The Hawk (17 page)

'Oh, James, my dearest.' Coming at once to the bed. 'Why
did you not write to me to say that you were so ill . . . but you
are injured.' Looking at the bandages at his neck, and the new
bindings half-hidden by his nightshirt.

'Who wrote to you? Was it Captain Rennie?'

'It was. He did.' Touching his face fondly, leaning to kiss
him, and tenderly: 'How came you to be so hurt?'

'I was a little damaged at sea, you know.'

'I saw Dr Wing . . . he said that you had been at the Haslar,
and that you must return . . .'

'Nay, nay, it is nothing. I am nearly recovered. Nay,
my darling, do not cry. No tears for me, I am nearly well
again.'

'Oh, James.' Tears fell on her cheeks, and she kissed him
again, and touched the bandage at his neck. 'Oh, I cannot
bear to see you so . . .'

'Hush, hush . . . I am all right.' Stroking her hair, blinking
back his own tears.

Presently she recovered herself, and saw that James was not
about to die quite yet, and wiped away her tears, and they fell
to talking.

'Will you promise me to return to the Haslar, as Dr Wing
has said you must?'

'Must? I do not respond to must, you know.' Not harshly.

'Then I shall ask. Will you return there, and allow Dr
Wing to bring you back to health?'

'Thomas may attend me here. Unless I am grievous ill I
shall not return to the Haslar.'

'Oh, but James – '

'Although the Haslar is a well-conducted hospital – indeed,
there is no better hospital in England – no hospital is a very
pleasant nor welcoming place. There are men in the grip of
many and several diseases, there are men dying, crying out,
there are others so gravely injured they will never again get
on their legs and walk about as free men . . . but will live out
their poor lives there, in wretchedness. In short, it is a
damned miserable place, for all Dr Stroud's ideas of cleanliness,
and sweet air. Unless I am absolutely compelled to it I
will not like to go there again, my love. Beside – I have much
to do, a great deal to do.'

And he told her something of the circumstances of the
action at sea; not everything, but enough to show her where
he now stood in the eyes of the Admiralty. When he came to
tell her of his plan to pay for the repairs to
Hawk
himself, he
was met with – if not hostility, then very severe dismay.

'Why should you be obliged to find this money, James?'

'Because she is my ship, and – '

'Surely she is the Admiralty's ship, England's ship, and you
are merely her captain, is not that true?'

'Merely? Merely?' Only half-amused.

'I do not mean that you are little in courage, nor in sailing
skill. Only that you do not own the
Hawk
, nor even a little
part of her. Why then should you be obliged to pay for her
repair, when you were only carrying out your orders? Surely
that is the responsibility of Their Lordships?'

'My love . . .' He faltered, his face pale, passed a hand across
his forehead, then lay back on his pillow. 'I – I am quite done
up. It is all the excitement and delight of seeing you.'

'In course, I should not have argued with you. Forgive me,
my darling. Do not talk any more, now. Rest, now. I will wait
downstairs, in the parlour – '

'Nay . . . stay here with me, stay by me. Will you?'

She kissed him, and sat down, and waited by his side until
he drifted into sleep, watching over him.

Presently Captain Rennie tapped at the door, put his head
into the room, and saw Catherine there by her sleeping
husband. Rennie nodded, smiled in greeting, indicated by
gesture that he would not interrupt, and withdrew.

Mrs Townend and her widowed sister Mrs Rodgers – both of
them naval widows – arrived by the fast mail coach at
Portsmouth, outside the Marine Hotel, very late at night.
They had come from Mrs Rodgers's home at Lambeth, in
London, to visit her son Lieutenant Wyndham Rodgers, who
was Third in HM
Tempest
frigate, thirty-six, presently
attached to the Channel Fleet. These two ladies had come
not by previous arrangement, and not entirely upon a whim.
They had come because Mrs Rodgers wished to see her son
before he departed on what perhaps would be long foreign
service, and because she and her sister wished for a change of
scene.

