Under False Colours (31 page)

'
Messieurs
,' Drinkwater cried in his appalling French,
'donnez moi les maitres des vaisseaux Americaines. J'ai votre soldats ... voire amis pour
...' he faltered, and added 'exchange!'

A discontented murmur rose momentarily among the prisoners before Drinkwater snuffed it out with a harsh, 'Silence!' For a minute nothing happened, then an officer scrambled over the low parapet of the breastwork. They watched him walk, ungainly and bowlegged, through the sand of the foreshore towards the tideline.

Drinkwater nodded at the man who had disclosed the whereabouts of the
Delia
's crew.
'Vous parlez, m'sieur
...' he commanded.

After a few moments of animated conversation between the two men, in which several other prisoners attempted to intervene until Martin suppressed them, the officer tramped back up the beach, leaning in through an embrasure. A further wait ensued. Looking seawards, Drinkwater saw that O'Neal had brought the
Alert
round and the cutter's large bowsprit again pointed at Neuwerk as she stood inshore once more.

'I hope Mr O'Neal has a man in the chains, Mr Martin,' Drinkwater observed, indicating the approaching cutter, 'we can't afford to have him aground now the tide's fallin'.'

Martin screwed up his eyes and stared at his ship. 'I can see a leadsman, sir.'

Drinkwater grunted. 'Your eyes are better than mine.' He turned his attention back to the beach; the artillery officer was returning. At the water's edge he stopped and nodded, the plume of his shako bobbing.

'
D'accord
...'

'Run her ashore, Mr Martin,' Drinkwater said, sitting down as he saw the first of the British masters emerging through the embrasure. 'Not a bad morning's work, eh? Squares our account, in a manner of speakin'.'

April-August 1810

'So,' said Lord Dungarth, drawing the stoppers, 'we somewhat gilded the lily did we not? Oporto or Madeira?'

Drinkwater poured the
bual
and passed the decanters to Solomon. The Jew gracefully declined and returned them to their host.

'Insofar as my sojourn amongst the stews of Wapping was concerned,' said Drinkwater, pausing to sip the rich amber wine, 'yes.'

'It was essential to contact Fagan,' Dungarth said, 'though your interview with Marshal Davout clinched the matter. There was no harm in dissembling at the lowest level ...'

'It was without doubt the very nadir of my self-esteem, my Lord. I'd be obliged if future commissions were of a less clandestine nature. A ship, perhaps ...' Drinkwater deliberately left the sentence unfinished.

'A ship you shall have, my dear fellow, without a doubt, but first a month or two of the furlough you have undoubtedly earned by your exertions.'

'I shall hold you to that, my Lord, with Mr Solomon here as witness.'

They smiled and Dungarth sent the Madeira round again. 'I have taught you the business of intrigue too well.'

'It is not a type of service I warm to,' Drinkwater said pointedly. 'However, from what Nicholas reported was said at Hamburg, we succeeded.'

'Oh,
you
succeeded, Nathaniel, beyond my wildest hopes.' Dungarth's hazel eyes twinkled in the candlelight and it was clear he was withholding something. Drinkwater felt mildly irritated by his Lordship's condescension. He was not sure he had endured the ice of the Elbe to be toyed with, cat and mouse.

'May I enquire how, my Lord?' he asked drily. 'I presume from the papers Madame Santhonax ...'

'I shall come to those in a moment. But now we have heard your story there is much we have to relate to you. Pray be patient, my dear fellow.' Dungarth's arch tone was full of wry amusement and Drinkwater, made indulgent by a third glass of
bual
, submitted resignedly.

'Your chief and most immediate success,' Dungarth resumed, 'lies with Fagan. His office as a go-between was discovered by Napoleon and used to compromise Fouche. The ignoble Duke of Otranto, by his bold initiative in raising an army to confront us on the Scheldt, has ably demonstrated that the French Empire may easily be usurped. Alarmed, his Imperial Majesty, having discovered Fouche had sent an agent to London, took Draconian action. The agent was Fagan. He arrived here last week. Before the week was out Fouche had been dismissed!'

'A malicious and fitting move by the Emperor,' said Solomon raising his eyebrows and nodding slowly. 'Almost proof that Bonaparte knew it was Fagan who first reported a trade opening between London and St Petersburg.'

