by Carla Kelly
“I like your house,” she told the woman, who started to smile.
“Between you and me, you’d get tired of dusting it,” the woman said.
“I wouldn’t mind,” Beth said, then shyness took over. She turned her face into Mary Ann’s skirts.
Another moment, and the door opened wider. “Come inside then,” the woman said. “Your mama can talk to Master Jenkins while I find a biscuit or two. Would you please wait in the sitting room while I rummage about for Master Jenkins?”
“Master Jenkins. Master of what? I believe this day just became an adventure, Mary Ann thought. She smiled and let the kind woman usher them in. We’ve been lean on adventures lately. What can it hurt?
CHAPTER THREE
U
Thomas looked up when Suzie knocked on the bookroom door. You’ve rescued me, he thought, as he told her to come in. Give me geometry any day, but don’t give me counting house statements.
Not that he couldn’t figure them out; far from it. What he wanted more than anything was to be back on deck again, at sea. Sitting behind a desk was anathema and he wanted no more of it.
“I don’t like retirement,” he said to his sister, before she could get a word out. “Please tell me something interesting that doesn’t involve counting house statements.”
“There is a quite pretty lady and her daughter in the sitting room wishing to speak to you,” she said. “Is that interesting enough?”
“Anyone you know?” he asked, getting up. He put his hands up to straighten his neckcloth and then remembered not bothering to put one on this morning. I am going to rack and ruin, he thought. “I don’t look like much of a gentleman,” he said.
“You never were one, except by virtue of the Navy Board,” she replied cheerfully. “Who needs a gentleman anyway? Don’t let it go to your head, but I always thought you handsome enough for general purposes.”
“You flatter me, Sis,” he told her. “I think.”
“Only a little,” she teased back. “And now I believe I will see if Mrs. Williams has some tea and biscuits.”
“That kind of a visit?” he asked, as he started down the hall with her.
Outside the sitting room door, she said, “They look genteel, if a little shabby.” She gave him a push. “Go find out.”
His sister was quite right on both counts. A lovely lady rose gracefully to her feet when he opened the sitting room door. What hair he could see under her dark bonnet looked blond. He thought her eyes were brown. She wore a cloak as serviceable-looking as her hat. He smiled inwardly to see mismatched gloves, which made him feel slightly less self conscious about his neckcloth that was missing in action.
“I am Mrs. Poole,” she said, and dipped a curtsy. “This is my daughter Elizabeth.”
“Beth, sir,” said the child, and followed her pronouncement with a curtsy of her own. “I like your house.”
Who could resist that? He smiled back, noting that she had a tooth missing. “I’m still getting used to living on land,” a glance at her mother, “Beth.” Then, remembering his manners, he added, “Let me take your cloaks. “We do have a maid around here somewhere, except that she has scarpered off.”
Beth grinned at that, which told Thomas that she was a girl who herself liked to scarper on occasion.
Mrs. Poole was going to give him a hard time. “That isn’t really necessary,” she told him, and held out a package. “We won’t occupy much of your time. It’s this package.”
He took it from her and recognized the ivory hairbrush and comb set. Mrs. Poole came a little closer and he took an appreciative sniff of a familiar fragrance. Was it vanilla?
“I am Mrs. Poole, but not this one,” she said, pointing to the address. “We live at Carmoody Street and not Dinwoody. I think the posting house clerks are overly busy this time of year.”
By gadfreys, she had a pleasant voice. The almost-burr to her Rs placed her almost in Scotland but not quite.
“I shouldn’t have opened it,” Beth said, coming closer. “Mama wasn’t yet home from work and I hadn’t ever opened a package before.” She hung her head. “I couldn’t resist.”
She was honest little minx, not looking a great deal like her mother, with hair auburn and curly and eyes so blue. He had no doubt she would be a beauty some day, but her mother already was. Who are these people?
The missing maid came into the room first, followed by Suzie, who gave him such a look. “Thomas, you’re supposed to take their cloaks,” she said in that forthright, big sister way.
“I tried.”
