Elizabeth Mansfield (27 page)

“And now,” Georgina demanded, throwing off a blood-be-smirched apron and assisting Camilla to do the same, “will you please tell me what in the world is going
on
down there?”

“I wish I knew,” Camilla answered, the exaltation of assisting with the birth fading from her face. “All I can tell you is that Thomas is evidently not what he professed to be.”

“That much I surmised already. He’s a sailor, not a footman. But, Camilla, have you
married
him?”

“Married him?” For a moment, Camilla blinked at her friend’s confusion. “Oh,
that
. This new trouble has driven that from my mind.”

“You must have a very sponge-like mind to forget something like marriage to your footman!”

“I didn’t marry him, you goose. It was only a pretense, to convince Ethelyn that her matchmaking scheme was quite hopeless. Strange, it seemed so important, just a little while ago, for my stupid hoax to succeed. Now I don’t care a jot! All I can think of is … what I heard Captain Brock say. ‘Murdering deserter.’ My Thomas is a m-murdering deserter.”

“‘
My
Thomas’? Camilla! You’re not in
love
with the fellow, are you?”

Camilla’s eyes flew to her friend’s face. “Would you think it … very dreadful … if I were?”

“Not dreadful. But … a bit tragic, under the circumstances.” She peered at her friend closely. “You don’t, do you? Love him, that is?”

“Oh, Georgie, I don’t know! All I can say is that he’s been more of a husband to me in the last two days than Desmond was in eleven years.”

Georgina enveloped her in a tearful embrace. “Oh, my poor Camilla!” she murmured with deepest sympathy. “My poor, poor dear! Whatever shall we do now?”

***

They entered the drawing room to find the entire party waiting in glum silence. Hicks and Captain Brock were the only two on their feet, Hicks standing in his place beside the tea service and the captain leaning on the mantel of the fireplace and glowering into the flames. On the sofa, Miss Townley was determinedly occupying herself with some embroidery, while Lady Jeffries was huddled in the corner, fast asleep. Ethelyn, sitting stiffly erect in one of the pair of wing chairs, was reading a book of sermons. In the other chair, Lord Jeffries lolled back against the cushion, his legs stretched out before him and his eyes half-closed in contemplation. Oswald had perched his expansive girth uncomfortably upon an ottoman and was staring with a worried frown at Thomas, who stood motionless in the window
embrasure looking out into the blackness of the night.

On the entrance of the two ladies, everyone but Thomas and the sleeping Lady Jeffries looked up. “The baby—?” Miss Townley asked.

Camilla gave her a smile. “A lovely girl. All is well there. No, don’t get up, gentlemen. Let us not stand on points at this late hour.” She took a chair beside the tea table, while Georgina sat down beside Miss Townley. “I’m quite ready now, Captain Brock, to hear what you have to say.”

“There’s nothing much to say, ma’am. The authorities have been searching for that fellow for months. He is a deserter from my ship, and I intend to take him back with me to the
Undaunted
. After a shipboard court-martial, I shall administer whatever punishment I deem suitable.”

Both Lord Jeffries and Oswald voiced immediate objections, but it was Tom whose words rang loudest through the room. “Damnation, I’ll not go! Try me in a civil court or not at all! I’m no cursed bluejacket trapped in the King’s service. I’m a free Englishman and demand to be tried as such!”

“What nonsense is this?” Lord Jeffries asked. “If you’re a seaman of the Navy, I’ll see to it that you’re tried fairly in an Admiralty court—you have my word.”

“I am
not
a seaman of the Navy. I was the mate of the merchant ship
Triton
when they tried to impress me to serve on Captain Brock’s vessel.”

“Come now, Thomas,” Oswald said, trying sympathetically to caution the young man to guard his tongue, “you can’t expect us to believe that an experienced officer of Brock’s stature would try to impress the mate of a merchant vessel.”

“No, I can’t expect you to believe it, but it’s true nevertheless. The fact is that the press-gang didn’t know I was the mate. They thought I was just another poor devil of a seaman like Daniel. But when I was dragged aboard the
Undaunted
, I showed the captain my papers. He knew full well who I was!”

“Is this true, Brock?” Jeffries asked, scowling.

“The man’s lying,” Brock said coldly. “Let him show you the papers, if they exist at all.”

Tom laughed bitterly. “He knows they don’t exist. He burned them.”

