Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea

by Kage Baker

  Mrs. Corvey had made herself as comfortable as possible in Mr. Pickett’s austere sitting room. She had a brief but profitable rifle through his desk—still unlocked; the man had utterly unwarranted trust in the servants he treated so cavalierly—and even went so far as to slip a few receipts into her reticule. There were alarming numbers of them from his foundry connections, which provided potentially useful tidbits such as names, locations and quantities of work. It appeared his project was approaching completion.

  There were also several pages of good stationery, filled with much-crossed-out and amended declarations of his love for Lady Beatrice. Mrs. Corvey was amused to see he was evidently on the verge of proposing marriage, but was having trouble working up either his nerve or the appropriate wording. She wouldn’t have thought the brash and self-aggrandizing Mr. Pickett was so shy…on the other hand, maybe he was struggling to find a way to phrase his plans for international piracy in a manner that would please a mother-in-law.

  Considering the image of Pickett in his scarlet highwayman’s coat, down on one knee to ask her for Lady Beatrice’s hand, diverted Mrs. Corvey considerably as she composed herself once more on the settee. She rang for the parlor maid, and requested that Mrs. Drumm please attend her with some of her excellent pastries and a fresh pot of tea.

  Footsteps sounded outside the parlor door in a gratifyingly brief time. Mrs. Corvey considered that Mrs. Drumm must have been keeping an eye out for her master’s guests and been prepared; which evidence of professional skill was very heartening. She was also pleased to see that the cook arrived alone with the refreshments, and entered with a nice little cough to announce herself to the “blind” Mrs. Corvey.

  “Oh, Mrs. Drumm, is it you?” inquired Mrs. Corvey unnecessarily.

  “Indeed, madam, as you requested.” Mrs. Drumm set down the tray, which was properly set with only a single teacup. From the pocket of her apron, though, she drew a second teacup which had been discreetly stashed so that the intimate nature of their meeting was not blatantly advertised. She pulled up a chair and then poured for them both, plated a nice pair of lemon tarts, and leaned forward to guide one plate and fork into Mrs. Corvey’s hands.

  “There you are, madam,” she said. “And I hopes all is to your satisfaction?”

  “You are a wonder of efficiency, Mrs. Drumm,” said Mrs. Corvey. She took a bite of her tart, and would have rolled her eyes had she still had them. “And an artist in the kitchen…I trust you received my note of two days past?”

  Mrs. Drumm cut out a forkful of her own tart with martial precision and a grim smile, looking rather like a domestic Boudicca with her red hair coiling round her head in little flame-like points.

  “I did that, madam,” she confirmed. “And very welcome it was, too. If I get one more scolding on how to joint birds or make porridge out of maize—Maize! We feeds it to the pigs where I was raised!—I’m like to run mad, I tell you.”

  Mrs. Corvey made a sympathetic moue. “I quite understand. Now, your half-holiday is Saturday, as I recall. Well, Mrs. Drumm, I do believe we may suit one another very well, but I’d never want to be less than open with an artiste like yourself. One always wants to make quite, quite sure that a new person will fit comfortably into the household, you know. Especially when there are delicate situations—” she made a vague embarrassed gesture at her black glasses “—to be considered. So, how should you feel about coming to my lodgings for some discussion tomorrow? I should like you to meet my family. All my girls.”

  “Very liberal and fine of you, Mrs. Corvey,” said Mrs. Drumm. “A household of good decent Englishwomen would be a blessing, I am not ashamed to say!”

  “Well, there is also my son Herbert,” interposed Mrs. Corvey. Mrs. Drumm waved a hand, conceding the point, but continued:

  “Well, yes, but your Master Herbert’s an Englishman, ain’t he?”

  “Oh, yes.” Mrs. Corvey savored another bite of tart. “Herbert is most certainly—English.”

  Out on the cliff road, Herbertina was proceeding along in the growing moonlight with confident glee. She’d had to walk the dandy horse up the steeper bits of the path when it proved unequal to being driven up the slopes; nonetheless, it was a faster, smoother progress than walking. There was an undeniable exhilaration in the movement of the treadles—like seven league boots, they took the ordinary motion of the legs and sped the rider on in enormous strides. Downhill slopes were an absolute delight, a delicious rush through the night air at what felt like tremendous speed! And the vibration transmitted up through the chassis to the saddle was…interesting, as well.

