By The Sea, Book Four: The Heirs

by Stockenberg, Antoinette

  Her look took his breath away. Never, in all the women he had known, had he seen a look like that directed at him: it was so distilled, so essential; it sent his heart rocketing.

  It also panicked him. What right had he to throw himself at her? To ask her to watch him tilt at windmills? "Quinta," he said, laying his hand over her captive one. "Oh damn. Quinta."

  "What?" she asked in a voice low and soft with speculation.

  "You know I have to leave for Australia in a little while," he said, veering completely off course. "Our chances of winning are vastly reduced, but you don't walk away from a dream just because conditions aren't perfect. If nothing else—and there's plenty else—we owe all the other syndicates who've rallied around us with offers of help and spare equipment and sails. Despite all the bullshit and all the hoopla, it's an ultimate quest, and a noble one.

  "God—I sound like I'm running for office," he added apologetically. "Anyway, I'll be over there almost nonstop until we're eliminated in the trials, or, if we're not, until the final races in February. Either way, I wonder if you'd give some thought to ... give some time to ..."

  "To?"

  "To me. To us. This is so hard for me, Quinta; I feel so damned unworthy of you. But there is some chemistry, some passion between us. I know that. What I don't know is, is there anything more? If there isn't—on your part—then I'll walk out of your life today and not bother you again. But if there is ... if there might be ... if you could think about it while I'm gone—"

  She lifted the single rose that she held in her hand and touched it to his shoulder. "I have thought about it, Alan ... I've thought about nothing else. I love you."

  Her answer astounded him. It was so clear, so plain, so filled with conviction. "How can you know that?" he asked perversely.

  She shrugged her good shoulder. "I just know it. I know I love you," she repeated softly.

  He stood up abruptly and walked over to the window. "How can you be so sure?" he demanded, staring at the street scene below. "You've got to screw up a little, make some bad choices, so you know what to compare it to. You haven't had the time to do that." He might have added, I have.

  He heard her voice behind him, clear and no-nonsense. "You may not believe this, Alan, but I've managed to make it all the way around the block. Or maybe you don't want to believe it," she added, suddenly seized with a new idea. "Maybe you're looking for someone pure as the driven snow, in which case—"

  "No!" he said fiercely, returning to his seat on the bed beside her. "I don't want innocence, Quinta. I want goodness. I don't deserve it, but I hunger for it. And I know it when I see it. I have absolutely no right to say this: I want you to marry me."

  When she did not answer immediately he grimaced self-consciously. "What am I doing here? You must touch the soul of every man you meet," he said, tracing the line of her face with his hand.

  Quinta drew the palm of his hand to her lips and kissed it. "Maybe so, but not one of them has asked me to marry him," she said, her eyes shining with emotion.

  "Will you?" he whispered. "At least think about it? While I'm away?"

  She nodded.

  "Can I kiss you?"

  That made her smile. "I'm wounded, Alan, not comatose."

  He lowered his mouth to hers in the kind of kiss that some say has gone out of fashion: a kiss of devotion and respect, of trust and companionship, of passion barely but stoically controlled (they were in a hospital, after all). They poured their souls out to one another after that, and talked about everything they'd gone through, together and apart. They talked about Mavis and Cindy and the chances of good old Shadow. They talked about Laura Powers and Colin Durant and the shipwreck and the missing gems. They talked about Neil.

  They talked about the America's Cup.

  "I wanted to ask you that day at Mergate," Quinta began, holding his hand in hers. "Why are you going? For the challenge of it? For the glory? Every man who is willing to give up several years of his life has got to ask himself: why?"

  He stood up and began to pace the room. "You were there at Marble House when the Cup was handed over to the Australians," he said. "You heard the cry of triumph; you felt the pain of defeat. I'd be lying if I said that patriotism wasn't a motive." He stopped his pacing and shrugged. "The Cup is the grail of seafaring nations; it would be practically unchivalrous not to pursue it."

  "So your motives aren't at all personal?"

