Another Small Kingdom (3 page)

‘The problem with slavery, gentlemen, is that it has become symbolic of what some are choosing to call “The Rights of Man”. In doing so it sets business, or as our esteemed friend would have it, economics, against religion …'

‘Then damn all religion …'

‘Oh no, sir, not all religion. Just those misguided few who believe that this fallen state of ours can be made perfect on this earth by our own efforts. They're idealists and of course one admires their ideals. But here on earth, gentlemen, history teaches we must deal with life as we find it. That means allowing that the Devil will always be somewhere at work in men's affairs. And when that particular gentlemen gets involved then certain niceties, which we may all admire, must be foregone. As for the rights and wrongs of slavery, I can do no better than quote The Declaration of Independence, on which this great new country first took its stand as a nation. We all know and love those words, “that
all men are created equal
, that they are endowed, by their
Creator
, with certain
unalienable Rights
, that among these are
Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness
” …'

‘If you have a point, sir, damn well make it. This isn't a school room nor yet a lecture hall.'

‘I will, sir, I will.' But,having observed the fate of business, scholarship paused to take a drink of wine before continuing. ‘If we are to deal with the question of slavery …'

‘No question to deal with, sir. Always have been slaves, always will. Stands to reason.'

‘Quite, but as I was saying, let us look at the Declaration. Are slaves, black men and women, who are traded like cattle, to be considered as endowed by God, like you and I, with unalienable rights?'

‘Good point sir. Well made point.'

‘Biblical, gentlemen, positively Biblical.'

‘And mark the words that follow.“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from …” pause for emphasis, “… the consent of the governed”. Gentlemen I ask you, as men of business and of sense, are slaves among the governed? Do they vote? Are they free citizens like you or I? Or are they property?'

‘Well taken, sir.'

‘Might as well give a cow the vote and call it free.'

Laughter.

‘Good point, sound reasoning.'

‘Do they participate in and contribute to the political life of the country, gentlemen, as we all do? I think not, gentlemen, I think not.'

A dissenting voice intruded.

‘Clever words, perhaps, but what the hell has it to do with the matter in hand, sir?'

‘Only this. Businessmen may talk economics and governments write declarations but the cloven hoof will be there, gentlemen. Anyone who thinks otherwise need look no further than Santo Domingo.'

A silence fell and a hushed voice murmured.

‘Aye, Toussaint L'Ouverture.'

This brought a short, worried pause as heads nodded.

The scholar continued.

‘Toussaint L'Ouverture indeed. No slavery has been his cry one way or another for many a year. He pushed the British out and he's pushed the French out and what we now have in our own backyard is no less than a Black Republic with him at its head.'

‘I heard he's declared himself Dictator for life.'

‘Aye, that's what I heard.'

‘What isn't perhaps so well known, gentlemen, is that for some years he has been hand in glove with Hamilton and the Federalists. He has signed trade treaties as an independent ruler with both America and Britain, secret treaties giving him recognition and power.'

‘But if blacks can have a Republic, why then, dammit, what next?'

‘Just so, gentlemen, and as I said, hand in glove with the Federalists as well as the British. Fine bedfellows are they not?'

With the subject finally back to politics the mood changed once again and the scholar sat back, well pleased with the reaction his words had produced.

‘So what are you saying? Hamilton and the Federalists have been in league with the British against American interests?'

‘What about Adams? Is he in this as well?'

‘Is it treason we're talking here?'

At this bold and dangerous question the scholar's enthusiasm for the subject promptly expired with a gasp of fear, alarmed at the forces his oratory had unleashed.

‘Oh, no. I don't think, gentlemen, my observations and deductions should bear quite that interpretation. No, no, I could not go quite so far as that.'

‘And it would be a black lie if anyone said it was true of any of them.' One of their number had stood up and looked around fiercely. ‘They disagree, as politicians do. But they're true Americans and patriots, and I'll back that opinion with pistols or swords any time anyone cares to question it.'

Passions rose at this challenge. Tempers were ready to flare and sides were on the brink of being taken. For a moment violence threatened. Then a calm voice asked, ‘What about that place the Sierra Leone Company set up in West Africa? Freetown wasn't it? A settlement for freed slaves who fought for the British in the war. That means something, I venture. If the British have paid someone to make provision for some of their freed slaves it certainly looks like they've turned against slavery.'

Another equally calm voice took up the question and poured more oil on the troubled waters.

‘Aye, sir, but they've put them back on the slave coast, where they came from in the first place. Putting them there is just putting them back into someone else's slave boats.'

‘Seems to me a damned funny way to deal with men who've fought your wars for you.'

‘Not so, sir. Twice sold goods means twice gained profits. Damn clever the British, and good at business. I've always said so.'

The general laughter at these sallies broke the danger. The fierce man looked round defiantly but, encountering no opposition, sat down and the talk resumed.

‘I guess one way or another slavery's going to be an issue whether we like it or not.'

The minds of the men in the room concentrated on the awful implications of a world where the free transport of slaves no longer existed. With an almost superhuman effort and a long pull at his port the serious-minded member harrumphed himself to the floor again. This time, considering the vast import of the topic under discussion, he was determined to hold it.

