Chapter Five
Andy had no particular recollection of what followed, except that someone strong helped him onto a wagon seat of a small vehicle he remembered from his own farming boyhood. In no time he was sandwiched between the big man and Rose, who kept her arm around him.
His memory became random. He remembered a farmyard, and then an older lady spooning delicious stew into his mouth like a farmwife feeding an orphan lamb. He hoped it was the farmer who half carried him upstairs and removed his clothing, then dropped his nightshirt down his thin frame.
He remembered saying ‘Two years a prisoner will do this,’ and that was all. He was done. Not even gale force winds of the velocity around Cape Horn could have roused him.
And yet something did. During the night, he became aware he was muttering in faulty French, back in that prison of the mind that Stonehouse’s chief surgeon had warned him against. He panicked and braced for death when the door opened.
Instead, he heard a chair moved right beside his bed.
In another moment, his hand was clasped in a warm and soft grip, that and nothing more.
Now it was morning. An older fellow occupied the chair, the man he vaguely remembered who had helped him out of his clothes and into bed, surely the father of Rose and Bess. He recognized the same kindness in the eyes remembered from yesterday’s ordeal, when he probably made an idiot of himself.
There he was, still at the mercy of others, which should have bothered someone used to command and obedience. Right then, in that pleasant room with icy shards rapping on the window, he knew he could relinquish command. This was a tidy home. He was no prisoner.
‘I am Andrew Hadfield, sailing master with the Channel Fleet and currently without a ship,’ he said simply. ‘You have taken in a real orphan from the storm.’
‘I am Frederick Harte and this is my farm.’
Frederick Harte was no poor crofter. Andy sat up, intrigued, hearing the quiet pride.
He saw heavy curtains, the sort used to keep out winter’s chill.
A fire crackled merrily in the hearth. A cat curled up on the armchair closest to it, opening one eye to regard him, then rolling over.
Andy admired the multicolored rag rug. ‘You run a taut ship,’ he said.
‘There was another lady, too, and a little boy who kept me warm under a blanket.’
‘That was Ben, my grandson. He and I have snuggled a bit. A little furnace, is Ben.’
‘He kept me from shaking to pieces,’ Andy said frankly. ‘Lately, I have the devil of a time getting warm.’ He sighed. ‘The surgeon at Stonehouse didn’t want me to make this trip, but I can be hard to argue with. Ask any of my crew.’
‘Spoken like a navy man! Bess Wilkins is Ben’s mama and my younger daughter.
Her husband’s farm abuts mine. Rose is her older sister.
She works in Plymouth,’ Farmer Harte said and nodded to Andy.
‘Come to think of it, for all that she looks so sweet, Rosie can be hard to argue with, too. She refused to take no for an answer last night.’ He waved his hand around. ‘So here you are.’
Where are my manners? Andy asked himself. ‘You are all kindness, but surely there is room in that inn now?’
Farmer Harte waggled his finger. ‘I doubt the road is passable. Here you will remain until we can get you safely to Endicott.’ He then gave Andy the kind of assessment his own father—rest his soul—would have fixed on a calf that wasn’t doing well.
‘We will keep you here until we decide you are fit enough to move.’
‘Mr Harte, I am yours to command.’
That brought a laugh from his host. ‘Strange position for you, lad? No fears. There’s no doubt you’ve been through ordeals we never have to endure.
We’re plain folk, but the food is good here.
’ He cocked his head toward the door. ‘I hear Rosie on the stairs.’ He winked.
‘They squeak, so don’t try to escape her! ’
Andy laughed, in spite of his scruffy face needing a shave, and his hair looking worse than usual. Farmer Harte kindly arranged two pillows behind him. The bedding smelled faintly of lavender, so pleasant. He leaned back, savouring the bliss of it all.
The door opened and in came the farmer’s pretty daughter with a tray of food. She set it on the nearby table, and pulled back the curtains on a winter storm.
‘I’m glad this didn’t happen last night,’ she said, ‘else we would still be stuck on the open road.’
He knew she must be thinking: And you would be in even worse state.
He accepted that unspoken implication calmly, as he accepted all bad news in his chaotic life.
She had already seen him at his worst, or nearly so.
At least he wasn’t a prisoner. I should apologize to them, he thought and opened his mouth to speak.
She held up her hand. ‘No more apologies, sir. Papa reminds me that farm life can be dull, indeed, and we like company. I doubt you have ever been a burden. You are not one now.’
She sounded like she meant it, and Andy relaxed further. ‘Au contraire. I have been, and will continue to be a burden, hiss and byword to unsuspecting midshipmen.’
The farmer laughed at that. ‘None of those here. Rosie, I am surprised your aunt didn’t come upstairs with you.’
‘She’s coming,’ Rosie said. ‘Aunt Dorothea will expect you to clean your plate. She is a tyrant.’ It was said with good humour, which told him worlds about the Hartes.
‘I will not disappoint her,’ he said, then remembered Egg Lady from last night. ‘If that kind woman with the eggs had added the crushed eggshells to my emergency menu last night, I’d have eaten them, too.’
Well, blast and damn, he hadn’t intended to make her eyes fill. She looked away and collected herself, then moved the dishes from the table to a bed tray. ‘No eggshells here, sir. Scrambled eggs, bacon and toast, with kippers on the side and Aunt Dorothea’s custard with cinnamon sprinkles.’
She placed the tray on his lap and he dug in, making short work of the best meal in years. He swore he could taste each egg in the custard. To his surprise and then his delight, Rosie Harte watched him with a smile.
‘You’re enjoying this as much as I am,’ he said.
‘I am,’ she replied, with no embarrassment. ‘You’ve been starved. How do you manage?’
He was full, by God, for the first time in a long while.
‘I doubt I will ever be able to linger over a meal, at least until I abandon the fear that once the meal is done, there will be no more. Thank you,’ he said simply.
What else could he say? Naval life in wartime had a way of occupying a man’s mind completely.
He didn’t know how to explain this unending, grinding hardship.
His eyes leaked a little, damn them. She wiped them with her apron, which smelled of cinnamon. ‘Rest.’ He did as she directed.