Fletcher's Fortune by Drake John

Author:Drake, John [Drake, John]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2015-05-13T04:00:00+00:00

20

I now see that you were only too right in your denunciation of that woman. Should my wife learn what I have done, then the torments of hell will be mine.

(Letter of 1st April 1793 to Mr Richard Lucey from Mr Nathan Pendennis at Clerk’s Court, London.)

*

On Sunday 31st March, nearly a week after he had sent Edward Lucey home to his father in disgrace, Mr Nathan Pendennis attended divine service at St Giles’s Church. Usually Pendennis took much pleasure in going to church. He paid keen attention to the sermon and enjoyed the music if there were any. But today he was distracted and could not settle.

The fact was that he missed young Lucey. The work that Pendennis had so much enjoyed when there were two of them, had become a burden for him alone. There was nobody to talk over the day’s events with. There was no admiring audience to compliment him on his skill and energy. And despite Pendennis’s efforts, the Admiralty still had not given up Jacob Fletcher. Pendennis had finally come to believe what the Admiralty Clerks kept telling him, namely that Fletcher was in a ship at sea and any further action must wait upon the return of that ship to port.

As he sat in his private pew (reserved for one shilling a week for his use alone), oblivious to the service and wondering what reliance might be placed on the promises of assistance that he had secured, he noticed that a lady was trying to catch his eye. He was struck by the piercing sweetness of her face and the elegance of her clothes. Obviously this was a lady of considerable consequence and impeccable respectability.

But he did not know the lady, and could imagine no reason why she should wish to make his acquaintance. He sighed — even as a young man Pendennis had never drawn the attention of fine ladies — and at first he thought he must be mistaken, so he looked about to see who it might be that she was really looking at.

But the lady persisted, and nobody else returned her glances, and Pendennis realised that she really was trying to catch his eye. Fat, middle-aged and entombed in marriage as he was, his heart beat a little faster. He risked a brief, courteous nod towards the lady to acknowledge her. She seemed satisfied with that and sat throughout the rest of the service in dignified attention to the Parson. Afterwards, as Pendennis left the church, he saw her waiting for him in the street. To his alarm, and yet delight, she approached, and with every dainty step his fascination grew. At a distance she appeared an unusually fine woman, but close to, she took his breath away.

His head whirled with emotions. He was no man for adventures. He was a serious man, a man of business. But within all true men (even Nathan Pendennis) there hides a tiny spark of hope where beautiful women are concerned. And that spark is not quenched by age, nor dignity, nor anything short of death.

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