“Madam, General, is there anything you need?”
The General, who took her in with one grave glance, seemed on the point of saying something when Madam Lanchester, evidently agitated, burst in with, “Why don’t you help Agnes in the hall, I think she’s feeling overwhelmed.”
Katie hastened in that direction, as Lieutenant Lovejoy joined the conversation between Madam Lanchester and the General. Just as she entered the hall a squadron of soldiers was arriving at the front door, armed and equipped with rifles. These were not party guests. Their captain approached her, “Do not be alarmed. We are here to offer protection. Do you know where I could find General Hobsbawm?”
Katie gestured towards the garden and looked round the hall full of startled partygoers. She picked out Tavish’s unhappy, stolid face and that of Agnes, looking forlornly bewildered. Suddenly there were several loud explosions that seemed to come from outside, or in the direction of the garden. Katie looked that way and thought she saw some sparkling lights like fireworks coming over the top of the wall and into the garden.
“They’re rockets!” a man’s voice shouted.
There was a wail of anger and confusion, and the music broke off abruptly. People were running into the hall. There were sounds of shooting from outside. Someone shouted, “Don’t panic!” and all at once everyone panicked. General Hobsbawm strode to the bandstand and waving his arms called out to everyone to stay where they were. “There is no cause for fear,” he said. “The army is actively engaged and has everything under control!” There were a few screams and other outcries, but the general turmoil seemed to decrease. “We have been attacked here, at Lanchester Mansion, by a mob of cutthroats. Their motives and organization are unclear. But we have matters under control.” Just at this moment there was a volley of shots from outside. Everyone jumped and looked about, eyes lit with fear. “Those were our troops, dispersing the evil doers. I say again, matters are under control!” He looked around and appeared satisfied by the relative calm his remarks had engendered. Lieutenant Lovejoy brought him a document of some sort and whispered in his ear. There was a brief sotto voce conversation between the two, then the General held up his hands and said, “We are at this moment organizing troops to escort all of you to your homes. The streets are not safe. A curfew is in place and the city is under a state of martial law as of this moment.” He then stepped down from the bandstand and proceeded towards the hall. There was some scattered applause. A few inebriated guests looked around as though they approved of the interlude, and were now awaiting the resumption of the music.
However, at the front door of the mansion the serious work of setting up the escorts for the guests was underway. General Hobsbawm called Madam Lanchester to assist in organizing them by the quarter of the town in which their homes lay, and then assigning them to the soldiers directed to take them there. It was an involved process, and certainly not one that she had been expecting to perform, but the partygoers were for the most part cooperative, and with the appropriate farewells and polite leave-takings, she saw to it that everyone got where they were supposed to. Katie, Agnes and Tavish had duty at the front door and sent everyone off, catching glimpses of the street, now patrolled by soldiers in armor with rifles and some with large, ferocious-looking dogs.
General Hobsbawm and Lieutenant Lovejoy, with a few soldiers, were the last remaining. Madam Lanchester had collapsed exhausted into a chair. She took the General’s hand and said, “Thank God I invited you.”
“Yes,” said the General. “It turns out to have been a stroke of good fortune that we were here. And you could hardly have anticipated that this would happen.”
“No. Hardly.”
“When I received the invitation I wondered why you had invited us.” The General crossed to the table where Lieutenant Lovejoy was seated. “You remember, Lieutenant, I asked you that very question.”
“I invited you because I thought it was the thing Pinehurst would have done. He was always eager to be as inclusive as possible, to bring together all sorts. Oh, how I miss him. I was a young bride, you know, and very devoted.”
Lieutenant Lovejoy smiled and spoke in an undertone to the General, “I rather think I know what her motives were.”
“Oh?” he asked.
“Oh yes,” said the Lieutenant, continuing the whispered exchange, “An alliance with the military would be seen as a step up for a house down on its fortunes.”
“How so?”
“She practically thrust that one on me,” he said, indicating Katie, who at this moment was resting in a chair at the other end of the hall. “After she’d dolled her up. Diamond earrings. My God.” He winked.
“Lieutenant, perhaps you are reading too much into what most likely is nothing at all.”
“I have my reputation as a ladies’ man, you know. And that one is what we call enceinte.”
“She is?”
“Most certainly.”
The two men chuckled. “I can follow your chain of thought.”
“What are you two laughing about?” asked Madam Lanchester.
“Oh, nothing. Nothing at all,” said the General.
“No, please, tell me.”
“Well it was only that the Lieutenant was amusing himself with the idea that you wanted to marry him off to your pregnant housekeeper, or whatever she is.”
“What?”
“Yes, just a joke.”
Madam Lanchester sat for a moment, not comprehending what the men found amusing, feeling somehow there was an important point she was missing. “No. Really. I don’t see. What is it?” she asked.
The General felt confounded, having to explain the nature of a joke he didn’t find quite that funny. He looked at the Lieutenant.
The Lieutenant did his best. “Your waiting woman, Katie Jean?” He wasn’t sure how to proceed.
“Yes?” said Madam Lanchester. There was a pause. “She’s pregnant?” It dawned on her now what they were laughing about. How cruel.
