Matelots

by W. A. Hoffman

“I did not expect to see you so soon,” Theodore said as he joined us in the yard.

  “Well, we have much to attend to if there is ever to be hope of setting things right,” I replied with a shrug.

  He sighed. “Aye, what would you have me do? Donoughy is only doing what he is…”

  I waved away his further words and asked, “Where do the Vines reside?”

  This brightened his demeanor considerably.

  “Truly?” he asked. “Well, Sir Christopher has two plantations in Clarendon, and a house and warehouse in town on High Street.”

  “That’s lovely; where would we find Miss Vines? I have no interest in her father at this time, unless you feel he need be wooed also.”

  “Nay, he will be delighted to have you pay his daughter a call.” He frowned in thought. “There is a soiree of sorts at the Bennets’ tomorrow evening. I suppose…”

  “Nay. I wish for Gaston to meet her in private. Then we will decide if she is even a consideration. If she is, then any courting will be direct, and due to the lack of time we possess, hastily done. I see no need for social gatherings. Would she be in town, or should we go and fetch our horses again?”

  Theodore was chuckling. “She may be in town. The ships will be arriving soon. Many of the wives and daughters come to town to greet them, in the hope of being the first to buy whatever finery they might carry. Their residence door is well marked on High Street. Will you go now, as you are thus attired?”

  “I do not see why not,” I said. “They already know my title. And they know me to be a buccaneer.”

  He shrugged. “If you reach the point in the matter where it is necessary to approach her father, I would suggest you dress properly, and go alone.”

  “I understand,” I sighed. “But in dealing with the lady, we are a pair.”

  He smiled and nodded his acquiescence.

  The Vines’ town house was indeed marked nicely with a carved plaque. It was a dwelling every bit as large as the one Theodore now owned.

  I knocked, and a diminutive maid answered. She curtsied properly at my title, and hurried off to announce us with a well-enunciated, “Aye, my Lord”. I doubted she was a bondswoman.

  We waited in the small, dark entry hall. Gaston’s arms were crossed, and he appeared exceedingly ill-at-ease. I felt little better, though I was at least used to meeting young ladies.

  “We could run now,” I offered. “The door is not locked.”

  “Non, let us get this behind us,” he said.

  “If you do not find favor with her, it is no matter. We can look at the other two Theodore mentioned.”

  He snorted. “You found favor with her before.”

  I bit my lip. “Oui, and… that is the cause of my concern.”

  “How so?”

  I shrugged. “I do not wish for you to view her as an opponent.”

  He shook his head. Though my eyes were becoming accustomed to the dim light, I still could not accurately gauge his expression.

  The maid returned. “If you will follow me, sirs.”

  “Trust me, and I will trust you,” Gaston hissed in French.

  “I love you,” I murmured.

  We followed the small woman down the hall to the back of the house and out to a lovely garden. Apparently Sir Christopher owned the lot all the way to Queen Street. The garden was nestled between the warehouse on Queen and the house on High. Heavily laden trellises obscured the view of the cookhouse and the surrounding yards. It smelled headily of all manner of blooms. Miss Vines and another girl awaited us on benches in a gazebo at the center of this pocket of Eden.

  Miss Vines was everything I remembered: golden hair, blue eyes, pert features, long limbs, and a svelte figure. Her dress was a yellow as vivid as the blooms around her, with sprays of white lace. She was a vision of loveliness formed by Diana and polished by Venus, made all the more enticing in that I knew her to be blessed by Athena as well.

  She was perched on the edge of her seat, watching our arrival. She sprang to her feet as I entered the gazebo. She appeared truly delighted to see us.

  “Lord Marsdale, what a surprise,” she said in greeting and curtsied.

  “Miss Vines, I hope it is a pleasant one,” I said as I bowed and kissed her offered hand.

  Her gaze shifted to Gaston, and perplexity tightened her features. I turned to look. He was standing on the step to the gazebo, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, his gaze affixed to Miss Vines as if she were an angel suddenly appearing from on high.

