by Carla Kelly
“Aye, they do. Your story now or mine, Jean? Me? We found ourselves at Sir B’s house one memorable night, and the next part of this mischief-making equation came to light.”
Master Six took his own deep breath, and told of the night he watched Gervaise Turenne attempt to sidle close to Jean Hubert, as if seeking information.
Jean turned to watch Gervaise grow pale. The valet wiped sudden sweat from his face and backed away from Sir B, who stared at his servant in shocked silence, his eyes full of hurt. He turned toward the door.
Captain Ogilvie leaped to his feet and grabbed the valet, who struggled briefly, then sank into a chair and began to weep. Jean flinched to hear the awful sound in the suddenly silent room. The door opened and the Royal Marines stood there at port arms.
“Brothers, some of you know that I and other agents like me have been watching various émigrés living near the Channel.” Ogilvie clamped his hand on the valet’s shoulder and shook him into silence. “We intercepted a message with this unfortunate valet’s name on it, after a nasty piece of work left the Turenne house in Kent.” He leaned closer and spoke into Gervaise’s face. “Your own parents, fool! What do you say to that?”
Gervaise shrieked and tried to struggle out from under Ogilvie’s grasp, but the stronger man forced his face against the table.
“Stop it, I say!” Sir B commanded. “Maybe you see the need for force, and sir, I still dispute how you treated Master Six last February, but must you be a brute, too? Wheel me closer, Able, if you will.”
The sailing master did as requested, until the captain sat next to his terrified servant. “Why, Gervaise, why?” he asked quietly. With some effort he took a handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to his valet. “Blow your nose. It’s not the end of the world.”
“Not yet, anyway,” growled Ogilvie, and got a fierce stare from Sir B for his pains.
“Why?” the invalid captain asked again. “Tell me. Tell all of us. What were you trying to do?”
Gervaise blew his nose. He raised his head, but he could not look in his employer’s eyes. Jean felt a pang that Gervaise could look nowhere, because he was surrounded by the enemy, even as he, Lieutenant Jean Hubert, was.
“Tell us now,” Sir B said, and the steel returned to his voice. Jean had to wonder what the man had been like commanding a quarterdeck during a battle. Able could probably tell him stories.
“It was Sophie Deladier,” Gervaise said, “my friend. You remember?”
“I do, lad. You told me Sophie was accused of Royalist leanings, and you asked me if there was anything I could do to spirit her out of France.” Sir B shook his head. “I told you I could do nothing. It was true.” He sighed heavily. “And you tried to take matters into your own hands, didn’t you?”
Gervaise nodded. He took a moment to compose himself. “I was informed by someone my parents knew that if I would pass on a note to a French prisoner there in Portsmouth who would make himself known to me, I could help Sophie.” He looked at Jean, who felt his heart break, as he thought of all the thousands of innocent people accused, briefly tried, and sent to the guillotine. The glorious revolution had cannibalized itself and Napoleon was the result. “He said that was all I would have to do. Jean Hubert was an escaped prisoner. God help me, I assumed he was the man to receive my note.” He gave Jean a look that seemed to ask, Why weren’t you the man I was supposed to find?
“It’s never that easy, is it?” Mr. Pitt asked, speaking more to himself than the others, or so it seemed to Jean.
“What else could I do?” Gervaise asked the room at large. Jean saw no sympathy on any face; he expected none.
“You could have talked to me when it happened,” Sir B said, his voice so gentle, all the sorrow evident. “I trusted you.”
Gervaise returned to the sodden handkerchief, weeping for himself, for Sophie, and for his parents. Jean wanted to wail to the heavens as he thought of the prisoners in the hulk, plotting their pitiful escapes and not knowing that Claude Pascal, their own leader, was cannibalizing them, too. Was this convulsing birth of a nation worth so much pain? He turned away to collect himself.
“Guards, take this man away,” Mr. Pitt said.
Gervaise threw himself on his knees. “I never meant to cause harm! Please believe me!”
