For a moment or two Drinkwater was too preoccupied by the need to stay in the saddle to think of anything else. He was aware his dignity was non-existent as he struggled to get the rhythm of the trotting horse, urging the beast to canter as much to stay in the saddle as to keep up with his hostess. It was only when the mare obliged and Drinkwater recalled the tricks he had learned on a similar horse of Sir Richard White’s, that it occurred to him Mistress Shaw was wearing breeches.
The day was fine and sunny, with small puffballs of cumulus clouds trailing downwind under the influence of a fresh breeze which made the leaves of the trees rustle delightfully. He had never fully mastered the skills of horsemanship, unlike his father and his younger brother. The former was long dead but Ned, he supposed, was still at large, somewhere in Russia, an adopted Cossack.
And here he was, in Virginia, behaving like a fool in hot pursuit of a delightful rump as it bounced ahead of him and, dear Christ, went over a hedge!
‘God’s bones,’ he swore, recalling his mother’s adage that pride invariably preceded a fall. There was no need for fate to be so literal, he thought desperately as the hedge drew rapidly closer. And then with a sense of mounting panic he realized it was not a hedge. This was not enclosed England, but wide and wonderful Virginia. He was confronted by a row of bushes which, he realized with sudden certainly, ran alongside a little brook. He was too late to rein in; he felt the mare gather herself and, at the last moment, remembered to lean forward. The mare crashed through the brushwood and stretched herself for the brook beyond. He saw the bright flash of water and then his whole frame shook as the mare landed and the bony structure of her shoulders steadied and received his weight. The horse stumbled, recovered, and began to pant as it breasted the rising ground beyond the brook. Relieved, Drinkwater took stock of his surroundings. Mistress Shaw had halted her horse on the summit of the hill. He pulled up alongside her.
‘You promised me . . .’ he panted.
‘A docile mount, not an easy ride,’ she laughed, cutting him short.
‘Thank God your horse knows the lie of the land.’
‘Betsy would die rather than throw you,’ she said, leaning forward and affectionately patting his mount on her neck. The mare whinnied softly and the chestnut threw up his own head and jingled a protest at this favouritism.
For a moment they sat on their horses and regarded the view in silence. Drinkwater was surprised how far and how high they had come. He could see the roof of Castle Point, and beyond, on the silver-grey waters of the Potomac, the two ships with the bright spots of their rival ensigns at their sterns.
‘They look so insignificant from here, don’t they,’ she said. It was not a question, nor could he argue with the fact.
‘They are,’ he said suddenly, and the sense of liberation the words gave amazed him. In a sudden impulsive movement he had jerked Betsy’s head round to the west and kicked his unspurred heels into her flanks. Without looking back he worked the mare up to a gallop, dropping down towards more trees on the far side of the hill.
She watched him for a moment, holding her own restively eager horse in check until the foam flew from its mouth. Her heart was hammering inexplicably and she knew her hesitation was useless; yet she felt compelled to wait, not knowing the reason for this foolishness. When she could stand it no longer, she gave a yelp, flicked the reins and let the chestnut have its head.
The two ships were instantly hidden behind the summit.
‘You remind me of a magnolia we have at home,’ he said. ‘It grows against a south-facing wall and produces flowers of a singular loveliness.’
‘We have them here in Virginia,’ she said, blushing and busying herself with the game pie. ‘Do you open this.’
He sat up and took the bottle and corkscrew while she knelt and laid two plates upon the spread cloth.
‘You have more than a magnolia at home, Captain,’ she said pointedly, after a long pause, her voice strained.
‘And still you remind me of it,’ he said, placing the uncorked bottle on a level corner of the cloth, ‘magnolia, home and beauty.’
‘Have you killed, Captain?’ she asked suddenly, looking at him squarely, her expression intent.
‘In cold blood, or action?’ he prevaricated, wondering why she had so cruelly turned his love-making aside.
‘Does it matter?’
He shrugged. ‘Perhaps not to you . . .’
‘You men think by setting such moral questions in grades of dreadfulness to make them acceptable.’
