Mr. James Thistlethwaite arrived on the second Sunday after they were admitted to Ceres. He appeared in the doorway warmly shaking Mr. Sykes’s hand, stepped across the threshold and stared at the crimson prison in disbelief.
“Jem! Jem!”
They embraced unashamedly, then held each other off to look. Close enough to ten years had gone by since last they met, and those ten years had wrought many changes in both men.
To Richard, Mr. Thistlethwaite looked mighty prosperous. His wine red suit was of the finest cloth, his buttons mohair, his head bewigged, his hat trimmed with gold braid, his fob gold, his watch gold, his black top boots absolutely gleaming. The paunch was noble, the face fuller and therefore less lined than it used to be, though the grog blossoms on his bulbous nose had flowered to an empurpled perfection. Beneath the shock, the look in his watery, bloodshot blue eyes was full of love.
To Mr. Thistlethwaite, Richard was like two men moving within each other, one surfacing briefly, the other taking his place for an equally short span of moments. The old Richard and the new, inextricably intertwined. Christ, he was handsome! How had he managed that? The stubble of hair seemed actually to have turned blacker than its old very dark brown, and his skin, weathered though it was, had the same flawless look ivory did. He was shaven and very clean, and the Sunday shirt open on his chest showed the ridges and columns of fatless muscle. Did he not feel the cold? This blood-red chamber was freezing, yet he wore no coat and seemed comfortable. His shoes and stockings were clean-oh, the fetters! Chains on patient, peaceful Richard Morgan. That did not bear thinking of. In his grey-blue Morgan eyes lay most of the change; they had used to be a little dreamy, a little smiling in a serious way, and always very gentle of expression. Now they were more directly focused on whatever he looked at, did not dream, did not smile, and were definitely not gentle of expression.
“Richard, how much you have
“William Stanley from Seend, this is Mr. James Thistlethwaite,” Richard said to a wizened, tiny little man who hovered. “Now give us some elbow room. Everybody leave us in peace, hear? I will do the introductions later. Privacy,” he said to Jem, “is the scarcest commodity aboard Ceres, but it can be obtained. Sit down, do!”
“Ye’re the head man!” Jem said in wonder.
“No, I am not. I refuse to be. It is just that occasionally I have to be a trifle forceful-but we all do that when provoked. The head man is a notion full of sound and fury, and I am no more a talker now than I was in Bristol. Nor do I want to lead any man other than myself. Needs must, Jem, is all. They are sometimes like sheep, and I would not have them go to the slaughter. Save for Will Connelly, another Bristolian from Colston’s under a good Head, they have little skill in using their wits. And the true difference between Will Connelly and me can best be summed up as Cousin James-the-druggist. Had I not known him and had he not been so good to me, the Richard Morgan ye see now would not exist. I would be like those poor Liverpudlian Irish down there, a fish out of water.” He smiled brilliantly, leaned forward to take Mr. Thistlethwaite’s hand. “Now tell me all about yourself. Ye look exceeding grand.”
“I can afford to look exceeding grand, Richard.”
“Did ye marry money like any true Bristolian?”
“Nay. Though I do make my money from women. Ye’re looking at a man who-under a nom de plume, naturally-writes novels for the delectation of ladies. To read novels is the latest female passion-comes of all this teaching them to read but not letting them
“And are ye married these days?”
“Nay again. I have two mistresses, both of whom are married to other, lesser men. And that is enough about me. I want to hear about you, Richard.”
Richard shrugged. “There is little to tell, Jem. I spent three months in the Bristol Newgate, exactly a year in Gloucester Gaol, and am now two weeks into however long I shall be aboard Ceres. In Bristol I sat and read books. In Gloucester I lumped stones. On Ceres I dredge the Thames bottom, which is a nothing to one weaned on Bristol mud at low tide. Though all of us find it hard when we bring up the corpse of a baby.”
They passed then to the important consideration of money and how to safeguard hoards of gold coins.
“Sykes will be no trouble,” said Jem. “I slipped him a guinea and he rolled over to present me with his belly like any other cur. Be of good cheer. I will come to an arrangement with Mr. Sykes to buy ye whatever ye need by way of food or drink. That goes for your friends too. Ye look as trim as a sloop, but ye’re thin.”
Richard shook his head. “No to the food, Jem, and small beer only. There are almost a hundred men in here, give or take the few who die regularly. Each man watches hawkish to see how much the pursers dish out to every other man. All we need to do is preserve our existing money and perhaps beg more from you if it becomes necessary. We have been lucky enough to encounter an ambitious dredgeman and the Thames is full of bum boats. So we eat well at midday on our dredge for tuppence a man, everything from salt fish to fresh vegetables and fruit. Ike Rogers and his youngsters are succeeding in taming their dredgeman too.”
“It is hard to credit,” said Jem slowly, “but ye’re full of purpose and almost enjoying this. ’Tis the responsibility.”
“ ’Tis belief in God sustains me. I still have faith, Jem. For a convict, I have had remarkable good luck. A woman called Lizzie Lock in Gloucester, who kept my belongings safe and taught me how to ply a needle. She turned cartwheels over the hat, by the way, and I cannot thank ye enough. We miss the women, for reasons I explained to ye in one of my letters, as I remember. I have kept my health and sharpened my wits. And here in this assemblage of womanless brutes, we have managed to carve a niche for ourselves, thanks to an avaricious jockey and an ambitious dredgeman who combines Methodism with rum, tobacco and laziness. Queer bedfellows, but I have known queerer.”
His dripstone was standing on the table near him, and, it seemed absently, he put his hand out to stroke it. A curious hush and murmur arose among those in the crimson chamber, intrigued enough at the advent of a visitor to watch in hang-dog envy. But the reaction of all those men to Richard’s idle gesture was a mystery Mr. Thistlethwaite’s sensitive nose itched to explore.
“Provided he has a little money, avarice is a convict’s best friend,” Richard went on, putting his hand back on top of its fellow. “Here, men come far cheaper than thirty pieces of silver. ’Tis folk like the Northumbrians and Liverpudlians I feel sorriest for. They have not a penny between them. So they mostly die of disease or pure hopelessness. Some of them it seems God has a purpose for-they survive. And the Londoners upstairs are astonishing hardy, with all the cunning of starving rats. They live by different rules, I think-perhaps gigantic cities are entire countries in themselves, with their own way of looking at life. Not our way, but I discount a lot of what I hear on the Ceres orlop about the Londoners. The Ceres orlop contains the rest of England. Our gaolers are venal and deviant into the bargain. And then ye must stir the likes of William Stanley from Seend into the mixing bowl. He milks the way this place functions better than a dairymaid her pet cow. And we all of us from Hanks and Sykes through the rum coves, snitches, hicks, cullies and boozers to the dying wretches on that platform over there walk a rope across a pit of fire. One inch too far either way, and we fall.” He drew a breath, surprised at his own eloquence. “Though no one in his right mind could call what we play a game, it does share some things in common with a game. There is plenty of wit involved, but also some luck, and it seems God has given me luck.”
It was during this speech that Mr. Thistlethwaite suddenly understood much about Richard Morgan that had always teased and tormented him. Richard had spent his life in Bristol as a raft, pushed and pulled at the direction, sometimes the whim, of others. Despite his griefs and disasters, he had remained that passive raft. Even William Henry’s disappearance had not provided him with a rudder. What Ceely Trevillian had done for him was to pitch him into an ocean wherein a raft would founder. An ocean wherein Richard perceived his brethren as incapable of floating, and therefore took them upon his own shoulders. Prison had given him a star to steer by, and his own will had swelled sails he did not even know he possessed. Because he was a man who had to have someone to love
