The Promise Keeper: Sea Heroes of Duxbury

by Lisa Norato

  The old nurse gazed deeply into her eyes. Slowly, she rose from her chair and pressed the bottle of Hartshorne into Iris’s hands. She gave them a squeeze before letting go. “Here you go, my girl. Give a good rub to his temples, neck and lips, even letting a bit drip into his mouth.”

  Iris took the seat at her father’s bedside and with trembling hands poured some of the spirits onto a soft, damp cloth. His visage was ghostly pale beneath the close-trimmed beard and nearly as white. His eyelids lay closed and his lips slightly parted to allow the shallowest of breaths to escape.

  Tenderly, she administered the spirits to his handsome, weathered face. She smoothed each crease and wrinkle the sun had carved during his many sea travels, the laugh lines at the corner of his eyes and the few wrinkles on his brow she might have unwittingly put there during her adventurous youth. She rubbed until she could look no more, and as her eyes began to blur, she moved on to his hands to concentrate on his palms and wrists as Hetty bid her to do.

  Her father blinked open his eyes.

  She gasped. Hetty, too, gave a small noise of surprise behind her.

  “My dear Iris,” he croaked.

  He’d called her Iris and not “Daughter” as he usually did. Tears clogged her throat. There was so much to say, so much she was feeling, so much she wanted to know — who had done this terrible thing and how had it happened? — that the myriad thoughts got jumbled in her head and she couldn’t form a clear phrase.

  She gazed into his gray eyes, so like her own. “Oh, my dear father. I love you. Father, you must hold on.”

  He smiled then nodded weakly as a manner of agreeing and returning the sentiment. Iris felt somewhat comforted, but it was as though he had used up all his energy just speaking her name. And although it would seem he was looking at her, his vision appeared indistinct.

  His gaze wandered and Iris turned to look behind and see what had claimed his attention.

  Dr. Huxham stood in the doorway. His face drained of all color. “How did this happen?” Removing his short-brimmed felt hat, he set it on the mantle and hurried forward. “Never mind,” he barked as he removed his heavy woolen coat. “Step aside now and let me attend him.” His gaze fell intently on Hetty. “Clear the room, please.”

  Hetty nodded to Alice, who then escorted out those fellows who’d remained behind to help. Alice departed with them.

  Placing her small, chubby hands on Iris’s shoulders, Hetty guided Iris out of the chair toward the door.

  “N-no. Oh-no, not I. I can’t leave. I must stay,” she said.

  “Let the doctor work,” Hetty said. “And ’tis better if you aren’t here when he does. Send Peter up with the hot water, and I will come for you myself the moment Dr. Huxham is through. Go now, my girl, and listen to old, wise Hetty.”

  Iris walked through the halls and down the stairs of the great quiet house as though in a trance, putting one foot in front of the other, not fully understanding what was keeping her upright and moving. She remained in a state of shock. She was present and yet not. It seemed so unreal. Like a bad dream. No, a nightmare. A nightmare from which she would not awake. Dear Lord, how could something this horrible have happened?

  As she slipped down the rear hallway which led to the keeping room, Iris heard only a deep quiet. She had expected to find the men gathered in watchful concern for her father’s health. Those who’d found him on Nook Road, his yard workers, Uncle Alden, Cousin Lud. Instead she found only Snow, Peter and Johnny — the three of them looking to be in a sorrier state than she.

  Snow trotted over to greet her in the entry. The Labrador’s paws were muddied and red streaks marred her white coat. Iris gave the dog’s head a reassuring pat.

  “Who goes there?” called Johnny, his head cocked in their direction, his tone anxious.

  He had not recognized the sound of her walk as he’d always been able to before. “It is Iris,” she answered. Johnny stood in the middle of the room, grief-stricken as though paralyzed, his face ashen except for a purplish welt on his upper right cheek. His hands hung helplessly by his sides, palms up, dirty and bloodied. Dried mud caked on the knees of his trousers. Blood stained his clothing, and his messy dark hair fell over his sightless eyes. He looked devastated and lost, and she would have run into his arms for comfort, but she saw he had none to give.

