Captain in Calico

by George MacDonald Fraser

  But Rackham was no longer listening. Courage, she said. Yet courage was not a thing he had thought of one way or another; certainly it had nothing to do with his meeting with La Bouche. Courage was not a virtue but a necessity, since without it there could simply be no life as he knew it.

  But such abstract contemplation was too much for a man wearied with two wounds and the torpid heat of the afternoon. Easier to lounge in his seat, feeling his stiffened muscles relax, conscious of the somehow comforting presence of this strange woman beside him. He was dreamily surprised when he remembered the dislike with which he had regarded her at first. His resentment had faded: even when he recalled how she had urged La Bouche to kill him he felt only curiosity. And that could wait. With his eyes shut he slumped in his seat, and his last recollection was of an arm about his shoulders and of soft, perfumed flesh pillowing his head.

  7. THE AMOROUS INVALID

  When Rackham opened his eyes again it was to look upon a high, airy, white-walled room with screen doors overlooking a pleasant garden. He was lying in a huge four-poster bed, marvellously soft, and screened by mosquito curtains. The verandah doors were open, and by turning his head he could see just a little of the foliage in the garden, and the high palisade beyond.

  This was her house; she had been bringing him to it when he had fallen asleep. He could not remember arriving, but he had a vague recollection of lying on this very bed while a tall, lean man with heavy jowls bent over him. It had been dusk, with candles in the room, and his last memory was of those little spears of light burning in the dark.

  It was a long time since he had lain in a bed like this, and for several minutes he savoured the pleasant drowsiness of his situation. His side was stiff, and his bandaged left hand was aching slightly, but for the rest he was at ease and content to wait until someone should break in upon his rest. So he drowsed gently until a sound in the doorway disturbed him, and he opened his eyes to see Mistress Bonney watching him. He began to struggle into an upright position, but she stopped him with a smile and a raised hand as she came forward. It was the first time he had seen her standing, and it came as a shock to him to realise that she must be nearly as tall as himself. Her figure was in proportion to her height; her shoulders wide and her arms powerful for all their deceptive smoothness. But any impression of masculinity was dispelled by the slimness of her waist, the fullness of the rounded breasts half revealed by her low-cut gown of yellow muslin, and the grace with which she moved.

  ‘And how are my bully-swordsman his wounds to-day?’ she asked.

  ‘Stiff,’ said Rackham, ‘but easier than they were.’

  She pouted and sat down on the bed. ‘I wish to God it had been La Bouche I had brought home. If I had asked the same question of him he’d have sworn his wounds were nothing to those his heart had suffered when I entered the room. But yours are stiff. Pah!’

  ‘Why, so they are,’ said Rackham. He hesitated. ‘But I thank you for what you’ve done. It was – it was very kind, mistress.’

  ‘Why, so it was,’ she answered. ‘And my name is Anne. A queen’s name, you’ll remember.’ She was smiling at him again. ‘Well, doesn’t it suggest a compliment? Heavens, man, La Bouche would have given me a score of them.’

  ‘There’s a deal too much of La Bouche here,’ he said irritably.

  ‘No,’ said Anne Bonney. ‘A deal too little. Only a big Englishman with an English tongue. But there.’ She patted his unwounded hand. ‘I like them better, I think.’

  He considered her. ‘It didn’t seem so, yesterday.’

  ‘Yesterday?’

  ‘Finish him off, La Bouche. It’s over hot,’ he quoted. ‘Some such words as those. I don’t forget them, mistress.’

  ‘That?’ She laughed contemptuously, then looked at him half-smiling. ‘Consider, now, and tell me truthfully – did it not anger you?’

  ‘Aye, it did.’

  ‘And you were in such a rage that you half-killed him with your fist and then ran him through?’

  He stared at her. ‘And you’d have me believe you foresaw all that? You must think me a fool, mistress.’

  ‘I do,’ she agreed readily, ‘since your wits are so slow that they can’t see the obvious. Why else should I do it, but to sting you who were standing there like a pudding, waiting to be killed, and to puff the vanity of that French dungrooster? If I had wanted to see La Bouche pay you, should I have brought you here?’