“I can’t
believe
he’d do such a thing,” Jeffries said, troubled.

“You’d be well advised to believe it,” Tom said earnestly, “unless you want to face more mutinies like Spithead and Nore. What have you done, you at the Admiralty, in the six years since but shut your eyes and drag your feet! Whatever victories the Navy’s won have come about because a few commanders like Collingwood and Nelson know how to inspire men, and because the ordinary British sailor has a pride in his service and a love of country stronger than his self-interest. But don’t push your luck too far. Don’t shut your eyes to the abuses—and they are notorious to those of us who sail—of such men as Brock, for there is a limit even to your best sailors’ patience.”

Oswald stared at the younger man with wide eyes. “Good God, Jeffries,” he said after a long silence, “are matters as rotten as this? What’s the matter with you fellows at Whitehall? This impressment business is bad enough, but do our captains have to resort to destroying a merchantman’s identity to fill their rosters?”

“You are assuming, Falcombe,” Captain Brock said with icy sarcasm, “that your ‘brother-in-law, roughly speaking’ is telling the truth. I say I never saw any papers. Will you believe him or me?”

“I’ll be blunt, Brock,” Jeffries said. “I’m inclined to believe
him
. In your initial account, you said he was one of your sailors, brought before you for an infraction. You told us nothing of impressment. Sounds to me as if you were not giving an honest account from the first.”

Brock made a dismissive, nonchalant wave of his hand. “You can’t expect me to remember the minor details of one interview with an ordinary seaman. The only reason I remembered the fellow at all was that he struck me with the lantern.”

“That may be, but Petersham seems to recall everything very well. I see no reason to doubt him.”

“No? Well, I’ll give you one: his name. I can’t recall it right now, but I’d wager it wasn’t Petersham. It was something like Collinge … or Collford …”

“Collinson,” Tom supplied.

“
Collinson
?” Ethelyn gasped. “Do you mean to say that you’re not a Petersham of Sussex at all?”

Tom threw Camilla a look of despair. “No, Lady Ethelyn, I’m not.”

“I might have known!” Ethelyn fixed a disdainful eye on her sister-in-law. “It’s just like you, Camilla, to be taken in. I warned you, but you took no heed. Now you find yourself married to a common criminal with, I’m certain, no family connections and no future. Serves you quite right, too!”

“See here, ma’am—!” Tom rounded on her angrily.

“No, Thomas, let me,” Camilla said with calm astringency, rising and placing herself squarely before Ethelyn’s chair. “Ethelyn, I’ve tried for years to maintain cordial relations with you, but tonight you’ve pushed me too far! I’ve been a coward long enough. Never again will I permit you to disparage me, insult me and manage me. The truth, my dear, is that I’ve know all along what Thomas’s true name is. The name Petersham is
my
invention, not his. Thomas’s only crime in this affair was to be kind enough to act the role of my husband for the length of your stay in his house.”

“Do you mean,” Ethelyn squeaked, aghast, “that you’re
not married
?”

“Wha—? Who’s no’ married?” queried Lady Jeffries, waking with a start.

“No one. It’s nothing, dear,” Jeffries said, patting her hand. “Go back to sleep.”

“Yes, Ethelyn,” Camilla said, “that’s what I mean. I’m not married at all.”

Ethelyn fell back against the cushions, one hand clasped to her breast and the other to her forehead. “Oh, my heavens! This is worse than
anything
! The deceit! The
depravity
! You should be down on your
knees
asking the Good Lord’s forgiveness for such sinfulness.”

“Lady Ethelyn,” Tom said furiously, “I can’t remain silent when I hear such nonsense. There was no sinfulness and no depravity! Your sister-in-law’s character is above reproach, and I won’t stand here and listen to you villify her!”

“Hear, hear!” Lady Sturtevant cheered.

“I don’t need lectures on morality from a common deserter,” Ethelyn responded, drawing herself up in austere dignity. “You would be the
last
person to whom I’d listen when it comes to evaluating my sister-in-law’s character.”

“Ethelyn, be still!” her husband barked. So unaccustomed was he to use that tone of voice that not only Camilla, Miss Townley and Hicks looked up in astonishment but he himself seemed surprised.

“What was that?” Ethelyn asked him in disbelief.

