The Covert Captain, page 3
He looked almost girlish, when first she saw him. Standing in his stockings, his coat still clothing the back of a chair, the captain was shorter and more slightly framed than she had thought. He had chosen a plain cravat, not an officer’s black stock, and Harriet thought he must have set down his razor only a moment before; no morning trace of beard showed above the linen. His fair hair still fell unbound over his shoulders, and he was absorbed in polishing his boots.
“You must let Linton do that,” said Harriet.
Captain Fleming gave a shout. Whatever he had expected, water-boy or fresh coal scuttle, it was not the Major's sister in morning silk and walking shoes. He brought his blacking rag before his face, without thinking; the carbon smell of it screwed his eyes shut, and well-mannered words went by the open window.
“Indeed,” she went on, to excuse herself, “I thought your man was with you, at this hour.”
“John Linton,” said Fleming, not quite recovering himself. “My boots!”
“Yes, if you have no one here to see to it. I am certain Sherry would not mind.”
“Good morning, my lady, and thank you, but Cap—Mister Linton was my superior officer half across Spain. Thinking him any man’s bootblack sends me queer in the head.”
“My brother is an excellent master.” Harriet said it to her gloves.
“Yes, or he should not be mine.” The captain coughed. “And for yourself, my lady Harriet? What would you of me, at eight of a clock?”
“I came to say it is near setting-off time, as Sherry means to walk—leg and all!”
“What, to the hunt?”
“To Bournesea church! It is—it is Sunday, Captain.”
He murmured, and seemed contemplating which was the graver sin, to stand before her stocking-footed or, in her presence, to put on his boots; in the end Fleming thrust his hands behind his back.
“Sherry tried to put me off by say—” Harriet colored up. “Are you a Dissenter?”
“Nay. No,” he amended, and bent again to swipe at a smudge that was not there, as if the heather-edge of the West Riding were a stain to be rubbed out. “No more than my lord the Earl.”
“Accompany us, then!”
“As Sherry does not care to suffer alone?” Captain Fleming was, for a moment, unkind.
“As it is a beautiful morning, and I wish it.”
He bowed. Then he turned to the soldier’s chest at the foot of his bed, and searched in it to his elbows. Harriet would not venture to peer among a man’s possessions, but without rising onto her toes she saw black stocks and white shirts—few—laid precisely in the upper tray, books and papers mosaic-close below. The books Captain Fleming wanted did not come easily to hand.
The first was an old Watts hymnal; the second had no gilt left to tell its title. Its Morocco cover was flaking, and the corners were beaten soft. One of the captain’s plain black ribbons marked it. The pages stirred, when Fleming tossed the book down to button his coat, and it fell open to The Order for the Burial of the Dead.
In the church porch, Fleming found himself suddenly possessed of hymnal, mitts, comfit-case, fan, and stunning view of the smirk on Sherbourne’s face as Harriet walked ahead.
“You are a pawn, Fleming,” Sherbourne laughed, loudly as he dared. “Poor bastard, long may she use you to cock a snook at my cousin. Dozy cow,” he added, and then, “Give you g’morning, Vicar!”
It was Fleming’s turn to laugh, then, as Sherbourne looked like a boy caught out and Harriet looked a queen.
“Spaniel—Spaniel, I say. Give me that rubbish.” Sherbourne gave a hand for his sister’s things. “Can’t say she’s ever been squired of a Sunday. Stopped me doing it ages ago. You’re considerable more pleasant in the face, at that.”
“M-major?”
“Get up there, Captain. It’s a lady’s elbow, not an infantry square.”
“Your sister,” tried Fleming.
“My fists, sir!”
Fleming ducked away. The ladies were passing out of the churchyard, even hampered as they were by skirts; he was obliged to trot—to run, most surely—and keep one hand to his Sunday hat lest it fly. He reached the Viscountess’ side without too much blowing, and when she halted, he bowed so deeply as to see the flyspecks on her stocking.
“Viscountess Beauchamp. If I may deprive you of my lady Harriet…?”
She did not address him. Harriet gave Fleming a curtsey past his rank, for the Beauchamps’ sake, and then tucked her arm under his. Fleming cut his stride only a trifle, and thought they went along well together in parade step; they went on some lengths in quiet before he noted Harriet was blinking, and blinking, and speaking under her breath.
