Chapter IV – Aboard the Ship

She had looked everywhere in her room.  Sure she had spent hours ripping everything apart, putting her things back, then re-searching, but she still hadn't found that damned girl.  Her room, made up of light brown wood, seemed to be growing larger.  There were constantly new places to search in the brightly lit up cabin.  Sitting down on one of her crates, she wiped her brow in an unladylike manner.  Ladies were not supposed to perspire. 

Sunlight shone through the porthole that she had opened, a light mist sometimes spraying into her room.  It was quite refreshing, along with the nice, cool sea breeze.  Standing before the porthole, she waited for water to sprinkle upon her face, to remove the sweat.  Once it had, a revitalizing quick shower, she took a handkerchief and mopped her face up.

"Well," she said resolutely to herself, "I suppose I'll have to sneak out of here."  Wondering if the troops were still stationed at her door, she opened it a crack, peering out like she had two weeks previous.  No one shouted at her to stay put.  So she opened the door further and looked around.  There were no soldiers standing on guard.

Confused, she murmured, "This is strange."  Hearing noises from the next room, she realised that they must be busy working.  They must have thought that she would be fooled and not even try to look out her door.  But she had caught them ignoring their duty by not being at their post.  Which was perfectly alright with her.

Walking carefully down the hall, being as quiet as possible as to not be detected, she kept looking behind her, to make sure no one was coming down the stairs.  Coming to the end of the hall, she had a choice to turn left or right.  Taking a guess, she turned right, examining the dark corners and all the shadows.  Here it was much darker, lanterns glowing every few feet.  No sunlight made it here, deeper into the ship.  She just hoped she wouldn't have to go down into the bowels on her search.  That would be the last place a lady should be seen.  But if she had to do it, well, then she had to.

Continuing down the corridor, she passed mostly closed doors.  Those she didn't bother searching.  However, the rooms that were open, she did head into.  The first room was a spartan soldier's room.  His uniforms hung in a wardrobe to the right, his small bed, meticulously made, on the left.  A desk was against the back wall, papers scattered about it, a small stack at the back corner.  A few quills were laid out, stained from frequent use.  A tight lidded bottle of ink was in the inkwell so it wouldn't dance across the desk and smash onto the floor.  She was sure that any cabin boy who had to clean that up would be in a frightful angry state.  Gingerly searching the cabin, not wanting to muss anything up too horribly – she didn't want to be caught, after all – she soon left. 

Jennifer wasn't there.

Onto the next open room.  Stepping inside she realised it was some sort of sitting area.  There was, as in nearly all rooms, a desk to the side.  Lanterns sat on dark tables, black chairs in a relative square in the middle.  A red carpet was laid out on the wooden floor, a fringe of wood visible.  A bottle of rum sat on the low table in the centre of the ring of chairs, a few dirty glasses surrounding it.

"Ugh, God awful drink," Rachelle stated, wrinkling her nose.  There weren't many places to hide in here, but she checked under the desk, table and chairs, just in case.  Still nothing.

Walking through the ship, going into a few more identical solder's rooms, she found some stairs leading deeper down in the ship.  With a deep breath she descended the steps, taking one at a time.  It was quite dark; lanterns spaced even further apart, barely anything visible in the dank, gloomy hallways.  She stepped off the last stair and glanced about, squinting into the darkness.  Thinking that she saw a large, open doorway in the left corridor, she went down it and turned to her right.  There was the large opening, leading into the strangest place she had ever seen.  A large stone hearth – or what she supposed was a hearth – was against one wall.  There were wooden counters along the walls, cupboards lining the walls underneath.  Things were spilling out of the cupboards and off of the counters.  She stepped by the carefully, not wanting to smear anything on her skirts, or get anything caught.  A massive table was situated in the middle of the room, scored and pitted with knife marks, she assumed, as there were knives lying out on this table.  She could only see sections of it, however, as meat and vegetables covered the rest.  Off to the side was a ramshackle icepit, used for ice and to cool things off.  It also seemed to work to keep things fresher.  Along the wall she had come in were herbs, some very rare, hanging, dried.  Although there were some along the counter underneath, growing in pots, or some in jars.

She searched the whole room and as it was mostly in shadows and had many nooks and crannies, not to mention containers Jennifer could hide in, it took her a long time.

Standing up straight, back at the doorway she wiped her brow again and was disgusted by the sweat there.  When she found Jennifer, she would wring her neck, and never let her leave their room!

Never say never.

