The Rape of Venice (15 page)

At last, as twilight fell, the boats pulled away. With the ship's fiddler sitting crosslegged on the capstan, and the crew singing a hearty sea-shanty, the anchor was weighed. To the rattle and scream of blocks, the vast acreage of canvas aloft was unfurled and set. In company with her seven sister ships and their escorting frigate, the
Minerva
began to plough her way down Channel under a fair breeze.

In those days, tropical diseases took a high toll of Europeans in the East, and the wastage by death in the Army was as high as one man in ten per annum; so even in peace-time large numbers of reinforcements had to be sent out by every convoy. The
Minerva
was carrying a dozen officers and over a hundred other ranks; but, owing to the uncertainty of her sailing, until near the date her civilian passengers were few.

When they assembled in the saloon, Roger found that, in addition to the Beaumonts, they were a portly Mrs. Armitage and her skinny daughter, an elderly lawyer named Musgrave and a plump, middle-aged merchant named Winters. Besides these there were a number of Servants of the Company, mostly young ‘writers', as civil servants were then called; going out for the first time.

Captain Finch introduced them to one another, to the Army officers, to his own officers, and to the surgeon. He then solemnly read prayers for a fortunate voyage and confided the ship and her company into the hands of God, against the perils of the ocean. The brief service over, Madeira was produced and numerous toasts drunk. It was fully dark and close on ten o'clock when the company broke up and went down to their cabins.

To Roger's annoyance he found his trunks still corded, which did not augur well for Droopy's choice of a servant for him. But he had often looked after himself for many months at a stretch; so, without giving the matter another thought, he undid the valise that he had brought aboard with him, and got out his night things.

He was only half undressed when he heard the door rattle, then a knock upon it. As he had put the catch up, he walked over and threw it open. In the dim light of the gently swinging
lantern hooked to a beam in the passageway, he saw a youngster with a woollen stocking cap pulled well down over his ears.

For a moment they faced one another in silence; then in a lilting voice, bubbling with suppressed laughter, the boy spoke:

‘May it please you, Sir. I am your servant.'

Only then, to his amazement and fury, did Roger realise that he was staring at Clarissa.

Grasping Clarissa by the arm, Roger pulled her through into, the cabin. With his free hand he slammed the door. With the other he gave her a violent shake, as he cried:

‘How dare you spring this upon me! What's the meaning of this masquerade?'

‘Roger!' she gasped. ‘Let go! Please! You're hurting!'

As he released her, she stumbled back against a sea chest and sat down upon it with a bump.

‘To play such a prank you must be out of your wits,' he stormed. ‘And Ned, too; for it seems he must have aided you in this.'

‘He did, bless his kind heart. I unbosomed myself to him, and he could not refuse my plea to help me in my plan for accompanying you to India.'

‘To India, eh?' Roger gave a short harsh laugh. ‘The sooner you disabuse yourself of that idea, Miss, the better. By morning we should be abreast the Isle of Wight. I shall have you put off there; or, failing that, at Poole or Weymouth.'

‘Oh Roger!' There were tears in her voice. ‘And I thought you would be pleased to see me.'

‘You mean you thought you'd trap me into this marriage that you desire. That, having compromised yourself so fully, I'd not have the strength of mind to refuse to make an honest woman of you. But in that you were mistaken. You must pay the price of your own folly.'

‘No! No, no!' she cried in sharp protest. ‘You wrong me there! I intended nothing of the kind. In Martinique, after Amanda died, I offered to become your mistress. I know that it was mainly out of chivalry that you refused; but partly, too,
because you were then so grief-stricken by your loss. Now you are over that; and I would liefer be your mistress than any man's wife. It is as your mistress that I want you to take me to India with you.'

His expression softened, but he still frowned. ‘How can I, even if I would? The Company's ships maintain a high standard of respectability. None of their Captains would tolerate on board a couple living openly in sin.'

‘Not openly, perhaps. But they wink the eye at men of position, like yourself, taking a young woman with them on a voyage. ‘Tis a common practice.'

‘I am amazed to hear it. What leads you to suppose so?'

‘Julia Carruthers told me of it in Martinique.'

