WHATEVER MISS LYELL HAD INSINUATED WITH HER PREDICTIONS OF intimacy, the simple face of her words was no more than truth. Even having removed themselves from the mess room, she and her papa could not distance themselves from their fellow passengers. We were eight in total: myself and the Lyells; a jovial Bristol merchant named Kittering, forever trying to engage us in amusements; a sallow cleric bound for a parish in Boston, travelling with his wife; and a pair of majors destined for the Bermuda garrison. Among these, Miss Lyell was quickly adopted as the favourite. Each morning, one of the sailors would bring her chair to the foredeck, and thereafter she would sit like Cleopatra on her barge, rapt in fascination as one admirer or another pressed her with his wit and gaiety. Only the cleric’s wife proved immune, standing by the weather rail and pursing her lips at the wind while her husband leafed through theological treatises.
On the second night from Falmouth, Captain Trevelyan borrowed his cabin back from the Lyells and entertained the passengers to dinner. It was not a comfortable occasion: we had known one another just long enough to have exhausted the obvious conversations, but not so long as to have discovered any acquaintance worth extending. At least, I suppose, we had not yet had a chance to become enemies. And in the Adventure, we had one common thread to cling to.
‘What I do not understand,’ said Lyell, waving his fork and splashing Trevelyan with gravy, ‘is why you keep the mails on deck. I cannot think that England’s correspondents would be comfortable knowing that their letters are left in the open air, exposed to every depredation of storm and sea. Why not lock them in the lazaret, or at least shelter them in the hold?’
It was a fair question. Ever since leaving Falmouth the black portmanteaus had sat by the mainmast with only a tarpaulin to cover them. It did not seem a satisfactory arrangement.
Now Kittering, the merchant, joined in. ‘And the crew – what of them? You trust them, do you, that they will not reach in during the night watches and pilfer the posts?’
‘Or turn them into casks of brandy?’ suggested Lyell. Polite laughter rose around the table. It had not taken long for word of my idiocy to spread through the company.
Trevelyan smiled. ‘There is no chance of that, you may be assured. My crew are honest enough. As for the hazards of the sea, the portmanteaus are sewn tight. The paramount concern is that if danger were to threaten, we would lose no time hoisting the mails over the side and depriving our enemies of their intelligence.’
‘Enemies?’ gasped Miss Lyell. ‘Do you really think we are at risk, Captain Trevelyan?’ She was seated to his right, at the far end of the table from me, but it seemed she was suddenly unduly flushed about her collar.
Trevelyan leaned comfortingly towards her. ‘I doubt it, Miss Lyell; I do not wish to alarm you. But it would be overly sanguine to think that the oceans are entirely England’s own. There are enough ships out there, Spanish and French and their privateers, that we should be on our guard.’
‘And what if one of them finds us, eh?’ asked one of the majors. ‘She’s hardly the Victory, your command. Not much bite in your broadside, I fancy.’
Miss Lyell tittered; Trevelyan scowled, and waved to his steward. ‘The logbook, if you please.’
The steward disappeared into the adjoining room and returned with a leatherbound book. Trevelyan took it and opened the cover.
‘The instructions laid down by my lords the Postmaster General are these. “You must run where you can. You must fight when you can no longer run, and when you can fight no more you must sink the mails before you strike.”’
‘Run where you can?’ echoed the major. ‘That does not sound so heroic, so Nelsonian, do you think, Miss Lyell?’
It sounded like perfect sense to me; I wished I had discovered the merits of postal service far earlier in my career. But while Trevelyan muttered something about discretion and valour, and the major congratulated himself on his wit, Miss Lyell had fixed her gaze on me.
‘Lieutenant Jerrold is a naval man, is he not? Have you ever fought a sea battle, Lieutenant?’
Of course, I should have heeded the Post Office’s excellent advice and fled away from her dangerous questions. But when you have enjoyed a few glasses of claret, and a fair-haired angel is quivering her bosom at you from the far end of the table, temptation is hard to resist. Particularly when you have a trump to play.
‘I was at Trafalgar.’
That impressed them. All around the table I saw their faces register respect, excitement and jealousy – that a hero of the greatest battle of the age should be seated in their midst.
‘But Lieutenant, that is thrilling,’ breathed Miss Lyell. Her voice almost trembled with awe. ‘Did you see Lord Nelson himself? Did you witness his tragic, noble sacrifice?’
