The Last Rose of Summer: Parts X - XII
X
“Two trunks at most.” Barbossa said commandingly. “We’ll sell the rest. We’ll fetch a good price for ye - then ye may have all new things, which I’m sure shall please ye.”
Once again, Evie’s head was in a whirl as Barbossa quite easily moved her sideboard from its place against the wall. It always was a great struggle for her. She dropped to her knees and rolled back the edge of the rug, revealing a rough-hewn trap door. Lifting it, she withdrew the small but heavy chest from its hiding place, grunting a little as she did so.
“What be yer savings worth?” He enquired, bending to take the chest from her.
She shrugged and tossed her head. “Well, now, I don’t rightly know.”
He snorted, and tossed his hat on her dresser, striding over to the bed with the chest. “What be the point of holdin’ a stash if ye know not its value?”
“Well I know its value on Tortuga!” she responded pertly as he opened the chest to reveal a great shimmering mass of coin. “That be brass, that be silver and that be gold. A brass won’t get you no more than a suckin’ from me and a gold will let you all the way up ‘ere. “
Barbossa chuckled with no small delight, sinking onto the bed next to the chest.
“Hasten, wench. Pack that which ye wish to take while I count this for ye.”
She hurried to comply, not daring to pause and think upon what was happening - what she had agreed to - how in thirty-six hours her life had taken so dramatic a change! She had become satisfactorily resigned to the notion that she would live out the rest of her days on Tortuga, once her profitability as a whore had expired making her living playing the sailors at cards, perhaps with an additional profession as a leaf-seller or even investing in a boarding house for the girls to use. Certainly, she had rather more reluctantly accepted that her Captain would have no part to play in this comfortable, if unadventurous, life.
But now! Evie was not altogether sure she had entirely accepted what had occurred - that she was so numbed with the shock of it all it could be days, or even weeks, before she would realise with a heart-stopping start the full import of it.
He had been scant with the details - certainly, the bullet scar above his heart was new - and surely such a wound was fatal - but here he was before her, and he was a pirate lord! Fancy that! Not that that surprised her so much, but she rather thought he would’ve made much more of it over the years she knew him, for it was an esteemed position to be sure. He was not so much a braggart though, and it had never truly come up in conversation. She knew for certain now though, he had been part of the cordon that had defeated the East India Trading Company.
But had he truly risen from the dead, as it would seem he had? And who would have power to do such a thing? She had learned from his tale that a black witch had been the first to receive his favour. Would a mere witch truly have such immense power or had she merely nursed him back from the brink of death?
Evie did not quite have courage to ask - she was not sure how she would cope with an answer that indicated the man she had made love to that night had lately been quite dead.
Now her future was being redrawn for her, right before her eyes. She was soon to take the first sea voyage of her life, visit exotic ports she had only ever heard tales of before coming to a final stop in England, the fabled “motherland” of so many she had known, however briefly, over the years.
There, Barbossa had decreed, he would purchase for her a property.
Into a trunk flew Evie’s dresses and petticoats, corsets and stockings. On top of that she thrust hairpins and brooches, necklaces and earrings, wrapped up in a small sack. That was the easiest of the lot to choose from - now what?
Barbossa was upon her bed, carefully counting the money that spilled from the small chest in a shimmering pile. She would take the pillowcase, purple with gold embroidery, that Jasmine had given her - a memento of the old friend who had married a sailor and departed Tortugan shores some years ago. But everything else upon it could be sold - though she supposed the bed itself must remain, as it would not be easily dismantled. She looked at the mirror tied to its posts and half-smiled. So much to let go of!
She went to address Barbossa but he barked at her to be silent and so she continued with her packing. Well - everything from her dresser - her creams and unguents, hair brushes, perfumes she supposed. The various little statues and ornaments she had come to adopt over the years - they were small, after all, and would not take much space, and she could not bear the thought of abandoning them after they had sat watch by her all this time, in particular the lovely wooden Virgin Mary with her benevolent smiling face and blue mantle, or the Black Madonna, patron saint of whores so Bessie had told her, and of course the crucifix that had been above her mother’s death bed. There was a pagan goddess as well, with many arms and holding aloft a man’s severed head, her tongue protruding obscenely from her mouth - Kali Ma, to whom Evie prayed to punish any man who’d gypped her or backhanded her. They and other curiosities were lovingly wrapped in scarves and placed carefully within the voluminous folds of some dresses in the trunk.
Then, of course, there was her music box; containing the various gifts Barbossa had given her over the years, the precious mementos of their chequered history together. That, too, was carefully wrapped and secured.
She paused on her old oriental rug and surveyed the room. Only now had she come to realise the clutter she had accumulated over the years. Day to day it had all seemed merely the bare necessities of her life, the simple things she needed to carry out her trade. Now, with the journey ahead of her, she realised how superfluous it all was, and easily replaced. She would not need the old cracked glasses or decanters, her washbasin, kettle or chamber pot, not her tin bath, the candelabras or even the paintings upon the wall. She would take the small canvas with the naked red-haired woman languishing on her bed though - she had seen herself in that painting and found she did not like the idea of parting from it.
Thirty-three years and she was near to finished packing the evidence of her life away into a trunk! Now she found herself mentally assessing how much the rest would bring. Her furniture was in comparatively good nick; the washstand with its marble top in particular should fetch a good price, along with the mirrors. Pity she could not sell the bed, but it might not easily be rid of. She had inherited it with the room and perhaps it was only right that the whore to next take up residence here should do same.
At that though, Evie was suddenly giddy and felt herself sway where she stood, the room tipping up about her. With a little woof! She sat down abruptly upon the old carpet. Oh dear God and all other Heathen Gods besides - could it be she was truly vacating this room for another - a whole world away?
More to the point - could she truly do so?
Evie put her head in her hands and felt her breath come in short gasps. What upon this grotty earth had she agreed to?
Evie crawled to the sideboard, the woven carpet gritty and rough beneath the palms of her hands. Fumbling for her ever-present bottle of gin she took a few great gulps and found her heart rate to slow and calm.
“What be ye doin’ upon the carpet, ye daft hussy!” Barbossa grumbled from the bed. “I shudder to think of the filth that’s been ground into it over the years. “
Evie sat back on her haunches, feeling her pulse rise again. “I can’t do this!” she cried, and he looked at her sharply. “I’m too old! It ain’t for me - this is me lot! I can’t do it!”
She couldn’t name the expression that flitted upon his face then but it was replaced in a second by a contemptuous sneer.
