Gentleman Captain (30 page)

Ignoring the ribaldry I climbed down into the galley. The countess smiled, raised her hand to be kissed, and bade me sit down alongside her. The craft pulled away from the
Jupiter
's side moving with easy strokes right into the wind, a course that no sailing ship could take.

'So, Captain Quinton,' she said, and I was struck anew by the flinty tones of a voice so at odds with her beauty. 'Here you are, after all. Kilreen reckoned you wouldn't have the wit for it, in full sight of your crew.'

I rejoined that I was a married man merely accepting the generous invitation of a noble lady–one whose rank made refusal impossible. She asked, half-mockingly, if that meant I was there only out of duty rather than pleasure, and I made some silly, gallant remark about how the two could coincide quite happily. She smiled at that, and fed me some small, flat Scottish cakes that she claimed were of her own making. The servant girl, a young islander who spoke no English, poured us some passable wine.

The birlinn took us close among the islands, through channels that would have been impassable for a ship. This was Ardverran land, she said, what was left of it. She proudly pointed out this farmstead and that fisherman's cottage, taking pleasure in reciting the names of places and people in the singsong Scots tongue, so like her native Irish, she said.

She asked me of my family, and within an hour she had it all: my comely wife, my embittered mother, my heroic father, my elusive brother, my piratical grandfather, my French grandmother, my dead sister and my living one; the whole Quinton history. She learned of the death of Captain Harker, of my sudden appointment as his replacement, and of my tortuous dealings with the
Jupiter's
officers. Of her own history, she said not a word.

In my turn I asked of her late husband, seeking to learn more of Godsgift Judge's part in his death. She would say only that her husband had been a strong man and loyal to his king. She spoke animatedly only of her son, and of how she would see him enter into his inheritance. Then, perhaps, she would retire to her native Ireland; though she was told it was much changed, with many of her people thrown off their lands by Cromwell's men and the speculators who came in their wake. 'Hell or Connaught', the saying went; thus her own title had become an abomination, though the lands of Connaught were none so bad, she claimed. It was clear from her passionate way of speaking that the distance between the Connaught lands and their countess, whose family had lost them, made them all the more desirable.

We came by a ruined fortress on the shore. This was not as ancient as the one I had explored with young Macferran the day before; it seemed to date from the days when England and Scotland fought for possession of this entire land. I asked her if this was so, and her eyes flashed–though whether in disgust at my ignorance, or something quite other, I could not tell.

Not so, she told me. 'This was a seat of the Lords of the Isles, my son's ancestors. It was a great sea-kingdom over all these islands, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, and the mainland fringing this sea: Ardnamurchan and Kintyre, and such places. Their chief palace was at Finlaggan on Islay, but they sometimes came down to these waters for calmer weather and the hunting.'

This was a history of which I knew nothing. I asked her to tell me more of it. For a moment she ran her fingertips through her long red hair, seeming lost in thought. Then she turned to me.

'This is no ancient history, Captain. The last Macdonald Lord of the Isles was illegally deprived of his lands and titles by King James the Fourth of Scots in 1493, less than one hundred and seventy years ago. When I first came to Ardverran, as my husband's child-bride, there was an old retainer, long past his ninetieth year. His own father had married late in life, when he was almost at his three score and ten, to a wife half a century his junior. As a boy, Captain Quinton, the father was a scullion to Alexander, the last Lord of the Isles. He witnessed the fall of the lordship. He saw the soldiers of King James ride up to that tower, there, and burn it. He relayed the story to his son, who relayed at to me, as vividly as if I were witnessing the event myself. Two lives back, Captain, and you and I are here, on the edge of living memory.'

Aye, as am I, now. Here I sit, in the London of the second George and that scabrous thief Walpole, and yet in my mind's eye I can conjure up the image of an old man I once knew; an old man who sailed against the Invincible Armada and danced with Queen Bess. An old man whose own venerable childhood attendant hacked that same King James of Scots to death at Flodden Field. Such are the tricks and mysteries that time perplexes us with. And the older a man gets the more he is drawn to his memories, and the more of a fool he finds himself to be.

