Work Text:
As he was to be ashore at least a month, Frederick took lodgings with enough room for everyone. They felt very large and lonely, echoing with his footsteps, his breath too little to warm the cold rooms.
The landlord recommended a few local girls for maids and cooks to him. "I shall wait for my wife," he said. "It can't be more than a few days. My man shall do for me until then."
The landlord nodded wisely. "Ladies do like to manage the servants themselves."
He took the names, writing them down and leaving the list at a pretty little table before a window that he already knew Anne would want to use as a desk.
Portsmouth was heavy and gloomy this time of year - or perhaps that was him, downcast without his family. Anne and the children were still in Somersetshire with Sophy. He'd posted letters from every port, letting them know how far he was from home. But his fickle mistress, the sea, had pushed the Dauntless along even faster than he'd thought. His first task ashore, after the most necessary duties had been attended to, had been to dash off a quick note to Somersetshire with the direction of the lodgings and the wish of seeing them soon, and send it from the first post office he found.
He had a deal of work to keep him busy, corresponding with the admiralty, sorting out the various prizes amongst the crew. Two of his crew were to leave him, one to his sorrow and one to his great relief. He wrote letters to their next ship. He dined in the evenings with other officers turned ashore, and looked enviously at those whose wives and families had joined them already.
He tried to picture where his own might be. Packing up to go, perhaps? Did Betsy still get sick on coaches? Was Freddie still a whirling dervish in any enclosed space? How big was baby Charlie now?
He'd had the great good luck of having Anne and the children with him aboard ship during Betsy and Freddie's brief, sweet baby years. But Charlie had barely been opening his eyes and looking curiously around at the world when Frederick had been called away this last time, the voyage too long and dangerous to think of taking his family.
Charlie would not remember him, Frederick realized with a pang. Perhaps Freddie wouldn't either.
Perhaps even Betsy would not know her Papa.
He sternly ordered himself to leave off such maudlin thoughts. Their children would certainly know him. Anne showed them his picture every night and read them what parts of his letters she could.
Some parts were very much only for her eyes.
He counted down the days, mentally placing Anne and the children on a map. A day, perhaps, for his letter to get to them. A day or two, or possibly three, to pack everyone up and make ready to leave. At least two days of travel over land from Somersetshire to Portsmouth, unless she took the mail coach. But three small children on a mail coach would be a nightmare for everyone involved.
Better all round if Anne hired a private carriage. Better, if not faster.
He heard from some of the wives that the roads were dreadfully muddy this spring. He pondered broken axles and overturned carriages, and ordered himself once again not to be so maudlin. Every morning he woke up and marked off another day until he might kiss his wife, hold his children, hear all their voices again.
As he often did on dry land, he took daily walks through the city at dawn, chilly air freezing the tip of his nose. He went toward the docks on his third morning ashore, thinking to see the ships come in on the morning tide, and greet any friends he saw.
There were several of them sailing through the fairway this morning, catching the fresh, biting wind off the Channel, steering through the harbor, sliding pretty as you please into their berths.
He squinted against the rising sun. Was that not the Steadfast? Benwick's ship, he thought. It would be good to see his friend. He picked up his pace through the dockside crowds, watching to guess what berth they were heading into.
As she eased into her berth, he shaded his eyes to better see the faces lining the railing. He saw the dark hair, the fair face, the familiar profile.
Frederick's heart leapt.
Anne, he mouthed, and then shouted it aloud, waving his hat in the air. "Annie! Anne!"
Her head jerked around and then she lit like the sun. She pressed her hand to her mouth for a moment before she waved back, hard enough that she had to clap a hand to her hat to hold it on in the brisk wind.
Frederick grinned. Anne had lost so many hats in their first year of marriage that he had teased her she was keeping the milliners' shops on the coasts of three countries in business.
Still clutching her hat, she bent to the ear of a girl next to her, who was squinting and holding her own hat to her untidy dark curls. The girl looked around, saw him, and began to leap and wiggle and shout, her mouth wide open but the words lost to the creak of sails and the slap of the waves.
Frederick stared, uncomprehending. Could that great big girl be Betsy?
Then the boy next to her, also shouting and waving, must be Freddie. But so tall, so sturdy!
Anne's arms were empty, he realized suddenly. Empty, and it was so easy for a baby to be taken by fever or mishap -
His heart clenched.
But then a plump girl squirmed her way to the railing with a tow headed lad in her arms. It was Kate, the nursemaid that Anne always called her right hand, which meant that the wide eyed boy was Charlie.
He took a shaky breath. He had feared the children wouldn't know him. He'd never thought the opposite.
But then Anne smiled at him, that same smile she'd given him in Somersetshire at nineteen and in Bath at twenty-seven and on their wedding day.
"Papa!" Betsy bellowed, and it was the same yowl that used to ring from one end of the deck to another.
The very moment she could, Betsy was down the gangplank and hurling herself upon him, Freddie crashing into his knees almost before he had a good hold on her.
He crouched to hug them both close, blinking at the tears that burned his eyes. "My loves," he managed, pressing kisses to their hats and their cheeks and their hair as their arms strangled him. "Oh, my loves."
An arm came around his shoulders and he turned his head to press his forehead to Anne's.
They disentangled themselves in time, moving back to allow the business of the dock to go on around them. Anne beamed at him, tears in her eyes. He blinked his own tears away and kissed her, tasting salt on her lips.
