The Privateersman

by The Privateersman (retail) (epub)

  Bennett shrugged, his expression sceptical. ‘Then how do you explain the manner of her death? A kind of suicide?’

  ‘Yes. She had nurtured a desire to die for several days following the death of our son. I had expected her to do this slowly, by starvation; she has acted in this way before when deeply troubled. I had in fact determined to stop her from this extremity, but thought that the matter was not one of urgency and it was perhaps better to allow her to grieve a little in her own way first.’ Kite pressed on, well aware that he was exculpating himself from a self-inflicted charge of neglect. ‘I myself have not felt much disposed to go on after William’s death. But this afternoon I resolved to quit Liverpool for a while and to take Puella with me…’

  ‘But fate intervened.’

  ‘No, Puella divined my intention. You must have noticed how married people oft times discover they have been thinking of the same thing when one opens a conversation and the other is already considering the same matter…’

  ‘You forget, I am not married, Kite. Who would marry a dropsical wretch like me?’

  ‘You are not dropsical, Bennett, you merely eat and drink too much.’

  ‘It is the only pleasure available to an ugly man, but pray continue…’

  ‘She did not wish to continue her life and sought a means to end it. She disdained the knife, but needed only some means of tapping the obi, of reaching the agent necessary to induce, or release from her body, a last spasm, like your rabid or insane patient, so that she can twist and fling herself with such force that she breaks her own neck…’

  ‘But Mrs O’Riordan wringing the neck of a chicken…’

  ‘Into which she had surrendered her own spirit, her own soul, Bennett, do you not see? If you can voluntarily pass into a trance, which is no more than a temporary and voluntary surrender of self, then you can do this with a finality, a last purpose to mobilise an effort of both physical and spiritual will which ends in voluntary death.’

  Bennett shook his head and gave out a great sigh. ‘Extraordinary,’ he breathed, ‘quite extraordinary.’

  They stood for a moment looking down at Puella and then the physician pulled the sheet over her. ‘She was very comely, Kite, that I must say. I have seldom seen so beautiful a form, black though it is…’ He reached for more snuff, adding as he inhaled, ‘Love, I suppose, takes no notice of such things.’

  Kite stood a moment in silence. He had known Bennett for some years, knew him to be a man of integrity and intelligence, and a physician of no mean ability. ‘No,’ he said slowly, ‘but such things raise great barriers between persons, Bennett, even in death.’

  Bennett nodded and held out his hand. ‘You have so instructed me this evening, Kite, that I shall waive my fee.’

  ‘Will you join me for supper?’

  ‘You don’t wish to eat alone?’

  ‘No, I do not…’ Kite knew that Bennett’s presence would stave off the onset of a grief he felt he could not bear.

  ‘And you will not serve me chicken?’

  Kite was grateful for the black joke. ‘Mrs O’Riordan has a fine ham, Dr Bennett, and I can find a bottle or two, I daresay. To be candid, I should welcome your company.’

  ‘Very well. We should send Maggie out for the laying-out woman at once.’

  ‘Mrs O’Riordan has already called her, I expect she is warming her belly with a glass of porter in the kitchen below.’

  The two men descended the stairs and Kite made his wants known to Mrs O’Riordan who had in part anticipated them. Over the cold ham, Bennett asked why Kite had called his wife by such an odd name.

  ‘I never knew her native name… I could not bring myself to give her an English name, for though I purchased her from her enslaver, who happened to be Captain Makepeace, I never for an instant thought of her as my property. Calling her Nancy, or Molly, or some such diminutive, seemed patronising in the extreme.’

  ‘Well, you had the wounds by then, I suppose…’ interjected Bennett, adding with his mouth half full of an enormous slice of ham, ‘the wounds of Cupid.’

  Kite nodded. ‘Yes. I was extraordinarily moved by her.’ He paused, lost for a moment in memories of Puella’s love-making. ‘So,’ he resumed his explanation, ‘I simply called her by the Latin word for girl and to my mind the word came simply to signify Puella herself.’

  ‘Tell me, Kite, out of a clinical curiosity and availing myself of both my Hippocratic silence and the discretion of a friend, did you grow close to her? I mean by the question did you reach an intimacy comparable with your having married a woman of your own colour?’

