Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea (10 page)

“There you are, madam,” she said. “And I hopes all is to your satisfaction?”

“You are a wonder of efficiency, Mrs. Drumm,” said Mrs. Corvey. She took a bite of her tart, and would have rolled her eyes had she still had them. “And an artist in the kitchen…I trust you received my note of two days past?”

Mrs. Drumm cut out a forkful of her own tart with martial precision and a grim smile, looking rather like a domestic Boudicca with her red hair coiling round her head in little flame-like points.

“I did that, madam,” she confirmed. “And very welcome it was, too. If I get one more scolding on how to joint birds or make porridge out of maize—Maize! We feeds it to the pigs where I was raised!—I’m like to run mad, I tell you.”

Mrs. Corvey made a sympathetic moue. “I quite understand. Now, your half-holiday is Saturday, as I recall. Well, Mrs. Drumm, I do believe we may suit one another very well, but I’d never want to be less than open with an artiste like yourself. One always wants to make quite, quite sure that a new person will fit comfortably into the household, you know. Especially when there are delicate situations—” she made a vague embarrassed gesture at her black glasses “—to be considered. So, how should you feel about coming to my lodgings for some discussion tomorrow? I should like you to meet my family. All my girls.”

“Very liberal and fine of you, Mrs. Corvey,” said Mrs. Drumm. “A household of good decent Englishwomen would be a blessing, I am not ashamed to say!”

“Well, there is also my son Herbert,” interposed Mrs. Corvey. Mrs. Drumm waved a hand, conceding the point, but continued:

“Well, yes, but your Master Herbert’s an Englishman, ain’t he?”

“Oh, yes.” Mrs. Corvey savored another bite of tart. “Herbert is most certainly—English.”

Out on the cliff road, Herbertina was proceeding along in the growing moonlight with confident glee. She’d had to walk the dandy horse up the steeper bits of the path when it proved unequal to being driven up the slopes; nonetheless, it was a faster, smoother progress than walking. There was an undeniable exhilaration in the movement of the treadles—like seven league boots, they took the ordinary motion of the legs and sped the rider on in enormous strides. Downhill slopes were an absolute delight, a delicious rush through the night air at what felt like tremendous speed! And the vibration transmitted up through the chassis to the saddle was…interesting, as well.

She hoped Mr. Felmouth wouldn’t want it back.

She topped a gentle rise about a half-mile from the cottages, and braked to an abrupt stop. The cottages were a blaze of light, yellow flickering lamplight as well as the steadier glow of gas jets. Judging from the copious illumination that spilled from the doorways, gas lines had been laid on generously
in all three buildings.

The yard defined by the arc of cottages bustled with activity. Men moved purposefully everywhere. The well itself was a focus of movement, and even at Herbertina’s distance it was obviously standing taller now than the cottage roofs.

“An unexpected erection. How surprising,” said Herbertina aloud, and giggled. She pushed off again and coasted silently down the slope in the darkness.

Approximately half a mile on the other side of the cottages, Mr. Pickett and Lady Beatrice reclined against a convenient berm grown with fragrant thyme. At least Mr. Pickett rhapsodized about its being thyme; Lady Beatrice thought it more a mix of chamomile and miner’s lettuce, but was too polite and too professional to correct her escort’s claims to any expertise. In any event, it was both soft and aromatic, which was enough for Lady Beatrice. It did not distract her as she lay in Pickett’s arms, listening attentively.

He had recapped for her his devotion to England, and his late-in-life decision to apply his energy and skills to the benefit of the Mother Country. He stressed again his admiration for the gentlemen adventurers of the gloried past; he bemoaned the passivity of the current generation on both sides of the Atlantic. He assured Lady Beatrice of his determination to put his aspirations into concrete form and physical action.

As he orated thus, Lady Beatrice was aware of the increasing tension in his arms about her. Mr. Pickett did not seem to notice this, nor the matching excitement that manifested itself against Lady Beatrice’s thigh even through the folds of her skirts. Mr. Pickett’s
body
was much more aware, apparently, than his busy mind; and Lady Beatrice writhed slowly and subtly in his embrace so as to encourage its attention.

“I am a man of action,” Mr. Pickett assured Lady Beatrice. “I aim to prove myself to England as a knight aspirant to his lady. Real deeds, that’s the measure of a man!”

Lady Beatrice was silent, gazing upward with wordless and admiring inquiry.

“Dearest Beatrice…I know I can confide in you,” Pickett said rather hoarsely. “You know I am a sailor, and an engineer. For England’s honor and glory, I have built an entirely new kind of ship—indeed, a new kind of weapon! And it will all be for England’s good! My bridal gift to the country I mean to, to…espouse, you…might say…”

“
Yes
,” was all Lady Beatrice did say as he paused. However, Mr. Pickett’s body finally took control of the conversation in this lull, and as she looked upward through lowered lashes, he at last fell silent for a moment and pressed his mouth violently to hers.

