Читать книгу Taking Liberties - Diana Norman - Страница 8

The Commission for Sick and Hurt Seamen and the Exchange of Prisoners of War, more generally known as the Sick and Hurt Office, was under the direction of the Lords of the Admiralty in London and, as such, reflected their lordships’ demand for spit and polish.

The sailor who stamped along its immaculate corridors beside Diana wore dress uniform so stiff with starch and wax she decided he’d been lifted into it by traction. The waiting room he ushered her into had Caroline elegance; even the restrained sun of a muggy day coming through the windows was reflected in an oak floor lethal with over-buffing and the scent of unexpected roses, standing to attention in a centrepiece on the great walnut table, was overpowered by a smell of beeswax and turpentine.

She was asked to wait. ‘Mr Commissioner Powell has been delayed a minute, ma’am.’

She frowned; she was not used to being kept waiting by underlings. However, she was on an adventure and she had nothing more important to do. ‘Very well.’

There were two other occupants of the room, a woman of about her own age and a young man, sitting silently on adjoining chairs at the table. The Dowager lowered her head as she passed them on her way to look out of the window. The young man acknowledged her politely, rising for a slight bow; the woman ignored her.

In one look, Diana had automatically assessed to what social order they belonged. Decent enough young man, neat, well dressed but not quite the ton: a professional person from the provinces. The woman was less easy to place. Good clothes, really very good, nice silk, but worn without care, distressing red hair escaping from a hat that didn’t match the gloves. In misery, from the look of her. A wife of the mercantile class in some distress.

Below the window, in Horse Guards, a Grenadier company was parading in full battle gear to the accompaniment of drummers and fifers. From the Dowager’s high viewpoint they looked like pretty squares of tin soldiers. Having attended reviews of the Earl of Stacpoole’s Own Grenadiers, she could guess that under their fur mitres and carrying a weight of sixty pounds in knapsack, blanket, water flask, ammunition and weapons, they were not feeling pretty. As she watched, one of the toy soldiers fell flat, fainting, as if flicked over by an invisible child. The roar of the drill sergeant’s disapproval coincided with the entry of Mr Commissioner Powell behind her.

‘My goodness, so sorry to keep you waiting, your ladyship. Dear, yes, I hope they made you comfortable.’

She’d expected a naval officer but Mr Commissioner Powell was a lawyer and his neat subfusc looked dowdy and civilian amidst such shiny naval order. He was flurried by her importance – in her note she hadn’t scrupled to emphasize her title, the late Earl’s eminence and her son’s position at Court.

‘There’s sorry I am for your bereavement, your ladyship. A loss to us all, indeed. Such a great man. Please come this way, your ladyship. My office …’ He bowed her towards the door.

‘We were here first.’

The Dowager looked round. The woman at the table had raised her head. Mr Powell stopped, amazed. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I said,’ the woman said, ‘we were here first. We been waiting and I want for you to deal with us now.’ The voice was toneless but the American accent was strong.

Colonial mercantile, thought the Dowager.

Mr Powell wasn’t impressed either. ‘But, madam, you can understand …’ His hand indicated not only the Dowager’s position but her widow’s weeds.

‘Sorry for your loss, ma’am.’ The woman didn’t look at Diana; her eyes were on Powell. ‘But, see, my daughter’s missing and that man there knows where she is.’

It had been a terrible day, a terrible week for Makepeace and Oliver Hedley. After a breakneck journey from Newcastle to London, it had transpired that Andrew Ffoulkes, the rising young luminary of the diplomatic corps on whose help Makepeace had counted, was absent, sent abroad on a secret mission. At the house of the Marquis of Rockingham, another influential friend, they’d learned that the master was in Yorkshire.

Though they’d scattered money like rose petals around the Admiralty, its clerks had been too harassed by the developing situation at sea to search for the information needed by an increasingly distraught woman. When, finally, they’d managed to trace the fate of the Lord Percy, the news had been awful.

Nor had it been final; that was the thing. Apart from the fact that they had been involved in dreadful events, whether Philippa and Susan were alive or not was still uncertain; they had been supercargo, civilian passengers, and, as such, no department had been willing to assume responsibility for them.

