Until the Sea Shall Give Up Her Dead (6 page)

It occurred to Hayden that this death did not explain why Angel and his brother appeared to be lying about their identities. There was, for that, some other explanation.

Hayden found the doctor in the cockpit. Griffiths sat at a work table in a little stain of light cast by a single lamp, honing surgical blades upon a fine whetstone. Why he did not do this upon the deck in the brightness of day, Hayden could not comprehend, but the doctor displayed several small peculiarities of this nature—all speaking of a desire for privacy.

Hayden repeated to Griffiths what he had overheard and the subsequent revelation that Angel had made.

Griffiths removed his spectacles and examined them for some malignant mote that grew large in his vision and asked, rather bluntly, “And what if Angel was lying?”

“What do you mean?” Hayden wondered, somewhat stupidly, he realised.

Griffiths held his spectacles up to the dull light and squinted. “What
if he was lying about killing the man—or about the reason he killed him?”

The very idea took Hayden by surprise. The confession had seemed so very genuine, so heartrendingly difficult for Angel to own to. Even so, Hayden felt a little foolish. It certainly could have been a lie, and he should have considered this possibility himself.

“I doubt anyone would confess to killing another and have it be a lie. It seems rather more likely that you would lie to cover over such a murder.”

“Yes, unless what you actually did was worse . . .”

“Such as . . . ?”

“Cut the ropes holding the boat to the ship and then shot the man or men you must share your food and water with. We all saw what happened on
Les Droits de l
'
Homme
when men panicked and swamped the boat.”

Hayden sat down upon a stool. “Do you think this is possible? That Miguel and Angel are capable of such . . . treachery?”

“We are, most of us, capable of more villainy than we suppose if we believe such villainy will preserve our precious lives.”

Hayden felt as though he had suddenly wakened from a rather pleasant dream into a less than pleasant world.

“Miguel,” Griffiths went on, “is a very amiable young man, Captain, but Angel . . . Angel has a kind of disingenuous charm that is difficult to resist. It is akin to the charm Mr Hawthorne displays, though of a much different nature. Mr Hawthorne's charm serves very definite ends—at least when it comes to the female sex. I wonder if Angel's charm, Captain, is not employed to some purpose as well . . . ?”

He took up a rag lying on his small table and rubbed at the lenses of his spectacles.

“You remain fast in your belief that our guests are criminals or frauds of some nature?”

“We know they are frauds, Captain. You overheard them admit it.”

“That is true, but it is possible they are hiding their identities in some
cause that is not criminal. After all, not so long ago I was pretending to be a French sea captain named Gil Mercier.”

“You were attempting to confuse our enemies, Captain,” Griffiths stated, replacing his spectacles upon the bridge of his nose and moving his head from side to side to see if he had expunged whatever smudge had offended his vision. “As Angel and Miguel are lying to us, perhaps they are attempting to do the same.”

“Confuse their enemies . . . ?”

Griffiths nodded.

“French spies . . . ?” Hayden said with some wonder.

“Spaniards in the employ of the French.”

“Do you truly think that is possible, Doctor?”

“If they are not criminals? Yes.” Griffiths reached up and stripped off his spectacles again, clearly frustrated that
something
still impaired his sight. “I should be careful what I told them, Captain. We do not know to whom they might repeat your conversations.”

H
ayden woke early and slipped out of his cabin and to the upper deck. He was avoiding his guests that morning, and he was not certain why. Unquestionably, it had to do with his conversations—first with Angel, and next with Griffiths.

His steward, Winston, brought his breakfast to the quarterdeck and Hayden ate it perched upon a small bench. He busied himself about the deck then, while the sweltering sun floated up out of the eastern sea.

Hayden climbed to the main-top, ostensibly to examine a check in the top-gallant mast but largely to get up into the clear air and push back his horizon, as though doing so would allow him to see beyond the doubts and questions that troubled him.

He examined the sea at all points with a glass—a desert of watery dunes all moving in train towards the south-west. He heard a laugh below and looked down to find Angel climbing tentatively up the ratlines with Midshipman Gould and a top-man as escort. Upon the rolling ship this was an unnerving exercise for a landsman, and it became even more so as he climbed, for the roll became more pronounced with each rung. Still, the young Spaniard bore up and climbed on, clinging, white-knuckled, to the ropes, face flushed. His hat had been left below and his hair escaped its ribbon to stream in the wind and whip about his
sun-browned face. With some instruction, he made his way around the futtock shrouds, and then his head appeared in the lubber's hole. Hayden offered him a hand.

“Captain Hayden!” he cried. “I did not realise you were here. Am I imposing?”

Hayden shook his head. “In no way, Angel. I am merely taking in the view. Clap on there. You do not want to be thrown out of the main-top.”

Gould and the top-man retreated, mortified that they had led Angel up into the tops when the captain was there.

“You might find it best to sit,” Hayden said. “Loop an arm around a futtock, there.”

When the young Spaniard was settled and safe to Hayden's eye, he sat down by the aft-most futtock and looped an arm around this.

Angel gazed out over the wind-driven blue and smiled broadly, exhilarated, if a little frightened.

