Ebb Tide (34 page)

'I shall give it another hour, sir,' Poulter said firmly.

'You are wasting your time. Stand the additional lookouts down now, Captain Poulter,' Drew said, watching Forester dispatch the able-seaman aft to tend the ensign halliards. 'I think we have done all that we can.'

'I command the ship, Captain Drew, and I ran the boat down, God forgive me. The responsibility is mine ...'

'Forester told me the telegraph chain parted. It is what is to be expected from so newfangled a contraption. It was not your fault and I shall not say that it was, if that is what is concerning you.' Drew's tone was testy. 'He was an old man, Captain Poulter. Infirm. Rheumaticky. The shock of immersion has killed him long since. Quier's notions of the passage of time have been distorted by his ordeal. Sir Nathaniel could not possibly have survived for very long.'

'That is probable, Captain Drew, but it would have been better if, after so many distinguished years' service, he had died in his bed.'

Drew gave Poulter a long look, sensing the reproach in his voice. 'You do not think we should have attempted the landing, eh? Is that it?'

Poulter sighed. 'I have observed that such so-called misfortunes often follow a single mistake or misjudgement. The fault seems compounded by fate. An error swiftly becomes a disaster.'

'And you think', Drew persisted, 'that we should not have made the attempt?'

'I shall always regret that I did not dissuade you, sir, yes.'

'And you therefore blame me?' Drew asked indignantly.

'I said, sir,' Poulter replied quietly, 'that I shall always regret that I failed to dissuade you from leaving the ship and making the attempt.'

'That verges on the insolent, Captain Poulter,' Drew said, stiffening.

'As you wish, Captain Drew ...'

For a moment Drew seemed about to leave the bridge, then he hesitated and thought better of it. Poulter turned away and stared about him again, dismissing Drew from his mind. There would inevitably be some unpleasantness in the aftermath of this unfortunate affair, but no good would come of moping over it while there was still a task to be done, no matter how hopeless. There was a definite bite to the wind now and the rain came again in a longer squall that hissed across the sea. The day was dissolving in a monotonous grey that belied the high summer of the season. He had almost forgotten Captain Drew when the Elder Brother cleared his throat, reclaiming Poulter's attention.

'Let us say no more of the matter now, Captain Poulter,' Drew said. 'Sir Nathaniel died doing his duty and he was a sea-officer of impeccable rectitude.'

'Indeed he was, sir,' Poulter said coolly. 'Let us hope his widow finds that a sufficient consolation.'

Two miles away Nathaniel Drinkwater gave up the ghost. The faults and follies of his life, the joys and sorrows, finally faded from his consciousness. In his last moments he felt an overwhelming panic, but then the pain ebbed from his body and he became subsumed by a light of such blinding intensity that it seemed he must cry out for fear of it, and yet it did not seem uncomfortable, nor the end so very terrible.

CHAPTER 17
The Yellow Admiral

20 July 1843

The arrival of mail at Gantley Hall was sufficiently unusual to arouse a certain curiosity upon the morning of 20 July 1843. The post-boy was met by Billy Cue who had heard the horse and skidded out on his board to see if his services were required. The legless Billy had acquired his name from the line-of-battle ship
Belliqueux,
aboard which he had been conceived, but he had long since converted himself from the sea-urchin he had been born to a general handyman in the Drinkwater household. Susan Tregembo had originally put him to work scrubbing the flags in her kitchen, a task for which she felt him fitted, but Billy's good nature was undaunted by this practical approach and, by degrees, he made himself indispensable. He had grown into a good-looking man and was said to cut a dash among the more soft-hearted of the local farm girls, so that, upon the death of her husband, it was rumoured that Susan Tregembo allowed Billy into more than her kitchen.

He made up for his lack of mobility by skating about on a board fitted with castors, driven by his powerful arms which wielded a short pair of crutches. With these contrivances, he was able to get around with remarkable agility. He had also acquired a considerable skill as a carpenter, working on a bench set one foot above the level of his workshop floor. Here he had made a number of stools, steps and low tables, and these permitted him to carry out a multitude of tasks, the most remarkable of which was the care and grooming of Drinkwater's horses. Though Drinkwater was no lover of horse-flesh, the demands of household and farm had required the maintenance of four or five patient beasts who could pull a small carriage or trap, or act as hack when their master or mistress required a mount. Thus, while he might black boots, scrub floors and polish silver, it was in the stables of Gantley Hall that Billy Cue reigned as king.

