The Unlikely Master Genius

by Carla Kelly

  “You could add another stone or two, and he would never complain,” Mrs. Perry said, as she selected a cake of her own. “He admires you.”

  Not half as much as I admire him, Meridee thought. She eyed the cakes with another purpose in mind. “Do you think … is it possible there might be enough of these to give the boys some extras to take to their rooms at night? Able tells me they might sleep better if they know there is food close by.”

  “I think it entirely possible,” Mrs. Perry assured her. She sighed and sat down. “I didn’t want to tell you this earlier, but I caught Stephen trying to open the front door last night and run away.”

  “I didn’t … we didn’t hear him!” Meridee exclaimed. “He’s already been warned. What will we do if he does scarper off?”

  “We will find him,” Mrs. Perry said, her voice firm.

  “Have I bitten off more than I can chew?” Meridee asked, as she reached for another rout cake.

  “You will surprise yourself with what you can do,” Mrs. Perry replied. “Did I hear the master mention to you this morning that Captain Sir What’s His Name wanted you to pay an afternoon visit? That’s one reason I made rout cakes. Take him some.”

  “Able did, didn’t he?” Meridee said. “I confess I am a little afraid of someone with a title.”

  “That is a poor excuse to avoid a visit,” Mrs. Perry said, again sounding remarkably like Meridee’s mother. She pointed to the square box on the counter. “Here are the cakes. I am going to shoo you out the door and watch until you get at far as the baker’s, where Mr. Bartleby will hail a hackney for you.”

  “You are a tyrant, Mrs. Perry, and apparently in league with the baker,” Meridee said.

  All that comment earned was folded arms and a set expression from the woman who could make delicate rout cakes and would probably follow little Stephen Hoyt into a nest of vipers, if he thought to run away on her watch.

  “Life was simpler in the Devon countryside,” she countered. It wasn’t exactly a whine, but maybe a close cousin.

  “You know you wouldn’t wish yourself back there,” the cook parried back.

  True to her word, Mrs. Perry watched Meridee until she reached the baker, where some silent, cosmic, preordained signal handed her off. Ezekiel Bartleby wiped his hands on his apron, presented her an almond biscuit with a little flourish, and stepped from the curb on this busier street to hail her a hackney.

  “Number Twenty-Five Jasper Road, if you please,” Meridee told the jarvey, who appeared reluctant to let the baker hand her into his hackney.

  “Mind you don’t jostle this lady,” Ezekiel said, and it was no suggestion.

  Meridee leaned back in the hackney, secretly pleased with all the attention, and even more delighted that she was a dignified matron now, someone not requiring a chaperone. She also reminded herself that she had some years left to acquire dignity, and she still didn’t mind protection in this rough city full of seafarers. For some reason, she had been summoned to Number Twenty-five, so to Number Twenty-five she would go.

  The jarvey must have taken the baker’s threat to heart because the ride was smooth. They left the narrow streets behind, and also the accompanying odors of tar, rope, and tidal flats. Looking back at the harbor, she imagined it in high summer, with blue skies and gulls wheeling gracefully about. There was the Isle of Wight, trees bare now. Always in the distance was the row of prison hulks moored to each other bow to stern, a wooden necklace of misery of the acutest kind. Able doubted the prisoners had been freed by the Treaty of Amiens. She hoped he was wrong.

  Number Twenty-five was far grander than any house she had ever visited, even in those distant days before dear Papa’s business failures had sent them quietly into genteel poverty. Chez St. Anthony was a pale-blue three-story house on the end of a row of brick houses curving back from the street.

  Able had told her Sir B came from wealth and had added upon it with prize money from captured enemy ships sold as salvage or to the Navy, to be renamed and used against the enemy. Gentlemanly piracy pays, she thought, amused.

  She paid the jarvey, tipped him enough to elicit a smile and a tug on his hat, then stood in the quiet street. Capable, wealthy, and admired, Sir B had sailed into battle at the Nile and become one more statistic on the lengthening roster of wounded men struck down by Napoleon Bonaparte.

