Blown Off Course (17 page)

‘What if he does not?’ Pearce asked in a soft voice.

She raised her head off his shoulder and looked at him with reddened eyes. ‘To even contemplate such a thing is blasphemy.’

‘I wish, Emily, you had met my father, surely the most Christian man I have ever known, yet one who did not believe in God.’ Seeing the look of shock he continued quickly, ‘Yet he believed in his fellow man, often when the evidence before him flew in the face of that belief.’ Pearce smiled again. ‘It will not
surprise you to know we disputed long and often on that.’

‘You, I think, were born to dispute.’

‘I am forced to ask you, Emily, having got as far as we have this night, what you see happening next?’

‘I do not know.’

That was, of course, obfuscation: Emily Barclay might have been raised in circumstances of rigid propriety, but like everyone else on the planet she knew what the alternative was, given even rural Somerset could not be entirely bereft of scandal. But the step at which John Pearce hinted was, for her, a leap into a sort of hell.

‘You do know, the sole question is whether you accept that what should happen will.’

‘You are too direct, sir.’

‘I think by now I might be “John”, not “sir”, and someone has to be, as our good friend so recently observed.’

‘I need time.’

‘If there were three words I feared, it was those.’

‘You cannot expect me to …’ That was a sentence she could not finish: to even acknowledge what Pearce was driving at was beyond the limit of what she was prepared to say.

‘No, of course not.’

His reply was full of an understanding he was not sure he felt, yet to push now would be to create a barrier, not remove one, and she did need time, for whereas a man embarking on a serious liaison with a married woman would suffer the minimum of opprobrium, the
lady would not: she would be damned by a society steeped in double standards.

‘We must meet again,’ Pearce said, with a smile intended to soften her fears.

‘Yes?’ The positive response was a whisper.

‘Shall I see you to your lodgings?’

‘Perhaps not.’

Pearce laughed, which occasioned a frown.

‘What is so amusing?’

‘You are, just as you are sweet, good-natured, kind, beautiful … and I have run out of superlatives, which is just as well since I have driven you to the blush.’ Her face was indeed suffused. ‘But, and I will not brook any objection, I am going to kiss you.’

He could see a flash of fear in her eyes as he moved towards her, but then, and this lifted his already heightened emotions, a sudden sign of that determination he so admired, that resolve not to allow fear to rule. A hand round her narrow waist hauled her in, and they did kiss, in a way which was deeply satisfying for Pearce, but more so for Emily, who had never been properly kissed in her life.

The parting, once Heinrich Lutyens had been brought into the happy conclusion of their talk, occasioned one of those periods when neither party really wants to let go, which much amused the surgeon, though he took care to keep that hidden. When Pearce finally left, with a promise to meet upon the morrow, he and Emily were left alone.

‘Am I doing the right thing?’ she asked.

‘All I can say, my dear, is that you must do that which will make you happy.’

‘Is happiness possible?’

The reply was typical of the man. ‘Not without a concomitant degree of misery, my dear, the two go hand in hand.’

‘Even if it were possible, my husband would never release me.’

‘In that I think you are correct.’

That induced tears again, for Emily Barclay lived in a world where divorce was near to impossible for a man, and doubly so for a woman.

Pearce was up bright and early to visit Arthur Winston, pleased to find the fellow was not as dilatory as those who staffed the offices of the Crown. Indeed, the bustle of the city was reassuring: not for the inhabitants of this place a ten-of-the-clock attendance on their tasks. On being admitted to Winston’s chambers – a busy apiary of small offices staffed by men all engaged in various commodity trades – claiming to have been at work for several hours he immediately proposed to whisk his visitor off to a large and satisfying breakfast, refusing to allow Pearce to demur, only popping his head into an adjacent room to ask that another visitor he was expecting be requested to call back.

‘Tell him I will send word of a convenient time. Now come, let us eat, for I am hollow.’

His description of the breakfast, of John Dory fillets followed by a pair of mutton chops, the whole washed down with a robust claret, was not mistaken and the
first question, once they were settled at their board in a tavern crowded with like souls, was an obvious one.

‘My friends are safe, if you can call being confined in the Liberties such a thing.’

‘Protections?’

‘Valid and in their possession.’

‘That is good to hear, so let us toast their health properly this time.’ Goblets raised they both drank deeply. ‘And how proceeds your case against Captain Barclay, Lieutenant – or should I say, given your coat is no longer blue, Mr Pearce?’

‘I fear you had the right of it when you alluded to the difficulties, and as for the costs, well, I have no idea where they are to come from, that is, if the man I have engaged to prepare the plea has provided an accurate figure of what they might amount to.’

That statement led to an enquiry as to the state of his prizes, the answer to which had Winston frowning. ‘The law is well termed an ass, sir, be it in an Admiralty Court or the King’s Bench.’

