Читать книгу Rabble in Arms: A Chronicle of Arundel and the Burgoyne Invasion - Kenneth Roberts - Страница 4

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I stared at the thin paper of the letter and at my father’s small handwriting, straight and regular, but somewhat trembly. The orchestra was playing again, a rollicking air that the young bucks liked to sing—The World Turned Upside Down. I seemed to smell the lilacs that flank our front door in Arundel and to hear the babble of my sisters, as I so often heard it when they were young, playing with their dolls in the crotches of the gnarled apple tree beside the kitchen. Dimly I heard Nathaniel singing beneath his breath:

What happy golden days were those

When I was in my prime!

The lasses took delight in me,

I was so neat and fine;

I roved about from fair to fair,

Likewise from town to town,

Until I married me a wife

And the world turned upside down.

Phrases came out from the letter, striking into the back of my eyes, so that they ached a little. “... still something to eat ... losing their property, their homes and their very lives ... some who suspect us because of you ... the British burned Falmouth ... the men not killed will go on fighting....”

Nathaniel stopped his humming and leaned toward me anxiously. “What’s the matter? It’s not bad news, is it?”

Before I could answer, a figure loomed close beside us. It was the white-wigged man in black, and he bowed to us profoundly, as though we were personages.

“You forgive this intrusion, I hope,” he said to me. His voice was almost a whisper, and he raised his eyelids with difficulty, as if they were weighted. “My niece, a countrywoman of yours——”

He stopped, so that it was easy to see he was by nature a silent man. Behind him the girl in pink gazed indifferently at the throng of people who moved slowly before us, circling and circling the arcaded hall in time to the strumming of the orchestra.

“So she’s American!” I exclaimed. Nathaniel craned around the edge of the box to look at her.

The man in black bowed and gave us a sleepy smile. “We could not avoid hearing when you read your letter through the ham. My niece, Marie, she said you were Americans and might permit us to share your box.”

Our reply made it plain we would feel privileged to have their company; whereupon he turned and beckoned to his niece. She came to us with a pretty air of being modestly confused by the lack of ceremony in such a meeting, and with her came a sharp, penetrating fragrance of violets that seemed, like a single glass of fine wine, to stimulate and sharpen all my senses.

“You’re most obliging to permit this intrusion,” she said, taking the chair we offered her. “Your kindness—I said to my uncle you’d be kind, being Americans—we had asked for a box near the King; but they’re occupied, all of them.”

“Well,” I said, “what’s your loss is our gain!” I thought guiltily of the manner in which Nathaniel had forced his way into the box, which might readily belong to these very people; and I attempted to atone by making a flowery speech. “Indeed, ma’am, there’s only one trouble with having you in this box. If the King sets eyes on you, he’ll want to steal you into his own: then we shall be bereft.”

She had a way of lifting blue eyes and staring hard into a man’s face: then smiling suddenly, a sweet, tremulous smile. This she did to me when I had finished my blundering speech and sat there, feeling hot and foolish. Yet, oddly, at her smile there flashed into me a little doubt that she was as young and innocent as she appeared. From the first day I went to sea my father had told me again and again: “Be sure you see what you look at, whether it’s clouds or a lee shore or a man’s face: there’s nothing so useful to a sea captain.” So I looked at her carefully. It seemed to me there were hints about her mouth that might emphasise themselves into hard lines upon occasion; and that her blue eyes were amazingly cool in their scrutiny of Nathaniel and me.

“What good fortune!” she said. “What pleasure to meet with Americans in such a nest of—such a nest of——” She looked helplessly at us, seemingly at a loss for a word.

Thinking to test her sympathies, I offered her the word “Lobsterbacks,” which was one that New Englanders had used freely for many years when speaking of the English.

She seemed prettily shocked, and looked at me roguishly. “Such a word!” Then she accepted it. “In such a nest of lobsterbacks: yes! I feared when we came here a few days since, that I would be the only American in the entire country. My uncle, you see, is Canadian: Mr. Leonard.”

Mr. Leonard bowed to us and smiled. Already we had come to take his silence for granted, just as did his niece, who was quick to supply the words he seemed to find such difficulty in saying.

She nodded brightly at him, explaining him to us as she might have explained a bit of jewellery, unable to speak for itself. “A true Canadian, disgusted with the actions of these terrible English.”

