Silence
Elizabeth was wrapped in her dressing gown, drying her hair with a towel, when James entered the bedroom. Elizabeth's stomach tightened guilty; she had just changed the sheets on the bed, choosing to do it herself instead of asking a servant and arousing suspicion.
"Good evening," he said stiffly, physically avoiding Elizabeth as he went to his closet to change.
He didn't speak to Elizabeth again for the rest of the evening. By the time she climbed into bed, Elizabeth had resigned herself to a silent and mercifully non-physical night with her husband. She stretched out on the clean cotton sheets, her back to Norrington. She had just begun to drift off when his words startled her from her stupor.
"Why isn't it enough?"
He spoke softly, a rhetorical question asked to the room as though the furniture waited, with baited breath, to answer him. Elizabeth barely heard.
She rolled over to face him, slightly irritated.
"What are you talking about?"
He was on his back, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, a sadness etched in his prematurely lined face.
"Everything you could have ever wanted, Elizabeth. Isn't it enough?"
She really wasn't in the mood for this now. "James…"
"The parties, the gowns and jewelry, even the title. But it's not enough. I love you, Elizabeth. Why isn't that enough for you?"
She sat up, her weight resting on her hands. A life of society wasn't everything she wanted. Gowns and jewelry were as good as prison bars. Society parties were like feeding times, only Elizabeth was the one being served up, and the party guests picked her apart with gossip. She longed to be aboard a ship, at the mercy of the wind and sea, far away from Port Royal and its imported hierarchies of British society. Her wedding ring might as well have been a shackle. Being with Jon had been a glimpse at freedom, a chance to do something again that was against the rules, something that would give her some sort of control over her life while at the same time allowing her to let go completely.
How could she possibly express all of this to James?
"You have always assumed that you saved me from a terrible fate aboard the Black Pearl. You thought that I would have a much better life back here with you. You thought that because it's what you wanted to believe, James, but it's not true. Port Royal is my captor, and the open sea is my home. Fine gowns and diamonds don't matter to me, and neither does a society title. I can't live this life anymore, doing the same things day after day. It will drive me mad."
He looked puzzled for a moment, and said nothing as he contemplated her words. Then he spoke.
"To want to live a life of piracy, devoting yourself to crime, Elizabeth." She winced at his words, fearing the speech of condescension that would follow. She looked down and was surprised to find a smile playing on his lips.
"What would your father say?"
Elizabeth laughed, throwing her head back and releasing the tension that had built in the pit of her stomach. She dropped back down to the bed, savoring the comfort it provided after what had been a very long day.
She woke suddenly, ripped from pleasant sleep by something impalpable. The house was silent. The windows were open, but Elizabeth heard none of the usual morning sounds; no birds chirping, no wagon wheels on the road. Not even the curtains fluttered with a gentle Caribbean breeze. She sat still in the bed, her fear immobilizing her. After a few moments, she rolled over and perched on the edge of the bed. She hesitated to step on the floor, to make any sound that would shatter the eerie silence. Slowly, she lowered her foot and tested her weight on the floor.
It did not squeak. She pressed her whole foot down, holding her breath. There was silence. Her other foot followed just as slowly, and just as quietly. She felt her ears would shatter from the building pressure of the relentless silence.
Usually this time of day, the household was full of noise. Servants would be preparing breakfast, beginning the daily chores, coming and going and slamming doors as they went. But Elizabeth heard not even a floorboard creak.
She moved cautiously towards the door. She stopped, however, when her hand wrapped around the cold bronze doorknob. There was no conceivable way she could open the door without making a sound. The knob would rattle, the hinges would squeak, and the wood often cracked and popped with the humidity. Resigning herself to the prospect of a possibly very noisy exit, Elizabeth turned the doorknob slowly. The door hinges creaked in an ominous way, a loud, echoing creak that Elizabeth swore could have been heard down at the docks. She peered out in to the hallway, but there was no one there.
She made her way slowly to the top of the stairs. Leaning against the banister, she looked down into the hall. A flicker of movement on the edge of the foyer caught her eye, and Elizabeth leaned further over to see. Whatever it had been was gone, but Elizabeth knew it was just on the edge of her vision. She crept down the stairs.
She stood still in the foyer, three different directions for her to choose. To her left was the sitting room, and beyond that, the solarium. To her right was the study, and just next to that was the library. In front of her were the dining room and the passage to the kitchens. She had stepped towards the kitchens when she heard a noise from the sitting room. It had been quiet, almost silent, but Elizabeth had heard it, like the flutter of wings. She turned towards it.
The door to the sitting room was open ajar. Elizabeth couldn't see anyone through the crack, just the cream carpet and the end of the sofa. She held her breath as she pushed open the door.
At first, the only thing she saw was the blinding sunlight that poured through the window. But as her eyes focused and she turned away from the light, she was able to make out the rest of the room. She froze.
A man was standing by the bookshelf, his back to Elizabeth. His clothes were old and tattered, with a worn and dirty look to them. His long dark hair was matted and twisted into loose, thick braids and on his feet he wore tall brown leather boots. On one hip was a cutlass, and on the other was a pistol.
He turned around to face Elizabeth. His dark eyes crinkled into a smile and he cocked a crooked, silver grin. His arms waved vaguely in front of him in a gesture to Elizabeth.
"'Ello, love."
Elizabeth sat bolt upright in her chair. The teacup that had been balanced on her lap fell to the floor and shattered. Her hand fluttered to her chest, where she could feel her heart hammering against her ribs. She struggled to catch her breath.
As she knelt down to clean up the china, she glanced around the room. She was in the solarium for tea. The humidity was oppressive that day, and she had drifted into a fitful sleep in her chair. She had seen Jack's face so clearly, it was as though he had been standing before her, and she looked about the room, half expecting to see him leaning against the bookshelf and watching her, a twisted smirk on his face.
