Relentless Pursuit

by Alexander Kent

  His hat was in his hand although he had not moved. He bowed his head, clumsy and awkward, words sticking in his throat, afraid that when he raised his eyes she would be gone.

  “I beg your pardon. I did not wish to disturb you.” He dared to look at her. “I arrived too early, it seems.”

  He saw one hand detach itself from the flowers and rise to adjust the gown across her bare shoulder. And all the while she was looking at him. Into him, with neither smile nor recognition.

  Her eyes were very dark, as he remembered them. In a single glance, but it was the same. He had not recalled her hair, other than that it was also dark, almost black in the dusty sunshine. But much longer, waist-length, perhaps more.

  He said, “It was good of Sir Gregory to make the time for me. My aunt . . .”

  She continued along the path but then stopped again, a few feet away.

  She said, “He wanted to do it.” She gave what might have been a shrug. “Otherwise you would not be here.”

  Her voice was soft, but strong, cultured, not a local girl. Assured, as she would be when composing herself for a painting. And yet, there was something else. He heard Montagu’s voice. She was badly hurt also. What had he been trying to say?

  She said, “I must leave you, Captain Bolitho.” She lingered over his name, testing it as Montagu would assess the quality of a new canvas.

  In a moment he would step aside, and she would not look back.

  He said quietly, “I heard your harp when I left here before. I was very moved by it.” Unconsciously, he gestured. “In this setting it seemed so right, so perfect. Now that I have met you I understand why.”

  She stared at him, defiant or angry, it was impossible to tell. She was taller than he had realised, and the gown did nothing to free his mind from that first time. The chained wrists, the painter’s motionless arm, her eyes touching his for no more than a second.

  But she said, “You have a way with words, Captain. With women too, I suspect. Now, if you will allow me to pass?” She looked down, startled, as two of her yellow roses fell to the ground.

  He stooped to retrieve them, and saw her feet, barely covered by leather sandals, as brown as her throat and arms.

  She stepped back, and almost lost her balance as her heel snared the hem of the gown.

  He gripped the roses, one of the thorny stems drawing blood, but without any pain. He felt nothing. It had been her quick withdrawal which recalled it, a stark, ugly picture. The young black girl, violated, beyond anything but terror and revulsion. When he had reached out to reassure her of her safety she had responded in the same manner.

  He said, “I—I am so sorry. I never meant to offend you.” There were voices now, someone laughing, a horse stamping, ready to leave. It was over. It had not even begun.

  Adam stepped from the path and felt her pass him, so close that the gown touched his hand.

  He looked after her, and saw that her hair was as long as he had imagined. She was probably going now to adopt a pose for another artist. Disrobed, perhaps, her lovely body open to another man’s stare. What did she think about? Was it a way of avenging herself for what had happened to her? To prove she was inviolable?

  If he could find that stable boy he would leave now. Before . . .

  He stared at her, unable to accept that she had turned back, her face no longer calm. She reached out and seized his sleeve. “Your hand! It’s bleeding!” She prised the two roses from him and laid the entire bouquet on the scorched grass at her feet.

  She had produced a handkerchief from somewhere and was wrapping it around his fingers as Montagu, followed by his servant, appeared in the walled garden.

  “Now then, what have we here?”

  Adam saw it clearly. Anxiety, suspicion; it was far deeper than either.

  She said, “Roses. My fault.” She looked directly at Adam and said, “I have seen many men of war, Captain. But only in portraits. I was unprepared.” She knelt to recover the roses, or herself.

  Montagu said, “You see, Captain, your reputation precedes you!” But he was smiling, unwilling or unable to hide his relief.

  “So let us begin. I’ve roughed out some ideas.” He beamed. “Besides, we must not detain a man on his birthday!”

  He turned and called something to his servant.

  She stood, very upright and composed. “I did not know, Captain.” She broke off a rose and attached it to the lapel of his coat. “To remember me by.” Then, very deliberately, she broke the other stem and placed the rose in the bosom of her gown; his blood made a bright stain on the silk. “And I shall remember you.”

