Mrs. McVinnie's London Season (32 page)

Edward directed a
puzzled look at his uncle while Jeannie rested her hand on Captain
Summers’ arm. The pressure of her fingers recalled him to the
moment. “Too much, Jeannie?” he asked softly, so Edward could not
hear. “I know not how else to discourage the lad. That is all I am
about.”

They walked out of the
building and came to the famous Whitehall Steps. Jeannie tightened
her grip on Clare, who danced about and clapped her hands at the
sight of the slowly moving Thames. Wherries and sculls clustered
about the steps like goldfish awaiting a feeding, each waterman
calling out his price. Captain Summers raised his hand and pointed,
and one boat maneuvered closer. Summers lifted Edward on board and
the boy stumbled forward, his face alive with pleasure.

Despite her delight
with the water, Clare came less eagerly. “Careful there,” the
captain said. “The tide is going out, Clare, and the steps are
slippery.”

When Clare had been
deposited in the boat, Captain Summers helped Jeannie, keeping his
hand firmly tucked inside the waistband of her dress. He seated her
carefully in the thwarts and sat beside her, not relinquishing his
hold until she reminded him.

“
Deptford,” the captain said.

“
Aye,
aye, sir,” the waterman replied as he and his mate began to
row.

The tide was racing
down to the sea far away, and the boat shot along, a water bug
among closely packed trout. Clare sat on Jeannie’s lap, clutching
her towel doll, turning her face into Jeannie’s bosom. Captain
Summers touched her curls and tried to get her to look around, but
she only shook her head and burrowed into Jeannie.

He smiled. “Little one,
are you not descended from that conniving race that sent out sea
captains beyond the edge of the world? What say you, Edward?”

Edward said nothing,
only looked away and kept his death’s grip on the gunwales as they
flew along.

They smelled
Billingsgate almost before they saw it. Captain Summers wrinkled
his nose. “I never did care above half for fish,” he said to no one
in particular.

Without any warning,
Edward leaned over the gunwales and vomited into the river. The
oarsman laughed until Jeannie froze him with a long look.
Oblivious, Edward paid no mind and did not turn around from his
contemplation of London by water.

Captain Summers nudged
Jeannie and pointed. “My dear Jeannie, the Tower of London. I
wonder. Do you suppose that unfortunate pachyderm is still
blue?”

“
Don’t
remind me,” Jeannie exclaimed.

They were all silent
then, watching as the oarsmen navigated the river and dodged here
and there among the larger craft that plied the river in both
directions. Several times Jeannie, her eyes scrunched shut, wanted
to press her face into Captain Summers’ chest, just as Clare was
doing to her, but she only gulped and prayed that the watermen had
consumed less spirits than she had the night before.

Another sharp bend, and
Deptford Hard stretched before them, the great naval yard. His
seasickness forgotten, Edward looked this way and that. He turned
around to his uncle and grinned, his freckles standing out clearly
in his white face. He could scarcely keep his seat when his uncle
pointed out a fifth rater, the largest ship in the yard.

“
Is it
as fine as the
Venture
?” Edward asked, his voice
breathless.

“
No,
lad, nothing’s as fine as the
Venture
.” Summers looked
closer. “Ah! It is the
Calliope
.” Without a word he stood
and, carefully balancing himself, raised his hand in a smart salute
as the wherry shot past. He sat down only when the ship was far
astern. “The
Calliope
," he murmured, and then leaned forward
toward Edward. “A gallant ship, my boy, and bound for the West
Indies soon enough. I spent many a summer’s day running up and down
her riggings. I wonder, does Captain Russell Jones still command
here?”

“
Where
now, sir?” asked the waterman.

“
The
hospital. You may wait for us there.”

“
The
hospital?” Jeannie asked as the little boat threaded its way among
the fighting ships and frigates of the Royal Navy and the barges
victualing them.

“
From
the gold lace of Whitehall to the hospital, Jeannie. One cannonball
can put you there.”

The hospital rose
before them, another graceful contribution from Christopher Wren to
the English countryside. The wherry-man angled them expertly to the
wharf and cast a line to secure the boat.

