A visit to the Admiral's
"Dyn bach duwiol, tew a seimllyd"
“A little, short, fat, oily man of God.”
Duw a’m gwaredo! God forgive me! Those were the words - in Welsh of course - that all unbidden sprang to mind as I arrived on the Admiral's driveway and observed the Bishop about to enter the front door, sporting his customary black gaiters and his broad-brimmed, low-crowned hat. His posture, albeit not that of his usual ecclesiastical pomposity, had the familiar quality of florid caricature; the hand held to the back suggesting not merely pain, but pain beyond the ken of common mortals. The man was evidently in need of Win's famous manipulations. Even so, I found it difficult to be sympathetic. The prospect of having to be civil to such a little toad, agonised or not, gave me a shiver of displeasure. I bade Williams slacken his pace, and pull the gig in under the shadow of the elms, from where I was able to observe the Admiral helping him up the steps and through the portals. With mixed feelings I recollected Richard saying that Providence's allowing such creatures as the Bishop to crawl upon the surface of the earth was simply to provide material for satirical reflection. Richard liked to quote Bernard Mandeville to the effect that humility was not so ponderous a virtue that it needed a coach and six to drag it along. Or even a coach and two. Why was it, I asked myself, that diffident, humorous people like Richard died before their time, while self-serving nonentities like the Bishop seemed to go on forever? I shuddered at the recollection of how, thirty years ago, when he was a curate in Manorbier, and I a mere girl of eighteen, he had attempted to force himself upon me - unsuccessfully, I should add - and then compounded the offence by preaching a sermon the following Sunday on the general iniquity and unsatisfactoriness of females. At the time my estimable guardian, Dr Lewis, had merely smiled and laughed me out of my sense of outrage, declaring that the curate was no monster, merely a buffoon. He added that any person so adept at deluding himself was well qualified for the vocation of deluding others, and would be bound to go far in the world. So, in the event, it had proved.
"Ah! my little nut brown maid!" cried the Admiral, who re-emerged as I alighted from the gig. It was his customary salutation, one that never failed to set my teeth on edge. The fact that it was my first visit since the funeral was no good reason, in his eyes, for putting a moratorium upon jocularity. Sir Henry Richards was, if nothing else, a creature of habit, and he had first distinguished me by that particular mode of address on that eventful voyage on the Dorelia, all those years ago. Then, as now, he had affected an obtuse manner - and he had never entirely discarded the juvenile jargon of Westminster school. In fact Sir Henry was anything but obtuse, but it was part of his character to seem so. I put up with this elaborate charade with as much good humour as I could muster, which was not so difficult a task. For all his quirks and affectations, he had a good heart, the possession of which is a saving grace that counterbalances a multitude of sins. And in any case it would be absurd to construe his remark as a slight delivered de haut en bas for, if anything, his countenance was even darker than mine. His hair and eyebrows were admittedly not as black, but his face, weather-beaten by a lifetime in the service, and bearing the marks of a powder explosion aboard the Centaur at the famous battle of Cape St Vincent - was undoubtedly of a duskier hue.
"What do you think of this weather, then, little nut brown maid? Devilish hot, if you ask me. But of course with your complexion you can stand it better than us white folks. Win will be very pleased to see you, she has been asking about you every day since the funeral," he said. "Only at eight bells she was saying to me, 'If she don't come to see us today, I'm goin' round there tomorrow, come hell or high water."
"Ah yes. That sounds like Win. The Bishop called, I see."
"Take a dish of tea, Bellinda, her leddyship won't be long."
I tried to suppress a smile at “her leddyship.” How Walford would be turning in his grave to discover that his old adversary Mrs Cadwallader, the Abigail or bunter of Neuadd Fawr, and later "manipulatrix in chief to the British fleet" (as he delighted in putting it) had inexplicably become Lady Richards of The Moorings. But Walford’s sarcastic tongue, that used to have us all on pins with apprehension, had long been silent, and to me Win remained what she had always been, my oldest and most loyal friend.
