The Wendy Read online

  “If it were my own ship, Miss Darling,” he would tell her, “I would hire you without hesitation. You have a keen intellect and a persevering nature. But I am not the captain. I could not protect you if the men decided upon some nefarious purpose.”

  “But if you won’t take me with you, why teach me anything at all?” Wendy would complain.

  “Because I saw a spirit in you the day we met,” he would reply. “I believe you will eventually find your way onto a ship, one way or another, and I want you to be prepared.”

  And then he would finish with, “Just not today,” which Wendy would say right along with him, bobbing her chin in time with his and rolling her eyes.

  Despite this frustration, life at the almshouse was much better after Wendy began her studies. The other children still snickered when she talked about the navy. Or when she stood out in the cold, studying the stars. But Wendy didn’t mind. Her life had a purpose, and no one could take that away from her.

  When she went to visit her mentor, only Charlie bothered to ask where she was going. And when she read in the parlor, Charlie would plop himself down at her feet and ask about the book. Eventually, he even stood next to her through the cold, winter nights, staring up at the stars.

  “Do you see that one?” Wendy asked him one night, as they were doing just that.

  “Which?” Charlie asked.

  “Look. There’s a first star, there. And then a second, to the right a bit. And if you draw a line between them and keep right on going, there’s another one they almost point to, off by itself and not quite as bright. Do you see it now?”

  “I see it!” Charlie shouted.

  “That’s the North Star,” she told him. “All the other stars spin around that one all night long, but that one doesn’t move. That’s how you can tell where north is, even without a compass. So you can never truly be lost.”

  “Never?” Charlie asked.

  “Well, not in the northern hemisphere, at least. They have different stars on the other side of the world.”

  “The northern what?”

  They stared at each other for a moment in silence, shivering.

  “Come with me,” Wendy finally said. “I need to show you on a globe. It’s easier.”

  “All right,” Charlie agreed.

  “Now, you know,” Wendy warned him, “if I start showing you things, the other children will laugh at you, too. So you’d best be prepared.”

  “I don’t mind,” Charlie promised. “They laugh at me anyway. But you never laugh at me. I’d rather be friends with you.”

  Wendy smiled. “All right,” she said. “That’s what we’ll do, then.”

  And that’s exactly what they did.

  So, Wendy had a tutor and a friend and as many books as she could read. That would have been all she ever needed if she could have remained a child forever, but all children grow up. And grown-ups need to earn a living.

  The way they managed this in London in 1787 was to place children in apprenticeships. The children would learn blacksmithing from a blacksmith, for example, or tailoring from a tailor. And then, after seven years, they would become blacksmiths or tailors themselves. These apprenticeships could begin any time after the age of fourteen. In an almshouse, as you might imagine, fourteen-year-old children were practically shoved out the door.

  Children didn’t feed themselves.

  Wendy wanted Mr. Equiano to take her on as an apprentice, but he refused on the grounds that he could not take her with him to sea and also that he did not practice a proper trade in which he could certify her.

  “And what will I tell a ship’s captain in seven years’ time?” he asked her. “That I have taught you to be a sailor? When you have never once set foot upon a ship?”

  “Then take me with you!” she argued.

  But, of course, he would not.

  And Wendy was running out of time.

  “You must accept an apprenticeship,” Mrs. Healey declared on Wendy’s fifteenth birthday. “There is a dressmaker who inquired just yesterday.”

  Another dressmaker. Wendy shuddered. No one wanted to apprentice the girls. Dressmakers, weavers, housemaids. Perhaps the occasional milliner. Only boys became blacksmiths. Or shipbuilders. Let alone sea captains.

  Dresses? Undergarments? The very thought filled Wendy with dread. She would rather face an entire fleet of pirates than spend one day sewing whalebone into ladies’ corsets.

  “Send Bridget,” Wendy begged. “Please, Mrs. Healey? Bridget loves dresses.”

  Mrs. Healey pursed her lips and rubbed the fingers of her right hand together for several long moments.

