by Killigrew of the Royal Navy (Killigrew RN) (retail) (epub)
‘No man opposes the evils of slavery more vigorously than I,’ said Grafton. ‘But one must face facts. It is forty years since we declared the slave trade illegal and our navy set about suppressing it. Have they succeeded? Not at all. If anything, the West Africa Squadron’s attempts to suppress it only make it worse for the slaves. Did you know, when slave ships find themselves pursued by a navy vessel and have no hope of escape, they throw their slaves overboard to drown, in order to dispose of the evidence?’
‘And you would let such men carry on their trade unhindered, sir?’ Killigrew was careful to keep his expression mild, although inside he seethed with rage at the very suggestion. ‘Believe me, sir, if you saw such a thing happen you would feel very differently about it.’
‘Ah, but you’ve been too close to the issue to consider it objectively,’ Grafton said with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘Such decisions are best left to wiser heads here in England—’
Napier slammed down his glass. ‘Stuff and nonsense.’ Grafton blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You heard me, Sir George. Stuff and nonsense is what I said, and stuff and nonsense is what I meant. By God, if there’s one thing I’ve grown heartily sick of during my time as a member of parliament, it’s pompous asses blethering on about subjects of which they are clearly in utter ignorance. Nothing but fools and idiots, sir!’
‘Sir Charles! I must protest.’
‘You must protest? You must protest? After I spent five years listening to damned fools taking up issues not because they believed in them, but because they knew that by backing them they could promote their own careers? Pursuing half-baked policies drawn up in complete ignorance of the maladies which they sought to remedy—’
‘I can see you are a passionate man, Sir Charles. But you must understand that there is no place for passion in the art of government. These things must be considered logically, in the cold light of reason. If there were no West Africa Squadron, the slavers would have no reason to throw the slaves overboard.’
‘Yes,’ said Killigrew, rising to his feet. ‘Then they could go on to sell their cargoes into a lifetime of slavery in the Americas and reap rich rewards from the vast profits. Is that your solution, Sir George?’ he demanded heatedly.
Pengelly quickly stood up and took Killigrew by the arm. ‘This is all very interesting, gentlemen, but if you’ll excuse Mr Killigrew and myself, there is someone present I’m keen to introduce him to. I’m sure we can resume this debate at a later date. At the Gresham, perhaps.’
Grafton nodded grudgingly, clearly annoyed at being prevented from having the last word, and at having to concede it to a young whippersnapper like Killigrew at that.
Killigrew turned to where Napier sat. ‘Sir Charles.’
‘We must have dinner sometime,’ said Napier.
‘Thank you, sir.’ Killigrew left Grafton out of his leave-taking, in a calculated snub which he knew he would later regret, although for now he was too angry to care.
Hobbling on his gouty foot Pengelly steered him out of the library saloon and back into the ballroom. ‘Sorry to drag you away, Killigrew,’ he said. ‘Between you and me I was really rather enjoying that. I think you and Sir Charles had Sir George squarely on the ropes. But I couldn’t afford to let you ruin your career for the sake of my own entertainment, now could I?’
‘No, sir. I’m obliged to you for your timely intervention. I must apologise to Sir George for my outburst…’
‘Good Lord, I hope not. Grovel to that pompous ass? You’ll do no such thing. Let the matter rest. He’ll have forgotten all about you come tomorrow morning; and there are plenty of other people who can help you in your career. Now, I wasn’t lying when I said there was someone I wanted you to meet. You remember my daughter Eulalia?’
‘Eulalia? How could I forget?’ I still have her teeth marks in my arm.
‘Well, she’s here tonight, and I just know she’s eager to renew your acquaintance…’ Pengelly gazed around the throng and then shook his head. ‘Damn it, where’s the girl got to? You wait here and I’ll see if I can find her.’ Pengelly plunged into the crowd and left Killigrew to sip his whisky in peace.
But peace was never something Killigrew seemed to be able to enjoy for long. He looked up and saw Tremaine heading towards him from one direction and Mr Spencer heading towards him from another, with his simpering ninny of a daughter in tow.
