‘I will not be returning to the south in the Beagle - the Admiralty has other plans for her. The journey is to be a private undertaking. But — ’
‘Not in the Beagle?’ interjected Bennet, stunned. Unsure of his manners in such company, he had chosen - despite being invited to take a seat - to hover by the door like a sentry standing easy. And now he had let himself down.
‘I shall explain later, Mr Bennet.’
‘I’m sorry, sir.’
‘I must own, Mr Wilson, that your proposition takes me by surprise. Of course, any such venture would have to receive the blessing of the Admiralty, as they have sponsored the education of the Fuegians. Provided that you can find two brave souls willing to habit that Godforsaken coast, I see no reason why I should not be of assistance, but that is a considerable provision. Tierra del Fuego has claimed many European lives. I would not consign any man to those wild shores without his being fully cognizant of the dangers involved.’
‘The modern evangelist is a muscular Christian, Captain FitzRoy. He has tamed the cannibal islands of the South Seas and has made inroads into darkest Africa. We cannot exempt any part of God’s earth from receiving the light of His love.’
Any further discussion on the matter was postponed by the return of Mrs Jenkins, with the news that classes were over, and that Jemmy, York and Fuegia were waiting to receive their visitors in their lodgings above the school.
The boarders’ rooms in the eaves proved surprisingly attractive and spacious, with exposed beams and simple wooden furniture. As the party climbed the creaking staircase to the upper floor, they were intercepted by a little yellow blur, as Fuegia Basket launched herself like a cannonball into Fanny’s skirts. ‘Capp’en Sisser! Capp‘en Sisser!’ she squealed delightedly.
‘Why, Bob, she’s the sweetest little girl,’ Fanny exclaimed, giving her a hug.
‘Good afternoon, Fuegia. York.’
York Minster, a burly shadow standing sentinel in the corridor ahead, nodded in acknowledgement to FitzRoy.
‘Where’s Jemmy?’
‘I - am - here!’
Jemmy stepped smartly out of his room on cue, and struck a dandyish pose in the corridor. The visitors could only gape. He was attired in skintight white buckskins, tucked into knee-length boots that had been polished to a mirror finish, an extravagant neckcloth of Flemish lace, and, topping off the whole ensemble, a long-tailed, double-breasted dress riding coat of the brightest pink, its gathered waist straining gallantly across its owner’s pot belly. His hair had been plastered down with pomatum. FitzRoy murmured under his breath to Bennet, ‘When I said, “Take him to the tailor’s to purchase a suit of clothes,” Mr Bennet — ’
‘He absolutely insisted, sir,’ whispered Bennet unhappily. ‘You know what he’s like. The minute he saw the cloth, wild horses could not have diverted him.’
‘I think it looks marvellous,’ announced Fanny loudly. ‘You have the appearance of a real English gentleman, Jemmy.’
Jemmy’s face lit up with pleasure.
‘You’ve certainly taken my breath away, Jemmy,’ confessed FitzRoy. ‘Are you well?’
‘Hearty sir, never better!’
‘You are pleased with your accommodations?’
‘By Jove, indeed I am. We are given many presents! People are very kind.’
‘And you, York? I gather you have been your usual quiet self in class.’
A half laugh, half snort from York.
All those months of divine study, York - is there not one lesson from the scriptures that you have taken to heart?’
York grunted. ‘Too much study is weariness of the flesh,’ he said pointedly.
Early on the Monday afternoon, FitzRoy left Messrs Walker & Co. of Castle Street in Holborn, where the last of the charts drawn up by the Hydrographic Office from his surveys had been committed to copper plate, and called for his carriage. He drove east, out of the city proper and down the Commercial Road, thick as it always was with empty waggons heading out to the docks and loaded ones struggling back in. Where the road divided he took the southern fork, past the moated fortress of the West India Dock, down Old Street to the South Dock, the old City Canal on Limehouse Reach. It was high water, so the river had flooded the marshes on the Isle of Dogs, and despite the lateness of the season the air was thick with mosquitoes. Only the Deptford and Greenwich Road on its newly elevated embankment remained above the water, cutting the silver sheen of the Thames in two as it curved to the ferry landing at the end of the peninsula. This was one of the poorest parts of the river: narrow lanes lined with mean slums ran down from the road, straight into thick Thames mud. Sickly, half-starved children, their limbs bowed with rickets, foraged in the treacly silt for driftwood or rotten fruit discarded from passing cargo ships.
