Artemis - Kydd 02 (7 page)

'Thank ye, that will not be necessary,' Kydd replied. He made no move to walk away, and when Renzi began to walk across the Common, Kydd fell into step next to him.

'Mrs Jordan is in town, I understand,' Renzi tried. There was no response, then Renzi saw that it held no particular meaning for Kydd. 'She is playing Maltravers in
The Fair Dealer of York
app
arentl
y,' he continued. Kydd grunted, but Renzi detected a thaw of mood.

'At Thornton's,' he added, 'on Gosport side.' A quick glance, and he continued, 'It could prove a most satisfactory ending to the day were we to experience her talents at the first hand,' he said.

Kydd cleared his throat. 'Is she accounted good?'

'The very first of the age.'

Their pennies were refused by the boatman who stretched at his oars with a will. Golden lights sparkled over the harbour and along the lines of ships at Spithead. Occasional bursts of fireworks exploded, the shore still seething with excited crowds.

Crossing to Gosport, the slop and hurry of waves against the wherry sides was hypnotic and Kydd felt a lifting of spirit. He would never tell Renzi, however, that his gibe about the princess had struck hard and true - he had felt the sweet pain of frustration but he had not surrendered his will to a whore.

The theatre was packed and restl
ess, the heat of the chandeliers and burning lime nearly suffocating. They were not the only sailors in the audience: most in the gallery with them were from
Artemis
and another frigate, happily chaffing while waiting for the curtain.

A thin orchestra in the pit struck up, the stridulations of the strings setting Renzi's teeth on edge, then one by one the chandeliers were lowered and snuffed. The audience stirred expectantly. The curtain swept aside to reveal an impossibly baroque drawing room, white in the glare of the lime light. Patrons quelled the rowdier elements of the audience, and a quiet spread out.

The silence lengthened. Vague scuffles sounded offstage, and eventually a dishevelled reprobate figure shot on, to stand swaying resentfully before the crowd. He staggered over to the high-backed chair and collapsed in it, to the vast delight of the sailors. Hastily, a flourish from the orchestra cut across the jeers and laughter, and on to the stage swept a voluptuous mannish figure. Clad in silk breeches with an exaggerated wig and fashionable cane, the figure acknowledged the storm of applause with dignified bows.

When the noise had died away the figure advanced to the front of the stage. Absolute silence.

'Prithee, sir, art anguished at Maltravers' summons?' was demanded of the recumbent form. The voice was female, husky and powerful. The form continued to stare.

'Art thou not?' The imperious tone had a venomous edge. There was no response. Suggestive catcalls broke the silence.

'Sir!' the voice continued silkily. 'I see thou art in liquor!' The cane flashed out and caught the form in the midriff, doubling him over.

'But stay, this do I well comprehend!' The shouting died away. With dramatic intensity Maltravers strode to the edge of the stage. 'What man, a drop of English blood in his veins, can stand unmoved at the news — the thrice welcom'd news - that the dastardly French have been bested at sea! By
Artemis
frigate in a duel at arms at which there could be but one victor - bless'd Albion it was . . .'

The rest of the extempore speech was drowned in an avalanche of cheering, wild, unashamed exultation. Bowing left and right, Maltravers held up 'his' hands for silence. "'Come cheer up, me lads, 'tis to glory we steer . . ."' The whole theatre stood and broke into the Garrick favourite, feverishly accompanied by the orchestra. Kydd's face flushed as he sang along with insatiable pride.

The play moved on in a wordy stream. Renzi looked to see its effect on Kydd. To his amused dismay he saw that his friend was no longer concerning himself. He was slumped in his seat, fast asleep.

Chapter 3

N
ext day the men moved slowly and stoically, stripping
Artemis
of her guns and stores preparatory to her docking. Her grievous wounds were laid bare, and her injured spars sent down to a dismayed clucking from boatswain Merrydew.

Noon came, but few could stomach the cold rations supplied by the receiving hulk lashed alongside. After an all-night-in, Kydd was feeling better, and when the day was done and liberty was piped again, he felt ready to step ashore with the larbowlines once more.

