Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea (20 page)

“Aftermaths are so depressing. Even when one wins,” Jane commented a short while later. She was as dry and clean as she was likely to get for a while, wrapped in a blanket and seated in the
Sceptre
’s main cabin as they put about to limp back to shore.

The wool wax had proven difficult to remove, and their wrinkled clothes had perforce been donned over its pungent remains. No one was especially happy about it, but the decanters of wine and sherry in the cabin were proving helpful restoratives.

“We’ll enjoy our victory more when we are dry and warm and indoors,” Maude assured her.

“And scrubbed clean of sheep grease,” said Dora. “It worked well in the water, but one does not get used to the smell!”

Mrs. Corvey had had a genteel hysterical fit to get them all off deck as quickly as possible, and no great spate of questions had been forthcoming so far. Mr. Pickett was so stricken by the sudden ruin of all his plans that he had barely questioned the appearance of Lady Beatrice’s “sisters,” half naked and dripping wet, on his deck.

By the expedient of everyone offering explanations at once, the Ladies had for the moment vaguely convinced him that the vile Felan had kidnapped Dora for unspeakable purposes; that stalwart Herbert had trailed the villain to his sea-cave lair; from whence the others had joined forces in an effort to rescue her in a luckily stumbled-upon rowboat, which had been blown out of the water when the strange submersible craft inexplicably exploded…

The explanation made no particular sense, but Mr. Pickett did not appear to care. Mr. Pickett also did not appear willing to discuss the submarine, and in fact actually disavowed all knowledge of it when Dora prattled on with questions as to its nature. What its erstwhile crewmen thought was not known, as they had all been hustled below decks just as quickly as the Ladies had been hurried into the main cabin.

At the moment, Mr. Pickett was on deck, doing nothing. He was standing by the rail with an air of noble tragedy, staring out to sea while Lady Beatrice stood beside him. Occasionally, they spoke softly and sadly.

This intelligence was supplied by Mrs. Drumm, who alone could move un-noted between the galley, the cabin and the crew quarters. She reported that the general belief among the crew was that Felan had, indeed, somehow scuttled the submersible—evidently no ill was too great to attribute to Felan, who had been universally loathed. No one seemed to suspect the Ladies had been the attackers; or at least, no one was willing to admit it. The intention of all concerned was to say nothing to anyone and pretend nothing had ever happened…

“Mayhap he’s growing some sense,” she opined of Pickett.

This struck Mrs. Corvey as an excellent outcome, and she hoped the epidemic of ignorance could be encouraged to spread. She and her Ladies still had a week or so to stay in Torquay, and would very likely return again. She would not like to lose their comfortable anonymity here.

However, she was not sanguine about Mr. Pickett’s ability to keep his mouth shut, nor his ambition restrained. She had also been apprised (via clicker) of a certain slightly worrying fact: the Gentlemen were waiting on shore for Treadway Pickett. They had not arrived in time to provide any help for her girls, but they were here now. She hoped it would not take too much insistence to keep the Ladies out of the remainder of this affair, which should never have become their problem in the first place…

At length, but not too long, the
Sceptre
was being warped into her private pier. Mrs. Corvey went up on deck in the cluster of the Ladies, all weary and unusually silent. They stood waiting patiently as Lady Beatrice took her leave from Mr. Pickett; they saw her put something from her hand into his. He looked then like a man who has taken a bad blow. Walking very slowly, he followed them down the pier.

The standing lamps were still burning, and the whole little mooring place was brightly lit. Mr. Pickett’s fine coach was still waiting for them, its horses head-heavy in the traces; it would carry them home. But there was also a larger, darker coach standing by. There were two gentlemen waiting beside the larger coach, waiting for Mr. Pickett with an anticipatory air.

As Mrs. Corvey and the Ladies passed the gentlemen, one of them nodded politely to her; she nodded back. Mr. Pickett was coming up behind them, and she heard them stop him, courteously enough, as he made to pass them.

“Who are you?” she heard Pickett demand. “Where are you from?

“We are everywhere,” said one of the Gentlemen. “We dispel illusion. May we speak to you, sir? We shall endeavor to dispel some of yours.”

Then Mrs. Corvey was both out of earshot and in the lee of the coach waiting for her and hers. It fit all of them cozily—none of the Ladies minded squeezing together a bit, most of them still being chilled to the bone—and they were on point of squashing all of them into it when suddenly Lady Beatrice put a finger to her lips.

