Rondo Allegro

by Sherwood Smith

  But he would not permit them to disturb the lady.

  Out of long habit against the listening ears on the other side of the skylight overhead, Captain Duncannon said, “Pueri numquid domina fatiga?”

  They both knew that their schoolboy Latin was wretched. But their former masters were not here to be shocked at their mangled ablatives, and Sayers understood the captain’s concern that the boys might be pestering his wife.

  “Eorum antics,” Sayers said carefully, as the captain translated to himself, Their antics.

  “Oblectandi eam.”

  Amuse her. And Sayers nodded firmly.

  Very well, the captain thought, he need not interfere. He was aware of a surge of gratitude toward her, even of good will. No, he had to be honest, if only within himself: he was beginning to look forward to their conversations.

  That could lead to nothing good. He had been made a fool of once, and he had vowed to be done with women and their ambitions. He did not know what this one wanted, but he was certain that if he asked, he would not hear the truth. Women were never straightforward the way a man was. He would avoid her at breakfast—easy to do, as there was plenty of ship’s business always awaiting his attention.

  18

  The next morning, Parrette brought in tea, waking Anna.

  Parrette said in Neapolitan, “I would have told you that ladies do not make hats.”

  “But my mother taught me,” Anna exclaimed as she rolled out of the swinging bed. “I remember it so well. We plaited together as I sang for her.”

  “So it was.” Parrette tipped her head to the side. “But only when you were alone, that no one could see. Her own mother taught her, and she used that skill to make your hats because money was always so scarce. But the English at Naples thought she bought them.”

  Anna said, low, “I had no notion.”

  “Eh, toutefois,” Parrette said as she pulled out a fresh gown and gave it a vigorous shake. “I have learned that English ladies will sometimes trim their hats. And also, there is a lady in the fleet who made trouble wanting naval ships to go off to buy her new hats, as if they had nothing else to do. An earl’s daughter? And so, you, making your hat? There is general approval.”

  “I did not look for approval,” Anna said, laughing as she shrugged into her gown, and the hem fell about her feet. She reached for her sash. “But I do require a hat, if I am expected to appear properly English. I wonder if hats are in fashion again in Paris, now there is an emperor?”

  “Who knows? We are not in Paris.” Parrette shrugged as she carefully unwrapped the edging of a hat brim. “I went ahead and started it, while I was waiting for the hot water.”

  “The most difficult part,” Anna acknowledged, and thanked her.

  “Now, let us get your hair brushed out. What if The Captain expects you for breakfast? You know how they are ruled by these bells, tingle-r-r-r-ringle, tumble-r-r-r-r-rumble.”

  But when seven bells started the tumult of “hammocks up,” Perkins arrived with a tray at their door. The captain, it seemed, was busy elsewhere in the ship.

  Consequently Anna ate alone, then picked up her sennit and brim, and made her way to the deck.

  The air was cool, the sun’s fiery rim crowning the headlands above Cadiz in the distance. She could make out the silhouette of another frigate against the horizon, but they were no longer in that long line of battleships, as far as she could tell, and she wondered if that meant the danger of war was over.

  Heartened, she took a turn about the deck and hummed through her scales. When she reached the prow, the little boy in the overlarge uniform came her way, grinning. He made a correct leg, lifted his hat, and then ruined the effect of this debonair politesse by looking around furtively.

  “Should you care to hear what we have, ma’am?”

  “I would very much!”

  Though he could scarcely get out a sentence without his tortured stutter, for some reason Mr. Corcoran could sing. His high treble was even true to pitch as he quickly sang “Johnny Crapaud” to the tune of “Ça Ira.” The words were typical of boyish humor, scurrilous rather than genuinely humorous. She had heard the same sort of song sung on the streets of Paris by urchins there, and took it in much the same spirit: she wondered what might happen if the boys from either country met one another in circumstances outside of war. They might find humor, and games, in common.

  She hoped that would happen, that the war would vanish like the morning mist as she gave him the nod of approval that he was plainly expecting, before he was summarily elbowed aside by the stout, black-haired Mr. Bradshaw.

