The Quality of Mercy

18



The following evening, while he was waiting below for his sister to complete her toilet and make herself ready, Ashton had a glass of claret, an unusual thing with him. He had felt a spirit of celebration since the insurance verdict, while knowing that the victory was partial, in some ways hardly a victory at all, since no issue of principle had emerged from it, only a ruling as to insurance liability. With a man like Blundell on the bench, this was hardly surprising; he had reacted with fury to the ill-judged attempt of Kemp’s lawyer to discuss the nature of the cargo. Ashton had hoped for something more but without any great belief. Once the decision to hold separate hearings had been made, he had known that any attempt to enter a plea of murder against the remnants of the crew was unlikely to succeed, though he was no less set on it.

They were unworthy of saving; they had proved it in court with Barber again as their spokesman. They had not given heed to his advice, they had pleaded ignorance and blind obedience. Nevertheless, the judgment in favor of the underwriters had done some service to the cause. It was true that it had not been stated, or even implied, that the Africans were to be regarded as other than merchandise. But there had been journalists in the court; he had seen a correspondent of the Morning Chronicle, a man he knew fairly well, who had a certain discreet sympathy for the abolitionist cause. He could not express this directly without incurring the risk of dismissal, but he could be trusted to stress the fact that casting the Africans overboard had been unlawful and fraudulent, that it had been a deed entirely gratuitous, without ground or reason other than the desire to claim on the value. A monstrous crime, it had to be so regarded, in any court, in any system of law …

Once again the appalling obviousness of it came to Ashton, accompanied as always by the bafflement he felt at the failure of so many to see it. How could such an offense against God and man be adjusted, compensated for, shuffled away out of sight by a judgment that related only to the regulations governing insurance claims? He was intending to write to the Lord Commissioners of the Admiralty to petition that the surviving crew members should be prosecuted for mass homicide. He rehearsed some phrases in his mind as he waited. I believe it my duty to lay before your lordships the circumstances of multiple and felonious murders carried out by captain and crew of the Liverpool Merchant in 1753 … I have done my utmost to discover and publish the full facts in regard to this most inhuman crime, so that justice may be done, and the blood of the murdered may not rest on us all …

No, it was clear that the crew had forfeited their rights. They would not now be able to escape from the contradiction of having risen up and killed that very embodiment of authority to whom they claimed to have owed absolute obedience. Unlikely that they would change the nature of their evidence now, advance at this late hour the only defense that might have saved them, a crisis of conscience, the sudden realization that what they were doing was hideously wicked.

There was no way out for them now. They were bound for the gallows, either as mutineers and pirates, which he was compelled to admit was the more likely outcome, or, Divine Providence assisting, as the murderers of eighty-five innocent men and women made in God’s image like themselves. Again he reflected on what a wonderful stroke of fortune it would be if the judgment went that way, how it would resound in the annals of humane endeavor. Finally, a key ruling …

He sipped his claret, and the warmth of it on his tongue and in his throat was also the warmth of this imagined success. With one of the upsurges of spirit characteristic of him, he felt that everything was possible, a new age of freedom was about to be ushered in.

From this he fell to considering another matter, also promising in its way. It presented itself as a series of images or memories. Jane had kept very quiet about having met Kemp before. She had said nothing about it for a week or more. She was not usually so reticent, and there were particular reasons why she should have spoken of this meeting. Kemp’s return from Florida with the surviving members of the crew was being spoken of on every hand; she had known that he, her brother, was involved in the case; she had known that Kemp was an adversary, and this should have argued a readiness to say what she knew of him in the hope that it might be useful. But she had done the exact opposite. And when she had finally spoken of the meeting, it had been with what seemed to him now in retrospect a sort of studied casualness. She had turned away and busied herself with the tea things, though there had been no immediate need for this, they were scarce finished drinking their tea.

These were things not much remarked at the time, given significance now by certain impressions of later. When they had received the invitation, when he had recalled—and mentioned—that Bateson was a member of Parliament representing the West India Interest, she had known, she had guessed who was behind it; she had flushed even before he uttered Kemp’s name. Her nature was honest; any slightest subterfuge brought unease to her, brought color to her face. She had been eager to attend the hearing with him yesterday, but not too much could be made out of that—she knew his interest in the case, knew how much weight he attached to it. Of course, she would have supposed that Kemp too would be at the hearing …

He was still occupied with these thoughts when Jane entered the small room adjoining the hall where he had been waiting for her. “Well, you are a vision and no mistake,” he said as he got to his feet. And indeed it was clear to him that his sister had taken great care with her appearance for this occasion. She had recently rebelled against the hoop skirt, one of the first he knew of to do so, as being awkward to manage and too restrictive. She was wearing now a gown of silver muslin with a close-fitting bodice and a skirt cut at the front to show a white embroidered petticoat, simple in style, without flounces. Her hair was combed smoothly back from the forehead and temples and drawn up behind with some pearls interwoven. But to the affectionate gaze of her brother it was the radiant pallor of her face and the spirited brightness of her eyes that gave her beauty.

