A Jack Aubrey story
By Atonia Walpole
(Picture creations also by Atonia)
Part 1 - The Scent of Nutmeg
The ship, Judith and Hilaria’s passenger list June of 1795 lists Catherine Lewis, young lady, age 15, returning to Grenada post education in England. Traveling with her was a lady, Mrs. Ellison.
She was ever so glad to see Grenada again after the cold, wet winter in Portsmouth. She fairly danced at the rail when the familiar scent of the island filled her nostrils. “Aunt Elly, have you ever in your life smelled anything so wonderful!”
“Come away, girl. You’ve things to get ready.”
Still she lingered at the rail, the warm breeze blowing wisps of hair around her face. She’d put her hair up now. Five years in England and she’d become a young lady, but proper deportment did not come easy to her. She’d grown up wild on the plantation, the apple of her father’s eye, and that wild girl was barely concealed beneath lace around her wrists. Her mother and younger brother had died within weeks of each other after she’d left for England. Her widowed Aunt Elly, whom she’d been staying with, traveled home with her.
Tucking the dark brown strands around her ears, she narrowed her dark eyes and smiled before going below to their cabin and gathering her belongings.
She was off the ship and running down the dock to where her father waited when she caught a shoe in a rope and fell headlong into a young man’s arms. He righted her quickly and removed his hat.
“Are you quite all right?” the young lieutenant asked
“Oh, I’m very sorry!” She adjusted her bonnet and straightened out her dress. She’d only caught a glimpse of him, tall and handsome in his uniform with his blond hair clubbed behind his head. “Ropes,” she smiled, blushing with embarrassment.
“Have a care there,” he smiled back and placed his hat on his head, continuing on down toward his ship, turning once to look at her again.
Her father, having seen the misstep, rushed from the end of the dock to her side. “Catty, I almost didn’t recognize you.”
“Oh, Papa!” She flung herself at him. “It’s been so long but I’d have known you anywhere, even if you've a few gray hairs now.”
“What gray hairs?” he said in mock offense. But he had aged. There were fine lines in his tanned face around his eyes and gray had worked its way into his dark hair. He was a handsome man still and laugh lines around his lips told of a good disposition.
“Oh, here’s Elly. How are you, dear?” He hugged his sister.
“James, I’m glad to be on dry land again.”
“How long will you stay?” He angled his head
“Oh, a month I should say. Give me that long to get over this trip. I’m not a sailor,” she said in a near whisper.
“We were escorted in by the Navy,” Catty said in all seriousness.
“I should think so. The French have lost the island again to the English but still they annoy our ships. I’m afraid you will find much has changed since you left, Catty.”
She hung her head. “It was devastating about Mother and Jimsy. How did you get through it all, Papa?”
“I’m not sure I have,” he smiled down at his daughter as she climbed into the carriage.
Elly brought out her fan. “I forget about the heat.”
“You’ll get used to it soon enough. It’s cooler up in the mountains.”
“I hardly remember the place, James, it’s been so long ago. There certainly seems to be more people about,. If I remember there were only a few plantations. Oh, that must have been fourteen years ago when Arthur and I came over.”
“Indeed it has grown and flourished since then only to be trampled down by war time and time again. If you remember our principal crop was sugar cane. Now, however, it’s mace and nutmeg, allspice and cocoa. It was the King’s botanist who introduced the spice here and it’s quite taken over. I don’t plant near the cane I used to.”
“One does hope the Treaty of Versailles will hold…so little land here it hardly seems worth the effort and loss of life.”
“The last conflict was an internal slave revolt against the English that’s only been squashed these last three months. It’s all divided up now; some islands are still held by the French, some by the English and some free ports as are found in Jamaica. Even with the British fleet in port one still does not rest easy in one’s own home.”
“St. George is such a lovely town.” Elly turned to look back in the carriage to see Catty who’d been very quiet since they left the docks.
Catty was lost in the smells and airs of home, although in some ways she dreaded arriving at the house. Her mother would not be there or her little brother, who would have been six had he lived. What would it be like, that huge house empty except for her father for the last four years?
“Father, are any of the servants I knew still there?”
“A few, Joe, Maun, Looky and of course Dulcy. The others may have changed. I really don’t know.”
Catty called them servants but they were, in fact, slaves. She shared her mother’s view on that. There had been a lot of talk in England about abolishing slavery. She prayed it would happen and soon. They began the climb up the gentle hillside, winding around to the great house. Her breath caught in her throat when it came into view.