‘D'you mean the wife of Captain Carruthers, who came out, just before I left, to take over the naval dockyard?'

‘Yes. He was in the service of the Company before transferring to the Royal Navy. She told me that in India young coloured girls can be had at the lifting of a finger, but, their physical attractions apart, they have nothing to offer a man of quality; and good-looking white women are near as scarce as rubies. That being the case, wealthy bachelors often take their mistresses out with them; but, of course, they have to travel in men's clothes, and in the guise of their lovers' servants.'

‘So it was that which led you to this masquerade. Surely, though, the servants have their, own quarters, and for the greater part of the time are expected to occupy them?'

‘There is a noisome cubby-hole in which they eat by day and some sleep at night; but most of them prefer to doss down in the passageways outside their masters' cabins, and I gather that single gentlemen often allow their servants to lay a mattress on the floor inside them. In our case it would be thought that you had shown this last consideration to me.'

‘I take it then that, since coming aboard from Margate, you have slept in here.'

‘Naturally. And I was much pleased to find that you had been given a two-berth cabin. I am sure you would not be happy for me to sleep upon the floor; yet, were there only one, I'd have no alternative during spells of rough weather, for at such times it's certain you'll be seasick.'

Clarissa was an exceptionally good sailor, whereas Roger was a bad one. Her reminder of the miserable state he was likely to be in for at least a part of the long voyage was far from welcome, but it was not on that account that he replied
sharply: ‘You go too fast. I've not said I'd have you in my cabin, and I won't.'

‘Oh, Roger,' she pleaded, ‘be not hard upon yourself as well as on me. Strive as you may to conceal it, I know that you find me desirable; and, as I have already assured you, even should some people come to suspect that I am a woman, no trouble will be made for you because of it.'

‘Since you are so well informed about what goes on in the Company's ships, I'll not argue that point with you. But you seem to have overlooked the situation in which you would find yourself when we reached Calcutta. ‘Tis not like London, where a man can carry on a clandestine affair with an unmarried girl, or even keep her in an apartment of her own without anyone who matters being the wiser. You have yourself pointed out that in the East attractive white women are few and far between; that fact alone would render concealment impossible.'

‘It would not be necessary. The very scarcity you speak of has led to entirely different conditions. Society there has become far more tolerant than it is in England. Julia told me that in India white mistresses live openly with their lovers and by custom take their names. Providing that they know how to conduct themselves decently they are received on equal terms with married women; so that in all but the blessing of the Church, I'd be Mrs. Brook.'

‘And what when we returned to England? Do you suppose that no tales ever drift back from those distant shores? You suggest that on our arrival in Calcutta I should produce you, apparently from nowhere, as Mrs. Brook. But a change to female garments will not prevent the officers, every passenger, and all the crew in this ship recognising you as the youth who played the part of my servant on the voyage out; so there'll be no disguising the fact that we're not married. Then, within a week or two, someone will appear on the scene who knew you either in England or Martinique, and your true identity will become common property. What with your looks and the fact that you are of good family, the next ship will carry back to London the news of our liaison. Your name will be dragged in the mud and your chances of making a good marriage for ever ruined.'

‘I care not!' she declared stubbornly. ‘I've no close relatives who would be ashamed by me, and I've a right to dispose of myself as I wish.'

‘But I do care,' he rapped back, ‘and I'll not have you ruining your whole life. I am honoured and touched by your love for me, but on those terms I would feel disgraced did I accept it.'

Suddenly she stood up. Her voice was low and she leaned towards him, as she said, ‘Roger; kiss me. Kiss me as you did the other night.'

‘No!' he exclaimed, pushing her off. ‘No! I'll be damned if I will.'

‘You daren't,' she taunted him. ‘You dare not, because you know that if you did you would give in. You'd rather keep your stupid pride and let me break my heart.'

‘I'm not the keeper of your heart, but I am of my own conscience,' he cried angrily. ‘I'll have naught to do with you. Get out of here! Get out!'

