Sails on the Horizon: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars (33 page)

“Can we go down, to the…lower floors?” she asked.

“I dare not.” Charles grinned. “I don’t think all of the wives are on deck.”

Penny looked thoughtful. “Do all these women go to sea with thee?”

“No, none of them,” Charles said. “They’re only allowed in port.”

“Thou—all of thy men—must get lonely while thou art at sea.”

“Yes,” Charles said reluctantly. He could guess the next question.

“Hast thou been with women like these?”

Charles looked directly at her. “On occasion,” he said. “Not since I met you.”

“Good,” she said and hugged his arm. “Now I want to see thy cannons.”

He led her to the railing and showed her one of the great guns. “This is a nine-pounder,” he explained, “it fires a nine-pound iron ball. The guns on the main deck are twelve-pounders.”

She studied the huge black thing for some seconds and looked at the rows of similar guns lining the bulwarks, but said nothing.

“All of this must be difficult for you,” Charles said.

Penny shook her head. “No,” she said seriously. “I want to know as much about thy profession and thy life at sea as I can. It doesn’t mean that I approve or disapprove of what thou dost. I want to know so that I can be a good and understanding wife to thee.”

Charles leaned and kissed her cheek, and she smiled brightly at him. Just then the ship’s bell rang eight times. “It’s noon,” he said, “Attwater will have a meal set for us in my cabin. I’ve invited Stephen and Ellie and Daniel Bevan.”

“And Molly?” Penny asked.

“No, I didn’t invite Molly.”

“Do,” she said, “she’ll be hurt otherwise.”

“But she’s a prostitute.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said firmly. Charles sighed and sent a master’s mate with instructions to politely invite Molly to his cabin for dinner.

The meal was carefully prepared in the galley and ostentatiously served by Attwater and several assistants he cobbled from the crew in Charles’s crowded cabin.

Talk around the table tended to ships and voyages and life at sea, with Penny and Ellie asking questions and the men giving elaborate, nautical answers. After a time, Charles noticed that Molly was sitting primly, ill at ease, without participating at all in the conversation. He said, “Molly, tell us where you’re from.”

The girl blushed and stared down at her food, “Oh, I ain’t important, sir. But my folks was from Bremley, close on Basingstoke, before they lost their land.”

“Is that when thou came to Portsmouth?” Penny asked, turning to the girl.

“Yes, miss, six months past.”

After that Penny made sure that Molly was included in the conversation, awkward though it might be for the girl. When the meal concluded, Penny whispered something in Bevan’s ear, and Charles saw his lieutenant nod in response. As Bevan and Molly and Stephen and Ellie rose from the table, Penny put her hand on Charles’s arm to keep him behind.

“I want to do something for her,” she said.

“Do you want me to give her some money?” Charles said. “I think she’s made quite a bit already.”

“No, I want thee to give her employment on thy estate in Tattenall,” Penny said seriously. “Thou canst afford it, and she will fit in well with the others in thy house.”

“With Attwater’s family?” Charles said. His steward had kept him informed about his family’s occupation of Charles’s house, but he knew virtually nothing about what kind of people they were.

“Yes, they are a little peculiar, but very loving. I want thee to send her there.”

“Why?” Charles asked.

“Because she is intelligent, creative, and hardworking. I’m sure she arranged this whole performance about wives and sweethearts for Ellie’s and my benefit. And, if she stays too long living as she is, she will surely take ill and die.”

“Well, maybe,” Charles said.

“If thou art worried about thy pocketbook,” Penny said sternly, “she is young and pretty and with a new start will soon find a husband of her own. She won’t be on thy hands for long.”

The idea of employing anyone, especially a prostitute, so as to give them a new start on life was a novel one to Charles, and it took a little while for him to get used to it. “What would she do?” he asked.

Penny pulled Charles close and kissed him. “I love thee,” she said. “We’ll have to ask her.”

Outside on deck, they found Molly and Bevan standing by the starboard rail. Molly’s eyes were ringed with red and her cheeks wet. Clearly she had been crying. Penny went to stand beside her and touched her arm. “Charles Edgemont wishes to speak with thee,” she said.

