Napier looked at him.
'I want to do the right thing, you see…' and Jago knew it was serious. The danger, his wound, which should have cost him a leg, would have with most seagoing sawbones he had known, were nothing compared with this next challenge.
He put one hand on the boy's shoulder, and said, 'Keep yer nose clean, an' do right by the lads who will have to look up to you, God 'elp 'em.' He shook him gently and added, 'You'll be on the quarterdeck afore you knows it! '
They heard boots on the cobbles and Adam Bolitho paused to look at them, walking toward the restive horse.
The groom called, 'Keep an eye open on them roads, Cap'n Adam, zur. War or no war, there still be footpads about! '
Adam showed his teeth in a smile, but Napier recognized the anger in his eyes.
To Napier he said, 'Feel like testing Jupiter, David? Tomorrow, perhaps? I thought I might ride over to Fallowfield, see John Allday and his family.'
'I could ride Jupiter now, sir.' But he knew that the Captain was not hearing him; his mind was elsewhere.
Then he was up and mounted, an old boat cloak flapping like a banner in the wet breeze. He swung round and looked up at a window, Napier could not see which one, and shouted, 'I shall be back in time tell the kitchen! ' Then he was away, the hooves striking sparks from the worn cobbles.
Jeb Trinnick had joined them, soundlessly for a big man with a limp. When he saw Jago's pipe he pulled a pouch from beneath his leather apron.
'Try some o' this. Got it off a Dutchie trader last week. Seems fair enough.'
Jago brightened. Another bridge crossed.
'That's matey of you! '
Napier asked, 'Is the Captain going far?' He wiped some droplets of rain from his face, like tears. Like that day, all those months ago, when he had seen him with that beautiful woman, driving a smart little pony and trap.
He heard Jeb Trinnick say dourly, 'If I'm any judge he'll be makin' for the Old Glebe House.' He nodded, the single eye gauging the trail of smoke rising from Jago's pipe. 'Evil it is, or was. My youngest brother used to live over Truro way, afore he went over the side after Camperdown. Full o' spirits, he said. Even the Church was glad to rid itself of the place to the first buyer it could get. Old Sir Montagu, that was.'
Jago puffed out more smoke. 'Good baccy, Jeb.'
Somehow, Napier knew it was because of that same woman; he remembered the Captain's face when he had read the little note she had sent out to Unrivalled before they had sailed to join the admiral.
Jeb Trinnick made up his mind. 'All the same, I'll send one of my lads after 'im.' He grinned. 'Just to be on the safe side! '
Napier watched him limp into the shadows. A man who could deal with everything that came his way. He felt despair closing around him again. Better to be like Trinnick, or Jago. Not to care…
Suddenly he heard the snap of Jago's delicate-looking pipe, which he had carried so carefully and filled for the first time with Trinnick's Dutch tobacco. It lay in fragments on the ground, rain splashing over it, dousing the smoking ash.
It mattered to Jago too, more than he would ever allow himself to show. He had hardened himself against it, perhaps because of other captains he had served. Looked up to, admired, hated; and one he had described as second only to God.
But this one mattered. And to David Napier, who was all but fifteen years old, it was a lifeline.
The courier arrived at the old grey house around noon, a week almost to the hour since Unrivalled had dropped anchor in Plymouth.
Ferguson had been in the stable yard, watching Napier riding the pony Jupiter slowly but confidently, back and forth, 'gaining an understanding' as Grace had put it.
The courier was known to Ferguson, as he was to many sea officers who lived around Falmouth. Ferguson had reached out to sign for the canvas envelope, but the courier had said almost curtly, 'Not this one. Captain Bolitho himself, or I shall have to wait until he returns.'
Ferguson heard his wife call, 'Tell the captain, Mary! ' She would stay with him until they all knew. She never changed; nor would she.
The courier relaxed and climbed down from his mud-spattered horse. All the way from Plymouth, and before that; how far had that envelope travelled, Ferguson wondered?
The wheels had probably started to turn when a guard ship or keen-eyed coast guard had reported Unrivalled beating her way up Channel A sight of home.
Grace Ferguson said, 'You've time for a glass, or a hot posset afore you leave?'
The courier shook his head. 'No, ma'am, but thank you. I've another call yet. Old Cap'n Masterman's place at Penryn. Bad news, I'm afraid. His son is reported missing. His ship foundered on a reef, I'm told.'
Ferguson turned, hearing the step on the cobbles. It was a familiar enough story in Cornwall.
Adam Bolitho took it in at a glance: the courier standing with his mount, Young Matthew who had been supervising Napier with the pony, Ferguson and Grace the housekeeper, and Yovell who had stopped in his tracks by the gate to the rose garden. Catherine's roses, or soon would be again.
Like badly rehearsed players, but joined by something which none of them properly understood.
The courier had produced a small writing tablet from beneath his stained cloak, the pen already dipped. What Lowenna must have used that day when she had been there to see Unrivalled weigh and stand out to sea.
He thought of the Old Glebe House, how it had looked that night when he had ridden over to see it. How the horse had whinnied and shied, perhaps because of the stench of sodden ashes and charred timbers. Or because of something more sinister. The burned-out windows, stark and empty against the racing clouds, of the room where she had kept her harp, next to the roofless studio where he had first seen her chained to the imaginary rock. The sacrifice…
He had gone back again in daylight. It had been even worse. He had wanted to go alone but Nancy had accompanied him, had insisted, as if she needed to share it.
The main part of the house was too unsafe to explore. Ashes, blackened glass from those tall windows he remembered so vividly, broken beams jutting like savage teeth. A few charred canvases. Impossible to tell if they had been empty or partially finished when the fire had raged into the studio.
Or being repaired. Like the one of Catherine, which she herself had commissioned to hang beside Sir Richard's portrait, in 'their room' as most of the household still called it. Dressed in a seaman's smock and little else, what she had been wearing in the open boat when she and her Richard had been shipwrecked. Allday, when he could be persuaded to speak of it, had painted his own picture of Catherine and Bolitho, who had won the heart of the country when they had endured the open boat which might have ended everything. Her courage, her example, a woman amongst desperate men in fear of their lives, had left an indelible impression on Sir Richard's old coxswain. 'She even got me to sing a ballad or two! ' He had laughed about it, proudly.
He had never known Nancy to hide her thoughts from him. She had suddenly faced him in the overgrown drive, the blackened building and chapel a grim backdrop, with the sea beyond. Always waiting. Perhaps a new horizon.
'It was Mary, the upstairs maid, who found it, Adam.' She always added a title, like a label, to any member of the household, in case he should forget between visits. Like the lesson which had been handed down to him over the years, when speaking of his sailors, the people, as Richard Bolitho called them. Remember their names, Adam, and use them. A name is sometimes all they can call their own.
Mary had run screaming to the kitchen. The portrait of Catherine had been slashed, again and again. Only the face had been left intact. As if that some one had wanted the world to know who it was.
Sir Gregory Montagu had not been optimistic, but he had taken the damaged canvas to his studio. Now they would never know.
Adam had thought about it ever since. There had been gypsies in the area, more of them than usual, but it was not their way of things. Food, money, something to sell; those were different. He had hated himself for even considering Belinda's daughter Elizabeth. She would see Catherine as the enemy, the marriage wrecker, but she had been visiting a friend over the border in Devon at the time.
