A Desperate Fortune

by Susanna Kearsley

  Mary kept her face turned to the window and gazed at the street without seeing it, hearing but little of what others said. She recovered herself for a moment to nod a polite greeting to Mr. Cole—Mr. Warren’s good friend and associate—when he came in, and she noticed the clerk had been sent off again on an errand to leave them in privacy, but beyond that she retained little interest for what else went on in the room.

  She was vaguely aware they were speaking about the affair of the Charitable Corporation, and Thomson’s sad part in it, although there seemed to be differences in how he told the tale this time around, and those differences gradually drew Mary’s focus away from the window and back to the men.

  “…and having the management of the whole, we contrived to bring up all the stock into our own hands with the Company’s money, and in that time got the stock augmented fivefold, to £600,000.”

  “And how did you manage that?” Warren had leaned forward in his chair as though he found the story fascinating.

  “Why, sir, as such things are always done. By bribing several members of Parliament to pass acts allowing it,” Thomson said drily. “Yet clearly we did not bribe widely enough, for we could not keep the directors of the great companies in London, who found our traffic a prejudice to their own, from persuading Parliament to enter into an examination of our Corporation’s affairs, by which means all our schemes were defeated and I obliged to come abroad.”

  “A disappointment to you,” Mr. Cole commiserated.

  “Yes, indeed. For had Parliament not interfered, I should soon have had in my hands four or five hundred thousand pounds with which to assist the king.”

  “And how much have you now?”

  Mary waited for Thomson to answer Cole’s question, trying to reconcile what he’d just said with the tale he had told her in Lyon, confused by the details that would not be matched. Glancing over her shoulder she saw that MacPherson was still standing stone-faced beside the room’s door, and she could not tell from his expression how much he himself knew about the affair.

  Thomson smiled at Warren and Cole in his charming way. “Enough,” he told them both, “to get to Rome, if you can find a ship to carry us.”

  Which brought them back to business.

  In this, Mr. Warren deferred to his friend, who seemed better acquainted with all of the various ships in the harbor.

  “I know a man, Vilere—a very good man, comes from Avignon, who is an officer of the galleys, and could possibly arrange—”

  MacPherson cut him off. “No galleys.”

  “Ah. Well then. I would not send you by felucca at this time of year, their crews are not so seaworthy and often unreliable, and you have women with you…” He thought for a moment. “There’s one ship might suit you quite well, though the captain’s a bit of a rogue.” To MacPherson, he said, “Have you any objection to sailing with Spaniards?”

  “None.”

  “Right. Let me see, then, what I can arrange for you.”

  Thomson and Warren and Cole shook hands all round and Warren in parting asked once more, as though to be sure, “So you do not need money?”

  Thomson assured him he did not. “But when I return, if I have any business, sir, rest assured you’ll be the first man to know it.”

  The young banker found this of interest. “And when do you plan to return?”

  But his clerk, having finished his errand, chose that exact moment to enter the room. Thomson said in a jovial tone, “Very soon, I should think, for we plan but to travel a few leagues from town and return hence as soon as we can before Easter week.”

  Men and their secrets, thought Mary, as she rose to follow MacPherson and Thomson out into the sunlit street. Men and their lies. And yet…

  She lifted her chin and the Scotsman looked down at her as she asked bluntly, “Was this the plan from the beginning, to take us to Rome?”

  He replied, “Would it matter?”

  To no one, she reasoned, except very possibly her. Nicolas had said, straight out, if anybody wanted something from their father, they would have to go to Rome to ask him. And perhaps her brother had been speaking more to her than to her cousin, when he’d said that. Just perhaps, this had been Nicolas’s and her father’s own design from the beginning. Mary dared to let a tiny seed of hope begin to try its roots within her at the thought that maybe, as she’d called to Frisque that morning, so her father was now calling her. And asking her to come to him.

  * * *

  That seed had grown yet larger by the afternoon, when Mr. Cole sent word for them to meet him at the quayside and be ready to depart.

