“I am not tame,” Temeraire said very indignantly, his hearing perfectly adequate to the task of overhearing this unwhispered exchange, “but I am certainly not going to hurt you, if that is what you are asking; you had much better be afraid of being stepped upon by a horse.” He knocked his tail against his side in irritation, nearly sweeping off a couple of the topmen engaged in pitching the traveling-tent upon his back, and so gave himself the lie even as he spoke. His audience was sufficiently distracted by his remarks not to notice this nice point, however.
“It is most wonderful,” Mr. Wilberforce said, after conversing with him a little longer, “to discover such excellent understanding in a creature so far removed from ourselves; one might call it even miraculous. But I see that you are making ready to depart; so I will beg your pardon,” he bowed to Temeraire, “and yours, Captain, for so indelicately moving to the subject which has brought us here, to seek your assistance.”
“I hope you will speak as frankly as you like, sir,” Laurence said, and begged them to sit down, with many apologies for the situation: Emily and Dyer had dragged chairs out of the cabin for their use, as that building was hardly fit for receiving guests, and arranged them near the embers of the cooking-fire for warmth.
“I wish to be clear,” Wilberforce began, “that no-one could be insensible of the service which his Grace has rendered his country, or begrudge him the just rewards of that service, and the respect of the common man—”
“You might better say, the blind adoration of the common man,” Lord Allendale put in, with more heavy disapproval. “And some not so common, who have less excuse; it is appalling to see the influence the man has upon the Lords. Every day he is not at sea is a fresh disaster,” and Laurence gathered, after a few moments more of confusion, that they were speaking of none other than Lord Nelson himself.
“Forgive me; we have spoken so much of these matters, among ourselves, that we go too quickly.” Wilberforce drew a hand over his jaw, rubbing down his jowls. “I believe you know something already,” he said, “of the difficulties which we have encountered, in our attempts to abolish the trade.”
“I do,” Laurence said: twice already, victory had seemed in reach. Early in the struggle, the House of Lords had held up a resolution already past the Commons, with some excuse of examining witnesses. On another attempt, a bill had indeed gone through, but only after amendments had changed abolition to gradual abolition: so gradual indeed that there were no signs of it as yet to be seen, fifteen years later. The Terror in France had by that time been making a bloody ruin of the word liberty, and putting into the hands of the slave traders the choice name of Jacobin to be leveled against abolitionists; no further progress had been made, for many years.
“But in this last session,” Wilberforce said, “we were on the verge of achieving a vital measure: an act which should have barred all new ships from the slave trade. It ought to have passed; we had the votes in our grasp—then Nelson came from the countryside. He had but lately risen from his sickbed; he chose to address Parliament upon the subject, and by the vigor of his opposition alone caused the measure to fail in the Lords.”
“I am sorry to hear it,” Laurence said, if not surprised: Nelson’s views had been pronounced in public, often enough. Like many a naval officer, he thought slavery, if an evil, also a necessary one, as a nursery for her sailors and a foundation of her trade; the abolitionists a cohort of enthusiasts and quixotics, bent on undermining England’s maritime power and threatening her hold upon her colonies, while only that domination allowed her to hold fast against the looming threat of Napoleon.
“Very sorry,” Laurence continued, “but I do not know what use I can be to you; I cannot claim any personal acquaintance, which might give me the right to try and persuade him—”
“No, no; we have no such hope,” Wilberforce said. “He has expressed himself too decidedly upon the subject; also many of his great friends, and sadly his creditors, are slave-owners or involved with the trade. I am sorry to say such considerations may lead astray even the best and wisest of men.”
They sought rather, he explained, while Lord Allendale looked morose and reluctant, to offer the public a rival for their interest and admiration; and Laurence gradually understood through circular approaches that they meant him for this figure, on the foundation of his recent and exotic expedition, and the very adoption which he had expected his father to condemn.
“To the natural interest which the public will have, in your late adventure,” Wilberforce said, “you join the authority of a military officer, who has fought against Napoleon himself in the field; your voice can dispute Nelson’s assertions, that the end of the trade should be the ruin of the nation.”
“Sir,” Laurence said, not certain if he was sorrier to be disobliging Mr. Wilberforce, or happier to be forced to refuse such an undertaking, “I hope you will not think me lacking in respect or conviction, but I am in no way fitted for such a role; and could not agree, if I wished to. I am a serving-officer; my time is not my own.”
“But here you are in London,” Wilberforce pointed out gently, “and surely, while you are stationed at the Channel, can on occasion be spared,” a supposition which Laurence could not easily contradict, without betraying the secret of the epidemic, presently confined to the Corps and only the most senior officials of the Admiralty. “I know it cannot be a comfortable proposal, Captain, but we are engaged in God’s work; we ought not scruple to use any tool which He has put into our way, in this cause.”
“For Heaven’s sake, you will have nothing to do but attend a dinner party, perhaps a few more; kindly do not cavil at trifles,” Lord Allendale said brusquely, tapping his fingers upon the arm of his chair. “Of course one cannot like this self-puffery, but you have tolerated far worse indignities, and made far greater a spectacle of yourself, than you are asked to do at present: last night, if you like—”
“You needn’t speak so to Laurence,” Temeraire interrupted coldly, giving the gentlemen both a start: they had already forgotten to look up and see him listening to all their conversation. “We have chased the French off four times this last week, and flown nine patrols; we are very tired, and we have only come to London because our friends are sick: and left to starve, and die in the cold; because the Admiralty will do nothing to make them more comfortable.”
He finished stormily, a low threatening resonance building in his throat, the instinctive action of the divine wind operating; it lingered as an echo, when he had already stopped speaking. No one spoke for a moment, and then Wilberforce said thoughtfully, “It seems to me we need not be at cross-purposes; and we may advance your cause, Captain, with our own.”
They had meant, it seemed, to launch him with some social event, the dinner-party Lord Allendale had mentioned, or perhaps even a ball; which Wilberforce now proposed instead to make a subscription-party, “whose avowed purpose,” he explained, “will be to raise funds for sick and wounded dragons, veterans of Trafalgar and Dover—there are such veterans, among the sick?” he asked.
“There are,” Laurence said; he did not say, all of them: all but Temeraire himself.
Wilberforce nodded. “Those are yet names to conjure with, in these dark days,” he said, “when we see Napoleon’s star ascendant over the Continent; and will give still further emphasis, to your being also a hero of the nation, and make your words a better counterweight to Nelson’s.”
Laurence could scarcely bear to hear himself so described; and in comparison with Nelson, who had led four great fleet actions, destroyed all Napoleon’s navy, established Britain’s complete primacy at sea; who had justly won a ducal coronet by valor and deeds in honorable battle, not been made a foreign prince through subterfuge and political machination. “Sir,” he said, with an effort restraining himself from a truly violent rejection, “I must beg you not to speak so; there can be no just comparison.”