The Quality of Mercy

8



“It is a most amazing piece of good fortune,” Ashton said. “No, that is not the way to describe it, it is the work of Divine Providence.”

Horace Stanton, who was a friend and fellow abolitionist of long standing and would be a leading member of the defense when the charges of murder and piracy came before a jury, nodded at these words, but without much appearance of fervor. He was, like Ashton, a devout Methodist, but the name of God did not come often to his lips. Cautious by nature, he was sparing in expressions of faith, not wishing to squander resources. Only in the courtroom, making his final plea to the jury, was this habitual caution relaxed.

“Certainly it will help our case very considerably,” he said. “It is likely to help the underwriters too, if they make the right use of it. It is not yet known who will be representing them when the case comes up.”

The two men were sitting over coffee in the morning room of Ashton’s house. It was still early; Stanton had come with the news as soon as possible, knowing how much it would gladden his friend.

“I cannot ascribe such a thing to the working of chance alone,” Ashton said. “There is a blessing in it.”

Jane Ashton entered the room as he was speaking, and bade the two good morning. “What blessing is that?” she said.

“We have a new witness,” Ashton said.

Stanton’s manner had brightened perceptibly at the sight of Jane in her cream-colored day gown, which followed the lines of her figure very much more closely than the hoop skirts fashionably worn for going out. He was unmarried and well settled; he had known Jane Ashton since she was sixteen and had always thought her highly attractive, and not only because of her looks: something careless-seeming in her, irreverent almost, made a challenge to his prudent and sober nature. She was too headstrong, of course, too forward with her opinions—the result of growing up without parental control. But marriage would cure her of these faults.

“He is one who was there at the time the negroes were thrown overboard,” he said. “One who was neither slave nor crew member.”

“That sounds very mysterious.” Jane smiled at the lawyer, aware of his interest and pleased by it, though privately thinking him somewhat too dry and tending too much to the pompous.

“The interpreter on the ship,” Ashton said and paused, smiling. His face had lost its lines of strain; he looked years younger. “What they call the linguister, whose work it is to make clear to his fellow Africans the wishes and commands of officers and crew. You understand, there were different languages spoken among them, depending on the region where they were captured.”

“He saw the jettisoning,” Stanton said. “He saw the crew rise against the captain. He saw everything that took place.”

“He is an African, then? I thought they were all sold back into slavery in Carolina.”

“That might have been his fate, certainly,” Ashton said. “He was not a slave, he was on the ship of his own free will. He was intending to come to England to better his fortunes. None of this mattered to Kemp, of course. The man was offered for sale at Charles Town along with the others. By his own and our good fortune, an army officer just retired and waiting for a ship home, a Colonel Trembath, liked the look of him, discovered he could speak passable English, purchased him and brought him back to England as his personal servant. When he heard the man’s story, he gave him his freedom and kept him in his service at a wage.”

Ashton paused a moment, and there was a note of wonder when he spoke again. “He brought him here, to London. He has been here ever since, as a servant in Trembath’s house, under the name of James Porter. The interest the case has roused, the frequent mentions of it in the press, brought it to his employer’s notice. He has notified us that Porter is ready to testify to the effect that there was no shortage of water at the time, that in fact there had been recent rain when these people were cast overboard. He declares that the decks were not yet dry from it on the morning when the deed was done.”

“Of course, he speaks from memory,” Stanton said. “But it will carry weight. What makes it particularly fortunate is that there is no charge against him—he has nothing to gain or lose, unlike the people of the crew, and unlike the first mate, who has turned evidence against them. Generally speaking, in my experience, such a witness is likely to be believed.”

Jane regarded her brother’s face. It wore an exalted expression, almost fierce in its intensity, as if he were ready to take a sword and strike out. “I am so glad,” she said, and Ashton, while knowing that her gladness was for his sake rather than the larger issue, was touched by the affection for him in her words and glance.

“It could make all the difference,” he said. “If we can succeed in having the cases heard together at the Court of King’s Bench, and if it can be shown that there was no shortage of water and even that poor pretext was a lie, the hideousness of this crime against our common humanity will be evident to all but the most callous and wicked.”

