Kite himself had less faith in his martial abilities. His capture of the French corsair had been more a matter of luck than valour and owed most to the sudden appearance of Puella and the soot-blacked hands than any spirit on the part of Spitfire’s commander. It had been these circumstances that had led to Kite’s renaming his prize the African Princess. But all that was in the past; the African Princess lay in pieces, strewn about the seabed off Cape Clear Island and Puella lay in her cold, foreign northern grave on the hillside above the grey Mersey.
Kite felt a curious numbness over his loss. His slow estrangement from Puella made her death the more bearable, for the loss of young William had dissolved the one remaining bond that held them together. But Kite also knew that in the strange and self-inflicted manner of her death, Puella had bound her own spirit with that of her son while denying her body to Kite. On the one hand she took from him the sole means by which in time they might have come to a reconciliation, but on the other she set him free. He wondered to what extent she guessed he would return to sea, for he knew that one of the powers she possessed was a prescient sense that transcended mere female intuition. On those few occasions when they fought over their growing disassociation, she had once or twice flung at him the accusation that he would be happier at sea than in Liverpool, but when, in desperation he had suggested that she accompany him again, she had always refused, arguing that she must remain in Liverpool and see their son brought up as a gentleman. Over the years he had made occasional voyages in command, partly to maintain his links with his trading associates like Wentworth in Antigua, and partly to run away from the unhappiness of Puella and the constant reproach of her presence. He felt his marriage had been the mistake many had prophesied it would be, and this had made him put a brave public face on it, extending its life against all probablities. In her inimitable way, Puella had ended it by laying her ambiguous purpose on him like a paradoxical curse.
But while his crew hauled the Spitfire’s sheets aft and flattened her fore and aft sails as the schooner stood west into the star-spangled night, Kite discarded his guilt. He was free of Liverpool and its festering cholera, he was free of all obligations beyond the bulwarks of the little schooner and the pervading spirit of independence gave him an uplifting sense of hope, such as he had not experienced for years.
The schooner made a fast passage to the West Indies during which she experienced fair winds and bright weather, reeling off the knots with an easy grace, her company settling into the pleasantly easy regimen of a ship’s duty when the fates smile upon her passage. As they picked up the trades, Kite almost entirely threw off the megrims, troubled only by dreams which could be dispelled by a spell on deck and were easily diverted by his instruction of Johnstone in the vessel’s navigation. It was soon clear to both Kite and Jones that, intelligent though he was, Nathan Johnstone did not possess those distinctive instincts of a natural seaman. He had no ability to act or to think swiftly, to react quickly enough to disarm even the most minor of problems, such as a kinked or fouled line which had been badly cleared for running. His mental skills, though gymnastic enough, were better employed in more orderly processes and he soon showed promise as a navigator, so that Kite recognised that he could easily outstrip Jones if it became a matter of necessity. As it was, Johnstone familiarised himself with the tabulated ephemeris and the manipulation of a quadrant, more to occupy his mind and to divert it from the incipient sea-sickness that dogged his first fortnight at sea, than for any intellectual gain.
Jones, the mulatto mate, seemed not to resent his demotion. His respect for William Kite both as a man and as his employer, combined with memories of his former status as mate under Kite’s command, to wind the clock back in Jones’s imagination. No man objects to reliving the happier periods of his youth, and the kindliness of the weather only added to the pleasure of the illusion so that, for Jones too, the pleasant voyage dimmed the horrors of wrecking the African Princess and drowning two thirds of his crew.
The Spitfire warped into St John’s a month later and that evening Kite and Johnstone sat at table with Wentworth and his plump wife, Kitty. She had once set her cap at Kite himself, but social convention and considerable wealth had buried the unpleasant little encounter, so that she acted as though it had never happened. Kite also sensed that Mrs Wentworth, who had certainly not forgotten her abject lust and his humiliating rebuff, derived some quiet satisfaction from the knowledge that Kite had not profited long from what she considered his unnatural marriage to his black mistress. Kite’s misfortunes were not only a matter of mild pleasure to Kitty Wentworth; they also proved the rightness of her own opinion.
