Hannah

by Kathryn Lasky

  The child stopped and looked up at Hannah with her clear gray eyes. “Sanatorium.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A big, big word.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “You don’t know?” Ettie asked. There was a slightly triumphant note in her voice, as if she were somehow pleased that she knew something that an older person didn’t.

  “I think I might have heard the word.” Hannah thought it did sound familiar.

  “It’s a place where people who have tuberculosis go.” Ettie paused. “That’s where they took Lila.”

  “Oh,” Hannah said quietly.

  They didn’t speak until they were back in Ettie’s bedroom, where she had changed her clothes and was now sitting in front of her mirror while Hannah combed out her wet hair to braid.

  Ettie spoke to their reflections in the mirror. “Of course, Lila doesn’t have tuberculosis. But you see, it’s much easier to say that than that she’s crazy. You go to an asylum if you’re crazy. An insane asylum.” Ettie went on to explain the finer points of the differences between the two words. “I looked the words up in a dictionary. And it says in the Noah Webster dictionary that an asylum is an institution for the maintenance and care of the blind, the insane, and orphans. You’re an orphan, aren’t you, Hannah?”

  “Yes, but I wasn’t in an asylum. I was in The Boston Home for Little Wanderers.”

  “Oh, that’s so sweet sounding.” Ettie sighed. “Are you sure there were no blind or insane people there?”

  “Yes, quite sure.” Hannah was tempted to say that she had never met any insane people until she came to work for the Hawleys. But she resisted. “Just normal children who didn’t have any mothers or fathers.”

  “Who do you think your mother and father were?” Hannah could feel the color drain from her face.

  “I…I…”

  “I mean, I think they loved you, Hannah. How could someone not love you? I love you, Hannah.” Hannah felt her eyes well with tears.

  “Do you now, Ettie?” Ettie looked at her curiously as if to reflect back the hollowness of her words. Hannah felt a twinge of guilt as if she was hoping that Ettie would say no, that she didn’t love Hannah, and that then Hannah could break all the ties that bound her to land.

  “Yes! But do you love me, Hannah?” Ettie leaned closer to the mirror. The half-finished braid almost slipped through Hannah’s hands. Ettie’s words did not sound hollow in the least. There was an urgency in her voice. “I mean to say, Hannah, I’m not just your job, am I?”

  Hannah’s hands froze with the neatly separated bunches of hair twined through her fingers.

  “Ettie, what are you saying?” They regarded each other’s reflections in the mirror carefully.

  “You’re paid to scrub the grates, clean the vegetables, and all you do.” She paused. “Including braiding my hair…but…but you do like me, don’t you?”

  “Of course, Ettie. I like you very much.” It sounded so mechanical.

  “Of course,” Ettie replied softly.

  Neither one was now looking at the other in the mirror. They had averted their eyes and for a few seconds Hannah felt as if she had stepped out of her own body and was looking at herself from a slight distance as she continued to braid Ettie’s hair.

  “Will you promise to stay here forever and ever?”

  Hannah looked down at Ettie’s face. It looked pinched and nervous. Did Ettie suspect her secret life?

  Hannah sighed. “No one can promise forever and ever, Ettie.”

  “Yes, they can…they can…Hannah.”

  “I could promise, Ettie, and I could want to not ever break that promise, but sometimes things can happen that are beyond your control and promises get broken.”

  “Well, can you promise that if it is in your control, you won’t leave?” Ettie looked up at her with her clear gray eyes. Hannah felt a pinch in her heart.

  “I can only promise that I’ll try,” Hannah said.

  “You’ll try?”

  “Yes, I’ll try.”

  Ettie turned around now and, taking Hannah’s hand, gave it a ferocious squeeze. Did my mother try? Hannah wondered. Please, God, let her have tried!

  They would be returning to Boston in a very few days. It would be harder for Hannah to go into the sea there. It was farther away for one thing. She could not imagine trekking back and forth between Louisburg Square and the harbor, and what would she wear? Here it was easy to lead a divided life. She could go out in the pitch of a summer night wearing her combis and petticoats. She was hardly ever cold when she walked home. But what would it be like walking through the streets and back alleys of Boston in winter in wet clothes?

  It seemed as the last days of summer closed in that Ettie tried more and more to cling to Hannah. Had she seen something on that dreadful yet wonderful night when Hannah had dived into the sea?

  Mr. and Mrs. Hawley themselves seemed for the remainder of the summer as shattered as their precious vase. When Hannah had returned that morning, she learned that the painter had left rather abruptly after discovering the ruined portrait.

  Stannish Whitman Wheeler had told Hannah, in no uncertain terms, to leave that night, urged her to flee. Had he known somehow what would happen? She had always sensed that he saw things that others did not see, that he could see beneath the surface. He was after all a painter, but that was not the same thing as being able to read the future.

  26 “BEING MER”

  STANNISH WHITMAN WHEELER had left Gladrock in a fury. It was understandable; his work had been destroyed. It was his work, however, and not his reputation. A week after the party Perl came into the kitchen for his usual mug of coffee.

  “Guess who’s back on the island.”

