Adam nodded. “So be it, then.”
As if his uncle had spoken for him.
George Tolan, personal servant to Vice-Admiral Sir Graham Bethune, stood in one corner of the inn’s courtyard as the carriage was being moved nearer to the vaulted entrance. It was early morning; too early, he thought, after this long and almost leisurely journey from London.
Now it was over, with Plymouth only fifty miles away. He glanced up at the inn sign: the Royal George of Exeter, the county town of Devon. He had been given a comfortable room, as was the custom with an admiral’s servant, good food, and a bed as big as a barn. He might even have been able to share it with someone, but for Bethune’s sudden attack of urgency.
The last day on the road, but their journey would take them through country lanes for part of the way. It was Saturday too, and Exeter would be particularly busy, with a market fair at one end of the city and a public hanging at the other.
He adjusted his smart blue coat and stamped his booted feet to restore the circulation. Or perhaps, like his master, he was getting nervous, unsure of the change from land to ocean again.
He was safe, and he had no complaints about his work or the man he served. There was always the nagging thought. Not like fear; he’d seen that over the past twenty years, knew all its faces, or had told himself often enough to believe it. Except . . . He looked toward the entrance, at the girl who was tipping water into a small garden. She noticed him and smiled. If Bethune had decided to prolong his stay at the Royal George, things might have been very different.
A few people who were crossing the yard glanced at the blue-coated figure. Tolan was used to it. Not tall, but very erect, shoulders squared, exuding a permanent alertness which he took for granted. Like a soldier, some might think. Which was indeed how George Tolan, aged thirty-nine, had started his adult life.
He had been born and raised in the old town of Kingston on the banks of the River Thames, the only son of a grocer who from the beginning he knew to be a drunken bully. His mother was cowed by his fits of rage, and the young George Tolan had been beaten often enough to know hatred as his only defense.
He could still remember the day it had all changed. His father had driven him out of the shop and sent him to get a particular ale from one of his drinking cronies, with the inevitable threat of what he might expect if he took too long about it.
And there, in the market place, he had seen the army recruiting party. While a drummer boy rattled a slow tattoo, a burly sergeant had nailed up a poster on a stable door, and lastly a young officer had made a short speech about honour and duty, and England’s need for her sons to step forward and volunteer to follow the drum.
His father never got his special brew, but on that day George Tolan, aged sixteen, had made his mark and been pounded on the back in congratulation by the officer and his sergeant together. He was their only volunteer that day.
And despite the drills and forced marches, the rough and often brutal humour, and the ritual of field punishment, young George Tolan had loved it.
As the war with the old enemies, France and her allies, had continued to spread and mount in ferocity, Tolan’s life had changed yet again. As the fleet increased in strength there was a shortage of marines, the backbone of any fighting ship when it came to action at close quarters, both afloat and in forays ashore. They also acted as a disciplined force which could be called upon to maintain order among ships’ companies which were largely comprised of pressed men, dragged aboard His Majesty’s ships to fight and, when necessary, die without question or protest.
Some of Tolan’s Surrey regiment were drafted to the Channel Fleet, in his case to an old two-decker, not so different, he supposed, from Athena, soon to be Bethune’s flagship. After tented camps and austere barracks, the day to day experiences were at first a challenge, and then a contest between the marines and the overcrowded world of the messdecks.
It was the first time Tolan had ever seen the sea, but like the Corps itself he grew to accept it.
Perhaps even then he had been conscious of the invisible barriers which stood between the marines and the overwhelming mass of sailors, pressed or otherwise, and divided forecastle and quarterdeck. At divisions, or when hands were mustered to hear the captain read out the Articles of War while some poor devil was stripped and tied to a grating to receive a flogging, or when they were posted as sentries to stand guard over dwindling water supplies, or to prevent men from deserting when the ship was in harbour or close to the shore. Only in battle, when the enemy’s flag flew high alongside and the air was choked with smoke, did those barriers fall, and they became of one company.
And then, just twenty years ago, the impossible had happened, and the entire country reeled in shock and fear. The fleet, which admirals and parsons alike had always described as our sure shield against all peril, had mutinied at the Nore and at Spithead. A French invasion was daily expected, and too late the Admiralty had been forced to accept what foul conditions, savage punishment, and in many cases tyrannical discipline had brought down upon their heads.
Tolan had been reminded of it when he had been listening to the old clerk at the Admiralty, the one who had fought under Black Dick’s command in the old Queen Charlotte at the Glorious First of June, just three years before the mutiny had broken out. Howe himself had been at the Admiralty, but his fairness and undoubted popularity were still remembered by those same men of his old flagship when mutiny had snared her with all the others. Howe and other senior officers were forced to swallow their pride and parley with the mutineers’ delegates, and something far stronger than discipline and fleet orders had won the day. Many officers were removed from duty, some dismissed from the service. Mutineers who had used violence against officers and messmates alike were punished, even hanged. Order was restored, and the country turned to face the enemy across the Channel once again.
But aboard Tolan’s ship it did not end without bloodshed. The captain was a disciplinarian of the old school, and when his company voted to follow the example of the fleet and refused to obey any further commands from aft, he had been beside himself with disbelief and fury.
