Chapter Seven - True Self
The English summer rain was dripping down the windows as she dressed with shaking hands. She had seen most of it before, dream-remembered him and tried to ignore it, but that... that had remained buried. She had forced it to. But closing her eyes now she could only see the hideous crew of the Dutchman as they gathered around their new captain, the contrast of white shirt against the sun-browned skin of Jack's neck as he carried her, and as she buttoned up her dress her skin prickled as if subject once more to his touch, his kiss... she sat down hard on the stool at her dressing table and cradled her head in her hands.
“What if… god, was it all my fault?” Her fingers pressed into her temples. “If I hadn’t just… oh Jack… bloody stupid bloody pirates…”
There were hot kippers on the table when blearily she entered the dining room. Sylvia poured her some tea and she sat, barely tasting the salty fish or the fresh bread and butter she ate it with. Sarah was looking at her quizzically, and Nathaniel was prattling as usual, but Elizabeth ignored them both, until she realised the boy was plaintively addressing her.
"Pardon?"
"Will you tell me some stories today Lizzie it's been ages and ages and I miss them. Please?"
"I... I don't think so Nathan." His face fell. "Don't you have lessons?"
"Stories are better than lessons! Please Lizzie? Please?"
She was about to snap at him when Sarah broke in.
"That's enough Nathaniel. Master Ashton wouldn't be pleased that you're trying to get out of his lessons, would he?" The boy mumbled something and returned to his porridge.
The weather brightened towards noon, weak sunshine breaking through the drawing room window as Elizabeth sat with an embroidery hoop. She'd started the piece weeks ago but still had only a few lines of stitches; her hand was poor and she'd had to unpick the lot twice already. Biting back a sudden curse she sucked on a needle-pricked finger, glaring at the offending object. Patching sail was easy enough, but how on earth was anyone supposed to work with something so tiny?
Watkin's polite cough in the doorway made her look up.
"Sir Bletchley is here for you, Miss Swann." Gulping, she set down her embroidery and smoothed her skirts, standing up as Richard was shown in. He nodded politely to Sarah, and bent to kiss Elizabeth's hand.
"Will you be joining us for lunch, Richard?" Sarah had only recently begun to use his first name. "I can have a word with cook..."
"No, thank you Mrs Wilmot. I came to see if Elizabeth might care to take a walk with me, as it's a fine day." He was certainly looking more flushed than usual, and Elizabeth felt a hollowness beginning in the pit of her stomach.
Sarah, however, beamed excitedly.
"Oh, how delightful!"
London always felt different after rain. There were large puddles here and there in the streets that she had to skirt around; a stray cat picked delicately through the wet in Berkeley Square as they passed. The sun was beginning to warm the cobbles again and bedraggled street sellers were plying their wares, the smell of mutton pies mingling with damp slate and the slightly lessened odour of the city. Richard was quiet at her side, and Elizabeth tried to focus on the sights around her to stem the nervousness.
He held the gate for her as they entered Green Park. The sycamore trees were in full leaf now, glowing strangely in the light as they walked along the path. Amongst the trees the smell of the city was replaced by that of damp grass and soil; she remembered the mornings after rainstorms in the mansion gardens, where water would pool in the palm leaves and she could make tiny fountains and waterfalls, escape from her governess and play castaways, drinking the rainwater straight from the leaves. The Jamaican sun had not been forgiving of damp ground, scorching it dry with a fervour, but in the dark places where the gardeners had neglected to prune the trees, her childhood had smelled like this.
Richard stopped in the dappled shade of an oak and turned to face her.
"Elizabeth... I... we have only known one another a few short months, but I feel like it has been much longer. Your company is always so delightful." He took her hands, and she could feel that his were trembling slightly. "It is strange, but I find it hard to imagine now my life without you." There was silence for a moment and from somewhere she summoned a weak smile. She hoped he would interpret it as nervousness.
"I know that you were engaged previously, and I understand that it is painful for you to recall it, but Elizabeth... I am willing to do whatever is necessary."
Suddenly she was very glad of the lack of sharp drops in the royal parks. It was just the memory of that night on board the Dauntless, such a simple conversation, so little, but the memory had started the dream, and the dream... she took in a long breath and closed her eyes. She couldn't look at him, not standing here thinking about one man when halfway through a proposal from another. She pulled a hand away and fanned herself.
