by Carla Kelly
“Hey, hey, missy. Whatever you’re asking, I’ll pay.”
“Here’s a handy close. What say we duck in for a fast one?”
“They must line up for you when the fleet’s in.”
Don’t look around, she ordered herself. Eyes forward and a prayer might be in order. The Lord might even bless you when you’re stupid.
She sighed with relief to see her house at the end of the street. She tried not to hear the footsteps coming closer. Maybe it was time to step livelier.
Meridee stopped in horror when an arm snaked around her waist and yanked her close. “I’m thinking you’d be good in bed.”
She grabbed the stick of rye bread, ready for battle. The man pulled her closer. Why did he have to be tall?
“Death by rye bread?”
She looked up, desperate, then gasped and swatted him anyway, breaking the loaf in half over her husband’s head.
Chapter Fourteen
“You are a scoundrel!” she declared, and swatted Able again for good measure.
“And you shouldn’t be out alone in Portsmouth,” he replied. Able leaned against the wall and laughed, which meant she had to hit him again with barely more than the heel of the loaf.
“I’ll summon the watch, miss!” she heard behind her. The baker lumbered in her direction, a baker’s peel in his hand. “Let me at him.”
“No, no, no!” she said, holding up her hands. “He’s my husband.”
The baker stopped and stared at him, then laughed. “I went into the street to watch you, lady,” he said, still trying to catch his breath. He brandished the peel at Able. “I’ll still thrash you if t’lady says I may. You shouldn’t be scaring your little wife like that.”
“On the contrary, yes I should,” Able said. “You wouldn’t want your wife out and about in Portsmouth, would you?”
“She outweighs me and has a fierce eye,” the baker said. “But this one …”
“… is mine, and I’ll see her home,” Able finished. “If she’s still speaking to me.”
The rye bread was a lost cause, so Meridee dropped the rest of it in the gutter. “Maybe in a year or two,” she muttered, which made the baker laugh. With a cheerful “G’nigh,” he disappeared into the gloom.
Able picked up the basket and crooked out his arm. Meridee made a little show of ignoring him, but not too much. She put her arm through his. “ ‘Good in bed,’ am I?” she whispered.
“The best,” he replied, his voice low, too. “Confirmed. Ratified. Acknowledged.”
Best to ignore the edgy feeling his words whispered low gave her. For heaven’s sake, she was on the street. “I’m sorry I went out,” she said. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” he agreed, but she heard no anger in his voice. “I was looking out my classroom window when you and the maid left, and I followed you.”
“You could have said something!” she declared.
“No. You were in no real danger, but maybe you needed to feel you were.” He inclined his head toward hers. “I watched the baker step into the street after you left his shop. He had your best interest at heart, too. What say we give him all our business?”
“Aye, mister,” she said, which made him hug her closer.
As they approached their house, he slowed down. “If you look through the gloom, you’ll see someone waiting on the front step for us. I already said a word to her as I went after you.”
“A cook?” she asked, squinting to see into the dark.
He turned to face her, his hands gentle on her shoulders. “You might not agree with me at first glance about our cook, but I know her, and I couldn’t be more pleased.”
She craned around for a look, and gulped to see a dark mound both massive and tall get to her feet. “I am already terrified,” she whispered.
“I am never going to be frightened for you in the wicked streets of Portsmouth. Mrs. Perry will slam to the ground any jolly tar or miscreant who so much as looks at you.”
As they came closer, the mound turned into precisely what her husband said she was, a most formidable woman.
“C-c-can she cook?” Meridee whispered.
“I neither know nor care,” he replied. “You are now officially safe as houses. I don’t give a rat’s ass what her food tastes like.”
Meridee stopped, unable to take her eyes from the woman still half a street-length away. She did notice that two men, sailors by their rolling gait, prudently crossed to the St. Brendan’s side of the street when they passed her. “Hmm. Well,” was the most intelligent thing she could think to say, which made her husband chuckle.
“Cat got your tongue?” he teased.
“I haven’t met her and I’m already afraid of her.”
“God’s wounds, I’m terrified of her, too.”
