The Only Victor (34 page)

Belinda's hands plucked at her rich gown, confused by the swift change of events.

“A few days. After her husband's ship sailed.” Her voice faltered. “What of it?”

Catherine did not answer immediately. “Send for Mr Yovell. He must take a message for me. Do not make a stupid scene of it. All the servants will go if they understand. It would be better if they were kept away from this room.”

“Is it so terrible?”

Catherine regarded her thoughtfully; she would be useless. “I shall stay with her.”

She remembered Belinda's frantic question. “It is typhus.” She saw the word bring terror to her eyes. “I fear she will not survive it.”

The door opened and Yovell tiptoed across the hallway, although he had not yet been summoned. He listened, his round face expressionless while Catherine explained what had happened.

“This is bad, m'lady.” He watched her gravely. “We should send for expert help.”

She saw his anxiety, and laid her hand on his plump arm. “Even then it will be too late. I have seen it before. Had she been treated earlier . . .” She looked at the windows; a watery sunlight was breaking through. “Even then I think it would have been hopeless. She is in pain, and there were traces of a rash when her shawl was moved. I must stay with her, Daniel. No one should die alone.”

Belinda crossed the hallway, her hands agitated. “I will have to return to London. My daughter is there.”

Catherine said, “Go then.” As Belinda hurried to the stairs she remarked, “You see, Daniel? I have no choice now, even if I wanted one.”

“What do you wish, m'lady? Anything, and I shall do it.”

She smiled, but her thoughts were once more in the past. When she had climbed naked into Bolitho's bed when he had been dying of fever, to bring warmth to his tormented body. And he had never remembered it.

“Go to Chatham. We have sworn to have no secrets, so I must let him know.”

She smiled again and thought sadly,
As he will eventually tell me about his eye.

Yovell said, “I shall do that, m'lady.” Then, with a glance at the closed doors, he hurried away.

Belinda came slowly down the staircase, her eyes all the while on the woman in the dull black gown.

By the door she turned and said,
“I hope you die!”

Catherine looked after her impassively. “Even then he would not come to you.” But Belinda had gone; and she heard her carriage moving rapidly over the cobbles towards the road.

The same servant was back, staring at Catherine as if she were some secret force which had suddenly come amongst them.

Catherine smiled at her. “Fetch the housekeeper and the cook.” She saw her uncertainty, the beginning of fear perhaps. “What is your name, girl?”

“Mary, m'lady.”

“Well, Mary, we are going to look after your mistress. Make things easier for her—do you understand?”

The girl bobbed and showed her teeth. “Make 'er better, like?”

“That is so. Now off you go and fetch them, while I make a list of things we shall require.”

Alone once more, Catherine leaned her head in her hands and closed her eyes tightly to hold back the hot tears which were waiting to betray her. She had to be strong, as she had been in the past when her world had turned into a nightmare. Danger and death were not new to her, but the thought of losing him now was far more than she could bear. She heard Dulcie calling for someone; she thought she had spoken Herrick's name. She clenched her fists.
What else can I do?

She seemed to hear Belinda's hatred hanging in the still air.
I hope you die!

Curiously, it seemed to give her the strength she needed, and when the two women who controlled Dulcie's household entered she spoke to them calmly and without hesitation.

“Your mistress must be bathed. I shall attend to it. Prepare some nourishing soup, and I will need brandy.” The cook bustled away and the housekeeper said quietly, “Don't 'ee fear, missus, I'll stay with 'ee till it's over.” She bowed her grey head. “She's bin good to me since my man died.” She raised her head and looked at Catherine steadily. “He went for a soldier, missus. Fever took 'im from me in the Indies.”

“So you knew?”

The old housekeeper shrugged. “Guessed, more like. But 'er ladyship said I was bein' foolish.” She glanced around. “I see
she's
gone all the same.” Then she looked at Catherine and nodded as if in recognition. “Your man would know about it, I reckon. Rats leavin' the sinkin' ship.” She unbuttoned her sleeves. “So let's make a start, shall we?”

“Send someone for the doctor. Good or bad, he
should
know.”

The housekeeper studied Catherine's gown. “I got some servants' clothin' you could wear. It can be burned afterwards.”

The word
afterwards
was still with Catherine when night, like mourning, eventually covered the house.

It was very late by the time Young Matthew turned the carriage through the familiar gates, the air from the sea cold enough for snow. As they had rattled through the town, Bolitho had stared out of the window as if expecting to see changes. He always felt like that when he returned to Falmouth, no matter how long or short his absence had been.

Lights still twinkled from some houses and shops, and when they climbed the hill to his home he saw the cottages, their windows lit by candies, with coloured paper and leaves as decoration. It even felt like Christmas. Catherine, muffled in her cloak and fur-lined hood, watched the passing scene with him; she had never expected to see this place again.

It made Bolitho feel sick just to imagine what could so easily have happened. When Yovell had brought word of Dulcie's terrible illness to the inn where they had been staying near the dockyard, he had been beside himself. More so because the carriage had lost a wheel in the darkness, adding an extra day to her lonely vigil.

Bolitho had not waited for the carriage but had taken a horse, and with Jenour keeping pace beside him had ridden hard all the way to Herrick's house. It had been over even before he reached her. Dulcie had died, mercifully after her heart had failed, so that she was spared the final degradation of the fever. Catherine had been lying on a bed, covered by a blanket but otherwise naked as the old housekeeper burned her borrowed clothes. How easily she might have been infected; she had tended to Dulcie's most painful and intimate needs to the end, had heard her despairing delirium, when she had called out names Catherine had never heard before.

