Free Carola Dunn by Lady in the Briars Page A

into the Humber estuary. Standing at the rail, with John at her side, Rebecca pulled her cloak close about her. The sense of shared adventure was as frightening as it was exhilarating.
    She shivered.
    ‘You are cold?” John asked. “Both wind and waves will pick up as we near the North Sea, I collect. We had best go below to join those blasé world travellers.”
    “Is it not amusing to see Esperanza make herself at home on board?” Rebecca was glad of his steadying arm as the deck rolled beneath her. “She kindly told me I might take the bunk since she prefers to sleep in a hammock.”
    “You will not mind sharing with her?” He helped her down the companionway, ducking to avoid the low beam on which he had earlier hit his head.
    “No, how could I object after Teresa told us how she shared a cabin with Muriel, Cousin Adelaide, their abigail and Annie all the way across the Atlantic! And Sir Andrew shared with her brother and the parrot.”
    John laughed. “I was properly put in my place for grumbling at the size of my accommodation. Only think, I have a space almost as big as a horse’s stall all to myself. At least Gayo is lodged in the saloon this time.”
    The Daisy 0 was laden with cotton and woollen goods from the mills of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and machinery besides, but she had been designed to carry passengers too. The four tiny cabins and cramped saloon were adequate, if not as luxurious as Teresa jokingly claimed.
    Rebecca was too busy to notice the crowded conditions. First thing each morning she dressed Esperanza, brushed her hair and tied it with her favourite pink ribbon. After she dressed herself and they broke their fast, Rebecca took the little girl up on deck for fresh air and exercise, usually accompanied by John. Most of the rest of the day was occupied in Russian studies.
    Sir Andrew had decided that Rebecca and John must learn the Russian alphabet. Their first morning out of port, he sat them down at the table in the saloon with a list of letters and their English equivalents. Rebecca stared at it in dismay.
    “Cheer up,” said John, “I daresay it is not as bad is it looks. Even I managed to learn the Greek alphabet without too much trouble.”
    “This is derived from the Greek,” Andrew told them. “If you want something really difficult, try learning to read Chinese.”
    Gayo added what was probably a pungent oath in Chinese. Andrew and Teresa took charge of Esperanza, leaving John and Rebecca to struggle with the ‘t’s that looked like ‘m’sand ‘r’s that looked like ‘p’s and a sort of a ‘w’with a tail that was pronounced “shch.”
    Each day, as soon as Annie recovered from her morning sickness and was able to care for Esperanza, Rebecca resumed the role of teacher. The time flew by, and soon the Daisy 0 was threading her way past the Danish islands. The weather was fine, and they all spent as much time as possible on deck, practising their Russian conversation as they watched the scenery glide by.
    John had quickly mastered the alphabet, but his tongue still tied itself in knots when he tried to speak the language. Teresa laughed at his pronunciation, saying Gayo’s was vastly better, and though John joked about it Rebecca could see that he was mortified. Andrew, however, was not at all disturbed.
    “The important thing is that he should understand,” he assured Rebecca.
    So she walked the deck with him, speaking in Russian while he responded in English. She told him about her childhood, memories revived by the use of the language she had learned at her grandmother’s knee. Whenever she paused he was quick to prompt with a question, and she wondered wistfully whether he was at all interested in understanding her as well as her speech.
    One sunny morning they stood by the rail, gazing at the distant line of the Polish coast. A brisk westerly bellied the sails of the Daisy 0 and she cut through the waves with a regular, gentle rocking motion. Behind them in a