‘I am somewhat wearied of moral judgements being made against me today. You are not the first woman to ask that question of me. I am a sea-officer, for better or worse. I have my duty.’
‘Does it not bother your conscience that you murder with some proficiency?’
‘Of course; but adultery is a sin as proscribed as murder, madam, yet is indulged in with little thought by people who do not conceive themselves as wicked. It has been a matter of amazement to me that one who moralizes about the evils of the latter can so easily practise the former. I am a sinner, but hesitate to throw stones.’
She had coloured and bit her lip, then said, ‘I had not expected such flippancy.’
‘Would you have me bare my soul to a stranger?’
‘Perhaps,’ she said, looking at him again, ‘the stranger would wish to be otherwise.’ She poured the wine into two glasses and handed him one.
‘And what would the stranger be? An adulterer, or merely a magnolia?’
‘Perhaps both.’
Later she propped herself on an elbow and looked down at him as he stared impassively at the clouds moving slowly above the trees.
‘You regret what has happened, don’t you, Nathaniel?’ He remained silent, staring upwards. ‘Do not, I beg you, if only for my sake. For you ’twas but a riot in the blood.’
He turned and looked at her, and saw her eyes were brim full of tears.
‘I think we are both too old for such . . . such rioting to be passed over thus easily.’
‘It doesn’t signify . . .’
‘On the contrary,’ he said gently, ‘even madness has its own place under heaven.’
‘Do you feel any different now?’
He smiled sadly. ‘Not all men spend in the same manner as they piss, Arabella. Perhaps I wish I did, it would make my infidelity the easier to bear.’
‘I do not think’, she said, her voice trembling, ‘you should reproach yourself. I am not . . .’
He took her hand and smiled at her. The boyish attractiveness had gone, replaced by something she could not describe, but which would, she knew with the certainty of true foreboding, haunt her future loneliness. ‘My darling . . .’ she breathed.
They arrived back at Castle Point at sunset. As they approached, walking their horses for fear they might arrive too soon, yet both aware their arrival was inevitable, the sound of shots rang out. Seized by a sudden awful thought that his absence had precipitated wholesale desertion, he pushed the mare forward until he saw Moncrieff’s scarlet coat floundering through a reedbed waving a duck above his head. Relieved, he watched the wildfowling party which appeared to consist of Moncrieff, Metcalfe and Davies, one of the master’s mates, until Arabella drew level with him.
‘They are fowling,’ he said, ‘I hope with your father-in-law’s permission.’
‘You are forgetting me already,’ she reproached him.
‘When I heard those shots I feared for my life,’ he remarked grimly, then turned towards her. Her hair was dishevelled and her cheeks were wet with tears. ‘My dear,’ he said, his voice thick with emotion, ‘you make me reproach myself . . . please, do not cry, I am not worth it.’
She sniffed noisily. ‘We must ride back to the house. Let us at least look as if the day was enjoyable.’ And she drove her spurs into the chestnut’s flanks so that the galled horse reared up and then leapt forward into a gallop.
Drinkwater followed as best he could, but she was already dismo
unting as he drew rein in the gravelled courtyard before the stables. The negro groom was rubbing down a large black stallion and, as the horses whinnied at each other and the stallion stamped, Zebulon Shaw came towards them.
‘Bella . . . Captain Drinkwater, I trust you enjoyed your excursion.’ He clapped his hands and a little negro stable-boy ran out and took the two bridles. Shaw spoke to his daughter-in-law and she turned to her guest.
‘My brother is back and wishes that you and Mr Vansittart join us for dinner. He has brought the answer we wish for.’ Her triumph was tempered by the formality about to overlay the day’s intimacy.
‘It is surely good news, Captain Drinkwater,’ Shaw said.
‘Surely, sir,’ Drinkwater replied, easing himself out of the saddle. He looked at Arabella. ‘It is for the best, I think,’ he added in a low voice.
She caught his eye and then bit her lip, just as Elizabeth was wont to do, turned away and went into the house.
‘Shall we say in two hours, Captain?’ asked Shaw, looking from the retreating back of his daughter-in-law to the large turnip-watch in his red fist. ‘Charles has retreated to his ship refusing the ministrations of our servants to wash the dust off him, but I reckon he’ll be ashore again by then.’
