Old Glory

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘You … you … you impudent blackgard,’ Josiah shouted. ‘Summon the constables and make an end of him.’

  ‘Now, Bartlett,’ remonstrated the second of Harry’s hosts, Oliver Browne. ‘I am sure you are mistaken.’

  ‘Mistaken, sir? Mistaken? I tell you …’

  ‘What Mr Bartlett is trying to tell you, gentlemen,’ Harry explained, ‘is that I hold a somewhat different political point of view from his own.’

  The merchants exchanged knowing glances, while Bartlett glared at him in consternation.

  Harry smiled at them, and improvised further. ‘Of course, if my politics, which are of an American variety, as I am a Virginian, offend you, gentlemen, I will take my leave immediately.’

  ‘Take your leave, sir? Take your leave?’ Bartlett bellowed. ‘You, sir, are under arrest.’

  ‘Bartlett,’ Moultrie snapped. ‘Control yourself, for God’s sake, and show some sense. Would you provoke a riot? Next thing we’ll have a battle on the streets here in New York, just as they did in Boston. Blood will be shed, sir, and it will be your doing. Why, some of it may well be your own.’

  Bartlett’s mouth opened and shut, like a fish just taken from the sea. ‘You mean to let that scoundrel walk away, a free man?’

  ‘I mean to leave the definition of the word scoundrel, as used in a political sense, to the judgement of what transpires over the next few months,’ Moultrie declared. ‘Here is my hand, Captain McGann. I am right pleased to have made your acquaintance, and I trust you will do my wife and I the honour of dining with us this evening.’

  ‘I am flattered, sir, and accept with pleasure.’

  ‘And may I assure you, Captain,’ Browne said. ‘That your stay in New York will be an untroubled one, if I have to attend to it myself.’ He gazed at Bartlett, who had gone quite crimson in the face.

  ‘I never doubted that for a moment, sir,’ Harry said. ‘And now, gentlemen, I will take my leave and see about getting your goods ashore. Mr Bartlett.’ He smiled at the shipowner, left the building, and checked as he reached the street. Sitting in a waiting trap was Elizabeth.

  CHAPTER 6 – New York 1775

  That it was Elizabeth Bartlett waiting for her father Harry recognised instantly, and for that reason would have hurried by. Yet he checked involuntarily to gaze at her, because where he remembered an extraordinarily pretty girl, this was a remarkably beautiful woman, at once in her face, which seemed more finely etched, with stronger mouth and chin than he recalled, in her hair, a quite magnificent soft gold, dressed in carefully careless waves, a strand of which lay over her shoulder, beneath a huge silk hat decorated with pale blue lace, and in her body, perfectly displayed by her dark blue silk gown with its pale blue edging and apron, and above all its fashionably low neckline, which revealed a wealth of pale throat and chest and even swelling breast.

  She seemed equally bemused by the sight of him. She carried a lacquered wooden fan in her right hand, and this now gave a little twitch and opened, half in front of her face, as she flushed beneath his gaze. ‘Harry McGann!’ she said. ‘I could not understand my father’s haste. Harry McGann! But … are you not in danger of arrest, here in New York?’

  ‘I doubt that, Miss Bartlett,’ he said, recalling himself and raising his hat. ‘Besides, it is to be but a brief visit. I will bid you good day.’

  ‘Harry McGann,’ she said a third time. ‘Are you not, then, merely here to fulfil your promise to me?’

  He frowned. ‘Promise, Miss Bartlett?’

  ‘I see,’ she remarked. ‘I was undoubtedly senseless to suppose you would remember. You told me once, that you would come back to see me, dressed in best broadcloth and leather, and with silver coin jingling in your pockets. Is that not best broadcloth on your back? Is that baldric on your shoulder not leather? Of course, I do not know if you have coin jingling in your pockets, but I suspect that you do.’

  Harry replaced his hat. ‘I was ever an object of amusement to you, Miss Bartlett. Now, if you will excuse me …’

  ‘Harry,’ she said. ‘You were never an object of amusement to me. Forgive my attempt at humour. Will you not come to call?’

  ‘Your father would throw me out.’