Ashton’s valet, the only manservant in the house, was sent to whistle up a cab for them. Bateson’s house was in Grosvenor Square, and they descended amid a number of persons also alighting from coaches, who thronged at the steps up to the house, were met by liveried footmen in the large entrance hall and guided to the foot of the broad, curving staircase that led up to the ballroom on the first floor. As Frederick, with Jane by his side, reached the top of the stairs, he gave their names to the steward waiting there, who shouted them in stentorian tones. A further few steps brought them to the welcoming smiles of their host and hostess.

From his chosen point of vantage Erasmus Kemp had seen the couple reach the head of the stairs and heard the names called out. Her appearance, her shouted name, her entrance into the ballroom, were the culmination of a design he had been maturing ever since learning of his colleague’s intention to hold the reception, which was mainly for the benefit of various business and political acquaintances and prominent members of the West India Association. He had lost no time in asking Bateson if the Ashtons might be added to the list of guests.

He had been painstaking and methodical, as always, arriving early, planting himself where he had a clear view across the room. But—and it was one of the several contradictions of his nature—this care and preparation, designed to give him a feeling of calm control, was far from having this wished-for effect. He was not made calmer by it; rather the contrary, as when in listening to music we are not calmed by the gathering notes, however quietly they gather, because we know they are a prelude to some tumultuous crescendo.

It was with the sense of some imminent clash of cymbals that he waited some moments longer and then began to walk toward them through the crowd. He was walking in step to this music of the mind when by a coincidence he felt to be strange, and in some way significant, the orchestra in the gallery overlooking the room struck up with some martial music, which seemed familiar without his being able to recollect where and when he might have heard it.

“Music from the heavenly spheres,” Ashton said, glancing up toward the gallery. He had not known the musicians were stationed there.

Jane was never to remember how she replied to this, or whether she replied at all. As her brother was speaking she had observed Erasmus Kemp making his way toward them, and she needed to collect herself for what she feared might be an awkward moment. He had lost his case yesterday, and her brother, though without being one of the parties to the dispute, had in a certain sense been victorious. It had been a prelude, in a way, to the Admiralty case that was to come, when they would be direct and self-declared opponents.

“Miss Ashton, a great pleasure to see you again.” Kemp lowered his head over her hand.

Not entirely unexpected, however, Ashton had time to think as he smiled a little and waited for introductions. These came, and the two men inclined their heads.

The meeting, the sight of each other at such close quarters, was for both of them something in the nature of a shock, both having formed judgments of the other that now turned out to need revising. Kemp had set Ashton down as a sentimental sort of fellow, probably given to preaching and hand-wringing, not on close terms with the realities of life. He found himself looking at a face that was ascetic but far from meek, at eyes that were closely observant and penetrating. Ashton, in his turn, instead of the coarse-grained trader he had been expecting to find, saw a face that was acquainted with pain and bewilderment, whatever the striving for an arrogance that would conceal this.

Ashton could find no immediate words, and Jane too was silent, both feeling that some reference to the previous day’s judgment should be made, both fearing to sound a note of triumph. There were the strains of the orchestra falling from above, there was a hubbub of voices and a bustle of movement about them, but Jane felt caught in a web of silence and unease. She sought for something to say. The music, perhaps; it was a piece by Haydn they were playing now …

It was Kemp, however, who broke the silence and in a way that was totally unexpected.

“I would not wish you to think,” he said, looking squarely at Ashton, “that the lawyer representing me yesterday was acting on my instructions when he singled you out and made personal remarks about your plans to prosecute the case further.”

“I am very glad to hear you say so,” Ashton said. “Since he was representing your interests directly and no one was representing mine—in fact, I had no direct interest in the case—it was natural to suppose that his outburst was part of some tactic previously agreed upon.”

“No, nothing of the sort.” Kemp raised his head and spoke with more emphasis now, as if he had been contradicted. “I would not descend to that,” he said. “If I cannot win by fair means, I would not wish to win at all.”

Ashton nodded, not really believing this, not really believing it was true of himself. Fairness was not a fixed value; it depended on the nature of the end to be served. “Well, it does you credit,” he said.

“The fellow went far beyond his instructions,” Kemp said. “I believe he lost his temper, as a matter of fact. I shall on no account employ him again. I hold him partly responsible for the unfavorable judgment we received.”

Ashton made no immediate reply to this. It was clear to him that despite the assurances of probity and fair dealing, Kemp still believed he was in the right, would always believe so; he had been angry to see his lawyer obscure this fact by antagonizing the judge. Something of this anger had come into his eyes as he spoke, eyes that were long and narrow, very dark, with a singular intensity of regard. He had worn the same look when the jury returned their verdict. Ashton had noted it, as he had noted the triumphant smiles of Van Dillen and his associates seated not far away. He had thought it due to the sting of defeat, but it seemed now that Kemp believed he had been dealt with unjustly.

