Read Online Creation by Katherine Govier - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Katherine Govier
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one on deck can see him above.
Hanging by one arm, with both feet tucked into rope loops, he can see the masts of the Ripley . Only a few hundred feet away, they protrude like tiny spires from the white billows. There is no one up the rigging of the other schooner; he alone is above and in a position to see over the fog. Like a bird, in fact. Where do the birds go in this fog? Can they fly without seeing? He wishes he could sail blind.
He swings out a little way, and gently back again, testing the strength of his arm. He feels playful though it has been years since he played like a boy. In fact, he does not remember ever playing like a boy. At Bayfield Hall there was the governess, the marshalled walks across the soggy fields, the forced silences for chapel. Then, the navy, and always, work. But today, there is a lightness in him. Despite his annoyance at being held hostage by fog, his impatience to get on with work, he is happy. He enjoys Mr. Audubon. His conversation is stimulating, something rare on shipboard. The man challenges his ideas. A captain of a schooner in the Royal Navy is not often challenged.
He changes arms and swings out farther, attempting a circle around the mast.
When he was packed off straight from Bayfield Hall to the Pompée as supernumerary volunteer, the nearest thing to play was the fighting action with the French privateer six hours after leaving port. He was slashed across the shoulder by a cutlass and would have lost his arm or worse if he, unarmed, hadn’t had the quickness of wit to dart under the man’s thrusts, staying so close to his feet that he couldn’t cut him, find a rope coiled in the lifeboat and whip it at his attacker’s knees. Then, when the man stumbled, to lash him in the face so that he could not see, and when the cutlass clattered to the deck, to steal it.
His arm was cut deeply at the shoulder. The same arm by which he now hangs. He cannot remember the pain of the cut. But he enjoyed the attention it gave him. In fact, in the rough company of men he keeps, it is the only time he can remember being tenderly treated.
The boy! The boy! the men called out when he was injured. For those few moments he became a boy, although he was an officer and in charge of grown men. They defeated the French pirates. The prisoners, in chains, were sent off to prison. The sailors wrapped Bayfield in warm blankets, and held a cup to his lips. He remembers the feel of the metal. He enjoyed being injured. Imagine that. No, if he is honest, he would say he enjoyed being tended to.
If one was married, one would be tended to whenever one liked.
And when one didn’t like.
He swings himself around the mast one more time, lazily.
Mr. Audubon is married.
God knows the Quebec matrons have tried to marry Bayfield off. Invitations to parties at the castle fall through his door too often. But those winters in the garrison are his working times. He has to admit that, when forced to be in society, he has noticed some attractive young ladies. There is one called Miss Fanny Wright. She is very young, not even twenty. She is white-skinned and black-haired and has a look of robust merriment. But what would a wife do but divide his emotions while he is away for five months of the year, then want his company when he is at home?
Mr. Audubon has lain with his wife night after night. Engendered two sons. His mind veers away. Family life is a mystery to him. He looks all around the horizon, or what would be the horizon if he could see it. In patches, mainland is visible. Mounds of rock here, penetrating the grey fuzz with their own grey, black and reddish brown, aged lichen and twisted trees that have seen ships like his come and go for centuries.
It is important work, the hydrographical survey. He had said this to the same young lady at Castle St. Lewis in Quebec. Crucial, defining work, to verify the boundary of this country and the United States.It is a difficult boundary because so much of it is
Hanging by one arm, with both feet tucked into rope loops, he can see the masts of the Ripley . Only a few hundred feet away, they protrude like tiny spires from the white billows. There is no one up the rigging of the other schooner; he alone is above and in a position to see over the fog. Like a bird, in fact. Where do the birds go in this fog? Can they fly without seeing? He wishes he could sail blind.
He swings out a little way, and gently back again, testing the strength of his arm. He feels playful though it has been years since he played like a boy. In fact, he does not remember ever playing like a boy. At Bayfield Hall there was the governess, the marshalled walks across the soggy fields, the forced silences for chapel. Then, the navy, and always, work. But today, there is a lightness in him. Despite his annoyance at being held hostage by fog, his impatience to get on with work, he is happy. He enjoys Mr. Audubon. His conversation is stimulating, something rare on shipboard. The man challenges his ideas. A captain of a schooner in the Royal Navy is not often challenged.
He changes arms and swings out farther, attempting a circle around the mast.
When he was packed off straight from Bayfield Hall to the Pompée as supernumerary volunteer, the nearest thing to play was the fighting action with the French privateer six hours after leaving port. He was slashed across the shoulder by a cutlass and would have lost his arm or worse if he, unarmed, hadn’t had the quickness of wit to dart under the man’s thrusts, staying so close to his feet that he couldn’t cut him, find a rope coiled in the lifeboat and whip it at his attacker’s knees. Then, when the man stumbled, to lash him in the face so that he could not see, and when the cutlass clattered to the deck, to steal it.
His arm was cut deeply at the shoulder. The same arm by which he now hangs. He cannot remember the pain of the cut. But he enjoyed the attention it gave him. In fact, in the rough company of men he keeps, it is the only time he can remember being tenderly treated.
The boy! The boy! the men called out when he was injured. For those few moments he became a boy, although he was an officer and in charge of grown men. They defeated the French pirates. The prisoners, in chains, were sent off to prison. The sailors wrapped Bayfield in warm blankets, and held a cup to his lips. He remembers the feel of the metal. He enjoyed being injured. Imagine that. No, if he is honest, he would say he enjoyed being tended to.
If one was married, one would be tended to whenever one liked.
And when one didn’t like.
He swings himself around the mast one more time, lazily.
Mr. Audubon is married.
God knows the Quebec matrons have tried to marry Bayfield off. Invitations to parties at the castle fall through his door too often. But those winters in the garrison are his working times. He has to admit that, when forced to be in society, he has noticed some attractive young ladies. There is one called Miss Fanny Wright. She is very young, not even twenty. She is white-skinned and black-haired and has a look of robust merriment. But what would a wife do but divide his emotions while he is away for five months of the year, then want his company when he is at home?
Mr. Audubon has lain with his wife night after night. Engendered two sons. His mind veers away. Family life is a mystery to him. He looks all around the horizon, or what would be the horizon if he could see it. In patches, mainland is visible. Mounds of rock here, penetrating the grey fuzz with their own grey, black and reddish brown, aged lichen and twisted trees that have seen ships like his come and go for centuries.
It is important work, the hydrographical survey. He had said this to the same young lady at Castle St. Lewis in Quebec. Crucial, defining work, to verify the boundary of this country and the United States.It is a difficult boundary because so much of it is
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