The Moonless Night (6 page)

He was tall and lean, with an aristocratic face, eyes that were half closed due to either fatigue or boredom, a well-sculpted nose, and a lower jaw that would have been described as lantern-jawed had it been a fraction of an inch longer, and might soon be anyway, if Lord Sanford proved to have a disposition to match his expression. It was clear at a glance that he was every bit as dull as she had expected, Marie decided. As he took up a seat beside Mr. Benson, she had an excellent opportunity to compare them unhindered, for neither of them glanced at her. There was interest, sensitivity, intelligence on the face of their spy, but Lord Sanford looked along the table with very little interest, settling in the end for only coffee. He was stiff, formal, did not give any impression of wishing to make himself loved in any quarter.

“You would know Mr. Benson I expect, Lord Sanford?” Sir Henry asked.

“We have met before I think,” he replied, with a bare nod to Benson, who nodded slightly in return.

“We are neighbors,” Benson mentioned, causing the table to wonder at such lukewarm greetings between neighbors.

“Are you, indeed?” Sir Henry asked. “I knew you were both from Devon. Well, this is a coincidence.”

Nothing whatever was said by either neighbor to this marvelous coincidence. In fact, upon a closer scrutiny, Marie took the idea they were each unhappy to find the other there.

“Are you come to look at Bonaparte, like the rest of the world?” Benson asked, being obviously the more polite of the two, and feeling some further talk between them was required.

“Actually, I am on my way to my residence on the Isle of Wight for a holiday, but as the world is come to Plymouth, I decided to take a detour here and travel back along the coast to Portsmouth, where I keep my yacht for the crossing to the island. I hadn’t realized the place had become a circus.”

Anyone with the full use of his brain would have realized it of course, but no one said it aloud. “What kind of a yacht do you have?” Sir Henry asked with some little interest.

“An excellent one,” was the lord’s obtuse reply.

“He means, what type?” David explained.

“Oh, a schooner,” Sanford replied, with such a pained face that no further details were sought.

“If you are interested in yachting, you will want to come to the docks after breakfast. We have seven yachts there, ready to run,” Sir Henry said.

“Ours ain’t ready to run,” David mentioned, disgruntled.

Sanford regarded the speakers lazily in turn as they spoke, and sipped his coffee in silence. After a moment he said, “What do the local people think of having Bonaparte so close to them? Do they go in fear of an escape?”

“He will certainly
try
it,” Sir Henry answered, “but we are prepared for him.”

“I cannot think it at all likely myself he’ll make a dash for it,” Sanford replied. “His better option would he to negotiate his freedom.”

“Liverpool would never hear of it!” Sir Henry objected at once. “You don’t think the Duke of Sussex and his set carry sufficient weight to give him any measure of freedom?” He withheld the hated word
Whig
in deference to his guest’s politics.

“Sussex’s influence is negligible. He likes to play the liberal, but is not influential in the corridors of power. It is more likely Lord Holland who would be of use on that score. He and Brougham are liberal in their views concerning the General. Along with a few of the more enlightened literati, such as Hobhouse, and of course Capell Lofft, the eminent barrister. Byron considers him one of the three greatest men of the century,” Sanford said.

“Beau Brummel and himself complete the triumvirate in the poet’s estimation, I understand,” Benson said with a bland smile.

Sanford regarded him unperturbed. “I think Byron is mistaken to include himself. Coleridge is the more accomplished poet.”

Marie could scarcely suppress a smile, and David had even more difficulty holding in a guffaw. Sir Henry was incapable of containing his wrath. “Brummel, that Jack dandy! He has no claim to fame. He is a nobody.”

“He invented the starched collar,” Sanford pointed out, his eyes widening till they were three-quarters open.

David’s titters were not to be ignored at this point. Staring at him and subjecting his high shirt points to a sneering examination, Sanford continued, “Of course he never dreamed some people would carry it to laughable lengths.”

With this leveler he turned back to Sir Henry. “You have a neighbor, a Mr. Hazy, who is active in negotiating Napoleon’s freedom. I must go to see him.”

Sir Henry sat stunned into silence.. Mr. Hazy, the local lunatic, who had sworn himself to the legal freeing of that monster, Bonaparte, was a disgrace so the neighborhood That the godson of Lord Bathurst, a high Tory, should be on terms with him was a crushing revelation. “You cannot mean you are in favor of the scheme!”

