The Deception at Lyme Read online

  Darcy took the lock in his hand, rotated the rings to the proper letters, and tugged the shackle. After years of disuse and exposure to salt air, the lock resisted release, but at Darcy’s persistence it opened.

  The chest indeed contained the usual items of a sea officer: Gerard’s dress uniform—he had died in his working rig for the battle—spare shirts, neckcloths, stockings, smallclothes; shaving apparatus and other grooming items; foul weather clothes; nautical instruments; a writing box and several books; silverware and a knife for the mess. Toward the trunk’s bottom lay more personal objects: a backgammon set and a deck of cards, a packet of received letters tied with string, a miniature of a young lady.

  “Is that Miss Wright?” Georgiana asked.

  Darcy nodded. At Elizabeth’s enquiring expression, he clarified. “The eldest daughter of one of Riveton Hall’s neighbors.” He passed the tiny portrait to her. “She and Gerard formed an attachment while quite young—before he first went to sea—and when he was made lieutenant they became formally betrothed.”

  “How sad, that they never had a chance to marry.”

  “She did not go out in society for a considerable time after Gerard’s death,” Georgiana said. “I heard, however, that she wed this past season. They say it was a marriage of affection, so I hope she has found happiness.”

  On the floor of the chest lay a money purse. It was small and worn, the fabric thin, and it contained only a modest sum—not at all what Darcy expected a commissioned sea officer, let alone the son of an earl, to have. Darcy supposed paydays might be few and far between on voyages to the West Indies.

  One more item remained: a leather-bound journal.

  “His lieutenant’s log?” Elizabeth asked.

  “No,” Darcy said. “Gerard’s official log was naval property, and would have been turned over to the Admiralty with those of the other officers at the end of the voyage.” He opened the volume and scanned the first pages. “This is his private diary.”

  Eleven

  “I felt my luck … I was as well satisfied with my appointment as you can desire. It was a great object with me, at that time, to be at sea.”

  —Captain Wentworth, Persuasion

  I passed the exam—I am made! “Lieutenant Fitzwilliam”—does it not sound well?

  I have been appointed to the Magna Carta, a sixty-gun fourth-rate commanded by Captain Tourner. I cannot wait to tell my father—to be assigned as a brand-new lieutenant to a rated warship is a choice commission. She is berthed in Portsmouth, where I am to join her after a brief leave to visit my family.

  My first stop in Buckinghamshire, however, shall be at Hollycross, to surprise Miss Wright with the news. I shall not tell her directly of the promotion, but simply appear with the epaulette on my shoulder and at last voice the unspoken question between us. I have not wanted to offer myself to her—more to the point, to her father—as anything less than a commissioned officer, though thankfully the inheritance my own sire left me frees us from dependence upon my lieutenant’s pay for our maintenance. I could never ask her to live on £8. 8. 0 a month! Though she, of course, will bring a settlement to our marriage, a gentleman hopes to at least equal his wife’s fortune; the Magna Carta would have to capture a great many enemy ships for me to make up the difference with prize money, and Captain Tourner is not known as the boldest captain in the fleet.

  When I have secured Miss Wright’s hand, I must then meet my ship in Portsmouth and assist in preparing her to set sail. We are under orders to Jamaica, a frequent deployment for the Magna Carta. (There—I write the name again!) Magna Carta. Magna Carta. Gerard Fitzwilliam, Fourth Lieutenant of the Magna Carta.

  * * *

  I met Captain Tourner today—a stern man, though no more so than other captains under whom I have served. Many of his crew are staying on, but we are in need of more men—particularly able seamen. I hope we find volunteers—even landmen—and need not resort to the press to fill out our complement.

  I also met my fellow lieutenants. I am the most junior of four. Our first lieutenant is one Andrew St. Clair—businesslike, very disciplined, and expects the same of the men. He does not lord his position over us, nor does he resent my birth. Since joining the navy, I have learned that being the son of an earl has its advantages in influence with the Admiralty, but can be a liability in daily life aboard ship—as a midshipman I had to prove my worth to my colleagues on more than one occasion, and I hope I will not face similar prejudice among commissioned officers.

