Ramage & the Guillotine

by Dudley Pope

  The rest of the advertisements offered no scope to an imaginative mind, and he looked at his watch again—a quarter past nine. The room was brighter now, and through the window he could see that the cloud was breaking up. With luck it would turn out to be a warm summer’s day—and, judging from the noise outside, the prospect was putting new vigour into the street hawkers. He could hear the distant call of an approaching pieman, although Mrs Hanson’s pride in her cooking meant that there would be no custom for the poor fellow at Blazey House.

  The sheer noise outside! The cries of pedlars and hucksters all trying to outshout each other; the clatter of horses’ hooves and the drumming of coach and cartwheels. The fiddler on the corner of Palace Street was tuning up with what sounded like lethargic melancholy. Ye gods and little fishes, how he hated cities in general and London in particular: he was more than irritated by the social obligations that had forced the family to come to London, and his father had been testy from the moment he stepped into the coach. His mother had long since resigned herself to the fact that both the men in her life had had their characters moulded by long periods of watching distant sea horizons, whether looking for an enemy or a landfall, and making decisions in the isolation imposed by command. She was one of the few people who came near to understanding that it made both of them impatient with the triviality and shallowness of London society.

  The Admiral enjoyed his life of retirement at St Kew and begrudged every moment spent away from Cornwall, since there was nothing in London that could compensate for giving up his daily ride across land which had belonged to the Ramage family for three hundred years. So far as the old Earl was concerned, there was no drawing-room conversation to equal the chats he had with his tenants and neighbours at St Kew, sharing their good news and their bad. There was not a bunion nor a bad back, a feeble grandmother or a sickly child, that John uglow Ramage, tenth Earl of Blazey and Admiral of the White, did not know all about and, if sympathy or guineas were needed, had not done his utmost to help or cure.

  As his son and heir, Ramage hoped he would prove as good a landlord and neighbour when the time came, but since he was just past his twenty-fifth birthday and the Admiral was as lively as a frigate in a Channel lop, it would be a good many years before he was put to the test.

  Ramage had been relieved to find that, in the year and a half he had been away in the West indies, his mother seemed to have grown younger while his father had certainly held his own. The reason, his mother had confided in a whisper one evening (touching the side of her nose with her index finger in the conspiratorial gesture used by Italians to indicate secret knowledge), was having Gianna staying with them: her youthful exuberance was infectious, even though, she had added with affection, “The Marchesa di Volterra Has Settled Down!”

  Well, he had to take his mother’s word for that. Certainly Gianna’s tiny figure no longer shook with hatred and anger when anyone mentioned the name Bonaparte, and she no longer wept at the thought of her little kingdom of Volterra and its cheerful people, which she had ruled until Bonaparte’s approaching Army of Italy forced her to flee rather than collaborate with the French like her neighbour, the despicable and weak-willed Grand Duke of Tuscany.

  His mother’s verdict had been especially welcome because he had been doubtful whether Gianna would like staying at St Kew. The rambling old house was big enough by English standards, but the rulers of Volterra had lived for centuries in a palace of which the Medicis might have been proud.

  Gianna had left behind in Italy more personal maids than the entire indoor and outdoor staff at St Kew. Perhaps part of the “settling down” process was that the single maid she now had was a stolid local girl, and likely to say, “Oooh, ma’am, you’ll go into a decline if you carry on like that,” when Gianna threw a tantrum which would have left her Italian maids white-faced and trembling.

  The fact was he had fallen in love with a girl who was as wilful and unpredictable as a puppy in a flower garden. Any man who provoked her anger might as well spend a quiet Sunday afternoon making sparks in a powder magazine. He should know, he admitted wryly. Hot tempered, yet generous; occasionally imperious but always (eventually) understanding; impatient yet—the list was long: any description of Gianna tended to be a list of synonyms and antonyms.

  She certainly did not include punctuality amongst her virtues, he thought crossly, pulling out his watch, and then picking up The Times which also reported Lord Nelson’s “secret mission” with much the same wording. This almost certainly meant that it was true and not a wild or hopeful report by one of the Morning Post’s journalists.

