Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [208]
Until this fear was allayed he could not rest. He had sent Hudson in the coach with twenty-five guineas and a note of thanks. And it was Hudson who accompanied him now and waited below while Erasmus spoke to the captain about the two men who had come upon the ship. Were either of these still with him? It seemed that one, the ringleader in the business, had been too much of a troublemaker and Philips had handed him over to the harsher discipline of a naval frigate at Savannah. But the other, a man named Harvey, had signed on again and could be found. An altogether steadier man, this, a good seaman, he had been led astray on this occasion by rum and the foolish hope of catching one of the women …
‘They are simple men, sir,’ the captain said. He was not best pleased to learn that Erasmus was proposing to take Harvey away from him, a reliable fore-the-mast man being not so easy to replace. But he was conscious that he had himself been treated with generosity; not to comply would have been ungrateful, even had he felt inclined to go counter to the other’s will, which he did not. Kemp was a man who wielded influence, one whom it was unwise to cross. But it was more than that: there was a quality of suppressed passion in him which Philips – strong-willed enough himself, and used to intractable men – found daunting.
So Harvey was found and brought to the Kemp house. He was blond and ruddy with a usual expression of cheerful competence, though this was overlaid now at finding himself in such surroundings.
‘Now,’ Erasmus said to him, ‘how old are you, Harvey?’
The seaman was of those whom nervousness makes more confiding. ‘I am twenty-nine or I am thirty, sir, depending on how you looks at it. I never knowed my father, my mother gave me up to the parish when I was little, an’ sometimes they told me one thing, sometimes they told me another.’
‘So then, let us say you are thirty. You have your health and strength now, but few seafaring men get much beyond forty with those possessions still, certainly not on ships plying to the tropics. You know this yourself, you have not the look of a fool. Even if you last so long, what would there be for you on leaving the sea but rags and beggary? If you will agree to conduct me to this place where you came upon the remains of my father’s ship … I suppose you would be able to find it again?’
‘Yes, sir, I could find it.’
‘If you will take me there and show me the place, I swear you will not be sorry. You need never return to the sea if you do not wish to. I will take you into my service on good terms, or if you would rather, I will give you a sum that will set you up in some business ashore. I am a rich man and what I say I will do I will do – anyone who knows me will tell you that. I am asking you for a year of your life and offering to free you from want for the rest of it. Come, what do you say?’
‘I say yes, sir, and trust I will give satisfaction and God bless you for an open-handed gentleman.’
Erasmus relaxed a little. He had offered more than he needed to, which was not a habit of his when bargaining; but he had been in fear that the man would refuse. ‘It will take some two or three weeks for me to make arrangements,’ he said. ‘During that time you will live here and you will be dressed and fed. Then you will accompany me, as my servant, to the Florida coast. While in my house you will be expected to conduct yourself properly. Do you take my meaning?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘No drunkenness, no rowdiness, no harassment of the maids.’
‘No, sir.’
‘You will find me worse than any Indian if you get up to those tricks.’
It was not often that Erasmus made witticisms of this or any other kind; perhaps only relief could have produced this one. He was surprised almost to see a smile come to the other’s face. It was a smile of considerable charm, broken-toothed, guileless, totally unabashed by the reference to his offence. And in it Erasmus saw the beginning of a retribution twelve years delayed. ‘And you will speak to no one of this business,’ he said. ‘No living soul.’
THIRTY-NINE
There