21
Sir Nugent gave a chuckle. ‘Told ‘em to cast off when I went up to fetch Edmund,’ he explained. ‘Told you he was watching the carriage got aboard! Diddled the dupes, my lady! Ah, I fancy Nugent Fotherby has rather more of quickness than most, eh?’
‘Then you didn’t mean to let Miss Marlow take Edmund away? Oh, Nugent!’ said Ianthe admiringly.
‘Did it pretty neatly, didn’t I? Wouldn’t you say I did it neatly, Orde?’
Tom, who had managed to reach the porthole without losing his balance, saw grey seas tumbling past, and turned a face pale with anger towards Sir Nugent. ‘I’d say you’re a damned nail!’ he replied fiercely.
‘Not in front of ladies!’ protested Sir Nugent.
‘You must be mad!’ Phoebe cried. ‘Turn back! Good God, you can’t carry us off like this! Grandmama-all our baggage-! Do you realise that my grandmother has no notion where I am, and neither Tom nor I has a stitch to wear but what we have on our backs? Tell the captain he must turn about!’
‘He won’t do it,’ said Sir Nugent.
‘Oh, won’t he?’ said Tom, making his precarious way to the door. ‘We’ll see to that!’
Sir Nugent obligingly opened the door for him, saying amiably: ‘No sense in stopping him. Let us discuss the matter while he’s gone!’
Tom, reaching the deck, found that the Betsy Anne was clear of the mouth of the Tidal Harbour, with the wind filling her sails. He had negotiated the companionway, but the ladder leading to the quarterdeck presented a worse problem to a man with a stiff leg. He was obliged to shout at the stalwart individual above him, which set him, he felt, at a disadvantage. Certainly the ensuing dialogue was not a success. Admitting that he was the skipper, the stalwart individual seemed to be amused by Tom’s demand to be set ashore. He asked if Tom had chartered the Betsy Anne, and upon being reassured said that that had removed a weight from his mind.
‘Now, listen!’ said Tom, keeping his temper. ‘You’ll find yourself in trouble if you don’t put back!’
‘I’ll find myself in trouble if I do!’ responded the skipper.
‘No, you won’t. If you take me, and the lady who is with me, to France against our will, it’s kidnapping!’
‘Is it, now?’ said the skipper, impressed. ‘That’s bad, that is.’
‘As bad as it could be!’
The skipper shook his head. ‘It don’t bear thinking on. And yet I don’t seem to recall as you was forced to come aboard. Nor yet I never see anyone a-luring of you. Dang me if I see anyone arsting you! All I see was you and the young lady coming aboard without so much as a by-your-leave! Maybe I’m mistook, though.’
‘No, damn you, you aren’t!’ said Tom, incurably honest. ‘Now, be a good fellow, and put back! You wouldn’t wish to upset the lady, and if she’s taken off to France she’ll be in the devil of a fix!’
‘I’ll tell you what!’ offered the skipper handsomely. ‘You come up here, sir, and I’ll hand the ship over to you! I ain’t seaman enough to put into Dover with the wind in this quarter, but then I’ve only been at sea a matter of forty years.’
Aware of several grinning faces turned his way Tom flushed. ‘Do you mean you can’t put back?’
‘I can’t!’ said the skipper.
‘Hell and the devil!’ ejaculated Tom. ‘Now we are in the suds!’ He burst out laughing. ‘Lord, what a mess! Hi, skipper! I’d like to come up there presently to watch how you do the trick!’
‘You’re welcome,’ responded the skipper.
Returning to the cabin, Tom found Ianthe reclining once more on her berth, a bottle of smelling salts clutched in her hand. This had apparently been abstracted from a large dressing case, which was standing open on the deck with a number of its expensive contents spilled round it. A dazzling array of gold-topped bottles, initialled with sapphires, met Tom’s awed gaze, and he blinked. Sir Nugent, observing this, said with simple pride: ‘Something like, eh? My own design. I daresay they showed me fifty cases, but “No,” I said. “Not up to the rig! Trumpery,” I said. “Nothing for it but to design a case myself,” I said. This is the result. Same thing happened when I wanted a carriage for her la’ship. “Windus,” I said, “it must be of the first stare. None of these will do,” I said. “Build me one to my design!” Which he did. I am very fond of designing things.’
‘Well, I wish you will design us out of this rare mess you’ve pitched us into!’ said Tom. ‘It’s no go, Phoebe: the skipper says he can’t put back: wind’s in the wrong quarter.’
‘Then what in heaven’s name are we to do?’ she cried.
‘Make the best of it. Nothing else we can do,’ he answered ruefully.
He was mistaken. The door was just then rudely thrust open, and the valet appeared on the threshold, his aspect alarming, his eyes glazed. He clung with one hand to the door, and over his shoulder drooped a small, wilted figure. ‘Sir-my lady-the young gentleman!’ he said, in a strange voice. ‘Must request you-take him quick!’
‘My child!’ shrieked Ianthe, struggling up. ‘Is he dead?’
‘No, of course he is not!’ said Phoebe hurriedly relieving the valet of his burden.
‘I regret, sir-shall not be available-rest of the passage!’ gasped the valet, clinging now with both hands to the door.
‘Well, of all things!’ exclaimed Sir Nugent. ‘No, dash it, Pett, you can’t be ill!’
‘Sir,’ said Pett, ‘I must!’
With these tortured words, he disappeared with great precipitancy from the cabin, his exit being accelerated by the deck’s rising suddenly at a steep angle as the Betsy Anne triumphantly lifted her bows over the trough of the waves.
‘Edmund!’ cried his anguished parent. ‘Speak to me!’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous!’ said Phoebe, out of all patience. ‘Can’t you see what’s the matter with him, poor child?’
Master Rayne, game to the last, raised his head from Phoebe’s shoulder, and spoke gallant words. ‘I’m not dead, Mama. J-just cast up me accounts!’
Tom, who had no sooner set eyes on him than he had started, with great presence of mind, to search for a basin, now handed this homely article to Phoebe, saying, with a grin: ‘That’s the dandy, old chap! You’re a prime gun!’
But Master Rayne had shot his bolt. His lip trembled. ‘I want to go home!’ he said tearfully. ‘I don’t like it!’
‘Dearest, try not to be ill!’ begged his mother. ‘Think of something else!’
‘I can’t think of anything else!’ wept Edmund, once more in the throes.
Ianthe, who was growing steadily paler, shuddered, and sank back with the smelling salts to her nose, and her eyes shut.
‘You feeling queasy too, my love?’ asked Sir Nugent, concerned. ‘Now, I’ll tell you what: I’ll get you a drop of brandy, and you’ll be as right as a ram’s horn! Nothing like it!’
‘No!’ faintly moaned his love.
‘Extraordinary thing, ain’t it?’ said Sir Nugent, addressing himself to Tom. ‘Some people only have to look at a ship for their stomachs to start turning over; other people wouldn’t be sick in a hurricane. Runs in families, I daresay. Take my father: excellent sailor! Take me: the same! Famous for it! Made the crossing two years ago with George Retford. Now, that was a rough passage! People hanging over the rails all the way: most diverting spectacle! “Nugent,” George said to me-and as game a man as ever lived, mind you! “Take your choice!” he said. “Either that cigar of yours goes overboard, or I do!” Curious, wasn’t it? Nothing else turned him queasy, never blenched at his dinner: in fact-’