The Bride Takes a Groom

by Lisa Berne

  “She’d make a right proper sailor, she would!”

  With one hand on the halyard Hugo now looked up at Gwendolyn and shook his head. “That’s high enough, Gwennie.”

  “Please, Hugo, just up to the—what did you call it?—the futtock shroud?”

  “No.”

  “But it’s so easy, only watch me, Hugo!” Gwendolyn reached up to the ratline above her head but before she could proceed Hugo stepped onto a lower ratline, wrapped an arm around her waist, and brought them both onto the deck.

  “I said no.”

  Sulkily Gwendolyn pulled away from him, and walked over to the ship’s railing, where with a certain ostentatiousness she peered into the harbor below. Mama said:

  “Oh, Hugo, I’m glad you did that! Really, I don’t think anyone who’s not wearing trousers should go up any higher than she was.”

  “Aside from the modesty issue, Mama, I wouldn’t have let her. Not without some kind of harness to keep her safe, and we don’t have any.”

  His mother nodded, and went on, “I’ve enjoyed our tour so much! How small your sleeping quarters are! And I had no idea the hold would be so vast, with so many compartments. I was afraid I might get lost in one of them.”

  “Nonsense, ma’am, we’d never let that happen,” said Will gallantly.

  Mama smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Studdart. But if I ever decide to become a stowaway, I’d know where to go! Are you still planning to make your maiden voyage in a few weeks?”

  “Yes, ma’am. But first we’ve got to go over every joint and sail, every timber and beam. If we look sharp, we’ll be just in time to avoid the storm season. If all goes well, and we expect it will, we’ll put the Arcadia on the market and hope for our first buyer.”

  “It’s such a delightful boat; how could it not sell very quickly?”

  “Actually,” said Bertram, “you should call it a ship, Mama. The term ‘boat’ refers to a smaller craft. Although sometimes fishing vessels are quite large, and yet you never hear them called ‘fishing ships.’ Why is that, Mr. Studdart?”

  “No idea, lad,” said Will good-naturedly, and Mama added:

  “It’s a very delightful ship.” She turned to him. “Hugo dearest, you and Mr. Studdart have done a magnificent job. I’m so terribly proud of you.”

  He smiled back at her, then looked to Katherine where she stood gripping the railing of the short flight of stairs that led belowdecks. “Well, Katherine?” he said. “Are you getting your sea-legs?”

  “Not yet,” she said. “Hugo, it really is a delightful ship, and I know it’s still at anchor, but it does roll so.”

  Her face, he noticed, was unusually pale, and she had begun to look a trifle peaky. “Would you like to get back on land?”

  She smiled faintly. “I would. And if you don’t mind, I’m going to cling to your arm in a very missish way.”

  “I don’t mind a bit,” he said, and went to her at once. Their party made their way off the Arcadia, Gwendolyn the last to disembark, saying, to no one in particular, that she, herself, had never felt better than while on board and would have liked it if the waves were quite a bit stronger, but as Will Studdart was busy guiding Hugo’s mama around a large neat coil of rope, and Bertram occupying himself by calculating the total volume of the ship’s hold, and Hugo both eyeing Katherine’s slightly greenish pallor with concern as well as enjoying how she did, in fact, cling tightly to his arm, nobody really paid much attention to her remarks, which were issued in a rather defiant undertone and promptly carried away by the wind.

  Chapter 18

  It was on the next morning that Katherine woke early to the sound of rain pattering against their windows. Hugo, she saw, was already gone. She smiled a little, reaching out a hand to smooth the indentation on his pillow where his golden head had been. Then she yawned, turned onto her back, closed her eyes again. How cozy it was, to snuggle underneath the warm bedcovers and listen to the rain.

  Her thoughts drifted here and there, easily, without direction or purpose.

  She was hungry. It was nice to look forward to another one of Cook’s delectable breakfasts. Maybe there would be oatmeal, with cream and currants. Or perhaps hot muffins, fresh from the griddle, and lavishly spread with strawberry jam. And coffee. Today she was going to finish her work on Mr. Mantel’s essay. Too, Will Studdart had asked if she would help him compose a notice of sale for the Arcadia. It occurred to her to wonder if a drawing might increase the notice’s attractiveness. She herself had no skills in that regard, but . . . Aunt Claudia did.

