Song of the Sea Maid

by Rebecca Mascull

  25

  That same day in the late afternoon, I meet with Robin in one of his few free moments on deck and insist that I be removed to a smaller cabin and the captain make full use of his once more. He arranges for his first officer to share with another, while I am allocated this small cabin for myself. My effects are moved in and I welcome the smaller space, as I felt swamped in the captain’s cabin and a veritable usurper. Also, I am hoping that now Robin has his own cabin once more, he may well have the freedom to leave it in the dead of night and visit me. And indeed he comes to me that very night, at two bells. We do not speak one word. Our bed sheets are much tumbled. He has to leave soon after to avoid detection. I have no dreams at all and sleep wonderfully well. He comes again the following night, and the night after that. During the days we are all decorum and propriety and Miss Price-this and Captain Alexander-that and at night we are silent and all is of the body and nothing else exists on this ocean.

  The next morning at seven bells, the admiral calls a council of war. Robin is not present, as only the captains of the ships-of-the-line are called, and not those of the frigates. By evening, we hear that the decision has been made to return to Gibraltar straightway. There is general scandalous disapprobation of such a move. Voices are heard complaining that the Minorca garrison has not had a sniff of us to bolster and comfort them in their hour of need, and now we are to abandon them. The mood in the ship is characterised by decided resentment. I cannot believe it to be so. To leave my cherished island, when such a collection of His Majesty’s ships are here, ready to beat the French again? What can be the thinking behind it?

  On deck that evening, I ask Robin what he makes of the admiral’s choice. Around us, his crew go to and fro, attending to their roles, some clearly listening in to see what their captain makes of this latest scurrilous order from above. The admiral’s decision is not only crucial to the interests of Minorca and to England, but also to this one woman and how long she will be able to spend her days – and nights – with her lover. There is a heat amid us so thick one could almost reach out and grasp it. I listen with care to Robin’s words but have to force myself to concentrate, as all I can think of at this moment is preventing myself from slipping my hand into his breeches.

  Says he, ‘I have been told that all the captains in the council of war agreed on the main question: if there was no French fleet, could the English fleet save Minorca from the French army? The answer was no, to a man. We have not the number of troops to succeed.’

  ‘But surely they could have landed some soldiers to help the garrison?’

  ‘It was felt that the troops were needed to defend Gibraltar.’

  ‘Are the French to attack there? Is there proof of it?’

  ‘I know not of proof. But the council agreed that no man could be spared. Though it is rumoured that the bulk of the French army in this region is on Minorca, and therefore cannot be in two places at once. And that the French transports are all busy fetching supplies from Toulon, and therefore could not be available to bring troops to Gibraltar. But those are only rumours.’

  ‘Do you feel Gibraltar is at more risk than Minorca?’

  ‘I do not know. But you must remember too that we suffered losses in the late battle, and many repairs are needed. We have enough victuals for ten weeks, but are very low on our boatswain’s, gunner’s and carpenter’s stores.’

  ‘You agree with this decision, then?’

  ‘I follow orders, Miss Price.’

  The next day, we make sail to Gibraltar. Robin tells me the journey will take two to three weeks or thereabouts. Each evening we dine with the officers, and play at some cards – the sound of the sailors singing on deck might drift in – and I speak lightly of my work (keeping my more controversial ideas to myself; I am learning not to bluster through this world as if it owes me its ears). I am charmed by the manners of Robin’s colleagues and begin to comprehend the camaraderie that exists between men in a life at sea. There is clearly a tremendous fondness and respect demonstrated by the men for their captain. Robin and I attempt to engage in nothing that could interfere with that respect. We eye each other surreptitiously whenever we are near and the air sparks between us invisibly. One day strolling on deck I hear a seaman whisper as I pass, ‘There goes the captain’s doxy.’ I expect they say much worse below, but it smarts nonetheless.

