The Promise Keeper: Sea Heroes of Duxbury

by Lisa Norato

  Iris hastened to obey, while he returned the remaining bacon to the hold. They met at the bottom of the iron staircase and mounted together, Keeper Mayne leading the way. The stairs spiraled upward against the stone wall. At Snow’s whine, Iris leaned over the handrail and called down to the dog to wait for her there.

  Their footsteps echoed up the forty-seven foot tower as they made the winding climb. Presently, Keeper Mayne paused on a landing that opened up to another circular room. Here the stone ended and the wooden construction of the lighthouse began.

  “These are my sleeping quarters,” he said as though the sight was all very mundane.

  It was not mundane to Iris. Light shone through a window illuminating the rumpled linens of his unmade bed. She tried not to dwell on the fact she was quite alone in the tower with this dark, virile keeper, who had been imprisoned for any number of nefarious reasons. Awareness made her face hot, and she averted her gaze from the bed chamber, embarrassed to inspect it further, though she felt no threat from him.

  Keeper Mayne trudged on ahead, while Iris hastened to keep up. Onward she climbed, up the steep, winding staircase, growing breathless as one stair led tediously to another and another. Her muscles began to burn with the effort, but she kept her sights on the light that shone down from overhead.

  As they drew nearer to the top, Iris recoiled at the pungent odor of whale oil.

  “Just a few more steps now,” Keeper Mayne called from the landing of the lamp room. He extended his hand, and as Iris slipped her fingers into his firm, calloused grip, he helped her mount the last, remaining stair.

  She entered a compact, circular room enclosed in thick glass. Sunlight flooded the space in full brilliance, reflecting off the silver, concave disks behind the lamps. The intense brightness fairly made her eyes tear.

  “This is what’s called the lantern,” he said, letting go of her hand. “The room which encloses the optic that produces the light.”

  Iris counted eight glass chimneys in all, spaced evenly around a shelf that encircled the room. Her gaze drifted out the windows to a breathtaking expanse of sky, so blue she blinked against the intensity.

  Keeper Mayne donned a linen apron hanging by the door. He then proceeded to remove a glass chimney from one of the lamps in order to reach behind to the silvered surface of its reflector. While Iris watched, he polished the concave reflector with a soft rag. His hands, though large and coarse, worked with care and precision. Iris watched him with fascination.

  “These are called Argand lamps. They were introduced to American lighthouses from England. See here,” he indicated, and she stepped closer to observe. “This is the oil reservoir. The wicks are hollow to allow oxygen to pass both inside and outside the wick, which causes the lamps to be less smoky, which in turns keeps the flames bright. Each lamp burns with the equivalence of seven candles. The parabolic reflectors increase that brightness even further.”

  He turned to gauge the level of her interest with steady brown eyes. His closeness immobilized her. If asked, Iris would not have been able to repeat a single word he had said, but she memorized every feature, every line of his face.

  She might have made him uncomfortable or perhaps he mistook her silence for disinterest, because he replaced the glass chimney and began to remove his apron. “It’s the view you’ve come to see, not these lamps. Let me escort you outside.”

  It wasn’t that she held no enthusiasm for the internal workings of the light, but Iris was more intrigued with its keeper. She followed him onto an outside walkway, similar in a fashion to the captain’s walk atop her family home, except this deck completely surrounded the lantern room.

  A sweeping view of crisp, blue wintry sky met the cold gray of the ocean below. A merchantman drifted slowly down from Powder Point, looking like a child’s toy boat sailing along the bay. Other vessels dotted the shipyards and wharfs. The air blew with a salty breeze, fresh and mild.

  Iris continued to traverse the circumference of the deck, scanning the winter-barren Duxbury coast for the bluff she called home, and there she paused to admire Nook House. She imagined herself standing upon the captain’s walk and tried to picture how the scene might appear to Keeper Mayne. With her pale silvery hair and white dressing gown, she might very well resemble an apparition … if she believed in such things.

