The Yellow Admiral (9 page)

'No, indeed. The barest civilities, that is all. No invitations on either side, ever since I came home and said I was dead against their scheme of inclosure and should not sign but should heartily oppose their petition.'

'Has this affected our admiral, Lord Stranraer? I mean, as far as you are concerned?'

'I cannot tell. I hardly knew him before the Bellona was sent to join his command. But as I told you, he was perfectly ready to dislike me from the start, as a Tory, as a naval member of Parliament, and as my father's son.'

'Another question, Jack: does a great deal of money depend upon this scheme?'

'I have not gone into it thoroughly, yet I should say that in time there is. They would have to spend a very considerable amount in hedging, ditching, draining and above all clearing, but some of the common, farmed by men with capital, would make famous wheat and root land; and with canals cut through the wet, low-lying waste it would be capital pasture in a few years' time. Eventually I believe the whole operation would pay the promoters hands down. They would make a great deal.'

'The kind of money that would push men on to extreme measures?'

'I think much more than money is involved: for one thing there is the very high station of a man with some thousands of acres laid out in fair-sized fields with hedge and ditch, ideal country for hunting, and for shooting too, if you care for that kind of shooting. And above all, country inhabited by a few big tenant-farmers anxious about their leases and by a crowd of respectful villagers who have to do what they are told and accept what they are given or go on the parish. A man in that position is as much of an autocrat as the captain of a man-of war without the loneliness, the responsibility, the violence of the enemy and the dangers of the sea. Then again there is the pleasure of having your own way against opposition. And it is but fair to add that they think, or have been persuaded to think, that it is all for the country's good.'

'From Lord Stranraer's reputation, would you say he was a man whose love of his country, of high station, and incidentally of a considerable addition to his fortune, might induce him to bend the ordinary course of morality so that good might result?'

'I should not assert it. I know very little of him. His reputation in the service is that of a good seaman and a strict disciplinarian, but I do not think he is much liked. He has had little opportunity of showing his courage, yet as far as I know it has never been doubted. Before the recent springtide of prize-money that came to him as a flag-officer - you know, Stephen, do you not, that even now, after Mulgrave's reforms, an admiral still pockets a third of his captains' prize-money, though he may be sitting in port a thousand miles away from the battle? So if he has several lucky, active, enterprising frigate-captains under his orders he can very soon grow rich.'

'Iniquitous, iniquitous. Yet you may see it in a different light when you hoist your flag.'

Jack cast him a haggard look, but went on, 'Before that, he was by no means well to do; and even now he still keeps a very modest table.' He considered for a moment. 'No. From the cut of his not very attractive jib, I should never have 'said he was a man to do good that evil might come of it; yet to tell you the truth, Stephen, the older I get, the less I trust in my own judgment. I have been wrong so often.'

Stephen said, 'Even I have made errors,' shaking his head dolefully; but Jack's attention was elsewhere. He stood tall and straight, a hand behind one much-battered ear. 'Do you hear?' he asked. 'They are beating in the posts to make the ring in the Dripping Pan.'

When Woolcombe's early dinner was over the men only sat long enough for one single glass of port: then Jack said to his brother, 'Philip, will you make our excuses in the drawing-room?' But before the boy had answered he went on, 'No, damn it. I will go myself.

'Ladies,' said he, 'I must beg you to forgive us. Stephen and Heneage are grown so prodigious impatient I can no longer restrain them - it is not consonant with my duty as a host to restrain them. They say it would be disrespectful to the noble art not to see the first exchange; and anyhow the Doctor should be there to revive either of the dead.'

'From the way they bolted their food,' said Diana, then the door had closed behind him, 'I wonder that we were allowed to finish our dinner at all.'

'Yet at least we can drink our coffee in peace,' said Sophie, 'but first I must change my gown. If I do not get this winestain out directly, it will never go: and then I can darn a stocking with a clear conscience.'

'How they do love a mill,' said Diana when she came down again. 'The Colonel Villiers I stayed with in Ireland when Stephen was away - you remember him when he came over, Clarissa?'

'Certainly I do. A splendid old gentleman: so very kind.'

