Cupids (3 page)

“There you are, Mr. Guy, we have given up trying to guess. The code of good manners demands you explain yourself.”

The candle flame leaps and Eliza's eyes lighten for the moment from deep aqua to bluish steel. Mrs. Egret has ceased her knitting and laid her bundle and needles aside. Though obscured in dimness, her frail form seems to tilt forward attentively.

Like an army retreating through a forest, I weave backward through my words — “neither earth, nor stone, nor gem” — and finally I light upon an evasion that may suffice.

“The air,” I say with a slight cough.

“Surely not!”

“Yes, Lady, indeed. The air here in Bristol is what I most miss. The way that the woodsmoke mingles with the late blossoms of autumn and the crocuses of spring.”

“But what about the warm breezes of Cupers Cove and nature's reassuring breath?”

Her smile — a blade scarcely at rest — remains on me. She doesn't blink, but now I've got her measure; I'll not crumble.

“I would merely have those virtues of the New World transported hither, Lady Eliza, so that the expanse of the new and the beauty of the old could mingle as one. And now,” I say, rising with all the dignity I can muster, “Bartholomew and I must go to your father's study and take our leave of him.”

Eliza nods and directs a smile first at me, then at Bartholomew. Mrs. Egret's knitting has resumed and provides a clockwork accompaniment to her niece's inscrutable movements. Bartholomew bows twice, both times in an exaggerated manner, and I have to shoo him toward the study door.

MY EYES FIX ON the red bauble trembling from Mr. Egret's Florentine silk nightcap as the quill scratches through the silence.

“And so, Mr. Egret,” I resume as patiently as I can, “I would be happy to provide any other information you might require on the progress of our venture.”

“Time, Mr. Guy, time will give both of us all the answers that we need.” The pen continues on its course, scratching sums and fractions the purpose of which I am now certain is quite unconnected to our mutual enterprise. “Our venture, as you put it, will either thrive or perish on its merits, and we will either gain or lose that portion of sweat and gold we have invested in it. Such is life.”

My chest is beating an indignant rhythm that I am at some pains to suppress. “And yet, toil and risk, and, dare I say it, faith, are so often at the very heart of failure and success. In short, the fate of Cupers Cove is in our own hands.”

For the first time, Mr. Egret raises his head in my direction. I believe I see the hint of a smile playing upon his white lips and the ghost of a twinkle in his pale eye. “You really believe so, Mr. Guy? How interesting, and how very like a young man to believe. You think that blind faith and belly fire can prize open the treasure chest of worlds unknown.” He lays his quill carefully next to his paper. Although his spare, sardonic face retains hints of whimsy, there is a bitter sadness in the grooves of his cheek. “And yet, why should I caution or criticize? Such is the spirit that is indeed opening up the globe. It is upward and onward you must look. Why should you dwell on the English bones and tears mingling in the dust of foreign climes?”

“I venture to hope, Mr. Egret,” I say, returning his smile, “that provided our company remains steadfast in its backing, salt fish, timber, ores as yet undiscovered, and not bones and tears may prove our legacy.”

“So we all hope with you,” he replies, frowning deeply. “I have scars and burdens enough from past failures, Mr. Guy. The world is discovering, to its cost, that a colonizing venture relies upon more than a successful yield of goods. It requires viability. And viability is a team of acrobats at a fair, a diamond of interconnected bodies rising all in perfect balance upon the shoulders of one strong man.” His mention of the word “diamond” draws my attention to the wrought-gold pendant nestling within the cluster of its chain upon his desk. Inlaid with stones of mauve and green and studded with diamonds, this famous gift from a group of Venetian merchants is a curiously ostentatious possession for such a cautious man. It sits like a talisman, a reminder perhaps of his purpose in life — a studious accumulation of wealth at minimum risk to himself. He follows my flitting gaze, blinks and gives me a sickly smile. “Salt fish, timber, even ore will come to naught if the land will not yield enough grain to sustain your animals, if the animals will not multiply to feed the men, and the men not multiply to do all the required work. It was such a venture as yours that swallowed up my late brother, although it was the east and not the west to which he sailed.” His eyes have taken on a forlorn and faraway look; I can see some vague, distant expanse in their paleness. “In confidence and determination, Mr. Guy, as you stand before me now, you are his very image.” He gives a brief shake of the head, takes up his pen once more and begins to scratch more figures. “I only pray,” he intones very slowly, as though reciting a particularly depressing psalm, “that you may have better luck than he.”