Captain Summers pried
Clare from Jeannie and carried her up the steps to land. “You are
such a lubber,” he said softly, and pressed her head against his
chest. “Silly girl. Come, Edward. There is someone here I
especially want you to meet. ”

Wren had not stinted in
the design of the hospital. The main hall was lofty and busy with
the comings and goings of attendants and sailors on crutches or peg
legs. Other men lay on cots, waiting for the morning sun with its
healing rays to reach them.

The smell of the
sickroom was all about them. Jeannie groped about in her reticule
and raised a handkerchief to her nose. Under the strong
disinfectant was the smell of festering wounds and the odor of men
in fever. It reminded her forcefully of Galen McVinnie, and the
long, long months she had nursed him in Kirkcudbright, listening to
him weep for his son and hiding her own double anguish.

“
Let
me wait outside,” she said to Summers.

The captain did not
answer her. He stopped a sister hurrying by, whispered some words
to her, and handed Clare into her keeping. The child clutched at
her towel doll, but did not cry.

“
Captain, please!”

“
Come
with us, Jeannie. Here’s my hand,” said the captain.

She grabbed it like a
drowning sailor and clung to him as they mounted the broad
staircase that was also littered with convalescents.

Close to tears, Jeannie
watched Edward out of blurred eyes. His back was straight, and even
though his face was pale, it was composed. The muscles worked in
his jaw, and he swallowed too often, but he uttered no protest as
they passed the wounded and the dying.

Up another flight of
stairs, this one narrower now, and across a catwalk that led them
around the great main hall, and then Captain Summers stopped
outside an open door. He put both hands on Edward’s shoulders. “Do
you know why I have brought you here, my boy?” he asked
finally.

“
I
think so, sir,” Edward replied, and then managed a crooked smile.
“You want to frighten me?”

“
I
thought I did, lad, but now I just want you to meet someone dear to
me. Come, Jeannie. Chin up.”

They entered the long
ward, which was well-lit by the sun and growing warm. Nuns glided
about, bringing in the noon meal. The odor of bean soup tickled
Jeannie’s nostrils and mingled with the smell of wounds and musty
old men.

There was not a whole
man in the entire ward. There were parts of men, men with no arms,
no legs, no eyes, and others with combinations fantastic and
grotesque. It was a giant workshop of unfinished bodies, as though
the toymaster had done so much and then walked away, out of caprice
or boredom.

The captain stood still
before a cot where a white-haired man sat, his eyelids closed over
sunken cavities. A fly rested on his chest. He flicked it off with
the stump of one arm that ended at his elbow. Jeannie looked down
and swallowed. He had only one leg.

Summers said nothing.
Jeannie was too shocked to bring herself to look about at Edward.
To take her mind off the broken man before her, she studied the
captain’s profile. He stood so quietly, hat in hand, his lips
drooping down as they did when he was not alert. He dropped his hat
on the bed.

“
Captain Summers?” asked the man, raising his face as though he
could see William Summers. “I thought I recognized your
stride.”

“
The
very same.”

“
You’re not thumping along on a peg? Thought you would be, from
what I heard of Cabo San Lucar.” He let out a crack of laughter. “I
heard someone carried you below, and you swearing all the
way!”

Summers grinned and sat
down beside the curious lump of a man. “Who told you that
faradiddle?”

The seaman raised his
shoulder in a shrug. “One of the lads who only came here to stay a
short while. He’s out back now, filling a hole.”

“
As we
all will, Matthews.”

The seaman laughed
again. “Not me, sir. I have your promise in writing.” He pointed
his chin down at the leather bag about his neck. “And don’t you
know I have it memorized? ‘Caleb Matthews, sailing master, is to be
taken out to the Channel and dropped in the water.’ A proper,
decent burial for me, sir.” He looked about him. “But you’re not
alone, sir, are you, and one of them’s a lady.” He sniffed the air.
“They smell different, sir, even the worst of them.”

“
Thank
the Lord for that, Matthew. That is Mrs. Jeannie McVinnie. Touch
his shoulder, Jeannie.”

