“B-B-B, D-D-D! Megan talk to me!” Stanzy jumped in front of the swing grabbing Meg’s legs as they swung to her. For some unexplainable reason, when Meg was moving she could get more speech from her. She thought it something to do with Megan's brain fever.
Megan softly repeated “B-B-B” and tried to sign every motion she’d been taught over the past few months. Pointing to the sky, she nearly fell from the moving swing signing Bird! Dog! Mama! Pa! Sky! Happy! Play!
Lucian wordlessly broke away from the overwhelming situation, and headed toward the rushing river below. Stanzy knew he was trying to compose himself, so she let him go.
“Baby’s safe, in her room. She looks up and sees the moon. She will sigh, so will I, as I rock her back to sleep,” came the eeriest, wonderful little voice Stanzy had ever heard.
Lucian turned back. She saw her awed expression mirrored on his face for a brief second before she tripped and fell backward to the ground, astonished.
It was the first time Megan had spoken.
~ Chapter Six ~
Katrina could hardly sit still. She fidgeted with so much nervous energy her cup shook and tinkled on its saucer as it teetered dangerously close to the edge.
“Katrina, have you seen Mr. Teache? Will he be attending the ball this evening?” requested Emilia, her newly found cohort, whose eyes never stilled. The girl possessed a ruthless talent for picking apart each dress and its wearer as the women flounced across the dance floor.
Her pregnant belly was so large that even sitting was an awesome feat for her.
“No, dear. Edward is still out to sea, but I expect him to return any day...and to be honest Emilia, I believe he may be interested in me! My sister will so not be pleased, but I care not. If it were up to her, I would marry some boring barrister. But I want adventure! I want...passion.”
“Oh, well, there is passion with the sailors to be sure.” Emilia patted her gargantuan middle. “However, you have to be careful. See Mrs. Drummond over there, well her husband is a seaman as well. And Mrs. Thrumble’s husband is a sailor.”
She pointed across the room to women nearly as pregnant as herself. Both were sipping tea and holding the characteristically uncomfortable posture of the last trimester.
“You see, our husbands are gone all the time. When they return from sea...well let’s just say they make up for lost time. Mrs. Drummond...this is her sixth child in seven years...not counting her two miscarriages.”
“Oh my,” said Katrina who absentmindedly ran her hands around her slim waist. Her vanity weighed the scales between a huge mid-section or a married life to an exciting sailor. “I do not particularly want any children. They require so much work. Slaving as a governess has given me my fill of children. Unless I might have my own—then she could deal with the unpleasantness of child rearing. Have you ever met their husbands?”
“No, they are never in port at the same time. We also live quite a distance apart and only come into town for social gatherings.”
Katrina barely registered the last three words as a handsome lad in a soldier’s uniform bowed in front of her. “May I have this dance, Miss?”
~ * ~
Perplexed, Stanzy sat at her teacher’s desk and stared at the papers in front of her, waiting to be corrected. They were not going to correct themselves. Rubbing her temples, she shook her head to clear it; she couldn’t focus.
With some difficulty she tried to sort out her feelings about her growing fear of Edward Teache. Could it be that all of the misfortunes occurring since her arrival at StoneWater were somehow connected to him? Her rational brain waded through the feasibility of how this was possible...her superstitious side said simply: The fairies have followed you from your homeland, and wish to torture your newly found happiness. You will be the one to pay for all of your father’s horrible mistakes, and deep down you are just like him.
“No. I am not like him. I choose to do good despite what evil I see around me,” she said aloud, slapping the desktop.
Familiar feelings of despair seeped into her conscious mind like an icy draft under a door. Feelings so normal for her, she didn’t recognize them at first. Depression cracked open the box of mind memories. Visions of her grandmother flooded her thoughts and her hands flew to her face in a feeble attempt to stave off the images.