  The other two lieutenants, Wilton and Fletcher, are amiable enough, though this is Wilton’s second crossing aboard the Magna Carta, and he has an air of the know-all about him. St. Clair has also sailed to the West Indies before. This is his first voyage with the Magna Carta, however, and I sense some umbrage on Wilton’s part at the newcomer’s outranking him. I overheard the master’s mate tell the boatswain that the decision was an Admiralty dictate, not Captain Tourner’s preference.…

  * * *

  We are now three weeks at sea, and settled into daily routines. Watch duty has been uneventful, to the disappointment of many, but gun drills keep us occupied and disciplined. The men hope for action, and the prize money it can yield, but ours has been a quiet voyage thus far—a blessing, as a squall our first week out employed ten hands at the pumps for two days straight and brought down our foremast. The ship’s carpenter built a jury mast that should—barring further trouble—carry us until we reach a port for repairs.

  Life aboard ship for a lieutenant differs from what I have previously known, beyond the increase in responsibility. I have my own tiny cabin off the wardroom, made smaller by the fact that I share it with one of the ship’s cannons. Its walls and “door” are but canvas stretched across frames that are removed when we prepare for battle, but these accommodations nevertheless afford me more privacy than I knew in any midshipmen’s berth. We have shared wardroom servants, including our own cook.

  As officers, we eat fairly well. The lieutenants mess in the wardroom with the master, chaplain, and captain of marines. We pool our messes, and our cook supplements the standard rations with provisions purchased with our own funds. St. Clair acts as our caterer; he contracted for the provisions, and we each subscribe for a share. I have fewer dining companions than I did as a midshipman, especially since one lieutenant is always on watch and St. Clair is invited to the captain’s table more often than are the rest of us. Sometimes we invite the surgeon to join us, for variety of company and discourse. We also have entertained the captain himself on occasion; Tourner is a gracious guest, though the wardroom definitely lacks the ambiance of his lavishly appointed cabin, and the meal, despite our cook’s sincere efforts, cannot help but be inferior to what he enjoys in his own quarters. Captain Tourner likes his luxuries and keeps an abundant table.

  The confines of a ship can feel all the smaller for the individuals who occupy it, and tolerance of varying temperaments is essential to harmony among the officers. The captain of any ship establishes its tone, but that set by Tourner changes, it seems, with the tide. He is moody as the sea; we bask in his calm days, and do our best to ride out his turbulent ones. I am told he was never a particularly strong leader in his youth, and that age has made him even less so. Some years ago, as captain of the Stalwart, he lost his ship to capture and spent many months in a Spanish prison. It is said that he has not been the same since. He seldom initiates engagements with the enemy; I have overheard the men complain of his reluctance to pursue even merchant ships that might be seized as easy prizes. Any ship under his command is not a vessel set on a course to quick wealth. The crew is careful, however, not to voice their complaints too loudly, lest Tourner hear them and order out the cat-o’-nine-tails.

  As for my fellow lieutenants—St. Clair is not the man I took him for at first. He is serious about his responsibilities and efficient in their execution; he holds himself in reserve and keeps his own counsel. Yet there is in him an amiability that emerges upon better acquaintan
ce. Wilton, however, does not see this, and continues to nurse resentment over his own second-lieutenant status, a bitterness that at times spills over to encompass Fletcher and me—if Wilton cannot be first lieutenant, he will employ the full measure of his authority over the third and fourth. Fletcher is of an easy enough disposition to mollify Wilton’s waspishness; I endeavor to ignore it.…

  * * *

  The West Indies are beautiful, but hot. We have been here now for three months, performing various assignments to protect Britain’s Caribbean interests. It is important work, and we have seen a few battles, but none have yielded much in the way of prize money, and the men grow restless as a result. They long to be closer to the main action of the war. Their wish will soon be granted, for we leave Kingston on the morrow.

