by David McDine
‘No, it’s something his fiancée, Miss Ward, has confided in me — and I’m not sure I’m at liberty to tell you, but I feel I must.’
‘You know it will go no further.’
She nodded. ‘Well, it was when I left you after dinner last night. She was clearly upset about something and asked if she could come to my room.’
‘Where was he? I assumed he was still suffering the after-effects of the crossing and couldn’t face dinner.’
‘So did I, but when we were alone she burst into tears and told me that when she went to his sister’s room she found them in bed.’
‘The major and his sister? But surely they were just lying on the bed, conversing perhaps?’
Cassandra reddened. She had enjoyed an enlightened upbringing, thanks to Josiah Parkin teaching her biology and the mysteries of animal reproduction with his dissections of toads, rats and other creatures. But she was not quite so well versed in the couplings of the human species and there were some things she found difficult to put into words.
‘She tells me they were in the bed rather than on it, and they certainly were conversing, but they were both stark naked, enjoying what I believe is politely known as criminal conversation...’
‘Good grief! I took an instant dislike to the man but I can hardly believe that he would do such a dastardly thing! Even army officers usually behave with decency and decorum! And with his own sister, for pity’s sake!’
‘But Miss Ward tells me that the so-called sister is his real wife.’
‘What?’
‘Poor Helen confronted them, but they were both drunk and laughed in her face. He even invited her to join them in bed and when she refused, furiously, he told her the awful woman posing as his sister was really his wife.’
‘I can hardly believe it.’
‘Nor I, but I’m sure it’s true. He told Miss Ward that he had only offered to marry her for her money and he would be calling at the bank this morning to withdraw the funds he had persuaded her to transfer there before they left England. He told her she could go hang herself for all he cared.’
Anson was horrified. ‘Good grief! I thought I’d heard everything, but this takes the biscuit.’
‘It appears that she’s an heiress. They met less than a month ago at some ball in London. She had a sheltered upbringing and he appeared so dashing, and paid her such attention, that she was swept off her feet.’
‘Didn’t her parents warn her about such men?’
‘They did, and cautioned her not to rush things, but he persuaded her to elope with him on the understanding that they’d be married in Paris. He told her his so-called sister would chaperone them. Apparently he had acted the perfect gentleman until they stayed overnight in Dover where he went to her room and attempted, well...’
‘Attempted?’
‘Yes, but she resisted him, telling him he must wait until their marriage and he stormed off.’
‘To his wife’s bed, no doubt!’
‘Helen was not to know that at the time and blamed herself for unintentionally leading him on. She thought all would be well once they were married. But then she found them...’
‘Poor girl!’
‘I insisted she stayed in my room overnight. She was most grateful and this morning she pleaded with me to protect her from him.’
‘Well, we most certainly can’t abandon her to that swine.’
‘She is too terrified to leave my room and fears nothing can be done to prevent him stealing her money.’
Anson thought for a moment. ‘Bring her to my room and when I leave make sure she stays here with you and with the door locked. I’ll send for Bell to stand guard. Meanwhile the shark nearest the raft is this swindler’s plan to get his hands on her money. How much is involved?’
‘Five hundred pounds, I believe.’
‘Good grief — a fortune!
‘And this is just her own money. She will inherit much more eventually and I suppose that’s the real prize this dreadful man was after.’
‘Then we must move fast. I know just the men who can help sort out things at the bank and Nat Bell will make sure that the cad and his woman don’t bother Miss Ward again.’
*
Anson’s plans were in place by the time Hurel sought him out to say farewell.
Shaking his hand, Anson wished him ‘Au revoir et bon chance! I hope you find your chateau in good nick. Now perhaps I will be able to spend some time alone with Cassandra.’
The Frenchman smirked. ‘She is very beautiful and like most of the ladies she ’as a great affection for me, but you ’ave my blessing to try your ’and with ’er.’
With heavy sarcasm, Anson responded: ‘Good of you. I know I’m forever in your shadow.’
‘Thank you, my friend. I know that you would ’ave been ’appy to accompany me but it is better that I go alone. I can easily talk myself out of trouble, but if you were to come with me and we were challenged...’
‘They would smoke out that I am an English sea officer.’
‘Exactly, and an escapee. We would both end up in prison for espionage — or meet a worse fate...’
He drew his finger across his throat. ‘As it is, I will arouse no suspicion. I am just another Frenchman headed for Le ’avre.’
They shook hands. ‘Take care Hurel.’
‘And you, mon ami, and we’ll rendezvous in Paris in maybe two or three weeks.’
*
Armed with a signed instruction from Miss Ward, Parkin and Pettiworth were ushered into the manager’s office, where they were treated as honoured guests.
The manager, whose English was impeccable having represented his bank in the City of London before The Terror, sent for wine and quizzed them eagerly about wartime life in England. ‘We are told you were starving and this peace is more like your surrender, but I have long doubted that is true.’
Pettiworth patted his ample belly. He was what the navy called ‘provisioned for a long voyage’ and assured the Frenchman: ‘Don’t look as if I’m exactly starving does it, monsieur?’
