“It cannot be, Miss Moorhouse. You know that I cannot dance.”
“I know of no such thing, Captain. You are now very steady on your feet and where a left hand is required in the dance, the addition to your arm will serve very well. The next dance is a slow, indeed stately, one. I am sure that you can manage it with aplomb.”
Daphne was quite correct. By the end of the dance, Bush was dancing with some pleasure, the activity being itself a welcome change from the conversation with the idle men in which he would otherwise be engaged, and Daphne herself led him in such an unobtrusive way that the mysteries of the dance were soon mastered. A second dance with Daphne got Bush very comfortable with participating in the activity.
“Now, Captain Bush, you must ask one of the ladies to dance.”
“But I do not know any.”
“Let me introduce you to some.”
The Butler girls were sitting alone with their mother and another older lady. Daphne steered Bush to them.
“Mrs. Butler, Misses Butler, let me introduce Captain Bush, the guest who is staying at Dipton Manor for a while. Captain Bush, Mrs. Butler, Miss Butler and Miss Susan Butler.”
Bush bowed, acceptably if not elegantly, despite his lack of limbs. Daphne had made it quite clear that she expected him to ask one of the Butler sisters to dance and the danger of arousing her disappointment quite overcame Bush’s shyness with women. He chose Susan, as being the less intimidating of the two sisters.
The dance proceeded without incident. Susan was a rather shy girl, not overly eager to make conversation nor to demand it, and Bush had too much to attend to in negotiating the dance to want to make conversation. Nevertheless, Susan appeared to enjoy the dance and Bush discovered that it was not nearly as dire an endeavor as he had expected.
Daphne was a popular dancer and well occupied during the ball so Bush realized that only modest efforts on his part would keep her from insisting that he dance with new partners. Just to show that he was participating in the dancing, he invited Susan Butler again and one final time before the evening ended. He had found her an agreeable partner and he had no desire to seek other introductions to dancing partners, even though many of the men wanted to talk with him about the war and he could have easily asked them to introduce him to more ladies. It never occurred to him that his attentions devoted simply to Miss Susan Butler might be misinterpreted by many of the onlookers.
Daphne’s interpretation of Bush’s action was indeed far from the mark. She was not above the match-making that so enthralled others. She liked Bush herself, and she would like him to have stronger reasons to stay in the neighborhood since he was one of the few men whose company her father enjoyed. Bush’s singular interest in Susan Butler, especially noteworthy because he had not asked her sister to dance, struck Daphne as the beginning of a romance, one that she must endeavor to encourage.
Daphne had spent the beginning of the ball introducing the Craigs and the Bush family to many of her neighbors. That should provide Mrs. Bush and Mrs. Craig with a circle of people to talk with while the dancing proceeded, and possibly introduce Mrs. Bush to women who would become her friends as she continued to reside in Dipton. The introductions also provided companions for the Bush sisters to chat with as they awaited invitations to dance. Several men had indeed asked the sisters to dance and both ladies were, as a result, quite pleased with the ball.
Other balls followed, but while they were enjoyable, they produced no progress on the matrimonial needs of the families of Dipton. Mrs. Butler was one of the most desperate of the mothers. Mr. Butler was a second son and his progress toward a profession had been interrupted by marriage to Mrs. Butler, whose dowry he fancied would allow them sufficient funds that he need not pursue the learning necessary for a professional career, which he found tedious. This expectation had been based on frugality and despite Mrs. Butler’s attempt to limit the housekeeping expenses, Mr. Butler had not been able to limit his own expenditures by a large enough measure to avoid eroding the capital Mrs. Butler had brought to the marriage. It was doubtful that there would be enough for Mrs. Butler to look after herself comfortably when Mr. Butler died. She had absolutely no desire to have to reside with her brother-in-law, who in any case might die first.
