26. England’s Green & Pleasant Land

August – September, 1806

To the great joy of everyone concerned, Victory was able to put in at Gibraltar on her way back from Funchal to collect Sir Edward’s family and bear them across the foaming bosom of the Atlantic home to England.

Mavis initially became very nervous upon hearing this, until Mr. Hastings paid a visit to the house and indicated to her by his warm yet slightly formal and matter-of-fact demeanour that he intended to let bygones be bygones and conduct himself towards her with every courtesy. The relief this occasioned caused her to go to the music-room after he had gone and play the piano very loudly and passionately for no small time, until her mother came to mention that if she did not at least take her foot from the sostenuto pedal, there was little doubt that Pellie would wake — and soon.

The thought of the sea-voyage thrilled Mavis to the core, once that anxiety was out of the way, even as Sophie tried to get used to the idea of being on ship-board once more. It had been a good while since she had made the passage out to Gibraltar from England, and she had to admit that to return as the wife of Sir Edward Pelham must bring with it comforts of which she had not dreamed, all those years ago, when she had tossed in a cot below decks across the Bay of Biscay, growing sicker by the hour and further from home and all she had ever loved or been accustomed to.

On that voyage, with the wretched and unlamented McKenzie, she had had a few pieces of her most beloved furniture packed in the hold – three of her father’s clocks, of which only the long-case now survived, and his library — hers, since his death. This time, to begin with, seeing Stroud loading her treasured clock into a crate — he had first sewn an oiled sailcloth wrapping for it, packing all most carefully and diligently with wood-shavings — she felt nervous all over again: it brought back too many memories.

It felt very strange indeed, to be packing-up the house on the hill where they had been so very happy, these last few years, and getting ready to ship all back to England and an unknown destination. It was quite extraordinary how quickly it was achieved, after all the years she had lived there — within days of Edward’s arrival, everything was in crates and boxes and ready to be swung down in the hold of Victory, so they could all travel home together.

Edward had put a small crew of men on the task, and with true Naval efficiency they had it all done before she could say Jack-robinson! Edward did not seem at all astonished by this prodigious feat of turning a home into a tidy pile of boxes in three-days-flat: he had expected it, counted upon it. The men (and he) would have considered it most grievous shirking to have taken four! Mavis had the task of painting upon the boxes with a fine brush and shiny black paint (the same as adorned the sides of Victory herself) a brief reminder of the contents.

“Dinning-room” sat beside “mamas books” and “pianno”, while “pellys things” had their very own crate, as did “chinea.” (“What?” said Pelham, frowning — “China, papa, can’t you read?” — “Oh, of course: china. China! How foolish of me.”)

Her most prized of all read simply “Tresures.”

She had supervised its packing herself, and instructed the sailors to leave the room while she finished. (And so the fact that the picnic-napkin with Hastings’ blood on it nestled deep inside it, wrapped carefully within the lacy worsted shawl papa had brought her from Jersey, cheek-by-jowl with her paintbox, also a gift from papa, and the tissue-swathed sea-urchins, was of course not generally known. )

All considered, she was very proud of her handiwork, and Mr. Stroud most admiring of all, since he had never learned his letters as a boy, and was struggling mightily to do so now. The task also helped her to recover the rest of her amour-propre after those bruising moments in the cave, fortunately months ago now and rapidly diminishing in their power to cause her an excruciating tummy-ache at the thought, when she had so far overstepped herself and caused nothing but embarrassment to herself and to her beloved alike.

Although it should be noted, for the sake of truthfulness, that she still did not regret the kisses: only their consequences. The kisses themselves she relived with a piercing feeling, as if she had stabbed herself the moment she took them.

During the packing, Sophie had discussed where to live with Edward, at length. He thought Portsmouth, since his duties would bring him there more often than anywhere else. Of that there could be no question, then. The smile they shared at this was sweet, and needed no words to conjure-up blissful homecomings. They sat at the dining-room table (before it was broken-down and crated, that is, Lady Davenport having insisted upon their keeping it) and discussed it most earnestly, and Edward drew pen and paper to him.

He drew her a map of Portsmouth harbour, explaining each part as he did so, and she discovered then that a place she had always taken to be just itself, like anywhere else, was in fact a whole tidal estuary with corners and nooks to consider beyond the town of Portsmouth itself, not to mention the opposite shore of Gosport (though that was rather rough and filled with taverns) and its finer neighbours, Alverstoke and Lee-on-the-Solent.

He explained that since he would most likely be at anchor off Spithead, out in the Solent, they should consider anywhere within easy reach of one of the ship’s boats: she did not have to settle for the dirty, noisy city itself, with its boarding-houses, inns and scurrying dockyards, when there were more peaceful places to look at within a half-hour’s pull. He was thinking particularly of Pellie and Mavis, he explained, since both Portsmouth and Gosport could be rather rough, and the streets filled with the hangers-on usual in any Naval port.

Here he turned a little red and cleared his throat, and Sophie surmised (correctly) that he was thinking of the whores in particular — though not being able to read all of his mind, she could not know that he was remembering his first-ever encounter of the flesh as a midshipman in an upper room in a tawdry inn in that very city.

He grew silent for a moment and a frown appeared between his brows, she knew that much: and did not interrupt him till he came to himself and changed the subject.

There would have been nothing for her to be jealous of, could she have known: the whole took place over less than ten wretched minutes and was no lovelier than such things usually are when paid-for and sought in curiosity, drunkenness and shame — a combination hardly gauged to result in delight or even satisfaction. The curiosity had been repaid with sights and experiences he would rather not have had; the drunkenness had brought its own punishment — and the shame had redoubled, afterwards. She had lifted up her skirts – he had opened his britches – and in a loveless and carnal transaction upon a lumpy mattress he had lost his virginity and his illusions. He had not been able to abide a blonde woman, since.

The whole had become indistinct in his mind — rum and shame have a way of blurring the details of events we would rather not recall, through the years — but he remembered in particular how he had wished to look upon her bosom and touch it, even, only to find as she obliged, pulling down her dirty blouse, that it was ringed with bruises and bite-marks from her previous customers: a sight which brought the bile to his throat even as his britches remained too tight at the prospect of the rest, so near to being concluded.

The redness in her cheeks had been paint: she had been in a hurry and her language coarse.

He passed a hand across his head, here, sat at the table with Sophie as he was, and closed his eyes for a moment longer. If only he could have known, then, all that was to be his one day.

Catherine had not had a bosom, to speak of, and what meager flesh she did have he was not welcome to; she had a way of crossing her arms in front of it when he approached her, with a look of sheer terror on her face lest he pry her arms open to stare at her – or God forbid, touch her (he never did). He had wanted all his life to put his mouth to a woman’s breast: had not done so, till Sophie took him into her arms and made him free of all of her.

The whore had been willing, but unlovely and desirous only of his shilling. He was sure the rest of it was a matter of boredom or disgust to her. Close-up, she had stunk. Catherine had been unwilling, and yet had forced herself to be his wife. Her eyes had widened, then narrowed again until she screwed them shut and turned her face from him – while with her calmest voice she was saying, Do what you must, Edward.

— But you don’t want to, do you, he had said.

— I shall stand it very well, I am sure.

Until you know what it is to gain entrance where you are not wanted, he thought, you have not drunk the dregs of hurt and self-loathing.

Stand it. His mouth curved in a bitter line, at the memory. Yes, she had stood it. Any illusions he had had left after the Portsmouth whore died, then.

His thoughts ran on even as he was telling Sophie of the charming market-town of Fareham, pointing with his pencil upon the sketch-map he had drawn to a curving creek that penetrated inland, where the river Wallington (he explained) flowed out into the harbour — all the while thinking to himself:

Such barrenness — all those years —

Until Sophie.

Sophie — who greeted him with a passion and joy equal to his own: rejoiced in him and in his need of her: took him in always, her face radiant at the gift of being able to do so: brought him to a heaven which that gauche young midshipman and frustrated husband could not even have imagined. Within her arms he had unleashed the wildest storms of his nature; and found a peace of which he never dreamed. Though he had glimpsed it, upon first making her acquaintance: the calmness of her parlour, its warmth reflecting her soul — would she be as welcoming in her body, as she seems in spirit? he had wondered then, flushing.

He had his answer now. That walk in the Alameda Gardens had promised but the surface of it, and that alone had been enough for his soul to faint with longing. Now that she was his, the mother of their child also, he thought that if he gave thanks to God for her every hour upon the hour, turn and turn about for the rest of his life, it would hardly suffice.

He had stopped drawing again, halted in his talk of Fareham to gaze at her face. She smiled at him.

“God, I love you —” he said.

“Edward…” she murmured, blushing — “ …but I thought we were talking of Fareham?”

“Just so,” he said, and marked it with an X for her: he had taken a house there for now, he explained, on a temporary basis, until Sophie should decide for herself (with his guidance, he hoped) where she wished to settle the family.

“It’s hard to imagine without seeing it all, Edward,” she said, “but I do begin to have a picture — oh!” — and her face filled suddenly with a wild joy and yearning such as he associated normally with his own returns to her, and he asked, intrigued, “—What?”

“It will be green,” she cried, “all green – green – green!”

“That it will, my love,” he said — “I had not known you missed it so! You never said —!”

“Nor had I,” she said, “until I thought of it just now, in trying to imagine what you were talking about, and suddenly I saw it — not like here, all dry and scrubby — oh, the hills — the trees — the grass, Edward, the grass!”

He looked at her in a tender amusement.

“What?” she asked.

“I am looking at the origin of Mavis’s passions, I see,” he said, and then, more softly, “——and at the young woman who felt them every bit as strongly, until they were stolen from her with hardships — and cruelties.” His voice trembled slightly on the last word.

“You are right,” she whispered.

“My dear —” he murmured, his face creasing in recollection of another revelation he had had, so very recently, when tracing with his lips the silver lines across her belly, those that were left from bearing their son — and asked her, out of his tender curiosity to understand better the mysteries of this temple of her body, whose gift was his grace, why the ones upon her thighs were still rosy-red when these had faded so quickly.

“They’re — not the same,” she had said shortly, and did not offer any more explanation, knowing (as he realized when he asked her further) that to say more would be to hurt him on her behalf.

“Mmmh,” he had asked her then, kissing the pink marks scattered like rose-petals upon her upper thighs, front and back, that he had always noticed — thought of as part of her, like the small burn-mark at her wrist and the scattering of freckles on her arms — “how so?”

“They’re scars,” she had said, quietly, matter-of-factly.

In so intimate a place ? What kind of accident —!

Not by accident, she said.

A weight crushed his chest. “What!” he had cried, then, a hot fury rising within him, “are you telling me he raised his hand to you? —— that he struck you —!”

“His belt,” she had whispered, “— those are the marks from the buckle. It broke the skin, so it did not fade when the bruises did.”

He had stared at her wide-eyed, unable to comprehend. Then he had stood up and paced the room in his rage, trying to master himself before he should raise his voice or break something. His hands made fists, and swung in the air — his adam’s-apple jerked up and down — his face turned thunderous, then white. “—You didn’t tell me!” he croaked at last, “you’ve never told me!”

“What good would it have done?” she asked him, softly.

He saw the stripes across the backs of his men, mostly laid-on under other commanders on more brutal ships — though he had ordered his share of floggings, when he had failed to control them any other way. It was always a failure. On some ships, under some captains, almost-daily: on his, a few times a year. The fall of the lash; the horror of the torn flesh, the ugliness of it all. Some men shrieked; some wept; some cried for their mothers; a few took it in grim and bitter silence. Had she cried out? What had he done, then? Had he forced himself upon her, also? A man that could beat his wife with a belt would hardly shy away from satisfying himself where he brutalized.

How could he have failed to recognize them for what they were?

Tears stood in his eyes. “I don’t know what to say,” he whispered.

“You don’t have to say anything, Edward,” she told him: “it’s all right.”

“Is it?” he asked her, a challenge in his voice. “How can it be? Don’t soothe me, Sophie! Some things aren’t all right — can’t be — ever!”

“It is now,” she had said.

“It’s a good thing he’s dead,” he had spat out then, his voice uglier than she had ever heard it, “or else I should have had to kill him — with my bare hands — after flogging him —!”

“Two wrongs don’t make a right, Edward,” she had said then: gently, sadly.

That was the moment at which he had lost his temper altogether, that he had been struggling to contain so, and broke the china basin-and-ewer when he brought his fist down upon the night-stand: it toppled, they bounced up into the air and fell with a crash.

It was like lightning, when the clouds can no longer contain it — a sudden, violent discharge. He was spent at once, sorry, apologized for frightening her — for he had seen her jump — knelt with her in the puddle of spilled water to pick up the pieces. Did she like this pattern, especially? He was sure it could be replaced, he should not have —

“Ssshhh,” she whispered, “it is well lost, my love.”

He stared at her, on his knees still, in genuine puzzlement, his chest still rising and falling sharply with emotion. She had been abused by McKenzie, first — and as if that was not bad enough, just now upon hearing of it he had failed to master himself, had instead turned his anger here where it was least deserved: startled her and destroyed something of hers, in reaction — a fresh insult. The jug well lost? “How so?”

“Because you cared so much, as to lose control of yourself, Edward — a thing I have never seen you do,” she said.

He would never understand her. He felt ashamed of his outburst, the ugliness of it, and here she was quietly taking pleasure in the very thing which most distressed him.

“I should not have lost —” he began, and then, reaching for her there on the bare wooden floorboards, he had laid his head in her lap and she had rocked him while he lifted up her batiste nightgown, kissed each weal with a half-gasp, half-sob until they were all kissed and he was shaking.

He had gone down to the ship early the next day, and into the town, and returned bearing a parcel. Untying the string, she found wrapped in tissue-paper a bone-china set to replace the earthenware one he had broken. It was very simple and all white, with a fluted rope-like pattern raised around the rim: and an anchor in relief upon the jug.

“I hope it will do,” he said: “—I am sorry.”

“I’m not,” she smiled: “ —it’s beautiful, Edward — and you chose it. I shall treasure these always, and when I use them I will think of you.”

He shook his head, then. “What, breaking them? I had hoped not!”

“No, you goose,” she laughed, “you upon the floor picking up the pieces, and the look upon your face.”

“Oh,” he said.

She kissed him. “The times in bed are not the only times I remember, Edward,” she said, softly.

“I should hope not!” he said; and then in a rush of honesty, sweetly, he added: “but I must confess I do remember those, too…”

Her hand found its way into his under the table.

***********************

So —— England.

Sophie stared at the place-names he had written for her upon his map; took it out of her bags to look again throughout the voyage home.

To be aboard Victory herself — oh, joy! Edward’s quarters were everything she could have wished for, and more. Cots had been slung for Mavis and Pellie in a corner of the day-cabin (the carpenter had suggested originally, speaking without the benefit of thinking first — always a mistake, with Sir Edward — that he could fit them very nicely in the night-cabin alongside the extra-wide one he was rigging for the captain and my lady: at which suggestion a long, hard stare from those gimlet eyes had caused him to think better of the proposal and find every reason to sling them just outside, instead).