The manager smiled. ‘No doubt both sides are subjected to false information by their leaders. But I like to think that we in the banking profession are above mere politics and sabre-rattling squabbles.’
His British guests quaffed the excellent vintage and agreed wholeheartedly. Pettiworth chuckled. ‘Quite right, monsieur. Money knows no borders, it merely changes its name as it travels hither and thither!’
It transpired that Parkin’s family bank was known to the Frenchman and he announced himself happy to accommodate any financial transactions they cared to put his way.
Within the hour they left, to mutual assurances of undying friendship and the certainty that Miss Ward’s money was safe from anyone, with promissory notes drawing on it only to be accepted with her personal authority coupled with that of her temporary self-appointed, guardians — Messieurs Parkin and Pettiworth.
*
While this was occurring Major Trumper, having worked out where his victim must have spent the night, presented himself at the door of Miss Parkin’s room.
‘Helen, dear. Please open the door and we’ll sort out last night’s little misunderstanding and take ourselves down to the bank.’
He was about to knock again when the door opened suddenly almost hitting his nose and he found himself staring into the steely eyes of Nat Bell, former sergeant of the 56th Foot, and down the barrel of one of Griffin of New Bond Street’s overcoat pistols.
‘What d’you want?’
The bluster had temporarily deserted the major and he stammered: ‘I’m, er, looking for my fiancée.’
Bell stared him down and said quietly and coldly: ‘Ain’t one wife enough for you? I’m to tell you that you ain’t got a fiancée no more and a stop ’as bin put on her money. So push orf and don’t bovver ’er agin unless you want me to teach you some manners.’
The major hesitated, tempted to persist, but discretion won over valour and he tur
n away and beat as dignified a retreat as was possible in the circumstances.
Within the hour, he and his real wife had left for Paris, telling the hotel management that Miss Ward would settle their bill.
40
Return to Old Haunts
Flushed with their success at the bank, Parkin and Pettiworth returned to see what could be done to assist the damsel in distress.
They met with her, Cassandra and Anson in a secluded part of the foyer, with Bell lurking in the background just in case Trumper had the audacity to return. Offered the opportunity to join the Paris party, Miss Ward shuddered at the thought. ‘Oh no, gentlemen. It’s most kind of you, but what if I bumped into that dreadful pair there?’
‘Good point, well brought out,’ Anson agreed. ‘So it’s to be a passage home?’
She nodded sadly. ‘My dear parents will be dreadfully worried and I have treated them abominably in running off without their approval, but the major was so persuasive.’
‘Then we must return you to them forthwith,’ Parkin insisted.
‘But I fear travelling alone, sir.’
Pettiworth held up his hand. ‘I think I have the answer. With Nat Bell here looking after us all, my man Crocker has little to do. He is not enamoured of France and would seize the chance to accompany Miss Ward back to England. I propose he returns with her and once at Dover she can send word asking for her father to collect her.’
Parkin asked: ‘Is Crocker reliable?’
‘Of course! He wouldn’t be in my employ if he wasn’t. He looks — and is — a hard nut, but he’s also a respectable family man, devoted to his wife and nine children.’
Anson stood. ‘Then the way is clear. I’ll go straight to the harbour and seek out the mate of the Dover Goodwife. He’s planning to sail for Dover on the ebb and will be glad to take on two extra passengers.’
Cassandra smiled. ‘While you’re at it, could you kindly ask him if he can find a less choppy way across?’
*
Parkin was happy that the rest of the party, now to include Pettiworth, should remain in Calais until their onward journey to Paris while Anson went off to revisit some contacts he had made during his escape from France three years earlier, explaining: ‘I’m sure you’ll understand I cannot be more specific.’
The old gentleman was clearly under the impression that this mysterious mission must be connected in some way to intelligence-gathering and readily agreed.
He pointed out: ‘There’s plenty to divert us here: theatrical performances, fine dining and so on. It will give us the opportunity to regain our land legs — and stomachs — and quiz returning English visitors for their tips on making the most of our stay in Paris.’
Cassandra was more reluctant to see Anson go, gripping his hand for far longer than was necessary and urging him: ‘Please take care and come back to us soon — and all in one piece this time.’
*
Settling Miss Ward’s account before escorting her to the Dover Goodwife for passage home, Parkin and Pettiworth were horrified to be told that she was expected to pay the Trumpers’ unpaid bill.
‘There is no way that any member of our party can be held responsible for that fraudster’s debt!’ Pettiworth shouted at the unfortunate hotel clerk. ‘May I suggest, monsieur that you set the law on him, have him imprisoned in your darkest dungeon and throw away the key!’
The Frenchman bowed politely. ‘Of course, monsieur, leave it with me.’
*
Anson left for St Omer by coach and on arrival there he hired a horse for the onward journey. He spent the night in a remote auberge and was up early, keen to push on yet apprehensive as to what might transpire.
As he rode on, the countryside became more recognisable. He had travelled this way before, only then as a wounded prisoner after the abortive boat attack at St Valery-en-Caux.
