The Moonless Night (24 page)

They were still at this unappetizing subject when lunch was called. After lunch, Sanford’s interest had waned, and he said he was off to Plymouth, inviting no one to go with him. Benson’s condition had to be explained to Sanford, who had a dozen questions to put to him, and a good deal of rallying jokes on the eye. David dropped hints, becoming less discreet as they failed to be recognized for hints, that he would have no objection to a rattle into Plymouth. Sanford failed him. He had a very odd kick in his gallop, that one. To be talking up a leech reservoir with half the nation out to free Bonaparte was equally as bad as Benson’s getting seasick.

“They are mowing in the west pasture today, David,” Sir Henry told him. “That is your pasture. The income of it goes all to you. Will you not want to oversee it? You want to see it is mowed short enough to give you the maximum yield, without taking her too close and pulling up the roots. You mind the mess they made of it last year.”

David was thus saddled with the irksome, unglamorous and unnecessary chore of being a farmer, when his whole being craved danger, but the respite would give him a chance to think, to try to sort out events, particularly future events.

Marie, bored from her recent inactivity and the total disinterest shown her by the two gentlemen visitors, had her mare saddled up and went up to Bolt’s Point. The guard was there by day, a helter-skelter boy of fourteen years who was more interested in the mutt he had brought along for company than in the telescope, though he did occasionally go and put his eye to it. A good fieldhand could not be wasted with the harvest coming in.

She looked for a long time out at Billy Ruffian, and once even saw a dark form that she imagined to be Bonaparte himself. Her mind was half occupied with other matters, wondering where Lord Sanford had gone, and how Benson had really got his black eye. She thought Sanford had been happy to see it.

Weary of looking at the ship, she decided to return home the long way, down the far side of the slope, which would take her through the flock of sheep, around the circle at the bottom to the spinney, thus home via the fruit orchard. It was a very good day, weather-wise. She always enjoyed to see the sheep and lambs frisking on the stony incline, but today they held no pleasure for her. A sheep was really a very stupid looking creature, she thought. The spinney too was void of charm, despite the sighting of some wild daisies that grew near the path, inviting gathering.

She went on, hardly noticing a hare that darted in front of her, till she came to the orchard, where the early apples were far enough advanced to entice her. She dismounted to look on the ground for a recent windfall not yet bruised into brownness. Finding none, she progressed into the orchard to have a look at the rennets for Biddy. It was from the rennets her aunt obtained malic acid that formed an ingredient of one of her herbal remedies. The apples were not to reach too ripe a condition before gathering. She pulled one from a low-hanging branch to take home for inspection. She thought it was about right—firm, without being hard.

As she stood looking and testing the fruit with her finger, she heard a low, throaty laugh coming from some little distance in the orchard. It was a feminine laugh, and a few shreds of conversation soon told her the female speaker had a French accent. “
Comme tu es méchant
!” the woman said.

That Madame Monet was
tutoying
her companion told Marie it was a lover, but then providing the person were a male, naturally he would be a lover. Benson, she first thought, and looked around the trunk of the rennet tree to confirm it. She saw a garish red, bright red elbow, and assumed Madame was seducing an army officer, till the elbow was flung out to show a dainty white hand, holding a parasol folded down. It was the blonde herself, wearing red like a lady of pleasure. Marie stood stockstill, craning forward to catch a glimpse of her companion. He had a low-pitched, undistinguishable voice. He was speaking French, and his accents sounded loverlike, but then French had a way of sounding either angry or intimate, she had often noticed. When the two emerged from behind the trees, there was no doubt as to their mutual status. The man’s arm was wrapped around Madame’s waist, holding her tightly to his side. They hadn’t gone two steps before, after a piece of bantering, Madame was pulled right into his arms and kissed in an expert, thorough fashion. The experienced lover was observed to be Lord Sanford.

