Corsair Pt. 01 Ch. 03: The Bothy

He flung himself onto the bed. It was firmer than he expected. He glanced round the interior of the - she had called it a bothy, but to him it seemed more a summer house - in the candlelight. He sat up, and pulled a pocketbook from his breast pocket. From it he took her last letter and spread it out, catching again the patchouli scent of the heavy paper. He read it, although in truth he already knew it well.

"My Dearest Corsair

"I see well what you intended addressing me as 'Emily' in your last, but I fear that it will not serve. I have given this some thought. It is not Emily Barlow whom my mind's eye sees in the hands of the corsair, nor yet Sylvia Carey, nor even my Great Aunt Anne, but myself, Fiona Campbell of Tarbert. So - if it please you, if it should please you to allow me to think of you as my Corsair - then please continue to think of me as just myself, as I am, will all the flaws that make me who I am.

"I am so glad that you are at last coming! I am so curious to see your petite voiture. I look forward so much to once more hearing your voice, seeing your face. Do not - do NOT - shave your beard.

"I have spent many hours over the past week making the bothy in all respects ready for your visit. I have delighted in this, and perhaps indulged myself a little, so that your stay within it may be as filled with delights as is possible.

"Dearest friend, a question which a gentle maiden should perhaps not ask, but yet I must. In my last, I expressed my thought - which I do indeed hold - that for a man and a woman to share no common language must - freed as they must be from the coyness and evasions of language - render their approach to one another easier, more carefree and thus more joyous.

"In yours, you responded tersely to this. 'Yes,' you wrote, 'it does, in part.'

"I must know - although I know of course that I may not ask - but I do ache to know: do you know this of experience? Is this something you have yourself known?

"My dear, I grieve with you the loss of your heroic little vessel; I can imagine the pain of surrendering your first independent command, and for her to go to be broken up after all your adventures together seems a harsh fate. But la petite voiture is surely in herself an independent command, if a small one. And perhaps - if it is convenient with you - when you leave here I might come along with you in her as crew? Or, indeed, perhaps as something less?

"Come as soon as you may. I am so eager to see you again.

"Votre très chère ami

"Fiona"

She had not, of course, been explicit. Well, one wasn't. But - read again - this did not seem to him a chaste letter. And yet she had led him to the door, and left him there with no more than the most chaste of kisses, and a wish that he might have a pleasant night. And then she'd gone - back to the big house which was hidden from him by the stand of pines. He flipped through the pocket book for her previous letters, knowing they weren't there. The paper she used was too thick.

He got up, moved towards the door, and stopped. Again he looked around the space in the candlelight. He pushed on one of the pillars of bed, and found, as he'd expected, that it would move not at all - build solidly into the structure of the building. He looked at the ring bolted through the pillar - like a hitching ring for a horse you might see on the wall of a country inn, but finely made of bronze. That, certainly, was not new; the wax with which the pillar had been polished over many years had built up around its base. And yet the ring - this one and the others in the remaining pillars - was itself freshly polished, and gleamed.

Two further bronze ringbolts hung from a beam in the ceiling, above the hearth rug; they, too, gleamed with recent polishing.

The rack on the foot of the bed was also not new; it, too, showed the polish of years. From it hung four riding crops and - a school tawse? He lifted it and flexed it between his hands. A school tawse, split into two at the business end, of heavy leather. He knew from direct experience how such a thing could sting. And, beyond it, a thing like a short whip with nine tails of soft plaited leather...

Of these, only one riding crop seemed new. Yet all were supple with recent oil and care.

He pulled open the drawer of the cabinet, and stared in surprise; at first sight it seemed to him he was looking at items of horse harness. But as he pulled them out and laid them on the bed it was clear that, although made of heavy leather with sturdy rings, clips, and buckles, these items were not made for horses. And beneath them, soft ropes, and then a piece of bronze: solid, heavy, in form the member of a bronze statue of a satyr, or perhaps a votive of the god Priapus. For what purpose was this here? A glass cone shaped object like the stopper of a large decanter, with a knob like a small door knob at its blunt end? A half pint chemists' bottle labelled 'almond oil'?

She had suggested that he stay in the bothy, as it would give 'privacy'? She had 'delighted' in making the bothy 'in all respects ready' for his visit, had 'perhaps indulged herself' in doing so? And left him with a chaste kiss?

