The Stowaway

XXXI

"Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation." Kahlil Gibran

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XXXI.

Tom felt an ache in his chest as he thought about what he needed to do when the time came. He had been delaying it, for the sake of his own heart, and at the expense of Eliza's.

The unloading, loading, and transportation of his cargo had not quite occupied his thoughts as Tom had hoped that it would. His thoughts were never far from Eliza, willing him not to do what he must.

Standing on the top deck of his ship, where he had stood for the past decade or so, captaining this ship, he wiped a traitorous tear from his eye as he surveyed his crew preparing the ship for its prolonged mooring.

It was late November, and winter was well and truly on its way. The chill in the air went right to Tom's bones, and he knew that the oceans became more treacherous, and less agreeable for sea travel in the cold months. The Atlantis would be docked for the winter and would sail again for Jamaica in the spring.

This was the period of time where Tom was forced to spend the majority of his annual wages, purely in lodging for the months he could not sail. He would be near destitute by the time it was safe to sail again, as if he could not think of more reasons as to why a marriage between himself and Eliza was impossible.

If ever anything had compelled him to want to have a drink, it was this.

A flash of rosy pink caught his eye in the fabric of a dress, as a woman came running down the pier towards the moored merchant ships. Her dress was fine, with all the ruffles and flounces of a fine society woman's ensemble. She held onto her bonnet with her right hand as she ran, but her blonde hair was shiny and curly down her back, the natural highlights catching in the setting sun. She ran with purpose and excitement and did not move in the way that a traditional debutante went about her business. Not in slightest.

She could only be one person. It did take Tom a minute to realise that the well-dressed woman was in actual fact Eliza. His Eliza.

Tom had never seen her look this way. Why, the first time he had ever seen her, she was covered in her own stomach contents.

As she came to the ramp of the Atlantis, she looked up in search, and when her eyes found him, she beamed.

There she was. How beautiful she was. Her beauty was not in the way she dressed, or the way she did her hair, while both were still lovely. However effortlessly pretty Eliza was, her true beauty lay in the light in her eyes, the happiness in her smile, the healthy flush of her freckled, sun kissed cheeks, her kindness, her kinship and wonder, and the faith and trust that she had in him.

And he was to do unto her an act of utmost cruelty. He needed to break the heart of his beautiful Eliza.

It was the lesser of two evils, as would it not be crueller to bring her into a life of poverty? Tom could notafford to marry. He could not afford it. He had no money for marriage, and it would be irresponsible, unforgivable, to marry knowing this.

Eliza might say all she liked that money did not matter, but only those who had never been hungry could make such a declaration.

Perhaps, in some small way, it was the only way he could understand how his own mother had abandoned him.

At least Eliza would be safe when he left her behind.

Eliza, still holding onto her bonnet with one hand, and holding up her skirts with the other, ran up the ramp, greeting the crew as she did, before she dashed over to the steps to climb up to see him.