by Carla Kelly
“Are you describing them or us?” he asked, eyes closed.
“That’s an interesting comment. How did we overcome our trepidation?”
He thought about it for his usual brief second. “Simple. We talked to each other.”
— Chapter Thirty-four —
Nothing happened the following Tuesday, absolutely nothing. Able wondered if this was what it felt like to present a startling, controversial scientific paper to the Royal Society and have the fellows of that august organization hoot and whistle.
Thursday was different. In fact, everything changed on Thursday.
“Walter, I’m going to watch the copse with you tonight,” he told the constable, who had become a willing dinner guest in the Six household. They were standing on the front steps, Able with his hands behind his back, and Walter calmly finishing the last of his cheroot. “You know that is a bad habit,” Able said.
For all his noticeable stature and intimidating demeanor, Walter was a mild fellow. He looked down at Able, who was not short, either. “Master Six, would it comfort you to know you are not the first person in this household to tell me that?”
Who? Mrs. Perry? Able nearly blurted out, then he heard Meri’s voice in his head, far more welcome than his assortment of polymaths: Able, Betsy asked me so sweetly if Constable Cornwall could eat here occasionally.
“Pay attention to Betsy,” he said with a smile, relishing the blushing confusion of a man who probably hadn’t blushed in years, if ever.
The constable’s professional demeanor returned almost immediately, then to Able’s surprise, disappeared, replaced by a shy smile that turned his lived-in face surprisingly sweet.
“Aye, sir.” Walter hesitated, and Able waited for whatever additional surprise this ordinarily serious fellow was about the spring on him. “Master Six, I know Betsy MacGregor gets half days on Sundays.”
“Aye, she does,” Able agreed, feeling suddenly parental. “She’s scrupulous about telling us her plans, I might add. She lets us know where she is going, and when she’ll be back.”
“Good. Portsmouth’s not a place to roam, is it?”
“It’s different for men, isn’t it? I roamed to a few grogshops and gambling hells in my day,” Able replied.
“You, sir?” Walter stared at him in amazement.
“Constable, I’m only twenty-seven and I haven’t always been married,” Able protested, feeling like old Ancient of Days, himself. Come to think of it, he had noticed one or two gray hairs just this morning. They were easy to pluck, without a word to Meri.
“Beg pardon, sir,” Walter said quickly. “I didn’t mean….” He stopped himself, perhaps wisely seeing the value in not digging a deeper hole. “Sir, this Sunday, may I escort Betsy to the draper’s house, where my daughter Jennie lives? I’d like the two of them to meet.” His professionalism was replaced by a look of such a serious nature that Able wondered if the constable thought Betsy must petition Master Six for permission.
So this formidable man thinks he needs my permission? Able asked himself. I’ll let him keep thinking that. “Aye, you may, Walter. How old is Jennie?”
“Almost three, sir, and a bright child she is.” A small sigh and the way he squared his shoulders told Able everything about tough times in the Cornwall household that meant someone else had to tend his daughter. “I’ve told Betsy about her.”
“Then they had probably better meet, hadn’t they?” Able said, wondering how he would feel when Ben worked up the courage some distant day to make such a request.
They stayed on the steps as the sun went down, discussing the news of the docks and another attempt at an escape by water kegs foiled successfully, or so the captain of marines had informed Sir B.
“I hear the prisoner set up a fearful racket, screaming and protesting and digging in his heels. He tried to leap into the water,” Walter said. “He’s in the brig now, but will be returned to Captain Faulke on the Captivity in the morning.”
“Jean Hubert’s hulk,” Able said. “Only one prisoner? I thought that two was the pattern.”
“That was the report,” Walter replied, with a shake of his head. He chuckled. “Four or five prisoners could have escaped, sir, what with all the racket and commotion focused on that one noisy Frog! Empty kegs knocked over and rolling around, noise, and confusion. Some of the kegs even ended up bobbing about in the water.”
And that’s what happened, Able thought suddenly. How simple would it be, in such confusion, to slide out of one of those kegs rolling about, swim under the dock and wait until everyone left? There could be half a dozen prisoners on the loose. Or one.
Able motioned Walter closer and whispered his suspicions. The constable listened, his face perfectly neutral, just the kind of expression Able needed to see.
“Do you think this unknown escapee or escapees has met up with the others?”
Walter asked.
“Hard to tell. I wonder… could that older couple in the copse be waiting for him or them?”
They were both silent, considering the possibilities. Walter spoke first. “The old couple in the copse – I have seen them on those evenings after that time when the moon is in the proper position. You know, when Mrs. Six saw the flashes of light, and when the Rats noticed them, too.”
“I wonder… are they waiting for someone else from the hulks to show up, as part of whatever it is they are planning here?” Able asked, speaking his thoughts out loud, happy to share them with a constable willing to consider something hypothetical, rare enough in any organization, or so Able had noted through the years.
Walter built on the thought, his eyes filled with the same enthusiasm that Able recognized in himself. “They wait, and when no one arrives, they leave. I have to wonder who they are waiting for, and how many times the plans have been scotched. Or have prospered.”
