Captain Cutlass

2

Captain Cutlass

    As was her habit Calpurnia Catherine Formby, known to most of the population of Waddington-on-Sea as “Captain Cutlass” ever since she had been old enough to reject her misguided parents’ choice and select a better name for herself, breakfasted early and headed down the road to Number 3 New Short Street ere the sun was scarce up. Fortunately both Dr Adams, Number 3’s elderly lodger, and his landlady, Mrs Lumley, were early risers.

    The door was opened this morning by the small, grimy and incompetent Rosie Kettle, whom Mrs Lumley was determinedly training in the way she should go.

    “’E’s a-working on ’is book,” she greeted the caller.

    “Really? That’s good news! Did he tell you to send me away again?” replied Captain Cutlass cheerfully.

    “No, ’e never said that. Only Mrs Lumley, she said to say ’e was a-working on ’is book.”

    “I’d better have a word with her, then,” said Captain Cutlass, coming in without further ado and heading for the kitchen.

    Rosie followed her, reporting when they got there: “I told ’er, mum.”

    “Oh, there you are, Captain Cutlass,” said Mrs Lumley, straightening from the stove, rather flushed. “There’ll be currant buns a bit later, if this danged oven’ll be’ave itself.”

    “Ooh, good!” beamed Captain Cutlass. “Does he not want me today?”

    “No, ’t’ain’t that, only I thought you better know ’e’s a-working on ’is book. ’E got an idea last night after ’is supper—liver and onions, it were, and a tasty bite, if I says it meself!—and sat right down and started scribbling like nobody’s business. And wouldn’t let Rosie take ’is candle, not for nothing, so I sent ’im to bed meself with a flea in ’is ear!” She chuckled complacently.

    “Good for you!” returned Captain Cutlass.

    “Ah. Getting too old to sit up till all hours. Only then I reckon ’e got up around three,” she said with a sigh.

    “Oh. Well, he doesn’t sleep very much, in any case. And it’s very good news that he's working on his book again!”

    “I dessay,” said Mrs Lumley heavily.

    “I told ’im,” explained Rosie, “there was sausage this morning, only ’e never even looked up. So Mrs Lumley, she took ’is ink orf ’im!” she reported proudly.

    “Aye,” admitted Mrs Lumley, “and so ’e sat down and ate ’is sausage up, and drank some of that coffee of ’is, too.”

    “And a nice piece o’ fried bread!” piped Rosie.

    “Right. Only now ’e’s back at it.”

    “Of course!” said Captain Cutlass cheerfully. “Well, I shan’t disturb him, I’ll just sit down and use his dictionaries.”

    “Yes,” said Mrs Lumley heavily.

    “Is something wrong?” asked Captain Cutlass.

    Mrs Lumley looked limply at her. “Captain Cutlass, deary, ’e ain’t getting no younger,” she said without hope.

    “Old, ’e be,” explained Rosie.

    Mrs Lumley sighed. “Yes.”

    “Seventy-nine,” agreed Captain Cutlass. “But he’s quite well, isn’t he?”

    “Yes. That ain’t me point, deary.”

    “Then what is your point?” she asked mildly.

    “Well, it’s a good sign that ’e’s a-working on ’is book again, deary, and like I say, ’e’s keeping well, but the thing is, you can’t expect an old feller like ’im to last forever.”

    “’Cos ’e gotta go some time,” piped Rosie, “and my Great-Nunky Jim, ’e were seventy-nine—”

    “That’ll do, Rosie.”

    Captain Cutlass was rather pale. “I—I don’t think I expect him to last forever, Mrs Lumley.”

    Mrs Lumley could see that of course she did: the lass was only nineteen. “No. Well, that ain’t precisely what I mean, neither. If ’e’s a-working on ’is book again, it’ll take it out of ’im, you see.”

    “Acos it always do!” piped Rosie.

    “Just keep out of it, Rosie,” she said heavily.

    Captain Cutlass was now very flushed. “I see. I think you mean he needs to husband his mental resources, and concentrate on what is important to him, in the time he has left.”

    “I think I do, yes, deary. And—and see, Rosie ain’t wrong about her Great-Uncle Jim, ’cos what happened, ’e finished that little boat ’e were a-carving for young Billy—”

    “And dropped dead like a stone,” finished Rosie with relish.

    “Yes, next day,” admitted Mrs Lumley sadly.

    “You mean,” said Captain Cutlass with tears in her eyes: “Dr Adams will finish the book, and then die?”