This lost heritage evidently mattered deeply to the countess. She turned her long neck and hid her face in contemplation of the ruins while the serving girl refilled our goblets. I sat in silence, watching the hundreds of gulls that wheeled around the great crags of the headland, calling out in their wild, harsh voices. Suddenly my lady bestirred herself, bending close with a smile to ask whether my wife and I had children. When I answered none, and that after three years of marriage, she frowned a little.

'But matters between you, Matthew–yes, I shall call you Matthew, I think–matters are as you would wish them to be?' She paused, as though choosing her words with care. 'You are close to your wife, Matthew?'

There, on a warm afternoon, with good wine inside me and this beauty of all the world only inches from me, it was easy to imagine the matters to which she referred. Too easy. I felt my neck grow warm as I looked at her face, at the mocking smile on those perfect lips. I answered awkwardly, a little breathlessly, that 'matters' between Cornelia and me were satisfactory–and so they were. So satisfactory, indeed, and so frequent, that our failure to conceive a child was a mystery to us both. It was less of a concern to Cornelia, whose parents had produced children but twice, ten years apart, in forty years of marriage. But I was the heir to Ravensden and in danger of becoming the
last
heir; the last of the Quintons. My brother Charles, the earl, was hardly likely to marry and even less likely to be a father, for such of his inclinations that had not been shot to pieces in the Worcester fight lay elsewhere. That left Uncle Tristram, over thirty years my senior. Although he, like our king, had sons enough around the kingdom, he had never married any of their mothers, again like our king. Every other Quinton line had ended in daughters or still-borns or impotent lunatics. My mother was tactful enough not to remind Cornelia or me of this appalling fact, or of the responsibility upon us to produce a new heir–or not more than three or four times a week, at any rate.

It took my lady of Connaught but a short while to prise my fears and hopes from me. She, whose own marriage of some ten years had produced only one child, was sympathetic, and plied me with more cakes and wine. Emboldened by good Rhenish, the dazzling sun upon the water, and my proximity to those half-laughing, half-serious green eyes, I asked whether she had not been tempted to remarry. Widowhood in these parts, especially in the winter, must have been an ordeal of solitude.

She could and perhaps should have damned me for my impertinence. Instead, she said equably, 'Oh, I have had proposals, Captain. A title, even one with attainted lands and no royal patent, draws a certain kind of man like a moth to a flame. Macdonald of Glenverran, my late husband's kinsman, proposes to me annually, every Christmas Day, but he is a man who has never known soap. Even Campbell of Glenrannoch proposed to me, when he first came back from the wars.' This was news indeed. The countess noticed my look of surprise. 'His own German wife died many years ago, and his son prefers the fleshpots of Amsterdam to estate husbandry, they tell me. His is an isolated existence. But for a Macdonald to marry a Campbell–even if she is only a Macdonald by marriage–why, Captain, that would be like France marrying England, but with less chance of success.' She looked out over her waters. 'Besides, I think I scare men away. I believe I speak too plainly for most. A failing both of my family and my race. But I am well content alone, with my son.'

She asked me of my own plans for the future, and I found I could not answer with any certainty. 'As an heir, I suppose all my plans must be tentative...' I faltered. 'They all depend–that is to say, they all suppose—'

'That your brother does not die? And is he like to die, Matthew Quinton?'

'Charles–the earl–he was wounded, in the wars—'

'Ah. As the cynics in my old country say, Captain, we are all dying, even babes in arms. The only issue is how long we take over it. Your brother has perhaps taken long enough?'

Her suggestion startled me. It was not the coarseness of it. I had encountered enough plain-speaking amongst the whores who thronged the court of Whitehall, and Jane Barcock of Ravensden could be as direct as the plainest dealer when suggesting what she would like to do with the Honourable Matthew. But the falseness, the presumption of her suggestion—

'I do not wish my brother to die, my lady. I do not wish to be an earl.'

