Carla Kelly's Christmas Collection

by Carla Kelly

  He paused and waited, knowing that Rosie was quick. “Emma?” she gasped.

  “… is another man’s child. I had been summoned home to Lucy’s bed to do my conjugal duty and avoid a scandal. I knew it from the moment I heard of Lucy’s death in childbirth. Letters are so slow to India, my love.”

  Rosie was silent, taking in what he was saying. She pulled her own daughter closer, and as he watched, the tears slid from her eyes to puddle in her hair still damp from the sweat of childbirth. He let her cry, knowing that he had answered her question.

  “During that terrible voyage home, I thought about what I would do. Everyone thought Emma was mine, but I knew different. I could have created a dreadful scene. It might even have toppled a government I am not too fond of.”

  “But you could not,” Rosie said, burrowing closer to him. “That would have destroyed Emma.”

  He felt his own tears rising this time. “Rosie, I looked down at that innocent baby, and I could not do it. Emma may not be bone of my bone like Will, but she is my daughter.” He patted her hip. “And that, wife, is my great secret. I trust you to keep it. I’ll never fail your—our daughter, either. She is already mine, because she is yours.”

  Instead of answering him, she handed him her baby, and it was all the response he needed. He sat up, holding his new daughter as Rosie rested her head against him.

  “Depend on me,” he whispered as he kissed the little one. “Depend on me.”

  aptain Michael Lynch never made a practice of leaning on the quarterdeck railing of the Admirable, but it hardly seemed to matter now. The crew—what was left of them—eyed him from a respectful distance, but he knew with a lift to his trounced-upon heart, that not one of them would give less than his utmost, even as he had.

  His glance shifted to that spot on the deck that had glared so brightly only last month with the blood of David Partlow, his first mate. One of his crew, when not patching oakum here and there to keep the Admirable afloat, or manning the pumps, had scrubbed that spot white again until all trace was gone. Still he stared at the spot, because now it was whiter than the rest of the deck.

  What bad luck, he thought again. Curse the French who had sailed to meet the Admirable and other frigates of the blockade fleet, gun ports open and blazing a challenge rare in them, but brought about by an unexpected shift in the wind. Most of all, curse the luck that fired the frigate Celerity and sent her lurching out of control into the Admirable.

  And maybe even curse Partlow for rushing to the rail with a grappling hook just in time for the Celerity’s deck carronade, heated by the flames, to burst all over him.

  Another Celerity gun belched fire then, and another, point blank at his own beautiful Admirable, one ball carrying off his sailing master, and the other shattering the mainmast at its juncture with the deck. “And they call that friendly fire,” he murmured, leaning on the railing still as the Admirable inched past able ships in Portsmouth harbor.

  There would be an inquiry, a matter of course when one ship had nearly destroyed another. He knew the Lords of the Admiralty would listen to all the testimony and exonerate him, but this time there would be no Admirable to return to. It would be in dry dock for three months at least, and he would be sentenced to the shore on half pay. The lords might offer him another ship, but he didn’t want any ship but the Admirable.

  Lynch was mindful of the wind roaring from the north, wavering a point or two and then settling into a steady blow. He couldn’t fathom three months without the wind in his face, even this raw December wind.

  At some exclamation of dismay from one of the crew, he looked up to see the dry dock dead ahead. I can’t stand it, he thought. He didn’t mind the half pay. Even now as he leaned so melancholy on the rail, his prize money from years and years of capture and salvage was compounding itself on ’Change. If he chose, he could retire to a country estate and live in comfort on the interest alone; his wants were few.

  The scow towing his ship backed its sails and slowed as it approached the dry dock. In another minute a launch nestled itself alongside. His bosun, arm in a sling but defying anyone but himself to do this duty, stood ready to pipe him off the Admirable. His trunk, hat case, and parcel of books were already being transferred to the launch. The bosun even forgot himself enough to lower the pipe and suggest that is was “better to leave now, sor.”

  “Curse your impertinence, Mays!” Lynch growled in protest. “It’s not really like leaving a grave before the dirt is piled on, now, is it?”

