Bedford Square - Anne Perry [29]
Which was ridiculous. It would make her hate him—rightly so.
How did anyone endure having children and watching them grow up, make mistakes, get hurt, perhaps even destroyed, suffer pain worse, more inexplicable, than death? Had Augusta been any help to Balantyne, any comfort at all? Had their common grief brought them closer together at last or merely driven them each into greater isolation, even more alone in their grief?
What was this new tragedy? Perhaps he shouldn’t have left it to Tellman to investigate. And yet he could not abandon Cornwallis.
He threw away the rest of his sandwich, drank the last of his tea, and strode back to the Admiralty. There was no time for standing around.
He began with Lieutenant Black, who had served as first officer with Cornwallis in the China Seas. He was home on shore leave and might be called back to sea quite soon. He lived in South Lambeth, and Pitt took a hansom over the river.
He was fortunate to find Lieutenant Black at home and willing to speak with him, but unfortunate in that what Black had to say was so punctiliously honorable it conveyed very little at all. His professional loyalty to a brother officer was so great as to rob his comments, even his memories, of any individuality or meaning. It conveyed much of Black himself, his perception of events, his fierce patriotism and allegiance to the service in which he had spent all his adult life, but Cornwallis remained only a name, a rank and a series of duties well performed. He never became a man, good or bad.
Pitt thanked him and looked for the next name on his list. He took another hansom and went north over the Victoria Bridge to Chelsea, watching the pleasure boats in the river full of women in pale dresses with bright hats and scarves and men with bare heads in the sun, children in sailor suits, eating toffee apples and striped peppermint sticks. The music of a hurdy-gurdy drifted loudly on the air, along with shouts, laughter and the swish of water.
He found Lieutenant Durand a very different man, lean, sharp featured, roughly the same age as Cornwallis, but still a serving officer.
“Of course I remember him,” he said sharply, leading Pitt into a very pleasant room filled with naval memorabilia, probably from several generations, and overlooking a garden full of summer flowers. It was obviously a family home, and judging from the portraits Pitt had glimpsed in the hall, he came from a long and distinguished line of naval officers, going back long before Trafalgar and the days of Nelson.
“Sit down.” Durand indicated a well-worn chair and sat in one opposite it himself. “What do you want to know?”
Pitt had already explained his reasons, but this time he must phrase it more skillfully and learn something of the man. “What qualities made him a good commanding officer?”
Durand was obviously surprised. Whatever he had been expecting, it was not this.
“You assume I thought he was a good commander,” he said with raised eyebrows, looking at Pitt very directly and with amusement. His face was burned by wind, his eyebrows fair and sparse.
“I assumed you would say so,” Pitt replied. “I was wanting something a little less dry. Was I mistaken?”
“Loyalty before honesty. Is that no use to you?” The faint thread of humor was still there. He sat with his back to the window, leaving Pitt to face the garden and the sunlight.
“None at all.” Pitt sat back in the chair. It was very comfortable. “Sometimes it is all I can find.”
“A naval failing, at times,” Durand observed, a flicker of bitterness in his voice. “And the sea has no such sentimentality. She forgives nothing. She’ll find the measure of a man faster than anything else. In the end the only honor is the truth.”
Pitt watched him carefully, already aware of strong undercurrents of emotion, perhaps of anger or a belief of injustice or tragedy somewhere.
“And was Cornwallis