His expression troubled, the prime minister gestured to the guards, who lifted up the sobbing valet. “We cannot countenance anything that threatens the security of our nation, Gervaise Turenne. You have loosed something worse on us, which we must now stop.” He spoke to Captain Ogilvie. “Have his parents been apprehended?”
“Aye, Mr. Pitt. They’re being escorted to Portsmouth now.”
“We meant no harm!” Gervaise kept repeating, until the doors closed. His voice became fainter until he was out of hearing.
Exhausted, Jean sank into a chair. Grace made her way to Sir B’s side and held his hand. Mr. Pitt shook his head.
“Jean wanted nothing to do with Gervaise Turenne,” Able continued. “He mentioned the matter to me later. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
Jean managed a little bow and didn’t hide his smile. “Able, I am still a Frenchman and officially your enemy. I wanted to see how this played out. Surely you cannot blame me for that?”
“I suppose I cannot,” Able replied, with a smile of his own. “I have been a prisoner of the French. I know what you are saying.”
“I’ve been there, too,” said a Brethren. Jean strained to hear a friendlier tone, and found it.
“Sirs, please believe me, but Captain Faulke is no better a captain than I am a spy,” Jean said. “I am convinced that Claude Pascal is playing a deep game, intent upon causing havoc in your primary port. To his everlasting damnation, Claude tosses Faulke a bone now and then when he authorizes escapes that are going to be intercepted by you English. Without telling Faulke, Pascal arranges other escapes that are truly the work of spies.”
More confident, Jean let that bit of nastiness sink in. His sketches had made their way around the table. He picked them up and held them to his chest. “The desperate prisoners, I among them, were none the wiser.”
Calmly, Able continued the narrative, up to the intercepted signals from the hulk, probably the work of Claude Pascal, belowdecks. “Sirs, we know what they are going to do and when,” he concluded. “The plan is to blow up the block pulley factory on May 17. That is why we have come here to lay out this plot for you.”
“You know where the escapees and spies are?” Mr. Pitt asked.
“We do,” Able said, and Jean heard the pride in his voice. “My Gunwharf Rats are even now keeping their eye on the house, along with a particularly effective constable with the Landport Gate station.”
“They should all be arrested at once,” said one of the Elder Brothers, “and that reprehensible Captain Faulke and Pascal captured. Now!”
The sailing master raised his hand. “Brothers, I have a better idea. Hear me out.” He bowed to the prime minister. “It’s a good plan, because we must be vigilant to quash additional mischief.”
— Chapter Forty —
It was a good plan, the serviceable kind to get a dirty job done. Able knew it startled the Brothers at first, but they agreed, even Captain Ogilvie. To be fair, especially Captain Ogilvie, Able decided next morning, after he and the others had snatched some sleep in Grace Croker’s townhouse. Ogilvie did like a bold stroke, and the plan was a bold stroke squared. The man nearly chortled at the whole thing, and insisted upon helping.
“I’d rather never see Ogilvie again, but we probably need his good will,” Able admitted to Jean as they lounged in Grace Croker’s sitting room, everyone tired, but still too alert to sleep. “He said he will follow us to Portsmouth.”
Captain Sir Belvedere St. Anthony did not join in the discussion, but sat with his head bowed, his sorrow bared fo
r all to see. He was past caring, never a good place for a proud man to dwell.
“Sir B, what do you think will happen to Gervaise?” Grace asked. She was never one to gild a lily. “His parents, too, I suppose.”
Sir B raised bleak eyes to hers, which made the proper Grace take his hand and rest it against her cheek. “I hate this war,” he said.
“If it is any consolation, we all do,” Able said, thinking of a peaceful life teaching a generation of Gunwharf Rats and watching his children growing up far removed from workhouses and the ugliness he knew and could do little about.
“What will I do without Gervaise?” Sir B asked. “I can’t…I need someone.”
