by Carla Kelly
“Do come in, Mrs. Thomas,” Meridee said, wondering. “I am Mrs. Six, and here is …. I believe you met Nick yesterday at St. Brendan’s.”
Mrs. Thomas nodded to Nick, bustled in, and looked around. “Pretty sparse in here, Mrs. Six,” she said, sounding jollier than three Father Christmases and somewhat ruder.
“Master Six and I have only just married, and barely set up housekeeping,” Meridee replied. She turned to Nick, who was practically jumping up and down in his excitement. “My dear, ask our guest if you can take her coat.”
“ ‘My dear,’ is it?” Mrs. Thomas said. “How long have you known my dear dead niece’s boy?”
“Not long, Mrs. Thomas,” Meridee said, putting her hand on Nick’s shoulder, gratified how he leaned in to her, and sorrowful at the same time because soon he would be transferring his affections to others.
Bowing, Nick did as he was bid and invited Mrs. Thomas to take a cup, which made the woman laugh, showing her mouth to be shy of several teeth. “Lord luv you, boy, we’re not staying that long. Time to be off.”
But here was Mrs. Perry with a tray bearing tea and cups and what looked to Meridee like significant umbrage. She stalked ahead to the sitting room, and Meridee gestured, so Mrs. Thomas followed.
“I hear you are the widow of a butcher,” Meridee said, as she poured.
“Aye, Mrs. Six, a grand old fellow. We had a fine store in Shrewsbury. Thank’ee,” Mrs. Thomas said as she took the cup.
“I had thought you were from Cardiff,” Meridee said, wondering if she had misheard Able. She knew the error hadn’t been Able’s; he never made conversational mistakes.
“Shrewsbury, Cardiff,” Mrs. Thomas said. “It’s as near as.”
No, it isn’t, Meridee thought, dismayed. She took a good look at her guest and wondered why she wore a wig, and not a good one, at that. Peeking out from under the more respectable gray hair was a curl or two of red in a color not found in nature.
Still, one should be polite whilst drinking tea. Meridee knew that. She tried again. “You have gone to considerable trouble to locate the child of your unfortunate daughter,” she said.
“Aye, miss. Blood is thicker than water, ain’t it?” the woman said. She gave her attention to Mrs. Perry’s rout cake, seemed to reconsider, and reached for her handkerchief. She cried.
“Do excuse me, Mrs. Thomas. I believe Nick is actually the daughter of your sister-in-law, isn’t she?” Meridee asked.
Her reward was a blank look, followed by another sniffle. “Sometimes young people get in trouble, don’t they? It’s our duty to make things right.” Mrs. Thomas stood up and motioned to Nick. “Come along, laddie. We need to procure a conveyance to take us to the mail coach.”
“Yes, Mrs. Thomas,” Nick said.
The full weight of the change in his life must have settled on young Nick’s shoulders right then. His expression turned serious, even melancholy. “Mrs. Thomas, may I return to St. Brendan’s now and then to see Mrs. Six and my friends? I would like that even more than a pony.”
“You’ll get used to your new life soon enough,” Mrs. Thomas said with an airy wave of her hand.
There was no overlooking the sadness in Nick’s eyes. We can’t have this, Meridee thought. She hugged him, then reached for a tablet and pencil with fractions scribbled on it, left by one or the other of her little boarders.
“Do give me your direction, Mrs. Thomas, so the boys can write to Nick,” she said. She poised the pencil over the tablet.
“It’s ah … well.” Mrs. Thomas thought a moment, narrowing her eyes as if wondering why it was her lot in life to deal with plaguey people. She huffed and sighed. “It’s 123 Fourth Street, Shrews … Cardiff.”
Meridee wrote down the address, curious why it took the woman who had lived there so long to recall what was probably the simplest direction in England. Able would find you slow, indeed, she thought. And who confuses Shrewsbury with Cardiff?
By now Mrs. Thomas had edged Nick close to the door. Davey stood in the hallway, his face solemn. He held out his hand to Nick, shook it, then turned and ran upstairs, slamming the door to his room behind him. Meridee winced.
“Cheeky bastard,” Mrs. Thomas said.