“You can’t be serious,” she replied, wondering where the bravest man she knew had suddenly vanished.
“Never more so, Meridee-licious,” he said. “Handsomely now, my love. Ship to starboard. Her name is Daisy Perry.”
And there she was, tall and black, blocking their path. To Meridee’s relief, she turned her attention first to Master Durable Six.
“I wondered if anyone in the known universe would ever marry you, Master Six,” she declared in round tones, by way of greeting. She whirled around to Meridee for a sudden appraisal. Meridee leaned closer to Able. “She’s pretty, too. Wants feeding up some, though. Bright as you?”
“No one’s as bright as me, Mrs. Perry,” Able said. Meridee could tell he was enjoying this exchange. “She is kind and my keeper.”
Mrs. Perry laughed and slapped Able’s back, which made him stagger. Meridee put her hand to her mouth to cover her own mirth.
Meridee looked closer, amazed to see a ring though the woman’s nose. The woman had a beautiful lilt to her voice. Where was she from, for goodness’ sake?
When he recovered his balance, Able held out his hand, wincing when she grabbed it and pulled him close to her mountainous breast. “Daisy Perry, reporting as your cook, Mistress Six,” she boomed out. “Introduce us properly, Master Six!”
“If you’ll release my hand before you cut off all circulation …” he said.
Daisy Perry—what an incongruous name—released him and performed a surprisingly graceful bow in Meridee’s direction. “Go on, laddie.”
“Meri, this is Mrs. Perry, the … wife—”
“Widow, alas.”
“I am sorry to hear such news,” Able said, and Meridee heard precisely that in his voice. “Your husband was the best carpenter’s mate in the fleet.”
“Aye, he was,” she said. “What’s done is done.”
“I was hoping to visit him soon, once we were settled,” Able said. “When?”
“Two months. I miss the little man,” she said quietly. She patted Able’s hand. “ ’Twas consumption what took him off, Master.”
Meridee remembered she was mistress of the house. “Heavens, look at us,” she scolded, but gently, because both her husband and the mountain of a woman were regarding each other with sadness in their eyes. “Come inside! I can’t be the only cold person.”
“You’ll have me, then?” Mrs. Perry asked, her question straightforward, without a barnacle on it.
Had I met you a few weeks ago, I’d have been terrified, Meridee thought. Not now. She gestured to Able. “Don’t just stand there, husband. Pick up Mrs. Perry’s duffel. Certainly we will have you.”
Head high, she opened the door and led the strange parade inside and down the hall to the kitchen. The Rumford itself deserved a grand gesture, so she gave a flourish with her hand. “Look at that bit of magnificence in this medieval building, Mrs. Perry! Did you ever?”
The Rumford was a substantial appliance, but her new cook towered over it. She nodded with approval.
“I’m no cook,” Meridee confessed. “Mr. Croker kindly loaned me one of his housemaids today. We cleaned, and she brought over this wonderful pot of so
up.”
She smiled at her husband, who seemed to be enjoying himself hugely. “Dearest, put Mrs. Perry’s duffel in that first room. I believe she is staying.”
Grinning, he tugged at an imaginary forelock. “Aye, miss, aye!”
Her heart full, Meridee watched the two of them go to the first little bedroom off the kitchen. She followed, pleased to see Mrs. Perry nodding her approval. The cook dwarfed the room. Meridee wondered if the wife of a ship’s carpenter knew another carpenter who could make her a longer bed.
“I’m afraid you’ll be a bit cramped until we can find you a longer bed,” Able said. “Maybe a wider one, too.”
Mrs. Perry took Able by the back of his uniform and gave him a little shake. “Broad in the beam, am I, Master Six?” she chided. “Teach this cheeky boy some manners, missy.”
“Aye, ma’am,” Meridee said promptly.
Able shook his head as though to clear it. “Meri, this redoubtable female sailed with us at Camperdown. She treated me like this all the time.”
“You probably deserved it, Durable Six,” Meridee teased back. “Mrs. Perry, will you join us for some … some lobster cow? I’ll serve ship’s biscuits, too. Rye bread would have been better, but I brained the master with it for sneaking up on me.”
