The Unlikely Master Genius

by Carla Kelly

  He ate until he was full, always a pleasant sensation no matter how many years removed from the workhouse he was, and stood up, ready for the day. He pointed overhead.

  “She’ll be down eventually.”

  “You don’t have to wear her out so soon, Master Six,” she said tartly.

  “I appreciate your concern, but Meri and I seem to have a consensual arrangement,” he said, and knew his face flamed. Surely no one in the Royal Navy over sixteen years old blushed, but here he was, blushing like a virgin.

  Able reflected on that singular thought as he straightened his uniform coat, checked for rain, and slung his boat cloak around his shoulders, all for a short walk across the street.

  He stood a moment on his own front steps. He was used to emotions crowding on top of one another in his overloaded brain, all of them clamoring for attention at once. He walked down the steps, went to the edge of the walkway, and looked up at his—their—bedroom. The high whine of all the emotions subsided, replaced by a single hum, low and sweet. He listened and heard, or remembered, or fancied—who knew what his brain was doing?—Meri’s deep breathing as her head rested on his chest, and the beating of her heart.

  The sweet moment became even sweeter when the latch on that upstairs window opened and Mistress Six herself leaned out, her hair still a mess, her shift at least on and buttoned now, but edging off one shoulder. She rested her elbows on the sill and simply looked at him. When she smiled, her eyes turned into little chips of blue.

  He couldn’t help himself. Once read, never forgotten. He cleared his throat. “ ‘But soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.’ ”

  He could go on. He knew the entire play by heart, and all of Shakespeare’s plays because he had read them one week when the Theseus was becalmed in the dog latitudes. He watched the glorious woman he had bedded no more than forty-seven minutes ago.

  Gazing down at him, she asked, “Will you quote the entire thing for me sometime when you’re bored, with nothing to do? I would love that.”

  “Aye, miss,” he replied. He looked around, hopeful he was alone on the street. “Mrs. Perry thinks I am wearing you out.”

  Meri blew him a kiss. “I’ll take a nap today. Go to work and earn enough to keep me in a shift, with sheets and blankets.”

  He blew her a kiss in return. “It’s no hardship, Mistress Six.” He walked across the street, chuckling to himself when he heard the window close. Must remember to wipe this stupid grin off my face, he thought, as he began his day at St. Brendan’s.

  He went first to the kitchen and did his best to explain Daisy Perry to the highly skeptical staff. “Trust me now: if you ever have need of a strong arm and boundless courage, just give a halloo and she will come running,” he told them.

  “That’s what we’re afraid of,” the cook said. “You are certain she is entirely safe?”

  “Never more so,” he assured them, and beat a retreat.

  St. Brendan’s students were still in the mess hall, chatting with one another, in no hurry to go anywhere because they were at rare leisure. A few words with Headmaster Croker gave Able all the permission he needed to ruffle the serenity of their small vacation. They looked to him like lads in need of a challenge.

  Tallyho, Able thought. Let’s see if I possess one iota of the persuasive skills of someone like Sir Belvedere, or that up-and-coming Arthur Wellesley of the Army.

  He held up his hand, gratified to see all eyes turn toward him. He already knew most of their names from his brief visit here before his wedding. He came closer to their tables, noticing what looked like the remains of cinnamon buns.

  “Any of those left, lads?” he asked. “I don’t know about you, but as far removed from the workhouse as I am now, I’m still a bastard who never minds a stray scrap.”

  Aye, lads, I’m workhouse scum, too. You need to remember that, he thought.

  To his delight—the buns did smell heavenly—one of the older boys he remembered as Edward Monk stood up, half a bun on his plate. “I was going to save it for later, Master Six, but you may have it.”

  Able shook his head. “Thank you, Mr. Monk, but nay. I understand the urge to save something for later, as you are doing. We’ve all had that urge, haven’t we? It’s workhouse mindfulness.”

