8. In which there is a pursuer
IN WHICH THERE IS A PURSUER
“Look at you, Boss, steering so well.” Hester patted Charlotte on the shoulder, the fabric of her shirt slightly damp from the early morning mist that enshrouded them. “You must have had a mighty fine teacher.”
Charlotte had come a long way over the last few weeks, and the sadness in her eyes was fading, the curve of her spine straightening.
Hester congratulated herself. She was certain Charlotte’s metamorphosis from grieving society widow to semi-confident expedition leader was entirely her doing.
Fliss had scoffed and said she couldn’t take all of the credit, that change came from within, or some such nonsense.
But Hester knew the truth, and the truth was that she was an inspiration.
Charlotte laughed and turned the wheel slightly to port. “I have had a most excellent teacher.” She paused. “If only Ernie could see me.”
Hester tilted her head up to the foggy sky, as if she might see Ernest looking down on them. “I’m sure he’s very proud, wherever he is.” It was the first time Charlotte had brought him up. “How did you come to be married to him?”
“I’m afraid it’s no love story. I had long been frustrating my mother with my lack of good marriage prospects, and Ernie and I found ourselves at the drinks table at the Autumn ball, and we got to…
jesting about the ridiculousness of it. And the next ball he was there again, and that time we spoke of his expeditions.
We became friends. And then…well,” she paused, grappling with something.
“I did something ever so foolish, something I shall always regret. He saved me from a fate I did not wish to have. And it suited him to have someone to leave his belongings to, to take care of him as he grew older. We were great friends. Nothing more.”
She hadn’t been expecting that, but it made sense, she supposed. She couldn’t imagine Charlotte doing anything foolish, but if she did not want to talk of it, she wouldn’t force the topic. “It sounds as though you were a comfort to one another.”
“We were,” Charlotte said, smiling, her eyes lined with tears. “Perhaps we could talk of happier things.”
Hester bundled Charlotte into a hug, squeezing tight. “Of course. In fact, we have a special game we play at the wheel. It’s called What’s your favourite? I’ll start. What’s your favourite colour?”
Charlotte’s lips curved ever so slightly upwards. “Pink.” She reached down and tugged Marjorie’s pink collar. The dog’s belly had started to fill out with pups, due early October.
Hester scoffed. “Pink, indeed. Mine is green.”
“I suppose it’s a bit stereotypical, but I like it all the same,” Charlotte said. “My turn. Which animal would you most like to be?”
“Oh umm a bird of some kind. With a sharp beak. I’ve always felt an affinity with birds. Maybe that’s why I dislike cats so much. You?”
“A dog, of course,” Charlotte said. “Although I can see the appeal of a bird. Flying would be wonderful.”
“Sometimes when I sit up in the crow’s nest I can just imagine I’m flying,” Hester said, sighing. It was her favourite place on the ship, up high, with the wind blowing in her face.
“Favourite food?” Charlotte asked, the wheel passing through her hands, eyes fixed straight ahead, concentrating.
“Chocolate cake, easy,” Hester said. “And you?”
“Scones. Any kind. Cheese, fruit, plain. I especially like a warm fruit scone with cream and jam. And butter.”
“And butter?! You glutton, Charlotte. I didn’t think you had it in you, a waif as you are,” Hester chortled, then looked around furtively for Satan after she’d dared to utter the word and. Luckily, he was nowhere to be seen. “Favourite genre of book?”
“Romance,” Charlotte whispered, blushing. “A guilty pleasure.”
Hester chuckled low. “And me. Although I get Fliss to read them first and mark out the good bits, if you catch my meaning.” She winked, and Charlotte flushed a deeper shade of red.
“I prefer the bits with the declarations of undying love.”
“Too unrealistic. Men lack the emotional intelligence. They don’t talk like that,” Hester said, exchanging a glance with Charlotte. Or at least, she’d never witnessed it.
“I suppose not,” Charlotte agreed, a rueful smile on her lips.
“Favourite season?”
“Summer.”
“Winter for me. Especially when it snows.” The cold always made her tingle, and she especially enjoyed catching snowflakes on her tongue.
“Favourite vegetable?” Charlotte asked.
“Vegetable?! Really? Alright…” Hester huffed. She felt neither here nor there about vegetables. “If I have to choose, I pick…carrots.”
“Mine is red cabbage at Christmastime. Cooked with port and butter and how it goes all soft and delicious.”
She hadn’t even considered that. “That’s a good one. Can I change?”
Charlotte crossed her arms and gave Hester a mock-stern look. “No! You have to stick with the first answer.” Her eyes flicked astern. “Oh my.”
Hester turned to see what had caught Charlotte’s attention. She sucked air through her teeth. The Intrepid. Looming out of the mist.
“Is that…” Charlotte started to say. “Surely not.”
Hester whipped her spyglass from her pocket and snapped it open. A brooding figure stood at the bow. Septimus. He had a yellow and red flag in each hand, and there was a man with a spyglass standing next to him, possibly Victor if the blonde hair was anything to go by.
That he’d chase her halfway across the Atlantic Ocean was utterly insane. What on Earth was he playing at?
“Charlotte,” Hester said. “Pass me the semaphore flags. Quickly.”
“The what? Where are they?” Charlotte’s pale hair whipped about her face as she looked all around.
“Yellow and red flags. In the pocket on the wall in the companionway. Quickly now.” She kept the spyglass trained on Septimus.
Charlotte returned and handed the flags to Hester, who tucked the spyglass firmly between her thighs and raised the flags above her head, then snapped them low.
