Sails on the Horizon: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars (23 page)

“There are two estates,” Charles explained. “Each is about three thousand acres. I own all of one and half of the other.”

“Four thousand five hundred acres?” Penny exclaimed, dismayed. “Thou art very substantial. More substantial than I ever imagined.” She was silent for a time after that. Charles drove and chatted in a happy frame of mind. He felt comfortable and natural sitting beside her. Occasionally he glanced at her profile, her bright eyes and smiling lips. He could easily imagine a life with her as his wife and the mother of their children. He pictured her bustling around his house, sitting and talking with him at dinner, fussing affectionately over their offspring, sleeping beside him at night.

When the sun was as high as it would get, Charles asked if she were hungry.

“Yes,” she answered, still distracted by the nearly incomprehensible extent of his holdings. “How large is it,” she asked. “I mean, in miles?”

“I’ll show you,” Charles answered, and he pulled the carriage off the path onto a grassy meadow beneath a small knoll with a copse of trees at its summit. It was an isolated place with a few black-and-white dairy cows grazing nearby but no people or cottages in sight. He took the basket and blanket from the carriage and they started up the hill. The bright sun and its warmth bathed the countryside. Halfway up, Penny took off her bonnet and shook out her hair. Charles loved its soft color as it fell around her shoulders and down her back. At the summit, among the trees, he set down his things and stood beside her.

“Look,” he said. Penny studied the expanse of land checkered with the new green of growing crops, pastures, and woods. Small thatched cottages and barns dotted the countryside as far as the eye could see, with several tiny hamlets and one larger village in the distance.

“It’s grand,” she said. “How far doth thy land go?”

“Almost to that steeple way over there,” Charles said, pointing and brushing slightly against her as he did. “And in that direction to the stream. No, there, where that line of trees is.” He turned her shoulders with his hands. “Down there is Tattenall, and do you see that house, the one with the trees around it?” The impressive structure stood out even from a mile away.

“Yes?” she said, a little in awe.

“That’s my new house,” Charles said, standing behind her, his hands still resting on her shoulders. “It could be our house.”

Penny leaned lightly against him but said nothing.

He brushed his lips against her hair. She allowed herself to be nestled against him, and then his arms encircled her.

“Charles, please, no,” she said firmly and removed herself from his embrace. She turned to face him. “I am willing to take steps, but not too many, and no large leaps.”

“Penny,” he said, frustration showing in his voice, “there isn’t any more time. I told you, I leave—”

“I know,” she said, stooping to pick up the blanket. “Here, help me with this.” She handed him one end of the blanket and together they spread it on the grass. As he watched her open the basket and lay out its contents, his irritation left him. “Sit,” she said and patted a place beside her.

Charles sat cross-legged on the blanket and surveyed her meal. There was cold beef, cheese, and dark bread laid out on wooden platters, some butter, two cups, and a stoppered container of cider that had been laid in over the winter. She handed him a knife and asked him to cut the bread while she poured out small measures of drink. Then she took the knife and sliced the meat and the cheese into perfect thin strips. Charles watched her hands as she worked—long, thin, and graceful. They ate for a time without speaking while he mentally rehearsed his prepared speech and attempted to find the courage to give it.

Penny broke the silence first. “Charles, may I ask thee a question?” she said. “It is only a question, not an accusation.”

“Of course,” he answered. “What?”

“Why dost thou remain in the navy? Surely if thou hast all this land and substance thou needst not.”

His first thought was that she was going to “labor” with him over his profession again, but she had said it was not an accusation and her expression was open and earnest. In that light the question surprised him: He hadn’t thought of his wealth and lands as an alternative to the navy. Why did he stay? It wasn’t for the money. If Mr. Edwards was right, his wages as a commander in His Majesty’s Navy would be small compared to the income from his estates. But he knew in his heart that he didn’t want to leave, he couldn’t, not now, anyway. “I wish there were an easy answer,” he said at length.