~ * ~
Her sixteen-year-old body shivered, but not from cold, as her grandmother led her to Father’s study. Gran’s bony hand a circlet around Constanza’s wrist. She knew it was useless to resist, for the old woman would relentlessly pursue Stanzy until the crone felt her task accomplished. Her reasoning capabilities were lacking before her mental illness had taken hold, but now there was almost no coherent pattern in her thought processes.
They arrived at the study and her grandmother scrutinized her. “Do you see that devil in there? He is the reason my baby is dead. You and your brother and sister need to come back with me to Ireland, away from him, before he kills you, too.”
Constanza peered into the dimly lit study at her father’s sleeping form sprawled out on his desk of papers. Turning, she gazed into the eyes of a mad-woman. Her head vacillated back and forth looking for a hallucination unseen to everyone except herself.
“I know Father is useless, Gran, but taking Will and Kitty from their home is unacceptable. The only pieces of Mother that remain are locked in this house. In Katrina’s nursery, she can still picture Mama sitting in the rocking chair, reading to her aloud, and I—” she swallowed hard—“I can see her smiling at me from the kitchen in the morning when I woke each day.”
“Rubbish, you know the drunk will kill you. He despises both you girls—he loves only the boy.”
She had no options. Her father was a drunken lout who provided no love whatsoever. However, he had provided a roof and food for them, and she had respectable employment.
She regarded Gran, and said, “We will not come with you to Ireland.”
~ * ~
Her mind trembled with fear as she remembered her grandmother seated in their parlor, staring blindly out the window into the garden. In one of the old woman’s worst episodes, she had sat frozen, her arm stuck up into the air reaching for some unseen object. Her face could remain unchanged for days on end. Upon visiting the madhouses with her father, she’d seen the catatonic posturing of many of the patients there—like statues frozen after staring into the face of Medusa—with no way of freeing them from the prisons of their minds.
Shaking her head to clear the memory, Constanza quit the papers. The letter she’d avoided reading sat on the desk. Sarah Hopkins had delivered it to her upon their return, saying Katrina had stayed on in Bath. She picked it up and began to walk toward the cottage.
It amazed her how easily one could settle into a ‘normal’ life, after so many years of an abnormal upbringing. Each day she spent here was a balm for her soul.
As she approached the cottage, she heard the boys outside getting one last run with their pups before absolute blackness set in. Constanza stepped into her herb garden, which would now have to wait as it had been started too late. She began to run over her mental list compiled from Gerard’s plant reference the previous year: mint, lemon balm, lavender, thyme, yarrow.
Next year.
Yes, incredibly, she was to stay here and become a ‘Banker.’
Uncle Ellwood was right. You never could be sure where life’s road would lead you.
With difficulty she wrenched open the heavy barn door, stopping to let her eyes adjust to the dim light. Picking up the feed, she placed the oat bucket under Pilot's mouth. The back door opened and Lucian entered. His walk was slow and deliberate—like so many things about him. At times his gaze was so intense it made her uncomfortable, but she met it headlong. She knew what was on his mind. It flowed through his eyes like a river of fire.
His arms wrapped about her, and his mouth captured hers. Breathing harder, he led her toward the house.
“Lucian...”
“I though
t Bess said it would be better once we were together!”
“No. Now I no longer have to rely on my imagination...”
~ * ~
A middle-aged man watched as the sloop Adventure pulled into port in Bath and dock. He’d once overheard someone describe his appearance as unremarkable, which perfectly suited his occupation. His job was to observe—blend in as just another face in the crowd.
The local villagers were all aware of the ship’s infamous captain who now stood on deck, formidable and haggard looking. Gone was the oil slicked hair and clean shaven face he’d sported when he caroused the town in search of lady folk. What had replaced it was a mane of wild, black hair and a black beard that had grown in as thick as sheep’s wool.
Captain Teache's eyes scanned the milling crowd, and it was obvious he searched for something, or someone. Frustration evident on his exhausted features, he turned to bark orders at the crew, who set to scurrying like the bilge rats they were.
