The Privateersman

by The Privateersman (retail) (epub)

  * * *

  When Jones had gone, Kite called Jasper Watkinson into his office. ‘As you know, Mr Watkinson, Captain Makepeace’s death requires that we review matters relevant to our joint business. I have not been a party to the late Captain’s testamentary provisions, but it will be necessary to make a settlement in favour of Mistress Makepeace. I shall also have to determine what interest young Masters Henry and Charles are to take in our affairs, or whether they are simply to receive the benefits of shares; neither has to my knowledge evinced the slightest desire to go to sea, nor any interest whatsoever in the affairs of the company. I also purpose to ensure that Mistress Katherine is well provided for…’

  ‘Captain Makepeace has already made known to me much of his personal financial stipulations, Captain Kite,’ Watkinson said with his customary deferential efficiency. ‘In my employment as Chief Clerk to Captain Makepeace, you will understand that, pending the reading of his will, I should not wish to breach any undertaking of confidentiality…’

  ‘Yes, yes, I understand all that, Mr Watkinson, your personal attachment to Captain Makepeace is well-known, but that is precisely why it is necessary to raise these matters with you. The circumscribed manner in which Captain Makepeace made some of his arrangements means that his death leaves me at a disadvantage. I shall entirely rely upon you as I usually do.’

  Kite smiled at Watkinson, though there was a worm of unease uncoiling itself in his guts. Watkinson was, Kite knew, ambitious; his wife a woman of social pretension, admirably so, as far as Kite was concerned, for he saw no advantage in keeping a good man in the shade. But he sensed that Watkinson was seeking to throw smoke in his eyes and confuse him, for some reason best known to himself.

  ‘There is absolutely nothing to concern you, Captain Kite, at least until the will is read…’

  Kite leaned forward on his elbows and put his finger tips together. ‘You know, Jasper,’ he said dropping his voice, ‘there is much work to be done. The company will require a new partner and the opportunities for your good self are, well, limitless if matters should fall out that way.’

  ‘I understand, Captain Kite,’ Watkinson said turning for the door. In the doorway he turned. ‘I am sure, Captain, I can rely upon your good offices in my behalf.’

  ‘I see no reason why not, Jasper. Do you?’

  ‘No sir.’

  And yet he did. All that morning Kite’s thoughts drifted off the ledgers from which he was reckoning the loss occasioned by the wrecking of the African Princess. The ship had carried her own insurance and her loss would be borne by the company in its entirety, but his train of thought would not settle in the rut of even so uncomfortable a furrow as financial loss. He should be weeping for his dead son, but poor Puella’s irrational behaviour had, over the years, eroded his capacity to brood. William was dead and no power on earth could bring him back; Puella was killing herself in the manner of her people and nothing he could do would prevent her. Makepeace was dead and something was in train that he sensed had some direct bearing on the conduct of the company that was now his sole responsibility, notwithstanding the benefits in law which accrued to Mrs Makepeace and her family.

  It was dusk when he finally brought himself to reckon up the losses of the African Princess and her cargo. The cargo alone came to over two thousand pounds, and there were the wages of the crew to determine. He sat back, unable to work any longer, procrastinating as his wandering and distracted mind thought again of Puella. Out-of-spirits and fearful of returning home, he considered dining out. Perhaps he should be pleasant to Watkinson, but the Chief Clerk had already left, making his excuses and saying he had to call upon Mistress Makepeace and did Captain Kite mind him leaving to attend tot his private business? Captain Kite did not mind. The Samphire was nowhere near completing her lading and no ships were expected now that the fate of the African Princess was known. They should have news of the Salamander within the fortnight, but no, Watkinson was free to go.

  Kite considered matters for a moment, then he rose and went to the window. Despite the rain and wind, the panes were grimy, but he could see the River Mersey and the masts of several ships anchored in the stream beyond the dock. He thought of poor Jones and the wrecking of his ship on Cape Clear Island, of the dreadful quality of calamity and how Jones looked like a broken man. It had been Kite who had insisted his former mate should study navigation and make himself competent to become a master; he, Kite, had therefore initiated the chain of events that had led to Jones losing his ship. But Kite did not believe there was a real link between the loss of the African Princess and the death of his son. They had not occurred on the same day, let alone the same time. He rose, went out to where Watkinson’s desk overlooked the counting house and the desks of the three junior clerks and, striking flint on steel, coaxed the lamp into life as the evening gloom settled on the dusty office. He sat at Watkinson’s desk and drew the log of the African Princess towards him. He already guessed what he was going to find and when he did so he sat back.

  Young William had contracted the rice-water fever within the hour of the African Princess striking the Irish coast. It was an uncanny coincidence.

  But that was all it was; a coincidence, two disparate occurrences taking place at the same moment, a quite fortuitous matter. Why hundreds, thousands of things would have occurred at that hour throughout the world. How many coaches had shed their wheels? How many horses cast shoes? How many women conceived? How many plates been dropped, barns caught fire? And if a man fell from his horse did it signify if his wife pricked her finger with a needle at the same moment?

