by Carla Kelly
And five days later, Mr. Ramseur knocked on the door.
Occupied in the dining room with a governess changing post and two hemp vendors, Nana had sent Sal to the door.
The first glimpse of the high fore-and-aft hat and a boat cloak made her knees weak. Feeling her face draining of color, she sat down at the nearest table. A closer glance told her the officer wasn’t much older than she was. Surely the navy wouldn’t send children with bad news.
“Yes?”
He took off his hat, tucking it under his arm. “Are you Miss Massie?”
She nodded, not sure of speech.
He smiled at her. “Don’t look so alarmed! I’m Lieutenant Caleb Ramseur, of the Tireless. I have a letter for you, and something else.”
Wordlessly, she held out her hand for the letter he was offering, wishing her fingers wouldn’t shake. She took the letter, and a small package wrapped in canvas.
She couldn’t help but look behind him. Did Oliver not even want to see her? Tears prickled the back of her eyelids.
He seemed to understand. “Oh! Why am I here and not the Old Man?”
She had to smile then, particularly since he suddenly realized what he had said, and his face went as red as hers was white.
“It’s nautical cant, Miss Massie, only no one ever says it where…er…the Old Man can hear. May I sit down?”
“Excuse my manners, Lieutenant. Of course you may.”
He grinned at her. “Still don’t have my land legs yet.” He couldn’t have overlooked the question in her eyes. “Miss Massie, we had just got to Ferrol Station when wouldn’t you know it, a French freighter bound for Martinique tried to leave the harbor. You never saw a slicker capture.”
“I still don’t understand,” she said honestly. “Mr. Ramseur, why are you here?”
“The Old Man told me to take the freighter to Plymouth, a prize of war.” He couldn’t hide his pride. “It was my first command, from Ferrol to Plymouth.”
“Congratulations, sir,” she said. She held up the letter and package. “And this?”
“There wasn’t much time, but the Ol’…Captain Worthy wanted to send you a Christmas present.” He sighed. “We ran into contrary winds and I’m late. Merry Christmas anyway.”
Nana laughed. “Same to you, Lieutenant.” She looked around for Sal, who was standing in the door to the kitchen, wide-eyed. “Sal, please bring Lieutenant Ramseur some cake. A large piece, I think.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t….” He started to rise.
“Chocolate,” she interrupted. He sat down again.
Sal brought a slice of cake. The second mate didn’t waste a moment demolishing it. He did pause long enough to gesture with his fork toward the package in her lap. “Captain said I was to watch you open it and tell him your reaction.” He took a huge bite. “He said he’s sorry he couldn’t be here himself to see it.”
He stopped eating long enough to hand her a folding knife from his uniform jacket. She picked out the stitches in the canvas and unfolded over a foot of cotton wadding.
One last turn of the wadding revealed a pearl, slightly pink and the size of a wren’s egg. “My goodness,” Nana said, scarcely able to speak, her voice an octave higher than usual. She set the pearl on the table, afraid to touch it. She looked at the lieutenant, who was watching her face, his eyes appreciative. “Does the Admiralty know there is a mad man on the blockade giving away pearls?”
Mr. Ramseur burst into laughter. “Mr. Proudy wanted to wager that you would faint!”
“What about the…uh…Old Man?” Nana asked, hugely amused.
Mr. Ramseur sobered up immediately. “If he knew we were even thinking about placing a wager on a lady, he’d have tied us to the grate and flogged us himself.” He took another bite of cake. “Must remember that—‘mad man giving away pearls.’”
“‘On the blockade,’” she added. “Get it all. Mr. Ramseur, I couldn’t possibly accept this. It’s worth a fortune. He’ll end up in the parish workhouse, right next to the Massies.”
It was the lieutenant’s turn to stare. “Surely you aren’t serious.”
“Of course I am!” she retorted. “He has been so kind to us, to be sure, but generosity has its limits!”
“You don’t know, do you?” Ramseur said finally, after weighing his words.
