14 DECEMBER 1781
Jocasta had seen hangings enough in her twenty years in London, so felt no need to go and watch Mrs. Mitchell swing for her daughter-in-law’s death. It was on that day though that she went to St. Anne’s burying ground with the brooch Molloy had found, leading Sam by the hand. He was looking better for some weeks’ feeding, and a lot cleaner than when they had first met. At the grave, he stood back a way with Boyo in his arms. The ground was hard and Jocasta had a job to scrape into the dirt more than a few inches. Still, the brooch was small and there was space enough for it before many minutes had passed. She laid it down very carefully, brushed the dirt back over it, then stood up, her knees complaining.
Sam stepped up next to her. “I thought you’d be saying something to her, Mrs. Bligh.”
Jocasta ruffled his hair.
Mr. Palmer came to meet Mrs. Westerman in Adams’s Music Shop as arranged. She smiled when she saw him and beckoned him into the private parlor away from the business of music, into the quiet, and took a seat at the worn table there. Mourning became her, and the fierce grief of the first days after her husband’s murder seemed to have mellowed into a relative calm.
“You return to Sussex tomorrow, Mrs. Westerman?” Mr. Palmer said when the door to the main body of the shop was closed.
“I do. Now the trials are done with, there is nothing to hold me here and I find I miss the country air.”
“I am very sorry.”
“Lord Sandwich had the decency to come and tell me himself why Manzerotti was allowed to leave the country.”
“Yes, it appears he transmitted vital information to us in seventy-five. It would have been too great an embarrassment for the government to have him come to trial.” Mr. Palmer shifted in his seat.
“He wrote to me, you know,” she said.
“Good God! The man is a devil.”
“Yes, I rather think he is. He sent me his condolences and said he understood my grief, having lost a dear companion himself, and was sorry circumstances prevented him from offering his sympathies in person.”
“By ‘dear companion’ I assume he means Johannes.”
“Indeed. Clode and Graves had to be physically restrained from making for the coast at once with their knives between their teeth. All the women in the household had to cry their eyes out at them before they would relent.”
“That does not surprise me, Mrs. Westerman.”
Harriet sighed and looked out of the window at the back of the parlor. Mr. Crumley could just be made out in the workshop beyond, bent over his punches hammering music onto metal sheets as if it could be trapped there, pinned down, made absolute.
“Mr. Crowther returned to the country yesterday,” she said. “I believe he did so to answer all the curiosity of my household and neighbors before I face them myself. For such an impossible man he can be sensitive at times.” She turned to look at him. “Did you attend the executions of those three men, Mr. Palmer?”
“I did. They did not die well. The crowd will cheer a thief, but show them a traitor and their mood is darker.” He paused. “Yet I feel some guilt at their deaths and their manner of dying. Manzerotti we all but escorted from the country, it appears, and we allowed Carmichael to shoot himself in the comfort of his own home.”
“They were not important enough to deserve such niceties.”
“I fear that is so.”
She waited a moment, then said, “The young gentleman is outside?”
“Yes, Mrs. Westerman. He waits in the street. Though you do not need to see him.”
“I wish it.”
Palmer stood and returned a few moments later with a young boy dressed in the uniform of a Midshipman. Harriet smiled at him. He was as pale as Stephen was dark, and looked far too slight a being to be cast about on the open oceans. “You are Mr. Meredith?” she asked.
The boy nodded. “Mrs. Westerman, I felt I couldn’t go back to the ship without seeing you, if you were willing.”
“Say what you need to say, Mr. Meredith,” said Palmer. “This interview is not easy for Mrs. Westerman.”
The boy dropped to one knee in front of her, as if before a queen, and lowered his head. “Ma’am, it was the day after the engagement with Le Marquis de La Fayette, and the rigging was half shot away. So we were making the repairs, and I was up top of the mizzenmast helping to sort out which blocks were sound still.”
Harriet felt her heart contracting in her chest.
The boy continued. “I had one in my hand and was just saying to Picard I thought it cracked, and leaned over to show him the spot. . and it slipped from my hand.” He began to cry; the words came out wet and broken. “It just slipped. . The rope it was hung on had been torn up worse than I’d realized, and it ripped through like a cotton. I couldn’t even understand it, and Picard shouted, ‘Look out below!’ and the captain was there on the quarterdeck and he looked up as the shout came and we saw it strike him.” His voice shuddered. Harriet reached forward and put her hand on his bent head. “And he went down, ma’am. So heavy and quick, and by the time I got onto the deck they were lifting him and carrying him away and they shoved me back. Oh God, I am so sorry, ma’am! I am so sorry. He was the best captain in the service and he had been so kind to me and helped me and the other young gentlemen. I’d have died rather than do him harm.” He hung his head low. “It just slipped.”
Harriet put her arms around the boy’s shaking shoulders and drew him toward her. Her own tears were falling now, and they dropped from her face onto the boy’s yellow hair. She held his head against her knees and bent over him, then spoke into his ear with her throat tight and raw.
“He mentioned you, Meredith.” The boy squirmed. “Listen to me now, my boy. He mentioned you in a letter to me. He said he was proud with the progress you had made under his command.” She leaned back, lifted his face and looked into his eyes. “He said he thought you’d make a fine captain yourself one day.” Meredith bit his lip and met her gaze. Harriet sighed. “That is what you must do now, Meredith, for my husband and for me. Be the best officer you can be. Care for your men and your ship and be faithful to them, and I will be proud of you, and I’ll know James would be proud of you too.”
The boy got unsteadily to his feet. “Thank you, madam.”
She took a great breath and wiped her eyes. Then stood and, opening the door, stepped forward into the shop, leading Mr. Meredith with her.
“Stephen! Come here!”
Her son looked up from where he was throwing jacks in the corner with Lord Thornleigh and came obediently to her side. “Stephen, I want you to meet Mr. Meredith. He was one of your father’s young gentlemen on the Splendor.”
Stephen put out his hand and shook Mr. Meredith’s with great vigor. “French spies killed my father.”
“I know, Stephen. I was very sorry to hear it,” Meredith replied.
Stephen looked up at him, narrowed his eyes and said cautiously, “When I am older I shall be a sailor too, like you. May I come and sail on your ship?”
Meredith glanced up at Harriet and saw her nod her head.
“You may, and I shall take very good care of you, young Westerman. I promise you.”
Mr. Palmer appeared from the doorway, exchanged bows with the company then left, guiding Meredith before him.
Mrs. Westerman retreated into the parlor and did not emerge for some time.
Morgan neatened a stack of songbooks on the counter. “I shall miss her when she goes, that Mrs. Westerman. As fine a lady as ever I’ve met.”
Graves looked up from his figures. “What, ready to desert me already, Morgan? Do you wish to go and buy a place in the country and live like a lady?”
“Humph. Not likely. I’ll be your manager here, and then I can visit Issy’s grave whenever I take a notion to do so. And Mr. Leacroft too from time to time, when Lady Susan wants company.”
“Thank you.”
“I should think so too. You’ll waste away all Miss Chase’s wedding portion, the deals you and Crumley have been making on paper. Then all your children will go hungry.”
Stephen laughed, and they looked up to see Lady Susan making faces for him, and her brother giggling. Graves swallowed and Morgan put her hand on his sleeve.
“It goes on, Mr. Graves; whether we will it or no, life tumbles forward.”