Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea

by Kage Baker

  Nonetheless, she called out, “Is that you, Beatrice?”

  “Yes, Mamma,” Lady Beatrice replied. She slipped from beneath Mr. Pickett’s arm and went to sit beside Mrs. Corvey on the sofa. “Did you have a pleasant rest?”

  “I did indeed, though I fear we may have stayed later than I intended,” returned Mrs. Corvey. “Has the moon risen?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Lady Beatrice, and cast a warm glance in Mr. Pickett’s direction.

  Mr. Picket was pacing before the fireplace, evidently torn between wringing his hands and casting himself to his knees in front of Mrs. Corvey. His combined distress and arousal made it very difficult for his putative mother-in-law to keep a straight face, though she kept her gaze out the open windows and so off-center from his anxious figure.

  Lady Beatrice gave him no opening in which to commit any faux pas, however, instead chattering smoothly and lightly as she gathered up their gloves, shawls and bonnets. Mrs. Corvey responded in kind, occasionally directing to Mr. Pickett questions to which she then gave him no time to respond; in this way, the two ladies swept him inexorably toward his own front door under the impression he himself had summoned his carriage for their use.

  In very short order they were handed up to their seats (several kisses being furtively traded between Lady Beatrice and Mr. Pickett under Mrs. Corvey’s blind eyes) and so driven off briskly along the drive. Mr. Pickett waved them out of sight.

  They rode in silence for some time under the bright moonlight, for the moon had by now risen high and clear. As they passed that portion of the cliffs where the cottages stood, Lady Beatrice remarked aloud to Mrs. Corvey that they seemed quite brightly lit up.

  “There even appeared to be a bonfire there earlier, Mamma,” she said. “We could see it all clearly from the cliff path.”

  “The night fishing fleet, I suppose,” returned Mrs. Corvey. “They say all manner of fish rise to the light of the moon.”

  “That is quite true, Mamma.”

  In a lower tone, Mrs. Corvey said, “And I hope rather more than a dozen roses results from your fishing, my girl.”

  Lady Beatrice nodded a warning at the driver before them, but smiled in discreet triumph.

  “They are very fine roses,” she said serenely. “Nonetheless, I expect they may not be unaccompanied on the morrow.”

  They rode on in silence then, until the driver helped them down in front of their boarding house.

  Even from the street, it was clear that their suite was awake. Though the downstairs parlor was lit only by a single low lamp, Mrs. Corvey and Lady Beatrice could see their own windows blazing bright above them. They climbed quietly to the third floor, where Dora popped out of their own door to wave them in as soon as they cleared the landing.

  “We’ve had no end of excitement!” she exclaimed as they entered. “Herbertina found a way into the sea caves, and saw the gun platform in action, and fought off a dreadful thug! And she was shot at, but the new black corset stays stopped the bullet! Mr. Pickett’s butler came and actually accosted us here, and Charlotte and I interrogated him and got rid of him before the landlady saw him! Mr. Felmouth says the French are launching a new warship next week!” She stopped to catch her breath and finished, “And we have a darling little dog now!”

  Mrs. Corvey and Lady Beatrice stopped, staring in confusion. The Aetheric Transmitter was still out on the central table, and still surrounded by a labyrinth of stacked playing cards. Mrs. Otley had paused in sketching her peculiar skull, which was framed in Maude’s lap for contrast; Miss Rendlesham had, for once, a notebook and pencil to hand instead of a novel. Everyone wore expressions of eager anticipation, save for Herbertina (who was exploring a hole in her corset with a cautious finger) and a fox terrier who was in the process of having a bow tied round its neck by Jane.

  “Woof,” said the terrier, and grinned ingratiatingly.

  “Did Mr. Ponsonby survive being got rid of?” asked Lady Beatrice after a slight pause.

  “Well, he fell down the stairs a bit, but he was on his feet when he left,” said Dora.

  “ I think I should like to sit down now,” said Mrs. Corvey. “And then we can go over this evening point by point.”

  They handed off their things to various of the other Ladies, Mrs. Corvey taking her customary seat at the head of the table. She removed her dark glasses and pointed at Herbertina.