  Amusement won over embarrassment in my heart. It was no affront to me that he should react to her so. I should have expected it.

  “Allow me to present my matelot, Gaston Sable,” I said with a smile. “Please excuse him. He has not met a lady the likes of you before. And that is more literal truth than figurative flattery.”

  She smiled with bemusement behind long fingers. “I understand. Truly. As I believe we once discussed, I receive that often here on Jamaica. And sadly for the men about, the admitting of it is not hubris on my part.”

  She indicated the bench beside her. “Allow me to introduce my dear friend, Agnes.”

  I had forgotten the other girl was present. She stood awkwardly, which I suppose could not be helped: she appeared to be all bony limbs. Her auburn hair was pulled back into a waist-length braid that only served to accentuate her slim shoulders, long neck, and sharp nose and chin. A simple brown dress did little to reveal whatever figure she might have possessed. The girl’s only truly pleasing feature appeared to be her large grey eyes. I judged her to be more girl than woman, barely past her adolescence, as she apparently had no need of stays to support her bosom.

  She sketched a less than graceful curtsy, and seemed poignantly aware of the image she presented. I bowed politely.

  “My Lord,” she mumbled, and sat abruptly.

  “Agnes is… shy,” Miss Vines said quickly.

  Gaston had closed his mouth. His eyes found mine. I saw helpless desperation.

  “It appears we will have to carry the conversation,” I told Miss Vines.

  She smiled and turned to sit. Then she showed a deftness of social grace which demonstrated her training to attend a court. She gracefully retrieved her fan from the bench on which she had been seated, and crossed the space to sit next to Agnes, leaving her original seat free for Gaston and me.

  I sat. My beauty-addled matelot made his way carefully into the gazebo, as if he were crawling into a lion’s cage. He sat heavily beside me, with evident relief.

  “Would you like some tea?” Miss Vines asked.

  She indicated a delicate lidded ewer and several diminutive cups on the table between us. I had to remember where I had seen their like before. The substance was a concoction of leaves from the orient, steeped in boiled water. It, and the delicate porcelain used to serve it – which hailed from some nation of the Far East called China – were all the fashion in certain cities. I had heard it called several names, including chy or chey. I supposed tea was an English version of the name. I had thought the drink quite bitter. I was pleased to see that Miss Vines had a bowl of sugar available to mitigate that.

  She poured each of us a cup, and I indicated that she should add a good deal of sugar to ours. I did not think Gaston would take anything from her directly, so I passed him one of the cups and took the second. I smelled mine; it possessed a pleasant and exotic odor, much better than I remembered.

  He sniffed the liquid suspiciously.

  “It is just an infusion of leaves,” I assured him in French. “I do not believe it is medicinal.”

  “I have heard of some variations that are,” Miss Vines said in flawless French. “I have heard of medicinal infusions, such as chamomile, being added to the tea leaves. This blend contains vanilla.”

  At the discovery that she spoke French, Gaston’s eyes went wide again, and I worried for the delicate cup he held. Even if he did not break it, I thought it likely he might slosh the contents. I was pleased he was not drinking yet. />
  “Do you…?” Miss Vines began to ask Gaston.

  He dropped his eyes to his cup.

  She addressed me. “Does Gaston speak English?” she asked in English.

  “Aye, as fluently as you speak French,” I replied. “And Miss Agnes, does she speak French?”

  “Nay,” she said.

  Agnes seemed no more prone to meet my gaze than my matelot was prone to meet our hostess’.

  “Then we will, of course, confine ourselves to English,” I said.

  This, of course, did not answer the unspoken question of what we would speak about. I could see our hostess was quite curious as to the reason for our sudden visit.

  “So,” Miss Vines said brightly, “it has been nearly half a year since last we met. What have you been about?”

  “Ah, well, we have not been shipwrecked again.”

