The Victory (58 page)

He bit his lip. 'Please don't be bitter,' he said. 'I know we
have had our differences, but —'

‘
I'm not bitter. Now please leave me alone. I'm very busy.'
She went back to her writing, and there seemed nothing he
could do except leave her.

They met again at dinner. She sat opposite him at the
other end of the table, but she ate very little.

‘
Why don't you go back to Wolvercote?' she said when he
had exhausted all his attempts to converse with her. 'I don't
need you here.'

‘
Come back with me,' he said. 'Everyone will be going
down to the country soon. London will be empty. Come to Wolvercote and see the children, and we'll go hunting, and
have a few friends down for Christmas, and everything will be
cosy and pleasant.’

She did not quite smile, but her expression softened just a
little. 'You don't need to worry about me,' she said. 'I
appreciate your concern, but really, I'm all right. I just want
to be left alone. Please, Chetwyn.’

He sighed. 'Whatever you want. Just remember I'm there,
when you want me.' He went back to Wolvercote the next
morning, without seeing her again.

*

She arranged for Weston's burial amongst his ancestors in the
churchyard at Great Wakering. She could not think what else
he could have meant when he made Haworth promise to
bring his body home. She had meant to go to the funeral
herself, but at the last moment she felt could not bear it, and
sent Parslow and Bates instead. She ordered a headstone, and
a marble memorial for the wall inside the church, which the
rector of the parish was glad to accord a prominent place
opposite the south door, in return for a substantial contribu
tion to church funds.

Weston's sea-chest was delivered to the house, and Lucy
ordered it to be put away in the loft. She could not yet —
perhaps never would be able to — open it, and go through his
belongings. Amongst his papers she found a will, dating from
that September, written during the quiet period on the Cadiz
blockade. In it he left his entire estate in trust for 'my natural
son, Thomas Freeman', naming Lucy as trustee, and request
ing that the boy might be allowed to take his surname.

Apart from Weston's private fortune, which was small,
there was the prize-money from Trafalgar. To compensate
the captains a little for the loss in the storm of so many of the
prizes, Parliament had voted a special award of £300,000, to
be divided amongst everyone who took part in the battle,
according to the usual rules of prize-money. Weston's share
for that day's work was £3,362. Lucy invested it in the Funds
on Thomas's behalf. Out of her own private capital, she
purchased an annuity for Bates; Jeffrey she took into her
home.

That December was a sombre month, not only because of
the death of Nelson, whose body was brought up to Sheerness
on the
Victory
on the 21st. Pitt's health was fast failing, and
when Parliament went into recess he went down to Bath to
drink the waters as a last, desperate remedy. Captain
Haworth was recalled to Portsmouth where, in the great
cabin of the
Prince of Wales,
Admiral Calder's court martial
took place. In time of war it was difficult to assemble suffi
cient captains in one place, and both Haworth and Hardy had
been subpoena'd. The hearing took three days, at the end of
which they acquitted Calder of cowardice or disaffection, but
found him guilty of 'not doing his utmost' to renew the
engagement with the French last July. The penalty imposed
on him, which for cowardice might have been death, was only
a reprimand, but every officer in the cabin knew that Calder's
career was over. He would never be employed again.

Then just before Christmas came the terrible news that the
allied army had been utterly crushed by Napoleon at
Austerlitz. Austria was suing for a separate peace; Sweden
was withdrawing from the alliance for fear of losing her
Pomeranian territories; and the two English armies Pitt had
sent out were stranded and presumed lost, one in the French
dominated Italy, where nothing had been heard of it for
months, and the other trapped between Boney and the frozen
waters of the Elbe. It seemed certain that Pitt would fall, if he
did not die first; and when he fell others would fall with him.

Nelson's body, which had been lying in state in the Painted Hall in Greenwich Hospital since 22 December, was taken by
river in a great procession of ceremonial barges up to White
hall Steps on 8 January, to lie in the Captain's Room in the
Admiralty in readiness for the state funeral the following
day. It was to be a magnificent affair, attended by royalty,
nobility, ministers, admirals and generals, and the whole of London society. The crew of
Victory
were to march behind
the coffin, and Hardy and Blackwood were to carry the
emblems, but few of Nelson's friends would be present. Most
of them were sea officers and, like the rest of the Trafalgar
captains, they were still at sea. Lady Hamilton was most
empathically not invited.