  He breathed a long, low sigh. “What news, Iris?”

  “Father has revived, though he speaks only with great effort. The doctor is with him now. Where is everyone? Alice?”

  “Mrs. Bliss has gone to fetch your Aunt Mary and the men are outside, organizing a search for the man responsible for shooting your father. Others were sent to alert the neighbors and the parish constable. But here I remain,” he said, raising his hands in a helpless gesture. “Left behind to do nothing but wait, useless as I am.”

  Iris ignored the bitterness and anger in his voice. “Who, Johnny? Who is responsible?” Her voice broke on a sob.

  “A bad man!”

  She whirled at Peter’s outburst. He’d been tending the hearth fire while water boiled in the kettle. As her gaze met his, he wiped his runny nose on his shirtsleeve. He had obviously been crying.

  “Did I do something wrong, my lady? I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean no harm. I wanted to help. I wanted to be a good friend. Not many are a friend to me. But I didn’t mean nothing. I didn’t mean to do wrong. I’m sorry.”

  He was weeping openly now. Iris hurried to his side and touched his trembling shoulder. Tears sprang to her own eyes. “Oh, Peter.”

  Snow retreated to the rag rug by her father’s empty rocker.

  “Of course you didn’t do wrong,” she said. “Are you still upset about the note?”

  “He befriended a madman!”

  “Johnny, what are you saying?” Her head swam in a sea of confusion and grief. Iris felt helpless amongst her jumbled thoughts and raging emotions. None of this made sense and no one as yet had offered a reasonable explanation. There hadn’t been time for explanations. There was no time still. There was only time for action. “Peter, none of this is your fault. I need you to dry your tears and bring this hot water upstairs to the doctor.”

  He turned glistening, mournful eyes to her. “Will Captain Moon die?”

  “Do not even speak the words. We must do all we can to ensure his recovery and offer up our most earnest prayers.”

  Peter bowed his head. “Yes, my lady.”

  “The water. Hurry.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Johnny, have a seat and I shall wash your hands.” Keeping busy was the only thing preventing Iris from collapse. If she stopped long enough to think, she might consider Peter’s question and … well, no, she would not consider it.

  She retrieved a bowl and bade Peter fill it with water from the kettle before he departed. Johnny still had not moved or spoken other than to utter those few words. Taking one of his hands in hers, she turned it palm up and began to bathe away the grime.

  “Iris,” Johnny said.

  She didn’t respond but only stared blankly at the calluses and small scars that marked his broad palm and fingers.

  Turning, she rinsed the cloth in the bowl and watched the water turn red with her father’s blood.

  “Iris,” Johnny called again. “I’ve something to tell you.”

  Terror seized her. She began to shake. Johnny grabbed her and Iris fell into his arms, her sorrow bursting like a dam as she sobbed on his shoulder.

  He said no more but let her cry. Eventually, Iris was able to garner a measure of courage from his strong embrace, from his patient silence and the feel of his heartbeat so close to hers. She calmed herself with a shaky breath. “Johnny, I’m frightened. Tell me what happened. Oh, I don’t want to know what happened. It’s too awful. I’m so scared.”

  His arms pulled her tighter. Iris buried her face in his shoulder where she caught the scents of wintry air, earth and blood in the scratchy wool of his waistcoat.

  “Iris, oh, I
ris. Heaven knows, I’ve no wish to frighten you further, but I feel it neither wise nor fair to keep the truth from you any longer. I made a promise to your father long ago never to speak to you of what I’m about to tell you. But I am going to break that promise. Your safety is all that concerns me and ignorance will not protect you. It was Mr. Gregory. Mr. Gregory shot your father.”

  “Mr. Gregory?” Iris cringed, shocked and wounded to think the overly polite old fellow she’d met at her mother’s gravesite had done this. “Why would he do such a thing?” She pulled back to search Johnny’s eyes for confirmation only to remember his gaze could not meet hers. He held his head high while barely controlled emotion boiled beneath his clenched jaw. A muscle twitched beneath a shadow of dark whiskers.

  “Mr. Gregory is not his correct name. He is Gregory Sutherland, the Earl of Treybarwick of Cornwall.”

