On a Making Tide (36 page)

The tingling grew in effect, no longer a tickle, though not quite a pain. ‘The power courses through you, sir. The pain you suffer will begin to increase.’

Nelson had to nod to Graham, because the man was right. His arm was hurting like the very devil, but it was tolerable. That lasted only a few seconds, until it increased in intensity causing him to gasp. He could feel the sweat on his brow, smell his own armpit, and he was conscious of the sea of faces that seemed to press in on him from the crowd. The effect now began to extend from his arm to his whole body. The limb to which amulets were attached began to jerk in involuntary spasm, and Graham’s face, leaning forward, had taken on a demonic cast. Nelson knew his lips were open, pulled back over his teeth, and he was just on the verge of screaming enough when the wheel stopped. The sensation ceased immediately, but left him feeling so weak that Tom had to support him.

‘Do you feel any pain now?’ asked Graham. His arm felt numb, but not sore so he shook his head. The doctor turned to the room and said, ‘There! I credit that as a success.’

The applause was spontaneous, and others pressed forward to request the doctor’s services. They were directed to a clerk with a book, whose job it was to register them for appointments.

‘I cannot treat the entire populace of London in public. Besides that, some of the patients I administer to have things it would be unbecoming to reveal to an audience. See my good man here, he will appraise you of times and charges.’ He spoke softly then to Nelson, who was putting his uniform coat back on. ‘You, sir, presented a most enlightening case. You therefore owe me nothing.’

‘Sir, I insist.’

‘Pray, Captain Nelson, allow me to follow what I consider my professional duty. Your illness, sir, came upon you through service to your King and country. Believe me, I love both too much to be able to receive anything by way of payment.’

They eased out of the crowd, Tom gabbling away enthusiastically, Nelson ignoring him as he concentrated on two things: the numbing of his arm and that Greek goddess with the spear and the flowing auburn hair. She was looking at him now – the eyes, indeed, were green – almost staring in fact.

Charles Greville entered Emma’s Whitechapel room with the caution of a man expecting to be robbed. He cast about him with that same air and finally looked at her so directly that she smoothed the folds of her dark, satin dress involuntarily, and wondered what was the matter with him. He was behaving as if he hardly knew her.

‘You look exceedingly respectable, Emma,’ he said, making no attempt to disguise the irony in his tone.

Damn him, she thought, as she favoured him with a smile as demure as her clothing. For him to see through her so quickly boded ill for the forthcoming interview. She shouldn’t have dressed like this, in a solemn, plain garment. He knew her too well to fall for such a subterfuge.

‘Why did you not reply to my letters?’ she asked.

‘Have I not done so by coming here in person?’

‘Then you have responded to the last. There was more than one.’

‘I sit for a Warwickshire seat, Emma. If you knew anything about the life of a Member of Parliament you would have some notion of how it can occupy every waking hour.’ Greville looked hard at her, forcing her to accept the lie. ‘And then I return to find you the talk of the clubs, my dear. Every loose fellow who’s been to a pleasure garden these last few weeks claims to have secured you as a prize.’

There was little doubt that Greville disapproved, just as there was no doubt that he would fail to understand how she had been driven to accepting invitations that, under better circumstances, she would have refused. Her employment at Graham’s spectacle had lasted no more than two weeks, barely long enough to keep her head above water.

Emma had often been told that the road to hell was paved with good intentions, and she had intended to remain chaste – but how could she laugh, accept food and drink, dance and sing in the company of an amusing companion, then turn them away from intimacy, especially when he offered her some badly needed money? The only defence she could offer was that she had accepted no more than was necessary for survival.

‘I am pleased that seems to give you cause for disquiet,’ she said.

His smile didn’t disappear, but the slight lines that marked his high
forehead indicated the degree of his resentment. ‘I think you’re aware of my feelings in the matter, Emma. I seem to recall that while you were still at Uppark you came to understand that such behaviour carries risk. I certainly thought that when you visited me you paid attention to my advice on the best way to disport yourself.’

‘What risk is there in dancing, sir?’

‘When it is accompanied by drinking to excess and the loud rendition of bawdy songs …’ He left the rest in the air, merely adding a shrug.

Emma was curious to know if Greville had learnt this by his own application, or if the gossip was so prevalent that picking it up had been a commonplace. The former would help her case, the latter probably destroy it. And, annoyingly, a direct question was impossible. She decided on a brave face as the best defence. ‘Am I to avoid pleasure altogether, Charles? Are not drinking and dancing the very stuff to which Vauxhall and the Ranelagh are dedicated?’

‘I daresay, Emma,’ he replied, his face stern, ‘just as I daresay that’s why I so heartily dislike them when the hour has come for respectability to exit, allowing vice to enter. I take leave to doubt that you were an early-evening visitor.’

