His mouth fell open and a foetid odor rushed out. He tried to make words but all that came out was “gracck.” But he thought, with a joy that was almost sexual, My God! I’m alive!
He looked at his hands and his arms against the cool white linen sheet, and saw that he was a lot more yellow than he remembered.
I survived Yellow Jack, he crowed silently, almost weeping in happiness. I’m as yellow as a quince but I’m alive!
He listened to his heart beat, took deep breaths and rejoiced to the sound of air rushing in and out. The taste in his mouth was positively vile, but he thought it nice to be able to taste anything.
There was a sound to his right. A door was being opened, a swish of clothing could be heard. He caught a flash of white cloth and thought it might be some sort of mop-squeezer. But he saw that elfin face that was so incredibly young and lovely, those bright blue eyes and the honey gold hair set in ringlets, and he was afraid that he had seen her somewhere before … being hanged or something? If she were here, was he really alive? Was she some tantalizing angel or devil? Did he have his wig on straight?
She crossed to the double doors and threw the first set open. A flood of painfully brilliant sunlight exploded into the room. The second set opened, and he blinked in pain, until he could make out a bar of cerulean blue framed by intensely green bushes, bright green grass and the hint of dune-grass and sandy soil beyond the green. Was that a ship out there, a three-masted Indiaman? The girl took a moment to stand in the second door, arms still holding the doors apart like a figure on a crucifix in some Romish church.
Once his eyes had adjusted and been blinked clean of tears he could surmise that it was early morning, for there was a hint of sun just at the top of the door, and the girl was silhouetted against the bright light. She must have been wearing a morning gown instead of a more formal sack-gown, and without stays or corset, because he could see how slim her back was through the fabric, how tiny her waist, how slim her hips, almost like a boy’s but for the gentle continuation to the curve of her behind.
With the doors open the breeze hit him with a gentle rush, and it was cool and clean, heavy with tropical flowers, the astringent tang of deep ocean that came to him as lustily as the steam from a smoking joint of meat. He could hear birds singing, birds he did not recognize.
The girl still stood against the light, and he could see that her shoulders were not too broad. She had long legs, slim thighs that left a gap between them at her cleft, shapely calves and trim ankles. She turned and did something in the shadows on tiptoe, and he could see how full and high her young breasts were above a flat belly, how snug and trim her buttocks were. Then she stepped out of the light into the shadows, and a bird was singing quite loudly.
There was another rustle of cloth in the room, and he shifted his eyes to that direction. He saw an incredibly ugly woman in a mobcap and morning gown. She bore something with her. Where had he seen her before, selling something at Tyburn or Bedlam? She brought something forward; long, thin, made of wood and … Poking stick! I’M DEAD!
“Hanggankk,” he said, eyes wide in fright, and the woman gave out a harpy’s shriek and disappeared in a twinkling.
“Mister Lewrie,” the woman said, reappearing with a glass of something in her hand. “You spoke! Lucy, he spoke!”
“I heard him, yes, thank God, oh thank God,” a young voice cried.
“Agghk,” he went on, his heart pounding hard enough to shake the bed. The woman’s shriek, and the sight of that broom handle he had thought was a poking stick had nearly frightened him out of what few wits he still possessed. And he had not made much inventory yet as to that.
Hands were there to lift him up in bed and pile pillows behind him until he was almost sitting up. A black maid appeared to help out. A glass was thrust under his nose and he opened his sticky lips to accept whatever was offered. It was water: not stale ship’s water, but fresh and sparkling clear water, and he gulped it down greedily, hoping to sluice away the vile taste in his mouth. He wasn’t much for water if one could get beer or ale or wine, but at the moment he thought the water a marvelous discovery.
“Thank you. Thank you,” he rasped, licking his dry lips.
“We feared the fever had curdled your brains, Mister Lewrie.”
“Thought I was dead. Dreaming. Where?”
“Antigua,” the soft young voice said, and he looked into that elfin face, at those high cheekbones, that narrow chin and high forehead and still felt like he was dreaming.
“You are on the Atlantic side, Mister Lewrie,” the old woman told him. “We brought you here when the surgeons had despaired of your recovery in hospital in English Harbor. After the brave thing you did, it was the least we could do for you.”
“God bless you, ma’am,” he breathed in her direction. Here, did she say I’d done something brave? That sounds promising …
“This is the shore residence of Admiral Sir Onsley Matthews. I am Lady Maude and this is the admiral’s niece, Miss Lucy Beauman, from Jamaica.”
“God bless,” he said, gazing at the girl. “She was there.”
“Lucy?” Lady Maude snorted. “Where?”
“Tyburn. The Strand. I saw her. I think I did.”
“Just dreams, Mister Lewrie,” Lady Maude said. “Fevers do that to you.”
“Followed her,” he insisted weakly, “couldn’t catch up.”
“Auntie, he’s still so weak,” the girl whispered, concerned.
“Aye, and will be for some time longer. Mister Lewrie, could you take a portion of a nourishing broth?”
He nodded slowly.
“Andromeda, go tell Cook to prepare a thin meat broth and be quick about it,” Lady Maude told the mop-squeezer, “and put some red wine in it for stoutness.”
“Yassum.”
“Parrot,” Lewrie asked, wondering what he had done that was so brave and wonderful, and concerned about his ship … “Is she safe?”
“Indeed she is, Mister Lewrie!” Lady Maude beamed down at him. “Lord and Lady Cantner have sailed to Tortola to meet the winter convoy, and Parrot still swims proudly. And you can be proud of doing such a brave duty for the Crown, young man. Very resourceful indeed…”
“The privateer brig,” Lewrie said as the memory of what he had done came back in a rush. And a dread, too.
“As Sir Onsley said, ‘burnt to the waterline and Frogs’ legs in a flambé,’” Lady Maude tittered.
“Serve ’em right,” Lewrie muttered, ready to fall asleep once more.
“Still thirsty, Mister Lewrie?” Lucy asked.
“Yes,” he replied, realizing that he was.
“Lucy, fetch a bottle of brandy from the wine cabinet,” Lady Maude instructed. “A pinch of that in his water will put color in his cheeks.”
“Any color but quince,” he said with a happy sigh, and they began to laugh heartily, a giddy sound of relief, and Lewrie drifted off to the sound of it.
* * *
When he was adjudged strong enough to hear the news, Rear Admiral Sir Onsley Matthews stopped by to visit him. Lewrie had been sitting up in bed, bemoaning the loss of his hair and eyebrows to the fever when the man entered. Sir Onsley was corpulent, big all over, balding and looking strangled in his neckcloth.