Landfalls Read online

  The cab deposits him before a narrow, dignified residence on Oxford Street. The door is opened by a narrow, dignified servant. The man takes Monneron’s letter of introduction and soon after escorts him into a parlor where a man in a silk damask morning gown with a matching cap is finishing breakfast. When he looks up, Monneron is shocked by his youth.

  “You expected an old man,” Webber says.

  Monneron cannot deny it. It’s been only five years since Cook’s third and final voyage returned to England without him, but it has already achieved the status of legend, and yes, one expects those who sailed with him to be grizzled old men.

  “I was only twenty-four when the expedition began,” Webber explains. Monneron makes some mental calculations: Webber is younger than he is.

  The artist invites his guest to sit down, then has his manservant bring another place setting. Monneron puts up only a nominal protest before making quick work of strong, hot tea, smoked herring, a slice of cold veal pie, and a roll with marmalade.

  “So,” Webber says, “you’re going to the South Seas.”

  Monneron nods through a mouthful, then tells him about Don Inigo and the need for scientific books and instruments. Also, information on antiscorbutics. And advice about appropriate items for exchange with natives.

  Webber nods. “How long are you here?”

  “Till Friday.”

  “Friday?” The artist sets his teacup down before laughing. “You’re going to be rather busy, Mr. Monneron.” He meets Monneron’s eyes with a look at once frank and challenging. “I’m not sure how useful I can be to you. I’m no sailor.”

  Monneron is inclined to agree, but doesn’t say so. “I know you returned from the voyage with hundreds of paintings,” he says, remembering what the minister said about artists. “You cannot have done so without learning many things.”

  Webber holds his gaze for a moment, then pushes back from the table. “Come with me,” he says.

  Knife

  Webber’s library is high-ceilinged, white-walled, lit by small windows above the bookcases. Books occupy the upper shelves; the lower shelves are filled with art and objects. “It’s all from the voyage,” he says. The drawings are his, he explains, sketches and paintings executed during the voyage; the rest are items he found, purchased, or was given.

  Monneron steps forward to examine the drawings. They include landscapes and topographical views, botanical drawings and sketches of birds and lizards, portraits of natives and studies of their homes and canoes, and numerous scenes—natives dancing, feasting, receiving Cook, burying their dead. The drawings are of various sizes, but many are larger than Monneron expected, some an arm’s length across. He tries to imagine his silk-gowned young host working on the busy deck of the Resolution, or pitching about in one of its smaller boats, or walking around a newly discovered island, all the while managing these large sheets of paper and drawing supplies, perhaps an easel as well, and it seems at once impossible, comic, and noble. “They’re marvelous,” he says.

  “You’re very kind,” Webber says. They’re standing before a portrait of a native man. The man has something long and thin thrust through his upper ear. His hair is up in a sort of topknot tied with string, and he has copious, though close-shaved, facial hair; he looks like a pleasant creature, except for the odd ear ornament. “He was from Mangea,” Webber says. The expedition didn’t land on the island, he goes on to explain, but men came out in canoes to trade with the ships, and this man—“his name was Mourua”—had been persuaded to come on board. “He was shaking with fright. I thought any moment he might fling himself overboard.”

  Monneron studies the painting a moment longer before venturing to say, “He does not look frightened.”

  Webber laughs. “That’s because we gave him a knife in exchange for some fish and coconuts,” he says. “That’s what he’s got in his ear. They all had these slits in one ear, the men of that island. Mourua slipped his knife right in like it had been made for the purpose.” He suggests Monneron advise Don Inigo to take a supply of similar knives, as they had proved popular with all the islanders they met. “I can show you where to purchase them,” he says.

  Monneron turns to Webber. “You see? You are already helping me.” He hopes he doesn’t look as surprised as he feels.

  Webber draws Monneron’s attention to his collection of objects—a headdress, ornaments, carvings in wood and bone, Tahitian dresses. He remembers everything: the provenance of each item, the circumstances by which it came into his possession, the appearance and behavior of the natives there, what they were willing to trade, and for what. Monneron is amazed. If only he can keep himself in this man’s company for the week, he thinks, his mission will be largely accomplished.

