There was no doubting the leader and he did not have to speak; the quality of his clothing and appearance was enough: good linen, a long waistcoat of fine leather as well as a certain cast of features allied to his expression, the whole slightly gaudy and every inch the buccaneer in a showy, old-fashioned way. He came to the table with a straw-covered flagon of the local Tuscan wine as well as a goblet, which he filled, Gherson noting it was not offered to the others present who were now lined up behind him. When he sat down, Cornelius Gherson found himself facing a handsome, sharp-featured creature with a thin moustache over full lips, wearing the kind of smile that could be taken very easily as a threat.
‘Gherson?’
‘Yes.’
‘The name is Dutch.’
‘Was. I am English born, as was my sire.’ Gherson was vaguely sure he had seen this fellow and more than once, racking his brain to recall where and when without being able to pin it. ‘Occupation, captain’s clerk.’
‘King’s Navy, that says to me.’ Gherson nodded. ‘And what would a fellow of that occupation be doing hanging around in this part of Leghorn?’
‘Looking for employment.’ A raised dark eyebrow. ‘My ship was taken by the French, the captain killed—’
‘Barclay’s dead?’ Cole demanded.
‘He is.’
‘There is a God,’ was the opinion of Fred.
A sip of wine was taken. ‘My companions think you are a spy.’
‘Soon as I spotted him, Mr Senyard, as I told you.’
‘For the love of Christ, hold your tongue, Dan,’ snapped Cole.
Senyard’s eyes lifted to look over Gherson’s shoulder and they were angry, which could only be at the use of the name. This was a man who wished to remain anonymous if he could and that could mean many things, not least that the easiest way to deal with this snooping captain’s clerk would be to dispose of him. Did identification increase the risk?
‘I am without employment,’ Gherson croaked, all the saliva having gone from his mouth and throat. ‘With my employer gone and no one in the fleet seeking my services, I came looking for a berth that would suit my skills.’
‘Yet you did not think to identify yourself and ask?’ Senyard growled. ‘Instead you sat around with your ears pricked, or walked the quays looking at the boats and to what purpose.’ It was not a question. ‘What was it? Deserters? Information on the movements of the privateer vessels? Telling tales of what they brought in and from which captured vessels?’
‘None of those things,’ Gherson protested. ‘I did not ask because I reckoned strangers to be unwelcome.’
‘They are that,’ a new voice growled.
Cole again. ‘Right enough there, Cephas, as ever was.’
‘Employment, perhaps with figures, in which I have skill.’
‘Which passed on to the King’s Navy would be of some use.’
‘A service I hate,’ was the desperate reply.
‘A service in which you were employed and under no duress,’ Senyard insisted.
‘I rose to it from being pressed.’ Both eyebrows arched then, which had Gherson gabbling on about how he had got from that estate to serving as clerk to Ralph Barclay. ‘The captain needed someone to manage his logs and accounts. I was that man, and once he saw I could serve him proper—’
‘What does that mean?’ Senyard interrupted.
‘He required a clerk who could write up the lists in such a way that it was accounted for on paper.’
‘But?’
‘Not in truth. There was always a bit more. I did the same with his investments, but to my own advantage as well as his.’
The last part was said in slight desperation; these men existed on the very edge of legality. He needed to convince them of his own credentials in that area and it seemed to have some effect, for Senyard sat back and thought for several seconds, even taking a gulp of wine before responding.
‘So you are a thief?’
‘I look to my needs. That is why I came to seek employment in this part of the port, where I reckoned my skills would be most sought. I would not be so foolish as to behave in such a way with men of your stripe.’
The smile now was wolfish. ‘You admit to stealing from your past employer as a recommendation for looking to do likewise here?’
‘No!’ Gherson protested, realising the impression he had created was wrong. ‘I need paid employment so I can acquire the means to return home to England, which I presently lack.’
‘And the quickest way to get that is by theft.’
‘I would serve anyone who engaged me honestly.’
‘Then,’ Senyard snapped, ‘sell us out to the first bag of silver waved under your nose, perhaps by a King’s officer.’
‘No.’
‘I am wondering what to do with you, Gherson.’ Senyard lifted his gaze to look over his shoulder again at the quartet behind. ‘I cannot help but reckon my companions here, the ones who spotted you, have an easy solution.’
The ‘Right there, your honour’ was like a chorus.
‘Please,’ Gherson begged; he felt the warm wetness in his groin as he began to piss himself. ‘I have learnt nothing and will not seek to.’
‘It is lucky you are not dealing with one of the privateer captains, Gherson, for they would take you out to sea and lash you to a cannonball before dropping you overboard. I cannot doubt that you gleaned some knowledge of what goes on in our commonwealth, only I hope it is of no account.’
‘I know nothing.’
Senyard stood up. ‘There is not a man born who knows nothing, Gherson, and just so you should know that you are unwelcome in this part of Leghorn, as well as the fact that your services are not required—’
‘I was a sailor once and can be again. If my skills are rusty they will soon return.’