  “You go first, dear. It sounds as though you had the most exciting evening.” Mrs. Corvey rubbed her temples. “Then Beatrice, I think—I know her evening was exciting.”

  “On the contrary, it was quite predictable,” demurred Lady Beatrice, and a subdued tide of laughter ran around the table.

  One by one, like schoolgirls reciting their lessons, the Ladies each recounted their adventures to the whole group. Herbertina and Lady Beatrice were definitely the Senior Girls in this exercise, with the hard information they had gathered. Herbertina’s corset was passed around for examination, and the black stays declared a definite triumph; Lady Beatrice was congratulated, with some feminine hilarity, on her recent betrothal.

  Mr. Pickett’s personal excesses and eccentricities were reported dispassionately and received without surprise. Indeed, Lady Beatrice would not have bothered repeating them, save that she thought his reaction had a bearing on his mental state.

  “Disabling the gun would likewise neutralize Mr. Pickett, I think,” she said. “He has a clear emotional resonance with the performance of his gun.”

  “Ain’t they all, though?” sighed Mrs. Corvey. “Nothing unsettles a man’s feeble mind like a big gun. It’s just that in his case, he can brandish the damn thing a lot further than most lads. Right across the Channel!”

  This was reinforced when Lady Beatrice confirmed that Mr. Pickett was definitely targeting a French vessel in the next week. Miss Rendlesham was then able to establish corroboration with this from her post-Ponsonby communique with Mr. Felmouth—which was that the French had just launched a new warship, named Le Cygne Impériale.

  “The Imperial Swan?” asked Mrs. Otley. “Is that not somewhat—gauche—for the new Republic?”

  “Bureaucracy moves slowly,” said Miss Rendlesham. “Or so Mr. Felmouth says. It was commissioned before the latest regime change. It is a sloop of war, evidently, an hermaphrodite brig nearly 200 feet long. Partly iron-clad below the water line, and the hull is made of two layers of white oak.”

  “So she is white and fierce and damned hard to sink,” mused Mrs. Corvey. “Rather pretty conceit. Very French. And she has already launched?”

  “Yes, some days ago. She is undergoing trials off the coast of France, of course, but she is due to venture into the Channel in the next three days,” said Miss Rendlesham.

  “When Mr. Pickett will try to sink her,” Lady Beatrice said.

  “We shall have our work cut out for us, I fear,” said Miss Rendlesham. “Unless we just ought to disable Mr. Pickett outright, and so delay his own launch?”

  Mrs. Corvey shook her head. “A nice idea, but I don’t think it would stop the enterprise. It’s clearly going on in his absence—he was no use to them tonight, was he?—and I suspect he doesn’t run the gun crew. He’s a yachtsman, a holiday sailor, not a Naval officer. I’d suspect that bugger Felan for the job… No, we cannot stop his launching the gun platform. But I think we can stop it from getting very far.”

  Jane suddenly cleared her throat and sang, in a fine mezzo:

  “I’ll give you gold and I’ll give you fee,

  And my eldest daughter your bride shall be—”

  Maude and Dora joined her, in their respective soprano and alto:

  “—If you’ll sink them in the lowland, lowland, lowland,

  Sink them in the lowland sea!”

  Mrs. Corvey reached out and tapped the construction on the table then. With a prolonged sigh, it rippled round and down into utter destruction.

  Next morning the preparations began in earnest for stopping Mr. Pickett. As Mrs. Corvey said
, while the Gentlemen might succeed in sending some well-armed and masculine help to them before Mr. Pickett’s gun platform set out to sea, it were best not to rely upon it. No ship would sink because they were armed and waiting; but disaster awaited only on their being unprepared.

  They had, besides, a new and potent ally to add to the mix: the redoubtable Mrs. Drumm, who was expected that very afternoon for her interview. Mrs. Corvey had already decided to offer her the position of cook at Nell Gwynne’s, if Mrs. Drumm was not shocked or frightened off by the revelations of their true nature; and Mrs. Corvey felt she had received sufficient indication of a liberal and adventurous inclination to make her hopeful. At the very least, both Mrs. Corvey and Lady Beatrice were sure that Mrs. Drumm would be willing to help them stop Mr. Pickett, for whom she clearly had no good will.

