"I never told you any such thing. You lie in your black teeth."
"Oh, boss-"
"Another loss like that, you shite-poke, and I'll lose you your cods and feed them to you, raw. Now get out."
By his own mistake, Hoare's request to the Admiralty for permission to sleep out of his ship was sent through the usual channels. As usual, the usual recipient rejected the request with sardonic words about idle officers and half pay. Hoare resubmitted the request, directing it to Vice-Admiral Sir Hugh Abercrombie, as he should have done in the first place. Sir Hugh granted permission forthwith, and Hoare could at last put his slender kit into his saddlebags behind him when he next traveled down across Blackheath to Dirty Mill, the house that Eleanor had found for them.
Through Greenwich town he made his way, astride the modest young cob he had procured. Since being tossed aground over and over again during childhood, he had had no use for horses and hated riding them. He admitted that they were necessary creatures, but found them disorderly, disobedient, unpredictable, and ready to tittup and fart about wherever they pleased, leaving their excrement underfoot to be trodden in by their betters. He could never understand why country gentlemen were often more enthralled by a horse than by a pretty girl. Certainly, the latter made more enjoyable mounts.
Once out of Greenwich, he took the road over Blackheath to Dirty Mill, up Cromms Hill, past various landmarks, many the villas of royal mistresses, others the follies of men like Vanbrugh, until he reached the crest and could let the cob have its way down into the narrow valley where Dirty Mill lay.
Dirty Mill it might be named forevermore, but Eleanor and her people had already made the house spotless yet comfortable. His wife, he thought, must have all but emptied her childhood home-decent, unspectacular furniture dating, Hoare guessed, from Queen Anne's reign, made its appearance, while familiar hangings from Weymouth windows were recut and commenced to hang, one after another, in Dirty Mill's narrower stone-mullioned windows. Brass and silver came out to cheer up mantelpieces; a suitable cook with knowledge of local markets was hired.
Eleanor must not be without her tuffet. The round object, resilient like her bottom, on which she so liked to nest, took its place on one side of the fireplace in the small parlor, across from an easy chair that she had bullied out from under her terror of a brother and brought with her proudly, like the cat Order bringing in an enormous mouse. Certainly, the nursery furniture that had been hers as a child found an appreciative new owner in Jenny. In no time at all, Dirty Mill had become a true home, the first home Hoare had occupied since he had left the family house in the north, never to return. His life with Antoinette in Halifax all those years ago had been that of a driven junior lieutenant and his child bride; it had been all too short.
Like the rich in the Bible, the wain went empty away, trundling back to its owner in Great Dunmow.
Aboard Royal Duke, affairs settled into a routine. After his ride over from Dirty Mill of a morning, Hoare and Mr. Clay generally engaged in their regular duel, rain or shine. By now, the other Royal Dukes would go about their day's business around the combatants, dodging and being dodged as their respective movements required. During more than one encounter, a crewman might edge past them with a "by your leave, sir," or even hint with an expressively cleared throat that they move their passage-at-arms away from some piece of maritime equipment that needed nursing.
Then the day's serious business began: belowdecks, the inspection and sorting of the messages received the day before, either by the irritating sea-pigeons or by the more mundane means of the daily wherry service. To augment the yacht's own boats, Mr. Clay had contracted with Matthew and Bert to take two of those trips daily, down from Whitehall Steps with the tide and back again.
On deck, Mr. Clay made certain that-at least to the extent possible while lying to a mooring-the yacht's people kept their seamanship honed. Watches were kept as if they were at sea, though each watch on deck was divided into two moieties of which one exercised on deck while the other turned to the paperwork that was the vessel's raison d'etre. The Royal Duke's appalling performance in Portsmouth some months gone had earned them the name of the Fleet's "dustbin." Well, then, the two officers had vowed, they would turn the jeering term on its ear and make it into a word of praise-or at least respect. The Dustbins' comportment during that little passage in the Channel had shown all hands they might even succeed.
Sergeant Leese kept his Green Marines alert and fit by frequent patrols into Greenwich and out into the surrounding countryside. Early on, a short and nasty encounter had taken place with a squad of Red Marines outside the Yacht Inn, when one of the Lobsters overheard a Green Marine explain to an interested cit that "We marines really be much like lobsters, sir. As we sings in the service, 'a Red Marine's a dead marine; a Green Marine's a live 'un.' "
"Jenny and I have something to show you, Bartholomew," Eleanor told him as they returned from Matins. Both she and her husband were free-thinkers, but the proprieties must be observed. With the child trotting between them, well bundled up against the raw cold, the two were striding homeward along one of the lanes on the back side of Blackheath. Last night had seen the season's first sprinkling of snow, and Jenny's cat was beside himself with excitement at this novel, evanescent white stuff. He danced about them in the fresh white powder, athwart their hawse, like one of those legendary Chinese boatmen Hoare had heard about but had never seen, who made it a point to scull across another vessel's bows as closely as possible. By doing so, they believed, they cut off the devils in their wake, leaving them behind to pester the other craft. Surely, Order's tidy tail would be devil-free.
"Shall I show him now, Mum?" Jenny asked eagerly.
"Why not, my dear?" Eleanor said. "Look. See if you can knock down the bird's nest in the fork of that willow tree."
"Won't the mother bird be upset?"
"No, Jenny. The baby birds are long grown and gone, and the nest will be empty now."
The trio stopped in the lane, while Jenny scrabbled under the thin snow until she found a small round pebble. Hoare watched her in perplexity, Eleanor in pride. Then she reached into her bosom and withdrew a sling-a sling! Eleanor looked up at her husband, her eyes brimming with mischief.
"You remember, I see, Bartholomew."
"Indeed, my dear. How could I forget?" It was with a sling that Eleanor Graves had fought off her attackers on the afternoon of their first meeting, and with the self-same sling that she had made Edouard Moreau overturn his skiff in the surf so that Bartholomew Hoare could catch up with him and drown him.
Jenny popped her pebble into the sling, took a stance, and began to twirl her sling about her head with deft flips of her wrist. Three flips and she let the pebble fly. The pebble hit the nest squarely-it was less than ten yards away-and knocked it out of its crotch. It fell into the thin snow, where the cat Order attacked it.
"A dangerous pair we have on our hands," Hoare remarked. Her cheeks pink with excitement and her black eyes snapping, Jenny stooped and chose a second stone. Erect again, she sought about for another target.
Order flushed a rabbit. It bounded away, stopped. Twirl, twirl, release, and the rabbit went head over heels. It kicked thrice, and then lay still. A trickle of red appeared from its nose. Order scampered up to the little corpse and crouched to lick the blood.
"Oh, oh, oh… what have I done?"
On the spot, Diana became Danae. Dropping the sling, Jenny ran to her prey and squatted over it, her hand fending off the curious cat. She looked up at Eleanor and Hoare, her eyes brimming with tears.
"What have I done?" she sobbed again, and sniveled. She swept her sleeve across her nose. "I killed it. Oh, oh, oh…"