The Privateersman

by The Privateersman (retail) (epub)

  ‘But why does he so hate me…?’ But Kite already knew the answer and spared Johnstone the embarrassment of spelling it out. ‘Because I have lived with a blackamoor?’

  ‘He would put it less charitably, Captain.’

  ‘Yes, I daresay he would,’ Kite said, considering all that had been said. ‘But now Makepeace is dead and Frith is already taking control both of the inconsolable widow and the wretched pawn of a daughter. But how would they rid themselves of me? Can you riddle me that riddle with your speculations, Nathan?’

  ‘That is what I cannot reason out, Captain. Perhaps they will simply await your reaction. If you will forgive me for mentioning it in so indelicate a manner, the death of your wife will, in a sense, play into their hands, adding to your misfortune over the loss of the African Princess and making you vulnerable…’

  ‘Or perhaps very strong, Mr Johnstone,’ Kite said slowly. ‘You yourself are but recently acquainted with death. You have little to lose, I think, and risked my executing the messenger tonight, did you not?’

  Johnstone flushed, then looked his employer in the eye. ‘I did say, sir, that I had every intention of protecting my own interests.’

  ‘Have you anything to keep you here, Nathan?’

  ‘My late wife’s mother, sir.’

  Kite leaned forward. ‘Would you be a conspirator, Nathan? As a partner, I mean?’

  Johnstone frowned with uncertainty. ‘I should like first to know your mind, sir.’

  ‘Well, it is a little confused, but the Spitfire is expected soon and I have a mind not to tarry in Liverpool… Are you game for some more substantial speculation?’

  ‘I have no money, Captain Kite… I, er, have never considered such a matter.’ Johnstone shrugged, clearly flustered.

  ‘But you have an excellent brain, Nathan, and I might easily be persuaded to invest in it. Now tell me, what do you think their next move will be?’

  ‘Well sir, as I have said, and forgive my candour, but the deaths of both Captain Makepeace and your wife…’

  ‘And the loss of the African Princess gives them an advantage, yes. I agree they will act soon while I am, so to speak, knocked down.’

  ‘Exactly, sir.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘I think it highly likely.’

  Kite thought a moment, then said, ‘we could, of course, transfer my own and Puella’s shares in all our vessels clandestinely, as they have done, to Wentworth in Antigua. You could raise bills of sale and have the matter registered at the Custom House by tomorrow afternoon. I’d trust Wentworth with my life but…’

  ‘You could be more subtle, sir, and avoid the risk of cutting off your nose to spite your face.’

  ‘Proceed…’ And Kite listened while Johnstone explained his notion. Midnight struck as he concluded his dissertation and Kite smiled approvingly.

  ‘You have given the matter some thought.’

  Johnstone shook his head. ‘No sir, only a little in talking this evening.’

  ‘But tell me, how did you first become suspicious?’

  ‘Well, it was not a matter of suddenly becoming suspicious, but Watkinson’s manner towards me underwent a slow change. At first I was useful to him and I have to admit we were friendly, but then, when I married, I began to sense a distance growing between us. I thought at first it was that he wished to emphasise that he conceived his station to be above mine, but then I encountered him twice in deep conversation with Frith. Of course, I knew Frith to be a man of substance, but also a man of low morals. Mrs Makepeace was not the only woman his name was linked with. Moreover I heard he had been to London in company with Master Harry and shortly thereafter rumours circulated about Harry Makepeace’s gambling here in Liverpool. At about this time Watkinson sported a new suit and cane, he appeared to be elevating himself in the world and his manner towards myself and the junior clerks underwent a slow but subtle change. I think he wished to conceal it, but he could not avoid a certain supercilious manner affecting himself.