After the initial greeting he had not looked at Jane again, as if the necessity of making things clear, removing any suspicion of underhand dealing, were of paramount importance to him. In fact it was suspicion on Jane’s part, not Ashton’s, that he wished to remove. Ashton was an opponent, and he had never had much care for the feelings and opinions of opponents. But that Jane Ashton should think ill of him, should think him capable of such contriving, that was a very different matter.

And Jane, with the pleasurably heightened perceptions that come from a growing interest in the mind and person of another, knew that he was speaking to her, knew with the kind of certainty that needs little in the way of evidence that the reason he did not look at her was that he wanted to do so very much, that he had dwelled long upon her and had arranged this meeting. She wondered with a kind of indulgent irony whether such an arrangement came under the heading of fair means.

Ashton glanced around him. The moment was propitious. “If you will excuse me for a short while,” he said, “there is someone over there I would like to exchange some words with. An old friend,” he added, smiling at Jane, who had turned in some surprise to look at him.

This left the two of them standing alone together. And alone for the moment they felt themselves to be, in the midst of all the people there. Not far away were long tables loaded with things to eat and drink; there were wine and champagne, pastries and sweetmeats of every sort, pies, tarts, molds, charlottes and betties, trifles and fools, syllabubs and tansys. But thoughts of eating and drinking came to the mind of neither. Kemp’s plans for the evening had not ended here; he knew the house, had visited Bateson on several occasions before, usually to discuss the business of the West India Association or the state of the sugar trade.

“Let us go this way,” he said. Passing below the gallery where the orchestra was playing, one came to a French window that opened onto a covered portico. Here they stood, leaning against the balustrade, looking out over the garden below. The evening air was cool, and Jane was glad of the quilted linen shawl over her shoulders. Somewhere among the trees, undeterred by the voices, the music, the clatter of plates and glasses, a bird she thought might be a nightingale was singing.

It was now that Kemp—not by calculation but by sheer force of feeling and need for her understanding—hit upon the way most likely to secure Jane’s sympathy and approval. Instead of the compliments and close regards that she had been half expecting—standard behavior among the men of her acquaintance, and generally tedious to her—he began to talk about the Durham coal fields and the colliery village of Thorpe and his plans to go there soon and look at the mine, on which he had taken a lease. Within a few days, he told her. He spoke of his ambitions, his wish to build, create, improve the way things were done. He had studied, he had read a great deal about the mining and transport of coal, he already, even before going there, had ideas about how things could be improved.

He kept his eyes on her face as he spoke, and he saw that he had captured her attention, and something more; her expression showed the warmth of interest he had hoped for but not altogether believed he could arouse. He grew in eloquence, carried away by the feeling that she was entering into his designs, sharing them. There was so much that was antiquated and inefficient in the methods of extraction and marketing, so much scope for improvement …

“I think it is a splendid thing for a man to want to do,” she said. With her enthusiasm for action and improvement, her hatred of resignation, Kemp’s words had struck a deep chord in her. He could not have paid her a greater compliment than this, to tell her of these plans, take her into his confidence. He was inviting her approval, her judgment, seemed even to have need of it, not only regarding his intentions in Durham but for himself personally. And he was vividly present to her, with his darkness of coloring, the intensity of his gaze, his habit of occasional sudden gesture. He had lost the slight stiffness of bearing; he leaned toward her as he talked, as if in eagerness to convince her.

“There are so many things closed to women,” she said. “If I were a man, I would like to do something like that, something useful and positive, something to improve the lot of those people who spend their lives toiling in the darkness of the mine.” Her eyes were shining. “It is a noble aim,” she said.

These words brought something of a check to Kemp, who had not much considered this aspect of things. Of course, it was becoming in a woman to harbor such sentiments. “Well, you know,” he said, “increased efficiency is bound to bring benefits to the working people.”

He paused on this, looking at her face, and at this moment she turned a little toward him and the light from the room behind them fell on her more directly. The brows and eyes, the slightly smiling mouth—it was the same face, the face he had seen at Vauxhall, momentarily lit up by that shower of gold, celebrating his success. He was persuaded of it, but he could not risk asking her, not now, not this evening. If she should say, No, I was not there, it was not I, the face was not mine, the blessing would be dimmed, they would both come closer to the light of common day.

They were interrupted at this point. Others had found the door and entered now, several people talking loudly together. Kemp had time to say in low tones, “When I return from Durham, may I call on you?” and she to answer, with the one word only.

This word once obtained, and now that they could no longer be alone together, Kemp saw no need to stay. They rejoined Ashton, who was in the midst of a group, involved in an animated discussion as to the prospects of the government remaining in power now that the Earl of Chatham had retreated into madness and was spending his days in a darkened room in Hampstead with Lady Chatham as his only link with the outside world.

Kemp did not join in this, and after restoring Jane to the company of her brother, he took his leave. It seemed to Jane that the light was dimmer for his going, and she felt a little empty, as if the best of the evening were over. This feeling she translated into a need for comfort, and she had a glass of burgundy and ate a chicken leg, followed by a tansy pudding.