Storm Tide Page 7
‘So is mine.’
‘He does not understand that I am different from him.’
‘Nor mine.’
The hush in the room seemed to close tighter around them as they held each other’s gazes. For the first time in his life, Rob felt there was someone who understood him. All his life he had longed for an older brother, someone to show him how to face the world in the way his father never could. Perhaps this connection was how it would feel.
‘Clearly we have many things in common,’ Hugo said. Then he broke into a grin again. ‘Listen to us, feeling sorry for ourselves like a pair of girls. You have all of London to see, and I must hear everything you can tell me about Africa. Have you ever seen a camelopard?
‘I do not think so.’
Hugo looked disappointed. ‘I hear they are as tall as a house, and brindled like a leopard.’
Rob realised what he meant. ‘We call it a giraffe,’ he told Hugo. ‘Yes, I have seen many hundreds. And lions, too.’
‘I saw one once, at a fair. It was a shabby, bedraggled creature. I felt so sorry for it, chained in captivity so far from its home. Yet even then, I could see the nobility in it.’
‘They are beautiful animals,’ Rob agreed.
‘All I ever wanted was to become a pirate or an explorer.’ A sad look crossed Hugo’s face. ‘My father forbade me, of course.
‘My father forbade me to come to London,’ said Rob.
‘But you came anyway?’ Hugo looked astonished. ‘You defied your father?’
Rob shrugged. ‘Here I am.’
‘You ran away to sea.’ Hugo clapped his hands. ‘You are a marvel, Rob. You must tell me the whole story.’
‘It is not so extraordinary,’ Rob said shyly. ‘London is far more exotic.’
Still, he could not deny he was pleased with the attention. A servant refilled his drink, and Rob told his story. At first he was embarrassed at Hugo’s attention, but the more he drank the more he spoke. He had never been so much the centre of attention, and he found he liked it. Hugo’s questions, his obvious awe of Rob’s life, made him want to tell his new friend everything.
He lost all sense of time. At Fort Auspice, the locals had made small beer from fermented maize, while there had always been bottles of wine and brandy picked up from the ships that called in Nativity Bay. But it had been served sparingly, on special occasions like Christmas and birthdays. Hugo drank it like water. And each time Rob protested he must go, Hugo asked another question that had Rob launching into another long answer. Soon his head was spinning with the alcohol, lost in a warm haze of laughter and chatter.
The day stretched into evening. Rob realised he was hungry, and mentioned it: in no time, he and Hugo found themselves at a table in a chop house, devouring hunks of meat and draining pints of wine. After that, Hugo decided they needed entertainment, so they staggered down to the Marylebone pleasure gardens, singing raucously.
Rob had brought a purse with a little of his seaman’s pay and some of Louisa’s money, but he had spent it all on clothes. Hugo had to pay the sixpence entrance fee.
‘Where do you get your money?’ Rob asked. Alcohol had made him uninhibited.
‘My father.’
Rob tried to imagine how a man could earn enough to keep such a magnificent home.
‘Is he a merchant?’
Hugo looked appalled. ‘God, no. If he heard you ask that he would box your ears. He owns estates in the West Indies.’
Rob was having trouble focusing on what he said. ‘Estates?’
‘Sugar.’ Hugo frowned. ‘Really, if you wish to spend all evening talking of business, then you can spend it with my father’s agent.’
Rob let the matter drop and gave himself over to the sights of the pleasure gardens. As much as London had overwhelmed him already with its size and splendour, this was even more extraordinary. They watched a boxing match between two women who tried to pummel the life out of each other, as if each had stolen the other’s lover. The male crowd cheered and booed with such intensity it was as if their own wives were scrapping desperately to assuage a bitter jealousy. Rob noticed the women cling to one another in a clinch and one of them smiled knowingly, but he couldn’t help staring intently at the bare flesh of their stomachs and thighs. They moved on to a bear-baiting, which made him feel sick to witness dogs so frenzied and the bear defenceless. He had an uncommon sympathy with wild animals, and he wanted to halt the performance, but his shouts of protest were lost in the raucous baying of the drunken crowd. A fire-eater restored his spirits as the performer spewed flame like a fantastical beast, a dragon from the dark depths of his fevered imagination. He felt that he might have died and been transported to a place where nothing but sensation resided. Everything was new and thrilling, a world dedicated to every pleasure the sun or moon could provide.