  At that moment the door was flung open and Gianna came into the room, offering her cheek to be kissed as Ramage stood up. She smiled mischievously, gesturing at the empty place at the table where Ramage had sat and at the newspapers he was holding.

  “What a wonderful way to start the day! The man of the house has eaten his breakfast in peace and quiet and read enough newspapers to be fully informed about what is going on in the world. Don’t go back to sea, caro mio!”

  “Someone has to defeat Bonaparte,” he said lightly, knowing he was joking about a dangerous subject.

  “Leave it to the others,” she said airily. “You’ve done enough already—” She broke off as Hanson came in with the large tray, and after one look she said firmly: “No oysters, Hanson! Take them away and keep them for the Admiral.”

  The butler’s face fell as he walked to the table, carrying the tray with the forlornness of a man trying to sell bruised apples in Covent Garden market.

  “Do you like oysters, Hanson?” Ramage asked innocently.

  The butler glanced nervously at the door, as if fearful his wife was waiting outside to pounce on him, and then shook his head expressively.

  Gianna sat at the table and motioned Ramage to a chair opposite her. “What have the newspapers to say today?”

  “It seems my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty have given Lord Nelson a new job.”

  “As long as their Lordships don’t find one for you,” she said sharply. “The Admiralty must let you have a holiday.”

  “I have a month’s leave,” he reminded her.

  “But only eleven days are left.”

  Ramage’s eyebrows lifted. “You keep a tally?”

  “Yes,” she said quietly, “though I don’t know why: you can’t wait to get to sea again and leave me all alone, and—”

  “If there’s no ship for me, I’ll be able—”

  “There’ll be a ship,” she interrupted angrily. “You are famous now! Why, even your father says you should be made post very soon. ‘Captain Ramage’—how does that sound? And you’ll wear an epaulet on your right shoulder, and after three years you can put one on your left shoulder as well. You see,” she said, her eyes sparkling, “I’m learning about naval etiquette. I’ve read the King’s Regulations and Admiralty Instructions, and the Articles of War, too. Soon I—”

  “The change of Government,” he said soothingly, alarmed at the way her voice was rising and startled at what she had been reading. “Lord Spencer is no longer First Lord of the Admiralty …”

  “But the new First Lord knows you well—why, Lord St Vincent was your Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean when Lord Nelson was still only a commodore.”

  “He’ll have forgotten me—there are hundreds of lieutenants in the Navy!”

  “Thousands!” a voice boomed from the doorway. “All of them scoundrels, with a girl in every port!”

  The Admiral strode into the room, a tall man with aquiline features and silver-grey hair. He had the same deep-set and penetrating brown eyes as his son and the stance and walk of a man used to exercising authority; the lines on his face showed that he laughed readily and frequently. “Good morning to the pair of you,” he said, noting Gianna’s tight lips and wondering what they had been quarrelling about. “You’ve already eaten, Nicholas?”

  “Hours ago, sir,” Ramage said lightly.

  “Left s
ome oysters for me, I hope.” He saw Ramage’s expression. “I forgot you don’t like ‘em. Pity—oysters and cold tongue; the finest breakfast there is. Don’t you agree, m’dear?”

  “No,” Gianna said flatly, “oysters sono horribile.”

  The Earl grinned cheerfully as he sat down and rang the bell. “You know, Nicholas, I’ve noticed that Gianna always lapses into Italian when she’s on the verge of mutiny. Ever have the same trouble with Italian seamen?”

  “only that fellow Rossi—I was telling you about him.”

  “But he’s a Genovese!” Gianna exclaimed.

  “Good seamen come from Genoa. Anyway, he helped save your life,” Ramage pointed out.

  “And yours, too!”

  The Admiral rang the bell again. “Children, stop bickering.”

  “I’m not bick—”

  “You are out of fashion, though,” Ramage interrupted, raising the newspapers. “At least, according to the Morning Post.”

  Gianna glared at him, knowing he was trying to keep her off the subject of him getting a new ship. “Let me see.”