With a sigh, and blowing a damp tendril of hair out of her face in a most inappropriate fashion, she turned and left the massive room.  Back out into the dark hall, whose rooms she did not want to even consider searching, she looked around.  Heading back towards the stairs, she mounted them slowly and carefully, holding her skirts tiredly as high as was proper for a lady.  It may have been slightly improper for her to have her skirts so bloody high up, but she figured a bit of unseemliness would be greeted much better than a broken neck.  After all, these stairs were steep and very dark.  And not to mention, to her delicate sensibilities, filthy.  At least from what she could see.  But she thought that perhaps these areas were for the lower classes, and so it being in tip top shape – especially with what looked like a kitchen down there – was not as important as the area she and the captain were in.

The captain!  Perhaps Jennifer would be in there!  She couldn't imagine why, but there was a greater chance of her being there, seeing as it was nice and Jennifer was used to nice things.  Instead of down in the dirt and darkness she had just left.

Making it to the top of the steps, she carefully made her way back the same way she had come.  She recognised the sitting room, and the open officers rooms: she also noticed that a few more doors were open, and she figured that their business had been done.  Passing her guards' room, she heard them still working, so knew that she had time to sneak into the captain's quarters.  Going in the direction she was sure had to house him, she followed the corridor to the left of the stairs.  She had to sneak through the shaft of sunlight shining down the light, well worn but meticulous stairs.  There could have been men looking in her direction, and she could be spotted easily.  But no one noticed her and she went down the hall to the end, where an ornate door was slightly open.  Pushing the door open carefully, she noticed that it didn't creak.  The room was done in light colours, mostly white, and although there wasn't a porthole, there were many lanterns.  She supposed that there was so much white to give it a brighter, larger appearance.  Like in the other rooms, there was a wardrobe, a desk, a bed, but it also seemed to have many other effects, filling the room up.  Wherever there wasn't white, there was red.  The carpet on the floor, covering most of the wood, was red.  Some of the pillows were red, all accents around the room were red.  As well as the suit discarded onto the back of a chair, lying limply.  She examined the room, eyes going from the dinner that was somehow ruined, to the bed.

Jennifer looked up at her from the middle of the bed, gave off a sharp bark and began wagging her tail.

"You rascal!" she exclaimed, heading over and grabbing her beagle pup, "you destroyed the captain's dinner, didn't you!"

"She did?!"  The captain walked over.  "Trust me to take my responsibility at the helm and leave my room alone for five minutes too long, and your bugger of a dog destroys my meal!"

Rachelle gasped, her hand fluttering to her mouth and demanded indignantly, "How dare you use such language before a lady?"

He opened his mouth, then shut it and bowed.  "My apologies, my lady.  Sometimes one forgets himself on the seas."

"Yes, well, see to it that it never happens again."  And with that she strode out of the room, head high, nose in the air, Jennifer imitating her, tail still swishing.

Frowning at the remnants of his meal, the captain then turned and went to the door.  He closed it firmly, having to try a few times for it to finally clasp shut.  He thought that he would have to get one of the deck hands to fix the door.  It must not have shut solidly behind him when he left, and the dog had been able to push it open and find refuge – and a free meal – within.  Marching purposefully back to his bed, he lifted up his dress pants and nearly fainted.

Yellow liquid dripped down from them in a slow rhythm, trickling onto his bed.  His face distorted into one of absolute disgust and sheer shock.  Carefully, he held them as far away from him as he could, at arms length, and dropped them into a pile of already soiled clothes for the maid to take care of that night.  Hands balling into fists at his sides in rage, he blinked a few times to rid the red from his sight.  Although it didn't work too well as there was lots of red in his room.  He turned crisply about and marched back to the bed.

He would have to sleep this off and remind himself of the hefty payment he was getting for delivering the Mistress Clairington.

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Sukkumbus: We've taken a bit of a break from writing, and then yesterday afternoon the power went out.  I dunno if you guys heard that in the news, but yeah we were affected.  I'm assuming Mika was as well as I, but there were a few places that weren't . . . We finished the story last week, and started the sequel.  Although we're still going through it and editing, proofreading, adding things, adjusting some stuff . . . It's all good eh.

Oh, and I've noticed from what some of you have said that you have an idea as to how this story is gonna play out.  Now, I could be mistaken and inferencing from nothing, but all I have to say is don't get your hopes up.  For ANYTHING.  Because we jerk you around in this story, lol.  I just don't want anyone to be hoping for something and have it totally not what they expected and have them all disappointed.  Because that would suck.

I'm rambling now, but I just thought I should warn you.  And Mika isn't around to leave a note so . . .

Please review!

Sukkumbus