Come Looking For Me (19 page)

But it was Biscuit who was more effective in scattering the sailors. He raised his wooden porridge spoon menacingly before them and growled, “Hold yer tongues, ya lubbers, and be mindin' yer manners.”

Magpie jumped up from his own bucket, his bandaged head held high, and like a little gentleman took Emily's arm and calmly steered her away from the men's lusty looks, past the marine sentry, and back into the hospital. When they arrived at her corner, he let go of her arm and asked, “What's wrong, ma'am?”

“Oh, Magpie,” she gasped, ashen-faced, “your miniature … it's in the pocket of my other trousers, and … and Mrs. Kettle took them early this morning to be laundered!”

“I've got somethin' int'restin' ta show ya,” said Mrs. Kettle, enjoying the spectacle of Octavius's pain.

“Infernal woman, leave me be!”

“Ooooh, but this ya'll be wantin' ta see.”

Octavius screwed his head around to face her, rubbing his neck as he did so. “What the devil would
you
have that would interest me?”

“Mind yer tone or I won't be showin' ya.” She produced a shiny something from her apron pocket and waved it before him.

Octavius ignored her. “Vile laundry woman! Leave me be.”

In one fluid motion – far more fluid than one would think her capable of – Mrs. Kettle leapt off the bench, lifted her skirt, and dealt his crooked spine a savage blow with her booted foot. Octavius gasped for air, as if the woman had held his head underwater a long time. Howls of agony followed.

“Guard, guard, take her away. Take her away!” His voice was shrill and strained like that of a fearful child. “Why doesn't anyone come?”

Mrs. Kettle shoved her face, red and wet with exertion, into his pimply one. “'Cause no one cares fer yer worthlessness any more.”

Mrs. Kettle looked pleased with herself as she watched Octavius desperately wrestle with his irons, vainly attempting to free his legs. When finally he gave up his fight and had, for the time, buried his rancour, she slapped her knee and said, “Right, now! Set yer eyes on this here.” She placed Magpie's oval miniature into his quivering hands and held the lantern up over his head. “Behold that smilin' face. Now, quick, flip it round.”

Octavius wiped at his eyes with dirty fingers and stared at the miniature for some time, turning it over again and again to scrutinize the face and the inscription.

“It's her, ain't it?”

“Who?”

“That
woman
what lies in thee doctor's cot.”

“The daughter of Henry, Duke of Wessex, one of King George's many sons? And … and therefore a niece of the prince regent and the Duke of Clarence?” Octavius snorted like a horse. “Impossible!”

“It's her all right and she's some kind o' princess.”

Octavius gave his tormentor an impatient look. “I'll admit to a resemblance, nothing more. I happen to know that portrait painters are never very accurate in their representation of their subject.”

“Aye, I suppose yer mother would be havin' a portrait of ya without yer red spots and limp hair.”

He disregarded the slight. “I possess a miniature of my
mother
and the artist has succeeded brilliantly in making her look like Boticelli's Venus, when in truth she bears a striking resemblance to a trollop!”

Mrs. Kettle grunted and pointed to the clothing worn by the woman in the miniature. “That woman came on board wearin' thee same blue shirt.”

Octavius peered down at the picture again. “It's
called
a spencer-jacket, not a shirt. Fashionable ladies have been wearing them for some time now.”

“Oh, we keep up with ladies' fashions, do we now? Harumph! Well, I may not know thee fancy name fer it, but I knows what I see and thee braidin' and design on that jacket's thee same as what that woman were wearin' thee day she set foot on thee
Isabelle.”

Octavius shook his head. “It still doesn't prove that Emily and the daughter of the late Duke of Wessex are one and the same person.”

Mrs. Kettle snatched the miniature out of his hands and laid down her trump card. “Aye, then how do ya explain me findin' it in thee pocket of 'er trousers?”

Octavius's mouth opened, his lips framing a silent “O.” He drifted into a daze while Mrs. Kettle stood over him, stroking the miniature as if it were a precious, sentimental object. “Ya never know who might be int'rested in seein' this,” she said, tempting the wheels in his head to turn. She popped the miniature into her apron pocket, gave it a wee pat, and left Octavius in the dark to consider the possibilities.

In the blue shadows of the animals' stable, Magpie swiftly and soundlessly sank out of sight just as Mrs. Kettle's long swishing skirts swept past him, fanning his face. With Biscuit's milking goat complacently licking his ear, and his heart thumping madly, he listened to her heavy footsteps gradually fade away down the gun deck. In despair, he realized he had come too late in search of the miniature. Mrs. Kettle had already found it, and she was scheming to do something with it – exactly what, Magpie didn't know, but he knew he had to warn Emily and fast. Spying a perfectly rounded lump of dung sitting in a nest of straw by the goat's hind legs, Magpie picked the whole works up and lobbed it like a grenade at the back of Octavius Lindsay's head.

“Stay where you are,” said Leander firmly, trying to take James's pulse. “Fly has commanded many ships in his time.”

“Hand me my clothes, Lee.”

“Your fever has returned and your pulse is weak. Please … stay where you are.”

James paid him no heed. He stumbled out of his cot and staggered over to his clothing hook where, with trembling hands, he reached for his white breeches and his blue frock coat adorned with shoulder epaulettes and brass-buttoned cuffs.