  Keeper Mayne moved to stand by the fog bell. Salty the gull had found them. As Iris watched, the keeper pulled a raw bacon strip from his pocket and fed it to the bird.

  “Oh my, a curmudgeon, rumored to be a pirate and having served a prison sentence, sharing his precious ration of bacon with a one-legged gull. I find you quite uncommon, sir.”

  He gave no indication he’d heard. “So what do you think, Iris? Is the view more impressive from Pilgrim Light, or is it not so very different from that atop Nook House?”

  Iris’s thoughts were no longer on the view. “Why were you sent to prison?”

  “I suppose you could say I dared to dream beyond my means.”

  She released a sigh that sent her breath smoking on the air. “You’re speaking vaguely again, giving me answers that are not answers at all. Well, answer me this one thing, if you will. Are there moments you ever feel afraid, isolated and alone as you are here at the light?”

  “I’m not so alone, as you can see.” He fed the eager gull another piece of bacon. “One thing only unsettles me, and that is you, pacing the walk like the spirit of Lady Moon keeping watch over the bay. It is my duty to guard the bay, and yet there you are every morning. What are you watching for, Iris? What do you sense out there that draws you?”

  “I don’t sense a thing, you absurd fellow. I stand on the roof merely to admire the view and listen to the surf.”

  He turned from the gull to confront her, forcing Iris to gaze into his handsome face. His stare bore deeply into hers. She could not find the presence of mind to turn away. His dark eyes held her spellbound with an intimacy she didn’t understand.

  “Why are you here?” he asked, “and don’t tell me it is to bring me tea and cake. All the supplies I could possibly need were delivered the day before yesterday. Perhaps you wished to satisfy your curiosity and return with gossip about Duxbury’s cur of a keeper?”

  Iris scoffed to hide her shame and guilt. Keeper Mayne spoke the truth. Under the guise of charity she had come to satisfy her curiosity and failed. Now that she’d met him, the man was an even greater mystery to her.

  “What have I learned from you to gossip about?” she asked. “Nothing. Riddles too bewildering they don’t bear repeating.”

  His nostrils flared slightly as he breathed down on her. “You’ve gone to great lengths rowing out here on frigid waters to invade a man’s privacy all in the name of Christmas cheer. Would you care to know what I think, Iris Moon?”

  She took a step back from him. “No … no, I don’t care what you think. I have delivered the basket and visited the tower, and now I shall be leaving. Good day.”

  He blocked her exit with his body. “I think, Iris Moon, it is you who is the lonely one, to take such interest in a humble light keeper. Let me advise you, for your own sake, stop wasting your girlish imaginings on a solitary man who wakes to the same scene day after day.”

  “Was it the hardship of prison that turned you bitter? I’d rather be guilty of girlish imaginings, as you call them, believing the good in people, than a cur who does not welcome a friendly visit at Christmas. Only a man with a dark soul or much pain could find no joy in celebrating the Savior’s birth. I have been fortunate in that my parents’ love story has passed onto me the belief there is hope and romance to be found everywhere.”

  Iris shouldered past him into the lantern room, giving him no chance to contradict her as she headed for the stairs and the long climb down.

  Chapter 3

  Johnny fell deep in thought as a scarlet blur whirred past to sweep across the lantern room and disappear down the trap door.

  It was Lady Moon he’d seen when he fir
st found Iris wandering through his fallow garden patch. His heart very nearly ceased beating as he looked upon her face. Immediately, he was thrust back twenty-two years in time. He was a boy again, sent on a grave mission involving a young Cornish beauty with hair the color of moonlight.

  It was then the dog had growled, jolting him back to reality. As he took hold of his senses, Johnny could plainly see his visitor was no vision, but Lady Moon’s very real daughter. Iris had grown into a beautiful young woman who bore a striking resemblance to her mother.

  And yet she was clearly not her mother. Eleanor Moon’s had been an angelic, translucent beauty, her figure lithe and wispy. She had possessed an airy sort of grace and walked as though floating on air.

