An Officer but No Gentleman (27 page)

A
moment later, he stepped away from her. “I would have never made love to you if we weren’t to be married. I still won’t. It’s one thing to be a week or two ahead of the preacher; it’s another to take advantage of your naïveté.”

Charlie gaped at him, her hand at her parted lips as she tried to catch her breath. “That is the most contrary thing I’ve ever heard in my life.” She pulled her clothing to make sure they were in order. “Land rules,” she muttered and made a hasty departure.

31

Morty could see she was upset when she returned. She barely touched her breakfast. The crew always dined well when in port; fresh milk, fresh eggs, fruit, buttermilk biscuits and pork chops. It was so much better than the salt meat or fish and root vegetables with ships’ biscuits or soup made of the same ingredients which were the usual fare for the crew. The officers were the only ones who drank milk from the goat or ate eggs from chickens at sea. When they killed a chicken, Charlie was lucky to get the wings and liver as the captain, doctor and first mate always took healthy shares first.

Normally, Morty could draw Charlie out of a bad mood. But not today. When he tried, Charlie stood up, shoved her mostly uneaten plate at him and disappeared down the corridor in the direction of her cabin. Morty shoveled his food into his mouth
, but slipped her plate towards the other men who swooped down on it as if starving.

As soon as he finished he cleared his plate and Charlie’s now empty plate and hurried after her. He knocked on her door. “Charlie, it’s me. May I come in?”

He heard the lock turned before she opened it. Morty didn’t know what he would do if she was crying since he’d never had to deal with a crying Charlie before. She wasn’t.

“Leave it open,” she said before he could shut it.

“I take it your visit didn’t go well?”

Charlie shook her head. “I could live to be a hundred years old and I will not understand land rules. This must have been what it was like for you when you joined the crew.”

Morty knew he was slow to grasp new things and Charlie was usually leaps and bounds ahead of him. So how could she struggled to understand? And if Charlie could not understand, how could he?

“You were brought up on land.  Maybe you can explain it to me.”

“You know I’m not good at explaining things,” he said, not sure he wanted to hear about her quarrel.

“Jaxon told me he doesn’t love me
, but he still feels obligated to marry me.”

A scowl crossed Morty’s countenance as he realized what she was implying. “I’m going to kill the son-of-a-bitch if he compromised you.”

“No!” Charlie was between Morty and the doorway in an instant, her hands momentarily pressed against his chest. “I’m as much to blame as he is.”

“If he is offering to marry you after he slept with you, you should marry him, Charlie.”

Charlie’s soft snort of derision went without notice. “Why? Surely, if I ever were to fall in love again and want to marry, my future husband would forgive me for an indiscretion if he loved me.”

“Some men might,” Morty said, “but not all. Considering the life you live, how will a man know you only had one moment of weakness not a lifetime?”

“If he would not believe me, why would I want to marry him?”

Morty looked at her directly in the eye and sighed. He did not want to be the man encouraging her to marry another man
, but Charlie truly had no inkling of the way society worked. How could she? She had never lived among it.

“Fallen women, and you
are
truly fallen become mistresses not wives. Your children would be bastards—you do not want that for them. I’ve seen the way children at school treat by-blows. There was a little girl in my school—she was just a little mousy thing—she never did nothin’ to nobody. The girls shunned her and some of the boys would spit on her. The last time I saw her, she had become a tavern wench with all that that implies.”

“Why didn’t you help her?”

“I was the dullard from the poorest family in town; my standing was barely above hers. I was fighting my own battles and didn’t think to take on hers. If I had not gone to sea, she would have been one of the only girls in our town who would have improved her lot by marrying me.”

Charlie thought about that. It was also foreign to her to hear how people judged each other based on money or one’s parents’ mistakes. Aboard ship, it only mattered that you were a hard worker and had a modest temperament.

“Do you think it’s true that a man, even a wealthy man, who has broken off two engagements, the second one involving the tarnishment of the maiden’s reputation, will never get married nor will his sister?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Morty said.

Charlie sealed her lips and nodded as she wondered if it was better to be unhappy alone or unhappy with someone else. It certainly wasn’t fair for Jayne.

“I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“No. As my mother would have said, ‘You made your bed, now you shall have to mess it up to sleep.’”

Charlie playfully punched Morty. “That’s not the way that goes and you know it.”

“No, but I made you smile.”

“It’s just not fair that I have to live by land rules when I’m a seafarer.”

A crooked smile crossed Morty’s lips. “You sound like a girl.”

Charlie’s eyes narrowed at him. “You want to see if I fight like one?”

Morty laughed, shrinking back. “No!”

Charlie tried to tell herself it didn’t matter if Jaxon didn’t love her. She loved him and she was going to marry him which, she had to admit, she wanted to be with him. Would Jaxon change? Could he grow to love her?

On deck, Charlie put the crew to work. She was beginning to recognize the old girl again.

“Miss Sinclair?” Benjy stood at her elbow. “I-I’m getting to be a little old to be a cabin boy,” he said, nervously.

Charlie smiled at him. “I was thinking the same thing myself. You think you’re ready to do a man’s work?”

“Yes, miss.”

“Have you been practicing your knots?”

“Yes, miss.”

“I have just the job for you,” Charlie said leading him into the boatswain’s locker. “How do you feel about oakum?”

Charlie saw his shoulders sagged. Picking oakum, hemp fibers coated in tar, out of old rope was a tedious job that often times was a task given to prisoners, workhouse children, and the crew when there was no other work to be done. After it was picked out of the old ropes, it was rolled into a cord and used as caulking to seal the ship.

Charlie grabbed four coils of rope and threw two over Benjy’s shoulder and put the other two over hers.

