Hoare and the matter of treason cbh-3

by Wilder Perkins

  Beyond, the tunnel widened into a small dim grotto lit only by a glow of charcoal, easily large enough to accommodate several men. A pile of rags occupied one corner, a pile that might have hidden Squeak. Some ten feet off, an arched door opened at the grotto's farther end. Between Hoare and the doorway, John Goldthwait was just turning-in response, perhaps, to some small sound of Hoare's. He was in the act of drawing a small, serviceable pistol. Hoare squatted, sprang, and in springing, remembered that his precious clasp knife lay behind him, abandoned in Ogle's blood. Hoare prepared to die.

  As Hoare was still in mid-air, Goldthwait yelped with pain, kicked up one leg as if beginning some macabre pas seul, and fired the pistol into the grotto's ceiling. Hoare fell upon him amid a sprinkle of stone from above, and grappled.

  Goldthwait might be doughty, but he was smaller than Hoare, and he was quickly the underdog. Somehow, besides, Hoare found himself gripping a long shard of porcelain; it was just long enough, he discovered, to grip and thrust under and up into Goldthwait's vitals.

  Beneath him, Goldthwait went limp. His mouth opened, and a thin trail of blood trickled across his cheek.

  "Maman?" he whispered, and again, "maman? Me voici, dans le jardin… Tu m'as laisse tout soul!

  "Maman? Maman? Que j'ai peur… Ma…" His jaw dropped with a sigh, and his head fell to one side.

  Utterly weary, Hoare rose, but could no more than crouch beside John Goldthwait. Absently, he reached out for the serviceable pistol. Why not? After all, it was his property.

  Into his vacant stare swam a small, blood-smeared face, the face of Jennifer Hoare, formerly Jenny Jaggery, "orphing" of Portsmouth town.

  "Oh, my dear child…" His whisper was broken.

  "Da!" Jenny cried triumphantly into Hoare's chest. He looked down at her jubilant face.

  "It worked!"

  "What worked, child?" he asked.

  "Why, the crumbs, of course, silly! The crumbs I kep a-droppin' as them coves drug me along through Lunnon an' down the tunnels!" In her brief return to the underworld, Jenny had let her gentility lapse, Hoare could not help noticing. Ah well, she had kept her life, and her spirit. The gentility would be back; perhaps the cat Order had it in his possession.

  "Yes, my dear, your stratagem worked," he lied, and set her down with an extra squeeze.

  "But how did you bloody your face?" he asked.

  "Why, I bit 'im, that's what! 'E din't understand 'ow young 'uns can wiggle about an' around, an' get loose o' most every-thin', so w'en I begun to get peckishlike, I wiggled loose and filled up on their vittles. 'Orful, they was, too!"

  Saved by my womenfolk again, Hoare told himself ruefully. First, there had been Eleanor and her upsetting of Moreau's stolen skiff; now it was Jennie and her sharp little teeth. He took the child in another hug, took her by the hand, and led her out of bondage through the low farther door. He knew his way now, and he always would. Bubble and Squeak had embedded it in his innermost soul.

  Hoare was secretly overjoyed when he and his Jenny appeared in Dirty Mill's lowest wine cellar just as Whitelaw was turning the last few bottles of Hoare's second-best port. After accepting Hoare's hand and holding the child to his chest for a revealing second, the silent servant led him up from the cellars of Dirty Mill, and thence into the astonished arms of Eleanor Hoare.

  Chapter XIV

  To my knowledge, our previous candidate for the post held until recently by the late lamented Admiral Abercrombie, who was so summarily dismissed from consideration, has Sir Thomas Frobisher's interest at heart, ha ha ha, and-as is well known to all at this table, Frobisher has… oh."

  At his own gaffe, the First Lord fell silent. For that very night, Sir Thomas Frobisher's knighthood was about to be stripped from him. The man himself, his baronetcy still inalienable and in effect, would be on his way by ship, to Hell or Halifax.

  Seeing that he had already carried the day, Mr. Prickett leaped to pursue his beaten foe. "In my professional capacity, I must add, my lords, a reminder to this Board of the Act of Parliament of 1768, the Commissions Act, in which it is explicitly stated that the rank of commander is a temporary one, to be held only… Er.

