Christmas Promise Read online

  There were more people in the dining room when Faulk came downstairs, which surprised him, until he remembered the Drake was one stop for the Royal Mail and the coastal carriage that supplied service to Torquay and other small towns.

  He didn’t deliberately sit closer to the two young ones this time, but there were no free tables farther away. If he overheard any drama from the boy or his sister, he could intervene on the side of the angels.

  Mrs. Fillion knew what he wanted, and her dining room girl delivered eggs, sausage, toast and black pudding to his table. He noted with some consternation that the boy glanced at his food, then looked down at his own empty place setting. Faulk also caught the fishy glare the boy’s sister fixed on him for coveting a lodger’s breakfast. She has good manners, Faulk thought, as he broke his fast and tried not to think about starvation at the next table. He’d gone without a meal or two more than once in his youth, and more in the past twenty-two years. He knew the boy wouldn’t perish before he reached his home, wherever that was.

  The food was excellent as usual. He tried to turn his full attention to the plate in front of him, but he couldn’t help overhearing the quietly voiced tempest at the adjoining table.

  “What on earth will Mama think when we’re not on the carrier this afternoon?”

  “I didn’t mean to lose it,” the boy protested wearily.

  That was all the captain needed. I can’t ignore them, he thought, putting down his knife and fork. He wasn’t sure who to address first. The young lady was obviously older, but a man was a man, after all, no matter how young. He chose to address the boy, simply because he had oceans more experience with his own gender.

  “Lad, pardon my impertinence and a pair of sharp ears. I can’t help but wonder—are things at low tide with you?”

  The look the boy gave him was one of infinite relief. Not so his sister, if that’s who she was.

  “We are quite well, Admiral,” the girl replied, which made him smile.

  “I’m but a post captain, and I think you’re hungry,” he replied. “What’s more, I think your pockets are to let. If that’s not a lee shore, then I don’t know what is. How can I help you?”

  He wasn’t sure what he expected, but the boy leaned across the table to his sister. “Diana, don’t be a nod. You know Mama says we can always trust men with gold on their shoulders.”

  “She is absolutely right,” he said, touched that not everyone in England considered the navy lacking in couth, culture and concern. “What happened, and how can I help you?”

  He didn’t think there was anything about his crinkled and wind-whipped face to inspire confidence, but a whore in Piraeus had once told him he had the kindest eyes. Or that’s what he thought she said. His Greek wasn’t as good as his Spanish.

  The story seemed to pour out of the little boy. Faulk stopped the flow long enough to speak for two more breakfasts. Neither wasted a moment in digging in, although he could see the young lady was suffering from acute embarrassment. He turned back to his own eggs to spare her any more humiliation. He could wait until they weren’t so hungry.

  The boy finished first. He turned a frank and honest face to Faulk. “Thank you, Captain. I was gut-foundered.”

  Faulk smiled, even as the boy’s sister—did he call her Diana?—pursed her lips at her brother’s cant. “I know what it feels like to be hungry and ill-used.” Did he ever. Spanish prisons would never Claridge’s make. “Tell me what is going on.”

  Diana Whoever-she-was took up the narrative. “My brother—” she gave him a look that would have blistered paint “—was supposed to escort me from Plymouth to Torquay. I’ve been at school in Bath, and came this far on the Royal Mail.”

  So far, so good. She was obviously gently reared, to understand the niceties of an escort, even from a young brother. Too bad their father did not accompany him, Faulk thought.

  “And you?” Faulk asked, turning to the brother, who was returning an equally blistering look to his sister. “Spill your budget. Nothing’s so bad that it can’t be confessed.”

  The captain knew he could have been gentler in comment, but the boy didn’t take his sharpness in bad odor. “After I spoke our room here, I lost the coach fare,” he said, not mincing his words or mumbling them. “Mama gave me the exact amount, but this is what happened.”

  He reached inside his short coat, pulled out a purse, and wiggled his forefinger through the hole at the bottom. “I don’t know where it happened. I’ve looked all over Plymouth.”