  “Very well,” she agreed finally. “But you must choose something, Wendy. You cannot delay forever, or I shall decide for you.”

  After that, Wendy made herself as scarce as possible. She begged Mr. Equiano for chores that she and Charlie could perform for a farthing, or perhaps even two, and when he was away at sea, they ran odd errands for their lord benefactor. They scraped together just enough to pay for meager suppers of stale bread and hard cheese, so they wouldn’t have to eat at the orphanage.

  While the other children were slowly divvied out among London’s poorest tradesmen, Wendy and Charlie stayed out of sight. They climbed into the dormitory windows late at night, just to sleep, and they snuck back out before daylight. It was during this time that Mortimer Black was apprenticed to a shipwright, of all things. A shipwright! Wendy thought she might vomit, it was so unfair.

  “I can’t believe it!” she lamented. “Mortimer gets to be a shipwright, while Charlie and I have to sneak around after dark like a couple of thieves!”

  “There are worse ways to live, Miss Darling,” her tutor admonished her. “This life is of your own choosing. You could make dresses or hats if you desired. There is a price to changing one’s destiny.”

  But not one of them at the time—not Mr. Equiano or Wendy or Charlie—knew just how true those words would prove to be.

  n the autumn of 1789, when Wendy was sixteen years old, a note arrived one afternoon at the home of Olaudah Equiano, addressed to “Miss Wendy Darling.”

  “For me?” Wendy asked.

  “So it would appear.” Mr. Equiano handed it over with a frown of concern.

  Wendy opened it with no small trepidation herself, and in but a moment, all their fears were confirmed.

  “What does it say?” Charlie asked, so Wendy read it aloud.

  Miss Darling,

  Do not believe for one moment that I have forgotten about you and Charlie. I know how many of the beds in my charge are occupied. I have chosen to overlook your behavior until now, but the nursery is full. Your beds are needed. Select an apprenticeship by January, or I shall send you both off with the first house servants who come asking.

  Euphemia Healey,

  Almshouse Caretaker

  “I’m so sorry, children,” Mr. Equiano said. “This is sad news, indeed.”

  “But, Mr. Equiano, sir!” Wendy protested. “You could take us both on! Please!”

  “There is no such thing as a sailor’s apprenticeship, Miss Darling, as I have explained many times. One merely signs up for naval service, and I have no ship of my own. You would have to find a captain who would accept you into his crew.”

  He looked so pained that Wendy couldn’t bring herself to beg him again. She knew there was nothing he could do.

  “But no captain wants a woman for a sailor,” she whispered, as though saying it too loudly might make it even more true. Her face fell, and Charlie rushed to place a comforting arm around her shoulder. He was only fifteen, but he was already taller than she.

  “You should sign up, Charlie,” she said sadly. “They’ll take you at least. You shouldn’t have to be stuck here just because I am.”

  “Not without you. Never without you.” He said it firmly, without any hesitation, and his loyalty made Wendy smile. At least a little.

  “It will be all right,” Charlie promised. “Perhaps we c
an both serve in the same household. At least we’ll still have each other.” If he looked almost hopeful about the prospect, Wendy clearly didn’t feel the same way.

  “But … house servants!” she wailed. “It isn’t right! We’ve worked so hard! And for so long!”

  “What the heart desires most in all the world,” Mr. Equiano reminded her gently, “does not always come to us when we wish it. Such yearnings cannot be rushed. We must work for them. And we must continue to work for them. Even when all seems lost. So that we will be ready, should the heavens find a way to deliver us.”

  “Yes, sir,” Wendy replied, but she didn’t sound happy about it.

  She spent the rest of the afternoon trying to focus on her studies, but her eyes kept glancing toward the window. Toward the wide world beyond. Toward a freedom she felt slipping away.

  By December, there was still no hope in sight, and Wendy was feeling more desperate by the day. She imagined wild schemes, sharing them with Charlie in whispers as they walked back to the orphanage through winter-darkened streets.

  “We could run away together,” she murmured.