“It hasn’t changed!” she exclaimed. “Greenlees is still Greenlees.”
“The house…no, not a thing has changed there.” James looked over the seat at his daughter. He still had a hard time believing the change in her. She’d been but a child when sent to England.
“I was so afraid…well, with Mother gone that somehow it would be different, there would be some outward sign of our loss.”
Once inside she understood what her father meant. Indeed, nothing had changed, not a figurine moved on the mantle. She expected to hear her mother’s voice any moment. Time surely had stopped here in this house for the last four years. She rushed upstairs to her room and walked out onto the second story veranda that gave a wide view of the town of St. Georges below and the horizon in the distance.
A few days after her arrival her father informed her that they would be giving a dinner now that his sister was here as hostess. The Latrouix and Marshall families would be invited. It would give her a chance to become acquainted with their neighbors.
Catty found her aunt on the veranda with a cup of tea. “Aunt Elly, Papa says we are to have a dinner party. I have nothing to wear. All my dresses are becoming too, um, tight across the bodice.”
“I shall inquire about a seamstress. I’m sure something can be arranged and perhaps a few alterations to your dresses might be in order.”
Having been given a name of a seamstress down in St. George, Aunt Elly and Catty set out to see about her wardrobe.
“Well, it appears to be a clean establishment,” Elly said as they entered the wooden building. There were fabrics and trims galore on display and the latest fashion magazines from France.
“May I help you?” A soft-spoken African woman came out from behind a curtain.
“Lacy! It is you?”
The woman smiled broadly. “Catty! My how you have grown, child.”
“But what are you doing here?”
“This is my home now. Upstairs I have rooms.” She turned as a girl came from behind the drapery. “This is my daughter, Judith.”
Catty and Judith stared at each other. It was almost like looking in a mirror except for Judith’s coloring. Her skin was much lighter than her mother’s, only a little darker than her own. She was perhaps a year or two older than Catty. Lacy smiled and looked into Catty’s face. The girl knew…she knew.
Elly, busy looking through the fashion plates, had not noticed the exchange. “Catty, what do you think of this?” She turned to see a white-faced Catty slowly backing out of the room. “Catty?”
Catty was out on the street walking blindly, putting distance between herself and what she knew to be her father’s child…her…half sister.
“Catty!” Elly puffed up beside her. “Will you stop! What has gotten into you?”
Catty stopped and blinked her eyes. “Did you see her…the girl?”
“What girl? She has some lovely things.…”
“She has a daughter…Aunt Elly, when did my father come out here to Grenada?”
“Oh, let’s see now. It were two years before you were born. He’d married your mother and not six months later was sent by our father out here to St. Georges. It was a year before he got back home, if I recall. What has this to do with a new dress, may I ask?”
“Nothing…” she dropped her head and fiddled with her gloves, “nothing at all. I believe I might alter my own dresses.”
“But you wanted a new frock for the dinner.…”
“I’ve changed my mind. Can we go now?”
“Well! That’s a fine thing pull me all the way into town and for nothing.” Elly harrumphed back to the waiting carriage.
Back at Greenlees Catty found her father in his study and she came in, closing the door.
“Papa, may I speak with you?”
“Of course, dear.” He put the book down on a table. “You’ve been out?”
“Aunt Elly and I went into town to see a dressmaker. It turned out to be Lacy, who used to make the beds here, in her own establishment…with her daughter, Judith.”
James stared at his daughter and lifted his chin. “Yes.”
“How old is she?” Catty swallowed.
“Seventeen.”
“Why didn’t I know about her?”
“There was no need for you to know.”
“You gave her her freedom and her daughter?”
“Yes, after your mother died.”
“How long did…?”
“Since I first came here. I loved her in my way and I believe it was returned.”
Catty looked away from him. “You were with her when my mother was alive.”
“It’s not uncommon for a man to have a mistress, especially out here.”
“She had no choice did she…you owned her.” Her voice began to shake.
“It was never like that, Catty…never.”
“I don’t understand how you could have done such a thing to my mother.”
“She never knew. The child was never in the house. You’re making way too much of this, Catty. Like I said, it’s a common thing out here.”
“I will never marry a man from this island…never!” She turned and ran from the room.