And then he shook his head. Well, of course. She must preserve the appearances. She would have gone back to the house as a chaste and dutiful daughter, and would return later...?

He helped himself to a dram from one of the three bottles of whisky on the shelf, and, picking up the candlestick, examined the spines of the volumes there. Yes, this must be her father's copy of '*The Lustful Turk*'. He flipped it open, idly, and found that it did indeed have the most curious hand-coloured plates, the frontispiece being particularly direct.

Which raised, in his mind, another question. She'd asked if he had written from personal experience. What experience had she? Had he been mistaken, in Edinburgh, in thinking she was an innocent on the brink of womanhood? Surrounded with all this, could she be?

Of course, save for the one riding crop, none of this was new, and a riding crop is a thing with an innocent purpose, a thing a young woman of her class would of course need. But the fact that none of it was new confirmed what she had hinted - that her parents, or certainly one of her parents, were voluptuaries. Is the child of a voluptuary also a voluptuary? If she is, was that what he wanted?

He turned the pages abstractedly, looking at one plate after another, knowing that she too had examined these. As a naval officer he knew of sodomy, but it had never occured to him that men might sodomise women, or that a young woman might look at a picture of a man clearly sodomising a woman and not be repelled.

He closed the book thoughtfully and returned it to the shelf. He drained his whisky glass, checked his valise to make sure the letters weren't in fact there - they weren't - and looked at his pocket watch. It was not quite eleven.

Would she come? Did he, actually, want her to come? When he had received her letter, he had imagined it, hoped for it. But, having seen the collection she'd prepared?

He shivered, and then, involuntarily, nodded firmly.

He blew the candles out carefully, opened the door and stepped out into the moonlight, noticing a bottle of champagne wrapped in a damp cloth in a bucket by the doorstep. A cat slipped past his legs and ran inside, jumping onto the bed. He closed the door, quietly. She would come, he thought. He wanted to be awake when she did. And he wanted to re-read her letters.

He strode across the lawn, stopping to examine the stocks that stood there. It was no surprise to find the hinges oiled. He passed the dark yew maze, and slipped through the stand of pines. No lights showed in the house. He walked past the house and round to the side, where his little Renault stood in the shadow. By feel, he unlocked the trunk and felt for the letters inside. Yes, there, under his mackintosh and the travel rugs, a half-foolscap envelope, thick and smelling faintly of patchouli. He slipped it into a pocket of his jacket.

As he straightened he heard a sound from the front door. He closed the trunk quietly, clicking the lock to secure it, and slipped to the corner of the house. Yes, Fiona was indeed there, dressed not in the virginal dress she'd worn for dinner but in the pleated tweed skirt and short jacket she'd been wearing when he'd arrived that afternoon. Her hair was no longer up in its habitual loose bun, but in a single braid, thick and tight, hanging down to below the hem of the jacket. He waited, intending to - what? Follow her? Catch her by surprise on that discreetly hidden lawn? He wasn't sure; but he waited, and so, it seemed, did she.

A hoot which didn't sound convincingly like an owl came from the woods towards the shore, and to his surprise, rather than vanishing into the pines, she walked swiftly down into the birch wood. Curious, he followed quietly. Through the birches she emerged onto the beach, bright in the moonlight. A man stood there, a large, solid man. She ran up to the man and embraced him.

Andrew stepped out of the trees in his turn.

"Is all well, Miss Campbell?" he called.

She turned and looked back at him, the moon behind her, her face in shadow.

"Very well, Commander Smith," she called, cheerfully. "You must excuse me for a little. I must go with Hugh. I shall return shortly."

She and the man she'd called Hugh strode off southwestwards down the shore. Shaken, Andrew walked back up through the trees, missing his way somewhat in the dark and fetching up against the dark wall of the yew maze. Without thinking, he turned right, away from the house, and walked round the western side of the maze; but before he had reached the corner there was a sudden shock of igniting fire from behind it, an audible whoosh and a flare of light and flame into the sky. Andrew ran.

