Page 16 of Return to Satterthwaite Court

“When you decided to go to Portsmouth instead of Cambridge, without regard for my wishes or those of your mother, you told us you intended to make the Navy your life.”

“It was the truth.”

“I recall you making an impassioned argument about your duty to King and country. About the honor you’d bring to the family name and how you’d be putting your skills to good use rather than moldering in the country—”

“I know what I said then.”

“And now?”

Charles hated to admit that all of his arguments had come to nothing. That rather than honor, he’d ultimately brought disgrace on the Heywood name. “It's past time I settled down,” he said instead. “In future, my energies can be better expended managing an estate.”

His father gave him a dubious look. “Am I to believe you’ve given up the Navy in order to marry and start a family?”

Charles downed a swallow of tea. The brew left a bitter taste in his mouth.

The conclusion his father had drawn wasn’t entirely inaccurate. Though it hadn’t been Charles’s reason for leaving the Navy, marriage was certainly a consideration now he was home. It was all part and parcel of the quiet, peaceful life he envisioned for himself. A life he’d imagined with increasing frequency during his final years at sea.

That fact made it no less tedious to contemplate.

He’d had no childhood sweetheart awaiting him in England. No one who had been writing to him all these years, anxiously anticipating his return. When he embarked on the business of courtship and matrimony, he’d have to start from scratch.

“I’ve no plans to marry in the immediate future,” he said. “Not until I’ve found a suitable property.”

His father made no reply.

Charles couldn’t tell whether his silence was disbelief or disapproval. “Do you object to the idea?”

“Not in theory,” Arthur said. “The life of a gentleman farmer is an admirable one.”

“But?”

“It’s hardly sufficient to entice an officer away from a successful career at sea. You could have easily had another ten years in the Navy. A command of your own. It’s what you claimed you wanted. Not an estate. Not a dull life in the country.” Arthur studied his son’s face. “Why would you give it up? And please, do me the courtesy of sparing me anymore half-truths and evasions.”

Outside, the sun was beginning to rise. The servants would soon rise along with it. What privacy Charles and his father had wouldn’t last much longer.

There was no more point in dissembling.

“Because I was tired of politics,” Charles said. “I was a sailor. I had no interest in statecraft.”

“A good sailor does what he’s told.”

“And when he can no longer obey in conscience?”

Charles had reached that point in the summer of 1840. His ship had been patrolling the Lebanese Coast, protecting British interests against the occupying forces of Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali Pasha. When the citizens revolted against Muhammad Ali’s occupation, his soldiers had brutally retaliated, burning towns and villages up and down the coast.

Britain had moved to intervene. Charles’s ship was first on the scene. His commodore was tasked with leading the land force—an assemblage of British, Ottoman, and rebel troops. Charles was among them. He’d helped to protect the coastal cities from the marauding Egyptian soldiers.

And then the allied fleet had joined the battle.

Rather than defending the civilians, the allies had bombarded them. Many innocent people had been killed in the action.

Charles and the rest of the commodore’s army had entrenched themselves in the city, ultimately compelling its surrender. Later, he’d learned that the allies claimed their flag of truce had been fired upon. It was that which had prompted their merciless assault.

By then it was already too late. Charles had lost faith. He’d begun to doubt what it was they were doing there. What it was he was doing there.

The following years at sea had done nothing to restore his confidence. He’d seen bad men decorated and good ones ordered to relinquish their commands. It had little to do with heroism or the lack of it. It was all politics and influence and the ever-increasing focus on expansion of the British Empire, regardless of the innocents harmed in the pursuit of it.

Charles explained it to his father as best he could.