by Carla Kelly
David Ten shook his head and hunched his shoulders, ready for a beating. Meridee put one of her towels to her face. Maybe no one would notice she was wiping her eyes.
“No matter.” Able took a stick and David closed his eyes. “Let’s draw this.”
On his haunches again, Able drew the divisional problem in the mud and gestured to another of the older boys. He handed him the stick. “What say you, Mr. Poole?”
Mr. Poole knelt. “I would put an eight here.”
“You would be correct, Mr. Poole. With the point there and the eight nestled as close as a barnacle to a keel, how much sandwich do you each get?”
“Eight tenths of a sandwich,” Mr. Poole said, satisfaction writ large on his soaking-wet face. His expression changed. “We didn’t figure you in, Master Six. And we didn’t figure in the ladies.”
“We already ate,” Meridee said promptly.
“I feel deep in my bones that if I petition Mrs. Six, she will make me a sandwich later.”
“She might,” Meridee found herself saying, “if you didn’t smell so abominable. What in the world have you found in this muck?”
To her delight, the boys shouted with laughter. When Able hung his head, they laughed louder.
“Very well, men,” he said when the laughter subsided. “We had better divide these sandwiches again, since I am banished from my own hearth until I smell better.”
Mr. Poole applied himself. “Point seven five, master,” he announced.
“Which is also—”
“Three fourths or seventy five percent,” piped up one of the smaller boys.
All heads turned his way and he shrank back. “I know I’m right,” he said firmly, after a reassuring glance from Able.
“I know you are right too, Mr. Reynolds,” Able said. “Who do we trust the most here?”
One boy pointed at Meridee. “I think, her, Master Six.”
“You are wise beyond your years. Mrs. Six, do the honors while Mrs. Perry pours tea, will you?”
Meridee swallowed ridiculous, stupid tears that none of these boys with not one single advantage to their name would have understood. She divided the sandwiches in halves and then one half into half.
The boys stood in a circle—interested, hungry, muddy and wet. Soon everyone had a half and a fourth, including her husband.
“Begging your pardon, Master Six,” Jamie MacGregor said when he polished off his sandwich. “We must decide what to do with … you know.”
“This may require considerable diplomacy, Mr. MacGregor,” Able said.
“What have you done?” Meridee asked. “I have my limits.”
“We’ve been warned. Should we show her?” Able asked. “Aye or nay, lads?”
“Aye!”
Able tugged her to the dark mound by the edge of the basin and whispered in her ear. “It’s disgusting, but we have a plan.”
“You always have a plan, husband,” she replied.
The stink reminded her of the mouse found in an empty jar in the vicarage. The poor thing had obviously gone adventuring, with no concrete method of crawling out of a jar with straight sides. But this mound was larger.
“It’s a wharf rat,” he said, not even slightly surprised, drat him, when Meridee leaped back with a gasp. “Quite dead. In fact, we’re not certain how long dead. Uh, we have a proposition.”
“I am certain you do,” Meridee replied in a tone most neutral, the one she had learned from her sister Amanda, in dealing with those sons of hers.
“Maybe if she sees it …” one of the boys said, and carefully scooped away the leaves.
“Uh, I don’t …” he began, then stopped, because Meridee stopped him.
“Let me see it,” she said, coming closer again. She knew this was another moment where she could not fail either her husband or his students. But why a rat?
Two boys moved aside the leaves. Meridee couldn’t help her sudden intake of breath.
“It’s … it’s huge,” she managed.
“Twenty inches from snout to tail,” her wretched husband said promptly.
“Durable Six, you are trying me,” she declared.
“Rattus norvegicus,” he said, more wary now, “commonly known as a wharf rat around here. Kingdom, Animalia; Phylum, Chordata; Class: Mammalia; Order, Rodentia. And, uh, so on.”
She decided science was one thing, rats another. “Let us come to a right understanding, Husband,” Meridee said, mincing no words. “No rat in my house.”
