The French Prize (3 page)

And so it was with Jack Biddlecomb and his family. And so it would still be, Jack knew, as he sailed through the open door of the Biddlecomb home and hugged his mother where she stood just inside. She and the house were of a piece: elegant, tasteful, ageless. In the foyer behind her, portraits hung on the flawless white walls and oak stairs bordered by a mahogany handrail ran up to the second floor. A chandelier, one of several in the house, hung above their heads. Around the edge of the intricately woven carpets, oak flooring peeked out that was polished until it looked like it was under a sheet of glass.

The house itself was a three-story brick affair on Second Street, just to the south of Market, an easy stroll from the dock where
Abigail
was tied up, a great blessing to Jack in his present condition. As much as Virginia Biddlecomb had made the home their own in the short time they had occupied it, it was not, in fact, their own, but rather one they had rented. In the volatile world of United States politics in the 1790s, with the great stabilizing presence of President George Washington yielding to the Adams administration and the full flourishing of party politics, one did not buy in Philadelphia. If your business in that city was government, you rented. If your business involved intriguing against one faction or another, however, you might reasonably hope for more permanence.

“Jack, dear, you are looking well,” Virginia said, a thing she would have said no matter how he looked. She proffered a cheek for a kiss, then drew away, quickly and discreetly looking him up and down. He had done his best to clean up in the time he had, a cold water wash, a shave, a clean suit of clothes, fresh stock, but he still looked like something that had been sloshing around for some time in the bilge. He knew it and he was sure his mother, for all her graciousness, did, too.

His father was standing right behind his mother, very erect, dressed with precision, ship-shape and Bristol-fashion, as the sailors would say. Jack would not say that, however, because he feared a mention of Bristol would lead to the story of how his father rescued Uncle Ezra from Bristol Harbor in England itself.
Bristol? I recall some excitement there! Must have been the year '75 … no…'76. Was it? Virginia, do you recall?

Jack kept his mouth shut.

“Jack, my boy!” Isaac stuck out his hand, and his look was genuine pleasure as they shook. Jack was pleased to feel the strength in his father's grip, though the hard calloused palms he recalled from years past were gone, and the dark, nearly black hair—the hair that Jack had inherited—was shot through with gray. “We heard the good news. Word on the waterfront, you well know how that goes. Congratulations.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jack said. Again, his ears were alert to any false note, any tone of irony or disapproval, and again he heard none. But their visit had just begun. There was time enough, yet.

The sound of activity in the foyer had drawn the other Biddlecombs like moths to the flame. Elizabeth Biddlecomb swept in, sixteen years old, favoring her mother in coloring: the deep chestnut hair, the striking beauty, the quick wit. Jack had watched the girl fade away, the young woman take her place. Now he snatched up her hand and gave it a kiss.
“Enchanté, chérie,”
he said.

She withdrew her hand and gave him a light slap on the face. “You take liberties, sir,” she said, “and you know we have no use for Frenchmen in this house.”

Virginia's eyebrows went up, a warning like a round shot across the bows. Politics would not be entertained at a family gathering, not even when all parties generally agreed with one another, which, incredibly, they did. Or, more to the point, Jack did not care enough about politics to argue with his father, which could be said of few other things.

“Wasn't there another child?” Jack said, and even before the words were out the shout of, “Jack!” came bounding down the stairs, eleven-year-old Nathaniel Biddlecomb right behind. He stopped a few feet in front of his brother and bowed with all the faux seriousness he could muster.

“Arise, Sir Nathaniel,” Jack said.

Nathaniel straightened. He was happy, very happy, to see his older brother, and that in turn made Jack profoundly happy as well.

“Lord, you look a fright,” Nathaniel said, eyeing Jack up and down, less discreetly than their mother had done. “Whatever happened to you?”

“Come, let us off to the dining room,” Virginia said, gesturing the way down the hall. “Maurice will be furious if the soup is allowed to cool.”

“Pirates,” Jack said.

“Pirates?” Nathaniel asked.

