The Moonless Night (4 page)

The whole family was pleasantly occupied throughout the day, Marie with David, Sir Henry with his letters and his petition, and Biddy with preparing a room for a mysterious guest. She half thought from Sir Henry’s air of importance the Prince Regent himself was coming to put up with them, and was thrilled at having a royal patient to see to, such a lovely invalidish one, too. The Prince’s love of being bled was legendary. She had her plumpest leeches picked out, ready for royal blood.

The younger Boltwoods had no intimation they were to entertain company, and the young lady at least was delighted to find a fashionable gentleman sitting in the saloon when she came down to dinner. Had she known, she would have taken more pains with her toilette, but the caller did not seem to find anything amiss with her dark hair, bound back with silk primroses, her large brown eyes, sparkling with excitement to be at last doing some entertaining, nor even her gown, not quite in the highest kick of fashion, but stylish. The unwarranted treat of having company lent a high color to her cheeks.

Only Biddy was disappointed. No prince, not even an invalid. The young gentleman, Mr. Benson, looked remarkably robust. Not that he was a big, stout ruddy-faced man. They were good patients for leeching. This one was elegant rather than large. Hardy, but lean and athletic, with a pair of broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist. He was thirtyish, dark and good looking. Sir Henry presented him as a family connection on his wife’s side.

“My daughter is said to resemble her mama,” he pointed out, the assumption being that Mr. Benson would have known the mother.

“You must have had a very pretty wife, Sir Henry,” Mr. Benson replied, destroying that illusion.

“So, you are come to get a peek at the Corsican,” Sir Henry went on, then explained to the family. “I finished up with my petition in Plymouth, and found Mr. Benson there, with no place to rest his head for the night, for the inns are full to the rafters.”

Biddy knew this was nonsense, for she had been told specifically to turn out the gold suite, but naturally she said nothing. The gentleman said, “Very kind of you to give me rack and manger.”

“I am happy to do it. Everyone is putting up guests these days. You would not be at all comfortable at the inn—my wife’s cousin, after all. What do they say of Bonaparte in London?”

“There is a spirit of optimism that we have caged the lion at last. This will be the end of him. Saint Helena is spoken of as a place of exile.”

“Exile! It is execution he wants. We saw how ineffective exile was at Elba. He’ll be back at our throats with another army within a twelvemonth if he isn’t executed. I have a petition going around. I have been in touch with Bathurst about it. You will want to add your name to the list.”

“Yes, certainly,” the man said, looking surprised. He was handed the sheet, and said as he wrote, “There is no talk in London of executing him, actually. A closer watch must he kept on him than was done at Elba of course, but it is exile only that is discussed. After all, he
did
give himself up voluntarily to Captain Maitland, and asked for mercy in his Themistocles-letter to the Prince Regent.”

“As to that,” Sir Henry began, assuming his customary scowl, “It was an impertinence on the Corsican’s part to write such a missive. ‘I come, like Themistocles, to throw myself on the hospitality of the British people.’ Hospitality, mind you, not mercy. And to put himself under the protection of our laws, as though he were a British subject, and not a damned—ah, dashed prisoner of war.”

“Still, in common courtesy it was expected the Prince of Wales might at least have answered the letter. It was a gratuitous insult to ignore it,” Benson answered reasonably.

To suggest his beloved Prince Regent, the First Gentleman of Europe, was lacking in courtesy roused Sir Henry to wrath. “We'll give him a taste of English hospitality. Chains and the rack is what he wants! If it were me in charge of the man, he would be hanged like a common felon.”

“Let us hope your petition proves effective, Sir Henry,” Mr. Benson said, handing it back to him, “but I think myself that he is a very uncommon felon.”

Marie, examining their visitor closely, thought she discerned a trace of amusement on the stranger’s face, a touch of laughter hiding in the dark eyes. She wondered why he was with them. A connection of Mama’s, of course, but not a close connection. He didn’t even know what she had looked like. She supposed that he must have a yacht that was to be kept at Bolt Hall. Nothing else would account for such magnanimity on Papa’s part. A yacht, at such a time, was better than charity for covering a multitude of sins. She put this question to him.

“No, I am not a sailor at all,” he told her. “I would like to hire a boat and go out for a look at him, though, if I could get a crew together.”

