Ричард Вудмен - Ebb tide

The woman opened these and waved him to a chair with a grunt. She avoided his eyes and pulled a grey shawl about her shoulders as if to emphasize the cold penury of the house. He did not sit, but moved to look at an engraving of Wells Cathedral above the overmantel, chafing his hands to stimulate circulation. Several books lay on the mantelshelf; idly he picked one up. It was a little anthology of poetry. On the flyleaf it bore the name Eliz. Bower, her Book. He flicked the pages over until the name Kempenfelt caught his eye and he had just started reading the admiral's poem 'Burst, ye Emerald Gates' when the door opened.

Elizabeth stood just inside the room, her dark hair bound up in a ribbon, her brown eyes wide with surprise. 'Nathaniel!'

She took a half-step towards him and then faltered; he felt her eyes on his face and remembered his scar.

'You have been hurt!'

In a sudden, embarrassed reflex he touched it with his fingers. "Tis nothing but a scratch. I had forgot it. I hope ...'

She stepped closer and he clasped her outstretched hands. 'Oh, but it does,' she said smiling, 'it utterly ruins your looks. I am pleased to say no sensible woman will ever look at you again.'

'You guy me.'

'La, sir, you are clever too!'

'And you, Elizabeth, how are you?'

She sighed and her gaze fell away for a second, but then she brightened and looked at him, her face alive with that infectious animation that he sometimes thought he had almost imagined. 'Much the better for seeing you ...'

'And your father?'

'Is old and worn out. He takes no thought for himself and is unwell, but he refuses to listen to my entreaties.' She paused, then tossed her head with a sniff. He drew her to him and felt her arms about him and smelt the fragrance of her hair as he brushed the top of her head with his lips. 'I am so very glad to have found you again,' he said.

She drew back and looked up at him, tears in her eyes. 'All I asked was that you should come back. How long do you have?'

'A sennight...'

After Mattins on Christmas morning, dinner in the vicarage was a merry meal. Having Drinkwater as a guest seemed to have given the Reverend Bower a new lease of life and his emaciated features bore a cheerful expression, notwithstanding the fact that he gently chided his house-keeper for failing to attend divine service.

'She doesn't understand,' he said resignedly, 'but when God has made you mute from birth, much must be incomprehensible. Nathaniel, my boy, do an old man a favour, slip out in about ten minutes with a glass of claret for her. She needs cheering, poor soul.'

After the modest meal of roast beef and oysters had been cleared away they exchanged gifts. Elizabeth had bought her father a book of sermons written by some divine of whom Drinkwater had never heard but who was, judging by old Bower's enthusiasm, a man of some theological consequence. So keen an appreciation of an intellectual present made Drinkwater's offering to old Bower seem insignificant, for he had been unable to think of anything other than a bottle of madeira he had bought from Lieutenant Wheeler. For his daughter, Bower had purchased a square of silk. It was the colour of flame and seemed to burst into the dingy room as she withdrew it from its wrapping. Elizabeth flung it about her shoulders and kissed her father, ruffling his white sidelocks with pleasure.

As unobtrusively as possible, Drinkwater slid Elizabeth's small parcel across the table. As she folded back the paper and opened the cardboard box it contained, her eyes widened with delight.

'Oh, my dear, it's beautiful!' She lifted the cameo out, held it in the palm of her hand and stared at the white marble profile of the Greek goddess on its field of pink coral. She looked up at him, her eyes shining, and it occurred to him that, though inadequate, his gift was sufficient to illuminate her dull existence. 'Look, Father ...'

Elizabeth secured the vermilion silk with the cameo, leaned across and kissed him chastely on the cheek. 'Thank you, Nathaniel,' she said softly in his ear.

Drinkwater sat back and raised his glass. He was astonished when Elizabeth placed two parcels before him. 'I have no right to expect hospitality and generosity like this.'

'Tush, Nathaniel,' Elizabeth scolded mischievously, 'do you open them and save your speeches until you see what you have been saddled with.'

He opened the first. It contained a watch from the vicar. 'My dear sir! I am overwhelmed ... I... I cannot...'

'I find the passage of time far too rapid to be reminded of it by a device that will outlive me. 'Tis a good time-keeper and I shall not long have need of such things.'

'Oh, Father, don't speak so!'

'Come, come, Elizabeth, I have white hairs beyond my term and I am not feared of death.'

'Sir, I am most grateful,' Drinkwater broke in, 'I do not deserve it...'

'Rubbish, my boy' The old man waved aside Drinkwater's protest with a laugh. 'Let's have no more maudlin sentiment. I give you joy of the watch and wish you a happy Christmas. I shall find the madeira of considerably more consolation than a timepiece this winter.'

Drinkwater turned his attention to the second parcel. 'Is this from you, Elizabeth?'

She had clasped her lower lip between her teeth in apprehension and merely nodded. He opened the flat package. Inside, set in a framed border, was a water-colour painting. It showed a sheet of water enclosed by green shores which were surmounted by the grey bastion of a castle. In the foreground was a rakish schooner with British over Yankee colours. He recognized her with a jubilant exclamation. 'It's Algonquin, Algonquin off St Mawes! Elizabeth, it's truly lovely, and you did it?'

She nodded, delighted at his obvious pleasure.

'It's utterly delightful.' He looked at Bower. 'Sir, may I kiss your daughter?'

Bower nodded and clapped his hands with delight. 'Of course, my boy, of course!'

And afterwards he sat, warmed by wine, food and affection, regarding the skilfully executed painting of the American privateer schooner Algonquin lying in Falmouth harbour. He had been prize-master of her, and the occasion of her arrival in Falmouth had been that of his first meeting with Elizabeth.

Cyclops cruised in the Channel from early January until the end of April and was back in Spithead by mid-May when news came in of Admiral Rodney's victory over De Grasse off the West Indian islets called Les Saintes. Guns were fired and church bells rocked their steeples; peace, it was said, could not now be far away, for the country was weary of a war it could not win. It seemed the fleet would spend the final months of hostilities at anchor, but at the end of the month orders were passed to prepare for sea.

Admiral Lord Howe thrust into the North Sea with a dozen sail-of-the-line and attendant frigates to waylay the Dutch. The Dutch in their turn were at sea to raid the homeward Baltic convoy, but news of Howe's approach compelled them to abort their plans and Lord Howe had the satisfaction of bottling up the enemy in the Texelstroom. At the end of June he returned down Channel and his fleet was reinforced from Spithead. Twenty-one line-of-battle ships and a cloud of frigates stood on to the westwards, led by Vice-Admiral Barrington's squadron in the van and with Kempenfelt's blue squadron bringing up the rear. Rumour was rife that the combined fleets of France and Spain were at sea, as they had been three years earlier, but this time there would be no repeat of the debacle that had occurred under the senile Hardy when the enemy fleets had swept up the Channel unchallenged. The Grand Fleet had the satisfaction of covering the Jamaica trade coming in under the escort of Sir Peter Parker and then stood south in anticipation of falling in with the enemy's main body. But the British were running short of water and reports were coming in that Cordoba, the Spanish admiral, had turned south to bring Gibraltar finally to its knees. Lord Howe therefore ordered the Grand Fleet back to Spithead to take on water and provisions. At the end of August the great ships came into the lee of the Isle of Wight under a cloud of sail.