by Joan Aiken
Fortunately the engagement was of short duration. The French ship was in no way equal to tackling a man-of-war and would have fled if possible, but the Tintagel could outsail her and had far superior gun power, within a couple of hours the enemy ship had surrendered after being grappled and boarded. The French captain and his officers were taken prisoner, and Howard, the first lieutenant, was dispatched to take command of the captured ship. Some time after, Captain Phillimore recollected that his female passengers were still confined below decks and sent word that they might come up again.
This time it was a midshipman who brought the message; a skinny lad named Owens to whom Scylla had endeared herself by lancing a gumboil that was plaguing him and which he dared not show to the surgeon, who considered such trifling afflictions beneath his notice.
“Mr. Howard’s gone to take command of the Frenchman, ma’am, so we’re all to have a step up,” Owens told Scylla happily. “I’ll be junior lieutenant, now, and your brother’s number four. O’ course it’s only acting promotion; it won’t be confirmed till we get to Portsmouth.”
“Well, I am happy to hear it for your sake,” said Scylla, thankfully assisting Mrs. Whiteforest to clamber up the steep ladder into daylight.
“Cap’n Phillimore ain’t half making indentures, ma’am,” confided Owens. “He’s as happy as a grig. He’s thinking of prize money, I daresay! I say, miss, your brother is a prime gun! He was first over the side in the boarding party, and I saw him knock over a big hulking brute of a Frenchman with the butt of his pistol! He’s a right top-holer.”
Returning to their cabin—which seemed unbelievably light and airy after the horrors of the orlop—Scylla could not help being amazed at how readily Cal had taken to naval life. She longed for a quiet hour to ask him his feelings about it all. Did he not wish for some time—or solitude—in which to write his poetry? She knew that he shared a cabin with Gough, who was extremely talkative. When could he even find the peace and quiet to think? And what of his epileptic attacks? Had they ceased to trouble him? She remembered that he said he was less prone to an attack during action than when at rest; perhaps the almost nonstop action in his present existence was proving beneficial. It was very strange—and frustrating—after so many years of constant unfettered communication to be so close to Cal, to see him often, active on deck, giving orders, talking to his companions, and yet be prevented from exchanging anything but the barest commonplaces.
Sounds of singing and festivity about the ship now made Mrs. Whiteforest very anxious.
“Best bolt the doors, my dear,” she said to Scylla. “I know what it is like at sea when a prize has been taken! And the crew on this ship are still a scratch lot, something new and raw, I am afraid they may become out of hand; Captain Phillimore, though such a stern disciplinarian, is, regrettably, so fond of his bottle himself that he will think little of it if they become drunk and unruly. Bolt the door, and let us keep as quiet as may be.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Although agreeing with Mrs. Whiteforest that this was the only course to pursue, Scylla was extremely hungry, for the ladies had missed their main meal, and it was a relief when, after an hour or so, a polite tap announced the arrival of Bagby, the captain’s servant, who brought them their meals. Bagby, like Fishbourne, was an inveterate gossip, and now he brought disturbing news.
“I’m afraid your brother’s fell foul of the capting, miss,” he said, handing Scylla the tray of boiled beef, sour cabbage, and biscuit which was their almost unvarying diet.
“Oh no, Bagby, how?” Her heart lurched with fright; her hands shook so much that she was obliged to set the tray hastily on the deck.
“Well, miss, I wasn’t there for the beginning of the altercation, but it took place while they was all a-celebrating the prize at dinner in the capting’s cabing. I come through the door to hand around the port wine, which the capting likes particular when there’s something to celebrate, and I saw your brother was a-standing up, white as holystone, I give you my word, miss. ‘Captain Phillimore, that is an unwarrantable aspersion on my sister, sir,’ he says, ‘an’ I must ask if you will be good enough to retract it.’ An’ at that old Philbottle looks him up and down, in that sarcastic way he has, an, ‘No, my young shaver, I don’t retract it,’ he says. ‘I daresay you think you are a fine fellow after today’s work, but let me tell you, one engagement does not make a sailor, an’ you still have a many things to learn about the navy. And one of them is that, what the capting says goes! An’ furthermore,’ says he, ‘you have just been guilty of insolence to your capting. You are lucky that I am lenient enough to consider it insolence, Mr. Paget, and not mutiny. You will report to the officer of the watch, Mr. Paget, every hour, until further orders.’”
