“I’d be honored, sir.” Tripp’s face flushed as he ducked his head. “With the Lord’s help, we’ll set all to rights.”
“Yes, with the Lord’s help.”
Past Tripp’s shoulder, Gordon saw Marigold’s face, her widened eyes, her mouth forming an O. He thought it was of approval. He hoped it was of approval as he added, “With the Lord’s help and the help of those He has sent to be a part of my life.”
In his arms, Ruby shivered but seemed to have stopped sobbing.
“We’ll get you home as soon as we land,” he told her.
Still carrying Ruby, he walked among the passengers, listening to their complaints, their praise, their anger. He blamed none of them for their outrage.
“You’ll get your money back,” he assured him. “I can’t promise you more than that right now, as I’m closing the company until we’re certain the boats are safe.”
A few people protested that.
“Accidents happen, sir,” one youth said. “And this was a great adventure.”
“It could have been a great tragedy.”
Ruby, sodden in his arms, was testimony to that.
As much as he wanted to rush straight home, he waited on deck with the skippers and crew from both boats while the passengers disembarked. When they were gone, he addressed his employees.
“Gentlemen, I want every excursion boat secured upon its return. A thorough inspection of each boat will be conducted, and proper repairs will be made before I will allow them to sail again. Passengers who’ve paid for canceled excursions will be refunded.”
A murmur rose among the crewmen. They needed their jobs.
Ruby shivered in his arms. “I need to get my niece home, but I will return with further instructions. Dennis Tripp is in charge in my absence.”
He nearly forgot about Marigold, until he heard a rustle behind him and turned to see her leaning against the rail, her face pinched with pain.
She smiled at him with tight lips. “Know anyone who can carry me?”
“I can. No one else here looks strong enough to carry you.” He called to one of the dispersing crewmen. When the young man stopped and turned back, Gordon said, “I need your help with the young lady. Please carry my niece.”
“I’m too big for you to carry,” Marigold protested.
“No, you’re not.” Slowly, reluctantly, Gordon placed Ruby in the sailor’s arms. The young man held her as though she were fragile, his face growing tender.
Ruby whimpered in objection.
“Miss Marigold hurt her ankle,” Gordon told Ruby. “She can’t walk.”
“Your niece is safe with me, sir.” The crewman stood motionless, while Gordon scooped Marigold into his arms.
“You can’t walk six blocks with me.” She tried to squirm free.
“You can’t walk six feet; now be quiet.” Gordon strode down the gangway, his precious burden slumped against his shoulder.
Burden. That’s what he’d thought of his nieces and any idea of a wife—burdens to be avoided. He couldn’t drop a burden he didn’t carry. Yet, as he walked beside the young man carrying Ruby, Gordon experienced no fear that he would drop Marigold. She felt light, though she wasn’t a small woman.
Could he possibly. . . ? Did he dare. . . ?
Beryl, Mrs. Cromwell, and Mrs. Morris sat on the front porch. The older women rose as the odd procession came around the corner.
Beryl leaped all five steps in a bound and raced to greet them. “You found her. Ruby, you are in trouble. Why are you wet? Why is Uncle Gordon carrying Miss Marigold?”
Ruby turned her face into the young man’s shoulder and didn’t answer.
“Did you go to the elephant like you said you would?” Beryl persisted.
“Later.” Marigold leaned out of Gordon’s hold and caught hold of Beryl’s hand. “She’s frightened and cold. I’ll talk to her later. That is, your uncle will talk to her later.” She glanced at him. “I don’t have the authority to question Ruby. Not now, when I’ve failed her.”
“How?” Gordon adjusted his hold on her so she couldn’t slip away from him.
“I ignored the way Beryl talks to her. We sisters aren’t always kind to each other. The things I said to Rose shame me.”
“But they’re in the past.” Gordon smiled at her then turned to Mrs. Cromwell. “Will you be so kind as to run a hot bath for Ruby? I’m afraid Marigold can’t climb the steps.” To the crewman, he added, “Thank you for your help. You did admirable work today. I won’t forget it.”
