Until the Sea Shall Give Up Her Dead

by Sean Thomas Russell

  Hayden nodded as she nestled into him again.

  ‘Will you send me away, then?’ she asked in a small voice.

  Hayden took a long deep breath and leapt. ‘Not if I can prevent it by any means short of a duel. But your brother will never consent to us marrying.’ There … it had been said. There was no other way to keep her near without compromising her honour, and he would not let her go. That much was clear to him.

  She pressed closer at these words. ‘Did I hear you ask for my hand, Captain Hayden?’

  ‘I must get down on one knee to ask for your hand, officially.’

  ‘Is that how it is done in England?’

  ‘Yes. Is it not so in Spain?’

  ‘In my country it is all arranged between families.’

  ‘I do not believe our families, such as they are, will agree, so we must find another way … Are you weeping?’

  ‘With happiness …’ She did then bury her face in his chest and wept silently a moment.

  ‘You should be back in your cot,’ Hayden said when she appeared to recover from this excess of emotion. ‘You have been up and about enough for one day.’

  Hayden aided her in every way and, not without considerable pain, she was settled again in her cot.

  ‘Do we need my brother’s consent, here?’ she asked. ‘I do not know the laws.’

  ‘Your brother’s consent …? I am not certain. You cannot marry without your parents’ consent until you are one and twenty. And you are but twenty, you tell me?’

  ‘Yes, until six months.’

  ‘I will investigate. There might be a Presbyterian church here, and the Scots are more lenient in these matters.’

  Hayden sat and held her hand awhile, talking of small things: the town, his meeting with the admiral. There was something odd about the meeting that he had not been able to comprehend until he began to speak of it aloud.

  ‘The Royalist who came in – this comte – he told me his family estates were in Burgundy, but his accent, though very faint, was not quite right. It was the way he said “dangereux”. I have only heard it pronounced so in the south – in parts of Languedoc.’

  ‘Why would he not tell the truth?’

  ‘Perhaps he is not who he claims, my dear.’

  ‘If that is so, then perhaps he is neither noble nor a Royalist,’ she said softly.

  ‘That is my fear, especially as he appeared to have the admiral’s complete trust.’ Hayden considered a moment. ‘Ask your brother his impression of this man; he sat and conversed with him in the antechamber for some time.’

  ‘The accent, you would know better than Miguel, but manners … We are both very familiar with the manners and attitudes of the French aristocrats, as so many fled to our country. I will ask him.’

  Angelita began then to nod and muttered an apology for this before she fell asleep. Hayden went to his table and began looking over his stores lists. The ship would need to be victualled and watered before she could go to sea, and he wanted to be ready the moment he received orders.

  However, even though he tried to fix his mind upon his stores lists it would not be so confined. He had entered into an understanding with a young Spanish woman he knew hardly at all. Had he gone mad? He did not feel the least mad but only a growing excitement and deepening affection. Her family, of course, would never approve. He was not certain his own mother would think it wise. But he felt so … at peace with her. He felt as though the sun had miraculously risen on a perpetual twilight and he was only now becoming aware that he had been living in near-darkness. It was the intimacy, the growing trust, the shared secrets that charmed him. Just the knowledge that she was sleeping nearby filled him with delight.

  Well, Hayden thought, I am not the first man to be a fool in love.

  When he had been at his paperwork an hour, Miguel returned, opening the door quietly.

  Hayden indicated, silently, that Angelita slept. Miguel nodded. It was an odd association that had grown up between the two men; they were utterly divided over the connection between Hayden and Angelita but united in their concern for her. This led to a strange and uncomfortable alliance, not so much of convenience as concern. Given that Miguel had informed Hayden several times that he wished to shoot him – and he meant this in its most literal sense – it seemed strange that they could cooperate in any way, but, when it came to Angelita’s recuperation, they did.

  Hayden forced himself to attend to his paperwork a little longer but then came to a decision and slipped out in search of Midshipman Lord Arthur Wickham, whom he found teaching spherical geometry to the cherub in the midshipman’s berth.