  ‘There are times,’ Kite said, ‘when I have observed considerable estrangement to exist between the partners in what I think you are alluding to in your inimitable way as a normal marriage. Certainly we had grown apart, as does any sea-officer and his spouse, and this was made no easier for Puella by her being black and subject to some unkindnesses hereabouts. I was, of course, to blame for much of this and she never really understood how independent she in truth was…’

  ‘So she did have a competence of her own?’

  ‘Such a sum as would keep you in snuff for about one thousand years, Dr Bennett,’ Kite said smiling sadly.

  ‘Oh. I had thought it mere jealous gossip.’

  Kite felt his spirits rally. Old Bennett was a shrewd mender of men and Kite warmed to his therapy. But they got no further, for at that moment the door to the dining room opened and a red-eyed Mrs O’Riordan stood bobbing her curtsy.

  ‘What is it, Mrs O’Riordan. I thought you had retired long since.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, Captain, but I couldn’t sleep and the laying-out woman has only just gone and now there’s poor Mr Johnstone asking to see you, sir.’

  ‘Johnstone? What the devil does he want at this hour.’

  ‘I’ll be going, Kite…’ Bennett slipped a last slice of ham into his mouth and rose, revealing half a dozen new patches of grease on his coat and undergarments.

  Kite raised his hand without turning from the housekeeper. ‘No, no, Bennett, do you sit down, it is probably news of a ship, or some other matter.’ Kite raised his voice. ‘Come in, Mr Johnstone…’

  Johnstone shuffled in, revolving his hat in his hands. ‘Pardon me sir… Oh, I did not know you had company and Mistress O’Riordan has just told me that your wife… Please accept my condolences…’

  ‘Thank you, Nathan,’ Kite replied as Johnstone’s eyes wandered to where Bennett, who had resolved to stay, was now hacking another slice off the savaged ham. Kite looked at the bereaved Johnstone and his pathetic, half-starved air. ‘You are hungry, sir. Pray take a seat, help yourself and then tell us your business. Mrs O’Riordan, another bottle and help yourself to a glass below stairs.’

  He smiled as the house-keeper bobbed a curtsy. She had already been helping herself, by the colour of her, but it was no matter.

  Johnstone hesitated, made a half-heartedly self-deprecating gesture and then pulled out a spare chair as Mrs O’Riordan put a plate in front of him and fetched clean cutlery. Kite waited and watched; Johnstone literally drooled as he sliced the ham and placed it carefully upon the plate laid before him. For several minutes the two older men regarded at the ravening of the younger. He did not look as though he had eaten for days and it occurred to Kite that he probably had had very little beyond some bread and tea. After a little, Johnstone recalled himself and, having drained a glass of wine, looked up at the others.

  ‘I… I beg your pardon, gentlemen, I, er, I quite forgot myself.’

  ‘Please, take some more, but do tell us what brings you here.’

  Johnstone, who had already reached for the long bladed carving knife and its accompanying fork, looked up as though paralysed. His eyes switched from Kite to Bennett and back again.

  ‘Come young fellow,’ put in Bennett, ‘what’s the trouble? You have the look of a hare caught in a trap.’

  ‘Well, I… No, I cannot… The matter is confidential… between myself and C
aptain Kite…’

  ‘And you don’t trust me not to blab your affairs all over Liverpool, eh? Is that it?’ Bennett said with mock severity, laying his own knife and fork down with an air of genuine regret. ‘I am to be flung out of Eden, Captain Kite, by your damned clerk.’

  ‘I mean no offence, Dr Bennett.’ Johnstone responded with a swift anxiety.

  ‘Ah, there’s none taken,’ Bennett said rising with a low belch. ‘’Tis getting late and the ham will not sustain the two of us. Kite, I’m damned grateful to you for the fare and will leave you to your waterfront scuttlebutt or whatever evil nautical term you lay to your conversation.’ He held up his hands. ‘No, no, I’ll see myself out, and I’ll make sure Mrs O’Riordan leaves you in peace.’

