The Esmeralda is sitting high on the tide, Esmeralda herself leaning against the gunwale at the ship’s stern, looking for all the world like a romantic heroine who has struck a pose and is trying it out for effect. The wind fans her long tresses like marsh grass caught in a swift current. She is the colour of the sea too, wearing a dress of vivid greens she must have pulled from the same chest as her mother’s shawl. Instantly Hetty feels guilty, she should have thought to return it. Esmeralda’s wardrobe is probably quite spare and clearly from another epoch; at least her ankle-length dress, with its Empire waistline and paler-hued inner skirts, would not look out of place in an Edwardian drawing room. On a less confident woman it would look like a costume, but Esmeralda, who has left her post at the gunwale and now glides across the deck to greet them, is quite simply stunning. She must have been out walking in the fields earlier, for she has hooked a sprig of wild apple blossom in her hair.
Hetty introduces Peter from the wharf before ascending the ladder to the ship’s deck.
“Your dress is beautiful,” she says, once aboard; it’s true, though when she draws closer it is apparent the garment has seen better days. Beneath the heady smell of lavender oil Hetty detects the faint odour of mildew. Still, it’s easier to admire Esmeralda than pity her as she smiles at the compliment and touches her fingers to the flowers in her hair. In an instant she’s gone, disappearing down the companionway into the ship’s aft cabin. Too bad, Hetty thinks. She too would like to stand at the stern with the wind in her hair, staring out across the water, watching the storm clouds rolling in.
The accommodations in the main cabin of the schooner are far more luxurious than those in the forecastle. A table in the captain’s dining room has been laid with a damask cloth of royal blue, crisp white napkins and ten full place settings of silver. Crystal goblets. Obviously the captain is expecting more guests than the Bakers and herself and Peter. Hetty glances at her husband but his mask is, as ever, set: the face of a gentleman determined to be surprised by nothing.
Esmeralda turns her honey-coloured eyes on Hetty and, as if the thought has just occurred to her, asks, “Would you like to see your patient?” She smiles winningly at Peter. “Your wife is quite the hero. You must be very proud of her.”
Peter coughs behind his hand then clears his throat. “Indeed,” he says.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t disturb him.” Hetty smiles to cover her panic. “He needs all the rest he can get, to build back his strength.”
“But J.J. would like to thank you himself, seeing as he was in no condition to do so yesterday.” Esmeralda takes Peter’s arm.
How well did you know a person after a year? Peter isn’t one to cause a public scene; Hetty has rarely heard him even raise his voice. But what he’s about to learn might change all that. Mentally she kicks herself for not being more open about where she was yesterday. Who had she been trying to protect?
“Oh, I think he could probably manage a short visit, Hetty.” In his wife’s hesitation Peter has gathered his wits. “We won’t stay long.” He turns to Esmeralda. “If you think it wouldn’t trouble the patient, I’d be very interested in witnessing the handiwork of a hero.” He follows Esmeralda back up the companionway to the deck and across to the forecastle. Hetty trails behind, a sour feeling in her belly.
Esmeralda descends and waits for them at the foot of the forward cabin stairs. “It isn’t just her courage that impressed us all, either. It was her handiwork, too. Such neat stitches.”
“Stitches?” Peter, reaching up to assist his wife with the last two steps, squeezes Hetty’s arm. Rather than meet his gaze, Hetty makes a show of resettling her dress.
Esmeralda manages to usher them through the galley and at the same time fill the air with a litany of praise for Hetty’s bravery and professionalism without revealing any of the gritty details. Clever girl. When they reach the men’s bunks, she lights a lamp. Hetty almost swoons as heat pours over her. The fetid odour of sickness still clings to the air, together with the eye-watering smell of decay. She licks at her dry lips, tasting last night’s brandy. How was a person supposed to get well breathing such rancid air?
And then Esmeralda, leaning over J.J.’s bunk, steps out of the way. Hetty stares at the grey boy fading into the grey bed. John James Murray. His face drawn and aged, an old man’s face on a young man’s body. What is left of his body.
“You should say thank you to Mrs. Douglas, J.J.,” Esmeralda commands. “She’s the one who saved your life.” Hetty feels heat in her cheeks, drops her eyes to J.J.’s leg, or rather his absence of leg, which is, she thinks, for Peter at least, the centrepiece of this tableau. The flap of skin she’d folded towards the front of his thigh and her tidy black stitches, like so many dead flies in a row. Too late and too slowly J.J. reaches for the sheet and pulls it to his waist. Esmeralda turns her attention back to Peter. “Your wife never flinched. Just rolled up her sleeves and got straight to work. She had the leg off in less than five minutes.”