I take a glance to the side. Bartholomew, who has been completely silent as I instructed him, gives me a bewildered stare. It shames me to make one last attempt.

“I thank you for your prayers, Mr. Egret, and I'm sorry for your family's great losses.” I pause for only a moment. “But optimism is essential to the success of the colony in Cupers Cove and to its expansion throughout the Avalon and beyond. We have, as detailed already, harvested fish in great quantity as well as hardy root vegetables. We have built sturdy houses for living and storage and fine cottages beyond the centre of our settlement. We have weathered the first winter without loss of a man. And a successful grain harvest will, God willing, be next.”

“Ah,” he says whimsically, leaning back in his chair, “God willing!”

I ignore this and press on. “But thirty-nine men cannot create a society unaided. The Crown, I firmly believe, is hopeful, as are the majority of our stockholders.” I pause again, this time to push home the most important argument. “It is expansion we need now, both of personnel, as you yourself suggest, and of investment. We need more men now while success is so easily within our grasp, and many more provisions. And men need wives.”

“Wives, you say?”

“Indeed, sir,” I say. “From the carpenter to the fisherman, from the labourer to the ironworker, all these men need both the comfort of a woman and the promise that their work may add security and prosperity to their line.”

“This is true, of course.” The words, spoken so softly, have little more substance than a breeze. He has stopped writing again and holds the quill sideways, running his fingertips along the rim of the feathers. “After the first season or two the colonizing workers must bring the spawn of hoped-for generations to come. This spawn must either embed its roots in the earth or dash itself against the rocks. How unlike their betters these men are, willing to bring their womenfolk into known danger. At least my poor brother had property and friends enough to leave his young wife behind. Even so, what a poor creature Mrs. Egret became after his death, and what a burden she remains!”

“May I say humbly, Mr. Egret,” Bartholomew says, taking me by surprise, “that Mr. Guy has already outfaced danger after danger, both of pirates and outlaws, and our colony is safe and secure.” He speaks in a low, courtly voice I hardly recognize and his hands hover over the merchant's table as though about to physically conjure some evidence in support of our suit. “The finest lady in England,” he continues slowly, his wide sleeves skimming the surface of Mr. Egret's desk, “could accompany him next spring and remain in sure and certain hope of safety, happiness, and prosperity.”

My face burns at his not-so-subtle reference to my dreams of Eliza, but I notice that as he regards my companion, Mr. Egret comes closer to a true smile than I believe I have ever seen in him. Deep lines radiate from the corners of his eyes, and I can glimpse what he may have seemed like so many years ago to Eliza's mother. “Young sir,” he says, “how well you speak. Were I persuadable of such an improbability, I might be persuaded. But nature itself is random and vengeful. Shipwreck, blight, famine, and fever may hit the voyager when he least suspects. No discerning guardian would permit a lady to marry an adventurer.” He returns his now hollow gaze to me. “I'm afraid, Mr. Guy, that you will find only the near-refuse of England, the homeless and nameless, will provide connubial comfort to your men. The colony might expand, but it needs to prove itself worthy of prosperity before we might venture more capital that way.” Then his eyes seem to soften and a mild smile returns to his almost lipless mouth. This is the moment, my tingling fingers seem to tell me. Some crust of material comfort is about to be offered, some grudging extension of financial aid. “But there is some consolation for you, after all,” he says quietly.

I try to give voice to a question, but like a man dying of thirst, my tongue fails me.

“You are a bachelor,” he sighs finally. “At least you may rest assured that all the misfortunes that await you will not be shared with a wife.”

