Hoare and the Portsmouth Atrocities (24 page)

Chapter XIV

I
RISH PENNANTS
—the occasional tag ends of line left by careless crewmen to drag along over a vessel's side—had always spelled slipshod seamanship to Hoare, and, like his fellow officers, he had suppressed them wherever found, as if they were so many signs of sodomy. Now, however, he thanked fortune that Moreau, at least, cared nothing for them. From a cleat below
Marie Claire
's toy stern gallery a good three fathoms of half-inch line trailed sinuous in her wake. One of Hoare's flailing hands found its bitter end. It might have been the painter of a poorly minded skiff, for it was frayed and not whipped. Whatever else it may have been, it was a blessing.

Hoare kicked off his shoes. As silently as he could, he hauled himself up the line in the dark, hand over hand. As silently as he could, he hoisted himself far enough out of the water to shift his grip to the rail of the stern gallery. The carven structure was a mere flourish which Moreau must have installed to make his little schooner seem bigger. It was rugged enough to carry part of Hoare's weight, but when he tried to hoist himself as silently as he could out of the water, it creaked softly, alarmingly, out of the vessel's own rhythm.

His gently searching feet struck against something vertical beside them. It was
Marie Claire
's rudder, its gudgeons groaning gently in the pintles as the helmsman adjusted her course. There Hoare squatted, secure, but seized by occasional chills, and waited in the night to discover what fate might bring his way.

Above him, he could hear French being spoken. The voices came and went.

“I must … London as soon … close down … You must go … Jaggery in Ports … Dispose…” This voice was Moreau's.

“… in London, sir?… Louis-…?”

This was one of Moreau's men. To Hoare's straining ears it had sounded as though the Frenchman was naming someone, presumably Moreau's man—or master?—in London. “Louis.” How agonizing not to have caught the rest of the name.

“Never mind who. Tend to your own business. Get forward, you lubber, and trim the fore-staysail.…” Moreau's words came loud and clear. Yes, the other had, indeed, been naming someone. Damn.

Silence fell on deck. Hoare resigned himself to clinging where he was while his destiny worked itself out.
Marie Claire
ghosted on toward Weymouth. He clung, schemed, dozed.

*   *   *

“H
ERE
.” A
FTER THE
long silence, Moreau's sharp command struck hard on Hoare's ears. “No, we won't anchor. I must get ashore, and since you, you cretin, let our skiff go adrift, you must put me onto the quay. There, beside that interfering revenue cutter. Then take her out again. I'll send two or three men out in a skiff.

“Stand off and on offshore of the Bill until I signal you. It may be three or four days. If you don't see my signal by Wednesday, make for Douarnenez and report to Rossignol.

“Now, repeat my orders.”

Mumble.

“Very good. Now come up, Bessac! D'you want to put our bowsprit through the cutter?”

The rudder swung over to port. Hoare took advantage of the
Marie Claire
's concentration on setting Moreau ashore to part company. He slid silently back into the water and swam to the strand as quietly as he could, to cast himself on the mercy of Eleanor Graves. The east was red.

*   *   *

“W
ELL
, M
R
. H
OARE
, what next?”

Eleanor Graves had heard enough of Hoare's whispered story. The manservant Tom had at last assured himself that the coatless, unshod, bedraggled figure that had roused him out of his bed and to her doorstep was, indeed, Mr. Hoare. Tom had awakened his mistress and sent the maid Agnes off to help Cook prepare an early breakfast. Now he sat, a mute Jack Horner, in a corner of the drawing room lit by the early morning sun, on guard.

Eleanor Graves was seated on her tuffet. From beneath a sensible, sexless flannel nightgown ten small straight sallow toes peeped out. They made Hoare think of so many inquisitive hatchlings. He felt impelled to comfort them but answered the lady instead.

“It would be futile,” he said, “to try persuading Sir Thomas to lend me men to hunt Moreau down.”

Eleanor Graves snorted. “Rather,
he
would hunt
you
down, pop you into one of his dungeons, and torture you to death. Mr. Morrow—Moreau, I suppose I should call him now—will have spun him an enticing yarn about you by now. And Sir Thomas is sure to have been inveigled. He has taken you into a strong aversion, you know. Any
posse comitatus
he calls up will be on your trail, not Moreau's. And so?”