"Richard, I am afraid I do not feel quite well... I think you had best take me home." He frowned slightly, a hint of rejection in his eyes, but slowly nodded in acquiescence and took her arm as they walked back towards Piccadilly.
At the door he moved as if to kiss her again, but stopped short.
"I do understand, Elizabeth. I can be patient. Don't worry." He pressed his lips to her forehead and bid her farewell.
At lunch she felt even more subdued under Sarah's searching gaze. Nathaniel's petulant silence, after having been turned over Master Ashton's knee for calling the conjugation of être 'bloody stupid', only added to the heaviness of the mood. She picked at the cold ham and excused herself early.
A while later she came down to the drawing room again. Sarah had gone to call on a friend, and Nathaniel was back in the schoolroom, but he had left a book on the sideboard. 'The Legends of the Moste Feared Pyrates of the Seas' was increasingly dog-eared, with torn pages and creases appearing in the leather spine from being left open, as it was now. Elizabeth turned the book over; it was open to a tale of Anne Bonny. Idly, she began to read.
'And her husband James did entreat with her to stay in New Providence and remain his goodwife, retaining what honour she had, but Anne laughed.
"I care naught for your honour; this marriage you esteem so is nothing if I cast it away, as I surely do. You have no claim upon me, for I am a pirate and so ever shall I remain. I have not loved you, James, and nor have you I, and now I do willingly discard your chains and take up the freedom for which my heart has longed."
With that Anne was gone, and she did leave her husband to elope most scandalously with the feared Pyrate Jack Rackham.’
Sadly, Elizabeth traced her fingers across the roughly printed text. Like as not the story was complete fabrication; Bonny had more than likely just knocked her husband out and made off with any valuables on his person, rather than make a verbose speech, but still... she realised her touch was lingering under the word 'freedom'. However she had gone about it, Anne had certainly found that, even for the few years it was until Calico's ship was captured.
Elizabeth felt a tightness in her throat. She remembered standing at the bow of the Black Pearl, sailing unawares to Portsmouth, with a fierce wind tangling her hair and buffeting her loose sailor's clothing, breathing in the spray and the sharp freshness of the air, and feeling... it wasn't home, exactly, because there was nothing safe about the sea, a ship was no haven and piracy no domesticity, but there was still some of the sense of belonging that she wasn't sure she'd felt since she was last in her mother's arms. She tried to summon the visions of children and servants and a beautiful house that she’d drugged herself to sleep with these past months… years… but like mist they faded as soon as she tried to take hold of them.
Thoughts of the Pearl lead inevitably to thoughts of Jack, and she bit her lip anxiously, but then after a moment shook her head.
"It's not just about him," she whispered to the book, as if somewhere Bonny could hear her. "It wasn't for you either. It's about me. I don't belong here." She glanced up at Andrew's sword, back in its place above the mantel, untouched, and recalled it bloody in her hand. "I never did."
That evening she declined dinner, claiming to feel unwell. She pulled shifts and winter clothes from the bottom of her wardrobe to dig out the man's shirt, britches, westkit and coat she had worn on arriving in England. A faint smell of salt still clung to them and she breathed it in deeply. She had sold her cutlass and pistol to pay her way to London, but the worn leather belt and baldric remained.
After hearing the servants pass on their way to bed she crept downstairs to the kitchen, stuffing a fresh loaf, a chunk of hard cheese and a few apples into a knapsack. She eyed up the cooking knives hung on the wall, and selected a fairly small one, wrapping the blade in a scrap of cloth.
Returning to her room, her eyes drifted to the two scraps of paper on her dressing table.
'... dearest Richard, please know that in a different life I believe I could have loved you, as truly as you deserve to be loved, but I am a tarnished woman and my stubborn heart will not obey the wishes of my head. I was never meant for this life and it is my fault alone that I have been so reckless in trying to remould myself to it. I will not entreat for your forgiveness; I simply ask you not to dwell overlong on me, for you have tried to love a pirate and I know too well that such a thing is asking only for heartache...'
She fingered the other letter, addressed to Sarah and Andrew.
'... I swear that somehow I will endeavour to repay your kind hearts and giving hands for the hospitality you have shown me, but I cannot stay and perhaps you have always known that. My past is more suspect than you may have guessed; I have sailed under a pirate flag, I have fired a pistol in anger and taken swordblade to flesh many times. I am not the lady I have pretended...'