'You are an ingenious fellow, Billy,' Captain Drinkwater had said when he had first seen the arrangement his protégé had made in one of the stalls to enable him to curry-comb the horses.

'Got the notion from the graving dock in Portsmouth, sir. A set of catwalks at shoulder height lets me get right up to the beasts,' Billy had said from his elevated station.

'Are you fond of horses then, Billy?' Drinkwater had asked.

'Aye, sir, mightily,' Billy had replied, his eyes shining enthusiastically.

'But you've never ridden one?'

'Not with me stumps, sir, no.'

'Then you had better make such use of the trap as you wish. 'Tis no good having a first-class groom who cannot get about the countryside.'

Billy's gratitude had resulted in daily offers of the trap being at Elizabeth's command and an increase in errands into Woodbridge or even Ipswich, notwithstanding the most inclement weather, while any horse arriving at Gantley Hall drew an immediate reaction from Billy. Thus, when the post-boy arrived on that fateful morning, it was Billy who took delivery of the letters and brought them to Susan.

'Two letters,' he announced, 'one from the Admiralty and one from, er ...' He scrutinized the post-mark, but was unable to make head or tail of it and Susan swiftly took both from him with a little snort of irritation, indicating that Billy was trespassing upon preserves forbidden him by the proprieties of life. Susan cast her own eyes over the superscriptions and sniffed.

'Her Ladyship's gone for a walk,' Billy offered helpfully. 'The usual place, d'you want me to ...?

'You mind your horses, my lad,' Susan scolded, 'I'll see to these,' and gathering her skirts up, she swept from the kitchen, leaving a grinning Billy in her wake.

'You're a curious woman, Susie,' he muttered, chuckling to himself as he watched her run off in pursuit of her mistress. She had never ceased nagging him as if he were a boy when they met about their duties, which was a strange and incomprehensible contradiction to her behaviour towards him as a man.

Susan Tregembo was a woman for whom idleness was a sin and for whom keeping busy had at first been a necessary solace and later became a habit. But though she manifested an unconscious irritation when she discovered idleness in others, those who knew her well forgave her brusque manner, for much of her activity was directed at the comfort of others, and in her devotion to 'the Captain' and his wife she was selfless. Neither had been bred to servants and they never took this devotion for granted, least of all Elizabeth who, in her heart of hearts, would many a time in the loneliness of her isolation have welcomed Susan as an equal. But her husband's rank made such things impossible and with his successes, culminating in his retirement and knighthood, had come the irreversible constraints of social conformity. For Susan, the matter was never in doubt. Elizabeth was of the quality because she possessed all the natural advantages of birth and education. Her Ladyship's penurious upbringing, her struggle to cope with the demands of running the household of a poor country parson and of maintaining some semblance of social standing in the face of the ill-concealed condescension of almost all with whom she was obliged to come into contact, was not a matter that troubled Susan. She had married a man who had claimed that his future lay with Nathaniel Drinkwater, and she had fallen into step with his decision. It never occurred to Susan Tregembo that the same Nathaniel Drinkwater had had a hand in her husband's death. As she tripped across the grass towards the great ruined arch of the priory where she knew her mistress would be found, she was only conscious of being, in her own way, a fortunate creature, rescued from the harsh life of the waterfront with all its pitfalls and temptations by 'the Captain' and his lovely wife.

