Chapter 5
Five
The last time someone told him that it was for his own good was when he’d been at Eton and he did not like it anymore now than he had then. “I am sober. I have been sober!” He narrowed his eyes and waved a finger at her. “I will find it and then I will hide it from you.”
Rhys clomped down the steps of the terrasse, his irritation and anger higher than it had been since they arrived only to find the children standing and staring at him. No doubt they heard the argument. “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing, Mr. McNaught,” Nicoll said and ushered the children away while he went to his hammock to enjoy his meal and biscuit.
She took his rum!
What kind of woman took a man’s rum?
Miss Driscoll must be one of those Saints or Evangelicals he had met in England.
Strict and pious and no fun whatsoever. They would take a man’s bottle of rum because it violated their strict moral code.
It was a wonder any of them had children since they were so strait-laced.
And, if they did go about begetting an heir, he was certain that they did not allow themselves to take any pleasure in the procreation, just something that must be done.
He settled into the middle of the hammock and looked out to the sea while he peeled his orange.
Miss Driscoll and her sisters had to go.
Not only had they disrupted his peace but it was dangerous.
The French could come back at any time and they could not be discovered.
It was already common knowledge that he lived somewhere along the beach so no one would think it odd if he was found.
They would question why there were also females and while he could explain a ship had gone down, they may link it to the one intentionally sunk, and once they had their surname…
For the next two days he avoided Miss Driscoll and the girls. He only went to the hut when he wanted food and a change of clothing. They were cool and polite to the other, and there was certainly no warmth. In fact, the tension was heavier than the humidity.
During the day, he remained alert for the return of the soldiers and scouted the area for signs that anyone else had been around and at night, after the lamps and candles had been extinguished inside the hut, he slept on the terrasse to protect them and always left before they awakened.
He also contemplated fixing the boat. It may be needed, or it may not, but at least it gave him something to do while he waited.
He also wondered if he shouldn’t go back into Fort-de-France and gather further information. The longer he had to wait for a messenger to return, the more likely that his most recent information was no longer correct.
What if there were more soldiers at the fort than he realized? What if the French had managed to drop supplies on another beach under the noses of the Royal Navy?
The blockade was to weaken the island, their defenses and help encourage the people to surrender when the time came. It was also the reason why he had only been able to buy what could be grown or made on the island.
On the third day, Rhys finally decided to fix the boat and while Miss Driscoll and the girls broke their fast, he entered the hut, took something to eat for himself then retrieved a hammer and the nails that had been stored before he returned to the terrasse and began taking up planks.
Rhys still wasn’t certain if they would serve his purpose, but he was going to try.
“What are you doing?” Miss Driscoll demanded after he had removed three of the boards.
“Fixing the boat,” he answered.
“With terrasse?” she asked in surprise.
“It is wood, is it not?” He then gathered up the planks, hammer and nails and marched off, leaving a gaping hole for them to avoid. It was at the edge, not right outside the door, so at least he was somewhat considerate.
He then pulled the boat from the water and turned it upside down so that it could dry and spent the rest of the time measuring and cutting. After that he retrieved a saw, and was able to make the planks fit into the space, but he had no means to seal the boat, waterproof it so that it didn’t sink.
He also wasn’t as confident that the wood from the terrasse would be strong enough to withstand waves. They were already weathered and worn from being exposed to the elements for years.
He was considering his dilemma, while sitting on a log staring at the boat, when a bottle of rum was set beside his foot.
He looked at it, frowned, then at the person who had delivered it. “Ann, right?” He was finally learning their names, not that Miss Driscoll had bothered to introduce them.
She nodded.
“Does your sister know that you have brought me this?”
She shook her head.
This was odd and he grew suspicious. Was Miss Driscoll waiting to catch him take a drink in front of the child? Except, why would she when she had hidden the bottles to begin with.
“Why?” he finally asked.
“Because I want to help you.”
“Help me what?”
“Fix the boat.”
“Why?”
“Because I do not like mending,” she answered as if it was a reasonable explanation.
He frowned. “I haven’t figured out how to fix the boat.”
“Because you lack tar or pitch,” Margaret answered with authority as she joined them.
