Pirates! (4 page)

William went to collect his cloak and sword, and I went back for my wrap. I tripped down the stairs and out of the doors. I stood looking about, ignoring the link boys’ curious looks, fanning myself as if I needed air, although it was scarcely cooler outside than inside the building. Then I heard his whistle.

He was at the archway that marked the beginning of Harrison’s Walks that ran down by the Avon.

‘Will you walk with me, Miss Nancy?’ He offered me his arm. ‘How long have you been in Bath?’

‘Three weeks or so,’ I replied.

‘And do you enjoy yourself? With all the entertainments, music, dancing, and so on?’

‘What do I want with dancing? I despise dancing.’

He laughed. ‘Come, Nancy. That’s not true! You seemed to enjoy it well enough just now.’ He was teasing, his mouth curved up in a broad smile, but his eyes held a deeper seriousness, a sadness even. He knew as well as I did why young ladies were taken to Bath.

‘That’s because I was dancing with you.’

‘What about all the other young men that you have met? Do you not like to dance with them?’

I shook my head. ‘I like to meet young men rather less than I like to dance.’

He smiled again. ‘I thought the two things went together.’ He was silent for a while, running his hand over the nodding heads of the roses that lined the walk, releasing their scent. ‘Perhaps you already have a young man, and do not want to meet another.’

‘Perhaps I have,’ I said.

He blinked as if at some sudden sharp pain, then he looked away. He walked in silence, eyes cast down in resignation, and he sighed as if he’d heard what he most dreaded and most expected, all in the same breath.

We went on for a few paces, then he turned to me.

‘In that case ... ’ He looked about, at a loss for what to do, what to say.

‘No.’ I gripped his arm tighter. ‘That’s not what I meant. I meant ... ’

I stopped. I’d suddenly run out of words as well. Perhaps I had no words for it.

‘I have no young man. Other than ... ’

‘Other than?’

He was looking at me now, his dark eyes bright and intense.

I took a deep breath. ‘Other than you.’

‘Do not trifle with me, Nancy.’

‘I’m not trifling with you. Why would I trifle? I do not trifle.’

‘Truly?’ He looked down at me, his face still serious.

‘Truly. Of course. I am not the trifling sort.’

He began to smile again and his smile spread wide, reaching his eyes.

‘I have thought of you every night, and every day since I went away.’ He paused, as though to collect his thoughts. ‘If it had not been for you, I would never have obtained a place with Captain Robinson on the frigate,
Colchester
, and he’s been like a father to me. You were my saviour, Nancy, but you are more, much more.’ He stopped again, as if these words were hard for him. ‘You had always been there, from our earliest years, like a sister. Always a friend: strong, and brave, and loyal. When we were playmates, do you remember?’ I nodded. ‘But when I came back, you were different. You were dressed like a lady, in silks and satins. You seemed to have gone so far above me, a common sailor, and you a rich man’s daughter. I thought that I could never ... ’ He shook his head. ‘You were the finest, cleanest, prettiest thing I’d seen in an age. I was so glad to see you, but it seemed so hopeless ... ’ He sighed. ‘I vowed that I would not come back until I had made my way in life. Until I was in a position ... ’

‘In a position to do what?’

‘To ask your father for your hand. I have my commission now, Nancy.’ He pointed to the gold at his collar. ‘I have money from prizes and my wages. My prospects are good. I should make captain – ’

‘I do not care a fig for that.’ I put my fingers to his mouth to hush him. ‘I am not my father, you can save the speeches for him.’ I drew him closer. ‘You could come home barefoot in a sailor’s rig and I would still want to marry you.’

‘In that case ... ’ He bent his head to kiss me. His arms went about me and he held me close, his mouth warm on mine. I felt suddenly breathless, almost as though I were swooning, as though my very bones were melting. I wanted the kiss to last for ever, but eventually he broke the embrace.

‘We will be sweethearts, you and I. Promised to each other,’ he murmured. ‘Take this as a token.’

He drew a ring from off his finger. It was a man’s ring, heavy gold, and so big that it would only fit on my thumb.

