Armand’s First Letter. Amelia’s First Letter. Cathy’s First Letter.

10 November 1023, L’Isle du Grand-Blaireau

Amelia,

The Lombard made landfall in Mont-Havre this morning; John is expected to arrive in Bois-de-Bas tomorrow. I have been dreading his arrival, though I have also missed him; isn’t that strange?

Tonight I will sleep in my own bed, my own Armorican bed, for the first time, here at the Two Sloops. Tonight Mme. Henricot prepared dinner for the first time in the new kitchen, and the five of us—Jack, M. and Mme. Henricot, Corinne the chamber-maid, and I—ate it in state in the new dining room, one of the two nicest rooms on the island. Or, perhaps I should say, one of the only two nice rooms on the island, the other being the new bar-parlor, those being the only two other than the kitchen that are properly finished.

After dinner Jack poured each of us a single glass of a fine red wine from Provençe. “Shocking, I know,” said Jack, “but as we’ve no tablecloth to be drawn”—they not having arrived yet—”and no drawing room to which the ladies can withdraw, M. Henricot and I will simply have to avoid getting beastly drunk. And besides, I must propose a toast: the King and the Two Sloops!” We drank gladly to that, M. Henricot chortling; and after a discussion of what we all must do on the morrow, Corinne and I departed for what Jack persists in calling our “quarters” in the “ladies’ barracks”.

And so here I am, writing to you by lamplight. Barracks is the perhaps too fancy a term; the building is little more than a shack, thrown up in haste during the war for the young men who lived here. I expect I could learn a great deal of gutter Provençese by deciphering the inscriptions they left on the walls.

Jack says we will do better in time—”or make a dignified retreat to Bois-de-Bas”—but for now I have a chair, a table, a rag rug to protect my feet from splinters, a snug bed, and a pot-bellied stove for warmth. In place of a wardrobe I have a chest on the floor and a line strung across one wall for hanging garments.

It seems a palace. I even have a window that overlooks the river, not that I expect to spend much time here during daylight hours. My proper “station” is a small office just next to Jack’s in the first sloop, which Jack has christened the Joyeux. “For a sloop ought to have a name, don’t you think? And I won’t give two figs for the names they had under Le Maréchal.”

The sloop has a new name, and so do I: the grand title of “Head of Housekeeping.” My task will be to keep the Two Sloops running smoothly along while Jack sees to the guest’s comforts. I must order food, arrange deliveries, discuss menus with Mme. Henricot, supervise Corinne—all the sorts things my mother did when I was young, and all the things I would be doing for Octie if

I am sorry, it still takes me that way.

All those things, but also anything Jack needs me to do.

“If I am the captain then you’re my lieutenant,” he said to me last week. “Then again, no,” he said, making a horrible face. “Ever seen a lieutenant, darlin’? Horrible objects, I remember, I was one. Barring m’sister’s husband, of course. No. My humble apologies. You’re more the company sergeant major type.”

“Am I?”

“Too true, darlin’. See, most folks think it’s the officers who are in charge, but it’s the sergeants who whip the lieutenants into shape. And of the sergeants, it’s the CSM that—”

“—whips the captain into shape?” I interrupted, and he gave me his broadest smile.

“It’s the CSM who tells the captain when he’s being a damned fool, I was going to say, begging your pardon, darlin’, but you’re not far wrong.”

“And, ah—who whips the CSM into shape?” I said with a deepening sense of unease, and he laughed.

“Circumstances, darlin’,” he said. “Sometimes aided by a captain who’s a damned fool.”

I am afraid I immediately thought of my brother John.

“But you’ve done that,” Jack went on, grinning merrily. “Put it right out of your mind, and think what you can manage when he isn’t.”

And Jack isn’t, so far as I can tell; and for my part, I have spent the past weeks striving not to be one again.

Tomorrow I will see John, in company; and then I will return here, to my new home, and take up my duties in earnest.

Cathy

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Photo by Roppo Baker on Unsplash