Five years later she married Henri Latrouix. The marriage lasted five years before he died of yellow fever. Having produced no heir, she was sent from the Latrouix household back to her father.
James was incensed that she had been treated so badly by her husband’s family. Catty was in mourning for Henri, whom she had loved dearly. She closed herself up in the house, refusing to see visitors except for Judith, with whom she had become very close.
Judith walked to the bedroom window and opened it, letting the air blow through. “There is a dinner at the governor’s house on Saturday. Why don’t you go?”
“For what? I have better food here?”
“It’s not good for you to shut yourself away like this. You are still young and beautiful. Henri will never come back to you. You need to let him rest. Papa worries over the state of your mind.”
“I don’t think Papa is well. His color is not right. He has mentioned the dinner to me.”
“Well then, go. I will do you a perfect dress, the latest thing.”
“I wish you could go, too.”
“You go for both of us and tell me all about it. Pay particular attention to what they are wearing.”
Part 2 - A Scent of Mace
Switching from sugar cane to spices had not been an easy venture for James Lewis. Although he was a good estate manager and had kept his lands intact, it had taken its toll on him. The marriage of his daughter to Henri Latrouix had been more than a marriage contract. He had hoped it would assure his daughter’s future as he had no son to pass his holdings onto. Henri's untimely death had set him back a bit.
Reluctant for change, he had been late in joining the spice trade, but he now could see the future and for him it looked bleak. Slavery had been abolished in England. It was only a matter of time before it would reach the islands and his way of life would be no more. As he dressed and prepared himself for the dinner, he was not looking forward to it at all. Latrouix would be in attendance and he’d not spoken to the man since Catty had been so cold-heartedly sent home. He had thought for a time that perhaps Henri’s younger brother might call on Catty but that had not happened. He had decided to give him permission to call on her tonight.
Judith was in the house helping Catty dress for the occasion. The simple white gown she had constructed fit Catty perfectly. “You look very lovely, Catty.” She sighed and stepped back.
“I don’t feel lovely…but rather old and used-up and alone.”
“You will be on Papa’s arm and be the loveliest creature there. Twenty six is not old. I am old. In two years I will be thirty.”
“I suppose he will be there…Jean. Do you think he will ever marry you?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps when his father dies. He has hopes things will be different then.”
Judith had been seeing Jean Latrouix for three years, Jean the younger brother and now heir to his father’s estates. They were deeply in love but his father forbid him to marry her.
“There you are, my dear. Shall we go?” James offered his arm to his daughter.
As usual at these affairs, dinner was a long, drawn-out process. Catty had been placed between her father and Jean Latrouix. There were a number of British Naval officers in attendance, a few Marines distinguished by their red coats, and the local hierarchy placed around the long table.
“Your father has given me permission to call on you,” Jean said quietly.
“Oh, no, Jean! I’m sorry.”
“I may take him up on it.” He glanced at her and smiled. “I am assuming you will not be left alone with me.”
Catty grinned a little. “No, I would not be; my companion would surely be in attendance.”
“As long as we both understand. Oh, there is someone I’d like to introduce you to.”
“Jean, please I.…”
“You must trust me a little, Catty. I think he might be good for you.”
Captain Jack Aubrey had noticed her right away at the assemblage before dinner. Seated across from her and several seats up the table, he’d kept a watchful eye during dinner. She had quietness about her, a sadness that hung about her like a veil. He was intrigued. Young Latrouix had told him she was his widowed sister-in-law when he asked who she was. He angled for an introduction.
The opportunity came after dinner. There would be a short respite of perhaps thirty minutes before the night's musical entertainment would begin.
“Captain Jack Aubrey, may I present my sister-in-law, Catherine Latrouix.”
“How honored I am to meet you,” Jack bowed.
“Captain Aubrey.” She looked into his face and something about him stirred her memory. “I think we may have met before.” And then it came to her and she smiled. “Not actually met, but I fell into your arms once many years ago.”
“On the docks?” He began a smile. “You tripped on the ropes….ah, how many years ago was that and I still remember you. You made quite an impression.”
“I was an awkward girl of fifteen.”
“I was a young lieutenant of twenty.”
Jean looked from one to the other. “It seems you two already have a history.” He looked over his shoulder, hearing his father’s voice raised, and alarmed to see him in heated discussion with James Lewis. “If you will excuse me.”
“You are a Captain now.”
