Kydd’s mind flailed. That corpse had been a warm, living, breathing, despairing human so very recently. And now this.
A bluff gentleman next to him snorted. ‘If he brings the wretch back, I shall demand he be re-executed. The law’s insistent on the matter – hanged b’ the neck until dead.’ He turned back to the proceedings.
‘Nevertheless,’ Aldini continued, ‘we shall continue. To increase the strength I will use another voltaic pile and this time for maximum effect I shall introduce the electricity directly into the interior of the body.’
He selected a slender silver probe. ‘Via the rectum.’
Aldini then stood at the head of the table and carefully applied a disc to the nape of the corpse. The whole body trembled, then the back arched as if under intolerable pain, the legs kicked in a grotesque parody of desperate escape and the arms lifted in spasm. After a further minute one clenched fist suddenly punched the air in hopeless fury and hung in a tremor.
‘A pity,’ Aldini announced, after a space. ‘I had hoped for a result this evening. My studies at Bologna were very promising . . .’
Faint and with an urgent need for air, Kydd endured until the good professor had concluded, then hurried out into the cold freshness of the night streets. ‘Er, uncommon interesting,’ he blurted, as they hastened to find a hackney.
‘Quite. With refinement, who knows where it will lead?’ said Renzi, but Kydd was gratified to note his distinctly pale face.
In the morning, Kydd was away with an attorney when the messenger returned from Guildford with a package.
Renzi hastened to open it. Yes! It contained a stout letter sealed with a cypher he knew only too well. He heated a thin knife over a candle and, with the utmost care, worked at the seal. He read the letter with a smile of satisfaction. Exactly as he had surmised.
He reaffixed the seal carefully, then penned a quick note and gave it to the messenger. Now everything depended on the marchioness.
‘A vexing, prating crew, your law-grinders,’ Kydd said, flinging down his papers. ‘Before you may even start in business there’s first a memorandum of association an’ then you must work up your articles. Only then are the books of account opened – it would tax the patience of Jove to see the matter squared away at last, shipshape and all a-taunto.’
He slouched into his chair and thrust out his boots towards the fire. ‘Wind’s in the sou’-east, I see,’ he said, squinting through the low sun coming in the window. ‘Johnny Crapaud’ll sit up and take notice, I shouldn’t wonder,’ he added bitterly.
‘It’s accounted to be winter season now, brother,’ Renzi said firmly. ‘There’s no prospect of a crossing, as well you know.’
He paused and went on in quite another tone. ‘Dear fellow, I do feel we owe something to your sister, she having been abandoned so forlornly last night. Tonight there is to be a rout given by the marchioness, and it would delight Cecilia inordinately should you feel able to attend.’
At Kydd’s expression he went on quickly, ‘This is not to say she intends this by way of improving your spirits, rather the altogether understandable desire before her friends to show away her brother, hero of the seas.’
‘Hmph. So this needs the marchioness as well?’ Kydd said cuttingly.
‘As it is her mansion, old trout. To show your face for an hour I would have thought no great imposition while you’re, er, at leisure these days.’
‘Do you lecture me on my duty to my sister, sir?’ Kydd flared, then with an effort quietened. ‘Very well, if it should please her.’
When carriages were announced he defiantly appeared in vivid bottle green and yellow, dress more in keeping with the colour and individuality of the last century than the increasingly plain and sober attire that was now the vogue. He glowered at Renzi, daring him to comment.
It took more than an hour to wind through the throng of evening traffic until they reached the imposing residence. The windows were ablaze with candlelight, and the strains of a small orchestra and laughter spilled out onto the street.
Kydd seemed cheered by the gaiety and strode forward to ring the bell. A well-dressed footman received him and announced his presence. Oddly, the entire room stopped and regarded him with looks of expectation as the orchestra tailed away. Eyes shining, Cecilia ran forward and took his arm possessively, turning to face the assembly.
Wondering what it was about, Kydd saw the marchioness moving to take position at the front. He bowed courteously.
She acknowledged graciously, then declaimed loudly to the gathering, ‘My lords, ladies and gentlemen! Pray take your glasses if you will and drink with me to the brightest ornament in His Majesty’s Navy – who I declare has come so far, yet bids fair to have before him the most shining prospects for fame and honour. A toast – to Captain Kydd, our newest sea hero!’
Cecilia’s grip on his arm was so fierce it hurt, but Kydd’s face was a picture of devastation as the throng gaily echoed the toast.
‘Why, Captain, are you by chance out of sorts?’ the marchioness said archly, handing him a glass. For some reason the room had quietened and everyone was watching them.
‘Er, it’s— I’m not really— That is t’ say, I’m not a captain any more,’ he stammered.
‘Not a captain?’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘When all the world knows you to be made post by His Majesty’s express command?’
Struck dumb, Kydd could only stare at her.
Renzi appeared and drew a stiff letter out from his waistcoat, sealed with the Admiralty cypher. ‘I rather fancy this will prove the case.’
Kydd took it as in a dream and opened it out to its full grandeur. In words that had resounded down the centuries, he read of his being raised to the impossible honour of post-captain, Royal Navy, and signed thus by Melville himself, first lord of the Admiralty.
He turned to Renzi. ‘Wha’ . . . ?’
‘A slight matter only. The letter was sent some weeks ago to your address, which is Guildford. There, your loyal mother has been zealously guarding it for you until your return.’ He chuckled softly. ‘As you may conceive, the first lord was put considerably out of temper at the spectacle of a post-captain demanding command of a mere sloop!’
In a wash of wonder and delight, Kydd clutched the precious paper and, seized in a delirium of happiness, looked up to see the gathering advancing to congratulate him. As the orchestra launched energetically into ‘See the Conquering Hero Comes’ the first to reach him was a beaming Captain Boyd. Kydd had met the elegantly dressed post-captain when, as a newly appointed officer of the Downs Squadron, he had been sent to London for briefing.
‘Might I take your hand, Captain?’ Boyd said sincerely. ‘There was never a promotion more hard earned, sir.’
Kydd took a deep breath and stuttered, ‘It was, well, I—’
‘This is Captain Codrington of Orion, seventy-four, about to join Admiral Nelson, and this, Harvey of Temeraire,’ he added. The two men greeted him genially, both, Kydd knew, senior captains of a ship-of-the-line – and now he the same rank as they!
Cecilia tugged at his sleeve for him to notice an awed couple nearby. The lady curtsied nervously to him and the man bowed very respectfully. ‘You must remember Jane Rodpole as was? In Jamaica I helped at her wedding to William Mullins here. And then we all met up in Plymouth that time . . .’
Kydd managed an amiable reply, then turned to a familiar face that had appeared. ‘Sir?’ the man said expectantly.
Kydd recognised, through a haze of feeling, Dyer, sloop commander of the Downs Squadron. ‘Oh, so kind in you, Dyer,’ he said, allowing his hand to be pumped energetically. He caught himself in time from saying he hoped to see him soon, for as a post-captain his was a higher destiny.