Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea (11 page)

Deduction therefore indicated that the well was the entrance to the local caves. Herbertina wondered how they bypassed the water she herself had indisputably drawn up? Watching a bag of what appeared to be black powder sent down with no apparent concern for water-proofing, she guessed that the well shaft held a removable tank, to maintain its verisimilitude for the occasional holiday-maker wandering the cliffs on a warm day. Using the pendent rope ladder, men were clambering up and down and in and out with the ease of ants on a pantry shelf.

It was impossible to identify much of the cargo being hurried down the well, at this distance and in the flickering light. Some things, however, could not be disguised. The coarse nets of coal were obvious—so, she decided, there was something down there that needed fuel: possibly Erato’s postulated steam engine. There were dull metal tanks going down as well, their tops fitted with stopcocks—when one banged into the stone well coping, there was a frightened shout and curses Herbertina could hear in her bower: evidently they held some gas or fluid, under pressure and decidedly unsafe to bang about.

Interesting, all very interesting; and surely suggestive of some clandestine hooliganism afoot…

Totally damning, however, were the unmistakable cannon balls going down, netted like the coal. There was other eccentric ironmongery as well, things with linked chains and knobs and iron thorns; she rather thought Lady Beatrice could put a name to those.

All in all, not cargo for a yachting holiday. And conspicuous in its absence was any sign of provisions—unless the crew of the mystery vessel had one of those crates packed with box lunches, nothing that resembled potable drink or durable dry goods was going aboard. Perhaps that meant no long-range journey was anticipated? While Herbertina had seen the speed with which the submarine craft could move, she had no idea of its cruising range. The coal indicated they needed to refuel en route, though.

The rising moon had cleared what little haze lay on the night ocean, and its light flooded the meadows atop the cliffs. The shadow of the crane over the well was suddenly a solid wedge of black extending into the grass and gorse behind the cottages. In fact, Herbertina saw with sudden interest, so long and dark it was that it quite obscured a straight line running between some broom bushes and the back walls of the cottages themselves. And those bushes were very near her hawthorn trees.

After a moment’s calculation, she re-pocketed her spyglass, lay down on her belly, and began a serpentine crawl through the gorse to the inviting pathway of the crane’s shadow. To her surprise, it was really quite easy—the gorse was at least half a foot over her head for most the way, and the drab clothes she wore became an even better Tarnhelm when randomly striped by the twiggy moonlit branches.

The broom bushes had a convenient and sweet-scented hollow round their roots, from which she could reconnoiter the area. While men were going steadily in and out of the cottages’ back doors and round the walls with loads, the majority of them were safely in front. And even from her own ground-level view, the long pergola of shade was an impenetrable avenue: nothing at all could be clearly seen under the arm of the crane’s shadow.

Which was quite convenient until, about twenty feet from the back walls of her goal, Herbertina ran nose-to-nose into a very surprised fox terrier.

Back in their parlor in Torquay, the other Ladies were waiting with steadily decreasing ease and good grace. The evening was running on, and there had been no message nor return from their absent members. Dora kept watch in the window seat, on the alert for any strange lights or sounds from the shore; but the town was quite silent tonight. There were not even enough pedestrians taking the evening air to provide her with anything on which to comment amusingly to the others.

They had all fallen into an anxious quiet. The Aetheric Transmitter remained silent, save for the normal low maintenance hum; which, had declared Miss Rendlesham, not only interfered with her ability to concentrate on reading
Dombey and Son
aloud, but was giving her a headache.

Maude had then declared that that was fine with her, as Miss Rendlesham’s reading was not only giving
her
a headache, but—combined with the hum of the Transmitter—might very well be upon point of producing a brain seizure. Mrs. Otley had therefore diplomatically begged Miss Rendlesham to leave off and save the doubtless exciting conclusion of Mr. Dickens’ work for another evening; whereupon a dissatisfied silence had fallen in the room. Jane was now sewing with less enthusiasm than doggedness and Dora was frankly asleep in the window seat, while Miss Rendlesham and Maude were sulking and glaring daggers at everyone.

It seemed impolitic to Mrs. Otley to suggest cards, and she did not care for solitaire. Sighing, she got out the dominoes and began building a labyrinth on the table, with the childish but satisfying goal of eventually collapsing the entire edifice. After a little, Miss Rendlesham relented enough to diffidently suggest that a carefully balanced card house might be erected on the rows, to provide yet more excitement with the inevitable disaster was initiated. Maude and Jane were at last drawn into the architectural gyre, and a certain amity was once more restored to the room.

They were rather gleefully engineering the fourth course of cards on an especially difficult bend of the dominoes, when a knock sounded at the parlor door. Dora sat up with a little cat-like noise, and saw all the others staring at her: hands full of cards and dominoes, all of them bent over an astonishing terraced palace on the table. They were clearly unable to answer the knock.

It sounded again. Mrs. Otley began setting her burdens down with exaggerated care, but Jane gave Dora an agonized look and implored, “Do get up and answer it, Dora! Can you not see we are not at liberty?”

So Dora got up and went to the door, straightening her blouse and tucking escaped curls back into her combs in some haste. She opened the door a hand’s breath and peered out.