  Iris trod the ground with purpose. She was a bold, vivid creature, her features well defined, her bluish gray eyes reminiscent of a feline’s, lips as bright as cherries. Johnny found a becoming sturdiness to Iris that her fragile mother had never possessed.

  That Iris had taken exception to his words only proved them true. He had touched a nerve. She was lonely, and Johnny felt sorry for it. He understood loneliness all too well.

  An old sense of responsibility and duty took hold of him as it had as a boy. Maybe it had never gone away but had laid dormant waiting for the day they’d meet again. And now, she had come to him.

  Johnny hurried after her, calling down from the lantern room’s entry. “Don’t expect me to stop you, because I won’t. I agree it is time you returned home, while the weather and tides are still kind.” He could barely hear the sound of her soft-soled boots on the iron stair treads, as he descended in her wake.

  Looking down, the silvery haired girl below him continued her circular descent.

  “And see how you’ve made more work for me in having to see you safely back to the mainland,” he called. “I must prepare to light the lamps soon. Darkness descends early, and they need to be lit one-half hour before sunset to assure they will be burning at their full brilliance by nightfall.”

  She stopped then to glance up. Johnny halted also. Her exquisite, white face shone up at him like a cameo in the dull, gloomy tower. It made for a lovely picture, and Johnny committed it to memory, so he might recall it once she was gone.

  “Don’t be such a turnip-head,” she said. “Why should you need to see me home when I sailed here perfectly well by myself? I shall return the same way.”

  Her voice echoed up to him.

  She turned away and continued down the stairs, faster now.

  Johnny chased her down the stairwell, catching up with Iris as she entered his living quarters. She took her same seat before the hearth and began to pull on her stockings. Snow wagged her tail when she saw him, and Johnny fed her the last of the bacon in his pocket.

  Iris made no attempt to acknowledge him as he approached her chair. He’d wounded her pride. Or touched a sensitive subject. Perhaps both. “I must be such a disappointment to you,” he said. “You ventured here looking for a romantic figure and found me. If only you’d heeded the gossips. It was foolish and bold of you to come. It would be equally foolish were I to allow you to return alone. The journey back will be more difficult with the wind against you. I shall row you to the mainland.”

  She sat up abruptly, turning to him with a toss of her long, pale mane. “You have no choice in the matter. I refuse to leave my boat.”

  “Then we shall take it.”

  She gave him a patronizing smile as though he were quite daft. “If we take it, then how shall you return?”

  “Why, in your fine little skiff, of course. Your cousin Lud delivers my supplies, as you know, and is employed as relief keeper during my two-day liberty. He speaks of nothing but boat building and has sung the Moonbeam’s praises often enough to make me covet her for myself. Light-weight and fitted with a mast, she is said to glide over the waves like a moonbeam. Cedar-built of trees hewn from this very island and constructed for sturdiness and an ability to land on a rocky coast in a rough sea.” He grinned. “Perhaps I shall go fishing in her tomorrow.”

  Her gaze pierced him as coldly as polished steel. “Do you smile only when it is at my expense? Do you enjoy taunting me that much?”

  “No, Iris. Why until today, I never smiled at all.” Johnny let his guard down that she might glimpse what was in his heart. “Thank you.”

  She held his gaze, neither of them wavering. But as moments passed overlong, color flamed into her face and she bent over her boots to fumble with their laces. “You are welcome. You’ll enjoy Hetty’s plum pudding. There’s a good taste of rum to it. And I daresay, seafarers do enjoy their rum.”

  The tongue on her! He didn’t know which he felt more inclined towards — a smile or a scowl. But he hadn’t been thanking her for the plum pudding, and they both knew it.

  When presently she rose, she purposely avoided his gaze.

  “It was rude of me to tease you,” he said. “I am glad for your visit. But you must not come again.”

  Her gaze snapped up to his. “And why not?”

  “It’s dangerous.”

  She slanted him a disbelieving look. “Dangerous? How so?”

  “I’ll explain on the way.” Johnny pulled on the green cap she’d knitted him and gathered up his gloves. “Come.”

