Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea (13 page)

Pickett raised her hands and rained kisses upon them. “I will trust to your wisdom, my grey-eyed goddess! And do assure your ma that I will go down on my knees to ask her blessing, even though you have already given me the gift of your acceptance!”

“She will be as happy as I am,” Lady Beatrice told him with perfect truth.

Arm in arm, then, they made their way through the dark gardens to where the parlor doors spilled light over the grass.

Within, Mrs. Corvey was seated alone on the single divan, sipping a cup of tea and evidently listening to the sound of the sea from the open French doors on the far side of the room. Several branches of candles blazed throughout the room, giving no aid (of course) to Mrs. Corvey, but endowing the sparse furnishings with a fine flattering gilding. As Lady Beatrice and Mr. Pickett entered together, Mrs. Corvey’s blind gaze swung in their direction. She smiled slightly, almost as if she could discern their intertwined arms from the rhythm of their gait.

Nonetheless, she called out, “Is that you, Beatrice?”

“Yes, Mamma,” Lady Beatrice replied. She slipped from beneath Mr. Pickett’s arm and went to sit beside Mrs. Corvey on the sofa. “Did you have a pleasant rest?”

“I did indeed, though I fear we may have stayed later than I intended,” returned Mrs. Corvey. “Has the moon risen?”

“Oh, yes,” said Lady Beatrice, and cast a warm glance in Mr. Pickett’s direction.

Mr. Picket was pacing before the fireplace, evidently torn between wringing his hands and casting himself to his knees in front of Mrs. Corvey. His combined distress and arousal made it very difficult for his putative mother-in-law to keep a straight face, though she kept her gaze out the open windows and so off-center from his anxious figure.

Lady Beatrice gave him no opening in which to commit any faux pas, however, instead chattering smoothly and lightly as she gathered up their gloves, shawls and bonnets. Mrs. Corvey responded in kind, occasionally directing to Mr. Pickett questions to which she then gave him no time to respond; in this way, the two ladies swept him inexorably toward his own front door under the impression he himself had summoned his carriage for their use.

In very short order they were handed up to their seats (several kisses being furtively traded between Lady Beatrice and Mr. Pickett under Mrs. Corvey’s blind eyes) and so driven off briskly along the drive. Mr. Pickett waved them out of sight.

They rode in silence for some time under the bright moonlight, for the moon had by now risen high and clear. As they passed that portion of the cliffs where the cottages stood, Lady Beatrice remarked aloud to Mrs. Corvey that they seemed quite brightly lit up.

“There even appeared to be a bonfire there earlier, Mamma,” she said. “We could see it all clearly from the cliff path.”

“The night fishing fleet, I suppose,” returned Mrs. Corvey. “They say all manner of fish rise to the light of the moon.”

“That is quite true, Mamma.”

In a lower tone, Mrs. Corvey said, “And I hope rather more than a dozen roses results from
your
fishing, my girl.”

Lady Beatrice nodded a warning at the driver before them, but smiled in discreet triumph.

“They
are
very fine roses,” she said serenely. “Nonetheless, I expect they may not be unaccompanied on the morrow.”

They rode on in silence then, until the driver helped them down in front of their boarding house.

Even from the street, it was clear that their suite was awake. Though the downstairs parlor was lit only by a single low lamp, Mrs. Corvey and Lady Beatrice could see their own windows blazing bright above them. They climbed quietly to the third floor, where Dora popped out of their own door to wave them in as soon as they cleared the landing.

“We’ve had no end of excitement!” she exclaimed as they entered. “Herbertina found a way into the sea caves, and saw the gun platform in action, and fought off a dreadful thug! And she was shot at, but the new black corset stays stopped the bullet! Mr. Pickett’s butler came and actually accosted us here, and Charlotte and I interrogated him and got rid of him before the landlady saw him! Mr. Felmouth says the French are launching a new warship next week!” She stopped to catch her breath and finished, “And we have a darling little dog now!”

Mrs. Corvey and Lady Beatrice stopped, staring in confusion. The Aetheric Transmitter was still out on the central table, and still surrounded by a labyrinth of stacked playing cards. Mrs. Otley had paused in sketching her peculiar skull, which was framed in Maude’s lap for contrast; Miss Rendlesham had, for once, a notebook and pencil to hand instead of a novel. Everyone wore expressions of eager anticipation, save for Herbertina (who was exploring a hole in her corset with a cautious finger) and a fox terrier who was in the process of having a bow tied round its neck by Jane.

“Woof,” said the terrier, and grinned ingratiatingly.

“Did Mr. Ponsonby survive being got rid of?” asked Lady Beatrice after a slight pause.

“Well, he fell down the stairs a bit, but he was on his feet when he left,” said Dora.

“ I think I should like to sit down now,” said Mrs. Corvey. “And then we can go over this evening point by point.”

They handed off their things to various of the other Ladies, Mrs. Corvey taking her customary seat at the head of the table. She removed her dark glasses and pointed at Herbertina.

“You go first, dear. It sounds as though you had the most exciting evening.” Mrs. Corvey rubbed her temples. “Then Beatrice, I think—I
know
her evening was exciting.”

“On the contrary, it was quite predictable,” demurred Lady Beatrice, and a subdued tide of laughter ran around the table.

One by one, like schoolgirls reciting their lessons, the Ladies each recounted their adventures to the whole group. Herbertina and Lady Beatrice were definitely the Senior Girls in this exercise, with the hard information they had gathered. Herbertina’s corset was passed around for examination, and the black stays declared a definite triumph; Lady Beatrice was congratulated, with some feminine hilarity, on her recent betrothal.

