Easton

by Paul Butler

“Title page?”

  “Oh come, sir, your blushes betray you.”

  George thinks for a moment and decides he has no choice but to take the plunge.

  “She was trying to warn us. Both of us. She reads and writes, you know,” he adds eagerly. “She’s just as civilized as we are.”

  “I hardly think so, sir.” A look of outrage comes into Whitbourne’s face and passes just as quickly leaving only withering scorn. “Continue,” he orders folding his arms and waiting for the full story.

  George sighs. “Her name is Jemma.”

  “Spare me such embellishments and kindly tell me what you have been doing.”

  George falters. A sudden rush of anger almost finds voice, although he is not even sure of its shape or meaning. Whitbourne seems unbearably smug to him all of a sudden, a counterfeit Solomon passing judgment on issues of which he knows nothing.

  George swallows and clasps his hands together.

  “She used the page to write a message,” he says. “She does not believe the meat we have been eating is pork.”

  “She does not believe it is pork,” Whitbourne repeats as if it were a riddle which might yield a true meaning the second time around.

  “And nor do I,” asserts George. “Sir, Easton is tricking us every step of the way,” he pursues. “He has tricked us into being on his side against the British navy. He has tricked us into accepting murder. And now he is tricking us into cannibalism.”

  “Cannibalism?” Whitbourne repeats, his brow knotted. “Explain yourself, sir.”

  “The meat we have been eating is Lieutenant Baxter. The body we buried at sea was someone or something else.”

  Whitbourne merely stares at him without movement or change of expression for a full five seconds. When he speaks it is more of a breath than anything. “Have you gone insane?”

  George can think of no reply and eventually Whitbourne sighs and rises slowly. He looks down at George almost as though afraid of him. “You have been too long away from England. I see that now,” he says in short, whispered syllables. “It has affected your mind.”

  He takes a step backward and turns around, looking at the porthole. He sighs again as though giving his troubles to the sky. “I will have to inform Easton of your malady.”

  “No!” cries George, leaping like an enormous dog at the admiral. Whitbourne spins around. George’s grabs onto the cloth of Whitbourne’s tunic. “He will kill us both!” George cries.

  Whitbourne continues to back away, his eyes wide, his fingers trying to prise George’s hands from his clothes. “Control yourself!” he commands.

  George obeys and lets his hands slip away. Whitbourne backs off into the far corner.

  “You must not tell him,” George whispers, sinking hopelessly onto his bed. “You cannot. He will kill Jemma for sure and he will kill me.”

  There is another silence.

  “I will make a deal with you,” says Whitbourne still in shock and breathing heavily. “I will hold off telling Easton. For the while at least. But you must do your part.”

  “What is it?” asks George warily.

  “Stop talking to the slave. Your mind is fevered already and she is making it worse.”

  George doesn’t answer at first. He looks up at Whitbourne who stands in the corner. Then he nods slightly as though in agreement.

  “Remember who she is, boy. A slave with no name. Her mind is a cesspool of savagery and ignorance. Whatever Easton is or has done he is still a former commander of the English Crown. Now who out of those two characters is the notion of cannibalism a more likely fit? How ironic you should take the word of such a creature and foist her own depravities on one of your own race. ”

  George says nothing but allows his silence to mean acquiescence.

  “You are far from home and vulnerable to such nonsense,” Whitbourne continues, his tone almost comforting. “You are not the first to fall into such grotesque imaginings. Nor are you the first to sink so low as to take comfort from the sight of the savage female.” He pauses and takes the few paces toward George. “But you must take a grip on yourself and remember who you are.” He puts his hand on George’s shoulder. “You are betrothed to a woman of unquestioned virtue and decent lineage. Now remember that. Remember Rosalind.”

  Chapter Ten

  George sits motionless on the edge of the bed for some time after Whitbourne leaves. The sound of the baby’s wailing starts again. The other voices return also; one woman crying, the other cooing in dove-like comfort.

