“I’m sure you’re right!” She turned to him eagerly. “We found this at home—a friend of mine and I. In the summer, we used to try and get the sick out of doors. It often helped. Pray let us try it with my mother.”
“You will have to get the captain’s permission.” He did not sound hopeful.
But Captain Telfair did not use the stern gallery, much preferring the peace and quietness of his own portion of the main deck. He listened to Helen’s request calmly enough, and merely suggested dryly that she should consult the other passengers before she made her arrangements, which must not, of course, interfere with the management of the ship. “I won’t have a moment added to the time we take to clear for action.”
It was a chilling thought, but one for which Lieutenant Forbes had prepared Helen. If the ship should encounter a French warship, the place of passengers was far below decks, in the cable tier. He had offered to show it to her, “Just in case,” but she had thanked him and refused, knowing herself a coward. If she must face the foul, dark air below, she would, but she took her duty as chief nurse to her mother too seriously to take any unnecessary risks. Or was she making excuses for herself? Probably. As for the actual clearing for action, Forbes had assured her that it would make no difference whether her mother was in her cabin or out on the stern deck. That point gained, Helen nerved herself most unwillingly to approach Lord Merritt. He proved, as she had feared, quite overwhelmingly cooperative. Her wish was his command. More obligingly still, he offered the services of Trenche and Price to help move Mrs. Telfair to and fro between cabin and stern deck.
Mrs. Telfair was horrified at the idea of being moved out on deck in the daytime, and it took all Helen’s blandishments, and the loan of an excessively becoming swansdown-trimmed daygown by Charlotte, to persuade her, but once she had been carried out, still feebly protesting, by Price and Trench, the improvement in her health, though slow, was steady and obvious.
They had run into contrary winds, much to Captain Telfair’s fury, but when they got to Toulon at last, it was to stirring news. A royalist revolution had broken out in the south of France, and the city fathers of Toulon had actually handed their town, harbour, and the ships it contained over to the protective custody of the British navy. “It’s the beginning of the end, if you ask me.” Captain Telfair hardly tried to pretend that this was not bad news to him. “We’ll consolidate our position, make a landing here, march on Paris, and it’s all over.”
“If the government at home send the troops,” said Helen. “Aren’t we pretty heavily committed up in the Netherlands?”
“Pah!” said her father. “Setting up as a strategist now, are you? If we can raise a navy, we can surely raise an army.” His tone showed how little he thought of the land forces.
“Might that not be the strength of our position, sir?” Trenche spoke, with his usual deference, to Captain Telfair. “A pincers movement, with the Duke of York marching inland from Dunkirk, and another body of troops moving north from here? I am sure that when Sir Gilbert Elliott arrives to take over as civil commissioner here at Toulon we shall see some action.”
“In that case, he can’t get here too soon for me,” said Captain Telfair. “I’m sick to death of all this cursed merrymaking. Bowing and scraping and giving full honours to a lot of Frogs one can’t even talk to. It’s not at all what I expected when I came to sea.”
Helen actually felt sorry for him. He had strained every nerve to get his ship to sea, in the eager expectation of action, and now found himself compelled to act host to some of the very “Frogs” he had expected to fight. The royalists of Toulon must be treated with every possible courtesy, and indeed even Helen felt that, granted their hazardous situation, their rigid insistence on all the forms of precedence, the jots and tittles of etiquette, bordered on the ridiculous. A few weeks before, most of these elegant ladies and gentlemen had been hunted fugitives, afraid for their lives; now they were very much Monsieur this and Madame that, and a captain who made a mistake in precedence might actually imperil the precarious alliance between ships and shore.
“I must say I had hoped that Sir Gilbert’s arrival would make more difference,” Helen told Philip Trenche as they made ready for yet another of the parties her father was so ill-equipped to give. The two of them were the only fluent French-speakers on board, and a good deal of the burden fell on them, Helen acting as interpreter, where possible, for her father, and Trenche for Lord Merritt. Helen’s main anxiety, as she added the necessary Gallic grace-notes to her father’s curt speeches, was lest some of their French guests might understand more English than they admitted.
