Claim the Kingdom

by John Fletcher

  Birkett’s face turned a dull red. He took a step backwards.

  Cash nodded to him grimly. ‘Farmers know how to use their hands. And their fists. Remember that.’

  He turned away again, this time without interference, and smiled down at Jane. ‘Shall we?’

  They lined up with the rest.

  There was a hint of a smile as she studied him. ‘Are you a violent man, Mr Tremain?’

  ‘Only sometimes.’

  ‘Would you have hit him?’

  ‘We shall never know, shall we?’

  ‘I would not have blamed you.’

  ‘Others might, of course.’

  Her eyes met his. ‘He is also a man with hands,’ she said cryptically.

  ‘But not fists.’

  ‘It seems not.’

  They separated.

  Later, she said thoughtfully to him, ‘And eyes, of course.’

  He had forgotten her earlier remark. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Thomas Birkett. A man with hands and eyes. And neither of them ever in the right place.’

  Cash was at a loss how to reply so said nothing.

  Jane smiled. ‘One would not always object so much, of course. Depending …’

  ‘Depending on what?’

  ‘Why, on the man, of course.’

  And met his eyes for the second time.

  The evening passed swiftly. The candlelight lay over the room, forgiving the drab, enhancing the beautiful, rendering the gracious even more pleasing. Jane clung close. Cash sensed that Elizabeth Hagwood would have liked to separate them but she herself was the focus of a great deal of attention and had little time to spare for anyone else. It suited him. Jane had an arrogant way about her that jarred at times but for the most part her sharp sense of humour made her stimulating company.

  ‘It is very warm,’ he suggested after a while.

  ‘Extremely warm,’ Jane agreed. Like most of the ladies, she had her fan. She waved it gently at the air before her face.

  ‘Would you care for a breath of evening air?’

  ‘Perhaps we could stand on the verandah for a moment.’

  There would be others out there. There had to be; they both knew eyes would have marked them already. Whatever their preferences, they daren’t disappear together, not in this society.

  They walked on to the verandah.

  *

  Jonathan Hagwood had planned to sound out Silas Pike about the Tremains’ visit but it seemed that Pike had sent an apology to the governor explaining that work on Centaur’s damaged rudder prevented his attendance tonight.

  Like the veto on trade, it was a minor irritant, no more. He already knew how he was going to get around the veto and he would make sure he kept in contact with Pike during the two or three days it would take to set up the new arrangements.

  The unexpected arrival of the Spanish ships had given him the opportunity to attend to another matter. After the formal introductions were over, he sought out Don Allessandro and had a quiet and highly satisfactory conversation with him while the band chirruped and blared in the background and the sets of the dancers formed and reformed under the fluttering candlelight.

  *

  There were others on the verandah, as Cash and Jane had anticipated. They stood among them, looking up at the three-quarters moon riding high amid a faint fluff of cloud. Reflections glistened on the still water and on the far side of the harbour the outline of the hills was faintly visible against the sky.

  ‘You were saying this is now home to you,’ she said, resting her hand on his arm. He felt the weight of her slender fingers through the cloth of his coat.

  ‘I did not say so but I think it may be.’

  ‘Shall you never go back to England?’

  He smiled in the darkness. ‘I arrived two days ago. Do you really wish to see the back of me so soon?’

  ‘It’s only that everything is so different here.’ She looked up at the heavens. ‘Even the stars are different.’

  ‘I was thinking how nothing seems different at all. Apart from the stars, of course.’ He half-turned, her hand still on his arm, and looked through the door at the pirouetting figures of the dancers in the room they had just left. ‘It could be England, could it not?’

  ‘I suppose …’

  They turned back to the railing and looked out once again at the cove shining silver under the moon. A little way off, they could hear in the darkness the stream running down the hill.

  ‘Do you miss England so much?’ Cash asked.

  ‘Sometimes for the sake of the company. It is very limited here, as I’m sure you know already. Other than that, not at all.’

  ‘But you will return there in due course? When your father’s tour of duty is completed?’

  ‘Of course.’ She looked up at him and the moonlight was white on her face. ‘What else should I do?’

  *

  A waiter told Jonathan there was a man waiting to see him.

  ‘In the garden, sir. He said he would wait for you under the trees near the gate.’

  It must be Thornton’s messenger, he supposed. But to come here, to Government House … Frowning with annoyance, he went out and down the steps. He walked towards the clump of trees and saw the messenger only at the last moment when he stepped from the shadows.

  Startled, he took a quick pace backwards.

  ‘Good God, man, you made me jump! What do you want?’

  The man was middle-aged, hang-dog, suspicious. ‘You Lieutenant Hagwood?’

  ‘Of course. What do you want?’

  Red-veined eyes watched the shadowy corners of the garden. ‘Got a message for you.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘From Mr Thornton, like.’

  ‘Go on, then.’ Impatiently. ‘Give it to me.’

  The man dropped his voice. Jonathan leant closer. Fetid breath blew in his face. ‘He says to tell you Pike’s done a deal with Tremain’s son. They’ll be taking on cargo in the next day or two for the Cape.’