In an instant her shoulders sagged pathetically, and her hands shook as she held them out to him. ‘You cannot mean this, Roger. Think what you are sending me to. It was bad enough down in the servants' cubby-hole waiting to come to you until the ship was well out at sea. The men have brought aboard great flasks of gin and are drinking to a fortunate voyage. I had great difficulty in avoiding having to drink with them. It will be worse by now, and soon they'll all be roaring drunk. Anything might happen to me.'

‘It would serve you right if I did send you there; but I see it to be impossible.'

For a moment he was silent and her heart leapt with hope again; but he crushed it by adding curtly, ‘Very well, then. It is I who must pass a night in discomfort.'

Quickly putting on again the things he had taken off, he got into his heavy many-collared top-coat, picked up his hat, and said, ‘You are to remain here until I come to you in the morning. And make up your mind to it, I am not changing mine. I mean to have you put ashore before we pass the Needles.'

Slamming the door behind him, he made his way on deck and up to the poop. There was hardly room to move on it as it was piled high with hundreds of barred crates and coops. Each was crammed to capacity with live sheep, pigs, turkeys, geese, chickens or ducks, which would be slaughtered as required to provide fresh meat at the Captain's table throughout the voyage. The stench was indescribable.

Still seething with rage, he thrust his way down one of the narrow alleys that had been left between the crates, until he
reached the Chart House. On this first night of the voyage he expected that Captain Finch would be up there until at least midnight, observing the behaviour of his ship under her new rigging; but the Second Mate, whose watch it was, promptly disabused him of any hope of seeing the Captain before morning.

He learned that the Captains, or Commanders as they were called, of East Indiamen regarded themselves as considerable personages. On landing in India they were greeted with a salute of thirteen guns, and on entering or leaving a fort guards turned out for them. While at sea they had six mates and several midshipmen; so it was beneath their dignity to take any active part in the navigation of the ship, except in such exceptional circumstances as tempest or attack by an enemy.

Roger felt it to be out of the question to confide the delicate matter of Clarissa's presence aboard to anyone other than the Commander, although this meant that, instead of quietly being put into a spare cabin for the night, he must shift for himself as well as he could.

Gloomily he began to pace the deck, but gradually his anger evaporated. He had left Clarissa in tears and he began to wonder if he had not behaved unduly harshly towards her. Grievous as was the embarrassment which her folly must cause them both when steps had to be taken to put her ashore, he was forced to recognise that only love for him had impelled her to her act. From that he passed to wondering if he was not behaving like a priggish fool.

In those days, girls were frequently married at the age of fourteen, and Clarissa was no little chit just out of the schoolroom whose head might be turned by a handsome fellow asking her to dance three times in one evening. She had had a dozen offers of marriage and men of all sorts and conditions had tried to make love to her; so hers was no case of a girl who did not know what she was doing, or even of one swept off her feet by a sudden passion.

The more he thought of the matter, the more he was tempted to go below, kiss away her tears, and hold her for the rest of the night in the warm embrace to which he knew she would be so willing to yield herself. And there was much more to it than that. Fascinating as he believed India would prove, with its rich sights and sounds, dusky potentates and fabulous palaces the voyage to it was long and must prove incredibly tedious. Instead, with Clarissa for company, it could be turned into a
honeymoon holding a thousand secret delights. Pausing at the head of the companionway, he decided that it would be flying in the faces of the gods to reject this wonderful gift they were offering him.

Yet, with his hand upon the rail, he still hesitated. If he once took the plunge, there could be no escaping what would follow. She might be right about society in India tolerating such liaisons. If so, they could continue their honeymoon for a few more months in glamorous surroundings. But he had no intention of remaining away from Europe for longer than the inside of a year, and when they returned to England she would have to pay the price for having thrown her shift over the moon. Georgina in her ‘teens had been an heiress, so could afford to ignore rumours that her morals were no better than they should be, but Clarissa had neither family nor fortune—and in her case it would not be merely rumours. She would be ostracised by women who had young daughters, as unfitted to be seen in her company, the baser type of men would snigger behind their hands to one another as she passed, and she would be considered fair game for every sort of indecent proposal. As these thoughts raced through Roger's mind, he reverted to his former feeling, that it would be unutterably mean to bring such shame upon her.