Chapter 14
The rain began and turned torrential. We lacked the physical strength to help with the rigging, so we sat while sailors rushed up and down the decks.
After hours of waiting, Mr. Ashby entered the galley soaked from head to toe, a weary expression on his face.
My heart sank. I wished there was more I could do to help him.
He sat down heavily. He seemed exhausted.
Having four able-bodied seamen gone had overworked everyone.
With the way the ship was rocking, it seemed to be quite the storm.
It wasn’t a squall, but it might as well be a hurricane.
Many men had already succumbed to sickness.
The stench of vomit had filled the deck, just another reason I thought returning to our cabin might be the best option.
I opened my mouth to say so to Mr. Ashby, but he sighed and looked at me seriously.
“Now is a good time to tell each other stories.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean this is usually when we talk about our lives, to take our minds off the monotony of a storm. A storm this big can last days out at sea.”
Groaning could be heard from nearly everyone on the deck as if to confirm Mr. Ashby’s words, though I knew they couldn’t hear him from where they sat. I winced. Days? This rocking and sickness could last days?
“I’ll start,” Patrice offered, uncharacteristically.
Both Mr. Ashby and I focused on her with wide eyes.
“By all means,” Mr. Ashby said.
Patrice began speaking of Scotland. Every sentence sent fresh longing through me.
The landscape, the people, the memories of smells and sights and tastes.
She had come from an impoverished family a few towns north of Edleroy.
Her parents had died, and only she and her elder brother remained.
They traveled to Selkirk and from there found positions at Edleroy.
Patrice had been my lady’s maid for most of our adolescent and adult lives.
One could consider us as close as sisters, had she not been a maid.
“I wouldnae think of being here if it werenae for Miss. But I’d follow the Findlays anywhere.” Patrice smiled at me and I reached out to take her hand.
“I wouldn’t want to go anywhere without you,” I admitted.
“What about ye, Mr. Ashby?” Patrice said after turning away from me. “What kind of stories do ye have to tell?”
“Nothing quite as splendid as your life, Miss Patrice.” He looked at me. I wondered at the many emotions that crossed his face. “I could speak of Graham.”
It had been at least a week since anyone had spoken of him.
Perhaps that was why my thoughts had become so muddled, and filled with Mr. Ashby instead.
All those letters sitting in my bag signed Always, Elsie reminded me that I’d promised him forever.
And yet, even as I traveled to find him, it seemed I’d nearly forgotten that promise.
Too many things had happened on this voyage, that was all.
“That would be greatly appreciated.” I hoped my desperation to hear of my betrothed was not too obvious.
Mr. Ashby nodded. “I thought it might entertain.” The tightness around his eyes made me wonder if his stories were going to entertain, or cause more heartbreak.
He spoke of the past three years with Graham, how his disposition had changed in the third year. “I have never seen a more changed man. It had been two years since we’d last heard from you. That is, since Graham had heard from you.”
His frown deepened. “Once he lost contact with you, he seemed disheartened. Though I suppose that loss coincided with our business failing. That will change a man almost as quickly as lost love.” He paused, glancing away as if he seemed to regret bringing up such topics with me.
“We were both deeply concerned for your well-being, but he wondered if you had given up on him and were angry that he had kept you waiting so long.” He lifted a shoulder.
“I probably would have come to see you even if he hadn’t given me a letter for you.
Just to be sure you were well, and to…to ask you why you had abandoned him. ”
When he met my eyes again, I could see the sadness there. He felt for Graham. It was clear to me that Graham’s happiness was close to Mr. Ashby’s heart. Just as it was to mine. I nodded. “I can reciprocate those feelings,” I said. “I, too, felt as though I were being forgotten.”
“Never!” he said quickly. “You could never be forgotten, Miss Findlay. Believe me on that. His whole world revolved around you.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “That is not what his most recent letter told me.”
“As I said, he had changed. I think our business failing took a larger toll on him than it did on me.” He shook his head.
“I imagine it is because he had put all his hopes on securing a future with you. For me, the business was just business. For him, it was how he would marry you and provide for you.”