  She called her dog and they stepped outside. Johnny escorted them down the path towards shore. “Though cold, the weather of late has been fair with a light breeze. It would be of no consequence if it blew from the northwest. Northwest winds bring dry air and clear skies. But this wind prevails from the northeast quarter, and my weather eye tells me it will freshen. A storm threatens, Iris, and when it arrives, it will blow strong and be accompanied by snow, sleet or hail. It is dangerous for you to be out on the bay and dangerous that your presence should distract me, when I must remain vigilant.”

  “You would know better than any the impending danger. Sudden, violent changes in weather are common to New England. I only hope you are not overstating the threat as an excuse to avoid Duxbury society. Row us home then, but once this storm has passed and the waters calm, I insist you visit Nook House. I shall ask my father to extend you an invitation to an early Sunday dinner. We shall invite my cousin Lud and his family. And you can meet my dear old nurse, Hetty.”

  Johnny remained impassive, giving her no encouragement. She could never begin to imagine what he was thinking.

  “Everyone loves Hetty,” she persisted.

  At his lack of response, she asked. “Does something else trouble you?”

  He walked on ahead, his boots crunching on the cold, hard ground. “Turmoil rises in my spirit. A danger I cannot explain has settled in my bones, and I feel a chill, not from the cold, but from a terrible foreboding. A storm is coming. You can depend upon it. Bringing more than foul weather. Keep close to home for a few days, Iris Moon.”

  Lifting the hem of her heavy cloak, she scurried on ahead, passing him, and then turned around sharply in his path, forcing Johnny to a halt. “I invite you to Nook House, and that is your response?” With solemn eyes, she searched his face. “Another riddle?”

  “It is perplexing even to me,” he said. He escorted her to the Moonbeam and helped her aboard. The Labrador immediately jumped in after her, and Johnny pushed the skiff into the surf, wading into the undertow, where the tide could lift and carry it out to sea.

  Climbing inside, he took up the oars while Iris made herself comfortable in the stern. She wrapped her arms around her knees, watching him over her white dog’s head. She was an enchantress with her flashing eyes and the color high on her cheeks against the pale ash of her hair. Loosed and long, it danced on the sea wind.

  “Cover your head,” he said. “Lest you catch a chill.”

  He dare not speak of the real danger, being that if he encouraged any socialization between them … and they were to become friends, or more … it would grow increasingly difficult to hide all he knew. Iris struck him as determined and bold. She would seek out his true heart. She’d no
t continue to accept his ambiguous replies. She would insist on honesty, and Johnny had no desire to lie to her. But then neither would he betray the oath he’d made to Captain Moon. Better he remain private, a curmudgeon, so he might continue to protect her from Lady Moon’s secret.

  Glancing over his shoulder, his sights trained upon the yellow mansion on the bluff, Johnny rowed them across Duxbury Bay toward Nook shores. For all her banter and protest, he sensed Iris was not so very disappointed that he should be escorting her home.

  But then neither was he disappointed for the opportunity to have visited with her again after so many years apart.

  “Yours is a generous offer,” he said, getting back to her invitation, “but when we reach the mainland, I shall say farewell and you will never see me again.”

  “I cannot imagine anyone choosing to remain in solitude. I do not understand it.”

  Johnny engaged his back muscles in a long, deep pull of the oars. The cold bay waters rippled against the hull of the Moonbeam. “I daresay you’d understand if you’d experienced prison. I don’t need companionship. I relish the quiet, the peacefulness of surf and sea winds and hawking gulls. I’m unconfined, free to watch the skies and enjoy the sunlight on my face. Each day the smell of salt and sand fills my nostrils. No more the sweaty, stale odors of unwashed bodies and sickness festering in the darkness. I have ample food and drink, far removed from the sparse meals of blackened bread and water thick with scum. Nights I doze fitfully, without the moans and cries of the destitute keeping me awake. This is a paradise in comparison, and I need share it with no one but a lone shorebird. Salty expects nothing of me but a few slices of bacon and the scraps from my table. He never speaks back to me or tells me how I should live my life.”