“Please don’t, sir. If you close the excursion company, we’ll all be out of work. It’s hard enough to find here in the winter.”
Gordon sighed. “We’ll see what condition things truly are in. But I’ll do what I can for all of you.”
The young man set Ruby on the porch, bade good-bye, and fairly raced down the street.
“Come along, Ruby, precious,” Mrs. Cromwell said.
“Bring Marigold into the parlor,” Mrs. Morris suggested. “We can have the doctor in to look at them both, and you can tell me what happened.”
Gordon started up the steps. Seeing Beryl standing by the door, he said, “Go help Mrs. Cromwell with Ruby.”
“I’m not a nurserymaid.”
“Beryl,” Gordon’s voice cracked across the child’s protest, “you are in enough trouble without talking back to me.”
“I’m in trouble?” Beryl stared at him. “Why am I in trouble? I’ve stayed home all along like I’m supposed to.”
Gordon glared at her. “You know what you did, so don’t play innocent with me. We’ll talk about your unkindness later. Now, go up to your room and help Mrs. Cromwell.”
“Yes, sir.” Head bowed, Beryl dragged her feet on her way into the house.
“Don’t be mad at Beryl,” Ruby said. “She doesn’t mean to be mean.”
“I did mean it.” Beryl spun around at the foot of the steps, her face contorted with an effort not to shed the tears in her eyes. “I meant everything I said, but then you really were gone, and I was scared, and then I didn’t mean all those things I said to you.”
“You didn’t?” Ruby reached out her arms to Beryl. “I love you, Beryl.”
“I love you, too.” Beryl ran back to the porch and hugged her younger sister. “We have to get along. We won’t have anyone else once Uncle Gordon goes away.”
“And he’ll go away now, too, because I was bad.” Ruby began to cry. “Just like Mommy and Daddy went away because I was naughty.”
❧
Dressed alike in white frocks, Ruby and Beryl sat on the parlor sofa and wore similar expressions of apprehension and contrition. Marigold—attired in one of the gray gowns Gordon wanted to ask the laundry to burn next time they went out for cleaning—sat between the girls, one hand on either thin shoulder, her face set, as though she were angry or distressed.
Gordon’s own insides squeezed and softened. Seeing them after the past hour he’d spent working out what to do with the business felt like the first cool, sweet drink of water after months of brackish ship’s fare. He could drink in the sight of them for hours, days, years.
He shook his head to clear it of such nonsense. He didn’t want or need any more time with them than necessary. The girls needed playmates their own age and a female who could teach them things girls needed to learn, and Marigold needed to find a worthy man and set up her own household. He was a loner, who, at that moment, couldn’t talk himself into staying alone.
“May I come in?” he asked.
The girls nodded. Marigold gave him a smile.
“How’s the ankle?” he asked, then realized asking about a lady’s limb was indelicate.
Marigold grimaced. “Sprained. I can’t walk on it for days.”
“You mean you’ll have to let others do for you?” Gordon couldn’t stop himself from grinning.
“Yes, a maidservant who can’t serve.” Her eyes twinkled. “Maybe I should go home.”
“Do you want to?�
� His alarm startled him.
Her, too, for her eyes widened, and her lips parted without a sound emerging.
“It’s all right if you do,” he added more calmly.
“I don’t want to leave the girls right now.”
Right now. That meant one day she would, leave the girls, leave him.
Gordon pulled up a footstool and sat facing the ladies. “Well then, let’s get this over with.” He focused his attention on Ruby. “Why did you run away this morning?”
“I dunno.” She popped her fingers into her mouth, then yanked them out again, squared her shoulders, and looked him in the eye. “I don’t want to be afraid of the water and be a baby.”
“So you stowed away on a boat to prove you’re not afraid?” Gordon questioned with an effort around the unfortunate tendency of his lips twitching. “You didn’t think that was naughty?”