“Yes . . . You didn’t know?”
Madam Lanchester walked the length of the hall to where Katie was seated. Katie, at this point, was near a drowse, worn out from the day’s work and then the night’s excitement. She was as startled by Madam Lanchester’s abrupt interrogation as if one of the upholstered chairs had suddenly risen to confront her.
“Katie?”
“Yes, Madam?”
“Stand up.”
Katie stood. Madam Lanchester looked her over.
“Have I spilled something on the dress?”
“Are you pregnant?”
There was no reply.
“You’ve humiliated me.”
“No.”
“Yes you have . . . You have no idea. You have no idea what you’re doing. Dancing with Lieutenant Lovejoy? What were you thinking?”
“You said to enjoy my –“
“Is that what you thought I meant?”
Katie couldn’t think. None of this made any sense.
“Oh, Katie. What have you done?”
“I don’t know.”
The two women stood there, neither one knowing what to do. Finally Madam Lanchester said, “You’ll have to go. Get your things and get out . . . You’ve stabbed me to the heart.” She walked away, then turned back and said, “You don’t have to do it this minute. First thing in the morning. I want you out of this house.” Then she walked away. She thought she ought to cry, but couldn’t remember how.
Katie burst into tears. There was only so much she could take, but it seemed she just kept taking more and more. With no idea of where she was going to go, what she was going to do, she walked slowly to the stairs to her room. She climbed the stairs and opened the door and Tommy was there bouncing up and down.
“Oh, Tommy, I forgot to walk you.” She put him on the leash and took him downstairs and out onto the now deserted street. It was funny to think that not too long ago there had been shooting going on here, and now Tommy was doing his business. She felt totally bl
eak, and blind to what was happening around her. She walked a little way and saw somebody lying in the gutter. It was a boy, probably not even twenty years old. She went to wake him up and when she did, she saw he’d been shot in the head. Apparently nobody’d seen him or bothered about him and here he was, lying on his back, his wide open astonished eyes reflecting the last of the moonlight. She wanted to tell him get up and go home. She looked at the body and imagined it was herself lying there and she shivered, and with that thought she realized she’d forgotten to take her stick with her like she always did, but somehow she didn’t think she’d need it, or if she did need it, she didn’t think it’d be any use. Then she led Tommy back to her room and on the way happened to encounter Tavish, who’d changed out of his tails and black tie and into his threadbare doublet and hose.
“I heard,” he said. “Don’t worry, she’ll change her mind by the morning.
“No she won’t.”
“She will. You of all people should know her moods by now.”
“Don’t care if she does. I’m going.” She closed the door in his face.
“Please open the door. I’m not leaving,” he said, standing outside in the hall.
She looked at her image in the mirror. Well these’ll just have to go, she said to herself. She took off the diamond earrings. Then opening the door she handed them to a surprised Tavish, said, “Give these to Madam Lanchester,” and closed the door again. A moment later she opened the door once more to shout after him, “Tell her I’m keeping the dress.” Not that it’ll fit me much longer, she thought to herself.
She got her old suitcase out and laid it open before her. She started going through the chest of drawers, taking things one by one and putting them in the case or throwing them away. But that was all she could do that night. She broke down then and cried herself to sleep, and was haunted in her dreams by the thought that she was searching for something in her room, something she needed, but she couldn’t say why, and everything she looked at wasn’t what she was looking for, but it didn’t matter anyway because she’d forgotten what it was.
Chapter Eight
IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST
The flowers the Master grew in a box outside his sashed cabin window had opened to catch the sun. Tawny orange, garish blue, their hues were the visible refutation of the ship’s muted palette of gray and silver. This morning it occurred to the Master to wonder what these flowers were thinking. That is, if flowers could think, perhaps their thoughts were along the lines of, ‘Oh really, here comes that annoying sun again. Just when I was having a rest.’
The Master left his cabin and climbed the stairs to the poop deck. Here he saw Brutus tied to the rail on the weather side in his role as defendant in the trial to be held this morning. His posture declared him proud and disdainful, but he was committed to a course of judicious penitence, and had already agreed with himself that it was time once again to accept — not punishment – but the consequence of what he had done. He was not contrite, but he allowed as how in the course of life a man must now and again give the world a knock, and it was not a startling affair when the world chose to give the knock back.
Ramsey and the Master stood before him on the lee side of the poop deck in their roles of judge and assessor. The men of the craft stood below, as was proper.
Bringing down his gavel, the Master declared the trial in session.
“Brutus, you are charged with assaulting your fellow seamen and inflicting powerful damage on their persons, to the effect that Signor Vincenzo has a signal gash carved in his right cheek, Signor Diego has a chip to his tooth and a face that’s all one bruise, and my carpenter Mr. Chips will not be the carpenter he has been for some time now due to his left arm being thoroughly broken up, and it’ll likely be in a sling many a day. What have you to say to this?”
“I flung them about because they was cheating at cards.”
“Cheating at cards.” Here he gave a sorrowful look and a great shake of his head, as if those three words recalled to him all the great history of human iniquity. “Are you certain they were cheating? Did they cheat you?”
“Yes, I am certain. No, it was not me they cheated.”