They looked at each other and nodded at the same time. “I’m going to be closer to the copse tonight,” Walter said. “It will be dark in two hours.”
“I‘m coming with you,” Able added. “And let me suggest this: If we do find the escapee that may or may not exist” – they both grinned – “let’s just watch. One of us can follow them, and we will watch the hulks for a signal.”
“How will we interpret the signal?”
“My conversational French is excellent, but I do not know about signaling,” Able admitted. “If I had a few minutes with a French signaling manual…” He shook his head. “But I don’t, and proper signals go fast.”
“We don’t need that, Master Six,” Walter said. He pointed up to the second floor. “We have Jean Hubert, don’t we? He captained a ship. He must know French signaling. He gave us his parole, didn’t he?”
God help us, Able thought, as the bottom dropped out of his stomach. I can’t trust him.
The sick feeling deepened as Able knew he had not done his duty when he caught Jean breaking his parole. He was now complicit and subject to navy discipline. He felt the sweat break out on his forehead and he felt his dinner rising in his throat.
“Master Six, are you well?” Walter asked, his expression anxious.
Able shook his head. He leaned over the iron railing that defined the modest porch and vomited.
“Master Able! I’ll get Mrs. Six.”
No, not her, he wanted to say, but he was too busy throwing up on the bushes that were just starting their spring bloom. He waved Walter away, but the constable was already inside the house and calling for Mrs. Six.
By the time Meri came running, her eyes full of alarm, Able sat with his knees up and his forehead resting against them. If a sea monster had suddenly risen from the harbor and swallowed him, he would have considered it a great kindness. How could he face the dearest person in his life and tell her he had committed treason? A man didn’t ignore the breaking of parole.
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br /> And his damnable brain took over, scrolling back to an incident in this very harbor. He was not yet a sailing master. Their hold was full, the ballast carefully arranged, everything trim and ready as they waited for the wind and tide. They were stopped the next morning by the melancholy sight of a man hanging from the yardarm of a small craft. The naked corpse bobbed and swayed with the current. The body was striped front and back with lashes from a cat o’nine. Around its neck hung the sign, This wretch gave comfort to the enemy.
Around the harbor it went, bobbing and dancing, condemned forever by his mates and his country. Able’s captain, a harder man than most, had assembled everyone on deck to witness. Captain Dales had leaned over the railing of the poop deck and stared at them. “So shall ye end your life if you smooth the way for a Frenchman!” Able had nightmares for weeks.
He had another one now, a worse one where he was bobbing and dancing on the end of the rope, with Meri and Ben forced to share the same fate. “Oh God no,” he muttered.
“Able, please,” his wife said, kneeling by him. “What is the matter? Shall I send Betsy for a surgeon?”
He shook his head, beyond words grateful to see her alive, considering how vivid his vision or whatever one called a nightmare from which there was no awakening. He spoke with great effort. “Walter, help me inside. I have something to tell you both, and it can’t wait.”
— Chapter Thirty-five —
Meri, I don’t know what to do.”
“Not know what to do? Able, what is the matter?” she asked. She and Walter helped her husband into the kitchen, where he sat down with a plop and covered his face with his hands.
“Able, what in the world…”
She had left Ben in his high chair, and there he sat, waving about pudgy arms and demanding more food. Betsy hurried from the pantry, ready to take over and concentrate on the little tyrant who ruled the Six household, no matter what. “Thank you, dear.”
“No mind at all, mam,” Betsy said calmly. “Ben, you are going to gut-founder some day and won’t you be surprised.”
Able looked up, the bleakness still there, but also the admiring glance of a father. “Better listen to Betsy MacGregor, son,” he said, then leaned back, his expression now that peculiar blankness Meridee remembered from last year, when everything become too much for a relentless mind that never stopped spinning.
This is different, she thought, as she steeled herself for whatever troubled him. This has the look of ruin about it.
“The Rats are reading and finishing their ciphers in the dining room,” she said, striving for serenity. “Go into the sitting room with Walter. Mrs. Perry will look out for the boys.”
“Where is Jean?” Able asked, as he rose.
“In his room, I believe.”
“Are you certain?”
Is that it? she asked herself, and felt the beginning of fear. “He went upstairs, so that is my surmise.”
Mrs. Perry took one look at her and asked no questions when she told the woman to see to the Gunwharf Rats. The big woman with the bigger heart took her hand and held it close.
Meridee rested her head on Mrs. Perry’s bosom. “I don’t know what the problem is,” she said.
“You are not alone here,” Mrs. Perry said. She squeezed Meridee’s hand and gave her a little push toward the door. The little push turned into a friendly pat on her shoulder. “Never think otherwise.”
Able looked no better. She closed the door to the sitting room quietly, but she startled him anyway. She sat beside her husband, her heart breaking when he moved away from her. “None of that, Able,” she said firmly, and reached for his hand. “Tell us what has happened.”
