by Carla Kelly
Christmas shoppers passed him, bearing packages wrapped in brown paper and twine. Sailors drunk and singing stumbled past. He thought he saw a press-gang on the prowl as well, and his blood chilled at the thought of Lieutenant Partlow’s little nephew nabbed and hauled aboard a frigate to serve at the king’s good pleasure. Granted he was young, but not too young to be a powder monkey. Not that, he thought as he turned up his collar and hurried on, stopping to peer into restaurant kitchens over the protestations of proprietors and cooks.
He didn’t even want to think about the brothels down on the waterfront where the women worked day and night on their backs when the fleet was in. She would never, he thought. Of course, who knew when they had even eaten last? He thought of the beef roast all for him and cursed himself again, his heart bleak.
When it was full dark and his cup of discouragement had long since run over, he spotted them on the fisherman’s wharf, seated close together on a crate. Their arms were around each other, and even as he realized how awful was their situation, he felt a tug of envy. There is not another soul in the world who would care if I dropped dead tomorrow, he thought, except possibly my landlady, and she’s been half expecting such an event all these years of war.
He heard a sound to his left and saw, to his dismay, a press-gang approaching, the ensign ready with his whistle and the bosun with a cudgel should Tom Partlow choose to resist impressment in the Royal Navy. As an ensign, Lynch had done his own press-gang duty, hating every minute of it and only getting through it by pretending that every hapless dockyard loiterer that he impressed was his brother.
“Hold on there,” he called to the ensign, who was putting his whistle to his lips. “The boy’s not for the fleet.”
At his words, the Partlows turned around. Sally leaped down from the packing crate and stood between her brother and the press-gang. Even in the gloom, he could see how white her face was, how fierce her eyes. There was something about the set of her jaw that told him she would never surrender Tom without a fight.
“Not this one,” Lynch said, biting off each word. He recognized the bosun from the Formidable, whose captain was even now playing whist at the Spithead.
To his irritation—he who was used to being obeyed—the young officer seemed not to regard him. “Stand aside,” the man shouted to Sally Partlow.
“No,” Sally said, and backed up.
Lynch put a firm hand on the ensign’s arm. “No.” The ensign stared at him and then looked at his bosun, who stood with cudgel lowered. “Topkins, as you were!” Lynch shouted.
The bosun shook his head. “Sorry, Captain Lynch!” he said. He turned to his ensign. “We made a mistake, sir.”
The ensign was almost apoplectic with rage. He tried to grab Lynch by the front of his cloak, but in a moment’s work, he was lying on the wharf, staring up.
“Touch me again, you pup, and I’ll break you right down to able seaman. This boy is not your prey. Help him up, Topkins, and wipe that smile off your ugly face.”
The bosun helped up his ensign, who flung off his assisting arm when he was on his feet. He took a good look at Lynch, blanched, and stammered his apologies.
“There’s those in the Formidable’s fo’castle who’d have paid to see that, Captain Lynch,” the bosun whispered. “Happy Christmas!”
Lynch stood where he was between the Partlows and the press-gang until the wharf was deserted again. “There now,” he said, more to himself than them. He turned around to see Sally still standing in front of her brother, shielding him. “They won’t return, Miss Partlow, but there may be others. You need to get yourselves off the streets.”
She shook her head, and he could see for the first time how really young she was. Her composure had deserted her, and he was embarrassed to have to witness a proud woman pawn her pride in front of practically a stranger. He was at her side in a moment.
“Will you forgive me for my misunderstanding of your situation?” he asked in a low voice, even though there was no one else around except Tom, who had tears on his face. Without a word, Lynch gave him his handkerchief. “You’re safe now, lad,” he said and looked at the boy’s sister again. “I do apologize, Miss Partlow.”
“You didn’t know because I didn’t say anything,” she told him, the words dragged out of her by pincers. “No need to apologize.”
“Perhaps not,” he agreed, “but I should have been beforehand enough not to have needed your situation spelled out for me.”
