by Susan Kaye
“When I ran away from home, the first ship I found leaving Liverpool was bound for New Holland. They were short a steward for the First Officer, and I was taken in that capacity.”
Frederick took a drink of the frightful wine. It did nothing to soothe his impatience. It was clear Edward was going to go about revealing himself in his own way.
“So, aside from the few months I was stuck in Ireland, that voyage began nearly seven years of seasickness and learning the hard way to keep body and soul together.” He looked at Frederick and then relaxed.
Frederick wasn’t certain why Edward’s countenance suddenly eased and his frame seemed to have a great weight lifted from it, but that was the case. Edward took a drink and then stood. “I left after Father beat me viciously. I had to leave, else he’d kill me—or I would kill him. Either way, nothing good would come of my staying, so I figured that leaving both of us alive was the best for all concerned.” He brushed at the mantel. “After nearly seven years, I was never rated more than a landsman. So, after many years of hating life aboard ship, one night I failed to return when the gun sounded.”
Frederick now understood one aspect of Edward’s reluctance to speak about his life at sea. The revelation that he had walked away from his ship required further investigation. “You said you were rated as a landsman. You were in the Navy then?”
Edward seemed happy to relieve him. “No, you needn’t slap me in irons and find the nearest admiral to hand me over as a deserter. I had managed to avoid impressment. Only God knows how, but I never abandoned my country in that sense.”
“Even if you had, desertion is not punished with much more than a fine these days. With the war ending, they would not likely care what happened ages ago...but this is good to know.” He should feel more comforted, but he did not. “Where did you...in what port did you leave your ship?”
“I jumped ship in Bridgetown. Barbados.”
It was all clear now. In any given port city, there were scores of filthy things his brother might have been about, but the port was Bridgetown. The possibilities narrowed. The only question was: was it sugar or slaves?
“I had taken none of my things so I was a bit desperate for the first day or so, but the third day I was sitting on a wall, looking over the docks, when a fellow came and asked me if I could read and write and do sums. When I proved that I could, he asked if I wanted a job. I said I did, and he took me to the house of a Dutch fellow who had ships coming in and out from Africa to America.”
They quietly looked at one another. Edward had efficiently answered the question. There was no reason to enquire further. The docks of Liverpool had provided all the education Frederick would ever need having to do with the slave trade. The smells alone were enough to make a decent human instinctively know the evil of the practice.
Upon his return, it took little time for Edward to know Frederick had a deep desire to go to sea. He began to form connections with captains who would be willing to take the boy out for short runs up the Mersey and the occasional trip to Blackpool. He had been careful to keep his young brother from certain sorts of captains and certain sorts of goods.
It was on one of these sallies that Frederick had made a good impression on a naval captain making his way home after several years in Gibraltar. “You’re a bit old, but I see you have some skills. I would not mind having at least one midshipman on my next posting with a brain in his skull.” Edward had not been convinced that the man meant anything by the compliment, but on Frederick’s insistence, he did write to this Captain Croft. To his great surprise, the officer remembered Frederick, and he was further surprised to find the offer of a place on his ship was genuine.
Croft would be returning to Liverpool in a few weeks, and a meeting was arranged. Within two months’ time, Frederick was to report as a midshipman aboard the fifth-rate, Bainbridge. It was aboard the Bainbridge he first came into contact with a packed slave ship at sea. There were no words for the experience, and only occasionally did he allow the sights, sounds, and smells to attack his senses. Frederick was not certain whether it was his brother’s reputation he wished to protect by remaining ignorant of the past or if it was to save himself from his own memories.
“My main duty was to oversee the docks, making sure that the manifests and the actual cargo matched. It was mostly a matter of counting the living and the dead.” Edward looked at his brother and did not flinch with the bloodless, matter-of-fact revelation. He continued. “I was also responsible for seeing that all the money added up after the auctions.” Edward finished his wine and stood before the fire, studying the glass. “I don’t think we need go into all my other duties. You understand the life well enough.” He poured another bumper of wine and took his seat.
Frederick looked around the room and wondered how many others had poured out their closely guarded secrets to his brother. The irony of life now made it his brother’s confessional. That made the captain a sort of priest, not that it was new to him. He’d listened many times to his men when they acknowledged their wrongdoing and been obliged to mete out their punishment. He played no such role this time. Or did he?
“It was a desolate and shameful life. To be honest, I can’t even say it was a life. Maybe a sort of existence, but not anything more.” He put the nearly full glass of wine on the table and leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and bowed his head.
Frederick needed to know nothing more about Barbados. He knew men who had done much the same, worse in fact. There was no loathing or condemnation on his part. This was his brother, and his repentance for his filthy past was unmistakeable. Any stone Frederick might have been tempted to cast slipped through his own guilty fingers.
“I know what I did was more vile—the loss of life alone...” He still did not turn to look at Frederick. “But you need to know that there is forgiveness. You can make amends, and you can have some peace...no matter how despicable your actions.
