Page 11 of Unlikely Heroes
“So do you,” she said. She licked her lips, then nodded. “You may take him upstairs.”
Able carefully extracted their son from Meri’s arms and bedded him down in his room next to theirs. He looked in the empty chamber that had belonged to Jean Hubert, their escapee from a prisoner of war hulk in the harbor, who had inexplicably decided to leave them, after many months of service to St. Brendan’s. Jean had left behind a magnificent pen and ink drawing of the Loire River valley, and a note thanking them for their hospitality. Cheeky Frenchman.
The door to Nick and Smitty’s room was open. He peered in, mainly to assure himself that it was shipshape, then returned to the sitting room. Meri’s eyes were closed, the sock she was darning on the floor. He picked it up, smiling at her tiny stitches, and set the sock, one of his, back in the never-empty mending basket.
He sat down, and in the peace of their sitting room, admired her loveliness. He thought that’s what he did. When he opened his eyes, shadows had lengthened across the room and she was eyeinghim.
Silent, he watched her face, pleased to see a certain game quality now. He held out his hand to her and she came to him, curling up in his lap and resting her head against his chest.
“I want to be happy again.”
He held her closer, kissing her hair. “We will be.”
She smelled of lilac talcum and little boy, a combination that made him smile and then chuckle. “What’s so funny?” she asked in that gruff voice of hers she used when she felt playful. He could have gone down on his knees in gratitude to hear it again.
“You are.” He sniffed around her ear then bit her ear lobe most tenderly. “You smell of lilacs and Ben.”
She laughed and settled herself closer. “Headmaster Croker dropped by to say that you and I have been invited to the reading of Sir B’s will tomorrow. It will be held in his chambers.”
“Us? I’ll wager you that our friend is leaving a tidy sum to St. Brendan’s.”
Meri nodded. “I doubt I am essential to any such reading, but Thaddeus Croker insisted.” She sat up. “This is strange. He specifically requested that Smitty come with us.”
“Is it so strange?”
“I wonder,” she said, making herself comfortable again. “I watched him during the funeral, dour Smitty who looks older than his years. He…he..you’ll think this absurd…”
“Try me.”
“There are times he reminds me of Sir B,” she said in a rush, as if aware how silly that sounded, and wanted to get rid of the idea in a hurry.
“He reminds me, too.”
“Is this even possible?” she asked, after looking around to assure herself that Smitty and Nick were nowhere near.
“Of all people, you and I know that anything is possible.”
He kept the thought through dinner, which was subdued, until Meri started speaking of more memorable moments with Sir B, some of them humorous. This led to Able’s stories of life at sea with Captain St. Anthony, when Able was a mere sprout and learning his craft, granted, faster than most.
Ben ate a good meal, then settled on his father’s lap as Able read from Euclid in the original Greek, which made Meri roll her eyes and return to her darning. The long, painful day of sending a grand navy man off to his eternal watch had mellowed into a typical evening at the Sixes, almost as if they had permission to return to normal. Nick and Smitty commandeered the dining room table to spread out their next day’s assignments, complain about too much extra work, and demolish the rest of that loaf of bread, well-buttered.
The boys went to bed in good spirits. Meri read to them as she always did – she reasoned they were never too old for that and no one complained – while Able did the same with Ben in his little room. “My boy, let me start you off with Xenophon,” he said, hunkering down with his son. “Do you want the English or the Greek?”
“Greek, Papa,” Ben said. “I should sound out some of the words, shouldn’t I?”
You’re seventeen months old, Able thought.I wonder what your grandfather would think of you, that man near the Santísima Trinidad. “Yes, you should. You try and I’ll help if needed.”
A page or two sufficed for the night. Ben tugged at his eyelids and his respirations slowed. “Goodnight, sweet boy,” Able whispered. He thought of his own harsh days in the Dumfries workhouse, grateful with every fiber of his being that his son would never know that life. No one would ever chastise Ben for reading early, for knowing too much.
Able heard Meri in their room, but he went downstairs as usual, checking all the doors, doing the slow walk that remained a cherished holdover of his sailing master duties at sea. From quarterdeck to gundeck to fo’c’sle and back, he used to walk. Now the slow walk reminded him how much he missed the sea.
And yet, if Angus Ogilvie was correct, his time at St. Brendan’s was coming to an end, at least until the current national emergency passed. He would be recalled to the fleet because Napoleon Bonaparte felt himself ready to conquer England. How on earth could he tell Meri?
Chapter Six
Meridee knew what her man was doing, because Mrs. Perry had told her a year ago how he walked through their house, perhaps even wishing himself at sea again. She smiled to herself as she sat in bed, wondering if he had any idea that she knew how much he wanted to return to sea. Some sixth sense of her own, not as stunning as her husband’s mental equipment but yet there, nevertheless, had alerted her.
It might have been all the hours he and the St. Brendan boys spent on Sir B’s yacht, theJolly Roger, sailing around the Isle of Wight, and even taking messages to Plymouth. He always came home so happy, smelling of brine and tar. What else could she believe? The sea was a mistress she could live with.