  ‘I should not have taken much notice, I suppose, had I not stumbled on him talking to Frith late one night. I had been down to the dock with a jerque note for Captain Matthews of the Firestorm and he had asked me to return some papers to the office. I did so and found Frith, Makepeace and Watkinson enjoying a bottle of wine in familiar ease. I’m afraid I listened. I heard sufficient. Your wife was mentioned in no very flattering terms, I heard an opinion voiced as to your judgement and your sense of trust. A little later Harry’s name was mentioned by Makepeace and, and this caught my attention particularly, both Frith and Watkinson spoke sharply to the Captain, as though they both enjoyed the whip hand over him. It was enough, I was about to leave when I heard Makepeace shout them down in one of his bellows. “Damn you both,” he said, “the Samphire’s worth more than that! I could mortgage her for a thousand,” whereupon Frith said in his cold manner, “sit down, Captain, you know perfectly well that to raise a mortgage on the Samphire you will need Kite’s approval”. There was some movement in the inner office at this point and I fled.’

  ‘You were very wise to do so and I am grateful to you for your confidence.’

  Kite stood up. ‘I have a melancholy night ahead of me, Nathan, one that you will have too recently experienced yourself. We may both be dead of cholera ourselves within the week, but we are not yet infected and may still confound our enemies. Tomorrow, Nathan, you shall be at your desk promptly, but not a word to a soul.’

  ‘You may rely upon me, Captain Kite.’

  ‘And my thanks to you for your speculation.’

  Chapter Three

  A Great Sinner

  Kite woke with a jerk at dawn. He was cold and cramped but he rose and stretched stiffly, shivering miserably as he stared at Puella lying where she had been laid out. From below he heard the first movements in the household and, as he touched the cold body with the tips of his fingers, he felt a deep sense of guilt that his business with Johnstone over-rode all other considerations and, with an effort, he went through to his study, rang the bell for coffee and hot water and wrote a letter to arrange for Puella’s interment. She would be given Christian burial, of that he was sure, and would be laid to rest next to her beloved son. By the time Maggie appeared to answer his summons, his letter and instructions were ready. An hour later, improved in appearance if not in mood by a wash and shave, wearing clean linen and having broken his fast, he left the house. The straw strewn in the street to quieten the noise of passing wheels in acknowledgement of William’s death had been dispersed by the gale, though wisps of it remained clinging to the cobbles where bird lime anchored it. He had ordered some more, and the windows of Puella’s bedroom stood wide open, though he knew he clasped her obi himself and that she would not relinquish it to the Christian God.

  He strode downhill, into the wind rising from the Mersey, towards the shipping office. Puella would truly understand the lifting of his spirits and he knew that in her death she had deliberately released him. Why, he wondered, had their love withered? Was that always what happened between men and women? Or had he really broken some ancient covenant, struck between God and mankind when the Ark grounded upon Ararat, that divided humanity into its disparate races?

  If so, he thought, he had become a mighty sinner!

  As he had hoped, he arrived before Watkinson, though McClusky the most junior clerk had arrived to unlock the premises and Johnstone himself walked in some two minutes after himself. McClusky evinced little surprise, for Captain Kite’s habits were not regular and he was as likely to be late as early. McClusky ran about tending ink-wells and sharpening nibs with an impressive diligence. He would not yet know of his employer’s bereavement, still less of the fact that before the day’s end he, Michael McClusky, would have elevated his station in life.

  Kite caught Johnstone’s eye, but the younger man looked swiftly away, a reaction that pleased Kite. A conspiratorial wink would have been scarcely appropriate and, a few moments later as Peters the other juni
or clerk arrived, he saw Johnstone gather McClusky and Peters together, saw the involuntary twitches of their heads in his direction that betrayed the purpose of Johnstone’s impromptu conference: they were being told that Captain Kite was in mourning, though he wore no crepe about his sombre person.

  It was exactly seven o’clock as Watkinson entered. He looked immediately at Kite and Kite, seeing that Peters was not then at his desk but came in a moment later, guessed that Watkinson had been informed of Kite’s own bereavement. Kite affected to study some papers on his desk and then, just as Watkinson sat himself and gathered up some bills, Kite rose and called to him.

  ‘I do not know whether you have heard that Captain Makepeace died yesterday, Mr Watkinson.’

  ‘Yes, I had been informed, sir. I am most deeply affected and have sent my condolences to Mrs Makepeace.’

  ‘Very well. I understand the funerary arrangements are to be made by Master Harry when he arrives…’

  ‘I believe him to be already here, Captain Kite.’

  ‘If that is so. Very well.’