Mrs. Perry roared with laughter. Meridee laughed again when the woman raised her hand to slap Able on the back, prompting her husband to move quickly out of her reach.
“Have I not one ally in this household?” he asked the world in general. “It’s lobscouse,” he said in an aside worthy of Shakespeare.
Mrs. Perry glowered at him. “Serves you right for sneaking up on a lady.”
“I was trying to teach my lady a lesson about traveling abroad in this wicked city without an escort,” he said.
“She has one now,” Mrs. Perry declared.
“I know,” he said quietly.
Supper took bare minutes to prepare. Meridee located plates, bowls and spoons, and Mrs. Perry went right to the Rumford to sniff suspiciously, then smile. “It’s edible,” she commented. “Hand me them bowls.”
She placed the filled bowls on the table, but stood by the Rumford, her bowl in her hand. “I’m comfortable here,” she said.
“You’ll sit with us,” Meridee said. “That’s an order.”
“ ’Tisn’t proper,” Mrs. Perry argued. “I’m your servant.”
This is what it comes to? Meridee asked herself. I can be as formidable as you. “This is my house and we will eat together, until we get everything sorted out.”
She said it quietly, spoon in hand but not dipping into her bowl until Mrs. Perry sat down.
She silently blessed her dear husband for starting a conversation to bridge the yawning chasm of servant and master sharing the same table. “Meri, let me tell you about that long, long day at Camperdown,” he said. “A biscuit, Mrs. Perry?”
She took one, waited a moment, then dipped the biscuit in the soup. Meridee saw the emotion on the woman’s face, not sure if it was from the fact of sitting at the same table, or from her own memories of that sea battle between the Royal Navy and an equally formidable Dutch Navy six years ago.
“I suppose this isn’t dinner-table talk, but we are not likely to ever stand on much ceremony in this household,” he said, after a few spoonfuls of lobscouse. “I jumped in after the surgeon died and amputated one arm and one leg, because someone had to. The pharmacist’s mate recovered from his stupor enough to do a second arm, thank God. I was fair exhausted. Mrs. Perry tended all the men, not just her husband. I could not have been more grateful. She kept them alive. How in the world did you find out that we needed a cook here, Mrs. Perry?”
“It’s an odd thing, master. I was sitting in my rooming house, wondering what was going to become of me, when who should knock on my door yesterday but the captain with all the names.”
“Captain Sir Belvedere St. Anthony?” Able asked. “I wish I could say I’m surprised.”
“He told me to report at the first dog watch, and here I am.”
Meridee frowned and Able nudged her again. “Between four and six in the afternoon for you landlubbers,” he said in a stage whisper that made her laugh.
He reached inside his uniform coat. “I sense the fine hand of Sir B in a related matter, ladies.”
He took out a small sheet of paper folded several times and spread it out on the table. “We instructors each have a catch-all cubby by Headmaster Croker’s office. I found this in mine.”
Meridee picked it up. “ ‘To Whom It May Concern …’ ” she read ahead. “He is a wit. Listen: ‘Able, you had better not forget to give this to your keeper.’ ”
Mrs. Perry shook her finger at Able.
“Oh my! ‘Since you will be providing room and board for four students of St. Brendan’s, this entitles you to a two-pound per month victual allotment.’ ” Meridee stared at the words in delight. “Mrs. Perry, we can feed them like royalty with two pounds a month! Surely this is an error, Able.”
“I asked Thaddeus Croker that very thing. He said no. The boys are small and want feeding up. Two pounds a month. Don’t argue.”
“I’ve seen David Ten. Able, were you small for your age?” Meridee asked.
“Aye, lassie,” he replied, a man with nothing small about him now. “I ran away from the workhouse before I starved to death. Only Irishmen and workhouse bastards grow tall on Navy food.”
Meridee felt tears gather in her eyes at his calm statement of fact, which wouldn’t do. “Here you are, this manly specimen,” she joked.
“Are we in?” Her manly specimen asked with a laugh. “The three of us?”
Meridee and Mrs. Perry looked at each other and nodded at the same time.
