Sea Jade

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  Within the room the odor of raw wood, of shavings, of paint, were strong and fresh. It seemed that a wood carver of considerable skill plied his art here. Figures of animals and objects and small human forms crowded the shelves. I gave these scarcely a glance, however, because of the figure that occupied a raised platform in the center of the room. I might have taken it for a conventional wood carving of a woman—somewhat larger than lifesize—had it not been for the slant at which the figure was lashed to a standard, extending into the room as if intended to breast whatever gales might bluster across an ocean. It was, of course, a ship’s figurehead.

  The carving was in a strange state of partial completion. Its body was garbed in lovely jade-green robes that swept backward, as if in a strong wind—robes that were complete in every detail, as though the carver had worked lovingly over each fold of simulated cloth. The woman’s hands were held before her, hidden in the wide cuffs of her sleeves. Her breast, gently molded, lifted to meet the elements she faced. Yet in surprising contrast to this detailed perfection, the head, above slender shoulders, remained a block of raw wood. No effort had been made to complete its shape, or to form the headdress. Nor had the features been so much as indicated.

  What a strange way to work, I thought—to finish all else, even to the applying of color, while the most important element of the entire figure still remained untouched.

  I recalled Ian Pryott’s moment of eagerness when he had seen me leaning forward in the prow of the whaler. He had asked me then if I would pose for a figurehead. Was it he who worked in this room? He who had created this faceless lady? Had he thought to use me as a model to complete the carving?

  But this could hardly be what he intended, for the figurehead represented a woman of China, and mine was an occidental face. Something stirred vaguely in my memory. Had there not been a story of just such a strange combination that I had heard of long ago? Some tale of a figurehead in oriental dress but with an occidental face that had once caused a decided stir upon the seaways?

  As I stood pondering, a man’s voice spoke to me from the doorway. Startled, I looked about to see the bearded seaman, Tom Henderson, standing there. I did not like this man. There was something nefarious about him, something vicious in the way he had deliberately frightened the captain. And why should he now remain in the vicinity of Bascomb’s Point? His sudden appearance gave me a queerly trapped feeling—as if I had been approached by the presence of elemental evil. He stood between me and the door and I sensed that if I tried to push past him he would keep me from leaving. I stood where I was, striving to conceal my trepidation.

  “I thought I recognized you down there on the ship this morning,” he went on. “But it didn’t come to me till later that you’re Carrie Corcoran’s daughter. The spitting image of her too, as many must have told you in Scots Harbor.”

  “Carrie Heath,” I said curtly.

  He showed me the grimace of a smile in his nest of black beard. “I was coming to Cap’n Nat in my own good time. That’s why I’ve took an interest in you, as you might say. I sailed under your pa in my day, and never did I see a better ship’s master. I was his second mate long before I had the bad luck to be first mate for Cap’n Obadiah Bascomb.”

  I did not care to hear my father’s name, or Captain Obadiah’s, on this fellow’s tongue—whether in praise or otherwise. “If you don’t mind—” I said, and moved toward the doorway.

  He did not budge from my path, but nodded his bald head in the direction of the carved figure. “I wonder why they’d be making another Sea Jade figurehead?”

  I flung a startled look at the lady in her jade green robes, and suddenly, out of distant time, words drifted back to me—words uttered by my aunt and broken off as though she had not meant to speak them:

  “It was your mother, child, who posed for that famous figurehead on the Sea Jade. There were some who said she would bring only ill-luck to the ship …”

  Then my aunt had checked her tongue and would never thereafter speak of the Sea Jade’s figurehead.

  “How do you know this is a replica?” I asked Tom Henderson.

  He grinned wickedly at the carving. “Not likely I wouldn’t know! As I was saying, I sailed as first mate aboard Sea Jade under Cap’n Obadiah.”

  He left the doorway and came into the room, to stand closer to me than I liked. I could smell the grog on his breath and the unpleasant odor of an unwashed body.