The Butlers could provide only very modest dowries for their daughters, and it was Mrs. Butler’s hope that not only would the girls cease to be a burden on her own finances, but that they would provide a home for her when it was needed. She had stressed to her daughters that it was not enough to marry, but they must marry into a secure income, preferably from land, but otherwise from the practice of a profession, in the latter case with the revenues already well established before the nuptials could be approved. In her heart, she knew that this would be difficult, especially with only the small dowries with which Mr. Butler could provide their daughters. Mrs. Butler had little hope for Susan’s finding the necessary suitor, but surely Catherine’s vivacious, even flirtatious, manner, her striking figure, narrow at the waist and full in the bosom, and her sparkling eyes must attract someone with the minimum requirements. It had been disappointing that no match had been found in the previous three and a half years. Mrs. Butler was becoming increasingly anxious as the window of opportunity closed for Catherine.
This may have accounted for Mrs. Butler’s lack of concern about her daughters’ walking to Ameschester at least twice each week. They were, after all, accompanied by others from the area, and Mrs. Butler believed that she could count on the steadiness and sense of Susan to restrain any imprudent behavior by her sister. Though rumors had been circulating about the noisy gathering of the officers and young ladies in the tea room at Ameschester, surely the public nature of the meetings would provide safety and it could be hoped that Catherine’s vivacity would soon induce some young man to visit Mr. Butler.
It came as a complete mystery to the family when it was discovered one morning that Susan had disappeared. The first intimations of trouble came at breakfast when Susan did not appear. A maid sent to see if she were ill, returned to say that she was not in her room, though her bed appeared to have been occupied. Catherine, who had a room separate from Susan’s, suggested that her younger sister had probably risen early and gone for a walk. Since that frequently happened, though Susan had in the past always returned in time for breakfast, little concern was expressed until eleven o’clock. A search of the neighborhood was then undertaken, arising from the fear that Susan had somehow injured herself in such a way as to prevent her returning. The search was fruitless. More pointed questioning of Catherine revealed that Susan and Lieutenant Barrows had talked about eloping to Gretna Green to get married. The couple knew that they would not get Mr. Butler’s permission, since Lieutenant Barrows’ career in Bradford had yet to start, and his pay in the militia was of uncertain duration, though it would be enough to support a wife. They felt urgency to wed since Lord Moseley’s Regiment was expected to move into barracks nearer the coast imminently. The two young people had spent their time together in Ameschester in conversations that excluded others and in taking walks while the other young people were enjoying themselves as a group in the tea shop.
Mrs. Butler was beside herself with anxiety for her daughter and worry about her own future. Mr. Butler was away from Dipton and could not be relied on to find a solution to the problem. Susan was clearly ruined and would have to be shunned in future by her family. Even if the couple did indeed get to Gretna Green, there would be deep shame attached to the marriage, and Mrs. Butler in her panic presumed that Susan would simply be abandoned by her seducer.
The immediate consequence of the news spreading of Susan’s terrible action was that all the other young ladies who had walked to Ameschester were prohibited from going there again, and in some cases from going anywhere at all. Catherine Butler found this prohibition particularly galling since she had arranged with a Captain Crockett to take a pic-nick basket to the banks of the River Ames Nott, unaccompanied by those they described as th
e shallow denizens of the tea room. Captain Crockett, also of Lord Moseley’s Regiment, was a most dashing and entertaining officer who had paid much attention to Catherine. It only increased his allure that no one in their group knew Captain Crockett well, even his standing in Yorkshire seemed unknown. Her sister’s irresponsible action had prevented Catherine from enjoying what promised to be a very exciting rendezvous with a worldly, older man.
The crisis ended the next day when Mr. Butler returned accompanied by a rather woebegone Susan and a subdued Lieutenant Barrows. The eloping couple had got as far as the posting inn on the Great North Road where Mr. Butler happened to be staying on his way back to Dipton. He immediately took the situation in hand, separated Susan from Lieutenant Barrows, and insisted that Lieutenant Barrows return to Dipton with him, using the threat that he would have him drummed out of the Regiment and have his name blackened in Yorkshire where he had hoped to practice law.