  ‘I am the mistress of my father’s house, Harry,’ she said. ‘I am inviting you to dine with. Tonight.’

  ‘I am sorry, Miss Bartlett, but I must decline; I have a previous engagement.’

  She inclined her head, her flush somewhat deepening, but would not be swayed from her purpose. ‘Then tomorrow.’ She closed her fan with a snap. ‘I shall expect you, Harry.’

  *

  She watched him stride away from her towards the docks, felt the heat slowly leaving her cheeks. But not her heart, her belly, her mind. Harry McGann! Had she ever really supposed he would come back?

  Or had she ever really doubted that he would? Because had not this moment been what she had been awaiting, for six years?

  ‘Poltroons!’ Josiah Bartlett stormed out of the Exchange and climbed in to sit beside her. ‘They have a wanted criminal walking the streets of New York and are afraid to arrest him lest they provoke a riot. By God, that men can sink so low.’ He flicked the reins, violently, and the horse started equally violently, scattering passersby.

  ‘You will have us in the ditch, Father,’ Elizabeth said severely.

  Josiah slowed the trap. ‘You saw him, I imagine.’

  ‘I spoke with him.’

  ‘You … by God, the scoundrel. Forcing himself upon you, eh? Well, that is another crime I shall lay at his door, one day.’

  ‘I spoke with him, Father.’

  ‘You are a shameless hussy.’ Josiah growled. ‘I wonder I do not take my stick to your backside.’

  Elizabeth allowed him to finish. She no longer feared him in the slightest. Rather was their situation entirely reversed to what it had once been. It had happened, she recalled, on the evening that Mr Burtinshaw had stormed from their house — and that had been five years ago. Father had been, predictably, furious, had seized her by the arm and thrown her across the settee, shouting that she was determined to be an old maid and the ruination of his declining years, that she was an abnormal woman, that she had the instincts of a whore. He had himself pulled her skirts to her waist and applied his hand to her flesh. And then, as usual, he had hurried from the room to his bedchamber.

  But on this occasion she had followed. She had merely wished to explain that she could never love a man like Mr Burtinshaw, but as he had left his door slightly ajar, and she had still been somewhat distraught from her spanking, she had pushed it in without knocking, and stood there, unnoticed and bemused, until it was too late. Then he had knelt, to beg her forgiveness, and more, she suspected, her total and everlasting confidence.

  Had she been shocked? Remarkably, she did not think so. Even then, she had not been aware of shock. Rather of a consuming interest in male sexuality so revealed to her for the first time. But she had not been pleased at the prospect of having to share that sexuality, either. The episode had seemed to confirm all of her doubts about marriage. To imagine herself receiving that object from Mr Burtinshaw, and even more, what it contained, had been the most repulsive thought she had ever known. Nor could she suppose any of the other young men of her acquaintance would be any improvement. Sexual relations could only be undertaken with a man with whom she could be utterly in love, from whom she would accept anything, and for whom she would do anything. That was certain. And if she had only ever known but one man who could fill that requirement, and he was undoubtedly lost to her forever, then she would be content to be her own woman, forever.

  The circumstances had been exactly right for such a decision. Father would never touch her again, of that she was certain. Nor would he rule her again. He had hovered, rather, in anxious supplication, and she, a seventeen year old girl, had not known how to adjust the situation. She was only aware that from being half an orphan she had become a whole one, even if the remaining parent still lived and br
eathed.

  The situation had adjusted itself. Josiah had wanted to stabilise their new relationship immediately, by abandoning all attempts to consider her a girl. That night he had offered her a glass of port wine following supper, and she had accepted. He had looked as if he had been about to say something, had been, indeed, desperate to say something, but had lacked the courage. Elizabeth had not assisted him in any way. She had no desire for him to say anything, simply because she would not have known how to reply. It was far better, and safer, to let the new circumstances solidify, as it were, through silence.

