Tides of Fortune

by Julia Brannan

  “Beth is serious, ye loon,” his darling wife said.

  “And so am I. It is a very profitable business. Not one that I actively engage in, but I have captured ships with cargoes of slaves in the past, and have sold them on at a profit.” He glanced at his wife. “But no more. My wife holds the same view of slavery as it seems you do,” he continued.

  “Aye, well, when ye’ve come as close as we did to being one, it gives ye a different view o’ the business,” Elizabeth said.

  Beth nodded.

  “It does,” she agreed. “So you see why I need to buy Raymond. I don’t want him to lose his daughter as well as his wife, but I haven’t got a hundred and fifty louis. I told Pierre that when I get to France I have connections and will be able to send the money to him, but he said he will look for someone else to come with me and Rosalie. So I want to ask the marquis if he will lend me the money. If he will, then I can hopefully persuade Pierre to let me buy Raymond. I think he will see it differently if I have the actual gold, rather than just the promise of it.”

  Dinner over, they moved to the cushioned chairs in the corner of the room near the beautiful canopied bed, and Paul poured them glasses of cognac.

  “But that’s enough of my problems,” Beth said. “I’ve talked all the way through dinner, and you’ve been very patient. Tell me what you have been doing for the last six months.”

  Elizabeth and Paul exchanged glances, then Paul spoke.

  “Well, first of all, Elizabeth and I married, because as you can see, I have a beautiful bed, and was anxious for her to become acquainted with it and indeed with me, in a way that would not have been proper without the requisite vows being exchanged.”

  “Ye’re a damned liar, Paul Marsal!” Elizabeth cut in. “Ye tellt me that marrying ye was the only way to guarantee my safety on board!”

  Paul cast her a look of exaggerated anguish that Sir Anthony would have been proud of, and which made Beth’s heart contract.

  “Well, that was also a consideration,” he agreed. “’Love and war are the same thing, and stratagems and polity are as allowable in the one as in the other.’ Don Quixote,” he added, on seeing the ladies’ quizzical looks.

  “Ye see, ye did well to reject him,” Elizabeth said. “Never trust a pirate.”

  “Privateer,” Paul and Beth said together, then they all laughed. It was clear that Elizabeth had made the right choice, and was very happy with both the life and the man she had embraced. Beth relaxed. She had not felt this much at home since she had left Caroline and Edwin’s the previous April.

  “After our marriage celebrations we set sail on a little voyage, to give my bride a taste of her new life,” Paul continued.

  “Which is an awfu’ lot like being married to a Highlander, except at sea,” Elizabeth interrupted. “So after we married, he and his men spent three days lying on deck in a drunken stupor and then armed themselves to the teeth and ambushed a puir wee ship sailing frae Liverpool wi’ a cargo o’ fine furniture, clocks and jewellery for the rich planters of Antigua.”

  “I failed to notice you objecting at the time to us attacking the ‘puir wee ship’, my dear,” Paul commented acerbically. “In fact the emeralds you are so attractively displaying came from that very ship, as I remember. She was most shockingly bloodthirsty,” he added in an aside to Beth, winking.

  “Aye, well, I didna take kindly to being called a Scotch whore, no’ by a squint-eyed Sasannach bastard,” Elizabeth said.

  “She ran him through with her sword,” Paul added happily. “A most excellent baptism into privateering. We shall not bore you with the details, but we profited well from the voyage, and Elizabeth has taken to the life like a fish to water. I am very proud of her.”

  “We’ve made two more trips since then, and now we’re waiting for the end o’ the hurricane season, and enjoying our ill-gotten gains,” Elizabeth said.

  “And with that in mind I have a proposition for you, my dear,” Paul said to Beth. “What do you say to us providing the funds for you to purchase this Raymond you are so keen to have?”

  Beth’s eyes widened.

  “Oh no, I couldn’t possibly!” she said. “When I told you about my problem, I did not think for one minute that—”

  Paul leaned forward and took her hand in his.