  We are under orders to escort two merchant ships back to England. They carry cargoes comprising mainly Jamaican rum and sugar (muscovado—brown sugar that will be further refined in Bristol or London; I have learned more about the sugar trade in three months here than I ever expected—or wanted—to know). The owner of one of the ships—the Montego—has won over our crew with a gift of numerous casks of rum for the men’s consumption during the voyage home. He is a wise man—doubtless, they will now defend the Montego with extra zeal. He has also given each officer enough rum to last the voyage and then some, as well as casks of finished white sugar—illegal to import for sale in England, but allowed on board as part of our personal possessions. Rumors circulate that the captain’s private stores hold more Jamaican rum and sugar than wine and beef.…

  * * *

  We are halfway home, and I look forward to our return to England’s fairer climate with each passing day. The sea has been calm—too calm—and we bake in the heat as our sails hang slack. The men are bored and frustrated. I believe the captain is, as well. He has formed the habit of inviting three passengers of the Montego to dine with him regularly. One gentleman, a Mr. Smith, is the owner of a sugar plantation between Kingston and Spanish Town; it is his sugar and rum the Montego carries, and which the crew and officers of the Magna Carta received in gift. Our crew does not grumble about having civilians aboard, or the trouble of transporting them from one ship to another for the sake of dinner, as the quality of Mr. Smith’s rum—which they enjoy on Sundays in lieu of their standard issue—is superior to Pussar’s. The best that can be said of the other two fellows is that they are unobjectionable, though one of them seems at pains to impress upon us that he is a future baronet.…

  * * *

  A most extraordinary mystery presented itself today. Upon my return to the wardroom after watch duty, our cook begged a private word with me. We moved to my cabin and drew closed the canvas. He then recounted in a low voice how, while he was retrieving sugar from a partially used cask, the scoop struck something hard. He dug out the object—an incredible discovery—a small gold figurine fashioned in the form of some sort of fantastic creature. Additional excavation produced a second figurine of similar design.

  The poor fellow was in some terror of this find, though it is difficult to name the greater source of his fright—superstitious dread of the wrath of whatever heathen god the idols represent, or fear of being accused of theft aboard ship and sentenced to flogging. He had been threatened with such punishment some days previous by a midshipman whom he had surprised in the stores taking inventory for St. Clair. I assured him of my faith in his innocence, took the idols into my possession, and told him I would handle the matter.

  Where did the gold figures come from, and how did they find their way into our sugar cask? Did one of Smith’s slaves plant them for some superstitious purpose before the cask left the estate? Did a member of our own crew secrete them in there? Perhaps they are stolen, and the thief needed to hide them hastily. How else would such valuable objects come to be in such an odd, unsecure location?

  Someone comes—

  * * *

  The “someone” was St. Clair, and I confided to him the discovery. He appeared surprised—yet there seemed something disingenuous in his manner. He obliquely deflected my speculation as to the idols’ provenance, and discouraged me from bringing the matter to the captain’s attention. “He is entertaining Mr. Smith and the others at present,” said he.

  I asked whether the cask in question appeared on the inventory, and he replied that all items on the ship had been entered in the manifest before we set sail. I clarified that I meant the inventory he had ordered Mr. Musgrove to complete last week. “Hart told me of it.”

  “Did he?” There was a transient wariness in his expression, almost immediately eclipsed by something harder. “Do not concern yourself about the inventory.”

  He was all brusque authority; there was none of the warmth I had come to know in months of service with him. He held out his hand. “Give that to me; I will attend to this myself. Meanwhile, say nothing to anybody else about it, and instruct Hart likewise.” He was in that moment entirely the First Lieutenant, and I, the Fourth. There was no question but that I must follow orders without argument.

