The Moonless Night (25 page)

Sir Henry chose this infelicitous moment to inform Lord Sanford of his dealings with the parish board. His real aim was to reach a chummy first-name basis with Bathurst’s godson as David had done, but it was not achieved. As he might have known, Sanford said it probably evened out in the end, with other parishes getting stuck with the work of the men of Plymouth.

“Shall we join the ladies?” Sanford asked later, with a light of anticipation in his eyes. The gentlemen, none of them great drinkers, put down their glasses and went into the saloon.

Chapter 16

Marie sat rehearsing what insults she would offer to Sanford when he entered, but she had no opportunity to deliver any of them. He went straight to Biddy without glancing at herself, and began talking about leeches. “What temperature do you keep the reservoir at?” he asked.

“It is at its natural temperature. I don’t alter it, though I have slipped out on occasion when we get an unusually cold night during the breeding season and covered it with a tarpaulin. I don’t think it is necessary, but I have done it once or twice.”

“What temperature would it be now, for instance? What I am thinking is that Wight has a warmer temperature than Plymouth, and when I take your leeches to Mama, I should perhaps modify the temperature by degrees, till they are used to it. I could add a little chipped ice to cool it, for instance.”

“I doubt there would be much difference in temperatures,” Biddy said, considering this innovation, and disliking to think of ice.

“Still, I’ll run out and check it. Would there be a thermometer around the house?”

There were half a dozen of them right in Biddy’s medical kit, and she was soon hopping off to select the best one for Sanford. While she was in the mood, she also requested the valet sent down for a bandage. There was no hope of getting the vacuum hood over such a small area as a hand, and the heat was no cure for a bruise, in any case. Really there wasn’t much of anything she could do for the bruised knuckles, only slightly swollen, and in the end she gave the unfortunate man one of her possets and sent him off upstairs.

“It doesn’t look so very bad, but it bothered him so he couldn’t sleep last night,” Sanford told her after the valet left.

“You should have let me know. I would have given him a few drops of laudanum. I don’t often prescribe it, but losing a night’s sleep is worse than anything, and a few drops wouldn’t hurt him.”

“I wonder if I might have a little in case be can’t sleep tonight,” Sanford asked. “I have been disturbing your rest shamelessly, you know, and wouldn’t want to pester you after you have retired.”

“Take it. I have plenty. Use what you need and give the bottle back tomorrow,” Biddy told him. He put the bottle in his pocket, and went out to take the temperature of the reservoir.

When he returned. Biddy asked him, “What was it? I am curious to know. Truth to tell, I never took the temperature.” She was coming to see that Sanford was even keener on the subject than she was herself.

“Seventy-two,” he told her.

“That high? I would have thought it would be much lower. But August—perhaps it gets that high in August,” she said, storing the useless bit of information up

Sir Henry, who had been signaling Biddy with his eyes for some minutes, succeeded in gaining her attention to inform her of a new infamy. The Watkins girl was suspected of being in an interesting condition. They discussed together the prospect of unbridled digging into the parish coffers nine months hence as a result of the staggering number of hedgebirds courting the local wenches. Sir Henry went to his office to sit amidst his trophies and draft up a petition requesting government aid for the future crop of bastards, as they could hardly be considered a strictly local liability with the whole of England making merry at Plymouth.

“You going out at all tonight, Sanford?” David asked hopefully.

Sanford stretched back comfortably against the sofa and said, “No, I am a bit fagged after gathering leeches and having a particularly active afternoon.” He just flickered an eye in Marie’s direction as he said this. She glared mutinously, then turned her head away. “I’ll just stay in and relax, and go to bed early to prepare for our day at sea tomorrow.”

David was disappointed at such dull goings on. He decided he’d take a nip into Madame Monet’s and check out who she was entertaining this evening. He didn’t bother with his Steek’s lavender water or polishing his boots, and was disappointed when he saw her all alone that he was too shabby to go in and make love to her. But he enjoyed watching her sit at a clavichord with the lamplight falling on her profile, where the second chin was nearly obliterated by the shadows and the dirty windows. Later she took out some papers, maps he thought, and studied them carefully. There was clearly nothing in this. A foreigner in the country, likely she was checking out just how far she was from London, or Devon, as Sanford had invited her there for a visit.