  “Only a few weeks ago I saw the real figurehead,” he informed me. “The very one your ma posed for, setting all those tongues awagging at the time.”

  Despite my distaste, he had caught my interest. “The real one? What do you mean?”

  “O’ course you’d hardly recognize her for the weathering,” he said. “But she’s still in place aboard the ship.”

  “Do you mean the Sea Jade? But where is she? Where did you see her?”

  He grinned again. “Old Tom knows a lot o’ things that maybe you’d like to know. This one I’ll give you free. The ship’s standing in dock at Salem this very minute. No good to anybody now. Could be they’ll turn her into a coal hulk. But that’s not what I want to talk to you about, miss.”

  He wheeled away to a window where he stood looking out, speaking to me over his shoulder, as though he knew very well that I would not run away.

  “You’ve done all right for yourself, haven’t you, miss? Marrying a McLean and all that. There’ll be money in your pocket—where Cap’n Nat had none. So maybe you’d be ready to spend a mite of it for benefit of hearing a story I could tell.”

  I looked at him with increasing aversion. “I have no money. And if I had, I wouldn’t pay you to make up lies.” I moved toward the door, but he went on talking, knowing full well that I’d stay to hear him out, whether I wanted to or not.

  “Could be you’ll change your mind, miss. I’ll be hanging around the Pride a few days more to see what may turn up. Any time you want to talk to old Tom, you come on down there with a little silver jingling in your pocket. I’ll tell you a tale to make your hair stand on end. A tale to make your blood run—” He broke off and turned from the window. “There’s somebody coming!”

  With his sailor’s gait he crossed the room, flung up the window sash on the ocean side and straddled the sill, pausing there to look back at me. “Don’t forget now. You’d best look me up and hear me out.” Then he dropped to the ground and disappeared from sight.

  A moment later Ian Pryott came into the museum and found me standing before the figurehead, the window still open on the far side of the room.

  “The seaman who frightened the captain is still around,” I told Ian hastily. “He was here trying to sell me some sort of information. He wanted me to come down to the Pride to talk to him.” I pointed toward the window.

  Ian leaned through the opening to look out before he closed the window sash. “Give him short shrift when he comes around, Miranda. If I run into him I’ll warn him off. There’s no one here will pay him blackmail money—if that’s what he’s after. Not now that the captain is gone.”

  “Then you think that is all he wants?”

  “What else can he want?” Ian returned to where I stood beside the carving, his manner toward me still cool, remote. “What do you think of her?” he asked almost carelessly.

  “Even without a face she’s very beautiful. Is she yours? Why did you carve her?”

  “The Sea Jade story has always fascinated me, and I do a bit of whittling now and then, as you can see.” He gestured toward the shelves around the room. “This time I decided to try something more ambitious.”

  “Whittling!” I echoed. “This is as good as anything I have seen in the art collections in New York. But what will you do for her face?”

  “I’m not sure. I found some old pictures that gave me the pose and general details of the figurehead. But I’ve needed something in the round to use for the face. Lien wants to pose for it. She feels that this time the figure should have a face to match the robe
s.”

  So he did not mean to mention the moment this morning when he had thought of me as a possible model. He turned to a shelf where tools lay and began picking up one instrument after another, replacing them absently, as if he waited for me to go away so he could get to work.

  “It would be wonderful to see her in place aboard the Sea Jade,” I mused.

  Ian laughed shortly. “I think that is hardly possible.”

  “Why isn’t it possible? Tom Henderson says the Sea Jade is in dock in Salem right now. He thinks she may be turned into a coal hulk. That seems a shame with so beautiful a ship. Could she not be purchased and brought home again?”

  Ian heard me in astonishment. The idea excited me the more I thought about it, and something of my own feeling seemed to catch fire in him.

  “What an idea! But only the captain could have done it. There’s no one left to care.”

  “You think Brock would not be interested?”

