The Quality of Mercy

19



In the course of the following days, helped along by the wrestler’s two shillings and by farthings and halfpennies from his fiddling and singing, Sullivan got across the Humber at Hartgate, bypassed York and was approaching Bridlington when he found a fair in progress at a seaside village called Rushburn. It was late afternoon, he was tired and footsore, and it came to him that this would be a pleasant and healthful place to stay the night. He had sixteen pence; half of that would get him a plate of bread and cheese and onion and a bed. If he could add to his stock by playing and singing for an hour or two, he would be off to a good start next morning on what he felt would be the last leg of his journey to the birthplace of Billy Blair. In pursuance of this aim, he found a corner, spread his waistcoat and began, as usual, with a lively air to draw the people in. This time it was a tune he had first heard as a child in Ireland, “The Galway Piper.” To add to the performance he shuffled his feet and nodded his head and turned his body this way and that in time with the tune. When a knot of people had gathered, he lowered his fiddle and broke into song. He knew a great many songs and did not think much beforehand of which to chose. Now, stirred to a sort of nostalgia by what he had just been playing, he sang some of the words to it:

Loudly he can play or low,



He can move you fast or slow,



Touch your hearts or stir your toe,



Piping Tim of Galway.



The crowd grew a little. He heard a coin strike against those of his own he had previously laid there to serve as good example. He repeated the air on his fiddle, then chose another song, a melody slower and more lingering, requiring a raised head and a look of yearning:

When like the dawning day



Eileen Aroon



Love sends his early ray



Eileen Aroon



What makes his dawning glow



Changeless through joy and woe



Only the constant know



Eileen Aroon



He continued until nightfall. When he counted the takings, he found they came to fivepence halfpenny in coins of small denomination, a reward he considered reasonable. As he was leaving he noticed a beer tent crowded with people, open at the sides and roofed over with canvas, brightly lit now that darkness had come. He felt dry after his singing; the thought of an energizing draft was suddenly tempting and after some moments more became irresistibly so.

He entered, fiddle and bow slung over his shoulder, made his way to the long counter where several people were serving from the barrels and asked for a pint of ale, which cost one penny. He was tired, he did not feel sociable, he would have preferred to drink outside in the open, away from the crowd. But he could not leave the tent without returning his mug: there would be men posted to watch out for any move of that kind, the mug being worth more than the ale contained in it. So he made his way to a far corner of the tent, where the lamps did not reach with full strength and there was a twilight zone.

However, he was no more than halfway through his drink when a woman came up close to him, bade him good evening and, finding he did not draw away, rubbed the front of her thigh against him. “You could give us a swaller o’ that, you could, mister fiddler,” she said.

This rubbing, and the thinness of the material of the woman’s skirt, worked an immediate effect on Sullivan. He had not been with a woman for a long time now, not since the days of the Florida settlement. There had been the long return to England, during which he had been kept in irons; there had been the weeks he had spent, still fettered, in prison; there had been the miracle of his escape, the sacredness of his vow, the urgent need to get away from London and escape pursuit …

“Here,” he said, handing her the mug. “I am not the man to deny a sup of ale to a lady.”

He watched her drink, saw the movement of her throat.

“I knowed you was a gen’leman soon as I set eyes on you,” she said, and paused, and drank again.

“I will go and get you a pint for yourself,” Sullivan said, but she laid a hand on his arm. “No,” she said, “don’t go away, you might forget me.”

She was not very pretty and not very young, but she had bold eyes and a painted mouth, and when her hand slipped from his arm and came gently to rest on his abdomen, he felt very constricted in his trousers, and began to lose all thought of consequences.

“S’ppose you an’ me was to go for a stroll outside,” she said. “It’s a nice night, ain’t it?” She handed him back the mug. “You better finish this.”

A final, feeble impulse of caution came to Sullivan. “How much?” he said.

“I asks two shillin’ in the usual way of things.”

“I have not got two shillin’.”

“How much have you got?”

“One shillin’ an’ eightpence halfpenny.”

“Well, I have took a fancy to you. That was a lovely song you sang, that one about Eileen. I will take a bit less this time.”

Sullivan, too much in haste to return the mug to the counter, let it fall, empty now, into the dark grass at his feet. The sense that he was getting a special price destroyed the last of his reserve, and they stepped out of the tent together.

They walked away from the lights, went through a gate into the next field, found a place near the hedge. “First we pays, then we has our fun,” the woman said, and Sullivan handed over the money. “I would spread me coat for you, if I had one,” he said. “I had a fine coat once.” The echo of an old obsession came to him, even in this moment of high excitement. “I had a fine coat once, but it was took off me back, twice I have had me buttons stole—”

“Well, I ain’t goin’ to steal ’em now,” she said. “You better unbutton them what you have got left.”

No time was wasted on further speech. The woman went down on her back, lifted up her skirt and spread her legs. There was no impediment of undergarments. Sullivan found his way and was very soon in the throes of delight. But these had barely subsided when his peace was disturbed by a light on his face, and he saw two men standing above him, both armed with heavy sticks.

“Aye, aye,” one of the men said. “What ’ave we got ’ere? A pair o’ nightbirds, ain’t we?”

Sullivan scrambled to his feet and with a gallantry he felt to be commendable at such a time held out his hand to help the woman up. “Who might you be?” he said.

“It is the constables,” the woman said.

“That is right, my pretty. You’ve ’ad to do with us before, ain’t you?”

“Don’t know you from Adam, I don’t.”

“She don’t look at the faces,” the other man said.

“I have seen somethin’ of the world an’ you do not have the look of constables to me,” Sullivan said. “You must have watched us and follered after.”

“No need for talkin’. All you needs to do is show us you have got money enough about you for a night’s lodgin’, an’ we will let you alone.”

Sullivan said nothing to this for some moments, hoping that the woman would come to his aid and say they were together and had money in common. But she remained silent.

“I have no money,” he said at last. “Owin’ to a combination of circumstances which I have not the leisure to go into at the present moment.”

“Sleepin’ in the open, no abode an’ no money. You are a vagrant, an’ you will ’ave to come along with us to the parish workhouse.”

“Show me your badge of office,” Sullivan said, and received a violent push in the chest that sent him back several steps.

“Any more o’ that an’ you will get a batterin’. An’ don’t try makin’ a run for it, you will not get far.” He turned to the woman, shining the lamp in her face. “ ’Ow about you?” he said. “Betsy, ain’t it? ’Ow much did he give you?”

“He give me a shillin’.”

“Ho, yes. Very likely. Well, you gives us the shillin’ an’ you keeps the rest, an’ everythin’ is fair an’ aboveboard.”

With the sad, belated wisdom that follows upon passion spent, Sullivan saw his bread and cheese and his bed for the night transferred to the pocket of one of the men. Betsy left the scene at a good speed and without a backward glance, and he was taken by the arms and led away.