“We’re all sailing into troubled seas.” He tipped his hat to them. “I’ll see you both again, and soon.” He closed the carriage door and nodded to the coachman.
Grace leaned back, her eyes closed. “All I want now is my baby at my breast and my feet on a hassock.” Her eyes filled with tears. “The house will seem so empty. How is it that one frail man could suck out all the air? How will I manage?”
“One day at a time, possibly subdivided into hours and quarter hours,” Meridee told her.
Grace opened her eyes at that. “Sometimes, dear friend, you sound remarkably like our master genius.”
“That’s what he told me after we lost our baby,” Meridee said. “Of course, he was holding me close and his eyes looked like mine.”
Grace nodded and took her hand. “Quarter hours right now for you?”
“I’m up to half hours,” Meridee said simply. “Let’s go find our little ones.”
Chapter Four
The gravediggers stood respectfully by as the men from Trinity House, other officers of renown, and the Gunwharf Rats, lads of no renown, shoveled silently until the job was done.
As he shoveled, Able turned his mind over to the scenes, dialog, and thoughts swirling around in his brain, remembering the first time he came to Sir B’s attention, all the way to their final conversation – just the two of them – a week ago.
Sir B’s conversation began coherently enough, as the captain remembered those days at sea when he winkled out Able’s astounding gifts, then set him on a path that let to sailing master, and now this, a Younger Brother of Trinity House. Even better, to Able’s mind, Sir B had smoothed his way to St. Brendan’s as an instructor of lads like him, bastards with nothing to recommend them but brains and courage.
“Of course, you owe your lovely wife for St. Brendan’s more than I,” Sir B said. “She refused to take no for an answer when poor Captain Hallowell tried to discourage her. She blacked his eye, so I heard, or was that a rumor?”
They laughed together over that only days ago, and then Sir B sighed. “I hate to leave you Sixes and my wife and son. Seems damned unfair. I had hopes…”
He made Able carry him to the window. Sir B weighed less than nothing, so Able held him easily, pointing out the warships at anchor. The prison hulks still brooded close by, less noisome, but no place for anyone yearning for liberté and egálite.
“Jean Hubert just walked away last week, you say?” he asked. “Did that surprise you?”
“No,” Able replied. “He was homesick for France. I admit I envy a fellow who has a home to miss. I’ve never longed for the workhouse.”
There was more, certainly, because POW Jean Hubert was no gentleman. St. Brendan’s art and French instructor had broken his parole, but he had left Meridee a note with a cryptic comment: “We will meet again.”
Back in bed, Sir B dozed and murmured about his younger brother, dead these several years, and something about “…nothing but heartache and worry,” then, “… I tried to do right, once I learned. Did I?”
Did you what? Able thought, as he collected Nick Bonfort and Smitty. They stood together, looking down at the covered mound, the resting place of landsmen. He wondered if Captain Sir Belvedere St. Anthony would have preferred burial at sea.
He put a hand on each boy’s shoulder. Nick moved closer, because that was Nick. At least Smitty didn’t shy away.
“Care for company?”
Captain Ogilvie came toward them. I already have company, he wanted to say, but he knew better. Angus Ogilvie was still someone to be cautious around: a spy catcher, Trinity House’s dogsbody and all-purpose killer. He was a man with blood on his hands. Able regarded the shorter man for the split second his brain required. And a man with something to tell me, he thought. P’raps I should listen and not judge.
Better be open with this man Able knew he should trust. “Aye, Captain,” he said. “Is it private conversation?”
“It is, Master Six,” Angus said most formally.
Able handed Smitty some coins. “I wager Ezekiel Bartleby has some petit fours or those treacle biscuits Mrs. Six is so fond of,” he said. “See if you can get her some. I’ll join you there.”
Smitty pocketed the coins. “Master, you know Mr. Bartleby won’t take payment if he knows it’s for Mrs. Six.”
“You can try. If he cuts up stiff as usual, there is generally a one-legged