“Good God!” exclaimed Scylla. “You mean my brother must get up at every hour through the night, even when it is not his watch? How monstrous! That man is a brute!”
“Yes, miss. He is that,” said Bagby sympathetically, and he went out, shutting the door.
Scylla paced up and down the limited deck space. Now she had no appetite for her meal. Mrs. Whiteforest, perhaps fortunately, had fallen asleep. Scylla’s thoughts were turbulent. Her face burned with anger and shame. She could imagine the kind of thing Captain Phillimore might have said about her, under the influence of drink and excitement. And she could imagine Cal’s disgust and indignation at hearing his sister so traduced—in front of the other officers, too!
The night passed slowly. Scylla, unable to sleep, imagined Cal being obliged to rouse up every hour and report himself to the officer of the watch. What a mean, filthy trick!
When she went up on deck next day for her hour’s fresh air, she—looked around for Cal but could not see him. Perhaps he was snatching a little sleep—or perhaps Captain Phillimore had devised some new penalty for him.
The captain came up while she was there although she had, as usual, chosen his dinner hour for her airing. His face was even redder than usual as, with a truculent gait, he crossed to intercept her as she started for the companionway.
“Good day to you, Miss Paget. I am sorry to have to inform you that your—brother—is just now subject to ship’s discipline. Young gentlemen who come to sea thinking that they know all there is to know must sometimes be obliged to learn that they do not!”
Scylla met his malicious grin with what she hoped was a look of stony impassivity.
“Would you mind letting me by, Captain Phillimore? I wish to go below.”
If he had wished her to display temper, argue, or plead her brother’s case, he was going to be disappointed. He tried another shaft.
“Young ladies and their brothers who travel about the world together cannot always expect to be treated like royalty.”
To this Scylla made no reply at all, merely stood waiting in silence with compressed lips, until at last he reluctantly moved aside from the companion ladder enough to allow her down it. She was aware of cautiously sympathetic glances from a couple of other officers within earshot, MacBride and Forsyth; but their pity only made her feel angrier. If only Cal were not so completely at the mercy of this pig of a man, what satisfaction she would take in answering him as he deserved!
That evening, late, after Mrs. Whiteforest and the baby were both asleep, Scylla received a message. It was brought by a little mouse of a boy, Gasgoyne, the youngest midshipman, who was barely twelve years old. He was a tiny trembling creature, terrified of Captain Phillimore, who seemed to take pleasure in tormenting him; knowing that Gasgoyne was nervous of going aloft, he sent him up into the rigging twenty times a day “to harden him off” as he put it. Now Gasgoyne timorously tapped on the door and whispered:
“Please, miss, Captain Phillimore’s compliments, and he says to tell you Lieutenant Paget is in the captain’s cabin, answering questions as to his conduct regarding the captain, and he asks if you will p-present yourself, miss, for he wishes to have c-confirmatio
n of something or other.” Toward the end of this statement it began to seem plain to Scylla that either the little boy had forgotten precisely what he was supposed to say or he was suffering from an extreme attack of nerves; he sounded exceedingly stammering and terrified.
Scylla herself was greatly startled by this message. Completely ignorant as to how ships’ affairs were conducted, she thought it a strange time to conduct an inquiry and could not imagine what value her presence might have there; she was inclined to refuse, suspecting another of the captain’s cruel jokes. On the other hand, if Cal was there, if Cal needed her—
If the captain were likely to deal out a further horrible piece of unjustified punishment—
“I don’t think I had better go, Gasgoyne,” she said in a low voice.