Hoare had no handy plan to offer up in reply. He excused himself to himself by reflecting that he had, after all, been awake all night, either towing behind
Marie Claire
like so much shark bait or hanging from her counter like a six-foot simian. And he was, after all, forty-three years old.

“Think a bit, Mr. Hoare, while I remove my improper person from your sight and make myself as ladylike as I can. Agnes will bring you a breakfast in a moment.”

Eleanor Graves rose from her tuffet and went upstairs. She took her toes with her. Hoare was left alone with Tom.

“You could 'scape by hidin' in the mistress's shay,” Tom said.

Hoare started out of a doze. “I don't drive. Can you?”

“Not me, Yer Honor. I were no plowboy afore I went into service wi' Doctor, and no ostler. I were a sweep's boy. Doctor saved me balls, 'e did.”

Hoare understood. He had learned during one of his snooping ventures that the tarry dust from the flues, up which their masters sent them, coated the orphan lads' immature scrota, generally remaining there, eating away, for months or more between baths. The children generally succumbed to cancerous ulcers before puberty, dying as little eunuchs.

The silence that ensued was broken when the maid Agnes entered with steaming porridge and a plate of crisp bacon for Hoare's breakfast. She set the tray down on her mistress's tuffet.

“There be a man at kitchen doooor,” she announced. “Sailor man like. 'E be askin' for Mr. 'Oare.” Maidenly, she blushed as she spoke the dirty word. “'Is name be Stone, 'e sez.”

Stone?

“Will you go and inspect him, Tom?” Hoare whispered. “Ask him what Bold looks like. Then come back and tell me what he says.”

Tom nodded, preceded Agnes from the room. Too late, Hoare saw what he had just done. Whoever the man at the door was, he would know now that Hoare was within. Damn his sleepy mind.

“'E says Bold be black.” In the doorway, Tom looked puzzled.

“Bring him in then, if you please, Tom. He's on my side, and the mistress's.”

Stone's face lit up when he saw his officer. He knuckled his forehead. The officer in question was quite sure that his own face lit up as well.

“What fair wind blows you here, Stone?” he asked.

“Me an' Bold, zur, when we sees you left aboard thicky schooner, we sez to each other, we sez, ‘Mr. 'Oare'll be off to Weymouth with 'er, and 'e'll be in shoal waters an' on a lee shore.' So we stops up the sweep-ports what you an' I jes' finished a-carvin' in yer yachtet, an' gets 'er under way again. We didn't want to go a-drivin' into Weymouth 'arbor like we owned the place, not wi' thicky schooner already in port, so we sets a course for Ringstead Bay instead.

“Me bein' a native of these 'ere parts,” he added.

“Why, you'd be Jonathan Stone's boy Jacob!” Agnes exclaimed. “I be Agnes Dillow. Remember me? Yer ma and mine was gossip!”

“Why, so ye be, miss.” Stone knuckled his forehead again. Agnes simpered.

“What then?” Hoare asked. This was no time for courtship on the part of either Hoare's man or Hoare himself.

“Well, zur, we 'auls 'er up on Ringstead shingle, safe as can be, an' then we argies summat about 'oo were to come into Weymouth. I sez I should be the one as coom in, but 'e wants to coom tu, 'e does. But when I tells 'im a black man 'ud stand out in Weymouth town like a negg in a coal'ole, 'e agrees to stand watch by yer yatchet for a day. Then, if nor you nor me shows oop, 'e'll 'aul 'er off, make for Portsmouth, an' make a report to the Admiral. So 'ere I be, zur. I 'opes we done right.”

“You have indeed, Stone. God bless you. Tell me, can you drive a carriage by any chance?”

“None better, zur. An' thread a four-in-hand through a needle, fine as any Corinthian up in London.”

By the time Eleanor Graves returned below, the three men—Hoare, Stone, and Tom—had devised a plan for the first two to elude Sir Thomas's men, whom Stone had reported were already buzzing about Weymouth like so many bees. No one, it seemed, had been ready to believe that Hoare had obligingly drowned. Hoare wondered why until he thought to inspect his raw, bleeding hands. As soon as the crew saw the scarlet evidence of his secret ride in tow of
Marie Claire,
they would have gotten word ashore to their master, and Moreau would have run to his crony Sir Thomas.

Mrs. Graves completed the charade for them.