She had tried to write one to Nathaniel too, but all her words seemed too clumsy. She wasn't sure she could have made him understand no matter what vocabulary she might have used. With a sigh, Elizabeth folded the letters. Her small jewellery box sat to the left, and she flicked it open, fingers sifting through bracelets and necklaces until they came upon something small and round. She pulled out the tiny silver coin and rolled it between her fingers.
"Perhaps..."
Nathaniel was not the slightest bit afraid of strange noises in the dead of night. Hearing the creak of boards outside his room he crept excitedly out of bed and peered out around the door.
There was a very strange figure on the landing. It was about the same height as Elizabeth, but wearing a man's coat and britches, carrying a knapsack and a candle to light the way. As he leaned out further his bedroom door swung in, and the hinges clunked. The figure stopped dead, then slowly turned towards him.
His voice sounded very loud in the darkness.
"Lizzie?!" The candlelight illuminated her face clearly now, and he could see that her hair was hacked short, that she wore a shirt with a baldric slung across waiting for a sword. She crouched down and pressed a finger to his lips.
"Not a word, Nathan," she hissed. "I'm sorry... I have to go. I'm going to sea."
Pulling back, he hushed his voice.
"Then... you're really... really a pirate?" There was something glinting on a cord around her neck, he saw, as she smiled.
"Yes, I am, though it seems like I only just remembered."
Nathaniel looked at her in awe, but with a strange prickling in his eyes, almost as if he might cry- if he weren't too grown up for such things of course.
"Why did you... why now?"
Elizabeth sat back on her heels, thoughtful for a moment, then leaned back towards him.
"Fate intervened, I suppose." The cord had slipped out of her shirt collar, showing a little silver coin hung on it. She glanced down, then held it out towards him. "I'm afraid there's no time for one last story Nathan, but perhaps this is even better. I was given this coin-" she paused for effect "- by Captain Jack Sparrow."
His eyes widened.
"Are you going to find him then? To join his crew?"
She frowned slightly.
"No, I'm not. I don't even know if he's still alive, if he still... but if our paths cross, then... I don‘t know." She leaned forward and patted his shoulder. "I'll try to write to you, though there's not much use you writing back. Live a good life, Nathan- and don't give up on what you really want."
With that she rose to her feet and began walking away, a candlelit silhouette slowly retreating from view. A few moments after she had vanished down the stairs, he heard the front door whisper open and closed again.
A/N: This entry is dedicated to whichever superb employee of Sainsbury's supermarkets decided to sell waffles for 71p a packet. Dear sir (or madam), you cure writer's block like no other.
“What if… god, was it all my fault?” Her fingers pressed into her temples. “If I hadn’t just… oh Jack… bloody stupid bloody pirates…”
There were hot kippers on the table when blearily she entered the dining room. Sylvia poured her some tea and she sat, barely tasting the salty fish or the fresh bread and butter she ate it with. Sarah was looking at her quizzically, and Nathaniel was prattling as usual, but Elizabeth ignored them both, until she realised the boy was plaintively addressing her.
"Pardon?"
"Will you tell me some stories today Lizzie it's been ages and ages and I miss them. Please?"
"I... I don't think so Nathan." His face fell. "Don't you have lessons?"
"Stories are better than lessons! Please Lizzie? Please?"
She was about to snap at him when Sarah broke in.
"That's enough Nathaniel. Master Ashton wouldn't be pleased that you're trying to get out of his lessons, would he?" The boy mumbled something and returned to his porridge.
The weather brightened towards noon, weak sunshine breaking through the drawing room window as Elizabeth sat with an embroidery hoop. She'd started the piece weeks ago but still had only a few lines of stitches; her hand was poor and she'd had to unpick the lot twice already. Biting back a sudden curse she sucked on a needle-pricked finger, glaring at the offending object. Patching sail was easy enough, but how on earth was anyone supposed to work with something so tiny?
Watkin's polite cough in the doorway made her look up.
"Sir Bletchley is here for you, Miss Swann." Gulping, she set down her embroidery and smoothed her skirts, standing up as Richard was shown in. He nodded politely to Sarah, and bent to kiss Elizabeth's hand.
"Will you be joining us for lunch, Richard?" Sarah had only recently begun to use his first name. "I can have a word with cook..."
"No, thank you Mrs Wilmot. I came to see if Elizabeth might care to take a walk with me, as it's a fine day." He was certainly looking more flushed than usual, and Elizabeth felt a hollowness beginning in the pit of her stomach.
Sarah, however, beamed excitedly.