Even through frenzied kisses, however, he related the details of his devoted artificery. Lady Beatrice need do no more than return his kisses—with a carefully calculated rate of rising ardor, timed against her own heartbeat—and occasionally murmur “Yes?” in an interrogative tone.

“—it operates by steam power, you see. Silent, inexorable, irresistible steam power,” he mumbled against her bosom. (She deftly unfastened an offending button before he chewed it off.) “Steam moves the boat under water, and steam raises the cannon when she surfaces. And then fires it—but it fires nothing so gross as a mere cannon ball, dear girl, darling girl…”

Stroking his cheek, Lady Beatrice made a softly encouraging sound. When Pickett’s mouth was less obstructed by the bosom he addressed, he continued in a rising voice:

“It fires steam itself! It
projects
it, a lance of pure, shining power, Beatrice! I can slice a man in half with it! Or—” he amended at her sudden slight flinch, “—a wooden hull. And of course it can fire perfectly normal armaments as well. I am not a savage, after all. I mean to use it against enemy ships, sweetheart, not hapless sailors!”

“What enemies, sir?” Lady Beatrice whispered against his lips.

Pickett spent a moment distracted by her kisses before raising his head and declaring with shining eyes: “The French!”

Back in Mr. Pickett’s sitting room, Mrs. Corvey had prevailed on Mrs. Drumm for a glass of sherry; Mrs. Drumm being now in possession of the butler’s keys since Mr. Pickett’s outraged dismissal of that humorously inclined gentleman. Mrs. Drumm obligingly fetched the sherry, but she also fetched out a small case bottle of something else, as well as a second glass. Mrs. Corvey, unable to reveal that she was aware of this oddity, was suddenly assailed by the fear that the otherwise-splendid Mrs. Drumm was either duplicitous or a secret tippler.

“Now, Mrs. Corvey, here you are.” Mrs. Drumm folded her hands in her lap, and looked at her hopefully soon-to-be employer with an anxious expression she clearly did not think Mrs. Corvey could see. “Though I should tell you, Mr. Pickett’s got no great taste in sherries, and this one I wouldn’t use but in a trifle filling, if you see what I mean. So if you wouldn’t take it amiss, ma’am, I’d be pleased to offer you something else. Something of my own, you see.”

Mrs. Corvey felt a sudden rise of hope and curiosity. “I should be delighted. And what might that be, Mrs. Drumm?”

“
Rum
,” said Mrs. Drumm forthrightly, and uncapped the case bottle. A rich heady smell rose up, somehow tropical and marine at the same time. “Good Jamaica rum, ma’am. Not that I indulge often—” and here she looked (though she did not know her auditor could see it to judge) severely at the bottle “—but this comes to me from the Indies from an old…friend, see, what runs his own eating establishment out that way.”

“Why, I should be very pleased indeed,” said Mrs. Corvey, who found this unexpected revelation rather charming. “I am not really all that fond of sherry myself, to tell the truth. You are a woman of broad and discerning tastes, Mrs. Drumm.”

“Well, ma’am, I’ve seen a bit,” allowed Mrs. Drumm. She poured out two generous tots and put one in Mrs. Corvey’s hand. “And there’s not much as startles me, at my age.”

“Oh, good,” said Mrs. Corvey, and took a happy sip of her rum.

In any proper penny-dreadful, Herbertina thought in irritation, there would be convenient cover right next to an open window. In dreary reality, there was nothing but knee-high gorse closer than 200 feet to the cottages; which was where she currently lurked in the dubious shelter of two wind-bent hawthorn trees.

Rather than perch there like a phantom horseman on her peculiar steed, she elected to reconnoiter awhile. She laid down the dandy horse and sat comfortably cross-legged beneath a low branch, there to consume sandwiches and lemonade and take measure of the situation.

Certainly, there was presently no chance of approaching more closely unseen. Such was the frenetic pace displayed that men were hastening in, out and around every side of the cottages. While the lamplight did not extend very far into the surrounding meadows, the very moon whose illumination Herbertina sought to use for her own purposes would show her up immediately were she to venture out of the hawthorn’s comforting shadow. But she had come prepared.

She drew her spyglass—a
very
good spyglass; its lenses had been ground by Mr. Felmouth himself—from her pocket and sought to ascertain precisely what was going on.

There were a great many bundles, barrels and bags stacked by the well, and they were being hustled down the well-shaft as fast as possible. The increase in the well-house’s height was now easily seen as a portable crane, from which depended a rope ladder and with the aid of which larger bundles were lowered down the shaft.