  But it was. He could see the sympathy in his bosun’s eyes, and all the understandings they had shared through the years without actually calling attention to them.

  “You’ll be back, Captain,” the bosun said, as if to nudge him along. “The Admirable will be as good as new.”

  And maybe it will be a young man’s ship then as it once was mine, he thought, stirring himself from the rail. I have conned the Admirable for fifteen years, from the India Wars to Boney’s Berlin and Milan decrees that blockade Europe. I am not above thirty-six, but I feel sixty, at least, and an infirm sixty at that. With a nod to his bosun, he allowed himself to be piped over the side.

  Determined not to look back at the wounded Admirable, he followed his few belongings to Mrs. Brattle’s rooming house, where he always stayed between voyages. He handed a coin to the one-armed tar, who earned his daily mattress and sausages by trundling goods about town in his rented cart. It was almost Christmas, so he added another coin, enough to give the man a day off, but not enough to embarrass him; he knew these old sailors.

  And there was Mrs. Brattle, welcoming him as always. He could see the sympathy in her eyes—amazing how fast bad news circulated around Portsmouth. He dared her to say anything, and to his relief, she did not, beyond the communication that his extra trunk was stowed in the storeroom and he could have his usual quarters.

  “Do you know how long you will be staying this time, sir?” she asked, motioning to the ’tween-stairs maid behind them to lay a fire.

  He could have told her three months, until the Admirable was refitted, but he didn’t. “I’m not entirely sure, Mrs. Brattle,” he heard himself saying for some unaccountable reason.

  She stood where she was, watching the maid with a critical but not unkindly eye. When the girl finished, she nodded her approval and looked at him. “It’ll be stew then, Captain,” she said as she handed him his key.

  He didn’t want stew; he didn’t want anything but to lie down and turn his face to the wall. He hadn’t cried since India, so it didn’t enter his mind, but he was amazed at his own discomposure. “Fine, Mrs. Brattle,” he told her. He supposed he would have to eat so she would not fret.

  He knew the rooms well—the sitting room large enough for sofa, chairs, and table; the walls decorated here and there with improving samplers done by Mrs. Brattle’s dutiful daughters, all of them now long married. His eyes always went first to the popular “England expects every man to do his duty,” that since Trafalgar had sprouted on more walls than he cared to think about. I have done my duty, he told himself.

  He stared a long while at the stew, delivered steaming hot an hour later and accompanied by brown bread and tea sugared the way he liked it. Through the years and various changes in his rank, he had thought of seeking more exalted lodgings, but the fact was, he did not take much notice of his surroundings on land. Nor did he wish to abandon a place where the landlady knew how he liked his tea.

  Even to placate Mrs. Brattle, he could not eat that evening. He was prepared for a fight when she returned for his tray, but he must have looked forbidding enough, or tired enough, so that she made no more comment than that she hoped he would sleep better than he ate. Personally, he did not hold out much confidence for her wish; he never slept well.

  The level of his exhaustion must have been higher than he thought, because he slept finally as the day came. He had a vague recollection of Mrs. Brattle in his room, and then silence. He woke at noon with a fuzzy brain. Bre
akfast, and then a rambling walk in a direction that did not include the dry dock cleared his head. He had the city to himself, possibly because Portsmouth did not lend itself much to touring visitors, but more likely because it was raining. He didn’t care; it suited his mood.

  When he came back to his lodgings, he felt better and in a frame of mind to apologize to Mrs. Brattle for his mopes. He looked in the public sitting room and decided the matter would keep. She appeared to be engaged in earnest conversation with a boy and girl who looked even more travel weary than he had yesterday.

  He thought they must be Scots. The girl—no, a second look suggested a young woman somewhere in her twenties rather than a girl—wore a plaid muffler draped around her head and neck over her traveling cloak. He listened to the soft murmur of her voice with its lilt and burr, not because he was prone to eavesdropping, but because he liked the cadence of Scottish conversation and its inevitable reminder of his first mate.