“So be it, wench, that be yer choice. If ye wish to die a cocaine-addled docks whore in the corner of a stinkin’ tavern, then I’ll not stop ye.”
Evie took another big drink, trembling. Damn him, damn him! Would he not then soothe her and persuade her? She found herself on a precipice, torn between wanting to stay rooted in familiar soils and wanting desperately to be dug up and flung out into the unknown. She only needed him to help her tip the balance.
“I suppose then it matters not to ye what the sum of yer little cache here is worth.” He spat sourly and she glanced up at him quickly.
“Tell me.” She whimpered and he sighed, scooping the coins up in his great hands and tipping them back into the chest.
“Ye have a modest fortune. It wants only a little care and ye might live quite comfortably and even in a degree of style off of it for many, many years. To be sure, ye will most certainly not starve in the streets unless ye indulge in bejewelled gowns, diamond garters and cloth-of-gold counterpanes. “
The news of this quieted her and she sat back in a little heap on the carpet with her skirts bunched around her, one hand gripping the gin bottle and the other upon her breast, gazing ahead of her in numb silence. Would this day bring no end of surprises? She knew that she had certainly squirreled away a good amount of coin, but she’d had no idea quite the extent of it.
A whore’s life is always possessed of a certain degree of uncertainty in the realm of financial security. Money had always been a great comfort to Evie over the years; for with it one could be assured of some stability and reliance in a world that otherwise offered none.
To know now that she was, if not in name or breeding, modestly well-to-do suddenly girded her with a sense of power and when she raised her eyes to Barbossa, who had been regarding her quietly, this new strength shone from her eyes so that he could not help but lift his brows to it.
“Then I will go with you.” She said with resolute calm and the corner of his mouth tweaked in an almost imperceptible smile.
“Fine.” He snapped, shutting the lid of the chest with a sharp click. “I had rather been thinkin’ with yer peculiar savvy, ye might do well managin’ a house of yer own. Mind, ye have enough to retire upon.”
She was rising from the carpet, brushing out her skirts, and to this she gave a short laugh. “Oh no! I could never be idle, not me! Me ‘ole life been spent workin’, I could no more as rest on me laurels as give up the drink.”
He had risen from the bed, shrugging off his coat and vest. “It be yer choice, wench. Ye certainly deserve a rest after all ye’ve given of yerself upon this raggle-taggle pit. But ye might have that and be mistress of a bawdy-house at once, securin’ others to act in yer stead, as it were.”
Evie was smiling strangely now, gazing ahead at the wall with soft eyes, one finger curling in her hair.
“There was a girl ‘ere for a while once before, Imogen ‘er name was. Oh I say she was a girl but she were older than me. Come over from England she did. She told me that over there where she ‘ad a so-called resp’table trade as a seamstress, that she’d work twelve ‘ours at a time and go ‘ome at the end of it with nought but a measly piece of silver! Showed me the sort, she did, and you know it wasn’t even silver, not real silver like. It can take me under a minute sometime, the mere twinkling of an eye, to suck a fellow to ‘is joy and I gets a real piece of silver for that. All you fellas as what sails on the sea, no matter what reason you claim takes you out there, you all want the same thing in the end - liberty. You all want to know you got no master to whom you ‘ave to answer, no duties which you must fulfil, ‘cept that which best serves yourselves, and that you may take off wherever you like whenever you feel likes it.”
Evie moved over to her dresser whilst Barbossa regarded her with silent curiousness, reaching out one hand to touch her reflection in the mirror, stroking one brown finger down a silvery cheek, still smiling. “That’s what my trade means, you know don’t you - freedom. So long as I can make money this way I ‘ave no need for lord nor master, neither in trade nor in the bedroom. I don’t got to rely on a ‘usband to provide for me and I don’t got to work my fingers to the bone so some toff can grow fat and rich from my efforts. If I don’t feel like workin’ one night I don’t ‘ave to, and I can work as long as I please. And my sort is needed everywhere. No matter what fears I ‘ave of not knowin’ ‘ow to go about things, there’s not a land about on which I couldn’t find myself gainfully employed and so long as I can work I’m dependent on no man. “ She turned to look at the Captain, who had not moved, his lips slightly parted. “Thing is, I don’t think I could give up now, even if you did ask that of me. There’s too much comfort in knowin’ I can always make a few extra pieces and keep what I got intact. I’ll be Mistress of an ‘ouse, and I’ll thank you to help me secure one but if you don’t mind, I rather think I might continue workin’ alongside the girls.” She finished mildly and raised her eyes to Barbossa’s lined face.
He smiled, a little one, and inclined his head towards hers. “I understand.”
There was no more that needed saying.
XI
At dawn, there came a rap upon her door. She and Barbossa were entwined upon her bed, languidly kissing, a simple bliss that Evie grew intoxicated upon. They started at the knocking and Barbossa scowled at the interruption, though quickly rose and pulled on his trousers, cursing as he near slipped on the cards that were spilled out over the carpet. They had played during the previous evening and she had beat him easily over and over again, and though he laughed heartily at first, he grew quickly weary of it and grasped hold of her to engage in activities that he might more readily control.
Evie drew the sheets up over her bosom as four pirates entered her room. She recognised two of them as the green lads who’d been with Barbossa at their reunion, and the other two - who Barbossa had stopped as they’d made their way back here from their dinner and directed to arrive at dawn with others - as men who’d been with him all the years of his curse. The fat one with the balding head gave her a filthy-toothed smile and touched his fingertips to his forehead in salute, whilst the fellow with the eye patch (and had he not had a wooden eye before?) grinned shyly and ducked his head.
“Messrs Pintel and Ragetti,” Barbossa barked with a Captain’s authority, his stride back into the room suddenly of a commanding gait. “Miss Evangeline be comin’ with us when we depart at tomorrow’s first light, so it wants that ye all shall now clear this room of all its furnishing and take them down to the docks for sellin’.”
At this news Pintel and Ragetti whipped their gazes to the whore, Ragetti with a slack-jawed astonishment and Pintel with a foolish grin creasing his grimy features.
“Well, ‘ows that, Cap’n, is there to be a weddin’ then?” He enquired with gleeful surprise and the green lads suddenly lit up with open-mouthed delight, staring at the Captain with shining eyes. Evie flushed and ducked her head, red locks falling over her features and bare shoulders. Barbossa snorted as he reached for a bottle of wine, uncorking it with his teeth.
“Now, now, there be no point to such formality. We’ve long been well acquainted and such outpourin’s of sentiment be for the young who have need of it still.” He informed the pirates, who deflated visibly, before snapping at them. “Get to it now, ye slack-jawed curs! We shall be takin’ coin only, no trade. We are to be rid of it all by nightfall so ye best make a start.”