  ‘How do I know? You’re a woman, and have reasons no man can understand.’ But he was half-convinced. ‘It may be as you say. God knows I’ve enough to be grateful to you for.’

  She turned and leaned across towards him. ‘Grateful?’

  ‘Aye, of course,’ he said, a little shame-faced.

  She leaned closer, until she was so near that he could feel her breath on his face, and inhale the heavy sweetness of her perfume. He put up his hand and caressed her shoulder gently, then the red lips parted and she was in his arms, her mouth pressed fiercely against his. he fondled her shoulders and neck, and felt her shudder. For a moment they clung together, and then she drew away, her moist lips trembling. ‘And you supposed to be a sick man,’ she sighed. ‘God help us when you’re well.’

  He stretched out a hand towards her, but she rose quickly.

  ‘No, no, my lad. The weather’s warm enough. Fevers mount too easily in this heat.’

  ‘I’m in no danger of fever,’ he exclaimed impatiently. ‘Anne—’

  ‘Who said you were? Anyway there’s work to do for us who can’t stay abed.’ She went to the door. ‘You’re best lying still until the doctor sees you again.’ Then she winked and smiled at him. ‘Later, perhaps.’ The door closed behind her and he was alone again.

  For several minutes he lay quite still. So there was more to Mistress Bonney after all than the mannish talk and the banter. Only for a few seconds had the mask dropped, but in that brief space she had been all woman, and a very beautiful and passionate woman besides. Compared with her, the lately adored Kate Sampson seemed a pale, insignificant creature – attractive enough, but only a pretty miss beside this splendid red-headed Hebe. This was the kind of woman a man could meet on equal terms – and yet be a woman for all that.

  He did not see her again that day, but he thought of little else, which may have had something to do with the slight feverishness which the doctor – who visited him in the evening – detected when he made his examination. However, he pronounced himself generally satisfied and suggested that the patient might get up next morning. Rackham would have questioned him, for apart from the negro slaves who brought him his meals he had seen no one, and there was much which he wanted to know about his mysterious hostess, but the doctor was not communicative. So, still wondering, the pardoned pirate spent a second night beneath Mistress Bonney’s hospitable roof, and in the morning, feeling considerably more energetic than on the previous day, got out of bed as soon as the slaves had given him his breakfast.

  His wounds seemed to have mended swiftly, and he dressed unaided. His own clothes had gone, but in a cupboard he found a clean shirt and breeches which fitted him tolerably well, linen stockings, and shoes. Since the day was warm he sauntered out on to the verandah. Steps at one end led down into the garden, and soon he was wandering along the path which ran round the house.

  Whoever Anne Bonney might be, she obviously had money. The gardens were spacious and well kept, and while Rackham was no naturalist, he could make the mercenary’s subconscious computation of what all this splendour would be worth if translated into coin.

  The sudden dry crack of a pistol shot broke the morning quiet, and Rackham wheeled abruptly. He was at one side of the house, and the shot had been fired behind the building, somewhere among a cluster of low, thatched sheds just inside the palisade, fifty yards away.

  He was walking towards them when a second shot sounded, and this time he caught sight of a tiny blue smoke-puff rising behind a wicker wall adjoining one of the huts. To reach it he had to cr
oss a hard-beaten open space behind the house, and separated from it by a stout wooden stockade. Evidently these sheds housed the plantation slaves. He reached the end of the wicker screen and walked round it.

  A tall man, dressed in a close-fitting suit of black, and wearing long riding boots, stood with his back to Rackham. His right hand held a pistol, and he was aiming at an orange set on a post some twenty paces distant. Behind the target a pile of spongy palmetto logs ensured safety from the pistol balls.

  The pistol cracked and Rackham saw the orange move slightly, but it did not fall. The tall man gave an exclamation of disgust and picked up another pistol from a bench in front of him. Again he aimed, but the broad-brimmed hat he wore interfered with his vision and he swept it off impatiently. To Rackham’s amazement a cascade of red hair fell to the blackclad shoulders as the hat was removed, and at his exclamation Anne Bonney turned abruptly.