She looked around the circle, aware of the disappointment on all faces, his included. Who knew it would be so hard to earn one pound a month? “Very well, someone tell me what the proposition is.”
One lad, braver than most, stepped forward. “We want to boil down the carcass, remove the bones, and mount them on a board.”
“You would, of course, label the bones?” she asked, finding that neutral tone again.
The boy nodded. “Master Able thinks it is a capital way to learn anatomy.”
“He does?”
“Aye, ma’am.”
Meridee glared at her unrepentant husband, marveling that anyone could find delight in a rotting corpse. Heaven help her if they ever found bats in St. Brendan’s belfry.
Meridee avoided her husband’s eyes. “Knowing Master Six well, I suspect there must be more.”
Another boy stepped forward. “We’re going to label it St. Brendan’s Gunwharf Rat and hang it in our classroom.” His head went up with pride visible to everyone in the circle, and probably nearby ships at sea. “You see, miss, we’re the Gunwharf Rats. This old fellow is going to be our mascot. No one wants us, not really, but we’ll show them.”
Her eyes brimming, she looked at the boys, some of them newly sprung from workhouses, and others further along on their path of training for war. “One moment,” she said.
Meridee joined Mrs. Perry. “Any opinion, Mrs. Perry? You know I have mine.”
“I know, but these are good lads. There’s an iron wash pot in a shed in the back,” Mrs. Perry told her. “Use that.”
I am outvoted, Meridee thought. She returned to the circle. “We have a pot you can boil him in, but rattus norvegicus stays outside. On this I remain firm.”
“You’re a soft-hearted female of the species,” Able whispered, and laughed when she swatted him.
“You, sir, are England’s most persuasive man. The wash house, all of you, after you start the rat boiling.”
Chapter Nineteen
It was best that Able knew Meridee’s limits. The offhand suggestion over breakfast that he was short-crewed in the basin and maybe she could stir the rat around in his iron pot met with a menacing stare.
Captain Sir Belvedere St. Anthony laughed long and loud when Able paid him a visit later to report on his progress with the basin and mentioned the wharf rat.
“Master Six, I can only call this true love,” he said, leaning back. “You must have amazing diplomacy to convince someone I know to be level-headed to go along with that scheme.”
Able raised one finger for emphasis. “She won’t stir the rat broth,” he said, which set off Sir B again.
“The basin is clean and the channel dug out,” Able said, when he could speak without laughing. “The tide changes in a few hours, at which point two of the older lads will stand the watch and put the wooden dam back in place when the water reaches a depth of one yard.”
“Very good. The scholastic term begins tomorrow,” Sir B said. “I am to say a few words. What should I tell the lads?”
“That England needs them,” Able said with no hesitation. “So far, no one has ever needed them. If they hear it enough, they might begin to believe.”
“For a nation that has produced the likes of William Shakespeare and Isaac Newton, we’re more than a little prodigal how we treat the unfortunate among us,” Sir B said. “No one ever gave you a hand up, did they?”
“Not many,” Able agreed. He regarded his former captain, sitting there so complacently
, but even now, after his injuries, with a coiled look of a man eager to leap into action, if only he could. “You did, sir, and so did Captain Hallowell.”
“Once we winkled out your great secret, you became nearly impossible to ignore,” Sir B said. “Think of the good you will do now.”
“I am still training them for possible death,” Able said, unable to forget his earlier vision of seas turned red.
“We have no choice, Master Six, as long as Napoleon is bent on conquest. What keeps him from our shores? The Royal Navy,” his captain and mentor reminded him. “My words tomorrow? How about, do your job with a heart of oak.”
All was quiet when he let himself into the house and locked the door behind him. He walked to the back of the house and peeked in the kitchen, where Mrs. Perry was taking a loaf of bread from the oven, the last one of the day. The four little fellows designated as St. Brendan boarders were coming home with him tomorrow after classes were done, and the ladies of the house had no notion of how much they would eat.
“Do you have a lonely little heel there?” he asked, as Mrs. Perry looked up.
