Whither Thou Goest (The Graham Saga Book 7)

by Anna Belfrage

  “The captain says it will blow over quickly.” Charlie came to stand on her other side.

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” Alex muttered, scowling at the sea.

  “He would know.” Matthew tried to sound encouraging.

  The water was a forbidding black, capped with angry white froth, the sky a compact mass of grey. Waves the size of the Althea rose and fell, at times slapping into the sloop with such force the timbers creaked in protest.

  “How long do you think you’d survive in that?” she asked.

  “Not long at all,” Matthew answered, and took a firmer hold of her.

  “They say it’s a good death. To drown is apparently quite pleasant.”

  “How can anyone know that?” Matthew asked, irritated with her for this very morbid turn of conversation.

  “They talk to people who nearly drowned, but I don’t want to drown.”

  “Me neither,” Matthew said, “and nor does our captain.”

  *

  The storm passed just as quickly as Captain Jan had predicted, and Alex found herself looking down at water the colour of storybook seas: a light greenish blue that was transparent all the way to the sandy bottom.

  “We’ll run aground!” she said, and Matthew made an exasperated sound, pointing to where one of the seamen was reeling in the lode line.

  “Well over ten fathoms,” the sailor called out.

  “Sixty feet? It looks much closer.” Alex leaned over the railing the better to see. The water teemed with life: schools of fish, huge, nasty-looking jellyfish, and, suddenly, a swift dark shape that ploughed through the water.

  “Where are we?” Matthew asked Captain Jan who was staring out across the becalmed sea.

  Captain Jan squinted at the sun, brought out his quadrant, and stood for some moments deep in thought. “Just off Bermuda,” he concluded, “not too far off course.” He frowned at the surrounding waters. “I don’t like it: too close to the main route to Spain. We’d best hope for wind lest we suddenly find ourselves in the company of more Spanish ships.”

  “Here?” Alex looked about.

  “Ships are mostly found at sea,” the captain said with a little smile. He scanned the limp sails and sighed. “With this heat, in these shallow waters…” He shook his head. “It can at times cause hallucinations. No, best repair to the shade before our brains get cooked.” He flashed them some teeth, and hastened over to discuss something with his first mate.

  “He’s right, this whole place…” Alex waved her hand at the surreal blue of the water, flat and shimmering around them. “…I don’t like it. And it’s bloody hot, and all of me stinks, and it isn’t as if I can take a swim or something, is it?”

  “Absolutely not.” Matthew steered her in the direction of the little shade accorded by the sails.

  Very quickly, tempers frayed. Men played dice and fought each other, they played cards and quarrelled, they queued for water and came to blows, and it was fortunate that the captain had but to show himself for his men to calm down, loud invectives becoming mutters, punches becoming shoves.

  One of the most affected was Charlie. He sighed and groaned, he stood for hours in the sun, and stared up at the sails as if willing them to suddenly fill with winds. He drank too much beer, he picked constant arguments with Alex or Matthew, and spent more and more time on his own.

  “Like a truculent three-year-old,” Alex said to Matthew after yet another altercation with Charlie. She frowned over to where he was standing, very alone in the bow. “You don’t think he’ll do anything stupid?”

  “Like what? Leap into the sea?” Matthew gave his nephew an irritated glance. “At present, I wouldn’t much mind.”

  “Me neither. He could sleep with the fishes for all I care.” But she didn’t mean it, feeling mostly sorry for Charlie who seemed to be reliving far too many memories of his last two years. And all the time he fingered his brands, long fingers travelling up and down the S and the B through his shirt.

  David was entirely unaffected by the heat, and was therefore the best company available. Now, he crowed with pride, and landed yet another gleaming fat fish to the pile by his feet. “Snapper,” he said, “and the cook will fry them fresh for us tonight.”

  That sounded very nice, and Alex made appropriate enthusiastic sounds, studying her son. He had filled out over the last few months, the lanky boy replaced by a tall adolescent, arms and legs full of muscle.