  As he watched, the boy moved closer to the woman, and she grasped his shoulder in a protective gesture. The boy’s arm went around her waist, and she held it there with her other hand. The intimacy of the gesture rendered him oddly uncomfortable, as though he intruded. This is silly, he scolded himself. I am in a public parlor in a lodging house.

  Never mind, he thought, and went upstairs. He added coal to the fire and put on his slippers, prepared for a late afternoon of reading the Navy Chronicle and dozing. Some of his fellow officers were getting up a whist table at the Spithead, and he would join them there after dinner.

  He had read through the promotions list and started on the treatise debating the merits of the newest canister casing when Mrs. Brattle knocked on his door. She had a way of knocking and clearing her throat at the same time that made her entrances obvious. “Come, Mrs. Brattle,” he said, laying aside the Chronicle, which was, he confessed, starting to bore him.

  When she opened the door, he could see others behind her, but she closed the door upon them and hurried to his chair. “Sir, it is the saddest thing,” she began, her voice low with emotion. “The niece and nephew of poor Mr. Partlow have come all the way from Fort William in the Highlands to find him! The harbormaster directed them here to you.”

  “Have you told them?” he asked quietly as he rose.

  She shook her head. “Oh, sir, I know you’re far better at that than I ever would be. I mean, haven’t you written letters to lots of sailors’ families, sir?”

  “Indeed, Mrs. Brattle. I am something of an expert on the matter,” he said, regretting the irony in his voice but knowing his landlady well enough to be sure that she would not notice it. What I do not relish are these face-to-face interviews, he thought, especially my Number One’s relatives, curse the luck.

  “May I show them in, or should I send them back to the harbormaster?” she asked. She leaned closer and allowed herself the liberty of adding that while they were genteel, they were Scots. “Foreigners,” she explained, noticing the mystified look that he knew was on his face.

  He knew that before she said it. David Partlow had come from generations of hard-working Highlanders, and he never minded admitting it. “Sturdy folk,” he had said once. “The best I know.”

  “Show them in, Mrs. Brattle,” he said. She opened the door and ushered in the two travelers, and then shut the door quickly behind her. He turned to his guests and nodded. “I am Captain Lynch of the Admirable,” he said.

  The young woman dropped a graceful curtsey, which had the odd effect of making him feel old. He did not want to feel old, he decided, as he looked at her.

  She held out her hand to him and he was rewarded with a firm handshake. “I am Sally Partlow, and this is my brother Thomas,” she said.

  “May I take your cloak?” he asked, not so much remembering his manners with women—because he had none—but eager to see what shape she possessed. I have been too long at sea, he thought, mildly amused with himself.

  Silently, her eyes troubled, she unwound the long plaid shawl and pulled it from her hair. He had thought her hair was ordinary brown like his, but it was the deepest, darkest red he had ever seen—beautiful hair, worn prettily in a bun at the nape of her neck.

  He indicated the chair he had vacated, and she sat down. “It is bad news, isn’t it?” she asked without any preamble. “When we asked the harbormaster, he whispered to someone and gave me directions to this place, and the woman downstairs whispered with you. Tell me direct.”

  “Your uncle is dead,” he told her, the bald words yanked right out of his mouth by her forthrightness. “We had a terrible accident on the blockade. He was killed, and my ship nearly destroyed.”

  She winced and briefly narrowed her eyes at his words, but she returned his gaze with no loss of composure, rather like a woman used to bad news.

  “Your uncle didn’t suffer,” he added quickly, struck by the lameness of his words as soon as he spoke them. He was rewarded with more of the same measured regard.

  “Do you write that to all the kin of your dead?” she asked, not accusing him, but more out of curiosity, or so it seemed to him. “All the kin of your dead,” he thought, struck by the aptness of the phrase and the grand way it rolled off her Scottish tongue.

  “I suppose I do write it,” he said, after a moment’s thought. “In David’s case, I believe it is true.” He hesitated and then plunged ahead, encouraged by her level gaze. “He was attempting to push off the Admirable with a grappling hook, and a carronade exploded directly in front of him. He… he couldn’t have known what hit him.”