  Jonathan’s green eyes hardened. ‘When do they leave?’

  The messenger shook his head. ‘Didn’ say nuthin’ ’bout that.’

  Jonathan straightened, anger beating in his veins. He pulled a coin from his fob and slipped it into the man’s hand. ‘Another time, don’t come to Government House. Wait for me outside.’

  The man’s cracked lips parted in a sly grin. ‘Bless you, master, there aren’t nobody with eyes sharp enough to see me.’

  Jonathan stared superciliously. ‘You think so? And the man who brought me the message? What about him?’

  ‘’e didn’t see me, neither.’ He winked. ‘Knows better ’n to open his mouth, see? You’re safe enough, master. Don’ you worry nuthin’ about that.’

  A flicker of shadow and the man was gone.

  Jonathan straightened his coat as he walked slowly back towards the house. The lights and increasing noise of the party spilled through the windows and open doors, but here in the garden the shadows lay silently about him. A cooler air breathed faintly from the cove, bringing with it the smell of the water, the taint of sewage. The tide must be out.

  Jonathan’s anger mounted with every step. So Pike is dealing with the Tremains, is he? When he and I had been talking?

  He reached the foot of the steps. The close smell of the gathering came out to meet him.

  No one doublecrosses me, by God. We’ll have to do something about Silas Pike. The Tremains, too, while we’re about it. Knock the competition over before they do the same to us.

  He walked swiftly up the steps. The sentry stamped his feet and saluted, the white pipe clay of his crossbelts gleaming. Jonathan acknowledged him with a preoccupied lift of the hand and walked inside.

  *

  ‘Glass of wine?’ Cash asked Jane.

  She nodded in assent. ‘Dancing makes one thirsty, does it not?’

  ‘And it’s a warm evening,’ Cash said, bringing the conversation back to its starting point.

>   ‘Very warm.’

  They went back into the reception room.

  *

  Jack had managed to escape from the Spaniard shortly after Cash. Now he was at a loose end, knowing no one in a crowd of strangers who all seemed to know one another. He looked for Cash but couldn’t see him. Reverend Pearse was on the other side of the room but he wanted no more one-sided conversations with him. He beckoned to a waiter.

  ‘A rum,’ he said. ‘A big one. Quick as you can.’

  ‘Sir.’

  Comforting glass in hand, he sipped and surveyed the room.

  The band continued to persevere against a rising tide of conversation and laughter. The dancers pirouetted, pointed their toes, curtsied and moved on. Those not dancing stood in groups, talking and watching. The candlelight shed a fluttering yellow glow on the uniforms of the men, the bare shoulders of the women.

  The noise will be audible all over the settlement, he thought. To the sailors on board the vessels in the cove. To the sentries. To the men and women in the huts and barracks, some facing punishment in the morning, some recovering – or not – from punishment already administered, some planning escape.

  Gwen will be hearing it, too, he thought.

  The waiter was at his elbow. He turned.

  ‘Refill, sir?’

  He looked at his glass. He had drained it without knowing. He was on the verge of refusing, then changed his mind. ‘Thank you.’

  We couldn’t make a definite time, he thought. She will still be waiting. Still hoping. How long, he wondered, before hope dies? Before she realises I am not coming?

  She will think everything I said was a lie.

  As everything she had said to him had been a lie. Strange how the thought seemed to make no difference to his feelings. Almost no difference.

  He remembered his first sight of her in Plymouth. Most of the convicts had been put on board before the passengers but four had been held back for some reason and arrived at the ship only half an hour before sailing. Gwen had been the only woman among them, which was why he had noticed her. He had not known her name, had known nothing about her, only that she was a convict and young, about sixteen. He had seen her face as she looked up at the sides of the vessel that would be taking her to the other side of the world. The prospect must have been frightening yet she had not seemed frightened. There had been a serenity in her face even then. Perhaps that was what had first caught his attention, someone seeming so untroubled in such a situation. There had been no sudden twist of the heart, no intuition that she would become important to him. That had come later.

  He had not even wanted her. That, too, had come later, when Bellona was at sea. At first he had mistaken the feeling for the desire he felt for all reasonably personable women – the libido that was his inheritance and his curse.

  His last woman had been just before sailing, some drab he had picked up outside a tavern a short distance from the ship’s berth. She had been not too old, not too dirty, not too ugly. Within an hour her features had become vague to him, one more on the seemingly endless list of encounters over which his conscience wrestled so painfully.

  A month from Plymouth, desire gnawing at him.

  The weather was warmer and for the first time the convicts were allowed on deck in small groups to breathe the sea air while their quarters were fumigated with vinegar. There had been no serious attempt to segregate the prisoners from the other passengers. Jack had singled her out and discovered for the first time that she was Cornish, too.

  And so one thing leading to the next – lust to interest, interest to liking, liking to …

  He remembered for the thousandth time what his father had said about her. How could my instincts have been so wrong? In some way she has bewitched me, he thought – knowing what she was like, knowing her background, and still wanting her.

