The Darkening Sea

14. Catherine

Sir Paul Sillitoe sat at a small table by one of his bedroom windows, and frowned as another gust of wind made the rain dash against the glass like hail. Breakfast, a frugal but leisurely affair, was mainly a time for him to prepare himself for the day. Newsheets and papers were arranged in their special order by his valet Guthrie, who then left his master to prop them one by one on a little wooden stand which had once been used for music.

He glanced at the river Thames that curved directly past the house, which was built on this elegant part of Chiswick Reach. It was higher, and might well flood before the day was out.

He returned his attention to a page on foreign affairs, the small paragraph about the proposed military campaigns in the Indian Ocean. They could not wait another year to begin. Napoleon might still hold his de fences so that Wellington would have to withstand another year of conflict. It would not do at all. He reached for a biscuit which Guthrie had already spread with treacle, a childish fancy of his.

Then there was the Prince of Wales. Eager to rule in his father's place, but still in need of assurances from those in power who might see the King's insanity more as a protection than a threat to themselves.

Sillitoe wiped his fingers and poured some fresh coffee. This was the best part of the day. Alone, able to think and plan.

He looked up from the paper with irritation as he heard carriage wheels in his drive. Nobody who knew him well would dare to interrupt this sacred hour. He rang a small bell and instantly one of his burly footmen appeared in the doorway.

"Send him away, whoever it is! "

The man nodded and strode from the room.

Sillitoe resumed reading, and wondered briefly how Richard Bolitho was dealing with the military. How could any man give his very life to the sea? Like poor Collingwood, who had been employed on the demanding Mediterranean station without a break since 1803. Why did the King dislike him enough to deny him the chance to come home? He had even prevented Collingwood's promotion to full admiral, although he was ten years older than his friend and commander, Horatio Nelson. It was said that he was dying. No reward for all those years.

The footman reappeared.

Sillitoe said abruptly, "I did not hear the carriage leave! " It sounded like an accusation.

The man watched him impassively, used to his master's tongue, which could be merciless if the occasion suited.

The footman cleared his throat. "It is a lady, Sir Paul. She insists that you will see her."

Sillitoe pushed the papers away. The morning was spoiled. "Does she indeed? We shall see about that!"

"It is Lady Somervell, Sir Paul." It was the first time he had seen his master completely taken aback.

Sillitoe held out his arms as his valet hurried forward with his coat, his mind still grappling with the news. "Show her to a room with a good fire. My respects to her ladyship, and tell her I shall be down without delay."

It made no sense. She had never given him the slightest encouragement, something which had aroused him more than ever. It must be trouble of some kind. It was nothing to do with Bolitho, he was sure of that: someone would have suffered for it if he had not been informed first.

He glanced at himself in a mirror and tried to be calm. She was here. She wanted to see him. Needed to see him. He watched himself smile. A delusion.

She was sitting near a newly-lighted fire in one of the rooms that adjoined Sillitoe's considerable library.

In seconds Sillitoe took it all in. She wore a long green cloak, a fur-lined hood thrown back on her shoulders, her piled hair shining in the firelight as she held out one hand to the flames.

"My dear Lady Catherine! " He took her hand and held it to his lips. It was like ice. "I thought you to be in Cornwall, but you honour me greatly by calling."

She faced him, her dark eyes seeking something. "I came to London. For some things from my Chelsea house."

Sillitoe waited. He had often thought of her in that house. It was just around the next great bend in the river towards Westminster and Southwark.

It might have been ten thousand miles. Until now.

"Is something wrong?" He turned to hide a frown as a maidservant pattered into the room with fresh coffee, which she placed beside the

woman in green.

"You once said I could come to you if I needed help."

He waited, almost holding his breath. "My lady, I would be honoured."

"You see, there was a letter for me in Chelsea. Nobody had thought to send it on. It was a week old, probably too late." She looked at him very directly. "I have to go to Whitechapel… I had no one else to ask."

He nodded gravely. A secret then. "That is hardly the place for a lady to wander unescorted, not in these hard times. Must you go?" All the time his mind was reaching out in every direction. Parts of Whitechapel were very respectable. The rest did not bear thinking about.

"When do you wish to go?" He expected a protest as he added, "I shall come with you, of course…"

He glared at the door as a small, round-faced man in spectacles, his arms loaded with papers in long canvas envelopes, peered in at them.

