The Unlikely Master Genius

by Carla Kelly

  “Can you recall what year, young fellow?” Mr. Guillory asked, pencil in hand now and poised over paper. “And their names.”

  “I was just turned five and now I am ten,” he said. “It was autumn because the leaves were yellow. Lester and Mary Hoyt, sir.”

  “Five years ago,” Mr. Guillory said. “That would be 1798. Let us see what we see. Lester Hoyt. Mary Hoyt.”

  The chief of Criminal Records turned to one ledger and flipped only a few pages. He ran his finger down one column. “That means they likely sailed on the Hillsborough, because that sailed in … let me see … mid October. Here we are: two hundred ninety-nine passengers, one hundred with life sentences.” He ran his finger down the column and stopped. “Lester Holt, convicted of poaching. Here he is.”

  “Two rabbits. We was hungry.”

  “Two rabbits!” Grace Croker exclaimed. Mr. Guillory held up his hand with a warning look.

  “A seven-year sentence.”

  “Thank goodness it wasn’t three rabbits,” Grace said, and Meridee heard all the venom one tall spinster was capable of. “Might have been ten years!”

  “Miss Croker, we live in a society with rules,” Mr. Guillory warned.

  Alarmed, Meridee looked sideways at the tall woman who nearly seethed with indignation. He’s being so kind, Grace. Don’t muddle it, she thought, wishing the woman was susceptible to the process of thought telepathically rendered.

  Perhaps she was. Grace sat back and tightened her lips into a thin line.

  Mr. Guillory returned his attention to the ledger. He flipped a few more pages. “Sometimes the women sailed on separate ships, but this time … no, men and women.” He ran his finger down a different column and stopped. “Here she is. My, my, battery of an officer of the crown.” He looked up. “Ten years. What did she do, lad?”

  Stephen leaned against Meridee. “A man came to take away Da and Mam hit him with a crockery bowl.”

  All they wanted was a meal, Meridee thought in misery, seeing in her mind’s eye the crying, the shouting, the ferocity of a woman taken from her children, and an officer of the crown, perhaps bleeding. Mary Hoyt, you shouldn’t have struck the man, she thought. Ten years.

  “What … what happens after they have fulfilled their sentences?” Meridee asked into the deep silence of the room. “Somehow I thought anyone—”

  “Any convict—”

  “Yes, yes! Any convict must stay his whole life in New South Wales.”

  Back on firmer ground, now that Miss Croker remained silent and Meridee had asked a reasonable question, Mr. Guillory managed a tight smile.

  “The crown is not entirely heartless,” he said. “Once their sentence is completed, the former convicts are free to return. Of course, they must pay their own way back to England.” He stopped. Maybe the crown was heartless, might have been on his mind.

  “The world is not a fair place,” Grace Croker said.

  Mr. Guillory folded his hands together across the ledger that contained so much sadness. “It is not,” he agreed. He turned his attention to Stephen Hoyt, who was sitting up straight and alert. “Lad, I see the emblem on your … is that a uniform?”

  “St. Brendan the Navigator School in Portsmouth,” he said. “When I get older and learn more, I’m joining the fleet. I’ll find me mam and da.”

  “I wish you all success, lad,” the chief said. He sat in silence a moment, then pulled out what looked like a memorandum tablet. He thought a moment more before he dipped a pen in his ink well. After blowing on the paper to dry it and dusting it with sand, he handed it to Meridee.

  “Take this to the Navy Board,” he said, all business again. “The Hillsborough was a ship contracted to the Royal Navy, with a civilian crew required to keep a log to turn over to the Board when the voyage ended.”

  “What will that tell us?” Meridee asked.

  Mr. Guillory glanced at Stephen, and hesitated before he spoke. “It will list any deaths at sea or other misadventure. Let’s provide this St. Brendan’s lad with as much information as we can, if he is going to look for his parents.”

  Meridee folded the paper and slipped it into her reticule. “Will you direct us to the Navy Board?”

  “Nothing simpler,” he said, describing a few corridors to travel, and a descent into that underground cavern Sir B had called a catacomb.

