There are not enough Persuasion stories out there, so I decided to try my hand at writing one. Persuasion has to be my joint favourite, if not complete favourite, Jane Austen novel and I hope I do it justice. This is chapter one of two and I hope to have the other one up by the end of the year.
Beware that I am working on improving my grammar and any help/suggestions you can give me on that would be gratefully received. Thank You.
The six o'clock call had just been made across the ship and, slowly but surely, sailors where waking up and marking a start on their morning chores. Breakfast was being prepared, hammocks where being folded and stowed away while others who had been on night watch, where just going to bed.
The sun was slowly rising in the east, casting a pink and orange tinge over the ever lightening sky. There was a slight breeze in the air and it ruffled the hair on the head of Captain Harry Harville.
Harville stood at the bow of the ship. His gaze drifting over the still water all around and the sun making its accent into the sky, lighting up the dark and chasing the moon away.
He was still standing there 30 minutes later, with the morning hustle and bustle of ship life going on about him, when the cabin boy found him.
"Captain Harville. The Doctor is wishing to see you Sir. It is the Captain Sir, he is unwell" the young lad said as he came to a halt beside Harville.
Harville's first reaction to this message, was to raise his eyebrows in surprise. In all the time he had known Captain Frederick Wentworth, he had never fallen ill. Not even with the simplest cold or sniffle. To hear that he was, and that the Doctor was seeing to him, made Harville extremely surprised though slightly worried. Since he had never succumbed before to illness, surely it had had to be something serious to fell Frederick now?
With these thoughts swirling round his head Harville made his way inside and to the Captain's quarters, the small area not quite living up to its description for it was more like an oversized small closet.
Upon knocking and entering the room, Harville's gaze was immediately caught by the site before him. Frederick lay on the bed in the far corner, his body tangled in sweat soaked sheets. Dr John Matthews, the ships physician, was bent over him drawing a wet cloth over his face and neck, trying to cool the fever that was sweeping the body of his friend.
Matthews looked up when he heard the door open and gave a curt nod when he saw who entered the room before going back to his task. Harville drew nearer to the bed and a sharp intake of breath could be heard when he caught a full glimpse of his friend.
Fredrick's face was pale for the most part though his cheeks glowed with a bright red hue, while his hair was plastered to his head with sweat. The place in which he lay looked as though someone had poured several buckets of water over it and as Harville came closer, he could hear the laboured breathing of his friend as though he had just run for miles.
"How is he?" Harville said quietly as he took a seat on the end of the bed.
"Not good but better than he was" the Doctor replied as he continued to wash Frederick down.
"Better than, how long has he been like this?"
"A couple of hours. He was feeling unwell over dinner and went to bed early, when Jones could not wake him around four this morning they sent for me"
"Why was I not informed sooner?" Harville asked, his eyes leaving the prone body of his friend for the first time and settling on Matthews.
"You had just finished a long shift and needed your sleep, I saw no reason to wake you" came the Doctors firm reply "You would not have helped any and if you had have been woken that early, you would have been a walking corpse by now"
At that point Frederick let out a groan and Harville reached across to grasp at his friends wrist, as the arm started to fail about. When his hand came in contact Fredericks burning skin, his friend opened his eyes.
A look of confusion crossed his features and his eyes danced wildly, seemingly unable to settle on anything or anyone in particular.
"Frederick! Frederick it is me, Harville. Can you hear me?"
"He is too far into the fever to," Matthews began before cutting of abruptly and leaning closer to the head of the bed, and that of the patient.
"Frederick it is John. You are going to have to speak up if we are to hear you"
"Where is she?" Frederick Wentworth rasped out, his eyes continuing to dart about the small room.
"Where is who?"
"Anne! Where is Anne? I must speak with her" and with that Frederick tried to get out of the bed. It took the combined strength of both Matthews and Harville to prevent him from accomplishing his task and he lay back down heavily, still crying out for Anne.
The Doctor hollered to someone standing outside the door and it opened, admitting his apprentice. Matthews bade the young man to fetch his box of herbs from his room and to bring the small locked box back with him.
As the young man set of on his task, Harville turned to look at Matthews, a question in his expression.
