Summers, True

by Poppy

  She was stiff and tense in the bed when he came into the room. She did not speak. He undressed silently, but when he was beside her, his strong arm drawing her against his bare shoulder, his long, demanding leg over her, she turned to him with a half sob and lifted her face. She opened her mouth to his and kissed him wildly and passionately. If she had only this night, she would take it. She would take as much as he could give and only wish for more.

  He left while she was still asleep, and she woke to tell herself she might never see him again. The Countess arrived as usual. When Poppy tried to plead a headache, the Countess said emphatically that Monsieur de Roqueville had sent her a message that he was most displeased they had not yet procured a street coat of fine wool when so cold a winter was predicted. It must be ordered immediately. Poppy understood. The sea trip to California would be long, stormy, and cold. She put on a mantelet and bonnet at once, and they went out.

  While the Countess fingered materials and haggled, Poppy quietly selected a severe and simple cut she thought would be proper for an anonymous lady on shipboard. So many people connected with the bank became anonymous, she thought drearily. Her headache had become a reality, and she made a small scene of her own to arrange a fitting for the next day.

  But it was not until the fourth evening that Dex said, "The coat is ready?"

  "Tomorrow."

  "Good. I will see it is delivered in the morning. I will put you and Andy on the train in the afternoon. With a suitable escort."

  Poppy could not speak. She simply bowed her head and nodded.

  "Delphine is packing your clothes. You will find your tickets, identification, and cash for your trip in your muff."

  Words would not come. Until now, like a dazed aristocrat mounting the cart to go to the guillotine, she had not actually believed he would send her away. No, she was not being sent like an aristocrat. More like a heap of old clothes bundled up and shipped off to a needy family, she thought bitterly.

  "I have done my best to get you proper accommodations," Dex said. "I hope you and Andy will have a small cabin to yourselves. At least you will not have to travel in the hold with a hundred others."

  "Or two or three hundred?" Poppy guessed.

  Dex's mouth tightened. "An escort all the way was impossible. Several things were impossible."

  Poppy sat quietly, face averted. She dared not speak. She must not cry out. She must not throw herself into his arms, weeping, or ask if she would ever see him again. If she had any pride and self-respect at all, she must not. She would not even ask if his bank had a branch in California and if she would somehow, some-day, hear of him. She might be Daisy's daughter, she might have lived with him and loved him like a wanton, but above all she would not ask if he could send her away to strange and savage shores with nothing but a handsome wardrobe of clothes that could be used to set her up in only one profession.

  As if he had read her mind, Dex said, "I understand the ladies of San Francisco order their dresses from the best Paris houses by the fastest possible ships. They are said to be the most expensively dressed women in the world. So your afternoons with the Countess will prove to have been well spent. Take good care of your wardrobe."

  The bitter words escaped Poppy's lips before she could stop them. "As if they were my dowry."

  "Exactly." Dex was grinning high approval. "You understand that the passengers will be a mixed lot. No matter what your feelings for them, I would advise great caution. With everyone."

  "I was not reared in London for nothing," Poppy said scornfully. "I won't present some lady with my fine fur in gratitude for her friendly words."

  "Precisely. Not forgetting there will be a variety of gentlemen on board, too. All bound to admire you. It's a long and monotonous trip."

  Poppy could have spat that her conduct after she left this apartment was no concern of his, but she only said curtly, "The Countess was much amazed, but I have procured a variety of reading and even some needle-work."

  "You will be the wonder of all aboard," Dex laughed. "You must thank Delphine prettily when you leave. She has worked very hard."

  "I'm sure she packs beautifully," Poppy said stiffly. She had a headache again. "Will the trunks be in our cabin?"

  "I hope so. When you arrive, investigate carefully the weights in the hems of your skirts and jackets. I inspected Delphine's work myself and you cannot tell the stitches from the original seamstress's work." Then gently, "Gold napoleons are acceptable anywhere in the world."

  Part Three

  On Board the Bonne Irene

  November 1851 –March 1852

  Chapter Sixteen

  POPPY knew she was dying. The groans and creaks of the straining ship thudded in her pounding head and drowned out her low moans. The sour reek of decay and mold stifled her. Darkness was all around her. She lay in the lower bed of the narrow, heaving bunk, well strapped down so she would not be thrown out against the sharp edges of the trunks that crowded the minute space nor tossed against the upper bunk, and planned her funeral.

  She would have a large coffin of dark, polished wood with brass fittings shining like gold. The lining would be a froth of purest white, row after row of delicate lace. In it, she would look tiny and fragile, like a French wax doll. Her lashes would lie like dark fans on her pallid cheeks, and her hair would spread out in gleaming tendrils and curls. She thought she would wear pale blue, a drift of sheer silk, so she would appear to be floating in a pale sky, with more fine white lace at her throat and wrists. Her hands would be folded around a small white satin prayer book with a nosegay of baby pink roses. Or perhaps one perfect half-blown rose, pale on the outer petals but glowing deep ruby at the heart, would be more dramatic. Poppy brushed that detail aside. She would settle it later.