  She hoped Mr. Felmouth wouldn’t want it back.

  She topped a gentle rise about a half-mile from the cottages, and braked to an abrupt stop. The cottages were a blaze of light, yellow flickering lamplight as well as the steadier glow of gas jets. Judging from the copious illumination that spilled from the doorways, gas lines had been laid on generously

  in all three buildings.

  The yard defined by the arc of cottages bustled with activity. Men moved purposefully everywhere. The well itself was a focus of movement, and even at Herbertina’s distance it was obviously standing taller now than the cottage roofs.

  “An unexpected erection. How surprising,” said Herbertina aloud, and giggled. She pushed off again and coasted silently down the slope in the darkness.

  Approximately half a mile on the other side of the cottages, Mr. Pickett and Lady Beatrice reclined against a convenient berm grown with fragrant thyme. At least Mr. Pickett rhapsodized about its being thyme; Lady Beatrice thought it more a mix of chamomile and miner’s lettuce, but was too polite and too professional to correct her escort’s claims to any expertise. In any event, it was both soft and aromatic, which was enough for Lady Beatrice. It did not distract her as she lay in Pickett’s arms, listening attentively.

  He had recapped for her his devotion to England, and his late-in-life decision to apply his energy and skills to the benefit of the Mother Country. He stressed again his admiration for the gentlemen adventurers of the gloried past; he bemoaned the passivity of the current generation on both sides of the Atlantic. He assured Lady Beatrice of his determination to put his aspirations into concrete form and physical action.

  As he orated thus, Lady Beatrice was aware of the increasing tension in his arms about her. Mr. Pickett did not seem to notice this, nor the matching excitement that manifested itself against Lady Beatrice’s thigh even through the folds of her skirts. Mr. Pickett’s body was much more aware, apparently, than his busy mind; and Lady Beatrice writhed slowly and subtly in his embrace so as to encourage its attention.

  “I am a man of action,” Mr. Pickett assured Lady Beatrice. “I aim to prove myself to England as a knight aspirant to his lady. Real deeds, that’s the measure of a man!”

  Lady Beatrice was silent, gazing upward with wordless and admiring inquiry.

  “Dearest Beatrice…I know I can confide in you,” Pickett said rather hoarsely. “You know I am a sailor, and an engineer. For England’s honor and glory, I have built an entirely new kind of ship—indeed, a new kind of weapon! And it will all be for England’s good! My bridal gift to the country I mean to, to…espouse, you…might say…”

  “Yes,” was all Lady Beatrice did say as he paused. However, Mr. Pickett’s body finally took control of the conversation in this lull, and as she looked upward through lowered lashes, he at last fell silent for a moment and pressed his mouth violently to hers.

  Even through frenzied kisses, however, he related the details of his devoted artificery. Lady Beatrice need do no more than return his kisses—with a carefully calculated rate of rising ardor, timed against her own heartbeat—and occasionally murmur “Yes?” in an interrogative tone.

  “—it operates by steam power, you see. Silent, inexorable, irresistible steam power,” he mumbled against her bosom. (She deftly unfastened an offending button before he chewed it off.) “Steam moves the boat under water, and steam raises the ca
nnon when she surfaces. And then fires it—but it fires nothing so gross as a mere cannon ball, dear girl, darling girl…”

  Stroking his cheek, Lady Beatrice made a softly encouraging sound. When Pickett’s mouth was less obstructed by the bosom he addressed, he continued in a rising voice:

  “It fires steam itself! It projects it, a lance of pure, shining power, Beatrice! I can slice a man in half with it! Or—” he amended at her sudden slight flinch, “—a wooden hull. And of course it can fire perfectly normal armaments as well. I am not a savage, after all. I mean to use it against enemy ships, sweetheart, not hapless sailors!”

  “What enemies, sir?” Lady Beatrice whispered against his lips.

  Pickett spent a moment distracted by her kisses before raising his head and declaring with shining eyes: “The French!”

