9. The Visit

1804

Pale-gold January sunlight shafted through the great windows of the Captain’s cabin in the stern of H.M.S. Indomitable. Pelham eased his left arm from his frock coat, grimacing sharply as he did so, and threw the coat across a chair. The creamy waistcoat followed more easily; Pelham noted its brownish stain dispassionately. The swift action of an hour earlier had subsided into the organized chaos of dealing with a slightly wounded ship and some severely wounded men: the cries of the latter could be heard from the cockpit. Pelham thought of the surgeon’s saw, the strap between the jaws, the agony, the blood running red on the red-painted deck.

The chance of standing another few inches to one side or the other, and he might have been down on that ghastly table himself – a chance of which he was perfectly aware. Worse than death, he thought – I’d far rather be blown into a wet red haze than that. Twisting to look down at his left side cost him another grimace; he moved to his sideboard and filled a small brandy glass almost to the brim, tipped it back and drank most of it before attempting another look at his bruised ribs.

During the action he had felt the ball whizz by him, then the deck hurtle up to meet him; disentangled himself from the splintered gun carriage, the fallen mizzen-topgallant-mast and its shrouds, and resumed his place on the quarterdeck at a run, thanking his stars that Hastings had had the presence of mind to take his place, bring her round in those few seconds while Wainwright was down too and rake the Frenchman with her other broadside. The French ship had looked suddenly crippled, and lost way – he had stumbled up again, clutched at the rail, issued the order to board her immediately; there would be time to feel out his ribs later.

But later was now, and he noted with a grunt of irritation as he pulled off his shirt the bright arc of a button’s passage like a pearly meteor across the cabin. It landed in a corner and rolled under his sea-chest. For a minute or two he struggled to pass a bandage about his chest, covering the gash he could feel better than see. It had bled out somewhat, leaving a stiffening stain on the left side of this shirt, but the bleeding was sluggish now and the pain from the underlying bruise seemed greater than the torn flesh. He had fallen hard, pinned against the edge of the gun-carriage. More ugly than dangerous, he noted; perhaps later the surgeon could take a look.

Not now, though. Far too much to do before reaching Gibraltar in an hour or so, the captured French sloop in tow, injured men to send ashore, intelligence to deliver and then back to beating up and down off Cadiz with barely time to catch his breath. Not even time to set foot ashore himself – just a quick visit to the Admiral’s flagship, and then back to the Indomitable. The end of the bandage slipped from his grasp for the third time and he swore. “Mr. Hastings!” A face streaked with powder appeared in the doorway. “Cooper, find Mr. Hastings and tell him I need him right away.”

“Aye aye, sir. Are you hurt, sir?”

“It’s nothing. Get Mr. Hastings, damn you!”

Before he had time to finish the brandy, Hastings’ eager features appeared atop a uniform half soaked with blood. “Not mine, sir,” he said, seeing Pelham’s expression. “Macreedy. Like as not he’ll lose a leg.”

“Hm. Poor fellow. Damn this Frenchman! Just the kind of quick, nasty little action that whittles away at your crew with nothing to show for it.”

“What about the sloop, sir?”

“Damn the sloop. No more than a sheep. And now she’s dismasted into the bargain. A damned bad bargain. I want the fox, sir, the fox that slunk away under the Dons’ guns to lick his wounds and come out to fight another day when we might not have the weather gage on him. Now get me strapped up here, Hastings. I’ve far too much to do as it is. Can’t get the bloody thing to hold.”

It was Hastings’ turn to stand in the shaft of light. Pelham grunted as he lifted his arms for the linen bandage to be wound around his ribs, covering the wound. “I didn’t realize you were hurt, sir.”

“No more did I, then. How does it look, man?”

“A nasty jagged cut with a vicious bruise under it, sir. Looks as if it’s done bleeding, though. Let me fetch Mr. Ramsbottom to see to it.”

“For heaven’s sake, man, Ramsbottom still has limbs to amputate. This’ll wait. Now help me back on with a clean shirt, before we get into port. I’ve a report to write and a visit to pay the Admiral.”

“Sir.”

“And Hastings – ”

“Sir?”

“Pour yourself a glass of brandy. I’m damned grateful for the way you managed your men today, sir. I thought that last crosswind was going to ruin us – bringing her around like that, with all her guns to bear – I still can’t believe how fast you got the men all over and followed up — raked her in spite of it. We’d have been in a pretty pickle if you hadn’t.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t thank me. I was still dragging myself out from under the bloody mizzen-t’gallant-mast while you had the situation sized up and your orders given already. Fine work, sir.”

Hastings drank his brandy hastily – but with no less pleasure for that. A compliment from Pelham meant more to him than any medal in the world. Besides, Pelham (being a man of some means – certainly beyond Hastings’) kept a nice little store of fine spirits, and Hastings found the smooth, fiery tea-coloured liquid exceedingly satisfying after the coarse rum that was his usual allotment in the mess. Pelham had already returned to his desk and was writing at a fevered pace as Hastings drained his glass. “Another for you, sir?”

“Yes, sir, I will. I can’t stand Froggy Newton at the best of times, let alone with my mizzen-topgallant-mast shot down and nothing to show for it but a dismasted sloop and some damned good men who’ll never walk again without a crutch. Now – tell Mr. Wainwright to come here, will you? And hand me my coat and weskit. Damnation, you’d better help me into them, too, before you leave!”

The deep lines scoring Pelham’s cheeks and brow seemed more marked than usual as he reached to take the glass from Hastings. Hastings himself was young enough to feel the exultation of battle still circulating in his veins; Pelham, he noted, merely looked extraordinarily weary. When he helped the captain on with his frock-coat, Pelham closed his eyes for a moment in some mood Hastings could not quite read – pain? Exasperation? Impatience? All three, probably.

*************************

So many directions to give; so short a time to give them in. Pelham looked up: “Ah! Cooper!”

“Sir? You sent for me, sir?”

“Yes. Mrs. McKenzie – remember, the blue house on the castle path – has a door knocker shaped like a dolphin – number two Fore Street, I think it is. Hurry, lad. If she’s there, give her this and bring her back here. Otherwise – well, just come back on board ship – if you can’t give this to her in person, don’t leave it. Do you understand?”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Cut along, then!”

Sophie – we are to put into port for an hour or two at the most. If you can leave everything at this moment and come as you are down to the dock with the young man bringing you this note, then we may have the chance to see one another for a quarter of an hour. You will have to come aboard ship, for I am in the utmost haste. We are to put off some wounded, take on sufficient materials to effect repairs at sea, and put out again. Hoping to see you – I cannot put in this close and not send for you – in haste – your own Edward.

An hour later Hastings stood by as Pelham hauled himself over the ship’s side and started down into the waiting jolly-boat for the pull across the harbour to the Admiral’s flagship. He was moving very stiffly. “Sir, I can rig up the hoist in a moment – are you sure you won’t take it, sir?”

Pelham turned on him one of those Gorgon looks that had turned lesser officers to stone in their tracks. “Damn the hoist, Mr. Hastings, d’you think I want to be carted off my own ship like some damned dowager?”

“Sir.” Hastings allowed no expression to cross his face as he watched Pelham swing down the ladder with unaccustomed awkwardness and land in the boat with a graceless lurch as the next wave tipped it. He had the small satisfaction – though he enjoyed it not at all – of being right, watching the captain holding his side and leaning quite uncharacteristically against the gunwale for a moment before straightening to his usual ramrod pose as the men pulled away.

A busy couple of hours kept Hastings below decks after that, seeing to his gun crews and rearranging the hold for better access to the wings, so the ship’s splintered sides could be got at by the carpenters. He had left a list of major repairs on the captain’s desk during his absence. The smashed mizzen-topgallant-mast was hoisted over the side and a new one sent for; even in Pelham’s absence, his officers and men knew their jobs forwards and backwards. Hastings vaguely heard the men piping the captain on board again – the pace of work did not seem to change.

Blood had been swabbed from the decks, and the rope-ends neatly coiled once more in their proper places. In another hour the Indomitable would be ready to put out to sea again. That was a prime show of naval efficiency, he thought to himself. The peak of efficiency – and the fruit of a hard but fair discipline that had every man willing to give his best under all circumstances.

A clean ship, a good ship, a well-run ship, a tight ship – yes, a happy ship, even, if a man-o-war can be happy – certainly the crew whistled as they ran up and down the rigging, and jokes flew freely at their mess-tables; the jokes that men make who know that in an hour they may be in deadly earnest, and their lives depend on the skill and daring of their officers. Jokes made by men who knew themselves valued, and fought for a place on Pelham’s ship. Hastings would not willingly have given up his for all the gold in His Majesty’s (war-depleted) treasury.

Pelham sat once more at his desk, holding a list of the wounded and Hastings’ first estimate of the damage below decks. He had made a quick first inspection after the action; but since the chaos was cleared away, details would be clearer and half of the repairs effected in the intervening couple of hours. The butcher’s bill he put in a small drawer with a sheaf of others, dating back to his first command: seldom reviewed, but the names on them nonetheless remembered. He looked at the glass; another half hour, and they’d have to slip moorings, Sophie or no Sophie.

Oh, well. He had tried. The disappointment was one more bitter little sting in a day of missed opportunities. He poured himself another brandy to take the edge off the throb in his side. He’d known it was a stupid thing to have refused Hastings’ offer, felt the gash open again as he clambered down the ship’s side with only one strong arm to hold on instead of two; damned Hastings for being right. Still, as long as he restricted himself to shallow breaths, it was not unbearable. Hastings had done a good job strapping, tight enough that Pelham had to breathe with his diaphragm. He did so carefully, listening to Wainwright telling him about bringing the French sloop inshore. A separate part of his mind had its own preoccupations: he had instructed young Cooper to report straight to him if he’d fetched Mrs. McKenzie, before she was helped up on deck, but there was no sign of either of them.

Wainwright seemed to have done an adequate job, under the circumstances – Pelham told him so, leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes for a moment and sighed.

“Edward!”

Pelham’s eyes flew open. Sophie stood in the doorway. The ship had swung at anchor, so that the setting sun blazed behind her, setting her chestnut hair afire, her face in shadow. Pelham blinked, grunted in surprise. “Sophie – my God, Sophie! Where did you spring from?”

“You sent for me!”

“Yes, but I didn’t hear them hoisting you aboard –?”

“Oh Edward, don’t be silly! I climbed up, like all the dockyard girls do. I couldn’t wait for any stupid hoist. Not and risk missing five of my fifteen minutes with you!”

Wainwright cleared his throat, to remind them of his presence. He tried and failed to imagine anyone aboard calling the captain silly, and surviving. Hands clasped behind his back, he creaked a bow as Pelham made the introduction – though the effect was spoiled somewhat by Pelham rushing through it, like grace before a meal, Wainwright thought. So this was the captain’s lady! Her existence had been much rumoured, the last few weeks in port, but no formal introductions had been made.

Hm, not young and not exactly pretty, either – a bit on the plump side, a nice cuddly armful, which God knew was no bad thing in a woman… nice laughter lines around her eyes, as if she did more smiling than frowning, and if he was any judge, the flush in her cheeks owed nothing to artistry. And now here she was large as life, and the imperturbable captain was stumbling to his feet. His chair fell over behind him; Wainwright quietly picked it up, and tried to slide around the wall of the cabin to the door as unobtrusively as possible.

He need not have worried; Sophie and Pelham had eyes for nothing but each other – Wainwright had ceased to exist. He tried to remember whether Mrs. Wainwright had ever looked at him like that without saying anything – he fancied she had not. In fact, Mr. Wainwright rather thought that he would be hard pressed to recollect any occasions on which Mrs. Wainwright had had nothing to say – look or no look. The thought caused him to miss her anyway, in a perverse way, with an accompanying pang of regret. As he shut the door behind him, the captain’s guest must at last have looked away; he heard her cry: “Edward! Oh God, are you hurt? Tell me that’s not your shirt there with blood on it?”

He’ll tell her it’s nothing but a scratch, said Wainwright to himself; I’d lay any odds you like on that – his arm could be shot right off just like Nelson’s, and the captain would still rather drink seawater than admit to being hurt.

“A scratch,” said Pelham, reaching out for Sophie’s hands and biting back the groan this move occasioned. Then she was in his arms and her softness filled his embrace and there was nothing in the world except the smell of her hair. He buried his face in it, breathed in deeply (and painfully) once and more carefully a few more times. She smelled just as he recalled, clean and wholesome, and he noted the swiftness of his body’s response and his automatic step backwards, the habit of a lifetime. But at last this was not a matter for embarrassment or concealment. He allowed the familiar wave of joy and relief her presence always occasioned to wash over him. He felt as a man blessed. She had put her hands on each side of his face, her fingers twisting in his hair, and was looking at him exactly the way he had hardly dared to remember.

“Fifteen minutes, Edward?”

“Ten,” he said, against his will.

“That’s not much time, is it?”

“No.”

He stared at her. “So – no sign of a child, Sophie ? I couldn’t help but fear – or wonder – I’m not sure which – both, perhaps – ”

“Would you have minded?”

“How could I? Except that I haven’t had enough of you to myself yet, God knows!”

“Mmmm.” She leaned her head against his chest. Pelham breathed in lavender, soap, her skin. “We will have time, Edward. Mavis and I will be here, as long as you want to come home to us.”

Pelham made a slight noise in his throat, then cleared it and asked, “How is Mavis?”

“She’s wonderful – as wonderful as ever. She misses you. So do I.”

“Sophie.”

“What, Edward?”

“You are still promised to me – unless you wish to be released. I was harsh with you, last time. It is a hard life, God knows. I should understand if you had second thoughts.”

“No second thoughts. Not one. Not for a moment.”

“I should be able to spend so little time with you – like this – ”

“It would be infinitely more than I ever thought to have,” said Sophie. “Would it be too great of a strain on you?”

“I know a good thing when I find it, Sophie. I also recognize a necessity – which is what you are to me.”

They stood for a moment like that, looking hard into each others’ eyes. Neither flinched. Pelham wondered if he kissed her where it would lead and how he was ever to stop. His mouth twitched. He cleared his throat again.

“Sophie – what are we to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Now. These few minutes. I couldn’t miss the chance to see you, but now I feel like a complete fool for making you rush out to me – what do you want?”

“What do you want, Edward?”

“To hold you. To smell you.”

“Then just do that, Edward. We don’t have to talk. There’s too much to say to even begin talking – and I feel as if I shan’t make sense anyway – or else I’ll burst out crying.”

“Not that, Sophie. Please. No tears. Mm?” He frowned.

“I won’t. I won’t, I promise.”

“Good. Come here, Sophie.” He kissed her hard, as if he did not dare allow himself to be tender with her, then put his face into her hair again. How slender he is, she thought. Such a powerful man, the captain of this whole ship, and I am feeling him quake. Who else has ever felt what I am feeling now? This tremor as he pulls me to him. There is no-one on this earth who may hold Captain Pelham, and feel him shake – except me.

“Edward – ”

“Mm?”

“That feels so delightful!”

“What?”

“This.”

“Oh, that.”

“Yes, that. You.”

“Mm. Well I’m glad you think so, because I’m damned if I can help it with you in my arms!”

She looked at him. In the net of lines around his eyes was framed such longing: the request he would not allow himself to make – was he even aware of it? It said everything he had not. God, of course that is what he needs right now, she thought, and he’d rather die than ask me for it!

“Edward – ”

“Mm?”

“How many minutes?”

“Ten.”

“You said that earlier.”

“Eight, then.”

“Oh, good.”

“Why oh good?”

“Because if you want me as much as I want you, my love – which I think you do – that’ll be more than enough time to do what we both so want to do!”

Pelham swallowed, felt as if he should deny what was undeniable. “I didn’t – that’s not why I sent for you – or anyway, not – I mean, I thought of it – but only to dismiss it, there wasn’t enough time, Sophie – I just wanted to see you!”

“But it is enough time, Edward, if we stop wasting it.”

“Oh, God, Sophie.”

“Yes?” He looked hard into her face: saw she meant it, truly meant it. That she wanted him. His heart turned over. She wanted him, too. What had he ever done, to deserve this?

This is madness, Pelham thought, and then: but if it is, it’s no more than I’ve done all my life – seize the moment, press my advantage, not look back. And six weeks ago I told myself that waving at Mavis was foolishness. So – if it is foolishness, then let me be a fool and be damned for it. Let me take what is offered to me. I’ve spent that lifetime without anything like this coming to me, ever. I suppose, because I haven’t sought it. But it has found me – or – I have found her. I could be dead next week – or rotting in a French gaol, with years to regret letting this moment pass. Let me be a fool, then. “Yes,” he said, and then, “Promise me one thing, Sophie.”

“What?”

“That one day we shall do this without our clothes on!”

“Oh, very well, Edward – if you insist! But – not today? There’s no time today.”

“When we are married, then, my love.”

“Yes, Edward.” Her eyes danced back at him.

She reached under her sprigged muslin skirts, pulled down and stepped out of her innermost lace-trimmed petticoat (it was too confining). Pelham’s pupils widened. Then at the same time they both looked behind them, at the canvas-cushioned seat in the curved side-window. Pelham shrugged himself out of his frock-coat, sat down and opened his arms to her.

When she came into them her breasts came to the level of his head and he buried his face there. Her hands were busy with his britches and then without understanding how she had managed it he was free of his small-clothes and inside her. It was so shockingly swift that his groan was half in amazement. The other half caught in his throat. She kneeled either side of his lap and looked down at him, at his dark hair soft as feathers against her bosom. She reached to bare her breasts to him altogether.

Hastings came rushing up the companionway two steps at a time. The new mizzen-topgallant-mast had a crack in it – it wouldn’t do. He’d been looking for Mr. Cowles below decks, but the ship was in some chaos still – even the marine guard at Pelham’s door was missing. God help him if he failed to keep the captain apprised of the situation – and the new delay. He knocked at Pelham’s door, but the haste of his steps carried him headlong inside the cabin as the handle opened under his grip. “Sir, the new mast –– ”

He froze, turned on his heel, faced the wall. It was no more than a moment’s glimpse, but it was enough to make him wish the deck would swallow him: Pelham sitting in the window-seat, in shirt-sleeves, his eyes closed, mouth half-open and pressed to the breast of the woman who was sitting – no, oh God, she’d been kneeling – on his lap.

Hastings gulped. At least he’d had the presence of mind to shut the door – but he found himself on the wrong side of it.

Pelham was the first to recover. Hastings’ back was turned, but he could feel Pelham’s steely displeasure, mastered in a supernaturally calm tone: “Thank you, Mr. Hastings, that will be all for now.”

“I beg your pardon, sir.”

“Yes. As well you may. Now get out, sir.”

“Sir.”

“Oh – and Hastings – ”

“Sir?”

“Stand outside the door and make quite sure this does not happen again.”

“Yes, sir.”

As he shut the door behind him Hastings felt his face flaming. He tried to look as if he were standing there quite naturally, but a certain woodenness betrayed him to any who might have been looking. The ship’s company, however, were mostly preoccupied with their own labours – thank God, said Hastings to himself, as he turned his red face into the wind and stared out across the harbour.

“My God, Edward!”

“Hush. It doesn’t matter. Forget it.”

“What must he have thought!”

Pelham found himself unable to lie, even then. “He’s no fool, Sophie, he thought exactly what you think he thought.”

“Thank heaven there was nothing to see, at least!”

Pelham’s eye was caught by the lace-trimmed petticoat on the floor by his feet. “No more there was, my love – your dress covered all. Now – by my reckoning we have five minutes – what are we to do, Sophie?”

“Why, carry on, of course – what else ? If you want, I mean.” She opened the top of her dress the rest of the way and her breasts spilled into his hands. Pelham put his mouth there. They carried on.

“Move on me, Sophie,” he said a minute later. “I want to feel you down the length of me. That’s it. Oh, God, my love, yes, that’s it… Sophie, Sophie – ”

She cradled his face to her as he jolted and gasped. Her heart seemed to squeeze itself inside-out and she would have wept then, had she not promised otherwise – and yet a fierce exultation also swept over her: We did it! We managed it! He still wants me as desperately – thank God! oh, thank God for these ten minutes…

Pelham, catching his breath, started to cough. Sophie leaned back, looked at him. It was a dry cough that brought a wince at each sound. In alarm she watched him fight for breath and then clutch his side. She slipped from him and knelt beside him: “Edward – Edward, what is it? Are you choking?”

He could not seem to get his breath; gasped, with harsh painful sounds. “I shall – be all right – in a moment – oh, dam-nation!”

Sophie saw a brown and red bloodstain on his shirt she had not noticed in their rush to come together; it was spreading wetly now. “Damn!” he said again.

She watched a wave of pain pass across his face. He fumbled at his clothing, still coughing: “Sophie, button my britches – I can’t.”

She did so, feeling her own wetness on him as she made him decent. She smelled the faint scent of his seed – and, heavier, the sweetish smell of his blood. It was oozing between his fingers. Pelham croaked: “Mr. Hastings!” and coughed again.

“I’ll get him,” she said. Pelham gestured with his eyebrows toward her sweet exposed bosom: she pulled her dress up hastily, hardly caring how it should look, and snatched up her petticoat from the deck without a thought as to what it was, just a wad of white cambric to stanch the blood. Pelham pressed the bundle to his side and tipped his head back, closing his eyes.

Hastings ran in, two steps behind Sophie. Together they pulled off his shirt, cut off the old bandage, and looked at the wound. It was mostly clotted; only an inch or so was open and bleeding freshly. Pelham coughed again, this time holding his shirt to his lips. Hastings and Sophie saw the specks of blood from his mouth at the same time, and their eyes met. Hers were wide, dismayed, full of concern; so were his. They read each others’ thoughts: a punctured lung? Pelham, beloved, lost to them? To share this somehow brought an odd comfort in that moment of alarm. “Hold steady, sir, ” said Hastings. “We’ll strap you up again – stop this bleeding – and then I’m fetching Mr. Ramsbottom, and you’re not telling me not to this time, sir.”

“All right,” said Pelham quietly. Hastings fetched a fresh roll of bandage from the captain’s emergency locker. He heard the captain gasp “God almighty, Sophie!” and turned to see her swabbing the wound with brandy poured on a cloth. “Sit still, sir,” said Hastings. Pelham leaned his arms upon their shoulders while they knelt on either side of him, passing the bandage around his chest, one to the other. He looked haggard. They fastened it and Hastings got to his feet, went to the doorway, called to the first man he saw: “Ellis, go fetch the ship’s surgeon – right now. Hurry up, man – the captain’s hurt.” The man scrambled down the ladder and into the bowels of the ship, shouting, “Mr. Ramsbottom – Mr. Ramsbottom – where is that old bastard? Get Ramsbottom up ’ere right away – it’s the Capting!”

Pelham sat with his eyes closed. Hastings drew Sophie aside, quickly, before the doctor should come, looking stiffly straight in front of him: “Ma’am, in the alarm – your gown – you might wish to straighten it, ma’am.” Sophie looked down: it was still unfastened – the effect was charming but not exactly decent. She buttoned it quickly: “Thank you, Mr. Hastings.” Hastings liked her more for the calm way she said it.

A scramble of feet outside the door announced the ship’s surgeon. Hastings and Sophie stood back while he tended the captain. From time to time they exchanged anxious glances, taking care that Pelham did not intercept them. “You’ll do, sir,” was the verdict. “But no more climbing up and down that ladder, sir. You aggravated it properly – might have done some real damage. You were lucky, sir. Absolutely no exertion for a few days. Rest and fresh air will see to it, sir – if you’re careful. You must send for me at once if you spit up any more blood.”

Pelham looked at Sophie. His eyes seemed darker than ever, all pupils. “You know, my love, you must still go back ashore.”

“Edward, I can’t! Not like this! How could I?”

“It’s simple, Sophie. You can because you must. Orders are orders, my love.”

“Are you giving me an order, Edward?”

Wearily he shook his head. “No – Sophie – I am under orders. I have my duty to do.”

“Edward – you are wounded! You need to rest!”

“You heard the doctor – I’ll mend in a few days. Nothing more than a cracked rib or two. Sophie, I must. Please don’t make this any more painful for either of us, I beg you.”

“I’m sorry. Of course.”

“Thank you for understanding. I – I know it isn’t easy.”

“No, Edward, it’s not. But – I can’t have you and not this. I see that.”

“Now kiss me goodbye.”

“Now?”

“Yes, Sophie, now. Mr. Hastings will see you onto the boat.” Sophie looked away. Her glance met Hastings’ instead. He saw the piercing look of pain she hid from Pelham, and liked her better still for turning it on him, not the captain. Hastings looked away while Pelham kissed her. He heard Pelham murmur something in a low voice to her, that made her catch her breath. Then she walked out of the cabin with her head up, looking straight ahead of her.

Hastings followed. “Madam – ”

“Yes, Mr. Hastings?”

Hastings held out the forgotten lace-trimmed undergarment, folded into a neat little square. His tidy folding could not hide Pelham’s blood, drying now. “We’ll take care of him, madam. I promise. The sea air really is excellent for healing, ma’am. Better than stinking shore hospitals. Believe me, ma’am. We’ll bring him back to you safe and sound.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hastings,” she said – and he watched her swing over the side, holding onto the ropes natural as a Portsmouth whore, and take her seat in the stern of the boat, straight-backed. She put the white bundle to her face. As the boat pulled away, the wind brought him the sound of her sobs, then snatched it away. He crossed to the other side of the ship, where the second new mizzen-topgallant-mast was swinging on board.

When it was shipped, Hastings went in to Pelham. The captain sat stiffly upright, rubbing his face with his right hand. “She’s safely over the side, sir. On her way back to shore.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hastings.”

“She’ll be all right, sir.”

