few days between death and this moment. No, it was longer, going back a month to her miscarriage. She knew she should stop dwelling on that sad event. After all, weren’t well-meaning women telling her to cheer up because there would be other babies? To say, “I wanted this one,” would disappoint well-wishers. “So hard,” she whispered, uncertain whether she meant Sir B alone.
“I will always see little George crooked in his arm, never to know his remarkable father,” Able said. “He won’t know Sir B any more than I knew my father.”
She never faulted Able’s logic – how could anyone? – but in this he was not entirely correct, or so she reasoned. She held herself off enough to look into his eyes. “He will know who his mother is, and he will have stories a-plenty from all of us about his father.”
“Aye, he will.” He spoke into her hair, then kissed her head. “C’mon, Mrs. Six. Straighten my neck cloth.”
She did, always happy to perform those mundane tasks that he had difficulty with, because his brain was too large for small things.
Finally satisfied with her man’s appearance – never difficult because he was handsome with or without a neck cloth – she looked around for Ben. She reminded herself that Mrs. Perry had taken him across the street to St. Brendan’s to stay with George’s nurse. She would have left him with Mrs. Perry, except that her African housekeeper had stared down Able Six and insisted she was going to the funeral, too. He never argued with Mrs. Perry. Nor do I, Meridee thought.
She saw Able looking around for Ben too, and they smiled at each other; such a small thing. She hoped small things would usher them more gently into a world without Captain Sir Belvedere St. Anthony, Knight of the Bath, wealthy man, excellent seafarer, wounded warrior, more-than friend.
They came downstairs to a hall and sitting room filled with boys in the black uniform of St. Brendan the Navigator School her husband wore, with the patch of the saint himself over the left breast, close to the heart. The sight of well-scrubbed, earnest faces – some white as hers, others tan, some with almond-shaped eyes, others with curly hair and olive skin like her own dear man – never failed to move her. They came from everywhere and nowhere, the workhouse their one feature in common.
Here also were John and Pierre Goodrich, tidy and dressed as civilians, because they were the adopted sons of Simon Goodrich, who ran the block pulley factory, and his wife, who never could carry a child to term. Meridee felt Able start, and then move forward to bow to famed engineers Henry Maudsley and Marc Brunel, whose idea the factory was. Too bad it took a funeral to gather so many people with whom Meridee knew Able wanted to simply visit.
At her side again, Able knew what to do. “Very well, lads, I’ll have no fidgeting in church,” he said. “You’re – we’re – Gunwharf Rats and Sir B specifically wanted us to escort his coffin. You pall bearers walk alongside the hearse with me. Ladies: in the carriage with Gra…Lady St. Anthony. Remember: Handsomely now and eyes to the front.”
Able opened the door onto Saints Way, which was full of the ordinary and extraordinary people of Portsmouth, waiting for the procession. “So many people,” Meridee murmured.
“I daresay Sir B is taking a few secrets to the grave,” he whispered to her. “His acquaintance far exceeded a baronet’s usual sphere. He was an unusual man, wasn’t he?”
She nodded, then smiled at Ezekiel Bartleby – baker, consoler of Gunwharf Rats with sweets left at St. Brendan’s, and man who knew everything of interest on the street. Her smile faded, thinking that she would no longer need to take sugar-sided rout cakes to an invalid now past all pain and sorrow. Mr. Bartleby must have read her thoughts, because he patted his chest, then looked away.
Followed by Mrs. Perry, Meridee and Able took the few steps down to the street and waited as six Royal Marines gentled the plain coffin into the waiting wagon, no fancy feather-decked hearse. It was a common navy vehicle, such as a victualer might use to move his kegs and boxes to the docks, ready to be stowed aboard a ship bound for a distant shore. Meridee felt her ready tears rise. Dear, dear Sir B, if you could lend a hand to my little one. She is