Julian Stockwin - Victory

‘He must face them at the side of his men.’

Tysoe appeared with the tea accoutrements and set up on the small table. It was served in the Chinese style, delicate cups without handles and a cover on each.

‘Then . . . he will— Do you mind, Nicholas, if I ask you a question concerning Thomas?’

‘Why, if it is in my power to—’

‘Killing a man: it is the last act, the final sanction of man upon man. I know his station in life demands he shall on occasion . . . do it, but can you conceive that over time the character might be . . . coarsened by the repeated experience?’

Renzi looked away, nearly overcome. This was the woman to whom he had lost his heart, but he had vowed never to disclose his feelings to her until he believed he was worthy enough to offer suit. And she had just revealed not only how far her own character had deepened, but her moral compass, the quality of mind that she would bring to any union . . .

At his hesitation she added quickly, ‘Oh, Nicholas, I didn’t mean to imply that you yourself have had to . . . are exposed to . . . in the same way . . .’ She leaned forward in wide-eyed concern, her hand lightly on his arm – a touch like fire. ‘You are so gentle, so fine a man, and to think I . . .’

A rush of warmth threatened to engulf him. An irresistible urge to let the dam free, to throw himself at her and declare— He thrust himself roughly to his feet and moved to the window. ‘I’ll have it known there’s blood on my hands as must be for any other in a King’s Ship!’

Cecilia bit her lip. Renzi collected himself and returned to his chair without meeting her eye again. ‘If it were not so it would be to the hazard of my duty.’ He stared for long moments at the fire and then said, ‘The subject is not often broached at sea, you’ll no doubt be surprised to know. Yet I believe I will tell you more.’

‘Thank you, Nicholas,’ she said.

He sipped his tea, then expounded to her the imperatives that, when all else failed, led to the resolution of differences between nations by open confrontation – that must logically result in coercion resisted by force, its ultimate expression violence, at first to the instruments of that force and then inexorably to its agents while they adhered to their purpose.

He touched on the singular but still logical principles of conduct that obtained in the act of taking life, that required the mortal hazard of one’s body before that of an opposer, that in the act demanded dispatch without prejudice, and in the event of a yielding, compassion and protection.

It was an interesting paradox, yet explicable by known tenets of civilised behaviour if only as an outworking of—

Her face was set and pale. ‘My dear, it was never my intention to fatigue you with such arcane matters,’ he said gently. ‘Rather it was to set you aright as to our motives when we face the enemy.’

She made no reply so he went on, ‘You asked about Thomas. And I’m to tell you that he’s not a creature of blood and war, rather he’s one of Neptune’s children, glorying with a whole heart in his life on the briny deep. His duty is to destroy the King’s enemies but we might say this only enables him to take to the waves and find his being on the ocean’s bosom.’

‘This is becoming clear to me, Nicholas, never fear. It seems that those whose business is in great waters are a tribe of man quite apart from all others.’

‘Truly said, my dear. Should he be unsuccessful in his petition for a ship – which I fear must be so – he needs must find solace on the shore, and would, I believe, be much obliged for your sisterly understanding.’

‘He shall get it, Nicholas,’ she said seriously. ‘I shall call tomorrow.’

‘Dear sister, perhaps do give him a little time first.’ Toying with his tea, Renzi added lightly, ‘Would it be impertinent of me to enquire of your own circumstances, the marquess having left his position at the Peace?’

Cecilia had for several years now been a companion to Charlotte Stanhope when she travelled with her diplomat husband who had resigned in protest at the punitive terms of the armistice separating the War of the Revolution and the War of Napoleon.

‘He is taken back by the prime minister to serve in the same capacity as before, and the marchioness is gracious enough to extend to me a welcome.’ She smiled, her face lighting. ‘You would laugh to see our antics, Nicholas, she so desirous to keep the megrims at bay while her husband is caught up in such desperate times.’

‘So in London you would not lack for admirers, I’d hazard.’

Cecilia blushed and delicately took up her cup. ‘But how then is your own situation, there being no place in a ship now available to you? Will you make application to another captain and sail away on more adventures, perhaps?’

There was not the slightest tinge of regret at the prospect that he could detect, and he answered coolly, ‘This is not in contemplation at the moment.’ Renzi knew only too well that an evident gentleman as he was would never find employment as a mere ship’s clerk in any man-o’-war he was acquainted with. The situation with Kydd was unusual to say the least.

He went on in the same tone: ‘When your brother is in better knowledge of his future, no doubt there will be an arrangement. Thomas, as you know, is in possession of a small but respectable fortune and is frugal in his habits. I’m sanguine he’ll feel able to assist in the matter of respectable lodgings while I pursue my studies.’

Cecilia smiled encouragingly. ‘Perhaps you would oblige me, Nicholas, by disclosing the progress in your great work.’

Renzi had sailed as a free settler to New South Wales, hoping to make his fortune there to lay before Cecilia, then ask for her hand in marriage. But his foray into crop-raising had ended in ruin and he had seized Kydd’s suggestion of a project to enable him eventually to press his suit: he had embarked on an ambitious literary endeavour, a study of the varied cultural responses to the human experience. To enable this Kydd had promised to employ him as clerk aboard whichever ship he might captain and give him the opportunity to work on his studies in his free time.

Renzi put down his cup carefully and steepled his fingers. ‘I own, my dear, it’s been a harder beat to windward than ever I calculated when first taking up my pen. An overplus of facts, as who should say data, and a cacophony of opinions from even the most eminent.’

Cecilia listened attentively. ‘And in this – dare I say it? – you shine above all others,’ she said warmly, ‘particularly in the art of untangling for us all the threads of the matter to its own true conclusion.’

Renzi took refuge in his tea, then went on, ‘Nevertheless, I must achieve an order, a purpose to the volume, which I might modestly claim to have now laid down in its substance, it yet lacking the form.’

‘Then it may be said that your travails are near crowned with success?’ she said eagerly.

‘Writing is a labour of love but a labour for all that,’ Renzi admitted, ‘yet the end cannot be far delayed.’

She straightened and, in a brisk voice that he recognised from long before, she said firmly, ‘It does occur to me, Nicholas, that there is a course of action you may wish to pursue, given that you are now without means of any kind.’

‘There is?’

‘Have you considered the actual publishing of your work?’

‘Um, not in so much detail,’ Renzi said uncomfortably.

‘Well, then, think on this. Do you not feel that if your work has its merits, then when published it will be bought in its scores – hundreds, even? Your publisher would stand to turn a pretty penny in his bookselling – why not approach one and offer that if he should convey to you now a proportion of this revenue for the purposes of keeping body and soul together, you would agree that he would be the only one with the honour to print it?’