  He passed over the newspaper. “Yellow muslin trimmed with black lace, scarlet spencers, and little round hat with deep veils …”

  She read for a few moments and then sniffed. “Rubbish—that’s for innkeepers’ wives. Anyway,” she added less emphatically, “it’s for walking-dress.”

  “The feminine fashion is to copy the military,” Ramage murmured to his father.

  “Ha!” the Admiral snorted, “I can just see the ladies stamping along in heavy boots, leather crossbelts, and battered shakoes. Most becoming!”

  “Tea, my Lord?” Gianna asked sweetly. “You notice,” she added when he nodded, “that the ladies are copying the Army, not the Navy.”

  “Should think so, too,” the Admiral retorted. “You’d look dam’ funny in white knee breeches, frock coat and a cocked hat. You ought to borrow one of Nicholas’s uniforms and wear it to the Duchess of Manston’s tonight. New fashion—why, you’d set London by its ear!”

  “Board ‘em in the smoke,” Ramage said. “Father will lend you his best dress sword.”

  “What are you going to wear?” she asked icily. “You haven’t seen your tailor for years, so it’ll be something old-fashioned and dowdy. Russet and green, no doubt, and everyone will take you for a gamekeeper.”

  Ramage said: “The newspapers say the King will not be there: the Queen is ill, and he’s staying at Windsor. Anyway, I’ll be wearing uniform.”

  Gianna looked disappointed at the news of the King’s absence and then exclaimed: “Uniform? Oh, Nicholas! Please wear something more elegante.”

  “He has no choice, my dear,” the Earl said. “Lord St Vincent will be there, and he’s very fussy about that sort of thing.”

  “This Manston,” she said with the disdain of the head of one of the oldest families in Italy, “who is he?”

  “A comparative newcomer,” the Earl said lightly. “His father was of some service to the present King’s father.”

  “Political service,” Ramage added. “Rather a clever politician.”

  “The Duchess,” Gianna said darkly. “I hear strange stories about her.”

  “Quite so,” the Earl said hurriedly, “but one mustn’t believe all one hears.”

  “Makes for jealousy, too,” Ramage said, winking at his father.

  Gianna tossed her head scornfully and picked up her cup. “Even if one does believe, that woman hasn’t achieved in a lifetime what some Roman women I know accomplish in a week. Why, the Duchess of Ravello had—”

  “Gianna!” the Earl said sternly, “no more of your detailed stories of light women—not at breakfast, anyway!”

  “Later, then, when you feel stronger,” Gianna said nonchalantly. “I don’t know what has happened to Hanson.” She rang the bell and pointed to the big silver urn. “More tea? It will be cold in a few minutes.”

  The Earl moved his cup towards her, and when a distant clatter in the kitchen startled both men, she noted how physically alike they were. The sudden noise made them both turn, reminding her of hawks poised to attack. They resembled so many of those forebears whose portraits hung from the walls of the St Kew house. Both had the Ramage face in full measure: high cheekbones and a thin nose (how did they say it in English? Aquiline?) and eyes like brown chestnuts and deep-set under almost fierce eyebrows. Full mouth, hands with long fingers … In one or two of the portraits the artists had managed to catch that elusive look of amused detachment with which the Ramages had apparently surveyed the world through successive generations and which, in Nicholas, alternately infuriated her and made her want to hug him.

  The look was a pose, a mask which hid their true feelings, because she knew Nicholas was far from detached. Nicholas could (and did, for she had seen him a dozen times) stand on the quarterdeck of his ship, apparently concerned only with the trim of the sails and the course being steered, and surveying the men as though they were sheep. Later he would speak to Mr Southwick, who was usually the Master, and ask if a particular man had hurt his arm, or another seaman’s leg was troubling him, and suggest they should be given lighter duties. Often Southwick, as kindly an old man as she had ever seen, would be startled by his Captain’s sharp eyes, since he had seen nothing and the man had not reported to the Surgeon. Lord Ramage—or Lieutenant Nicholas Ramage, as he preferred to be called in the Navy—was far from detached, and she loved him and was terrified when he went to sea. The Admiralty deliberately chose him for absolutely impossible and dangerous tasks—and she was going to tell Lord St Vincent so when she saw him that night—because he usually managed to do the impossible, although sometimes at a terrible cost of life and limb.

