The Victory (40 page)

‘
Sorry,' Lucy said when she could speak. 'Foolish of me.
I'm not usually so missish.'

‘
It is hardly any wonder,' Héloïse said cheerfully, 'for
Parslow tells me you had little sleep, and no breakfast at all.
And then since you go into a hot garden after a long ride and
sit in the sun, it must mean you really wanted to faint away.
But now you have done it, will you let me have some food
brought for you?'

‘I don't want to eat anything.'

‘
Ah, I understand, you wish to faint again,' Héloïse said
kindly.

Lucy couldn't help smiling. 'I feel sick,' she explained.

‘
That is because you have got too hungry.
Attendez un
instant,
I will fetch you something that you will like.' She was
back in a few moments with a plate on which rested some freshly-baked madeleines, pale golden and fragrant, and a sprig of grapes with the bloom still on them. 'There, such
little things you may eat without fear. The grapes are from my own vine, a great wonder to me, for I never thought one could
grow such fruit so far north, or in England at all.’

Lucy nibbled tentatively, and soon had cleared the plate,
and felt better for it. Héloïse watched her, her enormous dark
eyes filled with sympathy. ‘So, cousin Lucy, have I cared for
him well?’

Lucy put down the plate. 'You must think me careless —
heartless — not to have come before, or to have written more
often. I'm not ungrateful, truly I'm not.'

‘I know it,' said Héloïse easily. 'Don't worry. I understand very well what you must feel.’

Lucy sighed. 'Yes, I think perhaps of all people you may.’

 
‘
Then, why suddenly today?' Héloïse asked.

Lucy frowned, and tried to piece it together. 'I saw Weston
a few months ago, just for a little while, and he asked about the boy. I could see that for him, he was real and important, even though he had never seen him. I felt — I felt that there
was something I ought to be feeling, but wasn't. I want to
share everything of his, Héloïse. I want to understand.’

Héloïse looked down at the plate, decorated with grape
pips, and reached out with a finger to push three of them apart
from the others in a triangle. 'Three is the number of the Trinity.
A very special number, complete, eternal. Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Man, woman and child. It is everything, and enough.'

‘
I never thought of it before,' Lucy said, 'but just recently I have begun to wonder if it might not be enough, even for me.
The baby looks so like him, Héloïse! How can that be? I
can't see why he does, but he does.' Héloïse smiled encouragingly. 'Only,' Lucy went on, a little pleadingly, 'if one had all
that, there would be so much to lose. I keep thinking about you
and James, and Sophie. I'm not strong like you. I don't think I
could bear it. It's safer without anything to love very much.’

There was silence between them for a while, and then
 
said, 'One can only do one's best. It is no use to try to bend yourself out of your nature.’

Lucy looked up with a faint smile. 'Nature can change,' she
said. 'Perhaps it ought to.' Héloïse said nothing. 'I had better go. No-one knows where I am.'

‘Won't you stay to dinner?'

‘No, I had better get back. I have intruded on you long enough.’

Héloïse smiled. ‘Ah, you cannot imagine how my heart began to beat when I saw horses tied up outside my house.'

'Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't think ...' Lucy was contrite.

‘No, I am teasing. I was very glad to see you. I only wish you might stay longer.'

‘Come and see me in London,' Lucy said impulsively, holding out her hand. 'Next year, in the Season. I'm sure you would like a little Town gaiety for a change.’

Héloïse took the hand. 'I should like it very much.'

‘
Good, then it's settled. And now I really must go. Where is
Parslow?'

‘In the kitchen with Barnard,' Héloïse said with an impish grin. 'He has a great deal more sense than you, cousin: he has eaten salmon in egg-sauce, half a cold chicken, and most of a plum pie, while you were refusing all but grapes.’

*

Lucy rode back to Morland Place as silently as she had made the journey out, but Parslow could see by her face that her mood was very different. In fact she was trying, as she rode, to compose in her head a letter to Weston, telling him about
her visit to Coxwold, and how Thomas had looked, and
what she had felt. It seemed suddenly very important that
she should tell him, though she hardly knew how to go about it.

At various moments during the next few days, whenever
she was at leisure and alone, she tried to write the letter; but
though she stared and stared at the paper, and chewed the
end of the pen until her mouth was full of damp shreds of
feather, it would not come out as anything other than a
factual account of having ridden over to Coxwold, seen the
boy, and remarked that he was stout and well. The underly
ing thoughts remained elusive, dislimned as soon as the
ink touched the paper, leaving her feeling restless and un
happy.

She was very glad when, a few days later, something happened which gave her an excuse for running away from a
situation grown too complicated. An express came from
Captain Haworth announcing his arrival in Portsmouth, and requesting that Hippolyta might join him and Africa for the few weeks that he would be on shore. Lucy was prompt in offering to take her niece in her chaise, and thus save every
one the trouble of arranging for her to be sent with a servant
by the mail or stage.

