Girl on the Orlop Deck Read Online Free PDF Page B

more,’ the whore told her, sitting down companionably beside her. ‘’Tain’t allowed.’
    ‘Allowed or not, I reckon they done it,’ Marianne said. ‘He wouldn’t go without tellin’ me goodbye for a start. He’d ha’ come home an’ said goodbye, at the very least. No. He been press-ganged, you see if I en’t right.’
    ‘No way a’ knowing though, is there, my lubber?’ the whore said, and she stole an orange from a street trader’s passing tray and hid it in her skirt, so neat and quick he didn’t see the going of it. ‘’Course they got ways an’ means without pressin’ ’em. They gets ’em tipsy fer a start an’ then they signs up without seein’ the meanin’ of it. They could ha’ done that. Tom Kettle’s a dab hand at that sort a’ trick.’
    The name blazed light into Marianne’s memory. ‘Tom Kettle?’ she said. ‘Do you know him?’
    ‘Not professional as you might say,’ the whore told her. ‘We works the same inns d’yer see, so I sees him around. He’s been mighty busy today, I can tell ’ee that though. He ain’t been out the Dolphin all day to my certain knowledge, an’ that wooden-legged feller’s been up an’ down to the quayside all afternoon, sendin’ ’em off.’
    ‘An’ one of ’em my Jem,’ Marianne said. ‘Do you know where he was sendin’ ’em?’ Oh please say you know.
    ‘Well as to that, my lubber,’ the whore said, ‘I got no idea. There’s twenty ships an’ more in the roads. Could ha’ been any one of ’em. He works for several captains, that I do know. I just seen ’em go.’ She pulled the orange from under her skirt and began to peel it. ‘Have half?’ she offered.
    They sat in the declining light and ate the orange between them, two young women in a world of men, while candles were lit in the drinking houses behind them, the last of the bum boats was loaded and went creaking off into the channel, and the great distant ships grew ghostly in the half light.
    ‘All those ships,’ Marianne said miserably, ‘an’ he could be on any one a’ them. How would I know?’
    ‘Beats me, my lubber,’ the whore said. ‘I reckon you’d have to join the navy to find out for certain.’
    But of course, Marianne thought. It was the obvious answer. She was never going to find him on the quay because he wasn’t there. And she was never going to find anyone who knew where he was. They were all too busy with their own affairs. She would have to join the navy and go after him. It was the only thing to do. I’ll borrow Johnny’s breeches and his old shirt, sheplanned, an’ I’ll put my hair in a plait the way the sailors do, an’ then I’ll go back to the Dolphin an’ find that rotten old Tom Kettle an’ join the navy myself. So help me if I don’t. I en’t a-goin’ to be no deserted wife, with everyone laughing and pointing and mocking, not if I can help it.
    ‘Thank ’ee kindly fer the orange,’ she said to her new friend and stood up, shaking her skirts to rights.
    ‘You off then?’ the whore said, sucking the last segment. The juice ran down her chin, glistening in the fading light.
    ‘Yes,’ Marianne said, ‘I do believe I am.’
     
    When she got home, the house was full of noise and laughter for her parents were in the kitchen and obviously had company. It took no time at all to sneak into the back bedroom and find her brother’s breeches which still lay across the end of his truckle bed where he’d thrown them when he changed clothes for the wedding. His shirt was ready to hand too. That was in a crumpled heap on the floor. She changed quickly, plaited her hair and tied it with a length of string he’d been using for fishing. Then she crept past the kitchen door, as quietly as she could so as not to alert her parents, and strode out of the house, newly masculine and full of determination. How easy it was to walk in breeches. She hadn’t realized how much skirts got in her way until that moment. It was a pleasure to