  "You are required, my lords," he went on sternly, "by the 1768 act of Parliament, to make a decision. Figuratively speaking, of course, a case under that Act stands before you this afternoon. Either you retire Commander Hoare on half pay, or you advance him to post rank. The rank of 'commander' is one that is purely temporary, created for the convenience of… but never mind. Make him, sir, or break him. Make up your mind."

  The pride of Sir Thomas Frobisher in his knighthood was inordinate. It was exceeded only by his pride in the baronetcy which had been conferred on his ancestor upon the restoration of Charles I. It was not within the power of the Crown to dissolve the baronetcy; that title inured, not to the individual who might bear it at any particular time, but to the Frobishers as a line.

  Sir Thomas's knighthood, however, like that of any other knight, was revocable. While such a thing happened less frequently than a coronation, it happened. A caitiff knight could be degraded. It had, in fact, been the necessary precursor of a man's execution for high treason, in the days when that crime called for drawing and quartering. Since a true knight, it was held, could not commit treason, no knightly traitor could have been a true knight in the first place. Logically, then, the ceremony of knighthood must be reversed before the butchery began.

  Sir Thomas Frobisher was not to be dismembered. Once condemned, he was merely to hang. Innocent or guilty, nonetheless, he was to be degraded.

  The ceremony took place in the chapel of Henry VII in Westminster Abbey. Only members of the order itself should be present. Nonetheless, though he was no knight and never expected to be dubbed one, Hoare managed to steal into a distant, chilly corner. Since it had been he who disclosed Sir Thomas's treason, he thought it only proper that he witness the result. Moreover, he held the man in great distaste. Throughout the hour before midnight, Knights of the Bath felt their way silently into the choir stalls assigned them, below their knightly banners. Many of the knights in attendance, elderly knights for the most part, were less than agile in the dark. Accordingly, the natural rustle of robes and shuffling of shod feet were punctuated occasionally by a knightly oath and, once, by the crash of a superannuated, night-blind knight into the lectern.

  At last, however, the silence in the chapel was complete except for a soft susurrus of breathing. Above, the bells of midnight tolled. At the twelfth stroke, footsteps sounded outside the chapel, and a youth entered, bearing a taper that he used to light the candles-first those at the altar, and then those set at the corner of each row of stalls. As Hoare could now see, the choir was less than half full, it being a time of war and many of the knights, as serving officers, were out of the country. The young man spoke not a word, but finished his task, saluted the gathering with a bow, turned on his heel, and returned to the place whence he had come. The participants waited in their stalls, restless in the dim golden candlelight.

  After an eternity, steps sounded again, this time those of a number of men, and the celebrants entered-a short column, led by a heavy, obviously corseted man of middle age, in an ornate cloak. The leader, whom Hoare assumed must be the Master of the order or his representative, had a familiar look. He could be one of several brothers, and Hoare was quite sure he knew the man's family. He carried a velvet cushion, on which rested a pair of gilded spurs. He was followed by several other cloaked figures walking silently in twos, and then by a helmeted man carrying a broadsword at the "carry" as if he were a marine with his musket. Hoare had seen another midnight procession not so long ago, one that, like this one if he was not mistaken, had also included a Royal. But the atmosphere here, instead of being unintentionally comedic, was solemn.

  A party of three closed out the procession: two men in back-and-breasts that might have been borrowed from the Horse Guards, dragging a hooded man in gyves with a hood over his head. No, Hoare told himself; w
hoever the hooded man is, he is not Sir Thomas. He was much thinner, and his garments were shabby. He might be a homeless vagrant, pressed into duty for this occasion.

  Silently, the guards came to a halt, facing inwards, while their leader stepped in equal silence to the altar before making an about turn. The guards and their charge proceeded on until they stood at the altar's foot.

  The Master now walked around the three waiting men, knelt with a grunt, and fastened the spurs onto the captive's heels. Rising and returning to the altar, he nodded at the man with the sword.

  Was this to be another sacrifice, Hoare wondered, like the one he had thwarted at the Nine Stones Circle? No. The swordsman bent over and, with sharp chops of his blade, hacked off first one, then the other of the spurs the Master had only just attached to the hooded man's heels. He hurled the cut-off spurs, one after the other, down the length of the chapel, where they clattered against the door.

