"Magnificent! Just as in the old days! Oh, might I introduce myself? Robert de Havilland." He handed Kydd a card. "As you may see, I'm a banker and it did cross my mind that should you see fit to favour us with your financial interests then I'm sure that we would be able to offer very advantageous rates to a gentleman as distinguished as yourself. A line of credit against your captures, perhaps? Sovereign investment in Consols at above market—"
"Why, thank ye, Mr de Havilland," Kydd came back politely, "but I'm not ready t' change banks at th' moment." It was truly amazing how many new friends he had made in the few days since his return from sea.
Curious to see proceedings he entered the tavern. It was stifling, packed with merchants watching while the auctioneer droned away on the fine qualities of the vessel under the hammer. A stir went through them when he had finished and an assistant brought a lighted taper.
"Are ye ready, gennelmen? Light th' candle!"
The bids were low at first, then from all sides the serious ones came in. "One fifty t' you, sir—two hundred? Mr Mauger? Two seventy . . ."
Kydd had no idea of the value this represented but was content to let it wash over him. The bids petered out but all eyes were fixed on the candle and Kydd saw that it was burning down to where a blackened pin with a ribbon had been inserted. As the flame neared, the bids redoubled until there was a staccato hammer of shouts before the pin dropped clear, and the highest bidder was declared the new owner.
Turning to go, Kydd was stopped by the auctioneer, who had spotted him. To general acclamation he announced that they had been honoured by the presence of the victorious captor. Kydd blushed and made a hurried escape outside to an unseasonably warm sun.
He strolled along the parade, nodding to respectful passers-by, and pondered the change in life's direction that had brought him so much. He recalled the smugness of Zephaniah Job at the wind-up meeting, the almost fawning attention of Robidou, the ledger figures that told of his restoration to fortune.
Then there was the respect he seemed to have won from Cheslyn and the crew of the privateer at paying-off time. He chuckled aloud to recall a bold and swashbuckling Pookie stepping ashore playing the corsair to the limit as she took home her plunder to present to her mother.
Would Renzi believe how things had changed? His friend's selfless toil in Jersey to keep him going was now no longer necessary. He would ask him to return but without telling him of his great change in fortune, simply say he was due for a surprise. Yes, he must write him a letter . . .
Kydd then remembered a promise, which he would soon be in a position to keep. He planned to take one of those grand and very comfortable mansions in Grange Road.
A celebration, a great dinner occasion—and the only ones invited would be those who had stood so nobly by him. As he hurried along to set it in train he imagined the room resounding to Richard Samson's Shakespearean declaiming, the extravagant gown that Griselda Mayhew would flaunt, the studied nonchalance of Carne, who would probably complain at the waste of a good flyman. It would be a splendid evening.
* * *
CHAPTER 16
RENZI WAS ON HIS WAY BACK to Guernsey and to Kydd. He had kept his word and stayed with d'Auvergne until it was obvious there was no more to be done, and then, accepting only what he was owed in wages, he quit the place.
It had been a catastrophe—not for want of courage: there had been every reason to expect a different conclusion but for the treachery of Querelle. The head of the secret police, Fouché, had moved rapidly and, with bloodshed and torture, the conspiracy to kidnap Bonaparte had been comprehensively crushed.
Georges had been taken after a gigantic struggle, the old soldier Pichegru dragged from his bed to the Temple prison. Troops had been sent across the Rhine to arrest the Duc d'Enghien and orders poured out of Paris for apprehending lesser names.
Bonaparte's vengeance was savage: arrests, trials and executions followed swiftly one on another. Georges was guillotined with eleven others, bellowing, "Vive le Roi!" even as the blade fell. The Duc d'Enghien was imprisoned and put on trial for his life while Pichegru was found strangled in his cell with a stick and neckerchief, some said to prevent unwanted disclosures at the trial.
It had been a searing experience: Renzi knew he looked haggard and drawn, and that it would take some time to emerge from the darkness of tainted violence. To see his friend again was now all he asked; he remembered the last letter, the reference to his "surprise," and hoped it would allow some small leavening of Kydd's existence—what means he himself had been able to bring back was not as much as he had hoped.