The arms chest had been forced open, and the mutineers had driven most of the officers and the more trusted hands from the upper-deck. Only the scarlet line had stood fast, muskets loaded, bayonets fixed.
The young officer, who had been from Tolan’s own regiment, had raised his sword, and for an instant it seemed that the threat had passed. Then the captain had ordered him to fire on the mutineers. Tolan could remember the complete silence, as if it were yesterday.
Faces staring at one another across a few feet of decking. Seamen who had joked and chuckled when the soldiers, acting marines, had been forced to learn the crafts of seamanship and man the braces to alter course, amused by their attempts to cling to their army training and customs even at sea.
The sword had sliced down. Fire! Obey orders without question. All he knew.
The complete silence.
Then a young corporal on the right of the line, one of the only true marines aboard, half turned, smartly as if to an order, and called, “Belay that! Ground your arms!”
Some laid down their muskets, others stared around, confused and overtaken by the swiftness of events, so that the crack of a pistol shot seemed like a broadside.
Tolan had got to know the young corporal, and had learned many things from him. How to keep a clean and smart kit in the close confines of a ship, how to cook, and what it took to prime and load a cannon. How to survive.
He still thought about it. The corporal lying on the deck, his eyes wide with shock as the shot had killed him.
Like a mad dream. His own musket pressed into his arm, the officer swinging round with the pistol still smoking in his hand. Then the jerk of the butt against his shoulder, the officer’s hat flying into the air with the blood from his shattered face.
Like many others, Tolan had deserted that day, and so it had continued, running and hiding,
while a ruthless search for culprits spread across the country.
In desperation he had presented himself to a recruiting party put ashore from a frigate. Bethune had been her captain, his first command. It was the perfect disguise and the perfect place to lose himself. He had once served as an officer’s orderly, and it was not long before he was selected to attend the captain.
There had been testing moments. Once in Portsmouth dockyard, he had come face to face with a tall lieutenant, whom he had recognized instantly despite the passing of the years. A midshipman aboard that same ship when he had shot down his own officer. Just a glance, nothing more. Another time when he had quit the sea to accompany Bethune on some mission or other he had met a man by the Thames in London, the same river which ran within half a mile of where he had been born. Don’t I know you?
It had got no further. That time . . .
He straightened his back and plucked his coat away from his chest. He was sweating. Would he never be able to forget it?
He saw Bethune’s minute secretary, Edward Paget, coming down the steps, an important-looking satchel under one arm. A worrier, Tolan had long ago decided, always asking questions and making notes. Good at his work, though. He almost smiled. Otherwise Bethune would have cast him adrift years ago. Others did not seem to notice. Bethune was always ready to listen and to discuss, if it suited him. Handsome, dashing, with an eye for pretty women; a man who looked after himself. Must be fifty or even over, but looked far younger. A man Tolan could understand, and like, but underneath it all he was steel, something Tolan had marked well.
He saw that the carriage was already loaded, and apparently ready. It was time. How strange that the flagship at Plymouth was named Queen Charlotte. Not the same ship which had been at the centre of the Great Mutiny, but her name was carried on. The navy’s way. It was like a reminder. A warning, if he needed one.
“Ah, there you are, Tolan!” Bethune peered up at the sky and then at the cathedral as the clock began to boom the hour. “Good sleep?” He nodded. “That’s as well—I doubt it will be an easy ride.”
He had not waited for an answer; he rarely did.
They walked to the carriage together in silence.
It was only then that Tolan realized Bethune, always so buoyant and confident, was unwilling to leave.
She stood very still and upright by the opened gate, her body completely covered by a cloak. She had even pulled its hood over her head so that her long hair hung down her back, out of sight.
It was well past noon; she had heard a church clock strike somewhere. It seemed an eternity ago.
She shivered, glad of the cloak; there was a fresh southeast-erly breeze blowing in from the sea. But she knew it was not that. She looked down the slope and saw the Tamar through the trees, some small craft tossing at their moorings as if they were in the Channel.
She thought of the note the post boy had brought to the house behind her. Dearest Lowenna. Together at noon tomorrow.
Today. Perhaps something had happened. Perhaps he had changed his mind. She had gone over it so many times since the earnest young lieutenant, her companion and guardian all the way from London, had described it all to his captain. Made light of it, perhaps joked with his fellow officers aboard the Athena about his exploits with the captain’s “friend.” In the same breath, she knew Francis Troubridge would not. Probably a couple of years her junior, but he had seemed from another generation, courteous, friendly, protective, not once attempting any intimacy.
At the inns where their little procession of coaches and carts had paused on the journey she had seen the curious stares, the nudges and the grins. But Troubridge had always been there, ready to ensure that she and her maid had all the privacy they could want.
She looked at the river again. The opposite bank was Cornwall, where she had been born. She closed her fists hard against her sides. She had never thought of it as home. It was merely a place where she had been forced to avoid faces she knew, places where she might be remembered. Montagu had changed that for her. She would have gone mad otherwise. She had once tried to kill herself.