  Katherine was pondering this idea, which struck her as an excellent one, and also considering some phrases for the notice. Modern design. Superior construction. All-English materials. Hold equipped with sturdy hatch covers to keep merchandise dry. Oh, she wanted to write these phrases down, before they slipped away. Maybe she should start keeping a little notebook and pencil on the table next to the bed.

  She opened her eyes and looked at the simple wood table, with its square top and painted a cheerful yellow. Yes, what a good notion. There was plenty of room. Right now it held only her small candelabra, a stack of books, and the piece of blue sea-glass she had found that morning on the beach with Hugo.

  Something stirred at the back of her mind, very deep. Obscure. Buried, as it were.

  Sea-glass.

  A little notebook; paper.

  An image formed, hazy. Dirt. A trowel she had borrowed from Hoyt, who had seemed very large to her own small self. The shelter of the bay trees . . .

  She tried hard to grasp at the image, but it was as if the very act of focusing her attention made it dissolve, disappear. She lay very still, but the wispy image was gone, although a bit of its essence—something wonderful, something important—somehow remained.

  Her stomach growled. Breakfast. She wanted breakfast right away.

  Katherine got out of bed and as she started to get dressed, a line from Edmund Spenser’s Fairie Queene came to her.

  For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought . . .

  Later that afternoon, walking home from the parsonage on George Street and glad that the sun had come out again, that wispy, hazy, intriguing image from the morning surfaced again in Katherine’s mind. Her steps slowed as she came to the Penhallow property. She passed the stable, looked to the house, and then to the line of tall bay trees separating it from the house where she used to live as a little girl, now the Becks’ home.

  Paper.

  Sea-glass.

  Buried.

  A trowel from Hoyt.

  Katherine almost gasped out loud.

  Was it possible it was still there—?

  Quickly she turned and went to the stable, where Hoyt, crouching, was examining one of the shoes of Hugo’s horse.

  “Hoyt,” she said, rather breathless, “have you a trowel I could use?”

  “Aye, missus,” he answered, straightening, and found one for her. Quite possibly the same one she had borrowed when she was eleven years old, not long after her grandfather had died, after her parents had inherited his enormous fortune, and they were to leave behind their house on the beach and move into the newly constructed Brooke House five long miles away.

  Her heart beating hard, Katherine went to the bay trees, but not on the Brooke side of things, here on the Penhallow property. Where . . . ? She paced up and down, then stopped at a place where the trees grew closely together, obscuring the view of her old house. Yes. Here.

  She kneeled down and began to dig.

  A few minutes later she came upon something besides dirt and stones. She dug harder. There it was. She used the trowel’s tip to maneuver it free, then picked it up, held it in hands that were grimy now. Grimy, reverent hands.

  A tin box.

  On its lid, a scarred and faded picture, a bouquet of pink roses.

  She had buried the box here, afraid that it would somehow be discovered on the journey between here and Brooke House. She had hated to part with it, but it was bet
ter than risking having it be found, and perhaps taken away from her.

  Katherine sank back onto her heels and opened the lid.

  Papers, folded; paper scraps; paper rolled into little cylinders and tied with pieces of yarn; and, here, a little book she had made by gluing together the pages at their margins. A dozen bits of sea-glass, green, amber, white, blue. A nub of a pencil, its tip all blunted from use.

  Gently, one by one, she unfolded the papers.

  Here were the little stories she had written. Brief accounts of her day. Her opinions of the books she had read. Descriptions of her dolls; the flowers, the clouds, the ocean. A little story about a seal carcass that magically came back to life. A short tale about a fairy she had named Bérénice, who liked to ride horses and fight battles and go fishing. All in her immature vocabulary, the sentence construction rather charmingly simplistic; all in her childish handwriting, but even so very neat and straight.

  At the very bottom of the tin was a piece of paper which she had folded into a tiny, tiny square and sealed with a bit of wax.

  Carefully she unfolded it.

