Sea Jade

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  I hugged the quilt beneath my chin and watched him over drawn-up knees. The sheets seemed as cold as the air to me and my shivering had not ceased. I was ready now to plead. There was nothing to gain by fighting this man.

  “Let me go then,” I begged him. “Let me return to New York. I mean nothing to you, and if you’ll let me go, I’ll trouble you for nothing.”

  “So you’re timid as well as foolish! Now that you’ve lost your gamble, you’re ready to run away. What do you think you would make of your life married to a husband who was never present? Nor will I accept the reverse—living apart from a woman who has become my wife. If I must have a wife, then I will have her here. Besides, you’re wrong about one thing. Perhaps you mean more to me than you guess.”

  There was something in his words that made me shrink against my pillow. He went on as if he had begun to enjoy himself and I sensed again the dark elation in him.

  “Tell me, have you ever heard your father speak of that first voyage of the Sea Jade? Has he ever told you about the death of Andrew McLean aboard that ship?”

  All my life I had known that something lay hidden in the shadows waiting to pounce on me. I had sensed it when I was very small. I had felt it in my father’s grieving for his lost career, in the brooding silences into which he sometimes withdrew. Always I had turned away from this thing with a fear of the unknown. But now it was in the open. There could be no holding back knowledge that I did not want.

  Brock McLean did not wait for my assent or denial. “My father was murdered on that first voyage. He was shot down while doing his duty. Murdered by your father, Nathaniel Heath.”

  I could only stare at him in shock and horror. He came around the end of the bed, caught up my left hand roughly, staring at the gold band that circled my finger. Then he flung my hand from him.

  “No,” he said, “I will not let you escape so easily. You will remain here as my wife—for however long you live. But not to be cherished and loved. Nathaniel Heath’s daughter can hardly expect that of me. The captain has played his macabre joke, but the outcome will not be as he expected.”

  I continued to watch him, unable to think, to feel. The man was as withdrawn from all kindly human emotions as was his mother. He crossed abruptly to the connecting door between our rooms, and then paused to speak again, his voice empty of feeling as if his rage against whatever drove him had drained suddenly away.

  “When my wife was ill,” he said, “I moved into this adjoining room so as not to disturb her. It is the room I occupied as a boy in this house, and I have remained there since. You may have the larger room for yourself. The outward conventions of marriage will be observed, since there is a connecting door, but from now on neither of us will use it. In public you will appear to take your place as my wife. You will do as you are told in this house. And you will not again interfere with my disciplining of Laurel. The child is not your affair.”

  On a warm flood of rousing anger my own ability to speak swept back. “What you’ve said is a lie! My father was a gentle person. He would never have harmed anyone. I don’t believe a word you’ve said about him.”

  “You knew him on the quarter-deck, did you?” Brock taunted. “No man was gentle there or he would not last as master of a clipper ship.”

  I was no longer cold and shivering. Life flowed through me in hot tide. I would not submit to such injustice, or listen to such lies. When he would have gone into his room, I stopped him with a word: “Wait!”

  At my tone he paused impatiently.

  “I cannot help the position I am in,” I said. “That I’m your wife is as much your fault as mine. But since this has happened to me, you need not expect me to play a passive role in this household. If you insist on keeping me here, you’ll not find me submissive and meek. I’ll not accept your accusations against my father. I’ll do my best to learn the truth and publish it. Nor will I keep my hands off when it comes to your neglected daughter. I meant what I told her earlier today. She doesn’t want me as a mother, but perhaps I can be a friend to her in this friendless place.”

  The man in the doorway flushed to the dark roots of his hair. He took a step toward the bed, and I rushed on, buoyed up by my own anger.

  “What’s more, I’ll do my best to make a reasonably happy life for myself in this house. I won’t wear black after these few days. And I won’t live in a pattern of gloom. Not if I have to fight you all!”

  My last words came out in a despairing flood because I could not keep on in the face of that look of muted violence in his eyes.

  When he spoke, he managed to do so with ominous restraint. “You’re a ridiculous child who has been flung into a situation too big for you. I’ll try to remember that. But don’t push me too far. I’ve endured more than most men would endure with equanimity. If you persist in setting a course upsetting to the rest of us, it will be the worse for you.”

  I thought I could see his mother in him and though he spoke with deadly calm, I was more afraid of him than before. Yet I had to make one more attempt at freedom.

  “Then let me go back to New York! I won’t trouble you there.”

  “You’ll stay at Bascomb’s Point,” he repeated. “Eventually there may be some use we can put you to.” With that he went through the door and closed it after him in a contained manner that seemed worse than if he had slammed it in a rage.

  I got up to blow out my candle, and in the moment of rising I heard a whisper of feminine skirts outside the door to the hall, and the faint creaking of a board beneath a foot. I held my breath, listening. Somewhere a door was closed ever so softly, and I knew with revulsion that Sybil McLean had been in the hallway listening to everything we said. It must have given her great satisfaction to know there was to be no love-making between Brock and me. If she too believed the story of Andrew McLean’s death, I could better understand her detestation of me. To have me the daughter of the woman her husband had loved, and the man who was supposed to have murdered him, must indeed be painful to accept. But no matter what fury drove her, such action sickened me.