If that was close to an insult it was also true. She had never gone to either pleasure garden before the firework display, which was usually the signal for the innocents to depart and for the revels, for which such places were notorious, to become more free. She had to bite back any response, since she was in no position to challenge him.

He picked up a high-backed chair and moved it to the other side of the fire. Once seated, he examined her closely. For all the displeasure he had espoused regarding her recent behaviour, there was admiration in his eyes.

‘Not that your carrying on seems to have blighted you. If anything, you’re more beautiful than ever.’

‘Then, clearly, a life of unremitting pleasure suits me.’

‘Are you sure it’s not your condition, Emma?’ He held up his hand as she opened her mouth to protest. ‘Your landlady, Mrs Mulderry, has a sense of discretion that does not extend to the refusal of a shilling. She informed me, with some relish, that you wake the whole house of a morning with your retching.’

Emma looked straight at him, hoping that he would see in her eyes that she was speaking the truth. ‘I had intended to tell you, Charles.’

‘Am I the father?’

‘It’s more likely Harry is.’

‘Are there any other candidates excepting Harry and myself?’

‘That’s a damned unkind thing to say.’

‘Remember, I was at Uppark on more than one riotous occasion. I have already alluded to your being the talk of the town. I won’t do so again. I will merely ask you this: under those circumstances, why did you leave a letter requesting that I call?’

‘I had every reason to believe that you still think of me kindly.’

‘I do, Emma. And I will add that I think of you often. It gives me no pleasure to return from Warwickshire and hear you discussed openly by people I regard as rakes and fools.’

Finding she was the subject of common gossip nearly broke Emma’s resolve. It brought home to her how far she had fallen. It took great effort to keep her composure, and to demand defensively, ‘Who are these people?’

The slight smile returned. ‘I daresay you know that better than I, having spent so much time with them.’

Remaining calm might be a necessary requirement, yet in the face of such an accusation it was near impossible. Emma fought to keep any hint of pique from her voice. ‘You imply a want of discretion, Charles, but I have not once set foot outside the circle of Harry’s acquaintances. These are all people whose company you seemed to enjoy.’

‘I rest my case,’ he replied, with a wide grin.

‘That included you, Charles. How can you forget the attentions you paid me? And that while I was still under Harry’s roof, let alone his protection.’

‘I had hoped that you’d see me differently, you know that. But my humble means cannot compete with your keeper’s.’

‘I’ve seen precious little of his money.’

‘Indeed!’

‘Do you think I would run around with such people if I had Harry’s attention? I’ve been forced to fend for myself.’

‘I heard he had cooled.’

‘Froze, Charles, not cooled. I haven’t seen him for near three whole months. And these lodgings, in which he undertook to support me, are my own to maintain.’

‘Given your evident charms, my dear, that should present little difficulty.’

‘I am not a whore, Charles,’ she snapped, goaded by his studied air of serenity.

‘I have what I hear.’

‘And I require a roof over my head, as well as food in my belly.’

‘Since you owe rent, I must assume you have not pursued a new career with gusto.’

‘Is there anything Mrs Mulderry didn’t tell you?’

The smile returned. ‘That was the first thing she said, no doubt hoping that I would satisfy the debt.’

She dropped her head, unable to look him in the eye. He stood up and leaned over to squeeze her shoulders. ‘I’m not a fool, Emma. You’re sure you suspect Harry to be the father?’

‘It is the most likely,’ she replied softly, making no attempt to keep the hurt out of her voice.

‘Then you must go to him and tell him that it is so.’

That produced a humourless laugh. ‘He forbade me to call at Piccadilly, or to write to him there.’

‘He’s not even in London, Emma. At this very moment he is in Leicestershire.’

‘That might be the moon for all the difference it makes to me. I lack the means to stay or go.’

He traced the outline of her cheek with one extended finger. ‘Come along, Emma. Do you think that I would leave you in such a bind? I’ve already promised to pay your arrears to Mrs Mulderry.’ Emma looked into his eyes and took his hand, trying to convey in her tight grip that she was fond of him. ‘As to your travelling expenses, I will cover those as well.’

‘How can I ever repay you?’

‘If Harry acknowledges parenthood, then you can reimburse me from what he will, as his honour demands, settle on you. Now cheer up, and behave to me like the Emma of old.’

‘I think I’ve quite forgotten how to do that, Charles.’

‘Nonsense. My first suggestion is that you change that dress. It makes you look like a mourner at a particularly dull funeral.’

She brightened at that, and smiled properly for the first time since he had arrived. ‘What should I put on in its place?’