'So he was, but very frail too. Yet even so he and an equally ancient friend from Indian days drove close on forty miles to see a fight between two well-known bruisers, Ikey Pig and Dumb Burke. They came back as merry as grigs, and almost speechless with shouting.'

'Forty miles is a great way...' began Sophie.

'Beg pardon, ma'am,' said the cook, a short, thick woman, of much greater importance now that Sophie was her own housekeeper. 'Which the kitchen pump won't fetch; and without water how can I boil the Captain's puddings? Let alone Master Philip's, who fancies a roly-poly today.'

'Why won't it fetch, Mrs Pearce,' asked Sophie in alarm. 'Surely the well cannot possibly be dry yet?'

'Which the pin is broke,' said Mrs Pearce, folding her arms.

'How did it come to be broken?'

'I never was a teller of tales, ma'am; but perhaps someone has been swinging on the handle, though told it was wicked.'

'Oh, I see,' said Sophie. 'Well, you must get a man to put in another pin.'

'God love you, ma'am,' said Mrs Pearce, 'there ain't a man left in the house, nor yet in the garden nor the yard. Even poor old Harding has crept off, bunions and all, agog to see this horrible murdering-match.'

'Oh come, it cannot be as bad as all that,' cried Sophie.

'Ma'am, I do assure you it is: or worse. That gamekeeper fellow, Black Evans as they call him, served, out our poor Hetty's William so cruel over some paltry rabbits that he has never been the same man since; and his wife says he never will be. They say the Beelzebub creature was fit to be matched with Tom Cribb himself but he was barred for fighting foul and gouging out the other party's eye. Right eye. Henry, the blacksmith's young man, had a turn-up with him, oh dear me...' Mrs Pearce had been in the house before Sophie was born; she was a valuable soul, a good cook, but voluble, voluble, and it was long before Sophie could check the bloody narrative and persuade her to use the dairy pump until the men should come back to replace the broken pin. 'Very good, ma'am,' she said: but pausing with the door-knob in her hand she added, 'Which I only hope Mr Bonden ain't brought home senseless on a bloody hurdle, like poor Hal.'

The door closed at last. Sophie picked up her stocking and presently the thread of her discourse. 'Yes, to be sure,' she said, 'forty miles is a great way. But when I think of the distance Jack has to go this very night and all tomorrow... Oh, how I wish it were over.'

'He will be in the post-chaise much of the time,' said Diana. 'And although it may not be a feather-bed -I abominate a feather-bed, by the way: I love to have something really firm under my bottom-'

'Oh, Di,' cried Sophie, blushing extremely and throwing an anxious glance at Clarissa, who, to her relief, betrayed no emotion of any kind. Clarissa was a clever needle-woman, intent on her work; and her past was of such a nature that rather free or even licentious words made no impression on her at all.

'- and a man who can sleep aboard a small man-of-war beating into a gale can certainly sleep in a chaise. Anyway, it will not take anything like as long as that. I remember Captain Bettesworth telling me that when he had the Curieux, carrying dispatches, he anchored at Plymouth on the morning of July 7 and reached the Admiralty at eleven on the night of the eighth. And Plymouth is nearly eighty miles west of us. Do not grieve about Jack, my dear. On a turnpike road you can do wonders in a post-chaise nowadays. A post-chaise...' She paused, for at this moment a chaise and four rolled into the courtyard with a fine clatter of hooves and harness. A tall young man in naval uniform leapt out, a letter in his hand. 'My God,' cried Diana, 'it is Paddy Callaghan of the tender.'

'What tender?'

'Why, Bellona's tender, of course, booby. The Ringle.'

'Oh Lord,' said Sophie in a low tone of horror, 'and here I am with no cap. And this squalid old yellow dress. Pray keep him in conversation for five minutes, and I will be down looking more or less like a Christian.'

'Never mind about that,' said Diana. 'I know what he is about. I will deal with him there in the courtyard.'

She ran out, along the hail, reaching the door before the servant. 'Good evening, Mr Callaghan,' she called. 'What good wind blows you here?'

'And a very good evening to you, ma'am. A fine double-reef south-wester, so it was,' said the young man, his large simple face (not unlike a ham) beaming up at her as she stood there at the top of the steps. 'How delightful to see you, and I trust the Doctor is well? But I have brought orders for Captain Aubrey' - holding up the packet '- and brought them as swift as a bird. This is the first time I have ever been in a four-horse chaise. Captain Jenkins insisted so that Ringle might just catch her tide; there is precious little time to go. She is waiting at single anchor in West Bay.'