Although he had been semi-conscious much of the time he remembered the undulating fields and woods, reddish soil, occasional wayside inns and timber-framed farmhouses and barns with their high-pitched roofs.
No natural horseman, he dismounted and led the horse up the occasional slopes, more to ease his aching backside than to rest the animal.
Nevertheless, he made good progress and as the miles fell away his mind strayed back to the aftermath of the St Valery raid when he, Hoover and Fagg had been captured and bided their time until they were fit enough to make their escape.
A lot of water had passed under the bridge since then, but the further inland he got the more vividly he recalled that exhilarating time. It had been hard but against all the odds they had managed to make their way to Dunkirk and coerce a Kentish smuggler into giving them passage home in his lugger.
Anson knew he could not have had two better companions for the escape and wondered how the marine and the cheeky foretop-man turned bosun of the Sea Fencibles, were getting on swatting smugglers away from a Kentish village. He wished he could be with them, but had already committed himself to the Paris visit when the call for help had come. So be it, he told himself. The Woodhurst mission could not be in better hands.
At last the long straight road led him to a village he remembered well and he turned into the tree-lined central square dominated by a twin-spired church.
And there to his right, dominating one side of the square, was a familiar sprawling ramshackle building with a weather-worn sign bearing a naive painting of a seaman and a name: Auberge du Marin.
*
It was as Gerald Tunbridge, rather than under his true name and pre-Revolution title: Gérard, Baron Hurel de Pisseleu-aux-Bois, that Anson’s occasionally annoying friend hired a horse in Calais and made his way homewards.
Riding the familiar roads alone, his mind naturally turned to the loss of his family, estate and title during The Terror.
The republicans had murdered his father, mother and elder brother — all guillotined during the revolution. He himself had served in the navy of the ancien régime, escaped when his family were taken, and when he learned of their fate changed his appearance and re-joined under an assumed — or at least abridged — name, reasoning it would be best to hide in plain sight.
The republicans had been glad enough to recruit any experienced sea officer not to bother with making too many enquiries. As far as they were concerned, he was willing to serve the new régime under the tricolour and that was sufficient.
Captured by the Royal Navy and a prisoner in the Medway hulks, he had volunteered to help the British, been spirited away, given a fake funeral that Anson had attended, and went with him to reconnoitre Boulogne just before Nelson’s bombardment and subsequent raid on the port.
His motivation for what some would consider turning his coat had been revenge for the assassination of his immediate family — and doing whatever he could to hasten the restoration of his ancestral home. To him, it was the republicans who were the traitors to king and country, not him. The memory of his happy childhood at the family chateau and the prospect of winning it back had kept him going these past years.
But now, he was so close to it he was full of trepidation. Would the chateau have been burned or razed to the ground, as he knew some aristocrats’ homes had been, or commandeered and occupied by some republican upstart?
At last he reached the side road leading to his former home and kicked his horse into a trot.
The entrance gates were still there and beyond, down the long carriageway, stood the chateau, surrounded by its moat and dominated by twin towers either side of the main entrance.
He rode on, noting with disgust the overgrown park, now full of thorn bushes, bracken and gorse, with no sign of the deer that had grazed there before the revolution. No doubt they had been poached close to extinction. From a distance the chateau itself appeared intact, but as he drew closer he could see that it was in a pitiful state of repair. Tiles were missing from the roof, the great oak doors were hanging off their hinges, almost every shutter and window appeared to be broken and the moat wa
s full of rubbish.
Dismounting, he tied the horse to an iron ring beside the mounting block he had used from boyhood and pushed his way through the broken doors into the once immaculate entrance hall.
He was deeply shocked at what he saw. His cherished home had clearly been used as a temporary barracks, with revolutionary slogans painted in red on the walls and broken furniture and other detritus littering the floor.
Hurrying through to the library, he was horrified to see that many of the precious leather-bound albums had been pulled from the shelves, ripped up and scattered around, some burnt remnants showing that the violators had used the pages to light fires in the great fireplace.
But there was worse. His ancestors’ portraits, his murdered father, mother and brother, his grandparents, great grandparents, even his great-great aunt, the mistress of a king and of whom he had been so proud, had clearly been used for target practice and were riddled with holes.
Fearing to look further in case he discovered even worse vandalism, the inheritor of the Chateau de Pisseleu-aux-Bois sank to his knees, put his hands to his head and wept.
After a while he roused himself and went outside, remounted his horse and rode off towards the Seine. There was work to be done and intelligence to be gathered to use against the republican cochons who had murdered his family and desecrated his ancestral home.
*
Anson well remembered the first time he had seen the auberge. As the wagon bringing him, Hoover and Fagg as wounded prisoners of war had come upon it the landlord had been observed urinating against the front wall. But today it appeared deserted.
He tied his horse to the rail beside the door, tried the handle and entered to find there was some life there after all.
It was gloomy inside, just as he remembered it, with little outside light showing through the small grimy windows and smoke from several pipes creating a thick fug. The pipe-smokers ignored him and carried on drinking, as did the landlord, now even chubbier and shabbier than Anson remembered him.
‘Bonjour, monsieur, souviens-toi de moi?’