Pirates! Read Online Free PDF Page B

stars, or if he sailed under a different sky. Then I would allow myself to dream. When we were married, I did not intend to stay lonely on the shore waiting for him. William would have his own ship and he would take me with him. We would sail the seas together, just as in my childhood dreams, but in those days I’d seen us as sister and brother. Now I would be his wife.
    Susan was the only person who knew my secret. She was my close friend and confidante, and I could keep little from her, although I did not often speak to her about William. She said I was mad to love a sailor, for weren’t they the worst of all in their falseness, and wouldn’t she know, having had her own heart broke that many times that she’d stopped counting? Besides, we’d hardly seen each other since we were children. How did I know that he felt the same way? I was building up castles out of the clouds I studied so intently. I told myself that Susan did not understand. How could she? She was too quick to scoff and talk about calf love. What did she know of the kind of love I felt for William? I refused to listen to her. I did not want the fires of my passion doused by bucketfuls of her common sense.
    ‘Even if he prove true. And even if he be the one for you,’ she said in her matter-of-fact way. ‘You won’t be able to marry him. A poor sailor lad.’
    ‘Why ever not?’ I looked at her in amazement. ‘If I love him and he loves me?’
    ‘Love? Who marries for love?’
    ‘Plenty, I’m sure.’
    ‘Not in your class, they don’t.’
    I knew she was right. Of course. But I thought that such arrangements were for other people. Not for me.
    ‘Well,’ I said. ‘I mean to marry my love and no other.’ I stretched out on the bed, arms beneath my head, ready for dreaming.
    ‘That’s as maybe.’ Susan busied herself about me. ‘The Missis is making other plans.’
    ‘If she is, she’ll just have to unmake them.’ I paused, not liking this conversation. I rose up on one elbow. ‘What other plans?’
    ‘To go to Bath.’
    ‘Bath!’ I sat up, alert now, cross-legged in my petticoat.
    ‘We’re all going for the season. Cook told me. The whole household, barring your father. He’s got important business. He’s expecting a big convoy of ships, so can’t be spared.’
    Not that he would have gone anyway. He could not see what was wrong with Bristol’s own spa at Hotwells and it was barely a mile from our house. People of fashion did not go to Bath just to take the waters, Mrs Wilkes declared. Father did not understand.
    ‘Come over here, Miss.’ Susan beckoned me to the dressing table. ‘So I can do your hair.’ She commenced brushing, as she did every night, first to get the tangles out, then to make it shine. ‘The Missis has plans for you,’ she winked at me in the mirror. ‘Mark my words.’
    ‘What kind of plans?’
    ‘In the matrimony department.’
    ‘But I’m too young!’
    Susan laughed. ‘Miss Contrary! What about yon sailor boy you’ve been mooning over. Not too young for him, are you?’
    ‘But that’s different! I do not mean to marry him yet !’
    That was a dream belonging to sometime in the future. Not now. I was beginning to panic. The season was only weeks away ...
    ‘Never too young!’ Susan winked again and I half wondered if she was teasing, but then she mentioned Elspeth Cooper who was already promised and younger than me. I’d seen the man who she was to marry. Twice her age with the marks of pox on him. I didn’t want that to happen to me.
    ‘I’ll refuse to go.’
    ‘Stand up to the Missis?’ Susan guffawed at my chances. ‘I’ll see that when it happens!’
    ‘It’ll be a waste of time, let alone money! I’ll tell Father! Who’d be interested in me?’
    ‘Plenty. You’re a handsome young woman, even if you ain’t prepared to make the best of yourself. Don’t know what you’ve got, that’s your problem. I don’t know how many would die for this colour.’ She arranged my