Race Before the Wind

Copyright © Jill Salkeld 1988

Part Three: 1826-1831

The Men of Enterprise

Chapter Six

The drawing-room at Crosstrees was suffocatingly full, with guests spilling into the hall. Private carriages blocked the driveway outside, and the narrow lane. Hired cabs came and went. In a marquee on the lawn a buffet catered for thirty people, but more than a hundred had arrived so far. The book brought in for the occasion was distraught; and the twins and Smudge, romping among the guy-ropes, were hopelessly over-excited.

Neither Tom nor Mace was complaining. If a launching party given for the Commodore and his sons could draw such crowds, it was excellent publicity for the company. None of the aristocratic gate-crashers had been turned away, and Jess was setting out to charm them all individually.

Tom stood on the front doorstep, welcoming late arrivals with a glass in his hand and a genuine smile on his lips. In the boatyard nothing moved except a curl of blue smoke rising from a pile of burning sawdust. The men had collected their fortnightly wages and been given the afternoon off. Tom was feeling relieved, exhausted and smug. Having overcome delays caused by everything from flooded or snow-covered roads that prevented the carting of timber, to having men laid off on half pay for weeks with a broken arm or leg, the boatbuilders Elderfield and Tandy had launched Spirit of the Wight on time and without a hitch.

Tom gazed with pride at the newly christened yacht moored at the boatyard's jetty. She was small enough to have been launched with masts and spars in position, and the Pelham boys had brought the sails and running rigging with them that day. A crew supervised by Charles Pelham was busy making the yacht ready for sea. A party of young bloods admired her lines from the jetty.

If Spirit's performance in the Solent this season were to bring in even one firm order for a similar yacht, the advance payment would take care of the company's overheads until the autumn; and Mace was both ecstatic and incredulous at the number of gentlemen interested in his newest design for a fast ocean-going vessel. True, most were probably just curious to compare his ideas with those of Joseph White and the famous owner-designer Mr. Weld, as Mace was the first to admit in private - but in public no such doubts were visible. His personality and confidence either held prospective customers spellbound or inspired their total contempt; a state of affairs which suited Mace. Respect or scorn: he would return both with interest, whereas indifference would have cut him to the heart.

Tom had several times been obliged to smooth ruffled tempers and win back a valued customer by tact and subtle diplomacy; but already he was beginning to envisage himself and Mace as old men, toasting the company's fiftieth year. Perhaps their grandsons would take Elderfield and Tandy into the twentieth century.

It was quite a dream, he acknowledged wryly, to have grown out of eight months' struggle to survive, and the launch of one untried yacht and a score of repaired fishing boats.

Mace erupted from the hall behind him, flushed and agitated. "Quick - what time is it?"

"Nearly two o'clock."

"Agh! No - oh hell!" he said; and clearing in one bound the six steps to the driveway, he dodged past the carriages, vaulted over the closed gates and sprinted out of sight. Tom gazed after him for a moment; most probably he was meeting some village girl or other. One had to take such dramatic outbursts with a pinch of salt.

Tom's guess was not wholly wrong. Just beyond the boatyard, Mace left the lane and pushed his way through prickly undergrowth to a clearing beside the river.

Vinnie Wells stood on the river bank. She was wearing her best blue skirt and lace-edged bodice, and his scarlet cravat held back her long hair. A tied bundle of clothes lay on the damp grass at her feet, along with a small loaf of bread and an unsheathed knife.

Her face it at the sight of him. He ran and clasped her waist, lifting her off the ground to kiss her. She smelled of rosewater and lavender. Her arms twined around his neck. Tonight she would be his; Vinnie who had never before given herself to him, nor to any man, gypsy or gorgio.

He set her down, still holding her waist, and he wondered how a man could bear such happiness. "Darling love, I'm so late - can you forgive me? I was so afraid you'd be gone -"

"You are here now. That is what counts."

He laughed; Vinnie had a knack of grasping the essentials and discarding the dross. After their second or third meeting she had lost her shyness, and he had realised that she was not scared of men in general, but only of the one man who had inspired in her such violent and bewildering emotions.

"How did you come here?" he asked. "Did you really steal a New Forest pony?"

"I said I would."

"Sweet hell - you might have been arrested."

She touched a finger to his lips to silence him. "Foolish Macey," she said, stooping, she picked up a knife and the bread. "We should do this in front of witnesses, but no matter. God sees."

She broke the bread, gave one piece to Mace, and handed him the knife.

Without hesitation he clenched his teeth and drew the blade firmly across the top of his thumb, wincing in spite of brave intentions.