"But how are you all here so soon?" he asked, holding her hand as if she and the children might float away. "I wasn't looking for you until tomorrow or the next day at the latest."
"My family were visiting the Musgroves," said a voice, and he turned to see Benwick smiling at them, his round honest face wind-chapped and cheerful. "I got notice to bring the Steadfast from Weymouth, so I said I would be most happy to be of service to yours."
"We took the coach to Weymouth," Anne added, "and then boarded last night."
"And here we are!" Betsy cried.
"Here we are!" Freddie crowed.
Here they were, indeed.
Frederick unwound himself enough to clasp Benwick's shoulder. "Thank you," he said fervently. "Are Louisa and the children with you?"
"They join me in a few days. I'm to organize lodgings."
"Bunk with us until you do," Frederick urged. "We have the room."
Charlie was squirming in Kate's arms, reaching for Anne, and she took him. "Yes, of course. You must." She had taken to naval hospitality with no hesitation, even though she would be settling their children and herself into lodgings she had never seen.
Benwick beamed at them. "I would be most happy."
He had duties to his ship for most of the day, so Frederick gave him the direction and they clasped hands together briefly before he gathered up his family.
Charlie clung to Anne. Frederick reached out to touch his chubby cheek. "Do you remember me?"
Charlie gazed at him, wide-eyed, and then buried his face in Anne's neck.
Anne must have seen his expression, for she reached for his hand. "He will. He was so small when you left."
"Of course," Frederick said, squeezing her hand in his. "Come, it's this way. How was the journey? How were the seas last night?"
"I did very well, Papa." Betsy chirped. "I got a little sick once at the start, but after that I was as fit as a fiddle. Captain Benwick said so. I shall be a sailor, I think."
"You're a girl," Freddie said with deepest brotherly scorn. "You can't be a sailor. I'm going to be a sailor. Aunt Elizabeth says you must be a lady."
"I don't want to be a lady! Papa, tell Freddie I can be a sailor and not a lady!"
He scooped her up. "My sweet, it is unfortunately true that girls cannot serve in his Majesty's navy. However, you will make a very fine sailor's wife."
Freddie piped up, "Aunt Elizabeth says - "
Frederick ruffled his hair. "Aunt Elizabeth is full of stuff and nonsense."
"My dear," Anne said, only half as reproachful as she might have been. He grinned at her.
To Betsy, he added, "You would do far better to take your mama's example. She is a lady and a sailor's wife. She did very well aboard ship when you all sailed with me. Do you remember that?"
Betsy looked doubtful. "Perhaps?"
"I remember," Freddie said.
"No, you don't," Betsy said loftily.
They squabbled about it until Frederick asked how their Aunt Sophy did, and then they were full of their adventures in Somersetshire. How annoying and teasing their older Musgrove cousins were, how the oldest Benwick sister was Betsy's most special friend, how Freddie had gone to spend the day with their Uncle Charles and a Benwick lad at the Hayter's farm and they'd had such sport at rat-hunting.
Frederick listened, smiling, feeling Anne tucked against his side, glancing at her to share a joke every now and then. She beamed back at him, her eyes promising tales to tell once the children were done.
Charlie was still shy, but every so often, his big eyes peeped at his father. He buried his face in Anne's shoulder every time he caught Frederick looking back at him.
When they got to the house Frederick had taken, Freddie and Betsy raced throughout, investigating nooks and crannies that even Frederick wasn't sure he'd seen. Anne progressed more slowly through the rooms, head cocked. She smiled when she saw the table in the sitting room, and the list sitting on it.
"What do you say, my love?" Frederick said. "Will it do?"
"It shall do very well," she said. "But you always know just what to look for."
He kissed her, and then the porters knocked at the door with their trunks, and then they were both caught up in directing them.
After the hustle and bustle of getting themselves organized, they found that Kate had knocked together a simple meal for them all. "You are a treasure," Anne said feelingly, as they all broke their fast.
Kate dimpled. "I do my best, ma'am."
Betsy said, "Papa, will you take us about the town today?"
Anne said firmly, "I think not. We've all had a busy few days - " She rose her voice above their wails of dismay. "- and we shall be here a month. Plenty of time to go about with Papa. I want us all to rest today."
"Awwww," Freddie muttered.
Anne's version of resting would be interviewing prospective servants and writing copious letters to their acquaintance in town, but it would do Frederick no good to point that out. He resolved to ensure that she rested very well indeed tonight.
"Besides," Frederick said over the grumblings of his children, "I have to wait upon some gentlemen of the admiralty this morning. Deadly dull, I'm afraid. You would not like it at all." It wasn't his favorite duty, either, but it had to be done sooner than later.
"See, there you are," Anne said.
Still on her lap, Charlie gnawed at his toast and studied Frederick owlishly. Something had caught his eye, and Frederick thought he knew what it was. He held out his arms, and Charlie reached back. Anne looked over as Frederick shifted Charlie off her lap and onto his.
Charlie settled into Frederick's arms and immediately reached for the buttons on his waistcoat, as he had expected. Freddie and Betsy had both loved his brass buttons when they were that age.
Anne gave Frederick a smile that said, Did I not promise?
He got a hand free and reached for hers, bringing it to his lips to plant a kiss on the knuckles in a silent acknowledgement. She rested her hand on his cheek a moment, then had to turn to answer some very important question from Freddie.
Frederick sat feeling the solid, living weight of his son on his lap, drinking in the feeling of his family around the table.
The house had become very cozy, and very warm.
FINIS