‘Half an economy, gentlemen, as I was saying, is no damned economy at all. What we need to consider is this war. France looks strong, I admit, but France won't save cotton. They've lost out in the Caribbean and won't be in a hurry to return. If it wasn't for their incomprehensible stance on the slavery issue I might be inclined to say we should consider some sort of agreement with the British.'

But a sudden flank movement caught him unawares.

‘Aye, but will they win this war or lose it? Last year when the Austrians pulled out I thought we were getting somewhere.'

‘Gentlemen, what I say is …' But it was too late. Let your flank once be turned and, as every strategist knows, you quickly lose the battle. The talk turned to Europe, the war and the politics of war. Slavery and cotton had been dealt with and were now finished. The general feeling emerged that it was good to see England on its own at last. Now, if Napoleon really put his mind to it, the whole thing could be finished off and trade could resume. They had lunched well and the port and Madeira wine had circulated freely, sharpening further their already finely honed minds. The conversation became optimistic. Admittedly the British had done better than expected. But they couldn't go on alone.

‘I give them six months, a year at the outside. Then the Mad German and his foppish prince of a son will be back home in Hanover happy to have their heads still on their shoulders.'

‘And then things can get back to normal.'

‘And Napoleon will be in London telling their damned Parliament what to do and how to do it.'

There was laughter, then a pause as each of them looked at the brighter future they had at last talked themselves into. Finally a voice observed,

‘The British Republic. Now there's a thing I'd like to see, gentlemen. That Union Flag of theirs flying over the Republican Union of Great Britain.'

And the room was again full of laughter.

Chapter Four

E
uan Macleod had been an astute man of business but also a man careful of his social position so, when the part of Boston Common bounded by Tremont Street and surrounding the old Granary burying ground was sold off, Euan bought and built. The result was a fine town house, a befitting monument to a man at the forefront of Boston commerce.

The house now stood, shuttered and silent, day and night, to all intents and purposes closed up and empty. What few rooms were occupied looked out over the Burying Ground and had been chosen by Macleod for that very reason.

That night, as he did every night, Lawyer Macleod sat in the library reading. The heavy curtains were drawn but could only muffle the sound of wind and rain hammering on the windows. Inside the room a tallcase clock ticked solemnly in the gloom, its hands nearing eleven. A lamp stood on a table by the side of his high-backed chair. It was turned low and its weak light struggled against the pervading gloom. Beside it was a heavy glass tumbler and a decanter, both of which held a dark golden liquid. Macleod was wearing a thick dressing gown with a woollen night-cap pulled down over his ears. On his hands were woollen fingerless gloves. His chair and the chair opposite him were positioned to take advantage of the large, elegant fireplace, designed for a fire the warmth and light from which would have touched even the remotest corners of such a large room. The seating arrangement was left over from his father's days when the main rooms in the house were often full of warmth and laughter and Euan and his wife would sit of an evening talking together or reading.

Macleod had changed nothing in the big house but had closed up most of the rooms, the furniture dust-sheeted and the windows permanently shuttered. No fires ever burned now in the elegant fireplaces. In the library the dusty books mouldered on their shelves. A fine set of brass fire-irons kept a useless vigil in the fireplace and a well-worked fire-screen stood in a permanent melancholy of disuse at their side.

Macleod read on grimly, an old blanket over his legs and his shabbily slippered feet kept from the cold floor by a small, threadbare footstool. He paused his reading only to take a drink or to refresh his glass. To an observer, had there been one, the scene could have passed for that of a more than usually close-fisted miser with a weakness for books and whisky. He was forty-four years old but his face looked older and carried the marks of suffering.

His book was
A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Against The Attack of M. Turgot in his Letter to Dr. Price, dated the Twenty Second of March 1778
written by John Adams. When that was done there would be others of a similar stamp, for Macleod's choice of reading was governed by a simple rule. The work should be dry, difficult and complex so that his mind, while struggling with abstruse arguments, constructed around complex political ideas, had its hands full and therefore had no time to slip into any thoughtfulness or memory.

He paused in his reading. The doorbell had been rung. He waited. It rang again – a persistent visitor. He waited again, and eventually the bell rang a third time. A very persistent visitor, and one who chose to call at such a late hour and in such weather. But he dismissed the matter from his mind. The cook-housekeeper would answer the door, although she wouldn't be in any hurry to do so. If the visitor cared to wait he would find out soon enough what it was all about. Macleod returned to his book.

