by Peg Kingman
Captain Keith steered for where Increase had last been moored. She was not there; had they mistaken the place on the featureless water? Coming about, Captain Keith made for the main channel, where captains sometimes anchored in preparation for sailing. Catherine felt sick to her stomach. Increase, Increase, Increase?
There she lay, tall and beautiful in the gray dawn. “Ahoy there, Increase!” called Captain Keith as they came up under her lee rail. One after another, rigid with cold, the tardy passengers were hoisted aboard in the bosun’s chair. Captain Mainwaring was on deck in his dripping sou’wester, oilskins, and tall boots as they each came soaring over the rail. “Oh, very good, very good,” he was saying cheerfully. “Of course we have waited for you, Mr MacDonald; Mr Fleming would never have agreed to sail without you. Here you are, Mrs MacDonald, and just in the nick of time. Here is the wee lass! And you have brought your maid after all, I see.”
“Two m-m-maids,” said Catherine, her teeth chattering, as Annie came flying over the rail last of all.
AT SEA.
8
obvious to a Competent Judgement
“Annie, Annie…Pray, what is your other name, Annie?” asked Catherine, as she folded her bulky canvaswork into a mahogany locker in her cabin aboard Increase. On this first afternoon at sea after their hasty unconventional departure, the sky had cleared to a pale watery blue, and Increase was bowling southward at a fine rate before a northwest wind, over water still gray, rough and broken.
Grace was perched on the sill of the curving window across the stern. She was rubbing the sleep from her eyes, for they had all slept half the day away. She was mesmerised by their wake unreeling behind them, rough and torn across the whitecapped North Sea. And Sharada, who knew from experience how these things worked, was transforming Catherine and Grace’s beds back into their daytime guise: a pair of miniature sofas.
The cabin and its adjoining closet, occupied now by four women and a trunk, did not seem so commodious as when Catherine had first seen it empty, though the two maids had no belongings except the clothes they wore. Annie was gently rinsing the Paisley shawl in a basin of rainwater, dipping the heavy dark drooping thing up and down, trying not to splash. The shawl smelled of a wet sheep.
“What do you mean, ma’am, my other name?” asked Annie.
“Have you not another name, a family name?”
“No, ma’am, no other name—just Annie.”
“How are you distinguished from other Annies and Annes, then? Were there no other Annes in your acquaintance?”
“Oh, lots of Annes—too many. Our Missus Grant, her name is Anne, but everybody call her Missus Grant. And her daughter, the little missus, she’s Little Miss Anne. And then among the servants there’s another Annie, always meek and mild in front of the family, but I know better than that. So the children of the family, the Grant children, they takes to calling her Annie Good; and they calls me Annie Bad, ’cause when I was very little, no older than them, why, sometimes I used to disobey them and make them cross. And so after a while the family and the servants, everybody, all takes to calling me Annie Bad.”
“Annie Bad! But that is very bad; indeed, it is impossible. You must choose another name. Or shall I choose one for you?”
“Oh! no!” interrupted Sharada. “I beg your pardon, ma’am, and Annie Bad.” Sharada straightened up, flushed from wrestling with a bolster. “But Annie Bad must not change her name, never indeed. It is surely her good name, her true good name. In our great music, our Indian music, ‘anibaddh’ is the word which is signifying ‘unbound’ or ‘free’—that is, unbound by any rule of…of meter, of rhythm. Now she is unbound, free, by her own great courage and resolve, and by your kindness too, ma’am, so Anibaddh is surely her true good name.”
“Well,” said Catherine after a moment, “I suppose it is Annie’s concern, and Annie’s decision.”
“Then I like to be called Anibaddh still, if you please, ma’am,” said Annie. “I’m so used to it.”
“Are you yourself again?” Catherine asked Hector, finding him bent over the miniature writing table in his own little cabin. “Did you sleep the day away, as we did?”
“A braw night, wasn’t it? “said Hector, setting down his pen carefully and leaning back in his chair to stretch.