The tingling sensation drains from my fingers. As Bartholomew and I had not been invited to sit, we remained standing all through the interview. Only now do I feel the increasing burden of my own weight, and like a man in heavy armour, I take a slow backward step. “Thank you, Mr. Egret, for that kind thought. I will continue to await faithfully more instructions from all my colleagues and from you in this business. I will gather, as arranged, women already betrothed to our men for the return voyage. And I will purchase, from our remaining balance, those supplies and victuals as might see us modestly through another season. But you are quite mistaken to call the future women of our colony refuse. If you yourself were to come to the dockside when the time comes, as I pray you might, you would find them pleasing and respectable. In the meantime, sir, I bid you good night.”

As we take leave of the room, Bartholomew's footsteps shuffle around me, first in front then behind, giving the fleeting impression, no doubt, that we are a two-man country dance. The main chamber now deserted of Eliza and Mrs. Egret, and the lights out, we cross the stone floor for the main door which Helen flutters before us to unlatch. Her candle bobs and nearly dips out as the crisp night air swoops down to claim us.

“Good night, sirs,” she whispers, her voice pregnant with something I cannot quite name — a sense of excitement, perhaps even anticipation — but the door closes behind us. I hear the dropping of a heavy latch.

A pair of crows, mere outlines against the moonlight, scuttle along the Egrets' chimney piece and each takes to the air, one following the other in a circular motion.

CHAPTER FOUR
Bartholomew

“
W
HY DO YOU ALWAYS
take me here,” asks Helen. “Can't we go inside?”

In the firelight, her cheek possesses the hue of one of the French peaches on Mr. Egret's sideboard. Her excitement, edged now with a touch of impatience, makes her even lovelier than she had been when I had slipped her the note at dinner. The story of the mermaids works with her every time, eliciting both wonder and fresh-teased roots of jealousy. I'd suggest Guy use it more often with Miss Eliza. But it's hopeless. Only a fool would try to breach Eliza Egret's fortress, surrounded though it may be by waves of flirtation and innuendo. She is firmly grounded in her own worth and means to scoop the cream and leave the rest. Only a fool did try. I almost pitied Guy in the growing silence after he had handed her a whip and tied himself to a post . . . “one part of Bristol dear lady . . .” I could hear the jangling of his coxcomb bells as he spoke.

“Do you not adore the dancing of the flames, Helen? In the new-found-land we love nothing better than to gaze before nature's hearth and tell stories to one another.”

I hate open fires really, especially in this small patch of scrubland so close to the Broad Quay docks where we can hear the hubbub of sailors, the wretch of consumptives, and the rhythmic creak of the dockside gibbet. But I have nowhere else to take her, as Guy is keeping me grudgingly enough as a guest already. I don't mean to provoke him without reason. The pit before us is an old one; half of the logs are already well-charred. I added a few dry twigs but only for effect. They gave off a thick smoke that made Helen cough at first and complain that the smell would linger on her clothes and lead to questions tomorrow. But now there is only flame, she is quite spellbound and I have crept closer to her, inch by inch.

“What kind of stories?” she asks. I catch a faint hum of warmth from a shoulder almost touching mine.

“Stories of our adventures in the strange new land we have found. Stories of home and the ones we left behind.”

“Why do you have to leave them behind?” she asks after a short pause.

I break a twig and fling one part into the flame. A spark rises in response, and then curls into a question mark.

“I was brought up to go into trade, like your master. But the family went bankrupt.”

“Still, you seem to be landing on your feet.”

“After a struggle.”

“Do you see them?” she asks, her voice softening.

“Who?”

“Your family.”

The gibbet post groans from the weight of its load. I remember opening my uncle's bedroom door, see again the rope slung over the beam, my uncle's white bulging eyes.

“All dead.”

“Sorry,” she whispers. “But you have a new world now.”

“A new world without the comforts of home. You can't bring a lady to such a wild and untamed region. It's too dangerous. At night the sky itself is like crystal, the voluptuous moon four times its usual size. As the oceans roll onto the endless sands you can hear the mermaids whispering to each other on the spice-fumed air. And Mr. Guy misled your mistress about that too. No air is sweeter than that of Cupers Cove. The atmosphere is different in the far west; it hangs like vapour of honey, tinged with cinnamon and clove.”