Henderson sat frozen in the chair. A vision of the little house in Soho flickered across his mind’s eye, his mother at a desk, writing in her journal, with hazy sunlight streaming through the morning windows. This woman inhabited a world he had once thought his own – a world of publishers and reliable suppliers. A London that was confident and competent amid its grey, puddle-strewn streets. Was it possible that it was still there?
‘It will be summer in England—’ he hazarded.
‘That is no guarantee of the weather.’ Maria cut in with a smile. ‘Still, it will be pleasant to see the trees in Regent’s Park. That is always a pleasure. Even in the rain.’
‘Regent’s Park. Yes.’ Henderson nodded slowly as he realised he wanted to see it.
Will’s death had shaken him. The boy’s prone body had lain below deck all night. It had been pronounced bad luck by the men, though Henderson never held with such superstition. The last thing Will had asked, however, was that Henderson deliver his effects. The captain now realised, it was as if Mrs Graham were his conscience. The spectre of London brightened a little and he imagined meeting fellows like himself, briskly walking down rainy Pall Mall. She had rallied him to go forward and greet them.
‘Why not?’ he said, his eyes distant. ‘I shall look forward to seeing it.’ He smiled. ‘In the meantime, should I arrange for your baggage to be brought aboard, Mrs Graham? You will, of course, have my cabin. We’ll arrange our affairs as soon as the cargo is loaded.’
Maria sat down. She gave small smile as her hands folded neatly in her lap. The Bittersweet might be old-fashioned, but Cochrane could not be too displeased with her decision, surely. The cabin was well appointed and the place was shipshape. The men loading the beans were working together. The ropes were properly coiled, the sails tied with precision. The place was spotless, which she hadn’t expected. It was all in order. Better than that, if she was truthful. And the captain seemed changed. Today he was quite serious.
‘Thank you,’ she said simply. ‘This table is perfect for writing. It will do very well.’
8
On board the Bittersweet
Sun on sail across blue water, Henderson kept his distance. Will Simmons’s death had been a watershed of sorts, and now Mrs Graham was aboard, intruding on her felt as if he was taking advantage. Mostly he was taken up in the difficult matter of planning the Atlantic route. This kept him at his desk till late each evening, setting his charts on the makeshift slanted table in the tight, dark cabin into which he had moved. He worked long hours from these cramped quarters, no larger than a store cupboard and lit by two dim candle lamps. They would travel first to Trinidad, resupply and then turn eastwards for England. Upon occasion on this first leg, when the captain tried to approach the lady on deck, he felt awkward. He found he could think of nothing to say, so he stood with his mind racing, tongue-tied and cursing inwardly. On the other hand, when he was not in her company he thought of little else and had to draw his mind purposefully back to his charts. After his first attempts to engage her in conversation, he simply kept to his cabin, and when he surfaced to find Mrs Graham strolling on deck between the coils of rope, the cleats and the great sails, he nodded a stiff good morning. The whiff of orchids comforted him long after she had swept off to continue copying her manuscript.
As the outline of Natal faded into the misty line where the ocean met the sky, he admired the cut of her figure as she receded down the deck in the tidy grey dress, her hair clasped at the nape of her neck. It was as if she was a dream, like London, which he could not entirely grasp and of which he was not worthy. He wanted to be part of it but had forgotten how. It seemed extraordinary and strange that this paragon among women had condescended to travel on his ship. In fact, she’d insisted upon it. Her presence was at once otherworldly and familiar, none of which explained why his brain ceased to function when he was in her company. It was troubling.
She approached the captain one morning. ‘Is there a service?’
The bright sunshine made her squint. Henderson looked bemused. His shadow elongated on the boards and, behind him, the rigging cast a spider’s web on the shimmering water.
‘It’s Sunday,’ she pointed out. ‘A service would be customary.’
The captain smiled shyly. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘If the men wish to pray, of course, they can.’
No Sunday service, she noted. This made Henderson more interesting, although it would have been the height of rudeness to enquire on the subject of his personal religious devotion. Most captains were concerned with the crew’s spiritual needs as much as their physical discipline. Henderson appeared to occupy himself with neither. It was a marked difference from every ship she’d travelled on, though, as she observed it, the Bittersweet seemed to function – better than that, it was well run.
