I kissed him again, wordless.
That kiss lasted longer than the previous ones and when we parted both Lieutenant Baldivere and I realised that we had made some sort of commitment to each other. We held hands for a while, quietly smiling, and kissed once more. I am not sure if I was frustrated or relieved. After hearing all Kitty's stories I expected something far more dramatic but it was not to be with that very handsome young officer.
Now that the informalities were dispensed with, we remounted our respective horses and returned to the Horse Head, riding side by side and nearly, but not quite, knee to knee across the Downs. I was in a bit of a dream of course, with my future so neatly and quickly decided, for until Lieutenant Baldivere entered my life I had not really contemplated any man as marriage material. With no dowry or any such thing, I had nothing to offer any man of substance, and I certainly was not inclined to throw my life away to a fisherman or a foremast sailor. Oh, I know that many of them were worthy men in their own right, honest as the Gospels and as hard working as the labours of Samson – or was it Hercules? - some big strong man anyway, but fishermen had a habit of getting themselves drowned and seamen were forever going on long voyages that lasted for years, or being pressed into the navy and getting killed. I saw my brave Volunteer lieutenant as much better marriage material; after all, the Volunteers merely paraded around the country looking glamorous. Nobody ever heard of any of them actually becoming involved in the shooting and killing part of war, did they?
Did they?
So I was all a-flutter with excitement when Lieutenant Baldivere approached Mother that evening in the tap-room, and in front of everyone, if you please, asked for a private audience. He had no decorum that man; none at all.
Chapter Six
'Mrs Bembridge,' my handsome lieutenant said, 'may I speak to you, please?'
Mother looked at him with some suspicion, probably wondering if he was going to say that he could not pay his account, or ask for extra fresh linen or some such. 'You are speaking now,' she told him, in rather more severe a tone than she normally used with her guests.
'It is rather a delicate matter,' he said, looking to me for support, or perhaps checking that I had not decided to kiss a farmer next, or one of the hairy free traders.
Mother also glanced over to me, her eyes narrowed. I could nearly hear her thoughts as she wondered what we had been up to and if she would soon have to endure unwanted grandchildren infesting her neat and clean inn. 'Speak,' she said in a voice that would have scared Boney's Old Guard back to Paris.
'I know I should talk to Miss Bembridge's father, Mrs Bembridge, but as he is not here I will ask your permission to marry your daughter.'
Mother's eyebrows rose higher than I had ever seen them rise before. 'You have only known each other a couple of days,' she pointed out. 'Surely a little caution will be in order here?'
'We love each other,' Lieutenant Baldivere said.
'Do you?' Mother's look at me could have penetrated the hull of a man-o-war.
I nodded, thinking of balls and gowns and escape from scrubbing floors.
'Have you?' Only two words, but they asked everything that mattered.
We said nothing. Lieutenant Baldivere and I looked at each other and then at Mother.
'We have not done anything untoward,' I said.
'I would do nothing to impugn the honour of Miss Bembridge,' Lieutenant Baldivere said. 'Indeed I would not.'
'You have not known each other's bodies,' Mother was as direct as ever. I looked around the tap-room, aware that whatever was overheard in here would be the talk of the Back of Wight before the next day dawned. Honestly, Boney was said to have an extensive intelligence service to gather information right across Europe. There was no need: all he needed do was whisper a secret in the Horse Head and half the world would know, especially if Kitty Chillerton was of the company. Conversely, if he desired to know anything, he need only ask Kitty and she would tell him.
'We have not.' Lieutenant Baldivere drew himself as erect as if he was on the parade ground. 'I swear on oath that we have not.'
'Then why the devil must you rush into marriage?' Mother shook her head and allowed that question to float, unanswered, around the room. 'And, Lieutenant, I hear enough oaths in here every night without hearing any more from you.' She looked at me. 'And you can stop looking so righteous and holy, madam. You know as well as I that there are no secrets in Wight so we may as well say all that has to be said now rather than let it leak out in dribs, drabs and rumours.'
'We are not rushing,' I said, grabbing hold of my lieutenant's hand as my vision of a lifetime of ceremonial balls as an officer's wife returned. 'We love each other.'
