The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, the Confusion, and the System of the World (195 page)

2
JUNE
1692

F
OR THREE DAYS
Météore
had been swinging about her anchor in a languid circle like the shadow on a sundial, driven by the comings and goings of the tides. Eliza lived in a great cabin at the stern. Had this been a warship or a merchantman, this would have been the private domain of the captain. One of its walls consisted of an arc of windows, as broad as the whole ship, staring abaft. When Eliza’s view through those windows consisted of the town of Cherbourg, it meant that the tide was flooding in from the Channel, pushing
Météore
east-southeast at the end of her cable. When the tide ebbed, then, and
Météore
swung round the other way, she ought to have enjoyed a view out to sea. Instead, for three days she had seen nothing but fog: a murk into which all her carefully laid plans had been slowly dissolving. Very occasionally, loud booming noises would come out of it as gunners on the lost ships would take aim and fire at dark patches that were making suspicious noises. But for the most part it was a source of cacophonous music: sailors blowing trumpets and whistles, beating drums, and calling out in English, Dutch, or French and rattling chains as they raised or lowered anchors, depending on whether they judged it less hazardous to drift with the tide or stay in one place.

The two fleets—to the west, forty-five French ships under Admiral de Tourville, and to the east, ninety-nine Dutch and English ships under Admiral Russell—had collided in plain view of Cherbourg on the 29th, and joined battle. Tourville had driven hard into the center of Russell’s line, so careless of the risk of being flanked that he had flanked himself. Standing on
Météore’
s maintop watching the battle through a perspective-glass, Eliza had almost phant’sied she could read Tourville’s mind: He believed that the great ships in Russell’s center were under command of Jacobites who would strike their colors and run up Stuart flags when he bore in close. Instead of which they had opened fire, and it had developed into a full engagement.

On behalf of Jean Bart, Eliza had of late campaigned in the
salons
of Versailles to persuade young courtiers that the navy was as gallant as the army. Few had taken the bait. For one glorious hour in the Channel off Cherbourg, a battle had played out that, if only Versailles could have seen it, would have left the army denuded of talent for years to come. Never again would Eliza have had to use words to convey the glamour of naval combat, for it was all there plainly to be seen. The flagship of Admiral Tourville was
Soleil Royal,
new, with a hundred guns; as fine a ship as any afloat, for French shipwrights had caught up with and even surpassed the Dutch in recent years. Admiral Russell’s flagship was
Britannia,
also with a hundred guns. These two vessels went after each other like fighting cocks. There was no standing off to watch the battle from a remove, no tedious maneuver and counter-maneuver of the line of battle. The worst of the fighting was not delegated to lesser ships and lower ranks. Like two medieval kings jousting in the lists,
Soleil Royal
and
Britannia
went at each other full-bore, each giving as good as it got. Before long they had crippled each other. Only then
did Admiral Tourville seem to comprehend that none of the English ships would be coming over to his side—which meant he was outnumbered by more than two to one. New signals went up on the half-ruined
Soleil Royal
. The French fleet suspended the attack and drew off in good order. They had engaged a force double their size, rendered the opposing flagship useless, and stood down, all without losing a single vessel. More importantly to Eliza, the twenty thousand French and Irish soldiers camped outside of Cherbourg—mostly around La Hougue, ten or fifteen miles away—were still safe on terra firma. James Stuart, who had been King of England, and phant’sied he still was, had come out from his pretend Court at St.-Germain to head up the invasion; presumably he had watched this battle from some high place nearby. He had just suffered one more rude shock in a life that had been full of them: Not a single one of the British ships—
his
ships—had shown the slightest inclination to take his part in the dispute. It had to be obvious, even to him, that there would be no invasion.

Eliza would never have been so fatuous as to have said that the day had gone perfectly. For aboard those ships scuttling about on the water were men, and every bloom of powder-smoke meant balls of metal flying through the air and sometimes carrying away legs, or lives. But not a single ship had gone down; it was no longer possible to take seriously the possibility of an invasion; and Eliza’s plan was ticking along like a watch.