But today’s occasion should be easier. At Forbes’s suggestion, discreetly passed on to her father by Helen, the guests were to be entertained under an awning on the main deck. The October day was fine and calm, so that they came on board without difficulty, and the al fresco entertainment was universally voted a great success. Helen, dancing a quadrille with Mr. Forbes, congratulated him on the idea and then laughed at his look of quick anxiety. “Don’t fret,” she smiled. “I won’t give you the credit for it.” But she had lost his attention. “What is it?”
He had been looking beyond her, out to the open sea, with those clear blue eyes of his. “A ship of the line,” he said. “You’ll excuse me?”
“Of course.” She had learned soon what Charlotte never would, that always the call of duty came first. Now she moved over to the rail, straining her eyes in vain to see what Forbes had.
“All alone?” Lord Merritt was the last person she would have wished to find her thus. “Call of duty?” He had clearly seen Forbes leave her, but managed to make his reason seem more than dubious.
“No doubt,” she responded dryly. If there really was a new ship joining the fleet, perhaps with news from England, they would know soon enough. She saw her father hurry across the deck to where Admiral Lord Hood was holding a small court, his flag captain in attendance.
By now, everyone who owned a spyglass had it out and fixed on the strange ship and the signals at her masthead. “It’s the Agamemnon.” Jones, the second lieutenant, paused by Helen and Lord Merritt. “Captain Nelson, back from Naples. Now we should see some action. He’s a regular fire-eater; a death or glory man.”
“Fire-eating at Naples?” Merritt’s tone with the officers was always just wrong. “The volcano?”
“Hardly.” Jones coloured. “It’s an open secret, sir—my lord—that the Admiral sent Nelson to ask for naval as well as military aid from the Court of Naples. The first contingent of troops have arrived already. Let us hope that Captain Nelson brings news of more. Ah!” A new set of signals had gone up from the Trojan. “They’re signalling for him to come aboard. If you will excuse me . . .”
“Sideboys and bosun’s pipes!” Merritt made it a sneer. “Sick of them both. Go down and see how your mother is?”
Helen had wanted to do just this, but not with Lord Merritt. Still, there seemed no help for it, and she let him hand her over-gallantly down to the stern deck, where, to her dismay, they found Mrs. Telfair fast asleep on her cot.
“Shh . . .” Merritt’s elaborate pantomime was both unnecessary and irritating. But worse was to follow. He closed the door from the stern deck quietly behind him, then moved quickly across the large cabin to make sure that the other door into the companionway was closed. “At last,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?” Helen would not understand him.
“Modest and beautiful. Really don’t know? Schemed, prayed (almost), conspired (quite) to get you here.”
“Conspired?” Helen did not like the sound of it.
“Price. Useful man. Out in the companionway. Gives me a chance. Ask you to marry me. Devoted slave; adored you from a distance; all of that.”
“A lot of nonsense.”
“Nothing of the kind.” He had got hold of her hand and was kissing it without conviction. “Surprised. Does you credit.” Another kiss, rather damp. “My heart and hand at your feet.
” She released her hand and started to speak but a peremptory gesture silenced her, and, after all, best hear him out and get it over with. “Miss Telfair!” Now his hand was on his heart, or where his heart might be presumed to lurk under layers of well-fed flesh. “My respect for you, so great; my admiration, so profound. Nothing for it but to tell you all.”
“All?”
“Find myself,” he said. “Found myself, while ago; most absurd case. Frankly, no plan to marry. Oh, marriage a blessing, of course, but—” He paused.
“No need to say more.” For the first time, Helen found herself feeling quite kindly towards him. “I have always thought marriage a very mixed blessing myself.”