At last, one clerk had been helpful. ‘You want the Sick and Hurt Office, ma’am. They got them sort of records.’

‘I know where she is?’ Mr Powell asked now.

‘That’s what they told me.’ Makepeace was keeping her voice steady, but when she tried to get up from her chair she sagged. She hadn’t eaten and had barely slept for seventy-two hours.

Oliver began to fan her with his hat. Idly, the Dowager handed him her fan. ‘Use that, young man.’ She recognized desperation when she saw it and was touched. She turned to the commissioner. ‘Perhaps you had better deal with this person, Mr Powell. Now, I think, and here.’

‘Oah, but all records are in my office.’

‘They can be fetched,’ the Dowager told him with finality. The woman was obviously exhausted. In any case, she found herself intrigued and had no intention of missing the story about to unfold. ‘I am prepared to wait.’

‘Very well, if your ladyship is sure.’

She was sure. She took a chair at the back of the room out of everyone’s eyeline. ‘Please proceed.’

Obediently but somewhat put out, Mr Powell seated himself at the head of the table opposite Makepeace and Oliver. ‘Name?’

‘This is Mrs Hedley. I am Oliver Hedley, her stepson.’ Oliver took up the running. He produced a notebook. Having won her point and the necessary attention, Makepeace had slumped.

‘March the sixth this year,’ Oliver said, ‘a Royal Navy dispatch carrier, the Lord Percy, left New York bound for London. My stepsister and a friend, Miss Susan Brewer, were on board. Halfway across the Atlantic, the Percy was engaged by the American navy corvette Pilgrim. Percy’s captain was killed.’ Without looking up from his notes, Oliver put a hand on Makepeace’s shoulder for a moment; she’d been fond of Captain Strang. ‘Lord Percy was forced to strike her colours and the remaining crew and passengers were taken aboard Pilgrim. That is what the Admiralty told us.’

Mr Powell rose from his chair. Makepeace looked up, quickly. ‘Are you listening?’

‘I’m sending for the records, madam,’ Mr Powell told her. He went out into the corridor to speak to someone and came back to Oliver. ‘Yes, yes, continue. Your sister and friend, now aboard the Pilgrim. American vessel.’

‘They were. But on May the fourth Pilgrim encountered a British man-of-war, the Riposte and’ – again Oliver’s hand reached for Makepeace’s shoulder – ‘the Riposte sank the Pilgrim.’

There was silence. The Dowager averted her eyes and stared instead at a portrait of Commissioner Samuel Pepys.

Mr Commissioner Powell said, quite gently: ‘So the American vessel went down …’

Oliver nodded. ‘So the American went down but … but some of her people were picked up. The Admiralty says the Riposte took on survivors and headed for England. Home port Plymouth. She arrived there in June, we’ve learned that much. The Admiralty told us American prisoners were on board and they were put in gaol. They don’t know how many or their names or where they are …’

‘Excuse me again.’ Once again, the commissioner went to the door and gave more orders.

Makepeace said, her voice rising: ‘So where is she? Where’s my Philippa? Where’s Susan Brewer? If they’re in gaol … if you’ve put them in gaol …’

Mr Powell tutted. ‘No, no,’ he said, ‘we don’t put females in prison. Boys under twelve and females are set at liberty, see, but I’m not sure we keep the names.’

The starched and waxed sailor who’d accompanied the Dowager to the room came into it with a pile of ledgers.

‘Now then.’ Mr Powell peered at the books. ‘Plymouth, Plymouth …’ He selected one and licked his fingers. ‘June, June. Busy month, June and, o’ course, Plymouth is a busy port. But yes, yere we are, HMS Riposte. Docked June the seventh to unload prisoners. Look at this now, there’s near a hundred of ’em, French as well – she must have sunk a Frenchy on her way home. Prize money there then, I expect. Name again? Hedley, is it?’

‘Dapifer,’ said Makepeace, her voice suddenly strong, like a tolling bell. ‘Her name is Philippa Dapifer.’ It began to break as she added: ‘She’s eleven years old. Twelve in September. Travelling with her godmother, Miss Susan Brewer.’