“Save your blunt. I’ll take you,” David told him. “As soon as the keel is dry. We have just had it painted. We have seven ships resting at the dock this minute, ready to thwart any escape plans Boney may have.”

“Had a hundred when Napoleon had his flotilla readying at Boulogne,” Sir Henry added.

“What, do you think he will try to escape?” Mr. Benson asked, startled.

“Certainly he will,” Sir Henry told him, “It was at the back of his mind when he gave himself up. He little thought they would anchor him off Bolt Hall. If he were half as clever as everyone says he is, he would have known it. I daresay Plymouth was chosen with Bolt Hall in mind.” He then went on to give a detailed history of Bolt Hall, till his listener’s eyes were glazed. “But he won’t get away, I’ll take you down to the docks tomorrow and show you the ships, and the winch and chain.”

“Winch and chain?” Mr. Benson inquired, in some confusion.

“It is too difficult to explain. It must be seen. I’ll show it to you myself tomorrow. You will be interested to see it. Ingenious contraption. Bonaparte will have no hope of landing with my winch and chain to stop him,” Sir Henry finished up, with a sage nod.

They went in to dinner, the talk being on the same subject as before the meal—Napoleon. When the ladies retired to the saloon, Marie said to her aunt, “I wonder why Papa asked Mr. Benson to stay with us. He hasn’t a ship.”

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Biddy told her bluntly. “He is family, a well-born, well-to-do gentleman, with a nice little property of his own in Devon. Oakhurst, it is called. I expect Henry asked him to give you a chance to attach him. He has mentioned Benson to me before as a possible
parti
for you. It’s high time you were married, Marie.”

“Oh, is
that
why he is here?” she asked, smiling with pleasure. The matter of finding a husband for Marie was frequently discussed in the family. At twenty, she was not only ripe but becoming a little passé in the view of some. Her mother had been married at eighteen, and three-quarters of her own friends of the same age were married. There was not felt by the young lady herself to be any urgency in the matter. With a naval station at Plymouth, there was always such a gratifying surfeit of gentlemen at all the balls that one could not feel quite an ape-leader; still, younger sons making their way in the navy were not considered eligible for Miss Boltwood of Bolt Hall by either her father or her aunt. It was not a uniform they wanted, but a jacket by Weston, similar to that worn by Mr. Benson. Marie, always partial to a uniform, began to perceive that a black jacket, too, could lend distinction, when worn by a gentleman of the cut of their guest.

When the men returned to the saloon after their port, she felt some little hopes that she had incited Mr. Benson to admiration. He took up a seat beside her and began some conversation regarding her life, the very spirit of it showing her he was sensitive, considerate. “A pity your father had to leave London at just the time you were to have been presented,” he mentioned. “I looked forward to meeting you.”

Unfortunately, Biddy decided to reply for her. “Sir Henry should never have gone to London,” she said. “It ruined his health forever. His lungs, his heart—they have never been the same since.”

Benson acknowledged this irrelevance with a nod, then looked to Marie. “I was sorry to leave, but of course my father’s health must come first,” she replied.

“I had thought he was quite recovered, he looks well,” Mr. Benson made the dreadful error of saying next, and was soon being treated to a list of Sir Henry’s ailments, and in more length, their cures. He listened patiently to all this, but when she entered upon a pandect of healthful laws that ought to be followed by everyone, the patience began to wear thin.

Changing tack, Biddy asked him if he had had that little cyst on his cheek examined professionally. Mr. Benson had a small mole at the outer side of his left cheek. Marie had just been thinking how attractive it was.

“No, it is nothing. I have had it forever,” he said in a dismissing way, then looked hopefully to the younger Miss Boltwood for rescue.

She tried gamely to wrest him from Biddy’s clutches, knowing nothing would be more likely to send their visitor looking elsewhere for a bed than one of Biddy’s lectures. “We have just had a telescope put up on Bolt’s Point today,” she said. “Perhaps you would like to go up and have a look at it tomorrow,”

“I would like to go this evening.” he said at once, glancing to the windows, where it was far from dark. They kept country hours, dining at five. “Is it very far?”

“No, only half a mile away” she answered, and was on the verge of offering to point out the route, as it was visible from the garden, and the garden seemed a good spot to get Mr. Benson to herself for a moment.

“You won’t want to go out with dark coming on,” Biddy told him. “We get a nasty damp wind here on the coast.”

