He heard voices in the corridor, boxes being moved. His boxes. Even the sounds were different here. His new flag lieutenant, Francis Troubridge, would be dealing with the last rites of office. Very young, but already proving himself extremely capable. He half smiled. And discreet.
He found himself at a window although he did not recall leaving the chair. April was just a few days old. Like that other April, three years ago; could it be so long? Since the telegraph on the Admiralty roof had received the signal, the incredible news that Napoleon had surrendered and abdicated. The endless war had been over, or so they had thought.
This same carriage way had been alive with cheering and gaiety within the hour. Boys who had grown into men, or served with Nelson aboard Victory at Trafalgar, had brought about the impossible dream.
He watched the traffic and the groups of people, the occasional splash of colour from a passing uniform. The dream was over.
Bethune was not politically involved, but he could not help but be aware of the shortages and rising prices. Half the national income went on paying the war debt. The men who had saved their country from tyranny were coming home to unemployment, even poverty.
He thought of his wife. She would be in her element tonight, flattering the guests, and always in charge. How did she feel about his going back to sea at this stage of his service? One of the youngest flag officers on the Navy List. Or had been.
'You don't need to go, Graham. But if you must, then I suppose you must.'
Was that all it meant to her?
The elderly clerk was gathering up the papers. Bethune knew him better than some of tonight's guests.
Bent over, with watery eyes, soon due for retirement. Oblivion. Hard to believe he had served aboard Black Dick Howe's Queen Charlotte at that great victory still called 'The Glorious First of June'.
He paused now, and said, 'I'll lock up after you leave, Sir Graham.'
Bethune had never seen him at a loss before; it surprised him, and he was moved by it. Vice-Admiral of the Blue. Successful and safe, no matter what happened after this.
The door opened. It was Tolan, his servant.
'The carriage is here, Sir Graham. All stowed.' He must have sensed the atmosphere, the uncertainty between admiral and clerk. 'Mr. Troubridge has gone on ahead.'
'Yes. I told him not to wait.' Tolan had been his servant, afloat and ashore, for as long as he could recall, and would be with him aboard Athena.
When he looked again, the clerk had vanished. Another ghost.
Bethune picked up the letter from the table. Perhaps this was the true moment of decision. He had made several attempts to write it, on Admiralty paper, so that it would not appear unseemly or too personal. In his old office it might have been easier. Where she had visited him, 'up the back stairs'; they had joked about it. He had pretended, not wanting to shatter a friendship which had existed even then, in his own heart, anyway.
Lady Catherine Somervell. Always so easy to see in his thoughts. Her smile, the touch of hands. His fury and despair when she had almost been raped in that little house at Chelsea. He had walked past it several times, or driven by, knowing it was impossible, dangerous too, for his own security and future in the only life he wanted or understood.
Their last arranged meeting was always there, fixed in his mind. How she had called out to him, her eyes flashing with contempt as she had walked away from him toward her carriage.
'Are you in love with me, Graham?'
He could not remember his answer, shocked by the directness of the question. But he could still hear her response, her dismissal.
Then you are afool.r
It was madness, but he had thought of little else. As if it had given purpose and drive to the immediate future. Madness…
And yet when it came to him, he had not hesitated. No doubts.
My dear Catherine… Regrets might come later.
'See to this, Tolan.'
Tolan took the letter and placed it in his pocket. Their eyes met only briefly.
'Good as done, Sir Graham.'
Together they walked out into the corridor. Mercifully, it was deserted, and unusually still. As if the whole building was holding its breath, listening.
Bethune was suddenly glad to be leaving.
Lieutenant Francis Troubridge jumped lightly from the carriage and peered up at the house. In broad daylight it was not what he had expected or remembered from that one visit with Captain Bolitho and his lovely companion.
He felt the coachman's eyes on him. A mere lieutenant, admiral's aide or not, did not, apparently, warrant the courtesy or effort of climbing down to open the carriage door. Or anything else.
Troubridge looked around at the other houses, all of which appeared to join or overlap, fronting a square, somehow apart from the crowded streets he had watched on his journey here.
Whitechapel was very different from what he had come to think of as his London. Thriving markets, streets alive with carriers' carts or hawkers pushing their barrows, bawling out their wares and swapping jokes with housemaids and passersby. You could still hear them in this quiet square, and see the church tower which the coachman had used like a beacon to steer himself through the bustle and noise.
'Be long, sir?'
Strange to think that after today there would be no more free Admiralty transport, coachmen who were used to taking senior officers and their aides to such outlandish places as Whitechapel.
'As long as it takes. Wait here.' He gazed up at him. 'Please.'
Troubridge was twenty-four years old, but already experienced enough to appreciate that but for his father's reputation and influence he would never have been offered the post of flag lieutenant. Bethune had wanted to rid himself of his previous aide, related in some way to Lady Bethune. He smiled. That had clinched it.
If he had left the Admiralty a few moments sooner he might have missed being passed the sealed note. Tolan, Bethune's servant, had somehow intercepted it. Protecting his master, or making a new ally; it was not easy to tell with Tolan.
He faced the front door and examined his feelings. A ruse, or some kind of trap? He thought of the moment when Captain Bolitho had burst into the room with its mirrors and burning lights. The woman with the heavy candlestick in her hand, the sprawled, whimpering figure lying amongst the shattered glass. The bared skin where her gown had been torn from her shoulder. The captain's face when he had taken her into his arms. And the cocked pistol in my hand. Was that really me?
He almost jumped as the knocker echoed throughout the house. He had used it without knowing, without hesitation.
He could recall catching a glimpse of a fearsome woman, who had confronted them at this same door. Even the captain's coxswain had been impressed.
But it was a small, pale-faced maid who opened the door now.
'Who shall I say?' A local girl. He heard the same accent on the streets, and in some of the houses where he had left senior officers to enjoy themselves.
Troubridge. I have come to…'
He got no further. The small person even executed a hasty curtsey.
'You are expected, sir! ' She smiled, and it made her look younger still. 'This way, if you please.'
It was a room apparently on the other side of the house; there were windows from floor to ceiling, with some sort of garden beyond. Not normally in use. He took it in quickly, the easel with what he thought was a canvas cover, what looked like a page of scribbled notes pinned to it. A dying fire in the grate, and chests lying in a corner with some of the baggage they had brought from Southwark, still packed.
The strangest thing of all was a harp, standing by an upturned stool. It was badly burned, blackened by smoke, and most of its strings were broken.
He heard the door close behind him. It was hard to imagine the noise of a few minutes ago; the house was very quiet, so still that he flinched as a dying log collapsed in the grate.
