Rondo Allegro

by Sherwood Smith

  Gradually the humor was borne in upon her, and she began to read with more pleasure, thoroughly hating the arrogant, presumptuous Lovelace, though admittedly he wrote with wit. All of the characters spoke in a style that strongly brought Anna’s mother to mind—she heard Clarissa’s letters read in her mother’s voice—and so the hours, and then days passed, broken only by meals, and by Parrette being permitted to attend Mass, accompanied by one of Admiral Gravina’s guards.

  That Sunday, Parrette returned with an air of excitement. As soon as they were alone, she said in a whisper, “You will never guess what I have learned.”

  “Come into the bedroom,” Anna said, casting a doubtful look at that wooden door, beyond which stood an armed guard.

  Parrette led the way to the bedroom, her eyes wide. “Hah! I met Pierre at the early Mass. As Madame and some of the others go to the later one, he was free to talk to me, to say farewell. The Company Dupree is ordered to leave on the morrow. The Spanish have said that there is no place for French actors here.”

  “They are leaving? Without us?” Anna asked.

  Parrette spread her hands.

  “But what about my earnings?” Anna asked.

  Parrette uttered a back-street imprecation that shocked Anna. “There are no earnings. That is, Therese Rose offered to bring them to you a few days ago, Pierre said. She said she had obtained permission to speak to you.”

  “But I never saw her.”

  “Well do I know! She never returned to the lodging. And that is not all. It was none other than that devil’s spawn Marsac who said you were a spy.”

  “So I thought,” Anna said. “What I don’t know is why.”

  “Helene told Madame Dupree, who told Pierre that at the special performance for the French officers, it was noticed that Marsac remained behind, talking to Admiral Villeneuve, then la la! A short time later, they were all swept up for questioning, not just us. But they were kept in the large room, and let go one by one when the questioners had done with them. Pierre begged me to tell you that Helene, Ninon, and the others were very sorry, that if they had thought, they never would have said as much as they did. They thought their recollections would prove your innocence, for none of them believed you were a spy.”

  Sickened, Anna briefly described the offer Marsac had made.

  “I wish you had told me,” Parrette said fiercely. “No, no, of course I could do nothing. Say nothing. About that. But I always hated him. He was the worst kind of aristocrat, born well, but hiding behind republican words to escape the mobs, and profiting thereby. Yet whenever he deigned to take notice of me, it was to drop his sewing in my lap, as if I existed only to serve. Even little Helene asked me with politeness when she needed something delicate mended.”

  “I never noticed that,” Anna said, unsettled.

  “His habit was to bring his ruined things to me in the mornings, when you were dancing. Not that it was often. He is very careful with his things. It was his manner, and I saw no reason to mention it. You could do nothing. But!” A valedictory finger. “There is a hint of justice, for M. Dupree turned him away. He said that after such a thing, no one would trust him again, and so he could seek another company. And so he left, some thought for Paris. But after, it was noticed that he had taken more than his own trunks—you remember, he had three. That of Therese Rose was also gone, they saw, after she did not reappear from her supposed visit to us.”

  Anna shook her head. “She always admired him. Or he could have threatened to turn her over to the French as a runaway.” She told Parrette what Marsac had discovered. “Though he despised her, I could see him using her for his own convenience.”

  “Despicable! She will get what she deserves, and as for him, I pray that he gets snapped up by the conscript officers,” Parrette said. “Spies. Tchah!”

  She jabbed her needle vigorously into cloth, indicating the subject was closed.

  o0o

  At the month’s end, Parrette returned from Mass with astonishing news: “Everyone at the cathedral was whispering that Nelson has arrived, and joined the English fleet.”

  “I wonder what that means,” Anna murmured.

  “If it is even true, who knows?” Parrette opened her hands. “What it means for us, that remains to be seen,” she finished on a dire note.

  Later that night, as they went about getting ready for bed, they were surprised by a quiet but insistent knock upon their door. Anna entered the salon as the door opened, and the young captain with the mustachios performed a quick bow. “Gather your wraps, please, ladies. You are to be transferred.”

