63 Ola and the Sea Wolf (6 page)

“Coffee is all I want,” Ola replied sleepily, “and thank you very much.”

“I should stay where you be, miss, if you’ll take my advice,” the Steward said before he left.” It’s easy for ‘landlubbers’ as we calls ’em to break a leg when the weather’s so bad.”

Ola knew that he was being tactful in not suggesting that she might be seasick, but, as it happened, she was aware that she was a good sailor.

Her father was very fond of the sea and, when she was a small child, he had often taken her out in a boat and she had soon learned that however rough it might be she was unaffected.

When the Steward had gone, she thought that she should have asked him at what time they would reach Calais.

She had the feeling that, if she was not ready to go ashore as soon as they docked, it would irritate the Marquis.

When they had walked to the ship last night in the thick fog, she had known, although he had said nothing, that he was annoyed by his own generosity in offering to take her across the Channel.

He had instructed a Steward abruptly to show her to a cabin and she had told herself it had really been touch and go as to whether he fulfilled his role of being a Good Samaritan or abandoned her to her fate.

She shuddered now as she thought of how horrible it would have been to be forced to marry Giles. She had never really thought of him as a man until the moment when he had revealed his treachery because he desired her fortune.

‘It’s a great mistake to have so much money,’ she thought to herself, ‘and, if Papa had had a son, I would not now be in this predicament’

At the same time, son or no son, she knew that her father had not been able to escape from her stepmother once she had made up her mind to marry him.

Ola could understand only too well how easily it had happened.

She had been at the Convent in France when her mother died.

There had been no chance of her travelling back in time for the funeral and her father had therefore not sent for her or even told her by letter what had occurred, but instead had come himself to break the news to her gently.

They had cried together for the woman they had both loved. Then her father had returned to England alone, and that, Ola had told herself over and over again had been a fatal mistake.

Of course she should have gone with him to look after him, but it had never occurred to either of them that she should cease her education because her father had been bereaved.

It was only when she was seventeen and had completed the two years she was to spend in France, as had been arranged by her mother, that she returned to England, to find that she was too late.

Her father had been lonely, miserable and without anyone near him to whom he could talk about his beloved wife.

Her stepmother, who was a neighbour, had, with the charm and sweetness that she could switch on so easily when it suited her, wormed her way into his confidence until he felt that she was indispensable to him.

They were married just two days before Ola arrived home and she knew as soon as she met her stepmother that the haste was deliberate so that she could not interfere.

She saw all too obviously that her stepmother wanted more than anything else the social position of being Lady Milford and to be married to a man who could provide her with the money she had always craved.

The face she showed him was a very different from the one his daughter saw.

Ola supposed that she must have met her father’s new wife in the past, but she could not remember when and it was doubtful if the new Lady Milford would have paid much attention to the young daughter of a neighbour whom she did not often see.

But a child in the nursery or in the schoolroom was a very different one from the stepdaughter with a spectacular beauty and, when Lord Milford died, Ola inherited a large fortune that exceeded a dozen times what had been left to his widow.

The new Lady Milford was at first jealous of Ola, but now she was also envious of her money and her hatred exploded almost like an anarchist’s bomb.

Ola had only very briefly described to the Marquis what she had suffered. It would have been impossible to tell him of the agony she had endured in what was a continuous mental persecution besides being afraid of her stepmother physically.

Because she knew that Lady Milford disliked her good looks to the point where even to see her aroused her anger, Ola had always been nervous that she would find some way of damaging her face, as sometimes in a temper she threatened to do.

Then because she had both spirit and courage, Ola was determined to escape.

She was well aware that it was not going to be easy. As she became more and more a prisoner in the home where she had once been so happy, she knew that somehow, however difficult it might be, she must go away.

Giles had proved to be an undoubted Judas when she had least expected it and that had been a blow, which might have made somebody with less character collapse completely.

Then like a miracle, Ola thought, she had found the Marquis and now in his yacht she was safe for the moment, whatever difficulties lay ahead.

When she had drunk the coffee, being careful not to spill any of it on the fine linen sheets embroidered with the Marquis’s monogram, she lay back against the pillows and tried to think.

She had spoken to the Marquis of the
diligences
, but she remembered that they were slow and used by all sorts and conditions of people, some of whom might be very rough.

The most sensible thing, she thought, would be to take a post chaise to Paris.

It would be expensive and she would not have enough money to pay for one without selling some of her jewellery.

‘I must talk to the Marquis about that,’ she thought.

Then something fastidious made her feel that it was embarrassing to discuss money with the man who had befriended her against his will and would be wishing to be rid of her as soon as possible.

‘There must be a good jeweller in Calais,’ she told herself. ‘I will ask what he will pay me for one of Mama’s smaller diamond brooches. When I reach the Convent, I will give the rest of the jewels to the Mother Superior to keep safely until I require some more money.’

Then a sudden thought struck her and she opened her eyes to stare unseeingly but with a definite expression of desperate anxiety across the small cabin.

*

It was after midday when the Marquis came down from the deck to where his valet was waiting for him at the bottom of the companionway to help him out of his oilskin coat.

“Your Lordship’s not wet, I hope?” he asked solicitously.

“No, Gibson,” the Marquis replied. “And it is an exhilarating experience to see how fast
The
Sea Wolf
moves with the wind behind her.”

“It is indeed, my Lord,” Gibson replied. “I always said your Lordship be right in choosin’ this type of yacht for what you require.”

“I am always right, Gibson!” the Marquis said half jokingly, but with an inner conviction that told him that it was in fact the truth.

