Bolitho 19 - Beyond the Reef (13 page)

He tightened his arm around Zenoria’s slim shoulders and thought of the night here, the last for some time in England. He thrust the other thought from his mind: what every sailor, admiral or common seaman, had to consider each time his ship weighed anchor. It could be the last, forever.

A robin darting through the grass, revealed only by a swaying mass of daffodils, gave its lively, trilling call.

Keen said, “It is almost time.” They paused at the old wall as if by some unspoken agreement. “You will take care while I am away? I leave you in good hands, I know, but …”

She rested her head against his shoulder, and he drew her more closely to him. He said, “I love you so much, Zenoria—and I am so afraid of failing you.”

In her eyes he saw the first faint daylight. “How could you fail me, after all that you did for me? But for you …” She fell silent as he touched her mouth with his fingers.

“Don’t think of then. Think of now. Think of us. I need your love so desperately … and I fear that I might drive you away. I am so … clumsy. I know so little. I find you one moment, and the next you are gone and a gulf yawns between us.”

She took his arm and turned him back along the winding path, her gown brushing against the stones, wet with dew.

“It has been difficult for me also, but not through lack of affection for you. Don’t think of then, you said. But how can I not? It comes back, and I am in terror again.” She hesitated. “I want to give myself, completely. When I see Sir Richard and his Catherine together I can hardly bear to watch them. Their love is something alive, beautiful …”

“You are lovely too, Zenoria.”

He laid his face against hers and felt tears on her cheek.

“I cannot bear to leave you like this.”

As if to mock his words, they heard horses being led unhurriedly from the stables. The carriage would be waiting.

He tightened his hold, caressing her hair. The light was growing; there was a bright smudge out there, like a careless brushstroke. The first view of the sea beyond Pendennis Point.

She whispered, “I want to please you … like the girl you once had in the South Seas.”

Keen said, “I never touched her, but I did love her. When she died I thought I could never … would never be able to love someone again.”

“I know. That is why I despair that I cannot give you my body … as you deserve.”

Keen heard Allday talking with Ferguson. So, if the rumour was true, he had found a woman to love, or one who had treated him with kindness after what he had done.

And I am losing mine.

She said, “Please write to me, Val. I will never stop thinking of you … wondering where you are, what you are doing …”

“Yes. I will.” More movement, the tread on stone steps he knew so well; he could hear him speaking with Catherine. Waiting for himself, perhaps.

“I must go, Zenoria.”

“Cannot I come to the harbour and see you leave?” She sounded like a child again.

“A harbour is the loneliest place when you are being separated.” He kissed her, with passion and gentleness, on the mouth. “I love you so.”

Then he turned and walked out of the garden.

There was only Allday by the gate, looking at the land. Keen’s own coxswain had gone ahead to the vessel with Ozzard and Yovell. Ferguson came out of the dark doorway and held out his hand. “Good-bye, Captain. We shall take good care of your lady. Don’t stay away too long.”

In his despair Keen thought even that sounded like a warning.

He climbed into the carriage and sat beside the flag lieutenant, his coat sticking to the damp leather seats.

Catherine leaned against the window and whispered, “Farewell, old house! Be patient for us!” Her maid Sophie looked at her curiously: to her this was all a great adventure.

The carriage swayed as Allday clambered up beside Matthew, then, finally, the whip cracked, and the iron-shod wheels clattered across the cobbles.

Amongst the daffodils a young girl watched as the first sunlight touched the back of the carriage.

She wanted to cry, for her heart was breaking. But nothing came.

6

THE GOLDEN PLOVER

“THERE SHE LIES!” Bolitho leaned forward and pointed at the vessel which was to carry them all the way to the Cape, his eyes agleam with professional interest.

Allday grunted. “Barquentine.” He squinted as a shaft of watery sunlight played upon the gilt gingerbread around her poop and her name, also in gold across her raked counter. “What’s she called, Sir Richard? My eyes are playing up again.”

Bolitho glanced at him warmly. He knew that Allday could not read properly, but he could memorise the shape of a ship’s name and never forget it. We are both shamming. “She’s the Golden Plover.” They grinned at one another like conspirators. “At one time with the old Royal Norfolk Packet Company.”

Catherine watched the private exchange between them, and was surprised how such things could move her. And this time they were together. Sharing it; or as she had said to him this morning while they had watched the dawn, and Keen had been walking in the garden, it will be Love in the guise of duty.

It was strange for Bolitho to approach any vessel without some official reception at the entry port. There were several men aloft, and the barquentine’s tan sails were flapping loosely, like a bird preparing for flight. He recognised Ozzard’s small figure beside that of a great hulk of a man whom he guessed was Samuel Bezant, the vessel’s master. Unlike most of Golden Plover’s company he had been in his command even before the vessel had come under Admiralty warrant, in those early days when the Terror and the daily slaughter at the guillotines had made the squares of France run with blood.

The masters of these packet-ships, like those of the famous Falmouth fleet, were truly professional sailors. From England to the Americas, Jamaica and the Caribbean, the Spanish Main, and now on to the Cape of Good Hope. Once in Admiralty service most of them had been fitted out with more cabin space for officials—officers and sometimes their wives—ordered to the far-flung corners of the King’s growing empire.

Bolitho had been told that Golden Plover had begun her life as a barque, but had been cut down to her present, more manageable rig so that she could sail almost into the wind, but with fewer hands needed to trim and reset her sails. Only on the foremast, which still flew the old company pendant, was she square-rigged. On her main and mizzen she carried huge fore-and-aft sails which, for the most part, could be handled from the deck.

Keen twisted round just before the boat pulled past the vessel’s stern, when he would lose sight of the jetty.

