by Carla Kelly
He touched his eyes and handed back the lacy square. Mrs. Perry was waiting for them as they came down the stairs, arm in arm. She nodded her approval and opened the front door, which reminded Meridee of something else.
“Mrs. Perry, I promise you I will find a maid of all work,” she said.
“In due time,” Mrs. Perry said. “We can assign our lodgers to various duties, you know.” She glared at Able. “First of which will be to shift the mess in the backyard.”
“You two are determined, aren’t you?” Able asked the ceiling.
“We are,” they both replied.
“I am overruled. Come, Meri, let us begin this term.”
She tightened her grip on Able’s arm. They crossed the street at the same time a carriage with a crest on the door pulled up to the entrance of the most unusual school in England.
Meridee waited as Able opened the door before the small African post-boy had time to climb down from his perch. Able pulled down the steps while the coachman took the wheeled chair from the boot and set the brake.
As she watched, Captain Sir Belvedere St. Anthony was carried in his valet’s arms to the wheeled chair. Trust Sir B to give Meridee a gallant wave as Gervaise set him in the chair and straightened the blanket over his remaining leg and ruin of the other that ended halfway down his thigh.
For a moment, she hated the sea and ships and countries that felt a war would solve something. Dear God, spare these men, she thought. Keep these boys of St. Brendan’s from harm.
She knew it was a foolish prayer, but she prayed anyway, her eyes closed. When she opened them, Sir B was smiling at her. She leaned close because she spoke to him alone. “Sir B, thank you from the bottom of my heart for finding something for Master Six to do on land.”
“My pleasure.” He patted her hand. “Come, come! We’ll be late to the assembly. Master Six, get your lady inside.”
“I love that man,” Able said as he escorted her up the steps. He looked back, always the master on duty where his captain was concerned. They both watched as his valet and the post- boy lifted the chair up the steps. “We were on different ships at the Nile—I was with Captain Hallowell. I sometimes ask myself if I could have saved more of Sir B’s leg, had I been there. By God, I would have pushed the surgeon away and tried.”
“And landed yourself in the brig, more like,” Meridee said.
“Doubtless. I was busy enough at the Nile, doing the job I was paid to do. We all were, maneuvering so close to a lee shore. Still ….”
Headmaster Croker waited inside the door. Able shepherded her into the mess hall, with tables pushed aside and more chairs in place.
She saw David Ten and Nick and the others who had spent the last days mucking out the stone basin. “They’ll make room for me,” she said. “You’re to sit in front, my love.”
“I can’t tell you how that terrifies me,” he admitted.
“It’s your place and you’ve earned it,” she said. “In fact, I believe I am being summoned to a space on the bench beside Mr. Ten. I can’t resist a man in uniform, no matter what his height. Go on, Master Six.”
The students stood up respectfully as she made her way down the row of benches to sit between one boy who flinched only days ago in the basin when he could not answer a question, and Nick, the quiet lad who possessed only one name.
“Ready for the new school term?” she asked David Ten as she sat down.
“Aye, miss,” he said, his voice faint. He touched her sleeve. “Do we come to your house this afternoon once classes are done?”
“You do, you and Nick here, and—let me think—Stephen Hoyt and John Mark.”
“Stephen’s a runner,” David confided in a low voice. “He wants to escape to sea right now.”
“We’ll have to convince him that it is better to stay and learn something first,” she whispered back.
“All rise!” sounded from the entrance. Meridee rose as Headmaster Croker made his dignified way to the front of the hall. He was followed by Captain Sir Belvedere St. Anthony, pushed by Master Able Six. They were followed by two other teachers she did not know, although one of them must have been the history and English instructor whose pointer Able had broken over his knee and thrown out the window. I doubt you are a friend, she thought.
It was a modest assembly, by anyone’s reckoning, held on a quiet street in a city with Royal Marines and sailors, and all the scaff and raff that hang about such men used to violence and the worst sort of treatment. For one frightening moment, Meridee doubted her ability to do what was required of her, armed with no theories on mothering lads from workhouses.
Upset with herself, she looked at her husband, wanting to blubber out her misgivings and cowardice in the face of the strangeness of her life. He seemed to sense she was watching him, so he looked at her. It was almost as though he knew what she was thinking, which made her swallow and try not to show fear.
Her wedding was a blur, except for a quaint phrase that popped into her brain and seemed to settle there, plumping up the pillows and making itself at home—“I plight thee my troth.”
She knew what it meant, because her brother-in-law had walked with her the night before her marriage and explained it. She remembered how he had laughed and assured her that most of what he said would go in one ear and out the other, because that was the nature of weddings, but she ought to pay attention to this.
She remembered what he had told her: plight meant a risk and also a pleading, troth nothing less than truth.
Standing there in the great hall of St. Brendan the Navigator School and looking at her husband, she felt the force of what she had committed to land on her shoulders, but lightly. “I promise you I will be true,” she whispered. “There is risk, but I will be loyal and faithful.”
She sat down with the others, committed, content, and in need of nothing more, or nothing that couldn’t be made sweeter by quiet time later with the man into whose care she had committed herself.
