The Guineaman

  ‘That thought occurred to me,’ Kite agreed ruefully. ‘It is scarcely without irony.’

  ‘All will be forgiven if we prove profitable.’ Makepeace raised his refilled glass. ‘Let us drink to that. If you sail again and Puella sails with you, then matters will likely blow over in time. Nothing succeeds like success. If we sink, well we sink and no one will be surprised.’

  ‘We shall not sink,’ Kite said firmly, raising his glass in response to Makepeace’s toast.

  ‘No, not if the auguries are correct. You will have added another ship to our fleet once the prize-court has adjudicated, and as your letter of marque is valid, they can do nothing but find in your favour. Fortunately there was no naval cruiser in sight, otherwise the Admiralty johnnies would be claiming a share, damn them.’

  ‘Which brings me to the vessels,’ Kite said. ‘After I have cleared the Spitfire’s entry, there is the business of the deposition for the prize-court.’

  Makepeace held up his hand. ‘For heaven’s sake relax, Kite. The prize court won’t sit for weeks; as for the other matters, I offer my services as ship’s husband. What, when she has been awarded to you, do you want me to do with La Malouine?’

  Kite thought for a moment. ‘It will depend upon the condemned value, but I think we should keep her, she is fast and fit for, well…’ He had been about to say ‘slaving’, but restrained himself. ‘Well, privateering as we know. I should like her to join our fleet, though her name will need a change.’

  ‘What shall you call her then?’ Makepeace asked.

  Kite scratched his head. ‘Well, to be truthful, we would not have taken her but for Puella…’ Kite regaled Makepeace with an account of Puella’s diabolical appearance and the affect it had on shifting the advantage to the Spitfire’s hard-pressed crew.

  Makepeace much enjoyed the yarn, nodding appreciatively. ‘Then we must honour Puella’s part in the action…’ Makepeace paused for thought.

  ‘African Princess,’ Kite said in a low voice.

  ‘What’s that?’ Makepeace asked.

  ‘What about African Princess?’

  ‘By God, I like that, damned if I don’t!’ Makepeace said enthusiastically. ‘I like that and by Heaven, once the yarn of her part in the capture gets out, as it surely will, it might arouse the jealousy of the ladies, but by God she’ll be popular among the men!’ Makepeace slapped his thigh with glee. ‘The matter’s settled then: African Princess it shall be.!’

  Kite smiled. ‘Good. And if you will allow her value to offset my capital stake then we may set aside the surplus for the crew, for they will have a lien against her condemned value as a legitimate prize.’ Kite paused. ‘If you agree, that is.’

  Makepeace nodded. ‘Yes. I agree. What of your mate, the mulatto fellow, Jones?’

  ‘He’s a prime seaman, but lacks schooling.’

  ‘If you appoint him agent for the crew, would they trust him?’

  ‘And he would have you to act on his behalf?’

  Makepeace nodded. ‘If I was to advise it,’ Kite said, ‘I think he would accept it readily enough, as would the hands.’

  ‘Then we shall retain him as ship-keeper and see he is put to his books. He may acquire the rudiments of navigation while we await the court’s ruling. I shall inform the Admiralty marshal of the matter. As for the Spitfire, we shall have to take her in hand and step a new mainmast.’

  ‘She is otherwise in excellent condition,’ Kite said, telling Makepeace of his meeting with Arthur Tyrell in Rhode Island.

  ‘And did you meet his wife?’ Makepeace asked with a salacious grin.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And what did you think of her?’

  ‘Beautiful and temperamental.’

  ‘Temperamental?’ Makepeace snorted. ‘Never!’ He leaned forward, a little drunk, as Kite had seen him so often before. ‘Now if you were to take my advice, Kite, you would bide your time before marrying and then, when old Arthur has slipped his cable and run off to Abraham’s bosom, you’d secure that little wench. By God, but she makes a man’s bowsprit into a jib-boom, there’s no mistake!’

  ‘That’s as maybe, but…’

  ‘You’ve Puella, I know, and you love her. I know that too. Don’t think I don’t remember throwing her at you that night. I suppose I’ve only myself to blame, eh?’

  ‘I suppose you have,’ said Kite smiling wryly. ‘I hadn’t thought of it like that.’