‘Your desperation is even less convincing than your previous denials. So, I hand you over to my companions, though I do not permit them to do as they would no doubt wish. It is, however, necessary that you go from whence you came with some feeling that to return would be unwise and perhaps it will be a message too, if some fool sent you. Peabody, Danvers, Brewer and Holder will want to let you know that treating them as if they do not exist can be painful.’
Why had he named them?
‘See, Gherson, now you know who they are as well as I. But I would abjure you to forget every name you have heard tonight, for if you are to be granted life, it is a gift only once in the giving. Do I make myself clear?’ The reply was an affirmative sob. ‘Gentleman, get this turd out of my presence.’
The hands that grabbed him were strong and they found it easy to drag a man too weak in fear to offer resistance. He was hauled out of the low door and back into the streets, their curses ringing in his ears. Pushed along until they found the spot they favoured, where there was moonlight by which to see, the first clout took him round the ear, this accompanied by a spat curse on the head of Ralph Barclay. A belt from a fist dropped Gherson to his knees. The blows and curses that followed literally rained down on him until he was on the ground, his hands over his hatless head, which turned fists to boots, a few of which got past his fingers.
‘Enough,’ Cole gasped.
A hand on his collar raised Gherson up to a half crouch, showing thickened lips, the upper one split and seeping blood. ‘He’s near whole, be nice to make a change to that pretty, sneering face of his.’
‘Let it rest, Dan.’ Cole said, crouching down. ‘Now get yourself out of this part of the port an’ don’t think to come back, for if you do it will be knives you’ll be facing, not fists and boots.’
The hand let go and Gherson fell to lie flat on the ground, aware of the pains he was suffering, as well as the sound of receding footsteps and jolly laughter. It was some time before he could raise himself up onto his knees, even longer to get to his feet. Staggering, he wandered for some time before he recognised the canal quay on which he had espied Emily Barclay, and that took him slowly, achingly, back t
o the room he had rented, a street away from the Naval Commissariat.
At this time of night few people were abroad, and none who made any attempt to look and see if he required help. Such creatures, in a port frequented by the Navy of His Britannic Majesty King George, were no strangers to drunken and bruised folk making their way with difficulty through the streets and alleys of their port city.
He was required to rap on the door of his lodgings, which brought the owner to the door and he at least, once he saw the state of his lodger, had compassion enough to heat some water on the fire and fetch it so Gherson could begin to clean away the blood that had now begun to dry and cake his wounds.
In his sea chest he had a small looking glass and that told him, albeit by candlelight, of the depth of the beating he had received, the whole made ten times more apparent in daylight when he woke after a troubled sleep: black eyes, swollen lips and lower jaw, as well as bruised hands lucky not to have broken fingers.
Gherson reckoned he required the services of a physician in order to ensure the wounds he had suffered were superficial, and that led to a question of affordability. It was only then, when he reached into his discarded coat, he realised that one of his assailants had filched his purse. He was penniless, without even the means to satisfy the bill for his accommodation.
The welling feeling of despair made him weep, which led to a quick and painful attempt to hide the wetness as well as the redness of his eyes when his kindly landlord brought him a breakfast of fresh bread, fruit and coffee, his enquiries as to the cause in a language not even Italian but a local dialect, waved away.
The food and coffee had an effect, it being enough to remind Gherson of the many times in his life, since he had been evicted from the family home in childhood, he had been bereft of the means to eat and lacking anywhere safe to lay his head. He had survived, often even prospered by the use of his wits and those he would need now more than ever.
He was in a foreign port and country with nothing. Somehow he must find a way back to England where the people who had prospered from his clever manipulations of Ralph Barclay’s investments would be duty-bound to care for him. The thought of how he had fooled Barclay in a way the old dolt had been unable to see cheered him up somewhat, though not enough to move without pain.
But it did, as he sat recalling his depredations, create the germ of a notion as to how he might get out of the bind he was now in.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Emily Barclay was entertaining, her guests the leading female lights of the small community of fellow Britons in Leghorn. Mrs Udeny, the wife of the consul, Mrs Pollard and her daughter, related to a leading Levant merchant, and most tellingly, Mrs Teale, spouse and helpmeet to the Anglican vicar – the person who seemed to hold the conscience of the expatriate community in her fat and reddened hands.
A lady of full proportions, those hands rested in her lap beneath a tellingly oversized bosom, one that seemed to have wandered downwards and far from its original location, while the jowly face and plump cheeks hinted at an inability to contain her appetites when it came to the local food. As of this moment, she was demolishing a substantial Italian pastry with some gusto.
This was in stark contrast to the others present, ladies who nibbled rather than ate, just as they sipped rather than drank the tea Emily had prepared, a rare treat in these climes. Mrs Udeny had a withered countenance to go with her innate mildness, as though the climate had drained from her any form of vital spirit. The Pollards had an air of beauty, the mother’s countenance somewhat faded, Caroline Pollard’s still in the process of formation, for she was as yet only sixteen.
Enquiries, discreet but well intentioned, had been made to the state of Emily’s health – in truth that meant the child – with various allusions to the questionable habits of the Irish doctor who lived hereabouts, known to consort with less than virtuous local women and be perhaps too fond of the wine flagon, a common slur now repeated by Mrs Teale in her carrying way.
