The White Rajah (1961)

by Monsarrat, Nicholas

  ‘No harder than you deserve.’ She looked at him with cold eyes. ‘And to wear that ridiculous red coat! It is unforgivable, at a time of mourning. What are you thinking of? You should be ashamed of yourself.’

  ‘I can mourn my father as well in red as in black,’ he answered her curtly. ‘Or perhaps you would prefer me to parade in naval uniform?’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘I was watching you together. You were smiling at him. You have never smiled at Miles in your life! Why this sudden change? Because I am poor?’

  ‘There is no sudden change. Being poor has nothing to do with what I feel.’ But she was embarrassed by his questioning; she looked away from him, towards the drawing-room, and her breathing was faster. ‘I must go back,’ she said briefly. ‘Let me by, please.’

  ‘Hear me out, Lucinda.’ He had not been in the humour for pleading; but her lovely face, and her magnificent body so close to his, were deeply distracting, ‘Don’t be cold – not tonight! It’s more than I can bear.’ He swallowed, overcoming his nervousness; he had not meant to speak, but at that moment there was nothing in the world he could do except avow his love. ‘You must have known for a long time.’

  ‘Known what?’

  ‘That I would ask you to marry me.’

  Now there was silence between them; it seemed to stretch to infinity, while slowly his hopes turned cold, and despair, waiting to capture him, drew nearer. For her face was averted, and though she was clearly moved, yet there was no answering softness in her expression, no element of love or tenderness. After a moment she said: ‘I cannot marry you, Richard.’

  Despair flooded in; her voice was so final, and her expression now so firm, that he knew she would never change her mind. He dropped his arm, and moved back a pace.

  ‘Because I am poor?’

  ‘I cannot marry you, Richard,’ she repeated. Perhaps it was all she intended to say; but, raising her eyes, she saw such an odd look in his face, so strange a compound of sadness, anger, and scorn, that she could not ignore it. ‘How can we marry?’ she asked, almost violently. ‘You are poor. You know my own position … It is true that I had hoped–’

  ‘That I would inherit half the estate?’

  Suddenly she was angry herself. ‘Yes – if you must know the truth! I have lived in poverty ever since I can remember! It has been scrimp and save, scrimp and save, since the day my father died. I could not even stay a whole season in London! Do you know what that means? Do you think I plan to spend the rest of my life in the same situation? I would rather die!’

  ‘You mean, you would rather marry Miles.’

  ‘You are insulting!’

  She moved swiftly to leave him – imperious, not to be trifled with any longer – but this time he grasped her by the shoulders and held her close. It was a moment he had often dreamt of; but now, when at last it happened, it was as if he were embracing a figure of stone. Even her superb bosom, so frankly displayed for his delight, might have been cold marble. He pressed her more closely to him, in intimate contact, seeking to melt the ice into the warm passion he knew was waiting within. But her body, as tense as a coiled spring, did not relax its rigor by a single heartbeat.

  ‘Let go of me,’ she said contemptuously, as if she were speaking to some beggar who was pestering her. ‘I am not one of your village conquests.’ When he failed to obey, she raised her hand and dealt him a stinging slap on the side of his face. ‘Now do you understand?’

  It was a moment of such vile shock that he could scarcely comprehend what had happened. This avenging stranger could not be Lucinda … Yet it was, and she was looking at him with eyes from which all trace even of friendly feeling had vanished.

  ‘For the first time,’ he muttered, momentarily stunned by the pain. Then he dropped his arms, releasing her. ‘Yes, I understand, Lucinda.’

  ‘Then see that you remember it tomorrow,’ she said, with cutting emphasis. She eyed him once more, searching his face as if on the watch for any hint of defiance. Then she was gone, leaving him bereft and alone, and slowly awakening to the full measure of his desolation.

  6

  ‘But sleep on it!’ pleaded Sebastian Wickham, in agitation. He was sitting up in bed, the covers drawn up to his chin against the colds and draughts of the attic room; atop his head, an absurd old nightcap, of threadbare red flannel, was perched like a weathercock on a church steeple. He had been dozing over a book when Richard had found him; now he was fully awake, and intent on dissuading Richard from his plan. ‘There cannot be such need for haste. To leave like this, in the middle of the night! What do you intend? Where are you going?’

