Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

“For I cannot deny my own son what he has here,” said Dick.

“You are right, it is too readily available,” Mag agreed.

So Dick lent him the handcart in which they fetched sawdust and provisions, watched a grim-faced Richard load two chests upon it. “What about your tools?”

“Keep them,” said Richard tersely. “I doubt I will need those kind of tools in Clifton.”

The house in which Mistress Latour and Willy Insell lodged was the middle one of three conjoined premises on Clifton Green Lane not far from Jacob’s Well. That the edifice had once been a single dwelling was patent in the narrowness of the stairs and the rough partitions which divided it into three separate sections, thereby increasing the rents. The boards did reach the ceilings, but were typically slipshod-full of gaping cracks and thin enough to hear a woman’s voice shrilling next door. Annemarie’s garret rose alone like a single eyebrow and had afforded a great deal more privacy, Richard now discovered as he surveyed her fine bed in its new location one floor down.

“Our lovemaking will be rather more public,” he said dryly.

A Gallic shrug. “All the world makes love, cher Richard.” Suddenly she gasped and reached into her reticule. “I forgot! I ’ave a letter for you.”

He took the folded sheet and stared at the seal curiously; not anyone’s he knew. But the front was clearly addressed-by the copperplate hand of a scrivener-to Mr. Richard Morgan.

“Sir,” said the letter, “your name has been drawn to my attention through the kind services of Mrs. Herbert Barton. I believe that you are a gunsmith. If this be true, and you are able to furnish good references and perhaps demonstrate your skills in my own presence, then I may have employment for you. Kindly present yourself at nine of the clock to my establishment at 10, Westgate Buildings, Bath, on the 30th of September.”

It was signed, in a shaky, unschooled hand, “Horatio Midder.” Who on earth was Horatio Midder? He had thought he knew the name of every gunsmith between Reading and Weymouth, but Mr. Midder was new to him.

“What is it? Who is it from?” Annemarie was asking, trying to peer over his shoulder.

“From a gunsmith in Bath named Horatio Midder. Offering me a job,” said Richard, blinking. “He wants to see me on the thirtieth at nine in the morning, which means I will have to leave tomorrow.”

“Oh, it is the friend of Mrs. Barton’s!” caroled Annemarie, clapping her hands in joy. She hung her head until her long black lashes cast shadows on her cheeks. “I mentioned you to her, cher Richard. You do not mind?”

“If it means a job,” said Richard, picking her up and tossing her into the air, “I would not care did ye mention my name to Old Nick himself!”

“It is too bad,” she pouted, “that you will have to go away tomorrow. I have told everybody in these ’ouses- houses -that we are married and you have moved in, and we have many invitations to visit.” The pout grew poutier. “Perhaps you will have to stay in Bath on Friday night too-I will not see you until Saturday.”

“Never mind, if it means a job of work,” said Richard, taking one of his chests to a spot where he thought Annemarie would not want to put anything of her own. “I am still sorry that ye moved the bed downstairs,” he hinted. “Since Willy has elected to live in the cellar, there was no need.”

“What does it matter, Richard, if you get a job in Bath?” she asked with inarguable logic. “We will be moving again anyway.”

“True.”

“Is it not nice to have a room for my desk?” she asked. “I love to write letters, and it was so cramped upstairs.”

He walked to the room behind the bedroom and looked at the desk, very solitary. “We will have to buy furniture to keep it company. How odd! In all my life I have not needed to furnish a place, even when Peg and I lived on Temple Street.”

“Peg?”

“My wife. She is dead,” said Richard curtly, suddenly needing a drink. “I shall go for a walk while you write letters.”

But she followed him downstairs, where the living room and the kitchen lay, the one containing four wooden chairs, a table and a sideboard, the other a counter and crude fireplace. Could Annemarie cook? Would Annemarie have the time to cook, if she spent her afternoons and evenings with the late-rising Mrs. Barton?

On the doorstep she stood on tiptoe and kissed him.

“Egad!” cried an affected voice. “Mr. Morgan, is it not?”

Richard broke the kiss with a jerk and slewed around to see Mr. John Trevillian Ceely Trevillian posing not three feet away in all the glory of cyclamen velvet embroidered in black and white. The hair on the back of his head rose, but, aware of Annemarie, he could not do what he longed to do-turn his rump on Ceely Trevillian and stride away down the lane.

“Mr. Trevillian, as I live and breathe,” he said.

“Is this the wife I have been hearing about?” the fop fluted, pursing his painted lips in admiration. “Do introduce me!”

For a long moment Richard stood silent, striving to keep his face expressionless as his rum-clouded mind raced through all the possible consequences of this unhappy, inopportune encounter. To one side of and behind Mr. Trevillian stood a small group of men and women he had not so far met, but assumed from their indoor dress that they lived in one or the other of the boarded-off sections on either side of Annemarie’s apartment. What should he do? How should he answer? “Do introduce me!” Ceely had said.

Like almost every other Englishman, Richard knew very little about the law, but he did know that once he spoke of a woman as his wife, in effect she became his wife at Common Law. When Annemarie had proposed that she tell her friends and neighbors of a marriage between herself and Richard, he had retained, even in his hungover state, sufficient sense to resolve that she could prattle on about marrying him as much as she wanted, but he would make sure he never confirmed her talk.

Now here he stood, confronted by his inimicus Ceely Trevillian in the midst of Annemarie’s neighbors, neatly impaled on the horns of a dilemma: if his introduction implied that she was his wife, then as long as he cohabited with her, she was his Common Law wife; if he publicly disavowed her, she acquired the status of a whore in the eyes of her neighbors and the persecution would start.

He gave a mental shrug. So be it. His wife she would have to be until-or if-he ceased to cohabit with her. Though he loathed her tasteless musical analogies quite as much as he loathed himself for being caught in her sexual toils, he could not turn her from a respectable maidservant into a trollop. Of their two lives, hers was the one that revolved around Jacob’s Well and its denizens.

“Annemarie,” he said curtly. Then: “What are you doing here?”

“My dear fellow, visiting my hairdresser-Mr. Joice, y’know.” Ceely indicated a simpering man at his elbow. “Lives next door, which is how I learned ye’re married and come to live here.” Out came a lace handkerchief; he passed it delicately across his brow. “’Tis a warm day for the end of September, is it not?”

“Oh, sir, please to come in,” said Annemarie, curtseying in a flurry of petticoats. “A rest in the cool of our living room will soon make you feel better.” She ushered the unwelcome visitor in and sat him on one of the chairs, then fanned his brow with the edge of her apron. “Richard, my dear, do we ’ave anything to offer the gentleman?” she asked dulcetly, obviously impressed with so much style.

“Until I fetch beer and rum from the Black Horse, naught,” said Richard ungraciously.

“Then I will find you a pitcher for beer and one for small beer,” she said, and bustled with many twitchings of her skirts into the kitchen, making sure that Ceely got an eyeful of ankle.