“The scale of our respective deeds is not even comparable. I tell you this, not so much for your benefit, Brother, but for my own.” He sat up and turned fully to Frederick. “I tell you this because for years I have done what you did to Anne Elliot. I held you at arm’s length and made our former close relationship of little value. Not to hurt you, for it cost me more than I can tell you, but I did it out of fear. I was afraid that if you knew this about me, you would rightly reject me. It was better that you and I have a scrap of our former closeness than nothing.” He heaved himself from the chair and went to his desk. Out of the bottom drawer he took a wooden box decorated with marquetry flowers. He returned to the chair, opened the box, and offered it to Frederick. “Don’t tell my wife.”
Evidently, some secrets were to be kept no matter what. He looked in the box. He laughed and took out some candied walnuts.
Edward took some for himself. “She thinks I eat too many sweets. She’s right, of course, but I need something just now.” Never looking away from the fire, he began to eat the clandestine pleasure.
After a few minutes of no sound but the crunch of the hard sugar coating, Frederick dared to open the conversation again. “Did you grow tired of Barbados, as you had your life on ship? Is that why you returned to England?”
Edward’s gaze was gentle, and Frederick could tell he was again bringing his thoughts together, trying to measure his words. He likely never intended to tell any of what was to come, or he would have been more prepared.
Edward looked away. “After father died, I was urged by father’s man of business to return. Mother was not well and there were things that needed my attention. I ignored the letter.” He reached over without looking to take his glass. Wine sloshed a bit and ran down the side of it.
Before Edward could do anything, Frederick had his handkerchief out and tossed it on the deep red puddle. The fire was in need of stoking, but the Captain was too tired to attend it.
“When the second letter came in a few weeks time, I was informed that my mother was now dead and that my
siblings needed a guardian.” He did not answer the half-hearted accusation and was careful to choose words stripped of all affection. Frederick wondered why.
“During that interminable voyage, all I thought about was putting you in any school that would have you and finding Sophia a place as a governess or companion. I never gave a single thought to caring for the two of you myself.” He took a deep breath. “All I had when I landed that hellish August night was the address of a Mrs. Greene. She had taken you and Sophia when Mother died. Do you remember her?”
“I do, and I well remember her small army of boys. They all hated me. I was daily pelted with rocks, and they chased me down like a pack of rabid dogs.” The memory of them was stronger than he imagined it could be after so much time.
Edward burst out laughing.
“You find it funny that I was terrorised?” Frederick was shocked that his brother did not sympathise with his younger self.
Edward stopped laughing but still smiled. He touched his lips with the back of his hand. “After she could trust that I was going to stay, Mrs. Greene came to talk to me about you.” They exchanged looks. “She said that she could see you were a very smart boy but that if I did not take you in hand soon, you would be wayward for sure.”
Frederick sat straight and leant over the arm of the chair. “Me! She called me wayward! With her tribe of heathens, she would dare to say that?” He could not believe such a thing. He flopped back against the chair.
“You must be fair; she said you might become wayward. It seems that you had found a book of knots, traps and snares. Do you remember digging a pit in order to trap Peter Greene?”
He had not thought of the Greenes in ages and had never once thought about hunting them down one by one until tonight. He could not help but laugh as well. “I do remember. His brother Paul followed him right in. But in my own defence, it was only as deep as their knees.”
“Only because you were rather short for being just twelve years old. You do remember that you filled it with water?”
“Ah, yes.”
“She said you always managed to get them dirty or wet or both. I think the terrorising was divided equally.”
“I got in a great deal of trouble not only for the hole but for stripping the branches off a bush in order to cover it. I think I killed the bush.”
Edward laughed quietly. “You have always been an ambitious young man with a knack for the original. And that is why I have always admired you.”
He could not look at Edward just now.
“Anyway, when I got to Mrs. Greene’s, she said I could sleep in the attic where the two of you were staying. The stairway narrowed as it went up, and it grew hotter and hotter with each step. The room was like an oven, but all that went out of my head when I opened the door and first laid eyes on Sophia.” He paused. “The last time I had seen her she was only eight years old. There she was, a beautiful young woman...so much like our mother.” His voice was shaking. “And then you.” He paused again. “You were lying on the floor in a patch of moonlight. You’d tossed off your nightshirt, and I could see that you were thin—blond, all elbows and knees—but I just knew you were strong and healthy.” He turned and the chair creaked. Frederick looked over. “And to confirm the bad behaviour of the Greene boys, you had a gash on your cheek.” He smiled and unconsciously touched his own. “I couldn’t stand the heat any longer and went to the window, intending to open it. I could see our house from that vantage. It would not be markedly cooler there, but there was no reason to remain in that oven—”
“And you told Sophia to get my things and that we were going home.” Frederick felt the heat and heard the words as though it was no longer winter in Shropshire, but a hot Liverpool night.
“You remember?”
“Every night I had prayed to God that He would rescue me from the Greenes and that He would rescue me from that attic room.”
“Why the room?”
