Fair Winds and Homeward Sail: Sophy Croft's Story Read online

  Then it broke off abruptly, and in Croft’s neat hand:

  Your brother being sent aboard after the action, he has begged me to continue the story, as my News is the greater. I shall post it for him as promised. To resume: after removing the chief part of the prisoners into my Sybil, I was ordered to stay by the fleet, but on examining her defects I found her in a very bad condition.

  After signaling the flag, I was given permission to Part Company upon which we stood for the Channel in very bad weather, it being still mid-January, and we were nearly run down by a three-decker—I believe the Prince George, the night being black as Erebus. We had a narrow Escape.

  Portsmouth being the place of Rendezvous, we stood up the Channel with the wind at SW under close-reef’d main tops’l and fores’l.

  During the night the wind fell and toward Morning the wind freshened at SE with thick weather. We made for Plymouth, and at my command we hoisted the Union Jack at the gaff, but the Jack blowing away, and the halyards fouling, we could not for some time raise our colors.

  That frightened a brig we came near, and a Frigate coming from Torbay under jury masts fired upon us, but from too far away to take Effect. At last we got our colors to rights, hail’d the brig, and all was well, though I and my crew, consequent to the Storm and the hold full of Prisoners, had been on Watch and Watch these many days, and as such were Stupid with lack of sleep.

  But scarce had we been put up on shore at Hamaoze, when a Dispatch came, that Capt Basil was D—ish glad to find me there, and to send to the Port Admiral to put me aboard some craft to the Nore, where I discover’d that I have been made Post!

  It meant all the world to shift my swab from left shoulder to right. That means I am now on the List—anyone may know it—and nothing can shift me, save cowardice or death. All the old jokes were made at my Expense, which I had heard a thousand times ever since I was a squeaker, but I discovered that when it is you they celebrate, why, the jokes become the best jests the world has ever heard, and I laughed most heartily.

  The Port Admiral kindly stood me to dinner in the Traditional Manner, what we call wetting the swab, but scarcely had I swallowed down the last toast I was given orders to take command of a frigate, Adm. Nelson having writ that he was Desperate for same—and I was to rejoin the fleet, your brother having been shifted as third into the Swiftsure, 74, so look for our next letter from the Med . . .

  Sophia read the letter through several times, until she had got it all by heart, and then carefully tied it up with the others, using her mother’s best silk ribbon. She laid the letter with the others, and spent the rest of her solitary day with her mind far at sea, less imagining Frederick with his new ship than trying to picture Captain Croft looking out over the sparkling waters . . .

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  For six months now, George Forsham had been bringing newspapers to Sophia, and occasionally he also brought the fashionable novels that his sister Amelia had thrown aside.

  These last were a disinterested kindness, as he preferred talking over current affairs. He found it exhilarating to air his thoughts about the European war, Bonaparte, Pitt and Parliament to a young lady. Amelia and her friends had been bred to believe that young ladies did not offer opinions on such matters, and he knew that Amelia took no interest whatsoever in politics or the maneuverings of the military.

  At country events, he continued to toil his way grimly through the shoals of French-peppered chatter about courtship, and divinities, and being slain by passions; it was such a relief to shake off the company of his mother’s select families and walk to Widow’s Cottage, where he never heard a single insipid word about ravished hearts or Cupid’s darts.

  Sophia listened, for she appreciated learning something of the wide world that otherwise she would not come by, and it was always pleasant to break the monotony of her days with a call. But as soon as George Forsham walked away, out of sight was out of mind for her. She lived for her letters, and for Edward’s occasional visits.

  It was not the same for George. Somehow, by degrees, he found his own thoughts straying toward Miss Wentworth’s neat cottage and her quiet, smiling countenance. She was so polite, so very restful. So . . . fine in all her quiet ways.

  By those same degrees he found excuse to call more often—there was always astounding news of Bonaparte to report—and to make his visits longer.