  As it had done. He was a man with a beautiful daughter who, it seemed, preferred to remain a spinster. No doubt, the world supposed, this was from a sense of duty to her poor lonely father, for whom she cared, and whose house and table she managed with total efficiency. As she also managed him. With the distance of the housekeeper she had become. She would play the spinet and sing to him after supper, she would accompany him on outings, all smiles, and she would be the gracious hostess when he wished to entertain his business acquaintances. But she kept all of them equally at arms’ length, just as she never allowed her father to engage her in any private conversation, so much so that on an evening, when there was no music, their house was a totally quiet place, with Josiah reading or doing his accounts, and Elizabeth either also reading or busy with her needlework. He brought no more suitors to her door, and she was established in New York as a very odd young woman, and perhaps even an unnatural one.

  By women as well. She had had friends aplenty before her departure to England in the spring of 1768. She had then been fifteen. When she returned, more than a year later, she had been going on seventeen and had grown apart from those girlhood companions. If she had sought their company on her reappearance in America, this had been because it had not then occurred to her to do otherwise. But how irresponsibly childish they had all seemed, and how limited their horizons and ambitions. After the incident of the night of Mr Burtinshaw, as she thought of it, they had altogether ceased to interest her. Their conversation was consumed with speculation, of mankind. She no longer needed to speculate, and she certainly had no intention of explaining. They would find out what awaited them soon enough. As she already knew, there was nothing left for her to consider, in that direction — save distaste.

  Until today. She still was not sure why she had done it. Or rather, if she knew why she had done it, simply because she had been waiting to do it for six years, she still did not know why she had not stopped herself. He was the most exciting man she had ever known, and he had fulfilled all of his promises and therefore her dreams, apparently without even being aware of it — but he was still a man, and if he would certainly be more of a man than anyone else, in every way, she did not find that at all a reassuring thought.

  Even less reassuring was her realisation that she was still in a very excited state from the very sight of him, just about ready to hurry home to the privacy of her bedroom and emulate her father … and she had come to pride herself on her level-headed refusal to surrender to passion, even when self induced.

  She decided to distract herself by creating a crisis, as there would have to be one anyway, eventually.

  ‘I have invited Captain McGann to sup with us, tomorrow evening,’ she said quietly.

  Josiah Bartlett gave such a violent tug on the reins the horse reared.

  ‘Father, please,’ Elizabeth protested.

  Josiah gave a jerk and slackened his grip; the horse pranced somewhat, then settled down. ‘Are you gone mad, Miss?’

  ‘By no means. Captain McGann is an old acquaintance, and a valued one. I have not forgotten that we both owe him our lives, and that he was then treated most shabbily.’

  ‘And the fact that he is a self proclaimed republican rebel means nothing to you? You amaze me, Miss, indeed you do.’

  ‘Is he really a self proclaimed republican rebel?’ she asked. ‘I would never have supposed it. Well, then, we will just have to persuade him of the error of his ways.’

  It gave purpose to the whole project, devoid of passion. But perhaps, she thought, almost hopefully, he will not come.

  *

  ‘I am to dine ashore, Mr Tobias,’ Harry told the Mate.

  ‘Again, Captain?’

  ‘Again.’

  ‘You must be the most popular man in New York,’ Tobias remarked.

  ‘In certain quarters, to be sure. However, that will not prevent us from sailing tomorrow on the tide.’

  ‘Aye aye,’ Tobias agreed, and watched his captain carefully smoothing his hair in the glass. It was not a habit of Harry McGann to preen himself, and he had certainly not done so before going to dine with Mr and Mrs Moultrie the previous night. ‘A lady, is it?’

  ‘Why, yes,’ Harry said, still gazing at himself as he set his tricorne on his head, another unusual piece of behaviour. ‘A lady. A very old acquaintance.’

  ‘Then may I wish you success in your venture?’

  Harry glanced at him. ‘Venture? I would hardly call it that. This is a courtesy call, Mr Tobias. I shall be back at eleven.’

  He went to the gangway and made his way ashore; they had secured a berth alongside for the unloading of their cargo. A courtesy call. It certainly was not that. Indeed, for all of yesterday he had determined to ignore the invitation. But his mind had slowly changed, or had it been made up all the time, without his knowing it? He could tell himself that he was actually setting out to prove a point. Because, as Elizabeth had reminded him, he had triumphed. It was strange that he should have so forgotten that distant conversation — or that she should have so remembered it. But he had fulfilled his promise, and returned in broadcloth and leather, with a sword on his thigh and money in his pockets. And even a ship under his command. There was triumph.