She shivered once more, but not from cold, and pressed her hand to her breast, surprised that her breathing seemed so even. It brought Sir Gregory Montagu back to her thoughts, the day he had died, with the same dignity he had shown in life. He had tried to tell her something, but the two doctors, old friends of his, had insisted she leave the room for a few minutes. He had not recovered. She knew that he had started to die after the fire; he had been trying to save some paintings, in particular one which had brought Adam into her life. A blazing beam had fallen into the studio and smashed him to the floor, and his right hand had been broken and burned beyond recognition. The hand which had brought him fame, and fame to those he had captured on canvas. Which had rendered the elusive quality of Adam’s smile, precisely as she had described it.
Almost the last words he had spoken to her were, It’s like destiny, my girl. Fate.
What had he meant? Was she still deceiving herself?
She thought of the people who lived in the house behind her, a local boatbuilder and his wife. Montagu had stayed here many times in the past when he needed to work without interference or arousing local curiosity. Perhaps she should not have accepted Troubridge’s willing offer of help to come here. London, then? More studios, one pose after another, with her inviolable guard always intact.
She thought of that last time, when she had almost killed Montagu’s nephew. I wanted to kill him. The rest was a mist. Adam holding her, the young lieutenant Troubridge suddenly transformed, dangerous, with a pistol in his hand. Others too, but mostly Adam’s hands holding her. Like that day when his horse had thrown him and his wound had burst. Dazed and delirious, he had touched her, held her, and she had lain beside him, her body rigid, her mind screaming as the nightmare returned. Groping hands, pulling at her, forcing her to suffer unspeakable rape and violation. When it came to her now, it was endless. And always the pain . . . Her father’s voice somewhere in the fog, pleading and sobbing.
She had fought against Adam’s friendship, the growth of the one true feeling she had allowed to blossom. She remembered her own voice, calling out in the night. It’s love I want. Not pity. Can’t you see that?
She swung round. A horse. She pushed the hood back from her cheek. Two horses. She was breathless, as if she had been running. It had to be him. Nobody used the road at this time of day. Perhaps he was bringing Troubridge with him. To protect her good name. As a witness . . .
The horse came around the bend in the road, a second rider a few yards behind.
She wanted to run to him, to call his name, but she could not move. Adam was above her one moment, and the next she was in his arms, pressed against him, her arms trapped by the heavy cloak.
“I am so sorry for the delay, Lowenna. The flagship made a signal. I came as soon as I could. If only . . .” The rest was lost as he put his arm around her shoulders and held her face against his.
She murmured, “You came.” She saw the uncertainty in his eyes. “It’s all I care about.”
She heard the other rider say, “I’ll wait at the forge, zur. Just call when you needs me.” He sounded awkward but vaguely pleased.
Adam walked with her toward the white-painted house, seeing the river beyond. The girl’s shoulders were firm under his arm, her dark hair streaming in the breeze like silk. He tried to piece it together. Troubridge’s excitement when he had climbed aboard after his journey from London with Bethune’s belongings. Happy that he had become a part of it, nervous that he had gone too far.
He had seen one of the boatswain’s mates by the entry port turn and stare as he had seized Troubridge’s hands and exclaimed, “You have saved my life. Don’t you know that?”
He hardly saw the room as she guided him to a tall, ladder-backed chair and watched him throw his hat and cloak onto another, the same cloak he had wrapped around her when he had smashed his way into the house in London. He re
ached for her hands and held them. They were very cold.
“Are we alone?” He did not hear her answer, but began to get up again.
She put her hands on his shoulders, repressing him a little. “How long do you have? They are over the river, in Saltash. They’ll not be back until sunset, I think.”
She touched his face, his cheek, and, gently, his lips. “I was so afraid. I have thought about you so much, maybe too much.” She shook her head. “I’m not making very much sense.”
He said, “I have to rejoin Athena by the dog-watches.” He smiled, and the strain fell away from his face; he looked very young. “That’ll be around sunset, too!”
She stood back from him and unfastened the cloak, letting it fall, then she allowed herself to look at him again.
“Sir Gregory told you.” She held up her hand. “He must have trusted you very much. Otherwise he would have said nothing.”
“I want you, Lowenna. That is all I know and care about. If it takes time, then we will find time. And I want you safe while I am away.”
“Safe?” She watched a gull drift past the window. “You will be gone soon.”
“You can stay at the house in Falmouth as long as you care to. Grace and Bryan Ferguson will make you most welcome.”
“You know what people will say, and think, Adam. ‘She shelters beneath the Bolitho roof—what does she offer in return?’” She smiled, as if a cloud had passed away. “I shall call upon your aunt. She was very kind to me. And she loves you greatly—I could feel it.”
He took her hand again but did not look at her.
“Will you give up the studio work?”
“Are you asking me to? Will you give up the sea for me?”
She returned the grip on his hand. “That was unfair of me. I would never ask it of you.”
Adam saw her sudden anxiety and said, “The next time we meet . . .”
He got no further.
“No. Not the next time, Adam. There may be no next time, who can tell?”
Man of War Page 11