  Everybody would gather around, weeping into sodden handkerchiefs and looking absolutely horrid with their faces swollen and reddened with tears. No, they would be veiled. Except when they threw back their veils to bend and give her one last, long kiss.

  Andy would be gulping, voiceless, throat too swollen for speech, but inwardly he would be vowing to live up to all she had hoped for him and to study his lessons at least three hours every night and never, never to think of threatening anyone with fire. Daisy would be whispering she must never think of marriage or any pleasure again but devote her life as a memorial to her beautiful lost child and keep the cottage in Pallminster Lane as a shrine to the things she had left behind. Dex would be standing with bowed head, a broken man, knowing his real life was ended and, while his gray wisp of body might go on making the gestures of living, all that mattered in his life was finished. Especially women. Never again could he hold any woman in his arms, for the lovely frail ghost of the beautiful young woman there in the coffin would always stand between him and all others.

  The whole scene was so beautiful that Poppy sobbed aloud, and two hot tears rolled down her cheeks.

  "Poppy, do you want to come to the funeral?"

  "What?" Poppy sat up and banged her head against the bunk above. "Ooh. What funeral?"

  "The man that fell between decks." Andy peered through the door of the darkened cabin. "They've. got him sewed up in canvas with lead at his feet and laid out on a grating. They're going to read something and tip him over any minute now. Come on. Everybody's there."

  Poppy fell back and moaned. "Go away. I'm dying."

  "Don't worry, you won't," Andy sang out cheerfully and slammed the door.

  Her beautiful funeral vanished. If she did die, she would be sewed up in canvas with lead at her feet and tossed overboard, thrown away like garbage, into all that horrible cold, gray, seething water. Probably not a soul would ever know what had happened to her or care if they did hear. Daisy would marry and be a titled lady. Maybe occasionally, between entertaining at the hunt in the country and giving great balls at their town house, she would remember she once had had a child. Or was it children? So difficult to recall, when one was so pleasantly occupied. Dex was probably right t
his minute dining elegantly with some beautiful woman, glittering with diamonds and magnificently dressed, in a luxurious palace. Poppy could see it, vivid as life. The room was paneled in red brocade and lit by crystal chandeliers, and the table service was gold. It was not one woman, it was a great dinner with dozens of beautiful women, all vying for his attention. He was only wondering which one he should make love to first.

  That did it. She was not going to die. She was going to live and go back and tell everybody, especially other women, exactly what kind of brute beast Dex was. Because she knew. The world was full of whole, solid countries, and they could be reached by roads over land, and she would have been perfectly safe from Louis Napoleon's police in any of them. She could have lived in one of those beautiful, stationary places, a lovely place weighed down by heavy rocks and mountains, with only a few tiny lakes, and close to France. Dex traveled so much, he could have visited her often and stayed for days and weeks even.

  Maybe he already had suites in Germany, Spain, and Italy, as he did in London and Paris, places he could have sent her with no trouble. But when she was too frightened to ask questions or make suggestions, did Dex mention that? He did not. Because she was trusting and believed in him, she had let him make all the arrangements, and he had condemned her to this torture in a dark cell that heaved and jolted until it was due to a miracle, and her own brave heart, that it was not going to be the death of her. He had shipped her off, so far away he would never have to see, hear, or be bothered by her again, exiled her to the farthest ends of the earth.

  Now she knew. Dex had taken a dislike to her, he despised her because she had been an innocent and foolish child and shown too clearly how much she loved him. She had begun to bore him. That was it. He was tired of her. So he had thrown her away, without a qualm for every mile and minute of this torture he must have known she would suffer, just as that poor body on deck was being thrown into the pitiless sea. He was a beast, a barbaric, torturing beast without a heart, careless of everything except his own desires of the moment and wanting only to be free when the desire passed.

  He thought he had got free of her, but he would never be free. This stinking cockroach-ridden floating coffin would reach solid land sometime. Certainly it would. It was going to reach San Francisco if she had to go out on deck herself and keep all sails rigged, or whatever made sails keep pulling the ship along. She was going to live, and Dex was going to regret his cruelty all his life.

  She tried to sit up but doubled over, her head whirling and her stomach convulsing. She strained and retched violently but nothing came up. Nothing could. There was nothing left and had not been for days.

  The door slammed open again. "Poppy, get up. Jack says you've got to get up."

  A taller figure loomed in the doorway, went to the hanging lamp, pulled it down, made it bloom with yellow light, and raised it again. "There. Hook the door open, Andy. I know it's cold and wet, but she'll never recover without fresh air."

  "Jack?" Poppy whispered, not believing her eyes and ears. "Jack. How did you get here?"

  "Usual way. Walked up the gangplank," Jack grinned. "I couldn't let my little brother and sister sail without me, could I? For once, Dex didn't watch a mouse hole close enough."

  Poppy clamped both hands to her reeling head. "How?"

  "Once I knew when Andy was leaving, it was easy enough to find out which ship was sailing for California with a load of Ingots and sign on. I made able seaman, and there are three full captains in the forecastle signed on the same."