Wentworth had prospered mightily. Having inherited a fortune from his late benefactor Joseph Mulgrave. The house of Mulgrave, Wentworth and Co traded on its own account and acted as agents for several plantations on the island of Antigua, and elsewhere in the Antilles. On the bare hillside, where Joseph Mulgrave’s mansion had burnt down with a spectacular display of cunningly laid powder trains, fuses and slow-burning matches, Wentworth had built an extravagant villa fitted with every comfort. Looking at his complacent host, Kite found it was impossible to recall the fat and indigent clerk he had first known to inhabit Mulgrave’s waterfront counting-house. Now Wentworth looked older than his forty-odd years, corpulent and sweating, his face was burnt brick red by the sun, his nose red-veined with excess. He had had three children by Kitty, the oldest of whom, a boy, toiled as apprentice to his industrious father; for Wentworth belied his appearance, being far from indolent and industrious in his pursuit of every possible avenue of commercial profit.
The Wentworth’s dinner-table groaned under steaming platters of meats and bottles of wine for what was, in Wentworth’s own words, ‘a private and intimate supper’. He would, he assured Kite, be pleased to act as a proper host and dine Kite and his ‘associate’, as Kite had introduced Johnstone, in a proper and fitting manner in due course. The evening’s meal was, however, to run over old gossip and to dispose in part of the more congenial aspects of their business association, as well as to reveal to Wentoworth the extent to which Kite had detached himself from his old association with the house of Makepeace.
As the cloth was removed and Kitty Wentworth rose to withdraw, she offered to show Johnstone the house and its immediate grounds which had been prettily lit by flaring torches. ‘I do not wish you to abandon my husband’s table or his cigars or port, Mr Johnstone, but I am sure that he and dear William will talk so much of the good old days that it will bore you terribly…’
Johnstone looked, rather desperately Kite thought, from himself to Wentworth, but the latter waved airily. ‘I think my wife is probably right Mr Johnstone, as is usual. Do please feel free to take a turn with her if you are so inclined.’
‘Come, Mr Johnstone, it will be pleasant to hear of matters in England. I am so tired of the tedious doings of troublesome Yankees.’
Johnstone bowed awkwardly to Wentworth and said, ‘if you will excuse me, sir, I have not had hitherto, much occasion to smoke cigars and if my humble efforts at conversation will gratify your wife…’
‘By all means, by all means…’ Wentworth waved them out and as they left, he slumped back into his creaking chair.
‘The poor fellow has never, I think, dined in such style before,’ Kite said grinning and taking the offered cigar. ‘His fortunes have improved so rapidly of late that he can scarce believe it.’
‘You intend to make him a partner in this new shipping venture of yours?’ Wentworth asked.
‘Perhaps, if he wishes it. He has a shrewd mind and a better head for business than my own. Besides, I trust him.’
‘Well, he certainly seems to have declared his loyalty by making known to you this cabal against you. These rivalries,’ Wentworth expatiated between puffs of his cigar, ‘are bound to surface in any undertaking and commerce is, by its very nature, conducive to the practice of trickery of one sort or another. By your account, though, you sound as though you m
ight have succeeded in quietly ruining your own former associates.’
‘I doubt that it will come to that. But certainly, unless some unforeseen eventuality arises to support them…’
‘Or they acquire a ships’ husband or master mariner of sufficient acumen,’ Wentworth interjected with a knowing look. ‘There are a few of such about in Liverpool, I daresay.’
‘Yes.’ Kite said, blowing smoke across the candle flames so that they guttered and turned the wraiths into strange forms. ‘But it was not my purpose to ruin them. I simply wished to extract myself once I realised the extent to which Makepeace had embroiled me. Johnstone saw a rather more tortuous advantage to be extracted and I had no objection.’
‘There could be one unforeseen event looming on the horizon to halt the decline in Makepeace and Watkinson.’
