Tide of War (7 page)

“I wish you would not be forever accusing me of being just like my father,'” Nathan complained. “You know you would hate it if I was.”

“ Well, you are just as woolly in your views on religion.”

Nathan frowned. “I am not woolly at all,” he complained. But he knew she had a point. He had been brought up in the same Anglican tradition as his father—and all their ancestors since the Reformation—and he had dutifully attended church with him every Sunday during his recent stay in Sussex. But in truth he merely went through the motions of worship. He admired the old church at Alfriston, which had been there when the last Saxon thane had marched off to join King Harold at Senlac but the rituals of the Anglican service no longer reassured or comforted him. He would have drawn more consolation from walking by the sea, listening to the rhythms of the waves and the gentle growling of the pebbles on the shore. And he did not admire the vicar, a vain man who sucked up to the gentry and lorded it over the rest of the parish. His sermons seemed mere cant to Nathan, empty renderings of the scriptures which were as impossible to comprehend as they were to sleep
through, the Reverend Judd having a way of emphasising words and phrases with a total disregard for grammar or meaning but with a vehemence and unpredictability that was reputedly capable of waking the dead from their slumbers and certainly had that effect upon the slightly more sentient bodies in the pews.

But a more accomplished preacher than the Reverend Judd would have struggled to impress Nathan in his current mood. He could discern no divine plan in the slaughter he had witnessed during the time of the Terror in Paris. And yet he could not bring himself to believe in the opposite: that all was random. Chaos. Or as the Reverend Judd and his father would have it, the work of the Devil.

As a student of astronomy, Nathan was inclined to believe that a certain Order prevailed in the universe. That the planets moved in a certain pattern that was not at all random. His rational mind persuaded him that this Order was predetermined by nothing more wonderful than magnetism or clockwork (though these were wonderful enough in themselves) but his more romantic disposition longed for something more human. A clockmaker perhaps. Or a regulator. A benevolent old gentleman, by no means as magnificent as the Christian God, but whose function it was to keep the parts in working order and make delicate adjustments from time to time, when he felt they were called for.

But Nathan was obliged to admit there was little evidence for such a benign presence, at least on Earth—rather the opposite in fact—and he sought solace in signs and portents and other such mysteries that hinted at some sort of Order, if only it could be perceived.

He knew that in many ways he was as superstitious and as whimsical as his father, or Old Abe Eldridge—and almost every mariner and countryman he had ever known—and he knew his mother knew it too.

So he told her he considered it harsh of her to condemn a man as odious, simply for issuing a warning that was doubtless intended kindly, and mean-spirited of her to send him packing without a purchase, just because her great-grandmother had been hanged as a witch.

She regarded him thoughtfully for a moment.

“Well, as to the former,” she said, “I stand by what I said earlier. It is an odious expression of self-importance and a pathetic desire for attention that can cause much distress to those gullible and weak-minded enough to give credence to it. And as to the latter, it is not that I am mean-spirited but that I find his images not at all to my taste and, indeed, quite offensive. And besides,” she added, turning her face away and gazing at some distant point beyond the window, “I have no money.”

“You have no money?” Nathan repeated foolishly. “What do you mean, you have no money?”

He gazed around at the rich furnishings of the room. Nothing appeared to be missing since he had last seen it. Not that he would have noticed.

“Oh, I have not yet been obliged to sell the furniture,” she reassured him. “But your war has played the very devil with my investments. And now my bank has failed. Failed utterly, to the ruin of all.”

“My God, Mother.” Nathan was shocked, for he had always known his mother to be wealthy. “Can nothing be done?”

“Oh I suppose they will save something from the wreck but I have been told I can expect no more than a few pence in the pound. So”—she smiled brightly—”we must dine on porridge and pease pudding and gather sea coal from the beaches.”

“What of your family in America? Can they not help?”

The Bouchers were rich as Croesus he had always supposed. Certainly this was his father's opinion and Nathan had seen the houses they kept in New York.

“Oh, I expect I could throw myself upon their mercy, if I were so minded, but they have enough troubles of their own at present.”

Nathan raised a brow.

“My family has always made its living from the sea,” she informed him as if they were poor fishermen and not the richest merchants in New York, “and the sea is a desperate place at the best of times, you know, while at time of war its perils are considerably multiplied.”

“This is something we in the Navy have often remarked upon,”
Nathan agreed, “but their lordships remain unmoved by our protests.”

“And you are doubtless aware that the British blockade is the ruin of all honest traders.”

“Only those that trade with the enemy,” he retorted. “Those that trade with Britain are well rewarded.”

“If they manage to evade the privateers and the French national ships and the English captains who would rob them of their crews for the King's service as if they were still his subjects.”

But Nathan did not want a row—especially upon such uncertain ground—so he merely shook his head and expressed his genuine regret for her losses.

“I will transfer five thousand pounds into your account at once,” he assured her, “or perhaps, in the circumstances, you would prefer it in coin.”

She regarded him in astonishment.

“How came you by five thousand pounds?” she demanded. “Did your father give it to you? And how came
he
by it? Not by selling sheep?”

Lady Catherine had a very low opinion of the value of sheep.

“No, it is by my own endeavour,” Nathan assured her—and when she remained sceptical: “Prize money.”

“Prize money? You mean you are one of those pirates who prey on merchant shipping?”

“Not at all,” he insisted, though his views on the practice were more liberal than hers. “It was a French national ship—the
Vestale
—a frigate of 32 guns. You read a report of the action.”

“So I did. When you near lost a leg. And they paid you five thousand pounds for it?” She still sounded dubious.

“That was my share of the prize money,” he assured her. “And you are welcome to it.”

