Sails on the Horizon: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars (10 page)

“We wrote to you immediately after he passed,” Ellie repeated defensively.

Charles tried to compose himself. He didn’t want to distress his sister. “Mail at sea can take a long time, if it gets there at all,” he said with forced cheerfulness. “How are things at home?”

“It’s just John and me now,” Ellie responded. “John’s a little overwhelmed, I think.” John Edgemont, the oldest at thirty-one and unmarried, would be the head of the household now. Charles had two other older brothers, both with the army in India, and an older sister who’d married a solicitor and moved to Liverpool, where she was steadily producing children.

A question stuck in Charles’s mind, but he didn’t know exactly how to put it. “How come you didn’t meet me with the carriage? Why this old cart?”

Ellie sat silent for a moment. “We haven’t a carriage anymore. It was sold along with almost all the horses and other things. Most of the servants were also let go.”

“Why?” Charles asked. The family income derived from land. Edgemont Hall was an estate of some two thousand acres, the arable parts of which were let out in lots to crofters, small farmers, and herdsmen, who paid their rents in kind. It was an arrangement that had provided the Edgemont clan with a comfortable and largely unchanged living for centuries.

“I don’t know,” Ellie said stoically. “When Father died, we found that there was no money, only debts, lots of debts. John inherited, of course. He had to sell things and cut costs to keep the land. I think he said that it had to do with the tenants leaving or something.”

Presently the wagon clattered through the village of Tattenall in the failing light, with its dimly lit cottage windows and the welcome smell of wood cooking fires. A little past the old square-towered church and the market square, they turned up the drive toward Edgemont Hall. The house was brightly lighted on the ground floor, and John Edgemont, a large, florid man with a receding hairline, immediately came out to greet them. Charles thought his brother looked old, and his face was lined with care. The money problems he’d inherited from their father probably contributed to that. John embraced Charles with a great bear hug and then set him down. “I read about St. Vincent in the
Gazette.
I want to know everything,” he said warmly. “But not until you’ve had a chance to settle in.” Charles introduced Attwater, who said, “How d’you do, squire,” and bowed.

At dinner, served by the lone remaining maid, the talk was about Charles’s years on the
Argonaut,
the places he had been, and the battle off Cape St. Vincent. He told and retold the story of his part in the battle and of his conversations afterward, especially with Nelson, as if he didn’t quite believe it himself. After the dishes were cleared he made his way upstairs to his old room, where Attwater helped him prepare for bed.

“Have you eaten?” Charles asked.

“Yes, sir, I had dinner in the kitchen.”

“Have you found a place to sleep?”

“Oh, yes, sir. There’s plenty of room in the servants’ quarters.” With that Attwater blew out the lamp and closed the door behind him.

CHARLES FOUND HIMSELF
awake before dawn the next morning. He dressed in rough civilian clothing that had been set aside for him, found an old broadcloth jacket, and slipped quietly from the house. The early light filtered shyly through low gray clouds as he walked soberly around the grounds, noting how the house and other buildings had fallen into disrepair. Inside the stable he found only the aging mare that had pulled them from Handley. Outside, he stopped to remember how foreign it had all seemed when his family first arrived from Philadelphia, and when he had played with his brothers in that large elm tree and how that path led to the pond where he had once built a raft that sank under him. And there was a hedgerow he and his father had spent a full day planting together; it was now overgrown and untended. They were largely warm memories of a pleasant time and place. Presently he turned from the house and started down the lane toward the village.

Almost immediately he saw a figure emerge from a wood on the left. A bent, elderly man looked up and down the way, then froze on seeing Charles and quickly moved the limp forms of two hares behind his back.

“Mornin’, governor,” the man said, bowing and lifting his hat apprehensively as Charles approached. One arm and its bounty remained mostly hidden.

Charles thought he recognized the stooped figure as someone from his childhood and struggled to place him. “Good morning. Tate, isn’t it?”

The man gave a toothless grin and nodded. “Ye remembered, sir. I doubted ye would. Ye wa’ only belt-high then.”

Robert Tate had been in the employ of Charles’s father and managed the stables on the Edgemont estate. He had taught Charles to ride and a few other things besides, animal trapping being one of them. “Had a profitable morning?” he asked, nodding at the arm Tate still held behind his back.

