Reckless Griselda

by Harriet Smart

  She wondered as she gingerly climbed onto the boat if he intended to come aboard that night. Manton had said that the intention was to catch the early tide so it seemed a strong possibility.

  It had begun to rain quite heavily and she decided to get below and shelter. There was a hatch ahead of her. Perhaps it led to the main cabin.

  She bent and unlatched it. She could see nothing – a pitch dark space. She felt inside and found a small flight of wooden stairs, almost as steep as a ladder, so she turned about and climbed in, hoping she might find a tinder box and a candle nearby.

  She had just reached the bottom when a gust of wind blew the hatch shut. She reached up and pushed at it. It had wedged shut. Unnerved, she began to search for a candle.

  She blundered about in the darkness, willing her eyes to become accustomed to the blackness. It smelled apalling in there, and the place seemd to be full of lumber. She had already bumped into a barrel and just avoided another.

  She stopped for a moment, now very angry with herself for getting into such a place and such a pass, and then, with a degree of unpreventable panic, she hastily resumed her fumbling search.

  But not for long. She stumbled over something, giving her injured ankle a violent wrench which made her exclaim in pain. She felt herself lurch forward, and then suddenly there was a huge crack as she collided against something large and very solid indeed.

  And then nothing but blackness.

  Chapter 27

  It was five o’clock in the morning, a dank, raw dawn, the sky as grey as a gun barrel. Wrapped in his greatcoat, Tom was standing on the deck of the Fair Lucia, scanning the waterfront, imagining she might appear from somewhere. He had stood there for some minutes on coming aboard, indulging in what he now knew was an idle, hopeless fancy.

  “I’m afraid we can’t wait any longer, sir,” Captain Marshall said. “The tide will be against us if we don’t sail within the hour.”

  “Very well,” said Tom, without enthusiasm.

  The Captain hurried off, shouting his orders. Tom went to the stern of the Fair Lucia, intending to watch London slip into the distance.

  In his greatcoat pocket he still had a letter which he had planned to hand to Andrew as he boarded. A thick letter full of impassioned explanation which he had intended Hannah to carry into the empty house in Brook Street and leave in her ladyship’s dressing room. Even as he had sat writing it in the book room, he had felt sure she would come back.

  But as the night had passed and he had set out for the Tower, his conviction had started to slip away, like the tide which must carry him out to sea.

  He took it out now, as the boat slipped from the moorings. They were bound for Ramsgate. He could post it then, but it was a vain hope that it might reach her.

  So he waited until they were fully away, and making good progress past the huge commercial docks that lay beyond the City, heading towards Greenwich. He held it for a moment or two longer, tapping it against his open palm before tossing it into the water.

  While it still lay in his sight he watched it: a small white square bobbing on the murky surface of the Thames. But it soon vanished entirely from view.

  ***

  She was rocking gently. Was she a child again, rocking in the old basket cradle at Glenmorval, hearing the soft voice of her nurse singing a lullaby: “Oh will you sew cushions, will you sew sheets? Will you sing baloo baleerie when the bairn greets?” She could not work out where or what she was.

  She ached all over, and her head felt worse than any other part of her body. She realised she was lying in a crumpled heap, like a bit of linen tossed onto the floor, her cheek squashed against rough bare boards.

  And there was a powerful stench of stale rum, tobacco and raw meat. That made her remember. It made her struggle to sit up, floundering as she did so, for her limbs felt as though they had been set with iron shackles.

  She was on the Fair Lucia. She was in the dark compartment of the hold she had unwisely ventured into the night before. And they had now set sail.

  There was a sliver of light coming from under a door but the gloom was still profound. Only slowly were her eyes able to make anything out. She felt dizzy and sick. How long had she been there?

  She realised she must have knocked herself out on something – most likely one of the large flitches of bacon which she could now see hanging from the ceiling. Last night they had been invisible. She pulled at the tangled ribbons that secured her bonnet and took it off. As she did, she could just make out that the broad brim had been crushed out of all recognition. She realised she was probably lucky not have been throttled by her own bonnet ribbons.

  She sighed with relief but wondered how to proceed. She felt a desperate desire to be sick – not because of the motion of the ship but because of the stale air and her throbbing head. She would try to get to the door.

  She felt like a new-born lamb trying to stand for the first time. The pitching movement of the Fair Lucia did not help. Gingerly, feeling for handholds amongst the barrels and boxes, she inched towards the strip of light coming through a hatch.

  Standing on the bottom rung of the ladder she gave the doors a vigorous push. They rattled but they did not come loose. They had been secured. She would have to batter and shout her way out to freedom. She began to knock loudly on the hatch doors.

  “Is there anyone there? Can anyone hear me? Hello! Can someone help me?”