At his words the men leapt into action, the two green lads negotiating their way about the sideboard and Pintel and Ragetti making for the dresser. As they heaved and dragged the furniture through the door and out onto the landing which creaked disturbingly beneath the weight, Ragetti threw a last glance at Evie with a suddenly bold smile and a quick jerk of the head. Evie felt absurdly pleased - she was known to them and they were pleased for the Captain.
No sooner had they vacated the room then Barbossa turned his commands to her: “Up then, wench, and dress yerself. It needs ye to supervise those slobbering jackasses or ye’ll find yerself with a purse of dross.” And she hastened to comply.
Barbossa leaned against a poster of the bed and watched as she fastened her stockings to her garters and tightened her stays, gripping the wine bottle tight.
“Ye will be havin’ need of a name.” He said gruffly, reaching out his free hand to scratch the head of his monkey who had become alarmed at the kerfuffle in the room and stayed close upon his master’s shoulder. “England is not Tortuga and calls for certain formalities. Ye may have mine, for I know ye have none of yer own.” She tripped on the hem of her dress, hitting her knee hard against the edge of the bed and swore loudly to mask her shock. It seemed the surprises would indeed not reach their end!
Barbossa turned his back to her and took another swig of wine, swallowing hard around it. “Barbossa was the name I took up when I first boarded Morgan’s ship. Burton be the true one. That shall be yers, now.”
She found she could not speak for there was a hard lump in her throat, so instead she moved over to him and took the wine bottle from him, taking a great drought of it.
“I should be ‘onoured.” She said hoarsely. “Evangeline Burton,” Barbossa blinked at the sound of it, his brows creasing. “It’s a fine name to be sure.” She thanked him, then threw her arms tight about his waist and pressed her lips again and again to his chest. He stroked her hair for a moment, his fingernails scraping gently against her skull, then pushed her from him.
“Hurry now,” he scolded her. “I have little patience for dilly-dallying.”
One by one the remnants of Evie’s life was removed from the room, down to the very curtains that hung about her bed. Evie sat upon the stripped mattress and watched dumbly as the room was emptied, the bare plaster walls frighteningly naked without the paintings, fans and scarves that had hung upon them, the newly revealed corners thick with dust and black with age. She drank gin swiftly and her free hand was tightly fisted, bunched in her skirts. Finally, all that remained was the wardrobe, and as Murtogg, Mullroy and Ragetti braced themselves then lifted it up and away, Evie gasped and shielded her eyes for all of a sudden the room’s little window was revealed, for the first time in seventeen years, since Evie first took up residence there. Pale sunlight winked through the dusty glass, lighting up the little room, now very plain, very ugly and very sallow. It was only she and the great bed, stripped of its fine furnishings to reveal scars and pockmarks over its wooden surface.
Evie knew she must move now, must rise and take the last trip down the rickety staircase and out into the daylight to barter away her belongings before Barbossa lost patience with her. Yet she found she could not. She wrapped her arms about her knees and looked about her room with wide, dry eyes and tripped down a jumbled path of memories, sweet and sour both, of the life she had lived in this little room, unrecognisable though it now was as her home.
Was she truly to never see it again?
Barbossa appeared at the open doorway, but he did not shout at her. Instead he leaned against the doorframe and watched her in silence for some moments before reaching out an arm and beckoning to her.
“Come, Evie.” He said. “It is time to go. Ye merely delay what is to come, not preserve that which has passed.”
With a sigh and a pushing back of her red curls, Evie unfolded herself from the bed and walked across the room, her heels making a dull echoing sound on the bare floorboards, taking Barbossa’s hand and departing without another glance behind her.
XII
Throughout the day she worked so hard she had no more time to contemplate the loss of her home. After informing the proprietors of the Maison Rouge of her departure she had swiftly headed to the docks where she undertook the fierce task of getting the best possible price for much time-worn and third or fourth hand furniture and trappings.
The bartering had been hard and long and Barbossa had come and gone as he pleased, which irritated her. His mere presence could bully a reluctant buyer to agree with a price they wished to argue lower, but at other times he urged Evie to accept lower than she wished in order to be rid of a piece. As expected, the washstand and the mirrors fetched the best price, particularly the mirrors, which swift found themselves new homes with other whores.
The paintings of luridly naked women were bought by sailors who wished to have something to gaze upon the long months at sea, and the drapes from her bed was bought by a young whore who declared her intention to make a new dress of them. Piece by piece Evie handed over her life work’s acquisitions and received a handful of coins for them, then watched as their new owner took hold of it with a satisfied smirk or a pleased exclamation, then turned on their heel and strode away, taking another slice of her life with them.
Many of the whores shrieked with congratulatory wishes when she revealed to them the reason for this sudden elimination of her assets, and the many kisses and farewells she exchanged would’ve made her quite melancholy had she not remembered to set her mind to the task of being quite unfettered by the evening.
Mullroy and Ragetti aided her by each selecting a smaller item and darting off with it into the town where they sold it off and returned to her with the money. In this fashion the day unfolded. Evie had not seen high noon for as long as she could remember and ended up stripping off her dress and working in her stays and bloomers beneath the tropical sun, which was certainly effective in attracting new customers. Ragetti brought her new bottles of gin and crab rolls with halting smiles and she tousled his hair and smoked pipe after pipe to keep herself alert.
The afternoon cooled somewhat and the space around her grew emptier and emptier. As the sky flushed prettily with sunset and she reeled under the effects of gin and cacao, she declared loudly to all about that everything left could be taken for a brass piece and watched in satisfaction as the last straggling pieces vanished, taking the pieces in a grimy, reddened hand.
Barbossa approached as the last purchasers departed with candlesticks and fans under their arms, smiling widely at her and chuckling.
She scowled at him, bone-weary and in no mood for levity, and he took the purse of money from her, quite fat and heavy, and secured it within his cloak, before lifting her into his arms.
“Ye did well, wench. Sustenance for ye now, then sleep, for our risin’ shall be quite early.”
“Lord, where will we sleep!” Evie declared, dropping her weary head upon his shoulder. “I ‘adn’t even though of that!”
“There are many boarding rooms in the town.” He reminded her gently, his hair tickling her cheek and his arms strong about her. “It will be of no consequence.”
“It’s all gone.” She remarked wistfully. “All of it.”
