The Blighted Cliffs (32 page)

I
had just asked a girl to dance and been rebuffed - the gentility of
course had their daughters pinned onto their dance-cards like
butterflies to protect them from rakes like me - when I heard a voice
calling me. I turned, and for a moment did not recognize her in her
high-throated gown, as modest as her previous dress had been
scandalous. Though curiously, this was the more alluring.

'Lady
Cunningham.' I bowed. 'An honour and a pleasure.' Though the thought
that her husband must be near was less pleasurable.

'Lieutenant.
Lieutenant.' Her carriage was very stiff, a far cry from her previous
languor, but her voice remained carelessly loose. 'Samuel tells me
you got your clothes back.'

'Yes,
thank you, milady.' I remembered the rage it had provoked, and
wondered whether Sir Lawrence treated her any better. 'Is your
husband here tonight?'

She
snapped up a hand, and let it fall limply back. 'Somewhere, I think.
We are not...' She hiccupped. 'Do you find me beautiful?'

A
courteous answer was as impossible as the question was unexpected.

'I,
ah, find you...' I tried again. 'I find you most...' Her eyes were
fixed deep into me, addling my thoughts further. 'Which is to say, I
find "you most admirable.'

Her
head nodded off its stiff perch. 'Admirable,' she repeated.

'Admirable.
The admiral finds me admirable. Do you, admirable?'

'You
know so.' Edging backwards, I bumped into the man behind me and felt
a wetness trickling down the back of my breeches. 'I do beg your
forgiveness,' I began, though it was I who would be sitting in a pool
of punch for the rest of the evening. But my apology faltered on my
lips as I saw the tall, black-suited mass of Sir Lawrence louring
over me.

'This
is admirable Jerrold,' giggled his wife, heedless of the pink liquid
dripping off his cuff. 'He finds me admiral.'

I
had hoped that Cunningham would have grown accustomed to such
bêtises, would laugh them off with the carelessness they
deserved, but instead his sunken face, perilously close to the
chandelier above, flushed crimson.

'The
devil you do,' he growled. 'You not only spill my drink, but also
abuse my wife? What sort of gentleman do you take yourself for?' He
paused. 'As if I need ask.'

That
was unfair; I could have said far worse about his wife, and
accurately too. But this was a time for retreat, not combat, though I
still had my hanger if he did turn lunatic. The vein on the side of
his neck was throbbing most alarmingly.

'The
room is noisy and misunderstandings are easy. If Lady Cunningham
found me uncouth, it cannot have been intentional.'

'What?'
demanded Cunninghm. 'You forget, sir, that I am still the magistrate
of this town, and I can have you cast back in gaol for Gibble to paw
at my pleasure.'

And
pleasure it would be, I had no doubt: he was visibly salivating at
the threat.

'If
i
have given offence, I can only apologize, and assure you of my
honourable intentions.'

I
could see that he enjoyed my squirming, and for a time I would do so
to keep the peace, but my patience was not boundless. Sir Lawrence,
though, seemed in no mood for moderation.

'And
if I don't hang you for murder, I have no doubt I shall soon see you
swinging for treason. I've a good idea why my hard-won intelligence
is so often squandered: it has been perfectly obvious since you
arrived. Even without the bodies.' My fingers were now playing over
the hilt of my sword, but it did not curb Sir Lawrence's temper.
Quite the contrary: he laughed openly. 'If you so much as show an
inch of steel in this building, I'll have you in court for a breach
of the peace.'

His
wife had been thankfully muted through much of our exchange, but she
chose that moment to re-enter the conversation.

'You'd
better not get on the wrong side of Admiral Jerrold's sword, Sir
Lawrence,' she taunted him. 'A mighty weapon, is it not?'

Another
moment and I believe I would have found myself plaintiff in a case of
upsetting the peace, but Sir Lawrence was slow to react, and in the
seconds while his chest swelled, a light tinkling spread from the
centre of the room to silence the assembled company. Cunningham was
frozen in his rage, but even he could not erupt in front of an
attentive audience. Very deliberately, I turned my back on him - it
took some courage - to see the cause of my deliverance.

'My
ladies and gentlemen,' began a stuffy voice from between two suits of
armour. Quite unexpectedly, I had been rescued by Mazard, who stood
there eyeing the crowd with his usual cold reserve. 'On behalf of the
Soup Society, I welcome you to our little ball, and thank you for
your presence here.'

A
few of the ladies, doubtless those who thought this the pinnacle of
social occasion, tapped their gloved hands together.

'And
of course, we must thank Captain Davenant, the "Lion of
England", as the papers style him this morning.'

The
paper in question was the
Kentish
Gazette
,
the sort of rag even I could get a favourable notice in if I had a
mind to.

