LITMIR.BIZ

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could feel the morning’s humiliation rushing scarlet to my face. And she just looked at me, brazen as Babylon.

      “Come on, then—I won’t leave you out here in a storm. Climb up, and you can ride behind.”

      But a man has his pride. I straightened my back, and met that gaze with actual—yes—froideur.

      “Not if yours, Miss Scantlebury, was the last behind in Cornwall.”

      I admit, an unclerical thing to say. But by the God who made me, it was splendid to say it. Bathsheba’s jaw actually dropped, as she searched for a suitable retort. But whatever it might have been, it was lost in a startled exclamation. Lightning had flickered a few moments before, and now thunder cracked, directly overhead. Her horse, already skittish in the rising wind, reared back; taken unawares, she tumbled.

      “Miss Scantlebury!”

      She was on her back and rolling, and in another instant she must have gone straight over the cliff-edge. But I had already leapt forward, and caught her by the arm to steady her. Bathsheba lay breathless for a moment, stunned by the fall and by the narrow escape—for this had been a near-run thing. We stared down at the jagged rocks and the heaving sea far below.

      “Are you all right?”

      “Take your hands off me!”

      I released her and stepped back, expecting her to stand. Instead she lay where she was, gasping for breath and glaring furiously up at me.

      “I’ve hurt my leg, damn you.”

      “That’s hardly my fault.”

      “I damned you on general principle. I say it again: damn you, and damn that look you’re giving me right now. That’s supposed to be manly concern, is it? And I suppose you think you’re fetching—the young curate, with his soulful eyes. Well, don’t bother, because I know you.”

      I hesitated. “May I . . . ?”

      “No, you may not!”

      But I did. I knelt and asked which leg was hurt, and she lifted the right one an inch or two. It seemed to be her ankle—a surprisingly delicate ankle, at the end of a beautifully formed calf, above which there was of course a knee and—oh dear God. “I don’t think it’s broken,” I hazarded. But clearly it was badly sprained, for the gentlest touch made her gasp, and when I glanced up her eyes had actually filled with tears. For a heart-stopping moment she was a child again, hurt and vulnerable and secretly frightened.

      “What do we do now?” she asked, for clearly we faced a dilemma. Her horse was already gone and galloping homeward, and here we were—a good two miles from the Moyles’ cottage, and at least another three from Porthmullion, with night falling and the storm beginning to rage in earnest.

      “Lean against me,” I urged, helping her up. “Here, we can manage it!”

      But we couldn’t. This was clear enough after the first few hobbling steps, which left just two possibilities. The first was to leg it for home myself, leaving Bathsheba to rot—which I confess I considered. The alternative was an old abandoned shepherd’s hut. It was above us, in a cleft between two hills.

      I pointed. Rain lashed down, and I had to raise my voice against the wind. “It isn’t much, but at least there’s a roof. It’ll keep us dry while we wait out the storm. Look, I’m going to have to carry you, all right?”

      “I swear, I really will have you horsewhipped!”

      Which under the circumstances I interpreted as agreement.

      The uphill path was arduous, and several times I nearly fell. But as I struggled onward—her arms round my neck—I began to see myself as I still do, frequently, to this day: as an actor thrust into a role upon the stage, wholly unprepared and fearing himself unequal to the task, but plucky and determined and finding his light, and discovering resources that he had never dared hope he possessed. I believe I had an image of myself as the hero of one of Mr Boucicault’s melodramas—the one in which he rescues the foul-mouthed slut. But after an eternity of slips and strangled oaths and “Christ, watch where you’re going, you imbecile!”, the old stone hut was there before us, and we staggered in.

      It was small and dank, and it smelled of piss, but it had a roof, and a door that pulled shut with a tattered leather strap and kept out the howling wind. There were even a few sticks of furniture. I kicked apart a rickety chair for kindling, and after a few attempts I managed to start a little fire, which crackled and generated actual warmth. We stripped off our sodden cloaks and huddled in front of it. I discovered I still had half a jug of ale, and this improved things even further.

      “Young Ned gave it to me, before I left. Young Ned and his father—that’s who I went to see.”

      “You mean you really were seeing a parishioner?”

      I wasn’t offering it as proof that I’d been telling the truth, but apparently she took it as such.

      “Do you want to search my pockets for pheasants?”

      “Oh, don’t sulk. You think it makes you look dark and brooding, but it doesn’t.”

      Her expression was sour, but there was also a certain—well, if not warmth, then at least neutrality. She was sitting on an old blanket that I’d found on a shelf and spread out in front of the fire. Her dress clung to her, and as I uncorked the jug I caught her sneaking another sidelong look in my direction.

      The fact is, I was a good-looking fellow in those departed days of 1849. It wasn’t the face I show to the world these four long decades later, ruined by the years and much else besides—a face that would cause you to start if you saw it, and flinch. For that’s what you would do—oh yes you would—if I looked up abruptly from my glass in some low tavern, or perhaps came upon you suddenly in the London fog. But back then I was quite the lad, in a crookedly smiling boyish sort of way. The brown eyes were large, and there was a wing of brown hair that would fall down over them, which I had a way of flipping back with a movement of my hand. The overall effect might indeed have been too boyish, except for the scar: a horseshoe-shaped scar by my left eye, courtesy of a childhood set-to with a butcher’s apprentice who had been bullying my brother. I’d been carried home in a cart, to be sewn up on the kitchen table, but apparently I’d inflicted some damage in return, for my adversary never troubled poor Toby again. And I afterwards discovered that the girls were quite affected by my scar—it gave me a rugged cast—so all in all I decided I’d come rather well out of the bargain.

      Miss Scantlebury and I shared the ale, and divided the loaf of bread and the lump of cheese that I’d brought with me too. Soon enough we were feeling warmer, and beginning to talk. Then we were talking some more, and laughing, and agreeing that this was a very odd place for a picnic. I found myself telling her about the old Welsh pony I rode as a boy, and never saw the Devil until it was too late.

      “The last behind in Cornwall?” She eyed me aslant.

      “Yes, well. I apologize,” I said. “That was rude, and ungentlemanly.”

      “I shouldn’t forgive you,” said she, with a little pout. “But under the circumstances, I suppose I shall.”

      “You’re very good.”

      “No I’m not. I’m not very good at all. That’s what you like best about me.”

      “Miss Scantlebury, what are you doing?”

      For a hand was upon my leg.

      You’ll have guessed the sequel, of course. Someone like yourself, who knows the way of the world and the frailties of the human heart. And of course I knew it was wicked, and wrong, and hateful in the eyes of God. But the Devil had slipped in from the storm without our noticing, and now there was the dark sweet murmur of Infernal blandishments—go on, my friends, for you want to so much; it’s lovely, it’s harmless, and who’s ever to know, on a night so dark and God’s eyes surely elsewhere?—and then the lash of his riding crop. Before I quite realized

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