  "They'll all jump ship when they get to San Francisco," Andy explained gleefully. "Going to the gold fields. You never saw anything like it. The crew's all wild to get there, and most of the passengers never wanted to leave France."

  "I'm in the best company on the ship down in the forecastle," Jack said. "I've never seen harder cases than this ship's captain and the four mates."

  "They need to be, to handle that crowd in steerage," Andy said.

  ''The scum and scourings of the Paris jails and gutters," Jack admitted. "Except for a few distinguished malcontents Louis Napoleon had picked up and put aboard. For once, it's the passengers, not the crew, that got shanghaied. So our Napoleon the Little was holding a lottery to raise money to send the finest artisans to make a new start in the land of gold? That was as good as most of his promises, good to earn him gold to land him on a throne where he can loot a country."

  "You should hear The Prof talk," Andy reported with awe. "He says a man who would live off an English whore--"

  "Not now," Jack said hastily. "Pull back that curtain, Andy. I want you to know, dear sister, that you have fine accommodations on the poop deck. Let's see what you've got here in the way of cabin stores."

  "Cabin stores?"

  "Private food supplies," Jack explained, looking at the stacked trunks and boxes that crowded the tiny cabin. "Everybody brings as much as they can."

  Andy hopped from foot to foot. "Let's hope we have some. Gramps wouldn't give his pigs what the steerage passengers are getting. Mostly it's what they call sea pie made out of scraps, salt beef, and vegetables boiled and then boiled some more with a suet crust on top." He clasped both hands around his throat and stuck out his tongue. ''Later they say there won't be any potatoes or beans, just hardtack and salt beef." He choked and gagged loudly.

  ''Stop,'' Poppy moaned, and then remembered she was going to live. "Maybe a cup of tea."

  "Tea and some food," Jack said. "What's in this tin box?"

  "You've got to eat," Andy said solemnly. "That's the way seasickness kills, if you keep heaving up after you're empty until you start straining up your innards. The way you're going, next it will be your gizzard. Then your stomach insides and then-"

  "Andy," Poppy shrieked.

  "Be genteel, horrid boy, and say her heart could get overstrained," Jack murmured, then grunted as he pulled a tin box out from under a trunk. "Now let's see. No. You'll want this for the voyage all right. But it's not food."

  "Aren't we cabin passengers?" Poppy whispered. "Aren't we supposed to be well fed?"

  "On this old hulk they dragged out of the mud?" Jack scoffed. "What kind of fares do you think Louis Napoleon paid for his Ingots? Convict rate."

  "But Dex-" Poppy began, then remembered and snapped her lips tight.

  "Dex did the best he could. He had to get you out of the country by the shortest, fastest route, and that meant a ship. And a ship where no questions were being asked. I told you this is on the poop deck." He saw her puzzled look. "On the deck, so you have a window on the deck as well as a door to the corridor. You'll understand when you see the cabins below decks. Half this size and no air or light."

  "This isn't so bad," Andy admitted, his blue eyes worried. "Honest, Poppy, it could be worse, even the food. They've got pigs, cows, geese, chickens, and even turkeys, all penned on deck aft."

  "A cargo of pigs?" Poppy whispered.

  Andy danced with impatience. "For eating, Poppy, for eating. Only they can't carry enough to last. Animals or vegetables or eggs or anything else."

  "There's enough food of a sort, and the Captain's putting in at Rio for fresh supplies," Jack said, opening another tin box and pushing it aside, then reaching for a third. He flung up the lid. "Square on the target at last, and high time. Andy, did Chips introduce you to Cook? The Captain's cook?"

  "Chips?" Poppy asked.

  "The ship's carpenter. He can always use an extra hand, and I've always noticed our midshipmen, boys sometimes no older than Andy, seem to enjoy their lessons with the ship's Chips. I took Andy around to him. He's all right. He's not one of the officers."

  "He's teaching me to plait sennit," Andy boasted.

  "French style and that's not the same as English," Jack said absently, searching the box. "Here, take this teapot, wash it, and have it filled with boiling water. Ask Cook if he has some arrowroot, and if he has, bring a cupful of that, too."

  Andy scampered off, and Jack straightened, just as a bell sounded
through the ship. With the door open, Poppy could hear a constant hum, a mingling of many sounds: the hiss of water along the ship's timbers; the creak of the rigging and the whine of the wind through it; the pounding of feet on the deck; the chatter of women's voices nearby, and men's voices calling in the distance; and even more faintly, the sound of a violin playing.

  "Next bell, I've got to go on watch," Jack said. ''They ring every half hour. You'll get used to it. Now here's a cup and saucer to drink your tea. What's this?" he asked, opening another tin. "Good, very good. Spice nuts. Hard spice cookies, shaped like nuts and just as tough. Good for an upset stomach. Soak them in the tea and see if you can keep a few of them down. The arrowroot should help if Andy gets it. Here's brandy, too. If you keep the other down, try some brandy in half an hour and see if you can get on your feet. Don't try to go on deck, but leave your door open. There now. I've got to go." At the door, he turned. "Don't waste your stores on Andy. He's cadging from the Captain'scook.and that's the best on 'board."