Chapter Thirty-Six
F irst Lieutenant Joel Watt was coffined and buried the next day. There was no funeral, only the quiet burial of a sailor far from his native land, watched over by Mrs John Beattie and her children, Pru and Allan.
Private Bartleby, Royal Marines, whispered to her that he wanted mightily to attend, to keep his word to Captain Beattie that he would watch over Anna with his very life. Ever practical, Anna reminded him that he needed to maintain the fiction that he was wounded.
‘I am counting on you and the foretopman to be convincing invalids while we see a good man to his grave.’
‘Are you always this stubborn?’
‘I have only been this stubborn since a certain captain knocked on my door last January,’ she told him.
‘Very well then,’ he grumbled, pulling up his blanket and facing the wall like a spoiled child. ‘Mind you, if I didn’t greatly respect your husband, I…’
‘Private Bartleby, do shut up,’ Anna said, but kindly. ‘Trust me .’ She thought she heard him laugh.
Hector glowered at her when she insisted they accompany him and the coffin to St Matthew’s burial ground beside the church. She held firm. To her surprise, he relented, even though he made them sit low in the wagon bed next to the coffin, and not on the driver’s seat.
‘I don’t mind,’ Anna told Pru and Allan. She patted the side of the coffin. ‘I feel as though we know Joel by now.’ She couldn’t help a smile. ‘After all, Pru, you and I have been his imaginary relatives.’
‘Monsieur Durand could have been less rude to you about it,’ Pru grumbled.
‘No matter. We’ll hunker down here. I’d rather be out of sight than sitting up there and smelling Hector.’
When they pulled up to the Anglican burial ground beside St Matthew’s, he climbed from the wagon seat, speaking loudly, as if he had no respect for the dead. ‘ Mon fils, enterrons cet homme .’
Anna couldn’t see who he was speaking to, sitting as they were on the other side of the coffin. The response of, ‘ Oui, père, comme vous voulez ,’ equally meant nothing, except… I know that voice , she thought, racking her brain over ‘feece’ and ‘pear’, which sounded vaguely familiar.
She pulled both children closer, and whispered in Pru’s ear. ‘Do you know that voice?’
Pru nodded. ‘Mama, I have wondered how Mr Brown knows French,’ she replied, her voice soft as a breath. ‘I have heard him speaking French to other men, when he is outside the classroom.’ She frowned. ‘Should I have told you?’
‘Don’t worry,’ Anna whispered.
Pru is right , she thought. Many people know some Spanish, French and English on a place like Menorca. It is nothing .
Except it was everything, because she did know feece and pear .
She heard them often, mainly because Madame Durand was prone to drama.
Only yesterday, she had gone quietly to the kitchen for more water, and startled Madame.
The housekeeper had jumped and crossed herself, muttering something which had to be, ‘Father, Son and Holy Ghost.’ Madame Durand said it often, over both minor and major irritations.
Father. Père . Son. Fils . Saint Esprit . Holy Spirit.
Hector Durant and Hal Brown are father and son? Surely, this cannot be , she thought, astonished and wanting to be wrong because it was absurd. Surely, she’d let her imagination get away from her.
The men spoke in lower tones. Anna peered around the coffin and put her hand to her mouth. Hector had finally removed his nasty cap and she saw two heads together, two red heads of that handsome auburn colour she’d admired on Mr Brown the schoolteacher.
Father and son whispered together before her eyes. Frightened of this knowledge and all it implied, she had no choice but to act as though she hadn’t heard a thing. She sat back against the coffin, feeling a powerful sense of protection from the casket that harboured a good man gone too soon.
‘Here I go,’ she murmured. She coughed several times, waited a moment, then stood up in the wagon, making herself visible, where before she had been hidden from view.
There they were, father and son. Hector must have replaced his cap when she’d coughed so deliberately, giving him time to do precisely that.
She willed herself to be calm, composed, and never someone demanding attention, the person she had been all her life until John had entered her life.
‘Mr Brown,’ she said. ‘Do help me down, please. I have been tending poor Lieutenant Watt since the Swallow brought some wounded men to Admiral Collingwood’s house.
How fortunate we are to have an Anglican church here on Menorca for his burial.
’ She held out her hand to the teacher, willing it not to shake.
‘How kind of you to come along, Mrs Beattie,’ he said in that perfectly accented English she had heard for weeks and never questioned.
