They’d abandoned silence on Trench’s ships, instead crowding forward to the source of the sound, peering into the darkness to try and make out what caused it. Suddenly, as the noise increased, so did the light, as though the crest of the great wave was picking up the glim of the stars and magnifying it a hundredfold. Faces on the Rother were now white blobs as they drifted closer still. Frightened men lined the decks of the two ships that straddled the Miranda.
They might have screamed in panic. But there could be no other sound now, for nothing could compete with the deafening bellow of the furious cascading water. He saw Trench, in his red coat. He was by the rail, his hands up in supplication as if he was trying to hold back his fate. He saw the Rother’s bows lift at the same time as he felt the water take the Miranda. Harry could have sworn, despite the noise, that he heard Trench emit a high-pitched scream. Or was it just the wide open mouth, so obvious in the middle of his beard, sending a silent message to his brain?
Then it was pandemonium, for all three ships had their bowsprits pointing to the sky. The Rother, fractionally off a straight course, broached first. Then the schooner, too, spun sideways, tossed like a toy boat. The Rother was on her beam ends in the tumultuous waves. He heard the sound of tortured wood add itself to that of the crashing water. The masts ripped themselves out of the keel. Harry was still hanging backwards, with the ropes of his sling cutting into his spine. It felt as though the entire ship was going to go under, pushing him before it. But the waterlogged Miranda had not risen as high on the crest as Trench’s ships. Nor had it spun away from its course, for the boarding pike, aided by the lashings that Gaston had put on the wheel, held her true. Harry went under into the freezing sea, gasping for breath, but felt himself jerked upwards as the stern was thrown violently out of the water by the huge wave running under the keel.
He spun round, ignoring the stinging sensation in his eyes, to see the two vessels tumbling away in the foaming waters. They were on their sides, with masts trailing in the foam, completely broached, with no chance of survival as the tidal wave dashed them against innumerable rocks. The air around him was still full of spume and spray. But the world was quietening down, returning to normal, and he was alive.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“THEN WE put into Braye, made some emergency repairs, pumped her dry and made for Guernsey.”
“And Obidiah Trench?” asked Arthur, helping himself to another grape.
“All hands,” said Harry, without the least trace of the sorrow that normally accompanied such a statement. “They searched, of course. All they found was wreckage littering the shore.”
“Lord, Harry,” said Anne, rubbing her huge belly. “You have almost brought on my labours with your tale.”
Harry’s face took on a look of concern. They’d been about to take coach to London when his messenger had arrived from Pegwell Bay, requesting pardons and exemptions if they were available. Arthur was in the happy position, thanks to Dundas, of being able to oblige. Once Harry had seen to the crew’s needs, he’d come on to Cheyne Court himself, bringing Pender. The coach now stood outside, waiting patiently for its passengers.
“You should not have delayed your departure. God forbid you should give birth on the road.”
“I am made of sterner stuff than you, Harry Ludlow,” said Anne. “I shall most certainly deliver in the Lying-in Hospital. And I can tell you, from what I hear, that attendance at a birth would make you faint clean away, regardless of how much blood, gore, and fighting you’ve seen.”
“I do think that such talk is unbecoming, Anne. You are not a fishwife.”
“Forgive me, husband. But you must own that Harry set the level.”
“I will grant you that with the same breath that allows me to forbid your lapses.” He turned to Harry, his face pinched in disapproval. “It only happens when she’s around her brothers. James is equally bad. I do wish you wouldn’t encourage her.”
“I’m sorry,” said Harry, insincerely, looking away from his smirking sister. Then he changed the subject to one he knew his brother-in-law would find more amenable.
“Do you think I will like my new house?”
“It’s only a four-year lease, of course. But it is grand, very grand. There is accommodation in abundance and the public rooms are most spacious. The entire ground floor opens up to create a ballroom. Indeed I wondered if you’d consent to an entertainment, once Anne has recovered from her confinement. Perhaps a celebration of the arrival of an heir?”
“Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Arthur,” replied Harry, beaming. “It’s time I reintroduced myself in society.”
Arthur almost beamed, but he avoided it by covering his mouth with the back of his hand, turning his evident pleasure into what looked remarkably like a yawn.
“Oh, I do agree. I shall, of course, invite Dundas and Pitt. It’s time you met them. Then you can thank Dundas personally for exerting so much pressure on that odious creature Braine.”
Harry couldn’t help it. The yawn had irritated him. He wished that just for once Arthur would be less stiff-necked.
“A capital notion. And I am sure James will want to invite Burke and Sheridan.” He smiled at Anne. “We’d best hide the silver, lest it ends up in as a property in a Commons debate.”
“Harry, stop teasing this instant,” said Anne, in that manner, peremptory and rarely challenged, allowed to women who are about to give birth.
Harry spoke quickly, for Arthur’s face had that look of fraternal disapproval he so dreaded. He seemed, in his behaviour, unaffected by his wife’s impending confinement.
“I must look in on Tite.”
“Yes,” said Arthur without enthusiasm.
“He should have listened to you, husband.”
“That old man has never listened to me all the time I’ve known him. I told him not to fire the cannon.”
Anne cut in. “It was the news that you’d survived, Harry. We were all truly frightened for you, and so overjoyed. I cannot find it in my heart to remonstrate with him.”
Anne had blossomed with her pregnancy, in more ways than one. She seemed more independent of Arthur, who didn’t like it one little bit. He quickly returned to the original subject.
“I find it hard to believe he forgot the recoil.”
Arthur sat up, a sure sign he was getting set to make a sally. “Possibly he parked his memory in the same place he keeps his manners.”
“He was in terrible pain, Pa,” said Jenny. “And the cursing was just like home.”
She blushed, meaning home in the old sense. Pender was still trying to get used to having his child on his knee, something Mrs Cray had insisted was “appropriate.” The other two were playing happily on the kitchen floor.
“He learned his language at sea, Jenny.”
“Is that where you learned yours?” she asked.
He couldn’t be sure he was being practised on, but the girl had a twinkle in her eye to add to that question. Mrs Cray missed it, if indeed it was there.
“Silly old goat. He should have broken his neck, not his leg.”
Tite’s windowless room, right behind the kitchen chimney, was stiflingly hot. The old man lay back on his bunk bed, his splinted leg stuck straight out. But he’d provided for his primary needs. A half-empty bottle stood on the bedside table and the familiar smell of rum filled Harry’s nostrils.
“Damn it, Tite,” he said. “It’s as dark in here as a surgeon’s cockpit.”
The old man slurred his reply. “That’s how I like it, Master Harry, though I never liked to see the cockpit aboard ship.”
“Nor me. It’s a terrible place to be after a fight.”
“My God, I was in a few of those with your papa.” He fixed Harry with his watery blue eyes, his old face sad. “Break his heart to think there’s a war an’ you ain’t in it.”
Harry sat on the edge of the cot, gingerly, so as not to disturb the leg. “But I am, Tite, in my own way.”
“Not
the same, your honour,” he said, trying to raise himself up. Harry put a gentle hand on his chest to restrain him. “You’ll never raise your flag.”
“I can live with that, Tite. Being at sea keeps me from brooding on it.”
That was a smooth lie. Harry sometimes longed to be a king’s officer again. But it was not to be. He had broken their precious rules by duelling with a superior officer, then compounded the sin by his refusal to apologise, even when they’d clearly indicated he would suffer no shame by doing so. He wouldn’t ask to be reinstated and he doubted very much if the navy would offer.
Tite waved his hand drunkenly. Harry moved the bottle out of his reach for two reasons. “Well, just you mind what’s afoot when you’re away at sea.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“You know me, your honour. I ain’t one to split if’n it’ll do a good man down.”