  As the weather warmed, it gradually dawned upon Sophia that her tiny parlor, so pleasant when Edward came for his rare visits, seemed somehow entirely too small when Mr. Forsham sat in the best chair of her three, gazing at her with an expression she could not interpret. It invariably got her to rise and open the windows to the fresh air, or to move to her small pantry to cut up slices of cake to keep hands and eyes and lips busy.

  She suggested one day that the weather being glorious they take a walk, for she liked being outside as often as she could. She found diversion in watching the farmers beating back the thatch after winter’s lifting, and the early peas being planted, and the smell of threshing drifting lazily in the soft spring air. And in the mornings, as soon as the ground had softened enough, she had begun her own planting, weeding before she put on bonnet and shawl to explore around her cottage.

  She had stumbled upon some pleasant lanes, and on discovering that George knew the land far better than she, set off with him on long rambles which he took great care never led them into well-traveled paths, lest they be seen by someone who mattered; it never occurred to him (or to Sophia, who was too innocent to consider the matter at all) that lowly farmers and cow herders and wagon drivers had eyes to see and mouths to talk. They just did not talk where the squire or his exalted family or company could hear them.

  By summer he knew that he was in love, but equally was he aware that there would be a great outcry should he say anything. He had been raised to his mother’s expectation that he would marry her goddaughter Phylida, whose father was a local knight.

  George had never wished to marry Phylida, and since her sixteenth birthday had regarded himself as safe when she told him plainly that she did not wish to marry him.

  In this, she had spoken the truth. She had no intention of throwing herself away on a mere squire’s son. She would no more deny the countryside the pleasing spectacle of her being introduced as Lady Something than she would cease breathing. To this ambition George had lent enthusiastic support.

  All summer George and Sophia rambled over the beautiful countryside, while he wrestled with his passions, and she thought mainly of how many weeks must pass before she could look for the next post, as Edward seemed to come to Widow’s Cottage less and less, though the weather was fine.

  Summer waned toward autumn, and the squire’s annual shooting party. George was as indifferent to the party as ever—until at dinner one night, his mother said suddenly, “George, I believe the time has come to think of your future. We ought to announce your engagement to dear Phylida before our guests. A betrothal ball at Christmas would be splendid, don’t you think?”

  George stared, appalled. Later on, he cornered his sister. “Amelia, I don’t wish to marry Phylida, nor she me. What is this start of Mama’s?”

  Amelia sighed. “Are you blind?” she retorted. “Did you not see Phylida flirting with Desmond Cheswick at Lady Wallenden’s rout? For my part, I am quite certain she’s fallen in love with his regimentals. Though his eldest brother is an earl, Desmond hasn’t a ha’penny to call his own.”

  “Why should she not marry Cheswick? She is rich enough for two, surely.”

  “Do you not know anything to the purpose, George? Desmond Cheswick has a horrid reputation. He is a monstrous rake as well as a fortune hunter, with a positive string of mistresses.”

  “Devil take the man,” George exclaimed.

  Amelia clapped her hands over her ears. “Must you before me?” she shrilled petulantly.

  He ignored that, reflecting that her affected pose of missishness was far less convincing after this ready talk of rake
s and strings of mistresses. “I thought she intended to marry a duke.” If she managed to attach a nobleman of that degree, he knew that his mother would be left with nothing to say.

  “That’s what she said, until she caught Cheswick’s handsome blue eye. And if I must speak, for my part I think it would be a thousand pities if she did marry you. The prospect of her living here and forever parading herself before Mama—and she would always insist upon point of rank, you know, though anyone could tell her it would be far more graceful to defer to Mama once she has gained her point—and then she would be pretending to faint all over our furniture because her constitution is so delicate. The prospect is tedious to an infinite degree. A constitution unable to be crossed in anything, between you and me—it was always that way at Miss Thornton’s Academy for Young Ladies.”

  George waited until she was done, eyeing her speculatively. Customarily he regarded her opinion with little trust, but—he reflected—she was a female, and while he found her friends utterly incomprehensible with their fluttering fans and their high, tittering voices, Amelia seemed, from all the gossip she related in such detail, to understand their secret minds.