Or so she thought. That was the moment when David Ten put his hand in hers. Startled, she looked down at his fingers, then into his eyes. She saw the pleading there, the plight. Her heart full to bursting, she curled her fingers around his.
Chapter Twenty-One
Meridee patted David’s hand. Mindful of Nick on her other side, she tried to take his hand, too, but he would have none of that.
Every child is different, she thought, feeling no rejection because her heart told her that Nick intended no such thing. She contented herself with giving him a little nudge.
It wasn’t her imagination that Nick began to lean against her. Some instinct informed her that she should take no notice. All she knew of Nick was that as a very small lad he had been found sobbing on the workhouse steps in the wilds of Northumberland, the solitary name of Nick pinned to his shirt, no coat, dead of winter.
The order in the room impressed her. She thought of her nephews, with their fidgets during their papa’s Sunday sermons. These lads were silent and nearly motionless, reminding her of her husband’s ability to sit still and silent, another hard workhouse lesson.
When Headmaster Croker introduced his teachers, starting with Master Blake, she heard a low murmur, barely audible, and felt Nick lean closer to her. You are the man who strikes his pupils, she thought, watching Master Blake narrow his eyes and look over the assemblage, as if daring anyone to breathe.
Master Fletcher was next, a stubby fellow with a peg leg who had the weathered, seagoing look that almost shouted massive capability. Able had already told her he had been drafted from the fleet to teach the older boys to use the sextant and plot courses. “He curses like an expert,” Able also told her.
Next came her husband, introduced as Sailing Master Durable Six, which made him smile and return some whispered comment to Captain Sir B, who sat next to him.
She tried to observe him dispassionately, as though they had no acquaintance, and perhaps see him as others saw him. Glancing at the row of maids and kitchen
workers by the back door whispering together, she smiled to herself, pleased he was hers and not theirs. The new uniform did look impressive, but more impressive was the man inside it.
She had reminded him over breakfast that he was due for a haircut. If he put off a haircut for another month, she had no objection; she liked twining his curls around her fingers. Not every man was destined to look like the hero in a Lord Byron poem, and she was happy to be married to one of those lucky few. In his uniform or out of it, Able Six was cap-able, ineff-able and of all things, most aff-able.
Meridee, behave yourself, she thought, then looked up in surprise when the headmaster called her name.
“Mrs. Six, stand you up, my dear.”
Startled, she did as he said, still holding onto David Ten’s hand. For one tiny, irrational moment, she hoped sincerely that she had not been obviously ogling the sailing master, or at least not caught at it.
“This kind lady has consented to lodge four of our newer lads, the better to smooth things over for them. We all know workhouse life has its … let’s call them challenges,” he said.
She watched the boys nod seriously. Headmaster Croker leaned on the podium, watching his charges, silent, but with expressions ranging from studied indifference, to neutral blankness, to outright fear. “She is to be obeyed every whit as much as these masters behind me. Have you a word for the pupils, Mrs. Six?”
A word? With a lump in her throat, she already knew she had many. She had watched these neglected, outcast bastard sons of England and Scotland clean out a rubbish-filled basin with no complaint, working cheerfully in the cold and rain. Able had taught them all the verses to “Lady of Spain,” so they sang, too. What could she say that wouldn’t involve childish tears on her part, she who was a wife and a woman grown, but miles and miles away from them across the great chasm of privilege?
It was easy, because she was Meridee Six, who had already decided there was room in her heart for each one. She pointed her finger at one boy and then another, trying and failing monumentally to maintain a stern visage. “You Wharf Rats know who you are. That rattus norvegicus had better be out of my backyard by tomorrow!”
The students whooped with laughter, whatever tension caused by Master Blake gone, whatever notion of inferiority at least tucked away for the time being. For a far-too-fleeting moment, they were boys much like her nephews.
“That is all,” she said, and sat down, her own fear gone because she knew she had a roomful of allies.
David Ten tugged on her hand and leaned closer. “I’ll see to the wee bones, Mrs. Six. I like that sort of thing.”
Wee bones. Meridee swallowed, thinking of Able Six’s comment about numbers One through Five in Dumfries Workhouse, who had not survived childhood. No wee bones here, she thought, then realized she was sitting in the midst of survivors. The wife of number Six, she said a silent prayer to the memory of One through Five.
“I have prevailed upon Captain St. Anthony to share with us some of his wisdom,” Headmaster Croker said, as Able wheeled his former captain to the side of the podium. “He served king and country for years, and has taken a real interest in you lads. Give him your attention.”
Sir B didn’t speak for a long moment, but only leaned his elbows on his chair and looked into each face, hers included.
“Lads, you have inherited a troubled world,” he began, his eyes serious. “I hardly need tell you that, because you have already endured more than most.”
No one made a sound, but Meridee felt the boys relax. You know you’re safe here, she thought, and gave David’s hand a little squeeze.
“If you or I were wagering men, and I hope to heaven you are not,” he continued, a brief smile crossing his face, “we could place bets on the probable duration of this Treaty of Amiens. Master Six here could probably come up with a magical percentage of time remaining on the treaty, down to the second. Could you, sir?”
