Chapter Ten
W hen he woke, John had to admire the efficiency of Miss Fontaine’s well-run household. Pru brought in hot water, after a light tap on the door. When he sat up, she curtsied. ‘Miss Fontaine knows you want to shave.’
‘She is right. Wake up, my boy. We’re getting ready for church!’
Trust Pru. ‘Get up, Allan. Time’s a-wasting, and you know how Missy feels about that!’
So it’s Missy for Pru as well, is it? he thought, as Pru closed the door and Allan woke up.
He looked at his timepiece. Had he really slept eight hours? In a row? He stripped, put a bath sheet around his waist, and lathered up his face. He savoured the simplicity of shaving on a deck that didn’t pitch or yaw. He glanced at Allan, who sat up in bed watching him, his eyes lively.
‘Papa, will I be able to do that some day?’
‘Aye, you will grow whiskers, laddie,’ he said, touched to the depth of his heart as he remembered doing exactly what his son was doing, this little boy he saw so seldom.
John dressed carefully, wishing his uniform wasn’t so shabby, then helped Allan into his clothes. ‘We look as fine as five pence,’ he told his son. ‘I think I smell breakfast.’
John laughed as his boy darted out of the door and down the stairs. He followed at a more dignified pace, smiling to see Anna in the corridor.
‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘I could wish my uniform weren’t so worn, but I somehow have no time to see a tailor.’
‘Captain, I will be the envy of nations, or at least the parish of St Andrew, to come to church with a Trafalgar hero,’ she said. She paused then, and he couldn’t help noticing her frown. She looked around. ‘Where is Allan?’
‘He ran ahead. Is there a problem?’
‘A small one.’
John watched the colour rise in her cheeks. He had a momentary pang, thinking of his late wife and her consumptive pallor. Miss Fontaine looked so healthy, and a little embarrassed right now. He wanted to tease her, but knew he had no claim to do anything of the sort.
‘A small problem? Perhaps I can help.’
She took a tentative step closer. ‘Captain, since Allan has been sharing my room—he sleeps better if I hold his hand—he helps me with buttons I cannot reach.’
‘Miss Fontaine, I am as talented as my son. Turn around.’
He buttoned her up the back of her dress, after the observation—in silence, certainly—that those freckles on her nose had companions. Pretty light brown freckles.
Breakfast was quick and efficient. Thank God for coffee. Other segments of British society might demand tea, but the Royal Navy was fuelled by coffee, the better to keep crews alert and awake.
‘Miss Fontaine, you run a tight ship,’ he told her. ‘If you ever get the urge to run away to sea, we could find you a berth on the Swallow .’
He chuckled as she blushed.
Allan’s eyes widened. ‘Papa, do ladies go to sea?’
‘Some do,’ John said. ‘But most wives remain in port, waiting with the patience of Job.’
Miss Fontaine rose and left the room.
‘Was it something I said?’ he asked Mrs Moore as the children left, too. ‘What…just happened?’
‘She misses her brother.’
‘The children, too? But they never knew him. I don’t understand.’
The housekeeper gave him a patient look, as if he were a child himself. ‘Pru noticed it first. When my mistress gets silent and leaves the room, she goes to a quiet place and sits there. Pru and Allan sit with her, too. No one likes to be sad alone.’
Thoughtful, he walked to the sitting room, peering in, his heart touched to watch a sorrowing lady with her arms around two children, there to comfort her.
Anna , he thought, I would comfort you, too .
He thought about that on their way to St Andrew’s.
Captains are always sad in solitary , he thought.
It’s the nature of the beast . He writhed inside that he’d seldom been around to console Cathy as the consumption had manifested itself in earnest. He hadn’t even been present for Allan’s birth, nor yet again when Cathy had died.
We men must do our duty , he reminded himself as he followed them inside the church.
Usually that reality carried him through, but at this moment he found it distinctly lacking.
The issue stung further. He hoped the children didn’t notice, but no one greeted them, as other congregants nodded and smiled to each other. Miss Fontaine was first in the pew, with the children following her.
‘I should sit next to her,’ he whispered to Mrs Moore. ‘Something is wrong.’
‘Stay where you are. I have a bad feeling that your sitting beside her would make matters worse.’