  George again thinks of his foolish outburst of yesterday. May you and your evil practices go straight to hell. The words reverberate in his skull, and now they are laced with the infant’s cries. The two combine into a potent mockery.

  Yet there is a puzzle still. Why should the woman—Jemma’s sister—be crying now that the child is born?

  He decides that this time he will give himself up to the mystery of it all. A woman’s world is an impenetrable maze of shadows and veils. He would be wise to keep to the one certainty of which he can be sure—he knows nothing.

  The day begins to darken, turning the sky seen through the little porthole into a crisp, starry blue. Then a cloud the colour of charcoal appears, a fiery crimson seam running through it at the thinnest point. George stands and approaches for a better look. Thunder begins to growl far off in the heavens. The movement of the ship alters; it begins to sway rapidly as though under the influence of shallow but fast moving waves.

  George peers through the partly open porthole and breathes the fast rushing air. The cloud bloats like living smoke from a cannon of the gods. Dark hair-like strands of vapour fall into the distant rolling waters.

  There is a tingle in the air; the atmosphere smells of lightning.

  A knock sounds on the door. This time George daren’t hope.

  “Come,” he says despondently. Whitbourne puts his head around the cabin door.

  “Easton requires our presence at dinner tonight,” the admiral says.

  The thunder grumbles more fiercely.

  Easton’s face is flushed and excited. There is that strange dampness around his lips George has noticed before. “To the tropics, gentlemen,” Easton says, raising his glass, “to the land of gold, and slaves, and discovery.”

  “To the tropics,” Whitbourne echoes enthusiastically.

  An aching sensation passes through George’s stomach as he takes a sip. He wonders what the admiral is planning. Did Whitbourne prevent Jemma from coming to his cabin just now? Did he send her back in order to give the summons himself? George thinks of how he will have to sneak around in order to steal a glance or a word from her. He watches her now by the side table. He can see the right side of her face as she reaches for a wine jug, but her expression gives little away. He feels as if she were herself a liquor from which he can draw the courage and ease of mind he needs. The idea of not being able to talk to her has become intolerable.

  There is a crack of lightning. Suddenly the decks start clattering as if through a hail of stones. The sound reverberates from all around, tapping on the cabin’s roof as well.

  Easton smiles. The ship lurches a little to port.

  “Neptune’s silver arrows!” he says, leaning back and breathing deeply. “They sound fierce, but here they are warm and sweet. This is my favourite region in all the world, sirs, full of the most volatile, intemperate of humours, full of rewards for those who dare to risk. When I am in the tropics, I act like its weather. I am sudden and unpredictable.”

  “What is it you plan to do in the tropics, sir?” Whitbourne asks.

  “To show my good friends its wonders,” Easton replies. “I have taken Spanish gold here, and I have taken slaves. But it is more than mere coinage that beckons me back. I want to take enough to build a kingdom—not just in gold, but in the blood and fibre of men. I still have high hopes you gentlemen will join me.”

  The thunder rolls and crashes again. The ship sways and the rain continues to clatter.

/>   George watches Jemma by the serving table, her back turned against them. Her movements are as graceful and considered as the weather is fierce.

  “Nothing would give us greater pleasure, sir,” Whitbourne replies. “But there are alas impediments of honour, obligations which cannot be broken, however tempting and however noble the inducements.”

  Whitbourne seems, to George, surprisingly composed. And Easton merely smiles in mild regret, as though accepting the answer.

  Then he looks at George.

  “And what of you, young sir?” he asks, taking him off guard. George has to pull his gaze away from Jemma again. “Is there nothing here to induce you to stay in my company? Nothing that overrides your duty to the cold northern outpost to which fate has so far bound you?”

  Jemma moves like a noiseless shadow toward the table with a plate of meat; it’s the white flesh of a bird this time. George barely has time to form an answer before Whitbourne breaks in.

  “Our young friend has the most profound of all obligations, one soon to be witnessed by God and the Church.” Whitbourne’s eyes flit briefly to Jemma as she lays the meat on the table. “Next spring he returns to England to marry into a noble Devonshire family, the Granthams.”

