On a Making Tide (27 page)

Many a ship’s captain, frustrated or not, would have left it at that, more concerned to maintain good relations with their second in command than risk a breach. Not William Locker! The look on his face had changed to one of anger and he spoke, as he later admitted, without giving much thought to Waddle’s
amour
propre.

‘Have I no officer in this ship who can board that prize?’ he cried.

The premier opened his mouth to protest, but any words he was about to utter were forestalled by the master. He called to one of his mates to take the wheel, headed for the gangway. Nelson, who had commanded the guns that had so recently responded to the American salvo, abandoned his post at the same time, beating the master to the gap in the bulwarks by a hair’s breath.

‘I have the right, sir, as second,’ he shouted, using what weight he had to block access to the gangway. ‘It is my turn. And if I fail then the duty falls to you.’

The master, a big man, tried to squeeze past, but failed against the second lieutenant’s tenacity. He was left on the deck, watching his chance of glory recede as Nelson dropped into the bobbing longboat. The boat was away from the side in a flash, Nelson in the thwarts urging the crew to row like the devil. That was easier said than done with half the oars out of the water at any given time. For the rest the bows were either aimed at the heavens as they crested a wave, or towards hell and damnation as they dropped sickeningly into the subsequent trough.

The prize was in a bad way, nearly waterlogged, proof that in his desire to evade capture the American Captain had risked a great deal. Indeed he was still trying, keeping his sails aloft and drawing when prudence surely demanded that they be let fly. The bulwarks amidships were under water every time a wave struck, and as much as he was able, Nelson ordered Giddings to set the tiller to aim at that point, ignoring the look of disbelief that engendered. But Giddings was a good sailor, a long pigtailed hard case who had spent all his adult life at sea. He was yelling now, swearing imprecations at the oarsmen, ordering each blade to draw as it bit so that he could keep way on the longboat.

They dropped into a trough, the effect lessened by the bulk of the American ship, which steadied the boat so that all the oars could operate effectively. Still under orders to ‘pull like Old Harry’, the sudden release of pressure, added to the combined pulling power, took the longboat right into the water above the American deck. Nelson could see the startled faces of the Captain and the crew on either side, watching, waiting for the ship to
lift and tip these heathen interlopers into the heaving water where they would, no doubt, drown.

Aboard
Lowestoffe
every man, from quarterdeck to bowsprit, was holding his breath. Expressions varied from downright anxiety through silent encouragement to that of the premier, who could not keep from his face the look of justified satisfaction that came from being proved right. He heard Locker, by his side, emit a fear-filled hiss.

‘Pull off, man.’

‘Haul away!’ Nelson yelled, at exactly the same moment, his voice drowning even that of the equally alarmed Giddings. Heads down and pulling oars the boat crew knew little of the danger they were in. But when the second lieutenant, normally a quietly spoken individual, yelled like that, they knew the situation was parlous. Doing as he bid them, they just managed to take the longboat out on the scud of discharged water, clearing the rising bulwarks that would have tipped them to a certain death by the width of a hair.

‘God be praised,’ whispered William Locker.

‘They are still in danger, sir,’ Waddle replied.

‘I know that,’ Locker snarled. ‘But even a man who cannot summon the spirit to carry off such a feat must surely applaud it in another.’

‘I—’ Waddle spluttered, but in the face of what was almost an accusation of cowardice, he could not continue.

More commands hauled the longboat’s head round and better timing on the approach put Nelson on board the prize, knee deep in water. Giddings had lashed the boat to the side and the crew scrambled to follow their officer, running to obey his orders to reduce sail. Aware that further effort was futile the Captain had let the ship’s head fall off, which eased the pressure on the hull and steadied the darkening deck. Across the water the huzzahs broke the tension, as the crew of the frigate cheered their mates to the grey forbidding skies.

Meanwhile Nelson had made his way aft to the wheel, now barely visible in the fading light, and was accepting the surrender of the vessel from its master. The words, as he spoke them for the first time in his life, were sweet to the ear. ‘Lieutenant Nelson, sir, of His Britannic Majesty’s frigate
Lowestoffe,
at your service. I must, sadly, command your surrender.’

The American Captain, soaked like the man taking his ship, gave a courtly bow and replied in a thick rolling Devonshire accent that nailed his place of birth if not his port of residence. ‘You have it, sir.’

‘To whom am I obliged?’

‘Jahleel Wilkins, of Boston, Massachusetts.’