The John was berthed about half-way along. Its owner, John Mawman, was waiting for him on the quayside. A taciturn Stepney merchant, Mawman kept his manners to a minimum. This suited FitzRoy. In the light of the transaction he was about to undertake, he was in no mood for pleasantries.
‘There she is, sir. That’s my brig. John Davey is her master.’
FitzRoy climbed aboard and had a look round. At two hundred tons she was of roughly the same dimensions as the Beagle, and the same colour - black, with a white stripe running round her rail - but there the resemblance ended. Her paintwork was dirtied where the crew had thrown slops over the side, rather than lowering buckets. Ropes lay untidy and uncoiled about her deck, like the back of a chandler’s shop. Her blocks were in need of oiling, her pitch was cracked and in need of re-paying. The bilges stank for lack of pumping. But all this was not uncommon in the merchant service, where naval discipline did not apply. She was basically sound and seaworthy, he could see that. Her timbers were solid. She would do.
‘You choose an opportune moment to depart the country, sir. If there is not reform soon, I do not doubt we shall all have our throats slit in our beds.’
FitzRoy ignored him. ‘There shall be seven passengers, Mr Mawman - myself, Mr Bennet my coxswain, the three Fuegians and two volunteer missionaries.’
‘You said five passengers.’
‘As our provisions are accounted for separately I take it that this does not amount to a problem.’
‘No, it does not. I believe the sum agreed was one thousand pounds?’
‘It was.’
‘Pilotage fees will also be extra.’
‘As we discussed.’
He could have negotiated the sum down a little, FitzRoy knew, but haggling invariably made him feel sordid. He produced his pocketbook and took out the cheque for a thousand pounds, drawn on his London bank. It was a huge amount: enough to buy a sizeable town-house in the city. The hire of a brig and her crew to voyage into perilous waters for six months was no small undertaking. But he had given his word to the Fuegians. He handed the cheque to the merchant, and signed Mawman’s fourteen-page contract.
‘You realize, Commander, that if you abandon the trip for any reason you will forfeit the entire sum?’
‘I am fully aware of the conditions binding our agreement, Mr Mawman.’
They shook hands on the deal. FitzRoy stepped back into his carriage, and joined the laden cart-stream heading back towards the city.
‘I’ve done the deed, Fan.’
‘Oh, Bob, I do hope you know what you’re doing. How much has it cost you?’
‘One thousand pounds.’
A faint, high-pitched whistle of breath escaped Fanny Rice-Trevor’s lips. ‘Do you have so much to spare?’
‘If I did not, I should have to find it. I cannot go back on my word.’
‘Of course not. I understand.’
His sister’s tone was soothing, but the candlelight from the chandelier illuminated a wet gleam in her eyes. A hundred tiny flames shimmered in her concerned gaze.
The occasion was a private coronation ball, at the house of Mrs Beauchamp in Park Lane. Of course the ball season normally ended in late July, when the
evenings began to draw in, but the coronation had made 1831 an unusual year. At one end of the ballroom, a small orchestra had begun the opening quadrille, and black-and-white-clad dancers whirled past in stately formations. Their hostess wove her way through the chattering crowds at the dancers’ edge to where the FitzRoys stood, a quiet island amid all the activity. ‘Are you young people enjoying yourselves?’
‘Quite so, Mrs Beauchamp. Your hospitality is always generous, but this year you have surpassed yourself.’
‘My, you look dashing, Commander FitzRoy. And what a wonderful dress, my dear. I adore the white lace over the blue satin. How very wise of you to wear blue to offset the orange of the candlelight. Now, if either of you finds that your appetites are in need of recruitment, I have placed refreshments in the small room at the far end. There will be a proper supper downstairs, of course, but we can’t have you catching a chill passing down that draughty staircase for lemonade and biscuits. Or something stronger if you prefer, Commander.’