  And here she stood, holding a pasteboard carton of rout cakes, done up in a bow. What good could sweets possibly do this man she barely knew? Able had told her over breakfast that Sir B wanted the pleasure of her company. Why did such a comment make her feel like she had thumbs on all her fingers, a shabby dress, and hair obviously not touched by a lady’s maid? Fearful, she took off her glove and sniffed her hand, hoping she did not smell like rattus norvegicus.

  She reminded herself that the rout cakes weren’t getting a minute younger, which furnished the fortitude to march up the shallow steps and give the door knocker a respectable bang somewhere between gentility and audacity.

  The footman who opened the door looked at her for a long moment, as if not certain he should let her in, ask her to go around to the servants’ entrance, or simply tell her to go away.

  “My husband, Master Able Six, told me this morning that Captain Sir Belvedere St. Anthony requested a visit,” she said, drawing on all the matronly dignity she wished she possessed and knew she didn’t. “I am Mrs. Six.”

  To her surprise, he ushered her inside and almost but not quite smiled. She thought she detected relief in his expression, but that couldn’t be. She had nothing to offer this top-of-the-trees household.

  “Mrs. Six, if you would follow me into the sitting roo—”

  They both started at the sound of a high-pitched wail that sent prickles racing up and down Meridee’s spine so fast they probably bumped into each other.

  “I … I … could come back another day,” she said.

  He left her in the foyer and took the stairs two at a time, as the screaming grew louder. Meridee clutched the box, wishing for her husband because he always knew what to do.

  Suddenly, so did she.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Meridee gathered her skirts and hurried up the stairs too. The footman tried to motion her back, but she ignored him. Another servant stood by an open door and waved her away. Brushing past the startled man, she threw herself into what had to be Sir Belvedere’s bedchamber.

  Sir B lay there, eyes closed, hands knotted into fists and twisting his sheet about. Sweat poured off him, and no wonder; the room felt close and humid.

  She could have backed out and fled the house with no one the wiser, because the servants had never seen her before. She discarded such cowardice as unworthy of the wife of Master Durable Six. Instead, she opened a window, then approached the bed, her footsteps firm, and grasped his hand.

  Sir B opened his eyes, then blinked, as though he did not know who she was.

  “Sir B, you wanted me to visit,” she said calmly. “Able said.”

  “Aye, I did, but not like this,” he managed to gasp out. “The pain!”

  “Where is it worst?” she asked. She sat down and removed her bonnet as calmly as if she had been invited to tea at a neighboring manor.

  “Right above the amputation,” he said. “Sometimes it feels as if the whole mangled … thing is still there, throbbing and spurting blood.” He wailed again. “You should leave,” he managed when the terrible moment passed.

  “On the contrary, Sir B,” she said, wondering where her courage came from. “What can I do to make it better?”

  “Too much to ask,” he replied. “Nothing you can do.”

  Those were his words, but that wasn’t what she heard. Somewhere in the middle of the sentence spoken between nearly clenched teeth, she heard uncertainty, as if he knew a remedy but wouldn’t subject her to it.

  “Tell me,” she insisted.

  She noted how his skin was finely drawn across his already thin face, every crevice in sharp relief. It dawned on
Meridee that Sir B’s face bore the look of war. It wasn’t highly fleshed like those one associated with bankers, solicitors, vicars, and teachers. Did war do something to men’s visages? After waking early a few mornings just to watch her husband sleep, she thought so.

  “Tell me, Sir B,” she repeated softly.

  He let out his breath in a rush. “God forgive me, but I am desperate. Hold my leg firmly above the amputation. My damned servants are afraid to touch me.”

  “I’m not,” she lied. She pulled back the light blanket that covered him and averted her eyes. Scolding herself for being so missish, Meridee pulled down his nightshirt to make him private. She rested her hand on the scarred abomination that formed what was left of his leg and felt the heat. She put her hands around what remained of his thigh and squeezed.

  He started at first, then she felt the tension leave his leg. “Is this what you want?” she asked. Her voice quavered, but there was nothing she could do about that.

