It was Kemp, however, who broke the silence and in a way that was totally unexpected.
“I would not wish you to think,” he said, looking squarely at Ashton, “that the lawyer representing me yesterday was acting on my instructions when he singled you out and made personal remarks about your plans to prosecute the case further.”
“I am very glad to hear you say so,” Ashton said. “Since he was representing your interests directly and no one was representing mine—in fact, I had no direct interest in the case—it was natural to suppose that his outburst was part of some tactic previously agreed upon.”
“No, nothing of the sort.” Kemp raised his head and spoke with more emphasis now, as if he had been contradicted. “I would not descend to that,” he said. “If I cannot win by fair means, I would not wish to win at all.”
Ashton nodded, not really believing this, not really believing it was true of himself. Fairness was not a fixed value; it depended on the nature of the end to be served. “Well, it does you credit,” he said.
“The fellow went far beyond his instructions,” Kemp said. “I believe he lost his temper, as a matter of fact. I shall on no account employ him again. I hold him partly responsible for the unfavorable judgment we received.”
Ashton made no immediate reply to this. It was clear to him that despite the assurances of probity and fair dealing, Kemp still believed he was in the right, would always believe so; he had been angry to see his lawyer obscure this fact by antagonizing the judge. Something of this anger had come into his eyes as he spoke, eyes that were long and narrow, very dark, with a singular intensity of regard. He had worn the same look when the jury returned their verdict. Ashton had noted it, as he had noted the triumphant smiles of Van Dillen and his associates seated not far away. He had thought it due to the sting of defeat, but it seemed now that Kemp believed he had been dealt with unjustly.
After the initial greeting he had not looked at Jane again, as if the necessity of making things clear, removing any suspicion of underhand dealing, were of paramount importance to him. In fact it was suspicion on Jane’s part, not Ashton’s, that he wished to remove. Ashton was an opponent, and he had never had much care for the feelings and opinions of opponents. But that Jane Ashton should think ill of him, should think him capable of such contriving, that was a very different matter.
And Jane, with the pleasurably heightened perceptions that come from a growing interest in the mind and person of another, knew that he was speaking to her, knew with the kind of certainty that needs little in the way of evidence that the reason he did not look at her was that he wanted to do so very much, that he had dwelled long upon her and had arranged this meeting. She wondered with a kind of indulgent irony whether such an arrangement came under the heading of fair means.
Ashton glanced around him. The moment was propitious. “If you will excuse me for a short while,” he said, “there is someone over there I would like to exchange some words with. An old friend,” he added, smiling at Jane, who had turned in some surprise to look at him.
This left the two of them standing alone together. And alone for the moment they felt themselves to be, in the midst of all the people there. Not far away were long tables loaded with things to eat and drink; there were wine and champagne, pastries and sweetmeats of every sort, pies, tarts, molds, charlottes and betties, trifles and fools, syllabubs and tansys. But thoughts of eating and drinking came to the mind of neither. Kemp’s plans for the evening had not ended here; he knew the house, had visited Bateson on several occasions before, usually to discuss the business of the West India Association or the state of the sugar trade.
“Let us go this way,” he said. Passing below the gallery where the orchestra was playing, one came to a French window that opened onto a covered portico. Here they stood, leaning against the balustrade, looking out over the garden below. The evening air was cool, and Jane was glad of the quilted linen shawl over her shoulders. Somewhere among the trees, undeterred by the voices, the music, the clatter of plates and glasses, a bird she thought might be a nightingale was singing.
It was now that Kemp—not by calculation but by sheer force of feeling and need for her understanding—hit upon the way most likely to secure Jane’s sympathy and approval. Instead of the compliments and close regards that she had been half expecting—standard behavior among the men of her acquaintance, and generally tedious to her—he began to talk about the Durham coal fields and the colliery village of Thorpe and his plans to go there soon and look at the mine, on which he had taken a lease. Within a few days, he told her. He spoke of his ambitions, his wish to build, create, improve the way things were done. He had studied, he had read a great deal about the mining and transport of coal, he already, even before going there, had ideas about how things could be improved.
He kept his eyes on her face as he spoke, and he saw that he had captured her attention, and something more; her expression showed the warmth of interest he had hoped for but not altogether believed he could arouse. He grew in eloquence, carried away by the feeling that she was entering into his designs, sharing them. There was so much that was antiquated and inefficient in the methods of extraction and marketing, so much scope for improvement …
“I think it is a splendid thing for a man to want to do,” she said. With her enthusiasm for action and improvement, her hatred of resignation, Kemp’s words had struck a deep chord in her. He could not have paid her a greater compliment than this, to tell her of these plans, take her into his confidence. He was inviting her approval, her judgment, seemed even to have need of it, not only regarding his intentions in Durham but for himself personally. And he was vividly present to her, with his darkness of coloring, the intensity of his gaze, his habit of occasional sudden gesture. He had lost the slight stiffness of bearing; he leaned toward her as he talked, as if in eagerness to convince her.