  At another silent signal, the swordsman now made his way up one of the cross aisles of the choir and thrust his way brusquely past three seated knights before halting at a vacant stall. Here, he reached up with the sword and, with an overhead swing, chopped away the staff from which a banner overhung the stall. This, too, he hurled down the aisle; staff and banner slid only half as far as the spurs before coming to a halt.

  Finally, at a nod from the Master, the two guards picked up their prisoner, gripping him at the armpits, and thrust him down the aisle. The man uttered a muffled yelp, and yelped again when, one after the other, the guards pushed and shoved him with their booted feet the rest of the way down the aisle and, with the spur and the dishonored banner, out the chapel door.

  The Master gave one last nod, and paced down the aisle, followed again by his paired attendants. The entire party vanished. Throughout the ceremony, no single word had been spoken.

  Hoare waited in a corner until the last of the somber column had passed out of sight. He made his bow to the altar and followed in their tracks, out a side door of the Abbey. It had grown colder while he was within, and the broad steps were icy. The square was deserted now, except for a dark trio. At first he thought they might comprise the late traveler, taken by a pair of footpads, but then he guessed what was really going on.

  The central figure was bent over. "Here, one of you, steady me," he said. "It's slippery underfoot." Each of the footpads gripped a shoulder. Silently, Hoare prepared himself to come to the rescue, and began a cautious tread down the steps. Before he could commit himself to action, he saw that the victim was unbuckling the stumps of the amputated spurs, one by one. He was a lean, red-headed young man with a mischievous face.

  "Here you are, gentlemen," he said to his captors. "I see the things have already been cut quite a few times."

  "Oh, yes," the taller rapscallion said. "It happens every fifty years or so, so in the interests of economy, we have them brazed back together again and save them against the next unfortunate occurrence. And here you are, Mr. Heathcliff. Thank you for an admirable performance."

  A small pouch appeared, clinked, and changed hands.

  "As agreed, I see. Considering the donor's standing, I hardly need count it. Thank you both. And remember, just mention my name at the door tomorrow evening, and the manager will pass you in at no charge. Standing room only, I fear. Good night, gentlemen."

  "I have no choice in this, Hoare," Sir George Hardcastle said. "At least, I am so informed by Mr. Henry Prickett, advocate to the Admiralty. By the terms of an Act of Parliament of 1768 of which he informed me but of which I never, never before heard, I am required either to promote you to post rank, or to let your commander's rank lapse and place you on half pay. The latter fate you hardly deserve, so I must, willy-nilly, inflict the former upon you.

  "I must say, Hoare, Mr. Prickett took me most unjustly to task on the matter, I being less than a day on the post when he mounted his assault upon me. Really, I felt myself in all but physical danger. Well, sir, what have you to say?"

  The stunned Hoare could do no more than stammer.

  "I shall assume that those peculiar noises you are making indicate acceptance. Very good. Go, have your man shift that swab, and invite me to help you wet it."

  "I confess, sir," Hoare whispered to Prickett pere, "that I knew nothing of the Act of Parliament of 1768 that you called to Sir George's attention… with such happy results for myself."

  "Neither did Sir George, Captain Hoare," Mr. Prickett said calmly. "Nor had I, before I thought of it, as I did on the spot. I wished, if you will allow me a cant term, to 'bounce' him out of a torpid inactivity which was doing justice to neither of you. It served its purpose, did it not?"

  "Indeed, it did." Ten years gone, Hoare had given up all hope of being made post. Now, if he survived long enough, he would die an admiral.

  "I noted, however," Mr. Prickett said, "that Cratchit twigged. I was not surprised. Cratchit knows by heart every statute bearing upon the Admiralty in the remotest degree, from the days of Mr. Pepys to the present. I would warn you against him, were it not that he appears well disposed toward anyone who will protect him against Lestrade. He thinks the latter lives only to suck his blood and devour his vitals."

  "I shall take care to stand guard over Mr. Cratchit, then," Hoare whispered.