Her darling man laughed and nodded, which gave the boys permission to laugh, too, since he was one of them. She would have to ask him sometime if cleaning out a nasty stone basin was more for utility or camaraderie.
“When the treaty ends, and it will, Boney will not stop his conquest of Europe until either he or we are bled dry. That we on our little island will prevent him, I have no doubt. You should never doubt it either. The effort will be monumental, however, and that is where you are needed.”
Making no attempt to mask the concern on his face, Sir Belvedere looked over the students again, as if counting the cost already. Meridee swallowed down her tears. In her brief tenure as wife, she had already been wakened from sleep to hear her husband giving intense orders to phantoms in the middle of battle. A gentle stroke or two was enough to send him back to sleep; only she stayed awake, wondering how men could go to sea and fight.
“ ‘Needed,’ you ask? When has England ever needed me?” Sir B said, his voice rising. “ ‘When has this little island ever given me a good goddamn,’ you might be asking yourselves.” He sighed, as though out of strength, except there was no lessening of the penetration of his gaze. Meridee watched him, aware he should have died at sea, except that he could not surrender the will or spirit or energy—call it what you choose—to let go.
“You will show England, you older lads sooner than I would wish, how well you can serve in the fleet and beat Napoleon back from our shores.”
He held his hands out to the boys. “Cynical men have laughed in my face when I tell them about St. Brendan’s. ‘Workhouse lads, what do they know? What can they do?’ they ask me, and I know it is not a question, but derision. I smile and change the subject. Why argue with fools?”
He seemed to speak to each boy individually. “You will not disappoint me, St. Brendan’s, yourselves, or the fleet. You older lads will be headed to the fleet sooner than any of us would wish, not because you cannot do what will be asked of you, but because we care deeply for you and would keep you here longer, if we could.”
Meridee glanced around at the boys he addressed. You’re sitting with warriors and survivors and you’re married to one, she thought.
“So I say to you one and all, study with diligence this term. You will soon be helming ships of battle, mixing potions as pharmacist’s mates, serving the guns and keeping the ship on course as Brendan himself did, God praise the saint. Go to. Show England how much she needs you.”
He made a gesture and Able wheeled him back to the space next to his chair. As Meridee watched, the boys stood up as one, silent, eyes forward, completely still. Her eyes on her husband, Meridee rose, too, her hand to her heart. Putting his hand to his heart as well, Able looked at her and into her.
At a nod from the headmaster, the students filed out in silence, heading to their classrooms. Meridee watched them, struck with the reality that when they left the school and joined the fleet, some might never return.
How will you bear that, my love? she asked Able silently. How will I?
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mrs. Perry was not pleased when Meridee waved away even the notion of luncheon and took herself upstairs for a nap. She pulled Able’s pillow close so she could breathe in the fragrance of his hair and slept.
When she woke, shadows were beginning to slide across the bed. She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, thinking how well she already knew this ceiling, seen mostly over her husband’s shoulder. She listened to the rain, then sat up, alarmed and more concerned than she would have thought possible about a pile of rattus norvegicus outside and perhaps in peril of washing away.
If she did not get up right away and do something about it, she would lose her nerve. The mere thought of touching rat bones was already sending little marching feet down her spine. Still, St. Brendan’s was going to pay her one pound a month to become a mother to little boys. Maybe she could call this stifling of her fear and loathing of rats her tariff to pay for the time when her own children might be curious in ways she wasn’t and never would be.
“I’ll do it for
my unborn babies,” she told herself out loud as she changed into a fading work dress and hurried downstairs.
She dashed back upstairs to hunt through her possessions for a square of dark fabric and found just the thing. It was wrapped around her mother’s prized china cup and saucer, one of a set that constituted the rest of her dowry, after the twenty pounds that mostly went into Able’s uniform.
The moment of truth. In the lightly falling rain, she stood looking down at a moldering stew of fur and … parts that constituted the remains of a tenacious little beast. No wonder the lads were styling themselves after wharf rats. Not even scavenging birds or other critters who might have wandered through the backyard last night seemed interested in the mess. She couldn’t blame them.
She stared down, steeling herself. “Meridee Louisa Bonfort Six, this mess is not going to separate itself,” she said out loud.
Kneeling on the wet grass, Meridee set the black square beside her. She took a deep breath, regretted it instantly, and leaned back for her stomach to settle. She readied herself to stick her hand into the nasty brew, but was sitting back again when Mrs. Perry loomed over her, holding two forks.
Her own cheery temperament resurfaced. “Mrs. Perry, we look for all the world like two Bedlamites getting ready to eat.”
With some effort, Mrs. Perry knelt next to Meridee and handed her a fork. Meridee jabbed her fork at what remained of the carcass, barely maintaining her composure when the whole thing slid open in a slimy gush.
“Mercy,” she muttered and retched, grateful she had passed over luncheon.
The cook set down her fork and hurried to the back steps.
“Mrs. Six, you are made of sterner stuff than I am,” the woman declared. “I cannot.”
Meridee gave her a jaunty salute that belied every single one of her real emotions and picked up the other fork. She gritted her teeth and prodded in the bundle, relieved when the slime parted and exposed tiny bones.