  “He’d never touch her.” Ian was emphatic. “Not that ship. Not when his father died aboard her. You can forget the notion—unless you have exceptional influence with your husband.”

  His last words stung. I stayed for a moment longer, trying to find some way to reinstate myself with this man who had earlier offered me friendship and now judged me so unfairly. But there seemed nothing more to say to him. His back was toward me and I went out the door without speaking to him again. Outside I found a vast bank of darkness climbing the eastern sky. Reluctantly I started toward the house.

  There was no sign of Brock McLean and his black dog on the sea cliffs, nor did he appear within the house, or for supper that night, even though he owed the guests the courtesy of his presence.

  The meal seemed endless to me, thanks to the role I must play as a new bride in this household. Many were the curious glances cast in my direction, and several ladies tried to draw me into conversation. But Sybil hovered close and watchful, ready to break in when anyone grew too curious. Plainly Mrs. McLean was looked upon with respect and not a little awe, so no one pried too far with me in her formidable presence. As soon as it was possible to do so, she excused me from the gathering on the pretext that I had endured two long and trying days.

  Thus dismissed, there was nothing for me to do but go upstairs to the large bedroom that had waited for me all day long. There I found a fire burning in the grate to take away the nighttime chill. I was no longer a forlorn, unwelcome visitor for whom no fire would be lighted. Tonight I was a forlorn and unwilling bride.

  EIGHT

  The hour was nearing midnight. I stood at a front window of the room that I had discovered was once Rose McLean’s. The lamps were out and there was no light except for a single candle I kept burning on a bureau. By this time I knew every detail of the room and I had gained some encouragement from the fact that there were no evidences in it of Brock’s possessions, though there were small indications that his wife had once occupied it.

  I had quickly discovered that a door at the rear connected with a smaller room. Opening it, I found this to be the room now occupied by Brock McLean. It was as orderly as a captain’s cabin, from the narrow bed to the sturdy, compact desk that might have served its time at sea.

  Rose’s room was more elegant. Its articles of furniture could have been made in Salem. The pieces were simple and clean of line, perhaps with a Sheraton touch. There was a large wardrobe, which I found locked when I tried to hang my clothes there. On a small walnut desk with an open dropleaf, I noted a scrimshaw inkwell, and a daguerrotype miniature in a scrimshaw frame. Skillfully carved ivory roses circled a pretty young face that looked out from the picture. I picked up the small portrait and studied what was undoubtedly a portrait of Rose.

  When this girl had been younger than I she had married Brock McLean. Perhaps he had been different in those days from the black-browed man he had become in his mid-thirties, with his life fallen about him in ruin, his wife dead, himself lamed, and any ambition he might have had to sail the seven seas defeated. I could hardly blame him for detesting me under such circumstances. This I scarcely minded. What I dreaded was the possibility that he might try to punish me for the role I had unwittingly played in these recent events.

  The one article of furniture in the room from which my eyes slid repeatedly away was the four-poster bed that dominated the central space with its fluted mahogany columns and oblong wooden canopy. A bright patchwork quilt that covered the bed—perhaps made by Rose’s own hands—had been turned down at one corner to invite me. But I could not bear to get into that huge expanse, even though the fire had died by now and I shivered here by the window in my nightgown and wrapper. Cold though I was, I would wait until I heard Brock come up and go to bed in the next room. Only then would I feel safely forgotten and able to lie down and sleep.

  The view from this window was unlike the one I’d had in my smaller room. Here the harbor and the flashing beam of the new lighthouse could not be seen, but I could view most of Bascomb’s Point, with the older lighthouse bulking between me and the ocean. The tower where the lantern had once shone was dark, but a light burned downstairs in the dwelling part of the building. I knew by now that Brock had an office over there, as well as his main office at Bascomb & Company in town. And of course Ian’s workroom was there, where he had carved the figurehead.

