Victory

He went on in the same tone: ‘When your brother is in better knowledge of his future, no doubt there will be an arrangement. Thomas, as you know, is in possession of a small but respectable fortune and is frugal in his habits. I’m sanguine he’ll feel able to assist in the matter of respectable lodgings while I pursue my studies.’

Cecilia smiled encouragingly. ‘Perhaps you would oblige me, Nicholas, by disclosing the progress in your great work.’

Renzi had sailed as a free settler to New South Wales, hoping to make his fortune there to lay before Cecilia, then ask for her hand in marriage. But his foray into crop-raising had ended in ruin and he had seized Kydd’s suggestion of a project to enable him eventually to press his suit: he had embarked on an ambitious literary endeavour, a study of the varied cultural responses to the human experience. To enable this Kydd had promised to employ him as clerk aboard whichever ship he might captain and give him the opportunity to work on his studies in his free time.

Renzi put down his cup carefully and steepled his fingers. ‘I own, my dear, it’s been a harder beat to windward than ever I calculated when first taking up my pen. An overplus of facts, as who should say data, and a cacophony of opinions from even the most eminent.’

Cecilia listened attentively. ‘And in this – dare I say it? – you shine above all others,’ she said warmly, ‘particularly in the art of untangling for us all the threads of the matter to its own true conclusion.’

Renzi took refuge in his tea, then went on, ‘Nevertheless, I must achieve an order, a purpose to the volume, which I might modestly claim to have now laid down in its substance, it yet lacking the form.’

‘Then it may be said that your travails are near crowned with success?’ she said eagerly.

‘Writing is a labour of love but a labour for all that,’ Renzi admitted, ‘yet the end cannot be far delayed.’

She straightened and, in a brisk voice that he recognised from long before, she said firmly, ‘It does occur to me, Nicholas, that there is a course of action you may wish to pursue, given that you are now without means of any kind.’

‘There is?’

‘Have you considered the actual publishing of your work?’

‘Um, not in so much detail,’ Renzi said uncomfortably.

‘Well, then, think on this. Do you not feel that if your work has its merits, then when published it will be bought in its scores – hundreds, even? Your publisher would stand to turn a pretty penny in his bookselling – why not approach one and offer that if he should convey to you now a proportion of this revenue for the purposes of keeping body and soul together, you would agree that he would be the only one with the honour to print it?’

‘Oh, er, here we’re speaking of a species of investment, of risk. I cannot imagine that one of your grand publishers would top it the moneylender, dear lady.’

‘But it would not harm to enquire of one, to see which way the wind blows, as you sailors say. You will do this, Nicholas, won’t you?’

‘I really don’t think—’

‘Oh, please, Nicholas, to gratify me . . .’

‘Er, well, I—’

‘Thank you! Just think that very soon you shall hold in your hand the book that will make you famous.’

Kydd walked across the cobbled courtyard and mounted the steps through the noble portico of the Admiralty. He nodded familiarly to the door-keeper and turned left in the entrance hall for the Captains’ Room.

‘G’ morning,’ he said affably, as he strode in. Weary grunts came from the other unemployed commanders and Kydd crossed to his usual chair. He looked up quizzically at the bored porter, who in return shook his head. No news.

In a black humour he picked up an old newspaper but could not concentrate. The pain of his dear Teazer’s passing had now ebbed and he was coming to terms with it, but its further consequence was dire. He was once again in his career besieging the Admiralty for a ship – but this time with little hope.

The country was in deadly peril, which meant that every conceivable vessel – in reserve, dockyard hands, between commissions – was sent to sea as soon as possible at full stretch in the defence of the realm. There were, therefore, none that could in any way be termed surplus or otherwise available for even the most worthy of commanders. And in this room there were at least a dozen, all of them senior to him and some with a more glorious fighting record. What chance did he have?

One slid off his chair with a snore and awoke looking confused; there was tired laughter and the tedium descended again.

He rose irritably to pace down the room. Deep in black thoughts, he heard a polite cough from the doorway.

‘Why, Mr Bowden! What do you here?’ he said warmly.

‘I was just passing, sir, visiting my uncle.’ It brought a pang for Kydd to meet the midshipman he had seen grow from the raw and sensitive lad he had taken under his wing as a lieutenant in Tenacious to the intelligent and capable young man learning his trade under himself in Teazer. It had been his first command and they had grown together in different ways. They had parted in the Peace when Teazer had been laid up in ordinary, but after those years here was Bowden, strong and assured and clearly on his way to higher things.

‘You’ve found a quarterdeck, I trust?’ Kydd asked, trying to hide his own feelings.

‘I have, sir – it’s naught but a first-rate on blockade I’m to join. I’m sanguine the sport to be had in her cannot stand against our Teazer, sir.’ Something made him hesitate. ‘You’re still in her, Mr Kydd?’

‘No, I’m sorry to say. She’s . . . no more. We took a quilting off the French coast and she foundered within sight o’ home.’ At Bowden’s shocked look he hastened to say, ‘Not much of a butcher’s bill, thank God.’