“Stone shall be a messenger from my friend Mrs. Haddaway in Dorchester, with an urgent request for me to come to her aid. He shall drive us in the chaise, and a spare horse can follow us on a lead. It will be the animal on which Stone came to Weymouth. You, Mr. Hoare, shall hide beneath me. There is ample space for you under the seat. Outside town, we will divert to Ringstead, leave Mr. Hoare and Stone, and find a local lad to take us on to Dorchester.”

“Then ye'd best name yer friend to me again, ma'am,” Stone said. “An' gi' me 'er likeness, tu. If I'm to be ridin' postilion, some'un might be askin' me questions.”

Mrs. Graves nodded. “Of course. Haddaway. Mrs. Timothy Haddaway. Emily Haddaway. She's a real person, Stone, my age, twice my size all 'round … two children, little Timothy, the babe, and Arethusa.”

Outside the town, the unwelcome batrachian voice of the knight-baronet brought the chaise to a halt. Hoare—reasonably comfortable, though coiled like an adder beneath the woman he had come to love—held his breath.

“Why, Sir Thomas!” Mrs. Graves cried. “What are you and your men about, pray? It looks like a
posse comitatus,
sir, indeed it does.”

“About that, Eleanor, my dear. Mr. Morrow brings news that your acquaintance Hoare is a wanted man, a fugitive from the King's justice for the forcible drowning of one of Mr. Morrow's Channel Islanders, seen hereabouts just last night. We're out to take him up. Have you seen him, Eleanor?” Sir Thomas's voice was stern.

“Not for this age, Sir Thomas. Not since we encountered each other after poor Simon—”

“Best take my advice, Eleanor. Should you catch sight of him on your way to—”

“Dorchester, Sir Thomas. Emily Haddaway—you know Emily, of course—sent word that her poor little babe Timothy has the croup, and she wants my advice. I'm sure I don't know why,” Eleanor Graves gushed.

“You are a wise, wise woman, Eleanor,” Sir Thomas said. “After a proper interval of time, I hope I may wish—”

The listening Hoare never had a chance to learn what Sir Thomas wished for Mrs. Graves, for Stone broke in: “Pardon me, ma'am, but we must get under way if we are to make Dorchester by dark.”

“‘Under way,' my man? Why, you sound like a seaman and no postboy.”

“Seaman I was, zur, before I swallowed the anchor and took service wi' Mr. Haddaway. But, excuse me, zur.…”

Hoare was jarred as the chaise started forward on its delayed way to the pinnace. He gloated quietly at the picture of the chaise, with Stone at its helm, leaving Sir Thomas Frobisher at the post.

*   *   *

A
T
P
ORTSMOUTH
,
THE
sighting of
Inconceivable,
creeping cautiously across Spit Sand with her sliding keel fully retracted, was instantly reported to Sir George Hardcastle. The Admiral showed himself as merciless as ever. Hoare was to betake himself forthwith to the Admiralty offices, where he was to report his progress—if any—to Sir George. Wrinkled and unkempt though they were, the second-best uniform and hat he carried on
Inconceivable
would have to do, if he was to persuade the Admiral that he was not habitually slow to obey orders. In that, he failed.

“Late again, Hoare. And filthy, too,” Sir George said. “I am quite out of patience with you, I declare.”

Hoare quickly summarized for his Admiral his glacial chase of
Marie Claire,
his brief capture by her owner, his escape from Weymouth. Moment by moment, the Admiral's face grew grimmer.

“No more now, sir,” he growled at last. You shall bring that man back here, to justice, dead or alive. Lose not a minute.”

“May I enlist reinforcements to bring him in, sir?”

“I have sent my secretary Talthybius to you a number of times, young Hercules,” Sir George said, “with one task or another. You are given those tasks because I am confident you will carry them out to my satisfaction. I do not expect you to turn to me with whimpers about how you are to execute each task. I have neither the time nor the inclination to hover over you like a mother hen. I have other tasks of my own to perform, which is why I give yours to you in the first place. Take yourself off, sir and do your duty.”

The Admiral's verbal lash notwithstanding, Hoare had another lash to inflict on himself before he was ready to obey his instructions—to take Jaggery. With Jaggery in hand, he was sure, he could complete the investigation with which Sir George Hardcastle had charged him.

Jaggery was not at the Bunch of Grapes. Mr. Greenleaf believed he might be at work in Arrowsmith's warehouse. He gave Hoare directions. To reach the warehouse, Hoare had to pass his own quarters on the way.