  He walked them to the door of his office. “Good luck to you, lad,” he said. “Rumor swears the Treaty of Amiens is showing some fearful cracks. You may be at sea sooner, rather than later.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Able Six knew he was too old to be moping over Meridee’s absence.

  Trust Sir B to take a good look at him. “You are dragging around like a stallion with no mare in sight,” he exclaimed, when Able plunked himself down at the dinner table in the St. Anthony residence. “My God, man! She’ll return.”

  Sir B peered closer. “Your neck cloth is crooked, and did Mrs. Six abscond with the only comb when she went to London?”

  “I’m a poor excuse for a master of anything right now,” he admitted, running fingers through his hair.

  Sir B gestured for more Madeira in Able’s glass. “I have to tell you: Captain Hallowell and I once drank our way to the bottom of a bottle about this size in Plymouth, wondering if there was a woman anywhere who would succumb to your undeniable oddness.” He raised his glass in salute. “You did extraordinarily well. She’ll be home in a day or two.”

  Late as usual, Thaddeus Croker arrived when they were well into the first course. “I hope my sister is proving useful to Mrs. Six,” he said. “She has a propensity to speak before she thinks, and I cannot imagine her holding her tongue in a department rejoicing in the name of Office of Criminal Records.”

  “Good,” Sir B said. “No one should ever be complacent in such a place. I wonder what your student will learn, Able.”

  “Probably that the world remains unfair,” Able said.

  That sobering thought kept them silent through a handsome pheasant dish, removed with a figgy pudding and followed by fruit and nuts and smuggler’s sherry.

  Thaddeus had been silent, anyway, looking to Able like a man with bad news. Maybe he thought it would go down better with sherry.

  “Out with it, Thaddeus,” Sir B said finally, with an ease of command that Able knew would never be his. From the look on Headmaster Croker’s face, Able could tell which way the wind blew.

  “Master Fletcher announced to me just as I was leaving for your house that he has been recalled to the fleet, effective at the end of the week,” the headmaster said. “War is coming sooner than we reckoned.”

  “Are any of us surprised? I’ll wager the issue is Malta,” Sir B said.

  “Yes, Malta,” Thaddeus replied. “Haven’t we suspected that? Only a fool would surrender Malta, our stationary frigate in the Mediterranean.”

  “Who d’ye think will strike first, Able?” Sir B asked.

  “We will, because we must,” he said promptly, as he felt dread grow inside for the boys he was teaching. “This will be a war without end.”

  “I must ask you for further sacrifice,” Thaddeus said.

  Able needed no hints. “Aye, sir, I will be happy to assume control of Master Fletcher’s navigation classes.”

  “You read my mind,” Thaddeus said. “Well and good, but how will you manage the older class with your younger lads each afternoon?”

  “Would your sister be inclined to focus her time on rudimentary English and something as mundane as penmanship?” Able asked in turn. “I have my lads keeping their own logs, but they could use some improvement. She could take them for that part of the afternoon I teach navigation, after which all the boys will be learning to swim. Not just my class, if I may.”

  “Of course you may, Able. I can almost guarantee Grace will agree, to further the aims of the Royal Navy,” Thaddeus assured him.

  “Ah-ha! The truth comes out,” Sir B joked. “You will probably tell me your blue-st
ocking sister once rejoiced in a lover in the Royal Navy.”

  “She did,” the headmaster said, “a promising man who succumbed to yellow fever in Jamaica, two months before they were to marry.” He gazed beyond the dining room wall. “My parents feared for her reason.”

  “I didn’t mean …” Sir B began.

  “I know you didn’t. Grace Croker once had a gentler side,” the headmaster said. “The war has wounded us all.”

  “And soon the conflict returns.”

  “We live in interesting times,” Thaddeus said. He turned his attention to Able. “My apologies to your wife, but we need you more than she does. There will be an increase in salary.” He peered closely at Able. “You might even be able to afford a comb soon, lad.”

  Able laughed, happy to banish a melancholy moment. “I have a comb, both of you. What I lack is my keeper, who reminds me to use it.”