  I went back to bed and huddled beneath the quilts. Realization of my own words and action had begun to frighten me. What had I gained by infuriating this man? How could I carry out such rash avowals as I had made? Yet I must—I would! Not for a moment did I believe the dreadful claim he had made against my father. I would find a way to disprove his accusations and then I would somehow leave this house. It was outrageous that Brock McLean should think he could imprison me here in this mockery of a marriage. Not for nothing was I Captain Nathaniel Heath’s daughter, and the daughter of Carrie Corcoran Heath as well!

  The thought of my mother and all she had been in her young life returned to me and I began to speculate. How would this mother I had never known have dealt with such a situation? Apparently she had won the heart of more than one man and I wondered what her spell had been, her secret ability to charm. Surely Carrie would have known how to bring the cold angry man in the next room around to doing as she wished. My father had always said that I looked like Carrie, perhaps that I was even prettier than she had been. Brock McLean had regarded me without interest or liking from the first, yet if Carrie had lain here in this bed, he would surely not have remained in cold rejection of her beyond that unlocked door.

  Yet I hardly wanted him otherwise—this man who had so mercilessly accused my father. What I wanted was to hurt him, punish him, pay him off for the injury that had been done me.

  To comfort myself, I began to dream again. I could imagine Miranda Heath—no, Miranda McLean!—turning into as fascinating a woman as Carrie herself had been. What a delight it would be to refuse the importunities of Brock McLean, to show him my indifference in the face of ardor. How cruel I would be, once he … My revery was broken into by the sound of creaking bed springs from the next room. My foolish dreaming was dissolved in an instant. This was the sort of self-indulgence I must put aside forever. I was married to a man who despised me and was unlikely to chang
e. Instead of dreaming of the impossible I must find the strength and wisdom within myself to carry out at least the beginning of those promises I had made.

  Perhaps one thing I could do would be to make Brock McLean so much trouble that he would be glad to send me away. Perhaps I might make him feel that he could not endure my presence for another day. Then I would be free. I could well imagine myself infuriating, tantalizing, maddening him until he was ready to pack me off and forget me forever. This was no mere dreaming, but a plan for practical action. Yet I had never wanted such warfare in my life. I had wanted only to be loved, to love, to be gay and quietly happy. Since none of these things were to be possible for me in this house, warfare would have to be the pattern, whether I was suited for it or not.

  A reflection of light that lay in a pattern on my wall vanished suddenly. A lamp had gone out in Ian Pryott’s room and I thought of him again as the one person who still might help me. If not to get away, then perhaps in other ways. He had no liking for Brock—that had been evident. And he was the historian. Surely he could help me to disprove the lying story Brock had told about my father and what might have happened on that first voyage of the Sea Jade. At least Ian was not wholly part of this Bascomb’s Point household. He was an outsider like myself, and if I could reassure him about my own motives concerning this marriage, perhaps he would again be willing to befriend me.

  Holding this thought in my mind, I was able at last to sleep.

  With the coming of sunlight and a new day, I rose the next morning rested and refreshed. I was free, at least, of one dread that lay beyond that closed door to Brock’s room, yet I no longer felt so inadequate as I had in the dark hours. Spiteful thoughts of revenge were not for me. I remembered Ian saying, “Don’t let them do that to you, Miranda. Fight them for the right to be happy.” In some ways I must change because growth itself was change. But there were ways in which I must remain true to myself and to my raising. I had conceived something of a plan for action. Now I must carry it out.

  Again I put on the black dress that had been Rose McLean’s, wondering about Brock’s wife as I did so. Had her way in this household been an easy one? I supposed it must have been, since she had been cherished by her husband and approved by his mother. But I must not think of that. It was from this place in which I stood that I must make my start.

  I found the unrelieved black not unbecoming in contrast to fair skin, and my newly burgeoning sense of purpose lent a brightness to my eyes that I noted and approved as I brushed my hair. I could do with a look that denoted spirit and courage. Instead of the current style of curls that fell at the nape of the neck, I tried a smooth blond coil at the back of my head to give me a more mature air. There must be no more dismissing of me as a feckless child by Brock and his mother.

  As I dressed, I listened now and then for sounds in the adjoining room, and only then did I feel uneasy. Either Brock was still asleep, or he was up before me, for I heard nothing beyond the closed door.

  That he had risen earlier, I discovered as soon as I went downstairs. The family had just gathered for breakfast. Brock was seating his mother, while Laurel, dressed in black like her grandmother, stood waiting for her elders to take their places. Someone had troubled to see that she was properly dressed for the funeral yesterday, but this morning her hair was awry again, and the lace collar of her dress was torn.

  Ian was not at the breakfast table. As I was to learn, while he sometimes dined with the family, he more often ate in town, or fixed himself a simple meal in his lighthouse quarters. Usually he did not appear at breakfast time, but rose when he pleased and went to his work at whatever time he desired. The captain had demanded no regular hours of him, but only that he give his best to the task of recording company history.