He sat quietiy as Renzi plaited his glossy pigtail. He had cleaned his new rig carefully for who knew what adventures lay ashore, and with prize money still to spend they would take their pick of the pleasures of the land.

'Hoay, Tom!' The hail from the hatchway was Doud, looking for him.

'What cheer, mate?' Kydd called back.

Doud had an expression of marked curiosity. 'Officer o' the day passes the word for Tom Kydd.' He paused for

effect. 'It's a visitor at the brow askin' after you, my frien'. A lady visitor.'

A rumble of ribald interest from around Kydd made him ask, 'Should y' call her, might we say, taut rigged?'

'As saucy and trim a barky as ever graced the seas - an' a fine figurehead with it,' Doud acknowledged. This did not at all sound like a common drab, should one be bold enough to seek him out.

'Spread more sail, mate, an' yer'll soon board her in rollicking style,' urged Petit, with a huge grin.

Hurriedly checking his rig, Kydd leapt up the hatchway ladder, closely followed by half the mess deck. Striding up to the master's mate he demanded, 'Where away, Mr Shipton?' With a grin, the man indicated a dark young lady standing diminutive and lonely on the dockside.

It took a few moments, for it had been another place, another lifetime — but he recognised his only sister, Cecilia. Impetuously, he clattered down the gangway to the stones of the dock and crushed her to him.

'Oh, Thomas, my dear, my very dear . . .' She wept, and clung to him, her femininity utterly disarming. She pushed him away and dabbed at her eyes. 'Thomas! Look at you! I would never — you are a man!'

Kydd blushed, and she giggled at his discomfiture, but did not let go his arms. Her eyes flashed in that familiar way; she swung him round to face the ship again, her arm through his. 'Do you introduce me to your ship, Thomas.'

In earlier years this imperious behaviour would have resulted in an instant squabble, but now Kydd could think of no easy rejoinder. He looked up and saw the line of men at the deck edge gazing down. Slowly they mounted the gangway, her arm primly on his, her manner decidedly possessive. The men looked on with interest. They reached the bulwarks, the men fell back into a semi-circle, and she accepted his awkward assistance to the deck with a dainty, 'Thank you, Thomas.'

The sight of his shipmates, sea-hardened and
battle
-proved to a man, so transparentl
y agog, was too much for Kydd. A smile pulled at his mouth. 'Now, please behave y'rself, sis,' he whispered.

Renzi stood back, impassive.

Kydd took off his hat and
held it across his chest. 'Gentl
emen, I have th' honour to introduce Miss Cecilia Kydd, my worthy an' only sister.'

A sigh went through the group. Renzi performed an elegant leg, but in the main hats flew off and there was a gawky shuffling from men quite unused to ladies of Cecilia's evident quality.

Kydd watched his sister's gratification in amusement. She was perhaps too strong-featured on her smaller frame, but her dark looks were appealing in their directness and she was undeniably handsome. She curtsied to Renzi and gave him a dazzling smile. She nodded to the others, instinctively giving best to Petit, who fawned on her ridiculously.

Kydd had the sense to move her forward to Shipton, who exchanged bows and polite courtesies. Of course it was in order for Kydd to show her the ship. A veiled reference to the cockpit was a warning that the midshipmen would perhaps be entertaining women of quite another sort, and the boatswain would, by now, be indisposed.

There was little to see in a frigate stripped of most of her guns and fitments, but enough remained to give an idea of life aboard. Accompanied by the enraptured men Kydd escorted Cecilia forward. 'That there's where we keep the boats,' he said, pointing to the skid beams straddling the open space of the spar deck amidships.

'Where th' seaboat is kept, if't please yer, miss,' Petit added.

'An' the longboat, in course,' Adam said eagerly.

'When it ain't a launch,' growled Stirk, who had heard of the visitation and had hurried up on deck.

'How interesting,' Cecilia murmured, gazing blankly at the empty space.

They moved on to the forward end of the boat-space. 'What a dear little bell,' she exclaimed, catching sight of the ship's bell in its ornate belfry.

