Any Approaching Enemy: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars (12 page)

“Good,” Charles said, then yelled, “Mr. Beechum.”

“Yes, sir?” the midshipman said, arriving at a run.

“You will go down into the gig and escort Miss Bridges over to
Pylades.
She is to deliver an invitation to Commander Bevan to dine on board this evening. You may leave her there if she pleases; Bevan will bring her back.” That, Charles thought, should occupy Molly for a suitable amount of time.

“Yes, sir,” Beechum answered, and started over the side.

“Come,” Charles said to Penny, risen from the chair and smoothing out her dress. “If we’re lucky, we can claim some time for ourselves. The luggage will find its way on board presently.”

She looked at him speculatively, nodded, and followed toward his cabin.

“Attwater!” Charles called as soon as they were inside and the door behind them had closed.

“Sir,” the steward answered, sticking his head out from Charles’s sleeping cabin. “I was just making up your new cot.”

“Is it all done?”

“Yes, sir. It’s as good as new.”

Charles wanted to say “It is new,” but it would take too much time. “Mrs. Edgemont and I will be entertaining Lieutenant Winchester, Commander Bevan, and Miss Bridges at supper this evening. As soon as the gig returns, I want you to go into the town to purchase provisions, especially fresh meat and fresh vegetables, and anything else you think we might need. Feel free to take your time, and make a thorough job of it.” He opened a drawer in his desk, took up his purse, and removed a number of coins. “Beechum has taken the gig to
Pylades.
He’ll be back in the blink of an eye. You may wait on deck.” Pressing the money into Attwater’s palm, he practically pushed him out of the cabin.

Then Charles turned and leaned against the closed door. Penny, he saw, had removed her bonnet, and her hair fell in silken waves around her shoulders. His heart began to hammer in his breast. She watched him with a small smile on her lips and a glow in her eyes. “There,” he said, “that should serve.” He crossed and took her in his arms.

“Thou art certain?” she said softly, her finger pulling at his collar, her lips moistening the flesh on his neck.

“Just one minute,” Charles said, abruptly releasing her. He opened the cabin door and addressed the marine sentry standing outside. “No one, I repeat, no one, is to pass through this door until I tell you otherwise,” he said in his sternest voice. “Send them to Lieutenant Winchester.”

“Yes, sir,” the startled marine said, “but what if the harbor is attacked?”

“Oh, all right. If the harbor is attacked or if the ship is sinking. But that’s it.”

“Not for fire, sir, or mutiny, sir?”

Charles regretted that he was not at that moment armed. “For a fire, you may knock softly,” he said, “but the mutineers will have to work it out for themselves.” He firmly closed the door.

ATTWATER RETURNED IN the late afternoon, just at the beginning of the first dog watch. Charles had the pleasure of listening through the thin bulkhead as his steward argued loudly with the sentry about whether or not, and why or why not, he shouldn’t be allowed in the cabin. Penny lay next to Charles, her flesh warm against his side. He didn’t know if she was asleep or simply enjoying the comfort of the moment. With a sigh, he pushed himself up onto his elbow and kissed her forehead. Her eyes flickered open and she smiled.

“Only the wicked may lie abed in the afternoon,” he said, sitting upright.

“I know,” she answered, and pulled the sheet up over her shoulders.

Charles rose and pulled on his clothing piece by piece as he found it scattered in the corners of the small room. He went out through the main cabin and opened the door. “It’s all right, Mr. Attwater may enter,” he said to the sentry. “Everything is back to normal.”

“Which I ain’t never,” Attwater began, clearly agitated. “Didn’t I not spend near ’alf the day bitterly ’aggling with Eyetalianos which was trying to steal you blind?” he remonstrated. “And strike me dead if I don’t spend the other ’alf fixing your cabin special for your missus. This is all the thanks I get? Being barred from my own domain? And I’ve still the ladies’ chests to deal with, ’aven’t I.”

“Did you find any good wines?” Charles asked.

Attwater’s expression brightened. “Oh, yes, sir,” he answered. “Both reds and whites and pinks. Six cases. They’re all good. Didn’t I sample them.”

“A man couldn’t ask for a better steward,” Charles said. “Now, Mrs. Edgemont is lying down for a rest. If you would be so kind as to see that it’s quiet, and keep well away from the sleeping cabin.”

