Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 78100 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78100 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
“You’ll have to excuse me,” he said to Marlow. “The weather’s been following us like a cantankerous aunt. I can’t seem to get away from it.”
In truth, dinner had been a bit of a pitching and rolling affair. The captain’s light tone belied the concern in his expression.
“If it’s to be a bad storm, you ought to batten down in your berth,” the older man suggested. “I shall have one of the boys tell the others.”
“I’ll alert Mrs. Lintel before I settle in,” he offered. “She is right next door to me.”
“Very good, sir. How considerate you are.”
Considerate was one word for it. Calculating was more accurate. The ship’s tossing and rolling might give Marlow a good excuse to steady Rosalind, or even hold her if things got bad. Not that he savored sailing through a bad storm.
He went up to the deck before going to his berth just to see what they’d be facing, and saw black, heavy clouds and lightning in the distance. Spring storms indeed. The rain had already reached them, big, fat drops that pattered loudly upon the deck. The waves alarmed him, already forming arching crests and foaming troughs that splashed off the ship’s bow.
“Ye must go belowstairs, my lord,” called one of the deckhands, gesturing out toward the churning waters. “We’re sailing into weather. Tisn’t safe for you up here.”
Indeed, he seemed in the way as the crew scurried about battening down the deck’s cargo and furling the sails. He hurried back down the stairs, passing some of the cabin boys as they stowed gear in the corridor. He entered his room and looked around, taking the few loose items from his desk and dresser and securing them in his trunks. He knocked softly on the adjoining door, then entered, finding Rosalind at the porthole window watching the turbulent waves.
“It’s going to storm,” she said.
“It’s already storming.” He took her loose things and stowed them as well. Her hairbrush, her mirror, the poetry book beside her bed. “I’m afraid it may get uncomfortable,” he said, as the Providence tilted precariously. “Come sit down so you don’t fall when the ship pitches and rights itself.”
“We won’t go sideways, will we?” She tried to sound light as she came to him but there was fear in her eyes. “Goodness,” she exclaimed as the ship seemed to fall through space a moment before catching itself with a bump. She fell into his arms, clinging to him as he caught her.
He wanted to enjoy the close contact but there was nothing enjoyable about the violent roll that caused it. “We won’t go sideways,” he assured her. “Ships are designed to weather storms, unpleasant as they are to experience. We shall be tossed about but we’ll survive it. Really, the weather has been so objectionable on this journey. It’s as if we’re not meant to get away from England.”
“At least we’re together. You’re less put out, aren’t you, with me here? Or…” She frowned up at him. “Perhaps I brought the bad luck.”
“Don’t get superstitious on me, darling. Not while we’re at sea.”
For two hours, the swells rose and fell in an unpredictable rhythm. Marlow lost his dinner first, retreating to the deck for a short while to puke over the rail, wishing he hadn’t eaten so much. When he returned to check on Rosalind, he found her both pale and green-tinged in color.
“I hate being sick,” she said.
“You will feel better to empty your stomach. The storm shows no signs of weakening.” In fact, his short time on deck had been a terrifying venture into the power of nature, with the waves booming against the ship’s hull and the planks awash in foam. He did not tell Rosalind the other things he’d learned, like the fact they were veering off course into the Ionian Sea. “Headed about for Greece,” the second mate had shouted when he asked about the expected duration of the storm. He’d added something about the size of waves in the open water that Marlow couldn’t hear over the howling wind.
He gave Rosalind a pitcher from his room to be sick in, then tossed it from the porthole since there was nowhere else to put it and no cabin boy to come and take it away.
“This storm is worse than the others, isn’t it?” she said, rinsing her mouth with the mug of water he offered.
“I believe it is. I hope it will blow over soon.”
He refused to think about the stories he’d heard at his men’s clubs, tales of serious storms at sea, of boats tossed about like toys for four or five days upon the water. Could he survive a week of this?
Night came, along with an increase in the ship’s bobbing and churning. They moved into his larger room because hers felt too close in the crashing noise, too oppressive. They’d finished the water they had, trying to calm their stomachs, but could not call for more. Tomorrow things would be better. They would do best to sleep.