Then the wind had died, and the brassy haze that had lain on the water for most of that day had congealed into fog. It had come down like a grey velvet curtain terminating the first act of an opera, which was well enough; except that then it had got stuck, and there had been no second, third, fourth, or fifth Acts; only endless, sporadic noises off as the fleets had drifted to and fro, firing at phantoms. The rest of the 29th, fog; the 30th, fog; the 31st, fog; the 1st of June, fog! From time to time some intrepid sailors would reach shore in a longboat and grope their way along the coast until they found Cherbourg, and they would bring news. In this way they learned, for example, that some French ships (anchored) and some English ones (drifting) had become tangled together in the murk on the second day, and had at each other with cutlasses until the tide had drawn them apart. But really very little happened. On the first day Eliza had wished that all of Versailles could have witnessed the duel of the flagships; every hour since then, she had thanked Providence that no courtiers were anywhere nearby to see this travesty; or (what would was worse) to
not
see it. She did not envy Pontchartrain and Étienne, who would have to approach the King soon and request more money for the navy. She could not guess what the King might
say
, for he was unfailingly civil;
but she knew what he would be
thinking
:
Why should I scrape my Treasury floor to build wooden tubs so that men may bump into one another in fog?

She had all but given up hope for her plan when the sun had gone down behind the fog last night. “If I see the sun rise tomorrow morning,” she had said, “then perhaps there is a way; if not, the work of the last two months is wasted, and I shall begin all over again.”

At first light today she had gazed into the eastern sky half hoping to see nothing but a cliff of fog, for then her plan would have been unequivocally dead, which would have been altogether simpler and easier. Instead she had seen the disk of the sun, as crisp, and about as bright, as a copper coin resting on a bed of ashes.

She closed her eyes; invoked the Devil and the Heavenly Father in the same sentence, in case either of them was listening; and closed the shutters on three of the cabin windows, while leaving the others open. As
Météore
swung round on the morning tide, and exposed her gilded backside to the town, this signal would become visible to those who had been watching for it.

She began to pack some goods into a bag: first, five Bills of Exchange, which she wrapped up in a wallet of skins, oiled to baffle moisture. Then a rolled blanket. Scarves. A comb and some pins, clips, and ribbons for suppressing her hair. Some silver coins, mostly Pieces of Eight chopped into wedge-shaped bits, certain to astonish the English.

The rooves of Cherbourg were glowing, seemingly not with the reflected light of the sun, but rather from within, like hot irons pulled from the forge. A boom sounded from far off, then another, then a ripple of them.

Then someone knocked on her door and her skeleton practically jumped free of her skin; for she phant’sied somehow it was a handful of wayward grapeshot striking
Météore
. She dropped her bag on the floor and kicked it under her bed, then went to the door and unlatched it. It was Brigitte, her lady-in-waiting.

“It is Monsieur d’Ascot to call on you, my lady.”

“Bit early.”

“Nevertheless, he is here.”

“A few minutes while I make myself presentable.”

“Shall I help you?”

“No, for I am not really going to make myself presentable. I make him wait because I can, and because it is expected, and because he deserves to be punished for coming so early.”

“P
ARDON ME, MADAME,
for having disturbed your morning,” said William, Viscount Ascot, in French that sounded as if he’d practiced
it while he’d been waiting. Eliza thought of asking him to speak English; but he’d probably take it as an insult. “I was asked to keep you apprised of any news concerning the invasion.”

This meant several things. First of all, in spite of the fact that James Stuart had showed up, there must be someone competent still in charge and making information wash up and down the chain of command. Second, this man, Ascot, must be one of the agents who were supposed to carry the Bills of Exchange to London. Third, nothing was going to happen; for if Ascot and the other four agents were going to do it today, all five would have showed up at dawn, and they’d already be fanning out across the Channel in separate boats, each with a Bill of Exchange in his breast pocket.