Sophie had never been able to sleep in her husband’s arms for more than a few nights at a time, up till now, and found a long spell of them to be heaven-on-earth. Although it should be noted that the contrary and reciprocal motion of the cot on its ropes proved unconducive to more intimate activities than sleep — a thing Edward hardly could have anticipated, since he had never attempted it before, here. Thus after scrambling and failing to gain the necessary purchase for independent movement without the cot swinging wildly, and his wife fairly beside herself in fits of laughter, they had found a pile of blankets upon the deck to answer splendidly; there the ship’s motion provided an interesting counterpoint to their own, offering a set of sensations unique in their experience, and only occasionally throwing them off their blankets and across the scrubbed oak planks entwined still, to fetch-up bruised and laughing all at once under his night-stand, at some particularly vicious and unexpected pitch.

For Sophie, then, being able to be at sea with Edward even for these few short weeks was a glorious highlight of their marriage, never to be equaled. She could watch him at his work, take in the breadth and depth and force of him; see the men answer to his commands so instantly, unquestioningly, and try to understand all the complexities of what they did — the sails, the halyards, the rest of the rigging: the topmen so high overhead, scrambling up and down the ratlines like monkeys (no, Mavis, absolutely not — not at sea — the danger, the risk, wasn’t that right, Edward? Yes: most sternly indeed, those black brows knitted — in port was one thing, but here he would have her flogged if she even thought about it: and he was a man of his word, don’t think he wasn’t, young lady—!) ——— to watch them make sail, so swiftly, so expertly, each creamy canvas dropping and bellying as the wind took it, the men below sheeting her home, the layers of sails like wings, bearing them home to England: oh, if only they need never get there!

Admiral Nelson was most pleased to extend his personal hospitality to Pelham’s family, and in fact many was the afternoon Mavis found herself playing backgammon with him, soon progressing to chess, in which (although he beat her swiftly and devastatingly every time) he complimented her upon her perspicacity and sheer guts. She was a bold player, ready to risk all: she had not yet learned to see far enough ahead, which time would amend; but the willingness to make the swift decisive move, without wavering, and to accept its counter without looking back and whining, only frowning at the board to see how to answer the setback — these could not be learned: they were qualities of the heart and spirit, and he admired them, recognized them, quickly grew fond of her on that account. Pluck, my dear Miss Pelham, he told her — what I look for in my officers, madam, that ability to act and take the consequences — ah, my dear, you should have made a capital officer, had you been born a boy, oh dear me yes — and I should have liked to have had the training of you.

Mavis, as may be imagined, glowed almost to bursting, at this.

The admiral’s table was spread for them and the ship’s officers upon many lovely, candle-lit evenings. He set a fine table and enjoyed lively conversation, and most especially the company of an intelligent, spirited woman. Sophie gained in confidence as he drew her out, daring to share her thoughtful opinions more and more freely. There were many gales of laughter, too, and after a glass or two of wine Edward joined in them openly. The ship’s officers, having never seen him so relaxed and carefree while on duty, quite naturally made some very accurate suppositions about the source of his good humour. It was a lively subject of discussion among the midshipmen, for what could you expect from a bunch of seventeen and eighteen-year-old lads; but Hastings squelched any such topic in the lieutenants’ mess with a beetling frown: how dare they? Did the captain not have a right to a private life and his own business? For shame —! How should they like to hear their own mother or future wife discussed in such coarse terms?

So they took care to change the subject, when he was by. Although those who tried to guess how often would likely have fallen short.

In private the admiral liked to speak of Emma Hamilton with Sophie. She had not joined them on this voyage, having returned already to England right after Trafalgar, and so he assuaged his longing for her company by talking about her and their daughter with her friend. His understanding of what a woman must face in kissing her man off to his very dangerous duty touched Sophie deeply; he spoke once about the time he had returned to Emma a hero, without his right arm, moving Sophie to tears.

She assured him that her great care for Emma must of course extend to doing all in her power to see her welcomed into society, even while she explained shyly that she had rather thought she would live a quiet life, herself, with the children, not being used to the company of the high-born.

“Madam,” said Nelson, his speedwell-blue eye fixing her with that legendary intensity, “I have not come across anyone more perfectly a lady than yourself. Let us not have any more of this nonsense.” While charismatic and charming (though vain), a liar and a flatterer he was not. He was one of the most forthright people she had ever met, with the exception of her husband, and if he said something there was little doubt that that was exactly what he meant. Thus she was forced to believe what Edward had been trying to tell her from the start — and if it were so, Lady Davenport had not just been being kind, then — that she really, truly was good enough.

Edward alternated entertaining in his quarters immediately below. Sophie liked the more intimate gatherings best, when only the senior officers were present, and during the comfortable pauses in the conversation she looked out of the stern-windows at the blue twilight fading to dusk and thought there was no place on earth more beautiful than this.

Pellie spent much of the voyage in the arms of Mr. Stroud, who might have but the one leg, but a right good sea-leg it was, along with his best cronies in the crew. Pelham relieved them of their normal duties, for this blissful time, to take the child where he should not be in the way, charged instead with keeping him (for God’s sake!) from falling overboard — and, if they pleased, to mind their language, as well as what he might hear as they paraded him around below-decks like a little potentate. They rigged-up a harness for him, like the halter on a pony, replete with wonderful knots, and so kept him attached to one of them at all times. After all, it was more than their lives were worth to lose Sir Edward’s son-and-heir, gawd ’elp them!

Mrs. Stroud kept to her cot and was seasick at first; but she soon became a figure to be admired and feared below-decks: Stroud basked in her glory. She then discovered the pleasure and privilege of having lengthy discussions with the ship’s carpenter, and was most admiring of his tools: although in this matter Stroud made sure to keep a very close eye on her, his ’Ester bein’ a fine figure of a woman an’ all, and him not wanting her professional interest in his handiwork to go to the Chippy’s head.

*****************

Mavis tried to imagine the greenness. Hastings described it for her — the water-meadows and steep downs of his boyhood home, the hedgerows filled with blackthorn and may and wild-roses, bluebells and primroses and cowslips. His eyes grew misty, speaking of them, and his voice a little husky — she looked down quickly, before he should see the effect this produced in her own face. She determined to find some way of asking him further about all the things he loved, but so subtly that he would not notice she had done so — if he only would keep talking in those tones, with those expressions. She put this plan away for later, so as not to be too obvious in her intent.

It did not fail, throughout the voyage home; whenever he could spare her five minutes, with her papa’s stern approval — “no more, mind!” — she sat on a coil of cable with the wind whipping her hair and the salt-spray flying and asked him of his village, to tell her more of the country lanes in England, the kinds of things a child might do out in the country, for amusement — it was as simple as turning on a tap, she thought, as he lit up smiling and explaining, to satisfy her curiosity ostensibly about their destination — which was really true, for she did want to know — though if he had hailed from Egypt and come so alive in talking about the Pyramids, she would surely have listened just as raptly.

And thus she learned of young lambs, dark yew-hangers, owl-pellets, beech trees upon whose silver-smooth bark you could incise your name and come back to find it twenty years later; silver-charcoal elvers and fiery-throated newts. Her eyes grew wide in anticipation. What was an elver, by the way? (A tiny eel, he told her, you could catch them, if you had a fine net — she resolved to get one, immediately upon her arrival. It would serve for newts, also, most practically – she could scarcely wait.)

Mr. Stroud hailed from Hampshire, too, and from him she learned of such things as moonless nights and gamekeepers’ larders, crows and weasels all strung up on a fence (she shuddered, imagining their glossy feathers and sharp grinning skulls) — trout to be tickled in streams laced with flowing strands of weed like her hair, on’y green, Miss; watercress-beds for the helping-yourself-of, and black-berryin’, and them nasty stingin’-nettles what you ’ad to watch out fer, or else you’d be a might sorry. He promised to show her how to find a dock-leaf, in case she should need one, as soon as they disembarked.

And then they were coming up-channel, and Edward pointing-out each headland to Sophie; it should not have surprised her that he knew them all, but she had not thought of it — the Lizard, Rame Head, Portland Bill, St. Alban’s Head, and then the chalk-white Needles, and thus on into the narrow Solent, the Isle of Wight on the one hand and Gilkicker Point on the other: so they were off Spithead, and that was Portsmouth.

She fell in love with Fareham from the start, as soon as Edward had the ship’s-boat pull them all the way up Fareham Creek to disembark below the mill, opposite the Delme family seat of Cams Hall. It was but a short walk up Bath Lane and East-street to the turn where High-street opened up. That was a charming prospect, for it was a wide and gracious curving street lined with elegant new houses in-between old hostelries and cottages. It rose gently to the top of Wallington Hill, whence the land fell away behind down to the river and the village of Wallington, just across the rosy brick-arched bridge.

Edward had engaged a furnished house for them temporarily, as he had promised, with the lease starting from the first of the previous month. It was a smaller house, in the High-street, and utterly charming, for an enterprising builder had put an attractive, fashionable brick front on an ancient cottage behind, and thus it had rooms on every level but no two at the same height, a charming mélange of modern plastered elegance and ancient black-beamed coziness; odd little half-stairs and a wonderful selection of nooks-and-crannies, not to mention (to Mavis’s extreme delight) a priest’s-hole off the attic!

Mavis would have been perfectly happy to stay there for ever, since firstly she loved the house instantly, with its friendly ghosts; secondly, the Wallington river was just down the hill with its water-meadows and paved ford under the bridge where elvers were indeed to be found, and rosy sticklebacks, and baby flatfish the size of pennies — Hastings had neglected to tell her about all these, and she was enchanted — and last but not least, there was a bakery at the lower corner of High-street. This latter supplied such heavenly fresh bread that even Mrs. Stroud, that perfectionist, declared she had better things to waste her time on than baking bread, if it could be got at Soot’ill’s and nobody the worse off fer it, she wasn’t too proud to do so, and that was a fact.

When Stroud took her blackberrying up and down the lanes and hedgerows behind Wallington and the chalky slopes of Portsdown Hill behind, she thought she had died and gone to heaven. As far as she was concerned, Mr. Blake might still be yearning to see Jerusalem builded here — for her it already was.

She came back triumphantly scratched, with stained hands and apron, and a great enamel jug-full, so heavy that Stroud had had to carry it all the way home. Mrs. Stroud turned the first part of this bounty into a blackberry-and-apple suet pudding that made Edward wish for fully ten minutes that he might never have to go to sea again; and then the rest of it she strained through a large cheesecloth to hold back the skins and pips: the resulting juice, as clear and beautiful as liquid rubies, she put up for jelly, rich and sweet and surprising upon the tongue as their return, now captured and bottled for revisiting.

There were not many days left before Edward had to leave. Sophie brought up the subject of drains again, and her wish to live in a house with the most modern plumbing arrangements. Then Edward arranged for them all to take a carriage-ride around the vicinity, to see the sights and ancient monuments: and for the second time in her life, Sophie fell in love.

Portchester Castle stood on a spit of land projecting into the nether reaches of Portsmouth Harbour, but a shorter pull from Spithead than all the way up winding Fareham Creek: it was a direct shot from the castle sea-wall to the harbour-mouth. Originally a Roman fortress, built to defend the Saxon Shore, its foursquare fifteen-hundred-year-old walls stood straight and tall, with courses of tile and brick between the local flints and a towering grey stone Norman keep in the North-West corner, and a pretty Norman church in the opposite one. Currently (and rather grimly) it housed French prisoners-of-war, but these could hardly be avoided all over the area, being also kept offshore in dismasted prison-hulks.

The castle itself, however, was a glorious thing, surrounded by great chestnut-trees and with a winding street leading up to its gatehouse that had some lovely old houses, along with new ones being built in between, just as at Fareham, many of them by Naval officers. The south side of the street offered properties whose gardens ran down to the sea. A half-built house stood part-way down the street, of grey bricks with rosy ones interspersed in a simple pattern, and tall, symmetrical bow-windows gracing the front on either side.

It went further back than was apparent from the street, incorporating behind it the smaller cottage previously on the site, whose lovely mature garden extended thus all the way to the sea-wall. Beyond it the path ran along the shore, where at low-tide a shingle beach stretched out to mudflats (Mavis immediately noted the graceful small birds that ran and dipped across the gleaming grey expanse) – and at high-tide the sea came all the way up to the edge of the path. Between the walls of the private houses and the shore-path ran a stretch of hummocky ground with wind-bitten gorse-bushes and stunted cedars.

The house stood atop a rise sloping up from the water, enough so that a surging spring tide might wash through the garden but not carry the house away; inside the warm brick walls of the garden were a small orchard, a peach and quince espaliered on either side of the north gate (thus facing south) — a parterre complete with knot, a rose-garden, and extensive kitchen-beds, including longstanding borders of herbs and lavender, a phalanx of black-currant bushes, a fine set of rhubarb-crowns, and a thirty-year-old and well-established asparagus-bed.

The well was deep and sweet, plunging through the clays and shingle of the shore down into the chalk, a natural filter: its water tasted fresh and cold from the bucket. The drains were but newly laid and very simple and effective, namely a good large pipe that ran down the slope and then far out into the bay, where the tide scoured all twice-daily — no fear of their backing-up, or of a cesspool caving-in.

Behind the house there was a small paved terrace for wet or dewy days; and in the middle of the lawn, there was a glorious copper-beech with a seat built all around the trunk.

The current owner had intended to complete the addition, which had been carefully-planned to include every modern convenience and appointment, but had unexpectedly inherited a large parcel of property in Yorkshire, and was thus looking for a quick sale.

He had got it, it seemed: Edward took one look at Sophie’s face, and the back of Mavis as she ran down the garden-path – not to mention Mrs. Stroud, clucking in delight over the mature plantings — and agreed that nowhere more perfect could possibly be found. Even the plumbing was all new, along with the all-important drains. (His wife’s practicality and insistence upon this – er – head caused him much pride as well as amusement.)

He was to put to sea again almost immediately afterwards, but not before arranging with his bankers to complete the purchase with all possible speed. He could have afforded something far grander; but that would have left Sophie with the care and running of such a pile. No, this was better by far — it was large enough — it was perfectly situated — and she loved it. Sophie and the children, and the Strouds of course, stayed-on at the little higgledy-piggledy house in Fareham until the building of their new one at Portchester was completed.

**************

She had lain in his arms in the early morning twilight, in their low-ceilinged bedroom in the rented house, the day he was to leave again. Seeing he was awake, she kissed his chest. “I should go and visit your mother,” she said, “now that you are going, and we are here back in England. She ought to see Pellie! — she has written to me so many times of her posterity —!”

“You really don’t have to go just yet,” he murmured, “unless you truly want to. She has had to wait long enough — you must feel free to get settled, before taking on any further obligations!”

The clock at St. Peter and St. Paul’s finished for him, chiming five.

“She is not an obligation, Edward,” Sophie protested warmly, “she is your mother! I owe her a debt of gratitude for that — the mere fact of your birth — that you exist! — such that I can never repay it!”

“You are very dear, to feel so,” he said. “She is quite an old battleaxe, there is no denying it, I fear.”

“Edward! She is your mother!”

He grunted. “Filial piety notwithstanding: she likes to call a spade a spade, and so shall I: and she is a battleaxe. There is no shame in that. There are plenty of worse things to be. And to be called. I did but tell the truth!”