“Not the night you expected, alas! I am so sorry, Hector, that you were deprived of your last night at home with Mary and the children. I knew I ought not to leave Grace alone.”
“It is not your fault. Even if you had been in the room, they might have tried snatching her, you know.”
“Aye, that is true enough. It might have been much worse. Still—poor Mary! What must she have suffered, waiting for you all night!”
“I asked Captain Keith to go and tell her as soon as he got us safe aboard.”
“Are you writing to her now? I will write her an apology, to enclose with your letter, if you will let me. And she will be relieved to learn how respectable a figure I now cut, attended by such a surfeit of maids.”
“You have not engaged them both?”
“We agreed to make our dispositions when we come to Flanders. I am paying their passages to Antwerp in return for their waiting upon Grace and me. That is the extent of our agreement so far. The Indian maid declares she will go on to India; she expects to find an employer and a passage from Antwerp. The American girl has not settled on a plan; freedom is so very new to her. Perhaps I will engage her while Grace and I remain in Flanders, but I have also offered to pay her passage back to Britain if she prefers. In any case I shall settle a small sum on her by way of reward. We are all four of us rather surprised to find ourselves here together, and it may require some time to see how matters fall out.”
“If this wind holds, Captain Mainwaring says we’ll be entering the mouth of the Westerschelde in three days,” said Hector.
“So soon! And then how long do you remain in port at Antwerp? Increase, I mean?”
“Not more than three or four days, I believe—perhaps less.”
“What is that thumping noise?” asked Catherine. Above the creakings and workings of the ship itself, there was a rhythmic thudding just beyond the partition of Hector’s cabin.
“I believe a newly-wed Mr and Mrs Todd have taken the next cabin,” said Hector evenly.
The entire party on board assembled for the first time for their four o’clock dinner in the cuddy cabin. Besides Captain Mainwaring, the sibling MacDonalds, and Mr Fleming, there was a highland Dr Macpherson, a Mr Sinclair, and the lately married Mr and Mrs Todd. Catherine found herself seated at Captain Mainwaring’s left hand; at her other side was Dr Macpherson. Sharada took up her place behind Catherine’s chair to wait on her; the other diners were likewise waited on by their own servants or by the ship’s boys.
“Eight at table,” said Captain Mainwaring jovially. “I do like to see my table well filled. And my serving dishes and claret glasses well filled too, eh? Capital! Now you shall learn what my cook can do. He is a dab hand with the pepper once he’s let loose with it, for he’s an East Indian himself, from Patna, a city which is famous for its cookery. You didn’t suspect it at Leith, did you? Dining on his Scotch collops of venison! But directly we are at sea, he reverts to his oriental ways. Well, that’s why I keep him on. Once one has acquired a taste for spices, it is a hardship to do without them. Mulligatawnies! Biryanis and kedgerees! The fiery vindaloo! And those fried sweets in honey—jalebi, they are called. You shall try them, I promise you.
“Well! Mrs MacDonald, it is a pleasure to welcome you to my table. I trust I see you well rested and quite recovered from the strenuousness of your embarkation. It was neatly done! Do regale yourself while you can, for when you leave us at Antwerp you shall have nothing but dreary Low Country food: eels boiled with cabbages, and the like.” Then, giving his attention to his soup, the captain allowed his guests to do likewise.
The soup was indeed richly peppered, quite speckled black. It was the first time Catherine had ever e
aten a dish containing enough freshly ground pepper that she noticed the taste and aroma of the spice itself: rich, warm (daringly but not alarmingly so), and faintly sweet.