“Knew it. The very girl.” He laughed, not pleasantly. “Poor Mrs. Standish.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“No need to play the innocent. Know you.” A pause, a gesture. “Love you too well. No fool. Course you’ve seen through the old bitch’s plans. Knows everything. Bound to know I must many. Pricked me down for that s . . . s . . . stammering chit. Well; true enough. Good breeders, those Glendale girls. But girl’s the word. What’s that to the purpose?”
“Lord Merritt.” She must not quarrel with him. “I do not understand a word you are saying.”
“Never a one for gossip. Not you.” Nothing she could say would puncture his self-assurance. “Virtue in a wife. It’s like this.” Suddenly, and unpleasantly, they were conspirators. “Lot of damned nonsense. Fuss and bother. Scandal. Had to come away. Must many. Get an heir.”
“Why?”
“Damned—excuse me—most unfair. Ought to be a law against old people; ridiculous wills. My uncle,” he explained, unaware that at last he had caught both her attention and her sympathy. “Heard the gossip. Damn fool will. All to me if I have an heir male when he kicks it. Thinks I’m a fribble. Well, perhaps I am. What’s wrong with it? No harm to anyone. Good for trade. Worst of all; old codger never told me till he took ill the other day. Suppose he had died! Never have forgiven myself. Or him.”
“I take it he recovered?” Helen could not help but be fascinated by his story, so oddly like her own.
“Fit as a fiddle; lots of time; comfortable wedding here on board; no hurry . . .” He coloured and looked unhappy. “No hurry about anything. Besides.” More cheerfully. “My uncle; odd fish; crazy ideas. Meet you. Like you. Change his will.”
“Oh. Why?”
“Thinks nothing of me. Never did. Doesn’t like the idea of me for an heir. No one else; lucky for me. But if I married you. Well, different kettle of fish. A man, after all.”
“I see.” She did indeed see, and felt herself profoundly sorry for him in his absurd predicament. He still had her hand but seemed not to know quite what to do with it. “You’d be good to me,” he said. “Only wife I can imagine. I’d be good to you. Everything . . . anything. Your mother . . . Only to ask . . .”
She believed him. How could she make him see it as impossible? “But, Lord Merritt, you have so much money already. Surely you can afford to snap your fingers at this ridiculous uncle of yours?”
“At all that money? Well—” his weak eyes met hers. “Thought of it. But—all that fuss in England. Go back with a wife. Settle it. Be rich—very rich—” He loved the thought. “No need to be together all the time. If you wanted to run a salon, a school even . . . try out some of these ideas of yours . . . Anything, anything you say.” He had gone white with the effort of what he was trying to tell her. “Helen: strange conversation . . . strange proposal, but, believe me:I love you.”
There was a qualification lurking in that speech, and she recognised it. What he was saying was that, insofar as he could love a woman, he loved her. It was at once oddly touching, and, if it had been needed, decisive. Gently, firmly, she released her hand. “Lord Merritt, I am more flattered than I can say by your proposal, but I must tell you, I mean never to marry.”
“Never?” She had taken the wind quite out of his sails. And, mercifully, as if on cue, came a tapping on the cabin door, and Price’s voice. “My lord, they’re coming!”
When Captain Telfair ushered in an extremely distinguished party of senior officers, Helen was out on the stern deck bending over her mother’s cot, and Lord Merritt, rather red in the face, was looking at one of the books Helen had insisted on bringing on board. Lord Hood’s keen glance took in the situation instantly. This was no place for the full report he wanted from his newly joined captain. “We’ll take a glass of wine with you, Telfair, and then Nelson and I must adjourn to the Victory and lay our heads together. We’ll not disturb your invalid, but I’m sure Miss Telfair would like to join us and hear what Captain Nelson has to tell of that extraordinary court at Naples.”
Helen, who had been hovering in the open doorway of the stern gallery, took her cue gratefully and joined the party. The strange captain had just been presented to Lord Merritt and now crossed the cabin to bow over her hand. He was a small man, undistinguished-looking at first, with thinning hair of an indeterminate colour, and a pair of eyes of such brilliance that she forgot everything else about him. “Captain Telfair is fortunate,” he said with instinctive tact. “I have a wife at home in Norfolk. It would be almost worth having her an invalid to have her here with me.”
