Cupids (2 page)

Where did this come from? I am surely not asking this lad for sympathy. Like the prick of a spear applied to a bulging sack of wine, Bartholomew's words have teased forth emotion that I am at pains to disguise. Fifteen months of grinding work, of encouraging men when I myself feel discouraged, of rewarding the faithful, of punishing miscreants, and settling petty scores with an even hand. And all the while the Company's expectations on my shoulders like some great harness, demanding the incompatible twins of self-sufficiency and yield. Harvest fish, crops and grain, breed your animals, explore the interior and test for ores. Limit victuals to bare necessities. Feed yourselves where possible without delving into Company funds. And beyond these many hoops of burning flame shines Eliza, a star which I fear may remain perpetually beyond reach.

“And yet they expect you to be, your many partners in Bristol and London.”

I sigh and stretch on my stool as much as space will allow. He has crossed a barrier now and deserves immediate correction, but instead a very different sentiment escapes my lips. “Yes, they do,” I say.

A wisp of salt breath curls around us.
We are nowhere
, it sighs.
Time insulates your thoughts and deeds — one week,
two, three before you see land again
. The feminine dream, Eliza Egret, sprouts soft down upon her cheek, takes a squarer jaw, a broader shoulder. Something moves below my belt.

“And here I am,” Bartholomew says, opening his arms as though making an offering, “against my own will, a thorn despoiling all your plans. I am the criminal you could not tame, whose return will undoubtedly cause them to question your authority!”

The young man seems sincere. His eyes, though still doglike in servility, now convey the kind of warmth I would so like to kindle and nurture. Yet how many witnesses attested to his crimes, pilfering stores and finally setting a torch to our only promising grain crop?

“I hardly think so, young man. For your information, the Company's rules are explicit. Capital crimes must be dealt with in England. I will not be judged ill for merely following instructions.”

A frown furrows his young brow, and he gives me a nod and a faint smile.

“For your sake, dear sir, I pray it may be so.”

The cabin lurches in some entirely new direction — the crosswinds are particularly contrary this evening — and a succession of distant planks bark in protest. A fresh gust manages to weave its way through to us, lifting his hair and cooling my own face.

I must be mad indeed to be discussing the prisoner's fate with the miscreant himself. But this is an odd situation and we both know it. For a start, he is quite right. The Company will think I have been derelict when it comes to keeping discipline when I return to port with a bad apple, especially as it was I who hand-picked most of my men, including Bartholomew whose early schooling under a now bankrupt guardian makes him both literate and learned. Bartholomew's silken tongue gives me extra special pause, though I scarcely like to admit it. He and I will be the only two witnesses to his influence in the colony, and he presents himself so well.

But these are merely the details.

Here, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, we are engulfed in a special twilight where law and criminality are matters of strategy, rather than morals. As he continues to hold my gaze, his gentle, rather feminine smile playing on his lips, I realize this is not a courtesy call from prisoner to jailor. This is a negotiation. And while we are both taking pains to stay within our roles, I am also aware that, in terms of the ability of each to impact negatively upon the other, we are entering these talks, more or less, as equals. And, though I cringe to admit so much, something unexpected lures me into the agreement, the prickle of my hairs, a racing in my blood.

“How do you intend to defend yourself, young man?” I ask. I think of the excuses he gave me, the terror by night — an unmanly admission if ever there was one. A man should defend his own honour even unto death, not sneak off and commit crimes that necessitate his return.

But my question is mere bluster. Already my decision has been made, and I am ready for the extra comfort it will bestow.

CHAPTER THREE
Guy

March 1612

“
H
OW THRILLING IT ALL
seems,” Eliza says, her snow-white hands clasped before her breast, aqua-blue eyes alive in candlelight.

I wonder if she means it this time. I have been here before and I know that, however broad her smile, however breathless her voice, I'm far from landing this particular ship. Love rests easy only when the loved one delineates one's presence with light, one's absence with darkness. Like an erratic diamond, Eliza sparkles in all directions at once. Once I pass from view, I know only too well she will turn the same light upon another.