    “I don’t say it’ll ’appen just like that, me lovey, but at ’is age, you gotta expect something like that. Like, an old feller like that, ’e—well, there’s only so much ’e can do. Only so much ’e’s got left in ’im!” she finished on a desperate note.

    Captain Cutlass drew a deep breath. “I see. And the Latin and Greek coaching he has been giving me has just been a—a stop-gap.”

    “Something like that,” said Mrs Lumley miserably. “Not ’is proper work, see?”

    “Yes,” she said, her jaw hardening. “I shall just look in on him, then.”

    “You won’t do no ’arm just sitting and reading up the big books, deary,” ventured the kindly landlady uneasily. “I didn’t mean to put you orf.”

    “No. Well, I do have a page of Greek to check.”

    “Right. You can tell ’im there’ll be buns a bit later, if yer like.”

    Nodding, Captain Cutlass vanished, looking grim.

    “Like a stone,” said Rosie thoughtfully. “Cold as mutton, ’e were.”

    “Just ’old yer peace, Rosie Kettle!” she snapped. “And get on with the dusting, yer think them banisters are gonna dust themselves?”

    Rosie vanished precipitately.

    Mrs Lumley looked round her blankly, and sat down suddenly on a hard kitchen chair. “Well, I made a muck o’ that,” she said sourly to herself.

    The retired scholar looked just the same as ever: a bent, thin little figure with a shawl over his suit of rusty black, his pince-nez perched on his beaky nose. Captain Cutlass tried to tell herself that Mrs Lumley was making mountains out of molehills, but without success.

    “Ah, there you are, Calpurnia,” he said mildly, peering at her over the pince-nez. “Now, listen to this.” He read out the page he had just written.

    She swallowed. It sounded as if he must have added half a chapter or more to the book. “Good. That’s real progress, Dr Adams.”

    “And will certainly put paid to Potter’s preposterous theories!” he said pleasedly.

    Potter was the arch-enemy: a don from his old college. “Yes,” agreed Captain Cutlass, trying to sound pleased.

    “Did you finish that translation?” he asked mildly.

    “Yes, but I’d like to check it in the dictionaries.”

    “Go ahead,” he said in a vague voice, his eyes returning to his page.

    Silently Captain Cutlass sat down at the small round table which held his dictionaries, forgetting to tell him there’d be buns later.

    They both jumped when Rosie panted in with a plate of buttered buns. “Buns!” she gasped. “Mrs Lumley says you gotta eat, Dr Adams!”

    “Buns, eh?” he said kindly. “Excellent, excellent…”

    Rosie shoved the plate under his nose. “You gotta eat!”

    “The alternative,” said Captain Cutlass, giving the little maid an evil look, “is apparently dropping dead like a stone. Go along, Rosie, I’ll see he eats.” She got up and took the plate from her.

    Rosie went reluctantly, with the parting injunction: “’Alf of them’s for ’im, mind!”

    “Eat, it’s more than my life is worth to let you off,” said Captain Cutlass drily.

    “Books and butter do not mix,” replied the old scholar with distaste.

    “No.” She fetched a couple of table napkins and a tray from his cupboard and pulled up her chair next to his, balancing the tray on her knees. “I’ll fetch up some hot water when you’ve finished.”

    “It seems I have no recourse but to eat,” said the old man with a smile, taking a bun. “They are very good,” he owned, swallowing, “but the woman seems to think I need six meals a day!”

    “Mm. Um, Dr Adams,” said Captain Cutlass slowly, “whom do you think was the better man, Marcus Aurelius or Julius Caesar?”

    “The better man?” he replied with no evidence of surprise. “Not the greater general?”

    “No.”

    “I would have to say Marcus Aurelius.”

    “Me, too.”

    “Though if I could choose to meet one Roman, it would be Cicero,” he said with a smile.

    “I know,” agreed Captain Cutlass.

    “Not merely because of the quality of his prose,” he murmured.

    “I know that, too!” She engulfed a bun and then ventured: “Um, I was wondering, instead of just continuing on steadily with the Aeneid, could I skip to Dido’s lament?”

    “Why?” replied the old man calmly.

    “Um… Well, of course Little Joe’s school was nothing much, but the Latin master was not bad, according to him, and he picked out some set pieces for them to do, rather than read the whole… Very well, no,” she said heavily. “But what if I never get there?”

    “What is to prevent you?” replied Dr Adams calmly.

    Captain Cutlass was very red; that had just come out. “Nothing!” She licked her lips. “Um, well, if you are to be busy with your book, that must take precedence, of course.”

    Dr Adams did not argue with this statement. “Virgil is not hard, you scarcely need my help.”