‘I’ll fetch Vansittart, Mr Shaw, and perhaps we can make some travelling arrangements for him . . .’
‘Of course, of course,’ Shaw waved aside any trifling difficulties of that nature. ‘ ’Tis in a good cause, Captain, the noble cause of peace.’
‘Indeed, sir, it is.’
It was almost dark when he reached the water’s edge at the same time as the returning shooting-party.
‘Have you had a good bag?’ he asked and was caught up in the jocular repartee of their high spirits. Metcalfe seemed to have forgiven Drinkwater his absence and had gathered an impressive bag. Already the events of the afternoon were become a memory.
He paused on the quarterdeck and looked back at the shore. The white façade of Castle Point was grey in the gathering dusk. A few lit windows blazed out, some hid behind curtains. Was Arabella concealed behind one, washing him from her voluptuous body and dressing for the evening?
‘Post coitus omnes triste est,’ murmured Drinkwater to himself, and went unhappily below.
CHAPTER 8
September 1811
The Master Commandant
The sudden transition from the company of Arabella Shaw to that of his high-spirited officers with their bag of duck and snipe gave Drinkwater little time to reflect upon the events of the day. Even in the odd moments that followed his return to Patrician in which his mind had the opportunity to wander, other, more pressing matters supervened. In any case, the day was not yet over and his subconscious subdued his conscience with the certainty of being in Arabella’s company again that evening.
The shots of the wildfowlers which had so alarmed him reawakened his fear of mutiny, tapping the greater guilt of absence from the ship which, in its turn, combined with the knowledge that Captain Stewart had returned to his own ship prior to their meeting over dinner, and made Drinkwater consider his coming encounter with the Yankee. From what he had gleaned of Stewart’s character so far, and in particular the American’s hostile taciturnity, the evening promised more of confrontation than conviviality. The fact that Drinkwater had already established an intimacy at Castle Point gave him a frisson of expectation. Such was his state of mind that he was both ashamed and, less creditably, gratified by this, a feeling of elated excitement further enhanced every time he caught sight of the American sloop through the stern windows of his cabin. It was fading in the twilight, merging with the opposite river-bank, but he remained acutely aware of its presence. Not since he had joined Patrician in Cawsand Bay had he felt so full of vigour.
There was a knock at the cabin door. ‘Come!’
‘Is there anything . . .’ Thurston began, but Drinkwater cut him short.
‘No, thank you, Thurston. I am dining ashore tonight.’ He unrolled his housewife, drew out his razor and began stropping it. ‘There is one thing,’ he said as Thurston was about to withdraw, ‘be so kind as to ask Mr Vansittart to join me for a moment, would you?’
He began to shave. Vansittart entered while he waited for Mullender to prepare his bath. He passed on Zebulon Shaw’s invitation, adding, ‘We can make all arrangements for your travelling through Shaw; he’s a most obligin’ fellow.’
The diplomat’s self-imposed quarantine, though doubtless proper, seemed a little foolish under the circumstances. Shaw was quite clearly opposed to war and if not an Anglophile, he was worldly enough to regard open hostilities between two countries as in nobody’s interests. Vansittart might, Drinkwater reflected, profit much from his conversation by way of a briefing before leaving for Washington and he expressed this opinion while he shaved. Vansittart, his elegant legs crossed and a glass of the captain’s Madeira in his hand, lounged on a chair and contemplated the dishevelled Drinkwater.
‘But supposing, my dear fellow,’ Vansittart said in a superior tone suggesting he was already conducting negotiations on the part of His Majesty’s government, ‘supposing this fellow Shaw has his own axes to grind.’
‘I don’t follow . . .’ Drinkwater stretched his cheek and drew the razor carefully over the thin scar left by a sword cut.
‘Well, let us hypothesize that his pacific intentions are governed by his desire not to have some aspect of his personal economy interrupted by war; or perhaps he has some disagreement with a congressman from New England who is of a contrary opinion . . .’