Stanton, who felt that Ashton was a great deal luckier in his sister than in the reappearance of the linguister, said, “Well, I must take leave of you. I shall have to examine the wording of this new charge that has been brought against us.” He shook Ashton’s hand, lowered his head over Jane’s. “We will talk again later today,” he said, “or perhaps tomorrow morning. In any case, as soon as I have all the facts.”

“What charge is it that they have brought against you?” Jane asked when he had gone.

“It regards the man Evans. You will remember my telling you that I intended to bring charges for assault and abduction against his former owner, Charles Bolton, in response to his charge against me of theft.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Well, it has emerged that Bolton had already sold Evans to another man, a sugar planter named Lyons. Imagine it, he had sold him already, even before the abduction attempt, while he was still living peacefully in Chelsea, not suspecting anything. Now both of these men are bringing charges of damages and theft against me. Yes, it is scarce credible, I know, but such are the facts. And with the worship of property that is growing among us, their arguments may prevail. Much will depend on the judge.”

“Let us hope he will be reasonable.”

Ashton smiled. “Well, not too much so,” he said. “An entirely reasonable man is likely to conform too closely to prevailing notions of what is reasonable and put property before all else. No, let us hope rather that he will have a heart open to compassion.”

“You are going out?” She had noticed only now that her brother was wearing shoes instead of slippers and that his hat lay on the table, where he must have placed it.

“Yes, I was about to leave when Stanton came. I am going to the prison. I intend to speak to these men and question them.”

“To the prison? What, into the cell where they are being held?”

“No, I hope to be allowed to see them in one of the yards behind the Keeper’s Lodge.”

“But you will catch your death. Everyone knows it is a hatching place of diseases. No one goes there that does not have to.”

“Nevertheless, I am going.”

“At least let me have some vinegar packs made up to hang inside your coat.”

Ashton was impatient at the delay, but he saw the concern on his sister’s face, and he was accustomed to bow to her wishes in matters of this kind, where safety and care of the person were involved.

When, sometime later, provided with the vinegar-soaked bobbins, he sallied forth in search of a sedan that would carry him to Newgate Street, Jane remained where she was for a time, without moving. The thought of being anywhere in the vicinity of Newgate Prison, let alone entering it, was appalling to her. Once, coming down from Bridewell Walk to Clerkenwell, after a visit of charity to the workhouse, she had passed by the prison, and the deathly stink of the place had assailed her, even closed as she was in her carriage, and the voices of the women screaming through the bars at people going by along the foot passage.

She had never forgotten that reek of misery and violence; always now, on her visits to the workhouse, she told the coachman to turn directly into Corporation Lane and so return home by the longer route. She had felt no pity at the time and none since, only a violent disgust, and a sort of rage that people, however low their estate and however ill their deeds, could be treated thus, manacled and pent up in that festering place. Frederick had said that compassion counted for more in a judge than a too-reasonable habit of mind. But it seemed to her that anger was much to be preferred to either, a rage for improvement, for changes in the way things were done—changes that should be effected now, immediately, since the need was so obvious, so pressing. She felt this rage for betterment within her, despite the lightness of manner, the slight air of carelessness she generally assumed in the society of others.

She had acquaintances among her own sex who were zealous in works of charity, but there were none she could think of who felt this passionate need to change the state of things. No man of her acquaintance—and in this she included her brother—would think it becoming in her to give eager expression to such opinions in company; some she could think of, if they were alone with her and felt safe from the judgment of their fellows, might try to please her by pretending to take her words seriously.

These thoughts made her feel rebellious and disconsolate at the same time, a mixture of feelings familiar to her. She found herself thinking about Erasmus Kemp and wondering how he would take it if she spoke seriously to him about things that mattered to her. She could not imagine it; she did not know him. But he was different from the other men she had met. His looks and manner came vividly back to her. He had seemed to gather all the energy of everyone else there, gather it to himself and contain it and bring it to her as an offering.

She would not go on with her embroidery, she decided; she would return to her own apartment and have her coffee there, and continue reading the latest issue of The Ladies’ Diary. Much of this was written by gentlemen in tones considered suitable for ladies. But it contained, amid news of the latest fashions and advice on such matters as the paying and receiving of calls, items on history and geography and science. At present Jane was halfway through an account of Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity, and absorbed in the struggle to understand how the fall to the ground of an apple and the awesome sweep of the moon in her orbit could be due to one and the same cause.