Blown Off Course (9 page)

Emily went to the door and stopped, as if waiting for her husband to open it for her, which he irascibly declined to do, instead picking up that which she had left him to look at. Exiting, into the lobby of the hotel, she threw Gherson a glare, then noticed that the exchange had been noisy enough to cause the staff that manned the area to avoid her eye.

Gherson entered the room to find Ralph Barclay still reading. ‘I hope you have some suggestion of a way to deal with this?’

‘Is that the same paper as your wife showed me, sir?’

Head still down, Barclay passed it to Gherson, who gave it a cursory glance, before confirming it to be the case and that led to an enquiry regarding the handwriting.

‘My wife’s.’

‘Might I suggest, sir, first, that this is insufficient for you to be convinced the whole exists and secondly, if the entirety is in her handwriting, as is this, it will very likely be ruled inadmissible in court.’

‘Go on.’

‘Your wife, sir, when you sent me to her, named this as a copy, which implies an original.’

‘Which might be in another hand?’ Barclay asked, a question requiring no response.

‘She was not witness to the entire proceedings, so that is a strong possibility. If you were to ask for more proof, say another few pages of remarks made when we know she was not present, and originals, I think
perhaps your wife could be persuaded to provide them, perhaps by you showing willing and sending her some funds.’

‘How do you know she asked for funds?’

The look Gherson gave his employer was such that there was no need to reply: if he had not been listening at the door, then the man had found some other means of eavesdropping, unless, of course, he had just arrived at a conclusion which was obvious.

‘I suggest a watch be kept on her if she agrees. Should the papers she alludes to be in her present residence, then that will be made obvious. If not, in order to comply, she has to lead us to where they are.’

‘Which might not help.’

Gherson’s response was terse. ‘It is better than where we are now, sir, in ignorance.’

‘Damn you, Gherson,’ Ralph Barclay snapped, his old fire reanimated by hope. ‘I have had occasion to remind you before to take care how you address me, and after being berated by a near child of a wife I am in no mood to let such a thing pass now.’

‘Of course, sir,’ Gherson replied, not much put out to be checked. ‘But might I suggest if it is to be done, the notion is best executed immediately?’

‘Why?’

‘I cannot but help feel, sir, that your wife, much as she may have rehearsed for this encounter, is emotionally troubled by it.’

Looking at Barclay, who clearly could not discern the nub of what he was saying, he was, not for the first time, wondering how this man had ever managed
to get married at all, never mind to a beauty like his young wife: he might be able to command a ship but he knew nothing whatsoever about the opposite sex.

‘You think so, Gherson?’

It would have been too crass to say, ‘I know so, sir,’ so all he did was nod towards the quill and ink provided by Brown’s Hotel.

‘Send for Devenow. He can take your note to her, and after that he can keep a watch out to see where she goes.’

Emily Barclay was sitting in the back of a hack on the way back to her lodgings, still suffering from the effects of her interview and wondering what would happen next. She had few illusions that her husband would just roll over and acquiesce, it was not in his nature, but as to what he would do she had no idea. It was a thought which was still troubling her when she got back to her room, which occasioned a great deal of pacing up and down until, after an hour, she resolved to act and prepared to set out once more, this time on foot, for her destination was close by, to be met on the stairs by her landlady bearing the note which had just come through the door.

Quickly perused, she saw it as evidence of the need for what she had in mind, so, stuffing it into her coat pocket she went out the front door and headed off towards Holborn, unaware that she was being followed.

John Pearce, looking around the book-lined ground floor room, thought it had a level of dust which
seemed appropriate for the fusty pursuance of the law as a profession, with a decent amount dancing in the shaft of light coming in through the window. The man opposite had a dry quality too, pale skin in a long face over what looked like a spare body, evidence to Pearce’s mind of a life spent indoors.

‘Thank you for seeing me at such short notice, sir.’

‘Mr Lutyens was most pressing that I should accommodate you, Mr Pearce.’

‘As you will observe, Mr Studdert, I have done no more than outline the details of my case so that you can look them over. I have a place on the two o’clock coach to Portsmouth where the men named in the document are waiting for me. I collected their protections from the Admiralty before coming on here.’

That revived an unpleasant recollection: having had no intention of being kept waiting once more, Pearce left the collection of the protections as late as possible, yet he still had to tip the blasted doorman just to get into the building, making him reprise in his mind a thought he had harboured before: that if he died and came back again he wanted that as an occupation. It was without doubt the best paid for the least effort. By the time he had paid the fees and got out again, he was lighter by ten guineas in his purse, and not a happy man.