“Yes, at long last. My ship is in the harbor. The Surprise, she’s called.”
“Are you from Carenage? Are you stationed there?” Carenage being the military port on the eastern side of the island.
“No, I am at present protecting the trade route from privateers, pirates,”
“Well, I’m very glad you were able to come tonight.”
“So am I. Will you be playing?”
“Oh…no, that will be the Governor’s wife who will play.”
“Clarissa Wainwright. She is an old acquaintance of mine.”
“Oh…I’ve been out of circulation, if you will, for this past year. Tonight was the first time I’d met the Governor."
“I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Latrouix.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, I hear my surgeon Dr. Mautrin is tuning up. I should join him. Mrs. Latrouix, I should like to see you again.”
She hesitated and then said, “I am at Greenlees.”
“I look forward to seeing you.” He smiled and bowed and walked back into the great parlor.
She turned to see her father coming toward her, his face a corpulent shade of red. “Papa, what…?”
“We must leave at once!”
“But….” she turned toward the drawing room where Captain Aubrey had just taken out his violin.
Not wanting to distress him further she left in their carriage. “Papa, what has happened tonight?”
“It’s not for you to worry about, my dear. Arrangements have been made.”
“Arrangements for what?”
“Enough time has passed. Jean Latrouix will ask for your hand.”
“No!” It was out of her mouth in an instant.
“Catty, my dear, it is my wish that you be settled with a husband who can provide for you. You’ve carried this mourning out for your deceased husband long enough. Our estates join and Jean Latrouix will see to it they do not break up but will continue as one.”
“But he doesn’t love me! I don’t love him and I’ve given Captain Aubrey permission to see me.” she said breathlessly.
“Captain Aubrey? He has not asked to call on you?”
“He asked me and I said yes.”
James dismissed the whole Aubrey business with a wave of his hand. He’d gotten what he wanted from Latrouix that was what mattered.
“Jean is like a brother to me….” she tried again but James was not listening.
Anger rose up in her throat and settled there but she didn’t let it pass her lips.
Jean Latrouix was not to be outdone. Pulling Aubrey aside later in the evening he came up with a plan that might benefit both of them. He’d become quite fond of the Captain, having joined him in his cabin a few times over a bottle of port. He told Jack about his love for Catty’s half sister Judith and how since her mother had died she’d come to live with her father as a companion to Catty. Their secret liaisons were no longer possible under James Lewis’s watch. Jack agreed and the next day they presented themselves at Greenlees.
“James, I’m not sure you were introduced to my friend, Captain Jack Aubrey, at the Governor’s dinner. May I present him to you?”
“Happy to make your acquaintance, Captain. James Lewis.”
“And you sir,” Jack replied.
“Well, I’m sure, Jean that you have not come all this way to see me,” James smiled. “You’ll find Catty in the garden with her companion, Judith.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jean smiled and looking at Jack, they went through the rooms to the back entrance and out into the garden.
“We are no longer alone,” Judith said with a wide smile.
Catty turned, pulling her hair from Judith’s hands who’d been trying to braid it. “Oh…it’s my Captain.”
“He cuts a fine figure, Catty, and look who he has with him.”
“Captain Aubrey…how good of you to come.” She extended her hands and he took them, brushing a kiss across her fingers.
“And, Jean,” she hugged him, whispering in his ear, “you are up to something…but I think it will be acceptable to me.”
“This is going to be very hard. Your father is home.”
“Yes, but not for long. He has an appointment in town, I believe, this afternoon.”
“An excellent plan,” Jean smiled, taking her hand. “Shall we walk?” He looked directly at Judith.
“You have quite a view from here,” Jack observed.
“Oh, it’s even better from the second-story veranda. Perhaps later I will show it to you.” She was very conscious of her hair streaming down her back. It wasn’t dressed for company.
Jack thought it wonderful that her hair blew in the winds from the bay. You didn’t often see a woman with her hair unbound…unless she was headed for the bed.
As soon as she saw her father’s carriage going down the road she released Jean’s hand and he went directly to Judith. “This is very awkward.” She looked up at Jack.
“Yes, Jean has informed me of your father’s wishes.”
“It’s not just mine now but his as well. Oh, I wish fathers would just stay out of our lives. Neither of us are children any more. We should be allowed to make our own decisions, at least Jean should. I am but a woman and have little say.”