  “I wanted to ask, ma’am, have you been in Barford Magna recently?”

  “I have never been there at all,” she replied. “Am I to know where this is?”

  His eyes rounded. “Why, it is the captain’s home. That is, he lives at the Manor, I mean, his family is from there. The Lord Northcotes have been barons there forever. But if you don’t know it, how could you be married?”

  She could not prevent a smile. “The marriage happened elsewhere.”

  “Oh,” he said.

  His look of acute disappointment was easily interpreted: this sturdy, rough-and-tumble boy missed his home. “Tell me about Barford Magna,” she said.

  He smiled, but it was soon clear that the question, though gratifying, was too large to compass. He did not know where to begin. He made a helpless gesture, and began in an important voice, “It is a very large parish, ma’am . . .”

  “Did you know the captain there?” she asked, hoping to help him along.

  His eyes widened. “Oh, no! He was gone as a middie before I was breeched. And I wouldn’t be acquainted with the family in any case,” he added scrupulously, though in a low voice. “My father being a bookseller. But I live right there on High Street. And I’ve seen the baron twice. The new baron,” he added. “The old baron being dead now. The new baron is a capital whip. He drives two pairs of matched bays.” His voice dropped on the word ‘two’ and he held up a pair of fingers for emphasis. “He drives a curricle, a capital set-out. Right through the village, at a smashing pace up the middle of High Street itself, sending dogs barking and chickens cackling!” His blue eyes widened. “He wears at least ten capes to his greatcoat. You cannot conceive—the completist thing! In any case, we haven’t had post from home in a thousand ages, at least a year.”

  “Mr. Bradshaw.”

  The boy straightened up guiltily, pulling his hands from his pockets as Mr. Sayers appeared. “It seems you have nothing to occupy you, unlike the rest of your watch. With your permission, I believe we will remedy that. The captain wants a party made up to sort the rusted balls.”

  “Yes, sir,” was the resigned reply, and Anna was left to finish her walk. She tucked her cloth-covered package more securely under her arm, and began to look about for a place to settle down. She had just passed the waist when she encountered a big sailor. “Might I put a question to you?”

  “Yes, mum.” He knuckled his forehead. “Finch, gunner’s first mate, mum.”

  She turned her smile up to his enormous, unlovely face. “Good day, Mr. Finch. Where may I sit, and be out of the way?”

  o0o

  It was shortly before noon that Captain Duncannon finished a long inspection of the shot locker. He emerged on deck to find the lady sitting decorously on a cheese of cannon wads. She had chosen her spot on the lee side of the quarterdeck, well away from the holy weather side, reserved to the captain or his representative when he was not on deck. So quickly she seemed to have grasped the invisible but iron-clad rules.

  She sat quietly working on plaiting her hat, her fingers slow and careful as she smiled up at little Mr. Corcoran. From the sextant in his hands, and his gestures up toward the sun and out at the horizon, the captain surmised he was stuttering his way through an explanation of the noon sighting, the most important part of the ship’s day.

  He moved away to the windward rail, and lifted his telescope to sweep the hea
dland.

  The captain was thus in profile to Anna, the strong morning sun outlining his face. Her attention was caught by the shadows emphasizing the strong line of his cheeks, the severe lips as he peered at the land so far away.

  The sun lit the tips of his lashes, turning them to gold.

  She looked away, to hide the cascade of sensation in her heart. She knew this sensation, as if a rose inside her had softly unfurled a petal. She had rejoiced in this feeling once, with Auguste, and as a result was nearly burnt to death. She had begun to feel it with Jean-Baptiste Marsac, who had betrayed her.

  Captain Duncannon was no mad chasseur, and no smiling traitor like Marsac. He was a good man, so far as she had seen, but she had also seen just as clearly that he had no use for women. No use for her. This ship was his life, and she would soon be off it.