Harry nodded. But it was an insincere acknowledgement. He had ample experience to prove that Tite was the exact opposite. James might be fooled by the old man’s manner, but his brother hadn’t been to sea with him. Harry had, as a midshipman, and he’d suffered himself from reports carried to his father by this ever-so-loyal servant, who’d sworn blind, with his best mask of sincerity, that the information hadn’t come from him. Still, he had been true to his father, which, in the end, was what counted.
“That Scotch bastard,” Tite spat.
That made Harry frown. The old man might be sick and drunk, just as he might dislike his brother-in-law, but he could not call Arthur such names in Harry’s presence. His response was cold.
“I think you may have overdone the rum, Tite.”
“You can’t defend ’im to me, Master Harry. Not since he’s been at it, behind your back.”
Harry stood up slowly. “I think you’ve said enough.”
Tite was too far gone to heed the tone of reproof. His blue eyes blazed with drunken anger. “I overheard the serving girls. They was upstairs, ‘not to be disturbed on any account.’ Then I spied the horse in the stable. An’ I heard them myself, I did, at the top of the stairs in the Griffin, all lovey-dovey to each other. ‘Will you come again,’ says she. ‘I will,’ replies the Scotch sod. ‘Make the arrangements’—”
“Be quiet!” shouted Harry.
Tite stopped in mid-flow, realizing that he gone too far.
“I am aware, Tite, and have been for some time, that there is a connection between Lord Drumdryan and Naomi Smith. You will never mention it again, d’ye hear. Not to me, and especially not within earshot of Lady Drumdryan.”
He was fearful now, for the tone of Harry’s voice, and the look in his eye, was frightening. “Never in life, your honour. You know me.”
There was little point in saying any more and Harry had no desire to play the martinet. The message had been delivered and, he was sure, understood. But there had to be a sanction. So he said something he’d been meaning to say for years. “Get well soon, Tite. And don’t fret about your duties. They will be undertaken from now on by someone else.”
Harry spun on his heel and left. Tite, the effect of those words obvious on his crestfallen face, reached for the rum bottle. But Harry Ludlow had, quite by accident, put it too far away.
The postman came up the drive just as Harry was handing his sister, wrapped in several cloaks, into the well-sprung coach. The warmth was deemed necessary, though it was a seasonable spring day.
“I shall be up in London before the baby is born, I promise. But I must sort out my crew first.”
“Via Blackwall Reach, I assume?” said Arthur. He looked as though he was off to St Petersburg, judging by the furs he wore. But the question was no longer accompanied by the usual sniff of disapproval. Perhaps now he had a residence in London he would accept that Harry belonged at sea.
The man had three letters for Harry, with a whole sheaf for Arthur. Harry examined his. One he recognised as being from James, another from his bankers, while the third was from an address he didn’t recognize in Hythe.
“Of course. I have already written to Grisham. I dare say he’ll work double tides to get her ready. I’ve offered him the Miranda’s refit if he gets her ready before I arrive.”
Arthur gave him a wry smile. “What a forgiving soul you are, Harry.”
He stood and waved them off, then turned to go back into the house. Harry stopped, looking at it, suddenly aware that for the first time since he’d inherited Cheyne Court he was going to be here on his own. He wasn’t sure if that pleased him or not.
The letter from Cantwell didn’t please him at all. It informed him that Arthur, who’d apparently been making speculative investments, was being pressed by his creditors. He’d used all of his own funds and borrowed more from Jewish moneylenders. The bank, or rather Benedict Cantwell, was advising that his power of attorney be withdrawn. Harry didn’t even know that Arthur had creditors, not that it was any of his business. What he did know was that Arthur was extremely honest as far as money was concerned. He was resolved to send a sharp reply. Leaving James till last, he read the second one, which was from Franks. After the usual assurances that he and his wife were well, he went on:
I cannot apologise enough for my delay in replying. But your letter, and those of your brother-in-law, followed me to Gibraltar and back again. Let me now assure you that no one has even enquired after my person, let alone threatened it.