“Please try,” she said. “It’s important to me.”

Charles searched for a way to explain the complicated emotions that bound him to his profession. He decided to begin with his childhood. “When I was a boy, before I went to sea, my father often told me that a thing once begun needs to be finished. ‘It’s no good walking away from a job half-done,’ he would say, ‘not for the task and not for the man.’”

Penny nodded her head understandingly. “Pray continue,” she said.

“I was sent into the navy at the age of twelve, shortly after my mother died.” He remembered his tears at the thought of leaving home and his desperate unhappiness during his first years as a junior midshipman. “For almost thirteen years I have worked my way up on various ships of the line. I’ve studied sailing, gunnery, navigation, ships, and men, and experienced all of the elements of my trade except one.”

“What was that?”

“I was never in a major ship-to-ship battle, with all the guns firing and us being fired upon. Never, that is, until just two weeks before I met you.”

“Is that when thou wert injured?”

“Yes,” Charles said, “in a manner of speaking.” He reflexively touched his temple and could feel the scar where the wound had been.

“Then thou art finished. Thou hast done everything,” she said hopefully, searching his eyes.

Charles returned her gaze steadily. “No, I’m not finished,” he said. “First, there is the need to defeat revolutionary France. That task is far from complete.” He saw a look of alarm come into her face and he hurried on. “There is a second reason I can’t quit now.”

“What?”

Charles took a deep breath and steeled himself. Up to this moment he had not confided what he was about to say to anyone, not even fully to himself. “It is possible that I am a coward.”

“Thou?” Penny said incredulously. “I cannot believe—”

“It’s true. During the battle I was scared, more than scared, terrified.”

“But anyone would be,” she persisted, “with cannons and guns banging all around. It must have been very dangerous. Were any killed?”

“More than a hundred died on the
Argonaut,
” Charles said blankly. “I don’t know about the Spanish; more, likely.”

Penny’s face turned ashen and she laid her hand on his. “Hundreds killed? And thou wounded? It must have been dreadful.”

“Yes,” he said flatly. “I have nightmares about it, terrifying dreams in which I can do nothing while others die horrible deaths. At times during the battle I was nearly paralyzed with fear.” She opened her mouth to speak but he squeezed her hand and continued. “I have accepted a commission as a king’s officer. Whatever you think about my profession, I cannot allow myself to be afraid in battle. You see, I must go on in the navy until I know for sure whether I am a coward or not. If I am, then I will quit the service as being unfit.”

Penny sat silently beside him on the blanket for a moment, staring at her hand clasped in his larger, darker one. She raised her head and said, “And if thou finds that thou art not?”

Charles looked at her quickly, then looked away. “If I’m not a coward? Then…I don’t know.”

“I think I know,” she said quietly, then fell silent again. “Thank thee for confiding in me,” she said finally. “It cannot have been easy for thee and I understand better now. But having fear, even terrible fear, is not the same thing as being a coward. In the same way, bringing terror to others doth not make thee a hero. And I am sure of one thing, Charles Edgemont: Dreams or no dreams, thou art no coward.”

“I thought you might like it better if I were,” Charles said.

“Why?”

“Because, if I proved a coward, then I would leave the navy. I thought that would make you happy.”

“Oh, no,” she said quickly. “I do not want thee to leave because thou art afraid, and I do not want thee to leave because I wish it. I want thee to leave the navy because thou wishes it.”

“That may not happen,” Charles said.

“I know.”

“And that’s all right?”

Penny looked directly at him, meeting his eyes. “I don’t know.”

Charles thought about the question that he had promised himself he would ask. It didn’t seem to be a very good time, but there wouldn’t be any other. “This isn’t what I thought we would be talking about today, cowards and heroes and the navy.”

“What didst thou think we would discuss?”

“I think you know. Don’t you?”

Penny lowered her head and said, “Yes, I know.”

“Is it all right if we talk about it, even if it might involve big steps?”

