Her Heart's Captain by Elizabeth Mansfield Read Free Book Online Page B

beastly of me to ignore his kindness.”
    â€œThank him? For what?”
    Jenny briefly recounted to her mother exactly what had happened on the docks, but her mother, aware of the aftermath of the encounter, felt little sympathy for Jenny’s plight. “You could have handled matters a great deal better than you did. You could have cried out when you realized you’d been robbed. That would have attracted a crowd around you. In a crowd, your lack of escort wouldn’t have been so obvious.”
    â€œBut I wouldn’t have felt comfortable making a scene, you know—”
    â€œThere, you see? Thinking of your own comfort instead of your brother’s future. Your shyness is nothing but selfishness—I’ve always felt it.”
    Jenny lowered her eyes miserably. “I’m sorry, Mama.”
    â€œWhat good is being sorry? It will not bring back Robbie’s prospects.” She heaved herself to her feet. “Not that I find you completely to blame,” she muttered grudgingly, turning to the door. “That dreadful captain is quite as much at fault. Taking it out on Robbie just because you behaved so foolishly as to let yourself be robbed—”
    â€œDon’t blame the captain, Mama. He was only being gallant.”
    â€œGallant? You are a goose. Read the other letters and see what a monster your uncle has foisted upon my poor son!” With that, she swept out of the room and slammed the door behind her.
    Jenny reached across the table for the other letters and read them avidly. Then, her heart sinking in her chest, she read them again. Captain Tristram Allenby was the subject of all her brother’s letters, and in all of them the captain was indeed monstrous. He was icy in his remarks, cold in his demeanor, exacting in his demands, aloof to his subordinates and heartless in every way. Robbie was miserably unhappy, homesick and hopeless. Jenny’s heart bled for him. She had to conclude that Uncle Alistair had done the boy a disservice by urging him to join the Navy, her mother had been misguided in agreeing to the plan and Jenny had, albeit unknowingly, added the coup de grace by permitting herself to be robbed. By the time she left the morning room that day, her eyes were red with weeping.
    There was only one hope: time. Time could heal wounds, could help one to adjust to new surroundings, could make one forget injuries to one’s pride or prejudices against strangers. Time could change bad first impressions to more favorable second ones. So Jenny and her mother awaited the next batch of letters with that single ray of hope.
    But the next group of letters dealt that hope a killing blow. They were devastating. Robbie’s words were bleak, and he described his life as one of unrelieved agony. He was always cold and damp, the food was becoming more unpalatable with each passing day, and he’d contracted a fever but had not been permitted to miss a watch. Worse than all the rest, he’d been blisteringly reprimanded by his lieutenant on two separate occasions for infractions which were too insignificant to have warranted attention—indicating to him that the captain’s prejudice against him had infected the other officers. He’d been warned that, should there be a third act of misconduct, he would be hauled before the captain. That threat obviously filled the poor boy with terror.
    If, after all that, Jenny still nourished in her bosom the slightest vestige of warmth for the man on the dock, one of Robbie’s letters obliterated that glow completely. It described his first observance of the practice of ship’s discipline known as the Flogging. This morning , he wrote, the entire Crew was assembled on the quarter Deck, with the Marines lined up on the Poop. The Master-at-arms paraded in a Prisoner while we all watched. Then we stood waiting while the Surgeon prepared his Medications. After about half-an-hour, Captain Allenby came on