Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

“Mr. Pitt reigns supreme. Taxation has absolutely soared. There is even a tax on news sheets, gazettes and magazines, and those who advertise in them must pay a tax of two-and-sixpence irrespective of the size of the advertisement. Jem says that is forcing small shops and businesses out of advertising their wares, leaving the field to the big fellows.”

“Does Jem have anything to add to the fact that the first mate and some of the crew of Bounty mutinied and put Lieutenant Bligh in a longboat? ’Tis the mutiny on Bounty everybody is talking about, not the French Revolution,” Stephen asked.

“Oh, I think interest in Bounty arises from the fact that the crew preferred luscious Otaheitian maidens to breadfruit.”

“Undoubtedly. But what does Jem say? ’Tis a huge scandal and controvery in England, apparently. Bligh, they say, is not blameless by any means.”

“His best snippet concerns the genesis of the expedition to Otaheite to bring back the breadfruit, which I gather was intended as cheap food for the West Indian negro slaves,” said Richard, hunting through pages again. “Here we are… Jem’s style is inimitable, so ’tis best to hear it direct from him. ‘A naval lieutenant named William Bligh is married to a Manxwoman whose uncle happens to be Duncan Campbell, proprietor of the prison hulks. The convolutions are tortuous, but probably through Mr. Campbell, Bligh was introduced to Sir Joseph Banks, very occupied with the mooted breadfruit pilgrimage to Otaheite.

“ ‘What fascinated me was the incestuous nature of the final outcome of the expeditionary marriage between the Royal Navy and the Royal Society. Campbell sold one of his own ships, Bethea, to the Navy. The Navy changed her name to Bounty and appointed Campbell’s niece’s husband, Bligh, commander and purser of Bounty. With Bligh sailed one Fletcher Christian of a Manx family related by blood to Bligh’s wife and Campbell’s niece. Christian was the second-in-command but had no naval commission. He and Bligh had sailed together previously, and were as close as a couple of Miss Mollies.’ Say no more, Jem, say no more!”

“That,” said Stephen when he could for laughing, “just about sums England up! Nepotism reigns, even including incest.”

“What is incest?” asked Kitty, well aware of Miss Mollies.

“Sexual congress between people very closely related by blood,” said Richard. “Usually parents and children, brothers and sisters, uncles or aunts and nieces or nephews.”

“Ugh!” Kitty exclaimed, shuddering. “But I do not exactly see how the Bounty mutiny fits in.”

“’Tis a literary device called irony, Kitty,” said Stephen. “What else does Jem write?”

“Ye can have the letter to read at your leisure,” Richard said, “though there is another thought in it worth airing ahead of that. Jem thinks that Mr. Pitt and the Parliament are very afraid that an English revolution might follow the American and French ones, and now deem a Botany Bay place a necessity for the preservation of the realm. There is huge trouble brewing in Ireland, and both the Welsh and the Scotch are discontented. So Pitt may add rebels and demagogues to his transportation list.”

He did not discuss Mr. Thistlethwaite’s personal news, which was excellent. The purveyor of three-volume novels to literate ladies had become so adept at the art that he could produce two a year, and money flowed into his coffers so copiously that he had bought a big house in Wimpole Street, had twelve servants, a carriage drawn by four matched horses, and a duchess for a mistress.

After Stephenleft carrying Mr. Thistlethwaite’s letter and the dishes were washed up, Kitty ventured another remark; to do so no longer terrified her, for Richard tried very hard to restrain his God the Father tendencies.

“Jem must be very grand,” she said.

“Jem? Grand?” Richard laughed at the idea, remembering that burly, bulky figure with the red-tinged, pale blue eyes and the horse pistols protruding from his greatcoat pockets. “Nay, Kitty, Jem is very down-to-earth. A bit of a bibber-he was one of my father’s most faithful customers in his Bristol days. Now he lives in London and has made a fortune for himself. While I was aboard Ceres hulk he enabled me to safeguard both my health and my reason. I will love him for it all of my life.”

“Then I will too. If it were not for you, Richard, I would be far worse off than I am,” she said, thinking to please him.

His face twisted. “Can ye not love me at all?”

The eyes turned up to his were very earnest; they no longer seemed the image of William Henry’s eyes, but rather had become her own, and equally-nay, more -loved.

“Can ye not love me at all, Kitty?” he repeated.

“I do love you, Richard. I always have. But it is not what I believe is true love.”

“You mean I am not the be-all and end-all of your existence.”

“You are, such as my existence is.” Her eloquence was a thing of gesture, expression, look-her words, alas, fell down badly; she had not the knack of finding the right ones to explain what was going on in her brain. “That sounds ungrateful, I know, but I am not ungrateful, truly I am not. It is just that sometimes I wonder what might have happened to me had I not been convicted and sent to this-this place so far from home. And I wonder if there was not someone for me in England, someone I will never have the chance to meet now. Someone who is my true love.” Seeing his face, she hurried on in a fluster. “I am very happy, and I like working in the garden and around the house. It is a great joy to be with child. But… Oh, I wish I knew what I have missed!”

How to answer that? “Ye do not pine for Stephen anymore?”

“No.” It came out confidently. “He was right, it was a girlish passion. I look at him now and marvel at myself.”

“What d’ye see when ye look at me?”

Her body hunched and she squirmed like a small, guilty child; he knew the signs and wished he had not asked, provoked her into being obliged to lie. As if he could see into it, he knew that her mind was racing in circles to find an answer that would satisfy him yet not compromise herself, and he waited, feeling a twinge of amusement, to hear what would emerge. That of course was true love. To understand that the beloved was flawed, imperfect, yet still to love completely. Her idea of true love was a phantom, a knight in shining armor who would ride off with her across his saddle bow. Would she ever attain the kind of maturity that saw love for what it was? He doubted it, then decided it was better that she did not. Two hoary-headed sages in a family were one too many. He had enough love for both of them.

Her answer was honest: she was learning. “I truly do not know, Richard. You are not a bit like my father, so it is not in-incest… I like to see you, always… That I am carrying your child thrills me, for you will be a wonderful father.”

Suddenly he realized that there was one question he had never asked her. “D’ye want a girl or a boy?”

“A boy,” she said without hesitation. “No woman wants a girl.”

“What if it should be a girl?”

“I will love her very much, but not with hope for her.”

“Ye mean that the world belongs to men.”

“I think so, yes.”

“Ye’ll not be too disappointed if it is a girl?”

“No! We will have others, and some will be boys.”

“I can tell you a secret,” he whispered.

She leaned into him. “What?”

“ ’Tis better if the first child is a girl. Girls grow up much faster than boys, so when the first little man comes along, he will have at least two mothers-one close enough to his own age to grab him by an ear, take him to a quiet place, and drub the daylights out of him. His real mother will not be so ruthless.”