by David McDine
‘Hurel will have an important secondary task. I want him to make the French believe he has escaped from the hulks and bribed smugglers to drop him off on the French coast.’
‘That has the benefit of being close to the truth, sir.’
‘Indeed. He will be given various low-level intelligence – stuff he could well have picked up on his way through Kent – and when in Boulogne he will make contact with the military authorities, spin them his yarn, tell them what he has managed to find out and offer himself as an agent. He can offer to return to England. Not least I want him to try to find out who the spy is in our camp.’
‘And if it is Crispin and if he’s there?’
‘Then I want him to be brought back, alive if possible – and that’s where I trust you will be able to help spirit him away.’
For a moment Anson considered the enormity of the task he and Hurel were being set. ‘Hurel will be putting his life at extreme risk, sir. Walking into the lion’s den, so to speak.’
‘Of course, but he is a brave man. Hurel is not quite what he seems. He has been posing as a republican, but in reality he is an aristocrat, and a royalist. He will not rest until he has done his utmost to bring down the foul republican regime that robbed him of his family. No, he is the Baron de …’ Redfearn hesitated. ‘His real name must remain a secret between him and me, but I can tell you that he is rightfully the heir to a great estate complete with chateau, and lives for the day when he can avenge his family – and regain their lost lands.’
Anson did not reveal that Hurel had already confided this to him – and quite possibly every young lady he had met since departing the hulk.
‘You, Anson, are required to put this officer ashore in France, stealthily and safely, mind, and accompany him and assist him in every way. I will let you know when to go. But not before it is appropriate for you to know.’
‘I understand, sir.’
‘I have chosen you for this mission because I know from the service you performed during the late mutiny that you are a resourceful young man – and that you have acquired some valuable knowledge of the Pas de Calais region following your capture and escape. You have some French, I believe, and no doubt many of your fencibles have a good deal of experience getting goods in and out of France – the so-called free trade?’
Anson’s wry smile confirmed it.
‘However, you are not to tell your men what you are about. Our coastal areas are alive with flapping ears and wagging tongues. If anyone – anyone – is told anything you can be sure it will be across the Channel like a rat up a mooring rope and the whole mission will be compromised. No, keep them in the dark. And keep Hurel under wraps!’
21
The Duel
Anson spent the night as Colonel Redfearn’s guest at the castle and rode back next morning to Hardres Minnis, arriving at the rectory with a sore head as well as tender nether regions, vowing not only to moderate his intake of alcohol but to give up riding at the earliest opportunity.
As he turned into the driveway he was surprised to see Doctor Hambrook’s pony and trap in front of the house attended by the young groom, Jemmy Beer.
He dismounted, handed him Ebony’s reins and asked: ‘What’s afoot Jemmy?’
The boy scratched his head. ‘Don’t rightly know, Master Oliver, but seems the foreign gennelman what come with you t’other day has bin shot.’
Anson was stunned. ‘Shot? Good grief! Is he dead?’
‘Don’t think so, sir, on account of when he come back with your sisters a-clutching of his arm and covered in blood he was laughing and joking – happy, like. That’s all I know. Me dad sent me to fetch the doctor and told me to stay out here looking arter his pony.’
Anson nodded and hurried indoors where George Beer directed him to the kitchens. ‘The doctor wanted a table to lay him out on, so we put him in here. Your mother didn’t want to get blood all over the dining room …’
Flinging the door open, Anson was astonished to see his sisters fussing around Hurel who was lying on the long kitchen table where the servants dined, his head pillowed by his blood-stained green velvet jacket.
‘What on earth’s happened?’
Elizabeth exclaimed excitedly. ‘Monsieur Hurel – le Baron – has fought a duel and he’s been wounded, but he’s going to be all right, isn’t he doctor?’
‘A duel? Good grief!’
Doctor Hambrook, who had tended Anson following his escape from France, looked up from cleaning a wound in the Frenchman’s shoulder. ‘Merely a flesh wound. It’s clean and should heal nicely.’