I did not, for the simple reason that I had spent the entire battle locked in the hold, barely conscious from all the brandy I’d drunk. I omitted that fact.
‘There was so much smoke I could hardly see the sword in my hands. I just kept hacking away until the Frenchies stopped coming … England expects, Nelson said, and – well, I fancy I did my duty well enough.’
Despite the adoring looks that Miss Lyell was beaming at me, and the impotent envy on Trevelyan’s face, I was keen to leave the topic before they guessed that the ace in my hand was actually a knave. But now Kittering was speaking.
‘Were you actually aboard the Victory?’
‘The Temeraire,’ I said warily. I did not wish to discover that he had some brother or cousin who had been there with me.
‘You wouldn’t have seen much action there, I suppose,’ said Lyell. He was closer to the truth than he guessed, but his comment drew his daughter’s indignation.
‘On the contrary, Papa. The Temeraire was at the very heart of the battle – I recall it from the newspapers. A French ship came along one side and a Spanish on the other, and the poor ship might have been quite crushed between them, yet eventually Lieutenant Jerrold and his crew prevailed and forced both enemies into surrender. Was it not so, Lieutenant?’
I raised my hands in modesty. ‘Naturally, it was not so simple.’
Naturally, it was all a lie – and not of my own devising. Admiral Collingwood had reported it, from where I cannot guess, and The Times had obliged by reprinting his fiction on the front page. None of my brother officers, so far as I knew, had troubled to correct the matter.
‘Well, well. A hero of Trafalgar in our very midst. We must have a toast.’ Kittering raised his glass.
I tried to look humble. ‘And to Nelson, of course.’
‘To Nelson,’ they chorused.
‘Tell me, sir,’ said Kittering, when the glasses were emptied. ‘How is it that a man of your undoubted abilities should be sailing to America? Surely the command of some dashing frigate would be more apt, a chance to sail into the teeth of the enemy and bloody his nose a little?’
‘Perhaps Lieutenant Jerrold lacks influence at the Admiralty,’ Miss Lyell suggested. ‘Are you the unfortunate victim of faction, Lieutenant?’
Once again, I could not resist the opportunity her question presented. What better way to insinuate myself into her father’s good offices, to convince him of my reputation, than to demonstrate the patronage I enjoyed? ‘I have no lack of favour at the Admiralty, thankfully. In fact, my uncle sits on the board.’ I named him, and enjoyed the nods of recognition which passed around the cabin. They were not to know that my uncle tolerated me only insomuch as my disgrace would redound to his own discredit. Lyell must have known the name as well: across the table I could see him watching me with greater interest and, I fancied, a new regard.
But my answer had not satisfied Kittering. ‘If you do not want for influence, then why are you bound for America?’
I hesitated. In my cabin the night before I had devised some story of a suffering aunt in need of her devoted nephew. But now, with the eyes of the company upon me – Miss Lyell’s chief among them – that seemed a feeble pretext for abandoning my heroic career.
‘Sometimes, I fear we must forgo the glories of the cannon’s mouth for a higher cause. There are ways of attacking our enemies which are not always reported in the newspapers.’ I winked. ‘I dare say no more. Duty stays my lips.’
That roused them. Miss Lyell squealed with delight; Captain Trevelyan looked grudgingly impressed, while the others marvelled that they should have a secret agent in their midst. I could not see Mr Lyell’s reaction, but as I beamed back the collective admiration, I felt he was giving me a very curious look indeed.
I wondered afterwards how wise it was to have alluded to my mission, but the immediate benefits were apparent the following morning. I had finished breakfast, and was standing at the taffrail watching the receding wake, when I noticed I was not alone. Miss Lyell had sidled up beside me and was leaning out, her gloved hands clasped over the water.
‘I feel so isolated here,’ she said, presumably excepting the two-dozen men at work behind her. ‘To be beyond all sight of land, like Noah in his ark – and to know it will be full forty days and forty nights before we reach shore.’
‘At least, I fancy, we can hope for finer weather than Noah.’ Since leaving Falmouth we had enjoyed blue skies and brisk winds. Captain Trevelyan had been able to set stuns’ls and royals, and the Adventure bulged like a cloud as she hurried across the ocean.
‘I suppose we shall have to turn the tedium to our advantage and spend the voyage improving ourselves.’
‘I’m sure you could not be improved upon at all, Miss Lyell.’
She laughed prettily, and squeezed closer to me. ‘Then we shall have to start on you, Lieutenant. Do you paint?’
