Approaching from the south (because of the winds, Abigail was told), the island gave no welcome. Brown rock cliffs rose up and behind these cliffs she could see the steep peaks of the interior. The hills were so high as to be in cloud; the whole place was crowned with mist. It was breathtakingly lonely.
Charles was making himself busy somewhere, so she had no one with whom to share the joy of arrival. At last, the prospect of land.
The ship rounded the island, and the north face came more into the view. The battered cliffs were pierced by tiny valleys, barely more than geographical filaments in the enormous walls of rock. How did such a thing come to be here? Did Neptune build a fortress for himself but then forget about it?
Atop some of the highest points on the sea-facing cliffs sat manmade enclosures of military fastness, prickly little structures that gave the island the aspect of a maritime fort, an outpost of Empire. An ocean-clapped castle.
The winds were quieter on the north side of the island, but the rollers on the sea were still large, and even a virgin voyager like Abigail could see how unapproachable the island was. There were no significant landing places at all, only the occasional tiny bay giving out from one of those needle ravines. She imagined the men who discovered this place sailing round and round, trying to find a way to approach, wondering what secrets those brown rock walls preserved.
They rounded a final point and, at last, a landing place. This, then, must be James Town. The town sat inside one of those ravines that pierced the outer rock wall of the island, carved out presumably by a river or stream, and unlike the other defiles this particular valley was just wide enough to insert a community. The ingenuity and determination of explorers struck her. The same energy that captured and cut that enormous whale built those little white houses which clustered up into the tiny valley. A great wall ran across the front of the valley, between the town and the shore, and behind it rose the tower of a church.
They anchored off a huge rock, at the top of which bristled one of those batteries. They climbed into a whaleboat which was lowered into the sea. The captain, Wallace, had joined them, though he still preferred to render her invisible. She could smell the destroyed sperm whale in the wood of the ship even now, though the carcass itself was left to sink into the ocean days before.
Inside the whaleboat the ocean rollers were more pronounced. She shrieked as one hit the boat, grabbing her husband’s arm and holding onto it as they were rowed over to the wharf beneath the massive rock. The bruise on her own arm – Rat’s bruise – throbbed under the effort.
She thought there must be ceremonies to perform – would they be greeted, questioned, even searched? This place was fortified, that much was clear, and their arrival had already sparked some activity along the wharf; other men in other boats were rowing out to the Martha, presumably to sell supplies. But Wallace ignored them, as did Charles, and this tipping boat was no place for questions.
It was almost impossible for her to get out of the boat and onto the wharf, so strong were the rollers. Charles climbed out first, turned and virtually swung her up to the wharf. She felt astonishingly uncomfortable, an ill-suited creature in this world of men, and for a moment as she lunged out of the boat she spied a man in the boat looking at her as the wind blew her skirts. She had experienced all sorts of looks and heard all sorts of mutterings during the voyage, and expected little else, but this felt more of a violation than any of them. She scowled at the man when she was safely on the wharf, and he grinned and looked away. The bitch was safely ashore, and his voyage could continue without the inconveniences of women.
Charles picked up the large ticking bag which contained their belongings. They walked along the wharf, and reached the point where the fortified wall protected the entrance to the town. A drawbridge across the channel of water between the wharf and the town entrance was guarded by two soldiers. Wallace went up to them.
‘Master of the Martha, whaler out of London,’ he said. ‘Two passengers with us with business here on St Helena. I’d like to take them to the Governor.’
The soldiers nodded, pointing inside.
‘Know your way?’ one of them asked.
‘Aye,’ said Wallace, and in they went.
On the other side of the wall was a terrace running between a square and a large plain building towards which Wallace made his way. On the far side of the square was the church she had seen from the water, facing a fine-looking garden which looked over a street lined by terraced houses. The buildings were recognisably English – not unattractive but staunchly functional. The only decoration was supplied by Nature – the trees and plants in the garden opposite the church and, rising up on either side of the town and beyond it, the green-and-brown walls of St Helena.
