THIRTY-THREE
A steadily moving chain of sailors ported the furniture out of the cabin, off the ship, and into a waiting cart. The portraits were not yet crated for removal to Jack’s library at Farthingmill Abbey, the last of his possessions to be taken from the ship. He examined the colorful pictures, the varnish discolored by years of exposure to the salt air. Turning to the sketchbook, he perused each page as one might reflect on a past life, a life he could have shared if he had been as good a strategist on land as he was at sea. He tried not to look at Maddie’s portrait hanging on the bulkhead, but the weight of the cloisonné pin with its rusty clasp, affixed to the inside of his waistcoat, was too heavy to ignore. Ironic, that he had gone to fetch her in a time of peace and she was now returning at the close of a different war. The time between had been quite a battle of another sort, one that he was about to win.
He found Captain Thomas on the quarterdeck, supervising the dismantling of his quarters. The two old tars stood side by side next to the helm, as they had stood for decades, and watched an era close out with a whimper rather than a shout. “Will she come? I am not so certain as I was last night,” Jack said.
“There is little enough amusement to be found in Portsmouth,” Mr. Thomas said. “She would attend the ceremony for the sake of novelty alone.”
Jack sighed with resignation. “We are obsolete,” he said. “Our skills as useless as a scribe in the age of the printing press.”
Steam power was coming, as surely as the sun rose every morning. The vagaries of the wind would not signify. Gone the weatherboard, the maneuvering, the devastation of a calm that left a ship dead in the water. Soon, a commander would not find himself stranded if the wind stopped blowing, an easy target, as had been Edmund Powell’s fate. What a fool Jack had been in those days. It hurt to recall.
“Intrepid will be broken up while we settle into our final years,”
Mr. Thomas said. “I fear I shall prove ill-suited for the dull existence of a country gentleman.”
“I intend to claim the taffrail at auction,” Jack said. The elaborate carving held great meaning for him, and it was a work of the shipwright’s art that Maddie found fascinating when she sailed on the first-rater. He would have a carpenter mount it as an arch over a gate, or perhaps set over a doorway. He pictured Maddie making a grand entrance beneath the sheaf of rice bound with indigo blue ribbons and tricked out with gold. She would stop short, breathless with unexpected delight, and her smile would warm his heart again. He would see it come to pass. After so long in planning, he was confident that his strategy would not fail.
With Intrepid tied up in Portsmouth, he was within easy reach of Farthingmill Abbey and all its news. Such a quiet little town, and when Albemarle’s tenant was told that the lease would not be renewed, everyone down to the dogs in the street knew that Lady Madeleine was returning. Once the local painters were contracted, it was a certainty, and with the arrival of a London decorator, no one had any doubt. Then there was Lawrence with his contacts at the Bank of England, who sounded an alarm when Maddie made inquiries into the state of her holdings. So obvious to all, even before Maddie herself realized where her heart was leading her.
Jack took a walk on the second gun deck, now stripped of armaments. The work at Albemarle was on hold by his decree, until the unused rooms at Farthingmill Abbey could be made ready. The old pile would ring with children’s voices, rattle and pulse with vibrancy. While he recognized the impossibility of turning back the clock, he saw an opportunity to correct a past mistake and pick up the tale end of his dream.
His last inspection complete, he returned to the weather deck. The ship’s reefed mainsail shuddered in the wind, like a captive fighting restraints. “Canvas for some other ship,” he said to himself. “Until there is no canvas needed.”
Mr. Keynes, the old helmsman who operated the inn that Mr. Adams unfailingly recommended to all American visitors, had performed his duties splendidly. Easy enough, of course, to interest little boys in a mighty fighting ship, to cultivate a burning interest. Jack applauded his personal restraint and the fact that he had never once approached the four lads when he spotted them on the wharf, mouths agape in awe as they viewed a floating wonder. And he had wanted to run to the sally port, to call them up, to embrace them. He could do no such thing, lest Maddie take alarm and flee, as was her habit. By holding back, Jack would let them come to him. For once, he would be patient and reel in his catch, rather than act in haste and inadvertently release it.
A band assembled on deck and tuned their instruments. A freshening breeze carried the discordant notes along the wharf, drawing attention. So they would not see him until he judged the time to be right, Jack retreated into his cabin and watched the last of his personal possessions take their leave, as he soon would. Through the door he heard the buzz of the invited guests who had arrived. It was time.
