When Renzi didn’t respond, he added, ‘You’re not one for letters, Nicholas, and I’m sanguine there’s much you haven’t told us. That last, you spoke of submarine boats and a Mr Smith going on a journey, and you said I’d learn all about it in due course. Can you—’
‘Yes. Later, perhaps.’
‘Well, er, what are you doing with yourself at the moment, you and our doughty captain?’
‘I … I’m a scholar of a detached character, well advanced in an ethnical theory that requires I gather data at the first hand in different parts of the world. For this, Mr Kydd is affording me accommodation in his ship in return for my acting as his confidential secretary.’
Laughton politely heard him out then spoke flatly: ‘Nicholas. I speak to you as family. Whether you wish it or no, you are eldest and will later go on to inherit—’
‘I think not. Father has taken steps to prevent that.’
‘But—’
Renzi interrupted him, ‘I am happy with my lot.’
Laughton hesitated. ‘There are other concerns, brother.’
‘Which are?’
‘May I know if there might be, as who should say, a lady in your life?’
‘There is.’
‘Ah. Do I know the family? The north, possibly – or is it to be your London beauty?’
Renzi shot a warning glance at Kydd. ‘Neither,’ he said curtly.
‘Come, come, sir, it is of some interest to us all, a good marriage bringing families of lineage together. Have you reached a settlement with the father?’
‘I take that as impertinence, sir. This is entirely a personal matter.’
‘Nicholas, if you marry beneath yourself it’s most certainly a matter for me.’
Kydd bristled, but managed to say politely, ‘Richard, I happen to know your brother hasn’t even asked the lady.’
‘Is this so?’
‘My heart is entirely taken by the woman. I will marry no other.’
‘Then?’
‘Then … it were better we changed the subject.’ Renzi took up his glass and looked stubbornly away.
Kydd glanced at him in concern, then turned to his brother. ‘You mentioned you had your vexations, Richard. How can that be in such a fine country?’
Laughton eased into a reluctant smile. ‘Since you ask it, Mr Sailorman, it’s surely our losses to privateers. Let me tell you that a ship making for the Barbados convoy carries in her hold much of the season’s hard-won yield. What you probably don’t know is that we’re financed in our operation by advances on London against that crop. If this is taken it’s a calamity impossible to contemplate, so we must insure with Lloyd’s. As the losses go up, so does the insurance premium – which, believe it or no, now stands above six per centum.’
Kydd made a sympathetic murmur.
‘And I’ll remind you that’s a cost in wartime always to be added to our operating expenses, or a sum to be subtracted from our profits, each and every time.’
Acknowledging this with a nod, Kydd interjected drily, ‘I’m no man of business, m’ friend, but even I can see that if the French are driven from the seas then they’ll not get their own crop to market, and the sugar price must surely rise handsomely. I dare to say this goes some way towards compensating for the inconvenience.’
‘You’re in the right of it, Thomas,’ chuckled Laughton. ‘But spare a thought for our other worries. For instance, here on a tropical isle we find the soil’s quickly wearied, exhausted. Without notice a field will throw up stunted, pitiable growths no good to man or beast.’
‘Is there no help for it?’
‘Yes, for those whose study it is to ’ware the signs. Guinea grass answers, sown promiscuous, on which we raise useful numbers of cattle and sheep, their manure a sovereign cure. And our new Bourbon cane strain, which—’
‘So sugar might be accounted a profitable and reliable business for you, brother?’
Renzi’s question made Laughton pause before he answered. ‘Shall we say I lose no sleep b’ nights in torment that my produce will not find a market?’
He waited while their glasses were refilled, then continued, ‘As some facts of a domestic nature will best illuminate. Take your Hannah Glasse, much cried up for her family cookery. Her receipt for seed-cake in the Spanish way demands an entire three pounds of moist sugar, while for your common marmalade it’s at the rate of one pound on every four oranges. And when the modern taste in tea scorns anything less than fourteen pounds of best refined for each pound of leaves, and with a population to be reckoned in millions, you’ll see why I rest easy.’