* * *
When Maddie paused to look back on Mariah’s wedding day and examine the fluctuating moods that swung from joy to sorrow, she concluded that her stepfather had chosen that particular day to set sail because he wanted her to be so distracted that she would not feel the sting of his departure. The ceremony in the church had an element of haste, in the way that the groom’s fellow officers fidgeted as if keen to be on their way. Among the naval men attending, all talk was on Malta, on a treaty that had to be broken while the French were weak enough to be beaten. Mrs. Powell wept tears of happiness and regret as she recalled her own wedding, an equally rushed union during a different war. Sarah Mahon would have been married in the same circumstances, Mrs. Powell noted, if Mr. Mahon had not put his foot down because his daughter was too young to be a bride.
“May I bring you down to breakfast?” Edmund Powell asked. He offered his arm before another gentleman could insert himself. “You look very pretty today. I am sure that Ethan would not recognize you in such an elaborate gown. And with your hair up as well.”
“It’s terribly itchy,” Maddie said. “But if I scratch my head, someone might think I have lice. At least that is what my maid said. Do you think so, Eddie?”
“Possibly,” he said. After he had seated her at the far end of the table, where the younger Powells congregated, he took the spot next to her and pulled his seat a little closer. “Promise that you will write often to my mother, about your brothers and Charleston, and she can pass the news along to me. I know you would think that I have no interest in the place, but my mother speaks of the city so often that I have come to look on it as a second home.”
“Of course, I do love to write. Why don’t I send you my news directly, through my father? Then you would not have to wait so long.”
“I shall ask him if I may correspond with you,” Edmund said, a rosy glow spreading from his cheeks across his face and disappearing under his collar.
“Then you must promise me that you will write with all candor,” Maddie said. She found the room chilly, and wondered how Edmund could be flushed with heat. “If he is ailing, or sad, I must be told so that I can write something to cheer him.”
The next morning, tears and rain poured down at the Powell family home near Portsmouth. Everyone piled into the rented conveyances that ferried the sailors to the port, where a veritable flotilla of small craft moved between the ships and the dock. Officers and crew crowded around with their families in a chaotic scene of farewells and embraces, so many people that Maddie could not hope to find her cousin George or his family on the crowded wharves. Not that she really expected to see Lady Jane, who took to her bed when George proclaimed his desire to follow family tradition and serve his king. So he had said to his parents. In truth, Lucy assured her cousin, George wanted to curry Maddie’s favor and admiration by taking to the sea like her brother, whom she clearly admired, and her stepfather, whom she clearly adored.
“I wish that your uncle had allowed me to use my influence to put George under a better captain,” the Admiral grumbled. “Of all the captains in the fleet, that boy has been cursed with a despot. Anything to keep him out of the real action, that was Lawrence’s game. Put the boy in the western Atlantic, and what will he learn? How can he advance without seeing action?”
“Uncle wants George to build character,” Maddie said. “I think he only needs a good dose of humility to improve.”
“Or it was Lady Jane’s doing, to encourage her son to give it up and run back to the school room,” the Admiral said.
He stepped into his launch and handed her down, where Maddie took a seat among strange faces. She was disappointed to find a different crew shipping out, but Edmund had told her of the manpower shortage and the need to spread the best among many crews to train incompetent landsmen or whip laggards into shape. The corps of officers remained, hand-picked by the Admiral who had every intention of capturing the entirety of France’s sugar islands for England. She had sent off a letter to Ethan about the conversations she had overheard, to help him better prepare for the changes that he would face as an American exporter who wished to remain neutral but would not be allowed to trade with whomever he pleased. Getting Beauchamp rice and indigo to the West Indies would become more hazardous than ever.
Tea was served in the Admiral’s quarters, the once familiar cabin now smaller in Maddie’s eyes. “I will have a splendid summer,” she said, to keep the conversation away from the misery that was sure to descend. “Miss Greenfield shall teach me all that she learned from her father, and I shall be a brilliant mathematician when you return.”
He put the cup to his lips but did not drink. “Maintain balance, my dear,” the Admiral said. “Study, yes, and develop the stud as we discussed. But do not become overly distracted by the horses, which interest you greatly. At the same time, do not be so lost in books that you cannot find time to be carefree with Lucy.”
“I will keep to my schedule, sir, I promise.”
The bosun’s pipe cut through the noise of a ship being made ready. Maddie jumped out of her chair, knowing that she had to go but not willing to leave her stepfather. She threw her arms around him and held him as tight as she could. “Promise you shall come home,” she said.
“Of course I will come home,” he said. “You are becoming a very pretty young lady, and I must not stay away too long or some other man will steal your heart away from me.”
“No other shall have my heart,” she said. “I will miss you so much.”
“As I shall miss you.” The Admiral dried her tears with his handkerchief. “You are my treasure. Your dear mother placed you in my hands, and I shall cherish you for the rest of my days.”
Standing with the Powells on the dock, surrounded by women, children and old men, Maddie watched the sails of the HMS Intrepid catch the wind with a loud snap of canvas. Her heart was breaking with loneliness already, but she knew that this fight was necessary. Everyone in Charleston understood that the war was disruptive and had to end. A winner had to be declared, free trade established, so that the farmers and factors could sell their goods to the world. Not everyone in Charleston wanted to admit that the success of the Royal Navy was a key to bringing peace to the sea lanes, but Stephen’s little frigate, indeed, the entire United States Navy, was too small to settle the issue. The security of the Beauchamps was improved if Maddie accepted personal insecurity, if she sent her stepfather off with a grateful smile and never let on that she was terrified of what might become of her without him.
The Second War of Rebellion Page 14