“Hm. I suppose that’s what you told her about me?”

“Yes, sir. More or less, sir.”

“Hm. I expect you think that was a damn fool thing to do.”

“Well, sir – I mean, no, sir – I mean, it’s none of my business, sir. I mean – I thought you shouldn’t have climbed over the side, sir. That’s the extent of my opinion, sir.”

Pelham looked up at him – gratefully, Hastings thought. “Still – Mr. Hastings – ”

“Sir?”

If it had to be any of them, Pelham supposed, at least it could have been worse; he would rather be having this awkward conversation with Hastings than any of his other officers, God forbid, excruciating though it was. “I should be – most – er – chagrined – if any mention of what you saw should come back to me.”

“Mention of what, sir?” Hastings stared out of the great window, over Pelham’s head. A slow ache had started in his groin at the thought of it – the naked need on Pelham’s face, in that frozen moment when he had burst into the cabin and found them together thus, before he had looked away – something he had never seen there in all the years he had known and looked up to the man. So even Pelham was only human, in spite of all appearances? The stern and self-sufficient Captain Sir Edward Pelham? Apparently so. The revelation had made the shocking impression of a drawn sword in the quiet, sunlit cabin. God love him, thought Hastings. Why not?

Pelham allowed himself a twitch of the lips. “Indeed. Thank you, Mr. Hastings.”

“Sir.”

“Look, pour yourself another brandy – and pour me one too. It’s been the very devil of a day – wouldn’t you say so?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now – tell me where we are with that new mast – ”

*********************

On the gundeck, Stroud pulled himself from the open gunport, through which the boat carrying Sophie could be seen pulling for shore, and turned to Bates. “Now pay up, yer bastard!

Bates knew a lost cause when he saw one. “All right, you old bugger,” he said, “I owe yer.”

*************************

E. P. to S. McK. –

At Sea

3^rd March, 1804

Sophie –

I find I have the opportunity to dash a quick line to you – we have just spoke the schooner Moth and she is returning to Gibraltar.

So brief a time with you – and such a strange & alarming one. My ribs are healed up very nicely, you need not be concerned.

But I fear I still do not know how to write a love letter.

I have tried and nothing comes right. Too many words, none of them the right ones.

This will have to do instead, it is the truth even if it is not gracefully said and pretty. I am sorry I cannot do any better –––

I want you night and day.

Your company and your conversation delight me.

You are grace itself to me.

I can not wait to call you my wife.

–––– Your own E.

10. Homecoming

Spring, 1804

Mavis’s bring-’em-near glass had been put to good use. She and her mother had at least an hour’s notice beyond the rest of the city that Sir Edward’s frigate had been sighted, the one which had been sending-back all those prizes. They wasted none of it, scrambling into their best clothes (not new, but best) and hurrying down the hill towards the harbour. A small crowd had already begun to gather: everyone in that beleaguered city loved a celebration, and this was as good an excuse as any — better than most!

She limped into harbour — the Indy, that is — as proud as a prizefighter who has won his match even though the blood runs in his eyes. Before her, bringing the news of her triumphant return, had arrived one by one the six enemy ships she had taken in the last few weeks. The citizens of Gibraltar were gathered on the quayside in a cheering, jostling mass.

Captain Sir Edward Pelham came ashore in his gig, splendid in his uniform, his men pulling-up in a beautiful manoeuvre to kiss the stone jetty and raise their oars in one fluid motion. He stepped ashore. His eyes searched the crowd, even as it parted before a fierce onslaught – knees, elbows, feet, butting head – from a small figure in a blue pinafore, who flung herself into his arms just as the captain dropped to one knee right there upon the dock to receive her.

He had woken from a vivid dream the previous week shuddering: something terrible had occurred to snatch them from him before he had even been able to take a hold of them fully. It had left him gasping, in a cold sweat: how precious they were to him! What would he do without them, now? Mavis had taught him, with her sixpence expended to ask for his wave, the imperative of seizing each moment he was granted to enjoy them. And so he did not stint in the demonstration of his feelings, upon seeing them: the rest of the world and his dignity could hang, for now — he was come home, and after all these years of stepping ashore to no-one, here was his very own passionate welcoming-committee.

Oh, God, he thought: thank you. I do not deserve this — let me deserve it.

And so he opened his other arm, and into it (in full view of the entire crew of the Indomitable, not to mention the Port-Admiral and half the citizens of the town) ran a woman – rosy-cheeked, dowdily dressed, no longer young; breathless, her hair escaping from her bonnet. Pelham kissed her — yes, in public, quite shamelessly — with extraordinary tenderness, his eyes closing, as if no-one else were there: once – twice – a third time – a fourth, even! before rising to his feet and taking each of them on his arm to continue. The crowd roared; the crew of the Indomitable outdid them.

“Mavis, I have got you a present,” he said, a minute or two later, when they had walked on some way and the cheering was behind them: “a little bird, a thrush even.”

“In a cage?”

“Yes: but I know your tender heart, dear: it will be your choice, to keep it or let it go.”

“What do you think I am going to do?”

“I think you are going to release it.”

“You’re right! But I want to see it first.”

“I knew you should.”

She danced alongside him, skipping now and then, allowing him to exchange looks with her mother as long as he did not take his attention from her altogether: “I’ve got a present for you too! I made you a picture – of the compass. Mama helped me to draw the star – but I did the rest. Will you put it in your cabin?”

“Of course, if that is what you would like. It shall have pride of place. Did you get the points all correct?”

“Of course I did! You taught them to me, remember? I couldn’t forget them after that!”

Pelham smiled down at her in approval. “I am most glad to hear it. You are an apt pupil, Mavis – would that my midshipmen paid as much attention to their studies!”

“Have you got anything for Mama?”

“I fear I have not – do you think she will forgive me? We have been much occupied, Mavis, and I have not set foot on land since I took leave of you.”

“Then you will have to give her another kiss.” Mavis pulled him down to her to whisper the next part: “ – and when you are married, a baby brother.”

“Mavis, I am shocked at you!”

“But you would like that, wouldn’t you!”

“Yes, above all things, but – ”

“Well, then you will know I thought of it first!”

*************************

And he did, just as she bid him.

11. A Wedding Bouquet

Whatever nuptial arrangements Sophie had been able to discover during this last absence seemed adequate for the purpose; apparently it was indeed a matter of obtaining a special license, which had been done, and but the bridegroom wanting – the vicar being amenable to conducting the service at twenty-four hours’ notice. Upon returning to his ship, therefore, Pelham went straight to Lt. Wainwright and desired him to request the attendance of all the ship’s officers in his quarters in fifteen minutes.

Once they were all assembled, Pelham cleared his throat, looked around the circle of expectant faces, cleared it again and began: “Gentlemen – hm – this may come as a surprise to some of you more than others, perhaps – I wanted to let you know that I am to be married tomorrow afternoon.”

Immediately the circle broke; some half-rose to their feet, to shake his hand, others turning to their neighbours with beams of delight – a murmur arose and became a loud chorus of, “Give you joy, sir!” “Joy, sir!” “Joy, sir!” from all sides. Pelham had not expected the force of it, nor the warmth; he found himself blinking, shaking their hands and thanking them singly and all at once. He cleared his throat again, and they hushed, waiting for him to speak further.

“My bride, as some of you know, having met her, is Mrs. Sophie McKenzie – a widow in this town – yes, the lady who greeted me on shore this morning – ” (here he flushed) “ – so, as I said, I dare say you had some warning that something of the sort was in the offing – still – I understand the service is to be held at St. George's church, the Naval church by the dockyard, at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon – I – I should be most gratified, if you would honour me by your attendance, gentlemen – of course, we must not leave the ship un-officered, so there will be need for a couple of you to stay behind, I regret –” he looked up at them, found their regard upon him singularly delighted to a man, and flushed again.

“I’ll stay, sir,” offered Cowles, the ship’s master, immediately; not, Pelham knew, because he preferred to miss the occasion, but in order to be of service to his captain. He nodded: “Thank you, Mr. Cowles. Now, one of you lieutenants, or acting lieutenants – ? let me assure you there will be further festivities, you shall not miss out altogether!” Hastings was right behind him, spoke up at once: “I’ll stay, sir – be honoured to – ”

“Ah. Hm. Not you, Mr. Hastings, if you please, sir, I had other plans for you – we’ll speak of them in a few minutes – ”

“I will, then, sir!” came a light, cheerful voice behind Hastings.

“Thank you, Mr. Partridge. I’m grateful to you, sir. Well, now, that settles it, then. Hm – it is my intention to celebrate aboard ship tomorrow night, with fresh provisions for the men, and perhaps – a dance – the wedding party to come aboard ship for a couple of hours – I’ll break the news to the men myself, if you don’t mind, gentlemen – all hands on deck half an hour from now, please, Mr. Partridge – ”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“That will be all for now, thank you, gentlemen – hm – I – thank you all – most sincerely – for your good wishes – ! Hm. Hm! Oh, Mr. Wainwright, Mr. Hastings – a word, if you please?”

If the crew guessed at anything from the expressions of the ship’s officers when they emerged from the captain’s cabin, on top of the shameless display of public affection to which they had been treated only hours earlier, they kept their counsel; that is, until word came round that all hands were to repair on deck very shortly, at which point gossip, rumour and surmise knew no bounds; and even the most outrageous speculation, such as the idea that the capting must be going to tie the knot, received less scorn that it ever would have prior to that extraordinary day upon which, it seemed, anything might happen – anything at all – since he had already so taken leave of his senses as to wave his hat in the air that time previously, when leaving Gib, and then today to kiss a woman right in front of their goggling eyes, not once but four times (of which they had kept a very careful count, to be sure).

In his cabin, Pelham turned to Wainwright first. A competent officer — he would not have had a man aboard his ship who was not; a kindly one. What he lacked in imagination, he made up for in sheer doggedness and devotion to duty. A fine sailor; a man who could be trusted to follow orders in action, although not in the last analysis to take the risk upon which all turns. The best kind of first; he would make a steady captain, one day: rise no further than that, though. Not the most brilliant, but steady, reliable, and a dedicated trencherman: he could be trusted in the office Pelham had selected for him. “Mr. Wainwright, sir, I had in mind a roasted ox – brought aboard already cooked, sir – and fresh bread, soft fruit, sweets – you know the kind of thing. Nothing to encourage drunkenness, though, so we shall have to watch very closely while dishing out the ale – can I leave it in your hands, sir, to arrange all of that?”

“I shall be delighted to, sir,” beamed Wainwright, and from his face this was clearly an understatement.

“Very good. I am obliged t’you, sir. Of course you shall put all on my account ashore, this is my own expenditure, so don’t stint, man, get plenty of everything – I want this to be a proper do – just for once, Mr. Wainwright, we shall run the risk of being called extravagant, sir!”

“Indeed, sir – very good, sir.”

“Thank you kindly, Mr. Wainwright. I am most grateful to be able to leave it all to you, sir. You must take one of the ship’s boats, and go ashore right away, and start arranging it – there is an innkeeper, I believe, at the Lamb & Flag, who is generally most obliging–”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Wainwright saluted smartly, and then his officer-like stiffness broke down and he clapped the captain hard upon the shoulder and shook his hand once more before leaving. “I wish you joy, sir – you don’t know – ”

“Thank you, Mr. Wainwright,” said Pelham again, and found that once again he had to clear his throat.

Alone with Hastings, he turned to the younger man. Such a fresh, eager face; such a lion’s spirit in that gangly body. “Mr. Hastings.”

“Sir?” Hastings’ eyebrows were raised; everything else about him stood to attention.

“Oh, relax, man, this is – hm – not as your captain I’m addressing you now, sir.”

Hastings let himself loosen, his shoulders drop; turned to face his captain. “Sir?”

“It’s more in the nature of – a request – as a friend, sir.”

“Of course, sir!” How eager he looked, thought Pelham, with that flush of pleasure spreading across his cheekbones at this familiar tone in his captain’s voice. So very transparent, that boy. So dear as he has become to me. “I do not want to put out Mr. Wainwright,” he went on, “nor would I offend him for the world, but I hope he will be plenty busy with the request I have made of him – but I had a different kind of service to request of you, Mr. Hastings – a very personal one indeed, sir.”

“Anything, sir!” said Hastings, meeting his eyes with that brilliant hazel gaze. God, he looks just like Mavis, thought Pelham.

“I understand – it is customary on these occasions – to have a friend stand up with the groom, sir – at the altar – a supporter, as it were – I – I should be honoured, Mr. Hastings, if you would fill that office for me tomorrow, sir – as a friend; I do not order it – this is a request, sir.”

Hastings broke out into a grin like the sun coming up. “Oh, sir! My god, sir! It is I who shall be honoured, sir – as your friend, sir, if I may dare to call myself that – never forgetting that you are my captain, sir, but – ”

“Thank you, Mr. Hastings, sir – you may.” Pelham spoke more stiffly than he intended, but Hastings recognized the awkwardness of the captain’s coming to him now as an equal, requesting a favour of him – a deeply personal one – and his heart overflowed with emotion. The picture floated into his mind of the last occasion on which he had met Mrs. McKenzie, and he blushed deeply to recall his blunder then – a blunder which it appeared the captain had forgiven, or at least, intended to leave well in the past now. Once again Pelham appeared before him not as a captain but as a man, asking for Hastings’ loyalty.

It was already given; had been from the start, earned in a thousand acts of care and command and kindness; recognition and hard words; reprimands and praise – and especially Pelham’s looks, over these past years – appraising, angry, kind, concerned, tender – speaking an affection and depth of regard impossible to express from a captain to his subordinate, but as deeply felt as any words; more so – an unswerving respect on Pelham’s part for Hastings as an officer, as a man. Pelham could have asked any one of half-a-dozen fellow captains presently in port, an illustrious group presently including even the storied ‘Have-at-’Em’ Hurley (perish the thought!) but no – he had turned instead to the man he cared for most.

**

Hastings stared in front of him, looking at the silver curves of the captain’s candlesticks upon his sideboard, and remembered how he had traced those same arcs with his eyes the day he first came aboard Indomitable. God, but he had been green then! He was surprised the captain had given him the time of day, let alone summoned him for a personal interview and brusque welcome. The reputation of captain and ship had been Navy-wide, even then: in his ambition, Hastings had welcomed this request for his transfer even while he shook in his buckled shoes as he faced the reality of it and this legendary man. His new captain had been Nelson’s first, recommended for a command of his own at an extraordinarily young age, passing other lieutenants left dangling on the list. A midshipman could learn a lot from Pelham — if he survived. Officering one of His Majesty’s ships was dangerous work — dangerous and hard, hard beyond imagining. And responsible; and crushing; and brutal. This much he had learned already, on his old tub under a lax and drunken captain and an incompetent first. Now he was here, and set to serve under one of the best. Everything up till now had been child’s play compared with what he had embarked on here, and he knew it. Still he was glad of the chance to be here; his heart had leapt when he first heard the news: it was still thumping, three weeks later.

So there he had stood, in this very self-same spot, looking upon his captain for the first time. Little had changed. A dark queue bound tightly with a black ribbon: a compact, muscular frame in a crisp, clean uniform – spanking whites, elegant navy-blue, polished buttons down the gold-braided front — Pelham could not abide slovenliness. Square, capable hands holding the dividers with a look of graceful precision. Thus much he had had the chance to observe before Pelham had looked up from his charts with a beetling frown.

Hastings had wondered what his crime was. Then the captain had sat back in his chair and let his face relax into a look of keen appraisal — not an unkind one. There had been a hint of warmth behind the sharp brown eyes, even then. “Let me see,” Pelham had said, “you are but recently rated midshipman, then, sir?”

“Just so, sir,” Hastings had replied, trying to remain calm while mentally reviewing all of his deficiencies and wondering which the captain was going to ask him about first.

“Seen any action, have you?”

“A little, sir.”

“Good — well, you’ll see a good sight more here, I expect — if you don’t, we’re not doing our duty, sir!” He still remembered the way Pelham had said “duty” – as if it were the name of something fierce and joyful: something sacred — to be enunciated with added force and crispness, notable even in the captain’s habitually precise speech (he was a precise and forceful man). That had not changed, either. He understood it better now, though: had learned much of his own devotion to it at those competent hands, that driving intelligence, that tiger’s instinctual deadly grace.

That day the captain had regarded him, mildly at first and then with increasing intensity till Hastings felt very uncomfortable. At last Pelham broke the silence, let his gaze drop. “Let me see. I have a good report of you. Done your duty on a less-than-ideal ship, or so I hear. No, don’t deny it — I keep in touch with my former officers, sir: we are aware of more that goes on than you might think. Though I’ll have you flogged if you say I said so. I heard you ought to be taken out of there and given a proper chance — just when my last junior mid had an unfortunate encounter with a twelve-pounder ball, sir. Most unfortunate. I regret it. Still – you’ve earned your chance to take his place, how does that strike you, Mr. Hastings?”

He had been able to answer honestly that he was very pleased to be aboard, sir.

“Hm. Hmm. Are you! Ignorance is bliss, they say —— well, we shall plumb the extent of your ignorance, I have no doubt, in the weeks to come – though I expect with an officer of your diligence, your progress to date, that we shall go far and fast with you, sir: in fact, I am counting on it. Better make yourself useful, Mr. Hastings, Hastings — and your first name would be…?”

“Oliver, sir.”

“Oliver! As in Cromwell? Good Lord. I didn’t think anybody was called Oliver, nowadays. Not a republican, are you, Mr. Hastings?”

“No, sir,” said the young man stiffly. “I — did not choose my name, sir.”

“Well, obviously not,” said Pelham, “fortunately for you, since we are here upon His Majesty’s service, to defend His Majesty’s shores, by sailing and fighting in His Majesty's ships — now, aren’t we!”

Yes, sir, the lad had said.

“Well,” relented Pelham kindly, “you may have the name of a regicide, sir, but the only thing you have to prove to me is who you are — we won’t worry about who you are not. Not even The Old Protector, God rest his poor cursed soul. Are you a good officer — Are you my officer — that’s what matters to me, sir. Although you may expect not to have heard the last about your name.”

“No, sir,” said Hastings, “— about the name, that is — and I mean, yes, of course, sir, about the officer. Thank you, sir. I mean, I hope I will prove to be a good one, sir. I should not claim to be one yet. But it is my very great wish, sir.”

“Mine too, Mr. Hastings,” said Pelham, and nodded, curtly but firmly. The lad looked him in the eye, spoke up when spoken to, wished to prove a good officer. What more could he ask for, at this stage? Not much more than that. Often, indeed, he would have been pleased to see even a single one of those qualities in the wretched dregs they had been sending him, lately. Perhaps losing that mid so bloodily had been a blessing in disguise – though he hated to lose a man, especially a promising young officer.

This one showed more promise, though: much more. He would have to keep a very close eye on this one, for he saw himself here twenty years ago, the same calm regard, the zeal, the drive to succeed as an officer and as a man. “Hm,” he said, a staccato sound of approval, pleased as he was at the promise standing before him. God grant he would be lucky – without that, nothing else would matter a tinker’s cuss. “Hm! — You may go.”

**

And now here he stood, three years later, promoted from midshipman to lieutenant and having earned something more precious even than that, and rarer by far: his captain’s trust — and dare he say it? — affection. The man who held the ship in his hand had come to him for support : facing the most momentous day of his private life, he trusted no-one more than Hastings to be by his side. The young man’s heart swelled until it filled his throat. What a very long way they had come together.

“Very good,” said Pelham now, with an actual smile: “Thank you, Mr. Hastings. We shall discuss this further, sir, later – but there is the matter of fixing things up at the church, I believe, not to mention the organist, God help us, who must be paid off, I am sure, to get us all out of there in proper style and free to return to our vittles – oh, and there is something else, Mr. Hastings, a very great charge upon your grace and ingenuity, sir – ”

“Sir?”

“Mrs. McKenzie has a daughter, sir. No, do not look aghast, Mr. Hastings, I am not trying to marry you off too, sir – you have seen her, she met me on the dock this morning, a child of nine or ten years – ”

“I recall, sir.”

“She’ll be in attendance upon her mother, I expect, so you’ll give her your arm down the aisle – and then once we’re back aboard ship, sir, believe me, you’ll have your work cut out to keep her out of mischief – if you take your eye off her, Mr. Hastings, she’ll be half-way up the mast before you can say Jack Robinson – !”

“Yes, sir. I shall look forward to it, sir!”

“Very good. Thank you, Mr. Hastings – that is all, for now – ”

Something vital they had not yet touched upon came to Hastings’ recollection: “Have you got a ring, sir? I believe that is part of my duties, sir, to hand it to you at the appropriate moment in the service – ”

“Ah. A ring! Indeed, sir. I had thought about that earlier, but then it slipped my mind in all this talk of Mavis up the rigging, God help us – a ring. Indeed. I had thought – my signet ring – I must see if it fits her finger, when I go ashore again.”

“Sir – ” Hastings paused, his hand on the door handle.

“Yes, Mr. Hastings?”

Hastings too found it necessary to clear his throat, which had the most unaccountable lump in it: “God bless you, sir.”

************************

Pelham stood at the quarterdeck rail and surveyed the upturned faces before him. Squinting in the light, he began: “Men – ” Immediately a cheer began, swelled around the crew. Pelham waited for them to be quiet. “I have what I hope you will consider happy news,” he continued at last, only to be interrupted again by an even louder outcry. He looked down at the deck and then up again at his men. Shining faces, sunburned, weatherbeaten; hardened, many with missing teeth and scarred bodies – brave men, men with the hearts of lions; men he had led into action again and again, asking of them to lay their lives down for England without hesitation, if need be, and they had, unstintingly; his crew, the Indomitable’s company. As much of a family as he had had, these many years – to whom, as captain, he had had to be father, judge, martinet, goad and shepherd; and always and above all, their inspiration.

“Silence!” he roared in his best quarter-deck manner, since only thus would they let him go on. “Will you not let me get to the point?” His eyes snapped, and then he shook his head. “Listen! Tomorrow is going to be a most unusual day aboard Indomitable! Yes, men, the rumours are true – hush! HUSH, I SAY!! YES –– I AM TO BE MARRIED TOMORROW!” He had not intended to roar out the news, but they left him no choice, since their anticipatory cheers only grew louder with his every word. When he got the words out the noise became deafening. He turned from one side to the other; lifted his fingers to the brim of his hat. “SILENCE!” he roared again, after a while, “You must let me finish – we do not have all day!”

They scrambled to retrieve hats which had been thrown in the air, and did their best to pay him the attention they ought. “I intend to share my pleasure in this event with you men, since we have been shipmates for God knows how long, some of you these many years – so WE WILL HAVE A CELEBRATION ABOARD INDOMITABLE tomorrow night, to which YOU ARE ALL INVITED!” Again he had to wait for them to hush. “My – hm – my new family and I will be coming back aboard about five o’clock, when we will all have a feast and dancing, and I shall present them to you right here on this quarterdeck!”

He felt some consciousness of all they must be thinking, including (he had no doubt) some very well-founded speculations about his most intimate personal life; but privacy was a rare thing in a captain’s life, and he was used to every kind of scrutiny – this was just another one, and must be endured. There are few secrets aboard ship: they had all eaten, drunk, slept, puked, pissed, shat, bled together; and now he was exposed further to them as finding himself in need (just as they were) of f–cking also; so be it, then. If the price of his new-found happiness was to have every man-jack aboard his ship envying him, then let them do so.

“So – one thing more, then, men – a request I have of you – remember that we are a crew, not a rabble, sirs – I shall not have no drunkenness, not tomorrow night above all nights, with my family aboard, I hope I shan’t have to ask that of you again – and I make this announcement today in the hope that you will oblige me tomorrow by turning out in the smartest rig you have – let’s have the Indy looking her best – ship, officers and men – let’s give ’em something to be proud of, for we shall be on show!” He paused. Something very like a smile hovered about his mouth. “And I must thank you all,” he finished, “for your very warm response – and your good wishes!”

They cheered him properly then, one set of huzzas after another in swift succession, and several loud cries of “God bless you, sir” . He let them have it – for so he thought of it, not thinking of himself as deserving it; waited till they had subsided to a buzz, before nodding a last acknowledgment and dismissing them back to their duties.

*********************

Sophie did not expect to see Pelham again so soon. She was even more surprised, not to say dismayed, at the news he had come to deliver in person: that the Governor had sought him out while at the Port-Admiral’s office, shaking his hand and telling him he was a dark horse, a very dark horse, sir, what! Ha, ha – not to mention a lucky dog.

Indeed, sir, Pelham had agreed, wondering what was to come next. What came next was an extremely warm and not-to-be-refused invitation to luncheon immediately for Pelham and his intended bride, sir – Lady Davenport was quite insistent, would not take no for an answer, indeed she would not – so that they might work out with Captain Sir Edward and his good lady just how they were to manage a reception at Government House at such short notice, not to mention a bouquet for the bride and any number of vital matters without which no wedding as important as this one must be allowed to proceed. “Most insistent, she was, sir, I may say,” warned Sir Lloyd – “she won’t brook no refusal, let me warn you, Pelham – not as long as you and we have been friends, damme, sir! What a surprise to spring on every body!”

Pelham accepted as graciously as he could, knowing well what Sophie’s response must be; but to refuse such genuine kindness and generosity was out of the question. Besides, if Lady Davenport were to take an interest in Sophie’s welfare, it would set his mind considerably at rest during his long, enforced absences, secure in the knowledge that she was under a very august wing indeed: for her life would be considerably eased, and her social opportunities widely increased, with such a friend. He also knew Lady Davenport of old to be extremely kind and warm-hearted, not at all the sort of woman to judge Sophie’s credentials and find them lacking. “You are your own recommendation, my dear,” he reassured her when she cried out in horror, “you can need nothing beyond what you already are.”