‘But if you need to contact me,’ he added, ‘word can be left at Nerot’s Hotel, where I have taken a room.’

‘I would appreciate a short verbal explanation, sir,’ the attorney said, holding up the papers that Pearce had
laid on his desk and which he had quickly skimmed through.

‘It is a case of illegal impressments, Mr Studdert.’ Seeing the man’s facial reaction Pearce was quick to add, ‘Which I know to be a difficult area of law to pursue. But when you read through what I have given you, it will become clear that in some senses that is only the trigger for my action, which is, in truth, an attempt to get a case of perjury brought against the man named on the first page. He was the scoundrel that took my companions and I out of the Pelican Tavern on the night we were pressed.’

‘Pelican?’ Studdert said that in such a strangled way that John Pearce was tempted to ask if he knew the place.

‘And the man you wish arraigned …’

‘Captain Ralph Barclay.’

That was said softly, and followed by an arrangement of the attorney’s features, which told the man opposite him that he was about to deliver bad news. ‘Mr Pearce, much as I would like to oblige Mr Lutyens, I cannot act for you.’

‘Why ever not?’

Pearce’s papers were pushed across for him to take. ‘That I cannot tell you.’

‘Sir, I am no student of the law, but when an attorney says to me that he cannot act, I suspect it is because he fears a conflict of interest.’

Studdert stood up abruptly. ‘And I am a student of the law, Mr Pearce, which tells me that I am at liberty to choose or decline whom I represent
and to do so without being required to provide an explanation.’

‘I cannot believe you are acting for Barclay.’

‘What, sir, you believe or do not believe are none of my concern. Now, if you will forgive me, I have other matters to attend to.’

John Pearce wanted to argue, but there was no point in disputing with this fellow. With as unfriendly a glare as he could muster, he picked up his bundle and put it back inside his coat, then turned and left, exiting into a hallway and passing the stairway that led to other business premises above. Behind him a perplexed lawyer was wondering at two things: the name Pearce had used, which he knew, and the word ‘Pelican’, which was the one-word code that he had agreed upon with Emily Barclay should she wish to send someone to him to fetch from his strongroom the bundle of papers, thicker by far than those Pearce had presented, she had left in his care.

Emily Barclay, walking towards the attorney’s office to comply with the request from her husband, was too preoccupied to see that, as she took the first step up to his doorway, she was just about to bump into John Pearce – that is, till he spoke.

‘Mrs Barclay!’

He was as surprised as she, though he hid it better. She put her hand to her mouth as if she had seen a ghost and it was all she could do not to scream.

‘This is a coincidence,’ Pearce said. Then he turned, looked at Studdert’s doorway and smiled, a look that
was still on his face as he turned back. ‘Or perhaps it is not so much of one.’

‘Lieutenant Pearce,’ she replied, fighting to control herself.

‘Yes, the ogre.’

‘You may be many things, sir, but you are no ogre.’

‘Forgive me if I do not ask you to list what those other things are.’

‘Do I find you well?’ she asked. It was such an inane thing to say in the circumstances that Pearce threw back his head and laughed, which made her cross. ‘What, sir, is so amusing?’

‘Your good manners, madam.’

‘It does not surprise me, sir that you find such attributes …’

‘Strange,’ he said, finishing a sentence she was struggling to complete. ‘In your mouth, no, given you are the living epitome of the polite manner.’

‘The way you say that, Lieutenant Pearce, makes it sound like an insult.’

‘Then I apologise for it. I would not want to ever insult you.’

That made her blush, which to Pearce made her look prettier than ever, and that broadened the look on his face to a near-grin as he took in the trace of auburn hair under her bonnet and the fresh features of her beautiful face. The voice that responded, as well as the flashing green eyes, made it plain his compliment was not welcome.

‘We are in the public street, sir, which is scarce the
place to dispute with you, but I am bound to say, and it makes me cross to add it is not for the first time, your mode of speech is inappropriate. Now, if you will excuse me.’

Pearce stood aside, still smiling, with a very slight bow. ‘Of course, it would never do to keep Mr Studdert waiting.’

‘How do you know—?’

Emily Barclay stopped herself, dropped her head and brushed past, followed by the appreciative eyes of John Pearce. He, once she had gone through the doorway, spun round to hail a passing hack, too preoccupied to notice the man ducking out of sight, which was not easy for one of his height. A long-time follower of Ralph Barclay, now rated as his servant, Devenow had been sent for to follow the man’s wife and he had just witnessed something of more weight than finding out where she went on her errand.

‘Now, that is goin’ to set the capt’n ablaze, an’ no error,’ Devenow whispered to himself.

