Sails on the Horizon: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars

by Jay Worrall

  “Commander Edgemont, this is indeed a pleasure. I have heard something of your successes off St. Vincent. I am Thaddeus Edwards,” he said, extending one hand and gesturing toward an inner parlor with the other. “Tea, or something stronger?”

  “Tea would be fine,” Charles answered a little nervously, glancing at the exquisite furnishings and hangings in the room. The two men talked about inconsequential things until the tea had been poured and the maid departed.

  “Now, how may I help you?” Mr. Edwards asked. “I assume that it was Sir John who gave you my card.”

  “Admiral Jervis, yes. He suggested that you might represent me in the matter of prizes taken at Cape St. Vincent that will presently be up for condemnation before the Admiralty Court.”

  “I see,” Mr. Edwards said, removing a small notebook and pencil from his jacket pocket. “And which prize do you speak of?”

  Charles hesitated, then said, “The Spanish warships San Ysidro, San Antonio, and San Nicolás.”

  Mr. Edwards’s eyebrows shot up. “Two seventy-fours and an eighty-four? Are any of these prizes in dispute?”

  “No, sir. I don’t believe so,” Charles answered.

  “And you were the officer commanding when they were taken?”

  “I think so, I’m not sure,” Charles said. He explained how he came to be in command of the Argonaut, how the three Spanish warships were actually boarded, and his conversations with Collingwood, Nelson, and Jervis. “Perhaps the captain’s share would go to Captain Wood’s estate,” he concluded.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Mr. Edwards said, scribbling some figures in his notebook. “The Admiralty won’t want to do that. They’ll want a living hero, not a dead one. In any case, Wood had a reputation as something of a reluctant warrior.” Charles suddenly understood why Jervis’s first signal to engage the enemy had specified the Argonaut and only the Argonaut. Wood couldn’t possibly evade such a direct order, and Jervis would know that the other captains needed no such encouragement.

  Mr. Edwards wrote a number on a fresh page, tore it off, and handed it to Charles. “If everything you have told me is true, and if there are no complications at court, this is the minimum amount I think you may expect to receive.”

  Charles looked at the number and his eyes widened. He knew about prize money of course, but had little experience with it. During his time on her, Argonaut had not been involved in any naval battles or even the capture of commercial shipping. He tried to calculate the one-quarter share that was the ship’s captain’s due in his head, couldn’t get it exactly, but knew that it was a very large sum.

  “No, no,” Mr. Edwards spoke, reading his thoughts. “I’ve already done the division. That is the amount that would go to you personally.”

  “Oh,” Charles answered, unable to pull his eyes off the string of digits. “It’s a great deal of money.”

  “The fortunes of war,” Mr. Edwards responded affably, then spent some time explaining how the Admiralty court functioned, what his role as an agent was, his fees, the bewildering array of banking and investment options that Charles had before him, and the services Mr. Edwards’s firm could offer in those areas. In the end Charles signed a contract naming Thaddeus Edwards as his sole agent and received in turn a check for two thousand pounds—roughly ten years’ salary for a junior naval commander—as an advance on the sums he would receive from the court. Charles left the Threadneedle Street house with manufacturing companies, toll-road and canal-building projects, land acquisition, insurance, shipping and trade, and an assortment of other opportunities tumbling between his ears.

  A final visit to the Admiralty confirmed his promotion to commander and that he would be given the Louisa. She would be ready for sea at the Plymouth Naval Yards around the end of April or early May. His orders would be delivered when appropriate. The next day, Attwater in tow, he boarded the post coach for Chester and home.