A whole series of events poured out of him, from Jean’s disappearance and return that late night, to the unknown couple in the copse, to the potential escape, and ending with, “I was duty-bound to surrender Jean immediately to the captain of the marine guard when he broke his parole. I did not. If I ask Jean now…if I demand that he come with us and tell us what those signals mean – if there are signals – can I trust him? How badly have I compromised any chance of success in determining what is going on and how soon will it happen?”
Meridee raised Able’s hand to her lips and kissed it. The act brought tears to his eyes. Matter-of-fact, she took a handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped his eyes. She turned to Walter, who had sat silent through the entire, agonized narrative, his gaze inscrutable. She knew she was looking at a man of the law. Better ask him.
“What do you think, Walter?” she asked, looking for kindness in a face she knew to be stern and duty-bound, as well. What she saw made her nearly sigh with relief.
“I think we don’t know enough to worry either way,” Walter said, in his deliberate manner. He settled back in his chair, which somehow gave Able permission to do the same. “Look at it this way, sir: If you had done your duty and he had been returned to the hulk, there would be no opportunity now to, uh, press him a bit, would there?”
“I suppose not,” Able said, sounding more normal, to Meridee’s relief.
He seemed to make up his mind, returning to the decisive man she knew. “I have suspected there is more to Jean Hubert’s story than he has told us.” He made a self-deprecating gesture. “I cannot really tell you how I know that, but I do. Let us find out whether this will help us or hinder us, shall we?”
He released her hand and stood up. “I’ll bring him downstairs, tell him everything we know, and assure him we will return him to the Captivity if he does not help us.” He looked at Walter. “Let us take him to the copse, if he chooses to cooperate.”
“And if he doesn’t?” Walter asked.
“He goes back to the hulk.”
Able left the room. Meridee looked at her hands in her lap, wishing they did not tremble, and wishing the war to be suddenly over, wishing she could run away with her baby and her husband to someplace without war or tumult. She felt the constable’s eyes on her and she looked up. “There is a lot at stake, isn’t there?”
He nodded. “Our nation?” The tone of his voice made the idea sound foreign to him, and she understood. “When has England cared about us?”
“I do,” Meridee said simply.
He bowed to her, surprisingly graceful. “I hope Jean Hubert sees what is at stake for all of us.” He cleared his throat, and sounded less certain. “I shouldn’t waste your time with this now.”
When he hesitated, Meridee pushed aside her concerns for her husband and focused on a young man in love. “Tell me what is troubling you.”
“It’s not important,” Walter said. “I mean, here we are, talking about war and tumult.”
“It’s important to you, Walter Cornwall. Tell me.”
He took a deep breath. “Do you think Betsy’s brother will like me? I mean, he remembers me as the ogre who tried to scare his twin to death and back into a workhouse. I was doing my job.”
“He will like you, Walter,” she said, her voice soft. “People change. How much, depends on them.”
“Why am I concerned about such a small thing, when France is threatening us?” he asked, his surprise evident, and perhaps his dismay to discover he was not the tough constable he had always seemed.
“It’s not a small thing. It’s everything to you,” she said. She heard steps on the stairs. The door opened, and there stood Able and Jean Hubert. Trailing along behind was Pierre Deschamps, quiet boy who blended into the background.
She wanted to smile at them, to reassure them, but she could not, because the fear on Jean’s face was bested only by the apprehension on her husband’s. And there was Pierre, visibly shaking.
This will never do, she thought, and beckoned to Pierre, who glanced at Jean for what, she did not know: permission? Seeing nothing except fear, the little fellow sidled toward her and soon pressed against her
side. She put her arm around him, grateful she could soothe someone.
“Sit down, both of you,” Meridee said, when no one seemed inclined to move. “There on the sofa.” They either would or they wouldn’t. She had no power to command anyone.
They did as she said, Jean trying to distance himself from Able on the small sofa. He stared straight ahead, his face blank, as if this summons had leeched all the color and life out of his normally expressive face. What on earth had Able said to him?
No one spoke. Meridee glanced at Walter, who managed a miniscule shrug but remained silent. It wasn’t his home, and he probably felt the Six’s sitting room not his place to interrogate anyone. Maybe he was weighing the relative seniority of an instructor at a boys’ school to that of a constable.
The silence grew heavier as each second passed. Was anyone beside her even breathing? Meridee shifted in her chair, caught her husband’s eye, and suddenly realized the genius behind the silence. Deeply appreciative of Able, she folded her hands in her lap and waited.
“I don’t know anything and I haven’t done anything,” Jean Hubert said at last. It came out in a rush, as if all his pent-up nerves were trying to shoulder their way through a mental door at the same time.
Another long, long wait. It was as if Able Six had all the time in the world, even as dusk settled on Portsmouth and Meridee knew he and Walter needed to be in place in the copse before anyone arrived. Or perhaps the game had changed, becoming much deeper than she had anticipated.
Silent and watchful, Able turned his attention to Pierre, leaning forward, eyes intent, as if ready to spring. Meridee felt her blood start to run in chunks, even though she knew this man better than anyone else on earth. He was beginning to frighten her.
Suddenly Pierre buried his face in her apron and started to wail. Meridee rested her hand on his back, and he wailed harder.