  ‘I will go anywhere,’ answered Richard violently. He was already geared for the road; his heavy boots fell solidly on the bare floor, and the shoulders of his frogged top coat cast giant shadows on the ceiling. ‘Anywhere to escape this cursed place. I will join Garibaldi’s redshirts in Italy! I will go to the California gold fields!’

  ‘California!’ echoed the old man, in dismay. ‘It is half across the world. What will you do there?’

  ‘Make my fortune, I hope. Certainly I have none here.’

  ‘Only wait till the morning,’ pleaded Wickham again. ‘Things will seem different when you have weighed the good and the bad. You cannot leave like this, in a sudden rage. Sleep on your decision, I beg you.’

  ‘I cannot,’ said Richard. ‘My mind is made up.’

  And indeed, it was. Since the terrible scene with Lucinda, he had moved swiftly, spurred by a desperate, all-embracing rage such as he had never known before. His servant, John Keston, roused from his bed over the stables, had already packed a single trunk for him – he would not burden himself with the clutter of the past, he would shake as much dust as he could off his boots … He had two hundred sovereigns in gold, the residue of a fortunate win at cards which had come his way a few days previously; a light carriage, already ordered, would take him to Chepstow, and thence he would board the morning stage for Gloucester and Bristol. There was nothing to stop him, and everything to impel him onwards. He had climbed up to Sebastian Wickham’s room, not to discuss his plans or to seek advice, but simply to say farewell. Save for two or three of the older servants, it would be his only farewell in all Marriott.

  ‘But there cannot be such need for haste,’ said the old man again. ‘You were angry this afternoon, and shocked by what I told you, but you did not plan to leave within a few hours, did you? At least, you did not tell me so. What has brought things to such a desperate pitch?’

  ‘I have been thinking,’ answered Richard. Then the need for honesty, the compulsion to speak the truth to Sebastian Wickham, the one man in the world who now commanded his respect and his love, took possession of him. ‘Nay, Sebastian, I would not lie to you. I have been drinking, not thinking. I had a final quarrel with Miles. Indeed, I forced it on him. He came near to telling me to leave the house, then and there.’ He raised his arm in a hopeless gesture. ‘What is the use of staying, anyway? I have no money, I have no place here. There will be no secret about my birth, after a few months have gone by. Miles will see to that. Imust go!’

  ‘You had a quarrel with Miles? When was this?’

  ‘At dinner, in public … Oh, I am not proud of it, but I would do it again, with pleasure!’

  The old man looked at him, more closely. ‘Was Lucinda present when this happened?’

  ‘Yes. And her aunt as well. And some of the servants. We had a most attentive audience.’

  ‘What does Lucinda say?’

  Richard’s expression was bitter. ‘She says the same as Miles, in the way that a woman can say it best.’

  ‘I do not understand.’

  ‘She will not marry me, because I am poor.’

  ‘I cannot believe that.’

  ‘Nor did I, until I heard it.’ His bitter expression returned, and his hand went up to his cheek. ‘And felt it … One way in which I could quickly restore my fortunes would be to wager ten thousand pou
nds that she will be marrying brother Miles, within the year.’

  But the old man hardly heard the taunting phrase; he was sunk in thought again. He felt already that his protests were doomed to be unavailing; he had known Richard Marriott, from a boy to a man, for fifteen years, and he recognized – none better – when Richard’s stubborn spirit was intent on something from which he could not be turned. Perhaps it was better, if there must be a farewell, that it should come thus, swiftly and decisively; Richard had been mortally hurt, but he might be hurt even more if he lingered on, in a situation which contained all the seeds of strife and insult. The girl – the pretty girl whom he had been ready to love – must have seemed to be dealing him a final stroke of treachery … Wickham himself could not, in all honesty, counsel patience and forbearance, when Richard might well break his heart before he improved his condition by a hair’s breadth.

  Now he said, resignedly: ‘So you feel you must go … Well, in that case I’ll say no more, Richard, But what about money for this journey of yours, wherever it takes you? Have you any funds available?’

  ‘I have enough,’ answered Richard. He smiled wryly. ‘And I will take half of my legacy with me.’

  ‘Half?’

  ‘Aye. I’ll leave the globe, and take the pistols.’

  The old man nodded, abstractedly. ‘Perhaps there was a message for you, there.’