  Thaddeus Croker elaborately turned his attention to Sir B, as though Able weren’t there. “Captain, you and I know precisely what Durable Six will never give up for Lent.”

  “Indeed. It’s lower down than his hair,” Sir B said, equally serious.

  “Gentlemen, it is no crime to miss my wife,” Able protested.

  “It’s been only one day, Master Six,” Thaddeus reminded him. “Go invent a theorem or something. Discover a new galaxy.”

  Sir B insisted on furnishing his carriage for the return to St. Brendan’s. Thaddeus asked the coachman to drop them off at Gunwharf so they could walk the remainder of the way. They sauntered along slowly, until the headmaster stopped and looked up at the stars.

  “Spring is here,” he said. “My father used to tease me when I told him I could smell spring. ‘M’boy, you possess an anticipatory nature,’ he said, as though it were a crime. Spring’s in the air, though. So is war. Any boys ready for the fleet?”

  How long have I been dreading this question? Able asked himself. “Jan Yarmouth and Jamie MacGregor come immediately to mind,” he replied, hating himself for speaking their names. He mentioned a few other lads, and then his voice trailed off. “I fear they will never know enough. Pray God we won’t be ordered to reach down into the lower grade.”

  “Not yet, but I fear for them as well,” the headmaster said.

  Speak of the devil, his two calculus students sat on Able’s front steps, arguing with each other. “Send them over here as soon as you can,” the headmaster said. “It’s late.”

  Able sat below them on the front steps. “What in the world have we here?”

  “Jan swears he understands the calculus, and I remain lost,” Jamie said honestly.

  There they sat, two thirteen-year-olds, stewing over something most ordinary mortals would never comprehend. He invited them inside, where Betty scolded her twin for not knocking sooner. He glanced at Jan Yarmouth, who appeared as mystified as Able had been at that age, having no relatives who cared what became of him.

  “Give us a lamp in the dining room, Betty,” Able said. “There must be petits fours or treacle pudding in some cubby or dark corner, because this is a well-run establishment. Find them, please.”

  Smiling, she ran into the kitchen. Jamie followed her with his eyes. “Thank you for letting her join this household,” the boy said.

  “Thank Mrs. Six,” Able said. “Betty is becoming precisely the maid of all work my wife needed.”

  “And if Betty had not been so proficient, sir?” Jamie asked, not a lad to shy away from hard questions.

  “Mrs. Six would have kept her anyway,” Able said promptly.

  “Either way, I am in your debt, Master Six,” the boy said. He was also not a lad to waste a moment. “We will be going to sea soon, won’t we?”

  “Did Master Fletcher say something?” Able asked.

  “He didn’t have to, sir. Master Fletcher has been timing us to see how long we take to climb that mast he set up next to the basin,” Jamie said. “At the top, we can see activity in the Solent—little boats darting about, and masts going up on two of the frigates.”

  “You’re observant,” Able said.

  “Jan saw them first, master,” James told him. “Then Master Fletcher said we would have a new teacher of navigation starting next week.”

  “You will have me.”

  Jan had already seated himself at the table and was spreading out his proof. He flashed a rare smile at this news, which warmed Able as a fire never could.

  “We will still have time for calc?” Jan asked.

  “We’ll make time.”

  Betty arrived with the lamp and Mrs. Perry followed with a tray of treacle pudding in large bowls. Meridee had remarked only last week that their cook seemed determined everyone should weigh as much as she did.

  Betty set the bowls around and Jamie dug into his. Jan pointed to the paper. “Sir, I think I did it,” he said.

  Able picked up the paper, smiling at earlier crossed-out symbols, letters, and numbers, and then nodding as disorder coalesced into order and yielded the marvelous result, written plainly. Yes, Jan Yarmouth, bastard boy from a workhouse, understood Isaac Newton’s masterpiece.

  “Bravo, lad,” Able said simply.

  “Will you send me to sea with more problems?” he asked. “I need to keep my hand in this.”

  “I will.”

  He sat back as Jan explained his proof to Jamie, who shook his head. “Master Six, am I a dunderhead?” the boy asked in exasperation.

