“Who is it?”
That was a feeble voice behind me. I turned.
“It is Edmund Talbot.”
The man was sinking down in stupor again. I was exasperated. And I had said I would wait. Yet only that night I had known, found out what I bore in my hands! I sank down into the canvas chair again. The bedclothing was massed about his middle and hiding the lines of his body there. Lower down, his legs and feet lifted the blankets. The odour of paregoric was more perceptible since his cry. The spirit which had half-awakened in the tormented body had sunk away again into the depths. The eyelids fluttered and were still. The mouth fell open, but this time a sigh was all the sound he made.
I leaned back and surveyed him as he lay in the bunk. Under their lids his eyes moved rapidly from side to side. His breath came unevenly, he panted. I thought his eyes would open but they did not. He muttered in his sleep or swoon. The words dragged out.
“—John Laity for the term of his natural life. Hamilton Moulting Baronet as colonel light dragoons emoluments from clothing—expenses of the returning officer—Mungo FitzHenry master in Chancery for life four thousand and six pounds—”
Good God—it was my cousin and that superb plum! What the devil did this man mean by it? I leapt to my feet. I seized the door handle—and felt it turn from the outside. Miss Granham looked in. She whispered:
“Mr Talbot? Not yet awake?”
“No.”
That same feeble voice again.
“Letitia? Is that you?”
“It is Mr Talbot come to see you, Aloysius.”
“William Collier fourteen years for illegal assembly—”
“It is I, Mr Prettiman, Edmund Talbot. I am told you wish to see me. Well, I am here and waiting.”
Behind me Miss Granham closed the door.
“Letitia?”
“Miss Granham has stepped outside. She supposed you wanted to speak to me, though what I have done to deserve such an unexpected honour—”
He was turning his head restlessly and gritting his teeth.
“I am not able to sit up.”
“Do not incommode yourself. I am able to stand here and you are able to see me.”
“Sit down, boy. Sit down!”
The man intended an order, there was no doubt about that. I wish I could say that I sat to humour a sick man but the truth is my body sat itself down before I was aware of what was happening! A slight movement of the cabin made him grit his teeth again and audibly. His face cleared little by little. I spoke abruptly, annoyed by my involuntary obedience.
“As I said. I am waiting to hear what you want.”
“You are aware that Miss Granham and I—”
He was silent again. I did not know whether he was interrupted by some pain or whether he felt a natural embarrassment at raising the subject with a stranger. I thought it best to help the sick man where I could, otherwise this irritating interview would be more and more prolonged.
“I am aware as everyone else in the ship is that the lady has consented to make you the happiest of men. I have already felicitated the lady, I believe. Permit me to congratulate—”
“Don’t smother the thing in nonsense!”
“I beg your pardon, sir!”
“She has agreed to marry me.”
“That is what I said!”
“Now, I mean. Where are your wits?”
“We have no clergymen!”
“Captain Anderson will perform the ceremony. Do you know nothing?”
I was silent. Clearly the shortest way to the end was to listen and not interrupt. Mr Prettiman passed his tongue over his lips, then smacked them.
“Would you like a drink? This water—”
Now he turned his head and looked straight at me, examining my face as I had examined his. A trace of a smile, wintry enough, deepened the creases round his mouth and eyes.
“Unfair, amn’t I?”
I grinned, however ruefully, at this sudden turn round.
“You’re having a devilish bad time, that’s what it is. Anyone—perhaps when the weather is better you could get out—”
“I am dying.”
“But, Mr Prettiman! A fracture—”
He shouted aloud.
“Will you abstain from this foolish habit of contradiction? When I say I am dying I mean I am dying and I am going to die!”
The end of this shouted exordium was confused by another cry from the depth of his agony, which I am persuaded that time he inflicted on himself by some forbidden movement. The cry was not only the expression of despairing anguish but of furious resentment.
“Mr Prettiman, I beg of you!”
Once again he lay silent, but perspiration trickled down his face. Behind me the door opened and Miss Granham looked in again. She stepped over the sill, reached under his pillow, took out a handkerchief and wiped his face. A smile returned to it. In a far softer voice than he had used to me he murmured, “Thank you, thank you.”
As Miss Granham was withdrawing he spoke again.
“Letty, there is no need for you to stand on guard. I am well enough and the dose still gives me some relief. Please return to your cabin and try to sleep. I am sure you need to. It frets me to think of you keeping yourself awake for my sake.”
She glanced at me, then smiled at him, nodded and closed the door behind her.
“Mr Talbot, I wish you to be a witness.”
“I?”
“You and Oldmeadow. To the ceremony—the marriage.”
“That is ridiculous! We have no official standing in the ship! Charles Summers, on the other hand, or Mr Cumbershum—I will give the bride away if you wish or—why anything!”
“You are not needed to give the bride away. Mr East will do that.”
