Page 8 of Miss Whittier Makes a List
When she was finished, Hannah could not bring herself to put on the shirt again. She tugged the sheet up to her chin and lay down again, pulling her long braid away from theointmentand draping it across the pillow. She regarded it for a moment, wondering who had braided her hairso neatly. She remembered the tangle it had been in after her days of seasickness, and her own perfunctory attempt at reducing chaos to order. Someone more patient than I, she thought, remembering the gentleness of the surgeon’s fingers. He had told her his name, but she could not remember it.
She lay as still as she could, shivering now and then as herbody protested its cavalier treatment She took another drink, spilling most of it on the pillow, but not minding the cool wetness on her shoulders. She thought of Adam, and dreaded telling him of his father.“And now we are both impressed,”shemurmuredand looked up at the compass again.
When she woke,it was morning again. The sun streamed throughthe porthole as she lay quietly,wondering how painful it would be to move.“Thee is not dying, Hannah Whittier,”she said out loud finally, and sat up.
While the pain still made the hairs rise on her back, she knew she could endure it. She draped the captain’s shirt around her bare shoulders and tugged the sheet to her waist. Feeling old and rheumatoid, she managed to pour herself another drink of water from the carafe that must have been refilled during the night. The jar of ointment had been replenished as well. Thoughtfully, she began to apply it to herarmsas she looked around the room.
It was a sleeping cabin, spare and lacking in any creature comforts beyond the berth and a truly comfortable pillow. There was a chair of uncompromising proportions,and a small writing desk with a pull-down lid. A battered sea chest withSPARKpainted in black letters adorned the opposite bulkhead from where she sat.Above it was the only incongruous item in the room, a cross-stitched sampler which read,“England expects every man to do his duty”in flowing script. The threads looked as battered as the trunk below and reminded her of similar efforts at home in the parlor onOrange Street. She wondered who thought enough of Captain Sir Daniel Spark to create such a sampler. Surely no woman would ever get close enough to the captain to produce female offspring. It must be a sister. Her own experience with samplers reminded her that samplers were always a good present for brothers, who generally deserved nothing better.
She crawled carefully from the berth, wondering at the sharp pain in her feet.She hung on to theberth and lifted one foot to stare in frank amazement at her sole. It was sunburned, too. She lowered her foot and perched back on the berth, deeply aware what one more day adrift on that grating would have done to her. It appears I should be more grateful,she thought as she pulled her arms into the shirt and buttoned it.
The door to the compartment beyond was open, and she went in, walking gingerly on the black-and-white-painted canvas that covered the deck beneath. The cabin, which stretched across the vessel’s stem, was better decorated than the sleeping compartment, with several comfortable chairs, a table spread with charts, and a rather elegant lamp overhead. It could have been a room in a typical manor, with the exception of the two cannons, secured into their trucks with ringbolts thatadorned opposite bulkheads They faced closed gun ports.
How odd,she thought as she sat down carefully in one of the chairs, favoring her bruised hip. She looked closer at the walls dividing the two rooms. They were fastened to the bulkheads with another series of bolts that could easily be thrown to remove them when the warship went into action.
“Not exactly your country home, eh?"
She looked around, careful not to move too fast, toseethe ship’s surgeon standing in the doorway, a nightshirt draped over hisarm.
“No,sir,”she replied, embarrassed to be discovered out of her berthand where she did not belong. With an effort, she pulled her knees closer together and crossed her ankles, which made her suck in her breath.
“My dear Miss Whittier, please do not hold with formalities,”he said, coming closer.“You’ll only do your ankles a disservice, in their present condition.”
She uncrossed them and took the nightshirt he held out to her. It was soft from much wear.
“I know I should not be here.”
He merely shrugged.“It is no concern of mine. I do not think you are out to steal Captain Spark’s silverware. For one,I am glad toseeyou moving about. Nothing distresses me more than a moribund patient.”
She smiled in spite of her discomfort. He came closer, pulled her braid over her breast, and peered down her back before she could protest.
“Hmmm,”he said, sounding like her doctor at home.“Hmmm,I was most worried about your back and shoulders, but you appear to be progressing on schedule. Now, stand up and let meseethe backs of your knees. Oh, dear. I suggest you apply my salve liberally there and spend this day on your stomach, Miss Whittier.”
She made a face.That bad?”
He nodded, but his voice was full of good cheer.“Nothing’s worse than skin that never gets sunburned. As it is, you’ll probably come through this intact, but with a nice suntan.”He smiled at the look of concern on her face.“And cheer up! Think of this as an adventure. Here you thought you were only going to seeCharleston!”
“Thee doesn’t need to remind me,”she said and returned to the sleepingcompartment. The surgeon remained where he was in the great cabin.
“Miss Whittier,put on that nightshirt and lie on your stomach. I will apply salve to the back of your knees.”
She did as he said and climbed back into the berth, thankful to be wearing something that allowed more coverage. Thee is a dunce, Hannah, she thought as she settled herself as modestly as possible. This man, and Captain Spark, too, have already seen all thee possesses. At this point, it is fruitless to blush.
She suffered in silence while the ship’s surgeon daubed ointment on her legs, and then her shoulders. She opened her eyes when he finished.
“I should thank thee for untangling my hair and braiding it, sir, but I have forgotten thy name.”
He set down the jar of salve and poured her a large drink of water from the carafe.“It is Andrew Lease, Miss Whittier, and you do not have to credit me for that daunting task. You looked like a wild woman when you came on board. It was Captain Spark’s work.”
She took the cup from him and drank, wondering at a man with such patience, especially one who was an ogre in a navaluniform.
“I would have cut it all off, myself,”Lease was saying as he poured her another drink.“Captain Spark allowed as he understood curly hair, and also that he was deep enough in your disfavor without approving such a thing.”
She drained the cup again and watched as he refilled it.“I am surprised,”she said at last.
“My dear, life is full of surprises, only a few of them pleasant.”he replied.When she finished the cup, he filled it again and set it down on the table when she shook her head in protest.“I’ll send in Trisk, Captain Spark’s orderly, with some gruel, which you will consume in its entirety. Should you require a chamber pot, it is under this berth. I do not think you will need one yet, though. You are still wondrous parched.”
With that, he nodded and left the sleeping compartment. She shook her head in surprise, and forgot to be embarrassed. What a strange circumstance I have stumbled into, she thought as she closed her eyes and returned to sleep.