  “A ship,” said Effie, with a note of resignation in her voice. “It would be.”

  Mary, neatly wrapping up her journal, felt deep sympathy. “It was too cruel of them,” she said, “to send you on this journey when you suffer so from motion.”

  “No one sent me on this journey, dear. I asked to come. Do you have your other stockings? Those ones, aye.”

  “But why?” asked Mary, as she passed the stockings over to be packed.

  “Because you’ll need a dry pair close to hand, once we’re aboard the ship.”

  “No, why would you have asked to come?”

  “I had my reasons,” said the Scotswoman, and kept them to herself, as seemed increasingly to Mary to be something of a habit of the Highlands, for MacPherson too said next to nothing as they made their way down to the quayside.

  Marseilles was a pretty town, built at the edge of the land with the sun shining hard to the south on the Mediterranean Sea, and the hills ringing all round behind with their dotting of villas and country estates. The long harbor, while not large, was made safe by sheltering rocks and at this hour of day was a bustling place with the breeze bearing scents of wet wood and warm canvas and salt from the sparkling sea. Tall ships idled and creaked at their moorings, some seeming impatient to leave while still others seemed peacefully slumbering, glad of the rest, while around and amidst them bobbed smaller boats carrying produce and merchandise, sailors and passengers, men of all races and languages mingled together.

  For Mary, who had only read of such sights in the pages of books and imagined them in her own mind, this bewildered and thrilled her and filled her with wonder.

  It was only when they had met Cole at a table with benches set near to a hut by the water, where they were served small cups of coffee by a man who wore, Mary saw to her horror, a fetter and chain on his leg, that she started to notice the other men like him who shuffled in chains, often linked two together, the chain borne between them, and all of them wearing some form of the same sorry uniform: red coats that looked more like peasants’ frock shirts, partway open in front and designed to be pulled on without any buttons; and coarse linen shirts and brown breeches and red caps to cover their heads, which appeared to be generally shaved.

  “Galley slaves,” Cole explained, when he saw her reaction. “A common sight here, I’m afraid, and one that’s most distressing to we men—and ladies—born to British freedom, though I’m told there are but half as many galleys now as there were in the old king’s day.”

  Mary took no comfort from that, for as she looked round the harbor she saw far too many ships with rows of dreadful oars set on their waterlines. So many ships that she knew for each pair of men she now saw laboring beneath their chains, there must be hundreds more imprisoned in the dark and crowded decks who had not even that small scrap of liberty.

  Thomson answered smoothly, “British freedom is a drink that has a different taste depending where you’re served it. I suspect that what my countrymen have tasted would to you taste much like servitude.”

  Which drew a glance from Effie that might well have been approval. It was difficult to know, with Effie. She sat to the table’s end, declining coffee for her stomach’s sake, in preparation for the trial by sea that was to come.

 
“Just so,” said Mr. Cole. “I’m sure I did not mean offense. ’Tis only that my friend Vilere, who long has been an officer aboard the galleys, tells me that our sentiment affords these men more sympathy and pity than they do deserve, for most of them are criminals so vile that in another Christian country they’d be put to death for what they’d done.”

  “This is a death,” said Mary, with her gaze still on the galleys. “Slavery is a kind of death.”

  “But see now, that is sentiment,” said Cole, to prove his argument. “And not all slaves are chained below and beaten. Some have leave to work at trades, you see their huts along the quay here. And this man, this Turk”—he nodded to the man who’d brought them coffee—“he was taken in a war, and so is treated better than the others, for the French would have his people see this when they come to port, in hopes the Turks will treat their own French prisoners in like fashion. He can work, and if he works hard he perhaps can save enough to pay his ransom, and return to his own homeland. So you see, you are quite wrong to let your sentiment paint everything a single shade of black.”

  MacPherson, who till now had sat in stoic silence on the bench across from Mary, said, “She has a right to think as she decides.”