She reached out and
patted him, resting her hand on his shoulder and praying that she
would not shame him by trembling.

He tucked his whiskered
chin on her hand for a moment and smiled. “A proper lady, Captain.
Smooth hands.”

“
A
very proper lady, Matthews. And here is Edward, my nephew. He
thinks he will go to sea. Nephew?”

Edward, even paler than
before, inched forward and sat himself gingerly on the cot. His
hand was shaking as he reached out to touch Caleb Matthews, as
Jeannie had done. He sucked in his breath as the seaman suddenly
raised his stump of an arm along Edward’s face, quickly and
lightly, and then down his back.

“
He’s
not got much meat on him, sir,” said Matthews.

“
No,
but then neither had Nelson, if you will recall.” Will Summers
grinned. “And he will likely hang on to all his hair and not run to
fat, as I am doing right now.”

The stump reached out
again and felt of Summers’ middle. Matthews laughed. “Buttons
stretched a little tight, sir? Get you back to sea, sir, and be
right smart about it!” Matthews looked around at Edward again, as
though there were sight somewhere behind his closed lids. “And take
this one with ye. He’ll do.”

Captain Summers rose to
his feet and held out his hand for Edward. “We must be off.” He
lingered, his eyes tender. “Does the sister read to you every
night?”

Matthews nodded, and a
grin split his face from ear to ear. “Every night from the
Naval
Chronicles
, and the others what can, they gather ’round, too. I
know more about what is going on in the fleets than the First
Laddie of the Admiralty, I vow. And she reads me your letters as
many times as I like.”

“
You’re warm enough?”

“
Yes,
sir, thankee.”

There was nothing more
to say. Will laid his hand against the old man’s neck, leaned
forward, and kissed his cheek. Tears started in his eyes, and
Jeannie had to look away. He turned back as Edward raised his hand
and rested it on the old man’s neck, while he laid his cheek
alongside the weather-beaten face.

Jeannie took her turn
and kissed his cheek.

“
When
he was a little bitty midshipman, I was his sailing master,”
Matthew said simply as he rested his chin on her hand. “I flogged
him once for giving me a saucy answer, and he cried.”

“
I
never talked back to you again,” said the captain.

“
Aye,
sir, but you have cried since then, I vow.”

“
Not
often, Matthews. Maybe not enough. Good day, now. I’ll be by again.
You have my word on it.”

Matthews chuckled to
himself. “Don’t the other lads envy me! Every two or three years, I
have a visitor.”

Jeannie turned her face
away, but there was nowhere to look except into other eyes. She
stumbled toward the door. Edward took her by the arm and they
waited in the passageway until Captain Summers joined them.

He said nothing as they
retraced their steps, retrieved Clare, and left the building.
White-faced, Edward hurried ahead and vomited again, leaning over
the railing by the wharf.

“
Did
you have to do that?” Jeannie asked, her voice no more than a
breath.

“
Yes.
I wish to God someone had done this to me when I was twelve and
full of it.”

“
But
it wouldn’t have stopped you,” she burst out.

He looked at her in
surprise. “No, of course not. But at least I would have been
warned.” He looked at his nephew, who was on his knees now, resting
against the railing, exhausted. “And that counts for
something.”

Captain Summers helped
Edward to his feet, wiping his face and straightening his coat.

“
It is
a hard, hard service, nephew.” He sighed and looked back at the
hospital. “Sometimes the lucky ones die. Well, Edward?”

“
I
will go to sea, Uncle. I will.”

“
Perhaps you will,” Summers said. His voice grew hard again.
“And if you do and I find out that you have let your men rot in
hospitals, I’ll let the cat out of the bag myself and flog you
around the fleet.”

“
Yes,
sir,” said Edward seriously. “But it won’t happen. Not
now.”

Jeannie looked from one
to the other, her gaze resting on the captain. I love you, Will
Summers, she thought suddenly. Her stomach seemed to drop down to
her shoes and then bob up again to her throat. How could I have
done such a stupid thing?