The green lushness of the hills was a stark contrast to the brown fastnesses of the outward-facing cliffs. In the distance, along the valley, she could see a tantalising prospect of craggy peaks. The air was pleasantly warm, the only clouds those that ringed the peaks of the interior. In many ways, it felt like a pleasant English spring day, though in a part of England – the South Downs, perhaps – where the land had been squeezed by titanic hands to form steep valleys and impossible slopes.
And, Lord, it was good to be on solid ground once more.
Abigail saw Wallace glance uneasily at Charles as the three of them were about to step into the building wherein the island’s Governor was to be found.
‘You’re both coming in?’ he said, to Charles.
‘Men’s business, is it, captain?’ she said, no longer disguising her dislike. ‘Well, then. Men’s business it is. I shall wait here.’
She sat herself on a bench at the entrance to the Castle. Charles seemed about to say something, but then thought better of it, and followed Wallace into the building.
There were very few people about, and all of them had looked at her at least once. Was it a rarity, then, a woman arriving by ship? There were women here, were there not? Look, there were two now: rather matronly looking ladies, carrying bags full of some goods or other. Their clothes were old and plain but clean and tidy – working women’s clothes, untouched by Covent Garden fripperies. They appeared friendly enough, but perhaps where she was sitting – outside the Governor’s office, like a naughty child waiting for the headmaster – put them off. Her arrival would be talked about today, behind the doors of those little houses which lined the street up into the valley.
There were a good many blacks working at one thing or another around the square, and the hunched way they held their heads caused her to think they must be slaves. There were Negroes in London, and in Wapping in particular, but they were free men, though they were often poor or ill or near-death. She had never seen slaves before.
Another group of women appeared, three of them this time, walking down the main street towards the sea wall. They glared at her, their faces tanned by the Atlantic sun but also painted with garish colours, and she realised with a lurch that they must be whores. Even here there were whores, responding to the arrival of the whaler. The women walked up to the guards at the drawbridge and touched them, rubbing the soldier’s arms and laughing. Their shrill voices carried across the square, and Abigail felt an old helpless hatred at these women who had sold themselves to men’s pleasure. Her sister was carried away, thus – though even Charles knew nothing of that.
He knows nothing of your meetings with Dr Drysdale either, her rebellious mind said, but she ignored it.
It was an odd but intriguing vista. Working women, slaves and whores, and outside the walls of the town men seeking to do business with the newly arrived ship. Was every British outpost like this?
She saw two boys loitering in the shadows of the church on the other side of the square. They were looking at her, and she waved to them. One of them started to walk across the square, as if he’d been waiting for such a call. As they came, Abigail noted another African working in the garden of a large house facing the church. His legs were chained together.
The braver of the two boys was brown-faced and scrawny, but his face was far cleaner than those of similar age in London. There was no smog or oil or grease to cloud his features here, but he looked tired and, despite his sun-kissed skin, rather unwell.
‘I will need two of you to help me carry this bag to a decent lodging house,’ she said to him.
‘I’m no porter.’
His accent was an odd amalgam of London’s clipped consonants – reminding Abigail of Rat – and something more rural. Somerset, perhaps?
‘I will pay you a penny for carrying my bag and for finding me lodgings.’
‘You on your own, mistress? Did I not see another couple of fellows going in to the Guv’nor?’
‘You did. My husband will accompany us when his business is concluded.’
The boy whistled back towards his companion, and the other boy began to make his way across. He was a good deal bigger than his friend.
‘You do not stay at Mr Porteous’s house, mistress?’ said the boy.
‘Which is that?’
‘Over there.’
He indicated a large house on the other side of the square. It was the house where the chained Negro was working.
‘No, I do not wish to stay there. Somewhere further into the town. Somewhere that has no slaves.’
‘No slaves, miss?’
The boy frowned, struggling with the alien concept. Then he shrugged.