“Mr East? The printer?”
“Will you listen? Or do you propose to prolong this interview indefinitely?”
There were many replies I could have made to that remark but in choosing the best I missed the opportunity. He had closed his eyes and now went on speaking.
“The officers of the ship will be distributed round the world. Who knows where they will go? In any case, they are at risk. Certainly this old ship will carry them no farther. You and Oldmeadow will remain at Sydney Cove. Do you not understand, Mr Talbot? Modest as it may be, Miss Granham will inherit my fortune. But without unimpeachable witnesses and at a distance of eighteen thousand miles from our courts, corrupt as they are—”
“No, they are not! That is outrageous! British justice—”
His eyes had snapped open.
“I say they are! Oh, in respect of money you may rely on them, but they are corrupt in all else by privilege, by land tenure, by a viciously inadequate system of representation—”
All this had been uttered on a rising note. But as if the man knew how close to him was the angel of the agony he lowered his voice suddenly in a way which might have seemed comic to me only a few minutes before.
“I need not go into all that, Talbot. After all, I am talking to a representative of—well, there. To resume: you and Oldmeadow will be guarantors of her inheritance by virtue of your position as witnesses of the marriage.”
“I shall be happy to serve the lady in any way I am able—” It came to me, as I said that, that it was true! “Yes indeed, sir. But I trust it may be many years before—”
The trace of hectic had appeared in his cheeks.
“Do not talk nonsense! I have not many days or perhaps hours left.”
“The banns—”
“They may be omitted in these circumstances. Let that be an end of the matter.”
We were silent for a while. Then he stirred restlessly. I had half-risen from my seat but he held up his hand.
“I have not finished. I do not care to ask for favours. But now—”
“You may, sir. For the lady’s sake.”
“Mr Summers told me that you claimed at least to believe in ‘fair play’. The phrase is juvenile—”
/> “The phrase is a good phrase, Mr Prettiman. What is ‘fair play’ in the slang of schoolboys is ‘justice’ among adults.”
“You believe in justice.”
There was another pause. I glanced at the shelf of books above his head. They were severe.
“I am an Englishman.”
“Miss Granham has reported favourably on your progress—”
“My what?”
“I do not know how civilized the mores of a colony may be but I suspect the worst. I fear civilization may be sadly to seek. I ask you to see that the lady is treated as she should be in a civilized society.”
“I would count her friendship a privilege, sir. I give you my word I will use every endeavour to protect her.”
He smiled wearily, for his strength was ebbing.
“There are many ways in which she does not need protection. But in some things a lady by the unfairness of Nature will always be at a disadvantage. I believe the colony may not yet have accustomed itself to the proper attitude to the female nature.”
“I do not know.”
“One other matter.”
I waited for some time but he was silent.
“Another matter, sir?”
He said nothing but seemed in some discomfort.
“May I not move you to a more comfortable position, sir? This mass of bedclothes round your waist—”
He was moving his head restlessly on the pillow.
“It is not a mass of bedclothing but a gross swelling of the lower abdomen and the upper part of the lower limbs.”
“Good God! Good God!”
“Must every other sentence commence with an imprecation? You cannot move me. To move my body even for the most necessary purposes is a torture which is wearing me out and down, down and away.”
He was silent again for a while. Then—
“This other matter. It is confidential. I have searched my conscience and believe that what I do is right. Come close.”
I took my staying hand off the bulkhead and hitched the canvas chair to the bunk. I leaned my head down to his. The odour of the bunk and his body was quite plainly unpleasant. Was this the awful beginnings of decay? I was not well informed in the matter.
“I have a paper for you.”
“Oh?”
“It is a paper signed by me. You see what a case I am in, helpless and dying. People will contest the will—there are always such, relatives so distant they have never before made themselves known. They might well bring a case that the marriage was not—could not—be consummated, that it was void and consequently the lady entitled to nothing.”
There ensued a long pause.
“I do not follow what I am to do, Mr Prettiman.”
He seemed in much discomfort.
“I have written a plain declaration that I have had carnal knowledge of the lady during the voyage and before the marriage.”
“Good—”
“You were about to say, sir?”
“Nothing. Nothing.”
His voice was a shout.
“Do you think, boy, that a superstitious rite such as a wedding ceremony means anything to such people as I and she are?”
My mouth was opened to speak, though I do not know what I should have said. For his anger was such that he had hurt himself all over again. He positively howled with pain, as if he were being punished for his blasphemy! I find the recollection amusing enough. For I did not believe in any of the superstitious rites myself and regarded them as serving to keep order. Christening, marrying and burying—they are the marks which distinguish men from beasts, that is all.
But the man was recovering.
“There is a green leather case in the upper drawer. Give it to me, if you please.”
I did so. He held it to his chest, took out a folded and sealed paper which he held up close to his eyes.