  Or was there more to it than that? He had entirely foresworn women, at least of his own race. Yet he was accepting the invitation of this woman. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Was it just to look? Or was it some deeper, more sinister desire lurking at the back of his mind? She had never married. Thus she would know nothing of men at all, especially living, as she did, alone with her father, lacking a brother or even a sister with whom to compare notes. In which case he was setting out to be a villain. But foreswearing did not, could not, mean that he had turned his back on desire, or at least admiration of the opposite sex. That would be unnatural.

  He could at least go and look.

  At even more beauty than he had encountered the previous day. She wore a satin polonaise gown in her favourite blue, tonight, a royal colour. She could have chosen nothing better, with its tight fitting bodice which flared at the hips into the voluminous skirt, pinned up at the back to reveal her pale blue underskirt. Her hair was dressed in the style of a Cadogan wig, gathered on her neck and secured with a pale blue bow, the waves meticulously arranged to either side, and as ever she carried a fan, tonight in ivory.

  She gave him a brief curtsey. ‘Captain McGann. Welcome to our house.’

  Here was every evidence of wealth and taste. Not quite as much wealth as possessed by William Jones, to be sure — there was a single woman servant, and she was white; and not quite as much elegance as Squire O’Rourke, either. But the taste was better than either. Elizabeth had furnished her father’s house with a superb but comfortable simplicity, and the cutlery and crockery were also of an attractive usefulness rather than a light-catching brilliance. The meal itself was perfection, and she had cooked it herself.

  While Josiah Bartlett had clearly been warned to be on his best behaviour. Told by whom? It could only have been his daughter. Now there was a strange turnabout — which might bear investigation.

  But for this evening it was he who was under investigation. ‘You must tell us all your adventures since last we met,’ Elizabeth begged. ‘I am sure you have had a great many.’

  ‘Too many, perhaps,’ Harry agreed.

  ‘More scrapes with the law, no doubt,’ Josiah remarked, filling
his pipe, and flushing as his daughter shot him a steely glance. ‘It is merely, my dear, that I have observed that a man who brushes with the law once, and survives, will do so again.’

  ‘Much depends upon one’s interpretation of the law, Mr Bartlett,’ Harry said, deciding against mentioning his desertion from the Navy. ‘For example, it was my fortune to spend a year shipwrecked in Dominica.’

  ‘Dominica?’ Elizabeth inquired. ‘But … is that not the Carib Isle?’

  ‘Correct, Miss Bartlett.’

  ‘And you survived?’

  ‘Well, I am here now. But it was necessary for me to adapt myself to an entirely different set of laws from anything I had ever previously encountered.’

  ‘You mean it was necessary for you to become a savage yourself,’ Bartlett grunted. ‘There, sir, you have it in a nutshell.’

  ‘Oh, Captain McGann, how awful for you.’

  ‘The savage life has its compensations, Miss Bartlett. Although none to be compared with company such as this.’

  She smiled at him, and tonight did not blush. ‘And clearly you triumphed, and now you are master of your own ship. All in a scant six years. I find that a remarkable achievement.’

  ‘I owe it all to a dear friend and benefactor, named John Paul Jones.’

  ‘An utter scoundrel, I have heard it said,’ Bartlett remarked.

  ‘No friend of Captain McGann’s can ever be an utter scoundrel, Father,’ Elizabeth said, with a totally dominated confidence. Indeed, she dominated the evening, steering Harry from topic to topic with the most accomplished ease, correcting her father’s occasional outbursts of aggressiveness with a single glance or a crushing sentence, serving the meal with the utmost dexterity, and sipping her after dinner port with the sophistication of a great lady. Her composure disappeared only when towards the end of the evening, she remarked, ‘It has been so good to talk with you after so long, Captain McGann. May I hope that we shall do so yet again, before you return to Virginia?’