"Not now, Marlow. I am going out! "

His secretary began to protest and remind Sillitoe about his appointments. He might as well have said nothing.

He said, Tell Guthrie to get two good men." He looked at the secretary calmly. "He will know what I mean."

When they were alone again, he said, "We may leave at any time you wish." His eyes moved over her, missing nothing.

Guthrie was well-trained, and had summoned two of Silli-toe's men who wore the same gilt-buttoned livery. They looked more like prize-fighters than footmen. They both stared at the tall woman with the dark hair and high cheekbones. They might even have guessed who she was.

A plain carriage came around from the mews and Sillitoe said, "Less noticeable than yours, I think."

Young Matthew, who was standing by the Bolitho carriage, looked apprehensive. "Will you be all right, m'lady?" His strong Cornish accent sounded so alien here.

"I will." She walked to the horses and patted them. "This will be between us, Matthew. Yes?"

He removed his hat and fumbled with it. "To th' grave if so ordered, m'lady! "

He was so serious that she almost smiled. What had she begun? Where might it end?

She heard a savage panting and saw one of the men pushing a broad-shouldered mastiff up onto the box with the coachman.

He said, "Don't you jump too much, Ben, 'e'll 'ave your leg off else! "

She handed the address on a card to the coachman and saw his eyebrows rise slightly.

Sillitoe said, "Come, my dear, before the rain gets heavier." He glanced over his shoulder to the other carriage with the crest on its door. "Wait at Chelsea, ah, Matthew. I shall ensure her ladyship's safety until then."

She leaned back against the damp leather cushions and pretended to watch the scenery as the carriage moved briskly along the river road. She was very conscious of his nearness and of his obvious determination not to provoke her.

Sillitoe spoke only occasionally, usually questions about her life at Falmouth. He mentioned the collier brig Maria Jose which was now being refitted, but he never disclosed his sources of information.

Only once did he touch on Bolitho, when he had mentioned his nephew George Avery.

"I think he must be doing well as Sir Richard's flag lieutenant. He has a way with people, lame ducks most of all."

She turned and looked at him, her eyes in shadow as the carriage rolled past a line of bedraggled trees. "How long will it be before…?"

"Before Sir Richard comes home?" He seemed to consider it. "You must know the ways and the prevarications of Admiralty, my dear. It will be a difficult campaign, and now of course the Americans seem intent on interfering. It is very hard to say at this stage."

"I need him so…" She did not go on.

As the carriage swayed through rain-filled ruts and over fallen branches, Sillitoe could feel the pressure of her body against his own. What would she do, right at this moment when for some reason she needed his aid, if he took her in his arms and forced her into submission? Who would she turn to? Who would believe her? Perhaps only Bolitho, and he might not come home for years. And when he did, would she tell him? He wiped his forehead with his hand. He felt as if he had a fever.

The coachman called down, "Not far now, Sir Paul."

He glanced at her, one hand clinging to the strap as the wheel grated onto cobbles and small houses appeared on either side. A few shapeless figures huddled over against the rain, a carrier's cart or two, and to his surprise a smart carriage with grooms who looked very much like his own.

She said almost to herself, "I can scarcely remember it. It was so long ago."

Sillitoe dragged his mind from the carriage. A brothel perhaps, where respectable but none-too-rich clients could lose themselves. He thought of his own, safe house. Money could buy you anything and anyone.

He tried to keep his mind clear. Why was she here in this awful place?

She dragged at the window. "There it is! " She was agitated, distressed.

The carriage rolled to a halt and the driver called, "Can't get through there, Sir Paul! Too narrer! "

She climbed down and heard the savage-looking mastiff give a warning snarl. Sillitoe followed her, and read a decaying sign which said Quaker's Passage. Despite her own uncertainty she seemed to sense his confusion and turned towards him, heedless of the rain that ran from her hair and on to her cloak.

"It was not always like this! " It was as if she were speaking to the whole street. "There were children here." She gripped an iron railing. "We played here! "

Sillitoe licked his lips. "What number do we seek?"

Three." Only a word, but it was torn from her.

Sillitoe said, "Jakes, stay with the coach and driver." Then to the one with the dog, "You keep with us." He put one hand into his coat and felt the pistol. I must be mad to be here.