‘You are as thoughtful as ever, Mrs Beauchamp.’
FitzRoy’s imagination could not help but compare the potential draughts on Mrs Beauchamp’s staircase with the ‘draughts’ he could expect on the exposed bridge of the John: South Atlantic gales screaming into his face, icing the rigging and raising surging walls of grey water thirty or forty feet high. Mrs Beauchamp wove away again, her heavy skirts shouldering aside the flimsier creations of the younger ladies.
‘She’s right, Bob. You do look dashing,’ Fanny said, adjusting her brother’s already immaculate white tie. ‘We must find you a dancing partner. It really would be most unfair to a multitude of ladies if such a fine catch were not to be made available.’
‘Really, Fan, there is no need — ’
She waved away his protests. ‘Come with me. I shall play master of the ceremonies. I shall present you to Miss Mary O’Brien. She is the daughter of Major-General O‘Brien, of County Wicklow. I would mark her card for you, except that Miss O’Brien is not the sort to carry a dance-card. She is a rather serious and devout young woman - just the sort for you, if you are to spend six months arm in arm with a brace of missionaries.’
Still protesting feebly, FitzRoy allowed himself to be dragged in the direction of Miss O‘Brien; and so it was that, five minutes later, he found himself bowing to her, and she curtsying in reply, as they lined up facing one another for the commencement of the Sir Roger de Coverley. They were the third pair in line, so they had time to exchange a few words before they were called upon to promenade between the two lines of dancers. Their conversation was formal: friendly enough, but stilted. FitzRoy preferred the silence of the dance, which he found not at all awkward but serene. Miss O’Brien wore a plain dress of white satin, slender-waisted and decorated only with three narrow rouleaux at the base. Her hair, unlike that of the other ladies present, was not arranged in clusters of curls about her face, or tied up in a swirling Apollo-knot: rather, it was parted in the centre, swept back and secured simply at the neck by a cameo. It was raven-coloured, and FitzRoy thought that she looked like a Catholic saint from Madrid or Andalucía. There was a beatific quality to her: the overall effect was pure, not severe. She gazed at him intently when they danced.
As they whirled under the giant chandelier that dominated the centre of the ballroom, a fat drop of hot wax fell from the wrought iron and splattered on to the upper slope of her breast, at the place where it disappeared into the V of her dress. Miss O’Brien did not react; there was no indication that she had even noticed. FitzRoy watched the hot liquid congeal instantly against her cool, white skin, and knew at once it was an image that would never leave him.
FitzRoy’s carriage, curtains drawn, made staccato progress up the Strand. Jemmy, once more attired in his alarming pink coat (he had refused point-blank to leave Walthamstow unless permitted to wear it), peered in wide-eyed astonishment through the narrow ruler of light at the street outside. A scene of wonder revealed itself. Two giant boots, all of eight feet tall, were trying to negotiate their way past a seven-foot hat. Three enormous tin canisters with human feet, each marked ‘Warren’s Blacking - 30 Strand’, walked alongside the carriage in single file. A man carrying a vast pair of teeth on a long pole met Jemmy’s eye and glared at him. There were men with picture placards advertising single-exhibit museums - a stuffed crocodile here, a civet cat there - dioramas of the Emperor Napoleon’s funeral, and paddle-steamer crossings to Rotterdam. There were milkmaids, grape-sellers, cane-chair menders, butchers’ and bakers’ carts and men offering hunting prints from upturned umbrellas. Towering above the whole seething, shouting, yelling mass was a monstrous four-storey advertisement for Lardner’s blacking factory, comprising a number of enormous three-dimensional plaster models of hessian boots, Oriental slippers, and inverted blacking bottles suspended over boot-jacks.
‘Goliath’s boots! Goliath’s hat!’ shouted Jemmy excitedly. ‘They kill Goliath, bring his boots and hat!’
‘No, Jemmy,’ laughed FitzRoy. ‘It’s called “advertising”. They want you to buy their hats, or their boots, so they build big ones to attract your attention. The Strand is London’s main shopping street. One cannot escape it, these days.’
Jemmy’s astonishment gave way, at least partly, to confusion.
‘Big teeth! Very big teeth!’ he said hopefully.
