Page 125 of Confounding Oaths
For a moment, it seemed her father would say nothing. “I was born,” he began hesitantly, “more than fifty years ago in the Kingdom of Cayor. …”
And that, readers, is where I stepped away. I am a collector of stories, not a thief. I speak of things I have seen, not things I have heard from other narrators.
Chapter Twenty-six
Despite Mr. Caesar’s entreaties, CaptainJames and the rest of the Irregulars did indeed go back to war. The British army was mustered by early June and, although hostilities did not begin in earnest for another two weeks, Mr. Caesar, as a consequence, spent a number of days standing on the docks, looking out towards the sea, perfecting his air of aesthetic melancholy.
“Perhaps,” Miss Bickle told him—she had taken to keeping him company since the regiment had gone, “we should go to the seaside. It seems rather more fitting to be gazing out at the sea rather than the Thames. The Thames is so smelly.”
“Would it greatly surprise you,” Mr. Caesar replied, “to know that the smell is not my primary concern?”
“Not at all.” Miss Bickle was largely immune to sarcasm. “I am sure your largest concern is that Captain James might get shot by a Frenchman.”
The wind off the Thames which, now Miss Bickle had mentioned it,didhave a certain element of the open sewer to it, blewcool on Mr. Caesar’s face. “Would it surprise you yet more greatly,” he said, “to know that my greatest concern isn’t that either?”
The vast majority of the time, Miss Bickle was a portrait of obliviousness. She had her ideas about how things were and should be, and had trained her mind to systematically edit the world to preserve those ideas in the face of all evidence. This, however, was not the majority of the time. “Are you concerned he’ll forget you?”
“He’s inFrance,” Mr. Caesar declared, as though it were the end of the world. “Or Belgium. Fuck, I hope he’s in Belgium. I can’t imagine Belgian men are anywhere near as interesting as French men.”
Miss Bickle frowned. “Even if French men are very, very interesting they can’t be as”—she looked up at him with wide eyes and the conflicted expression of one whose kindness is matched only by her honesty—“well, I’m sure you’re more interesting thansomeFrench men at least.”
“Oh, thank you very much.”
“I just mean, well, you know, the French. They do have rather a reputation.”
“True.” With a sigh, Mr. Caesar turned back to the river. “And—even without, you know, the French and the Belgians and the Dutch and the Danish and the Prussians and all of them—”
“Gosh.” Miss Bickle mentally enumerated the various nations of the Seventh Coalition. “Aren’t wars complicated?”
“Even without all of them,” continued Mr. Caesar, who had known Miss Bickle for long enough to have learned that speaking over interjections was a necessary survival strategy, “I … I also very much do not want him to be killed.”
In defiance of all laws of propriety, Miss Bickle took Mr. Caesar by the hand and they stood together awhile watching the ships on the river. And for a while there was nothing but the lapping of thewater and the—admittedly rather intrusive—cries of street vendors to disturb the moment.
Then, Miss Bickle raised her voice in a soft, strong, and profoundly off-key melody. “‘I would I were on yonder hill,’” she began, “‘’tis there I’d sit and cry my fill.’”
Mr. Caesar glared down at her. “No.”
“‘And every tear would turn a mill …’” She met his gaze, challenging him to respond.
“I’m not singing a mournful song with my own bloody name in it.”
“‘And every tear would turn a mill,’” Miss Bickle repeated. I should, as a responsible peddler of influences, remind my readers that there are definitely circumstances in which an inability to take no for an answer is a decidedlynegativequality in a person. But this was not one of them.
“All right. You win.” He cleared his throat and continued in a rather better voice. “‘Johnny has gone for a soldier.’”
Any hope Mr. Caesar may have had of that being that was dashed at once. Miss Bickle carried on warbling. “‘I’ll sell my rock, I’ll sell my reel, I’ll sell my only spinning wheel.’”
“Oh no, we’re not doing all of it. The verse about dyeing my petticoats red at the very least I reserve the right to veto.”
“Oh, but John.” Miss Bickle frowned. “You’d look so fine in red petticoats.”
He had known the argument was useless before he had begun, but he’d needed to try anyway. They did, in the end, sing all of it, even the verse about the petticoats, as they walked away from the riverbank.
And Mr. Caesar, who was not ordinarily given to sentimentality, found tears pricking his eyes. Then more than pricking, so that he needed to stop in the shadow of a doorway and compose himself.
“I could have gone with him,” he said. “I could have enlisted or followed with the wives and children. I didn’t. He’d be right to abandon me.”
Miss Bickle extended one finger and jabbed Mr. Caesar firmly in the arm. “Don’t be silly, John. Soldiers leave their loves at home all the time, and they come back all the time. Anyway, fate would not be so cruel as to snatch Captain James away from you so swiftly.”
