several years, and the control over it was entirely hers. Eventually, of course, she would have to marry again or find suitable employment, or perhaps even return to Massachusetts, but none of those decisions seemed pressing. She recognized, as Hubert spoke of the Continent and the unfettered life of the mind that he led, so different from the fancies that drove Gabriel Legge’s fabulous journeys, that the thought of travel excited her. She was tired of waiting at home, of not bestirring herself in the rich new world opening out at every hand. Even pouches of diamonds did not seem sufficient compensation for idleness.
12
HANNAH’S ALTERNATE prospects of life as a widowed Cambridge governess or as the wife of a placid introvert like Hubert were overthrown just after dawn in late April 1694 by the casual, almost languid, appearance of Gabriel Legge crossing the stone bridge in front of the cottage gate.
He had taken pains over his appearance. Hardly the sailor on leave, he appeared, in his silks and breeches, the gold-crowned walking stick, the powdered wig and the trademark silk eye patch, every inch the imperial magistrate.
“We’ll sell the Stepney cottage, of course.” It was never suitable for a man of his height. The beams cut across the parlor at eye level. “I presume you’ll be ready in a fortnight. We sail for Fort St. Sebastian on the Fortune .”
“The Fortune? The Fortune! Whatever happened to the mad Portugee?” She took her cue from Gabriel Legge, for surely had he crawled across the stone bridge begging for forgiveness, seeking accommodation, apologizing for having left her alone and dishonored (which eventually would have been the case), she would have nursed him back to health, forgiven him the hint of deceit in the tale he had told. But he’d rather chosen an approach that admitted nothing, withheld the facts of his past eighteen months and the motives for his cruelty.
“Swallowed by a whale off Grand Comoro and deposited on the Portugee shore. A full desert and jungle year I spent, tearing flesh from the hands of baboons, outwitting the jungle cats, outsmarting the forest savages, joining slavers up the African coast …”
The same old Gabriel Legge. He told her that now he had gone down to Leadenhall Street and joined the Honourable East India Company, convinced that his last adventure had exhausted his store of good fortune. His sailing days were over. He’d earned his stake; now was time to think of a career.
“Husband,” said Hannah Legge, “the story that was told to me a winter last was most convincing.”
“Poor mate.”
“You’ve not just this minute disembarked.”
“These trifles? I show you respect by not befouling this cottage.”
“I wept for you.”
With a smile both amused and sympathetic, Gabriel Legge let her self-pity pass. “You have taken to tobacco in my absence.”
“That is unkind.”
He sniffed the brocaded cushions, whacking them loudly with the flat of his hand. Dust motes sparkled in the morning light.
“A lingering odor. Madeira soaked. Much affected by squinty-eyed Cambridge swine.”
And even as they conducted their interview, the widow and her resurrected groom, Hubert lay in the gutter a few yards below the stone bridge, his fine Dutch glasses twisted from his astonished face, his fleshy ears freshly notched as a slave might be identified by his master, or a common thief punished for a first offense, and a Fornicator’s bold F branded to the center of his widening forehead. Their morning’s work done, Gabriel Legge’s mates, including the drunken young man who’d brought the baleful news of Gabriel’s demise and then had stationed himself in a nearby public house close enough to watch the mistress’s comings and goings, crossed the bridge with the first mate’s ornate sea trunks, and one empty locker for the mistress to pack her gear.
THIS IS the best I can do, pulling it together from a hundred sources. I think of Venn,
12
HANNAH’S ALTERNATE prospects of life as a widowed Cambridge governess or as the wife of a placid introvert like Hubert were overthrown just after dawn in late April 1694 by the casual, almost languid, appearance of Gabriel Legge crossing the stone bridge in front of the cottage gate.
He had taken pains over his appearance. Hardly the sailor on leave, he appeared, in his silks and breeches, the gold-crowned walking stick, the powdered wig and the trademark silk eye patch, every inch the imperial magistrate.
“We’ll sell the Stepney cottage, of course.” It was never suitable for a man of his height. The beams cut across the parlor at eye level. “I presume you’ll be ready in a fortnight. We sail for Fort St. Sebastian on the Fortune .”
“The Fortune? The Fortune! Whatever happened to the mad Portugee?” She took her cue from Gabriel Legge, for surely had he crawled across the stone bridge begging for forgiveness, seeking accommodation, apologizing for having left her alone and dishonored (which eventually would have been the case), she would have nursed him back to health, forgiven him the hint of deceit in the tale he had told. But he’d rather chosen an approach that admitted nothing, withheld the facts of his past eighteen months and the motives for his cruelty.
“Swallowed by a whale off Grand Comoro and deposited on the Portugee shore. A full desert and jungle year I spent, tearing flesh from the hands of baboons, outwitting the jungle cats, outsmarting the forest savages, joining slavers up the African coast …”
The same old Gabriel Legge. He told her that now he had gone down to Leadenhall Street and joined the Honourable East India Company, convinced that his last adventure had exhausted his store of good fortune. His sailing days were over. He’d earned his stake; now was time to think of a career.
“Husband,” said Hannah Legge, “the story that was told to me a winter last was most convincing.”
“Poor mate.”
“You’ve not just this minute disembarked.”
“These trifles? I show you respect by not befouling this cottage.”
“I wept for you.”
With a smile both amused and sympathetic, Gabriel Legge let her self-pity pass. “You have taken to tobacco in my absence.”
“That is unkind.”
He sniffed the brocaded cushions, whacking them loudly with the flat of his hand. Dust motes sparkled in the morning light.
“A lingering odor. Madeira soaked. Much affected by squinty-eyed Cambridge swine.”
And even as they conducted their interview, the widow and her resurrected groom, Hubert lay in the gutter a few yards below the stone bridge, his fine Dutch glasses twisted from his astonished face, his fleshy ears freshly notched as a slave might be identified by his master, or a common thief punished for a first offense, and a Fornicator’s bold F branded to the center of his widening forehead. Their morning’s work done, Gabriel Legge’s mates, including the drunken young man who’d brought the baleful news of Gabriel’s demise and then had stationed himself in a nearby public house close enough to watch the mistress’s comings and goings, crossed the bridge with the first mate’s ornate sea trunks, and one empty locker for the mistress to pack her gear.
THIS IS the best I can do, pulling it together from a hundred sources. I think of Venn,
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