The Emperor (21 page)

‘
That is worse than foolish,' Héloïse said. 'Don't you see
it isn't a doctor's coach? But do you expect him? Is some
one ill?'

‘
No, Madame, not precisely – it is Madame's old trouble,
only come on worse these last weeks.'

‘Is she in her room?'

‘Yes, Madame. Will you go up?’

Héloïse ran up the stairs, knocked, and entered Flon's
room, to find her old friend in bed, with a heavy shawl
about her shoulders. A meagre fire burned in the grate, and
the room felt cheerless and a little damp. Héloïse crossed
the room and took Flon's hands, and kissed her cheek,
noticing the unnatural moistness of the skin and the parched
look of her lips.

‘
My dear, dearest Flon, what is this? But you are ill! You
have the fever. And what a wretched fire!'

‘
Héloïse, my dear!' Flon cried. 'How glad I am to see you
– and looking so well and so prosperous! A new hat and
pelisse – my dear, you have come into money. Oh, I am so
glad for you. Tell me everything. Has all gone well with you
since we last met?'

‘
First,' Héloïse said sternly, 'you shall tell me why I find you here ill in bed with such a poor fire. Why have you not
called Elise to have it made up? Why is the scuttle empty?’

Flon managed a shrug. 'The old trouble in my hands, my
dear, has meant I have not been able to complete my orders.
My customers have gone elsewhere.'

‘You mean you have no money?'

‘
Oh, it is a temporary state, I assure you, little one. Don't
look so troubled. Old Flon has survived many a worse set
back. When the fever is gone and the hands loosened up, I
shall soon be back to work.’

Héloïse sat down and gazed at her remorsefully. 'I blame
myself very much for not visiting you sooner. My dear
friend, how have I repaid your kindness? I should have
come weeks ago. And owing you money as I do!'

‘
There is no debt between friends,' Madame Chouflon
said. The money was given to you, not lent. None of us expected a return – don't forget, it was not I alone who
gave.'

‘
I know who gave the greater part,' Héloïse countered,
and rang the bell for the servant.

‘Elise, are there more coals in the house?'

‘No, Madame,' Elise said, throwing a scared glance at her
mistress. 'I used the last this morning, and there was no
money to –'

‘
That will do, Elise,' Flon said hastily. Héloïse drew out
her purse and gave some coins to the servant, who gawped
at them.

‘
Take this, and give it to my footman, and tell him to go
at once to the nearest coal-merchant, and bring back
whatever quantity is convenient to carry, and place an order
to be delivered as soon as possible. When he returns, bring
the coals up and make up the fire.'

‘Yes, Madame.’

When Elise had gone, Héloïse slipped the purse under
Flon's pillows. 'That's for now,' she said, 'and there will be
more for as long as you need it.' Madame tried to protest,
but Héloïse stopped her. 'Is it permissible for me to be
helped, and you not? Am I to let my friend starve of cold
and hunger after all her kindness to me? For shame,
Madame.’

Madame argued no more, only pressed Héloïse's hand
gratefully with her stiff and painful one. 'Now, my dear,'
she said at last, 'tell me everything that has happened to
you, and how you come back to me looking as I have
always wanted to see you. Though,' she added with a critical
frown, 'the seams on that pelisse are not all that they ought to be.’

Héloïse told her news, the good and the bad, about going
home, and James, and her fortune, and her furniture. ‘So I
shall have enough to live upon comfortably now,' she
concluded.

‘
What will you do?' Hon asked, when she had digested
all this.

‘
I think of taking a house somewhere up in Yorkshire. It
is lovely country, Flon - you can have no idea!'

‘
It is very far away,' Madame said sadly, and Héloïse's
face lit up.

‘But I have had the most marvellous thought: you shall come and live with me! The air of Yorkshire will make you
well again, and you shall taste how good food can be:
London bread and milk are so vile! We shall be company
for each other, and when your hands are better, you can
make gowns for the Yorkshire ladies. Oh, don't turn up
your nose like that!' she laughed. 'I promise you there are many fine ladies in York, with every bit as keen an eye as your London belles.'

‘
It sounds so attractive,' Madame said slowly. 'But I
would not be a burden to you. If I can pay my way - may I consider it? You do not go at once?'

‘
No, I shall stay in London with Lady Chelmsford, prob
ably until Easter. Lady Aylesbury wants me to go to her
parties.'

‘Lady this and Lady that - you are moving in fine circles
 
now, Madame Vendenoir,' Flon teased.

‘
Oh, but that is nothing to me, now I am a Lady too!'
Héloïse said airily. 'I am the Countess of Strathord, you
know, in my own right, which is a very fine thing. In future
you shall remember always to call me Lady Henrietta Stuart.
Any name must be better than Vendenoir to me.’

*

Shocking news came in of a mutiny amongst the ships lying at Spithead.

‘Jack warned that there would be trouble,' Charles said, reading the
Gazette
over breakfast. 'But I hardly thought it would come to this - a full-scale mutiny!'

‘Are all the ships involved?' Roberta asked, putting down the piece of toast she had just buttered. She was a soldier's
daughter, and the word 'mutiny' had been known to her
from her childhood as the worst thing to be feared. Soldiers,
like sailors, were recruited from amongst the lowest classes -
soldiers perhaps lower even than sailors - and the harshest discipline was needed to control them. If they were ever to join their strength together and escape the leash ...