  “And go where?” Charlie wanted to know. Not that he was against it. He just liked to have a plan.

  “Anywhere!” Wendy said, her eyes twinkling in the light of a streetlamp as they passed through the edge of its lonely halo. “The Mediterranean! The Caribbean! I don’t care. Just … somewhere!”

  “It’s always the sea with you,” Charlie commented, but he said it with a fond grin.

  He blew on his hands, trying to warm them, his breath curling visibly into the night. Suddenly, Wendy grabbed his elbow, and Charlie stopped in his tracks. He stared at her hand, his arm perfectly still, as though a wild sparrow had landed upon it and he was scared that even the tiniest movement might frighten it away.

  “Charlie,” she breathed. “Look!”

  He followed the line of her other arm, which was pointing at a stray newspaper page, lying on the ground at their feet. Just then, a wind picked up, and the paper lifted off into the air.

  “No!” Wendy tore away from him and leaped forward, snatching it before it could get away.

  “Wendy?” Charlie asked, clearly bewildered. “What is it?”

  Wendy held the page in trembling hands, tears welling in her eyes. She didn’t say a word, handing the paper to Charlie and swiping one rough, woolen coat sleeve across her face.

  Charlie scanned the notices until he found the box that had drawn her attention. He hadn’t known what he was looking for, but when he found it, he recognized it immediately. It was an unassuming rectangle in the bottom right corner of the page.

  The Home Office seeks men and women of apprenticeship age to serve the Kingdom of Britain, it said. Applicants must be of strong mind and body, able to read and write. The ad was followed by a London address, where British citizens might apply in person.

  “This is it, Charlie!” Wendy exclaimed, gripping his arm again, this time with both hands. “It’s our way in!”

  “But … how did you even see that?” Charlie demanded, his voice filled with wonder. “In the dark … that tiny notice …”

  “I was meant to see it!” Her eyes flashed with a power that almost made him want to take a step back. (Almost, but not quite.) “Men and women, Charlie! To work for the Home Office!”

  “That won’t get you overseas,” Charlie pointed out, his voice hesitant. He didn’t want to disappoint her, but it was the truth. “It’s the Foreign Office that travels the world. The Home Office, well … it’s called the Home Office for a reason.”

  “But it opens the door! Who knows where we can go from there! It’s our chance!” And then she added, more quietly, “It has to be.”

  Charlie looked into her eyes. For a long time, he didn’t say anything. But then he nodded. “All right,” he agreed. “If this is what you want, we’ll go tomorrow.”

  Wendy threw her arms around his neck and hugged him with all her might. “Everything’s going to be all right, Charlie. I just know it is.”

  If Charlie didn’t feel quite as certain as she did, he kept it to himself.

  “Miss … Darling, is it?”

  “Yes, that’s right.” Wendy smiled her most friendly smile at the elderly gentleman who sat behind the desk. He was thin, almost frail, but he had a sharp edge to his glance that made Wendy nervous.

  “And why do you want to join the Home Office, Miss Darling?”

  “To serve His Royal Majesty, of course,” she said immediately. “And the Kingdom of Britain.”

  He pierced her with a terrible stare and raised one eyebrow, catching his right cheek between his teeth and working his jaw back and forth. He was clearly judging her. Sizing her up. But what he was looking for, Wendy had no idea. She held his gaze all the while, still smiling, her hands folded neatly in her lap.

  “You’d have no control over your post,” he warned her, tilting his head slightly to prompt a reply.

  “I understand,” she agreed.

  “And you’d have to be able to keep a secret.” His lips pressed themselves together and shot toward the left corner of his mouth, broadcasting his skepticism. He obviously didn’t believe for a second that any woman could withstand the temptation to gossip.

  “I can keep a secret,” Wendy assured him.

  The man snorted. “Can you prove it?”

  “Can you?” she replied evenly. “If you were to divulge a secret to me, right now, just to prove that you can keep one, well then, you would only be proving that you cannot. I, of course, suffer the same logic. The fact that I will not attempt to prove it is at least some evidence of my trustworthiness. But, I admit, it is not proof. I don’t see how I could prove it. I don’t see how anyone could.”

