‘I wish I could have shared more with you,’ he had replied kindly. He tossed the recollection aside as he heard quite clearly the query from the boat.
’C’est Andromeda?’
‘The devil…’ He struck flint on steel and had lit a candle when the tap came at the door. Midshipman Paine’s disembodied features appeared round the door.
‘Captain, sir?’
‘I’m awake, Mr Paine, and aware we have a French boat alongside.’
‘Aye sir, and a military officer asking to see you, sir.’
Drinkwater frowned. ‘To see me? You imply he asked by my name.’
‘Asked for Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater, sir, very particularly. Mr Marlowe said I was to emphasize that, sir.’
‘Very well, I assume the officer at least was British.’
‘Oh no, sir, Mr Marlowe said to tell you he had a lot of plumes on his shako and Mr Marlowe judged him to be either a Russian or a Frenchman.’
Drinkwater was dragging a comb through his hair while this exchange was in progress. It was not in his nature to bait midshipmen, but Drinkwater knew, though the cockpit thought he did not, that Paine had acquired the nickname ‘Tom’ on account of having the surname of the English revolutionary. He was a solemn but rather prolix lad.
‘And what did you make him out to be, Mr Paine?’
‘Well, he does have a fantastic shako, sir, but his voice is … well, I mean his accent is …’
‘Is what, Mr Paine?’ enquired Drinkwater, pulling on the full dress coat that he had disencumbered himself of when he had returned from the flagship. ‘Pray do not keep me in suspense.’
‘Well it’s English, sir.’
‘English?’
‘But Mr Marlowe says the shako ain’t English, sir …’
But Drinkwater was not listening, he was seized by the sudden thought his visitor might be his own brother who had long been a cavalry officer in the Russian service who had now come to pay him a nocturnal visit. He was certain Edward would be serving on the staff of General Vorontzoff who, Drinkwater had heard, was already in Paris. He swallowed the curse that almost escaped his lips and, doubling his queue, ordered the midshipman to bring the stranger down to the cabin. While he waited, Drinkwater lit more candles and washed his mouth out with a half-glass of wine.
Edward’s appearance at this time would be damnably embarrassing. A cold and fearful apprehension formed around Drinkwater’s heart. Once, long ago, he had helped Edward escape from England and a conviction for murder.[3] It had been a rash, quixotic act, but Drinkwater had gained the protection of Lord Dungarth and cloaked the affair under the guise of a secret and special service. Now Dungarth was dead, and an untimely resurrection of the usually impecunious Ned would not merely embarrass his older brother. Just when he might retire and enjoy the fruits of his own service, Edward might now ruin him.
Just as this terrible thought brought the sweat out on Drinkwater’s brow and caused his blood to run cold, Midshipman Paine’s face reappeared.
‘Well, bring the fellow in, Mr Paine …’
‘He won’t come, sir. Says he wishes you to wait upon him on the quarterdeck.’
‘The devil he does! Well, Mr Paine, what d’you make of the fellow, eh?’ The idea the stranger was Edward was swept aside by the conviction that this was one of His Royal Highness’s daft pranks. This thought was given greater credibility by Mr Paine’s next remark.
‘Begging your pardon, sir, I told you the officer was speaking English, but what I didn’t say was that I thought the officer’, Paine paused, then went on, ‘might be a woman, sir.’
‘You thought the … Well, well, we had better go and see …’
If it were so, then at least the stranger was not his brother Edward! The cool freshness of the night air soothed some of Drinkwater’s irritation. He braced himself for some piece of royal stupidity, aware of a figure in a cloak standing by the entry, but Lieutenant Marlowe loomed out of the darkness by the mizen mast and waylaid him.
‘Beg pardon sir, but have a care. If this fellow’s a Russian he may be dangerous, sir.’
Drinkwater frowned. ‘Dangerous? Why so?’
‘You have a reputation, sir…’
‘Reputation?’ Drinkwater’s tone was edgy. Then he recalled Rakov’s hostility.
