Blown Off Course (15 page)

‘She was happy afore, she tells me,’ Pointer responded, as if he had heard a slur on his own person.

Rosie stood from her chair and went to stand by her husband, placing a hand on his shoulder. ‘It cannot be told to you what the love of a good man will do, Michael.’

Thankfully, Rufus’s nose was in his plate, so he did not see Rosie wink, and for Charlie and Michael, forced to keep on their faces a pair of fixed grins, it was questionable what she was implying. There was no doubt that Pointer was comfortably off, and recollection would remind both that Rosie had always had an eye for a coin, which was the root of the jealous competition between the two.

Michael, when he came to the Pelican of a night, had the wages from his daily labouring, ditch-digging for the endless house building taking place around the capital, which, since there was more to be had on the morrow, he was happy to spend. Charlie, grubbing for work on the bank of the Thames, rarely had more than the cost of a pot of ale, and too often not even that.

‘I will not complain of what went afore,’ Rosie continued, ‘but I cannot say it compares with my contentment now, for Mr Pointer is not only a good man, but a fair one too.’ That sat ill with the expression on his face: he looked like a hangman might study his coming victim, one who took pleasure in his work. ‘Now, tell us how you came to be in our woods, and what has happened to you this twelve months.’

That took a long time and all three taking turns to relate their tale, though it was, of necessity, filleted. There was only a passing mention of John Pearce, but an account of his getting them protections was paramount to putting them in a good light. For what had happened since they last saw Rosie came sadness for Abel Scrivens, whom she remembered, and a bit of a prayer for Ben Walker, whom she did not. Nor was it a wise notion to say why Charlie and Rufus had been resident in the Liberties, while care had to be taken about the nature of Michael; any mention of what had happened to create that poster they kept to themselves.

‘So,’ Charlie concluded. ‘We need to get back to the Pelican, ’cause that is where the mentioned Lieutenant Pearce will be awaiting us.’

Michael had spent much time watching Rosie’s husband, who had shown no sympathy for the fact that they were wrongly pressed, nor any reaction to the harshness they had lived under as unwilling tars, his only vocal reaction being a snort at the notion of protections. He could be placed by all three Pelicans if they cared to: he was an English yeoman, John Bull to the top of his high boots, a forty-shilling freeholder with a vote and few feelings for those who lacked his means. They had all met his type before, a man convinced of the glory of his country and the way it was ruled, who would tell his friends over a pot of ale that the poor were idle, the Irish untrustworthy, the Scots worse – for they added wily cleverness to their guile – and the Welsh mad. The one thing he could
not do was tell his wife what was right and wrong.

What arguments ensued they were not witness to, having been sent by Rosie to fetch their possessions, but on their return they were promised a good night’s sleep in a warm bed, a tub to wash in with hot water and a mirror with which to shave, some old shirts of Mr Pointer’s to wear, as well as a promise to get them safely to London. Michael O’Hagan’s gesture of a pair of fresh-caught and tickled trout for the table was only seen as unwise when he presented the fish to the man who owned them.

For Heinrich Lutyens, broaching the mere name of John Pearce to Emily Barclay was bad enough, but he suspected he was being asked to play Cupid and that with a woman for whom he had a very soft spot indeed. Not that he harboured any thoughts that he himself might play the suitor – he was not one of those fellows able to entertain delusions about his own prospects, given he prided himself on having a mind attuned to the vagaries of human nature. Had he not left his profitable practice and gone to sea as a lowly surgeon in order to study his fellow humans in situations of stress: battle, storms, the sheer difficulty of sharing such a confined space with so many others? The volumes of his notes sat on his shelf awaiting the day when he would be able to sit down and compose a paper on his conclusions.

Looking at Emily as she sipped her tea, he wondered if the story were complete, for his ambitions had been met in so many unforeseen ways. Not only had he been
able to observe and note the actions of the common seamen and the men who led them, but he had been gifted a group of men so varied in their backgrounds as to appear as a Pandora’s Box of attitudes. Pearce had, of course, been the most interesting because of his background, but his fellow pressed men and those who saw him as an enemy had been just as rewarding: the bully Devenow, the slippery Gherson, the experienced hands on HMS
Brilliant
, proper blue-water sailors who had split into two camps: those who sided with the captain as against those who saw that Ralph Barclay had a down on one man and for questionable reasons.

And last of all was the gift sitting before him now, looking as radiant as ever, a sweet, country-bred girl of decent education and upbringing, thrown into the maelstrom of a newly commissioned naval warship. It was not just her relationship with her husband that had brought on fascination, there was the approach she had used to deal with a world so very unfamiliar, the ’tween decks of a man-o’-war, stinking of bilge, unwashed humanity and the flatulent effect of a diet that produced compacted bowels; the way she had aided him with men wounded in battle, squeamish at first, certainly, but overcoming that to become a competent helpmeet with gaping wounds and screaming amputations, as well as showing a natural aptitude for the compassion required for the aftercare.

‘Why are you smiling in such a way, Heinrich?’ Emily asked.