‘It says the ships of the Channel Fleet - Lord Bridport's ships,' Charles said, looking up from the paper. 'That's the worst of having a whole fleet in harbour at once - communi
cation is too easy between the ships, and the men are idle. If
they had been at sea, it could not have happened.'

‘They must put in sometimes, I suppose,' Roberta said.
‘Pray read on, my lord. Is anyone hurt? What do the
mutineers demand?'

‘
This is only a preliminary report,' Charles said. 'We
must wait longer to hear more. A gun was fired, it seems, as a signal, and the men rushed up the masts and manned the yards, shouting and waving their hats. They have refused to
put to sea, or do any work about the ship until their
demands are met.' He put down the paper and pushed his
coffee-cup away, and got up restlessly. 'By God, if this
should spread! At such a time, when we are fighting a war
without allies! My dear, you must excuse me. I must walk
out and see what I can find out.’

The following morning found him at Upper Grosvenor
Street, where Mary was worried about the safety of her
husband.
Cressy
had been due to come in to Spithead at
about the time the mutiny broke out, and though there had been no report of violence, she was convinced that some
 
mutineering sailor, mad with drink, would shoot Captain
Haworth dead on his own quarterdeck.

Charles was joining his efforts to Lucy's in reassuring her,
when the footman announced a visitor, and Lieutenant
Weston walked in.

‘
I come straight from the Admiralty, Lady Aylesbury,' he
said, when greetings had been exchanged. 'I thought you and Mrs Haworth would be glad of the most recent news
from Portsmouth.'

‘
Indeed, Weston, if you can convince Polly that no harm
is likely to come to Captain Haworth if he should come in to Spithead, you will have done us all a service,' Lucy said.

Weston smiled his charming smile, and bowed towards
Mrs Haworth. 'I can do better than that, Ma'am,' he said. 'I
bring you the assurance that the
Cressy
is come in safe and
sound, and that Captain Haworth is at this moment on his
way to London. I was in the Secretary's office this morning,
and was privileged to look over the early dispatches.’

Mary sat down rather suddenly, and was unable to say anything, but the look she gave the young lieutenant was
thanks enough.

‘
Capital!' Lucy said. ‘And now my sister is satisfied, you
may tell the rest of us about the mutiny. Charles has been
reminding us that my cousin Jack foretold trouble before
Christmas.'

‘Did he, indeed?' Weston said, looking at Charles.

‘
He thought that the older seamen felt they were being
worse treated than the quota-men, and were unhappy about
it,' Charles said.

‘
Ah, but it isn't the older seamen who have stirred up the
trouble,' Weston said. 'No, it is the new intake. With the
quota, you see, there is a new sort of man coming into the
service — spoilt clerks, bankrupts, embezzlers — the sort of
men with a little education who, either through vice or
weakness or ill fortune, have been forced to take the shilling
rather than go to gaol.'

‘
Yes, a little education, to my mind, is far worse than
none at all,' said Charles. ‘It gives a voice to discontent.'

‘
It does worse,' Weston nodded. 'It creates the discon
tent. The older jacks would never think of rebelling. They
are used to the conditions, and they know they would fare
worse on land. They haven't the imagination to think that
things might be any different. No, it's my belief that if any of the older seamen are involved, it's unwillingly. And I believe it is their influence which has added the caveat to the refusal
to put to sea: unless an enemy appears, they say.'

‘
Well, it's good to know they are not lost to all decency,'
Charles remarked. 'What are their demands?'

‘
Equality of pay with the soldiery; abolition of the more
savage punishments; rations at sixteen ounces to the pound,'
Weston said. 'Those are the basic demands.'

‘Reasonable enough, surely,' Lucy said. Weston bowed.

‘
Reasonable, yes — but if the Admiralty grants them, does
it not encourage mutiny by seeming to condone it?’

‘But Mr Weston,' Mary said restlessly, returning to the
matter which interested her, ‘was the
Cressy
involved at all?
When did she come in?’

Weston gave her a sympathetic smile. 'She came in on
the night before the mutiny broke out — but her crew was
not involved. Whether they were even canvassed by the
mutineers is doubtful, but at any rate, they held true.
Captain Haworth is greatly loved by his men, you know,' he
added, and Mary blushed a little with gratification. Lucy looked at her friend with surprise and doubt, but had the tact not to ask there and then whether he knew that for a
fact, or was making it up for Mary's sake.

‘
Tell us, Weston,' she said, ‘what were you doing at the
Admiralty this morning? Was it the usual? Have they found
you a ship yet, or are you to remain permanently unem
ployed? Mary says that the system allows for keeping the
bad officers on the beach —'

‘Lucy!' Mary said, shocked, but Weston only grinned.

‘
I think that must be what they are doing, ma'am. I have
other news, but was keeping it back — the best for last, you
see. I have my new appointment!’

Lucy jumped up and clapped her hands. 'Oh Weston, I
am so glad for you! What ship is it? When do you sail?'

‘
You are pretty eager to be rid of me, my lady,' Weston
said teasingly. 'I am sorry to have to disappoint you, but I
am not going to sea — I have a shore appointment, in the
 
Admiralty, under the sea-lord; so I shall not only be in
England, but in London, and barely ten minutes away.'

‘
Oh, that doesn't signify,' Lucy said airily. ‘Don't flatter
yourself that I shall take any pains to avoid you, sir. But
seriously, Weston, are you pleased? Had you not rather go
to sea?'