“It is indeed.” She turned to him gratefully. “If you would but speak to my father. I cannot understand why he has not arranged our passage to Leghorn long since.”
“Cannot?” He was laughing at her, and she did not like it. “Charming simpleton! Hard to tell: more irresistible wise or foolish?”
“What in the world do you mean?”
“Father’s on fool. Nod’s better than a wink to him. Wedding bells first. Then Leghorn. Shipboard marriage. Just the thing. No trouble. No fuss. No need for you to fret either. We’ll make it all right and tight in Leghorn. Must be that for my uncle.”
“Oh, my God.” She had listened to him with growing horror, wondering what form of bribery he had used on her father. It must have been powerful indeed to have outweighed Captain Telfair’s dislike of having them on board. “I don’t know what to do.” She was ashamed of herself as she said it.
“All your troubles on my shoulders. Surprised how different they’ll look. Mother in the sun at Naples by Christmas. Not a minute too soon. Losing strength daily.”
“I know. I must talk to my father.” It was a forlorn hope, but seemed her only one.
“Good. Knew I could rely on your sense.”
“Nothing of the kind.” She rounded on him. “I mean to appeal to his feelings as a husband.”
He actually looked sorry for her. “Wasting your time. Ours. No use; must know it. Suit your father too well. Rich son-in-law. Just the ticket. Up to you. Refuse me. Your mother stays here. Accept. Naples. After all, if you really meant not to many . . . could do worse than marry me. Rich, too.”
She could have laughed if she had not been so close to angry tears. Turning from him, she stumbled down to the tiny cabin where bad weather now kept her mother almost permanently immured. Charlotte was sitting with her, and put her finger on her lips. Mrs. Telfair was lightly asleep. “Helen! I’m afraid she’s worse. Her mind is wandering. I think we should send for the doctor. Or even Lord Hood’s?”
“I’ll just take another look at her.” Helen returned to the tiny cabin, followed by Charlotte. Mrs. Telfair’s eyes were open now but fixed on a remote point somewhere beyond Helen’s shoulder. “Help me, Aunt Helen,” she said. “Help . . .” The words were lost in a fit of coughing. Charlotte and Helen gazed at each other, speechless, as red blood flowed on the sheets.
The Admiral’s doctor could do no more than the Trojan’ s. All he did was insist that it was too late now for anything; a move ashore was impossible; a move from the cabin might mean death. And either way, whatever they did, death was there, waiting, inevitable. It was unspeakably horrible to Helen to find herself thinking that this disaster freed her from Lord Merritt. They would never journey south together now, for that sunny Christmas in Naples that was to cure her mother.
And all the time, the ring of batteries was closing round Toulon, with that active young gunner, Napoleon Bonaparte, busy setting and resetting his guns, to do the maximum damage to the beleaguered city.
“Those poor souls in Toulon,” said Helen, “when we go, what will become of them?” Her “when” told the whole disastrous story from the summer’s hope to the winter’s despair. Everyone knew that the day was not far off when the revolutionary batteries would make it impossible for the British fleet to go on protecting Toulon. The question was not if, but when they would evacuate the town.
Mrs. Telfair died, quietly, on a bleak day of early December, and Helen, crying in the empty cabin, could not banish the thought that if she had accepted Lord Merritt, it might have saved her life. But at least it was a relief to be alone for once. Lord Merritt had taken Charlotte to a party at Lord Hood’s quarters on shore, and, if Helen thought this heartless so soon after the funeral, she was still grateful for the solitude.
It was not to last. Her father joined her in one of his worst moods. “I hope you’re proud of what you’ve done.”
“Done?” Worn out with nursing, she raised great, listless eyes to his.
“Don’t pretend to be more of a fool than you are. If you’d taken Merritt, she’d be alive now.”
“Or if you’d let us go.” But what was the use of arguing? It was actually a relief when Philip Trenche appeared with a white face and news of increased activity from the French inshore batteries.
Captain Telfair got to his feet. “This may be the end,” he said. “If it comes to it, Trenche, I count on you to see Miss Telfair down to the cable tier.”