  ‘And I understand, sir, that you yourself have suffered a grievous loss…’ Kite fixed Watkinson with a stare. ‘Please accept my sincere condolences…’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘She was a most gracious lady, if I may say so, sir.’

  ‘You may say so, sir, in my presence, though I hear that you say otherwise elsewhere.’ Kite smiled, watching Watkinson’s discomfiture. He was thrown off balance and Kite struck. ‘Now that Captain Makepeace has passed the bar, Mr Watkinson, I think it is time we dispensed with your services. You may leave at once.’

  Kite bent to his papers as Watkinson spluttered: ‘You cannot dismiss me! This is outrageous! I insist on knowing your reasons, I have done nothing to offend you…I may have made the odd joke at your expense…’

  ‘Oh, Mr Watkinson, I do not care about the odd joke at my expense and my wife no longer cares about the odd joke at hers either, but I do object,’ he said, his voice rising as he looked up at the Chief Clerk, ‘to your selling our ships without reference to me…’

  ‘Good God, sir, I would never do such a thing! I have always obeyed the instructions of my employer. I did only what Captain Makepeace told me to do and acted scrupulously within the rights of Captain Makepeace as his agent for those numbers of sixty-fourths that the late Captain or his wife owned…’

  ‘That may be true, Mr Watkinson, but the letter and spirit of my accommodation with Captain Makepeace was that I was to be informed of any such transaction affecting a vessel in our fleet.’

  ‘So I reminded Captain Makepeace, Captain Kite, and I am distressed to learn that he did not confide in you. I assumed he had done so. You agreed to the remortgaging of the Samphire…’

  ‘That is sophistry, Mr Watkinson, for you know I was opposed to it in principle.’ Kite sensed he was on slippery ground and losing his advantage. He had yet to draw Watkinson and Watkinson was heady with indignation.

  ‘That was a matter between you and Captain Makepeace,’ went on Watkinson rallying, ‘to make me a scapegoat for your prejudice against a dead man…’

  ‘I make you no scapegoat Watkinson,’ Kite said vehemently. ‘Your prejudices are your own and as the sole surviving partner I have decided that I have no further need for your services…’

  ‘But you are not the sole surviving partner, Captain Kite. There is also Mr Frith…’ Too late Watkinson realised he had stumbled into the trap. His triumphalism withered and he sought to regain his ascendancy. ‘I, er… I see that Captain Makepeace had not confided in you in that matter either.’

  ‘Tell me, Mr Watkinson,’ Kite said with steel in his tone, ‘you knew nothing about Captain Makepeace’s desire to conceal matters from me. Tell me you did nothing to encourage him to make a secret of it. Tell me you did not advise Mr Frith not to be open with me. Tell me you nurse no private ambitions of your own to secure your own place as a partner. Tell me you have not discussed all this with Mr Frith. Do please tell me all of these comforting things.’

  Watkinson spluttered again, sensing a further entrapment, yet eager to agree that all that Kite had suggested was true. ‘Absolutely, Captain Kite, absolutely…’

  ‘Tell me all of this and I shall call you a liar, sir, to your face and, should you wish it, in front of witnesses, for there is one thing you do not know…’

  ‘I…do not know?’

  Watkinson’s face was losing its colour and went a deathly white as Kite smiled and said, ‘yes, you are forgetting that I was at Captain Makepeace’s death-bed.’

  Kite held himself from elaboration; the impact of the information stunned Watkinson. For a moment he stood swaying and then he turned and made for the door and the counting house beyond. Kite almost felt sorry for him as, at this moment and in evident anticipation of circumstances being quite otherwise, Frith arrived.

  Kite noted Johnstone looked up and rose at the unscheduled visitor, he saw Frith wave him aside, but then saw a looked of swiftly suppressed consternation upon Frith’s face as he saw Watkinson’s pallor. Kite rose, moved swiftly round his desk and, even as Frith advanced on Watkinson to see what troubled him. Kite leaned pleasantly from his inner office.