“Please, miss! For God’s sake! The captain’ll have me over a gun barrel if you don’t!” he snuffled. “I’m bruises from me head to me heel as it is—look!” He held out his skinny little hands, which were, indeed, covered with black weals and cuts. “And you should just see me back—He said he’d slit my tongue if I didn’t fetch you directly!”
“Slit your tongue? He couldn’t do that!”
“Miss, he meant it! And he could!”
“Oh—very well.” With a helpless sigh of anger and despair, she flung a shawl around her shoulders and followed Gasgoyne along corridors and companion ways to the door of the captain’s great cabin. Scylla had never set foot in it, though she knew where it was. Gasgoyne tapped on the door, then stood aside to let her through.
* * *
Despite the final outcome, which was inevitable from the start, Scylla would always be glad to think that she had fought as hard as she was able and had managed to do quite a bit of damage before Captain Phillimore finally overpowered her. She kicked, she scratched, she bit his thumb till her teeth met bone, she nearly dragged off his ears, she tore at his hair and beard. The fight was conducted in a panting, stifled silence, because she was too proud to scream for help and reveal how stupidly, how gullibly she had walked into his trap. So this was what Cameron really feared for me, she thought at one black moment; how ironic that it should happen, not when or where he expected it, but on the very sea passage that he had taken such care to arrange for us.
Phillimore was drunk, of course, but not so drunk as to be totally inarticulate. “I don’t doubt that this is what you are in the habit of doing with your brother, Miss Paget,” he panted at one point. “Well, now you are going to have the privilege of doing it with an English gentleman.” For reply, Scylla sank her teeth in his arm and he dealt her a ringing blow which would, she thought, almost certainly result in a black eye next day.
At last he rolled off her, almost insensible from drink and physical effort. She dragged herself to her feet and stood looking around the room, which was in a considerable state of disorder. Chairs had been overturned, the handsome mahogany table had a great scratch across it; several glasses had been broken, and Scylla’s arm had been cut quite deeply by a shard from one of them; there was blood all over the floor.
He had locked the door and put the key in his breeches pocket. From there she retrieved it, let herself out, and left the door swinging. Let anyone who passed think what they would; at this moment she did not care. Feeling sick with rage and disgust, she made her way staggeringly back to her own cabin, flung herself on her bunk, and lay staring wide-eyed into the darkness.
* * *
In a way it was fortunate that, on the next day, the Tintagel entered the Bay of Biscay. From dawn the turbulence began. Mrs. Whiteforest was too desperately ill even to look up from her pillow; as the ship pitched and rolled, and toilet articles skidded about the floor, Scylla congratulated herself that she had a good reason for not going to take the air as usual, and a plausible means of accounting for her black eye. She could say that she had fallen against the bunk or the cabin door.
In spite of these dismal satisfactions, it was a long, wretched day. The sky outside the port was dark, the ship’s motion was horrible, and she had her hands full with Mrs. Whiteforest and little Chet, who was not ill, but very frightened of the strange way in which everything around him was going up and down or sliding to and fro.
Presently, too, it occurred to Scylla that there was something strange and unusual about the atmosphere of the ship. Outside her door she could hear considerable commotion—running feet, excited voices, questions, shouts. Perhaps another French boat had been sighted? Perhaps the Tintagel was on fire, sinking? The thought of having to descend to the orlop deck in these circumstances was frightful; in trepidation Scylla waited for an order to do so. With a sinking heart she opened the door at the sound of a knock.
But the person outside was Cal.
He stared at her in silence for a moment or two, taking in the bruises, the contused cheek, the rough bandage that she had put on her own arm, the black circles under her eyes.
He held something small in his hand.
“I found this,” he said. “I picked it up.”
It was her camel-hair ring.
After a moment she muttered, “Don’t mind it, please, Cal, pray don’t mind it; it’s of no consequence, I swear!”
