Chapter Thirty-Four
H e left two hours later, after holding her close in their bed as she cried again over Sofia, still blaming herself.
She also wept for young Cathy and young John Beattie, but he didn’t need to know that.
‘None of what happened to Sofia was your fault, Anna. None of us knew of two brothers, their treachery and hatred of each other. If you want to blame someone, blame Napoleon.’
She had to ask. ‘Do you think… Sofia is dead?’
‘Dead? No,’ he replied. ‘I’m not saying that to make you feel better, although, God knows, I want to.
I think she is more useful to France as a bargaining chip of some sort.
Go to sleep, Mrs Beattie.’ He rested his cheek against hers for a brief moment.
‘I am no fool, either. Maybe this wasn’t the time or the place to show you Cathy’s letter, but I have no way of knowing what will happen to me even tomorrow, or the day after.
’ He kissed her forehead. ‘The wondrous part of all this is that you are here with me.’
Was this the time for a light comment? Anna didn’t think she possessed one. Well, maybe one.
‘And I haven’t yet run screaming into the night, do you mean? I can’t imagine a worse time to think about love, Captain John Beattie. Can you imagine two more stupid people?’
‘No, I can’t,’ he said, and she heard the humour.
‘Seriously, when might you return?’ She knew this mundane question might restore his equilibrium.
It did. ‘That depends on our next move. The Hartford was weakened by her last single encounter with La Guerre . Thanks to Pru’s discovery and your surmise, I harbour no illusions that when I sail, someone on this island will alert La Guerre with one burning torch that Swallow is out and roaming.
Somehow, I must find a way to get close to Hartford before La Guerre knows I am there, too. ’
‘And fight?’
‘That’s what we do, my love. Hush now; rest a bit.’
It was strange to say goodbye to John in the middle of the night, children asleep and the house quiet. Sure enough, Hector, hunched over and muttering something, was there with his pony trap.
Anna walked John to the front door, where he enveloped them both in his cloak, seeking one last moment of privacy. John glanced at Hector and spoke softly to her. ‘Trust no one here.’
Her voice was equally soft. ‘Be careful.’
‘If I can be.’
‘I mean it, John.’
‘So do I. Remember my profession.’
How can I forget? she asked herself after they kissed. She watched until the pony trap was out of sight, then turned around and nearly bumped into Madame Durand. ‘Oh!’
‘He’s sailed already? Doesn’t he usually stay a few days?’
‘Duty calls,’ Anna said, unnerved that someone could move through the house so silently. You know the captain’s habits as well as I do , she thought. ‘Goodnight,’ she said, startled when the housekeeper took her arm.
‘Madame Beattie, it’s already morning.’
‘So it is.’ Anna pulled away, suddenly afraid that Madame Durand would hang onto her. All that did was make the other woman look at her with a frown, the last thing she wanted. ‘I’m still tired.’
How could she sleep, though? She sat on the bedchamber’s balcony that overlooked the back lawn and the inlet beyond, certain that if she ventured down the steps, there would be only one torch lit now. Her mind took a leap. Was the torch Hector Durand’s doing?
She touched John’s pillow, hoping it was still warm, but no. She sat down, trying to summon serenity where she felt none. She sat there quietly, expecting no sudden flash of revelation or affirmation—none came. She was alone.
Not quite. She looked at the bureau to see Cathy Beattie’s folded note. She stared at it, then put it in her dresser drawer, wondering why he had left it, then suddenly, wildly hopeful.
‘Courage, Anna,’ she said softly. ‘It took a brave man to leave that with me.’
Three days passed; it seemed like an eternity. Inwardly calm, she rode with the children to St Matthews, and found herself distracted, thanks be to God, by Mr Brown.
He had his complaints. She dutifully listened to an earful about Port Mahon’s inhabitants: child pickpockets, noisy women in the market, even the muezzin who proclaimed Allah Is Great five times a day from the mosque.
Should she? Why not? Hal Brown had no idea of the burdens she carried.
‘I think the people here are charming,’ she said. ‘No child has picked my pocket, the noisy women are no louder than the women who shout through Plymouth’s streets about Wellfleet oysters, and isn’t Allah the Muslims’ name for God? What’s the harm in shouting His name five times a day?’
He stared at her, open-mouthed. ‘Really, Madame Beattie!’
‘It’s Mrs Beattie, not madame ,’ she stated firmly.
Poor Hal Brown, an Englishman missing his country, or even just nearby Mallorca, that he had mentioned once.
