The Flood-Tide (19 page)

‘Indeed, Monsieur Ecosse, that must be a fascinating business,' Homard said. 'You must know the Prince tolerably well, then?'

‘We have talked many times,' Henri said. 'But I am very hungry, my friend, and food interests me at the moment far more than princes.'

‘Of course, of course, forgive me. What would you like, m'sieur?'

‘What do you recommend?' Henri asked equably.

‘The pork, m'sieur, is very good - pork and beans, a speciality of the house, done to my own secret recipe.'

‘Pork and beans it shall be,' Henri said, thinking with amusement of what Ismène would think of being offered such a dish.

He looked again at the young woman at the
caisse,
and Homard, seeing the glance, said, 'Madeleine, help me to serve Monsieur Ecosse. Fetch the bread and napkin, child.'

‘Yes, Papa,' said the girl. Her voice was musical and low, just what Henri would have expected from a girl with such a long neck and such firm and classical features. How could the Lobsters have produced such a child, he wondered. All the same, it seemed that Homard was willing to throw the girl to him, in the way of business, for once he had scuttled back into his kitchen, it was Madeleine alone who served Henri's table. She did it with all modesty, not raising her eyes to him, and yet he was sure that she was very aware of his eyes upon her. As for him, he had rarely seen a young woman who interested him more, and all the time he talked pleasantly to the girl he was planning how to use his
persona
of Monsieur Ecosse to the end of possessing her.

*

In July 1776 the new general in command of the Royal army, General Howe, arrived on Staten Island in the mouth of the New York Harbour with his troops. Long Island and Manhattan Island were both in the hands of Patriots, and it was Howe's intention to dislodge them and make a base in New York. From there he intended to press on up the Hudson, while Carleton in Canada moved southwards to meet him. This move would hearten the loyalists in the upper part of New York colony, cut the Patriot army in two, and isolate New England, where the revolutionary fervour was greatest.

Howe had not supplies or men enough, however, to begin the attack at once, and messages were despatched to Clinton in Charleston and the general's brother, Admiral Howe, now in charge of the fleet, to bring up reinforcements. The delay was unfortunate as it allowed the rebel generals, Washington and Lee, to prepare their defences, but it was necessary. While he waited for the reinforcements, Howe despatched the
Ariadne
to look into Chesapeake Bay to report on any signs of fortification or fleet building there. Thomas's orders were to anchor there for a day or two, as a show of strength to the Virginians and Marylanders, to remind them that the seas were Britannia's still. Thomas was delighted with his orders as it would give him a chance to see Charles and offer him his congratulations on his marriage in February.

All was quiet in the Bay, and Thomas took the chance to revictual and rewater from Yorktown, while his gig rowed up the Bay to the plantation with an invitation to Charles and his lady to dine on board. He was not quite so sure of his position as to dare to dine off the ship. The invitation was accepted, but on behalf of Charles alone, and Thomas was a little disappointed, for he had never yet seen the famous Miss de Courcey. But he was delighted to see his cousin, whom he embraced heartily, and took him straight to his cabin for a glass of Madeira before dinner was served.

‘You are looking famously well, Thomas,' Charles said. ‘This damned war seems to suit you. I wish I could say the same for myself.’

Thomas thought that Charles was looking less happy than he would have expected, for a man who had newly married his heart's desire. 'I trust you are in good health yourself?' he probed delicately. 'And your lady? Her absence is not through any indisposition, I trust?'

‘Oh no,' Charles said with a curious roughness. 'She is well, but would not come. Eugenie likes her comfort. I bring her excuses and apologies.’

Thomas hardly knew what to say, and there was a brief silence until Charles said, 'You have read the Declaration of Independence, I suppose?'

‘We had copies within two days,' Thomas said. 'It must be a widely distributed document. Well, it was no shock, after
Commonsense,
and I cannot see that it changes anything.'

‘A formal declaration always changes things,' Charles said. 'What men say is more irrevocable than what they do. All that talk of republicanism and equality - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" - that is contrary to everything we have always believed, everything that has made it possible for men to live together in harmony.'

‘But my dear Charles, you don't suppose anyone really means it?' Thomas said. 'I see no signs that the Patriots intend to establish equality in their new States. The property qualification, and the religious qualification - yes, even the literacy rule - will prevent a good deal more than half the people having the vote. When they talk of all men being equal, they only mean that they, the upper orders, must not be deemed inferior to the King and the aristocracy, not that the lower orders are not inferior to
them.
And what about the slaves? There is no mention of equality for them.'

‘The first draft of the document contained a condemnation of the slave trade, but it was deleted from the second draft,' Charles told him. 'You are right, of course. They do not mean to include the slaves, or the poor, in their new order - but the fact remains that it has been said, and it cannot be unsaid. When you kick a pebble down a mountainside, it falls slowly at first, bouncing and rolling, and a child could stop it with one hand. But it gathers speed, and at the bottom of the mountain it may smash a man's skull. So it is with ideas. So it will be with this one.'

‘Oh, I think you exaggerate the importance,' Thomas said soothingly. 'These ideas spring up and die down again, and things go on much as before.’

Charles shook his head. 'I don't know. There is a tide in the thoughts of men, and the tide is making. I am afraid of the flood.’

Dinner was brought in, and changed the subject, and Thomas told Charles of the progress of events in New York and Canada as they consumed such delicacies as the ship could provide - pea soup, and fried chicken, and oysters, and corn bread, which Thomas was just beginning to get used to. It was at least better than ship's biscuit, now his own flour was finished. By way of dessert they had a dish Thomas had learned about in Boston, which the Indians had invented, made of cornmeal and sugar and molasses, very rich and sweet.