Tom handed back the handkerchief, and Lynch gave it to the boy’s sister. “But why were you sitting here on the dock?”
She dabbed at her eyes and then pointed to a faded sign reading FISH FOR SALE. “We thought perhaps in the morning we could find occupation,” she told him.
“So you were prepared to wait here all night?” he asked, failing to keep the shock from his voice, which only increased the young woman’s own embarrassment. “Have you no funds at all? When did you last eat?”
She looked away, biting her upper lip to keep the tears back, he was sure, and his insides writhed. “Never mind that,” he said briskly. “Come back with me now, and we can at least remedy one problem with a meal.” When she still hesitated, he picked up her valise and motioned to Tom. “Smartly now,” he ordered, not looking over his shoulder, but praying from somewhere inside him that never prayed, that the Partlows would follow.
The walk from the end of the dock to the street seemed the longest of his life, especially when he heard no footsteps behind him. He could have sunk to the earth in gratitude when he finally heard them—the boy’s quicker steps first, and then his sister’s accompanied by the womanly rustle of skirt and cloak.
His lodgings were blessedly warm. Mrs. Brattle was watching for him from the front window, which filled him with some relief. He knew he needed an ally in such a respectable female as his landlady. Upstairs in his lodgings she had cleared away his uneaten dinner, but it was replaced in short order by the entire roast of sirloin this time, potatoes, popovers that she knew he liked, and pounds of gravy.
Without even a glance at his sister, Tom Partlow sat down and was soon deeply involved in dinner. Mrs. Brattle watched. “When did the little boy eat last?” she asked in round tones.
Sally blushed. “I… I think it was the day before yesterday,” she admitted, not looking at either of them.
Mrs. Brattle let out a sigh of exasperation and prodded Sally Partlow closer to the table. “Then it has probably been another day beyond that for you, missy, if you are like most women. Fed him the last meal, didn’t you?”
Sally nodded. “Everything we owned was sold for debt. I thought we would have enough for coach fare and food, and we almost did.” Her voice was so low that Lynch could hardly hear her.
Bless Mrs. Brattle again, he decided. His landlady gave Sally a quick squeeze around the waist. “You almost did, dearie!” she declared, turning the young woman’s nearly palpable anguish into a victory of sorts. “Why don’t you sit yourself down—Captain, remember your manners and pull out her chair!—and have a go before your brother eats it all.”
She sat without protest and spread a napkin in her lap, tears escaping down her cheeks. Mrs. Brattle distracted herself by admonishing the maid to go for more potatoes, and hurry up about it, giving Sally a chance to draw herself together. The landlady frowned at Lynch until he tore his gaze from the lovely woman struggling with pride and took his own seat next to Tom. He astounded himself by keeping up what seemed to him like a veritable avalanche of inconsequential chatter with the boy and removed all attention from his sister until out of the corner of his eye, he saw her eating.
Having eaten, Tom Partlow struggled valiantly to stay awake while his sister finished. He left the table for the sofa, and in a minute was breathing quietly and evenly. Sally set down her fork, and Lynch wanted to put it back in her hand, but he did nothing, only watched her as she watched her brother. “’Tis hard to sleep on a mail coach,” she said in a low voice.
He didn’t know why it should matter so much to him, but he felt only unspeakable relief when she picked up her fork again. She ate all that was before her like a dutiful child but shook her head at a second helping of anything. Weariness had stamped itself upon all the lines of her body. She seemed to droop before his eyes, and he didn’t know what to do for her.
Mrs. Brattle came to his aid again. After the maid had taken the dishes down the stairs in a tub, his landlady sat next to Sally Partlow and took her by the hand. “Dearie, I have an extra room downstairs and you’re welcome to it tonight,” she said. “Tom will be fine right here on the captain’s sofa. Come along now.”
Sally Partlow looked at him, distress on her face now, along with exhaustion. “We didn’t mean to be so much trouble,” she said. “Truly we didn’t.”
She was pleading with him, and it pained him that he could offer her so little comfort. “I know you didn’t, Miss Partlow,” he assured her as Mrs. Brattle helped her to her feet. “Things happen, don’t they?”