Catherine saw it too, the pain in his searching gaze, as if he still expected to see Zenoria there with the others: the idlers, the old sailors and the ones with the precious protection that kept them free of the King’s ships.

She said quietly, “You are everything to her, Val. All she needs is time.”

There was a frigate at anchor nearby, scarlet-coated marines watching suspiciously as the shore-boats crowded around her. Wares for the sailors. Knives, baccy, pipes; anything that might ease the harsh reality of discipline and danger.

She touched her breast but her heart was steady again. She had thought it might be Adam’s Anemone. But it was not. She could understand well enough how easily they might be drawn to one another. Both from the West Country, both with bitter memories to plague them. She looked at Bolitho’s strong profile and wanted to touch him. Their ages were closer too. But love, or more to the point, the danger of love, was something quite different.

She tightened the cord which drew the dark green hood over her hair. People had often remarked on her own age, that she was younger than Richard. She suddenly felt angry. Well, let them, damn them. At least he would be free of all that for a time.

The bowman shipped his oar and hooked on to the chains, while two seamen leaped lightly into the boat to attach tackles to the remaining boxes. The huge figure of the master did not move until Catherine had been assisted up the side, then he said in a thick voice, “Welcome aboard Golden Plover—” He doffed a battered hat from a mass of shaggy grey hair. “Er—my lady!”

She saw Sophie watching with obvious excitement, quite delighted at Samuel Bezant’s discomfort.

She smiled. “She’s a fine-looking ship.” Then, sharing the moment, she tugged the cord free and tossed the hood back over her shoulders. The men working by the mizzen-mast turned to stare; another dropped a belaying pin which brought an instant threat from a boatswain’s mate.

Bezant turned from her to Bolitho. “Y’see, Sir Richard, I was only told the rest of my orders when your lieutenant came aboard.”

Bolitho said, “So everything is now clear?”

The big man turned and frowned at his lovely passenger, her hair now released to the offshore wind.

“Just that most of my men have not been ashore for an eternity, Sir Richard, an’ they’re untried with the likes of a real lady. I’d not trust some of the knotheads further than I could pitch a kedge-anchor!”

She looked across at him, her eyes laughing. “And what of you, Captain? How much can you be trusted?”

Bezant’s rough features were brick-red from a liberal mixture of ocean gales and brandy.

If not, Bolitho thought, he would have been blushing.

The master nodded slowly. “I fair requested that, m’lady. But I thought it right to warn you, their language an’ the like.”

She walked to the unprotected wheel and ran her fingers along one of the spokes.

“We are in your hands, Captain Bezant. I am certain we shall get along famously.”

Bezant wiped his mouth with the back of one hand and said, “If you are ready, Sir Richard? I’d like to up-anchor, for the tide in this port has a nasty way of showing displeasure.”

Bolitho smiled. “I was born here. But I’d still not take the moods of Carrick Road for granted!”

He heard the man give a sigh of relief as his passengers were guided down the companion ladder, where, despite the lack of headroom, the cabin was remarkably spacious and comfortable.

Ozzard said, “I have the use of the pantry and lazaret, Sir Richard—what with all the pots and jars her ladyship brought down from London, I’ll see you don’t starve.” Even he seemed pleased to be leaving. Or was he still running away from something?

Catherine closed the slatted door of the cabin that had been made ready for them and looked around with sudden uncertainty.

Bolitho wondered if she was thinking of that other time at sea, when her husband Luis had been killed. The ship in which they had been taking passage had been attacked by Barbary pirates; Bolitho could still remember the white-hot anger when she had turned on him, cursing him for allowing it to happen. But her love had burned even more brightly when Fate had touched them.

She rested her hand on one of the swinging cots and smiled. When she faced him he saw the pulse beating in her throat, the sudden mischief in her dark eyes.

“I long to cross the ocean with you, dearest of men. But sleep in one of these coffins?” She laughed, and someone outside the door stopped to listen. “On certain nights the deck will suffice!”

As he took her in his arms they heard the faint cry, “Anchor’s hove short!”

The regular clink of a windlass, the stamp of bare feet as seamen rushed to braces and halliards, the sudden thump of the tiller-head as the helm was put over in readiness.

She whispered into his hair, “The music of the sea. A ship coming alive … It means so much to you.” When she raised her head her eyes were shining with emotion. “Now, for once I will share them.” Her mood changed again. “Let us go on deck, Richard. A last look.” She paused, as though unwilling to say it. “Just in case …”

“Anchor’s aweigh!”

They staggered to the companion-way, reaching out for support as the lively barquentine broke free of the ground and leaned hard over like a frigate.

Bezant stood with his legs braced apart like trees, his eyes flit-ting from peak to compass, to the flapping jib until like the other canvas it filled out taut to the wind.

Catherine slipped her arm through Bolitho’s and watched the great pile of Pendennis Castle begin to move abeam. The deck was already lifting to the lively water of the Channel.

Men from the foremast slid down the stays and came bustling aft to assist the others at the mizzen, where the great driver swung out over the dancing spray until it, too, was sheeted home.

There would be much gossip between decks when the watch was piped below. The officer who had thrown his reputation in society to the wind, for the love of this lady with the streaming hair, and the laugh on her mouth and in her eyes.

The ship changed tack again, and the sea boiled over the scuppers until the wheel brought her under command once more.

But as Bezant later remarked to his mate, “For all them two cared, they could have been the only souls aboard!”

Richard Bolitho went on deck as the evening sun began to dip, and transform the sea from shark-blue to a shimmering rusty-red. There was no sight of land, but the gulls still lingered hopefully, gliding around the hull or perching sometimes on the foremast yards.