    “He’s a lot harder than Cicero or Caesar!” said Captain Cutlass sourly.

    “You have not yet the feel of his style.”

    “No, and I don’t think I ever shall!”

    “Then do you wish to give him up?”

    “No,” she growled.

    He hadn’t thought so, really. “No,” he agreed mildly. “Good. Please have the last bun, I really could not cram it in.”

    Captain Cutlass took the last bun, got up, and said: “I’ll nip down and get some hot water. Don’t touch anything until I come back!” And, stuffing the bun in her mouth, rushed out.

    Once their hands had been washed and dried, they worked quietly on for the rest of the morning, the old scholar writing steadily, and Captain Cutlass, having finished checking her Greek, re-embarking on her struggle with Virgil, but conscientiously not asking Dr Adams for help.

    They both jumped when Rosie panted in with the message that dinner would be on the table in ten minutes flat, and if Dr Adams were not down, Mrs Lumley herself would fetch him. And she was to tell Captain Cutlass special, she was doin’ fried taters! With a nice mutton chop, and rhubarb pie and cheese!

    “The fried taters must settle it,” murmured Dr Adams.

    “Yes. I should love to stay for it, Rosie, and please give Mrs Lumley my thanks.”

    “’Course! Only yer can tell ’er yerself!” And she rushed out.

    “I cannot abide cheese with rhubarb pie,” said Dr Adams sadly as the door closed after her.

    “Me, neither, but perhaps there’ll be cream or custard.”

    “Let us hope so,” he said sedately. “Now, how is Virgil?”

    “He is horribly poetic, and I am horribly prosaic!” replied Captain Cutlass with a sudden snort of laughter.

    “Mm. Go on, translate.”

    Glumly she did so. Dr Adams stood it as long as he could, then went to his bookshelves.

    “This will not encourage me, merely show up my ignorance and general ineptitude!” warned Captain Cutlass, laughing.

    “It will have served its purpose, in that case.” He ignored her spluttering fit, though his eyes twinkled. “I suppose we had best go down, I do not want to put Mrs Lumley to the trouble of climbing the stairs.”

    And they went downstairs to the fried taters, mutton chops, rhubarb pie and cheese in a state of perfect amity.

    After the meal, however, Captain Cutlass did not return to her studies but, declaring she needed some fresh air, marched off into a chilly grey afternoon with a grim look round her mouth. Dr Adams, Mrs Lumley registered wryly, did not even appear to notice her go, but headed back eagerly to his writing.

    Captain Cutlass walked very fast, determinedly not thinking. Eventually she looked about her with a start, and realised she had come right down to the end of The Walk, which led to nothing but the beach. It was now drizzling steadily but she just put up the hood of her heavy old cloak and walked on towards the boathouses and, past them, a curious structure composed of an old dinghy sitting up on end with a sack-covered framework built onto its front. The whole weatherproof enough, for it was caulked and tarred in a most seamanlike fashion.

    “Hoy! Mr Rattle!” she cried. “It’s Captain Cutlass!”

    The sacking was pulled aside and the whiskery old face of Boatswain Rattle, late of His Majesty’s Royal Navy, peered out at her. “Come in, wotcher waiting for?” he said, removing the pipe briefly.

    Captain Cutlass joined him in his shelter, sitting down on one of the boxes which did duty for chairs and holding out her hands eagerly to his little brazier.

    “There’s a yacht in,” he offered.

    “What, a pleasure vessel? Odd time of year for one of them, ain’t it?”

    “Ah. ’Tis that. But she’s a sensible-looking vessel. Schooner-rigged. Come in under ’er jib on the tide. Never laid eyes on ’er afore, meself, but one of the sailors, ’e said she’s been to Brighton afore this. Belongs to a nob, only ’e ain’t with ’em. Takes ’er over to Ostend, quite often, ’cos ’is ma, she’s married a Belgy.”

    “So is he a Belgy, too?”

    “No. English. The liddle Belgy, ’e’s ’er second, geddit?”

    “Got it,” she agreed, smiling at him. “What on earth are they doing in Waddington-on-Sea?”

    “Dunno—didn’t say. Well, the young gent, ’e’s a-looking for lobsters, only I don’t think that’s why they come.”

    “We could get him one!” said Captain Cutlass eagerly.

    “Not out o’ my pots we couldn’t, acos I pulled ’em this morning and there weren’t none. That Bob Bodger, ’e got one, and sold it straight orf to Mrs Cox’s cook.”

    “What? What a waste!” cried Captain Cutlass, laughing.