‘You are going to mention this trouble with the American colonists?’ Kite said, smiling. ‘’Tis true a few Liverpool ships have been taken up on charter as military transports, though most have come from London and a handful from Bristol, but I cannot see…’
‘There is serious and seditious talk of rebellion, Kite. You heard no doubt of the massacre in Boston.’
‘Aye, but that was two years ago and it blew over. Besides Boston, like many a sea-port and like Liverpool itself on more than one occasion, has a rough populace given to excesses of one sort or another.’
‘You miss the point, Kite. You have been too long in England with all its comfortable certainties and ingrained misconceptions. I will do you the courtesy of not referring to them as prejudices since I do not think that you native Englishmen can ever see your opinions in that light, but you and others like you would do well to listen to some of the grumbling coming from New England. I am not talking about any high-flown moral notions, but merely the pragmatic associations of men of business which will disintegrate if an open rupture is allowed to develop between New and Old England.’
‘Well surely, it is precisely because of those ties of commerce that there will be no rupture. I ask you who will be the beneficiary?’
Wentworth shrugged. ‘Who knows? If it does come to open rebellion it will be easy for neither party.’
Kite waved aside Wentworth’s paranoia. ‘You are simply too fearful. Why, it would be like civil war… No, no, we have too much in common to throw away the advantages gained by the late war. Rest assured if there were any dissension, France and Spain would do their utmost to revenge themselves upon us for their recent humiliations.’
‘You prove my case, Kite. At the first spark of trouble they will fan the flames.’
‘Come, come, no-one in New England could possibly want the French back into Canada, for they would be into their own back yards inside a year.’
‘You don’t believe there is a, what d’you sailors call it, a ground-swell of opinion, in favour of disassociation from the Parliament on London?’
‘Perhaps by the very lowest who see in it some simple and superficial advantage to themselves. Only a fool would think the New Englanders capable of defending themselves without an army and a naval force.’
‘But supposing, Kite, there were men in New England who wished to be the new Whigs, the great landowners and nabobs of New England? Men who are excited by the thought of having their own parliament, their own rotten and pocket boroughs? Men who would apply the principles and practice of commerce to the principles and practice of government?’
‘Are you telling me you consider such men exist?’
Wentworth burst out laughing. ‘Of course they exist!’ He leaned forward and stubbed out his cigar, refilled his glass and shoved the decanter towards Kite. ‘Listen, Kite, you mentioned that damned massacre. Do you know what happened?’
Kite shrugged. ‘There was a riot, the military were called out, the Riot Act was read, the mob was intransigent, the soldiers fired to disperse the mob and some people were killed. A farce of a trial followed, men doing their duty were humiliated but the mob was unappeased. There, is that a fair and full summation, gleaned from English newspapers, which as any fool knows are bilious with prejudice.’
Wentworth nodded. ‘Well, that is a tolerably good recounting of the facts, but it misses the real significance of the event.’
‘Which is…?’
‘Enshrined in the fact that even you call it a massacre. You may, in your own mind, have put the word in quotation remarks, considering it a mere matter of extreme exaggeration, but what would be your reaction if I said this incident was an unprovoked mowing down of innocent citizens by rolling volley fire of British lobster-backs?’
‘I would say that it was an unpardonable exaggeration.’
‘You might be correct as a matter of veracity in its absolute sense, but you would not be believed in New England. In New England that is precisely how they regard the matter. Men and women living on remote farms and in small towns do not have the knowledge of the world that you have. They cannot conceive of any Bostonians, good people like themselves, as shouting incessant abuse at the military or pelting soldiers with stones. They cannot, I doubt, even imagine what a mob is, still less of what it is capable once it has coalesced into a monstrous hydra. All this, it has to be admitted, has been much helped by a mendacious engraving circulated throughout the province with every appearance of being a truthful and observed representation of what transpired. There was also some talk I am informed, that the whole incident was cunningly fomented, since it started when a single off-duty soldier was seeking some work at a rope-walk and was taunted and provoked. Could this be established beyond doubt, you would find a conspiracy at the heart of it all, I don’t doubt.’
