"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self." Ernest Hemingway
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XV.
Captain Buckley kept to his word and was considerably nicer to Eliza over the next fortnight.
If nice could be classified as receiving a "good morning" at breakfast and a "good night" when it was time to retire. But, considering she had not even received those words from him prior to their conversation, it was an improvement.
Captain Buckley did interject occasionally when Eliza was doing the wrong thing unintentionally. His new favourite word for her was inept before he showed her how to properly do something.
Eliza had graduated from just mopping to other jobs. She had learned, relearned, and learned again how to look after and maintain the ship's rigging. She was learning how to control, put up, and take down sails, and how to know just when to do so.
A sailor, she learned, could tell exactly how fast the wind was blowing by wetting and holding up a finger to the air.
Eliza had now spent four weeks at sea, and by the look of her appearance in the tiny mirror in Captain Buckley's privy, she looked it. Her sunburn had browned, and new freckles were quickly dotting themselves across her cheeks. Her slim, slight frame was stronger, and she could lift things now that she would not have been able to push a month ago. Her hair, which was blonder after being in the sun, she had quite given up on. No matter how she tried to tame it with her comb, it still fell in a mess of curls.
Eliza's experience thus far had certainly not been what she was expecting. What she had initially thought it would be seemed awfully silly now. But what it had become was a lesson on her own strength, tenacity and maturity.
How she could ever return to her life in England she did not know, and yet she knew that it would be coming soon. The crew were well aware that they would be making port soon. They were not yet in Jamaica, but this first port would be where Captain Buckley would find her passage home to England.
When she had been throwing up her guts a month ago from seasickness, she might have welcomed the idea. But now? The thought of leaving ...
"Might I have another bowl, Cookie?" Eliza asked as she was being served her supper of stew. One could not identify a single ingredient in the stew, but after a hard day's work, one did not care.
"You know the rules, Eliza Lee," replied Cookie, clicking his tongue. "One serving is all. We'll be making port soon anyhow. You can fill up there."
"For the captain," Eliza explained.
"Captain eats last."
"I know," replied Eliza. "I am only trying to be kind. To thank him for his hospitality. It seems I will be leaving you all soon." Eliza noticed Eggs' face fall as she finished her sentence.
She would most definitely miss young Eggs. Their hour of reading together was one of her favourite things to do on the ship. He had come so far so quickly. Eliza was quite confident that if he kept practicing, there would be work for him in the city.
Cookie ladled stew into another bowl, and Eggs added a spoon. Eliza carefully balanced both bowls as she walked up the stairs. She had been about to tap on the door of the captain's cabin with her foot before she realised that Captain Buckley was standing at the wheel, looking through a strange sort of telescope.
Eliza had seen the captain looking through that particular instrument before, but she really had no idea what its purpose was. It could not be to look at far off distances as he had an actual telescope for that.
"Captain," Eliza called, announcing her presence.
Captain Buckley looked up from the lens and frowned when he saw her, before his gaze softened when he realised what she was doing. "I was just about to fetch some supper. You needn't have worried."
Eliza pursed her lips. "You are welcome then," she muttered.
Captain Buckley stopped himself, exhaling, before adding, "Thank you."
"What is that thing you are looking through?" Eliza asked curiously.
Captain Buckley looked down at the instrument in his hands. "This? It is a sextant."
"What does it do?"
Captain Buckley took one of the bowls of stew from Eliza. She then dropped to the deck, crossing her legs, and the captain tentatively followed suit, sitting opposite her. "How do you think I track our position?" he asked her. "I use a sextant to help me navigate by the stars."
Eliza could not help but hold her mouth agape. She had never heard anyone explain something that sounded so difficult as though it was as easy as counting to three. Eliza then looked up and took in the vastness that was the heavens. "How could you possibly know how to do that?" she gasped.
