He promised he would. They parted. Lacroix went to his room (once again pressing the wall rather than the door and having to stand back and guess again). He sat on the unmade bed, got out the writing case and settled it on his lap. The ink in the silver pot had dried to a gum. He spat into it, spat again and mixed it with the steel nib of one of the patent pens. He had the urge to write poetry. Lines Composed in the Western Isles by Capt . . . whoever he was. The walk on the beach would be at the centre of it. Emily as a Nereid, himself a shipwrecked sailor. Or the spirit of one? And if he liked the piece why not set it to music? Something slow but not mournful. An air to the air! He dipped the pen, paused with the glistening nib above the paper, then began a letter to his bank in Bath. He requested that they send, as a matter of urgency, a draft for twenty-five pounds to the Ship Bank in Glasgow and that the draft might be collected and cashed by Miss Emily Frend (he did not want Cornelius getting hold of such an amount). He had not seen the Ship Bank himself when in Glasgow—what had he seen?—but William had mentioned it and the name was not difficult to remember. Emily would bring the money back with her and they would, for a time, not have to depend on the satin purse or Thorpe or the whim of a visionary turned factory master.

The ink—powder and spit—dried to an uncertain purple, as if he had written the letter with wine lees. It would do. He folded the paper, wrote the address. He didn’t have anything to melt wax for a seal but he could do that later. He would give the letter to Ranald this evening. It would go to Glasgow with the list of provisions and Emily’s letter for Rizzo.

He cleaned the nib, closed the case, pushed off his boots and lay down. Poor Lovall. The face came to him more clearly than it had in many weeks. How quickly they had put him aside! A little grave in Castelo Branco, then the auction of his effects—a jacket, a pair of overalls, a saddle, spurs, the writing case . . .