Secret Life of James Cook

by Graeme Lay

  Before sitting down she removed her cape, then her bonnet, shaking her head to free herself of the remaining drops of seawater that clung to the sides of her face. Her long hair was raven-black, matching her eyes. Her green velvet gown was mostly dry, except at the cuffs and neck, where the frills were stained with seawater. The stylishness of her clothing made James feel conscious of his own rough woollen topcoat, calico trousers and worn boots. What startled him most about her was the size and darkness of her eyes, and the contrasting whiteness of her cheeks. Her skin was as white and delicate as the bone-china plates he had seen in Mistress Sanderson’s parlour.

  She sipped the warm milk, making little gasps between sips. As she did so, he said, ‘My name is James.’ He took a mouthful of ale. ‘And you are?’

  ‘Michela.’ Mee-kay-la.

  He put his face a little closer to hers. ‘And you do not hail from Staithes.’ It was part statement, part question.

  ‘No. I was born in Genoa.’ JEN-o-uh.

  His mind raced. Genoa. Where on Earth was that? Oh yes, the city where Christopher Columbus came from. Columbus, the man who had conquered the Atlantic. The navigator was one of his heroes, along with Francis Drake and William Dampier.

  She explained that her parents and their two daughters had left the port town of Genoa six years earlier, her father seeking work after the wool industry in their home city collapsed. He was a weaver. Following other Genoese migrants, the family had made the long overland journey to Calais, and thence by sea to Scotland, where they knew there was a woollens industry. Once there they’d had to learn to speak English, and it had been very hard, especially for her mother. Her father had found weaving work and cottage accommodation for his family in Cumbernauld, but five months later he was trampled in the street and knocked unconscious by a runaway horse. He died a short time later.

  By now almost destitute, Michela, her mother and younger sister Ione had been forced to move on again, this time south across the Scottish border to seek domestic work in north-east England. Her mother and sister were now in Durham, working as servants in separate households, but Michela had had to move here to Staithes where she had found work and accommodation in the Acklams’ household. She was nineteen years old, she told him. This surprised him. She looked younger, but was actually two years older than he was. And the tragedy of her story also explained the melancholy air she had about her.

  She had related her story calmly, even matter-of-factly, leaving him to imagine the upheavals and sadnesses she and her family had experienced. And her voice captivated him. Her ‘i’ sounds were pronounced ‘ee’, but she also rolled her r’s, in the Scottish manner, the way his father did.

  He told her something of his own life. Growing up in a village, learning to read and write, moving to Staithes to learn the grocery trade. He told her how much he enjoyed to read sea stories at night, but couldn’t bring himself to tell her that he slept under the counter on a palliasse. It all seemed so dull compared with her sad but eventful background.

  Finishing her handle of milk, she placed it on the hearth. ‘I will be going back now,’ she announced. ‘I must be up at daybreak to prepare breakfast for the Acklams.’

  James stood up. ‘I will walk with you to their house.’

  ‘I can see myself there.’

  He nodded. ‘As you wish.’

  Once again she had given him that direct, almost defiant look. The one that seemed to see right through him, with those strange black eyes. There was a quiet determination about her, a steely core wrapped in that small, apparently vulnerable body. He was reminded of a saying of his father’s. Strong spirits come in small bottles.

  Outside the alehouse she put on her bonnet and drew her cape around herself. Head tilted back, fixing him once again with her unflinching gaze, she said, ‘Thank you for the milk. It has warmed me considerably.’

  ‘It was no trouble.’ There was a pause. ‘Perhaps we will meet again on the quay?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she replied noncommittally before turning away.

  He watched the small huddled figure walk to the end of the quay then turn into the street that led to the far end of the town. What a strange creature she was. Troubled, but beautiful. And different from any girl he had met before. Not that he had met many.

  That night, as he lay under the counter, sleep did not come easily. And when at last it did, her face was present in all his dreams. And that face and figure continued to haunt him over the following days. He had to see her again, had to talk with her again. By day and night he thought of her, and every evening after shutting the shop, he returned to the sea wall and the quay, in the hope that she might be there, but she was not.