  Back in Mr. Pickett’s sitting room, Mrs. Corvey had prevailed on Mrs. Drumm for a glass of sherry; Mrs. Drumm being now in possession of the butler’s keys since Mr. Pickett’s outraged dismissal of that humorously inclined gentleman. Mrs. Drumm obligingly fetched the sherry, but she also fetched out a small case bottle of something else, as well as a second glass. Mrs. Corvey, unable to reveal that she was aware of this oddity, was suddenly assailed by the fear that the otherwise-splendid Mrs. Drumm was either duplicitous or a secret tippler.

  “Now, Mrs. Corvey, here you are.” Mrs. Drumm folded her hands in her lap, and looked at her hopefully soon-to-be employer with an anxious expression she clearly did not think Mrs. Corvey could see. “Though I should tell you, Mr. Pickett’s got no great taste in sherries, and this one I wouldn’t use but in a trifle filling, if you see what I mean. So if you wouldn’t take it amiss, ma’am, I’d be pleased to offer you something else. Something of my own, you see.”

  Mrs. Corvey felt a sudden rise of hope and curiosity. “I should be delighted. And what might that be, Mrs. Drumm?”

  “Rum,” said Mrs. Drumm forthrightly, and uncapped the case bottle. A rich heady smell rose up, somehow tropical and marine at the same time. “Good Jamaica rum, ma’am. Not that I indulge often—” and here she looked (though she did not know her auditor could see it to judge) severely at the bottle “—but this comes to me from the Indies from an old…friend, see, what runs his own eating establishment out that way.”

  “Why, I should be very pleased indeed,” said Mrs. Corvey, who found this unexpected revelation rather charming. “I am not really all that fond of sherry myself, to tell the truth. You are a woman of broad and discerning tastes, Mrs. Drumm.”

  “Well, ma’am, I’ve seen a bit,” allowed Mrs. Drumm. She poured out two generous tots and put one in Mrs. Corvey’s hand. “And there’s not much as startles me, at my age.”

  “Oh, good,” said Mrs. Corvey, and took a happy sip of her rum.

  In any proper penny-dreadful, Herbertina thought in irritation, there would be convenient cover right next to an open window. In dreary reality, there was nothing but knee-high gorse closer than 200 feet to the cottages; which was where she currently lurked in the dubious shelter of two wind-bent hawthorn trees.

  Rather than perch there like a phantom horseman on her peculiar steed, she elected to reconnoiter awhile. She laid down the dandy horse and sat comfortably cross-legged beneath a low branch, there to consume sandwiches and lemonade and take measure of the situation.

  Certainly, there was presently no chance of approaching more closely unseen. Such was the frenetic pace displayed that men were hastening in, out and around every side of the cottages. While the lamplight did not extend very far into the surrounding meadows, the very moon whose illumination Herbertina sought to use for her own purposes would show her up immediately were she to venture out of the hawthorn’s comforting shadow. But she had come prepared.

  She drew her spyglass—a very good spyglass; its lenses had been ground by Mr. Felmouth himself—from her pocket and sought to ascertain precisely what was going on.

  There were a great many bundles, barrels and bags stacked by the well, and they were being hustled down the well-shaft as fast as possible. The increase in the well-house’s height was now easily seen as a portable crane, from which depended a rope ladder and with the aid of which larger bundles were lowered down the shaft.

  Deduction therefore indicated that the well was the entrance to the local caves. Herbertina wondered how they bypassed the water she herself had indisputably drawn up? Watching a bag of what appeared to be black powder sent down with no apparent concern for water-proofing, she guessed that the well shaft held a removable tank, to maintain its verisimilitude for the occasional holiday-maker wandering the cliffs on a warm day. Using the pendent rope ladder, men were clambering up and down and in and out with the ease of ants on a pantry shelf.

  It was impossible to identify much of the cargo being hurried down the well, at this distance and in the flickering light. Some things, however, could not be disguised. The coarse nets of coal were obvious—so, she decided, there was something down there that needed fuel: possibly Erato’s postulated steam engine. There were dull metal tanks going down as well, their tops fitted with stopcocks—when one banged into the stone well coping, there was a frightened shout and curses Herbertina could hear in her bower: evidently they held some gas or fluid, under pressure and decidedly unsafe to bang about.