Sitting opposite Mr Studdert, Emily Barclay was unsure of how to proceed. She had come here because she felt the need to discuss with him the preparation of some kind of contract that would bind her husband, the discussion of which could not be anything but embarrassing. The request from her husband for further documents she felt worth compliance, but at this precise moment her mind was reeling from having just met John Pearce on the doorstep and, as a question, that took precedence.

‘Mr Studdert, the gentleman you have just had
in your chambers, whom I bumped into on the way out.’

‘Lieutenant Pearce.’

‘Might I ask what his business was with you?’

‘None. He wanted me to act on his behalf in a matter and I declined to do so.’

‘Why?’

Studdert’s hands met before his lips, the long fingers tapping together like a church steeple as he considered his reply. Despite the look of impatience which crossed Emily Barclay’s face, he was not about to be rushed, being a man who was wont to say it would never do to ask a lawyer the time, given the reply would be so delayed by caution as to render it useless. He was free to speak if he wished: the woman before him was a client and Pearce was not, but the lieutenant had likewise come from Heinrich Lutyens, and that altered the case somewhat; best be sure of other factors before being too open.

‘I do believe I must respect the confidentiality of his request.’

‘Was it about my husband, Captain Barclay?’ Emily demanded.

Forced to accede, Studdert nodded. ‘I declined to represent him on the grounds that I have a strong suspicion I could not do so for both you and he, simultaneously.’

The connotation in that statement, as well as the way it was said, and not least because it was delivered with an unblinking gaze, made Emily blush. She being a very attractive young woman and Pearce being
a handsome fellow of near the same age would lead anyone to certain salacious conclusions. For the second time in as many hours she found herself defending her reputation.

‘Be assured, sir, that my relationship with Lieutenant Pearce is a social one, and “strained” would be the best way to describe it. In fact, I cannot abide the man!’

‘These matters are none of my concern, Mrs Barclay, and I suspect it is not the subject on which you wished to consult me.’

‘No, it is not.’ Studdert nodded, inviting her to continue, but Emily had another question, which threw her previous statement into doubt: it really was foolish of her to ask the lawyer, before she proceeded to other matters, if he had an address for John Pearce.

For all it was one of the best-travelled roads in the country and was maintained by the government as an important artery, there was nothing restful about coaching to Portsmouth, either in the ten hours it took or the solace afforded to the passengers, so it was an irascible John Pearce who, after an overnight journey, arrived in the naval port – a mood not improved when he discovered that HMS
Fury
no longer lay out in the Spithead anchorage, but was alongside the dockyard mast house with her old poles already removed, her crew broken up and every officer aboard her from captain to the most junior lieutenant reassigned.

He could not enquire for his Pelicans until he knew if they had managed to stay aboard and, if they had not, to where they had either gone or been taken. Once on the ship, watched with some curiosity by the dockyard workers, he called out along the gun deck for his friends, but there was no reply in a vessel small
enough for him to be heard even on the orlop, and that brought on a terrible sinking feeling – had he once more delayed too long and let them down? That the fault did not lie with him was scant comfort.

He went in search of those who might know, unaware that the gunner had seen him coming along the wharf and warned the carpenter, they being the only warrants still aboard: both had taken great care to make themselves scarce, their attitude being that the only man who had to deal with him, the purser, was not on board, leaving Pearce to enquire of those whom he could talk to. He had no real experience of dealing with dockyard workers, though he had heard from every naval lip that they were the most pernicious bunch of scoundrels in creation, thieving bastards who would steal your eyes and come back for the holes. He had always assumed a degree of exaggeration in these tales, but his contact with the breed working on the wharf, as he passed them, made him wonder if that were indeed true.

Going further below in search of information brought him across knots of mateys sitting around smoking pipes – a wonder, until he discovered, and it was a fact given with little grace, that the hull was being surveyed. His question as to why that had not been undertaken before the vessel was warped into the dock was met with incomprehension, even when it was posed to the surveyor himself.

‘And what damned business, sir, is that of yours?’

‘Mere curiosity, which I am told is a human condition.’

‘I suppose that is an indulgence in levity!’ the man snapped.

He was not a big fellow, this surveyor, he was small and flabby, his most prominent feature being a belly that, slack as it was and hanging over his belt, spoke of idleness, his purple face implying he was wont to wash down what he ate with generous quantities of wine, not that added height or muscle would have altered Pearce’s response. He had that air of the functionary about him, which John Pearce had encountered too many times in his life, an expression that implied that nothing at all was any of his business.