“Nay wench, not all of it.” His voice vibrated through him and into her where she curved against his body, feeling the jolt of the uneven path as he walked. “What was most precious to ye has been put upon the Pearl, and the rest was nowt but a weight about yer neck. Now it is a weight in yer purse, which is far more useful, aye?”
She turned her head inwards to his neck, pressing her lips against it. “Aye.” She breathed and then felt a great growl of hunger through her as the smells of fresh cooking wafted from a nearby tavern. Barbossa laughed to feel it and carried her hence.
Evie once again outdid herself in appetite and remarked to Barbossa: “If this keeps up, I’ll be plump enough in no time.” And he nodded approvingly and toasted her.
“Though no frumpy matron shall ye ever be, sweet Evangeline Burton.” He rumbled and she suddenly felt that swell of happiness rush through and overcome her. She had lost nothing after all - only gained. “Indeed, the years seem only to bestow upon ye further sensuality.”
Indeed! The thought of wearing high collared dresses and fastening her hair up caused Evie to shudder. Age required merely a few minor appropriate adjustments.
“What fun it will be!” she couldn’t help but exclaim then, as Barbossa speared fish into his mouth. “Managin’ a place of me own and keepin’ rooms, and myself pretty too, for you. Bein’ a proprietress and havin’ a name I weren’t born with.”
He nodded, swallowing and winking at her. “Aye. A merry caper indeed.” He turned back to his meal. “I will not be faithful to ye, mind.” His voice was suddenly cautionary. “Not in body, at any rate.”
She furrowed her brow in exasperation rather than annoyance. “I knows that! What do you take me for? After all,” she grinned, “you’ve shared me with enough fellas, could ‘ardly begrudge you, now could I!”
He chuckled at that. “So long as you understand, Evie.”
She reached across the table to touch his cheek and he turned piercingly blue eyes upon her own. “I understand,” she smiled. “A man’s body ‘as needs.”
He lifted a hand to cover hers. ”Even when that of his soul be fulfilled.”
“Well, well, well,” a familiar voice interrupted their intimacy and Barbossa turned flashing eyes to the intruder while Evie turned her shoulders away from him, pouting with abject dislike. Jack Sparrow stood there, with his arm about Giselle, an insolent tilt to his hips and chin. “What a cozy little corner we have ‘ere! Barbossa, I never took you for the sentimental sort but I must say it positively warms the cockles of my ‘eart to see you so ‘appily reunited with your lost-long strumpet!”
“Sparrow!” Barbossa spat, glowering up at the leering and lurching piratical jackanape. “Yer arrogance is exceeded only by yer foolishness. Get away with ye for though it would make a pleasant evenin’ positively joyous to shoot ye through yer blasted heart, it would also be a waste of good shot. “
Sparrow lifted a finger to his lips then leaned forward, pointing it at Barbossa who rolled his eyes and set his jaw. “Now, now, Hector, temper, temper. No need to mar our new partnership with cruel words. Thought it best, ‘owever, to assure meself I ‘ad nothin’ to fear from you two bendin’ your ‘eads together again as it were, for we all know ‘ow that turned out for me last time.”
“Truly, Jack,” Barbossa scoffed, having restrained his fury. “Ye think overmuch of yerself if ye truly believe your name has been somethin’ upon which we have been mullin’.”
“Asides,” Evie interjected sullenly, still not looking at Jack. “There was little enough I knew about it all. Just following Cap’n’s orders. As it were.”
Jack clucked his tongue and cocked his head sideways, smiling at her. “Now, really, Miss Evangeline. You know you owe me for that evenin’.”
Now Evie looked at him, turning her blue eyes cold and still upon his and he took a step back. “I think you’ve collected that debt since. “ she said quietly. “Twelve years worth of it.”
“Enough!” Barbossa spat. “Begone, Jack, or I’ll fell ye after all.”
Jack recovered himself and made a mocking little bow to the table. “We’d see who’d draw first, Barbossa, but there’s joys of greater interest to me this night. Evenin’ to you both then. Giselle?”
Jack ambled off into the tavern but Evie leapt up suddenly and grasped hold of her pal’s arm.
“Giselle! Got a moment?”
Giselle had watched the little scene in silence, eyes fixed upon her old friend. Now a little frown of concern creased her forehead. “Course, ducks. What is it?”
Evie excused herself from Barbossa, and dragged her friend to a corner whilst Jack placed his hands on his hips and watched then with a pert expression and Barbossa turned back to his meal.
Giselle’s eyes filled with tears when Evie told her of her plans but she blinked them away quickly and gripped her friend in a fierce hug.
“That’s wonderful that is!” she choked, and Evie felt herself begin to cry also. “Think of that, Evie of Tortuga goin’ to be a Madame in England! What a grand one you’ll make and a grand pleasure-‘ouse you’ll run too. “ She pulled back, and held Evie at arm’s length, smiling at her. “I can sees you now, surrounded in red velvet and gilt in a fancy purple corset and silk stockin’s, bullyin’ pricks out of their weeks’ wages for false virgins with drops in their eyes and pig gut up their quims!”
Evie laughed around her tears. “What will I do without you, though, darlin’? You’ve been the best friend I ever ‘ad, you know. “
“Nonsense!” Giselle’s lip quivered and she sniffled. “You’ll be ‘avin’ too marvellous a time to wonder about the likes of me!”
Evie shook her head, and wrapped her arms about Giselle’s waist. “I’ll think of you every day, and miss you in the mornin’s when me cunny’s sore and I’m too sober for any respec’able whore!”
Giselle laughed and embraced her once again. “I’ll miss you too, ducks. Oh, I will. Please, please, take care, eh? Take care of your precious self.”
“Listen,” Evie grabbed Giselle’s hands and looked her friend in the eye. “I knows you don’t like ‘im, darlin’, but I love ‘im. I do, I truly do. And ‘e treats me well, finer than any other. It’s what I want.”
Giselle smiled, and freed a hand to push Evie’s hair back over her ear. “I knows that. You know,” she sighed and rolled her eyes heavenwards. “Some gents betray their ‘earts in the things they say. “ She looked back at Evie and bit her lip. “Others are more like to do it in what they don’t say. “ She cupped her friend’s cheek and smiled, eyes filling once more. “’E will look after you. You’ll always be safe. And you’ll be ‘appy. “
Evie pressed her lips hard against Giselle’s and the two gripped each other tight as around them tankards clunked together and sailors and whores shouted and cheered.
They separated and Evie returned to Barbossa’s table and Giselle to Jack’s side and the two whores shared a final nod and smile before Giselle was led by Sparrow into the crowd, he glancing curiously at Evie for a moment, and Evie pressed a kiss against Barbossa’s neck.
