The Quality of Mercy - By Barry Unsworth Page 0,138

had been fourteen years before, when he had lost his own father at much the same age. The ambitions were his own, the need to repair things, to refashion the world after such loss. But the man before him did not see debts to pay; he sought to make his father the giver of blessings, the giver of freedom from drudgery and want. Of course there was self-interest in it—no human motive was free from this, in Kemp’s view—but there was much more besides, so much more … He felt a tightness in his throat as he held out a hand to the other and felt it, after some hesitation, grasped and held, though briefly. “Good luck to you, Michael Bordon,” he said. “You have been in the right today.” And as he spoke it was strangely as if, in spite of the reluctance to take his hand, in spite of his own lingering sense of defeat, the congratulation was for them both.

There was no other form of farewell between them. As Kemp rode back to the inn, the sense of kinship faded, the sting of the defeat returned and with it the knowledge of financial loss. In the light of what he knew now about Michael Bordon, it was highly unlikely that the young man could be beguiled into accepting anything less than the standard rate for a wayleave of such a kind. Jane too had been wrong about the young man, he thought, but somehow she had come closer to the truth of things than he had. It was the kind of distinction he was not used to making, and he puzzled over it for a while without coming to any definite conclusion. But when they met he would tell her how things had gone, he would not conceal anything, he would confess the sympathy that had taken him so unawares. Sympathy for an opponent, and one, moreover, who had defeated him, an emotion deep enough almost to bring tears. She would be pleased to hear of this rush of feeling on his part. In fact, he was already feeling slightly ashamed of the display; it could not be regarded as anything but weakness to allow feeling to obscure your objectives; there might have been further arguments that could never now be put forward. He would say nothing of this to Jane, however. He had not so far told her of his interview with Sullivan, but he would do so when he saw her, he would tell her how he had been compelled by that runaway into a sense of sharing, still not fully accepted or understood …

Should he mention the brass button? To do so would cast him in the role of beneficiary; he had been left in possession of the token and the gifts of fortune it had brought. It was as the granter of pardon, the dispenser of mercy, that he wanted her to see him. He had forgiven Sullivan, or so he felt now; it was in this light that he would relate the matter. She would approve, she would think it high-minded, he would gain merit in her eyes. Sullivan had not forgiven him, in the slightest degree, any more than Michael Bordon had, but there was no need to dwell on this. Instead he would tell her of the words overheard as he approached the open door of the alehouse, the only ones he could afterward recall: It is the power of imagining that makes a man stand out.

She had that power in full measure. She had said something not much different when they had last talked together and he had seen the compassion for him on her face. Probably a faculty more common among women than among men, he thought—they had more leisure. He saw it as a sort of task, an effort of the will, requiring concentration. A man with important aims in life would be too much occupied for it. Pike too had spoken of the power of imagination, he suddenly remembered. Disapproval of the lawyer had prevented him from giving much weight to the words. By reporting that vagabond’s remark and giving it some stamp of his own assent and sympathy, he would please Jane, he felt sure of that. And he wanted, before all else, to please her. All the same, it was odd, he thought, extremely so, that an itinerant fiddler, a person of no substance and no standing, a fugitive from the gallows, should have