The Price of Glory (17 page)

Nathan had next encountered him in London, where he had been introduced to him by the First Lord of the Admiralty as a trusted political adviser. Imlay had accompanied him in this role on a voyage to the West Indies, where he had promptly decamped to the French. A Spanish agent in the Havana had informed Nathan that Imlay had once worked for them, though his true allegiance had always been to the government of the United States and that he was the member of an elite brotherhood of American agents known as “Washington's Boys,” accountable only to the general and paid by him from his own secret funds.

Whether this was true or not, Nathan was persuaded that Imlay's true loyalties were first and foremost to himself, and that in pursuit of his own interests he would lie, cheat and if necessary kill. And yet he had charm. In fact, he would not have succeeded as well as he had without it. Mary was not the only woman, or man, to be taken in by him.

Somewhat to his surprise, after a long walk to Covent Garden, Nathan found his bird in residence, perched at a table in the window of the Star with a party that included almost as many ladies as gentlemen, though Lady Catherine would have considered both sexes to have been flattered by the description.

Nathan watched him through the part-misted window. Gilbert Imlay was a little over forty years old, his thick brown hair looking a little grizzled now at the edges, but still in the best of health and ruggedly handsome. Someone had once told Nathan that he modelled himself on that great American pioneer and trail-blazer Daniel Boone of Kentucky, though as Nathan had never met the gentleman in question he could not give his opinion on the matter. His manner was that of a courteous and softly-spoken gentleman of New England with a raffi sh air of the American frontier about him; the look of a man who had gazed upon distant horizons and endured many hardships. In general, however, he was all things to all men—and women, too.

As for his relations with Mary Wollstonecraft, Nathan was convinced he had set out on a course of seduction partly because of the challenge she represented as the celebrated writer of
A Vindication of the Rights of Women
. What a triumph to add such a scalp to his belt—and not only to bed her, but to have her fall in love with him.

Of course it was entirely possible that he fell in love himself, if only with her image of him as a man of principle and high ideals, a true romantic and a child of nature: one of Rousseau's noble savages with the airs and graces of a gentleman. He had offered her the protection of his name and citizenship at a time when—as an Englishwoman living in Paris—she had faced arrest and imprisonment or worse. He had persuaded her that he wished only to make enough from commerce to buy a farm in Kentucky where they would live together as man and wife and raise six children. How Mary could have fallen for such tosh was beyond Nathan's powers to imagine, but then she was not the first woman, or man, to be fooled by Gilbert Imlay. He even fooled himself most of the time. But she had aspired to be the first of a new kind of woman, a new genus, proud, independent, free. How could she ever forgive herself?

Nathan stepped out of the shadows, crossed the street and entered the supper room.

Imlay saw him at once, his face betraying instant and considerable apprehension. He swiftly recovered his poise however and leaped to his feet with an expression of apparently unfeigned delight.

“Why Nathan, my dear fellow! Why, this is Captain Peake,” he informed the company, who looked as reprobate a bunch of scoundrels and their attendants as Nathan had seen outside of Westminster. “A great friend of mine—we have shared many adventures together. You may have read of his exploits in the Caribbean.” They did not look to be avid readers of the
Gazette
but they smiled indulgently, possibly taking him for a pirate. “Indeed, I was with him when he took the
Virginie
off Cuba.” An astonishing piece of effrontery, even by Imlay's standards, for Nathan had discovered him aboard the
Virginie
when it was took, in the role of political agent for the French admiral. “A bumper of champagne for the captain!”

“I fear I cannot stay,” Nathan declared. “I came only to give you this. It is from your wife.” He presented Mary's letter. Imlay gazed at it for a moment blankly and Nathan saw his brain fighting its way through the haze of drink. An uncomfortable silence had fallen upon the company.

“But it has been opened,” he said.

Nathan inclined his head without comment.

“Excuse me,” Imlay addressed his companions embarrassedly. “I must …” He waved the letter vaguely. “An urgent missive …” He moved away from the table and Nathan followed him to the bar.

“What is this all about?” Imlay frowned.

“Why do you not read it and find out?”

He did. The frown deepened. He may have lost a little of the colour in his complexion.

“My God! She has killed herself!”

“Not quite. No thanks to you. She was fished out of the Thames more dead than alive, and she is now at my mother's house in Soho, wishing she had been left in the river.”

“I must go to her!” Imlay chewed on his lip but this was the only motion he made. He glanced speculatively at the table he had recently vacated. His companions were looking back with bemusement. Nathan wondered if the actress was among them or whether she was the woman he had left behind in Charlotte Street.

Imlay looked at the letter again.

“This was addressed to me,” he said. “Why was it opened?”

“Because you were not there at the time and had it not been opened she would now be at the bottom of the river—or in the morgue.”

“I suppose you think me a scoundrel?”

Nathan shrugged. “I think you know my opinion of you very well from our previous dealings,” he said.

Imlay glanced again at the letter in his hand, if only to avoid looking into Nathan's eyes. “Well, there are two sides to every story,” he began.

“And I am sure yours would be the more entertaining, were I of a mind to hear it.”

“By God, sir! What right have you to be so critical?”

Nathan said nothing but watched him carefully, for Imlay was as dangerous as he was slippery, especially when cornered, and he was clearly working himself into a temper.

“What part did you play in this,” he demanded, thrusting the letter into Nathan's face. “Did you tell her of your … your unfounded suspicions, your biased view of my character?”

“The only part I have played was in helping to save her life,” replied Nathan untruthfully, but there was no point in dwelling upon his own inadequacies in that regard. “And as to your character …”

“You were there?”

“I was.”

“Well, I suppose I must thank you, though if you had been there for your own woman …”

He did not finish the sentence. Even had he known where it was going, he would not have been capable, for Nathan had him by the throat. He held him there a moment while their eyes met—Nathan's burning, Imlay's appalled—and then thrust him away with such violence he tripped over one of the bar stools and fell to the floor.