‘You did take the Suvorov, sir …’
Marlowe’s tone was courtly, a touch obsequious, perhaps a trifle admiring. Drinkwater had destroyed a Russian line-of-battle ship in the Pacific, but that had been six years ago, in what? September of the year eight. Good God, the Russians had changed sides since then, when Boney invaded their country and Tsar Alexander had become the French Emperor’s most implacable foe.
‘Thank you for your concern, Mr Marlowe.’ The lieutenant drew back and let his captain past, his head inclined in the merest of acknowledgements. Drinkwater approached the cloaked figure. The bell-topped shako with a tall white plume, a mark of Bourbon sympathy, Drinkwater supposed, stood out against the dark sea beyond.
‘Well M’sieur, are you French or Russian?’
‘I am French, Captain Drinkwater …’ The voice seemed oddly familiar, yet artificially deepened. Paine was correct, a clever lad. He knew in the next instant who his visitor was.
‘I know you,’ Drinkwater said sharply, stifling any further explanation, and raising his voice slightly, so that the eavesdropping Marlowe and any other curious-minded among the listening anchor-watch might hear, added ‘and I think I know your business. You are on the staff of the Prince of Conde. Come, we must go below.’
Drinkwater was certain his night-visitor was not on the staff of the Bourbon prince, and with a hammering heart, turned on his heel and led the way, nodding to the marine sentry at his door as the soldier snapped to attention. The French officer had removed the ridiculous shako to pass between decks, but held it in such a way that it masked his face from the marine’s inquisitive stare. He was still half hiding his face behind the plume as Drinkwater, closing the door behind them, crossed the cabin and held up the candelabra on his table.
‘You come by night like Nicodemus, but you are, if I mistake not, Hortense Santhonax.’
She lowered the shako and shook her head, not in denial of her identity, but to let her hair fall after its constraint beneath the shako. Drinkwater recalled something else about her. In the imperfect illumination, her profusion of hair still reflected auburn lights. She dropped the hat on a chair and unclasped her cloak. For a moment they both stared at one another. She had half-turned her head away from him, though her eyes were focused on his face. Her hair had pulled over her right shoulder, revealing her neck.
It was a quite deliberate ploy and as his eyes wavered towards the disfigurement, Drinkwater saw the twitch of resolution at the corner of her mouth. The scar ran down from under her hair, over the line of her jaw and down her neck. It was not the clean incision of a sword cut, but marked the passage of a gobbet of molten lead.
He took her cloak and without taking his eyes from her, laid it on a chair behind him. It was warm from her body and the scent of her filled the cabin. He reached out his left hand, gently lifting the hair off her right ear. It was missing.
Hortense Santhonax made no protest at this presumption. He let the hair drop back into place. ‘I knew of your injury at the Austrian Ambassador’s ball, Madame,’ Drinkwater said kindly, ‘and I am sorry for it.’
‘When a woman loses her looks,’ she said in her almost faultless English, ‘she loses everything. Thereafter she must live on her wits.’
Drinkwater smiled. ‘Then it makes them more nearly men’s equals.’
‘That is sophistry, Captain.’
‘It is debatable, Madame, but you are no less lovely.’
She spurned the gallantry, raising her hand to her neck. ‘How did you know … about this?’
‘Lord Dungarth acquainted me of the fact some time before his death.’
‘So, him too.’ She paused, and then seemed to pull
herself together. ‘Men may acquire scars, Captain, and it does nothing but add credit to their reputations,’ she remarked, and was about to go on when Drinkwater turned aside and lifted the decanter.
‘Is that why you have assumed the character of a man, Madame?’ he asked, pouring out two glasses.
She looked at him sharply, seeking any hint of malice in his riposte, but the grey eyes merely looked tired. He saw the suspicious contraction of the eye muscles and again the tightening of the mouth. She accepted the glass.
‘Pray sit, Madame; you look exhausted.’ He took in her dusty hessian boots, the stained riding breeches and the three-quarter length tunic. There was nothing remotely military about her rig. ‘I presume you stole the shako,’ he remarked, smiling, handing her a glass.
‘There is a deal of convivial drinking in Calais tonight, Captain. A lieutenant of the Garde du Corps is going to find himself embarrassed tomorrow morning when the king leaves for Paris.’ She returned his smile and he drew up a chair and sat opposite her. He felt the slight contraction of his belly muscles that presaged sexual reaction to her presence. By God, she was still ravishing, perhaps more handsome now than ever!