Dungarth barked a short laugh. 'An engaging fancy,' he said, 'and knowing Nathaniel has a misplaced belief in these things, there is something else I should tell him, something more closely concerning his person.'

'My Lord ...?'

'You mentioned the widow Santhonax ...' Dungarth said pausing, 'and Isaac says you spoke of her at his house, intimating she might be behind my, er, accident ...'

'Dux femina facti
,' prompted Solomon.

'What of her, my Lord?' Drinkwater asked impatiently, suddenly uncomfortable at this mention of Hortense. 'I have related all that passed between us at Hamburg and Altona. Whether or not she finally informed on me, I have no way of knowing. Why else was Dieudonne so placed to intercept us?' He sighed. 'But I am also of the opinion that she gave me what she considered was time enough to make good my escape.'

'I incline to your conjoint theory, Nathaniel,' Dungarth said, suddenly serious, his bantering tone dismissed. 'It is almost certain that she now enjoys some measure of the Emperor's favour, perhaps because Napoleon has divorced Josephine and married the Austrian Archduchess Marie-Louise. Doubtless he wishes pliable Frenchwomen to surround the new Empress, for the beautiful widow has been appointed to the Empress's household.'

'No doubt Talleyrand approves of the arrangement,' Drinkwater observed, 'but what of the papers she passed to me? If we are correct she took an enormous risk. Were they false?'

'Not at all! She is a bold woman and clearly placed great reliance on your own character. In fact they were proposals from Talleyrand himself, concerning the future constitution and government of France, proposals that he wishes me to lay before the cabinet
and
M'sieur Le Comte de Provence, [Later Louis XVIII after the Bourbon restoration and at this time resident in England] on the assumption that the days of Napoleon are numbered ...'

'And that if Fouche can achieve what almost amounts to a
coup d'etat
, then others can too.' Drinkwater completed Dungarth's exposition.

Dungarth smiled. 'Yes. Either with an assassin's dagger or another campaign.'

'A Russian campaign, for instance,' added Solomon, drawing a folded and sealed paper from his breast.

It surprised Captain Drinkwater that St Peter's church was so full. The good people of Petersfield had certainly turned out
en masse
for the occasion. They shuffled and stared at him as he led Elizabeth and their children up the aisle.

Pausing to usher his children into the pew he cast his eyes over the congregation. Curious faces disappeared behind unstudied prayer books and mouths gossiped in whispers under the tilted brims of Sunday bonnets. He suppressed a smile. Many of the assembly had come out of devotion to his wife and her friend, Louise Quilhampton, whose efforts in starting a school for the children of the townsfolk and farm labourers had finally earned the formal approval of the Church of England.

Drinkwater nodded at the gentry settled on their rented benches and followed young Richard into the pew. A woman opposite in an extravagant hat smiled amiably at him and, after a moment, he recalled her as the bride's aunt with whom he had once shared a journey in a mail coach. Richard, the down of adolescence forming on his upper lip, wriggled beside him and he put a restraining hand on the boy's knee. His son looked up and smiled. He had forgotten Richard had Elizabeth's eyes. Beyond him, Charlotte Amelia was nudging her brother, handing him a hymn book in which she indicated the number of the first hymn.

'I know,' the boy whispered, picking up his own copy. Drinkwater looked over their heads and caught his wife's eye. She looked radiantly happy, smiling at him, her eyes misty.

He smiled back, his mind suddenly — disloyally — filled with a vision of Hortense looking at him in the intimacy of Herr Liepmann's withdrawing room. Was he the same man? Had that event
really
occurred? He could no longer be sure, knowing only that he had thought of her intermittently ever since the conversation at Lord Dungarth's when his lordship had imparted the knowledge that the widow Santhonax was a lady-in-waiting to the Empress Marie-Louise. Nor did circumstances allow him to forget her, for had not the newspapers made much of the fire at the Austrian Ambassador's grand ball? Held by Prince Schwarzenberg in honour of the Imperial wedding, the festivities had been ruined by a disastrous fire in which the prince had lost his sister-in-law and others had been killed or maimed.