“This ought to be good,” she muttered, raising the spyglass to her eye once more. “Let’s see what His Lordship has to say.”
Septimus began moving his flags, and Hester translated for Charlotte. “Y-O-U-S-W-O-R-E-O-N-C-R-E-W. Ha. Hold this,” Hester said, passing Charlotte the spyglass and darting the flags around her body to signal back.
“What did you say?”
“I said with fingers crossed,” Hester said, snatching the spyglass back. “I want to see his reaction to that.”
Septimus waved the flags again, more viciously this time. Her cheeks hurt from smiling. Excellent, he was raging with her.
“He says T-U-R-N-B-A-C-K. What do you think, Boss? Shall we do as His Lordship orders?”
Charlotte propped her hands on her hips, her cheeks rosy. “He’s no lord of mine, and so we shall not turn back.”
Hester beamed at Charlotte. Proud. She was so proud.
And now to have some fun with him. She willed the seawater to evaporate, to condense in the sky and join with the fog. Huge cumulonimbus clouds formed above the Intrepid, building and building.
Raising clouds was different to bringing on the wind. The clouds needed a lighter touch, a coaxing, whereas the wind needed a strong hand, or it would become unwieldy and grow a mind of its own.
The clouds grew darker. Oh, she would make it rain so hard. Maybe even a spot of lightning. A gale? She’d make it so miserable he’d have to give up and turn around.
She beckoned to the winds, the clouds growing darker still. Lightning flashed.
Hester took up the flags again and signalled Y-O-U-T-U-R-N-B-A-C-K, then stuck out her tongue.
“I hope they could see that from so far away.” She looked back through the spyglass to see Septimus hurl the flags to the deck, just as the heavens opened, rain pelting the ship.
Septimus disappeared from the bow, running for the wheel.
One of his sails ripped under the conjured wind.
His bellowed orders floated across the sea.
Hester cackled again, just as thunder boomed.
The wind rustled her hair, playing with the strands.
“Gosh. That storm came in quickly,” Charlotte said, staring aghast at the Intrepid, thrown around by ever-growing waves. “And yet, it seems so calm over here. Isn’t weather strange?”
“So strange,” Hester said with a grin.
“Will it hit us next?”
“Oh, I don’t think so, somehow.”
“Do you think he’ll keep following? What will he do if he catches up with us?” Charlotte asked, her hands twisting together.
What would he do? Hester was curious. Would he make his threats about scuppering them again? Would he follow through with it? “I’m not sure, but we will deal with him if the time comes. We cannot let these men walk all over us, can we?”
“Certainly not,” Charlotte said.
1st October 1914, Argentinian coast
The captain sat cross-legged right at the back of the ship, polishing an already gleaming flintlock pistol, the crew sitting around her, faces uneasy in the growing darkness.
Charlotte had seen Ernie’s hunting rifles mounted on the wall but had never seen a pistol. Something heavy settled in her stomach.
The Argentine coast passed along to their right, the city of Buenos Aires looming before them, and the Intrepid was behind. It had not been delayed much by the storm. Had, in fact, gained on them.
Hester spoke, “When we dock tomorrow, I want Charlotte, Betty, Peggy, Arnold and Valerie to go ashore and procure fresh meat, vegetables, rum and more tinned food. Understood?”
“Aye, Captain,” the crew replied.
“The rest of you—stay behind and guard the ship with me.” Hester looked down the barrel of the gun, one eye squinted.
“I’d suggest you prepare your weapons. As a precautionary measure, of course.
” Hester turned to Charlotte, her lips tight.
“If it comes to a fight, the fastest way to take someone down is a blow to the temple, jaw or behind the ear.”
Charlotte swallowed hard. Thunder rolled overhead, and she jumped. Marjorie pressed closer, quivering, tail between her legs.
“When do you think the Intrepid will arrive?” Charlotte asked, twisting her hands in her lap.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t arrive directly after us.”
“What will happen?”
“It’s hard to say, but I will invoke the Right of Parley. And if I can’t talk my way out of it, I’m a damn fine shot,” she said, grinning, though Charlotte thought the sentiment didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Don’t worry about a thing, Boss. It’s all under control.”
But Charlotte tossed and turned in bed that night. Hester wasn’t someone she was prepared to give up so soon. She had never met anyone like her, and she understood now why her crew was so loyal. Charlotte would have followed Hester to the ends of the Earth after only knowing her for four months.
Unable to sleep, she rose from bed and padded down the corridors to the galley, a very rotund Marjorie beside her. She found Arnold boiling the kettle.
“Tea?” he asked.
“Yes, please.” Charlotte slid into a chair and ran her hands through her hair. Perhaps a hot drink would settle her.
“Can’t sleep?”
Charlotte rubbed at her face and looked at Arnold askance. “No. I’m worried.”
He smiled knowingly and set a steaming mug in front of her, taking the seat opposite. “Hester has gotten out of many tight spots in her time.”
“Would he truly attack the Valour?” The mention of weapons had been unnerving to say the least.
Arnold shrugged. “Possibly.”
“But why would he chase us all this way?” Charlotte couldn’t fathom it. Fine, Hester had gone against his orders. But to chase her so far? It seemed crazy.
“His Lordship’s ego was obviously damaged when we left against his orders. He has probably come to seek reparation, though it’s a long way to come for it. I suppose we shall find out tomorrow.”
Arnold leant across the table and squeezed Charlotte’s hand, his skin warm and rough against hers. Her stomach fluttered.
“He won’t harm you. This is between him and Hester.”
His words didn’t make her feel any better.