  In small, even letters she had written:

  Tomorrow we have to leave here. Hugo is gone away to school. I don’t know when I will see him again. Or how. But someday I will. I hope for it so much that it MUST happen.

  It was strange, but Katherine felt as if she wanted to both laugh and cry at the same time.

  Strange, but in a good way.

  It came again to her, like a whisper from the past: For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought . . .

  Something bumped her on the side of her face, soft and cold and damp. It was the nose of Ruby the Great Dane, who had wandered over from somewhere and seemed to be looking at her inquisitively. With her kneeling, and Ruby standing, they were precisely eye to eye.

  “Hullo,” Katherine said, “I’ve just found an old box I’d forgotten about, Ruby. It’s been here for ten years. Waiting for me, perhaps.”

  Ruby seemed so interested that she added:

  “I was a writer, you see. And I hoped with all my heart to see Hugo again one day. And I have, and I’ve married him, Ruby. Aren’t I lucky?”

  Suddenly Katherine thought about the scent-bottle she had given to Mary, the maidservant at Surmont Hall, and how holding its tin—which was decorated with chinoiserie flowers—had somehow made her pause. And made her remember, too, the dream she’d had, in which she said to old Mrs. Penhallow, I’ve forgotten something, but I don’t remember what it is. It’s something very important.

  In her dream old Mrs. Penhallow had said, You’ve got to find it yourself, you won’t find it here, then shut the door to the London townhouse.

  Katherine thought as well about Livia’s letter, in which she had written, You asked in your letter about a curious sense of forgetting something. Have you found what you were looking for? I hope so.

  Yet another memory floated up. Mother’s letter: It’s an ill wind that blows no good.

  Katherine laughed, part giggle, part chuckle. This time it really was funny, because Mother was—for once—right.

  Leaving London so abruptly, feeling forced to come to Whitehaven: it had seemed so dreadful. Like the end of the world. But if she and Hugo hadn’t come here, maybe she would never have found her little tin box again.

  And that really would have been dreadful.

  Just holding the box in her hand, feeling its weight, looking at what it held, filled Katherine with joy.

  As she looked, and laughed, an idea burst into her mind, big and wonderful and so exciting that she leaned over and kissed Ruby’s big soft nose. She didn’t quite know how she would execute it—it was rather complicated—maybe even impossible—but still, it had a lovely sort of coherence to it. And she could see it, fully formed, in her mind’s eye.

  Just then Ruby lifted her head, ears pricked high, and looking toward the street beyond the stable she gave a sharp bark.

  Katherine put the lid back on her box and stood up. She followed Ruby who was walking toward the street, ears still high and on alert. Coming around the stable she saw a slender woman, clad in dark clothes, limping, one arm bandaged and in a crude sling—carrying a small, worn-looking bag; she was dark-haired, narrow of face—

  Good God, it was Céleste.

  Even as Katherine stared in astonishment, Céleste staggered and dropped the bag onto the ground, seeming so imminently in danger of collapsing altogether that Katherine flew to her and wrapped an arm around her to help keep her upright. She noticed with fresh horror that Céleste’s left eye was blackened. “My God, what’s happened to you?” she exclaimed.

  “Mademoiselle,” Céleste murmured, sounding rather dazed. “Or I should say madame, non? My . . . my cher ami Robert was not so kind to me. As you see.”

  “Oh, Céleste, I’m so sorry.”

  Céleste’s head lolled back a little. “He took everything, madame. Luckily I had a bit of money sewn into one of my gowns, just enough to let me return here. Your old house, madame, is a . . . maison des fantômes . . . how do you say . . . a house of ghosts now. I am défait, madame, I am well-served for my treachery to you.”

  “Nonsense! He shouldn’t have treated you like this.”

  “And yet he did.” Céleste grimaced. “I have no right to ask it of you, but . . . voulez-vous m’aider, s’il vous plaît?”

  “Of course I will! Hoyt! Hoyt!” Katherine called, as Céleste closed her eyes and her knees buckled. “Help me!”

