Kitabı oku: «A Regency Officer's Wedding», sayfa 3

Chapter Three

Sally didn’t object when the admiral paid for a room at the Drake for her, after suggesting the priest at St Andrew’s might be irritated to perform a wedding so late, even with a special licence. And there were other concerns.

‘I must remind you, sir, I’m not The Mouse. I cannot usurp her name, which surely is already on the licence,’ she pointed out, embarrassed to state the obvious, but always the practical one.

Admiral Bright chuckled. ‘It’s no problem, Mrs Paul. The Mouse’s name is Prunella Batchthorpe. Believe it or not, I can spell Batchthorpe. It was Prunella that gave me trouble. Prunella? Prunilla? A coin or two, and the clerk was happy enough to leave the space blank, for me to fill in later.’

‘Very well, then,’ Sally murmured.

She was hungry for supper, but had trouble swallowing the food, when it came. Finally, she laid down her fork. ‘Admiral, you need to know something about me,’ she said.

He set down his fork, too. ‘I should tell you more about me, too.’

How much to say? She thought a moment, then plunged ahead. ‘Five years ago, my husband committed suicide after a reversal of fortune. I ended up in one room with our son, Peter, who was five at the time.’

She looked at the admiral for some sign of disgust at this, but all she saw was sympathy. It gave her the courage to continue. ‘Poor Peter. I could not even afford coal to keep the room warm. He caught a chill, it settled in his lungs and he died.’

‘You had no money for a doctor?’ he asked gently.

‘Not a farthing. I tried every poultice I knew, but nothing worked.’ She could not help the sob that rose in her throat. ‘And the whole time, Peter trusted me to make him better!’

She didn’t know how it happened, but the admiral’s hand went to her neck, caressing it until she gained control of herself. ‘He was covered in quicklime in a pauper’s grave. I found a position that afternoon as a lady’s companion and never returned to that horrid room.’

‘I am so sorry,’ he said. ‘There wasn’t anyone you could turn to?’

‘No,’ she said, after blowing her nose on the handkerchief he handed her. ‘After my husband was…accused…we had not a friend in the world.’ She looked at him, wondering what to say. ‘It was all a mistake, a lie and a cover-up, but we have suffered.’

Admiral Bright sat back in his chair. ‘Mrs Paul, people ask me how I could bear to stay so many years at sea. Unlike my captains who occasionally went into port, I remained almost constantly with the fleet. We had one enemy—France—and not the myriad of enemies innocent people attract, sometimes in the course of everyday business on land, or so I suspect. My sisters have never understood why I prefer the sea.’

‘Surely there are scoundrels at sea—I mean, in addition to the French,’ she said.

‘Of course there are, Mrs P. The world is full of them. It’s given me great satisfaction to hang a few.’

She couldn’t help herself; she shuddered.

‘They deserved it. The hangings never cost me any sleep, because I made damned sure they were guilty.’ He looked into her eyes. ‘Mrs Paul, I cannot deny that I enjoyed the power, but I have never intentionally wronged anyone.’

Too bad you were not on the Admiralty court that convicted my husband, she thought. Or would you have heard the evidence and convicted, too? She knew there was no way of knowing. She had not been allowed in the chambers. Best put it to rest.

‘I have the skills to manage your household,’ she told him, when he had resumed eating. ‘I’m quite frugal, you know.’

‘With a charming brogue betraying your origins, could you be anything else?’

‘Now, sir, you know that is a stereotype!’ she scolded. ‘My own father hadn’t a clue what to do with a shilling, and he could outroll my rrr’s any day.’ She smiled at the admiral, liking the way he picked up his napkin with the hook and wiped his lips. ‘But I am good with funds.’

‘So am I, Mrs P.,’ he said, putting down the napkin. ‘Napoleon has made me rich, so you needn’t squeeze the shillings so hard that they beg for mercy! I’ll see that you have a good allowance, too.’

‘That isn’t necessary,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ve done with so little for so long that I probably wouldn’t know what to do with an allowance.’

He looked at his timepiece. ‘Past my bedtime. Call it a bribe then, Mrs P. Wait until you see the estate I am foisting on you!’ He grew serious quickly. ‘There is plenty of money for coal, though.’ With his hook, he casually twirled a lock of her hair that had come loose. ‘I think your fortunes have turned, my dear.’