In the dim light of the oil lamp on the hall table stood a fretful-looking man. This was in itself peculiar, as he should not have been able to make his way to this private floor in a rooming house that catered primarily to ladies. He seemed aware of this, as he cast anxious glances up and down the hall while he stood there.

He was tall and slender and well-dressed, but bore an expression of profound distress. He was throttling his hat in his hands, and when Dora opened the door and looked out full into his face, he actually cried out and promptly dropped it on the floor. Bending at once to retrieve it, he then ran his face into the hooped curve of Dora’s skirt; recoiled again with a cry, and fell over on the hall floor like a stunned insect.

Dora looked down at him doubtfully, and then back into the parlor.

“There is a man here having a seizure, I think,” she said.

Miss Rendlesham came up beside her, opening the door wide. Behind them, the Aetheric Transmitter had been whisked away to the sideboard and covered with a shawl; the most outre and eye-catching object in the room was now the temple of cards and dominoes covering the table. The other Ladies stood about it in attitudes of slightly flushed surprise.

The man on the floor managed to regain his knees; then, with an almost audible creak, his feet. His mashed hat resumed its revolving in his hands like a sad dead little animal.

“Forgive my clumsiness, I pray you,” he said breathlessly, “and the lateness of the hour. I am Neville Ponsonby, late of Tredway Pickett’s household, and I have information of extreme importance to impart to Mrs. Corvey and her daughter, Miss Beatrice Corvey. Are they at home?”

“They are not,” said Miss Rendlesham, in a voice that usually thrilled her more subservient patrons. “They are at your employer’s house, as a matter of fact. I suggest you seek information there. And how did you get up here to our rooms, may I inquire?”

Mr. Ponsonby had flinched at Miss Rendlesham’s stern address, but paled alarmingly as she finished. His hands clenched together, quite finishing off his hat.

“They are at Pickett’s? Then please let me come within at once, I beg!” he exclaimed. “My information is become a matter of life and death!”

In the bank of herbs on the cliff top, matters had grown more serious; though not, to Lady Beatrice’s mild annoyance, more silent. Although Pickett was advancing his cause with increasing determination, he continued to pontificate between frenzied kisses—indeed, it was more as though he were kissing between the points of his lecture. Lady Beatrice did not find his peculiar politics to be an enhancement to their congress, either philosophical or carnal, and in fact was feeling a certain chagrin that not even the loss of her buttons, bloomers or presumed virtue was entirely capable of
shutting him up
.

In fact, his attention was increasingly fixed on the sea below them. At length, she seized his ears in either hand and yanked his head round to face her, demanding boldly, “Kiss me, dear Mr. Pickett!” Which he did, but—as Lady Beatrice did not close her eyes during this exercise—she could not help but notice that Pickett’s own gaze slid inexorably to the side as he continued his watch upon the moonlit sea.

When the kiss ended, she gave up and turned her own eyes to the view below. Thus, though their bodies contested in that most earth-bound of activities on the bed of thyme (or miner’s lettuce), the lovers’ gazes were not on each others’ enraptured faces, but fixed in unity and expectation upon the bosom of the sea.

Lady Beatrice wondered coldly what Pickett was waiting for.

The fox terrier’s hindquarters quivered uncertainly. Herbertina felt as if her own were doing the same. Slowly, carefully, she eased a hand into her trouser pocket and fetched out the last bit of biscuit from her dinner.
Thank goodness for the Devere sisters! s
he thought fervently, and offered it to the interested dog.

Cold nose, warm tongue—a snuffle and the biscuit was gone, but the dog stayed quiet and was now giving Herbertina the narrow grin so typical of its breed. It was a white dog, but with a charming black domino mask from which its tongue lolled in companionable silence.

Herbertina essayed a ruffle of its forward-tilted ears and the dog huffed a little in pleasure. Now mutually reassured, Herbertina and the terrier went on: the former crawling forward while the latter trailed with nose to the ground as if it had known the plan from the beginning.

Herbertina was thus feeling some cautious satisfaction at her progress when a sudden shout shattered both the night and her composure.

“Here, ye little bitch! What d’ye think yer doing out there?”

Herbertina froze in panic. So did the terrier—then leaped over Herbertina and trotted with an embarrassed air to the back door of the cottage. A bulky shadow stood there, swinging some rod-like implement impatiently. As the dog retreated, brief tail upheld in true terrier fashion, two things occurred to Herbertina: even if she herself had been sighted, her gender would not have been apparent; and the terrier was most obviously a literal bitch.
She
was still unseen.

Nonetheless, Herbertina decided that her foray was now decisively concluded: she had important information, had narrowly avoided detection, and it was clearly time to quit the field. Accordingly, she began to inch backwards, not daring to rise or try to turn. The open cottage door remained in her full view, thus affording her a clear silhouette of the bulky shouter as he soundly kicked the fox terrier.

The dog yelped and bolted back into the meadow. Her owner swore and started after her, straight down the long aisle of shadow along which Herbertina was desperately trying to effect her escape. Within but a moment or so, it was clear that Herbertina would not avoid being seen this time; if, indeed, the fellow (still shouting imprecations at the dog) did not tread on her outright.

As the man bore down upon her, Herbertina rolled to one side and seized his passing ankle. Her weight brought him crashing to his knees; but he rolled at once, kicking out and hauling a small pistol from his breeches pocket; clearly, an experienced brawler.