Molly rubbed at her eyes and looked at Charles. “Penny and I were wondering if you would be interested in a job, for wages, on my property in Cheshire,” he said. “You’ll have meals and a place to live and I’ll pay you ten shillings—” Penny looked at him sharply—“a pound a month.” That was more than generous, Charles thought.

“And I would be doing what?” Molly asked, her mouth hardening.

“What dost thou know to do?” Penny asked.

“You know,” Molly said grimly.

“Dost thou know anything else? Canst thou keep a garden?” Penny persisted, “or tend animals?”

“My pa was a shepherd,” she said, a look of relief on her face.

“You could work in the stables and help with my horses,” Charles offered.

“Oh, I love horses,” Molly said. “They’re grand animals.”

“Then it’s done,” said Charles. “I’ll put you on the coach tomorrow with some money and a letter to my brother.”

“Wait,” Molly said. “I don’t know. Why are you doing this?”

“It’s honest employment,” Charles said. “No jigging, I promise.”

Penny glanced at Charles very strangely, then turned to the girl. “It’s because I asked him to,” she said in a kindly voice. “Thou canst start afresh. Perhaps thou will meet a boy. Thou canst do whatever thou likes.” Molly still hesitated, so Penny went on, “I will be nearby, and Ellie Winchester. We can visit. Charles Edgemont and Daniel Bevan will also be there sometimes.”

Molly glanced up at Bevan, who nodded to her. “Thank you,” she said seriously. “Wouldn’t I be pleased to help you out with your animals.” Bevan led her a little distance away, and Charles saw him talking to her earnestly.

Winchester and Ellie had gone on. Charles had chairs brought up on the quarterdeck, and he and Penny sat and talked of inconsequential things, watching the sun set over the masts in the Solent.

In the midst of the sunset, a lieutenant arrived from the dockyard superintendent’s office with word that there was space for the
Louisa
to be beached in two days’ time. Tomorrow she could be warped to the number-three wharf and unloaded of her stores and armament. Her crew would be temporarily transferred to a receiving hulk in the harbor. Officers should find their own accommodations on shore. Her repairs should be complete after three days’ work; the guns would be restored the day after and then she would be reprovisioned. The
Louisa
would be ready to sail in as little as a week.

Attwater brought them something cold to eat on deck, and after that Charles took Penny back to her inn. They had a long, lingering good-night embrace in the hired chase between the point and the George.

As Charles was walking with her to the entrance of the inn, Penny asked, “What’s ‘jigging’?”

“I’m told it’s a kind of folk dance,” he said very seriously.

IN THE MORNING
Charles sent Molly off with one of the midshipmen to collect her belongings and board the coach that would take her to Cheshire. He gave her a letter he had written to his brother and sufficient money for the journey. The remaining women were then taken ashore in the ship’s cutter amid much wailing and tearful farewells.

Around midmorning a dockyard pilot arrived and the
Louisa
was carefully towed into the harbor and warped alongside her assigned quay. The rest of the day was spent hoisting her guns out and emptying her hold. In the evening the crew were transported under armed marine escort to the mastless hulk of an ancient three-decker tied up just outside Gosport, which would confine them in fetid squalor until they were needed again.

Well after dark Charles and Attwater made their way to the George, where Charles had reserved rooms. Bevan boarded at the less expensive Swan and Anchor nearby, while the midshipmen and warrant officers found other lodgings. Charles called on Penny while his steward unpacked, and the two had a quiet dinner in the public room. They agreed to meet late the next morning after he had seen the
Louisa
hauled up on dry land.

He rose before dawn and walked to the dockyard. The operation of beaching a ship, even one as small as the
Louisa,
was a tricky business. Charles watched anxiously as, at almost high tide and in the first light of day, she was carefully kedged into position over two heavy wooden rails beginning well under water and extending onto the land. Just as the tide started to turn, she was winched up the rails and heavy wooden shoring placed under the curve of her hull to hold her upright. High and dry, Charles could easily see the gouge along her side. A long strip of copper sheets was torn completely away, the edges of those above and below were crumpled and torn, and the splintered planking underneath clearly visible. Charles walked down to the beach among the workmen to study her at close range. He made his way around the hull, examining the copper sheeting and looking for other problems.

