The Confusion

All of which was to say that it was not and never would be a place for a great lord to pile up a brilliant chateau, or a great lady to spread a fragrant garden; and while those dunes might be speckled with watch-towers and mortar-batteries, no grand marechal would ever make them terrible with a high citadel. The Marquis and the Marquise d’Ozoir had had the discretion to know as much, and so had contented themselves with acquiring a compound in the middle of things, near the harbor, and improving it, building up rather than out. The exterior of the main house was still old Norman half-timbered style, but one would never know it if all one saw was the interior, which had been remade in Barock style-or as close to it as one could come without using stone. Much wood, paint, and time had been devoted to fashioning pilasters and columns, wall-panels and balusters that would pass for Roman marble unless you went up and rapped on them with a knuckle. Rossignol had the good grace not to, and attended, instead, to what Eliza wished to show him: the view out the window.

From here they could see most of the ship-basin: a pool, deepened by dredging, and a-mazed by moles, causeways, wharves, sea-walls, amp;c. Beyond it the view was chopped off by the rectilinear bluff of the fortress-wall. Eliza did not have to explain to her guest that part of the basin was still used by the ordinary sea-faring folk who had always dwelled here, while another part was for the Navy; as much was obvious from looking at the ships.

She gave him a moment to take this in, then said: “How did I end up here? Well, once I had recovered from childbirth-” then she caught herself short, and smiled. “What a ridiculous expression; I see now that I shall be recovering until the day I die.”

Rossignol ignored the remark, and so, blushing slightly, she went back to the main thread: “I began to liquidate all of my short-term positions in the Amsterdam markets. It would be impossible to manage them from across the sea during a war. This was done easily enough-the result was a pretty hoard of gold coins, loose gemstones, and vulgar jewelry, as well as Bills of Exchange payable in London, and a few payable in Leipzig.”

“Ah,” said Rossignol, drawing some connexion in his mind, “those would be the ones that you gave to Princess Eleanor.”*

“As usual, you know everything.”

“When she turned up in Berlin with money, people there gossiped. It sounds as though you were most generous.”

“I booked passage on a Dutch ship that was to take me, along with several other passengers, from the Hook of Holland to London. This was early in September. We were baffled by strong winds out of the northeast, which prevented us from making any headway towards England, while driving us inexorably south towards the Straits of Dover. To make a long, tediously nautical story short, we were captured off Dunkerque by-voila!”

Eliza gestured toward much the finest ship in the basin, a Ship of Force with a sterncastle magnificently sculpted, and spread thick with gold leaf.

“Lieutenant Jean Bart,” Rossignol muttered.

“Our captain surrendered immediately, and so we were boarded without violence by Bart’s men, who went through and confiscated everything of value. I lost all. The ship itself became Bart’s, of course-you can see it there if you care to look, but it is not much to look at.”

“That is putting it kindly,” said Rossignol after he had picked it out among the warships. “Why on earth does Lieutenant Bart suffer it to be moored so close to his flagship? It is like an ass sharing a stall with a cheval de bataille.”

“The answer is: the innate chivalry of Lieutenant Bart,” said Eliza.

“How does that follow?”

“After we had surrendered, and during the time that we were en route hither, one of Bart’s petty officers remained on board to keep an eye on things. I noticed him talking to one of the other passengers at length. I became concerned. This passenger was a Belgian gentleman who had boarded this ship at the last minute as we made our way towards the breakwater at the Hook. He had been paying me a lot of attention ever since. Not the sort of attention most men pay to me-”

“He was a spy,” said Rossignol, “in the pay of d’Avaux.” It was not clear whether he had guessed this, or already knew it from reading the man’s mail.

“I had guessed as much. It had not troubled me at all when I had thought I was going to end up in London, where this man would be impotent. But now we were on our way to Dunkerque, where the passengers would be left to shift for themselves. I could not guess what sort of mischief might befall me here at this fellow’s hands. And indeed, when we reached Dunkerque, all of the passengers except for me were let off. I was detained for some hours, during which time several messages passed between the ship I was on, and the flagship of Jean Bart.