  Robin cannot come to me every night, and those when he does not are long and unsettled. As well as the beautiful silence of lovemaking, as time goes on we begin to take time to whisper to each other, before he repairs to his cabin. We do love to talk – and argue – as ever we did. I tell him of my ‘mermaid’ – the sea cow – and wait for him to mock me and my theories, as he habitually does. But he does not.

  ‘I do not know if there are sea people or not. A captain I once knew from the Isle of Man swore he caught a mer-child, which from the waist upward had a human form, but the rest was like a fish, with a tail turning up behind; the fingers were joined together by a membrane and it had green hair like seaweed. He said it struggled and beat itself almost to death in his net before escaping and swimming away at great speed. I myself have never spied one. But I know enough of the sea to say that there are such curious phenomena within it that neither you nor I nor any man on earth can say he knows it all. To exemplify, there is a fish that was thought to be a sea serpent. It is exceptionally long with a red crest and fringe that runs all the way along it and looks as much like a Chinese dragon as one could want. And I know that once hundreds of these reclusive fish beached themselves in the Far East one day, only hours before an earthquake and giant wave afflicted that very region, as if they knew well that the quake was coming.’

  ‘I thought you would scoff at me, hunting for sea maids.’

  ‘I do like to laugh at you, for I love to see your eyes blaze when you are angry with me. But, on this occasion, we can agree. As the Psalmist wrote: “They that go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters, these men see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.” And that is what you do too, my love. We are engaged in similar enterprises, in that respect at least.’

  ‘You adore your work, do you not?’

  ‘I do indeed.’ He smiles at the thought of it.

  ‘It is as if you were born to it. I cannot imagine you doing another thing in this world.’

  ‘Nor me.’

  There is a moment where we consider this fact and then glance at each other, his smile gone.

  Another night, we play a game of the imagination, where we pretend there are no rules, no restrictions or regulations, and we can make any choice we wish of what will happen next, of where to go and what to do with our time. It begins happily enough, as he thinks up such trifles as, ‘I wish a plate of roast goose would appear before us this instant, served with apple sauce and a calf’s heart pudding and green sallet,’ and I add, ‘Or a steaming bowl of Francina’s lobster stew with a plate of her sweet little cakes to follow.’ Then we move on figuratively from this room and project our desires out into the world.

  Says he, ‘I wish I could sail this ship to … to Cephalonia, an island near Greece. It has a beautiful prospect. There we would descend into my barge and row to shore, find a tavern and eat olives and shrimp and drink wine, and from there we would rent a small room with white walls and a large soft bed and I would make love to you all evening and we would sleep until the afternoon, when we would climb up the hills to the highest point and then stroll down under the shade of the trees and feel the sea breeze. Even on the hottest August day, there are refreshing sea breezes there, and one is never hot, or uncomfortable, or the slightest bit homesick. And I believe, if time stopped, and the world did not turn, I could live there blissfully with you, my love, until the end of time.’

  I kiss him ardently for that.

  ‘And you,’ says he, ‘what is your heart’s desire?’

  ‘I think you have said it all. As long as I could do my work.’

&nb
sp; ‘No time for work. Only for love,’ and he caresses me most delicately.

  ‘But I would miss my work,’ I muse, but instantly know it is an error, for we are wrenched out of our dream and back to our true station here, stealing moments on a British man-of-war headed for Gibraltar, at war with France, and Robin seals it by saying, in a low, gloomy tone, ‘And I would miss my sons.’

  A fortnight has passed and the ship will arrive in Gibraltar within ten days or fewer. Our time passes in days of charming discourses, nights of anticipation, yearnings met or unfulfilled; an intoxicating mixture of which I will never forget the heady yet infuriating sensation. I will the ship never to reach her point of disembarkation, but the wind and the waves sweep us onwards. Our night conversations change. The real world encroaches too often.

  ‘There is a question betwixt us,’ says he. ‘I do not know how to phrase it.’

  ‘Nor me to answer it.’

  We lie in each other’s embrace and I screw my eyes shut to force it out. But there it remains. I sit up.

  ‘Do you love your wife?’

  ‘I do not.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘That is a strange question.’