  And so he ventured into deep waters for the first time. “I’ve someone in mind, as well.”

  Amelia’s interest roused. “Oh? Do tell.” She scowled. “I pray it is not that wretch Charlotte Pinckney. She would be infinitely worse than Phylida.”

  “You do not know her. I want you to talk to her, as you understand females. I don’t know if she’ll have me, but perhaps you can puzzle it out.”

  Amelia prided herself upon her perspicacity. “You may be certain of that, at all events. Who is she?”

  “Miss Wentworth. At Widow’s Cottage.”

  Amelia stared, stunned. Then she let out a crack of laughter that was not the least ladylike. “Her? That awkward, insipid thing, with scarcely two gowns to her back, each uglier than the other? On the catch I should think. Of course she’ll have you. How long has this been going on? She’s mighty sly, is all I can say. She sits there in church all alone, prim as a Quaker, except when that scarecrow of a brother is by.”

  “She . . . she isn’t at all like that.”

  Amelia stared. “Do you mean to say she flirts with you?”

  “No,” he exclaimed, appalled. “If by flirting, you mean the fans, and all that about shattered hearts, and so forth. She scarcely talks at all, except to ask if I wish for another slice of damson tartlet or cowslip wine. But, in short, I like her, and I don’t know if she’ll have me. Will you come with me to meet her—but only if you’ll be polite, mind,” he added quickly.

  Amelia was by now intensely curious, though scornful of her brother’s doubt. Any unmarried female living in a horrid cottage would be on the catch for a rich husband, it stood to reason. “I will,” she said. “As for my manners, as mine are good enough for Lady Steadworth in Grosvenor Square, they are certainly good enough for Widow’s Cottage.”

  George was not reassured by this, but he was puzzled enough to carry his plan through, and as for Amelia, her curiosity was so strong that she would have gone alone had George shied at the gate.

  But she had so thoroughly talked herself into expecting a guilty countenance, perhaps bridling and blustering, that she was disconcerted to be met with a young lady somewhat taller than herself, with a clear, steady gaze out of a pair of dark eyes that betrayed no hint of consciousness. Indeed, though Sophia welcomed the surprise visitor politely enough, her manner revealed nothing stronger than mild question.

  Miss Forsham, who had taken care to dress in the height of fashion as a silent reminder of the chasm between their respective positions, noted that Miss Wentworth appeared to be as uninterested in fashion as she was unashamed of her humble cottage, which did not even afford a withdrawing room, as the kitchen was plain to see in the corner by the fireplace.

  Was this Miss Wentworth simple, or very sly? Amelia glanced about the plain, scrupulously clean cottage with a supercilious eye, her chin back and her upper lip lengthened as if she had detected an unpleasant sight or smell.

  Sophia glanced backward, seeing only the scrubbed floor with the old rug well beaten, the three chairs around the table, and her mother’s old clock on the mantelpiece (wound every evening before she retired to bed) set between carved candlesticks that their father had brought back from India, and a blue ceramic pot that Frederick had brought back from Gibraltar.

  Her surprise altered to amusement as Miss Forsham stated with intent, “I have seen you in church, but we never have spoken.”

  “We have not,” Sophia corroborated, suppressing a laugh at Miss Forsham’s tone of condescension. She sounded exactly like her mother.

  Sophia offered them chairs, sat down with them, and when they had gone through the ritual of refreshments offered and refused, Miss Forsham gave her shoulders a shake, flicked back the downward curling feather from her bonnet with one beautifully gloved finger, and said, “You are not from this neighborhood, I apprehend?”

  The condescension had altered to a tone of accusation. Sophia’s amusement began to cool to dislike. What could possibly have occasioned this visit from a young lady who so obviously wished herself elsewhere?

  “I came here to be close to my brother at St. Winstan’s,” Sophia answered coolly, and waited for the purpose of the visit.

