Chapter Thirty-Seven
B illy Whitlow, foretopman and reformed scoundrel, did indeed revert to his former ways.
After a nearly sleepless night, Anna came downstairs in her robe and peeped in the sitting room.
His cot was empty. David Bartleby gave her a thumbs-up.
She tiptoed back upstairs, hoping the foretopman was as good a thief as he said he was, and hoping Hal Brown would take no interest in an ordinary sloop sailing from Port Mahon, something that happened all the time.
She dressed quickly, then hurried downstairs to the sitting room. ‘David,’ she whispered, ‘has Madame Durand been in here yet?’
‘Not yet,’ the Marine replied. ‘I suggest you make a big noise about Billy’s disappearance so she is aware. I doubt the Durands will know what to do about this unexpected development.’ He gave her a big smile.
She hurried to the kitchen, where the Durands were drinking their morning tea. ‘Madame Durand, that American has left us!’
They ran into the sitting room, Anna right behind. ‘I came in here…’ She turned to the Marine. ‘Private Bartleby, did you hear anything?’
If she was the talented Sarah Siddons, then the Marine was Edmund Keane, Drury Lane’s other darling. He groaned, sat up and rubbed his eyes. ‘I had a bad night,’ he said, pointing to his bandage, where blood oozed onto his wrist. ‘It won’t stop bleeding.’
Anna stared at the blood, and the odd whiteness of his face, the genuine look of a man in distress. She had no trouble bursting into tears, theatrical or not. The only thing that kept her functioning was his slow wink just for her.
‘You are a rascal,’ she said under her breath, when Madame Durand turned to her husband and spoke in rapid-fire French.
‘But I am so damned good-looking,’ he whispered back. ‘Let’s see how clever you are.’
So that was it? Wretched man. She glared at him, then, ‘Madame Durand, please help. He is bleeding most profusely!’
That brought the response she prayed for. The housekeeper backed away. ‘No, no! Hector and I must search the grounds for that American!’ They ran from the room.
‘Cowards,’ David muttered.
Anna sat beside him on the cot. ‘What did you do to your arm?’
‘Nothing much. I stuck myself with this little penknife,’ he told her, pulling it from under the sheet. ‘Just a little poke. It has already stopped bleeding. Wipe it off after you smear it around a bit on the bandage. That should keep her away.’
‘And what, pray tell, did you do to your face? You look like a dead man.’
‘That good? Excellent. Allan had a stick of white chalk in his little drawing kit. He’s copying that portrait of Admiral Collingwood over there, and I swiped it.’
‘What should we do now?’
‘We wait,’ he said simply. ‘If you’re the praying type, you might encourage the Lord God Almighty to speed the foretopman on his way.’
It was a long, long day. Anna watched as Hector with surprising energy flogged his pony cart towards Port Mahon itself, more lively than she had ever seen him. She had no difficulty weeping and wringing her hands until even Madame Durand took pity on her and made her sniff smelling salts.
‘Do let me know what Monsieur Durand learns in the port,’ she begged as she batted away the assault of the smelling salts, nasty things. ‘That awful Captain Tyler will blame me because I did not tend to his wretched sailor!’
Pru and Allan were regular rocks of Gibraltar.
She calmly told them that the other invalid had decided to leave, and the Durands were hoping to find him.
This was one time even Pru didn’t need to know what was going on, and perhaps for Anna to remind herself that the stalwart girl was truly a child.
To keep him occupied, she asked Allan to continue his chalk drawing of Admiral Collingwood. ‘I think he will like that,’ she told him.
This seemed like a good time to introduce Pru to embroidery, something Anna had no patience for, but had dutifully learned when she was Pru’s age.
‘We will begin with French knots,’ she said.
It quickly became a tangled mess, which gave them both the giggles.
They blamed it on France, and laughed some more.
Two more days passed. Allan focused on adding Bounce the dog to his drawing, when he wasn’t weeding the kitchen garden for Madame Durand, who took Anna aside after that first morning to whisper that Hector had learned the rascal had stolen someone’s sloop.
‘We won’t see him again,’ Anna agreed, sounding irritated, when inside she was collapsing with relief. Billy Whitlow had done what he’d said he would.
Two days. It felt like two years. At the end of the second long day she sat beside the Royal Marine, now pretending to run a fever, which kept Madame Durand further away from him. Another smear of chalk helped.
After tucking the children in bed, she returned to her vigil beside his cot. ‘David, I have no patience with time,’ she admitted. ‘Don’t laugh, but I keep wishing for some way to keep in touch with my husband.’
‘You’re a wishful thinker.’
‘I told you it was ridiculous. Still…’ she sighed ‘…I miss him. I worry.’
‘Talk to me,’ he said, and she did, telling him of the death of her brother after Trafalgar, how she had met her husband at his most desperate time, the scandal in Plymouth, and the kindness of Grace Fillion at the Drake.
She wasn’t about to tell him how much she loved her husband. He knew enough. ‘It’s your turn,’ she said after the clock struck midnight.
He told her he had been a sergeant in the Royal Marines, knocked down to private because he had married a girl from a Plymouth counting house.
‘She’s a grand lass, but I broke a rule.
Marines may not marry without permission, and it is seldom granted.