'It's how we tells the time,' said Gully eagerly. Cecilia looked closely but could find no sign of clock hands or any such.

The men crowded around. 'Like, we strikes it every glass, see, so we always knows when ter go on watch,' explained Stirk, his tone a peculiar mix of tender attention and awkwardness.

Cecilia replied faintly that she was sure, but felt that the glass might suffer overmuch in the striking.

'Ah, our gun captain, Tobias Stirk,' Kydd said, trying to regain centre stage. He led the way down the fore-hatch, resolutely keeping the men clear while she felt her way down to the main deck.

At the sight of the remaining twelve-pounders Cecilia paused. The heat of
battle
had boiled away the gun blacking to a patchy metallic graininess, and they looked what they were, lethal engines of war that had so rec
ently
taken an enemy warship and the life of her captain.

Scars of the desperate conflict were easy to find — long, splintered furrows in the pristine clean deck, daylight through smashed-in side timbers and suggestive dark stains, in more than one spot. An insistent rank odour of stale gunsmoke still pervaded the air along with the vinegar-sulphur mixture used to remove dried body parts.

'And, Tom, pray where . . .' She tailed off, her hand over her mouth, eyes opened wide.

Kydd showed her, not speaking.

She looked around wildly, the alien grimness of the scene visibly crowding in. 'Thomas, I - I - if you please, might we . . .'

Concerned, Kydd led her up to the open air again. Another colourful sunset promised, and he remembered Renzi's plans for a splendid meal. He addressed the adoring throng: 'Avast there, y' cod-eyed lubbers, we have business ashore now.' Beckoning to Renzi he announced, 'We dine as planned, Nicholas, and with company.'

Cecilia hesitated, then whispered up at him. Kydd smiled. 'We shall make a rendezvous for eight, but it seems my little sister wishes time with me first.' He turned and they went ashore, arm in arm.

Her lodgings were a tiny room in Southsea. She put down her hat and began to comb her hair before the hinged mirror. Kydd watched the familiar ritual fondly, the brush going
swit-sw
it
in regular strokes to her waist. He caught her eyes in the mirror and smiled. Quickly she averted hers and stared woodenly ahead, the brush continuing its monotonous rhythm. Taken aback Kydd wondered what he had said. Then he saw her eyes glisten. Stubbornly she stared into the mirror, the brush smoothing her hair in long strokes, and then the tears came. He held her as emotion shook her small frame, frightening him with its sudden onset. 'It wasn't so bad,

Cec,' he mouthed softl
y, 'it was over in an hour or two, I swear.'

She didn't answer and he held her away from him, searching her face. 'It's not that, is it?' he said, a cold dread beginning. 'It's Mother, isn't it?'

'No,' she choked.

'Papa?' he said.

'No, Tom, all are well,' she said, her voice muffled. She dried her eyes and turned on the stool to face him. 'I am a silly billy,' she croaked. 'Please forgive me, Thomas.' She trie
d a smile and Kydd laughed quietl
y.

'The twins have breeched, you know,' she said, in a stronger voice. 'And Mrs Mulder is to wed again in the autumn.' She hesitated. 'It's only been half a year — does it seem long to you, Thomas?'

Kydd thought of the incredible events and changes that he had endured. 'Er, yes, I suppose it does.'

She surveyed him at length. It was nothing short of magical, the change in him. The pale, earnest perruquier had metamorphosed into this strong, oaken-visaged sailor with the ready smile and lean body, fitting his colourful seaman's dress as though born to it.

'We didn't get your letter until March,' she said, omitting the details about the frantic worry that had preceded it, 'and that short one came in May.'

Kydd remembered the scrap of letter he had dashed off to his mother at sea in a battleship, forty miles off the French coast on the day before he was due to go ashore with the doomed landing party. Apparently another two letters were still on their way, but at least they had had word of his transfer.

'We didn't understand th
e bit about a frigate, but Lady Onslow was so sweet about it’
she said. Sir Richard was himself at sea at that very time, Rear Admiral of the White.

So they would have known about his transfer to
Artemis,
and therefore would have been horrified when news of her dreadful
battle
had become known.