‘Then you must have this.’

I reached for the ring I wore on the middle finger of my left hand. It had belonged to my mother. I had been given her jewellery on my last birthday.

It reached the knuckle of William’s little finger.

‘I’ll wear it around my neck.’ He took the ring and kissed it, slipping it into his uniform pocket. ‘Now I must go.’ He looked up at the sky. ‘I have to ride back to Bristol and there is going to be a storm.’

In the distance, thunder growled as if to confirm his prediction. Rain was beginning to spot as he kissed me in parting. I had to hurry back to the Assembly Rooms to avoid a soaking. I ran up the stairs, humming a merry dance tune. The second half of the evening had already begun, but I wouldn’t be dancing. If we had come to Bath to find me a husband, then as far as I was concerned the search was done. William had to return to his ship, but I didn’t care. I was sure of him and he’d be speaking to my father just as soon as his duties allowed.

I came to the last turn of the stairs and met two men lounging there. James Calthorpe and his friend Edward Bruton. I smiled a greeting by way of apology for slighting him earlier and was about to explain about William, but Calthorpe ignored me and carried on his conversation with Bruton, turning his back as they began to descend the stairs. It was, perhaps, little more than I deserved, and I was not disposed to think the worst of him for it, but then he made a comment and I could not but overhear it.

‘What did you say?’

They looked at each other and smirked. They were both in varying degrees drunk, although Calthorpe was the less steady of the two.

‘A merchant’s daughter is bad enough,’ Calthorpe repeated, enunciating his words louder and more clearly. ‘But a sailor’s whore, I could never endure – ’ He looked at his friend and they both fell to laughing. I could not bear the insult, to William, or to me.

‘At least he’s not a rake like you two. He risks his life for King and country. Who do you think you are, to slight the jacket blue?’

That set them laughing louder, so much so that I could not endure it. Temper and pride flared together as I looked down at Calthorpe’s braying face a step or so below me. I reached back my arm and punched him square on the nose. It was not a girl’s slap, or a wild swing, but a short, sharp jab from the shoulder just as Ned had taught me. It was a well-placed blow. Brother Ned would have applauded. I heard the bone crack. Blood spurted and splattered, adding a poppy-petal pattern to the pale embroidered silk of his waistcoat.

Calthorpe reeled back, holding his face. If Bruton had not caught him, he would have gone toppling down the stairs. Blood seeped between his fingers as he snorted and swore, his words thick and indistinct. I turned on my heel and left them.

A storm
was
coming. William had been right. It came full force in the night. The wind screamed about the houses and rain hit the windows like scattering shot. Mrs Wilkes had to raise her voice to have her orders heard above the commotion, but the growing tempest did not seem to trouble her, beyond a fear for the slates and chimney pots.

Those who live by the sea always keep an eye on the weather. Susan declared that she would not sleep a wink.

‘I don’t like the sound of it,’ she said when she came to help me undress. ‘If it be like this here, what’s it going to be like in Bristol? Or out in the Channel?’

The windows were shaking in their sashes as she looked out into the rain-streaked blackness. The wind that screamed about the houses of Bath would be blowing twice as strong out at sea. Any ship caught far from shore would stand little chance. The captain would have to make safe harbour or be at the mercy of the storm.

‘There’ll be wrecks tonight.’ She rubbed at the gooseflesh on her arms. ‘You see if there’s not.’

Susan and I knelt together that night to pray for all those who might be in peril on the sea and for any whose ships were driven on to the shore. I added a silent prayer for William, giving thanks that he wasn’t at sea, and asking God to keep him safe.

By morning, the storm had hardly abated. Instead, it continued, growing and building, turning itself into one of the worst storms in living memory. It went on all that day and into the next. Up at King Road, the safe anchorage at the mouth of the Avon, ships were thrown up on the shore. That had happened only once before. By the end of the third day, the damage was grievous. Word slowly filtered into Bristol of the number of vessels wrecked and lives lost. Whole fleets had gone down, although we knew nothing of that in Bath. Trees blocked the roads and the rivers were swollen to bursting. It took a further two days for the first coach to reach us from home.

