by Lynn Bryant
She could not avoid Orry Gelling. He attended every party he could manage and sat beside her as often as he could. After his first arrogant assumption of her consent, he seemed to have changed his tactics, probably guided by her father. He no longer openly gave her orders although he looked as though he would like to, but he talked at her endlessly about things she cared little about. He questioned her about her activities and her life until Roseen wanted to scream at him. She fought hard to remain civil, gave him as little encouragement as she could and hoped that her cool manner would put him off.
Christmas was a pleasure, as he was absent on business in England and had been invited to stay over for the season. For almost three weeks Roseen was free of him and she felt her mood lift a little despite the grey, miserable weather. Without Gelling’s critical eye on him, her father relaxed a little and Roseen was able to escape alone several times. Her rides often took her up towards South Barrule and she would rein in on a long ridge that overlooked the house and gardens and home farm. Hugh was not there and she had no idea when he would return. When he did, he might bring a wife with him, and the thought of another women sitting with him in the tower room, watching the sunset and holding his hand, was unbearable. She made herself think about it, hoping that in time she would become accustomed to the idea.
Five months on, she still missed him daily and she wondered miserably if he ever thought about her. If he did it would be with anger and perhaps relief that he had avoided marrying a girl that flighty and untrustworthy.
She was walking Bridget along the ridge one dry afternoon in January, woolgathering, so that she missed the sound of the gig on the road which led up to the house until a voice hailed her, and turning she saw Voirry Christian - Voirry Moore now, since she had married last year, waving to her. Roseen had not seen Voirry since Hugh’s departure although she had seen Isaac Moore several times from a distance when he was about his business in Castletown. He never failed to bow but Roseen wondered what he thought about the girl who had jilted his friend and employer.
She walked her horse over to the gig, since Voirry had stopped with the evident intention of speaking to her. “Mrs Moore, how are you? It is very good to see you.”
“I am delighted to see you, Miss Crellin. I’m well, thank you. Busy as ever. We were talking of you only a few days ago, wondering how you did.”
“Well enough.” Roseen had no idea what to say. She was hopeless at the kind of easy small talk that her aunt delighted in. “I…I should congratulate you on your marriage, ma’am, although I’m awfully late with it.”
“Thank you.” The other girl’s eyes studied her. “Are you truly well, Miss Crellin. Forgive me, it really isn’t my place. But I have been worried about you.”
Roseen was slightly shocked and suddenly relieved. She gave a tentative smile. “I’m well,” she said. “It has been difficult at times - I am sure you are aware of how the gossips are - but it is dying down.”
“I’m glad. And I am sorry. People are very unkind sometimes; I often think it is because they have so little to do.”
“I can sympathise with that, I’ve no idea what to do with my time,” Roseen said ruefully. “My father is keen to keep me close to the house unless I am out with him or my aunt. I don’t like being confined.”
“I can understand that. You have escaped today.”
“I have, although I should get back before they realise it.” Roseen attempted another smile. “I feel like a prisoner.”
“I don’t think you committed any crime, Miss Crellin. I expect your father will come to realise it in time.” Voirry’s face was a little flushed. “Forgive my impertinence. I had heard rumours that you were to be married.”
Roseen shook her head emphatically. “No. Just rumours. I have no intention of marrying.”
Voirry seemed to pick up on her tone. “Don’t let them bully you,” she said unexpectedly. “You should wait. Give it some time.”
Her meaning was obvious and Roseen blushed scarlet. “No,” she said. “Oh no. I know you mean well, ma’am, but I can’t think that way. Not after what I did.”
“I doubt you did anything that terrible,” Voirry said. “I am guessing you’ve heard nothing from the captain?”
“No, of course not. I do not expect to. He had no commitment to me, he owes me nothing. I…is he well?”
“I think so. He writes often, business matters mostly. He has not asked…”
“No, of course not. Mrs Moore, forgive me, I have to go. Please convey my respects to Mr Moore.”
Roseen shifted her horse and Voirry took up the reins of her gig again. “I understand. It must be difficult to talk about. But you really should know, Miss Crellin, that I’ve known Hugh from childhood. If he hasn’t asked, it’s not because he doesn’t care or doesn’t want to know. It’s because he can’t bear to hear it.”
“Neither can I,” Roseen said, and pulled Bridget’s head around, setting off without apology across the hills towards Malew.
Orry Gelling returned to the island a week later and it seemed to Roseen that there was a new purpose to his courtship. He had put off his black and came calling in a new coat of dark green which looked as though it had been made for a slimmer man. He brought his two daughters, silent little creatures of four and six in identical pinafores who seemed too terrified to speak. They sat side by side in the parlour while Gelling lectured her father about the iniquities of the new laws against the slave trade and Roseen was torn between her determination to give him no encouragement by befriending his daughters and sympathy for the children.
Sympathy won and she rose, holding out her hands. “Why don’t you come to the stables while your Papa is talking business?” she said. “The stable cat has a litter of kittens, you may help me to feed them if you would like.”
She saw the older girl’s eyes brighten and then she looked at Gelling who was looking slightly surprised.