‘And your ship?’

‘The
Torbay
Lass
.’

‘We must reduce sail even further, sir, and do something to get the pumps working in a more effective fashion.’

‘It be yours to command, sir.’

‘I would be obliged if you would alter course to ease the effect of the running sea.’

‘You want me to con the ship?’

Nelson smiled, grabbing the rail to steady himself as a wave swept under the counter. Behind him he could hear Giddings yelling at the American crew. ‘You know her ways better than I, sir, and even in the unhappy position you now find yourself I doubt that you have any notion to let us founder.’

‘Everything I possess is in the ship, sir.’

‘Everything except body and soul. I suggest a course that keeps us before the weather until such time that we can pump some of the seawater out and get a sight of the bilge.’

‘You have not required my parole, Lieutenant,’ said Wilkins.

‘I’m sure you’re a man of honour, sir. What other kind of person would let fly with his guns in the situation you so recently found yourself? And by your accent, even if you now hail from Boston, you were born an Englishman. I cannot believe that anyone of my race would so debase themselves as to withdraw their word of surrender.’

‘I can barely see
Lowestoffe,
your honour,’ Giddings shouted. ‘Happen we should rig some lanterns.’

‘If you can find dry flints make it so,’ Nelson replied, taking off his hat and waving it at his mother ship, hoping that they could see it.

‘We’ve lost him, Waddle,’ said Locker, ‘but he’s got her head round onto a safe course.’

‘Sir,’ Waddle replied. His face was mask, but inwardly he was cursing both his superior officer and the man who served beneath him. Word of what had occurred would spread, that could not be avoided, and his decisions, which only an hour before had seemed rational and proper, would be made to look like cowardice. What interest he had was small and distant, a kindly disposed yellow admiral, one not trusted with a command, who hadn’t been to sea in the decade following his promotion.

‘Shape a course to match that of Mr Nelson,’ Locker ordered, his voice hard and unfriendly. ‘I want to see the topsails of that barque at dawn.’

‘Aye, aye sir.’

Waddle wasn’t sure he did. Apart from his long-term prospects, which, no doubt, had been irretrievably damaged by Nelson’s behaviour, there was the immediate effect it would have on his life. Could he sit opposite that man in the wardroom knowing of what he was suspected? Even at this moment the effect of the day was apparent. Under normal circumstances Locker would have been cock-a-hoop enough to host a dinner to celebrate the capture. The invitation would have come to him before the Captain left the deck. Not today.

‘Do me the honour, Nelson,’ he murmured under his breath, ‘of drowning.’

That was not an impossible prospect, as Nelson soon discovered. Even with the sails eased and on a new course, the pumps were struggling to cope with the water the barque had shipped. One of the reasons was that Wilkins was short-handed: a number of his crew had succumbed to a fever on the outward voyage. On top of that, he carried as cargo a mixture of molasses and rum, and some of his men had got to the latter when they saw that capture was inevitable. It had been lack of people sober enough to send up which had kept his sails aloft and drawing when common sense dictated they should have come down. It was the absence of any sense in their now addled brains that had the pumps working at only half their capacity.

‘We’ll have to put our own men to working the pumps, Giddings, and let the crew sleep it off.’

‘That ain’t right, your honour,’ the bosun’s mate protested. ‘Let me get at their bastard backs with a starter and they’ll pump us dry in a trice.’

‘Whipping drunken men will not help.’

‘They’ll be sober in ten strokes.’

‘No.’

Giddins looked into the officer’s eyes, half intending to protest further, which he knew with a decent soul like Mr Nelson he was at liberty to do. But what he saw stopped him. The man before him seemed somehow different from the same officer on the deck of the frigate. He was more in the boarding mould, no longer the pale fellow who gave his orders in a quiet voice, but a harder creature altogether. It wasn’t that there was any anger in the gaze – indeed the face had the customary half smile. The cheeks were rosy, but that could be put down to the amount of seawater that had battered them on the way over. Locker’s hard case bosun’s mate couldn’t put a finger on what the difference was. But he knew one thing for certain: you just didn’t argue with that look, not lest you wanted to waste your breath.

‘Our men, of course, will benefit from a tot of that rum after the soaking we’ve endured.’

‘Why that’s right kind of you, your honour.’

‘Just one tot, Giddings. Two sets of drunks will see us drown.’

‘You’ll join us?’

