He gestured, to invite her to resume walking, but he did not take her arm. Her shoulders slumped for a moment, then she drew herself up and walked briskly toward the Crown, he following just half a step behind, to shelter her from the wind.
Chapter Nine
By mutual but unspoken agreement, Edmund’s “brief visit” to Portsmouth was concluded the day after Julia and William’s conversation on the Ramparts. He and Julia returned to Thornton Lacey; she far too oppressed in spirits to improve her acquaintance with the Miss Owens, or to properly admire half of their accomplishments, and the charitable reader is asked to leave her in solitude, to nurse her broken heart, for some weeks.
Lieutenant William Price spent much of his remaining leave time in Portsmouth in colloquy with his brother officers, listening especially attentively to any tales of faithless sweethearts, and men who came home after being away for several years to find a baby in the household cradle. What was once a source of japery and amusement to him was now a matter of painful reflection.
Domestic life offered few of the consolations of the past. He was more aware of the dirt, noise, and vulgarity of the crowded street in which the family resided; the smoky, cramped rooms of their home where his sister Susan valiantly tried to keep order. No wonder her temper sometimes frayed.
Had he, William Price, changed a great deal, or had everyone around him changed? A few years ago, he had thought himself enamoured of all the Gregory girls, especially Lucy, who had turned up her nose at him when he was merely a scrubby midshipman.
He met the Gregory girls again, now as a first lieutenant—they greeted him warmly and made much of him, but how differently did they now appear to his eyes! Pert, showy, and gaudily dressed in cheap and loud fashions, chattering without pause and laughing too loudly, captivated by nothing so much as their own reflections in the shop window, ignorant of the world, and ready to jilt one suitor as soon as a better prospect appeared.
Julia, with her superior education, elegance, and manner, had spoiled him for the brash, simple girls from his old neighbourhood. He did not expect to ever meet her equal, nor did he think he could ever deserve her.
His resolution made, his heart in rebellion, William paced the docks, anxious to be at sea again. In October, his next-assigned ship, the Kangaroo, made port. William was there to greet his new commander when Captain Bradley stepped ashore. He met a desolate widower—the captain’s wife had sailed with him to Jamaica, and died upon the return voyage.
A parcel arrived from Thornton Lacey shortly before William’s departure—it proved to be a large quantity of dried rose hips. Two years had gone by since that October day when he and his sister Susan had been guests at Mansfield Park, and Susan had proposed walking in the hedgerows to collect rose hips for tea. And he, anticipating a chance to speak privately to Julia, claimed to be extremely fond of rose hip tea.
In fact, he didn’t much care for the taste at all. But he was a man in love, and he still loved, so he took the rose hips with him, and continued to drink a cup every day.
William continued to be his mother’s pride and his family’s boast, and all the neighbours knew that the oldest Price boy was returning to Africa as a first lieutenant. Young Betsey was excessively amused by the name of the ship. She had to laugh whenever she thought of it. “The Kangaroo! Bounding out to sea!” She exclaimed to her mother. “Over the bounding main!” And she and her brother Charles loudly bounded up and down the stairs, although Charles was now twelve years old and should know better.
“Betsey, my love, you are giving your mama a terrible headache,” complained Mrs. Price. “I’m sure Kangaroo is as respectable a name as any other.”
“Oh, no, it is not,” cried Charles. “It is a silly name for a ship, ain’t it, Betsey. A ship should be called the Dauntless, or the Dangerous, or the Resentful. Just think, when William tries to make those French ships heave to: This is Lieutenant Price of the Kangaroo! Those froggy sailors will be rolling all over the deck, laughing.”
“Well, perhaps he will be promoted soon, and have a new ship.”
“Like the HMS Dormouse,” said Charles.
“No, like the Monkey!” laughed Betsey
“Or the Hedgehog!
“Children, I beg you!”
At any rate, reflected Mrs. Price, as she poked at the meagre fire, her dear boy William would soon be warm enough, in Africa, away from this miserable cold, these grey English clouds, this fine clinging rain and sleet, this damp chill that seeped into your bones. She closed her eyes and imagined the fiery heat of the southern sun and the piercing blue colour of the African skies.
* * * * * * *
Stoke Newington was a small community, and it was inevitable that the servants of Mrs. Butters’ household should learn, and disclose to their mistress, that her son, George Butters, was embarrassed for funds. The local tradesmen were refusing to extend any further credit to Cecilia Butters; her servants were still waiting for their quarterly payment from Michaelmas, and Christmas was not far away.
Mrs. Butters struggled with herself about assisting her family with their financial difficulties. She knew it to be a temporary, not a final, resolution; indeed, it would most likely result in a settled expectation, on the part of her daughter-in-law, for ongoing assistance; an increase in improvident spending, rather than a reformation.
“Cecilia is short of money, Fanny, without a doubt,” she told
