Mrs. Cook Read online

  I am with great regard

  Dear Sir

  Your Most Obliged

  Humble Servant

  James Cook

  Already the great wheels were in motion, even during this holiday. Changing the names of the colliers was a matter of diplomacy. Drake and Raleigh would leave a sour taste with the Spanish, who were already piqued by the idea of British ships in the Pacific Ocean, which they seemed to think of as their domain.

  James was sitting at Commodore Wilson’s escritoire, quite at home. He had the ability to appear at home anywhere, except perhaps in his father’s house. But there lay memories, ghosts that inhabited every corner of the cottage except the hearth, the place of the still living. Elizabeth remembered how she had felt when she saw Mama grow so quickly old, as if sands were shifting under her, she too being dragged out on the tide of Mama’s life. But James did not talk of such things. Instead he said, when they were packing up to leave: ‘I am proud to be his son. If I am the man I am today, it’s his doing.’ He sounded almost as if he were laying blame. ‘He started as a farm labourer and ended by being Mr Skottowe’s bailiff. He taught me the value of hard work, by God he did.’

  Elizabeth could not face the thought of a journey to Hull, of spending even more time on those dreadful roads than was absolutely necessary. She was once again with child. It was early days but she could feel it in her bones.

  When they were about to set off, she asked Mrs Wilson for some raisins to take on the voyage. ‘To settle the stomach.’ Mrs Wilson gave her a knowing look. Yes, smiled Elizabeth.

  Mrs Wilson hugged her. ‘God grant you an easy lying-in and a child in good health.’

  Then the Cooks set out, on the long road back to London.

  MR KENDALL’S CLOCK

  Now that they were back, Yorkshire seemed like a dream, a shared one but a dream nevertheless. Elizabeth had mementoes from the journey—some hand-tooled knick-knacks for the boys from their grandfather, and a tablecloth embroidered by Grace. ‘Does your South Seas voyage seem like a dream?’ Elizabeth asked her husband.

  ‘A dream?’

  ‘Now that you are returned home.’

  ‘The house is full of things I have brought back; your tapa cloths, clubs, axes, fish hooks. They are solid, they are real. I will go again soon. What can I bring back to show you that it is not a dream?’

  Elizabeth sighed. She knew that it had actually happened, that those places whence the relics came existed, and that they were peopled with men, women and children, plants and animals, all the Lord’s creations. She knew, but that is not what she felt. Yorkshire was always there, whether she was in it or not. But now back in London it had become a memory, with the same quality as a remembered dream or a story she had made up. The only difference being that the relics of dreams existed solely in her mind.

  James was lying on his back, idly stroking her hair. ‘Are you in the South Seas already, my dear?’ she asked.

  She felt his hand caress her forehead. ‘In the icy high latitudes as well,’ he replied. ‘If a Great South Land exists, it will be towards the Pole.’

  ‘Perhaps it exists only in the dreams of men,’ Elizabeth said.

  ‘In that case, it is a continent that ships won’t find. Other vessels are necessary for travelling into men’s dreams.’

  As Elizabeth had a real and imagined husband, so James had a real and an imagined voyage—one he sailed by ship, and the other in his mind. Elizabeth turned towards her husband. He was looking at the ceiling, imagining the islands he had visited, mapping onto the ocean of ceiling the direction of the prevailing winds, the currents and tides, the route they would take, seeking out the stars that would guide him.

  ‘Where are you at this very moment?’ Elizabeth asked.

  ‘With you, my dear. With you.’

  Preparations for the second voyage had been proceeding, even when the Cooks were in Yorkshire: the colliers had been selected and were being fitted out. The latest scientific instruments would be on board, and there was particular interest in Mr Kendall’s remarkable clock, which would also make the voyage.

  Elizabeth recalled alehouse talk, Mr Blackburn saying that lack of a reliable method of ascertaining longitude was the greatest problem for a seafaring nation like Britain and, indeed, for the rest of the world. Many lives had been lost at sea, valuable cargoes too, because dead reckoning did not suffice.