‘But who, how …?’
Hurel, basking in the admiration of the Anson sisters, grinned happily. ‘An affair of ’onour, mon ami.’
Anne was bursting to tell the story. ‘We took him up to the hall and while we were walking in the gardens with the Brax girls that yeomanry officer, the one who fancies Charlotte—’
‘That oaf Chitterling?’
Elizabeth nodded. ‘Well he rode up in his full regimentals.’
‘He’d come to see her, to propose we think—’
‘But Charlotte made eyes at Monsieur Hurel—’
‘To make Dickie Chitterling jealous, and, well, he got very angry.’
Anson could picture the scene. The coarse, dissolute, preening peacock who was always throwing his substantial weight around and boasting of his martial prowess clashing with a French aristocrat equally picky about his so-called honour. And both, no doubt, egged on by the presence of Charlotte Brax, her sisters – and Anson’s own romance-hungry sisters, even if the girls had not actively encouraged them.
‘But what sparked this off?’
‘Dickie Chiterling insulted Monsieur Hurel, called him a Frog and some other things we can’t repeat …’
‘He said le Baron was an enemy of Britain—’
‘And he challenged him to a duel!’
That was hardly surprising. Anson had had similar run-ins with the ghastly Chitterling.
‘Le Baron kind of shrugged and said he would be willing to meet him at a more suitable time and place.’
‘But Dickie Chitterling called him a coward for not fighting then and there. We think he expected him to back down.’
Anson shrugged. ‘But he didn’t!’
Hurel looked up and smiled at Anson. ‘As I said, it was a matter of ’onour, mon ami.’
‘Of course. But what did you fight with?’
‘I would have preferred swords. I was a fencing master, you know. But this Chitterling ’ad pistols in his ’olsters’
‘Loaded?’
‘That man loaded them.’
‘You had no seconds, no-one seeing fair play?’
Hurel raised his good arm dismissively. ‘The ladies were there. And Mademoiselle – his amour …’
Anne prompted him. ‘Charlotte.’
‘Yes, Charlotte. She made us march ten paces, turn and fire.’
Anson nodded. Knowing Charlotte as intimately as he did he could see how she must have deliberately provoked the row by sucking up to the Frenchman and how she must have revelled in having the two men fight over her. ‘Don’t tell me, Chitterling turned and fired first. Am I right?’
Hurel frowned. ‘But ’ow did you know?’
‘Let’s say it was an educated guess based on previous encounters with this man. But tell me, did you return fire?’
Elizabeth intervened. ‘No, le Baron dropped his pistol when he was hit.’
‘And Chitterling?’
Anne blushed. ‘He shouted at Monsieur Hurel to go back to France, but, well, he used a very strong swear word beginning with “f”, but that was the gist of it—’
‘And he shouted something about that teaching him to keep clear of Charlotte, and that if he clapped eyes on him again he would kill him. Then he snatched the pistol back, mounted his horse and rode off.’
Anson had no doubt that had it been a fair fight Hurel would have stood every chance of coming out on top, cer
tainly if the Frenchman had been able to choose swords, but then Chitterling was never going to fight fair.
Everything he had heard reinforced his opinion that Chitterling was a bully and a coward. Turning and firing before his opponent was unforgiveable. But then there had never been a need for the so-called duel in the first place.
He also realised that it would not be long before news of the encounter would be the talk of the county. The ghastly Chitterling and Charlotte would make sure of that – he to enhance his reputation among his cronies and she to emphasise how easily she could stir men to violence.
And no doubt Chitterling would paint a picture of himself as upholder not only of a lady’s honour but as a patriotic hero having winged a French prisoner whom Anson had allowed to roam the countryside frightening children and old ladies.
The whole thing beggared belief, but at least the Frenchman had not killed his adversary. If he had there would have been hell to pay and the whole mission would have been compromised totally.
Anson told Hurel to come to his room once he had been patched up and left him in the hands of Doctor Hambrook and his adoring sisters, noticing to his disdain as he went out that both were vying to mop the grinning Frenchman’s brow.