“He will miss his friend,” Meridee said, shocked at the woman’s language with Nick standing right there.
“You’ll have your own room where we’re going, laddie,” the woman said. “Come on now. Time’s a-wasting.”
“You can easily hail a hackney if you stand by the baker’s shop two blocks that way,” Meridee said. Steeling herself, she held out her arms for Nick, who threw himself into her embrace. She hugged him close, cried with him, wiped his face with the tail of her apron, and gently moved him toward the door.
“We’ll write to you, my dear,” she said, and closed the door, only to lean against it until she felt strong enough to stand upright.
Her eyes suspiciously swollen, Mrs. Perry came out of the kitchen and silently retrieved the tea tray from the sitting room. She frowned at the tray, then looked at Meridee.
“Mrs. Six, I have never heard a Welsh accent like that one,” she said.
“How would you know?” Meridee asked, feeling her doubts return about Nick’s odd aunt.
Mrs. Perry gave her an indulgent look, the kind a mother might give a not-so-bright child. “Perry is Welsh. My man was from Merthyr Tydfil. He joined the Navy to avoid the colliery.”
“Did you notice she was wearing a wig? I distinctly saw bright red hair,” Meridee said. “And do you know what else? Not a tear, for all her noise.”
“I wasn’t going to say nothing, but I noticed. I ….”
They looked around as Davey came dragging down the stairs, his face more tragical than any character Edmund Keane ever played on Drury Lane. “I miss him already.”
Meridee looked down at the address in her hand. “Then I believe you should write him a letter immediately, Davey. That way when he gets to Cardiff, it will be waiting for him.”
Davey clutched his stomach, and she laughed. “Don’t you try to pull wool over my eyes, Mr. Ten! You are not sick.”
He smiled. “Mam, you have never called me Mr. Ten before.”
“See here, I am being emphatic,” she said. “You’ll find some paper in the desk.”
He went into the sitting room, not dragging so much. She shook her head over little boys in general and trailed Mrs. Perry into the kitchen, where Betty McGregor was already chopping carrots for dinner.
Meridee put her hand to her forehead in a gesture worthy of Sarah Siddons. “Give me an onion to chop, Mrs. Perry. That way I can cry and you’ll nev—”
She stopped, startled, when Davey, his face white, threw himself into the room and grabbed her around the waist.
“Mam! Mam! Look!”
His hand shook as he held up the sketch Able had drawn several weeks ago of the ugly customer talking to Master Blake in the Bare Bones, and put in the drawer.
“Yes? He’s an evil man, but …. What, Davey?”
Davey clung tighter to her until she pulled him away, alarmed.
“Tell me!”
Davey swallowed a few times, his eyes huge in his face. “Mam, I was looking out the window when Mrs. Thomas and Nick walked away. That … that same man joined them when they were almost to the baker’s. He looked scary, but what was I to do? And now I see this picture. Mam! Something is really wrong!”
Meridee put her hands to her face, using the small moment as time to gather her tangled thoughts. She reached for Mrs. Perry, who had already opened the door to her room and pulled out a cudgel.
“I always keep this handy,” she said, and there was no mistaking the menace in the cook’s voice.
Meridee wore her house slippers, but what did it matter? She grabbed Betty. “Stay here, lock the doors, and don’t leave the house. Chop carrots. Mrs. Perry and Davey, come with me. Bring the drawing.”
“Are we going to find Nick?” Davey asked, fearful, but with a look
of determination that gave Meridee strength.
“We’ll tell those who will do the most good,” Meridee said. “Hurry.”
“Master Six?” Davey asked, running beside her as she threw open the door and bounded down the steps, holding her skirts up so she would not trip.
“And me,” Mrs. Perry said, keeping up with surprising grace.
Oh please dear God, don’t let us be too late, Meridee thought as she ran up the stairs to Able’s classroom and threw open the door so wide that it banged against the wall.
“Mrs. Perry, find the headmaster,” she called over her shoulder as she ran to Able, who stared at her.
“Good God, Meri!” he exclaimed, tossing aside his book.
Breathing hard, she pulled Davey in front of her and pointed to the drawing he held in shaking hands. “Tell him!”
