Christmas morning, but Ailie feels no leap of the spirit or good will toward men. The year is out, and today she redeems her promise: by nightfall she’ll be Ailie Gleg. Something tightens in her at the thought of it. She never imagined she’d have to live up to her vow, never doubted that Mungo — like some galloping cavalier out of a medieval romance — would turn up to save her from the dragon. A year had seemed so far off — he could have been back by New Year’s or Easter. How was she to know? She had settled in and waited. Waited with a sinking in the pit of her stomach, through spring planting, Whitsuntide, Midsummer’s Eve, through Michaelmas, Martinmas, the harvest ball, and right on up until the night before Christmas, when she finally gave in and let the bridesmaids stain her feet with henna and throw the traditional cow’s hide over her and Georgie. But even now, at the eleventh hour, she’s still not resigned to it. And she still hasn’t given up hope. She’s got till three p.m., hasn’t she? Maybe he’ll burst through the door as she stands before the altar, tall and commanding, his face sunburned, a wild look in his eye. .
But stop. How could she even think it? She’s given her word, her father has killed a calf and a pig and sent out the invitations and white kid gloves, her friends and relations have come miles through bitter winds, ice and sleet — how could she rob them of their pleasure? Worse: how could she steal Georgie’s heart and run off with it? No: she should prepare herself, wake up, accept the way of the world. One man has been taken from her, and another offered in his place. So what if he isn’t perfect? So what if he’s lop-eared, oafish, as sexless as a plucked rooster? He loves her, that’s all that counts. And he’s got a good heart. .
Her reverie is suddenly broken by the sound of whistling: pitched high and lively, it echoes eerily through the still house. The tune drifts in and out of hearing, she can’t be certain, but yes — yes, it’s a tune Mungo used to sing to her years ago, the words as much a part of her memory of him as the drift of his voice:
Now a’ ye that in England are,
Or are in England born,
Come ne’er to Scotland to court a lass,
Or else ye’ll get the scorn.
They haik ye up and settle ye by.
Till on your wedding day,
And gie ye frogs instead of fish,
And play ye foul, foul play.
Could it be? Mother of God, could it? She leaps from the bed, still in her dressing gown, her feet the color of Valencia oranges, blood beating quick, the whistling louder now, just outside the door, oh Mungo, Mungo, Mungo, she whispers, flinging the door back in a paroxysm of blind hope — and there he is — Georgie Gleg. In fresh linen, top hat, silk coat. His eyes are butter-soft. “Good morning, love,” he says, handing her a holly wreath molded in the shape of a heart. “Today’s the big day.”
Disappointment creases her face. “Thank. . you,” she stammers, a bit confused and embarrassed, awkward in the role of sacrificial lamb. When she reaches out to take the wreath, she pricks her finger. A spot of blood wells up almost instantly.
“Here,” he says, snatching up her hand. “Let me suck it.”
And so she stands there, feeling foolish in her orange feet and rumpled dressing gown, while the rain gargles in the gutters and her husband-to-be bends over her and sucks at her thumb like a baby at his mother’s breast.
♦ ♦ ♦
Ten minutes later, the door closed and latched, she tiptoes around the room, stuffing things into a black leather satchel. Her mouth is set, her movements fluid and furtive. When Katlin turns over in bed she freezes in midstep and waits a long silent moment for her friend’s breathing to settle back into the gentle soughing rhythm of sleep. In the hallway she digs out her gloves, hat, scarf. She can hear her father and uncle snoring like a gristmill in the back room as she eases through the kitchen and out the door.
The rain is steady and sonorous. There is a smell of purity and renewal in the air, as if the earth has been washed clean. Up ahead the slick bare trunks glow with wet; behind, the house sinks into the mist. Bent low, she fades into the trees like a thief.
♦ HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO ♦
Should he get down on his knees and kiss the earth? No. Too theatrical. But what a rush it is to tread the old sod once again! What a thrill to hear the English tongue, gaze on English faces, bonnets, churchtowers and shingled cottages! Overwhelming! He can’t resist, he must. . get down on his knees this. . instant. .
As the repatriated explorer dodges down to buss the earth — or rather the slick, weed-strewn planks of the Falmouth docks — he is so thoroughly caught up in the rhapsody of the moment that he fails to take account of the traffic behind him. The other passengers, anxious to disembark and be on their way, pile up at his back — one of them. Colonel Messing, colliding with the man in front of him and dipping awkwardly to one knee. The Colonel, just returned from an inspection of his estates in the West Indies, is a man of unimpeachable personal dignity. He rises to his feet, dusts his stockings and raps his cane smartly across the explorer’s upturned buttocks.
“Out of the way, you impudent young dog.”
♦ ♦ ♦
An inauspicious homecoming, to say the least — but then all of Great Britain thinks he’s gone the same route as Houghton and Ledyard and the rest. No one recognizes him, no one expects him. At the Dog & Duck Tavern, Falmouth, he glances up from his eggs and drippings to scan the ruddy faces and long noses at the bar, pregnant with his secret, savoring the quiet incubation of his celebrity. If they only knew. He stifles a sudden impulse to shout it out, dance on the tables, set it to music and sing it to them, emblazon it on great drooping banners like bellying sails: I DID IT. I ALONE. I’VE BEEN WHERE NO OTHER MAN HAS BEEN AND I’VE SEEN WHAT NO OTHER MAN HAS SEEN AND I’M HERE TO TELL ABOUT IT. But no, let them read it in the London papers and crowd round this very bar, stunned and amazed: “Gorry—’ee was ‘ere. In this very room. The chance of lifetime and Oy nivir so much as lifted me ‘ead. But ‘oo was to know?”
Who indeed? But there’s one who should know — and without a moment’s delay. The explorer calls for pen and paper and scratches off the good news, as excited as the day he won his first football match:
Dog & Duck, Falmouth
22 December, 1797
My Love:
I am alive and well and my mission has been an unqualified success. Know that the great and glorious Niger flows eastward and that I am rushing home to your arms.
M.
The following morning he books a place on the packet boat to Southampton, and from there finds himself squeezed into the tiny compartment of a coach-and-four bound for London. His fellow passengers turn out to be a Mrs. Higgenbotham, on the rebound from a visit to her niece in Portsmouth, a pair of disreputable-looking drummers selling “the latest in stickless frying pans and guaranteed runless hose for gennelmen,” and Colonel Messing, of the short temper and long cane. Another three passengers are perched atop the convex roof: two young girls and a cleric in formal dress. Fortunately, Colonel Messing does not seem to recognize the explorer. After an hour or so of jostling along in silence he leans forward confidentially and tells Mungo that he shouldn’t mind the tear in the knee of his breeches. “You see,” he explains, “I’m just back from Antigua and all my things are gone ahead in the wagon. And damn me if I didn’t have a bit of an accident before I ever set foot on shore. Some histrionic young ass was bent over double kissing the bleeding dock, if you can believe it, as if we’d been at sea three years instead of a month — and it cost me a good tumble.”