by Jay Worrall
“I didn’t think you were coming,” he said.
“No one did,” Penny answered with an impish smile. “Not even me until this morning.”
The ceremony was simple and brief. When the parson closed his Bible and said, “You may kiss the bride,” Charles noticed Penny take a handkerchief from her sleeve and dab her eyes. As soon as she decently could, Ellie rushed over and embraced her friend. “I’m so happy you came,” she gushed, looking significantly from Penny to Charles and back again.
The procession went from the registry to a tavern down the street for the traditional wedding breakfast, where toasts were made and wedding cake eaten. It soon became increasingly obvious that Stephen and Ellie Winchester, unable to take their eyes and hands off each other, were anxious to be away. And as soon as they could politely do so, the newlyweds departed for home. In an aside to Charles, Daniel Bevan offered even money they didn’t make it past the inn at Waverton.
Charles stood next to Penny in the street as the carriage pulled away. Peter stood beside Penny’s cart, watching the two with a certain curiosity. John and Bevan had mounted their horses and were following the carriage. “Peter,” Penny said, “wilt thou watch the cart for a moment longer?” She slipped her hand through Charles’s arm and said, “May we walk a little?” They started slowly up the street—he in his best naval uniform, gold epaulette, and shining sword, and she in her plain brown Quaker dress and bonnet. Several passers-by stopped and stared.
“I was harsh to thee before,” Penny said quietly. “I was trying not to pain thee.”
“I know,” Charles said. “Your father explained it to me. I don’t think I understood before. I’m not sure I really do now.”
“My father told me what thou said to him about…we two.”
Charles stopped and faced her, still holding her arm. “I meant every word,” he said.
“I don’t want to talk about that now,” she said, a gentle firmness in her voice, “but I would like thee to show me thy new house and lands, if thou still wishes to.”
“I’d like that,” Charles managed to say, his heart full. They arranged that Penny would call on the new Mrs. Eleanor Winchester at her husband’s home outside Tattenall two days hence. Charles would meet her there in the morning and take her to see his properties. They walked a little further together until they became uncomfortable with people gawking at them and started back.
All the next morning Charles spent with the workmen at his manor house, trying to urge them along in the impossible hope that they might be finished before Penny arrived. Around noon, he noticed a uniformed courier riding up the drive on horseback.
“Good day,” Charles said, his heart sinking, as the courier dismounted. “Orders already?”
“Yes, sir,” he said, unstrapping the leather bag behind his saddle. “I have three, for Commander Edgemont and Lieutenants Bevan and Winchester.”
“I’ll sign for them,” Charles said. “I’m Edgemont.”
As the courier extracted the canvas envelopes, he said, “Have you heard the news, sir?”
“What news?”
“Spithead, the fleet anchorage at Portsmouth, the whole Channel fleet’s mutinied. Sixteen ships of the line in all.”
“The whole fleet?” Charles said in dismay. “My God, the Admiralty must be in an uproar.”
“Yes, sir,” the courier said, pocketing the receipt. His eyes darted left and right. “Begging your pardon, but if you ask me it’s no surprise. It’s not right the way some of the men are treated—years at sea, no shore leave, lousy food, beaten and cheated on board. I’ve spent my years before the mast in His Majesty’s service, I know. I’m only surprised it hasn’t happened before now. Anyway, everybody’s orders are being pushed forward.”
“Thank you,” Charles said. The courier remounted, then tipped his hat and rode away. Mutiny was a desperate act, almost always punished by death. There had been a number of mutinies in individual ships over the years, but the whole Channel fleet? The Admiralty would have to take notice, and in Charles’s opinion reform was long overdue. He hoped that something would come of it other than a mass of senseless hangings.
He sorted through the envelopes, pocketed two, and broke the seal on the third, which was addressed to “Charles Edgemont, Esq., hereby appointed Commander, H. M. Frigate Louisa.” The first sentence was all he needed read: “Sir, You are hereby requested and required to report on board H.M. Frigate Louisa, presently moored at the Plymouth yards, not later than May 1, 1797.”
Charles read the entire page through several times as if there might be some secret escape clause hidden in it, such as, “if convenient,” or “conditions in your personal life permitting.” The bald fact confronting him was that he had to be on the coach to Plymouth in two days’ time, and he didn’t know when he would return, if ever. He was ready, even eager to go to sea in every respect except one, and now there would be very little time to fix that. He thought about Penny’s willingness to see his new house and lands. That would be a “step,” she’d once said. And that meant that she must have softened her objections to his being in the military. He breathed a sigh. He wanted badly to come to some kind of agreement with her about their future before he left. Maybe it was still possible. He had one chance left, he decided. He would ask her to be his wife. She could say yes or no, but at least he would have asked. He worked late into the evening after supper laboriously writing out exactly what he wanted to say to her, and how, practicing and memorizing it.
THEY HAD AGREED to meet at the Winchesters’ home after she had sufficient time to visit with Ellie. Charles guessed that ten in the morning would be about the right time for him to appear, but through anxiety and impatience he arrived in his carriage at nine-fifteen. He saw Penny’s mare and cart standing in the street in front. Charles knocked on the door, which was almost immediately opened by a maid.