“Time is drawing very short,” Eliza remarked. “The Bills must be presented in London three days from now. They must be sent on their way this morning, or else I might as well tear them up.”

“Yes, madame,” said Ascot. “The King and Council are aware of it.” He meant James Stuart and his claque. As if to emphasize this, he gazed out the window into Cherbourg. Somewhere in the town, on some church-steeple, there must be signalmen poised to raise flags as messages came in from the headquarters at La Hougue. “The fog is lifting!” he exclaimed. “When I was strolling on the upperdeck just now, madame, I was able to see one or two miles out into the Channel.”

“And what did you observe, monsieur?”

“Boats coming in, madame.”

“Under sail or—”

“No, for the wind is only just coming up. They are longboats, with sailors pulling lustily at the oars. Some of them are towing a damaged ship—a big one.”

“Do you think it might be the
Soleil Royal
?”

“Quite possibly, madame. Or”—Ascot smiled—“perhaps what is left of
Britannia
.”

This made Eliza dislike Ascot somehow; for he was after all an Englishman. He was straining visibly to say things he guessed she would like to hear; and his guesses were not very interesting. She was silent for a moment, out of sheer hopelessness. Into that silence Ascot put the words “On those longboats will be information, madame; the information that the King of England shall require to make his decision.”

Eliza nodded as if she accepted this; but what she was thinking was, first,
How could even a syphilitic be so insane as to phant’sy that the invasion might still happen
and, second,
If he doesn’t cancel it soon I shall have a grave problem on my hands
. She glanced involuntarily at the
cabin windows, and the three closed shutters. They’d been visible from Cherbourg for at least half an hour now. Things were in motion that she could no longer control.

For a minute or two it had been possible to hear shouting abovedecks, which aboard ship was a wholly usual thing; more so when longboats were coming in from the Channel bearing news. Eliza had paid no attention to it. Now, though, they heard a thunking splash. A man, or something as big as a man, going overboard.

“Madame, I beg your leave to investigate—” began Ascot.

“Go, go!” said Eliza in English; which startled Ascot so much that he reverted to it as he opened the cabin door.

“I can’t imagine what this is all about—what on earth—”

Eliza followed him out the hatch into a dark and somewhat cluttered space sheltered beneath the poop deck. But in a few strides they had emerged onto the open upperdeck of
Météore
. From here they enjoyed a clear view forward, which meant, out of the harbor and into the waters of the Channel. As Ascot had mentioned, many longboats were coming in.
Too
many, to Eliza’s suspicious eye; for how many were really needed, to carry a few bits of news? Bright patches shone out here and there in the fog on the Channel: sunlight illuminating squares of canvas that had been strung up to catch the freshening breeze.

As Ascot had mentioned,
one
ship—a big one—was a good deal closer. It was not so much being towed by longboats as being washed into the harbor by the tide. It had somehow caught a sunbeam that had pierced a loop-hole in the fog. Or so Eliza thought when she first caught sight of it out the corner of her eye. When she looked at it full on, though, she realized it was making its own light. It was burning. It was, or had been,
Soleil Royal
.

Her attention was diverted by another
thunk-splash,
then another. It could no longer be denied that men were jumping off the ship.

Several of the sailors on the upperdeck were men she had never laid eyes on before. And to judge from the curious way they were gazing about, they were new to
Météore
.

Just ahead of them a man vaulted over the upperdeck railing
on to
the ship. This was
not
supposed to happen. There was nothing
out there
—it was like a stranger jumping into a second-storey window.

“I say!” exclaimed Ascot, still stuck in English. “I
do
say!”

The newcomer turned to face Ascot. His answer was as follows: “Fucking whoreson Jacobite traitor!” He was raising one arm as he delivered this remark, and punctuated the sentence by turning Ascot’s head into a pink spout. The thing in his hand was a blunderbuss.

Eliza went back into the dark space beneath the poop deck and began pulling doors open. The doors led to cabins where Brigitte, Nicole, and a maidservant were lodged. “Into my cabin
now
, no questions!”