The rumors starting to circulate of the invasion of pirates around the Ocracoke Inlet, where fast, small ships would overtake the lumbering cargo carriers and plunder its crew, were apparently true. Teache's commands resulted in the unloading of countless barrels of the unmarked variety. Many of the crews attacked had been completely obliterated, while others had been marooned on sandbars, depending on their willingness to cooperate with the invasion. The whispering under-current of every pub stated the pirate marauder was possibly the devil himself, the bloke often appeared to have his very beard on fire; these were superstitious folk. They assumed the man, if he were not Lucifer, had a deal with the devil, as none of his conquests had failed to date.
The man put away his spyglass and closed the window on the harbor scene. He sat and began in a tidy hand, “Dear Governor Spottswood.” He considered how to word the letter. He knew following the pirate would be easy—at least for the next few hours. Teache was a good paying patron of the local brothels and bordellos in and around Bath. If the man slipped his sight, he felt confident he would know where to find him after writing the correspondence.
~ * ~
Stanzy smiled over the pot, stirring the leftover portions from dinner. The boys had gone to bed. As was his custom each night, Lucian was out walking the grounds of StoneWater. He would visit the slave quarters and check on the ill and older ones. He walked a large perimeter of the land around the main house, ‘for ease of mind’ as he always put it.
She picked up her teacup from the table. Lucian's hasty footfalls echoed on the porch, and the wind forced the door from his hand, banging open. Stanzy leapt, flinging the cup from her grasp. It shattered on the floor in front of her.
His face etched with anxiety, chest heaving, he spit out, “Stanzy, come quickly. It’s Meg.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth she caught snippets of crying on the howling wind outside. The screaming could be heard across the whole of StoneWater. Wails whipped in and out of earshot as the North Carolina wind threatened another fall storm.
Running flat out across the courtyard, the rain began to fall hard and fast. By the time they reached the servants’ entrance in the kitchen, the childish howling was perfectly clear, and they were completely deluged.
Constanza slipped on the water she’d dripped onto the back servants’ staircase and fell hard onto one knee. Several steps ahead of her, Lucian turned and ran back to help her.
Frantically she waved him on. “Go. Go to her!” The intensity of pain let her know she'd sprained if not broken her ankle. Hobbling up the stairs in desperation, she gritted her teeth against the throb.
The pup she’d recently entrusted to Meg lay dead on the top step. She stepped over its pathetic corpse and headed toward the sound of the screams. Astounded at the sight before her, she stopped dead in her tracks.
Meg thrashed about just as she had that first day Constanza had laid eyes on her. The girl’s screams were accented by throaty growling. Tied to an examining table, leeches littered her tiny body. A man leaned over to peer into her eyes. Meg violently bit his arm with all of her might and blood immediately leaked from his torn flesh onto the table.
Lucian's hands flexed and opened in a frenzied sort of way, while Bess restrained him—her massive form quaking with sobs as she stared at Megan.
“What is going on here?” Stanzy said with a calm she didn’t feel.
“I am the patient’s attending physician. And who are you?”
“I am her governess and caretaker.”
“Well, we have everything under control here.” He mopped his forearm which was now bleeding so badly, the soaked cloth dripped crimson.
“You are going to need that sewn. My father was a physician and I was trained as one as well. My mother was a healer. I can stitch it for you. Why is Meg restrained? What have you given her?”
“I have reinstituted the belladonna and added wormwood in small doses, of course, to attempt to calm her animal-like behavior. I need her immobile to administer the bleeding for impurities.”
“Begging your pardon, sir, we have had her off the belladonna for several months and she has not been bled since your last visit. She has been doing very well.”
“Impossible. Look at her. She is a beast, a creature at best.”
Heat flushed Stanzy’s neck and face as she bellowed, “She is a child. A girl, in case you have not noticed. A sick-little-girl!”