‘Killigrew, have you seen Mrs Fairbody?’
‘Good evening, Mr Killigrew,’ said Mr Spencer. ‘My daughter was wondering if she might have the pleasure of the next dance?’
Miss Spencer giggled and fluttered her eyelashes over her fan at Killigrew.
‘Of course she may,’ he said, taking her by the hand. Then he put her hand in Tremaine’s and gently pushed them both towards the centre of the floor. Mr Spencer gaped and turned puce, at a loss for words. The orchestra struck up a lively polka, and Miss Spencer shrugged and gripped Tremaine tightly, sweeping him around the floor. Tremaine mouthed curses at Killigrew over her shoulder. Grinning, Killigrew shook his head and slipped through another door before Mr Spencer could find his tongue; or before Tremaine could pester him about Mrs Blasted Fairbody, for that matter.
The French windows were open so he went outside and stood on the terrace, leaning against the stone balustrade which faced across the ornamental gardens. The cool night air was fresh after the tobacco fug of the library saloon and the sweaty atmosphere of the ballroom, so he stood there a while, sipping his whisky and smoking a cheroot, reflecting.
It went against the grain for Killigrew to toady to anyone, but he had chosen the navy as his career and that was an end to the matter. He had every intention of retiring on an admiral’s pension, and he knew that in order to achieve his aim he would need patronage. If that meant toad-eating the likes of Sir George Grafton, then it was just too bad. He had made his bed; now he had to lie on it. When he had achieved flag-rank, he could start working to make sure that men were promoted because of merit rather than patronage.
He thought about the West Africa Squadron. Glad as he was to be given a break in England, part of him still wished he was back there chasing slavers. He did not like leaving a job unfinished, and even after two years he felt he had hardly made any impact at all on the slave trade. Perhaps Grafton was right; perhaps the West Africa Squadron was a waste of time…
‘Excuse me, you haven’t seen Christopher Killigrew, have you?’ he heard Mr Spencer’s voice ask someone in the room behind him.
Killigrew hurriedly drained the last of his whisky and vaulted over the balustrade, landing lightly in the flower-bed below. He slipped behind a yew hedge and made his way through the shadows to the gazebo. He was about to sit down on the bench when he perceived someone already sitting there in the darkness. ‘My apologies. I was unaware that this gazebo was already occupied…’
‘Sit down,’ said a woman’s voice. ‘There’s plenty of room for two.’
‘May I ask what you’re doing out here all alone?’
‘The same as you,’ she responded. ‘Hiding.’
He smiled, and sat down on the bench opposite her. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom he was less than devastated to recognise his co-fugitive as Mrs Fairbody. He raised his cheroot to his lips and was about to puff on it when he hesitated. ‘I… er… hope you do not object to the smell of tobacco.’
‘Not at all. As long as it’s reasonably good quality.’
‘Oh, the best,’ he assured her. He tucked the cheroot in the corner of his mouth and stood up to bow. ‘Christopher Killigrew at your service, ma’am.’
She stiffened. ‘Not… Kit Killigrew?’
He frowned. He did not know many women in England, and if he had inadvertently slighted her in some far-flung port he was sure he would have remembered. ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t believe I have the pleasure of your acquaintance.’
‘Perhaps not; I was wondering if you still had my teeth marks in your arm.’
He stared; he may even have gaped. ‘Eulalia?’ They both stood up and hugged each other. ‘Kit! After all these years. How long has it been?’
‘Eleven years?’
‘Eleven years.’ They parted and she put her hands on his arm, holding him at arm’s length so she could look him up and down. ‘And look at you now. Quite the young gentleman.’
‘And look at you. A friend of mine pointed you out to me earlier as Mrs Fairbody. I never guessed for a moment that it was you.’
‘Tush! And after you told me that you’d love me for ever.’
He held up a hand. ‘I refuse to be held accountable for anything I said below the age of twelve. I was still a minor, don’t forget. Anyway, you were the one who got married.’
‘Only after you ran away to sea.’