  ‘My dear Mr Frith, you could not have arrived at a more opportune moment, do please come in. McClusky! Tea!’ Kite ushered a reluctant Frith into his office and closed the door. ‘Wretched business, Frith, wretched. I dislike dismissing a man, but we cannot have untrustworthy clerks here. I daresay you wouldn’t tolerate an untrustworthy clerk, would you? Fortunately for us Makepeace altered me. Almost his dying breath poor fellow. You’ll have heard, yes? Of course you have, you are a close friend of the family, and, I understand, you have made an offer for Katherine’s hand. Well, well. Do take a seat. Poor Makepeace was not terribly coherent and it is best that you tell me yourself, what the two of you have been up to. I gather Master Harry…

  ‘Are you quite well, Mr Frith…?’

  Frith eased himself into a chair. ‘It is not quite as black as Watkinson has no doubt painted it, Captain Kite…’

  Kite chuckled. ‘Watkinson certainly wrecked any feelings of reliance I, and indeed many others on ‘Change, may have as to your financial probity, Mr Frith, but I sense, as a good judge of character, I may assume that Watkinson sought to save his own skin at your expense.’

  ‘May I ask what defamatory notions he laid at my door?’

  ‘Defamatory isn’t the word, goodness me, no. Well that you sought to dispossess me, the means I confess seemed over complicated to a sea-officer like myself, and that you sought to take over all Makepeace’s business and that, forgive me Frith but you would surely wish me to be candid; in fact that you were nothing less than…’ Kite dropped his voice, ‘Martha Makepeace’s lover. There was more, of course, for they say the greater the scandal the greater the chance of its belief, but there was also mention, preposterous though it is, that young Henry Makepeace was to stand for Parliament and that you were busy putting him in your pocket even while you ruined him at the tables.

  ‘All in all it’s quite a tale, Mr Frith, don’t you think?’ Kite shook his head as though bemused. ‘As I was the only person in the way of your progress, it seems that you were to discomfit me… Truth to tell,’ Kite dissembled with increasing private amusement, ‘I can scarce believe it…’

  ‘Neither can I,’ Frith rallied. It was clear to Kite that, in the short term at least, Frith was preparing to toss Watkinson to the wolves.

  ‘Of course,’ Kite said, his tone of voice no longer flippant, ‘it is so preposterous that it may all be true.’ He rose and looked down at Frith as he writhed in his chair, alarm writ large across his face.

  ‘Come, Captain, you cannot believe…’

  ‘Oh, I am a simple soul, Mr Frith, a mere nigger-lover, of no consequence, don’t you know.’ Kite smiled, then bent over Frith as his voice became hard. ‘Now sir, I shall not ask you what your motives are, only what you will spend to buy me out, lock, sto
ck and barrel. Come sir, make me an offer and then you may have your heart’s desire…’ Kite straightened up, opened the door and called out, ‘Mr Watkinson! Come here, sir!’

  Watkinson appeared in the doorway and Kite motioned him inside, shutting the door behind him. As he did so he caught Johnstone’s eye and gave the most cursory of smiles. Then he turned to Watkinson and said. ‘Mr Watkinson, I have offered all my shares in the joint-owned bottoms to Mr Frith. If he buys me out, I shall have no objection to you continuing your employment here. If the offer is not satisfactory, however, I am afraid your continuing presence will be undesirable. Now I daresay you will wish to discuss these matters between yourselves and I suggest you occupy Captain Makepeace’s office. I shall absent myself for one hour as I have some matters to attend to following the death of my wife.’

  Kite then ushered the two men out in silence and watched them cross the counting house floor to disappear into Makepeace’s former private chamber. He was careful not to

  draw the attention of the junior clerks to any communication between himself and Johnstone, but left the premises and walked purposefully uphill towards Makepeace’s house. He felt a surge of hubris, confident of the success of the intrigue. ‘Oh,’ he muttered to himself, ‘I am indeed a mighty sinner!’

  Crepe and straw decorated the facade of his dead partner’s dwelling. Kite was shown into the drawing room where, a few moments later Katherine came to him. She wore a mourning gown which did not suit her, emphasising her lack of looks. He rose and bent over her hand.

  ‘My dear, I am sorry to trouble you on this of all mornings.’

  ‘It is good to see you Uncle William.’

  ‘How is your mother?’

  ‘She is asleep.’

  ‘Good. May I ask you a question of the most offensive nature for which I ask your pardon…’

  ‘If it is about Mr Frith…’