On warm summer mornings, it was Elizabeth's invariable habit to take a short walk in the grounds of the Hall. Since she had learned that on the east coast of Suffolk any change in the weather would not arrive until about an hour before noon, a fine morning beckoned. The grounds of the Hall were not extensive, bounded by a road, a stream and the farmland rented to Henry Vane, but they included the jagged ruins of the old priory and these, broken down though they were, anchored her to her ecclesiastical past, reminding her of her father more than her maker. Chiefly, however, they performed the function of a private retreat where she was able to escape the demands of the house and sit in the warm, windless sunshine, content with a book, her correspondence, or simply her own thoughts. Her husband had been much in her mind of late. She had had difficulty reconciling herself to his absences on account of the Trinity House. She thought him too old for such duties and the jokes about his appointment as an 'Elder' Brother had seemed somewhat too near the mark for wit. Though he cited the appointments of octogenarian admirals to posts of the highest importance during the late war, claiming that the responsibilities of Barham and St Vincent far outweighed those of a mere Trinity Brother', her husband's assurances failed to mollify Elizabeth. She had long nurtured a chilling conviction that Nathaniel would not be spared to die in his bed like any common country gentleman, and for several days past she had slept uneasily, troubled by dreams.

In the daylight she had chided herself for a fool, rationalizing the irrational with the reflection that she simply missed him, that she herself was old and that with age came the ineluctable fear of the future. And as she sat beneath the great arch, its flint edge jagged on one side, overgrown with ivy and populated by the buzzing of bees, its inner curve smooth with the masonry of its elegant coping, she was mesmerized by a single cloud which, pushed by a light breeze, moved against the sky and made it look as though the masonry was toppling upon her.

She was almost asleep when she heard the rustle of Susan approaching through the bushes which, she noted, needed trimming back to clear the path. Susan's appearance started a fluttering in Elizabeth's heart which increased as she saw the hastening nature of her housekeeper's approach and the letters in her hand.

'What is it, Susan?' Elizabeth asked anxiously, sitting up and pulling her spectacles from her reticule.

'Billy's just brought in two letters, your Ladyship, one's from the Admiralty...'

'The Admiralty?' Elizabeth frowned. 'What on earth does the Admiralty want?' She looked up at Susan as she took the two letters and then read the superscriptions.

'The other is to you, ma'am.'

'So I see. I suppose I had better open that first. Thank you, Susan.' 'Thank you, ma'am.' Susan bobbed a curtsey and retreated, looking back as she passed through the bushes to where Elizabeth was opening the first letter. She read it with a cold and terrible certainty clutching at her heart. Unconsciously she rose to her feet as though the act might put back the clock and arrest the news. Captain Drew had been sparing of the details, wrapping the event up in the contrived platitudes of the day, expressing his deepest regrets and ending with a solicitous wish that Lady Drinkwater could take consolation from the fact that her husband had died gallantly for the sake of others. Exactly what Captain Drew meant by this assertion was not quite clear, nor did his phraseology soothe Elizabeth in any way. Distraught as she was, Elizabeth was not beyond detecting in Captain Drew's words both condescension and a poor command of self-expression.

But as she sat again, her tears coming readily, her down-turned mouth muttering, 'Oh, no, oh no, it should not have been like this', she thought something stirred beyond the arch. It was a man, but her tears half-blinded her. For a moment or two the certainty that it was her husband grew swiftly upon her, but the shadow lengthened and turned into Mr Frey.

'Lady Drinkwater, good morning. I do hope I didn't startle you. Forgive me for taking the liberty of entering through the farm... My dear Lady Drinkwater, what is the matter?'

'He's dead,' she said, looking up at the younger man. 'My husband's dead, drowned in a boating accident, at sea ...' She held out Drew's letter for Frey to read.

'My dear, I'm so sorry...'

Overcome, Frey sat beside her and hurriedly whipped out his handkerchief, reading the letter with a trembling hand. After he had digested its contents he looked at Elizabeth. She shook her head. 'It had to happen,' she said as she began to cry inconsolably, 'but why at sea? Why not here, amongst his family?'

Frey put his arm round her and, when her sobbing had subsided to a weeping, she rose and he assisted her into the house.

It was Henry Vane who, much later, walking through from the farm to offer his condolences, found the second letter lying on the grass. Frey was still with Elizabeth and had sent Billy Cue into Woodbridge to summon Catriona and bring her out in the trap to stay with Elizabeth overnight. Vane presented himself and the lost letter.

'It seems to be from the Admiralty,' Vane said, handing it to Frey who, having taken a look at the embossed wafer, agreed.