“Of course, sir,” Attwater said with a knowing wink, “if you had only told me.”

Charles pulled on his undress uniform coat and went on deck to find Winchester and make sure that the ship hadn’t caught fire and there was no mutiny. “Anything happen while I was below?” he asked.

“All’s well,” Winchester answered, then nodded forward. Charles made out the form of Lieutenant Jacob Talmage standing stiffly on the larboard side of the forecastle, looking out over the harbor.

Charles said, “We are having a special supper tonight in my cabin. Daniel is coming, I was hoping you would grace us with your presence.”

“Honored,” Winchester said.

“Do you think I should invite Talmage?”

Winchester shook his head. “I would not advise it,” he said. “I spoke with him this morning, and he asked me to relay a message. This is the first opportunity I’ve had.”

“Yes?”

“He knows that we are trailing Nelson and asks that when we find him, if you would arrange his transfer to one of the other ships.”

“He probably doesn’t have the seniority to be first on one of the seventy-fours,” Charles said.

“I don’t think that matters anymore. I do think it would be for the best.”

“Nelson might send someone in exchange who is senior to you. I’m more than content with you as my first.”

“Thank you, but that prospect doesn’t trouble me.”

“All right,” Charles said, “tell Mr. Talmage that I will be pleased to recommend him for transfer at the earliest suitable opportunity.”

“Without prejudice?” Winchester asked.

“All right, without prejudice,” Charles answered reluctantly.

DANIEL BEVAN AND Molly Bridges were rowed over from Pylades with the fading light of the day. Charles went to the side to greet his friend as he climbed aboard.

“Welcome,” he said. “How has your day been?”

“I don’t know, Charlie,” Bevan answered. “It could be worse, I suppose.”

Charles had expected a warmer response, especially as he had sent Molly over for what must have been a surprise visit. Bevan, he thought, looked grave. The two men stood silently as Molly was hoisted aboard. No one spoke as they started aft toward the quarterdeck. Charles noted that Molly seemed not to have a hair out of place. He assumed that their reunion had not been one of rapturous bliss.

Penny stood at the head of the ladderway to the quarterdeck and greeted Bevan warmly but sympathetically, barely glancing at Molly. She knew something, Charles decided. What?

The two couples drifted toward the starboard rail, where a large gold-red sun slowly dipped into the Tyrrhenian Sea, lighting the underside of the few clouds a radiant orange. Penny stood close beside Charles, her arm in his. Bevan and Molly also stood together, leaning against the rail, closely but not close enough to touch.

As the last of the sun slipped below the sea’s surface and the scattered lights of Naples began to shimmer across the ink-blue water of the harbor, Charles suggested they go below and nodded to Winchester near the binnacle to follow.

Attwater had laid a full table in Charles’s cabin, and several of the ship’s boys were shuttling back and forth between the pantry and the sideboard and the table. The two women were helped into chairs, and the three men seated themselves. The tension between Bevan and Molly seemed to fill the low-ceilinged room.

“A toast,” Charles said, raising a glass of Attwater’s pink wine, “to unexpected gifts.”

“That’s enigmatic,” Bevan said, but smiling for the first time.

“I refer,” Charles said, “to the arrival of Penny and Molly, and Ellie’s greater gift to Winchester.”

“I am in full accord with the first,” Bevan said. “What did Stephen receive?”

“Siredom,” Charles answered. “A man’s greatest achievement.”

Bevan broke into a wide smile. “Congratulations, Stephen,” he said. “What name?”

With at least some of the ice broken, the supper became more convivial. Charles cast occasional glances at Molly, who spoke infrequently. She attended to that which went on around her, occasionally smiling weakly, but ate little and did not touch her drink. She did not speak to Bevan at all, although she frequently glanced in his direction. Charles slowly settled on the speculation that Molly had insisted she had moved beyond her past and Bevan had found himself caught between affection for her and the understandable belief that people would always be who they had been. Charles himself was perplexed.

The courses came and went, the men’s glasses were refilled, conversation lapsed and started with comfortable silences in between. Charles watched and contemplated.

“Thou art fallen silent,” Penny said after a time, laying her hand over his.

“Content,” Charles said, “and curious.”

“About Molly?”

Charles nodded. “And Bevan,” he said.

Penny put her mouth close to his ear. “Molly is at a turning place,” she whispered.