  Their circumnavigation of the library complete, Webber opens the door leading back toward the parlor. On an impulse, Monneron says, “Do you still paint portraits, Mr. Webber?”

  “My reputation is mostly in landscapes,” Webber says, then watches Monneron’s gaze travel around the room, taking in all the native faces. “Portraits of natives are really a kind of landscape painting too,” he says. “Why do you ask?”

  “I’m going away for so long—anything can happen—I thought—only if you have time, of course…” Monneron says, his discomfort entirely real.

  “You want me to paint you?”

  Monneron laughs, embarrassed. “It would be for my mother. But you must be busy.”

  “Not as busy as you this week.”

  Monneron’s face warms. Indeed, he’s just shared with this man a long list of tasks he has less than a week to complete; this request for a portrait must sound absurd and vain. “Perhaps something quick, just in pencil or pen,” he says, “like one of these sketches from the voyage.” He stops, abashed to think he’s just characterized Webber’s work as something one can simply dash off. He puts a hand to his forehead, aware that it’s a nervous gesture people—women especially—find disarming.

  Webber is smiling at him. “I’d be delighted to paint you.”

  Monneron laughs with relief. “I don’t know how these things work,” he says. “Is twenty-five guineas an appropriate fee?”

  Webber shakes his head. “That’s not necessary.”

  “It is necessary.”

  After some haggling, Webber reluctantly agrees to five guineas. He apologizes—he’d be happy to begin straightaway, but has engagements the rest of the day. Can Monneron return tomorrow?

  “Come around three,” Webber says. “The light is best in my studio then.”

  King’s Ransom

  Monneron has one more document on his person—a shopping list drawn up by Monsieur de Lapérouse himself. The minister had not been altogether pleased by it: “‘English’ does not mean ‘better,’” he declared. “We have instrument makers in Paris!” But Lapérouse had insisted. “We bring no glory to France by traveling with inferior instruments made at home,” he said. The minister relented, and now Monneron is on his way to the Fleet Street atelier of George Adams, Jr., to purchase several of the world’s finest compasses.

  Mr. Adams is a young man—not yet thirty-five, Monneron thinks—who inherited from his father both his business and his position as instrument maker to the king. Mr. Adams does not suffer from false modesty. Indeed, he doesn’t suffer from modesty of any kind. He subjects Monneron to questioning as if to determine whether his new customer is worthy of his wares. “Inigo Alvarez?” he says with a sniff. “Never heard of him.”

  “Ah, but ’e knows of you, Monsieur Adams,” Monneron says, exaggerating his accent.

  The combination of flattery and Frenchness prevails, and Adams is persuaded to part with two azimuth compasses. They’re beautiful in their simplicity, each hand-painted compass face with its durable steel needle seated in a glass-covered brass housing suspended from an outer brass ring, which in turn is affixed to a wooden box, all of it designed to withstand the motions at sea. Unfortunately, Mr. Adams has no dipping needles—used to adj
ust compass readings, essential on a long voyage into unknown parts. Monsieur de Lapérouse has especially requested them—two, in fact, one for each of the expedition’s ships.

  “I’ve had no orders for them in nearly a year,” Adams says, peering at Monneron with renewed suspicion.

  “Do you know anyone else who—?”

  “No,” Adams says, apparently not given to recommending his competitors even when he cannot meet a customer’s needs himself.

  The other instrument makers Monneron meets that afternoon are friendlier and less inquisitive. Not far from Adams, in their workshop behind the Sign of the Orrery, he meets the elfin Troughton brothers, who cheerfully sell him a sextant and a pantograph for the expedition’s cartographers. At Nairne and Blunt’s in Cornhill, he buys two of the most beautiful and expensive barometers he’s ever seen; they will please the expedition’s savants. Next door he finds hourglasses and magnetic bars. And at the famed Ramsden’s in Piccadilly, he leaves behind what feels like a king’s ransom and walks out with the promised delivery of two theodolites, two night telescopes, four thermometers, one large sextant, one small one, and four handheld compasses suitable for land exploration. But alas, no dipping needles. “You’ll want to see Mr. Adams for that,” they all say.

