Time & Tide - Original Wattpad Version

Chapter Seven: In Which Jessie Attends A Funeral

It was flippin' freezing.

I had insisted that if the Captain was going to spend money on me, then it would be on a dress that was, at least, made of some fabric heavier than muslin. And despite what the proprietress of the clothing boutique said was in fashion when I repeated my request to her. I wasn't going too be a popsicle because it looked nice.

I'd won on that front, anyway, though I thought my thighs were going to become ice straight through any second now. I had on thick stockings that were gartered to stay up, and boots, so my lower legs and feet were better off, though not by much; my chest and arms, too, were encased in a cranberry coloured thick wool jacket, but it ended at just under my boobs, leaving my poor bottom with only the thin cotton shift and the black wool skirt to try to fend off the deep English winter. God, why were these people so opposed to underwear? My gloves, thin and pretty, were practically useless and I had my hands shoved as far as they would go into a rabbit-fur muff dyed cranberry to match my ridiculous little coat and bonnet.

I wished desperately for the brown jacket I had borrowed off of Master Fletcher, left back on the ship with the rest of my meager possessions. I wished that I'd had the foresight to wear my jeans under the dress. I wished most of all that the crowd wasn't so huge and that we could have hired a hansom cab. As loathe as I was to spend more of the good Captain's money, the idea of a cab sounded pretty much perfect right now. But the multitudes of people we waded through were just too prohibitive to allow for any sort of carriage or vehicle through.

And still I couldn't help but look up - searching for telephone cables and airplanes that I had yet once to see. Or look down, searching for street car tracks or a forgotten tire-tread, or an anachronistic something, anything, that might have dropped out of anyone's pocket.

The Captain and I – was I allowed to call him Francis yet? We'd known each other for a month, he'd tended to my injuries, I'd kissed his cheek, surely I could call him Francis and he could call me Jessie? I thought about asking, then changed my mind. I sort of liked this bizarre formality, the intimacy of distance and courtship.

At any rate, the Captain and I were headed towards Greenwich Hospital along with the rest of the hoard. Lord Horatio Nelson lay there in state and the Captain, among his fellow sailors and the crew of the Lyre, were joining the flock of citizens come from all over the country to pay their respects to the fallen hero. I thought it was a bit morbid, to come all this way just to stare at a half-shriveled corpse, but I didn't have the sort of connection with the man, nor the war he had just won for them, as they did.

The British have always admired their heroes savagely, and seemed to prefer them dead best of all. I'd heard that in a song once, two hundred years from now.

So there I was, alongside them On the morning of the 5th of January, I was cold, I was waiting in line to see a cadaver that had been pickled in brandy, and I was going to see Lord Nelson. In 18-oh-freaking-6.

That something, the same something that made me stand on the nose of the Lyre all day, that same something that had me looking up and down and all around, constantly, hopefully, twisted again. This time the knot behind my heart was so tight that I thought a heard a small cracking sound. I didn't know how many more twists I could possible endure.

It was still early when we arrived. The quick breakfast we'd taken in a tavern by the docks was barely settled in my stomach. But the doors of the hospital were still closed. Police men in ridiculously tall hats and royal guards in red tunics, were glancing at each other and then the growing crowds nervously. All it would take to turn eager mourners into a rioting crowd was one or two impatient idiots, or a handful of troublemakers.

Luckily, a grim sort of air of solemnity hung over those assembled, hovering ominously over the sea of black wool and black toole and downcast mouths. Nobody seemed to have the energy or the jumping fury required for a good and proper riot. Thank god.