Dinner had been more subdued since the incident with the mail bags. Caroline was tired of the whole discussion, but Captain Smythe seemed unable to leave it. The passengers somewhat guiltily discussed other things, but even after a hearty laugh about one of Captain Wentworth’s wonderful stories, the mood was inevitably dimmed by the captain’s anxiety.
He had found absolutely nothing among his men, and it was plain to be seen he looked at Mr. Belvedere with a severe and accusing gaze. It was all the more acute for Mr. Belvedere’s prolonged claim of innocence, as if Captain Smythe would forgive all if he would only confess.
“For it is not,” the Captain said, returning to the subject, “such an easy thing to sneak around a ship! Why, I could leavemycabin, but I daresay, Colonel, you would know if your wife left. Only a personalonein their cabin would do.”
Mr. Belvedere grimaced. “I know, sir! But I am not the only person in a single cabin. There is the ship’s surgeon,” he nodded to that taciturn gentleman, “as well as Mrs. Scott, and I suppose—the maids?—”
“No, Minnie and Susan are together.” Caroline thought perhaps Mr. Belvedere was more sensitive to the accusations than he let on, from a few furtive, uncomfortable looks he cast around the party. But… if hewasthe culprit, she was more and more inclined to think it a foolish whim than a villainous plot.
“I am glad Minnie is feeling so much better,” Anne said, clearly trying to shift the topic again. It seemed they all took turns doing so at dinner now. “The dreadful sea sickness has leftoff. It seems quite remarkable to me that the rest of us have not been so ill.”
“It is,” Captain Wentworth agreed. “For first time travelers, including Mr. Belvedere and Lady Marston, you are all top-rate sailors.”
Lady Marston unbent enough to smile at Captain Wentworth. “I am not a first time-traveler, sir, for I took sail to Jamaica—Port Royal—when I was much younger. I did not experience a day of sickness, except for a horrid period when we were driven by a hurricane. And I was not the only one brought low by it.”
This sparked a discussion of hurricanes, typhoons, and tempests—and also of travel to and from the continent, the Americas, even Cape Town. It was the most cheerful discussion they had had in days, with even Lady Marston interjecting.
“My friend Beaumont had one of the worst Atlantic crossings,” Captain Wentworth said. “No one died, but it took himnine weeks?—”
Captain Smythe whistled in horror.
“Exactly, sir. And even worse, he had just been married—or near enough—and the whole time he was fretting like a fly in a tar box.”
“How is onenear enoughmarried?” Caroline asked.
“Well, he’d been on leave in Lisbon to recuperate with his family after an injury—his father is an army man and was stationed there. And what should Beaumont do but fall in love with a lady—the daughter of a fellow officer? He wrote me a truly stomach-turning letter when he was in the throes of it. What with one thing and another, they knew it might be years before they were both back in England. Her parents were for the union, but his were cutting up stiff and the chaplain was his father’s man. So Beaumont and she signed a civil contract—some of our men are doing that, stationed as they are in theseCatholic countries like Spain and Brazil—to make it legal. I think it’s called a notarial contract in Lisbon, not an option we have at home.”
“Did they get married in the church when they came back to England?” Caroline asked.
“They did—just this past September. I received another letter from him recently. He is a proud father, and they got the English marriage license a few months after the babe’s birth. It wasn’t an official marriage in England until they had the church’s blessing, but everyone knew how it was; there’s no complications for the child. Anyway, he says as how that trip to Boston shall live as the worst in his life—pining for his wife and the days piling up like an actuary’s columns.”
The captain’s face fell again, and he put his head in his hands. “If I don’t find out what’s happened, I’ll not sail to Boston or Bridgetown oranywhereagain.Oh, it fair slays me. TheLady Marydeserves better. I don’t know what I’ve done to have such a blatant?—”
“Oh, do stop, sir,” Lady Marston said. “I’m sure we all heartily pity you, but we are sick to death of this! None of us touched your precious mail bags and it is the outside of enough to punish us every evening for it.”
The captain’s nose flared as he took a deep breath. “Apologies, my lady, I’m sure. Please forgive me.”
She inclined her head, but the temporarylight-heartedness was not to be recaptured, and indeed, worse was to come.
The first mate came again as the party began to break up, and Captain Smythe’s face blanched. “Don’t tell me there is somethingelseamiss?—”
“No, sir, that is—it’s Donny’s bird. It’s dead, sir.”
“Oh, no,” said Anne, “that lovely bird. Poor boy.”
“Yes, ma’am. And I wouldn’t’ve disturbed you just forthat,sir. Those Carib birds will die—precious fragile, some of them—and we’ve no idea how old it is, not when it was already at least ten when Henks gave it to Donny. But with the current upset on the ship, the men are feeling uneasy.”
“Of course they are,” growled the captain. “And Donny will be infecting them all with his fears and superstitions.”
“Do you think someone did the bird a mischief?” Richard asked.
“Who’s to say? In the end, it don’t matter if it were a plot or if it weren’t, for it’s the darndest mischance! I don’t like it.”
The party broke up by troubled, mutual accord soon after. Susan came to help the ladies, and Richard again tabulated how many days until they could reach Lisbon… when a nearby scream of rage stopped everything.
8
Caroline was one of the first to tumble back into the dining room, having snatched up her dressing gown and wrapped it tightly around herself. Richard was just behind her.