She rolled her eyes at him and sliced off the heel. It crumpled because it was just from the oven, but Able saw no deficit in that. The butter dish was still on the table, so he grabbed a knife and slathered some on.
“This is manna,” he said after the first bite. “I could sit here and finish the entire loaf.”
“Go on! You have a wife upstairs,” she retorted.
I do indeed have a wife, he thought, as he mounted the steps. At least he could report to her that the rat had been dumped from the iron pot, disintegrating entirely into a noxious snarl of hair, viscera, toenails and bones on the grass. A few buckets of water had sluiced away other questionable detritus, leaving mostly bones behind. He had set the pot on top of the bone pile, in case neighborhood cats and dogs on the prowl decided to have a go at the remains. Tomorrow they could retrieve the bones and dry them.
Meridee sat in a chair by the fireplace, book in her lap, head tipped forward, sound asleep. Able watched her a moment, knowing how busy she was during the day already, and how busy he kept her at night. Just the memory of her breath in his ear made him get ideas most unmathematical.
He touched her shoulder. He could have died with pleasure when, still asleep or nearly so, she turned her head to rest her cheek against his fingers. “I should wake you up so you can go to bed?” he asked, bending down to kiss her cheek.
“You’re late,” she murmured, “and you smell of … well now … I think it is rum. Were you leading Sir B astray or vice versa?”
“Just telling him about our Gunwharf rat and my plans for the students.” He knelt beside her. “Meri, can you swim?”
“I never learned. Oh, now ….”
“You’re going to be a pupil, too,” he said, and tugged her to her feet. “I won’t teach you when the boys are around.”
“Husband, I am not going into your stone basin,” she said.
“I intend to overrule you,” he declared, in what he hoped was the kindest way. “No wife of mine will remain unable to float or swim. I must insist. Turn around. I’ll unbutton you.”
“Suppose I sink?” she asked, breathing a little deeper when he kissed her bare back.
“Nobody sinks, Meri,” he told her, “especially not in three feet of water.”
How easy it was to end up in bed, making love and cuddling afterward. Rather than succumb to the mattress, because they were both perfectly satisfied, he summoned that quirky spot in his odd brain that told him the time in exact increments.
“In twelve minutes, the tide should have filled the stone basin to the yard mark that I left for my crew,” he said, sitting up. “Duty calls, my love. I’ll be back.”
He heard her murmur something, then roll over, taking his blankets with her. That was another matter they needed to discuss. His darling had a habit of snatching all the covers. He gave her a light smack on the rump and got out of bed. Debating clothing, he settled on his night shirt, moccasins acquired from a voyage to Canada, and his boat cloak.
He crossed the street to the bayside and St. Brendan’s, coming up behind the school. His boys sat there, feet dangling over the side of the now-clean basin, talking. For the smallest moment, he envied them their coming years standing the watch, looking across the water, and maybe chatting with friends. In the South Pacific, such duty easily turned into a bit of heaven.
But Portsmouth was not Otaheite. He pulled his cloak tighter around his nightshirt, thinking trousers might have been a good idea. “Hailing the frigate HMS Gunwharf Rat,” he said, which made his Rats laugh.
“At the marker now?” he asked as they stood up.
“Aye, Master Six,” Jamie said.
“Put the gate back in, handsomely now, and hit your racks.”
“Aye, sir,” said Janus Yarmouth, the other student who had warily volunteered for the calculus.
“When will we start learning to swim, Master Six?” Yarmouth asked, when they finished.
“Let’s give it some time, Mr. Yarmouth, and see how our studies settle out. I’ll be working you two extra hard, with the calculus. As much as I would like all you older lads to learn to swim, I can’t command in this. My duties are to the younger among you.”
“I need to learn, sir,” Jamie said. He nodded in the other boy’s direction. “We both do.”
“Very well. Go to bed now, before we all get in trouble.”
Able walked beside them toward the back of the old monastery. “Mr. Yarmouth, satisfy my never-ending curiosity,” he said. “Janus Yarmouth. Were you a January bastard, born in Yarmouth?”