Able winced at the plaintive words of a proud man humbled to the dust because he could barely wipe his ass without assistance. He thought of all the ways Sir B had mentored him when he was a mere seaman on his second frigate, sailing into battle against the French. His debt to the hero of Aboukir Bay was unpayable, and he could do nothing to make it right.
Thank God Grace was made of sterner stuff than a helpless genius. “I have arranged for Junius Bolt – my steward from Kent – to assist you tonight and afterwards, if you wish,” she said. “He’s waiting upstairs in my best guest room. And there’s this: he had a misspent youth with the fleet in earlier days.”
If she thought that would cajole Sir B into a smile, she failed. Able gave her credit for trying.
“What I wish is to go to my own house. I do have one here in London,” he grumbled, unwilling to be dependent upon anyone, even though he knew he was.
“Not tonight, dear friend,” Grace said, neatly overruling him. “It’s too late and your servants are a lazy lot.”
Able wanted to laugh, but he knew better. Sir B, it would serve you right to marry this forthright lady, he thought.
“They are not lazy!” Sir B insisted, until his innate honesty reasserted itself. “Possibly they are. Very well, Gracie, have your way with me.”
“You haven’t called me Gracie since I was eight or nine,” Grace said.
“You haven’t provoked me as much as you are provoking me right now,” he retorted.
She laughed and pushed his chair into the hall, where two marines lifted him up the stairs.
“That is a woman I would never care to cross,” Jean remarked.
“Few of us do,” Able agreed.
“You realize, of course, that they are the perfect couple,” Jean said. He yawned. “Imagine the lively fights, the sparring, the wit, the kindness…” He sighed. “And how will that ever happen?”
“Divine intervention,” Able said. He rose and stretched. “You and I are sharing a bed. I hope you do not snore.”
“No more than you do, probablement, mon ami. Good night.”
When Grace returned, Able still wondered how he was going to tell Meri his part in the upcoming punitive action. Grace sat beside him on the sofa, then did something so unexpected that he knew he would always admire this prickly, intelligent, forthright woman. She leaned her head against his shoulder.
He put his arm around her. “What’s the matter, Grace?” he asked, feeling not even slightly out of place now. He knew when a woman needed something. Meri had trained him well, bless her darling heart.
“Sir B is lying in bed and the tears are running down his face,” she said, not without difficulty of her own. “Junius informed me. The poor old fellow is standing in the hall and wringing his hands. What am I to do?”
“Tell Junius you will handle the matter, go to Sir B and curl up next to him,” Able said with no hesitation. “On top of the covers or between them is of no consequence to me. I recommend between them. It might be May, but your house is chilly.”
“Able, you’re serious?” She sounded hopeful.
“Never more so. Your house is chilly.”
She thumped him as he deserved. “How does Meridee tolerate you?”
“Quite well, actually. Ben is proof, if you need any verification.”
“Oh, you! The servants will talk about me.”
“Why should you care if they do?” He kissed her cheek and stood up. “For all we know, they are wagering in the servants’ hall that you will do precisely that!” He yawned. “G’night, Grace.”
Jean was already asleep and snoring lightly by the time Able shucked his clothes and crawled in bed. He lay there, listening, and soon heard the door to the guest room next to his open and close quietly. Good for you, he thought. He told Euclid and whoever else was screeching in his head to shut down. It took a moment, but they must have known he meant business. He slept.
They returned to Portsmouth the way they had left it, traveling fast, changing horses, and snatching food when possible. He observed Sir B and saw a quiet man, but not a melancholy one. Whatever Grace Croker had done must have stuffed the heart back into his body. Junius Bolt also accompanied them, so they were crammed close together in the post chaise, Junius riding inside because he was too old to face the rain with the coachman.
Jean volunteered to sit on the box with John Coachman, but Grace disagreed. “See here, I will sit next to you, Sir B. You will put your arm around me and we will manage splendidly.”