  “Tighter, if you can,” he gasped. “Squeeze my leg as long as you can.”

  Unflinching, she did as he said. Because sitting in the chair didn’t get her close enough, she begged Sir B’s pardon and sat on his bed. She turned her back to him and strengthened her grip as she looked down his stump.

  “Please, please tell me if I am causing you pain,” she begged. “I am squeezing as tight as I can.”

  “My dear Mrs. Six, you cannot imagine the relief,” he said after a few minutes. There was nothing calm in his voice yet, but the desperation had vanished. His breathing gradually slowed. As she leaned against his hip, she noted the moment when he relaxed completely. His good knee splayed out slightly and she knew she could lessen her grip.

  She heard Sir B sigh. “You can let go now,” he said, “but please don’t leave me. I have no one.”

  He said it simply, without an ounce of self-pity that Meridee could hear. “I wouldn’t care to be alone at a time like this, either,” she said, and meant it.

  Though she turned around to face him, she didn’t return to the chair. She felt no embarrassment, even though a married woman should only see such sights on her husband. She dabbed at Sir B’s dripping face with the end of the sheet, wiping down to his neck. While she patted him as gently as she could, his breathing slowed even more and he slept.

  He woke up only a few minutes later. “Now, where was I?” he asked, his eyes still closed. Meridee laughed, relieved that he could joke.

  She took his hand and he opened his eyes, or tried to. Finally he gave up the effort and settled for half-open and a lazy, dreamy expression. “Have you ever met anyone with such ragged manners?” he asked.

  “No, not actually,” she teased gently. “Sir B, I have to ask. What just happened? Why this? Did it not heal?”

  “It healed, except that every now and then, my vanished leg feels as though it is still attached, mangled to bloody bits, and hanging on by mere tradition, habit, and great force of will. It’s as though I feel every screaming nerve.”

  “My goodness,” she said, and put her other hand on his. He returned her squeeze with one of his own. “How you must loathe and despise the French!”

  He shrugged. “We are at war. The difficulty comes in the realization that war plays no favorites. Neither fame, fortune, rank, or a title exempts a man from carnage. My regret is that the ball didn’t strike me lower. If I still had a knee, Mrs. Perry’s husband could have whittled me a peg leg. I could still be on a quarterdeck.” He patted her hand in turn. “That is my regret.”

  She hadn’t intended to cry, but there she sat, shoulders shaking, tears on her cheeks, trying not to make a spectacle of herself and failing.

  “No, no, Mrs. Six. Save your tears,” he said. “This is a risk we all run.”

  She took a handkerchief from her reticule and blew her nose vigorously. The situation demanded a massive change of subject, and she was equal to it. “Sir B, can I interest you in a rout cake? Mrs. Perry is the most amazing cook.”

  “I believe you can,” he said, and raised himself up on one elbow, looking about with interest. “I’ll warn you now: I like the sugary sides best.”

  “This is most fortuitous, because I prefer the lemon icing,” she said. “Now where ….”

  The pasteboard box rested on its side by the door, where she must have flung it when she ran into the room like a crazy woman. She stared down at the ruin of perfect little cakes. “I meant well,” she said, picking them up.

  “What’s a bit of a jostle?” the captain said. “Bring them over here.”

  He did prefer the sugary ones. As if on cue, the butler brought in tea and left it to her to pour. The niceties of even modest society were not lost on Meridee as she poured for a man lying there in his nightshirt. Her mother would have been aghast, but these were no ordinary times.

  “Captain St. Anthony, what have I gotten myself into?” she asked, only slightly in jest. “Stephen has already tried to run away. I am uncertain what to do there. Nick wants a last name; I just know it. Davey Ten practically salivates over disgusting rat bones. And John Mark barely speaks. There is a black woman from some African country ruling my kitchen,” she laughed, “and I already cannot manage without her.”

  “How is Durable Six coping in the uncharted sea of matrimony?” he asked, waving away another rout cake, then changing his mind. “Good God, these are delicious.”

  “He seems to take it all in stride, and he is wonderfully good to me,” she said frankly. “He insists I learn how to swim, too, in that abominable stone basin.”