  “Sutherland? Then he is a relation of my mother’s?”

  Johnny nodded gravely.

  Tears welled in her eyes. “No. Mama had no family. She left nothing and no one behind. She always said her life began when she came to Duxbury.”

  “And, for her, it did. Lady Moon left behind no one of any affection in Cornwall. The only person she cared for she brought with her — Nurse Hastings. But they did more than depart from Cornwall. They escaped. Lord Treybarwick … er, ‘Mr. Gregory,’” he intoned sarcastically, “was her father.”

  Iris gasped. She didn’t realize she had swooned until Johnny grabbed her and urged her to sit. She did so, pulling him down beside her on the bench before the long worktable. “I know nothing of this. How can it be true?”

  “It is the truth, Iris. A difficult truth your parents vowed to protect you from. Your mother’s was a past best forgotten, and that is how they chose to keep it — as though it never was. But the past can never be truly forgotten, can it? Did you ever wonder why a noble-bred lady chose to sail with her sea captain husband rather than live in the mansion he had built for her? Even whilst she grew heavy with child, giving birth aboard ship and rearing that child on the sea for the first years of her life?”

  “Because she could not bear to be separated from my father,” Iris answered with certainty.

  “True, but she was also afraid. She had left her old life behind but not the fear of it.”

  Iris was reminded of Nook House’s hidden stairwell, Mama’s secret hiding place in the event a danger presented itself while Father was away at sea. Iris had never understood what danger her mother had been referring to, but she had recognized her mother’s fear. “Yes, she was afraid, Johnny. And you know what frightened her, don’t you? Are you telling me she was afraid of her own father?”

  Johnny’s brows drew together in a frowning expression. He angled his face towards the warmth of the blazing hearth, and its fiery light illuminated his strong, symmetrical profile. “The story, as I know it,” he began, “was that the earl was married when he first took interest in your grandmother during her coming out in London. Naturally, he was not permitted to pay her the slightest regard. That is, until, conveniently, his wife took an unexpected and tragic end. The Countess was said to have drowned in the dangerous river that ran behind their country estate of Sutherland Hall. After an acceptable grieving period, the earl was given permission to call upon your future grandmother. She was a young, beautiful innocent and he an older, handsome member of the peerage with great wealth. The match was regarded as a great success. Everyone was happy … until the day your mother, Lady Eleanor, was born.”

  He paused for breath then turned sightless eyes towards her, but Iris found herself in too great a state of surprise and concern to do more than stare. And so, at her silence, he continued.

  “The new Countess of Treybarwick began to grow uncomfortable with her husband’s possessiveness. He was jealous of his own infant daughter for the attention his wife bestowed her. And then there was the matter of his hope she would have given him the male heir his first wife had not. In time, the countess came to suspect her infatuated husband may have aided in his first wife’s demise in order to marry her. Perhaps it was fear or unhappiness, but she grew sickly with age and when she died, the earl unhinged. He began to squander his fortune on drink and gambling.”

  “This story.” Iris gave a nervous, involuntary laugh. “How is it you know this story of my grandparents and I do not?”

  “If you recall, I sailed with your father before your parents met. They fell in love during a passage from London to New York when the earl booked accommodations for himself, Lady Eleanor and some friends aboard your father’s merchant ship. And though they were discreet, the earl discovered their growing attraction and forbade contact between them. He was a dangerous, desperate man who’d already planned to marry her off to an elderly lord in exchange for the release of a devastating gambling debt.”

  “How awful for Mama. I do wish she would have confided in me.”

  Johnny reached out, searching for her hands, and Iris let him hold them. “Fear does terrible things to a person, Iris. It paralyzes them and distorts their perspective. It can make them behave in ways that may seem illogical. Thankfully, Captain Moon was not afraid and he was not to be deterred despite the fact he was an American, a commoner not in Lady Eleanor’s class. When she returned to Cornwall, he could not get near her, but he found a way for them to secretly correspond, and that was where I came in. An American of your father’s striking appearance would draw immediate attention, but a young boy of no account could pass through town and country unnoticed. Your mother agreed to marry a good man she’d known only a short while rather than to be bound to a licentious old goat she knew not at all. They planned a way for her to escape to your father’s ship and she did. She literally disappeared from Sutherland Hall with Nurse Hastings.”

