The Bookman's Promise (18 page)

The fellow across the table smirked as we pushed back our chairs.

Richard leaned forward. “You have something else to say,
mate
?”

The man scoffed again and Burton said, “Be careful, sir.”

Fink made as if to laugh. “Maybe you’re the one who should be careful. In case you don’t know it, we have harsh ways of settling things here when insults arise.”

Burton smiled warily out of his deeply scarred cheeks. “No one’s been insulted…yet. We can all still go to bed and be on our way in the morning.”

“That’s true enough.” Fink pushed himself back, slightly but ominously, from the table. “Unless we choose not to.”

The smile faded from Burton’s face. “That would be unfortunate, but it would be
your
choice. And I believe under your own code I would have the choice of weapons in any dispute that can’t be resolved. And for what that’s worth, I would choose swords.”

Fink sat back. “What the hell, who carries a sword around?”

“I do.”

They stared at each other. “Well, I don’t have one,” Fink said.

“I could provide a pair. If the occasion arose. Which it hasn’t. Yet.”

Suddenly the man laughed, not derisively as he had before but with a tavern laugh, in uneasy fellowship. Burton remained stoic, waiting.

“You’re all right with me, mate. It’s a good thing for all of us that we know where lines are drawn, eh?”

And on that nervous note, we went upstairs.

In the hallway, I said, “I would have fought him if it came to that.”

“I know you would. I never had any doubt.”

“You don’t have to hold my hand, Richard. It’s important that you know that.”

“I do know it. And I apologize if that’s how it appeared.”

“Of course it is. How else would it appear? You don’t have any swords at all.”

“No. But he didn’t know that.”

“My God, what if he had called you on it?”

“Then the matter would have become far more serious, and the choice of weapons would have passed to him.”

In my room I lay awake staring up at the black ceiling. All my thoughts of the afternoon came flooding back, and my anger returned with great, yawning doubts about the nature of our journey. I saw Richard on my ceiling and he was always making his notes. These I had assumed were for a new book but now I wondered what he was actually writing in that notebook. I felt our friendship had been seriously compromised—perhaps, maddeningly, by nothing more than my own imagination—and I knew then that at some point it must be discussed. I dreaded Richard’s reaction, for in fact I did not know him well enough to initiate a talk of such sensitivity. I personally had never held any grudge against England, I had accepted Richard with wholehearted delight as my friend, but my years in the War Department had given me access to certain intelligence and rumors that had received little or no attention in the press. Now in my dark room all this intrigue swirled across the canvas of the ceiling. The sun never sets on empire, I thought, calling up an old quotation; the sun never sets on England. The only reason we are not serving the queen today is because of those long-dead boys in places like Bunker Hill and Saratoga and New Orleans. Were we really at peace now? Friction between our nations had never actually ceased since 1815, and Palmerston, that old devil, always seemed to be at the root of it. In his forty-year political career he had never ceased agitating. I could almost feel his acrimony invading my room, disrupting my sleep, and now I remembered incidents from my reading, from reports that had circulated through our government. I knew that years ago England had arbitrarily seized our ships and had forced our boys to serve in her navy. I had heard she had given aid and support to our Indians, encouraging them to attack our frontier settlements. Everyone knew how she had tried to keep Texas out of the Union, and there had been persistent rumors that she had helped finance Mexico’s war against us. It was certainly no secret that England had had serious designs on South America since our Revolution, and she had always resented and tried to undermine our Monroe Doctrine. Why should she now turn timid when the upstart nation that so seriously rankled her was heading into deep trouble?

I felt a flush of shame at my suspicion, but it grew into the early morning, until sometime before the dawn, when I finally fell asleep.

I was in poor spirits in the morning: a lack of sleep had combined with my increasing doubts to put me on edge again. I would be much happier, I thought, when Marion, this mud hole of a village, was behind us. The train to Florence had been delayed, but Richard had arranged for passage on a coach, which would put us there late that afternoon. As we left the inn another tense incident occurred. Coming to the bottom of the stairs I turned to say something to Richard and collided with someone coming through on my blind side. At once I begged his pardon, then saw that it was Fink, my antagonist from last night. Suddenly, as if in the grip of some demon, I said, “Mr. Fink, I am sorry I jostled you, but at the same time I must tell you that your behavior last night was inexcusably rude. I can be good-natured enough at being made the goat of the evening, but your repeated insults to my country were intolerable.”