  One evening he went to the Acklams’ large house and watched it for a time from across the street, but could see no sign of her. And when he saw the hulking figure of Samuel Acklam emerge from the front door of the house, brass-handled cane in his hand, James melted away into the night.

  He began to think that he might have imagined the whole episode on the sea wall and at the inn, while at the same time knowing for certain that he had not. Confirming this, Michela came to the shop three times over the next fortnight, shopping for her mistress. Each time she was courteous but distant, speaking with that strangely exotic accent and according him only the faintest of smiles when she departed. But each time that shadowy smile lingered in the air, and in his consciousness, long after she left.

  A much duller figure entered the shop. ‘Good day, James.’

  ‘Good day, Mrs Acklam. It’s a chilly one again.’

  ‘Indeed it is. A dozen eggs, if you please.’

  ‘Certainly, Mrs Acklam.’ Carefully removing the eggs from their pottery bowl, he said, with feigned indifference, ‘Do you still employ the same servant girl?’

  ‘Michela?’

  ‘That is the one.’

  ‘Aye, we do.’ The woman gave him a somewhat suspicious look. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Oh, it’s just that I have not seen her in the town for some days.’

  ‘She is cleaning and cooking, as she is paid to do. The work keeps her well occupied.’ Then she made a disapproving face. ‘Somehow, though, she finds the energy to walk in the evenings.’

  ‘Really? Where?’

  ‘Above the town. She takes the Cleveland Way path, she tells me. She enjoys the view from there, she says.’

  ‘It is a fine view, certainly.’ He placed the eggs in a bag, put it into her basket and took the payment of threepence, noting again the large gem-stoned rings Mrs Acklam wore. There were four now, on her left hand.

  ‘Thank you.’ Glancing out the window at the grey sky, she said, ‘It’s my hope that the rain holds off. I’m wanting to go to Danby for the week, to see my parents.’

  ‘Very good, Mrs Acklam.’

  He thought he would wait for two or three days, then found he could not wait that long. So it was the very next day that he walked to the end of the town then climbed the steep path that was Cleveland Way. He had put on his newer jacket, and his cleanest shirt and waistcoat, the one with brass buttons. He just wished he could afford a decent pair of boots.

  The wind had dropped, the sky was darkening and the clouds were obscuring a rising gibbous moon.

  The track levelled out at the top of the cliff. At once he saw her, sitting on the seat at the place where the path turned inland, staring seaward.

  ‘Michela. Good evening.’

  ‘Oh, hello.’ That voice. Hay-low.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Well, thank you.’

  She was wearing the same dark brown cape, but with a matching bonnet which framed her pale, oval face and its delicate features. Frowning up at him, she said, ‘I’ve not seen you walking here before.’

  ‘No. I prefer the sea wall.’

  ‘And I prefer the view of the sea.’

  ‘And here you are well out of reach of its waves.’

  She gave a little laugh, then said, moving along the seat. ‘W
ould you like to sit?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  For a time there was silence as they both sat and stared out to sea. Far below, the town’s houses, shops and inns comprised a dark, huddled mass along the estuary of the Beck, and the sea walls enclosed the boat harbour like giant jaws. It was Michela who broke the silence. ‘I like it up here. It’s peaceful.’

  ‘Aye, it is.’ A pause, then, ‘Do you like Staithes?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘It is … satisfactory. Is that the right English word?’

  ‘I suppose. If the place gives you satisfaction, then it is.’

  She laughed, but not in a happy way. ‘Well, Staithes is far better than Genoa, and Cumbernauld. And my employer is kind to me.’

  ‘Mrs Acklam.’

  She flashed him that sharp look he well remembered from before. ‘Mr Acklam is my employer. It was he who engaged me.’

  ‘Oh. And Mrs Acklam?’

  ‘She supervises my work in the house.’ Her tone was resentful.