“Two trunks at most.” Barbossa said commandingly. “We’ll sell the rest. We’ll fetch a good price for ye - then ye may have all new things, which I’m sure shall please ye.”
Once again, Evie’s head was in a whirl as Barbossa quite easily moved her sideboard from its place against the wall. It always was a great struggle for her. She dropped to her knees and rolled back the edge of the rug, revealing a rough-hewn trap door. Lifting it, she withdrew the small but heavy chest from its hiding place, grunting a little as she did so.
“What be yer savings worth?” He enquired, bending to take the chest from her.
She shrugged and tossed her head. “Well, now, I don’t rightly know.”
He snorted, and tossed his hat on her dresser, striding over to the bed with the chest. “What be the point of holdin’ a stash if ye know not its value?”
“Well I know its value on Tortuga!” she responded pertly as he opened the chest to reveal a great shimmering mass of coin. “That be brass, that be silver and that be gold. A brass won’t get you no more than a suckin’ from me and a gold will let you all the way up ‘ere. “
Barbossa chuckled with no small delight, sinking onto the bed next to the chest.
“Hasten, wench. Pack that which ye wish to take while I count this for ye.”
She hurried to comply, not daring to pause and think upon what was happening - what she had agreed to - how in thirty-six hours her life had taken so dramatic a change! She had become satisfactorily resigned to the notion that she would live out the rest of her days on Tortuga, once her profitability as a whore had expired making her living playing the sailors at cards, perhaps with an additional profession as a leaf-seller or even investing in a boarding house for the girls to use. Certainly, she had rather more reluctantly accepted that her Captain would have no part to play in this comfortable, if unadventurous, life.
But now! Evie was not altogether sure she had entirely accepted what had occurred - that she was so numbed with the shock of it all it could be days, or even weeks, before she would realise with a heart-stopping start the full import of it.
He had been scant with the details - certainly, the bullet scar above his heart was new - and surely such a wound was fatal - but here he was before her, and he was a pirate lord! Fancy that! Not that that surprised her so much, but she rather thought he would’ve made much more of it over the years she knew him, for it was an esteemed position to be sure. He was not so much a braggart though, and it had never truly come up in conversation. She knew for certain now though, he had been part of the cordon that had defeated the East India Trading Company.
But had he truly risen from the dead, as it would seem he had? And who would have power to do such a thing? She had learned from his tale that a black witch had been the first to receive his favour. Would a mere witch truly have such immense power or had she merely nursed him back from the brink of death?
Evie did not quite have courage to ask - she was not sure how she would cope with an answer that indicated the man she had made love to that night had lately been quite dead.
Now her future was being redrawn for her, right before her eyes. She was soon to take the first sea voyage of her life, visit exotic ports she had only ever heard tales of before coming to a final stop in England, the fabled “motherland” of so many she had known, however briefly, over the years.
There, Barbossa had decreed, he would purchase for her a property.
Into a trunk flew Evie’s dresses and petticoats, corsets and stockings. On top of that she thrust hairpins and brooches, necklaces and earrings, wrapped up in a small sack. That was the easiest of the lot to choose from - now what?
Barbossa was upon her bed, carefully counting the money that spilled from the small chest in a shimmering pile. She would take the pillowcase, purple with gold embroidery, that Jasmine had given her - a memento of the old friend who had married a sailor and departed Tortugan shores some years ago. But everything else upon it could be sold - though she supposed the bed itself must remain, as it would not be easily dismantled. She looked at the mirror tied to its posts and half-smiled. So much to let go of!
She went to address Barbossa but he barked at her to be silent and so she continued with her packing. Well - everything from her dresser - her creams and unguents, hair brushes, perfumes she supposed. The various little statues and ornaments she had come to adopt over the years - they were small, after all, and would not take much space, and she could not bear the thought of abandoning them after they had sat watch by her all this time, in particular the lovely wooden Virgin Mary with her benevolent smiling face and blue mantle, or the Black Madonna, patron saint of whores so Bessie had told her, and of course the crucifix that had been above her mother’s death bed. There was a pagan goddess as well, with many arms and holding aloft a man’s severed head, her tongue protruding obscenely from her mouth - Kali Ma, to whom Evie prayed to punish any man who’d gypped her or backhanded her. They and other curiosities were lovingly wrapped in scarves and placed carefully within the voluminous folds of some dresses in the trunk.
Then, of course, there was her music box; containing the various gifts Barbossa had given her over the years, the precious mementos of their chequered history together. That, too, was carefully wrapped and secured.
She paused on her old oriental rug and surveyed the room. Only now had she come to realise the clutter she had accumulated over the years. Day to day it had all seemed merely the bare necessities of her life, the simple things she needed to carry out her trade. Now, with the journey ahead of her, she realised how superfluous it all was, and easily replaced. She would not need the old cracked glasses or decanters, her washbasin, kettle or chamber pot, not her tin bath, the candelabras or even the paintings upon the wall. She would take the small canvas with the naked red-haired woman languishing on her bed though - she had seen herself in that painting and found she did not like the idea of parting from it.
Thirty-three years and she was near to finished packing the evidence of her life away into a trunk! Now she found herself mentally assessing how much the rest would bring. Her furniture was in comparatively good nick; the washstand with its marble top in particular should fetch a good price, along with the mirrors. Pity she could not sell the bed, but it might not easily be rid of. She had inherited it with the room and perhaps it was only right that the whore to next take up residence here should do same.
At that though, Evie was suddenly giddy and felt herself sway where she stood, the room tipping up about her. With a little woof! She sat down abruptly upon the old carpet. Oh dear God and all other Heathen Gods besides - could it be she was truly vacating this room for another - a whole world away?
More to the point - could she truly do so?
Evie put her head in her hands and felt her breath come in short gasps. What upon this grotty earth had she agreed to?
Evie crawled to the sideboard, the woven carpet gritty and rough beneath the palms of her hands. Fumbling for her ever-present bottle of gin she took a few great gulps and found her heart rate to slow and calm.
“What be ye doin’ upon the carpet, ye daft hussy!” Barbossa grumbled from the bed. “I shudder to think of the filth that’s been ground into it over the years. “
Evie sat back on her haunches, feeling her pulse rise again. “I can’t do this!” she cried, and he looked at her sharply. “I’m too old! It ain’t for me - this is me lot! I can’t do it!”
She couldn’t name the expression that flitted upon his face then but it was replaced in a second by a contemptuous sneer.
“So be it, wench, that be yer choice. If ye wish to die a cocaine-addled docks whore in the corner of a stinkin’ tavern, then I’ll not stop ye.”