Five minutes. Was that all? The aching in Hetty’s back and shoulders flares again. It had seemed to take so much longer.Peter is ashen. Hetty glances at Esmeralda in dismay. In one glance — or was it his handshake? — she has taken stock of Peter and is deliberately trying to unbalance him.
J.J.’s voice is hoarse, probably from all the brandy and the screaming. Hetty, unable to make out what he’s saying, steps past Esmeralda and closer to his bunk. She takes his hand between her own. “Shh, now. Save it for later. You need your strength.” J.J.’s lips move and Hetty leans in to listen.
“My leg,” he rasps. “What did you do with my leg?”
Gently Hetty lowers herself to perch on the edge of the bunk. My eye. What did you do with my eye? How many children had asked her the same question? “You had blood poisoning. If we hadn’t amputated your leg you would have died.” He’s fifteen at the very most. How on earth had he ended up on this ship? Where was his family?
“Where is it? What did you do with it?” Hetty looks to Esmeralda. She has no idea. She remembers his screams as she tightened the tourniquet, the brief elastic pull of his skin, a rush of bright red blood, then the sudden release of the saw as it cut through the last of J.J.’s thigh. The way the leg fell to the bunk, heavier than expected, and her own momentary loss of balance. But hands took the leg away. Hetty tied off the big arteries and veins, pulled the skin together, closed up the stump. Gave no more thought to the leg.
Esmeralda shakes her head and it occurs to Hetty that it could have been tossed overboard or strapped to one of the brush weirs. Fish food. She turns back to John James. “The crew buried it. On the edge of the woods. It’s safe there,” she adds, not at all sure whether safety is his concern. But his face relaxes a little. “And before you know it you’ll be up and around again.” Hetty hates herself for uttering such platitudes, and John James looks away. There are huge purple circles under his eyes, which close now. Hetty stands and, leaving J.J. behind to bake and breathe in his own rankness, allows Esmeralda to shepherd them back towards the stairs.
The sky has darkened and fog has obscured the far shore, but when they enter the captain’s dining room, the comforting aroma of food greets them. Covered chafing dishes sit on the sideboard. Candles flicker beneath, keeping their contents warm. Someone has set three candelabras at even intervals down the length of the table. Esmeralda gestures them to their seats.
“And Doctor Baker and his wife?” Peter has regained his composure. Hetty crosses her fingers for no more surprises. “They will be joining us, won’t they?”
“The doctor sends his regrets,” Esmeralda says, striking a match and lighting the candles. “He won’t be able to make it this evening.”
“Then the captain has others guests?” Peter is probably hoping they aren’t some of his labourers from the mill.
“Oh, those are for the crew.” The crew. Hetty is grateful she is already seated and for the softening glow of candlelight. “Mr. and Mrs. Peter Douglas will be the captain’s sole guests this evening. Not to worry,” Esmeralda says as she pulls up a chair. “It means there’s more food for everyone.”
“And it is much more cosy this way, don’t you agree? Much more intimate.” The captain. Hetty and Peter stand as a portly man enters from what must be his private cabin. His voice, rich and melodious, is characterized by the same blend of accents as Esmeralda’s. He sweeps an elaborate three-cornered hat from his head and lifts a large thick hand to pat down a ruddy thatch of straw-like hair. If this is Esmeralda’s father, his penchant for outmoded dress is where their similarities end. Hetty stares at the hat and the elaborate brocade that edges the captain’s collar and cuffs, the shiny gold buttons down his jacket front.
“Captain Henry Woods.” He holds out his hand, grips hers in both of his. “A pleasure, a pleasure. How do you do?”
The captain’s smile, the way his eyes hold hers is so intense that Hetty is relieved when the rest of the crew files in and she can extricate her hand and rest her aching face. They all nod at Peter and shake his hand and do the same again for Hetty. To their credit they are cleaner than the last time she saw them and have changed into freshly laundered clothes. In addition to setting the table, had laundry detail been part of Esmeralda’s day?