  “Not Lila, I hope,” Mrs. Bletchley said, setting down the mug in front of him.

  “No, Mr. Wheeler.”

  “The painter?” Hannah turned around so quickly that the tea she was drinking slopped over the rim. Her face flushed and the thumping of her heart seemed deafening to her own ears.

  “The Stanhopes have engaged him to paint one of them. Don’t know which. And I understand that people be lining up to get him to do their portraits.”

  Hannah could not quite believe it. She had tried not to allow herself to think about the painter. She had come back, of course, swum back to see him, but when she had heard about the ruined painting, she had given up all hope.

  “He’s staying over at the inn.”

  Hannah’s mind was in a fever. She had to think of a way to talk to him. A housemaid could not be seen, however, meeting in public with a man of his stature. It was an island after all. The gossip would spread like wildfire. She would have to leave him a note. All morning long as she went about her chores, she composed the note in her head. She was not at all prepared when, just after serving luncheon, Mrs. Bletchley asked if someone would run an errand and go into the village for butter. Nonetheless, Hannah jumped at the chance.

  “Just a minute while I change my uniform.” Dashing upstairs, she found pen and paper and scrawled a terse message.

  Must see you.

  Meet me at Seal Point this evening, 11:00—H

  Daze and Florrie and Susie were going for an end-of-summer gathering at the lake. Since the disastrous portrait party, the Hawleys had been retiring early.

  Half an hour later Hannah walked through the entrance of the Spruce Inn. A man in a waistcoat and bright green tie approached her. He perceived immediately that she was not a potential guest. “May I help you, miss?”

  “Yes, a message for Mr. Wheeler from one of his clients.”

  “Certainly, miss.” He took it crisply and walked it over to the desk. Hannah was quick to leave.

  The hours between delivering the note and eleven that night were the longest that Hannah had ever endured. She arrived in the sparse woods of Seal Point an hour early. She dared not swim although this was one of her favorite coves and there was a beautiful ledge where there were seals t
hat she sometimes played with. The ledge was sparkling now in the silvery light of an immense moon.

  What would the painter say to her now? What would he do? How could he explain who he was and how he knew…knew that she was not quite human? She remembered that on the night of her transformation her first thought as she had lifted her shimmering tail from the water was that she must show the painter. But if he really wasn’t one, what would he think? Would he be repulsed? Would he find it disgusting? A sudden panic seized her. She hunched over her knees and, pressing her face into her hands, began to weep.

  She was so fraught with her own despair that she did not hear him approach but then felt a touch on her shoulder.

  “Why are you crying, Hannah?”

  She looked up. His face, though creased with concern, was glorious. “I did go away. I did as you said. I left.” She paused. “For the sea.”

  His shoulders sagged a bit as she said this. He then sat down on the moss-covered forest floor beside her and took her hand.

  “Yes, and?”

  She looked straight into his eyes, then shook her head wearily. “You know what happened.” He pressed her hand to his mouth and kissed it. A deep thrill coursed through her. He was whispering something into her hand. She bent closer to hear the words.

  “Why did you come back?” She knew what he meant. Back from the sea, but she needed to hear him say more.

  He slipped his arm around her. She leaned her head against his shoulder. “What do you mean ‘back’?”

  “Back from the sea. Why did you come back?”

  “For you,” Hannah said simply.

  He now took her face in both his hands. His eyes seemed suddenly hard and yet his hands held her face so gently. “Don’t you understand?” she asked.

  “No, Hannah, you don’t understand.”

  She began to ask what he meant, but the words would simply not come. She was suddenly frightened not of the painter but of what he might say, or was about to say. She raised her own hands to her ears as if to shut out his words, but she couldn’t, for his hands still held her face. “Listen to me, Hannah! Right now you can go back and forth, between two worlds. But it will not be this way always. In a year, at the very longest, you must make a choice. You must be of one world or the other.”

  “No! No!” Hannah was shaking her head now violently.

  “Yes, Hannah.”

  “It’s not true.”

  “It is true. I am living proof. You can never go back!”

  Hannah tore herself away and jumped to her feet. “I don’t believe you. I just don’t.” His eyes no longer looked hard, just sad. Terribly sad.

  “You must choose your world.”

  “But it’s not fair.”

  “It has nothing to do with being fair.”

  “What does it have to do with, then?”

  He stood up and looked at her and sighed heavily. “It has to do with being Mer.”

  By the time Hannah left the point and returned to Gladrock, it was after midnight. She went down to the cove and stood on the lavender rock at its edge. Could it be true, what the painter had said? Why must a choice be made? She looked out on the water. It was a calm night. The lightest of breezes blew, wrinkling the surface into tiny sparkling wavelets. It was as if the moon had broken into a thousand silver pieces. She looked back at the house. She could see a light on in Clarice’s room. She was reading late as usual. Ettie’s window was dark, but she could picture her softly folded into sleep. Sweet, sweet, funny little girl. “Am I just your job, Hannah?”—was that how she had put it? She sighed.