  He watched her walk unhurriedly along the path and out of the garden.

  Montagu was waiting for him. “Come along, while the light is good.”

  Adam thrust his hand into his pocket. The handkerchief was still there. Not a dream.

  “I’m delighted that you remembered to bring the sword. Memories, eh?”

  The same room, the same unwelcoming chair.

  Adam saw the canvas for the first time. An outline. A ghost.

  Montagu placed the sword carefully on his bench and made a few swift sketches.

  “I would not ask you to leave the sword, this sword, with me. I think, Captain, that you will need it again soon.” Adam waited, his eyes on the tall harp. Montagu was giving himself time. Weighing the chances, like an experienced gun captain watching the first fall of shot.

  He said suddenly, “I see that you are wearing the rose. Shall I keep it in the finished work?” So casually said. So important.

  “I would be honoured, Sir Gregory. I mean it, more than ever now.”

  Montagu nodded slowly, and rolled up one sleeve.

  “I shall tell Lowenna what you said.”

  He began to paint very briskly.

  He had made up his mind.

  Lowenna.

  Adam Bolitho entered the church and closed the tall doors behind him. After the heat of the morning and his walk into Falmouth from the old house it seemed a cool haven, a refuge. He was still wondering why he had come. He felt his shirt clinging to his skin, as if he had been in haste or had some pressing reason for being here.

  It was dark after the sunlight of the square, and the streets where people looked at him as he passed. Interest, curiosity or, like some of the old Jacks by the ale house, hoping to catch his eye for the price of a drink.

  Perhaps he had come to clear his head, unused as he was to the awesome meal which Grace Ferguson had prepared in his honour. Duck and local lamb, fish as well; it would have satisfied Unrivalled’s midshipmen for a year.

  And John Allday had made an appearance. It must have cost him dearly to come, Adam thought. Older, heavier, shaggier, but otherwise the same. Unchanged. The first moments had been the hardest. Allday had taken his hand in both of his, and had stood in silence, holding it. Remembering, so that he had shared it, seeing it as it must have been. The hardest part.

  Allday had told him about meeting Tyacke when his ship had called here. And other names had been mentioned, faces appearing as if from the shadows. The hardest part . . .

  He walked deeper into the church, seeing the tablets and sculptures, soldiers and sailors, men who had died in battle, at sea or in some far-off land for some cause few would now remember. There were all the Bolithos, their wives too, in some cases.

  He looked back through the church, at the aisle where he had given his arm to Belinda when she had married his uncle.

  There were others in the church. Resting, escaping from the heat, praying, but all separate, alone with their thoughts.

  He thought of the untidy studio, and Sir Gregory Montagu’s sharp, assessing gaze while his brushes had moved tirelessly as if controlled by some independent force.

  And the girl. He’d not seen her again, and yet, as he had ridden from the house he had felt that she was there. Watching him.

  He had sensed Nancy’s immediate interest when he had mentioned her, but even she knew very little.
Born in Cornwall, but had moved away when still a child. As far as London, where the family had somehow become involved with Sir Gregory Montagu. Her father had been a scholar, a man of refinement, but there had been some scandal and Nancy had heard little more, except that the long-haired girl named Lowenna sometimes came to the old glebe house with Montagu, but was rarely seen anywhere else, not even in the adjoining village of Penryn.

  She knew more than she was telling. Before she had left for her own house, she had taken his arm and murmured, “Don’t break your heart, Adam. Not again.”

  A warning, but she had not been there in the walled garden. Like stripping away a curtain of secrecy, when he had seen the girl Lowenna, her defences momentarily broken down . . . Andromeda, the captive waiting to be rescued from sacrifice.

  He had paused opposite a finely crafted bust of Captain David Bolitho, who had died in 1724, fighting pirates off the African coast. He had been the first Bolitho to carry the sword Montagu admired so much. And now Unrivalled would be going back there. He touched the scabbard at his thigh. Will I be the last Bolitho to wear it?

