Joseph’s pencil stopped its course across the paper and he looked up, frowning. “But you guard it, do you not?”
Del Rio raised one shoulder. “I am not so good a man. But like my father, I will never fire on a ship that carries slaves. And like him, I know I will face my judgement. God may forgive some of us for all that we have done, but there are others who, I think, will not be easily forgiven.” Then, as if he felt the tone had grown too solemn, he raised his glass and told them, “This is why I drink my brandy now, you understand, while it is possible.”
He did a good job drinking. There was very little brandy left for Benjamin when he returned towards the ending of the afternoon. He poured the last of it into a cup and lifting it, asked Lydia, the only other person then remaining in the room, “No lectures, Mother?”
“Don’t say that.” Her tone was sharper than the sewing needle that slipped painfully into her thumb as she misjudged a stitch in the worn waistcoat she was mending. “I’m not her.”
“I know. I’m sorry. It’s the chair,” he said, and offered no more explanation knowing none was needed, for they both knew well enough who should be sitting there. “Where’s Father?”
“Carting apples from the orchard. He could use your help.”
“I’ll help unload them.” Drinking deeply he said in an offhand way, “I’ve been aboard the Spanish ship.”
She knew it was a confidence, not something he would lightly share with anyone. Behind the closed door to the kitchen came the clanking sounds of Violet scouring the milking pans, and from the smaller chamber on the far side of the wall Mr. de Brassart’s snores were keeping rhythm, but this was a rare and private moment with her brother, so she set her mending down upon her lap and gave him her attention.
He said, “She’s beautiful.” His eyes were shining with the light they only held when he was speaking of a ship. “Not like the Bellewether. Not like she was, at least. But beautiful. Ramírez took me over her from stem to stern. You know that, in his youth, he was a shipbuilder? That’s how he came to know the captain’s father. He was telling me of some of their adventures.”
“And so now you wish to run away to Spain and be a pirate hunter?”
He acknowledged her light tone by smiling slightly. It had been a warm day for October so there had been no need to light fires in any hearth besides the great one in the kitchen, but the daylight had begun to soften and a chill would settle soon in all the shadowed corners of the room from which sunlight had withdrawn, so Benjamin in silence bent to stack the wood in readiness upon the iron dogs within the fireplace.
When he paused this long, she knew that he was gathering his words; that what he said next would be serious.
He said, “Do you remember when I made a tunnel in the snow and Joseph stood on top to test its strength, and it collapsed on me?”
They’d all been very young, but she remembered.
“It’s like that,” he told her. “Every day. It’s like I’m being smothered. Like I’ll die if I don’t find a way—some way, it scarcely matters how—to just get out.” He turned his head, eyes seeking hers, imploring her to understand. “I wasn’t meant to be a farmer, Lyddie. I was meant to have a different life.”
She understood, she truly did, but, “So was Joseph,” was her soft reminder. “So was I.”
“I know, but—”
“We can’t always choose our lives.”
“And if life hands us choices? What are we to do then?” He had set the fire ready and it wanted but a spark to start it burning. As he straightened, he seemed taller and his tone was filled with new resolve. He said, “I need to ask a favour.”
? ? ?
Her father watched the Spanish sails that having filled this morning with the first fair wind were passing now like some pale ghost glimpsed through the screen of autumn trees. She knew he would keep pace with them along this path as long as he was able, and would climb the hill to stand above the meadow from where he could watch those sails until they were a speck of white upon the wide blue of the Sound, bound for a wider, bluer sea.
So she kept pace with him in her turn, knowing he’d find comfort in her being there.
She had not thought he would say yes when she had faced him privately to plead her brother’s case last night, for all she’d argued reason.
“How often in his letters,” she had asked, “has Daniel said he misses us and wishes it were possible for us to pay a visit? He’ll be happy to see Benjamin, and Benjamin will benefit from both the voyage and the time away. And it is only for the winter.”
It had helped that, near to suppertime, Mr. Ramírez had expressed his formal wish to stay behind and help with the rebuilding of the Bellewether—a wish that she suspected had as much to do with Violet as with anything, because although he had remained the model of a gentleman he could not take his eyes from her.
Captain del Rio had approved the plan. “I can return in April, or in May, before the flota sails again to Spain.”
“And,” she had told her father afterwards, “he’s promised to bring Benjamin back home with him, if Daniel has not already arranged another passage. Though in honesty he’ll be much safer on a Spanish ship than he would be on one of ours. The French don’t fire upon the Spanish.”
“We do, if you can believe Captain del Rio. And pray tell me, if the captain is avoiding British ports, how is it he intends to carry my son into Kingston harbour?”
She had not worked that through herself, so she could only tell him, “He knows Daniel. They do business with each other. They must have their ways.”
Her father had said nothing, only grunted. He’d been standing with his back to her.
“Did you not say,” she’d prodded him, but gently, “that you must allow a man to be a man?”
“I did. But Benjamin—”
“He is a man. If you deny him this, you may yet keep him here another year, but in the end,” she told him, “in the end he will leave anyway, and carry his affections with him when he does. Is that what you would wish? Is that”—she’d drawn a breath, and played a card she did not like to play, though it held truth—“is that what Mother would have wanted?”
When her father had not answered she had gone to him and placed her hand upon his shoulder, knowing that he’d needed it. “The captain is an honest man. He will look after Benjamin and keep him safe.”
This morning in the cove, the captain had made her that very promise. “I will see he does not come to harm,” he’d told her privately. “With my own hands I will pass him very safely to your brother at the Mount.”
Which must, she’d thought, be what the Spaniards called the town in their own language. She had said, “We call it Kingston.”
For the barest blinking of an eye, Captain del Rio had appeared confused by that; but then he’d smiled and said, “Yes, Kingston. In Jamaica. Yes, of course.” And then he’d bent with gallantry to kiss her hand, and gone to join her brother to be rowed across to El Montero.
It had all been worth it, she decided, to see Benjamin content and happy, full of life. He’d hugged her hard.
“I’m in your debt,” he’d told her.
“Yes, you are. And don’t forget it.” She had kissed him back. “Now go. And try to be a little careful.”
He had grinned and winked and said, “I’m always careful.” Yet of course, when El Montero set its sails and turned them to the wind, he had been standing square upon the deck, already looking out towards the limitless horizon.
And for a long time, on the hill above the meadow, she stood now beside her father while he did the same, until the tiny sails of El Montero could no longer be distinguished from the line of low clouds closing in a haze above the distant water.
The wind blew cold. Her father turned.
He was not one for sentiment. He only said, “It’s past time I got started on the cider.”
And their footsteps sounded hollow on the hard earth of the hill as they began the walk back down.