Cecilia flopped on to the
bed like the child she so recentl
y had been, and looked up at him with shining eyes. 'Tell me, what's it like to be a sailor? Really, Tom, no gammon.'

Kydd felt a wave of affection break over him, her childish glee touching his heart. He told her of the sea, his lofty world of perils and adventure, skill and honour; the first sight of a sea-tossed dawn, the deep experience of feeling a deck heave, a comber bursting against the bow in a sheet of rainbow spray. He spoke of his friends — his shipmates, and their rough, simple gendeness.

She listened speechless, carried by his words but never gulled into underestimation by their simplicity. 'Oh, Tom, who would have thought it?'

Kydd had never experienced hero-worship from his sister, and reddened. 'When I spoke with the King, he remembered Guildford, Cec—'

'The King!' she squealed. 'Never! You never did!'

'And with a beautiful princess - a real one, mind you.'

Her speechless admiration made him feel a poltroon. Guiltily he glanced around. 'What o'clock is it, sis? We mustn't be adrift for Nicholas.'

The dancing light faded from her eyes. She looked away, her body sagging.

Kydd felt the cold dread returning.
'What is it, Cec?' he said softl
y.

'Oh, Tom, I - I feel so dreadful!'

He put his arms around her shoulder. 'Tell me.'

She looked deeply into his eyes as if to spare him what she could. 'It's Father,' she said carefully. 'His eyes are failing.' He sat back, confused.

Brokenly she murmured, 'Tom — how can you . . .' Her hands twisted together. 'When I looked up at that great big ship and saw you there, my heart nearly broke. You looked so — right as a sailor. So handsome! My big brother!' Her eyes filled. 'And now we are asking you to give it all up — Tom, he is making mistakes, the customers are complaining. If the shop fails . . .'

They were asking him to return home, to resume his place behind the counter of the old shop, talking wigs with custom
ers. He gulped, and looked sightl
essly out into the night and past the celebrations. His sister gripped his hands in hers until it hurt. Renzi and he would part, he would no longer know his dear friend, who would go on to better things in another world.

'Tom . . .'

It was not her fault: it must have taken real courage to make the journey alone to this notorious naval town, but only now was she understanding the true cost of her appeal. He got heavily to his feet, and balled his fists in silent agony. There was no decision to make. Without him, the family would slide into destitution, the debtor's prison and worse.

'This war, Tom, it's ruinous for the business. Everyone is asking for bob wigs only, and some are even refusing to wear any. It's a new fashion.'

Kydd remembered his father's endless but near-sighted primping and sewing of horsehair at the carcass of full-bottomed wigs, and his retort died before it was uttered. He took a deep breath. 'I have prize money,' he said, but Cecilia cut him off quickly.

'Tom — it's not just for now,' she said firmly. 'You must face it, we need you to provide for us in the future. We need you, Tom.'

'Yes,' he muttered. 'Yes, I know -1 know, I know,
I know
!
damn you!' he choked out in his pain. She said nothing and waited.

He looked up miserably. 'We'll go to Nicholas now.'

The darkness outside was split with bonfires, fireworks and excited people hurrying this way and that with blazing link torches, candles in coloured glass and all manner of festive flame. They trudged silently along the sea-front. The dark offshore shapes of the fleet had needlepoints of light on deck, which Kydd knew were lanthorns strung over the fo'c'sle and quarterdeck. A regular deep thump of minute guns from somewhere out there struck him viscerally.

Kydd didn't notice the gang of rowdies until they had surrounded them both. He stopped, Cecilia gripping his arm apprehensively.

'Dursn't show a light, then?' One swaggered up to him, demanding he show illuminations in patriotic celebration.

They closed in menacingly. 'Tip 'im a stoter, Jem, 'n' then capsize 'im in th' sea!'

'Don't you dare, you ruffians!' shouted Cecilia. 'He's from
Artemis
and he's been in a terrible battle, you scoundrels.'

They fell back under her anger, and changing tack began shouting,
Artemis!
An
Artemis?
Hoisting Kydd up, they carried him shoulder high, cheering and whooping, not noticing the anguish in his face.