"Oh, how delightful!"
London always felt different after rain. There were large puddles here and there in the streets that she had to skirt around; a stray cat picked delicately through the wet in Berkeley Square as they passed. The sun was beginning to warm the cobbles again and bedraggled street sellers were plying their wares, the smell of mutton pies mingling with damp slate and the slightly lessened odour of the city. Richard was quiet at her side, and Elizabeth tried to focus on the sights around her to stem the nervousness.
He held the gate for her as they entered Green Park. The sycamore trees were in full leaf now, glowing strangely in the light as they walked along the path. Amongst the trees the smell of the city was replaced by that of damp grass and soil; she remembered the mornings after rainstorms in the mansion gardens, where water would pool in the palm leaves and she could make tiny fountains and waterfalls, escape from her governess and play castaways, drinking the rainwater straight from the leaves. The Jamaican sun had not been forgiving of damp ground, scorching it dry with a fervour, but in the dark places where the gardeners had neglected to prune the trees, her childhood had smelled like this.
Richard stopped in the dappled shade of an oak and turned to face her.
"Elizabeth... I... we have only known one another a few short months, but I feel like it has been much longer. Your company is always so delightful." He took her hands, and she could feel that his were trembling slightly. "It is strange, but I find it hard to imagine now my life without you." There was silence for a moment and from somewhere she summoned a weak smile. She hoped he would interpret it as nervousness.
"I know that you were engaged previously, and I understand that it is painful for you to recall it, but Elizabeth... I am willing to do whatever is necessary."
Suddenly she was very glad of the lack of sharp drops in the royal parks. It was just the memory of that night on board the Dauntless, such a simple conversation, so little, but the memory had started the dream, and the dream... she took in a long breath and closed her eyes. She couldn't look at him, not standing here thinking about one man when halfway through a proposal from another. She pulled a hand away and fanned herself.
"Richard, I am afraid I do not feel quite well... I think you had best take me home." He frowned slightly, a hint of rejection in his eyes, but slowly nodded in acquiescence and took her arm as they walked back towards Piccadilly.
At the door he moved as if to kiss her again, but stopped short.
"I do understand, Elizabeth. I can be patient. Don't worry." He pressed his lips to her forehead and bid her farewell.
At lunch she felt even more subdued under Sarah's searching gaze. Nathaniel's petulant silence, after having been turned over Master Ashton's knee for calling the conjugation of être 'bloody stupid', only added to the heaviness of the mood. She picked at the cold ham and excused herself early.
A while later she came down to the drawing room again. Sarah had gone to call on a friend, and Nathaniel was back in the schoolroom, but he had left a book on the sideboard. 'The Legends of the Moste Feared Pyrates of the Seas' was increasingly dog-eared, with torn pages and creases appearing in the leather spine from being left open, as it was now. Elizabeth turned the book over; it was open to a tale of Anne Bonny. Idly, she began to read.
'And her husband James did entreat with her to stay in New Providence and remain his goodwife, retaining what honour she had, but Anne laughed.
"I care naught for your honour; this marriage you esteem so is nothing if I cast it away, as I surely do. You have no claim upon me, for I am a pirate and so ever shall I remain. I have not loved you, James, and nor have you I, and now I do willingly discard your chains and take up the freedom for which my heart has longed."
With that Anne was gone, and she did leave her husband to elope most scandalously with the feared Pyrate Jack Rackham.’
Sadly, Elizabeth traced her fingers across the roughly printed text. Like as not the story was complete fabrication; Bonny had more than likely just knocked her husband out and made off with any valuables on his person, rather than make a verbose speech, but still... she realised her touch was lingering under the word 'freedom'. However she had gone about it, Anne had certainly found that, even for the few years it was until Calico's ship was captured.
Elizabeth felt a tightness in her throat. She remembered standing at the bow of the Black Pearl, sailing unawares to Portsmouth, with a fierce wind tangling her hair and buffeting her loose sailor's clothing, breathing in the spray and the sharp freshness of the air, and feeling... it wasn't home, exactly, because there was nothing safe about the sea, a ship was no haven and piracy no domesticity, but there was still some of the sense of belonging that she wasn't sure she'd felt since she was last in her mother's arms. She tried to summon the visions of children and servants and a beautiful house that she’d drugged herself to sleep with these past months… years… but like mist they faded as soon as she tried to take hold of them.
