‘Matters of propriety and dignity do not engage me,’ he would say. ‘I have not weathered storms at sea in my passage here to Wherrytown to benefit from local courtesies and etiquettes or to test your manners, good or ill. We are plain men, I think, and plainly spoken. Indeed, I already have experience that you can speak your mind. So, sir, you will not take amiss the unhappy news that I must give to you. You may not know of it, but the industry of a Monsieur Nicolas Leblanc, a Frenchman, has made a mark on yours. And you, for all my efforts in your name, must be the poorer for it.’ Aymer could imagine the hunted, baffled, deferential look on Howells’s face as the bad news encircled him and taunted him but would not give its name until the Lecture nearly was complete. ‘I think your already spoken view,’ Aymer could conclude, ‘that I am little use to you assumes a sharper meaning now.’ Mr Howells would have no repartee for that. Aymer’s Duty would be done. Then there would be time to eat a country meal (with the Norris couple as his guests, perhaps; he really was determined to scrape acquaintance with them), to sleep well at the nameless inn and to take the return Sunday passage on the Tar. What further obligations could he have in Wherrytown?
He would, he thought, find Mr Norris and his wife, to enquire if they would like to share his dinner table. He had information on the topography of Canada that they would benefit from hearing, and some advice, too, on Self-Reliance. He took some soap for Katie Norris. Five bars. He imagined they’d serve her well on her long sea voyage. Perhaps she’d save one as a keepsake of her mother country, stored beneath the crapes and linens of her clothes drawer, in the timber bedroom of her cabin, on the virgin land, deep in Canada. Perhaps she’d wash her hair in Smith’s Fine Soap.
The thought of Katie Norris with her hair in suds hastened Aymer, but his bedroom door was opened before he could reach it. Mrs Yapp came in with sheets and bolster cloths.
‘You shouldn’t give no thought to Walter Howells,’ she said. ‘He didn’t know that you were Smith & Sons, the soap. He’ll be back and limping like his horse when he finds out.’
‘I would not waste a second thinking of it, Mrs Yapp.’
‘There, then, there’s no harm done.’ She set about making up Aymer’s bed. ‘We’ll get you comfortable,’ she said, ‘and then I’ll have to shift them other beds. You heard what Walter said. We’ve boatloads coming here and it’ll be a squeeze to find the rooms for them. Those Norrises will have to share, or sleep out in the corridor. I can’t be bothered with a fuss. You should’ve seen his wife when I explained. The blushes on that girl! You’d think I’d asked her to share a bale of hay with horses. I said, “You don’t get private rooms for what you’re paying me, not when there’s other guests to satisfy.” Still, it’ll be a taste of Canadee for her.’
‘You mean she’ll have to share a room with sailing men?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with sailing men except they’re rough.’
‘For how long will this be?’
‘Well, here’s the pattern to it, Mr Smith. The Norrises have passages aboard a ship that’s called the Belle of … some place I forget, and that’s the one that’s beached along the coast at Dry Manston. If they can get her off the bar and seaworthy and she’s not broken up for firewood, then the Norrises can leave and be in Canadee within the two months.’
‘If not?’
‘If not, the Norrises will have to share a room until they find another ship, or turn around and go back home, wherever that might be.’
‘It is not thinkable that they should share, even for one night.’
‘They’ve not the choice. I’ll not have shipwrecked men sleep in the street or in the stables. This isn’t Bethlehem. It’s damp and cold out there. I never heard that blushes did more harm than damp and cold. Besides, she’ll only have to blush a while and then they’ll all be shipmates, just you see. There’s plenty women in this town’d be glad to share a room with three or four Americans. Young Mrs Norris can take her pick!’ Her laugh was uninhibited and unoffending. She was a woman in her forties, playful, forthright, savoury, with some remains of beauty in her face if not her figure. Hers was a case for stays, although she was the sort whose stoutness was a charm. ‘There, that’s your bed dressed for the night,’ she said. ‘You’ll sleep like royalty. Don’t be surprised if I creep in between the sheets, it looks so clean and welcoming …’ Aymer reddened. He put his hand across his mouth. ‘Now, that’s me being comical,’ she said, noting Aymer’s discomposure. ‘I’ll not go uninvited anywhere. So there’s your sheets and there’s your bed, and anything you need from me is there for asking. You’ll not want soap, I see.’ She nodded at the stack of soap in Aymer’s hands. ‘They must be Smith’s.’
‘Please take some, if you want.’
‘I like a luxury,’ she said, and took three bars, and curtsied, plumply.
Aymer was alarmed. He couldn’t be sure if she’d been flirting. What was the ‘anything’ she’d offered him? Food? Hearthside hospitality? Or sin? Would she try to slip between his sheets — and legs — at night? And if she did, would Aymer take her in his long, thin arms, or would he flee, in his nightshirt, onto the balcony and down the wooden staircase to the cold and salty courtyard? Were blushes really so much healthier than cold and damp? He didn’t have the courage to find out.
‘There is no need to move the other beds,’ he said. ‘I’ll share a room with the Americans. I think we must allow the Norrises to keep their privacy.’
‘No, Mr Smith. I cannot let you sleep with sailors of that kind. Same as I said, they’re rough. Their language will offend you, and their nighttime habits …’
‘Well, then, perhaps it would be better if Mr Norris and his wife were to share with me. Shift out two beds for sailors, and let the other two remain. Our beds are curtained, so we can count on privacy. My language and my nighttime habits can give no offence. Besides, I am already acquainted with Mr Norris and he has introduced his wife. Perhaps, if my business can be completed rapidly, I will depart on the coastal packet tomorrow, and then this room can offer total privacy again.’
‘That is a rare suggestion and a kindly one.’
‘Surely I can make this sacrifice for just one night.’ Aymer put the remaining two bars of soap on the widest of the beds.
OTTO WOULD NOT get a bed. There were no volunteers to share with him, though there were many townspeople in the inn’s courtyard keen to stand around and stare, to examine his face, to try a smile, to test a word or two, to comprehend this first encounter with an African. What did they know except what they’d learned at fairs or from sailors or in the farthing pamphlets they’d bought from pedlars? That Africans were ruled by dogs or dined on dogs or smelled like dogs? That Africans didn’t wear clothes and had no tongues, no names, no navels? That black men didn’t dream? The Wherrytowners did their best to catch sight of a navel or a tongue, to find his oddities. ‘Well, Blackie,’ one man whispered in Otto’s ear, ‘what news from the Devil?’ But he didn’t wait for a reply.
Otto was conscious and in less pain. His ankle wounds had crusted. The bruises on his forehead were already blue. His eyesight was restored. He sat on the seaweed in the cart, eyes closed, and did his best to think of other things. But the oddness of the leafless trees he’d seen, the hardness of the sky, the stony torpor of the land, the mud, unsettled him so much that he was close both to tears and to fury. He had to concentrate, amid the din, to steel himself against the courtyard ghosts. He’d learn to dream himself elsewhere, but first he wanted things for which there were no words. He wanted warmth and food and sleep, and could not summon them. Shipmaster Comstock and his crew could be excused their neglect of him. They all were bruised. They all were cold. Their tempers were worn thin by the six-mile walk along the coast and by the prospect of some weeks ashore. They had no energy for anyone except themselves.