“But – I have nothing to wear, even,” she cried – “all of my gowns are quite behind the style, Edward, I shall look a very poor, dowdy, frumpish thing!”

“You shall look like my intended bride,” he replied, “ and that is more than beautiful enough. Look, Sophie – your elegance lies in your person, not your frock!”

“That just shows how long you have been at sea,” she said, “and how naïve you are about the way of things ashore!”

“No,” he said, “but since it can’t be helped, why dwell on it? She means you nothing but kindness, Sophie, so just accept it – there’s really nothing else to be done.”

“You won’t be ashamed of me?” she whispered.

For answer he kissed her till she could not speak at all, let alone utter any more such foolishness. Besides giving him a very great deal of pleasure, this also seemed the handiest way to hush her and divert her thoughts from the subject. He succeeded: for she drew back from him breathless and flustered (himself only a little less so, but more trained in keeping his attention on the matter at hand despite all distractions, through his long and arduous service at sea). So he went on to try his signet ring on her finger; it was a little loose, but no more than could be accommodated temporarily with a small yet judicious application of wax, until it could be taken to the jeweller’s for permanent adjustment.

“Edward – will you spend the night ashore?” she asked, her cheeks rosy from his kisses still.

He gave her a most tender, longing look. “I think – not,” he said; “I should like to be able to call you my wife, the next time I make love to you, Sophie. One more day – to come to you in all honour – it would please me most of all, so – do you mind?”

“No, Edward,” she said, “I love you for it.”

He glanced at Josiah Goodenough’s clock: “Come, Sophie, get into your best frock – shall I leave a note for Mavis, so she won’t wonder where you have got to, when she comes home?”

“Yes, please, Edward – oh, heavens! You mean we must go now?”

“Indeed,” he admonished her gently, “it won’t do to keep them waiting!”

**********************

It was by no means the ordeal Sophie feared. As Pelham had told her, and she had refused to believe, his old friends were above all kind, and sincerely interested in his welfare – and now, hers also. Sophie had been quite sure that the summons was intended as a kind of inspection, to see whether she passed muster. She picked nervously at the delicious cold quail and cucumber-salad, the pastries and fresh fruit in madeira, hoping she was using the correct fork; but no-one appeared to be taking the slightest interest in the adequacy of her table-manners – they were far more concerned with plans for the morrow, such as what delicacies might be furnished at such short notice without producing apoplexy in their chef, who was as temperamental as he was gifted, a true diva of the kitchen – and with putting Sophie at her ease.

Although – it would really be so much easier, if Sir Edward would consider postponing the event until his next visit, to allow time for the necessary preparations – would he not consider it?

“No,” said Pelham; and that was that.

Lady Davenport seemed very shrewd indeed, and used to ordering things and people about for their own good. However, Sophie noted that she generously allowed her curiosity to take a back seat, at least temporarily, while more important matters were settled, such as her insistence on holding a little reception afterwards for a select number of guests whom she would see to inviting: Sophie must not trouble herself, except to let Lady Davenport have a list of any guests she should wish to have included in the party.

“We lead a very quiet life, really,” she murmured in response, before recollecting her former music-teacher, and a couple of other old and dear friends whom she could now include in her day of joy, thanks to Lady Davenport’s generosity. When they had left the table and moved to the verandah, with its beautiful view across the Bay, she was brought pen and paper to write their names and direction, while her hostess made her own list of people who must not be left out, if she was to meet all the most important citizens. “What a lovely hand you have,” said Lady Davenport: “so flowing and expressive! I would not be surprised to hear that you are an artist, my dear!”

“Well – I do like to bring my sketchbook with me, when I may, though I haven’t done very much, in a number of years – ” said Sophie shyly.

“How delightful! Next time you visit, my dear, you must bring it and show me. Now! Come sit here by me, and let the men have their fighting-talk – I know Sir Lloyd wants to hear about every one of those prizes – but you and I, my dear, have something far more extraordinary to talk about – I cannot contain myself any longer, Mrs. McKenzie – come – you simply must tell me how you managed it!”

“Managed what?”

“To capture the heart of the untouchable Sir Edward Pelham, of course, my dear! I had given up on him completely – just lost hope altogether – I can’t tell you how many women I have sat him next to, over the years – some of them – well – ”

“Quite beautiful, I’m sure,” finished Sophie for her, “and titled too, I expect?”

“Yes, dear, forgive me – but – you understand – he is quite a catch!”

“I didn’t think of him like that,” said Sophie slowly; “I mean, of course I knew he was someone – well, you know, someone quite remarkable, but – I wasn’t trying to catch him – I didn’t set out to do that at all – it was just that he seemed to enjoy our company so much, I thought I should be glad to be a friend to him – ”

Lady Davenport snorted. “A friend! It’s as plain as the nose on my face the man’s head-over-heels in love with you, my dear – he’s barely taken his eyes off you since you both arrived!”

Sophie blushed.

Lady Davenport raised her eyebrows further: “So tell me how you met!”

“Well – er – my daughter ran into him. Quite literally – in the street – it was raining, and she wasn’t looking where she was going – she’s just a child, nine years old – she fell in the gutter, and he picked her up and they got to talking – ”

“Really!”

“Yes – and then he was kind enough to bring her home, and he had begun to help her with her fractions, and wished to finish the lesson another time, so he came back… ”

Lady Davenport’s shrewd grey eyes surveyed Pelham more closely as he talked with Sir Lloyd at the other end of the balcony, giving an animated account of one of the actions lately fought that had resulted in the capture of a Spanish sloop and pointing to where it now lay anchored. “He had his guard down, then,” she said. “And you had no intention of throwing yourself at him – men can sense these things, my dear, I’m sure you know – so he felt perfectly safe with you – and so lost his heart!”

“I suppose so,” said Sophie, wondering if this was a bad thing. “You must be disappointed,” she said, “after all the ladies you’ve tried to introduce him to – ”

“What? Nonsense! Good lord, Mrs. McKenzie, I simply adore the man – always have – I’m tickled pink to see him so happy! There’s something so utterly touching about middle-aged love, my dear … ” – here Sophie looked closely at her, to see if this was said with any sly malice whatever, but it was not, for Lady Davenport’s eyes misted over, then – “ …we have taken our knocks, been hurt perhaps – it is so much harder to trust, at our age – we know how very painful life can be, it’s not the naïve infatuation we feel at twenty – is that not so, Mrs. McKenzie?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Oh, none of that; here, may I call you Sophie? Everyone calls me Letty, I do so hate Laetitia – ”

Sophie took a deep breath. “You are very kind,” she said. “I was afraid I shouldn’t be good enough for him – certainly that his friends must think so… ”

“Nonsense! You’ll do very well. Far, far better than most! You have a kind heart, my dear – I can tell – and besides that, you’re clearly as devoted to him as he is to you, quite transparently so, which is perfectly charming, you have no need to blush like that – plus you’re exactly what he needs – someone simple, direct – someone stable, with plenty of common sense and no hysterics, and no high-and-mighty ways about you, neither.” Lady Davenport leaned forward, continued in a lower tone: “Lord, but I have no patience with coy women! Nor flirts, neither – men do not like to be teased, I have found; they put up with it, but it isn’t kind – it’s not a man’s nature, to play those silly games – oh yes, Sophie, you shall do very well together: I do not hesitate to pronounce it – and I am never wrong in these matters! Now, my dear – you must not be offended at what I am going to say next.”

Oh, no, thought Sophie – this always presages something really awful – was ‘simple’ an insult, then? She did not think so, the way Lady Davenport had said it so warmly. “Of course,” she said.

“Very good. For between friends – we are to be friends, are we not? – there can be no silliness over such simple things as the lending of a frock or two.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Sophie, I have more gowns than I could shake a stick at. I have but recently shed some inches from my figure, at the insistence of my doctor, since I was troubled with the gout most horribly last year, and he told me I had no choice, if I didn’t wish to suffer – you haven’t reached my age, yet, dear, so you won’t have that to worry about, I’m sure – I must have twenty dresses I haven’t yet had altered – won’t you take a look at them, and see if there isn’t something you should like to wear tomorrow?”

“My lady – Letty – ”

“Now don’t argue, I beg you – or have you something special picked out already? I shouldn’t presume – but I should dearly like you to look your best, on his arm, tomorrow, in his full-dress uniform – ”

Sophie swallowed. Her pride and her wish to look worthy of Pelham the next day at the altar fought a battle. Her pride lost. “You are far too kind – ” she murmured, “but – my lady – Letty, then, pardon me – you are far taller than I!”

“That is why we must pick something out right away,” said Lady Davenport, “so my maid can take it up for you tonight, and make any other alterations, and you will come here tomorrow morning and we will do your hair, and I shall have a bouquet for you, and you shall be married from here. It will be far simpler, thus, you must agree!”

Sophie recognized a force of nature when she met one – probably from long acquaintance with the one she had at home – and thus nodded in dignified acquiescence: it was the only thing to be done.

“Splendid! Gentlemen – ” her husband the Governor looked up, and Pelham also, at her commanding tone – “we are going upstairs to look at gowns. You will have to entertain yourselves.”

“We were, dear,” said Sir Lloyd mildly.

“Good. Well – carry on doing so, then!”

“Yes, dear,” he said.

Pelham met Lady Davenport’s eyes, as she passed them. “Thank you,” he said.

“Nonsense! She is a treasure, sir, I couldn’t be more pleased for you.”

“Nor I,” he said.

She tapped his wrist with her fan. “I can see that,” she said, and raised her eyebrows in amusement at him as she swept past, Sophie following in her wake.

Sophie had never seen so many dresses in her life. Lady Davenport’s dressing-room held rail upon rail of them. “It’s a weakness of mine, my dear,” murmured their owner, seeing her blink. “But you’re luckier than I – can you imagine how hard it is to look like anything at all, next to that shocking red my husband’s always in? Such a cruel colour! Navy-blue is so much nicer… you’ll look lovely no matter what you pick!”

Sophie’s eye was caught by a fairly simple but beautifully-draped peach silk, in the new high-waisted style, with underskirts of cherry that showed in the front and a matching cherry sash. It took little persuasion for her to take off her own muslin frock and stand in her petticoats like a lamb while they tried it on her. When Sophie slipped it over her head and Lady Davenport’s maid fastened up the back, it felt feather-light. She looked in the glass.

“Oh!” she said. It made the most of her pretty figure, fitting closely to her bosom and falling softly over her bottom with no more fullness than was needed. The sash emphasized the effect: the whole was a showcase for her best feature. The neckline was scooped, with a delicate ruffle to draw the eye, revealing just an inch of the swell of her breasts together. She looked exactly like herself; except more so – and ravishing.

“That’ll get his attention!” said Lady Davenport, in great satisfaction. “Ruth, fetch some pins, there’s a dear – ”

“Yes, mum, right away!”

“I don’t think we need look any further, do you? Of course, we can, if you’d like – you must take your time, this is a very big occasion – !”

“Oh, no,” said Sophie, “it’s perfect! I – I never imagined – I always thought of myself as plain – I – oh, my goodness!”

“Plain? Nonsense!” Lady Davenport scolded her. “We all need a little help, to look our best my dear, but you have a lovely figure – every man likes a nice armful, you know, when it comes down to it – and the way your face lights up when he is in the room – or now, for that matter – that pretty flush you have – quite lovely, I can assure you. It suits you better than it ever did me, I’m too sallow for that shade – it’s perfect on you, with that milkmaid complexion, you lucky girl!” She nodded firmly in approval, walking around Sophie and surveying her up and down from all angles. “You’ll knock him right out of his stockings, in that – won’t stop there, either, I don’t imagine!”

Her eyes met Sophie’s merrily, the look of a married woman still very happy with her own husband. “Not at the altar, mind!” she smiled.

Ruth returned with the pins, and Lady Davenport took a mouthful and knelt on Sophie’s other side – they worked around her and met in the middle. With the skirts pinned-up and the toes of her kid slippers showing, Sophie felt a surge of confidence. “You’re really too kind!” she protested, but Lady Davenport wouldn’t hear it: “Nonsense! This is the most fun I’ve had in months – so romantic! – such a lovely surprise, shocking us all like that, but now I know you a little better, my dear, I can quite see why he wasn’t going to let you escape!”

“I thought perhaps – it might appear to you – that I was the one that grabbed ahold of him – but it wasn’t like that, I assure you! When he asked me to marry him – it was such a surprise – I didn’t even realize that was what he meant, I had no thought of it – and he had already made his mind up, he was so insistent, I couldn’t say no – ”

“Gracious, no! Captain Sir Edward Pelham? Say no? You’d have to have taken leave of your senses, to refuse the man!”

“But I never expected – ”

“Precisely! That’s why he asked you, my dear!” Lady Davenport took Sophie’s hand to come to her feet once more. “You let him make his own mind up about you. Men hate it when we expect things of them. If you’d come after him, he’d have run a sea-mile! But you didn’t – you meant to be his friend – and so here you are, getting married tomorrow!”

“Yes,” said Sophie, and blushed again. “I’m so glad you understand!”

“After twenty years with Lloyd? Oh, yes, my dear, I understand! Never expect anything of him – be glad for what he is and whatever he is capable of – believe it to be his best, for it very probably is, men being such overgrown children – ” here Lady Davenport glanced at Sophie, to see whether to say the next thing that came to her lips, and decided she might as well: “and never send him from your bed to look for another.” She had the pleasure of watching Sophie turn so deep a shade of pink, bite her lip and try to hide an expression of absolute radiance at the mention of the word ‘bed’, that she thought to herself, Aha! So that’s how it is already! God bless them both.

************************

Lady Davenport was quite correct in her surmise concerning the gown and Captain Pelham’s stockings – but that came much later, after a night of blessedly deep sleep for Sophie and restless longing for Pelham; a morning of no appetite for breakfast, dressing and fluttery anticipation for both of them, attended by loving friends both old and new; and all kinds of hasty last-minute preparations and things to think of which kept them both much occupied until she finally arrived at the church in Sir Lloyd’s carriage with Mavis, stepped out of it and appeared in the doorway.

At Hastings’ instructions, passed with only a few tactful omissions of the emphatics directly from Pelham, the organist broke into ‘something lively, man, for God’s sake, I shall have no damned dirges at my wedding!’ and a hundred faces turned to see her. Smiles broke out on every one of them, but she did not see them, for the only face she sought was not smiling; that face closed its eyes for a moment, opened them again, drew a sharp breath, gazed open-mouthed and blinking at her with such a look upon it that her insides twisted and she stopped where she stood.

“Come on, Mama – he’s waiting for you,” said Mavis, audible to all the adjacent guests, and in the wave of stifled chuckles this occasioned, she found her feet again and walked up to the altar to meet him.

**************************

Both receptions were triumphantly enjoyed by all who attended; but the one aboard the Indy was generally agreed to be the most glorious event ever to take place upon those scrubbed and holystoned decks. Even Pelham exclaimed, on first catching sight of the streamers rippling from every available piece of rigging and the lanterns slung aloft between the masts, to be more lovely still as night fell – the signal J-O-Y aflutter, the garlands of laurel and brilliant scarlet bougainvillaea festooning the Indy’s sides, and the ship’s company assembled in their cleanest clothes lining the rail and hanging along the yards and ratlines like a colony of monkeys, all of them waving. “I’ll be damned,” he said, and looked as if he would say more, but swallowed several times instead.

“They’ve outdone themselves, sir!” exclaimed Hastings – as indeed they had. He had been absent with Pelham since the morning, so the ship’s transformation – while not a surprise to him, for he had been party to its planning among various groups of officers and men who unaccountably turned aside and became suddenly busy with other matters when the captain should appear – was still an extraordinary sight: to see all the plans realized brought a lump to his throat; he could only imagine the effect on Pelham.

“Oh, Edward!” said Sophie. “Oh, my goodness!”

For answer her new husband squeezed her hand in his, rather tightly. The crew rowing them out to the ship had all found striped shirts to wear, and matching straw hats (some more battered than others, but all more or less alike). Mavis gaped open-mouthed as they drew closer. (Hastings, beside her, spelled out the signal for her, wondering as he did so how many good citizens of Gibraltar had woken that morning to find their walls and fences raided, their rose-bushes denuded, their palm-trees plundered.)

The provisions ordered the previous day by Mr. Wainwright had been brought aboard during the wedding and the Governor’s reception, under the very capable direction of Mr. Cowles. Everything stood in readiness. The men were in a fever of anticipation; when the boat appeared bearing the wedding party, cheers broke out that could be heard ashore. They huzza'd Pelham as he climbed aboard; and, louder still, his bride as she sat sedately in the chair-hoist and was swung over the side to take Pelham’s waiting arm.

Stroud elbowed Bates. “Not enough of a looker? Take another look, eh? Lucky bastard! I wouldn’t ’alf mind a roll between the sheets with ’er!” This sentiment was generally echoed by most of the ship’s company, privately if not explicitly, as Sophie blushed and stood looking around at all of them. Pelham felt their scrutiny and, from long acquaintance with the ways of seamen, knew exactly what they were thinking; he raised his chin a little and tried to look as if he did not. Sophie was blessedly not so aware of the effect this first close sight of her (to most of them) must have upon the crew, and Pelham did not think it politic to enlighten her. Although, by God, they’re right, he reflected. All these years, and I had not the first idea what all the fuss was about – but now – oh, God! How shall I even wait until tonight?

“They’re cheering you, Edward,” she said.

“No;” he corrected her, “they’re cheering you.”

“Oh!” she said. “Should – should I wave?”

“I think that would be very appropriate.”

His pride in her only swelled as he noted the warmth and grace with which she did so, turning around and back and looking up to make sure she did not miss a single one of them; the easy spontaneity of her manner with this horde of cheering men.

Then – this was Mr. Partridge’s inspiration – while the other guests came aboard, the entire ship’s company burst into a chorus of song. Since the only songs known to the majority of them were hymns and sea-shanties, it made quite an astonishing impression when Old Hundred (Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow) was immediately followed by “I’ll Go No More A-Roving”, then “The Lord’s My Shepherd” – next came a touching rendition from a small group of Welshmen on the main yardarm of “All Through The Night” in ravishing harmony (and fortunately for Pelham’s dignity, in Welsh); finishing up once more tutti with a rousing chorus of “From Ushant To Scilly Is Thirty-Five Leagues”.

Mavis came aboard during this vocal treat, and stepped off the hoist (a contraption she would have scorned at any other time, you may be sure) to take Mr. Hastings’ arm. She was not quite sure of the words to Old Hundred, but knew them all to “A-Roving,” and joined in with gusto.

Lady Davenport followed, and some other notable ladies of the town; it was unlikely that any of them had come aboard a ship to quite this accompaniment before, and all were utterly charmed. The presence on board of half-a-dozen Naval captains and any quantity of lieutenants only increased their delight, whether they let on or no; for who does not like to flirt with a sailor?

It is quite certain that everyone enjoyed themselves. It is equally certain that the happiest, proudest, most immoderately gleeful and wide-eyed of them all was Miss Mavis McKenzie, as she basked in the attention of above a hundred kind-hearted and jubilant sailors. (She did not ascend the ratlines much above the fore-top, after it had got dark and she was less likely to be noticed with her petticoats tucked and knotted above her knees – but this remained a secret between herself and Mr. Stroud, who climbed up right behind her to be sure she would not fall.) There was plenty to eat and drink; gallons of fresh lemonade, when the men had had their ration of ale; not only roasted ox, but a whole pig upon a spit; sweetmeats piled up alongside fresh fruit, and baskets overflowing with rolls soft and fresh from the baker’s. “All right for you, sir?” asked Wainwright.

“All right? All right? Mr. Wainwright, you have surpassed all my expectations!” cried Pelham, warmly – “I am most grateful to you, sir, I can hardly express it – you have done me proud, sir!” Wainwright, unused to such hyperbole from his stern commander, could do nothing but beam, more broadly than ever.

Some fiddlers from among the ship’s company gave them tunes to dance to, along with several pipers and plenty of clapping to see them up and down the deck. Pelham danced with Sophie, to the great glee of the men, who had not imagined their captain possessed of such a surprising skill; afterwards, in the gathering dusk, he drew her quietly aside and they slipped past the other revellers all the way for’ard to the fo’c’s’le, where they stood alone out of the way looking out over the bow.

The lights ashore twinkled – the first stars had come out, including Venus most particularly brilliant to larboard. Sophie slipped her arm about her bridegroom’s waist. He had been aching to hold her all day long; the peach dress had had its intended effect and he was beside himself with longing for her. He closed his eyes and sighed. Why not – a kiss, at least? he thought. His heart scrabbled in his chest like a captive hare and he gave into its prompting, having first glanced over his shoulder to see if they had escaped attention (they had, more or less), and turned her face up to his.

Those few men he had failed to notice aloft were then treated to the sight of the newlyweds kissing for all they were worth for several minutes on end, not to mention their captain’s hands wandering here and there where they would dearly have liked to place their own, if only for a moment, even, and Sophie’s likewise bolder than any of them could have imagined: a sight they were not likely ever to forget. To their credit, not one of them made a sound; when Pelham withdrew, breathless, it was because he could not continue another moment without having her there and then, not because they had been disturbed; and thus Captain and Lady Pelham left to rejoin the party without ever knowing that they had been observed.

It was all the more remarkable that – as coarse and lewd as each of the crew could be – they felt something exquisitely personal, not to say reverent, about having witnessed this tender scene – as if it had been a gift for themselves alone – such that somehow not one of them afterwards considered it a fit subject for crude conversation with his mates who had not been so privileged.

Mavis fell asleep in the carriage on the way home, and Pelham carried her up to bed. Sophie came behind him with a candle. The child’s arms flopped as he laid her down and he shook his head at the sight of a rope-burn on the inner side of one wrist.

“Edward – ” whispered Sophie, now that they finally had a moment alone together.

“Mrs. Pelham – ?” he replied, wondering at the consternation on her face.

There was no good time to tell him, so she just said it very simply and directly: the calendar … she didn’t expect it, but – oh, Edward – did he mind, too too very much?

Of course not, he said, and wondered if he had ever told a greater lie in his life; but he knew he had not.

a

To: Captin Pelham

HMS Indomitable

27^th May, 1804

Dear Captin Papa –––––

See I now know how to spell the Indy and also your name. This is a good thing sinse you have made Mama Mrs Pelham. I wish you did not have to keep going off to sea like this all the time. It is much easyer to talk to you than rite. But at lest you and Mama are maried now thank goodnes!

Mama says I must rite and thank you for the beutifull lockit as if I woudnt have done so anyway! I love the cuning little clasp as well as the dainty links in the chane. Now all I need is a pitcher of you to put in it. Mama says you are to modist to give it to me like that and I must ask you. I want one just like the pitcher you put in hers. But I like mine being on a chane not a pin like hers. I am going to get a pitcher of Mama for the other side and then when I close it you will kiss. And dont think I havent seen you when you think Im not looking. Smile. Remember I told you first!

I likd being showen your ship after the weding. It was the best time I ever had in my life. Your sailers were so good to me. You know they realy like you dont you. I notisd they tride hard to mind there langwidge, not like when they were mending our tank and didnt know I was lisning! And they all wore there best cloaths. Mr. Strowd cam up and gave me a braslit made of nots. He calld me Miss. Your oficers are nice too. They calld me Miss McKenzie so I said that sounds like my Mama realy Im just Mavis so then they calld me Miss Mavis. Mr. Wanerite made me laf a lot. Mr. Haystings put his hat on my head and made my name in real signall flags just like you did for me in Mamas book. Mr. Partrige dansd with me at the weding party. He is sweet. I wish my hair was gold and my eyes a pritty blue like that. All together I am the hapiest I have ever been and so is mama, she sings all the time in the kitchin even tho you arnt here and when I fell off the roof and scraypd my knee badly she didnt tell me off at all. The day I ran into you was the best day of our lifes and I will never let you forget it was me who found you!

I shal close now and give you my duty as well as my love since you are my Papa now for ever. Please rite soon.

From your loving dauter Mavis.

*************************

E.P. to S.P.

At Sea

31^st May, 1804

For the first time I may write, My darling wife –

It gives me such joy to call you that, Sophie! – such peace in the middle of all my duties, to know that we now are legitimately promised & belonging to each other. I leave you with reluctance, yet so very happy that you are publicly announced in deed what you have been in my heart from the first.

Sophie – shall there ever come a day when you do not fill me with astonishment? That is, besides the joy and deep contentment of your most pleasant company? If so, it has not come yet – nor do I expect it to, for a very good while –– for ever, perhaps?

Yes Sophie, I am speaking of your wedding gift to me.

How shall I ever become accustomed to the gift of you? Think of nigh-on thirty years at sea – almost without one tender touch – ever. Not very far from starvation, in a way, though a chosen one. Picture me then falling head-over-heels in love – and barely daring to hope that I might be received by my darling, at the most tenderly. The shock of being pulled to you that first time with a passion matching my own, and discovering that – by some undeserved miracle – your desire is to have mine visited upon you – as frantically, deeply, swiftly, helplessly as I may, telling me only Edward, yes – yes – yes! My hand shakes to write it, even.

Now think of me lying here in this cabin, far from you, wanting you in the worst way. Thinking only of coming home and making you my wife, so that I might find again & always that refuge in the depths of you I did not know I needed until you gave it.

Then coming ashore – a whirlwind again! This time to claim my love in the sight of God and of all for my own – looking about the church in a kind of daze at my good fortune, every face a blur but one.

I have asked myself if I should write you this next part – but I know I failed to tell you at the time how much it meant to me. I could hardly speak – you may recall. I am not sure I can find the words even now, but I should like to try – in thanks for all you are to me. We cannot help but be aware that each letter I write may be my last to you. I hope not, and do not expect it – but we are at war and so I cannot pretend otherwise. This presses me to say what I might otherwise leave unsaid.