They arrived in Portsmouth the following afternoon in a rain squall. Able could barely make out the hulks in their straight line. He panicked for a tiny moment when he couldn’t see Building Twelve, but there it was, one more nondescript structure in rows of identical brick buildings. He patted his pocket for the Prime Minister’s signed and sealed documents for St. Brendan’s, the Royal Marines and the Landport constabulary to work together in silence, for the good of a nation at war.
He handed the packet to Junius Bolt when the post chaise stopped at Jasper Street. “Guard this with your life,” he said.
Grace’s old retainer could not have been more delighted. He grasped the documents with their official seals and tags and put them to his heart. “The future of England is safe with me,” he declared in ringing tones that made Sir B grin like he used to.
“Spoken like an old salt, Junius,” Sir B said. “What unfortunate ship did you serve on?”
“The Agamemnon, Captain St. Anthony,” he said promptly. “I was invaluable to the good of the fleet.”
“A cook?”
Junius beamed at him. “Ta best.”
“Our first stop in the morning will be the Marine barracks,” Sir B said, after Able and Jean helped him from the post chaise and Junius arranged the blanket around him. “And then it is noon in Headmaster Croker’s quarters?”
“Precisely,” Able said. “We will have our chosen Gunwharf Rats present.”
Sir B took Able’s hand and Jean’s as well. “Today is May 15,” he said, as serious now as on any fleet action. “Two days, my friends.” He looked toward the post chaise and blew a kiss to Grace Croker. She was properly red-faced when Able told the driver that St. Brendan’s was next and he and Jean sat down again.
Grace assured him that Jean could escort her up the steps of St. Brendan’s and the two of them could explain the plan to her brother. “You need to speak to Meri,” she told him. “I wish you luck.”
He made a face at her words, and she kissed his cheek. “I spent a very good night with Belvedere,” she whispered.
“Jean, give me a minute with this lady,” Able said.
With a private, French sort of smile, Jean bounded from the post chaise. Able moved to Grace’s side of the muddy vehicle. “Well, madam, on top of the covers or between them?” he asked, hoping she never repeated his commentary to Meri, who would be aghast at her husband.
“You, sir, are a nosy man,” she said, but he heard the affection in her voice. “Between them. My house was a little cold.”
He turned slightly to face her. How much did he dare ask? “Did you learn anything new?”
She sat so silent, contemplative almost, which wasn’t Grace Croker, not really. She was quick of mind and action, decisive. There she sat. She looked him directly in the eyes. “Dear, dear friend, I learned that I am brave enough.”
With a bow to a brave lady, Able went up his own front steps across the street. While he and Grace were gone, Headmaster Croker must have set his lads to work and plenty of it, because Nick, John and Smitty barely looked up when he came into the house and walked by the dining room.
“Meri!” he called. “I’m home.”
She came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron, eyes worried, hair frizzy from the heat of the Rumford range. He had seldom seen her more beautiful.
He folded her in his arms. “We must talk.”
She darted into the kitchen and came back without her apron. She took his hand and led him upstairs, her face serious and determined. How did she already know that it wasn’t going to be a conversation she enjoyed? How marvelous was woman.
He looked in Ben’s room, touched to see his son sleeping on his stomach, his little bottom pooched high. I love this boy of mine, he thought. Please God, let everything go smoothly. He couldn’t have said with any accuracy whether he meant the conversation with his wife, or the events in two days’ time.
“You’re tired,” she said. “Lie down and tell me what I don’t want to hear.”
He told her. She cried and protested. He held her close until her tears stopped, but she didn’t give up.
“Surely someone else can go with Jean to the Captivity besides you,” she said, her arms tight around him.
“No one here speaks French as well as I do, Meri,” he explained again. “I can’t in Christian conscience send Jean into that hulk alone. We have to snatch Claude Pascal before he disappears among eight hundred men, or before any of the prisoners know what is going on.”
He pulled the blanket at the foot of their bed over both of them, cocooning them together in their own world, a place far better than any other world here or in his inventive mind.