  So she must simply keep out of his way, before the rose could unfold and dig its thorns into her heart. She laid the hat in her lap, debating whether to go below and work on it, or remain there until the sun was too high and strong, but then a man called from on high, “On deck! Signals!”

  Jones, the signal midshipman, dashed by, and Anna listened as the sailors and officers exchanged quick, cryptic remarks, everyone gazing off in one direction. “It’s the Euryalus,” came Mr. Jones’s excited voice as he dashed up to the captain to salute. “Sir, Euryalus signals, ‘Enemy have tops’ls hoisted.’”

  “They’re coming out!” Mr. Bradshaw shouted, and then looked aghast at his captain.

  Duncannon’s mouth twitched, but he did not move from his position. After a long breath, he said, “Mr. Bradshaw, I commend your enthusiasm, but perhaps you may put your enthusiasm to use at the foremast-head. You may watch the shore, and as you do, contemplate the matter of ship discipline.”

  Anna looked after the crimson-faced Bradshaw as he scrambled upward into the complication of ropes and sails, vanishing from sight. Everyone straightened up, alert, their smiles reminding Anna uncomfortably of the similar looks on the faces of the chasseurs when they came over the lip of the stage and stampeded to the back of the theater. It was anticipation of game, dangerous game.

  She picked up her pile of sennit, carefully folded her half-plaited brim, and retreated to her cabin. Parrette was there, hanging chemises on a line across the cabin to dry in the air from the open stern windows.

  “What is it?” she asked when she saw Anna’s face.

  “They received a signal, something about certain sails. I think it must mean something dire.”

  Parrette gave a short nod. “One cannot disturb the officers at their duty, but I can ask below.” She whisked herself out, and returned almost immediately with Michel, who glanced at the line of washing, blushed, then turned his back on it.

  He ducked his head in an awkward bow to Anna, and then, crushing his cap in his hands, said, “It means the French are coming out. I will tell you as soon as I know more.”

  “Good,” Parrette said, and Michel ducked again and took his leave.

  An hour, two, three passed. Anna forced herself to return to her task, though at first her fingers trembled. Every time she heard feet running about on the deck she braced for the terrible sound of cannon.

  Michel reappeared in the early afternoon. “The admiral has given orders for a general chase to the south-east.”

  “Does that mean there will be battle?” Parrette asked.

  Michel’s thin lips curled. He looked very like his mother in that moment. “First we have to see ’em. I have to go. Gates will want me by.”

  Anna and Parrette were left staring at one another. Anna forced herself to sit down again, and resume her hat, carefully tightening each strand as if she could weave order into the world.

  She assumed she must stay in her cabin, and was surprised when the steward Perkins scratched to invite her to dinner. She touched her hair and straightened her sash, and walked out to discover all the officers waiting, lieutenants, marines, and midshipmen.

  Today, she was placed at the foot of the table. Though the gentlemen scrupulously saluted her as hostess, that was the last time she had any part of their attention.

  They talked nothing but war: Nelson’s daring plan of attack, who had the honor of following Victory and Neptune, where the frigates would be stationed; what the French might do first, Villeneuve’s terrible record of battles, and Gravina’s good one. What if the weather turned bad? There were signs of storms ahead.

  Voices sharper, eyes brighter, laughter loud enough to hurt her ears, they were all excited. Captain Duncannon, sitting opposite her at the other end of the long table, smiled genially, looking more like a young man of twenty than a man near thirty as he toasted, and laughed.

  It was a relief when it was over, and the captain remembered her at last, inviting her to take a turn on the deck.

  Here, she was surprised to find the entire ship’s company present. There would be no music; most of the sailors not actually tending the ship sat about chipping and knocking at round, evil-looking balls of iron. The deck sounded like a demented band of tinkers as rust and bumps were smoothed off the cannon balls as lovingly as if they made pieces of art.

  She encountered Mr. Leuven standing with a knot of warrant officers with their spyglasses, staring at the coast in spite of the sun still being relatively high in the sky. He approached her to initiate a conversation in Italian about the expected triumph and glory to come. From the scornful glances of the older midshipmen, it appeared that this obviously rehearsed speech had not impressed them the way it was intended.