  He was breathing heavily now, Iris noticed, and was squeezing her hands tighter than she thought he realized. Pain and sorrow distorted his expression and his voice rose excitedly.

  “He tracked us down. We thought them faithful, but after all these years someone from the crew betrayed Captain Moon. And I … I myself saved this villain from the wrecked Vulture and delivered him safely to our shores. To Captain Moon’s doorstep! He’s been spying on the captain. On you, too, I believe. Peter told me he befriended him after the rescue when the others were seeking shelter inside the house. It was the earl who left you that disturbing note. He came all this way looking for Lady Moon and when he discovered her … gone, well, he went mad. He followed us this morning and shot your father in cold-blooded revenge. There is no other word for it.

  “I’m sorry, Iris.” Johnny broke down and it tore at Iris’s heart to hear it when he’d been so very brave through all the misfortune that befell him. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize the earl when I first saw him. I was distracted, you see. My thoughts were on the rescue and battling the high seas.”

  “Of course you were. This isn’t your fault.” But he was so distraught, he didn’t pay heed to her words. Iris doubted he’d even heard her speak as he raged on.

  “My interactions with him aboard Captain Moon’s ship had always been brief and in a position of servitude. I don’t know that I ever got a proper look at him. But that is a poor excuse. Something should have alerted me. If I only had my sight. I would have gotten a good look at the earl at the cemetery. I could have seen he carried a gun. I might have been able to protect your father.”

  Before she could console him, there came a banging at the door. Johnny straightened and pulled away. Iris rose to answer the knock. Uncle Alden barreled inside greatly distressed, followed by Aunt Mary, who pulled Iris into a tearful embrace, when suddenly Hetty appeared in the keeping room’s entry and urged them all upstairs.

  With Aunt Mary holding her around the waist, Iris felt herself being swept through the house then up the central staircase. She walked as though moving in a dream, her thoughts in a fog, too terrified to consider what this call to her father’s bedside might mean. Dr. Huxham couldn’t have been w
ith him for more than twenty minutes. There seemed to be a crowd following and she’d lost all track of Johnny.

  The doctor was waiting for them outside the bedroom door. As Iris continued past, she heard him tell the others, “I’ve dosed him with laudanum and removed the shot. He seems to be resting well, all things considered, but I must inform you, the prognosis is grim. Very grim indeed.”

  Emotion gathered in her eyes as Iris slowly approached the bed. The room lay in darkness but for the glow the fireplace cast on the scene. Through a blur of tears, she gazed upon her beloved father as he lay deathly still under the sheets, clean and disrobed, his wound wrapped and bandaged and hidden from her gaze.

  Alice swept discreetly past, his soiled clothing balled up in her hands.

  Iris had endured a deathwatch once before with her mother. She recognized the telltale signs. The shadow of death. Her father’s complexion had lost its hale ruddiness and was now a jaundiced yellow.

  Hetty resumed her bedside vigil and began to fan his feverish face.

  Her world was spinning out of control. She needed Aunt Mary’s assistance to keep herself upright. Each step seemed to take great effort as together they approached from the other side of the large four poster. Father’s once bright, smiling eyes had sunken into dark hollows.

  Her heart broke with an aching tightness that threatened to choke her. “Oh, Father, nooo.” Iris collapsed on top of him. She could feel Aunt Mary, someone, rubbing her quaking shoulders as she sobbed. After a time, Iris gathered herself and sat back, taking one of her father’s limp hands in her own. She leaned over and kissed his bloodless, whiskered cheek. His breathing was labored. His eyes were open and yet he did not seem to be present. Instead, he stared off into one corner of the room. Turning, Iris saw nothing but her mother’s vanity table.

  Her vision blurred in sorrow.

  And then a delicate, sweet scent reached her. With each breath she inhaled, it grew in intensity until a fragrance of tuberose permeated the room and overpowered even that of wood smoke and her arrangement of evergreens.