Night fell, and still Charlotte and Lord Merritt had not returned. Helen stayed on deck well into twilight, watching the unusual activity between ships and shore, wishing that their station was not at the extreme outer verge of the protective ring of ships, longing for news that did not come. Lieutenant Forbes paused beside her for a moment in the gathering dusk. “I don’t like the look of things,” he said. “Look! There—and there!”
Helen knew the flash of gunfire well enough by now. “But—” She was puzzling out the position in the deceptive evening light. “That’s on the Faron heights.”
“Yes. Our last tenable defence. And pointed against us.”
“You mean—”
“The French must have taken them. There have been rumours all day of panic in the town. The Spanish troops have been doubtful from the first. I’ve heard that the Neapolitans are not much better. Miss Telfair, I think you should go below and get the best night’s sleep you can. Tomorrow may be a bad day.”
“But Miss Standish—”
“I doubt if they’ll be back tonight. I’ve seen the Admiral’s barge to and fro, to and fro all afternoon. As busy as that, there’ll be no time for guests.”
“Oh, poor Charlotte, she’ll be so worried.” It was only when she got below that it occurred to Helen to worry about herself as well as about Charlotte. Her father had eaten a few hasty bites of food, told her briskly not to fret, and gone back on deck. Philip Trenche sat across the cabin from her, visibly sweating with fright, and asking, from time to time, if she did not think the sound of gunfire nearer. She did, but would not admit it, and retired to bed as early as she decently could. Now, she would even have been glad of Rose’s cheerful chatter, but Rose had gone with her mistress.
Next morning, the gunfire sounded very close indeed, and Price, bringing breakfast for her and Philip Trenche, brought a message that was an order. “Captain says you’re to stay below.”
“What’s happening?” Trenche looked sallow this morning, and Helen did not find it comforting to realise how frightened he was.
“We’re quitting.” Price seemed to be enjoying himself. “And not before time, if you ask me. The Frogs have got the batteries overlooking the town. We’ll be lucky if we get off without bloodshed. The soldiers are beginning to board already.”
“And what about the poor French royalists?” asked Helen.
“God knows,” and then, “Poor devils, even if they are Frogs.” He poured coffee. “Might as well enjoy your breakfast, miss. Anything may happen between this and dinner. But one good thing, the wind’s fair out of the harbour.”
The result of this, of course, was that nothing could be seen from the stern gallery. Trenche was biting his nails. “Our draught’s too great for us to go in for them,” he said. “They’ll have to be ferried out to us. I hope to God we get Englishmen.”
“Or those poor French,” said Helen, abandoning the pretence at breakfast. “Yes, Price, you may clear.”
It was an endless, horrible, newsless day. In the harbour, the grim process of evacuation went on, but Helen and Trenche were dependent on Price for such fragments of news as he was able to glean on his way to and from the ship’s galley. Lord Hood and Sir Gilbert Elliott, the commissioner for Toulon, were safe aboard the Victory, he told them, and so, presumably, were Charlotte and Lord Merritt. Both Spanish and Neapolitan troops had panicked, and the Neapolitan admiral, Forteguerri, had actually sailed for Naples without consulting his allies.
“It sounds like a question of sauve qui peut,” said Trenche. “I h
ope to God Captain Telfair has the sense to save us while there is time.”
“My father will do his duty,” said Helen. It was, in fact, a small comfort to be sure of this. “I wish there was something one could do.”
“Talk to me,” said Trenche.
She recognised the frantic appeal in his tone and did her best to keep him entertained with the kind of London gossip he enjoyed. It seemed an extraordinary way to be spending the day of the evacuation of Toulon. With dusk came movement at last, but from Trenche’s point of view, movement in the wrong direction. He had been over-optimistic in his conviction that the evacuees would be ferried out to the Trojan. Time was running out; panic-stricken soldiers were firing into the boats that would not take them on board. Lord Hood had ordered the Trojan into the harbour to control the situation with her guns.
