Page 9 of The Captain of Betrayal
"I suppose that it's better to die a hero for your country, than a street Arab with a hungry belly."
James did not stay to listen to the rest of the conversation; instead he turned and crept back to his room, his heart hammering in his chest. So his uncle had not wanted to help him at all; he had merely wanted to be rid of the nuisance bastard who he regretted saving. Bile rose in James' throat, and for a moment he feared he would retch. Once the waves of nausea had begun to subside, an anger began to build in his chest. He was furious at both his uncle and his stepmother for holding his life with such contempt, furious at the dead father he had never known for leaving him with them, and most of all, furious with himself.
"I've never seen her before in my life."
The cruel way that he had dismissed Polly, beautiful, brave, wilful Polly, tore at his soul, and James knew that he had to find her to apologise and beg for her forgiveness. Seized with energy, he devised a rather haphazard plan, which involved stealing coins from the purse in his uncle's desk and taking the first coach he could find to Newcastle, for surely she would have returned there. In his mind's eye, he envisaged that his passage to Newcastle would take no more than two days, but in reality, it was nearly a week later when he arrived at the door of the Jenkin's ramshackle house on Strawberry Lane.
He was exhausted and covered with grime from the dusty roads, but hope filled him at the thought of seeing Polly again.
"'O's that?"
Ted Jenkins, his face bloated and red from drink, opened the door to James' knocking.
"James Livingstone, sir," the young man started, for the whiff of gin of Ted was enough to knock a horse out. "I'm here to see Polly."
"Well you'll be waiting, if it's Polly you're looking for." Ted spat on the ground in disgust. "She left months ago with the half-wit, haven't seen 'em since."
"Haven't seen them since...?"
"February. And good riddance to them--no appreciation for their poor pa, who worked his fingers to the bones to put food on the table for them."
Ted shut the door with a bang, leaving James outside in the lane. How could he have been so stupid? There was no other reason for Polly to have travelled all the way to London, other than that she was fleeing from Ted. Where was she now?
James grasped at straws, trying to think. Polly could be anywhere--London, Bristol, or even France, for all he knew. When she had disappeared that night in the Dean's Yard, she must have known that he would never have had any hope of finding her and she had not called out to tell him.
James began to walk aimlessly toward the docks, unsure of what his next step would be. He was half thinking of throwing himself into the deep, murky waters of the Tyne, when a jovial voice called out.
"What-ho, now there's a strapping lad. Tell me boy, are you employed?"
James shook his head in response to the older gentleman, who was kitted out in the uniform of the Royal Navy.
"A big, strong buck like you, with nothing to do?" the man feigned horror, "Have you not heard we're at war, man? Get yourself down to Spencer Quay, my son, they're signing up tars this minute."
With a wave, the man continued weaving his way through the crowds, hailing down every healthy looking man he passed.
It was like a sign from God, James decided as he made his way to Spencer Dock; the thought of being marooned at sea for months, or even years, quite appealed to his melancholy state. He made his way to the small office on the quayside, where a surly sailor, greeted him.
"What's yer name?" he said with disinterest, looking down at the sheaf of paper on his desk, which bore at least two dozen names .
"James Liv—" James paused, for after nearly four years, the response of Livingstone had almost tripped off his tongue without thought.
"Wassamater, you forgot your name?" the man guffawed with amusement.
"No sir, I have not," James replied, "My name is James Black."
And I'll never forget that again, he thought with determination.
CHAPTER FIVE
Polly Jenkins was not one for nostalgia--she was a hardworking, practical woman of eight and twenty, who was far happier when acting rather than ruminating. But sometimes, on days when the demands of the boarding house that she ran were fewer than usual, she found her mind wandering. Often when this happened, she would pull herself out of it quite quickly, for she knew where her mind wanted to wander...
It wanted to traipse back through a decade of memories, to the place where her heart had broken so thoroughly that she thought she might die.
Well I didn't die, she would think mulishly, I was simply reborn. A different girl had left the Dean's Yard more than ten years ago than the one who had entered it full of hope and love, and Polly would remind herself that this was for the best. The world could be a cruel place, and 'twas better to have that fact pierced upon your heart at a young age, for no one else could then break what was already broken.
Of late though--well, since she had arrived in Cornwall, to be precise--Polly had found that her mind wandered rather a lot back to that fateful day, and to all the days before that she had spent with James Black. She supposed it was because of the ring. She had completely forgotten about the ring that James had given her, until she found it nestled in the lining of her batteredportmanteauwhen she arrived in St Jarvis. At the time, she had slipped the ring onto her finger thoughtlessly, so as not to misplace it again before she decided what to do with it. Now however, as her thoughts kept drifting to James Black, and the day that he had broken her heart, she thought that perhaps the ring would have been best left rusting in her travel case.
"Are you quite alright, Polly?" the voice of Olive, Duchess of Everleigh, broke through Polly's thoughts, drawing her back from the past.