Mother nodded slowly. 'Then I have no objections. Work out the details between you and let me know. Now, Miss Bembridge, you have work to do.' She looked up. 'Oh; congratulations to you both. Now, Sarah, go and serve poor Mr Howard, he has been waiting at his table for the past five minutes.'
So that was that, all neatly decided and approved. Husband number one was lined up, primed, permissioned, prepared and ready for the altar.
Chapter Seven
'So you are to marry a lieutenant of Volunteers?' Kitty was nearly dancing with excitement as she accompanied me to Molly's cottage deep in the rolling downs.
'I am. I will be Mrs Lieutenant David Baldivere.' I repeated the name, rolling the syllables around my mouth as I savoured the idea. 'Mrs Baldivere; how wildly delicious.'
'So you have had a mysterious guest in the inn, a naked man washed up on the beach and got yourself engaged to an officer all in a few days,' Kitty grabbed hold of my arm. 'Oh tell me all, tell me all, Sarah dear.'
So I did, without embellishments or exaggerations. Or rather without many embellishments or exaggerations for with Kitty one must always add little bits here and there to titillate the Kittylate. She responded well, with many an 'oh' and an 'ah' of appreciation as we strode over the downs to Molly's cottage and many a grabbing-of-my-arm at the juicer bits and many a question that concerned anatomical details that I will not sully this page by printing. I'd probably just create ink- blots anyway, in my excitement.
'Is it true that he is French? I heard that your naked sailor was a Frenchman?'
I should have realised that even such a secret as that would slip out on Wight.
'It is true,' I said solemnly. I also know that even such a terrible thing would pass around all the Caulkheads without ever seeping through to a single Overner. We have a way of keeping things to ourselves that has been developed well through our history of smuggling and such like. After all, we were an independent kingdom once, and one of the last places in England to drop paganism and embrace Christianity.
'Is it true?' Kitty stopped me in the middle of a field, holding my sleeve as if her life depended on it. Her eyes were as wide as the midsummer sun. 'Is it true that Frenchmen have tails?'
I should have expected that question. In England, we believed that the French had tails you see, among so many other strange things. Why, I heard that when a monkey was cast ashore higher up the Overner coast, the local people hanged it in the belief that it was a Frenchman, such was their ignorance.
'It is not true,' I told her solemnly.
'Are you sure?' Kitty was not to be gainsaid. 'Did you check?'
'I did check,' I said. Now that was a downright lie. I had not checked for a tail although as far as I could see all his other anatomical details were exactly the same as any Englishman.
'Oh,' Kitty sounded disappointed. I rather believe she had hoped for a tailed and horned devil washed up by the sea. 'If he has not woken yet,' she said, 'then I shall check for myself. If he has no tail then he cannot be French and there must be some mistake.'
With Kitty being the stubborn puss she is, I could in no way shake her from her decision.
I must describe Molly's home before we proceed, so bear with me for a few moments as I deviate from my story slightly. The geography and setting of Wight
has to be understood you see, or you will be lost wandering around our gentle slopes and tiny, meandering roads that can lead to places that have been hidden for generations so only the locals know about them. Molly's cottage was one such, a small, crooked, quaint sort of house with a thatched roof that sagged in the middle and a garden filled with all sorts of flowers and the most amazing selection of herbs that you could ever conceive. It sat in a small dip, with a fringe of trees as shelter from the wind and any casual passers-by, with a pall of blue smoke hazing the building and Molly's own animals lowing and baa-ing in her own small fields all around.
Unusually for the Back of Wight, Molly kept goats, aye, and milked them too, so these uncanny creatures with their devilish green eyes watched us as we slithered across the short grass of the slope. The windows of the cottage also watched for they were eyes as they peered out from under their raggle-fringe of thatch, small, four-paned windows on ground and upper floors all reflecting the sun. The green painted door of course was the nose and mouth of the cottage which had a face and character unique to itself.