Sophie – I fear I am quite transparent to you! When you kissed me on our wedding night and told me regretfully that you had your courses and that therefore the thing I most longed-for in the world was not then to be mine, I know you saw all from my face. I tried to put a good front upon it – I remember telling you it couldn’t be helped – but I could no more hide my emotion from you than I could fly. The words stuck in my throat – beneath them rose a howl like a dog’s.

Yes, I confess it because you saw it anyway. I cannot conceal my need from you, so why should there be shame in admitting it? You see it, you know it, you feel it, it can come as no surprise to you! In fact – less so to you, from all appearances, who seem to accept so easily all that I am, than to my self – unused to permitting any such tides in my being, so far beyond my control.

Now you know what I am going to say next. That once again I had no idea: none. How little I know – how much I have to learn! You are an unfolding revelation to me. Remember I have given no more thought to making love these last fifteen years than to entering the clergy! I am a ship’s captain, Sophie, I know about cannon and wind and tides, lee shores, weather gages and other all-or-nothing situations. It is an all-or-nothing profession. How could I know that if I could not have all of you, I might yet have something? – Yes, as you saw, I thought I should get no release from my painful need for you. Yes, as you saw, I was dismayed. I did not know what on earth I was to do with my self. Oh, and so ashamed that I could need you so much. Ashamed that on our wedding day I should feel so keen a disappointment – as if that is all you were to me. Ashamed to tell you. And so very ignorant.

Oh Sophie – how tenderly you turned my despair to wonder. How lovingly you took upon yourself the fulfillment of my every need. I had wanted to be undressed with you – I had said as much, we had smiled about it – but every last button at your hands? No, I did not expect that – nor that you would leave not an inch of me unkissed. At the touch of your lips Sophie I swear to God I thought I should have wept. To be so dashed & cast down – only to find myself then in heaven! And so came that moment when I begged your pardon – that I couldn’t keep from splashing you – and you told me that you wished it so – that you preferred to wear those pearls to any diamonds upon your breast and hair – oh Sophie when I heard that, I think my heart burst. It has not yet recovered – I do not think it ever will. How could any man be the same as he was before hearing such a thing?

I cannot believe the delight you take in my need for you. You accept in me all that I struggle to master in myself, and crown it with joy. I may spend a very great deal of my time away from you Sophie – but you have changed me from within. I think for the first time in my life I am fully my self. I bear the mark of you in every thing I do, think, feel and say.

You are a prayer answered.

Keep my place warm in your bed, your heart, your life, your soul, Sophie. I need to be there – you are my anchorage – there is nowhere else on earth or in heaven for me but there, and so I am, however far we sail. Now come, let me kiss you with all the tenderness I own – am I not learning more each time, my love? – let me lay my head upon the sweetness of your breast, and find fulfillment there – and know myself blessed above all men to call myself,

Your devoted husband, Edward.

12. “The Root Of All Evil… ”

September, 1804

It had never occurred to Pelham that no-one would be home when he knocked at that green door with the brass dolphin knocker. The Indomitable had put into port an hour earlier, and he had been quite sure that Miss Mavis’s spyglass would have ascertained this fact well before the anchor splashed into the blue water off Rosia Bay. Still, he reminded himself, the child could hardly spend every hour up on the roof in the chance of his arrival; and it had been several very long and lonely months since they had last put in, with all the excitement of the wedding.

He wondered what to do. Once more time was precious – there was so little of it, and he felt the disappointment keenly. He had further duties back at the harbour, and only that evening and night to spare. He looked around – he had been so sure of finding them that he had not even brought the wherewithal to leave them a note. A little way down the street he found a small, dusty bookshop, whose presence he had only vaguely noted before; he woke the owner to request of him the favour of a pencil and paper, sir; which, once furnished, he employed feverishly:

My darling –

I surely hope you will find this little note very soon, for if I were to miss you I should be entirely distraught. We are presently put in for re-victualling and to put off a few sick & wounded, like before – I have this evening and night to spend with you, and would dearly – no, desperately – like to do so! I can not wait to see you, you can hardly know how much, and to sit at a table and eat supper with you – and, later, to hold you in my arms – most of all to feel yours about me. I shall return at about four o’clock my love and hope to find you both at home and awaiting the arrival of Your Most Devoted Husband Edward.

This he left folded under the dolphin’s nose – if Mavis found it first he might have to blush, but there was surely nothing there the child didn’t already know; besides, every word was also true for Mavis, whose arms he could still feel about his neck, and whose breathless little kiss still seemed sometimes damp and fresh upon his cheek. (Although writing the words left an ache in his groin that was most definitely intended for Sophie.)

Returning to the harbour, he supervised the compilation of the stores most closely: no man aboard his ship would have to eat rotten beef and mouldy peas for want of a little oversight. The usual meeting with the Port Admiral went quite smoothly, all things considered, the intelligence he had gathered being very well received, and it was with a light step that he turned from the dockyard and set off once more up the hill toward his new, beloved home.

When Mavis hurled herself at him from around a corner, he had scarcely more warning than the first time they had met – but, being more used to her ways now, he disentangled her arms gently from around his thighs and bent to kiss her, pick her up and swing her all around. Her squeals deafened him, issuing as they did from a point not more than an inch from his right ear. “Mavis, hush, child, I can hear you perfectly well – ssh – ssh – sshhhh!!!”

“Oh Papa! You’re really here!”

“Yes, dear, I am come home again for a little while.”

“We were so happy to find your note – Mama is so excited – she is making you a big dinner with roast lamb and all kinds of things – I made the mint-sauce and then I came to find you – and bring you home!”

“How very delightful,” said Pelham. “But Mavis, surely – Mama does not trouble herself to cook every thing nowadays? You have engaged a cook, have you not?”

“Of course not!” Mavis glared at him. “That would be extravagant! Besides, it’s just me and Mama, you know we have been used to managing, we got along perfectly well, you know, before you married Mama!”

“Was there not a small matter of the clock – and a certain butcher’s bill? Your mamma has been quite careworn these many years for want of proper support, Mavis, did you not see it? I had hoped to alleviate all of that! Tell me your lives are now easier!” Pelham frowned enquiringly as they walked hand-in-hand up the cobbled hill.

“Well, we do have new dresses, Mama bought the finest muslin for mine, figured, with little flowers all over it and ribands, and when she finished mine she started on one for herself, it’s green with stripes and – papa, what’s the matter?”

“No dressmaker? And so – who helps your mother, at home?”

“I do, of course – and we have a woman do all the laundry, now, the sheets and everything, Mama only washes our clothes on Mondays, and I have to do my own stockings and petticoats, and I am learning how to iron! I only scorched one of my pinafores and I didn’t like that one anyway, I made it myself and it wasn’t very good, the seams were all crooked.”

Pelham tried to hide the disappointment he felt upon learning that Sophie had apparently made no use whatever of the careful provision he had made for her, to ease her life and give her time to do the things she loved instead such as paint and read. He felt a knot in his stomach, as if she had rejected a part of him. It seemed more than ridiculous to him, that he had spent his adult life evading the pursuit of women who sought him for the material advantages that must accrue to them upon becoming Lady Pelham – and that, now he had found one who truly wanted him for himself, she apparently had no more desire to accept his fortune than his first wife had felt toward his person.

Mavis was dancing on his arm as she liked to do, skipping in a way that jolted him; he felt a wave of irritation with her high spirits, and squeezed her hand rather hard to discourage her. “Sober up, there, Mavis, before you have my arm half pulled out of its socket!” he said, trying to sound good-natured but knowing that the grate of real irritation sounded in his voice.

“Sorry!” she said, casting a look up at his face. “We’re nearly home, look – just this corner and then – I can smell supper cooking, can’t you?”

“No,” said Pelham.

Despite this unpromising start, he felt his heart quicken beyond the exertion put upon it by climbing the hill when their house came into sight. Mavis ran ahead, calling, “Mama! Mama! I’ve found him, he’s here!”

Sophie came running out of the front door. The reality of her was almost too much for him; he stopped, hesitating as if unsure of himself; opened his arms for her to fly into them. She did not do so. Instead she hesitated too; looked down at the large grease-stain in the front of her apron; untied it and cast it aside, so as not to soil his uniform; then at last came up to him and – shyly, it seemed to him – came into his arms and took his face in her hands.

They felt rough upon his cheeks – a thing he had not really noticed before.

Her mouth was sweet under his. He kissed her bottom lip, her top lip, her nose, her chin, her cheekbones, and her mouth again. Her softness fitted against him in the way he remembered and he felt a piercing joy to be here, now, even doing so foolish a thing as kissing her in the street. His body reminded him how very desperately it had longed for this too. “Come, my darling,” he said, “shall we not go inside?”

The parlour doors were open to the little courtyard, where a card table had been set-up outside and laid for supper with loving care and flourishes that could only have come from Mavis’s hands – a flower for her mother, a small and crudely carved wooden anchor for him. From the kitchen came the most appetizing fragrance of roasting meat, mint-sauce, baked onions. He noted all of this, came looking for Sophie again. He found her in the narrow hallway, where he embraced her once more and stood kissing her from time to time, between murmuring her name and groaning softly as she pressed up against him. Although he would have to stop soon, before there was no stopping —!

Her face was pink from her exertions, and her brow slippery with sweat. He wanted to be the one to put the flush in her cheeks, and felt an absurd anger at the leg of lamb for doing so first.

“When we got your note – ” she said, “oh, darling, we were beside ourselves! I couldn’t think what to do first – I changed the bedlinen right away – ” here she looked up at him shyly, and he returned her look with a small, tender smile that made her heart turn over, “and then I didn’t know what to make you for dinner, but I thought – you have to eat all that awful food on board ship, out of casks, all salted and dried and nothing fresh for months on end, I thought you’d like a proper supper, so I – ”

“This is all I want,” said Pelham, “right here,” thinking, God, if it hadn’t been for Mavis, he’d have carried her off to bed then and there.

“Mama, don’t let the gravy burn!” cried Mavis from the kitchen. “I’m stirring it, but I think the fire’s too hot!”

Sophie broke free of his embrace and ran into the kitchen to see to the gravy. Pelham stood in the doorway, watching her. She prodded this, stirred that, moved the pot further from the fire; took the lamb from the spit and set it on a wooden carving-board; opened the oven and with a towel took a dish from it, setting it down quickly as if it still burned through the cloth. A lock of her hair fell from its confinement over her face, a little coil damp with sweat. He felt useless, standing there. “Is there wine?” he asked. “I could uncork it – ”

“Oh, no,” she said, “I didn’t think – Mavis and I never – ”

“Of course,” he said, “it doesn’t matter – I just wanted to feel useful.”

“You could bring the glasses to the table,” she offered – “no, not that one, it’s chipped – ohh!”

He frowned: “What?”

“Nothing – I just touched the onion-dish, that’s all, I forgot it was hot, I’m all in a tizzy over seeing you – ”

He came to her then, crossing the little kitchen in two strides; took hold of her hand, turned the palm up. A crimson burn was raising itself into a blister across two of the fingers. Her hand was calloused, reddened: clearly, it had done much hard work, both in the past and lately still.

“Sophie, this won’t do,” he said, shocked.

“What do you mean?”

“All this work! You’re not a domestic servant, Sophie, you’re my wife – you shouldn’t be doing all of this – you don’t have to – ”

“But I have always —!” she said. Her voice had a tremor in it.

He couldn’t help himself; went on, angrily now: “Damnation, Sophie, will you not let me provide for you even now? You don’t have to work this hard, that’s what servants are for – you should get a cook, a maid, I shouldn’t come home to find you slaving over my supper yourself!”

“But, Edward, I wanted to – ”

“It is not your position!” he cried, unable to find the words to express his dismay at seeing her labouring so hard out of love on his behalf. “Look! Look at your hand, Sophie!”

She tried to withdraw it, but he held onto it. If he had only kissed it then, and begged her not to expend it upon needless tasks, all would have been well; but he was in a temper now, furious with her having burned herself for him, exasperated with her foolish pride, and so he continued: “look at you, Sophie, all sweated up and greasy in your apron like a scullery-maid, and this hand – my wife’s hand, with my ring upon it – all rough and red – needlessly so! – the hand of a drudge, Sophie!”

This time she succeeded in snatching her hand from his, with a gasp. She hid it in her apron, the other one too, all the while looking at him as if he had struck her. He had the awful sensation of being dismasted, taken flat aback through his own negligence and stupidity, and driving himself and her straight onto the rocks of a cruel lee shore.

“Sophie – ” he said, seeing her expression and hearing himself berating her, “Sophie, I didn’t mean – ”

“You could not have made your meaning any more clear, Edward,” she said, and the hurt in her face unmanned him and he found he could not speak at all for the sheer misery that rose in his throat and choked him as she rushed past him out of the kitchen and fled upstairs to her bedroom (with its fresh white linen and tall, slender new beeswax candle). The door slammed shut with a bang that brought down plaster-dust from the ceiling onto the shoulders of his uniform coat.

“Oh, God,” he said.

From upstairs came the soft gasping sound of someone trying to get their breath, and failing: Sophie, trying not to cry. It pained him more than if she had burst loudly into tears. He went out to the courtyard first, looked up at her window: “Sophie – ” he called, choking. On getting no reply, he climbed the stairs and stood outside her door. He blinked a number of times before swallowing hard and raising his knuckles to knock.

She did not reply.

He knocked more loudly.

“Go away,” she said, so quietly he had to strain to hear her.

“But, Sophie – oh, God, Sophie – ”

“Leave me alone, Edward,” she said. The shake in her voice cut him to the quick: it was he who had put it there.

He swallowed all his pride: “Sophie, please – I beg you – ”

“Go away!” she cried, and this time it was louder, a wail that broke on the last syllable.

He closed his eyes; drew a long, painful breath; then did as she asked him.

He heard the crash of a roof-tile breaking on the street behind him, and Mavis come running after him, limping as she did so. “Where are you going? You’re not leaving!”

He tried to unfasten his lips to reply, but they had got themselves set in a harsh line like a rat-trap and would not open just then, remaining instead obstinately and bitterly pursed.

“But what about supper!” cried Mavis. The accusation in her voice wounded him in the same smarting place where he already accused himself: he thought of the table all set, the meat cooked, the mint-sauce all made for his homecoming, and Sophie’s voice telling him to go away now.

He turned on her, then: “Mavis, when will you learn when it is time to shut up?” he said through clenched teeth; and thus left not one, but two devastated females behind him as he strode back to his ship.

***************************

Climbing aboard, he dared his officers with a look grimmer than hell to comment upon his unexpected return. None of them was so foolish. He went straight to his cabin and sat with a book, making no attempt to read it beyond staring at the pattern the lines made upon the page. She had told him to leave her alone; turned the hasty quarrel of a moment into a night without her. The only night they might have, for months – perhaps for ever. He could not get past those words, coming from her lips whence he had heard only love and kindness, before: go away, she had said.

So it was just as he had feared, then – love must indeed bring with it hurt, commensurate with the level of joy. For he felt at this moment more wretched by far than anything that had stirred his bosom upon hearing of the horrible and protracted death of the first Mrs. Pelham, so long ago. That had left him bewildered, in a daze of not knowing what to feel. This was a pain that seemed to need cautery before he bled to death from it inside. Over and over in his thoughts he found himself outside her door, not knowing what to say, knocking and being refused.

In the middle of the night he rubbed his eyes; clamped his mouth, its corners turned down deeply; and set himself the task of writing her a letter of apology. It was not a skill at which he had had much practice, and the result was wretched, he thought, since it did not even include the word ‘sorry’, and finished by addressing more painfully her rejection of him than the hurt he had dealt her, which occasioned it:

My darling,

I have hurt your feelings and you mine, which serves me right. I would give anything for this not to have happened. Your cooking did smell wonderful and the table was so pretty. I wish I had not spoiled it with my hasty words. I had longed for you so much tonight that I could weep in frustration for what has happened instead. Do not bid me leave you like that, Sophie, for I am afraid I shall, and hurt us both even more. I meant well, I could not bear to see you so careworn ––– oh damnation, will that offend you too? Please help me Sophie – help us both – for I do not know what to say to you, to mend it – only that I love you dearly, more dearly than I can ever tell you – and that I know myself a fool and a knave for the way I spoke to you. But oh Sophie, tell me you did not mean that, at least! Please. Oh for the love of God do not ever tell me to go away from you again ––––––– do not, do not ever say that ––––––––––

Here he flung his pen down – it made a splatter upon the scrubbed and whitened deck – crumpled up the page, and hurled it after – closed his eyes, and felt afresh the power of love to wound; how vulnerable are those who care.

And that he’d be damned before he’d lay himself open like that ever again.

His guts ached.

Untouched upon his sideboard lay the plate of dinner he had growled at his steward to fetch him, upon his return: a piece of stringy mutton, congealing in yellow grease, with a dollop of pease and a stale crust of bread.

He did not expect to sleep, but must have despite himself: his head upon his arm at the table in his day-cabin – most uncomfortably so, said arm (his left) having gone to sleep itself hours earlier and now returned to life with a fit of pins-and-needles more agonizing than the dull headache bequeathed by his lack of food and drink. A knock at his door roused him; he pulled himself upright, gathered his wits about him. For a moment he could not remember the cause of the misery that weighed upon him; then he did so, and closed his eyes again, and winced.

The knock was repeated. He looked at his pocket-watch, open on the table in front of him: five-thirty in the morning. What in God’s name could anyone want at this hour, in port? At sea was another matter, but it was hardly as if they had to take a reef in the topsails, or had sighted a sail, here.

“Captain Pelham, sir – ”

It was Wainwright’s voice, cheery, sanguine. It seemed particularly kind today, with an unusually tender tone: had he been so obviously wretched, then, the previous night? Of course he had: a newly-wed man slinking back on board his ship, before supper even? Transparent, and humiliatingly so, his rejection clear to one and all. Pelham’s frown deepened.

“Sir – ” said Wainwright again, through the door.

“All right, Mr. Wainwright, all right, what is it, man?”

Wainwright came into the cabin and shut the door behind him. “Lady Pelham requests permission to come aboard, sir.”

Pelham thought his ears must be deceiving him. Just because she was presently uppermost in his mind didn’t mean that the world had so arranged itself about his concerns. “What?”

“It’s your wife, sir. Over the side, in a boat. She requests permission to come aboard.”

“Permission? Don’t be ridiculous, she doesn’t need permission!” I must look like the most complete fool ever, dammit, he thought, returning Wainwright’s mild and moon-like gaze with his own fierce glare.

“I spoke with her, sir. Over the side. She was insistent, sir – said I had to ask you. If it was all right.”

“Of course it’s all right!” growled Pelham, and grabbed for his coat out of long habit, being no more able to go out on deck without it than his britches. Struggling into it, he snapped at Wainwright again: “Well dammit, don’t just stand there, man, get her aboard!” He ran out onto the deck a few steps behind his lieutenant, who was leaning over the side and speaking in especially warm tones to an invisible Sophie: “It’s all right, ma’am, he said of course you was to come aboard!”

Pelham heard a whisper; looked up to where several hands hung on the rigging, working with one of the blocks, staring down now with unconcealed interest. “What are you staring at!” he snapped, and then, unable to wait for the sight of her even another second, went to the rail to look over at the boat – and Sophie.

She was wrapped in a dark cloak, with its hood blown back from her head and the morning land-breeze pulling her hair loose from where she had fastened it. He felt his heart give a sick lurch. “Rig up the hoist, there!” he called out, hoping his voice would not shake as his knees were doing. He held onto the rail, leaned over and called to her: “Sophie – ”

She looked up, then; saw him. With a stab of pain he saw her hide her hands in the folds of her cloak. Oh, what have I done, he thought. I have hurt her so much, been so harsh, she won’t even show herself – and he heard himself again; how cruel his words had been.

“Rig the hoist!” he ordered again, his voice cracking this time, and she cried, “No, don’t – I don’t need it – ”

“Come aboard, then,” he said, “ – what are you waiting for?”

She stood up in the back of the little boat with its single oarsman, clutching at the ropes down the Indy’s side to steady her; kilted her skirts up above her knees, and climbed carefully on board up the steps in the steep oak sides of the frigate. He was waiting for her at the top, at the break in the rail above the top step. He held out his hand to grasp hers and pull her the rest of the way; felt like a fool when she did not take it.

She did not meet his eyes, at all. My God, he realized, she is afraid. Afraid – of me. The thought cost him another wince: I have killed her love, then – butchered it. I did not deserve her – and now we both know it. She stepped over the side, with great dignity; brushed her skirts back into place. The ship rocked a little at anchor; she swayed. On her other side, Wainwright reached out to steady her, and she leaned on his arm briefly: “Thank you, Mr. Wainwright,” she murmured.

Pelham stood in front of her. He felt more useless than he had ever felt in his life. She spurned even his arm – what had she come for, then? To tell him it was over between them, because she was too fine a woman to do so by letter? He decided that must be it.

She took a step towards him. He braced himself, lifted his chin without knowing he was doing so. He wanted to ask her to come into his cabin, where they could have this awful discussion privately, but found that he was unable to say anything at all: his throat had closed-up altogether.

“Oh Edward – ” she said, on a sob, the sight of him undoing all her dignity; “Edward–!”

Pelham found his voice, then, though it came out no more than a croak: “Oh Christ,” he said, humbly – more humbly than he had ever spoken in his life, “oh Christ, Sophie, I beg your pardon – with all my heart – I – I had rather die than hurt you – ”

“Oh, Edward, Edward, I’m sorry!” she cried at the same time, stumbling towards him, her poor despised hands clapped to her face to contain the howl that rose up in her throat, so that just her eyes showed above them – eyes spilling-over with tears, that tasted all wet and salty as he gripped her, pulled her to him, and kissed her roughened fingers as if to save his life.

Somewhere above him a single ragged cheer broke out, cut-off in midstream by a sharply hissed “shut up!” and a chorus of shushing. The men aloft did not want to miss a word; nor perhaps, to be kinder, did they wish to disturb the heartrending scene that was just now unfolding before their wondering and delighted eyes.

She stood there on the deck, in his arms, and cried and cried. Not the sobs of joy and disbelief he had heard from her the first night he had made love to her and then asked her to marry him, but ragged, deep, painful, tearing sobs that hurt him to hear them; but still he stood holding her, right there on the deck in front of them all, without shame. Pelham cradled her head to his shoulder, his own pressed against it with an expression he no longer cared who could see, murmuring to her: “It’s all right – it’s all right – Sophie, it’s all right –” for what seemed like a very long time, although it was also one of the most poignantly sweet of his life, until she had recovered herself enough to take his arm and go on into his cabin.

There she wept some more, and he let her, knowing how very deeply he had hurt her, and what it had cost her to come to him in spite of it. “I never should have sent you away,” she gasped, “Edward, I’m so sorry – I’ll never do that again, I promise – I didn’t mean it – only – ”

“Only I hurt you so,” he said, taking full responsibility, his mouth dry as oakum, “and you couldn’t bear to be with me. I understand.”

“Yes, you did,” she said. “The last time I cooked for you, you liked it so – and so I thought – and then this time – to call me a drudge!”

Pelham closed his eyes, then. “That was unpardonable,” he said, his voice no more than a whisper. “I didn’t mean it the way it came out, but – under any circumstances – it was a cruel thing to say. I spoke to you as harshly as if you had been one of my men, who had displeased me – not my wife, my love, my equal – whom I cherish more than any thing on God’s earth – Sophie – I am so sorry –! Will you forgive me?”

“Did you mean it, Edward? About my hands? Are they so ugly?” Her voice faltered on the word ugly.

“Oh, God, no, Sophie – no! No! They are every bit as beautiful to me as the rest of you, if not more so, you do so many things with them, to make your own place in the world – it was just that I couldn’t bear to see you still working so hard and doing everything yourself, when there is no need for it, Sophie!”

“It is what I am used to,” she said with a little quaver of pride, “and I have been saving the allowance you gave us, in case – ”

“Oh, my God, please!” he said.

“What?”

He sat down at the table, and patted his knee for her to sit on his lap. She did so. Her solidity gave him a feeling of relief – too substantial for a dream – and he sighed in pleasure. “Sophie, just how well-off do you think I am – we are? Did you not look at any of the papers I left with you? Have I not gone into this with you?”

“Yes, a little,” she said, “on our wedding-day – but I could not keep my mind upon it, even though Mr. Humphries was so very kind, what with everything else – ”

“What do you think you would need, to live comfortably – you and Mavis, and me when I am home? Hm?”

“Oh, five pounds a month would be more than enough!”

“For a cook? And a maid? And new dresses from the dressmaker’s, and fresh meat, the best cuts, and fruit each day, and flowers on the table, and beeswax candles, not tallow, and glasses that aren’t chipped, and plenty of wood for the fire – How much, then?”

“Oh, five pounds would still be enough, wouldn’t it? – ten, anyway!”

“Then where are all these things, Sophie?”

“We don’t – we can manage, we – ”

“Now listen. Just listen to me. I have two hundred thousand pound on account in my bank in London, Sophie. Not to mention the income from my estate. And each cruise we take here brings new prizes – of which I get a very large share. Sophie, your ten pound a month is – is small change. So easily spared, it’s not even noticed. You shall have as much more as you need. All I have is yours, Sophie – I promised you as much at the altar, sweetheart – with all my worldly goods I thee endow! Remember? It came right after that bit about With my body I thee worship –! Sophie – you can’t take one and not the other!”

She had drawn breath sharply a couple of times while he spoke. Now she smiled, tentatively: “You mean I can’t have your body and not your worldly goods?” she said, with the tear-streaks still fresh on her reddened cheeks.