‘All I could paint on this ship is the gunports,’ I demurred.
‘Then how do you fare with the modern languages? Do you speak French?’
I coughed. ‘In the navy, such accomplishment is considered tantamount to treason.’
‘Oh come, Lieutenant. Surely you should know your enemy. Surely that is what Nelson would have expected. It is decided: I shall be your tutor, and you will be my obedient pupil. The journey will pass so much more quickly that way. Though you must be accustomed to such voyages, I suppose?’
With the constant mill of blockade duty, I had barely left sight of land in all my service. I did not think this the moment to confess it. ‘There is always a part of me which yearns to be home.’
‘I am pleased to hear you say so. One reads of the intrepid adventures of our noble sailors, and wonders what sentiments can beat beneath those firm and steady breasts.’
Well, I could have opened her eyes on that account, but prudently chose otherwise. Besides, I was distracted. She was standing rather closer to me than propriety allowed, and the roll of the ship’s deck kept pressing her against me in a most unseemly and delightful way. Despite the steady breeze, she wore neither cloak nor spencer, and I could feel the curve of her body through the thin cloth of her dress.
‘I suppose it must be cruel for you to be parted from your dear ones so long,’ she said lightly.
I slid a glance sideways, trying to guess the intent behind her words, but her eyes were fixed on a piece of flotsam which had drifted across our wake.
‘A man of action is rarely afforded the succour of affection.’ I tried to affect a tragic air, and imagine myself as such a man. ‘There are no cords of love to bind me to England.’
An unusually large wave must have struck Adventure’s side, for Miss Lyell was impelled against me quite forcefully. It was a moment before she regained her balance and was able to right herself. Even then, our arms remained touching.
‘My poor lieutenant,’ she whispered, so heartfelt that I had to believe her sincerity. ‘Forsaking love like a modern Galahad. Is there none of the gentle sex who has touched your heart?’
‘No longer.’
I suppose I should have been gratified by her attentions, her solicitous sympathy, but I was not. There was no longer so much artifice in my tragic demeanour, for her words had touched a wound which, though I insisted it was past, still troubled me.
‘If I had a father—’
A candlestick shied through the air, narrowly missing my left ear.
‘If you had a father, he’d have married you off to some fisherman when you were fourteen, and we’d never have met.’ I stepped smartly sideways as the candlestick’s pair flew past me and crashed into the corner.
‘I wish we had never met!’ Isobel shouted.
As the fond parting of two lovers, this was not precisely what I had hoped for.
Nor had I foreseen its coming, though that was doubtless part of the quarrel. For the past three weeks I had been charging around the country as if my very life had depended on it – which, in fairness, it had – and each time that Isobel had managed to catch me up, circumstance had driven me away in pursuit of my quarry. I knew it had troubled her, that it had sparked suspicion and temper, but I had assumed she would appreciate the forces which compelled me on – the same forces which now sent me to America. I had not expected the news to provoke this bizarre confrontation.
‘How can you say you wish we’d never met?’ I asked, baffled. ‘A moment ago, you wanted me to marry you.’
It was the last thing I had expected to hear when I returned to our room at the boarding house, after a day in town cajoling my prize agent to advance me the monies to equip myself for the voyage. I had hoped to find Isobel awaiting me in her patent invisible petticoat, ready to offer the pleasures of the marriage bed – not the shackles of the institution itself.
‘Marry you?’ I’d echoed, half thinking she teased me. ‘Don’t be absurd.’
It was an honest answer, no different to what any man in my position would have given. But perhaps I should have guarded myself better.
‘Absurd?’ spat Isobel. She swung her legs off the bed and stood, then advanced towards me. ‘You didn’t think I was so absurd all those days and nights I was in your bed. Or when you asked me to follow you out of Dover.’
‘I didn’t say that you were absurd, merely that the idea of us marrying – now, of all times – is … impossible.’ I was retreating towards the door. ‘In less than a week I shall be aboard ship for America, and I cannot say how long it will be before Nevell’s damned errand allows me to return. Think of it: a girl in your position, a man in mine …’
‘What position is that, Martin? An officer who couldn’t find the enemy at Trafalgar, who couldn’t keep command of a ship that was chained to the riverbed? I might not have a father in a vicarage or an uncle at the Admiralty, but at least I’ve got some pride. And if I did have a father, he’d have made certain sure you didn’t treat me like this. What about my reputation?’
‘Reputation? You were a washerwoman – among your more reputable professions.’