“We’re just returning a package,” Mrs. Poole said. “We don’t wish to take up your time.”
“Please do.” Suzie held out her hands for their cloaks. “My brother was saying just this morning how bored he is.”
Mrs. Poole surrendered her cloak and muffler to his sister, even as he introduced them.
“This is my sister, Mrs. Davis,” he told his impromptu guests. “She was kind enough to leave Wales and tend house for me. Suzie, this is Mrs. Poole and Beth.”
Once the tea tray was on the table in front of the sofa and the cloaks in the maid’s hands, Suzie gestured for them to sit down.
“I truly don’t want to be a bother,” Mrs. Poole said, even as she saw her cloak carried from the room.
“You’re no bother,” Thomas assured her again. “Is there a carriage and driver that my all-purpose handyman should see to?”
“We walked from Haven,” Mrs. Poole said as she accepted a cup of tea from his sister.
He glanced down at her shoes, which appeared to be as sturdy as her cloak and hat. Still, dusk was nearly upon them this December afternoon. “I trust you are not walking home.”
“Oh, no,” Beth said. “We could afford to walk one way and ride the other. That is our plan. Thank you.” She accepted a macaroon from Suzie.
There was no overlooking the blush that rose to Mrs. Poole’s cheeks, making her even more attractive. With a pang, he knew he was looking at poverty, the genteel sort, the quiet kind that hid itself in hundreds, maybe thousands, of British households, most recently where death had come to soldiers and seamen.
Maybe his manners were atrocious, but he had to know. “Mrs. Poole, do you have a … is your—”
“He was a second lieutenant, Fifth Northumberland Foot, and he died on the beach at Corunna,” she said, her voice so soft. “They were the forlorn hope, holding back the French so others could live, and waiting for the frigates to arrive.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “We came up too slow because of contrary winds. I was there.”
Oh, he had been. In thirty years of stress and war, the beach head at Corunna stood out, giving him nightmares for years. In his dream, the fleet moved with dream-like slowness, and he was the only one who appeared interested in the proper use of sail. More than one night, he had wakened himself, calling “Listen to me!” over and over. Now he just muttered it and went back to sleep, thanks to the distance of seven years.
He had to share what he knew with Mrs. Poole. Something in her eyes told him that she wanted to know even the tiniest scrap about a good man gone. “We watched that rearguard, Mrs. Poole. You have ample reason to be proud of your late husband.”
“Thank you for telling me, sir,” she said. “Bart was always a brave man.”
It was simply said, but told him worlds about this woman he had only just met and probably would never see again. Funny how such a thought could make him uneasy. Never see her again? Impossible.
She was a lady of great presence, probably earned in the fiery furnace of war, the kind of war that comes flapping home to roost among widows and children. “It could have been worse, I suppose. His body was recovered and he is buried here in Plymouth.” She gave her daughter a look of great affection. “Beth was born a month later. I was here in Plymouth, and what with one thing and another, we never left.”
He thought about the probable pension for a second lieutenant—a rating little higher than
that of an earthworm—and suspected there was no money for her to return north.
He discovered she was also a practical woman. “We are taking up entirely too much of your time, Mr. Jenkins.” She stopped then, and he could tell she had a question. From the way she shook her head first, as though trying to stop herself, he found himself diverted for the first time in months.
“It can’t be any more rude than my question, Mrs. Poole,” he broke in, encouraging her. “Can it?”
“Well, no,” she agreed, then blushed again. “But your question wasn’t rude. Beth and I … we were wondering … what does S.M. stand for? It’s here on the return address.” She pointed to the little scrap. “And you just said you were … were there at Corunna.”
“S.M. Did I write that?” he asked. “Old habits die hard. Mrs. Poole and Beth, it stands for Sailing Master, nothing more. I’m retired now, but I evidently have to remind myself.”
She gave him a sympathetic look, as if his face had betrayed him, or if she simply understood that he did not want to be retired.
“You miss the ocean,” she said and it was a statement.
“Beyond everything.”