Lucy did not attend the funeral either. On 8 January she
received a letter from the masons to tell her that Weston's
memorial was in place, and on an impulse she decided to
drive with Parslow down to Great Wakering to see it.

The little village was always quiet, standing, as it did, at
the end of the world; for beyond it, the earth degenerated by
salt degrees through marsh into sea. But that windy January
day, grey with blustery showers, its street was empty, and
they might have been the only people left alive. They drove to
the end of the village where the little church of St Nicholas
stood on a shallow rise overlooking the marshes. Parslow held
the horses at the gate, while Lucy went in alone.

Inside the church was a haven from the weather; the still
air smelled of wood and wax and old incense, dry as sand,
silent as dust. The new white marble of the memorial stood out opposite the door as if it were illuminated from within.
Lucy approached it shyly, and stood beneath it to read it.

Sacred to the memory of Captain James Rivers Weston,
who died on the 26th of October, 1805, in the thirty-
second year of his life. Isaiah LX, 20.

She looked for a long time, admiring the smooth, sharp
edges of the deep-cut words. It said little, but those who knew
would understand. The mason had made a nice job of it, she
thought.

She walked over to the lectern by the door where the
visitor's book stood open, and turned back the pages until she
came to the entry she and Weston had made that day in the
summer of 1802. She remembered how lightheartedly he had
said, 'One day when we're old, we'll come back and look at
this, and remember how happy we were.' Oh Weston! she
thought despairingly, you ought to have known that the Fates
are always listening, and always jealous. She touched the
words with a forefinger, as though the ink might convey
something of him back to her. His warm and living hand had
held the pen that made these marks. The ache of missing him
rose up so strongly that she could only stand with her head
bowed, waiting for it to pass.

One more thing to do; one thing to be redressed. She had
signed herself, that day, in fun, 'L. Morland, nephew of the
above'. There was just room between the two signatures to
put the record straight. She dipped the pen, and carefully
inserted her public signature: Lucy, Lady Aylesbury.

Then she walked away, out of the church, closing the
heavy door quietly behind her, out into the grey afternoon
and down the gravelled path to the gate, where Parslow
waited with the horses. He watched her coming towards him,
and saw how exhausted she was now that there was nothing
left to do for which she need bear herself up. He had to step
forward quickly to take her arm and help her up into the
carriage, for fear she might actually fall.

Fortunately the horses were quiet; they stood patiently in
the rain while he tucked a rug around her and then got up
beside her. He shook the reins and sent the horses forward, to
find the nearest decent inn where they might put up for the
night. The short day was already darkening, and the rain was
setting in, and his lady could go no further.

*

Mr Pitt died at his villa in Putney on 23 January. Though the
event had been expected, it was still shocking, for he was a
man of such stature that the loss of him from the political
scene seemed to leave as large a void as that made by the loss of Nelson from the naval.

John Anstey came hurrying to London, and called at Upper
Grosvenor Street. Hicks welcomed him, but seemed doubtful
as to whether my lady would receive him.

‘
She has seen no-one, my lord, since her return from Essex;
not even Mr Wiske, whom, as you know, I was accustomed to
admit almost without ceremony, as if he were family, my
lord.'

‘Is her ladyship in health?' Anstey asked.

‘
I cannot say there is any outward appearance of ill-health,
my lord. Her ladyship behaves no differently towards the
household, but she seems not to want to have anything to do
with the rest of the world, if I may put it so, my lord. She
scarcely stirs out of the house, except to exercise her horses
early in the morning, when the Park is empty.'

‘Lord Aylesbury is not in Town, I collect?'

‘He is still in the country, my lord, at Wolvercote.'

‘
Well, then, Hicks, perhaps you will just mention to her
ladyship that I am here. As I am such an old friend, she may
be willing to see me.'

‘
Certainly, my lord.' Hicks bowed and withdrew, and there
was a long wait, during which Anstey became aware of the
unnatural stillness of the house. Then at last the door opened,
and Lucy came in. Her little face was pinched and grim, and her clothes hung loosely on her, as if she had lost weight. He
saw that she had shut herself away to grieve alone.

She advanced across the floor with her hand stretched out
welcomingly; but there was no light in her eyes, and when she
spoke, her voice was strangely flat and dead.