In the interview that followed their return to Dipton, Mr. Butler very firmly stated that the Lieutenant must marry Susan. Lieutenant Barrows was more than happy to oblige and when Mr. Butler found out that the Lieutenant was not without hope of an inheritance from a well-off uncle, he even took the step of halving Susan’s dowry, thinking that the other half could well be applied to his own needs. Mr. Butler’s only regret was that Mrs. Butler’s panic when she learned that Susan had eloped meant that the news was widespread, while had Mrs. Butler remained silent the whole incident could be ignored with no damage to their reputations.
Among those who were least shocked by Susan Butler’s fall was Daphne Moorhouse. She had had no doubt that the liberal ways of Mr. and Mrs. Butler could be leading to disaster, but she would have put her wager on Catherine being the one to bring shame on her family rather than Susan. What Daphne felt most strongly about the affair was chagrin at how far from the mark had been her understanding of the situation. She had believed that there was a budding romance with Captain Bush, but now Daphne suspected that Susan had been inspiring that belief in order to hide her infatuation with Lieutenant Barrows.
Chapter VIII
Patroclus sailed from Falmouth as soon as her supplies were on board. Sailing with her was her tender, H.M. Schooner Swan, which had arrived in Falmouth that morning. The Admiralty had seen fit to assign her to Giles for this venture claiming that he might need a vessel to carry dispatches to Falmouth about news that he had obtained in searching for the French marauder. Giles suspected that Swan had been assigned to him so that a report would be made if Patroclus met the fate of other British frigates which had tangled with the French threat. Whatever the reason for her assignment, Giles was happy to have her, even though her fighting abilities might be minimal. Swan was a gaff rigged schooner, mounting only ten nine-pounder pop-guns. She would be hard put to take even a small merchant vessel, and would be no match for almost any privateer. But her value lay in her speed, especially to windward where she could sail far closer to the wind and more speedily than any square-rigged vessel.
Swan’s captain came aboard Patroclus right after she had dropped anchor. His name was James Duncan, and he was a Master and Commander, which was normally the rank to which lieutenants rose on the way to becoming captains and was often the end of a promising career for officers without influence and who had not been lucky enough to be prominent in a notable and bloody action. Such probably was the case for Captain Duncan who was Giles’ age and then some. His officers consisted of one lieutenant and one midshipmen, with a contingent of warrant officers between him and the crew. Though habitually stooped from being in berths with inadequate headroom, Captain Duncan was a cheerful man, apparently quite happy to be sailing under Admiralty orders on tasks that offered little glory.
Giles outlined the nature of their mission. He pointed out that initially their most likely task while patrolling in the approaches to the Channel was to speak other vessels in order to seek for information on the French raider. They would take prizes only if doing so did not interfere with their primary mission and Giles made it clear that they should be convinced that such activity was not being pursued at expense of concentrating on their primary mission before it could be approved by him or by the Admiralty.
Giles had decided that the search for the French frigate must take precedence over trying to discover what had happened to the missing ships, but he did inform Captain Duncan of the need to discover where the missing vessels might be and he also intimated that the time might come when Duncan would be called upon to pursue that objective while Patroclus concentrated on the first.
Giles found that he liked the man. His questions were few and those he did ask were valid points of clarification or elaboration. He quickly understood what Giles wanted and showed no resentment at a man who had clearly advanced farther and faster in the Navy than he had.
“Captain Duncan,” said Giles when the business part of their conversation had ended, “I hope you will join me for a glass of wine.”
“With the greatest pleasure, Captain.”
“I obtained several cases of claret in Falmouth yesterday. I’d like your opinion on them.”
“I expect that if they came to Cornwall in the usual way, they must be excellent.”
Both officers knew that the wine might well have been imported by smugglers, but neither would announce that belief explicitly.
The wine was indeed excellent and served to make unofficial conversation flow freely. Duncan had had a variety of commands of minor vessels. He was delighted that Swan had come his way for he had been on half pay during the peace and had feared he would not again find employment.
“I was tempted to go with the revenue-ers just before this war started,” Duncan confided to Giles, “for they needed men who could speak French for their cutters.”
“So, do you speak French fluently, Captain Duncan?”
“Och aye, Captain, as we say in Scotland, I learned it from my sister’s governess who was a French lady.”