  Her upward glance was only meant to show him she was grateful he’d defended her, but what she saw in his eyes when she met them put her in a great confusion, for in place of their accustomed frost-like calm she glimpsed a pain so deep and dark it was as if he’d briefly torn a bandage back to show a violent wound. It vanished even as she looked, but left her troubled.

  Thomson said, “Come, let us speak of less afflicting things. Which is our ship?” He turned a little in his seat to view the tall, three-masted ship that Mr. Cole was pointing to.

  Cole said, “That’s it. The Princesa Maria.”

  “A good name,” was Thomson’s opinion. He asked Mary, “Would you not agree, my dear?” His kind voice and warm eyes sought to restore the peace, an effort he extended now to Cole. He looked around and said, “I should imagine this is yet a very pleasant place to live.”

  “It is. When you return, sir, you should think to settle here or someplace nearby where you might employ yourself in trade, for I do recommend it. That is, if you can remain here, unmolested in this kingdom.”

  A man was approaching them.

  Middle-aged, heavily built, with a brown coat and shiny brass buttons, he held out his hand to shake Cole’s and surprised them with English. “Well met, sir. Well met. And would these be my passengers?”

  Mary’s first thought was that this man looked neither a rogue nor a Spaniard, but part of the mystery was solved when, as Mr. Cole started to make introductions, the man said, “No names on the quayside, sir. Captain forbids it. I daresay he’ll get them all sorted out once they’re on board. This is all of your baggage, then? Right. Come along.”

  And with no more ceremony, they were gathered up and led along the quayside to the waiting ship, though Mary noticed that MacPherson, as the others took their leave of Mr. Cole, pressed something in the Turkish war slave’s hand that left that man staring dumbfounded at his open palm for half a minute afterwards.

  She glanced up at the Scotsman as his long and easy strides brought him beside her, and she asked, “Did you just pay his ransom?”

  He didn’t answer, only gave a nod at Frisque within her arms and said, “Take care he doesn’t get a ducking.”

  She held Frisque as firmly as she could while they were boarding, and more firmly still when they were standing on the deck and all the ropes were being cast away, for she had never been aboard a proper ship and was not used to how it rolled and subtly played against her balance as the sails were set to catch the early afternoon’s fair wind and take advantage of the tide to draw it surely out to sea.

  Frisque wagged his tail and pushed his forelegs on her arm to thrust his nose into the wind that blew more strongly once they’d come clear of the harbor. Mary had to fight the urge to do the same, for it in truth was an exhilarating feeling, but she had a sense that it would look undignified to all the crewmen standing within sight of them, some staring as if they’d not carried passengers before.

  When they had rounded the great rock that stood guard at the harbor’s entrance, the brown-coated man who’d helped them all on board before instructing them to wait there while the ship got under sail, returned and showed them all a cheery smile.

  “Now,” he said, and looked from Thomson to MacPherson brightly, “which of you is Mr. Symonds?”

  Something—some small inner instinct—stabbed at Mary then. It must have stabbed MacPherson too, for his reply cut over Thomson’s. “I am.”

  “Right then, Mr. Symonds.” Without altering his tone or smile the man drew out a pistol. “I’ll be taking both those swords, sir, if you please.”

  Chapter 34

  But, now, the night is round thee: and the winds have deceived thy sails.

  —Macpherson, “Fingal,” Book Three

  Marseilles

  March 31, 1732

  He stood his ground, as she had known he would, and did not yield.

  “Perhaps, sir, you misunderstand the situation,” said the man in the brown coat. His heavy face gave him a jolly and benevolent appearance that was strikingly at odds with what was happening. Behind him, other men had now begun to shift position so they formed an almost ordered rank, and Mary saw that other weapons had been drawn. “’Tis Captain’s orders that none other than his crewmen carry weapons on this ship, so I will have them even if I have to shoot you for them, sir. But if I shoot you, what will happen to these ladies?”