Returning to where he started, he recognized Daniel Bevan standing with his hands on his hips and looking at the damaged strakes.

“Isn’t this a bit early for you to be up?” Charles said, by way of announcing his presence. “Or are you just finishing a late night?”

“Aha,” Bevan answered, pointing at the tear, “where’d you learn to steer a boat, in the Alps?”

“I rely on my officers to do that,” Charles answered. “Good officers are hard to find.”

Turning serious, Bevan said, “That was a near thing, Charlie. Another foot to starboard and we might have sunk.”

“We’ll be more careful next time.”

“You’re still set on trying the frigate again?”

Charles paused, glanced around the shipyard, then met Bevan’s eyes. “I’m going to sink her, Daniel,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Because of what she did at St. Vincent?”

Charles nodded. “We just have to start a little further from the rocks.”

“You’re daft” was Bevan’s opinion.

Charles walked back to the George in a chipper mood, happy in the bright fall sunshine and full of anticipation at seeing Penny, even though he’d been with her less than twelve hours before. He thought about the girl, Molly, and about her dropping into prostitution when her parents lost their land. He wondered at Penny’s not being repelled by Molly’s profession. Yet she was concerned about his profession, he knew, even though she’d agreed to marry him. He needed to ask her why she had changed her mind. That, and she’d said she loved him. He felt himself a very lucky man.

Charles asked the proprietor of the George where he could hire a carriage and horses for the day. He also requested a basket dinner for two and a blanket that he could borrow. The innkeeper immediately sent a boy running to have a phaeton with two horses brought from the livery.

Charles then sent one of the innkeeper’s daughters to Penny’s room to announce his presence. The girl returned to say that he should go up. Penny opened her door to his knock and invited him to wait while she collected her bonnet and a shawl. Charles loved the look of her, and her hair, its colors and fullness when it fell about her shoulders, and before she could turn away he took her in his arms and kissed her. Penny returned his kisses for a moment, then gently pried herself away.

“Thou art as bad as those sailormen on thy ship,” she said, her face somewhat flushed.

“Worse,” Charles said. “You’ll see.”

“I don’t doubt it,” she said and brushed her fingers against his cheek.

Downstairs they collected the basket Charles had ordered and were directed to the covered coach with its driver waiting out front. Charles helped Penny onto the back bench, spoke to the driver, then climbed up himself. The journey ended two miles later on the open hillside in front of Southsea Castle, overlooking the several score warships anchored at Spithead.

Charles spread the blanket and they both sat down in the warmth of the noonday sun with the strong scent of salt in the sea air.

“Oh, my,” said Penny, “I never dreamed there were so many ships all in one place.”

“This is a major anchorage,” Charles explained. “Plymouth and the Mole by London are two others. There are dozens of smaller ones elsewhere in England and around the world.”

“I never knew there were so many,” she repeated.

“Look, that’s a first-rate,” Charles told her, pointing at a man of war that stood out for its size from the others. “She’s the
Royal Sovereign,
a hundred guns. Just past her is the
Témeraire,
ninety-eight. The other big ones are mostly seventy-fours—
Conqueror, Defiance, Leviathan,
and a lot I can’t name.”

“What’s that little one, there?” Penny asked.

“That’s a brig,” Charles said. “You can tell because it’s square-rigged but only has two masts. And that one with a single mast is a cutter.”

“They’re smaller than the
Louisa,
aren’t they?”

“The cutter’s probably about half as large,” Charles said. “They’re fine sailers, though.”

“So many,” she said in wonder and stared at the sea of ships. Presently she began to explore the contents of their dinner basket. She came up with half a loaf of bread, cheese, a goose-liver spread, two pasties, napkins, and a bottle of French wine from Bordeaux. “You made a much more elegant picnic than I did.”

“I didn’t make it,” Charles answered, “I bought it.”

They ate for a time and looked at the ships. Whenever one was entering or leaving the anchorage she would ask what it was.

“That one’s a galliot,” Charles said of the latest to enter, “a merchantman from Denmark, probably. That next one is a snow.” Penny had removed her bonnet and he watched as she attended to her food while the breeze whispered through her hair, gently stirring the tips and loose strands.