‘Do you never punish the men?’ she found herself asking.
Henderson stared, her assumption crossing his mind in a flash. ‘You think because I don’t force them to pray or brandish the nine-tails that I’ll never control them?’
Maria felt her cheeks flush. It sounded as if she was hoping for a da Couto – that she preferred a brute. ‘Sir, I admire the trust you place in your crew . . .’ she started.
Henderson laughed. The pink curl of his mouth was joyful and he was so swept up that he continued without thinking. ‘There’s no need to take back what you said. You’re entitled to your opinion and you’ve seen it work differently. But I run this ship. If I need to punish someone I do so, but I will not fuel the place on daily beatings, petty rules and superstition. My crew deserves better.’
Behind them, Maria noticed two of the men listening. He might not say much, but Captain Henderson was to the point when he did speak.
‘I meant no offence,’ she said.
‘None taken, ma’am.’
From his tone she could tell he meant that, and that was unusual too. Normally if a man’s ideas were questioned he became surly.
As she walked away, Henderson cursed himself for being so strident. Mrs Graham hovered at the prow. Behind her, terns and petrels swooped for fish in the surf. The captain peered as she moved, just for a moment, as if she was flying with them long and lean, stretching over the side like a figurehead ready to dive. There was something fluid about Maria Graham. Something out and out elegant. As she returned to her cabin, he was still staring. She raised her hand, as if surprised to see him. Then she glided back to work.
After that, between cabin and deck, Mrs Graham relaxed into a comfortable rhythm. For her it was a luxury to be alone and for that reason the ship quickly came to feel like home. Between reviewing what she’d written on the history of the Chilean War of Independence, she continued to watch Henderson, who might be silent but was certainly competent. In Maria’s view (and she gave some time to this), he would not have cut the mustard as a captain in the Royal Navy. The navy accepted eccentrics, but British captains were mostly conventional men. Convention was a quality that Henderson appeared to lack entirely. Nonetheless, the captain’s approach to his crew was unexpectedly enlightened. Yes, that was the word.
Maria’s father and her husband had both been naval men. Shipboard life had been familiar since her childhood. It had occurred to her many times that on board it didn’t matter where you were coming from or where you were heading. Each voyage had its own charisma. Like writing a book – word by word – or crossing a country – step by step – each minute had to be lived moment by moment. If you strove to arrive, it felt twice as long. Being at sea, after all, was constructive. Once you set sail you were, by definition, going somewhere. ‘A journey is an achievement, Maria, just as much as a mathematical proof,’ her father always said.
In this manner, a tacit arrangement emerged between Maria and the captain, so that between Natal and Trinidad they sailed as if on sister ships bound in the same direction, hardly saying a word. Most days, for hours, Maria buried herself in her manuscripts. In the warm patch of light by the cabin’s glass, she stre
tched corsetless every morning, bending in the Indian fashion, breathing deeply. The dry warmth, she noticed, gave her greater flexibility, and the sun felt good on her skin. Sometimes she lost track of her thoughts and that was the most pleasant feeling of all, bringing with it a stillness that usually came only with deep sleep.
When she made her needs known, the cabin boy provided – cleaning the room and airing the linen. He delivered food from the galley and a pewter jug of hot water for the washstand. The boy was no more than twelve years. His skin was the same colour as the dark wood of the cabin and he wore a grave expression, as if he had never smiled and never would. Maria showed him her drawings. Over two years she had built up quite a collection – the church at Valparaíso, dragon trees, strange jungle plants, the boats in the harbour at Bahia and the palace at Rio. The boy’s dark eyes grew wide, drinking in the details like dry earth sucks in water. She described the strange cattle, the royal palace’s huge kitchens and the long hallways studded with crystal chandeliers and embellished with marble. He eyed her books suspiciously.
‘How did you learn to read?’ he asked.
Maria’s heart dropped. Her mother had taught her in the years before she was taken from her daughter. Maria remembered sitting in the nursery. Later, Miss Bright, her schoolteacher in Oxford, had slipped volumes secretly into her hand – Shakespeare and Ovid, matters that should be beyond the scope of a little girl. Maria had drunk them. The England of her childhood was cold and disapproving. School had been a grey cage and her aunt’s home, where she spent the holidays, a golden prison. Books had been her best escape.