“Madam?”
“Dam’ good of you back there, I was only saying,” she answered. “Do you know, Sherry said you would not come to church?”
The captain lost pace for a moment. “In truth, madam, I have not often—since the Brabant—I have grown unconvinced any god is to be found in church.”
To his surprise she regarded him steadily, and pressed his arm. “Sherry will not speak of it, but I believe he is much the same. I do not know him as well as I used—I was not much in his confidence while the Seventh was abroad—but I think he will throw the vicar over for whisky soon enough.”
Fleming knew her correct, but found that his answer was to keep his lips stitched.
“My father was Colonel of the Regiment, before his wound sent him hors de combat; Sherry has been the king’s man so long as I’ve been alive. Men do what they must. I would a thousand times Sherry drink than he shot himself.”
“As you say, madam,” said Fleming, and meant it.
“You do not really agree.” Harriet bent her brows at him. “You have been two weeks with us, and you are all lemonade and chocolate. I do not believe you take even hock. For a godless man, you are quite Methodist.”
“Can’t stand hock, don’t like claret,” Fleming answered, nettled to frankness. “Ratafia quite disguises me, and port is damned disgusting. And I do not care for losing my wits.”
“What do you do, then? When you must.”
“Ballads, madam. Horses.” He could not look at her. “Forgive me. I have given you a most melancholic walk.”
“Oh, no! We have left the family quite behind, though—or else they are all ahead. I must thank you, Captain, for sparing me two miles ‘midst the Beauchamps, and in your turn you will forgive me for bringing the talk to war?”
“There is no need, madam, for pardon or for thanks.”
“But I do not like being at evens with you. It bores so.” She considered a moment, fiddling with her lily-white Sunday tucker; she let go his arm, and said, “Harry.”
“…Madam?”
“My Christian name is Harry.” She left him, indeed, on an uneven footing of a sudden. She looked at him for a moment—they did not differ much in stature, and her brown eyes were startling bright—and then swept up her skirts and ran from the road.
In a spate of words unfit for Sunday, or women, or running at speed, he lit after her. He had no good idea through whose field they were racing, or its purpose; Fleming spared a prayer for averting cowpats as he ran. In breeches it was a small thing to overtake her, though they might otherwise have been matched. When she went over a low stone boundary, he was just behind.
“Blast! Bother! Bother!”
Fleming pulled up short to keep from knocking her to the earth. “Harry?” He said before he thought. “Are you well?”
“Bother. It’s only—I’ve still beaten you,” she wheezed. “It’s my bloody walking dress, ruined. Now comes the sermonizing upon footraces on Sunday.” Harriet groaned. “Cousin Beauchamp will have raptures.” She flopped into a pile of leaves beneath the wall, costume unheeded, and scowled at the petticoat showing through the russet silk.
“My lady, I have always delighted in spiking an enemy gun.”
“Sir?”
Fleming took a smart little housewife from a recess of his coat, knelt in the leaves at Harriet’s side, and examined the tear. Instead of giving needle and thread to Harriet, he turned the skirt’s edge to its wrong face and began mending, with stitches tiny and even and quick. He pleated the repair up into the sunlight and then, inspection over, threaded new silk to the needle and stowed it away again.
“You are ten times keener at that than I,” said Harriet.
“One is responsible for one’s turnout, madam, and those lovely braid facings are the very devil.”
“Ugh, to be called to account for your uniform in the middle of a real war! Sherry always had his batman look to it.”
The captain was replacing his gloves; he held up one hand and waved, near shyly.
“Heavens, what would Sherry have done without you?”
“Gone stark naked, madam. He had a proper batman for his firing piece and his boots; I lost my man at Orthez, and never much wanted another.”
Chapter 5
She skirted the paddock on purpose to find him, and because she had rather spend a quarter hour going uphill to the house than treading her business in Bournesea over with her cousin. Hidden under a new frill, a pair of stockings she did not need, and a sheaf of letter-paper in Harriet’s basket were Mr. Polidori’s Vampyre and two new pens.