  ‘Well, ‘tis pointless trying to make the world different. It tends more to profit to accept the world as it is. Now, listen Kite, listen.’ Makepeace was speaking now with some care. The hour was late and it had been a long day. They ought soon to join the ladies, who had no doubt run out of things to chatter about long ago.

  ‘You have my absolute attention,’ he said.

  ‘Good. You, my dear fellow, must settle your mind, and then your… oh, damn it, your wife! Take my coach and go north tomorrow, after you have been to the custom house. Then you can leave the vessels to me. Go north. See you father. Publish your banns and marry. Return when you are content. I’d be obliged for the return of my coach in the interval, but I will send it back for you if you wish. If you want to return directly, then keep my fellow and the equipage up there. You can find somewhere to stable it for a night or two, can’t you?’

  Kite nodded, overwhelmed at Makepeace’s kindness. ‘You are sure? Won’t Mrs Makepeace object?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Makepeace slurred, ‘of course Mrs Makepeace won’t object.’ He rose unsteadily. ‘But come, let’s go and make certain.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Return

  As Makepeace’s carriage rolled north Kite tried to share Puella’s wonder at the passing countryside. Fortunately it was a fine day, a late February day when the winter still occupies the high ground, but there are tiny hints of the coming spring in the lower lying land. They spent the night in Lancaster, where the shadow of the castle sent a cold shiver through Kite. His change of mood did not go unnoticed by Puella.

  ‘What is it, Kite?’ He shook his head. ‘I know something troubles you,’ she insisted.

  He smiled. ‘We have a saying, Puella, that one shivers when a grey goose flies over one’s grave. It is just a premonition, a forewarning of our mortality. A reminder that one day, we will die.’

  ‘That is like the spirit of the obi,’ she said, and Kite gained the impression that Puella was pleased to have found some metaphysical link between her culture and his.

  ‘It is very primitive,’ Kite said without thinking, then recalling that it was unlikely Puella understood the meaning of the word ‘primitive’.

  ‘You are primitive, Kite,’ Puella said.

  ‘Am I?’ he said, unable to disguise his astonishment.

  Puella nodded. ‘Very primitive,’ she said rubbing her enlarged belly. They rolled into the inn yard and jerked to a halt.

  They crossed Westmoreland next day. The long pale ruffled finger of Windermere lay between its eternal hills and Kite could scarcely believe he had been so long away and these mountains and lakes had remained as he saw them now, indifferent to him and his tribulations. They were in their stillness, he thought, as heartless as the hurricane had been in its furious, excoriating activity. His own existence was quite incidental to their own, his own concerns so petty that they had no meaning in the cold aloofness of the physical world. And yet he had a part in this physical world; he looked across the carriage to where Puella dozed. His child quickened in her brown belly and it too, God willing, would know these wild fells as its father had done. Kite found himself for the first time, thinking of the child as a sentient being, individual and complete. It would have Charlie’s coffee coloured complexion, common among the children of St John’s but not common here. He recalled all Makepeace’s warnings, but looking at Puella now he wondered how could one not love her? She had, after all, drawn the venom from Sarah Tyrell. Surely all would be well…

  But the anxiety of his own future gnawed at h
im. What would become of Puella and of her child if he was arrested, flung into gaol and brought to trial? Worse, what if, for all his wealth, he was found guilty and hanged? And once the Pandora’s box of worry was opened, fearful suppositions poured from it. Makepeace was but a mouth-piece! The hellish pun taunted Kite; without his protection Puella and the child would be subjected to God only knew what ignominies and humiliations. She would be seen as a nigger, her child as a pickaninny! What had he done, bringing them here, so that the unfortunate infant would see the light of day within sight of the Hebblewhite’s farm!

  Panic seized Kite. He broke out in a sweat. Suppose he was seen as he entered the village? The arrival of a carriage, any carriage unfamiliar to the villagers, would arouse curiosity. Within minutes the news would be carried to the Hebblewhites and they would send word to the magistrates. By the morning he would be under arrest and on his way to Carlisle to await the Assizes.