  “I do not think that you were trying to inveigle the money from us,” he said. “It is not in your nature to be duplicitous, I think.”

  No, it was not, although she had had to be, many times in her life, and would no doubt have to be again. But not with these people, who, although only briefly acquainted with them, she classed as friends.

  “No,” she said, “I cannot accept such a gesture. You have already done far too much for me.”

  Paul waved his free hand in a gesture of dismissal, while firmly retaining hers with his other.

  “I insist. You say you have contacts in France who will provide for you once you reach there?” he asked.

  Beth opened her mouth to say yes, then closed it again. She could not lie to this man who had saved her life. Well, she could, but she did not want to.

  “I did say that, to Pierre,” she admitted, “but it isn’t true. I have no intention of staying in France, but no one must know that.”

  “What do you intend to do then?” Paul asked, a concerned look on his face.

  “I am going back to Britain, to look for my husband,” Beth said.

  Paul let go of her hand and sat back in the chair.

  “I see,” he said.

  “But ye tellt me that ye thought Sir Anthony to be dead,” Elizabeth said.

  “I thought he was,” Beth replied. “But I don’t know for certain. And then I had a dream that led me to believe he might be alive.”

  She saw Paul and Elizabeth exchange a glance that told her they both thought she’d lost her mind.

  “I know it sounds ridiculous,” she said, “but I can’t rest and carry on with my life until I know for certain whether he’s dead or alive.”

  “Ye’ll no’ have a life to carry on wi’ if the British catch ye,” Elizabeth pointed out logically. “And they could, before ye even get to France, because they’re blockading the French ports at the minute, making it awfu’ difficult for merchant ships to get in or out.”

  “I didn’t know about the blockade,” Beth said, “although I do know what will happen if the British catch me. But it’s something I need to do. And I really don’t like Martinique. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life sweating profusely and having to sit and listen to small talk while surrounded by miserable slaves. I’d rather go home and risk capture. But I will be very careful. And I have a deal of money hidden in England. When I said I had connections, I meant only that I have access to funds to repay the marquis, or you if you really do insist on helping me, and I will be sure to do that before anything else, so that if I am taken it will not disadvantage you.”

  “What will you do if you find out for certain what has become of your husband?” Paul asked. His expression was serious now, all trace of joviality gone, and he was looking at her with a calculating eye.

  “If he is alive, then I will stay with him. If he is dead…I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I have friends. If I can stay with them without endangering them, I will. If not, I will find a way to be useful to the cause.”

  “And if he’s alive, but seriously wounded, maimed, no longer the man you married? Will you still stay with him?”

  “Of course I will!” Beth retorted indignantly. “He is my husband! I love him, and will care for him no matter what, as he would care for me.”

  Elizabeth looked at Paul, her eyes alight.

  “Ye have to tell her that—”

  He raised a hand imperiously, and she fell instantly silent. Never taking his eyes from Beth’s, he steepled his fingers under his chin and continued.

  “And what of your slaves, Rosalie and Raymond? Will you also take them to England with you?”

  “I will
not take them anywhere,” Beth replied. “I mean to free both of them before I leave this island. That is my sole reason for buying them.”

  He looked at her for a moment longer, and then he nodded, his expression changed, and he adopted his customary light-hearted jovial persona once more. He smiled. Beth realised that she had passed some sort of test.

  He really is like Sir Anthony, she thought.

  “Then, my dear Beth, I will be delighted to advance you the money to buy this man Raymond,” he told her, “and also the sixteen hundred livres you will need for their manumission. It’s a tax that has been imposed to discourage slaves from being freed.”

  Elizabeth clapped her hands in joy.

  “Thank you,” Beth replied. “I promise you, the moment I arrive home the first thing I will do is ensure the money is returned to you. But you must tell me how to do that.”