  Interesting, all very interesting; and surely suggestive of some clandestine hooliganism afoot…

  Totally damning, however, were the unmistakable cannon balls going down, netted like the coal. There was other eccentric ironmongery as well, things with linked chains and knobs and iron thorns; she rather thought Lady Beatrice could put a name to those.

  All in all, not cargo for a yachting holiday. And conspicuous in its absence was any sign of provisions—unless the crew of the mystery vessel had one of those crates packed with box lunches, nothing that resembled potable drink or durable dry goods was going aboard. Perhaps that meant no long-range journey was anticipated? While Herbertina had seen the speed with which the submarine craft could move, she had no idea of its cruising range. The coal indicated they needed to refuel en route, though.

  The rising moon had cleared what little haze lay on the night ocean, and its light flooded the meadows atop the cliffs. The shadow of the crane over the well was suddenly a solid wedge of black extending into the grass and gorse behind the cottages. In fact, Herbertina saw with sudden interest, so long and dark it was that it quite obscured a straight line running between some broom bushes and the back walls of the cottages themselves. And those bushes were very near her hawthorn trees.

  After a moment’s calculation, she re-pocketed her spyglass, lay down on her belly, and began a serpentine crawl through the gorse to the inviting pathway of the crane’s shadow. To her surprise, it was really quite easy—the gorse was at least half a foot over her head for most the way, and the drab clothes she wore became an even better Tarnhelm when randomly striped by the twiggy moonlit branches.

  The broom bushes had a convenient and sweet-scented hollow round their roots, from which she could reconnoiter the area. While men were going steadily in and out of the cottages’ back doors and round the walls with loads, the majority of them were safely in front. And even from her own ground-level view, the long pergola of shade was an impenetrable avenue: nothing at all could be clearly seen under the arm of the crane’s shadow.

  Which was quite convenient until, about twenty feet from the back walls of her goal, Herbertina ran nose-to-nose into a very surprised fox terrier.

  Back in their parlor in Torquay, the other Ladies were waiting with steadily decreasing ease and good grace. The evening was running on, and there had been no message nor return from their absent members. Dora kept watch in the window seat, on the alert for any strange lights or sounds from the shore; but the town was quite silent tonight. There were not even enough pedestrians taking the evening air to provide her with anything on which to comment amusingly to the others.

  They had all fallen into an anxious quiet
. The Aetheric Transmitter remained silent, save for the normal low maintenance hum; which, had declared Miss Rendlesham, not only interfered with her ability to concentrate on reading Dombey and Son aloud, but was giving her a headache.

  Maude had then declared that that was fine with her, as Miss Rendlesham’s reading was not only giving her a headache, but—combined with the hum of the Transmitter—might very well be upon point of producing a brain seizure. Mrs. Otley had therefore diplomatically begged Miss Rendlesham to leave off and save the doubtless exciting conclusion of Mr. Dickens’ work for another evening; whereupon a dissatisfied silence had fallen in the room. Jane was now sewing with less enthusiasm than doggedness and Dora was frankly asleep in the window seat, while Miss Rendlesham and Maude were sulking and glaring daggers at everyone.

  It seemed impolitic to Mrs. Otley to suggest cards, and she did not care for solitaire. Sighing, she got out the dominoes and began building a labyrinth on the table, with the childish but satisfying goal of eventually collapsing the entire edifice. After a little, Miss Rendlesham relented enough to diffidently suggest that a carefully balanced card house might be erected on the rows, to provide yet more excitement with the inevitable disaster was initiated. Maude and Jane were at last drawn into the architectural gyre, and a certain amity was once more restored to the room.

  They were rather gleefully engineering the fourth course of cards on an especially difficult bend of the dominoes, when a knock sounded at the parlor door. Dora sat up with a little cat-like noise, and saw all the others staring at her: hands full of cards and dominoes, all of them bent over an astonishing terraced palace on the table. They were clearly unable to answer the knock.

  It sounded again. Mrs. Otley began setting her burdens down with exaggerated care, but Jane gave Dora an agonized look and implored, “Do get up and answer it, Dora! Can you not see we are not at liberty?”