The Shadow of Great Britain

The July sun poured its scorching heat over the stone-paved streets of London and the riverside warehouses, a swelling sense of impending high summer diffusing through the air.

The pier piles stood soaked in the half-ebbed river, the staging baked hot under the sun; from every gap between the planks came the briny, muddy stench of timber and rotting fish.

Because of King William IV’s demise, this year’s closing date of Parliament came a little earlier than in previous years.

According to the provisions of the constitution, within six months of the Monarch’s death a new general election must be held.

Thus, on the 17th of July last week, Victoria, following custom, appeared for the first time in her coronation robes at Westminster Palace, delivered her inaugural parliamentary speech before all the members of both Houses, declared Parliament prorogued, signed the order dissolving Parliament, and commanded that a new general election be held between late July and early August.

For that reason, the Lower House Members, having just completed a busy session, flung themselves at once, after the closing, into the campaign war that would decide whether they kept their seats.

Still, the frantic scurrying of the Lower House Members did nothing to prevent those gentlemen of the House of Lords, whose seats were hereditary, from proceeding as usual to their delightful holidays.

With the last batch of House of Lords peers slipping quietly out of town, London’s social season, like the pit of a cherry that has been gnawed clean, was casually flung into the rushing current of the Thames River.

Names on the social registers vanished one after another; theatres shut, dinners were suspended, and behind the high windows of the various clubs on St. James Street, only servants remained, tidying candlesticks and tableware.

The pier was in an uproar, yet the noise was not that of hawkers’ cries or porters’ clamor, but the flustered rhythm of the wealthy, hastening in a flurry to their country retreats.

Carriages rattled along, their wheels rolling through puddles and leaving wet, gleaming ruts.

Tweed skirts, gauzy bonnet brims, silver-plated opera glasses and dainty French poodles crowded the wharf; everyone was hurrying toward the season that belonged to the prosperous classes—they were off to Norfolk, to Bath, to Brighton, to Baden-Baden, to Vienna and Paris.

Some families had hired two full carriages just for their luggage, one of them carrying nothing but hat boxes, garments, and dog cages.

The housekeeper, soft cloth cap on her head, stood off to the side gesticulating, directing coachmen and porters as they clambered up and down with the baggage. Uniformed Thames River Police halted vehicles for inspection while bellowing at travelers to beware of the criminal gangs haunting the docks. Hawkers either pushed barrows or balanced crates on their shoulders, peddling lemonade, rice milk, and other cooling drinks everywhere.

Amid this chaos that was nonetheless oddly orderly, the steam packet flying the Red Ensign was easing slowly alongside the pier, her hull rocking gently between the tide and the coal smoke.

A few crewmen in dark blue uniforms stood at the top of the gangway, tidying the deck’s hawsers as they half-heartedly responded to the shouts of the passengers on shore.

Most of the travelers on the quay had telescopes and small bags hanging at their waists; some ladies simply handed their children to the servants and drew out their fans, scanning the positions on deck from a distance over the heads of the crowd.

And at the edge of the throng stood two rather unremarkable gentlemen.

One of them was tall and slender, wearing a black top hat and a fitted double-breasted frock coat; in his hand he carried a brown leather valise, the toe of his shoe lightly touching a mottled, rusty spike in the planking.

The other, though by no means short, was somewhat darker-skinned than most Londoners; he had a hand-rolled cigarette clenched between his teeth and was slowly exhaling smoke along the line of his nose. It was plain that he found the noisy brats around them intensely trying.

”Tch!” Eld glanced around. ”Come summer, this lot flee London as if from a plague. I thought we were setting off early enough, but it seems we’re still half a beat behind.”

Arthur raised his head to look at the Red Ensign snapping in the wind atop the ship. ”Be satisfied. If it weren’t for the election campaign in July and August this year, there’d be twice as many people on the pier.”

”True enough.” Eld let out a brief chuckle, flicked away the butt in his hand, and planted a boot in the rump of a mongrel whose tail was bald halfway down. The dog gave a whimper and bolted behind a pile of luggage, tail between its legs. ”Come on, aboard.”

The two of them had brought no servants, nor any lengthy entourage to see them off.

Arthur carried only the eagle-headed cane he habitually took with him and a small brown leather case.

Eld, for his part, swung a canvas travel bag stamped with the Royal Navy insignia—a keepsake from his days aboard the Beagle.

On the distant dockside Clock tower the hour hand had just passed half-past nine, and the crew were already urging passengers to embark. The crowd surged forward; hat boxes, baskets, umbrella handles, scarves and walking sticks whirled through the air, with the occasional bark of a dog and the shrill scream of a child mixed in.

Arthur turned slightly to let a maid carrying an infant pass. ”I’d thought we’d have to wait in London a few more days before you could leave. You wrapped up your work at the Hydrographic Office so quickly?”

Eld, clutching his travel bag, squeezed onto the gangway. ”There wasn’t much to hand over, really. Hillness Shipyard has a Hermes-class single-masted sailing vessel due to be launched in August; before the year’s end it’ll probably make several trial runs. They asked the Office in advance for some charting materials.”

”Hermes-class?”

”That’s right, a Hermes-class Escort Ship. Pembroke Shipyard also has one scheduled to launch in August, but that vessel has a bit of a design flaw. During earlier tests they found the draft was too deep, so they had no choice but to seal up the gunports on the lower gun deck. A fine 12-gun Escort Ship has now been reduced to a mere 6-gun.”