The Victory (42 page)

‘
A few days,' Lucy said happily. 'That's more than I
expected, after last time.'

‘
There's not so much urgency about it, now that we know
where the Combined is.'

‘
But might they not come out? They say there's plague in
Cadiz.'

‘
Calder and his fleet will be there by now — I passed them
heading south when I was on my way to report — and
Cornwallis will have sent more ships. I don't think there is
any likelihood that Villeneuve will be so foolish as to come out
and risk battle against those odds.'

‘Then, it's the blockade again?’

Weston sighed, and pulled her against him for comfort.
‘I'm afraid so. Another winter like the last, and when will it
end? Poor Colingwood is worn out with it. His man Smith
told my man Bates that he means to haul down his flag and
go ashore for good next spring, and if any man deserves it, he
does. Cornwallis and Nelson have both had spells of shore
leave to brace them up, but Collingwood hasn't set foot
ashore since the war began.’

He was silent a while, resting the point of his chin on the
top of Lucy's head. Then he said, more cheerfully, 'But at
least we can be glad that the threat of invasion is finally over.
The Boulogne camp is broken, the troops are being marched
away, and Boney himself has trotted off to sniff at another
rabbit-hole.'

‘
And we are to have dinner together,' Lucy said, returning
to her own particular source of pleasure, 'and I have spent
most of the day thinking of all the things you would like best
to eat. And I have invited Haworth to eat his mutton with
us —'

‘Lucy, you haven't!' Weston cried, his face a mask of comic dismay.

tomorrow!' she concluded, laughing. All the confusion
of the past weeks seemed no more than a dream. He was here,
he was real, flesh, blood and bone, and to be near him, to talk
and eat and sleep with him, was the only thing that mattered.

*

He slept late the next morning, after a broken night, for he
could not at once get used to the leaden stillness of the bed
after the airy swooping of his cot on board the
Nemesis.
The
silence troubled him too, as it always did for a night or two,
and he had dozed and woken every half hour, listening
subconsciously for the ship's bell, or the swift rush of feet as
the watch was changed.

But waking was a delight: waking to a warm bed, clean,
dry sheets, and Lucy beside him, fragrant and sleep-hot like
baking bread. He touched her, and, still half asleep, she
curled with instant response into his arms, her shape fitting
down into the contours of his body as though she had been
moulded in them. She made a little langorous sound of
content, and nudged her face into his neck so that her tousled
hay-coloured curls tickled his cheek, and he folded his arms
around her, filled with such a huge upsurge of love that he
could only lie still and endure it.

‘
What is it?' she said at last, and he opened his eyes to see that she was looking up at him, still half drugged with sleep,
from under her furry eyelashes.

For answer, he kissed her, and she unfolded like a flower in
sunlight, and they made love with such a mixture of new
passion and old accustomedness, that when it came to the end
he felt as if his soul were being dragged out of him by the soft, inexorable pull of love.

Afterwards they lay still for a while, listening to each
other's breathing, without any need to talk. Then he said, 'I've been thinking, my darling, that perhaps the time has
come for me to leave the service.'

‘Hmm?'

‘
Perhaps in the spring, like the admiral. Haul down my
pennant. What do you think?’

She was a long time answering, and her voice came at last hesitantly. 'What would you do then?'

‘Be with you, of course,' he said.

She made no reply, and he pushed himself up on to his
elbow to look down at her. She met his gaze warily, and he
smiled at her, traced the contour of her lips with one finger.
‘What is it, my Lucy? Doesn't the idea please you? Do you
want to keep me as a once-a-year lover?’

Her eyes were suddenly bright, and she pulled away from
him to rub them with a knuckle, defensively, like a child.
‘What has made you suddenly change your mind?' she asked
from behind her hand.

‘
Oh, it isn't sudden. I've been thinking about it all this
year, but while there seemed to be a crisis looming, it was
hard to see beyond it. But now the invasion threat is over, and
it seems that there will be nothing more to come in the future
than endless blockade duty, I begin to feel my presence is not
so essential on the high seas. I might do as much while staying
ashore.'

‘Then it's not just for me?’

He looked at her curiously. 'I can't tell from your voice
whether you want me to say it is or it isn't.' He took her
masking hand and planted a kiss on it, and put it down out of the way. 'The truth is, that I can't separate the motives which
concern you from those that don't, because you are woven into every aspect of my life. I can only say that I have had enough,
that I want to come home and be with you, if you'll have me.’