  Ascertaining longitude depended on a simple calculation in degrees, based on the time at a given point—say, Greenwich—and the time in the world where the ship was. A reliable clock was all that was needed. But what would it take to make a clock that would keep regular time, in blistering cold and blistering heat, through the vicissitudes of ship life and in all weathers? It took the inventive genius of a Yorkshireman, Mr John Harrison, and, according to the man himself, ‘fifty years of self-denial, unremitting toil and ceaseless concentration’.

  ‘I knew the mechanics would win out,’ said Cousin Charles, unbuttoning his waistcoat to allow more room for Elizabeth’s delicious roast beef. His watchmaking business had grown into quite an enterprise, and he had grown accordingly.

  Though there had been many outlandish schemes put forward to ascertain longitude, in the end it basically came down to the astronomers versus the mechanics. The lunar method, practised by the astronomers, required mathematical skill and even then could not always be relied upon. There were several days in the monthly turning when the moon was so close to the sun that it wasn’t visible at all, and measurements couldn’t be made. James, although a master of the lunar method, was in favour of any solution to the longitude problem. But not everyone was. Not surprisingly, the royal astronomer, Nevil Maskelyne, was an advocate of the lunar method, and though Mr Harrison’s various timepieces—there were four generations of them—proved in their trials to be astonishingly accurate, the Board of Longitude resisted giving him the prize money. ‘That poor fellow, Harrison, has devoted his life to it,’ said Charles. ‘For years the board has denied him what’s rightly his.’

  ‘A delay due also to Harrison’s own sense of perfection,’ added James. ‘But he has succeeded. The clock going aboard the Resolution is indeed a pretty piece of work.’

  Mr Harrison’s first three timepieces, beautiful and efficient in themselves, were large, boxy affairs, but H-4, or rather K-1 as James referred to it, a copy having been made by Mr Kendall of Furnical’s Inn Court in London, resembled more a flat disc. Three other timepieces, designed and made by John Arnold of the Adelphi, would also be aboard but all the attention was on Mr Harrison’s creations.

  Charles, knowing that Elizabeth would be interested in the decorative aspects of the timepiece, said: ‘Small enough to fit into your hand. On the back are engraved curlicues as fine as any of your embroideries, Cousin.’

  Elizabeth smiled, acknowledging his compliment.

  ‘Friction-free,’ said James, ‘and therefore requiring no cleaning or lubrication, rust-free, no pendulum. Steel and brass combined in such a way that each metal compensates for the expansion or contraction of the other.’

  With James so successfully returned from the first voyage, no expense was spared for the second. Two ships this time, much to Elizabeth’s relief. James would have all the latest inventions, including timepieces, and whatever else he wanted. However, in the mind of the public, and especially the newspapers, this was to be once again Mr Banks’s voyage.

  Mr Banks himself was of the same opinion. He had grand plans, and plenty of money to turn them into reality. Nevertheless, he still found time to have a collar engraved for the goat which had eaten its way through the back garden of the Cooks’ home. The collar had a distich composed in Latin by Dr Johnson which ran: ‘The globe twice circled, this the Goat, the second to the nurse of Jove, is thus rewarded for her never-failing milk.’

  ‘The goat appears to be almost as celebrated as Banks himself,’ commented Elizabeth when James told her that the gentleman was dropping around to deliver the collar. />
  Despite her expectations, Elizabeth was charmed. Joseph Banks’s enthusiasm far outweighed his pomposity, great though the latter was.

  ‘Oh, how glorious would it be to set my heel upon the Pole! And turn myself round 360 degrees in a second,’ he declared.

  He was young, the publicity had gone to his head, that was all.

  Jamie and Nat laughed to see Mr Banks turn himself around. Of course, now they wanted to go to the Pole and turn themselves around. ‘And what will your dear mother do, with all her men away?’ Mr Banks said to them.

  Though discussion of the Resolution itself was diplomatically avoided during the visit, Elizabeth knew that the alterations being done to accord with Mr Banks’s wishes were straining the friendship as well as the ship. James had chosen the collier for a voyage of geographical discovery, and although larger than the Endeavour, it was never intended to be a passenger ship. But Mr Banks’s entourage was growing daily. There were to be seventeen people in his party this time, including Dr Solander once again; the well-known physician and man of science from Edinburgh, Dr James Lind; painter Zoffany; and a host of others, including two horn players. Then there were the dogs, and a staggering amount of paraphernalia.