  James said, ‘Her husband is a successful businessman, they say.’

  She nodded. ‘He is planning to buy another property in the town, so he must be.’

  Again, James felt his inadequacies. But determined to press on, he said, ‘I wondered if we might walk together of an evening here. Or elsewhere?’

  Turning, she looked directly into his eyes. Hers were so large and dark that they seemed to be her only feature, and they seemed too to be assessing him, absorbing him, drawing him in towards her. He yearned to reach out and touch her, to hold her close to him, to protect her. But she looked away. ‘I cannot,’ she said, flatly.

  The words were like a slap. After a pause he said quietly, ‘May I ask why not? My intentions are entirely honourable, I assure you.’

  Swivelling around towards him, she again fixed him with that penetrating gaze. ‘I will tell you then.’ There was a pause, and he could see her chest rising and falling as she took breath to compose herself. And when she spoke, she did so slowly, choosing her words with obvious care. ‘You are, I am sure, an honest person. You are kind, and strong and hard-working.’ James felt his pulse quicken. Then came the blows, like a hammer on an anvil. ‘But you are a shop-worker. And you have no … prospects, I think that is the word.’ She paused before adding, ‘So you can offer me nothing.’ Her eyes still fixed on his, she spoke quietly but with obvious feeling. ‘I have been poor, and I am poor still. But I have a determination not to be poor for the rest of my life. I have my own plans for the future.’ She tilted her head slightly. ‘And I do not wish to be poor. Can you understand that?’

  He made no reply. He still felt like holding her, but now he felt like crushing her. Because of the penetrating impressions of him that she had so quickly formed, because of the cruel truth of her words, because he had no answer to what she had stated. Standing up, she drew her cape around herself. ‘Now I must go back. Goodbye.’

  And she was away, walking down the track in small, quick steps, without a backward glance.

  He spent some time sitting on the seat, staring down at the town but seeing nothing but her face; listening for night sounds that might distract him but hearing nothing except her accusations; seeking excuses but feeling nothing except the lash of her words. Then, at last, he got up and began to walk back down the path to the town.

  For the following two days he did nothing but go about his usual business: working by day in the shop, eating the meals Mrs Sanderson prepared for him, reading by candlelight and falling asleep in the small hours on the palliasse. But during that time the accusatory sting of her words did not lessen and nor did the vivid image he had of her. By the third night he knew he had to see her once more. He would tell her that he did have a plan for the future, that when he had finished his grocery apprenticeship he would make an offer of his savings to William Sanderson so that he could become a part-owner of the shop. This would demonstrate that his prospects were not unfavourable, that he meant business.

  The Acklam house was near the top of Church Street, a sturdy, two-storeyed brick-and-stone building whose front entrance opened directly onto the street. There were large leadlight windows with white-painted frames on either side of the front door. A narrow lane ran beside the house, running into the neighbouring street, Seaton Garth, and James approached the house via the lane. The rear area of the Acklam property was enclosed by a high wooden fence into which was set a gate with an iron latch. The small windows at the side of the house, on both the ground floor and upper storey, were curtained and blank. He paused and stared up. Which room was Michela’s? There would be servants’ quarters surely, probably at the rear. And Mrs Acklam had said that the family was going away to Danby so Michela would be in there, alone he hoped.

  He emerged from the lane and walked out onto Church Street. A faint light showed through the curtains which covered the window to the left of the front door. He approached the house and went to the window. Although the curtains were heavy, there was a slight gap in the centre where they had not quite come together. James thought that he would raise the knocker in the centre of the front door. Then he hesitated, and instead put one eye to the not-quite-joined curtains.

  Peering into the drawing room, he saw that the light came from a circular candelabrum fixed to a bracket beside a small fireplace, assisted a little by the glow from the dying embers of the fire itself. These two sources were insufficient to shed light on the entire room, yet strong enough to show the two figures on the large rug in front of the fire, one large, the other much smaller.