“All of this?”

Charlie laughed at his plaintive tone. “I thought I’d show you what to do with it after it’s picked.”

Benjy’s expression brightened up.

Charlie put the corded oakum and tools they’d need in a bucket. “Now remember if you don’t do this right the ship will sink.” She laughed at his stricken look.

It was strange how making her decision to marry Jaxon had lightened her mood. She was still smiling when she and Benjy emerged. Her eyes were drawn immediately to Jaxon coming up the gangway carrying Jimmy’s sweater and a book.

“Permission to come aboard,” he called out.

Charlie granted him permission.

“Aunt Pru was glad for you to have the sweater,” he said as he approached.

“Captain Bloodworthy, you caught me right in the middle of something. I need to speak with you. Can you wait a few minutes?”

Jaxon wondered if the way she was
calling him
captain
again was a bad sign. She had been adamant she wasn’t going to marry him. Was that her way of putting more distance between them? He watched as Charlie showed the young man how to make a harness to lower himself down the side of the ship. After tying themselves to the railing and lowering a rope for climbing up and another for the bucket with their supplies Charlie and Benjy disappeared over the edge of the ship.

Jaxon began looking around as he waited and was amazed at how much progress had been made since the ship arrived. The ship may have been old
, but you wouldn’t have known it by its condition. He frowned as he spotted his rival, not just swabbing the deck, but making great efforts to be mopping directly in a path leading to him. When Thor was about six feet from him, he spoke in a low voice, his head never rising from his task.

“The only reason my fist isn’t in your face at this moment is because Charlie would have my head. You are the worst kind of scoundrel if you would do what you
did and then call marrying her an obligation. If she and I would suit, I would be asking her to marry me—
properly,
but I know we could never make it work.”

Jaxon raked his hand through his hair knowing that the Viking god was right but it annoyed him that Charlie confided in him.

“It was not well done of me, I admit and no doubt, I am due the criticism
and
the fist. I am trying to make it right, but she will not accept me.”

Morty frowned and shook his head. “I have done my best to make her understand and I believe she has had a change of heart,” Morty said glancing up to see the man’s reaction and seeing his disfigured face, immediately dropped his gaze back to his chore.

“Indeed. I am glad of it. I would not want her downfall on my conscience for the rest of my days.”

“You will treat her well or you will deal with me whether Charlie likes it or not.”

“I would treat her well whether you threaten me or not. You do not need to champion her any longer.”

Just then Charlie climbed up the rope and both men stepped forward to help her. She looked back and forth between the men. “I can do it myself,” she said hefting herself over the rail.

“Back to work, Mr. Ness,” she said to Morty. “Captain, if you will follow me.”

Charlie led Jaxon into the belly of the ship to her cabin.

“You called me
captain
twice.”

“What should I call you when I’m on duty?
Jaxon
seems pretty informal for the loblolly boy.” When he didn’t seem surprised Charlie put two and two together. “I told you Morty couldn’t keep a secret.”

“What convinced you?”

Charlie’s face wore a serious expression. “Children should not be spat upon.”

Jaxon wondered if
Charlie logic
had its roots in
Morty logic
. He nodded as if that made sense to him knowing in truth, it made none whatsoever. Whatever her reason, he was relieved—no, it was more than that—he was a bit overwhelmed. He wondered if the reason tears sprang to his eyes was because he truly loved her. Never wanting to hurt her again, he opted not to tell her until he was sure.

“Charlie, I need you to help me understand why that man means so much to you.”

“But you hate stories about my childhood.”

He didn’t hate stor
ies about her childhood; in truth, he thought they helped him understand her better.  It was her lack of a childhood he hated.

“How am I going to stop being jealous if I don’t understand the nature of your friendship?”

She took a deep breath and blew it out her mouth.  This was going to be a hard story to tell because it revealed the worst part of her childhood.  It wasn’t the work or pretending to be a boy or even the not being allowed to cry.  It was something worse.  Loneliness.

“When I was ten, I stopped being cabin boy and I became a common sailor.  At first
, I was given jobs that kept me out of the way, helmsman, lookout, polishing the brass.  I was a boy among men.  The crew didn’t like that I made the same money and wasn’t pulling my weight and I think they thought I was spying on them for my father.”

She never fit in.  How could she tell
him the men were afraid of her? They thought she was touched in the head, which, for the first years after being traumatized by the fire, was probably not too far from the truth.  Every sailor knew it was the worst kind of luck to have someone insane on the ship and that’s what they thought of her. They accused her of giving one man the evil eye after he was swept from the deck in a storm. When Frank Johns fell from the rigging, he claimed he could feel her eyes on his back just before he fell.

“None of the men talked to me.
They didn’t like me.  Maybe twice a year German George would invite me to go ashore with him if my father wasn’t taking me with him to take care of business matters.  My father rarely engaged in recreation when we were in port.  We spent most of our time in warehouses and shipping offices buying and selling or trading goods. But then I overheard my father talking to Dr. Kirk.  He paid German George to take me so they could go into town and find a couple of women for the night.”

Charlie took a breath and continued.

“Things weren’t getting any better on watch until one day a rope had jammed in a pulley.  It was at the end of a yard and no one wanted to go out there to fix it.  So I volunteered and when I got there I could see the rope had come off the wheel. It was wedged between the wheel and the housing.  I don’t know who had been pulling on that rope, but it was stuck good and tight.  I pulled so hard when it finally came free; I lost my balance and nearly fell in the sea.  You never saw a kid hold on for dear life as much as I did.”

“They let you do it without a safety rope?” Jaxon asked crossing the room and pouring her a glass of water.