  James was against the massive alterations, as was Hugh Palli-ser, but Mr Banks blithely bypassed the Navy Board and went directly to his friend, Lord Sandwich. The waist of the collier was heightened, an additional upper deck built, along with a raised poop to accommodate James, who had given over the great cabin, and that of the captain, to Mr Banks.

  ‘You are prepared to do all this for the sake of his friendship?’ Elizabeth asked.

  ‘It matters not where I sleep,’ said James. ‘I have not grown so used to comfort that I’ve forgotten what it is to sleep on a mattress under a counter, as I did in Mr Sanderson’s shop.’

  ‘But the ship,’ said Elizabeth, ‘won’t it be top-heavy?’

  James sighed. ‘Indeed. By my reckoning, and that of Hugh and other members of the Navy Board. But Sandwich has approved the alterations. We can only hope for the best. There will be a full trial of her, then we shall see what we shall see.’

  When Elizabeth and the boys went to look over the Resolution she was astonished at the numbers of people coming aboard, milling around, gawping from the waterside. Not just workmen and people who had business on the ship but the whole of London, it seemed. Gentlemen and ladies, people of all ranks and walks of life.

  To take best advantage of the season and the prevailing winds, James was hoping to set sail in March. Medals had already been struck by Matthew Boulton, for distribution throughout the islands of the South Seas, bearing the impression of the Resolution and the Adventure, and the words ‘Sailed from England March MDCCLXXII’, but by mid-March there was still no fixed departure date.

  James started ranging around the house as he had after that last season in Newfoundland, getting tetchy at the slightest little thing, at the crowdedness of the house, till finally Elizabeth said: ‘It will be considerably more crowded aboard the Resolution, with Mr Banks and his entourage, with the stores and the precious instruments. If you find the house crowded, perhaps you should go into the garden. The goat, the famous goat who has twice circumnavigated the globe, appears to be quite happy there. I do not see her scratching itchy feet.’

  Husband and wife stood facing each other, a distance between them, as if they were engaged in a duel.

  James was the first to drop his weapon. ‘As you wish.’ Before Elizabeth could say anything, he grabbed his jacket and walked out of the house, by the back door, heading into the fields. Elizabeth watched his determined stride, the swing of his arms, felt the tug on her heartstrings as he walked away.

  She busied herself by scouring a pot. Vigorously. What was said was said. She remembered the conversation with Mrs Wilson at Great Ayton, about her husband being under her feet. When James was away and Elizabeth’s longing intense, she thought she could never have enough of him, that for him to be at home was all she wanted. Now, though she could hardly admit the thought even to herself, she also was waiting for a departure date.

  Elizabeth had cleaned the surface dirt off the pot but kept on scrubbing. She felt somehow slighted by his restlessness, as if he could not bear to spend more than a few months at a time with her and the boys. She looked at the pot and sighed. Her scrubbing had been so vigorous that she’d scratched the brass. Now she would have to go over it again with a soft cloth.

  The back door opened. James stood there, a silhouette against the low misty sky that flurried over the fields, obliterating all trace of where he had been. ‘I am sorry, my dear.’ Elizabeth put the pot aside, wiped her hands on her apron. She barely came up to her husband’s shoulder, yet in this moment she felt much taller. ‘I shouldn’t be bringing my concerns about the Resolution into our home. This is my haven, my safe port, no place for the tempests that have nothing to do with you.’ He came right in and sat at the table, wiped his hands over his face as if to erase his worries. ‘I fear the ship will never sail with Joseph’s alterations.’

  Elizabeth put her irritation aside when she saw how weary James was. She gently laid her hand on his shoulder. ‘There is still the trial. Your good judgment will win out.’

  At the end of March, after a few days of looking poorly, the goat died. No-one knew what the problem was—perhaps an organism in the soil—but James said: ‘She is a sea-goat, she fretted for the ocean. Our back garden, with plenty of land and the attention of all of London, is not what nourished her.’