“Whom did they cheat?”
“My cabin mate Tom.”
“And where is your cabin mate to confirm your story?”
A long pause, then, “I don’t know.”
The Master turned to the First Mate. “Can you bring forward this man Tom?”
The First Mate said, “I cannot. Search was made, but he has not been found.”
“So either he is hidden, or he is lost.” There passed a moment for all to reflect on this. “Perhaps there’s more than a beating needs looking into. Mayhap a man’s been murdered. That’s a crime for which a man would hang, but lacking a body what are we to make of this?”
“It could be that man Brutus threw the body overboard in his drunk,” said Ramsey. “And perhaps the story of a cheat at cards is just to throw a muddle in our way. Now there’s a thought comes to me.”
“And a good thought it is.”
Brutus said, “I threw no man overboard.”
“Have you proof of that?”
“How can a man prove what he hasn’t done? But you had me in chains soon as the fight was over. How could I have done it?”
“Eh, Ramsey, there’s a thought. How could he have done it?”
“I don’t know how. I have naught but my suspicions. Suspicions what’d hang over the head of a drunken battling sailor in anyone’s mind.”
The Master turned and held up the bloodstained blade that had been found the night before. He held it in front of Brutus’s face. “Is this yours?” he asked.
“It is not.”
Diego raised his hand to interject. “Please sir, that is my blade. It was among the instruments I make use of in a bag this man snatched and hurtled in his fury. It is called a catling, this blade, one used in amputations, a sharp and a dangerous blade if not wielded with care.”
“I see,” said the Master. Then, turning again to Brutus, he asked, “Did you use this blade on the face of your fellow seaman Signor Vincenzo?”
“I did not,” spoke Brutus. “I never handled that blade, nor any blade last night. All the work I did was with my fists, like an honest man would fight.”
“But someone cut his face.”
Brutus remained silent, a question not having been put.
“Do you know who cut his face?”
“I do not.”
“Signor Vincenzo.”
Vincenzo stood, his cheek wrapped in a bloody bandage.
“Who cut your face?” the Master asked.
“It was that same fellow Tom. A scurvy fellow. The one that cannot be found.”
“The one you cheated at cards.”
“There was cards, yes, by your honor, but there was no cheat.”
“Cards without a cheat? Now there’s a novelty.” There was a pause as the Master looked Vincenzo over. “I’ve half a mind to put you in the dock as author of this last night’s affray. But lacking this Tom to point the finger I’ve not the shadow of a right to do so. Was it you who hustled this Tom away?”
“Nossir.”
“Put him to bed, did you?”
“Nossir.”
A silence. “We’ll see.” Then he stood and addressed the assembled sailors and crew. “Is there any here know where this man Tom can be found?”
There was no answer save the wind and a creak in the rigging.
“No . . . ? I’ve known this leg of the voyage to be a hard errand, though perhaps never so hard as you’ve made it this time. We’ll be putting ashore in Kashahar tomorrow ere sundown, and a rest in port will do us all good. But on board I’ll not have any scuffles or fisticuffs. I make no exceptions, and I’ll brook no excuses. A man raises his fists to another man, let you know that man will be punished for it. Brutus,” and now he turned his attention full on the man tied to the rail before him, “I find you guilty of assault o
n your fellow seamen for no justifiable reason. I find you guilty on the count of battering Signor Diego and breaking the arm of Mr. Chips. You shall be punished.” Then he turned back to the assembled seamen. “And let this punishment stand as a warning to any who would foment fighting and brawling aboard the Queen of Bel Harbor. Should you do so, this punishment will fall on your heads as well.” Here he paused. “In the matter of this seaman Tom, further investigation is called for.” He was in a grand, satisfied mood. He felt he had borne himself well, and things could have gone worse. He now gestured to Ramsey. “Ramsey, as the boatswain, I leave it to you to pronounce the punishment,” and he sat as Ramsey rose.
Ramsey now looked over the crew, and pulling himself back from the inner controversy he ever carried on with himself, fidgeted a bit and then turned his eyes on Brutus. “Brutus,” he said, “the crime of which you have been found guilty is one that we look on with great – ah – displeasure. Yes. Great displeasure. And it must be punished so. The severity – the punishment must be the most severe.”
Brutus turned his face up to him with a wistful look in his mild eyes, as if seeking elucidation of a matter ambiguous to his intelligence.
Ramsey went on, “You will be punished by eighty lashes of the cat. And I will see to it that the sentence is carried out forthwith.”
There was a sound of indrawn breath. Eighty lashes? Had they heard right? The cat was a tangled whip with bits of sharp metal on the end of each lash. For most trivial offenses one lash or two was given. For the more severe as many as five or six. Several of the men carried on their backs the scars of such lashings. For the greatest crimes it had been recorded that eight lashes could be given. Surely that was what he had meant. It must be. More than that was a sentence of death. Eighty lashes?
The Master, from his seat, asked gently, “Eighty lashes? Are you certain?”
Ramsey, afraid to be seen as weak or capable of a mistake, insisted on his eighty. “Yes. Eighty,” he said. “To be administered here, forthwith, before the assembled crew.”
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