The Twisted Sword Read Online Free PDF Page B

she's Bristol owned. We're carr'ing candles, soap and brushes, rope and twine.'
    Clowance looked past him farther down the hill. This way a precipitous cobbled alley led to the harbour.
    'I think my husband's just coming,' she said. 'I can see his head.' And then: 'From Bristol you say? Did you know him when he was living there?'
    The young man flushed as he turned to stare the way she was pointing. 'Well yes, ma'am, in a manner of speaking - though not for some years, like. You see, I'm his son.'
    II
    Stephen said: 'Dear heart, I told you I should not have come to you unshriven. I tried hard just before we was wed, and then again after, but you said leave the past to bury itself; and I was a coward and let it lie. A coward. I make no bones about it now. But just think how I was fixed. I had lost you once already. I'd been without you for more'n the twelvemonth. I was dringed up, not knowing what to do. If I told you that I had been married before, however long ago it all was, and however it had happened, I might well have lost you again. Wouldn't I?'
    They were lying together in their bed that night, two candles guttering in the air from an inch-open window. Clowance did not reply to his question. She found it hard to assess her feelings and impossible to convey them to him.
    'Or if you did not turn me down ... If you had the mind to be forgiving, your parents would not have been. Your father asked me once if I had a wife in every port, and I lied to him. He would not have excused that, not ever.'
    After a moment she said: 'So you had to deceive me, too.'
    Yes, and I've said why. D'you think if I'd told you about Marion before, you wouldn't have felt compelled to tell your father and mother? Ye are so open and honest. Truly, truly honest. That's the sort of family you've always lived with; I've always admired your family for that and wished I'd been brought up similar. But I wasn't. Life isn't like that where I come from, m'dear.'
    Clowance stared up at the low ceiling. 'And after we were married?'
    'I was too happy. I reckon I was too happy. And once it was done, I thought, it was done. If I'd done wrong, there was no way of putting it right then. By telling you I might ease me conscience - but at what cost! Making you unhappy. Spoiling our time together. Making a sort of stain where there'd been no stain. So I let sleeping dogs lie ...'
    'Until now...'
    "Yes, dear heart, until now.'
    He would have liked to touch her, try to caress her as She lay quietly beside him, her breast rising and falling only just perceptibly. He knew what she was like; he knew every inch of her; he knew what she was like naked; and he knew his ability to rouse her. But with a restraint that he was only just learning he made no move at all. She said: 'Tell me about Marion.'
    He was silent and then let out a long sigh. '"We were both seventeen. She was the daughter of a farrier. 'Twas a boy and girl thing, light and easy, laughing and joking as a boy and girl will; but there was no more laughing when I got her with child. D'you know about the bastardy laws?'
    'A bit.'
    'If a girl conceives a child and accuses a young man of being the father and he won't many her they put him in prison. There's many a good man languishing in prison because of such a law. Well I'd been in prison once and that was enough. We were married. Jason was born the following year. We never properly lived together. Her father was mad at me for spoiling his daughter's chances. She went on living at home. Jason lived with them. I'd visit from time to time, but after the child was born Marion turned against me so I saw little of them indeed. Then I left the district and went into service with Sir Edward Hope. Course I was bound to make the payments and that kept me desperate short of money. Then ...'
    'Then?'
    'When Jason was about ten his mother caught the smallpox and died. I left Sir Edward Hope's service and went to sea. I - didn't keep up any more payments. I never saw Jason