  “This isn’t the most honest town in England,” Faulk said. “I’ve lost money here, too.” No need to tell the lad he had lost it over whist and amour. “How much do you need for the fare?”

  They looked at each other this time, need warring against propriety. Need won, and Diana murmured a small sum, which Faulk promptly took from his own purse—one with no hole—and laid it on their table.

  “That was a simple matter,” he said, smiling to put them at ease.

  The girl blushed becomingly. “We are grateful to you and in your debt.”

  As far as Faulk was concerned, that was that. “No debt of mine,” he assured her cheerfully. “Call it a Christmas present from someone who doesn’t want children stranded in Plymouth.”

  “Captain, my mother would be in the boughs if she could not repay you. Could you write your direction for me?” Diana asked.

  He shrugged. “Just here at the Drake, care of Captain Faulk.”

  He wasn’t prepared for the look both children gave him, then each other, then him again.

  “Captain Faulk?” the boy asked.

  “The very one.” They were still looking at him, eyes wide. “Should I know you?”

  The young lady shook her head. “I’m not…I don’t know. Maybe there are several Captain Faulks in the navy.”

  “In addition to me, it happens there are an Alexander, an Edward, a Martin and someone rejoicing in the name of Octavian. Claims his father was a Latin scholar. We call him Caesar.”

  The boy smiled at that, but not his sister. What happened next touched him. Astounded, he watched as tears started in the young lady’s eyes. “Never tell me you are staying at an inn for Christmas,” she said, as though daring him to repeat what he had just said.

  “I am. I’m just off the Spartan and have nowhere else to go. Look here, now, it’s not a tragedy. Please don’t do that!”

  She was crying in earnest. Hastily, he reached for a handkerchief, hoping it wasn’t the one he had used to wipe his chin where he had cut himself shaving. “My God, don’t do this!” he exclaimed, keeping his voice low. It wouldn’t do for some sharp-eye to think he was abusing these children.

  She dried her eyes quickly, squinting at her brother, as if daring him to make any comment. “It is this way, Captain,” she said, striving for dignity beyond her years, but not entirely out of reach. “Everyone should be home for Christmas.”

  “I agree completely. I promise that next year I will have a place to go.”

  “Promise?” she asked.

  “Cross my heart, if that will help,” Faulk vowed, thinking that someday she would be an excellent mother of sons. Heaven knows he was cowed.

  He was only saved from babbling by the arrival of the coastal carrier. The boy got to his feet at once.

  “Come on, Diana. I’ll get you a seat inside, but I want to sit on top.”

  “He’ll catch his death, too, and Mama will be exercised,” Diana muttered. “One moment!” With real style, she curtsied to Faulk, and glared at her brother until he managed a sketchy bow.

  Faulk bowed in return. “Very well, then. I wish you Merry Christmas. By the way, I told you I am Captain Faulk, but you have never enlightened me.”

  “Oh!” she said, putting her hand to her mouth at her social misdemeanor, and becoming much younger in the process. “I am Diana Mears and this is my brother, Jem.”

  “Jim!” He couldn’t help himself. It came out too loud, almost as though he still stood on hi
s quarterdeck. The coach riders impatient at the back of the line looked around in surprise.

  The boy turned around to hear his name, a smile on his face, and Faulk knew precisely where he had seen him before. Thank God Ianthe had named her son James, and not William, after the boy’s pompous grandfather.

  “Jim Mears,” the captain said. “Miss Mears. Jim. I knew your father well.”

  Diana Mears smiled, and he suddenly knew that look, too. “You know more than we do, Captain,” she said. “Jem never knew him, of course, and I have but the barest memory.”

  “I know. I know. You were only five years old,” he replied, unable to keep the longing from his own voice.

  She didn’t know what to say and there wasn’t time to explain, not with the line moving now. He walked beside the Mears children, determined now to see them onto the conveyance, unwilling, almost, to let them out of his sight, now that he knew who they were. He saw their dunnage stowed, then handed Miss Mears into the vehicle, while Jem climbed on top.

  “Do this for me. Tell your mother hello from Captain Faulk, will you?”

  She nodded. “Thank you for your kindness to us, Captain.”