  ‘Message?’

  ‘Yes.’ He looked up at Richard’s tall figure; he was becoming reconciled to many things, reconciled even to saying farewell. ‘Your father loved you, Richard. You cannot know the true reason why he left all his money to Miles. No other person can. It might be that he thought Miles would need it more – to keep up the title and the estates. Or perhaps he thought that you would not need it at all – that you were the sort of young man who would make his way in the world, whatever happened, without a fortune ready to hand.’ Wickham leant forward, and his old man’s voice strengthened and gained in encouragement. ‘Aye, that was it! That was what the legacy meant. He left you the world, and he left you the weapons to conquer it! Don’t you see what was in his mind? He trusted you, Richard, and he believed in you, and this was his method of telling you so.’

  ‘I had rather he had told me so with fifty thousand pounds,’ answered Richard, sarcastically. Later, he might dwell on this thought of Sebastian Wickham’s, and even draw comfort from it; but at this moment, it would take more than the doubtful symbolism of a legacy to ease his spirit. ‘There is one thing you can tell me, Sebastian,’ he continued. ‘My mother. Do you know if she is still alive?’

  The old man shook his head. ‘I do not know, Richard. I have never known – it was not spoken of. Perhaps it is better if you gave it no more thought.’

  ‘Why so?’

  Wickham hesitated. ‘We cannot tell what became of her,’ he said finally, ‘nor what misfortunes may have followed. It is a cruel world for women in such a situation.’

  ‘But do you know anything?’

  ‘No.’ He felt he must reassure the young man, so clearly troubled. ‘I swear that is true, Richard. I know simply that she was sent away.’

  ‘Like myself,’ said Richard hardly. ‘It seems to be a family custom.’

  ‘You must not judge harshly.’

  ‘I do not judge at all. I accept what has happened. But certainly I will make my own terms in the future.’ He came to a stop at the foot of the bed, and looked down at the old man, so frail, so defenceless himself. ‘I doubt we shall meet again, Sebastian. You will have your own troubles, I know. I wish I could help you.’

  ‘Oh, I shall manage well enough.’

  ‘I hope so, with all my heart.’ Suddenly Richard was deeply moved: they were both beggars, he and Sebastian, but the old man was the worse off, because he had the fatal score of five-and-sixty years chalked against his name. It was, in truth, Sebastian who was likely to be betrayed, and he himself who had hope and strength for the future … He walked to the edge of the bed, and took Sebastian’s hand in his. It was paper-thin; it would be no match for the traps and spites of the world. ‘If I cannot have a father’s blessing,’ he said, with difficulty, ‘or a brother’s either, may I have a tutor’s?’

  The old man looked up, startled. He had thought that Richard might be jesting, but a single glance at the other’s face was sufficient to tell him that he was in earnest, and that he felt this moment of parting more than any other.

  ‘Why, Richard!’ he said, much moved in his turn. ‘Of course you have all my good wishes! And my prayers too, for what they are worth. I will think of you constantly, and with great affection. You know that.’

  ‘I will remember it.’

  ‘Remember something else, then.’ Wickham pressed his hand, and then released it. ‘You are bitter and angry now, and perhaps you have some right to be. But do not bear it as a grudge forever. Bitterness will be wasteful, destructive, and can profit you nothing at all. Five years from now, ten years from now, it will not matter a jot that you were baulked of your inheritance. You will be laughing at it. You will make your own inheritance – your own kingdom! Your father knew this, and I know it. Believe in it yourself!’

  ‘I will try.’ Richard rose from the bed, and drew his coat across his chest with a gesture of finality. At this last moment, he was near to tears, and he sought to dissemble it. ‘I go to seek my own kingdom,’ he said lightly, ‘with the whole world to choose from.’

  ‘When you find that kingdom,’ said Sebastian Wickham, ‘make sure you use it well.’

  He said no more goodbyes; Lucinda and her aunt had long departed, and Miles, if he were still awake, would scarcely thank him for the courtesy. Coming downstairs from his bedroom, treading the broad staircase easily, he felt a swift return of his confidence; this need be no tragedy after all, it was the threshold of the real world. In his father’s library, he sought and found the box of pistols which were lawfully his. They were beautiful weapons, which he had long admired; a matched pair, silver-crested, on the butts of which were inlaid curious masks, of smiling lions’ faces. He put the polished teak case under his arm, and strode out into the hall.