They were both silent, missing people and places, apparently. Thank the Almighty that his sister had some social skills, at least—those skills he had never learned because he was always at sea.
“Tom, you try me,” Suzie said, then directed her attention to the widow. “Mrs. Poole, I am his older sister and I can talk to him like that.”
Both women laughed, which relieved Thomas, grateful his clumsy reminder of a difficult time had not chased away Mrs. Poole’s sense of humor.
“Seriously, my dear, do have a macaroon or two, before Beth and I devour them all. And would you like tea?”
She would, and took a macaroon while Susan poured and Beth asked, “Mr. Jenkins, what does a sailing master do?”
“Most nearly everything,” he told her, then sat back and noted her skepticism. This was not a child easily bamboozled. “It’s true. Come here.”
With no hesitation, she sat beside him, her mother moving over a little. Thomas glanced at Mrs. Poole, pleased to see her savoring her macaroon. A slight nod of his head to Suzie made his sister slide the plate of macaroons closer to the widow.
“I was the frigate’s senior warrant officer, which means I had a specialty. My job involved everything related to a ship’s trim and sailing.”
“Trim?”
“How it sits in the water and sails,” he said. “I was the one, my mate and I, who decided where every keg, box, and ballast must be placed in the hold. Tedious work, but everything must balance. Do you follow me?”
“Oh, yes,” the child replied with admirable aplomb. “Mama tells me I am quite bright.”
Thomas threw back his head and laughed. “And none too shy about it, either, eh?”
A glance at Beth’s mother told him she was enjoying the conversation hugely. “Perhaps I have read my daughter that chapter in St. Matthew too many times about the inadvisability of hiding’s one candle under a bushel,” she joked, which made him laugh some more.
“If it didn’t balance, your ship might sink in a storm,” Beth said, with some dignity.
“Aye to that, Miss Poole,” he said. “For the sake of simplification, I also set the navigational course, made sure the sails were also in proper trim, and the rigging true. I taught young boys not terribly older than you. You … you are …”
“… seven.”
“Five years older than you, how to navigate. Many of them hated it, but—”
“I would never hate it,” she interrupted, her eyes intense. “Mama, he probably knows more about … about … planes and angles …”
“Geometry,” he filled in, fascinated by this little girl.
“… than the vicar knows,” she finished. “I go to a church school that the vicar runs.” She opened her mouth, glanced at her mother, and closed it again. “But I am not to complain.” That wasn’t enough. “Mr. Pettigrew does not precisely shine in math.”
Thomas wanted to laugh and then laugh some more, delighted by the company he was keeping that had just dropped in unannounced. He used considerable discipline to limit himself to a smile at Mrs. Poole, who to his further amusement had pressed her lips tight together to keep from laughter, too.
“Beth, you would have been welcome in my quarterdeck lessons,” he told her. “What else? I also keep—kept—the ship’s official log.” He waved his hand. “I was all the time signing documents and doing boring stuff.”
“You kept the log?”
Mrs. Poole’s interest equaled her daughter’s, to his further delight. She put down her cup and given him her full attention. “I had thought the captain did that.”
“A ship’s captain keeps a personal log. Mine is—was—the official log. At the end of each voyage, I took it to the Navy Board as the full and official record of all that happened during a single cruise.”
“Mama could do that,” Beth supplied. “She likes to write and draw and she doesn’t mind tedious things.”
“Then I should turn her loose in my bookroom to balance accounts and keep records,” he told Beth.
“She would never disappoint you,” the child replied.
Mother and daughter looked at each other, and Thomas saw a comradeship that touched his heart. From the few things she had said, it was evident to him that it was Life versus Mrs. Poole and Beth, with no buffer. They were all they had.
“And now we truly must conclude this delightful visit,” Mrs. Poole said, with what Thomas hoped was real regret.
“We’ve been charmed,” Suzie said. “Let me put those macaroons in a parcel for you to take along.” She rose and left the room even as Mrs. Poole opened her mouth, probably to object.