“Yes. This is it.”
“Why is the paper necessary? I could as easily stand before a court and swear that you had told me how matters stood between you and the lady.”
“I do not trust them—that is all.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to speak like a moralist! I felt like saying with all the force at the command of a member of the society which he despised—“You should have thought of that before!” Or—“The superstitious rites are then of some value, sir!” But I did not. This was all the odder, since I felt myself more and more out of sympathy with him and her—with her in particular. A lady, and one whom I had held in some esteem to behave so, like a drab! I did not know whether to laugh or what to do. She was provoking. It was very sad. Her—lapse made me sad and angry.
“I believe, Mr Prettiman, we have no more to say to each other. I presume I shall be told when the superstitious rite is to take place?”
He turned his head and looked at me in what seemed to be surprise.
“Of course!”
I put the green leather case back in the drawer and stood up.
“I agree to guard this paper and produce it in the circumstances which you envisage. I have no desire to read it.”
“Thank you.”
My bow was hampered. I had not got the door open when he spoke again.
“Mr Talbot.”
“Sir?”
“Miss Granham is unaware of the existence of this paper. I wish her to remain so for as long as possible.”
I bowed again and stumbled out of that fetid hutch.
(7)
I found myself standing by the entry to the waist and staring at the tattered garment which Mr Brocklebank had drawn round him. I could not tell how I came to be there. The wind was cold and searched me out even through my seaman’s clothing.
There was something particularly disgusting about this furtive, middle-aged sexual congress! He might well be fifty years old, and she—
“Filthy, beastly, lecherous!”
Apparently the old man did not hear but was deep in some contemplation which must have been melancholy, to judge from his expression. I began to reason with myself. Why should I care? I looked at the sealed note in my hand. That, at least, contemptible as I thought it to be, was a duty. I took it to my cabin, wrenched the door open and slammed it behind me. I thrust the document into my bottom drawer, then flung myself into my canvas chair with a force which, had I any of Mr Brocklebank’s substance, would have split it completely.
There was a knock at the door.
“Come in.”
It was Charles Summers.
“Have you a moment to spare?”
“Of course. Will you sit here? On the bunk if you like. I am sorry Phillips has not yet put the clothes together. Everything is so dirty, so foul, so vile! Oh, I am so tired of this voyage! So much water! I wish I could walk on it. Oh, sorry, sorry! Well, what can I do for you?”
He sat down gingerly among the rumpled bedclothes.
“I have a proposal to make. Should you care to be a midshipman?”
“Are you serious?”
“Half, shall we say. Let me explain. With only two other lieutenants, Cumbershum and Benét, and one warrant officer capable of discharging the same duties as they do—I mean Mr Smiles, the sailing master—”
“I have never understood his position.”
“He is something of an—anomaly, would it be? He is the last of his kind, warranted by the Admiralty at a time when navigation was coming more and more into the hands of the King’s officers. But he is only the third. Mr Askew will stand a watch occasionally. Now if I take a watch myself we can divide the watch-keeping between five and so benefit everyone—”
“Except you! Good Heavens, you spend all your time going about the ship! When do you sleep? I am sure your ceaseless activity cannot be necessary.”
“You are wrong, you know. Is there not a saying among farmers that the best dung is the farmer’s foot? But to resume: if I stand the middle, which by now you must know is—”
“—midnight until four o’clock in the morning.”
“
Just so. An officer of the watch has a doggy. Would you care to stand that watch with me as midshipman?”
“Should you leave me in charge?”
“You would do better than poor young Willis. Well. Do you agree?”
“Indeed I do. But you have added four hours to your duties! It is too much. For all that you have cheered me immensely!”
“Why do you need cheering? Is it our dangers?”
“Oh, that! No. I have—been told things. There is a young lady in whom I—It had seemed that she knew more of a criminal connection than she should and—Today someone said something which has raised the matter in my mind with much pain—so. When do we start?”
“I will get the quartermaster to give you a shake at a quarter to twelve.”
“To stand a watch! Will you give me responsibilities?”
“I might put you in charge of the traverse board.”
“Really, I have not felt so excited since I left home! ‘Mr Speaker. To those of us who have actually stood the middle in one of His Majesty’s ships of the line—’”
“Suppose when on watch you commit some awful error? ‘Mr Speaker. To those of us who have actually been mastheaded in one of His Majesty’s ships of the line—’”
“I can see you are an awful tyrant when roused.”
“Indeed.”
“By the way, how is Coombs getting on with the charcoal?”
“They have enough. Captain Anderson is only waiting for the sea to moderate a little more and he will give the order for the shoe to be mended.”
“I must see this foremast with its shoe.”
“Now you will go wandering where you should not. Do you want a direct order?”
“That would tempt me. But do you expect the weather to moderate even further?”
To the Ends of the Earth Page 50