Hetty sneaks a glance at her husband. Poor Peter. Even Esmeralda’s charm and beauty — if possible more arresting by candlelight — are not enough to rub smooth the edges of this humiliation. No doubt he wishes that, like the doctor, he had said no. Obviously this is the sort of invitation gentlemen of substance refuse. But is Peter the sort of man to stand up and walk out now? She thinks not and can feel the dry heat he generates as he worries his hangnails.
A waiter, whom the captain introduces as Ambrose, appears at Hetty’s elbow. Hetty recognizes him as one of the crew who had helped out yesterday, one of several sets of hands that had taken and delivered as she’d instructed. He has a clean butcher’s apron tied high around his waist.
“And what is on the menu tonight, my good man?” the captain bellows. It is like being part of a costume drama. Hetty wishes she’d worn something more theatrical.
Ambrose beams and turns to take steaming soup bowls from a tray held by a short swarthy man with enormous bushy black eyebrows, presumably the cook. “To begin with, shark fin soup,” he says, serving Hetty first and then Peter.
The captain bursts out laughing at their surprised faces. “A delicacy from the orient.”
Peter stares down into his soup, two small bits of shark fin floating on the surface. “We’re not in the Orient.” now it is Hetty’s turn to be embarrassed by his provinciality. “There are no sharks in the bay.”
Having served the remainder of the table, Ambrose returns to the sideboard and the little man steps forward, nodding vigorously. “Yes. There is the small one,” he says, putting down his tray and pulling his small pudgy hands maybe three feet apart.
“Dogfish,” Peter says, raising an eyebrow and lowering his spoon. “The fishermen here throw them back.”
“Well,” the captain says, tucking his napkin into his collar, “and do any of these fishermen’s families go hungry ever?”
Peter is saved having to answer by the reappearance of Ambrose at the captain’s elbow with a bottle of champagne.
“Great courage calls for great celebration,” the captain calls out, rubbing his ruddy-skinned hands together. “I propose a toast to the pluckiest nurse on the east coast.”
“This isn’t exactly the east coast,” Hetty says quickly, sensing Peter’s civic duty rising up and trying to avert it. But Peter isn’t interested in geography.
The captain raises his glass. Ambrose pours and the rest of the crew follow and raise theirs. Hetty watches her husband and moves her hand towards her glass.
“This is a dry village.”
“And this is a wet boat.” The crew roars. Everyone takes a sip. Hetty rubs the stem of her glass with her fingers.
“It is the law.”
“Then the law, Mr. Douglas, as a certain wise soul observed before me, is an ass. I cannot think of a better way to make an alcoholic of a man than to deny him access to alcohol.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“And neither do your laws. But some men will get rich from them because others will always seek what is difficult to find. There are ways, there are always ways, Mr. Douglas, to find what you want.”
The ship bobs slightly, as if someone were pushing it to make it rock.
“The tide’s on its way out,” Hetty announces, for something to say, then takes a spoonful of soup. Surprisingly delicious. She ventures a smile at the captain. “I thought the food on ships was supposed to be atrocious. Your cook has outdone himself.” Hetty nods at the cook, who, together with Ambrose, is now seated at the table and slurping quickly at his own creation. He scrunches his eyes up in a smile and carries on eating.
“But this is neither a merchant nor a naval vessel, my dear. On board the Esmeralda” — and here he turns to smile at his daughter — “we have a more egalitarian outlook. People will work so much harder for you if you treat them with decency and respect. Don’t you find that so, Mr. Douglas?”
Peter pats his lips with his napkin. “Well, yes. To a point.” For a moment, every soup spoon stops, suspended in mid-journey. Hetty lifts a small grey shark fin onto hers, then, sensing discord, lowers it into the broth again. “But they should not be allowed to forget who is in charge. That way leads to revolution. Mutiny.”
“Mutiny.” The captain nods and shakes his head a few times as if weighing the veracity of Peter’s word.
Peter, having had time to absorb what the Captain has said, asks him, “If you are neither a military nor a merchant vessel, then what kind of vessel are you, might I ask? And if you’ve brought nothing to sell and don’t plan on picking anything up, then what are you doing in these waters?”
“Ha, what indeed.” Captain Woods pats his stomach and Hetty feels hers twist up inside her. J.J.’s leg wound is connected somehow, she’s sure of it. “That’s a fair question.” The crewmen, rather than watching the captain to see what he says, have averted their eyes. Nervous, Hetty brings the glass of champagne to her lips. “The damage we sustained at sea —”
“Could be repaired anywhere,” Peter cuts in.