“It was packed with casks and boxes and shadows. The house made strange noises at night, and I was frightened out of my mind most of the time.” It was his turn to pause. “That night I awoke to strong arms lifting me from my bed and a deep voice saying we were going home. It was the first prayer of mine that was ever answered.”
Edward’s hand came to rest on the arm of the chair. “I can never do enough to get out from under the guilt I feel about Barbados. I am resigned to that. But I sometimes feel that I was at my worst when I wanted nothing more than to cast adrift my own flesh and blood.”
This was harder to hear than anything earlier had been. “But you did not do that; you came and stayed.”
Frederick rose and stood behind Edward’s chair. Both men were done in. Neither of them had the energy for any more emotions or revelations.
“Good night, Brother.” Frederick rested his hand on Edward’s shoulder for a moment.
“Good night, my boy.”
They were finished for the night.
~~~~~~~&~~~~~~~
The day following, the brothers went out of their way to be polite, but not in any way affectionate. It would take some time before the gentlemen were comfortable with knowing so much about one another. The Captain noticed Catherine watching them, but she said nothing. He wondered if she knew about Edward and about their talk.
Several days passed. Then, as Frederick was tending his horse, he happened to glance out the stable window to see Edward and Catherine walking around the garden. They held hands as they stopped and looked over the bare canes of berries, broken hills where potatoes had been dug, and frost-wizened tops of beets still in the ground. As they were coming out, passing under a little pergola covered with withered grapevines, they paused and stood very close together.
Frederick stopped brushing and watched. Edward took his wife’s hands, slowly removing her gloves as he spoke. She listened attentively. When he had finished, he kissed each hand and slipped them into his own pockets. This action drew her closer still. She smiled at first and then laughed when he said something in her ear. They stood looking at one another, silent. Very slowly, Catherine closed the tiny gap between them and kissed him. His brother’s hands came out of his pockets, and he took her in his arms. They stayed together, locked in the embrace for a very long time. Frederick continued to stare but no longer saw them.
Had he treated Anne with some friendliness when he arrived at Uppercross, they might have found a way to heal his angry wounds. They might be on their way toward marriage had he exercised something resembling intelligence.
As he came out of his reverie, he noticed, to his horror, that Catherine now rested her head on Edward’s shoulder; and her gaze had him in her line of sight. She smiled at Frederick and waved a little with her fingertips.
There was nothing to do but return her gesture. He turned quickly. I shall never be able to look the woman in the eye, he thought, brushing his horse with a violent sort of vigour.
~~~~~~~&~~~~~~~
It was over two months since Louisa Musgrove’s fall, and Frederick suddenly felt a renewed sting of the event. He excused himself from the usual after-dinner conversation and went out intending to take another walk. He did not wish to risk meeting strangers or slight acquaintances, so he sought his refuge in Edward’s winter-hardened garden. The plot perfectly reflected the landscape of his heart. Overall, the ground was uneven, making walking difficult. The greens and browns that made up the garden’s colour palette were dull and muddy. What had once been vibrant with life was now brittle with frost and gave little indication that anything good could ever appear again.
There had been no other letters from any of the Musgroves. This was a relief in the short-term. Without letters piling up, it was simple to imagine that there was nothing of importance outside the world of the rectory. In reality, the lack of communication could also mean the Musgroves were taking their time in marshalling their arguments for marriage between Louisa and him. He must do something soon or be at the mercy of a situation for which he had no defen
ce.
At times like this, he thanked God for a fair amount of control over himself. His passions of late had taken wild swings from being reconciled to the situation to a deep desire to mount his horse and ride away from the obligations. Intellectually, he knew that his course lay somewhere between the two. The pain in his heart came from knowing that Anne was not to be found in any of the solutions.
“If you continue to excuse yourself when the pudding is served, I shall be forced to think it is not to your liking, Captain. In fact, none of my cooking has managed to entice your appetite today.” Catherine’s voice startled him. She was looking over the stone wall that surrounded part of the garden.
He approached her. “Not at all, madam. I merely wanted fresh air. Your puddings are a triumph, and I shall have two when next we dine.”
She paused under the pergola to pluck a dead grape leaf. He waited for her at the garden’s end. “No need to flatter me, sir. My husband is enthusiastic enough about my cooking to keep your bad opinions from stinging too much.” She took his arm. “He is a very enthusiastic man in general. By the way, Captain, please never mention what you have seen between him and me. Edward would be mortified.”
He wondered if his brother’s mortification could possibly surpass his own at that moment. It could, he decided. “I shall take my knowledge of his excesses to the grave.”
Catherine laughed and thanked him. “I did come looking for you. You were very tense during dinner, and I think I know why.”
They continued apace as he wondered if he might have, given her a clue to the truth of his circumstances. Edward surely would keep his confidence, but what exactly was the priority of keeping a brother’s secret from a wife? Was there any at all? Regrettably, wives had more powerful weapons at their disposal than brothers would ever possess. The only solution was to walk and listen.
Catherine crushed the leaf and watched the brown bits flutter to the ground. “I think you are still concerned about Edward and his...secret.”