‘Suppose he has?’ broke in Drinkwater, sensing the looming prevarications and evasions, the tortuous and meaningless sophistry of political blustering. ‘What the devil does it signify? If he serves our purpose in bringin’ the weight of his opinion in favour of headin’ off a rupture, he serves our cause . . .’
‘Ah, but nothing,’ Vansittart said smoothly and with a hint of patronizing, ‘is quite as simple as that.’
Drinkwater looked at the urbane young man. He had been right about the proximity of the land. It had had its effect upon Vansittart, even though he had yet to step ashore. He was no longer a bewildered ignoramus, lost among the technical mysteries of a man-of-war, but a member of an élite upon whose deliberations the fates of more ordinary mortals depended. Already Vansittart’s imagination inhabited the drawing-rooms of the American capital and the success his intervention would achieve.
‘We are none of us exempt from our personal entanglements,’ said Drinkwater pointedly, a small worm of uneasiness uncoiling itself in his belly, ‘and now if you’ll excuse me . . .’ He wiped his razor clean.
Mullender was pouring the last of the hot water from the galley range into the tin bath and the cabin was filling with steam. Drinkwater began pulling his shirt over his head. Mixed with the smell of his own sweat a sweet fragrance lingered.
Vansittart watched for a moment, saw the scarred lacerations and mutilation of Drinkwater’s right shoulder and hurriedly rose, tossing off his glass. ‘Well, I shall have the opportunity of judging this Shaw for myself,’ he said. ‘In any event my bags are packed, so I will leave you to your ablutions.’
‘I shall be half an hour at the most.’
Drinkwater sank back into the delicious warmth of the bath. ‘Well, Mullender,’ he said, ‘what news have you?’
‘Mr Moncrieff has presented you with a brace of ducks, sir.’
‘That’s very kind of Mr Moncrieff.’ He entertained a brief image of Arabella sitting down to a dinner of roast duck with him in the intimacy of the cabin, then dismissed the notion as dangerously foolish.
‘Do you want the boots again today, sir? As they’re muddy I’ll have to clean them.’
‘No, no, full dress . . .’
‘ ’Tis already laid out, sir, and I’ve the sponging of your old coat in hand, sir.’
They had lain upon the old, shabby undress coat he had worn for the expedition. The reminder made him move restless
ly, slopping water in his sudden search for the soap.
He stood before the mirror with comb and brush, an uncharacteristic defensive vanity possessing him. He suppressed his conscience by convincing himself it was to make an impression on Stewart that he dressed with such care. Mullender moved one of the lanterns and the silk stockings and silver buckled shoes, the white breeches, waistcoat and stock seemed to glow in the reflected lamp-light. He handed the comb and brush to Mullender who, with a few deft and practised strokes, quickly finished the captain’s hair off in a queue.
‘I suppose I should have it cut,’ Drinkwater said.
‘Wouldn’t be you, sir,’ Mullender said with finality, drawing the black ribbon tight and levelling its twin tails. Drinkwater held his arms out and Mullender helped him on with the coat. He felt the weight of the heavy bullion epaulettes, one on each shoulder as befitted a senior post-captain, and his gold cuff lace rasped that on his lapels as he adjusted the set of the garment. Mullender pulled the long queue clear of the collar and flicked at Drinkwater’s shoulders before stepping back and picking up sword and belt.
‘No sword tonight, Mullender, thank you.’
‘Aye, sir,’ grunted Mullender, clearly disapproving of Drinkwater’s tact.
‘Call away my barge, if you please.’
Mullender opened the cabin door and spoke to the marine sentry. Drinkwater took one final look at himself in the mirror and picked up his hat.
‘Barge crew called, sir,’ Mullender reported, ‘and Mr Metcalfe said to tell you what looks like a Yankee schooner has just anchored on the far side o’ that Yankee sloop.’
‘Very well,’ Drinkwater said absently and swung round.
‘We must get that bulkhead painted,’ he remarked suddenly. Mullender looked up.
‘Sir?’
‘That bulkhead, get it painted!’ snapped Drinkwater, abruptly leaving the cabin.
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