He bent forward to kiss her, but before their lips touched he halted, then smiled again. ‘I think that is a matter to be set aside for the moment, don’t you? Just let it fall so that I may inspect what is, in my opinion, the living Venus.’

The hoofs of the shay that was to carry Emma to meet the Leicester coach at the Strand still echoed in the street, as Greville returned to face Mrs Mulderry.

‘Now, madam, I require from you a final account of the amount Miss Hart owes.’

‘I have it writ here, your honour,’ she replied, proffering a small piece of paper, ‘so’s there can be no a-arguing. An’ might I be allowed to say that I’ve rare met such a good soul. That young lady needs proper lookin’ after.’

As he counted out the coins into her hand, he couldn’t help noticing the change in her manner. Finally satisfied, she clasped the money in one fist, then put her other hand on top of it, the two being clutched to her belly. Her round face was no longer supplicant and the way her shoulders lifted around her thick neck displayed the level of her disapproval.

‘Not that such beauty will want for long, I daresay. But bloom won’t last. It never does with that sort.’

Greville was tempted to tell her just what an unpleasant creature she was. But his mind was more with Emma and how much he had missed her. He knew Uppark Harry well enough to be sure that he would deny paternity, quite possibly shifting responsibility to him, a notion that was quite conceivably true. Whatever, that would leave Emma unsupported. His mind was reeling with the notion that he had won out over his rich friend; that he could finally offer his protection, the search for ways in which it could be
managed financially began at once. Calling her a beauty did her scant justice, and having her all to himself was something to look forward to with keen anticipation.

Not that it could happen immediately, of course. There was the final despatch of Harry to resolve. Regardless of the outcome of that, which, if he knew his friend, would do nothing for Emma, she was with child. There was little point in him maintaining her in that state, when for several months she would be unable to fulfil the purpose of her presence. But once the child was born, then Emma Hart would be grateful for his continued concern. And with his superior intellect, and her manifest needs he was sure he could lure her into another experiment as a kept woman.

The Strand was crammed with coaches, so deep in horse dung that the sweepers struggled to keep it clear for the passengers, some alighting after their arrival in London, most waiting to depart. The noise, to Nelson’s mind, sounded like the Tower of Babel, with drivers yelling at each other and flicking whips for right of way, the owners and ticketing vendors of the routes jostling and hustling their customers to their conveyances, servants near to brawling so that luggage could be loaded, all that mingled with the cries and sometimes tears of welcome and farewell.

‘Worse’ner than a maindeck first day in port,’ snarled Frank Lepée, simultaneously elbowing a hired porter who tried to cross his route. ‘Mind how you go mate, or I’ll fetch you a clout with that there valise you’re hoickin’.’

‘Go fuck yourself, mate,’ the porter replied, with little rancour.

The string of invective with which Lepée answered that was brought to an abrupt halt by a command to belay from his master, who turned quickly and raised his hat to the porter’s client, a well-dressed lady with a hooded cloak and a veil covering her face, the scent of which, necessary to keep out the malodours of the street, wafted over him. Her face was hidden by the cowl of her cloak and she didn’t respond, but she was no more than twenty feet away when she removed it and clambered aboard her coach, showing thick auburn hair and a classically beautiful profile.

Nelson recognised her immediately as the semi-clad nymph from the Adelphi, and tried to move forward to make her acquaintance. But too many other passengers blocked his progress and she was aboard before he had managed a yard. That halted him. The prospect that he would have to open the door to address her in front of other passengers was too much for him and the courage he relied on at sea was not up to facing such a potentially embarrassing encounter. He watched as the coach driver, whip flicking, drove his horses’ heads out into the Strand.

The image of that auburn-haired goddess recurred in Nelson’s daydreams as he took his own coach north, with no firm news of a ship, acceding to his father’s request to visit Norfolk. The landscape was flat under the grey skies,
as the coach rattled along at a good pace on new roads built by turnpike trusts. A change of conveyance at Norwich took him through the towns on the Pilgrim’s Way that ran north to the coastal towns of the Wash. The sights and sounds of his own county, now bathed in a summer sun, evoked a degree of introspection.

From Burnham Market he took a hack to his home, through rolling hills that cut off the nearby sea from the flat plain to the south. He had run around here as a child, coursing hares, raiding birds’ nests, stealing fruit, trapping rabbits and hunting foxes. He heard the cry of the gulls a mile and a half inland, at the same time observing from the coach window the swallow-tailed butterflies and hawker dragonflies that buzzed across the hay meadows. The faint smell of the North Sea brought back memories of fishing, of gadding about in small boats when he’d been entranced to see on the horizon the occasional sail of a great ship. The light of the sun, as it sank below the cloud in the West, had a quality that existed nowhere else he had ever been; a streak of low gold that cast shadows that seemed to run to the edge of the world.