  THE LARGE COACH bounced and swayed unmercifully as its six horses pounded along the ancient Roman road that was now the King’s Highway between Birmingham and Chester. Charles sat facing forward next to the starboard window, opposite the fitfully snoring form of his steward. They had changed horses in Whitechurch and soon crossed from Shropshire into his native Cheshire at the village of Grindley Brook. The passing scene of small hamlets, patchwork fields surrounded by ancient hedgerows, extensive woods, and pasture for dairy cattle grew increasingly familiar as the coach rattled onward. When the heights of Brown Knowl came into view, and Bolesworth Castle beyond, his sense of anticipation grew with every turn in the road. He was almost home. It had been six years since he had last seen his father (Charles’s mother had died when he was eleven, which was one of the reasons he had been sent to sea at the age of twelve), or his brothers or sisters, or slept in his own bed. He wondered if anything had changed in his absence, if his father had made any improvements to the property, or if there might be any other significant transformations in the community. He especially looked forward to seeing his father again and seeing the pride in his face when he told him he had been made commander and would have his own ship.

  Late in the afternoon the coach changed horses at the crossroads at Bruxton, the last change before the final run into Chester. Two miles beyond Bruxton, Charles called for the coachman to halt at the hamlet of Handly, where he and Attwater descended and had their luggage passed down.

  Charles looked up and down the high road, acutely disappointed as the coach clattered away. His first day in London he had written of his arrival in England and plans to come home, and he’d expected his father, or someone from home, to meet the coach. He searched the nearly empty street and the few half-timbered, thatch-roofed cottages crowded close on either side, but saw no one he recognized. There was a small horse-drawn farm cart plodding along in his direction, with a well-dressed if unfamiliar young woman on its front bench. That was all. Charles briefly wondered what such a woman was doing in such a shabby cart, then dismissed the thought and searched up and down the roadway again.

  As the cart drew near, the young woman suddenly gave a loud shriek and leapt to the ground, her petticoats flying. “Charlie! It’s you,” she squealed in delight as she ran. Charles stood dumbfounded at the onrushing apparition and braced himself for the unavoidable collision as she flung herself on him, kissing his face and cheeks. “Charlie, you don’t recognize me, do you?” she said with shining eyes after disengaging herself to the extent of grasping one of his arms in both hers and hugging it against her rather ample bosom.

  “Ellie?” he said tentatively; then, “Hi, sis,” and grinned. She’d been ten when he saw her last: skinny, flat-chested, and unremarkable. It hadn’t really occurred to him that she would have aged at all, much less into the animated, auburn-haired beauty before him. To reinforce his assertion that he had recognized her, he added, “You’ve grown.”

  “So have you,” she answered, looking up at him; then, seeing his bandage, “Oh, you’re hurt.”

  “It’s nothing,” Charles said, touching the side of his head. “It’s nearly healed.” They stood together for a moment, neither knowing what to say first, until Attwater discreetly cleared his throat.

  “Come,” Charles said, “I’ll introduce you to my steward and we can go home.” Attwater was already loading their sea chests into the wagon. Introductions were made, and the older man gave the young woman his best imitation of a courtly bow. In the fading daylight the rickety wagon set off behind an aged, sway-backed mare for the two-mile ride to Tattenall. Charles took the reins and sat on the bench in front with his sister, Attwater and their luggage in the bed behind.

  “How is everyone at home? Where’s Father?” Charles asked as he fruitlessly encouraged the mare into a little more motion.

  “Oh, you don’t know,” Ellie answered, putting her hand on his arm. “We wrote to you. Father died months ago.”

  Charles’s heart seemed to stop. “Died?” he repeated as if he didn’t understand. “Father?”

&n
bsp; “Oh, I’m sorry,” Ellie answered. “He’d been ill for some time, but didn’t want anyone to worry you about it. We wrote to you immediately after.”

  A great emptiness enveloped him. He’d always seen his father as an anchor, a figure larger than life, strict, reliable, constant, but with a twinkle in his eye and a ready laugh. Someone who would always be there if Charles needed him. He couldn’t imagine him being gone. “Oh, God,” he said. “No, I didn’t know.” His father would have been pleased that Charles had participated in a major sea battle and been raised in rank because of it. He’d looked forward to telling him about his adventures and luck. He had wanted his father to see him as a success, and now he couldn’t.

  “We wrote to you immediately after he passed,” Ellie repeated defensively.