    “Ah. What I thought,” he agreed, grinning a gap-toothed grin.

    “Ugh, hold on. Does that mean Mrs Cox is having a dinner party?”

    “Must do,” opined Mr Rattle. “Invited yer ma, ’as she?”

    “I think,” said Captain Cutlass cautiously—for having got out of it very early, she had not laid eyes on a single one of the family, “that we would have heard, already, if she had.”

    “Maybe. Mind you, it were a lively un, the dinner party could be—”

    “Tomorrow!” she cried, collapsing in giggles.

    “Right!” he acknowledged. “Gives you time to work up a real convincing bellyache, though, dunnit?”

    “True; but then to miss the lobster— No, an evening of Lady Cox ain’t worth any lobster that ever crawled!” she decided.

    Mr Rattle evidently agreed, for he spluttered and shook for some time, the pipe going out in the process and having to be rekindled with a coal from the brazier.

    They debated for a while the knotty point of whether the gent on the yacht—or possibly gents, Mr Rattle not being sure whether there was more than one—might be interested in oysters as an alternative to lobster, but finally decided it was not worth getting round the point to the rocks where the best ones lived merely on the off-chance.

    Mr Rattle sucked peacefully on his pipe for a while, and Captain Cutlass merely stared into the brazier, not thinking.

    Then he said: “Dessay your ma’ll be wanting some for Christmas, though?”

    She jumped. “Oh—oysters! Yes, ’course she will. And she said to tell you that you will be very welcome to come to dinner on Christmas Day.”

    Mr Rattle withdrew the pipe and scratched his chin slowly. Then he said: “That’s real kind, Cap’n Cutlass. But it’d be too fancy for me.”

    “But we are not fancy at all!”

    “Too fancy for me,” repeated the old sailor stolidly. “Anyroad, Bob Bodger, ’e’s asked me round there.”

    “Oh, good!”

    Mr Rattle sucked on his pipe. “Ah. I might go.”

    “Of course! Bob Bodger is not that bad!”

    “Ah. I might go,” the old sailor repeated.

    Recognising this was almost as good as consent, Captain Cutlass nodded, and relapsed into silence.

    Finally Mr Rattle, having glanced at her sideways once or twice without speaking, removed the pipe and said: “What’s up?”

    “Um, nothing. Well, only that Mrs Lumley has reminded me,” she said heavily, “of the frailty of all flesh.”

    “Ah.” Mr Rattle thought on it for a while. “The old feller, right? Pushing eighty, ain’t ’e?”

    “Mm. Though he is quite well, and she admits that herself, only— Oh, well. He’s working on his book again. She seems to think he will complete it, and then have nothing more to live for.”

    “I get yer. Is ’e near to finishing it?”

    She sighed. “Two years back he said he had but two chapters to go: the concluding argument and the summation; but he has not writ a word since then. He got stuck. Um, books are like that,” she explained on an awkward note.

    “Right. Like, ’e was becalmed.”

    “That is exactly it!” approved Captain Cutlass.

    “Ah. Well, yer can’t say ’e ain’t ’ad a good run. There ain’t many as gets to four score.”

    “Mm.”

    Silence again.

    Mr Rattle knocked his pipe out on the edge of the brazier. “Not a bad vessel, that yacht.”

    “What? Oh.” Captain Cutlass rose, drew the sacking aside, and peered.

    “Can’t see much from ’ere,” he noted.

    “No. I can see her masts.”

    “Aye. Two-masted. –Schooner-rigged,” he reminded her.

    “Mm. I have seen the Commander’s yacht, over to Guillyford Point,” she reminded him.

    Commander Carey’s wonderful yacht was a byword all along the coast—at least, amongst those who took an interest in boats. “Nothing like ’er!” said Mr Rattle quickly.

    Captain Cutlass’s eyes twinkled. “No,” she agreed meekly.

    “Still, not a bad vessel.”

    “I’d best get over and take a closer look, then; it would be a pity to miss her.”

    “It would that,” he owned.

    Grinning, Captain Cutlass drew her hood up, ducked under the sacking, cried: “’Bye, Mr Rattle!” and was gone.

    “Ta-ta, Cap’n Cutlass, deary,” replied the old sailor stolidly. He stared into his brazier. “Four score,” he said to himself. “Well, bugger ’im!”