"Win is still doing her manipulations, then? I thought she said she was giving it up."
"She mostly has, you know. But she still likes to keep her hand in with them as, er, needs to be taken in hand. And for special requests, as you might say. And the Bishop looks to be in a sad state, poor dab. What a power of doing good that woman has. A force of nature, that's what I call her. When she's not manipulatin' she's busy diggin' up the garden."
Or lyin' on a hammock, I thought to myself. "I'm glad she is otherwise occupied," I said, "for I would appreciate some private conversation with you. The fact of the matter is that it is you that I really wanted to see."
"You don't say so!" he replied. "Nothing amiss, I trust?"
"That is what I would like to ascertain. I mean, whether there really is anything amiss. I think I may stand in need your good advice, Sir Henry."
"You had better come inside and tell me about it."
Seated in the study, where tea was presently served, I unburdened myself to the Admiral on the subject of Richard's private papers, which I had only that morning started to examine. It was no surprise to me to find letters of a confidential character amongst them, touching on the activities of spies and informers. Richard had never made any secret of the fact that at the time of the American rebellion he was acting as a double agent, using the alias of "Ryder." I was nonetheless somewhat startled to discover a dossier containing documents relating to a proposed French invasion of Ireland, plans which had been apparently been drawn up by a person by the name of d'Auberade. I recollected that this was the name of the author of the exculpatory pamphlet on the French spy who had been executed for High Treason in 1781, at the time of the American war, Francis Henry de la Motte. There were also various letters addressed to Ryder from other individuals whose names I recognised, such as Waltrond, Baudouin and Henry Lutterloh, the first two known to me as French spies, the third as the devious adventurer and perjurer who had been the principal witness of the Crown against de la Motte, and who had disappeared in such mysterious circumstances at St Pierre.
"Ah yes, the famous Lutterloh!" exclaimed the Admiral, with a grimace.
"The same," I said. "The man whose career so well confirms that couplet about treason."
"I am not one of your literary folk, Bellinda. You will be good enough to remind me of it."
"'Treason doth never prosper; what's the reason?
For if it doth, it is no longer treason."
"It is true," said the Admiral after a moment’s reflection, "that he avoided the dreadful fate that befell his accomplice. But as for otherwise prospering, I think not."
"I am not displeased to hear it. But what makes you say so?"
"He later turned up in India, on the coast of Coromandel, where you were born, if I am not mistaken. Do you not recall that he was petitioning the ministry, protesting that he had been insufficiently rewarded for the efforts he had made on behalf of the Crown in securing the conviction of de la Motte? But that must have been over ten years ago. I have heard nothing of him of late."
"I take it his petition was not granted, then?"
"I think the Crown had at long last woken up to the brazen impudence of the man and very prudently concluded that was mere opportunism on his part. At an earlier date of course he was simply trying to save his own skin. But this is ancient history, Bellinda. There is some other matter of concern, I suppose?"
"So there is," I admitted. "There are documents relating to the invasion of Ireland..."
"You already referred to those," said the Admiral.
"No, I am not referring to the time of the American war. I am referring to the year 1798."
"Ah!" he cried, and turned to face the window.
"And there is correspondence relating to the activities of certain United Irishmen signed with the initials "J.W." And what is more, it seems that Richard is in receipt of an annual pension of £200 from the secret service fund. You will note that I say "is" not "was"."
The Admiral still had his face averted. I thought I heard a sigh, which might have indicated annoyance or vexation, but when he turned around his expression was quite composed.
"I see no reason why that pension should not continue to be paid to his widow," he said, "if for no other reason than to ensure that these important matters of state remain confidential."
"That is the least of it, Henry, and well you know it!"
"My dear Bellinda, you are heading up some dark alley and unless you throw some light on it you shall have lost me."
"It concerns me that Richard was not entirely the man I thought he was. I thought that he had long done with duplicity and double dealing."