  The night was gusty, with a haze blowing across the face of a three-quarters moon. So thin and gauzy were the clouds that the night seemed brightly lighted outdoors. As I stood there, a lamp upstairs on the second floor of the lighthouse came on behind shutters, and I knew it must burn in the room Ian occupied. As I watched another light was extinguished in the lower right wing. A man came out the door and down the moonlit path, accompanied by a great black dog that moved close to his master like a sinister shadow.

  Brock was coming home.

  My heart began to thud unevenly as man and dog approached the Bascomb house. I stepped to one side of the window, lest the man look up and see me there. The emotion that filled me was a strange mingling of fright and uneasy excitement. The question of whether I might learn to love such a man came unbidden to my mind. I dismissed the thought at once, with distaste for my own treacherous weakness.

  The two did not enter by way of the front door below my window, but went out of sight around the house, presumably to settle Lucifer in his kennel for the night. At length a door opened at the back of the house and I heard Brock’s uneven progress up the stairs.

  When he knocked upon my door, I could not manage an answer because of the trembling that ran through me and seemed to close my throat. He had to knock a second time before I could speak my “Come in” clearly. I faced the doorway in trepidation, not knowing what I might expect from this man who was now my husband.

  “Good evening,” he said with stiff formality, and closed the door behind him. “I’ve brought you a proper wedding ring. I’d like to take back the jade ring I used for a makeshift last night, since it belonged to my father.”

  I had not worn the jade ring since the funeral. It lay upon the bureau where I had placed it when I moved to this room, and I gestured toward it without speaking. He picked it up and put it on his little finger. Then he took a jeweler’s box from his waistcoat pocket and held it out to me.

  “Will you try this, please, and see if the fit is right.”

  I did’ not want to wear his ring and I took the box reluctantly. He stood watching me and once more I was aware of the height and breadth of him, of his dark look fixed so intently upon me. With fingers that were all too uncertain I opened the clasp, took out the plain gold band and slipped it upon the proper finger. It fit well enough, but I took it off at once and replaced it in the box.

  “The ring is for you to wear,” he said curtly.

  I shook my head stubbornly. “I’ll not wear it.”

  “Put it on your finger,” he ordered. “You will wear it as my wife.”

  When I made no move to obey he came toward me with barely suppressed impatience,
took the ring from the box and slipped it onto my finger.

  I snatched my hand away the moment I was able. “I shall take it off as soon as your back is turned,” I said, but I felt as Laurel must, futilely opposing a force far stronger than I—a force in full authority. Perhaps I was all the more defiant because I did not like my own reaction when this man touched me. I had not liked the tingling shock that had gone through me last night when he had grasped my hand, or the repetition of that feeling now.

  He paid no attention to such feeble opposition. “Get into bed where you’ll be warm,” he said. “You’re shivering your head off.”

  I moved toward the bed, afraid and icy cold, yet compelled by his voice, his words. I kicked off my slippers and got clumsily beneath the covers. Then I sat up against the huge pillows with the quilt pulled to my chin and stared at him. He came to the foot of the bed and I sensed in him the cold fire I had been aware of before. But now there was something new as well—a sort of angry elation that was frightening in itself. It was as though he might have something of his mother’s tendency to take pleasure in inflicting hurt.

  “What a great disappointment it must have been to you that Captain Obadiah died before he could change his will,” he said. “Now his fortune will go to the captain’s Chinese wife. Even the control of Bascomb & Company will be in her hands. Instead of the wealthy husband you expected, you must now find yourself married to a poor clerk.”

  I regarded him furiously. “Perhaps you’ve won your just deserts. You married only to gain power and wealth.”

  He went on in the same cold voice, being very explicit. “You’re right. I would have given anything and everything to have the ship-building in my hands. The money doesn’t matter so much. But this was my father’s work as well as the captain’s, and it has become mine. I owe it to my father’s memory to bring the company back into a position of importance in the world of merchant ships. This I would have done. Now, instead, I find myself married to a woman who has brought me nothing but defeat. What you say is perfectly true.”