  ‘Mr Maxwell,’ Hayden addressed the new middy. ‘I need to have a word with Mr Wickham, if you please.’

  The midshipman retreated quickly, leaving captain and protégé alone.

  Wickham awaited whatever was to come with his usual uncanny focus.

  ‘Mr Wickham, I should like to send you ashore on an errand of some delicacy …’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘I wish to know if there is a Scots Presbyterian church or priest of that faith on this island.’

  ‘Certainly, sir,’ Wickham replied, without blinking. ‘When should I begin?’

  ‘Immediately, Wickham.’

  ‘Aye, sir. I shall go ashore this instant.’

  ‘And Wickham …?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Not a word of this to anyone. Anyone at all.’

  ‘You may count on my utter discretion, sir.’

  ‘That is why I have asked you.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Without another word or a single question, the young man hurried off.

  Hayden then went in search of Reverend Smosh, whom he found instructing the ship’s boys – a task he had taken on with great relish. Hayden thought that if there were any among them with the least academic inclination they would be prepared to go up to Oxford in but a few short years.

  ‘Mr Smosh, might I interrupt your dissertation for but a moment?’

  ‘Certainly, Captain,’ the chaplain replied, then turned to his students. ‘Read on – one paragraph each, aloud – then pass the book to the next.’

  Hayden and Smosh spent a moment finding a place to speak privately, and there the corpulent little minister stood, awaiting the captain’s pleasure.

  ‘Mr Smosh, I might have need of your services – to perform a marriage ceremony.’

  ‘Which service I should do most happily. Who, might I enquire, are the happy couple?’

  ‘Myself, Mr Smosh, and Doña Angelita.’

  Smosh hid any surprise he might have felt. ‘Ah. Is it possible, Captain, given this young lady’s nationality, that Doña Angelita is a member of the Church of Rome?’

  ‘She is prepared to become a member of the Church of England.’

  ‘Which of course is not something that can be accomplished overnight. Is there any reason to hasten such a union?’

  ‘Not the usual reason but, in this case, a disapproving brother.’

  ‘I see. So she would have to become a member of our church in some haste?’

  ‘Mere minutes, I suspect.’

  ‘Ah … Well … I might enquire if she is a member of the Church of England and, if she were to answer in the affirmative, I would have no way of discovering if that were the truth or no.’

  Hayden nodded. Smosh was not given to making decisions by the book – any book.

  ‘Doña Angelita is of age?’ he then asked. ‘That is to say, one and twenty or older?’

  ‘I only have her word on this matter. Her brother, who opposes the marriage, would likely claim she was not.’

  ‘I believe in this case that I would accept the lady’s word if my captain were to assure me it were true.’

  ‘She is one and twenty, I am quite certain. Do we require a licence?’

  ‘I can provide the licence. When would these nuptials take place, if I may ask?’

  ‘Soon, but I must get her brother as
hore first.’

  Smosh nodded, and looked down at the deck a moment. ‘I wonder if this gentleman’s propensity to drink himself senseless might provide an opportunity?’

  ‘Reverend Smosh, whatever are you suggesting?’

  ‘It is merely an observation, Captain, that in the brief time he has been aboard this Spanish gentleman has drunk himself into a stupor on more than one occasion. I suspect a man of such dissolute habits might find himself in a similar state again, given half an opportunity. If he were to fall into properly convivial company …’ His eyes lost focus and he appeared to consider. ‘A certain officer of marines comes to mind …’ The priest shrugged his heavy shoulders.

  Hayden thanked the priest and went in search of Hawthorne.

  ‘I thought you would be ashore, Mr Hawthorne,’ Hayden said, when he found the marine officer in the gunroom with a disassembled pistol lock laid out on a square of linen.

  ‘I have been ashore and plan to return there on the morrow, if my captain will give me leave.’

  ‘I believe he might be prevailed upon to allow that.’ Hayden made a gesture to the cabins that lined both sides of the gunroom.

  ‘We are alone,’ Hawthorne informed him.

  Hayden took a seat and leaned over the table to speak quietly.