“Certainly I am,” Sanford replied matter-of-factly.

“He ought to he executed! I have a petition going around to that effect.”

“Why is it the common minds always want to execute the giants who come amongst us?” Sanford asked, in the weary tones of one who knew he would get no sensible reply. “Jesus Christ, Socrates, Charles I—the world has only to see a genius to want to put an end to him,” he complained, lumping the Deity, philosopher and bad monarch together.

“Giant
devil
!” Sir Henry yelped, pulling from his pocket the petition, already bearing a hundred signatures, some forty of them from his own household. “Here is the paper will see Bonaparte in a grave, where be belongs. Your godfather, Lord Bathurst, supports me,” he added, rather prematurely, as the letter to him had received no reply.

“Oh,
Bathurst
,” Sanford said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Pray don’t hold me responsible for his antique views. One has nothing to say in the selection of his godparents. He would not have been my choice, I promise you.” He took the petition and scanned it with a derisive smile. “I see
you
have succumbed, Mr. Benson.”

“I am in favor of executing Bonaparte,” Benson replied, with a smile of anticipation, enjoying the ruckus. “I take it you don’t mean to add your signature, milord?”

“I would as lief sign my best nag over to the pound. This is madness. Bonaparte ought to be returned to Elba, or some more salubrious spot found for him. Actually, one of the reasons I go to Wight is to see whether my residence there might not be used as a refuge. I own rather a fine castle on the island, and Wight has a better climate than the rest of England. Napoleon’s health is not good, unfortunately.”

“Wight is not ten miles from England!” Sir Henry gasped in disbelief at such madness.

“True, it would permit easy visiting for him, which is one of the advantages of the plan,” Sanford agreed reasonably. “If he were agreeable, I would like to set up a military academy there, to give our officers the benefit of his genius.”

“We have our own genius! Wellington can teach our lads what they need to know.”

“Wellington, another giant, is one of the few who agrees with me,” Sanford pointed out. “He says quite openly it is only the bungling of Bonaparte’s officers that lost Napoleon Waterloo. Wellington would be happy to see him on Wight. He helped spike the wheel of those bloodthirsty ministers who wanted to send Napoleon back to Louis for beheading. What a conversation that would be—Wellington and Napoleon. I hope I may have the honor to be present when they meet.”

“They will not meet, sir!” Sir Henry told him, and, folding up his petition, stuck it into his breast pocket.

“I suppose not, if Boney manages to escape,” Sanford admitted. “That would be a dreadful mistake. He can certainly negotiate a good, a very pleasant refuge, if he sits tight and isn’t scared into trying to escape by some hare-brained scheme. Surely no one would be foolish enough to try it.”

“You may be sure someone will try it,” David said, his brown eyes flashing at this impossible stranger. He wondered that his father sat calmly by and heard such treasonous talk. “Everyone says Bonaparte is to be incarcerated on Saint Helena Island, over a thousand miles off the coast of Africa, and he will try to escape to avoid it. This is his last chance. The town of Plymouth is overrun with Frenchies slipped over since Waterloo, come with no other thought than to free him.”

“They must certainly be thwarted,” Sanford declared.

Sir Henry opened his mouth to object, till he realized he agreed. This was the sole point of agreement between them. They none of them wanted Napoleon to escape. The Boltwood party was afraid he’d get clean away, and Sanford was afraid he wouldn’t. Sir Henry was in no mood to discuss further with this upstart rebel who had somehow got into his house under false pretences, and turned to Mr. Benson.

“You mentioned an interest in seeing my preparations to prevent Napoleon’s escape, Mr. Benson. Shall we go down to the wharf now and do it, while Lord Sanford finishes his coffee?”

“I’ll go with you,” Sanford said, causing chagrin in every heart as he pushed away his cup with a grimace of distaste.

They were soon clambering down the rock cliff from castle to dock, with Sir Henry wincing at every painful step. Benson gave his hand to Marie to aid her, and Sanford walked along behind them with Sir Henry, offering no help at all to the invalid. “Demmed awkward approach to your dock,” was his only comment as they went.