“Yes, it was naughty.” She hung her head. “And now you’re going to go away again because I was naughty like when Mommy and Daddy went away.”
“Died,” Beryl interjected.
Ruby nodded. “Yes, died.”
A strangled sound from Marigold drew Gordon’s attention to her. She held her hand to her lips, and tears filled her bright eyes. Ruby’s words sank in, and his own throat tightened.
“What does you being naughty and your parents’ accident have to do with each other?” Gordon made himself ask.
Ruby started to cry, harsh, racking sobs. “Because I was always naughty.”
Gordon crouched before her.
He removed his handkerchief from his pocket and began to wipe her cheeks. “Of course you were naughty. Children are naughty. Adults are naughty.”
“But I made Mommy and Daddy go away,” Ruby wailed. “Forever.”
Gordon glanced at Marigold for help in understanding what Ruby was talking about. Marigold shook her head.
“How could you make them go away forever?” Gordon asked.
Ruby took his handkerchief and cried into it.
“She left her doll out in the rain the day before, and that day she broke Daddy’s picture of Mommy,” Beryl said. “Daddy yelled at her and sent her to her room. Mommy said it wasn’t a good picture and she didn’t like it anyway and. . .” Her lower lip quivered. “They started to argue.”
“They weren’t arguing when they left.” Marigold spoke up for the first time. “They looked quite happy with one another when they greeted me on their way out.”
“You told me to stay in the nursery,” Ruby said. “But I sneaked down to Mommy and Daddy’s room to look at their pretty things.”
Beryl slumped in her chair. “I didn’t try to stop her. I wanted her to get into trouble because—because everyone thinks I have to be a good example to her, and they thought every time she did something wrong it was my fault. Mommy told me I should have gotten Ruby’s doll from the lawn if I knew it was there. But this time it wasn’t. It was hers.”
“I know,” Ruby wailed.
“No, I didn’t mean that. Oh, Ruby.” Beryl slid from the sofa and wrapped one arm around her sister’s shoulders. “I didn’t mean Mommy and Daddy going away. I mean I didn’t have anything to do with it. You got into trouble all by yourself, like this morning.”
“And now Uncle Gordon will go away forever,” Ruby sobbed.
Gordon had gone days without speaking to another soul. He didn’t mind the silence or his lack of facility with words—until there in the parlor with his niece. He looked to Marigold for help. She seemed to always have a great deal to say. But she shook her head and refused to meet his eyes.
He cleared his throat. He needed to speak. Ruby was his responsibility. He couldn’t depend on anyone else to heal her heart, as much as he wanted to remain aloof, remote, out of trouble with his heart.
“I was going to go away even before I met you, Ruby,” he began. “If—I mean, when I leave, it will have nothing to do with you being naughty.”
“What if I’m especially good?” Ruby peeked at him above the broad handkerchief. “Will you stay? You know, if I don’t suck my fingers and I’m not afraid of water?”
“And if I stop being mean to Ruby and calling her a baby and things like that?” Beryl added.
“I. . .um. . .” Gordon glanced around the room, as though an easy answer would spring forth from one of the dozens of books lining the walls. “I prefer to be alone.”
“Why?” the girls asked.
“So I don’t hurt people who love me.” He spoke the truth for the first time to anyone, yet the confusion and sadness on his nieces’ faces told him he was hurting them by planning to leave.
“I’m not leaving right away,” he concluded.
“Then we can pers—pers—get you to stay?” Ruby asked, her eyes brightening.
“If I stay,” Gordon said, “it won’t be because you’re naughty or good. It will be because—because—”
“Maybe God wants you to stay,” Beryl suggested.
“He’s certainly seen to it your inheritance is worthless for now,” Marigold murmured.
Minx. She was a proud, wild-haired, outspoken minx.
And if he stayed, it was because he was in love with her.
“Let’s pray and see what God tells us.” Gordon rose. “I have to take care of the business right now, make sure my orders are being carried out, and reassure the workers they’ll be paid. While I’m gone, I want you girls to come up with all the reasons why you should never leave the house without permission.”