“Swarms of them. Coming through the Mona Passage, three leagues east of Hispaniola. You should have seen them, boarding us starboard and larboard, cutlasses in their teeth.” Virginia gestured for them to move along, and they obeyed.

“You can't hold a cutlass in your teeth, they're too heavy,” Nathaniel pointed out.

“Not if you are as big as these devilish pirates were.”

“Well, you look as if you've been beaten with a handspike. Why didn't the pirates toss you overboard? I take it you lost.”

“Lost?” said Jack with mock outrage. “Never in life. You should have seen what the pirates looked like when I was done with them.”

They took their familiar places around the dining room table, Isaac at one end, Virginia at the other, Jack amidships with Elizabeth and Nathaniel on the other side. Maurice brought the soup, which was still blessedly hot.

“Good to see you, sir,” he said, placing a bowl in front of Jack. “We'll have two Captain Biddlecombs now.” Maurice was a black man with a fringe of white hair and sixty years or more of adventurous living, by Jack's guess. He was a former ship's cook whom Isaac had hired when he was still going to sea, a ship's cook who, Isaac discovered to his surprise, could in fact cook and cook well, given the chance. When Isaac had come ashore, Maurice had come with him, and he had been with the family ever since.

“Thank you, Maurice.” Jack gestured toward the soup. “I have missed this, let me tell you.”

“It don't got to be all salt horse and burgoo at sea, but you won't find no one willing to cook who's willing to learn.”

“I know that, Maurice,” Jack said. “That's why I plan to ship you as cook on my next voyage.”

“Ha!” Maurice said, distributing bowls to the younger Biddlecombs. “Ain't gonna catch me on no ship. Them days is over.”

“Then it's the press gang for you.”

“As long as I got a skillet in one hand and a butcher knife in the other, ain't no press gang gonna take me,” Maurice said, making his way back to the kitchen.

“Maurice would do considerably better at avoiding the press gang than I ever did,” Isaac observed, but no one pressed him for more because they knew the story well.

Dinner progressed from soup to an excellent crown roast of lamb, with the conversation moving along its well-plotted course. “Tell us more about these pirates,” Isaac said. “You do look as if you have taken a beating.”

Jack was thankfully in mid-chew, which gave him a moment to assess the situation. He heard the note this time, the subtle melody of disapproval. The pirate story was for Nathaniel's benefit; his father would not buy it and was not meant to. After a lifetime at sea Isaac Biddlecomb would have a better idea of what the truth of the matter might be, and he certainly would be of the opinion that tavern brawls were not the sort of thing in which men of Jack's station indulged.

The bruising was apparently more visible in the well-lit dining room than the small mirror in his cabin had led him to believe.

“Very well, you've found me out,” he said after swallowing. “No pirates, I fear, Nathaniel. We got into a bit of nasty weather off Hatteras and I took a flier across the cabin. Very lubberly, I'm embarrassed to say.”

Isaac grunted. He was not buying that one either, and Jack understood that he could certainly recognize the difference between a collision with a hanging knee and a beating from a fight. But for the sake of family unity, perhaps, or to shield Nathaniel from the truth about his prodigal brother, he said, “Well, the most experienced of us will do something lubberly on occasion. I know that for a fact.” There was an awkward silence, and then Isaac added, “But see here, pray tell us more about your step to the quarterdeck. First smart thing Oxnard's done, to my knowledge.”

Were the table not populated exclusively by Biddlecombs who were generally of a like mind, such a statement would not have been allowed under Virginia's strict embargo of political discourse at dinner. Oxnard was a well-known and vocal Republican of the most vicious stripe, close associate of Benjamin Franklin Bache, who published the
Philadelphia Aurora
, the paper that dubbed recently inaugurated President John Adams, “His Rotundity.”

Isaac Biddlecomb was of the Federalist faction. Like Adams. In truth, he was like Adams in many ways; a New Englander, strong advocate of American commerce, proponent of a strong United States Navy and damn the cost, suspicious of the excesses of revolutionary France. That Isaac should be a great supporter of the nascent United States Navy was hardly a surprise—it was as a naval officer that he had won considerable fame, not to mention a fortune in prize money, during the War for Independency.