That name and the confident way it was used made Pearce stiffen: the latter court was the highest in the land when it came to common law and the one which had, at the bidding of William Pitt, or more precisely his friend Henry Dundas, issued the summons against him and his father, a threat so serious there was no option but to flee abroad. Too often the King’s Bench was an instrument of state power rather than justice. Winston noticed his reaction – he could hardly fail to – and his face showed concern as well as a degree of embarrassment, which led to an apologetic explanation.

‘Your name, Mr Pearce, rang a bell, but not, I admit, until I was well on my way home and I saw it perhaps as a coincidence that you were in the Pelican on that very night, when you were quite open about not being a regular visitor. I hope it does not offend you that I made a few enquiries only to find out you had misled me, not I hasten to add, that you did not have the right.’

Pearce was not entirely mollified. ‘Even when I had declined your offer of employment?’

‘I confess to having too much curiosity for my own well-being, but I would in my defence add that, as a man of business, intelligence is all when it comes to ensuring profit. I seek out information often without any idea as to its use, yet I cannot tell you how many times such idle digging has inadvertently aided me in my affairs. I would also hazard that I am about to be rewarded. You have not sought me out for the sheer love of my company, so what I gleaned from my burrowing may well have a bearing, is that not so?’

This produced a delicate moment: Pearce had come here to seek some way of making money or at least halting the decline in his expenditure. It was also the case that, with his friends dependent on his charity, if they could be included in some form of paid work they would be less of a burden. Winston had mentioned the need for a man to command a trading ship: what better place than a merchant vessel for a trio with protections from impressment to be safe from the other threat to their liberty, the common law?

The problem was one of openness: to tell all was to
diminish his ability to negotiate both a decent return for his services and his chance to gain work which would include them. The question of his own competence worried him less – he had briefly commanded a ship of war and that was a much harder task than some lumbering trading vessel ploughing the waters of the North Sea with the coast in view and just enough of a crew to handle the sails.

‘Let us leave that aside for a moment,’ Winston said, which indicated to John Pearce he had hesitated too long in replying to the previous question. ‘We will return to your perjury case. You mentioned the costs, so I assume they are not insignificant.’

‘Cost and time, sir,’ Pearce replied, going on, while he chewed on his mutton chop, to detail the need for letters to fly back and forth to the Mediterranean, without, of course, mentioning any hopes, very diminished in truth, for any proposition from William Pitt that might take him there.

‘And time on its own is an expense, for you must pay lawyers even when nothing is happening.’

‘You have smoked the problem, Mr Winston.’

A warm and expansive gesture was followed by Winston’s proffered hand. ‘Please, sir, my given name is Arthur, and once I have taken breakfast with a man it ill behoves me to maintain any reserve. If you will allow it, I will call you John from henceforth.’

Pearce took the hand and shook it. ‘Please do.’

‘Now John, let me sum up what you are not saying.’ Given Winston was grinning as well as chewing it was impossible to be in any way slighted. ‘You need some
form of paid occupation for, even if all your chickens come home to roost, you feel you will struggle to meet the cost of bringing your man to justice. Am I correct?’

‘You are.’

‘And, I hazard, that with your friends recently returned to the Liberties they will not eat and drink as a man should unless you are there to support them.’ Given a nod, Winston continued. ‘Added to that, there they are with a most valuable document in their possession, but one which is of no use to them in their present location.’

‘A near-perfect summation.’

It surprised Pearce that there was no triumphant reaction from Winston, indeed he went very quiet and pensive, eating slowly, not looking at his fellow diner but at his plate. Eventually he did speak, but only to say he was thinking on a particular problem, which left John Pearce to concentrate on his own food, while catching snatches of the conversation going on around him: discussions on the price of sugar and other tradable commodities and the rising insurance rates, with more than one damnation of the King’s Navy for the way French privateers seemed able to operate with impunity.

‘Forgive me, John, I have been gnawing on a conundrum as well as my chop.’ The look he gave Pearce was very direct, as if he wanted to ensure that what he was about to say was seen as really important. ‘I have need of a man who can command a ship, that I have told you, but what would you say if I also told
you I have need of a man who has been a fighter as well as a sailor?’

‘Go on.’

‘I would add, before I do, that having alongside him men who would also be useful in such a situation would make that man very valuable to me.’ Pearce, being intrigued, made to speak, but Winston was not finished and his insistent look induced silence. ‘It would also be a task that, successfully concluded, could pay so handsomely that certain burdens of yours would be eased, if not removed. There is a question of trust involved and what I was ruminating on just now was just that. Can I trust you, John?’

‘If I said “yes”, I might be lying, and I would add it is not a question to which any man would answer “no”.’

‘Just so, which makes it a question of my judgement and so I am going to lay out the very barest bones to you. I have a need which requires a slight evasion of the law, one which may, though the chances are small, turn violent, yet it is one that will return me such a profit, as well as a high level of satisfaction, as to allow for a rare degree of generosity in the matter of payment for services rendered.’

‘How generous?’

Winston threw back his head and laughed, but it was short in duration and the look that followed the humour was serious. ‘The nub, for you, I suspect.’

‘I am also curious about how a man “slightly” evades the law. From my experience you are either on one side or the other.’