  I told them the edited version of our last adventures. This topic relaxed Gaston enough for him to drink his tea. Agnes listened raptly, but she fidgeted constantly: twining her long fingers together over and over again in a manner I found mesmerizing. I was oft forced to pull my eyes from the poor girl’s lap, for fear my gaze would be interpreted inappropriately.

  “So you are a surgeon?” Miss Vines asked Gaston when I reached the part where Dickey was wounded.

  He cleared his throat. “I am trained as a physician.”

  They were the first words he had spoken since our arrival in the garden, and I was relieved to hear them.

  “How wonderful for you,” Miss Vines said.

  Silence fell upon us.

  I dove into it. “Gaston has surely been the reason for my survival here. He has several theories concerning… water, and the prevention and curing of the flux.”

  I looked to him, and found he had no intention of speaking.

  I suppressed a sigh. “While residing in a monastery in his youth…”

  “Excuse me,” Miss Vines said. “You were a monk?”

  “Nay,” Gaston said quietly. “I planned to become one, but circumstances occurred that brought me here before I could join the order.”

  “I see,” she said.

  Her gaze met mine, and I could see that she now understood my earlier comment about his not having seen any women like her.

  “So,” she said, “you learned a cure for the flux at a monastery?”

  “Nay,” Gaston said with a touch more confidence. “I learned the cure from a Moorish-trained physician. At the monastery I observed water through a lens ground to provide magnification, thus I learned that most water has many small creatures swimming about in it. I do not know if they cause illness, but I do know that drinking water that has been boiled does not.”

  “Truly?” Miss Vines asked. “It is a fine thing I am drinking a great deal of this tea then. The water here has always smelled foul to me.”

  “Wh-wh-what… do they look like?” Agnes stammered.

  “Aye,” Miss Vines intoned enthusiastically. “If we had one of those lenses, Agnes could draw them. She is quite the accomplished illustrator of flora and fauna.” She turned to Agnes and implored, “Show them, dear.”

  Agnes appeared as if she would rather crawl under the bench and away. She grabbed a battered sketch book from behind her back and clutched it to her belly.

  “Please, Agnes,” Miss Vines cajoled. “These are educated gentlemen. They have seen art. They will appreciate yours.”

  At last the girl stood abruptly. She thrust the book at me with a defiant jut to her chin.

  I accepted it gingerly, and vowed I would say something nice no matter what the volume contained. As soon as I saw the first page, I realized I would not be forced to lie. She was truly talented. Most of the pages were filled with delicate charcoal sketches of birds. She had mastered perspective and proportion. Her detail, shading, and texture all illustrated nuances of the feather pattern of her subject or the bark of the tree it perched upon. Many of the drawings implied movement.

  Gaston reverently sat his cup down and pulled the book toward him, so that it rested between us. We went through it page by page. Some of the earlier work had been done on her voyage here. There were gulls, pelicans, porpoises, and even sharks. There were illustrations of the sails and rigging. Most of the rest involved the local flora and fauna of Jamaica. The recent pages all contained sketches of Miss Vines, though: beautiful pieces of portraiture.

  When we reached those, Agnes was suddenly upon us. We allowed the flushed girl to close the book and take it.

  “Agnes, you are truly remarkably talented and skilled,” I said.

  Her eyes filled with tears and she bobbed her head in gratitude.

  “You possess the skill to produce informative medical and nature illustrations,” Gaston added. “Where did you learn?”

  “My father,” she said sadly. “He had a talent. He went to university.”

  “What became of him?” I asked gently.

  “He died of the plague,” she said. “Mother remarried and we came here with her new husband last year. Then she died… of the flux, last month.”

  “Agnes’ stepfather has no use for a talented daughter,” Miss Vines said coldly. “She must hide her sketchbook and charcoals here.”

  I winced sympathetically for both the deaths and the girl’s current circumstances.

  “I would like to see those creatures in the water,” Agnes said with determination.

  “Perhaps we can order lenses,” I offered.

  Gaston nodded. “It could be done. I would like a telescope.”

  “Oh, aye,” Miss Vines intoned.