Her own name, she added, was more formidable than her uncle’s. “It’s French, and you may find it troublesome. Marie de Sabrevois. You must say it, please.” I did so, and found nothing difficult about it.

“But,” she told us, “I’m not at all French, in spite of my name. I’m entirely American—entirely. When you read a portion of your letter through the ham—and that was droll—I heard your home is in the Province of Maine.”

“Arundel,” I said.

“Yes: I do not know that place.” She mispronounced it prettily. “You know Albany, perhaps? Or Poughkeepsie and New York?”

We shook our heads.

“That’s where I have lived,” she told us. “In all those places. Also a very little in Quebec, with my father. He was a fur merchant, my father was. A great fur merchant.” She sighed unhappily. “He is dead: killed by the English. That’s why I am here in England—to settle his affairs.” She lowered her voice and leaned across the table to me, very sweet and intimate. “I’m sure it’s the same with you as with me. You’re eager to go home and be away from these terrible people—these terrible English!”

“Yes,” I said.

Nathaniel coughed delicately behind his hand, a polite gesture he had acquired at Harvard College. “You’ll find worse places to be than here; worse people, too.” He made it plain he thought I had received enough of the lady’s attention, and wished some for himself. “We can’t go home, anyway. We sold our ship.”

Marie de Sabrevois looked at him curiously. “Your ship? You own a ship?”

“It was my father’s,” he told her. “Peter was captain and I was supercargo. We’d been to South America and the Spanish ports, and when we came up to England we had a letter from my father saying that fighting had broken out; that we should sell the ship as well as the cargo, so his investment might be safe from seizure. Now we must stay until the war’s over, and that won’t be long.”

“What makes you think so?” I asked, remembering my father’s letter.

Nathaniel smiled. “What’s the use of going over that again? Our country’s got no money to fight England with, and no generals, and not many men.”

“You don’t know what we’ve got,” I told him. “One thing we haven’t got is a lot of rake-hells and nincompoops to direct our affairs.”

Nathaniel turned to Mademoiselle de Sabrevois. “You see how it is. Peter thinks all English aristocrats must be rake-hells or nincompoops.”

“Don’t misquote me,” I said. “I don’t think they must be; but I think most of them are. I can prove it by Dr. Price’s book.”

“Your book!” Nathaniel exclaimed, laughing. “You can prove almost anything out of your book!”

“Yes,” I said, “I can. Almost anything. No matter what bad thing I say about England, it can be proved out of Roderick Random or Dr. Price.”

I drew Dr. Price’s thin book from my side pocket, where I always carried it in case an Englishman took it into his head to force offensive misstatements on me. Since Price himself was an Englishman, I could quote from him without being condemned myself.

“Listen,” I told Nathaniel. “Price says this: ‘An abandoned venality, the inseparable companion of dissipation and extravagance, has poisoned the springs of public virtue among us.’ That’s the opinion of one wise Englishman: that his country has been brought to the brink of ruin by dissipation and extravagance.”

“The trouble with Price, probably,” Nathaniel said carelessly, “was that his dinner wasn’t resting well when he wrote his book.”

I looked at Marie de Sabrevois. Her face was blank, as if she heard nothing of what we were saying, but I knew she had missed none of it. I could see she had heard worse things than I could ever say to Nathaniel, so I spoke to him sharply. “Before you discredit a man like Price, just bear in mind that every great man in England has a mistress or two. They brag of it. The country’s sprinkled with illegitimate noblemen and generals, and they even brag of that. What’s more, if there’s a decent woman in polite society, you mightn’t know it from those you there hear talked about.”

I had it in mind to speak even more frankly; but then I saw Mademoiselle de Sabrevois staring over the top of her feather fan at a group of ladies and gentlemen who had detached themselves from the ever-circling crowd before us and were advancing to the box beside us—Lord Germain’s.

The leader of the group was tall, with a white, contented face that had a sort of sheep-look to it. He was as tall, almost, as the silent Mr. Leonard; and he switched himself gently from side to side as he walked, which increased the self-satisfaction of his manner. He wore a white wig, and a suit of pale blue satin, and there was a showy ribbon of blue watered silk across his breast.

Clinging to his arm was a short, plump lady, young and vivacious, who took quick, tripping steps. She stared adoringly into the sheep-face of her escort, gabbling all the while in a way that did nothing to alter his blandness. She hopped up into the box like a gorgeous little tropical bird, casting a quick glance in our direction, as did some of the others in the party.