'He
honours us with his presence here, and we are delighted that he has
generously agreed to bestow his favour - for which, need I say, there
are many suitors - on our gathering this evening.'

Fine
words, though there was no warmth in the delivery; indeed, to my ear,
the whole speech seemed spiked with irony, though I admit I might
have chosen to hear it so. But the crowd liked it well enough, and
offered Davenant a sustained burst of applause which he took with a
raised eyebrow and a modest bow. I imagined the india-rubbers would
be out on more than a few dance-cards.

'As
will be known to many of you,' continued Mazard, 'the Soup Society
was established to allow its members to subscribe to the feeding of
the deserving poor. For five shillings, a member can nominate a
worthy pauper to receive our weekly offering.'

I
wondered why all this would appeal to Mazard: surely he would rather
turn five shillings into a crown than into a full-bellied beggar.

'You
will know also that we at Mazard & Company administer the Soup
Society at the behest of its late founder. I am sure that he would
appreciate most greatly having Captain Davenant as a fellow patron,
and so I ask you to raise your glasses to our two great benefactors,
Captain Davenant and Caleb Drake.'

It
was neatly done, with a cattish smile and a jaunty cock of the glass
which left Davenant speechless, while the rest of the room erupted in
appreciative laughter and applause. Davenant was blushing furiously;
he looked as though he wanted to say something to extricate himself
from such infamous company, but the attention of the room had
subsided back into a general hubbub and he was left stranded. He also
looked as though he might need a drink, so being a charitable soul I
made my way over to him.

The
adoring crowd of provincial princesses had temporarily abated,
perhaps because he himself no longer seemed such good company: his
chin was down, ad his whole uniform appeared to have lost some of its
habitual starch.

'Cheer
up, Captain Davenant,' I said jovially, filling a glass with punch
for him. 'Drake's dead, so at least you won't have to shake him by
the hand.'

'It
was a base duplicity,' he complained. 'Surely they must know that any
association with that villain Drake could be most unhelpful to my
reputation.'

'Perhaps
they cannot conceive that anything could tarnish your glory, sir.' My
delivery was not completely sincere, but he was too fretted to
notice.

'Sometimes
I wonder what we fight for, you know, Lieutenant. A rabble of
merchants and their fat daughters who cannot see goodness but they
sink their claws in. Grasping, vulgar, insatiable.'

I
wondered if these were the same people who had subscribed to that
well-gilded sword he wore at his belt, or who wrote earnest letters
to the newspapers wondering how a noble warrior like Captain Davenant
could have been overlooked for higher command when so many lesser men
flew their own pennant.

'Doubtless
it is the burden of fame,' I said, offering him nay full support. And
another glass.

'It
is, you know,' Davenant replied seriously. 'Now, take a man like
Lieutenant Crawley. There's a man nobody would ever trouble to
trouble. And why? Because he hangs on to the scraps of his commission
by his fingertips. If anyone hears of him it is bound to be for one
reason only, and one they'd sooner forget.'

'That
being?'

Davenant
took another long draught from his glass and handed it back to me.
'
Glorious
,
of course.'

For
a moment I was thrown. If this was his true opinion of Crawley, he
had kept it well concealed.

'Anyone
who scuppers his ship like that merits all the derision he finds, to
my mind, and if it doesn't do to kick a dog when he's down, then it
doesn't do to keep him under the table either.'

At
last, through a haze of punch, I began to understand many things. 'He
was aboard the
Glorious
?'
I asked in wonder. It certainly made my own transgressions seem
positively benign.

'Had
the watch,' confirmed Davenant, who should probably have been more
discreet. 'Stories differ, of course, but you can't escape the facts.
Cracked her open like a walnut on a rock off Brest. More than eighty
men dead or captured. That, of course, is how I met him, in that
blighted hole at Verdun where they took him.'

This
was news. Even I knew the story of the
Glorious
,
the most infamous casualty of our blockade of the French ports. The
thought of her fate had given me no end of sleepless nights on my own
station off the enemy coast. But that Crawley had been mixed up in it
- almost at the helm, if Davenant was to be believed - was quite
another matter. I was astonished he had been gifted any command at
all after that. No wonder he had had such suspicions of my
appointment.

'That's
what people remember about Crawley,' continued Davenant, evidently
mistaking my shock for rapt attention. 'But what fewer know, and
perhaps more should, is what went on at Verdun.'

'And
what was that?' I felt like a spectator at a street brawl: disgusted,
but compelled to know more.

'Well,
it was all rumour, of course.' By now Davenant's diction rivalled
Lady Cunningham's. 'But he was queer out there, stayed away from the
usual society, you understand?' I could understand perfectly why
Crawley might prefer his privacy, recently ship wrecked and with only
men like Davenant for company. 'So naturally, when it was whispered
that one of our officers was offering his services to the French, all
eyes were on Crawley.'