by Susan Wiggs
She gave a little squeak of surprise and paddled her feet in the air. “Don’t you do it, boyo.”
He glared at her. The top of her head was even with his chin. He could feel the heat emanating from her body. The sensation was so unfamiliar that he almost dropped her. Instead, he set her on the bed and stepped back quickly, as if he’d approached a hot stove.
“I beg your pardon?” he asked.
“Granted.” She gave a little bob of her head.
“I mean, I didn’t follow you, madam. Are you asking me not to leave the room?”
“Aye, that I am.”
“May I ask why?”
“Because I don’t want pictures of me put in any newspapers.”
Ah. So she was superstitious, then. Many immigrants brought their old-country beliefs with them;
Palina and Magnus were proof of that. Quite a number thought it unlucky or even sacrilegious to produce graven images of themselves.
“Of course, now that you’re awake, there’s no need. You can simply tell me your name and destination. I’ll report that to—” he broke off, frowning down at her “Miss—er, Madam? Is there something wrong?”
She had begun to sway back and forth, her eyes glazing over. “I...feel strange all of a sudden. Higher than Gilderoy’s kite,” she said, her voice low and harsh. “Could you—that is, I need...”
Her words trailed off and she slumped to one side. Jesse dropped the camera, wincing as the lens cracked. Without breaking the flow of his movement, he dashed over to the bed, catching her by the shoulders and supporting her.
“Ma’am?” he asked. “Are you...all right?”
She made no response. She’d fallen unconscious again.
Jesse heaved a sigh of frustration. After settling her upon the pillows, he hesitated. Against his will, something inside him seemed to be bending toward her, reaching for her. He could not believe the impact of feeling her warm body curled against his, the tickle of her hair brushing his face and the scent of her, evocative and forbidden.
“Damn,” he swore between his teeth. She was everything he was trying to avoid.
As he tucked the quilts around the unconscious woman, his movements were slow, his hands gentle. He’d had no idea there was any tenderness left inside him.
The sooner he was rid of her, the better. He would send for Dr. MacEwan today to make certain this relapse wasn’t serious.
Amazingly, the one photographic plate he had taken remained intact. After developing the image, he would have a picture of the stranger. The amber tones would fail to capture the vivid richness of her red hair and her cream-and-roses coloring, not to mention the freckles, yet it would be a decent likeness.
Sleeping Beauty, he thought.
The hell with her superstitions. If she wouldn’t stay awake and tell him who she was, then he would publish her photograph and get the investigation started.
His boots crunched on earthenware shards from the shattered pitcher. In all the years Jesse had lived here, there had never been such a mess.
And she’d only been awake five minutes.
* * *
“Brass,” Palina said, hurling the word like an invective. “It is the bane of my existence.”
Jesse levered himself to the top of the ladder leading to the pinnacle of the lighthouse. In the lamp room, Palina and Magnus were well into the day’s chores. Palina was polishing the brass of the central compressor and cursing it, as usual.
“Why do they have to make everything out of brass, anyway?” she muttered, her wadded cloth making tight, neat circles in the fittings behind the reflector.
Magnus, who had his good arm deep inside the mouth of one of the eagle-headed water spouts under the eaves, winked at her. “So you can see your beautiful face in it everywhere you turn.”
“Humph,” Palina said, but the brass she was polishing reflected a blush and a smile. She worked a few moments longer, pausing to wave at Erik, who strode across the bluff toward the horse pasture.
Life at the lighthouse station suited Palina and Magnus perfectly, because they enjoyed each other’s company above all others. Erik fit easily into their world. They accepted their son’s affliction with a God-given, abiding patience Jesse would never understand. And the boy—seventeen last year—seemed happy enough.
“‘Morning,” Jesse said to Palina and Magnus.
“‘Morning, Jesse,” said Palina. “How is our little guest today, eh?”
Jesse picked up a can of oil and held it to the light, checking the purity. The lampwicks consumed nearly two hundred gallons a month, and each ounce had to be pure. “Now that,” he said, “depends.”
“Is she awake?”
“She woke up,” he said.
Both Magnus and Palina stopped what they were doing.
“And?” Magnus prompted.
“Well, she cursed at me and then she threw a pitcher at my head.”