  “Oh no, you mistake me!” Paul said. “I mean not to make you a loan, but to give the money to you. Call it a thank you gift for introducing me to my wife, with whom I am delighted.” He blew a kiss to Elizabeth, who blushed becomingly.

  “But it’s an enormous amount!” Beth protested. “You can’t—”

  “Indeed I can,” Paul interrupted. “I can do whatever I wish, and I wish to give you the means to purchase this fortunate man. This sum you consider enormous, I could lose, have in fact lost, in one night of cards. With this, I make four people very happy, no, five, for you say this Rosalie is his daughter, non?”

  “She is,” Beth said. “But—”

  “Then it is a bargain! Five people made happy, my debt to you repaid, and all for the price of a card game. We will speak no more of it. I will procure the money for you tomorrow and bring it to your hotel. Then you can say your farewells to the marquis with a happy heart.”

  “Are ye going to tell her about—” Elizabeth began again.

  “Indeed, now I am satisfied, I am,” Paul interrupted. “When do you wish to sail for France?”

  “As soon as I can,” Beth said. “But I must get the transfer papers for Raymond, and then the manumission papers for them both. I don’t know how long that will take. And if as you say the British are blockading the ports, I suppose it might be more difficult than I expected to find a ship that is going there, and will take me.”

  “I assure you, it will not be difficult at all for you to find a ship that will take you to France,” Paul said. Beth’s eyes lit up.

  “Really? You know of a ship that’s going to France soon?”

  “Indeed I do, as do you. You are sitting on it.”

  Beth looked at the smiling couple blankly for a minute. I’ve had too much to drink, she thought.

  “You are sailing to France?” she said finally. “But I thought you only did…er…business around the islands?”

  “Not at all. We do business wherever it is profitable. At the moment the price of sugar is rising, because it is becoming increasingly difficult for merchant ships to successfully export it. The same rule applies to goods coming back. I plan to take advantage of that, and hope to sail in December. And I have a yearning to show Elizabeth a little of my home country, because it is very beautiful. I believe she will love Paris, and will look very much at home in her finery there.” He raised his glass to his wife in a toast.

  “And you’re happy for me to come with you?”

  “I am. We are,” he said. “But now for a moment, as tedious as it is, I must be serious. In the last months Elizabeth has learned how dangerous my profession is. The rewards can be great, but the dangers also. The life of a privateer is usually short but merry, and the ending can be brutal. I must advise you, for your own sake, that it would be safer for you to stay in Martinique until this war is over.”

  “And when is that likely to be?” Beth asked.

  “Who knows? The countries of Europe can always find a reason to make war on each other.”

  Beth put her glass down and leaned forward.

  “I too will be serious,” she said. “When Sir Anthony married me, I had no idea that he was anything other than he pretended to be. When I found out and told him that I wished to stay with him, and join him in his endeavours to restore the Stuarts to the throne, he refused. To illustrate what might happen if I persisted in staying with him, he took me to a hanging, which I had never seen before, and then told me how much worse it would be for me, were I ever caught. And still I insisted on staying with him, and he was right. When I was caught, it was so much worse, worse than I imagined it could ever be. But I have never regretted for one moment that I insisted on staying with him, and if I had to do it all again, I would, without hesitation. Does that reassure you?”

  Paul laughed out loud.

  “What a fortunate man I am, to find not one, but two women of such courage and daring! Yes, that reassures me.”

  “Good. Then I would very much like to come with you, and I accept all the possible dangers, only asking that you do not take any unnecessary risks on my behalf.”

  “Then we have a deal,” Paul said. “Let us refill our glasses and raise a toast to good friends. And then let us get very drunk together, as all true pirates are expected to do at every possible opportunity.”

  “Privateers,” the two women said together.

  “Indeed,” Paul replied.

  They laughed, raised their glasses and proceeded to get very drunk indeed, with the result that later none of them were capable of even finding their way out of the cabin, let alone seeing Beth back to her hotel. So she and Elizabeth, on the insistence of the gallant captain, slept in the beautiful carved mahogany bed while he snored the night away on the floor.

