No, naturally he would not. Will felt helpless once more, and lost. He sensed a gulf in understanding that he could not cross. This maid was on a chasm's edge, and surely had to fall. And surely, he had to help her, he wanted to, he ached to be of aid. But how?
"Why did you come then?" she asked, suddenly. "If you did not know? Did you want to tumble with a drab, like your tall friend? It is what sailors do. It is what men do, I suppose. You paid to stare at me."
He feared she would be angry once again, but her voice had not the ring of it. Her eyes were not challenging, but sad.
"I thought of you," he said. "After we had met you, and you had come up on my horse. I could not get you from my mind."
He was discomfited, but Deborah did smile.
"If you hope to flatter me you go about it strangely, sir," she said. "You thought of me so came to make the bent-back beast with anyone you found. Or ogle through a little peephole at their shame."
"I don't know why I came," he said. "You said sailors do, and Sam said sailors do, and I suppose I thought I could, what, clear my mind? You were stuck there, is the truth of it. But afterwards, when I'd seen Cecily well, you must allow my reasons were more noble! We came back to help you if we could! We '
"Came back to do it with Annette."
"No! Sam is just Deb, what is here for you? What happens when your face is healed? My God, at least Sir Arthur I want to help you, Deborah!"
"You cannot help me, sir. Dennett would fetch me if I went back there, and I could not stand for that. What would you do? Be my protector! You are not rich, are you? Do you have anything?" Her face was kindly, as if she were helping him. He had a scant few pounds; less than enough to keep a midshipman on. "I will be a whore, sir. It is not the worst of fates."
"But Marigold has a plan for you." Her mouth twisted, but not bitterly.
"I might be considered beauty enough to pose, and dance, strike attitudes," she said. "It depends on what men pay, however. If more cash comes from matching me with tups, then ... I am not a whore, not yet. So what is your alternative?"
He was still standing, she sitting, with the pisspot peeping out between her ankles. Mad thoughts came and went within his mind, thoughts of a small room somewhere, of paying for her keep while he should be away. It was madness and he knew it, though. For instance, he did not know how much a room might cost, he did not know how much money food would require in a week, he did not know how one would find a place, except a room like Deb already had, which was her quarters and her workplace both. He lived on board the Biter for his duty, and then he would go home to Petersfield. He wondered, fleetingly, what his sisters would say let alone his mother if he should turn up with a young woman behind him on his horse. Young woman, whore, wastrel, waif. Deb was no different in her outer aspect from a respectable country maid, but everyone must know, immediately, because she had no trappings of support. At the best they would set her on as a drudge, at worst hurl her out into the night. He did not even bother with consideration on his father; it was unthinkable.
"Then there is Cec," she said. "We left the north together, together we will stay. We both must eat, you see."
"How will they ... ? Do they use her as a servant wench?"
"She can be a whore like the rest of us, says Mrs. Pam. When her mouth is healed up. Some men like that sort of thing, she says, already she has been noticed and written down for when the pain has gone. She was too scrawny for the peephole job, her tits ain't full enough." She laughed. "It's a pity you ain't rich, though. I would not mind to be a whore for you."
Will was in a sort of lather, and a daze. His stomach had dropped into a pit, her words had opened up the ache again. He found her wistful, her bruised face appealing yet boldly challenging, her hair, her neck, her lips cried out to him.
"No, not a whore," he said.
"Aye then, not a whore. Not yet." She rose. She seemed quite calm. "But you may have me, if you want to. It is what Marge expects, intends, but I will deny it, we shall have each other and you shall not pay. You helped me on the road and you came back to help once more. Would you like to be the first?"
He had a vision of her, naked in her silken shroud, and it almost overwhelmed him.
"The first," he said, but the words caught in his throat. She smiled, not wistful, but possibly amused.
"As a whore I mean. I cannot claim you are the first of all, that's pity but it's true." Her face lightened. "The first for pleasure, though. Aye. The first because I wanted to. You do not mind my face?"
"Oh no! I..."
She touched her blackened eye, more brown and bluish now, and William wanted to as well, he wanted to caress the hurt. She moved towards him, and, hesitatingly, he approached her, hands lifted from his sides, the bed between them, awkwardly. Then footsteps in the passageway outside, a carefree laugh, a thunderous knocking on the flimsy door.
"Will! Have you not finished yet! Christ's blood, man, Kaye will have us flogged, do you not realise what o'clock it is?" The handle rattled and the door pushed open, and Sam was grinning with self-satisfaction, like a gargoyle. Behind him Mrs. Putnam was peering in.
"Lord," she said, "young maidens nowadays. She still has every stitch of clothing on."
Across the narrow bed, they had only touched a hand.
Will Bentley had been almost angry when Sam burst in, but that did not last for long. His friend was such a humorist, and the sight of Mistress Putnam and her curiosity lanced the boils of both his embarrassment and his confused desires. Deb also her face was instantly comical in its surprise, then laughter flooded it. She yelped and seized Will's hand to squeeze it, then let it go. Two minutes later, the riots of sensation lost in Holt's jostling, he found himself outside the Marigold establishment, being hustled through the darkness for the Thames.
On the row downstream he kept his silence in the face of questioning, whether playing a sulk or gripped by the real thing he would not have cared to give an answer to. The night had turned out grimmish, with a misty rain blowing from the south and west that kept their necks huddled in their shoulders, so he could think and wonder about what he'd nearly done. Deborah had been going to bed him, no doubt of it, and she said it was because of want, not for the sake of whoring, which was of an importance to him that grew unstoppably. Will could see her face, her eyes, her look, and was relieved but bursting with regret that his friend had ended it. He did not even know for certain that he wanted to, except he knew he did. His feelings for her were confusing and immense.
"Sam," he said, after a long while. "You know these matters, I do not. Deborah is beautiful, that's so?"
There were two water men at the oars, and he sensed their ears prick up. They were old hands with the passengers, however, and their indifference was studied and complete. Sam's eyes flashed with humour, but he played calm and cool.
"Aye," he responded. "She's fair enough."
"She," William began. "Well, she takes my breath away. Is that ... completely normal, do you think?"
"Oh yes, completely," Sam said, gravely. "It is known as love, and can be a very dreadful thing. Your cleverness, Will, is to do it with a whore, which renders it inconsequential, and therefore safe. Bravo, as the Frenchmen say."
He was clearly mocking, and the oarsmen as clearly liked the fun, although all three faces as Will studied them were expressionless as wood. Love, he thought, and suspected it was right, all jesting notwithstanding. Then he cleared that, with a mental shrug. Deb was young and beautiful, that was all, and he had never been that close and open with a maid, nor never had an opportunity to do the beastly thing. She had been ready to, and he had been afraid, but he would by God the next time, yes he would. Next time, if her offer was withdrawn, he would buy her. Then a fantasy came in, and he saw them in a little cosy room, with her long dark curls across her naked shoulder, and his hand upon her breast. He sighed, then jumped as Samuel lightly touched his arm.