Lucian made another lunge in the physician’s direction, and still restrained by Bess, he yelled over Meg’s wails, “She has begun to speak! You have no idea what you are talking about! She looked practically normal ‘til you started all this again!”
“Are you, farmer, attempting to tell me how to treat my patient? This wretch is not capable of speech, nor does she understand it. I have recommended she be taken to the asylum in Bath.”
“Over my dead body will she go to one of those places! I know her, maybe better than anyone. I have taken care of her since she was a year old, and I have never seen her so well, and now to see her lose her senses again...take off those bloody leeches!” At last wrenching away from Bess, he ran to the table and started ripping the creatures off her tiny legs—one by one.
Stanzy limped to his side and removed the disgusting blood-filled creatures from her arm. “We truly have made some wonderful progress with her. We—”
Abruptly snapping his bag shut and gathering his implements, he said scathingly over his shoulder, “Yes I can see that. I will inform Mr. Hopkins that my services are no longer required here. I can see you have everything under control.”
~ * ~
After bathing the areas the leeches had been attached, Megan finally quit screaming. Stanzy cradled her on her lap in the rocking chair by the fire.
“Meg. Megan. Look at me.”
The little girl’s eyes were blank, unseeing. She’d retreated to the place in her mind that was far more safe and happy than the world she lived in.
Lucian sat at the window, his head in his hands.
“Megan, come back to us...oh, Megan.” Constanza’s voice cracked and she began to cry.
But she continued to rock and sing to her. “Baby sleeps in her room, she looks out and sees the moon...”
~ * ~
The baby was cradled in her arms when she heard her father’s footsteps as he entered the house. Bleary-eyed she looked outside and realized it must be close to three in the morning. Quietly as possible, she stood anchored to one spot, not daring to move a muscle. Often when Father returned from the pub his mood was argumentative, and on one occasion he had knocked her unconscious. All in the name of Mother’s untimely death. From time to time, Stanzy heard weeping from his room, usually on nights such as this, after a long evening of indulgence.
She silently prayed Will wouldn’t awaken and begin to cry, for she knew it would start a situation she couldn’t stop. She held her breath until she heard his door click and lock.
~ * ~
Dazed by the dream, Stanzy started where she slept
by the fire. She looked around until place and time returned to her foggy mind.
Meg had moved from her arms to the hearth rug by the dying fire. Picking her up, she placed her shivering form in her bed. She searched the room for Lucian, but he was gone. She couldn’t think of leaving Meg tonight. Quietly she moved the rocker by Meg’s bed and gently, but tightly, held her little hand until she dozed off again.
~ * ~
The sun rose as Stanzy opened the door to the cottage, and plopped herself down at the kitchen table.
“Stanzy, I have to go and lie down for just a few hours, or I will be of no use to anyone. Hopkins is due home today from the ports. I will go to see him as soon as he arrives,” Lucian said groggily, automatically stoking the fire over and over.
“Go ahead. I may join you shortly.”
He nodded his acquiescence.
Constanza stared at the letter she’d been loath to open for what seemed like days on end. A certain dread had come over her when she’d received it.
Finally, she broke the seal. The aroma of Katrina’s fragrance permeated the kitchen from the perfume-soaked parchment. Her sister’s perfect handwriting, so opposite from Stanzy’s own chicken scratch, came into full view as she removed the letter from its envelope.
“Dear Stanzy,
“All is well with my governess position at the Hawthorne’s. The children are insufferable, but most children are to me as you know.
“I do not think I will have to be a governess for long, however. I have many suitors in Bath and am sure within the next few months will have made a smart match; then I will no longer have to be a governess.
“One of my suitors is Dear Edward. He has returned from sea, and we have dined at Hammock House many times over the past fortnight. To be honest, Stanzy, I know that Lucian is handsome, but to pass up such an exciting fellow as Edward must have been difficult. Not to mention he has so many more investments than Lucian.”
The Bride of Blackbeard Page 8