“I said be still!” He rose from the ottoman with lumbering majesty. “What right have you to evaluate Camilla’s character? Besides, we’ve been acquainted with her long enough to know, without Thomas having to tell us, what sort of person she is. It begins to be apparent to anyone with half an eye that much of this is
your own fault
! If you weren’t so deucedly tyrannical, Camilla wouldn’t have had to resort to subterfuge, we’d never have come to London at all, and Thomas wouldn’t have found himself at a dinner table facing Captain Brock. You’ve done enough damage for one night. Either sit here in silence or go up to your room. I’d like to try to see what I can do to
assist
this fellow, and it will be difficult enough without having the proceedings interrupted by your diatribes.”

“Oh, Oswald!” Camilla cried tearfully, throwing her arms about his neck. “I never
dreamed
you could be so … so courageous.”

“There, there, my dear,” he said, patting her shoulder awkwardly. “No need to indulge in waterworks. I wasn’t always a henpecked old pudding, you know.”

“This is all very touching,” Brock said drily, “but the hour grows late. Either let me take this make-bait back to the ship or throw him in irons into Fleet prison.”

“Don’t see why we should do either,” Oswald said, leading Camilla back to her chair. “It seems to me a matter that can be settled amicably right here. The way I see it, Thomas was caught in an impressment trap, and when you found you’d caught the wrong fish, you decided not to let him go. Burned his papers. A very embarrassing peccadillo for you to have to explain, if it should come out. True, he scarred your forehead—an equally embarrassing peccadillo for
him
to have to explain. If he forgets
his
grievance, can’t you forget yours?”

“Oh, hear, hear!” Lady Sturtevant cried, applauding.

Everyone in the room gazed at him admiringly. No one had imagined that the huge, clumsy Lord Falcombe could conceive so cleverly diplomatic a scheme. Even Lord Jeffries was impressed. And Camilla let herself breathe deeply again in relief.

But Captain Brock came forward, his lips curved in an icy smile. “No, my lord,” he said, crossing the room toward Thomas, “matters of this sort rarely can be settled so neatly. In the first place, I have never admitted that I’d burned any papers. In the second place, I do not consider this scar to be the result of a mere peccadillo. And lastly …” He put his hand on Thomas’s shoulder and closed his fingers on it like a vise. “… lastly, you are quite forgetting about your man’s most heinous crime of all.”

“Oh?” Oswald asked, one eyebrow climbing up. “And what was that?”

“Murder, my lord. Nothing less than murder.”

Pippa wandered about the house next morning, too ill-at-ease to settle down. She’d visited Betsy and seen the new baby, but Daniel was strangely subdued, as if something worrisome was on his mind and not permitting him to enjoy the birth of his first child with the proper enthusiasm. Aunt Ethelyn was locked in her room and had responded to her niece’s knock with a curt command that she was to be left alone. Hicks, looking pale and heavy-eyed, had told her that her Uncle Oswald had left the house early this morning on a mysterious errand. Miss Townley and her mother had not yet made an appearance. And Thomas was nowhere to be found.

Pippa was far from being a fool; it was clear to her that something dreadful had happened at her mother’s dinner party. Aunt Ethelyn had probably discovered the ruse, but Pippa could not believe that the mere unmasking of Thomas could so depress everyone in the house. It had been nothing but a little game. Even Aunt Ethelyn could be made to see the humor of it. Should she try again to talk to her aunt? Perhaps she could brighten up the situation.

But before she could put the thought into action, her mother emerged from her bedroom. One look at Camilla’s red-rimmed eyes and wan cheeks and Pippa knew that matters were in a more serious state than she’d imagined. Without a word, she slipped her hand into her mother’s and walked with her down to the breakfast room. She waited until her mother had drunk half a cup of tea before she spoke. “You promised me last night that you would tell me all. So Mama, please—?”

Her mother put down the cup with a shaking hand. “Oh, Pippa, don’t ask me!”

“I
must
. I know something terrible’s happened. Do you want me to go about imagining all sorts of horrible falsehoods? Wouldn’t it be better if I knew the truth?”

Camilla propped her elbows on the table and lowered her head to her hands. “Pippa, love, not now. I just can’t.”

“Then just tell me where Thomas is. He’ll explain things to me. He always gives lovely, direct answers to my questions.”

“But that’s the problem, dearest. Thomas is … not here any more.”

“Not here? What do you mean? Where is he?”

“Well, you see, he’s not really a footman at all.”