Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

“Morgan’s run.”

“Exactly. Morgan’s run. I have found the place. It is the main tributary of Arthur’s Vale stream and it arises from a strong spring at the top of a narrow valley. Above it lies the flat land which abuts onto the Queensborough road in the same region as the track to the Major’s distillery. A mere thirty-minute walk from Sydney Town, which will please McCaldren, and on good water. But I want the survey to take in both sides of the stream, because the best place to build is on the western slope. If ye make the block to the west of McCaldren’s another sixty-acre one, ’twill extend to water courses flowing west through Queensborough itself.”

Stephen stared at Richard in complete admiration. “Ye’ve solved all your problems, haven’t ye?” He shrugged, slapped his hands on his knees. “Well, I am going in that direction, having proceeded from the Cascade side. There I alternated sixty-acre lots with twenty-acre ones-big lot, hard land, small lot, easy land-which evens out the selling price, ye may say. At the moment I am up to James Proctor and Peter Hibbs. Not so far away. So I will proceed to the Queensborough road and start moving from it northward until I get back to Proctor and Hibbs. And I will make sure that I enclose Morgan’s Run within McCaldren’s sixty in such a way that ye have the head of the stream all to yourself.”

“Just twelve acres of it, Stephen, that is enough. Up the valley on both sides and through to the Queensborough road. What McCaldren does with the other forty-eight acres I care not,” said Richard with a grin. “However, if ye make my block more of a square, the rest of the piece could connect to my stream well below me. I can pay as much as twenty-five pounds in gold.”

“Let me lend ye the price of all sixty in gold, Richard.”

“Nay, it is not possible.”

“Between brothers anything is possible.”

“We shall see” was as far as Richard was prepared to go. He put the wine glass on the counter and bent to pick up Tobias, mewing around his feet with heartbreaking plaintiveness. “Ye’re a fraud, Tobias. Ye sound like the saddest orphan in the world, but I happen to know that ye live like a king.”

“Have a good night!” Stephen called after him, then scooped up the cat. “You and I, pussykins, are about to dine off Mt. Pitt bird. Why is it that dogs and cats are happy to eat the same thing each and every day of their lives, while we humans grow sated and sick after a week of monotony?”

Night hadcome creeping into the vale as Richard walked up the path, MacTavish rushing to greet him with somersaults of joy. The dog would much rather have spent his time with Richard, but was resigned to the fact that Richard expected him to guard Kitty, who luckily loved all animals save what she called the “dross”-her vocabulary’s more unusual words were either biblical or the result of gaol and Lady Juliana.

He stepped into the house to find Kitty at the counter, apparently able to see sufficiently in the dimness to prepare a meal. Though he had told her that she might, she never would use one of his precious candles for her own purposes. Smiling, she turned her head; he crossed the room to kiss her lips as if she had been his wife forever.

“I am for a bath,” he said, and disappeared again.

It seemed to take a long time; when he returned he looked at the stove. “Is there still hot water?”

“Of course.”

“Good. ’Tis easier to shave.”

She watched him with interest as he plied the ivory-handled razor quickly, deftly. But then, she had never seen him make a clumsy or unsure movement. Such beautiful hands, male yet graceful; they inspired confidence. “I do not understand,” she said, “how you can shave without a mirror. You never cut yourself.”

“Long years of practice,” he mumbled, mouth contorted. “In warm water with a bit of soap, easy. On Alexander I shaved dry.”

Finished, he rinsed the razor, folded it and laid it in its case before washing and drying his face. That done, he looked aimless, glanced at the fire and decided that it needed a part-burned log pushing back. No, it was still dangerous; he added a log as a prop, stood back, adjusted it. He lifted the lid of the spouted kettle, seemed disappointed that it did not need more water, walked over to his books, just about invisible.

“Richard,” she said gently, “if you are truly trying to find something to do, we can eat. That will fill in a few more minutes while you summon your courage to start giving me children.”

His eyes flew to hers, astonished, then he threw back his head and laughed until the tears came. “No, wife.” His tone growled down to a caress. “Suddenly I am not hungry for food.”

She smiled at him sidelong and walked through her door. “Do close the shutters,” she said as she went. Her voice floated back out of the darkness. “And put MacTavish out for the night.”

They will always, thought Richard, lead us when they want to. Ours is an illusion of power. Theirs is as old as creation.

His clotheshe left behind him, halting inside her room until he could see shadows within shadows, the vague outline of her upon the bed, sitting bolt upright.

“No, not where I cannot see you. In the firelight, and as God made you. Come,” he said, holding out his hand.

The rustle as she shed her night shift, the feel of warm and trusting fingers. He took her back and left her standing near the hearth to pluck the straw mattress from his bed, then threw it on the floor between them and looked at her. So beautiful! Like Venus, made for love. And it would be naked skin from the beginning, he wanted this to bear no resemblance to clothed convulsive couplings on the flags of the London Newgate. Sacred, an act dedicated to God, Who had made it possible. This is what we suffer for, one divine spark that turns the blackness of the pit to the brilliance of the sun. In this is true immortality. In this we fly free.

So he folded her into his arms and let her feel the satin of skin, the play of muscle, the strength and the tenderness, all the love for which he had found no outlet in years upon years. And she seemed in their wordless mingling to sense the timeless pattern of it, to know how and where and why. Always why. If he hurt her, it was only for a moment, after which there was no tomorrow, no more than her and this for all eternity. Pour forth your love, Richard Morgan, hold nothing back! Give her everything that you are and do not count the cost. That is the only reason for love, and she, my gift from God, knows and feels and accepts my pain.

From

June of 1791

until

February of 1793

“P eg,” faid Richard, for once in a mood to volunteeremotional information, “was first love. Annemarie Latour was purely sex. Kitty is last love.”

Eyes twinkling, Stephen contemplated him, wondering how he had managed to turn what ought to be infatuation into what would undoubtedly be an enduring passion. Or is it perhaps that he has gone so far for so long that whatever he feels is magnified a thousandfold?

“Ye’re living proof of the fact that there’s no fool like an old fool. But ye’re wrong about one thing, Richard. Kitty is love and sex rolled up in the same parcel. For you, at any rate. For myself-I used to think that sex was-well, if not the most important, certainly the most urgent, the one I had to satisfy. But ye’ve taught me a great many things, one of which is the art of going without sex.” He grinned. “As long, that is, that no one absolutely delectable comes along. Then I am all to pieces. But it passes, and so does he.”