The Price of Glory (15 page)

Nathan's head was spinning. Why had Imlay been released from custody ? Had the charges against him been dropped or held in abeyance? Had he managed to talk himself out of the trouble he was in? This appeared only too likely. Imlay was nothing if not a plausible rogue.

“So poor Mary is now having to face up to the fact that the great love of her life, as she once described him, is a liar and a cheat,” his mother continued, “and that she is cast in the light of the very creature she had always pitied and deplored: the victim, the abandoned mistress, the fallen woman. And I fear she has taken it very badly indeed. You would not know her for the woman you met in London before the war. She is a shadow of her former self, in looks and in spirits. Indeed, I confess I am more concerned than I can say.” She hesitated a moment and then decided to say it anyway. “You really must not repeat this to anyone but shortly after she discovered the truth, she attempted to take her own life.”

“You are not serious?” Nathan was genuinely shocked.

“I have it on good authority, though she thinks I do not know. She took an overdose of laudanum but was discovered in time by Imlay and brought to her senses. Well, I should not say her senses for she is still sadly lacking in those, but her life was saved. That is when he proposed they live together—with the other woman, I mean—though he has since thought better of it.”

“What!”

“Did I not say ? He proposed they should all live together as one happy family. All three of them.” She did a quick sum in her head. “Four, counting the child. And Mary, poor fool that she is, agreed. She had some notion of ‘reforming' the other woman, as she put it, but Imlay took fright and changed his mind.”

“I am not surprised.” Nathan shook his head wonderingly. The woman he had known in Paris had been a formidable creature and though she had clearly been in love with Imlay she was not so besotted that she would not express her disapprobation whenever he behaved in a way she considered beneath him. Which was quite often. She appeared to be unaware of his more clandestine activities but she had always been critical of his dealings in commerce. Perhaps too critical. Was this why he had chosen more tolerant company ? Though it was no excuse for abandoning her—and with a child to boot.

They heard the sound of the bell at the front door.

“Oh, look out of the window, will you, and see if it is the bailiffs come back,” his mother instructed him. “Let them see your uniform, it might intimidate them.”

Nathan stared at her in astonishment. “The bailiffs?”

“Yes. They have been dunning me. It is more of a nuisance than anything but sometimes I feel besieged in my own home.”

“Mother, I wish you would let me give you some money.” In truth, he wished he had money to give her for he was quite short himself.

“Oh, I will soon be able to settle my debts, or most of them. But look out of the window, there's a good boy, and tell me if it is them.”

Nathan twisted round in his seat and assumed his most ferocious quarterdeck expression.

“There is only one of them,” he said. “And I do not think he looks like a bailiff. “

Lady Catherine peered down over his shoulder just as the man in question looked up and saw that he was observed, whereupon he raised his hat to reveal a countenance that Nathan thought vaguely familiar.

“Oh, it is Mr. Blake,” said Kitty. “You met him last time you were home, I recall, when he came to sell me some of his work. We have since become friends though I fear I am a poor patron. I will go and let him in.”

“You will do no such thing,” Nathan insisted. “I will go.”

He returned shortly with a man of about forty whose imposing features were somewhat offset by a disconcertingly simple smile.

“I was in the neighbourhood,” he announced, “and thought I should call on you, if it is not an intrusion. And now I have the double delight of meeting your son once more, though I am sorry to see he has been wounded.”

“You are very welcome, Mr. Blake,” Kitty assured him. “I expect you would like some tea.”

“Only if it does not inconvenience you.”

“It is no inconvenience at all. I will tell Mrs. Imlay you are here for I am assured she would not wish to miss you. Mr. Blake has illustrated one of Mrs. Imlay's books,” she informed Nathan in the hope of providing them with something to talk about while she was absent from the room, for she did not think they would have a great deal in common, but she could not resist adding: “It is a book of fairy tales which should be more to your tastes than
A Vindication of the Rights of Women
.”