“Oh,” Hetty cries out in surprise as bubbles burst at her nose. Alarmed by her own response, she laughs aloud. Peter glares stonily at her, but then everyone is distracted as Ambrose gets to his feet and begins reaching across the table, clearing and stacking the soup dishes with a great clatter. Ambrose is an unlikely name for a rum-runner, Hetty thinks, having decided this is probably what the crew are, given the presence of the champagne and the tension Peter’s question has generated.
The man with the carbuncle appears — he must have been on deck — and pulls the captain to one side in conversation. Hetty’s eye is drawn to his jacket, fastened across the front with a row of tarnished silver teaspoons.
“Interesting buttons,” she says.
“To remind me of what I didn’t come from,” he says, without so much as glancing her way. The other crew members chatter amongst themselves. Hetty blanches at his rudeness and then, preparing herself for the task of pulling Peter around, takes another gulp of her champagne.
“If you had any respect for me you would put that glass down and not touch another drop,” he hisses between clenched teeth.
“If you’re so bothered by what’s going on, why don’t you just get up and leave?” she hisses back.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m hemmed in on all sides by Captain Bluebeard and his merry men. They probably all have swords and daggers upon their persons.”
“Redbeard.” Hetty is finding it difficult not to burst into laughter.
“Excuse me?”
“The captain’s beard is red.”
Ambrose begins serving the main course: poached flounder with a cream sauce, potatoes, canned beans and an unrecognizable vegetable which the cook explains is early marsh greens, picked from just over here. He waves his arm behind him. While Peter’s unanswered question still hovers above the table, the other diners, their appetites whetted by the soup, are hungry enough to postpone discussion and bend to the task of eating. With the exception of the odd mutter and mumble of praise for the cook and his delicious creations, the only sounds are of knife and fork against plate and the occasional chink of crystal. Somewhere between the clearing of the main course dishes and the delivery of dessert, a voice is heard.
“My name’s Jem —” The rest of the speaker’s words are drowned in the wind. Several heads turn towards the portholes, for the voice has come from outside and somewhere nearby. Hetty turns and squints through one of the glassed apertures into the darkness but can at first make out nothing. Then she realizes she is staring at one of the wharf’s support posts. So far down has the water dropped that the wharf itself is now several feet above their heads. The voice calls out again, the words completely muffled this time but not the laughter that follows. Some of the crew exchange looks and dart glances at Peter. The tension in the room rises again as people, unsure how to react, heads down, tuck into their sponge cake with preserves, purchased, no doubt like the beans, from one of the village wives who have been patrolling the wharf with their wares since the Esmeralda docked. The drunken reveller, for there is no doubt the owner of the voice is inebriated, shouts again, and Hetty nervously downs the remainder of her champagne. Instantly someone fills her glass again. Peter is coiled and ready to pounce. Hetty’s head is swimming, waves of giggles rising inside her. She takes another swallow, and Peter grabs her wrist. He stands, pulling his wife to her feet.
“We thank you for your hospitality and lovely meal, but it’s late and we really must be getting along.” The absurd formality of his words and Esmeralda’s wide-eyed expression are too much for Hetty. Buckled with laughter, she needs the assistance of more than one pair of hands to make her exit. The sight of the slippery wharf ladder, once they are standing up on deck, sets her off again. The very idea of making the climb in a dress and high-heeled shoes and with a head full of champagne is hilarious. But climb she must. With Peter behind her, one hand on her bottom to help her up onto each rung, Hetty gradually ascends to the wharf. Standing at the edge, she looks back down at Esmeralda on the ship’s deck, waving and calling out goodbye.
“My hands are filthy,” she cries out, laughing again. As she steps back to take Peter’s arm, the corner of a rotten plank crumbles, and Hetty’s ankle twists sharply. This time she cries out in pain. Peter helps her to her feet, and she can tell by his grip on her arm that he is angrier than she’s ever seen him. He cuts off her apologies and won’t hear any talk of the evening’s events. Peter doesn’t speak again until he has crossed his own threshold. His voice is low and barely controlled.
“You completely humiliated me back there.”
Hetty steps into the house behind him, sobered by her silent and painful hobble home. “I think you managed that all by your- self.”
Peter strides to his study and, without looking at his wife, opens the door and steps inside. “I will see you in the morning,” he says, closing and locking it behind him.