“I hope Pellie will not be talking about me thus,” she whispered, “forty years from now!”

“Only if you deserve it,” he told her, dropping a kiss on her hair. “Now let us not talk about my mother any longer.”

“I do want to meet your sister,” said Sophie, “with all my heart.”

“That is very excellent,” said Edward, “and I would be most grateful if you would leave the matter there.”

“Have I offended you, Edward?” she asked him, made unhappy by the impatient tone that had crept into his voice, especially now upon this last precious morning.

He relaxed – she felt it – breathed out on a sigh. “No,” he said, “only that I am to leave you again — so very soon — and it is causing me pain, to do so — even while I am anxious to get back to my command – can you understand that?”

“Of course,” she said, “love, it’s never been any other way!”

“No,” he said, “but each time I am with you, you grow ever more dear to me, and it is harder to leave you, and the children — and — oh lord,” he said then, “kiss me — will you not — take me in your arms, one more time? I did not want to talk about my mother any more, for fear we should have no more time to — oh, God!” he finished on a groan, from the swiftness of her answer to his request, her touch discovering his already-aroused state.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t ask,” she said, “and I would have to make the first move —”

“I should not have minded that, either,” he said. “Oh — ohhh! Oh, sweet Christ, don’t stop —!”

“No, love,” she whispered, “I could have managed it, I am sure. But — Edward — ”

—— “Ssshhhh,” he said, and to show her that he meant it, he hushed her with his mouth.

Afterwards she smoothed the hair back from his brow. There was no question but that his queue would have to be re-tied, now. They would have to find five more minutes for it, or else he would come aboard looking like a husband freshly out of bed, instead of a captain in His Majesty’s Navy. She promised herself to remind him to let her do it, once he had dressed: although he would doubtless see it for himself when he shaved, and utter an oath (if she knew him) at this added delay. She refused to let her sadness steal the moment from them. “Just think, love,” she said lightly, “next time we do this, it will be in our very own bed again — in the new house — our new life!”

“It is already a new life,” he said, “as far as I am concerned, wherever you are — and I would do it upon a banister, if there were nowhere else, so long as I might have you!”

How could she laugh and cry at the same time? With Edward, it seemed, that was not only a contradiction in terms but an everyday reality. She embraced it, as she embraced him, with all her heart. Which was a large amount, indeed.

“I hope you will not lack for company, in the new house,” he said, feeling her shaking with laughter still in his arms — or was it? “The whole street is filled with Naval officers and their wives, as far as I can see —”

Without legs and eyes, she thought, the ones who are at home: and not just wives, but widows: plenty of those. “Yes, Edward,” she said warmly, “I had noticed it. I shall feel perfectly at home, I am sure.”

He saw through the gayness of her tone; held her a little more closely where she lay, her head upon his chest. “You never refuse me, do you,” he said. “You should, you know – turn me away, once in a while – to keep me on my toes – I have heard all wives do it... wondered, why does not mine?”

“I do not want to keep you on your toes, when you could be in my arms instead, Edward,” she murmured.

“But some times, at least,” he said, “just so I should know that you meant it, the others —— do you not have a head-ache sometimes, or feel too weary? And yet you give yourself to me as if — ”

As if each time might be the last, lay between them. He did not finish.

“I do too, refuse you, Edward,” she said. “Do you not remember, that time —”

“Once,” he laughed, “in three years. And you were so sea-sick you threw up the very next minute, before I could even get a towel for you – my love,” he ended, softly, hoping he had not discomfited her with this reminder.

She remembered the wretched mess in the cot, and his immediate response: to fetch a wet towel, clean her face, take off her nightgown and get her into one of his; to strip the sheets and blankets from the cot, and put them outside the door: fetch more, make it up freshly for her, and lift her back in, all the while telling her it happened to the best sailors, why, Lord Nelson himself — she should not mind, if he did not — how did she feel now, was there anything more he could do for her? —— Her distress, his brooking no apologies from her – all of his swift, efficient and tender care for her.

“I promise I will tell you, if I have a sick headache,” she smiled. “Or the cramps – so much so that I cannot even give you yours — ”

“I won’t die, without it, you know,” he said, “—once in a while.”

“I know,” she said. “Oh, Edward. Edward.” His name calmed her, felt like a rosary upon her lips when she most needed it. “Edward,” she said again.

“You will wear it out,” he said, “ —my name, I mean.”

“Never,” she replied.

Pellie’s voice sounded from the next room. “Ma-ma! Ma-ma-ma!”

Edward’s fingers closed around her arm as she moved automatically; held her back. “Not yet,” he said. “Let someone else tend to him.”

“You’re right,” she said. “But Edward, darling — we must get up, anyway —you need to hurry a bit more than you know, love — I shall have to do up your queue again.”

“Oh, damnation!” he said.

**********************

She was sorry she had to hurry: very sorry. She would dearly have liked to take his hair in her hands this morning and linger over it, luxuriating in this softness so rarely allowed to fall loose. Like his life, it was confined by duty. When he came home from sea it was always stiff and salty. Not unlike the rest of him, she thought, biting her lip to hide the smile. She had washed it for him the day before, ready for this next assignment, and it was still soft and scented with sandalwood.

Swiftly and capably she loosed the pigtail she had made yesterday while it was still wet, and drew the three strands of the plait out down his back. He was impatient to be gone, she knew it: even if she had not, the set of his shoulders as she worked would have told her. “Love,” she said, “this will take two minutes if you hold yourself stiffly, and a couple if you do not, so will you not sit comfortably?” – and she squeezed his tight shoulders quickly, just as he let them drop into a looser posture.

She took up the brush right away, before he could complain that she was wasting time, and brushed out the dark locks. She would have liked to be tender and take her time, but there was none to take, so she was brisk and efficient, as she knew well how to be also.

The part she loved the best came next: passing her hands over his head to draw in the wild strands that had escaped – the reason for this hurried coiffure. When freshly done and brushed, they stood up from his brow and swept back smoothly. He was forty-one; old enough that there were strands of silver here and there mixed-in with the dark-brown, and his brow was somewhat higher even than it had been in his youth – although to her eyes its height and the creases which scored it made it only the more attractive: there was written plainly his intelligence, his responsibilities, his care and duty. When he was tired and had paid little attention to his appearance for a while, these independent-minded curls would escape the queue and spring back softly to frame it; unless they plastered it with sweat, salt-spray or (God forbid!) blood, instead.

She felt the shape of his skull under her hands, gloried in it, gave thanks for him all over again; felt her very womb contract at the preciousness of him.

“Is it done?” he said, unable to hide the edge of impatience in his voice.

“Almost,” she reassured him, “I have still one full minute left, my love — I have but to plait it again and wind the ribbon.”

“Hmm,” was all his answer.

She did so, separating the triple locks once more and feeling them spring in her hands as if they had a life of their own: supple, silken. She drew a deeper breath than usual: it did not escape him. He let himself feel the moment, even in his haste to be gone. It moved him like the tide turning over in his gut. “When you do that, “ he said, softly, “—touch me so — I would have you all over again, if I could —!”

“God knows I would welcome you,” she replied, their conversation earlier still fresh, her hands busy with the repetitive motion: it was calming even as her heart thumped.

“I know,” he said, “—you always do —!”

“It’s true,” she said. She was half-way down the braid, now.

“I am a fortunate man, then,” he said. “Not many husbands could say as much, I think.”

“That is because their wives are not married to you,” she answered him, dropping a swift kiss on the now-smooth top of his head before taking-up the black silk ribbon and straightening out its creases firmly between her fingers.

“Hm!” he replied, reflectively. “I had thought it was the person of the wife that counted. You.”

“I think it’s both,” she said. “Moon and sun — wind and rain — apples and pears— ”

“Port and starboard,” he offered, smiling. She worked quickly, finished wrapping the severe grosgrain all around the queue, leaving a tassel of a few inches at the tip unconfined to soften the harshness of it: tied it off in a firm knot before completing all with a small, tight bow, the way he liked it.

“There,” she said, “all done. See if you like it.”

He twisted in the chair to look up at her; reached his arm up and pulled her mouth down to his: kissed it hard and swiftly. “That’s for now,” he said, “—till next time. When I come back. You shall do this again, and we will stop in the middle, and I will show you how much I like it.”

*********************

And so he had taken leave of them; and she had gathered up Pellie and Mavis, and Mrs. Stroud to help, leaving Stroud back in Fareham to attend to all her business there and in Portchester, and jolted all their bones in an exhausting carriage-ride all the way to Devon to bring Helena her posterity.

Sophie herself had written to suggest it: Helena had sent her carriage, by way of a reply. How like Edward, she thought. She could hear his voice, the captain’s one he used out of habit to Stroud when he did not know she was by: you suggest what? Come, then, man — don’t bugger about — do it!

It helped to take her mind off the pain of his leaving her in this unfamiliar place where she had all to find and do and make over anew. She found herself looking forward to meeting Mary almost as much as she dreaded the thought of coming under Helena's appraising gaze for the first time. Something told her it would be not unlike Edward’s frown, the gimlet one that impaled you and pinned you to the wall behind you, helpless and writhing till he let you go.

On the face of her husband she had learned to cope with it: he had vowed to love her and keep her, after all, for better and for worse, and while his face might be angry sometimes, his heart was all hers and he knew it; and so did she. And with his body he worshipped her, which he knew also, his humbling need of her — and being a man who kept his promises, he made sure to do so as often as he could: which meant all together that he could never stay angry more than five minutes with her. But the prospect of the same stare without the hotly caring heart behind it was a daunting one indeed.

She need not have worried, as she saw within a minute of pulling-up to their glossy black front-door. No; the day she produced this heir, Sophie had recommended herself to her mother-in-law in the only way that could possibly matter: all else was as vanity of vanities.

They must have been waiting, heard the clatter of the hooves and carriage-wheels: for the two of them came out, tall women both, dressed in dark straight gowns. Sophie could see which was Helena only because of the older style of hers, and her widow’s cap: not from her erect carriage could anyone have told that this woman was closer to eighty than seventy. Edward had been her youngest, the child of her late middle-age, and he was no chicken himself! Could he truly be forty, now? No: one-and-forty, she reminded herself, yet still going-on twenty sometimes: and more like fifty and with the cares of an admiral of the fleet, at others. Oh, Edward. And so here were the loins from which he had sprung: and fearsome ones they were, by all appearances!

Her mother-in-law greeted her briskly, wasting no time — “Sophia! You are here at last! Good morning t’you!” — gave a nod of the head — and moved straight past her to Pellie, who was just descending from the carriage from the arms of Mrs. Stroud into those of Mavis. “Ah!” she cried in satisfaction, “ah! Here he is! The youngest Pelham! Glory be to God! Put him down, young lady, where I can see him — have you no sense, no sense at all? I am his grandmother!”

God, but she looks like Edward, was Sophie’s startled reaction, and sounds like him, too! All she lacks is a quarterdeck — it is a sad deficiency, having one gives a greater authority to the bullying — well, not that Edward bullied: but in the absence of a ship to command, clearly his mother made do with her household: a stage far too small, alas!

Mary came to her then, a warm smile on her plain face — and again I see Edward, thought Sophie, I see him everywhere! — these were Edward’s brown eyes lit with kindness, and such genuine pleasure at the sight of her. Sophie put down her folded cloak (Pellie had been using it for a pillow) and opened her arms. “Mary,” she said, “—sister!”

They embraced one another and stepped back to look again. Each liked what she saw: someone simply-dressed, no-nonsense; free from paint and affectation, no longer young but with a kindly manner. Although the lace at Mary’s throat was the best Valenciennes, from Edward, to dress-up the severity of the plain gowns he knew she always wore — it had come his way aboard one of the prizes, and he had sent it off to her with a crisply-penned and hasty note — that was so like him: she might not hear from him in a year, and then he would think of her and send some little thing. And the size of the diamond in Sophie’s pearl necklace did not escape Mary’s notice: that must be Edward, again, she thought, for there is not another thing about this woman’s appearance that smacks of anything but the greatest modesty —!

“I am so very pleased, to meet you at last, Sophie my dear, ” she said, “although you write such wonderful letters, that I feel as if I know you perfectly already!”

“Well, there is always news of Pellie and our adventures,” said Sophie, “especially since we have removed here!”

“Not everyone would trouble themselves to tell it,” said Mary, giving one of Edward’s little nods for emphasis, “and I am well aware of that — and so is Mother,” she added, “in spite of all she may lead you to think otherwise!”

Helena was still rapt behind them, entirely overcome with pleasure at the sight of her grandson – a thing she had thought never to have in this life, with even less prospect of it in the next. To hear such an alarming figure clucking made Pellie clutch tightly at his sister’s hair, and then turn his face into her shoulder. “Come along,” cried his grandmother, “don’t be shy with me, now, young man!”

They went inside – it was a grand house, grander than anything Sophie was used to except for the lovely Governor’s mansion in Gibraltar, of course. The rooms were high-ceilinged and elegant; she must be tired from the journey, for she wished she felt more at home. Of course, it was only to be expected after such a trying three days! Mary drew her through a cold and lofty withdrawing-room into a smaller sitting-room, where a fire had been laid (it was October, and had grown chilly). “Mother and I share the house, of course,” she said, “but this is my own particular room, I think it is warmer — you look quite chilled.”

“Thank you,” said Sophie, “you are very kind – yes, I am, a little – it is trying, traveling with a small child, and the carriage so draughty — ”

“Sit,” said her sister-in-law: “sit! And I shall fetch you a rug for your lap, and we shall have tea brought right away. Mother will doubtless find us when she has finished admiring her grandson –” and indeed that lady’s imperious tones could be heard, with Pellie’s cheerful cries answering back no less forcefully, a doo-doo-doo-dat-DAT! DAT! DA-A-AT!”

“A fine pair of lungs,” pronounced Helena triumphantly from the echoing hallway, “a true Pelham – look at that nose! Oh, yes, my laddie — you are going to have to grow into that nose! Yes, you are!”

Sophie sat and gathered her wits and her breath while Mary went to organize everything. Looking around her further, she realized that she did not feel at home because this beautiful house had not the feel of a home. The surfaces were cold, hard, shiny; there were more mirrors than paintings; there was little colour, and what there was seemed dark and oppressive. Of course, Helena’s taste was that of an earlier time: but there was more to it than that. Sophie had been to older houses, with her father, in his clockmaking days — beautiful Tudor mansions, of warm brick or half-timbered black-and-white; stone houses, too. It was not the period of the furnishing nor the generation of its owner, but the genius of the place and the person who arranged it so, she knew: where the light fell, where a touch of bright colour would bring a room to life, where a gloomy corner must be lifted, not filled with a gloomier piece of furniture. This room, Mary’s, was warmer; but still not cozy or especially comfortable. And she thought of her little parlour, and the many times Edward had said how much he loved it there — had done so, from the very beginning; and now she saw why.