  “Not at all, Jamie. The calculus is a mystery to many. Don’t be hard on yourself. Master Fletcher tells me you are developing competence with the sextant.”

  Jamie was a stubborn Scot, a race Able recognized because whoever his father was, he knew his mother was from that damp, inhospitable region. “Then what is the purpose of calculus?”

  Able turned to Jan. “Well, lad?”

  “It is opening my mind to the universe of motion,” he said simply.

  Able stood on the front step until Jamie and Jan were inside St. Brendan’s. After locking the front door, he went upstairs to look in on the boys, who—not to his surprise—had decided to sleep three in a room, now that Stephen Hoyt was in London.

  In bed, he stared at the ceiling that Meri told him in a moment of sass had become her view, seen over his shoulder. He slept finally, but woke too soon, caught in a nightmare unlike any other.

  His classroom was full of blood. He watched as if from a distance as his students struggled to stay afloat. The room turned into a drain swirling them around and then sucking them down, faster and faster.

  Eyes open or eyes closed, it made no difference. He leaped out of bed, wide awake, but the dream did not abate until every one of his students had drowned in nightmare blood so authentic he could smell the iron in it.

  Why did the dream feel so real? He darted across the hall and opened the room where the three lads slept. Turning back to his own room, he felt his relief turn to terror as he watched blood seep across the hall, moving directly toward his students. Soon the blood pooled around his ankles as he stared down in disbelief.

  The blood began to pulse and he heard the beat of a superhuman heart. The door to one of the empty rooms opened and there stood curly-haired William Harvey holding up a copy of De Motu Cordis, his treatise on the circulation of blood, written in 1628. Able had read it in Latin during a slow afternoon in the Mediterranean.

  He gasped when Harvey vanished into the circling drain too, pointing at his book and expressing indignation that someone with so much knowledge about blood should be treated so shabbily.

  The vision mercifully passed. Able pressed his hand to his racing heart. I am turning into a murderer, he thought. He leaned against the wall, wondering how Meri would feel if he resigned from St. Brendan’s and dragged her to a noisome rooming house while he sailed with the fleet into uncertainty, danger, and death.

  Climbing into bed, he flopped onto his back, after absurdly checking his feet to make sure there was no blood on them. He knew Meridee would remind him that he had s
igned a contract to teach, and he could not go to the fleet unless he was summoned.

  “I must see this through, Euclid,” he said out loud to his friend who always waited to keep him company. “Hurry home, Meri.”

  Chapter Forty

  To Able’s relief, Meri arrived just before dinner the following night, full of good cheer and conversation. He took in her dear beauty, then smiled at Stephen, wondering what had happened and how soon he could have his wife to himself, because he needed her beyond words.

  But setting an example for his students was important, even for a desperate man. Able took another look at Stephen and saw something in his eyes that appeared remarkably like hope. “Was it good news, lad?”

  “Some good, some bad,” Stephen replied. He glanced at Meridee, who gave an encouraging nod. “I can manage now.”

  When the boys trooped in to the dining room at Mrs. Perry’s command, Able stole a moment with his wife while she removed her bonnet and fluffed her hair. And then she took a good look at him, and the light went out of her eyes.

  “Able, what is the matter?” she asked … no, demanded.

  “It will keep until the lads are in bed,” he said, even though he wanted to blubber out his misery there by the coat closet.

  “It’s war, isn’t it?” she asked, holding him off to better search his face.

  “Aye, lass, and more,” he said. “Dinner now. You know Mrs. Perry is a dragon when we dawdle.”

  The dragon didn’t roar too loud, considering that she had been watching his drawn and melancholy mug for three days. He pretended not to notice the worried glance that passed between the two women and took his place at the head of the table, the man who had everything under control, except when he didn’t.

  Bless Stephen, who commanded conversation, telling his mates about the wonders of London, including Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre their final evening in the great city, with tickets provided by Captain Sir Belvedere St. Anthony.

  “There were horses,” Stephen said between bites of pease pudding and brown bread. “One man even controlled four at the same time.”