“Aye, all right. Go with Miss Crellin, then. But keep yourselves clean, I’ve no money for new clothes.”
“Yes, Papa.”
Roseen enjoyed herself more than she had expected, finding Moira and Katherine Gelling, when released from their father’s eye, pleasant well-mannered children with enormous curiosity about everything around them. She suspected, from their sheer delight in being outside and then in the stables, kneeling down to stroke and play with the kittens, that they led very sheltered lives in the big house in Ramsey with only their governess. It seemed a shame that there was no woman to take them out and buy them pretty clothes and spoil them a little.
Back at the house, she took them into the kitchen for milk and bonnag, enjoying their wide-eyed appreciation of the big stone flagged room with its long scrubbed table and huge iron range. She remained with them, telling them fairy tales dredged from her memories of childhood until their father sent word that he was departing. Outside on the drive Roseen said goodbye to them as they climbed into the carriage and bowed to Gelling who turned back suddenly.
“It’s good to see you making friends with my girls, Miss Crellin.”
“They are very nice children, sir.” Roseen had feared this reaction but she remained coolly civil. “They liked the kittens. I did not say so in front of them, since it would not have been right, but when they are fully weaned and house trained, I wondered if they might…if you would allow them to…”
It was the longest sentence she had willingly said to him and she saw him acknowledge it with a grim smile. “Kittens, is it? Aye, why not. Good for the mice as well. I’ll make you a deal, Miss Crellin. You save me two dances at the Taubmans’ party at the end of the month and in return I’ll bring the girls over to collect a kitten each.”
Roseen hesitated then nodded. “Very well, sir.”
“Looking forward to it then.”
He was as good as his word and the girls excitement as they decided which of the kittens to choose was a pleasure to watch. Roseen waved them off with the animals in a covered basket and resolut
ely set herself to be polite to their father. She did not find it particularly easy. She could remember in the early days with Hugh, being exasperated at his persistence but she realised that she had always been fighting a lost cause with Hugh Kelly and he had won her over long before she had been prepared to admit it.
It was different with Orry Gelling, a man she actively disliked. For all his air of gruff civility she had the sense that he had no intention of withdrawing gracefully at her continued cool refusal to discuss marriage. Roseen suspected her father had given up but Gelling had not and she worked hard to avoid him as much as possible. She considered herself bound for the two dances and was trapped into eating supper with him but managed to dodge him for the following week and kept her distance when the finally met at a dinner party.
Spring came late in 1807 and brought bitter sweet memories of the previous year. It seemed to Roseen, busy helping her aunt to care for her elderly grandmother whose winter bronchitis had turned serious this year, that those months had been filled with laughter and companionship and a sense of belonging that she still missed every day. She had heard gossip from one of her father’s merchant captains when he dined with them, of expeditions planned to Portugal, South America and possible Denmark and she wondered where Hugh would be stationed. Perhaps already he was at sea, busy and active and happy to be so, her memory growing fainter with the miles between them. Passionately she hoped distance would bring at least a measure of understanding and that if he thought of her at all, he too could remember those long happy summer days when they had fallen in love and smile about them.
***
Hugh Kelly was at his writing desk in his spacious day cabin aboard the Iris when orders came. He had been writing to Isaac Moore giving his approval for the purchase of farmland adjoining the western edge of Ballabrendon and trying to ignore the unopened letter bearing the heavy scrawl of Mr Josiah Crellin, when a knock at the cabin door distracted him.
“Come in.”
The door opened and Hugh looked up to see the lanky frame of his new first lieutenant. The sight of Alfred Durrell stooping under the lintel briefly amused him. At twenty three, newly promoted, Durrell appeared to have suffered a late growth spurt which had left him completely unsure of how to manage his arms and legs. Hugh himself was six feet tall and had spent years learning how to adjust his height to the lower decks of the various ships he had served in. Most midshipmen that he knew, developed something of a stoop once they had got past the bruised and cracked heads of their early days.
The Iris was a delight, a 72 gun third rater taken from the French and refitted under Hugh’s critical eye. She was spacious for a two decker and although below decks where the men slung their hammocks and the junior officers and warrant officers occupied their tiny cabins was cramped and dim, Hugh’s own quarters were enormous compared to his previous vessels and he felt a sense of luxury every time he settled to sleep in the wide bunk which he had commissioned himself to accommodate his tall frame. How poor Durrell managed in his small cabin Hugh could not imagine, the boy must be at least three inches taller than him with a willowy frame and the awkward air of a man not yet sure of his own height.
“Mr Durrell?”
Durrell straightened with an air of relief in the high cabin. “Letter for you, sir, came from the Admiral.”
“Thank you,” Hugh said, holding out his hand and suppressing a smile. Letters would normally have been delivered by Brian or by one of the midshipmen, and Durrell, who was abnormally sensitive to his own dignity as a newly promoted first lieutenant, would not generally have deigned to act as messenger boy. But rumours had been flying around the fleet, of orders coming and Hugh knew that his deputy had sacrificed dignity to curiosity and brought it himself. He was tempted to smile and dismiss Durrell, whom he was finding terminally irritating, but he did not. He was as keen as the younger man to find out if the Iris was finally putting to sea and he did not blame the boy.