“Aye, fair to tolerable,” Tate answered, bringing out his catch without a hind of remorse that he had clearly been caught poaching. “And ye, young master Charles, how do ye find life asea?”

They talked in a friendly, intimate way, standing in the lane for a time recalling younger days in both their lives. Tate had mostly retired from his stable manager’s position years before Charles’s father died and the horses were sold, but he still lived in a small cottage on the estate.

“I must be getting on home, sir. The missus will be wondering,” the old man said finally. “Take care in the navvy. I ken it’s a hard life.”

“How is Betsy?” Charles asked. He remembered her as a large, good-hearted woman, frequently found in the Edgemont kitchen, who usually had a secret sweet or a piece of pie for him whenever he appeared.

“Oh, not very spry, sir. But still herself, if ye takes my meanin’. She gets nervous if I’m away too long.”

“Well, remember me fondly to her. You take care, too, Tate. And mind no one catches you with those hares.”

“Aye, sir,” Tate grinned. “Never ye worry. I’m as deft as ever I wa’.”

The men parted with a handshake and Charles continued on toward the village. As he came closer, he saw that a few of the crofters’ cottages stood empty, with their doors ajar, and there were occasional pigs rooting in untended fields. Other fields were newly plowed, ready for the spring planting of barley, corn, and oats. Above most of the cottages he saw the smoke of cooking fires from chimneys as families began to start the day. Here and there individuals emerged sleepily outside to collect firewood or to take care of more personal business. Those that noticed him stared curiously. A few nodded in greeting or touched their foreheads and he nodded or waved in return. After a time Charles turned and started home in a contemplative mood, noticing the hazy greens of early spring growth beginning on the tips of the birch trees.

He found his brother at the kitchen table, with Attwater by the stove. The maid, a stick-thin, graying, middle-aged woman who had been with the family for as long as Charles could remember, stood nearby with a stern look on her face, her arms folded across her chest. Apparently there had been a discussion about who would do the cooking and Attwater had prevailed. John sat looking pained and slightly flustered while the older man tinkered with the flue on the stove to try to get some of the smoke out of the room.

“Your man can be very stubborn,” he said as Charles seated himself at the table.

“Yes, I’ve learned that it’s best not to argue with him.” Then to Attwater Charles said, “I didn’t know you could cook. What’s for breakfast?”

“Eggs and coffee, sir. ’E says there ain’t no—isn’t no bacon,” Attwater responded, beaming. “I fetched the eggs from the coop down the lane. The coffee’s from your stores.”

“We don’t have a hen coop,” the maid said acidly. “He stole them from the Bridgetons. They’ll have to be paid.”

“Fine,” Charles said absently, his mind on what he’d seen that morning and Ellie’s talk of money problems the day before. He turned to his brother. “How bad is it?” he asked. “Ellie mentioned something about Father’s debts.”

John looked uncomfortable. “It’s not your problem,” he said quickly. “We’ll be all right given a little time.”

“How much time?” Charles asked. John’s shoulders slumped in a gesture of resignation. “Father accumulated a fair amount of debt over the past several years. Some of it was from speculating on corn prices, some was borrowing for the upkeep of the house, other things. He tried raising the crofters’ rents to pay the interest. When the price of feed fell, he had to borrow more. He was very ill toward the end, probably from the worry. I suspected something was wrong but didn’t really learn how wrong until after he died.”

“And now?” Charles asked, watching his brother carefully. He wanted to help, he was certainly able to help, but the offer had to be made tactfully.

John steepled his fingers and pressed them against his chin. “I’ve mortgaged the property, paid off some of it, and renegotiated the rest. Still, there are payments coming due that I may not be able to cover.” He looked directly at Charles. “I can’t raise the rents any higher. Some are leaving as it is. I may have to sell part of the land.”

“How much do you need?” Charles asked.

John eyed him skeptically. “It’s not your problem,” he repeated.

“Still,” Charles persisted, “how much? I came into some money as a result of St. Vincent. I will happily give or lend you whatever you want.”

Attwater placed plates piled high with a yellowish mess, somehow both gooey and charred, that might have been cooked eggs in front of each of the men, then added two lumps of dark bread and steaming mugs of strong-smelling coffee. “We don’t have almost no coffee left,” he announced.

“You can go into the village and get some,” Charles said, still watching his brother.