‘You’ll get used to Menorca,’ she told him, feeling like a sudden citizen of the quirky island. She looked around for inspiration.
Stodgy St Matthews sat so English and out of place on the waterfront.
She pointed to a dinghy tied close to the steps from the street where they stood. ‘Perhaps you could take up fishing.’
He laughed and gave her a little bow, not a mocking one, but somehow both awkward and charming. ‘I believe you are right. The old Rector even thinks I should take Orders and replace him some day! D’ye think there is good English cod in these waters?’
She laughed along with him, in a better frame of mind, herself. Nice to know she wasn’t as out of place as Hal Brown seemed to be. ‘Good day, Mr Brown,’ she said. ‘Tell those rascals of mine to learn something today, eh?’
He gave her a playful bow. As Hector took her home, she watched that opposite shoreline, with its shops, homes and Menorcans going about their business as they probably had for centuries, war or not.
‘I like it here,’ she said softly to herself.
Nights were hard, she had to admit during that week. Funny how she had rubbed along so contentedly for twenty-nine years, only to change when the merest suspicion of love arose, not to mention two children. Here she was in a strange place, uneasy and in charge.
School continued as usual; everything did, as if mocking her suspicions. Her uneasiness continued after the children arrived home, deposited once more by Hector. Does that man never smile? she asked herself as she ushered Allan and Pru inside. She started to close the door.
‘Stop, Mrs Beattie! I need you!’
She opened the door wide as another wagon trundled towards the house. Was that Captain Tyler seated beside the driver?
‘Good God,’ she whispered. ‘Please, no.’
He leapt down before the wagon stopped and grabbed her arm. ‘Mrs Beattie, we have a crisis on our hands and I am about to dump it in your lap.’ To her horror, he left bloody fingermarks on her sleeve.
‘Is it Captain Beattie?’ she managed before he tugged her to the side of the driveway.
‘No, he is well. My Hartford tangled with La Guerre two days ago,’ he told her, and she could tell he was condensing the story even as he spoke, whether to keep her from running away in fright or moving the matter along, she could not tell.
‘And?’ she prompted, her fear dissipating as she observed this exhausted man before her.
‘Your husband found us and sent me here. I have three wounded men, one near death. I have no surgeon aboard.’
This was no time to quibble or argue, or even ask questions. ‘Follow me.’
As Captain Tyler’s crew carried in three men on stretchers, she ran to the sitting room, looked around and pronounced it serviceable.
‘Set them down. We will move this furniture,’ she directed, and picked up a side table.
‘We can do that, ma’am,’ a stretcher bearer said. He had a delightful, drawly sort of speech. Too bad there was no time to enquire about his home in faraway America.
To her relief, Madame Durand materialised, rolling up her sleeves and not wasting a moment. ‘There are several cots in the room off the kitchen,’ she said, and called for Hector.
Captain Tyler took Anna’s arm again, but gently now, his head close to hers, as if suspecting the very walls of eavesdropping. ‘ La Guerre jumped us. We managed to get away when Swallow sailed to our defence.’
‘Was anyone on Swallow …’
‘Injured, too? Nothing that Swallow ’s surgeon couldn’t manage.’ He looked down. ‘Except for this man. He’s a private, a Royal Marine. It looks bad enough, and John—beg pardon, Captain Beattie—insisted I bring him here.’
She followed Captain Tyler to the first stretcher, where the Royal Marine lay, his uniform coat half on, half off, exposing a bloody bandage on his right arm. Anna knelt beside him and touched his shoulder lightly.
He opened his eyes. ‘I told the captain it was nothing, but he insisted,’ he said. She heard pain in his voice. ‘Arguing with officers is against the rules. Breaking rules is what got me busted in rank, and I doubt I can get lower than a private.’
She couldn’t help smiling at that. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Private David Bartleby at your service, ma’am. I’ll be all right.’ He looked to the other stretcher, where Dan Tyler stood looking down at the occupant. ‘ He’s the one to worry about.’
‘The Marine is right,’ Captain Tyler said, speaking softly. ‘ This man is here to die.’ He passed his hand across his eyes. ‘He’s my second-in-command, my sister’s husband and father of two daughters. I wish to God I could stay with him, but I must return to my ship.’
She knelt beside the wounded man, hesitated for the smallest second, then took his hand. He opened his eyes in that drowsy way that she had seen years before when her own father died.
‘Joel Watt is his name,’ Captain Tyler whispered.