“Precisely. There’s no picking and choosing. Take me, take my money. Whether you like it or not! I can’t have you living the hardscrabble life you used to live before I met you, Sophie, not when I’m so damned wealthy I don’t even know how much I’ve got, till little grey scrivening men with pens send me reckonings from time to time!”

She laughed, then. He felt her shake deliciously in his arms. “So it’s all or nothing, Edward?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll take it all, then.”

“Thank God!” he said, and meant it fervently. “Now – have you had breakfast?”

“No – I didn’t know what time you were leaving this morning, and I was so afraid of missing you – ”

“Were you?”

“After sending you away? Edward, I wished I was dead!”

“Hm? – truly?” Now his heart was thumping again: this was the part he could not bear to think about.

“Of course I did! I was so unhappy – ”

“So was I – I – Sophie, I thought – when you came aboard, and wouldn’t take my hand – I thought you’d come this morning to tell me I was no longer welcome – ” He hadn’t meant to tell her that, not now; but the words came anyway; he couldn’t stop them.

She got up from his lap at the sound of the break in his voice; half-sat on the table, to look better into his face. What she read there almost made her cry again – especially when he did not look away, despite the anguish in his eyes. They looked for a long time into each other’s most naked fear and need.

Sophie remembered how unsure of himself he had been, the first time he came to her bed; and Mavis’s strange little sidelight on his past, the marriage he had barely spoken of: “Mama, don’t say I told you, but I thought you ought to know – Mama, I don’t think she liked him very much… he had such a look, Mama, when I asked him … ” Oh, Edward, she thought, recognizing the power he had given her over him by taking her into his life, the ability to hurt him worse than any enemy; and what it must cost him, to reveal it.

“Please – ?” he asked, very quietly.

“Yes,” she said, understanding him at once: “of course.”

He was more forward with her than he had yet been, pulling up her petticoats and sitting her back up on the table and entering her with a swift urgency that shocked her. She was so unprepared for it that it hurt her; but she did not hold back from him. Not for today the tender rocking on the window-seat, with her on his lap. He was standing up against her, using her very roughly, and with every movement he gasped: “Sophie — oh — Sophie – ”

“Edward – ”

His frown deepened: “Don’t — ever — send — me — away — again — please — please — Sophie — not — ever — never — don’t — ever — say — that — ever — ever — ever!”

“Never, darling; I promise — ”

“Don’t — don’t say it — please — please — ”

“I won’t – oh, darling, I’m so sorry – ” She thought she would never forget the devastation in his eyes, and the plea now wrenched from him – that he could have made himself so vulnerable to her, and let her hasty words wound him so; and now let her see it, for all his pride —

“Take — me — in — take — me — in! — Now — now — now — Sophie — oh, God — now!”

“My darling,” she whispered, wrapping her legs around him more tightly than ever, drawing him to her even though each thrust of his burned her tender flesh.

Afterwards he shook uncontrollably, for minutes on end. She tidied them both up, Pelham slumped back in his chair, he letting her do so without speaking. When she bent over his lap to fasten his britches, he stroked her hair with a trembling hand. She felt the smart of him in her, of his hurt and the way he had sought to assuage it there, and wished it would stay with her longer.

“You were brave, to come this morning,” he said at last. “Braver than I was.”

“I had to,” she said. “I knew I had to. Because what you said was – hurtful – but what I did was unforgivable.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Perhaps,” she said; but the pain between her thighs told her otherwise; and she knew it, and kissed him tenderly where the dark hair receded from his brow, and cradled his head to her breast, until his trembling stopped and he had begun to recover himself.

“Did you say something about breakfast, Edward?”

“Mmm! Yes, I did! We shall have to look lively, but I can have something for us on the table in a few minutes, you shall breakfast with me before you’ve to go back – if you’d like?”

“I should like it above all things, Edward,” she said.

He went to the door and called for his steward. “Ah. Pritchard. Have we any eggs on board? Did I not order a couple of dozen fresh eggs, for my pantry, yesterday?”

“You did indeed, sir. I’ll have ’em cooked up for you an’ the missus in no time, lovely, sir – scrambled? Poached? Boiled, sir?”

“My love?” asked Pelham, as naturally as if they were alone.

“Scrambled, please, Mr. Pritchard,” she answered, smiling at him gratefully.

The man beamed under her smile, and most especially upon hearing her say his name. She’d make a damned good officer, thought Pelham. Perhaps that’s why I love her so! “And some of that melon, cut-up, and whatever else you can rustle up,” he added aloud, “ – make it nice, if you please, Pritchard – you know what I mean.”

“Aye, aye, sir!” Pritchard ran off to the galley, remembering to close the door behind him. Pelham imagined the rush of activity in the galley, the hands chopping and peeling and beating and stirring. The skill and care – yes, and the affection, too, which were going at this moment into preparing a nice, fresh, dainty breakfast for himself and Sophie. And he thought of Sophie’s supper of the night before, all her work that had gone into serving it up for him; and he begged her pardon all over again, more humbly than ever, acknowledging the love which had illuminated every action.

Then he excused himself and turned from her for a moment; drew up his pen and ink again, and wrote:

My dearest Mavis,

Can you forgive me for speaking so sharply to you last night? I am so very sorry, my dearest daughter. I would take back the unkind words, if I could, but they are spoken and all I can do is beg your pardon. I spoke to you thus because your mamma and I had had a foolish quarrel – my doing – and my heart was so sore at that moment I thought it was going to burst. I could not bear to have you ask me any thing at all. When people care deeply for each other, as we three do, they must sometimes be the occasion of grief to one another. I am sorry, Mavis. My unhappiness at that moment is no excuse, but perhaps you will understand it with your kind heart which I have loved in you from the start, and pardon Your loving and all too human papa, Edward Pelham.

Then, looking up at Sophie with a little line in his cheek very close to a smile, he added:

P.S. In case you are worried about the quarrel, do not be – we have made it up, as people who care for each other always must, and perhaps are wiser now than before, having learned how very easily an open heart can be bruised – but also, how resilient it is to all such insults, when it truly loves – as I do you, Mavis dear. Learn from your mamma how the lioness defends her own, Mavis, and grow up but half as brave as her, and you will be the very picture of courage and of all womanly virtue.

He folded and sealed it, while Sophie watched: wrote Miss Mavis McKenzie on the outside. “More amends to make,” he said ruefully. “I hope they will suffice.”

“Why, what did you do?”

“I told her to shut up!”

“Oh, Edward!” she said. “I’m sure they will – she loves you.”

A knock at the door announced Pritchard, bearing a tray of melon cut-up and drizzled with honey and lime-juice and dusted with cinnamon; fresh soft griddle-cakes; a small but delectable quantity of dried-apricot jam with slivered almonds Pelham did not even know he had – in which he was quite correct, for it was the last precious hoarded half-jar of Mrs. Wainwright’s own receipt, handed down from her great-grandmother – and a dish of fluffy scrambled eggs. Two mugs of coffee steamed on the tray also; and a ribbon had been tied around the handles of each knife-and-fork set.

Pelham breakfasted with his wife, in that lovely cabin that sparkled with reflected gleams from the water beneath them. Light swayed and shifted across the curving ceiling, the slanted windows, the two careworn and middle-aged faces that were also lit innerly, making a dance of light from within and without that was quite extraordinarily beautiful – or so Pelham reflected, watching Sophie look about her.

“I must tell you I shall never be able to look at this table the same way again,” he said, wanting to see her smile before she must leave.

He went back ashore with her in one of the ship’s boats, so as to put off their parting a few more minutes. A chorus of good-byes, very kindly meant, came across the water from Indomitable as they pulled away; Pelham flushed, then acknowledged them with a little nod toward his ship and her company before sitting down in the boat. “They’re calling to you, Sophie,” he said, “ – I shan’t mind, if you would like to wave – ” She did so, shyly, and the shouts doubled.

On kissing her goodbye this time, he said nothing; he could not. He didn’t have to: his eyes said it all for him; and the smart of his hurt, that she felt walking slowly home – his deepest hurt, dealt by her, and now brought back to her for healing.

*************************

Mavis replied (in part):

Dearist Papa,

It’s all rite about every thing. I fergive you. You were nasty to me but I knew you were vexed and you were rite I should lern when to shut up it is my bigest chalinge. Super was awefull. I hope I nevr have another one like it, you and Mama had better not quarel again like that. But if you have lerned then that is good. Mama says we lern best from our own mistakes I know I do…

**************************

Another matter, small perhaps yet not altogether insignificant, was arranged not long afterwards, to the satisfaction of all parties:

HMS Indomitable, Malta,

October, 1804

My dear Mavis,

I have just now got your reply to my letter in which I asked you what you would wish to have from me in celebration of your birthday all those months ago. I must say your request took me aback a little as I had never thought of something so simple. Although there may be difficulties beyond the face of it — yet, as much as it is in my power to grant, sweetheart, yes with all my heart you may have my name to call yourself by.

I understand that under the law you may commonly go by anything you fancy — Pelham, Popham, Pelican, Penwiper, Pop-goes-the-weasel, it is all the same, unless you intend thereby to defraud any body. That is not your intention, I hope —! And thus you may begin without delay, if it pleases you to do so. I also think, although you must ask your mamma to request of my agent Mr. Humphries to look into the matter and confirm it – I believe that in order for you to sign any papers legally with any name at all is a different matter and you must use the name you were given upon the day of your birth or the one you will assume when you marry — unless we make some formal change of which the law must duly take note.

This I will gladly do and you may ask Mr. Humphries to draw up the papers for my signature, make whatever representations must be made before any judges who wish to decide the matter, &c., and I shall oblige with all speed most gladly upon my return.

Darling it grieves me only that you did not feel your own father worthy of keeping his name. That he squandered this gift of you – that you should have withdrawn so distant from him that you now wish to disassociate yourself even from his memory – is a source of pain to me. How I wish instead that his care of you had been such that you would delight to remember it every day in writing the name he bequeathed you with your own given one. But you are not wrong to ask it — let you always come to me with whatever is in your heart, Mavis, I beg you. And thank you for your forthrightness in making this request of me. You deserve to be cared-for and provided-for and nurtured by two parents and I am only happy that God has given me the gift of taking this sacred charge upon myself in marrying your darling Mama.

And so his loss is my gain. I have promised before and I will repeat it here, I shall at all times endeavour to be the very best father I may to you Mavis, as indeed I should have were you to wish to call yourself Pebbledash or Pantaloon or any thing at all, since you are my stepdaughter – a word I dislike I must say. Yes, by all means, let us make it all watertight and above-board, your wish is my command. I am honoured and humbled that you have made it of me, when you might have had anything at all from me.

I shall not take the time to add much to this now, since my good friend is to weigh anchor for Gibraltar within the hour, the same who brought me your dear letter. Be assured I shall reply at greater length when I may. In the meantime you know I always ask you to kiss your mamma for me and I shall not do any differently now. Tell her what we have discussed here, you may show her this letter if you wish. No, it is not a foolish request – I am reminded now upon re-reading yours, you asked me that — for to call you altogether my own Daughter is the dearest and most heartfelt wish of

your Devoted Papa Edward Pelham

13. An Inquisition

1804

Within weeks of her precipitous wedding, a letter had come for Sophie with a handwriting she did not recognize. Wondering who it could be from, she broke the seal and spread open a crisp and tidy sheet — it reminded her of one of Edward’s, the lines orderly, the hand neat while bold. This was a woman’s hand, though, and more crabbed with age — dear God, it was from her mother-in-law.

She gulped, clapped a hand to her chest, drew breath a moment before going-on. Edward had talked of his family to her, though not with the same warmth he reserved for discussions of his ship, his officers or Mavis, for that matter; she had wondered, what they were like.

Well, she would find out for herself, soon enough: beginning here, apparently.

Beeches,

Buckfastleigh, Devon

15^th October, 1804

Dear Sophia,

My greetings to you and best wishes upon the occasion of your marriage. Edward has written to me to inform me of all the circumstances, announcing that he had taken you for his wife in the same sheet, and I must say that while it appears quite precipitous thus, his tone was one of such unusual warmth that I cannot withhold my good wishes.

It is my sincerest hope that we will make one another’s acquaintance as soon as possible. I trust you will be returning to England now that you are Lady Pelham?

He has also told me that his financial provisions for myself and my daughter remain essentially unaltered, and for that, if you had any say in the matter, I am grateful. Our annuity allows us to spend a modest life here at Beeches and I should have found a change very difficult to cope with at my time of life, I must admit to you quite frankly. I am relieved that you do not appear to have influenced him in your favour to the detriment of his responsibilities to us.

You cannot be unaware of the extent of his fortune, so I daresay despite his generosity toward his family you will do very well for yourself out of this marriage.

He tells me you are a widow and have a daughter. He does not mention if you are still of an age to bear children — I should like to know the answer to that, if you please. I am an old woman and have not long to consider my posterity. I should greatly like to see Edward settled before I die. You must pardon my bald speaking but that is the way of things when one’s only surviving son and heir is always half-way around the world somewhere and then writes out of the blue to announce that he is wed.

He tells me little else of note about you, save that you are intelligent and kind. Hardly the passionate throes of a man in love, but at his age I imagine practicality comes to the fore. As long as you do well together and that this marriage proves to be good for him, I must say I will not greatly mind if you do not possess all the other things he omitted to mention, such as looks or breeding, so if this is the case as I must presume, you may wish to know that I do not intend to find fault where my son has seen fit to favour.

Kindly write to me as soon as you are able and tell me more about yourself, since it is clear that I am not going to learn anything of substance from my son. I should also like to know your intentions regarding Beeches and whether you plan to live here as is your right. I am sure we should make you welcome, and meet our obligations quite fully, if that were to be the case, although we are rather set in our ways.

My daughter Mary joins me in sending you our respects and kindness as your new sister- and mother-in-law. Kindly reply as soon as you may to the Mother of your Husband, Helena Pelham

“Oh, God,” she said.

Edward —? Of course, he would have had to write to them, she expected it — thought to herself for a moment that indeed she should have written herself, made the first gesture; but then their honeymoon had been so very short, she had not thought of anything beyond Edward himself, nor should she have, she told herself — God only knew, three days was precious little time…. She had ached for his return, hoped desperately that this time it would not coincide with her courses —!

And so now, then, this letter from his mother. Marriage was not just about a man and a woman finding each other, after all. A whole dynasty must be involved, when any family member takes so grave a step — so formal — so legal! What was she to say?

She would have to be honest: no other course of action could possibly recommend itself, not even an excess of tact, which Helena had clearly eschewed to extend.

She took up her pen, feeling inadequate to the task: did her best, feeling Edward’s amused gaze upon her, and his faith in her to meet this challenge head-on.

Gibraltar,

30^th November, 1804

Dear Helena; Dear Mary —

Your most kind letter reached me yesterday and I am eager to reply. Thank you for writing to me so promptly upon receiving what must have been surprising – not to say shocking – news. It is still a matter of surprise to me, if I may be perfectly honest – I hope I may – for it is true that it is but a little more than a year since I first made the acquaintance of your son and brother, and for much of that time as you know better than anyone his duties kept him at sea and far from port. It is the very reality of that circumstance which led him to act swiftly in the matter of our marriage, as I hope you will understand, knowing as you must your son’s decisive nature and his unwillingness to take ‘no’ for an answer.

Let me tell you straight away, then, since it is only natural that you should want to know: I am three-and-thirty — the daughter of a Master Clockmaker, originally from Lincolnshire — my daughter Mavis is presently aged nine and I have been a widow these past four years. As you surmised I am thus not of the gentry although I trust my upbringing and conduct may prove sufficiently gentle that you will not blush for my manners, when we meet. You are correct in your supposition that I am not a great beauty. To continue in answer to your concerns, yes, there is every hope that I may bear children to Edward and it is my very dearest wish to do so — though I should be grateful if you kept this matter between us, since he apprised me of the tragedy of his first wife’s death and the subject is one he avoids. Still as you know nature has a way of taking its course and we shall see. Please know that I pray for this eventuality with all my heart.

As for your financial arrangements, please believe me madam when I tell you it is my absolute intention to interfere in the matter of your Home and Income Not At All – far from it, I pray that you will immediately remove from your mind any anxiety upon the subject. You might naturally think, since I appear to have little to offer your son, that I am a fortune-hunter that has snared him in a moment of weakness while ashore. Let me assure you, Helena, that nothing could be further from the truth. I would like you to know that I accepted Edward’s proposal only at his very great insistence, and with reluctance, knowing the great Step he was making, in taking my hand. But he persuaded me to see that our future happiness – and his, he insisted – could not be refused for so foolish a scruple as my wish not to encumber or demean him in becoming his wife. In short — we met by chance — I did not set my cap at him, I did not run after him, I did not pursue his interest, I thought he was a friend to us only, and cherished his interest as such — I had no idea of his wealth — only of the man that he is. And it is this last alone which recommended me to accept him — and it is his self and his hand I wish for, not his Fortune. I am quite Uncomfortable with the thought of it, having always lived very modestly — though, I hope, respectably.

I too am very eager to meet you, so that we may settle these thoughts and natural qualms & reservations once and for all and go on to enjoy making each other’s acquaintance.

Of course I must also rush to assure you that while I should most like to receive your welcome in your home as your visitor, it is no intention of mine to take over where you have lived so comfortably all these years. It would be unthinkable, that I should do so, were you even strangers to me, let alone my husband’s family, to whom I owe every consideration and kindness. Please do not concern yourself one minute further with any such uncertainties.

Let me finish by telling you that I love your son with all my heart, though you did not ask it; and to my everlasting & humble thanks to G-d for this extraordinary blessing, I believe he does me, too — which can only stand to illuminate the news you received with such surprise, of our marriage — and, I hope, to recommend it.

He is everything any mother and sister must be proud of, Heaven knows, I have never met a man more brave, truthful, considerate, nor honourable. Nor more zealous and responsible in pursuit of his duty. I hope to be worthy of his regard. I remain in the meantime your most respectful daughter-in-law, Sophie Pelham.

******************

Helena Pelham sat at her breakfast-table, her customary dry toast and bitter Seville marmalade on the gold-rimmed plate before her, and put on her reading-spectacles. She was a tall, thin woman, rather hatchet-faced: it was Edward’s face, but it looked better on him by far. She had a severe manner — it was at its most severe as she broke the seal on Sophie’s letter, which her daughter had just brought her.

Mary, an unattractive woman of forty-odd, watched her mother’s face intently. “Well, to her credit, she replied very quickly, Mother,” she remarked.

“I should hope so too,” declared Helena, not giving any credit where none was deserved but obligation.

“Still,” said Mary, kindly.

“Let’s see what she has to say for herself, then,” said her mother, frowning.

She read the letter through once, straightaway, raising her eyebrows here and there in the perfect image of her son; read it again, pausing over some passages, before finally handing it to her daughter. “Well,” she said, summing-up, “I suppose it could have been a great deal worse.”

“Oh, mother!” cried Mary, still reading. “She sounds very pleasant – oh goodness – every hope she may bear children - did you really ask her that, straight out? Good heavens, mother! —”

“Of course I did,” snapped her mother, “no sense in beating about the bush at my time of life!”

Mary finished reading, an expression of relief spreading across her face. “oh, so she’s not moving here – thank goodness – though I must say it’s hard to believe she has no interest in his fortune —”

Here her mother snorted: “I wasn’t born yesterday!”

“No, but mother, she tells the rest very candidly, does she not? And she sounds almost as surprised as we are, to find herself his wife —!”

“Perhaps,” allowed Helena, raising her chin and looking down her nose in a way that Edward had inherited.

“Oh,” finished Mary in a softer tone, moved: “and she says that she loves him.” She stared off. It had been a very long time since she had seen her younger brother. His life was one of sacrifice and solitary endeavours, she knew that much: had seen it in his face, the last time he had come home. Command weighed heavily on his shoulders – it was a good thing they were strong. Oh, to be sure, he was devoted to the Navy – would not, could not, imagine any other course for himself, and nor could she – but she saw its personal cost to him as well as its glories. Although the prize-money had made them all very comfortable, she had to admit. She was fond of him, in her undemonstrative no-nonsense way: it would be fair to say that she loved him. “And she says he spoke of his happiness!” she folded Sophie’s letter carefully, unaware that she was doing so. “Oh mother, do you think — a love-match, then – for Edward – after all this time?”

“Love-match pfui! A strange outlandish place, is what I think, and heaven knows what he has got himself into!” replied her mother, stiffly.

“Oh, but mother! You could hardly expect him to meet someone here, when he has not been home in two years!”

“I am perfectly aware off the impossibility of that,” said her mother. “I refer to the strange and exotic location from which he has plucked her up.”

“Gibraltar belongs to us, mother. There are plenty of English people there, I am sure.”

“Well, at least she does not write like a foreigner,” allowed Helena.

“Mother, what more could you want than this? She is intelligent, Edward was right – she is considerate – she calls a spade a spade, just as you asked her to do – she is not about to drop on our doorstep and expect us to make a home for her here – and she hopes to have his children. Really!”

“Well,” said her mother, “you may have the right of it on those issues. But to compliment me upon my own son! What temerity! As if I shouldn’t know!”

“Mother, I’m sure what she means is that she wants you to know that she knows his true worth. Aside from the fortune.”’

“Oh, very well,” sighed Helena, who clearly was not going to get the critical response she expected from her normally like-minded daughter, “I’ll allow all that. We must reply.”

“Mother,” said Mary, “—think. Just imagine for a moment. Edward – far from home – all those cares – his ship – never looked at a woman since Catherine died —”

“What a disaster she was!” said Helena, “I should think not! If he didn’t learn his lesson there —!”

‘Well yes, mother, I think he did, and a very hard one it was too — and here he is almost forty — and he has found someone to make him happy — and he is in love!”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Helena, taking a decisive bite of her interrupted breakfast and chewing on it thoughtfully before she swallowed. “The proof of the pudding is in the eating, Mary, I have always said so — at his time of life, it may be too great of a change — habits die hard — he is very independent! Having a wife may not suit him, I would not be surprised for him to discover ——”

“Let us wait and see, mother,” said Mary warmly. “I must say I could not have written half so fine a letter as this, under the circumstances. It speaks well for her understanding – and her kindness, just as he said.”

They replied separately:

Dear Sophia:

It was considerate of you to reply so quickly to my inquiries. I trust that you did not find my questions too bold. Under the circumstances I am sure you will agree a Mother must be entirely entitled to ask them. Your plain speaking in answering them does you credit, I will say that. I am pleased to read much of what you told me.

What kind of a name is Mavis? I have never heard of it. We have always used very plain names in this family — Edward, Mary, Henry, George. I hope you will not choose anything so extraordinary, so peculiar, for my grandchildren, should G-d grant you to bear them.

Your scruples regarding Edward's fortune, if sincere, will be well demonstrated as time goes on. In the meantime I am grateful for your consideration. It is not easy to beg for one’s financial welfare, and Edward has never obliged me to do so – I should not like to begin now.

He is indeed all you say and more, and I am glad you recognize your great good fortune in securing his affections. You do not mention a return to England in the near future. I hope you will not remain in so remote and uncivilized a place as you currently reside: it would hardly be appropriate for Lady Pelham. I shall look forward to meeting you — kindly do not leave it too long until we do so! I remain with all best wishes, your husband’s Mother Helena Pelham.

“Oh, Lord,” said Sophie, and drew a deep breath before beginning the second.

Dear Sister Sophie,

What a lovely letter you write. I am sure mamma’s very trenchant inquiries must have been difficult to respond to, and I must tell you that I think you did an admirable job of it! I have a sense that you are a warm and kind person, and that if my brother believes his happiness lies in making you his wife, I can have no argument with him in that.

We live a very quiet life here but you may be assured you would be most welcome to visit. I am greatly looking forward to seeing you and to having a proper conversation. It made me very happy that your letter spoke of love for Edward, and his for you. He has been alone for a very long time. His first marriage was not a happy one I must tell you, but the fault did not lie with him I do not believe. As you said, he is all anyone could be proud of and more, and his wellbeing is very close to my heart, Sophie.

You must not be offended by mamma’s way. Please do not mind it. If you love Edward you would find he and mamma are very alike in their plain speaking. And in other ways! It would probably amuse you, to see the two of them side-by-side.

Let me assure you of my very best wishes and sisterly affection, hoping to convey these to you in person soon, I remain your Sister Mary Pelham.

After reading this second, gentler missive Sophie breathed a sigh of relief. Then she returned to the first and imagined the forthright words issuing from Edward’s firm mouth. This trenchant image rang so true that she felt her anxiety dissolve, and in its place she laughed almost until she cried, then.

Dear Helena, she replied,

It would be my very great honour to be received by you in the future as your visitor, and believe me when I tell you I look forward to the privilege of meeting my beloved husband’s mother most warmly.

While Edward is stationed in these parts, however, I cannot think it sensible to leave for England, since we should see even less of him then than at present. Which I may say, if you will pardon my plain speaking, is precious little enough, most especially if you wish for a grandchild, with all respect, Helena.

Speaking of which, I should naturally be guided by Edward’s wishes in the choice of a name, should such a blessed event ever come to pass. In the meantime, nowhere can be remote if it is closer to your son.

I hope this letter finds you in continued good health and spirits at this Christmas season and also that the New Year will bring nothing but good for all our family. With my very warmest good wishes and of course my respects to you also, I remain your affectionate daughter-in-law SOPHIE Pelham.

