9. Three points off course

Jack slowly lowered his sextant after having called noon himself, and the youngsters around him followed his lead. The sun was out in all its glory and the white canvas billowing gleamed beautifully.

‘Let’s hope the wind will hold, Sir,’ one of the young midshipmen piped, his voice still unbroken.

Jack shot him a half-serious frown. ‘Mr. Summerhill, are you not aware of the danger in your words? Quick, whistle for wind, there is not an instant to lose!’

The boys all pursed their lips and produced some sort of tone. ‘Knock on wood!’ Jack went on, grinning. He tapped the railing, and so did all the boys. ‘Scratch a stay!’ They did, and having recognised the ritual now, they all turned three times even before he gave the order, and the ‘May the Lord and Saints preserve us’ came out in a strong chorus of voices in different stages of adulthood. Jack grinned once more. His youngsters had possibilities, and would make fine seamen if he could have them long enough, he was quite sure of it.

‘Tom, the deck is yours,’ he said to his First Lieutenant in an undertone, and he quickly made his way aft to re-examine his course.

The map was spread out over the binnacle and he had a pair of compasses between his teeth and a pencil behind his ear, but he could not very well concentrate with the music drifting up through the companion on the quarterdeck… he distinctly heard Stephen’s cello booming alongside Cat’s harp, and he was with child to join them. He felt left out in some way; he felt like Cat was in some way his, and he had to admit, albeit shamefacedly for his own narrow-mindedness, that he did not like the idea of her forming a musical bond of sorts with Stephen, without him present. Without him being at the very least part of it.

He sighed, looked up into the shrouds for a brooding moment, and then slowly and methodically worked out what his course should be. He was three whole points off, God rot his eternally muddled soul, which at a rate of the last three days of sailing meant… ‘Sou’sou’east a half east,’ Jack quietly said to Barrett Bonden at the wheel. Barrett gave his Captain a very surprised look, but it lasted only for an instant and then the wheel turned under his hands and Jack whipped the map off the binnacle and rolled it up, giving Bonden a clear view of the great compass. There, now. They should raise Isla Fortuna before sunset, and then repairs could begin properly.

Jack had paced his holy leeward side of the quarterdeck for some time without stopping, trying to ignore to the music emanating from his cabin and refusing to give in to the urge to run down the companion-ladder and into the cabin to see for himself what was going on. His mood steadily deteriorated and he became so caught up in his dark thoughts after a while that he didn’t even notice that the music had stopped and that Stephen was approaching his sanctuary with iron determination upon his face and a purposeful disregard for naval tradition in his step.

‘Jack, Jack, it is excellent… excellent!’ Stephen exclaimed, stopping Jack in his pacing as well as his musing, and eliciting a veritably savage stare from him.

Stephen took a step back.

Jack breathed in sharply, turned a modest shade of red and said, ‘I beg your pa... oh, Stephen, I do regret…’

‘I truly believe you are unwell,’ Stephen said, his face betraying nothing but his eyes showing a slight twinkle. ‘Come into the cabin with me, joy, and roust out your violin. You’re a much better hand with a bow than I will ever be, and I would very much like to see how our patient will respond to your superior handling of Locatelli. And… I believe I have remembered where I have seen that harp before…’

Stephen turned on his heel and scurried down the companion ladder again. Jack hesitated for just a second – did Stephen see through him, did his friend, that deep old file, twig how he was in turmoil over Cat, how she had thrown the captain off course, and as a consequence, the whole ship? Or was he only imagining Stephen’s insightfulness in these matters? He sighed softly, checked course and trim one last time, gave the order to inform him the instant the island was spotted from the mainmast lookout, and thundered down the ladder after his friend.

The sun slanted its warm honey beams through Jack’s stern windows, and they glinted in Cat’s deep red hair. She sat, quiet as a statue, plucking a chord here and there, an inward look upon her lovely face. Stephen sat close beside her, cleaning the strings of his ‘cello. He looked up when Jack asked him, a little sharply perhaps, ‘…the harp? Where have you seen it before, Stephen?’

‘Do you remember how I accompanied Sir Joseph Blaine to a concert at the Duke of Marlborough’s house in Grosvenor Street last year? It was a great honour, and the music was exquisite.’ Stephen continued his cleaning.

‘Yes, yes, I remember you telling me about it quite clearly; I envied you of all things. The wine must have been thunderously good,’ Jack said with a small frown.

Cat seemed to sit very still all of a sudden and although Stephen, wholly engrossed in the cleaning of his strings, didn’t seem to notice, Jack had most certainly seen it happen. She had frozen at the mention of the name Marlborough.

‘Well,’ Stephen continued unperturbed, ‘in the course of that evening, the Duchess obligingly exhibited her accomplishments also. She was quite some years younger than her husband – the Duke was seventy-two, if I remember Sir Joseph’s words correctly – and she was very beautiful, despite the wig, powder and formal gown. You know how I detest formal attire, Jack. She played quite well. Not as well as our young Cat here, but quite well. Quite well indeed. But what is most important, and most interesting about this in itself wholly insignificant little anecdote, is that the harp she played…’ Stephen looked up at Jack, ‘was that exact instrument.’ He pointed at the harp Cat was holding.

Cat hadn’t moved during Stephen’s words, she had only turned very pale. She gripped the harp so hard, her knuckles were white. Jack quietly noticed this – he could not help noticing every little aspect about her – as he set about unshipping his sea-going fiddle from its case.

‘The Duke and Duchess of Marlborough…’ Jack said, one eye on his red-haired charge, the other on his fiddle, ‘were they not lost at sea some time ago?’

‘They were. It was most dreadful. They were travelling to Minorca; for the Duke’s health no doubt, and their ship was taken by the French. Not a word, though a monstrous ransom note was expected by everyone.’

Not by me, Jack thought quietly, thoughts turning inward for a moment. He had been at sea, without Stephen for once, when all this had transpired, and the stir the capture of the Duke and Duchess had caused in London had quite escaped him. And in all honesty, he couldn’t have cared less. He had had quite enough on his own plate, thank you very much, with his wife and children running away to that Godforsaken poxy whoreson DeBurgh. A bigger furrow creased his brow at the memory and he rosined his bow with savage ardour, unaware of the fact that Cat was observing him, just as he had been observing her only a moment ago.

Stephen, seemingly unaware of this quiet undercurrent between Cat and Jack, continued determinedly. ‘Sir Joseph did not think it a great loss, for the Duke was not very active politically, but the estate is considerable… Considerable indeed. There are many contenders for both title and fortune, as you can imagine, but nothing is to be done until there can be any sort of certainty about the Marlboroughs’ demise.’

‘Is he dead? The Duke?’

Jack and Stephen both turned at the sound of Cat’s voice. She had spoken clearly, without stammering; it was the first time she seemed to want to engage in conversation. Her voice was as lovely as her face: warm and quite low, and her words were well articulated.

She doesn’t sound like a port wench, Jack immediately thought. His eyes locked onto hers and stayed there, stayed there, standing off and on … the wind quietly fell away and Jack lay becalmed in Cat’s eyes, a strange, eternally stretching moment of silence that was broken only when Cat’s hand involuntarily plucked a perfectly pitched G on the harp. The note hung in the air, vibrated almost tangibly, and Jack tore his eyes away, quickly tuned his fiddle and launched into the first piece that welled up in his mind. And if he had felt thrown off course before, it was nothing compared to the turmoil stirring inside him now.

Chapter Ten

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