The Star of the Sea Read Online Free PDF Page B

Many of them subsidise their tenants to emigrate.’
    The American scoffed. ‘To rid their estates of the weakest and keep the best.’
    ‘I suppose they must run their lands as a proper business,’ attempted the Captain. ‘It’s a hard thing for everyone, but there it is.’
    The thrown-back glower was wholly predictable. ‘And is it proper business to accommodate the steerage passengers as you have on this vessel?’
    ‘The passengers are treated as well as my men can hope to treat them. I must work within the constraints laid down by my owners.’
    ‘Your “owners”, Captain? And who might those be?’
    ‘I mean the owners of the ship. The Silver Star company.’
    Dixon nodded grimly, as though having expected the answer. He was the kind of radical, so Merridith assumed, who is secretly relieved that injustices exist; morality being so easily attainable by saying you found them outrageous.
    ‘He has a point, Lockwood,’ the Surgeon said. ‘Those people down in steerage aren’t Africans, after all.’
    ‘Nig-nogs are cleaner,’ the Mail Agent chuckled.
    The Surgeon’s sister emitted a hiccup of tipsy laughter. Her brother gave her an admonishing glance. Quickly she arranged her features into an expression of sorrow.
    ‘Treat a man like a savage and he’ll behave like one,’ Merridith said. His voice had a tremble that frightened him a little. ‘Anyone acquainted with Ireland should know that fact. Or Calcutta or Africa or anywhere else.’
    At the mention of Calcutta some of the company surreptitiously glanced at the Maharajah. But he was busy blowing on a spoonful of soup. A surprising thing to do, perhaps, given that the soup was already chilled.
    Grantley Dixon was staring at Lord Kingscourt now. ‘That’s rich, Merridith, coming from you. I don’t know how a member of your class can sleep at night.’
    ‘I sleep very well, I assure you, old thing. But then I always peruse your latest article immediately before retiring.’
    ‘I am aware that your Lordship has learned how to read. Since you wrote to my editor to complain about my work.’
    Merridith gave a low-lidded, disdainful grin. ‘Sometimes I even snore a little and keep my wife awake in bed.’
    ‘David, for heaven’s sake.’ Lady Kingscourt was blushing. ‘Such talk at the dining table.’
    ‘Quite a sight, the periodic eruption of Mount Dixon the Lesser. As for when your long-awaited novel finally delights us all by appearing, no doubt I shall find it as conducive to tranquillity as the rest of your effusions. I dare say I shall sleep like Endymion, then.’
    Dixon didn’t join in the round of uneasy laughter. ‘You keep your people in abject penury, or near it. Break their backs with work to pay for your position, then put them off the land with no compensation when it suits you.’
    ‘No tenant of mine has been put off the land without compensation.’
    ‘Because there’s hardly anyone left to put off it, since your father evicted half of his tenants. Consigned them to the workhouse or death on the roads.’
    ‘Dixon, please,’ said the Captain quietly.
    ‘How many of them are in Clifden Workhouse tonight, Lord Kingscourt? Spouses kept apart as a condition of entry. Children younger than your own torn from their parents to slave.’ He reached into the pocket of his tuxedo and pulled out a notebook. ‘Did you know they have names? Would you like me to list them? Ever once visited to read a bedtime story to them ?’
    Merridith’s face felt as though it were sun-scorched. ‘Do not dare to impugn my father in my presence, sir. Never again. Do you understand me?’
    ‘David, calm down,’ his wife said quietly.
    ‘My father loved Ireland and fought for her freedom against the vicious scourge of Bonapartism. And I have used what you term “my position”, Mr Dixon, to make strenuous argument for reform of the workhouses. Which would not be there at all to offer what help they do were it not for the likes of my