didn’t seem to have an argument prepared for Napoleon. “Especially your ears,” she echoed, as she closed the door behind her.
Nana went down the stairs quietly. She had gone upstairs, mostly afraid of Captain Worthy, and come down with a revised opinion. He was blunt and plainspoken, but surely no more than any other seaman she had encountered in the years since her return to Plymouth. His apparent concern for her was a surprise; she did not know why he should feel any obligation to make sure she had something to eat.
“You don’t know anything about me,” she whispered, looking back up the stairs.
She passed into the sitting room at the foot of the stairs, and then to the equally small dining room that adjoined it. Gran had told her to prepare a table setting for Captain Worthy—one table among eight. It looked faintly ludicrous in the empty room. She sat down, thinking of their only other tenant at the inn, who had died last spring.
Miss Edgar—Nana never knew her Christian name—had been a governess, a lady somewhat down on her luck whose last position had been with the harbormaster’s family. When the two daughters had outgrown Miss Edgar’s services, she had not the funds to relocate anywhere else, nor the energy, at her advanced age, to try for another post. It seemed no one was interested in hiring an old lady whose French was getting rusty, and who had difficulty remembering the capitals of Europe.
She had come to the Mulberry because it was cheap and clean, and stayed there five years before her money ran out. From Nana’s fifteenth birthday on, when she visited Plymouth during holidays, she had observed Miss Edgar sitting by herself in the otherwise empty dining room, and spending her evenings alone in the sitting room.
Gran had tried to get Miss Edgar to join them in their own tidy quarters through the green baize door into the back of the inn. “All I ever wanted to do was invite her to share our company,” Gran had told Nana, and there was no disguising the hurt in her voice. “She won’t hear of it. We’re not quality.”
After Miss Edgar outlived all her savings, there was nowhere to go but the street. When she returned to Plymouth for good, Nana had been surprised to see Miss Edgar still in residence.
“I couldn’t throw her out,” Gran had told Nana later, after Miss Edgar had gone upstairs to her room. “She has never spoken of the fact that her money is gone, and she still refuses to share our low society, even while she eats our food and lives here for free.”
Nana gathered up the place setting meant for Captain Worthy, but she did not get up. Two months ago, Gran had nursed Miss Edgar through her final illness, closed the woman’s eyes in death and prepared the body for the grave before summoning the parish cemetery society, which ushered paupers into pine boxes and unmarked graves.
Together they had cleaned out Miss Edgar’s room, finding nothing of any value beyond yards of tatting, a few old books and a handful of letters. Nana was cleaning out the clothespress and its threadbare garments when Gran suddenly took her by the arm. “Miss Edgar and I could have been friends!” she had lamented, as her eyes filled with tears. “What’s even worse, I had thought your stay at Miss Pym’s would prepare you for a career such as hers.”
Nana had kissed Gran then, not telling her that Miss Pym had delicately informed her several years before that she would never be able to get such a position, because no family would countenance a governess with questionable parentage. But Gran didn’t need to know that. She had assured Gran she had no plans to ever leave the Mulberry.
Nana sat for a few more moments in the empty dining room. The rain drummed down outside as she contemplated class, rank and general stupidity. She wondered if Captain Worthy preferred an empty dining room to low company at the back of the inn.
Pete was out, but Gran and the scullery maid, Sal, were finishing the last of the porridge. “Captain Worthy wants me to take some dictation.” She found a tablet and pencil in the drawer where Gran kept her records. “He wants more drinking water.” She smiled at Sal. “If you would bring up some shaving water after a while, he means to visit the dry docks.”
“I doubt he can stand up,” Gran said.
“But he will,” Nana replied.
She thought Gran might offer an objection to her returning upstairs, but she did not. Muttering something about “catching his death in this rain,” Gran reached for the rest of the wheat, prepared to make a new poultice.
Tucking the pencil in her hair, the tablet under one arm and the pitcher in the other, Nana went back to Captain Worthy’s chamber. She tapped softly on the door. There was no answer. She tapped again, no louder, then looked inside the room.
He was asleep. She thought about going downstairs, but remembered what he had said about going to the dry docks. She set down the pitcher quietly and sat again beside his bed.
She was struck by the way he slept—directly in the middle of the bed, with his hands folded across his stomach. She couldn’t help but think of a man in a coffin, and the notion sent a ripple down her spine. She considered the man, and understood. Flailing about in a hammock or sleeping cot would probably have meant a quick trip to the deck below.
I wonder, does he ever turn over? she asked herself, curious. No matter. He was sleeping peacefully, his face probably as relaxed as it ever got. Captain Worthy had a sharp and straight nose set above thin lips. His hair was dark brown, with wisps of gray in it by his temples, as well as a faint, curved scar, circling below his cheekbone and nearly touching his right nostril. Pirates on the Barbary Coast? she thought. Or a grappling hook swung by a desperate Frenchman?
He shouldn’t be so concerned about her own paucity of meals, she decided, considering that he was on the thin side himself. His hands, so peacefully folded, were deeply veined. Her eyes went back to his face, toasted by coastal Spanish sun to a pleasant mahogany that probably turned sallow during the winter. Nothing would change the weather lines around his eyes. She had lived enough of her life in Plymouth to know the mark of a deep water man.
He coughed, then tried to swallow, which marred his repose as he flinched from the pain in his throat, and uttered some small protest. Then he opened his eyes, looking directly overhead for a long moment, until he seemed to recall where he was.
He must have sensed her presence, because he addressed her, even as he continued to stare overhead.
“It’s like this, Miss Massie. When I wake up, I always look at the compass over my head first. Maybe you would induce more captains to visit the Mulberry if you hung compasses on the overhead deck beam.”
“I think you have been too long at sea, Captain,” she replied, laughing.
“Doubtless.”
“It is probably safe enough to turn on your side, sir,” she continued, feeling bold enough to tease him. “We may not be on the first tier of elegance here, but no bed at the Mulberry will pitch you onto the floor.”
“Old habits are nigh impossible to break,” he told her, then turned onto his side and faced her. “Before we begin, go to the clothespress, please, and take out the tar bag.”
That was what she had been smelling in the room. She did as he said.
“The log’s in there, but I’m looking for the ship roster. It’s rolled and tied with twine. Open it. Read the names, and mark a number in the margin where I say.”
She found the roster, removed the twine and unrolled