‘I learned at school,’ she said. ‘I can teach you, if you like. This is A,’ she sounded, drawing the letter.
The boy copied her. After that, each morning he learned as she sat on a barrel in the sunshine and drew on the deck with chalk. As Henderson passed them, he nodded silently.
Why, he is a man of no words at all, she thought to herself.
As a result, it came as a surprise to Mrs Graham when the captain gave a businesslike rap on her cabin door one afternoon and informed her the port of San Fernando was in sight. She fixed her hat in place with a silver pin, checked her grey skirts and quit the cabin for the sunny deck. Shielded in the shadow of the sails, Maria watched the lush island of Trinidad come into focus. The salty sea air rippled with the sweet scent of sugar.
‘There are plantations?’ she asked.
Henderson nodded.
‘Poor souls.’
‘Sugar and cacao. They have a deal of coffee as well.’
‘Do you always carry chocolate, Captain?’
It was a fair question. Henderson paused. ‘I buy and sell what I know,’ he said. ‘I used to load rum and sugar, but chocolate is popular and not everyone knows what they’re buying, so I have an advantage. I spent some time on a plantation as a child. My father lodged there – the woman . . .’ Here he hesitated, for the arrangement was as far from respectable London as he could imagine. ‘. . . was an excellent cook.’
Maria nodded. The food aboard the Bittersweet was certainly a cut above the usual shipboard fare. She had come to look forward to the hot chocolate delivered to her cabin in the morning, sweet and spiced, and the fresh cornbread that went alongside it still warm on the plate. The wine for dinner varied according to the dish and was well chosen. Fresh fish was grilled and served with lime. There were plenty of times she had been reduced, of necessity, to ship’s biscuits and dried meat on a voyage. Some seagoing men didn’t mind that, but she guessed Henderson would. Maria was sure the captain had a hand in the menu, which bore the mark of a more cultivated taste than that of a ship’s cook. After her unaccountable hunger in Natal, her appetite aboard the Bittersweet was sated.
The sunshine baked the dock and Maria sighed. She was becoming tired of the endless good weather, the fly-ridden, sweaty docks, barefoot brown children playing in the dust, picking pockets where they could, the tangle of ships with palm trees behind, the sailors at port and their relentless drinking. She longed for a moment of proper English coldness. It would be pleasant to sit in a house overlooking a London street, taking tea and scones and watching the world pass the window. There was something restful in being served by pale-skinned, well-fed staff with a distant air. She imagined the touch of ice on her skin and the invigorating freshness of a bright but cold morning. All the civilisation of England. It would feel good not to be under an obligation to observe everything so keenly. Perhaps I am homesick at last, she mused. London was coming, with its bittersweet expectations of her. She glanced sideways at the captain and wondered if he felt that way too.
As the men brought the Bittersweet to anchor in a well-practised routine of sail and rigging, Maria noticed a fellow burst out of an open-fronted rum stall on the quay and wave enthusiastically. Blond, he wore a wrinkled pale-linen suit with a white cravat and an eccentric hat made of woven rushes, some of which were still green. The gangplank was lowered and the gentleman bounded aboard, carrying a bottle of rum. He bowed very low when he saw Maria, enquiring firstly in Portuguese, and then English with a Scandinavian accent, what she was doing there.
A grin broke on Henderson’s face. He took the rum and managed the introductions. ‘This is Thys Bagdorf,’ he said. ‘Mrs Maria Graham.’
‘I sell James beans from my family’s plantation.’ Thys beamed and held out his hand.
‘Not today, I’m afraid,’ the captain replied.
Thys took the rejection in his stride. ‘You will know what you missed, my friend. This year’s crop is excellent. What have you got in your hold?’ he asked.
‘Cacao. It was bought by someone else on commission in Brazil. I’m delivering it, and Mrs Graham, to London.’
Thys bowed again. ‘I had intended to drink this bottle with you, James. But now you have a lady on board you must both come to dinner.’
