A Room Made of Leaves by Kate Grenville

Author:Kate Grenville
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canongate Books

THE BEST KIND OF SECRET

Captain Tench loved to nose out things that were not obvious to the eye. He would no doubt add them to his book in due course, but he had a more immediate use for them: as a currency that he paid out to chosen confidants. He had read my husband’s nature well, and knew what kind of coin bought his friendship.

In a quiet corner of my salon one afternoon just before our first Christmas he sat with my husband and myself. A ship had recently arrived with supplies, so that, until the colony’s stores ran low again, our cups contained actual Ceylon, and there was even a dish of scones, though no butter and little jam. The brief respite from famine gave the afternoon a festive air. Captain Tench glanced around to signal that he was about to share a secret. Mr Macarthur leaned forward.

– I happened to see the governor yesterday, Tench said.

– Yes? my husband said.

Like every good storyteller, Tench would not be hurried.

– We spoke of this and that, he said.

He smiled and gestured a greeting at someone on the other side of the room. Was he enjoying keeping Mr Macarthur on tenterhooks? His eyes met mine. Oh, you tease, Captain Tench!

– The governor was not well, he said. But you know how valiantly he conceals his weakness.

– I do, Mr Macarthur agreed. And your business with him? Was it satisfactory?

– Oh yes, Tench said indifferently.

Mr Macarthur cleared his throat and Tench saw he had better tease no longer.

– I suppose you have heard about Mrs Brooks, he said, lowering his voice.

– Mrs Brooks! No, what should I have heard about Mrs Brooks?

Mr Macarthur was torn between his annoyance at being ignorant of a fact that was, from Tench’s tone, common knowledge, and his hunger to be enlightened.

– Oh well, only that, how should I say it, she is…

– She is what? Come, man, out with it!

– Mrs M, Tench said, smiling at me, you will have to forgive me, I seem to have got myself somewhere that a lady might not…

– Oh, Captain Tench, I said, as eager as my husband to hear about Mrs Brooks. Do not be concerned! It is a well-known fact about me that I am inclined now and then to suffer a sudden fit of deafness. In fact I feel one coming on at this very moment.

We were all smiling now, Tench looking at me with appreciation.

– Well, only that Mrs Brooks is by way of being companion to the governor, he said. And since Mrs M is suffering her fit of deafness, I can speak plain: she has been the governor’s inamorata these last seven or eight years.

Mr Macarthur was avid for more.

– There is a wife, Tench said. Back in Hampshire. But not suited, it seems.

Was it my imagination, or was he pointedly not glancing at me?

– Mrs Brooks is the wife of the bosun of the governor’s ship, he said. So there is nothing strange about her being more or less everywhere the governor goes.

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