  George looked from his sister to Miss Wentworth, suspecting that his idea had been a bad one. But he had no idea how to rescue the situation.

  Amelia, keeping in mind her brother’s confession, continued her inquisition. “You are keeping house for your brother? Surely so young a lady must have a thought to marriage?”

  “I do not intend to marry.” Sophia spoke lightly enough, but her smile had vanished at the tone with which her caller had delivered the word lady.

  George’s only recourse was to end the disastrous call, and rose abruptly. “Come, Amelia. Miss Wentworth, here are the newspapers.” He thanked her and ushered his sister through the door and into the lane.

  They walked in silence until George deemed they were well out of earshot, then he burst out, “Why did you ask her right out like that? You were to find out what she thought of me, and you bungled it. Of course she must say that.”

  Amelia Forsham was aware that she had behaved ill. More than she hated awkwardness she hated being in the wrong, and so, in the way of human nature, turned her ire onto the easiest target. “Your Miss Wentworth, who is no better than she should be, could have saved her breath,” she retorted. “It means nothing. Females always say something of the sort—until they are secure. Any fool can plainly see she has set her cap for you. I only hope for your sake you know what you are about, and as for that, you asked me to come. I had not the least particle of interest in tramping across this vile field and being bored to the brink of extinction by some jumped-up housekeeper in a dreary cottage.”

  She stalked on ahead, leaving George to no very pleasant thoughts. He ought to have known that Amelia would make things worse—and meanwhile, he was left no more enlightened about Miss Wentworth’s mind than he had been before.

  Back in Widow’s Cottage, Sophia still wondered why such a very refined person would lower herself to call when she clearly did not wish to, then her sense of the ridiculous reasserted itself. How very odd Miss Forsham was! She would entertain Edward with a description of that call when next he came, then she shrugged off the subject for the more interesting task of scanning the newsprint for naval tidings.

  She had all but forgotten Amelia (except to exchange the slightest of curtseys when next they saw one another after church) as autumn brought the Forshams’ annual hunting party together at the squire’s manse.

  By mutual unspoken agreement neither brother nor sister referred to the incident. Amelia hoped that George would recollect himself and what was due to his family and position in the community; George alternately dreaded interrogation from his mother if Amelia were to carry a report to her, and Sir Ralph’s broad hints,
cast as ponderous jokes, that the families might soon unite in more ways than over the shooting of game.

  Of course the knight and his family made up part of the annual party. The squire and his lady were unaware of the fact that each morning began with Phylida violently quarreling with her parents: she would not agree to marry George.

  The servants, who saw it all, talked about nothing else for a fortnight.

  The party ended with superficial amity, the elder generation united in regarding their various offspring as unaccountably vexatious.

  o0o

  A week later, Edward dutifully arrived at the cottage ahead of the first of several long snowstorms. He and Sophia exchanged gifts, and shared with the other the letters each had received since summer; Christmas came and went, then Edward, somewhat abashedly, asked Sophia if she would not mind terribly if he spent Epiphany with a good friend.

  Now Sophia understood why Edward had often been too busy to walk the five miles to the cottage during summer and fall. It was not just Frederick who had found brethren in his calling. Edward was finding his own brethren among the students with whom he shared his lessons, his books (which Sophia could not scrape up any interest in) and his thoughts.

  “Of course,” she said. “But you know it would be difficult to reciprocate.”

  Edward shook his head, his spectacles glinting in the candlelight. For she had kept her few wax candles for his visits.

  “It isn’t like that at all,” Edward said. “That is, Heygate and Underwood, they know my circumstances. It means nothing to either of them—no more than Lafferty being cousin to an earl, and rich, or Hughes being son of a collier, and taught in a charity school before he, too, won his scholarship.”

  “These sound like good friends,” Sophia said, hiding the secret sorrow in her heart. Oh, but she must not despair. She was not losing him! One day he might want to set up housekeeping on his own, surely, and then he would need her.