The Following Wind by Peter Smalley

Author:Peter Smalley [Smalley, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-07-24T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

James should have remained in London, as Mr. Driscoll at the Admiralty had politely required him to do, in order to be informed in the particulars of his court martial. He should have made his obedience to their Lordships and waited on their pleasure as to dates and times.

That he did not do so, that he went home instead was a mark against him, so far as their Lordships were concerned.

James did not care.

The calamity of Foxhound, and all his dark thoughts since, had turned him against the strict requirements of the service, and alerted him acutely to his private responsibility. His duty to his family.

He reached Melton on the night of the day following his interview at the Admiralty, after an exhausting journey. They had pressed on night and day; there had been several changes of horses, and the postillion was cold, tired and miserably wet, the last part of the journey having been travelled in steady rain. James paid him in full, added a generous gratuity, and gave instruction that he should be handsomely fed and given a bed in the servants’ quarters.

He then hurried anxiously to Catherine, and found her perfectly well and content and overjoyed to see her husband again so soon. They embraced, then James:

‘And my mother?’

‘I saw her this morning. She is in good health, and good spirits. She goes to-morrow to Bath a few days.’

‘Thank God.’

‘What is the matter?’ Now as he turned into the light she saw the bruises on one side of his face. ‘You are hurt. What has happened? Why have you come back so soon?’

‘Have you either of you suffered any difficulty since we sailed?’

‘Difficulty ?’

‘Anything untoward? Strangers seen prowling about? Men making threats?’

‘Good heaven, no .we are quite safe here at Melton.’

‘Thank God.’

‘Now you begin to frighten me, James. What has happened?’

‘I think it is all part of the same. Was part of it, but that now I am come home, and it has all fallen down .we may be left alone.’

This peculiar speech so bewildered Catherine that she began to doubt her husband’s condition of mind. He saw her puzzlement, and her fear, and at once launched into an explanation.

He told her the circumstances of the failed commission the attacks both he and Rennie had suffered aboard their ships, the sea actions, the loss of Foxhound, and his supremely fortunate escape and rescue without revealing anything of the mission itself, save that their destination had been Naples.

‘The reason I was so fearful for your safety was the threat made by the man that attacked me in my cabin. When it is added to all of the other assaults that have occurred since this damned commission was first proposed they are all part of the whole, I am certain. The footpads in London, and the man that broke into our room at Mrs. Peebles’ hotel, then various other incidents at Portsmouth .they are all linked. They are all the work of the same people, that wished to deflect us from our design, and prevent its success.

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