  Over breakfast, a discussion of the fox terrier culminated in her also being offered a position with the Ladies. Herbertina pointed out that a little sporting dog was a very good prop for a young man in her apparent social position, while the Devere sisters merely fell back on pleading for the dog’s obvious heroism and charm. Mrs. Corvey admitted that the dog was, indeed, charming (especially on being offered a paw in greeting over her morning tea) but appeared to be most won over by the fact that the animal had not disgraced herself on the carpets during the night; which was, as Herbertina also pointed out, a better record than some of their patrons.

  In honor of their trade and her own black mask, they named her Domina.

  Immediately post-breakfast, with all parties comfortably replete with porridge and muffins, Jane tied three yards of a jolly red silk ribbon to Domina’s collar, and Domina, Herbertina and the Deveres made up a party for a morning stroll. They took along Mrs. Otley’s latest missive to Mr. Darwin—an envelope fat with detailed drawings of the various anatomical remains she had found—and instructions from Mrs. Corvey to locate at least two of the blacksmiths purported to be in the area and to scout the chandlers’ shops as well.

  “But first, a run along the beach,” Herbertina assured Domina as they strolled along the street. Domina pulled so enthusiastically that Herbertina was obliged to lean well back as they made their way down the seaward-slanting street; and all four of them proceeded in high good humor, simultaneously restraining Domina from leaping ahead and Herbertina from falling over backwards.

  They found the Post Office conveniently on their way and sent Mrs. Otley’s package off to Mr. Charles Darwin; the distance was only about 140 miles, and they were assured he would have it within two days at the most. They also located one of the chandler shops, marking it for exploration on the way home.

  Feeling very efficient, the party made their way down to the beach, where the bathing machines were parked down by the shingle rocks at water’s edge. Though the strand was narrow, the sand itself was fine and smooth, and damp enough to allow a brisk walk while still remaining above the waves. Domina was so patently enthralled by the prospect that Herbertina, with a bow to the others, took her off at once for a run.

  They raced the waves in and out in a long loop down the beach, and then back up again. Domina was fairly dancing as they returned, her mask split in a wide terrier grin.

  “Oh, that looks so jolly! Do give me a turn, Herbert,” begged Jane. When Herbertina gave her the ribbon leash, she handed off her bonnet to Dora, and the two of them took off at once in another dash along the beach.

  Herbertina, hands in her pockets, strolled along following with the other two Deveres, all three of them watching the racing dog and Jane in amusement. Jane’s petticoat skirts frothed about her knees as she ran—Domina somehow contrived to run at full speed with her nose to the sand, lost in momentum and some canine nasal bliss.

  “There is just nothing quite so happy as a dog at the seaside,” commented Herbertina. “Rather makes one wish there were something so overwhelmingly pleasant for us mere humans, eh?”

  “There is chocolate,” said Dora thoughtfully.

  “True, true.”

  They walked slowly. It was a lovely morning, the sea placid as a baby’s bath. A good ways down the curve of the beach, Jane and Domina were playing tag with the waves, running down to them and then fleeing with loud barking and laughter. Suddenly, though, as they whirled to flee again, the others saw Domina dart to one side, pulling the wet ribbon right through Jane’s hands—Jane shrieked and sat down abruptly on the sand, her skirts blooming round her.

  Herbertina went immediately to her aid while Dora and Maude made off after Domina, who was now pawing and barking at a tangle of old fishing net snagged on a bleached tree branch. Hauling Jane up and brushing sand off her skirts, Herbertina could hear the others chiding the dog as they tried to catch her trailing leash.

  “I am so sorry. She was being perfectly well behaved on that ribbon, and then she just bolted!” exclaimed Jane.

  “Well, she is doubtless not as well trained as we’d wish,” said Herbertina. “She’ll improve, now that she is in better society. Are you all right?”

  “Oh, yes, just sandy. Do they have her?” Jane pointed.

  Herbertina looked. While Maude had hold of Domina’s leash and was tugging at it, the dog was stubbornly refusing to leave the heaped nets. And then Dora knelt down and began to pull at them as well.