Opening the letter, Hugh read quickly and then looked up. Durrell’s distinctive blue-green eyes were fixed on him and Hugh grinned finally and put him out of his misery.
“Orders, Mr Durrell. Fleet’s sailing to Copenhagen under Admiral Gambier. Time to see what she can do.”
“Yes, sir.” Durrell’s voice, usually so precise that the sound of it grated on Hugh, was infused with rare warmth. Hugh wondered if the prospect of action or at the very least of a voyage to Denmark, was as much of a relief to Durrell as it was to him.
He had found the past few months difficult and he was aware that his new lieutenant had probably borne the brunt of that. Many of the crew of the Iris and almost all of the warrant officers had joined Hugh from his previous ship. He had spent the months supervising the final details of the refit, setting up the Iris to his own specifications and attempting to recruit the remaining crew needed to take the Iris into action. The responsibility for all of this rested with a ship’s captain, and an unknown or impecunious captain with a poor ship and no resources could spend months kicking his heels in port, desperately trying to find enough men to set sail.
Hugh was not in this position. He knew that his past service had given him a good reputation as a tough but consistent disciplinarian who kept floggings to a necessary minimum and those of his previous crew who wished to remain in the service were happy to sign up with him. In particular he had done very well for prize money over the past years and it had given him the reputation as a lucky captain.
There was nevertheless a chronic shortage of men throughout the navy and Hugh had resorted, as all captains did, to the use of a press gang. The navy ran an impress service, but Hugh preferred to send out his own men. He was not interested in poorly trained landsmen; he wanted sailors and since he had time in port during the refit, he was selective, collecting men newly freed from previous service, fishermen or merchant seamen from up and down the coast. Many of them had served before; most were resigned, and once pressed, chose to sign up as volunteers in order to get the bonus offered. Those who did not, he assessed carefully. Some of them would settle, one or two were clearly unsuitable and having time and choice he released them. It was not a matter of sentiment; he needed men but while he had time to be picky he preferred to take only the best. He was still a little short at around five hundred and fifty, but it was enough to put to sea and if he came across a stray merchantman en route he would happily pick up a few more.
One of Hugh’s many regrets about his precipitate departure from the Isle of Mann in November was that he had not had the opportunity to recruit locally as he had intended. Manx sailors were highly prized in the navy, to the extent that the press gang were given an extra bonus for every Manxman they were able to bring in. Hugh knew his countrymen and was aware that they would have signed up more readily to serve under one of their own, especially given that his bosun, Mr Keig was also from Mann.
Hugh looked again at Alfred Durrell. He had not been given a free choice in his officers although two of the second lieutenants had served with him as midshipmen before their promotion. In order to achieve promotion to lieutenant a man had to pass an exam. Ships had their own schoolmaster who attended to the general education of the young midshipmen as well as preparing them for their lieutenants exams. On many ships, lessons were also given to promising seamen to enable them to rise through the ranks of non-commissioned and warrant officers and possibly even to an officer’s commission. It was the route Hugh had taken and he encouraged it aboard his ship. It was a point of pride in the navy that their officers were properly trained and had proved their worth, while in the army, any fool with money in his pocket could achieve command and get a battalion slaughtered.
Despite this, patronage was very important, not so much to achieve the rank of lieutenant but to get a command. There were many more qualified officers than ships available and huge numbers of very competent men were at home on half-pay awaiting a ship. Hugh knew he had been lucky. His countrymen tended to take care of their own and a combination of good f
ortune, ability and the friendship of Captain John Quilliam, who had been first lieutenant aboard the Victory at Trafalgar had secured him his first ship of the line when other very good officers had been sent home.
Lieutenant Alfred Durrell had very good connections. When his name had been put forward to Hugh he had done some discreet checking, writing to various friends and acquaintances in the service and in London and he had discovered that Durrell was the second son of a small landowner in Kent and that his father had held a junior secretary’s post in the household of the first Earl of Chatham shortly before he died. This had led, eventually, to employment in several minor positions under Chatham’s son when William Pitt became prime minister.
William Pitt had died the previous January leaving uncertainty in London. Nobody seemed clear if his elder brother, the second Earl, would take a significant role in any future Pittite government and Hugh was not interested enough in politics to care, but he was fairly sure that the Earl, a former First Lord of the Admiralty and currently holding the office of Master General of the Ordnance had enough influence to assist a lowly lieutenant onto the next rung of his career ladder.
There was some leeway for Hugh to ask for an alternative to Durrell but he had read the letters thoughtfully and decided to accept. Durrell’s rise to first lieutenant had clearly been aided by his connection with the Pitt family but his service record was excellent and his character references impeccable; there was no reason to think that he was not capable of the job. Hugh had said a regretful farewell to Charles Trent, his first lieutenant for several years, after Trafalgar when Trent had been given his first command and there was nobody else he particularly desired to promote. Durrell looked good enough on paper for Hugh to be willing to give him a chance.