  ‘I wonder if it might be possible to get Don Miguel senseless with drink this evening?’

  ‘I wonder if it is possible to stop him, given that wine is provided; the man has not a sou to his name.’ Hawthorne regarded his commander. ‘Does the reason for this proposed drunkenness involve a young lady?’

  ‘Indeed. Smosh would marry Doña Angelita and myself, but her brother will not allow it.’

  ‘Ah. It is likely not my place to question my captain, but is this a somewhat precipitous marriage?’

  ‘Entirely … and I do not care. Neither does she.’

  Hawthorne nodded, his face very serious. He considered only a moment. ‘I might have need of involving others. Mr Archer, Barthe, perhaps Wickham … Ransome, possibly.’

  ‘Involve who you will, but word must not reach Miguel or our opportunity will be lost.’

  ‘I shall exercise all care. We must have a supper in the gunroom to celebrate our successful crossing – an ancient tradition of His Majesty’s Navy.’

  ‘Ancient traditions are to be upheld at all costs.’

  ‘I agree. Leave this matter to me, Captain. Give it not another thought.’

  Hayden rose to his feet. ‘Mr Hawthorne, were it within my power, I would make you captain of marines.’

  ‘If it were within my power, sir, I should make you Admiral of the Blue. But only because I have grown rather tired of red.’ He glanced at his coat.

  Both men laughed, and it was not at their wit.

  In a few moments Hayden was pacing back and forth across the quarterdeck by the transom, his excitement barely contained. Was he really about to marry? That very evening? Given how long he had known the prospective bride, he thought he should feel some trepidation, some doubts. He felt neither. And that seemed almost as remarkable as the fact that he was about to become a husband.

  Henrietta came to mind at that moment. Was this headlong rush into matrimony a result of his failed suit for Henrietta Carthew? Had he hesitated because he had doubts about marriage to Henrietta, as his friend Robert Hertle always believed? Or had he shown wisdom then and was acting the fool now? He did not know. He was not about to let Angelita escape. He knew, somehow, that he would regret it the rest of his days if he did so. The rest of his days.

  ‘As I regret the loss of Henrietta,’ he whispered, as he stopped to look over the side. ‘I shall not make the same mistake a second time.’

  Miguel accepted the gunroom’s invitation, though Angelita deemed herself not recovered enough to attend. The gunroom’s occupants were all present, as were Hayden and the senior midshipmen. It was a convivial atmosphere, though close, with only a little breath of air whispering down the gunroom skylight, which was itself under the cover of the quarterdeck.

  ‘A toast to our crossing, gentlemen,’ Mr Hawthorne proposed, holding aloft his claret glass. The marine was sitting next to Miguel and had taken on the duty of keeping the Spaniard’s glass fully charged.

  The toast was drunk, and it was not the first. The King’s health had been toasted earlier, sitting, as was the custom in the gunroom, with its low deck-head. The health of wives and sweethearts had been drunk to, with only a few half-hidden smiles showing. The successful passing through the gale was toasted, as was Miguel and his sister’s miraculous survival.

  ‘We have not drunk to the health of our steadfast ally, the King of Spain,’ Barthe offered.

  That ruler’s health was toasted. And then that of his Queen.

  However, despite these quantities of claret, Miguel seemed terribly and inconveniently sober, as though he had sworn that very day to curb his drunkenness. Hayden was of the opinion that several of his officers were further into their cups than the Spaniard.

  Griffiths glanced his way and made a small shrug with his narrow shoulders. He rose to stoop beneath the beams. ‘I beg your indulgence, gentlemen, but I must take advantage of this momentary pause between courses to look in briefly on a patient.’ The doctor stooped out, leaving the chair to one side of Miguel empty.

  The atmosphere in the gunroom was certainly jolly, as Hayden had hoped, but it seemed to him to have a forced quality to it, an edge of anxiety, perhaps. He could not say whom Hawthorne had taken into his confidence, other than Barthe and Archer. Several others had concocted ‘toasts’ that would not normally have been heard in the gunroom, so perhaps his secret was concealed from no one present.