“Know what?” Nana demanded, bewildered. She started to rewrap the pearl.
“The Old Man is one of the richest post captains in the Royal Navy.”
Nana stopped what she was doing and stared at him, her mouth open. “Surely you aren’t serious,” she said in her turn. “But…his father was a vicar. I know that much. Unless church service has changed vastly, that’s not an avenue to inherited wealth.”
“True, true.” The second mate ran his finger around the rim of the plate to get the last of the icing. “You do know about prize ships, don’t you? Under Admiralty Orders, prize ships are the property of the captain alone, and not the whole fleet. The Old Man doesn’t have to share with anyone except his crew, and by God, he is generous with us, too.”
Pete spoke up from the doorway. “No wonder he never worries about desertion, when in port. I can’t think of one captain in one hundred who would have given his crew so much shore leave as Captain Worthy did, when the Tireless was in dry docks.”
Ramseur grinned. “It’s more than that. We like him, too. He’s fair.” He rose then, and tucked his hat under his arm again. “I’ll give him a report about your expression, Miss Massie.”
Shaken, she rose and curtseyed to his bow. “I had no idea. Simply no idea.” There were a thousand things she wanted to say, none of which Mr. Ramseur needed to hear. “Tell him we will discuss this when I see him next.”
“He thought you would say that.”
“The Old Man is going to get a piece of my mind,” she said. She turned to see Sal at her elbow, with the rest of the cake. “Here you are, Mr. Ramseur. Share it as far as it will go with the hoy’s crew.”
Nana walked him to the front door. “Lieutenant Ramseur, has the Tireless received any mail yet from Plymouth?”
“Not yet. Maybe there will be some letters by the time I get back.”
When she returned to the dining room, Gran was there, looking at the pearl, amazement on her face, and listening to Pete talk about Admiralty Orders and prize ships. Nana handed her the pearl and the wadding. “Please put it in a safe place.”
“The Tower of London?” Pete teased.
“Heavens, Pete, don’t quiz me!” Nana said. “This is all too much.” She picked up the unopened letter. “I think I need to read this.”
She retreated to her room, closing the door quietly behind her. With a sigh, she wrapped herself in Oliver’s boat cloak and opened the letter. It made her smile.
It was short, beginning with no salutation, written in a hurry, which confirmed what Mr. Ramseur had said, and made her laugh.
I know, I know: Miss Pym would never approve. Hang Miss Pym. It’s Christmas and there are no stores in the fleet, unless I were to send you a checked shirt from slops, or steal the rather ostentatious crucifix the captain of the French freighter we captured is wearing. Oh, the Frogs! Why are they so much trouble? We have to go with what we have, and I have a pearl for you. Feliz Navidad from Ferrol, O. Worthy.
P.S. O. Worthy should probably not be counted worthy in matters of proper social intercourse. O. Worthy is cold, his feet ache from standing on them for hours and hours, and he does not particularly give a rat’s ass about Miss Pym. Neither should you.
Merely O.
Who could not laugh at that? I wonder if he knew how badly I needed a laugh, she asked herself. Maybe he needs one, too. Nana folded the letter, tucked it under her cheek and closed her eyes. She slept all through the night for the first time in weeks.
Chapter Twelve
She didn’t even want to know where Gran had hidden the pearl. All Nana wanted to do was read Oliver’s amusing note over and over again until the paper went
limp from folding and unfolding. I am becoming useless to humanity, she decided, as January blew in colder than usual and sleet made walking difficult.
She wondered how Mr. Lefebvre managed to continue sketching, but he did, going out in all weathers and returning white-faced and shivering. Maybe it was his French background, but he wasn’t the sort of man she felt would welcome commentary on his habits. Still, one particularly raw afternoon, just after the year turned, she couldn’t help herself.
“Mr. Lefebvre, I can’t but wonder why you are so devoted to landscapes in the dead of winter,” she asked, after bringing him a pot of tea and biscuits in the dining room.