“Pity you couldn’t join us earlier. We could have used you in the last week… No, no, Captain Duncan, I did not mean to imply that you have come late in any way. It is just that we took a French frigate, and it would have helped if anyone on Patroclus had been able to speak French properly.”
Nothing would do other than Captain Giles’s recounting in detail the story of the capture of the French frigate.
“I noticed your bow chasers, Captain Giles, as I came aboard. They look a formidable weapon if they don’t take the bow right out of your own ship.”
“Well, they have served me well so far.”
“Let’s hope they do again.”
Patroclus and Swan patrolled the approaches to the Channel from roughly ten leagues west of Ushant to at least ten leagues west of Land’s End, and extended their search farther out into the Atlantic. Giles stationed Swan to leeward of Patroclus, almost on the horizon so that their search area could be maximized while Swan would be on her best point of sailing to join with Patroclus if threatened. In terms of their main mission, this cruising proved fruitless for many days. They did indeed see large numbers of friendly vessels and they were not idle in seeking information. Giles realized that they must talk with almost every ship sailing alone and with every convoy to investigate whether there was news of their quarry. So far that had proved fruitless. None had seen any French frigate or privateer, though a couple had found flotsam recently which might have been the result of damage occurring when a ship was taken. The evidence was so slight and the time that lapsed since the sightings was so long that there was no point in Giles’s deviating from his pattern to seek the source of the flotsam.
Two merchant ships that Patroclus and Swan approached for news turned out to be French. In both cases, when Patroclus came up with the target ship, she surrendered as soon as it was clear that she could not out sail the frigate. Both were from Martinique, trying to sneak past the British blockade by passing through waters where British shipping was common and usually not bothered by warships
. These ships also had heard nothing of the sought-after French frigate. They did provide valuable prizes which Giles sent into to Falmouth with Swan. The escort was ordered not for protection of the prizes, since Swan’s ability to save them from a French privateer was minimal, but to get news and to make sure that Giles’ prize-crew would return promptly.
Finally one morning, first light revealed a frigate to windward of Patroclus about four leagues distant under all sails to the royals, close-hauled on the starboard tack, sailing east into the south-south-east wind. Patroclus had been reaching to the north under all plain canvas and Giles had been about to wear to larboard when the other vessel was spotted. Instead, he turned to starboard and ordered Patroclus to spread all canvas that could be carried as Patroclus herself came onto the starboard tack. Giles was fairly certain that they had encountered a French vessel by the course she was steering and the press of canvas she carried, but he would have to be sure before attacking her. There were too many French frigates of the same class that had been captured and bought into the Royal Navy to be certain that Patroclus had encountered an enemy. The fact that, when Patroclus hoisted her British colors, the other ship did likewise indicated nothing. It was within the well-established conventions of war to sail under false colors until a hostile act was made. That the frigate to windward signified that it belonged to the Royal Navy, with the blue ensign indicating that she sailed under the orders of an admiral of the blue, was no more to be relied upon than if Patroclus had hoisted the French tricolor in the hope of attracting the other vessel to her side.
By the next turn of the glass, it was evident that Patroclus was going through the water faster than her rival and sailing a bit closer to the wind. The elaborate calculations that Mr. Brooks performed as a result of very careful use of his sextant indicated that, if the wind held and each ship maintained her present course, their courses would intersect at three bells of the afternoon watch, and that Patroclus would be in a position to engage the enemy substantially before that time. Unfortunately the wind weakened so that by the next turn of the glass, the calculated meeting time was postponed until six bells of the afternoon watch. If it fell much more, the meeting would be postponed into the dog watches or even until after the sun had set, in which case the rival might well get away. The wind continued to weaken and turned a bit fluky, so that now one vessel would have a stronger puff and get ahead in their race only to find that soon her rival would be the favored one. By six bells of the forenoon watch, they had got close enough that Giles could order the hoisting of the private signal which should tell them directly if the vessel they were pursuing was French. The response of the other ship was to haul down her British colors and hoist instead the French tricolor. However, the state of the wind was such that they could have no confidence in closing with the enemy until long after dark. Since the moon was waning, there would then be any number of ruses by which the French ship could slip away.
A New War Page 12