Next instant they were in each other’s arms, trying to console each other, weeping, murmuring childhood words of endearment.
“We can’t talk here,” said Cal at last. “Come to my cabin.”
“But—Gough—”
“He and the others are having a meeting in the wardroom. Come.”
Gathering up little Chet, Scylla brought him along too; Mrs. Whiteforest had finally accepted a dose of laudanum and was in a merciful sleep.
Once in Gough’s cabin they turned to face one another again. “Listen to me,” Cal said urgently. He looked pale and grim but composed now. “Captain Phillimore has disappeared.”
“What? But he—”
He laid a finger on her lips.
“Never mind that! Just listen to this, Scylla. He has disappeared. The whole ship has been searched for him. He is not to be found anywhere. So—it can only be concluded that he must have fallen overboard. Everybody knows that he was in his cups last night—at least three sheets in the wind. He had drunk a huge quantity of brandy—all the officers saw him. He must have gone on deck for a breath of air to relieve his head. It blew very hard as we were entering the bay. He could have slipped and gone over the side without anybody noticing. That is what must have happened.”
She could not speak. She stared at Cal, huge-eyed.
“There will be an inquiry when we reach port,” Cal went on. “So long as it cannot be said that anybody had a particular reason to wish the captain ill, Forsyth and MacBride think that it will be accepted that he fell by accident; it seems half the fleet can attest that he was a heavy drinker. But if it could be suggested that anybody had a grudge against him—then that person would be in deadly danger. Do you see?”
She did see. She muttered, “He was such a hideous beast—there must be twenty—thirty—fifty people aboard the ship who are glad he has gone.” Suddenly the gross, hateful image of the man rose in her mind; she clutched Cal’s arm. “Are you sure he is gone? Not—not sleeping off his debauch in some corner?” She imagined Phillimore thrusting his way along the corridor, bawling for her brother. Alive, and in the flesh, he did not frighten her; absent, possibly in hiding, he had much more power to terrify.
Cal met her eyes straight. “No, he is gone. You can be sure of that.”
He put his hands gently on either side of her face, cupping her cheeks.
“Scylla—I hate to ask it of you, but it is desperately important that you behave as if nothing had happened. Can you do that?”
She nodded, gulping back the tears that his gentleness had brought to her throat.
His face worked, momentarily, as he looked at her, the black winged brows nearly met over his nose. He muttered,
“That monster! He deserved far worse—” Then, urgently, “Scylla! Are you all right? Are you—did he—?”
Taking a long, gasping breath, she shook herself as if to throw off the horrible image and said firmly:
“I am going to forget him. There is nothing the matter with me. Don’t distress yourself—pray! I shall soon come about. And—and I shall take care to remember your warning.” Trying for a normal tone, she added, “What will happen to the ship, now, with the captain missing and the first lieutenant on board the captured French boat?”
“Forsyth has signaled for Howard to come back and take command here. I daresay Howard will send Forsyth over to the Frenchman in his place. Forsyth is really a capital fellow—equal to anything.” There was an intensity of meaning in his eye as he added the last words. Scylla longed to put the question that was in her mind: “How did you know what happened? And who else knew?” but she knew that she must not. She drew another long, shaky breath and said:
“I had best return to my cabin. We should not—should not seem to be speaking too particularly.”
“No, you are very right.” He opened the door and glanced out. “The coast is clear—you may go now. There will be no harm in your keeping your cabin while we are in the bay—any female might! Be of good heart, love—”
His lips brushed her cheek, then as she turned to retrace her steps toward her cabin he walked swiftly in the other direction.
* * *
Contrary winds kept them in the Bay of Biscay for six days, and during that time the Tintagel rolled so wildly that her deck seemed to be perpetually at a forty-five-degree angle. Sea water splashed through their port, the wind howled in the rigging, and it was wretchedly cold; Scylla began to realize that her wardrobe was not adequate for northern latitudes.