At last the gardens closed, and they staggered back to the house on Wimpole Street, by way of another two or three taverns. They collapsed on the silk chaises in the drawing room, and Hugo called for more wine, which came at once. Did the servants never sleep?
A grandfather clock in the hall struck two.
‘Two bells,’ Rob murmured drowsily.
Hugo laughed. ‘Silly. It is two o’clock in the morning.’
Rob shook himself awake. ‘But I was due back with Captain Cornish hours ago.’
‘Tell him you got lost,’ Hugo encouraged him. ‘Stay a while longer. We may find some female company before long.’
Rob put out his hand to steady himself. ‘I must go.’
He stumbled towards the door, out onto the landing. The huge staircase seemed to spin around him. He took one step, and almost pitched head first down the stairs.
Hugo grabbed his arm. ‘You will break your neck on the stairs in the state you are in. Stay here.’
Rob knew he ought to go back to the ship. Cornish did not know where he was; he might be worried. But the house was warm, and Hugo was kind, and the wine in his blood made him suddenly terribly sleepy.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘If you are sure it is not trouble.’
He sank into the feather bed, thinking how lucky he was to have found a friend like Hugo.
H
e did not feel so lucky the next morning. His mouth tasted like the inside of the bilge, his stomach tossed like a ship in a storm, and his head ached as if a cannon had gone off inside it.
He lay in the bed, rising only to stumble to the side and vomit into the chamber pot. It was nearly noon when Hugo put his head around the door.
‘I thought sailors were supposed to have strong heads.’ He seemed no worse the wear from the night before. ‘A spot of breakfast will cure you.’
Rob meant to say that he should go back to the ship. But after emptying his stomach, he found he was ravenously hungry. Soon he was eating a plateful of eggs, while trying to answer Hugo’s ceaseless stream of questions about Africa, and of his family’s adventures. Hugo was as wide-eyed as a boy who had just had a genuine pirate walk into his drawing room.
‘And what should we do today?’ Hugo asked, when his plate was empty. ‘The theatre? White’s? There is so much you need to see.’
Rob badly wanted to spend the day with Hugo, and see more of the fathomless marvels London had to offer. But he knew he was already past due back at the ship.
‘Captain Cornish will worry where I have got to.’
‘The voyage is over,’ Hugo pointed out. ‘Are the crew not entitled to shore leave.’
‘I suppose I am,’ said Rob. ‘But I do not have anywhere to stay ashore.’
‘Of course you do,’ said Hugo. ‘You are staying here.’
Rob felt a lift in his heart. The prospect of staying with his new friend, with his sophistication and easy manners, felt like a dream he could hardly dare to realise.
‘Are you quite sure?’
‘For as long as you like.’
‘But your father . . .?’
‘He is not here to ask, and this house is far too big for one person.’ Hugo saw Rob still had qualms. ‘If it makes you feel better, I will write and tell him.’ He winked. ‘He will not get the letter for six weeks, and even if he objects it will take as long again to get a reply.
‘You are very generous,’ Rob said. ‘I fear I do not have much to offer in return.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Hugo forcefully. ‘London was so dull before you came.’
The notion astonished Rob. ‘I cannot imagine London ever being dull.’
‘I cannot imagine why you would trade a life of wild adventure for this cesspit, but there you have it. With you, I feel I have stepped into the pages of a Daniel Defoe novel.’ He rang the bell for a servant. ‘It is decided. But if you are to cut a dash as a man about town, you cannot wear those frightful seaman’s clothes. I have some old suits you could wear. They are no longer quite so fashionable as they were, but I can have my tailor adjust them for you.’
