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Chapter Ten: Journey Home
It rained nearly all the next day, all the way from London to the very outskirts of Dover, where the Sparrows had left the Black Pearl safely anchored. Captain Sparrow, who loved a good storm at sea, detested traveling on land in inclement weather and was heard to mutter and fume occasionally, but there were few complaints from any of the other souls traveling within the three well-sprung and luxuriously appointed coaches, each drawn by six matched horses.
The Norringtons had not seen the Sparrows’ arrival in Mount Street a few days before and so were unacquainted with their preferred mode of land transport. When the cavalcade drew up before the townhome, ready to take Anne and her family up at the appointed time, she and her parents stared out the window in amazement. Then Captain Sparrow climbed from the first coach, Tom sprang from the second, and both were up the steps and in the door in a trice.
“You’re certainly prompt,” Anne’s father said with approval, “but what luxury, Jack! Those post-chaises look fit for royalty. They must have cost you a fortune.”
“Of course they did, but I’ll be damned… er, dashed if I’ll be bumped and jolted along that road any longer than needed – though it’s like to be slow going in any case, what with this rain. Are you ready? Tom here’ll ride with you in that second coach, if you don’t mind. The Turners are all stuffed in with us as Day don’t like to be separated from ol’ Wilby, though they’ve been scrapping like a couple of pups lately. I told them I’ll throw ‘em out and they can run alongside, if they make a nuisance of themselves.”
Father chuckled. “I can imagine what Harry and Elizabeth would have to say to that.”
The captain sniffed. “Aye, you know what women are – including your Maggie here, and Anne too, I daresay. But Will’s entirely in agreement with me, and I’m confident we can take the ladies if there’s a set-to.”
This comment inspired general laughter, which contrived to put Anne at her ease.
She had both dreaded and ached to meet Tom again, after their parting at Vauxhall, but Tom seemed to hold no ill-feeling at all, and had apparently recovered his spirits with great rapidity. He handed her into the carriage and spent the first part of the journey regaling the Norringtons with humorous tales of his adventures during the last three days. While Anne had been worrying, picking at her food, and spending a great deal of time sighing at fate in the confines of her bedchamber, Tom had apparently been indulging in a continuous round of entertainments specifically designed to appeal to the young man-about-town, with an occasional pause at the Swann residence in Mount Street to reassure his mother that he was still alive and well, and to introduce his newfound friends to the joys of cuisine á la Anatole et Louise.
Anne found herself growing inclined to resent Tom’s insouciance, and inwardly took herself to task. His concern for her at Vauxhall must have been that of a friend, or perhaps an older brother, rather than being due to some warmer feeling as she had assumed. The happy times, the childish promises, the easy friendship, these were things of the past, and there was no reason that either she or Tom should have taken them in a more serious light.
As the carriage bowled along, Tom’s stories began to focus on events further afield, and Anne, who had not slept well for some nights, began to nod. She finally fell deeply asleep in her corner of the swaying carriage, lulled by the pleasant sound of Tom and her father’s voices as they discussed the intricacies of navigation east of Cape Hope.
She woke some considerable time later, as the carriage drew to a halt in the yard of an inn. The King’s Arms was a well-known hostelry halfway between London and Dover, and it seemed that the Sparrows had sent ahead to order an elaborate luncheon, to be served in the large, private, upstairs dining room. It was an elegant space, and the crackling fire on the tiled hearth, the many branches of candles, and the scents of the plain, wholesome food they were served pleased everyone. Tom made a point of bringing Anne a steaming cup of punch to begin with, and then was seated beside her at the table. She found that her spirits, which had been a little dull with napping, rose amazingly.
The rain had turned to drizzle by the time they were ready to resume their journey, and Lady Harry decreed that she was quite tired of Jack and Will’s endless discussion of weaponry and their defense of the tradition of the duello, and that the gentlemen could very well ride together in the second coach while the ladies took the first. The children were not exempted, rather to Daisy’s dismay, but even she soon became reconciled, for the conversation flowed among the women in a natural, comfortable way, and in spite of all their years apart, their affection for one another could not be doubted.
As they drew nearer to the port of Dover, the rain began to lessen, then stop; and then, as they rolled through the town and came within sight of the harbor, the clouds began to break apart most splendidly. The rays of the westering sun turned the water to glittering silver, and the Black Pearl, which was drawn up to the dock to receive them, looked every inch her name.
When they arrived, everyone began to pile out, and Captain Sparrow was heard to exclaim, “Thank God that’s over!” He stretched his apparently cramped and crabbed limbs before going to the door of the first carriage to hand Lady Harry down himself.
“Welcome home, Captain!” called a familiar figure, walking down the gangplank with a wide smile.
It was Mr. Gibbs!
He looked very little older than when they’d seen him last, five years before; grayer, perhaps, but he’d always had a somewhat aged and ageless face.