I didn’t speak to that. Graham was a fool for staking our future happiness on a business.
I loved him for trying to secure a living for us, but his vision of our future must have been different from my own.
He’d failed to account for my unwavering devotion to him and my belief that we could face anything together.
I tried not to think it, but his mistake of not trusting my love for him could possibly be our downfall.
No. Our relationship had not yet come to that.
I smiled to clear away the cobwebs in my mind and went with a lighter perspective. “It seems fate has played a part in our separation. Otherwise, all of our letters would not have been lost and we would not have doubted each other.”
“What if it werenae fate, but something more human?” Patrice asked, specifically to Mr. Ashby.
He furrowed his brows and then considered her question. Slowly, his eyes widened and he placed his hands flat on the table. “What if…it was the pirates? The ones who were targeting our business?”
Patrice seemed to already have guessed as much. I had no idea such a thing was a possibility. “Why would they keep back something as mundane as letters from home?” I wondered aloud.
“Because they wanted to stop anything that would help us. They must have intercepted our post.”
“Why didn’t you figure this out ages ago? If you weren’t receiving any post at all, wouldn’t you have known who did it?” I didn’t mean to sound belittling, but how would they not have put something like this together until now?
He shook his head. “Because…we still received some mail. From our investors. They came by different post; usually they were escorted by the Royal Navy or even the U.S. Navy, depending on who our investors were. The pirates wouldn’t intercept navy ships unless they wanted to battle a 40-gun frigate. Oh, how could we have been so blind?”
I huffed. “So because of these pirates, Graham gave up on us. Because our letters were being intercepted and because the business had been ruined.”
Mr. Ashby made a fist. “Graham must have realized it by now. That would have stoked his hatred toward them. We can only hope once he made that connection, he didn’t charge them immediately and without preparation.”
“Surely he isn’t that foolish…” But he probably was. He very well could have sought revenge without taking precautions. I closed my eyes and let out a heavy breath. Oh Graham. You heedless, reckless fool.
Patrice and I lay on our beds, groaning occasionally from the rolling and dipping of the ship.
We were fully seasick now. The storm had been raging for two days, and everyone on the ship seemed to be going mad.
We were all hungry, thirsty, and exhausted from lack of sleep.
We tried not to eat much because the contents of our stomachs came back up.
Wasting food aboard a ship was criminal.
The ship gave an enormous lurch, more forceful than I’d felt so far. At least from my foggy memory.
I sat up, sensing another surge of nausea, when a horrible crack sounded above us. Yelling began and Patrice looked into my eyes. Panic gripped me. We spoke at once. “What was that?”
Despite the misery of seasickness and the terrible movement of the ship, we raced out onto the mess deck to find everyone crowding the hatch to go up.
But it wouldn’t open. Were we stuck down here?
And what had caused the hatch to become stuck?
My eyes raised to the ceiling. That loud crack couldn’t have been…
The answer came from a sailor to my left. “The mast is down.”
“I’ve heard that sound before, and it surely is the aft mast,” another said.
My heart shuddered and I stared wide-eyed at Patrice.
The main mast at the rear of the ship being down would surely put an end to our journey.
Questions went through my mind as quickly as panic seized my heart.
We had no carpenter to repair the mast—at least not an official one.
Mr. Miller had taken up the post, but was he experienced?
Would we be stuck in the middle of the sea forever?
Then a terrifying realization struck me.
“Where is Mr. Ashby?” I gripped Patrice’s hands tightly.
We both looked up again, imagining what had become of our friend and protector.
Just then, a heave ho sounded near the hatch and it was pushed open.
Rain and seawater came down into the mess deck, drenching everyone.
I wasted no time following the crew up, Patrice right behind me.
On top, the wind tore at the ribbon and pins keeping my hair in check, pulled at my clothing, and made me stumble around as rain pelted every inch of me, nearly blinding me.
The chaos was overwhelming. Crewmembers’ yells and screams were somehow heard over the roaring wind and rain.
Before me, the aft mast lay beside the hatch. It had been on top of it.