The Gathering Storm (27 page)

This bleak realisation weighed heavily in on him now in
the darkness, and for a moment his head buzzed and he
could not get his breath. He sat up.

'I see it quite clear, by God. I was always meant to take
the blame. In course, they will like to pretend that they
wished to save King Louis, and they will say that through
my miserable ineptitude I have cost France everything. Her
last and only hope and I have wrecked it, and now only
disaster can follow. They
meant
to have a scapegoat from
the beginning. I will be cashiered, that is certain. And afterward
... after all that ...'

The feeling that he was being crushed alive drove him
from his bed. He rose and stumbled to the window. The
cool night air on his face was no comfort.

'Who will employ a disgraced post captain, even in the
humblest merchantman? And what will become of my darling
Sylvia? I shall lose my Norfolk home, and everything I value.
What will become of poor James, if he lives? He will likely
be cashiered himself. Christ's blood, has not he suffered
enough?' Leaning his head on the window frame.

'And young Leigh, that I placed in command of what is
left of my people, and my ship – what will become of him?
Even with all his family interest and connection, will not he
find his career broke and destroyed by the sheer ill-fortune
of having served under Captain William Rennie?'

He breathed deep in an effort to calm and comfort himself.
An owl hooted in the solemn dark, the sound carrying
through the wood. Long silence. Another deep, sniffing
breath, and now he did feel a little better. He was about to
turn away from the window when from the wood came the
sudden shrieking cry of a small creature caught in predatory
talons. He tilted his head, listening. The cries rose in a
desperate crescendo, and were cut off. A moment, and:

'Aye.' Whispered. 'Aye, that is life on this earth. Timid
and lost in the scurrying dark, blind and fearful and lost –
and sudden painful death.'

He stared into the blackness.

'Why are we given life at all, when it is only harshness
and suffering? Why?'

A tear fell on his cheek. Another, and another, and he
wept.

'Oh, Christ ... I am lost ... lost ...'

All the destruction and horror and strain of the past weeks
beat in on him now, and lashed him like a storm of wind.
He bent his head, and was so overwhelmed that at first he
scarcely noticed a light brushing movement against his leg.
Again something nudged him there, and trod light over his
foot. He dashed tears from his eyes, and peered down. And
heard a distinct thrumming purr.

'Good God ...'

He bent down, felt about him blindly and found the creature,
and lifted it up.

Presently he returned to his bed, and lay quietly back
against his pillow with the cat on his breast, its head
bumping against his chin and the thrumming of its pleasure
in his ear. He stroked the animal, and felt misery and
sadness retreat. Softly:

'You are not Dulcie, my dear, but you are a very great
comfort to me in my hour of need.'

Soon after he drifted peacefully down into deep relieving
sleep, and did not wake until the sun stood broad in the sky.

*

Dr Denfield came and went twice more during the course
of the next two days, and James slowly regained his senses,
and his sense of self, so that on the third day he was able to
sit up in bed, take broth and a little solid food, and converse
with the doctor, who told him:

'On the morrow, Lieutenant, y'may rise and walk about.'

'Not today?'

Dr Denfield held up a hand, closed his eyes against further
interruption, then continued:

'Walk about, breathe the air, and measure your strength.
If you no longer feel faint, nor queasy, then on the
following
day y'may safely go to London, if you wish.'

'Yes, thank you, Doctor. Thank you indeed for all your
kindness in attending to me.'

The doctor inclined his head, and encouraged, James
continued:

'But ain't it possible that I could rise later today, walk
about and so forth – and then go to London tomorrow? It
is very urgent that I should go, d'y'see.'

Dr Denfield took a breath. 'You are a sea officer, sir, as
are my uncle and cousins. You are a very singular race of
men, not much given to heeding medical advice. I have given
you mine.' A very direct gaze. 'What you do with it, once I
have driven away in my gig, I cannot govern.'

'Thankee, Doctor. I am in your debt.' Reaching for his
purse. 'Erm ... may I settle that part of it that is monetary,
sir?'

'Y'may.' A nod, a half-smile.