Then Mary returned with a soft shawl, and tucked it around her lap: and she was glad, that her sister-in-law was so much warmer in person than she had managed to reflect in her surroundings. Mary clearly felt the same, and expressed it hesitantly, before her mother should interrupt them: “It’s not very friendly, here, is it,” she said — “I know! Don’t argue with me. Mother isn’t — she doesn’t — she thinks that some things are a waste of time — like having company, and decorating, and — I wish it were more welcoming, here,” she finished: “But you are most welcome, Sophie — I cannot tell you! How I have longed for this day—”

“As have I,” said Sophie, “and with a greeting like yours I cannot feel anything but welcome, Mary.” It is important, though, she thought. She feels the lack of it — I should, in her shoes. Thank God I have been independent enough to have my house the way I wanted it, however poor and shabby! I am sure she would love our house, when it is finished – “you must come to us,” she added firmly, “I should love to make you welcome in return!”

Mary’s plain face lit up. “I should so like that,” she said. “I—I do not go out, very much.”

“Well that must change, and very soon!” cried Sophie, and over tea they were already discussing the new house, and all its promise: her plans for it — the rooms she had laid-out in her head, from the drawing-room at the back of the house to take advantage of the lovely garden – why not put the dining-room in front! – and the large bedrooms upstairs; her furniture, when she should get it uncrated, the piano, the clock, and the bed carried upstairs, for when Edward should come home next — ! and here she realized just how far her tongue had run away with her, and at this mention of their bed she blushed.

“Don’t stop,” said Mary, “just because you got to the bedroom! I may be a spinster, but I am eight-and-forty, and I wish I wasn’t. I am loving all these details — imagining your lives! And I couldn’t be happier for my brother, than I am at this moment.”

So Sophie went on, unashamedly, about the pretty golden damask bed-hangings, and the curtains she imagined at the windows, and the rose-pink rug; and Mary listened, and asked more questions, until Pellie was heard wailing for his mother from the next room.

“Goodness gracious!” came Helena’s tones, “What a fuss! Stop that! Stop it at once! Big boys don’t cry! Yes, I shall bring you to your mamma — come along – stop that noise, now!” — and she came in leading Pellie by the hand, tears running down his little face.

Sophie gathered him to her bosom. “Sssshhhh,” she whispered to him, “it’s all right, my sweet — mama’s got you – everything’s all right – yes, you are a big boy, aren’t you —– you were afraid, I know – sh-sh-sh – it’s all right.”

“I don’t hold with spoiling them, Sophia” said Helena sternly, looking on at this display of indulgence with distaste: “he’s a Pelham, don’t forget!”

“He’s my son,” said Sophie, “and he is but a year old, Helena; and he may cry, if he wants to. And, by the way – ” she added, quietly but firmly, “it is Sophie, not Sophia.”

“Hmm!” said her mother-in-law. “These new-fangled ways – hm! Sophie, you say? Very well! I beg your pardon, I am sure.”

“Not at all,” said Sophie, kissing Pellie upon the cheek and letting him slither from her lap to the floor, where the iron firedogs had caught his attention. She leaned forward, keeping hold of his sleeve while he touched them – they were a little too close to the fire for her comfort, but he wished to see them.

Mary touched her arm: meeting Sophie’s eyes, she smiled. There was sadness in her smile, though: for Helena; for Edward; for the cold house; for herself.

****************

All in all, then, the visit was a resounding success. Helena warmed to Mavis, recognizing a kindred spirit in her determination and outspokenness. Sophie passed muster, thanks to having produced Pellie, as has been said, and she spent many a happy hour walking and talking with Mary. The chief subject of their conversations may perhaps not be too difficult to guess at. Mrs. Stroud was indispensable in taking Pellie away when he became overwhelmed with tiredness or his grandmother’s unremitting attentions, and Sophie felt very thankful she had had the good sense to insist on coming with them.

By the time they left for Portchester again, Helena was more like the twinkling Edward than the stern one, most of the time — a transformation that suited her, thought Sophie, feeling pleased that she could have brought so much joy to this family quite by coincidence, in her discovery of it with Edward. Mary promised to come and visit them, once they were settled-in, and Helena threatened to come too. “I may be seventy-nine,” she said (she had in fact subtracted a few years here), “but my family has always been long-lived, and tough as old boots — don’t think for a moment I’m the frail old lady you see!”

Sophie, who saw no frail old lady anywhere in the vicinity, only a battleaxe with plenty of good use left in it yet, promised quite truthfully that she would not think anything of the kind.

Mary kissed her: “Love him,” she whispered. (They had not been overly sentimental, in their conversations, till now.)

“I shall,” promised Sophie.

“I know,” said Mary, bright-eyed, “I know.”

As the carriage pulled away from the pillared portico, her last glimpse was of Helena briskly waving a bright red scarf, so that Pellie should be sure to see her the last of all and remember her the best.

******************

When they got back to Fareham, Stroud had worked feats of bullying, wheedling, Naval efficiency and orderliness, so as to have the new house more than half-way to completion. Autumn had arrived and the trees were turning gold. Stroud showed Mavis where to find pale-green hazel-nuts growing in the hedgerows, and demonstrated how to crack them with her teeth. “These ain’t like them old dried ’ard ones you’re used ter, Miss,” he explained, “they ain’t no jaw-bustin’ rocks. These is soft an’ they’ll crack like an egg — see? Then yer takes that milky little nut, in its fuzzy little overcoat – yer eats that, an’ all, an’ — there you are, then! That’s my girl! Ain’t that nice?”

Mavis, always delighted to add a new skill to her repertoire, took no time at all acquiring this one.

Sophie found that she was perfectly able to manage firm conversations with the builders, and to negotiate with her landlord for an extension of a few more weeks on the house in Fareham meanwhile, and felt very proud of her increasing capacity to run things at a level of complexity and responsibility beyond anything she had faced before. Although she would have said, if asked, that trying to manage on not enough money – and failing – was harder than anything, since.

She rather thought she had learned a thing or two from watching Edward’s easy, completely unselfconscious command aboard his ship: the way he simply issued the order, because it needed to be done, holding everything in his mind at once — his own complete, inner, simultaneous, ever-changing sailing replica of the ship and her men — and analyzing it, synthesizing all to conclude what must happen next. Key seemed to be the ability to cut instantaneously to the heart of things, no matter how chaotic or complex they might be: and to give orders as if their being obeyed was beyond question.

Hers was in a very small way, of course, she thought, modestly: not at all like Edward, really, in the full performance of his duty; but a little, perhaps.

Work continued throughout the winter. Edward was not home for Christmas, although Sophie told herself she could hardly expect him to be, after the blissful weeks she had spent with him aboard Victory and then in Fareham. This has been the most wonderful year of my life, she thought: and I owe it all to Mavis.

They were sitting by the fire in the rented house, and Mavis was reading one of her father’s books. Sophie was writing one of her long letters to her husband, knowing how much he delighted to get them. No detail went unrecorded by her faithful eyes, heart and pen: it was almost as wonderful as being home, he had told her, to see everything through her and feel a part of it —— “Goodness, mama,” said Mavis, “why are you looking at me like that!”

“Because I love you,” said her mother, unguardedly.

Mavis was not twelve years old for nothing: “Well, don’t!” she said. “You’re making me nervous.”

***********************

They moved into the house in Portchester on Mavis’s thirteenth birthday.

It was to remain their home for the rest of their lives.

27. Portchester

1807 – 8

To everyone’s bliss there came to them now a period when Edward was home – although at short intervals, still – more regularly than ever before. It was often unannounced; although on other occasions the first Sophie knew of Victory’s being about to put in was the arrival of a breathless Emma Hamilton, stepping from her carriage, dressed to the nines (of course). Then they would have tea, in fluttery anticipation, and Mavis would run to keep watch with her glass, and sure enough that day or the next, or the next, there would be the masts off shore, and within an hour or two the ship’s boat would pull up, and one or both of them, flag-captain and admiral, would alight and cross the strip of sea-grass to the garden-gate, and so come home.

There was even a suite of rooms reserved for His Lordship and his darling, so regular an event was this. And so the house knew more than its fair share of incendiary and sleepless nights, desperate groans, heaps of hastily removed clothing and cries of delight in those rare, headlong, feverish days, could its walls but have spoken.

These were the times Sophie had longed for throughout her marriage, when at last she and Edward could take all the time they needed and more, looking forward to the next time with some confidence that it would be just long enough to sharpen the joy of their reunion, but not so long as to half-kill them with starving for it. The defeat of the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar had changed the way the Navy was guarding His Majesty’s shores.

While the main teeth of the French threat had effectively been drawn, and no longer could Monsieur Bonaparte plan on his Navy to spearhead an invasion of that sceptred isle (since half of them were now hulks or at the bottom of the Atlantic), still individual enemy ships remained a threat, and were fought wherever they were found; and the coastal defences of both nations remained of paramount importance. Edward spent many months in the Channel, beating out beyond Finistere and the Scillies and back into the North Sea, up and down. The proximity to Portsmouth therefore gave the much-strained couple more opportunities to build on their lovingly-laid foundations, just as they had hoped when planning it, and to discover how much further and deeper it might be possible for two people so devoted to one another to journey together.

He was even home often enough that they got beyond that tightrope honeymoon phase where they had balanced for so long, and dared to have a few little tiffs and misunderstandings, going so far as to express disappointed expectations or hurt feelings without fear of the devastation of their first quarrel, and trusting that in doing so the fabric of their marriage would stretch and then be repaired and thus the stronger for it. Often at these times they would end-up walking hand-in-hand along the shore, renewed and relieved, saying nothing and not needing to.

In this way home became more precious still, when they did not have to be on their best behaviour with each other in it. To be able to be fatigued, or irritable, or out-of-sorts with one other seemed like a new set of luxuries – ones in which they did not wish to indulge too often, to be sure, but whose very sanction spelled safety and acceptance.

If there were any doubt of it, one of them would turn to the other in bed at night and simply whisper, “I’m sorry,” and let the flood of relief that followed carry them both back where they belonged, locked in each others’ arms – in heat and tenderness, or in quiet companionship. Edward even discovered for the very first time how sweet it could be to choose not to make love to his wife, if some other mood or activity intervened, without feeling as if some never-to-be-repeated opportunity had thereby slipped through his hands.

Edward had not lost any of his desire to understand Sophie better: each homecoming only served to reinforce his conviction that something miraculous had somehow been given to him. He felt entrusted with it, felt the imperative of fathoming it until he should appreciate fully what it was he had been granted in this life, all undeserving as he was.

Sophie’s feelings were probably simpler, since she had never had any sense that she did not understand Edward as deeply as she loved him — for her they had always been the same thing.

He wasted no time, then, in making her more his than ever: with his body, with his mind. His questions both amused and touched her, therefore, those that he would pose in that sweet intimate time after he had come to her arms and all constrictions between them had fallen away. At such times she sensed his nakedness with her, as he could be nowhere else, ever; it ripped her to her core each time, however often it was given her to know it.

One such day, early during this period, then, his face holding that look of wonder and satisfaction which she loved to see upon it, only loving more the fact that it was within her gift, and her gift alone to put it there — the lines smoothed, the eyebrows relaxed, the mouth softer — he had the special sparkle too, the one he wore when he had brought her successfully to la petite morte — all fulfilled in her arms, he asked her softly, “Our first time together, Sophie — I have never asked you this, because I didn’t dare to think it could have been so, except that I felt sure — but god! I was so clumsy with you — and yet — you sounded so like a seagull, even then, that first time – I didn’t know how to do any of the things that please you so — was that –? Did you – ? Could you have – ?”

“Yes,” she said. “You did. You didn’t know how, but you still did. And I didn’t know, then, either — I hadn’t ever – not even dreamed –”

Her admission shocked him all over again. Every time he took something for granted about her, he was undone, had to start afresh. “My God, that was the first time you felt it? With me? But I knew nothing! Only how much I wanted you —! You could not have had a more awkward lover! I didn’t know what on earth I should do with you — how could you be so moved, when I was so clumsy?”

“You were the only lover I wanted, ” she answered him: “ —and by being you. You weren’t clumsy — well, yes, you were, specially at first, oh my poor love, how desperate you were! You really didn’t know what to do with yourself, did you! Oh, love! I would have been happy if that had been all — I just wanted to hold you while you spilled in me! But then —— you kissed my breasts so sweetly, made such a fuss of them, oh Edward! – that was after you took me first, you know, and yet you didn’t stop: you went on making love to me, touching me and kissing me, you felt all the rest of me as if I were a flower, so carefully –– your fingertips, I remember, you slipped them between all my folds, with this look of wonder on your face, and then –– and then –– all of a sudden — it was as if a rocket had burst in my womb, and I couldn’t breathe – it was frightening. I didn’t understand it at all, only that I had never felt anything of the kind, never been so open as I was with you, so wanting –– oh! God, I wanted you, Edward, like nothing in my life, ever — yes — and so it was your touch, then, afterwards, your kisses, your mouth, that made it be so — that and the way you held me, after you had spilled into me… I felt it there, your seed — it felt so precious — and when you groaned my womb seemed to leap in answer – and that was when it happened. You had your mouth at my breast – this one,” she said, touching her left side. “And I thought I should die, from what I felt then. And then, while everything was still — on fire —— you asked me if you could take me again, and you did —— oh, God, Edward!”

“My God,” he said. Her words had moved him to an exquisite new state of desire, but stronger still was his wish to know more. “I had so little idea – here we are, three years married – we have a child together, and still I am learning your secrets.”

“I am still learning them myself, Edward,” she smiled.

“You understand us both,” he said, “better than I understand myself.”

“How wonderful, that our experiences are so different!” she said. “I love to imagine yours!”

“How can you — imagine mine?”

“How can I not? When you are in my arms, taking me so roughly, as if your life depended on it!” She smiled, then taking his hand in hers and kissing each of his fingers in turn till shivers ran through him. “— that’s the joy of it! I feel triumphant – fulfilled.”

“And you don’t mind? I –– there’ve been plenty of times I know I –– and we have been so hasty, or I have been so with you –– yet you don’t seem to mind, that I – ”

“Mind? Why should I mind?”

“Why? Sophie! If I came to you and we – stopped in the middle, unfulfilled –– I’m quite sure I should be most unhappy, at that moment —— anything but content! My God, I should be beside myself! So how can you – ?”

“I’m sure it’s not as sharp for me, Edward,” she said. “I – I think each time you come to me is separate, for you, my love — each seeking its necessary end – in spilling, for you — while for me – they are simply the waves of this ocean that is how I feel for you.” She played with the hair that came up from his brow, so fine and soft. “What I want – is you – more even than that. La petite morte… I like it, but I don’t need it. Not the way you need your release. You need me – my body. What I need — is to know that you do.”

“Know it,” he said, and for good measure he pressed up against her, showing her again just how much.

“Mmmmmm,” she said, “my love —!”

“I’m not in a hurry, now,” he said, “I’d rather talk — I just wanted to feel you against me — I can’t believe — all the times we have made love! — as close as I have felt to you, yet — I have so much still to learn —!”

“Bliss,” she said. “Talk away — ask all your questions — just lie like that, so I can feel you! I love it so, Edward — the heat of you! God, I can feel your pulse, even.”

“What, there?”

“Yes, there!”

He kissed her, laughing, for that; asked the next of his questions. Was there no end to his ignorance? — the surprise of her answers? “So you had not known this much joy, before —— ?”