He had been dunned by an avaricious Admiralty doorman, paid out to a supercilious clerk nine golden guineas for protections, been refused representation by an attorney and had not slept properly but uncomfortably in a post house, this backed up by dozing in a crowded coach and it was quite possible the men he had come to rescue had been shipped off as they had been the last time. His mood was therefore not forgiving.

‘Can you swim, sir?’ he asked, in a cold tone.

‘I fail to see that is relevant.’

‘It is that, for if you address me in that way again I will toss you bodily into the harbour.’ The man opened his mouth to protest but Pearce was not finished. ‘I am about to ask you a question and any answer less than civil will, I assure you, test the nature of my threat.’

‘I will have the magistrate upon you, sir.’

Aware that those dockyard workers close by were grinning and nudging each other – clearly this popinjay was not loved – Pearce felt secure: if he took this fellow
by the scruff of the neck they would not intervene.

‘He will take an age to arrive, by which time you will either be drowned or a laughing stock. Where, in the name of creation, are the warrants?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘But they are aboard?’

‘The carpenter is, as for the rest I have no idea.’

‘Do you know where the carpenter is?’

The surveyor was in the process of recovering some of his conceit, it was in his face, but that melted under the stony glare he was getting from this naval lieutenant. His reply was accompanied by a slap on one of the hanging knees.

‘He should be here, sir. We are, after all, discussing the parts of the ship for which he is responsible and a damned poor state they are in. The scantlings are bad but these knees are soft enough to take my finger …’ The man stopped, given the impatient growl from Pearce was very audible. ‘He said he needed to go about his occasions, so I suspect he is in the roundhouse.’

‘Thank you,’ Pearce replied, striding off.

Behind he heard the man hiss. ‘Damn cheek of the fellow, why if I were ten years younger he would pay for addressing me in so cavalier a manner.’

‘Ain’t gone far, Your Honour,’ a sarcastic voice replied, obviously one of the lounge-about mateys. ‘You’se still has a chance to put the upstart in his place.’

‘I have work to do,’ the surveyor replied, his voice louder and still carrying enough to reach the companionway, ‘and I suspect that you too have labours which require your attention.’

‘Watching you be toil enough, mate.’

Striding along the gun deck, Pearce was increasingly both worried and angry, so when he opened the forepeak doorway to the heads, to find two men standing there talking softly, who, by their shocked expressions, had to be people seeking to avoid him, he was ready to do murder – a mood not enhanced when the gabbled explanation was provided as to how his Pelicans had got off the ship.

‘We had to get them away, sir, or they would have been taken up for certain and a boat was the best option.’

‘Who took them?’

‘I did,’ the carpenter replied. ‘Dropped them off past Hayling Island.’

‘I need you to be more precise.’

‘I grounded at Bracklesham Bay, just past the sandbar known as East Head.’

‘And what are their chances of getting clear from there?’

The gunner wouldn’t look him in the eye. ‘Master drew them a map of sorts, though none of your lads can read, but they knew the names to avoid and the route to follow.’

‘That’s not what I asked.’

‘We did our best for ’em, Your Honour,’ the carpenter protested.

‘I need to follow in their footsteps. Which is the best way to get to where they landed?’

‘Boat, Your Honour, same as I did, and any local man will know East Head.’ About to hurry away, Pearce was
brought up with a round turn when the man added, ‘Mind, there is a bill from the purser you has to settle, for he saw to the needs of your men, though if I was you, Your Honour, I would argue about the total, ’cause he be as tight as a duck’s arse.’

‘He will have to wait.’

‘You have no idea, sir, how that cheers me.’

Hiring a wherry in Portsmouth was easy enough – they were ten a penny in such a busy anchorage and those who manned them were secure from the press – though he got a curious look when he named the destination. It was not long, in the nature of things, before he was conversing with the man steadily rowing him, a cove with a weather-beaten face and a pleasant manner, with Pearce intimating he was on a social errand. What he discovered, when, in a very roundabout way, he alluded to press gangs and the like, was not information to make him feel happy.

‘A happy hunting ground for ’em round Wittering and Bracklesham. It ain’t a part of the world I go to without I had my protection, an’ even then I will not hang about once I land you.’

‘Why so?’

‘Stands to reason, sir, for it takes no genius to see that getting off Portsea Island, or Hayling for that matter, is hard, seeing as it means you’se obliged to cross a guarded bridge. Bracklesham Bay is the first bit o’ land that gives a clear run without crossing water, so it be a place much made for by those on the run from the Spithead fleet.’

‘A fact no doubt known to those who would take them up?’

‘Both kinds, and though the press might respect my paper, there be lobcouses who work that area who would take me up and damn my protection.’