"Oh Macey," she said, half laughing,"we are lovers, not warriors."

She pricked her own thumb lightly, and squeezed a drop of blood on to the bread she held, while Mace touched the other piece to his dripping cut. They ate each other's bread; tasted each other's blood. Later, he might laugh at the ritual; but now he felt his ancient solemnity, as binding as vows in church.

When they had finished, Vinnie took his hands. "I pledge my love to thee, Mace Tandy," she said. "To go where thou goest, live wherever thou livest, and to share with thee all things....my body and heart to be thine alone, until the day of my death."

Smiling, he repeated the words, substituting her name for his. She nodded, satisfied.

"We are man and wife," she said.

They sealed the marriage with a single kiss, offering the faintest promise for the night to come. Then Mace picked up his bride's meagre luggage, and hand in hand they made their way back to Crosstrees.

Among the carriages in the lane stood one that had not been there when Mace left. An opulent affair, crimson and gold, with a prim-faced coachman and a familiar coat of arms. The interior was empty.

Mace swore aloud. Thrusting Vinnie's bundle into her arms he said, "Follow, but not too close. All right, darling!"

He did not hear her reply. Vaulting for the second time over the gates he raced up the drive. The owner of the crimson carriage stood near the marquee, tapping a whitethorn cane against his boot as he conversed in low tones with Jessica. There was no sign of Tom or of the twins.

Mace bellowed, "Wickham - you bastard!"

Before the Earl could do more than face his assailant, Mace was upon him, bringing him hard to the ground. Mace straddled the prostrate and furious Earl and punched him in the mouth, then grabbed the end of Wickham's savagely wielded cane. Jessica was shouting for Tom, and trying to drag her brother off his helpless opponent.

Mace grated, "Don't worry, I've finished." He wrested the cane from Wickham's grasp and stood up. "Get off my property," he said. It sounded fine, though Mr Ekless might have argued the point.

Having been deprived of breath and dignity. Wickham struggled to sit up. He spat a tooth on to the lawn. A crowd of shocked and fascinated onlookers had gathered. The twins stood among them, frankly beaming. Tom shouldered his way to the front of the crowd and put his arm around Jess. He looked as angry with Mace as with the Earl; but it was to Wickham that he spoke.

"If you've business with me, let us all hear it!"

"A vindictive man," said Wickham, still panting, "would press charges against Tandy here for unprovoked assault. I should like my many friends here to witness....I press no charges. I am not a vindictive man. I came, Elderfield, merely to congratulate you on your success, and to see Spirit of the Wight afloat."

M<ace said through his teeth, "We'll do without your good wishes."

Wickham looked at him directly. "Yes, Tandy," he said. "You will indeed do without them in future."

To the spectators it must have seemed a very natural remark in the circumstances, and hardly constituted a threat. Mace was not so naive as to take that view, but he had made enemies before. Wickham could go and jump in the river. He shrugged his shoulders.

"You break my heart," he said.

A couple of gentlemen helped Wickham to his feet. He thanked them graciously. The guests muttered, sympathies about equally divided. Mace Tandy's behaviour had been outrageous; but everyone knew what Mrs. Elderfield's relationship with the Earl had once been. During those years he had often spoken cruelly to her, even in public; and though many fashionable set despised Jess Elderfield, the Earl of Wickham was not universally admired.

Wickham wrench open the gate and strode to his carriage; accompanied by half a dozen guests who seemed to be apologising on Tom's behalf, and certainly without his approval.

Tom hugged Jessica close to his side. "What did he want?" he asked in an undertone.

Mace waited to hear her answer.

"He will be spending less time in London from now on," she said. "When he's not sailing, he will be living at Durley Grange."

Wickham's Hampshire estate lay near Botley village, not five miles from Bursledon.

Tom frowned; his eyes glittered. "No reason given, I suppose."

He's nervous about being an absentee landlord. Some of the tenant farmers are getting edgy, he says. There has been some unrest among the labourers."

Mace snorted. "It's about time. Have you spoken to farmhands around here? They're on the same wages now as before Waterloo - and they weren't happy with the rates then."

"As I've cause to remember," said Tom.

Mace knew that he was thinking of his father's murder; but if wages had not altered since those days, the labourers' motivation had. After some years of comparative docility among the men, last year's harvest had been disastrous; and in addition, people were starting to blame the new agricultural machinery for rising unemployment. Though the radical William Cobbett no longer lived at Botley House, his public meetings across the whole of Southern England during recent years had gradually fanned discontentment to a dangerous heat. There was no telling, yet, how many folk might get themselves burnt, if something was not done soon to ease the plight of the poor.