‘Sir Philip Dapifer was my stepsister’s father,’ Oliver added, knowing it would help.

It did. Mr Commissioner Powell looked up. ‘Not Sir Philip Dapifer? There now. Sir Philip. A good friend to the Admiralty, Sir Philip. Not that I knew him well, mind, but …’

‘Just get on,’ Makepeace said, wearily.

Encouraged that he was not dealing with hoi polloi any more, Mr Powell got on, his spectacles glinting in the turn from side to side as his eyes searched the page of a closely written list.

At the back of the room, the Dowager’s interest increased. Sir Philip Dapifer, well, well. She had met him rarely and only then by chance – being a liberal Whig and an influential supporter of the Marquis of Rockingham, he had been anathema to Aymer who’d refused to meet him socially – but she had liked what she’d seen of him. Charm and excellent breeding.

The same could not be said of Sir Philip’s first wife. Well born and exquisitely pretty but a voracious trollop. Aymer had not been so particular about her, the Dowager recalled. There had been a rumour that they’d had an affair, one in a long line of various affairs for them both; the woman had been shameless. Hadn’t there been something about her and Dapifer’s best friend?

Yes, there had been, and Dapifer had gone to America to divorce her quietly, trying to protect her name and his. And returned … yes, it was all coming back now … and returned with a totally unsuitable new wife, an American, a serving girl from a Boston inn – something like that. So that poor female there had been the second Lady Dapifer, had she?

But Dapifer had died, suddenly and much too young. The Dowager remembered the surprisingly sharp pang with which she’d heard the news, as if something valuable had been taken out of the world …

Mr Powell was muttering to himself. ‘Dapifer and Brewer we’re looking for. I’ve got a D’Argent here, no, no, that’s a Frenchman …’

He’s not going to find them, Makepeace thought. They’re not there. It’s coming and I won’t be able to bear it. This is like it was when Philip died. It was a return to affliction, an old terror come again so that she felt she did not belong where she sat but should be somewhere else.

Behind her, the Dowager continued to squeeze her memory. Yes. The first wife had claimed the Dapifer estates back after Sir Philip died on the grounds that the divorce had not been legal. The scandal sheets were full of it at the time. And then she and her lover had frittered the lands away and somehow – the details were hazy – this second wife had got them back. Now, poor thing, she’d lost her daughter.

The commissioner’s finger was approaching the end of the list.

‘No, no,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry …’ He turned a page. ‘Wait now, here’s something. Supercargo.’

Yes, Makepeace thought, please. Please.

Mr Commissioner Powell tilted his book to see the page better. ‘“Supercargo, American. Two …”’ he read, ‘“one female, one ship’s boy. Released June the seventh.’ He looked up, smiling as if he had not just turned the screw to the rack’s limit. ‘There we are then.’

The Dowager took a hand. ‘Names?’ she suggested. ‘Ages? Location? Are such people let go to wander as they may when they arrive on these shores? A child? In this case, possibly two children?’

‘Well.’ Mr Powell blew out his lips; some people refused to be satisfied. ‘It just says “supercargo” yere. I agree with your ladyship, the names should be on the list but when a captain’s engaged with the enemy … And by rights, supercargo’s not our concern, there’s charities to deal with them, we got enough with prisoners. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more, Mrs Hedley. Perhaps there’s some record in Plymouth.’

She felt helpless before the world’s oppression, but while there was a crack of hope in it, she had to go on. ‘Plymouth then, Oliver,’ she said.

He nodded and took her arm.

As Mr Powell opened the door for them, the Dowager was moved to say: ‘Have you a conveyance, Mrs Hedley …?’ It was kindly meant; the Dowager was a kind woman and, had the answer been no, would have gone on to offer the coach in which she had travelled from Chantries. However, her accustomed languid tone fell on Makepeace’s ears as condescension.

