Category Archives: Regency

Part 7 The Diving Belle

 

Sunlight poured in through the portholes, then the Bell broke the surface and cool, fresh air poured in. Charlotte took a deep, thankful breath as they were swung across and settled on the raft, Captain Braithwaite climbed down first then helped her descend, two men climbed in and helped carry the unconscious man out.

As Charlotte stepped upright in the sunlight she heard the noise, the cheering. Susan came running over to wrap a shawl round her shoulders and hug her. Looking around she could see several crowded boats nearby, the men were waving their hats, the women their parasols and handkerchiefs and everyone was cheering.

“Oh dear, it that for me.” Said Charlotte weakly.

“Yes madam, you are famous.” Replied Susan happily.

“Help me to the cabin, I think I am going to faint.”

Susan helped her mistress up the ladder and swiftly across the deck, Charlotte had no idea where she was going until Susan lowered her onto a bench where she fainted.

 

Half an hour later she woke up, Susan was folding her wet bathing dress, she realised she was not only dry but dressed.

“Good madam, you are recovered, I will get the Captain.”

Before she could protest Susan had left the cabin and returned with him a few minutes later.

“Madam, I must apologise for the dangers you were subjected to.” He paused then continued, “And to thank you for what you did. I don’t know of anybody who could have done what you did.”

“I don’t know how I did what I did.” She replied weakly.

An hour later the boat rowed them away from the Endeavour, the Diving Bell still looked terrifying but she felt no fear of it now.

As they rowed alongside the quay there was a crowd waiting, as she stepped onto dry land she heard a shout then the crowd started cheering. Susan helped her into the chaise and they were swiftly driven back to the Circus. As they did so she turned to her maid.

“Susan, did you hear what they shouted, it sounded as if they were cheering the Diving Bell.”

“No madam, it is you they were cheering. They are calling you the Diving Belle now.”

“Oh dear, well it can hardly get worse.”

A few days later she discovered it could. Captain Braithwaite called to both tell her that the sailor was recovering well and to present her with a silver tray, it had been part of the cargo recovered from the Abergavenny but he had had it engraved as a memento of her descent to the wreck. As he left he said with a smile.

“If you should ever want to go down again I would be happy to take you. Everything should be perfectly safe now, anyway my crew are sure you can do anything in the water, they think you are a mermaid.”

“Not a mermaid as well.” She said to Susan, “I wasn’t frightened swimming around at the bottom of the sea, but I don’t think I can bear all this. At the end of the week we leave for Lyme to see my brother in law and give my nephew his telescope.”

 

So Mrs Charlotte Bennet left Weymouth, whether she returned or not I don’t know. Someone, perhaps one of the Endeavour’s crew retired from the sea and settled down as a publican on Portland, naming his public house The Mermaid. As for young Lieutenant Bennet, he rose to become Captain Bennet and one of the heroes of Lyme, but that is another story.

 

This tale was suggested by a press cutting of 1806;

DIVING BELL.—By means of this ingenious contrivance, a Mr Braithwaite has been so successful as to recover, in the months of June and July last, the whole specie from the Abergavenny Indiaman, which was lost off Portland in Feb. 1805. He was down frequently at the rate of six hours a-day. The specie was contained in 60 boxes of dollars, and amounted to £34,000. A great number of valuable articles have also been recovered. A Mrs Bennet of Colchester had the courage to descend in the machine on one occasion, and remained forty minutes. She was greeted on her ascent by the cheering plaudits of a very numerous concourse of people. Mrs Bennet is now generally known as the Diving Belle.

 

Other accounts say that Mrs Bennet came from Cornwall, so I have blended these accounts in the (completely fictitious) backstory I gave her. She was also described as a strong swimmer, an unusual talent for anybody, especially a woman at this time.

The Abergavenny Store where goods were kept was real, and it wasn’t far from Weymouth’s Assembly Rooms.

The Nothe peninsula is still a favourite place to go for a walk and look out to the sea, it was as I described in 1806.

Commander John Wordsworth’s Patriotic Fund sword was raised from the wreck and returned to his brother William the poet, it is now in the museum at Dove Cottage.

Captain Darcy was an engineer who repaired the Cobb, the ancient harbour at Lyme Regis.

There were no swimming costumes at the time, ladies wore Bathing Dresses but couldn’t swim in them.

The accident didn’t happen to Mrs Bennet, but similar things did happen to other early divers. John Braithwaite made a small fortune from diving on the shipwreck, which his son made into a larger one by becoming one of the first builders of marine steam engines.

As for Captain Bennet of Lyme Regis, he probably wasn’t related to our Mrs Bennet but I couldn’t help making the connection because of his name. Nearly twenty years after the date of this story, in 1825, he became one of the great heroes of Lyme – perhaps one day I will retell his story.

 

Part 6 The Gallant Lady

 

She stood up, and began to unfasten the front of her bathing dress.

“Then I will have to try, he may die if we cannot get him to a surgeon.”

 “No, you cannot, it is impossible!”

“Captain Braithwaite, you should have learned by now that there is no point in using those words to me.” She smiled and continued, “I grew up in Cornwall, and I was taught to swim as a child. I have swum across the cove by my father’s house underwater and that is more than twenty four feet across. Now can you help me get out of this dress?” She grimaced slightly, “One day someone will invent a costume for swimming in, but at the moment there is nothing, and that it what I will have to wear.”

