“Would you like a cold compress for your forehead, Miss?” says Higgins the next morning. I crack open an eyelid and I think I catch a note of primness in his voice.
“Whatever gave you that idea? I’ve never had a headache in my life, ’cept once, and I didn’t drink any spirits last night,” I say, turning over and groaning. “But put it on anyway.” I lie back on my pillow and I must admit the cool, wet cloth feels good.
“I didn’t do anything wrong. We ate, we drank, we sang, we danced. And we all got back here by midnight. What’s the matter with that?”
“You got back here before midnight because you were all thrown out at eleven thirty.”
“That landlady was damned ungrateful, if you ask me, for all the fine custom we brought her.”
Higgins doesn’t say anything for a while and then he says, “After you’ve had some breakfast, you might speak with Captain Delaney.”
“Did it ever occur to any of you that sometimes I just want to act like a frisky young girl? Just sometimes?”
What next?
I go out on the quarterdeck and Liam is standing there all massive against the morning sky. I walk up beside him but he doesn’t say anything.
Hmmm. I don’t say anything, either.
He turns and goes to the other rail.
“All right, Liam, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing is the matter. It is your ship. You act the way you want to act.”
Ah.
“Out with it, Liam. I will have nothing between us.”
He takes a breath and says, “Padraic is just a boy, but he is a fine boy. He sees you as the very picture of action and adventure. That is all right. But I do not want you to toy with his affections if you have no thought to carry on with such an alliance.”
Oh, Lord. Time for the knees. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. The knees hit the deck and the hands come up under the chin in a prayerful attitude. “I’m so sorry, Father, and I won’t do it again. It’s just ’cause I’m young and wasn’t brought up proper. Didn’t get the proper guidance, like. And I really do like Padraic, he’s a fine lad, it’s just that I’ve decided to live single . . .”
“Aye. I’ve heard you say that before. Now stand up, you young fool,” he says and pulls me to my feet, but now he is trying to keep from grinning. I am forgiven. Again.
This evening I will go out again, for it wouldn’t be seemly for me to socialize with one-half of my crew and not the other, but I vow to be more restrained this time. I’ll take my fiddle and play more tunes—more dignified-like, with not so much wild dancing as last night. And I’ll dance only on the floor, not on the tabletop.
Was I too familiar with Padraic last night? I heave a heavy sigh. I’m afraid I was and now I’m going to have to frost him out for a while to show he has no chance with me in the way of love, as I do intend to live single all of my life. But did I really sit in his lap last night? Oh, my.
Ah, well, tonight I shall be good. Liam will be my escort and that will make me be good.
But it didn’t work out quite that way . . . it never does, and it is a bleary-eyed gang of Emeralds, myself included, who set sail on the next morning’s tide.