  “Oh!” they heard her cry. “Oh, how horrid!”

  Herbertina sprinted over, Jane following more carefully. The problem was immediately obvious, now—what had suggested tree limbs tangled in the nets were, in reality, the limbs of a man. A rather dead man.

  Domina danced in triumph as Herbertina and Dora pulled the nets away to reveal the slack features of none other than Mr. Ponsonby. His clothes were battered and torn, as if he had been in the rough tide a while; it was his missing right sleeve that revealed the pallid flesh which had resembled a barkless branch. His boots were also gone, unveiling long bony white feet.

  Ponsonby’s face was battered and torn as well, his nose visibly leaning to one side and both eyes swollen and blacked. There was no blood, due to his obvious immersion in the sea, but numerous pale cuts gaped all over his face and knuckles.

  “Oh, poor man! He has been beaten and drowned!” exclaimed Maude.

  “Could it not have been the waves beating him against the shore that have mauled him so?” asked Jane doubtfully.

  “No. There are the marks of a ring,” Herbertina, crouching down, indicated the round tattoo-like bruises on Ponsonby’s face. “And see how his left eye has the worst of it, and his nose is broken to the right? He was struck repeatedly from the left side, by a right-handed man.”

  They all looked solemnly at one another.

  “Felan, probably,” said Maude. “Horrible man! Well, what do we do?”

  “Cover him up and be about our errands,” said Dora practically. “What else? We don’t want to draw any attention to ourselves, and someone else will find him soon, when they come to use the bathing machines.”

  Herbertina nodded. She helped Dora up, and then began to

  kick the the net scraps and sand back over the unfortunate Ponsonby. “Sorry, old chap. But you won’t lie out here long, I am sure.”

  A moment’s work and they were all walking briskly back up the beach. Herbertina had Domina’s leash firmly in hand again, but it was hardly necessary—she heeled sedately and trotted along with a satisfied air of duty done.

  “You’re a good girl after all,” Herbertina told her. “You shall have a biscuit as soon as we are back in town.”

  Back at the boarding house, the daily vase of flowers had arrived from Mr. Pickett; in fact, three of them had been delivered—lilies, roses, and one vase full of flowering boughs cunningly decorated with ripe cherries and entwined with golden ribbons.

  They were all delivered to the front parlor by the odious Felan, who was sporting an even more-than-usually knowing grin. Miss Rendlesham had volunteered to go retrieve the flowers—the Ladies were taking it in turns so that no one had to put up with Felan two days ru
nning—and reported that he was also sporting scratches down one cheek and some noticeable bruises.

  “Doubtless some unfortunate woman struck him,” she sniffed.

  Mrs. Corvey looked at the three vases side by side: the demure maiden lilies, the full-blown scarlet roses, and then the cleverly contrived cherry boughs.

  “He ain’t very subtle, but it’s striking,” she remarked.

  “Yes, that is Mr. Pickett to the life,” said Lady Beatrice. She examined the golden ribbons pendent from the cherries, and teased one loose. She held it up to the light, where it was revealed as a gold chain with a cherry-red ruby ring in rose gold hung on it. “My engagement ring, I believe.”

  “Not precisely your shade. But he must have been in quite a hurry,” said Mrs. Corvey. “Still, quite nice. Try it on, dear.”

  Lady Beatrice obliged. Mr. Pickett’s engineering training must have served him well in approximating; it fit perfectly on the appropriate finger. Once on her ivory hand, the color looked richer and darker, more like the scarlet she favored and which she had been wearing at the ball where he had met her.

  With a demure flourish, she then opened the card accompanying the flood of flowers. Reading it over, she raised a brow and looked up at the others.

  “I am invited to another evening picnic, in three days’ time,” she said. “On his yacht, this time. He says he has something important to show me.”

  “A sinking French warship—what a unique betrothal present!” said Miss Rendlesham wryly.

  “I suspect you are correct. He says we may be out quite late,” went on Lady Beatrice, “and therefore I must bring my dear Mamma along as a chaperone. He assures me you will be quite comfortable below decks, Mrs. Corvey, in his own cabin.”