  “You will do quite well, because he can teach anything or anyone. Is there some tea left?”

  She poured him a half cup. “No advice for me?” she asked. “I hate to sound pathetic, but there you are.”

  Sir B drank his tea and returned the cup to her. With only a small expression of discomfort, he tucked his hands behind his head. “Your real task is to tend this extraordinary chap. We—Headmaster Croker and I—saw a need for a housemother for some of the newest lads, and presto! You materialized alongside our genius. I call that serendipity. You seem capable of both tasks.”

  “I call it a flagrant abuse of power,” Meridee teased, grateful when the man laughed, he who had so recently screamed in pain. She couldn’t help herself then, because she was Meridee Six and amazingly in love. “Able is no burden to me. Quite the contrary.”

  “There now. I knew two old bachelors such as Croker and I could not be wrong,” he told her. “You can thank me later. People of Able’s rare ability are different. I had never met such a person before Master Six. He didn’t even know what he was, but I daresay he is reconciled to the reality by now.”

  “How did you meet?”

  “He was just one of several new able seamen who came aboard when I captained the Dissuade.” Sir B’s eyes grew dreamy. “She was the sweetest frigate.”

  “You and Able speak of ships as though they are living, breathing entities,” she said.

  “I suppose they are to us. Where was I? Able. Every task the bosun gave him, he learned instantly, but the sailing master brought him to my attention first. ‘Watch his eyes, Captain,’ said he. I did. Seaman Six was supposed to be scrubbing the deck while the master taught the midshipmen the care and feeding of a sextant.”

  Meridee laughed at that. “I watched his eyes scan the bookshelves in my brother-in-law’s study. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Then you know. I positioned myself close by and spied out of the corner of my eye as Able scrubbed away, a dutiful lad. When he thought no one was watching, he sort of popped his head up for mere seconds and seemed to simply absorb everything on the blackboard that the master had propped against the mast.” He reached for the final rout cake. “My stars, Mrs. Six, did you eat all those cakes?”

  “You know I did not,” she scolded.

  “When the master dismissed his real pupils, I collared Able Six. Scared him! I ordered him to stand by the mast, handed him the sextant, and told him
to tell me the ship’s position. I’ve never seen it done so fast and correctly, and all in his head. So it began, and here we are now.”

  “Able can’t arrange a neck cloth to save his soul,” Meridee said softly. “I’ve noticed that he sometimes puts his shoelaces in the wrong holes. How strange is genius.”

  “That is why I asked you here, Mrs. Six,” the captain said most formally. “I want to warn you.”

  “Warn me? Warn me about what?”

  “There is a darker side to his brilliance, one I hardly can explain,” he began, seeming to pick and choose his words with inordinate care.

  “Don’t mince words with me, Sir B,” she said quietly. “I have some questions, myself.”

  “I know Ben Hallowell told you about the time Able stepped in for the surgeon and saved his nephew’s life.”

  She nodded.

  “There was an earlier time aboard the Dissuade when a similar incident occurred,” Sir B said. “Some water, please.”

  She poured him a glass from the bedside carafe and put her arm under his neck as he drank.

  “Thank you, my dear. We were under fire, and in this instance, my surgeon panicked. He ran on deck and threw himself overboard.”

  Meridee gasped and he took her hands.

  “I cannot describe war to you, other than to say it is the supreme equalizer. No man knows what he will do in his particular realm. The surgeon was new and untried. The pharmacist’s mate was a solid fellow and he worked steadily. When matters righted themselves and we sank the Spanish ship, I ran down to the orlop deck to see for myself what my men had been telling me.”

  “Able was operating,” Meridee said.

  “Aye, he was. I think he was fifteen, if that. For hours he worked alongside the mate, amputating and stitching. I marveled at the intensity of his concentration. He didn’t make a single wrong move, and men are alive today because of his work. However ….”

  He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Meridee, when the entire ordeal was over, I feared he was going to do himself damage.” He sighed, remembering. “He shook like a leaf for hours. I seriously thought he was going to die.”