Free The Victory by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

it, he wished he hadn't, for there was no sense in reminding Lucy before time of the dangers of the Brest blockade. They were as well known to her as to anyone.
    The northern part of the Bay of Biscay was notorious for foul weather and thick fogs; there were hidden rocks everywhere, some far out from land; the currents and tidal streams were strong, and all set towards the rocks of Ushant; and the prevailing south-westerly winds made Brest, with all its hazards, a lee-shore.
    A ship of the line might lie off a little and preserve some sea- room, but the frigates, to fulfil their purpose of watching the enemy closely, had to creep in amongst the shoals and the spiked teeth of hidden rocks, with the knowledge that retreat ing from danger meant clawing their way out against the wind. Only during a settled westerly gale, when the French could not possibly get to sea, could the blockade relax and, if necessary, run for shelter to a home port.
    He sought to distract her by saying, 'I wouldn't take it for granted, however, that Farleigh's willing to stay on. What do you think she wants to see you about tomorrow? I'll give you odds she's going to say how wonderful it is that you've come, so that she can leave the children with you. She'll probably arrive with all their bags packed, drop them on your hearth and disappear!'
    ‘ Oh nonsense!' Lucy said robustly, 'Though I quite long to see Africa again. I wonder how she has liked living ashore?'
    ‘ You'd have loved to have had her chances when you were her age, wouldn't you.' Weston said.
    ‘ Well, I would. Will you carve me some of that lamb, please? Of course, there'll come a point when he'll have to send her ashore. It's all right while she's so little, but she can't live amongst sailors for ever, and then I suppose he'll send her down to Wolvercote to join the rest of the brood.’
    Weston thought suddenly and painfully of Roland, and his hand faltered in the dissection of the roast leg of lamb, and he looked so utterly stricken that Lucy had no doubt as to what he was thinking.
    ‘Oh Weston, don't!' she said in distress.
    ‘ How can I help it?' he said. 'My son — my only son, perhaps — and I can never be a father to him. He is to grow up with another man's name, and not know me.'
    ‘ But he isn't any different now from what he was before you knew, and you never cared about him before.'
    ‘ Oh Lucy, how can you say that?' he said despairingly, ‘You should be proud that he will be an earl one day, and a very rich one at that. What does it matter what name he bears?’
    He only shook his head, knowing that he could not make her see it as he saw it. 'And now there's this new child,' he said in a low voice. 'I can't bear to think that it will be lost to both of us — discarded like something useless. Our child, Lucy! It mustn't be!’
    Lucy bit her lip. 'I must say I don't care for the idea very much myself,' she said. 'It is such a trouble carrying them and bearing them, and it seems hard to be obliged to do it all for nothing.' He could almost have laughed at the inadequacy of her language. 'But there is nothing to be done about it,' she went on. ‘Chetwyn won't change his mind.'
    ‘We could defy him,' Weston said.
    Lucy put down her fork and looked at him sadly. 'Oh Weston, you don't begin to understand. I'm his wife, I am completely in his power. He would break you, and ruin you. And he could lock me up and keep me as a prisoner, if he wanted.'
    ‘I would come and rescue you,' he said stubbornly.
    ‘ And what use would that be, if you were a proscribed man, a debtor, a beggar?'
    ‘ We could go abroad. He couldn't touch us there.’
      ‘ Where abroad? We'll be at war any day now.'
    ‘ The war won't last for ever. Or we could go to America.' She shook her head. 'And live on what? I don't want to be a beggar in a foreign country. How could we be happy, always wondering where our next meal was to come from? No, we are better off as we are. He has not said we must