  Hoyt hurried to her, and together they managed to convey the half-fainting Céleste into the house and lay her down on the bench in the entry hall. Hugo’s mama came, as did Cook and Eliza; it was Cook who grimly produced a little brace of chicken feathers which she set alight and waved underneath Céleste’s nose, bringing her up into a confused sentience. Dr. Wilson was sent for, and after briefly examining Céleste, he and Hoyt carried her to a bedroom upstairs. Katherine followed, carrying Céleste’s little bag which Eliza had fetched and her own tin box which she put on her bedside table before continuing on to the room where Céleste lay limply on the bed.

  “What can I do, Doctor?” Katherine asked.

  “Not a great deal at present, ma’am,” said Dr. Wilson, unwrapping the makeshift bandage around Céleste’s arm, “but as you know this unfortunate young woman you might stay near, talk to her a little, let her hear the voice of someone she knows. This will not be pleasant for her. Her arm is badly broken.”

  Her stomach quivering in apprehension, Katherine obeyed, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking Céleste’s uninjured hand in hers. What followed was just as difficult as Dr. Wilson predicted, and it seemed like a very long time until, having been given a generous dose of laudanum, Céleste fell into a drugged sleep. Katherine tucked the blankets around her, then wearily got up and went out into the hallway where a scared-looking Eliza stood, hands over her mouth.

  “Oh, Mrs. Katherine, the poor thing screamed so! Is she—is she going to die?”

  “No, Eliza, she’ll be all right. But she’ll need a lot of care over the next couple of days. Will you help me?”

  “Of course, ma’am! But—but she won’t scream no more, will she?”

  “I don’t think so. Will you sit with her for an hour or so, while I go get my supper? And make up that truckle bed for me? I’ll stay with her tonight.”

  Later, Hugo walked with her to Céleste’s room. “You’ll be all right? Is there anything I can do?”

  “I don’t think so, but thank you.”

  “It’s good of you to do this, Katherine. I know you never liked her.”

  “Oh, Hugo, that seems so long ago. I feel so dreadfully sorry for her. Besides, it’s the Penhallow way, isn’t it? Taking in misfits and the vulnerable, just like I was when I lived next door.”

  He smiled. “Come wake me if you need anything.”

  “I will.”

  Although Céleste slept soundly, Katherine passed a restless night. For much of it she lay a
wake, thinking over the idea she’d had earlier in the day. In the morning, Eliza came to relieve her and, still deep in thought, Katherine made her way downstairs and to the dining-parlor where the family sat at breakfast. It was only Bertram saying very loudly, “Katherine,” that brought her out of her abstraction.

  “I’m sorry, Bertram, what did you say?”

  “I was wondering if you saw the bone poking out of her arm.”

  “Bertram dearest,” said Mrs. Penhallow, “perhaps not at breakfast.”

  “I didn’t ask Katherine to describe it, Mama. I only asked if she saw it.”

  “Bertie,” said Hugo, and with the air of one cruelly disappointed in a modest request, Bertram turned back to his eggs.

  “I’ll tell you all about it later, Bertram,” Katherine said, “but first I want to walk to the harbor with Hugo. If that’s all right, Hugo? There’s something I’d like to talk to Will about, if he has the time.”

  “Of course,” Hugo said. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “You want to write a book, Mrs. P.? Out of my old sketches and notes?”

  They were in the little office Hugo shared with Will Studdart, with Katherine sitting in the only extra chair, Will at the desk, and Hugo standing. Will was gazing at her amazed.

  “Yes. Together,” Katherine said, leaning forward. “I’ll rework the text, with your approval, and Hugo’s aunt Claudia can recreate the illustrations. I’ll have to ask her, of course, but she’d be perfect! And we’ll all share in the profits.”

  “But—you think it would make a good book, Mrs. P., that people will want to read? And buy?”

  “I know it. You’ve documented a wonderful piece of maritime history. In fact, I think the title could be something about the English maritime heritage. ‘Heritage’ is an evocative word, and there’s such strong sentiment about such things. Not just in our time, of course, but stretching all the way back to the Tudor era, with the building of our first navy and Queen Elizabeth’s famous pirate fleet, too. And I had another idea, quite marvelous, I think—”