‘Joel,’ she said. ‘I’ll take good care of you. You’re on Menorca and in my house.’
Joel nodded like a dutiful child and closed his eyes. She made no objection when Captain Tyler’s hand went to her shoulder. Obviously, more than one man needed tending.
‘Beg pardon, Mrs Beattie.’
‘No worry, Captain Tyler,’ she said. ‘I wish you could stay, too, but I know you must return to the fight.’ She hoped she sounded calm and in charge, even as her heart raced as she thought of Swallow alone against La Guerre .
He pointed to the other stretcher. ‘ This man from my ship has a leg injury. We both thought it best he come here, too. You’re not in too bad a shape, are you, Billy?’
‘No, sir, not at all,’ was the cheerful reply, to Anna’s relief. ‘Can’t move too fast, but you might argue that’s my specialty, Captain.’
Captain Tyler smiled. ‘You’re a talented malingerer, but damned useful when sails flap and no one else climbs as fast as you do. Billy Whitlow is a foretopman, Mrs Beattie, damned cheeky and… Ah, here we are.’ The Durands arrived with cots. ‘Let me help.’
Anna hurried upstairs to her newly organised linen closet for sheets and pillows while Hector and Captain Tyler set up the cots. Madame Durand followed at a slower pace, ready to complain. ‘More work and worry for us,’ she said. ‘I thought those ships had surgeons.’
‘Some do, if large enough.’ Anna remembered Grace Fillion of the Drake, and her calm message from what seemed like years ago, but which rang fresh in her mind and heart: This is how we fight Napoleon . ‘I will tend the injured,’ Anna said. ‘You will cook more, and that is that.’
‘I’m sounding like John,’ she whispered to Captain Tyler after the housekeeper glared at her and turned on her heel with a great swish of skirts. ‘When did that happen?’
‘Ah, the fierce Royal Navy! Then we’re all in good hands,’ he joked, despite the circumstances. ‘I’ll help you.’
He was no expert at spreading sheets and tucking them just so, but she knew that wasn’t Captain Tyler’s lot in ordinary times.
She stood quietly to one side when they transferred the wounded to cots from stretchers.
She arranged pillows behind heads and got grateful smiles from the two less seriously wounded men.
‘I’ll be close by and you can tell me what you need,’ she whispered to them as the captain knelt by his brother-in-law and kissed his forehead.
He stood there a moment, then turned towards her, his expression resolute. I recognize that captain’s look , she thought, her heart going out to him.
She could almost feel his sorrow when he took her arm again in the doorway. She put her hand over his, and waited.
‘He’s a good man, my brother-in-law,’ he began, not looking at her because she knew he couldn’t bear eye contact at the moment—not this man. ‘John told me to bring him here and said you would watch over him until death.’
‘He was right. I will,’ she replied, showing no fear because she felt none. This was her war to fight.
Captain Tyler squeezed her hand. ‘He might call you Patience. That’s my sister’s name.’
‘You said Joel and Patience have two girls.’
‘Yes, Grace and Charity.’ He did smile then, an apologetic smile. ‘Aye, Mrs Beattie, we’re of that firm Puritan stock with names you might consider quaint, but we can swear as good as your Royal Navy types.’
She smiled, too. He needed that. She waited.
‘If you could tell him that Grace and Charity are well, and…and anything that comes to mind.’
‘I will. Do not fear, Captain.’
‘Bravo, Mrs Beattie. John says you’re the kindest lady he ever met, and you have a cord of steel as a backbone. I would never argue with him.’
‘Good thing.’ No need for this sorely tried captain to even suspect that her backbone felt like blancmange right now.
He motioned his men out of the door. She stood with him, allowing him a moment of silence.
He surprised her then, leaning closer to whisper. ‘This is for you alone. That Royal Marine? Nothing’s wrong with him. John sent him for your protection. He said to trust no one. If you can tell me anything I need to know, now’s the time.’
She whispered to him about the two torches that John had assumed meant a warship was in port. ‘Pru confirmed those two torches when Swallow docked, and the one burning after he left. John was right in his surmise,’ she said.
‘He told me, and yes, he was right. We were jumped when Swallow was still in port. He put it together, but gives you and Pru all the credit.’ He gave her a playful kiss on the cheek, that Yankee. ‘Perhaps your Admiral Collingwood should summon you to his flagship for official duty.’
‘Captain Tyler…’ she began, then reconsidered. ‘I trust you, too.’
He gave her a little bow, tears in his eyes.