‘I have to check my charts for the crossing,’ Henderson protested. ‘We will only be here a day. On the return, Thys—’
‘No. Come tonight,’ Thys pushed. ‘My sister is at home. I shall invite one of the other captains and you can discuss your route. It will be your last society for weeks, will it not?’
‘I was hoping to find something to read,’ Maria admitted.
It was unlikely there was a bookshop in San Fernando and certainly nothing in English. It had occurred to her that at this rate she’d finish her writing halfway to London and be left without occupation and no one to talk to but the cabin boy.
Thys boomed, ‘We have English books – there are even some novels if your taste runs to it. Ladies always prefer a novel. The famous Miss Austen has reached us even here, though I have not read her work myself. Emma, isn’t it?’
Maria blanched. Novels were too frothy – she might enjoy one if she was unwell, but scientific journals were far more appealing. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘And if you had anything botanical I would be particularly interested.’
Thys was bluff. ‘No matter. You shall borrow whatever you like. I insist. Come at nine o’clock.’
At the mizzen, Henderson heard one of the men quip – something about a lady with a book. There was a ripple of lurid laughter like a pot of paint spilling over onto the boards. A steely glance was enough to stop its path, and it was as well he was unshaven, for, he realised, he was blushing.
Maria had not noticed. She waved at the top of the gangplank as Thys quit the ship.
That afternoon, the lady loitered on deck and watched the trade on the quay. There seemed more slaves here than at other ports. Ships spewed the men onto the dockside, weak and in chains. It turned her stomach.
Well before the sun sank, Mrs Graham retired to her cabin and laid out her evening dress. Through the glass, the sky was streaked with thick orange bolts. She lit the candles and closed the shutters. The thud of water on the boat’s side beat an inconstant rhythm.
The cabin remained peppered with Henderson’s belongings. His new lodging was too small to accommodate everything and he ha
d abandoned his charts of the southern waters on the heavy wooden shelves. A brass model of the solar system had pride of place, similar, she noted, to one her father had owned, though, unlike her father, Captain Henderson’s effects didn’t appear to tally with his personality. The orrery seemed too highbrow. Captain Dundas had used his as a gentleman’s conversation piece. Henderson, to date, had displayed little such interest.
Maria set the metronome in motion. It ticked in time with her thoughts. The captain bemused her. He was tidy, well dressed, competent and, most of all, silent. By the cabin boy’s account he was also brave, and there was a roughness about him that suggested that might be true. By contrast, he was unexpectedly cosmopolitan. He loved food and drink, though he showed no sign of being either a glutton or a drunkard. On the evidence of the voyage alone, she would have considered him simply very private and perhaps shy, but he had pursued her with such vigour before they set sail.
There were two leather chests beneath the shelving and, her curiosity piqued, Maria decided to explore. She might at least uncover a looking glass, for there was no mirror in which she might dress her hair. That, she told herself, was what she was going to do – find a glass. Her heart quickened as she stood before the hinged brass handle and she hesitated only a moment. As she opened the lid, she was hit by a wave of dust, which forced her to draw back. Then, as it settled, she peered inside. On top there were old clothes and, after digging through those, a sheaf of notes, written, she realised, by a child. These included Latin declensions, mathematical calculations and a poorly executed pencil drawing of a cat sitting on a velvet cushion beside a rain-spotted window. No glass came to hand, so she moved on. The second trunk was not so dusty or so full. Inside, there was a pouch of coins, a lading notice from Natal and a parcel wrapped in linen. She lifted it up and stretched inside to peer right down to the bottom of the trunk. How like a man to have nothing useful stowed away, she thought. The boat rocked suddenly and she lost her footing, dropping the linen parcel, which split open. A large shard of something brown fell out. Chocolate, she thought. How odd. Now she thought on it, it seemed an extraordinary item to find stowed in the captain’s cabin. The hold was full of cacao beans and the cook had copious chocolate in the galley. Perhaps this bar was of exceptional quality. She picked it up and sniffed the freshly shorn edge. The block released a musty aroma, confirming, even with her limited expertise, this wasn’t of the best – in fact, quite the reverse.
On Starlit Seas Page 9