Good Man Friday Read Online Free PDF

Rosenstein teamed up on piano and concertina so that everyone could take turns dancing with the two ladies, vigorous waltzes that for most of them constituted their only physical activity for days on end.
    January forbore to mention to his fellow passengers that ‘dancing the slaves’ was precisely how slave traders kept their cargo ‘in trim’ on the long voyage from Africa.
    Dominique’s maid Thèrése, Chloë’s maid Hèléne, and Musette – Charmian’s nurse – remained below.
    Afterwards, when Dominique took her daughter to bed and Captain Fancher’s man came in with the tea, January fleshed out his information about the disappearance of Mr Selwyn Singletary in Washington City the previous fall.
    â€˜I’ve corresponded with M’sieu Singletary most of my life.’ Chloë took the teacup that January brought her, from the gimballed urn on the saloon’s main table where Herren Coppert and Franck had settled to their usual game of picquet. The lanterns swayed with the motion of the ship, and rain spattered the windows as if hurled from a bucket.
    â€˜He was president of the British Mathematical Society, of which my Uncle Veryl is a member, though uncle’s hopeless with numbers.’ Madame timed her sip to the roll of the ship. Her marriage two years previously to Henri had been considered a phenomenal coup by the Viellard family; what she felt about it, she had never said. ‘I’ve always been very good with them, so starting when I was nine, Uncle Veryl had me write his letters for him. I’ve never actually met M’sieu Singletary.’
    â€˜Can you describe him?’ January collected Charmian’s alphabet blocks from the low table beside the sofa where they sat, keeping the words together that she’d spelled out, everything from
Anne Marie
to the name of Captain Fancher’s manservant, which was Skorsmund.
    â€˜Uncle Veryl says he’s “about” his – Uncle Veryl’s – height, which is five foot eight or nine. But of course he describes Henri the same way, and Henri is over six feet tall.’ She rearranged the blocks, changing their upward faces so that instead of spelling out
pineapple
and
piano
, they made neat rows of the alphabet. Chloë was fond of Charmian in her precise way, and fast friends with Dominique, a situation which bemused January but which at least would not result in murder before they reached Baltimore. ‘When I asked him, “Are M’sieu Singletary’s eyes blue?” he said yes, he thought so. When I asked, “Are his eyes hazel?” he agreed that they probably were. And as he only met M’sieu Singletary once, twenty years ago, he wouldn’t know if he was bearded or clean-shaven, though he hadn’t the slightest idea what color his hair was …’
    â€˜It’s probably gray by now,’ said January. ‘A lot of people are unobservant that way.’
    Chloë sniffed, as if this were something that she would arrange, were she ever to find herself in the position of ruling the world.
    â€˜How would he have been dressed? Was he a wealthy man?’
    â€˜I believe his family was quite poor. He never had much formal schooling, which is probably just as well. From what I gathered from his letters – those that weren’t entirely preoccupied with proofs and theorems – he had a sort of self-taught genius for mathematical relationships, the kind of thing I only glimpse now and then, when I see waves break on the bow of this vessel, or how a loose rope will swing from a mast. Uncle Veryl describes him as shabby, though the Virgin and all the saints know what that means, considering the kind of things
he
wears. “Shabby and old-fashioned,” he said.’
    â€˜
Old-fashioned
could mean anything from a narrow-cut coat, to small-clothes and a cocked hat.’
    â€˜Or trunk-hose and a slashed doublet,