Emerging onto the lawn he saw the bothy well ablaze. He yelled 'fire', and ran towards it, pulling off his jacket and leaving it on the grass behind him. Shielding his face against the heat he took the champagne from its bucket, shook it, twisted out the cork, and directed the stream of pale cold wine at the door handle. He reached for the handle, twisted it, pushed the door in. A great gout of flame roared out and; he stumbled back onto the lawn, relieved to see the cat streak by into the dark. Ducking low, and shielding his face once more, he picked up the bucket and threw the water in it into the fire, but it made no difference. Now the slieve and front of his shirt were scorched and smouldering. He staggered back, again yelling 'fire', and rolled on the blessed cold grass.

A man blundered out of the dark carrying a bucket.

"Where's Miss Fiona?" he called - by his voice, the butler; Andrew didn't recall his name.

"Not here," called Andrew. "She wasn't with me. Where did you get the water?"

"Horse trough by the house," said the butler. "But we'll not put it out, it's hopeless."

"We must try," said Andrew.

Taking the bucket the champagne had been in, he started back towards the pines, and as he did so, saw something on the grass. He picked it up, staring at it in shock.

"What have you there?" The butler was right behind him.

"It's the spare petrol can from my Renault," said Andrew, grimly. "That fire was not an accident."

The two men exchanged glances, and hurried back through the pines for more water.

In front of the house, a small group of people in various states of dress, looking shocked. Andrew and the butler refilled their buckets at the trough and started back towards the fire. Others followed, some few also with buckets.

Andrew made two more trips to the trough before it was empty. The little bothy was still blazing, but it was now clearly past any hope of saving.

"Where's Fiona?" came a frantic voice. "Lieutenant Commander Smith, where is Fiona?"

It was Lady Campbell, in a white night gown, a china teapot in her hand. Her hair was loose down her back, her feet bare.

"Please, where is Fiona?"

"She isn't here," Andrew said again. "She wasn't with me."

He didn't say he'd seen her down on the shore.

The roof of the bothy collapsed; there was another burst of flame.

"She wasn't in there?" asked Lady Campbell. "Lieutenant Commander, are you sure?"

"I'm certain, Lady Campbell," said Andrew. "There was a cat. It escaped. There was no-one else."

"Then where is she?"

"I don't know," said Andrew.

The little group stood now on the lawn, watching the flames gradually abate. No-one else spoke. Time passed.

-----

"Where is Andrew? Commander Smith - where is he?"

"I'm here, Miss Campbell," said Andrew, formally. "I am unhurt."

She ran up to him.

"Oh, my dear, your shirt is burned - and your hand - you must come and let me tend them."

"Where have you been?" her mother asked. "Where have you been?"

"Just a stroll on the beach in the moonlight," said Fiona. "Mother, I must tend Andrew's hurts."

"I should leave," said Andrew.

"Come to the house, dear Andrew, please. Let me tend you."

Andrew sighed, and walked over to pick up his jacket. He shrugged himself into it.

"I should leave," he said again.

He picked up the petrol can, and walked into the pines.

-----

She found him by the car. He was examining something in the shadow.

"What is it, Andrew? What is wrong?"

"The strap has been cut," he said.

"I don't understand."

"They used the petrol can from my car to start the fire..."

"It was deliberate?"

"It was."

"But... Come inside, my dear. Your hands are burned."

He looked at her, confused.

"I should leave," he said again. "I did not appreciate, when I came here, that your affections were... engaged elsewhere."

"No!" she said. "No! Please, dearest Andrew, come inside. Let me tend you. Let me... talk with you."

He went.

-----

In the bathroom upstairs she bathed the backs of his hands carefully with cold water, examining the blisters.

"I should have done this earlier," she said. "You have broken them..."

"I am most grateful to you, Miss Campbell, but really I should leave."

"Please," she said. "It is past midnight, and you must not drive with these hands... and... Dearest Andrew, please."

She paused, and went on more steadily.

"I believe I should fetch a needle and drain the remaining blisters. Will you permit me to do that?"

"Thank you, Miss Campbell, I should be grateful."

She stifled a sob, but he saw it.

"Don't call me that," she said. "Please. Anything but that."

"I beg your pardon," he said. "What would you have me call you?"

"Emily," she said. "Fiona. Girl. Dear. Anything that means I have not lost you."

"I beg your pardon, Fiona. It is late, much has happened, I am tired and confused. I do not understand."

"No," she said. "I should fetch the needle."

She stood still, holding his right hand gently, still, almost automatically, bathing it with cool water. There were tears on her cheeks.

