Sweet Mary Anne by Kaye Dobbie

Author:Kaye Dobbie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kaye Dobbie

Chapter 7

The rain started a spate of cold, rainy weather, and Mary Anne had no choice but to remain indoors during the day, while the men, grumbling in Nick’s case, had to go out to their work. There was sewing to do, and help to give Bessy in the house and dairy.

The bad weather washed three more bodies up on the beach, and Ralph came to tell her, his tired eyes sympathetic. ‘All seamen by the look of their clothes,’ he said. ‘There’s been some wreckage, too. Bits and pieces of timber from the ship itself.’

‘Yes.’

‘Of course, your husband may never . . . That is, he may be trapped in the wreckage itself, or ... You needn’t worry, Mary Anne,’ he put his hand on hers. ‘You won’t be called upon to identify him now.’

She bowed her head, thanking him softly, and he smiled and went on, ‘Strange, how one gets used so quickly to new faces. I can hardly imagine Etwall now without you.’

Her smile was not feigned.

Nicholas had not heard of the episode at the pool. He would never smile at her so, if he knew. ‘There are usually ships calling in before the winter really sets in,’ he told her, one night at dinner. ‘When this bit of a blow-up settles down, Mary Anne, there will be one along for you.’

She nodded. Bessy cleared her throat, glancing at them before starting a rather hectic conversation with Ralph.

‘Speed on fair winds,’ a voice mocked softly at her side. She turned a cold look on him, but he seemed unimpressed. He had been sarcastic, and cruel, since the day of the storm. He hated her, and she him, more than ever. She had come to dread meeting him here at dinner every night—elsewhere she had learned to avoid the places he might happen to be.

Later, at cards, he beat her at every turn until even Ralph was moved to protest that it was hardly gentlemanlike. But Mary Anne laughed airily and rose to her feet, saying, ‘My mind, I’m afraid, wanders when I find something very tedious.’

‘You won’t find Hobart tedious,’ Luke Rowe said, and glanced up at her from his perusal of the deck.

‘Without my friends?’ she retorted, and her smile encompassed Nick and Ralph and Bessy, widening and making her beautiful.

The Lieutenant, however, seemed unimpressed, and after viewing her as one might coolly appraise a work of art, said, ‘You’ll make new ones, I’m sure. I have quite a few there myself. I’d be honoured to give you a few names.’

‘Thank you, no!’

He smiled. ‘They’re rich.’

‘Rowe.’ Nicholas’s voice was quiet and hard. The blue eyes scanned the other man’s face. ‘What’s your game? You’re being deliberately insulting. Mrs Gower says she doesn’t want to meet your friends. I must say I can only agree with her good taste!’

The smile remained, but the grey eyes had turned as hard as granite. ‘Good taste is something I’ve yet to see from our Mrs Gower.’

The silence was brief and potent.

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