  ‘Why did you marry her, if you did not love her?’

  He shakes his head. ‘Is it possible to be so clever and yet so naïve? I married for position. Her uncle is high up in the Admiralty.’

  I am quiet for a moment. ‘That is a cold fact.’

  He looks worried. ‘Do not think ill of me, Dawnay, please. Many have done as I have. Our parents arranged our meeting when we were but sixteen years of age. It was a match advantageous to all. We had little say in the matter and we found each other amiable, at first.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘She and I have been fortunate that I am away from home as much as I am. We cannot support more than a few days in each other’s company.’

  ‘I am not so naïve as you think. I am aware that an Act of Parliament is needed for divorce. And even if it were possible, such a move would ruin your career.’

  And there it is. The question betwixt us.

  I continue, ‘We were quite sensible of our situation, even on our first night together on the island. We knew it then.’

  ‘We did,’ he answers quietly and watches me, frowning.

  ‘Thus it must be approached with logic, as befits a sea captain and natural philosopher.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Thus, we conclude that our relationship has no future, no possible role to play in our lives. For you seek promotion and cannot risk a scandal, and you have your boys and must see to their prospects also. And I have my work, and once returned to England I intend to seek publication. And cannot risk my work not being taken seriously – at best – and at worst, being painted the whore by London society.’

  ‘That would never be. I would not allow it.’

  ‘You speak from your heart and not your mind. You know it to be true, as I do. I possess not your lucky heritage. I am trying to make a place for myself in this world. I did not have it carved for me at birth. We are mismatched creatures, you and me.’

  Robin sits up and hangs his head, grasps hold of his hair, as he is wont to do in moments of emotion.

  ‘My love,’ I try, but his head sinks lower.

  Says he, ‘What will become of me, I cannot think.’

  The time of our parting comes stealthily and sits between us, an indolent, dead weight. There is one night left before we arrive at our journey’s end. We shut out the world and lie together hours longer than we usually risk. We promise not to talk. But he cannot help himself and says we simply must discuss our prospects, yet I beg him to refrain.

  ‘We have done this,’ I remind him, ‘and there is no way for us.’

  ‘How can you relinquish us so easily?’

  ‘Easily? How dare you! You believe this comes easily to me?’

  ‘No, but I could come to you, in London. Whenever I am on leave, we could find a way. I could come to you and find you, we could snatch moments together. It would be better than nothing, better than a life without each other at all.’

  ‘No, it would not. It would be slow torture. It would spoil and ruin our lives.’

  ‘Then at least we could correspond, to begin with. Let me write to you, and you will write to me. We can read each other’s words and I can touch the paper your hands have touched.’

  ‘No, not even that. I will not do it. I will not waste my life waiting for you, for the moment you deign to send me a letter or visit my chamber. You will not come for months, years even, or, worse still, you will die at sea and nobody will think to tell me, until I read it in the newspaper and mourn your death alone, a nobody with no connections, no family, no home.’

  ‘But you have a home!’

  ‘I do not! I do not and never have. It is pretence only. Let us pretend once more, shall we? I wish my brother had escaped from that tender in which they impressed him and come back to me and found me and we lived together always. Or that my parents never abandoned us and we were brought up in a loving home; poor or otherwise is of little consequence, as it is love that a child needs more than any other one thing, a loving family. A father, a mother, and twin boys secure in the knowledge that their father adores them.’

  ‘I do adore them but …’

  ‘But nothing further. That is how it should be, how it must be, and I would hate you if it were not. You love your sons and would never abandon them. You have no idea how fortunate you are, how fortunate your boys are, and your wife.’

  ‘But I am yours, Dawnay.’

  ‘Falsehood!’ I am white with rage now. ‘I have never had a thing wholly mine, not one thing just for me, for myself. I cannot have you and therefore I will not wait for you or yearn for you. I will make my own life. I will put you out of mind and I will forget you. Do you hear me? Even now, I have forgotten you.’