"I like your hair that way," he said.

"Oh?" she said. "You do?"

"I do."

"My feelings are not engaged... elsewhere."

"No."

"I had anticipated that they might become very deeply engaged, but not elsewhere."

"I see."

"I should fetch a needle."

"Yes."

"My desires are already engaged, Corsair," she said, tears gleaming on her cheeks in the candlelight, "so intensely that it is hard to think."

"Indeed," he said. "Mine are, also."

She sobbed, and fell against him. He held her. They had waltzed, in Edinburgh, but this was different.

Candlelight, reflecting in the mirror behind the sinks, struck red and golden lights from her hair, as if she too were flame. She was soft against him, smelling faintly of patchouli.

At last she looked up. "Your shirt is ruined," she said. "You cannot leave here wearing it."

"I fear I have no other," he said. "My valise was in the bothy."

"Oh!" she said. "I hope there was nothing precious in it?"

"Nothing but clothes, and some pencils and sketching books," he said. "I have your letters here."

"Next your heart?" She smiled, suddenly, dazzlingly. "I should fetch a needle."

She slipped away, and was gone a moment. On returning she passed the point of a needle twice through the candle flame to sterilise it, and then set to work, carefully and gently, on his hands.

"You know your hair caught fire a little on the left side? - no, don't move your hands."

"Did it? I did not know. I was concerned that the cat should escape."

She looked up, startled. "You went into the fire for my cat?"

"Hardly into it," he said. "I opened the door, just. But the bothy was well ablaze."

"That was gallant," she said. "I am deeply grateful."

"I fear many things precious to you will have been lost."

"Yes," she acknowledged, "some. But... I am chiefly sad about my new riding crop. And that... what I had prepared is lost."

"Your riding crop?"

"I think you know why," she said, gently dabbing antiseptic onto the pierced blisters. "I cannot say. But I bought it new, for a purpose."

She gently wrapped his hands in gauze. She smiled.

"It is as well I can undress you tonight, for I fear you will find it hard with these."

"Not tonight, I think," he said. "For both of us - as you yourself said - our passions are running ahead of us. Much has happened tonight. I confess I am still troubled you greeted the man on the shore with more... intimacy than you did me."

She shuddered again, suppressing a sob.

"Oh," she said, "I have thought on this day so much over the past six months, and prepared for it with such care over the past two; and yet I have managed it so wretchedly."

The stopper of the antiseptic chattered against the bottle as she replaced it, her eyes down.

"I had not... it had not occurred to me..." she said, "that you might arrive on the same day as Hugh. But he was much delayed, and you came even sooner than I dared hope."

"Hugh was the man on the shore."

She replaced the bottle on the shelf, and turned. The candles lit the tracks of tears.

"Hugh was the man on the shore, yes. I do assure you, my dear Corsair, that there is nothing that you should consider in the least untoward in my dealings with him."

"Yet you greeted him warmly."

"I did! He is... he is my cousin, and of my male relatives of my own generation, the only one to return from the trenches. Also..."

She reached out a hand to him, looking up into his eyes earnestly.

"You recall I sopke of my governess Lucy?"

"Whom your father was used to chastise?"

"Yes." She flushed, her eyes dropping. "Indeed. My family did not treat her well, and last year she... fled... back to Ireland. Hugh and she are to wed. I am asked to be bridesmaid, but I fear my parents will not let me go."

"And you met him on the shore because..?"

"I had something for him. Something Lucy wanted, from the house. I had it hid in the boathouse."

"He is your cousin, but did not come to the house in daylight?"

"Corsair, truly, there is nothing..."

"You have said so, and I must accept it. It is late. I must go to rest, and to think. As should you, Fiona, for I fear things are not well here. Whoever set fire to the bothy tonight intended to kill, and it seems to me that it is unlikely that it was me they intended to kill, for I am a stranger here. Therefore I think it must have been you."

Eyes wide, she nodded slowly.

"I think that I should leave here tomorrow, and I shall willingly take you with me," he said. "Whether we choose to travel as Lieutenant Commander Smith with the Honourable Fiona Campbell of Tarbert or as creatures of our mutual imagining is something upon which I think we should both sleep."

"Yes," she said. "That... I must think on that. May we talk of this in the morning?"

"We shall," he said. "For now, good night - dear girl."