Free The Captain's Daughter by Minnie Simpson

of advertisements, and then she unfolded the letter and read it.
There were only a few lines and it clearly had not been finished. She read the
date on the newspaper. It was nearly twenty years old. Outside, the rain was
now coming down in earnest rattling against the kitchen windows.
    Amy picked up the three items and
returned them to the pouch, and then she went slowly up to her room.

 
Chapter 8
     
    Amy had just finished placing the pouch and
its strange contents on the writing desk in her room when Emma looked in at the
door way.
    “Effie was dusting my room and said
you received a pouch from an old sailor, with a newspaper and a letter in it.
What is that all about?” asked Emma.
    “That is the question, Emma. Come
and look at this stuff.”
    Emma came over to the writing desk
and looked wondering at the items.
    “So you got an old pouch, with an
old newspaper, from an old sailor. How do you know it wasn’t some confused old
man that just left you some old junk?”
    “Well firstly, according to Mrs.
Pemberton he said he came by coach to Stockley-on-Arne and was returning to
wherever he came from by coach. And he asked for me by name, and look, my name
is on the pouch.”
    Lifting it up Emma took it over to
the window and examined the pouch carefully. The rain beat hard against the
window. It sounded as if the rain was turning into hail. Taking it back to the
desk she took Amy’s ivory handled letter opener and scratched a line on the
pouch.
    Looking at Amy with a puzzled
expression she said: “Look at the difference between the scratch I just made
and your name.” She paused. “Amy, your name was scratched on this pouch long
ago.”
    She rubbed the fancy A in Amaryllis , and then rubbed the mark she had just
made, using her thumb. Flexing the empty pouch she twisted it in several
directions.
    “Look at these.”
    Amy looked at where Emma was
pointing. The pouch was covered with white circles. They were so faint Amy had
not noticed them.
    “These are salt stains, but from a
long time ago,” said Emma most seriously. “The pouch must be very old and it’s
made of Russia leather. Russia leather is saturated with birch oil when it is
first made, but the pouch is still flexible, which means it was kept well oiled
but the surface is dry so it has been a long time since it was last oiled. The
little hole in the flap matches this mark on the pouch. It must have had a
double button to keep it closed, but that is long disappeared.”
    “Emma, how do you know all this?”
    “I read it in one of the papers I
got from Sir Frank Ramsey.”
    “Just don’t tell mother, she might
not understand.”
    Emma did not seem to be listening.
    “Effie said a sailor brought it to
you but this isn’t the type of pouch that is normally used on ships.”
    Amy decided not to ask Emma how she
knew that, she decided Emma clearly knew everything because of her addiction to
reading.
    “I wonder,” said Emma dramatically,
“if it was owned by a pirate. This type of pouch is a hunting pouch, so how did
it end up at sea? Maybe somehow you are related to pirates.”
    “You are my sister, so if I am related to pirates then so are you .”
    “But why does the pouch have your
name?”
    “That is what I would like to find
out, Emma. Perhaps the newspaper or the other things in the pouch will tell us
the answer.”
    Typical of many newspapers of the
time the front page was mainly advertisements and the news items were inside.
Emma perused the ads and only briefly glanced at the inside of the newspaper.
    “Almost all these advertisements
are for ships or activities related to shipping.”
    “That is what you would expect
Emma, since it is the Bristol Gazette and Public Advertiser and Bristol
is a great seaport. Notice the date of the paper.”
    “Thursday, May 20, 1773.” Emma
spoke in a hushed tone. “It’s about twenty years old.” She paused and then
looked up at Amy. “All of these items must have been put in the pouch