  I surrendered the idol I had shewn him, but they remain fixed in my thoughts. My conversation with St. Clair, far from relieving my suspicions, has only heightened them.

  At present, however, we have more pressing concerns. I hear the drum—we are beat to quarters—my cabin must be cleared for the gun crew. Two warships have been spotted, bearing French colors.

  * * *

  Darcy closed the diary. There were no further entries; the last had been dated the day of Gerard’s death.

  After scanning the first pages the night they had discovered the volume, Darcy had deliberated for some time before reopening it. He wanted to know more about his cousin’s life, to hear the tales he might have told in person had he ever had the opportunity. With Gerard’s voice silenced by a lead ball, his writings offered the only means by which he could yet speak. To read his personal diary, however, seemed to violate the privacy of a man who had already lost all else.

  It had been Elizabeth, observing Darcy repeatedly taking up the journal only to set it down again unopened, who had ultimately persuaded him. “By reading the record that Lieutenant Fitzwilliam left behind, you do not disrespect your cousin. If anything, reading his words honors his memory, for doing so enables you to appreciate more fully the value of his life.”

  “Would you ever want someone else reading your diary?”

  “Nobody would want to read my diary.”

  “Why do you say so?”

  “It would be an extraordinarily brief diversion—I never remember to write in it.”

  Gerard, apparently, had not suffered Elizabeth’s lack of discipline. He had filled nearly all the pages of the bound volume with close-written lines, so many that reading through them had occupied a considerable portion of the following two days, when intermittent rain had restricted their enjoyment of Lyme’s outdoor pleasures. Darcy had read slowly, savoring Gerard’s words and descriptions, hearing his cousin’s voice once more and seeing the confident young sea officer Lieutenant Fitzwilliam had become as he related his experiences aboard the Magna Carta and its tour of the West Indies.

  The abrupt end and its references to the impending battle foreshadowed Gerard’s death more dramatically than could a novel. While Darcy knew the hero’s fate, he wished it could be rewritten. Yet it was a secondary character who most occupied Darcy’s thoughts when he finally closed the diary.

  On the sofa, Elizabeth added stitches to an infant blanket she was embroidering for Lady Elliot’s son. Though Sir Walter had likely commissioned a fleet of seamstresses to outfit the Elliot heir with the most au courant infant fashions and all the linens one small creature could require, she had wanted the motherless child to own something sewn with more than mere thread. Georgiana was helping her create the gift, though at present she had already retired to her chamber for the night.

  He watched his wife pass the needle through the fabric several times before she became aware of an audience and lo
oked up.

  “What is your impression of Lieutenant St. Clair?” he asked.

  “And here I thought it was I who inspired your reverie.” She smiled and went back to her work. “He seems a conscientious gentleman. Another individual might have passed off to someone else the trouble of conveying that sea chest to your family, rather than have the burden of it himself for so long a time—your cousin, after all, would never have known the difference. But he took that responsibility seriously. And we were certainly fortunate that he happened upon us on the Cobb when we needed assistance with Lady Elliot. Between the foundering ship and the rising storm, everybody else was too busy, but Lieutenant St. Clair suspended his own business to render aid to strangers. I think that reflects well upon him.”

  Darcy silently contemplated her words, frowning in thought.

  “Have you a different impression?” Elizabeth asked.

  He did, but it was not fully formed. “I wonder what business brought him to the Cobb on such a morning. He was not in uniform, and therefore not performing any official duty.”

  “What business brought us? Or Sir Laurence? Or any of the other people we saw promenading before the weather turned so suddenly?”

  “We thought it turned suddenly. Lieutenant St. Clair is an experienced sea officer. While aboard ship, it is his job to monitor the weather, because his life and that of the entire crew depend upon it. If he is worth his epaulette, he knew that storm was coming before we did.”

  “Will you next accuse him of conjuring the storm himself?”

  “He was not on the Cobb for leisure.”