“Oh, Captain Edgemont,” the maid said in an exasperated voice, “I am afraid Mr. and Mrs. Winchester have not yet come down.” Charles had the impression from the tone of her voice that Stephen and Ellie had been confined upstairs pretty much since the moment they returned from their wedding two days before. “You are welcome to wait if you like, sir, but I don’t think they’ll be down anytime soon,” she said. “Miss Brown’s also just now arrived. I’m sorry, but I can’t hold out much hope.”
“I won’t bother them, then,” Charles said. “I’ll just speak with Miss Brown, if I may.” He entered to find Penny sitting stiffly in a stuffed chair in the parlor. He thought she looked distinctly uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry, miss,” the maid said, turning to Penny, “but I don’t think they’ll be available for some time, not even if the house caught on fire.”
Charles grinned at Penny. “Would you like to begin our tour?”
“Yes, please,” she answered, rising and starting toward the door. As she passed the maid she said, “Please tell Eleanor Winchester that I am sorry she was…engaged, and that I hope to visit again when she is free.”
“That will be tomorrow,” Charles offered.
Once they were in the street, Penny said, “Tomorrow? Why tomorrow?”
“I’ve received my orders,” Charles said seriously. “Bevan, Winchester, and I have to catch the coach to Plymouth tomorrow.”
“So soon? I thought thou had longer.” A flicker of concern crossed her face.
“Tomorrow,” Charles repeated.
“Well, at least we have today,” she said, brightening. “I am prepared to see thy lands, and I have brought us something to eat.” She leaned into the back of her cart and came up with a blanket and a covered wicker basket that she put into the carriage. Charles unhitched Penny’s mare and led her into Winchester’s stable. They then set off in his carriage at a leisurely pace, Charles at the reins and Penny beside him.
As they drove along the narrow lanes between the fields, pastures, and hedgerows, he tried to explain what he knew of the traditional arrangements between the tenant
farmers and the landowner, how the rents were apportioned and collected. She seemed very interested in these arrangements, and for many of her questions Charles had no answer. “You’ll have to ask John about that,” he repeated frequently. “He’s to manage the place.” In time, as the horse plodded along, she began to appreciate that it was a huge expanse of land including a great many small farms, woods, and pastures. “How much dost thou own?” she asked.
“There are two estates,” Charles explained. “Each is about three thousand acres. I own all of one and half of the other.”
“Four thousand five hundred acres?” Penny exclaimed, dismayed. “Thou art very substantial. More substantial than I ever imagined.” She was silent for a time after that. Charles drove and chatted in a happy frame of mind. He felt comfortable and natural sitting beside her. Occasionally he glanced at her profile, her bright eyes and smiling lips. He could easily imagine a life with her as his wife and the mother of their children. He pictured her bustling around his house, sitting and talking with him at dinner, fussing affectionately over their offspring, sleeping beside him at night.
When the sun was as high as it would get, Charles asked if she were hungry.
“Yes,” she answered, still distracted by the nearly incomprehensible extent of his holdings. “How large is it,” she asked. “I mean, in miles?”
“I’ll show you,” Charles answered, and he pulled the carriage off the path onto a grassy meadow beneath a small knoll with a copse of trees at its summit. It was an isolated place with a few black-and-white dairy cows grazing nearby but no people or cottages in sight. He took the basket and blanket from the carriage and they started up the hill. The bright sun and its warmth bathed the countryside. Halfway up, Penny took off her bonnet and shook out her hair. Charles loved its soft color as it fell around her shoulders and down her back. At the summit, among the trees, he set down his things and stood beside her.
“Look,” he said. Penny studied the expanse of land checkered with the new green of growing crops, pastures, and woods. Small thatched cottages and barns dotted the countryside as far as the eye could see, with several tiny hamlets and one larger village in the distance.
“It’s grand,” she said. “How far doth thy land go?”
“Almost to that steeple way over there,” Charles said, pointing and brushing slightly against her as he did. “And in that direction to the stream. No, there, where that line of trees is.” He turned her shoulders with his hands. “Down there is Tattenall, and do you see that house, the one with the trees around it?” The impressive structure stood out even from a mile away.
“Yes?” she said, a little in awe.
“That’s my new house,” Charles said, standing behind her, his hands still resting on her shoulders. “It could be our house.”
Penny leaned lightly against him but said nothing.
He brushed his lips against her hair. She allowed herself to be nestled against him, and then his arms encircled her.
“Charles, please, no,” she said firmly and removed herself from his embrace. She turned to face him. “I am willing to take steps, but not too many, and no large leaps.”
“Penny,” he said, frustration showing in his voice, “there isn’t any more time. I told you, I leave—”
“I know,” she said, stooping to pick up the blanket. “Here, help me with this.” She handed him one end of the blanket and together they spread it on the grass. As he watched her open the basket and lay out its contents, his irritation left him. “Sit,” she said and patted a place beside her.