  "They're damn personal. Part of it is the Mt. Everest syndrome: I'm going because it's there. I'm going because I flubbed the last time. I'm going because I want to win. There's only one thing—"

  "And that is?"

  "I won't go, I can't go, if it threatens what we have together."

  For a long moment Quinta held his look, considering. "It won't happen," she answered at last. "Trust me, Alan."

  At the end of the visiting period Alan slipped quietly out of the hospital. The night was warm. He paused outside, unwilling to leave. The sound of rich and melancholy honking made him look skyward. A hundred geese in flight, their v-shape sprawled across the evening sky, pointed the way for him: south. South, and half a world of west besides. He was going as far from Newport as he could go without actually leaving the planet. As far from her .... He put the thought, so full of bright pain, carefully aside. But a line came back from his Freshman year to torment him as he walked across the street to his car: Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest?

  Chapter 20

  Half-way up the hill from Newport Harbor and towering over the tallest masts on the largest sailboats, a Gothic spire rises up from the church where Tess Moran went to mass as a young girl in the 1890s; where a dashing young senator married a beautiful heiress in 1953 and later went on to become President of the United States of America; and where, thirty-six years after that, Quinta Powers—wearing an ivory silk gown a bit more restrained than the one that Jacqueline Bouvier wore when she married John F. Kennedy—walked down the aisle to be wed to the man she had loved since the day they got lost in their search for a puppy.

  St. Mary's was full, which was not surprising. For all its sophistication, Newport was still a small town, and small-town people liked to pay their respects, whether to say their final farewells to friends and family, or to congratulate newly wed friends and family. Today's mood was one of joy (the bride and groom were made for each other) and relief (it took them long enough to make it down the aisle).

  But make it they did, attended by a large party of wedding attendants that gave their wedding great poignancy. The ushers and the groomsmen were comprised of Alan Seton's old Shadow crew, dressed in their Shadow blazers, cream flannels, and deck shoes—but some of them minus their socks, a sailor's tradition. Alan's best man was Shadow's tactician, which everyone said made perfect sense: who else could have managed to spring a bachelor party on Alan that was a complete surprise?

  The bridesmaids were Quinta's four sisters, Eddie, Georgie, Bobbie and Jackie, all of them delighted for their youngest sister. (How had they not noticed before that she was the fairest of them all?) The ring boy was Eddie's little hellion Tommy, and the flower girl was Jackie's little angel Sadie, who unfortunately was still a very young angel: she forgot to scatter rose petals as she walked with great concentration in front of the bride, and when she did remember, half-way down the aisle, she dumped the entire basket onto the white linen carpet to make up for her oversight.

  Laura and Colin Durant were there, sitting ramrod straight in the first pew, determined not to show their age despite the arthritis that made their backs ache, beaming with pride for their youngest and most beloved granddaughter.

  Alan's parents were there, of course, down from Boston, and so was his Uncle Dexter from Hampshire, England, where he lived happily with his wife in Seton Place, the lovely estate that would have been Alan's if his grandfather Geoffrey hadn't just as happily renounced his claim to it in favor of his younger brother Henry, Dexter's father. After all, Geoffrey had his American spitfire Amanda. She
was all he had needed to keep him busy.

  As for the rest? The aunts, uncles, cousins, cousins of cousins, and in-laws to all of them? They were mostly on Quinta's side. Alan's family, smaller by far, hardly made a dent in the assembly. His guests were the men and women he worked with in his Connecticut shipyard, and the ones he had worked with on the sturdy but not quite fast enough Shadow.

  Poor Shadow. It seemed that she herself was destined to be always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Though she had been sailed expertly by Alan and his crew, and though she had managed to defeat several other contenders, she had not earned the right to challenge Australia for the America's Cup. That honor went to Dennis Conner, the skipper who lost the Cup to Australia in the first place, breaking a one hundred and thirty-two year winning streak, the longest in the history of sports.

  Alan Seton was one of many who considered it supremely fitting that Conner went on to reclaim the Cup he lost and then haul it back to the United States; only the most envious and meanest-spirited skipper could have begrudged him his triumph.