‘That is very kind,’ said Rob, ‘but I have hardly worn in the clothes I have.’
He had grown up wearing canvas trousers and a cotton shirt; whenever one was worn so badly through that it could not longer be patched, his grandmother would run up a replacement that was to all intents identical. On Christmas Day, or if there was a baptism or a funeral, he had struggled into an old suit of his grandfather’s. The notion of fashion was entirely alien to him.
Hugo took it a deal more seriously. Before Rob knew it, he was standing on a box in the middle of the drawing room, while an elderly man with a protruding chin and a red cap fussed about him with measuring tapes and pins.
‘I should not be spending my money on clothes I do not need,’ Rob fretted.
‘You absolutely d
o need them,’ Hugo insisted. ‘If you are to stay in London any time at all, you cannot look like a tar just off the ship.’
That is what I am, Rob thought. But Hugo looked so pleased at seeing Rob in his fine new clothes, it felt churlish to say so.
R
ob fetched his possessions from the ship. Saying goodbye to Cornish was not as awkward as he had feared.
‘The ship will be in harbour for weeks while we refit for the next voyage,’ said Cornish. ‘I promised to bring you to London. Now you must make your own way.’
He spoke philosophically, but he could not hide the concern in his eyes. Rob had grown in every way since they left Nativity Bay, but he was still so young.
‘You are able to support yourself?’ Cornish asked.
‘I have the money from my grandmother.’
‘You will need more than that.’
Cornish led him down to his cabin and opened a chest. Inside, laid on sackcloth, were half a dozen long bull elephant tusks.
‘These are for you,’ he said gruffly.
Rob flushed. ‘It is too much,’ he protested.
‘Consider it repayment of all the kindnesses your family has shown me these many years.’
Rob did not care about old family debts.
‘I can make my own way.’
‘No doubt you can. But it’s a sight easier to start with something than with nothing.’ Cornish saw the stubborn look in Rob’s eyes, and sighed. ‘If you will not take this as a gift, take it as an investment. If you have half an ounce of Courtney blood in you, you will turn it into a handsome profit. You can pay me back when you have made your fortune.’
Rob took one of the tusks. It took all his strength to hold it, and there were five more just as big in the chest. The weight reassured him. As determined as he was to live on his own wits, he could not deny that London was an overpowering and expensive place. Better to start with a little capital. Maybe then he would not feel quite so unequal with Hugo.
‘Let them be a reminder of where you came from,’ Cornish added. ‘I know you have come to see the world, and maybe you will see more than you bargained for before it is over. But Nativity Bay is your home. We sail for the Malabar Coast in three months’ time, and we will call again at Nativity Bay. There is a berth for you aboard this ship if you want it.’
‘Thank you,’ said Rob.
He was grateful to the captain. But he was also eighteen, on his own, with a full purse and the greatest city in the world at his feet. It was not a time for lingering doubts. By the time he reached Hugo’s house and started to unpack, he had forgotten Cornish and was already looking forward to the night’s adventures.
Hugo could hardly believe the chest of ivory. He ran his fingers along the length of one of the tusks, marvelling at its size.
‘Imagine facing down the beast that carried this. You must be impossibly brave.’
Rob did not know what to say.
‘The only ivory I have ever touched before is on a billiard ball. And what is this?’
He picked up the long canvas bundle that lay on the bed.
‘Don’t . . .’ Rob began. but Hugo had already unwrapped it. The sapphire in the pommel of the Neptune sword shone as he held it up to the light.
‘Sweet Jesus,’ Hugo breathed. ‘This must be worth a hundred thousand at least.’
Rob had never thought of it like that.
‘It was my grandfather’s. And his father’s before him.’
Hugo unsheathed the blade and took a few theatrical swings. ‘I knew you were a pirate.’
‘It belonged to Sir Francis Drake.’
Rob wished Hugo would put it down, but he also wanted his friend to know how important the sword was. Hugo’s wealth and breeding were so impeccable, it felt good to show that the Courtneys had their own noble pedigree.