  Montagu expected him to make another visit. He was afraid of hope, afraid of hoping.

  “Why, Captain, you are not wearing my rose.”

  He swung round, his shoe scraping on an iron grill, and saw her sitting at the end of a pew, her face pale against something dark, even black.

  He gripped the back of the pew, hardly trusting himself to speak.

  “I would have walked right past you! I had no idea.” He saw her hand gripped around the polished woodwork, like some small, wary creature. “I still have it. I will never lose it.” He saw some faces turn towards him, disturbed, irritated. He lowered his voice. “May I ask why you are here at King Charles the Martyr?”

  “I might ask the same of you, Captain. Perhaps you came to bask in the past glories of your family? Or to find peace, as I do on occasion.”

  He reached out to cover her hand with his own, but it had vanished. He said, “I wanted to walk, to think.” He hesitated. “To remember.”

  She looked down, her face almost hidden. “You asked for the rose to remain in the portrait? Is that so?”

  He nodded, sensing her sudden uncertainty. Like panic.

  He said, “It will always be there. Even when I am not.”

  She shook her head and he saw her hair shine briefly in the colours from a stained glass window.

  “Do not say such things.” She looked at him directly again, her eyes very dark. “And do not think of me as you first saw me. It would be better for you if we never saw one another again.”

  He felt her hand close on his, slight but surprisingly strong. “Believe me, for my sake if not your own.”

  The building quivered to the slow, deliberate intrusion of the great clock chiming the hour.

  She stood suddenly, the contact broken. “I must leave. I am already late. Forgive me.”

  She had opened the pew gate and was very close to him. Her perfume, or perhaps it was her body’s scent, was almost physical.

  He said, “I would wish to see you again, Lowenna.” He felt her start at the use of her name, but she did not pull away.

  Instead she said quietly, “He told you.” Then, “He trusts you.”

  She stepped out of the pew and he was vaguely aware of other faces turning to stare.

  She said, “It is a long walk. You may ride with me.” And put a hand to her mouth, as if surprised, even shocked by her own suggestion.

  Then she tossed her head, the hair spilling across her shoulder. “They can think what they choose!”

  He stepped aside for her, unable to believe it was happening.

  He said, “There will always be thoughts.” Like a voice from the past.

  There were some empty vases waiting to be filled, and he took her arm gently to guide her around them. He felt the sudden tension, so strong that he thought she would turn upon him.

  But she halted and faced him, quite deliberately, and her voice was heavy, even sad.

  “Don’t do that again, Captain.” Without anger. Without hope.

  They walked in silence to the big doors and he saw a pony and a smart little trap waiting in the square. It was the same stable boy, neatly turned out and without his grubby apron. He showed neither surprise nor hesitation as he hurried to lower the other seat. Side by side, not touching. But Adam could think of one thing only. This meeting was no accident. She must have wanted it.

  Don’t break your heart, Adam. Not again.

  He glanced at her profile as the little trap rattled out of the square. Her head and shoulders were covered with a fine black shawl. Only one hand showed itself on the safety rail. A temptation, and a risk he would never take. Like the girl on board the slaver. Afraid of what might happen.

  Worse, what she might do.

  It seemed to take no time at all. The old stone wall, the house beyond, and always the sea. He said, “You could step into the house. I could show you some of the portraits.” It sounded meaningless. He tried again. “You would not be alone. There are people here.”

  She was not listening. She said only, “Someone is waiting for you, I think.”

  The little group stood motionless by the entrance. Ferguson and, surprisingly, Allday. Yovell was here too, a little apart from the others. A spectator.

  But all Adam saw was the man in uniform, the dust still on his shoulders from his ride. The horse was with Young Matthew and the boy Napier, who was rubbing his eyes with his wrist.

  She murmured, “Is it bad news?”

  Adam turned on the seat and looked at her. He did not need to be told; he had experienced it many times. Without question. Sometimes he had welcomed it. But not now.

  He answered, “I am recalled.”