  “I suppose we can see what can be ordered before we sail,” I said.

  “You are sailing soon?” Miss Vines asked.

  “Aye, before the Twelveday.”

  Miss Vines slumped dejectedly. “Well, you must spend more time with us before you go.”

  “We would like that,” I said.

  It was getting late, and I had seen the maid and another woman eyeing us from the house.

  “May we call on you tomorrow?” I asked.

  Miss Vines gave me a devilish grin. “If you do not, we will be forced to take to the streets to track you down.”

  I returned her grin. “Then I suppose we have no other recourse.”

  We made our farewells and slipped into the street by way of the passage between her house and the next. Gaston was silent and would not look at me.

  “Well, is she suitable?” I asked, once we were several houses down the street.

  He scowled at the rutted road before him. “Oui.”

  “Should we call on her tomorrow?”

  “Oui,” he breathed.

  “Will she be an opponent? Because if so…”

  He cut me off with a disparaging snort and a glare. “Will, she is a formidable opponent!” His gaze softened and he searched my face. “She is… intelligent. Educated. Beautiful…” He shook his head. “I know you favor me because I am a man, but I truly cannot understand it.”

  My gut roiled and the beast there tore at my heart. She was indeed a formidable opponent, but she was mine, not his. I was such the damn fool.

  “I do not favor you merely because you are a man. I favor you over all others, because… you are you,” I said sadly.

  “If she were a man, you would still choose me?” he asked earnestly.

  “Oui.”

  “And you truly wish to touch me, more than her?”

  “Oui.”

  “You humble me,” he said, and studied the street in thought.

  Doucette’s question, as to whether I would release Gaston if he ever found a proper woman, returned to me. I felt driven by some hideous urge toward self-castigation.

  “Would you rather touch her than me?” I asked.

  He recoiled as if slapped, and guilt sprang upon his face. He regarded me with beseeching eyes. I nodded with a sad smile. I had my answer. I had known it before I posed the question. There was a reason I had steadfastly avoided looking at his c
rotch while we sat in that gazebo.

  “I love you,” he implored.

  “I know,” I said. “I do. Truly. I do not blame you in the least. It is as it should be, is it not? You favor women, as the Gods most surely intended. She is beautiful. I am attracted to her, and I do not favor her sex so very much. That is to say, I would take her over many handsome men I have seen. Some of that is due to her intelligence and spirited demeanor, yet…”

  I was rambling on foolishly. He looked to be as close to tears as I.

  “I understand,” I said, and walked down the street.

  He fell in beside me, and his arm went around my shoulder. I did not stop walking, but I did not shrug him off either.

  “Will, we will find an ugly wife,” he said.

  I shook my head. “Would you want our puppies to issue from a dull and ugly woman neither of us found interest in?”

  “Non,” he breathed. “I will never be with her,” he said with more force. “Never.”

  I thought on it. That was not the answer.

  I stopped and turned to him. “Non. I would rather you bed her to your heart’s desire. That… we both did.”

  Images of the three of us frolicking, as I once had with Teresina and Alonso, came to mind. I smiled. “I would rather we shared her, and perhaps even shared a bed – the three of us – on occasion.”

  His eyes widened, so that I could well see him entertaining images similar to mine.

  “Truly?” he asked.

  “Truly.” I grinned as my cock stirred fitfully at my thoughts. “I would dearly love to be suspended in ecstasy between the two of you, with you in me while I am in her.”

  He took a long slow breath. I wanted to cup his crotch, but we were still on the street. I cast about and spied an alleyway, and quickly steered us into its twilight shadows. I pressed him into the wall behind a stack of barrels. He took my kisses passionately. He was indeed hard beneath my fingers. He gasped and clawed at my shoulders. And then suddenly, those fingers were around my wrist.

  “Non!” he hissed.

  Surprised, I stepped back. His eyes glittered with fury, the Horse’s fury.

  “Non, it will not have this,” he growled. “It is a traitorous organ. If it will have pleasure, it will be for you, and with you.”