Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [187]
If Wolpert noticed anything in the altered form of words or the brief hesitation he gave no sign of it. He thought it odd for the young man to attribute his father’s death to such a minor cause of worry, odd and excessive, but Erasmus’s nature went to extremes; in that he was like his father, who had just proved it again, Wolpert thought wryly, by the magnitude of his debts. Twenty shiploads of slaves would not have saved Kemp, in the pass his affairs had come to. So much was common knowledge now. ‘The ship is not late enough yet to be given up as lost,’ he said. ‘It is hardly more than a year since she sailed and the trading is slow at present on the Guinea Coast. Your father would have known that.’
He had spoken to defend the father’s reason against this judgement of the son, moved by a kind of pity for both. But the stiff composure of the young man’s face did not change. He seemed to brace his shoulders more, as if sensing – and rejecting – the intention of kindness in the older man’s words. ‘The ship left Africa six months ago,’ he said coldly. ‘We had letters … We had a letter from the captain.’
‘Your cousin is with the ship, I understand,’ Wolpert said. Kemp had let this fall one day, when they had been talking together in the street. ‘He will be hard hit by this. Kemp was his benefactor.’ Erasmus himself had never mentioned his cousin. It seemed he would make no response now, save for a brief nod. But after a moment he said, ‘I believe the ship is lost and my cousin with her.’
Wolpert sighed and put his heavy hands together on the desk before him. ‘We must come to the point,’ he said. ‘None of this is your fault, but naturally it has changed things. When we talk of losses, it is seldom useful to consider where the fault lies.’ He paused again, looking at the set, expressionless face before him. He had never really warmed to Erasmus Kemp, noting always something relentless and oppressive in him, even in his visible devotion to Sarah; but he had grown to respect the young man’s energy and ambition and he felt more kindly disposed to him now, when he was left with nothing but these, than perhaps ever before. ‘Your mother has some means of her own, I believe?’ he said.
‘She has a small income from capital left in trust by her father.’
‘She will not remain long in the house there, I suppose?’
‘No, sir. The house is to be sold and all in it. She proposes to go to her sister in Norfolk.’
‘She has impressed us all by her fortitude in this tragic loss.’ A certain delicacy prevented Wolpert from saying more than this. It was years since he had seen Elizabeth Kemp with such spring in her step and colour in her cheeks. ‘I am heartily sorry to see you both brought to this,’ he continued after a moment. ‘In what I am about to say now there is no blame for you. You could not have suspected the extent of your father’s losses, and particularly his unlucky investments of these last months.’
‘There were signs, if I had but heeded them.’ He would not suffer this stranger to distribute degrees of blame. ‘I was taken up with my own affairs,’ he said.
Wolpert shrugged a little. ‘That is only natural,’ he said. ‘But it is about those same affairs I am afraid we must speak now. It will be obvious to you that there cannot in the present circumstances be any contract of marriage with my daughter. There can be no question of an engagement, either official or otherwise, or any sort of an agreement or understanding which would