  He saw their nods. Only a few weeks ago, their acknowledgment of starvation might have broken his heart, but it didn’t now. He had a wife and a job and a house and a cook, and they could too, someday, workhouse or not.

  He patted his stomach. “Mrs. Six would scold me roundly if she found out I was trolling for food.”

  The boys chuckled. To his acutely observant eyes, they seemed to relax a little. That was all he wanted.

  “I have a proposal for you,” he began. “You can ignore it if you choose, because I know the next few days before the new Year of Our Lord 1803 are your only days of leisure, or so Headmaster Croker tells me.”

  More nods, but he saw their interest. “I aim to turn that grubby stone basin that curves beside St. Brendan’s into a clean and tidy pool where you younger boys at least will learn to swim.”

  No nods this time, only frowns, which he interpreted easily. “Has someone told you the lie that good sailors never learn to swim because it tempts the devil?”

  One or two hands went up and then came down, as if their owners were uncertain. Able held his hands out, palms up. “I’ve been in fleet actions where good men died because they went overboard and drowned. I call that a damned shame. I do not wish such a fate on any of you lads.”

  There wasn’t a sound in the room. “Once we’ve cleaned out the basin, we’ll ditch out the channel running to the harbor, so water can be carried in by the tides can carry in water. You’ll learn to float first.”

  This time he saw nods. “I have official charge of you younger scholars, so I would like your help specifically,” he told them. “In addition to mathematics, I’ll be teaching something in the afternoon called seamanship, which can be anything we want.” He took a deep breath. “By God, I want it to be swimming soon.” He glanced at Headmaster Croker and took a bold step. “I will open this course to anyone.”

  Croker nodded. Able turned back to the boys. “That’s all I have,” he concluded. “Go about your morning business. After luncheon, if any of you wishes to help me, you’ll find me in the basin with a shovel. Wear your oldest clothes because we’re going to stink. As you were, men.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Will the lads come?” he asked the headmaster as they walked upstairs.

  “I predict they will.” Thaddeus stopped on the stairs. “You’re going to teach them to float in this cold?”

  “Aye, sir. I’ll watch for signs of desperation.”

  With a nod to the headmaster, Able went to his classroom, enjoying the silence, which meant he could let his brain run around for exercise like a leashed dog let loose to wander.

  He had already told Meri that he could see everything he had ever read, experienced, sniffed, or swallowed, on a large scroll in his mind. He stood by the corner window and summoned a blank sheet. In no time he had mentally covered it with ideas for his math class. Everything was subject to change, of course, but he was ready for formal schooling to begin, all in a matter of seconds.

  To say he had been looking out his window during this mental exercise was to overstate the matter. How could he ever explain that when his mind was unreeling, he saw nothing? Now that he had filed this new scroll, he looked and saw water and ships in ordinary. He looked out a different window and saw two women, both with a basket on an arm, leave and start up the street.

  He smiled at the incongruity of the pair, one tall and black and capable, the other short and white and infinitely dear to his heart. He knew his wife was equally capable, which reassured him as nothing else could. She was not a woman to run shy if the going got difficult. For God’s sake, only last night she had beaten her husband over the head with a loaf of rye bread. W
hat further proof did a man need?

  God protect the man who ran afoul of Meridee Six. He turned serious then, grateful down to his shoe leather that Daisy Perry would stick to her mistress like a barnacle when they reached the market. No one would dare leer and jostle little Meridee Six, not with her fearsome bodyguard present.

  Lessons done, mind only thinking ten things at a time now, Able put on his boat cloak again and started down the stairs. He stopped a few treads down and took a long look at the wooden banister. After calculating the angle, he removed his cloak and set his rump on the banister. A little push with one foot and he zipped to the bottom, to amazed stares from two older students.

  “Gentlemen, prepare for a lesson soon on velocity and the speed of moving objects.” He hurried outdoors as they continued to stare.

  The rain held off until he bounded up the front steps to Captain Sir Belvedere St. Anthony’s house. A few cheerful words to the butler, a one-eyed veteran of some nameless fleet action, earned him a spot before a fire in the salon.