  ‘My pirate!’ she cried gaily, and dropped the pistol on to the bench. As she advanced on him Rackham found himself thinking how admirably her masculine clothing became her: if she had been gracefully feminine in her accustomed dress, she was even more beautifully lithe in her new habit.

  ‘You see me at practice,’ she announced. And without giving him a moment to reply: ‘Are you better indeed? Do your wounds pain you yet?’

  Rackham smiled. ‘I live,’ he said. ‘Do you go on with your shooting.’

  ‘Nay, I’ve done enough. There are better things to do, now that I have my pirate on his feet again.’

  ‘But the orange is still whole,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Bah, now I shall never hit it,’ she pouted, but she turned back to the bench and picked up her pistol. She fired again, hardly taking aim, and the orange was spattered against the log screen.

  ‘There,’ she said, tossing her head. ‘Now let me see the prowler who sets foot in this plantation.’

  ‘What if you have no pistol?’ jested Rackham, but she took him seriously. ‘Come and see,’ she said, and led him into a shed which flanked her pistol range. It was a long, airless place, with a plank floor, and in one corner a pile of what appeared to be long cushions. Anne Bonney crossed to a cupboard beside the pile, and opening it, took out a flat slim case. To Rackham’s surprise it contained two slender rapiers, deadly Spanish tools with three razor edges and needle-fine points.

  ‘These will serve if I have no pistols,’ said Anne, and she swished one of the blades in the air with evident familiarity.

  While he watched she stooped to the pile of cushions, and lifting one, suspended it from a hook in the main rafter. Then, stepping back, she came on guard. Fascinated, Rackham watched her point flicker in and out as she went through the various guards. With quick, smooth steps, always academically upright, advancing and retreating, she made play with an imaginary opponent before extending herself in a lunge which sent the blade in and out through the target in one lightning movement. Again and again she thrust, her point finding the same spot with unvarying accuracy.

  At last she turned towards him. ‘Would you care to prowl, sir?’ she asked, with mock demureness.

  ‘Not I, by God,’ said Rackham. ‘Ye’ve seen the sorry showing I make with a sword. I’ll not pretend. I never was a fencer.’

  She chuckled and was about to turn away to restore her weapon to is case, but his hand on her wrist detained her. For a moment she resisted and then she allowed herself to be drawn into his arms, and opened her mouth on his. Her arms went about his neck and he pulled her down on to the pile of cushions. His arms tightened about her, pressing her so close that she began to feel dizzy, but it was a wholly delightful dizziness, and she made no attempt to draw away. And at that moment a foot scraped behind them.

  Involuntarily she started away from him, looking round. There were three men in the doorway. One was a stout, yellow-faced person of middle height, richly dressed in biscuit-coloured taffeta, who was watching them with twinkling little eyes that were close set on either side of his broad snub nose. He was leaning on a long cane, and his face, under his broad-brimmed hat, was twisted into a peculiar, ugly smile. Beside him stood a huge, bearded fellow bearing a coiled whip; obviously a plantation overseer. He was grinning broadly as he surveyed them. The third man, who stood slightly behind, was a negro.

  Astonished and angry, Rackham was on the point of asking what the devil they wanted; was, in fact, already weighing up the burly overseer as an adversary; but Anne Bonney was there before him. He might have expected her to spring to her feet, angrily to order them away or – although it was hard to imagine – she might have shown signs of guilt or confusion. But she did none of these. Instead, she surveyed the three coldly, leaned back into Rackham’s arms, and said softly, almost lazily: ‘Get out.’

  The stout man’s smile grew a trifle broader, and definitely uglier. With his free hand he made an odd fluttering movement, and inclined his head in a conciliatory gesture. His shifty eyes looked everywhere but at her.

  ‘Of course, of course, my dear,’ he said in a thin, piping voice. ‘But you forget, I have not yet been presented.’ His eyes rested for a moment on Rackham’s face, then dropped again.

  ‘Get out,’ said Anne Bonney, in the same quiet voice.

  The expression on the man’s face never altered, but the bearded overseer let out a rumble of laughter. Without bothering to glance at him the stout man said: ‘Be off, Kane. I’ll see you at the house.’