And when the doctor had gone, James drank off the dregs
of his broth, stretched his arms over his head, and lay back.

'I will rise presently, and go outside.'

He fell asleep at once, and did not wake until the evening.
And found when he did wake that his spirits were low. Dreams
had troubled him, and the mood of the dreams lingered now
– anxiety, and gloom, and a sense of foreboding. He tried
to shake off the mood by attempting to rise and wash his
face, but as he got up on his legs and reached for the ewer
and basin he felt himself weak and faint, and had to lie down
again.

As he lay there on the bed in the deepening shadow of
evening, he began to reflect on everything that had recently
happened to him. At first his thoughts were tumbled and
jumbled together in a maelstrom of moments and images;
then as his weakness and faintness retreated his thoughts
grew more ordered, until he was able to discover in himself
a kind of sombre understanding.

'I have changed ...'

He had changed. A few years since – nay, a few months
– he would never even have thought of embarking on a new
life with a woman like Juliette. Yet he had begun to do so,
and had continued until she was lost at the inlet. Never
before would he have thought of leaving his beloved
Catherine – no matter her continued wan listlessness
and melancholy. In a few months the world he knew had
seemed to change so much, not only his private world but
the world at large. It seemed to him now that everything
was darker and less certain, less accommodating of his private
self – of any individual man. It was as if all manner of new
and barbarous things were possible, and probable.

He sighed, and looked at the light waning in the window,
the last sunken glow of the sun. It was not that the seasons
had altered, nor the birds that came and went with them,
soaring on the sky, nor the shape of the hills and the spires
of churches across the undulating quiet green fields of
England. But that now over it all lay a long shadow, a gathering
storm in the still of the evening and the hush of dawn.
When the substance of that shadow would come rolling
darkly over the land he did not know, but he was certain
now it would come, and would carry away on its black tide
all of the things he had known and trusted and loved, and
render them into mud and ash.

'A few months ago none of these things would have entered
my thoughts.' Murmuring in the quiet air of the little room.
'My God – I would never have dreamed of striking my
captain, no matter how compelling the reason, nor dire
the circumstances. And yet I did do it, without a moment's
hesitation, because I thought I had the right to save the ship
– and in course myself. Six months ago my home was the
centre of my life, it was my life's blood. How could I wish
to see it spilled away? How could I wish for such things?
The storm ain't just out there ... it is gathering inside of
me, in all of us, and making us into selfish madmen, loose
guns on the deck of the world.'

Returning sleep allowed him respite from these heavy
things, at last.

*

Recovered, Lieutenant Hayter made the proposal that he
and Captain Rennie should hire horses and ride to London.
He was vociferously opposed and contradicted by Dr
Denfield, Mr and Mrs Temple, and Rennie himself. He took
James aside.

'Good God, ye've only just got up on your legs. Have you
the smallest notion how far it is to London?'

'Erm ... where are we exact?'

'We are five or six mile from Haslemere, and fifty mile
from London. A very exhausting ride for anybody that has
lately been ill. Pray do not again think of riding there, if
y'please.' Sternly.

'Ohh, very well, just as you like.' A shrug. 'We must try
for seats in one of the turnpike coaches, I expect, at a post
inn.'

And that was what they did. The farmer carried them to
the inn in the early morning in his cart, and was duly
thanked. James was accepted inside the coach – which was
already very full – by virtue of his recent debility, and Rennie
was obliged to ride on top under the open sky – which soon
became wet. The journey to London was long, with several
stops at inns – this was not a fast mail coach, after all – and
several showers of rain, and when at last they arrived at
their destination Rennie was monosyllabic with cold, despair,
wretchedness, and loathing for the world and all its works.
James, on the other hand, had slept most of the journey,
and arrived refreshed, comfortably dry, and in equable
humour.

'Shall we take chairs, and go to Mrs Peebles's hotel?'
Looking about him in the noise and bustle and smell of the
London evening.

'Chairs!' Ferociously.

'Well, yes ... you do not suggest that we should walk there,
do you, sir?'

'Walk!'