“You never climbed aloft on the Spanish frigate?” Hayden asked.

“I did not, Captain Hayden.”

“When I went into my first ship as a midshipman I was aloft at any excuse. The poor lieutenants—they could hardly keep me out of the tops.”

“You take pleasure from danger, Captain,” Angel said. “Is that why you would not give up the service for the woman you spoke of . . . the one who disappointed you so?”

The question caught Hayden by surprise. “The thought of giving up the service never entered my mind.”

“But if you had—this woman you cared for—would she have accepted your suit?”

The ship rolled to starboard so that Hayden was all but staring down into the sea racing by, inducing a moment of vertigo. “I do not know. I . . . I do not.”

“Perhaps she was waiting for you to make such an offer—to give up the sea and make a life safely ashore with her.”

At the end of the roll, as the ship lurched slowly back to larboard, Hayden's shoulder was pressed hard against the shroud and he thought how easy it would be to slip off the main-top and plummet into the cold, fathomless, sea. “Perhaps . . . I cannot say.”

He closed his eyes. Maybe she was waiting for just that . . . and he had been obtuse and not seen.

Henri, Henri, he thought. Is that what you stood waiting to hear?

For a long moment he stared off towards the veiled horizon, his last meeting with Henrietta perfectly recalled—a play he had attended a thousand times. She had been waiting for him to say something, he thought, but he had never understood what. Nor had it occurred to him that the ending could have been altered had one player but spoken a different line.

“Have I said the wrong thing, Captain?” Angel asked gently.

“I fear you have said exactly the right thing, but I never saw it myself—the greater fool I.”

Hayden might have said more, but there was a call from below.

“May I join you, Captain?”

It was Mr Percival, the admiral's secretary, his foot already upon the ratlines. Hayden beckoned him on. “Indeed, Mr Percival, climb up—but take a strong hold upon the shrouds. We do not want you swimming to Barbados.”

One of the hands standing near beseeched the secretary to leave his hat in his care, lest it blow into the sea, and the hat was duly passed down. It took some little time for Percival to climb into the tops. Each time the ship rolled so as to throw him out over the sea, he would stop and thrust his arms through the shrouds, pressing himself to the tarred ropes as though to a long-absent love.

Finally, though, he managed to squeeze himself through the lubber's hole and emerge onto the platform, out of breath and crimson-faced.

He took a seat between Angel and Hayden, clinging to the futtock shrouds like a man staring out of a gaol. As soon as he caught his breath and looked around at the great expanse of straining canvas, he said,
“‘We have laughed to see the sails conceive, And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind . . .'”

“Is it Shakespeare?” Hayden asked, his conversation with Archer coming to mind.

“A Midsummer Night
'
s Dream,”
Percival replied. “One of my favourite speeches. Do you know Shakespeare, Angel?” he asked of the young Spaniard.

“Only a little.
Romeo and Juliet
, of course;
As You Like It
, and the one with the magician . . . Prospero, I think.”

“
The Tempest
,” Percival declared.

“That one was very difficult for my English.”

“When you see the plays on the stage, it seems that all is made clear. Is that not so, Captain?”

“It does make a great difference.”

Without a hat, it was revealed that Percival's hair on top consisted of lank little strands shot through with grey. Hayden did not know the man's age—past sixty, he thought—and though the secretary was still moderately vigourous, his skin was dry-dull and his carriage leaning towards stooped.

He was, however, a man of great erudition, an amiable dinner companion, and well informed on diverse subjects from literature to the production of cotton and sugar. He spoke several languages more than passably (though not so well as Hayden), and was widely travelled in his capacity of secretary to the admiral. He was not an unpleasant person to have aboard, and but for the recent awkwardness with one of the new midshipmen, Hayden considered him an excellent shipmate.

Hayden thought himself to be somewhat imperceptive in certain matters, but he was quite confident in this particular case that Percival had not climbed up to the main-top for Hayden's company. It was the young Spaniard who had drawn him there, which made Hayden wonder if Angel had not made the ascent to escape the attentions of the admiral's secretary. Angel, however, gave no indication of finding Percival an aggravation. Quite the opposite, in truth. The two chatted away
amiably in both Spanish and English until a call from below caught their attention.

It was a rather distressed Miguel, who stood on the quarterdeck, staring up, hands planted on hips.

“Come up!” Percival called down.

Miguel, however, shook his head, appearing both angry and agitated.

“Why will he not come up?” Percival enquired of Angel.

The young Spaniard laughed. “He is fearful of . . . high up . . . like this.”

“Afraid of heights?” the secretary prompted.

“Yes. That is it. He is afraid of heights. I must go down.”

“Well,” Percival replied, and appeared about to protest, “if you must.”

Angel scurried, crab-like, to the lubber's hole and slowly lowered himself, his head disappearing with a last, tight smile, perhaps a little apprehensive about the climb down.

Ransome sent one of the topmen aloft to see that Angel reached the deck safely. Hayden and Percival watched the young Spaniard's progress for a moment and then Percival looked at Hayden and smiled.