  It’s seven o’clock before Monneron returns, exhausted, cold, and hungry, to Mrs. Towe’s. The fire has gone out in his room, and supper consists of watery boiled partridge and buttered potatoes so cold the butter has recongealed. But he makes his own fire and shrugs his way through the meal. He’s eaten much worse in far greater discomfort. And he has every reason to be satisfied with his first day in London: he’s made contact with a knowledgeable and forthcoming member of the Cook expedition and procured nearly everything on Monsieur de Lapérouse’s list. There’s even satisfaction in the knowledge that he’s reduced the crown’s coffers, in one day, by more than three thousand louis. He’s understood all along that the expedition will be unlike any other that France has undertaken, its scientific mission paramount, no reasonable expense to be spared. Today he’s done his part to make it so.

  He tosses a cold, butter-coated potato into the fire to watch it hiss and burn. If he could only find some dipping needles, he thinks, then throws in another potato.

  A Treatise on the Scurvy

  In the morning, the breakfast tray surprises by including a note from Sir Joseph Banks, the naturalist the minister said was too close to Admiralty and king to approach. It’s a breathless, unpunctuated missive written in a hand more sure than legible:

  Sir

  having just learned of your presence in London to assist Don Inigo Alvarez in preparations for his upcoming voyage I take the liberty of proffering my assistance as Don Inigo and I are acquainted he having as you are no doubt aware a great interest in natural history and was once good enough to send me two Blepharopsis mendica for my collection

  would be honored if you would call at 11 o’clock for conversation of mutual interest and benefit

  JB

  Monneron stares for several minutes together at the letter. He cannot decide which is stranger—that Banks knows of him at all, or that he claims acquaintance with the fictional Don Inigo. Banks must know on whose behalf Monneron is really here. But how? Adams, Monneron thinks, remembering the young instrument maker’s disdainful, persistent curiosity. It must be. But what does Banks want? Does he mean to expose Monneron and embarrass the French government? And what is a Blepharopsis mendica?

  The crux of the matter, however, is this: one does not turn down a summons from Sir Joseph Banks. As the bells of a nearby church toll the appointed hour, Monneron announces himself at Banks’s residence at 32 Soho Square. Neither the square nor the house is at all what he expected for the president of the Royal Society: the neighborhood has the noisy, resigned air of a place abandoned by fashionable people, and the house, with its narrow three-story frontage of red brick, is nothing if not modest. But inside, the home is large and grand, and so is Banks—tall and stout, a perfectly fitted wig on his sizable head, a fur-trimmed robe adding to his overall bulk. As if to diminish all the largeness and grandeur, however, he shows Monneron into a small, dense library fitted under the great staircase of his home.

  He motions for Monneron to sit on one side of a crowded desk while he arranges himself into a red leather chair opposite, then says, “And how is the good Don Inigo these days?”

  Monneron eyes his host warily. “I found him very well the last time I saw him.”

  “Excellent.” Banks slides a framed specimen display across the desk. The case appears to contain, pinned to the canvas, a few thin twigs with their leaves—some green and mottled, some brown and crinkled—but no, they’re not twigs at all, they’re insects, insects with long, jointed legs and triangular heads, very like the mantes Monneron enjoyed finding in the garden as a boy.

  “The Egyptian flower mantis,” Banks says. “Blepharopsis mendica.”

  “Man-tis,” Monneron repeats under his breath, committing a new English word to memory. He stares at the insects and wonders if there might be a Don Inigo, after all.

  “They spend their lives hanging upside down from tree branches whose leaves they resemble,” Sir Joseph is saying. “Their prey crawl or fly by, never suspecting a thing till they’re caught.”

  Monneron’s attention swings back to Banks. “Caught?”

  Banks smiles.

  “Forgive me, Sir Joseph,” Monneron says, “but I did not know Don Inigo had written to you about my visit.”

  “Oh, he didn’t,” Banks says. “I saw Mr. Webber yesterday afternoon.”