  And yet he had to see his father and Helen, for with them lay the only refuge possible to Puella if the worst was to happen to him. Kite gnawed his knuckle in an agony of indecision, staring at Puella asleep on the seat opposite. Almost maddened with terror, he stared at her long black lashes lying on her dark cheeks and her slightly parted lips. Why in Heaven’s name had he fallen so hopelessly in love with Puella and her black and lovely body?

  And then he knew with a painful clarity. As the carriage slowed at an incline and the hummocked summit of a hill drew into view outside the window. He had turned his back on these fells; they had not driven him away, he had fled them, taking his disgust with him. For he recognised now that it had been disgust at the sight of Susie’s white and quivering flesh that he repelled him as much as the cretin she had born. Even as the breath left her body and she lay in so pitiable a state, Kite, her would-be lover, had experienced a powerful revulsion. Even now the thought of that moment made him sick.

  Kite swore and mopped his brow. He was going mad! He let down the window and stuck his head out, gasping for air. The image of Susie, her legs apart with the monster between, slowly faded. He felt the breeze cool on his tortured face and the threatening waves of nausea subsided. The wind had got up and clouds swept in from the south west, shrouding the summits of the old, familiar hills. Helvellyn rose to the east and the gleam of Derwent Water showed ahead as the road curved in its descent until they ran along its shore and crossed into Cumberland.

  He drew back into the carriage and Puella roused herself.

  ‘It is a small sea,’ Puella said yawning and leaning half out of the window.

  ‘It is a lake,’ Kite explained, mastering his fears and settling back into his seat.

  ‘Have you slept, Kite?’ He shook his head. ‘Have we far to go?’

  ‘No,’ he replied, wishing the drive could go on forever.

  A little later, as they came to a junction in the rough, unmade track, the coachman drew rein and asked Kite for directions. An hour later it was Kite who again leaned from the window. He recognised the spur of the mountain over the far shoulder of which he had fled the Hebblewhite brothers five years earlier. It seemed like the tensed back of an old and ossified beast, waiting to pounce upon him. Then he could see the valley opening up as the last of the daylight fell on the far side of the lake. The huge slope of broken scree still caught the sunset light as he remembered it, and the ebbing day threw the village into a premature twilight. He could see copses and farmsteads, and the tower of the church and…

  He drew his head in and Puella, who had been dozing, jerked awake, staring at him. She reached out her hand and he took it, the white and brown skin almost the same tone in the gloom of the coach. ‘We are one,’ he thought, ‘she carries my child; after me, the child will live on.’

  ‘I will give you a son,’ Puella said, with uncanny prescience.

  ‘How do you know my thoughts?’ he said looking up at her, close to tears.

  ‘I can see the spirits about you,’ she said, her hand clutching his as though she also understood his fear. He turned his head aside and saw the Hebblewhite’s farm roll past, its whitewash grey in the dusk.

  ‘Dear God…’ he whispered.

  The coach slowed. ‘Cap’n Kite, sir… Is this the place?’

  Kite withdrew his hand from Puella’s and dashed it across his face before peering from the window. It was almost dark, but not dark enough to obscure the sign above the door. He noted the paint was peeled and this reproached him even more than the legend: Kite & Son.

  ‘Yes, stop here, if you please.’

  The coach jerked to a standstill. Kite opened the door, jumped out and lowered the step. He handed Puella down as the coachman dropped from the box with a grunt and stretched with a low oath.

  ‘I will help with the portmanteau in a moment,’ Kite said. ‘Allow me a moment.’

  ‘Take yer time, sir,’ the coachman said obligingly, hoping for an easy day on the morrow. ‘Them nigger wimmin can’t be hurried without a whip,’ he added to himself, unbuttoning and urinating against the offside front carriage wheel.

  ‘Come, my dear,’ Kite said nervously, holding Puella’s hand as she looked at the humble shop front. ‘Let us see who is at home…’

  He tugged the familiar metal rod and heard the distant jangle of the bell. No light showed from within and for a long moment the place seemed to be deserted. Then a faint light swung obliquely through the windows of the shop, as someone approached along the passageway inside. A bolt rasped and the door opened; a woman, half hidden in a mob cap peered at them, holding a candle up to Kite’s face.

  ‘Is Mr Kite within?’ Kite enquired.