‘Another advertisement,’ FitzRoy reassured him.
York and Fuegia were peering between the frame and the curtain now, both wriggling uncomfortably in their Sunday best, a demure pair of pantalettes poking out beneath Fuegia’s Christian frock.
‘I suppose they have not seen the city before,’ said FitzRoy to Bennet.
‘Well, no sir. They came up from Plymouth to Walthamstow by inside stage. I was wondering, sir, but should you permit it - might I take them up to London for the day, before they go home?’
‘Oh yes please, Capp’en Fitz’oy! Yes please!’ begged Jemmy, his gaze now distracted by the extravagant window displays of a row of clothes shops.
‘I don’t know, Jemmy. There is jeopardy in travel, these days.’
‘There are police in London now, sir. It’s safer in town than out in the countryside, and safer than when I was a lad.’
‘Of course, Mr Bennet - I had forgotten that you are a Londoner.’
‘In my notion it’s safer than Tierra del Fuego too, sir.’
‘Yes please, Capp’en Fitz’oy!’
FitzRoy found himself outvoted. ‘Very well, Jemmy. You may all travel up to London with Mr Bennet. On a different day.’
They emerged from the chaos of the Strand into the wide empty space of Trafalgar Square, that eternally unfinished building site so brutally carved out of the teeming city. Then west along Pall Mall to St James’s Palace, the home of the Royal Family, a mere stone’s throw away from another great building site, the New King’s Palace that George IV had ordered to be constructed in Green Park. A phalanx of red-jacketed soldiery had been posted outside St James’s to protect His Majesty from any rioting mobs, but their presence was largely superfluous. King Billy, after all, had celebrated his accession by throwing a party for the poor of Windsor, all three thousand of them. Earlier in the summer he had eschewed the tiresome job of swearing in privy councillors and had climbed out of a palace window instead, preferring to take a stroll down Pall Mall alone; he had eventually been rescued from the attentions of an adoring crowd by the members of White’s, just as a prostitute was about to kiss him on the lips. This was one monarch who was safe from having his throat cut in the night.
Coxswain Bennet was left in a palace anteroom, where Fanny Rice-Trevor had been waiting for them. Today she wore a satin dress shot with gold and a train of black velvet. Together they were escorted to the state apartments and into the presence of the King and Queen.
‘Your Majesty. Your Royal Highness.’
FitzRoy acknowledged both in turn and introduced his party, who bowed and curtsied, according to sex. The three Fuegians having been car
efully schooled in the correct etiquette, even York managed a little bow, sensing perhaps that it would not do to antagonize the most powerful man in the world; Jemmy, meanwhile, performed the most extravagant of scrapes, reaching almost to the ground.
‘How do? Come in, come in.’
All signs of protocol absent, King William beckoned them to a little table, surrounded by Louis XIV chairs, where tea and fancy biscuits had been laid out. His Majesty proved to be a plump, florid man in his mid-sixties, his immensely high forehead surmounted by a ridge of white hair standing neatly to attention. Although squeezed into a formal crimson dress uniform, his manner was informal and jocular in the extreme. Queen Adelaide, a small, round, quiet German with sad eyes, was already seated. The royal couple, it was said, had little to do with each other outside their official duties.
‘D’ye take tea? A cup of tea for my friends here. That’s a splendid coat, young man.’
Jemmy preened. ‘Thank you, Your Majesty.’
‘Tell me, how d’ye like London?’
‘London is best city in the world! Better than Rio. One day I will build city like London in my own country.’
‘Capital, capital! Tell me about your own country.’
‘My country is good country. It is called Woollya. Plenty of trees. There is no devil in my land. Plenty of guanaco. My people hunt many guanaco. No guanaco in York’s country.’
‘Guanaco?’
‘It is a type of llama, Your Majesty,’ explained FitzRoy.
And so, for the next half-hour, the King continued to question Jemmy Button - rather intelligently, FitzRoy considered. York sat in inscrutable silence while Fuegia beamed enchantingly at Queen Adelaide, who occasionally prompted the little girl with a supplementary question.
‘They do you credit, Commander. They do you prodigious credit. They are uncommonly well conducted.’