“Aye, sir. Our workhouse master was devoted to the classics. Most people call me Jan, which I prefer to, uh, Anus.”
“Who wouldn’t? Goodnight, lads.”
To Able’s surprise, Meridee was sitting up in bed, quite alert, when he returned. The room was still lit with a glow from the fireplace, and she had lit the lamp closest to their bed.
“I was going to give this to you earlier,” she said, eagerness in her voice, “but you distracted me.”
“You are the distraction,” he told her as he came closer to the bed and felt his heart perform an anatomically impossible leap. “My word, Meri.”
“Pick it up. Better yet, try on the coat.”
He did as she said after stroking the black wool of a cut far better than he was used to. From some source, she had procured a new sailing master’s uniform, or what passed for a uniform, since Admiralty had never issued proper orders yet in the matter.
He came closer to the lamp and saw the patch on the left breast of St. Brendan the Navigator, cradling a medieval ship.
“Headmaster Croker had an extra patch,” she said. Meridee stood before him now, patting the shoulders and then smoothing down the back with practiced fingers. “The first morning you were engaged across the street, I took your oldest uniform to Captain St. Anthony, who told me where to find a tailor. He took the measurements, made some drawings, and I put the old one back in the dressing room, with you none the wiser.” She tugged on the front lapels. “It will look better with trousers and not a nightshirt.”
“Let’s see if I have enough stretching room,” Able said as his arms went around her. “Excellent! Meri, you know we can’t afford this.”
“My sister gave me twenty pounds Mama told her I was to have, if I married,” his darling explained. “There are two new shirts coming, as well, and a waistcoat. Mr. Berg said they would be ready in a week. I still have five pounds left over.”
“Berg and Sons? Meri, that’s where the fleet admirals and post captains go,” he said. “I’m a bastard sailing master.”
“Why not the best for you?” she said. “I hope your hat doesn’t need immediate replacement, because I couldn’t think of a way to steal it without your knowledge.”
He kissed her and she folded into him in that boneless way that was Meridee Six’s alone. He hoisted her up, and she w
rapped her legs around him.
“Work all the magic on me you want,” he whispered in her ear. “You still have to learn to swim.”
She was laughing when he blew out the lamp.
Chapter Twenty
Able insisted Meridee accompany him across the street for the opening assembly of the new school term. She wouldn’t let him out of the door until his neck cloth was just so. For all his brilliance, Able couldn’t manage a simple neck cloth, at least not to her standards.
She fiddled with the thing a moment, happy to stand close to a handsome man whose eyes were bright with something, because heaven knows he didn’t sleep much last night, not with checking the water in the basin, then coming home to general merriment over his new uniform. How he could function on practically no sleep was beyond Meridee.
“How do you manage, Master Six? You look ready to duel with dragons and I am about to perish from exhaustion.”
“Every day is an adventure,” he said. “I promise to sleep tonight, and let you sleep. The water is in the basin, my calculus students will be counting prematurely gray hair—”
“And I will be mothering four little boys,” she reminded him, then rested her forehead against his chest. “Can I do this?”
“None better,” he assured her. “They already admire you for the jam sandwiches each day while we worked in the basin, one whole sandwich per pupil and no arithmetic involved.”
She remembered the only dark cloud to her existence. “Master Six, the unholy goo in the backyard must go.”
“Oh, no! I am Master Six,” he teased. “I have great faith in local gulls and dogs, who aren’t too discriminating in a seaport with no gentility.” Unbidden, he picked up her bonnet from the bed, set it on her head, and made a bow close to her left ear. “There. Matronly, but with a little sassiness.”
“I am your wife,” she said simply. “I love it.”
Oh dear. She hadn’t meant to make his lovely brown eyes fill with tears. “Don’t you dare cry,” she scolded, and took a handkerchief from her sleeve, sniffing back her own emotions. “There now. We both look fine as five pence.”