“I am not at all troubled by dampness,” he said, quite curtly, and looked to Marie. “Which direction is it?”

“It’s just half a mile west of the Hall, towards Plymouth,” Biddy informed him. “David will likely be going, if you care to see it in the dark.”

“It won’t be dark for an hour,” Marie pointed out. Mr. Benson arose without further ado and offered her his arm.

They made good their escape into the garden. “I really had hoped to meet you in London, you know,” he said, not even looking westwards towards the Point.

She was curious to know why he had never called on them, and was soon hearing the reason. “I was only intermittently in town. I travel about a good deal, but if I had any notion I had so attractive a connection I should have made a point to call. In fact, Sir Henry had most particularly asked me to do so just before he left town, but I had to go to Vienna for the Congress around that time, and when I returned, you had left.”

“Papa had a severe attack of gout and retired,” she remarked, knowing little of his shenanigans at the Admiralty.

Mr. Benson, a little better acquainted with Sir Henry’s career, said, “However, there is more than one place for us to become friends, and I was much gratified at your father’s kind offer.”

“Do you plan to make a long visit, Mr. Benson?” she asked.

His eyes lingered on her face and he smiled a very nice smile. “I hope Bonaparte is in no hurry to get himself rescued,” he answered.

In confusion, she pointed out the path to Bolt’s Point, and they returned to the saloon.

Sir Henry came to join them, suggesting a little music. Marie was flattered to see that Mr. Benson stopped all talk of going to the Point that evening when she went to the pianoforte. He sat listening with apparent pleasure while she played and David sang. This was the pastime till tea was served, after which there was no entertainment at all.

Their young guest, an international traveler and Londoner, was shown to his chamber before ten o’clock The ladies also retired, while David went down for a look by moonlight at the
Fury
, to touch its keel with his finger, and find the finger come away covered with paint. It being still far from late and the night being fine, he took his mount and rode into the inn at Plymouth for some more shoulder-rubbing with undesirables, and some elbow-bending with the same.

Chapter 4

When Marie felt her arm being rudely jostled, she thought it must be morning. But as she rubbed her eyes, she saw it was pitch-dark in her chamber, and her rouser was not Biddy hauling her out for a brisk turn in the garden before breakfast as she occasionally did when she could not sleep herself, but David. She could smell the ale on his breath, and realized as she became more alert that he had been drinking more than he should, though he was not foxed.

“Wake up! Wake up,” he was saying in an excited voice.

“What is it? What is the matter?” she asked, her own excitement rising at his unexpected call.

He busied himself with lighting her candle as she got out of bed and struggled into a robe. His eyes, she saw, were flashing, and the high spirits were not caused by an excess of ale as happened occasionally, but something more serious. “You’ll never guess what!” he whispered. “There’s spies, right here at Bolt Hall.”

“David, what do you mean?” she asked, her heart accelerating with sheer delight.

“I heard ‘em, and saw ‘em, too.”

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know.”

“You saw them, you said.”

“Saw the tops of their heads. I rattled in to the inn for a couple of wets with the fellows, and didn’t feel like sleeping when I got back. I went out on the balcony off my room to blow a cloud, and that’s when I noticed them. There’s a full moon and I saw them as clear as if it were daylight. They were standing beneath me, half under the balcony so I couldn’t get much of a look at them, and they were talking up rescuing Boney, just as we knew someone would.”

“Wonderful!” she breathed, her own eyes shining like stars. Not that she wished to see the Corsican freed, of course, but that there would actually be an attempt was certainly a welcome piece of intelligence. She had never half believed it. “What did they say?”

“Couldn’t hear every word. They were whispering. Two of them. One said something about spending a sprat to catch a mackerel, and I took them for a couple of fishermen, but then the other answered something like, ‘Yes, for putting up ten thousand pounds we stand to make a hundred thousand. Not a bad day’s work.’ And the other laughed and said,
'Night’s
work. We won’t tackle it in broad daylight. Some quiet moonless night it’ll be, eh, mate?’ I figured they were thieves—a hundred thousand pounds, how would anybody make such a sum honestly? But then I twigged to it it was Boney they were talking about, of course. So I stepped on my cigar to hide the smell of the smoke and crouched as close to the railing as I could get and cocked my ears sharp. Then the first one went on to say that the biggest joke of it all was doing it from Bolt’s Hall, right under the old boy’s nose. Papa, you see.”