Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

“I owe you no thanks, Morgan,” said Ceely as soon as they were alone. “That tale you fabricated about me has led to several very unpleasant interviews with the Commander of Excise. I do not know what I did to offend you while you tinkered with Mr. Cave’s apparatus, but it was certainly not sufficient to deserve the tissue of lies you told the Collector.”

“No lies,” said Richard levelly. “I saw ye at work by the light of a full moon on a cloudless night, and heard your name.” He smiled. “And because ye were injudicious enough to converse frankly with Mr. Cave and Mr. Thorne while another listened, you will be exposed as the villain you are, Mr. Ceely Trevillian.”

Annemarie came in, an empty white pitcher in each hand. “Is beer acceptable, sir?” she asked the visitor.

“At this hour of day, quite,” said Mr. Trevillian.

A pitcher in either hand, Richard went off to the Black Horse under Brandon Hill while Annemarie settled in another chair to talk to the awesomely grand gentleman.

When he returned he discovered that his trip had been for nothing; Mr. Trevillian was standing on the stoop, busy kissing Annemarie’s hand.

“I ’ope we see you again, m’sieur,” she said, dimpling demurely.

“Oh, I can promise you that!” he cried in his falsetto voice. “Do not forget that my hairdresser lives right next door.”

Annemarie gasped. “Mrs. Barton! I will be late!”

Mr. Trevillian offered his arm. “As I know the lady well, Madame Morgan, pray permit me to escort you to her house.”

And off they went, heads together, he mouthing pretty nothings, she giggling. Richard watched them turn at the corner of a nearby lane of half-finished houses, emitted an angry growl and went to get his father’s handcart. It had to be returned. The silly French bitch! Simpering and groveling to the likes of Ceely Trevillian just because he wore cyclamen velvet some poor workhouse child had been forced to embroider without seeing a farthing’s recompense.

The dailycoach to Bath left the Lamb Inn at noon and made the trip in four hours for a price of four shillings an inside seat or two shillings on the box. Though he had saved scrupulously during the six months he had worked for Mr. Thomas Cave, there was very little money left; the trip to Bath would cost him a minimum of ten shillings he could ill afford. He had come to no arrangement with Annemarie over domestic expenses, and yesterday’s two meals had been taken at the Black Horse, a more costly business than the Cooper’s Arms; she had not offered to pay the shot, nor apparently disapproved of the amount of rum he drank. Her tipple was port.

Thus Richard set off to walk clear to the other side of Bristol in time to secure a two-shilling seat on the box; this necessitated sitting on top of the coach exposed to the elements, but the day did not promise rain.

Posting inns were busy places, endowed with large interior courtyards in which grooms and horses trailing harness walked to and fro restlessly, ostlers ran in all directions, and servants bearing trays of refreshments tendered them to the prospective passengers. Finding the team of six horses not hitched to his vehicle yet, Richard paid two shillings for a seat on the box and went to lounge against a wall until Bath was announced ready for boarding.

He was still lounging there when William Insell ran through the gates and paused to look about, chest heaving.

“Willy!”

Insell came hurrying over. “Oh, thank God, thank God!” he gasped. “I feared ye might have left.”

“What is it? Annemarie? Is she ill?”

“Not ill, no,” said Insell, pale eyes goggling. “Worse!”

“Worse?” Richard grasped his arm. “Is she dead?”

“No, no! She has made an assignation with Ceely Trevillian!”

Why did that not surprise him? “Go on.”

“He came to see the hairdresser fellow next door-or so he said, but the next moment he was aknocking on our door, and I had not got up the stairs from the cellar when Annemarie opened it.” He wiped the sweat from his brow and looked at Richard pleadingly. “I am so thirsty! I ran all the way.”

Richard disbursed a penny for a tankard of small beer for Insell, who drained it at a gulp. “There! Better!”

“Tell me, Willy. My coach will be called at any moment.”

“They made no secret of it-it was just as if they had clear forgotten I was in the house. She asked him if he wanted to do business with her, and he said yes. But then she did one of her flouncing acts-said the time were not right, you might come back. Six o’clock this evening, she said, and he could stay the night. So he went next door to Joice the hairdresser-I could hear him neighing through the wall. Then I waited until Annemarie went upstairs, and ran to find you.” His anxious face fixed its hang-dog eyes on Richard, begging for approval.

“Bath! Bath!” someone was shouting.

What to do? Damn it, he needed this job! And yet the man in him was outraged that Annemarie could prefer Ceely Trevillian to himself-Ceely Trevillian, of all men! The slur was insupportable. He straightened. “No job in Bath,” he said ruefully. “Come, we will go to my father’s and wait there. At six o’clock, Mistress Latour and Mr. Ceely Trevillian are in for a nasty surprise. It may be that he will never see the inside of a court for excise fraud, but he will remember what happens this evening, and so I swear it.”

How, wondered Dick, sensing terrible trouble brewing but not able to find out what kind of trouble, can I demand the truth from a thirty-six-year-old man, son though he is? What is going on, and why will he not tell me? That cringing creature Insell sits fawning at his feet-oh, there is no harm in him, but a good friend for Richard he is definitely not. Richard, Richard, steady on the rum!

At a little before six, just as Mag was about to serve supper to a pleasantly full tavern, Richard and Insell got up. Amazing how well he stood the rum, thought Dick as Richard walked an arrow-straight line to the door with Insell weaving behind him. My son is horribly drunk, trouble’s in the wind, and he has shut me out.

Twilight still infused the sky with a subtle afterglow because the weather was fine; Richard walked so swiftly that Willy Insell was hard put to keep up with him, the rage in him growing with every step he took.

The front door was unlocked; Richard slipped inside. “Stay down here until I call you,” he whispered to Willy, then ground his teeth. “With Ceely! Ceely! The bitch!” He started up the stairs, fists clenched.

To find the scene inside the bedroom one straight out of a classical farce. His lusty inamorata lay on the bed with legs akimbo, Ceely on top of her clad in his lace-trimmed shirt. They were heaving up and down in the traditional motion, Annemarie giving vent to small moans of pleasure, Ceely emitting grunts.

Richard had thought himself prepared for it, but the anger which invaded him drove reason from his brain. In one wall was a fireplace, beside it a scuttle of coal and a hammer for breaking down the larger chunks. Before the pair on the bed could blink, he had crossed the room, picked up the hammer and faced them.

“Willy, come up!” Richard roared. “No, do not move! I want my witness to see ye exactly as ye are.”

Insell walked in and stood gaping at Annemarie’s breasts.

“Are you prepared to testify, Mr. Insell, that ye’ve seen my wife in bed doing business with Mr. Ceely Trevillian?”

“Aye!” gulped Mr. Insell, trembling.

Annemarie had told Trevillian that Richard was drinking very heavily, but he had not imagined in any of his rehearsals for this moment what the sight of a very big man in a black rage would do to him; the cool and collected excise defrauder felt the blood drain from his face. Christ! Morgan meant murder!