With his eyes fixed on the dock, he studied every face on the wharf below. Out of the crowd they appeared, three boys clinging to Mr. Keynes. A flicker of disappointment burned in Jack’s throat, but then she was there, distracted by a child who wanted to run free but was held fast by her firm hand. At her left, a little girl tugged on her mother’s arm, as if she could not get to the ship fast enough. Closer, weaving through the throng of onlookers, Maddie saw nothing except Mr. Keynes’ back.
Her eyes did not find him at first, her gaze taking in the expanse of oak and the tangle of rigging, although the sense of wonder she had upon her first inspection was replaced by one Jack found superior. A few steps forward and he was at the top of the ladder, at the edge of the quarterdeck, ready to receive her. If she came.
The boys raced up the ladder, enthralled by the size and scope of Intrepid, the old girl less impressive without her guns but a sight to behold just the same. Three different faces reflected the mixture of family features that allowed Jack to identify Willie, David and John without requiring an introduction. He was not surprised by the boldness of Willie, black hair curling around his ears, when the boy marched up to Mr. Thomas as if Willie were the superior officer.
“Are you our grandfather, sir?” the boy asked.
“Would that I were so fortunate,” Mr. Thomas said. “I am your grandfather’s flag-captain. You seek the gentleman to larboard.”
The distraction gave Jack a moment to study his prodigal daughter as she rose up from the gun deck. Her face had been sculpted into the sharper angles of maturity, with a hint of a crease at the corners of her mouth. She was entirely too thin, but a regimen of rich Farthingmill Abbey cream would put the meat back on her bones. Her carriage was the epitome of grace, married with an element of pride and the knowledge that she could still command a man’s attention.
Their eyes met and Jack tried to read her heart, but she was not so transparent as once she was. He detected a small spark of anger, and hoped that it was not actually hatred, but she covered her true sentiments with a polite, albeit subdued, smile. In the set of her jaw he saw years of hardship. He had sought to shelter her but he had failed.
He took her hands, too happy with her presence to speak. “I am so sorry,” he whispered. More he could not say with his grandsons arrayed before him, bowing and offering a handshake with such seriousness that Jack wanted to laugh. He wanted to turn them loose, to make the battleship their toy, to climb and jump and fill the air with shouts of boyish glee. He wanted to tell Maddie that he never forgot the joy she gave him when she peered into his cabin through the skylight, her dirty face a mask of curiosity. For never sharing that with her, he was truly sorry.
“Your grandchildren, father,” Maddie said. Each boy was named and Jack noted the resemblance to Stephen, to Ethan, to Sarah, but he dare not include himself. “Caroline, my daughter, and Heywood, my youngest. We call him Beau.”
“Bless you all for coming,” he said. To receive Maddie’s kiss on his cheek was to erase eight years of loneliness. Her scent was different, he noticed, less costly. On further inspection, he deter
mined that the rows of ruffles on the bottom of her frock were somewhat limp and the fabric of the skirt a bit faded. “Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”
“It is a woman’s lot in life to forgive the men in it,” she said. Her voice was tinged with a drop of sadness. “If it is of comfort to you, I wish to say that you were correct. I failed to heed your advice, to the detriment of my late husband’s happiness.”
The band played a pleasant air, a tune in keeping with Jack’s elevating mood. Maddie admitted that he was right, although there was never an indication that Mr. Powell was unhappy with his wife in any way. No matter, with all behind them. He smiled at Caro and Beau, who had a tendency to duck behind their mother’s skirts, skittish in the company of a stranger. The bobbing and weaving became a game, and as the song ended, Beau took Jack’s hand for the security it provided against the swarm of sailors who were toeing their lines on deck. Not to be outdone, Caro tugged at his coat to get his attention. She wanted to know if her grandfather had a wooden leg like the other man nearby, the one who was also covered with shiny decorations.
“One of Lord Gravier’s relations, is he not?” Maddie asked. “Why would one so highly placed attend a ceremony for Mr. Thomas?”