‘You’re to help me carry this,’ the boy said to his large friend, whose face was puffy and uncomprehending. The large boy lifted up the bag, but upside-down, and Abigail darted forward, scared lest it open. ‘Wait for it, Hippo!’ said the first boy, so Hippo dropped the bag to the ground again.
‘Oh, do be careful!’ exclaimed Abigail. The first boy looked at her and smiled. Where the big lad was slow and stupid, this boy was clever and watchful. Rat, again, peeped out from the boy’s eyes. She felt the ache of the bruise on her arm.
‘Sorry about Hippo,’ the boy said. ‘He’s a bit soft in the head. Product of an Incestuous Partnership, as my old man would have it. Now, off we go.’
Bit soft in the head. Dr Drysdale, again. Go away now, please, doctor, she thought.
‘No, wait, please. My husband is still within.’
The boy grinned.
‘Hang on, Hippo! The mistress ain’t ready, yet.’
Hippo had lifted the bag with particular care, but now stood quite still holding the bag, looking into the middle distance.
She spoke to them while they waited. The first boy gave his name as Keneally, but when Abigail enquired about the provenance of such a name, he said it was his family’s and that she should call him Ken. Hippo was Hippo because one of the island boys had been to Africa before coming here, and had seen a hippo, and had said the animal’s broad stupid face was just like the face of the lad who now held her bag and patiently waited. Ken asked Abigail where she might want to stay, and she suggested an inn, if there was one with decent rooms.
‘There’s only one tavern, and there’s no rooms in it,’ Ken said. ‘Normally, visitors take a room at someone’s house.’
‘The private houses?’
‘Aye. Mr Porteous for example – he’s got nice rooms.’ He nodded to the house he had first pointed out. ‘But there’s your particularity regarding slaves to consider.’
Ken winked at her, and she was pleased to have found him. She wondered if her husband would be pleased – might he want to pay for Ken’s eyes as he had paid for Rat’s eyes in Wapping? It was a cold thought.
‘I think Seale keeps a room,’ says Ken. ‘He’s just up there.’ He pointed up the street. ‘And he keeps no slaves.’
‘Then we shall go there, when my husband is finished.’
‘Unusual, you arriving like that,’ said Ken. ‘We don’t get a lot of arrivals like that.’
‘How do people normally arrive?’ Abigail asked.
‘On the Indiamen – either on their way out, or on their way back. Passengers come with them. Any reason you didn’t come on an Indiaman?’
This with a knowing smile. The boy’s brain was quick – perhaps quicker than her husband might like. She ignored the question.
‘Is your father a farmer?’
Ken snorted at that.
‘Farm? Why bother with that? The Company supplies us with all we need.’
‘But I had heard St Helena was a fine spot for farming?’
‘Aye, it might have been once. But there’s too many goats, too many rats, and too much money coming in on ships. Why bother breaking your back on the land?’
Ken said this smoothly, and Abigail thought she heard the authentic voice of the boy’s father speaking. An idle man, no doubt, justifying his indolence to his son.
‘So, what are you here for, then?’ Ken asked. The boy was not sly about his questions.
‘Why do you concern yourself with what I am here for?’ she said.
‘Oh. A mystery, is it?’
Abigail wondered, for a moment, if this boy was asking questions for someone else. She looked around the square to see if anyone was watching, before telling herself to keep such ridiculous suspicions well chained, as Dr Drysdale would no doubt advise, were he to step out into this English square on this strange island.
A noise from behind her, and her husband appeared with Wallace. He looked at the boys.
‘Husband, this is Ken, and his burly companion is named Hippo, though not to his mother. Ken here will take us to a good place to stay.’
‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, mister,’ said Ken, somewhat regally. ‘And what brings you to St Helena?’
She raised a warning eyebrow. Charles smiled in return. After weeks at sea, weeks in which they had spoken only in their cabin and he had spent a good deal of time working as a sailor while she watched and conversed with the steward, it felt like a reunion of sorts. In any case, he seemed to have guessed her meaning.