It sounded so lame, but she nodded, apparently grateful for his ha’penny wisdom. “Surely I will think of something in the morning,” she told him and managed a smile. “I’m not usually at my wit’s end.”
“I don’t imagine you are,” he commented, intrigued by the way she seemed to dig deep within herself, even through her own weariness. It was a trait he had often admired in her uncle. “This will pass, too. If you have no objections, I’ll think on the matter myself. And don’t look so wary! Call it the Christmas present I cannot give your uncle.”
After she left, he removed Thomas’s shoes and covered the sleeping boy with a blanket, wondering all the while how someone could sleep so soundly. He sat by the boy, asking himself what David Partlow would have done with a niece and nephew thrust upon him. Tom could be bought a midshipman’s berth if there was money enough, but Sally? A husband was the obvious solution, but it would be difficult to procure one without a dowry.
He spent a long time staring into his shaving mirror the next morning. His Mediterranean tan had faded to a sallow color, and nothing that he knew, short of the guillotine, would have any effect on his premature wrinkles, caused by years of squinting at sun and sails and facing into the wind. And why should I ever worry, he considered as he scraped away at his face.
He had waked early as usual, always wondering if he had slept at all, and moved quietly about his room. When he came into his sitting room, Tom Partlow was still asleep. Lynch eased into a chair and gave himself over to the Partlows’ dilemma. He knew she could not afford to purchase a berth for Tom, and oddly, that was a relief to him. Life at sea is no life, laddie, he thought as he watched the boy. After all, you might end up like me, a man of a certain age with no more possessions than would fit in two smallish trunks and not a soul who cares whether I live or die.
But I did have a mother once, he reminded himself, so I did. The idea hit him, stuck, and grew. By the time Tom woke and Sally Partlow knocked on the door and opened it for Mrs. Brattle and breakfast, he had a plan. Like some he had fallen back upon during years of toil at sea, it had holes a-plenty and would never stand up to much scrutiny, but it was a beginning.
“Miss Partlow,” he announced over bacon and eggs, “I am taking you and Tom home to my mother’s house for Christmas.”
On his words, Mrs. Brattle performed an interesting juggling act with a teapot, recovering herself just before she dumped the contents all over the carpet. She stared at him, her eyes big in her face.
“We couldn’t possibly intrude on your holiday like that,” Sally Partlow said quietly, objecting as he had no doubt that she would.
Here I go, he thought. Why does this feel more dangerous than sailing close to a lee shore? “Miss Partlow, it is not in the nature of a suggestion. I have decided to visit my mother in Lincolnshire and would no more think of leaving you to the mercies of Portsmouth than, than… writing a letter of admiration to Napoleon, thanking him for keeping me employed for all these years!”
She opened her mouth to protest, but he trod on inexorably and felt himself on the firmer deck of command. “If you feel a burning desire to argue, I would not recommend it. I suspect that your uncle has funds on ’Change. Once the probate is done—and I will see that it is going forward—you should have funds to repay me, even with interest. Until that moment, I won’t hear of anything else.”
He returned to his eggs with what he hoped was the semblance of serenity. Miss Partlow blinked, favored him with a steady gaze, and then directed her attention to the egg before her. “Captain Lynch, I suppose we will be happy to accompany you to… where was it? Lincolnshire?” she murmured.
“Lincolnshire,” he said firmly. “Yes, indeed. Pass the bacon, would you please?”
They finished breakfast in silence. He knew that Mrs. Brattle was almost leaping about in her eagerness to have a word in private with him, so he directed Tom and Sally to make themselves useful by taking the dishes below stairs to the scullery. To his amusement, the Partlows seemed subdued by his plain speaking, a natural product of years of nautical command.
The door had scarcely closed behind them when Mrs. Brattle began. “I never knew you had a mother, Captain Lynch,” she declared.
He looked at her in mock horror. “Mrs. B, everyone has a mother. How, pray, do you think I got on the planet?”
