The Monsoon (11 page)

Which, of course, they were, Hal thought, and grinned.

“Come on, you two.

You may return tomorrow to help Big Daniel with the reloading.”

As soon as they had scrambled onto the box beside Aboli, Hal said, “Take us up to High Weald, Aboli.” A while later, as the carriage passed through the gate in the stone wall that marked the boundary of the estate, Tom looked ahead and saw a single rider crossing the moor at a canter, aiming to intercept the carriage at the foot of the hill.

There was no mistaking the tall figure dressed all in black on the back of the black stallion, coming from the direction of the tin shaft at East Rushwold.

Dorian saw Black Billy at the same time, and moved a little closer to Tom as if for protection, but neither boy spoke.

William put the stallion to the hedge. Horse and rider sailed over, the black cloak billowing out behind, and landed easily, then turned up the road immediately to meet the oncoming carriage.

William ignored Aboli and his two younger brothers on the box, but wheeled his horse to canter alongside.

“Well met, Father!” he greeted Hal through the carriage window.

“Welcome back to High Weald. You were sorely missed.” Hal leaned from the window, smiling with pleasure, and the two fell at once into an animated conversation. William recounted everything that had taken place in Hal’s absence, with special emphasis on the running of the mines and the reaping of the grain harvest.

They were coming up the last hill to the big house when suddenly William broke off, with an exclamation of annoyance.

“Ahl I forgot to mention that your guests have arrived from Brighton. They have been here two days awaiting your coming.”

“My guests?” Hal looked mystified.

William pointed with his riding-crop to the distant figures on the far lawns. A large, solid gentleman stood with a lady on each arm, while two girls in brightly coloured pinafores were already racing each other across the grass to meet the carriage, squealing with excitement like steam from a boiling kettle.

“Girls!” said Dorian, with disdain.

“Small girls!”

“But a big one also.” Tom’s sharp eyes had picked out the slimmer of the two women on the arms of the portly gentleman.

“Damned pretty too.”

“Have a care, Klebe,” Aboli murmured.

“The last one landed you in deep water.” But Tom was like a hunting dog on point to the scent of a bird.

“Who on earth are they?” Hal asked William irritably.

He was engrossed in fitting out a ship for a long voyage and it was not the time to have uninvited guests at High Weald.

“A certain Mr. Beatty and his brood,” William answered.

“I was told you were expecting them, Father. Is that not the case? If so, we can send them packing.”

“Damn me!” Hal exclaimed.

“I had almost forgotten.

They must be the passengers on board the Seraph as far as Bombay.

Beatty is to be the new auditor-general for the Company factory there.

But Childs never mentioned he was bringing his whole tribe with him. This is a nuisance.

Four females! Where, in the devil’s name, will I find berths for all of them?” Hal concealed his annoyance when he stepped out of the carriage to greet the family.

“Mr. Beatty, your servant, sir. Lord Childs has given me good reports of you. You had a pleasant enough journey down to Devon, I trust?” The truth was that he had expected the family to find lodgings in the port rather than to arrive at High Weald, but he put a good face on it and turned to greet the wife.

Mrs. Beatty was full-fleshed, like her husband, for they had sat at the same dining-table for twenty years. Her face was red and round as a child’s ball, but little girlish curls peeped out from under the peak of her bonnet. She gave Hal an elephantine curtsy.

“Enchanted, madam.” Hal told her gallantly.

She giggled when he kissed her hand.

“May I present my eldest daughter, Caroline?” She knew that, apart from being one of the richest men in Devon and a great landowner, Sir Henry Courtney was a widower.

Caroline was almost sixteen, and lovely. There was not more than twenty-five years” difference in their ages, she estimated, the same as between Mr. Beatty and herself. They would all be on a long voyage together, plenty of time for friendships to ripen, and sometimes dreams became reality.

Hal bowed to the girl, who curtsied prettily, but he made no effort to kiss her hand. His eyes moved on swiftly to the two girls, who hopped and danced around their parents like chirping sparrows.

“And who are these two fine young ladies?” he asked, with a paternal smile.

“I am Agnes!”