Was it the wound that, in marring her beauty, somehow made her even more desirable? Or had he become old and goatish?
‘That is the first time I have seen you smile, Madame.’
‘We have not always met under the happiest of circumstances.’
‘Is this then, a happy occasion?’
She lifted the wine to her mouth and shook her head. ‘No, I wish it were so, but…’
Drinkwater left her a moment to her abstraction. He was in no mood for sleep now and there was something of the extraordinary intimacy that he remembered from their last charged meeting, in the house of the Jew Liepmann, on the outskirts of Hamburg.[4] But there was something different about her now. He sensed a vulnerability about her, a falling off of her old ferocity. Either he was a fool or about to be hood-winked, but he sensed no scheme on her part to entrap him. Even had she sought to suborn him, she would never have allowed him to lift the hair from her scar in an act that, even now, he could scarcely believe he had accomplished.
She sighed and stirred. ‘I have ridden a long way today, Captain Drinkwater, and we are no longer young.’
‘That is true. Forgive me; you must have something to eat…’ He rose and brought her a biscuit barrel, placing it upon the table beside her. She hesitated a moment and he watched her carefully. She was tired, that much was clear, and had undoubtedly lost her former confidence. Was that due to exhaustion, or the consequences of her scars? Had she been abandoned by those friends in high places she had once boasted of: Talleyrand for instance? Even now the ci-devant Bishop of Autun, foreign minister and Prince of Benevento, was conducting the government of France during the inter-regnum which would shortly end when Louis was restored fully to the throne of his ancestors. In these changed circumstances, a mistress like Hortense Santhonax would be an embarrassment which the calculating Talleyrand would drop like a hot coal.
He watched, fascinated, as she began to eat the biscuits, swallowing the wine with an eagerness that betrayed her hunger. The soft candle-light played on her features and he felt again the urgent twitch in his gut. He recalled the group of fugitives he had rescued off the beach at Carteret years earlier; Hortense and her brother had been among them. Later, at Lord Dungarth’s instigation, she had been put back on a French beach once it was known that she had thrown her lot in with a handsome French officer called Edouard Santhonax. Drinkwater remembered, too, the earl’s injunction that they should have shot her, not let her go.[5] Since then she had risen with her husband’s star until he was killed, when her name became linked with that of Talleyrand. Such a beauty was not destined for a widowhood of obscurity. Hortense had been present at the Austrian Ambassador’s ball, given upon the occasion of the Emperor Napoleon’s marriage to the Archduchess Marie-Louise, and this confirmed she was still welcome at the imperial court despite imperial doubts about her husband’s loyalty. Now the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy threatened to set her world upside down again, and while the Bourbons could not avenge themselves upon the whole of France, they would undoubtedly visit retribution upon the vulnerable among Napoleon’s followers.
‘Do you fear the restoration? Surely as a friend of Monsieur Talleyrand, whose position, I believe, has never been stronger, you are safe enough?’ She looked up at him, and he saw the effort of will it cost her to set her thoughts in order. ‘Or are you seeking my protection and asylum in England?’
She almost laughed. ‘Talleyrand … Protection … ? Ah, Captain Drinkwater, I can count on nothing further from the Prince de Benevento, nor would I presume,’ she paused for a moment, appearing briefly confused. Then she drew breath and seemed to steel herself, resuming in a harsher tone. ‘M’sieur le Prince prefers the Duchesse de Courland these days, but I have not come here to beg favours, but to warn you. King Louis may have returned, but his presence in France guarantees nothing; France is in turmoil. Three weeks ago the senate which Napoleon had created passed a resolution which blamed the Emperor for all of France’s misfortunes. The Prince de Benevento, as head of the provisional government, has himself resolved to have the Emperor exiled. The Iles d’Azores have been suggested, as has your Ile de Sainte Helene. Caulaincourt has been running back and forth between Talleyrand and the Tsar as an intermediary.’