  Kite sat again. ‘Good night, Bennett and thank you for your company. I am obliged to you and greatly appreciate it.’

  ‘Good night Kite. Think nothing of it. Good night Johnstone.’

  ‘Good night, sir.’

  After Bennett had gone, Kite refilled Johnstone’s glass. ‘Well Nathan,’ he said, ‘the circumstances of this confidential visit must be extraordinary. Have you had news from Bidston of another ship in the offing, or news of a loss, or what?’

  Johnstone swallowed the contents of his glass and stared at his employer. He was quite obviously mustering his thoughts and his courage, so Kite waited patiently. It was a night of revelations, he thought, but he had no desire to ascend those stairs again and see Puella, her eyes closed and her jaw bound up with a cloth.

  ‘Captain Kite,’ Johnstone began, ‘I must ask you to believe that I have only two motives in coming here tonight. One is to protect my own interests. I mention this first if only to prove to you that I conceive my loyalty to you is not disinterested, and is thereby genuine. But added to that is a conviction that it would be wrong of me not to tell you that I fear something is afoot. Something, I fear, that is against your own interests.’

  Johnstone paused and Kite shifted uneasily. Was it not enough that a man should lose his son to cholera and his wife to the spirits of the obeah without a further visitation to add to the additional burden of the death of his partner and the wrecking of a ship? he thought of Watkinson’s evasive and unsatisfactory conduct that afternoon, though it seemed like a lifetime ago. ‘Go on, Nathan,’ he said softly, sensing a further shadowy figure beyond the bounds of his present knowledge.

  ‘I should perhaps have waited until something more concrete occurred, for I should not wish you to think of me as a conspirator or a spy of some sort…’ Sweat stood out in beads over Johnstone’s brow.

  ‘How long have you worked for me, Nathan?’ Kite cut in.

  ‘Seven years, sir.’

  ‘And you have given me every proof of satisfaction. Now please, I beseech you, come to the matter directly.’

  ‘I believe you to have been cheated, sir. And I believe that further mischief is being hatched against you…’

  ‘By whom?’ Kite asked. ‘To what purpose?’

  Johnstone swallowed, held up his hand and shook his head. ‘Please, I beg you sir, let me explain. ’Tis hard enough to comprehend, particularly as some parts of the matter are not clear, but I have fathomed out what I conceive to be a plan to dispossess you and over which the loss of the African Princess is but a fortuitous bonus to those who wish to encompass your ruin.’

  Kite could not imagine why anyone should wish to undertake so grievous a thing as encompass his ruin, but he suppressed his question and let Johnstone have his head. ‘Go on. ‘ he repeated.

  ‘The African Princess was your own ship, sir, was she not, as the Enterprize was the personal property of Captain Makepeace? Your other ships were jointly owned in various proportions, some split with your own wife, some sixty-fourths being held by Mrs Makepeace, but the majority of the shares belonging to yourself and the late Captain. Is that not so?’

  ‘Yes, that is so, though my wife and I owned the Spitfire entirely, while Makepeace and his wife wholly owned the Salamander.’

  ‘And in that way funds were laid aside to the principals in due proportion?’

  ‘Yes, that too is so. And of course we shared the risks and any losses…’

  ‘Except where they were incurred by your own private property, so that you will personally bear the costs associated with the loss of the African Princess?’

  Kite nodded. ‘But you are not suggesting that Captain Jones wrecked her deliberately, surely?’

  Johnstone shook his head. ‘No, I am not. But did you know of the mortgages taken out on some of the bottoms?’

  ‘Yes, we had remortgaged the Samphire to release some funds in order to speculate on a cargo for Spain… But you said bottoms; in the plural. To my knowledge we had only done it the once…’ Kite was frowning.

  ‘And you were opposed to it, I believe? In the case of the Samphire, I mean. I speculate here, sir, but it does not seem likely that you would approve.’

  Kite nodded. ‘You are right. No, I did not like remortgaging a hull, just as I do not much like speculating in cargoes. I prefer that we offer a freight rate and let others pay. It is our business to offer tonnage and for others to buy and sell their commodities. I am a ship-owner, not a speculator, a profiteer or a merchant. I do not have the aptitude or the interest for it…’

  ‘That is precisely my contention, sir. Nor did Captain Makepeace, but he became a victim and, well, I anticipate. The point is that most of your hulls are, in part or in full, remortgaged.’