  “Hmm …” he replied, still noncommittal.

  They held each other’s gaze. Wendy remained silent, using the time to study him. Never had she seen a man more accustomed to holding authority. His raised eyebrow. His tight-pressed lips. The fingers of his right hand, drumming steadily upon the desk. Pinky, ring finger, middle, index. All in rapid succession. One–two–three–four. One–two–three–four. One–two–three–four.

  Everything about him commanded respect. She could use that where she was going.

  Where she hoped she was going.

  She waited him out.

  Not speaking.

  Not moving.

  “All right,” he said finally. “We’ll see how you do. Come back tomorrow for your induction. Then I’m sending you to Dover. But remember, Miss Darling, the Home Office requires your discretion. You’ll tell no one that you’re joining us, or what we’re hiring you to do.”

  He paused a moment and then added one final comment, muttering more to himself than to her.

  “Not that anyone would believe you anyway.”

  dmittedly, things could have been better.

  Charlie had been assigned to a ship, and Wendy had not.

  Charlie’s knowledge of mathematics and science and a thousand shipboard skills had catapulted him to the rank of officer, despite his low beginnings. A feat all but unheard of in the British Navy.

  Wendy’s exact same (if not slightly superior) skills had been ignored altogether, and she had been assigned to Dover Castle. Destined every day to stare out at the sea, without ever once embarking upon it.

  She missed her friend, to be sure, and she thought her treatment unfair. But still, she was lucky to have a post at all. Or so she told herself. She had known from the beginning what she was up against. And even the post in Dover was so much more than she could have hoped.

  Well, more than she might have ended up with, at any rate.

  At least she wasn’t a milliner.

  “A dire threat to the Kingdom of Britain,” they had said. “You will know it when it comes. Watch, and wait. Be ready. Protect the realm.”

  So she had watched. And she had waited. She had continued her training with the men of Dover in firearms and in swordsmanshi
p. She had gently and humbly shared her own knowledge of mathematics and science and a thousand shipboard skills. She had earned their respect. Over the course of a year.

  An entire year … and nothing.

  She was not one step closer to sailing the world.

  She tried to keep her mind occupied. To prepare herself. To learn what she could about the enemy. But all she had uncovered so far were lies. And foolishness. And the bitter sting of disappointment.

  Like this ridiculous thing: Dissertazione sopra i vampiri.

  A Dissertation on Vampires.

  Wendy stared at the book reproachfully, but it merely lay on the table in silent rebuttal, entirely nonplussed. The text had been penned for the Vatican by Archbishop Giuseppe Davanzati in 1744. But the title was a lie.

  It should have been called A Refutation of Vampires. Or better yet, A Regurgitation of Popular Opinion on the Subject of Vampires, which Wendy Darling Will Read in the Year of Our Lord 1790, Only to Be Profoundly Disappointed.

  She shoved this most recent offense onto a tall stack of equally useless volumes and began drumming her fingers on the table. Both John Abbot and Michael Bennet knew what that meant. So did Nana, for that matter. But it wasn’t so much the action that gave her away. It was the cadence.

  Wendy had spent a significant portion of the past year refining a finger-drumming repertoire to match her every mood. Happy drumming, for example, demanded a frenetic staccato between her thumb and ring finger—a snare drum of enthusiasm that heralded shouts of joy and gleeful dancing about the room. That one was Michael’s favorite.

  Mournful drumming, on the other hand, required an agonizingly slow succession of unadorned thumps, meted out by her third and fourth fingers together. Thump … thump … thump …. It was heartbreakingly soulful despite its simplicity, like the funeral tolling of a church bell, and it always brought a tear to John’s eye. Not that he would ever let you see it.

  This particular drumming, however, was a quiet, tense cadence that went like this: one, one–two–three, one … one, one–two–three, one. This was the rhythm of extreme frustration. The one that John and Michael both called the March of the Executioner, although never where Wendy might overhear them.