"Wickham's labourers give him no trouble," said Jessica. "They are better paid and better treated than any others in the county. Mainly, I think, because the tenant farmers are charged a fair rent and can afford to pay decent wages."

Tom and Mace regarded her in disbelief, and Jessica sighed.

"You've only seen the worst side of Wickham," she said. "He's right, he does have friends - especially among the poor. He can be generous to those he cares little about. It's only the loved and the hated who are made to suffer."

This to Mace was incomprehensible; Wickham was obviously warped beyond redemption.

Tom's mouth twisted in sour understanding. "Thank God the yard is well insured. I don't reckon he'd risk causing actual damage, any more than he'd hurt any member of this family. He knows too well that if the law didn't punish him the Commodore would, and so would I. Evidence or no evidence. But I think we should all watch our backs from now on."

At Tom's words, Mace suddenly remembered the most recent addition to their family. Clapping a hand to his forehead he spun round to see his bride standing forlorn and uncertain by the gates, her belongings clutched to her breast.

"Vinnie! Darling - Oh, I should be hanged at dawn for forgetting you!" Running to the girl, he pulled her back to the newly riveted crowd. "Tom - Jess - twins and Smudge - gentlemen and ladies - I would like you to meet my wife, Mrs. Lavinia Tandy!"

And seeing the expressions on the faces of his brother-in-law and sister, Mace laughed out loud, and in full view of the assembled guests he wound both arms about his bride and kissed her with scandalous enthusiasm.

Vinnie settled into life at Crosstrees more readily than her husband and expected. Mace's bedchamber, which he used also as a studio, was the largest of the upstairs rooms, and faced south-east towards the river and the morning sun. The gypsy girl liked its airy brightness, and the subtly pink walls. When they were rich, Mace said, he would afford some proper paint, instead of making do with whitewash and damson juice. Vinnie did not yearn for wealth or fine possessions. She had the man she loved, the freedom to come and go as she pleased, and could sleep under the stars sometimes in warm weather - a pastime which Mace willingly sampled, and found delightful.

He was constantly amazed by Vinnie. Demure and soft spoken in everyday life, with scarcely a hint of the boldness she had exhibited as a child, she became in bed an insatiable wildcat, calling upon all of his imagination, stamina and skill.

"I have heard," she said once, "that one girl at a time is not enough for you, my husband. It is my duty to make sure that you have no energy left for such nonsense."

"I think you're winning," he gasped; but the games they created together added some delectable wickedness to married life, and Mace was seldom short of new ideas.

Wickham's presence in Hampshire had no apparent effect on the fortunes of the company. That summer brought them two orders for small yachts like Spirit, following Charles Pelham's success in minor races in May. It was a pity that Spirit could not have taken part in the Cowes Regatta, but in June Lord Yarborough and his sons sailed to the Mediterranean aboard Falcon, and before their return home the twenty-two gun pleasure yacht in its mainly civilian crew became involved in the British, French and Russian victory over the Turkish fleet in Navarino Bay, a victory that secured independence for Greece, the cause for which the exiled Lord Byron died in '24.

There were no orders at all for Mace's ocean-going yacht. Tom was unworried, his faith in Mace's ability undiminished. Give it time, he said. Let the R.Y.C. get used to seeing a new style of flyer on the Solent, and then maybe someone would risk an investment in a larger vessel.

Mace was not reassured, and his self-esteem plummeted lower than he would allow anyone outside the family to guess; but since his marriage he could not feel justified in totally despairing of the future.

The following summer, with three of their yachts now afloat, the company was commissioned to build a 120 ton luxury yacht, based on Mace's recent modifications to the original hull design of Spirit. Two more yachts were to be laid down at the same time, for different owners. Mace was suddenly gleeful, in love with all the world - except skinflint landlords. John Ekless, whom Mace liked and respected, was deeply concerned about the worsening condition of local farm labourers, and he had succeeded in stirring the consciences of both Mace and Jess. Having read aloud from Cobbett's newsheets in their youth, to an enthralled tavern audience in Hatchley, the Tandys had left politics alone since then, though it was true that Mace had gone once or twice to hear Cobbett speak. Now, however, it seemed to the brother and sister that the passage of time had made them selfish. They began regularly collecting copies of banned pamphlets - mostly Cobbett's from a local publican, and distributing them among the yard's workforce and the villagers. Not that they agreed with many of Cobbett's notions, for the journalist was savagely opposed to progress of any sort, including the abolition of slavery, but Cobbett had taken up the labourers' cause as his first priority, and that was what counted at present.