A tide of anger swept over Marie, engulfing her. She told herself she was angry that their guest dared bring that French hussy onto Papa’s property to make love to her, told herself she was angry he should so hoodwink Biddy as to think he was a suitable husband for herself, that it was Madame’s nationality that vexed her, and a dozen other lies. That she was jealous as a green cow was not allowed to occur to her at all. It was only the indecency of the behavior and the location that so incensed her. She turned to take a step after her mare, for she had no intention of staying here to have her common decency assaulted by such a disgusting scene. Her mare ambled forward, her harness jingling, but the lovers a few yards away were too well wrapped up in each other to hear a thing. Till the mare whinnied in pleasure to discover the apple in Marie’s hand, she remained unseen. The two lovers heard the sound at once, and drew hastily apart to look to the cause of interruption.

Madame’s outfit drew Marie’s attention. She looked like some clownish cross between an officer of the army and the navy. The scarlet dress had a navy weskit with brass buttons, and on her head she wore a sort of modified shako with ostrich feathers. Madame’s face was nearly as red as her gown, but Sanford maintained his usual sangfroid. It was Madame who came forward first, in confusion, extending her hand. “Ah, it is Miss Boltwood,” she said.

Marie took up her mount’s bridle to avoid touching that infamous set of fingers, and busied herself with checking the buckling of a saddle that required no checking. Biddy’s rennet was gulped down by the mare without a thought to malic acid.

“
Quel verger charmant
,” Madame ran on, looking with admiration at the apple trees surrounding her, forgetting her English with the strain of pretending nothing unusual was going on.

“I am happy you admire it,” Marie said, her nostrils pinched with displeasure.

“Oh,
il n’y a rien
… nothing so glorious as an orchard.”

Marie said not a word, nor did Sanford. Madame turned back to him, “Don’t you think it charming, Adrian?”

“I did,” he answered, looking around and seeming to find not a tree to please him, from the expression he wore.

“When I leave, as I am about to do, I think its charm will return to you,
Adrian
,” Marie said, fixing him with a glaring eye, and adding an awful emphasis on his Christian name to show him what she thought of his familiarity with the trollop.

“I have some hopes that it will, Marie,” he answered pleasantly enough. He offered her his hand to speed her ascent and departure. She disregarded the offer of help, scrabbled up unaided and ungracefully, to give her mount the signal to leave at her fastest gallop. She thought after just a little peek from the corner of her eye, that a clump of earth had flown up and hit Madame’s uniform. She hoped so.

Marie had succeeded in falling completely out of love with Benson. With a patch on his eye and a plaster on his cheek, he looked to her not like a daring spy, as he did to David, but like a brawling, unprincipled ne’er-do-well. Still he had only pecked Madame’s cheek, whereas Sanford had embraced her passionately, so it was Benson who was favored to take Marie in to dinner, and receive any smiles she could muster over the meal.

The talk at table was of the navy’s kindness in sending the Phoebe
over
to honor their dock the night of the ball. Sir Henry recounted former occasions when not one small vessel but half a dozen ships, once even the flagship, had been docked there. The depth of the water in the harbor was mentioned—enough draught for a man of war, should the need arise. Biddy asked how many officers were coming, along with a list of their names.

“Does Rawlins himself come?” Sanford asked.

“We asked Admiral Lord Keith,” Sir Henry said, “but if he is out, as I suppose he will be, Rawlins will have to stay at the station. We sent him a card for the looks of it, but I doubt he will come.”

“If Keith gets back, he will come and Rawlins will still have to stay at the station. Either way, Rawlins won’t be here, I expect,” Sanford said.

“He is not at the station around the clock,” Benson told them. Marie and David exchanged a look. How well they knew what he did with his evenings! “Rawlins plans to attend. Says he wouldn’t miss it for the world. He would leave Wingert on duty, or one of the older officers. He will allow only a small number of officers to come—ten or a dozen. Certainly Rawlins said he will come. The commanding officer in Keith’s absence—you may be sure he will be here to honor the occasion.”

Sir Henry nodded his head in satisfaction that whoever was in command, Keith or Rawlins, he would be at Boltwood’s ball, to do it honor, and never mind about who was guarding the station for one night. What were a dozen frigates compared with Bolt Hall’s fleet? Huge, lumbering ships with no maneuvering ability.

“I just missed seeing Rawlins today myself,” Sanford mentioned in an innocent fashion.

Benson looked at him sharply, thus alerting David that there was something of significance being said, though he couldn’t for the life of him see what it was. Sanford had already said he’d been in town.