For the first time Makepeace became fully aware of the woman who’d been sitting behind her, listening to her misery. She was tall, elegant and, from what could be distinguished beneath the veil, beautiful. But she also looked disdainful and belonged to a class that, with one or two exceptions, had always treated her, Makepeace, like a squaw wandered into its midst with a tomahawk. She represented a female set which, during her first marriage, had patronized her, belittled her and, when she’d been brought low after Philip’s death, had not lifted one of its beringed fingers to help her.

She stiffened. She said: ‘I got my own coach, thank you.’ There was no gratitude in her voice. She went out.

Yes, well.

The Dowager crossed to the table, sat down and picked up the fan that Oliver had left on the table, also without thanks. What else could one expect of the low-born?

Mr Powell tutted in sympathy. ‘Now then, your ladyship, we can attend to your request. A Lieutenant Gale, was it? One of our prisoners?’

‘Grayle.’

‘Grayle, of course. American. May I ask your interest in this person, your ladyship?’

The Dowager appeared to consider. ‘I don’t think so, no.’

‘Oah.’ Some pink appeared in Commissioner Powell’s cheeks but the rebuff merely emphasized the blueness of her ladyship’s blood and, therefore, her right to administer it. ‘Well there, I found him at least. The Sam Adams, you said in your note. And here she is.’ Mr Powell inserted a finger behind a bookmark and opened one of the ledgers. ‘American sloop, three hundred and eighty-five tons, eighteen guns, taken at Cap La Hague, December the third last year, surviving crew forty-one.’ Mr Powell ran his finger down a list. ‘And here he is, Forrest Grayle, Lieutenant.’ He looked up, a terrier dropping a bone in her ladyship’s lap.

‘Where?’

‘What? Oh.’ Mr Powell found more bookmarks. ‘Where’s that report of the action, now? Yere ’tis … nyum, “Exchange of fire …” nyum, nyum, “several hours …” Oh, a real battle, this one. “Badly holed but seaworthy … taken under tow.” Ah yes.’ Again Mr Powell was triumphant. ‘Plymouth. There’s a coincidence, isn’t it? Plymouth all over the place today. Yes, she was taken to Plymouth and the crew incarcerated in Millbay Prison. There’s lucky for them.’

‘Really.’

‘Indeed.’ He leaned forward. ‘It would be the hulks else and I won’t hide from your ladyship, whilst we do our best for these souls, what with French and Americans, let alone the occasional Spaniard, every prison in the country at our disposal is crowded out and hulks have to take the overflow. Believe you me, Millbay is better. It’s on dry land for a start.’

He’s probably quite a nice little man, Diana thought, if undoubtedly Welsh.

She said: ‘Obviously you have your problems, sir, and I am here to relieve you of one of them. I wish to arrange for Lieutenant Grayle to be exchanged.’ She added lazily: ‘One would be happy to pay for such an arrangement.’ For a while, she could still draw upon the Stacpoole bank account.

‘Oah.’ Mr Powell sat up with surprise. ‘Exchange, is it? No, no. There can be no question of an exchange for American prisoners. Absolutely not. Nothing I can do for your ladyship in that quarter, do you see.’

‘I do not see, I’m afraid,’ she drawled. ‘One was led to believe you gentlemen incorporated the exchange of prisoners of war in’ – she waved a hand – ‘whatever it is you do.’

‘Prisoners of war, yes, prisoners of war, that’s right enough. But Americans aren’t prisoners of war, your ladyship, not like the French. We’ll be able to send French prisoners back in return for some of ours but strictly speaking Americans are rebels against their lawful king. Captured in British waters attacking English shipping, they are. Traitors, in fact. Felons, pirates.’

‘Why not hang them, then, and be done?’ She was nettled by disappointment. It would have been nice to send Martha back her son.

‘Oah, we can’t hang ’em.’ Mr Powell smiled. ‘No, no. Legally we could, mind, but I doubt there’s gallows enough in the country to take them all. Coming in by shiploads, they are. Might set a bit of a precedent, do you see? We wouldn’t want our brave lads captured by the Americans in America strung up in response, now would we?’

The Dowager sighed. ‘Mr Commissioner, one is not concerned with causing an international incident, merely the fate of one miserable young man.’