  “How are you finding St. Brendan’s, Master Six?” he heard from the open door minutes later.

  “Intriguing, Sir B,” Able replied. “Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to thank you in person for sending Mrs. Perry to us.”

  Sir B was not an early riser, even though it was half ten in the morning. Able remembered the weary-looking brocade robe his former captain wore, in all its threadbare splendor. Who but Sir B would come on deck to fight an action with a French frigate west of the Azores in such a garment? For years after, wardroom talk claimed the Frogs were laughing so hard no one could defend the honor of revolutionary France.

  “Sir B, you’d probably cut a more dashing figure if you had a wife with some fashion sense,” Able said, knowing he had reached that level of friendship where humor wasn’t out of the question.

  “I daresay I would,” Sir B agreed, as his valet wheeled him closer. “It appears you have found the only beauty on England’s southern shores. Who wants a one-legged captain?”

  “Only any number of gazetted fortune hunters! Seriously, sir, thank you for Mrs. Perry.”

  “Perhaps you should temper your gratitude until you’ve tasted her cooking,” he said.

  “I wouldn’t care if she burns water and can’t crack an egg,” Able said frankly. “Mrs. Perry needs the work. More to the point, I am relieved to know she’ll protect my darling from every lowlife scum, up to and including me, if I don’t treat her right. She already thinks I’m wearing out Meri with my … attention.”

  Sir B laughed so loud and long that a maid stuck her head in the doorway, then hurried away. “Daisy Perry always was a woman of firm opinion,” he said, wiping his eyes. “I gather Mistress Six hasn’t started pleading headaches?”

  “No, sir,” Able said, wondering for the second time that morning why an experienced man such as he should blush so relentlessly. Sir B didn’t need to know Meri had awakened him out of a sound sleep last night to play a bit. “We’re in Portsmouth to stay.”

  “Have you sorted out your thoughts concerning St. Brendan’s?” Sir B asked, more serious. “Most certainly you have. Your brain is relentless.”

  Able told his mentor of his plans for the stone-lined basin. Sir B nodded his approval over that bit of maritime innovation as well as the usual mathematics courses and a foray into the calculus with some hand-picked older students.

  Sir B lounged in his ridiculous dressing gown, looking like the most bored dilettante on earth. Able knew better. Whatever the man said now would be worth remembering—not that Able Six had a problem remembering.

  “Don’t waste a minute,” Able’s former captain said. “I don’t give this Peace—who in God’s heaven names these things?—this Peace of Amiens much longer.”

  Able shivered as if a sudden blast of cold air shot down his neck and patted his backbone. No one could see into the future, but now and then ….

  He fervently wished he were alone, but here he stood in an elegant sitting room, staring at a new scroll in his brain. He didn’t like what he saw.

  “What is it?” Sir B asked, no trace of indolence in his voice now, no casually studied indifference.

  “I’m a fool,” Able said simply.

  “Impossible,” Sir B told him. “What is going on in your head?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “It’s an order, Master Six.”

  “No.” He went to the window. Had he just disobeyed his superior?

  Sir B’s house had a most excellent view of the Solent, where ships passed, docked, revictualed, refitted, and returned to war. There was no more efficient seaport in all of England. He turned away because his brain saw many ships now, ready for endless war. Only an hour ago in his classroom he had seen five ships. Now there were twenty times that number, a phantom fleet from nowhere, ready to sail.

  War was his business, but why hadn’t he thought this through? Good God, his job now was to send boys to war.

  “What, Able?” Sir B asked again. He whispered for his valet to roll him closer. “What are you seeing?”

  “Ships with my St. Brendan’s lads on them,” he said, the words wrung out of him. “I haven’t even begun my first term, and I’m training them for war where they might die. Why didn’t I know that? Was I too busy thinking about Meridee?”

  “Any new husband should be thinking about his bride,” Sir B said. He leaned forward. “It’s entirely permissible, Able.”

