'I believe that is correct, Mr Willerton,' replied Drinkwater gravely, mastering sudden laughter.
'I have my eye on a piece of pine, sir, but it cost eight shilling. Then there is paint, sir.'
'Very well, Mr Willerton.' Drinkwater reached into his pocket and laid a guinea on the table. 'The balance against your craftsmanship, but be careful how you pick your model.'
For a second their eyes met. Willerton's were a candid and disarming blue, as innocent as a child's.
Chapter Four
A Matter of Family
Lieutenant Drinkwater was in ill humour. It was occasioned by exasperation at the delays and prevarications of the dockyard and aggravated by petty frustrations, financial worries and domestic disappointment.
The latter he felt keenly for, as Christmas approached, he had promised himself a day or two ashore in lodgings in the company of his wife. Elizabeth was to have travelled to Chatham with Tregembo and his own sea-kit, but now she wrote to say she was unwell and that her new pregnancy troubled her. She had miscarried before and Drinkwater wrote back urging her not to risk losing the child, to stay with Charlotte Amelia and Susan Tregembo in the security of their home.
Tregembo was expected daily. The topman who had, years ago, attached himself to young Midshipman Drinkwater, was now both servant and confidant. Also expected was Mr Midshipman Quilhampton. Out of consideration for Louise, Drinkwater had left her son at home when he himself went to London. Later he had written off instructions to the young man to recruit hands for Virago. Now Drinkwater waited impatiently for those extra men.
But it was not merely men that Drinkwater needed. As Christmas approached, the dockyard became increasingly supine. He wanted masts and spars, for without them Virago was as immobile as a log, condemned to await the dockyard's pleasure. And Drinkwater was by no means sure that Mr Jex was not having his revenge through the influence of his kinsman, the Commissioner. As the days passed in idleness Drinkwater became more splenetic, less tolerant of Mrs Jex, less affable to Rogers. He worried over the possibilities of desertion by his men and fretted over their absence every time a wooding party went to search the tideline for driftwood. Unable to leave his ship by Admiralty order he sat morosely in his cloak, staring gloomily out over the dull, frosty marshes.
His misgivings over his first lieutenant increased. Rogers's irascibility was irritating the warrant officers and Drinkwater's own doubts about selecting Rogers grew. They had already argued over the matter of a flogging, Drinkwater ruling the laxer discipline that customarily prevailed on warships in port mitigated the man's offence to mere impudence. The knock at the door brought him out of himself.
'Come in!'
'Reporting aboard, sir.'
'James! By God, I'm damned glad to see you. You've men? And news of my wife?'
James Quilhampton warmed himself over the smoking stove. He was a tall, spare youth, growing out of his uniform coat, with spindle-shanked legs and a slight stoop. Any who thought him a slightly ridiculous adolescent were swiftly silenced when they saw the heavy iron hook he wore in place of a left hand.
'Aye sir, I have fifteen men, a letter from your wife and a surgeon.' He stood aside, pulling a letter from his breast. Taking the letter Drinkwater looked up to see a second figure enter his cabin.
'Lettsom, sir, surgeon; my warrant and appointment.' Drinkwater glanced at the proffered papers. Mr Lettsom was elderly, small and fastidious looking, with a large nose and a pair of tolerant eyes. His uniform coat was clean, though shiny and with overlarge, bulging pockets.
'Ah, I see you served under Richard White, Mr Lettsom, he speaks highly of you.'
'You are acquainted with Captain White, Lieutenant Drinkwater?'
'I am indeed, we were midshipmen together in the Cyclops, I saw him last at the Cape when he commanded the Telemachus.'
'I served with him in the Roisterer, brig. He was soon after posted to Telemachus.'
'I have no doubt we shall get along, Mr Lettsom.' Drinkwater riffled through the papers on his table. 'I have some standing orders here for you. You will find the men in reasonable shape. I have had their clothes replaced and we may thus contain the ship-fever. As to diet I have obliged the purser to buy in a quantity of sauerkraut. Its stink is unpopular, but I am persuaded it is effective against the scurvy.' Lettsom nodded and glanced at the documents. 'You are a disciple of Lind, Mr Drinkwater, I congratulate you.'
'I am of the opinion that much of the suffering of seamen in general is unnecessary.'
Lettsom smiled wryly at the earnest Drinkwater. 'I'll do my best, sir, but mostly it depends upon the condition of the men:
When people's ill, they come to I,
I physics, bleeds and sweat's 'em;
Sometimes they live, sometimes they die,
What's that to I? I let's 'em.'
For a second Drinkwater was taken aback, then he perceived the pun and began to laugh.
'A verse my cousin uses as his own, sir,' Lettsom explained, 'he is a physician of some note among the fashionable, but of insufficient integrity not to claim the verse as his own. I regret that he plagiarised it from your humble servant.' Lettsom made a mock bow.
'Very well, Mr Lettsom, I think we shall get along… Now gentlemen, if you will excuse me… '
He slit open Elizabeth's letter impatiently and began to read, lost for a while to the cares of the ship.
My Dearest Husband,
It is with great sadness that I write to say I shall not see you at Christmastide. I am much troubled by sickness and anxious for the child whom, from the trouble he causes, I know to be a boy. Charlotte chatters incessantly…
There was a page of his daughter's exploits and a curl of her hair. He learned that the lateness of Tregembo's departure was caused by a delay in the preparation of his Christmas gift and that Louise Quilhampton was having her portrait painted by Gaston Bruilhac, a paroled French sous-officier, captured by Drinkwater in the Red Sea who had executed a much admired likeness of his captor during the homeward voyage. There was town gossip and Elizabeth's disapproval of Mr Quilhampton's recruiting methods. Then, saved in Elizabeth's reserved manner for a position of importance in the penultimate paragraph, an oddly disquieting sentence:
On Tuesday last I received an odd visitor, your brother Edward whom I have not seen these five or six years. He was in company with a lively and pretty French woman, some fugitive from the sans culottes. He spoke excellent French to her and was most anxious to see you on some private business. I explained your whereabouts but he would vouchsafe me no further confidences. I confess his manner made me uneasy…