At the end of October, Mace learned something that put politics and ships' lines temporarily out of his mind. Employed with the rest of the family in hollowing out turnip-heads for Hallowe'en, he paused to watch his sister stretching up to hang one in the window, and moved to help her.

"You're getting fat, Jess," he said. "Too much good living."

Tom and Jessica exchanged amused and shining looks, and Tom said idly, aware of the twins' presence, "That's what caused it, right enough."

Before Mace could speak, Vinnie said with intense satisfaction, "Good - I am glad. Jess and I will grow fat together."

She then had to suffer being caught in her husband's crushing embrace and whirled round the room, until she squealed for mercy and Honor told her Uncle Mace to please grow up.

After the initial excitement, though, he was all tenderness and consideration. Tom suggested, as tactfully as possible, that it might be a good idea to marry Vinnie legally, and have a legitimate son to inherit Mace's share of the company. Mace and Vinnie complied with resignation, the ceremony meaning little to either of them. According to Romany law they had been wed for eighteen months, and in their hearts for longer still.

As the weeks passed, Mace was relieved to see his wife suffering no ill-effects from her pregnancy; in fact she seemed to gain an added bloom, while Jess by contrast grew pale, tired, and short-tempered.

The reason for this was evident even to the love-struck Mace. Vinnie could neither cook nor sew properly, had no inclination for housekeeping, and habitually left everything to Jess. Crosstrees was a ten-roomed house, and they could not afford more than one maidservant. Tom was not averse to cooking and cleaning, and unlike his brother-in-law was proficient in both; but he had very little spare time. In the end he spoke quietly to Honor, who at once took charge. Meals, as a result, were experimental and often unpalatable; but no one complained, least of all Jess.

In April 1829, Jessica gave birth to a baby girl, efficiently delivered by Vinnie, and christened Annis. The gypsy girl had warned Tom against calling in the local 'quacks and witches', insisting that Jess deserved better; and Vinnie proved that day that whatever her domestic shortcomings, she was an excellent midwife.

Her own child was born a month later, this time with the local midwife in attendance, for Jessica had no experience of any confinements other than her own.

Vinnie was in labour for nearly twenty-four hours, and when Jess came wearily downstairs at midnight, to where Tom and Mace waited in the parlour, her face was so drawn with grief and fatigue that Mace leapt to his feet, crying out, "She's dead, isn't she? Vinnie's dead!"

"No. Only tired. But the baby...." Jessica shook her head, her face twisting with pain for her brother. "I'm so sorry, Macey. It was a boy. He was so weak.....no one could have saved him."

Mace fought to control his emotions. In the past month he had crooned over little Annis even more than had the baby's father, and he had looked forward with joyful anticipation to the birth of his own child. More than all this, he knew what the baby's death would mean to Vinnie.

"Poor little mite, he wasn't even baptised," he said. Religion was not important to Mace, and yet somehow he could not bear to think of his own son buried surreptitiously in some forgotten corner of the churchyard.

Tom gripped his shoulder, saying gently, "Bear up, mate. Vinnie is all right, that's the main thing. There'll be other children."

"Can I see her, Jess?"

"She's sleeping, Macey, she doesn't know yet....."

He went upstairs anyway. The midwife was still clearing up. Mace paid no heed to the old woman, but he could not disturb his wife, seeing her so lost in exhausted sleep. He looked into the cot beside the bed. It was too big; the tiny corpse seemed so small and cold that he wanted to hold it and warm it, as he had with Smudge that icy morning two years ago.

He covered his son with Vinnie's moss-green shawl, and took the cot out to the landing, where Vinnie would not see it on waking. The midwife passed him and shuffled down the stairs, hunched in mounds of clothing, offering no word of sympathy or regret. Mace kept telling himself how lucky he was, to have Vinnie safe. He knew he would have to be strong for her in the weeks to come.

Trying desperately to concentrate on his many blessings, he thought of the flyer he would design some day, the one that would make them rich; the ultimate racer. He had seen its form in dreams; a sleek, streamlined hull, slicing through the waves like a sword. In the past, like a vision induced by opium, the lines had faded from his mind before he could define them on paper.

He went back into the bedchamber. He wanted to be there when Vinnie woke; no one else must tell her about their baby. The night stretched before him, long and full of sorrow.

Half ashamed, he took a pencil and a clean sheet of paper, and sitting on the floor with his back to the wall and a drawing board balanced on his raised knees, he began to sketch the lines of a yacht.

Part 3, The Men of Enterprise, Chapter 7

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