  George shrinks into his chair and daren’t look at Jemma. He was foolish not to have considered this possibility. From the corner of his eye, he can detect no special reaction from her apart from an unnatural stillness.

  “Indeed,” Easton replies with a courteous nod to George. “Then we must drink also to the happiness of such a desirable union!”

  George coughs, tries to smile and fumbles for his goblet stem. Now, as he raises his glass, he does notice Jemma. She takes a step back from the table as though distracted, then returns and places the serving fork into the stack of meat as is the custom. She backs away from the dining table then, clutching her skirts with her fists, turns and strides quickly toward the serving hatch. She scrambles through and the door closes after her with a clunk.

  Easton turns.

  “Your servant appears to have left us,” Whitbourne says casually. He gives George an accusing look over the candles.

  “I must apologize for her,” Easton replies with a shrug. “She has been acting as midwife for her sister. I have no proper doctor in my little fleet and now I fear the poor woman may not survive.”

  George looks up, startled.

  “A difficult birth?” asks Whitbourne, lowering some slices of meat with the fork onto his plate.

  “Some of them have a hard time, especially when they are brought into warmer climes. This one has been mourning for home—perhaps you have heard her weeping—all through the pregnancy. It has been doing her spirits no end of harm.”

  “And the father?” Whitbourne asks, flashing a stare at George.

  “He is on one of my other ships. A competent enough sailor. But he will pay little heed if I were to bring him aboard the Happy Adventure. You see,” Easton takes another sip of wine. “These people have no concept or understanding of parenthood or marriage. Indeed,” he continues in a lower voice, “it is a well-known truth that many of the heathen in Africa eat their own young. It is said to give strength and potency to the men of a village.” Easton wipes him mouth with the kerchief and forks another piece of meat onto his plate. “You would be astounded at the barbarity of which they are capable.”

  George stares at the table, feeling sick and oppressed. Easton rises and goes over to the serving table himself. He picks up a fresh wine jug and returns.

  “You must forgive my servant her lapse and let me see to your needs myself,” he says, refilling George’s cup. As Easton moves around the table with the jug, George looks up and catches Whitbourne’s expression. It is smug and triumphant. George knows for certain it will be futile to try to persuade him Easton is lying.

  The ocean grumbles and roars, answering the sky’s thunder. The cabin creaks, and a vague rolling sound comes from below, perhaps a cannon not properly secured. George cannot rest and knows he must act and act on his own; Whitbourne is no longer an ally. The pistol is still on the table, loaded. His sword and holster hang on the wall. The few possibilities flick through his mind like playing cards in mid-shuffle, none of them staying long enough to settle: kill Easton; wait until the ship is near land and escape; find an outpost of the British navy and tell them about Easton; escape with Jemma; escape with all of them—Jemma, her sister and the child; throw themselves on the mercy of whatever sun-scorched, treacherous shores they find.

  All of these choices are terrifying. But he knows he must take one. If he tries to escape with Jemma and her forlorn little family, he cannot seek out the navy. Jemma and her sister would be mere chattel to them. In any case, there is no protection he could seek that would not cower from the sight of Easton’s fleet should he come after. Whitbourne capitulated. So did Pym. Why would any navy outpost in the tropics be more valiant or well armed?

  But would Easton come after him? For some reason, as yet still obscure, the presence of the admiral and George is clearly important to him. What would Easton do if he caught him? He can almost feel the cold steel slice through his neck. He imagines his carcass strung up headless, bleeding, awaiting a clay oven or spit. He sees Whitbourne dining with good humour, supping wine and eating fresh meat with verve. He imagines Easton leaning across the table explaining that he had little choice but to kill the young captain, then asking Whitbourne how he is enjoying the young pig they managed to procure.

  But it is no longer merely escape that George wants, even in the face of such danger. Whitbourne’s announcement at dinner and Jemma’s reaction has changed that. At the thought of Jemma, George’s body experiences a very different sensation from the fear of a moment ago—something warm and gushing, an oasis all the more sweet because of the fires of constant worry that surround it. Perhaps it is mere vanity to think himself the cause of Jemma’s grief at dinner. Perhaps she was merely worried about her sister and this is what carried her away from the table so suddenly.

