Kings of the Sea

by Van Every Frost, Joan

  Though our rescuer, the Cincinnati, steamed around the area the next morning for several hours, there was no trace of the missing stern, and the bodies of Dorrie and the children, along with some fifty others, were never found.

  Around me now I can see the huddled shapes of my sleeping company in the first faint lightening of the stars that precedes the dawn. I look upon today’s battle as a judgment, just as the death of my wife and children was a judgment, for my sins of lust and pride. The war thus far has kept from me the death that I have so avidly sought, but today I feel will be somehow different. God, let me die soon and not too badly.

  Katharine

  1870-1872

  Chapter I

  The mournful booming of the foghorn on the point sounded at regular intervals across the dark murk of the harbor, so shrouded in mist that the riding lights of the vessels anchored there could not be discerned except for those closest, dim haloed glows that rocked gently up and down as the ships lifted and fell to the quiet movement of the water. The cloaked and hooded woman on the dock stared down into the dark roil of water around the barnacled pilings, deterred for the time being by an errant daytime vision of the fruit rinds, rotted wood, and other garbage that floated about the harbor.

  She had chosen the harbor rather than the more prosaic means of poison because the harbor had been the scene to her of such joy. It was returning from that blissful summer picnic sail that Charles had told her he loved her, and it was while walking on these very docks that he had told her he was parting from his wife, would give her unarguable grounds for divorce. What a fool she had been, an unmitigated idiot, and greedy besides for someone who wasn’t hers. She could have stood it if his wife had refused to let him go and he had returned to the family hearth rather than continue this cheating, but instead she had lost him humiliatingly to yet another woman. She herself, a secretary in a time when female secretaries were still rare, finished out of a job and cast out of the comfortable flat he had rented for her — and for himself, too, of course. A common, sordid tale, wearying in its very frequency and inevitability of ending.

  So here she stood, about to turn thirty, her life to all intents and purposes finished as far as any of the things that were important to her were concerned. Destroyed were not only her sensibilities and her pride, but her physical being as well. To her intense surprise and joy, she had early in their affair discovered her body capable of unlooked-for delight, to the point where her lover decided to make a long run out of what he began as a short dalliance. She could no longer doubt that he had cheated on her as well as on his wife, but he had always returned to her because he had never found anything as good. Now he had. Even had it not been that the idea of sharing those disturbing marvelous intimacies with another man’s body made her turn cold, she knew that she was forever after a secondhand piece of merchandise that no other man would now want. And yet in the long nights her body cried out blindly for the joyful surcease it had been led to expect so regularly.

  She thought suddenly of what her father would have had to say. He wouldn’t have been nearly as critical of the affair as he would have been of the course she was now contemplating. “Stupid thing to have gotten yourself into,” he would say. “Such bounders never leave their wives in the end. Chalk it up to experience and thank God you never got pregnant.”

  She could see his rimless spectacles glinting on his long clever face, his eyes shrewd and uncannily observant. That the fine mind had been driven to earth while his crippled body lived on for six long years made her feel sick even now. A stroke, they called it, and suddenly half of his face sagged and drooled, whatever intelligence there was left beating mutely at the bars of his physical incompetence. There was no sick pay for anyone, least of all teachers at boys’ preparatory schools, so she gave up the idea of going to university and used the money collected by the school and what her father had been able to save on medical expenses and to enroll in a Boston school for professional ladies — a title which always sounded to her as if they were engaged in teaching the oldest profession. Thus it was that just as her father died she met Charles when she obtained a better position at the law firm of Shipman, Shipman, and Stadler, Charles being the second Shipman. She even wondered now if her father’s death had made her more susceptible to the younger Shipman’s charms. The dark water below was looking colder and dirtier by the minute.

  “Now that’s a damn fool thing to think of doing. Nothing is worth that,” a voice said at her shoulder.

  She started, for a moment unsure if she was hearing her father’s words in her mind or if the words were indeed real. A dark-caped figure whose features she could not make out in the lack of light stood regarding her from a few feet away.

  “It’s none of your business!” she snapped, feeling foolish at having been caught in such a shameful display of self-pity. Her contemplation of suicide had been dramatic enough to make her feel better, but she knew perfectly well now that she had had no real intention of doing it.

  “Of course it’s my business,” he said mildly. “You wouldn’t stand by and watch a child play with fire, would you?”

  “I’m not a child and I’m not playing with fire. I was, er, just taking an evening walk and —”

  “In an icy fog in the middle of the night? Surely you can think of a better excuse than that. He isn’t worth it, whoever he is.”

  She was stung at the accuracy of his guess. “Then why are you out, may I ask? You seem to feel so free about making my affairs your business, I don’t see why I shouldn’t inquire into your actions as well.”

  “Good — you’ve plenty of spirit left, anyway. Where do you live? I’ll see you home where you belong.”

  “I — I don’t live anywhere.” Whatever she did, she would not allow him to see that freezing grubby little room, or even the dismal shabby building that housed it.