“Oh, I do not think you will find her,” declared Mr. Blake, “for I have just seen her at Westminster Stairs when I came over from Lambeth.”

Kitty stopped in her tracks and regarded him warily for he was sometimes given to delusions.

“Are you positive?” she queried him. “I could have sworn she was in her room with her little girl.”

“Well, I am almost positive,” he insisted, “though when I called out to her she turned away as if she did not wish to acknowledge me. This happens from time to time,” he informed Nathan engagingly. “I fear I sometimes embarrass people with my conversation.”

“I am sure you do not,” Nathan assured him politely, recalling that when last they had met, as strangers in St James's Park, he had been instructed on the subject of lepers and the exhumed body of King Edward the Confessor.

“I will go and fetch her,” muttered Kitty, fleeing the room.

She was back within the minute looking strangely distraught and clutching a pair of letters, one opened and one not, and a number of banknotes.

“She is gone,” she announced dramatically. “Leaving the child in its cot. And see what she has left me.” She thrust the opened letter at Nathan but before he could read it she continued: “She says she can no longer bear to live with her shame and leaves the poor infant in my care with thirty pounds which is all she has in the world.”

Nathan scanned the hastily scribbled words, snatching at a phrase here and there.
Yet having been so perpetually the sport of disappointment … what have I to fear who have so little to hope for! God bless you …

“And here is another addressed to Imlay. I hardly know if I should open it.”

Nathan had no such reservation. He took it from her and broke the seal.

My dear Imlay,

I write to you now on my knees imploring you to send my child and the maid to Paris to be consigned to the care of my very good friend Madame Farber, Rue Jacob, section du Theatre-Français. Should they be removed, their landlady, Madame Benoit, can give their direction. Let the maid have all my clothes, without distinction and do not mention the confession I forced from the cook—a little sooner or later is of no consequence. Nothing but my extreme stupidity could have rendered me blind so long. Yet whilst you assured me that you had no attachment, I thought we might still have lived together.

I shall make no comments on your conduct, or any appeal to the world. Let my wrongs sleep with me! Soon, very soon shall I be at peace. When you receive this my burning head will be cold.

I would encounter a thousand deaths rather than a night like the last. Your treatment has thrown my mind into a state of chaos yet I am serene. I go to find comfort and my only fear is that my poor body will be insulted by an endeavour to recall my hated existence. But I shall plunge into the Thames where there is the least chance of my being snatched from the death I seek.

God bless you! May you never know by experience what you have made me endure. Should your sensibility ever awake, remorse will find its way to your heart and in the midst of business and sensual pleasure, I shall appear before you, the victim of your deviation from rectitude.

Mary

Nathan turned on their discomforted visitor. “Where did you see her? Was it on the bridge?”

“No. The bridge is closed. She was waiting at the Stairs. I—I thought she was waiting for a boat.”

Nathan snatched up his hat. “You had better come with me,” he said to his mother.

“But do you think she means to harm herself?”

“I do,” he said, handing her back the letter to Imlay.

“I will fetch my shawl,” she said. “Mr. Blake, would you mind staying here to look after the child, until Izzy returns?”

“But …” Mr. Blake looked at them in bemusement. “Where are you going?”

“I think we must go down to the river,” Nathan told him.

“Surely she will no longer be there. There were very few waiting.”

But they were already out of the room.

“If the child cries, give her a candied fruit,” Kitty called back over her shoulder. “You will find them on the sideboard.”

They hurried down Frith Street in the direction of the Strand, Nathan looking back constantly for a cab and his mother half running and clutching her shawl to her bosom.

“He is right. We will never find her at Westminster,” she lamented, “and then where shall we look?”

“She will make for one of the bridges,” Nathan mused.

“But how can you know that? She could be anywhere on the river.”

“No,” he informed her with heavy patience. “Because then she would have to wade in from the shore and force her head under the water. And I assure you that is not easy, even for someone determined upon drowning.”