  When they returned to duty, she passed along the gangway, stepping aside for a party of sailors carrying a long worm of rolled sail.

  Forward of the mainmast, a young gunner’s mate smiled at her as he passed a ball back and forth between his hands, his fingers gently fingering the ball for smoothness. She smiled back, unable to comprehend the good will here—good will about something that was deliberately intended to be lethal to the unseen French and Spanish sailors, who were without a doubt employed the very same way aboard their ships.

  She paused at the ladder to the upper deck, caught by the sight of the captain standing on his quarterdeck as the rising wind rippled through his blue coat and tousled his brown hair. He moved with easy grace as the ship slanted upward and plunged through the mounting waves, sending splashes high to each side. He did not see her, that she was certain of. His mind was on another plane altogether, alert and intense, perhaps bordering somewhere on happiness. She knew that plane—it was the same one her mind went to when she first trod to her place as the orchestra tuned their instruments and the stage hands held the curtain pulls, waiting for the signal. But though an opera performance might depict war and tragedy, everyone knew he or she would rise again when the curtain fell: it was art.

  Did the captain think war was art? It was strange that he should seem so pleased at the prospect of the ship surging straight toward the terrible cannon of the enemy.

  She turned away, slipped below, and abandoned plaiting, as it gave her too much occasion to think and to worry. She picked up the book she had tried so many times to begin, and concentrated upon it until her eyes burned with tiredness.

  o0o

  Her sleep was restless, partly from apprehensive dreams, but also from an unaccustomed violent sway of her hanging bed. She woke to a gray world: sky, sea, and bands of thick rain.

  “They have lost sight of the French,” Parrette said abruptly when she appeared with Anna’s tea. “I am also to warn you that when the orders come, they will be striking down our cabin. Our trunks are to go in the hold with the rest of the captain’s things.”

  Anna set her cup down. Her stomach had closed. “Perhaps I had better wear my sturdiest travel gown.”

  Parrette said, “I am of the same mind.” She moved about in the little space, busy straightening, patting, and tucking.

  Anna, knowing her well, sensed that there was something else. “What is it?”

  Parrette tur
ned. “I learned in the gunroom that I am expected to aid the surgeon. Women are put to work as nurses. You are the captain’s lady, so no one will say anything unless the captain does.”

  “And yet, I think it is expected of me, too,” she said, remembering Nelson’s horrible words about knives, so kindly spoken. “I will request an interview with the surgeon. It will give me something to do. This waiting is terrible.”

  “Fighting,” Parrette said in French, low and rough, “will be worse.”

  There was no answer to be made to that.

  Anna quickly finished the dish of burgoo. She heard no noises from the other side of the bulkheads, surmising that Captain Duncannon had been on deck since the very early hours.

  Parrette went ahead, having become acquainted with Mr. Leuven senior after taking meals in the gunroom. She returned soon and led Anna to the lower deck, all the way forward to the dark, dank, stuffy area where the surgeon worked. Little air made it through the gratings this low in the ship.

  Mr. Leuven waited in the low-ceilinged space, his head bent, for he was a tall man. All around the perimeter narrow pallets had been set out below a few hammocks. Central was a table, with instruments lying at one end. Steel instruments, the sight of which caused Anna’s stomach to churn. The closeness of the room was not helped by the heavy scent of spirits. Was the surgeon drunk?

  “Mrs. Duncannon,” Mr. Leuven said, his pouchy eyes alert. “Mrs. Duflot.” A gnarled hand swept in a circle. “I thank you heartily. Here is our action-station once they beat to quarters. Permit me to explain my system, my own system.”

  He pointed out the bandages, the needles for sewing, and rested his hand on a barrel. “I am not a certificated physician, but I have been practicing surgery upwards of thirty years. You may leave the surgery to me and my mates. If we get anyone coming below, they come quick, especially if the enemy uses canister or chain-shot. But even a ball making a shrewd strike will send splinters flying.”