They engaged chairs, and were conveyed to Bedford Street.
Rennie had a hot bath, and was restored. James lay down to
rest, and woke in returning gloom.

At a late supper in the dining room, he said:

'We must arrange the interview with Mappin, I suppose.
We must tell him our bad news.'

'No supposin' about it, my boy. We are already late, and
we must arrange it, right quick.'

'Tomorrow, then?'

'Why not now?'

'Tonight? I – I am still feeling a little faint, you know.
Tomorrow will answer, surely?'

'First thing, then. We should go to him first thing after
breakfast. Hey?'

'Hm.'

But when they met again in the morning over the breakfast
table, Rennie's brief mood of uplift and optimism had
drained away, and he was apprehensive, pallid, and had cut
his chin with his razor.

'You are bleeding, sir.'

'Eh?'

'Your chin.' James tapped his own chin, and nodded as
the girl brought his bacon and eggs.

'Damn the thing.' Rennie dabbed at the cut with his napkin,
and when his own eggs came: 'Nay ... I am not hungry
today.' And he pushed them aside.

Presently James too lost his appetite, laid aside his knife
and fork, and settled for a cup of strong coffee.

Rennie sucked down hot black tea; sniffed, sighed,
grimaced. 'Damn the fellow.'

'Sir?'

'It is all his doing, that will be our
un
doing. He is the
same kind of wretch as Greer, the fellow.'

'We must face him, all the same.'

'Aye ... I cannot cut him with my sword, but by God I
shall cut him with my tongue, James.'

* * *

Captain Rennie and Lieutenant Hayter decided to go to the
Admiralty to enquire after Mr Mappin, since they had no
other address. The address of the Secret Service Fund – if
such an address existed – had never been vouchsafed them.
They made their way to Whitehall on foot, but when they
came to the Admiralty and went in under the arch, they
could discover nothing. The whereabouts of Mr Mappin
were unknown. His name produced frowns of unrecognition
in the Admiralty officials, who obliged the two sea
officers to wait in a small side room downstairs until they
were summoned.

'Summoned?' Rennie.

'By a representative of Their Lordships.' The clerk who
attended on them, bleakly.

'Ah.'

The brusqueness of these instructions was lost on neither
man, and each began to be privately and deeply apprehensive.
They had been engaged in momentous international
events in one of His Majesty's commissioned ships of war,
and had failed. The most telling words in any officer's warrant
of commission, plainly written out, were these:

Hereof nor you nor any of you may fail as you will
answer the contrary at your peril.

Even though Rennie alone presently had a warrant of
commission, neither man was in any doubt that both now
faced that peril – in its own implacable way greater and more
formidable than all the dark and stormy perils of the sea.
James's involvement was as whole as Rennie's, commissioned
or no, and his entire future was equally in jeopardy.

In the event they faced only the Third Secretary, Mr
Soames. They were shown into his stuffy office, and seated
upon plain wooden chairs. Presently Mr Soames came in,
dressed as ever in black coat and white linen, and exuding
wafts of astringent cologne.

'Captain Rennie. Lieutenant Hayter.'

Both officers stood up and bowed.

'Mr Soames.' Rennie, politely neutral.

'Sir.' James, equally polite.

Mr Soames motioned them both to sit down, and sat down
himself at his desk. He adjusted the position of the inkwell,
glanced into a drawer, made his expression agreeable, and:

'Now, gentlemen, how may I assist?'

Rennie and James glanced at each other.

'Assist, Mr Soames?' Rennie. 'Do not you wish us ... to
assist Their Lordships?'

'In what distinction?' Eyebrows politely raised. He dabbed
at his lips with his lace kerchief, and returned it to his sleeve.
A further waft of cologne. 'Hm?'

'Well well ... in the question of ... in the matter of ...
of the commission, and so forth. The coast of France?'

'France?' Glancing from one to the other.

Rennie took a breath, and:

'Perhaps, Mr Soames – you yourself cannot assist us, after
all. We had wished to see Mr Mappin, Sir Robert Greer's
successor at the Fund. You are acquainted with him, I am
in no doubt?'