Thoughts of the Pearl lead inevitably to thoughts of Jack, and she bit her lip anxiously, but then after a moment shook her head.
"It's not just about him," she whispered to the book, as if somewhere Bonny could hear her. "It wasn't for you either. It's about me. I don't belong here." She glanced up at Andrew's sword, back in its place above the mantel, untouched, and recalled it bloody in her hand. "I never did."
That evening she declined dinner, claiming to feel unwell. She pulled shifts and winter clothes from the bottom of her wardrobe to dig out the man's shirt, britches, westkit and coat she had worn on arriving in England. A faint smell of salt still clung to them and she breathed it in deeply. She had sold her cutlass and pistol to pay her way to London, but the worn leather belt and baldric remained.
After hearing the servants pass on their way to bed she crept downstairs to the kitchen, stuffing a fresh loaf, a chunk of hard cheese and a few apples into a knapsack. She eyed up the cooking knives hung on the wall, and selected a fairly small one, wrapping the blade in a scrap of cloth.
Returning to her room, her eyes drifted to the two scraps of paper on her dressing table.
'... dearest Richard, please know that in a different life I believe I could have loved you, as truly as you deserve to be loved, but I am a tarnished woman and my stubborn heart will not obey the wishes of my head. I was never meant for this life and it is my fault alone that I have been so reckless in trying to remould myself to it. I will not entreat for your forgiveness; I simply ask you not to dwell overlong on me, for you have tried to love a pirate and I know too well that such a thing is asking only for heartache...'
She fingered the other letter, addressed to Sarah and Andrew.
'... I swear that somehow I will endeavour to repay your kind hearts and giving hands for the hospitality you have shown me, but I cannot stay and perhaps you have always known that. My past is more suspect than you may have guessed; I have sailed under a pirate flag, I have fired a pistol in anger and taken swordblade to flesh many times. I am not the lady I have pretended...'
She had tried to write one to Nathaniel too, but all her words seemed too clumsy. She wasn't sure she could have made him understand no matter what vocabulary she might have used. With a sigh, Elizabeth folded the letters. Her small jewellery box sat to the left, and she flicked it open, fingers sifting through bracelets and necklaces until they came upon something small and round. She pulled out the tiny silver coin and rolled it between her fingers.
"Perhaps..."
Nathaniel was not the slightest bit afraid of strange noises in the dead of night. Hearing the creak of boards outside his room he crept excitedly out of bed and peered out around the door.
There was a very strange figure on the landing. It was about the same height as Elizabeth, but wearing a man's coat and britches, carrying a knapsack and a candle to light the way. As he leaned out further his bedroom door swung in, and the hinges clunked. The figure stopped dead, then slowly turned towards him.
His voice sounded very loud in the darkness.
"Lizzie?!" The candlelight illuminated her face clearly now, and he could see that her hair was hacked short, that she wore a shirt with a baldric slung across waiting for a sword. She crouched down and pressed a finger to his lips.
"Not a word, Nathan," she hissed. "I'm sorry... I have to go. I'm going to sea."
Pulling back, he hushed his voice.
"Then... you're really... really a pirate?" There was something glinting on a cord around her neck, he saw, as she smiled.
"Yes, I am, though it seems like I only just remembered."
Nathaniel looked at her in awe, but with a strange prickling in his eyes, almost as if he might cry- if he weren't too grown up for such things of course.
"Why did you... why now?"
Elizabeth sat back on her heels, thoughtful for a moment, then leaned back towards him.
"Fate intervened, I suppose." The cord had slipped out of her shirt collar, showing a little silver coin hung on it. She glanced down, then held it out towards him. "I'm afraid there's no time for one last story Nathan, but perhaps this is even better. I was given this coin-" she paused for effect "- by Captain Jack Sparrow."
His eyes widened.
"Are you going to find him then? To join his crew?"
She frowned slightly.
"No, I'm not. I don't even know if he's still alive, if he still... but if our paths cross, then... I don‘t know." She leaned forward and patted his shoulder. "I'll try to write to you, though there's not much use you writing back. Live a good life, Nathan- and don't give up on what you really want."
With that she rose to her feet and began walking away, a candlelit silhouette slowly retreating from view. A few moments after she had vanished down the stairs, he heard the front door whisper open and closed again.
A/N: This entry is dedicated to whichever superb employee of Sainsbury's supermarkets decided to sell waffles for 71p a packet. Dear sir (or madam), you cure writer's block like no other.