He found himself unable to shake off the conviction that Hortense had had some part to play in the dreadful event.

He was rudely recalled to the present by the viols and the cello screeching and groaning at one another as the orchestra tuned up. Then the general muttering swelled and heads turned as the groom and best man marched in. A satisfied murmur greeted Quilhampton and Frey who were resplendent in the blue, white and gold of full dress and strode in step, the muted click of sword hangings accompanying their progress to the chancel. The left cuff of Quilhampton's dress coat was stitched across his breast. He exchanged glances with his mother, Louise, who sniffled worthily into a cambric handkerchief. Drinkwater thought of tying a white handkerchief to a ramrod and waving it above his head.

The rector made his appearance and slowly the noise from the congregation subsided as they waited for the bride.

Quilhampton looked back towards the porch and Drinkwater marked the pallor of his face. He still bore the marks of his ordeal and appeared as drawn as he had during his court martial. Mercifully, it had been a brief affair held aboard the
Royal William
at Portsmouth. Drinkwater had occupied his time on Helgoland in securing sworn statements about the handling of His Majesty's brig
Tracker
and had drawn up a defence for the judge-advocate to read to the court. He had prevailed too, upon Lord Dungarth, to minute the Admiralty to note on the court's papers that the brig had been employed upon a 'special service'.

Quilhampton's surrendered sword had been returned to him with the court's warmest approbation, but James's smile of relief had been wan, as though other matters weighed more heavily upon his mind. Perhaps it was the verdict of his bride he most dreaded, Drinkwater thought, watching him turn anxiously towards the porch.

Catriona MacEwan entered on the arm of her uncle. She was a tall, striking young woman with a mane of red-gold hair piled under her flat bonnet and a dusting of not unbecoming freckles over her nose. The necks of the congregation craned as one, and the sigh of satisfaction was audible as she caught sight of the thin, awkward man at the far end of the aisle and smiled.

The orchestra sawed its way into sudden life, joined by the congregation. 'Rejoice, the Lord is King ...' they boomed, 'Your Lord and King adore ...!'

'Dearly beloved,' the rector intoned, 'we are gathered together in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony ...'

'I hope they will be happy.'

'Yes.'

'They deserve it, after so long a time.'

'Yes.'

'It has been a long time for us too, my dear, far too long.'

'I know ... I ...' Drinkwater faltered, looking at Elizabeth as she sat on her side of the bed. She waited for him to finish his sentence, but he shook his head. He had been home a week but they were finding great difficulty in renewing their intimacy; both of them were guarded and uncertain, wrapped in their own diverse worlds and avoiding each other by pleading the unspoken excuse of preparations for Quilhampton's wedding. There was so much to say that Drinkwater felt the task quite beyond him.

'I keep thinking we are different people now.' she whispered, holding out her hand to him and drawing him down beside her.

'Yes, I know. So do I ...'

Perhaps that was a starting point; they had that much in common ...

He
had
to tell her, had to tell her everything; about all that had happened in the forests of Borneo; of his dark forebodings and the impossibility of seeing her when he had returned from the Indies; about the pathetic eagerness with which he had embraced Dungarth's secret mission and how it had misfired; how the
Tracker
was surrendered and Quilhampton lost his arm; of the whore Zenobia and the Jews, Liepmann and Solomon. He wanted to tell her of the meeting with Davout and the execution of Johannes; but most of all he wanted to tell her about Hortense ...

Long after they had found each other again he lay awake while Elizabeth slept beside him. He knew he could never share all of these things, that they were his own soul's burden and that he must bear them silently until his death.

Listening to his wife's gentle breathing, he thought perhaps it did not greatly matter. In time, providence balanced all accounts.

Tomorrow he could share with her what he knew would please her. It struck him as perversely ridiculous that he had delayed telling her, but the moment had never seemed right. Besides, it had taken him some time to grasp the significance of the contents of Isaac Solomon's document, the paper passed to him after dinner the night he and the Jewish merchant had dined with Lord Dungarth.

It was an outrageous quirk of fortune that the gold should have realized so much. Sold and shrewdly invested by Solomon in a mysterious speculation, it had realized almost three thousand pounds. He had become, if not a rich man, a person of some independence.