  But George hopes her sister was not the real reason she left. And obviously Whitbourne did not think so, otherwise he would not have looked over the candles at George with such accusation. Nor would he have chosen that moment, if he had thought her impervious, to break the news of George’s engagement.

  George feels suddenly elated at the near-certainty of it. And at the same time the dark side of Whitbourne’s judgment forces itself into his mind. What if he is right? What if Jemma, graceful and honest though she seems, is actually the very soul of depravity, a demon incarnate? Might she not practice devilry and cannibalism, but have such wiles and subtlety that she is able to deflect her horrors onto Easton? Perhaps this is part of her magic.

  A picture forces itself into his brain of Jemma tying Baxter’s hair to a nail on the wall while mumbling some heathen spell. He remembers how convincing she was when telling George that it is Easton and not her who performs such outrages. How devilish indeed if she were able to lie so well!

  George sits very still now, allowing such thoughts to enter and play out their horrible permutations. He remembers Whitbourne’s words about how long he has spent away from the company of women, how vulnerable he is. He thinks of Whitbourne’s vastly greater experience. He has been to the tropics before while George has not. He must have encountered African slaves at close quarters before while George has not. He even relives the admiral’s announcement at dinner, the timing of it, designed to warn Jemma off as though George were a newborn lamb and Jemma an eagle circling for the kill. George is almost touched by the fatherly concern it implies.

  George remains motionless, perched on the end of the bed, letting the thoughts race and spiral to their natural end. It is true that his belief in Jemma makes no sense. Whitbourne is right about that; his interest in the slave is unseemly enough and against his nature. The admiral’s warning is entirely logical. And he has often thought how he wanted to be like Whitbourne, a man of standing and respectability. He wanted a
fleet of his own or a home commission with the Admiralty. He wanted to have a wife like Rosalind Grantham.

  He can see the whole thing through Whitbourne’s eyes. His passion for the slave must surely seem some kind of madness, a fancy which will be swept away at the first sign of home. What if a British frigate were to rescue them? What then? Would Rosalind not come sharply back into focus? Would the image of the slave not disappear? Would he not laugh her off as one does a fantastic nightmare? “Last night I dreamt I was in love with an African slave,” he imagines himself saying to his friends in London in the public house close to his lodgings. “I dreamt I wanted to bring her home to England and marry her instead of my Rosalind.”

  He can imagine the guffaws and mad banging of tankards upon the table. The whole affair would be neatly swept away like an overly-raucous joke, and all would be forgiven. “We all become a little unhinged on our first trips to the tropics,” he imagines Whitbourne saying to him while he puts a comforting hand across his shoulders. “I remember one time...” the admiral would then go on to relate something similar from his own experience.

  And surely there was some kind of wisdom in Whitbourne’s concern. What had he said? “You are not the first...”? Had it happened to him too then? And if so, did he not know for certain that it would pass? The idea is somehow terrifying, that he might be balancing on a delusion like a high wire performer at the Southwark Fair.

  A sickly sweat begins to drip down George’s neck at these thoughts. He knows them to be at least partly valid. He knows that Jemma would never fit into any aspect of the life he has known, that she would be the coarsest of jokes, the most clashing of incongruities. She would be a rusty nail in the finest of silks, a bawdy song in a church service. Yet his senses will not let her go. His attachment is rooted in the gentle-bold stare of her eyes; in the way she moves slowly yet precisely with her head to the side as she picks up a jug; in the way she challenges him with her indignation; in the way she calls him a fool to his face, yet seems almost tender as she does so. His senses are more real to him now than in a life which is floating further from him with every bob of the ship’s bow. His senses are the only things that, in potency, can match his fears. And of one thing he is certain. Easton is lying. He is lying about Baxter’s death. Why would he then not also be lying about the unhappy lieutenant’s dismemberment?