“Never,” she said, “but I knew that I should, with you.”

“How did you know? I didn’t, for sure — expect that with you… not so much!”

“Edward! The very smell of your shirt moved me half to tears! Did I not tell you? I opened the parcel, and there it was, and all I could do was bury my face in it, and long for you!”

“My God,” he whispered. “You wanted me –? Then, even?”

“Oh, earlier than then! The day you came to tea, and you were so dear with Mavis, and so unselfconscious, I had never seen a man be at once so strong, so in command of himself – and so tender… it made me wonder what it would be like to have you come to me, in bed – ! Yes, truly. That day. And then when you kissed my hand — the day we walked together — shall I tell you a secret? God, I am blushing —— !” — and he saw that she was, indeed, and wondered what on earth or in heaven could bring a flush to her cheeks beyond the extraordinary intimacies which they had already shared.

“Tell me,” he said.

“My petticoats were so wet, afterwards, Edward. I didn’t understand it, then, only guess ——!”

“Did you guess aright?” he whispered, “that it was for me? —for this?”

“I hoped it was so,” she said, “and that it would be sweeter with you, because of it.”

“Oh, how sweet it was! I couldn’t believe it,” he said, remembering. “That wetness — that made it all so easy, so fast — I’d never felt it, didn’t know how simple it could be, to want to be inside you and then the very next moment to be there, all the way, on the tide of you, so deep — so slippery — oh, Christ! You made it so simple, so straightforward, when I had always thought it impossibly difficult — and painful — and shameful — and there you were, pulling me to you and crying-out yes! to me —— I shall not forget that, Sophie, till the day I die: I know it. Ever.”

“Neither will I,” she murmured, her lips against his shoulder. “That look of absolute astonishment upon your face, Edward — of shock! You stopped still, as if you could not believe you had come there.”

“I couldn’t,” he said. “Not so quickly, all the way in you all at once, and then you urging me on. I – I had hoped you would put up with me — with my need of you. I hoped — that you would be kind. Not that — ! I never dreamed you would cry yes — yes — yes, and pull me to you. It was much as I had dared to think that you might hold me, even, and not shrink from me… ”

“Kind!” she whispered back, moving her kisses in a straying line to his chest where just the smallest silkiest whorl of fine dark hairs circled on the left side. He closed his eyes and thanked his Maker all over again, for her; for all of it. She smiled. “Oh, Edward! Did I not tell you I wanted you — even before? Do you not remember?”

“Oh, I remember,” he said, “though I didn’t dare to believe it… ”

“And did I not show you?”

“Yes,” he answered her, “and then I did. Believe it. Beyond anything I had ever, ever imagined — the way you were with me. So wanton — so sweet. God, when I think back, how little I knew — I so wished just to find you tender to me — understanding— ”

“Was I?”

“Oh,” he said, “you were a great deal more than that…! I didn’t come there expecting that! – I would have asked you to marry me anyway, Sophie, without even knowing about all of this — without any of it — ”

“Any of it?”

“Well, almost! If you would just have been gentle, that was all I thought of, then. Before I came to you. God! I used to wonder what all the fuss was about! F-cking — why it mattered so much. It had always seemed a wretched thing to need, to me —— humiliating, to admit it and have to come to a woman, begging for it, to be allowed — to trespass —”

“Trespass!”

“That is how it seemed,” he said, “so that is how I thought of it, yes. So I hoped only that you would let me in, without my having to beg you.”

“Oh, Edward,” she said.

“I didn’t want to beg,” he said, “ever again.”

She thought of the look he had sometimes, when his need of her was raw, as if he were half-ashamed still — and the relief in his eyes when she took him in without hesitation. And she thought of poor Catherine, faced with this need of his and unable to cope. Feeling with him as Sophie had with her first husband: only God, let it be over soon — please let him not turn to me, tonight —— give me strength to endure it. Edward, this same Edward who lay in her arms now and trembled with the same need. “Oh, love,” she said. For it was love that made all the difference — its presence or its absence: its power to transform everything. That the same act could be hell — or heaven.

But oh! God! How could she not have loved him —? Sophie tried to understand it, but failed.

“It used to shame me, till I met you,” he said.

“And now?”

“God!” he said. “It is my private joy – the secret miracle at the heart of our marriage – that you could feel so for me, as clumsy and needful as I am – ”

“Sssh,” she said, “my darling, you are not clumsy any more.”

“I was, though,” he said wryly.

“Yes – and I loved you for it! Edward, do you not see? Had you been skilled I should have for ever wondered if I were as satisfying as your last lover –– ”

“Hardly!” he said – “I did not know what it was to be satisfied, till that night.”

“Nor I,” she said, “to receive a man with anything but disgust.”

“What?”

“You heard,” she said.

“Disgust?” he repeated. “But – I had counted on your experience! Because you’d been married –” he frowned, taking locks of her hair in his hands and letting them fall through his fingers, shaking his head “— so I felt sure at least — that you would know the nature of a man’s desire, and be at ease with it. Or else I should never have dared to come into your arms so freely! You said you had not known the little death, I know — but to have felt nothing but disgust —! Sophie — how could you have wanted me, then? Did you not even – surely, with him you must at least have —— was there never a time when he was – welcome to you? –– did not force you––?”

She thought of McKenzie for a moment, a thing she usually endeavoured not to do. He had had her, but he had never possessed her. She had kept her most essential self closed off from him behind a wall of spirit that all his force could not penetrate even as he penetrated her body. She had not even been present, at those times: had fled within, to a sanctuary of nothingness where he never could pursue her. She had a vision of closed gates and a battering-ram, the tool of those who come to break in and steal, without knocking, without asking; all that bruised and splintered wood. — And then, looking at Edward, his dark brown eyes blinking as he searched her face, seeking to understand her (a thing that had never occurred to Mr. McKenzie in all his life) she thought instead of how simply the gates may be flung wide in welcome, and the treasured guest asked within: to the most sacred of all hospitalities.

She took her hand back from his chest to rub her eyes for a moment. They smarted, all of a sudden. Invasion, or invitation: she had known the extremes of both. He had asked her about McKenzie; although it pained her to recall it, she would answer him honestly, still. “It’s hard to open your legs,” she said, bluntly, “where you have been coerced.”

At the thought of coercion he fell silent. Had he coerced Catherine? It crushed him all over again. What kind of a brute – ? Had he indeed forced her? No; she had coerced herself, though, without a doubt. It had been an obligation, she must have felt, to submit. Oh, God, there was a word. “Sophie,” he said then in anguish, “have you ever submitted yourself to me?”

“Oh no, Edward!” she cried at once, “that couldn’t be! Never – only given!”

“There is a difference, then —?”

“All the difference in the world! I choose to give myself to you, Edward — it is my free will, my choice, my gift!”

He had to press on, then, even though the next admission flayed him now — that he knew he hurt her, sometimes, and did so anyway. It was the more painful to him, the more he thought about it, tried to picture her experience. Perhaps this was why he had not tried, until today: for fear of the answer to this. Could he truly claim to love her, if he was willing to use her so? He swallowed; closed his eyes and then looked away; asked it. “And what of the times I have been rough with you, hurt you –– don’t deny it, Sophie, I know I have, I’ve seen your face and not been able to stop myself, how can you give that?”

“Easily,” she smiled, “— there are pains I would feel before any pleasures, Edward. Your need.”

He let out a long, shuddering breath, feeling more naked now than when he was within her and drowning.

“It’s all right,” she whispered.

Those words again. Oh, Sophie. You make all things right, he thought.

“Do you know what I love?” he asked her then.

“What?”

“The way you tell me the truth,” he said. “Another woman would say no, it doesn’t hurt – would pretend – tell her lover lies, to please him. But I can see it does – hurt you, sometimes – I’m not that much of a fool, and so – I can believe you. That I could hurt you – there, even – and yet have it be welcome to you. I can’t bear it, I am ashamed to admit it to you, that I could hurt you on purpose and not stop – but I can believe it.”

“Bear it,” she said; adding, then, to his bewilderment, “ —sometimes I think I love those times the best of all.”

“What –? How?”

“Because your need is so great,” she said, “and you know you are being rough with me, and if there was any way you could help it, I know that you would – but you can’t. Oh God, Edward, I love it that you can’t, sometimes – it gets me through all the days you are not here, knowing you could want me so much as to hurt me a little, in claiming me.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “How do you do it?” he asked, “how do you know?”

“What?”

“What others are feeling! How do you understand me so?”

“Edward, you do it just the same – you’re a captain – you couldn’t command, if you didn't.”

“I know what my men are feeling,” he said, “and what my enemy is thinking, that, yes – it’s instinct. But to cross the divide to the fairer sex – never! You are a mystery to me Sophie, I’m sorry to say it, but I have no intuition where you are concerned.”

“I don’t think you give yourself credit, Edward,” she smiled, but he would not believe her.

“No, Sophie, I attempt it — but I find still I must observe all I can and try to understand.”

“Do you mind?” she asked him.

“No,” he answered, “I have made it my life’s task, and my delight also –– that is why I have dared to ask you, all of these questions – only that you already know, where I must learn, and ask you to explain: will you be patient with me –?”

“Edward,” she said.

His hand cupped her breast as they spoke: his thumb caressed it tenderly, absently: then stopped. “I’m sorry,” he said all at once, his voice suddenly husky – “can you forgive me?”

“For what? Edward, my god!”

“For hurting you!” he said. “I would not be a brute to you, God knows –!” The word came out, the epithet he feared and called himself in shame, these many years.

“To me! Edward, have you not been listening to a word I have said? For a man of intelligence, you can speak such foolishness!” she cried, and stopped his mouth with hers then, before he could utter any more of it.

And thus forgiven — as he had been always, of course he had, forgiven in the very moment of it, but not forgiving himself fully until now, in all the years it had been since their quarrel and the way he had sought her, afterwards, so roughly — he assuaged the pain of having hurt her knowingly twice, with his words and then with his body, coming without guilt finally to the only place that could ever heal it fully.

***********************

And so the months passed, sun and rain and clouds all chasing over His Majesty’s Navy scattered out at sea and the house in Portchester both, bringing letters, dangers, sweet stolen hours; partings, and patrols, and Pellie talking in broken sentences, and pigeon-stews, and old friends, and new ones.

************************

April, 1808

“Mama,” cried Mavis, “There’s a packet of letters!”

Sophie stepped from the carriage. Her nerves were a little jangled from the long drive back from Chawton. A visit to Miss Austen was always enjoyable, filled with passionate conversation, walks in the gentle slopes of the chalk Downs and through ancient churchyards, but she was glad to be home. The leafy Meon Valley lanes were beautiful but bumpy; her head ached. Since the miscarriage last winter, she had prayed each month ––– but Edward had been away in the Channel for six weeks already, and it was not to be this time, either, despite her hopes when for a while her courses did not appear: only disappointment, the usual cramps again, and a migraine starting. Still, the joy on Mavis’s face was a welcome beyond price, and she rubbed her eyes and then held out her arms, into which Mavis flew with all the force of her fourteen years. She had been conducting herself with somewhat more discretion and decorum, of late; but still these fell away from her, as now, when her passion came to the fore. She was a loving soul, and had missed her mother; was overjoyed to see her back.

Sophie hoped that in this respect she might never grow up altogether, if it would mean losing this glorious joyful spontaneity. She hugged her daughter tightly and kissed her soundly before letting her go. Not so long ago, it would have been the top of Mavis’s head under her chin; but now Mavis was outstripping her, and they were almost of a height, already.

“Mama! Oh, mama!”

“What, darling?”

“I got three from Mr. Hastings! He drew me a hoist saying Happy Birthday, and another one with a picture of a seagull stealing a piece of biscuit out of his hand when he ran up on the quarterdeck in the middle of breakfast! He is so funny Mama, you should see the way he drew his face when the gull was snatching it away!”

“Oh that’s lovely, darling. What a kind thing, to write back to you. No more conversations with him in the oak tree, I hope?”

“Mama, don’t laugh at me! I really did think it was him! I thought he’d come home and come out into the garden to find me and climbed up the tree after me. And my foot slipped and I thought I was going to crash all the way to the ground, but I fell onto that branch instead and just grazed myself and he kissed it all better and told me I had better be a bit more careful next time, specially if I intended to go up in the rigging again!”

Mavis saw the drawn look on her mother’s face as she spoke, and thus did not go on to tell her that actually, yes: Oliver had been again the day before, at bed-time, when she had been telling stories to Pellie who was missing his mother’s goodnight kiss, and told her this time that she must put aside all thoughts of marrying him, for he was far too old for her, but that he would love her and be her best friend always. She did not understand these appearances herself, only that they felt as warm and unfrightening as buttered toast and cocoa on a cold day. And when next he came ashore, she would soon remind him of the ever-narrowing gap between them, and the fact that she was now almost grown.

“You must have hit your head as well as your knee, darling, I told you. Did Papa write to you?”

“Of course, you know he wouldn’t forget my birthday, no matter how busy he is! He told me to grow up like you and the world should be doubly blessed. And he told me to mind you and not answer back – but he said he had a bad way of being convinced he had the right of it when he was a little boy, and answering-back to the grown-ups himself, so he understood how tempting it was – but that I must learn that discretion is sometimes the better part of valour, and that to be gracious may be better than to be right. Although I am missing numbers forty-one and forty-two.”

Mavis was holding Sophie’s hand as they went inside the cool green hallway. The maid curtseyed and took Sophie’s cloak: “Madam, you look all-in. Let me fetch you a pot of tea right away!”

“Oh, thank you so much, Maryanne. That would be lovely. Please ask Mrs. Stroud to send some cake, perhaps, too, if she has any — ?”

“There are six letters for you, mama, five came in the packet and one by itself. All from papa.”

Sophie sat down in the parlour and brushed the hair back from her face. No matter how hard she tried to keep it in check, it had an unruly way of falling down and escaping from its confines. Edward loved it best, so; he had told her, many times, sometimes with words, sometimes with a look, sometimes with the force of his response when she unpinned it and it tumbled across his chest. This thought took her breath away and she had to force her thoughts away from it before she missed him more than she could bear.

Mavis ran in with the letters. They were all numbered but one. That one was thin and the seal hasty, unlike Edward’s usual care. His hand on the outside of the folded sheet seemed spiky and when she saw the word “urgent”, her heart turned over. Was he coming home? Oh, please, let it be that!

She set aside the numbered letters and broke open the single sheet.

“Sophie ––––––––

Oh Christ Sophie ––– !”

Her hand flew to her mouth. His writing here was almost illegible. A great blot covered the next word, and then more anguished still, her name once more, and then

“Oh my darling I am so destroyed I have started this letter any number of times and then when I come to write it I cannot –– but I must –– let me say it then –– Sophie — Hastings is missing — most likely dead. The men saw him fall — cut down by a French bullet through the breast — he fell into the water and was gone, it was the middle of the night, they were under heavy fire — they could not find him in the tide-race — he could not have survived! — and I that ordered him to lead the raid on a battery that could have stood till Doomsday and not been worth a hair of his head O Sophie O Sophie ––––––

He was everything an officer should be and Sophie to you alone I can express this, how much I thought of him ––––– !!!!!!!! He was almost another son to me oh dear God I gave the order Sophie –– ! It is war and I had no choice but I would rather have lost half my command and certainly my ship than him –––– now I must take hold of my self and go out there on deck and give my orders with a firm clear voice, how am I to do that??? O God help me Sophie I sent him there ––––––– never have I felt so cut down, upon losing one of my officers.