‘You really have lived the most extraordinary existence,’ Hugo said, with so much admiration in his voice that Rob swelled with pride. ‘Make sure you keep this safe.’
As soon as Hugo had left, Rob prised up a floorboard in the corner of the room and hid the sword under it, together with the bag of coins Louisa had given him. He was living under Hugo’s roof; he hated himself for distrusting his friend. But any thought of losing the sword, however far-fetched, was unbearable.
T
he city was tumultuous: a jungle of brick, stone and soot, teeming with life. But it was not as difficult to navigate as Rob had first thought. Over the next weeks, he learned its rhythms and its geography, just as he had the bush at home. He could follow wagon traffic to a major crossroads, as he had once followed game trails to watering holes. Instead of streams, he followed the flow of humanity, watching how trickles grew into the great crowds that thronged the main streets. Instead of tall trees and prominent rocks, he learned to orientate his position by church spires and tavern signs. They had all looked the same to his overloaded eyes when he arrived, but he learned the differences. St Martin in the Fields was shaped like a termite mound; the tiered spire of St Brides, like a cake stand; and there was the stolid square tower of St George’s that told him he was nearly back at Wimpole Street.
He also became familiar with many of the different taverns.
Like the jungle, the city had its dangers. Rob learned to be alert for the telltale signs: the rumble of wheels that told of a chaise ready to burst around a street corner; the creak of a window over his head, warning that someone was about to tip out the contents of a chamber pot; the shadow moving in a doorway down an empty alley, when he was coming home late at night.
Employing vigilance and instinct, he was soon able to find a destination, relatively safely, anywhere in London.
He spent many of his days with Hugo and his friends. But there were also times when they went their different ways. During those periods, Rob would go east into the City. He had struck up some friendships with the traders who thronged the court of the Royal Exchange. Tentatively at first, but ever more confidently, he began to trade on his own account. He started with the ivory tusks Cornish had given him. With the profits from that sale, he bought a consignment of tea from a ship that had come in late and was selling cheap, her captain desperate to be rid of the cargo. Rob held on to it for a few weeks, and then sold it on when prices rose again. He had a knack, he discovered, for sensing when a price was low, and when it was likely to rise.
He did not mention it to Hugo. He had learned early on that Hugo had fixed ideas of the world that no amount of argument could change. A man was a gentleman, or he was nothing. A gentleman did not engage in trade. Money was contemptible, except as a means to pleasure. Speaking of it was unforgivably dull. If Rob ever queried the price of an item, Hugo would tease him mercilessly as a penny-pinching old grandmother.
Rob did not entirely understand how a man as profligate as Hugo could give no thought to money, or how one obtained money without engaging in some kind of commerce. But the few times he pressed the question, Hugo grew moody, and Rob did not want to quarrel. So he kept his dealings on the exchange to himself.
Rob tried to invest his money wisely and make it grow. But as quickly as he earned it, it seemed to flow out of his purse again. There were so many ways to spend money in London, and Hugo embraced them all. He took Rob to the finest tailors, cobblers and milliners in St James’s to buy new clothes, extravagantly bright fabrics of the kind that Hugo and his friends favoured. There were pleasure gardens, feasts, taverns, races, cock fights, gin shops, theatres: an infinite cornucopia of indulgence.
One day, they found themselves at Epsom Downs, in Surrey. Even in the heart of London Rob had rarely seen so much noise and colour. Gentlemen and their ladies watched from carriages drawn up alongside the track, while vertiginous temporary grandstands tottered above them. There were so many spectators crammed in, Rob feared they would crash over.
They sat in Hugo’s phaeton near the starting line, watching the milling crowds and the jockeys preparing their mounts. The smells of hot pies, leather and horse dung filled the air. Hugo kept up a constant commentary on the people he saw: their titles, incomes, families and scandals. Rob was more interested in the horses. One in particular caught his eye: a tall bay with a black tail and fetlocks, who stamped his feet and tried to bite any groom who came near.
‘Whose horse is that?’ he asked Hugo.