Second to None (8 page)

The two auctioneers were leaving, heaving themselves into their saddles, well filled with rabbit pie and the vegetables she grew behind the inn. They waved to her, and cantered away.

She was small, pretty and neat, but customers did not take liberties with her. Not more than once.

She smiled. Anyway, she was a foreigner, from over the border in Devon, the fishing port of Brixham where she had been born and had lived until her man had been reported killed.
Discharged dead
, the navy termed it.

She pushed some hair from her eyes and looked at the hillside, which was alive with young lambs either grazing or frolicking in the pale sunshine. Foreigner maybe, but she would be in no other place.

Bryan Ferguson had warned her, or had tried to; her brother had also done his best. It would be difficult, most of all for John Allday. She thought of that last visit, when Bryan had brought the news that Sir Richard Bolitho was ordered to sea again. Even Unis had been angry; he had been back in England no time at all. The house below Pendennis was empty now, except for the Fergusons and the servants.

She recalled the young Captain Bolitho at the church. So erect, brave in his dress uniform, with the old sword at his hip which had been pointed out to her. All that was left of the man they were remembering.

And Lady Catherine. She had come here to the inn whenever she had wanted a friend, and Unis ventured to call herself that, when Sir Richard was away at sea. She had been in the parlour that night Squire Roxby had died, and had gone from here to comfort his widow. A family, but it was more than that. In the room where John had finally found himself able to tell her about his son John Bankart, who had died in battle, how he had carried him himself, and had put him over the side for his burial.

She glanced at the narrow stairway. And together they had had Kate. That would be different this time, too. She nodded firmly.
From now on.
She had seen the hurt on the strong, weathered features when he had returned from sea, and his own child had run from him to Unis's brother.

Little Kate was upstairs now in the beautiful cot John had made for her. Like the toys, and the perfect ship models; his big, clumsy-looking hands could perform miracles.

Her brother had said, ‘When I got back from the war, a pin missing and all, I was grateful. I was thankful to be spared, crippled or not. When things were bad I remembered, or tried to, all those lines of men. Friends I'd known, lying out in
the field, bleeding to death, calling out with nobody to hear. Waiting to die, quickly, to be spared the crows and the scum who rob the likes of poor soldiers after a battle. What I hated most was pity, well meant or otherwise. All I had left was my pride.' He had looked at the old tattoo on his arm and had managed to smile. ‘Even in the old bloody regiment!'

Unis knew what John's standing as the admiral's coxswain had meant to him. How he had belonged. That was what he had said, right here, just before he had left. Not merely the personal coxswain of England's most famous sailor, but his friend. And he had been there. Bryan Ferguson had told them about it after Adam Bolitho's return, and he had heard it from the admiral at Plymouth. John had been at Richard Bolitho's side when he had been shot down.

Horses' hooves and the rattle of wheels startled her from her thoughts, but the sounds went on, and were lost around the curve of the road.

She stared at the hand pressed under her heart. Was it fear? John was safe. He would never go back to sea. She knew he and Bryan Ferguson had discussed it, talked about the point at which a man was reckoned too old to fight for King and country. It was like a red rag to a bull for John Allday.

She thought of his letters; how she had waited for them, yearned for them. And had often wondered about the officer who had written them on John's behalf. George Avery was a good man, and had stayed at the Old Hyperion. She had often thought of him reading her letters aloud to John, a little like having letters from home for himself, although John had told her he never received any.

How long would it take? What would he do? He had often said he would never become just another old Jack, yarning and ‘swinging the lamp'.

But it would be hard, perhaps for all of them. Bryan Ferguson had told her that he and her John had been pressed together here in Cornwall, and taken to a King's ship in Falmouth. Bolitho's ship. What had grown from that unlikely meeting was stronger than any rock.

Here on the edge of the little village of Fallowfield, it was not like Brixham or Falmouth. Farm workers and passing tradesmen were more common than men of the sea. But there
would still be talk. Everyone knew the Bolitho family. And Catherine was in London, they said. There would be more ceremonies there; how could she endure it? There was gossip enough in any town or village. How much worse it must be in the city.