  Samuel Acklam lay on his back, spreadeagled, his bare arms and legs flung wide, mouth agape; Michela was sitting on him, legs apart, hands flat against his chest. Her head was tipped back and she was rocking back and forth, her naked back and buttocks luminescent in the flickering half-light. Around the pair, garments and undergarments were strewn across the floor: a gown, a vest, hose, a wig, waistcoat, a pair of breeches.

  Simultaneously transfixed and repelled by the sight, James’s eyes were for some moments riveted to the tableau. The full realization of what he was witnessing struck him like a lightning bolt. I have my own plans for the future. He turned away and put his forearm across his eyes. Scheming, treacherous little vixen. He dropped to his knees and remained briefly in that position. Then he stood up and ran, past the house, down the lane to Seaton Garth and from there along the High Street to the quay. Beside the boat harbour he stopped, his breath burning in his throat. There was a strong, cold wind blowing from the north-east, bearing the scent of the sea, and he crouched at the harbour edge for some time, drawing in the salty smell, using the coldness of the sea wind to dispel the loathsome image from his consciousness. I have my own plans for the future. Yes, as a rich man’s doxy. Well, good luck to you, Michela, he thought bitterly. But, in a way, he also knew that what she had done had helped him come to a decision. Even before he reached the shop, he knew what he would do.

  ‘Mr Sanderson?’

  ‘James. Hello.’

  ‘Can I speak with you, sir?’

  ‘Of course. Please be seated.’

  There were two padded chairs under the bay window in the parlour. James took one, Mr Sanderson the other. The shop-owner steepled his hands as he looked quizzically at his apprentice.

  ‘Well? You wish to borrow another book?’

  James shook his head. ‘It is another matter I wish to discuss, sir.’ He drew a very deep breath, then continued. ‘I am not convinced that the grocery trade is one I am best suited to.’

  Mr Sanderson sat up. ‘Really? Why so?’

  ‘I feel that a life spent working indoors is not what I wish to do, sir. I have developed other ambitions, and they do not include selling cheese to housewives and ribbons to old ladies.’ He looked directly into the shop-owner’s eyes. ‘So I wish to be released from my apprenticeship.’

  The creases on William Sanderson’s brow deepened. Leaning forward, he said, ‘Are you certain about this?’

  ‘I am
, sir. My mind is made up.’

  Clearly displeased, Sanderson asked, scathingly, ‘And what is your alternative, lad? Returning to Ayton?’ He flicked up his eyebrows. ‘Working in an alum mine?’

  James continued to look at him levelly. ‘No, sir. I have no wish to be a farm labourer. Or a miner either.’ He hesitated for just a moment, then declared: ‘I intend to go to sea.’

  Three

  AGAIN HE SAID HIS FAREWELLS, to his parents and John, Christiana, Margaret and little William. It was the end of October, 1746. This time there was more of a sadness about the family, he sensed, as he bid each of them goodbye. It was as if they thought he was volunteering for war. This displeased him. He knew they did not really approve of his giving up the grocery trade and moving to Whitby. Taking up a seaman’s apprenticeship? The decision baffled them. No one, on either side of their family, had ever gone to sea. His mother had said, her face crumpled with worry, ‘But the sea’s such a dangerous place to go, Jimmy. The German Ocean especially.’

  But his mind was made up. Knowing that William Sanderson had ship-owning friends in Whitby, he had asked his former employer to recommend him to them as a prospective apprentice merchant seaman. At first Sanderson had suggested that, if he wished to make his living from the sea, he stay in Staithes and obtain work as a fisherman. But James had dismissed this idea, arguing that a coble was a boat, not a ship. Real ships he had seen from the clifftop above Staithes, colliers under full sail, making their voyages north to the river Tyne or south to the port of London. And he had learned that these ships were based in Whitby. Sanderson had then relented, informing James that he would send a letter of recommendation to his friends there, ship-owning brothers John and Henry Walker. During their discussion, James made no mention of his other reason for wishing to be quit of Staithes. That humiliating fact was a secret he would share with no other person.