Liza Read Free Page B

but it made only little islands in the space. On the walls pictures of ships mingled wit h portraits of the Spencers, Charles and Edward, their father and grandfather. Two capacious armchairs and a chesterfield ringed the glowing fire but there was also a sprinkling of straight-backed chairs. A nurse in black — shoes, coat and bonnet — sat on one, a small boy perched on her knee. She set him on his feet and stood up when Edward entered. He motioned to her to sit and went to stand before the fire. ‘Thank you for bringing the boy,’ he said. ‘So this is William.’
    She nodded. ‘Yes, sir, this is Master William.’
    The boy was sturdy, but no more than five years old and tired. He rubbed his eyes and yawned, but was silent and attentive. Edward ha d no children and no experience of them. He was not sure how best to approach this one. ‘You’ve had a long journey, William, all the way from Bristol.’
    ‘ Yes, sir.’
    ‘ Do you know who I am?’
    ‘ You are Mr Edward Spencer, sir, and you are my guardian.’ He had that off by heart, as he had been taught. His father had gone down with his ship and all her crew in a typhoon. He had long ago written to Edward asking him to care for his son if he should die. Edward had agreed willingly, thinking it a sensible precaution for his friend to make but never expecting to have to honour his promise.
    He thought now that there was something about the boy ’s face in repose that suggested he might show something of his mother when he laughed. He was not laughing now and looked as if he might never smile again. ‘That’s right, and you are going to live here with me. Would you like that?’
    ‘ Yes, sir.’ That was said politely but hesitantly. Then William added, breaking away from his trained replies, ‘But I want to go to sea and be a ship’s captain like my father.’
    ‘ Ssh!’ the nurse scolded, shocked, and Elspeth pursed her lips.
    Edward put up a hand to silence the nurse. ‘My thanks to you for caring for him. I’m grateful.’ He glanced at Elspeth. ‘Will you find this lady a bed for the night, please, and then come back here?’
    When they had gone he turned back to little William. The boy looks like his father, he thought, the dead spit of him. And now he could see in him both parents. Instinctively he went to the child and swept him up in his arms. ‘Your father was my best friend.’ And he had married the only girl Edward had ever loved. There had never been another like her and she had died giving birth to William.
    Edward sat down in an armchair with the boy on his knees and held him close to his chest. When Elspeth returned a few minutes later she found them so, with William sound asleep. She clicked her tongue and said softly, ‘Poor little lamb, he’s tired out. Let me have him, sir, and I’ll tend to him. He’ll be the better for being in bed.’
    Edward yielded up his ward with barely concealed reluctance. He supposed that would be the best for the boy. Elspeth cradled him in her arms and kissed him. ‘And him wanting to be a ship’s captain like his father!’ She shook her head. ‘He’ll soon grow out of it.’
    Edward was not sure about that.

     
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    17 FEBRUARY 1891, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE
     
    ‘What are you doing, Dad?’ Eliza Thornton, just five years old that day and curious, snuggled closer to the father who came into her life so rarely. He was short, wiry and tough, and she had to learn about him all over again every time he came home. That might be after an absence of weeks, months or a year, but she learned more quickly now. He sat at the kitchen table with the model before him. He had spent weeks making it during his last voyage, starting with a block of wood and using only a knife.
    Andrew smiled down at her. ‘I’m setting up the rigging.’ His thick-fingered hands, the backs tattooed, handled the thin cotton delicately.
    ‘ What’s rigging?’ Eliza asked, brown eyes wide.
    ‘ All these lines that hold up