Preparing to Leave Lisbon

Maggie sat up again and looked at Cotton with surprise. "Really? I'd have thought you'd have lots of friends to help you out and all." She had thought herself the only such friendless one, in fact. "But, well, you've got a friend now. And you're always helping me. Only seems fair to help you a little bit."

He shrugged. "I do have friends, but the only one who can read and write is Tom Roper, and it ain't the sort of thing I could ask him to do for me. Him bein' busy, an' all."

He sighed quietly. "But we was talkin' about you, an' what you want. An I was hopin', mebbe, you could see your way to acceptin' me offer."

Stephen looked down into his lap. But something can only hurt you if you let it. Was that a rebuke? Stephen knew that the Rifleman was a stronger man than he, and he felt the uncomfortable sensation of being weighed and measured in Sharpe's hard, bright eyes. He remembered when he had tried letting go, tried ignoring the hurt, and it left him numb, penniless, challenging huge, military men to duels so that the Church could not blame him.

It took such great emotional courage to be cheerful, and Maturin was a coward - he spoke to paper, to the bottom of an empty laudanum bottle, rather than to men, out of his own Luciferean pride, and the terror of being rejected. He had a vague recollection of what had spilled out of him in his delirium after Calcutta, and he knew that Jack had heard it all. He had heard eveything, and still he sat, moping his brow, holding his hand, murmuring that everything would be all right. In return, Stephen had made him immortal, and he still felt indebted. Immortality was too small a gift to give to the man who had listened unflinching to the worst parts of him, and who still had the magnaminity and kindness of spirit to call him "friend" and "brother" and "soul" afterwards.

Stephen sat silent, and Sharpe felt uncomfortable. It was possible the Doctor had misunderstood him. "I ain't very good wi' words," he said, hesitantly. "I meant, if you let people know that calling you, I dunno, a bastard, hurts, then they'll call you that more. So it hurts more. But if you just look at them as if to say what are they gonna do 'bout it, you turn it back on them. I ain't proud of where I come fr'm, but I'm proud of what it means to be where I am 'cause I come fr'm there."

He wasn't used to talking this way, but he needed the Doctor to understand him, and why people didn't like him. And he felt a little vulnerable, and hoped suddenly that the Doctor would understand that.

Stephen shook himself out of his reverie, and smiled at the Rifleman. "You should be proud, Richard. It is an extraordinary achievement, and I can see why many men would be jealous, and resent you for it. You are brave, and intelligent, and above all a very brilliant soldier, by all accounts, and that often breeds dislike among lesser men." His smile grew a little bashful. "And I try not to let them know."

It was obviously an old wound, and something the Doctor wrestled with in a way Sharpe never had - had never needed to.

"I...I know. But just think a bit, where you've come fr'm, and what you are now, and see whether that ain't summat you can be proud of. Like I'm proud of what I am now." He had another mouthful of brandy. "I ain't very good wi' words, and sayin' what I mean, sometimes. I never meant to upset you, like, an' if I did, I'm sorry."

Stephen considered what he was now. He was a brave man, in his way, and an intelligent one, he knew objectively. He had a good friend, and perhaps he might consider other men friends also. He was largely responsible for the coming of Spain into the war, among other numerous coups - he had made a great number of sacrifices in his work, and achieved a great deal. And no one could ever know it. He was a lonely, misshapen man, an ugly poor Papist bastard who the woman he loved had rejected, a man at the head of a trail of bodies, a soldier dealing in lies and deceit in an inglorious secret war.

"Never in life, my dear - I thank you for your words; they are far wiser than you think."

Sharpe wasn't quite sure what he had said or done, but hoped he'd explained something of why he was the way he was. And he couldn't say when he'd found he could trust the Doctor the way he had. He didn't think there was anyone else he could speak to in that way; even Padstowe would probably not understand it. Hell, he didn't think even Harper would quite get it.

He raised his cup a little. "Thanks for the brandy, an' I'm glad I helped. A little." Even helping a little was better than nothing, though quite what he'd helped the Doctor do, he wasn't sure.