Price brought the news, and an order. “Captain Telfair says I’m to take you and Mr. Trenche down to the cable tier,” he said. And, aware of Helen’s instinctive recoil, “Captain’s orders.” Once again she had the strange feeling that he was enjoying himself.
And she was the captain’s daughter. Already, they could hear the scurry of bare feet across the deck, the gigantic creaking as the anchor was got up. “Very well.” She picked up her embroidery. “Let’s go.”
“It’s dark in the cable tier,” said Price.
“Oh.” She dropped the embroidery and they followed him in silence.
Dimly illuminated by the lamp Price carried, the cable tier was so horrible a place that Helen thought perhaps she would be grateful for darkness. Well below the water line, it was a compound of all the worst of the shipboard odours she hated. Trenche was begging, with a hint of tears in his voice, for Price to leave them the lamp.
“Sorry, sir.” Price, who had been apparently courteous to Helen, was short with Trenche. “Captain’s orders. And I’m on duty in the cockpit.”
“Then we mustn’t keep you,” said Helen. She had looked quickly round the horrible place, selected what seemed to be a dry coil of huge cable, and sat down on it with a deliberate arrangement of her skirts. “At least”— she managed to keep her voice light as Price and his lamp went flickering away from them—“we seem to have been spared the anchor cable, which, presumably, would be soaking wet.” They had heard the anchor come in as they were on their way down, and now a new movement of the ship indicated that she was under sail, doubtless beating her way into harbour, and the danger of death. But at least the wind that made entry into the harbour difficult would make escape easy. She thought of saying this to Trenche, but decided against it. The word “escape” might be a dangerous one to use to anyone in his state of obvious terror. Now, in the stinking darkness, she could hear a rustle that she thought must be rats, and a strange, clicking noise that she finally identified as the chattering of Philip Trenche’s teeth.
She must talk about something. “I do hope Charlotte and Lord Merritt are safe aboard the Victory.”
“I’m sure they are. Doubtless sitting down to a fine dinner in the Admirals quarters, with young Charlotte stut. . . stut. . . stuttering to beat the band.”
The change from his normal tone was so extraordinary that for a moment she could not believe her ears. Then, “Charlotte is my dear friend,” she said.
“More fool you. She’s rich; you’re poor. There can be no real friendship between you. You might as well expect me to be devoted to Lord Plutocrat.”
“And you are not?” She decided to overlook the slighting nickname. “You always seemed so.”
“Seemed! Of course I seemed so. I’m the youngest of eight sons, Miss Telfair, and you wonder that I ‘seem’ devoted to my patron. I’m lucky to be alive, am I not?”
“I suppose so.” Horribly, giving unexpected point to her words, something thudded against the planking above them. It took Helen a moment to understand. “We’re under fire,” she said, and wished she had not.
“Oh, my God! Under water too. If we’re sunk, we haven’t a chance, down here below the water line. And suppose she catches fire, who’ll think of us? Not that father of yours, who thinks of nothing but his ‘duty.’ ”
“And quite right too.” Helen managed a briskness she was very far from feeling. More and more she wished that her father’s idea of duty had not sent her down here, to this black, stinking hole, with a coward for company. “Sit down, Mr. Trenche,” she said, she hoped bracingly, “you will feel better so.” A moment later, and a lifetime too late, she was wishing the words unsaid. He had not so much sat down beside her as fallen across her.
“Miss Telfair—Helen—I’m so frightened.” His arms were round her, pushing her back against the hard, unyielding rope, so that it hurt through the thin stuff of her dress.
“Nonsense!” She pulled her face away from his questing lips to say it, and felt his hold on her slacken as reason, please God, began to return. And at that moment, a nearer hit somewhere close above them in the blackness sent a shudder through the ship and rats scurrying past them away into the dark far side of the hold. She felt his mind crack. The hands that held her were strong now with the madness of terror. They pushed her back, down against the rough cable that hurt so much less than what he was doing to her. Most horrible of all, somehow, was his mouth, so hard on hers that she could not speak, could hardly breathe through the whole shameful, fumbling business. His hands were cold where Lord Merritt’s had been damp. The whole weight of him held her down as he struggled horribly in the darkness with buttons, skirts, petticoats . . . something tore; general pain became specific, intolerable, but must be borne. And then, too late, she felt him loosen, relax; pulled her mouth away from his, herself from him, shaking, violated, and thinking with a strange, horrible clarity. Later, there would be time for tears. Now: “I could have you killed for this,” she said.