“I am willing to talk about it,” she said facing him, “but I might disappoint thee.”

“That’s fair,” Charles said, and then with a deep intake of breath he began his carefully memorized speech. “Penelope Brown, you must know how I feel about you. I know this is difficult for you, but the fact is, my feelings are as they are, as you know they are. All I think about is you,” he continued, “all during the day and at night—your face, your eyes, your words—everything about you fills my mind and my heart.”

“Oh, Charles,” she said, “that’s beautiful. Thou art beautiful, but—”

“Just a minute,” he said in an absurdly serious tone, “I’m not finished yet. I haven’t gotten to the marriage part.”

“Pray continue,” she said, brushing at something on her cheek.

“I know I’m not very refined,” he went on as if uninterrupted. “I’m not of your religion, and I don’t understand it well. I know you don’t approve of my profession as a soldier in the navy and that this is very important to you, as it should be. I would not ask you to change except in this one thing—to make an exception for me.”

“Charles,” she said softly.

“I’m almost done,” he said, and she nodded for him to go on. “I want you to marry me and be the mother of our children and to live with me all our days. But I ask only this—that you will think seriously about marriage to me and that you will talk with your God about it. When you know in your heart what the answer is, then you will tell me yes or no, and I will be satisfied. Now I’m finished.”

Penny did not answer him immediately. She sat silently on the blanket with her eyes closed and her hands folded softly in her lap. When she spoke she said, “May I call thee Charlie?”

“All my friends do,” he answered.

She said, “Yes, I know. Thou told me on our first meeting.” She sat still in her composed, serene way for a moment longer, then said, “I have a great fondness for thee too, Charlie, in the deepest part of my heart. If my conscience were clear I would marry thee tomorrow and long to be by thy side every minute. I already long for that, I want thee to know. But I am not clear. All my life I have been taught that war and violence are wrong and an insult to God. Now, in the stillness of silence, my heart pulls me to unite my life with a man who is a warrior, but my conscience says no. It is hard for me to know what is right.”

“Is that because you would be disowned?” Charles asked.

“Oh, I will surely be disowned if I marry thee, but in a tender way,” she said. “I would still be welcome to attend meeting for worship. No, what is hard for me now is to discern God’s will, which I must surely follow.”

“So what do we do?” he said.

Penny reached across and touched his cheek, tracing her fingers softly along the side of his face. “Thou art dear to me,” she said. “I don’t want to cause thee to suffer any longer than necessary. I will answer when thou returnest next from the sea.”

“Thank you,” Charles said, his heart full near to bursting. He took her hand and raised it, kissing her fingers. She leaned toward him and lightly brushed her lips across his cheek.

Late in the afternoon they repacked her basket and folded the blanket. They walked hand in hand down from the knoll, and in the carriage on the way back to Tattenall she sat very close to him while he drove. At the village he collected her mare and cart and tied it behind the carriage so that he could see her home. Ellie and Winchester came out to greet them, and Ellie gave a squeal of happiness on seeing them together and the expressions on their faces.

“Oh, Charlie, what have you done?” she said delightedly.

“I proposed marriage,” he answered.

“How did it go?” Winchester asked.

“Don’t know,” Charles said happily, and he heard Penny laugh beside him.

EIGHT

C
HARLES EDGEMONT CLIMBED DOWN FROM THE COACH
onto the worn cobbled surface of Millbay Road outside Plymouth early in the evening, bone-tired after the long, jolting trip from Cheshire and grateful to have his feet on solid ground. Daniel Bevan, Stephen Winchester, and Timothy Attwater descended next, Bevan stretching languorously while Winchester went to help Attwater as their luggage was passed down. Plymouth had been the home port for the old
Argonaut
and Jervis’s Mediterranean fleet, and all the men knew its haunts well. “It’s good to be home,” Bevan said, yawning and rubbing his backside. “By Christ, I’m glad to be out of that carriage. Those things’ll kill you. Rattled to death, the papers will say.”