Merivel A Man of His Time by Rose Tremain Read Free Book Online Page B

Sapphire and was given to me by His Majesty King Charles, to atone for the frequency with which he used to beat me at Tennis. I vouch it is worth more than any other thing in this coach, so why do you not take this jewel, which may get you a hundred
livres
, or ten
pistoles
, which is a deal more than your own
pistol
is worth. Then you may be gone in peace?’
    I removed the glove of my right hand and was just about to prise the sapphire ring from my finger when a very vast Noise, as of the Thunder of Jupiter, filled all the air around us and I saw the Nose and the Head on which it sat disappear sideways, followed instantly by the Hand and the Flintlock, and I smelled the stench of sulphur, and in through the open door of the coach came the acrid smoke, which was the smoke of a fired Blunderbuss.
    The triplets then gave way to their screaming and the Priest fell forward into the straw. I scrambled to my feet, stepped over the Priest’s recumbent form and went out into the dark. The bitter cold night clamped itself around me and the smoke from the Blunderbuss clouded all vision. But in a very little time it cleared and I could see the Coachman trying to hold the horses to stop them from rearing up and, at my feet, the body of the Highwayman with his head shot clean away. The Guard, holding the Blunderbuss pointed at the Robber’s body, as though wondering whether shooting a man’s head off might not kill him sufficiently, stood there, shaking his head. Then he kicked out at the corpse. ‘I cannot abide them,’ said he. ‘Highwaymen are Vermin. There is not one of them that I do not despatch, whenever I can.’
    I am on the Seas now.
    In my little cabin (which is so small, it reminds me of the room I inhabited when I worked at Whittlesea – which, in turn, reminded me of my broom cupboard at Bidnold) I am endeavouring to write to Margaret, but after my adventures on the Night Coach, I find myself overcome with weariness, and set aside my letter and lay my head down on my mattress of sacking and fall into a deep sleep.
    It is late morning when I wake. The day is very cold, yet the Channel is calm and the rocking of the Ship, which is a Brig taking English Wool to the port of Dieppe, is so gentle that all my fears about the sea travel have vanished. Indeed, I suddenly find myself most enamoured of this means of transportation and wonder why I have never attempted it before.
    I go up and walk about the deck, and marvel at how the lazy wind is just enough to fill our sails and push us onwards, and I feel glad to be alive and not dead on the Dover Road, with my head shot off. I have seen many deaths in my life as a Physician: death by Consumption, death by Convulsion, death by Wasting, death in Childbed, death by Plague and death by Fire. But I have never before seen a man’s head catapulted from his body by a Blunderbuss and I do not think I shall forget it very quickly.
    Yet now I am calm. Out here, on the great ocean, all seems to rejoice at itself: sunlight silvers the wavelets and the wings of the white gulls that follow us, just as they follow the plough, diving for fish in the turning of our wake. The bright pennants flying from the mastheads seem to proclaim a pride in our cargo of wool and in us and in England. And I find my heart to be filled with a ridiculous patriotic joy.
    I strut about like a fat pigeon (I am wearing grey) conversing about this or that thing with the Sailors, uncaring if they think me foolish or mad, and regret only that Margaret is not with me, to feel what I feel and be cheered to see that my Melancholy has, for the time being, departed and been replaced with a sudden zeal for living.
    All the way to France I am a-dazzle with unexpected happiness. But when the French coast at last appears I feel an onrush of disappointment. It is not that the little port of Dieppe appears uninviting, for it does not. It is merely that I have been held in an embrace so strong by the journey that I find I have