“But I didn’t—” Beryl clapped her hand over her mouth. “I’ll write them down.”
“Good girl.” Gordon tugged a pigtail on each girl. “Keep close watch on them. I shouldn’t be long.”
“Where are you going?” Marigold asked.
Minx indeed. No employee should ask that of her employer.
“I’m going to the boathouse to dismiss Lawrence Randall and ensure none of those boats go out again until I’m satisfied they’re all seaworthy.”
“That’ll take months,” Marigold said, her eyes narrowed.
“Months,” he agreed. “But if he’ll stay on, I’m hiring Dennis Tripp to oversee the operation. Do you know an honest bookkeeper? I suspect those clerks knew what Randall was up to and helped him cover up his accounting.”
“I might,” Marigold said and grinned.
“I’d have mutiny if I hired a female accountant,” he said, grinning himself, though he felt foolish.
Fifteen
A week later, when Marigold heard Gordon return to the house, she descended the steps, albeit still stiffly, to find him. The girls were working on their math, though giggling far more than the assignment warranted. She did nothing to stop the hilarity. Hearing them laugh, like little girls should, eased a burden from her heart.
Gordon had eased a burden from the girls’ hearts—for the time being. If he departed, he would hurt them nearly as deeply as had the death of their parents, convincing them their naughtiness—far more mild than the pranks Marigold had gotten into as a girl—had caused the losses in their lives.
She found Gordon in the library. He stood at the window, his back to the room, his shoulders slumped, his head bowed, as she had seen him too often before. His knuckles gleamed white he gripped the windowsill so tightly.
Marigold hesitated in the doorway then marched up to him and laid one of her hands over his. “What’s happened?”
“I’m just feeling guilty about all the trouble with the excursion company. Dennis is doing well getting matters under way, and Randall didn’t steal all the money.” He snorted. “I suppose he had a certain honor. He only took the money he claimed he was spending on repairs.”
“And no one’s found him?” Marigold knew the answer.
“Not yet, but I expect they will. The West isn’t as easy to hide in as it once was. We were even getting telephones in some places.”
“Civilization has its advantages.” She tried to smile.
Talk of civilization reminded her o
f how much he wanted away from it.
“I’ve come up with a way to set up the ledgers for the company,” she said.
“And I suppose I will have to abide by them, or you’ll badger me to death.” His smile took the sting from his words.
It removed any protective coating from her heart that might have remained.
“I am a bit of a managing female except that I—” She bit her lower lip and closed her eyes.
An endless succession of Is floated across the inside of her eyelids then settled onto her shoulders like a leaden cloak.
“I’m not very good at managing anything,” she concluded in a whisper.
“You’ve done remarkably well, considering the circumstances my selfishness left you in.” Gordon faced her and touched her cheek with the tips of his fingers, a caress as light as a breeze, as powerful as a hurricane.
She jumped, and their gazes collided. The tenderness she saw in his smashed the last vestiges of her pride.
“How can you think well of me?” Her voice emerged in a whisper. “I missed that the ledgers were in code. Your nieces have been so unhappy they misbehave when they used to be good children. I embarrassed you in front of neighbors. Then I sprained my ankle when you needed me most. And now—”
Now, the worst humiliation would be to tell him she was in love with him and not mourning her fiancé at all.
God, what are You trying to tell me?
But of course she knew the answer to that. She wasn’t supposed to be the one who solved everyone’s problems. She was supposed to depend on the Lord to solve them.
She backed away from Gordon, far enough away he couldn’t reach out to her. Far enough away she couldn’t catch his scent of sun-dried linens and a lemony soap. She would have to leave the room to be far enough away not to look into his dark but sparkling eyes.
“I shouldn’t have come back,” she said. “I should have stayed in Hudson City with my family and faced the fact that God’s plan for my life isn’t to make everything right for others. You have to make them right for yourself.”
“I don’t want you to leave,” Gordon said. “I need you to stay and be as managing as you like.”
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