  Sybil McLean murmured a distant, “Good morning,” while Brock said nothing at all to greet me. He did not, in fact, so much as glance at me. This morning he looked glowering and ill-tempered, and at the sight of him a pulse of wicked excitement began to beat in me. Here was my chance to prove that I was no empty dreamer. I would show this man who had forced marriage upon me and then humiliated me, that he had a woman to deal with—not the ridiculous child he had called me. I went to him as he turned from his mother’s chair, put a hand on his arm, and rose on tiptoe to kiss him lightly on the cheek.

  “Good morning, dear,” I said.

  I expected anger. I expected some heated outburst. Instead, my teasing effort could not have fallen with a greater thud. Brock merely looked at me with contempt. His mother noted his reaction and smiled mockingly, knowing well enough that I was playing a role. Laurel eyed me resentfully and imitated her father by not speaking to me. My intent to carry the situation off gaily collapsed about my ears and I sat down in the place that had been set for me, flushed and ashamed, and thoroughly embarrassed.

  Mrs. McLean continued to regard me with her mocking look. “The dress is too full for your figure, but it will have to do for the moment. It is a frock that belonged to Rose, Brock my dear. I disliked having to use it, but there was no other choice. I will have Hettie Bright come in soon and work on suitable mourning for your wife.”

  If Brock minded that I was wearing Rose’s dress, he showed nothing of his feeling. In fact, he showed nothing of any feeling at all after his first contemptuous dismissal of me. He ate in silence the food that was placed before him and ignored me completely.

  Once more I attempted to assert myself, at least with Brock’s mother. “You need not trouble. I’ve decided not to wear mourning. I don’t care for black and it seems pointless to wear it, since I hardly knew the captain.”

  Still Brock said nothing. It was as if he had removed himself to some far place in his thoughts where I did not exist and could not trouble him.

  “We shall see,” Mrs. McLean promised darkly, and ignored me thereafter as she spoke to Brock. “Do you suppose you could persuade the Chinese woman to wear something besides those outlandish clothes, now that the captain is gone?”

  “Let her alone,” Brock said. “The town is accustomed to her dress by now. Have you learned anything further about the fellow who showed up so suddenly and frightened the captain? Has he been around since?”

  Laurel spoke up, pleased to give information. “I know who he is. His name is Tom Henderson and he’s an old friend of the captain. He told me so. I talked to him on board the Pride yesterday.”

  “You are to stay away from that ship,” her father told her curtly. Then again to his mother, “I must find out what the fellow wanted. Why he came here.”

  Mrs. McLean, I noted, was staring at her plate and she spoke without looking up. “There’s no need to concern ourselves. Mr. Henderson came to the house a few days ago and I talked with him. He is just another seaman whom Captain Obadiah treated badly in the past. He had reason enough for his grudge and he felt the captain might be persuaded to do something for him, since he was in need.”

  “Is that how he got into the house night before last?” Brock asked. “Did you let him in?”

  His mother’s pale eyes met his own and I sensed again the inner force of the woman, concealed so much of the time by her restrained and pallid manner.

  “I have no idea how he got in. I told him I would intercede for him with the captain and try to get him work.”

  Whether she was lying or not, I could not tell. I was certain that if letting Tom Henderson into the house to frighten the captain had served that purpose, Sybil McLean would have done exactly that.

  Brock studied his mother somewhat grimly. “It was the violent shock experienced at sight of this fellow that caused the captain’s death. There is no doubt about the fact.”

  “The man is still around,” I offered. “He even tried to sell me some story he had to tell if I would listen.”

  “How does it happen that you were talking to him?” Mrs. McLean demanded, her voice sharp, as though some guilt on my part were involved.

  Before I could answer, Brock dismissed our words.
“Just see to it that neither of you talks to him again. I don’t want his kind around.”

  Thus silenced, we said nothing more for the rest of the meal. The exchange had left me thoughtful. Yesterday, when I had dismissed without interest anything Tom Henderson might tell me, I had not known about the accusation against my father. Now I found myself wondering if, after all, this seaman might have something of importance to tell me. Nevertheless, the thought of seeking him out alone aboard the Pride was not to my taste. Undoubtedly I would meet him again as I moved about the locality and my questions could wait for that time.

  After breakfast Laurel slipped away from the table as soon as she was excused. Her lessons under Ian’s supervision were to be dispensed with for a period of mourning. When the other two had no further word for me, I went looking for her. This time I found both Laurel and Ian Pryott in the library. Absorbed in a book, Laurel sat curled in the small chair I had sat in on my first visit to the library. Ian was at his desk, busy with his writing.

  The moment the child heard me enter, she started guiltily and slammed her book shut. Noting her reaction, Ian looked up and smiled at me.

  “We thought it was Grandmother come to chide us for having our nose in a story book again. Since it’s you, come in and join us.”

  But Laurel was on her feet, staring at me in her usual hostile manner.

  “You said you’d keep me from being punished yesterday. But I was sent to bed with only bread and milk for supper. So I will never believe you again.”

  “I’m truly sorry,” I told her. I could not admit to her that my promise had been recklessly given, before I realized how very little influence it was possible to exert in this household.