'Alas, my poor Mr Callaghan, Captain Aubrey is away in London on important Government business.' She came down the steps and went on, 'But if you will give me the letter I promise he shall have it as soon as he returns. Forgive me if I seem inhospitable, but I really think you ought to hurry straight back to West Bay so that the tender may rejoin the ship at once, without missing this selfsame tide. There is not a moment to lose.'

The young man, a master's mate, looked confounded, worried, deeply uncertain; she took the packet from his hand, urged him back into the chaise and called, 'Take a wide

sweep, postillion, and you are out in one. Mr Callaghan, my best compliments to Captain Jenkins, if you please.'

She stood on the steps, holding the envelope, as the chaise swung out of the gateway.

'Diana,' said Sophie from just inside the hail, speaking in a low, shocked voice, 'how could you speak so? You know he is at the Dripping Pan.'

'Come into the drawing-room, sweetheart,' said Diana; and there, with the door shut behind them, she went on, 'The tender came with orders for Jack to rejoin his ship immediately. It would have broken his heart to miss this committee meeting and lose the common.'

'But he will never forgive us for lying.'

'No, dear,' said Diana. 'Now the first thing we must do is to send a message telling him not to come home but to go straight on to Wooton and take his chaise from there.'

'There is no one to send,' said Sophie. 'None of the maids could possibly be sent, with that rough crowd. There is a whole tribe of gypsies; and both the Aubrey Arms and the Goat have been wheeling barrels of beer out there since early dawn.'

'I will go,' said Clarissa. 'I do not stand out as much as either of you would do, and when I get to the edge of the crowd I can call one of our people to go and ask the Doctor to come. I shall put on ankle-boots and an old tippet.'

The others looked at her for a moment. 'Do please take Grim,' said Sophie at last, anxious and ashamed.

'Yes: but he must wear his choke-collar,' said Diana who had seen the stable mastiff discourage a stranger. 'I shall put it on to him while you get ready.' She spoke with a fairly easy conscience: in this house and this village Clarissa was seen as a dependant; her presence at the Dripping Pan would be far less remarked; her scheme was better than any other, and though Diana was not proud of herself she honoured Clarissa for it.

'You will not be afraid of all those rough men?' asked Sophie, when Clarissa came down.

'No. As far as I have seen, apart from mere brute strength they are no more formidable than we are. Less so, indeed, since most have that dog-does-not-bite-bitch rule deeply engrained, while nothing of that kind applies to us.'

Mere brute strength was Stephen's first impression of the prize-fight. The referee, a knowing publican from Bridport and a former pugilist, called the men to the middle of the roped-off square: they were both stripped to close-fitting knee-length linen drawers and to pumps, and they stood on either side of him, Bonden still tanned from his seafaring and slightly taller than the other, his pigtail turned tight about his head (the bandage had been disallowed, as too much like a protection), Evans broader, heavier, his flesh corpse-pale except where it was covered by a great mat of black hair. Neither had had much time to train, but both were in reasonable shape - big, powerful men. The referee named them to cheers from either side, and having spoken the ritual words in a hoarse shout he dismissed each to his corner, scratched a mark on the green level turf, retired beyond the ropes and called, 'Now start the mill, gents; and may the best man win.' Amid the cheers and counter-cheers of all those assembled - most of the men and boys from at least seven villages and their surrounding farms - the two men came up to the scratch.

There was no motion towards shaking hands. They eyed one another intently for a moment, with a few slight feints of head and stance, and at exactly the same moment exchanged a series of heavy blows to head and body, most warded off on either side, and then closed, each trying the other's weight and strength.

'This is more like wrestling than anything else,' said Stephen: he, Jack, Dundas and Philip were sitting on the rising slope behind Bonden's corner. 'See, that ill-looking hairy fellow has seized Bonden's arm.'

'He is trying for a cross-buttock,' said Jack.

He was indeed - a deadly throw - but unsuccessfully, for with a sudden twist and heave Bonden flung Evans forward, flat on his face.