He applied himself to the meat and beans on his plate. I could not eat much, nor could Honey.
I could not believe that this was really happening to me. I would wake up soon, I promised myself, the Spanish galleon would become the Rampant Lion, the Captain change to Jake Pennlyon and it would be just another dream of which I had had several, about that domineering character.
But this dream—this nightmare—went on and on and it was reality that had faded.
Very soon after Honey became violently ill. It was small wonder. We were unused to the roll of a ship; we were exhausted mentally and physically; we were bewildered and uncertain of what was happening to us. And Honey was pregnant.
I looked after her and that was a good thing to do because it made me forget everything but that I feared she would die.
John Gregory was never far away. How I hated that man who had slyly come to our house, posing as a priest, and who had led our captors to the house and to us. A spy! A traitor! What could be worse? But he was now our protector. I could not bring myself to look at him without expressing my contempt. But he was useful.
I said to him: “I fear you are killing my sister. You know the state of her health; this shock has been too much for her, as indeed was to be expected. I should have believed those who had been befriended by us would never have betrayed us, but I was mistaken. We had liars and traitors in our midst.” When I berated him he would stand before me, his eyes downcast, contrition in every gesture. Honey always tried to stop me, but I couldn’t stop myself and there was some relief in giving vent to my feelings.
On the second day when Honey was so sick and I feared for her life I said to John Gregory, “I need our maid here. She must help me nurse my sister.”
He said he would speak to the Captain and very soon Jennet joined us.
She looked much the same. Is it possible, I asked myself, that she could adjust herself so soon?
She was in an old gown which she had snatched up before she was taken; and already she was regaining that complete placidity which was a feature of hers.
The sight of her face irritated me once I had felt the relief that she was alive and well. She looked as though she were satisfied with her lot. How could she be? And what had happened to her?
I said: “The mistress is very sick. You must help with her, Jennet.”
“Oh, poor lady,” she said. “And in her condition.”
Honey’s pregnancy was visible now. I thought anxiously of the child and I fervently wished that we had both gone home to my mother the day after Jake Pennlyon had sailed.
Honey seemed comforted because the three of us were together, and Jennet was undoubtedly a good nurse. There were rough stools on which we could sit and we were beginning to grow accustomed to the roll of the ship and the smell of cooking. Honey slept a great deal during those first days, which was a good thing for her; and Jennet and I talked together as we watched over her.
I learned that Jennet had been seen by one of the men who had raided the house. He was strong and lithe and had come upon Jennet on her way to my room. He had seized her and spoken to her, but she could not understand what he had said. He had picked her up and carried her under his arm as though she were a bundle of hay.
Jennet giggled and I knew what had followed on the ship.
“Just him,” said Jennet. “There were others that wanted me, but he brought out a knife. And although I couldn’t understand what he said, I knew he meant I was his and he’d use that knife on anyone that touched me.”
She cast down her eyes and blushed and I wondered that she so wanton—for it was clear that she was not displeased with her state—could appear so coy, for she was not assuming modesty; she was too simple for that.
“I do think he be a good man, Mistress,” she murmured.
“He was not your first either,” I said.
Her blush deepened. “Well, Mistress, in a manner of speaking, no.”
“In a manner of acting either,” I said. “And what of Richard Rackell, whom you were going to marry?”
“He were but half a man,” she said scornfully.
Jennet was undoubtedly satisfied with her new protector.
She talked a good deal about him as we sat watching Honey. It took my mind off what was happening to us all as I listened.
She had not in truth been eager to marry Richard Rackell, only it was good for a wench to be married; and having given in like, well, there might be results.
“And what if there are results now?” I asked.
She said piously that that was in the hands of God.
“Rather in yours and your pirate lover,” I reminded her.
I was glad to have her with me. I said we should keep together, the three of us; she should help to look after Honey because Honey was going to need care.
So she was with us during those uneasy days though she crept away at night to be with her lover.
It is strange how quickly one can grow accustomed to a new life. We could only have been at sea for three days when I was no longer filled with incredulous dread on awakening, when I had grown accustomed to the creaking of timbers, the pitching and tossing of the ship, the sound of foreign voices, the nauseating smell which always seemed to come from the galleys.
Honey began to improve. She was suffering from the sea rather than any dreadful disease, and the color began to return to her face and she looked more like herself.
When she was able to stand we went to the Captain’s cabin and ate there. We did not see him again for some days, and that cabin, strangely elegant among its surroundings with its paneled walls and tapestry, became familiar to us. Jennet ate with us and we were waited on by the Captain’s own servant, dark and dour, who never said a word in our hearing.
After meals, which consisted mainly of biscuits, salted meats and a kind of crude wine, we would go back to our sleeping quarters and there would speculate on what this strange adventure meant.
John Gregory brought us some cloth—two or three bales of it—so that we could make ourselves some gowns, and this was a good occupation, for we grew quite animated discussing what styles we would make.
Jennet and Honey were good with their needles and we all set to work.
Honey used to talk a great deal about the baby, which would be born in five months’ time. It was quite different now. She had dreamed of the child’s being brought into the world either in Trewynd or the Calpertons’ place in Surrey or perhaps she would do as my mother wished and go to the Abbey for the birth. That was all changed. Where would her child be born now? On the high seas or in whichever mysterious place for which we were destined?
“Edward and I planned for this child,” said Honey. “We used to say we shouldn’t mind whether it was a girl or a boy. He was so good and kind, he would have been such a loving father and now… I dream of him, Catharine, lying there. I can’t get him out of my mind.”
I soothed her, but how could I stop her grieving for Edward?
As for myself I could not really believe in this life. It was too fantastic. If we had been ill used by crude sailors at least we could have understood what our abduction meant. But it was not so; we were protected and treated with courtesy by our abductors.