Lady Savage

by Donna Lea Simpson

  Lord Gaston-Reade stared at him for a long minute, and Tony thought, given their recent strained relationship, the earl might refuse, simply to teach his underling a lesson. William Barker and Mr. Roxeter stared, their gaze shifting back and forth between the two men.

  Finally, the earl said, “Let’s do it.” He leaped into action, grasping one of the rope handles he and the other men had looped around the palm logs. “Come on, Tony, help me drag the Hopeful to the sea.”

  As he and his employer did so, Tony caught Savina’s eye as she held Lady Venture’s shoulders. It looked like the older of the two women was having a breakdown of sorts. “Savina,” he hollered. “Keep the fire going! Smoke. Lots of smoke! We’re going to row out to try to catch their attention. Don’t give up!”

  She got his intent immediately and shook Lady Venture into awareness. The two women set to work fanning the flame into a roaring, smoky blaze.

  It was possibly a forlorn hope, Tony thought, as he entered the water with the earl, dragging the Hopeful, as the raft had been christened. Both men jumped aboard and, using the crude paddles the earl’s crew had fashioned, they paddled out, trying to catch a current.

  The sun broiled down. Tony could see the puffs of smoke from the fire, but they dwindled in importance as distance was achieved, and he feared they could look just like puffs of dark cloud. He and the earl did what they had to do in grim silence, neither disposed to idle chatter and bending all of his effort to the task at hand, despite the choppy waves and riffle of wind over the surface that threatened to capsize them every moment. It was in that moment that Tony remembered the things that he did respect about the earl: his industrious nature, his ability to grasp the importance of some things quickly, and his occasional capacity for rising above petty conflicts.

  It didn’t change his own feelings about the earl’s inadequacies, but at that second he was happy Lord Gaston-Reade was the other man on the raft with him and not William Barker. For the craft was becoming waterlogged and sinking below the surface, the effect hastened by their combined weight and vigorous movement. He was sure the earl had noticed it too, but he was not one to panic, nor would he need the obvious pointed out to him. Both of their knees were in water now, and soon their thighs would be, too, the salt water lapping at him, beckoning him to sink into the dark depths. If they didn’t find the ship they would surely go under, and it was a long swim back to shore. He would make it, but would the earl? Would he be able to help him that long distance? He resolved then and there that he would do it or die in the attempt.

  Where was that damned ship? He searched the horizon feverishly as he stroked and paddled. Had they imagined it? Was it even an English vessel or would it turn out to be an American ship, or worse, a French naval craft?

  And then, like the Flying Dutchman, it was there, ahead, white sails billowing in the wind.

  “Do you see a flag, sir? I can’t tell what colors it is flying yet.”

  “I don’t know,” the earl said feverishly, digging his paddle into the riffled surface and pushing. “Right now I would even welcome your damned American.”

  “He is not my American,” Tony said through gritted teeth. “Hallo!” he shouted, though the ship was too far away for them to be able to hear. “Let’s shout together,” he suggested.

  They paddled with all their might, the cold water rising to their thighs and every movement swamping the surface more. Both shouted, and they took turns waving their arms. Finally Tony saw a flash of glitter, the reflection of the sun off some glass, and he could make out someone up in the crow’s nest.

  He wanted to weep with relief when it became clear that someone had spotted them. He would not die in the black depth beneath them. Even if he perished in a French prison, it would be better than the slow horror of drowning, and it was humbling to realize how much he feared that.

  Now, at least, they would be alive.

  • • •

  Savina, onshore with the others, saw the raft disappear and felt a pit of terror in her stomach. Her fiancé and the man she loved—not, unfortunately, the same man—had disappeared. The others had rallied now, and Zazu, drawn to the beach by the shouting of the others, had orchestrated a relay of greenery to keep the smoky fire going.

  Mr. William Barker, with the other two men absent, took command in a surprising show of leadership, and so Savina had time to think, not especially a good thing when her mind took a turn toward fatalism, something she had never allowed herself to succumb to before. Now, when hope should be highest, she was sure something would go wrong, and she could only pray it was not something lethal for the earl and Tony.