On that I looked at Marie de Sabrevois, and found her face hidden behind her fan—a singular thing, I thought, since I had never known a beautiful woman to be annoyed by the scrutiny of strange men.

“Do you know who that is?” I asked.

She seemed almost angry at my question. “How should I know who it is?” she retorted sharply. “We’ve been in England only a few days, my uncle and I!” Then she smiled and was sweet again, adding, “But I’d like to know.”

It seems to me my dislike of Marie de Sabrevois crystallised at that moment. I trust my feelings sprang not wholly from vanity, though it is true that I perceived her to be a woman who never in this world could possess any interest whatever in so outspoken and plain a young man as myself. Moreover, she seemed to me artificial—over-sweet, like the pink-frosted cake my mother makes. I stole one of them as a boy, and ate it all, and was sick for two days.

“Well,” I said, “the next box is Lord Germain’s, we were told. There’s no doubt the tall man in blue is Lord Germain. It’s he who has charge of sending troops to America, and I understand has something to say in planning what they shall do, once they’re there.”

Above the music of the orchestra we could hear the gabbling of the new arrivals. “Stop your teasing, Peggy!” a man’s voice said. “I’ll wager you’ll be eaten by lions or chased by savages if you persist in going to that wilderness. Stay in London where you’ll be safe.”

“Shafe!” a woman cried. Her speech was slurred, as if from liquor, and I knew it was the tropical bird. “Shafe! You know nothing about it, Mel! ’Tisn’t a wilderness: it’s like a regatta on the Thames! I shaw it all on the map. Jack showed it to me. After you leave Quebec, you come to lakes, beautiful lakes, and then to Hush’n River; and before you know it, you’re in New York. Ain’t you, my lord?”

I looked at Nathaniel, to make sure he heard. “Listen to that!” he said. “Just a pleasure jaunt from Quebec to New York!”

Another voice cut in—an arrogant voice: the voice of the man who had been called “my lord,” and certainly, therefore, the voice of Lord Germain. “She’s quite right, Mevil. If she wants to join Burgoyne, I’ll be the first to say yes. The rebels won’t bother her! They’ll run like sheep when they see the regulars. You heard what Jack said about them: they’re beggars—rabble! Officered by shoemakers: butchers: barbers!”

A burst of incredulous laughter greeted the words.

“ ’Pon my soul, it’s true!” Germain went on. “Not one of their officers, not even the best of ’em, but could be bought for a dollar a day! Peg’ll be as safe over there—safer—than she’d be walking in Hyde Park. Don’t let me hear any further talk about it’s not being safe!”

Nathaniel eyed me drolly. “I don’t believe it!” he declared. “Officers from our section, they wouldn’t sell out for less than a dollar and a half a day!”

I looked at him. “That doesn’t strike me as being funny,” I told him. “I can tell you something funnier.”

“Indeed!” Nathaniel said, eyeing me in his most indulgent Harvard manner.

“Yes, indeed! The gentleman you just heard—the gentleman who has charge of the war against our people—the gentleman who thinks we’ll run like sheep and can all be bought—fifteen years ago there wasn’t a man in England who didn’t consider him a coward and a traitor. He was courtmartialled for disobeying orders at the Battle of Minden, and was adjudged unfit to serve the King in any military capacity whatever. So now they let him make war on America!”

“Oh, well,” Nathaniel said lightly, “it goes to prove the English know how to take a joke, after all.”

We were silent, the four of us. Not only was I angry at Germain, but I was worried by Nathaniel, with his apparent liking for the English—worried by the thought that some day his careless words would surely be misinterpreted, and bring trouble on him and others.

At the moment, however, what he said brought him no trouble at all, but something quite different. Marie de Sabrevois slid her eyes around toward him: then, with her gaze upon his, smiled slowly and sweetly. The effect was immediate. Nathaniel’s air of carelessness disappeared: his glance returned hers warmly. Nay, he seemed to need to memorise every soft curve and faint freckle of her pretty face. Then, when she looked toward me, he watched her as though his very life depended on missing no syllable of what she said.

“Did you hear them speak of Burgoyne—of the one they called Jack?” she asked me. “We’ve heard about him and his army, and it does not amuse us. Have you heard about it yet?”

“No.”