She folded and sealed this at once, and reminded herself to take it to the port admiral’s office the very next time she went down into the town. To be able to send her personal correspondence via His Majesty’s Navy was a privilege indeed — one she still could not get used to, even though she had now been Lady Pelham for seven full months. Not that Edward had been home to enjoy Christmas with them, nor even in her arms at all, except for those stolen moments in his cabin September last, when there had hardly been time to catch her breath, let alone to tell him that she had heard from his mother! Yes, indeed: she felt a bittersweet pang at the thought of that quarrel made up at the very last minute and the polished table there (my goodness!) — still, while she might not have the man, the perquisites attended her at all times.

Her new sister-in-law Mary’s letter she set aside to answer soon, at much greater length. Its warmth had touched her deeply, and she intended to do it justice in return, opening her heart to this invitation to her to do so, and not stinting in the pleasure of discussing Edward with someone else who loved him, if she could not have the greater joy of his own company.

Missing him all over again with this thought, so sharply her womb cramped, she drew breath and went to tie on her apron, to start upon preparing dinner for herself and Mavis. At least the new maid took on much of the harder work, now, leaving her to enjoy the more creative parts of the cooking. She thought that Edward would be pleased, upon his return, to see the progress she had made in allowing herself to be taken care-of.

Thinking of him still, she sang softly as she slit the plums and took out their stones (although Mavis liked to spit them out and count them upon the rim of her plate with rhymes – which was why Sophie thought she should break her of the habit, if she was to be Edward’s daughter and not shame him, now) — “Speed bonny boat, like a bird on the wing… over the sea to Skye!” It was January, already – his Christmas gift to her lay on her bosom, never taken-off: a little pendant of a diamond tear surrounded by pearls upon a slender gold chain.

The package containing it had been brought to her in person by the captain of H.M.S. Euryalus, a nice enough young man, who coloured upon introducing himself and was most pleased (he told her) to be charged also with conveying Sir Edward’s warmest – nay, very warmest – greetings to his family at this season. He had had, a good many years ago, he mentioned, blushing even more furiously now, the honour and privilege of serving under her husband: and a kinder nor better officer was nowhere to be found in the Navy, madam – er, my lady.

If she had known what her husband had paid for it, at the Jewish diamond-merchant’s in Port Mahon – and a very fair price it had been – she would have fainted. She thought it very pretty: which it was, to be sure. His letter with it had been the true gift, though.

Port Mahon, Menorca

3^rd December, 1804

My darling wife —

It pains me to realize that I shall not be able to join you and our daughter in celebration of Christmas, our first together. We are here and you are there and that is that. We do not expect to be any closer to you for some weeks yet: there is much activity in this corner of the Mediterranean, just at the moment. Although you must know that I long for it, in this season or any other.

In remembrance of that, then, and acknowledgement of just how much I long to see you — if I am not too bold in making this statement my darling, but my memory of your sparkling eyes tells me I am not — here is a small gift for you. You cannot have forgotten — I hope you have not, for it meant the world to me — the generous words you spoke to me on our wedding-night.

Well since I cannot be there to give you the pearls you most wish for, my love, here are some colder ones to be going on with. But like the others, they come with ALL the love and devotion of your own Edward.

PS — I am writing to Mavis separately, since this is hardly a letter I should wish for you to share.

For Mavis, he had sent a box of paints, the very best quality, pigments ground in Amsterdam, from the same merchant — he had been so very pleased to find them, in his limited hours ashore. Of course the parcel had included brushes of the finest sable, and a tablet of the thickest creamy full-rag paper: he was nothing if not thorough.

Only his own self had been missing, when they opened his gifts. Could he have walked in the door then, of course, they would each have cast away a mountain of diamonds, all the colours in the world, just to see him. But he did not, could not, and these poor things had to make do in his stead. The care with which they had been chosen was some small balm to his absence: clearly, they were not absent from his thoughts, his heart.

14. Lessons In Love

January – February, 1805

“God damn it, Pritchard,” snarled Pelham, “I can do up my own damned buttons!”

The captain’s steward dropped his hands to his sides, stood back wordlessly, watched his captain fumble. Pelham’s fingers were in a state of mutiny: he willed them to obey, but they would not.

Pritchard watched in silence: it was more than his life was worth to speak, and he knew it.

That cough then, that started as a little dry rustle like an autumn leaf and progressed through ever-increasing paroxysms to a climax of barks that left the captain clutching at the arm of the chair.

Again.

Biting his tongue, Pritchard dropped on one knee by his captain and fastened the buttons. Pelham, saying nothing, let him.

The ship rocked gently at anchor. A grey light spread through the cabin – the Levanter was trailing over the Rock again, hiding the sun from the town and harbour. On deck Pelham could hear Master Cowles, sterner than ever: the ship would be as neat as a new pin, when he came on deck, despite the recent January gales that had left their tops’ls shredded, and their surprise engagement the night before with a Spanish snow.

A knock at the door: Pelham tried to say “Come,” but it took him in another fit of coughing. He clutched his side, where the pain was sharpest; struggled for breath. Ramsbottom’s expression was sardonic. He approached, laid a hand without even asking permission first upon the captain’s brow.

“Hot, sir,” he said. “Very.”

“Go to hell,” said Pelham.

“No choice, sir,” said Ramsbottom. “I’m sending Mr. Hastings ashore now, sir, to tell them to get ready for you at home.”

“I don’t need nursing!” Pelham tried to snap, but the peremptory effect was spoiled by the worst coughing spell yet. It left him gasping, dusky-faced, exhausted.

Ramsbottom frowned. “Well don’t just stand there!” he shot at Pritchard, “fetch him a glass of water!” Pritchard did so, shaking his head. It was tinged with green and smelled as if it had been tapped from the bilges, but Pelham drank it anyway.

Hastings came into the cabin, awkward as always; stooped over the captain. “I’ll be back for you right away, sir,” he said, “as soon as I’ve let them know you’re coming.”

Pelham said nothing, rolled an eye in Hastings’ direction. Normally Hastings would have recoiled from the fury that glittered there, but he knew it was none of his fault this time, so he stood his ground. “You’ll soon be back on the quarterdeck, sir,” he said “ –– faster than if you stayed aboard, I’m sure, sir.”

Ramsbottom chimed in, meaning well: “He’s right, sir, you know there’s no rest for you here on board.”

He had pushed his luck too far; Pelham’s expression darkened. “On board my own ship, sir! Rest! I am the god-damned captain! Rest be damned! I will not leave my ship, sir!” The words would have carried more conviction had he not then turned pale and vomited the bilgewater back up onto the scrubbed planks of his cabin. It splashed onto his stockings.

Pritchard wiped it up at once, as unobtrusively as possible. Hastings and Ramsbottom exchanged glances. A cold sweat broke out upon Pelham’s brow, and he felt another rush of water in his mouth, and the trembling that accompanies the imminent knowledge that one is about to retch helplessly for a long time.

It was Hastings that held him steady, kept him from falling out of the chair altogether. “For god’s sake,” groaned Pelham between spasms, “your uniform, man!”

Pritchard made a dive with the towel, managed to spread it across Hastings’ lap as he knelt on one knee beside the captain. This caught at least some of the yellow bile that issued from Pelham’s empty stomach. Ramsbottom tried to take the captain’s hand and feel his pulse; Pelham swatted him away like a troublesome insect, even as he retched again. It was Hastings who took it, gently, after the heaving stopped and Pelham leaned unsteadily against his sturdy young shoulder. “Nineteen to the dozen, sir,” he said quietly, “and thready, I would say. Not very strong, sir.”

Ramsbottom, dabbing with the back of his knuckles at the tender place on his lip where Pelham’s flailing arm had connected with his prominent teeth, shot him a look of pure antagonism. “There is only one doctor in this cabin, I believe, Mr. Hastings,” he said, “and nineteen to the dozen is hardly a term known to medicine, to my certain knowledge.”

“Ramsbottom,” whispered Pelham, “You are a pompous ass. I do not see my puke upon your britches, sir, doctor or no doctor.”

Hastings said nothing. He hoped the stain would come out, but it hardly mattered. What mattered was persuading the captain that if he did not go ashore to the tender nursing of his wife, he might lose this battle. Pleurisy could well accomplish what the French had failed to: a premature end for Captain Sir Edward Pelham. “Sir,” he said, very quietly, “it’s exactly because she is your command that you can get no rest aboard, sir. Just a day or two – a good night’s sleep –– you’ll be right as rain, sir, be back on board in no time. We’ll do everything just the way you’d want it, sir – I’ll report to you turn and turn about, if you’d like ––– ”

“Every watch,” said Pelham, “without fail.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said Hastings softly, knowing better than to claim victory any further.

Pelham slumped back in the chair, closed his eyes.

Pritchard was making a neat parcel of half a dozen of the captain’s nightshirts, freshly laundered, dried aloft overnight and ironed before dawn that morning at his own hands. Their eyes met. Hastings allowed himself the exchange of a small smile.

“Come along, sir,” said Pritchard, tying the string: “let me get you cleaned up and ready to go. Fetch some ’ot water, give you a nice shave, being as ’ow you’re going ’ome. Mr. ’Astings’ll be back for you in no time, I daresay.”

Hastings, taking his cue, backed away and slipped from the cabin. Pelham heard the succession of commands – the boat lowered, Hastings scrambling down the ship’s side into it, the splash of oars. He opened his eyes. To his displeasure, Ramsbottom was still in view. “It was that damned water,” he growled. “Would turn anyone’s stomach. Even yours. Pritchard –– !”

“Sir –– ?”

“Brandy.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Sir, it’s not wise, in your condition,” protested Ramsbottom, but Pelham silenced him with a look.

“Doctor Ramsbottom,” he said wearily, “you have got your way. I am going ashore. My mouth tastes like guano. Shut up and leave me alone before I change my mind.”

The steward poured a half-inch of amber spirit into one of Pelham’s little glasses. It was decorated with criss-cross cuts in the glass that caught the light as Pelham drained it. He handed it back to Pritchard with a mute expression of gratitude. Ramsbottom left the cabin, biting back the words upon his tongue.

Slowly, Pelham allowed himself to be helped into clean clothes.

“We won’t bother with your neck-cloth, sir,” said Pritchard, “not with that cough you’ve got. Let me tuck a nice muffler under your coat, in stead, sir, keep the chill away.”

Pelham fixed him with a gorgon gaze. “I am going ashore,” he said. “Not to Bedlam. I will be properly dressed, god damn it.” He choked on the words; gripped the arm of the chair; caught his breath slowly, painfully. It was as if a thin knife had been slid between his ribs on the right side, a red-hot one. “I suppose,” he said, “you may tie it a little looser than usual.”

********************

Mavis’s cry of joy as she opened the door reached Sophie, still in bed. “Mr. Hastings!”

Sophie sat up, fear rolling into the pit of her stomach like a cold fog. She heard Hastings’ voice, low, but not his words. She flung back the sheets, ran to the banister in her nightgown. “He’s all right –– ?” she cried, her voice trembling.

Hastings looked up. He looked so young, she thought. “Yes, m’lady. Not wounded. But he has a cough –– ”

Sophie ran down the stairs. “You wouldn’t come ashore just to tell me that,” she said, clutching his wrist, “and you know it.” Her hair was down. It fell about her shoulders in soft, tangled waves.

Hastings cast his eyes down. Mavis was gripping his other hand with a force that made his eyes water. “A nasty one,” he elaborated, “with a fever. He’ll be all right, ma’am, I’m sure; but Dr. Ramsbottom thought –– an inflammation of the lungs – perhaps a touch of pleurisy – he can’t get any rest, on board, see, because he’s always thinking about the ship, he won’t let it go. We thought he’d be best off here for a day or two.”

Sophie looked up into his face. “It’s serious,” she said, “or else you wouldn’t be here. Isn’t it.”

“Yes, madam,” he said, unable to lie. “He’s had no sleep in days. We’ve had gales — he’s beyond exhausted. And we’ve had no fresh provisions for a while, not since Port Mahon – the food’s been – well, basic. His strength is almost gone. He ought to have fresh fruit, soup, you know ––– and rest.”

“Of course,” said Sophie briskly, as he had known she would, preparing to spring into action as readily as any of his gun crew. “Mavis, go get dressed right away. Fetch my wrapper, too, please.” Mavis did as she was told, without question, leaping up the stairs two at a time as if shot from a catapult. God love you, madam, he thought, no hysterics, she knows it’s bad but she won’t go to pieces. Thank God she can be counted on. No fuss, just what’s necessary. What an ass I was, ever to have wondered if she was good enough for him. I see it now, what it is he sees in her…

“Will you have a cup of coffee before you go back to fetch him, Mr. Hastings?” she asked.

“No, madam,” he said. “I won’t take the time.”

She swallowed. “Of course,” she said. “Thank you, Mr. Hastings. You’ll be back in –– what –– twenty minutes, then?”

“Half an hour,” he said. She looked up at him once more, her cheeks rosy from sleep but turning paler now. Hastings thought of the first time he saw her, making love with his august and god-like captain upon the window-seat in the captain’s cabin, that day; the shock of seeing Pelham in all his humanity, the wanton disarray of her gown, Pelham’s dark head laid upon the sweet swell of her breast, her hands clasping it there, her absolute radiance thus –– and the quite different look on Pelham’s face, of wonder and need and a kind of astonished disbelief, before his own miserable presence had registered and turned it to a frown as Hastings spun on his heel and wished the deck to open up beneath him.

She pressed his hand between hers for a second, her eyes eloquent. He nodded in acknowledgment. “Take care of him for us, madam,” he said, “ –– please.”

“I’ll do my best,” she said, “you know that.”

“We – can’t lose him. Not to this!” said Hastings, without meaning to blurt it out; but he felt very young and afraid, and her expression was comforting. Why on earth did I have to say that! he chastised himself bitterly. Battle, he thought, I can take anything in a fight, but to stand here and tell his wife he’s so sick, look her in the eye with the spectre of death sitting on my shoulder and –––

“Of course not,” she said. “Now go and bring him back – we’ll be ready, don’t you worry about that.”

“I know you will, ma’am,” he said. She turned from him to climb the stairs before he had even left; he could not help seeing the curve of her body under her simple nightgown, the line of her back and thighs, the sweetly rounded hips. His own taste ran to more slender figures: her generous shape was more womanly than he felt comfortable with. It seemed a perfect mate for Pelham, though, who looked (now he thought of it) as if it would take much to contain his force, and whose volcanic masculinity would not quail before so feminine a form, but rather – as he saw now – needed some such energy to match itself. This morning Hastings felt glad of her strength and solidity, grateful she was not the fragile willowy creature of his own diffident dreams.

Not that he had ever seen a woman so undressed before.

This thought caused him to flush deeply as he let himself out and started back down the hill. I’ve been at sea too long, he thought, to be thinking such things at a time like this… and yet –– that’s just how it is, there is a reality here I am seeing fully for the first time, about men and women and who we are, how we are –– what we may be to each other, perhaps, beyond what we see on the outside… and for the first time thinking no less of a man for it, no nor a woman neither… the straightforwardness of her, nightgown or no: that what had seemed so terrifying and mysterious in imagination might be as simple and wholesome as this, coming home into a woman’s body, ripe as a peach in a thin white shift, as easy as stepping into your own cabin.

Please god, he prayed, let him live to come home to her again, next time.

***********************

In the garry, Hastings kept the blanket pulled close around Pelham’s chest. Every time the garry lurched, Hastings held on tight and Pelham shot him a look of smouldering disapproval; but said nothing. Halfway up the hill, at one of the turns, Pelham began another coughing-fit, and coughed until his handkerchief speckled red with the force of it. He leaned back into the seat afterwards, his head tipped for air, catching his breath in painful gasps. Ramsbottom, on the other side, said “I told you, sir, if you only would have listened. Bed’s the only place for you, and none too soon, neither.” The look Pelham turned on him was of pure hatred. Hastings frowned at Ramsbottom, willing him to shut up before he undid all their persuasion with his tactlessness.

Mavis was outside watching for them. “Mama! Mama, he’s here!” she cried, and Sophie came running out to meet them.

Not ‘they’re here’, noted Hastings with amusement; the only person who counted at this moment was Pelham. Which was as it should be. In this modest little house he would be the focus of devotion. As he was aboard ship, of course, but there a multitude of tasks lay before them all at every turn, with Pelham alone responsible for all; the force of him expended throughout the day, as if he held the Indy and all that took place aboard her, bearing everything upon his shoulders. Here he need do nothing, and the little home crew had no sails to set, no guns to run out, no gales to contend with, no enemy over the horizon — nothing to do but to tend him with all their skill and care.

The first thing Sophie saw was the glitter in those dark brown eyes. They met hers, angry and resentful: he’s furious with himself, she realized, he doesn’t want to be here! Then she noted the bright hectic patches on his cheekbones, the pallor of him otherwise, the sunken cheeks, the slumped body. All his energy seemed contained in his eyes. Hastings climbed down from the garry and reached up to take Pelham’s arm. Pelham brushed him off; half-stood; stepped forward; swayed. Hastings anticipated him, caught him in his arms and steadied him. “You’re lightheaded, sir,” he said. “Please – take my arm…”

Pelham did so, leaned heavily against Hastings, half-in and half-out of the garry; started to cough, horribly. Sophie ran to him and he returned her hard stare for a moment before closing his eyes under the racking onslaught. When it was done, Hastings helped him down; Mavis ducked between them to set Pelham’s foot firmly upon the folding step. Wrapped in the blanket, his uniform covered, Pelham looked diminished, ordinary. Doctor Ramsbottom got out and stood by like a fussy hen while Sophie took Pelham’s other arm over her shoulder, put her own about his waist.

They had not yet spoken to each other, Hastings noted, except via their gaze. It was as if words were unnecessary. Together the three of them walked slowly into the house. They could not all fit through the doorway at once; Sophie went first, held out her arms to Pelham. He went into them, as if all the fight had gone out of him with that last fit of coughing; stood for a moment there in the hallway, holding onto her, his dark head leaned against her soft, curling brown one. “It’s all right, Edward,” she said quietly.

“Yes,” he murmured, “I suppose it is –– now.”

Hastings felt something leave him, whose passing he was mightily glad of: the strain of making Pelham do something against his will, the responsibility for his wellbeing. It had been the right thing to do, bringing the captain here over all his objections, and Pelham knew it.

Pelham leaned on Sophie, taking the stairs very slowly, one at a time. Hastings followed: then Mavis, who had slipped her hand in his – it was small and warm – and behind them, bringing up the rear, came Ramsbottom, giving instructions all the while in a self-important, bustling tone. “Now get some fresh oranges right away, and squeeze them,” came his babbling, “I don’t suppose he will be able to manage anything more solid as yet, for he has been liverish, with it — but you must keep his strength up, ma’am, beef tea I should say and chicken broth and gruel, an egg perhaps if he is up to it –– but most of all rest, ma’am, complete rest –– complete rest, is that understood? You must tend to his every need, he’s not to get out of bed ––”

“God damn you, Ramsbottom,” gasped Pelham, “you needn’t tell her to wipe my arse, for Christ’s sake – shut up!” He had to stand on the step and catch his breath again after this outburst, before continuing; but Hastings was glad of it, for his captain’s fire had been sadly lacking the past few days.

Ramsbottom was subdued for a moment only: “Sleep is what he needs most of all, though you must keep that fever down –– sponge him off, madam, change his nightshirt when he sweats – ”

“Thank you, Dr. Ramsbottom, I’m sure we shall manage,” said Sophie, but her sarcastic tone was lost on the man: he continued, following the little train into the bedroom, which thus became impossibly crowded; Mavis and Hastings flattened themselves against the wall and tried to beat a retreat sideways towards the doorway. “No exertion of any kind, ma’am, none at all – his heart may be weakened, we can’t tell – he’s been very agitated lately, there’s to be no more of that, nothing but peace-and-quiet, do I make myself clear?”

“Past all endurance, Ramsbottom,” growled Pelham. “If you don’t want me agitated, y’d better get out – now!”

Mavis cast a wry look up at Hastings. He saw relief there, that her beloved Papa was not so ill as to suffer fools gladly, at least.

Sophie looked across at him too, after she had steadied Pelham from standing to sitting on the bed. “Come, Mr. Hastings,” she said, “I think we can get him undressed and into bed far quicker if you help me. Mavis, darling, run downstairs and squeeze Papa a nice big glass of orange juice. Dr. Ramsbottom, would you be so good as to wait in the parlour? I shall be with you directly.”

She gives orders with the same ease he does, thought Hastings, and with the same expectation they will be obeyed. Still, he did not miss the concern on her face, the little glances she directed at Pelham, taking note of his hollow eye-sockets, straw-brittle hair, the white crusts at the corners of his mouth; the way he held himself, so carefully, even while sitting, as if he were in pain. Mavis and Ramsbottom left the room, Mavis in a joyful scamper and the doctor with a surly look back to where his patient had evidently passed beyond his control.

Sophie knelt at her husband’s feet, drawing off his shoes. She kept up a quiet but steady flow of talk as they undressed him, mostly to distract him from the indignity of it, Hastings knew. It wasn’t fussing, like Ramsbottom’s, nor even on the subject of his illness; it was warm and calming, just news of Mavis, her progress in her lessons, the damp weather lately, the nice chicken soup that was just now simmering on the hob – with which they had him out of his coat and shirt, his neck-cloth over her shoulder, and were slipping one of the nightshirts Pritchard had packed over his head. Hastings pulled off one stocking and Sophie the other. Pelham’s feet were ice-cold, even while his head and body had been hot and dry. Feeling it at the same time, their glances met, and dropped again before he should notice.

He let them put him to bed, with a sort of patient resignation, lying back as they swung his legs up, raising his hips a little to allow Sophie to draw off his britches and small-clothes. She is wonderful, thought Hastings: how many aspects can there be to her? She is matter-of-fact and wanton both, clever and kind, mistress when he needed (he blushed again), and wife, and now mother – at every turn just what is called-for. Thank God he has her! She will get him over this, if anyone can. She and Mavis, that indomitable spirit. Like Orpheus, he was quite sure Mavis would follow someone she loved past the dread gates of Hades and drag them from the very jaws of Cerberus, if need be. Yes, his Captain was in good hands; there could be none better.

Sophie bent over Pelham, tucking the sheet so he should be comfortable but not too constricted. “Stay with him while I talk to the doctor, would you, Mr. Hastings?” she said quietly.

“…Waste of time,” came a mutter from the pillow. Pelham’s eyes might have been closed, but there was nothing wrong with his hearing.

“Yes, darling,” she said, “but I do need to know – you can understand that, can’t you?”

Pelham sighed, gave a slight cough – Sophie looked back over her shoulder at him, terrified of another outburst like the one out in the street, but it subsided. His breathing remained shallow and uneven, but quiet.

As she went downstairs for the rest of the consultation, Mavis came in with a tall glass of orange juice held in both hands, like a trophy. Hastings felt his mouth water: they had had no fresh provisions for what felt like ages. “Papa, sit up,” she said, “look what I’ve brought you. I ran to the market as soon as we heard you were coming.” Pelham struggled and Hastings put an arm around his shoulders, supported him. Pelham took the glass from Mavis with an unsteady hand; spilled some on the counterpane; cursed under his breath. “Papa, it’s all right,” said Mavis. “I’ll hold it for you.” And so Pelham drank, a little at a time, as much to please her as from any wish to do so; but he felt it doing him good, cool and easy-to-take and sweet as his new family. “Thank – thank you, Mavis,” he murmured, “that was – very fine. Very fine indeed.”

Hastings felt his skin burning through the cotton nightshirt as he let him down again.

Sophie returned, with damp cloths and a basin of water. “Well, Edward,” she said, sitting beside him where Hastings had been, “it seems your cough has worked itself into an attack of pleurisy. Or pneumonia, possibly. A fine how-de-do, my darling.”

“A pretty kettle of fish,” agreed Pelham, no longer disposed to argue.

“Well, you have come to the right place,” she said. “I won’t fuss over you, love, for I know you can’t stand it – but you must let us do what is necessary. If you fight us, we shall none of us win.”

“I know,” said Pelham.

“Now I am going to sponge you off a little,” she said, “to see if we can’t bring down this fever enough to let you sleep.” Hastings remembered suddenly how his father, too, would never lay hands on a patient until he had explained what he was about to do, and why; it was a matter of respect, he had explained, one’s bodily integrity is so easily compromised, by sickness – it is an unwarranted invasion, to treat patients as if they were insensible as well as incapacitated. One becomes far more sensitive, he had said; one’s dignity is under assault, a good doctor always attempts to heal that too, along with the patient’s body… “May I?” she asked.

“Mmm,” assented Pelham, his eyes still closed.

And Hastings wondered if they might have been here fully four days sooner, if Ramsbottom had talked to the captain in just such a calm and reasonable tone, instead of bullying and hectoring him as if he were an obstinate child who must be made to see reason in spite of himself. Please God it isn’t already too late, he prayed.

Sophie began to sponge Pelham’s face, slowly and with great care and a steady, calming sweep of her arm. His breathing settled; it was still far too shallow and swift, but it had steadied since he had lain down and was steadying more now, an even rhythm that promised rest would follow.

“Mmmmmhh,” sighed Pelham again, in a tone of relief and vulnerability he would never permit himself aboard ship, and thus unfamiliar to Hastings. The young man flushed; smiled; bowed to Sophie; and slipped wordlessly from the room, leaving them to that peaceful and hypnotic activity, Sophie’s movements as steady and rhythmical as Pelham’s breathing.

*******************

Mavis appeared at the door, peeking around it round-eyed with concern.

“Sssh,” breathed Sophie, “Papa’s resting.”

“No, I’m not,” said Pelham, opening his eyes. “I’m awake. What is it, sweetheart?”

