88888888

'twas the eve of battle. All around the coast lights shimmered in the darkness. Juana Margall pondered the night ahead as she crowded with the other prostitutes, women of ill circumstance using the good fortune of the harboured fleet as a means of easy income. The sailors to whom they were crowding to please were eager too; one last revelry before, Juana knew, a day from which many may not return. Easy business, the women around her had been saying as they congregated on the wooden wharves – what man would not wish for one last revelry before facing death?

Would she be able to do it? Juana has asked herself the question repeatedly once she had conceived the notion to do it. So many women would be required by these merry-making sailors: all the better for business. Even so, in ill-fitting, bawdy clothing: tightly-fitting bodice with layers of skirt and face powdered and painted in the latest style, with the cool breeze on her exposed flesh Juana Margall had never done this before.

A chorus of "Spanish Ladies" meant that the sailors from the flagship had espied them. Laughs and titters arose from the cluster of trollops and they tittered to one another in Spanish as some of the sailors came over to them. Juana shivered as she wondered just what would happen.

"Senioritas!" One of the men stepped forward and addressed the group, picking up a daintily-finger-fringed hand from the nearest girl and kissed the back of it. "We would like all of you to join us on this auspicious night." Giggling erupted again and the harlots looked at one another, giggling. Juana joined in too so as not to look out of place.

"Vienen, senoras," tried another, with altogether much more accuracy and style, "a bordo de buque…" he gestured towards the ship from which they had ambled, "…fuera nos feliz…divertirse…"

"Divertirse!" repeated the girl whose hand the sailor held. "Fun…! Merry…!"

"Divertirse," agreed the throng of whores and, as one, the women moved with the men as a swarm of bees around honey, Juana with them. No going back now, just onwards and to her work.

88888888

Cicely Maturin held the inflammatory epistle to the lamplight again, at its venomous, beguiling words that were made out on the paper. Were she not to have repaired Captain Aubrey's uniform jacket as he had baldly asked, had he not prescribed where the thread was to be found, in the bureau drawer she would be ignorant. Had Cicely not been trying to reach the delicate gold cotton for the epaulette which had fallen past the Captain's purser's papers which were also occupying the drawer her hand may not have rested on it.

Following the visit from Blakeney and Harris Cicely had been entirely alone. She had eaten the food Killick had left for her, drank the beer. She had dressed in the clothes brought by Blakeney, wide-legged, long breeches which for all the world could have been a long gathered skirt or French culottes, and had handed Will back the rifles uniform. Whilst sewing, driving her pain and grief from her mind she had formulated her action for the morrow, for she was determined to be gone and then had consigned the plan to the far reaches of her mind.

Pulling the writing chair that she had moved towards the oil lamp, for a better view of the stitching, Cicely had returned it, throwing the naval-issue sewing-threads onto the bureau's smooth, polished top and taking up Stephen's notebook that Will Blakeney had given to her.

Cathair Saidhbhin. This is the village on the Dingle peninsula in Ireland that Stephen had lived as a youth. He seemed to have spent several days in the Teermoyle mountains judging by the dates he had written next to his annotations. Prior to this there were copious notes and details of ornithological observations mainly around Lleida, where Cicely knew he had grown up as a young boy in Catalonia.

He had partaken of expeditions to the Pryrennes; to the coast, in both countries; he had made extraordinarily details: comparisons, contrasts, eggs, contents of droppings, location of guano, dissections of the birds, of the chicklets…the topics on which to investigate seemed endless, yet also purposeful.

Nothing within Stephen's simply-constructed but optimistically written work (he had written things in the margins to remind himself both imminently and in the future) as if he knew what he was to become, what he wanted to do with his life, even at seven…some in Latin, some in Gaelic, some in Catalonian, some in Castilian Spanish…some even in English. She had closed the book and pushed it aside tentatively, as if it were the riches of the Americas to her at that moment, too precious to be handled by a mere person.

Despite her own determination to blot out its association with her beloved and instead took it up again and tried to focus on the form and texture of the illustration to calm her mind Cicely could not sleep. She had closed the battered tome, leaving it to rest on the bureau next to the muster records and waiting for the soporific effects of Jack's beer (for Killick had explained the captain had gone without on her behalf that evening) to take effect.