“The Comptroller of the Navy is quite a distinguished sailor,” Jack said. “He’s stepping down at the end of the year. Lost that leg at Copenhagen, my dear. He will of course wish to extend his sympathies to you, unless it would be too much for you to endure.”
“Thank you for recognizing my distress,” she said.
“Did you not say you would forgive me?”
“Please stop torturing me. Let us make amends and bury our differences. Peace and amity, if it can be accomplished.”
The esteemed Sir Thomas Thompson stood at attention with a sheaf of papers in his hands. The ship’s crew and the guests fell silent. Maddie tucked her hand into the crook of Jack’s elbow and he placed his hand over hers, to signify their renewed bond. Should she next attempt to remove it, to run off like a twelve-year-old mud lark, he would not let her go. And once she realized that she was attending a ceremony for him, as well as Mr. Thomas, she was likely to bolt.
Words of praise rained down on the assembly. Sentence after sentence, Maddie’s fingers tightened on his arm until it seemed as if her nails would claw through the wool sleeve and scratch down to the bone. “My brothers told me to keep my distance,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “And I wish that I had listened to them. You snake.”
“Hush. Let the man finish and we shall sort out this misunderstanding later.”
In an atmosphere of such great solemnity that it felt funereal, Jack’s pendant was lowered from the mainmast. With military precision, the Cross of St. George was folded and placed into a chest. The band played a closing song and the sailors came forward, to wish their commanding officers long lives of great happiness, or as much happiness as a sea-going man might find on land. From the corner of his eye, Jack saw the children racing around the poop deck in a game of their own creation. He was surprised by the intensity of his desire to join them.
Leaving the ship for the last time, he let a tear roll down his cheek. Out of habit, or to avoid the Ashford clan, he allowed a ship of the line to become his home. Accustomed to the life, he was deaf when Maddie offered him a real home and a loving family. Not so much deaf, perhaps, but stubborn, intent on finishing his life’s work and seeing the mission accomplished before abandoning his career. Sacrifice, duty to country; he paid a steep price.
And what a long career it had been. From the first American revolution, when a gaggle of recalcitrant colonies declared themselves a nation, through the tumultuous times when the French tried to emulate their American sisters, only to create utter chaos that gave rise to Napoleon Bonaparte and a threat to British sovereignty. So Jack remained at sea, only to find himself again facing those same recalcitrant colonies, and to the same conclusion. He had gone around in a circle, and was done with the dance. He should have hauled down his pendant ten years ago, but coddling regrets was a fool’s pastime. The future was still his to grasp.
The reception that Jack held for his officers was deemed a success, with Maddie stepping into the role of hostess of her own accord. She glided through the room of the public house, seeing to the comfort of every man with equal care, no matter the gentleman’s rank. With keen interest, she listened to tales of past battles that blossomed into epic sagas of outlandish proportions, a buzz of conversation that held no interest for Jack.
“Stephen has left the sea as well?” He approached Maddie with some care. A spark burned in her eyes and he did not wish to start up an all-consuming conflagration.
“Not entirely. His wife’s father owns a merchant fleet and Stephen is considering a new endeavor as a merchant master.” Maddie was calm, not quite as icy as anticipated, but there was a degree of coldness in her posture. “He is tinkering with steam engines at the shipyard. Steam power will win in the end, he claims. Fighting sail will became a relic of the past.”
“Would you have come today for my sake alone, if I had asked Mr. Keynes to tell you the affair was for me?”
“You are dishonest,” she said. “You do not trust me to make reasonable decisions.”
“I am accustomed to giving orders which must be obeyed,” he said.
Maddie laughed. “As well I know.”
“Then you will excuse my conduct, as I cannot change at my age.”
“We are both of an age and circumstance in which we do as we please,” she said. Her gaze shifted as she scanned the reception room, the mother’s instinct to watch over her children without hovering.
“You are too young to remain a widow.” How to broach such a delicate subject, that was Jack’s dilemma. “The children, in particular, are in need of a man’s guidance.”
“Sadly, sir, I have grown accustomed to giving orders,” she said. “And I fear I must travel to Albemarle soon, as my orders are being ignored. Will you remain long in Portsmouth? I could delay my departure to the country for a few more days.”
“Why not reside at Farthingmill Abbey?”
“I would not wish to inconvenience the staff, if indeed there is a staff. I am aware that an unused house does not call for an army of maids to clean unused rooms.”