  He watched the coastal boneshaker until it was out of sight around the bend of the Barbican. She did have her mother’s look.

  He stood there a long while. The sleet forced him in finally, where he followed Mrs. Fillion to the storage room to fulfill the unpleasant task she had set for him. He went first to the row where Mrs. Fillion had stored his journals. He knew he was a no-hoper once he picked up a journal, but he hadn’t promised to inventory the whole storage room in one day.

  He turned first to October 21, 1805, as he had known he would, especially since all he could think of right now was Jim Mears. More properly, he turned to October 31. Ten days had passed before he’d had more than a moment to snatch some writing time after that titanic struggle. Trafalgar had been the fight of a lifetime, a battle to be refought for the rest of the new century. As the only surviving lieutenant on the Conqueror, Faulk remembered Trafalgar as a blur of noise and death.

  Jim Mears had died in his arms on the quarterdeck, pierced through by a splinter from the railing. From that moment to October 31, Faulk had scarcely slept as he did the work of three and tried not to think about his friend, dead and consigned to the deep.

  He was one of several lieutenants to profit from Trafalgar with a promotion to captain and his first command, a saucy sloop of war named Nancy. As an officer at Trafalgar, Faulk had received £269 from a grateful government, which he had promptly sent to Ianthe Mears. He had mailed Jim’s personal effects to her, including Jim’s final, half-written letter, and added another £100 from his own then-meager savings. He knew she was entitled to a minuscule pension, and was grateful she had parents who would help her. Besides that, she was beautiful. She would find another husband.

  He had worried no more about Ianthe Mears. The Nancy had been followed in sweet succession by a frigate, and then the beautiful Spartan. Napoleon ruled his life as surely as if the Corsican Tyrant had been a puppet master. For ten more years, he had sailed and fought and blockaded until it all ended in Plymouth where it began, twenty-two years earlier.

  He woke in the middle of the night, alert to the creaks and groans of the old hotel, and thinking of Ianthe Mears. Knowing he wouldn’t go back to sleep, he reached deep into his duffel bag and felt around until he found the packet of letters. He took them to the chair by the fire, and poked a little heat back into it.

  There weren’t as many as he would have liked, mainly because some were at the bottom of the ocean, and others had disappeared, the way paper does. Considering that he had written all those love letters at Jim Mears’s request, he wondered why he had kept them.

  His father had been Sir William Mears’s steward. There had been four hopeful Faulk offspring but never much money, because Sir William never overpaid anyone. The major irony of the whole thing was that of all the children, only Faulk remained alive, the one in England’s most dangerous profession.

  He had grown up with James Mears, a younger son. When Jim was fourteen, Sir William had called on a family connection to see his son onto the Agamemnon as a midshipman. As an afterthought, Sir William included the son of his steward in the bargain. So began Faulk’s naval career.

  Faulk read two of the letters, as he wondered just when it was they had both fallen in love with Ianthe Snow, a daughter of Sir William’s vicar and someone he saw frequently enough while Jim was away at school. I think I had the prior claim, Faulk told himself. A fat lot of good that ever did me. There had been a lull in 1802, when peace—if one could call it that—broke out briefly, and the midshipmen were put ashore. That was the precise moment when Ianthe Snow, younger than both Jim and himself, but so beautiful now, had charmed them both.

  Alone in his room, he didn’t even try to stop that marvelous stirring he felt whenever he considered his early love. I wonder if she still has hair the color of dull gold, he thought. I am certain her eyes are still as blue as Tor Bay.

  When the dread midshipman years ended, he and Jim had parted company to separate ships, not to reunite until the Beech, a cranky, leaky, stinky ship of the line where he was first mate, and Jim second. Jim was in love now, struck dumb with admiration for Ianthe Snow, after another visit home. Perhaps that excused his occasional lapses in quarterdeck judgment.

  If he lived to be seventy, Faulk knew he would never forget the night Jim shoehorned himself into his tiny cabin and asked for help. “Miah, you’re by far the better writer. Would you…Dare I ask…Would you write letters for me to Ianthe?”

