Free Coromandel! by John Masters Page B

outside.
    She took the book gently out of his hands and put it down on the bed behind her. She sat down on the edge of the bed and, as he turned, put up her arms and her face to him and closed her eyes.
    She felt his breath by her ear, and then his whisper. ‘Will you marry me, Jane? If you will, we’ll go away, and then we can discover everything together.’
    Not now, not now, don’t talk of it now when I am helpless, because now I must listen lovingly to everything you say, and it seems good and wonderful, but I know it isn’t. Talk of it later, when this is done and you have assuaged me, and then I will know it is madness and I will tell you again that you smell of the farm.
    She whispered, ‘Jason, Jason!’
    He forced her gently back on the bed, and she sighed, but he sat down beside her and said again, ‘Will you marry me, Jane? We’ll find men who know the way, and we’ll go with them to Coromandel. Old Voy told me that’s the best thing to do. I will make you happy all your life if you will.’
    The dim yellow light, diffuse and rain-blurred, washed his dark face as he leaned over her. He said quietly, ‘It’s no use just lying together every time you want to forget that I am a farmer’s son, dear Jane. Do you love me, Jane?’
    Because he had held off she was helpless against the truth. She did love him, but, oh, it was wicked and impossible. She muttered, ‘I do love you, Jason.’
    She heard her own words and faced them. The memory of every time she had ever seen him came upon her, all at once and together, and swept aside the obstinate remnants of her pride. If her father could be made to agree to the marriage he would give them land and send them to London for Jason to be made into a gentleman. Hugo would be furious--but she didn’t like Hugo. She was afraid of him, that was all.
    She said, ‘I’ll marry you, if my father will agree.’
    She felt herself shaking with relief and anxiety. She had found the truth at last, and now it became the most important thing in the world that Jason should agree and somehow find a way to make her father agree.
    Ah, she could have married anyone, but she would marry Jason. They couldn’t live in Wiltshire, but her father owned land in Dorset too. They would go there when Jason had learned to be a squire. He’d be a small farmer-squire, like Master Yeoford and Master Ingle here in the Vale. It would be all right, and she and he would He had gone limp beside her, and a sudden access of panic sent her arm jerking out to seize his elbow. ‘What is it, what’s the matter?’
    Surely he couldn’t refuse now, to go and follow his crazy dreams, his mad books. He only wanted to go away because he was not treated as he deserved, but that would all change when he was a squire in Dorset. What more would he want or expect?
    ‘What is it?’ she whispered.
    The door opened, and light flooded the room; light sparkled on the sheets and the high canopy and the red Turkey carpet and the stone walls, and on her clothes in the open wardrobe, and on the book beside her white legs. She rolled over and up with a cry, her hands pressed to her face. Jason jumped to his feet and turned. It was her brother Hugo.
    Hugo put down his lantern on the table, and the light from it flashed down the long blade of the rapier in his hand. He was fully dressed--crumpled riding boots and spurs, silk breeches, red doublet, wide white ruff, his head bare, long hair wet on his shoulders, empty scabbard swinging against his legs as he stepped forward, the sword drawn back.
    She cried, ‘Oh, no, Hugo, no! I love him. We’re going to be married!’
    Her brother looked only at Jason and muttered, ‘You whoreson knave,’ and lunged out.
    The rapier slid down the light, the sparks slid up the blade, and the point flickered past Jason’s side as he bent and jumped in. The men met, breast to breast, in the centre of her bedroom, their left hands locked above their heads, the rapier snaking back and