“Thrilling indeed,” I mumble — distrustful mounds of air passing between my lips. “It is a splendid country, full of rich and fertile soil and rolling green. As our settlement is fortyseven degrees from the pole, three to the south of our own dear Bristol, the climate makes it a veritable Eden of warm breezes and verdant life.”

She tilts her head as though deep in happy reverie, but then her eyes widen.

“But there must be great dangers?”

“Dangers?”

Her eyelids flutter and a queasy suspicion of artifice enters my brain.

“I've heard of naked savages in such distant lands,” she says. Her exhalation causes the candle before us to wobble. “And of strange, fantastic beasts who devour all those who dare to approach.”

“No naked savages, dear lady. Just simple primitives willing to trade. No strange beasts. Just clean water and nature's calm reassuring breath.”

I notice a dampening in her demeanour, but I'm eager to establish the virtues of the colony.

“The animals we brought — chickens, geese, pigs, goats, and lambs — all familiar to commonplace husbandry — took to the meadows and waters just as though they were back in England . . .”

I'm about to continue but see how all the anticipation has now drained from her eyes; her hands have slackened their clasp.

“Of course there are giant bears roaming the forests,” I venture.

Her brightness returns and she glances between me and my companion as though to confirm this is true.

“Fearsome boars with sword-like fangs,” offers Bartholomew at my elbow.

“Many strange creatures,” I add, leaning toward her, edging out Bartholomew.

“With lions' fur but the faces of men!” chips in Bartholomew again.

“How wondrous!” Eliza gasps, looking not at me, but at my young companion. “And how lucky you men are for the chance to brave so much adventure!”

“Indeed,” I say more dryly than I had intended. For a moment I am aware of the clicking of sewing needles from Eliza's aunt in the dim corner of the room. Mrs. Egret hasn't looked up in twenty minutes; she is either listening not at all or listening very intently indeed.

Eliza moves almost imperceptibly closer, her air conspiratorial. “I have heard there are mermaids in the waters around Newfoundland,” she says. Her eyes have become jewels again and I know I cannot deny her. But just as I am struggling to find words to keep open the possibility of magic, Bartholomew beats me to it again.

“Silver fins and tails as far as the eye can see, my lady. The ocean is alive with them.” I catch a gasp from Helen, the pretty, tall, dark-haired maid, who is filling my cup. She skips around me to see to Bartholomew. In the corner of my eye I notice her hand trembling as she tips the jug, and I catch a motion from Bartholomew's arm as though he thought to steady her wrist but changed his mind just before contact. Did he pass her something? I wonder. And, if so, what? Since our first visit a week ago he has been carrying on some form of dalliance with her. For me, he hastens to add when questioned. But I have yet to hear any useful information gleaned from their meetings and exchanges of notes.

Eliza smiles at Bartholomew. But this time her expression holds a touch of mischief as well as delight.

“At times,” Bartholomew continues, “we could let down a basket from the side of the ship, dip it into the ocean, then pull it back onto the deck containing several sleek mermaids, their hair braided with sea pearls, necks adorned with laces made from starfish.”

The maid has remained spellbound at Bartholomew's side. Eliza throws her a dark look and she scurries away.

“And what would you lusty seamen do with these magical spoils of Neptune?” There is a look in her eyes as she challenges Bartholomew — direct and inviting — that I don't like at all. I cough soberly.

“I fear young Bartholomew has daubed our experience too much with the colour of imagination.”

“Oh, don't say that, Mr. Guy!”

Her smile is on me for the moment, but I can tell that the real channel of communication has been transferred. The conversation now flows not from me to Eliza, but from Eliza to Bartholomew.

Is it his comparative youth that demands special attention? I comfort myself with the notion that through some convoluted womanly path she might be demonstrating how fit she would be as a wife and mother. The thought corresponds with something I have read: that women shine not so much in the direction of the object of their affection but rather upon some other. This, I have also learned, is so her beauty can be fully appreciated by he who looks on, unfettered by the rigours of conversation. And, in the present situation, such an onlooker, of course, would be me. It is a pity, then, that she has chosen Bartholomew as her substitute. How could she know him to be so utterly different than he appears? Nevertheless, I draw some encouragement.