‘And how are you and I involved in this negotiation between the Tsar Alexander and Talleyrand? You did not come here in the middle of the night to tell me what I may read in the newspapers in London? They also mentioned Elba.’
‘Pah, d’you think that a likelihood? Why, it is too close to France and too close to Tuscany. Austria will not wish to have the Emperor so close.’
‘Your Emperor is the son-in-law of the Austrian Emperor.’
‘That counts for nothing. Elba is but a ruse, though the world thinks the matter will rest there …’
‘And you think otherwise?’
‘Captain, I know otherwise.’ The vehemence in her tone was a warning of something to follow. Drinkwater struggled to clear his tired brain.
‘I can think of nowhere better than a more remote island such as you have mentioned if the late Emperor is to maintain some dignity. Otherwise I imagine it is not beyond the wit of your new Bourbon master to find an oubliette for him.’
‘But Captain Drinkwater, do you think he will remain long on an island? Have not your English newspapers been saying otherwise?’
‘He will be guarded by a navy whom he has compelled to master the techniques of blockade duty. I think your Emperor would find it very hard to escape …’
‘What will your navy employ, Captain,’ she broke in, the wine reviving her spirits as she warmed to her argument, ‘a brace of frigates?’
The sarcasm in her tone as she guyed the English sporting term was clear. There was a sparkle in the green eyes that suddenly lit her face with the animated and terrible beauty he both admired and feared.
Drinkwater shrugged. ‘Peut-être…’
‘Perhaps,’
Hortense Santhonax scoffed, ‘do you think you can cage an eagle, Captain? Come, my friend, you have more imagination than that!’
‘Then, Madame,’ Drinkwater snapped back, ‘speak plainly. You have not come to warn me in so circumlocutory a style without there being something you wish for …’
The remark seemed to deflate her. Her shoulders sagged visibly as though the weight they bore was unsupportable. She raised the glass and drained it. ‘You are right. I have need of your help … There, I acknowledge it!’
Drinkwater leaned over and refilled both their glasses. ‘Hortense,’ he said in a low voice, ‘much has lain between us in the past. We have been enemies for so long, yet you can feel easy addressing me as friend. Do you remember when I dug a musket ball out of the shoulder of the Comte de Tocqueville aboard the Kestrel? I can see you now, watching me; I felt the depth of your hat
red then, though I cannot imagine why you felt thus. Since that time I acknowledge I might have earned your hate, but I think you have come here because you trust me. And, in a strange sense, despite past events, I find myself trusting you.’ He reached out and touched her lightly on her shoulder. ‘Please do go on.’
She gave so large a sigh that her whole body heaved and when she looked up at him her fine eyes were swimming in tears.
‘Yes, I remember the cabin and the wound … I remember you drinking brandy as you bent over De Tocqueville with a knife, but I do not remember hating you. Perhaps my terror at escaping the mob, of having abandoned everything …’ She sighed and shrugged, sipping at her glass. ‘But I know you to be a man of honour and that you will not abuse the confidence I bear.’ She took a gulp of the wine and went on. ‘When it was known in Paris that the British ships which would escort the Bourbon back to France included the Andromeda commanded by Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater, I knew also that our lives were destined to touch at least once more.’ She paused a moment, and then resumed. ‘When we last met in Hamburg, I asked you if you believed in providence; do you remember what you said?’
‘I imagine I answered in the affirmative.’
‘You said the one word, “implicitly”.’
‘Did I? Pray continue,’ he prompted gently.
‘I also learned that you had foiled Marshal Murat’s plans by stopping the shipping of arms from Hamburg to America …’[6]
‘May I ask how?’
‘Captain Drinkwater, you are a senior officer in the English navy, yet’, she gestured round her, ‘this is only a frigate. And I know it to be an old and ill-used frigate.’
‘You are remarkably well informed.’
‘It is also known in Paris that you have had much to do with secret and especial services. Is that not so?’
‘Yes, it is true. It is also true that I took over from Lord Dungarth, but my present command …’ It was Drinkwater’s turn to shrug; he was too keenly aware of the irony to offer a full explanation, and let the matter rest upon implication.
The Shadow of the Eagle Page 3