As the last of the plates were cleared away, Penny announced that she and Molly had brought gifts from Cheshire. Charles stared as his wife nodded to Attwater. The steward brought forth a medium-sized box and placed it before Charles. Opening it, he found a dozen jars of preserved fruit jams, neatly labeled as apple, blackberry, quince, and cherry.

“I made them myself for my love,” Penny said happily, “so that he will not forget me.”

“I could never forget you,” Charles said, and kissed her cheek. “And now especially not at breakfast.”

A large envelope was brought out for Winchester, with three smaller envelopes inside. One was a letter from Ellie; the other two contained locks of hair—one rich and auburn, the other short, thin, and blond. Charles saw the normally reserved Winchester swallow hard as he rubbed the strands between his fingers.

Everyone seemed content and took a moment to examine the gifts. Charles noticed Molly nibbling anxiously at her lip.

“There is more,” Penny said. “They are from Molly, by her own hand.” She gestured to her companion to deliver the gifts herself. Molly rose reluctantly, avoiding everyone’s eyes. She went over to her chest and came back with three neatly wrapped page-sized squares. The first she laid on the table in front of Stephen Winchester.

“What’s this?” Winchester said as he carefully removed the wrapping and held in his hands an intricately executed pen-and-ink rendering of a woman holding an infant against her breast. Charles leaned across Penny to look more closely. “My God,” he said. The woman was instantly recognizable as his sister Ellie, Winchester’s wife, wearing an expression of quiet maternal affection. Charles thought it possibly the most touching thing he had ever seen.

“Thank you,” Winchester said, his voice gone hoarse. “It’s beautiful, truly beautiful.”

With more confidence, Molly placed the second in front of Charles. He unpeeled the wrapping and looked on the face of his wife, from the shoulders up. She wore a particular smile, and her eyes seemed to look into his own. It took his breath away. “I don’t know what to say,” he said.

“Didn’t Penny go on about having to sit all that time then,” Molly said, a true smile on her face, the first Charles could remember since she’d come on board. The smile vanished as she fingered the third and final square. Hesitantly, she lay it on the table in front of Daniel Bevan. Then she sat and watched his face.

Bevan picked up the package by its edges as if it might bite him. He glanced for an instant at Molly, then carefully folded back the covering. The drawing was of Molly herself, seated in front of an easel, her pen raised. She wore a tasteful and modest dress and an expression of serenity and concentration. It was a perfect representation, Charles thought, of Molly as she had become, without the road she had trod to get there.

Bevan sat stone-faced, staring at the likeness. “I never knew,” he said seriously. Looking up at her, he repeated, “I didn’t know.”

“Do you like it?” Molly asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

“Yes. Very much.” A strained silence followed.

“Tell us, Molly,” Charles said, breaking the quiet, “how you found this talent.”

“Ain’t I pleased to.” Molly smiled, as if grateful for the interruption. “I never had a paper or a pen before, so I didn’t know, either. But don’t Penny practice with me on my sums and such. One day I was distracted, like, and began to scribble on the back of an old page a likeness of herself with my pencil. Well, she took it, and looked at it careful, and said it weren’t awful.”

“I did not,” Penny protested.

Molly laughed. “You as good as did,” she said. “The next day, didn’t you take me into Chester to buy some fresh paper and special pens and ink. She looks over everything I did.”

“Tell them about the book,” Penny said.

Molly looked almost shy again. “One day she comes to me with a book, a big book what she ordered from a shop. We read it together every day. There are examples for me to copy out and exercises to do, and she judges them.”

“I confess myself amazed,” Charles said. “I’ve never known anyone with such an ability.” He looked back down at his picture of Penny, noting the details around the corners of her mouth and eyes, the fine line of her nose.

“And didn’t she make me promise to do one of each of you before we go,” Molly answered with a grin. “Won’t you hate sitting still for it.”

Charles heard the ship’s bell on the deck above their heads ring. He counted the strokes up to seven. The clock by his desk, which was not especially accurate, read eleven-fifteen. Either way, it was rapidly crowding on midnight. “Stephen,” he said, “if you would toast the king.”

Soon the room cleared, Winchester to his own cabin, where he would sleep for four hours until he stood the morning watch. Penny and Molly disappeared into Charles’s sleeping cabin, and Charles accompanied Bevan outside to see him off.