She was a long time answering, but he could see it was not from reluctance, but because she was thinking out something
difficult. At last she said, 'I went to see him while I was in
Yorkshire. The baby, I mean.' Her eyes came to meet his.
‘You were angry that I hadn't been before.'

‘
No, not angry,' he said, stroking her cheek. 'You were
right not to go, given the circumstances. I shouldn't have said
anything.'

‘You didn't,' she said in fairness. 'I went of my own accord.'

‘
And?' he prompted, but she seemed to have run out of
words, only looked at him as a cat looks at a door, willing it to
open. 'Shall I leave the service, Mr Proom?'

‘
That must be for you to decide,' she said gruffly, but he
saw from her eyes that it was the right door.

‘It's settled then,' he said. 'I shall see out this one last
winter, and then come ashore for good, and if your husband
won't let us be, we'll go somewhere where we'll be out of
reach, and be poor and happy together. Or rich and happy —
I'm not particular which.'

‘
Rich would be better,' said Lucy, the practical. 'Then we
could keep some horses.’

He laughed and took her in his arms again. 'Rich, then,' he
said, 'Whatever you say.’

*

They had four days. On the evening of the 11 th Haworth
came to visit, and gave them the dockyard gossip, which the
lovers had been too absorbed in each other to gather.

‘
They're sending Nelson,' he said. The whole town's
talking about it. I never knew so much excitement! The people
seem to think he's a saint or a saviour or something of the
sort: they believe that he's only to appear outside Cadiz and
the enemy's as good as defeated. Even Barham's gone
completely over. He sent for him and gave him carte blanche
— forty ships, and choose his own officers. Nelson told him to
choose for himself. Said every officer in the profession was
moved by the same spirit, and he couldn't choose wrong.'

‘It's true,' Lucy said. 'I like him the better for saying that.’

Victory's
up at Spithead,' Weston mused. 'I suppose
they'll give him her?'

‘Yes, and he's to take
Royal Sovereign —
she's just had her coppering renewed — and
Agamemnon
and
Defiance
if the
dockyard can get 'em ready in time. They were in Calder's
squadron, you know. I wonder if he'll be pleased to see 'em
back?'

‘
Poor Calder,' said Lucy. 'The papers have said dreadful
things about him.'

‘And what of you, Haworth?' asked Weston.

‘
Cetus
was warped out today,' he said, betraying a grin.
‘I'm promised my orders by tomorrow noon — I'm to sail
with Nelson!'

‘You sound as though you were looking forward to it,' Lucy frowned. 'I thought you didn't care about going back to sea?'

‘
All this excitement is infectious,' Haworth admitted. 'I
half believe our little admiral will be able to get the French to
come out and fight us after all. But I have to ask you, Lucy, if
you'll take charge of Polly for me, and arrange for her to be
taken back to Wolvercote?'

‘
She can take her herself,' Weston said, and turned to meet
Lucy's eye. 'I won't be here much longer. If they don't send
me ahead, they'll send me with Nelson for sure. There'll be no
point in your hanging on here any longer, my love.'

‘You may come ashore again,' she said stubbornly.

Haworth tactfully examined a picture on the wall, while
Weston took Lucy's hand and said, 'I would be happier if you
went back to London. I should prefer to know you were
sitting out this autumn and winter in comfort, with friends
about you. It would be poor sport for you here, alone.'

‘But supposing —'

‘
No. Whatever Haworth hopes, I don't believe there will be
a battle. Sending Nelson may cheer up our men, but it won't
tempt the French out of port — rather the opposite! Ville
neuve's no fool — he knows he only has to sit tight to wear us
down, and sooner or later we'll be driven off station. One
more winter of blockade, Lucy, and then we'll be together, I
promise you.’

She held his eyes for a moment, and then nodded. 'Very well. I'll take Polly back to Wolvercote, and then go on to London. You'll send for me there, if you should come into
port?'

‘
Of course.' He kissed her hand reassuringly, and then
released it. 'Now, Haworth, a glass of wine with you? I'd like your opinion of this claret — I've bought three dozen to send
on board to keep me going for the next few months. Port, of
course, we can get on the spot, but I warn you there's nothing
else to be had off Cadiz, so you'd better order in your cabin
stores with a lavish hand before you sail!’

*

Weston's orders came the next morning, while they were
breakfasting. Bates brought them in, and exchanging a
pointed look with his master, went through into the bed
chamber to begin packing. Jeffrey, who had been sitting on
Weston's lap under the table-cloth, hit the floor with a thump
and disappeared under the sopha with his tail in bloom.