‘How long have you been a waterman?’ asked Pearce, changing what was a worrying subject.

Pearce had no way of knowing if he had arrived in exactly the same place as his Pelicans and it was a very forlorn hope indeed that they might catch sight of him and come rushing to make contact. His boatman was as good as his word, rowing quickly away from the shore once his passenger had landed, leaving behind a man thankful for the service and also the way the fellow had advised him to go just before the boat grounded.

‘Just keep the water in sight on your left hand, Your Honour, and afore long you will see plain the tower of Wittering Church. Make for that and you can get directions to where you is heading from there.’

He crossed the shingle strand and stood atop the dune, looking over the same featureless landscape which had greeted his friends, but there was scant point in stopping – his task was simple: to find out if his friends had got away from this shore or had been captured by the men who patrolled it. In another time it would have been a pleasant enough walk over land that, edging the sea, had at many times been inundated, making it perfect pasture for sheep and, where there was rise enough to keep the ocean at bay, fine farmland. The numerous watercourses that cut into the shore were well bridged,
and edged with tamarisk hedge. The trees, where they stood in clumps, rose to a decent height, where they were individual they showed by their bent nature the power of the winds that could lash this exposed coast.

Walking in such a setting took him back to better times. More than once John Pearce had traversed this kind of landscape in the company of his father, just as he had experienced every other type in the extensive travels they had undertaken together: hill and dale, flat farmland, endless towns, the odd city – he had seen as a growing lad more of his country than most. Sometimes, when they had been static enough to allow him some formal schooling, those with whom he mixed had alluded to the peripatetic life he normally led as strange, when what was alien to him was to be in one place for any length of time; a bed was as likely to be under the stars as under a roof and that seemed natural, for he had known precious little of any other.

Education for him had been an ‘all day, every day’ affair, not just in the rudiments of Latin, Greek and numbers, books which he carried in his satchel, but it also encompassed what lay around him in the countryside through which he and Adam travelled. Thus he knew, without much in the way of registering the fact, the cries of the different birds – terns, lapwings and curlews – knew the markings of the different types of ducks that filled the watercourses and crabbing pools, could register sea lavender or a yellow-horned poppy as he passed by them.

Beneath his feet it was as often sand as salt marsh grass and as he plodded along, his mind moved from
worries about his at-risk friends to mix with memories of his father, and that led to recollection of many of the places Adam had stopped to speak as well as the many variations in the way they had been greeted. Sometimes they had been obliged to depart in such haste that they barely managed to stay ahead of the stones aimed at their backs. At the other end of the scale – and there had been every variety in between – they had received such a warm welcome that to leave after several days was like a wrench, while on more than one occasion a local worthy, men of open mind and keen to dispute, had set them up as guests in their own homes and let them stay for months.

Such thoughts led on to a re-examination of subsequent events and the eventual need to flee. In truth, what his father had expounded in both his written and spoken words should have been tolerated in a secure society, but John Pearce knew that the lands ruled by King George were far from that, even if those with enough possessions to secure comfort and full bellies crowed about the freedoms of John Bull’s Island. The three polities of Scotland, Wales and England were a seething mass of inequality and discontent, for most in this land of plenty went without a morsel of meat in their diet – so much for the roast beef of old England. All Adam Pearce had sought to do was to point out the absurdity of so many people near to starving, especially in times of harvest failure, while those who owned the greater tracts of land existed in such conspicuous and arrogant luxury.

‘Never underestimate the indifference of the rich to the plight of the poor.’

He had inadvertently spoken those words out loud, a quotation much espoused by his father and it was true, though there were exceptions to the mass who genuinely sought to alleviate suffering, good people who knew all was not well. But most men and women of means made pious noises before reassuring themselves that poverty was brought about by the sloth of the poor, not circumstances. Yet could he excuse himself? Pearce knew he might not be so very different: had he not taken the full measure of what had been available to him when they had fled to Paris, where his father was famous, while being aware of beggars in the streets? Was he, indeed, as much of a hypocrite as the mass of his fellow countrymen?

Not a man to berate himself for any great length of time, thinking of Paris led to more pleasing memories. There he had come to manhood in what was a sparkling milieu of glittering salons and excited speculation, had mixed with great thinkers and engaged famous wits, met the most important men of the Revolution and, more pleasurably, their womenfolk. Some were esteemed for their conversation, but being his age, healthy,
good-looking
, tall and of fair unblemished skin, other matters took precedence and he had not been left disappointed, garnering to himself a beautiful mistress. It was her image that filled his mind when the church bells broke the pleasing train of thought.