“You know a lot about boats, do you?” he chuckled and reached for the bottle.
“I know about a lot of things.”
“You do, do you?” he chuckled as he uncorked the bottle and took a drink.
“I like to read but you do not have any books in the house, but I have watched boats be repaired in the harbor back home.”
“Very well, you can help me,” Rhys said as he corked the bottle again. “Both of you.”
“What should I do?” Ann asked with excitement. The child truly must be bored.
Rhys studied the boat for a moment. “It does need to be scrubbed on the outside,” he said. It was dirty, which he always found odd that a boat could get dirty in the water. One would think it wasn’t possible since one bathed in water.
He shook his head. Of course, he understood how it got dirty, it just seemed wrong that it could happen.
“I will gather rags and return,” Ann offered.
“The inside needs to be scrubbed first,” he said after a moment. “I will see to that.” He couldn’t ask a child to clean up dried blood.
It had probably stained the inside and he might need to consider new paint as well. Except, he did not have any of that either.
“I can clean the inside,” Ann insisted.
“So can I,” Nicoll said as she sat down on the other side of him.
“Do none of you have something else to do?”
“No,” Ruth, the eight-year-old said as she came up from behind followed by the other two sisters.
“There is blood in the boat,” he reminded Nicoll quietly.
“We know, Mr. McNaught,” she responded in a condescending tone often used by her sister.
“We were all with Cornelius as he bled and died while Tempest rowed us to the shore. We all dug the hole to bury him, therefore, the sight of the blood in the boat will not come as a shock to myself or my younger siblings.”
Well, she had certainly told him. “Alright. Let us get the inside of the boat cleaned.” However, as he stood, he noted that each one of them was wearing one of his shirts. The two oldest also had on a pair of his trousers. He did not have so many that he could give them away.
“Where is your clothing?” he demanded.
“Drying?” Ellen answered as she skipped to join them. “Today was laundry day. We gathered everything that was dirty and washed it. Even your clothing, Mr. McNaught.”
“Well, thank you.” He was going to need to launder his clothing soon, especially since most of it was being worn by the children, and they looked ridiculous because the shirts fit them like loose dresses, though nothing was exposed, so he supposed they were modest enough.
“Well, let’s get to it then.”
In no time they had returned with rags and buckets of water then helped him turn the boat back over.
“Did you know that Martinique is the Island of Flowers?” Margaret asked him.
“No, I did not.”
“L'?le aux Fleurs,” she said with a grin. “Those who lived here before it was discovered called it Madinia, which means Island of Flowers.”
“So why don’t you call it Madinia?”
“L'?le aux Fleurs is French but means the same.”
“I can speak French,” he informed her. “I wanted to know why it just wasn’t called what the people who lived here first called it.”
She shrugged. “I do not know.”
He frowned. “If you know so much, if it was originally called Madinia, why is it now Martinique?”
“A bastardization over time I suppose.”
He nearly choked on his drink of rum. “You could have said they changed it.”
“That would not have been accurate since the alteration of the name was nothing less than a corruption of the original so that it was easier for the invaders, which would have been a ridiculous reason because Madinia is not so difficult to say or spell, unlike other languages. Instead, the invaders gave it a name better suited to them that fit with their claiming of the island.”
All he could do was stare at the twelve-year-old child. “You have given this a good deal of thought.”
“As I do with everything. Knowledge is important if one wishes to understand and make decisions based on facts.”
No doubt Margaret was going to be a bloody bluestocking when she was older, most likely rejecting men and becoming a spinster because she would refuse to be reduced to mending or stitching.
Heaven help the gentleman who might fall in love with her.
“How did you learn all this?” he asked out of curiosity.
“From the chest,” Ann answered with excitement.
“What chest?”
“The one we found when we were digging the grave for Cornelius.”
A buried chest on a Caribbean island. Maybe his hut had been built by a pirate.
“We had hoped that it contained treasure, left and forgotten, but there was nothing but documents and a bottle of something that my sister poured out.”
Probably rum no doubt.
“It was quite exciting,” Margaret insisted. “Even if there wasn’t any gold.”