“There are so many things closed to women,” she said. “If I were a man, I would like to do something like that, something useful and positive, something to improve the lot of those people who spend their lives toiling in the darkness of the mine.” Her eyes were shining. “It is a noble aim,” she said.
These words brought something of a check to Kemp, who had not much considered this aspect of things. Of course, it was becoming in a woman to harbor such sentiments. “Well, you know,” he said, “increased efficiency is bound to bring benefits to the working people.”
He paused on this, looking at her face, and at this moment she turned a little toward him and the light from the room behind them fell on her more directly. The brows and eyes, the slightly smiling mouth—it was the same face, the face he had seen at Vauxhall, momentarily lit up by that shower of gold, celebrating his success. He was persuaded of it, but he could not risk asking her, not now, not this evening. If she should say, No, I was not there, it was not I, the face was not mine, the blessing would be dimmed, they would both come closer to the light of common day.
They were interrupted at this point. Others had found the door and entered now, several people talking loudly together. Kemp had time to say in low tones, “When I return from Durham, may I call on you?” and she to answer, with the one word only.
This word once obtained, and now that they could no longer be alone together, Kemp saw no need to stay. They rejoined Ashton, who was in the midst of a group, involved in an animated discussion as to the prospects of the government remaining in power now that the Earl of Chatham had retreated into madness and was spending his days in a darkened room in Hampstead with Lady Chatham as his only link with the outside world.
Kemp did not join in this, and after restoring Jane to the company of her brother, he took his leave. It seemed to Jane that the light was dimmer for his going, and she felt a little empty, as if the best of the evening were over. This feeling she translated into a need for comfort, and she had a glass of burgundy and ate a chicken leg, followed by a tansy pudding.
19
In the course of the follow
ing days, helped along by the wrestler’s two shillings and by farthings and halfpennies from his fiddling and singing, Sullivan got across the Humber at Hartgate, bypassed York and was approaching Bridlington when he found a fair in progress at a seaside village called Rushburn. It was late afternoon, he was tired and footsore, and it came to him that this would be a pleasant and healthful place to stay the night. He had sixteen pence; half of that would get him a plate of bread and cheese and onion and a bed. If he could add to his stock by playing and singing for an hour or two, he would be off to a good start next morning on what he felt would be the last leg of his journey to the birthplace of Billy Blair. In pursuance of this aim, he found a corner, spread his waistcoat and began, as usual, with a lively air to draw the people in. This time it was a tune he had first heard as a child in Ireland, “The Galway Piper.” To add to the performance he shuffled his feet and nodded his head and turned his body this way and that in time with the tune. When a knot of people had gathered, he lowered his fiddle and broke into song. He knew a great many songs and did not think much beforehand of which to chose. Now, stirred to a sort of nostalgia by what he had just been playing, he sang some of the words to it:
Loudly he can play or low,
He can move you fast or slow,
Touch your hearts or stir your toe,
Piping Tim of Galway.
The crowd grew a little. He heard a coin strike against those of his own he had previously laid there to serve as good example. He repeated the air on his fiddle, then chose another song, a melody slower and more lingering, requiring a raised head and a look of yearning:
When like the dawning day
Eileen Aroon
Love sends his early ray
Eileen Aroon
What makes his dawning glow
Changeless through joy and woe
Only the constant know
Eileen Aroon
He continued until nightfall. When he counted the takings, he found they came to fivepence halfpenny in coins of small denomination, a reward he considered reasonable. As he was leaving he noticed a beer tent crowded with people, open at the sides and roofed over with canvas, brightly lit now that darkness had come. He felt dry after his singing; the thought of an energizing draft was suddenly tempting and after some moments more became irresistibly so.
He entered, fiddle and bow slung over his shoulder, made his way to the long counter where several people were serving from the barrels and asked for a pint of ale, which cost one penny. He was tired, he did not feel sociable, he would have preferred to drink outside in the open, away from the crowd. But he could not leave the tent without returning his mug: there would be men posted to watch out for any move of that kind, the mug being worth more than the ale contained in it. So he made his way to a far corner of the tent, where the lamps did not reach with full strength and there was a twilight zone.
However, he was no more than halfway through his drink when a woman came up close to him, bade him good evening and, finding he did not draw away, rubbed the front of her thigh against him. “You could give us a swaller o’ that, you could, mister fiddler,” she said.
This rubbing, and the thinness of the material of the woman’s skirt, worked an immediate effect on Sullivan. He had not been with a woman for a long time now, not since the days of the Florida settlement. There had been the long return to England, during which he had been kept in irons; there had been the weeks he had spent, still fettered, in prison; there had been the miracle of his escape, the sacredness of his vow, the urgent need to get away from London and escape pursuit …
“Here,” he said, handing her the mug. “I am not the man to deny a sup of ale to a lady.”
He watched her drink, saw the movement of her throat.
“I knowed you was a gen’leman soon as I set eyes on you,” she said, and paused, and drank again.
“I will go and get you a pint for yourself,” Sullivan said, but she laid a hand on his arm. “No,” she said, “don’t go away, you might forget me.”