He opened his mouth to argue with her, but shut it when she gave him a look worthy of Nelson or Collingwood. He folded his arms and stared straight ahead. What is worse than this? he thought, miserable and not used to feeling lower than the most malingering sailor in the fleet.
Captain Beattie soon found out.
After the sacraments, he settled in for a boring homily, something dry as toast and usually forgotten. Not this time.
The ordained man of God leaned forward, his eyes searching out his victim like a bird of prey, until they landed on John Beattie.
John locked eyes with him and stared back.
The curate shifted his gaze to Miss Fontaine and found the perfect target.
The curate pointed his finger and proceeded to ruin a life.
‘We live in a sinful town!’ He stared heavenward dramatically.
‘Now it lurks on our better streets, where we allow evil to live among us.’ He clutched his heart, or that place in his chest where a heart might beat.
‘Now shameless women shelter unwanted boys and girls, hoping to turn them to a life of unspeakable degradation.’
Captain Beattie feared to move, not wanting to call attention to himself. His heart broke into a thousand pieces, aware that his simple request for a reassuring hug had been so wilfully misunderstood.
He heard people whispering around him, and necks craning. Don’t react, Miss Fontaine , he thought. This is all my fault and you are bearing my burden .
The diatribe continued as the curate worked his way through the evil women of scripture, Jezebel prominent. Miss Fontaine sat calmy erect, as if chiselled from marble, unflinching.
Captain Beattie knew he was not a praying man. But he prayed now for God to end this, and seldom had he meant a prayer more.
To his relief, the steam seemed to go out of the doughy scoundrel wearing the robes of an ecclesiastic. He babbled, stumbled and ended with a feeble plea to avoid fornication. Then it was over, to John’s great relief.
‘I will see you now,’ John told Reverend Maddy on their way out. He leaned towards Mrs Moore, who was giving the curate her own disapproving look. ‘Take the others home, Mrs Moore. If you can fix me a sandwich, I’ll take it with me. Tides wait for no man.’
The housekeeper nodded and shepherded her little flock past a row of puzzled onlookers. John waited.
Reverend Maddy was in no hurry. Time was passing. After the last parishioner scurried away, John planted himself in front of the curate.
‘Reverend Maddy, you were wrong to single out Miss Fontaine and me for censure,’ he said firmly, mincing not a word.
‘She has already explained the situation I found myself in. Nothing has changed, because I am ordered to the Channel again and there is still no one but Miss Fontaine to protect my son. I have no relatives younger than fifty, and they are far away, near Edinburgh. I am in the service of the Crown and at the mercy of events.’
‘What’s done is done,’ the curate said, sounding so prim and righteous that John itched to wring the man’s neck. ‘I have merely warned my parish—my parish, Captain, not yours!—of evil lurking in Plymouth.’
‘There is no evil in Miss Fontaine.’
‘My parishioners have been warned,’ the curate retorted.
He stared at the clergyman. I have made matters worse warred with, He knows what damage he has done and glories in it . Captain Beattie silently wished him to the devil, and soon.
John stalked past the smug curate, wondering if he should have said anything at all.
‘I wonder, Miss Fontaine, if I have done the right thing,’ Captain Beattie told Anna later, as he accepted a stout sandwich in a paper parcel. ‘I am so sorry.’
‘Don’t apologise again,’ she said, keeping her voice gentle in the face of his remorse. ‘It will blow over. I know it will,’ she added, even as her doubts multiplied.
That seemed to help. His eyes lost that hard expression and his shoulders relaxed. She wondered how peaceful he might look in a calm state of mind, perhaps even sleeping.
It was another quick goodbye. Allan grew solemn, but she rested her hands on his shoulders. ‘We’ll be fine, won’t we, Allan?’
To Anna’s delight, the Captain hugged Allan and Pru as well—Pru, who had even less idea what a family was than Allan. He sent the children ahead, then opened his arms to Anna.
‘Kindly give me another of those hugs. We’ll do it with the front door closed this time.’
Anna had no trouble being hauled close until he left nothing to the imagination. She wrapped her arms around him.
Then he was gone, opening the door on the children, who followed him down the steps. Anna stayed inside, wondering how a house could suddenly seem so empty, when only one person was leaving.
She asked that question again when the house was still that night. She found a psalm that her father had liked to read when he was missing Will at sea and took comfort from it.
Morning came with Mrs Moore shaking her awake. ‘Miss Fontaine! We have a problem!’