He looked up at Richard, who stood behind me.

“Please speak to me, sir. Mr. Burton is not involved in this.”

For a moment he wavered. I was certain we would come to battle, but he grinned and said, “It was the ale talking, mate. I get that way when I drink too much.”

I took that as my apology and we left for Florence an hour later.

Another mud hole. What Burton saw in such places, or what he was learning from them, remained a mystery as we put up in another inn. But the inn was a pleasant surprise, a rambling building at least sixty years old, showing its age on the outside but warm and tidy within. It was called Wheeler’s Crossing.

We had a marvelous dinner, a simple quail dish with wild rice and various ordinary accompaniments but prepared with such care that it was outstanding. It was easily the best meal I had had in any eating establishment in recent memory, beating the finest restaurants of Washington hands down. “Wonderful food,” Burton said, and he called for the innkeeper to compliment the cook. The man was gracious but said we could tell her ourselves. A woman was summoned from the kitchen, and as she came through the doors I felt Burton sit up straighter beside me. She was truly a beautiful young lady. “This is my daughter Marion,” the inn master said. Burton and I both stood and she gave a little curtsy, and Richard stepped away from his side of the table. He reached out with perfect propriety and took her hand. “Mr. Wheeler,” Richard said without ever taking his eyes from her face, “your daughter is a national treasure. The town we just passed through must be named after her.”

“After Francis Marion, more likely,” she said impishly. “Our hero of the Revolution. My name came from my mother’s side.”

“Wherever it came from,” Burton said, “the best establishments in London can barely do you justice.”

She accepted this politely but as if she had heard it all before. Richard asked where she had learned her cooking and she said, “From Mrs. Simmons and Mrs. Randolph—from our servant Queenie, and from my grandmother.” Mrs. Simmons and Mrs. Randolph turned out to be the authors of popular cookery books, which Marion had on her shelf in a back room. “We buy them for her whenever we can,” her father said. “And my mother left her many good menus and recipes in an old notebook. She uses them all. An establishment like ours is only as good as its victuals.” Burton, ever the charmer, said, “Yours is very good indeed,” and Marion gave another bow and retreated into the back room.

“That’s one reason why I stop in these little places,” Richard said as we settled in again. “You never can tell what you might find.”

It never occurred to me that we had “found” anything, certainly not in the sense that Richard obviously meant it. I was happily married: I would never have betrayed my wife by chasing around after other women, even such a lovely one as Marion. But I was no prude either, and I was anxious in my recent discontent not to be a wet blanket. Richard, in his thirty-ninth year, was still unattached, and a striking vision of bold manhood. Indeed, though he had already formed a strong bond with Isabel Arundell in England and would marry her before the year was out, I had no way of knowing this and in fact I had not yet heard her name. We sat in Richard’s room and enjoyed a small brandy and he looked like the soul of contentment. “This really is a wonderful little inn,” he said. “There’s even a bath out behind the house, and
that
is not a luxury one takes lightly. I’m tempted to stay over for a day or two. Would you mind?”

I was actually warming to the place myself. “Not at all,” I said. “Don’t worry about me any: I’ll find things to do.”

I retired but again sleep was difficult. At midnight I awoke for the third time, burning with a thirst that comes over me when I drink too much alcohol. I got out of bed and groped my way into the darkened hall, hoping someone would still be downstairs who could fetch me a glass of water. I had just reached the top of the stairs when I heard their voices: Richard’s soft laugh followed almost at once by hers. I moved to join them, then stopped short on the top step. I could see them from there: they were alone, seated at a table over cups of smoking bishop, Burton sprawled in his chair, Marion beside him in a pose that changed from moment to moment, servant, companion, and hussy all at once. His right hand clutched his drink; his left covered hers with such easy intimacy that I was shocked by the quickness of it. We had met her just six hours ago, yet there was an assumption between them that no one could miss. Already they were like old lovers together.