  The overseer turned away, still grinning, and the slave went with him, but his master remained in the doorway. For a few seconds Anne Bonney looked at him dispassionately, then she stretched her arm behind Rackham’s neck, and without apparent exertion, pulled his face down to hers and kissed him. He would have shaken her off, but her grip was uncommonly strong, and she held him for a few seconds before he broke away, flushing with embarrassment.

  The man in the doorway continued to smile his ugly smile.

  ‘I regret the intrusion, mistress,’ he said. ‘But I must convey my felicitations to the captain on his recovery. My congratulations, sir.’ He bowed in Rackham’s direction. ‘We shall do all in our power to make your stay here an enjoyable one. Please regard this estate, and everything on it, as your own.’

  His irony was obvious, and Rackham was about to spring up with an angry retort when Anne Bonney forestalled him.

  ‘Get out,’ she said for the third time, and the stout man, with a bow and a last smirk, obeyed.

  ‘Of course, my own. My service to you, captain. Remember, what we have is here for your pleasure.’ He bowed again and they heard his steps retreating across the yard.

  Rackham started to get to his feet, but Anne Bonney, reclining across his knees, laid a hand on his arm.

  ‘Let him be,’ she said.

  ‘But who the devil is he?’

  She glanced up at him. ‘My husband. Did you not know?’

  ‘Your husband?’ He stared at her in dismay.

  ‘It was apparent, surely.’ She sat up and smoothed her close-fitting black shirt. ‘Ye didn’t think he was my father, I hope.’

  ‘Good God,’ said Rackham. ‘And you sat here with me—’

  ‘Be still,’ she chided him. ‘What’s to concern you? You had designs on me yourself, and they’re no more dishonourable because I’m married.’

  She stood up and patted her hair into place. If she was troubled that her husband had found her in Rackham’s arms, she showed no signs of it. But for Rackham it was a blow: the thought that she might be married had never entered his head; perhaps he had not wanted to think of it. Since it was so, then the sooner he turned his back on the Bonneys, man and wife, and got him to sea with Penner, the better.

  But he did not want to turn his back on Anne Bonney. The past few hours he had spent in an idyll, and he wanted it to continue. He wanted this woman, and not only in a physical sense. He wanted to be with her, to hear her voice, to watch her, to listen to her deep, soft laugh and to catch the bright, inviting glance of her grey eyes. But a husband �
� that was an obstacle not to be overcome. She might despise and detest the man, but she was bound to him and he to her. There was no escaping it.

  While he sat there, silent, she paced to the door and stood looking into the sunlight.

  ‘What will you do?’ she asked at length.

  ‘I?’ Rackham grimaced. ‘What is there to be done? I can change into my own clothes again, and thank you for your kindness to me. What else?’

  ‘Because of him?’

  ‘Because he is your husband.’

  She gave a bitter little smile and came to sit down beside him again. ‘Strange,’ she said. ‘Because of a man I hate, I must lose a man—’ Deliberately she left the end of the sentence unspoken, and as she expected, he turned on her, eager to hear it.

  ‘Because of the man – Go on!’ His hands were on her shoulders, turning her towards him, and then he saw that her eyes were full of tears. For a moment he looked at her, and then, with a little sob, she was clinging to him, her lips on his. Fiercely he drew her to him, feeling the pressure of her breasts against him; then she went limp in his arms.

  For a long moment they clung together, then he gently pushed her a little away, holding her by the shoulders and looking down into her face.

  ‘Do you – would you leave him and come away with me?’ he asked.

  She did not answer for a moment. ‘Come away?’ she repeated. ‘Come away?’ She smiled gently at him. ‘To come away is not so easy.’

  ‘Why not?’ He was all eagerness. ‘Wherever you will – Charles Town, New York, England even. Say the word and it’s done, lass.’

  She shook her head. ‘Castles in the air. This is the King’s land, and there is a law, reckless John, that commands obedience from wives, even to husbands like mine. Would you put yourself beyond pardon for nothing? Husband-robbing is an ill venture for a reformed buccaneer.’