Nelson shivered in his wet clothes. He was cold too, but that was only skin deep. Inside he was elated, well disposed to the notion that a tot would be fitting to celebrate his first capture. Like any man he had doubted himself, unsure when it came to the test whether he might falter. That had gone. He closed his eyes, recalling the vision he had had on the way back from Calcutta. He was a long way from the goal he had set himself then, but the first rung of the ladder had been climbed.

‘I shall, and fetch me a tot for Mr Wilkins,’ he added, nodding to the American Captain, still on the wheel. ‘Poor fellow, it may help to raise his mood.’

From her position at the rear of the stage Emma couldn’t see much and her frustration ate at her loyalty to her mother’s wishes. The drapes hid the ceiling and the tops of the heads of the beauties in the alcoves, and all she ever saw was a back view of the nymphs that surrounded Dr Graham when he went on stage. She could hear enough though – the buzz of the crowd, the way it fell silent as Graham spoke, his opening words followed by oohs! and ahs! – reactions to the various demonstrations she ached to witness.

Her mother was behind her in the workroom, her task to ensure that everyone was correctly costumed now complete. It was then that Mary Cadogan would allow herself a little gin, a sip from the stone jar that she hid in her cupboard. There she would sit, staring into the middle distance, occupied with her thoughts and recollections, sipping until she dozed off. That was how Emma found her most nights, head dropped on to her bosom, eyes shut and a slight smile on her face, a woman seemingly contented, happy and mildly drunk.

Even now that they shared a room, Emma felt that they had never really talked, that they were as close as mother and daughter should be. There was too much hidden in her mother’s past. She had always been a distant presence, a provider of money, certainly, and orders as to Emma’s path in life. But the love Emma craved seemed missing.

The distance between them might have been tolerable if Emma had been happy at the Adelphi, but that was far from the case. In front of her all was light and noise, which she craved; behind the stage it was messy and dark, barring the candle that lit her lectern. Invisible to the audience she was not afforded a proper costume, and felt drab in the presence of the nymphs and goddesses, who attracted so much attention from the male members of the audience. Hints that she might move from backstage to stand in front as part of the show were firmly sat on by her mother.

The evening ended in a walk back to their lodgings and a meal. A candle was sacrificed so that daughter could read to mother before they repaired to bed. Mary went to sleep, but Emma lay awake and thought of the pleasures she had had in the past compared with the tribulations she endured now.
She planned ever more elaborate escapes that took her to the far corners of the globe on the arm of the man of her dreams.

Kathleen Kelly was no prince, and her charm was directed towards profit not kindness, but when occasion arose she could act the part of Lady Bountiful. So when Emma turned up again, bundle in hand, outside the basement kitchen door, Mrs Kelly left her clients to their amusements and came down to her. What she found was a drab creature, both in her dress and her manner, far from the ebullient girl she had been intent on grooming.

‘Tut, tut, child,’ she said, lifting Emma’s chin. ‘You look peaked.’

Forced to look at the Abbess, Emma tried to make out what she was thinking. The older woman’s lips were pursed, her eyes narrowed, as though she couldn’t quite believe what she had before her. Kathleen Kelly was thinking about Emma’s eyes, seeing them with a just a little kohl top and bottom to frame them, thinking that they alone, regardless of the girl’s fine figure, would seduce any man, regardless of what clothes she wore.

‘I was not pleased to find you gone.’

The reply was bold and honest. ‘I wasn’t pleased to be away.’

‘Your mother is still with Dr Graham?’

‘You knew where we were?’

Mrs Kelly laughed. ‘God in heaven, child, of course I did. If you’re wondering why I didn’t come to get you …’

Emma recalled her mother’s warnings. ‘My ma said you would.’

‘Only to scare you child. Was I an ogre to you when you were under my roof?’ Emma recalled only amiability and attention, of the kind she should have had from her mother. ‘There you are. And I’m no different now. Have you eaten?’

‘No.’

‘Then set yourself down at that kitchen table and I’ll see you fed. I must go back upstairs, but I’ll be down presently to see how you’re faring. We need to have a little talk, you and I, don’t we?’ That earned a nod, as well as a feeling of gratitude. Emma had feared to be turned away. ‘You won’t run away, now, will you?’

Emma thought of the streets she had existed on when she left the Linley house, and the cold charity of that life. She could no more go back to that than to her mother and Dr Graham’s fanum.

‘I have nowhere to run to,’ she replied truthfully.

