The Beckoning Dream. Paula Marshall
Читать онлайн книгу.
having laid her down on what he called a bunk, brought over to her a large tin basin. Sitting beside her, he said, still vilely cheerful, “Use that if you feel sick again.”
“I am over the worst, I think,” Catherine told him, hoping that she was, but a moment later a huge wave sent the boat sliding sideways, which had her stomach heaving again. With a tenderness that surprised her, Tom held her head steady in order to help her, and when her paroxysms at last ended, he laid her gently down and pulled a dirty sheet over her.
How shaming to behave in such an abandoned manner before him! Not that he seemed to mind. On the contrary, having removed the basin, he came back again with it empty, carrying a damp cloth with which he gently wiped her sweating face.
This seemed to help, and he must have thought so, too, for he said in a kinder voice than he had ever used to her before, “This time, I think, the worst is over. Do you feel able to sit up yet?”
Speech seemed beyond Catherine, so she nodded, and struggled into a sitting position. From nowhere Tom produced a pillow with which he propped up her aching head.
“Geordie!” he bellowed at that gentlemen, who had been engaged in heaving his heart up into a bucket, but now seemed a little recovered. “Bring me my pack, if you can walk, that is.”
Geordie appeared to take the “if’ as an insult. “Course I can walk. I ain’t been ill.”
This patent lie amused Catherine, and she gave a weak laugh. Tom looked at her with approval as the staggering Geordie handed him his pack. He opened it, and produced a small pewter plate, two limes and a knife.
Catherine watched him, fascinated, as he cut the first lime in half, handing one half to her, and the other to Geordie.
Geordie began to suck his, and Catherine, after a nod from Tom, followed suit, her mouth puckering as the acid liquid reached her tongue.
“Good,” Tom told them both, “that should make you feel better!” He cut the second lime in half, and began to suck it vigorously also. “And now, some schnapps.” His useful pack gave up a small tin cup, and first Catherine, then Geordie and finally himself, offered what he called, “a libation to the Gods of the sea, only down our throats and not over the side!”
Like the lime, the strong liquor seemed to settle, rather than distress, Catherine’s stomach. She began to feel, as she told Tom, the drink talking a little, “more like herself”.
He put a friendly arm around her which she felt too weak to reject—and then he gave her his final present, a disgusting object which he called a ship’s biscuit.
“Eat that, and you will be quite recovered.”
Her head spinning from the combined causes of an empty stomach brought about by seasickness, followed by a large draught of the strongest liquor she had ever drunk, Catherine managed to force it down. Her poor white face bore testimony to her revulsion as she did so.
Her reward was “Good girl!” and a tightening of Tom’s arm. Her gratitude to him was expressed by her leaning against his strong warm body for further comfort. This resulted in a soft kiss on her cheek before Tom laid her down again, covering her with the sheet that had slipped its moorings during his ministrations.
“Try to sleep,” he told her. “I am going on deck to stretch my legs a little.” He beckoned at his man. “You, too, Geordie.”
“Growing soft, are we, master?” growled Geordie at Tom as they reached the deck. The storm had lifted and the sea had grown calm again whilst they were below decks. “The schnapps did its work right well and the doxy would not have objected to a little—well, you know what!”
Tom’s expression was an enigmatic one. “Oh, Geordie, Geordie—” he sighed “—you would never make a good chess player. At the moment I need her trust more than anything else in the world. Later—when it is gained—might be a different thing, a very different thing!”
Oh, blessed sleep “that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care”, as old Will Shakespeare had it, thought Catherine drowsily as she awoke to feel refreshed. She was not alone. Tom Trenchard was seated on a bench, watching her, a tankard in his hand.
He lifted it to toast her. “You are with us again, dear wife, after sleeping the day away. Your colour has returned, I see.” He drank briefly from the tankard, his brilliant blue eyes watching her over its rim before he handed it to her.
“Drink wife. We shall be in Ostend shortly, and there we may find shelter.”
“Oh, blessed dry land,” sighed Catherine, taking a long draught of ale. “I shall never wish to go to sea again.”
“You were unlucky,” Tom told her, “to find yourself in such a storm on your first voyage.”
“And was it luck that you were not overset like poor Geordie and me?”
“Oh, I am never seasick,” grinned Tom. “I have good sea legs. It is but one of my many talents,” he added boastfully.
Catherine laughed and, easing herself out of the bunk, handed the tankard back to him. It was odd not to be sparring with him. She decided to prick the bubble of his conceit a little.
“Why, dear husband, I vow that you would well match the play wherein I late acted. The Braggart by name—or Lackwit in Love. Which title best befits you, do you think?”
Tom met her teasing look and answered her in kind. “Why, Master Will Wagstaffe may write a play taking me as hero, calling it St George, or, England’s Saviour—and, if you do but behave yourself, you shall be the heroine. A new Belinda, no less.”
Something in his tone alerted her. “You saw me play Belinda, then? At the Duke’s Theatre?”
“Indeed, mistress, I had that honour. And a fine boy you made. I ne’er saw a better pair of legs—not even on a female rope dancer—and that is a splendid compliment, is it not?”
The look in Tom’s eyes set Catherine blushing. He was stripping her of her clothing in his mind, no doubt of it. She swung away from him lest she destroy the new camaraderie that had sprung up between them since he had succoured her in the storm.
After all, they were to live together for some time, although how long or short that might be Catherine did not know, and t’were better that they did not wrangle all the time.
By good fortune, to save them both, Geordie came down the companionway, his long face glummer than ever.
“Bad news, master, I fear.”
“And when did you ever bring me good?” Tom exclaimed. “’Tis your favourite occupation! Spit it out, man. We had best all be glum together.”
“Nothing less than that we may not dock at Ostend. There are rumours that the plague may be back, and the packet’s master has decided that we must risk all and go on to a harbour near Antwerp.”
“And that is bad news?” Tom taunted him, brows raised.
“Aye, for those of us who do not like the sea.”
“Antwerp or Ostend, it is no great matter. I have enough schnapps left to make both you and my dear wife drunk and insensible for the rest of the sea trip should the storms begin again. Tell me, wife, will that do?”
For answer Catherine made him a grand stage curtsy, saying, “I know my duty, husband, to you and to our gracious King, and if I must be rendered unconscious to perform it, I shall be so with a good grace.”
Tom rewarded her with a smacking kiss on the lips as she straightened up. “You hear that, Geordie? I shall expect no less from you.”
“Oh, aye, master. But don’t expect any pretty speeches from me.”
“Certes, no. The next one will be the first! Back to your bunk, wife, to rest. So far, so good.”
He was being so amazingly hearty that he made Catherine feel quite faint—and