‘But you have little choice, my dear Mrs Barclay, but to throw yourself into the hands of Monsieur Flaherty. The notion of an Italian attending to you in childbirth is too horrid to contemplate.’
The use of the French designation was a calculated insult from the woman who saw herself as the doyenne of the English community: the man was Irish to his fingertips.
‘I daresay, Mrs Teale, judging by the number of urchins running through the streets, that the locals have safe and well-tried methods of delivery.’
Miss Pollard blushed; such allusions were embarrassing. The other ladies were caught between the truth of what Emily was saying and the obvious fact that she had contradicted the vicar’s wife, something few dared to do in fear of being the butt of her barbs. Emily had spoken without giving such a matter thought and was required to hastily qualify her words. At all costs she must be seen as respectable by this group.
‘But of course, Mrs Teale, I bow to your superior wisdom.’
Murmurs of agreement followed that and the substantial bosom, magnified to deliver a rebuke, seemed to shrink as the lady’s eminence was acknowledged. She glanced out of the window and seemed to take on its view of the harbour as if seeking a like countenance on the figureheads of the warships at anchor, to which she was, though not to her face, often compared.
‘I may not be the one to have been here in residence the lengthiest, Mrs Barclay, but I judge myself to have a superior discernment of what is what.’
Mrs Pollard stiffened slightly; she had been here for two decades, fifteen years longer than Letitia Teale, spoke the local dialect fluently and had friends in Tuscan society. It had been she who had been seen as the person to pay attention to, long before the Reverend Mr Teale had landed on this shore to take over the English parish church of St George, a building not of the highest quality. That the usurpation of social superiority rankled was only rarely apparent, but that did not disguise the fact that it was prevalent.
Emily was metaphorically biting her tongue, trying to recall how she would have behaved in the past, for instance at the home of her parents. It would not have involved even dreaming of checking the words of an elder woman as well as the wife of a divine. She was also thinking the events of the last two and a half years had altered her and not necessarily, in the article of polite conversation, for the better. How much of that was down to her late husband, how much to John Pearce and his iconoclastic way, was moot.
‘It is such a pity that Sir William has departed for Naples,’ Mrs Udeny ventured. ‘He was such graceful company.’
‘Manners of a real gentleman,’ Mrs Pollard agreed, ‘though my husband has said on more than one occasion that his officers were prone to question his judgement.’
‘I always found him most pleasant to me,’ Caroline said, in a meek tone, suited to her years. ‘Like an uncle.’
The biting of tongue was necessary then. Emily knew more of Admiral Sir William Hotham than anyone else present, of his devious bordering on villainous nature, as well as what a certain officer thought of him, words that she could barely contemplate for the blasphemy, never mind mention in this company.
‘His officers would do well to mind their manners,’ Mrs Teale snorted. ‘I do not say that the Good Lord put Sir William in command, an act carried out by human hand, but it is surely the task of his inferiors to recall they are just that, in the eyes of the Admiralty and the Almighty.’
A meaningful glance was thrown at the teapot, one quickly picked up by Emily. The stipend received by the Teales for their ministry was not large, quite the opposite: it was not a living that could be said to be adequate and probably reflected Mr Teale’s standing in the church hierarchy. Tea, being expensive in England and even more so in Italy, was a luxury to which the divine and his wife could rarely rise.
She was hinting at a refill so the obligatory noises came from Emily, a bell was rung to order a fresh supply of means to infuse the leaves and the key produced to unlock the sideboard door that gave access to the t
ea caddy. If the hot water when it came was welcome, the note that came with it was not.
‘Not distressing news, Mrs Barclay, I hope,’ Mrs Teale enquired, her antenna as sharp as ever when it came to observing her fellow humans. ‘You have gone quite pale.’
Emily waved the note and half turned to hide her dismay, aware she would have to say something while searching for the words, until the lack of time to concoct a tale obliged her to stick to the truth.
‘My late husband’s clerk wishes to call upon me.’
‘Am I to judge that is a prospect you do not relish?’
Damn the woman, Emily thought, before castigating herself for the profanity; she was showing too much of her emotions. ‘He was not a man I esteemed, Mrs Teale. I never quite got over the feeling he did not always deal honestly with Captain Barclay’s affairs.’
‘So you will not be inviting him to join us in the very welcome tea?’
The thought of Gherson in this milieu filled Emily with dread. He knew everything about her, her husband, as well as John Pearce, and would no doubt take great pleasure in exposure of her sins in that department. If she hated him, and it shamed her that she did, then it was fully reciprocated. The oily swine had many times hinted at dalliance, an impudence she had rejected with alacrity.
‘I think it best I see him alone.’
‘Alone!’ was Mrs Teale’s exclamation. ‘Is that seemly?’
‘Am I to assume the meeting might be hostile?’ asked Mrs Udeny.
Emily was grateful for the question from a woman who spoke little, which was surprising given, as the consul’s wife, she was by far the superior in social rank, a fact which irritated Letitia Teale and turned her into a bully, so determined was she to maintain her grip.
‘That is a distinct possibility. I cannot help but speculate that he wants something from me.’
‘A sinner, then?’
‘I think so, Mrs Teale.’
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