Across the table, Mr Todd was refilling his young bride’s glass, then his own. He had an odd, arch way of addressing her; more frequently than necessary, very frequently, he would call her “Mrs Todd”: “May I refill your glass, Mrs Todd?” “Won’t you have a little more of the chicken, Mrs Todd, perhaps just this delicate little wing?” Or, to the company at large, “I have made the China passage before this, but Mrs Todd has never been to sea before.” And each time he pronounced the words “Mrs Todd,” he would cast a sidelong glance at her, one eyebrow raised, a most meaning look. To herself, Catherine accounted for this affectation as mere newlywed mannerism, but it was very odd. Thus addressed, Mrs Todd would blush and look self-conscious. Once, she allowed herself to say, “Thank you, Mr Todd. I believe I will have just a bit more of the cucumber relish, for this bracing sea air gives one a barbarous appetite.” Catherine noticed that Mrs Todd did have a fine appetite; her food disappeared quickly from her plate. But Catherine was inclined to attribute it, and her rosy complexion, to other causes than the invigorating sea air.
The Dr Macpherson to Catherine’s left seemed at first as tongue-tied as a boy, though he was certainly twice Catherine’s age. But by the time they got to the excellent haddock, Catherine found that he would talk freely about fevers—fevers in general and fevers in particular; delicately about puerperal fevers and copiously about the fascinating malarial and typhus fevers, their related dysentaries, and the unwholesome damp tropical soils from which they sprang. Until now, his medical practice had been in Glasgow, where the only tropical fevers he had seen were long-established chronic and recurring cases, late in their course, in wracked yellow soldiers returned from India. But now he looked forward eagerly to opportunities for studying these same enthralling fevers—and treating them, too, of course—at their source.
“It is the soils which must be studied,” he declared to Catherine and Captain Mainwaring while licking cucumber relish off his upper lip. “It is the soils which hold the secret. Of this I am certain. It is well known—it has long been observed—that the disease is endemic; that is to say, it occurs where particular soils are found, particular soils of exceptional moistness. Now in what consists the unwholesome principle? Samples of these soils must be collected and examined. I am in no doubt that a thorough, a really thorough study of these soils—on a microscopic level, you understand—must yield their secret, the nature of their unwholesome principle—that is, of the malarial vapours emitted by them. And then, of course, an efficacious treatment—even a cure—might be devised.” Once fairly launched on this subject, he could scarcely be stopped, and his voice took on a disagreeably sonorous droning character.
How unendurable this would be all the way to the Indies! Catherine nodded intelligently from time to time as he spoke, but she could overhear other talk around the table, and all of it was better than this. At the far end of the table, Hector and Mr Sinclair were discussing the metallurgical aspects of the aquatint engraving process: “Have you a supply of the copper plates?” she heard Hector ask.
“Aye, and also the etching acids, and a case of powdered resin,” replied Mr Sinclair; and they plunged into the engrossing subject of the various properties, sources and uses of resins, rosins, varnishes, and lacquers; and Mr Sinclair promised to give Hector a demonstration of the powers of wax and resin to protect certain metals from the corrosive effects of acids.
“Indeed, the sine qua non would be a preventive, or rather a prophylactic treatment,” announced Dr Macpherson through a mouthful of haddock. “The current practice, the accepted practice at present, as you doubtless are aware, consists of the administration of cinchona or wormwood—Jesuits’ bark….”
When the doctor paused to pick a bit of bone from between his teeth, Captain Mainwaring stood: “Mr Sinclair,” cried he to the young man at the foot of the table, “a glass of wine with you: To the masterpieces you will paint in the Indies!” Their glasses were filled; and they raised them to one another, bowed, and drank them down. But as a device for making the conversation general, the toast failed, for Hector immediately engrossed Mr Sinclair’s attention again, on the mineral deposits and corrosive effects of salt water in steam boilers.
“Is Mr Sinclair a painter?” Mr Todd asked Captain Mainwaring as the plates were cleared away. “Does he paint heads, or is it landscapes and scenes and that sort of thing?”
“Oh, he can turn his hand to anything, I daresay,” said Captain Mainwaring. “I have seen a head he did of Captain Blundell. A very good likeness, and in the background his brig Medusa perfectly recognisable and its rigging quite correct. There is nothing more disgusting in a picture than carelessness about such details. So many pictures are ruined by the painter’s landlubberish ignorance! The ensign streaming aft, yet the sails set for a wind that is clearly dead astern! I know of a picture, much admired by academicians, in which the stays are running upward—forward and upward! Preposterous—an object of ridicule!”
