"Now, m' lad, how's about you tell me about Guildford an' y'r folks?"
Kydd talked of the Old Country, of the stirring changes that had resulted from this final great war with the French, the school they had bravely started, the appearance of various little ones in the family. At one point Kydd stopped, letting the stillness hang, then asked carefully, "We were told there was a misunderstanding with my papa, Uncle. Was it s' bad you remember it t' this day?"
His uncle guffawed loudly. "Was at first, but then I hears after, she married someone else anyhow. Didn't seem right t' start up writin' again so . . ."
The evening was a great success. Colleen brought out a hoarded jar of blueberry wine and, in its glow, stories of old times and old places were exchanged long into the dark night.
"So you've never regretted it?"
"Never!" His hand crept out to take hers. "In Halifax they'd never let an Irish woman in t' their society. I'd always be tryin'. Here we live content the same as man 'n' wife, an' here we stay."
The fire flared and crackled, the hours passed and the fire settled to embers. Eventually Kydd yawned. "Have t' return to m' ship tomorrow," he said, with real regret.
His uncle said nothing, staring into the fire. Then he took a deep breath. "Seems y' have a teaser on y'r hands, m' boy."
"A problem?"
"Yes, sir. Now, consider—you've seen me, alive 'n' well. You have t' decide now what ye say to y'r father. The world knows I was killed by a bear. Are you goin' to preserve m' secret an' let it stand, or will ye ease his human feelings 'n' say I'm here?"
"I—I have t' think on it," was all Kydd could find to say.
His uncle gave a slow smile. "I'm sure ye'll know what t' do." His gaze on Kydd was long—and fond.
"Wait here," he said, and went outside.
While he was gone, Kydd's thoughts turned to his father. Where was the mercy in telling him that, according to the world, his brother was no more? Or, on the other hand, that his brother was alive and well but had turned his back on society, preferring a pariah woman and a vast wilderness?
There was just one course he could take that would be both merciful and truthful. He would say that, according to the records, his uncle Matthew had lived in Halifax doing well until 1791 but had then moved somewhere else in the immense country of Canada. In this way at least his father would remain in hope.
The door creaked open and his uncle returned with an object wrapped in old sacking. "You're goin' to be the last Kydd I ever sees," he said thickly, "an' I'm glad it were you. See here—" He passed across the sacking. It contained something heavy, a single, undistinguished black rock. But, breaking through it in several places, Kydd saw a dull metallic gleam. Gold. Astonished, Kydd took it, feeling its weight.
"Fell down a ravine years ago, goin' after a animal, an' there it was. But it's no use t' me—I bring that t' town an' in a brace o' shakes it'll be crawlin' with folks grubbin' up th' land an' fightin'. Never bin back, leave th' rest in the good earth where it belongs. But you take it—an' use it to get somethin' special, something that'll always remind ye of y'r uncle Matthew in Canada."
CHAPTER 8
SEAMEN WERE HOISTING IN HEAVY STONE BOTTLES of spruce-beer essence. Admiral Vandeput considered the drink essential to the health of his squadron.
"I'll sweat the salt fr'm your rascally bones—sink me if I don't." The squeaky voice of a midshipman was unconvincing: he had a lot to learn about the handling of men, Kydd thought, and turned away irritably. He put his head inside the lobby. Adams had promised to relieve him, but was nowhere to be found. Kydd returned impatiently to the quarterdeck. The seamen had finished their work and all of the wicker-covered jars were below at last.
The last man of the work party was still on deck, slowly coiling down the yardarm tackle fall. There was something disquieting about this thick-set seaman: Kydd had seen him come aboard with the new men and several times he'd noticed the man looking his way with a significant cast.
Kydd paced forward. The man glanced over his shoulder at him and turned his back, busying himself with his task. When Kydd drew near he straightened and turned, touching his forelock. "Mr Kydd, sir," he said, his voice not much more than a low rasp.
Surprised, Kydd stopped.
"Sir, ye remembers me?"
There was an edge of slyness to his manner that Kydd did not like. Was he a sea-lawyer perhaps? But the man was only a little shorter than Kydd himself, powerfully built, with hard, muscular arms and a deep tattooed chest: he had no need of cozening ways on the mess-deck.
The man gave a cold smile. "Dobbie, petty officer o' the afterguard," he added, still in a low tone.
Kydd could not recall anyone by that name. The midshipman popped up out of the main-hatchway but saw them together and disappeared below again. "No, can't say as I do," Kydd replied. Unless the seaman had something of value to say to an officer he was sailing closer to the wind than a common sailor should. "I don't remember you, Dobbie—now be about y'r duties."
He turned to go, but Dobbie said quietly, "In Sandwich." Kydd stopped and turned. Dobbie stared back, his gaze holding Kydd's with a hard intensity. "Aye—when you was there. I remembers ye well . . . sir."
It had been less than a year ago but the Sandwich was a name Kydd had hoped never to hear again. She had been the mutineers' flagship and at the centre of the whirlwind of insurrection and violence at the Nore. It had climaxed in failure for the mutiny and an end to the high-minded attempt to complete the work begun at Spithead. Many sailors had paid with their lives. Kydd had joined the mutiny in good faith but had been carried along by events that had overwhelmed them all. But for mysterious appeals at the highest level he should have shared their fate.
"Dick Parker. Now there was a prime hand, don' ye think? Saw what was goin' on, but concerns hisself with the men, not th' gentry. Sorely missed, is he."
Kydd drew back. Was Dobbie simply trying to ingratiate himself, or was this a direct attempt at drawing Kydd into some crazy plot? Anxiety and foreboding flooded in. Either way this had to be stopped.
"Enough o' this nonsense. Where I came from before I went t' the quarterdeck is no concern o' yours, Dobbie. Pay y'r respects to an officer an' carry on." Even in his own ears it rang false, lacking in authority.
Dobbie looked relaxed, a lazy smile spreading across his face. Kydd glanced uneasily about; no one was within earshot. "Did ye not hear? I said—"
"Me mates said t' me, 'An' who's this officer then, new-rigged an' has the cut o' the jib of the fo'c'sle about 'im?' What c'n I say?" Dobbie was confident and as watchful as a snake. "I keeps m' silence, 'cos I knows you has t' keep discipline, an' if they catches on that you is th' Tom Kydd as was alongside Dick Parker all the time—"
"What is it ye want?" Kydd snapped.
Dobbie picked up the end of the fall and inspected its whipping, then squinted up at Kydd. "Ah, well. I was wonderin'—you was in deep. Not a delegate, but 'twas your scratch what was clapped on all them vittlin' papers, I saw yez. Now don't y' think it a mort strange that so many good men went t' the yardarm but Mr Tom Kydd gets a pardon? Rest gets the rope, you gets th' King's full pardon 'n' later the quarterdeck." The lazy smile turned cruel. "We gets t' sea, the gennelmen in the fo'c'sle hear about you, why, could go hard f'r a poxy spy . . ."
Kydd flushed.
Dobbie tossed aside the rope and folded his arms. "Your choice, Mr Tom Kydd. You makes m' life sweet aboard—I'm a-goin' t' be in your division—or the fo'c'sle hands are goin' to be getting some interestin' news."
"Damn you t' hell! I didn't—" But Dobbie turned and padded off forward.
Kydd burned with emotion. It was utterly beyond him to have spied treacherously on his shipmates as they had fought together for their rights. He was incapable of such an act. But the men of the fo'c'sle would not know that. Dobbie was one of them, and he was claiming to have been with Kydd at the mutiny and to have the full story. Unable to defend himself in person, Kydd knew there was little doubt whom they would believe.