“Papa, can I bring you some soup? We boiled up the stock-pot, it’s very good, I cut the carrots while we were waiting for you… ”

Pelham swallowed, coughed a little; caught himself, was able somehow with a great effort of will to fight off the escalating waves; though the attempt squeezed his chest ever more tightly. He hoped the strain did not show in his face, and alarm her: he did his best to look merely a little tired. “Mavis, you’re – very kind – I’m not hungry, not now… ”

“What can I bring you?”

Sophie gave a little frown: “Mavis, darling, you mustn’t plague Papa with wanting to help him –––– ”

Pelham turned his head on the pillow toward Mavis. “Give me a kiss,” he murmured, “see, I shaved for you. And a glass of water. And then – do not neglect your lessons,” he finished, holding out one hand to her.

Mavis kissed him gravely on the cheek, and whispered something in his ear.

“As I do you,” he replied, giving her the kindly look she longed for before closing his eyes once more. She left much reassured, just as he had intended, and Sophie watched his expression sharpen once more to a frown, the lines returning to his brow and the sides of his mouth.

Mavis brought the water, and set it down with extreme care on the little night-stand. Pelham heard the sound, but his eyes remained closed, this time. The sockets were livid, like bruises, and deep-sunk. “Thank you,” he whispered. “That’s all I need –– for now ––– ”

Her small face creased in concern: she had never seen him so far removed from his captainly self. “How do you feel, Papa?”

Pelham felt the sharp little stab that accompanied each intake of breath, however shallow. He felt shaky and on the edge of a cold sweat, though the chills that ran through him were, he knew, a sign of fever. Alongside all of the discomfort, he had been unable to ignore the memories and sensations that accompanied being in this bed, in this bedroom. His body's response to all of that was as immediate as ever – he was merely ill, after all, not unmanned – and just now, this state was starting to make itself uppermost in his mind. Still, knowing there was nothing he could not share with Sophie, even this, made it bearable – for now.

He opened his eyes and found that dear familiar meandering crack in the ceiling-plaster, looking like the West coast of Africa, and the circumstances of his last studying it upon his wedding-night, finding himself on his back and Sophie’s hands busy with his britches then; her hair, loosened, sweeping across his bare stomach; her kisses following her fingers.

At that thought a small groan escaped him despite himself.

“Papa, does it hurt you to breathe?”

Pelham hesitated, but the thought of lying to Mavis troubled him more than a simple admission of the truth, so he sighed, “Yes. Just at – the moment – it does, rather. So –– leave me now, just – for a while – all right?”

“Yes, Papa.” Sophie’s eyes met Mavis’s over the slight, beloved form under the covers. She nodded, and Mavis tiptoed from the room.

“Rest now, my love,” whispered Sophie.

“I’ve been meaning – to talk to you – about that,” murmured Pelham.

“You know you must sleep,” said Sophie. “I won’t sponge you off any more, not for now. I’ll just sit here. Close your eyes again, Edward – please?”

“No,” said Pelham. “It’s – I – ” –––––– words failed him. The ache in his groin had turned to a sharp crying-out, and if she did not rescue him from it soon, it would turn to further pain. It was worse than uncomfortable, already; had begun the moment he saw her, as it always did. Ill or no, it made no difference: his body recognized its mate — had spent far too long without one, to be able return now from this late sweet release to the prison of not-wanting again. It was not a thing he could control, especially in his debilitated state — it was a part of his being, a deep and essential one, since first she had come to him.

“Do you need something?” she asked. “I am here as your nurse, Edward, you must not be ashamed to ask me for the chamber-pot. I have a bed-pan, too, you must let me fetch it —”

A bark of derision issued from his throat. “No, it hasn’t got to that yet – though I daresay it will – I’m sure – but – that’s not it – not now, anyway!” He felt suddenly very foolish indeed, and the thought of being so helpless clutched at his guts: the reality of it, depending upon her even to empty his slops.

She saw the flash of anger in his eyes, but could only guess at its source. “What, then Edward? What is it you need?”

“You,” he said, not knowing how else to say it.

“I’m here,” she answered, perplexed. “Edward – what’s the matter?”

“I asked – Mavis to leave – because I – I have need of you, Sophie.” He had meant to be less bald about it, but there it was, out between them. Should he be ashamed to ask? Surely not: for this was Sophie. His Sophie. The thought of her sweet touch shimmered like a vision in the blasted desert: he clung to it, even as another shudder ran through him. A measure of comfort beckoned on the other side of it, and a sea of sleep.

He watched her face closely, waiting for her gentle assent, the immediate understanding he had come to count on from her: felt his heart constrict at the look of distress that came over it instead. It occurred to him for the first time, with a crawling unease, that she might tell him no. The unease turned to a sick certainty as her eyes widened in alarm and her hand went to her mouth. He felt as if he would stop breathing altogether, then. The pain in his chest sharpened.

“Edward, not now! Oh, love ––– ” she faltered. “How could we? You are so very ill, my darling –– you must rest!”

“I wasn’t – planning on – exerting myself overmuch,” he smiled at her, though his heart was thumping now. Surely she wouldn’t refuse him, if he could just explain –– God, how do you ask for that? “I thought –– I hoped you …… could you not… ” his voice trailed off. She was shaking her head.

“Edward, you must have nothing but peace and quiet! You need to sleep, love! You’re not to be excited…”

“It’s a bit – too late – for that,” he said wryly.

“Oh, you know what I mean!”

“No,” he said, stung now and with a sinking knowledge that she intended to be firm in her refusal, “I don’t.”

“You’re here to rest,” she said, not taking her eyes from his.

“Sophie, I mean it,” he said. A dry sharp cough escaped him.

“So do I,” she answered. He stared at her for a few moments longer, stunned that she could refuse him. His eyes widened; bored into her; questioned her. The scar on his forehead crinkled between lines of inquiry and disbelief. From the first time he had come into her arms, so awkwardly and desperate for her, and all the times in between – still, oh God, a handful only, all told: but touched with such fire she must know how it was with him, in her company – she had never failed him. Till now, when his need for her was greatest: and here she was, returning his gaze in anguish, telling him it must rage unassuaged. In his eyes blazed hurt pride for having humbled himself so much as to ask; anger; reproach; bewilderment.

“So – that is your answer?” he asked her once more, hoarsely.

“You’re here to rest… please, Edward – don’t ask me…”

He turned his face aside into the pillow. “I won’t,” he said, “not again.”

A wave of misery rolled over him after that, and the room swam; but he could not exchange it for insensibility, much as he wished to. The blanket felt rough through the sheet; his skin hurt.

He started to cough, and this time did not fight it back; or could not. The spasms racked him; he lay gasping when it was over. She lifted his shoulders, rearranged the pillows to prop him up a little more. His breathing came easier then, though not much; he turned his eyes from the sweetness of her bosom brushing his cheek, as she gently set his head back down.

*******************

He did not know how many hours passed; but they were wretched. He tossed and could not find comfort anywhere. Each movement cost him a groan. At first he tried to bite them back, ashamed, but after a while they sounded in spite of him: he had passed the level of misery where the sounds could be contained.

Everything was familiar; everything was wrong. There was the same little wooden chair he had dropped his coat upon, the first time he came to her here, so unused to being with a woman he had not even been able to complete his undressing before finding himself in her arms, his frantic need anticipated and met: drawn to its answer within her, all the way and further still, till he gasped his soul out upon her breast. Now she sat there, close by the bed, leaning over him sometimes to sponge his brow, holding water for him to sip, smoothing the sheet, looking at him. What did she see? he wondered. Was it possible she saw the extent of his wretchedness, and still withheld herself? With that mixture of clarity and strangeness that fever brings, he observed the flush in her cheeks, a tangle in her hair, the lock that fell from its confinement whenever she was flustered, her hands in her lap, her rosy fingernails trimmed short, the shape of her thighs beneath the blue stuff of her gown….. ah, dear God – !

Sleep seemed on the other side of a mountain he had not the strength to climb.

*******************

She tried to sit very still, so as to be no distraction to him.

Outside, muffled because they were at the back of the house, sounds filtered from the street as the day wore on: a carter’s cries, children laughing, seagulls – a rooster crowing somewhere above them, higher up the terraces; a donkey braying. Nothing loud enough to disturb sleep, normally; but it seemed that rest eluded him. He turned, shifted, groaned; lay still a few minutes, breathing shallow ragged little breaths that hurt her to hear them; turned again, with a sigh or a shudder that twisted her heart. Time passed interminably: her father’s clock could not have ticked it so slowly, a minute for every second. Sometimes under the sheet she saw the shape of his desire for her, knew he had been telling her no more than the truth: it wrung her to the core, but then he would cough again, wincing, and her fear for him came freshly all over again and she knew she dare not relent: he was agitated enough already, God knew, without adding the strain of expending himself to the burden upon his heart. An impossible dilemma, a hurt made fresh from moment to moment.

Left to her own womanly instincts, she would surely have cared for him as naturally and tenderly in this respect as in any other need of his: what harm could it do, if she were gentle –– ? …. but believing she must not, at the very risk of his life, her heart aching for him, she sat in an agony of her own. That it must be maintained by her own will made it only more acute.

With that half-delirious fantastic pairing of reality with fancy, he thought he was pursuing sleep like a white sail on the horizon: he chased it, turning his canvas this way and that, but the glimmering sail was always to windward of him, he could not beat back to it; it outran him, despite all his orders to bring her closer to the wind, go about upon the other tack, make more sail… fragments of commands tumbled from his lips. A hopeless pursuit. There were different kinds of pain in the room: a sharp one, like a blade straight from the fire, lacing his ribs; a dull one that thumped behind his brow, hammering as if his head were a copper bottom that needed re-sheathing; and an ache that would not leave, had turned to throbbing and beyond to an excruciating state like pins-and-needles. They all belonged to him; retreated to the walls as his head swam, and then came back to grip him, singly or all together.

He was sure he could overcome the first two; they were more distant, inevitable. But the last one, so intimate, became ever more unbearable: wound tighter and tighter with every scent of her hair on the draught of fresh air from the slightly-opened window. It would not yield, nor subside. Had he been on his own quarterdeck, he could have outpaced it, busied himself with other thoughts till it was mastered; but here he was its captive.

He found himself contemplating asking her to leave the room and dealing with it himself, as he had on the sharpest occasions of missing her in the middle of the night, in his cot, when sleep stayed a stranger as it did now. But felt like worse than a fool: what? Should she then clean him up? Should he ask her for a towel? Admit what he was about to do, that no man ever did without shame? The humiliation of that thought turned his stomach.

“Christ,” he said bitterly, and then: “Tantalus…”

She bent to catch the words. “What, Edward?”

“Tantalus,” he said, not caring if the anger showed in his face.

She frowned, remembering the allusion. The poor soul up to his neck in fire, with no water to slake his thirst: for it was always beyond reach, while yet forever in sight.

“Oh God,” she said, “I am so sorry.”

“What good – is sorry?”

“You need to sleep, my love, and stop fretting. Shall – shall I leave, for a while? Would that make it easier?”

“Don’t – be ridiculous,” said Pelham, glowering. His eyes burned, dark stars in his drawn face. The lines about his mouth seemed clamped in pain. “How can I sleep? Not here. Not – in this room. Not in – this bed – for crying out loud – ! It smells – of you – your hair – on the f-cking pillow – !” He had never spoken so brutally to her; would not, ever, if he were not utterly beside himself, she knew.

She winced. “Please, Edward – it isn’t any use to get angry… ”

“How can I help it!” he snapped.

“Edward, don’t make me –––– ”

“Don’t – make you –– what? Be a –– wife to me? Love me? Hold me? Even just –– touch me, for God’s sake! – Is that –– so much –– to ask?”

“That’s not what you’re making me do,” she said. “You’re making me say no to you – again – as if you think I don’t mean it! Edward, I’m not going to change my mind – I won’t! I can’t take the risk, Edward, don’t you see that?”

And he recognized in her that will as strong as his own; and sighed, and turned away from her again, this time in bitter defeat.

*******************

More time, crawling: more misery. Despite her sponging, his fever mounted. He felt like a rat between its teeth: sometimes it shook him till his own teeth chattered. She would spread another blanket over him, then, and close the window: till he broke out in a sweat, burning up right there in the bed, and flung the cover aside, and lay there panting.

Mavis came home from school. She knocked very softly at the door: “Mama,” she whispered, “Mr. Hastings is here. He’s waiting downstairs.”

“Send him up,” gasped Pelham.

Hastings wondered at staunch little Mavis twisting her hands, till he saw Pelham.

The deterioration was so marked that it was shocking. Drawn before, he now looked almost cadaverous. Lines of strain surrounded his eyes, dark fish caught in a tightening net. Despite having shaved, the dark stubble of his beard now shadowed his chin once more: beside it, his cheeks were the color of tallow, except where a wine-red stain burned on each cheekbone. His eyes glittered with feeling; it was difficult for Hastings to meet them. “Sir,” he said.

“How’s everything – aboard ship?”

“Fine, sir. Perfectly under control.”

Pelham did not look especially pleased to hear it: the frown stayed put between his eyebrows.

“Are you resting, sir?”

He wondered why Pelham turned so sharp a look on Sophie. “No.”

Mavis came to the foot of the bed, reached to caress her darling Papa’s toes through the blanket. “Papa, you didn’t have your soup yet. Aren’t you hungry?”

“I don’t – know ––– Mavis.”

“May I bring you some?”

Pelham had no strength left to resist. “I suppose so,” he murmured.

And so Hastings held him up to sit, while Mavis spooned broth into his mouth and Sophie held the bowl. He looked up at the ceiling; or closed his eyes altogether. Sometimes he swallowed, and sometimes the liquid trickled down his chin from his half-open mouth. Mavis dabbed at it tenderly with her apron between spoonfuls, but did not give up till she had got half a bowl into him. It seemed to take a very long time: Hastings’ arm went to sleep, pinned between the wall and Pelham’s shoulder, but he did not move it till Pelham was done.

They laid him back gently on the piled-up pillows, which Mavis had just plumped and fluffed afresh. Again, that look between Sophie and Pelham he could not fathom; not a happy one. Pelham seemed angry about something. He knew the look, but it didn’t fit here, in a sickroom; unless Pelham were chafing to be up and recovered. That must be it. Though where the hurt came into it, he could not understand. There was reproach in those eyes: a reproach all too familiar to him, from occasions when he had let his captain down, and the disappointment was too great to be hidden.

“Your report – if you please – Mr. Hastings,” said Pelham with an effort, and Hastings gave it. Nothing to report, really, but he spoke for a minute or two, to give Pelham the feel of his ship again, the busy hands, the orderliness, everything under control and shipshape; Mr. Wainwright managing magnificently. “Fresh water on board already, sir, we took a little sail down the coast and filled a couple of hundred barrels at that little spring in the rocky cove past the headland – ”

“Very good,” murmured Pelham.

“I should leave now, sir – let you rest –– ”

Pelham passed a weary hand over his face. “Yes.”

“Oh – er – Dr. Ramsbottom is – in his cabin, sir, I told him I was coming ashore to report to you – he –he didn’t answer, sir… ”

“Thank God,” said Pelham. “That’s the last – thing I need… ”

“Sir,” said Hastings.

“Mr. Hastings,” said Pelham wearily.

“Sir – ? ”

“You look – all in. Send – someone else – next time… or better – don’t come – unless there’s anything – I should know… ”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said Hastings, not understanding. Only as he descended the hill again did he realize that perhaps Pelham did not wish to be seen in this state; that he was too wretched even to care for news of his command. That thought troubled him more than anything he had seen.

As he came back aboard, not a man but left his station to crowd the rail, asking how the captain did. The Indy’s very center was missing: would not be restored until the bo’suns’ pipes whistled Pelham back aboard. Meanwhile they fretted, anxious and subdued, the heart quite gone out of them.

*******************

Mavis sat in the little courtyard, stitching her sampler. It was not too chilly to do so, today: one of those mild days had wafted in from the south, a rare gift in late-January, where the Sahara drank the warm wet Westerly winds from the Caribbean, blew more heat upon them, and then exhaled them northwards, gratefully, it seemed. Sometimes the gauzy curtain fluttered in the open window of the room above her head; sometimes her mother closed it again.

How could papa be hot and then cold and then hot again so quickly? She remembered the time she had sat out here with Pelham, and talked of husbands, and marriage, and his unborn child that died along with its mother. She recalled the tightening of his mouth after he told of it. Her sampler had strawberries down one side, and a bird along the bottom coming to eat them. The feathers on its breast were speckled, like the thrush he had brought her, the day he came home again to marry her mamma. He had known she would let it go: he knew her through and through.

She was persevering with this sampler, now, because she wanted to progress to making something even a little as beautiful as the hangings her mamma was stitching for Papa’s cot aboard the Indy. They would probably take the best part of a year, they were so finely-worked, and she hoped she would one day have the patience to attempt something half so gorgeous. But if she was, it must start here, as mamma had reminded her, and so she devoted herself to this with an unusual and single-minded application of herself. Mavis found that she was capable of extreme focus, where she wanted to achieve a greater end.

She had to finish the alphabet, but the thrush was so much more fun to work on. She allowed herself to do a wing, in crewel-stitch, before the letters D – E (for Edward) – F; a strawberry, with tiny bright golden seeds, and then G – H – (for Oliver Hastings, she smiled to herself, almost stitching an O instead of the H – she caught herself just in time). M for Mavis seemed a long way off; P for Pelham and S for Sophie, forever away. Then there were still the numbers to come, one through nine and then ought; and her phrase, “The Lord Is My Shepherd, I Shall Not Want.”

Shepherds are all very well, she thought, thinking of a flock of sheep with their bells clonking – but sailors are better – and a Captain the best of all. If they had had captains when King David was writing his psalms, she reasoned, he would have said the Lord Is My Captain, I Shall Not Want – He Leadeth Me Safe Across the Stormy Waters…. But to her recollection, it was rather dry and scrubby in the Holy Land; although there was the Sea of Galilee somewhere thereabouts, not to mention Jonah and the Whale….

These thoughts brought her to the awaited M, for which she changed colours, picking a deep cherry-red from the box of silks – it was her sampler, after all – and after it she gave herself another strawberry to work as a reward, this one tinged with pale pink and topped with a green stem.

Upstairs, she heard Pelham coughing. She pricked up her ears to listen: it was an awful sound, like canvas ripping. It went on and on. She pricked her fingertip, and gasped; set down the square of creamy linen quickly, before the bright blood dripped onto it; sucked her finger. The coughing faded, only because (it seemed) Pelham had run out of strength to continue it: it was replaced by gasping, and a low moan.

Mavis prayed – something she usually forgot to do.

*******************

The light had moved across the ceiling of the room. A whole day of wretchedness beyond anything Pelham had ever known. He found himself gripping his head in his hands, pulling at his own hair: so this is what is meant by tearing one’s hair out, he thought. Sometimes lying like a fetus curled-up gave him a little respite; then he would need to stretch out from the leg-cramps, the throbbing ache still with him despite everything.

He was beside himself.

When Sophie stood and excused herself from the room to fill the pitcher of water, he let the cold fury of it all take hold of him; it gave him the strength to pull himself up and put his feet to the floor. Slowly, the pain in his side notwithstanding, he reached for his stockings.

She almost dropped the jug in the doorway, on her return: “Edward, what are you doing!”

“I would – have thought – it was – quite clear – ” he said.

“But you mustn’t get up – Edward – ! ”

“I am – going back – to my ship,” he said, in a flat tone with steel behind it.

“Edward, you’re burning up – you have an inflammation of the lungs – you’re deathly sick – you can’t possibly get up!”

“I can,” he replied, “and I will. You leave me – no choice, Sophie.” His brown eyes blazed now.

“Please,” she begged him.

“Be so kind – as to send Mavis – to fetch my men,” he said wearily.

“Edward, don’t! You mustn’t!”

“You cannot – stop me,” he said, passing a hand over his head. He was out of breath from the effort of sitting up.

“Edward, I love you too much to give you what you’re asking – !”

“Then what – good is – your love – to me?”

She was crying, now, struggling to master it and speak to him reasonably still: but she was terrified for him. “Edward, you are so stubborn – we nearly killed you, once, when you should have been under the doctor’s care, not making-love with me –– you must stay here and rest!”

“Rest,” he said, “is impossible – here – if you will not –––– be ––– kind. At least – aboard my ship – I do not have – to suffer that, too….. You would not – be so unkind – if you understood –––– ”

“Unkind,” she whispered.

“Yes, unkind,” he said. “This has been – the most – wretched day – of my life.” His eyes bored into her, furious, accusing. “And I will not – humiliate myself further – by begging you again – only to be – refused.”

“Edward, please – you might not even get back to your ship alive, not in this state –”

“Death,” he said flatly, “would be preferable.”

She was kneeling at his feet, looking up at him. Tears trickled down her cheeks. His resolve remained, and she knew it. And realized what her well-intentioned refusal might cost, now. Between a rock and a hard place, she made her choice.

It was but one instant, that defined the whole of their marriage: all that had gone before, and all that the future promised. Choosing the risks to take. Acting on instinct; trusting her knowledge of him. “Oh my love,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry –– I didn’t realize – truly, I didn’t …. Of course! My darling, I thought ––”

His face twisted. “Then –––– oh, Sophie… for the love of God –– ”

“Yes, Edward,” she said. “Here, darling, lie down… that’s it… oh – oh my love –” for her fingertips had found him, hot and stiff and flared, and dry, and chafing: at her touch, light as it was, he almost leapt off the bed with a harsh groan, followed by another fit of painful coughing. This time she smoothed his brow while it lasted, that high intelligent forehead now all creased with lines of suffering. She kissed it, tasted his sweat: left her other hand gently where it lay upon his flesh, under the sheet.

He trembled.

“It’s all right,” she whispered, “Edward – it’s all right – oh God, my love – I am so – so – sorry!”

He turned his face to her then. His eyes held her. She thought her heart would turn over.

She closed her fingers gently round him and he groaned again, still not taking his eyes from her face. She eased his skin gently over the tender, cleft roundness of him, rough as it was now from exposure and chafing.

He sighed.

“I’m so sorry…” she said again, drawing back the sheet so very carefully, so it should not rub and hurt him further.

“Look at me,” he whispered then: “not there – look at me – !” – and his eyes pinned her like a butterfly: she could have drowned in the brown depths of them, so full of hurt and longing. Staring at her, his breathing very ragged now, he gripped her hand where it lay on him.

“I’ll hurt you… ” she breathed.

“You won’t,” he said: “not now. Please – just – just ––– oh, Sophie ––– !” – and he moved his hand roughly with hers under it, sharp strokes, no more than half-a-dozen times, and arched his back, and cried out harshly, never turning his gaze from her. Something bloomed deep within the dark pools of his eyes – his pupils blurred and then swam as his crisis overtook him and he jolted helplessly in her grasp.

It went everywhere: the sheet, his nightshirt, the wall, her gown, her cheek, even the nightstand. His groans were sharp and painful to hear. “Oh God,” he said, when he could finally speak, “oh God, Sophie – ” – and then breaking her heart all over again, hoarsely: “was that so – very much to ask?”

“No, love; no ––” she said, “No, it wasn’t – it really wasn’t, not at all.”

“I didn’t – think so,” he sighed, his eyelids fluttering. The drops on her skin were cooling: “Let me get you clean and dry,” she whispered, and slipped from the room to the linen-closet to fetch a clean towel, leaving him bedecked with opals. She was gone perhaps half a minute.

When she returned he was asleep.

*******************

In the night, between long sweet drifts of slumber, he turned to her and was received with the same grace and simplicity that had marked her first reception of him all those months ago – except that this time he lay back with his shoulders pressed against the pillow and her hair tumbling all about his chest, her voice murmuring between caresses, “Edward, stay calm – darling – don’t lose your breath, now, or I shall have to stop – oh my love, my love – careful – careful – easy, now – don’t you move, let me –– how’s that?”

“Heaven,” he said.

“Oh, love,” she said.

*************************

The next time, his eyes glittered less; glowed more. “Don’t stop,” he said, “for Christ’s sake…”

“Sssshhh,” she said, “I won’t, darling – oh –– ohhhhhh……” –– discovering that with him beneath her thus, and all haste necessarily set aside, his hands free to cup her breasts (which they did, with great delight) –– she could move just so, and –– “Oh,” she cried then, “oh, my God, Edward –– Edward –– oh, oh, Edward!”

“Sophie?” he murmured, his eyes widening in wonder at all he felt then. “Sophie –– Sophie, my love… my love, my love!”

***********************

Mavis, turning over in her narrow little bed next door, heard the low voices and the sighs, and concluded without really understanding that from the sound of things, all must be well with her world.

Pelham lay snuggled alongside Sophie, in the longest reaches of the night, descending once more into a blessed sleep. He was feverish yet, but not unbearably so. His breathing, while painful, had eased also along with his body’s easing. This was the comfort for which he had assented to come ashore and be nursed back to health: all of it, together, no need left unaddressed. “Sophie –” he murmured, drowsily.

“Mmm?”

“Tell me – why were you so dead set against this? Did you really think I was going to turn up my toes?”

“No – but after what Dr. Ramsbottom said – ”

“For the love of god –– !”

“Edward, he told me not to!”

“What?”

“Dr. Ramsbottom – he most especially told me I must not make love to you, Edward, he warned me so sternly! He said any excitement could be too much for you – do you think I wanted to say no to you?”

There was a long silence: then, “I’ll kill him,” said Pelham into the darkness.

And slept the rest of the night in her arms.

*******************

Hastings found him the next morning so much improved it was hard to believe this was the same man who had collapsed on attempting to climb from the garry twenty-four hours earlier. There was still fever, of course, and a marked flush alternating with some slight pallor, but the patient seemed so much more at ease within himself, and calm with it: Hastings thought that he had never seen his captain so peaceful. There was a level of comfort to him, as if he had come to accept overnight that he must stay home and rest these few days; he had stopped fighting it – indeed, he appeared to be enjoying himself every bit as much as Mavis clearly doted upon attending his every wish.

