Adam Runaway : A Novel

by Peter Prince

• ISBN13: 9780743271011
• ISBN10: 0743271017
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-07-26
• Publisher: Touchstone

Summary

It is 1721 and young Adam Hanaway, devastated by his father's sudden death, leaves England to seek his fortune in Lisbon, where his uncle is a successful merchant. But almost nothing turns out as Adam planned. His family's welcome is cool, and Adam's rise to the top is thwarted by Bartolomeu Gomes, his uncle's treacherous clerk.As Adam attempts to overcome these obstacles he is handicapped by a certain personal trait. Not, he insists, that he is a coward exactly, but he is inclined to boldly put himself in dangerous situations and then at the last minute run away from them -- hence the nickname given to him by friends who had observed this failing once too often.While Adam's mother and sisters wait in England for him to rescue them from poverty, Adam is preoccupied with more compelling women: the beautiful, older half-Portuguese lady Maria Beatriz Hutchinson; the spoiled, rich Gabriella Lowther; and his charming young cousin Nancy. But Adam commits a social faux pas so severe he forever ruins his chances for making a good match -- yet no one dares tell him what he has done wrong!Adam certainly has a lot to learn. The Inquisition is in control of Portugal, and those who befriend Adam may not be who they seem to be. He catches glimpses of things he does not understand, he is innocent enough to be horrified by things others take for granted, and he is swept up in a struggle that will require him to come into his manhood -- the struggle between wickedness and humanity. It seems Adam will never find his way to success, to love, or to peace with the life fate has given him.

Author Biography

Born in England and educated in America, Peter Prince is the author of seven novels, including Play Things, which won the Somerset Maugham Award, and The Great Circle, and several television and film screenplays. He lives in London.

Excerpts

Chapter One: Gomes Gomes woke at exactly ten minutes before dawn, just as he always did. His first action, also his daily habit, was to drive from his bed the girl who had shared it with him in the night. There was always a girl -- without her presence, whoever she might be, Gomes found it difficult to sleep. Last night he had used the new one, Doroteia, a skinny wench who thought she was aged thirteen or fourteen, she wasn't sure, who had arrived in the city from the Tras-os-Montes a couple of weeks ago. Gomes -- whose duties as head clerk in the firm of Hanaway's also encompassed the supervision of the household -- preferred to hire new serving girls from that or another part of the kingdom distant from Lisbon. This pretty much removed from the realm of possibility the danger that he would be visited by irate masculine relatives, demanding satisfaction or reparation for the loss of their daughter's or sister's innocence.Last night's wench had pleased him very much. There was a quality of outraged modesty about her, and an unavailing resistance to him, that had excited his ardor and caused him to perform prodigiously upon her body. Bartolomeu Gomes had an iron rule that none of the serving girls was allowed to stay with the household for more than two or three months. He was too aware of the danger that sloth and slovenliness, both at her housework or in bed, could easily infect a little puta who felt herself too secure in either part of her employment. So after two or three months, she was invariably shown the door and left to shift for herself thereafter. The same thing ought to happen with this Doroteia. But lying in bed, waiting for dawn to finally break, Gomes thought seriously that he might allow this wench to stay well beyond the usual time. Even as long as four, five, even six months. So much had she pleased him in the night, as she had wept for him to desist, not to do that, oh please, senhor, don't do that...The one flaw in his arrangements was that his master, old Felix Hanaway, was starting to show signs of curiosity lately at the steady stream of young provincial girls that passed through his house. Last time Gomes had reported with regret that the latest was failing in her duties and would have to be replaced, the old bugre had said, "My goodness, we have no luck at all with our servants, do we?"Gomes, after experiencing a moment of unease, had pointed out that indeed their other servants -- Ines, who supervised in the kitchen; Sebastiana, the housekeeper; Alvaro, who used to drive Old Felix's coach-and-four in more prosperous days when the household had boasted such a luxury -- had all proved most satisfactory for several years. "It's just these girls, sir," Gomes explained. "They come off their fathers' little farms where they've been worked like mules all their lives, and they get to Lisbon and think they will take it easy from then on. At our expense," he complained righteously."Well, that will never do." Old Felix had nodded. "Carry on as you see fit, then, Bartolomeu. D'you think you can find a replacement soon? Mrs. Hanaway will be staying here a couple of nights next week and I should like to see that we have a full complement of staff by then.""I'll do my best, sir," Gomes promised.As he had told the old fool, it was only the serving girls that always had to be replaced. Gomes had no intentions of dismissing any of the upper servants. Each in his or her way was of use to him. Ines, a fine, big woman of thirty, knew it as part of her duties to come to his bed when they were between serving girls, or whenever he had a taste for riper flesh and more experienced love craft than the average girl in her teens could offer. Sebastiana, though too old and fat herself to excite any man's appetite, had excellent connections among the stews and brothels of the Remolares district next to the water, and w