It was funny. The hook was so close to her face, but she felt no urge to flinch. She reached up and touched it, twining the curl further around it.

‘My hook doesn’t disgust you?’ he asked, startled.

‘Heavens, no,’ she replied. ‘How did you lose your hand? And, no, I’m not going to be frippery again and suggest you were careless.’

He pulled his hook through the curl, patted it against her cheek and grinned at her. ‘You do have a mouth on you, Mrs Paul. Most people are so cowed by my admiralness that I find them dull.’

‘I am not among them, I suppose. After your taradiddle about being my cousin, I think you are probably as faulty and frail as most of humanity.’ She sat back, amazed at herself for such a forthright utterance. She had never spoken to Andrew that way, but something about Charles Bright made him a conversational wellspring as challenging as he was fun to listen to.

‘Touché!’ He looked down at his hook. ‘I was but a first mate when this happened, so it has been years since I’ve had ten fingernails to trim.’

She laughed. ‘Think of the economy!’

He rolled his eyes at her. ‘There you go again, being a Scot.’

‘Guilty as charged, Admiral.’

‘I wish I could tell you it was some battle where England’s fate hung in the balance, but it was a training accident. We were engaged in target practice off the coast of Brazil when one of my guns exploded. Since it was my gun crew, I went to lend a hand.’ He made a face. ‘Poor choice of words! The pulley rope that yanks the gun back after discharge was tangled. I untangled it at the same time it came loose. Pinched off my left hand so fast I didn’t know it had happened, until the powder monkey mentioned that I was spouting. Mrs P, don’t get all pale on me. We had an excellent surgeon on board, almost as talented as the smithy who built me my first hook.’

‘You never thought about leaving the navy?’

‘Over a hand? Really, madam.’

‘How do you keep it on?’

She was hard put to define his expression then. She could have sworn there was something close to gratitude in his eyes, as though he was pleased she cared enough to ask such a forwards question.

‘Apart from eight-year-old boys, you’re the first person who ever asked.’

‘I’m curious.’

‘I’ll show you later. There’s a leather contraption that crosses my chest and anchors to my neck.’ As she watched, he tilted his head, pulled at his neckcloth and exposed a thin strap. ‘See? If ever my steward is gone or busy, you might have to help me get out of it. Are you any good at tying neckcloths?’

‘I’ve tied a few,’ she said.

‘Good. You might have to tie more. Beyond that, I’m not too helpless.’

‘Helpless is not a word I would ever use in the same breath with your admiralness.’

‘What a relief that is, Mrs P,’ he said. ‘Where were we?’

‘Something about you?’

‘Ah, yes. I was born forty-five years ago in Bristol. My father was a successful barrister who could not understand why I wanted to go to sea. He made arrangements and I shipped aboard as a young gentleman at the age of ten. My older sisters are Frances—I call her Fan, or Fannie—and Dora, who follows where Fannie leads. Both married well and both have outlived their husbands, which means I am ripe for meddling from them.’ He shuddered elaborately.

‘Any interesting avocations, now that you are retired?’

‘Not yet. Mrs Paul, your eyelids are drooping.’ He stood up. ‘I will retire now and leave you to your chamber. Do you think nine of the clock tomorrow morning is too early to bother the vicar at St Andrew’s?’

‘I should think not.’ She looked up at him, a frown on her face. ‘You don’t have to go through with this, you know.’

‘I believe I do.’ He bent down then, and she thought for one moment he was going to kiss her. Instead, he rubbed his cheek against hers, and she smiled to feel whiskers against her face. It had been so long. ‘Mrs Paul, you need help and I need a wife. I promise you I will cause you no anxiety or ever force myself on you without your utmost consent and enthusiasm, should you or I ever advance this marriage into something more…well, what…visceral. Is that plain enough?’

It was. She nodded. Then he did kiss her, but only her cheek.

‘Very well, then, Admiral. I will be an extraordinarily excellent wife.’

‘I rather thought so,’ he said as he went to the door and gave her a little bow. She laughed when he kissed his hook and blew in her direction, then left the room.

‘You are certainly an original,’ she said quietly. She sat at the table a few minutes longer, eating one of the remaining plums, then just looking at the food. It was only the smallest kind of stopgap between actual dinner and breakfast, but she had not seen so much food in front of her in years. ‘What a strange day this has been, Admiral,’ she whispered.