“And I am Sarah!” By the time they were all moving up the staircase and through the front doors of High Weald, Hal had a child by each hand and they were both chattering and dancing, looking up at him, vying for his attention.

“He always wished for a daughter,” Aboli said softly, watching his master fondly, “and all he ever got was this gang of hellions.”

“They’re only girls,” Dorian pointed out loftily.

Tom said nothing. He had not spoken since he had come close enough to Caroline to make out every detail of her features. Since then he had been transfixed.

Caroline and Guy were following the others up the stairs. They were walking side by side, but at the top Caroline paused and looked back. Her eyes met Tom’s.

She was the most beautiful thing Tom had ever imagined. She was as tall as Guy, but her shoulders were narrow and her waist was lithe as a sapling. Her slippered feet were tiny under the flaring layers of petticoats and skirts. Her arms were bare below the puffed sleeves, the skin pale and unblemished. Her hair was a tower of shimmering curls and ribbons. Her face was exquisite, full pink lips and large violet eyes.

She looked through Tom without expression, her face calm and unsmiling: it was almost as if she had not seen him, as if for her he did not exist. Then she turned away and followed her family into the house. Tom had been holding his breath without realizing it, and now he let it out with an audible hiss.

Aboli shook his head. He had missed nothing. This may be a long voyage, he thought. And a dangerous one.

The Seraph lay alongside the quay for six days. Even with Ned Tyler and Big Daniel driving them relentlessly, it took that long for the workmen to finish fitting her out. No sooner was the last joint glued and pinned and the last wedge driven home than Daniel saw them all packed off on the post coach, back to the builders” yards at Deptford. By this time the cargo, provisions and armaments had been swung out of the Seraph’s hold and then in again and repacked, while Hal stood off in the middle of the harbour in one of the longboats to check her trim. Edward Anderson, from the Yeoman, proved his goodwill by sending his own crew across to help with the heavy work.

In the meantime Ned had sent all the sails to the sail makers yard. He had checked each seam and stitch and had those that did not please him re sewn Then he had watched each sail repacked in its canvas bag, marked and stowed away in the sail-lockers ready to hand.

Once he had dealt with the sails, Ned laid out and inspected the spare spars and yards, then sent them aboard again before the main cargo. Tom followed him around, asking questions and avidly gleaning every bit of sailing lore that he could.

Hal personally sampled a mug of water from each of the barrels before they were sent back on board, to make certain that their content was sweet and potable. He opened every third pickle barrel and had the ship’s surgeon, Dr. Reynolds, check that the salt pork and beef, the biscuits and flour were of the first quality. They all knew well enough that by the time they reached Good Hope the water would be green with slime, the biscuits crackling and popping with weevils, but Hal was determined that they would start off clean, and the men took notice of his concern and murmured approvingly among themselves.

“Not many captains would take those pains. Some would condemned pork from the Admiralty just to save a guinea or two.” He and his gunners looked at the powder to ensure that damp had riot got into the kegs and caked it. After that they cleaned the muskets, one hundred and fifty of them, and made sure that the flints were firm and struck a shower of sparks when the lock was fired. The deck guns were run out and the carriages greased. On their swivel mounts the murderers and falconers were sited aloft in the crow’s nests and at the break of the quarterdeck so that they could command the decks of an enemy ship as she came alongside and sweep her decks with a storm of grapeshot. The blacksmith and his mates sharpened the cutlasses and the axes, and set them back in their racks ready for when they were needed.

Hal puzzled over his quarter-bill, which assigned each man his station in a battle, then worked out the space at his disposal to accommodate his unexpected passengers. In the end he evicted the boys from their newly built cabin and gave it to the three Beatty sisters, while Will Carter, the third officer, had to give up his cabin, tiny as it was, to Mr. Beatty and his wife. Those two large bodies would have to share a bunk twenty-two inches wide, and Hal grinned at the picture that called to mind.