“Bolt Hall was put up on the hill on purpose to make attack harder. It is why I have never put in a staircase. The Hall is a fortress, walled all around. The first castle in England that was set up for the garrison having their artillery behind the walls. Show you later when we go back up.” But first they had to get down to the dock, to examine the six yachts bobbing up and down in the water, and the seventh, the only one of any size or speed, propped up on the dock on wooden horses, with its keel facing the sun.

“That won’t do you much good in an emergency,” Sanford said, staring at it with consternation. This was the first statement with which David agreed.

“She can be launched today,” Sir Henry replied stiffly, which put David back in his father's camp where he belonged. He went on so point out that the yachts were each equipped with tinned foods, drink, blankets and Brown Besses, procured by means of Sir Henry’s former connection with the supplies office.

“A musket with a range of one hundred yards won’t do you much good on the high seas,” was Sanford’s belittling comment.

“If you will look up the garrison wall, you will see there are big guns mounted at the openings” Sir Henry replied curtly, “We’ll go back up and you can have a look at them.” He was really far from ready to scrabble up the cliff so soon, but had no desire to hear his preparations further denigrated.

“My father finds the climbing hard,” Marie mentioned to Mr. Benson, who had remained by her side.

“I’ll give him a hand,” he volunteered at once. Marie gave him another, so that the three of them went up slowly, while David and Sanford bounded up the cliff at a pace strangely at odds with Lord Sanford’s stately bearing.

“Lord Sanford holds some surprising views,” Benson remarked.

“The man is a lunatic,” Sir Henry declared with vehemence, “and I wish I had not invited him to stay. If he goes calling on Mr. Hazy, I hope the fellow will offer to put him up. They belong together, the pair of upstart Whigs.”

“Who is this Mr. Hazy exactly?” Benson asked.

“He is a liberal that lives hereabouts. Was a liberal M.P. some years ago, a friend of Holland. He was always ripe for any foolishness the Whigs came up with. Has given the Prince Regent the devil of a hard time about money, expecting a prince to live in a hovel. His present mania is to set Napoleon free, to do it by an Act of Parliament or some such thing, with the help of other left-wingers like Brougham and this Capell Lofft. And Lord Sanford,” he added grimly.

“How would they go about it?”

“No doubt Lord Sanford will inform us,” he said through clenched teeth. Speech was difficult in his pained condition, and he said no more. Marie, glancing to her spy, saw his eyes were narrowed suspiciously, as he examined Lord Sanford with the keenest interest.

They had soon reached the plateau that held the garrison wall, entering through a rounded stone archway. There was an area of about fifteen yards depth between the garrison wall and the Hall proper. In this spot were several former fieldhands piling up cannon balls, polishing ramrods, oiling cannons, and generally behaving as they imagined a soldier would behave, which involved a good deal of ribaldry and cursing, till they discerned their employer had come amongst them. Sir Henry strode importantly to the closest gun opening, where a cannon was mounted. He took a grip on the handles and turned the gun from left to right. “Swivels, you see,” he pointed out to Sanford, with a vastly superior air. “All my guns do. I can cover the whole seaward mouth of the river that runs in past my place. A ship won’t get up the estuary in one piece if I don’t like the looks of it.”

“Do these antiques actually work? Where did you find such relics? Are they left over from the Civil War?” Sanford fired off this series of questions without allowing time for replies.

“They are in working order,” Sir Henry told him, and didn’t see fit to mention that they had not actually done so in the last generation.

“Very effective, if it happens the rescuers decide to bring Boney ashore here. What makes you think they will choose the one guarded dock with hundreds of miles of unguarded coastline? No one would be foolish enough to land him anywhere near here,” Sanford pointed out.

“There is very little anchorage anywhere along the coast. Sheer rock cliffs by and large, with a little inlet at Wembury of course, and Sinclair has a neat dock at Sinclair Point, though it doesn’t have as deep a clearance as my own. At low tide it is perfectly useless.
I
have had my dock dredged all around.”

“Wettering’s is dredged, too,” David added. Sanford and Benson exchanged a look of consternation. The General had a dozen choices of landing spots no doubt, and here was the entire civilian defense lumped at one spot, with the fact loudly bruited around the town.