‘There’s sorry I am to disoblige, your ladyship, very, very sorry. I’m not saying we commissioners wouldn’t be happy, happy, to exchange the Americans – indeed, more than once we’ve lobbied their lordships to that effect. Difficult … dear, dear, you wouldn’t believe how difficult they are. More trouble with them, there is, than all the rest put together: riot, demands, attempts to escape, oh dear, dear … but my hands are tied, do you see?’ Mr Commissioner Powell closed his books. ‘My advice is to send the lieutenant a nice parcel of comforts, I’m sure the governor …’

The Dowager left the Sick and Hurt Office dissatisfied on her own account and oddly saddened on little Philippa Dapifer’s. There lay the trouble with chance encounters; one remained ignorant of an outcome. Her interest had been aroused, and with it her sympathy – less for the awful mother than for Sir Philip’s child, if it was the child, who had been set adrift in a city like Plymouth, full of sailors, to meet the fate of all lost young girls.

Would the Hedley woman find her? And, if so, in what condition?

Qualified as she was to know the damage done to mind as well as body by sexual violence, the fact that it might be being inflicted on a child even younger than she had been when it was inflicted on her was disturbing – she was surprised how much it disturbed her. It happened on the streets every day, possibly to thousands. Yet this was a case she knew about, it had been given a name, she had overheard its history. If the girl had survived that terrible voyage across the Atlantic, she’d already suffered enough.

‘Be not curious in unnecessary matters,’ Ecclesiasticus said. The Dowager reminded herself that it was not her concern. She had her own problem; she could report only failure to Martha Grayle – always supposing it would be possible to report at all. Your son is in a Plymouth prison, Martha. It is better than the hulks.

Yes, well.

She stood for a while on the Admiralty steps, looking for her coach in the heavy Whitehall traffic. Tobias must have had trouble finding a place for it in which to wait for her.

In view of her insistence, both Robert and Alice had eventually reconciled themselves to her departure on what Alice called ‘Mama’s visiting spree’. They had given her Tobias and Joan to take with her and allowed her the third best coach but no coachman, so Tobias had been transformed into a driver – a job he performed excellently, as he did everything.

It had amused the Dowager that her son and daughter-in-law had stipulated – without actually using the word – that she return to Chantries for Christmas and settle down. It made her feel like Cinderella commanded to leave the ball by midnight or else … to quiet them, she had agreed to spend the Twelve Nights with them. As for settling down, well, she would see.

Expecting London to be comparatively quiet with Society having retired to the country for the summer, she found it actually busier than ever, full of soldiers and baggage trains on their way to the ports for embarkation.

A column of footguards marched past her, sending up dust, their Brown Bess flintlocks gleaming. A useless weapon, Aymer had called it, unreliable in bad weather and at anything over eighty yards’ range. Women and children ran beside them, some cheering, others weeping.

She was suddenly oppressed by dull heat, crowds, dust and the doom to which all these men were going. The war was undoubtedly necessary – colonies could not be allowed to secede as and when they pleased or they would not be colonies – but how many of these soldiers would return from it? How many young men on both sides, how many children, would be parted for ever from their mothers?

I will not think of it. There is nothing I can do for any of them. After twenty-two years, I am allowed some liberty of my own, a little healing.

The sea, she thought. I need to be near the sea and breathe clean, free air.

She would go to Devon, the county of her ancestors which, unaccountably, her family had deserted for London and its environs. Not Torbay – there was no suitable house there and, in any case, she did not want to face the memory of the young Martha now that there was only failure to report to the mother Martha had become. T’Gallants, that was the place. Home of the founding Pomeroy. She had never seen it, but it was on the sea. It had been tenanted for years but its lease was falling due – she had looked it up in the Chantries property book before she came away.

Diana smiled to herself; had she unconsciously intended to go there from the first? Yes, there were friends in the area. The Edgcumbes would put her up while she investigated. Devon would serve very well for her escape from the dowagerhood Alice and Robert wanted to inflict on her.

The fact that both the Edgcumbe home and T’Gallants were only a few miles from Plymouth had nothing to do with the matter.