“There is blood in the boat,” he reminded Nicoll quietly.
“We know, Mr. McNaught,” she responded in a condescending tone often used by her sister. “We were all with Cornelius as he bled and died while Tempest rowed us to the shore. We all dug the hole to bury him, therefore, the sight of the blood in the boat will not come as a shock to myself or my younger siblings.”
Well, she had certainly told him. “Alright. Let us get the inside of the boat cleaned.” However, as he stood, he noted that each one of them was wearing one of his shirts. The two oldest also had on a pair of his trousers. He did not have so many that he could give them away.
“Where is your clothing?” he demanded.
“Drying?” Ellen answered as she skipped to join them. “Today was laundry day. We gathered everything that was dirty and washed it. Even your clothing, Mr. McNaught.”
“Well, thank you.” He was going to need to launder his clothing soon, especially since most of it was being worn by the children, and they looked ridiculous because the shirts fit them like loose dresses, though nothing was exposed, so he supposed they were modest enough.
“Well, let’s get to it then.”
In no time they had returned with rags and buckets of water then helped him turn the boat back over.
“Did you know that Martinique is the Island of Flowers?” Margaret asked him.
“No, I did not.”
“L'Île aux Fleurs,” she said with a grin. “Those who lived here before it was discovered called it Madinia, which means Island of Flowers.”
“So why don’t you call it Madinia?”
“L'Île aux Fleurs is French but means the same.”
“I can speak French,” he informed her. “I wanted to know why it just wasn’t called what the people who lived here first called it.”
She shrugged. “I do not know.”
He frowned. “If you know so much, if it was originally called Madinia, why is it now Martinique?”
“A bastardization over time I suppose.”
He nearly choked on his drink of rum. “You could have said they changed it.”
“That would not have been accurate since the alteration of the name was nothing less than a corruption of the original so that it was easier for the invaders, which would have been a ridiculous reason because Madinia is not so difficult to say or spell, unlike other languages. Instead, the invaders gave it a name better suited to them that fit with their claiming of the island.”
All he could do was stare at the twelve-year-old child. “You have given this a good deal of thought.”
“As I do with everything. Knowledge is important if one wishes to understand and make decisions based on facts.”
No doubt Margaret was going to be a bloody bluestocking when she was older, most likely rejecting men and becoming a spinster because she would refuse to be reduced to mending or stitching.
Heaven help the gentleman who might fall in love with her.
“How did you learn all this?” he asked out of curiosity.
“From the chest,” Ann answered with excitement.
“What chest?”
“The one we found when we were digging the grave for Cornelius.”
A buried chest on a Caribbean island. Maybe his hut had been built by a pirate.
“We had hoped that it contained treasure, left and forgotten, but there was nothing but documents and a bottle of something that my sister poured out.”
Probably rum no doubt.