Charles sat cross-legged on the blanket and surveyed her meal. There was cold beef, cheese, and dark bread laid out on wooden platters, some butter, two cups, and a stoppered container of cider that had been laid in over the winter. She handed him a knife and asked him to cut the bread while she poured out small measures of drink. Then she took the knife and sliced the meat and the cheese into perfect thin strips. Charles watched her hands as she worked—long, thin, and graceful. They ate for a time without speaking while he mentally rehearsed his prepared speech and attempted to find the courage to give it.
Penny broke the silence first. “Charles, may I ask thee a question?” she said. “It is only a question, not an accusation.”
“Of course,” he answered. “What?”
“Why dost thou remain in the navy? Surely if thou hast all this land and substance thou needst not.”
His first thought was that she was going to “labor” with him over his profession again, but she had said it was not an accusation and her expression was open and earnest. In that light the question surprised him: He hadn’t thought of his wealth and lands as an alternative to the navy. Why did he stay? It wasn’t for the money. If Mr. Edwards was right, his wages as a commander in His Majesty’s Navy would be small compared to the income from his estates. But he knew in his heart that he didn’t want to leave, he couldn’t, not now, anyway. “I wish there were an easy answer,” he said at length.
“Please try,” she said. “It’s important to me.”
Charles searched for a way to explain the complicated emotions that bound him to his profession. He decided to begin with his childhood. “When I was a boy, before I went to sea, my father often told me that a thing once begun needs to be finished. ‘It’s no good walking away from a job half-done,’ he would say, ‘not for the task and not for the man.’”
Penny nodded her head understandingly. “Pray continue,” she said.
“I was sent into the navy at the age of twelve, shortly after my mother died.” He remembered his tears at the thought of leaving home and his desperate unhappiness during his first years as a junior midshipman. “For almost thirteen years I have worked my way up on various ships of the line. I’ve studied sailing, gunnery, navigation, ships, and men, and experienced all of the elements of my trade except one.”
“What was that?”
“I was never in a major ship-to-ship battle, with all the guns firing and us being fired upon. Never, that is, until just two weeks before I met you.”
“Is that when thou wert injured?”
“Yes,” Charles said, “in a manner of speaking.” He reflexively touched his temple and could feel the scar where the wound had been.
“Then thou art finished. Thou hast done everything,” she said hopefully, searching his eyes.
Charles returned her gaze steadily. “No, I’m not finished,” he said. “First, there is the need to defeat revolutionary France. That task is far from complete.” He saw a look of alarm come into her face and he hurried on. “There is a second reason I can’t quit now.”
“What?”
Charles took a deep breath and steeled himself. Up to this moment he had not confided what he was about to say to anyone, not even fully to himself. “It is possible that I am a coward.”
“Thou?” Penny said incredulously. “I cannot believe—”
“It’s true. During the battle I was scared, more than scared, terrified.”
“But anyone would be,” she persisted, “with cannons and guns banging all around. It must have been very dangerous. Were any killed?”
“More than a hundred died on the Argonaut,” Charles said blankly. “I don’t know about the Spanish; more, likely.”
Penny’s face turned ashen and she laid her hand on his. “Hundreds killed? And thou wounded? It must have been dreadful.”
“Yes,” he said flatly. “I have nightmares about it, terrifying dreams in which I can do nothing while others die horrible deaths. At times during the battle I was nearly paralyzed with fear.” She opened her mouth to speak but he squeezed her hand and continued. “I have accepted a commission as a king’s officer. Whatever you think about my profession, I cannot allow myself to be afraid in battle. You see, I must go on in the navy until I know for sure whether I am a coward or not. If I am, then I will quit the service as being unfit.”
Penny sat silently beside him on the blanket for a moment, staring at her hand clasped
in his larger, darker one. She raised her head and said, “And if thou finds that thou art not?”
Charles looked at her quickly, then looked away. “If I’m not a coward? Then…I don’t know.”
“I think I know,” she said quietly, then fell silent again. “Thank thee for confiding in me,” she said finally. “It cannot have been easy for thee and I understand better now. But having fear, even terrible fear, is not the same thing as being a coward. In the same way, bringing terror to others doth not make thee a hero. And I am sure of one thing, Charles Edgemont: Dreams or no dreams, thou art no coward.”
“I thought you might like it better if I were,” Charles said.
“Why?”
“Because, if I proved a coward, then I would leave the navy. I thought that would make you happy.”
“Oh, no,” she said quickly. “I do not want thee to leave because thou art afraid, and I do not want thee to leave because I wish it. I want thee to leave the navy because thou wishes it.”
“That may not happen,” Charles said.
“I know.”
“And that’s all right?”
Penny looked directly at him, meeting his eyes. “I don’t know.”
Charles thought about the question that he had promised himself he would ask. It didn’t seem to be a very good time, but there wouldn’t be any other. “This isn’t what I thought we would be talking about today, cowards and heroes and the navy.”
“What didst thou think we would discuss?”
“I think you know. Don’t you?”
Penny lowered her head and said, “Yes, I know.”
“Is it all right if we talk about it, even if it might involve big steps?”