‘And who are your informants, men of probity?’ Kite asked.
Wentworth ticked them remorselessly off: ‘Oh yes, Captain Hawkins of the Dido, Mr Wright, mate of the Friendship, Captains Douglas of the Cleopatra, Cracknell of the Bostonian, Greene of the Emily and Jane, Hubbard of the New York, Maxwell of the Lady o’ the Lake, all of whom except Hawkins and Maxwell are New Englanders or have been trading between here and the American coast for so long that they have forgotten they are British and have married and settled in the colonies. I rest my case.’
‘I see.’ Kite sat back and considered matters for a moment, then said, ‘suppose I changed my mind and did not sell Spitfire, at least for a year or two, suppose I left Jones in her among the islands where he is happiest. I have sufficient capital to buy or charter a bottom.’
‘I’ll come in with you if you sail as master. Young Johnstone can act as supracargo and learn the ropes.’ Wentworth put down his glass as if the gesture signified sudden resolution. ‘Yes, why not, what d’you say, eh? I’ll go fifty-fifty with you on a bottom. You could pick up cargoes and trade up the coast and keep us wise to the gossip and the turn events are taking. The information alone will be helpful and you will see how best to exploit the situation if it changes.’ Wentworth paused, considering something. ‘I know of a ship, Spanish built of good mahogany like Spitfire, but of 400 or so tons burthen, the Santa Margarita of the Angels or some such papist flummery. She’s frigate-built and owned by a Spaniard in Maiquetia… Yes, she would do admirably.’
‘Maiquetia? That is on the Spanish Main, is it not,’
‘Yes, but she is due here within a few weeks and I am certain we can acquire her. What do you say?’ Wentworth was grinning like a school boy. ‘Come on, ain’t you game?’
‘I’m game, but let us take a look at her first.’
‘Done!’ Wentworth rose. ‘Come let us take a turn on the terrace and see what has become of Kitty and young Johnstone.
It was late when Kite and Johnstone walked back down the hill towards the harbour. They had eaten and drunk well and their bellies, unused to such rich fare, kept them quiet, or so Kite thought, as he struggled with a rumbling gut and thoughts of the projected new vessel. He did not want to break the news to Johnstone immediately, it being his habit to sleep on any decision. He knew the enthusiasm of the evening before could t
urn into regret when viewed in the colder light of dawn. It was some time, therefore, before he thought he ought to converse with his companion and broke the silence with a sigh.
‘I hope this evening was not too intolerable for you. Old acquaintances can be somewhat self-absorbed, I am afraid.’
‘Not at all, sir.’
‘You dined well, anyway.’
‘Better than ever before in my life, sir.’
‘Good. And Mistress Robinson did not importune you I hope?’
It had been intended as a joke, as a loose remark between men, to be taken as an irony but Johnstone stopped abruptly, so that Kite, caught aback, had walked on a few steps before he realised what had happened and turned.
‘What is the matter?’ he asked.
‘What did you mean by than question?’ Johnstone asked, his voice tense.
‘What did I mean by it? Why nothing; leastaways nothing of significance. If I meant anything I meant that I thought you might have been less bored had you remained at table and that your manners did you credit…’
‘She seduced me, sir,’ Johnstone said in a low voice through clenched teeth. ‘She made a fool of me… I… I thought you knew she had, that you guessed she might and that she had volunteered to take me into the garden out of lust…’
Kite realised that, subconsciously, he had almost expected Kitty Wentworth to take the young man for her own pleasure. It occurred to him that perhaps Wentworth’s children were not his own. His wife had been hot-blooded years earlier and although her figure had fattened, there was enough of the voluptuary in her to appeal to a young man in Johnstone’s circumstances. The poor fellow had been deprived of his conjugal rights for several months now and his fall from grace was not surprising, except perhaps to himself.
The Privateersman Page 7