Captain Fleming was upon Malabar’s back, leading Sherbourne’s white war-horse on a longe. He lifted his hat to her as she came past the paddock fence, but turned again to his task with barely a smile; a half-second later the white gelding shied and reared, terribly close to the captain and his mount.
Fleming’s voice was cool, almost too low to hear. “Courbette, Malabar.” Harriet had half a lifetime of French, but was not ready to see the grey mare go straight onto hind-legs, rearing upcurved as the white gelding had, with the captain seated easily as breathing; then Malabar’s arc became a rippling leap forward, so that the mare and the gelding came down to the turf together.
“Stay in step, you blockhead!”
The gelding faltered at the command, collided with Malabar’s near flank, and on a moment all their tack was in a tangle.
“Go gee, if you’ve a mind!” Fleming leant out over his mare’s bridle, to disengage the gelding’s longe-line; the animal’s jaw caught Fleming upon the right arm. Then the horse shook free, annoyed, showed his rear shoes and ran.
“Captain?” Harriet was already over the fence. “Captain Fleming!”
He slipped from the saddle limp, without a murmur, fell to the paddock’s turf and lay still. When she reached him, his eyes were half-open and he was grey in the face. Malabar stood half over the captain, cairn-solid, head drawn low, sharp-shod hooves pawing when Harriet drew near.
“Please move,” she begged, crouching closer. “Oh, please move.” She could not have said whether she spoke to horse or rider, and it glanced off both. Upon the ground where Fleming had fallen was something wet, darker far than dew; red, when Harriet edged her slipper past. She said the worst word she knew.
“Stupid horse,” she snapped. Her throat was thickening. “Harry, don’t be an ass, don’t be a girl.” Harriet forced herself to look the grey war-horse in the eye. She threw back her shoulders and tried to sound like Fleming. “Whoa, back!”
Malabar retreated.
From the ground at Harriet’s elbow, a wheezing sound, a laugh. “That was…very well done.”
“You’re alive,” breathed Harriet, scrambling to aid him to sit.
“Pity.” Dazed still, Fleming blinked, and scrubbed his left hand over his eyes. “Wh-where’s Mesrour? The white horse. Won’t hurt you, but silly enough to… to clear the fence. Too young for the work. Too silly. A pox on your bastard son, madam!”
Harriet sat away from him, afraid he had been struck witless.
“Sorry. Sorry. Was addressing the mare.”
“Sir, you are unwell. Let me fetch Sherry to you, or the grooms—”
“No!” On a moment Fleming’s voice was distinct. “No. I beg you don’t be foolish. I’ve broken nothing. It’s nothing of consequence.”
“You’re bleeding.” For proof, Harriet turned back the right-hand sleeve of Fleming’s barn frock. Blood welled from the edge of a long and wicked scar, seeping along a bruise already crimson.
“I will see to it,” said Fleming.
Harriet reached behind, to unfasten the coarse, bloody smock and cast it away. “If you will but let me—”
She might have put a knife into Fleming’s back. He leapt upright, though he staggered, and his unhurt arm went over Malabar’s neck. “I will see to it!”
“As you wish,” Harriet answered. She got herself off the ground, her skirts a soaked riot of red and brown and green. She wished, for her part, that they were not so alike in height; she could match the captain’s gaze, and read all she found there.
He flinched. He would not give his back to her, but he could not keep her eye.
“Pray excuse me, Captain.” More grieved than nettled, and nettled that she grieved, Harriet swept past him and set about finding a graceful way over the fence.
She stood with her knees pressed tight to stop them shaking. She had padded Nate’s boots out with rags to make herself taller, and laid the knot of his faded black stock to hide the dip where her Adam’s-apple was not. The fall-front of the pantaloons she was less sure of, but a cavalryman wore a coverall, or breeches, and a cavalryman she would be. Eleanor did not lean upon Barley, much as she wished to do; she lined her toes up with the gelding’s hooves, turned her feet out and clasped her hands behind her back in her brothers’ air.
“You’re not overgrown,” the officer said, and made her jump. He was five years older, perhaps, than she; he had left boyhood behind, but his eyes were wicked and sparking. His black hair was quite curled, and seemed not all to fit under his shako. “Why should you be a cornet and not a curate?”