“Mr. Guy is a fine man and a true leader, Lady Eliza,” Bartholomew says, as though reading my thoughts and cutting deftly against expectation. I see through the blur in the corner of my eye Bartholomew's arm rise as though about to descend upon my shoulders. Thankfully the young rogue thinks twice about this patronizing gesture and merely holds his hand suspended above me as though introducing this “fine man and true leader” to the world.

“Indeed he is,” replies Eliza, “and lucky he is to have a lieutenant who possesses such a loquacious tongue.”

Bartholomew dips his head in a mock-formal bow. Eliza's eyes glisten, and my unease begins to stir again.

“Have I told you, dear lady, of the sturdy trees we have found inland?” Against my will the voice that comes from me is like a gnarled walnut shell. It has no place amid the citrus freshness of Eliza's presence. I don't know why I should feel suddenly so aged — I have hardly ten years on her. Could it be that my mind and body have been formed by work, business, and care, and that Eliza is the gossamer of pure idleness? In any case, my subject is to demonstrate how, in time, hard work leads to opulence and finery. I must press home my suit. “We have begun the manufacture of our own casks in which to store all manner of provisions we have gathered from land and from sea. Our beasts are enclosed by stone walls and they thrive and multiply. Soon, I hope, our farms will yield as much grain as those in Devon and Wiltshire.”

“Really, Mr. Guy,” she replies. There is no scorn in her tone, but her expression resembles one who has just sucked upon something bitter and is trying not to betray her displeasure. “You should tell dear Papa of this. He is so interested in the commercial side of the colony.”

I feel as though I've been reproved, caught in the act of passing a grubby sovereign to her under the table. My blunder exposed, I scramble for a footing. “Your father is a shrewd investor and he has chosen his venture well. Newfoundland is certainly a place of magic.” I let the statement hang in the air. Her attention — serious, for once — is upon me. “We have indeed spied mermaids, dear lady Eliza, near enough to confirm the sighting, but too far to make an accurate report of the creature's full dimensions.”

The sparkle doesn't exactly return, but something else does — a quiver in the lips, shyness about the eyes — something altogether more encouraging.

“You fascinate me, Mr. Guy, as does the bravery of your expedition, your being from England for more than a whole year.” Her voice is soft, almost sombre. Something moves below my belt, and for the moment, at least, Bartholomew is scarcely present. “But tell me, does a distant glimpse of a mermaid compensate you for being so long from home? Do you not miss civilization?”

The rustle and clink of Mrs. Egret's knitting is the only sound in the room. I feel something momentous, a great cloud bringing either ruin or glory, gathering over my shoulders. “There is a small part of Bristol, dear Lady, which I carry with me, a place for which I will endure the vicissitudes of fate and vanquish all demons in order to ensure my own safe return. My selfless interest in this treasure has made me quite selfish, but this prize which makes me regard my own life as dear is neither earth, nor stone, nor gem.”

Eliza holds my gaze and her face is a perfection of stillness. I feel a cannonball is suspended a foot above the table and about to fall with a great thundering crash. “Why, Mr. Guy,” she says, her manner larger than before yet distinctly more distant, “a riddle! Do you desire me to guess its answer?”

Hesitancy creeps into the muscles of my face. I'm stuck for a reply.

“Come, young master Bartholomew, lend me the torch of your keen observation so that I may peer into the profound depths of your worthy leader.”

Her eyelids flutter again, but now they are less butterflies than shields. They are still decorated with patterns of conviviality, but seem designed to ward off that which is unwelcome.

“It is a trifle, Lady Eliza. Think no more about it.”

“No, Mr. Guy, I will not hear of such a thing. You have aroused our curiosity. We must be satisfied. Is that not so, young sir?”

“Indeed,” says Bartholomew. “Mr. Guy's wit is a known wonder to all. The only thing that surpasses the pleasure of one of his riddles is the joy of having its solution explained.” I would like to flash him a warning glance but know Eliza would see it too.