Page 43 of The Cornish Widow

Chapter Twenty

Harriet had woken to a feeling of rising nausea some time in the middle of the night, as the ship began to pitch and roll. At first, Theo slept on in her arms as she lay between the bales of tobacco fighting the rising inclination to cast up her accounts. Before long, the movement of the ship grew more violent, and, but for the fact she was wedged, she might have been thrown about. This woke Theo up, and the first thing he did was groan and throw up all over her.

That was enough for Harriet. She struggled out of their dark little nest, the horrible smell of vomit in her nose and throat, tried to stand up in the pitching hold, failed and fell over, and was herself horribly sick all over the floor. The hope that having thus cleared out her stomach prevailed, and she crawled back towards where Theo was lying moaning. Luckily his stomach contents had gone mostly over her cloak, so she divested herself of the offending garment, and climbed back in with Theo.

Peace was not to be hers. The ship appeared to be in the grip of a violent storm, sometimes almost upending itself as though plunging headfirst into the troughs of the waves and about to sink, sometimes tipping towards its stern. And her hope that having cast up their accounts once they would feel better for it was unfounded. As the night progressed and the tossing of the ship only grew worse, Harriet felt worse in parallel, and so, it seemed, did Theo.

When the hatch jerked open letting the morning light spill in, Harriet had reached the point where she no longer cared if a hundred ferocious smugglers discovered her whereabouts. She just wanted to get out of the noisome hole she was stuck in and preferably right off this ship.

“I don’t think I like boats anymore,” Theo murmured, blinking at the brightness.

A demanding voice shouted down to them. “We know you’re in there. Come on out right now and show yourselves. Get up here on deck and let us see you.”

Harriet froze. Surely that was Jack’s voice? All hopes that he was playing an unwitting part in the smuggling vanished. What was she to do?

Beside her, Theo retched again, but without result, as for some time now he’d had nothing to bring up. He gave a little whimper of discomfort.

The voice, Jack’s voice, called out again. “You’ll feel better in the fresh air up on deck. Come on up. We’ve no intention of hurting you.”

That was reassuring, at least.

Harriet extricated herself from between the tobacco bales and hauled Theo to his feet. He came reluctantly, one hand hanging on to the tobacco bales for support as though his legs wouldn’t hold him up properly. At least the pitching of the ship wasn’t quite so forceful right now. She stepped into the square of light thrown by the open hatch and stared up at the face of the man looking down at her.

His mouth fell open. “Harriet?”

She nodded, her stomach roiling with the continual rocking motion, and sent up a silent prayer that she wasn’t about to disgrace herself by retching bile in front of someone she knew. She’d retained that tiny scrap of dignity and didn’t want to lose it.

He recovered himself quickly and held out a hand to her. “And Theo, I see. You’d better come on up.”

On legs as wobbly and weak as Theo’s seemed to be, Harriet climbed the ladder, ushering Theo ahead of her, ready to catch him if he fell. But he didn’t. As he emerged, strong hands took hold of him and sat him down on the other half of the hatch cover. She took Jack’s offered hand, and he pulled her up the final few steps, out into the blessed fresh air. Overhead, the wind snapped the sail canvas and, to right and left, she could see the white tops of what looked like enormous waves still. Immediately, though, her stomach began to feel better.

She became aware Jack was staring, and a glance down revealed why. She’d quite forgotten she was only wearing her long nightgown and woollen dressing gown, but at least both were voluminous and thick, even if they were festooned with the remnants of vomit.

“What on earth are you doing on my ship?” Jack asked, avoiding the obvious question of what she was doing on it dressed for bed not a voyage.

Harriet looked around at the sea of swarthy faces staring at her, all of whom must have had the same question in mind. Apart from Jack, six other men regarded her in open curiosity, none of whom she’d ever seen before. Four, of varying ages, looked like common sailors in rough, homespun clothing, but two were cut from a different cloth. The older of the two, an imposing middle-aged man whose sizeable gut did nothing to detract from his fierce good looks, had his graying hair confined in an old-fashioned queue. The other, due to his close facial resemblance, had to be his son, a handsome lad not a lot older than Lyddie, who’d fixed an appreciative gaze on Harriet’s lack of suitable clothing.

Harriet swallowed, not at all sure her dry, vomit-ravaged throat could manage speech.

“Water for the lady,” Jack said, and a moment later a bone cup was being pressed into her hands. She drank deep, relishing the liquid as it drained into her empty stomach.

“Some for Theo,” she croaked, a little ashamed that she hadn’t thought of him first, and the beaker was filled up and handed to him, where he was sitting half-supported between the two oldest sailors. He sipped it warily, probably afraid that if he drank it dry he’d end up seeing it again all too soon.

Jack cleared his throat. “I’ll ask you again. What are you doing on my ship?”

Theo, bless him, piped up, his voice barely a croak, like hers. “It’s my fault, Cap’n, sir. I wanted to see in the hold. So I came back here while you were fetching your men from the kiddley and I knew you wouldn’t be on board, and Mama must have followed me.” He glanced at Harriet. “But you and your crew came back, and we were frightened they’d be angry if they caught us, so we hid. Mama didn’t think you were going out in the ship, and she wouldn’t let me speak in case your men heard me.” He pulled a face. “I don’t think I like going to sea. I’ve changed my mind about being a sailor.”

From a second hatch forward of the mast, a sandy-haired boy maybe a year or two older than Theo emerged, barefooted and untidily dressed. He came to stand behind Jack, balancing as easily as they all were and eyeing Theo with open curiosity.

Jack looked at Harriet and raised his eyebrows.

She nodded. “That’s about it. Now can I please sit down.”

Jack nodded to the boy. “Clemo, close the other half of the hatch. It’ll be your job to go down there and clean up the mess.”

The boy pulled a disgusted face but slammed the hatch shut.

“Take a seat,” Jack said, indicating it. “While I think what to do with you.”