  It did not take long. The doors swung open and she found herself facing an astonished sailor.

  “Captain!” he yelled out. “We got ourselves a bleedin’ stowaway!” The man leered unpleasantly at her. “And it’s a doxy!”

  Griselda scrambled up the last few steps of the ladder and out onto a deck that was slippery with rain. It was pouring down and the ship gave a lurch, so that she was forced to hold onto one of the doors to stop herself falling.

  And then she saw him: Tom Thorpe, standing with his back to her, looking out over the stern in his caped great coat and broad brimmed hat.

  Now she would get the explanation she wanted. Now she would force him to talk to her. She would bring him to account for that ungentlemanly show of cowardice.

  But as he turned at the sound of the disturbance, and she saw his face, as grey and low as the weather, she felt her heart cracking open.

  He began to make his way along the deck towards her.

  She looked down at the mangled bonnet she held in her hands, not wanting to see the reproach in his eyes.

  “It’s all right, Captain Marshall, I know the lady,” she heard him say. She looked up at him now. He looked grave and confused, but he at once put his hand out towards her. “Grizzy, are you all right?”

  She could not speak.

  “Here, take my arm,” he persisted. “Let’s go below to my quarters.”

  “I can manage,” she forced herself to say.

  “You are shaking like a leaf.”

  “I am just getting my sea legs, that is all.”

  “You are ill,” he said. “Oh God, what has happened to you?” He pressed his hands to her cheeks and then her forehead. “You have a fever.”

  “I… I…”

  “Shush,” he said. “Not a word more.” And he scooped her up into his arms. So tired and weak was she that she let him carry her.

  He sat her down on the broad comfortable bunk, making a heap of pillows for her to lean against.

  “When did you come aboard?” he said. “And why?”

  “Because – oh, I don’t know…” She rubbed her temples with her fingertips. “Oh, my head.”

  He reached into his dressing bag and fetched out a flask of eau de Cologne, with which he drenched his handkerchief. He folded it and pressed it to her forehead.

  “Close your eyes,” he said.

  It took a great effort not to cry then. She could only think of the pleasure his kindness brought, of how she loved each tiny tender gesture he now performed for her comfort. He unlaced her boots and gently took them o
ff. He mixed a tumbler of brandy and hot water for her and held it to her lips, so that she did not even have to make the effort of holding the glass.

  “There, are you more comfortable?” he said.

  She shook her head.

  “I shouldn’t be here,” she said.

  “I’m glad you are. You cannot believe how glad,” he said.

  “No, I cannot,” she managed to say with some defiance in her voice. “How can I when you are in the act of abandoning me?”

  “That is not what I intended. If you had bothered to come back home I would have been able to tell you what my intentions were,” he said. “I meant only to give you your freedom, to give you what you want. Is that not what you want, to be free of me? You despise me. How can you wish to remain my wife and how can I in all conscience keep you as my wife if that is the case? I should be little better than a turnkey at Newgate. I do not wish to be your gaoler, Grizzy.”

  Griselda looked away from him, feeling the heat of passion in his voice, feeling her eyes fill with tears.

  “I want only to make you happy,” he added after a moment.

  “Happy?” she said, still not daring to look back at him. “You wish me to be happy?”

  “More than anything in the world. And if that means letting you go, then so be it.”

  Griselda brushed the tears from her cheek and turned back to him, taking a deep breath. He was studying his knotted fingers as he spoke.

  “What matters,” he continued, “is that I do not stand in your way. That is the only thing that will make me happy – to know you are happy. And if you cannot be content with me, then I must remove myself. That is why I am going to Italy. It is as simple as that.”

  “Oh no, no, that is far too complicated!” she said, a sob choking her voice as she spoke. “It is quite, quite, unnecessary…” She reached out and touched the sleeve of his coat. He looked up then and their eyes met.

  “Unnecessary?” he said.

  “Utterly unnecessary,” she said. “Nothing would make me more unhappy. Oh, heavens, how I hate to admit this, when I have lied to you for so long!”

  “You have lied to me?” he said.

  “I have lied to myself and to you,” she said. “I have been so very stupid!”

  His arms were around her now and she did not resist.

  “You cannot mean…?”

  She nodded and looked up into his now hopeful eyes.

  “I do mean exactly that. I… I do love you. I love you for all your faults and I cannot reproach you any longer for them when I have been just as foolish and misguided and…” She pressed her forehead to his chest. “Just do not say you are going to leave me. Do not. I could never bear that!”