“Yes,” Sanford went on, “shortly after I left Sinclair’s today, after gathering my leeches, Rawlins dropped over for the specific purpose of seeing my yacht. I was sorry I wasn’t there to point out to him its features. But Mrs. Sinclair, who told me of the visit in the village this afternoon, says he took a very thorough look at it, all the same.”

“Sinclair accompanied him, I expect?” Benson asked.

“No, he was busy. Rawlins went over it by himself.”

“Your deckhands would be on board?” Benson asked.

“I didn’t think to inquire,” Sanford answered casually. “They may possibly have taken the opportunity to stretch their legs on terra firma. Knowing the boat is safe at a private dock, I do not insist anyone remain aboard twenty-four hours a day. If I were docked at the wharf at Plymouth, say, it would have been guarded. The crowd there would be apt to board and take away a chip of my lapis lazuli fireplace, or help themselves to my wine.” He went on to relate a tale of having his ship burgled when docked at Ireland, and David listened, but in the end could make nothing of it.

“If there had been anything of real value aboard, of course, I would remove it and have Sinclair keep it in the house for me, but my jewelry, my money and so on, I carry with me and my valet looks after them.”

“Your groom, he is due for a new plaster tonight, Sanford,” Biddy reminded him. “Have him come to me before he goes to bed, and I’ll see how that wound is coming along.”

“He would appreciate it,” Sanford said. “Somehow or other my valet has managed to wound himself, too. Such an accident-prone bunch as we are—myself, Benson, John Groom, and now Jean Valet—he is French, my valet, as is my groom, too, actually. He managed to bruise his hand rather badly. I told him he ought to go to you at once, Biddy, but a swelling has set in, and I think your ice pack, or possibly a splint, would be a comfort to him.”

“How did it happen?” Biddy asked at once.

“He was helping some fellow stop a runaway jackass, and got bruised in the process.”

David, still observing, noticed that Benson turned an angry shade darker at this, but he didn’t look at Sanford at all, so there was no telling if Sanford and Benson, too, had been involved with the runaway jackass.

“That’d be Tony Parkins. That ass of his is the most obstinate beast there ever was. Will never go when you want him to, and won’t stop once he gets started,” David told them.

“I believe Parkins was the name my valet mentioned,” Sanford answered. Then he began complimenting Biddy on the meal, and got stuck to hear a recipe for plum cake.

Benson disappeared the minute the meal was over. He didn’t even stay to take port, but dashed out at once, to go into Plymouth he said. Some friends of his had arrived during the day, and he was having a purely social evening out with them. David checked to the extent of seeing Benson’s nag headed not into Plymouth (nor to Madame Monet’s, for that matter), but west towards Sinclair’s, Hazy’s, or somewhere. Any of them might be his destination, but David had nearly switched all his allegiance to Sanford. He returned to the dining room to take port and said to Sanford, “Benson going into Plymouth, all a hum, you know. He ain’t headed that way at all, and wasn’t there last night, either. What do you figure he’s up to, Sanford?”

“I don’t know. MacKenroth is on his way to town. He is the fellow who means to deliver the subpoena to Admiral Keith. Possibly Benson is involved in some scheme to do with that.” The whole habeas corpus business was public knowledge now, and often discussed.

“How do you know he’s coming?”

“Hazy told me.”

“Thought you hadn’t gone to see Hazy,” David said, forgetting momentarily his intention of playing a close hand. Demmed near impossible to find out anything if you sat with your lips closed, in any case.

“I was talking to him in town today.”

“Oh. How will MacKenroth proceed, do you suppose?”

“He’ll try to reach either Napoleon or Admiral Keith. It should be an interesting scene tomorrow. I mean to spend the day at sea, aboard
Seadog
. Will you come with me, David?”

“By Jove—
will I
?” David answered. Had he a tail, and such an adoring pair of  puppy’s eyes ought to have had a tail attached to them, he would surely have wagged it.

“I hope you will,” Sanford replied, with a lazy smile. “And I wish you will help me crew, as I am short one hand.”

“Oh I’d be glad to give you a hand, Lord Sanford.”

“My friends call me Adrian. Now that we are friends, I wish you will do the same.”