He did smile at that. “Miss Massie, this is still such a welcome break from painting portraits of landowners! Sacre bleu! The demands they make when my paintings look like them!” He sipped his tea. “I’ll be here a few more months, and then I am even contemplating a return to La Belle France.”
“You are probably in no danger of losing your head now,” Nana said, “but with the war, isn’t it impossible to travel to France?”
“There are always ways.”
I suppose there are, she thought. I wonder if I am the most naive female in Plymouth.
That evening, she was the most surprised.
Everyone else had gone to bed. She was pacing the floor in the sitting room, trying to wear herself out enough so she could sleep, when someone knocked on the front door. Startled, she glanced at the mantelpiece clock. Midnight. “Who would trudge up the hill to the Mulberry on a night like this, when the Drake beckons?” she murmured out loud.
Then she knew who would do precisely that, and ran down the hall. She jerked open the front door and walked right into an embrace.
“You had better be Captain Worthy,” she said, with her face close against his chest.
Oliver put a hand on each side of her face and kissed her. His face was wet and cold, but his lips were warm.
They just stood there, the rain pelting down, until Nana pulled him inside. Before she closed the door, she glanced beyond him to see a carriage and horses. “Did you forget to pay the jehu?” she asked.
“No. I have to go to London.”
Disbelieving, she tried to undo the clasp holding his boat cloak together. He put his hands gently over her fingers and pulled them away. “I mean it, Nana. Even stopping here puts me behind schedule and liable for a court martial. But I had to.” He kissed her again more gently this time, as though to atone for bad news. He pulled her down beside him on the bench in the hall.
“You can stay awhile when you return?” she asked, already bracing herself for his answer.
He shook his head. “Things are going from bad to worse in Spain, and I must deliver a message to Horse Guards from one of our connections on the coast near Ferrol.” He put his finger to her lips, smiling when she kissed it. “You make my job so hard! Not a word of what I just said to anyone. Not even Gran or Pete.”
If he could make light of this, so could she. “I haven’t divulged a state secret in at least a fortnight,” she said. “You’re safe with me.”
“I know,” he replied. “I’m certain no man ever felt safer.” He pulled her as close as he could.
“See here, I’m supposed to be irritated with you for that Christmas gift,” she said, after they finished kissing again.
“You’d be even more in the boughs if I’d given you the ruby or the emerald. It was Christmas, Nana. I didn’t have anything else.”
“I wished I had something for you.”
“How about that sketch on the guildhall steps?” he said, his eyes merry.
“I mean something of value.”
He stood up then, pulling her with him. “Nana, you gave me that every day I was here at the Mulberry. Even now.” He wrapped his cloak around her, as he had on the guildhall steps, and she walked with him out to the post chaise.
“I’m dreaming all this, aren’t I?” she asked, as he unwrapped her and held her face in his hands again, as though memorizing her.
“No. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He grabbed her close in a tight embrace that left her almost breathless and released her just as quickly. He opened the chaise door and stepped up, then looked at the coachman. “London now, and spring’um.”
Oliver slept between Blandford and Salisbury, wrapped tight in his cloak, which he fancied carried some of Nana’s rose scent: surely his imagination, but a comfort, nonetheless. When he wasn’t sleeping, he wished she were beside him. How had he managed so many years at sea without Nana Massie waiting for him? He thought of the times he had put into Plymouth, oblivious to her existence. I owe you that, at least, Lord Ratliffe, he thought.
Through the sleet, he glanced out the window at a motionless telegraph, one of many large signaling devices stretching from Plymouth to London, and wished—not for the first time—they were capable of sending detailed messages in spite of storm or darkness. That much modernity would obviously have to wait for another age, he told himself, as he hunkered down and tried to return to sleep.
He reached London on a grey day thirty-eight hours later, only to be stalled by late-afternoon traffic. Oliver didn’t mind the delay, because he was trying to force his sleep-deprived brain into a decision. The lords of the Admiralty had specified he deliver all communications directly to them. He had never failed them. He looked down at the note he had taken from his waistcoat pocket, knowing that when it got to Horse Guards from Admiralty, there would be an instant summons for a meeting at the highest levels. By the end of a typical day, bureaucrats scattered. This was no typical day: he had to be there first.