  Charles tried to compose himself. He didn’t want to distress his sister. “Mail at sea can take a long time, if it gets there at all,” he said with forced cheerfulness. “How are things at home?”

  “It’s just John and me now,” Ellie responded. “John’s a little overwhelmed, I think.” John Edgemont, the oldest at thirty-one and unmarried, would be the head of the household now. Charles had two other older brothers, both with the army in India, and an older sister who’d married a solicitor and moved to Liverpool, where she was steadily producing children.

  A question stuck in Charles’s mind, but he didn’t know exactly how to put it. “How come you didn’t meet me with the carriage? Why this old cart?”

  Ellie sat silent for a moment. “We haven’t a carriage anymore. It was sold along with almost all the horses and other things. Most of the servants were also let go.”

  “Why?” Charles asked. The family income derived from land. Edgemont Hall was an estate of some two thousand acres, the arable parts of which were let out in lots to crofters, small farmers, and herdsmen, who paid their rents in kind. It was an arrangement that had provided the Edgemont clan with a comfortable and largely unchanged living for centuries.

  “I don’t know,” Ellie said stoically. “When Father died, we found that there was no money, only debts, lots of debts. John inherited, of course. He had to sell things and cut costs to keep the land. I think he said that it had to do with the tenants leaving or something.”

  Presently the wagon clattered through the village of Tattenall in the failing light, with its dimly lit cottage windows and the welcome smell of wood cooking fires. A little past the old square-towered church and the market square, they turned up the drive toward Edgemont Hall. The house was brightly lighted on the ground floor, and John Edgemont, a large, florid man with a receding hairline, immediately came out to greet them. Charles thought his brother looked old, and his face was lined with care. The money problems he’d inherited from their father probably contributed to that. John embraced Charles with a great bear hug and then set him down. “I read about St. Vincent in the Gazette. I want to know everything,” he said warmly. “But not until you’ve had a chance to settle in.” Charles introduced Attwater, who said, “How d’you do, squire,” and bowed.

  At dinner, served by the lone remaining maid, the talk was about Charles’s years on the Argonaut, the places he had been, and the battle off Cape St. Vincent. He told and retold the story of his part in the battle and of his conversations afterward, especially with Nelson, as if he didn’t quite believe it himself. After the dishes were cleared he made his way upstairs to his old room, where Attwater helped him prepare for bed.

  “Have you eaten?” Charles asked.

  “Yes, sir, I had dinner in the kitchen.”

  “Have you found a place to sleep?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. There’s plenty of room in the servants’ quarters.” With that Attwater blew out the lamp and closed the door behind him.

  CHARLES FOUND HIMSELF awake before dawn the next morning. He dressed in rough civilian clothing that had been set aside for him, found an old broadcloth jacket, and slipped quietly from the house. The early light filtered shyly through low gray clouds as he walked soberly around the grounds, noting how the house and other buildings had fallen into disrepair. Inside the stable he found only the aging mare that had pulled them from Handley. Outside, he stopped to remember how foreign it had all seemed when his family first arrived from Philadelphia, and when he had played with his brothers in that large elm tree and how that path led to the pond where he had once built a raft that sank under him. And there was a hedgerow he and his father had spent a full day planting together; it was now overgrown and untended. They were largely warm memories of a pleasant time and place. Presently he turned from the house and started down the lane toward the village.

  Almost immediately he saw a figure emerge from a wood on the left. A bent, elderly man looked up and down the way, then froze on seeing Charles and quickly moved the limp forms of two hares behind his back.

  “Mornin’, governor,” the man said, bowing and lifting his hat apprehensively as Charles approached. One arm and its bounty remained mostly hidden.

  Charles thought he recognized the stooped figure as someone from his childhood and struggled to place him. “Good morning. Tate, isn’t it?”

  The man gave a toothless grin and nodded. “Ye remembered, sir. I doubted ye would. Ye wa’ only belt-high then.”