Disgustingly, he was crying, his head among the skirts he had torn. It was the last straw. “If you were worth it,” she said, “which you are not. But get away from me, if you want to live. And don’t speak.” She had anticipated him by half a second. What use were apologies now? Another cannonball hit the ship’s side above them somewhere. Her mind was still working with that strange, cool lucidity. “I don’t know how we will look when we get out of here,” she said, “but we will say the gunfire knocked us about a bit. And we will stick to that. Otherwise, remember, my father is captain of this ship. If you ever speak of what you have done today, you’re ruined.”
“And so would you be.” But he moved away from her, fumbling in the darkness that made everything at once horrible and, somehow, just endurable because they could not see each other’s faces.
New noises above were a violent distraction. Helen had heard the guns run out and fired often enough in practice, but never in earnest before, nor had she been prepared for the hideous din and vibration when the firing came, as now, from above. The whole ship seemed about to rack itself to pieces; the smell of powder seeped down to join all the other smells of that unspeakable place; above them, feet moved in ordered confusion as the guns were reloaded. But there was no second broadside. Presumably, the first one had temporarily silenced the shore batteries and cleared the way for the refugee boats that could now be heard coming alongside. Above them, the ship became a Babel. Impossible down here to distinguish words or language; it was merely clear that an immense number of people were pouring on board.
“My God, we’ll sink!” Trenche forgot shame in terror. “Captain Telfair’s mad to let so many on board.”
“My father knows his business.” She could not remind him too often that her father was the captain, with power, at sea, of life and death. Presently, there would be time to think of what had happened to her; for the moment she could not afford to, simply did not dare. One shot echoed from forward somewhere. “He’s warning them off,” she said. It was extraordinary to be talking like this to the man who had just ravished her, but at all costs when Price came, he must notice nothing.
The ship was moving again, faster now,
presumably with the wind, and therefore out of harbour, and here, thank God, came the flickering light of Price’s lantern. She had done her best in the darkness to hide all signs of that brief, horrible, unavailing struggle, and was reasonably certain that it was only a petticoat that had torn.
“Are you all right, miss?” Price hailed her before he could possibly see them. “We took a shot not far forward of here.”
“We heard it,” said Helen, dryly. “Yes, we’re all right.” Only Trenche would recognise the bitterness of her tone. “We got a bit of a shaking, that’s all.” The light was nearer now, and a quick, horrible, anxious glance showed her that Trenche too had had the wits to fumble his clothes together in the darkness. “It threw us down,” she went on to explain. “My God, I’ll be glad to get out of here. Lead the way, Price, and we’ll follow you.” She moved in front of the dishevelled Trenche without so much as a glance.
They had to pass the cockpit on their way up. “Don’t look in there, miss.” Was it by accident that the warning came too late? Helen had seen the surgeon and his assistants busy at their grisly work, the scrubbed table running blood. Behind her, Trenche gasped like a fish.
“How many?” She made her voice calm.
“I don’t rightly know, miss. One whole gun’s crew, I think. The one just forward from where you were. You were lucky.”
“Was I not.”
There was blood on the companionway, and Helen thought dryly that she need not worry about any possible stains on her clothes. Incredible to have her mind moving in this clear, cold, detached way. She had remembered something else too. “Are you not on duty in the cockpit, Price?” She wanted to be free of those too-observant eyes.
“Should be. Lieutenant Forbes sent me down for you. We’re well out of range now.”
“You’d best get back there,” said Helen. “Mr. Trenche will see me safe to my cabin.”
“You’ll find it crowded.”
“Never mind that.” She was the captain’s daughter.
“Very good, miss. You won’t need the lantern now.” He turned reluctantly, she thought, and vanished back towards the hell below.
Shadow of a Lady Page 7