  “Nonsense! Where would you have slept tonight if you hadn’t had this mental aberration?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Well then, I suppose you’ll have to come home with me, and we’ll see what we can do about you.”

  “Sir!”

  “Dear heaven, woman, I’m not going to rape you.” He sounded thoroughly exasperated. “You surely aren’t thinking seriously of sleeping here.”

  “No, I suppose not.” She suddenly felt unutterably tired. What if he did have evil designs? It wasn’t any worse than returning to that cold, dreary room. She had sold off all of the jewelry, even most of the clothing, and used the stake to keep herself until she could find work, but positions were hard to come by for a woman when you couldn’t use your last employer as a reference. After three years, Charles’s father had finally got wind of the affair and sacked her outright. Like a fool, she had let Charles talk her into taking her time about finding another job when she could still have gotten a letter of recommendation over his signature. Now she refused to ask him for anything, even that.

  The months of that last year with him had gone by pleasantly and all but unnoticed as she spent most of her time studying the subjects she would have studied at the university. Her father had always said that a woman’s mind, trained properly, was the equal of a man’s, and that it was a sin to stunt it. She made it her business to hide what she was doing from Charles, however; instinctively she knew he wouldn’t like it. He far preferred his vision of her trailing indolently about the rooms of their flat in one of the lacy negligees he had given her, her only occupation the breathless wait for his arrival.

  “I’ll come with you,” she said at last to the shadowy figure.

  He nodded, his high hat cutting through one of the light haloes of a nearby ship, then approached her and tucked one of her hands under his arm so naturally and confidently that she didn’t think to pull back. They walked through a maze of dark empty streets, their own footsteps and the distant booming of the foghorn the only sounds they heard, until they came at last to a residential street made up of town houses, tall and narrow with ca
rriage entrances at the side of each. He walked up the front steps of one and released her hand while he fished in his pocket for the key. Before he could insert it in the lock, however, the door opened.

  “Ah, Roger, you’ve a sixth sense, I see. I’ve brought a guest.”

  The large man at the door had Ireland stamped across his face, small blue eyes, and a head of close-cropped curly black hair marred by a great white scar along one side of his head. He nodded and stepped back to allow them to pass.

  Her benefactor turned to look at her then, and they gazed at each other for the first time. As he took off his hat and handed it, gloves, and cane to Roger, she saw before her a man who missed six feet by several inches but made it up with an aura of physical strength, a thick mane of tawny hair slanting across his forehead, amber eyes almost the color of his hair, a short straight nose, and a wide, humorous mouth. He was clean-shaven in a time when most men had mustaches or exotic beards. She knew that he in turn was seeing the flaming red hair, long slanting green eyes, bold, almost beaky nose, and overly generous mouth that she saw in the mirror each day, not in any way a pretty face, but for some, striking.

  His eyes widened all but imperceptibly as he took her in. “He was a damned fool, whoever he was,” he said, turning her around and taking her hooded cloak from her shoulders.

  As she flushed at his blunt remark, he said to Roger, “I’m going to get comfortable. Give the lady a glass of brandy and see if you can find something for a cold supper. We’ll eat in the library. This would be a good time to break out that premature bottle of champagne Jack gave me when we were in England.” He ran up the narrow carpeted stairs to the second floor, taking them two at a time.

  Without a word, Roger disappeared and left her standing awkwardly there in the hall, unsure of which door led to the library. She was certain that it couldn’t have been as long as it seemed that she stood there fidgeting, but just as she was about to bolt out the front door after all in a panic of sheer nerves, Roger came back with a tray bearing a cold fowl, bread, cheese, and apples, along with a bottle of brandy and two glasses. She could feel her stomach growl. He deftly opened a door to the right without putting down the tray and disappeared, leaving her to follow if she wished.

  Though there were fixtures for gas, the room was candlelit, much of the light coming from a cheerful fire in the grate. From floor to ceiling it was walled with books, none in the kind of matching leather bindings that decorators sold by the running foot. A large print of a clipper ship under full sail presided over the fireplace, where the only bit of wall uncovered by the books was of cherrywood paneling.

  “What a wonderful room!” she couldn’t help exclaiming.

  Roger, having arranged the contents of the tray on a table in front of a short sofa, poured one of the balloon glasses partly full of brandy and handed it to her. His small blue eyes narrowed as he looked at her.

  “You be good to him, hear,” he hissed suddenly, “or I’ll break your neck. You’re the first one he’s ever brought home with him.”

  She opened her mouth to protest indignantly, but they both heard the quick steps coming down the stairs and by tacit consent said no more. Her benefactor’s notion of getting comfortable, she saw, was little more than stripping down to his shirtsleeves, which were rolled partway up powerful forearms that glinted with more of the tawny hair.

  He grinned. “I might have gotten myself up more elegantly, mightn’t I, but I was afraid you’d bolt.”

  She colored again, all too aware of how close she had come to doing just that.