"You learn," replied Captain Buckley simply. "I learned when I was nought but ten or eleven years old," he continued. He placed his bowl of stew on the deck beside him and held up the sextant to Eliza. "A sextant simply measures the angle between two objects." He moved the arm of the sextant along a hemispherical shaped piece of the device. "But looking through the telescope and adjusting the mirrors," he instructed, pointing to the mirrors, "I can discern the angle between the horizon and objects in the sky, which can thus tell me our exact location."
Eliza truly had no idea how a person could do that. "How do you know what objects are in the sky?"
"I have spent most of my life on a ship, Eliza," he murmured. "One acquaints themselves with the heavens quite frequently. At any given instant of time, celestial objects, like the moon," he said, pointing up at the bright, full moon, "will be located over a particular part of the earth. I know this because I have spent nearly two decades looking up and understanding where these objects will be. By measuring the angle of that object in relation to the earth, I can discern our exact geographic location."
In her books, all the pirates used were compasses to tell them which way to go. Eliza had no idea sailors had to be so terribly clever. She had no idea that sailors could read the sky, read the stars like a book. The moon, which she had never known to be anything but a light in the sky, could really help a sailor know exactly where he was in the vastness of the ocean.
"Because of this tool, I know that we will reach our first port tomorrow afternoon, and when you wake up in the morning, you will sight the British Virgin Islands in the distance."
Eliza snapped out of her awe and was quickly brought back to earth and reminded of what she had intended to speak with the captain about. "The British Virgin Islands," she repeated. "A British port ... with British ships."
The captain nodded stoically, his expression unreadable. He said nothing about finding her passage.
"Would I be able to write a letter, do you think? Would there be a ship to take it back for me ... if I am not able to find a passenger ship."
He frowned, showing confusion, before it quickly vanished. "A letter?" he repeated. "To whom?"
"My family, of course," Eliza clarified. "My parents, my sister ..." Oh, Eliza knew Katy would be so angry with her. She could not even begin to fathom her mother's ire.
"But you abandoned them," the captain said bluntly.
Eliza was taken aback, her eyes widening. "Abandoned? I did no such thing."
Captain Buckley's eyes narrowed. "You did not leave your kin, who loved you, to serve your own desires?" he asked rhetorically. His tone was taunting, disapproving, and Eliza quickly wished he would go back to being difficult to read.
"No," she snapped. "I did not abandon them. Abandonment means that you have no intention of returning." Eliza did not like that word at all. "I would never abandon anyone."
Eliza had suddenly lost her appetite. She left her bowl of stew with Captain Buckley and chose to retire for the evening.
***
Tom knew that he had hit a nerve with Eliza. So much so that she did not speak to him the following morning. He had grown used to their daily greeting, and the warm smile that followed it, and found that he did not like it when it was denied him.
Tom did not think he had asked any unreasonable questions the night before. He had only pointed out the obvious. Whether Eliza liked it or not, what she had done was abandon her family for her own ambitions.
No matter how many times he had seen the Caribbean, the colour of the water, and the contrast to the mountainous islands still astounded him. There was true beauty on earth in places such as these.
Tom spied Eliza's amazement as well as she took in the sight of the British Virgin Islands as they approached.
Their first port was Road Town, where Tom's crew would rest and resupply, and it would be his job to secure passage for Eliza home on a British ship. That task had been on his mind more and more each day as they approached their first port.
It was difficult to believe that he had been so desperate to palm the stowaway off a month ago. And now ... well, Eliza had grown considerably less irritating. Of course, she was still terribly inept at most things, but Tom did not mind her presence on board.
It felt normal for him now, to look out onto the deck and immediately find Eliza. He had grown used to her smiles, her singing, her enthusiasm and curiosity. Whatever his reservations about her motives in coming aboard, the thought of her not being on board made him feel ...
Well, it made him feel, and that was uneasiness in itself.
***
His calculations had been precise, and his estimation was correct. The Atlantis docked in Road Town, British Virgin Islands, at just after two o'clock in the afternoon.
His crew did not wait to take in the beauty of their surroundings. They had food to eat, alcohol to drink, and woman to bed, and not perhaps in that particular order.