‘Is that true, John? Can you not be placed outside
the law merely by the malice of certain government ministers?’

‘Going back to your question regarding trust, I am not in a position to answer yea or nay.’

‘Which makes me aware I must say more.’

John Pearce pushed his plate to the centre of the table and leant close to Winston. ‘Arthur, you must say everything.’

That induced another period of silence. ‘Very well! I have a vessel in a certain harbour loaded with a valuable cargo. Those goods, bought and ready to be shipped over the Channel in peacetime, are now worth more, much more, because we are at war. They are, in short, the kind of commodities which have become scarce because of the conflict.’

‘No genius is required to deduce these goods must be French in origin.’

‘Correct! And it is also the case that, quite apart from duties, which in peace I would have been subjected to, now we are at war with the Revolution such trade is banned even for neutral vessels.’

‘An ordinance much flouted, I suspect.’

‘True, John, the Dutch make hay while the honest British trader suffers, as long as they are not caught and investigated, which is such a small risk with naval captains cautious and so few Revenue cutters on hand to intercept their cargoes, while a well-placed bribe at the dockside will answer to prevent too deep a search. So you see my problem. It is not only securing my cargo and getting it to England, it is also the act of landing it on home shores.’

‘Now it is pure contraband?’ Winston nodded. ‘So you require a captain to sail it, some men to crew it and of the type not to be fastidious about where it is landed, given bringing it into a port would be very hazardous.’

It wasn’t shock on Winston’s face, more a sense of wonder. ‘I see, John, I do not have to explain to you as much as I thought I would be required to. You have a sharp brain, friend, one that would, I suspect, make you a great deal of money in the city.’

‘The only way to make money in this city is to have a great deal to begin with.’

‘That I would challenge, but this is not the time, for you have, with your shrewd appreciation, not to say quite remarkable deduction, leapt very far ahead of where I thought I would be.’

‘Yet you are still not far enough, Arthur, for me to commit to what it is you require.’

‘True, so I must tell you more: I must tell you that in this piece of business I had an associate, a Flemish trader, who was in a position to gather the goods for which I paid and get them loaded aboard a vessel which I own, all for a very respectable remuneration. This he was in the process of doing when war was declared, which, though it made the trade illegal, raised the intrinsic value of my cargo to a point where a mere doubling was conservative. Can you, for that, work out what has gone wrong?’

Pearce thought for only a short moment. ‘Your agent has assessed that his fees, given we are at war with France, are insufficient and he is demanding a higher
payment to release to you your cargo.’

‘Damn me, sir, you are amazing. I cannot think of another soul who would have reached such an accurate conclusion from so little information.’

‘Why don’t you pay him?’

That brought on a very clouded expression and Arthur Winston’s voice rose to a high and much louder pitch. ‘I’m damned if I will! This is a fellow who owes any prosperity he has enjoyed for a decade to my faith in him as well as the trade I have put through his hands. Also, I have been fair, more than that throughout our association, downright generous, in fact, and what do I get in response? Naked greed! I have paid him for his services already, I will not give him another brass farthing.’

Realising, by the silence around him, that he had made himself an object of attention, Winston dropped his voice again so that only Pearce could hear. ‘Besides, paying him more does not get my goods into England and sold, so it would be money down the drain. This fiasco has gone on too long, ever since war was declared, and I have been out of pocket because of it.’

‘So, the task you wish carried out is for your vessel to be wrenched from this fellow’s grasp, an act which he is bound to object to?’

‘Yes.’

‘The value?’

‘Of the cargo?’ Pearce nodded. ‘In peace it was, in terms of market value, just in excess of twelve and a half thousand pounds sterling, prior to what was owing in customs dues.’

‘And now?’

‘Take out the duties, then ask yourself what French brandy will fetch, likewise Lyon silk or Calais lace.’

John Pearce might have been out of England for a while, but no one could fail to notice how such commodities had risen in price – threefold was a reasonable guess at the buying end. Always open to being smuggled, such an occupation, almost an industry on certain parts of the south and east coasts, had become more dangerous with so many Royal Navy ships now in the narrow seas seeking prizes. Where neutrals could sail in safety – navy captains would baulk at the financial risk of impounding an innocent vessel – an indigenous smuggler was at high risk and that meant the cost of supply had increased and, quite naturally, it had also raised to fever pitch the desire for those who could afford such outlay to have and display something so hard to come by.

‘Let us say, John, it has risen so much in value, and the getting of it being not without risk, I am prepared to split a third of what I can sell it for with the man who helps me get it ashore in England. With a higher margin on my goods and my ship returned, I would be well content.’

It was natural that a period of silence followed that statement: Arthur Winston was doing no less than offering Pearce a fortune, not a wage. That it was not without risk, and he suspected Winston of playing that part of the matter down, only served to make it more tempting. If he had enjoyed anything this last year it had been the excitement that comes from action, the knowledge that in a situation of danger he had the
ability to keep a cool head and a clear brain, as well as lead others in a dangerous enterprise.