  To his surprise, Sally Partlow leaned forward and quickly touched his hand. She knows what he meant to me, he thought, grateful for her concern.

  “I’m sorry for you,” she said. “Uncle Partlow mentioned you often in his letters.”

  “He did?” It had never before occurred to him that he could be a subject in anyone’s letters, or even that anyone thought him memorable.

  “Certainly, sir,” she replied. “He often said what a fair-minded commander you were, and how your crew—and he included himself—would follow you anywhere.”

  These must be sentiments that men do not confide in each other, he decided as he listened to her. Of course, he had wondered why the same crew remained in his service year after year, but he had always put it down to fondness for the Admirable. Could it be there was more? The matter had never crossed his mind before.

  “You are all kindness, Miss Partlow,” he managed to say, but not without embarrassment. “I’m sorry to give you this news—and here you must have thought to bring him Christmas greetings and perhaps take him home with you.”

  The brother and sister looked at each other. “It is rather more than that, Captain,” Thomas Partlow said.

  “Oh, Tom, let us not concern him,” Sally said. “We should leave now.”

  “What, Thomas?” he asked the young boy. “David Partlow will always be my concern.”

  “Uncle Partlow was named our guardian several years ago,” he said.

  “I do remember that, Thomas,” Lynch said. “He showed me the letter. Something about in the event of your father’s death, I believe. Ah yes, we were blockading the quadrant around La Nazaire then, same as now.”

  “Sir, our father died two weeks ago,” Thomas explained. “Almost with his last breath, he told us that Uncle Partlow would look after us.” The room was silent. Lynch could tell that Miss Partlow was embarrassed. He frowned. These were his lodgings; perhaps the Partlows expected him to speak first.

  “I fear you are greatly disappointed,” he said, at a loss. “I am sorry for your loss, and sorry that you must return to Scotland both empty-handed and bereft.”

  Sally Partlow stood up and extended her hand to him, while her brother retrieved her cloak and shawl from the end of the sofa. “We trust we did not take up too much of your time at this busy season,” she said. “Come, Thomas.” She curtseyed again, and he bowed and opened the door for her. She hesitated a moment. “Sir, we are quite unfamilia
r with Portsmouth. Do you know…?”

  “… of a good hotel? I can recommend the Spithead on the High.”

  The Partlows looked at each other and smiled. “Oh, no!” she said. “Nothing that fine. I had in mind an employment agency.”

  He shook his head. “I couldn’t tell you. Never needed one.” Did they want to hire a maid? he wondered. “Thanks to Boney, I’ve always had plenty of employment.” He bade them good day and the best of the season, and retreated behind his paper again as Miss Partlow quietly shut the door.

  Two hours later, when Mrs. Brattle and the maid were serving his supper, he understood the enormity of his error. Mrs. Brattle had laid the table and set a generous slice of sirloin before him when she paused. “Do you know, Captain, I am uneasy about the Partlows. She asked me if I needed any help around the place.”

  Mystified, he shook his napkin into his lap. “That is odd. She asked me if I knew of an employment agency.”

  He sat a moment more in silence, staring down at the beef in front of him, brown and oozing pink juices. Shame turned him hot, and he put his napkin back on the table. “Mrs. Brattle, I think it entirely possible that the Partlows haven’t a sixpence to scratch with.”

  She nodded, her eyes troubled. “She’ll never find work here so close to Christmas. Captain Lynch, Portsmouth may be my home, but it’s not a place that I would advise a young woman to look for work.”

  He could only agree. With a speed that surprised him, considering how slowly he had dragged himself to the rooming house only yesterday, he soon found himself on the street, looking for the Partlows and hoping deep in his heart that their dead uncle would forgive his captain’s stupidity. He stopped at the Spithead long enough to tell his brother officers that they would have to find another fourth to make up the whist table tonight and then began his excursion through town. It brought him no pleasure, and he berated himself for not being more aware—or even aware at all of the Partlows’ difficulties. Am I so dense? he asked himself, and he knew the answer.