    The yacht moored at the far end of the jetty was, indeed, a handsome sight, and certainly a welcome change from the fishing smacks that were usually the largest vessels to be seen at tiny Waddington-on-Sea, and Captain Cutlass leaned on the sea wall that graced The Front proper, and admired her for some time, heedless of the drizzle. Finally she said to herself with a sigh: “I wish she was mine. And I dare say if we had had a lobster, we could’ve got as much as five shillings for it off a nob from a yacht like that.”

    “Oh, all of that!” said a cheerful voice from behind her, and Captain Cutlass gave a gasp, and swung round.

    A tall man in a rain-dampened cloak was grinning at her. He lifted his hat—a round-crowned, flat-brimmed thing, not a gentleman’s hat by any means—revealing a tangle of short black ringlets, and added: “And cheap at the price! So you like Morning Cloud, eh?”

    Captain Cutlass had lived in a small community all her life, and there were, in fact, few people in Waddington-on-Sea whom she did not know, at least by sight. Although this man was a stranger it did not occur to her that perhaps she should not speak. “Is that her name? It suits her. Aye, a fine vessel,” she owned with a longing sigh.

    “She is that. Like to take a closer look?” He swept the hat off again, and bowed.

    Captain Cutlass might have hesitated but at this a much shorter, broader man who had been strolling along The Front came up and, touching his forelock briefly to her, put in: “Mornin’, Missy. Dessay as there couldn’t be no objection to that, Mr Loowis, sir.”

   “Indeed, I would love to, Mr Lewis!” she agreed eagerly.

    His lips twitched a little but he said nicely: “Excellent! And Cummins will play propriety—thank you, Cummins! But the name is Luís Ainsley, actually.”

    At this her broad white brow furrowed.

    Luís registered the frown with a certain trepidation—though he was not about to lure this pretty, odd little lass on board the yacht and ravish her, out of course! Merely, he was at a loose end, Waddington-on-Sea was possibly the most boring town in England, there was nary a lobster to be had in it—and those bright gold curls over the broad white brow, and the great limpid, hazel eyes were really something! And only English girls—and at that, few of them—ever had complexions like that: milk and wild roses, to use Pa’s very phrase!

    Then she said: “Really? I think Luís is a Spanish name, is it not?”

    He blinked, a trifle disappointed, to say truth, to recognise that she was an educated young woman, but said easily: “Yes, that’s quite correct. I am half Spanish, and my brothers and sisters and I all have Spanish names—though my youngest brother and sister have always been called by their nicknames, even by our Madre—I beg your pardon, our late mother: we alwayth called her that.”

    “We all have nicknames, too,” said Captain Cutlass.

    “Yes?” said Luís nicely, the white teeth flashing in a smile. “And may I be permitted to know yours?”

    “I make the family call me Captain Cutlass.”

    Luís’s handsome jaw sagged. “Madre de— But why?”

    “Because my benighted Pa and Ma went and named me Calpurnia Catherine!” retorted Captain Cutlass, flushing up.

    He laughed. “I see! An unfortunate concatenation of syllables!”

    “Yes. Though to do her justice, when Pa insisted on ‘Calpurnia’, Ma added the ‘Catherine’, thinking that I might use it instead. I don’t think she thought what the effect of the two together would be.”

    “No, she can’t have! But ‘Calpurnia’ by itself is not bad, I think?” he said thoughtfully.

    Captain Cutlass went rather pink: it was odd to hear her name pronounced like that: he had given the ‘Cal’ a much softer sound, and the ‘pur’ had not come out at all with the English ‘er’ sound, which had always struck her ear as most unpleasant, but in a much deeper tone, the vowel very much longer, something like the English ‘pour’ but not quite that, either, and the R very rolled. “Um, it sounds prettier when you say it,” she fumbled.

    Luís Ainsley looked at the blush with some amusement. He was accustomed to much more outspoken, and much more admiring comments on his occasional mispronunciation of English words or use of Spanish phrases—not to say on his own given name—from the simpering débutantes and gushing matrons of the English gentry amongst whom he moved when on this side of the Channel. “I think it ith pretty, yes!”

    “Thank you,” said Captain Cutlass uncertainly, wondering if she was merely imagining that slight lisp. “So—so ‘Madre’ was what you called your mother, sir?”

    “Yes.” Luís had noticed her blink at the lisp. He added, his dark eyes sparkling very much: “Our family cometh from near Seville, so pleathe forgive the occasional lithp, it ith a feature of the local dialect.”

    “Very funny!” retorted Captain Cutlass promptly.

    He laughed a little. “No, it’s true! Spanish usage is very different from English. Madre certainly found the differences baffling, and far from grasping that in English a final S is often pronounced as a Z, in fact was never known to use a Z in her life! Spanish,” he said, twinkling very much, “pronounces it as a ‘th’ sound!”

