Page 121 of Marry in Secret
Chapter Fifteen
It isn’t what we say or think that defines us, but what we do.
—JANE AUSTEN,SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
TheAureliadocked at Southampton on a cool, gray, drizzly morning. Thomas stood in the rain, waiting, staring out over the water as if he could speed them ashore by concentration alone.
He was as tense as a bowstring. What condition would they be in?
They came ashore in a jolly boat. The oars dipped and pulled. The little boat skimmed so slowly across the water, it was agonizing. Half a dozen men in the boat, apart from the rowers, all head down against the rain—no, there was one tanned young face turned up to it, receiving the rain full on his face as if it were a miracle, a blessing.
And so it is, Jemmy Pendell, so it is, Thomas thought, his own sight blurring. He recalled his own reaction to rain after years under a scorching, pitiless sun.
The boat came on in an eerie silence, the only sound the dip and creak of the oars, the slap of the waves against the pilings, and overhead the mournful screech of gulls. Usually when sailors returned home there was much laughter and talk, men eager to get home.
But nobody was laughing, nobody was smiling. And nobody was talking at all.
The silence and the stillness were disturbing.
Thomas’s chest was hollow. Why so silent? He peered through the drizzle, trying to make out their expressions.
And then he realized: Jones was not among them. Only four of the five men were coming home.
But Wilmott’s letter had said that he’d found them all. So where was Jones? Had he died on the voyage home?
Thomas felt sick at the thought.
The boat drew closer, their faces became clearer and he realized why everyone was so silent and why there was no laughter or talking.
They were trying not to cry. The men’s faces were working silently, their lips pressed tightly together. Their eyes were wet, and not just from the rain.
The jolly boat reached the wharf. Dyson climbed up first. He looked thinner and browner, but otherwise much the same. He looked around him in wonder, as if unable to believe his eyes.
O’Brien was next, agile, brown and wiry. He took two steps ashore, sank to his knees and kissed the ground dramatically, half joking, half sincere.
Jemmy Pendell climbed the ladder, still skinny, but not as scrawny as the last time Thomas had seen him, on the auction block. He stood staring around him, like Dyson, in wonder and faint disbelief.
Thomas remembered how that felt.
Dodds came last, his bald head shining in the rain. He stepped ashore, looked up at the sky, held out his hands, rolled his eyes and said, “So here I am, back in England after all these years and it’sstillbloody raining, wouldn’t you know it?”
It broke the ice. The men all burst out laughing. They hugged each other and danced around in the rain. “We’re home, we’re really home!”
“England!”
“Never thought I’d see the old country again.”
And then they saw Thomas. “Commander, Mr. Beresford, sir—you came!” They crowded around him, a little awkward, then Jemmy stepped forward and hugged him. Thomas hugged him back, tears streaming down his face and he didn’t care who saw it. They each hugged him in turn, even O’Brien, who finished it with a light playful punch to the shoulder. His eyes were wet with tears as well.
Dyson hugged him, thumped his back and then shook his hand. “I dunno how you managed this sir, but I’ll owe you for the rest of—”
“Nobody owes anyone anything,” Thomas said gruffly.
“But the ransom—we know it weren’t the navy. It was you, wasn’t it, sir?”
“It was a gentleman who wishes to remain anonymous,” Thomas said. “He was leaving the country and decided to do something worthwhile with his money.” Ambrose’s little leather-bound trunk proved to contain very close to the sum that he’d sent Wilmott off with. He’d paid it back into Rose’s account.
“Well, whoever paid the money,” Dyson said, clearly not believing Thomas’s tale, “we know it was you who brought us back, sir. I didn’t believe you could. I heard where you got sent and well, it’s a life sentence ain’t it, the galleys? I figured that was the end of that and I’d spend the rest of my life in that place.”