“Where land and money are concerned I’m afraid little else matters.” Jack fell in beside her. “I’m sure your father has your welfare and future in mind as well as the continuance of his plantation.”
“I loved his brother, who was my husband, but Jean is more like a brother to me. I don’t think we could ever be lovers. All they want is an heir but I’m barren. Six years I was married and no child.”
“Are you sure? I have heard of such things where a man has no child and then later his wife is with child after his death and she has moved on..”
“I don’t know.” She looked up at him sideways.
Jack blushed. “I’m not quite sure how we got onto this subject.”
“Neither am I.” But she did. Being near him brought certain thoughts to mind. “Look there, if I could see that far I might see your ship.”
“Yes, it lies there in the harbor. I shall bring you a glass and you may have a good look at what goes on in the harbor.”
“That would be wonderful. Might I see you about your ship?”
He looked at her. “You may but I shouldn’t think that a thing to watch.”
“I do,” she said softly and continued on.
“We seem to have lost Jean and your companion.”
“My companion is my half-sister, Judith.” She looked about her. “I think I know where they are but we won’t disturb them. There’s an old cook house there amongst the vines. I used to play there as a child. I was very young and ignorant of the ways of men when I found her. It took some time, several years in fact, before I got enough courage to walk back into the shop where she worked with her mother. We are sisters now, as much as we can be, anyway.”
“She is very attractive and much like you.”
“It was a shock to both of us when we met but I think she recovered much more quickly than I. Captain Aubrey, would you like something to drink? We could go back to the house, up to the veranda.”
“I would, yes, thank you.”
She led the way to the outside stairs that took them up to the second story, giving the order for drinks to a house servant who was ever-present. “This is my view. I will watch for your ship from here.” She turned to him but his eyes were on her and not the magnificent view before them.
Part 3 – A Scent of Cloves
It was becoming more and more difficult as time wore on for Jack to meet with Jean and make the trek to Greenlees. Catty would send a message to Jean when she knew her father was to be absent from the house. He in turn would contact Jack and they would ride out to the plantation together. As Jack watched the ships being loaded he knew his time in port at St. Georges was drawing to a close. It was his duty to protect the trade routes and therefore when the ships were ready to leave, he would have to go with them.
He was becoming enamored with Mrs. Latrouix. Their intimacy had only consisted of hand holding and an occasional stolen kiss but urgency had descended upon him, knowing his time with her was nearing an end. He also very much disliked the subterfuge and secrets involved in meeting with her.
Her father had gone with the elder Latrouix to a neighboring plantation for dinner. Catty arranged for dinner for the four of them in the family dining room at Greenlees. Judith and Jean were engaged in conversation at one side of the table and Jack and Catty on the other.
“My days here are numbered.” He looked up at her, his eyes soft and warm.
“How…many days?” she asked.
“”I watch the ships being loaded day by day and I think not more than a day or two and we will be underway.”
“I don’t think I can bear it. We’ve just…well…just gotten to know one another.”
“But not as well as I would like.” He took her hand and brushed a kiss across her palm.
Catty knew exactly what he was referring to. She’d had those same thoughts. She’d dreamed about such an encounter with him. Nervously she looked around the dining room. The servants were waiting to clear the table. Jean and Judith had already disappeared.
“Up the stairs to the veranda…my room is there. I will leave the door open,” she breathed.
“Very well. I shall take the night air,” he smiled and kissed her hand again.
She waited, trembling, in her room, having changed into a voluminous wrapper and nothing else. His step sounded on the stairs and she rushed to the door. “Jack,” she said softly.
He came into her room and enveloped her into his arms, kissing her deeply. “I’ve longed for you,” he breathed into her hair.
“And I you.” She placed her hands on his face and kissed him, giving herself up to him with abandon. He was still there in her bed an hour and a half later when her father came home, raging, to find Jean’s carriage in the drive.
Jack was up and dressing as fast as he could. A quick kiss and he was down the outside stairs and into the night. Catty heard Jean running down the hallway from Judith’s room and opened her door, pulling her wrapper around her neck and body, and tying the sash. Unfortunately Jean’s clothes were still a bit disheveled. His stock had not been tied and his vest unbuttoned. Her father met them half way up the stairs.
“Well, you couldn’t wait, could you?” James shouted at Jean. “Catty, go to your room!”
“It’s not what you think, sir!” Jean stated.
“Papa, please he wasn’t….”
“Catty…to your room!”