Mrs Kelly didn’t return, but sent a servant to say she was too busy, and that a bed had been prepared for Emma in the attic. Even going up by the back stairs she could hear the gaiety of the ground and first-floor rooms: laughter, singing male and female, the smell of food mingled with perfume and pipe tobacco, which suddenly made her feel at home. The attic was the same: familiar, a place of security. The other beds might or might not be occupied later by those working below, but right now she was on her own, and that was delicious in itself.

‘Well gentlemen,’ said Kathleen Kelly, when most of her clientele had departed and only those she called her stalwarts remained, ‘I have some good news for you. A little flower you were keen to pluck, who chose to abscond, has returned to take her place under my roof. You will remember her, I’m sure, young Emma, with that flaming hair and those green eyes.’

‘
Intacta
, still?’ asked Jack Willet-Payne, a naval captain with a florid complexion and a loud, braying voice.

‘I believe so, and will know for certain in the morning.’

‘Then the bids will stand?’

The questioner, Capscombe, was a petty sessions judge, a grey wizened creature with rheumy blue eyes and purple-veined skin, really too old for the task of deflowering such a morsel. But he had bid the most, and wished to know how he stood. The rest of the dozen or so were men of property or business, all of whom had homes to go to, all of whom preferred to be here.

‘They will,’ Mrs Kelly replied, ‘but the opportunity is still open.’

‘Then you are undone, Capscombe,’ hooted Jack Willet-Payne, ‘for I have just had some of my affairs resolved in the article of prize money. My American captures have paid out.’

‘You’ll need deep pockets, Payne,’ replied Capscombe, with little humour.

‘I have those, man, and a breech deep enough to put your oversoaked prunes to shame.’

‘Spurting salt water, I don’t doubt.’

‘Spurting none the less, Judge.’

‘Gentlemen, I am put to the blush by such exchanges.’

No one was ungallant enough to say that she could blush all she liked, for under all that powder they would never observe it, and they knew she was no stranger to ribald conversation, so matters carried on in the same vein until it was time for each to go his separate way.

‘I mean to have her, Kathleen Kelly,’ whispered Jack Willet-Payne, as he made his final farewell.

‘What, Jack?’ Mrs Kelly replied, well aware that he was drunk. ‘Would you make all my other nuns cry for the want of your attention?’

‘Never in life. You can tell them all that after I aim my cannon at our nymph and board in the smoke, it will be back to a general fleet action damned smart.’

Her smile never wavered as she took his arm to see him down the steps to the street, but in her heart she hoped that some other suitor would come forward for Emma. She liked many of her clients for themselves, but Judge Capscombe and Willet-Payne were not among them. Not that they’d ever know – she was too much the professional for that. But the judge was a man of jaded tastes, like to indulge in sodomy when no virginity was on offer, while Willet-Payne was a braying oaf and, from what some of her nuns had told her, a log of sodden wood when it came to the point of congress: heaving, selfish and damned slow with it.

At least whatever Emma faced would be less of an ordeal than Mrs Kelly’s
own, raped by her brothers and run from a sod hut where her father seemed set to follow. Now, one of her footmen was waiting to hand her a candle, to follow her up the stairs and extinguish those in the sconces behind. In the parlours the cleaning was finished, the white damask cloths drawn, bottle and glasses cleared away.

‘Young Emma Lyon will need a dress for the morning. See that one is put out for her.’

Kathleen Kelly beamed at Emma, having made her twirl round in the dress she had been given. The girl stopped before the long mirror to inspect her own image, which pleased her mightily. She looked and felt wonderful.

‘Well, young lady, I’ve always thought that a light cream colour was just right to set off your eyes.’

The dress was of silk overlaid with muslin, low cut at the front to show her
décolletage
to perfection, gathered at the waist by a silken burgundy cord. Mrs Kelly’s own maid had dressed her hair high on her head, twisting plaits to support the mass of curls that accentuated her long neck, and showed clearly the full roundness of her unblemished jaw. How different from the plain flannel garment she had arrived in the night before.

‘Now, disport yourself on that chaise and let’s see how it appears.’

Emma complied, sinking on to the buttoned dark brown velvet that covered the seat, one arm raised to rest on the high back, her hand flopping at the wrist though the placing of the fingers was controlled. She leant into the back to appear relaxed, the picture of what she imagined to be elegance.

