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[PSL] in this sense the open jaws of wild beasts will appear no less pleasing than their prototypes
The bread that is over-baked so that it cracks and bursts asunder hath not the form desired by the baker; yet none the less it hath a beauty of its own, and is most tempting to the palate. Figs bursting in their ripeness, olives near even unto decay, have yet in their broken ripeness a distinctive beauty.
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"I don't think she turned them towards you. Andies had no reaction to her in the hall, or me speaking to her."
But there is someone here who'd do anything for her. Such a hypothesis is on weaker legs than his one about Bettina starting the fire, but it does seem plausible that her McNair may have made a preemptive move if he knew about what she'd done, if he'd been thinking about what James was nudging him towards and decided it's safer for her here, if Bettina wants to leave more than her brother does.
If, if.
Quieter, "The women are handled gentler, but it's the same reality." They're all slaves.
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Fuck. He'd been reasonably certain of McNair three nights ago - that if pushed, he might fall in a particular direction. Luckily (debatable) if there's an urge to put his hands to to the man and shake him or worse, it isn't really sustainable given how he's currently one continuous bruise - though he entertains the thought for a few seconds anyway. Then huffs out a breath. Scuffs his thumb and forefinger at his hairline. Weeks before, he'd been convinced of the danger other people might be to them too. Things change. Nothing does. People in a closed environment are predictably infuriating.
"If she did it, she'll be found out eventually." There's some undirected measure of heat in his voice. Things like this have a way of shaking loose in little worlds like this one. Never mind the beating played out in the yard, he can't imagine But who really did start the fire? is really a question those running this place will simply forget if bigger ones don't rise to replace it.
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Something that worries him greatly. It's only in the specific that her motivation remains a mystery; broadly, things must be a certain way. Either George told her of James's encouragement, or Bettina has been listening all on her own.
Or they all have.
Thomas lets out a half-startled laugh.
"Hannah, the girl in the house I was scrubbing the floor with," he begins, looking at the other man, "spoke to me a little. I think we've completely overlooked something. Everyone who works in the house."
The men alongside them, possessed of imaginary notions of betterment and superiority over the women or African slaves, are all so varied and difficult to predict. They have no notion of unity like the black slaves or, indeed, like the women who work indoors or who are too traumatized to do anything but darn socks. They are observed less, permitted more privacy, and they are ubiquitous. Of course they've been listening and aligning themselves as though they're being considered. Why wouldn't they.
Miranda would dump out her tea over his head about now, he suspects.
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Or someone in her position might anyway, given the woman's apparently mute and her interests - if she does indeed have a penchant for arson - clearly lie beyond conversation.
"Yeah. That could work."
Under the watchful eye of Mrs Oglethorpe might not be the ideal environment for full sedition, an opportunity must eventually present itself. There's no such thing as a waterproof ship. Tugging at his beard, he's just drawing a breath to say as much when the bell in the yard clangs out twice. They're apparently at the end of their leisure. James starts to get his feet under himself without thinking, then balks at the habit and instead turns Thomas's hand over in his - bares the raw underside of his wrist.
"Your arm looks terrible," he says. "I'll let Annie know."
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"You needn't tell stories," Thomas murmurs. "You don't know how charming you are when you're being yourself, still, I suspect."
Stubborn and cranky but with that jagged-edged humor, the way he smiles, the way he listens. James isn't charming like an actor or a con-artist, but in his own way; the sound of waves on a beach at night, a heavy wooden table that doesn't creak. Something like that. Thomas never has the right words for him, precious and burning-- and, anyway. If the girls are already doing things like burning down structures for his quiet propaganda, then things are proceeding rather well, honestly.
(How could those pirates wish him away? How could they not be desperate to keep someone so smart and so charismatic?)
"Until tonight."
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Something in James's face softens so dramatically that it strips back the former - undoes a dozen years in an instant with barely a handful of words. It's as if they're a map on paper and Thomas has folded it so this point and some kinder one - the curl of some crooked smile in a cheap room - can touch. And how James loved him then and how he loves him now spills through, both parts as real and as present as their hands together. That isn't a story like a ghost from the sea or who pirates are or what anyone says the world and what's right in it is or lines of poetry or a book written to make sense of things. It's just true.
"Tonight," he agrees, squeezing Thomas's hand.