“Master, I saw this man meet up with Mrs. Thomas and Nick,” Davey said. “He grabbed him by the back of his coat and gave him a shake.” He started to cry. “She’s no aunt, is she? What are they going to do with Nick?”
Bless Able Six right down to the soles of his shoes. Without a word, he sat Meridee down at his desk and plunked Davey into her lap.
“You’re certain?” he asked calmly.
As Meridee watched her husband’s face, she saw the same look of determination Davey wore. She glanced at the other boys in the room—the workhouse bastards, the Gunwharf Rats—all of them tensed to rise from their desks at the smallest indication from Master Six.
With no more preamble than her own indelicate entrance, Headmaster Croker burst into the room, followed by Mrs. Perry, who was starting to puff from all the stairs. She held her cudgel at the ready, and Meridee wondered how many times she had used it during her naval career.
Able took Meridee by the arm and steered her and Thaddeus Croker into the hall with Davey, who explained again what he had seen.
When he finished, Thaddeus shook his head in sorrow. “We were all fooled. I think now we know how Master Blake earned his money to gamble.” He let out a deep breath. “Dear God, what of the other three boys who went to families before you came here?”
Meridee gasped at that further horror and saw Davey’s puzzled expression. She gently turned him around and sent him back into the classroom. When he protested, she kissed his head. “Do it for me.”
“Aye, Mam,” he said.
“We weren’t all fooled,” Able said slowly.
Meridee flinched to see how old his eyes looked, those same eyes that could gleam with pleasure and joy when the two of them were making merry.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“You knew,” he said.
“No, I—”
“I’m muddling this. You didn’t know, but it’s what you said when I told you about Blake and the man … this man.” He stabbed at the sketch he had taken from Davey.
“I don’t remember,” she said, mystified.
“I do. Every word.” He closed his eyes, and she knew he was looking at one of those cosmic scrolls where his brain recorded all works, facts, sentences … everything. “Thaddeus, you said, ‘I wonder where he gets the ready to gamble? I know his family cut him off from any cash, barring enough to live on.’ ”
“I did. Word for word,” Thaddeus said. “My God, Able.”
“My love, you replied, ‘Maybe he pimps,’ ” Able told her.
“I did. I did,” she whispered, horrified.
“And I said, ‘I’ve been giving my sweet innocent a bit of Pompey education.’ I laughed! Meri, how did I miss it? Where did I go wrong?”
She grabbed both his arms. “Able, you can’t know everything!”
“But I can. I should. What’s my excuse?”
She pulled him close, thinking of her conversation with Sir B about Able’s brain. There wasn’t time to discuss it now, not with Nick’s future in a precarious state. She swallowed down her panic and put her hands on either side of Able’s face.
“What are we going to do now?” she asked, her voice firm, even as she quailed inside. “Right now. We’ll sort out other matters later.”
That was all he needed. “We will summon the watch,” he said, speaking with the voice of command again. “Headmaster, send one of the older boys with a note to Landport Gate. Tell the watch to meet us at the Bare Bones and to send others to the Pot of Gold.”
“Consider it done,” Thaddeus said as he started down the stairs.
“Take some money for a hackney,” Able called after him. “Send … send Jamie MacGregor and Jan Yarmouth to Sir B with a similar note. I don’t know how he’ll do it, but there will be Marines on the streets soon.”
“And you?” Meridee asked.
He smiled, but there was not an ounce of mirth in his eyes. “Mrs. Perry, what do you say to joining me on a visit to the Bare Bones? I imagine we can enlist the baker, too.”
“Do you have a knife, sir?”
“Aye, plus a cutlass across the street, Mrs. Perry.”
“And me?” Meridee asked. Don’t you dare leave me behind, Durable.”
He rolled his eyes. “Durable, is it?” he asked, and gave her a whacking great kiss on her forehead. “Then Durable it is.” He shook his finger in her face, and when he spoke, it was in the voice of the sailing master. “If you or anyone in this school so much as steps outside these doors until this matter is settled, I will send you back to Devonshire on the first mail coach. Do I make myself clear?”