  “Looking forward to coming home?” she asked, and he stiffened perceptibly. Alex swallowed back a sigh. Matthew would not countenance his son becoming a sailor – at least not until he had finished one more year of school – and David was as stubborn as his father, fully capable of taking matters in his own hands as he had proved by stowing himself away to begin with. “You’re too young to go to sea, and your father won’t allow it. You know that.”

  “I’m well over thirteen, and I don’t want to go back to school. Whatever for? It isn’t as if Da will be sending me to Boston to study, is it?”

  Alex didn’t like the envious tone in his voice. “Would you want to? You could live with Daniel for a while.” Their minister son would be more than happy to have his brother staying with him.

  David hitched his shoulders. “I don’t want to be a minister,” he said, and son and mother shared a little grin of relief. In Alex’s opinion, one man of God in the family was quite enough, and at times she had problems keeping a straight face when Matthew read Daniel’s letters out loud. To his credit, so did Matthew, commenting that young newly made ministers had a lot of edges to grind down.

  “So what then? Because I don’t believe you really want to spend your life on a boat either, do you?”

  “I’d like to be a lawyer.” He went on to explain how Uncle Simon had said he could clerk for him, and then he could go to Glasgow as Uncle Simon had done to study. “He says how he can set me up like,” David went on in a rush, “that he has friends in Glasgow for whom I can clerk while I study – it wouldn’t cost you much.” His eyes begged for her approval, and she leaned forward to cup his cheek.

  “It’s very far away,” she said.

  “Aye, I know that.”

  Alex smiled at him. “Go and tell your da. He’ll be thrilled to bits.”

  “You think?” David asked.

  Alex nodded adamantly and shoved him off in the direction of his father. It made her smile, to see her son and husband stand side by side, deep in conversation. It made her grin when Matthew whooped and clapped David on the back before enveloping him in a bear hug.

  “Da,” David protested, “I must get the fish to the cook.” Matthew released him, helped him pick up his spilled catch, and watched him out of sight before turning to smile at Alex. She gave him a thumbs-up and went back to studying the sea, fascinated by the teeming life below them.

  She wasn’t quite sure how it all happened. One moment, she was leaning over the railing, the next, she heard loud screams, and swivelled to see Charlie and Matthew locked in a fight. A knife. Charlie was holding a knife, and from where she was standing, it seemed Matthew had a grip on his wrist, trying to make him drop the blade. She frowned. Why was Charlie bare-chested? Her skirts were in her hands, feet moving rapidly towards them. Charlie shrieked, turned so that she could see his front. Blood, so much blood, and in a flash she understood what he’d been trying to do.

  “Stupid idiot!” She flew over the deck, worried that Charlie might somehow harm Matthew, because her gangly nephew was roaring with incoherent anger, attempting to wrest the knife free. Blood dripped from Charlie to spatter the deck, he was swaying on his feet, and still he fought, screaming at Matthew that it was his knife, his skin, and if he wanted to cut the damn brands out then it was not for Matthew to stop him.

  “It’ll kill you,” Matthew panted.

  “I don’t care!” Charlie yelled. “I want them gone!” He lunged, closed his hands round a belaying pin, and yanked it loose.

  “Charlie! Don’t!” Alex scr
eamed, but he didn’t hear her – or he didn’t care. The first blow caught Matthew in the arm. The second in his head – so hard Matthew staggered back, still holding on to Charlie’s right arm.

  “Let me go!” Charlie screeched, and the third blow hit Matthew full in the face. Matthew fell backwards, crashing into the railing. “Ha!” Charlie pulled his arm free and shoved his uncle to fall into the sea.

  Matthew landed with a splash.

  “Matthew!” Alex hung over the railing. Arms and legs moved feebly, he turned a bemused face upwards before he sank.

  “No! Matthew, no!” Wildly, she looked about for help, and there was Captain Jan running towards her. “Here!” She handed him the end of a rope, and threw the rest of the rope coil and herself overboard.

  She sank like a stone, and the water was deliciously cool, and strangely luminescent, and she couldn’t see Matthew. Nowhere was Matthew, and she swam as gracelessly as a floundering dog, hampered by her skirts, and then she saw the white of his shirt, and she dived to where he floated several feet underwater. His hands were splayed like starfish, his shirt billowed elegantly around him, a human stingray flapping his way towards the bottom.

