the maid to return with his cloak and hat, except that carollers stood outside the front door. His exit from the house seemed to signal a burst of music, almost as if they were celebrating his departure from a house of mourning that he had disturbed.
They sounded quite good, harmonising on ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’, as he walked down the steps and stood beside them, digging out a few coins to give the collection. He saw many children and likely parents among that number, supplying volume where needed. He could tell from their sturdy but practical clothing that they were of the same social sphere as his friends from the mail coach. He looked at the boys, seeing them in the fleet in a few years, or marching with Sir John Moore in Spain and Portugal. He averted his gaze; it was not a pretty thought.
He shouldered his duffel again and started back the way he had come. Too bad there were no intelligent men in Kent who should have courted and married such a pretty lady as Verity Newsome.
He shook off the thought, reminding himself that he had fully discharged his duty to his second luff and bore no more responsibility for a young man gone too soon. In Plymouth he had discharged a similar duty to the widow of his carpenter’s mate. He had given her a small sum that he lied and said was Nahum Mattern’s share of prize money gone astray from a mythical fleet action in the Pacific. He had sent two letters to more remote families of able seamen, along with more prize money of a mythical source. He had done what he could.
He counted his blessings that his frigate had only lost four men at Trafalgar. He knew the butcher’s bill was much higher on the ships of the line that did the actual fighting. He didn’t envy those captains.
He stood in the shadow of trees a short distance from the Newsome house until the last strains of ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’ died away in the cold air. He knew he had two weeks before reporting to London for Admiral Nelson’s funeral, without a single clue how to spend leisure time. It was a foreign concept. Perhaps he could catch up on his reading.
Joe enjoyed a good dinner at the Gentleman Johnny, propping a book on navigation against the water jug while he ate shepherd’s pie—two dishes—brown bread with butter—not rancid—and rice pudding with sultanas and figs. He decided against coffee.
He slept well enough, thanks entirely to a bedwarmer with just the right amount of coals in it, well wrapped in flannel. He dreamed, but of nothing more strenuous than hauling down and raising signal flags with amazing speed. Somehow—how curious was the overactive brain—the final signal was ‘brown eyes’. He woke up with a smile on his face.
* * *
Late breakfast was another pleasure: all the bacon he wanted, eggs fried so carefully that the yolks quivered, but remained intact, and toasted brown bread with plum jam. Coffee suited him, well sugared and with fresh cream, another novelty.
His scar hurt less. Too bad he did not have the name and direction of the kind lady who had pressed that jar of goose grease into his palm on the mail coach. He would have sent her a letter of thanks. Maybe in a week he could work up the nerve to clip the sutures.
He sat by the window, looking out at a slight drizzle that seemed certain to dissipate any moment. He wondered whether to stay another night to read and continue eating well, or return to Torquay and bother the shipwright about repairs.
His gaze focused on a young person, head down, cloak-enveloped, pushing towards the Gentleman Johnny. When she looked up, he recognised the young maid from the Newsomes’ home. He poured himself another half-cup of coffee and looked around when the same child approached his table and peered at him, too shy to say anything.
‘Aye, miss?’
She stepped closer, looked at the ceiling and recited, ‘I am to give you this, Captain Everest, and they will not take no for an answer.’ She held out a note.
So he was Captain Everest to a Kentish maid? Hiding a smile, he took it from her and nodded to the innkeeper. ‘Can you find some more toast and jam for this little lady?’
‘I can and will, sir. Come along to the kitchen, Susan.’
He read the note. ‘So you won’t take no for an answer?’ he asked out loud, since the inn’s dining room was empty. ‘What can have happened?’
Dear Captain Everard,
We were remiss in our hospitality to you last night. Would you return and spend a few days here? We’d like to hear stories about our son on your ship. We hope you have time to humour us.
Sincerely,
Mr and Mrs Augustus Newsome
I suppose there is a first time for everything, Joe thought, as he pocketed the note, drained the coffee cup and stood up.
To go or not to go? He had faithfully discharged his last duty to a crew member. He owed the Newsomes nothing more. He shook his head. They owed him nothing, either. Better to let the dog of duty turn around a few times, settle down and go to sleep. They would get on with their lives and he with his.
All the same, he knew he owed the Newsomes a response and it was easy enough to write one because it was the truth. While Susan ate her toast and jam, Joe procured a piece of paper and a pencil from the keep and wrote a reply there in the kitchen. He folded it and held it out to the child. ‘Take this back to the Newsomes, if you please,’ he said and took out a coin. ‘And this is for your troubles.’
His heart sank when her face fell. ‘Sir, I was supposed to bring you back,’ she said.
‘Oh, I can’t...’ he started to say, but stopped when she put down her toast and folded her arms, refusing to take the note or the coin. She was almost as tough as the men he commanded, looking him in the eyes, her gaze not wavering.
He reconsidered. What was a few days, in the larger scheme of things? ‘Very well, miss. Let me get my duffel and pay the keep, since you insist.’
She had a winning smile. ‘Finish your toast,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back.’
Upstairs, he spent one cowardly moment wondering what would happen if he refused to come downstairs. How long would she wait? Deciding such chicken-heartedness was not worthy of an officer and gentleman who had prevailed at Camperdown, the Battle of the Nile and, for God’s sake, Trafalgar, Joe bowed to the inevitable and packed his duffel. He paid the grinning landlord and joined Susan in the dining room.
‘We’d better go now, Susan,’ he told her. ‘Though we’re going to get wet.’
They did, but it wasn’t a trial, because Susan proved to be a charming companion. She had a tongue on wheels and knew something about the occupants of every cottage they passed. By the time they arrived at Chez Newsome, he knew that Mrs Buttars was due to be confined any day, Paddy Bennett liked his rum a little too well, the vicar’s sermons were so boring that several of his parishioners wagered each Sunday on whether they would exceed thirty minutes. And Millicent Overby had got herself into trouble of some sort that Miss Newsome refused to divulge.
‘I want to know what sort of trouble she is in,’ Susan concluded as the house came in sight. ‘Perhaps Miss Newsome would tell you.’
‘I’m
