she and Meridee followed the coffin out of the church. “He was no particular angel.” She gestured at the grave markers large and mostly small around them, then turned her gaze to the docks and tall-masted ships. “I loved him.”
They held hands as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, he who had conducted a most impeccable funeral service inside, continued with majestic words, the last resource of finite humans contemplating the great unknown. He stood before the coffin, looking down for a long time. He raised his eyes to heaven.
“’Man, that is born of woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower…’”
The hard words smote Meridee’s heart. She thought of her man, and the Rats, and the danger only miles across the Channel, where a dictator of no mean skill strutted and postured, threatening all manner of harm to her darlings, usurping the Lord God Almighty in his desire to ordain death. Cut down like a flower, indeed, sir, she thought. It will be a fight to the death, as it has been for decades.
But this was no time to tell the Lord His business, she decided. We do have a short time, sir, she acknowledged. Pardon me if I whine. You are right, of course. We are puny creatures.
The graveside service ended, following one final prayer, spoken louder than the first, because the wind had picked up. Meridee watched her husband raise his face to the wind. She looked around, amused to see the other seafarers do the same. Trust Sir B to request a perfect wind for ships to sally forth from Portsmouth, bent on destruction of the French. Trust God to humor him.
She knew it was time for her and Grace to depart, to leave the lowering of the coffin into the ground to shipmates and brother officers. She released Grace’s hand, as the widow moved to the coffin one last time for the touch of her lips to smooth wood.
As Grace took her final farewell on earth from the man she loved best, Meridee observed the Gunwharf Rats, each almost as dear to her as her own son. She knew their stories and their sorrow. She loved them all.
She couldn’t have explained to anyone the emotion she felt when her glance settled on Smitty. He still stood beside her husband, his face a study in contemplation. She had always thought him a handsome fellow, if formidable in the extreme. He had showed up on St. Brendan’s doorstep one chilly morning, declaring to Headmaster Thaddeus Croker that he was Smitty, he wanted admission, and he had nothing else to say. For some reason, the headmaster never questioned him. None of them did. Smitty didn’t invite interrogation.
She regarded the boy in silence, startled as she recognized the profile, the way he pursed his lips, and that certain tilt of his head. It can’t be, she thought. Or can it? Then, Why, before this moment, did I never notice?
Confused, she looked at her husband, surprised to see him watching her so carefully. He touched his hand to his heart and nodded ever so slightly.
There was so much she wanted to ask, but it was time for the ladies to leave while the men buried Captain Sir Belvedere St. Anthony. She knew they would do it themselves, despite gravediggers standing by. She also remembered her own father’s burial, and her mother’s hysteria when she heard clods of earth thumping onto Papa’s casket.
Meridee took Grace’s hand. “Let us leave them to their work,” she whispered.
Grace nodded, offering no objection. “I need Georgie,” she said, then started to sag.
Of all people, Captain Angus Ogilvie scooped her up and carried her to the waiting carriage. Meridee hadn’t seen him arrive, yet here he was. Didn’t Able say the man had a real facility for materializing when least expected? He was needed now; here he was.
He set Grace in the seat. “Should I stay?” he asked her, brusque and to-the-point as usual.
“No, but thank you,” Grace told him.
Captain Ogilvie handed Meridee into the carriage. “You look like crow bait yourself, Mrs. Six.”
“It’s been a long and trying month, captain,” she told him, half exasperated, half amused by this strange fellow. What wouldn’t he say?
He nodded in sympathy. “I fear we have many of those ahead, Mrs. Six.” He looked toward the Solent and the Isle of Wight beyond. The wind had picked up and whitecaps danced on the water.