Wild Island by Jennifer Livett Page A

them.
    ‘I wanted to let you know beforehand, Booth,’ Montagu waved a hand to dismiss potential thanks, ‘that at my instigation, Sir John will try to persuade you to seek permission to stay when the Regiment leaves. If you judge that would be in your best interests, then with his recommendation—and of course, my own,’ he smiled, ‘there should be no difficulty. You might decide to apply for your majority at the same time. I put it to you merely as a friend,’ he paused, ‘to give you time to think of it before tomorrow when Sir John wishes you to breakfast with him . . .’
    ‘You are very kind, sir.’
    ‘Not at all. Your staying would benefit us all.’
    The room grew thickly warm from the generous, heaped-up fire; oil lamps; a great branch of candles with tall, steady flames. Heavy green velvet curtains shut out draughts, the dark, the difficult colony. One might have been in Basingstoke. Booth would have liked to go away and sleep. His head was fuzzy with weariness and he knew hehad not the right kind of nature to keep up with Montagu. He liked to think he was clever enough in his own way; could design you a wharf, build you a bridge, a railway . . . but the sense of political deeps and shoals that overtook him in Montagu’s company made him feel stupid. He preferred to walk miles in the clean rain—and he understood clearly what this meant: that he never had been, would never be, ambitious enough for his own good.
    Forster crossed to the sideboard, refilled his brandy and brought his glass and the decanter back to the mantelpiece. Montagu’s eyes made a memorandum of it.
    ‘On another matter, sir,’ Booth said. ‘The letter concerning Mr Rowland Rochester. May I see you about it tomorrow?’
    ‘Ah,’ Montagu frowned, sipped his watered wine. ‘No need after all, I think. Send it back to me. A mare’s nest. I have looked into it. There are no records of a Mr Rochester in the colony. No reason why you need be involved.’
    ‘But, sir,’ said Booth. ‘I believe Rochester might be here. Or at least, that he was in the colony at one time . . .’
    Montagu frowned. Forster smiled at Montagu.
    ‘I felt I should mention it . . .’ Booth floundered on, ‘I saw him two years ago.’
    ‘The circumstances?’
    ‘I had come up from the peninsula for Lieutenant Tunstall’s wedding. I had leave to attend, you may remember, at Bothwell. I managed to get a lift upriver to the Black Snake Inn, and went into the stables there to hire a horse for the rest of the way. When I came riding out, the coach was there loading, and among the passengers just embarking was a man . . . My attention was drawn by his limp, I suppose. Rowland Rochester’s leg was injured at Demerara and . . .’
    ‘Did he see you? Did you speak to him?’ Montagu interrupted, still frowning.
    ‘I did not, but I believe he saw me and knew me. He looked at me as though he did not want to be . . .’
    Montagu’s frown relaxed. ‘You are mistaken, Booth. You saw a man who gave you the impression of being someone you had known briefly many years before? No, no. There would be some record.’
    ‘I wondered if he might be using another name,’ said Booth.
    Montagu smiled, raised his open hands in a triumphant gesture of, ‘There, you see?’ and said, ‘Well, in that case how could we find him out to be Rochester? It is not for us to waste time looking into every possibility. What do you say, Matthew?’
    Forster had his back to them, refilling his glass.
    ‘ Makework for lawyers,’ he growled. ‘Fees for this, that, and t’other. The man must be dead, I sh’d say,’ he added, giving a leering, crooked smile at Montagu, who looked away at the fire.
    A pause.
    ‘Because, you know,’ continued Montagu, smoothing his right hand gently over the back of his left, as though stroking a small pale animal, ‘it’s my feeling that we should be careful not to introduce irrelevant details. They will only protract the family’s futile