branches of a tree prettily adorned with hanging lanterns, I whipped out one of my favourite poems in honour of Sophie’s origins:
Wie ergötz ich mich im Kühlen
Dieser schöhen Sommernacht!
O wie still ist hier zu fühlen,
Was die Seele glücklich macht!
Läßt sich kaum die Wonne fassen!
Und doch wollt ich, Himmel, dir
Tausend solcher Nächte lassen,
Gäb mein Mädchen Eine mir.
Sophie was delighted, and asked me how I knew the German tongue. I told her, and added that, exciting though it was, it was not as good as other tongues for the purposes of romance. This saucy gambit, once the penny had dropped, led surely onto a wondrous kissing session, much remarked upon by passers-by. Then we resumed our dancing, and continued until Sophie started to wheeze badly, and my knees began to buckle with the strain of repeatedly lifting her off the ground. Hobbling off, our going was a sad blow to all, and cast a pall over the mood of the revellers. Inevitably the entertainments of the night came to an end shortly afterwards in a flurry of fireworks and fists. The former were provided courtesy of the self-styled Pyrotechnicrats Of The Revolution (better known locally, so Sophie told me, as Ted Webster and Zachariah Roome, retired apothecary and candlestick-maker respectively); whilst the fists were exchanged between the Continental Army boys and the Hackensack Militia, and anyone else who cared to join in the simmering dispute over pay, conditions and fighting capabilities.
‘Is this how Musters always end?’ I asked Sophie, as arm in arm we strolled away from the chaos.
‘No,’ said Sophie calmly, resting her head on my shoulder and sighing contentedly, ‘usually I’m tucked up in bed by now, crying myself to sleep.’
‘Poor sweetie,’ I soothed, kissing her awkwardly mid-bob.
‘But you can’t regret unhappiness in the past if you are happy now, can you? Cause and effect, see; the sense of everything leading inevitably up to the present moment. One has to pay one’s dues to fully appreciate times like these when they come along.’
‘Aye, ‘tis true enough,’ I concurred, examining Sophie afresh out of the corner of my eye. Not only had I landed a Patriot, I had landed a philosopher as well it seemed, with all the ammunition for conversation that entailed. ‘Twas also proof, no doubt, that her life had been unhappy – philosophers like poets not generally coming from the ranks of the sane, let alone the cheerful. But would two negatives make a positive in our case?
‘I told you, I have no particular place to go, nor am I in any rush to get there.’
‘Really? What about the debts you have to collect?’
‘Debts will always be with us, Madam, but we, my dear, are here only once.’
Sophie shivered, and staggered a little on her stick.
‘Sir – I blush.’
I took her free hand and kissed it tenderly, a romantic dog.
‘So my guardians were right this afternoon,’ said Sophie, ‘it is your intention to have your way with me.’
Now ‘twas my turn to blush. I had not expected such a direct response.
‘W-well,’ I stammered, ‘well..’tis not what…’
‘Because if it is, you can!’ Sophie interrupted, a little desperately. ‘’Twould be an honour indeed to be tupped by such a great man.’
‘Sophie, I am not a great man. I am…’ Regretful, I went on with the lie, for Dick’s sake, ‘…a businessman who has belatedly realized – since the fire – that there is more to life than business. Surely many such men must have paid court to you over the years, having reached the same conclusion.’
‘Of course,’ snapped Sophie, after a look of panic had swept across her face. ‘Millions. And I had my fair share of them, let me tell you.’ She stared at me, defying me to contradict this unlikely statistic. ‘So when I tell you that you are a great man, and give you permission to enjoy my favours, do not quibble modestly, as if refusing a penny loaf, but grab the opportunity with both hands. If you do not, I may withdraw my offer, and think then of the regret you will suffer for the rest of your life.’
I thought about it, and did not like it. Sophie was right: the deed had to be done, and done now. Breathing hard, we paused in our perambulation, and looked up in admiration at the rockets bursting over us. Red, white and blue sparks flowered gracefully, while puffs of smoke and casualties of the fighting drifted across the common. The air was pungent with the smell of gunpowder, and vibrant with the sounds of explosions, shouting and clapping. My senses were tingling, and my mind was in a pleasant turmoil. Boldness, I knew, was required.
Infernal Revolutions Page 30