I have mentioned elsewhere that Molly was a bit of a witch, so that many people were a-feared to come close to her, which was one reason Mother was so keen to unburden ourselves of our tame Frenchman on her. We know that the authorities, either the Excisemen or the Volunteers would be searching for him, so where better a place to hide him than a house where nobody looked?
Even Kitty, a Caulkhead in her bones and blood, was ever so slightly apprehensive about coming to such a place and she shied away from the goats as if they would eat her, which was possible as they seemed to eat everything else they came across, even, on one occasion, chewing at Mother's straw hat. Oh, she gave them such a spat that time that they never came near her again!
'Come along Kitty, dear,' I said, dragging her past the goats. I scratched the nearest between its horns and it butted me in a friendly fashion. Rather like a young lieutenant of my acquaintance, I thought, except for the green eyes.
'About time you came to see your young man,' Molly said as we came to her door. 'In you come, ladies.'
Kitty rushed in first, safe from the savage goats.
The interior of Molly's cottage was as crooked and uncanny as the exterior, with small rooms of irregular shapes, furniture I am sure survived since the Jutes first colonised the island and beams hung with plants and herbs and only God knew what else. Of course there was a black cat a-sitting by the fire, purring as it scrutinised us through yellow eyes as inscrutable as the goats outside.
'I've put your sailor-man upstairs,' Molly said, as both Kitty and I made a line for the cat. His name was Merlin and he was quick to purr at the attention. 'He's wakened once or twice and slipped back again.'
We were anxious to see our poor captive Frenchman and I lifted Merlin and ran up Molly's wooden steps. I knew the stairs had been carried inland from the wreck of a Dutch galliot some hundred or so years ago and not fashioned locally yet they fitted perfectly into the cottage. That is to say that they were out-of-place, out-of-time and perfectly eccentric.
My Frenchman lay still, much as he had been in the Horse Head, with his face looking a trifle ragged under his young beard. I looked at him, aware of the strangest of sensations that I could not put words to describe. I suppose proprietorial would be the best I could do, as if I owned this orphan of the storm. Which was patent nonsense of course; he was merely a castaway mariner and a foreigner and enemy to boot. Yet I smiled as I looked down upon him, allowed Merlin to run free back to his cosy seat downstairs and touched the incipient beard of my Frenchman with my forefinger. It was jagged.
'He's a handsome rogue isn't he?' Molly was behind us, although I don't know how we all fitted into that tiny room without dying of claustrophobia. It must have been some more of Molly's magic tricks, making the room stretch to accommodate us all.
I agreed of course, while Kitty, more demanding, screwed up her face in disdain. 'I suppose some may call him that' she said. 'He is sort of handsome, for a Frenchman!'
He certainly was not as classically handsome as my own Lieutenant. Nobody was, yet in his own way, with his monkey-face and broad chin he could be regarded as interesting; for a Frenchman, as Kittie said. Sometimes that woman had the most amazing perspicacity. At other times, she was so wide of the mark she was using a crooked bow and corkscrew arrows.
'Has he wakened at all?' I asked.
Molly nodded. 'Only for a very brief spell,' she said. 'He woke, gabbled a lot of foreign gibberish and dropped away again.'
'He might be one of Boney's spies,' Kitty said, 'come to see what he have in the island worth robbing and ravaging.' I could see her eyeing my Frenchman up, no doubt wondering if he was about to leap out of bed to start the ravaging process, and wondering what position she should put herself into to best accommodate him.
'Not much use in spying with his eyes fast shut,' Molly said. 'It's more likely he's from some privateer or maybe even a Brittany fishing boat.'
My heart sunk at Molly's words. I had no desire to think of my monkey-faced Frenchman as something as mundane as a fisherman. We had plenty of fishermen from Shanklin and Ryde and they were decent men but pretty ordinary. I wanted my pet Frenchman to be a privateersman at least.
'I will leave you to look at your prize,' Molly said. 'I have my animals to attend to.' She looked at me. 'You may wish to shave him soon. There's a razor in the drawer at the side.'
'Shave him?' I said, alarmed at the thought of me let loose with an open razor on the face of this unsuspecting sailor. I realised that Molly had already vanished; she had the knack of disappearing without a sound. That was another reason why people thought her a witch.