The door of the house was ajar and there was rubbish strewn about the path. Even before they reached it someone screamed, "It's them bailiffs again! The bloody bastards! "

Sillitoe stood with one hand on the door. "Hold your noise, woman! "

The man with the dog showed himself, his face eager and intent, ready to set his charge on to anyone who challenged him.

When Catherine spoke her voice was quite calm and steady.

"I've come to see Mr. Edmund Brooke." She hesitated as the woman peered at her more closely. She gestured with one hand like a claw. "Upstairs."

Catherine held a rickety rail and climbed slowly to the next floor. The place stank of decay and dirt, and a despair which was like something physical.

She rapped on a door but it swung open, the lock apparently missing. A woman who had been sitting on a chair, her face in her hands, looked up sharply with hostile eyes as she exclaimed, "What the hell d'you want?"

Catherine looked at her for several seconds. "It's me, Chrissie Kate. Remember me?"

Sillitoe was shocked as the other woman threw her arms around Catherine and embraced her. Once she must have been pretty, he thought, even beautiful. But the beauty had all gone, and she could have been almost any age. He wanted to pull out his handkerchief, then plunged his hand into his coat as he saw a man watching him from the bed.

Catherine moved to the bed and stared at the face, but the eyes did not move.

The other woman said thickly, "He died two days ago. I did what I could."

Sillitoe said in a fierce whisper, "Who was he? Was he trying to get money from you?" The stench was vile and he wanted to run from this place. But her complete composure defeated even that.

She looked at the dead, stub bled face, the eyes which were still fired with anger as she had seen them so often.

She seemed to hear Sillitoe's question and answered, "He was my father."

"I'll have things done." He did not know what to say. "My men will take care of the arrangements."

"I am sure of that." She was still looking at the bed when her foot scraped against some empty bottles beneath it.

She wanted to scream at him, curse him. It was too late now even for that. Then she turned and said quietly to Sillitoe, "Do you have any money?"

"Of course." He pulled out a purse and gave it to her, glad to be doing something.

She did not hesitate but took a handful of gold coins from the purse and pressed them into the other woman's hands.

The woman stared at her and then screamed, "One whore to another, eh?" Then she flung the gold at the wall.

Sillitoe guided her to the door and heard the woman's voice break into sobs behind them, and the sound of her scrabbling about the floor to recover the money. Outside he spoke rapidly to one of his men, who was nodding abruptly in agreement with his instructions.

Catherine stared up at the house, the rain running down her throat and soaking through her clothing.

Sillitoe took her elbow and guided her away along the narrow passage. It had been terrible. It must be far worse for her. But how could it be true? He looked at her piercingly in the grey light and saw her still staring back at the little houses.

In turn she was asking herself why she had come. Duty, curiosity? It was certainly not pity.

She paused with one foot on the carriage step and said, "Thank you for coming with me, Sir Paul."

He slumped down beside her. "I – I don't understand."

She watched the street moving away, as it had always done for so many years.

"He killed my child, " she said.

The carriage wheels scraped over the cobbles, and through the rain-soaked windows everything was blurred and unreal.

Sillitoe could feel her tension, but knew if he even laid a hand on her arm she would turn against him. To break the silence he murmured, "My men will deal with everything. You must not be involved."

It was as if he had not spoken. She said, "It was all so long ago. There are times when I can hardly believe it, and others when I see it like yesterday." She was holding the strap against the uneven motion, her eyes on the street but seeing nothing.

They passed a rough piece of open ground and as though in a dream she saw some children gathering up broken branches for kindling. It had often been like that for her. But there had been laughter too until her mother had fallen sick and died, in that same sordid room.

She heard Sillitoe ask, "What was his work, his profession?" Why should I talk about it? But she answered him. "He was an actor, a performer. He could do most things."

Sillitoe thought she sounded as if she were speaking of somebody else. It was hard to imagine that angry, lifeless face as anything but snarling in death.

"I met a young man." She did not see Sillitoe either. She was thinking of Zenoria and Adam. "I was fifteen." She gave what might have been a shrug, the most despairing thing he had seen her do. "It happened. I was with child."

"And you told your father, were compelled to, with your mother gone?"

She said, "Yes. I told him."

"Perhaps he was too upset to know what he was doing."