It was at that moment that the first candlestick had come flying at me.
Though almost a foot shorter than I, Isobel’s fury seemed to have made good the deficit of inches. ‘I’ve trusted you, Martin. I trusted you when you took me out of Dover, and I’ve trusted you even when it seemed that every time I found you you were running away again.’
‘Because some particularly vicious lunatics compelled me,’ I protested.
Isobel took no notice. ‘But if you’re leaving me again, going off to America for months or even years, then I’ll need something more to trust in. I’m eighteen; I can’t be keeping all spoony for you if you’re not coming back for me.’
‘I am coming back,’ I insisted.
‘For me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then prove it. Say you’ll marry me.’
Of course, I should have told her ‘yes’ right there, and perjured myself later when she wasn’t raving like an Irishman. If she’d been my uncle, I’d have whimpered my complaisance quick enough. But I’d already had to duck two candlesticks, and I’d be damned if some eighteen-year-old imp could browbeat herself onto the Jerrold escutcheon. How would I have explained it to my parents?
I folded my arms, feeding on my own righteousness. ‘I won’t have it. If you will not trust me now after all I’ve done for you … Indeed, if you cannot trust me, why on earth should you want to marry me?’
Isobel’s face was flushed and trembling; she seemed to need all her strength to hold herself together, to keep from melting into a pool of tears. The mere sight of her effort lanced my composure like a boil, but there were no words I could say.
‘Goodbye, Martin.’
She looked down. Perhaps she was seeking some other object to hurl at me, but there was nothing left. She ran out of the door and vanished.
On the deck of the Adventure, I had lapsed into silence while I remembered the scene. Now I felt a warm touch against my side, and realized that Miss Lyell had cosseted her slight frame under my shoulder, close beside me.
‘My poor lieutenant,’ she cooed. ‘Can there be anything more desolate than a hero, a lion of Trafalgar, suffering the pangs of unrequited love?’
Well, perhaps I did suffer from unrequited love, though on the opposite end of it, I suspect, to what Miss Lyell presumed. I did not trouble to correct her, for it seemed to me that she might offer a welcome remedy for a weary heart. If, of course, there was anywhere on this floating snuffbox where we might enjoy an intimacy.
‘Lieutenant Jerrold!’
I spun about like a servant caught in his mistress’s bedchamber. Miss Lyell was more discreet. Though she barely seemed to move, she was immediately at a demure distance from me and exclaiming, ‘Oh Papa! You have quite startled Lieutenant Jerrold. He was explaining to me the workings of the rudder.’
Lyell’s thick eyebrows seemed to bristle out at me like pikes. ‘Lieutenant Jerrold would do well to keep his wisdom to himself. If I may enjoy a word alone …’
Miss Lyell seemed to melt away. Before she had reached the mainmast, Captain Trevelyan was deep in conversation with her.
Lyell gripped my arm, as different a touch from his daughter’s as could be imagined, and I steeled myself for a lecture on the inviolability of his progeny’s virtue. You may gather it would not have been the first time I had heard such sentiments from an angry father.
‘I have come to warn you, Lieutenant.’ As I had feared. ‘I do not know what your other merits may be, but your indiscretions are a menace to all around you. If you had nothing else to say at dinner last night you should have held your damn tongue and left the conversation to prating merchants.’
So surprised was I by this unexpected rebuke, and so vigorously did he shake my arm, I could find no words to defend myself. I could barely remember what I might have said to provoke him so. I did not think I had been overly forward with his daughter – though a father’s suspicions are easily roused.
‘How dare you speak so brazenly, so casually, about your mission? With so many enemies ranged against us, a little discretion is the very least the situation demands.’ He leaned his face in towards me, his fat lips mashing and writhing together. ‘You would do well to hold your tongue until we reach harbour in New York. You may be assured that I shall be watching you closely.’
He snapped his hand away from my arm, almost ripping a hole in my sleeve, and strode away towards the fo’c’sle. Clearly my dark hints towards secret missions had angered him, but why? Was he a zealous patriot, alert to anything which might betray his country? Or did he know more of my errand than I would wish?
I sighed. It would be just like Nevell to bind me to such an ally and then refrain from warning me. And even though Lyell had not expressly mentioned my attentions towards his daughter, it would be hard to press my suit with those fat eyes boring into me the entire voyage.
I looked down the deck. Miss Lyell had regained her canvas chair and was holding court to Kittering and the clergyman.
It would be a long six weeks.