    “Help! That is certainly baffling! I can read several languages but I would not care to have to speak them.”

    Luís smiled. “Nor would Madre, bless her, and once she and Pa were settled on her little property in Spain, she refused absolutely to speak English!”

    “That’s very understandable, Mr Ainsley. So—so have you sailed over from Spain?”

    “Not in Morning Cloud, no,” he said, looking at the yacht with a smile. “Though she will do it, no problem: takes the Bay of Biscay in her stride!”

    “Aye, that she will,” put in the sturdy Cummins.

    “Yes: she looks ship-shape,” said Captain Cutlass with satisfaction.

    Luís’s eyes twinkled, and he revised his first estimate of Captain Cutlass’s age downwards slightly. “She’s that, all right. No: I have been in England for a while now: I was staying with my older brother, who is settled up in Wiltshire, but at the moment I am looking at a few properties along the south coast with a view to leasing hereabouts. And taking the opportunity to get in some exciting sailing!” he added with a little laugh, refraining from mentioning what most of his relatives had said to the idea of sailing in the English Channel at this time of year.

    His brother-in-law, Giles, however, as it dawned that Inez Ainsley y Vedia de Bastianini, though behaving with the utmost propriety and expressing herself delighted and grateful to be in England with her in-laws, was beginning to suggest more proper Spanish notions for Ainsley Manor in the place of Christabel’s English ones—and that Sir Harry was beginning to drive Paul mad—had said to him with a grimace: “Look, if y’wife thinks the south coast might do for you, Luís, don’t drag your heels; think she is starting to get on Christabel’s nerves somewhat. Ain’t there some place Blefford has available down there? And I think Stamforth mentioned a property over his way, too. Take the yacht, old man. Dare say y’won’t mind the English Channel in a winter gale.”

    To which Luís returned uncertainly: “Ain’t she laid up for the winter?”

    “Well, she’s down in Cowes with old Richards fussing over her like a hen with one chick, but she ain’t a damned pleasure vessel, y’know, and he’ll be only too happy to take you anywhere you please. Bay of Biscay, if y’like!” he finished with a grin.

    Luís did not respond with the usual epic accounts of his intrepid adventures in the Bay of Biscay, where everyone else on the vessel had been sick as dogs save only him, the captain and the fellow at the wheel—every time he had made the crossing, to hear him tell it—and this, his brother-in-law recognised grimly, was a bad sign. However, he did smile slightly and concede: “Dare say I could, aye. Thanks, Giles.”

    After a strenuous encounter with the Solent, Blefford’s property on the south coast had been inspected and rejected—too poky, miles from any town, Inez would be sure to mope there—and the intrepid sailors had beaten on up the coast, reaching Brighton the previous day. “There it is!” Luís had noted, his shoulders shaking slightly, as the spires and domes of King George IV’s unfortunate addition to the architecture of the seaside town hove in sight.

    “Aye,” grunted Captain Richards. “And I’d like to know what it cost the country, all up!”

    “No, well, these Hanoverians are all the same,” he said easily. “Well, Pa was used to know the late Duke of York, and you should hear the tales he tells of him!”

    Captain Richards sniffed, and suggested they might drop anchor here.

    “Well, won’t be no-one here, this time of year: no risk of running into the damned Society lot,” Luís allowed. “Uh—no, on the whole. Could go on to Sunny Bay: Bungo is staying with his friend Richard at Stamforth Castle, get up to it from there quite easy, I think—or uh, what’s the next place? Waddington-on-Sea, I suppose?”

    “Aye. Better anchorage, Waddington do ’ave, sir. Take ’er right in to the jetty, there.”

    “Good, let’s do that. I think there is a house on my list near there, too.”

    And so they had moored in the deep water off Waddington-on-Sea’s jetty, and Luís, having been inspired by the sight of lobster pots coming ashore further up the coast, had embarked on his fruitless quest for a juicy crustacean. Though it was true that Old George, the yacht’s cook, would not be able to do more with it than boil it in a big pot of water—but then, fresh boiled lobster was not to be sneezed at, by any means!

   After a moment, since the enchanting Captain Cutlass was merely staring silently at the yacht—she had the dearest little nose, not snub but just slightly tip-tilted—Luís cleared his throat and said: “Come along, shall we take that closer look at Morning Cloud?”

    “I should love it—thank you, sir!” she said eagerly.

    Solemnly he bowed—though the dark eyes held a lurking twinkle—and held out his arm.

