She heard the rain, louder now, pattering against the windows.
She often thought of this room, and the women who had stood here and waited for a ship, the ship, which one day would not return.
The grave, watching faces lining the stairway told the full story.
Adam took her hands in his. ”You see, Aunt Nancy, I am in love with that girl.”
She waited, her inner voice whispering, don’t be hurt again, Adam.
There were sounds on the stairs now. The youth, David Napier, who had come with Adam as on his previous visit, excited despite the loss of Unrivalled. His hero worship had moved her more than anything. Especially when the portly Daniel Yovell had whispered like a conspirator when Adam had gone out of the house, striding almost blindly, as if he had been searching, unable to accept what she had told him.
It had been before the Bolitho coach, with Young Matthew on the box, had even left Plymouth.
Yovell had described it, squinting, his gold-rimmed spectacles pushed up on to his forehead as she had seen them so often. ”It was a tailor’s shop in Fore Street, for naval and military gentlemen. Captain Adam bought that fine coat for the boy .. . Sir Richard had an account there also.” He had overcome a sudden, poignant sadness. ”The tailor comes out, rubbing his hands, m’ lady, sharp as you please, and asks, ”What will you be wanting this time, Captain Bolitho?” And then the Captain puts a hand on the lad’s shoulder and says calmly, ”Your services for this young gentleman. Measure him for a midshipman’s uniform.” And the lad staring at him, eyes filling his face, unable to believe what the Captain had done, been scheming, indeed, for months.”
Nancy had understood immediately but had said nothing to Napier. Adam had acted despite what had awaited Unrivalled’s return. It was what Richard might have done. The very thought made her eyes fill with tears.
She asked quickly, ”When will you hear about a new appointment?”
Adam smiled, glad to break the uncertainty. ”I was told that word will be sent from the Admiralty, direct to this house.” He looked around the study again, and at the portrait near the window. All the Bolithos, except Hugh, his own father.
He put it from his thoughts. ”It means there will be a ship.”
”A frigate?”
”I am a frigate captain.”
She turned away and adjusted a small vase of primroses. Dear Grace always managed to brighten the house with some sort of blossom, even in March, when a Bolitho was coming home from the sea.
She hung on Adam’s words. They were what Richard had said when he had returned from the Great South Sea with the fever which had almost killed him.
And their lordships had given him, not a frigate, but the old Hyper ion.
Adam picked up a sketch from the desk, a mermaid and a passing ship. He felt a chill, like the whispered betrayal of a secret. Zenoria, who had flung herself to her death from the cliffs .. . like the little sketch his cousin Elizabeth had sent him. Richard’s daughter. Tragic even to think of what had happened. The love and the hatred, a child in the middle of it.
He asked abruptly, ”How is Elizabeth? Happy enough with you, I’ll wager.”
Nancy did not answer. Adam and the young daughter of the country’s hero, my admiral of England, as Catherine had called him, had one thing in common.
They were quite alone.
On the opposite side of the house, by the stable yard, Bryan Ferguson stood at the window and watched Daniel Yovell finishing a bowl of soup which Grace had prepared.
”That should keep the cold out, my friend. There’s a good fire in your cottage, too .. . we’ve kept an eye on things for you since you ”volunteered” for service!”
Yovell put down the spoon. ”That was a goodly welcome, Bryan.” He nodded toward a pile of estate ledgers. ”Perhaps I can give you some help with that?”
Ferguson sighed. ”I’d not say no to that.” He changed the subject. ”We knew you were on your way home some days ago. The courier brig brought word. News travels fast around here.”
Yovell loosened his coat and felt for his watch.
”We saw her leave when we were still at Gibraltar.” He frowned. ”She was bringing the reports of Unrivalled’?” damage to Plymouth. I think the Captain knew then, in his heart. He tried to shut it from his mind. Unrivalled meant so much to him. In my poor way I strive to understand, but a captain of any ship must see things quite differently.”