Evie took another big drink, trembling. Damn him, damn him! Would he not then soothe her and persuade her? She found herself on a precipice, torn between wanting to stay rooted in familiar soils and wanting desperately to be dug up and flung out into the unknown. She only needed him to help her tip the balance.
“I suppose then it matters not to ye what the sum of yer little cache here is worth.” He spat sourly and she glanced up at him quickly.
“Tell me.” She whimpered and he sighed, scooping the coins up in his great hands and tipping them back into the chest.
“Ye have a modest fortune. It wants only a little care and ye might live quite comfortably and even in a degree of style off of it for many, many years. To be sure, ye will most certainly not starve in the streets unless ye indulge in bejewelled gowns, diamond garters and cloth-of-gold counterpanes. “
The news of this quieted her and she sat back in a little heap on the carpet with her skirts bunched around her, one hand gripping the gin bottle and the other upon her breast, gazing ahead of her in numb silence. Would this day bring no end of surprises? She knew that she had certainly squirreled away a good amount of coin, but she’d had no idea quite the extent of it.
A whore’s life is always possessed of a certain degree of uncertainty in the realm of financial security. Money had always been a great comfort to Evie over the years; for with it one could be assured of some stability and reliance in a world that otherwise offered none.
To know now that she was, if not in name or breeding, modestly well-to-do suddenly girded her with a sense of power and when she raised her eyes to Barbossa, who had been regarding her quietly, this new strength shone from her eyes so that he could not help but lift his brows to it.
“Then I will go with you.” She said with resolute calm and the corner of his mouth tweaked in an almost imperceptible smile.
“Fine.” He snapped, shutting the lid of the chest with a sharp click. “I had rather been thinkin’ with yer peculiar savvy, ye might do well managin’ a house of yer own. Mind, ye have enough to retire upon.”
She was rising from the carpet, brushing out her skirts, and to this she gave a short laugh. “Oh no! I could never be idle, not me! Me ‘ole life been spent workin’, I could no more as rest on me laurels as give up the drink.”
He had risen from the bed, shrugging off his coat and vest. “It be yer choice, wench. Ye certainly deserve a rest after all ye’ve given of yerself upon this raggle-taggle pit. But ye might have that and be mistress of a bawdy-house at once, securin’ others to act in yer stead, as it were.”
Evie was smiling strangely now, gazing ahead at the wall with soft eyes, one finger curling in her hair.
“There was a girl ‘ere for a while once before, Imogen ‘er name was. Oh I say she was a girl but she were older than me. Come over from England she did. She told me that over there where she ‘ad a so-called resp’table trade as a seamstress, that she’d work twelve ‘ours at a time and go ‘ome at the end of it with nought but a measly piece of silver! Showed me the sort, she did, and you know it wasn’t even silver, not real silver like. It can take me under a minute sometime, the mere twinkling of an eye, to suck a fellow to ‘is joy and I gets a real piece of silver for that. All you fellas as what sails on the sea, no matter what reason you claim takes you out there, you all want the same thing in the end - liberty. You all want to know you got no master to whom you ‘ave to answer, no duties which you must fulfil, ‘cept that which best serves yourselves, and that you may take off wherever you like whenever you feel likes it.”
Evie moved over to her dresser whilst Barbossa regarded her with silent curiousness, reaching out one hand to touch her reflection in the mirror, stroking one brown finger down a silvery cheek, still smiling. “That’s what my trade means, you know don’t you - freedom. So long as I can make money this way I ‘ave no need for lord nor master, neither in trade nor in the bedroom. I don’t got to rely on a ‘usband to provide for me and I don’t got to work my fingers to the bone so some toff can grow fat and rich from my efforts. If I don’t feel like workin’ one night I don’t ‘ave to, and I can work as long as I please. And my sort is needed everywhere. No matter what fears I ‘ave of not knowin’ ‘ow to go about things, there’s not a land about on which I couldn’t find myself gainfully employed and so long as I can work I’m dependent on no man. “ She turned to look at the Captain, who had not moved, his lips slightly parted. “Thing is, I don’t think I could give up now, even if you did ask that of me. There’s too much comfort in knowin’ I can always make a few extra pieces and keep what I got intact. I’ll be Mistress of an ‘ouse, and I’ll thank you to help me secure one but if you don’t mind, I rather think I might continue workin’ alongside the girls.” She finished mildly and raised her eyes to Barbossa’s lined face.
He smiled, a little one, and inclined his head towards hers. “I understand.”
There was no more that needed saying.
XI
At dawn, there came a rap upon her door. She and Barbossa were entwined upon her bed, languidly kissing, a simple bliss that Evie grew intoxicated upon. They started at the knocking and Barbossa scowled at the interruption, though quickly rose and pulled on his trousers, cursing as he near slipped on the cards that were spilled out over the carpet. They had played during the previous evening and she had beat him easily over and over again, and though he laughed heartily at first, he grew quickly weary of it and grasped hold of her to engage in activities that he might more readily control.
Evie drew the sheets up over her bosom as four pirates entered her room. She recognised two of them as the green lads who’d been with Barbossa at their reunion, and the other two - who Barbossa had stopped as they’d made their way back here from their dinner and directed to arrive at dawn with others - as men who’d been with him all the years of his curse. The fat one with the balding head gave her a filthy-toothed smile and touched his fingertips to his forehead in salute, whilst the fellow with the eye patch (and had he not had a wooden eye before?) grinned shyly and ducked his head.
“Messrs Pintel and Ragetti,” Barbossa barked with a Captain’s authority, his stride back into the room suddenly of a commanding gait. “Miss Evangeline be comin’ with us when we depart at tomorrow’s first light, so it wants that ye all shall now clear this room of all its furnishing and take them down to the docks for sellin’.”
At this news Pintel and Ragetti whipped their gazes to the whore, Ragetti with a slack-jawed astonishment and Pintel with a foolish grin creasing his grimy features.
“Well, ‘ows that, Cap’n, is there to be a weddin’ then?” He enquired with gleeful surprise and the green lads suddenly lit up with open-mouthed delight, staring at the Captain with shining eyes. Evie flushed and ducked her head, red locks falling over her features and bare shoulders. Barbossa snorted as he reached for a bottle of wine, uncorking it with his teeth.
“Now, now, there be no point to such formality. We’ve long been well acquainted and such outpourin’s of sentiment be for the young who have need of it still.” He informed the pirates, who deflated visibly, before snapping at them. “Get to it now, ye slack-jawed curs! We shall be takin’ coin only, no trade. We are to be rid of it all by nightfall so ye best make a start.”