  And besides, Alan had Quinta. Like his grandfather Geoffrey before him, Alan Seton was able eventually to appreciate what mattered in life, and what mattered to him was the woman he loved and the shipyard where he learned virtually every skill he possessed. Let other men chase after fame and glory. It turned out that Alan cared not a whit for it. Anyone who saw his face as he watched his bride glide through a pile of bunched-up rose petals on her way to meet him at the altar could see that. The man was utterly in love.

  Mavis Moran saw it, perhaps more than most. She had slipped unobserved into the last ornately carved pew just as the bride reached the head of the aisle of the soaring church. Mavis gave Quinta and her gown a cursory glance, but it was Alan Seton who commanded her attention. This was not the Alan Seton she knew. There was a tenderness in his look, a sense of wonder, even, that he had never shown for Mavis. She had been to plenty of weddings and knew that grooms always looked smitten, but still. It hurt more than she wanted to admit that not once had she ever got that look.

  Why had she come? She considered getting up to leave but instead found herself absorbed by what occurred next in the ceremony: Neil Powers, seated in his wheelchair next to Alan at the head of the long aisle, began making an effort to rise from his chair. Clearly it was a struggle—it seemed as if the congregation, as one, were holding its breath as it watched—but he managed it. Supported by crutches, one of them tucked securely under his arm, he lifted the veil from Quinta's face with one hand, kissed her cheek, and then pivoted slightly toward Alan and shook his hand. After that, still on his own, he seated himself back in his chair. Everyone sighed. Mavis, too, had to brush away a tear.

  Really, she should go. There was nothing beyond heartache to be gained by staying; nothing to soothe the unexpected void she felt. And yet she remained, her thoughts drifting back to a time when she was thirteen and full of romantic dreams of being a bride herself one day.

  Suddenly she was back at Beau Rêve as that young girl, reliving a single conversation between her grandmother and her that she realized had altered the course of her life. Tess Moran was eighty-seven by then, still beautiful, with remarkably smooth Irish skin and fine-spun silver hair piled high on her head. Her beauty was enhanced by the perfectly fitted clothing she always wore and that she designed herself to minimize her limp; the clothes were sewn by the most expert seamstresses that money could buy. Young Mavis was in awe of her and in her sway.

  The summer of her fateful thirteenth year, Mavis's parents had given her the choice of touring Europe with them or spending it at Beau Rêve with her grandmother. As it happened, Mavis had developed a huge crush on the seventeen-year-old who had been giving her riding lessons, so it was no contest: she wanted to stay in Newport. Her parents were pleased—no bored teenager to have to drag all over the continent—and Tess Moran was pleased as well, because she still mourned the loss of her sister Maggie more than a decade earlier. It would be nice, she told her son Aaron and his wife, to have family living with her in the house again.

  It was a wonderful plan, but the romance between Mavis and her riding instructor was not to be. Aiden went on to another job in the Hamptons without so much as a by-your-leave. Mavis felt tragically betrayed, as thirteen-year-olds do, and in a vulnerable state, which may be why she came down with a terrible cold that left her weak and with a wracking cough that made it hard sometimes to breathe.

  On a wet and dreary afternoon, after a fit of coughing so bad that Mavis's ribs hurt afterward, Tess Moran came into her bedroom to check on her.

  "Mavey, you poor thing; I feel so bad for you," her grandmother said in a tremulous voice.

  Her grandmother never talked in that tone! Mavis, frightened by her grandmother's obvious concern, immediately fell to coughing again, and when she finally calmed down, said, "Am I going to die? Like great-Aunt Maggie?"

  Her grandmother sat beside her on the bed and began smoothing her hair back from her face in gentle strokes. "For one thing, Aunt Maggie lived a long, long time, much longer than most people with tuberculosis. Which, by the way, you do not have," she added with a reassuring smile.

  "But I've never coughed like this!"

  "I know. I know. But you've had all the tests, and you don't have a fever, you don't have pneumonia, you don't have asthma." She added softly, "You do have a broken heart, though, I think."