"I take it you mean his activities in, er, how shall I put it? In the line of surveillance, shall we say. In the normal way of things he would have been done with all that after that deplorable American fiasco. But times have changed. It cannot have escaped your notice that war is conducted in a more savage manner than hitherto. It is no longer conducted with order, discipline and regularity, as it was before this execrable French rebellion destroyed all confidence and kind feeling between man and man, and turned them into brutes."
I could not help looking at the Admiral with astonishment. How was it possible for him to keep a straight face? From what I recalled of the famous encounter that took place off St Pierre and Miquelon, when the young Lieutenant Henry Richards covered himself with glory, there was precious little in the way of kind feeling between the combatants, and I ventured to say as much.
The Admiral retorted that I was very much mistaken, and that the civilised Christian nations of Europe had always understood the distinction between conquest and massacre. Unless it was conducted within a certain formal framework, there was always the danger of war not being brought to a speedy issue, and being unhappily protracted into a scene of slaughter and ruin, equally fatal and decisive to both parties.
But, as I recollected it, from my time aboard the Dorelia, slaughter and ruin was the very science that Lt Henry Richards (as he then was) had brought to perfection. To speak of carronade and cannon fire being exchanged at point blank range in the context of kind feelings sounded to me like a desperate piece of casuistry - and yet I believe that Sir Henry had convinced himself that to bear arms was not necessarily to bear malice. I believe he still liked to think of himself as a simple sailor, following orders to the best of his ability, and perfecting the honest craft of gunnery to the better achievement of mayhem and murder - all the more justified (one presumed) now that the French had embraced atheistical republicanism. It was a conundrum in which it was difficult to determine whether civilisation was embracing barbarism, or barbarism civilisation. The intellectual sleight of hand that permitted the miscegenation of the best and worst human qualities, was a thing so bizarre and so grotesque as to leave the lay person grasping - or indeed gasping - after appropriate words. For some reason I was put in mind of the lines in The Compleat Angler where the angler is advised, when he impales the frog upon the hook, to use him as if he loved him. When I admitted that that passage had always made me shudder Dr Lewis had laughed at me for my sentimentality, and wondered whether I was proposing to vindicate the Rights of Frogs, in the same manner as the philosophers vindicated the Rights of Man.
"I am just a simple sailor, you must realise that, Bellinda," sighed the Admiral, "I have but a poor grasp of ideas."
Poor grasp of ideas? I could not help but recollect what Richard had said to me all those years ago, that for all his vaunted simplicity Henry Richards's had a tenacious grasp of the one simple idea which takes precedence over all others, namely the ability to knock the other fellow down. That simple lesson - Estote fortis in bello - was well taught at Westminster school (as indeed it is, less expensively, in many other places) and it formed the basis of many a hero's subsequent career. The school of hard knocks says that if you pursue that one idea, all the others fall into their due and subordinate places. What avail the Rights of Man measured against such a standard? Amddiffyn yr Ymerodraeth, as my guardian used do say, with a cynical smile, adding that violence in defence of Empire was no crime. This was the lesson those schoolboys, like the esteemed Admiral, took into the larger world, and which made them such splendid servants of the Empire - a sure sense of imperial entitlement, coupled with a well-rehearsed facility for knocking down the man rash enough to beg differ.
"You cannot deny," said Sir Henry, "who seemed uncannily to divine my thoughts, "that civilisation depends upon the force of arms?"
That civilisation was to be equated with Empire seemed to me a debatable proposition, but I remained silent. I could not deny that at St Pierre it was the exercise of naval and military skill that had brought us all through. Or rather, I could not deny that that was the official version of what had happened.
" I would put it to you that it is no disgrace to serve one's country and one's King in whatever capacity is appropriate. And spying, I tell you, is just another form of soldiering."
"But I have heard Richard say that spying is a filthy game, not fit for a gentleman. And if I am not mistaken I have heard the same sentiments from your very own lips!"