  Kite cursed. Men and women were not such logical creatures that they can entirely throw off the notion that there might be a connection. He did not believe it implicitly, as Puella would when she found out, but the coincidence was strange. He looked up. The junior clerks were looking at him, and he wondered if he had unwittingly exclaimed, then they bent again to their work and he rose and retired to his own inner office, to gaze again out of the grimy window.

  Of course he would not tell Puella of the curious coincidence, just as he would not in fact tell Puella of the loss of the African Princess. If she was determined to die, it would be quite pointless. But, he recalled, he was responsible for Puella’s situation too. Puella was going to die and he was doing nothing about it beyond accepting the ancient horrors of the spirits. He suddenly thought what life would be like without her, even Puella reduced by heartache and misery was better than no Puella.

  Beyond the glass window the river shone like a sword blade in the last of the daylight. The wind was still blowing, though with far less violence than it had been, and the gale was no more than a strong breeze. A flat was running upstream against the ebb-tide. In an hour the flood would be making, and the sailing barge would carry it far upstream into the country beyond. He came to a sudden resolution: with William dead he would take Puella to sea again. They would shut up the Liverpool house and go back to Antigua, shipping out as passengers aboard Samphire. He could not leave Puella to die because Puella believed in silly superstitions, in the predestination of random occurrences and the power of the spirits to divine, determine and destroy.

  Puella was capable of bearing another child, and if she did not wish to share his bed again, she could be saved from her self-inflicted death, diverted and made to live again under the warm sun of the tropics. What a fool he had been to have so immersed himself in his business that he had almost lost her! He had no interest in other women and had only given himself to work in the interests of young William, exactly as Puella had sacrificed her own happiness to the success of their son!

  He reached for his coat and hurriedly pulled it on, then clapped his hat upon his head and hefted his cane.

  ‘Good night, gentlemen,’ he called to the clerks as they watched him go.

  ‘Good night, sir,’ they called after him and then stared at one another.

  ‘You should have told him, Mr Johnstone.’

  ‘You t
hink he will not know soon enough,’ Johnstone replied closing his ink well with a loud snap, adding, ‘if it is true.’

  ‘Of course it is true, and when he finds out, it will be too late. Watkinson will have sewn the matter up…’

  ‘That’s what you want, ain’t it, Nathan, Watkinson to sew it all up so that you can be Chief Clerk…’

  ‘Be quiet!’ Johnstone said, rounding on his two juniors. ‘D’you think I care about being Chief Clerk anymore with the cholera taking my wife? Captain Kite has just lost his son. How can I be telling him things that we only suspect to be true?’

  ‘You should warn him though, Nathan, or we may all pay for it once that Master Harry arrives to console his bosom friends and accomplices.’

  Chapter Two

  A Speculation

  Kite arrived home too late. He was greeted by his house-keeper, Mrs O’Riordan, with the news that the mistress was dead.

  ‘It is not possible…’ Kite was incredulous. Even in decline, Puella could not die in so short a space of time.

  ‘Her neck, sir…’ Mrs O’Riordan was finding it difficult to retain her self-possession. ‘’Tis awful sir… You see she asked that the chicken…’

  ‘Neck? Chicken? What the devil are you talking about?’ Kite looked from the woman’s distraught face to the staircase. ‘Excuse me, Mrs O’Riordan…’

  He raced upstairs and flung open the bedroom door. The room was entirely in darkness and he bawled for lights, standing on the threshold, his heart thundering and his body trembling. At the noise of steps behind him he turned. Mrs O’Riordan, her body heaving with sobs and the effort of climbing the stairs at a run, held out the candlestick. Seizing it and holding it before him like a talisman, Kite entered the room.

  The candlelight caught her eyes at once. Puella seemed to stare directly at him, a terrible accusatory glare that was, at the same time, piteous. Her head was flung back at an unnatural angle, hung over the edge of the bed so that her face was upside down. He moved towards her and, holding the candle above her, saw that she was quite naked. In the doorway Mrs O’Riordan gave a little shriek and he looked up at her.

  ‘What happened, Mrs O’Riordan? Have you any idea?’ He kept his voice low, under control, though a deep anger was rising in him.

  Between sobs, the housekeeper explained. She had come, as the Captain had instructed, to offer food and drink at three in the afternoon. The Mistress had been sitting in her chair where, it seemed, she had been since poor Master William died. So she, Mrs O’Riordan, was all the more surprised when the Mistress asked for a live chicken to be bought and brought to her before it was killed in the house.

  ‘It had to be live, sir, and it had to be killed in the house, sir, the Mistress was particular about that. And, begging your pardon, sir, but seeing the Mistress had her own ways like, I did as I was bid. I sent Maggie out to get a plump pullet…’

  ‘What else did she say?’ Kite asked, a cold sensation fastening about his chest like a rope lashing. ‘Did she ask for it to be cooked in a certain way?’

