I wasn’t one to be less than confident, but I supposed I had been when Graham left. I should’ve spoken up. I should’ve asked him to take me with him. But he hadn’t offered, and it was to be only one year, after all. I was now learning the importance of pursuing knowledge and expanding my horizons.
Once we’d all used the sextant, Patrice included, we returned to Tallow’s office and charted our position. “We’re right on track,” he murmured, though we all knew it was for us he spoke. Sometimes hemurmured things that he actually meant to say loudly. I assumed it was a result of his age; he didn’t always have the strength to speak loudly. Perhaps we took too much energy out of him.
The boys and Patrice left after saying goodbye to Mr. Tallow, but I stayed and helped him a bit longer. I made tea for him, made him comfortable, and sat to visit with him. He let out a groan as he leaned back in his chair.
“Are you feeling unwell?” I asked.
He looked at me with bleary eyes. “When you reach my age, Miss Findlay, you always feel unwell. I have grown accustomed to it.” He readjusted his sitting position. Then he smiled wryly. “Though that doesn’t mean I can’t complain about it, no?”
“You have earned the right to complain about anything you’d like,” I assured him. “And as I’ve said before, please call me Elsie.” I watched him settle into his seat a little more. “Shall I read to you?”
“I shan’t say no to that, Elsie.” He pointed to his shelf. “I have a half-finished novel up there. Do you see something called…oh, what was the title?” He squinted to see the book, so I stood and began reading the spines to him.
“Robinson Crusoe,The Tale of a Tub,The Castle of Otrante,The Mysteries of Udolpho—”
“That’s the one.”
I pulled out the book by Anne Radcliffe and sat on the seat nearest him. “I’m surprised by your choice in novels.”
“I am not so old as to dislike a mystery.” He chuckled. “Have you ever read it?”
“Not all of it.” Reading had never been my favorite pastime. Of course, I’d read more in the past three years than I ever had before. But I never got throughUdolpho. It was much too gothic for my taste.
“Then let’s finish it together,” Mr. Tallow said, smiling at me.
I began reading, but a few sentences in, he interrupted to ask a question. It had nothing to do with the book.
“What kind of young man is this that you are chasing, Elsie, that he actually had the gall to reject you?” He folded his hands in his lap thoughtfully. “It seems unfathomable that any man would do such a thing to a woman such as you.”
Telling him about Graham hadn’t been planned, but his gentle demeanor led me to spilling secrets I otherwise would have kept to myself.
I grinned at him. “You are absolutely right, Mr. Tallow. Graham must be wholly unaware of my worth.”
“What did he say in his letter?”
“That he didn’t wish to drag me down with him. If I am to paraphrase.” I pursed my lips at the thought of his letter.
“He must have a poor opinion of himself.”
“Or me,” I suggested.
“No, he feels unqualified. He can’t provide a comfortable life for you. It’s understandable to me.” He sighed. “It’s why I never married.”
I leaned forward, keen to hear his story. “Was there someone you wished to marry?”
His eyes seemed to glaze over as he thought through decades of memories. “There was one woman who stood out among the rest. She was much too genteel for a rough man like me. I couldn’t make promises to her. I was meant to be on a ship bound for India and I wasn’t sure I’d return.”
“But you could have brought her with you.”
He met my eyes. “I would never have put a woman in such a position. I wished to protect her from everything difficult. Including waiting for me.”
We fell into silence as I took in his meaning. Graham must never have wanted to see me suffer on the high seas. I couldunderstand him a bit more than before, and yet I wondered how deeply he loved me, if he could leave me behind. I almost asked Tallow about how deeply he loved that woman, but he had drifted off into a restful sleep. I closed the book and put it down on his desk, sighing deeply. Speaking to him always enlightened me. The storms and battles he had weathered in his eighty years were filled with the wisdom that only came with time.
After leaving his cabin, I found Patrice and we took a turn around the ship. Patrice walked beside me, her arms swinging happily.
“Did he seem more tired than usual today?” I asked Patrice regarding Tallow.
She slowed her arms and nodded. “I worry about him. I think seafaring might be too much for him at his age.”
