For Our Liberty (21 page)

“You seem to be assisting her a lot recently,” I said, unable to keep the accusation from my tone.

“I do what I can, but it will never be enough,” he mumbled uncharacteristically.

“What do you mean? Never be enough?”

“To make up for my mistakes, of course,” he said meeting my eye.

“So you admit that abandoning mother was a mistake? Progress indeed!”

“Yes. No. For God’s sake Benjamin, for a man with so many faults you seem damn unforgiving of them in anybody else.”

“It is pleasant to know that my father has such a high regard of me. Good day, sir.” I realised the visit was pointless. The gulf between us could never be bridged.

“Benjamin, sit down. That was badly said. I apologise,” he said, standing himself. “Sit, Ben, please. Lucy and I have put the past behind us, can we not do likewise?” The apology was so unexpected that I stopped halfway to the door.
 

“Lucy was younger. She didn’t understand the pain you caused mother,” I said.

“I know. I know. Don’t you think I know what a complete bastard I was? I was younger than you are now and even more of a fool. Sit, Benjamin, let us have this out once and for all.” I sat and he did likewise. We both sipped brandy for a moment, both thinking of our next move. Mine was, of course, to attack again.

“I think I have said all that I desire to, I have certainly heard sufficient to know that you have not changed.” I began to stand once again.

“Yes that’s right. Just run away. Where will it be to this time, since Paris is out of the question?”

“You forced me to leave. If you had just settled my debts I could have started again.”

“Oh, how many times have I heard that? Let me see, the first time was after a particularly bad day at Newmarket I believe. The second was after a particularly unsuccessful game of hazard, I recall. The next time…”

“Enough!”

“No, it isn’t enough, damn it. I’ve given you money and all you do is throw it back in my face. I’m your father not a bloody moneylender. If you want my help then you shall have it but you will damn well have my love as well,” he said, standing and walking to the window. The setting sun hid his face in shadow as he stared out at the square.

“It is a bit late to speak of love. You have a family to love, like that poor fool George and that fat wife of yours,” I said cruelly, finishing my brandy in one fiery mouthful.
 

“You are family, damn you, sir. If you weren’t…” He let the sentence go unfinished and his hand rubbed his temple wearily.

“You’d what? Sir, this conversation is pointless,” I said, standing and really intending to leave this time.

“No, it isn’t. You haven’t even asked me for the seventy that you owe Oldfield and Bennett yet,” he said quietly.

“You know about that?”

“Of course, Lucy and I ain’t stupid, you know.”
 

I realised that there was anger in his voice; I had almost mistaken it for pain.

“Then why didn’t you pay it off like the rest of my debts?” I asked.

“Because I wanted to see you again, my lad. If you didn’t need the money you wouldn’t be here.” He walked back to his desk and sank down, defeated.

“Actually, I came to ask you to keep your nose out of my business,” I said, still standing in the middle of the room.

“Have you told Lucy the same?” He too finished his brandy with a gulp that made his eyes water.

“No, she meant well enough.” It was my turn to mumble.

“And I didn’t, I suppose?” he asked.

“Perhaps you thought that being shot as a spy would finally rid you of an unwanted encumbrance.”

“Good Lord, do you really think that poorly of me?” Perhaps there was pain in his voice after all. I felt rather shamefaced, but would not show it.

“Yes,” I said.

“Benjamin James Sewallis Blackthorne if your mother could hear you now she would…”

“Don’t you dare use mother’s name…” I said, or my own damn middle names, I thought.

“Why not? I loved her and she loved me. Yes, damn it, I hurt her, but she had at least an ounce of understanding in her, enough to forgive me for the young idiot I was. You, on the other hand haven’t got the human decency to…”

“What, to forgive you? Never.”

“Oh Ben, my dear son. If I could take back the wrongs that I have done you I would. But I cannot. I can only do my best for you, and that is what I have been trying to do. Do you not think I see something of myself in you?” He sat forward, elbows on the desk, a hand rubbing his temple again.

“I am nothing like you,” I said, looking away.

“Are you not? The gambling? The women? I have supped at that cup and found that wine intoxicating. For me the way I redeemed myself was fulfilling my duty to my family and marrying well, even though that meant abandoning the woman that I loved. You have to find your own redemption Ben. I have given you the opportunity to do your duty by your country. Henry Brooke is a good man and I think the Alien Office is suited to you, as does Lucy. But if you want to find your own redemption then do so, but you will not get a shilling from me until you do, do you hear?”

I turned and walked out of the room without another word.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Cocoa-Tree Club on the corner of Pall Mall has always been my favourite of the London clubs. At White’s you were either in or out of the fashionable set. If you were out then those who were in sneered at you, and if you were in then you did the sneering; neither suited me very well. Brooks’s was more interesting and less exclusive, I was always lucky there at the Faro and Macao tables, but I still felt out of place amongst the Whigs with their high fashion and affected speech. The Cocoa-Tree Club on the other hand, with its history of support for the Jacobites and as a Tory stronghold, was non-conformist enough for me to feel at home. Not that I was ever a member of the Cocoa-Tree Club or any of the others, my funds never stretched to the subs, but I had several friends who were and who could always be relied upon for an occasional invitation such as the one I had received that very morning.

A few days had passed since the altercation with my father. Lucy had obviously heard the substance of the conversation, from where I knew not, but the icy glares she threw in my direction over the breakfast table were evidence of her disapprobation. Equally frosty frowns from me in reply curtailed any further intervention on her part but turned meals into uncomfortable silences. Her anger I could bear but her disappointment I could not. I spent most of my days around town, trying to avoid both family and former haunts. As you can imagine this didn’t leave much room for entertainment and so I found myself sitting in Fancourt’s subscription library, sipping coffee and flicking through the latest caricatures in the thick bound volumes. I was just chuckling to myself over the latest lampooning of the Prince of Wales when someone called my name loudly enough to cause almost unanimous scowls and a few shushes from the other readers.