Meridee nodded, because she wasn’t stupid. “We’ll gather in the dining hall and read … something. Maybe not Euclid.”
He smiled then and some of the despair left his eyes. “I’ll see you soon, and I’ll have Nick, too. I promise I will.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Thirty minutes later, Gervaise rolled Captain Belvedere St. Anthony into the dining hall, followed by Jamie MacGregor and Jan Yarmouth. Meridee had been reading The Children of the New Forest to St. Brendan’s future navigators, all of whom wanted to be anywhere but sitting there inactive. But they knew an order when they heard one, same as she did.
Sir B wasted not a moment. “Meridee, I have summoned the Marines from their barracks,” he said. “They are in the streets now. We’ll find Nick.”
She bowed her head over the book. “I’m worried about more than Nick, Sir B.”
“Able? What was his state of mind when he left?” Sir B asked.
“Calm enough. In control. It was what he said,” Meridee told him. “ ‘I should have known,’ he said, and ‘How did I miss it? Where did I go wrong?’ Oh, Sir B.”
“I knew it was bound to happen,” he said. “After that awful afternoon and night of battle when he was forced to operate and amputate, some of the patients died.” If possible, his expression grew more grim. “No one can help death at sea, no one.” He stopped, unable to go on.
She knew, and felt the chill. “He takes it personally, doesn’t he?”
“Aye,” he said simply. “I told you earlier he shook like a leaf. He did, but there was more. He collapsed. Dropped like a stone.”
“What did you do?” she asked, horrified.
“Since the surgeon was gone, I put him in the surgeon’s quarters. I sat with him for hours. He was barely breathing.”
“Can I help him if … when this happens again?” Meridee asked, wishing her responsibility to the boys was in someone else’s hands so she could find a quiet place to be alone with terrible thoughts.
“Aye, you can, Mrs. Six,” the captain said. “That’s the beauty of you.”
“How did … what did ….”
“I’ll tell you in a few minutes,” he said. “Right now, we have some lads to mind. Wheel me closer to the boys, Gervaise,” he told his valet. “Meridee, you go to the kitchen and find some tea or biscuits for all of us.”
Nodding, she started for the kitchen. She turned around to see what the august captain, the hero who was a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath was doing for the scum of England’s workhouses whom o
ther men of his class and social sphere ignored.
She laughed softly. Bless the man’s generous heart, he was teaching knots to the fleet’s future sailors.
She returned with macaroons and tea, carried to the dining hall by the cook and kitchen help. Sir B held them off from serving until he was satisfied with the knots.
“Fall to, men,” he said finally. “When you’re done, test each other on what I have taught you.”
He made Gervaise wheel him to a more secluded corner of the hall and then excused him. Meridee had followed with tea.
“Whatever would England do without tea,” he said. “My dear, there is a crank on the back of this chair.” He chuckled. “Some would say there is a crank sitting in it. Ha! High time you laughed a little. Could you put the crank through two revolutions so I can recline a bit? Ah, yes. Now, where were we?”
“You know perfectly well where we were,” she said. “Tell me straight up, with no bark on the words. What happened?”
“Even now, after some eleven years, I am not certain what I was hearing,” the captain said, when he was more comfortable. “Hand me a macaroon or two, if you haven’t eaten them all, Mrs. Six.”
“You know I have not!”
“I know,” he said, and she heard all the sympathy in his voice. “He was talking non-stop to someone, no, to many people, almost as though he saw them.”
“Dear God,” Meridee said.
“He sounded almost conversational, at times. He mentioned Euclid—your best friend—and some chap named Keppler, Nicolaus Copernicus, if you can believe me, and the great man himself, Isaac Newton.” He held out his hand to her and she grasped it. “Not so tight, my dear. I am a delicate being, these days.”
“Beg pardon.”
“I think he saw them. How, I could not tell you. He argued. He seemed to listen. Several times he seemed to be on the verge of—this is odd to say—joining them somehow. That was when I grabbed his hand and held it. He resisted, and then it was over. He slept until morning, then sat up and went about his business.”
Meridee could think of nothing to say. She sat close to Sir B until she calmly returned to her chair and continued reading aloud to St. Brendan’s boys and hers.