There had been a battle to get the shipbuilders to design a yacht on the exact lines that he desired. But he had seen when he was a boy the performance of the Naval frigates in the war and had sworn that, if he was ever in the position of building a yacht of his own, he would build one on those lines.

When he was older, he had made it his job to examine and sail in the fast schooners to which the name ‘clipper’ was first attached.

Their hull design was to become a model for the famous square-rigged clippers that were being built in the American shipyards and were only slowly being adopted by the English.

What the Marquis finally evolved for himself was a schooner with the swiftness of a frigate, but which fortunately did not require such a large crew.

When
The Sea Wolf
was finally launched, it caused a sensation amongst seafaring enthusiasts and the Marquis was congratulated not only by his friends but a great many Naval authorities.

This was the first time, however, that he had taken
The Sea Wolf
out in such a tempestuous sea.

Watching her this morning riding the waves in a manner he could not fault, he had known that all his ideas, which had been called revolutionary, had been proved right.

Walking carefully but with the sureness of a man who is used to the sea, the Marquis went into the Saloon saying, as he did so,

“Tell the Stewards I am ready for a good meal. I am hungry!”

Then, as he finished speaking, he saw that he was not alone.

In the comfortable Saloon where he had designed all the furnishings himself, there was the woman whose very existence he had forgotten for the last two hours.

“Good morning, my Lord,” Ola said. “Forgive me for not rising to greet you, but I feel it would be rather difficult to curtsey when the ship is rolling at this angle.”

“Good morning – Ola!” the Marquis replied.

There was a pause before he said her name because it took him a moment to remember it.

He sat down in a chair not far from her, before he asked,

“You are feeling all right? You are not seasick?”

“Not in the least,” Ola replied. “If you will allow me to do so, I would like to come up on deck after luncheon. I have never been in a ship that can travel as fast as this one.”

“You are telling me you enjoy the sea?”

“I love it!” Ola replied simply.

“I am glad to hear that,” the Marquis said, “because I have some bad news for you.”

Ola looked at him enquiringly and he carried on,

“Last night I ordered my Captain to make for Calais, but so strong a gale has blown up from the North-East that we cannot make the coast of France. All we can do is run before it out into the English Channel.”

As the Marquis spoke, he had not really thought of what Ola’s reaction would be.

Now, as he saw her green eyes light up and a smile appear on her lips, he told himself he might have anticipated that she would prove an unwanted guest who had no wish to relieve herself of his hospitality.

As if she knew what he was thinking, Ola said,

“You were so kind, my Lord, in saying you would take me to France that you must not be – annoyed when I say I am – delighted to know that I don’t have to – leave this lovely yacht as – quickly as I had – anticipated.”

The Marquis was not quite certain how it happened, but, as the Steward brought them a meal, he found himself telling Ola about his yacht and the difficulties he had had in having it built in accordance with his ideas.

“I had to fight every inch of the way or rather every inch of the ship!” he said. “Only when it was finally finished did the shipbuilders stop croaking that my design was impracticable, unworkable and she would sink or turn turtle at the first rough sea we encountered.”

“I am glad she is doing neither at the moment,” Ola laughed.

“You are quite safe. She is the most sea-worthy ship afloat and I am prepared to stake my fortune and my reputation on it!”

They talked of ships and
The
Sea Wolf
in particular the whole time they were at luncheon and it was only when they had finished that the Marquis said,

“When the wind drops and we can make our way to the French coast, I have been thinking that if we overshoot Le Havre, which is likely, then I may have to take you as far as Bordeaux.”

“Are you sailing through the Bay of Biscay?” Ola enquired.

“I am going to the Mediterranean,” the Marquis replied. “From there I thought I would put into Nice.”

He spoke almost as if he was talking to himself, then, as he saw the expression on Ola’s face, he realised that he had made a mistake.

He had no intention in any circumstances of keeping her aboard one minute after it was possible to put her ashore.

“Bordeaux would suit me very well, my Lord,” she said, “if it is not possible to make Le Havre.”

Her reply, the Marquis told himself, was one thing – the hope he saw in her eyes was another.

‘I should never have brought her in the first place,’ he ruminated.

He remembered Sarah and the way she had cajoled him into doing what he did not wish to do and his hatred of women, every one of them, swept over him.

“I can assure you that my Captain is doing his best to reach Le Havre,” he said sharply, “and it would be a mistake for you to come on deck. It is extremely cold and you would get wet.”

He rose from his seat as he spoke and without looking at Ola again he left the Saloon.

She gave a little sigh.

She knew that it would only make him angry if she argued.

‘I wonder what has upset him?’ she pondered and was quite certain in her own mind that it was a woman.

Because the Marquis was so good-looking and undoubtedly very rich, it seemed unlikely, if not impossible, that any woman he fancied would not throw herself into his arms if that was what he wanted.

Yet perhaps like everybody else he wanted the unattainable, although what that might be, Ola could not imagine.

If she was not allowed to go on deck, she thought, at least there were a number of books lying in a bookcase on one side of the Saloon.

It had surprised her that there were books aboard the yacht, for she knew that when her father was at sea, he was far too interested in what was happening on deck to have any time for reading.

It struck Ola that the Marquis was different from what she would have expected of a man of his age and position.

She had heard so much about the riotous behaviour of the bucks and beaux in London that she imagined his life would be spent in a search for pleasure and amusement.

Then she remembered that she had read of him in the Parliamentary Reports besides seeing his name mentioned continually on the sporting pages of the newspapers.

‘He obviously has many interests,’ she thought to herself and decided that she would discuss them with him at dinner if she was still aboard.

The mere idea that she would be leaving soon brought back all the apprehensions and worries that had beset her in her cabin until she could not bear to think about them any more.