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Updated: May 18, 2025
He felt all the while that he, John Richards Lapenotiere, a junior officer in His Majesty's service, was assisting in one of the most momentous events in his country's history; and alone in the room with these two men, he felt it as he had never begun to feel it amid the smoke and roar of the actual battle.
'Dead, d'ye say? . . . My God! . . . Lieutenant, pour yourself a glass of wine and tell us first how it happened." Lieutenant Lapenotiere could not tell very clearly. He had twice been summoned to board the Royal Sovereign he first time to receive the command to hold himself ready.
He continued to stare in a puzzled way at the window curtains, when a voice by the door said: "Good evening! or perhaps, to be correct, good morning! You are Mr. "Lapenotiere," answered the Lieutenant, who had turned sharply.
'That's just the trouble with me' Colonel Baigent confessed. 'She is my great-aunt, really. She lives in Little Swithun, right at the back of Dean's Close; and her name is on a brass plate a very hard name to pronounce, "Miss Lapenotiere, Dancing and Calisthenics" that's another hard word, but it means things you do with an elastic band to improve your figure.
Lord Barham snatched it and attempted to stick it on top of his night-cap, damned the night-cap, and, plucking it off, flung it to the man. "I happened to be sitting up late, my lord, over the Aeolus papers," said Mr. Secretary Tylney. "Ha?" Then, to the valet, "The dressing-gown there! Don't fumble! . . . So this is Captain " "Lieutenant, sir: Lapenotiere, commanding the Pickle schooner."
"Recognise" may seem a strange word to use; but here had lain the strangeness of the sensation that the someone standing there was a friend, waiting to be greeted. It was with eagerness and a curious warmth of the heart that Lieutenant Lapenotiere had faced about upon nothing.
"Dead," echoed Lieutenant Lapenotiere, staring at the Turkey carpet, of which the six candles, gaining strength, barely illumined the pattern. "Dead, at the top of victory; a great victory. Go: fetch somebody down." The night-porter shuffled off. Lieutenant Lapenotiere, erect and sombre, cast a look around the apartment, into which he had never before been admitted.
Never would you see him back, unless. And I was right, sir! he concluded triumphantly. "Let me see that piece of paper." "You'll let me have it back, sir? for a memento," the post-boy pleaded. Lieutenant Lapenotiere took it from him a plain half-sheet of note-paper roughly folded. On it was scribbled in pencil, back-hand wise, "Lt. Lapenotiere. Admiralty, Whitehall. At 6.30 a.m., not later.
"No, my lord: Admiral Collingwood's," said Lieutenant Lapenotiere, inclining his head. Old Lord Barham looked up sharply. His wig set awry, he made a ridiculous figure in his hastily donned garments. Yet he did not lack dignity. "Why Collingwood?" he asked, his fingers breaking the seal. "God! you don't tell me " "Lord Nelson is dead, sir." "Dead dead? . . . Here, Tylney you read what it says.
"There was a terrible disturbance, back in July, when Captain Bettesworth arrived not so late as this, to be sure, but towards midnight and they waited till morning, to carry up the dispatches with his Lordship's chocolate. Thankful was I next day not to have been on duty at the time. . . . If you will follow me, sir " Lieutenant Lapenotiere had turned instinctively towards a door on the right.
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