“So we leave you the brush and comb to rewrap and send to another Mrs. Poole,” the widow said. “I hope it was not to have been delivered in timely fashion.”
“Oh no,” he assured her. “That Mrs. Poole is an old dear who sold me this house and most of its contents. Suzie found the set in the back of a drawer. We thought she might want it.”
She paused and took a deep breath, and he witnessed the regrettable look of a woman forced to pawn her dignity. Her shoulders drooped and her eyes wouldn’t meet his as she said in a small voice, “I must trouble you for that five pence I paid to claim the package.”
He felt his heart break a little. Five pence was such a small sum, but he had already deduced that there was little between survival and ruin for Mrs. Poole and her daughter. Her head went up then and she squared her shoulders, a sight he knew he would never forget. He doubted that Beth’s father, holding off the French Army at Corunna, was any more gallant than his wife.
Don’t cry, you idiot, he told himself, as he reached into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a shilling. “It’s the smallest coin I have.” He saw her open her mouth to object and he overrode it with his senior-warrant officer voice. “The other seven pence will be recompense for your efforts in returning this parcel to me, and I will not have an argument, Mrs. Poole.”
She took the coin, and her expression told him she knew exactly what he was doing. “You are so peremptory! You must have been a trial to the midshipmen and subordinates, Mister … no … Master Jenkins.”
“Fearsomely so, madam,” he told her, pleased to hear the word ‘master’ applied to his name again. “Turn it over to Beth. What would you do with seven pence?”
Beth didn’t even have to think about it. “I would buy watercolors,” she said promptly.
You were born to command, he thought, amused. No hesitating there. “What would you draw?”
“Not here, Beth,” her mother said quietly, then turned away because Suzie and maid had come into the sitting room with parceled macaroons and cloaks. In another minute she was drawn into a conversation with his sister.
“What would you draw?” he whispered to Beth.
“I don’t know why she doesn’t want you
to know,” the child whispered back. “We look in store windows and decide what we want for Christmas. We draw little pictures and give them to each other for Christmas.” She clapped her hands. “Think how wonderful our pictures will look if we can color them! I hope she will let me spend a few pence on that.”
It was a good thing that Mrs. Poole called her daughter over to help her into her cloak, because Thomas Jenkins, sailing master hardened through years of war, suddenly found himself close to tears. A few deep breaths and a surreptitious dab with his fingers tamped them down, and he was able to walk with Suzie to the door and wish them Happy Christmas.
When the door closed on their unexpected guests, he leaned against the panel, trying to control himself.
Suzie touched his back. “Tom! What on earth is the matter?”
He took her hand and walked her to the stairs, where he sat down with a thump. Mystified, she sat beside him. When he told her what Beth had said, she dissolved in tears. He put his arm around her and they sat together until the maid returned to light the lamps.
“We have to do something to help them,” he said finally, when he could speak.
Suzie nodded. She blew her nose. “We have to do it without rousing any suspicions.”
“How in the world can we do that?”
“You’re the smart one,” Suzie told him, her words ragged. “You had better think of something.”
“I will,” he said and tugged her to her feet. He gave her a little squeeze. “Suzie, I am not bored now.”
CHAPTER FOUR
U
Mary Ann could think of at least fifty ways to spend an unexpected seven pence, but she had no trouble leading Beth by the hand right up to a Plymouth stationer’s shop.
Beth got no farther than a small set of watercolors in miniature metal pans. “Mama, you used to paint with these, didn’t you?”
“I did. I am surprised you remember,” she replied. “What I would give …”
She picked up the tin box with wells of powdered colors in red, yellow, and blue and set them on the counter, while the old man minding the store watched them with interest. She selected two brushes, one for her and one for Beth, and two black pencils, and added those to the pile. Finally she stepped back, afraid to ask the price, prepared to be disappointed, and not so certain just what she would do if he named a huge sum. She had schooled herself not to cry over fate, but something inside her wanted to paint, wanted a tiny pleasure, even though she was about to lose her job, and so far, no other employment had wafted down from heaven above on angels’ wings.