Tom watched as Eliza went off with the rest of the crew, and he felt an intense sense of unease at the thought of her being from his sight. Bad things tended to happen when Eliza was from his sight, and it made him anxious. Yet another feeling that he did not like.
Tom quickly grew sick of this, and he knew that he needed to push whatever was happening to the side and focus on the task at hand. He needed to get Eliza onto the next available ship back to England.
Tom paid the harbourmaster before making his own way into town, deciding that the closest tavern would be the best place to track down a captain for one of the many ships that were currently docked and flying a British flag.
He had immediately located his crew, who were all happily drowning themselves in whiskey and rum, while being kindly attended to by the tavern girls who were all draping themselves over the rapidly drunken sailors. That had not taken them long at all.
His eyes seemed to find Eliza on their own, and he was pleasantly surprised to see her sitting away from the crew, on a small table by herself. She was writing a letter with a small, content smile on her face.
Tom could not understand abandonment. He could not understand willingly leaving someone. Not if you loved them. How could one's heart stand it? How could one's conscience bear it?
It was actions like these that made Tom doubt Eliza's trustworthiness. She had quickly become a favourite with his crew. She was volunteering her time every day to help Eggs with his reading. She completed her chores to an excellent standard without complaint.
And yet, Eliza was writing to her family as though she was on a jolly holiday, as he had mockingly thought in the past. Did she not care that she had left them? Did she not care that she had most definitely hurt them?
For some reason, unbeknownst to him, Tom felt as though he wanted to trust Eliza. Perhaps, he theorised, it was because he did think of her as a crewmember, and he needed to be able to trust his crew.
Tom did not stop to ask if there was another captain in the tavern. Instead, he sat down at Eliza's table. She immediately stopped writing and looked up at him. She raised her eyebrows in question, though he could still see that she was still upset with him.
He did not like the tightness in her eyes. Her green eyes were usually bright and cheerful, as though she was happy to see him.
"Who are you writing to?" he asked. Glancing down, he could see that her letter was addressed to someone called Katy.
"My sister," Eliza replied quietly. "Her name is Katy."
"And Katy does not mind that you ..." he needed to think of another word for abandoned, "deserted her?" Perhaps that was not much better.
Eliza pressed her lips together, most likely to stop herself from saying something she would have liked to. "Katy understands," she snapped, "a lot more than you."
Tom knew that he was not going to get any definitive answers from Eliza if he continued to unintentionally insult her. Taking he deep breath, he said, "I am sorry. Would you tell me about them? Your family?"
Eliza's shoulders relaxed, and her lips parted as soon as he had apologised. Thankfully, he saw her eyes soften as well, and a sense of satisfaction filled him when a flicker of her familiar cheerfulness returned to them.
"My sister, Katy," she began, "is my very favourite person in the world. We were not always sisters. She was brought into our family as my companion when we were both nine, but I considered her my sister from that moment. My parents have long considered her their daughter now, too. Katy is sensible where I am not. She is calm where I am wild. She is settled ... and I was, am, desperate for more than what I was destined for."
Tom found himself quickly entranced as he listened to Eliza speak of her family. She spoke of her sister proudly, and the love that she felt for this person, this Katy, was so evident, that it brought him a sense of ease.
"Katy has achieved all that my mother could ever want for me. She is married, very well, I might add. Her husband, Harry, adores her, wisely so. Harry is the Earl of Wilshire, and so my sister is Lady Wilshire. They have two daughters, my darling nieces, Rachel and Lizzie." Eliza grinned, before adding, "Lizzie is named after me."
Tom was perhaps as far removed from society marriages as one could possibly be. Though, of course, even he knew that rich people married even richer people.
Eliza's sister had married a rich, titled man. The expectation could only be the same for Eliza.