Back in his room he pondered the situation. He would now have to find somewhere else to hide Hurel away until the time was right and arrangements could be made to get them across the Channel.
It was not something he had wanted to rush but now this had been forced upon him.
A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. It was Hurel, his left arm in a sling and a broad grin on his face. He clearly seemed to have found the whole episode an amusing diversion and loved being the centre of the girls’ attention.
Waving the Frenchman to an armchair, Anson raised his hands in frustration. ‘I leave you here for a day, just one day, and what happens? You roam the countryside hobnobbing with half the local spinsters, make eyes at the biggest temptress for miles around and allow yourself to be challenged to a one-sided duel with the most pumped-up idiotic poseur in the neighbourhood.’
Hurel’s grin froze. This was a steely side to Anson that he had not seen before.
‘Has your mind become addled in the hulks? Did you think for a moment about the need for secrecy for our mission? Or are you just an idiot? And just in case you don’t understand the language well enough, the French word for it is idiot!’
Hurel’s grin faded away completely now and he took on a chastened look. ‘Mon ami, I am very sorry, but this cavalryman, well, ’e was so insulting.’
But Anson was far from finished. ‘The navy has gone to great lengths to enable you to disappear from the hulks and prepare for our mission, yet you have compromised yourself in such a way that the whole county will hear of this fatuous so-called duel within a few days.’
Hurel spread his good arm in a gesture of helplessness.
‘You might just as well put a notice in the newspaper. In fact, news of this probably will appear in the news-sheets. Then what? Smugglers take English newspapers to France – for a price. I daresay that’s where the republicans get much of their intelligence.’
‘Yes, yes. I can see that now and I am very, very sorry … vraiment désolé.’
‘First you gave yourself away to a passing gamekeeper at Ludden Hall, and now this ridiculous duel. I hope you realise that I will now have to find yet a third place for you to hide up and try to advance everything before the world and his wife hear what we’re about. What’s even worse is the fact that you are now wounded and will be even more of a liability than you were before.’
Hurel endured the tongue-lashing and, clearly somewhat chagrined, protested quietly: ‘My arm is not ’urt bad and I will keep what you call a low profile from now on, mon ami, I promise. Please do not be angry with me. The lady led me on—’
‘Charlotte Brax? She’s no lady. She’s a scheming minx who eats men for breakfast and I can see how she will have played up to you knowing how it would irritate that idiot Chitterling. To him, all Frenchmen are the same. Even if I were at liberty to tell him why you are at large he would choose not to believe it.’
Anson shook his head and sighed. He knew he would have to seek out Charlotte and plead with her to persuade Chitterling and anyone else they had told about the so-called duel with Hurel to put a brake on their tongues in the nation’s interest.
It would not be easy, not least because there was something else he had finally made up his mind to tell her – a message she would not welcome.
*
Anson rode up to Brax Hall, recalling that the last time he was there with his friend Armstrong there had been flaming torches lining the long lime tree avenue welcoming guests to the ball at which Charlotte had made such a play for him.
Leaving Ebony with a groom who appeared at his approach, he mounted the wide steps and pulled the bell chain beside the oak double doors framed by impressive ionic columns.
The butler emerged, bowed in recognition and directed Anson to the large summerhouse on a rise above the ornamental lake.
He walked slowly across the lawn rehearsing what he had to say to Charlotte, knowing only too well that she had the knack of discomforting him every time she opened her mouth and that if he allowed her to take the initiative he would never get his points across.
She was sitting on the summerhouse verandah at an easel, paintbrush in hand and attended by a maid who she immediately dismissed with a casual wave of her hand on his approach.
He assumed she was painting a view of the lake, but, however reluctant he was, his eyes were drawn to her plunging neckline rather than her watercolour.
Treating him to a triumphant smile, she put down her brush and exclaimed: ‘Why, if it isn’t the sailor home from the sea, or wherever you scuttled off to after out last … get-together! I trust that you’ve come to resume where you left off?’