  Robert Tate had been in the employ of Charles’s father and managed the stables on the Edgemont estate. He had taught Charles to ride and a few other things besides, animal trapping being one of them. “Had a profitable morning?” he asked, nodding at the arm Tate still held behind his back.

  “Aye, fair to tolerable,” Tate answered, bringing out his catch without a hind of remorse that he had clearly been caught poaching. “And ye, young master Charles, how do ye find life asea?”

  They talked in a friendly, intimate way, standing in the lane for a time recalling younger days in both their lives. Tate had mostly retired from his stable manager’s position years before Charles’s father died and the horses were sold, but he still lived in a small cottage on the estate.

  “I must be getting on home, sir. The missus will be wondering,” the old man said finally. “Take care in the navvy. I ken it’s a hard life.”

  “How is Betsy?” Charles asked. He remembered her as a large, good-hearted woman, frequently found in the Edgemont kitchen, who usually had a secret sweet or a piece of pie for him whenever he appeared.

  “Oh, not very spry, sir. But still herself, if ye takes my meanin’. She gets nervous if I’m away too long.”

  “Well, remember me fondly to her. You take care, too, Tate. And mind no one catches you with those hares.”

  “Aye, sir,” Tate grinned. “Never ye worry. I’m as deft as ever I wa’.”

  The men parted with a handshake and Charles continued on toward the village. As he came closer, he saw that a few of the crofters’ cottages stood empty, with their doors ajar, and there were occasional pigs rooting in untended fields. Other fields were newly plowed, ready for the spring planting of barley, corn, and oats. Above most of the cottages he saw the smoke of cooking fires from chimneys as families began to start the day. Here and there individuals emerged sleepily outside to collect firewood or to take care of more personal business. Those that noticed him stared curiously. A few nodded in greeting or touched their foreheads and he nodded or waved in return. After a time Charles turned and started home in a contemplative mood, noticing the hazy greens of early spring growth beginning on the tips of the birch trees.

  He found his brother at the kitchen table, with Attwater by the stove. The maid, a stick-thin, graying, middle-aged woman who had been with the family for as long as Charles could remember, stood nearby with a stern look on her face, her arms folded across her chest. Apparently there had been a discussion about who would do the cooking and Attwater had prevailed. John sat looking pained and slightly flustered while the older man tinkered with the flue on the stove to try to get some of the smoke out of the room.

  “Your man can be very stubborn,” he said as Charles seated
himself at the table.

  “Yes, I’ve learned that it’s best not to argue with him.” Then to Attwater Charles said, “I didn’t know you could cook. What’s for breakfast?”

  “Eggs and coffee, sir. ’E says there ain’t no—isn’t no bacon,” Attwater responded, beaming. “I fetched the eggs from the coop down the lane. The coffee’s from your stores.”

  “We don’t have a hen coop,” the maid said acidly. “He stole them from the Bridgetons. They’ll have to be paid.”

  “Fine,” Charles said absently, his mind on what he’d seen that morning and Ellie’s talk of money problems the day before. He turned to his brother. “How bad is it?” he asked. “Ellie mentioned something about Father’s debts.”

  John looked uncomfortable. “It’s not your problem,” he said quickly. “We’ll be all right given a little time.”

  “How much time?” Charles asked. John’s shoulders slumped in a gesture of resignation. “Father accumulated a fair amount of debt over the past several years. Some of it was from speculating on corn prices, some was borrowing for the upkeep of the house, other things. He tried raising the crofters’ rents to pay the interest. When the price of feed fell, he had to borrow more. He was very ill toward the end, probably from the worry. I suspected something was wrong but didn’t really learn how wrong until after he died.”

  “And now?” Charles asked, watching his brother carefully. He wanted to help, he was certainly able to help, but the offer had to be made tactfully.

  John steepled his fingers and pressed them against his chin. “I’ve mortgaged the property, paid off some of it, and renegotiated the rest. Still, there are payments coming due that I may not be able to cover.” He looked directly at Charles. “I can’t raise the rents any higher. Some are leaving as it is. I may have to sell part of the land.”