Sanford turned to Marie and said, “Your lover becomes every day more cavalier in his treatment of you. Abandoned entirely the last few days. I haven’t seen him making up to you since I interrupted him in the rose garden. Is he so easily scared off?”

“Yes, he’s not quite so brazen as some gentlemen,” she answered sharply.

“We don’t much care for an audience ourselves, if it is us you refer to by the term ‘some gentlemen.’”

“It is somewhat of a misnomer, to be sure.”

“Certainly it is. I am only one gentleman, and have no right to the royal plural.”

“Very little right to the name ‘gentleman,’ either, bringing your mistress onto Papa’s property to make love to her. Could you not confine your lovemaking to the house you set her up in?”

“I’m very sorry about that,” he answered readily. “I had no thought of making love to her when I took her to the orchard. Madame adores nature, the countryside. Merely we wanted to go out and take a little air, but she is so irresistible.” He finished up with a deep sigh, words beyond him to describe her attractions.

Marie could scarcely believe her ears. His only excuse was that he found the plump matron irresistible. “Rear Admiral Rawlins and Mr. Benson share your view. They, too, are unable to resist her,” she said, the angry, jealous words out before she thought how to account for her knowledge.

“Rawlins?” he asked, interested.

It was odd he should pick out Rawlins. Benson was younger, more attractive. “Has Rawlins been making up to her?” he asked.

“So David tells me.” she answered, happy to he able to tell the truth without involving her own part in the affair.

“Has he, by God!” Sanford said, with a look that was hard to interpret. Then his long face broke into a smile that was pure mischief. “Marvelous! I thank you for that piece of news, Marie. I wonder what else you could tell me, if you weren’t always in the boughs.”

“I expect I could tell you plenty, and no one said you could call me Marie.”

“That is your name, is it not? I took for granted when you were kind enough to call me Adrian, without also being asked to, that I was expected to return the familiarity. You shouldn’t be leading me on if you wish to be treated with full propriety.”

“I’m not leading you on!” she said at once, furious that his lack of manners was being turned against her. “I don’t expect to be treated with any propriety by you, either.”

“I’ll remember that, and try to fulfill your expectations. Are you quite sure David said Rawlins?”

“Of course I’m sure. And if you really cared for Madame, you should be angry instead of laughing like an hyena.”

“Oh, the poor maligned hyena! Why is it only the creature’s so-called laugh that is remembered? It cries and barks and growls, but it is always the insane laugh emitted upon discovering a carcass that is mentioned. Let us say I have just stumbled on an interesting carcass. But enough chatter about hyenas. Do you come out with David and myself tomorrow to watch MacKenroth try to deliver the writ to Admiral Keith? It should be an interesting spectacle.”

She was strongly inclined to go. She had not yet got onto
Seadog
to see for herself the lapis lazuli fireplace and other refinements. If she stayed home, Biddy would keep her busy with preparations for the ball, only two days away now. On the other hand, she wished to show her displeasure to Sanford, and accepting an invitation was a poor way to go about it.

“You won’t want me on board, getting in your way,” she said, hoping for some insistence that he would.

“True, if you are the sort of female who flies into vapors and is afraid of every wave that washes over the deck, you would be in the way. We may have some interesting chases to follow.”

“I don’t take vapors, and have been sailing since I was four years old.”

“Why are you afraid of being in our way then? Madame does not come, so you will not be in my way on that head, if that is what makes you hesitate.”

It had not so much as occurred to her that Madame might be aboard. The very mention of the woman’s name threw her into a pelter, and in a rush of bad temper she said, “No, I sha’n’t go. Thank you very much. Mr. Benson does not like sailing, and I shall stay home to bear him company.”

“You’re whistling down the wind if you think you’ll have his company. Mr. Benson will be otherwise occupied tomorrow,” he said, with a smile that was not far from gloating.

“With Madame?”