Meridee gave her husband a triumphant glance. “Welcome aboard, Mrs. Perry.” She knew it was an important moment, the three of them sitting in a kitchen, elbows on the table, eating ship’s biscuit. “We are now officially a crew.”
Chapter Fifteen
As Meridee opened her lovely eyes the next morning and started on her nightgown buttons, Able reflected that his early-morning musings in more celibate days included thinking through Euclid’s Propositions. All he wanted to do now was assist her with his own buttons. Had Euclid ever …? As his helpful wife tugged his nightshirt up and off, Able hoped the old Greek didn’t spend all his time on geometry.
“Meri-delectable, I used to lie in bed and mentally run through all of Euclid’s Propositions,” he said as they cuddled again later. He smiled when her eyelashes fluttered a few times against his bare chest then closed. He felt her relax, enjoying the heaviness of her breasts against his side. “Ah, but you don’t care about Euclid, my love.”
“Only a very little,” she managed, before he heard her deep breathing.
Amused and completely satisfied, he lay beside his wife, knowing he needed to get up and be about the business of the day. He savored her warmth and realized this glorious woman was the business of the day, too. There was no chance he would ever forget Euclid’s Propositions.
As Meridee made little bubble noises against his chest, he thought through the day, certain he could cajole the younger students he already thought of as his own into mucking out the stone basin that used to be an inlet for barges or other small craft arriving at St. Brendan’s. In its day, like other monasteries in Catholic England, it must have been a powerful place, with dignitaries coming and going. Now it was barely remembered on a forgotten street, perfect for their unusual scholarship.
He sniffed the cool air, relishing Meridee’s personal fragrance, and then the smell of breakfast. Mrs. Perry obviously wasn’t wasting a moment. Maybe she could even cook. Once her husband, a small man but a bold one, had bought her in Jamaica, Daisy had sailed with the fleet. Of children they had none, except that every young seaman, he among them, had felt her maternal interest.
He could see her continuing that benevolent dictatorship over the four boys soon to come into the house. She would likely
love them as much as Meridee, but it would be a sterner love.
Love. He got up and gazed down at his sleeping wife, nearly overcome by the responsibility for her life that was his now. I hope we have children, he thought. He knew life held no guarantees, but the hope that had somehow not died during bleak workhouse days and burned still brighter in the fleet nourished him still.
He had spent his life as a stone-cold realist, and knew that would never entirely change; in truth he knew it must not change. But as he looked down in love and duty at his wife, he felt his heart soften. “Make me better,” he whispered.
When he came into the kitchen, Mrs. Perry looked up from her contemplation of the pot on the Rumford. She gestured toward it with a flourish.
“Spotted Dick!” he exclaimed. “Won’t that amaze Meri?”
“I found some rice, Master Six,” she said. “The cook across the street gave me some milk and sultanas.” She chuckled and pulled from her bodice the note he had left on the table last night. “I startled her, but she didn’t argue when I told her I was cooking breakfast for you, and this letter was from Sir B.”
“ ‘Startle’ has to be the understatement of the ages, Daisy,” he said. “You probably well-nigh terrified her.”
She took his gibe as he thought she would, with a middle finger pointed at him. He expected little deference from Daisy, who had known him from his youth. Sailing master now or able seaman then, it was all the same to her.
“Daisy, tell me true,” he said, sitting down at the table. “Does anyone ever argue with you? I disremember Master Perry arguing much.”
“He tried it once,” she said. He heard her low, rumbling laugh that started somewhere deep inside her massive structure, like lava inside a volcano. “It’s a good thing, don’t you know, that I am invariably in the right.”
They laughed together. “Take that letter with you, when you and my lady go out to hunt the wild victuals in evil, profane Portsmouth,” he told her. “The headmaster said you can shop anywhere with it.”
She nodded and dished him a bowl of rice and sultanas, sweetened with honey she must have coerced from the same source. He resolved to visit St. Brendan’s kitchen to placate the staff, who were probably still wondering where the massive black woman had come from. He doubted they had ever seen a woman with a ring through her nose.