John stared incredulously at the plate in front of him before turning to Charles. “Fifty pounds is due at the end of the month,” he said finally. “I can probably pull together twenty. Would the balance be too much for you?”

“I think I can do that,” Charles said. “What’s the total amount owing?”

“It’s an awful lot. Almost a thousand pounds. But I’m not asking—”

“You’d have to sell a lot of land,” Charles observed.

“It’s worse than that. Land prices are down. There’s a number of nearby estates up for sale already, including the Howell land on the other side of the village—the old hall, crofts, pastures and all. My God, if father had left any money, I’d buy the lot.”

“All right,” Charles said, several thoughts competing, “how about I give you the thousand pounds and say about a hundred extra to fix up the house and outbuildings. I’ll lend it to you if you like, but I don’t care when you pay me back.”

John sat up straight in his chair. “Can you do that?”

“Actually, I can do it fairly easily,” Charles answered. “But I may want to ask a favor of you in return.”

“Anything. What?”

“I don’t know yet. But rest comfortably, I’ll think of something.” Actually, Charles did have the beginnings of an idea.

At that moment Ellie entered, sleepily and prettily, into the kitchen. Attwater promptly placed an overflowing plate of egglike substance on the table in front of her, her own bread, and a mug of coffee. “I don’t drink coffee,” she said immediately, “and I can’t possibly eat all this—whatever it is. I’ll be as fat as a cow.”

“Of course you can, miss,” Attwater said cheerfully. “It’ll put ’air on your chest.”

With that image fixed firmly in his mind, Charles rose from the table, grabbed his jacket, and left the room, patting his sister on the head as he went. “Great thick mats of hair,” he said as he disappeared out the door.

That morning he saddled the aging mare and rode through Tattenall to look at the Howell land and buildings. He spent a great deal of time, given the horse’s plodding, swaying gait, traversing the narrow cart-paths that connected the crofters’ plots. At the boarded-up manor house, larger but in worse repair than Edgemont, he dismounted and carefully inspected everything he could see from the outside. Once a handsome and well-proportioned structure, it was now covered with vines and tending to decay. The owners had died, and the eldest son lived in London—preferring cash, John had told him. Charles let his idea simmer the rest of the day. That evening he wrote a long letter to Thaddeus Edwards in London.

The next morning, at Attwater’s bread-and-mounds-of-eggs breakfast, Charles announced that he wished to borrow the horse and wagon for a trip into Chester. Attwater would accompany him.

“What are we going to the city for?” Attwater asked a little grumpily. Charles suspected he was enjoying himself in the quiet of the country, with his new role as butler, cook, and head servant all rolled into one.

“I want to open an account at the bank and buy a few things,” Charles answered.

“We need coffee,” Attwater promptly stated. “They ain’t, aren’t got none in the village.”

“Things and coffee,” Charles agreed equitably.

“What sort of things?” Ellie asked, poking at the top of her pile of egg.

“It will be a surprise. Who knows?” Charles answered.

He and Attwater took the well-worn track back to Handley to the King’s Highway, not because it was shorter, but because it was easier on the horse and cart. Eight miles and three hours later they crossed the ancient six-arched stone bridge over the River Dee, through the newly rebuilt Bridgegate piercing the walls, and into the city. The Dee was the traditional boundary between northern Wales and northwestern England, and Chester derived some of her commerce from the trade between the two. Most of the rest was seaborne trade with Ireland, particularly leather goods and linens. He went to a banking establishment near the cathedral and presented Mr. Edwards’s check. The manager came out immediately, and within half an hour Charles was back in the street with an account at the bank and a fair amount in cash. He took Attwater to a sixpenny ordinary for lunch and afterward to the stockyards adjacent to the city. There, after much inspecting and haggling, he purchased a dappled gelding as a present for Ellie, two young matched chestnut mares, and a magnificent, heavily muscled dark-brown stallion of seventeen hands. Another stop got him a sturdy four-wheeled country carriage for the mares, rather prettily got up in black-and-green paint, and the location of a nearby saddlery. By midafternoon he left Attwater with ample money to purchase whatever he thought necessary in the way of supplies for the house. He also entrusted to him the gelding and mares, the carriage and the cart, and instructions that he should take his time shopping, sleep the night at an inn, and return to Tattenall in the morning, with the nag and cart tethered behind the carriage and the gelding to the cart.