  And I weep and weep – as I have not since the days at the orphanage – and he holds me hard and fast and is silent, and we hear four bells and know it is dawn and he must go.

  On arrival at Gibraltar, the order comes that the fleet will make ready to exert all haste in repairing itself in order to return again to Minorca. But my place here is over, and I am to be transferred to a merchantman back to England.

  Robin explains, ‘As it is wartime, your ship will sail in convoy with several other merchantmen under the protection of a forty-four-gun man-of-war. You will be quite safely relayed to England.’

  I must shake hands with Robin on board and we nod our heads politely – watched complacently by his junior officers – I thanking him for his kindness, he praising me for my bravery and other such meaningless banalities. Though he does hold on to my hand a little too long and I feel the loss of it terribly when we are forced by convention finally to let go.

  Says he formally, ‘I imagine we will meet again in London some day, when I am on leave.’

  ‘And when do you think that might be, sir?’

  ‘I could not say, Miss Price. I am required elsewhere. But I will visit with my good friend your benefactor again one day, and peradventure I will see you there.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ say I, and I wonder if his eyes ache as do mine when we stare at each other, and if his heart aches at the imminent moment of parting. I am sure of it, I am sure he is racked by it, and it breaks my own heart to see him suffering.

  But there is a moment where we are both aware that no one about us seems to have a close eye on us – though ears may be listening – then he grasps my hand again and encloses it between his own, and tenderly says, ‘I have not forgotten you. Nor will I ever.’

  The flurry of activity at the quayside prevents any further private moments or even longing looks, and I must content myself with the pleasant goodbyes of his officers and men, who seem genuinely sorry to see me go. The saddest face is that of a boy who has never done well in hiding his feelings: Francis Noy. He is charged with taking me to my new ship home, and his round cheeks a
re fiercely red and his eyes start with tears again as he shakes my hand goodbye.

  ‘Be a good boy, Francis.’

  ‘I will, miss. I always will.’

  ‘Look after Captain Alex, won’t you, dear?’

  ‘I most certainly will, Miss Price.’

  ‘Don’t let him be hurt, injured or be in harm’s way.’ My tears come now.

  ‘Of course not, miss.’

  And I feel I am to say to Francis everything I wished to convey to my love.

  ‘Do not let him die, Francis. Never, never that.’

  ‘Never, miss. Oh, God save you and be safe. I never did like his wife, you know. She’s too proud. Goodbye, Miss Price.’

  And with that he is gone, and I turn to my place in line to board a tender bound for the ship home. No more for me the ships-of-the-line and frigates of the Royal Navy. I am ordinary now. And I am alone again.

  26

  On the 28th day of June 1756 the British garrison under Blakeney surrenders to the French on Minorca, after a heroic siege of over two months – and the island is lost. Admiral Byng is ordered to return to England and on his arrival in Portsmouth is arrested immediately. During these events, I am to be found heading for England on the most repulsive, badly run and deficient ship that ever sailed the seas. Our captain is a buffoon, the winds are set against us at every turn and the sailors are used to practise a foul range of oaths and imprecations. Everything is sordid, disease-ridden and sickening. There is a store below of rancid cheese that the captain will not hear of being thrown overboard, which stinks out the entire ship and can only be escaped by leaning over the side and filling one’s nostrils with the salt air of the sea. My neighbour in the next cabin has an insufferable toothache and cries out all night of her woes and who will save her from this prodigious pain and they say in her ravings she has broken the whalebone of her stays in two – yet there is only a pretty young fellow on board playing at being a surgeon. The captain is a numbskull unable to comprehend the squalor of his own ship and the degenerate nature of his men; he crows at dinner of how he saw a ten-year-old murderer pardoned in court and brought the wretch on board to serve him, only to find him drunk the next day and have him flogged soundly; he boasts of what an orderly ship he runs and, when we are stilled, insists that the wind will at any minute come about fair, and he is always wrong. And much other nauseating cant does our perfidious captain spout, too tedious to mention, as well as turn on me a lascivious eye, at which I barricade my cabin door with my baggage when I am abed.