  "Well, then, let us bury the Act of 1768," Mr. Prickett said, "before it begins to stink. And I must be home betimes, for young Harry leaves for his new ship tomorrow. Good evening, sir."

  Chapter XV

  A marriage has been announced, and will shortly take place, between the Honorable Anne Gladden, only daughter of Sir Ralph Gladden of Broadmead Manor, Wilts, and Lady Caroline Gladden, and Lieutenant Harvey Clay of the Navy.

  — Naval Chronicle, 16 January 1806

  Made post…

  … with seniority dating from 30 December, 180$: Bartholomew Hoare, Esq., master commanding in Royal Duke.

  — Ibid., 23 January 1806

  In Greenwich and its environs, for those festivities whose sponsors lacked access to a private ballroom, the Green Man tavern atop Blackheath Hill most often was the recourse. To this place, in April's first soft evening breeze, gathered the friends, naval and otherwise, who wished to celebrate a double occasion: the shifting of Bartholomew Hoare's swab from the left to the right shoulder, and the betrothal of Mr. Harvey Clay and Miss Anne Gladden.

  Hoare's silent servant Whitelaw had shifted the epaulet himself several weeks ago, immediately upon Hoare's receiving official word unofficially from Mr. Pricket pere that his elevation had taken place. It had been a swab of high quality to begin with; Hoare had determined upon one which would be none of your cheap pinchbeck substitutes for proper bullion but of good English workmanship, a swab suited to the standing of a new commander with reasonably deep pockets of his own and a wife who was also reasonably well off.

  And, since the swab was a mere few months old and had all too seldom encountered sea air, it had retained its pristine glow. Indeed, Hoare thought abstractedly as he caught sight of his reflection in one of the windows of the Green Man's ballroom, the swab's glow had brightened upon Whitelaw's shifting it to the uniform's starboard shoulder, as though it shared in its owner's astonished pride. Post captain at last! it crowed to all the world, and all the world paid heed.

  Admired by all the world, that is, save the connections of the others being honored this evening, persons of considerable standing for whom Hoare's swab was as the leaves of autumn. They had eyes for the betrothed alone. Tonight, the diminutive Harvey Clay towered above his Anne; the couple was perfectly matched.

  "At this range," Eleanor had murmured to her husband that afternoon while they watched the younger pair stroll ahead of them along the path in Greenwich Park, "it merely looks as though the flowers and the trees were half again their usual size."

  All evening, Hoare had had but one dance with his own Eleanor. Within minutes of the first less-than-stately air, the younger gentlemen among the guests had commenced flocking to her side, beseeching
the next jig or reel or hornpipe… the next waltz in particular.

  Just now, to be sure, she rested at her husband's side in a dark brown taffeta, heavy black hair in slight disarray, her cheeks flushed, brown eyes aglow, giving off a faint odor of womanly sweat. She looked square, forthright, homely and-to Hoare- utterly adorable.

  "It seems you are in good odor among the gentlemen tonight, my love," said Hoare, and immediately was appalled at himself. But the gaffe passed over Eleanor's head.

  "I know. Evidently, I spin well. My low balance of power… no, that's the wrong term…"

  "Center of gravity, perhaps?" Hoare whispered.

  "… is perfectly designed, or placed, to make me a solid partner in the brisker dances. That waltz with Mr. Gladden, Bartholomew! Did you see us? And he a clergyman! Really!"

  But Prothero of Impetuous was at Eleanor Hoare's other side, claiming the favor, and away they went, leaving Hoare without companion. Spying Miss Austen making her way toward his daughter, he took alarm and set course among the wheeling couples to Jenny's rescue.

  "And how does Order do?" Miss Austen asked Jenny. From her tone, she was genuinely interested in learning the answer.

  "He does very well, ma'am. My new mama says he keeps me in order, though I vow I don't understand what she means."

  At Jenny's designation of his wife, Hoare found himself inexplicably touched.

  "And I'm writing a story about him!" the child continued.

  Miss Austen's eyes widened, and she squatted down on the floor, so-Hoare supposed-as to see Jenny eye to eye. "Writing stories is a wonderful experience, isn't it? I write them myself, you know. May I give you a piece of advice about your writing?"

  Jenny nodded.