  He could well have been speaking about himself. He had the sea in his veins and he must return to it. Elizabeth thought of pelicans, albatrosses, of the great seabirds, how awkward they were on the land, how graceful in flight. She had grown up on the river, knew that seamen were of a different ilk to landmen, it showed in their clothes, in their gait, in everything about them. And she was wedded to such a man. He was a sea creature, he could only breathe for a certain time on land and then he must return.

  Swayed by Mr Banks’s charm, his enthusiasm, station in life, the great prestige he brought to this voyage, the fortune which he invested liberally in the undertaking and the high public esteem in which he was held, the Navy Board and the Admiralty, under Lord Sandwich, had momentarily forgotten their better judgment and been swept along in the gentleman’s wake.

  The consequences of it were brought home with a thud when, in May, the Resolution was finally trialled. She was top heavy, and on the point of capsizing a short way down the river. Mr Cooper, the first lieutenant, agreed with James, saying that in its present condition, the Resolution was ‘an exceeding dangerous and unsafe ship’. Even Mr Clerke, ready as ever for adventure, wrote to Mr Banks: ‘By God I’ll go to Sea in a Grog Tub, if desir’d, or in the Resolution as soon as you please; but must say I think her by far the most unsafe Ship I ever saw or heard of.’

  James had waited long enough. He stepped in and told the Admiralty secretary that all of Mr Banks’s work would have to be undone. He thought of the storm they’d met with when sailing home from Newfoundland, and how the canoe he was carrying for Joseph was heaved overboard. ‘By Jove, we are in a storm again and Mr Banks’s things will have to be jettisoned,’ James boomed.

  ‘What will he say?’ Elizabeth asked.

  ‘We’ll see what he has to say. The Resolution will be returned to the way it was, Banks or no.’

  Whilst Mr Banks had had greatness bestowed upon him, he was yet to grow into the personage that matched it. He was not pleased, behaving like a wilful child who could not have his way. ‘My young midshipman, John Elliott,’ James reported, ‘says that when Joseph came to Sheerness and saw the remedial work in progress, he stamped upon the Wharf like a mad man, and instantly ordered his servants and all his things out of the Ship.’

  Mr Banks wrote a rather foolish letter of self-justification to Lord Sandwich, there were questions raised in the Parliament, but the upshot of it all was that Banks retired with his tail between his le
gs. Lord Sandwich made no counter offers to his young friend. He would not sail on this second voyage of discovery, nor Solander, Zoffany, the horn players or any of his entourage.

  By the third week of June the Resolution was ready. A father and son duo—John Reinhold Forster and George Forster—had replaced Banks and Solander. The astronomers aboard were Mr William Bayly, and a Yorkshireman, Mr William Wales. On his return from the voyage, Mr Wales would go on to become master at the Mathematical School at Christ’s Hospital, an inspiring teacher to his pupils, one of whom was a boy called Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

  The Admiralty had given James their instructions, which were more or less a written version of what he had proposed to them in the first place. He was to call in at Madeira for wine, and the Cape of Good Hope for supplies. Elizabeth could expect letters from these places. Then there would be the years of waiting, as James sailed beyond the horizon towards the South Pole. He would explore, survey, chart, and claim lands for England.

  But he had not left yet. His preparations done, he devoted the last few days to his family, to Elizabeth. Though she was heavy with child in the second half of June, husband and wife embraced tenderly, lovingly, and found ways to fulfil their desire for each other. James stroked her breasts, traced his hand over the mound of her belly, felt the movement of the child within.

  ‘We will call him George,’ said Elizabeth. ‘For the king.’

  ‘And if a girl?’ asked James.

  ‘It will be a boy,’ she smiled. ‘I can feel it.’

  She hated seeing James leave, watching the coach pull away. The neighbours were there, the Curtises and Witherspoons, the Blades and Honeychurches, all waving and calling out their goodbyes as James’s luggage was loaded and he finally climbed aboard. In that crowd of well-wishers Elizabeth felt alone. She could not share their excitement, their anticipation for the voyage ahead, but she did her best to keep a smile on her face so that when James looked back, this is what he would see, would remember.