The Quality of Mercy

30



“He was the only one of them that had the power of sharin’,” Sullivan said. “The sister was grateful an’ the others took an interest, but he was the only one that could touch it in his mind. He shared Billy’s end, he shared the life we had in the wilderness, the kind of crops we had, the creatures that lived there with us.”

He was standing in the taproom close to Sally—as close as he could get without impeding her—while she restored the tankards, rinsed and dried, to their shelves. “An’ the reason for that,” he said, “the reason for that sharin’, lies in the power of imaginin’ a thing that you have niver lived through. It is the power of imaginin’ that makes a man stand out, an’ it is rarer than you might think. It is similar to the power of music.”

His back was to the yard door, which was open, and it was only when he heard steps that he turned.

“I see you know me,” Kemp said. “You are Sullivan, the fiddler, are you not?”

It was at this point that the interview, or confrontation rather, rapidly rehearsed by Kemp on his way here, began to deviate from what had been envisaged. Instead of cringing like a guilty man for whom the gallows were waiting, this vagabond raised his head and looked him in the eye, and he was suddenly reminded of the man’s habit of seeming to gaze after some lost splendor, glimpsed a moment before, gone before it could be seized. He himself was not that longed-for sight, so much was certain. But whatever the gaze he got, there was no fear in it.

“I am so,” Sullivan said. It seemed to him now that he had always known that his freedom had a term to it, that the Holy Mother’s protection would run out once he had fulfilled his vow, and that this was only reasonable and to be expected. “You are the one that set the sojers onto us,” he said. “I niver thought to see you here. Have you come all this weary way just to find me?”

“I did not come to find you—I did not know you were here.” Kemp saw that the woman, who was brown-haired and fresh-faced and ample of form, had drawn closer to Sullivan and stood beside him now, her shoulder against his. Again he had the sense that this encounter was in some way going awry. He was surprised to feel none of the righteous anger he had expected to feel at having run to earth this fugitive from justice, who should have been hanged and tarred and hung in chains like the others. But of course he had not run the fellow to earth at all; there had been no pursuit, no high quest, it had all been accidental. How could justice triumph by accident, at random? “What are you doing here?” he said.

“I came to tell Billy Blair’s folks what became of the lad. I made a vow to do it if iver I got free, an’ the prison gates were opened to me.” There was no thought of flight in his mind—he had nowhere to run to. This man had the power that came from money; he would send people to seize him, as he had done once before. Sally was close beside him, listening to his words, noting his bearing. He would make a good figure in her eyes, even if they were never to rest on him again.

“I made a vow to bring you all to justice and see you hanged,” Kemp said. “I crossed the Atlantic to do it.” He felt an immediate sharp regret at having said these words. It was as if he had lost all guard on his tongue. To compare his own high purposes with the petty vows of an Irish vagrant! He felt weakened by the ad mission, as though he were seeking to share—a notion abhorrent to him. “Who is Billy Blair?” he said, not really caring to know.

“He was my shipmate. He was killed by the redcoats you set on to us. He was shot in the back.”

It had the ring of an accusation. Kemp looked at the couple before him for some moments without speaking. She still stood there beside the man, keeping close to him. Sullivan had found the support of a woman, just as he had himself … Forgiveness was weakness, it was lack of energy, a dereliction of duty. He remembered again how Sullivan had wept as Matthew lay dying. An insult at the time, it had seemed to him, grief for the cousin who had done him such wrong. Now a grief he could feel too. Again this sense of sharing, strangely less repugnant now. This was the man who had attended Matthew on his deathbed, almost to the moment of death, the last to show love to him. The button Matthew had held so tightly, had only let fall as he breathed his last …

“It was you, wasn’t it?” he said. “It was you who gave my cousin that button?”

“I am not the man to deny that,” Sullivan said. “It was all I had to give him. It was the last of me buttons that was left.” In the stress of the moment the old grievance came back to him. “The others were robbed off me aboard the Liverpool Merchant. Fourteen years ago now. When I come aboard I was stripped of a good coat on the grounds that it was crawlin’ with fleas, which was an outright falsehood. The bosun it was that stole me buttons, though they brought him no luck.”

“This one has brought luck to me,” Kemp said, and only the sense of shared ground, accepted now, could have brought him to make such a confidence. As he uttered the words, the truth of them came home to him in a luminously glinting flood. The great possibilities of the mine returned to his mind, the improvements he would make, the rewards of expanding trade and increased profits. It was a worthy enterprise, a noble enterprise, one that a man could give his life to. Spenton would feel the pinch of debt again, he might be persuaded to sell the colliery outright. He would ask Jane to marry him, he would have a fine house built. Together, here in Durham, they would make a new life. There was the Dene, the wonderful discovery of the Dene, a direct route to the sea, only three miles, a loaded wagon on a good road would take less than an hour. He would have wharves constructed, he would have his own barges to take the coal out to the collier ships. No middlemen, no dues, no rights of way to argue about, no problems with labor …

He looked again at the man and woman standing there together. In the few minutes since he had entered they had stripped his purpose from him. It had ceased to make any difference to him now what happened to Sullivan, where he went, what became of him. The high mission lay all in the past. It was Sullivan who had made the gift of the button. He had always thought of it as a gift from his cousin, though accidental, but Matthew had merely passed it on. Nothing was accidental; he ought to have known that. The true giver had been the man before him. He dug finger and thumb into his waistcoat pocket, took out the button, held it out on the palm of his hand. “This is the button, is it not?”

Sullivan took a step forward and lowered his head in scrutiny. “It is so,” he said. “It is the selfsame button.” When he looked up, it was for the moment as if he had glimpsed more closely the glory his eyes always seemed to be seeking. “How did you come by it?” he asked.

Kemp made no answer to this. He replaced the button and paused a moment. Then he said, “You need have no fear of being apprehended. I shall not report you. I shall say nothing of your presence here. It has been a lucky button for you too, my friend.”

On this, without glancing again at the man on whom he was thus conferring life and liberty, he turned away and walked out of the room.

He took leave of Lord and Lady Spenton and uttered his thanks that same evening. Next day, at first light, with no thought in his mind but that he would soon be seeing Jane Ashton, he had his mount made ready and set off for the city of Durham in time to take the morning stage.