Had she not decided to tidy away the threads with which she had mended Jack's tunic back to the drawer where they had originally come perhaps Cicely's grief would not have been released, like a twelve-pounder to the stomach. Cicely may even have gone to the cot, rested to face the morning, to face her pain then, to cope with her loss. She could have soothed herself with the life she had fancied for them both, which she was well practiced in on her journey from Shrewsbury to Cadiz, when Stephen had his Royal Society commission and therefore could pursue his naturalistic career professionally.

She could have left the Surprise unaware of what she was about to discover. Ignorance was not to be and the wrong of her situation, the agony, the pain came to the fore lustily and ferociously as she comprehended the paper she held.

Cicely would not ordinarily have taken up the letter, nor less read it – she had left alone Stephen's belongings knowing that, far from comforting her, they would have made the situation far less bearable – and she had been about to put it back when two words, a name, on the reverse of the outer paper had made her start.

As she'd held it, imagining fantastically distrustful things projecting from the word, gone was the feeling of propriety in an instant: her hazy denial of Stephen's death which had kept her from anguish so far had developed swiftly into hot, heady anger. Raw anger, anger of the fact that she had been there, to have to be told of her husband's demise; anger that she had believed Fouche; anger that she had left the Surprise at all.

A portion of anger that Stephen should have continued with his espionage work, that he required the money for something or other; anger at her own ineptitude that, had she managed to get the information he needed before he had left for his mission, Stephen might not have gone, and would now not be dead.

Cicely cried, emotion racking at her shoulders, her chest, her lungs as she sat hunched over the bureau, looking at Stephen's notebook which represented optimistic hope for the future of a boy and young man and holding the letter she had just discovered. Tears flowed, mucus invaded her mouth and dripped from her chin, her eyes stung. The shock of Jack's news, of Stephen's death, had finally transubstantiated into actuality.

On first reading, having confirmed both the recipient at the top and the sender at the bottom, Cicely had realised she had got to the end of the missive without taking in much of the content or meaning and she'd re-read it, savouring each bitter word.

" – if we could only be once more thy Diana and my Stephen…I would not vacillate…I'd willingly have you back, my dearest…risking fate's wrath…it matters not to me that you are wed … I will change…I may yet be a comfort… the marriage is disputed, so I hear …console and guide…endeavour to love thee better…"

Cicely now sat back in the velvet-covered chair, crumpling the letter into her lap and leaned back allowing the slats to take her weight. The letter looked worn, like it had been opened up on several occasions. Clearly it had been read, and re-read as she had done.

Oh the impertinence! Cicely dashed at her thigh with her hand. How dare she! This woman, this Diana Villiers! She had had the audacity …the brashness…the brazenness…to…to…try to steal her husband…! Cicely had come across her name only once, which had been a correspondence which Fouche had revealed to her, that Stephen had told her of their marriage… her mind then filled in the gaps with hideous consequences…

Her eyes pricking with tears as she looked at Stephen's sparse belongings which Jack had clearly thought important enough to preserve. The address on the top of the letter had an address in an upmarket area of Paris. How much had it been the case that he'd had rid of her in England, to Sophie Aubrey? A small measure of anger that Cicely had reserved for Captain Jack Aubrey, who may have deliberately kept the letter from her, rose to the surface like a sprat momentarily.

Cicely got to her feet, the letter held limply in her hand and began to pace arbitrarily around the cabin. Her heart beat heavily in her chest as above the boots of the men entertaining one another with dancing as she reassessed and reinterpreted the flashes of the past appearing in her mind in light of this new information. After a few minutes Cicely stopped walking and hung her head a little. It ached from the effort of thinking. She thought too much, Stephen said. Stephen used to say…

She returned to the bureau's chair and collapsed into it, glancing at the now-abandoned letter next to Stephen's journal, then looking at both of them in one eye-view momentarily. Oh what did it matter now? He was with God now. Neither one of them could be with him.

Cicely threw her head back and looked at the ceiling, the mizzen-deck's floor before her eye caught the still-horizontal screen. She sat up and looked at it, remembering standing behind the beautiful white panels, hand decorated with periwinkles. It was as beautiful as she felt that day, she recalled, even though she had thought then that she had been going to a marriage of convenience. Cicely remembered the blue dress that Jack had given to her, one intended for his wife. After eighteen months in boy's clothing it had been a beautiful sight to behold and had felt delicate and rich to her touch.

Now, looking towards Stephen's possessions, a small chest, his scientific instruments, his violoncello Cicely saw it again in her mind's eye. She saw herself as she was, in her finery about to become Mrs Maturin, how she a small part of her had gloried in its beauty despite the rest of her despising the life and society it represented…how it had hung in Stephen's cabin for, after everything, her aloof nature, avoidance and ignoble behaviour, he had kept it.