“You are hard on us, sir!” exclaimed Mr Sinclair from his end of the table. “In my opinion, it is writers who are the worst offenders. I have thrown down more than one novel in disgust upon being told by the author of ‘the full moon rising about midnight to cast its dappling light o’er the dim forest track.’ A full moon rising at midnight! Do moons rise and set to suit the convenience of scribbling writers? Is it mere ignorance, or do writers imagine that they possess the power to set the heavenly bodies spinning out of their appointed orbits at need or at random? Directly I read such a thing, I lose all confidence in the author; my faith in his tale drains away instantly. Whereas a moment before I had been willing to ride upon the magic carpet of his art, suddenly the magic fails and I am cast unceremoniously to the ground—a very unpleasant fall.”
“But may not the full moon rise at midnight, from time to time?” asked Mrs Todd. “I daresay it may; it is so very changeable….” Here she trailed off as her husband laughed at her.
But Captain Mainwaring gravely answered, “No, no, Mrs Todd, it cannot; it never has and it never will. You shall have an astronomy demonstration four nights from now, if you like—you and Mr Todd and anyone who likes, for that will be full moon. Then I shall undertake to show you why the full moon must always rise opposite the setting sun, and a moon which rises at midnight must be waning; and no painter or writer can change it to suit the requirements of his tale.”
“Forgers must have a hard time of it these days, what with all this scientific knowledge about,” said Mr Todd. “Not so easy anymore to carry off a hoax, I daresay.”
“It is certainly a factual age, Mr Todd,” said Mr Sinclair. “Though it seems to me that our connoisseurs and collectors are as credulous, and greedy, as ever. But they are only too likely, when evaluating a painting or a poem, to fix upon its pedigree, its certifications of origin, while closing their eyes to its artistic merits; to the intrinsic beauty of the thing itself—like sailors who stuff their ears with wool so as not to hear the ravishing songs of the Sirens.”
“Thus we steer clear of credulity, I hope,” said Mr Fleming with energy. “We rely upon facts for their virile power to reinforce—or else to contradict—the seductive eloquence of beauty.”
“Aye, facts,” said Hector thoughtfully. “But, alas, we are so likely to be deceived in our facts. How frequently do we stumble, cursing, across a fundamental discovery while blundering about in determined pursuit of some error!”
“The challenge then,” said Mr Fleming, “is to appreciate the significance of what has tripped us up, and not stupidly to curse it. We must perceive the import of those very uncharted rocks and reefs, so to speak, upon which our theories are dashed.”
Dr Macpherson shook his head as though to disagree, but he was unable to speak because he had just put half of a large juicy pear into his wide mouth, and so he lost his chance.
This silenced everyone for a moment, and Mrs Todd flushed and began to look faintly alarmed, uncertain whether she had said something clever, or very stupid indeed. Her husband was just about to enlighten her, but Captain Mainwaring spoke first. “Only well-charted waters for us,” he said positively and loudly. Just then the tea was brought in, and the cloth withdrawn, and the subject changed: Catherine inquired about shipboard methods of catching and collecting rainwater, and Captain Mainwaring was happy to explain in some detail.
The weather continued clear and windy, so that by evening Increase was sailing comfortably with the wind abeam, with little for the crew to do. The broad clean deck where the passengers walked and sat together was heeled over only so far as to excite but not disconcert the inexperienced travelers among them; and the regular smooth swell was now a dark blue, as slow and heavy as slag. Other sails could be seen, other ships and boats making their way up or down the wind, but there was no sight or sound or smell of land—only dark water in every direction to the horizon.
“A soldier’s wind,” said Mr Fleming, joining Catherine where she leaned on the broad windward rail at sunset.
“What do you mean?”
“When the wind is abeam like this, strong and steady, sailors call it a soldier’s wind because…perhaps you can guess.” His dark hair was blown back from his high forehead, and the last of the sunlight gleamed in his eyes—now darkest blue like the sea. Hadn’t they been green before? Did they change as the sea changed?