‘My name is Horton, young fellow,’ he said. ‘And my business here is none of yours.’
Ken said nothing else as they walked along James Town’s single street. The fact that they were doing so suggested that her husband’s story had been believed by the Governor.
‘I will be,’ he had said, somewhere north of the line as they had lain in their tiny cabin aboard the Martha, ‘a botanist.’
She had laughed little enough since Rat’s death, but she laughed at that.
‘A botanist? Husband, you know as little of flowers as I know of whaling ships.’
He had smiled at her.
‘I have a letter from the President of the Royal Society that says I am a botanist, and that I am voyaging to St Helena to assess its suitability for a royal botanic garden,’ he had said. ‘And besides, I have a botanist with me, do I not?’
She remembered an old conversation about the naming of plants, and she wondered at how their lives had changed. The former nurse and the former Naval lieutenant, carrying a letter from the most famous scientific personage in England, pretending to be botanists.
But here they were, walking into James Town. Charles had not been arrested on the spot. Had a cat been set among the Governor’s pigeons? Or were they just another pair of do-gooders from the North, come to transplant species as Bligh had once come to Otaheite?
Ken stopped them outside a plain-looking two-storey building. There was no indication that it was anything other than a normal residence. A man was sleeping on its doorstep. He snored loudly. The house could have been a crofter’s summer residence: square, plain, its roof covered with what looked like a cross between brown mud and stone, dropped as if by gods from a Norfolk village onto this strange lonely island.
Its only notable feature was the man sleeping on the ground in front of its door, and the name of the house, which was painted on an old piece of wood nailed to its gate.
The man was dressed plainly, in cotton breeches and a white shirt. He wore his dark hair long and tied in a plait at his neck. There was something politely piratical about him. He could have been a sailor or a stevedore, and he snored as loudly as a pig.
The care taken in the sign was in stark contrast to the discombobulated figure snoring below it. The wood had been smoothed at the edges and corners, and the house’s name was painted in careful, elegant letters: ‘Castle of Otranto’.
‘Delightful!’ exclaimed Abigail.
‘What is?’ replied Charles.
‘You do not recognise the reference in the name?’
‘I do not.’
‘The Castle of Otranto is a book by Horace Walpole. It is a favourite of mine.’
‘Is it about natural philosophy?’
‘No, of course it isn’t. It is a novel.’
‘Ah. A long book about things that never happened.’
Abigail glared at him.
‘This is the place?’ Charles said, doubtfully, to Ken.
‘Aye – that’s Seale, there, a-lying on the ground. He keeps a room. Now, mister. As to payment.’
Horton took out a leather purse. He fished out a shilling and handed it over. Ken gawped at it and looked back at Horton with new-found respect.
‘There’s more for you, lad. If you help me. Now you have friends?’
‘Friends?’
‘Other boys. Like Hippo here. Though perhaps with more . . . understanding.’
‘Yes. There are others.’
‘Well then. Keep an eye out for me, here and about James Town. There may be errands I need running.’
Ken looked at him carefully.
‘Well, now,’ he said. ‘I’ll consider it, mister. I will consider it. But you’re somewhat mysterious, you are.’ He put the coin in his pocket. ‘We’ll see, shall we? Come, Hippo.’
And with that strange little speech, the boys made their way back down into James Town.
‘Your story, husband?’ she said. Charles watched the boys walking away.
‘My story was believed, I think.’ He looked at her. ‘The Governor was surprised, but Sir Joseph’s letter carried weight and was well composed. I gained the impression that the Governor is expecting a great change in the island’s fortunes – as if its status was shortly to be changed. How or why I do not know. But what will be will be. Our story means we have no need to creep around like footpads. This is an island. No one will escape it until a ship comes. Captain Burroughs will, I am sure, soon know of our arrival.’
‘How will he respond?’