  Right now in this moment Hannah felt pressed between two worlds. She had found a place on land. The house was perfect now with Lila gone. She had a position. Daze had told her that when they returned to Boston, she would certainly be promoted to parlor maid. That a new scullery girl would have to be found. This would mean more money. But it wasn’t just money. In Boston she could find a way to see the painter. And if, as he said, she had perhaps as long as one year before this choice would have to be made, she could still go into the sea, although how she would manage it in Boston in the winter, she was not sure. Boston was not an island in the middle of the ocean but a port city. Was she greedy to want it all? But just for now, she thought. Just for a little while.

  27 THE STORM

  A HEAVINESS HAD HUNG in the air for several days and erratic gusts of winds slapped the usually calm waters of Frenchman Bay. There was a low boil with spume flying this way and that.

  “Hurricane down south, barometer dropping like a shot,” Perl announced as he came into the kitchen with a bushel basket of lobsters. “’T’ain’t raining but might as well be. I brought these in ’cause we have to get the dories out of the water and sail Lark over to the hole. Think we best secure the buckboards, carts, and traps. Nothing more dangerous than a wheel flying through the air.”

  “The hole?” Hannah looked up from the peas she was shelling.

  “Hurricane hole, safe place for boats during a storm. We’ll take her over to that one just by Otter Creek.”

  “Hurricanes never come here, Perl. They’re tropical,” Mrs. Bletchley said. “That’s why they call them tropical storms.” She continued rolling out a piecrust without looking up.

  “Maybe, but the fringes of them can skirt us. That’s what we got, the outer fringes of this one. She’s in the Carolinas now, but telegraph office over at the Revenue Marine station says she’s coming up the coast at a steady pace, fifty miles per hour.”

  “How come they always call hurricanes and storms ‘she’?” Susie asked.

  “’Cause they’re wild, de-ah,” Perl retorted with a gruff chuckle.

  “Men are wild, too, and I’ve heard of wicked, wild ones,” Daze said with a gleam in her eye.

  “Hope you don’t go courtin’ any of them, daughter,” Perl snapped.

  Hannah listened to the conversation with interest. She had never thought of storms as he’s or she’s, but reflected on what Perl said about their wildness. Did she share this wildness, then? She thought about how much she had loved swimming through the storm a few days ago.

  All day it was blowy and the servants of Gladrock were busy moving in porch furniture, putting up shutters, and securing the cottage for the major storm that was crashing up the coast. Mrs. Hawley walked around all day long fretting and wringing a handkerchief until it was almost in shreds. “I knew we should have left earlier. I just knew it, Horace. It’s insane to stay here this long, through the first week in September. Oh, I wish we were in Paris.”

  “The last place you would want to be right now is on an ocean liner heading for France, my dear.”

  “I think it’s exciting!” Ettie said. Clarice stuck her nose deeper into the book she was reading. By seven o’clock that evening, telegraph reports came in that the winds had strengthened as the storm made its way up the coast. By midnight it would be ferocious. It was decided that it was much too dangerous for the servants to sleep on the very top floor. The noise on that floor was already deafening and God forbid the roof should be torn off. So soon all the male servants were transporting beds from the third floor to the hallways and corridors of the second floor where the family slept. The female servants were running back and forth with linens. Mrs. Hawley briefly entertained the notion of moving beds to the basement but Mr. Hawley dashed that notion as foolish when he pointed out that there could be storm surge and already there were warnings of coastal flooding.

  “Storm surge,” Mrs. Hawley repeated with a look of absolute horror, as if the devil incarnate were about to be unleashed in the hallways of Gladrock.

  Perl arrived at nine o’clock that evening with the grim news that the hurricane had made its landfall at Cape Rachel, near Portland, with a brutal fury. Forty summer cottages, including the Cape Rachel Yacht Club, and nineteen people had been swept away into the Atlantic. “Oh my God!” Mrs. Hawley gave a little yelp and collapsed on a sofa.

  By now the rain was pouring down in
slanting sheets blown almost horizontal by the wind. Inside, the noise was a fearsome cacophony of creaks and moans as shutters clattered on their hinges, shingles flew from the roof, and the stately trees creaked in despair at the wrathful winds slamming across the lawn. Then suddenly there was a tremendous crash and the whole house shook.

  “What’s that?” Clarice cried out. Horace Hawley and Mr. Marston looked at each other. “It must be the grand oak,” Mr. Hawley said.

  “I’m afraid you might be right, sir,” the butler replied.

  But while everyone was trembling with fear as the eye of the hurricane approached, Hannah was fraught with anticipation. She tried to imagine the bay, especially the seas off Egg Rock—towering waves crashing, spume flying, immense surges swelling all around her. She prayed that everyone would fall asleep, and soon, so she could steal out. She knew that the worst dangers would be those on land—falling trees, the wheels of wagons careening on gusts of wind—but if she could get to the water, she would be safe.

  They were all, servants and family alike, now huddled together in the large drawing room. Mrs. Bletchley had made a kettle of cocoa and Susie and Daze and Hannah had prepared four platters of sandwiches. Mr. Hawley stood up and walked to one of the many barometers in the house. He summoned Perl and Mr. Marston.