  But as she stared off to the horizon she thought she saw a speck; she was afraid to raise a hope among the others if it was only to be dashed when it turned out to be her sun-dazzled vision. No, it was something. It was getting closer and larger.

  “Hey. Hey!” She batted at Annie, who was closest. “I see something, it’s . . .” She jumped up and down on the sand. “It’s a rowboat! With men rowing! A dozen men!”

  The others stopped and gazed out, and reacted in their various ways. Savina’s father fell to his knees in the sand and wept, muttering prayers in a high-pitched wailing. Lady Venture stood staring, as if she was afraid to believe, silent tears streaming down her sunburnt face. Zazu came to stand beside Savina and they wrapped their arms around each other, and to Savina’s amazement, so did Mr. Barker and Annie. He held the little maid close to him in jubilation at the rescue, and kissed her forehead. How oddly such an event affected them, she thought, glancing around at her castaway companions.

  And she felt a pang of sorrow shoot through her breast. She would never again be here. Once she left, she thought, glancing back at the long sward of beach rising to the palm forest behind them, she would never again live like this, and all the hardships and discoveries and self-knowledge would fade into a distant memory.

  They all stood silent as the sturdy rowboat beached and a uniformed man jumped from the prow and strode up the beach to them.

  “Captain Henry Pollinger, his Majesty’s navy, at your service, ladies and gentlemen. I’ve come to take you home to England.”

  Fifteen

  The ship Phoenix, so named because it had suffered a fire in the shipyard when it was being built but had arisen from the flames, was headed for England from Jamaica with some military families and others on board when it received word, through a long chain of circumstances, of the marooned party on the remote cay.

  This Savina learned later, but as she was ferried out to the ship by rowboat, her thoughts were a wild tumble, and at first were mingled as much with regret for what she was losing as anticipation of what she was about to experience. She stared steadfastly back at their beach to memorize it all. The curious glances of the seamen who rowed she could understand; if she looked anything like Venture, whose wild hair, coal-smudged face and dirty, tattered clothing bespoke a sojourn of terrible suffering, then their stares held a mingled mixture of horror and pity. She resolved to ignore them as best she could. As they approached the ship, she and her fellow passengers silent and awestruck, she began to think of food and safety and comfort, and perhaps sleeping for a full day in a soft bed.

  And yet her ordeal was not over.

  Each one of them was raised in a rope chair, first Venture, who would allow no one else to go first, then Annie, and then herself. It was such a long way up; the journey seemed to take forever, and near the top she looked back and could see, etched against the blue of the ocean, the crescent beach of their island and the dark promontories. She said goodbye silently and knew that her life would never be the same for having lived there.

  Tears welled in her eyes and streamed down her cheeks, she didn’t know why. She banged against the wood hull, the ropes creaking around her as she clung to them, quivering. Then, as strong hands reached down and caught her under her arms and drew her over the wide railing, she stared wildly, finding her every move watched by what seemed a throng o
f many fine ladies and gentlemen, all dressed in pale silks, expensive wool and gorgeous merino cloaks, who crowded the railing to watch the proceedings. They gaped at her as if she was an exhibit in a zoo.

  Her limbs trembling from the long and fearful journey out to the ship by rowboat, and then the frightening ascent up the side of the ship by the perilous rope chair, Savina, set gently down on the deck by a compassionate seaman, stumbled and fell to her hands and knees on the deck. It was no good, her legs would not steady, and she had to sit for a moment, unable to rise.

  One young lady in blue watered silk and with a parasol held over her by a maid whispered—though her high-pitched voice carried to Savina on the wind—to a beau at her side, “She looks quite wild, doesn’t she, so brown and coarse and dirty, with her hair everywhere. And her dress is ripped! One has to wonder to what shocking practices they devolved in the time they were on that dreadful island.”

  “She looks quite untamed,” the young man agreed. He held a handkerchief up to his nose. “Hasn’t bathed in some time, probably.”