‘I have no idea. We are, as it were, locked into a cage with the creature we are pursuing. So we may have to bring the game to him. Who knows? Perhaps he already has his little spies.’ Another look at the boys, then Charles turned towards the house.
‘Now, let us see about this Castle of yours.’
Charles knelt down and shook the man who was sleeping at the door by the shoulder.
‘Hello? Hello?’
The man sat up and spluttered slightly. He smelled strongly of liquor, and as he stood Abigail saw he was hopelessly intoxicated. Turning to the door he banged on it with his fists.
‘Eliza! Eliza! Let me in, I say!’
A muffled woman’s voice shouted back from within the house. He turned back to Horton and Abigail.
‘One kiss! One bloody kiss! And now see!’
He turned to bang on the door again. His transition from sleeping drunk to angry drunk had been sudden and violent, and Charles looked to be about to pull him away when the door opened and water was violently ejected from within, all over the man and all over Charles.
With a roar, the man plunged into the house, pursued by Charles, who grabbed for his waistcoat but could do no more than slow him down. Abigail followed them both inside.
The door gave onto a small parlour which was surprisingly dark after the bleached-white sunshine of the street. But it was also cool. A young woman in a dirty muslin dress stood in the middle of the room holding an earthenware jug, the water from which now dripped down the front of Charles and the owner of the house.
‘Monstrous creature!’ shouted the man. ‘How dare you take occupation of my residence so?’
‘I saw you! I bloody saw you!’
‘It was a solitary kiss! A single solitary kiss! Can a widower not kiss a girl?’
The woman threw the jug at him, and he ducked, and Charles swerved away, and the thing smashed into the wall and was destroyed. The woman followed its trajectory, slapping the man in the face as she left, and exited without giving Charles or Abigail even a glance.
The man collapsed with a half-roared sigh into an ancient chair. He looked about to fall asleep when he noticed them.
‘Who in the name of God are you?’
‘My name is Horton. I am just arrived on the island. This is my wife.’
‘Well, you appear to be standing in my house. Would you please make yourself scarce? And close the door behind you.’
And with that, he fell asleep.
They talked about finding another room, but Charles argued they should wait until the man awoke again. ‘He spoke with the drink before,’ he said. ‘He may think differently. All we need is a room, and this place is pleasant enough.’
For herself, she was happy to find out more about this man and his oddly named house. To find a dwelling with such a name as the Castle of Otranto out here on the rim of the known world and not to investigate its owner would be drearily complacent.
The man slept for an hour, no more. When he woke, he saw the two of them sitting in chairs looking at him.
‘Who in God’s name are you?’ he asked, for the second time.
‘My name is Horton,’ said Charles. ‘We seek a room to lodge in for a fortnight, no more.’
‘Didn’t I tell you to clear off?’
‘You told us so, yes. And yet here we are.’
The man blinked, and made as if to stand. But Abigail got up first and passed him a cupful of the clear water she’d taken from a jug in the little kitchen. She’d tasted the water – it was the coldest, sweetest liquid ever to have passed her lips. It must have made its way down from those mountains in the island’s interior.
He looked at her as he took the cup, and she smiled, and despite what must be the beginnings of an enormous hangover, he smiled back, and drank with relief.
He was young, tall and well built. He needed to shave. Despite his drink and his incipient headache, he looked astonishingly healthy.
He drained the cup, closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead.
‘What happened to Eliza?’ he said.
‘She left,’ said Abigail. ‘In something of a hurry.’
‘Dammit. No one’s secrets are truly secret on this bloody island.’ He looked at her again. ‘My apologies, ma’am.’
‘No apology is necessary, sir.’
‘One should not speak thus in front of one such as thee,’ the man said, somewhat wolfishly. Despite her husband’s presence in the room he seemed unembarrassed to talk so. He was a man with an easy way with women, it seemed.
‘We seem to have interrupted a terrible disagreement,’ she said. ‘But I’m afraid the matter of a room is an urgent one to us. Can you accommodate us?’