  “To where?” Anna asked nervously.

  There was no answer. The captain silently directed a couple of burly men to the inside, where they fetched the trunks that Parrette had kept packed and ready.

  Then they wrapped themselves in their cloaks, and out they walked into night air that had become surprisingly brisk. Excitement warred with spurts of horror: at every turn Anna dreaded a dank entry to a dungeon, or worse, French soldiers sent to take them back into custody for that promised hard questioning.

  But they bypassed all these, instead twisting down back stairs at a dizzying speed, until Parrette was breathing hard, and Anna’s leg muscled twinged, in spite of all her dance.

  At last they were led through a gate past silent guards, their eyes gleaming in the lantern light. The smell of brine was sharp: they had reached the seaside!

  The lanterns were doused. A cluster of dark figures, barely discernable against the endless black of the ocean, turned their way. In a low, rapid voice the captain held a quick exchange, and then he said, “God go with you, senoras.”

  One of those shrouded figures drew near, and a hand took Anna’s arm. She pulled back with a breathless cry.

  “Shush now,” came a voice—speaking English. “We’m here to fetch ye, on the admiral’s orders, but quiet like, or there’ll be the devil to pay with Johnny Crapaud.”

  “I—” Anna moistened her lips, trying to think in English. “I do not understand.”

  “He’ll explain it all anon. Come away cheerly.”

  The hand tugged insistently, but not harshly. Anna hesitated. If she screamed, would the French or Spanish hear?

  “Bear a hand, mates, every second them frogs could happen on us, and they’m likely to shoot first.”

  Anna had to agree. She and Parrette were escorted by two burly figures to a waiting boat, and motioned to a central bench, where they sat shoulder to shoulder, both shivering, as men climbed in around them to take up oars. Their trunks thumped softly in at either end. Three figures shoved at the boat with soft grunts of effort, causing it to hiss over wet sand, then bump into the low breakers inside the bay.

  As Anna watched, slow-marching clouds briefly revealed the moon, faint and silvery, shedding blue light over the world. The sense they had entered a dream ended abruptly when the boat reached the breakers, jolting horribly. Water splashed in, swirling coldly about their slippered feet, but neither made a sound.

  “Stout ’uns,” a quiet voice whispered approvingly. “Not a peep, now. We’re all a-taunto, though she’s going to skip about a trifle. Just bide tight.”

  Anna could barely understand the man’s accent, and Parrette could not make out more than two words. They pressed together, glad of each other’s presence, as the boat juddered from one wave to another, propelled in surges by the rhythmic movement of the oars.

  One thing was clear: for whatever reason, they were about to be handed over to the English. Well, there is one thing I can do, Anna thought, and reached behind her. Not two feet away was the familiar contours of her trunk. She worked the latches loose, wormed her fingers inside it, as Parrette looked on wonderingly, her face pale in the moonlight.

  At last Anna encountered her trinket box, and let out a satisfied “Ah.” She withdrew her hand, refastened the latches, and brought her fingers around to the front.

  Parrette’s expression altered when she saw Anna slide something
onto her ring finger. “It was Admiral Nelson who got me into this situation,” Anna whispered in Neapolitan. “I fully intend that he shall get me out again.”

  “And then?” Parrette asked.

  “And then they must set us down somewhere, well away from their war, I trust, and we will figure out where to go next,” Anna breathed, though she had no idea.

  But it would come. Her earnings were lost, but she had her belongings, her wits, and her talent.

  After an eternity of rowing, there was an indistinct mutter from someone at the back of the boat. At once two or three figures moved, rocking them alarmingly. Anna and Parrette clutched each other as these men did something at the bottom, sending splashes of brine everywhere, then raised a pole with a sodden mass of sailcloth attached.

  “Duck down, now, so the yard don’t take you over the side.”

  Anna and Parrette bent over obediently, as with a muffled rumble and then a snap, the sail caught the wind and bellied out. The boat lifted and plunged, dashing through the waves. Spray splashed liberally over them all.