  The young lady laughed. Raised to her feet by a kindly seaman, Savina turned her gaze on the pair and stared at them, rage building in her heart at those who would taint the moment with their hateful malice.

  “She appears savage, doesn’t she? And she is baring her teeth at me,” the young lady cried, falling back against the slender young man in a mockery of fear. “A lady savage. How amusing. I shall write that in my journal tonight.”

  “Write also,” Savina said, before being led away, “that you have sunk to new depths of rudeness.” Nervous tittering greeted her rejoinder as she allowed herself to be led to the hatch and taken belowdecks.

  The next hours passed as if in a dream. She and Zazu ate with the others—toast with butter and marmalade tasted like manna to Savina—and drank hot tea with lemon and real sugar. Then they bathed; steaming, clean, lavender-scented water was supplied by two seamen directed by the captain’s wife, a stout, motherly woman who took Savina and Zazu under her wing, scrubbing them as if they were her own helpless chicks. It was clear they could not put their ragged apparel back on, but Mrs. Pollinger bullied some of the passengers into giving up a few dresses for the castaway ladies.

  Once they were presentable Captain Henry Pollinger welcomed them formally, in his teak-paneled rooms. “I thought,” he said, “that we would hold a service of thanksgiving.”

  “That would be most appropriate,” Savina’s father said, at his diplomatic best once again now that he was wearing a handsome suit of borrowed clothes and his lined, sunburnt face was properly shaved.

  “And a memorial service,” the captain added.

  “Memorial service?” Savina said, adjusting her stays, which felt most uncomfortable after weeks without them. She was much thinner than she had been, but the clothes were from one of the very slim young ladies aboard, and so were small and tight-fitting.

  The bluff sea captain, his cheeks red in the candlelit, low-ceilinged room, said, with a glance at his wife, who stood at his side, “For the captain and crew of the Prosperous, surely, miss.”

  “What happened to the crew of the Prosperous?” Tony asked.

  The captain cleared his throat and colored a deeper shade of crimson. “Forgot. You couldn’t possibly know, could you? Hate to be the bearer of sad tidings, but . . . Prosperous went down in a hurricane, off Cuba. All hands—British, American, all of ’em—lost.”

  There was a profound silence. Weary and confused, Savina felt her vision blur, but it took her a moment to realize it was tears. All those lives lost, and even the American captain who had been kinder than he had to be.

  “If you had all been aboard,” Captain Pollinger continued, his round face set in a grim expression, “you would be at the bottom of the sea now. Lucky that American captain marooned you all or you would have gone down with them. We ought, I think, to give thanks that he was a man of his word and sent a message to the Jamaican office about you folks and about where you were stranded before meeting his untimely end. I’d like to pray for our British lads aboard, but I’d like to include a prayer even for the Americans, if you don’t mind.”

  Savina felt all the eyes of her friends and family on her. She experienced a moment of dizziness and was afraid of fainting, but her vision cleared after a long moment and her tears dried. They were alive. Zazu’s hand sought hers and gave her strength with its warm clasp.

  “You saved all our lives with your decision,” Zazu whispered in her ear.

  “And you saved all of our lives with your knowledge,” Savina said, refusing to take so much credit. “We all worked together, despite . . . despite our problems.”

  “I certainly think we ought to include the American captain in our prayers,” Lord Gaston-Reade said, his face a mask of studied calm.

  He glanced over at Savina, and she hoped he was thinking of all the disparaging things he had said about her decision to maroon them.

  “And my valet,” he went on, “Douglas O’Connell, who was among those poor men who went down.”

  “And poor Arthur, my own valet,” Savina’s father said, his voice trembling with sadness.

  After the captain’s private words with them, others trooped in and stood. The memorial service was attended by all available hands—the men were too aware of the danger of life aboard a ship to shirk their duties to the Lord on such an occasion—and by all the passengers, so the low-ceilinged room was crowded. Though the young lady and gentleman who had been so contemptuous of Savina were there, along one side of the room, their behavior was tempered by the presence of their families; they stood some distance apart from each other and only cast flirtatious glances to each other when the prayers allowed them to raise their eyes. Besides them there was one stout woman in mourning and her brood of six children returning to England after the death of their father from fever, a naval wife and her daughter, who was a pretty girl of about seventeen, and two other young men in their early twenties who were acquaintances of Savina’s father.