He knew the note by heart. Don Rogelio Rodriguez, his contact from beyond Ferrol in the land controlled again by France, had urged him to memorize them whenever he could.
Oliver closed his eyes. We are retreating with all dispatch to Corunna, in the hopes of finding transports to return us to England. Soult is right behind. If there are no transports, we will be cut off. Your obedient servant, Col. Sir John Moore. He opened his eyes. There was more, and it all needed instant attention.
That’s it, Oliver thought. He rapped on the side of the post chaise, opened the door and leaned out. “Horse Guards,” he ordered. “Then take me to Admiralty.”
Horse Guards it was. Note in hand, and trusting that his sea legs wouldn’t give him grief, Captain Worthy shoved all dignity aside and ran up the front steps. When he left without the note, a lieutenant was running with it inside the building.
Oliver sank back inside the post chaise with relief, until he reminded himself that his next stop—so close—was Admiralty House. Hopefully the lords would be in a forgiving mood, if they knew how important the note was. Maybe Lord Ratliffe had left early, so he could have access to one of the lords, instead.
His luck was on a lee shore. Lord Ratliffe was even standing in the corridor when the porter ushered Oliver toward his office.
Bow and smile, Oliver told himself as he approached the viscount. Even though you’d like to have his guts for garters. Bow, at least. It’s required.
He did his duty, then followed Ratliffe into his office. The viscount held out his hand for the note. Oliver shook his head. “My lord, since it was of the utmost urgency and the hour for close of business was approaching, I took it directly to Horse Guards.”
“You did what?” Ratliffe shouted.
Startled at the vehemence, Oliver repeated his message. “I know the situation on the ground near Corunna, my lord,” he added. “I used my judgment.”
“Your judgment,” Ratliffe mocked. “Your judgment! Since when do you know more than the lords of the Admiralty?”
Since forever, Oliver thought, as his mind reeled. “I was there, my lord, with my Spanish contact. Sir John’s aide-de-camp rode up from the general’s current position and handed me the note.”
“Who is your Spanish contact?”
That’s the second time he’s asked me, Oliver thought. “My lord, I shall not say.”
Lor
d Ratliffe’s face turned a peculiar mottled purple color. More irritated than alarmed, Oliver observed the viscount, looking for any resemblance to Nana. Thank God there was none. Hopefully, Nana will learn—if she doesn’t already know—that I am best handled calmly, he thought. Never this.
“My lord? Would you like me to get you a glass of water?” he asked, all politeness. “Perhaps I should leave.”
Ratliffe gasped for breath. He stabbed the air with his finger a few times, then jabbed it at a chair. “Don’t go anywhere!” He stalked from the room, slamming the door behind him.
Oliver experienced his first moment of uncertainty concerning his action. One side of his brain assured him he had done what the lords would have wanted. The other side warned him to say little to anyone. Maybe both were right.
He stood where he was in the center of the room, his eyes going by habit to the outside window, where the bend of the trees told him all he needed to know about the wind gauge. Time was wasting and here he stood.
As he glanced toward the door, his eyes grazed Lord Ratliffe’s cluttered desk. It’s a wonder anything gets done here, he told himself. He took another look, and another, and felt his breath coming faster.
He was at the desk in three strides, standing over it to stare down, his face draining of color, at a familiar sketch partly covered by a document. With fingers that shook, he lifted off the document from a drawing of Nana Massie, done by Henri Lefebvre, who had sketched both drawings tacked to the deck beam over his sleeping cot. He let the document fall back into place because his fingers couldn’t hold it.
He took Lord Ratliffe’s advice and sat down. In fact, he hung his head between his knees for a brief moment, because little points of light had begun to obscure his vision. He forced himself to breathe deep for a few seconds, then he slowly raised his head.