“She is a very charming young woman, do you not agree, Captain?”

“I do beg your pardon, Mr Percival . . . Do you refer to the young Spanish gentleman who just departed our company?”

Percival laughed pleasantly and shook his head. “I do, Captain, but, for my money, she is no gentleman. I have seen many a comely young woman arrayed in the clothing of men—costume balls, you know—and she is not even one of the more convincing
faux
males.” His brow wrinkled. “You did not know?”

“I confess, I doubt it yet.”

Percival suppressed a smile.

“You jest, Mr Percival, surely?”

“I do not. Don Angel is a young lady dressed in the clothing of a man. I have not said a word of it to any other, because I wanted to observe her and Miguel without them realising I comprehended their deception. I did not know if you were aware of it.”

Hayden almost laughed, though he did not quite know why. “You have left me somewhat speechless. I will admit to difficulty crediting what you suggest.”

“Do take a close look at Angel's hands when next you can. They are very fine-boned and small, the skin both soft and femininely smooth. She has perfect little ears; hips, though hardly broad, broader than a young boy's; and her shoulders are comparatively narrow. She blushes modestly, and slips away at any bawdy jest, laughs like a well-bred young woman, walks as young noblewomen are trained to, has a wonderfully full and sensuous mouth, and eyes like no man. Her bosom has been wrapped to hide its swell, and—at the risk of sounding crude—her breeches are not quite as full as they should be. In sum, a handsome young woman in the clothing of a man. I believe she has deceived whomever she has because she is a Spaniard and the ship's company does not quite know what to expect of a young Spanish nobleman and are not the least surprised to find him somewhat effeminate, as you must agree Angel is.”

Hayden did not know what to say. Much of what Percival catalogued, upon even the briefest reflection he knew to be true, but given that it had become the fashion among young men to display their finer feelings in public—weeping in the public theatre and at musical recitals—he would not have been in the least surprised to find a young man who blushed at the sailors' bawdy humour. He did realise, however, that Angel never displayed his feelings in such a way that they would be noticed and admired for their intensity and purity, as the fashionable young men did. Angel's refinement of feeling seemed quite natural and neither exaggerated nor affected.

“Have you not noticed, Captain Hayden,” Percival said, interrupting Hayden's thoughts, “that Angel is often in your company? I have seen her lingering on the deck, waiting until you have concluded some business with your crew, only to feign surprise when she finds herself in your presence. She does hang upon your every word, and catches herself when she believes her feelings too transparent. You saved her life, and I
am of the opinion that, given her beliefs, she thinks you were sent to be her rescuer and she sent to rescue you.”

“I do not believe I am in need of rescue, Mr Percival,” Hayden informed the secretary, trying not to sound scornful.

“Are you not? Have you not suffered recently from romantic disappointment? Who better to rescue you than a young woman, who, I might add, has a great deal to offer? If one looks past her dress, she is comely and vivacious, her manner is both cultivated yet somehow simple and genuine, she is educated in the way of women of her class, she plays the pianoforte quite well, according to her brother, is a masterful conversationalist, charming in the extreme, and eminently sensible. All the men aboard value her company, even if they do not realise quite why, for most, like you, do not comprehend that she is a woman, and it is to her femininity that they respond.” Percival paused a moment to look down upon Angel, who had reached the deck and was pulling back his hair to tie it with a ribbon. Suddenly, this seemed an utterly feminine motion to Hayden.

“Do you know the story, Captain Hayden, of the naturalist who took aboard ship with him a ‘boy' who nightly shared his cabin? Upon arrival at their first South Pacific isle the natives immediately recognised this boy as a young vahine, though no one aboard ship had ever suspected. I wonder what it says about the English that we are so obtuse?”

Hayden felt some irritation at this, as clearly he was one of the obtuse Englishmen—unless, of course, Percival was wrong.

The admiral's secretary appeared to read his thoughts, or perhaps his face. “Do not be embarrassed at this, Captain. No one else aboard has noticed that Angel is, in fact, a young woman. Any attraction they might feel to Angel would be a source of embarrassment and would be both suppressed and denied.”

Below, Angel put a hand lightly on the shoulder of his brother, who was clearly still angered and distressed that Angel had climbed aloft. But why should he be? Young men habitually sought thrills of one sort or
another. The gesture, the hand so lightly on the shoulder, was at once familiar and appeared, suddenly, feminine.

“Do you see?” Percival asked quietly, his eyes drawn to the same scene. “She mollifies her elder brother. In a moment she will set her charm to work and very soon she will make him smile—even laugh. He is no more able to resist her charm than I am . . . or you are, if I may say it.”

Percival rolled up onto his knees from where he sat and went on hands and feet to the lubber's hole. He lowered himself over the edge and said, “It has been a pleasure speaking with you, Captain.” He was about to disappear when his eyes narrowed and he pointed. “What is that speck . . . far off?” he asked. “Or do my eyes deceive me?”

Hayden followed the secretary's gaze, and there, just on the horizon, was an amber-brown smudge, so small it was almost undetectable. Standing, Hayden looped an arm around a shroud and raised his glass.