“Possibly, but probably not. No, I think not, all things considered. Madame will have problems of her own to deal with.”

“I sincerely hope they include a trip to a dressmaker, for since you have seen fit to ask her to our ball, she will need something other than her scarlet tunic to wear.”

“I noticed you admiring her ensemble. Quite a get-up, don’t you think?”

“Stunning!” she answered, the word laden with irony.

“She is a stunning woman. She can wear anything.”

“She looked like a pudgy little general!” Marie was forced to point out, as he appeared not to realize she had been joking.

“She is pleasingly plump, in the style of Rubens’ nudes, you know. Or probably don’t know.”

“I don’t claim to know as much about blond nudes as you do.”

“Nor about art, surely. The masters of the seventeenth century are a bit of a specialty of mine, with Rubens my favorite in painting women. That luminous quality he manages to get on the skin, glowing like a pearl, and dimples in all the most unexpected places. Sir Joshua Reynolds, no slouch himself in painting a woman, says Rubens’ nudes look as if they had ‘fed upon roses.’ I often think of that quotation when I am with Madame.”

It was too much to be borne in silence. “She looks to me as if she had fed upon a great deal too much of fatted pork!”

“That, too,” he allowed, with frowning consideration. “Yes, there is a certain earthy, animalesque quality in Rubens’ women. One would not be likely to mistake them for a madonna. They are too sensuous, too erotic for that.”

“They are fat and ugly!” she declared, basing her decision more on Madame than the work of Rubens.

“We never did agree on matters of taste, so it is pointless continuing the discussion. So, do you come or not tomorrow? My servants will want to know whether a lady will be aboard, that they may make their arrangements accordingly.”

“What difference will that make?” she asked, curious to hear what extravagances awaited her, as she was ready to be talked into going.

“They will prepare the ladies’ withdrawing room, and see to your comfort,” he answered vaguely. “You might as well come,” was his only urging.

“I suppose I might as well,” she agreed, putting the utmost indifference she could simulate into her acquiescence.

“You will be perfectly safe with your brother there to protect you. Your invitation to me to behave with impropriety will have to await another occasion.”

“It was what I expected from you, not what I invited,” she pointed out.

“What’s the difference? We are treated as we expect to be treated. And I fully expect you are readying your poor little wits to give me a setdown, so I shall escape while I can.” He arose and went to the table to peruse a recent newspaper for letters in reply to Capell Lofft’s letter.

Very unhappy with his lack of manners and lack of making up to her, Marie went upstairs to her room to examine her face in the mirror for luminosity and dimples, without finding very much of either.

Chapter 17

Biddy, unaware of the galley, the chef and the general high tone of life aboard
Seadog
, was up early to have a lunch packed for the sea-bound. David told her how unnecessary was the hamper-preparing in the kitchen, and she sat nodding, impressed with the manner in which she would make the trip to Wight. It was pretty well decided now that she would go, along with both David and Marie.

“I’ll just run out to the reservoir and check that temperature once more before we leave,” Sanford said. “Will you come with me, Biddy?”

David clamped his lips in disapproval. If it weren’t for the day at sea pending, he would have been in a very bad humor with Sanford. This interest in leeches was highly suspect in a spy.

Biddy never needed any coaxing to go to her reservoir, and arose with a half-eaten bun on her plate to accompany him. David took advantage of their absence to try to discover what Benson had been up to the preceding night.

“Anything new happening?” he asked.

Benson, in a foul mood the last few days said sharply, “No, nothing new.” Marie was happy she had not elected to remain behind with him. Really he was become remarkably incivil.

At the reservoir, the temperature was seen to be sixty-seven, not seventy-two. “I’m surprised it would fall five degrees in one night,” she said.

“I may have misread it last night. The light was poor. It was why I wanted to check this morning,” Sanford said. Then looking at the murky water he went on, “The leeches seem particularly quiet this morning, do they not? I don’t see a single ripple.”

Biddy regarded her pond critically, and even as she looked, one leech floated to the top, in much the manner of a dead fish. “Good gracious, I think this one is dead!” she exclaimed, lifting it out.