When they had eaten, and the table was cleared, and the port brought out, Thomas said genially, ‘So, dear cousin, you have joined the ranks of the married men. I have not yet congratulated you, or wished you joy, which I do with all my heart. How did you manage to persuade her father to give you her hand? I remember you were sure he would not be willing.'

‘I did not need to persuade him - he was as eager for the match as I could ever have been,' Charles said, and he sounded dark and bitter, and Thomas looked at him with surprise and concern.

‘Surely it was a compliment to you, that he wanted you for his daughter,' he said.

‘I thought so at first, but now I see that what he wanted was to get his daughter married at all costs. I happened to be convenient, that's all.'

‘What can you mean? A beautiful heiress cannot be hard to match.'

‘A Creole, and a Papist. If she had not been hard to match, she would have been married long before, for her father was desperate for an heir. Well, I can't blame him - he wanted to ensure the survival of his line, and he must do what he considered best for his daughter. No, I blame myself for being such a fool.'

‘But, my dear, what can be the matter? You were so in love with the lady—'

‘Oh God!' Charles cried, suddenly burying his face in his hands. 'This is all so horribly disloyal. I am ashamed to speak so, but I can't help it. There is no one else in the world to whom I can own it.'

‘Own what, Charles?' Thomas asked gently. 'Come, you can tell me. It will go no further, whatever it is, you know that.'

‘I know, but you will blame me.'

‘I won't, I promise. I only care that you should be happy. You are my best friend, and my wife's brother.'

‘Oh, Flora - you must not tell Flora, promise me!' Charles cried. 'She was against it from the beginning. She told me so - she asked how I could know I was in love when I hardly knew the woman - and she was right.’

Thomas was now thoroughly alarmed, but he said nothing, waiting for Charles to tell him in his own way.

‘She was so beautiful - she is so beautiful,' Charles corrected himself, 'and her beauty still moves me. But, oh Thomas, there is nothing underneath. How was it that I did not see the truth before? How could I be blinded to the emptiness inside her. We have nothing to say to each other, nothing. She is not, cannot be, a companion to me.'

‘But you used to talk to her - I remember you saying so.'

‘It was a trick she was taught in that wretched convent, of how to behave in conversation with a man. Look directly at him, they told her, and nod and agree, and now and then repeat something he has said. That way he will think you very wise. And I was duped and flattered like any other lovesick fool. But now she is married she does not need to go on doing it. All she ever talks of is her clothes and her silly little dog. If I talk to her of my work, or the war, or - or anything, she simply does not attend.’

To Charles's great indignation, Thomas burst out laugh ing. 'I'm sorry, cousin, but this is not so very strange a thing after all! You will not be the first man to discover that he has married a very foolish woman. Indeed, the majority of women have nothing in their heads at all, and in my experience, the majority of men prefer it so.'

‘Is that how you think of Flora?' Charles asked angrily. Thomas sobered himself and shook his head.

‘I was spoiled, I grew used to Morland women, and wanted more than a pretty picture to look at. That's why we Morlands so often marry our cousins. You should have waited for a cousin, Charles, indeed you should. But you must make up your mind to love your lady for beauty, which is what you married her for after all. She has not deceived you - you deceived yourself.'

‘I know,' Charles groaned, 'and I feel guilty about speaking of it at all. But you cannot imagine how isolated I am. I have no one to talk to, no one at all. In the evenings, even my father-in-law goes to his own room, and I am left alone with Eugenie - talking of Paris fashions.'

‘Well, there is the root of your trouble,' Thomas said. ‘Other men with silly wives have the society of each other. Why do you not go and live somewhere else?'

‘Don't be a fool, how could I leave?'

‘Sell York, and buy an estate somewhere else,' Thomas said simply.

‘You talk like a sailor,' Charles retorted. 'Land is not so easy to come by; and besides, even if York was mine to sell, I could not do it. It is their home, and I was permitted to marry Eugenie solely to preserve it and provide an heir. That was the bargain, and I cannot go back on it.'

‘Then the only other advice I can give you is to start a family. Once you have your children growing up around you, you will find enough to occupy you to keep you happy.’

Charles said nothing, but his gloom did not lift. Though he longed to tell Thomas the rest of the story, it was a thing too private to be mentioned, even to his cousin and best friend. The fact was that he had been virgin when hemarried, and like most young men he had thought physical rapture, as well as spiritual, would follow naturally from his union with his heart's desire.

But the one had proved as disappointing as the other. The beautiful Eugenie lay passively in his bed, neither encouraging nor discouraging, and indeed, how could he expect her to behave otherwise? But it was as though she was not there at all, and the idea of perpetrating such outrages in her absence, as it were, daunted him. On the occasions when he did pluck up courage to disturb her exquisitely-frilled lace night attire, and touch her remote and flawless body, he gained no pleasure from it: it made him feel obscurely as though he had insulted her.

That was not how it was meant to be, he was sure. He had heard so much about the great joy and pleasure of it, which apparently other men had, and he longed to ask Thomas, with his greater experience of life, to explain it to him, and perhaps tell him where he was going wrong. He was sure that Flora and Thomas had passed together through those hidden gates - but it was simply not something he could ask.

*

During that summer of 1776, when General Howe assaulted and finally took New York, Monsieur Henri Ecosse was laying long and careful seige to Mademoiselle Homard. It was a project to absorb and intrigue him, but unlike many a man before him, he discovered that he liked and admired the object of his desires more, the more he knew of her.

Madeleine, he discovered, was a cheerful, sensible and, to his surprise, well-educated girl. She had spent her four years at school in a convent learning to read, write and sew; her father had taught her arithmetic, so that she could keep the books; and she had been further fortunate in a godfather, the Cure Fontenoy, who not only had an extensive library at his house near St Sulpice, but encouraged his goddaughter to use it to continue her education.