‘Am I smiling, my dear?’

‘And staring, too, at me, in the oddest way.’

‘Admiration?’ That brought on the most endearing blush: if Emily knew she was a beauty she had none of the conceit that usually accompanied such a gift. Knowing he had made her uncomfortable, Lutyens quickly added, ‘I was thinking, my dear, of how you have changed between now and the first day we met.’

‘It would be true to say,’ she replied, dropping her head slightly and smiling sweetly, ‘that a lot of water has flowed under the keel since then.’

‘A most apposite pun on the old cliché, Emily, yet I have known people face much and change not one whit.’

‘We are all changed, I think.’

‘None more than John Pearce.’ The cup and saucer clinked, a sure sign that the name had an effect. ‘You had dinner with him, did you not?’

Those alluring green eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Only he could have told you that.’

‘I think,’ Lutyens replied, temporising, for he was far from comfortable, ‘that there is no role so awkward as mediating between two people of whom you are fond.’

‘Are you mediating?’

‘I have been asked to, Emily, and there is no need to add by whom, is there?’ The slight shake of the head allowed him to continue. ‘John told me of your meeting, told me what you wanted of him, and also how it ended.’

‘And?’

‘He asks me to convey to you an apology and a request that you meet with him again, this time at a place of your choosing.’

She did not reply immediately, but sat in silent contemplation for what was no more than half a minute, yet seemed like an eternity. ‘Thank you for not interrupting my thoughts, Heinrich.’

‘Which are?’

‘That I should refuse immediately, without any hesitation.’

‘Yet you do not.’

‘No, and it has nothing to do with his action against my husband.’ She looked straight at him then. ‘You do not seem surprised.’

‘That would be, my dear, because I am not.’

The animation was sudden. ‘Why is it I cannot dislike him? Why is it that I cannot wipe from my mind a man who behaves as he does? What is wrong with me?’

‘Which question, Emily, would you care for me to respond to?’ She shrugged and looked at the cup in her lap. ‘Let us take the first, and the answer to that is he is not an easy man to dislike, given there is no hypocrisy in him and much humour, added to a sound sense of his and others’ place in the world.’

‘Is he not a ferocious radical?’

‘No, but he is a gentle one. His father was the ferocious one, but I suspect, though I have no actual evidence, that Adam Pearce would not have hurt a fly. He was a man who sought justice for all, not retribution for a few.’

‘Unlike his son.’

‘One of the difficulties you have in making up your mind about John is you have not spoken with him often enough.’

That got a sharp rejoinder. ‘I have exchanged words with him many times, and on each occasion Lieutenant Pearce has shown the nature of his intentions.’

Given a sudden memory of eavesdropping aboard HMS
Grampus
on the conversation Pearce had had with Lutyens on the subject of those court martial papers, Emily was made uncomfortable, even more so by the fact that she could not admit she had taken them from his instrument chest before abandoning ship. If she had a best friend in London it was he, and she felt by her lack of honesty to be deceiving him. Fortunately, too busy with the train of his own conversation, he did not sense her disquiet.

‘I think John Pearce admires you greatly.’

‘Then it is unbecoming.’

‘I admire you too, my dear.’ Seeing a hint of alarm, the additional words were quickly delivered. ‘As a dear friend.’

‘I do not know if that is flattering or not, given the other friend you mention is a rake, and a self-confessed one to boot. His own pleasure, his own needs seem to be the only thing that moves his mind and the devil take the hindmost. Look at his behaviour in Leghorn, which I challenged him with. Did he blush, did he admit fault? No, he was more inclined to recall the incident with pleasure, and that in my presence! The man has no shame, nor does he have the slightest knowledge of what constitutes proper behaviour. You do not dally with the wife of another man, even one you dislike intensely. You saw my husband strike him that first day at Sheerness, what you did not see, and
he did, was the look Pearce gave me and that was not the only occasion. He was flogged for the same act …’ She paused then and glared at the surgeon. ‘Why are you smiling?’

‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much.’ Heinrich Lutyens held up his hand to stop her snapping at him. ‘Do not forget, that I am an observer, and I have seen the way you sometimes look at him.’

‘I have done nothing untoward.’

‘You most certainly have not, but I have a nose for such things …’

And a very strange nose it is
was a thought Emily could not express.

‘Firstly, do not judge John by what he has done – nothing wrong in his own eyes, I assure you – judge him by what he would do.’

‘Which is?’

‘That is a question which does not require an answer. Meet him, accept his apology, perhaps ask him again to abandon the pursuit of your husband, though to that I do not think he will agree.’

‘Then what purpose is there in another encounter?’

The look they exchanged then spoke volumes on both sides, but neither party was inclined to spell it out. She was attracted to John Pearce and repelled by him in equal measure and Lutyens could imagine how his friend would cope with that, not by abject and insincere contrition to win her favour, but by a defence of his right to do as he wished.

‘Are you happy, Emily, in your present circumstances, and how do you see your future?’