Her dreams had been haunted by visions of pirate ships, dark shadows that lurked beneath the decks, blasts of cannon fire and distant lands that held untold secrets. She spent most of her time pondering these dreams, paying little attention to what she really was doing, thus living half a life, a life consumed by fantasy.
So she took a walk. She strolled down the lawn of the mansion, through the gardens of tropical plants, down to the edge of the property where the tamed manicured lawns of the mansion came to a sudden halt in the face of the wild and voracious jungle. The metaphor was not lost on Elizabeth, who saw them everywhere these days.
As she stood on the property line, looking into the dense undergrowth before her, her mind focused on one thing. How easily she could slip into the trees and run away. She could leave the mansion and everything it entailed behind while she set off at a sprint towards the nearest departing ship. And she could think of someone who would go with her…
Perhaps her imagination was over-active. Maybe she simply needed a hobby to occupy the time of her day. These thoughts were ridiculous. The other society women devoted their time to charities and meetings; so, too, could Elizabeth. She would push this nonsense from her head by throwing herself wholeheartedly into a task.
Making up her mind, she turned suddenly from the trees and hurried back up to the house, where she ordered her carriage to be made ready for a trip into town.
It was a short trip; the route had been worn down daily by carriage wheels and it was likely the horses could have driven themselves to town. On the edge of the village, the driver called back to Elizabeth through the little window at the front of the cab.
"Where to, ma'am?"
Having had every intention to go straight to the women's club and begin the fundraising for the education of young island girls, Elizabeth was suddenly overwhelmed by another intention.
"Let me out here. I'd like to walk."
The driver obeyed and Elizabeth began her journey to a small white house on the edge of town. She knocked on the door hesitantly, as though she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to go in.
After a few moments silence, the door swung open.
"Elizabeth?"
Lieutenant Newcastle stood on the threshold, looking entirely surprised to see her. He worn only an untucked shirt and a pair of breeches; his hair was tousled and, Elizabeth noticed, his hands were stained with ink.
"Am I interrupting you?" she said, suddenly aware of how foolish and rash her actions had been.
"Not at all," he answered. "Would you like to come in?"
"Yes, of course," she said, hurrying past him into the house. He stifled a yawn and shut the door, turning around to find Elizabeth looking anywhere but his direction.
"This is a nice house," she said to the ceiling.
"Are you surprised?" he replied, only half joking.
Finally she looked at him. "I didn't mean it that way."
"It was my father's house. He left it to me when he died."
"Oh." Elizabeth felt her cheeks flush scarlet. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. He was a navy Captain who spent most of his life miserable. He only showed any decency right before he died."
Newcastle turned away from her and moved towards an open door. Elizabeth paused, unsure if she should follow him.
Without turning, he called to her: "Aren't you coming?"
She hurried after him, her face still flushed. He led her into a small study. The walls were lined with crowded bookshelves; hundreds of dusty, leather-bound volumes stood in neat rows, looking as though they hadn't been touched since the day they had been placed there. Newcastle motioned to an armchair for Elizabeth and strode towards the desk where a tray of entirely dust-free glass bottles was perched. He chose a squat bottle half-filled with amber liquid and poured some into a glass. He gestured the bottle towards Elizabeth with a silent question; she shook her head quickly. He picked up his glass and took a swig.
"So what brings you to my humble abode, Lady Norrington?"
Elizabeth bit her lip. She had left her house to donate her time to charity and had instead ended up in the house of a man who was not her husband with unclear, though entirely immoral, motives. She just hadn't been counting on explaining herself.
Newcastle, who was not so easy to give up the chase, cocked an eyebrow at her silence.
"It's a little late to play coy, isn't it, Elizabeth?"
A slight anger coursed through her veins, where it mixed with her other suppressed emotions. Before she could control herself, her mouth opened and her words tumbled out.
"I couldn't stay in that house anymore. The tension would have eaten me alive. Living there is living a lie."
Newcastle was still for a silent moment, contemplating Elizabeth's words in the bottom of his glass. Then he set it carefully down on the desk, walked around to the armchair across from hers, and sat down slowly.
"That was quite a revelation."
She said nothing.
"How long have you been waiting to say that?"
She looked up at him and found his eyes slanted into a half-smile.
"Since the wedding."
He laughed, a loud, loose laugh, and Elizabeth noticed how his shoulders relaxed, free from tension, so unlike James', so unlike her own.
She leaned forward in her chair to speak softly to him. "Tell me your secrets."
By dusk she had to leave. She wanted to stay forever, wrapped in the cool cotton sheets, his strong, rough arms wrapped around her waist to hold her close. He lay on his side next to her, his head resting on her shoulder. His eyes were closed. She lay on her back, looking up at the fading rays of light splashed across the ceiling. She had been watching the light, keeping track of the time, waiting until the last possible moment to leave. She knew if she came back too late James would be suspicious. At the same time, she didn't want to care.
She slipped out of the bed, trying not to disturb the sleeping Lieutenant. She winced at the rustling sound her dress made as she pulled it over her head. She secured the back loosely and turned to find him watching her intently.
"Leaving so soon?"
"It's getting late," she said, trying to avoid his eye. She could feel his gaze on her as she searched for her shoes.
"You wouldn't want to leave him waiting."
Elizabeth sighed as she brushed her hair back from her face. "Please don't be like that."
She moved swiftly towards she door, but as she passed the bed he caught her arm.
"I'm sorry; you're right." She tried again not to look at him. "I'll find you again," he said, his voice gruff, as though he was fighting with himself to say something else. She gave in and looked down at him. "I'll keep a weathered eye on the horizon."