Ferguson looked at the ledgers. As steward of the estate he tried to be meticulous, to miss nothing. But he was not a young man any more. He did not even glance at his pinned-up sleeve, nor consciously recall the Battle of the Saintes, where he had lost his arm thirty-five years ago. Grace had nursed him back to health and Captain Richard Bolitho had offered him the post of steward.
As if reading his thoughts, Yovell said, ”D’you still see much of JohnAllday?”
”He comes over from Fallowfield for a wet every week. We go down to the harbour sometimes. He likes to watch the ships. He still feels it, very badly.” He walked to the fire and poked it; it was spitting in the rain lancing down the squat chimney.
He paused to pat the cat, dozing as usual by the hob, and added, ”Captain Adam’s coxswain ... he looks a hard one.” It was a question.
Yovell smiled, his glasses slipping down again. ”Chalk and cheese, some might say, but they hit it off from from the start. Not another Allday, though!”
They both laughed.
Outside, sheltering beneath the overhanging stable roof, David Napier turned his head to listen. It was getting dark already. He knew he should be tired after the drive from Plymouth. Drained. But he could not throw off the feeling of confused disbelief. The welcome had been genuine and overwhelming. Grace Ferguson had almost smothered him, demanding to know about his wounded leg; she had shown even more concern than on the occasion of his previous visit. At the request of his captain. He had gone over it again and again. Like the second operation on his leg, which the Irish surgeon O’Beirne had carried out at sea just before the bloody battle at Algiers. The wound had become poisoned, and the alternative was death. He could not believe that he had not been afraid. The sudden agony of the knife, hands pinning him down on the table, the pain mounting to match the screams he knew had been his own; he had nearly choked on the strap between his teeth until merciful darkness had saved him.
And then, through it all, he had remembered the Captain’s arm on his bare, sweat-soaked shoulder. And his voice, saying something about a pony ride. He turned and peered into the stable at Jupiter, the pony, high-spirited and contemptuous of his untrained efforts to ride him on that first visit to this great house, which he dared now to think of as a home.
Jupiter snorted and stamped, and Napier withdrew his hand. The coachman they all called Young Matthew, although he must be years older than the captain, had told him about the pony’s habit of biting whenever he saw the opportunity. What would his mother think if she could see him here? He shut his mind. She would not care.
The rain was stopping. He would find the kitchen and see if he could help the cook with something.
He licked his lips. It would not go away. That moment when the coach had swayed to a halt outside a shop and the Captain had said, almost sharply, ”Come with me. This won’t take long.”
Even then he had believed the Captain was in distress about the ship, still suffering those last moments which he had endured alone, with the final handshake and the gig bearing off from the jetty. He would have understood that well enough.
But when the Captain had said to the beaming tailor with his gaudy waistcoat and dangling tape measure, for this young gentleman, he had not been joking. He had known that, seeing Yovell’s obvious delight, A midshipman’s uniform.
Part of a dream. Unreal. He might change his mind. This young gentleman.
And why did he believe he could rise to the incredible offer of a new life?
”You there is anybody about today?”
Napier swun
g round, shading his eyes with his wrist in a shaft of watery sunshine. He had not even heard the approaching horse, he had been so deep in his thoughts.
It was a young woman, riding side-saddle and dressed all in red, the habit the colour of some of the wine he sometimes served his captain. She had dark hair, tied back with a scarf, and was soaked with rain.
She tossed her head. ”Are you going to help me, or are you just going to stare?”
A door banged open and old Jeb Trinnick, who, Napier had been told, had been in charge of the stables since any one could remember, limped on to the cobbles. A giant of a man, his appearance was made more fierce some by his solitary eye, the other having been lost in a carriage accident so long ago that the story had grown into legend.
He glared at the mounted girl and said, ”Lady Roxby won’t be none too pleased about you comin’ ‘ere all alone, Missy. What’s become of young ”Arry?”
Again the scornful toss of the head. ”He couldn’t keep up.” She gestured to a mounting block. ”Help me down, will you?”
Napier reached up as she slid from the saddle, and old Jeb Trinnick led the horse away, still muttering to himself.