  Not merely physically. Oh yes, that too. That very much. But far more than that. That was why he had told his father, in anger and in pain, that he wanted both Gwen and her brother … her brother her companion her man her procurer her pander her pimp to work at the farm with him. Knowing it was impossible and still saying it. Knowing that his father would refuse and still saying it, aching for her, aching … and angry too.

  The anger was very bad and he knew something would have to be done about it. But not with Gwen, he thought. Never with Gwen. No matter what lies she told. Never with Gwen.

  He tipped the rest of the rum down his throat. The air was oppressive, the noise was oppressive, the crowded room filled him with a sudden claustrophobia. He turned, pushed his way to the door and went out into the night.

  He stood at the foot of the steps, breathing in the salt and weedy smell of the cove, hearing or imagining the distant rumble of the ocean at the Heads.

  He staggered under the impact of a sudden, violent blow to his back and, turning, took a punch full in the face.

  *

  Thomas Birkett had had a disappointing evening.

  He had enjoyed great expectations of the visit of the Spaniards. Unfortunately, although he had taken the trouble to introduce himself to their commander while he was talking with the governor, he had found his reception less welcoming than he had expected. The Dago had asked him a few questions about plants and animals but when he had made it plain he knew nothing about such things and cared less the two men had stared at him as though wondering what he was doing there.

  And the dancing.

  He took another drink and looked about him, brow lowering. You could expect better at the village hall. It wasn’t surprising. That was where the majority of the people here would have been, back in England.

  The colony was proving even worse than he had feared. He had thought he had been making some progress with the sow-breasted Elinor Goodall until the arrival of the ensign to whom she had apparently promised most of the dances. And when he had managed to get her on the floor, he had found she had as little grace as she had conversation.

  He was wasted here.

  And that young ruffian Tremain …

  Thomas had brooded over his insult for the whole evening. Like it or not, it was inevitable that in a place as small as this the two of them would be continually meeting. He must make Tremain realise that he could not insult Thomas Birkett with impunity.

  He could see him now on the other side of the room, his head lowered as he talked with the other girl who had been in Elizabeth Hagwood’s party this evening. The better looking girl of the two and heavens knew infinitely more intelligent than Elinor Goodall. He’d had his eye on her himself until Tremain had butted in and walked away with her. He didn’t imagine she would have been very pleased about that.

  He considered going over to them now, having it out with him, man to man. He had another drink while he thought about it and when at last he put down his glass the two of them had vanished.

  As well, perhaps. It didn’t do to get involved with the peasantry. Annoying, all the same, and some part of his mind was still asking why the young ruffian should be allowed to get away with it.

  More drinks, more brooding, and then, just before supper, he caught sight of Tremain’s back, the grey frock coat and long black hair unmistakable as he walked out of the room and down the steps. He knew suddenly that now was the time to speak to him, out there under the starry sky, and he hurried after him, afraid Tremain would slip away from him again.

  He came up with him a few yards from the foot of the steps, put up his hand to grasp his shoulder, stumbled and half fell into the back of the man he was pursuing. Tremain swung around and Thomas thought I’ll have to deal with him first, before he tries to make good his promise, and …

  … hit him.

  He stood over him, swaying, waving his fists threateningly, daring him to get up and fight, and the man at his feet rolled over and started to get to his feet. And Thomas realised he’d hit the wrong man.

  *

  In the end it was all sorted out without bloodshed. Birkett was clearly drunk
. The blow had caught Jack off-balance rather than actually hurt him. Birkett had grudgingly obeyed the governor’s furious order to apologise. The incident was closed.

  Except, of course, that it wasn’t. Such behaviour would give the colony something to talk about for days. Birkett was clearly in the wrong but there would be those who would wonder if he had not been provoked, those who would remember that Thomas Birkett was, after all, the son of a baronet, and the question mark that had always stood over Gough Tremain and his who-gives-a-damn conduct would be reinforced and broadened to include his sons.

  Lawless, turbulent, almost-convicts … Gentry, so they say. But from Cornwall, my dear. Bad blood there. Jane Somers’ remark, had she thought to repeat it, would have had added significance.

  Are you a violent man, Mr Tremain?

  Oh yes.

  *

  Jack first thought of going back to the cottage then changed his mind and continued along the path around the breast of the hill.

  His heart beat suffocatingly in his throat.

  He had come this way the night after their arrival. He knew now how lucky he had been not to be shot. That wouldn’t be a problem today; his father had told him what to do if he were challenged again. Stand his ground and give his name, clearly and quietly, so that the sentry understood.

  When he had turned his back on the governor’s house and stalked off into the night he had not known where he was going, only that he could not contemplate going back into that hot, overcrowded atmosphere. People had suggested he should come back inside, have another drink, have something to eat, but he had refused with less courtesy than the well-intentioned suggestions had warranted.

  The brawl with Thomas Birkett – more of a misunderstanding, really – had heightened the revulsion he felt for himself and for the whole colony. Disgust, anger and the old sex-itch that had returned in full measure, inflamed beyond bearing by the idiotic clash: a hotchpotch of violent emotions that caused him now to stride out along the path with no idea where he was headed or why.