Catty rushed up the stairs and into her room. The door to the veranda was still open and she went out but Jack was not to be seen.
Later a shaken Jean stopped the carriage along the road to pick up Jack, who was walking back to St. Georges.
“I will not be a part of this any longer.” Jack looked at Jean. “What’s the matter with you, man?”
Jean was trembling with unspent rage. “No…I don’t think you will be, Jack. Sorry you got caught up in this.”
“I don’t like sliding around behind someone’s back, her father’s, to be exact. I shall have a word with him should time permit.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“I may sail on the morrow if they finished up today but if not, I shall pay a call.”
“It’s too late. It wouldn’t matter now anyway.”
“But, by damn, what a woman she is! What did you say?”
“Nothing, nothing, Jack. You’ve been a good friend I feel I owe you much for your part in this.”
“Nonsense! I have been paid threefold.” Jack smiled into the night, still thinking of her beneath him.
The next morning proved a busy one for Jack. His ship was taking on stores for the journey ahead. He’d had to see to the mounting of two new carronades and so the day passed with dinner in his cabin for a few of the other captains who would be sailing with the three merchant ships. There had not been a minute to think about James Lewis, much less meet with him. He was to sail with the tide.
Catty languished in bed the next morning, still dreaming of Jack Aubrey. A knock on her door and Judith entered, head down, not looking at her. “I’ve come to help you get ready.”
“Ready for what?” She sat up in bed, brushing her hair back.
“The wedding.”
“Wedding?”
“Reverend Samuels will be here at noon,. You’ve only an hour to.…” She burst into tears.
“No…no! You are mistaken, Judith…!”
“Papa himself told me this morning. You and Jean are to be married today at noon.”
“No, no, I won’t do it! I won’t! I won’t go through with it, Judith. He can’t do this!” Catty was out of bed, walking back and forth across her room. “I must get word to Jack.” She went to her desk for paper and pen. Hastily she wrote out a message and called for a servant to deliver it to the Surprise.
By the time the servant reached the dock and found where the Surprise berthed she was already away and Catty was standing in her father’s library pleading with him to stop the wedding.
“Papa, you know Judith loves Jean. She would be his bride. If you must marry a daughter today let it be her.”
“An arrangement was made with Richard Latrouix for you to marry Jean and it will be so.”
“I can’t believe you would send me back into that family after what happened after Henri died. What’s happened to you, Papa?”
James looked at his daughter, whom he loved beyond all else, but he couldn’t tell her he was dying. He only wanted to secure her future because without him at the helm she would flounder and perish.
Jean and his father arrived promptly at noon. Jean, pale and dazed, walked into the library. He tried one last time with James.
“It was not me in her bed it was the Captain…Captain Jack Aubrey with whom she lay. I was with Judith. You see how it is, sir.”
“I see you think you’ve played a smart little game with me. Well, no more, Jean Latrouix. I love my daughters, both of them, but it is Catty who will inherit not Judith, although I have made some small provision for her. Your father wants Greenlees and he shall have it. You may have Judith as your mistress but Catty will be wife to you and bear your children if she be not barren.”
“Judith has my heart, not Catty. Catty is in love with the Captain. What a mockery you make of marriage, sir, and what a hell you make of our lives.” He leaned into James’s face then turned and walked out of the library to his fate.
James fought down the desire to lie down on the couch by the window. Instead he straightened his shoulders and walked out to meet the Rev. Samuels and to proceed with the wedding before he took his rest.
It was a wedding of tears. Catty quietly let them fall and drip from her face during the ceremony, as did Jean. Judith’s muffled sobs could be heard from the next room. Richard Latrouix stood stone-faced and James with no expression at all. Afterwards the customary wedding feast was not held. Richard took himself back to his own estate. Catty went to her room and closed the door. James retired to his library and closed the door. Jean saw the reverend off and came back inside to try and console Judith.
Catty took the glass Jack had given her out onto the veranda to make out what ships were in the harbor and what were sailing, for she could see the sails out on the ocean. Her heart skipped a beat when she did not see the Surprise in her berth. “He’s sailed then…there goes my heart.” She found his ship barely in focus as it headed for the horizon. She collapsed in a heap.
James had not come out of his library to dress for dinner and his manservant went about looking for him. He set up a wail and cry for the house. The master was dead. Catty came out of her room and quickly went down the stairs to see what the uproar was about. She screamed when she found her father dead on his couch. Judith was the next to arrive and they clung to each other and cried. Jean, however had no tears for the man who had only hours ago ruined his life forever.