She was not very pretty and not very young, but she had bold eyes and a painted mouth, and when her hand slipped from his arm and came gently to rest on his abdomen, he felt very constricted in his trousers, and began to lose all thought of consequences.
“S’ppose you an’ me was to go for a stroll outside,” she said. “It’s a nice night, ain’t it?” She handed him back the mug. “You better finish this.”
A final, feeble impulse of caution came to Sullivan. “How much?” he said.
“I asks two shillin’ in the usual way of things.”
“I have not got two shillin’.”
“How much have you got?”
“One shillin’ an’ eightpence halfpenny.”
“Well, I have took a fancy to you. That was a lovely song you sang, that one about Eileen. I will take a bit less this time.”
Sullivan, too much in haste to return the mug to the counter, let it fall, empty now, into the dark grass at his feet. The sense that he was getting a special price destroyed the last of his reserve, and they stepped out of the tent together.
They walked away from the lights, went through a gate into the next field, found a place near the hedge. “First we pays, then we has our fun,” the woman said, and Sullivan handed over the money. “I would spread me coat for you, if I had one,” he said. “I had a fine coat once.” The echo of an old obsession came to him, even in this moment of high excitement. “I had a fine coat once, but it was took off me back, twice I have had me buttons stole—”
“Well, I ain’t goin’ to steal ’em now,” she said. “You better unbutton them what you have got left.”
No time was wasted on further speech. The woman went down on her back, lifted up her skirt and spread her legs. There was no impediment of undergarments. Sullivan found his way and was very soon in the throes of delight. But these had barely subsided when his peace was disturbed by a light on his face, and he saw two men standing above him, both armed with heavy sticks.
“Aye, aye,” one of the men said. “What ’ave we got ’ere? A pair o’ nightbirds, ain’t we?”
Sullivan scrambled to his feet and with a gallantry he felt to be commendable at such a time held out his hand to help the woman up. “Who might you be?” he said.
“It is the constables,” the woman said.
“That is right, my pretty. You’ve ’ad to do with us before, ain’t you?”
“Don’t know you from Adam, I don’t.”
“She don’t look at the faces,” the other man said.
“I have seen somethin’ of the world an’ you do not have the look of constables to me,” Sullivan said. “You must have watched us and follered after.”
“No need for talkin’. All you needs to do is show us you have got money enough about you for a night’s lodgin’, an’ we will let you alone.”
Sullivan said nothing to this for some moments, hoping that the woman would come to his aid and say they were together and had money in common. But she remained silent.
“I have no money,” he said at last. “Owin’ to a combination of circumstances which I have not the leisure to go into at the present moment.”
“Sleepin’ in the open, no abode an’ no money. You are a vagrant, an’ you will ’ave to come along with us to the parish workhouse.”
“Show me your badge of office,” Sullivan said, and received a violent push in the chest that sent him back several steps.
“Any more o’ that an’ you will get a batterin’. An’ don’t try makin’ a run for it, you will not get far.” He turned to the woman, shining the lamp in her face. “ ’Ow about you?” he said. “Betsy, ain’t it? ’Ow much did he give you?”
“He give me a shillin’.”
“Ho, yes. Very likely. Well, you gives us the shillin’ an’ you keeps the rest, an’ everythin’ is fair an’ aboveboard.”
With the sad, belated wisdom that follows upon passion spent, Sullivan saw his bread and cheese and his bed
for the night transferred to the pocket of one of the men. Betsy left the scene at a good speed and without a backward glance, and he was taken by the arms and led away.
20
As the time approached for the handball match with the neighboring colliery village of Northfield, Michael Bordon spent his Sunday mornings and evenings practicing, alone or with anyone who cared to play, at the handball court, which lay alongside the alehouse. He was now, by the consent of a large majority, Thorpe’s appointed champion, and he took the responsibility very seriously. Sunday afternoons he spent walking out with Elsie Foster. They had now reached the stage of walking hand in hand.
His mother had been the first to notice the change in him. He would previously, after the practice session, put on his pit clothes and go to play chuck farthing or sit in talk with the other men. Now he would spend a long time over combing his hair, and ask her more often to trim it for him. He would get out his best suit, the breeches with embroidered kneebands, the coat close-fitting, cut in at the waist.
Nan was carried back to the days of her courtship. She had been lucky in Bordon, she knew that; he was sometimes violent with others but never other than gentle with her. There was something unfulfilled in him, something rebellious and unresigned, that made him often somber, and this was more evident now that he grew older. He knew that Michael was walking out with Elsie Foster and that the family would lose income when the boy married; this would not be yet, but probably as soon as Michael went from putter to hewer. Bordon had married then himself.
Both of them approved of the girl and the family. Elsie worked on the tips, just as Nan had done. Bordon had taken her from that work, as it was likely Michael would do with Elsie.
Her husband’s best clothes were still there, in the trunk, though it was seldom that he wore them now. She went and got out the cravat, remembering how smart he had looked when he first came calling, so tall and straight, turning his cap in his hands. Her brother Billy had run off to sea before that …