  She grabbed for his wrist, and he slid through her grasp. She thought her lungs would burst. She grabbed again, and the rope she held in her hand slipped away from her. She screamed in the water, bubbles spurting from her nose and mouth, and Matthew seemed to hear, turning slowly in her direction. She got hold of his shirt, she kicked towards the surface, and there, thank heavens, was the rope, and somehow she got hold of it. Someone pulled on the rope, and Alex gripped her husband hard, crying underwater.

  She gulped down air when they broke the surface, and Matthew hung limp in her arms, water streaming out of nose and mouth. Othello swam circles around them, Captain Jan came splashing towards them, and together they managed to tie the rope around Matthew. At the captain’s command, Matthew was hoisted into the air, as lifeless as a sack of barley.

  “Oh God,” Alex sobbed. “Please, God, no!” Yet another rope snaked down, and moments later, she was back on board.

  Alex barely touched deck before she threw herself over him. She breathed into his mouth, she forced air into his lungs, and in between she did CPR, grunting with the effort of making his ribs and heart move. At last, he coughed, coughed again, drawing in a rasping breath of air that made him spew up masses of sea water. Alex helped him sit, and his eyes stared at her without any recognition.

  “Matthew?” She had to touch him, cradling his bruised head, running fingers down his neck to feel the reassuring thud of his pulse. “Matthew?”

  He closed his eyes with exaggerated slowness, and after what seemed to Alex an interminable amount of time, opened them again to look at her. “Alex?” He sounded very confused.

  “Let’s get him inside,” Captain Jan said.

  The captain helped her get Matthew out of his sodden clothes and into his berth, and left, assuring her he’d be close should she need it. Matthew’s eyes were glued to her but unfocused, staring straight through her. His hand, however, was tightly braided round hers, and suddenly a shudder ran through him, and his eyes returned to normal. With a strangled sound, he curled together, still holding on to her hand.

  Alex slumped on the floor beside him, shivering in her damp clothes, but she wasn’t about to let him go. One-handed, she managed to strip off her skirts and undo her bodice. She crawled into his berth, and somehow they made room for each other.

  She woke with a crick in her neck, pins and needles up her left leg, and a tongue that was like sandpaper in her mouth. Some idiot was shining her in the face with a torch, and it was only after a couple of minutes that she realised it was afternoon sunlight, streaming in through the porthole. She disentangled herself, and landed with a painful thump on the floor. Matthew made the most of her sudden disappearance from the berth, grunting in his sleep as he shifted to lie more comfortably. She had to drink and then she had to pee…no, she had to pee first, and blearily she hunted around for the chamber pot. It all came back to her as she crouched over it, and she bit back a sob. He had almost drowned – and it was all Charlie’s fault.

  “He wasn’t himself,” Matthew said without opening his eyes. “He was drunk.”

  “He hit you! He shoved you off the ship!” Alex closed her eyes at the memory, at all the blood on Charlie’s chest.

  “He…” With a muttered curse, Matthew rolled over on his side, fingers flying to his swollen face, his head. “He was out of his mind. This heat, too much beer, and, on top of it, the pain.”

  “Self-inflicted,” Alex said, finding it very difficult to feel any compassion whatsoever for Charlie.

  “Aye. But all the same…” Matthew moved his head this way and that. “He’ll need you.”

  “No way!”

  “He’s gouged a sizeable hole in his chest. You need to sew it.” He extended his right arm, looked at his hand and flexed it a couple of times. “I have no idea how he could do such.” To Alex’s huge irritation, there was an element of admiration in his voice. “It must take a lot of courage – or desperation.”

  “Or he’s just an incredibly stupid person,” Alex said, but promised she’d go and check on Charlie if Matthew promised to remain in bed until she returned.

  *

  She returned an hour later, sinking down to sit in her berth.

  “What was he thinking of?” she said. “And his aim was off, way off. Anyway, he sleeps – he’ll probably sleep well into tomorrow given how much laudanum the captain gave him.” She gave him a long look. “He could have died – idiot.”