“One king is very like t’other, and I am passing better with horses than I m’n be with souls.”
“Has that tongue in your head been educated, boy?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, and stood so straight she must tip backward.
“Then for the Lord’s sake speak properly, or I will send your tongue home to Yorkshire and the rest of you to the devil, and you may say Lieutenant Sherbourne sent you. Is that horse yours?”
“Mine, sir, from my father,” Eleanor spoke truth. She patted Barley’s gleaming side. “John Barleycorn, by Sorceror.”
The officer whistled, low. When he had given Eleanor a hand-up, he spent five minutes more going over the sorrel gelding. “That is deuced fine. Very well! Walk your beast.”
“My beast comes with me upon him,” Eleanor answered.
“He does not, boy, if you do not heed an order. Show me a hand-gallop, and take him round as I say.”
Eleanor sat forward, to give herself height in the stirrups, and nudged Barley up to pace as the officer bade; then all she must do was listen, and make Barley heed the—
“Wheel about left! Come by right! Come by left and tight to me, tight I said!”
The officer gave Barley a touch with his crop when they passed, and gave one to Eleanor for good measure. She had expected it; she stayed stuck in, and kept her gaze between the gelding’s ears.
“Forequarters light!” The demands resumed, and fast. Eleanor collected her wits against the sting in her leg, dropped her seat and made Barley rear.
“Hindquarters light!”
“What, from a stop?”
“Speak me formal, boy, I don’t care who your horse is! Say, from a stop, Lieutenant?”
“Sir, from a stop, Lieutenant?”
“As you must, you silly little sod!”
Past the unflinching young officer at full gallop, she reined tight, clung like a limpet, and did not fly over Barley’s head as he showed his hind shoes. It cast up her stomach and rattled her teeth.
“Get down, then. What’s your name?”
“N-Nathaniel Fleming, sir.”
He offered her his hand, and she endeavored to grip as hard. “Could you do as well upon a big horse, a drum horse? You are small for much save the drum, but we are lately tasked—honored with it.”
“I have never been tried,” said Eleanor, a tremble rising from throat to voice.
The lieutenant’s look was suddenly kind. “I suppose you would rather not part from this one. Well! Don’t get him shot from under ye, then, Cornet Fleming.”
“Sir?”
“Take your beast to the quartermaster—with you upon him—and say particularly, Lieutenant Sherbourne wonders have we a coverall short and narrow.”
Sherbourne’s stable-door made a sound like a firing piece in the night. She woke hay-strewn and grievous sore, and hurried upright by the aid of Malabar’s foreleg. A prospect agonizing stiff, now, to sleep on a stable floor, no matter how deep the bedding; it queered and sickened her as she came out of the dream. She was, for a moment, still green and young, still Nora, tasting doubt when she lowered her voice and stood to her full height. She thought to duck into the shadows of Malabar’s box—it was rather the size of her room in Bournebrook house—and pass the night’s watches in what she could call peace.
“Captain Fleming?”
It was not Sherbourne, nor any of the grooms.
“Sherry and Beauchamp are sitting to midnight supper, but I thought you should not wish—Captain Fleming? Hello?”
Fleming let a mash-bag rattle conspicuously, and stepped from Malabar’s stall plucking straws out of his shirt. He gave her a smile in greeting’s stead, because he did not trust the timbre of his voice.
Harriet, pale in a pale gown, bore a lantern in one hand and a covered pail in the other. Confusion and concern touched her countenance; she looked toward his right arm, bound in a feedsack sling, and nearly scowled.
“That is what you meant by seeing to it, I suppose? You and Sherry are in the same mold. I hope it is decent clean!”
Fleming shrugged. “Clean, yes, and well bound with honey. Malabar thought the first dressing appetizing to a nicety.”
Harriet smiled back at him. “I fear she will be spoiled, then, for the baked apples.” She offered the pail to Fleming, with linen tucked round to keep the repast warm: three baked apples and a cork-stopped bottle of custard, some slices from the officers’ joint of beef, and a loaf of bread. “I have eaten my share already. It leaves two for Malabar, and one for you.”