  ‘Who’s asking then?’

  Thankful that he was not immediately recognised, Kite had anticipated this moment. He had no wish either to startle his father, or to announce his arrival. ‘I am from Liverpool and have letters for him.’

  ‘Are you from Master Frank?’ the woman asked and Kite remembered his cousin. The thought disconcerted him. Had Francis learned of the arrival of a ‘Captain Kite’ with a captured privateer? Had Francis been among the crowd assembled on the dockside two days previously? He had not thought of that!

  ‘Yes,’ he said hurriedly, seizing at a straw in the manner of a drowning man.

  ‘Is that someone you have with you?’ the woman peered into the darkness thrusting the candle further forward. ‘God Almighty! It’s the devil!’

  ‘It’s my wife,’ Kite said sharply.

  ’Your wife!’ The woman fell back and began to shut the door, but Kite pushed forward.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘Come Puella.’ And taking Puella’s hand he entered the passage and began to mount the stairs.

  Behind them the woman screeched, ‘Missee! Missee! ’Tis the devil himself and his damnable missus!’

  The smell of the house was exactly as he remembered, the dark stairs creaked at the fifth and the eighth step. As he reached the top of the flight and turned along the passage, the door of the small sitting room opened. The lamplight flooded out onto the bare boards, throwing out the shadow of another woman as she appeared in the doorway.

  ‘What is it…?’

  ‘Helen?’

  ‘Who is that?’

  Kite recognised his sisters’s voice. ‘Helen,’ he said quietly, ‘it’s William… Your brother…’

  ‘Oh! My God!’

  Kite stepped forward as Helen fell back in a faint and then he felt himself shoved aside as the woman who had answered the door passed him having first pushed Puella out of the way.

  ‘Missee Helen, Missee Helen…’

  Kite followed the distraught creature into the room. Helen had subsided into a chair and the mob-capped woman bent over her in a fearful fluster.

  ‘Is she all right?’ he asked, and the woman turned, her face furious.

  ‘What business is it of yours, you damned blackguarded devil!’

  Kite’s jaw hung open and he felt his own knees weaken. He leant back against the wall for support.

  ‘
Susie? Susie Hebblewhite? Christ, I thought you were dead!’

  The woman haranguing him stopped, her face ugly and distorted. She was far younger than the first candlelit impression had suggested. ‘Who are you?’ she asked. ‘Who are you? I know you! You are the devil…’

  ‘That’s William,’ a voice said and Helen rose, taking Susie by the shoulders and soothing her. ‘That’s William, Susie. Do you remember William, Susie?’

  Susan shook her head violently. ‘He’s a devil, Missee Helen, a devil and he’s got Old Harry’s wife wi’ him! See! See!’ Susan pointed, her stabbing finger trembling with terrified and pious indignation.

  ‘My God!’ Helen saw Puella in the doorway and Kite stepped forward to support the trembling, half-hysterical Susie in an attempt to reassure his sister.

  ‘It’s all right Helen, this is Puella, she is from Africa…’

  But it was far from all rights and it took some moments to calm the situation and restore a degree of equanimity to the two frightened women. But in due course Helen had ceased hugging him and had subsided to a genteel and decorous weeping while Susan, having poked Puella in passing, was finally persuaded to go down stairs and make some tea.

  ‘I have nothing else, I’m afraid, William, we live simply.’

  ‘It is no matter, Helen. Is… Is father…?’ he could not bring himself to finish the sentence, but left its uncertainties hanging in the close, lamplit air.

  ‘He is out… Attending a sick woman… You will not know Mrs Sutcliffe, she is overdue and had been brought down with a fever, Old Mother Dole is with her.’ Kite remembered the midwife; she had been a dark and terrible presence the night his own mother died bearing Helen. ‘He may be back before long.’

  ‘And Susie,’ Kite said. ‘I thought her dead!’

  Helen looked at him curiously and then at Puella. ‘Won’t you please come in and sit down,’ she said. ‘I am sorry, this is all such… all so unexpected.’

  Helen stared with unconcealed curiosity as Puella entered the room and sat down. She had remained passively standing quietly in the doorway throughout this extraordinary proceeding. Now she smiled at Helen.