Chapter Twelve
A nna soon acquired three things: a second black dress; the ability to organise officers unaccustomed to being told what to do into an orderly queue; and the abiding knowledge that a smile worked wonders on exhausted officers needing a bed.
She also learned a fourth thing: how deeply she could love.
She’d feared first of all for Allan, who burst into tears when he was told they were moving again. Anna could never scold a heart mangled by desertion, and the absence of a loving, if often absent, father. Their eviction deadline loomed, but Anna had found a moment to sit with him.
‘Will my father know where I am?’ Allan asked.
‘Indeed, he will. As soon as we are settled at the Drake, Mrs Fillion and I will each write a letter, so there will be no doubt where we are.’ She added shrewdly, ‘You may write Papa a letter, too, telling him what you’re doing at the Drake.’
‘Doing?’ She heard interest this time, not fear.
‘Yes. We will be working for Mrs Fillion.’ She kissed his head and let him cuddle her, as if they had all the time in the world. ‘She tells me that making officers comfortable is how we fight Napoleon right here in Plymouth.’
That was the clinching argument. He nodded, hopped off her lap and helped Ben strap down a box.
Pru had no trouble pitching in; change and chaos were all she knew. Anna felt a pang when they prepared to climb aboard the cart taking them to their new adventure. As they stood together on the pavement, Pru tugged at Anna’s skirt.
‘Am I to come along, too?’
Shocked, Anna pulled Pru close. ‘I will never leave you behind, Pru. I should have made myself plain about this. The promise I made to Captain Beattie extends to you, too.’
‘I hoped it might,’ Anna heard her reply, and rejoiced in her heart. We can do this, Captain Beattie. Just you wait and see .
Grace must have explained everything to her staff, because all Anna saw were smiles when they arrived at the Drake.
Willing hands unloaded their possessions and took them down the stairs to their quarters.
In a matter of minutes, Mrs Moore was nodding happily to instructions from Grace’s chef, a Frenchman with a cautious expression.
‘Anna, you should share a room with Allan,’ Grace said.
‘I agree.’ Anna watched Allan pat the pillow on one of the two narrow beds and give her his first smile of the whole, upsetting day. ‘He needs familiar faces around him.’
‘What is this war doing to our children?’ Grace whispered back. ‘And you, my dear?’ Her expression hardened. ‘Nosy gossips can cause the same damage as cannon and bayonets.’
‘I intend to put it behind me,’ Anna assured her. She could reflect later on how completely her own life had changed since Captain Beattie had come into her orbit, a frantic man forced to trust a stranger. ‘Perhaps I was getting complacent.’
‘I admire you, Anna. You will succeed admirably at the Drake.’
She did, they all did, but it took patience. Her first reminder came the next morning, when she dressed in black to follow Grace upstairs to work behind the front desk.
She got no further than the door of the room she shared with Allan. He and Pru were heading to the kitchen close by, ready to chop and dice. When he saw her, his Missy, dressed for work, his eyes filled with tears.
‘Please don’t leave me, Missy!’ he cried.
She held him close, ready to explain that she was only going above-stairs to the lobby. A firm hand on her shoulder reassured her that there was far more to Grace than running a hotel.
Her employer knelt beside her, embracing her and the terrified child. ‘Allan, Missy can stay below-stairs for a few days with you,’ Grace said in a quiet voice. ‘You know, until you understand that she will never leave you. I have work for her upstairs. That is all.’
‘She can’t leave me,’ he said more quietly, as he clung to Anna.
‘Don’t worry, Allan. My business above-stairs with Missy will keep.’ She smiled at them both. ‘Allan, Missy will chop and dice with you. When the day is nearly done, she will walk you upstairs, and you can see what we do there. It’s not so far away. Agreed?’
Anna felt her own load lighten as the little boy relaxed in her arms. He nodded finally.
‘Agreed,’ came his soft reply.
‘Very well,’ Grace said. ‘When Chef gives you both leave this afternoon, I will see you upstairs.’
So it went, requiring only one day of slicing, dicing, peeling and chopping, as Allan accustomed himself to his new surroundings. That first afternoon when Pierre declared Allan and Pru free from work, Allan looked towards the stairs.
‘Are we going up there now, Missy?’ he asked.
Anna listened for fear, but heard none. There was only a momentary hesitancy when he looked back at Pru, his lifeline. She gave him a thumbs-up.