He smiled at her, and then he frowned.
‘Your name’s Horton?’
‘That’s right,’ said Charles.
‘And your business on the island?’
Charles’s face did not change. It was odd, watching him lie so smoothly.
‘I am a botanist.’
‘A what?’
Charles did not quite know what to say to that, so Abigail replied for him.
‘My husband is an associate of the Royal Society, sir. He is an investigator of plant species and their uses and habitats.’
The man smiled at her.
‘And what, pray tell, good lady, is the Royal Society?’
For a moment, she did not know how to answer. The Society was such a part of her life in London that the question seemed extraordinary, as if he had asked her what is the Thames? But then, why should a young man on the far side of the world know anything of the Royal Society?
‘It is a society appointed by the Crown to pursue natural philosophy and investigation,’ she said, smoothly. ‘For the benefit of King, country and mankind.’
‘Indeed? Then I am blessed by the presence of its representatives, am I not?’
‘Blessed, sir? I think not. We will have you classified and registered before the sun goes down.’
The man sat back in his chair smiling and rubbing the stubble on his cheek. Then he stood and went towards the kitchen. Before he got there, he turned to Charles.
‘Your wife is handsome and clever. There must be something about you. You may stay in my house.’
He went into the kitchen. Charles looked suddenly angry.
‘His tone is insulting,’ Charles said.
‘He meant no disrespect.’
‘One does not make so free with remarks about a man’s wife in London.’
‘He is not from London. We shall seek to adapt ourselves, as any creatures must when in a new environment.’
The man came back from the kitchen. ‘My name is Abigail, sir,’ she said. ‘Now, you have our names. Might we have yours?’
He looked at her while she spoke, and she saw that this man was a consumer of women as well as a charmer of them. His eyes twinkled with the crackle of male energy. She found herself liking him enormously. So refreshing, this lack of manners.
‘My name is Seale, ma’am. Robert Francis Seale. I am the assistant storekeeper here, with the rank of Captain.’
‘And you are an admirer of Mr Horace Walpole?’ said Abigail.
‘Not I, madam.’
‘Your house has rather a striking name, Captain Seale.’
‘Yes, but it is not mine. My wife must have been an admirer of this Mr Walpole. I confess to not having read his works. I never did understand the reference.’
‘Forgive me, but your wife is deceased?’
‘Yes. She fell ill, soon after we were wed. Her name was Harriet.’
It was an odd little echo, the name Harriet. A reminder of Wapping, so many thousands of miles away, where John Harriott might already be dead.
Stop it, she told herself, dismayed by the way her mind ran along such dark rails.
‘You have always lived on the island?’
‘My family has been here for some five generations. I was sent to school in England when my father died.’
‘To what part of England?’
‘Marlow. I chiefly remember the cold and the rain. I came back here eight years ago. I do my work, I drink my drink, and since I lost poor Harriet I make as free as I possibly can. It is a lonely life, but not a terrible one.’
‘You know the island well?’
‘Better than anyone! I have these past eight years been charting it extensively; I have my own little boat to explore the shores. You won’t find better maps than mine, Horton. I could show you some likely places for growing weeds.’
They made small idle chatter as the night came down, and grew comfortable with each other. Money was exchanged, and as the evening aged Abigail found herself cooking a meal for the two men, who talked in the parlour. It felt good to her to be cooking again, after so many weeks and months of travelling, of eating poor food prepared by a steward who had cared little for taste. Making something fresh and tasty was a positive pleasure.
Outside the window, it was night on the island. When she looked into the glass and saw her face reflected, there came a single moment of fear. Might someone be looking in at her, even now? Might she move her face forward and look into the glass and see the eyes of someone looking back at her – the same someone who wanted her dead back in London? The same someone who had smashed in Rat’s poor face with the poker from her own fire?
Her husband laughed in the Castle’s parlour. Quite suddenly, his laugh was not a happy sound.