"Please do not misunderstand me, I love my parents. I respect them and admire them, and I promise, I do my best to abide by them." Looking around the tavern, she added, "Obviously not of late, but usually!" Eliza sighed. "They want a life for me that I am supposed to have. I needed to get out. I needed to see and do something by myself before I resigned myself to what I am meant to do. My mother was trying to get me to marry our village parson, but I could not do it. I could not just hand over my life, my will ... I have a right to a say, do I not?"
Eliza absently chewed on her bottom lip, before meeting his eyes. "I was suffocating and no one could see it."
She spoke so plainly, so clearly, and in a way that made Tom immediately understandsomething that he had never thought he could condone. Eliza meant no harm. It seemed there was a difference between accidental injury, and intentional abandonment.
Eliza clearly did love her family. She loved her parents, and she loved her sister, and despite everything that had made her unhappy, she was still going to return to them.
She was going to do what they wanted ... and it seemed there was a parson back in Plymouth that was meant for her.
"I cannot get you passage," Tom suddenly said, the words escaping from his mouth before he had even thought rationally.
"What?"
Why on earth had he just said that? Tom had not even looked for a captain, but he instead carried on with the lie. "Bad luck, I am afraid," he continued. "You are stuck with m ... us," he murmured incoherently. "You will travel to Jamaica aboard the Atlantis and then return with us to England. We ought to be in Plymouth in a few months."
Tom stood up abruptly and left Eliza's table. Where on earth had that come from? He never lied ... at least, not so blatantly. Tom walked up to the bar and sat down on one of the stools, and quietly asked for some water. The barman looked at him as though he was ill, but Tom would never touch alcohol.
Roger Hughes, the man his mother had left him for, always smelled of whiskey. Tom could not bring himself to ever indulge in such a vice.
But he looked back at Eliza. She was smiling again and had continued to write to her sister. Eliza was nothing like his mother, he was quickly realising, and Tom knew that he had severely misjudged her.
What must it have been like to feel as though one was suffocating?
He watched as one of Eliza's messy curls fell across her face, before it dipped in her ink. Eliza exclaimed in frustration as she immediately tried to wipe the ink out of her hair by using the sleeve of hisshirt. Tom could immediately see the guilt on Eliza's face when she realised that very fact.
And, for the first time in nearly twenty years, Tom found himself chuckling.
---
Hope you enjoyed it!
I told you guys I would upload on Monday so I have forced myself to stay awake and finish this for you!! We were at my aunty's house tonight just having family time and I tried to leave at 9pm so I could come home and write for you, but we didn't leave until 11:30 gah! It's now 3am, so I neeeeedd to sleep!
I went and saw the new Star Wars twice over the weekend. I loved some parts, and could have left a few others! But I came out of the cinema not feeling how I thought I should.
Return of the Jedi is my favourite, and when that ends, I just feel happy and satisfied, and I was missing that :( Star Wars is still the best, though. I should really watch them all again.
Okay, just want to clarify something else! For those of you who haven't seen my messages on my wall over the weekend, Wattpad have approached me to take part in their paid story program.
I am approached very regularly by platforms like Inkitt and Dreame to publish my work with them. I swear I get about three messages a week from Dreame. I always reject them because I like to keep my work on Wattpad accessible for you guys.
However, I have decided to accept this offer. I did ask for your thoughts over the weekend and you guys were all sooooo supportive and I cannot thank you enough!
A couple of things:
- This is only an opportunity for ONE of my books. The other 20 will remain as normal.
- You DO NOT have to purchase at all. You are under no obligation to participate, and I would never ask nor expect anyone to.
- I can't tell you which book just yet because they've asked me not to.
- I will not be stopping posting new books for free! I don't actually have a plan for my next book after this, but I have loads of story ideas on my laptop so we will see what interests me. (Yes, I will get back to Have Patience as soon as the inspo returns!)
- This is my 543rd chapter I am posting on Wattpad for free (not including deleted books). I hope nobody thinks less of me for wanting to see what I can potentially achieve on this platform after 8 years of sharing my work for free. It is a lot of work, that takes on average 4 hours per chapter.
Thank you all for 8 years of love and support xxxx
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