‘
And will you come back afterwards?' Edward wanted to
know.

Lucy caught her husband's eye, but he merely lifted an eyebrow and gave her an amused and almost sympathetic
look.

‘No, I don't think so,' she said.

*

On the 20 August, while Lucy was travelling back to Ports
mouth, Weston was walking the quarterdeck of the
Nemesis,
cruising up and down outside Cadiz with the rest of Colling
wood's small squadron, keeping watch on the nine or ten
Spanish battleships within. Cadiz was an unhappy town,
short of supplies of all sorts, riddled with fever, and frustrated
by the endless blockade. The blockaders were only a little
better off. They had all been at sea for an inordinate length of time, and this was a comfortless station, with no fresh food to
be had, except the grapes the neutral Portuguese sometimes
brought out to them; but at least they were in good health,
and the weather was fine, and the seas moderate, which made
for easy sailing.

The
Nemesis
was not the only frigate on the station now:
she had been joined by the
Euryalus,
Captain Henry Black
wood, and the two of them kept the inshore station together.
As Weston turned at the end of his walk, his eyes automati
cally made the sweep of the horizon, marking the position of
the ships in sight. There was
Dreadnought,
the flagship, heavily fouled and overdue for docking, but sailing like a
machine with her highly-trained crew, and beyond her the
elegant lines of Captain King's
Achille,
French prize of the
American war. The other seventy-four was farther out,
almost hull-down from Weston's viewpoint, while to leeward
wallowed the bomb-vessel, unweatherly and unhandy with
her stumpy mainmast stepped far back to make room for the
mortars amidships.

Jeffrey came picking his way delicately along the
deckboards, weaving sideways to brush Weston's leg as he
passed, making for his favourite position inside a coil of rope
by the mizzenmast, warm from the sun. The cool summer
seemed to be giving way to a pleasantly sunny autumn. Weston reached the taffrail and paused, noted the hand
reaching out for the rope on the ship's bell to ring six bells,
and turned again, thinking about his dinner. Bates had bought
a couple of lobsters from a friendly Portuguese fishing-boat
they had encountered yesterday, which would make a pleas
ant change from ration-pork.

It was at that moment when, almost simultaneously, flags
began racing up
Achille's
halliards, and the lookout at the
foretopmast yelled 'Sail ho! Deck, there, sails on the port
bow.' A pause, and then, frantically, 'Dozens of 'em! Cap'n,
sir,
it's
the Combined!’

Achille's
signal confirmed it: thirty-six French and Spanish ships, led by Villeneuve's
Bucentaure,
came bearing down on
the English squadron of three of the line, two frigates, and a
bomb. Collingwood's response was swift. This was not a time for false heroics. He ordered his ships to tack towards Gibral
tar, out of the combined fleet's path.

It was a nerve racking moment, prolonged when it became
evident that Villeneuve had ordered sixteen of his ships of the
line to pursue and, presumably, destroy them. It would have
been easy enough for Collingwood's squadron simply to flee through the Straits to safety, but this was the combined fleet
which had been loose on the high seas for over six months,
and to lose sight of it now would be a serious error. The
Admiral kept just out of gunshot, tacking whenever the
enemy tacked, drawing them all the time nearer to Gibraltar
where there would be reinforcements; and when, finally, the
. enemy tired of the game and turned for Cadiz, the English
squadron followed them, and watched them in.

The combined fleet filled the harbour, their topmasts,
when the sails were furled, thick as winter trees in a forest.
Collingwood sent for the two frigate captains on board the
Dreadnought,
and they were conducted into his day-cabin,
where he sat at his desk writing. Bounce was lying at his feet
under the desk, and the little dog jumped up and came
politely to meet Blackwood and Weston as they entered.

Collingwood wasted no time. 'Well, gentlemen, we may
have a rattling day of it soon! I've always said that superiority
of numbers dulls the spirit, but I'd as lief have some help to
keep the Combined in its place, so I'm sending you two
gentlemen off with the news. Blackwood, you are to go
straight to England with all possible speed. Do not stop for
anything. Your orders will be ready in a few moments, as
soon as my secretary has finished copying them.'

‘
Aye aye, sir,' said Blackwood, unable to repress a grin of
excitement.

Collingwood turned to Weston. 'And you, Captain, are to
take despatches, first to Admiral Calder at the Ferrol, who I
hope will send me some ships, and then to Ushant, to Admiral
Cornwallis. I shall ask you to wait for the squadron's letters,
too, and if Sir William has no other plans for you, you may
take them to England before returning to me.'