I was more proud of him than I can ever say, I hope to God he knew it ––––– this is a loss to his country as well as to me and to his men, he was set to be a shining light in this Navy, a natural leader of men and braver than a lion, I have written as much and more to his father already as if that could be any comfort at all, which it cannot –––––– all the praises in the world are as salt in the wound of his loss ––––––

Sophie pray for me, I have not the strength to go on and yet I must –––––

Tell Mavis gently my love, oh Christ I let her love him too, encouraged it even, how could anyone help it that knew him?

Sophie we shall be home soon but I had to tell you now, I could not bear to say the words to you and see your face ––– an act of cowardice? No, I want you to know so that when you greet me I do not have to tell you then, for I need you to comfort me and not I you –– pray for us Sophie, his loss is on my soul and shall be as long as I shall live. ––––– E.

She had let out a cry, and Mavis came running: “Mama, what? What is it?”

Sophie could not speak. Mavis looked into her face. “It’s not Papa, it can’t be, that’s his writing – is he hurt, mama?”

Sophie shook her head.
“Mama, is – is Mr Hastings all right?”

Sophie shook her head again, and tried to find some words to break the news to her darling daughter.

Mavis froze, her mouth open for what seemed like seconds until one strangled cry came from it: then silence again. Sophie’s heart broke all over again. First Edward’s grief, and now her daughter’s too: what a blazing flame of a young man he had been, to be sure, to command this love.

And then Pellie came running in at the sound of his sister’s cry. “Mabis? Mabis? What it is, Mabis?”

“Mr. Hastings is lost, Pellie,” said his mother, white-faced.

“Oh. Pellie help find him!”

“Oh, Pellie, darling, would that you could!”

Pellie looked from his mother to his sister. “Neber mind,” he said stoutly. “It be all better,” he added, in a hopeful tone.

*********************

A week came and went: seven days of red eyes and sighs, of wrung hands and sleepless nights. No more letters came; they looked each day for Victory coming into harbour, for word, for a boat pulling for shore. Mavis spent most of her time alone, up in the crook of the great oak tree; Sophie, in her wisdom, did not chase her down, nor even insist that she go to school.

The days passed like beetles crawling.

Pellie was left to his own devices, more than had ever happened to him in his short life. His sister tried to be a partner in his expeditions of discovery, but then she would sigh, and turn her head away, and bite her lip. He became so used to kissing the tears from her cheeks that it became simply another normal part of his routine. But her heart wasn’t in the adventures any more, he could tell — when she accompanied him at all. Often he stumped along the tideline by himself, straying far from her usually watchful eye, looking for bones and fossils; even the little golden periwinkles could not make her smile, now, spilling from the crease of his palm into hers.

Once he ran away to sea altogether, to be a pirate with bread-and-cheese all knotted up in a red-spotted-handkerchief, thanks to Mrs. Stroud, that pillar of his existence — though she, too gave great gusty sighs, nowadays, and shook her head more than ever, even when Mr. Stroud was not by, and looked angry all the time. She banged and crashed among the pots-and-pans: Pellie almost asked her if he could, too, but looked again at the gleam in her eye and decided against it. It was amusing being a pirate, and he terrorized the nettles for a while and slashed at them with his cutlass till they stung him back, and Mr. Stroud had to find a dock-leaf for him to rub on the weals. A pirate’s life was fraught with danger, he decided, and thought that he would be better going into the Navy like papa.

He went to the bottom of the garden, later that afternoon, bringing a frog in his hands to show Mr. Stroud, who was down there weeding. “Look!” he cried, “Look, Mr. Stroud!”

And Mr. Stroud looked up at him, kneeling amongst the red-currant-bushes, and Pellie saw that he had been crying: there were streaks of earth all across his cheeks, where he had wiped away the tears and snot impatiently with a dirty hand, but to no avail: for more kept oozing from the corrugations in his ugly, dear face. Pellie set the frog down for him beside the willow trug, next to the roses he had cut for mama, and hugged him briefly, clumsily; ran away.

*******************

Mavis did not tell her mother that Oliver had appeared to her again in her imagination, so clearly, as if she could hear his voice. “Now Mavis,” he had said, “Your papa is coming home today. And he is hurt beyond measure. Be patient with him sweetheart, and do not plague him, and above all do not ask him a lot of questions.”

“But I want to know!”

“Of course you do – and he will tell you, if you will but wait until he can bear to do so, darling. For I tell you, Mavis, if you press him, you will only hurt him more. And you don’t want to do that, do you?”

Mavis hung her head. “No. But I still think it was stupid.”

“No, sweetheart, it was war and it was his duty. And mine too. And if you look at him like that he will only find it harder to forgive himself. Yes, that look. Don’t think your thoughts are secret, Mavis, for they are written all over your face. You must not blame him!”

“How can I help it? I love you! – loved you!” Mavis burst into tears.

“I hope you still do, Mavis. For I still love you –– and I always shall!”

“Do you promise?”

“How could I help it?” She felt herself gathered to his breast and held while she wept bitterly. A kiss dropped gently on the top of her tangled hair: the kiss she had longed for, given freely by him, but never received. Her sobs abated, and so then she was alone again, and fumbling for her handkerchief.

Sophie was waiting out by the shore for him, as she had been every day, walking up and down looking for him. She watched the boat pull to shore without waving: she saw him and he saw her, and that was enough. He did not even ask how she had known he was to come home today: just stepped from the boat onto land and into her arms, all dusty and sweaty as he was, and drew great shuddering breaths, and said nothing –– he could not –– and squeezed her tightly, more tightly than he meant to, for sure, and she let him, knowing he needed this and even if her ribs cracked she would not tell him to let go.

At last he came into the house, and Maryanne hurried in with tea, having seen them outside together. He did not sit, but paced up and down the drawing-room as if it were his quarterdeck. Sophie knew better than to stop him. His face broke her heart: she had never seen him so careworn, not even when he had come home to her so ill and she had nursed him back to health, in the early days of their marriage, back in that little house in Gibraltar. Then he had been drawn and glittering-eyed, but somehow in his fever burning more fiercely than ever – she blushed when she recalled how they had disobeyed the doctor’s orders that he was not to exert himself, for as he had said when begging her for the third time with a break in his voice, how could he lie all day and all night in her bed and not – !

But this time the fire was out – cold – his eyes seemed so flat, she could not see into their depths at all, and this worried her more than anything he had failed to say. The lines in his cheeks and brow seemed to have been scored with knives.

“I am on my way to London,” he said at last; and he failed to say anything further, until Mavis came flying into the room and he gathered her up in his arms.

She beseeched him with her eyes: “ —is there no hope? No hope at all, papa?”

“It was night,” said Pelham gratingly, “and a strong surf — an undertow — there were rocks — and he was shot through the breast, Mavis. In short ——— no.”

He let her howl upon his breast, and the look on his face then burned Sophie to the core, so tortured was it, until he saw her tearful gaze on him, and turned from her.

Pellie ran in from the garden, then, having heard all the commotion, his hoop and stick still in his hands. Mavis broke from her father’s embrace and flew up the stairs, and Pelham dropped to one knee, held out his arms for his little son. Pellie went into them cautiously; his suspicions were affirmed when his tall, stern-faced father squeezed him almost to choking: he could feel every one of the buttons upon papa’s coat, and his face was trapped in papa’s shoulder, which was jerking.

Pellie made his escape as soon as he might, and trudged down the lane with his hoop. No-one even seemed to notice if he got lost, today — till Mrs. Stroud came running out after him, flapping her arms like a big black crow, and gathered him up and brought him home again, and fed him flapjacks in the kitchen, sniffing all the while.

It was as if Pelham had been allotted only a dozen sentences to say in the six hours between his arrival and bed-time, and he must eke them out and make them last, for there would be no more –– as if he was struggling to contain something far beyond mere words, and that to speak might start the crack that would cause all to break and spill.

Mavis held her tongue all through supper (which was, sad to say, a wretched affair unredeemed by poor Mrs. Stroud’s very best efforts with a nice shoulder of pork and a rhubarb-fool: but it could have been sawdust, for all they seemed to notice or eat). Sophie could scarcely believe it, for the girl had never achieved such self-control in her life for so much as five minutes, and yet here she was, hours on end, stone-faced, without a single further question. It was as if her shock had taken away her powers of speech altogether.

Five of Edward’s sentences were questions to them, how they did, what was Mavis learning in school now, was Pellie a good boy still? Was Sophie quite well in herself? – he seemed to need reassurance of this, as if testing her strength to bear his grief –– and one was for Mavis, when she kissed him before going up to bed: his voice broke on it: “I –– I am sorry, Mavis.”

Mavis’s eyes filled with fresh tears. “I know, papa,” she said.

Sophie wondered what would come next. “Go to bed,” he said, after midnight, after asking her to play the piano for him for an hour and more while he stared out of the dark window, out to sea. “I –– I will come up to you.”

She took his hand, that hung at his side, and kissed it; did as he asked her. She undressed and put on her nightgown with shaking hands, wondering how he was to bear this grief, if even now, a fortnight into it, he was so felled by it. She surmised that aboard ship he could not allow himself this silence, nor indeed even to feel what he must feel; and so it must be falling freshly upon his shoulders, now that he was finally come into the haven of home, away from his responsibilities at last.

She waited for him awhile, and when he came to her, he was already undressed and in his shirt alone. She held her arms out to him, and he blew out the candle before coming into them. His body was as rigid and unyielding as the mainmast, every muscle taut and strained, as it had been without mercy for the past two weeks. He did not turn to her, but instead lay flat upon his back and stared up into the darkened room. She lay beside him and let one arm rest gently across his breast. He said nothing; did not move. When she went to withdraw it, fearing even this was trespass, he grasped it so hard she bit her lip and drew it back to its resting-place. He did not touch her further.

After a while – it might have been five minutes, or ten –– he said, “Sophie –– I cannot –– not now. Not –– not yet.”

“I understand,” she whispered.

He sighed.

After a long vigil, she slept.

In the middle of the night, she had no idea of the hour, he woke her. His breath was hot upon her shoulder, and his kiss there hotter: it burned through her thin lawn nightdress. Then he was reaching for her, climbing on top of her in the bed, gulping for air and gasping in between, “Sophie –– I need you –– please –– ?”

For answer she took him in, without hesitation.

If she thought he had ever been rough with her before, he was more frantic now. In Gibraltar that time his violence had been that of unbounded joy: now what he unleashed was savage, brutal. The time upon the table after their quarrel had been sweet compared to it. She met it, did not shrink from him in his need: his desperation communicated itself in every breaking wave — he was a storm crashing upon her, and she received his force with all the strength and solidity in her, resilient as Land's End granite under all the fury of the Atlantic.

“Oh God,” he cried, harshly, “oh God, Sophie, help me –– oh God –– oh, dear God –– I loved him –– ”

“I know,” she whispered.

“Sophie –– Sophie –– oh, Christ forgive me –– ”

“Edward, oh, Edward, there is nothing to forgive!” she said, and he groaned, and jolted in sharp spasms, and broke altogether then.

Sometimes at these moments he said her name; sometimes he made sounds without words. This time she was unsurprised, and yet still it brought tears to her eyes, to hear him cry out: “Oh, God, Hastings — Oliver –– !!”

And then he collapsed upon her breast, and his groans turned to harsher sounds, and he wept.

They had been married almost four years now; she had not known he could.

Nor did he: he had not, in almost forty years.

She held him – he lay heavily upon her, but she would not have moved under him for the world – while he heaved with great shuddering sobs wrenched from his throat one by one. She thought of a barber pulling teeth. It was a terrible sound, hoarse and beyond sanity, almost. She knew better than to shush him, or indeed to speak at all; she knew she must not break this spell, or he would draw back into himself, swallow this grief, struggle to return to self-control. His agony wrung her heart: the tears spilled down her cheeks, silently.

Yet by the same token — his weeping here, at last — by this strange grace Sophie felt reassured, confident once more of her ability to give Edward the refuge in her arms he so needed; able to be strong for him in this greatest trial.

Slowly now he began to speak, all the things he had been unable to say, before, flooding out now with the tears that wet her breast: the heartbreaking details, irrelevant, meaningless in the face of the loss, yet essential somehow to communicate, as if in them lay meaning, lay comfort, lay redemption; lay forgiveness: “ I must tell Mavis — Thurman said to be sure she knew –– that he had her latest letters in his pocket when he fell, right by his heart –– and to tell her he spoke of her all the time, what would Miss Mavis say –– he’d make them laugh, come on now, Miss Mavis could do a better job than that! –– let’s make Miss Mavis proud , he’d say –– and he said –– Thurman –– he looked at me and he said, he reckoned she’d be right proud of him now, Captain Pelham, Sir –– and –– oh God, Sophie, then they just wept –– his whole division! –– in front of me –– I thought for certain I should lose my composure then, and break down too, right there on the deck –– it was all I could do not to ––– !!!”

“Yes, Edward,” she whispered.

“I’ve lost men before, good God, it happens all the time — officers, too — good ones! But — none like him.”

“I know,” she breathed.

“He was my best officer, Sophie, I had to send him –– d’you see?”

“Of course you did,” she said. “He knew that. You both did. Always.”

“Do you think – he ever knew – how much I thought of him?”

“I’m sure,” she whispered.

And then he slept, right there upon her breast, worn out from care and grief and spent utterly.

And so the little daughter that was to be named Harriet came to being in her, in those silent hours before dawn: a gift beyond price, born of her father’s greatest hurt –– the loss of a son, in some miraculous balance not to be understood by mortals, bringing another child to be; and floated, the tiniest of specks, smaller than a promise, less than a hope, infinitesimal and secret.

**

And yet, not satisfied with the wrenching emotion and turbulence of all these strange and portentous happenings, Fate had not done toying with the Pelham household and all the satellites that revolved around its heart.

28. The winkle-pickers

It was too bright. And there was not a part of him that did not shriek in pain.

There were sharp barnacles and limpets under his shoulders, and he was shivering, in spite of the sun, and his shirt was stiff with salt. A shallow rock-pool by his face smelled salty, pungent as it warmed. He knew the tide was coming in again — heard it, swishing closer and closer by his ear, at the foot of this seaweed-skirted rock on which he lay helpless. Would it close over him? Probably.

He thought of his career, and how badly he had wanted to have his own command. He saw Pelham’s face, his disappointment in him: for he had failed his captain now, for certain. He did not even know if the raid had succeeded: all he remembered was the red-hot pain in his shoulder, and falling, falling into the surf —— black slabs of saltwater falling on him like dark marble tombstones and throwing him against the rocks; the moon tumbling in the sky, the breaking surf first on top of him and then under, surging, his body a broken thing in its careless grip.

And now he had fetched-up here, squinting, only to drown quietly in the early morning calm. A crab sidled over to his pale hand, drawn by the blood that even now stained his sleeve pink — God only knew where his uniform-coat had got to, for he was in his shirtsleeves and drawers, no breeches either — torn off him? Probably.