  “Not to worry,” he said cheerfully. “Drink up now like a good girl and we’ll have a bite to eat.”

  The first swallow of brandy went down like fire and warmed her empty stomach. She sighed.

  “Sit down, lass. You make me nervous standing about and fidgeting like that. If you’re determined to go, you’re free to, though what you’d want to be doing wandering around these empty streets, I can’t fathom.”

  She sat down then and took another swallow of brandy. “Where does your family live?” he asked gently.

  “I don’t have any. My mother died when I was fifteen, and my father’s been dead four years now.”

  “You’re not married then?”

  “No, I’m not married.”

  “Are you pregnant?”

  His choice of word startled her. In her whole life only her father had ever used that term; everyone else came out with euphemisms like “expecting” or “in the family way” or even “in an interesting condition.” Her laugh was bitter. “I wish I were.”

  “All right, you were jilted then. A handsome creature like you won’t stay alone long. Whatever made you think of doing away with yourself?”

  “It’s easy for you to say,” she snapped, infuriated by what seemed to her his superior male attitude. “You yourself said it — I’m a creature, not a woman. I’m secondhand now. I can be someone’s mistress until I become pregnant or fat or old, or I can be somebody’s menial. Men can make love when and how they wish and no one seems to care, but let a woman love anyone outside the bonds of matrimony, and she’s a leper.”

  He winced, and she wondered what he was thinking. “You’ve got a point,” he admitted, “and I’m sorry for my unfortunate use of words. You worked, did you?”

  “I was a secretary. A good one.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “Were you now? Tell me about it What kind of training did you have?”

  She smiled suddenly. “Miss Priddy’s Academy for Professional Ladies didn’t approve of the new writing machines, Miss Priddy herself being of the opinion that nothing was so important as writing a fine hand, but she said that the machines, the typewriters, were inevitable, and we learned them as well.”

  “Now that’s damned interesting. She may have been right, too. If you had all that training and presumably a job for some time, why wouldn’t you have simply obtained another position? You don’t act that much of a milksop in other ways.”

  “Don’t you think I’ve tried?” She was bitter again. “Most firms won’t hire a woman, and the ones that would have all wanted references. For reasons I won’t go into, they were impossible for me to produce.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You worked for the son of a bitch, did you? Let’s see, he was married and his wife needed him more than you did. Isn’t that about how it went?”

  “Near enough,” she admitted in a low voice. “It’s such an old story, isn’t it?”

  “How long did it go on?”

  “Four years.” She had placed herself so thoroughly in his hands by now that she felt no further reticence, finding instead relief in answering his questions, as if some suppurating infection were being lanced and drained.

  His eyebrows raised again. “That long? You must have been something quite special.”

  “Not special enough. He found someone else, you see, with looks and money both, if the girl from the office I talked to was any judge.”

  “A hard combination to beat. Was he so hard up, then?”

  “Oh, no. It was only that his father, who headed the firm, kept the purse strings awfully tight, and Charles wanted a bit of freedom.”

  “He had enough money to rent you a place, though, didn’t he?” he asked shrewdly. “He couldn’t have been exactly deprived.”

  “True, but that flat meant that he had to give up other things like membership in more than one club and a new phaeton and the like.”

  “No Mark Anthony he.”

  She shrugged. “Nor Troilus, either.”

  “You continue to astound me. A female secretary with an education. How did that happen?”

  “My father was a master at Prince’s Academy for Boys. He held the unpopular opinion that girls should be educated as well.”

  “Good for him! If there were more like him, there wouldn’t be so many women who are crashing bores.”

  “You sound like my father.”

  “I think I’d have liked him at that. Tell me,
why didn’t you try for a position as governess, then? Surely some of his former pupils would have been glad to take you on.”

  “Are you mad? What kind of a life is that, living in somebody else’s house teaching somebody else’s children until they grow old enough to be sent off to school and you’re chucked out bag and baggage to look for another place? Thinking I should be able to work my way up, I hired myself to a textile factory.” She smiled wanly. “That lasted exactly a week. Do you have any idea how brutalizing that kind of labor is? Fourteen hours a day, from six in the morning to eight at night, making the same automatic motions over and over again endlessly. I suppose they counted it as only thirteen hours because they gave us fifteen minutes in the morning and fifteen minutes around five, plus a half hour for lunch. I saw one woman caught by surprise let the menstrual blood drip off her stool rather than risk being docked for asking for an extra break.” She wanted to shock him, but he remained looking at her gravely.

  “I can see why you quit.”

  “Not what you think. I actually didn’t mind the long hours; they kept me from thinking. It was that I was so poor at it. Believe me, knowing about Troilus and Cressida does nothing to prepare you to handle one of those awful spindles. I knew that far from working up, I’d be lucky not to be sacked. We had to do everything so fast that it was easy to make mistakes, and make them I certainly did. The other women were awfully nice about it and tried to cover for me and give me hints on how to do better, but it wasn’t fair to them. God, I’d rather die than live like that.”