  And Matthew heard it in her voice that it would take her a long time to forgive Charlie, however much she pitied him. Not that it surprised him, because this wife of his was as protective and ferocious as a lioness when it came to her own, and especially when it came to him. He smiled – somewhat crookedly. She had saved his life, and he shifted in his berth, had to feel his body move as he willed it. Such a strange sensation, to float downwards, helpless and bemused. He had vague recollections of bright green water, of light that reflected upwards from the sandy bottom, of fish – so many fish.

  “You could have died,” she said in a small voice, and came over to sit beside him. In the sunlight, she looked worn, the fine lines he generally never thought about clearly visible. Her hair was full of tangles, the skin under her wet eyes was puffy, and he could see she was making an effort not to cry. Never had she looked lovelier to him than she did right now, and he stretched out his hand to touch her cheek.

  “You know, don’t you?” he whispered. “You know that I would have died thinking of you – only of you.”

  “I know.” She smiled tremulously, and used both her hands to anchor his to her face.

  Chapter 40

  “I never thought the sight of Providence would make me so happy.” Alex regarded the tidal marshes that flowed by on both sides of the Althea. The tide was out, and on the mudflats flocks of terns gathered only to rise in a flapping white cloud when the ship sailed too close. The last two weeks had been relaxingly uneventful. No priests, no Spanish galleons, just a small ship making its way back home.

  “Aye,” Matthew said, drawing in deep breaths of the briny, cool October air. “It’s good to be back.”

  From the stern came Charlie, and with a muttered little curse, Matthew took off for their cabin, saying he had things to pack. Alex sighed. Since Matthew’s near drowning, Charlie had become a walking apology, a fawning red-haired shadow that drove Matthew – and Alex – to the brink of despair.

  Charlie followed his uncle out of sight with the sorrowful eyes of a hound, and came over to Alex. “He hates me.”

  God! Men, and in particular young men, had the most annoying tendency to wallow.

  “You know he doesn’t, if anyone’s pissed off at you, it’s me, not him.”

  “You hate me too.” He nodded morosely.

  “Charlie! Had Matthew died, I would personally have he
fted you overboard to end up as a shark’s dinner. But he didn’t, okay? So will you please stop moping before it drives me crazy enough to ram a knitting needle up your arse?” Charlie’s face set in a frown – in Alex’s opinion a major improvement on the last weeks of abject misery. “Grow up,” she said, and decided to do some last-minute packing of her own.

  There was no one to meet them, and Alex was disappointed, even if rationally she realised they wouldn’t know they were coming on this specific boat. But still, it was not much more than a ten-minute walk from the harbour to Julian’s house, and by the time the sloop was safely moored, the whole town would have known about the new arrival – and its passengers.

  Ruth looked more shocked than pleased when she opened the door – at least to begin with. Then she was in Matthew’s arms, in Alex’s arms, hugged David, and curtsied to Charlie who was staring openly at her. Well, not to wonder: the same dark red hair, light eyes, and a general similarity in features made them look like twins.

  “We could be siblings!” Charlie blurted, grinning at Ruth.

  “We could,” she said, “but we’re not – we’re cousins.” But she seemed as entranced as he was, eyes returning repeatedly to his eyes and his hair.

  Alex was led over to admire little Edward, fast asleep in his basket, and she wondered at her daughter’s interminable flow of words. Ruth never prattled. She was concise and to the point, witty and quick in her replies, but now she was gushing, exclaiming over how well Mama looked, and wasn’t that a right pretty bodice, had Mama bought it in the Indies, and why was Da’s hair so short, and was it true then, what they said that in the Indies, white lasses were always accompanied by slaves that held parasols over their head, and… Alex raised her hand to stop this torrent. Ruth fell quiet, her eyes sliding to the side, long fingers fidgeting with her apron.

  “What is it?” Alex asked at precisely the same time as Matthew turned to Julian and asked for Sarah.

  “How do you mean, gone?” Matthew towered over their son-in-law who, for all that he was a minister and an important man to boot, cringed.