“What staff you will require at Albemarle can begin at Farthingmill Abbey if the population below stairs is inadequate. I see it as a perfect base of operations for you. The distance would be of great benefit when you wished to inspect the laborers at any time of the day.” She offered no objection so he carried on. “The children should be given room to roam, my dear. Being cooped up in small rooms, or forced to find amusement in the filthy streets, is not healthy.”
“I would be willing to rent the house for a short term. Three months should be more than adequate. A full year would be burdensome, in terms of cost.”
Pinching pennies, and clad in garments suitable for some poor church mouse. That would change, and before anyone of substance caught sight of Maddie’s common attire. He would burn the bonnet she was wearing, or give it to the curate’s wife, who was a genuine church mouse. His new mission, he decided, was to restore his daughter to her rightful place. With no time to lose, he bid farewell to the departing guests, not envying those who were taking up new posts in the Royal Navy. Let them tinker with steam engines. Jack was going home to play with his grandchildren.
He found Caro wielding a fire poker, his Order of the Bath star pinned to her frock and threatening to topple her head over heels. Maddie was close by, chatting with Sir Thomas Thompson, who was regaling her with a thorough report on the comings and goings of his extended family.
There were joys, of course, and sorrows, births and deaths and illness, the infirmities of old age. Jack trusted that Maddie was unchanged in one regard, in that she was loyal to her dear friends and would take the first opportunity to call on them. The townhouse at Grosvenor Square was going to ring with celebrations. He made a mental note
, to have Mrs. Finch arrange for a thorough cleaning and airing. Before a person could turn around it would be June, the start of the season, and the Ashford family would entertain with great splendor.
“Shall we go home, my dear?” he asked.
“If you would escort us back to our lodging, I would be most grateful,” she said.
“We are going home,” he said. “Look at those boys. Pallid from lack of sunlight. Running amok from lack of open space. They cannot thrive in a suite of tiny rooms and neither can you. You appear faded, my dear, indeed, your lack of vitality frightens me.”
“I will not return to my father’s home like a destitute widow,” she said.
The symbolism that mattered to women was often lost on men, but Jack listened with open ears and an open mind. “Then it will be made known that you are only visiting,” he said. “It is no lie to tell the curious of your ongoing renovations of Albemarle. I intend to confirm this fact if anyone should ask.” He hated the suggestion of a temporary situation, even though he did not plan on Maddie remaining for too long under his roof.
“I am here to settle the boys in school,” she said.
“Quite so,” he said.
“Then are we in agreement? I am not expected to relinquish authority over my life, or these children, to you?”
“We are entirely of one mind in this matter,” Jack said. The wedding that he planned in his head would eclipse all others, and by God his daughter’s dress would be admired and coveted by every female in the kingdom.
The carriage was crowded, the children restless and given to continuous movement. In spite of the cold, they opened the windows to lean out for an unimpeded view of a foreign country that was unlike anything South Carolina could offer. Maddie’s lap dog kept a wary eye on Jack, as if ready to dig its little teeth into his hand if he dared to get too close.
At the start of the drive into Farthingmill Abbey, Jack sat more upright and drew the attention of all except Maddie. Her initial reaction to the house was etched into his mind, a gaze of fear over what she would find, and finally a frown of acceptance. “It is not so attractive an edifice, is it?” he asked Maddie.
“No, dearest, it is not. But it is perfectly situated on the grounds, and the park is incomparable. The architect placed it in the best spot. He had a fine eye in that regard,” she said.
“Yet it is a warm house, is it not?”
“The interiors are well done,” she said. With a smile, she added, “A home’s warmth has little to do with the decorations.”
“There it is,” David shouted. In unison, five little bodies hurtled across legs and luggage to reach the side window that framed what Caro claimed was a castle.
They would take long walks and explore the woods and the abbey ruins; Jack had planned it for years, in detail. They would fish in the pond, go riding, eat sweets and ruin their appetites, shoot birds and walk to church every Sunday. Jack patted Maddie’s hand, but her mind was far away, in some sad place that brought a tear to her eye. All would be well, Jack wanted to tell her, but it was best that she find out for herself. In a few short weeks, all would be well.
The Second War of Rebellion Page 55