Preparing to Leave Lisbon

There was a difference to a reverie in a warm tavern, the belly warmed by good drink, without the mind dulled by opium, with a fire to the side and a low murmur of voices around them, with a comrade most of all, compared to a reverie alone in the darkness. Company chased the darker thoughts away, and while he knew that he would have to confront them soon enough, there was a moment's respite in this. It was similar to the feeling he often had the Jack's great cabin; the lifting of a burden for even the briefest time. And now that the fear of the hard soldier had melted away, he understood that Richard Sharpe was something special and unusual - Wellesley's words had put the idea in his head, and the man's kindness tonight had confirmed it for him.

He did not know how to start the conversation, or even whether he should - even he found it difficult to alienate people without talking to them - so he settled for a hesitant but warm smile when their eyes met.

He wanted a lot of things, but he wasn't sure he could say them. He might scare her away, and he didn't want that.

"I want to look out for you, if ye'll let me. I'd like you to walk out wi' me, like I said already, but not if'n you don't want to. I want you to be happy." He wanted her to like him, but didn't think he could say that. "Home... I want me folks to know I'm all right. I don't even know if they know I 'listed." And that thought brought a lump into his throat, and he had to look away and swallow.

Maggie had never stopped to consider that Cotton had a family or a home. It distracted her for a moment. "They don't know?" she asked with surprise, her eyes growing wide. "Why not? Even my old dad knows I'm here, though little he cares."

Sharpe was a little startled when Stephen smiled at him, and wondered he was thinking about. The conversation had stalled and he didn't know how to restart it without seeming brusque, or dull-witted, or any of a hundred other things he'd been accused of being.

"Sorry. I ain't much of a hand fer small talk, like," he said finally, wrapping his hands around his mug and wondering what else he could say.

Stephen nodded. "I am not the diplomat of the world myself. Small talk is one of the more difficult things to master. Sometimes I find a dinner more exhausting than a score of operations, if conversation and social graces are expected, as they inevitably are. My godfather despaired of me."

It was not a story Cotton liked telling; he'd told Mister Sharpe and Captain Padstowe when they were all slightly the worse for drink. But he felt he ought to tell Maggie.

"I was goaded into a fight wi' Squire's son when I were about twelve, thirteen. He was older'n me by mebbe three or four years, and he had me on the ground when Squire comes past and gives him an earful about fightin'. And he never forgot it, like. So when Squire died and he inherited the estate, he had us turned out. So I went off to the hirin' fair to try to find work. Ended up half leathered in the local tavern with a shillin' in me hand. Never got a chance to tell Dad, or Ma, where I was at. An' I can't write to tell 'em, neither. Not that they c'n read, if I could."

Bother. Now he was feeling miserable. He smiled, a shaky sort of thing, at Maggie. "Can't change what's been done, though."

Sharpe managed a grin at that. "Never learnt any... any social graces." One intimation deserved a reply in kind. "Not the sort of thing you learn in a foundlin' home, that."

Stephen leant forward, his face one of innocent and polite curiosity. "An orphanage? In England, yes?"

"Aye." It was a bit of a blank, bland answer. "It were in Wapping, and I got 'prenticed to a sweep, only I didn't care too much f'r that, and legged it to St Giles."

And if that didn't explain why everyone looked down on him, nothing would. Though maybe it wasn't quite true that everyone looked down on him. He didn't think Padstowe did, or Hogan. And he was starting to have his doubts about how Wellesley saw him... there had been something strange going on when he passed him the telescope...

What a sad story. Maggie wondered why she had never heard it before. But then, she had primarily known Cotton through Jem, and this wasn't the sort of conversation they would have had back then. She squeezed his arm sympathetically. "But you've done all right for yourself, haven't you?"

Stephen looked at Sharpe, ignorant and unjudging. He had no idea where Wapping or St. Giles were, or why they should be so significant for the change in Sharpe's tone of voice. "There are in London, I think. Please forgive my ignorance, I have visited London often, but I know next to nothing of England, really."

He took a breath, and began - it was only fair. "I was born in Catalonia, but I was taken straight away to Ireland - to Cahirciveen, or Cathair Saidhbhín in the Irish, in Kerry - and then I returned to Catalonia when I was seven years old." He looked at Sharpe, wondering if he understood what he was saying.

It was a proper grin this time. "I have that, Maggie, lass. Batman to Captain Vickery. They'd never believe that, back home."

But when had this turned into a conversation about him? "Life's what you make it, lass. Can't change the past. Can only make summat of where you are now. If you want to."

"I know," she answered quietly. "But what about this family of yours, then. Do you know where they are now? I could help you write a letter - or someone could - and when its sent to them they could find someone to read it to them. Don't you think? How long has it been?"