It brought Robert with a letter from my father. Mrs Wilkes read it quickly. She did not share the contents with us, but whatever news it contained made her white about the mouth.

‘What’s that all about?’ Susan asked Robert as she fed him in the kitchen.

Robert shook his big head, his long face graver than I had ever seen it.

‘The Master says to come home.’

g

g

Chapter 7

My father sat in his study, encased in gloom. His clothes were wrinkled, as though he had slept in them, and his wig was dishevelled and set at a slant. He looked shrunken as if he’d lost flesh. His waistcoat no longer strained at the buttons; his florid face was dull as putty and sunken under a three-day silvering of stubble. His eyes were lustreless, rheumy and red from lack of sleep. He looked far older than when I had last seen him, as if he had aged twenty years in as many days.

He had been expecting a convoy of ships from Jamaica. Only one had arrived safe in port.

‘Don’t fuss, Madam!’ he roared at Mrs Wilkes. He waved her away as if warding off a buzzing insect. ‘I can’t bear it!’

‘Father – ’ Joseph began, but got no further.

‘You be quiet, Sir!’ My father half rose from his chair. ‘If we are ruined, it is largely your doing. What you have done is near criminal. Where are the funds I forwarded to you in order to secure the cargoes?’

My brother had no answer. He didn’t even bluster, just hung his head as if he were ten again and been caught pilfering by some shopkeeper.

‘You borrowed on expectation of profit, and now the whole lot is lost. All at the bottom of the sea.’ My father rose, leaning on his desk to face his son. ‘How am I to pay the creditors? How am I to pay the planters whose sugar we were shipping, the merchants who have bought it? Perhaps you could tell me? I have to stand surety. How can I do that without ships and money? You are guilty of fraud, Sir, or as near as dammit! I could turn you over to the justices, and will do if you are not very careful.’ Joseph opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it. Father’s fury left him gaping like a fish. ‘I’ll speak to you later. Now get out of my sight!’

I thought he meant me, too, so I went to follow my brother out of the room.

‘Not you, Missy.’ He called me back. ‘I want to speak to you.’

I stood waiting, but it was as if I were not there. He sat down and remained lost in thought, staring out of the window at the city spread below.

‘Father?’ I stepped forward to remind him of my presence.

‘Is a husband found for you?’

I shook my head.

‘Prospects? In your mother’s last letter, she had hopes of someone ... ’

I saw James Calthorpe’s bloody nose and shook my head.

‘Good. Good.’ He rubbed his hands as though warming them. ‘These younger sons – they’ve not got a pot to piss in. Never mind that they’re aristocratic. No point in throwing good money after bad. So you’re not committed?’

‘Well, not exactly ... ’

‘What do you mean?’ He looked at me sharply. ‘Speak plain.’

I took a deep breath, determined to tell him and get it over. Hope surged within me. If I played my cards correctly, I might marry William directly. It would be one less expense for him. It was a way of getting me off his hands.

I did not play my hand well.

‘I’m promised.’

‘Oh?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Who to?’

‘William. He was in Bath. We met and ... ’

‘William? What William?’

‘William Davies. You know him.’

He rubbed the stubble on his chin. ‘Father used to captain the
Andrew and John
? Mother keeps The Seven Stars?’

‘Yes. That’s him. He’s ... ’

‘A sailor. You’ll not marry a tar.’

‘He’s not a tar. He’s a naval officer.’

‘Naval officer!’ My father gave a short bark of a laugh. ‘He’s still a tar. They all are.’

‘But we’re promised ... ’

‘Not now you’re not. You can’t marry without my permission and I’m not giving it.’ He read the expression on my face. ‘Think me harsh, do you? Think me cruel? Go and ask the widows and orphans of Bristol, let them tell you what’s cruel. I’ve lost everything. Everything!’ His voice was trembling. ‘What ships I have left will have to be sold to repay the debt. Do you understand?’ He stood up and came towards me. ‘You would do your part, wouldn’t you? If I asked you to. For me? For the family?’ He touched my cheeks, his fingers tracing over my skin with an old man’s tremor.