Anna had her own encouragement. ‘Allan, there are men above-stairs who probably know your father.’
‘Do they have sons, too?’
‘I imagine they do, and they surely miss them as much as your father misses you.’
‘That’s a lot.’
‘I do not doubt you are right.’
Grace turned from the front desk to greet them both, giving Allan a hug, then sitting him on a chair. ‘These are heroes like your father,’ she told him, as he eyed the officers. ‘We take care of them here. Watch us.’
Anna watched, too. She smiled to herself as her employer turned her cheek for what Captain Beattie had already told her was the obligatory kiss from each officer. Grace listened to their woes, assigned them rooms, watched as they signed the ledger, and handed out room keys.
When she was not busy, Grace explained her duties to Anna, after a glance at Allan, who rested now, his eyes drooping. ‘A few hours below-stairs with Pru, compared to boredom here, might convince your shadow that the kitchen is more fun.’
Allan was a quick learner. The next morning, he announced to Anna that he preferred to chop and dice. She could go upstairs.
‘Are you certain?’ Anna asked.
He nodded and motioned her closer. ‘I fall asleep up there. Besides, I know where you are.’
Anna smiled all the way upstairs. ‘You were right, Grace,’ she said.
Grace’s gaze seemed to see through the back wall. ‘I had a little boy once, who preferred chopping and dicing.’
Dare I ask? Anna thought. She put her hand on Grace’s arm.
‘He went to sea and died at Camperdown,’ her employer told her. ‘I miss him to this very day.’ She gestured around her, the graceful movement taking in the lobby with officers and luggage. ‘When I say this is our war, I mean it. Your captain will be pleased at his son’s resilience.’
My captain? Anna thought. Surely not .
Days passed, then one week and another. Anna continued to watch Grace conversing with the naval officers, wishing she had that same ease of manner.
She decided that Navy men were a breed apart, men used to command and obedience. If there was a tender side to them, she wondered when it might show, until that first time she watched a lady waiting for a husband long at sea.
The lady had come to the Drake looking as shy and ill at ease as Anna knew she had felt that first time, that frantic time, here alone after her eviction.
‘She’s waiting for her husband,’ Grace confided. ‘They’ll stay on my third floor. She said they’ve been married a mere month, and he’s headed back to sea immediately. They won’t need any room service.’
Anna didn’t try to hide her smile. She looked up after many minutes, when the door opened and a lieutenant came in. He scanned the room, then his eyes riveted on his wife.
She rose as he hurried to her and kissed her soundly. They nearly ran up the stairs. Grace glanced up, then returned to her entries in the ledger, her shoulders shaking with amusement. ‘I wish I had a pound note for every baby that begins on my third floor,’ was her comment.
Anna felt her face grow warm, feeling what seemed dangerously close to envy. To her heart and mind came a glimpse of Captain Beattie as she had never seen him, joyful and eager to bed a wife. There was a wife , she reminded herself. I know he loved her. He said as much .
The greater lesson, the one that changed her, came a day later, when she was alone at the desk and a captain came in. He bore himself well, as they all did, but no amount of rank or experience could disguise his pain. His young lieutenants grouped around him, looking concerned.
This was an officer on his last legs; Anna sensed it. She thought of Captain Beattie. Would his final moments be like this, too? Alone, except for young officers inadequate to the moment?
She beckoned them forward as Grace had taught her, even as chills marched down her spine. The captain collapsed halfway across the lobby. Before he fell, he looked into her eyes. She saw a man in need.
She knelt beside the captain and pulled him close, his head in her lap. Without a thought to propriety, she cradled him in her arms. In that moment, she knew she would never again hang back. Every man keeping her, Allan and Pru safe from a continent in turmoil became her responsibility.
No help materialized; Anna knew it was already too late.
‘I’m here,’ she told the captain. ‘I’m here.’
‘You are England,’ he whispered, then closed his eyes in death.
Anna bowed her head over him, as if shielding him from the previous confusion, and now the great silence.
She shielded him until she was forced to relinquish him to others.
She stood quietly in the lobby, then slowly walked downstairs, seating herself on the lowest tread, silent about what had happened not only to the captain, but also to her.
Her employer joined her later, sitting beside her. Anna looked at her.
‘Grace, we must write to Captain Beattie,’ she said. ‘He needs to know how we are doing.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I am now ready to fight Napoleon in my own way, too.’