  John Keston was standing ready, soberly clad in a long coat of dark grey. Beyond him, the great front door was open, and the yellow carriage lights were flickering.

  ‘Ready?’ asked Richard curtly.

  ‘Aye, sir,’ answered John Keston. ‘The luggage is corded up and loaded.’

  Richard looked at him. There was no particular expression in his servant’s face, simply an acceptance that this sudden midnight departure was necessary. A stolid young man whose devotion was grounded in a hundred forgotten incidents of the past, he was taking all these strange events in his stride. Richard remembered his earlier words: ‘We’ll do no good here.’ They had been, it seemed, enough to dispose of the whole matter. But there was still room for the doubtings of conscience.

  ‘I would not wish to press you,’ said Richard suddenly. ‘My own mind is made up, to leave now. I have reasons enough. But if you would rather stay–’

  ‘Sir, my place is with you,’ answered John Keston formally. Then he added, in a rare display of feeling: ‘But I will be happy enough to go. I have as little to take leave of here as you yourself.’

  Richard clapped his tall hat on his head, and laughed cheerfully. ‘I have nothing,’ he declared, ‘and so nothing delays us. Let us make a start.’

  Then, without a backward glance, he walked out towards the carriage, and towards all else that lay in wait for him – Bristol, the sea, and the wide world.

  Book Two

  The Pirate: 1860

  The brigantine Lucinda D, two hundred and twenty tons, becalmed on a moonless night after eight hard-pressed days of storm, was hopelessly lost. It was not the first time that this had happened, in these Far Eastern waters, where a burning sun could be dowsed by fog within the hour, where a typhoon could come up like a bolt of lightning, where a south-westerly monsoon might veer, at the change of seasons, until i
t blew from the opposite point of the compass; where trustworthy charts were as precious and as secret as the state papers of the Dutch Government itself. But it had never before happened in such harsh circumstances.

  They had lost a top-mast, in that eight-day turmoil; they had lost two Kanaka seamen, swept overboard as if they had been plucked out of life by a giant hand; they had lost a foresail, torn from its bolt ropes in a single violent second. Above all, they had lost their way; and now they were wandering, fingering their progress in the uncertain dark across a sea suddenly calm, suddenly blank.

  They might be anywhere, thought Richard Marriott, standing feet apart in his accustomed place beside the helmsman – the helmsman transformed by the night into two disembodied hands clasping and unclasping on the wheel spokes, and a face made spectral by the yellow glare of the binnacle lamp. When darkness had fallen, great thunder-headed clouds had obscured the sky; later, when the heavens had cleared, Sirius the Dog Star – beloved friend of all mariners – had faded too early for his sextant to be any use. Now it was the blackest hour of the night, the hour before the dawn; and the Lucinda D, battered and bruised from her fearsome struggle, wallowed under storm canvas which could not be replaced until daylight showed them the extent of their damage. All that Richard Marriott knew was what any common ruffian on board knew; they were still afloat, on a pitch-black night, on a pitch-black sea.

  A week earlier, they had been idling down the outer coast of Sumatra, seeing what they might see, stealing what they might find. The fury of the typhoon had blown them north-eastwards through the Sunda Strait, the great sally port to the Indian Ocean, and up into the Java Sea. Then there had followed days of violence and fury, with a pounding easterly drift which could not be checked. Now they were somewhere between Borneo and New Guinea – anywhere, that was, within an enormous featureless box a thousand miles long and five hundred wide.

  There was a stirring and a stumbling on the ladders as the watch changed; shadowy forms could be glimpsed against the fo’c’sle lantern, rolling figures loomed nearer, bare feet padded on the smooth planking of the deck, matching the flap-flap of canvas as the idle sails slatted. There were voices he recognized, oaths and greetings he had heard a hundred times before. The helmsman at his side – that was Peal, the ex-tinker turned skilful seaman – growled at his relief: ‘North by east – there’s barely steerage way,’ and the man taking over the wheel – Peter Ramsay, the lower deck Queen’s Bencher, the real sea lawyer – growled back: ‘North by east it is!’ as if he were turning away a rebuke or dismissing an argument.