The crab stretched out tentative pincers, and nipped these corrugated pearly corpse-like fingers. The creature did not move.

The tide came, then, all around him: lifted him on sparkling swells away from the rock and the crab and the rock-pool that now was one with the sea again. The sun struck his face like the flat of a cutlass-blade. The sea felt gentle, gentler than the rock: he gave his battered body up to its embrace. Before the water closed over his nose and mouth altogether, he felt a kiss there, the barest whisper of lips against his; felt for a piercingly sweet moment the rise of a budding breast under the palm of his torn and bleeding hand, tender as a new shoot, a gift, a promise. Sorry? No: not now. He was not, if she were not. He could not be, now, since it had been her gift to him to die with it filling his mind so gracefully.

And then the sea rolled him over — gently, firmly — and he had no more strength to resist.

*******************

Philippe’s legs were tired. He had been out since before dawn with his mother, and the basket of winkles, whelks and mussels was full and heavy. Now the tide was coming in again, swiftly in these last reaches, and the sand gleamed newly wet behind him as he turned his face to the dunes and the path home. He had a secret in his pocket: a watch, gleaned from the corpse of the dead officer maman had found at the tideline when they first arrived in the blue pre-dawn. They had gone through his clothes quickly and thoroughly, before anyone else should come upon the scene and demand a share. Not much: a few coins, some centimes and a pearl-handled pocket-knife engraved “Alphonse” — he had stared at the hole in the shattered forehead dispassionately, wondering if the sea had washed the brains out or if they were still in there. They had left him there, his cheek pressed into the sand and shingle. No sense getting involved, said maman, or they will ask us what was on him — besides, he is dead, so —— and she had shrugged. Philippe wondered what had happened to his mother’s curiosity, if she had ever had any.

The watch would not go, probably, not after its soaking and the salt starting to corrode the tiny fly-wheels inside the case even now — the glass was cracked, too. But he had seen the priest put his watch in a glass of oil, when it had got wet, and he thought it could not hurt to try. Though oil was dear, now, and maman would yell if she found out.

He turned, cast one last look at the little rocky bay. Something rocked in the shallows, where the tide was reclaiming the wave-ribbed sand foot by foot; something that had not been there just now, he could have sworn. Oh! quelle merveille — another corpse! Perhaps this one would have a pistol — or a louis-d’or!

He set his basket down by a clump of coarse grass and sea-thistles, where he would be sure to find it again, and scampered back down to the cove. The body floated just out-of-reach, in shallow water, each wave bringing it closer and then pulling it back again. This one had been shot in the chest, apparently, and then battered upon the rocks: its face was cut, its hands. Though all looked as white as its shirt, except where the slow, continuing seep of blood had stained the fabric in a rosy bloom. Philippe pulled up his pantalons above his knees and waded in to pull the dead man to shore. Damn! No coat — no breeches — no pockets, then! Ah, merde! Jewelry, perhaps? Yes – he was in luck. A locket on a worn silver chain hid inside the open neck of the shirt. He tugged at it, and the chain broke.

“No!” cried the corpse, weakly.

Philippe almost pissed himself.

29. A Father’s Loss

The carriage jolted its way over the Hog’s Back and skirted the Devil’s Punchbowl. Pelham would have preferred to sail from the Solent back up-Channel and up the Thames to London, but it was quicker this way; and besides, he had an appointment to keep.

His head ached. He tipped it back against the worn leather seat-cushion and let himself imagine Sophie’s hands rubbing his temples. After fifteen years with no physical contact with another human being, even now he was still far from used to the miracle of her exploding into his life. It was as if he had kept himself bound in steel hoops, like a barrel of salt beef, until she came along and freed him to be not just an officer in His Majesty’s Navy, but a man also.

The thought of nine-year-old Mavis running slap bang into him and prying the lid off the barrel containing him curved his mouth into a wry smile in spite of all his cares and pain. Then he thought of her face — fourteen now, dear God, and on the verge of womanhood — her lovely face, when he had told her he was sorry for the loss of Hastings, and his own face twisted and he turned to stare out of the window.

The three other passengers jostled and mumbled. Pelham watched the trees by the window, passing so close here that twigs swept against the carriage; then the road turned the other way and suddenly the view stretched out before them, yellow and gold and blue in the hazy sunlight.

He had an errand to complete before giving his report to their Lordships. Somewhere in this dappled watery landscape of sleeping villages and mild-faced cows lay a country doctor’s house, and a grieving father within it. One who could surely not feel very much more pain than Pelham himself; but that was more than heartbreak enough. A father he must face and tell all to, knowing the extent of the man’s loss as perhaps no-one else on earth could know it.

He had watched Partridge go ashore with Hastings’ sea-chest, knowing his wretched destination. He had left the Victory in the capable hands of his second for this one week, to bring her around to Deal without him, and gone ashore himself to seek some comfort at last, at home in Portchester, as much comfort as he might find anywhere. He had lost officers before, more than he cared to think; often as a direct result of his orders. Why then should this one be so devastating? For much of his life Captain Pelham had neither made love nor wept –– in fact, it had been closer to forty since he had shed tears over anything or anyone. Now he had done both – last night at one and the same time. And when the tears had come, as scalding and unstoppable as his seed moments before, it had been so great a relief: greater even than the physical release his body had just demanded, and got. He had sobbed upon her breast like a lost child.

Part of his brain – the old, rigid, officer-like part – told him this was a shameful weakness he must never again permit. And yet in his heart he felt lighter for it, cleansed, able to go on now; and he knew that he could not have faced this errand so calmly, had he not let the tears spill already.

A Captain's life is a lonely one – the very essence of loneliness, for his command depends upon it. Maintaining that distance was imperative: had become habitual. A ship’s captain could be permitted neither emotions nor friends aboard his vessel; if he transgressed, either his judgement or his command – or, fatally, both – must surely suffer.

And yet he had allowed himself to become close to this extraordinary young man – to count on him, even: his companionship, his understanding, his immediate and incisive grasp of every tactical situation that arose in all its complexity – his tact, his subtlety, his kindness.

A mistake, then, to have opened his heart, to this young officer? No; it had come to him as naturally as his duty. He would be the poorer, now, had he resisted it. And it lay like a steady hand over his heart that he had done no more than his duty in ordering Hastings to lead the raid, even though in doing so he had got him killed. Had Hastings progressed to captain – a virtual certainty, if Fate had spared him – then Hastings would have done the same thing, without hesitation: offered up his prime officer, as Abraham did Isaac, in the name of duty.

Pelham sighed, letting that knowledge fill him once more with calm. A strange comfort, but comfort nonetheless, that Hastings would have sent M’Man Partridge or Thurman or any of his division into harm’s way on the instant, were it necessary – although (here Pelham closed his eyes once more in pain) it was Hastings’ way to have led them if he could – as he did – not stayed behind and simply given orders, then to watch and wait impotent upon their commission.

Damn it again, thought Pelham: I am weary of this. Yes, weary of command. For the first time in my life I would set this burden aside for a while, if I could. But I cannot; I told Hastings the same, after Trafalgar, and it must hold good for me: I can’t say one thing and do another. It comes with this uniform, just as I said then — I may not take it off, not for a second, not ever; not even in bed. It is who I am.

He closed his eyes against the image that came before them of Hastings’ eager face, that dancing light in his eyes and the little smile he wore when at his most unselfconscious. But closing them only made it more vivid; now he could hear the young man’s voice too, for heaven’s sake, the afternoon he had come to him burdened with having received that pair of kisses from his captain’s daughter; and he saw and heard him again, at his most glorious, upon the deck of Victory in the midst of Trafalgar, upright and clear-voiced in all that deadly fire.

The woman beside him stifled a belch. The carriage, fetid before, was worse now; Pelham felt suddenly sick to his stomach. A lifetime at sea, and he was nauseous in a carriage, for god’s sake!

He thought of clean salt air and of the days he had gone up to the mast-head, to blow the misery of the moment clean out of his young head. It always worked; he had once delighted even in standing on his head out there upon the yard-arm. But those days were long gone; his dignity now required a more rigid demeanour. He pressed a handkerchief to his lips and prayed for the good Doctor’s village to arrive soon.

Such promise. So much to admire, so much more to hope for, to look forward to. He had watched the boy take his first division, turn a bunch of transferred mismanaged surly hands into a company that would have laid down their lives for him: a company to be proud of, hardworking, loyal – Pelham remembered their cheering him when he came back aboard one time, his arm in a sling and his lieutenant’s rank earned with courage as well as knowledge. How many officers could command that kind of loyalty? Precious few. Damn few. Damn it.

Damn it to hell. His head throbbed and he sighed, thought of Hastings during those moments on the lee-shore, off Spain, back in Indomitable — how calmly he had set about his duty, carried-on with it without even looking over the rail at the rocks, when it was clear they must all be killed at any moment. Pelham felt once more his own incredulity, then — could he have done his duty without even a glimpse over the side toward his fate? Wondered if he had that much courage himself — courage, sheer nerve. Decided he probably did not.

Pelham rubbed his brow, between his eyes, where a crease had taken up permanent residence. It reflected many years of squinting on deck and the unthinking carriage of responsibility. Now there was a concept he had not questioned since boyhood. Not in all those years at sea, starting at the age of eleven. Yes, it was his duty to order every man in the ship to do whatever – what ever – should be necessary. He had come to this responsibility as surely as he drew breath; knew he had been born to it. It was, quite simply, his life.

As it had been Hastings’. The man had been a true officer: one of that rare breed born to lead men. There was no more solemn or noble thing that could be said of him than that: he had attended to his duty, served his King and country, cared for his men and led them; been an example to them; been an inspiration. Pelham had seen their faces, afterwards; addressing them, he had felt his guts grind and twist as their faces had done, yet with the iron will forged in a lifetime of agony and duty, allowed himself to show nothing of it beyond his customary frown, for fear he would break down altogether there beside the rail.

Responsibility.

His, all of it. He told himself it had to happen; argued with himself that it did not. Wished himself back in Sophie’s arms and drowning in her, submerged and for those few moments beyond the reach of this pain. Except that he wasn’t, not even there, the one place on earth he had thought to find solace. In the rawness of his need had come also the rawness of his loss. Even Captain Pelham could not deny his humanity indefinitely. Perhaps if he could have wept again, the bands around his skull might have loosened. But this was neither the time nor place – and so he did not, and suffered for it.

Pelham knitted his brows here, and relived for a moment the agony of the ship’s-boy in his first division-command as a sixteen-year-old midshipman: the ragged breaths, the child trying so hard not to weep again as Pelham cleansed the blood and semen from his little torn arsehole with the softest thing he could find, his own silk neckerchief dampened in fresh water and lime-juice (he could not bear to wear it afterwards, even washed-out, not for the defilement but for the sheer pity of it; had cast it overboard the next day, borrowed another) — dressed the wound then with ointment for rope-burns. He heard his own voice all those years ago, telling the little fellow it would be all right, already planning how he should make it so for sure. The child had refused the doctor — so would I, thought Pelham. His rough justice troubled him little, except perhaps philosophically — but he felt the man had left him no choice. Pressing charges would have seen the rapist hanged in chains, yes — and his victim’s name known throughout the fleet. Better to rid the ship of this predator without all of that: the end result would have been the same. He doubted but that drowning was too good for him.

He had seen that kind of thing since, aboard other ships, and it was a canker of the worst sort: soon the men were affected too, and there was no order and no proper running of the ship till it was addressed in the harshest way – rooted out and destroyed. Nothing was more destructive than that: officers turning a blind eye to the worst kinds of abuse, as had happened there, not to be trusted by their fellows nor their men. Pelham’s bile rose at the thought of these betrayals of that most sacred trust.

Hastings had had it too, that way about him that gains the trust of the men. Or – it was not so much gained as earned, Pelham reflected, of course it must be, moment by moment, test by test, and an officer could never fail. Hastings had taken a bunch of rough customers, pressed men, and made them his own.

Stroud. Now there was a rough customer. One of the roughest. A pressed man and a gambler, hard and bitter and not worth much, from the looks of him, when he first set foot on the decks of the Indomitable. There had been a certain glare in his eye, like a horse that cannot be trusted and is merely biding his time to throw you: Pelham had seen it at once, as the rejects came aboard from Calypso. And yet Hastings had won the man’s loyalty and with it his very duty – to such an extent that when the captain’s new acquaintance Mrs. McKenzie had needed repairs made to the rainwater tank up on her roof, Pelham had not hesitated in requesting that Stroud be in charge of a small gang of men to repair it. Oh, nominally they had been under Cooper, but the boy was a dishrag and would never make an officer: Pelham had been counting on Stroud to behave himself, do a good job and keep the other men in line, and he had done just that; and won himself a corner of Miss Mavis’s heart into the bargain.

That had been Hastings’ influence. The man could have gone either way; he was three-fourths gone when Pelham first saw him, close to lost, as near spoiled for duty as dammit. And Hastings had turned him around, made him the man and valuable hand he could be — and now, Pelham’s own right hand, at home. Pelham’s years of command had taught him never to give up hope; but not to cling to it naively, either. Hastings’ faith had had that shining quality, not naïve – no, not that at all – but as if there could be no reason the men would not perform their absolute best for him, day and night, storm or danger or adversity. Of course they would! – and so they did: because he performed his –– harder, longer, more thoughtfully, with that awkward grace and sudden fire that had been his uniquely.

Somehow these thoughts brought Pelham more pride than pain: a first in this trudge of weary thoughts as endless and bitter as a broken-down pony in a wheel.

So Hastings had worn his dusty, stained uniform to the end with the flair and grace he would now own for ever, undimmed by time, his back unstooped, his eyes always those of a twenty-year-old.

Uniforms. Shirts. Sophie had packed him three new shirts, that morning, stitched lovingly by her own hands. Pelham had frowned, shaken his head: “Sophie, have we not discussed this? Must you insist upon straining your eyes and your fingers?”

“I only sew what I want to, nowadays,” she had answered him: “you are so far from me, Edward, so much of the time – it gives me comfort to think my stitches are always next to your skin… I am going to make you a shirt each month until you have two dozen, and then the first will be worn out and so I shall keep sewing – and then I will touch you all the time. Will you deny me that?”

“No,” he said, his voice betraying him with a husky note, and he had pulled her to him then, half-dressed as he was, with his neck-cloth not yet tied, and bruised her mouth with his.

Hastings might even have gone to his watery grave dressed in Sophie’s shirt – the first one she had made, upon his commission, back in Gibraltar, in the days when the promise of her embrace was no more than a dream to Pelham, a possibility glimpsed on the horizon luminous and magical as the flash of a sail at first light. Although he had known then he would pursue it if necessary to the ends of the earth, had known with the same certainty with which he now sat bent upon this other errand: for Pelham recognized necessity when he saw it.

And so the fishes doubtless made sport even now with the fine white lawn and the white OH over his shattered breast. “Those are pearls that were his eyes…” wasn’t that how that scrap from the Tempest went, that Mavis had shared with him on his last visit home? She had discovered it, read it to him with shining eyes: “Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change, Into something rich and strange…” But then it had been merely magical; for it had not had her own darling sweetheart for its subject.