"That may be so, but as we grow older we become wiser. Il ne faut pas faire des illusions, as the Frenchies say. One might as well say that life itself is a filthy game, not fit for a gentleman. But that is about the size of it, when the prayer books are put away. Our old friend Captain McCorquodale used to say that life is like a Chinese puzzle, and that there is one box concealed inside another. The inner box contains all those precious ideas that you like to mull over - liberty, equality, the Rights of Man and so forth. Those are the values that high falutin chatterers subscribe to, without being aware that they are truly otherworldly. They are just like the Christian values that preachers like to talk about - the meek inheriting the earth, and all such pious rubbish. As for the Rights of Man, they may bombinate in the brain of the philosopher, but they do not exist in the real world. Do you suppose for a moment, Bellinda, that is how the real world is organised? The real world, if you like, is the outer box, and what counts in that world is not such things as high principle and the power of prayer, but the pursuit of power - be it by force of arms or the influence of commerce. I am a simple man but am nonetheless able to grasp one simple fact. Without the solid base of force of arms, civilisation could not exist."
I listened to this discourse with more than a little astonishment and no little chagrin. The designation of "high falutin chatterer" was a little too close for comfort. I was so taken aback by the naked and unashamed Hobbism of it that I flinched, as if suddenly drenched by a bucket of cold water. By some stretch it was quite the longest speech I had ever heard the Admiral make, and the most intellectually consequential, although I had to admit that I baulked at the theory of the boxes. I was on the point of asking why, if the Rights of Man are considered so ridiculous, the same reasoning is not applied to the Rights of Kings, but my old friend had not yet done.
"Well, look at it this way then," he said. " Society is indeed a pyramid, though not as commonly conceived, for it is an inverted pyramid, with the army and the navy at the base and underlying the whole structure, so that without the soldier and the sailor the whole thing would fall to pieces when put to the test, be it by the aggressive designs of foreign nations or by the canker of internal rebellion. What you have told me about Richard is no surprise to me, " he continued.
“Not even those documents relating to a French invasion of Ireland in 1798?”
“Thanks to Robert the Ministry in London knew about it well in advance.
I was staggered and dismayed to hear this. I thought that Richard had long given up the role of the double agent. Had his passionate advocacy of Irish freedoms for all those years been nothing but a cynical pose? What would Curran and Macnally have thought had they known that Richard was all along acting as an agent for Dublin Castle, and a spy for the Ministry in London? I could not bear to think that he had acted so dishonourably and so dishonestly; had he not assured me that he had long done with spying and double dealing?
The Admiral saw my distress and said he could offer me some consolation - but on condition that I pursue the matter no further. When I agreed, I was relieved to hear that Richard was not the ministry’s informer, but appalled to learn that his correspondence with Irish patriots and certain individuals amongst the United Irishmen was secretly and regularly passed on to the Ministry in London by no less a person than McNally - Leonard McNally - who, in the guise of an Irish patriot, was all the while in the pay of Dublin Castle. So it appeared that Richard’s reputation as a patriot was to be salvaged by the suggestion that for all these years he had been at one and the same time the tool of a devious rascal and the unsuspecting dupe of cynical authority.
“I won’t hear a word said against Richard,” said the Admiral. “A genuine fellow, his eccentric Hibernian politics notwithstanding,”
Ah, those eccentric Hibernian politics! Richard, himself an Irish patriot, always maintained that John Bull was incapable of acknowledging patriotism in any other nation than his own. I was in no doubt that the recent suspension of the Parliament in Dublin had affected him deeply - and certainly did nothing to dispel the lowness of spirits he suffered during his final illness. Opposed as he was to revolutionary violence, he took that suspension as a betrayal of democracy- as a calamity for his country, and as a standing reproach to those politicians in England who had caused it to happen. Curran was right, he said, to liken Ireland to a poor bastinadoed elephant, kneeling to receive the paltry rider.
But I had neither the inclination nor the energy to remonstrate with the Admiral.