‘Of course, Papa!’ I had no idea what he was talking about, no idea what I was promising, but his distress and sudden infirmity frightened me. What else could I say?

‘Good girl! My good girl. My Nancy! Always honest and true! Your brother Joseph has turned out a sot and a waster, but I knew I could depend on you. You are my daughter and you will do your duty.’ He leaned on to the side of the desk, edging his way back to his chair, going hand over hand, like a man on a tilting deck. ‘I have one chance left,’ he said as he dropped into his seat. ‘One chance, and one chance only.’

He muttered the words with his chin sunk into his chest, so they sounded slightly slurred. Then he looked up at me, his mood changed, his old self snapped back again.

‘There will be no more talk of marrying sailors. I’m expecting a guest at dinner. Make sure you’ve lost that sulky expression by then, Miss. It’s enough to sour milk. I want you at your most charming. I want you looking your best. Tell Susan. Now send Joseph to me. We must see what we can salvage from this mess.’

The destruction at sea had been general; my father was not the only one to suffer. His, however, was the greatest loss. A whole convoy had gone down, its crews drowned, its cargoes hauled away by wreckers or dissolving in the waters of the Channel. The only ships my father had left were those that had been in port, or far off abroad and not expected home for a long while.

‘It’s all over Bristol. Only one ship saved out of the whole lot coming in,’ Susan told me when she came back from town. ‘Crewed by foreigners, all dark-skinned fellows, with gold in their ears and coal-black ringlets. Not a jack of them speaks a word of English. Came through the storm with hardly a sail torn or a spar broken. Must have been captained by the Devil himself, that’s what they are saying in the port.’

The harbourside gossips were nearer to the truth than they could have ever guessed.

The mysterious captain of the sole surviving ship was to be our dinner guest, but the dinner was never given. The roast beef my father loved so much charred on the spit; the plum pudding he’d ordered to be made boiled away on the stove until it was as solid as a cannonball. My hair was half brushed, spread about my shoulders, when we heard a scream from downstairs and the sound of pounding feet, then further cries and shouting from all around the house.

I was not yet dressed, so Susan ran out to see what could have happened to cause such a commotion. She came back slowly, her thin face pale and pinched.

‘What is it, Susan?’ I turned from the mirror. ‘Whatever is the matter?’

‘It’s your father, Miss,’ she said quietly, her eyes filling with tears. ‘He’s been took badly. They’re bringing him upstairs now.’

I ran from my room, still in my corset. Robert and the footman were carrying my father between them. His head lay slumped against Robert’s chest, one hand hung down, knocking against the banisters. I ran to help, taking his arm by the sleeve. It was limp and heavy as I lifted it on to his chest. His face was grey and his jaw hung slack. The cheek towards me was puckered, lifted as if by a giant hook. His eye was half open, the white suffused with blood.

‘Is he – ’ I looked up at Robert, who shook his head, frowning as if to say, ‘Not yet.’

‘The doctor’s been called for.’

They took him to his room and Robert laid him down as gently as if he were a sleeping child. He stood for a moment, looking down at him. He sent the footman away and asked for warm water and clean linen. I left him tending to his master, tears in his eyes.

‘’Tis apoplexy, the Missis says,’ Susan told me. ‘Her last husband was took with it. She knows the signs.’

The doctor came and shook his head. There was nothing he could do. Most people thought Mrs Wilkes might go to pieces, but after the first shock she kept her head. She sent for Henry to come from London, and Ned from his regiment.

It took my father three days to die, so they both arrived in time to say their goodbyes. We were called to his bedside when it seemed he couldn’t last much longer. Henry and Joseph were already there, standing each side of him. I stood at the end of the bed, Ned next to me, listening to each shallow whistling breath, counting the seconds between them, wondering if there would be another. Just as it seemed that he could last no longer, his hand gripped Henry’s sleeve and he pulled his son to him. Joseph and Henry bent down, their ears close to his mouth. His words were slurred, his voice a hoarse bird caw. I could not hear what he said, but they both nodded.

