Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [45]
Paris, pleased to find himself so far clear in mind and untroubled in stomach, passed the time in reading, writing the first pages of the journal he had resolved to keep and walking about on deck, where he was able to follow Libby’s progress with the fearsome whip more closely than he liked. He had discovered that the small, malodorous room below the water-line which had been allotted as sick bay was taken up with rope and tackle and spare sail-cloth. Twice he had attempted to speak to Thurso about this but the captain had bitten him off short. Nonetheless, he was determined to take the matter up again at the first favourable opportunity.
On the third day, at a few minutes after four o’clock in the morning, Simmonds, whose watch it was, felt the wind turn fair against his face. As instructed, he roused Thurso immediately. The captain waited for the top of the high water then gave orders to weigh anchor.
Paris woke to the wailing cries of Haines, the bosun. He dressed quickly and came up in the first light to a scene of uproar and apparent confusion, shouted orders he could not make out, bewildering movements about the deck. Thurso stood above, on the quarterdeck, the only motionless element in this violent pandemonium. Then Paris began to see the division of tasks among the crew as they worked to spread and loose the great square mainsails. He heard the strange, drawn-out lamentation of men heaving at the windlass and in a few minutes knew that the ship was under way, knew it from the noise of the water thrown from her bows, from the way she leaned over in the damp dawn breeze and rolled with the heavy ground swell.
And so, in the course of that morning, the Liverpool Merchant was turned loose into the Irish Sea. With her mainsails set and a fair wind from the south-east, released from tethering rope and umbilical cable, she was for the first time in her life unfettered, free – save for her own groaning tensions – between wind and current.
PART THREE
FIFTEEN
Erasmus Kemp stood by the lakeside. The scene he looked forward to and dreaded was almost upon him. Recently, between his public and private performances as Ferdinand, a yawning gap had developed. He had his lines by heart and could recite them perfectly when alone; but once in her presence his tongue stumbled, his throat dried. It was not timidity; he was not by nature timid and would have welcomed the opportunity to speak his love in his own voice. What disconcerted him so terribly was having to pretend, as the price of being with her, that both of them were other people.
Nevertheless, he went on trying. Practising before the mirror in his bedroom he had achieved fluid and graceful motions of the hands and body and even dazzled smiles as at blinding beauty; but when it came to the rehearsals he moved like an automaton about the shores of the lake. He nursed the hope – and into it went all the passionate tenacity of his nature – that by endurance the gap would be closed and the accomplishments of his solitude win the day.
Of this there was small sign as yet. Meanwhile, though he was too locked in his travail fully to notice it, he was having a subtly demoralizing effect on the others. Miranda’s performance had lost sparkle, partly through the infection of his awkwardness, partly out of awe at the intensity of his regard, and this central uneasiness between the lovers was exacerbating the strains and divisions already existing among the cast. Prospero’s headlong, domineering style was continuing to cause resentment; Miss Edwards sang beautifully but was felt to be too sardonic for Ariel, especially when addressing Prospero, whom she disliked; and doubts concerning the