“I think it must be true, what Germain was saying,” she murmured, lifting sad eyes to mine. “The troops under Burgoyne are the best and bravest in the entire British army, and with them are going the most skilful officers. Our poor Americans will be able to do nothing against them. There’ll even be Hessian troops with Burgoyne: great fighters.”

“Hessians! Do you mean Germans?”

She nodded. “Under a general as fine as Frederick the Great, I’m told. And they say Indians will fight with him too: five thousand of them! It means the end of the war, you shall see! I mean, I’m afraid that’s what it means.”

The thought of so powerful and deadly an army howling and roaring down on our small towns and our defenceless people gave me a shivery feeling along my spine. But I sought not to believe such a thing possible. “Five thousand Indians!” I cried. “Why, there aren’t that many anywhere in the east! They’d have to use western Indians! They wouldn’t dare! That means”—I hesitated, thinking of the black forests that rise up from the opposite bank of our river in Arundel, and of my mother and my three sisters in the very shadow of the pointed pines—“that means we’ve got to go home.”

“Home?” Nathaniel asked. “But Father said we were to stay.”

“Not in this last letter,” I said with some sharpness, and was sorry I had spoken; for Nathaniel was immediately indiscreet.

“Ah! So he wants us to come home,” he said. “I suppose your plan’s for us to take the first ship we can get?”

Marie de Sabrevois leaned over the table, so we were enveloped by a wave of violet perfume from her laces. “Splendid!” she whispered, and there seemed to be admiration in her eyes. “Splendid! If you and your brother can go safely, it’s your duty to do so.” Again she glanced up at Nathaniel; and his eyes clung to her almost as though he were bewitched. “Perhaps I haven’t told you, but my uncle is returning to America in a few days. He will return safely: safely. If I thought otherwise, I wouldn’t let him go. If you should wish to go by his ship, he could arrange it easily, I’m sure. It would be a great privilege for him to have the company of such pleasant gentlemen.”

Mr. Leonard bowed without speaking.

“What ship is that?” I asked. “What makes it safe?”

“A French ship,” she said quickly. “One of the French ships that carry French officers to America. They’re saying in Paris that Congress will give a fine commission to any Frenchman who owns a sword and uniform—especially to those with titles who can find nothing to do in France; so they’ve begun to hurry over, each one expecting to be placed in command of the entire American army. These gentlemen consider themselves too important to risk travelling by vessels that aren’t safe, quite safe.”

Never once, while Marie de Sabrevois was speaking, did Nathaniel take his eyes from her. When she had finished, he cleared his throat and said, in a husky whisper: “Shall you go with your uncle?”

She looked up at him slowly, and as slowly looked away again—a glance that must, I was sure, have set the blood to pounding in his throat. “No,” she said. “No. I cannot go back yet. Not yet. I have property in France that must be settled. My poor father has died.” She sighed pathetically. “And so my uncle must return without me; for I have a ward—a little friend—a young girl, at school in—in Canada. It was this army of Burgoyne’s that changed all our plans. While I attend to my property here, my uncle must return to my little ward and take her to a safe place before soldiers lay waste the country.” She raised her eyes to Nathaniel’s again, a sweet and candid glance.

I had a thought that schools in Canada, for the most part, were convent schools, and that the little ward of which the lady spoke was, in all likelihood, a Papist. That being so, the lady herself might even be a Papist; and to me the thought of Nathaniel entangled with a Papist was repellent.

For one thing, we have suffered from French Papists in the Province of Maine, and a man who follows after one of them is thought to be lost to his family and friends, and already damned. For another thing, I had already seen Nathaniel and the lady exchange soft speeches beneath their breaths—speeches in which, I told myself, a meeting might have been arranged. Nathaniel had often proved himself quick-witted, and certainly the lady had found him pleasing; and I had come to know that two such people can, in a few whispered words, lay plans enough to wreck a dozen lives.

I may say that I have prejudices; nevertheless I hope that I have always been a man of open mind; and suddenly this chance meeting seemed to me fortunate. If Mr. Leonard had a ship that was to sail soon, my brother and I were precisely in need of such a means of transportation. More, Mr. Leonard looked to be a man as resourceful and trustworthy as he was silent; and Marie de Sabrevois would not be upon his ship.

Impulsively I pushed back my chair from the table, bowed, and held out my hand to Mr. Leonard. “We’re indebted,” I said. “Indebted for the chance to go with you. When is it you sail for America?”