She leaned her head against the cushion and said, "He was drunk, and he knew exactly what he was doing." You do not owe this man explanation. Only one, and he is on the other side of the world. "He hit me and knocked me down those stairs you saw today. I lost my baby…"

Then he did grip her wrist. "Perhaps it was…"

"All for the best? Yes, there were several who said as much, including my young man." She touched her eyes with her fingers. "It is not that. I nearly died. I think I wanted to… then." She looked at him, and even in the carriage's gloomy interior he could feel the intensity of her stare. "I cannot ever bear a child, not even for the man I love above everything."

Disconcerted, he said, "When we reach Chiswick I shall have a meal prepared for you."

She laughed without making a sound. "You will please leave me at Chelsea. I would not wish to compromise you, nor do I desire to create more scandal. You do not ask me why I was so certain about my father's anger and his true motives." She could feel the strong grip on her wrist, but the contact did not seem to matter. She continued, "That man, my own father, wanted to take me to his bed. He tried several times. Perhaps I was too distressed to deal with it properly. Today, I would kill any such man."

She watched the passing houses, more expensive properties now, with the glint of water beyond. Ships, unloading or waiting to make sail to every quarter of the globe. Richard's world, which they shared even when they were parted.

Sillitoe asked quietly, "That woman we found there?"

"Chrissie? She was a friend. We used to mime to my father's reading in the market when things were bad, before he finally gave in to drink. She was faithful to him when I left home." She turned away, her eyes filled with angry tears. "Home. Was it ever really that?" She contained her emotion and said, "You saw her reward. He put her on the streets."

They did not converse again for some while, and then she said, "You always speak so highly of Richard, and yet in my heart I know you would use him to make me surrender to your desires, which are unworthy of you. Do you really believe I would betray the man I love, and risk losing him for that same reason?"

Sillitoe exclaimed, "You do me an injustice, Lady Catherine! "

"Do I? I would not answer for your safety if you wronged me."

Some of his confidence seemed to return as he retorted, "I am well enough protected! "

She released her wrist very carefully. "From yourself? I think not."

Sillitoe felt entirely confused by her calm frankness. It was as if he had been disarmed in a duel, and was having to fall upon his opponent's mercy.

She was speaking again, her eyes on the streaming window as if she were trying to recognise something.

"I have done things in my life which I would tell nobody. I have known warmth and friendship too, and I have learned many things since I danced and mimed on the streets of this great city. But love? I have shared it with only one man. You know him well enough." She shook her head as if she were refuting something. "We lost one another once. We will not do so again." She laid her hand on his sleeve. "Strangely enough, I feel better for telling you these things. You could leave me in Chelsea and share your discoveries with your friends, if you have any. But nobody can hurt me any more. I am beyond it, even though they call me a whore."

She gripped his arm and spoke very slowly. "But do not harm Richard. I beg only that from you."

She saw the river again, the bare trees like scarecrows in the fading light.

"Chelsea, Sir Paul! " The coachman sounded untroubled, perhaps because the mastiff had stayed with Sillitoe's two prize-fighters.

Then she saw Young Matthew peering out at the coach from the doorway of the basement kitchen, his coat black with rain. How long he had been waiting for her safe return she could only guess. She found that she was crying, something she rarely did. Perhaps because his simple loyalty was the cleanest thing she had seen since their return to London.

"You all right, me lady?" That was Sophie, holding the door wide to reveal the bright lights within.

As if from faraway she heard Sillitoe speak her name as he lowered the carriage step for her. She had not even seen him leave her side.

He gazed at her for what seemed a long time. Then he shrugged elegantly, and, stooping, kissed her hand.

He said suddenly, "I shall never feel differently about you. Do not humiliate me by denying me that at least." He did not release her hand. "I will always be at your service if you need me." He turned to climb into the carriage and hesitated. "I will do what I can. You have my word on it." He was looking at her as if he was seeing her for the last time. "I will get your man back for you." Then he was gone, the carriage turning the corner, the horses already aware perhaps of the nearness of home.

She felt Sophie's arm about her waist, hugging her. They stood together in the rain, which had not stopped since she had left here for Chiswick.

She was still holding on to Sillitoe's last words, almost afraid to believe what she had heard.

Then she said, "Let us go inside." She wiped her eyes, and Sophie did not know if it was because of rain or tears.

Catherine said, "Tomorrow we will leave for Falmouth." Together they climbed the steps, then she turned and looked back into the deepening shadows. "There is no place here for me any more."

But stark and clear in her mind she could see the little street and the two young girls at play there.