She smiled, raised an eyebrow. 'Ah, Matthew. Poor, poor Matthew. I did not wish to be the titular Countess of Connaught, but somehow my father died. I did not wish to be mistress of Ardverran, but somehow my husband died.' A strange expression I could not read passed over her face. 'Sometimes, in the winter, when we know it is day only because the rainclouds become a little lighter for a few hours, I find myself with little to do but read. A while ago, I read a canting, ugly book which states that life is but solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. I have thought much on that phrase, Matthew.
Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.
The truth of it is what has brought me here, and who knows where it will take you?'

Our craft rowed along an empty shore. Here and there, a ruined tower or cottage stood forlornly. My lady was silent, looking out to the sunlit lands beyond the foreshore. At length, she gestured towards them with a slender arm.

'Lost Macdonald lands, Captain,' she said. 'All this, as far as you can see, once belonged to my husband's sept. Ardverran's lands stretched almost to Kintyre. Now all is Campbell property. To the north, there, is Glenrannoch's soil, all of it once Macdonald territory. Everything south and east is Campbell of Argyll's, though Argyll be dead. Tell me, Captain Quinton. You know the king, I take it? Your brother is one of his oldest friends, I've heard?' I admitted it. She said, 'Then explain this to me, Captain. The Macdonalds, my husband among them, fought for this king. The Lord Argyll humiliated him and betrayed him, and the king has rightly stuck his head on a pole at the Edinburgh tollbooth. Now, would not natural justice suggest that the lands of the traitor, Campbell of Argyll, should go to the loyal, to the Macdonalds, whose soil after all it rightly is from time immemorial?' Her eyes locked on mine, her expression hard to read. 'So where is your king's justice, Captain Quinton?'

I was silent, thinking hard upon a reply. My honour demanded that I defend the king, my monarch and my brother's friend. But there was much in what she said; and, in truth, I had heard arguments like hers many times since the Restoration. Many Cavaliers came flooding back from exile to find their lands long sold to speculators or swordsmen, and perhaps sold on again to perfectly innocent third parties who had entirely legal title to them. What to do? To keep his truest supporters content, and declare invalid all land transactions since his royal father's execution? That would almost certainly begin another civil war out of the howls of the dispossessed. Or to confirm the title of all those in actual possession, thereby rewarding men who had been vehement against the crown for decades, and forcing his truest supporters to shift for themselves?

Typically, King Charles the Second had chosen a course that he often took in such cases, when the choice before him was as between Scylla and Charybdis.

He did nothing.

Returning Cavaliers and incumbent Roundheads had been left to reach individual accommodation where they could, and families had often been forced to pay again for lands that had been theirs for centuries. Although my mother had somehow kept most of the Quinton estate together through the worst of times, even she had been forced to sell some of our subsidiary lands in Huntingdonshire to a venal old civil lawyer; a Parliament-man, from Chancery Lane. He enjoyed them still.

I began awkwardly to explain the thorny difficulties surrounding the king to Lady Macdonald, but she swiftly grew impatient.

'Enough, Captain. You confirm what I already know. Argyll's lands will not be attainted and restored to their rightful owners, but will pass to his worthless son Lorne, who also stands accused of treason. And if not to Lorne, then doubtless to Glenrannoch. Yes, I'm sure the general will happily extend his boundaries yet again, as he has done at the expense of Macdonalds more than once. Why should General Campbell gain such power at my son's expense? Glenrannoch, a man of no proven loyalty to our king, and kinsman to such great traitors?'

Her cheeks were flushed with passion but she held her head proudly. I concurred with her sentiments about the general, and as she turned toward the shore, her fire-red hair brushing my cheek as she did so, I saw myself once more as the grim, armoured knight, despatching the enemies of a wronged woman.

For a moment our cruise seemed threatened to end on this sorrowful and bitter note, but I have observed that all mothers, including my own, can be diverted safely from any difficult matter by asking them about their sons, and so it proved once more. At my turning our talk back to the subject of the young Sir Ian Macdonald of Ardverran, my lady's face brightened. She began a lengthy discourse on the various childhood illnesses he had overcome, his moods and qualities, and her hopes for his future.

'He will be a great man, Matthew,' she said, eyes aglow with pride. 'Greater than his father. Maybe, under him, Ardverran will be mighty again.'