  “All I ever want to be is ordinary,” Able said. “Tell me something to make me feel better, Captain,” Able said finally, when he could not bear the burden.

  “It’s different when it’s only you living—and thriving, I might add—in a dangerous career, isn’t it?” Captain St. Anthony said, as the command seemed to leave his voice, replaced by something suspiciously close to tenderness.

  “Aye, sir, aye,” Able replied.

  “We all live with uncertainty, Master Six,” Sir B said. “I do, you do, King George does, and even Mrs. Six must be included.” He shrugged. “I advise you not to seek counsel from your fears, else your life will be miserable.”

  Able mulled over the matter. By the time he felt himself wondering what Euclid would do, he knew he was on an even keel again. “I know good advice when I hear it, Sir B,” he said, with equal measures of resignation and rue. “I fell into your lap like a trussed pigeon when Meridee Bonfort came here to find me a job teaching children. How did she know?”

  “God’s mystery.” Sir B gave Able’s arm a shake. “After she pleaded your cause so eloquently, I wondered why I had not thought of it. Man is ever vain, Able. Woman, at least your woman, not so much. She had an instinct that you would be good at what you face now.”

  “I can’t guarantee I will not …” Able stopped, well aware Sir B had seen him at his undeniable worst. Meri had not. “You know.”

  “I know,” Captain St. Anthony said gently. “Still, there is no one better equipped than you to train young lads. My God, Master Six, to be able to put well-trained navigators to sea at such a time? They’ll serve an apprentice under sailing masters, but think of the time you will save our fleet, our country, and our king. This war isn’t going away.”

  Able looked out the window again, almost afraid what he would see, perhaps the Solent running red. He relaxed. The waterway was empty of ships, except for the distant prison hulks.

  “Everything I teach will fit them for service,” he said, more to himself than to the man standing beside him. “They’ll not go unprepared.”

  “Teach them well, lad.”

  Able nodded, unable to speak.

  “And when you can’t bear another moment of it, turn to Meridee.” Sir B chuckled. “I have my own premonition, laddie.”

  “Which is ….”

  “You could not have picked a better keeper. Tell me, do you believe in God?”

  Surprised, Able glared at the captain. “Why on earth should I?”

  “I don’t know. I do, and I see His han
d in every minute of your life. You have a rare talent that a pretty lady in Devonshire noticed. England needs you. We all do.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Don’t scorn the idea, you heathen. Let me add that what you are doing is a special trust from God for king and country,” Sir B added. “Do it well.”

  “What did the Almighty ever do for me?” Able asked, raising his voice because his vision of the blood-red sea was still too vivid. “You never heard a workhouse sermon, did you? You never knelt for hours on cold stone and writhed in shame as the minister thundered on about the worthlessness of the bastards. You never knew that people begrudged the very air you breathed because you wouldn’t satisfy them and die!”

  He hadn’t meant to shout. “Forgive me, sir.”

  “I had no idea, Able.”

  They regarded each other, and then Sir B indicated the door. “Take your anger and use it against the French, you and your … your….” He chuckled. “You and your Gunwharf Rats.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Disturbed, unhappy, Able walked home to a still-empty house. He found the remains of the Spotted Dick, which he downed, not caring that it was cold. He had learned years ago that food was food and never to ignore it.

  Upstairs, he dug through his slender wardrobe that Meri had either hung on pegs in the dressing room or folded neatly. There they were, cast into outer darkness, as ratty a pair of trousers as a man ever wore, and perfect for the afternoon’s task. Maybe if he worked hard enough, his brain would leave him alone.

  The damned things turned out to be a little tight. He thought a moment, and realized he hadn’t worn them in six years since the Battle of Cape St. Vincent. Sure enough, the blood stains were faded now, and the rip was sewn. There was a corresponding rip in his thigh where a Spaniard had thought to emasculate him during an action in the Pacific, anything to stop Able’s forward advance with cutlass in hand.