Mrs Rodgers's home at Lambeth was a perfectly pleasant,
free-standing brick house, with a walled garden, and she lived
there in decent comfort, but she was not much in society. Her
late husband's career had meant frequent changes of address,
and now she preferred to be settled and serene. She had no
admirers, having determined on a single condition of life
following on her husband's death of fever at Jamaica, during
the late American war. This life, unstrenuous, mild, comfortable,
in usual suited her very well, but the arrival of her sister
– her handsomer and livelier sister – had provoked in Mrs
Rodgers a wish for some little fillip to her existence, a
brightening of the afternoon, so to say, and together they had
come to the notion of this excursion to Portsmouth.

When they descended from the coach in the bustle of arrival
– ostlers, coachmen, the stamping and snorting of horses, the
heaving and bumping of baggage – both these ladies were
pleased to be at their destination, and briefly exhilarated by the
cool air coming in off the sea. Soon, very soon, as they came
into the hotel, fatigue set in, and they felt themselves in need
of hot chocolate and the comfort of repose. The night porter
was – they thought – less than helpful to them, given that they
were the only guests coming in so late.

'Chocolate, madam?' In answer to Mrs Rodgers's request.
'Ho, no. Not at this hour of night, no. It is gone midnight,
look, and the kitchen is closed long since.'

'Could not you find some member of the staff awake that
will give us refreshment?'

'I am the only person that is awake, official, madam. I waits
up for the coach by arrangement.'

'Could not you wake someone, then?'

Mrs Rodgers, in dealing with the servant class outside her
own home, was inclined to set her lips, and speak in a nearly
peremptory tone, her purse clasped firm in her hands before
her. It was not altogether a persuasive manner, and she was
not persuasive now.

'I am here, madam, to carry your baggage and show you to
your rooms. May I ask what is your name, madam – and you,
madam?' To Mrs Townend. 'I will gladly light your way, if
you will tell me which rooms you has engaged, if you please.'

Mrs Rodgers began to lose confidence, and exchanged a
glance with her sister, who now smiled at the porter, and:

'We came away from London in a great rush, and have not
engaged rooms. We will like to do so – '

'Not engaged rooms?' The porter gave a heavy, beery sigh,
and allowed their bags to sink to the floor beside him. 'Then
I fear I cannot be of no service to you ladies. The hotel is full.'

'That is absurd,' began Mrs Rodgers. 'I have stopped at the
Marine Hotel many times with my late husband, and there is
always a few rooms kept for naval officers – '

'Well, madam, there ain't no rooms tonight, and that is all
there is to say.'

'Will you tell me your name?' Mrs Townend interposed,
again smiling.

'I am Jacob, madam.'

'Jacob . . .'

'Jacob Slipper, madam, night porter.' Touching his
forehead.

'Jacob, here is a guinea.' Giving him the gold coin. 'I am
sure that there is a room somewhere in the hotel that you
could open for us, with your key, and let us rest there tonight.
It will not matter to us if it is a little room, an attic room,
even, high under the rafters. We will not notice its condition,
however bare and small it may be. We are greatly fatigued,
we have travelled all day to come here to Portsmouth, to see
my sister's only son before he departs in his ship on foreign
service. We have nowhere else to go, late at night. I know that
you will help us – two naval widows – at the hotel which has
always opened its doors gladly to all persons connected to the
Royal Navy.'

'Well, madam . . .' Staring at the gold guinea, scratching
his head, and shrugging apologetically. 'I do not know as
I am able to find you a room, when there is none to be
had . . .'

'Not even a servant room, a maid's room?' Another smile,
and Mrs Townend tilted her head on one side a little. 'I
entreat you, Jacob. I can see you have a kind heart . . .'
The night porter, thus rewarded and pressed, was obliged
to find them a room – very high under the roof, up a narrow,
steep stair – and the two exhausted ladies, supperless but glad
of shelter, were able to spend the night in the Marine Hotel
after all.

On the morrow they discovered, when they called at the
Port Admiral's office, that HMS
Tempest
had already been
ordered to sea, and set sail. No detail of her intended duty
could be made known to civilians in a time of emergency, not
even to relations of sea officers, but Mrs Rodgers was
sufficiently well versed in naval matters to know that a frigate
sent to sea as a single ship must probably be engaged on
reconnaissance, and that
Tempest
, engaged on such a mission,
could well be absent some time.