Sharpe didn't understand the significance of the repeated mention of Catalonia, though he certainly understood the reference to Ireland. "I'm glad I never went to Ireland," he said. His companion had sounded proud of his heritage, though there was something else there as well, and Sharpe couldn't quite put a name to it.

He looked at her, confused, hopeful, pleased, all at once. "You... you would do that f'r me?" There was a lump in his throat again.

How long had it been? He swallowed, and thought for a moment, before counting on his fingers. "Must've been... not quite five years. It were after the harvest afore Trafalgar. The year before, I mean."

He hadn't. In truth, Stephen was relieved. He knew that Sharpe would never be the sort to look down on a man for illegitimacy - not if he was a foundling, for God's love - but he generally he felt more comfortable with fewer people knowing. Wellesley knew - had found out in the most humiliating way, and he prayed that he would not share the information. Wellesley had every reason to dislike him - Stephen knew that Sir Arthur despised his country of birth, and prefered the officers closest to him to be of good birth, but the man's compassion earlier in the day had melted Stephen towards him.

"I am as well. It would be well for you to visit outside of your professional capacity though - such a green you will not see, Richard, and if you can stand the rain and the mud, there is a lot of natural beauty. Maybe your Sergeant can show you one day. Such a wealth of birds, as well - Ireland is nonpareil for its marine avifauna, you know." He could feeling himself slipping back again, slipping away, but he did not know how to stop, and so he fell silent.

She laughed a little at Cotton's eager face. "Well of course I would. I'd do it right now if I had some paper and a pen. But when you walk me back, I have some in my stores and you can get it written off and sent home before we leave Lisbon."

He obviously loved the place, that much was obvious from the tone of his voice as he said the words, whatever the words meant. And he felt clumsy again, untaught, ignorant.

"Mebbe I will, at that. Dunno if I'll go back to London. Ain't nowt there for me, anyways." He shrugged. "Bein' born a bastard does that to you." And now he sounded coarse.

He looked at his hands as they held the mug on the table in front of him. "Sorry. Didn't meant to say that."

That was... that was hasty. Maybe too hasty.

"Lemme think about it first, like." He needed time, to treasure the thought that he could let his family know where he was, and time to think how to say it. There was a suspicious dampness in his eyes, and he wiped them on his sleeve. "'M sorry. I never... never thought I'd be able t'tell them, y'see."

Stephen flinched at the word, an old reflex, his head jerking back slightly as though trying to avoid an invisible blow. And then he looked at Sharpe. At Richard.

"I know." He hid his own hands under the table. "It is a cruel word."

Sharpe shrugged slightly. "It's a cruel world. You can't help where you come from. You just have to make your mind up that it ain't where you're goin' to stay." He moved one hand a little, as if about to indicate himself. "Like I said earlier, I ain't stayed down. Might be a bastard, but I c'n be a right bastard of a soldier an' all."

(OOC - and I'm for bed!)

"It's all right." Maggie knew better than to ask Cotton more questions, but she leaned on his shoulder to convey a sympathizing comfort. It was nice, she realized, having someone to talk to. And she was rather touched that he wanted to talk to her too. Most men she'd met wanted only one thing, and they would use whatever tricks necessary to get it. But while they might play at being sympathetic listeners, none had ever revealed a confidence of his own.

"I cannot." Stephen looked at Sharpe - he said the word with a kind of pride; it was a barbed insult, but one he twisted to make himself stronger and harder. It had always been the word Stephen felt defenseless against, because any man, however stupid or cowardly or cruel, if legitimate, was in the eyes of society and even the law a better man than that Maturin bastard, than el fill bastard de puta Domanova. But this man had turned the word into his defense.

She leaned her head on his shoulder. That was nice, that was. He was half tempted to put his arm round her, but wasn't sure if that would maybe be going too far. If she wasn't willing to consider herself as more than a friend, then maybe all she wanted was his friendship. He wouldn't withdraw his offer of that, even if he would like her to be his woman.

"I'm fair choked by you sayin' you'd write for me," he said. "Ain't nobody else would do that."

Sharpe looked at him, sitting slightly hunched in his chair, pain written across his face. More than one kind of pain, he thought. "No, mebbe you can't," he said. "But something can only hurt you if you let it."

He thought of the times he'd walked into the Mess to be greeted with sneers and comments along the lines of: "Here comes that whore's bastard who calls himself an officer." He'd shrug, and once he'd managed to reply without threatening to hit the speaker. Something along the lines of "Least I'm honest about it."

It wasn't like his upbringing was a secret; he just didn't discuss it. What was the point? He couldn't change it, and he'd escaped it, as far as possible, in more ways than one.