  She did not take her eyes from his. “I think I knew. It was why I had to see you. To speak . . .” She attempted to pull her hand away as he covered it with his own, but instead stared at it, as if fighting something, unable to break free.

  “I felt it too, Lowenna.” He looked around, the house, the group of people he cared about; they were not here. There was only the sea. Like an old, familiar enemy. “I shall never forget . . .”

  She shook her head. “You must. For both our sakes.”

  Adam felt a tear splash on to his hand, and released hers very carefully. Then he stepped down and stood beside the little trap and said simply, “I want to know you, and for you to know me, to share and confide. To trust.”

  She watched him, one hand to her breast as he lifted his wrist and touched the fallen tears with his lips.

  “Until we meet again, this must suffice.”

  He didn’t know if she’d heard him, or even if she had answered.

  The trap was rattling away and was lost almost immediately around the bend of the road. She did not look back.

  He walked towards the house and saw the courier unfastening his pouch.

  The rest were dreams.

  Adam Bolitho stood by the stern windows in a patch of deep shadow and stared out at the great array of ships. It never changed except when Unrivalled swung to her cable. He traced the outline of an anchored brigantine with his finger on the thick glass. You could almost feel the impatience of the vessels and their companies, eager to leave before the excitement lost its edge.

  It was his first full day on board, and yet he still felt as if part of himself had remained with the land. He had tried to lose himself in his command, something he had always been able to do, even if only to give confidence in moments of doubt.

  Galbraith had done well during his absence. No deserters, perhaps because of the unpaid bounty- and prize-money, and only a few defaulters, petty for the most part.

  He turned his back on the glistening panorama and looked around the cabin. Two hours ago he had assembled all the officers here, senior warrant officers included. He smiled faintly. Trust the professionals. Two hours, yet he could still see them, just as Joshua Cristie’s rank tobacco lingered as
another reminder.

  He had explained the main points of Unrivalled’s orders. In three days’ time, unless otherwise instructed, she would proceed to sea, to carry despatches of importance to Gibraltar, then return to Plymouth with the latest intelligence for Lord Exmouth himself.

  Unrivalled’s captain was commanded to act upon these orders with all despatch, and at no time deviate from them.

  Exmouth was an admiral, but he was still a frigate captain at heart, and knew better than most of the temptations which might intervene with loosely worded orders.

  Unrivalled was quiet now, during the first dogwatch, the hands in their messes, the “young gentlemen” and boys under instruction.

  Adam had listened to his own voice as he had stressed the need for extra care, the final testing of standing and running rigging. Galbraith and Partridge would deal with that. Powder and shot; he had seen Old Stranace nod, his experience of many years priceless in a campaign which might well explode into a full-scale war. He had been aware of some surprise when he had emphasized the importance of provisioning the ship to her full capacity, especially with fresh fruit and vegetables.

  Tregillis, the purser, had met his gaze without expression. He, more than anyone, would know how easy it was to barter with traders at a better rate if the goods were overripe before they were even stowed away. It would do no harm for him to be aware of his captain’s interest.

  There had been only a few questions, most referring to a particular officer’s duties or part of ship.

  Only Lieutenant Varlo had broken the pattern.

  “If we are indeed to confront the Dey of Algiers to stamp out his capture and enslavement of innocent Christians, why do we require a fleet to carry out the necessary measures? Commodore Turnbull has only a handful of worn-out brigs to end the trade in Africa, as we have seen for ourselves!”

  Cristie had intervened bluntly, “’Cause there are too many people making money out of Africa, Mister Varlo!”

  Lieutenant Bellairs had raised a question about the prospect of promotion for some of the new hands, and Varlo’s comment had remained in the air. But it had not gone away.

  He walked to his desk and unlocked a drawer. His personal log book was still open, but the ink was dry. He wondered who would ever read it. Almost cautiously he turned back the pages, and lifted the yellow rose to hold it to the light. It would not last, even if carefully pressed. But in his mind he could see it exactly as she had given it to him. The one he had worn for the benefit of Sir Gregory Montagu’s darting brushes.