She heard her brother descending the stairs, the regular thump of his wooden leg. His spar, John Allday called it.

‘Little Kate's fast asleep.' He limped towards her. ‘Still thinking on it, Unis love? We'll make it right for him, see?'

‘Thank you for that, John. I don't know what I'd have done –' She looked into his face and froze, unable to move. She whispered, ‘Oh, dear God, make my man happy again!'

The sound of Bryan Ferguson's pony and trap seemed louder than it had ever been.

She tugged at her skirt and pushed some hair from her face again.

‘I can't! I can't!'

Nobody moved, nobody spoke. He was suddenly just there, filling the entrance, his hat in one hand, his hair shaggy against the sunlight.

She tried to speak, but instead he held out his arms, as though unable to come forward. Her brother remembered it for a long time afterwards. John Allday, who had rescued and won his only sister, was in the room, as if he had never been away.

He was wearing the fine blue coat with the gilt buttons bearing the Bolitho crest, which had been made especially for him, and nankeen breeches and buckled shoes. The landsman's ideal of the English sailor, the Heart of Oak. So easily said by those who had not shared the horrors of close action at sea or on land.

John Allday held her close against him, but gently, as he would a child or some small animal, and touched her hair, her ears, her cheek, afraid he might hurt her in some way, unable to let go of her.

He thought he heard a door close, very quietly. They were alone. Even his best friend Bryan was silent, out there with his fat little pony named Poppy.

‘You're a picture, Unis.' He tilted her chin with the same care. ‘I've thought about this moment for a long time.'

She asked, ‘The officer, Mister Avery?'

Allday shook his head. ‘Stayed with the ship. Thought he was needed.' He held her away from him, his big hands cupping her shoulders, his eyes moving over her, as if he was only now realising what had happened.

She stood quite still, feeling the strength, the warmth of his hard hands. So strong and yet so unsure, so wistful.

‘You're here. That's all I care about. I've missed you so much, even when I tried to be with you over the miles . . .' She broke off. She was not reaching him even now.

Suddenly he took her hand in his, and led her like a young girl to the nook where his model, his first gift to her, was carefully mounted.

‘I was there, y' see. All the while. Comin' home, we was. We'd got the orders. I never seen such a change in the man.' He looked at her with something like anguish. ‘Comin' home. What we both wanted.'

They sat down on a scrubbed wooden bench, side by side, like strangers. But he held her hand, and spoke so quietly that she had to put her head against his arm to hear him.

‘He often asked about you an' little Kate.' The sound of the child's name seemed to unsteady him. ‘Is she safe? An' well?'

She nodded, afraid of breaking the spell. ‘You'll see.'

He smiled, something faraway. Perhaps another memory.

He said, ‘He knew, y' see. When we went up on deck. He knew. I felt it.'

She heard her brother by the door, and thought she saw Bryan Ferguson's shadow motionless in a shaft of light. Sharing it. As they had every right.

She found she was gripping his hand more tightly, and said, ‘I want you as my man again, John Allday. I'll give you the love you need. I'll help you!'

But when he turned his face to hers there was no pain, no despair.

He said, ‘I was with him to the end, love. Just like we always was, from the first broadside at the Saintes.'

He seemed to realise that they were no longer alone. ‘I held him.' He nodded slowly. Seeing it. Confronting it. ‘He said,
easy, old friend.
Just to me, like he always did.
No grief. We always knew.
' He looked at her and smiled, perhaps truly
aware of her for the first time. ‘Then he died, an' I was still holdin' him.'

She stood up and put her arms around him, sharing his loss, feeling such love for this one man.

She murmured, ‘Let it go, John. Later we shall lie together. It's all that matters now.'

Allday held her for several minutes.

Then he said, ‘Get the others, eh?'