But Isaac's opinions, like Adams's, were not reactionary or ill-considered. Men like Bache and Oxnard might well portray all Federalists as monarchists, men as eager to crawl into bed with the king of England as they were to go to war with revolutionary France, but there was more subtlety in the positions held by the thoughtful men of that faction. Just as not all Republicans were mad radicals screaming
Libert
é
,
É
galit
é
, Fraternit
é
, ou la Mort
in the streets, though many Federalists did not appreciate the nuance.

“Thank you, sir,” Jack said, “I'm not sure exactly what induced Mr. Oxnard to do something of which you approve.” Virginia's eyebrows went up again, and Jack, trained from birth to react to that gesture, altered course. But it was too late.

“First thing, indeed,” Isaac said. “And it makes me wonder…”

Jack turned back to his dinner, cutting a piece of lamb as he grit his teeth and considered whether or not he could unclench his jaw enough to chew.
Damn the old man
, he thought.

Of course the Great Man would imply that his son's step to the quarterdeck must somehow be about himself. Jack felt like a rope stretched so hard it creaked under the strain, and his father's words like a sharp knife. Just the merest touch and the rope would burst apart. The snapback could injure or kill anything it hit.

But in truth, Oxnard's politics made Jack's promotion all the sweeter. There was no possibility that Oxnard had given him the command just to get in the good graces of Representative Isaac Biddlecomb, war hero, because that would never happen in any circumstance, and Oxnard did not want it. Jack's step up was therefore untainted by any suggestion of favoritism.

That's what galls him so,
Jack thought.

What's more, despite his father's apparently genuine pleasure at his advancement, Jack knew that it truly galled him that his son was working for the noxious Robert Oxnard. And that was another source of secret delight.

“Captain Asquith put in a good word for me, I believe,” Jack said when he again trusted himself to speak. “And I think I've been in Mr. Oxnard's service long enough that he's formed some favorable opinion.”

“No doubt,” Isaac said. “And I have no doubt that that business west of Montserrat played its part in his decision.”

“I've heard that from other quarters. A bit too much made of it, I think.”

“I think not,” Isaac said. “You saved Oxnard a fortune. And it's an admirable thing that Asquith gave you the credit when it was due you. Not all masters would have done so.”

“He's a good man,” Jack agreed. “A good seaman,” which in his estimation was the highest compliment he could give.

“In any event, that business west of Montserrat…” Isaac went on. “There'll be more of that, mark my words. The French are stepping up their harassment of American shipping, the privateers will be swarming like maggots.”

Elizabeth made a squealing sound to register her disgust.

“Isaac,” Virginia warned, but in this case it was the imagery, not the politics, that offended her. Isaac muttered some sort of apology. When Virginia spoke, men obeyed. Jack had been aware of this ever since he was old enough to observe and understand this phenomenon. His mother was a beauty, gracious, witty, able to put anyone at their ease. Every man quickly became Virginia Biddlecomb's slave, and Isaac and Jack were no exceptions.

“Why should the French be stepping this up?” Jack came to his father's aid not out of empathy but because this was a subject in which he had a genuine interest. “I had thought things were getting better, that the Directory or whatever the Frenchies call their government was looking for some sort of reconciliation.”

“Not a bit of it,” Isaac said. He had put down his knife and fork, which told Jack he was about to set all sail, rhetorically speaking. “It's chaos over in France, as many of us knew it would be. The French are utterly unable to govern themselves. Heads are rolling through the streets like an apple cart's been upset.”

Elizabeth made her squealing sound again, this time adding, “Father!” But Isaac was well under way now.

“They pretend these fellows are privateers. They probably have some sort of paper, I shouldn't wonder, though whoever signed it is likely off to the guillotine before the ships could raise our coast. The point is, these so-called privateers are no better than pirates. They can make a fortune raiding our commerce. The French government, such that it is, won't stop 'em and we can't because we don't have a navy, do you see?