There were no more tears left to cry, no more emotion to wring from her frame. Bending her head to the bureau's dark patina, the smoothness of the varnish coming closer to her eye as she then rested down on it, Cicely closed her eyes.

Time passed. Flashes of the past, future, present appeared randomly in her mind as she sought to assemble some sense from it. How much time Cicely did not know but she was aware of the watch-bells being rung and then the door being opened.

"I see you've eaten your supper." Jack Aubrey peered around the door and looked at Cicely, resting heavily, though not asleep and she knew she must have looked in a dreadful state because he added, "and the beer – oh my word, what has happened to you?"

Cicely raised her head and looked at him, rubbing her stinging eyes. She had every right to cry, she knew, to grieve, to hurt. But to know that he was hurting too – Aubrey had known Stephen far longer than she ever had. Imagine the companionship that had gone before…she was not the only one grieving heartily that evening – Jack's slightly arrhythmic patter and whiff of strong liquor helping to confirm her suspicions.

"Here. I always find a drop of rum helps to make things seem better." Proof positive of the fact Jack Aubrey now offered to Cicely and, despite her moral she glanced at the dark, thick-glassed walls which housed the spirit before taking it from him, swigging deeply. The fire in her throat made her cough violently and she held the bottle back towards Aubrey but the warmth of the rum was now caressing her insides, beguiling her, soothing her as well she knew it would.

"Does that feel better?"

"Much better," Cicely replied, and tried a smile, which failed dismally.

Jack looked at her as he closed the door behind him. Plain as she was, and headstrong far more than was good for her Jack had been astonished at Cicely Maturin's determination to return to her husband, despite the adversaries, despite the setbacks, all she had done might daunt many men, let alone a female.

He had never felt entirely comfortable conversing with Cicely. She challenged, she fought; she was wilful and obstinate. Heeding little authority, she was not like any female he had met who acted as a man in the world, as if it were her right to do so and as if asking permission, as was her feminine rank, was her mere formality. Had she been a withering petticoat he could have dealt with her far more easily. But her spirit was astounding: Cicely demanded to be herself, even if herself wasn't what was expected of a woman. In short, she was affable and so, Jack had to admit, he liked her and he could see how Stephen Maturin, in his uncommon fashion, would admire and love her.

"He loved you, Cicely," Jack proclaimed in his gruff tone as he made his way to the other chair, next to the upturned screen. She looked at him, and widened her mouth – it could have been a smile but Jack wasn't quite sure.

"I loved him," she replied stiffly. Then, without warning she felt her lip quiver and she looked at her bare feet. "I loved him, oh I did," she sighed. "My Stephen, my only love…" Cicely's voice trailed off.

"And he loved you," Jack repeated, a little helplessly. He too missed his friend; when he had heard the news, brought by Harris himself, it felt as if Higgins himself had butchered a limb from his body. The pain, though weeks in the passing, was being felt afresh through the grief of his poor widow.

"Please, Jack," Cicely looked up, speaking softly, "what was he like? Really like?" She swallowed so the words did not get mangled by her choking on them. "It, it…it seems such a long time since I saw him, so many months…please remind me…"

"He was," Jack began and to himself continued – Stephen. In the time that he knew him several adjectives could be employed: anachronistic, singular, free-thinking, learned, musical, kind, empathic, prudent, assiduous, jocular…

"What about when you first met?" Cicely prompted. How little she knew about him, his life, his background; his work as a spy…only that she loved all of that, all of him, every facet. Cicely had always assumed she would be able to talk to Stephen later in their lives together about these topics. One should never assume anything, said the voice of her governess all those years ago, now reiterated by her mind mockingly.

"I needed a physician when I was in Port Mahon, Minorca, five years ago and, as a surgeon he was more than qualified. He went away and overnight taught himself what he needed to know about seafaring medicine, maladies and treatments." Jack looked to the ceiling as if recalling in his mind's eye his reminiscence."

"I was delighted to see that he made the men feel comfortable; the physician on my previous ship grated them so – "at this Jack broke off and Thomas Hardy's face flashed momentarily before his mind's eye. "When I took up my first captaincy on the "Sophie" I needed someone not only to help unite my disparate crew but also as a companion. He cared that his cello was brought aboard first – "Jack snorted light-heartedly, "and, because I play a little I was delighted to be able to relax. Do you play, Cicely?"