In the background, Helen was aware of her father’s simmering rage at being found thus encumbered, and, smiling at Captain Nelson, thought he too had felt it. “And a daughter!” he went on. “I have a stepson of whom I’m more than a little proud, but to have a daughter . . . You’re a fortunate man, Telfair.”
“Thank you.” Luckily, Price, passing round Lord Merritt’s excellent madeira, caused an inevitable redistribution of the party. The other officers were gathered eagerly round Nelson, plying him with questions. His had been altogether a most encouraging visit to Naples. The King had received him cordially. “For what that’s worth,” said Nelson. “Everyone knows the Queen and her first minister, Acton, rule the country, while the King hunts and fishes like the overgrown schoolboy he is.”
“You met the Queen?” asked a captain whose name Helen did not know.
“No. Breeding, poor woman, as usual. A fine family of young princes and princesses.” Helen thought there was something faintly wistful in his tone. “But there’s no doubt of her sympathies,” he went on. “She’s Marie Antoinette’s sister, after all. I’ve heard it said that she’d fight the French single-handed if she only got the chance. A regular amazon of a woman.”
“And our ambassador?” asked another captain. “You found Sir William agreeable?”
“Kindness itself. And a man it’s a pleasure to do business with. Why, he and Lady Hamilton actually insisted I stay with them in that palace of theirs.”
“Lady Hamilton!” There was a ripple of interest in the crowd of men, and Helen was quite forgotten as her father spoke. “The new Lady Hamilton!” A wealth of innuendo in his tone. “Don’t tell me that trollop is received at Court.”
Captain Nelson stiffened and seemed to grow taller. “Lady Hamilton is on the best of terms with Queen Maria Carolina.” His tone was icy. “She is a young woman of amiable manners, and who does honour to the station to which she is raised.”
Chapter 6
THE whole fleet soon knew that Captain Nelson had done brilliantly well at the Court of Naples. More troops and even some Neapolitan ships were coming to join the blockade of Toulon. It was just as well they were. Hopes of a march on Paris had long since dwindled into anxious discussion of how long Toulon would be able to stand the siege that was being mounted by the revolutionary French army. The news from Dunkirk was bad, too, and a rhyme was beginning to circulate, behind hands, in private:
The noble Duke of York
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.
They lived daily in the expectation of news of the evacuation of Dunkirk, which would, inevitably, mean an increase of pressure on Toulon. An
d, already, the pressure was getting hard to bear. They were not to know that out in the barren countryside to the north, a young artillery officer called Bonaparte was distinguishing himself, for the first time, by his handling of guns and men.
The weather was getting colder and the sea rougher. There were fewer parties now on the blockading ships, and much less coming and going between them, since this tended to mean a good wetting at one end or the other. Helen was growing increasingly anxious for the passage to an Italian port of which her father had spoken before they left England. Ships were frequently detached from the blockading fleet and sent to Leghorn, but each time she raised the question, her father produced one difficulty or another. The ship was not equipped to take females on board. . . . The notice had been too short. . . . The weather was too bad.
It baffled her. Since that uncomfortable moment when Hood and Nelson had had to postpone their conference because of the presence of passengers in the cabin of the Trojan, Helen had been more acutely aware than ever of how her father hated to be cumbered with four females, one of them an invalid. So, why did he not get rid of them at the first opportunity? Lord Merritt provided her with the answer one evening when she had gone up on deck for a breath of air at sunset. She had half hoped to find Forbes on watch, but it was Jones who saluted her, and then irritated her by vanishing to the farthest part of the deck when Lord Merritt appeared.
He had brought her a shawl. “Night breezes treacherous.” He put it round her shoulders with those damp hands of his. “Weather worsening. Time your mother was safe ashore.”
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