Let her take comfort in it now, he thought: can she? Please God, let her. She would not have let him go, had he lived: Hastings might not have known it, but his future was all planned out for him, courtesy of Mavis, and it included herself in capacities that would have shocked him, to know how fully she imagined them already – but not Pelham, who besides necessity also recognized passion when he saw it: no less forceful for being a child’s. For she would not stay a child very long; he had seen that, and fretted over it: hoped this young man could withstand the ineluctable force that was his daughter’s passion, till the time would be right for him to accept it with honour and joy, not bewilderment and confusion. She had already jumped the gun once, cost the lad much anguish with her thoughtless advances. He had done right to come to his captain: Pelham admired him for that, again — a rare act propelled by a punishing sense of what was due honour, and the full extent of his duty to his commander.

And now she will have to find someone else to love, he thought, and the idea cost him another pang: could he replace Sophie so easily? Never! He thought: I would have been so proud… to have given her to him, one day, entrusting her to his keeping into a future that now would never be.

How alike they were, Hastings and Mavis. They would have been well-suited. The same zeal; the same single-minded pursuit of whatever they grasped. Emotions written all over their faces, but unstoppable in their devotion to the cause, whether great and fateful or childishly inconsequential. And yet passion and devotion are never inconsequential, he thought, and neither is determination. He had possessed it himself in unusual measure, even as a child: it was what he had recognized in each of them, that had commanded his immediate respect and then his heart.

How old would his child have been, that Catherine died trying to expel? Almost as old as Hastings: an extraordinary thought. Would he have loved this child as he did Mavis, and little Pellie — and Hastings? How far Pellie had yet to go! And yet — and yet — would the years go by as quickly as they had following the debacle with Catherine, one after another? He thought of all the ways a child changes, from week to week, year to year: what it took, to grow a Hastings, a worthy son all come to manhood. He saw Pellie, a different child every time he came home, astonishing him all over again each visit at the new person that was now his little son — and now; and now again. He thought of Sophie, her company, her conversation — his peaceful centre — her face growing sweeter with the years — would they go by as fast as these had, Hastings’ score? He wanted to grasp them in his hands, pull back, wrest them from the grip of his ever-unfolding duty and savour each one of them, live it over twice, ten times, as he did each of the times he had come home to Sophie’s presence and her love-making since the very first one. Eyes closed, he sighed for the lifetime that had gone by since Catherine had died, alone and far away, in terror and agony at the result of his doing. Hastings’ lifetime. And then he thought how much less he would have had to show for it still, had Mavis not run into him, that day, back in Gibraltar, and thereby changed the course of his life: brought him everything else, Sophie, home, Pellie — love. For which, in the midst of his grief, he thanked his God.

The carriage-springs jounced and trounced. His head ached.

And so I do as I must, said Pelham to himself, in taking on this errand — as honour and duty dictate; as love requires.

What? Love? The word had infiltrated itself unbidden into his head. Yes, love. Call it what it is, and feel no shame in doing so. Very well then, he told himself firmly: practice it, then, so you may say it aloud in a few hours’ time – it is no more than the truth – yes, I loved him.

He jolted and swayed in his seat. Nights of weary vigil demanded their price: Pelham slept.

*************************

“Out you get, sir,” came the hoarse voice of the driver. “Mr. naval orficer, yes, you, sir, you was askin’ to be let off ’ere. Right?”

Pelham came awake instantly, another habit of long standing. He blinked, looked out of the carriage window; reached to open the door; got out into a little square with rosy brick houses and a horse-trough in the center, beside a small and undistinguished fountain. The place looked sleepy and charming enough. He watched impatiently while the driver’s mate unloaded his dunnage from the top rack; it was not much, a small case with a change of uniform for their Lordships, a nightshirt and his favourite dressing-gown. Sophie had also packed him some ham and bread, a piece of cheese and a flask of wine; he had tried to fob her off, but she had slipped it into his shoulder-case anyway. He thought he would probably be glad of it later, and blessed her for not being intimidated by his sharp expression when refusing it. He then thought for a moment of the softness of her breast, and wished heartily to lay his head upon it and sleep until this nightmare should go away.

Instead he straightened his shoulders, looked about him, and picked up his cases. The carriage pulled away without him - good riddance! he thought gratefully – and he turned toward the inn a few steps away.

“Yes, sir? Can I ’elp you, sir?” - the ostler appeared dirty but sober, as far as Pelham could tell (which was accurate to within a drop or two) –– so he set down his bags again. “Yes. I am looking for a Dr. Hastings. I understand he is a resident of this place?”

“Oh, yes, sir. Yes, indeed. Good old Doctor.” The man looked up sideways at Pelham’s unmoving and august face. “’E’s ’ad some very bad news, ’as the Doctor, sir – a real blow — you being a naval man yourself – ”

“I am perfectly aware of it,” said Pelham testily; “I am Lieutenant Hastings’ commanding officer.” Damnation, he thought, that is none of his business. But the man had seemed to wear a look like Stroud and Thurman had: could Hastings have made himself so beloved, even in this little village he could hardly have been back to in the last five years?

“Oh, very good, sir,” said the ostler. “Let me take your bags, sir, and I’ll show you the house…”

“Thank you,” said Pelham.

They crossed the square, turned a corner, passed a churchyard and came to an ochre brick house beside a row of smaller cottages, all overgrown with wisteria. Here the man stopped, set down Pelham’s bags, and knocked loudly on the door. Pelham reached in his pocket for a coin.

“No, sir,” said the man, “don’t give me nothing. Not this time. Not being if you’re his capting. I won’t take your money, sir.”

Pelham nodded. Then he waited for what seemed like a very long time, although he knew it was not. The door opened, and he wished it had been longer.

He stepped forward. “I am here to see Dr. Hastings,” he said firmly. “Is he at home?”

The elderly woman put his bags aside in the hallway, took his hat and cloak, showed him into a library. It had the appearance of use and comfort; shabby but pleasant. The wait was alleviated by the sense of being at home. Pelham took a book from the shelves: Horace. The pages were pencilled: he wondered if it was Hastings junior or senior who had done it. He rather thought he recollected the boy had had a classical education, before going to sea; it had come in useful on several occasions, from dinner-table discussions to a background for the Romance languages. He started to read; became lost in the lines.

The door opened again. Pelham looked up.

“Sir –– ?” said the silver-haired man, holding himself stiffly upright, courteous but clearly at a loss. The sight of the Naval uniform seemed to take him aback: as it would me, under the circumstances, thought Pelham.

“Edward Pelham, sir,” said Pelham, holding out his hand. The older man took it, then pulled Pelham closer to him, looking up into his face with those bright brown eyes he knew so well: except that these were framed in lines of age and, now, anguish. They were red-rimmed and bloodshot, but unmistakably the same eyes. To see them again, when he had thought never to do so, brought a sudden pain to Pelham, as if he had been holed below the waterline: he blinked.

Dr. Hastings blinked too. “Captain Pelham?” he murmured, half in disbelief: “His captain? Of the Indomitable? The Victory?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Pelham. The doctor closed his eyes, then dropped his head; still he kept hold of Pelham’s hand. Pelham felt his skin, dry, papery; his knuckles swollen with crippling arthritic lumps. Then the man looked up again, and their gazes met: Hastings’ two fathers. Pelham swallowed.

“You are very kind, to come all this way, sir,” said Dr. Hastings.

Pelham protested: “Indeed, that is not the case, sir. I could hardly do less!”

“He thought a great deal of you, sir,” said the older man in a shaking voice. “He wanted to emulate you, I believe. Your career – your – erm – capabilities.”

Pelham drew breath: say it. “I cannot tell you how deeply I feel his loss, sir.”

“Can’t you?”

“There are no words – ”

“No,” said the doctor, “but you could try. You wrote to me, sir – such a terrible letter – you meant kindly by it, I know, but it brought me the news, you see, and nothing else you said could – could – ”

“I understand,” said Pelham, inwardly cursing the letter and his miserable attempts to write it. How could he have said anything worth saying?

The doctor gripped his hand fiercely now, stared into his eyes with an eagle’s glare. “Do you? Do you, sir? How can you?”

“Because,” said Pelham slowly, “had you not already been his father, sir, I should have counted it – the very greatest blessing to call myself that. There was – no man on earth I held in higher regard, sir. I – I may fairly say that I loved him. Yes.”

There was vigour in the doctor’s grip, despite the pain of those gnarled knuckles; and pride, and an aching loss that Pelham knew all too well. Pelham knew as he spoke that he would stay the night, tell Dr. Hastings tales of Oliver into the small hours, till the candles guttered; express to him all his father’s heart hungered to hear, and more. He would speak of Oliver the man, the officer, as Pelham had seen him, knew him intimately ––– an Oliver the good doctor could only imagine and dream of, back here at home in this quiet village a thousand miles from smoke and cannon and bone and blood and destruction. And he in turn would hear of an Oliver he had not known, but had guessed at: the solitary boy, dreamy, earnest at his schoolwork and eager to do what was right; the child bereft of his mother; the lad leaving all he had ever known for a life of unknown hardship and danger.

To do so, Pelham knew, would be more, much more than his duty; it would be his solace, also. And even if he wept again, for the second time in forty years, he knew it would be no more than was right: he would risk it, in the telling and the listening. For where there is love, as he was now learning, there was also safety: the room to be oneself, to feel what one must, and let it be.

So together they stood, grasping both of each others’ hands, looking unflinchingly into one anothers’ faces, and reading there the depth of regard Oliver had elicited from each of them. “Yes,” said Dr. Hastings after a long silence, “I see. I have been hasty. I beg your pardon, for questioning your understanding. I think – I think – perhaps you do, sir.”

Pelham nodded.

“Sit, I pray you, Captain,” said Dr. Hastings after a few moments more. Pelham found a library chair, dusty now, and did as he was bidden. The doctor went to a sideboard, and with trembling hands poured out two glasses of madeira.

“A good son,” he said, handing one to Pelham.

“Indeed,” answered the captain. He waited till the doctor had sat down opposite him; raised his glass. “Would it seem – inappropriate – to toast him, sir?”

Dr. Hastings sighed. His eyes really were startlingly like Hastings’, Pelham thought, and that splendid nose too; though in the older man Time had pared the flesh from its noble lines, and it was thus more aggressively beak-like. Not a face one would pass over quickly. Yet Pelham would have known him instantly, even in a crowd. There were depths of regret in it, as well as pain; Pelham recognized them, knew how each line felt upon the inside, scored deep by cares and responsibilities. “Forgive me,” he said, “if you would prefer not to…”

“Oh, no,” said Dr. Hastings slowly, “it would be an honour. To drink to him with you. It’s just that – I can’t help but think – if I had never sent him away to sea – we should never have been sitting here, the two of us, mourning his loss, d’you see?”

“True,” said Pelham – what else could he say? “ –– but, sir, you must bethink yourself – then he would never have become the man that he did, either. The extraordinary young man to whom we raise our glasses.” He let the words sink in before continuing: “He was a hero, sir, in the truest sense of the word. This is no overstatement. I do not exaggerate, sir. He was of very great courage – and a greater heart.”

“I thought so,” said the doctor. “He never said, of course, but I thought – from his letters – little things he would let slip – ”

“Yes,” said Pelham eagerly, at once pained and delighted to recall that self-deprecating shrug, the conscience that always found fault with the job well done: “he was so damned modest! It was one of his most amiable qualities, I found – to have no idea, no idea at all, of his stature –– his worth!”

They both were silent for a moment, and then the most extraordinary thing happened; both of them started to speak, and into that silence of loss and regret, each of them began to say the same thing: “It was my fault…” said Pelham; and “I never should have ––” said the doctor. Both stopped.

Their eyes met again. “I placed him with Captain Paine,” said the doctor. “He had no notion of it. I sent him away because I couldn’t afford to do anything else with him. I shall have to live with that. How long? I am sixty-two –– must I live another twenty years, like this, without him?” His eyes sank back into their sockets, hollow with grief.

“It was the making of him,” said Pelham, sitting forward in his passion. “You must believe me, sir. I – I gave the order, sir – that got him killed.” The words felt brutal, yet from the doctor’s intent expression he knew he could not soften them; nor did he wish to. There was nothing left for them, either of them, but to tell the truth. “This is not news to you, I am sure – and if I could take it back, I would, sir, God knows – but he did his duty, sir. But you, sir, y’have nothing to reproach yourself with! It was the Navy made him into the man he was. Y’ should be proud, sir, proud, to have brought that about…”

“As you did yours, Captain Pelham,” said Dr. Hastings. “And so I am. Proud. As you must be, too, sir.” He raised an eyebrow, just like his son: “To Oliver, then ––– ” and raised his glass opposite Pelham’s.

“I thought the world of him,” said Pelham quietly –– “Believe me, sir. If I could have ––” he sighed; let the words trail away, uncharacteristically, for he was a most precise and articulate man. “To – to Oliver, then.”

“I know,” said Dr. Hastings. “I see it, sir. You need say no more.” And they drank the toast, slowly, in silence, not the silence of anger and regret, but rather of awe and a sense of overwhelming gratitude for the occasion of it: to have been given this lad, to cherish; to be sitting here now, sharing him. They might still be unable to forgive themselves; that pain would be a long while fading. Yet each of them could see that the other had nothing for which to fault himself: grant that, at least. It was a beginning.

The rest of the stories would come later, over dinner and a late fire laid in the grate to keep the chill away while they talked the night away. There would be laughter too; revelations, moments of tenderness and excruciating sorrow and wrenching candour between them, all of it necessary. For now there was no further need for words. They drank the nut-sweet madeira, amber as those dancing eyes, and remembered.

*****************

Pelham had to leave in the morning, to keep his appointment with the Admiralty. It was with impatience that he endured the rest of the carriage-ride all the way to London and their Lordships. His feet ached to be on the deck of Victory again, heading out down-channel, a fresh spanking breeze in her sails and new possibilities before them. He had looked back enough; would miss Hastings every day of his command, for the rest of his life — but he must go on. It was time.

He took another ship down to Deal, was glad of the fair wind that hurried him back to the rendezvous. Gaining that familiar place again, his spot on his own quarterdeck, the scrubbed oak planking under his buckled shoes and the little admiral once more at his side, he felt renewed. It was a week since he had come to Sophie with his loss all fresh; three, since it had first befallen him. God, but Victory was a glorious ship. How could he have been sorry to take command of her? Well, the loss of independence he regretted; but the duty he owed to his country had filled the gap in his spirit. Although he still missed the days of being out and about hunting in his own frigate; probably would, for the rest of his life, he thought: in some ways they, not Trafalgar and all of this, had felt like the very crown of his career. But those days were over, just as all else was sliding into the past as this future he had never imagined came strangely to him each day.

They made quick way West past Spithead and the Needles, were out of the shelter of the Solent and off Weymouth when a small ketch hailed them. Pelham had been at his books, in his cabin: “What is it now?” he cried in exasperation, as the acting-lieutenant of the watch came to him. His temper, never known for its length of leash, had been shorter than ever, of late.

“There’s a ketch, sir,” said Partridge, “and they’re saying something about one of our officers — ”