"It'll do him no good failing around like this," Matthews said as he attempted to bath Fredericks body with the cool cloth while at the same time trying to keep him laying still between the covers. "His body needs rest if he is to beat this fever"
Harville looked his friend and Captain over. He had not stopped trying to escape from the confines of the sheets though he his struggles had diminished greatly. His eyes still roved the room in an erratic manner while he still cried out for someone called Anne. Sitting by his friends side, Harville racked his brains trying to remember if Frederick had ever mentioned anyone by that name but came up empty.
The young apprentice returned quickly and was immediately set to work by Dr Matthews. Taking a key from a chain around his neck, Dr Matthews mentioned for the man to take it and open the small ornate wooden box. Upon opening it the apprentice held it out to the doctor, who removed a few small leather pouches from it before closing the lid and locking it up once again.
Taking the pouches from Dr Matthews, the young man set about measuring up amounts of powder as per the Doctors instructions. Setting them out in small piles upon small pieces of paper. After he had all the amounts set out, he poured them all into a small mortar bowl, added a small amount of water and began to mix the lot together with the pestle.
He passed the jar to Matthews when he had finished and Doctor took an experimental sniff of the ingredients before nodding his head to the young man who sat as if on tenterhooks, waiting to see if he had done right.
Setting his hand behind Frederick's head, Matthews propped him up and began to pour the liquid down his throat. Small amounts at a time to prevent Frederick from chocking or spitting the whole lot back up again.
Laying Fredericks head back down, the Doctor continued to bath him. Taking a cool cloth from the bowl it had been sitting in, he wiped it across his friends face and neck. Hoping that it would help to relieve his fever. Harville continued to hold Frederick in place and to try and interpret his mumblings.
Both men where at their job throughout the whole morning and afternoon. The mixture of liquid that Doctor had given to Frederick the first time did not do him much good and Matthews was fearful of giving him more in such a short period of time, so much so that both men waited on their Captain till early evening when the Doctor was able to make a slightly more potent mixture which sent their patient of into a peaceful nights sleep.
As Frederick's eyes shut, Matthews motioned to Harville and the two men left the room. They both walked out to the deck, each giving brief explanations of the Captains condition to the men that asked.
Harville lent over the side of the ship, his elbows against the wood, savouring the feel of the light breeze against the heat of his skin and idly wondered if he should be spending so much time in Fredericks sick room. It would not do if he got sick as well.
"This Anne he speaks of, do you know her?" Matthews said as he came to stand beside Harville. Instead of leaning of the side he stood with his back against it.
Harville shook his head "She is not family"
The Doctor snorted.
"I never once thought that she was," he said, turning and assuming the same position as Harville "His calls for her, they are too passionate, filled with too much longing for her to be a sister or a mother"
"He has never mentioned anyone else," Harville said quietly "Never has he mentioned a woman to me, neither a sweetheart nor a lady in port" His voice trailed off towards the end. Had his friend been keeping something, or rather someone, from him?
"Just because he has never mentioned them, doesn't mean they don't exist" the Doctor stated.
"Come on John, how long have you known Frederick?" Harville said as he straightened up "You can bet that if their was anyone in his life like that then we'd never hear the end of it," he smiled "He'd talk till our ears where bleeding and his throat was worn away. Surely you remember the infamous Lady Cassandra."
Matthews smiled. He remembered the young Captain had been enamoured with the slightly older woman that he had met at a dance in Portsmouth. He had gone on and on about her to his friends till he had mentioned her to his new brother-in-law, who had promptly set the young man straight as to what sort of "lady" Ms Cassandra was.
"He is not calling for her though" the Doctor pointed out as Harville racked his brains, trying to remember if his friend had ever mentioned anyone with the name of Anne.
"I'm drawing a blank here. I don't think he's ever mentioned anyone by that name" Harville said eventually.
The two men both stood starring out into the sea and at the sun going down in the West. The ship was heading South, towards the island of -----. They had been heading in that direction already but the voyage had been sped up during the day on the Doctors orders, who had felt that he would be able to treat the Captain better, while in port. The fresh water would be a bonus as well.
"Perhaps, when he is feeling better, he will tell us about her" the Doctor said
Now it was Harvilles turn to snort.
"I thought you knew Frederick, John. If he has not mentioned her before, he is not likely to tell us about her now. No, we would be better to ask now and try to unravel his mumblings. We might have better luck getting information out of him now rather than later"