Jean and Catty remained at Greenlees to bury her father. It was a funeral befitting one of his station, the governor and his family paying tribute. A day after the funeral carriages and wagons arrived at Greenlees to move Catty to the Latrouix estate. It had been made plain to her through Richard Latrouix that Judith would not be welcome to come with them.
Judith was upstairs in Catty’s room, helping her pack. They caught themselves looking in the mirror at each other. “Judith…we are so alike. You are not so dark. Look here at our faces.” An idea came to her and she reached over and took Judith’s cap that she wore and put it on her own head. “I could be you….”
“It would never work, Catty.”
“But it would! Old man Latrouix is half blind.” Hurriedly they changed clothes and arranged Judith’s hair. Satisfied with the result, she turned her toward the mirror. “You are now Catty, Catherine Lewis Latrouix.
Judith was understandably nervous at the deception. “I won’t know what to do once I am there, and you at least are familiar with the house and grounds.”
“Don’t worry, Judith. Jean will be with you and that will make all the difference.”
“What will you do, Catty?”
“I’ll stay on here as long as I can. I may book passage to England.”
“But the house and servants now belong to Latrouix. He may take them away.”
“Then I shall forage for myself. Go now and be happy, Judith.” She hugged and kissed her sister. “Think of Jean and his happiness when he discovers who you are,” she smiled.
Judith, sitting in the carriage as a lady, rode away with Jean and he did not discover the change about until they were home and he helped her from the carriage and met her eyes. It was her look and only hers that he knew so well.
Two days later he arrived back at Greenlees carrying a leather case. Catty met him at the door and he drew her to him and kissed her.
“Do you know what you’ve done?” he smiled.
“Yes, I do. Are you happy, Jean?”
“You know I am. May we go inside? We need to talk.”
“Yes.” She led him into the small sitting room she used in the house and sat down.
“When I was in England at school and knew myself as a second son, unlikely to inherit from my father, I found his elder brother, a man by the way who had never married or produced children that he knew of anyway. Well, to make a long story short, I rather ingratiated myself with him and became his heir. He then quite conveniently passed away and left me lands and an income which has been diverted to a bank in London. It was my intention to go back there and live and then Henri became ill and later, well…I never went back. I’ve been this morning to see my solicitor in town and have had the whole lot signed over to you as my sister, Catherine Judith Lewis.” He held out the leather-bound papers to her.
“Jean!” Her eyes went wide and her hand to her mouth. “But.…”
“No, I’ll not hear another word. Catty, I now stand to inherit not only Greenlees but also my father’s estate. What you have given me far outweighs anything I could ever do for you. Please accept this gift of freedom for yourself. Judith said you might book passage to England and that’s what prompted this idea. No one in England knows you as Catty Latrouix and so she will live on here in Judith.”
“I…I don’t know what to say. This is indeed quite a gift. Jean, are you sure you have thought this through?”
“Indeed I have. My life is here now with Judith…thanks to you. She’s carried it off, Catty… even the servants think she is you.”
“I’m very grateful to you for this. Yes, it will allow me to now have some kind of life of my own. I just wish…I wish the marriage hadn’t taken place.”
“Never speak of it, Catty. Wherever you go…do not speak of it.”
“No, I shan’t.” She looked down at the papers in her lap. “I suppose the house servants will be leaving here soon.”
“Yes, I was to send them over today. I’m sorry, Catty.”
“That’s all right. I can put a few things together and if you might drop me in St. Georges, I’ll see about my passage.”
“You go and pack. I’ll take you myself and book your passage for you.”
She had known it was coming. She just hadn’t expected it quite so soon. Upstairs she packed what few things from her wardrobe she’d kept, having sent most of her good dresses with Judith. However she’d kept the white muslin she’d worn the first time she met Jack Aubrey. She took a last look around her room and donned the mop cap for her trip into town. She handed her valise to Jean and got into the back of the carriage. Around her neck she wore her mother’s locket. It was the only thing she’d kept besides a small miniature of her painted for her father before she was born.
She turned for one last look at her home that was her home no more. As the carriage wound down the hillside, she turned back and faced the harbor. In less than a week she was following in Jack’s wake.
ON TO SECTION TWO
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