  As he watched her pecking at her food, Ramage tried to guess her thoughts: she had become strangely, almost ominously quiet. Perhaps she was upset that he would be wearing uniform that evening instead of being rigged out in whatever sartorial idiocy passed for male fashion at this particular moment.

  There must be some vast philosophical conclusion to be drawn from the fact that today both newspapers devoted more space to news of the military influence on feminine fashion than Bonaparte’s invasion plans and Britain’s defences, though he was damned if he could think what it was. A display of confidence in the nation’s safety, perhaps, and therefore better than printing shrill alarms? A crude gesture of defiance? Or was it a genuine disdain of Bonaparte’s plans, which was dangerous because it went hand in hand with apathy?

  Merely being on leave was a change of fashion for Lieutenant Ramage! After months at sea it was a comfortable change to be sitting at a table in a room with ten feet of headroom instead of the few inches over five feet usual in the captain’s cabin of one of the King’s smaller ships. Instead of his uniform he was dressed in pearl grey breeches, pale blue waistcoat—although he disliked the fancy silver thread embroidery, it was one of Gianna’s favourites—and a relatively comfortable dark blue coat which Gianna scorned as more suitable for an unfrocked priest.

  Women were traditionally the slaves of fashion, but men were just as bad, with politics thrown in for good measure. Some of Mr Pitt’s supporters were wearing scarlet waistcoats and Mr Fox’s buff without their womenfolk laughing them out of court, and he had heard that the Tory ladies were now sporting patches on the right side of their foreheads while the Whig ladies stuck them on the left. The doxies of the revolutionaries from the London Corresponding Society presumably wore them on the tips of their noses …

  Still, he was thankful that wigs were becoming less popular, because they were still devilishly expensive. It was hard to find scratches or bob wigs for less than twenty shillings, and good grizzle majors and grizzle ties cost a couple of guineas and often more.

  CHAPTER TWO

  WITH his head thudding inside a tight band, his mouth dry and his feet swelling so much it seemed they must burst out of his new shoes, Ramage took Gianna’s arm the moment the orchestra finished playing and began to steer her
off the ballroom floor. “Let’s sit and watch the next one,” he said. The ballroom in Manston House was said to be the largest in London, and he could well believe it: dancing round it once must equal a circumnavigation of Hyde Park. The Duchess had recently had it redecorated in pale blue and cream, with the complicated ceiling patterns picked out in gilt. There were so many chandeliers it was a wonder the weight did not pull the ceiling down on their heads, and the light was brilliant, emphasizing all the colour and gaiety of the women’s dresses and bringing a sparkle to tiaras and bracelets. But all the scores of candles made the great room as hot as the Tropics, and Ramage longed for a cool breeze.

  Gianna finished her survey of the hundred or so other women waiting with their partners for the orchestra to strike up again. “Oh, Nicholas,” she pouted, “four dances and you’re exhausted! Yet you dance exquisitely.”

  “Out of practice,” he said, holding her arm firmly and leading her towards a settee. As he walked he watched a young naval lieutenant in uniform come into the room, pause a moment to whisper something urgent to the major domo, and then hurry off in the direction the man pointed to, weaving through the waiting dancers to reach a group of ministers talking at the far end of the room.

  “The orchestra is wonderful,” Gianna protested as the music started.

  “The orchestra is wonderful, you look wonderful, and it’s a wonderful ball, but I feel as though I’ve been in action for three hours!”

  “Well, I don’t,” Gianna said crossly, reluctantly sitting on the settee. “Let’s watch the Duchess dancing,” she said, arranging her flowing skirt. “She must be at least thirty, but what energy!”

  “At least thirty,” Ramage said gravely. “She’ll be a grandmother soon.”