After the deaths of his parents, Killigrew had been raised in the austere environment of Killigrew House under the stern eye of his grandfather. Rear-Admiral Killigrew had never approved of his son marrying a foreigner, and to him Kit was the product of that unnatural union. If he could have left the care of his grandson to the Naval Benevolent Society he would have done, but there was no question that the society could be lumbered with one more orphan when the child had a well-off grandparent still living.
Kit had hated Killigrew House. His grandfather was as much of a martinet in his own home as he was reputed to have been on board his ships, and Killigrew had often been beaten for playing with the children of the local fishermen. Then, shortly before Kit’s fifth birthday, the Comte Duchargny – an impoverished nobleman who had been forced to flee his native land during the terror of the French Revolution – had turned up on the doorstep of Killigrew House offering his services as a private tutor. The Rear-Admiral had accepted, reasoning that an aristocratic tutor was just what was needed to instil discipline in the unruly child, and Kit’s education in all the gentlemanly studies – Greek, Latin, French, fencing and dancing – had commenced.
The comte’s methods had been unconventional to say the least. Even though he was in his sixties, he remained nimble and spry, and in the midst of a bout with epées he would shoot questions at his young pupil. If Kit answered incorrectly, then the comte’s blade would slip under his guard and give him a stinging blow. Nowadays Kit often joked that he had had a simple choice between becoming fluent in the Classics or becoming an adept swordsman, and he still could not hear Latin verbs conjugated without instinctively reaching for a sword.
But he had liked the old comte. What his grandfather had never known, because he had never taken the trouble to find out, was that the comte was an old friend of Kit’s father. As a young man, the comte had been one of those liberal nobles who had renounced their aristocratic privileges one fateful night in 1789, little imagining what it would lead to. Four years later his parents had been beheaded in the Place de la Guillotine and the young comte had barely escaped the same fate. He had served with the French Royalist forces against Napoleon, but when the French monarchy had been restored in 1814 it had been too much of a return to the bad old days of the Ancien Regime for his liberal tastes. He had become a soldier of fortune and it had been while fighting for Chilean Independence he had met Captain Jack Killigrew.
The comte told Kit stories about his adventures with his father in Chile, Brazil and Greece, and in an effort to explain the principles they had been fighting for he had introduced him to works by Rousseau, Wollstonecraft, and Burke. Then, when Kit was twelve, his grandfather had found a copy of Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man in his room. After a brief enquiry, the comte – seventy now – had been sent packing.
Kit had always been terrified of his grandfather, but his rage at his tutor’s dismissal finally gave him the courage to stand up to his grandfather and the two of them had had a blazing row, the ancient naval officer versus the precocious twelve-year-old. The only thing they were both able to agree on was that they could no longer live together under the same roof, no matter how wide that roof might be, and that since Kit was now old enough to join the navy as a first-class volunteer, it was high time he did so. Killigrew had been relieved just to get out of the oppressive atmosphere of his grandfather’s house. Certainly it had never been a home to Kit, and since that day he had had no communication whatsoever with his grandfather. Nor had he ever looked back.
‘Still in the navy?’ asked Eulalia.
He nodded. ‘I’ve just been promoted to lieutenant.’
‘Congratulations. You know, even after all these years, I still find myself sneaking a peek at Papa’s copy of the Naval Gazette to see if you’ve been mentioned.’
‘And have I?’
‘Not since that business in China. I was so proud! When I went back to school the next term I took the cutting to show all my friends. They refused to believe that I’d known Midshipman Killigrew, the hero of Chingkiang-fu. And then, after that, nothing. Where’ve you been all these years, Kit?’
‘After China I was posted to the West Africa Squadron for two years. I’ve only just returned. What about you? Who was this Mr Fairbody? Or would you rather not talk about it?’
‘Oh, I don’t mind. It’s over a year since he passed on. This is only the second time I’ve been in Society since I came out of mourning; it’s funny, rather like having to go back to square one in snakes and ladders. I think Papa wants me to get married as soon as possible. I can’t think why, Mr Fairbody left me… comfortable, so it’s not as if I’m an imposition on him.’