‘God in heaven, girl, you’re a natural.’ Emma sat forward excitedly to offer her thanks, only to be ordered abruptly to resume her original pose. ‘Never forget that you are on show at all times, Emma.’

‘Am I to be on show?’

The well-powdered face creased into a frown, and the heavy silk dressing gown swished as Kathleen Kelly began to pace up and down. ‘Sure, I doubt you’re as innocent as you make yourself out to be.’

Emma couldn’t help the way she used her long eyelashes then, as if to denote innocent wonderment, but instead of being angered by it, Mrs Kelly let out a raucous laugh so coarse in both volume and tone as to leave no doubt that, dress and powder as she might, Kathleen Kelly was no lady. The laughter died to be replaced by a more serious look.

‘You aware that I do what I do, girl, for profit?’ A maidenly drop of the eyes and a bow of the head acknowledged that Emma did. ‘And so will you! I know my trade, Emma, just as I know that there are a thousand ways for a woman to ensnare a man. I said a moment ago that you were a natural and you are. Sure, you have artifice by the cartload, and a beauty that leaves you free not to speak at all. But there are tricks. Shall I run through a few for you?’

To see this much older woman acting the coquette looked strange to Emma; the fingers snatched to pursed, virtuous lips, the arm thrown across
eyes in a head bent ready to weep, the hurt look that proceeded a turning away so swift it was like the reaction to a slap, and finally the sinking to the knees in supplication. Then Mrs Kelly rose and looked hard at her newest nun, clearly pleased by the look of wonder on the young face. ‘I know them all. Sure, I’ve seen them time and again, an’ it never ceases to amaze me that the poor creatures fall for it.’ She gave a satisfied sigh. ‘But they do and I’m grateful, for it has seen me into a life of comfort. I may want for many things Emma, but money will never be one of them.’

Emma’s eyes could not help but see that comfort around her; the room, the polished furniture, the sheer luxury. ‘Then you are to be envied.’

‘I think I am. And I think that you want what I have.’

Emma blushed, which produced another unladylike cackle. ‘Sure, that’s the prettiest yet, those rosy cheeks. If you can command that to order you’ll have me paying for your company.’

Mrs Kelly replied to the knock at the door with a sharp command, and a slip of a girl, no more than twelve years of age, garbed in drab grey, entered with a tray. ‘Tea!’ she exclaimed, as the tray was put on a side table. ‘Wait!’

The girl stood rigid, her eyes fixed above the heads of the two women in the room.

‘That was you, Emma, not six months gone, though I grant you filled out the servant’s dress a bit more.’ Kathleen Kelly walked behind the child, who showed real fear in her face. ‘Three days she’s been here, this Hilda, not knowing what to make of the place, have you girl?’

A slight shake of her head was all the response Hilda could muster.

‘A saint’s name that, a good Catholic name. All her life she’s been lectured about sin and here she finds herself surrounded by it. Lectured but not free of it, are you, Hilda?’

The serving girl’s voice was almost a whisper. ‘If you’re hoping to persuade me—’

‘Don’t interrupt! Mrs Kelly snapped, then resumed her normal tone, glancing at Emma. ‘This child’s father sold her to me, bonded her to my service. But he had to tell me, as he haggled for a price that she had known men. That she was no virgin. What men? Him? His friends? An uncle or the priest supposed to care for her soul? Him, I’ll wager.’

The cruel tone was having the desired effect. The slim unformed body began to shake. ‘Don’t cry, Hilda. Don’t you dare cry. Look hard, Emma, and when the time comes to choose the course of your life recall this moment. You may go, Hilda.’

The smile that lit the older woman’s face as the girl left was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. ‘Now, Emma, I shall pour you some tea, and then we can discuss the arrangements I have made for you.’

Emma wasn’t sure if going to the kitchen instead of her room was a way to avoid thinking about what Kathleen Kelly had said. Not that it had come as a shock. She had known before she rang the bell at that basement door
what she was letting herself in for. After all, her mother had made it plain enough. But, still, the bald statement that she was to be auctioned like some prize bull at a county fair took away her breath.

‘Hilda.’

The girl looked up from the mixing bowl, her eyes red with crying. Emma wanted to tell her that Kathleen Kelly had only been cruel to Hilda to increase the pressure on her. But she couldn’t.

‘When you are free of your chores, would you care to come up to the top floor and try on some of my dresses? We could talk if you like.’

Hilda looked at her in a way that made the words seem absurd, then went back to her mixing.