She shook her head. Nothing. Edward had been the musical one – he sang, played, danced. The talent that came her way had been ones involving pencils and paint. Sewing, but then all girls were taught embroidery, but sketching and drawing had been passion.

"And of course," Jack continued, "his zeal for all things of nature intrigued me, though I understand little. The unusual, singular anomalies – these held his interest the greatest. Stephen was always loved untangling intricate curiosities.

"Am I just a curiosity then?" Her ferocious question made Jack start and he looked at the equally shocked expression on Cicely's face. She wasn't looking at him – her question hadn't been directed at Jack. Then he noticed the letter which lay on the bureau guiltily spilling its gizzards to the open air. She looked at Jack and Aubrey realised Cicely had seen him looking at Diana's letter.

"Stephen never received it," he qualified steadily. "He had departed the ship in Genoa almost a month before it arrived. I kept it safe," he added, then unusually, justified its now-read state, "when I knew Stephen had departed this world I thought it only fitting to reply to Miss Villiers and inform her of the dreadful news."

An awkward silence followed, by an even more awkward question.

"What is she like?" Cicely's eyes shimmered earnestly, in the way Will Blakeney's often did, with his fervour to do his best for the service. Jack usually had to stop himself short of explaining to the former that he didn't have to do his best for the service all at the same time; to the former he now debated silently to himself, what good would it be to tell her?

But he knew Cicely, well enough that she preferred bald truth to fluffy lies.

"I know Diana, you see," Jack continued, deliberately avoiding Cicely's direct question. "She is Sophie's cousin' her mother's sister's daughter…" Jack continued to give a detailed biography of the woman, in the manner of reading a list or paragraph, and Cicely listened, her ears catching and hanging onto that of her appearance and personality.

A part of her had hoped, when she had second-read the letter, that this Diana Villiers would be a common whore, but Stephen was no common sailor. And, as Jack told her about her life, growing up with Sophie and living with Sophie and her mother, Mrs Williams, in her young adulthood, she doubted for a moment the woman was something other than captivating.

Then, as Jack indelicately described a time when he, Stephen, Sophie and Diana had dined at Litten Hall, clearly recounting it with humour, Cicely augured their destiny, hers and Stephen's. Perhaps they were never meant to be together: for her to be at sea, it seemed, Cicely would have to keep up her disguise as a boy, for him, constraining him from the natural world would be an intolerable cruelty.

She sighed. If only she had her notes that she had the notes that she had gleaned from Robert Darwin's "Zoonomia", his unique edition written by Erasmus Darwin himself and which she had enclosed in her letter to Sophie Aubrey. Apart from the notebook, which Blakeney had casually allowed her to have, she had little of him now, neither with regard to possession or memory.

Did it even matter anyway? What use would having these now serve other than reminding her of a time she would rather consign to the far reaches of her mind. Cicely looked at Jack as her thoughts were brought hastily to the present – he had stopped talking and was swigging on the rum bottle.

"Is she beautiful?"

Jack looked at Cicely. He didn't say it but realised his silence confirmed her fear. It was true that Diana was captivating, beautiful indeed. But next to Cicely's determination, her resilience, even with everything against her and a mere thread of hope, she had done his late friend more of an honour than Stephen could ever have wished for. Besides, what did it matter now?

"I have Stephen's belongings," Aubrey gestured towards the items Cicely had already noticed, his leather-bound journals over which she had long pored, his magnifiers, holders for insects and cages. For his scornfulness of Stephen's work Aubrey seemed to have given over precious room on the ship for these. Jack got to his feet and made his way to his cot-hammock.

"I have something for you," he continued as he reached behind it, fumbling a little, before pulling out a garment. In actuality now, as Cicely blinked away the first few of a new batch of tears, her wedding dress, the beautiful blue gown, was there in front of her. Cicely made to say something but the words stuck like fish bones in her throat.

He had loved her; Cicely knew, not only in her head but in her heart. Such little space that there was on a ship that even Jack had to be selective of the possessions he kept and yet Stephen had clearly felt such for the garment that, ahead of other things of a naturalistic bent she guessed, scanning his collection of belongings again and noticing that there were far fewer sample books than she recalled.

From Jack's outstretched hand Cicely took it, feeling the delicate silk kiss her skin. It had never fitted properly, Cicely remembered; it was too long and the back seam finished far further down at the waist than was necessary, causing more restriction than otherwise a formal dress would. Perhaps, she thought wryly, she could use her sewing skills to alter it, and in Stephen's wake, make it fit after all.