Mr. Pickett’s personal excesses and eccentricities were reported dispassionately and received without surprise. Indeed, Lady Beatrice would not have bothered repeating them, save that she thought his reaction had a bearing on his mental state.

“Disabling the gun would likewise neutralize Mr. Pickett, I think,” she said. “He has a clear emotional resonance with the performance of his gun.”

“Ain’t they all, though?” sighed Mrs. Corvey. “Nothing unsettles a man’s feeble mind like a big gun. It’s just that in his case, he can brandish the damn thing a lot further than most lads. Right across the Channel!”

This was reinforced when Lady Beatrice confirmed that Mr. Pickett was definitely targeting a French vessel in the next week. Miss Rendlesham was then able to establish corroboration with this from her post-Ponsonby communique with Mr. Felmouth—which was that the French had just launched a new warship, named
Le Cygne Impériale.

“
The Imperial Swan
?” asked Mrs. Otley. “Is that not somewhat—
gauche—
for the new Republic?”

“Bureaucracy moves slowly,” said Miss Rendlesham. “Or so Mr. Felmouth says. It was commissioned before the latest regime change. It is a sloop of war, evidently, an hermaphrodite brig nearly 200 feet long. Partly iron-clad below the water line, and the hull is made of two layers of white oak.”

“So she is white and fierce and damned hard to sink,” mused Mrs. Corvey. “Rather pretty conceit. Very French. And she has already launched?”

“Yes, some days ago. She is undergoing trials off the coast of France, of course, but she is due to venture into the Channel in the next three days,” said Miss Rendlesham.

“When Mr. Pickett will try to sink her,” Lady Beatrice said.

“We shall have our work cut out for us, I fear,” said Miss Rendlesham. “Unless we just ought to disable Mr. Pickett outright, and so delay his own launch?”

Mrs. Corvey shook her head. “A nice idea, but I don’t think it would stop the enterprise. It’s clearly going on in his absence—he was no use to them tonight, was he?—and I suspect he doesn’t run the gun crew. He’s a yachtsman, a holiday sailor, not a Naval officer. I’d suspect that bugger Felan for the job… No, we cannot stop his launching the gun platform. But I think we can stop it from getting very far.”

Jane suddenly cleared her throat and sang, in a fine mezzo:

Maude and Dora joined her, in their respective soprano and alto:

Mrs. Corvey reached out and tapped the construction on the table then. With a prolonged sigh, it rippled round and down into utter destruction.

Next morning the preparations began in earnest for stopping Mr. Pickett. As Mrs. Corvey said, while the Gentlemen might succeed in sending some well-armed and masculine help to them before Mr. Pickett’s gun platform set out to sea, it were best not to rely upon it. No ship would sink because they
were armed and waiting; but disaster awaited only on their being unprepared.

They had, besides, a new and potent ally to add to the mix: the redoubtable Mrs. Drumm, who was expected that very afternoon for her interview. Mrs. Corvey had already decided to offer her the position of cook at Nell Gwynne’s, if Mrs. Drumm was not shocked or frightened off by the revelations of their true nature; and Mrs. Corvey felt she had received sufficient indication of a liberal and adventurous inclination to make her hopeful. At the very least, both Mrs. Corvey and Lady Beatrice were sure that Mrs. Drumm would be willing to help them stop Mr. Pickett, for whom she clearly had no good will.

Over breakfast, a discussion of the fox terrier culminated in her also being offered a position with the Ladies. Herbertina pointed out that a little sporting dog was a very good prop for a young man in her apparent social position, while the Devere sisters merely fell back on pleading for the dog’s obvious heroism and charm. Mrs. Corvey admitted that the dog was, indeed, charming (especially on being offered a paw in greeting over her morning tea) but appeared to be most won over by the fact that the animal had not disgraced herself on the carpets during the night; which was, as Herbertina also pointed out, a better record than some of their patrons.

In honor of their trade and her own black mask, they named her Domina.

Immediately post-breakfast, with all parties comfortably replete with porridge and muffins, Jane tied three yards of a jolly red silk ribbon to Domina’s collar, and Domina, Herbertina and the Deveres made up a party for a morning stroll. They took along Mrs. Otley’s latest missive to Mr. Darwin—an envelope fat with detailed drawings of the various anatomical remains she had found—and instructions from Mrs. Corvey to locate at least two of the blacksmiths purported to be in the area and to scout the chandlers’ shops as well.

“But first, a run along the beach,” Herbertina assured Domina as they strolled along the street. Domina pulled so enthusiastically that Herbertina was obliged to lean well back as they made their way down the seaward-slanting street; and all four of them proceeded in high good humor, simultaneously restraining Domina from leaping ahead and Herbertina from falling over backwards.

They found the Post Office conveniently on their way and sent Mrs. Otley’s package off to Mr. Charles Darwin; the distance was only about 140 miles, and they were assured he would have it within two days at the most. They also located one of the chandler shops, marking it for exploration on the way home.

Feeling very efficient, the party made their way down to the beach, where the bathing machines were parked down by the shingle rocks at water’s edge. Though the strand was narrow, the sand itself was fine and smooth, and damp enough to allow a brisk walk while still remaining above the waves. Domina was so patently enthralled by the prospect that Herbertina, with a bow to the others, took her off at once for a run.