  ‘I know nothing of this… It is inconceivable…’ Kite protested, then recalled Makepeace’s last wish, his insistent desire for forgiveness, recollection of which had been driven out by the man’s death and then the accumulation of his own miseries. He looked sharply at Johnstone. ‘So you are alleging that in proportion to the shares owned outside my own control, the vessels are not actually owned by Makepeace and Kite?’

  ‘Yes, Captain, unfortunately that is just what I am alleging, and I am certain of it, for I have heard Watkinson discuss the matter with his principal…’

  The shadow moved out into the light. ‘Samuel Frith?’

  ‘You knew!’ Johnstone was astonished.

  ‘I guessed. The man has made a proposition to Miss Makepeace.’

  ‘That is infamous!’

  ‘Well,’ Kite said cautiously, unwilling at this stage to allow passionate emotion to obtrude. ‘It is perhaps not the most desirable state of affairs and Miss Makepeace certainly does not seek it, but as Frith is not married perhaps infamous is not quite the right word.’

  ‘But it is said, sir, that he has been Mrs Makepeace’s lover!’ Johnstone declared desperately

  ‘Is this more of your speculation?’

  ‘It is common gossip, Captain Kite, that is all… But it may explain Miss Katherine’s distaste for her won proposed union.’

  ‘Well that is true, but what do you speculate Captain Makepeace has been doing with the funds Frith has been putting in his pocket? Has he been speculating in cargoes other than this shipment for Spain? I cannot recall evidence in any of our own ships apart from the Samphire, or those of others?’

  ‘No sir, that is where the remortgaging of the Samphire was clever. By making that known to you, and though not without your own misgivings your acquiescence in approving it being common knowledge, nevertheless signalled that Makepeace and Kite were not averse to the practice. Word of such matters spreads about the town while your personal suspicions would have been lulled for some time to come…’

  ‘Now that is speculation…’

  Johnstone nodded, then shrugged. ‘But if a man knows his wife has made a visit to the theatre in the company of a gentleman friend and does not object, he will not believe the rumours of adultery as quickly as will one who had never condoned such loose behaviour in the first place.’

  ‘That is somewhat sophisticated logic, Nathan.’

  ‘But you take my point?’

  ‘Perhaps; but to what purpose? You have yet to tell me w
hat is being done with the money raised by this remortgaging of ships.’

  ‘Master Harry spends, or should I say loses it at the tables…’

  ‘You mean he gambles it?’ Kite was astonished.

  ‘Captain Makepeace was an indulgent father, or Master Harry a plausible liar. I gather Mistress Makepeace had frequent words with her husband, but then she had compromised herself and sought to secure her own future by marrying Mistress Katherine to Frith.’

  Kite considered the matter for some moments and then shook his head, asking, ‘but why does Frith want ships? Tell me that. He is a wealthy man, for what possible reason does he want ships?’

  ‘I am not absolutely certain, sir, but Watkinson is behind this matter, nursing his own ambition and guiding Frith. Frith I think has paid far less than the capital value of the ships. Makepeace was reluctant to dissemble directly, but content to leave the details to the Chief Clerk. Watkinson has therefore undertaken much of the business to keep it from you, Frith has therefore not so much acquired ships, as assets whose return far exceeds his own investment. I suppose Makepeace thought the sums advanced kept Master Harry out of trouble and might always be replaced, that by securing Frith as his son-in-law the matter remained in the family and therefore in principal little had changed, since the ships remained the property of the family!

  ‘Why could he not have acted openly?’ Kite asked. ‘I could have disputed the matter and we might have divided the firm, but he could still have raised some capital in order to discharge Harry’s debts…’

  ‘Because in the first place the matter of Master Harry’s debts is serious; in the second place Watkinson did not want the size of the fleet diminished, and in the third place he wants you out of the way, pushed into the margins, sent back to sea as a mere master so that he can assume the powers of an active partner.’