‘You’re still young. You should get remarried.’
‘Oh, I dare say I shall, some day. But not the moment I come out of mourning. It’s all right for you men. You’re not expected to get married until you’re thirty or so. It’s different for us women, Kit. For us it’s straight out of school and into marriage.’
‘You didn’t care for Mr Fairbody?’
‘Heavens, did I make it sound like that? Peter was a good husband. He was Father’s choice rather than my own, but I didn’t protest.’
‘Handsome?’
She grinned mischievously, her teeth shining white in the gloom. ‘Devilishly. But… oh I do envy you, Kit. You’ve been off to see the world, gone to places I can only dream of or read about.’
‘You could too, you know. If Mr Fairbody left you a moderate legacy, what’s to stop you from travelling?’
‘I expect I shall. I just need to pluck up the courage, that’s all. That’s why I don’t want Papa to rush me into getting remarried. You know, I get the feeling he’s already got someone in mind for me.’
‘Yes,’ said Killigrew. ‘And I think I know who.’
‘You do?’
He nodded. ‘I was talking to him earlier. He said there was someone he wanted me to meet and asked me if I remembered you.’
She laughed. ‘That’s so like Papa. Childhood sweethearts reunited.’
‘Would that be so terrible?’
‘Oh, Kit! Don’t take this the wrong way, but… I’m just not ready to dedicate the rest of my life to a man. Don’t tell me you came here looking for a wife?’
He shook his head. ‘As you said yourself, I’m a little too young to be worrying about marriage. It’s a ship I’m after.’
‘Ah. I’ve heard it said that naval men were married to their ships. That’s why I’m not sure I want to marry a naval officer. No offence intended. But if and when I do get remarried, I don’t intend to share my husband with three thousand tons of wood and a thousand horny-handed seamen.’
‘Perhaps you should think about marrying the captain of a gun-brig. That way you’d only have to share him with a few hundred tons of wood and ten dozen horny-handed seamen.’
She laughed. ‘You would not by any chance be in line for a posting to command of a gun-brig now, would you, Kit?’
He grimaced wryly. ‘Right now I’m not even in line for the command of a dinghy. Still, perhaps we could go riding together next week? Catch up on old times?’
‘I didn’t know you were a horseman.’
‘Oh,
I’m never happier than when I’m in the saddle. Shall we say Friday morning?’
‘Hyde Park?’
‘Where else?’
‘It’s a little public, isn’t it? Some people might get the idea that you’re courting me.’
‘Would that be so bad? If you’re serious about not wanting to get married, it might help discourage some of your more ardent beaux if they think they’re out of the running.’
‘You are keen to get the bit between your teeth, aren’t you?’
‘I just thought that since you’re not in any hurry to get married, and I’m not in any hurry to get married, we could not be in a hurry to get married together.’
She smiled. ‘All right. Friday it is. Nine o’clock?’
‘Better make it half past ten. I have an appointment at nine.’
‘Not with some other woman who’s not in any hurry to get married, I trust?’
He shook his head. ‘Not unless she’s a fellow of the Ethnological Society.’
* * *
‘Did you say “Leopard People”?’ Professor Llewelyn glanced up from behind the desk and pushed his spectacles back on to the bridge of his nose with a forefinger.
‘I know it must sound crazy…’ Killigrew told him apologetically.
‘Believe me, young man, when you’ve studied ethnology as long as I have, then nothing sounds crazy.’ Llewelyn picked up the fat, dusty tomes which lay under his desk and carried them across to an empty bookshelf. They had titles like Seven Months with the Temne, Mating Rituals of the Kissi and Up the Niger by Canoe. When he had placed them all on the shelf, he stood and stared at the spines, tapping a pen against the side of his nose.
‘Let me see, I think I recall reading something somewhere about leopard people. Professor Phillpotts would have been the chap to ask. He was the real expert on West African cultures. Especially the Mende. In fact, now that I think about it, I seem to recall he said something about investigating the local myths and superstitions last time he left for the Guinea Coast. Unfortunately he never came back.’