Silently, she pointed to the legs of the man on the driver’s seat of their coach. His boots were wet and sandy; indeed, his breeches and coat were still dripping sea water. She looked at Mrs. Corvey, still standing outside—then she stretched up to the musket mounted on the wall of the coach, and without a sound handed it down to Mrs. Corvey.

Mrs. Corvey took off her smoked glasses; her lenses whirred, bringing her night vision into focus. She lifted the musket and took aim.

“Mr. Felan?” she called softly, in a reproachful tone. “You should not be here.”

Felan turned in a flash, a horse pistol in his hand: a dry one this time, presumably. And Mrs. Corvey shot him just above his right eye. The shot carried him off the far side of the driver’s seat, and he was dead when he hit the ground.

Herbertina drove them all home.

Next morning dawned late for the Ladies; it dawned about lunchtime, as a matter of fact, and no one was in any hurry to take up any activity that day. They were all so determined to have baths as long and hot as possible that they made up a party to Mr. William Pollard’s establishment on the Quay, where one could not only hire a hot bath but a shower bath as well—and there was nothing better for getting salt out of one’s hair than a shower bath. They came home pink and contented and dozed the rest of the day away.

Life returned to normal for a holiday by the sea.

Once, though, a messenger came with a letter for Lady Beatrice. It was from Mr. Pickett, of course, and in it he professed an undying devotion to her and to her family. He expressed his profound regrets that she did not feel she could accept his proposal of marriage, but was sure that she would someday find a gentleman noble enough to care for her as she deserved. For himself, Mr. Pickett had had a profound moment of self-realization—he was a scion of England, it was true, but he was also a son of a wild, untamed country and no fit mate for a lady like Beatrice. He was therefore removing to the new country of Australia, which was still wild, but more British than American. And if she ever heard of him again, he hoped she would think well of him.

The envelope was full of scarlet rose petals.

“What about the ring?” asked Miss Rendlesham.

“I returned it, of course,” said Lady Beatrice, and that was the end of that.

And once, Mrs. Corvey said the Gentlemen’s Speculative Society was still pursuing him, with an eye to somehow harnessing his mad engineering skills. But Mr. Pickett had sailed for Botany Bay in a state of high tragedy and was thus far obdurate about never returning to the Motherland.

And once, Mr. Felmouth came down from London for the afternoon, and brought them all various little toys he had devised solely for their amusement, in apology for their holiday being interrupted. He gave the dandy horse to Herbertina permanently, which was very well received.

Mrs. Drumm left Mr. Pickett’s household within a day or two, and took lodgings down the hall from the Ladies. She was able to demonstrate her skills at water ices to Mrs. Corvey’s complete satisfaction. She and Mrs. Corvey spent pleasant afternoons going over future menus, and completing the security paperwork necessary for her to be hired as staff at Nell Gwynne’s.

However, a few days after the debacle in the bay (as Dora called it), a couple of the Gentlemen came to see Mrs. Otley. They had with them the sketches and correspondence that she had sent to Mr. Charles Darwin. He had forwarded them to the Gentleman’s Speculative Society, telling them that he himself was not in sufficient health or leisure to give these relics the attention they deserved, but that he thought experts ought to see them. And so the Society was taking them over, and they would appreciate it greatly if Mrs. Otley would turn over the bones she had so far excavated, and refrain from excavating more.

“Oh. I had hoped to name the species,” she said sadly when she handed over the hat box, pink ribbon still intact.

“Ah, but it has a name,” they told her. “It is called
Homo Crewkernensis,
and we are sorry to say one of our number is already investigating it. But it is a splendid find, and you will receive all proper credit when it is written up.”

Mrs. Otley had to be content with that. And as her correspondence with Mr. Darwin continued and even increased after the incident, she did not consider herself badly used.

Domina got a wardrobe of matching collars and leashes, and went to London to make her fortune.

And so their oddly interrupted holiday resumed its idyll, and was judged to be, all in all, a very splendid time. When at last they left for home, though, Miss Rendlesham presented Mrs. Corvey with a great deal of literature on holiday villas in the Lake Country, as well as a volume of the works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Mrs. Corvey allowed that she would seriously consider giving Torquay a miss next year. The Lake Country sounded as if it might be very peaceful, very peaceful indeed.

Refreshed and triumphant then, they went home. And August was a time of great relief and rejoicing in the vicinity of Whitehall.