"You did. Thank you. For your words and your companionship." Stephen mirrored Sharpe's gesture, raising his brandy glass. "Sláinte, as we say in Ireland."

"That's alright. Cheers!"

He hoped the Doctor liked him. It seemed very few people of his acquaintance liked him, or cared if he liked them. But the Doctor had proved his worth in a scrap, which counted a great deal in Sharpe's eyes.

After he drained his glass, Stephen grinned. "Will you not try the Irish, to shock your Sergeant? And in Catalonia, if we are being most rude, we might say 'Sant Hilari, Sant Hilari, fill de puta qui no se l'acabi'."

Sharpe grinned back. "If I try speakin' Irish, I reckon Harper'll have a shock, before tryin' to hold a conversation wi' me. I reckon I'll stick to English, even if it ain't quite the King's English."

Stephen laughed. "I could try teaching you enough for a conversation then, perhaps? No, maybe not. And the King, in his state, probably does not speak the most perfect English." He stopped, his hand in mid air towards the bottle, realising that what he had just said might be construed as treason.

"Accepting your offer?" Maggie repeated. "I'll give it a try, yes - I just said so. As long as you don't mind that-- I mean, as long as you know-- that it's just to try out for now. And as long as you know how I feel, how I still feel about Jem." She paused. "I know it sounds awful, but I mean, as long as you don't expect too much from me." She wanted to add, Because I've already been drained of everything I had and there's not much left to give. "Are you sure you want that?"

"That's fine, Maggie, an' I won't push for more'n you c'n give. I swear. And I know how you feel about Jem, and like I said, nobody can change that, or replace Jem, an' I wouldn't want to. I just hope you can get to know me, and mebbe like me for bein' me, 'cause I ain't Jem and I can't be him."

It wasn't as much as he wanted, but it was more than he'd dared to hope for, and maybe it could work out for them both to be happy.

She nodded and squeezed his hand amiably. "Then that's settled."

That last speech had come in a bit of a rush, and not he found he didn't know quite what to say. He found he liked the feel of Maggie's work-worn hand in his own, though. He smiled shyly at her. "Walkin' out wi' the Captain's batman ain't quite like walkin' out with a Corporal, but I did say as I ain't goin' to try to replace Jem for ye."

"I know, I know. Hush that!" She gave him a friendly slap on the hand. Then she leaned against his shoulder again and said, "Tell me more about your home."

Cotton smiled and put his arm around her. "Well, I'm fr'm East Kent, a little village called Throwley, about seven mile or so from Faversham. An' I was a farm labourer there until, well, I told what happened, din't I?"

It was a little surprising to be sitting there with a man's arm around her, something she never would have expected even a few hours ago. Not uncomfortable, but still a little strange. It would take some getting used to. Go on, Maggie. Just relax and enjoy it! It feels nice, admit it.

She tried to cover her sense of unease by talking. "What sort of farm was it? And what kind of work did you do there?"

"It was the estate farm, and it was mostly crops, though there were some sheep. And cows, of course. And me... well, I could turn my hand to pretty much anythin' they needed me to do, fr'm hedgin' to mowin' to reapin'." He showed her his calloused hands. "It's where I got me hands like this, good, honest work."

It was nice, this, sitting with a pretty girl... his girl. He liked that thought. And it was nice just talking about things, too.

"An' of course there was the hop-pickin', end of summer. It's what they use in makin' beer. Hops and barley."

Maggie found that she didn't want there to be any silence, any time to think or reflect or to feel or remember. She plowed on ahead, asking eagerly, "And what about your family? How many of you were there? Was it a big family?"

He grinned at her eagerness to know everything. "Well, there were Dad and Ma, in course. Ma ain't my real mother; she died when I was mebbe four or five an' I don't 'member her much. An' there were ten of us kids, me bein' the third one. Only we weren't all living in our cottage together. By the time the yongest kids was born, Billy was a stablehand up at the big house, and Becky'd gone into service in the next parish."

"Billy and Becky?" she repeated absently.

"Me brother and sister - the two older than me, anyway." He looked at her. "But what about you? Ain't you got a family somewheres?"