She stepped down to the ground and glanced at him. ”New here, aren’t you?”
Not a woman after all. No more than a girl. Napier was not a good judge of ages, especially of her sex, but he guessed she was, like himself, fifteen or close enough. She was very pretty, and her hair, which he had thought dark, was drying to the colour of chestnuts in the fading light.
”I’m with Captain Bolitho, miss.”
He noticed the way she stood and moved, confident, impatient. He did not see her start at the sound of the Captain’s name.
”His servant.” She nodded. ”Yes, I think I heard something about a visit. Last year? You fell off a donkey.”
”I can take you to him, if you wish, miss?”
She watched the stalls being opened.
”I think I can find my way.” But she was staring at the nearest loose box, at the powerful horse shaking its head in the direction of an approaching stable boy.
She was about to leave. Napier said, ”A fine mare, miss. She’s called Tamara.”
The girl stopped on the steps and looked directly into his face. It was the first time he had seen her eyes. Grey-blue, like the sea.
She said, ”I know. It killed my mother.”
Old Jeb Trinnick came past and watched her walk up to the house.
”Stay clear of that one, my son. Too good for the likes of us, or so she thinks, I daresay.”
Napier was looking at the big mare, which was watching the boy with the bucket.
”Was that true about her mother?”
”Her fault.” The eye swivelled round to another boy forking scattered straw. ”Lady Bolitho, Sir Richard’s widow, she was.” His rugged features creased into a smile. ”Good to have the young Cap’n here again. But I suppose you’ll be off soon? The way of sailor men He turned away as some one called his name.
It was then that it hit Napier, like opening a door and coming face to face with a nightmare. On board Unrivalled he had seen several midshipmen join for the first time. Young, eager, some completely inexperienced. He had heard them meeting the Captain. He gripped the stable door tightly.
If he was to become a midshipman, he would be facing it alone.
They would not be sailing together. Not this time. Perhaps never.
His own words came back to mock him. We take care of each other.
”Still on yer feet, then? I’d have thought you’d be tucked up in a nice soft cot somewheres, while you’ve still got the chance!”
Napier swung round guiltily, wondering if he had spoken his thoughts aloud.
But it was Luke Jago, a heavy chest over one shoulder as if it weighed nothing, and in contrast holding a long, delicate clay pipe in his other hand.
Jago did not wait for an answer. ”They’ve fixed me up with a room in Bryan Ferguson’s cottage. Grace is goin’ to bake some-thin’ special tonight, just for me.”
Napier was always surprised that Jago could accept or overcome almost anything. He spoke of the steward and his wife as if he had known them for years. A hard man, dangerous if crossed, but always fair. A man without fear, and, he thought, a man you would never really know.
Napier said, ”I’m looking at the horses.”
Jago peered at his pipe. ”Bryan an’ me will take a walk down to a little inn he’s told me about. Might get Mr. Yovell to toddle along too.” It seemed to amuse him. ”Though the Bible’s probably more to his taste!”
They both turned as another horse was led out of the stables.
Jago remarked, ”Dirty weather for somebody to be out on the roads.”
Napier saw the groom adjust the reins, and test the girth straps while the horse stamped impatiently on the cobbles. Even in the dying light he could see the dark blue saddle cloth, the gold wire crest in one corner.
”The Captain’s horse.” He thought of the girl in the wine-red habit. It was a strange time to go out riding, with his aunt and his young cousin to welcome him home.
Napier said softly, ”He’s badly troubled. Losing the ship .. .”
Jago was watching him curiously. ”Not all he’s bothered about from what I’ve heard, my lad.” He grinned. ”Sorry. Before too long now I’ll have to call you ”mister”, ‘ow about that, eh?”
Napier did not respond to his raillery. ”But we’ll work some-thin’ out, if you does as I tells you!”
Napier looked at him.
”I want to do the right thing, you see .. .” and Jago knew it was serious. The danger, his wound, which should have cost him a leg, would have with most seagoing sawbones he had known, were nothing compared with this next challenge.