‘We wanted to be here,’ she replied as he swung down the children. ‘The poor man is a long way from his home in the United States, but what can one do in this time of war?’
‘Indeed.’ He indicated the long inlet below them, then folded his hands. ‘On the morning of the Resurrection, the American will have a welcome view from here.’
‘I doubt there is a lovelier view,’ she replied, and meant it. Then she noticed something that explained everything. Only the greatest force of will kept her from gasping.
Directly below them was that sailing dinghy, the one that had inspired her to suggest to Mr Brown that he might like to learn how to fish.
She put the whole awful truth together in her mind.
She looked towards Port Mahon proper from the burial ground, and found herself gazing directly at the slip where the Swallow moored for every call in port.
The man who lit the torches must be Hal Brown, son of Hector Durand, the caretaker who knew what was going on in Admiral Collingwood’s house. Father and son, pere et fils .
She looked down at the dinghy. It didn’t take a genius to notice that anyone could see the Royal Navy ship dock, then, when it was dusk, row across the inlet in that dinghy and light two torches to warn some other ship further out, probably La Guerre .
And with two flames to confirm the Swallow in port, the Hartford was fair game at sea.
So simple, so diabolical. What remained now was to mourn a good man, then casually return to Admiral Collingwood’s house and talk to the Royal Marine.
Her heart racing, Anna watched the two gravediggers lean on their shovels as the old Rector of St Matthew’s made a few comments about ‘Ashes to ashes and dust to dust’, then consigned this American, far from home and probably not an Anglican, to his final resting place.
The gravediggers let down the coffin with ropes and packed down the dirt, standing back when the children spread their impromptu bouquet across the mound.
Anna watched them, forcing herself to appear the serene lady the Durands knew, and not a woman who had put together the truth. She left the daisies Allan handed her on the mound, wishing she could do more for Joel Watt.
‘You’re so far from home, you men who go to sea,’ she said.
Hal Brown waved to them as they left the churchyard, after what Anna thought was a pointed look at the hunched-over Hector. Only moments ago, she would have thought she was imagining all this. She now knew she wasn’t.
Madame Durand had luncheon ready on the sitting room’s veranda this time.
She took her time serving, as if not wanting to be out of earshot.
Had Hector whispered something to her about father and son speaking in French and Mrs Beattie possibly overhearing?
Anna prayed for a moment to speak to Private Bartleby, who was lying on his cot, watching her with a frown.
I swear I truly am a better actress than Sarah Siddons herself , she thought throughout the long afternoon.
Rather than attempt a word with the Private, she took her basket of mending onto the veranda and darned stockings already darned.
Pru and Allen weeded the flowerbed close by.
Hector was not in sight. After an hour of this, Madame Durand shrugged and returned to her kitchen, but leaving the door open and peering out now and then.
Why didn’t I notice that nosiness sooner?
Anna asked herself as she took a moment to observe the other woman, then looked away, suddenly aware that Hal Brown bore a more-than-passing resemblance to their housekeeper, someone she trusted no more.
It was a small thing, their cheekbones and the shape of their eyes, something she never would have noticed had father and son not stood together, heads with auburn hair nearly touching.
Now I know. How to tell the Royal Marine and not rouse suspicion, now that Madame is watching me?
To Anna’s relief, Private Bartleby found a totally innocuous way to end the impasse. ‘Mrs Beattie, could you bring me more water?’ he called to her. ‘I know I should work up my nerve and have this nasty-looking bandage changed.’
Thank God . ‘Yes, certainly,’ she called back, dropping a thrice-darned stocking in the basket. ‘One moment.’
In the kitchen, she drew water and chattered some inanity to Madame Durand about Marines who couldn’t stand to touch a wound.
She took her time leaving the kitchen, coming back with the small satchel John had left behind, which contained clean bandages and ointment. ‘Would you care to help me, Madame?’
Remembering Madame Durand’s revulsion at having anything to do with tending the men, Anna counted on that to be true, and not another Durand lie.
‘ Mais non , Madame Beattie,’ she said. ‘That is your task, remember.’
‘I suppose it is,’ Anna replied, pretending to make a face at the satchel.
She decided on a leisurely stroll back to the sitting room, pausing once to sniff the brightly coloured flowers in a vase in the front hall. Be careful, Anna , she told herself. Take your time .