The Storm-Grey Sea

Chapter Three - A Farewell to Taunton

I should be very much grateful if you would travel to Jamaica and do your utmost to save the dear Governor's life. There is a ship sailing to the West Indies in one week's time, the HMS Dauntless under Captain Robert Spenser, and I have managed to secure you a passage on board. You would be conveyed to Kingston, where you would minister to the Governor and then, when he is returned to health, would be given leave to return to England.

Furthermore, all your travel expenses will be paid and you will receive a sum of £1,000 upon your return.

I urge you to accept, and will expect your reply immediately.

The Right Honourable Lord Henry Wentworth, 6th Baron Hastings 

Stephen gave a muted grunt of unhappiness. He could hardly refuse Lord Wentworth's offer, as he had blatantly stated that it was an order. And Stephen had so enjoyed being in the country...the thought of Jamaica, with its oppressive heat, after a several-weeks' sea voyage, was unpleasant.

Stephen's only consolation was the fact that the ship was, quite by coincidence, the Dauntless, and so he could expect Isaac's company. But after he had been dropped rather unceremoniously in Jamaica, he could no longer expect to see Isaac.

Giving a sigh, Stephen asked Mrs. Lansdale for a quill and some paper, and penned as polite a reply as he could, keeping his reply curt and to the point, and sending it back with the servant.

Feeling gloomy, Stephen got on his coat and, book in one hand and walking stick in the other, set off walking to Taunton. He would visit Isaac some other day - besides, perhaps Isaac was already in Plymouth, with his ship departing in only a week.

So it was with a heavy heart that he began to trudge down the gravel road. Though it was something of a long walk, he did not keep a horse and so was forced to go on foot.

If he was to go to Jamaica, he assumed he would require a new sunhat, for Mrs. Lansdale had disposed of his old one. He had been very fond of it, but she said it had holes, and so had thrown it away.

Besides, Stephen wanted to enjoy as much of the countryside as he could before being packed away on board some foul-smelling ship with only Isaac and a crew full of rank sailors for company.

However, Stephen was not to avoid Isaac for long, for soon there came the beat of hooves down the road and there was Isaac, astride a bay horse, trotting toward him.

"Stephen, my man!" cried Isaac, leaping off the horse with more agility than he frame might have suggested. "I was just coming to see you! Dashed unfortunate news, I'm afraid, I've-"

"Got to put out to sea again?" guess Stephen, smiling mildly.

He relished the look of shock on Isaac's face. "Yes! How did you know?"

"Because I'm to be your shipmate, apparently. I have been called to Jamaica, Kingston apparently, and the Dauntless will take me there," said Stephen.

Isaac grinned very broadly. "How serendipitous!" he exclaimed. "I'm very glad, Stephen, very glad."

"I shall be very much obliged to you for your company, for I will know no one else aboard, and that is not a state in which I particularly like to find myself," added Stephen.

The grin seemed permanently fixed onto Isaac's face as he nodded vigourously. "It would be my pleasure. Come, where are you going?"

"To town."

"We can walk together, then," said Isaac, and he fell in next to Stephen, leading the horse. It had begun to munch rather absently on a bit of clover it had found by the side of the road, and seemed loath to move. However, Isaac finally got it moving and soon they were walking at a comfortable pace toward Taunton.

"Have you been on a ship before, Stephen?" asked Isaac.

"In my youth, I was a passenger on a few ferries, but I have never been to sea. The extent of my experience has been limited to four or five short trips across the Irish sea, from my father's ancestral home in Londonderry to our regular one in Bath," said Stephen.

Isaac nodded. "Did you spend much of your youth there? In Ireland, I mean?"

Stephen shook his head. "Very little. The climate disagreed with my mother, as did the politics."

"Are both so disagreeable?" asked Isaac, and from what little Stephen knew of Isaac, he suspected the man was now out of his depth - as a sailor, he could be deemed a reliable judge of weather, but hardly so much of politics.

"Both are agreeable to a certain kind of person - if one is a Catholic with a taste for independence and a like of rain, Ireland, particularly the south, is very agreeable," replied Stephen. "Equally, if one has a taste for Protestantism and Unionism, Ireland, specifically the north, is agreeable. There is much conflict, especially in the north, between the two."

"Do you have a taste for either?" enquired Isaac, and his voice was cautious. Stephen sensed that he was probing as gently as he could into Stephen's personal affairs.

"For the weather, yes, as I quite like the rain. But for religion and independence, or unionism, I cannot say. My religious loyalties are divided - my father was a Catholic, my mother a Protestant - and as for my political leanings, I am sympathetic to the Irish cause but do not have a taste for fighting," said Stephen.

Isaac looked somewhat confused but nodded vaguely. "I see," he said softly, his tone weak out of bemusement, Stephen supposed, and not out of distaste.

Stephen sighed. "But let's not talk of politics. I know so little about ships, so you must tell me more so I will not be the laughingstock of the Dauntless." 

It seemed to Stephen as though he had found something about which Isaac was as passionate as Stephen was about medicine, for Stephen was treated to a long-winded dissertation on every naval affair Isaac could think of.

He took very little of it in, understanding only the valuable things - a ship was a "she", everyone answered to the captain, the boards were called the deck, not the floor, one did not go up onto the quarterdeck except if one was an officer or if one had been invited by the captain - and forgetting all the rest.

Mainly, Stephen listened with pleasure to the enthusiasm in Isaac's voice, not to be able to tell the difference between a foremast and a bowsprit, or the fo'c'sle and the brig, or the flying jib and the mainsail. 

When they reached Taunton, Stephen, wanting to change the subject so that he might converse about something else, anything else, even a tiresome discussion of women, said:

"How does your lady, that Miss Marlowe?"

It immediately distracted Isaac, who had paused for breath in the middle of explaining the purpose of the capstan, and he laughed a little nervously.

"She's not my lady, Stephen. It may appear so, and I am very fond of her, but she has no designs of marriage with anyone, even me," he said. "And as for her father...well, if you met the Vice-Admiral, you would be far more wary of Miss Marlowe."

Stephen noted how he blushed just a touch, but did not pursue things further, not wanting to discuss Miss Marlowe in any sort of detail. Isaac seemed to have other ideas, however, for he gave a sigh and a smiled very wistfully.

"I shall be sad to leave her, though. She is such wonderful company, and I shall miss her," he said. He sighed, and then, his eyes lighting up, crowed: "Goodbye, Rosalind! Goodbye, Taunton!"

Several people turned and stared, but Stephen smiled indulgently. "Now, Isaac, she shan't hear you. Don't make a spectacle of yourself."

Isaac, taking his words to be a teasing insult, returned, with equal humour:

"Says the man who paraded about a whole evening in punch-stained breeches."

Stephen, rolling his eyes, continued to walk with Isaac, sunhat in mind and Isaac back on the subject of the anatomy of a ship once more.