  “Mr. Webber?” Not Adams. Monneron feels a twitch of disappointment. He hadn’t asked Webber to keep his presence in London a secret. Nevertheless, it feels … not like a betrayal of trust, exactly—that would presume too much of a morning’s acquaintance—but like an assumption of openness Monneron had neither known about nor agreed to. “Mr. Webber was kind enough to show me some of his paintings yesterday,” he finally says.

  “He’s a competent landscape painter,” Banks says. “I must confess I don’t think much of his portraiture.” Seeing his guest’s surprise, he adds: “They’re pretty enough, but not very lifelike. His natives look too European. And his Europeans—well, they’re a bit savage. He did a most unusual oil of Captain Cook and presented it to his widow. I certainly hope it did not compound the grief of the long-suffering Mrs. Cook. It bore little resemblance to the great man.”

  Monneron remembers the paintings and sketches in Webber’s library, how very warm and human the man from Mangea looked, for all he had a knife stuck in his ear. Is Banks simply voicing his opinion, or warning him off? What is it that he wants, anyway?

  As if divining his perplexity, Banks says, “Mr. Monneron, my sole purpose in making myself known to you is to offer any assistance it may be in my power to provide.” The two men watch each other for a moment, then Banks says, “I understand you are tasked with learning about antiscorbutics.” He reaches for a fat volume at one end of his desk and hands it to Monneron: A Treatise on the Scurvy by James Lind. “The most important contribution to seafaring physic this century,” he says. “Take it. I have several copies. Be sure the ships’ surgeons read it.”

  “Thank you, Sir Joseph,” Monneron says, then, silencing a debate in his head between suspicion and expediency, adds, “There is something I would be happy to have your advice upon,” and tells Banks about his unsuccessful search for dipping needles.

  Banks closes his eyes, nodding as he listens. “I may be able to help you,” he says at last, opening his eyes. “I’ll send word.”

  When Monneron leaves 32 Soho Square, he’s still not sure of the encounter. The least distressing conclusion is that Sir Joseph had prior intelligence of the expedition, has a purely scientific interest in offering his help, and is keeping up the pretext about Don Inigo to save Monneron from embarrassment. But how did Banks make the connection with Monneron through Webber’s report? Unless Webber himself
knows—no, Monneron thinks, calling to mind Webber’s trusting, open face. He may know now, of course—which, Monneron reflects, pausing as he makes his way across the square, may make calling on Webber again this afternoon awkward. As for Banks himself, perhaps he’s beguiling Monneron with attention and promises of assistance, waiting for a slip, an unintended revelation, some tidbit that will go straight to the Admiralty. But would a man who intends to expose you as a spy for the French Navy first press on you the latest in scurvy-prevention research?

  Transparency

  Back at Mrs. Towe’s, he half expects to find a note from Webber regretfully explaining that urgent business will preclude them from meeting again. And when there is none, Monneron considers sending his own regrets, discovering a sudden compunction about having ingratiated himself with the artist under false pretenses. But Webber is too valuable a contact to give up over an uneasy conscience, and as Mrs. Towe’s gloomy longcase clock sounds out two-thirty, Monneron sets out once more for Oxford Street.

  The narrow, dignified manservant asks him to please wait in the library. Monneron paces the room, revisiting the paintings and objects that afforded him pleasure and instruction the day before, and looking in vain for evidence that Webber’s natives look “too European.” On a small table he finds the recently published official account of Cook’s last voyage—A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean. Undertaken, by the Command of His Majesty, for Making Discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere, etc.—three volumes plus a folio volume containing maps and prints. Thumbing through the latter, he recognizes many of the pictures as engraved facsimiles of the paintings that surround him. The published images are very like the originals, but something is lost in the transfer of raw images produced in situ to engravings suitable for printing. The originals are in color and the engravings are not, of course, but it’s more than that. Monneron closes the book and studies the nearest original, a painting of dancers in Tahiti. He can trace the creation of this piece from the first layer of pencil and chalk outlines to the washes and watercolor application to the final details added in ink. There’s a transparency to the endeavor and its result that’s missing from the published images.