He put one hand on the boy’s shoulder, and said, ”Keep yer nose clean, an’ do right by the lads who will have to look up to you, God ‘elp ‘em.” He shook him gently and added, ”You’ll be on the quarterdeck afore you knows it!”
They heard boots on the cobbles and Adam Bolitho paused to look at them, walking toward the restive horse.
The groom called, ”Keep an eye open on them roads, Cap’n Adam, zur. War or no war, there still be footpads about!”
Adam showed his teeth in a smile, but Napier recognized the anger in his eyes.
To Napier he said, ”Feel like testing Jupiter, David? Tomorrow, perhaps? I thought I might ride over to Fallowfield, see John Allday and his family.”
”I could ride Jupiter now, sir.” But he knew that the Captain was not hearing him; his mind was elsewhere.
Then he was up and mounted, an old boat cloak flapping like a banner in the wet breeze. He swung round and looked up at a window, Napier could not see which one, and shouted, ”I shall be back in time tell the kitchen!” Then he was away, the hooves striking sparks from the worn cobbles.
Jeb Trinnick had joined them, soundlessly for a big man with a limp. When he saw Jago’s pipe he pulled a pouch from beneath his leather apron.
”Try some o’ this. Got it off a Dutchie trader last week. Seems fair enough.”
Jago brightened. Another bridge crossed.
”That’s matey of you!”
Napier asked, ”Is the Captain going far?” He wiped some droplets of rain from his face, like tears. Like that day, all those months ago, when he had seen him with that beautiful woman, driving a smart little pony and trap.
He heard Jeb Trinnick say dourly, ”If I’m any judge he’ll be makin’ for the Old Glebe House.” He nodded, the single eye gauging the trail of smoke rising from Jago’s pipe. ”Evil it is, or was. My youngest brother used to live over Truro way, afore he went over the side after Camperdown. Full o’ spirits, he said. Even the Church was glad to rid itself of the place to the first buyer it could get. Old Sir Montagu, that was.”
Jago puffed out more smoke. ”Good baccy, Jeb.”
Somehow, Napier knew it was because of that same woman; he remembered the Captain’s fac
e when he had read the little note she had sent out to Unrivalled before they had sailed to join the admiral.
Jeb Trinnick made up his mind. ”All the same, I’ll send one of my lads after ‘im.” He grinned. ”Just to be on the safe side!”
Napier watched him limp into the shadows. A man who could deal with everything that came his way. He felt despair closing around him again. Better to be like Trinnick, or Jago. Not to care .. .
Suddenly he heard the snap of Jago’s delicate-looking pipe, which he had carried so carefully and filled for the first time with Trinnick’s Dutch tobacco. It lay in fragments on the ground, rain splashing over it, dousing the smoking ash.
It mattered to Jago too, more than he would ever allow himself to show. He had hardened himself against it, perhaps because of other captains he had served. Looked up to, admired, hated; and one he had described as second only to God.
But this one mattered. And to David Napier, who was all but fifteen years old, it was a lifeline.
The courier arrived at the old grey house around noon, a week almost to the hour since Unrivalled had dropped anchor in Plymouth.
Ferguson had been in the stable yard, watching Napier riding the pony Jupiter slowly but confidently, back and forth, ‘gaining an understanding’ as Grace had put it.
The courier was known to Ferguson, as he was to many sea officers who lived around Falmouth. Ferguson had reached out to sign for the canvas envelope, but the courier had said almost curtly, ”Not this one. Captain Bolitho himself, or I shall have to wait until he returns.”
Ferguson heard his wife call, ”Tell the captain, Mary!” She would stay with him until they all knew. She never changed; nor would she.
The courier relaxed and climbed down from his mud-spattered horse. All the way from Plymouth, and before that; how far had that envelope travelled, Ferguson wondered?
The wheels had probably started to turn when a guard ship or keen-eyed coast guard had reported Unrivalled beating her way up Channel A sight of home.
Grace Ferguson said, ”You’ve time for a glass, or a hot posset afore you leave?”
Alexander Kent - Bolitho 26 Page 3