  From behind him, someone made a crude remark in rustic French that would have told him to the letter what would happen to the ladies, had he understood that language. Mary knew her face had whitened, but she would not show her fear to men like these. She pressed her back against the railing of the ship and held Frisque tightly.

  She could see MacPherson thinking. That was good, she told herself, because he’d always found a way to get them out of trouble in the past. He’d always taken care of them. He’d always—

  Once again the rude French sailor made a lewd insulting comment, this time aimed with specificity at Mary, and she held her head up higher, though her knees began to tremble slightly underneath her skirts.

  MacPherson moved his head a fraction till his gaze was leveled on the man who’d spoken. “If you wish to lose your tongue, together with that useless part you think to violate my wife with, I suggest you speak again.” He said it quietly and calmly. And in perfect French.

  She nearly did fall, then, from sheer surprise, but he’d already switched back into English and was saying to the man in brown, “I’ll let ye have my swords if ye will let me have your word my wife and servants won’t be harmed.”

  The man replied, “And I will let you live, sir, if you let me have your swords.”

  They were at an impasse.

  Mary watched MacPherson weigh the varied outcomes, then he took both sword hilts in his hands and drew them out and held them, harmless, for the men to take from him. Her heart sank very slightly but she knew from having seen him kill the man who’d been with Stevens at Valence that he had blades where none would find them, and that even when he seemed unarmed to most, he was yet deadly.

  “And those pistols,” came the next instruction.

  Mary hadn’t known he carried pistols, and she hadn’t ever seen them. How the man in brown had spotted them she didn’t know, but there they were, a pair of them, with silver inlaid handles, being turned and handed over.

  “And the long gun on your back.”

  He slipped the gun case off as well, without resistance.

  “And the dagger.”

  There was movement in the ranks of men behind the man in brown who held the pistol, and a pleasantly inflected male voice with a Spanish accent said, “That is
no ordinary dagger.”

  Mary watched the men part like a river when it meets a rock, and saw their captain—since from how they had reacted, he could be no other—casually approach. He cut a daring, gallant figure, in a coat of forest green with gold braid trim, and more gold on his waistcoat and the brim of his black hat, with falls of lace at cuffs and collar. He was very handsome, and the sharply trimmed dark beard that matched the long curls of his hair lent him an air that was not totally respectable.

  He told them all, “That, to the men of the mountains of Scotland, is one of their weapons most sacred. A weapon of honor.” He stopped at the side of the man with the pistol, not blocking the other man’s aim but not hiding behind it. He challenged MacPherson, “Do you have this honor?” His tone was a gauntlet thrown down by a man who, beneath all his charm, was yet dangerous. “Or are you a…how do you call them in your country? Broken men, isn’t it? One of those broken men, who live beyond the law.”

  Coldly, MacPherson said, “I am no broken man.”

  “Then you may keep all your weapons, if you swear an oath on your dagger that they’ll not be used against me or my men.”

  “I’d first have your word ye’ll harm neither my wife nor our servants.”

  This seemed to amuse him. “And what shall I swear by?”

  “Your word as a Spaniard will do.”

  Thomson made an incredulous sound like a snort. “Come now.”

  “Given,” the Spaniard replied, as with interest and something approaching respect he looked on while MacPherson drew the sharp dirk from his belt and raised it level to his lips to kiss the blade and seal the oath. And then the captain gave a nod and turning told his men, “Stand down. And give him back his weapons.”

  Coming forward with a swagger in his step that nearly matched MacPherson’s, he said, “May I see your papers?” With the papers in his hand he sorted through them. Glanced at Thomson. “So then you are Mr. Jarvis, yes? And this is Mrs. Grant.” He showed some sympathy for Effie, who between the motion of the ship and this upsetting incident was looking ill. “Oh, Mrs. Grant, you are not well. I’ll send Emiliana to look after you. She is good at looking after people.” He studied MacPherson’s hard features, and in a dry tone said, “Your name is not Symonds, I think, Mr. Symonds.”