"I am obliged to you for bringing to my attention the workings of the real world,” I stammered, feeling somewhat weak about the knees, and trying to come to terms with something really rather horrible. “ I am obliged to you for intimating that I have dwelt too long amongst illusions. It is high time I woke up. I feel myself in need of fresh air."
"Oh indeed!" he cried. I fancy he thought that fresh air was the antidote to anything and everything in the way of intellectual doubt. "By all means. Shall we take a turn in the garden?"
My mind was in turmoil but I suppose I must have replied in the affirmative. I remember, at least, that Sir Henry took my arm in a fatherly way as I stumbled down the steps.
Then, as if proposing a game to a small child, “What say you to surprising Lady Richards and the Bishop in the gazebo?”
" Let us hope that she has concluded her manipulations," I cautioned.
"Would there not be a certain piquancy in surprising them?" he asked, with a dusky smile.
"There might... and then there might not," I said, with ill-concealed apprehension.
"I always knew you was good for a lark!" he said, to which I made no reply, it being about as untrue an observation as it was possible to be, and especially as I was trying to come to terms with his revelations about Richard and Leonard McNally.
Sedately, we proceeded up the gravelled path between the fragrant hedges of box. As we neared the gazebo, the Admiral suggested we confine our footsteps to the green turf, which betrayed no sign of our approach. Outside the gazebo there stood a table with two empty glasses and a wine bottle upon it. There was also, in the midst of a parterre planted with periwinkles and French marigold, a fountain with a little statue of Venus, which particularly caught our attention because perched on her head, at a jaunty angle, was the Bishop's broad brimmed hat. At the base of the statue was a goggle eyed stone frog spouting water from its mouth in a disagreeably brazen manner. My heart sunk within me. I felt myself perspiring as I heard pleasurable oohs and ahs from within the gazebo – sounds that will ever be as irresistible to innocent curiosity as they will be unremarked by the polite. Rubbing his hands with glee, Sir Henry proposed that we creep up to the window and take a peep inside.
For a brief moment, I was tempted to accede to this proposition and let this latest Westminster prank run its course. Il ne faut pas, apres tout, faire des illusions. But prudence dictated otherwise, and I laid a restraining hand upon the Admiral's arm. With my free hand, and unperceived by him, I was able to knock over the table with the bottle and the glasses. At the same time I cried out, in words that I knew would resonate with Win, "Cymerwch ofal! Mae'r llongau'r llynges ar y gweull!" - which is to say “be careful! the ships of His Majesty's navy are in the offing!"
As if in response to the ensuing clatter and warning cry, there came from within a flurry of indeterminate activity, a creak of furniture, a yelp of pain, and an answering crash of crockery being upset and falling to the floor. The Admiral gave me a more than usually black look and told me I had spoiled what promised to be a piece of damnably good sport.
Black looks notwithstanding, it was surely the right thing to do. I bethought me of what my dear guardian and protector, Dr Lewis, would have said. While instilling in me the importance of veracity, he had always conceded that for most people fiction has mighty advantages over the truth, and that, in the words of Dr Swift, if we take an examination of what is generally understood by happiness, we shall find all its properties and adjuncts will herd under this short definition, that it is a perpetual possession of being well deceived. The corollary of which is that we undeceive at our peril. It is sometimes a kinder thing to wish happiness upon our friends than good eyesight. As we say in Wales, many a truth is better hidden. “Llawer gwir gwell ei gelu."
The reader may suppose, if he wishes, that I acted as I did in order to protect the Admiral from the unanticipated consequences of veracity. If truth be told, my motivation was not philosophical rigour, but, rather, a sudden impulse to protect an old friend from unwelcome exposure. Or perhaps I should say "friends" - for did not Sir Henry have as much of a right as the next man to be deluded?
The reader may well wonder, in the light of what I have just said, what kind of person I was. If he really wishes to satisfy his curiosity on that score, I must warn him - or her - that it is a convoluted story, and that in the time-honoured manner I am obliged to begin at the beginning.
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