The doctor had eventually attended, a weak sort of man who had been overwhelmed by the manner of Dulcie's death.

The carriage had followed several hours after Bolitho, when Yovell had commented that Lady Belinda had left since his departure for Chatham. He glanced at Catherine's profile and held her arm even tighter. Not once had she mentioned that Belinda had abandoned her to cope with Dulcie on her own. Almost anyone in her position would have done so, if only to bring contempt and scorn on a rival. It was as if she no longer cared. Only that they were together. Six days on the awful roads, a long and tiring journey, but now they were here.

Ferguson and his wife, the housekeeper, were waiting for them, while other familiar faces floated into the carriage lamps, gathering luggage, calling greetings, glad to see them back.

Ferguson had had no idea of the exact date of their return but he had been well prepared. Great fires in every room, even in the stone hallway, so that the contrast with the cold outside was like an additional welcome. Alone at last in their room facing the headland and the sea beyond, Catherine said she would have a hot bath. She looked at him gravely. “I want to wash it all away.” Then she held him tightly and kissed him.

She said just one word before she prized herself away.
“Home.”

Ozzard came up to collect his uniform coat and left with it, humming softly to himself.

She called through the door, and Bolitho guessed it had been on her mind for much of the time.

“When will he be told?”

“Thomas?” He walked to the low window and peered out. No stars, so it was still overcast. He saw a tiny light far out to sea. Some small vessel trying to reach port for Christmas. He thought of Herrick coming to him and bringing the news of Cheney's death; it was something he could never forget. He answered quietly, “Admiral Godschale will send word on the first vessel carrying despatches to the squadron. I sent a letter to go with it. From us both.” He thought he heard a catch in her voice and he said, “You are not only lovely, you are also very brave. I would have died if anything had happened to you.”

She came out wearing a robe, her face glowing from the bath which was something else Ferguson had thought of.

“Dulcie said something of that to me.” Her lip trembled but she composed herself. “I think she knew what was happening to her. She called for her husband several times.”

Bolitho held her against him so that she could not see his face. “I will have to join the
Black Prince
quite shortly, Kate. A few weeks, perhaps less.”

She rested her head against his shoulder. “I know . . . I am prepared. Don't think of it—take care of yourself as much as you can. For me. For us.”

He stared desperately at the crackling log fire. “There is something I did not tell you, Kate. There was so much to do, after the duel and . . . everything—then poor Dulcie.”

She leaned back in his arms as she so often did to study him, as if to read his innermost thoughts before he uttered a word.

She whispered, “You look like a little boy, Richard. One with a secret.”

He said bluntly, “They can't help me with my eye.” He gave a great sigh, relieved to have got it out at last, fearful what she might think. “I wanted to tell you, but—”

She broke away from him and took his hand to lead him to the window. Then she thrust it wide open, oblivious to the bitter air. “Listen, darling—church bells.”

They clung to each other as the joyous peal of bells echoed up the hill from the church of Charles the Martyr, where so many Bolitho memories were marked in stone.

She said, “Kiss me. It's midnight, my love. Christmas morn.”

Then she closed the window very carefully and faced him.

“Look at me, Richard. What if it were me? Would you cast me aside? Do you think it makes any difference,
could
make any? I love you, so much you'll never know. And there is always hope. We shall keep trying. No doctor is God.”

There was a tap at the door and Ozzard stood there with his tray and some finely cut goblets. He blinked at them. “Thought it might be proper, m'lady.”

It was champagne, misted over with ice from the stream.

Bolitho thanked the little man and opened the bottle. “The only thing of any value to come out of France!”

She threw back her head and gave her bubbling laugh, something Bolitho had not heard since the pleasure gardens.

Bolitho said, “You know, I think this is the first Christmas I have been in Falmouth since I was a midshipman.”

She turned down the bed, the half-empty glass still in her other hand. Then she let her robe fall to the floor and faced him, with pride and love in her dark eyes.

“You are my man. I am your woman. Then let us celebrate.”

Bolitho bent over and kissed her breast, heard her gasp, all else forgotten. And so it would be, he thought. The new flagship, Herrick, a court-martial . . . even the war could wait. He touched her breast with some champagne and kissed it again.

She pulled him down. “Am I stone that I can wait so long?”

Ferguson and Allday were crossing the yard to share a last drink before the festivities in the house and on the estate commenced in earnest. Allday glanced up at a candlelit window. Ferguson, his friend since being pressed into Bolitho's
Phalarope,
heard him sigh, and guessed what he was thinking. He had known his wife Grace since childhood. Allday had nobody to call his own.

He said, “Come and tell us all about it, John. We've heard a few rumours, but not much else.”

“I was thinking about Rear-Admiral Herrick. Takes you back, don't it, Bryan?
Phalarope,
the Cap'n, us an' Mr Herrick. Come a long way. Now he's lost
his
wife. Full circle, that's what.”

Ferguson opened the door of his little house and glanced round to make sure Grace had retired at long last.

“Here, I'll fetch some grog from the pantry.”

Allday gave a sad grin. Like them up there in that great bedroom.
A sailor's woman.
“I'd relish that, matey!”
All of us, holding things at bay, knowing it must end, but making the best of it.

He coughed on the rum and spluttered, “God, this is the stuff to fill the sails!”