In the stern cabin of the Seraph, Hal sat for hours with Edward Anderson of the Yeoman, working out with him a system of signals with which they could communicate at sea. Forty years previously, the three parliamentarian “Generals at Sea” Blake, Deane and Monck had innovated a system of signalling, using flags and sails by day and lanterns and guns by night. Hal had obtained copies of their pamphlet, “Instructions for the Better Ordering of the Fleet in Fighting’, and he and Anderson used the five flags and four lanterns as the basis for their own set of signals.

The meaning of the flags depended on the combinations and the position in the rigging from which they were flown. At night the lanterns would be arranged in patterns, vertical and horizontal lines, or squares and triangles, on the main mast and -the main yard.

Once they had agreed the signals, they drew up a schedule of rendezvous to cover the possibility of the two ships losing contact with each other in conditions of poor visibility or during the vagaries of battle. At the end of these long discussions Hal was confident that he had come to know Anderson well, and that he could trust him to do his duty.

On the seventh day after reaching Plymouth they were ready to sail, and on their last day William laid on a splendid dinner for them in the dining room at High Weald.

Caroline was placed between William and Guy at the long dinner-table. Tom sat opposite her, but the table was too wide for easy conversation. This made little difference to him: for once he could think of nothing to say. He ate little, hardly touching the lobster and sole, his favourite foods. He could barely take his eyes off the girl’s lovely tranquil face.

Guy, though, had discovered almost immediately that Caroline was a lover of music and they had formed an instant bond. Under Master Walsh’s instruction, Guy had learned to play both the harpsichord and the cittern, a fashionable plucked stringed instrument. Tom had shown no aptitude for either instrument, and his singing, Master Walsh opined, was enough to make horses bolt.

During their stay in London, Master Walsh had taken Guy and Dorian to a concert. Tom had developed a severe stomachache, which had prevented him accompanying them, a circumstance he bitterly regretted now, as he watched Caroline listening with what seemed divine rapture to Guy describing the evening to her, the music and the glittering gathering of London society. Guy seemed able even to remember what dresses and jewellery the women had worn, and those huge violet eyes had not left his face.

Tom made an effort to drag her eyes away from Guy by embarking on an account of their visit to Bedlam at Moorfields, to see the lunatics on display in their iron cages.

“When I threw a stone at one, he picked up his own turds and threw them back at me,” he recounted with1i relish.

“Luckily he missed me and hit Guy instead.” Caroline’s rosebud upper lip lifted slightly as if she had smelt the missile, and her basilisk gaze passed clean through Tom leaving him stammering, before she turned back to Guy.

Dorian sat stiffly between Agnes and Sarah at the bottom of the table. The two girls were hidden from their parents by the display of flowers in the silver vases and the tall candelabra. They giggled and whispered to each other during the whole meal, or told inane, pointless jokes that they thought so rich they had to stuff their table napkins into their mouths to control their mirth.

Dorian was left squirming with embarrassment, and terror that the footmen waiting at table would recount his agony in the servants” quarters. Then even the stable-boys, who were usually his bosom pals, would despise him as a ninny.

At the top of the table Hal and William, Mr. Beatty and Edward Anderson were engrossed in discussing the King.

“Lord knows, I was not entirely happy with a Dutchman on the throne, but the little gentleman in black velvet has proved himself a warrior,” Beatty said.

Hal nodded.

“He is a great opponent of Rome, and no lover of the French. For that alone he has my loyalty. But I found him also a man with a sharp eye and mind. I think he will make us a good king.”

Alice Courtney, William’s new bride, sat pale and quiet beside Hal. In contrast to her initial loving, dutiful behaviour, she did not look at her new husband across the table. There was a purple bruise on the point of her jaw below the ear, which she had tried to hide with rice powder and by combing a lock of her dark hair over it. She responded in monosyllables to Mrs. Beatty’s chatter.

At the end of the meal William stood up and rang for quiet on his wineglass with a silver spoon.

“As one who is duty-bound to remain behind when the rest of my beloved family voyages to far lands.. he began.

Tom ducked his head behind the floral decorations so that he was out of sight of William and his father, and pretended to stick his finger down his throat and throw up.

Dorian found this so hilarious that he coughed and choked with laughter, and ducked his red head below the table.