  ‘N…no, sir, but to be truthful I didn’t think much of anything else except that she’d be eating again, sir, and how pleased you would be at the news, though she did say as she was to be told when the chicken had been bought and she’d want to look at it to see if it was all right, sir, so I supposed that she would be telling me then how she’d want it to be cooked… She liked chicken sir.’

  ‘Yes. She did.’ Kite leaned over her body an placed his hand beneath Puella’s left breast. She was still warm but her heart beat had long since ceased. ‘Go on,’ he commanded, his voice harsh with the effort of control.

  ‘Maggie came back, sir, I took the pullet off of her and brought it up here to the mistress…’ Mrs O’Riordan paused and Kite looked at her.

  ‘Was she still sitting in the chair?’

  Mrs O’Riordan shook her head. ‘No, sir, she were lying on the bed… Like she is now…’

  ‘Naked, but not dead?’

  Mrs O’Riordan saw the confusion she had caused. ‘No, no, sir, she wasn’t dead but she was naked, sir, and that took me aback a little, though I have seen her that way before sir, as I think you know…’

  ‘Go on, Mrs O’Riordan, please simply tell me what happened.’ He was breathing more easily now. The blind fury of anger had ebbed and now, staring down at Puella, he was filled with regrets. If only he had come home an hour earlier, or fed her yesterday. He felt a wave of emotion surge through him, but he crushed it and listened patiently to his housekeeper.

  ‘Well… Well, sir, she took the chicken and I supposed she were going to feel it for plumpness, sir, but she kind of embraced it, sir…’

  ‘Embraced it?’

  ‘I don’t known how else to say it, sir, said like a prayer over it with her face all lit up, if you’ll pardon me for saying so, sir, of a black person, sir, I don’t rightly known how else to tell you sir…’

  ‘Casting a spell, perhaps..’

  ‘Oh, God, sir, that’s terrible! That’s wicked sir to be suggesting such a thing.’ Mrs O’Riordan crossed herself. ‘I know she was not quite a Christian, sir…’

  ‘Mrs O’Riordan, I respect your sensibilities, but you know there are women in Ireland as in England who make up potions for the shingles and the scrofula and they do so with incantations, do they not? So, was it like that?’ He looked up at the woman standing, shaking on the threshold. ‘Well?’

  Mrs O’Riordan nodded. ‘Aye, sir, I suppose that it was.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘She handed me back the pullet and said I was to break it’s neck quickly and to bring it back when she would tell me how to cook it. ’Twas no more than three-quarters of an hour ago, sir. I went directly down stairs, took the fowl and snapped its neck. I came back up the stairs and….’

  ‘Please, Mrs O’Riordan, go on.’

  ‘She was like that, sir. Her neck all loose and… Oh, God…’ Mrs O’Riordan burst into sobs and fled.

  Left alone Kite placed his hand beneath Puella’s head so that he cupped her skull and gently lifted it. He was able to swivel it without resistance, for the vertebrae of the neck were detached from the remainder of the spinal column. As the chicken’s neck had been broken, so had Puella’s.

  ‘I have never seen such a thing before, except in cases of extreme paroxysm among the insane,’ remarked Dr Bennett, taking snuff and dropping a considerable quantity down the front of his soiled waistcoat in doing so. Kite watched the doctor’s huge nose wrinkle and sniff like that of a hound as it digested the tobacco dust. An instant later Bennett’s huge and ungainly body endured his own paroxysm. The pleasure thus engendered seemed to Kite to be of so suppressed a nature as to be merely an incomprehensible affectation, though he understood devotees claimed it to be beneficial.

  ‘Of course rabies, in its final form,’ Bennett went on, ‘will bring on muscular spasms of such violence that small bones may break, but that the mere snuffing out of a chicken induces so dreadful a reaction in a human, even a black begging your pardon Kite, is much to be wondered at.’

  Kite grunted. The shock of Puella’s death had passed, and he diverted his mind from dwelling on regrets. There were many hours yet until dawn and, given the unusual circumstances of Puella’s death, he had felt it necessary to consult Bennett. The youthful experience of once, long ago, having thought himself under suspicion of murder had bred caution in him, but he was not surprised at Bennett’s comments.

  ‘You seem to reserve your own judgement, Kite. You know these people better than I; have you a theory?’

  ‘Yes, and it may be more than a theory, for I believe there is a probability which I am unable to explain but which I have observed on more than one occasion, that the mind may be induced to release powerful agents. Such agents enable the physical being to do extraordinary things. I have heard of men leaping into trees to avoid lions, or of enduring terrible wounds in battle until some objective is achieved. The Africans of the Guinea coast plac
e great confidence in the powers of the spirits they conceive to be all about us. They tap these in some way unknown to our more sophisticated and logical minds. It is perhaps a skill that we have lost through our greater leaning towards other things which, in the matter of our survival, we deem to be of a higher priority. They call these powers obi, or obeah. I do not understand the precise usage, but I know there are those who consider the magic not merely real but potent.’