“Aye, rum’s a most efficacious preservative,” he said with a wink, in reply to their exclamations on this head. “But who’s this young sailor? By the saints, it can’t be young William Weatherby Turner!”
“It is,” said Daisy, “but he’s only a schoolboy, not a sailor. Uncle Weatherby’s sending him to Harrow when the term starts in the autumn.”
“Ah, that’s a fine school,” Gibbs said. “But you should know, young missy, that a sailor’s not only bred but born to it. His paternal granddad, old Bootstrap Bill, was as able a sailor as ever hauled a rope, besides bein’ a devil with a sword, and it certainly held true in his boy, William Weatherby’s papa here. It’s in the Turner blood, same as it’s in yours by way of Captain Jack.”
William Weatherby told Daisy, “I know about sailing! We sailed all the way from Jamaica here to England!”
But Daisy sniffed. “You said you had the mal de mer.“
“Only at first!”
“I’ve never had it in my life.”
William Weatherby glared, Elizabeth put a hand on his shoulder, and Lady Harry, arriving late to the fair on Jack’s arm, said to Daisy, “Marguerite Elizabeth Sparrow, what have you been saying to make your cousin look so? William Weatherby is our guest!”
“Yes, Mama,” Daisy said, though she returned Wilby’s glare briefly. Then she suddenly grinned and said, “Come on! I’ll show you the Pearl.”
“I’ve been on the Pearl,” William Weatherby groused, but followed after her, up the gangplank.
“Years ago!” Daisy was heard to scoff. “Wait until you see her now, all the changes, and the things we’ve brought back.”
“Oh, dear,” said Lady Harry as the children disappeared.
But Elizabeth chuckled, and Will said to her, “Do you know who they remind me of?”
“Us.” Elizabeth’s eyes twinkled.
Will slipped his arm about her waist.
Captain Jack said to Lady Harry, “You’re the one who insisted we needed a girl.”
Lady Harry merely kissed him.
Tom said to Anne, “You’re sharing a cabin with Lady Day, but just let me know if she don’t behave. I’ll give her what for, even if Da won’t. If you’ll allow me, I’ll show you where it is and you can start getting settled.”
*
The Pearl sailed with the evening tide, and after a fine supper with their families in the Great Cabin, Tom took Anne outside to stroll along the deck and admire the rain-washed night sky.
She couldn’t help being happy. She hugged herself, giving a little shiver. “It’s like a dream come true to be here again.”
Tom had noticed the shiver. “Are you cold?”
He was already removing his coat as she replied, “I forgot my shawl in the cabin,” and he placed the garment tenderly around her shoulders. His warmth still clung to it, and she briefly closed her eyes. “Thank you.”
“Anne… can I tell you something?”
She opened her eyes, and faced him, afraid and eager. How handsome he was. Tom. Her Tom.
He said, quite seriously, “We must always be friends, Annie. No matter what. You’ve made your choice, and how can I wish you anything but joy? But we must always be friends, and if you ever need me, if ever there’s service I can render, you’ve only to ask.” The crooked smile appeared. “Savvy?”
She nodded, tears stinging her eyes.
He went on. “This journey may be the last time we’re together in such a way, so let’s make the most of it. Nothing awkward, no inappropriate importunities. Friends. Agreed?”
He held out his hand. She responded in kind. How cold her hand was, enveloped in his larger, warmer one. She tried to smile in spite of her aching heart, and said, unsteadily, “Agreed.”
“Excellent!” he said, and gave her hand a squeeze. Then he tucked it into his arm and they both turned and stood at the rail for a long time, gazing out on the moonlit sea.
*
William Weatherby Turner snored.
Tom lay on his back, listening to the low buzz of his cabinmate’s even breathing, staring into the darkness, and smiling with grim satisfaction.
Mother had the truth of it. Annie, his lovely sweetheart, was as unhappy as he’d ever seen her in his life. And twice he’d caught her looking at him, her heart plain in her blue eyes, though she’d lowered them quick enough and would no doubt deny doing any such thing and call him a conceited rascal if confronted.
How he longed to take her in his arms and kiss her, kiss some sense into her! But he couldn’t force the issue, not outright, not with their parents at hand and her believing that her honor was at stake. Ridiculous. But lives had been ruined before over such absurdities, if any of the tales in history and legend were true.
No, he would bide his time. The moment to move would be revealed to him. They had a few weeks, and it would be as well to wait, to allow their friendship to ripen again.
It had been stupid of him, neglecting to write to her in these last years, but he hadn’t inherited his father’s gift with a pen, and anyway, there had been so much to tell he wouldn’t have known where to start. But it wasn’t past mending, he wouldn’t let it be, not even now, when she’d promised herself to another. Old Hartfield would just have to learn to live with disappointment – a hard lesson for one so used to getting his way. But life was like that sometimes.
For no one but Tom Sparrow was ever going to take Anne Norrington to wife, not if he had anything to say about it.
Not even if he had to steal her away to do it.
Continued in Chapter Eleven: Fleet Hall