'I must see for myself,' Kitty spoke in a low whisper. 'I must check.'
'You must check what?'
'If he has a tail,' that foolish woman said.
'Of course he has not!' I said hotly, although there was just the tiniest bit of me still harboured a doubt. After all, I had not been specifically checking that part of him and perhaps there had been just a vestige of a tail there. 'It is not right to look at the poor foreign fellow when he is all unconscious.'
'That's the beauty of it, Sarah,' this amazing woman said. 'He won't know! We will have a little peek to satisfy our curiosity and that will be the end of it.'
'I don't have any curiosity,' I began, and then I pondered for a moment. Of course Kitty was right. It was educational, for we had long thought that Frenchmen had tails, and he would never know. Perhaps there was the slightest suspicion of another, more basic reason which I will never admit to, but Kitty was most insistent, Molly was away on some animal-related work of her own, the sun was sending friendly beams of dust-mote laden light onto the bed and my Frenchman looked so accommodating and handsome in his ugly, foreign way.
Sighing to signify that I did not approve, yet with more than a trace of excitement, I helped Kitty fold back the covers. My Frenchmen had been stripped to his borrowed linen shirt and lay there on his back, eyes closed and his chest rising and falling gently and rhythmically. As I watched him I once again experienced that feeling of ownership, which Kitty spoiled by taking hold of his nightshirt around his thighs and carefully rolling it back.
'No,' I hissed urgently. 'This is not right! Leave the poor fellow some dignity.'
'I'm just having a look,' Kitty sounded most disappointed. And so she should, the conniving minx.
'Not at that part.' I stood between her and her victim, determined that my Frenchman should be shown at least a modicum of respect.
Kitty's glower and deep sigh were both meant to shame me. Instead I stood my ground. 'We'll roll him over,' I said, 'and have a quick look and then tuck him back up.'
Eventually Kitty agreed. She knew she had no choice, for once my mind was made up; nothing on God's earth would change it. I was more obstinate than the most stubborn of mules. In fact I was even more inflexible than Kitty, or a whole litter of Kitties.
Placing our hands under him,
we rolled the poor unsuspecting Frenchman onto his face. He gave an involuntary grunt as we did this and then he was face down on the bed with his shirt a-tangle around his legs and his face all squashed against the pillow. Not that Kitty cared about his poor face at that moment.
'I'll do it,' I said as I gently took hold of the man's shirt, allowing my hand to brush against his curved parts as I did so.
'No; let me,' Kitty nearly pushed me aside in her eagerness to search for a tail. I was surprised how tender she was as she lifted my Frenchman's nightshirt and eased it upward to reveal slender but well-shaped and muscular thighs and a pert bottom that I could not help but admire anew.
'See,' I hissed, 'he's made just as we are. Not a sign of a tail.'
'I'm sure he has one,' Kitty bent closer and began to probe at the appropriate place with her fingers.
'Enough of that, you shameless baggage!' I pulled her away quite violently, so she overbalanced and nearly fell in that crowded room. Reaching out for support, Kitty grabbed hold of the first thing she could, which just happened to be the Frenchman's leg. Her nails scraped down his calf, wakening him and so he opened his mouth and yelled in justifiable surprise. The noise alarmed Kitty, who screamed in sympathy as she slid to the floor, dragging the poor Frenchman's leg down with her; I joined the vocal chorus and all three of us were screeching and yelling like Vectis banshees.
'What's wrong? What's all the noise?' Molly was at the door, looking as alarmed a woman can be when she finds her two female guests all a-tangle with a near naked man on the floor of her upstairs bedroom. As soon as she saw us she began to laugh, and no wonder. Kitty was spread-eagled on her back and the Frenchman on top with his shirt around his waist, his legs and rump all bare to view and me looking and yelling and not quite sure what had happened.
'Up you get,' Molly lifted the Frenchman to his feet with a single hoist and helped him gently back into the bed. 'So you're awake are you?'
The Frenchman looked at her, dazed, and said something incomprehensible in French.
Sarah's Story Page 5