    Captain Cutlass looked at it dubiously.

    “I am not waiting for this here wing to dry, Miss Calpurnia,” said Luís with the utmost solemnity: “I am hoping you will honour me by taking it.”

    “Um, yes. Actually,” she said, looking up at him frankly, “I don’t know how.”

    He swallowed in spite of himself. “Right. Well, everyone has to start some time, mm? I hold it out like this, y’see—drying shag, yes,”—to his gratification she gave a gurgle of laughter—“and, if you will permit me, you place your hand, so.” Solemnly he took her hand. “¡Madre de Dios, it’s freezing cold!” he gasped. “Where are your gloves?”

    “Mittens. I must have forgotten them. –I see, and then you will hold your arm against your side.”

    “What? Oh!” Hurriedly Luís ceased squeezing her hand, and held his arm to his side.

    “You are very warm,” said Captain Cutlass with a little sigh.

    At this the sophisticated Mr Ainsley went very red indeed, and failed to produce speech.

    “She’s lovely!” said Captain Cutlass enthusiastically as they approached the big yacht.

    That was precisely his opinion: lovely was just about the word. And blessedly intelligent, and not a giggler nor a simperer— “Oh—yes. She ith.”

    “You are so lucky!” she said fervently.

    “Er—no, Morning Cloud ain’t mine—only wish she was. She belongs to my brother-in-law. I am merely lucky in that he has allowed me to sail her up the Channel.”

    “Of course: Mr Rattle said the sailor told him that she belongs to a gentleman whose mother has married a Belgy,” recalled Captain Cutlass happily.

    This was true: the former Marchioness of Rockingham was, indeed, now Mme Girardon, and lived outside Ostend with her second husband, his roses, his ducks and geese, and his beehives; Luís’s lips twitched slightly.

    “I mean Belgian!” she gasped.

    He grinned. “Giles—that’s my brother-in-law—would not mind your calling his step-pa a Belgy, Miss Formby! He is a funny little fat fellow, but he has made Giles’s mamma very happy.” He wrinkled his elegant, slightly aquiline nose. “Giles’s father was a brute. Damn’ good thing he died when he did,” he revealed abruptly.

    “I see,” said Captain Cutlass, looking up at him in some wonder.

    Luís made a face. “Didn’t mean to mention it. I dare say there are no brutes in your family, mm? Well, I don’t deny there are some odd-bodies in my own family—on both sides, too—but nothing like that, I’m glad to say. No, well, I have said too much and too little now, haven’t I? The man was a drunkard and a bully: he beat both hith wife and hith son,” he said grimly, “and having drunk himself nigh into a stupor on bad brandy at some damned village tavern, fell off his horse and broke his neck when Giles was a lad of about thirteen—and good riddance!”

    “Absolutely!” she agreed fiercely.

    “Aye, it were that, Missy,” agreed the stolid Cummins unexpectedly.

    “Cummins is a local man,” explained Luís as Captain Cutlass blinked a little. “Plenty of Cumminses round Daynesford and Dittersford way, hey, Cummins? –Well, it was years ago—but we are all very fond of Giles,” he ended with a little sigh.

    “Of course. –I do know of one man who beat his wife and children; but he was not a gentleman. His name was Bill Kettle, and he drowned at sea about five years back—he was a fisherman. The really odd thing was, that his wife appeared to mourn him quite sincerely!”

    “I think,” replied Luís seriously, “that that is often the way. We had a case back in Spain, around eight years since. Pa had the fellow hauled up before a magistrate but the wife swore blind he had never laid a finger on her.”

    Unlike his relatives, Captain Cutlass did not seem to think this was just another of his Spanish epics; instead she nodded, and concluded: “People can be very strange.”

    Not having been brought up as an English gentleman, Luís Ainsley, in spite of his grand connections, did not consider those who lived in humble cottages not to be “people”: he squeezed her hand into his side a little and said: “That is very true. Now, shall we step on board?”

    Captain Cutlass agreed with innocent rapture—the attraction very evidently being Giles’s fine boat and not his own person, recognised Luís wryly—and mounted nimbly onto the gangplank forthwith.

    He had her to himself for all of two minutes, albeit with Cummins hovering in the background, before Captain Richards appeared, looking very dry.