  It was a fitting way to celebrate a meeting six months previously which had transformed the lives of all three of them, and which would hopefully transform the lives of two more, when Beth returned to Soleil in a week’s time.

  * * *

  “I am sorry, Beth, but I really do not think I can part with Raymond,” Pierre Delisle said. “He is indispensable to me. But I can find you another suitable male slave, and will sell him to you for a much more reasonable price.”

  Damn, damn, damn. Beth could hardly explain to Pierre the real reason why it had to be Raymond. She sat on the porch with her employer, sipped her lemon water and thought furiously. In the background the subject of their conversation, dressed in full livery, stood immobile, awaiting his master’s summons.

  “But he will be more reasonable because he is not as well trained!” Beth cried, as inspiration struck. “It is crucial that I am accompanied by a very highly trained footman. It will reflect very well on you too.”

  “How could it possibly reflect well on me for you to take Raymond to France?” Pierre asked, confused.

  “I will tell you, Pierre,” Beth said. “But you must promise me that you will keep this between ourselves.”

  “Of course!” he agreed, his eyes shining, eager to hear what he had no doubt, judging by the look on Beth’s face, was a juicy piece of gossip.

  “You will know of course, that I do not speak about such things in general company, although I have been much pressed to,” Beth continued. “It is not advisable for one in my position to be indiscreet, you understand.”

  She had him now. He was desperate to know what she was about to confide to him. And then he would assure her of his discretion and tell everyone the moment she was gone. She knew it, and it made the lie much easier to tell.

  “You will, I am sure, have realised that I had a certain…understanding with His Majesty,” she said. “That was some time ago, of course, but I have reason to believe that when I arrive in Paris, His Majesty will be generous enough to look on me with favour once more.”

  “I am sure he will. You are a most beautiful young lady,” Pierre replied.

  “Thank you,” Beth said, blushing prettily. “You are very kind to say so, but there are many ladies of great beauty at the court, all of them seeking the king’s favour. I am sure he would look very favourably upon me if I c
ould present him with a most unusual gift.”

  Pierre looked at her, completely at a loss. She sighed inwardly.

  “Black servants in France are very unusual,” she continued, “and a negro of Raymond’s carriage and training would be a rare gem indeed.”

  “You mean to give Raymond to King Louis as a gift?” Pierre asked.

  “I see we have an understanding,” Beth replied, smiling. “I will of course give all the credit for his upbringing and training to you, Pierre. It can bring nothing but profit to you, I am sure.”

  “But…slavery is prohibited in France!” Pierre said.

  Was it? Damn!

  “I know, but we are speaking of the King of France, not of a commoner! The king is above the law, answerable only to God for his actions. He will be delighted to have such a present, and you and I both will be looked on most favourably as a result. What do you say, Pierre? I can give you the gold immediately.”

  In fact, Paul had insisted on giving Beth three hundred louis in case Pierre drove a hard bargain, telling her to give any remaining cash to Rosalie and Raymond to help them make a new life. Beth had no intention of paying a penny more than the price Pierre had quoted to her, and from the gleam in his eyes as he took this information in, she was sure she had just succeeded.

  “Ah!” he said. “Now I understand. I see now that Jacques, who I had intended to recommend to you, would not be satisfactory at all! But you really think Raymond is capable of performing his duties to such high standards? After all, life at court is very different to that of a plantation!”

  “I will have six weeks, maybe more at sea to teach him,” Beth said.

  “Hmm,” replied Pierre, thinking. “I have had an excellent idea, which I think you will approve of. Instead of selling Raymond to you, I could write a letter offering to transfer him straight to the king myself! You would only need to pay a small consideration for the time I must spend training another body servant. This would leave you with more money with which to attire yourself appropriately for court, and if Raymond was not pleasing to the king, he could be returned to me!”