The covenant - James A. Michener [254]
Especially pleased to hear this was the woman whose welfare lay in his hands. She did not accept the violent motion of the ship easily, and this irritated her, for she was grimly determined to 'make a brave show of it,' as she had promised her mother she would, and when her stomach was wrenched into convulsions by her sickness, she was ashamed of herself. She was the sole occupant of the cabin next to her brother's, as she called him, but he shared his with a captain going out to join the Gallant Fifty-ninth on the Afghan frontier, so that during the bad days she had two gentlemen to assist her.
Sure enough, when the Alice Grace entered the great Bay of Biscay the storms subsided and the gentle, reassuring motion which Saltwood had predicted replaced the tossing. Vera came to like the motion of the ship, as he was certain she would, and for the third and fourth week the three travelers had a congenial time together, with Richard discovering what a sterling person this Vera Lambton was. Her determination was obvious, her sense of humor reassuring. When children were ill, she acted as general nurse, and whenever any of the women passengers in steerage needed attention, she was eager to help. My brother's getting a strong woman, Richard told himself, but because of a reticence which he could not have explained, he did not inform his cabin mate of Vera's destination. 'She's a family friend' was all he'd say. 'Heading out to South Africa.'
'She'd make some chap quite a decent wife,' the captain observed several times, but since he was much younger than Vera, and since his regiment would not allow him to marry till he was thirty, his interest in her could only be that of an observer.
Once Cape Finisterre was passed, that bleak and ominous last outpost of European civilization, the long reach to the bulge of Africa began, and now the three travelers began to be aware of a remarkable young man, a wagon builder by trade, who had more or less assumed command below-decks. He was an attractive fellow, careful of his appearance even though the ship provided him no water for washing. His curly head and broad grin appeared wherever there was trouble. It was he who organized the teams that handled the slops; he supervised the distribution of food; and he sat as judge's clerk when the rump court belowdecks handed out penalties for such infractions as theft or pummeling another passenger.
'Name's Thomas Carleton,' he told Saltwood and the captain when they asked if he could fix their door, which had come off its hinges during a blow. 'I can fix it, sirs. With wood I can fix anything, it seems.' And as he worked, devising ingenious tools for getting around corners, he told them of his apprenticeship in a small Essex village and his removal to the more important town of Saffron Walden, not far from Cambridge University, which he had once visited.
He was a chatterbox, intensely excited about his prospects for starting a new life in the colonies: 'I can work eighteen hours a day and sleep four. Saffron Walden had prospects for everyone except me, so I kicked up me heels and was off to sea. The town's a fascinating place, you understand. Named by the father of Henry VIII, him with the wives. One of the two places in England entitled to trade in saffron, precious stuff. It makes meat taste better, but in all me days I never took a pinch of it into me mouth. Reserved for rich people.'
Vera, returning to her cabin after a stroll on the minute deckfifteen steps forward, fifteen backheard this last observation and interrupted: 'Saffron's a yellow powder, I think, and it's not used for meat. It's used for rice.' She blushed and added, 'Here I am explaining India, and both