  Lieutenant Jim Mears was shy beyond belief, and for no particular reason, considering that he had good breeding and handsome, dark Devonshire looks on his side. There was family money, too, or at least enough to render him respectable. Faulk had none of that. A widow he had courted briefly in Naples once commented on his excellent shoulders and build, and he had indeed posed naked for that duchess in Livorno who thought she was a sculptor, but only when the duke was elsewhere. Still, Jim Mears had the look, if not the body.

  Shy. There was Jim, face aflame, pleading with him and flattering, too, because Faulk knew he could write better than Sir William’s seagoing son. Besides, they were in the Orient, where life was humid and boring. He agreed to write Jim’s letters for him—marvelous bits of prose expressing his undying love for Ianthe Snow. It was the easiest thing he ever did, because he meant every word.

  Jim was none the wiser. When Faulk finished each masterpiece of adoration, Jim copied it in his own hand, and gave the original back to its frustrated owner. The result was an engagement through the post, and then a wedding in Torquay, when Faulk was number one on a bigger ship of the line and roasting near India now.

  He didn’t want to see Jim after that, mainly because they had been in each other’s confidences for years. Faulk was a strong man, but he also knew he could not bear any description of married felicity with Ianthe Mears, not when he wanted her so badly for himself. Better not to meet at sea the husband who was the unwitting author of his unhappiness.

  They were three years apart that time, until both were posted to the Conqueror, Jim as first this time (Sir William knew the captain), and Faulk as second. Faulk’s duties on the upper gun deck at Trafalgar kept him fully occupied until he had seen Jim falter on the bridge. It was a simple error; maybe Jim was rattled. This was Trafalgar, after all. Leaving his excellent gun crew for a moment, Faulk had raced up a deck and countermanded Jim’s order, only because Captain Israel Pellew was engaged elsewhere.

  Faulk put down the letters, trapped by an unwilling memory this time. Recalled to his senses, Jim had thanked him, turned away to another duty, and been skewered by that exploding splinter. His last words were, “Watch over Ianthe. She’s increasing again.”

  And now, at the Drake Inn, Faulk had met the product of that coupling, a ten-year-old boy with Jim’s look, but something of Ianthe in him, too. Life is strange, he
thought. The nondescript son of a steward rose in rank and ships, and Jim ended up shrouded in his sleeping cot in cold waters off the Spanish coast. Faulk spent the rest of the night dozing in the armchair by the fireplace, his letters clutched unread in his hand.

  Chapter Two

  “My stars, Diana, Captain Faulk? You’re certain it was Faulk?”

  “Mama, I told you. That is what he said.”

  Jem made a face at his sister. “I told you he was our Captain Faulk, Diana. It was nice to finally see what he looked like, Mama.”

  Ianthe Mears had more questions, but knew when it was time to stop quizzing her offspring. No fifteen-year-old alive had much patience with a mother who seemed suddenly not to be her usual calm and biddable self. Still, she wanted more.

  “Diana, or you, Jem. What did he look like? I haven’t seen him in more than twenty years, and he was an old friend…of your father.”

  Hmm. Ianthe was not certain she trusted that look Diana was giving her. What were they teaching young ladies at female academies in Bath nowadays? “I am just curious,” she finished, knowing how lame it sounded. She couldn’t help it that the words were spilling out of her like a giddy chit. Steady, Ianthe, she told herself. What will Diana think? More to the point, what are you thinking?

  Jem, bless his heart, hadn’t yet reached the age of suspicion. “Mama, he looked hard.”

  Then Diana leaped into the discussion, reminding Ianthe that fifteen-year-olds sometimes forget they are fifteen. “Jem, you nod, people don’t look hard! Mama, he had gray hair and it was clipped really short. And my goodness, he was old.”

  Jem nodded in agreement. “Really old, Mama.”

  Ianthe put down the sock she was mending. “I’ll have you both know Captain Faulk is only three years older than I am. Don’t look at me like that! I am only thirty-five! The sea tends to age men, my dears,” she told them. That’s a crock, she thought. Jeremiah Faulk was blessed with the broadest shoulders. That could hardly have changed.