Lawyer Macleod's French cook-housekeeper was the only servant now and was slow from necessity of age and from inclination of temperament. She had been with his family many years, brought from Paris as maid to his mother on her marriage. Macleod didn't know how old she was and he was sure that she herself had stopped counting a long time ago. However, it was not because of her age alone that she never hurried to answer the door. It was because she nursed a deep and rooted dislike of everyone. Amélie took pleasure now in only two things, making herself disagreeable to the few visitors who came to see the lawyer, and cooking badly for her master, neither of which bothered Macleod. He hardly noticed what he ate and, as far as visitors were concerned, anyone who wanted to see him at home had to put up with waiting for Amélie to open the door. Everyone knew that if you didn't like waiting then Lawyer Macleod wouldn't give a tinker's curse whether you stayed or went. The office was the place for business, home was the place for family and friends and, as Lawyer Macleod had no family and didn't want any friends, he expected and got very few visitors. After some time the cook walked unhurriedly into the library carrying a lamp, she crossed the room and threw a visiting card on the table.

‘Un homme. Il attend dans la rue.'

‘Mais il pleut. Pourquoi dans la rue?'

Amélie shrugged.

‘Pourquoi pas?'

Macleod didn't really care if his visitor was waiting in the street and it was raining. It was just a response made from habit. He knew from experience any discussion of anything with Amélie ended up in some maddeningly inconsequential way. Amélie stood waiting. Macleod knew she could speak English well enough if she wanted to. But he also knew she never wanted to, so he picked up the thick, gold-edged card and read the name. Cedric Bentley. He knew Bentley well. They had served together several times in the army. Now Macleod acted as his business lawyer. Bentley had large holdings in cotton, interests in one or two of the newer newspapers in Massachusetts and fingers in numerous other lucrative pies. He was an important man who had powerful business and political connections. He had hinted to the lawyer that he and some friends were preparing something new and big, very big indeed. Knowing Bentley and knowing that cotton money was having to find new investments because of the European war, Lawyer Macleod had guessed it would be armaments. There was good money in mass destruction and there was going to be a lot more. More than in cotton, even when the European business was finished and trade picked up. Bentley was a good client and soon he would be a better one. Macleod spoke to the old cook in fluent French with the Paris accent he had picked up from her and his mother.

‘Send him in and then stay out of the way.'

Amélie left the study muttering. Macleod only caught the words she fully intended he should catch, ‘cochon', ‘idiot', and ‘merde'. He looked at the card and thought about the visit. On those very rare occasions when Bentley chose to call at his home rather than his office it was to give him instructions which were of such a private nature that any office, even Macleod's, could not be considered sufficiently secure. But such visits were not usually conducted at night. Why the lateness of the hour and, just as strange, why an unarranged meeting? Macleod was intrigued.

Bentley came into the library and crossed the room into the light of Macleod's lamp. He was a man of similar age to the lawyer but, unlike him, his bearing and clothes announced his wealth and position. He was not only a successful man of business, he was a man of fashion which, in Boston society, was much the more important of the two. Macleod stood up and they shook hands. He offered no apology for the wait in the rain his guest had suffered. This was his home and here he did things entirely to suit himself, even if it was business.

‘Sit down, Bentley,' he gestured to the chair on the other side of the fireplace on the edge of the light. Bentley sat down and rubbed his gloved hands at the cold in the library. He put his hat on the floor by his chair but he kept his wet top-coat on and buttoned up. He looked at the whisky on the table at Macleod's elbow. He would have preferred brandy but on such a cold, wet night even a glass of Macleod's whisky would be welcome. He waited, still rubbing his hands to emphasise his need for a glass of something warming. Macleod replaced the blanket round his legs, put his feet onto his footstool and looked impassively at his unbidden guest. Giving up on any hospitality, Bentley took off his gloves, dropped them onto his hat and gestured at the lamp.

‘Turn that up, Macleod, there's no need for us to peer at each other through such gloom is there?' Macleod reached out and turned up the lamp. Why not? A few cents for extra oil would go on Bentley's regular bill. ‘Damn me, man, why no fire in here? It's cold enough for Valley Forge.'

‘As I remember you were never at Valley Forge and neither was I, so I can't say one way or another. You chose to call, Bentley, you weren't invited, so you must take me as you find me.' Macleod took out a large handkerchief and blew his nose long and loudly. Having made his point, that it was Bentley who wanted to speak to Macleod and not the other way round, he continued. ‘It's you and your friends' new business I suppose?'

‘No, not the new business, at least not in any way you might think.'

‘You and your friends not ready then?'

‘Not yet, not quite yet, but soon I think, perhaps quite soon. No this is something local, not what you'd call business at all.'

‘Well then, if it's not business it can be nothing to me. Outside of business our lives don't touch and I don't care that they should. I'm not a social man as you well know and I don't care to have friends, old or new.'

Bentley was never comfortable talking to Macleod and especially so if it wasn't straight business talk, but he composed himself as best he could and began.

‘You know young Darcy?'

‘I know him well enough to know he's a third-rate lawyer and a first-rate fool. There's no point in knowing any more because he'll soon be hightailing it back to the Carolinas or wherever it is down South the nincompoop hails from.'

‘Savannah. He's from Savannah.'

‘The Carolinas, Savannah, the moon. What is it to me where he comes from?'

Bentley paused, then leaned forward and spoke slowly and deliberately.

‘He's found out about the French Girl.' He saw Macleod stiffen slightly and allowed himself an inner smile. ‘But you're not to kill him. Understand? You're not to kill him.'