She was aware of what he was hinting at, but she was not going to give him the satisfaction of a negative response, an attitude he discerned from the way she arranged her features. Emily did not set out to make herself look heart-stoppingly lovely, that was a mere
by-product
of her need to appear positive, but it induced in Heinrich Lutyens a pang of jealousy for whoever it was who would steal her heart in the future. That someone would he had no doubt: Emily Barclay was never going to be an old and crabby creature tied for life to a rank hypocrite of a husband. Yet her options in that regard were limited: when it came to hypocrisy the world in which they lived was full of it.

King George, a one time rakehell, now preached domestic bliss while his sons openly lived with their mistresses and the offspring of such liaisons; indeed it was suspected the Prince of Wales had secretly married his and she was a Catholic. Adultery was rife in the upper echelons of society, yet those same people would cut anyone who failed to observe the conventions to which they did not themselves adhere, all this overseen by an Anglican Church more noted for its venality than any true piety. Divorce was impossible, while too open an association, outside marriage, was the route to social death for someone of the stratum to which Emily belonged. She knew all this, but if it troubled her it was not obvious.

‘Happy no, content yes, and if I can persuade Captain Barclay to my way of thinking I will remain in that state.’

‘You may meet John here if you wish.’

‘With you present?’

‘If that is what you desire.’

‘I will leave it to you to arrange, Heinrich, but I do not wish to be alone with that man.’

That would be
, Lutyens thought,
because you do not trust yourself
.

Ralph Barclay was not a man much given to mirth but he was laughing now at a pair of Gillray cartoons he had purchased, one showing William Pitt pissing into the Portland Vase, and a second of the said duke, the owner of that famous piece of antique glassware, pouring those same contents over the first minister’s head: in both, a drunken Henry Dundas, Pitt’s claret-soaked political fixer, was shown in an equally unflattering light, in the first soiling himself and in the second grovelling at Portland’s feet with a written plea for votes.

‘I wonder if this Gillray fellow takes commissions, Gherson.’

His clerk looked up from the list of stores at present being loaded off Chatham, two and a half thousand tons in all, which presented to his mind a degree of tempting opportunity. ‘I doubt he needs to, sir, given the money he makes from his prints.’

‘Should be in the Tower, of course, for if these are not libels I do not know what is. At any rate, they will have pride of place in my great cabin. But I would dearly love something unflattering on Lord Hood to gift as a present to Sir William.’ That took the amused look off Barclay’s face. ‘He’s a hard man to know, Hotham, difficult to guess how you stand
with a fellow who keeps his own counsel so much.’

He had HMS
Semele
and the possibility of a return to the Mediterranean, so that was a matter of much import: Hood was still in command, so he would need Admiral Hotham to protect him from what he saw as the older man’s malice. Putting aside the drawings, he picked up the list of officers and midshipmen he had compiled: how different this was from the way he had been treated with HMS
Brilliant
. With the frigate he had been denied his own choices, and Hood, then
in situ
as the senior naval lord, had foisted onto him men he did not know.

Now he had his own people, all of them known from previous commissions, either in ships in which he had served or those of men he trusted. These fellows would owe their future advancement to his good offices, so they would do whatever he required to run his ship properly and be grateful to him for even a kind word. That was the way it should be: a captain must be lord of his own domain, safe in the knowledge that his list of instructions, in addition to the Articles of War, the overriding laws by which the navy was run, were as a bible to his officers.

‘I looked over your suggestions from your investment talks with Druce.’ That brought Gherson’s head up sharply, the tone not being one of outright approval and there was a goodly amount of personal gain resting on acceptance. ‘All I have to say, Gherson, is do not steal too much.’

‘Steal, sir?’ was the reply as Barclay turned to stare at him.

‘I have had occasion to say this to you before, man. I am not of a trusting nature, and while I expect you to look to your own needs up to a point, I also expect that my requirements will be paramount. Now, going over your suggestions again, which one is the high risk?’

The pair locked eyes, but it was an unequal contest; it always was with Ralph Barclay, who was as much a pilferer as his clerk. They had, between them, got a very profitable enterprise going in Toulon, by trading stores from the French arsenals and warehouses for a promise to evacuate a certain number of the officials and their families should the siege collapse – not necessarily a promise they intended to fulfil. HMS
Brilliant
’s holds had been full to bursting with powder, cables, sailcloth and many other easy-to-sell artefacts. The loss of Barclay’s arm had ruined that, given he could no longer command the ship and oversee the disbursement; the whole lot had ended up in the harbour, thanks to the loss of nerve by the frigate’s premier, a fellow called Glaister.

‘So?’ Barclay demanded.

‘The proposed canal to Buxton, sir.’

‘Because?’

‘Buxton is on a high elevation, so it requires a great number of locks, they are expensive and hard to calculate in terms of construction time and costs. There is a question of whether the projected revenues will meet the interest on the acquired debt, since the traffic projections are speculative.’

‘And if they are sufficient?’

‘You stand to make a fortune.’ The look those words got forced Gherson to add, ‘With the concomitant that
you could lose everything if the usage is poor.’