She didn’t sleep a wink, but hadn’t thought she would, considering the strangeness of her situation. She spent much of the night debating whether to tell her future husband that her married name was Daviess, but decided against it, as dawn broke. He knew her as Mrs Paul, and what difference could it make? She had resolved several years ago not to look back.

When the ’tween-stairs girl made a fire in the grate and brought a can of hot water, Sally asked for a bath, hoping the admiral wouldn’t object to the added expense on his bill. When the tub and water came, she sank into it with pleasure.

She left the tub after the water cooled. With a towel wrapped around her, she pulled out the pasteboard folder from her valise and extracted her copy of the marriage lines to Andrew Daviess, and his death certificate, reading again the severe line: ‘Death by own hand.’ Poor, dear man. ‘Andrew, why didn’t you think it through one more time?’ she asked the document. ‘We could have emigrated to Canada, or even the United States.’

With a sigh, she dried herself off and stood a moment in front of the coal fire. The towel fell to the floor and she stood there naked until she felt capable of movement. She looked in the mirror, fingering her stretch marks and frowning over her ribs in high relief when she raised her arms. ‘Sally, you’ll eat better at Admiral Bright’s estate,’ she told her reflection. ‘You are just an empty sack now.’

She was in no mood to begin a marriage with someone she did not know, but there didn’t seem to be anything else to do. She dressed quickly, wishing she had a better garment for the occasion. She shook out a muslin dress from the valise, one she had worn many times, and took it and the pasteboard folder downstairs. She left the dress with the parlour maid, asking that someone iron it for her, then let herself out of the Drake.

It was still early; no one was about in the street except fishmongers and victuallers hauling kegs of food on wheel-barrows. From her life in Portsmouth as Andrew Daviess’s wife, she knew he had been efficient in his profession, even up to the shocking day he was accused by the Admiralty of felony and manslaughter in knowingly loading bad food aboard ships. In the months of suspended animation that followed, she had seen him shaking his head over and over at the venality of his superior, whom he suspected of doctoring the all-important and lucrative accounts to make the errors Andrew’s alone. He could prove nothing, of course, because his superior had moved too fast.

And finally Andrew could take it no longer, hanging himself from a beam in their carriage house, empty of horses since they could no longer afford them and pay a barrister, too. He left no note to her, but only one he had sent to the Lord Admiral proclaiming his innocence, even as his suicide seemed to mock his words.

Now the whole matter was over and done. She knew that by marrying the admiral, who had no idea what a kettle of fish he had inherited and with any luck never would, her life with Andrew Daviess was irrevocably over.

When she arrived at St Andrew’s, the vicar was concluding the earliest service. She approached him when he finished, explaining that in another hour, she and a gentleman would be returning with a special licence.

‘I am a widow, sir,’ she said, handing him the pasteboard folder. ‘Here are my earlier marriage lines and my late husband’s death certificate. Is there anything else you need from me?’

The old man took the folder and looked inside. ‘Sophia Paul Daviess, spinster from Dundrennan, Kirkcudbright-shire, Scotland, age twenty-two years, 1806’. He looked at Andrew’s death certificate, shaking his head, so she knew he had read the part about ‘Death by his own hand’. He handed the document back. ‘A sad affair, Mrs Daviess.’

‘It was.’

‘And now you are marrying again. I wish you all success, madam.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ She hesitated. ‘For reasons which you must appreciate, I have been using my maiden name, rather than my married name.’

He walked with her to the door. ‘I can imagine there has been some stigma to a suicide, Mrs Paul.’

If you only knew, she thought. ‘There has been,’ was all she said.

‘Those days appear to be ending. I’ll look forwards to seeing you again in an hour.’ The vicar held out his hand. ‘If you wish, I can enter this information in the registry right now, so you needn’t be reminded of it during this next wedding.’

It was precisely what she wanted. ‘Thank you, sir.’

As she returned to the Drake, she looked up to the first storey and saw the admiral looking out. He waved to her and she waved back, wondering how long he had been watching and if he had seen her leave the hotel.

When she came up the stairs to the first floor, he opened his door. ‘You gave me a fright, Mrs Paul, when I knocked on your door and you weren’t there. I reckoned you had gone the way of The Mouse, and that would have been more than my fragile esteem could manage.’

‘Oh, no, sir. I would not go back on my word, once given,’ she assured him.