“No, I'll not take your money,” she insisted, “for I am not yet so destitute and you may yet have need of it. Besides, it would be against my principles to profit from the war, which I have always been against as you know, though you must do your duty as you see fit and I do not blame you for it.”

“But what will you do?”

“Oh, I will find myself a wealthy admirer, which is perfectly within my capacity, you know.” Nathan frowned, never doubting it. “And in the meantime I will carry on pretty much as before, for it is never advisable to proclaim one's poverty to the world. Save that I will not buy pictures I do not want, wretched boy.”

“I am very sorry,” he conceded, in all sincerity. “I spoke out of turn. It is only that I have always known you to have money. I wish you would let me give you some. I hate to see you distressed.”

“Oh, I am not distressed, silly boy. Nothing like as distressed as the great mass of the populace. Or the poor people of France who endure even greater privations.”

Nathan shared her concern but she had presented him with an opportunity he could not despise.

“Do you ever hear from your friend Mrs. Wollstonecraft,” he enquired casually, “that was in Paris?”

She regarded him with suspicion.

“Why do you ask after Mary Wollstonecraft? You have never expressed the least interest in her before.”

“Only that you mentioned the poor people of France and I wondered if she was still there and what had become of her since the war. I am surprised she has faded from view for she enjoyed a degree of celebrity, I recall, when she was in London.”

“A degree of celebrity?” Lady Catherine echoed mockingly. “She was notorious. A hyena in petticoats,' that rogue Walpole called her, and all because she spoke for the rights of women. Did you ever read her book that I gave you?”

“I started it,” he began defensively.

“You started it. And were the words too long for you, my pet?”

“Mother, I merely asked you if you had heard from her. I did not wish for a critical assessment of my faculties. Or to become involved in the rights of women of which I am generally in favour, whether or not I have read Mrs. Wollstonecraft.”

“Mrs. Imlay,” she corrected him absently.

“I beg your pardon?”

“She is now married, it appears. To an American gentleman by the name of Imlay.”

He gave no sign that he knew the man. “So you have heard from her?”

“I did correspond with her for a while,” she replied cautiously, “while the post remained operative. You know she was in Paris to write about the Revolution?”

Nathan shook his head, though he knew it very well—and a great deal more he was not prepared to reveal.

“ Well she was in great danger, of course, when war was declared. And then I heard that she had married Imlay. I understood it to be a marriage of convenience, if that is the word, for as the wife of a United States citizen she was safe from arrest but apparently she fell in love with the man and the last I heard was with child.”

Nathan affected surprise, though, in fact, he had met Mary several times in France and on the last occasion he had even met the child, a baby girl called Fanny. He had wondered if Mary had mentioned this in her letters to his mother but either they had failed to get through or she had been discreet. Marriage to Imlay would have taught her the value of discretion.

At any rate it would appear his mother knew considerably less than he, or was dissembling as shamelessly. Then she said, “And now the scoundrel has deserted her and is living with an actress from a strolling theatre company in Charlotte Street.”

“How do you know this?” Nathan enquired with a frown.

“We have acquaintance in common. Indeed, I saw him at a soiree only a few nights since, bold as brass with the hussy on his arm. I should not call her hussy”—she shook her head at the iniquity—“for I doubt he told her he was married and if any is deserving of the word it is he. But, of course, it is not applied to a man.”

“And did you speak with him?”

“I did not. I snubbed him most severely. And so did most of the company for Mary was well liked among those with half a brain and
they know something of her circumstance.” But she looked a trifle concerned. “The trouble is that from what I have heard the marriage was not quite regular. I mean, it was not conducted in a church or by a member of the clergy but by the American Minister in Paris, who apparently has that authority vested in him, like the captain of a ship. But if it is disputed—or Imlay denies it—there are those who would think the worst of her. They already call her whore and this will merely confirm them in their opinion. Not that one should care a hoot, of course.”

“And would Imlay be likely to deny that he was married to her?”

“Assuredly, if he felt his present association reflected badly on him.”

“With the actress, you mean?”

“Not that it seems to trouble society when men behave like whores,” she reflected bitterly, “and he is reckoned to be something of a hero, I believe, in certain circles. I suppose being a womaniser only adds to his ‘heroic' qualities.”

“So he is well known in London?”

“Oh quite famous, even. Not notorious, like poor Mary. He is received everywhere, even with an actress upon his arm. Such are the times we live in.”

His mother was an unlikely moralist but for once Nathan agreed with her. He had a great regard for Mary Wollstonecraft, even if he had not read her
Vindication of the Rights of Women.
He admired her pluck and her sharp wit—and she had been a good friend of Sara's in Paris.

As for Imlay, Nathan had few illusions where he was concerned but they had shared a number of adventures together and for all his duplicity he was not without charm, or conscience. Nathan doubted he had abandoned Mary and her child forever. But nor did he for a moment doubt that Imlay would take advantage of their absence to amuse himself with an actress in Charlotte Street.

“I hope if you ever meet him,” said his mother, “you will treat him with the contempt he deserves and not be fawning upon him like other men.”

“Oh I expect I would be obliged to call him out,” Nathan replied lightly, “but I am unlikely to have that honour unless you have invited him for dinner, for I must leave London at crack of dawn to join my ship and we will be sailing on the next tide.”

This was not entirely true. He needed to collect some things from Windover and to bid goodbye to his father and Alex. But he had already sent Gilbert ahead of him to prepare the ship's company and to instruct them to get in supplies for a lengthy voyage.

His mother's face fell and he moved quickly to her side on the couch and put his arm around her shoulder.

“So come, bring on the porridge and the pease pudding,” he said, “and we will make the best of it until I come roaring home with my fortune made—in a manner you cannot but approve—and all your problems will be over.”

“Just come back safe and sound,” she said, squeezing his hand and close to tears. “Any other problems I can deal with.”