The Quality of Mercy - By Barry Unsworth Page 0,17

the Kingston slave market, where it was purposed to sell him.” Ashton shook his head. “It is lunacy,” he said. “A writ is served on a man for violent and flagrant disregard of the laws relating to the liberty of the subject, release of the abused person is secured and then you find yourself being sued for his value as a slave.”

Something divided in his expression, some mixture of incredulity and ruefulness, struck her now as comical, and she laughed a little, at which he was visibly surprised for a moment. Then he smiled himself and nodded. “Yes,” he said, “you are right, it is ludicrous.”

“You should laugh more, Frederick,” she said. “And you should divert yourself more. It does not mean that one cares less. And this is especially so now, with this case of the slave ship that has come before you, that one hears talk of all over town.”

“No wonder there is talk. It is a most unusual case. In fact, I can’t remember anything like it. Not only for the circumstances, but for the appalling wickedness of the crime—those unoffending people, our fellow human beings, bound and cast overboard to drown, and all to save a few guineas. However, we may derive benefit from it.”

“Derive benefit?” She had never grown used to her brother’s sudden changes from near to far in the way he viewed things. There were times, as now, when she felt a peculiar chill, a sense of dismay, at his ability to pass in a breath from compassion genuinely felt to considerations of strategy, to what might be turned to account.

“The case has received widespread attention,” he said. “It has featured much in the newspapers—people are talking about it, and not only in London. It will give us an opportunity to bring the iniquities of the trade to public notice. There are two actions, entirely separate in law but closely bound together, both brought by the owner of the ship, a man who has made a fortune out of sugar—out of the slave trade, in other words.”

“Yes,” Jane said. “Erasmus Kemp. We have met.”

“Have you indeed? I did not know that.”

“It was at the house of Sir Richard Sykes, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. It seems that he and Mr. Kemp have some banking interest in common. As you know, his daughter Anne is a particular friend of mine.”

“You said nothing of this.”

“There was really nothing to say. Just a few minutes of conversation, quite unmemorable, with several others present.”

Jane had busied herself as she spoke with setting the tea things back on the tray, an operation she would normally have left to the parlormaid. She was aware of not being entirely frank, but saw no reason why she should be, or why she should be uneasy at not being. Distinctly memorable, in fact, had been Erasmus Kemp’s glowering good looks and elegant figure, his lack of smiling, the blaze of his regard, as if he were aiming his eyes at people. She had sensed a sort of unhappiness in him, fiercely contained. His face had lightened a little when he complimented her on her gown, but still he had not smiled.

After waiting in vain for something further from her, Ashton said, “All this happened something like fourteen years ago, and now there is no ship, very few survivors and no reliable witness.”

She was about to ask him more when a footman entered to announce a gentleman visitor, a Mr. Van Dillen, who was asking if he might be accorded some minutes of Mr. Ashton’s time.

“Show him into my study and ask him to take a seat,” Ashton said, getting to his feet. “Tell him I shall be with him in a minute or two. This is one of the underwriters,” he said to his sister, after glancing at the card the servant had handed him.

Jane too had risen. “I have some things to see to,” she said. “I look forward to hearing your account of the visit.”

As they stood together in the light from the wide bow windows, the resemblance between brother and sister was evident. There was the same delicacy of feature and clear gaze, the same fine dark brown hair, though Jane’s had tints of copper that her brother’s lacked, the same straight-shouldered, narrow-boned build. The brother’s face was grimmer, beyond what could be accounted for by the difference in age, drawn with some expression of endurance or obstinacy, as if the suffering caused him by contemplating the suffering of others