Nor would they ever do so. Your warning set me to thinking and I now recall the evening well, though I have drawn a veil, to spare my dear wife, over the events that followed Bertles’s dinner. I’m afraid that I was concentrating so much on Mr Wentworth’s attentions to Polly, which were unseemly, that I never did get round to signing Captain Bertles’s manifest. Nor, as far as I recall, did Mr Wentworth. As I’ve already said, his mind was on other things.
That is a young man who should be taught some manners. But it ill becomes a man like me to show that I have a jealous nature. Indeed, I do not, sir. It is merely that I am on constant alert, being blessed with an ingenuous wife.
He signed it Colonel Franks, which showed that he was making good progress despite her gaffes. But the information confirmed Harry’s previous speculations. All his troubles had been caused by that manifest. Only he had bothered to commit himself, and in such a manner that he’d brought trouble about his head. He balked at communicating with Wentworth, for verification, and prepared to accept Colonel Franks’s word.
His tranquillity, so recently acquired, was shattered by James’s letter. Yet it produced stillness rather than activity. It was left to Pender to tell the servants to watch their step. He knew that Harry was on the boil, even if he had no idea of the cause. James’s letter had begun so well, with much rejoicing over his safe return. Harry had reread the second part several times just to be sure. For his theorizing about that manifest was exposed as a house of cards.
Though it is not a place where any decent man would expect to receive quarter, I visited Jahleel Temple and tried to force him to assist us before Trench’s trial, on the grounds that you were innocent of any wrongdoing. He laughed in my face, of course. But it is his excuse for doing so that I find odd. For reasons neither of us can fathom, they will none of them accept, to this day, that you are not a smuggler. I did my best to nail the problem of the manifest which you wrote me about, but the scrub brushed that aside. He said a very strange thing, during that unpleasant interview, which has stuck with me.
His words were quite clear: that “they had an inkling where the money had come from to buy the Planet before Bertles ever set sail.” Temple insisted that his source was “unimpeachable,” then went on to add a peculiar observation, that “a man should be careful whom he beds.”
I did ask him to clarify that, but he refused. I cannot fathom what he meant, nor, I should think, could anyone. And he is not the type to ask, since dishonesty is so engrained in his nature that he would lie rather than speak the truth. But, Harry, it was said with such assurance that for a brief moment,
I must confess, I was almost fooled.
Harry sat in his library, his eyes fixed on the book-lined walls. He couldn’t stop the servants from lighting candles, though he’d rather have sat in the dark. And he could scarcely do justice to Mrs Cray’s dinner, served on a tray, which would earn him a frown in the morning. That sentence which Temple had used, along with the words he just heard from the lips of Tite, haunted Harry. It made him recall every detail of the last seven months. He examined every word and each gesture, looking for significance. Then he picked up the note from Cantwell, alluding to Arthur’s financial problems. The words “speculative investments” sprang out at him.
“This is most inconvenient, Harry,” said Arthur, removing his riding clothes. “Anne is very close to her delivery. I should be in London, not here.”
“What I have to say should be said in this house,” replied Harry coldly.
Arthur suddenly looked guarded. “That is a very singular tone you’re using. Is something amiss?”
“I think there is a great deal amiss, Arthur.” Harry started to pace the room, his hands behind his back and his head pushed down on to his chest. “I fear I shall have to speak with a clarity that you may find uncomfortable.”
“I am suffering from that already.”
“I require the answers to some questions.”
Arthur’s eyebrows shot up. “Require, Harry?”
“I left you in charge of my affairs while I was at sea. I think you have exceeded your brief. I did not, for instance, intend that to include paying court to Naomi Smith.”
Arthur’s thin ginger eyebrows shot up in surprise. “‘Court’?”
“Will you stop giving me one-word answers!”
His brother-in-law replied with equal venom. “I will most certainly do so. I shan’t answer you at all.”
Hanging Matter Page 39