Already she had managed to make him feel ill at ease. ‘I, er, I …’
She asked mischievously: ‘Still tongue-tied? When we were last together I felt you were summoning up the courage to ask me something?’
Anson winced. The brazen Charlotte was clearly under the impression that he had come to propose.
He cleared his throat. ‘Miss, er …’
‘Miss! I knew that naval officers were somewhat formal, but I seem to recall that you called me by rather more affectionate names when we were in bed together!’
‘I am sorry. Of course I meant to say Charlotte. Look, the thing is, I have something of the greatest importance to discuss with you.’
Again she smiled triumphantly. ‘You appeared to be about to propose just before you were so inconveniently called away. But here you are again and I am ready and waiting. Is it to be on trembling knee or would you prefer to do it standing up?’
For a split second he mistook her meaning, but then realised it was another of her wicked double entendres.
He stuttered: ‘Propose? Oh, no! You misunderstand. I have just learned of the ridiculous duel that yeomanry oaf provoked and I’ve come to ask you to keep Monsieur Hurel’s presence to yourself – and to ask Chitterling to do the same. Hurel is French, yes, but he and I are involved in a clandestine mission of the greatest national importance—’
She rose and pouted. ‘Mission! What mission? So you are not here to propose?’
‘What is all this about proposing? I have never, at least, I hope I have never given the impression—’
Charlotte sneered. ‘Impression? Impression! You gave me more than the impression you wanted to marry me when you bedded me. You were willing enough to make an impression on me then.’
‘But Charlotte, this has all got completely out of hand. I am simply, well, not ready for marriage, what with the war and all—’
She spun on him, angry tears in her eyes. ‘Not ready! The war? Rubbish! You’re just a pathetic excuse for a man, spineless!’
‘Look, I am so very sorry if I have led you to believe that what happened betw
een us was anything, well, lasting.’
She spat out spitefully: ‘What a fool I must have been ever to think of marrying the likes of you? What are you anyway? You are pathetic – just a not-so-jolly Jack Tar who hasn’t even got a ship.’
Anson was taken aback.
Her face reddened. ‘What have you got? You despise Dickie Chitterling but he has expectations and he would marry me tomorrow if he could. He’ll inherit thousands of acres but you’re nothing but a jumped-up parson’s son with no land and no prospects.’
‘But you knew my lack of prospects when you led me on—’
‘Don’t forget that my father chooses who has the living of this parish and he could snuff out your father, your family, just like blowing out a candle.’ She demonstrated with a wave of her small pudgy hand, pursing her lips and blowing ‘Poof!’ as if putting out a flame.
He frowned in astonishment? ‘What on earth’s brought this on? Why are you attacking me, when only a few days ago—’
‘Only a few days ago you shied off proposing and pretended to be called away on urgent duty.’
‘That wasn’t pretence. I was sent for …’
She screwed up her face. ‘Don’t you see? I want you to marry me. You have tested the goods and seemed to like what you had. At any rate you were only too keen to come back for seconds. Now you can put your money where your mouth is.’
Anson was shocked at her directness. ‘How can you threaten me in this way? How can you talk about turning my father out of his living?’
‘Then marry me, you fool!’
‘In the face of such threats? I did not mean to take advantage of you. But it wasn’t, how shall I say, entirely one-sided. In fact it was you who made the running from the very start.’
Hands on hips, she looked him in the eye. ‘Let’s be clear, sailor boy, if you marry me you will be made for life on the dowry my father will put up, and let’s face it, most men would kill to bed me whenever they like. I know Dickie Chitterling would.’
Anson had been discomfited by her forwardness at their last encounter – at all their meetings, come to that. Now he found her coarse and disgusting. The thought of being bought and paid for by the gross Sir Oswald Brax and becoming the lapdog of his spoilt, wayward daughter, who appeared to be rapidly acquiring the squire’s unpalatable habits, appalled him.