Reluctantly he helped her as she dropped into the water and pulled the dress up over her head. She dipped her head under and vanished for a few moments, then she reappeared.

“You are right, there is a baulk of timber on the side of the Bell. It has two copper bolts sticking out if it which will make a good grip for the grapnel. Goodbye.” She took a deep breath and vanished.

Looking out of the porthole he had a glimpse of her pale shape as she kicked hard upwards. He then sat by the unconscious man and shook his head.

“Impossible, she is Impossible.”

A Regency lady swimming

Charlotte opened her eyes as she ducked her head underwater, it stung for a moment but she could see clearly. It was darker than the Cornish coves where she had learned to swim, and dive, as a child. But she felt no fear. The surface didn’t seem so far away and the ropes, leading from the Bell to the Endeavour, made an easy pathway to follow upwards. She kicked up and swum strongly towards the light. As she near the boat her chest hurt, it was as though the air inside her lungs was expanding, for a moment she was shocked, then breathed out a little and felt better. Bubbles trickling from her mouth she broke the surface a few yards from the raft. She took a deep breath, the air here was colder than that in the Bell, much less stuffy.

No one saw her rise, so she swum the few yards to the side of the ship and shouted. Faces appeared over the gunwale, including Susan.

“Madam – are you all right?” she shouted.

“Yes girl, now get the Young Captain.”

She didn’t need to as a few seconds later young John Braithwaite’s face appeared over the rail.

“What has happened, is my father all right?”

“Your father is well, the other sailor has been injured. The Bell has been trapped by a fallen timber, he needs a grapnel to free it. The signal line has also been lost. So get me a grapnel and line.”

“Why, you cannot take them down, no one can do that.”

“Your father told me I couldn’t swim up with a message. You Braithwaites need to learn that I am not to be spoken to like that. Now get me the line.”

He gasped, then turned to his crew and snapped a series of orders. The thin signal line was dropped to Mrs Bennet, who wrapped it round her wrist, then the grapnel was lowered over the side.

“If you drop it there, will that take it to the north side of the Bell?” She called.

“Should do Mam” Shouted the sailor. “We will let it down nice and gentle like.”

“No.” She called, “Count to three and let it down fast, I am going with it.”

“Oh Madam.” Screamed Susan, “Please don’t go.”

“On three then.” Called the young captain and began to count. “One – Two – Three.”

Charlotte Bennet had been breathing deeply, on two she grabbed hold of the line just above the grapnel, on three the hook was released, there was a pale flash as she twisted in the water, and vanished.

Susan stopped screaming and looked straight down.

“I hope your lady will be safe miss.” Said the sailor standing beside her, suddenly Susan felt calm, she knew her mistress was amazing, now she knew she could do anything.

“Oh yes, I remember before she was married she loved to swim in the coves near her father’s house, she could always swim well.” She paused, and started a legend. “My grandmother said that one of her ancestors had married a mermaid.”

The sailor nodded, soon the rumour had spread and the crew were confident, waiting for the order to hoist. If their captain was being rescued by a mermaid then all would be well.

A Dorset Mermaid

Below them, Charlotte Bennet was less confident, she had felt her lungs expand as she had risen, now they were being squashed, it hurt, worse than anything she had ever felt. Her eyes were painful now, she knew that if it didn’t stop in the next few seconds she would faint. Her cousin was prone to faint, usually in a drawing room with a comfortable sofa to fall on, not at the bottom of the sea with a wrecked ship to lie in. She wondered, why was she was thinking like this? Her lungs were in agony now, but she could see the Bell, she released the grapnel and with her last strength dipped under the rim and up, into the stuffy, but wonderful, air.

Captain Braithwaite bent and grabbed her shoulders, he would have lifted her up onto the bench, but she shook him off, panting she handed him the signal line.

“In a moment I will go outside again and make sure the grapnel is on the timber, then I will return. Your first signal to hoist will be to lift the timber, then as soon as you think the Bell can be freed you are to give the second signal. And up we will go.”

He took the line and was about to say something, when she took a breath and dipped under the water again. She was surprised to find it was harder this time than it had been before, her chest hurt, her head hurt and flashing lights kept distracting her. She knew where to go and swum round the Bell to the timber that was trapping them. Thankfully the grapnel was almost in the right pace. It seemed heavier than it had before as she pulled it over to the timber, she didn’t think she could do it, she was about to return to the Bell when it suddenly slipped, a hook caught under the timber, just by the bolt. She didn’t even look back at as she swam gratefully back to the Bell. She hung onto the edge gasping for air, Captain Braithwaite bent and gently pulled her up, she smiled and grabbed her dress then slipped it over her shoulders.

“There I’m decent now, try the line.”

She sat back and suddenly felt very tired, she wanted to sleep but knew she shouldn’t. She watched as the Captain gave a gentle pull on the line to tighten it, then gave three sharp tugs. He held it firmly and then, with relief, felt the answering pulls.

 

Above, John Braithwaite felt relief at the tugs. He shouted to the men on the grapnel line.

“Haul away, gently now.”

The men pulled, the weight they felt on the end of the line indicating that they were pulling on the timber.

Below, the Bell tipped upright as the timber slid to one side. The Captain watched through the porthole until he saw it was clear, then gave another three tugs. Almost immediately they felt the Bell move, there was a terrible scraping noise on one side as the timber slid off the Bell, then there was silence, looking down Charlotte saw the wreck drift away. They were rising quickly now, back to the surface, air and safety.

 

To be continued