  Embarrassed to be caught out, Mavis turned away from her grandmother and stared instead at the porcelain Sèvres clock on the marble nightstand. "I never said anything to anybody about Aiden," she mumbled.

  "You didn't have to!" her grandmother said with a laugh. "Every time you came back from riding, you looked as happy as could be. And you did go on about his riding skills." With a sympathetic smile, she said, "He's gone, then?"

  Mavis nodded into her pillow. "He never even said he was leaving."

  "They do that, sometimes."

  "But he said he liked me!"

  "They do that, too."

  "I wish I'd never met him!"

  "No, Mavis. Don't say that. Experience is the best teacher; you learned something from Aiden."

  "What did I learn? I didn't learn anything!"

  "Yes you did. You learned that when it comes right down to it, the only one you can trust completely is yourself. You might meet someone you think you can trust—but one hundred per cent? Only yourself, I am sorry to say."

  Mavis thought about that for a long moment, then turned back to her grandmother. "What about Doctor Whitman? Didn't you trust him?"

  "Very much. More than anyone I've ever known."

  "Then why didn't you marry him? He spent so much time here."

  "That's why," Tess answered, and when Mavis looked confused, she added, "He was married."

  "I still don't get it."

  "You will. When you're older, you will."

  Again Mavis pondered. Then she said, "I think you should have married him anyway. He could have got divorced. People do."

  "It wasn't quite so simple as all that. Doctor Whitman's wife became quite ill—"

  "—with TB, right? I bet it was TB."

  Tess nodded. "She probably contracted it at the sanatorium that Doctor Whitman ran. And then, of course, he had the fatal stroke two years ago. So that was … that."

  "I remember when that happened! The ambulance and everything. Mother wouldn't let me look; she practically locked me in my bedroom. This bedroom, actually. But I could see them lifting Doctor Whitman onto that stretcher thing, I could see right through that window."

  "Ah. I never knew that," her grandmother said. She was in another place now, and in pain.

  To distract her, Mavis said quickly, "Who's taking care of Mrs. Whitman?"

  "They have—she has—two sons. Wonderful children; I know for a fact that they're seeing to her needs very well."

  Mavis had never seen her grandmother so sad. It was as if she was looking into a crystal ball, like a fortuneteller, and not liking wh
at she was seeing.

  "Grandmother?"

  "Hmm?"

  "When you get old, I promise I'll take care of you."

  "Child! I am old. How old do you think I can get?"

  Mavis blinked and said, "Well, older than now. Much older!"

  With a melancholy smile, Tess Moran bent over her granddaughter and dropped a kiss on her forehead. "Thank you for that. You know what? I believe you will try."

  Tess Moran lived another eight years, the last two in a wheelchair. She was able to remain at Beau Rêve the entire time, because she remained perfectly lucid and had the money to pay for round-the-clock assistance. Her son Aaron and his wife lived in Newport at the time and were able to monitor her health and the wisdom of her decisions, but mostly Tess Moran insisted on being her own woman, feisty and independent to the last. Mavis spent as much time with her as she could; her grandmother died in her arms.

  The funeral had been in the very same church where Mavis now sat, roused from her reverie in time to hear the priest say, "You may kiss the bride." A roar went up from the audience, and Mavis stood up with everyone else.

  She fled the church before the bride and groom had taken a dozen steps down the aisle.

  Epilogue

  Quinta Seton sat at the writing desk where Alan's grandmother Amanda once had written her thank-you notes for hundreds of wedding gifts.

  Quinta was doing the same. "Was it the O'Connors who gave us the Cuisinart?" she asked her husband. "I've lost the tag."

  "You're asking me?" Freshly showered, Alan was pulling his khakis on in a hurry, late again for work. Newlywed husbands are like that, always finding something more fun to do.

  "It has to be the Cuisinart. It's either that or the tripod, which is the only other gift without a tag. Why would they give us a tripod?"

  "Who are the O'Connors?"