She shook him gently, embracing him, her heart too full for words.

A life was gone. Hers was complete.

Brush . . . brush . . . brush . . .

Catherine, Lady Somervell, sat facing the tilted oval mirror, her hand rising and falling without conscious thought, her long hair spilling over one shoulder. In the candlelight it looked almost black, like silk, but she did not notice.

The hour was late and beyond the windows the evening had darkened, the Thames revealed only by the light of an occasional lantern, a wherryman, or some sailor on his way to one of the riverside taverns.

But here in the Walk, there were very few people, and the air was heavy, as if with storm. She saw the candles beside the mirror shiver and stared at the reflection of the bed behind her. There were far too many candles in the room; they were probably the cause of the stuffiness. But there were always too many, had been since that night of raw terror.
In this room. On that bed
. She had overcome it. But it had never left her.

She continued to brush her hair, pausing only at the sound of a fast-moving carriage. But it did not slow or stop.

She thought of the housekeeper, Mrs Tate, who was somewhere downstairs. Even she had changed her way of life since that night, when she had been visiting her sister in Shoreditch as had been her habit. Now she never left the house unattended, and watched over her with a tenderness Catherine had never suspected. And she had never once mentioned it. Her own thoughts had been too full, too chaotic in those first weeks after the attack. Even then it had been like witnessing the horrific violation of someone else, not herself. A stranger.

Except on nights like these. Warm, even clammy, the thin
gown clinging to her body like another skin, despite the bath she had taken before coming upstairs.

She hesitated, and then pulled open a drawer deliberately and took out the fan. Richard had given it to her after his ship had called at Madeira. So long ago.

She looked at the diamond pendant which hung low on her breast. It, too, was shaped like a fan. So that she would not forget, he had said. The pendant the intruder had turned over in his fingers while she had been helpless, her wrists pinioned behind her. She looked involuntarily at the nearest window. He had used the cord. He had struck her, so that she had almost lost her senses, when she had called him a thief. Outraged, like a madman. And then he had begun to torment her, to strip her there, on that bed.

She touched her breast and felt her heart beating against her hand. But not like then, or all those other times, when the memory had returned.

And afterwards . . . The word seemed quite separate from her other thoughts. Sillitoe and his men had burst into the room, and he had held her, protected her while her attacker had been dragged away. It had been like a sudden calm after a terrible storm.

She thought of Malta, her brief visit in an Indiaman, which had been on government business and bound for Naples. Sillitoe had arranged for her to be landed at Malta, even though she knew he would once have done anything to keep her from Richard, and he had made no attempt to gain any advantage either on the passage out or on the journey back to England. If anything, he had been withdrawn, perhaps at last understanding what it had cost her to leave the man she loved behind in Malta.

Forever.

She had seen him only twice since Richard's death. He had offered his condolences, and assured her of his readiness to help in any way he could. As with the lawyer, Lafargue, he had understood immediately her concern for Adam. He had been correct in every way, and had made it his business to begin enquiries of his own.

Catherine thought she understood men, had learned much out of necessity.

But after Richard, how could she survive? Where would be the point?

She recalled the exact moment when they had been reunited, at English Harbour over ten years ago. She had been married to Somervell, the King's Inspector-General.

Dazed and yet on guard because of the unexpectedness of the meeting, and the danger she had known it would offer. Telling him he needed love,
as the desert craves for rain
.

Or was I speaking of myself? My own desires?

And now he is dead.

And tomorrow, another challenge. All those staring eyes. Not those of the men who had stood with him and had faced death a hundred times, or the women who had loved and welcomed them when they had returned home. Without limbs. Without sight. Without hope.

No. They would be the faces and the eyes she had seen that evening at the celebration of Wellington's victory. Rhodes, who had been championed as the new First Lord of the Admiralty. Richard's wife, bowing to applause she would never earn or deserve. And the unsmiling wife of Graham Bethune. Unsmiling until the moment of insult, as if she had been a part of it. All enemies.