“I cannot agree to you leaving your bed in your state.”

James mopped his brow. “I've been too long in my bed, Lee. And I am well aware that I may never regain my strength.”

“Have you no faith in the abilities of Fly and Mr. Harding?”

“That is not the point!” he replied, with an edge in his voice; then, more gently, he added, “My men need to see me. If we are to face another battle, it will put their minds at ease to have me walk with them above deck.”

“That is all well and noble,” said Leander, pulling off his spectacles, “but I believe your men would find greater comfort in knowing your health was being restored with rest. As your doctor, I simply cannot approve of you – ”

“I will not fight Trevelyan in my bedclothes!” James glared at the doctor for a while until his anger dissipated, then, wearing a look of remorse, he carried his clothes meekly to his desk chair, where he sat down to catch his breath. Slowly he pulled on his breeches, then his Hessian boots, which stood upright on the floor beside him, and finally, his uniform coat.

Leander tucked his spectacles into his waistcoat pocket. “What evidence do we have that it is Trevelyan's ship that approaches?”

James fumbled with his coat buttons, but finding the task exhausting, he shifted his body round to look out through the galleried windows upon the billowing misty-white sea, and fell into a dream-like state. There was something in his aspect that led Leander to wonder if James's thoughts had travelled home to England. He watched him closely for some time.

“James, why is it the name Trevelyan strikes such fear in you? Granted, two weeks back, his guns inflicted a fearful lot of damage on us, but surely no more than we inflicted upon him.”

Beads of sweat ran down James's sunken cheeks, and his eyes never left the sea. “He has an old score to settle with me and has waited a very long time for his revenge. I feared he would resurface again one day; I just never imagined I'd meet him in the Atlantic and find him commanding, of all things, an American ship called the
Serendipity.”

Leander hoped to hear more, but when James revealed nothing further, he set about collecting his medical chest and made his way to the cabin door. “I will go and question Mr. McGilp for you – see what news there is.” Throwing open the door, he found McGilp already standing there, his fist at his forehead in a salute to his captain.

“Mr. McGilp!” cried James, rising to his feet. “Can you tell me? Is she British or Yankee?”

“She's coming from the nor'east, sir. Still hard to tell with the mists and all.”

“Bearing down on us?”

“No, at ease and a piece off yet, sir.”

“The very minute –
the very minute
– you can identify her colours, let me know.”

“Right, sir.”

Mr. McGilp hurried off just as the sailing master, Mr. Harding, appeared at the door, red-faced and breathless. “Your instructions, sir?” he rasped.

“Tell Mr. Austen to raise the anchors and unfurl the sails. We must try to harness what wind we can and get to deeper water as soon as possible. Are our repairs nearly complete?”

“Another day or two would have been preferred, sir, but I think we are sound enough to fight … if need be.”

“And time … how much time would you say we have, Mr. Harding?”

“A good two hours, I'd say, sir – that's if we were to stay put.”

After James had shut the door on the sailing master's retreating steps, Leander led him back to his desk chair. Within minutes they could hear the familiar whirl of activity above deck – the call for the hands to weigh anchor and the sound of a fifer piping them to their posts to the tune of “Heart of Oak.” Two hundred men alone were needed to raise the thick cables of the main anchor. Eighty-four men, mostly marines, were necessary to operate the twelve bars of the capstan on the fo'c'sle, and several dozen more would be stationed on the gun deck and orlop to handle and stow the incoming, fishy-smelling cable.

“While we wait it out, I must stay occupied,” said James, fumbling again with his coat buttons.

“You've eaten nothing today. Could I convince you to take some food?”

“Perhaps a bowl of soup,” James said. “I will swallow a bit of nourishment for you, Lee, if you would escort Emily here to my cabin.”

“Emily?”

“I would like to question her again.” Noticing a mixed expression of interest and alarm on Leander's face, he added, “You may stay for the interview.”

“I should like that.”

“Shall we say … in half an hour?” When Leander nodded his agreement, James sighed. “Right then! Now help me fasten these damned buttons.”

Prior to their reading, Magpie had recounted in worried whispers the scene he had witnessed on the gun deck, and with this intelligence knocking around in her head, Emily sat nervously, one ear to the story, the other listening for the return of Mrs. Kettle with her laundry.

Before long, Leander crept into their corner and, with a nod of his head and an incline of his auburn eyebrows, sought permission to listen in. “I have a bit of time to spare before … before I tend to my next task,” he said, as if apologizing for his sudden appearance.

“Oh, please join us, Doctor,” Emily said, feeling at once safer with him on the wooden stool beside her.

Gus had barely managed to read a page when Magpie's hand flew up in the air yet again as if he were a schoolboy sitting at his classroom desk and Gus his schoolmaster. “Excuse me, Mr. Walby, but I need to know why Miss Marianne got so sick.”

“Magpie, you must stop asking so many questions or we'll never get through this chapter,” admonished Gus. “We don't have long, you know.”

“It's fine to ask questions, Magpie,” Emily said, smiling at his literary enthusiasm.

“All right then,” Gus recanted, disliking the thought of displeasing Emily. “While Miss Marianne was staying at the Palmers' home, she took to rambling around their damp grounds, and got her shoes and stockings all wet. The result was she caught a chill and came down with an infectious fever.”