Читать книгу The Scent of Death - Andrew Taylor, Andrew Taylor - Страница 9

I had met Samuel Noak on the voyage from England.

Mr Rampton, my patron, had arranged my passage on the Earl of Sandwich, a Post Office packet of which he was part-owner. The ship’s principal purpose was to carry the mails to and from North America and the West Indies. The owners supplemented the considerable income they derived from this by squeezing a handful of passengers into the cramped cabins. Most of them were, like myself, travelling on official business. But there were a few who made the voyage in a private capacity. Such a one was Mr Noak.

He and I were thrown into immediate intimacy for we were obliged to share a cabin little bigger than the commodious kennel that housed Mr Rampton’s mastiff at his house in the country. Noak was a small, spare man who wore his own sandy hair with only a modicum of powder for gentility’s sake and tied it with a brown ribbon. He scraped back the hair so tightly that the bones of his face seemed to poke through the skin. His figure was youthful but he might have been any age between twenty and forty. He spoke with a thin, nasal voice, and always with deliberation, in an accent that I later discovered was characteristic of his native Massachusetts. There was something of the puritan about him, a sourness of mien.

Even before we had weighed anchor, I resolved to keep a proper distance between Mr Noak and myself during the passage to New York. But I had not reckoned with the peculiar swaying motion of the ocean, let alone with the terrifying effects of rough weather.

Within a few hours of our leaving Falmouth, I descended into an abyss of spiritual and physical suffering. I was convinced that I was dying – that the ship was sinking; and my condition was so miserable that, for all I cared, the world might end in the next instant, which would at least put a period to my agonies.

It was then that I began to see Samuel Noak in a different light. For it was he who sponged my brow, who emptied my basin, who assisted me to the heads. It was he who forced me to undergo what he assured me was an old naval remedy for mal de mer: to wit, to swallow a lump of greasy pork again and again until the stomach no longer had strength to resist it.

Slowly, over the long days and longer nights, my symptoms subsided. Mr Noak brought me Souchong tea laced with rum and spooned it into my mouth, which eased my aching gut and at last encouraged me to fall into the first unbroken sleep I had enjoyed since leaving England.

Given Noak’s kindness, I could hardly hold the man at arm’s length, even if I had wished to do so. As I recovered, we slipped by degrees into a relationship that was something less than friendship but much more than mere acquaintance. It is difficult not to be civil to a man who has restored you to life.

‘Will you remain in New York, sir?’ I asked him one afternoon. The weather was calmer now, and we were strolling on deck after dinner. ‘Or do you travel on?’

‘No, sir – I have a position waiting for me in the city. A clerk’s desk in a contractor’s house. A friend of my uncle’s procured it for me.’

‘I’m surprised you should wish to leave London. The opportunities must be far greater there.’

‘True,’ he said. ‘But in New York I shall be a senior clerk, whereas in London I had no hope of advancement at all. Besides, I had a desire to see my native land again.’

‘Where were you employed?’

‘At Mr Yelland’s in the Middle Temple, sir. I had been there for three years.’

‘I believe I know the gentleman. That is to say, I have come across him once or twice.’

‘Indeed?’

‘I have a position at the American Department,’ I explained. ‘As you know, Mr Yelland acts as the British man of business for many Loyalists. He sometimes favours us with communications on their behalf.’

That was an understatement, as Noak must surely have known. Mr Yelland was one of several London attorneys who had reason to bless this unnecessary war, for it was proving very lucrative for them. He and his colleagues kept up a steady flow of letters to the Department. London was packed with displaced Loyalists who were convinced that the American Department owed them compensation for the losses they had sustained because of their attachment to the Crown.

‘Will you stay long in New York, sir?’ Mr Noak asked after a pause.

‘A month. Possibly two. Lord George has entrusted me with a commission and I do not know how long it will take.’

Mr Noak nodded, as if making a token obeisance to the august name of Lord George Germain, the Secretary of State for the American Department. The truth of my appointment was more prosaic: Mr Rampton, one of the two under secretaries, had decided that I should go to New York. Lord George had signed the necessary order, but I was not perfectly convinced that His Lordship knew who I was.

‘Perhaps we may encounter one another there,’ Noak said.

‘Perhaps, sir,’ I agreed, privately resolving that for my part I would not pursue the acquaintance once we reached America.

‘Where will you lodge?’

‘At Judge Wintour’s. He is an old friend of Mr Rampton, the under secretary.’

‘Ah yes,’ he said. ‘Of course.’

‘Are you acquainted with the Judge?’

‘Only by reputation, sir.’ Mr Noak paused. ‘They say his daughter-in-law is a great beauty.’

‘Indeed.’

‘And the heiress to Mount George, as well.’

‘I believe the air is growing chilly. I think I shall go below.’

‘Once seen,’ Mr Noak said quietly, ‘never forgotten. That’s what they say. Mrs Arabella Wintour, I mean.’