  Savina took it all in, her hand still clasped in Zazu’s. She should be joyous, she thought, but her emotion was closer to melancholy. Perhaps that was appropriate, she thought, as the captain read the words of the service for those lost at sea. Joy would come later. At that moment she was overcome by an unutterable weariness of body and spirit.

  For a few days Savina stayed in the tiny cabin assigned to her and Zazu, sick from the change in diet and water and the motion of the boat. She had never been so before and was distressed, finding it odd that the entire time on the island, with crude food, awful living conditions and fear as her daily companion, that she should only get truly sick, retching and feverish, when rescued.

  But finally she and Zazu did venture above deck and found the world a changed place. They had left behind the string of cays and the warm Caribbean Sea and were speeding on their way to England, courtesy of the prevailing winds and the Gulf Stream, a handy flow of Atlantic water that carried ships faster home than out.

  She clung to Zazu as they approached the railing, wending their way through ropes and barrels and bustling seamen, and felt her stomach flutter. Sails flapped above them, ropes creaked and the stiff breeze sang through them like fingers plucking taut harp strings; it was a cold song of the harsh life on board. Zazu was unnerved. Her whole body trembled and for the first time Savina understood her fears. Strangely, life felt within grasp on the island. Though natural disasters would occur, much could be avoided with careful planning and hard work. Clean water, shelter and food were the daily obsessions, and hard work could procure them.

  “We’re safe, Zazu,” she muttered to her friend.

  “As safe as the crew of the Prosperous?” Zazu said, scanning the horizon, her brown eyes wide.

  Savina had no reply. Perhaps in life there was no assurance of safety. All of life was a gamble and a risk.

  Tony Heywood climbed from the hatch and approached them as they stood near the railing gazing out over the sea
. “Good morning, ladies; it’s so good to see you above deck. Are you both well?”

  “Well enough.” Staring at him hungrily, Savina suddenly had a strong sense of the differences in her life heretofore, and her life as it had become on their tiny cay. Though her life in Jamaica had seemed free and easy to her at the time, she was still pampered, guarded, constricted and watched. On the cay she had been forced to fend for herself, to live and work alongside the others, and especially Tony, with no chaperoning. She could see now that her naiveté was what had led her to say yes to Lord Gaston-Reade’s uninspiring proposal; others told her that was how it was done, and she had, as an obedient daughter and young lady, acquiesced. It had pleased her father and promised to provide a luxurious life for herself, free from worry. That her emotions were untouched had not occurred to her as a problem until she had been confronted by the fact that she had fallen in love with Tony Heywood.

  She gazed at him and he stared back. He was brown and healthy-looking, already gaining back some lost weight. The secret of her attachment to him was known only to Zazu, who squeezed her arm.

  “How . . . how are you, Tony?” Savina asked.

  “I’m well. It’s so good to see you . . . both of you. But if I could have a word with Savina?” he said, glancing over at Zazu.

  Zazu released her hold on Savina’s arm and was about to stroll away, but just then Lord Gaston-Reade himself sauntered across the deck in the company of the young gentleman and lady who had ridiculed her appearance the day of their rescue.

  “Ah, and there she is now,” he cried out on spying her. “My fiancé, Miss Savina Roxeter, daughter of Mr. Peter Roxeter, you know, very highly placed diplomat in Jamaica. And that very brown fellow standing with Miss Roxeter and her maid is Anthony Heywood, my invaluable secretary,” he continued to the young fellow. “I would advise you to find such a one as him when you assume your majority, Mr. Collins. Tony is a very clever fellow, and not above even serving duty as my valet—my poor valet, you know, went down on the Prosperous—when necessary . . . isn’t that true?”