At his words the men leapt into action, the two green lads negotiating their way about the sideboard and Pintel and Ragetti making for the dresser. As they heaved and dragged the furniture through the door and out onto the landing which creaked disturbingly beneath the weight, Ragetti threw a last glance at Evie with a suddenly bold smile and a quick jerk of the head. Evie felt absurdly pleased - she was known to them and they were pleased for the Captain.
No sooner had they vacated the room then Barbossa turned his commands to her: “Up then, wench, and dress yerself. It needs ye to supervise those slobbering jackasses or ye’ll find yerself with a purse of dross.” And she hastened to comply.
Barbossa leaned against a poster of the bed and watched as she fastened her stockings to her garters and tightened her stays, gripping the wine bottle tight.
“Ye will be havin’ need of a name.” He said gruffly, reaching out his free hand to scratch the head of his monkey who had become alarmed at the kerfuffle in the room and stayed close upon his master’s shoulder. “England is not Tortuga and calls for certain formalities. Ye may have mine, for I know ye have none of yer own.” She tripped on the hem of her dress, hitting her knee hard against the edge of the bed and swore loudly to mask her shock. It seemed the surprises would indeed not reach their end!
Barbossa turned his back to her and took another swig of wine, swallowing hard around it. “Barbossa was the name I took up when I first boarded Morgan’s ship. Burton be the true one. That shall be yers, now.”
She found she could not speak for there was a hard lump in her throat, so instead she moved over to him and took the wine bottle from him, taking a great drought of it.
“I should be ‘onoured.” She said hoarsely. “Evangeline Burton,” Barbossa blinked at the sound of it, his brows creasing. “It’s a fine name to be sure.” She thanked him, then threw her arms tight about his waist and pressed her lips again and again to his chest. He stroked her hair for a moment, his fingernails scraping gently against her skull, then pushed her from him.
“Hurry now,” he scolded her. “I have little patience for dilly-dallying.”
One by one the remnants of Evie’s life was removed from the room, down to the very curtains that hung about her bed. Evie sat upon the stripped mattress and watched dumbly as the room was emptied, the bare plaster walls frighteningly naked without the paintings, fans and scarves that had hung upon them, the newly revealed corners thick with dust and black with age. She drank gin swiftly and her free hand was tightly fisted, bunched in her skirts. Finally, all that remained was the wardrobe, and as Murtogg, Mullroy and Ragetti braced themselves then lifted it up and away, Evie gasped and shielded her eyes for all of a sudden the room’s little window was revealed, for the first time in seventeen years, since Evie first took up residence there. Pale sunlight winked through the dusty glass, lighting up the little room, now very plain, very ugly and very sallow. It was only she and the great bed, stripped of its fine furnishings to reveal scars and pockmarks over its wooden surface.
Evie knew she must move now, must rise and take the last trip down the rickety staircase and out into the daylight to barter away her belongings before Barbossa lost patience with her. Yet she found she could not. She wrapped her arms about her knees and looked about her room with wide, dry eyes and tripped down a jumbled path of memories, sweet and sour both, of the life she had lived in this little room, unrecognisable though it now was as her home.
Was she truly to never see it again?
Barbossa appeared at the open doorway, but he did not shout at her. Instead he leaned against the doorframe and watched her in silence for some moments before reaching out an arm and beckoning to her.
“Come, Evie.” He said. “It is time to go. Ye merely delay what is to come, not preserve that which has passed.”
With a sigh and a pushing back of her red curls, Evie unfolded herself from the bed and walked across the room, her heels making a dull echoing sound on the bare floorboards, taking Barbossa’s hand and departing without another glance behind her.
XII
Throughout the day she worked so hard she had no more time to contemplate the loss of her home. After informing the proprietors of the Maison Rouge of her departure she had swiftly headed to the docks where she undertook the fierce task of getting the best possible price for much time-worn and third or fourth hand furniture and trappings.
The bartering had been hard and long and Barbossa had come and gone as he pleased, which irritated her. His mere presence could bully a reluctant buyer to agree with a price they wished to argue lower, but at other times he urged Evie to accept lower than she wished in order to be rid of a piece. As expected, the washstand and the mirrors fetched the best price, particularly the mirrors, which swift found themselves new homes with other whores.
The paintings of luridly naked women were bought by sailors who wished to have something to gaze upon the long months at sea, and the drapes from her bed was bought by a young whore who declared her intention to make a new dress of them. Piece by piece Evie handed over her life work’s acquisitions and received a handful of coins for them, then watched as their new owner took hold of it with a satisfied smirk or a pleased exclamation, then turned on their heel and strode away, taking another slice of her life with them.
Many of the whores shrieked with congratulatory wishes when she revealed to them the reason for this sudden elimination of her assets, and the many kisses and farewells she exchanged would’ve made her quite melancholy had she not remembered to set her mind to the task of being quite unfettered by the evening.
Mullroy and Ragetti aided her by each selecting a smaller item and darting off with it into the town where they sold it off and returned to her with the money. In this fashion the day unfolded. Evie had not seen high noon for as long as she could remember and ended up stripping off her dress and working in her stays and bloomers beneath the tropical sun, which was certainly effective in attracting new customers. Ragetti brought her new bottles of gin and crab rolls with halting smiles and she tousled his hair and smoked pipe after pipe to keep herself alert.
The afternoon cooled somewhat and the space around her grew emptier and emptier. As the sky flushed prettily with sunset and she reeled under the effects of gin and cacao, she declared loudly to all about that everything left could be taken for a brass piece and watched in satisfaction as the last straggling pieces vanished, taking the pieces in a grimy, reddened hand.
Barbossa approached as the last purchasers departed with candlesticks and fans under their arms, smiling widely at her and chuckling.
She scowled at him, bone-weary and in no mood for levity, and he took the purse of money from her, quite fat and heavy, and secured it within his cloak, before lifting her into his arms.
“Ye did well, wench. Sustenance for ye now, then sleep, for our risin’ shall be quite early.”
“Lord, where will we sleep!” Evie declared, dropping her weary head upon his shoulder. “I ‘adn’t even though of that!”
“There are many boarding rooms in the town.” He reminded her gently, his hair tickling her cheek and his arms strong about her. “It will be of no consequence.”
“It’s all gone.” She remarked wistfully. “All of it.”
“Nay wench, not all of it.” His voice vibrated through him and into her where she curved against his body, feeling the jolt of the uneven path as he walked. “What was most precious to ye has been put upon the Pearl, and the rest was nowt but a weight about yer neck. Now it is a weight in yer purse, which is far more useful, aye?”