His landlady was not about to be vanquished by his idle wit. “Captain, I am certain there are those of your crew who think you were born fully grown and stalking a quarterdeck! I am not numbered among them. I am not to be bamboozled. Captain, is this a good idea?”
“I don’t know,” he was honest enough to admit. “They have nowhere to go, and I have not visited my mother in twenty-two years.”
She gasped again and sat down. “You would take two perfect strangers to visit a lady you have not seen in twenty-two years? Captain…” She shook her head. “Only last week I was saying to my daughter that you are a most sensible, steady, and level-headed boarder, and wasn’t I the lucky woman!”
“Yes?” he asked, intrigued again that he would come to anyone’s notice. “Perhaps it is time for a change.”
“It’s been so long, sir,” Mrs. Brattle reminded him. “Twenty-two years! Is your mother still alive?”
“She was five years ago,” he told her. “I have kept in touch with the vicar, at least until he died five years past and my annual letter was returned.”
She looked at him with real sympathy. “A family falling out, then?”
“Yes, Mrs. Brattle, a falling out.”
And that is putting too kind a face upon it, he decided as he sat down after noon in the post chaise with the Partlows, and they started off, with a call to the horses and a crack of the coachman’s whip. Even after all these years—and there had been so many—he could not recall the occasion without a wince. It was more a declaration of war than a falling out.
“Captain?”
He looked up from the contemplation of his hands to see Sally Partlow watching him, a frown between her fine eyes. “What is it?” he asked, clipping off his words the way he always did aboard ship. As he regarded the dismay on her face, Michael regretted the sharpness of his inquiry.
“I… I didn’t mean any disrespect,” she stammered. “I just noticed that you looked… distressed,” she concluded, her voice trailing off. She made herself small in her corner of the chaise and drew her cloak more tightly about her.
“I am quite in command, Miss Partlow,” he replied, the brisk tone creeping in, even though he did not wish it this time.
She directed her attention to the scenery outside the window, which amounted to nothing more than dingy warehouses. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
And she did not intrude again, through the whole long afternoon. He heard her sniff once or twice and observed from the corner of his eye that she pressed her fingers against her nose several times; there were no tears that he could see. She put her arm about her brother with that same firm clasp he h
ad noticed yesterday. When Thomas drifted to sleep, secure in his sister’s embrace, she closed her eyes as well, with a sigh that went directly to his heart.
I have crushed her with my grudging generosity, he realized, and the revelation caused him such a pang that he longed to stride back and forth on his quarterdeck until he wore off his own irritation. But he was trapped in a post chaise, where he could only chafe and wonder how men on land ever survived such confinement. I suppose they slam doors, kick small objects, and snap at well-meaning people as I have done, he decided, his cup of contrition full.
He couldn’t think of a remedy except apology or explanation, and neither suited him. Thank goodness my father forced me to sea years ago, was the thought that consoled him. He found himself counting the days when he could be done with this obligation to the Partlows, which had forced him into a visit home that he knew he did not want.
The time passed somehow, and Sally Partlow was obliging enough to keep her eyes closed. Whether she slept, he had no idea. Darkness came even earlier than usual, thanks to the snow that began to fall as they drove north toward Lincolnshire. Inwardly he cursed the snow, because he knew he could not force the coachman to drive on through the night and end this uncomfortable journey. When after an hour of the slowest movement he saw lights ahead, he knew the driver would stop and insist that they spend the night.
The village was Firch, the shire Cambridge, one south of his own, but there was no budging the coachman, who looked so cold and bleak that Michael felt a sprinkling of sympathy settle on the crust of his irritation. It was an unfamiliar emotion; he almost didn’t recognize it.
“We have to stop here,” the coachman said, as Michael opened the carriage door. “No remedy for it, Captain.”
“Very well.” He joined the man outside the carriage, grateful for his boat cloak and boots. He noticed the other carriages in the yard, and made the wry observation that Christmas continued to be a challenge for innkeepers. “Can you find a place for yourself?” he asked the coachman.