  The evening wore on, wine flowing with a liberality which, even safely at anchor, one seldom saw in the Themis’s gunroom – or perhaps any other gunroom. Miguel, however, was hardly more than mildly inebriated, and nowhere near drunk enough to pass into unconsciousness, as he had more than once since being discovered drifting in the Atlantic.

  Hayden’s emotions swung wildly from trepidation to almost unendurable excitement and then to worry that his marriage could not take place because Miguel remained stubbornly sober.

  The doctor returned, the next course served, glasses filled, conversation engaged in. A song was proposed and sung as the servants cleared away. Hayden noted the doctor filling Miguel’s glass, after which Griffiths nodded to Hayden, for what reason the captain could not say.

  Yet another course, after which Hayden thought Miguel looked distinctly groggy, his eyes fluttering closed and then snapping open. He slumped lower in his chair and, finally, if not for Hawthorne and the surgeon, would literally have slipped under the table.

  The doctor took the Spaniard’s pulse, nodded, apparently satisfied. He then pointed long fingers at Miguel’s glass. ‘This must be disposed of, and not drunk by anyone,’ he instructed.

  ‘I will see to that, Dr Griffiths,’ Wickham offered, taking up the glass with some care.

  ‘Whatever did you put in it?’ Hawthorne asked the surgeon.

  ‘A mild soporific. He will wake in the morning refreshed and without any ill feelings.’

  ‘Lest they be toward his new brother-in-law.’ The marine turned to Hayden. ‘How shall we proceed?’

  Hayden rose to his feet. ‘First I must up to my cabin to wake Angelita, if she sleeps, and then ask for her hand.’

  Hawthorne almost reeled back, and everyone else froze where they stood. ‘You have not asked for the maiden’s hand?’

  ‘Her brother was always hanging about.’

  Hawthorne glanced around at the others. ‘Well, what if her answer is no?’

  Hayden shrugged. ‘Then I suppose the wedding must be called off.’

  ‘My God, sir, I do hope you are confident of her answer.’ Barthe was as incredulous as Hawthorne.

  ‘Is one ever perfectly confident, Mr Barthe?’

  Barthe shrugged, lumbered into his cabin and quickly reappeared, bearing a package
wrapped in plain paper, which he proffered to Hayden. ‘In the event that she accepts you …’ he said.

  ‘What is it?’ Hayden asked, as he reached out to take the offering.

  ‘A dress. It was meant for one of my daughters, but I think she will give it up in this cause. If it is not a proper fit, tell me; I have daughters of all heights and proportions.’

  As Hayden began for the door, Hawthorne barred his way. The marine held out his hand, and upon his palm lay a plain gold ring.

  ‘Where did you find this?’

  ‘Some gold coins were donated – the blacksmith forged it on short notice.’

  Hayden could hardly believe what he was seeing.

  ‘You should keep it in your pocket, Mr Hawthorne. And thank you. Thank you all.’

  Up the ladder to the gundeck, past the marine and into his cabin. He deposited the package on a chair and found Angelita in her cot, reading by lamplight.

  ‘Captain Hayden!’ she said, as always delighted to see him appear. ‘But where is my brother?’

  ‘Asleep, and not likely to wake before morning. I have come to ask you a question, but I fear you must rise from your sick-bed to hear it.’

  She laid her book aside with such haste it almost tumbled to the cabin sole. ‘If you will steady my cot and give me your hand …’ Gingerly, but without hesitation, she swung her legs over the side and lowered herself to her feet. For a nightgown she wore one of Hayden’s shirts, with the sleeves severely reefed. It fell to her knees.

  ‘There, I am on my feet. What is this question?’ she asked, and looked suddenly as frightened as a child.

  Hayden took her hand and went down on one knee. Her other hand went to her mouth.

  Hayden took a calming breath. ‘Doña Angelita, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

  The tiniest little gasp, and then tears. A whispered, breathless, ‘Yes. Above all things, yes …’

  Hayden rose to his feet, and she favoured him with the sweetest kiss he had ever known.