    She held out her hand eagerly, and immediately asked Captain Richards a great many questions about Morning Cloud, to which he readily provided extremely full answers. The Captain himself then showed her the wheelhouse, the saloon, and even the galley, with Old George, grinning and touching his forelock, volubly demonstrating all his pots and pans. A greater contrast could hardly have been imagined to his reception of one, Emma, Lady Jeffcott, and her fluttering lashes, coy coos, flimsy muslins and over-frilled parasols, the last summer that Luís had spent in Cowes with Giles and Gaetana: the old so-and-so had pretended to be stone deaf in front of her. Wryly Luís recognised that that must prove it—if Captain Richards’s manner to Miss Formby had not already done so: for if ever there were a barometer of decency in women, it must be old Richards!

    “I collect I retire, duly chastened?” he murmured to his brother-in-law’s captain, as young Billy, seventeen if he were a day, and all bright blushes and inarticulate grins, was allowed to take the lady up into the bows, though under the stolid Cummins’ supervision, and point out—judging from his gestures—the bowsprit, which she could see perfectly well for herself.

    “You could do that, aye,” replied Captain Richards drily.

    Luís swallowed a sigh. “Just looking, Captain Richards,” he said with a rueful grimace.

    Captain Richards did not comment on his employer’s brother-in-law’s marriage. He merely said mildly: “Dessay that won’t hurt, though I have heard some say as a man can catch cold at that, too. Shall we go forrard and rescue ’er, before Billy’s got ’er believing we’re a ship o’ the line and won the Battle of Trafalgar all on our ownsome?”

    “Aye, aye!” said Luís with a laugh, and they went forward and rescued Miss Calpurnia from Billy’s clutches. Lies about the amount of canvas they would customarily clap on when headed up the Channel in a gale, it appeared to be.

    “There wouldn’t be a sailmaker in Waddington-on-Sea, I suppose?” ventured Captain Richards, à propos.

    Billy gave a loud snigger and looked sideways at Mr Ainsley.

    “New jib,” said Luís with a grimace to Captain Cutlass’s enquiring look. “Off the Isle of Wight I ordered ’em to set it in defiance of Captain Richards’s advice, tacked to windward successfully, and tore it to shreds two seconds after yelling ‘Jibe-ho!’”

    “Oh, help!” she replied, laughing a little. “But I thought Mr Rattle said you came in under your jib?”

    “That were the old jib,” he admitted.

    “Patched,” put in Mr Cummins with a sniff.

    “Aye, and unfit for a gentleman’s yacht, being a dirty brown canvas with the patch a darker brown!” admitted Luís, suddenly going into a painful spluttering fit. “Poor Captain Richards,” he explained, blowing his nose on a flag-like kerchief, “had bought all spanking new white canvas, and it were a lovely jib. While it lasted.”

    “Aye. So we got the new canvas stowed,” said the Captain with a darkling look at the culprit, “and it ain’t a-gonna see the light of day until ’is Lordship comes aboard! Only, we need to replace that jib, you see, Miss.”

    “Yes,” said Captain Cutlass in a small voice, as it dawned that “his Lordship” must be Mr Ainsley’s brother-in-law. “Well, there is Mr Colby, his establishment is on The Walk. Just go straight down The Front to your left,”—she pointed—“and continue on round the bay past the groyne at the end of the sea wall, that is The Walk. But I—I don’t think he makes sails for the gentry, only for the fishing boats. I think he has only brown canvas.”

    “I’ll take a look-in all the same,” decided Captain Richards, “for I don’t like to risk going on with no spare jib.”

    “Not with me aboard,” explained Luís, looking impossibly prim.

    Captain Cutlass did not smile. “Yes. Thank you both so much for showing me the boat. I—I think I should go, now.”

    It was perfectly evident to Luís Ainsley that it was old Richards’s mention of Giles’s title that had scared her off. Well, doubtless it was for the best. He bade her goodbye and watched, tight-mouthed, as she scrambled down the gangplank, and positively ran off up the jetty.

    After a moment Captain Richards cleared his throat.

    “Do not say it, Captain,” said Luís with sigh.

    “I was only going to say, sir,” said the Marquis of Rockingham’s captain meekly, “that the little lass seemed a bit took aback to hear me mention his Lordship.”

    “Sí. I do not think her family can be very fashionable,” replied Luís, his eyes on Captain Cutlass as she hurried along the Front. “Damn,” he said under his breath as the shabby old cloak suddenly darted down a side street and disappeared.

    The Captain waited, a resigned look on his broad, weather-beaten face, but to his astonishment there were no enthusiastic encomiums of the young lady’s hair, eyes, skin or person. Well! That was a first for Mr Luís, and no mistake! And don’t no-one try to tell him it was him being a married man as was making the difference.

Next chapter:

https://thefortunateformbys.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-fortunate-formbys-at-home.html