I looked up from my coffee to see an old friend approaching. Actually James Hawkshawe was not that old a friend, since we had only met in Egypt two years previously, but something had scarred him there, and I don’t mean the pistol ball that almost killed him, but something else akin to my own experience, I think. Of course he never spoke of it, just as I never spoke of shooting Edward, but we felt a common bond of suffering and took to sharing the odd bottle or two. James was one of the few who stood by me when I progressed on from just a couple of bottles.

He looked fit and well as he walked up to me. He was obviously still in the army because he was wearing his red Royal Staff Corps uniform; complete with cocked hat tucked under one arm. His sabre rattled at his side and the light glinted off a bronze medal swinging from its sand coloured ribbon on his chest. I had one just like it, presented by a grateful Sultan of Turkey for liberating his Egyptian province, but I had never worn mine and never did, my Waterloo medal looked better on its own. I stood and grasped Hawkshawe’s hand as he greeted me warmly.

“Ben, damn fine to see you. I heard that you were back in town,” he said and sat down in the chair opposite, “I felt certain that you would have been caught in Boney’s net.”

I saw the flash of concern that seemed to be de rigueur for friends and family meeting me then. I was, as you can imagine, becoming more than a little irritated by it but James said nothing and instead began the usual list of promotions, marriages, disgraces and escapades that mark the meeting of two soldiers. He seemed to have put his time in Egypt behind him; his face had lost the deep tan and hard lines, he had been promoted to Captain and his honest charm had made another young lady enamoured of him, but his usual discretion withheld her name despite some close questioning by me.

“I’m afraid I’m due back at Horse Guards so I can’t stay,” he said as he stood after a few minutes, “but come to dinner at the Cocoa-Tree tonight.”

I wasn’t about to let my envy at his good humour stand in the way of a fine meal so I accepted with thanks, and meant it. James was someone you could forgive anything of, even happiness.

I arrived at the prescribed time and was shown to Hawkshawe’s table by a French waiter who if he had not been a Duke before the revolution certainly acted like it. Hawkshawe waived him away with a request for a good claret and when he came back we toasted those who had not returned from Egypt with us.
 

The Cocoa-Tree’s dining room was comfortable rather than opulent; the colours were mostly dark reds and the furnishings velvet. The glassware was of the very finest crystal and the china was Mr. Wedgwood’s best. Candles and mirrors lined the walls and so the room was lit well enough to see the other diners. I knew a couple of them and Hawkshawe knew more. The clientele of the Cocoa-Tree declined later when the infamous Lord Byron was a member but in ’03 there was a good sprinkling of Lords, Colonels, Admirals and even a few wealthy merchants had been reluctantly allowed to join in an attempt to put the club’s finances on a better footing.

The first course was turbot in a rich lobster sauce and we both confined such conversation as was possible between mouthfuls of succulent fish to the same banalities as that morning. The food at the Cocoa-Tree was excellent, there were more émigré French cooks in London than had stayed in Paris. The next course was spit-roasted Wiltshire ham with a Madeira sauce and we began to touch on more weighty topics.

“Your regiment’s been ordered to Kent,” Hawkshawe said as he tucked into his ham.

“Whereabouts?” I asked.

“One of the new camps on the coast, near Admiral Keith’s HQ at North Foreland. They’ll have a grand view when Bonaparte sails across the Channel.”

“When? Not if?” His certainty surprised me. I had overheard many conversations on the subject of our great nation’s imminent danger from the Corsican tyrant but had assumed such views had not percolated as far as the military. True, I had seen the troops around Boulogne myself but gathering an army is a very different thing to using it.

“So the rumours say,” Hawkshawe continued after signalling for another bottle of wine. “Horse Guards are getting themselves in a fearful state. There are plans for batteries on every beach and a line of towers from Suffolk all the way along the south coast. I think they are based on one that held up the Navy in Corsica, or something. There’s even talk of a canal across Kent to bottle up any landing.”

“Surely it’s all just hysteria?”

“The French have defeated everyone else, it makes sense that they’ll have a go at us next. Thank God for the Navy, is all I can say.”

“Exactly, the French haven’t a hope of getting across the Channel,” I said, draining my glass and pouring myself another.

“All it will take is a bad gale to blow the blockading squadrons out to sea and the French could have their chance. If they come then we’ll have a fight on our hands. I wouldn’t bet against the French veterans when they meet the damn Militia and the Fencibles.”

I had to agree with him. Even after the success in Egypt our army was too small and too inexperienced to take on the French. Most of our contributions to the war so far had been either financial or naval. However, if the French did land then we’d be fighting for our homes and our families, or would we? The common soldier may well feel that a revolution was just what this country needed. What I did know was that if they did come then I would have no excuse not to return to the colours. It was not a prospect that I relished and I was surprised that Hawkshawe was still so keen on the army life.

“I would have thought you would have had enough of war, after Egypt,” I said.

“Believe me I have,” he answered, a pained look passing briefly over his face, “but the thought of some garlic ridden grenadier futtering his way across England precludes a life of hunting and leisure back in Warwickshire. Besides, what else would I do with myself?”

“Enjoy life.”

“I do. Especially now that I’ve met…” he paused and stumbled over his words before continuing. “Now that I have met someone. Anyway, I hope I never see battle again but if it is my fate then so be it,” he said, the grim determination that had got him through the Egyptian campaign returning to his voice.

“Doing your duty, as ever, James?”

“You may mock, Ben, but what about you?”