She turned her head inwards to his neck, pressing her lips against it. “Aye.” She breathed and then felt a great growl of hunger through her as the smells of fresh cooking wafted from a nearby tavern. Barbossa laughed to feel it and carried her hence.
Evie once again outdid herself in appetite and remarked to Barbossa: “If this keeps up, I’ll be plump enough in no time.” And he nodded approvingly and toasted her.
“Though no frumpy matron shall ye ever be, sweet Evangeline Burton.” He rumbled and she suddenly felt that swell of happiness rush through and overcome her. She had lost nothing after all - only gained. “Indeed, the years seem only to bestow upon ye further sensuality.”
Indeed! The thought of wearing high collared dresses and fastening her hair up caused Evie to shudder. Age required merely a few minor appropriate adjustments.
“What fun it will be!” she couldn’t help but exclaim then, as Barbossa speared fish into his mouth. “Managin’ a place of me own and keepin’ rooms, and myself pretty too, for you. Bein’ a proprietress and havin’ a name I weren’t born with.”
He nodded, swallowing and winking at her. “Aye. A merry caper indeed.” He turned back to his meal. “I will not be faithful to ye, mind.” His voice was suddenly cautionary. “Not in body, at any rate.”
She furrowed her brow in exasperation rather than annoyance. “I knows that! What do you take me for? After all,” she grinned, “you’ve shared me with enough fellas, could ‘ardly begrudge you, now could I!”
He chuckled at that. “So long as you understand, Evie.”
She reached across the table to touch his cheek and he turned piercingly blue eyes upon her own. “I understand,” she smiled. “A man’s body ‘as needs.”
He lifted a hand to cover hers. ”Even when that of his soul be fulfilled.”
“Well, well, well,” a familiar voice interrupted their intimacy and Barbossa turned flashing eyes to the intruder while Evie turned her shoulders away from him, pouting with abject dislike. Jack Sparrow stood there, with his arm about Giselle, an insolent tilt to his hips and chin. “What a cozy little corner we have ‘ere! Barbossa, I never took you for the sentimental sort but I must say it positively warms the cockles of my ‘eart to see you so ‘appily reunited with your lost-long strumpet!”
“Sparrow!” Barbossa spat, glowering up at the leering and lurching piratical jackanape. “Yer arrogance is exceeded only by yer foolishness. Get away with ye for though it would make a pleasant evenin’ positively joyous to shoot ye through yer blasted heart, it would also be a waste of good shot. “
Sparrow lifted a finger to his lips then leaned forward, pointing it at Barbossa who rolled his eyes and set his jaw. “Now, now, Hector, temper, temper. No need to mar our new partnership with cruel words. Thought it best, ‘owever, to assure meself I ‘ad nothin’ to fear from you two bendin’ your ‘eads together again as it were, for we all know ‘ow that turned out for me last time.”
“Truly, Jack,” Barbossa scoffed, having restrained his fury. “Ye think overmuch of yerself if ye truly believe your name has been somethin’ upon which we have been mullin’.”
“Asides,” Evie interjected sullenly, still not looking at Jack. “There was little enough I knew about it all. Just following Cap’n’s orders. As it were.”
Jack clucked his tongue and cocked his head sideways, smiling at her. “Now, really, Miss Evangeline. You know you owe me for that evenin’.”
Now Evie looked at him, turning her blue eyes cold and still upon his and he took a step back. “I think you’ve collected that debt since. “ she said quietly. “Twelve years worth of it.”
“Enough!” Barbossa spat. “Begone, Jack, or I’ll fell ye after all.”
Jack recovered himself and made a mocking little bow to the table. “We’d see who’d draw first, Barbossa, but there’s joys of greater interest to me this night. Evenin’ to you both then. Giselle?”
Jack ambled off into the tavern but Evie leapt up suddenly and grasped hold of her pal’s arm.
“Giselle! Got a moment?”
Giselle had watched the little scene in silence, eyes fixed upon her old friend. Now a little frown of concern creased her forehead. “Course, ducks. What is it?”
Evie excused herself from Barbossa, and dragged her friend to a corner whilst Jack placed his hands on his hips and watched then with a pert expression and Barbossa turned back to his meal.
Giselle’s eyes filled with tears when Evie told her of her plans but she blinked them away quickly and gripped her friend in a fierce hug.
“That’s wonderful that is!” she choked, and Evie felt herself begin to cry also. “Think of that, Evie of Tortuga goin’ to be a Madame in England! What a grand one you’ll make and a grand pleasure-‘ouse you’ll run too. “ She pulled back, and held Evie at arm’s length, smiling at her. “I can sees you now, surrounded in red velvet and gilt in a fancy purple corset and silk stockin’s, bullyin’ pricks out of their weeks’ wages for false virgins with drops in their eyes and pig gut up their quims!”
Evie laughed around her tears. “What will I do without you, though, darlin’? You’ve been the best friend I ever ‘ad, you know. “
“Nonsense!” Giselle’s lip quivered and she sniffled. “You’ll be ‘avin’ too marvellous a time to wonder about the likes of me!”
Evie shook her head, and wrapped her arms about Giselle’s waist. “I’ll think of you every day, and miss you in the mornin’s when me cunny’s sore and I’m too sober for any respec’able whore!”
Giselle laughed and embraced her once again. “I’ll miss you too, ducks. Oh, I will. Please, please, take care, eh? Take care of your precious self.”
“Listen,” Evie grabbed Giselle’s hands and looked her friend in the eye. “I knows you don’t like ‘im, darlin’, but I love ‘im. I do, I truly do. And ‘e treats me well, finer than any other. It’s what I want.”
Giselle smiled, and freed a hand to push Evie’s hair back over her ear. “I knows that. You know,” she sighed and rolled her eyes heavenwards. “Some gents betray their ‘earts in the things they say. “ She looked back at Evie and bit her lip. “Others are more like to do it in what they don’t say. “ She cupped her friend’s cheek and smiled, eyes filling once more. “’E will look after you. You’ll always be safe. And you’ll be ‘appy. “
Evie pressed her lips hard against Giselle’s and the two gripped each other tight as around them tankards clunked together and sailors and whores shouted and cheered.
They separated and Evie returned to Barbossa’s table and Giselle to Jack’s side and the two whores shared a final nod and smile before Giselle was led by Sparrow into the crowd, he glancing curiously at Evie for a moment, and Evie pressed a kiss against Barbossa’s neck.