He was up in an instant, his face red and his hand to his throat,

but for all his apparent eagerness, Nathan knew he was calculating his options. He glanced towards his companions, several of whom were moving in their direction, and shook his head. There was no way out. It had been too public a humiliation, too many people had seen it.

“You will answer for that,” he said. “Danvers, may I rely upon you?”

“Willingly,” replied one of his companions, glaring at Nathan. “Name your second, sir.”

Name your second
. Possibly, for the first time, Nathan became aware of the consequences of an action which had been as little calculated as when he had held his pistol to the head of the Chevalier de Batz. But the reference to Sara had been too much for him. He was too vulnerable on that score.

“You will find me at Number 2, Soho Square, whenever you care to enquire,” he said.

Who on earth could he name? The only friends he had were aboard the
Unicorn
or other ships of His Majesty's.

He bowed once more, to the entire room now, for every eye was fixed upon him, and took his leave. It was raining again but he walked home regardless, almost welcoming it. He really must stop this, he thought; he was become as reckless as an Irishman.

N
ATHAN
SAT IN AN
EASY
CHAIR
by his bedroom window, nursing a glass of wine and looking out at the night sky over London. It was a clear night and the moon almost full. From this height he could see clear across the rooftops towards Lincoln's Inn Fields where he was to meet Imlay in the morning. It was now well after midnight but he had never been able to sleep on the eve of a fight, unlike the cool character upon whom he tried to model himself, who would have slept like a babe whatever crisis lay before him. But this was a character of fiction. Besides, he could not afford to sleep for there was no one to wake him at the required hour; he could hardly have told his mother about the duel and if he had told Izzy she would have informed upon him.

He looked about the room—
his
room—reflecting that his first night here might well be his last. All of his possessions from the house in St James's had been moved here, though mostly stored in cupboards, waiting upon his return. In some ways he preferred it to his old room. It was more homely and had more character. The house, according to his mother, had once been the residence of the Venetian envoy to London, in the early part of the century when the area was still fashionable. But the rich had moved to Mayfair and the square was in genteel decline. Several of the houses were badly in need of renovation, the gardens in the centre of the square neglected and the statue of Charles II in the middle a disgrace that should be removed by the authorities, his mother said—though her objections, Nathan gathered, were more political than aesthetic. But time was slowly eroding the Merry Monarch, his libertine features so worn it looked as if he had syphilis. In a century or so he would be unrecognisable. People would wonder who he was—if they had not carted him away by then to the graveyard of old statues.

A distant bell chimed the half hour. St Anne's most likely. Nathan wondered if he should have gone to church. Composed himself for death. As it was, he would die unshriven. The phrase played on his mind, in harmony with the melancholy of his thoughts.

He was too restless to sit still. He heaved himself up from the chair and crossed to his bed, treading lightly on the bare floorboards so he would not be heard by his mother who was sleeping below. He had not told her about the fight. He supposed he should leave a letter for her but it seemed melodramatic. Besides, he did not expect to be killed. It would cause Imlay too many problems.

Was he sure about that?

No, he was not at all sure. Imlay would do a runner, as he always did when things became a little difficult for him. He had probably made his preparations already. A smuggling vessel waiting off the Kent coast, most likely. He would be in Calais by nightfall if the wind was right.

So was he going to kill Imlay ?

He had been thinking about that, off and on, since he had walked away from the Star. His first thought had been that he would shoot to miss. But then, if Imlay did not shoot at the same time … The rules were quite clear on the issue. He would have to stand until Imlay had fired. And he did not at all like the thought of that. He could shoot him in the right arm, if he was a good enough shot. But he did not think he was. Not that good. And he did not suppose the pistols were that accurate, despite the assurances he had received on the issue.

He lifted himself off the bed and crossed to the wardrobe. Most of his personal effects were at his father's house in Sussex: the place he had always thought of as home until his father had confessed his plans to remarry. But there were a few clothes here that he had left in St James's and the case containing his flute, which for some reason he had brought up to London. And next to it was the case of pistols he had borrowed from Mr. Whitbread, a friend of his mother's who had agreed to be his second: a fine pair of duelling pistols, made by Mortimers of London, for Mr. Whitbread despite being a radical, was a brewer and a wealthy man.

Nathan lifted one of them out of the velvet-lined case and weighed it in his hand. It was the standard .58 calibre with a 10-inch barrel—a good two inches longer than the Belgian pistols he had left on the
Unicorn
. A much better pistol all round for a duel, if not for a fight on the crowded deck of a man-o'-war.

Whitbread had never fired them in anger, he had told Nathan, though he confessed there were a few Tories he would like to meet some day. He seemed to be rather looking forward to the event. But Nathan didn't envy him having to tell his mother if it ended badly.

He removed the safety and pulled back the hammer. Very easy. The mechanism had been well oiled, probably by Whitbread himself, dreaming of shooting Tories. The butt was carved with a number of pie-shaped segments which made for a good grip and the words
H.W. MORTIMER LONDON GUNMAKER TO HIS MAJESTY
were engraved along the top of the octagonal barrel, which inspired confidence. He selected one of the flints from the case and screwed it in. Then he stood sideways, opposite his own reflection in the window, swung up his arm straight from the shoulder and pressed the trigger. There was a loud, clean click and a satisfactory spark as the flint struck the iron. The touchhole, he observed, was lined with platinum. Nothing but the best for Mr. Whitbread. He reversed the pistol and looked down the barrel. Too dark, though, to see anything. Smooth bore, of course. It was held to be dishonourable for a gentleman to use a rifled pistol for a duel: it fired too straight. Practising was also frowned upon.