“But could she not jump from a boat?”

“And have the boatman fish her out—if only to demand his fare? Dear God, when were you an expert on drowning? Though perhaps it is better not to enquire. Thank God, I do not have to tolerate this on my own ship.”

And so they conversed pleasantly enough until they reached Westminster. There were several boatmen waiting at the Stairs but no sign of Mrs. Imlay and when Lady Catherine attempted somewhat excitedly to describe her to them, they only shook their heads and exchanged knowing glances as if they had found another fare to Bedlam.

“Which is the nearest bridge from here?” Nathan demanded tersely.

“Blackfriars,” said one.

“Battersea,” said another.

“Depending upon the tide,” chimed a third.

“Oh, for Gods sake!” Lady Catherine raised her eyes to the heavens in hopes of more informed counsel.

Nathan looked, more calmly, to the river. “It will be Battersea,” he said.

“Why ?” demanded his mother, whose confidence in Nathan's judgement had not improved with age or his advancement through the naval hierarchy. “How can you possibly tell?”

“Because that is the way the tide is running,” Nathan replied with heavy patience. “And I assume she would take the easier option. Will you take us to Battersea?” he addressed one of the boatmen.

With the tide in their favour, they reached the footbridge in a little more than twenty minutes, but the light was fast fading from the sky and it was threatening to rain. There were a number of people about the crossing, but they all seemed to be striding purposefully and none of them looked like Mrs. Imlay.

“Oh, I hope she did not go the other way,” lamented Kitty, “for you are never right in your direction. And she will have thrown herself from Blackfriars or London Bridge. London Bridge is the most favoured, I am assured, since they took down the shops.”

Nathan ignored her, but now the boatman had become interested and he offered to enquire among his associates on the shore. He returned with the news that a woman of Mrs. Imlay's age and description had disembarked on the northern shore but, after watching the people on the bridge for some minutes, had asked to be taken on to Putney.

“Then you must take us to Putney,” Kitty instructed him urgently.

“Well I will an' all, but it will cost you another six shillin' for I am not a Samaritan.”

“Nor would we have taken you for one,” Nathan comforted him, “but I fail to see how it can be the same price from here to Putney as it was from Westminster to here.”

“Ah well, there you go, guvnor, ‘tis on account of the tide, d'you see, which is not so strong as ‘tis dahn river an' I ‘as to pull all the ‘arder, d'you see? Add to that, when I drops you awf, I ‘as to pull back agin' it, don't I?”

Nathan considered pointing out that the two statements ran counter to each other but his mother had begun to express her own feelings on the subject, saying that she found it impossible to believe he could resort to haggling at such a time, even going so far as to accuse him of being his father's son, which he much resented. With a sigh, he took out his purse and parted with another six shillings.

It had now begun to rain quite heavily and though the boatman provided a foul-smelling tarpaulin to shelter under, they were both thoroughly chilled by the time they sighted the next bridge.

“If I had known what I was letting myself in for I would have taken a room in a hotel,” Nathan complained.

“Look! I am sure that is her!” Kitty pointed from under the tarpaulin. A solitary figure was to be seen midway across the footbridge, walking in the direction of Putney village.

“You cannot possibly tell from here,” Nathan objected, peering out into the rain.

“I assure you it is she. Quick,” she urged the boatman, “set us down as close as you can.”

“On the Fulham side,” Nathan instructed him for the woman had turned and begun to walk in that direction. But as soon as the boatman began to pull for the Stairs, the figure turned again and began to head back towards Putney.

“What on earth is she doing?” Nathan demanded.

“She is agitated,” his mother informed him. “See how she holds her face to the rain. Like King Lear.”

Nathan stared at her in wonderment, shaking his head, but she grabbed him by the arm with a scream and when he looked back he saw that the woman had hauled herself up onto the rail. From whence, after pausing there a moment and stretching her arms to the heavens, she jumped.