  Anna straightened up slowly, and dared a look behind her. High overhead, a gleaming row of lights marked the impressive fortress. They had come a considerable distance already. Beyond the point, a part of the bay curved, the lights of Cadiz winking like a necklace of glowing gold.

  Anna had begun to doze while sitting up, until a voice startled her. The command was incomprehensible, but clearly there was no longer any fear of being heard. She straightened up, surprised to find a ship towering a few yards away, ruddy light from square spaces along the hull glinting off the cold iron mouths of cannon.

  “Bosun’s chair abaft your elbow, mum,” someone said, touching Anna.

  Once again, rough-palmed hands took her arm insistently, turning her toward a canvas arrangement suspended between ropes.

  She discovered to her horror that she was expected to sit in it. “Oh, no.”

  “Just clap onto them ropes, now, and hold tight. We’ll boom you up in a trice.”

  Strong hands pulled her inexorably into the contraption, whose slimy ropes she gripped with all her strength. Her body swayed sickeningly in the air, then hands closed around her arms again, and she let out a shuddering breath of relief. She opened her eyes to discover a deck under her feet. Relief suffused her as she let the slimy rope free. She did not want to wipe her hands on her gown, so she stood there, fingers spread like starfish, as she looked around dazedly.

  Then the figures around her parted, hands to forelocks, and here and there the lifting of enormous cocked hats as a tall figure approached.

  The swinging lantern light revealed a remembered hawk-nosed face staring grimly down at her.

  It was Captain Duncannon.

  15

  That morning, Henry Duncannon had received the signal to report aboard the flagship, where Nelson received him, handing off a note sent by the Spaniards under flag of truce:

  My Lord Nelson, I make myself the honor to inform you I have in the company here subsequent to the musicale fete the lady wife of Captain-of-warship Duncannon, I am given to comprehend is honored to number amongst the English fleet. Due to the unfortunate nature of events we are to transpire I take the liberty to offer to restore the lady to the captain with the good will of you.

  Your very obedient servant to command . . .

  Shortly thereafter Duncannon had been ordered to part company with the squadron of frigates watching Cadiz from a distance, to dispatch his trusted coxswain directly under the guns of the enemy.

  Now here was his longboat returned with a problem he’d thought lost years ago.

  The first one over the rail was set down. He took in a French lady, elegant from her ordered curls to the hem of the fashionable gown whose style was scarcely marred by wrinkles and splashes of sea water. He forced his gaze away, searching for the blotch-faced little weed he had been forced to marry six years ago. But the next one over the side was a scrawny, needle-nosed French maidservant. Strange, how so many of these southern French looked a bit like birds, with their beaky noses and scrawny arms and legs.

  The next object boomed up was a trunk, followed by a second—and then the sailors began the process of bringing up the longboat. No more passengers? Had their scouts managed to find the wrong women?

  He discovered he had nearly crushed his best scraper under his arm, and consciously loosened his grip as he brought his gaze back from trunks to maid to lady. Was she familiar? He took a step toward her, trying to find in that elegant countenance any sign of the wretched girl he’d so briefly seen only twice.

  Wind-tousled curls blew about a heart-shaped face in which a pair of wide brown eyes stared back at him. The sodden gown revealed a graceful form. Stepping past his first lieutenant, he saw her stiffly spread fingers. The light from the binnacle gleamed on a ring he remembered sliding onto a thin finger.

  He swallowed, and took in that wide gaze. It, too, was familiar, from that hot summer’s night on the terrace after Nelson’s fete when she begged him to locate Michel Duflot.

  Aware of every single pair of eyes aboard the ship, he extended his hand. “Madame. Welcome aboard the Aglaea.”

  “Captain.” She did not say capitaine, but she might as well have: her accent was decidedly French. She dropped a curtsey, and then staggered as the ship gave a lee lurch.