  “Oh, I have no intention of letting that happen,” he said, wrapping his arms around her even more tightly. “Never. Oh Grizzy, you have no conception of how loved you are, how entirely necessary you are to me. I should not have known how to bear it without you, but then I could not stand to see you so unhappy in my company. I had to give you the choice. A poor proof of my love, I know, but…”

  “No, not poor, not poor at all,” said Griselda, reaching up and cupping her hands about his face. “It was the dearest thing to do. Oh Tom, I have been so cruel to you. I have thrown your love back in your face so often. I could not believe in it, I suppose, because I could not believe in my own. Or maybe I was afraid.”

  “You are not afraid of anything,” he said, pushing his fingers through her hair.

  “Oh yes I was. I was afraid of something that I did not need to be afraid of. I was afraid of losing myself, but how could I? You would not let that happen. There is so much you did not do, that you could have done. I thought perhaps it was because you still loved Caroline, but I see now it was because you loved me, because you respected me! Oh, how stupid I have been! How can you ever forgive me?”

  She saw the corners of his mouth turn up into a twisted, curious smile.

  “I no more loved Caroline than I love the moon,” he said. “No. Not Caroline. That was not love. It was you, Grizzy, my reckless angel, you.” And he kissed her gently on the lips. “You are the woman I love. You are the person who has taught me what love is. And I thought that the one woman I wanted to share my life with could not abide to be near me. I began to see how I had trapped you in a loveless marriage. And the more I saw that, the more I knew how wrong it was and how selfish I was with my love. So I determined I would not be selfish – for your sake. ”

  “You are not selfish, Tom,” she said, reaching out to him, gripping him by the shoulders. “You are never selfish.”

  “I have been frequently. And you saw it and had the courage to tell me.” And he reached out and touched her cheek. “Dearest Grizzy, can it be true? Do you really love me?”

  “Yes,” she said and pressed her lips to his. “Yes. For ever and ever.” He folded his arms around her and bent his head on her shoulder. She could feel the joyous relief in his every muscle echoing her own. “And I’m sorry, for all the cruel things I said. How you can love me still, I don’t know.”

  “It’s remarkably easy,” he said, pressing his hands to her cheeks. “A perfect child of nature. Do you remember my saying that?”

  “Of course,” she said with a pleasant shiver, recalling how they had stood together under the dripping roof of the old Chapter House.

  “How is it,” he said, “that the most foolish thing we could ever do, has turned out to be the best thing we have ever done?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, reaching up and loosening his cravat. “All I know is that when I woke up and saw you sitting there with your sketchbook, I was lost. I’ve tried to deny it since then but I couldn’t. And I never will again, I promise you.”

  And she kissed him on the lips again, with such passion that they fell back onto the bed, locked together in a tangle of limbs.

  “You had better lock the door,” she murmured, kissing his neck.

  “Are you making an improper suggestion, Lady Thorpe?” he said, with a grin.

  “Well, you heard what the sailor said – he thinks I’m a doxy. I had better behave like one.”

  “You have no notion how a doxy behaves,” Tom said, laughing.

  “Then teach me, Tom. Teach me.”

  ***

  She woke in a delicious languor, his arms wrapped around him. But the pitching of the boat was more evident.

  Tom was sound asleep so she crept out of the bunk, and wrapping herself in his shabby crimson dressing gown, she went to look out of the porthole on the far side of the cabin. There was no sight of land.

  Tom stirred in his sleep. She did not want to disturb him. He looked so beautiful, lying there in a state of languid indifference, his gold-brown hair flowing back on the pillow. In white marble he would have made a splendid sleeping god, waiting for a goddess to deceive him. Griselda kissed him on the forehead and swore that she would never do that. Only if they were frank with one another could they keep their lives together as sweet and uncomplicated as this moment.

  She gathered up her clothes. It looked as if the rain had stopped. She wanted to go up on deck and relish the start of this great adventure.

  ***

  “Grizzy?” Tom blinked into wakefulness, conscious that the warm flesh that had been pressed against him had gone. For a moment he panicked, overwhelmed with a dark sense of loss, but then he saw her stays lying on the floor of the cabin.

  He got out of bed and dressed quickly, eager to follow her onto the deck.

  He found her standing in the stern of the boat, absorbed in the swirling patterns that the Fair Lucia left in her wake. He was amused to see that she was dressed in a pair of his breeches, one of his shirts and his favourite crimson dressing gown. He came and stood alongside her, putting an arm around her waist. She caught his hands in hers and pressed her body against him.

  “We’re making for Ramsgate, I believe,” he said, his chin on her shoulder. “We can go ashore then and make arrangements.”<
br />
  “Why?” she said. “Why would we want to go ashore?”

  “Because…” he broke off, catching her implication. “I see. Do you want to go to Naples? That is where Captain Marshall thinks he is going.”

  “Then we will go to Naples.”

  “But your luggage…?”

  She swivelled around in his arms and smiled at him.

  “I have everything I want here, Tom Thorpe. Everything.”

  ###