I began to creep back down the hall but a short snatch of their talk followed me. Marion had mentioned my name.

“Wouldn’t your friend Charlie be shocked if he saw us now.”

Burton laughed. “It’s not Charlie I worry about. Your father is another matter.”

“He’s gone to bed hours ago. An earthquake wouldn’t wake him once he hits the pillow, and he’s a late riser as well. I can’t remember when he slept less than ten hours.”

“Well, if Charlie were shocked he’d get over it soon enough.”

“If you say so. He still strikes me as a bit of a pill.”

“Your mistake,” Richard said. “He’s a grand fellow, one of the best I’ve known. He has a lion’s heart, even if he doesn’t always know what to do with it. And the keenest sense of honor.”

“I’ll take your word for that. Even so, it’s not him I’m interested in.”

“My good fortune, I hope.”

“And mine.”

“Marion.” Richard kissed her hand. “It is the fairest name, and you wear it like a birthright. As if Maid Marion of Robin Hood had suddenly been reborn.”

“Oh, Sir Richard, you are
such
a shameless liar.”

“Not Sir Richard…please, not that. You’ll never hear that honor attached to my name. If the queen knows no better than to approve that coveted title so carelessly, there are many who have her ear and will be happy to tell her why not.”

“Why not is clear enough. It is because you are a scoundrel.”

“So they say.”

Whatever honor Richard had seen in me would not let me eavesdrop another moment and I left them then. I lay in the dark, inflated with pride at his words. Conceit and a vivid imagination kept me awake for the second night running.

At first light I heard a noise outside my half-opened window. My room looked down into the yard, and the bath stall Richard had mentioned was directly below. It was a crude little wooden cage, circular with a canvas draped around it, a perforated steel tank suspended overhead, a pull rope that would open the vents and rain water down on anyone inside, and a set of makeshift steps for a ser-vant to climb up and pour the water in. Now came a real shock! Richard appeared in the yard totally nude, a pale blur in the hour before the sunrise. He parted the canvas and stepped into the stall, and a moment later Marion, still wearing her dress of last night but with a far more disheveled look, came out carrying a large pot of steaming water. She climbed the stairs and dumped in the water, and I heard the tank open as Burton pulled the rope. He sighed deeply and she laughed at his pleasure. When he came out she was there with a blanket, draping it over his shoulders and rubbing him gently, affectionately, sensually.

We stayed in Florence another day, and another, and on after that. On the third day we walked over to the little cemetery together, Richard and Marion and I, and there we saw the plot where her mother rested.
Jennie Marion Wheeler
, the stone said simply:
Beloved Wife and Mother, 1812-1843
. “She died giving me life,” Marion said, and something about her face, etched with deep sadness for a woman she had never known, moved me almost to tears. “What a damned shame!” I said in a trembling voice. “That’s what happens with too many women. We’re supposed to be so advanced, yet medical science hasn’t come an inch in women’s health since Caesar’s day.”

She looked at me and smiled tenderly, then reached out and squeezed my hand. That’s what I remember best about her: aside from her liaison with Richard, the warmth of her, the feel of her hand and a smile that has followed me across three decades.

That night we sat on the back porch listening to the Negroes singing. The Wheelers had half a dozen blacks who worked around the inn, whether in bondage or as freemen, I never learned, though the father did not strike me at all as a slaveholder. Burton in particular was enchanted by these melodies: “Some of them are very similar to tunes of tribal songs I heard in Africa,” he said. “The only difference here is the white man’s addition, the inclusion of the Christian spiritual aspect.” He wrote quickly by the firelight, trying to capture the words and compare them with his memory of their African origins. He came out every night to scribble down the lyrics, and in odd moments throughout the trip I would hear him humming them softly, comparing them with others he was picking up across the Southern states.

We left early the following week. I looked back and saw Marion and her father watching our departure, but Richard never gave them a wave or a backward glance. I found that rather cold, considering the kind of friendship they must have had, and the certainty that they would never see each other again. “I said my good-byes earlier,” he told me. “There’s no sense going on about it.”