‘I thought as much,’ he said, ‘especially after the ’tween-stairs maid said you had left a dress belowdeck to be ironed.’ He thumped his chest with his hook, which made Sally smile. ‘What a relief.’

‘I went ahead to the church with my marriage lines and Andrew’s death certificate. I thought he might want to see them and perhaps record them. Such proved to be the case.’

‘So efficient, Mrs Paul,’ he murmured. ‘I shall be spoiled.’

Not so much efficient as ashamed for you to see that certificate, she thought. Oh, seek a lighter subject, Sally. ‘That’s it, sir. I will spoil you like my old ladies—prunes in massive amounts, thoroughly soaked for easy chewing, and at least a chapter a day of some improving literature such as, such as…’

‘I know: “The prevention of self-abuse during long sea voyages”,’ he joked, then held up his hand to ward off her open-mouthed, wide-eyed stare. ‘I do not joke, Mrs P! You would be amazed what do-gooders in the vicinity of the fleet think is important.’

She laughed out loud, then covered her mouth in embarrassment that she even knew what he was talking about.

‘I was a frigate captain then. I preserved a copy of that remarkable document and asked all my wardroom mates to sign it. The purser even added some salacious illustrations, so perhaps I will not let you see it until you are forty or fifty, at least.’

She couldn’t think of a single retort.

‘What? No witty comeback?’ There was no denying the triumph in his eyes.

‘Not to that, sir,’ she admitted. ‘Perhaps I will not read you improving chapters of anything.’

She was spared further embarrassment by the ’tween-stairs maid, who brought her ironed dress upstairs and shyly handed it to her. Admiral Bright gave the little girl a few coins before she left.

Sally went into her own room and put on the dress, but not before wishing it would magically turn into a gown of magnificent proportions. Just as well it does not, she scolded herself as she attempted to button up the back. I don’t have the bosom to hold it up right now.

She also remembered why she hadn’t worn the dress in ages. By twisting around, she managed to do up the lower and upper buttons, but the ones in the middle were out of reach. She stood in silence, then realised there was nothing to do but enlist the admiral. She knocked on the door. She felt the blush leap to her face, even as she scolded herself for such missish behaviour, considering that in less than an hour, she was going to marry this man.

‘Admiral, can you possibly tackle the buttons in the middle of this dratted dress? Either that, or call back the ’tween-stairs maid.’ She looked at his hook and frowned. ‘Oh, dear. I forgot.’

Admiral Bright was obviously made of sterner stuff. He came into her room and closed the door behind him. ‘What? You think I cannot accomplish this simple task? Who on earth do you think buttons my trousers every morning? Turn around and prepare to be amazed.’

She did as he said, her cheeks on fire. He pressed the flat curve on his hook against her back to anchor the fabric, then pushed each button through, his knuckles light against her bare skin.

‘No applause needed,’ he said. ‘Turn around and stop being so embarrassed.’

She did as he said. ‘You’re going to wish The Mouse had showed up.’

‘No, indeed, madam. I have something for you, and you will have to manage this yourself.’

He took a small sack out of his coat front and handed it to her. ‘I got this in India. It should look especially nice against that light blue fabric.’

Holding her breath, Sally took out a gold chain with a single ruby on it.

‘You can breathe, Mrs Paul,’ he advised. She could tell by his voice how pleased he was with her reaction.

‘I wish I had something for you,’ she whispered as she turned the necklace over in her hand.

‘Considering that this time yesterday, you thought you were going to be tending an old lady with skinflint relatives, I am hardly surprised. Come, come. Put it on. I can’t help you with the clasp.’

She did as he said, clasping the fiery little gem about her neck where it hung against her breast bone. Suddenly, the old dress didn’t seem so ordinary. She couldn’t even feel the place in her shoes where the leather had worn through.

‘It’s not very big, but I always admired the fire in that little package,’ he told her, half in apology, partly in pride.

She could feel the admiral surveying her, and she raised her chin a little higher, convinced she could pass any muster, short of a presentation at court. All because of a little ruby necklace. She touched it, then looked at Admiral Bright. ‘You deserve someone far more exciting than me,’ she said.

He surprised her by not uttering a single witticism, he whom she already knew possessed many. ‘You’ll do, Sally Paul,’ he said gruffly and offered her his arm. ‘Let’s get spliced. A ruby is small potatoes, compared to the favour you’re doing me of shielding me for evermore from my sisters!’