‘We promise, Father,’ they said together.

His hand went slack and he turned his head away from them. He never spoke again.

Outside the house, straw was strewn in the drive to deaden the sound of hooves and wheels. Inside, the mirrors were turned, shutters closed and curtains drawn. My father lay in his coffin in the dining room, surrounded by tall clear-burning beeswax candles, Robert standing over him in quiet vigil. Men came to see my brothers, to pay their respects and offer condolences. They spoke in murmurs and stepped softly, but many were owed money and they were anxious to know what would happen to their investment. Business wouldn’t wait, even for the funeral. Henry offered them Bristol Milk and cake along with placating words and reassurances that all was well. They drank their sherry, brushed the crumbs from their waistcoats and agreed to give Henry a little more time to order his father’s affairs.

‘That’s all I need,’ he said. ‘Just a little while.’

After they had gone, he’d retire to the library to spend hours bent over the books, looking at agreements. He would come out hollow-eyed, and drawn. We were ruined; no two ways about it. Only a miracle could save us. The creditors would wait until after the funeral, but after that they would take it all.

I do not know to whom he prayed, but our saviour was the foreign sea captain who had come through the storm unscathed. Bartholome, the Brazilian, came to our house the day before the funeral. His very presence set everyone talking and whispering in corners. The man was a mystery. Nothing was known about him. It was as if he had sprung up among us like a devil from a trap door, brandishing a pitch fork. No one even knew his full name. Legend gathered around him, swirling about him like a great black cloak. His age, the country of his birth, his early history, were all unknown. Even his looks were deceptive. He must have been as old as my father, but he looked much younger. He wore no wig and the thick black hair falling to his shoulders had no grey in it. There was no surplus flesh upon him and his face was curiously ageless. His prominent features seemed carved from some hard wood. His thin moustache and beard were clipped close as though they had been painted on to his dark skin.

He had been a buccaneer and had acquired fabulous wealth during his years as a freebooter, that was all Bristol knew. To us, he was a planter with a colourful past. He had used his booty to buy land and his Jamaican holding was next to ours. My father had been in business with him for many years, providing slaves and acting as factor for his sugar. He’d been a guest at our house before, and now he’d come to offer his condolences and something more. He spent hours locked away with my brothers and when he left, he took our troubles with him.

I met them in the hall just as the Brazilian was leaving.

‘Miss Nancy.’ He bowed to me. ‘I’m so charmed to see you again, even at this sad time.’ He took my hand. His long fingers were heavy with rings, square-cut rubies and emeralds. He stood looking down at me with eyes so black as to show no pupil. They held a gleam of red, almost purple, like overripe cherries, or deadly nightshade berries. ‘I am truly sorry for your loss,’ he murmured as he lifted my hand to his mouth. ‘Whatever assistance I can give ... ’

His lips were warm and moist inside the close-clipped soft silkiness of his beard and moustache. It was like being caressed by a panther. I had to steel myself not to snatch my hand away.

‘Thank you, Sir. You are most kind.’

‘The last time we met you were but a child ... ’ He smiled, his red lips parting to show a gap between his front teeth. A gap shows lust, so Susan said.

‘Yes, I remember.’

I’d been thirteen, maybe fourteen. Hardly a child.

‘Now you are quite the young lady.’ His eyes left my face.

‘As you see.’ I looked down at myself.

When he smiled, the skin around his eyes wrinkled, betraying his age. He continued to stare at me expectantly, but I could think of nothing more to say. Then he seemed to recollect himself.

‘Yes, Sirs.’ He turned to my brothers and shook hands with them. ‘We do well. Very well.’

I assumed he was referring to whatever had been agreed, and that it would be enough to save the business. My brothers shook his hand warmly and saw him out. I suspected nothing, although they would have been laughing if my father had not still been in the house. They were talking loudly about getting cargoes in and of buying ships again. I felt glad, I remember, relieved. I might even have felt grateful to the Brazilian for helping us out, for showing such generosity.

When I think of it now, my innocence makes me shudder.