Pelham had already sat for his portrait in pencil and coloured paints; in the face of his protests, Mavis had obligingly painted in his uniform in place of the nightshirt he actually wore. The picture had pride-of-place upon the mantelpiece, the eyes staring alarmingly, much in the manner of the real thing, thought Hastings.

He had eaten two brown eggs, boiled to perfection, and some few slices of toasted bread-and-butter, and a dish of stewed plums. He exchanged pleasantries with Hastings, and listened attentively to the account of all that had happened aboard the Indy in the meantime (which truth to tell was not much, but Hastings found telling details upon which Pelham could feast his commander’s heart).

After a spell of coughing, though far less dire than those of the previous day, he announced himself tired, and proceeded to fall asleep in a matter of a couple of minutes, under Hastings’ very gaze.

“You have worked magic, my lady,” Hastings told Sophie downstairs in the parlour.

“No;” she said, blushing – “Nature did that, I believe – we must just let it take its healing course, and if we are fortunate… ”

“Perhaps so,” said Hastings; “but I have always found this to be a singularly peaceful and joyful household, madam; it cannot fail to have a salutary effect upon him – ”

“What’s salutary?’ asked Mavis.

“Er – beneficial,” said Hastings – “Health-giving. Like ‘salud!’”

“Salud!” giggled Mavis, and fetched them glasses of freshly-squeezed orange-juice to toast Pelham’s health, and the health of all of them.

Their little ritual was interrupted by the somewhat late arrival of Dr. Ramsbottom, complaining loudly that his garry had been pulled by the most arthritic and broken-winded nag in all of Gibraltar.

“Hush!” said Sophie, “he’s sleeping upstairs…”

But the damage had been done; little did Ramsbottom know how much, nor what lay in store for him, or he would surely have climbed upon the back of the spavined creature and spurred it as fast as it could go in the opposite direction. He made an attempt to tiptoe up the stairs, marred by a stumble against the banister half-way, which sent a resounding crash through the little house.

Entering the room where Pelham lay in bed, he could not keep from an exclamation of satisfaction with the patient’s appearance: “Much improved, I see,” he said, rubbing his hands.

Pelham opened one eye; took in the identity of his visitor. The eye smouldered dangerously. “No thanks to you,” he said in a murderous tone.

Ramsbottom failed to see it coming – which was as much his failing as the rest had been, naturally. For a doctor, he was possessed of more self-importance than he was human understanding. The lessons of humility offered by the practice of his profession had been sadly lost on him, for he was not of a temperament to perceive them, being essentially a vain and bullying man, needing to prove his importance to all around him, and most particularly, of course, himself – the hardest of all to convince, and requiring constant proof.

Sadly, therefore, his career had served instead only to bolster his habit (an illusion, of course) of wresting full control of every situation, and taking credit for the recoveries — while blaming Nature or the patient’s own folly in disregarding his advice for the failures (of which there were naturally many). “I beg your pardon, sir?” he said in an injured tone. “You are not yet come to yourself, I see, Captain Pelham.”

“Get out of my sight,” snapped Pelham, “before I lay hands on you, by God! I am perfectly myself – and you, sir, are a bumbling meddler!”

He had taught Mavis that discretion is oft the better part of valour – but the Doctor had clearly missed that part of his education, and so that unfortunate man continued, much to his risk: “I protest, sir!”

“Do you!” spluttered Pelham. “Do you, indeed, sir!” A fit of coughing seized him here, and Ramsbottom surged forward to support his shoulders; but Pelham’s right hook was not entirely debilitated by his illness, and – sailing freely to push away this further interference – connected quite satisfactorily with Ramsbottom’s jaw. The doctor staggered back, nursing his face in his hand.

“Captain Pelham!” he cried. “Do you offer me violence, sir?”

“No,” said Pelham, “that was merely my good fortune, I cannot claim to have intended it; but if you touch me again without my permission, I shall most certainly do so!”

“You are beside yourself, sir” hissed Ramsbottom, between fury and a bully’s sudden fear of being stood-up-to.

Pelham fixed him with his gimlet gaze. Ramsbottom quailed, but stood his ground; mostly because the room was too small to do otherwise. Mavis had come up behind him with a jug of hot water. “Sweetheart,” said Pelham – Ramsbottom looked surprised, then turned and noticed the child – “put that down, and now run along to your mamma.”

“Can I watch you shave?”

“Of course,” he said, “in a few moments. But just for now, Mavis dear, shut the door.”

She did so.

Ramsbottom looked nervous, as well he might.

“Did you,” growled Pelham, “or did you not tell my wife in the most threatening terms that she was not to be a wife to me?”

“Naturally I warned her…” blustered Ramsbottom, “and it is just as well, I might say.”

“Naturally?” repeated Pelham, in a menacing tone.

“Why yes, sir, in your weakened state such foolish indulgence and – and unnecessary excitation might have killed you!”

“Unnecessary…?” said Pelham.

“I felt it my duty to warn her, against any unwarranted alarm to your system – I should certainly hope I would caution it, sir. Such a shock can carry the patient off, my goodness yes!.”

“I am living proof that it did not,” snarled Pelham, “but I cannot say the same for your unwarranted, ignorant, prurient, patronizing, inexcusable MEDDLING, sir!” He dabbed at his lips with a handkerchief, here, in an effort to contain himself. “How dare you, Dr. Ramsbottom?”

“Dare, sir? You would speak to me of dare? What means ‘dare’?”

“You have dared to get into bed between me and my wife!” Pelham snapped. “You frightened her half to death with the notion she might kill me with a little comfort – good God, Ramsbottom, I always suspected you must have your head more than halfway up your arse, sir, but this confirms to me that the insertion is complete – and of long standing!”

Ramsbottom blundered on; trailed off in the face of Pelham’s baleful stare.

“You really have no idea, do you,” said Pelham.

“I most certainly do!” protested Ramsbottom, his professional judgement now impugned, to add insult to injury.

“You are very fortunate,” hissed Pelham, “that I am not fully recovered, Doctor, or else you would have left here with your head and shoulders rammed up your fundament, with my foot behind them, sir! And you are fortunate indeed you did not cause me to have an apoplectic fit yesterday – but it was no thanks to you that I did not, sir! Call yourself a doctor –– you have not the first idea of your patients’ needs, you imbecile! I spent the most wretched day of my entire life yesterday – at your hands, damn you! You are not fit to practice medicine! Now get out of my sight before I relent and break my promise to myself not to kill you.”

Outside the door, Mavis’s grin met Hastings’ look of shock. Hastings had come upstairs, razor in hand, ready to help Pelham shave: they had heard more than enough to follow the gist of Pelham’s ire. Mavis clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from giggling; ran into her room just in time, leaving Hastings to flatten himself against the wall as a deflated Ramsbottom pressed past him to descend the stairs. “Never been so insulted – beyond all professional expectations – foolish – wanton –– ” The front door slammed.

Now it all made sense to Hastings: the misery that had pervaded the house, the day before –– the hostile glances from Pelham to his wife, freighted with silent rebuke; Pelham’s air of suffering then, worse than anything in his demeanour aboard ship, even at the height of his illness –––– and the blissful atmosphere that reigned this morning, by contrast: all tension evaporated, joy and contentment restored to the household, a patient on the mend and a nurse whose healing powers were in full bloom.

Mavis emerged into the landing, still gurgling. “Ssssshhhh,” she gestured.

“You’re not supposed to know what that was about!” hissed Hastings.

“I don’t, exactly,” she whispered, “but I’ve a fair idea – they made up in the middle of the night, and he started to get better then. He went to sleep. Don’t tell!”

“I wouldn’t dream of it!” whispered Hastings in reply. Of the two of them, it was he who blushed.

“Mr. Hastings,” she asked as they slipped quietly down the stairs, “Can I ask you a question?”

Oh no, he thought. Please. Why me, God? I don’t pretend to understand it myself, much more than this child – only as a man, but I’ve never … have no idea ––––– “What is it?” he said.

“Does ‘fundament’ mean what I think it does?”

Hastings broke into a sigh of utter relief. “Yes, Mavis,” he said, “it most certainly does.”

Her peals of laughter floated back up the stairs all the way to Pelham, who noted them with perplexity but not displeasure as he drifted off into a drowsy, half-fevered state where the pillow beneath his head was moment by moment most deliciously and wonderfully transforming itself into the sweet swell of his wife’s bosom –– or was it her lap? And thus, blissful, slept.

Hastings, seeing that his services were not wanted just now, stepped quietly to avoid making noise on the stairs, returned the razor to Sophie, who was singing softly in the kitchen, and took his leave of them.

*******************

Her husband had been fully on the mend for about a week when it occurred to Sophie that she should apprise him of all the developments with his family since their marriage. His intervening visit, with its brevity, catastrophic quarrel and snatched making-up, had hardly allowed for anything of the kind. While she had naturally mentioned in her letters to him that she had indeed been corresponding with her mother-in-law, she thought that he might now appreciate seeing this thoroughly candid exchange for himself.

She was quite right in this, of course. She handed him the two letters she had had from his redoubtable mother with a smile: “By the way, Edward, I thought you might like to see these…?”

He pulled her down to sit by him on the bed while he read them, rested his other hand upon her thigh. Such casual intimacies thrilled him still: all that a man ashore might take for granted in his wedded state Edward cherished anew. Being always a man to seize his moment and let no opportunity pass him by unplucked, he made sure to lose no time in enjoying Sophie’s company while he might. To touch her was still a marvel: he did so much of the time while she was by. It did not need to lead anywhere – it was a joy in itself. Her very presence brought him balm and contentment. He, who had not been touched in fifteen years — and never, tenderly, in all his life — could not get enough of it, now.

In between the pages he thus returned his hand to her thigh, where his fingers, at first so easily and lightly laid upon her leg, tightened their grip and then lifted altogether, only to come down again finally in what was almost a slap. “Oh, God,” he said, putting down the letters and wiping his eyes, “Oh, mother—mother!—!” Sophie was relieved to see him so amused, even as she had thought he must be. “I hope you gave her as good as you got, my love!”

“I must confess I believe I did,” she smiled.

He looked up at her, still grinning and shaking his head. “Yes, that much is apparent from her second, is it not. I should not have doubted you! You will not go very far wrong in handling her if you remember that she is where I learned almost all that I am,” he added.

“I imagined that to be the case,” she replied, her lips twitching.

“Mary was not so formidable, I hope?”

“No, not at all,” she said. “I have been meaning to answer her letter – it was very kind, very kind indeed — she loves you dearly, Edward.” She did not offer to show it to him, for which omission he surmised (rightly) that it contained a more intimate summation of his person, character, and/or history than she wished him to read for himself.

“Yes, Mary has a kind heart,” he said, and his face took on a gentleness for a moment before it turned stern again. He sighed; coughed. “I knew it must set the cat amongst the pigeons when I wrote to Mother after our marriage, to apprise her of it,” he continued a moment after, “but what else could I have done? But oh! my love – I am so sorry, that I omitted to mention how lovely you are — or the perfection of your good manners — or indeed how very much in love with you I am. For I see that she drew all sorts of conclusions, from what I failed to say — thinking it must be obvious! I — I do not usually write to her of all that is in my heart — we have not been close, in that way, and so — I wrote to her of the facts, I thought they should speak for themselves! Which you tell me they did, to Mary, did you not?”

“Oh, yes,” said Sophie, “most especially after I answered all of your mamma’s questions. Mary was very generous, in her reply. I am sure, when we meet, that we will like each other at once — I feel that we already do. We both of us want what is good for you, Edward.”

“As does my mother, I have no doubt of it — but not so tactfully, I must confess — you must let me beg your pardon, on her behalf, Sophie. I had not imagined she would write to you in quite such insulting terms! I hope you were not hurt by them?”

Here he looked at her sideways, one eyebrow lifted, to see if her gentle heart had indeed been bruised by his mother’s full broadside.

“Oh, no, love,” she answered immediately, “please! No pardon is needed! I was pleased that she felt able to address her closest concerns so – er – forthrightly. I was able to set her straight about all of them without shilly-shallying, as I should have had to do had she not been so plain with me, what it was she wished to know – I could hardly have made those declarations, otherwise.”

“You are a wonder,” he said, “— but I expected no less.” She did not quite understand why he pulled her down to him then and kissed her so roundly — but when that kiss turned into two and then three, each more lingering and breathless than the last, and his hand strayed to mould itself around her breast and squeeze it, trembling ever so slightly, she knew clearly where her duty lay. Thank goodness Mavis was out with Mr. Hastings this morning, showing him the sights of the town.

He thought he would never get enough of her touch: never. He was still starved for it, even now after these two weeks with her.

But no-one could have accused him of failing to try.

*******************

“Should I be waiting for night, before enjoying you? I hope not! I never have been able to do anything by half-measures,” he told her later that afternoon, in a fit of feeling as if he should explain himself (as if he had needed to, to her). “I told you when I wrote to you, after our wedding — it is all or nothing with me. And God knows, it was nothing for a very long time, and so — you bear the brunt of that.”

She smiled, turning to look at him over her shoulder. She was arranging dried flowers in a jug upon the little nightstand, beside his plate with crumbs on it from the lunch he had eaten earlier. Mavis had brought them back from her walk to market with Hastings, some kind of purple everlastings and golden strawflowers. Her eyes glowed: “I should rather say ‘reap the benefit,’ Edward.”

“Would you,” he said, reaching out for her hand and patting the bed beside him.

She came to him; took it; sat down where he wanted her to, within reach. “Oh, yes,” she whispered, stealing her fingertips up his neck and round the delicate whorls of his ear.

His indrawn breath was sharp. “You may have to prove it, madam,” he said, stern and husky all at once.

“I think I can do that do your satisfaction,” she said, “if you will give me the opportunity.”

“Oh, I shall certainly give you the – opportunity,” he whispered, “ —and a great deal else beside, if you will let me.”

“I pray you,” she said, lightly, sparkling, laying her hand upon the bedclothes just where the great deal else resided, — “if you please, sir, will you not give it to me now – the opportunity?”

“What about Mavis?” he asked her, proving thereby his very great love for the child, to be considering her welfare at all at such a moment.

“She went outside to play,” said Sophie, “and she knows better than to come in when the door is closed.”

They looked at each other, frankly. His pupils widened further still; his nostrils flared. Her hand moved, just a little – enough for him to feel it most exquisitely. His breathing quickened: hers, too. “Well in that case,” he said, “ ‘you are requested and required’ ——!”

He was a captain, after all: orders were orders. He did not need to say the rest: his eyes said it for him. She did as she was requested and required, joyfully. “Oh! Sophie — oh, Christ!” he said then, groaning, “ — when you do that —!”

A little while later she asked him tenderly, rearranging her dress, “—and have I, sir?”

“Have you what, madam?”

“Proved to your satisfaction, that I regard it as reaping the benefits, not bearing the brunt?”

“I should say so,” he smiled. That soft blue gown with the wrapped bodice tied with blue strings might be behind the style, but he had never seen in his life anything more becoming on a woman (or half-off one, at his own hands, to be more accurate). He watched her tie the bow again, tuck the thin cambric kerchief back into place beneath: thought fondly of the treasures that resided within — his treasures also, now. He had no doubts but that she wore it these days on purpose, knowing full well his delight in pulling at the ends of the bow. The thought that she did so deliberately, choosing to delight him even as she dressed in the morning, moved him in a place other than simply his desire.

She was sitting at the end of the bed, putting her hair back on top of her head whence it had fallen down, not unsurprisingly. He watched with pleasure the deft movements of her hands: thought of all she was becoming to him. Oh, to be sure, the physical side had blossomed, these precious days, there was no denying that — he would not want to deny it — nor hardly could! To make love to her while lying on his back (for she still insisted he not exert himself) had opened up new horizons of feeling to him. He had come to enjoy most particularly the opportunity this offered of caressing the softly rounded curves of her pretty waist and bottom while in the very middle of it all: and of telling her with the breath she insisted he save how very much he loved her, also in the middle of it all — and at the end, too, even more so, although often this consisted simply of her name, repeated with all the fervency of prayer.

And yet there was more to it than that: so much more. Her compassionate, no-nonsense nursing, tending to all his bodily needs without shame — her company, so delightful, so easy-to-take; the way he learned still more of who she was each day, in watching her move and speak and do, the expressions that chased across her face, the tone of her voice — the times she almost lost her temper with Mavis, and got it back; the times she was tired, but rose immediately to do or bring something he needed — the look she wore as she sat by the window in the bedroom, thinking he was sleeping, quietly working her crewel-stitch upon the hangings she was making for him —— he thought he should never get enough of these, either: of all of her. He wanted to drink in her entire being and take it back to sea with him. The thought of her was balm to him, was rest at the end of a weary day, was already a sharp joy when he felt tried beyond endurance in his command.

He felt like a man who, having asked for bread, has been given the whole harvest of a country. Could she understand that by enjoying her so richly, he was also showing her the very depths of his love for her? How else was he to tell her, show her? She never took off the pendant he had sent her from Port Mahon: it dangled between her breasts, enchantingly, each time she made love to him. Sometimes it jiggled and sometimes it fell across his face when he had his mouth there. It sparkled now, as she turned to him, a sweet and very contented smile upon her face. She was rosy pink: had he done that? Yes, he had. God, he would gladly put those roses in her cheeks morning, noon and night for the rest of his life. He could not believe he would be forty next birthday: he felt as if his life had just begun.

“Christ,” he said, “—do you have any idea — any idea at all — how very much I love you?”

She did not answer him immediately: another thing he loved, that she would give his question due consideration, never flip a response back to him unthinkingly because it was expected. “I think so,” she said, slowly, softly; “I hope so — only because I know how very – very — very much I love you, Edward. So much it hurts — I think sometimes I can’t bear it — and I see you look at me that way, sometimes, too…”

“I wish I could spend more time with you,” he said. “I am still discovering all of who you are!”

“Yes,” she said, again not denying the pain of their long separations, so cruel this early in their marriage — God, how he loved that truthfulness in her! Was it not the very first thing about her that had spoken to him? Well – after her soaked appearance had got in under his guard!? Yes, it was. That and her modesty, her complete lack of pretension: the sense that there was more to her than met the eye, depths upon depths. He was still fathoming them. She bit her lip a moment, continued: “— But I suppose it gives us the opportunity to make these discoveries at length, Edward, and add to our knowledge of each other piece by precious piece, each time you are home — is that not so? I am sure we would not find each other so fresh, still, if you were here every day. Why, we could grow stale — take each other for granted, even, as husbands and wives come to do, you know – ”

“I cannot believe I should ever take you for granted,” he said, “if I lived beside you to the age of Methuselah.”

She had moved to sit beside him once more. The diamond winked for a long time with each sweet rise and fall of her bosom, before she spoke. “I think you have the right of it, Edward,” she said, “— I cannot disagree.”

“God grant I shall,” he said, his voice husky now with no desire in it at all but the emotion of a most poignant gratitude.

And she gave him back no answer at all, except another diamond, a glittering tear falling upon his face from hers.

********************

After he left, she wrote to Mary:

My dear sister Mary,

Your kind words touched my heart. Thank you for the warmth of your greetings. I only hope I may repay your trust in me to secure your dear brother’s happiness.

I should have replied to you sooner, but that Edward came home most unexpectedly for a little spell – just over a fortnight! – and I had my hands full nursing him back to health. It was a pleurisy but Do not be alarmed, he is in no danger whatever and has made a complete recovery. He sailed yesterday and we are low here after having his company for so long.

Let me repeat, for I am sure I should be most concerned if I were you, he left here very well indeed and fully himself again. And perhaps at last there may have been a chance for your mother’s hopes (and mine) to be fulfilled. I shall say no more on that subject for fear of making us both blush. But I had not had the very great happiness of having him at home more than a day or two, till now. Perhaps you can Imagine my contentment. I hope I have not been too forward, here. But your kindness and your care for Edward spoke from your letter, I have re-read it many times. I hope it pleases you to think of him well-cared-for – which is and shall remain the chief joy of your affectionate sister Sophie

Sealing it, she wondered if she had been too bold in letting Mary know they had at last had the honeymoon she had so longed for. A strange honeymoon, some might think, his coming to her so very sick; but there was no other word for the fortnight they had just spent together.

There had been the three days following their wedding, of course, before he put to sea again, and they had made the best of them — but it had been awkward. She still squirmed with embarrassment remembering the very first morning, when she had found herself so flooded that she had quite gone through her rags, stained the sheets where she lay, cramping till she woke with a cry on her lips, waking him also — what a start!

He had been so very tender and dear, then, even in his evident surprise at being thus exposed to a woman’s most secret reality. How kindly he had reassured her that he had seen more blood in five minutes than she could ever shed in a lifetime – what, him, shocked? And she was sorry? Why, good heavens no, hardly: please! – and he had insisted she lie still in her pain and not even think of getting up — why, what were husbands for? — while he fetched towels and warm water from the kitchen; left her to deal with her predicament privately as he knew he would have wanted, in her place. Such tact. He had had to ask Mavis to help him with the fire, in order to make the tea he brought her also on a tray, knocking at the bedroom door with it so as not to surprise and thus upset her further than her already very apparent distress. Mama, Mavis had whispered afterwards, he looked so very different without his uniform! She hadn’t imagined him in a dressing-gown – but it looked very well on him, did it not? Yes, a wry, tender memory — though hardly the kind a bride wishes for, on her wedding-night.

She had made much of him, of course, those first few days of their marriage, as much as she could, in between the walks they took with Mavis and the preparations he must make aboard to be ready to sail again, neither of them saying how much more they would have wished it to be. And then he had departed, and she had cried to think of the disappointment he must have felt — until she received that letter, and wept all over again.

The next time, with their quarrel and the making-up of it, including the part upon the table, could hardly have been called honeyed; although it had been most piercingly sweet in the end, and so had their breakfast together afterwards. But so desperately short.

Till finally, this gift — him home under her care, and time at last to go beyond the immediacy of their need for each other, time to talk, time to simply sit together. It had been a blessing beyond anything she had hoped for; and certainly all she had feared, seeing him almost fall from the garry that January morning and hearing him cough.

She blinked away tears, pulling herself together. It seemed she cried a lot, nowadays — more in these two years since she had met Edward than in all the years with McKenzie, when she would not let herself surrender to the despair she had felt. This was every other emotion but that — and she felt them all to their fullest extent. Edward’s absences only intensified them. And she tried to share it all, from the very start, in letters to him, filled with their everyday doings just as he had asked her, wondering how such things could possibly be of interest to him in all his cares and duties aboard ship; never realizing that in doing so she gave him the world through her eyes, and thus, herself, in every letter.

It was this that he cherished, of course, the sense of having a conversation with her – of being inside her soul, even, as she described the first passionflower of the season opening on her vine; or the look on Mavis’s face when she had been beachcombing, and found a sea-urchin twice the size of any she had yet picked-up, complete — she had painted this treasure for him right there in the middle of the letter, a beautiful thing to be sure, all mauve and lavender striations with rows of tiny dots, her joy in it more beautiful still: it had leapt off the page, he had had to clear his throat before he could read further. But most of all he cherished the intimacy he felt, the gift of each letter no less than their writer; and the same intimacy he knew when sitting down to reply.

He wrote her back, of course, each of them hoping the ships they trusted their letters to would make the wanted connections, and so eventually bring these words into each others’ hands. Words of longing, of hope, of delight, of things everyday and things sacred. Last time he had been away they had, for the most part, sooner or later, although sometimes in a strange order so that he would learn of something long after she had alluded to it later as if he already knew of it — and his to hers came similarly out-of-order. The numbering helped, with that.

This time, however, after these two heaven-sent weeks, as if she must pay for them, now, she heard from him sporadically at best. It seemed he was everywhere he was not expected to be. But there was nothing she could do but to keep sending her letters out across the wide many-cornered Mediterranean and even the illimitable Atlantic, whenever a ship in port appeared to be heading where he might be, and hope for the best.

At least Mary stayed put! It is very hard to hit a moving target, she reflected. She exchanged ever warmer letters with her sister-in-law; found this new friendship growing beside the one with Lady Davenport, who sent her carriage regularly, complaining she had missed Sophie’s pleasant company far too long, madam, and would she not do her the honour of visiting her and staying to supper? Of course Mavis must come too!

Mavis and Letty got along famously, for they were kindred spirits after all, each used to brooking no obstacle in the furtherment of their grand plans for the rest of the world: they recognized each other at once, and Sophie could watch them scheme for hours with quiet pleasure. Did not her mamma need a new gown? She must, with —! Letty had spotted just the thing at Mr. MacQuarie’s, such pretty stuff, newly in from Italy, just the colour to set off her hair, figured in tiny flowers all over… did Mavis wish to send her papa a present for his birthday, besides her letters? Letty knew exactly what he might like, and where it could be got, and which captain to try sending it with ——— !

Sophie sat back and let them rearrange the world according to their desires and devices. It seemed to work very well, to do so. And when Mavis was busy elsewhere, and the conversation slower, deeper, she found a growing intimacy with Letty herself that she had always longed to have with someone who understood.

She ached for Edward, though, more than ever since this visit and all the tenderness that had been between them. She felt as if they could speak together about anything, now, and missed him more: missed his wit, his intelligence, his understanding — missed his one raised eyebrow, his questioning glance, the way he would repeat what you had just said: Did you! Would you! Have you, now? She felt empty, hollow. At night she said his name instead of praying. It felt more sacred than any other words she knew; it brought her comfort in the dreariest reaches before dawn.

Edward — Edward.

Edward.

And so the months went by, bringing a letter here and there thank God, and other wonderful things also.