Jack was now kneeling at the 'cello, touching the wooden case which projected the delicate instrument and recalling his own memories, no doubt. Cicely touched the bodice again and thought the time, not so long ago, when she had tried to eschew her love, to hide from her husband and spend time with the crew. She had known her own feelings for him but had thought he could…he would never feel the same. She had tried to make it easy on herself then and, as she did so, had hurt him. Now she longed for those days, those peaceful days sailing across the pacific where she could transcribe his work, spend time in his company. Live with him.

"Are you musical, Cicely?" Jack looked up from the 'cello case which was now open and Aubrey held aloft the large instrument, stroking his hand over its strings. She lowered the dress and looked at him.

"No, not especially." Jack plucked at the strings experimentally, picking out an aria that Cicely recognised, then a waltz. He plucked then a simple harmony which he referred to as "Merrily turns the Capstan Round," but Cicely knew as something different.

The song was a simple one and it reminded her of the time she had hidden from her governess, who knew she must have been somewhere in the forest, and she had found Freddie Bonner , her neighbour's son with whom she often played, and gone with him, to where some gypsies were living. They had taught Cicely and Freddie that song amongst others and had given them some food which they had been cooking over a rough twig fire. Her father would have been horrified if he had found out some of the things that Cicely had done; she was a rebellious baggage as he had so often called her, usually to her face and that her only use to him was an advantageous wedding.

"…loudly sings cuckoo…" she found herself singing lightly as she fought to keep her father out of her mind. Jack stopped abruptly and looked at her.

"Different words to the ones as I know," he replied, "but then, many songs are."

Many men are, thought Cicely. Different things to different people. She looked back to Jack but he had replaced the 'cello back into its case. He stood up, hands on hips."

"Please rest, Cicely," he concluded, pacing towards her in the direction of the door. "You have the run of my cabin for as long as you wish it."

"But tomorrow – " Cicely began then fell silent as Jack continued.

" – we will discuss on the morrow." Cicely said nothing; she felt exhausted and now, at last, wished for rest. She could not think of the future now, and felt done with the past.

"Before I go," Jack's gait took a swerve back to the bureau. From the corner where Stephen's belongings were she saw Jack stoop to the drawer in which the sewing-thread was kept, and where she had found Diana Villiers' letter. "You sent them to Sophie; she sent them to me, along with your letter. I was bald worried for you, Cicely, when I knew you had gone," he added as Cicely approached and took the familiar looking, folded, ragged-edged pages. They were the notes from "Zoonomia."

"If only you'd looked a little harder!" Aubrey guffawed, throwing his head back in mirth before grinning at Cicely. He had exceeded his order and not handed them to McGregor as expected, only the letter from Cicely, and Sophie's own letter, as the man had expected. If the captain didn't know that ship had been there in the night it would not worry him, Jack had reasoned.

"Then you might not have worried yourself over Diana's pitiable sentiment." Cicely felt a knot of guilt tighten in her stomach. She had doubted Stephen, even in his death, even though the letter had been in Miss Villiers' hand, and Cicely knew, for the rest of her life, she would never be rid of that guilt of her shortcoming.

"Thank you," she said gracefully as she took her notes. "And thank you too, Jack, for all your kindness. Oh," she added, turning to the tunic that Jack had sent to her for repair, " – I won't say perfect, but better than when you sent it to me."

"I…?" questioned Jack, eyebrows raised, protesting innocence. "Why, thank you, Cicely. It is truly fine work." He held it aloft and made a small step forward, thought better of it and then nodded to Cicely. "Sleep well."

As the door clicked behind him, Cicely's eyes turned from the door to the bureau top and she flopped down in the chair again. Putting her notes on top of Diana's letter she considered both the work from Zoonomia and, by contrast, Stephen's youthful work. How hollow her endeavours seemed now; how ultimately useless.

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she wept for the struggle still ahead of her, for relief of actually managing to get back onto the Surprise in the first place, and for herself, and her husband, her beloved Stephen, gone from her forever…

A fancy flew into her head that, if she managed to get back to the Victory, as she intended, and succeeded to stop Nelson's assassin, whose identity she believed she had now determined, would God have mercy on her and return him to her?

She entertained her false hope, Cicely knew, and turning away from the source of it she got to her feet. Crossing to Jack's cot-hammock she clambered into it and closed her eyes. As the dawn began to consider rising on such a fateful day that was to come, Cicely's last thoughts were of her Stephen.

88888888