Naturally Mrs Rodgers was disappointed not to have seen
her son before his departure, as was Mrs Townend not to
have seen her nephew, but both these ladies were entirely
sensible of the navy's exigent demands upon sea officers,
and of the necessity for naval families to understand and
accommodate these demands in turn. No good ever came
of bitter lamentation, nor resentment towards Their
Lordships, nor forlorn pining for absent sons and husbands.
The two ladies accordingly went from the Port Admiral's
office to the coffee house, ate a late breakfast, drank
chocolate, and thus fortified set about finding themselves
rooms and preparing to enjoy their stay in this most naval of
port cities.

Catherine Hayter, with the willing help of Dr Wing, had
succeeded in persuading her husband to return briefly to the
Haslar.

'Very well, I shall go back for a day or two,' he had
conceded. 'Only for a day or two, you mind me? I have not
struck my colours entire. It is only to aid Thomas, so that he
may change my dressings without having to come from the
hospital to me. It is for his convenience, not my own.'

'In course, my love, you are very considerate and kind. It is
for Dr Wing's sake.'

When she had seen her husband safely settled in his cot at
the Haslar, Catherine wrote a note to Mrs Fenway, at
Bosham, and sent it by hand.

Mrs Fenway was a gentlewoman known to Lady Hayter, an
old friend of hers, who lived in a small pretty house at
Bosham, just to the north of Portsmouth on the London
road. Lady Hayter had said to Catherine, when her daughterin-
law was obliged to leave in haste to be at James's side:

'Should you need somewhere to stay, my dear, if there is no
room where James is lying ill, please to get into touch with
Gwendolyn Fenway, who is my oldest and dearest friend.
Her husband is master of an Indiaman, and is nearly always
absent, and so she is alone in her house. I know that you will
like her, and she you. She is excellent kind, and will like to
have company. I will write to her.'

At about four o'clock Catherine went to Bosham in a gig,
and found the house without trouble. Tattham Grange was
indeed a pretty house, with a gabled roof and handsome
façade, set well back from the road in a large surrounding
garden of tall spreading trees and wide lawns. Everything
about it was pleasing to the eye, and Catherine at once felt
that she could be at ease there – except that Mrs Fenway was
not at home.

'Did your mistress receive my note, that I sent over by
hand?' Catherine enquired of the elderly maid who answered
the door.

'The mistress is not here, mum. Who shall I say called?'

Catherine told her, and: 'Did not my note arrive?'

'I b'lieve a message did come, mum, yes – but being as the
mistress ain't at home . . .' She did not stand aside to allow
Catherine to come into the house from under the portico.

'When will Mrs Fenway return? Later today?'

'Oh no, mum. She is gone away out of the district in her
carriage.'

'Oh. – When d'you expect her?'

'She visits family in Surrey, I b'lieve, mum. A week at least,
I should say.'

'Oh, dear. I had hoped . . . never mind . . . thank you.' And
Catherine returned to her gig disconsolate, and was driven
back to Portsmouth. On the way the gig was passed by an
imposing, well-sprung black carriage, briskly drawn by four
black horses. Harness gleamed and jingled. As the carriage
passed Catherine caught a glimpse through the window glass
of a black-clad figure, chalk-faced, sitting well back in the
upholstered interior, hands clasped over the head of a cane. A
shaft of sun flashed on a ring, there was the ember spark of a
red stone, and then the carriage was gone in a dry spinning
rhythm of wheels.

By the time the ostler she had engaged to drive the gig
had brought her safely again to St Thomas Street and the
Mary Rose Inn, Catherine had consoled herself with the
thought that Mrs Fenway's house, pleasant though it was,
would not have been convenient – lying as it did so far from
the Haslar – and she resigned herself to occupying James's
small bare room until he was well enough to leave the
hospital. The outing had done her good. She had breathed
fresh air, and felt the sun on her face, and all lowering
thoughts of James's wounds, and his determination to
squander what little capital they possessed on the repair of
his cutter, had quite gone out of her head. She met Captain
Rennie as she went in. He bowed, and invited her to dine
with him.

Catherine hesitated, smiling, then demurely:

'I do not think I can accept, Captain Rennie, when I am
alone.'