’ He sighed. ‘I should have been court-martialled and hanged, but your husband intervened. I am in his debt.’
She knew what to tell this man, sorrowing in front of her. ‘You’re repaying that debt now by keeping me from utter despair,’ she said frankly, barely able to choke out the words. ‘Where is your wife now?’
‘I do know Maggie returned to her father’s farm in Cornwall,’ he told her. ‘I may not write to her. It has been two years now. Dear God, so long.’
She took a mighty leap then, thinking of her husband, and gently put her hands over his eyes. ‘There now. Go to sleep, David,’ she said when she took away her hands, relieved to see that awful stare of war gone. ‘Sleep now,’ she said again, no command, but softly as she would to Allan or Pru.
‘Only if you promise to do the same,’ he said, then added, ‘Thank you, kind lady.’
She left the room after a firm touch on his shoulder. Upstairs, she lay down and slept.
The third day began as the others had.
She sat quietly beside David, who, during the night, had rubbed more chalk onto his face and neck. It so unnerved Madame Durand that she refused to enter the sitting room. ‘Mission accomplished,’ he whispered to Anna.
She looked up from the sonnet she was reading aloud to hear banging on the front door.
‘Friend or foe?’ she asked him, frightened.
‘Call the children over,’ the Marine ordered. ‘I’ll defend you all to the death.’
She did as he said, gathering them close, then gasped when Captain Tyler stormed into the sitting room, dragging Billy behind him. The Durands peered over his shoulder.
She said nothing when Dan Tyler shook the chain binding the foretopman, at least until Billy Whitlow, thief of a sloop and perhaps the bravest man she knew, smiled at her. She glanced at Captain Tyler, who did the same and put a finger to his lips.
‘Why did you bring this…this…rascal back to us, Captain Tyler?’ she demanded, speaking for the benefit of the Durands, who stared from the doorway.
‘I wanted you to know that this thief of someone’s sloop—we have returned it to the port master—harboured the delusion that I would be happy to see him. Oh, no! I clapped this Yankee Doodle vermin in irons and I am taking him to the Constitution .’
‘The what ?’ she asked, genuinely confused.
‘The Constitution ,’ he repeated. ‘It’s a bonny man-o’-war, now in Tripolitan waters and sailing to America soon.’ He gave the foretopman a good shake. ‘He’ll hang from the yardarm before we reach Gibraltar, if I have any say in the matter.’
His performance continued for the Durands as he addressed them.
‘I want you to know, madame and monsieur , that my Hartford is now anchored in the slot reserved for the Swallow , and we sail in the morning. That is all. Come along, you wretched man! You have a date with a cat-o’-nine-tails, one hundred strokes at least! ’
‘We deeply appreciate knowing this,’ Hector said.
‘Thank you,’ Dan Tyler replied. ‘I will return to my ship, after I speak with this Marine.’ He peered closer. ‘He doesn’t look so good, does he? Look at him!’
The Durands couldn’t leave fast enough. Captain Tyler released Billy and knelt beside David’s cot.
‘Billy told me everything and all is well. I imagine that rascal teacher, who can see my ship from St Matthew’s, will light two torches to inform La Guerre .
’ He motioned to Anna. ‘Mrs Beattie, John knows. The Swallow will anchor tonight in your private inlet, as you suggested, all lights extinguished.’
She closed her eyes in relief.
‘The Hartford sails tomorrow before dawn’s light.’ He turned to the Marine. ‘I trust you will be at St Matthew’s in time to prevent Hal Brown—or whatever his name is—from any signalling.’
‘Nothing will make me happier than to wring a spy’s neck,’ David assured him with some glee. ‘Both Hartford and Swallow will sail, with La Guerre none the wiser.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘I’d love to watch that battle.’
‘I wish you could. Private Bartleby, please assure me that you are actually healthier than you appear.’
‘Sound of wind and limb, Captain Tyler. You needn’t fear for Mrs Beattie and the children. I also have a good idea what I can do with the Durands right here.’
‘Captain Beattie thought you might. Farewell to you all. If this venture goes as planned, we’ll foul La Guerre ’s anchor once and for all.’
Captain Tyler kissed Anna’s cheek. ‘Captain Beattie told me to do that for him, but really I did it for me!’
He left, dragging Billy Whitlow after him, cursing and swearing, in case the Durands were nearby. Anna sank into the chair by David’s cot and pulled Pru and Allan close.
‘Not a word of this,’ she told them. ‘We know nothing.’
‘Not a thing,’ Allan agreed.
Anna saw his anxiety; she felt it, too, but now was not the time to show anything but courage.
‘I believe your father is close by.’
He hugged her. ‘Mama, what if he doesn’t return?’
‘He will return, son,’ she assured him, her heart full, the last barrier down.
He had finally called her mother. She was his mama and knew, in the deepest part of her being, she always would be Mama to Allan Beattie.
The strangeness of her life was sweetened and completed by that one word she’d never thought to hear from this child.
Allan Beattie was her son, no matter what happened in the battle coming tomorrow.
‘He will return, daughter,’ she said to Pru, anchoring her, too, this wise child, this brave girl.
She looked at Private David Bartleby, no words needed. He had business with the schoolmaster.