  He sprang to take her arm; her muscles were rigid. Anger or fear? Could they possibly be more awkwardly situated? He forced himself to smile, and to say as pleasantly as he knew now, “Permit me to conduct you to the cabin, where my steward will make you comfortable. Is that all your dunnage?”

  “Dommage?” she repeated, looking round-eyed with worry. Her pupils were huge and black; it was impossible to see the color of her eyes.

  “Dommage?” he repeated. What did that even mean? His French, never great at the best of times, had completely escaped him. From her expression, it meant something terrible. “Your traps. Trunks? Yes.” Acutely aware of the avid interest of his midshipmen, a parcel of pranksters unless strictly governed, he shut his mouth against saying anything further to entertain the ship’s company, and led her down into the cabin.

  Anna was aware of two things: the horrible way the ship lurched around her, sometimes shifting between one step and another. In a way, it was worse than the little boat, for the movement was slower, making her feel a little dizzy.

  The second thing was the grip of that hand on her arm, fingers cupped firmly under her elbow. She would have fallen into these oddly curved walls but for that hand. She tried to grasp the fact that he was still alive. So he had survived that mutiny!

  The captain led her into a spacious suite whose floor appeared to be a tacked-down canvas covered with white and black checkers.

  She blinked, the salt crusting her eyelashes stinging unmercifully. She tried to make out the proportions of the rooms, but the movement and the blur masked the unexplained odd shapes, defeating her.

  There appeared to be a suite of small, oddly-shaped chambers. The one she was conducted to had two broad, inward-leaning windows that opened directly over the sea. Dominating the space swung an odd-looking bed, shaped like a candy box, suspended from ropes. Its sides appeared to be made of canvas. A bench lined the back of the room under the windows.

  She sat on the bench, shivering in her heavy, wet clothing, as Parrette narrowly watched the sailors stow the trunks between two curving pilasters. They departed under the direction of a grizzled man with one sound leg and one that appeared to be made of wood from the knee down.

  “We’ll have hot water up in three shakes,” this man said to Parrette, his accent so thick that she gazed back uncomprehendingly.

  The man then touched his forehead and withdrew, his uneven thok-step, thok-step nimbler than either Parrette or Anna with two sound legs apiece.

  Duncannon appeared in the doorway, and cleared his throat. “This is my sleeping cabin. You shall have it. I will take the after-cabin beyond these bulkheads.” He nod
ded at the curving wood projections that Anna had taken for pilasters. “Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

  “I would welcome some water, thank you,” she said, enunciating carefully. He, at least, spoke clearly.

  “May I suggest tea in its place?” he asked. “I fear that our water is casked, and if you are unaccustomed, it can be disagreeable.”

  She remembered her mother’s tea from her childhood; to Duncannon, her shuttered expression turned wistful before her eyelashes lowered. “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Perkins, my steward, will see to it. I must get back on deck to oversee our return to station. If you require anything, Perkins will fetch it for you.”

  He bowed again, and left, aware of his cowardly retreat. He knew that Nelson would eventually be signaling for a report, at the least, but he trusted to the thousand greater demands on the admiral’s attention. He could not seem to think past the shock of seeing her again, and finding her so different from the girl he’d so briefly glimpsed in Palermo and Naples. Gratefully he lost himself in a swift flow of orders.

  For Anna, sitting uncomfortably in the cabin, there was nothing but questions no one could answer until the welcome arrival of the tea. Anna drank it down gratefully, and discovered a secondary effect of the beverage. It eased the unpleasant sensations in her middle caused by the continual pitching of the ship.

  She had finished a second cup when the hot water arrived, great canisters carried by sweating mariners under the direction of a blushing midshipman. The moment they were gone, Parrette held the door open to get rid of the lurking steward, and on his egress, smartly shut the flimsy door. Then she marched around the cabin pulling the stern windows firmly shut, and the curtains drawn, as Anna regarded the gently steaming water.

  “Now, you tidy yourself while I brush that hanging bed. I am tempted to use our own sheets, though in truth this oddly shaped room seems very clean,” Parrette said.