Palina looked away quickly. “She must be confused, poor lamb.”
“The woman’s a menace.”
“Well, what did she tell you about herself?”
“Hardly a thing. She accused me of shooting at her when all I did was take her photograph to publish in the newspaper.”
“Ach, you frightened the little dear,” Palina said. “Here she is in a strange place, all alone, having lost God-knows-what in the way of family, and she wakes up to picture taking.”
“She didn’t seem so defenseless to me.”
“She was afraid,” Magnus said, reaching into the lantern to trim the wicks. He shook his head, thick gray hair falling across his brow. The crystal facets of the huge Fresnel lens distorted his good arm, making it appear disjointed and huge. “She probably lost her husband in the wreck.”
A knot of guilt formed in Jesse’s throat. He should have been more patient with the woman. “I left word with the harbormaster to find out the name of the ship that went down. We should hear something today.”
He hated this part of his job, hated it with a virulence that made him all the more determined to battle the sea for its victims. The waiting always got to him. He despised the course of events as it unfolded. The harbormaster would check all the schedules and manifests. Which ship was expected in the area? When was it due in port? Was it late? Then would come a list of the crew and passengers. And at each new stage of discovery, new grief would arise.
“She didn’t tell you the name of her ship?” Magnus asked.
“She didn’t even tell me her name.” Jesse set down the bucket of oil and sat on the floor, his feet resting on a rung of the ladder leading down to the mezzanine. “We barely had a chance to exchange words. Then she—I guess she overexerted herself and she sort of got dizzy and had to go back to bed.”
Magnus peered at him through so many layers of glass that it was hard to tell where the real Magnus was. “Overexerted? Now, what do you mean by that?”
The feeling of guilt sharpened. The sea—not a defenseless woman—was the enemy. He should be doing everything he could to help her. Instead, he’d let her presence stir up old, forgotten feelings inside him. None of this was her fault.
“She got upset,” he said.
“And what upset her?” Palina asked.
“The picture flash must have startled her. She has a bad temper.”
“Ah.” The tone of Palina’s voice spoke volumes.
“So you no longer hold the market on tempers,” Magnus added.
“I don’t have a goddamned temper,” Jesse said.
Palina rolled her eyes.
“Palina,” Jesse began.
She laughed. She was one of the few people who dared to laugh at him. “Captain Head Keeper, you would lose your temper if a leaf fell across your path. And this young woman is more than a leaf—”
“That’s it,” he said, getting up. “I’m moving her to your house today. You can take care of her. I clearly lack the proper temperament to minister to our delicate young guest.”
“No,” Magnus said. “You must keep her. When a man saves someone’s life, he is bound to ensure her survival. Whatever she needs, you must give her. Whatever it takes to heal her, you must provide. To disregard this would be terrible for you both—”
“—for you all,” Palina added.
“—in ways you cannot even imagine,” Magnus finished.
“That’s superstitious horseshit, and you know it,” Jesse said.
“It is the law of the sea, and I’ll not be the one to challenge it,” Magnus insisted. “Will you? Will you take that chance, risk losing her? Just so you can have your life back the way you want it?”
“Maybe I will.”
“Maybe you will not,” Palina said, thrusting her chin out stubbornly and dipping her polishing cloth. She attacked the next panel with savage relish. “What if you move her and she dies, eh? Then how will you feel? This woman is a gift, Jesse Morgan. You know why she came. Do not look fate in the face and deny it.”
A cold shaft of foreboding lanced through Jesse. He gazed out at the blue-gray horizon, then at the waves below the lighthouse. Foam creamed the rocks, seething in and out of the blackness.
A whistle sounded, startling him. It was Judson Espy, the harbormaster, riding up on a naggy-looking, dapple gray mare.
“The sea hasn’t given me a goddamned thing,” Jesse snarled. “Except a pain in the ass until we figure out who this woman is.” He clattered down the iron helix of stairs. Perhaps Judson had the answers he sought.
Judson met him halfway across the yard between the lighthouse and the forest. He waved a sheaf of papers. “Interesting irony here.”
“What’s that?” Jesse hung back, wondering what ill tidings he would hear.
“There was a schooner-rigged four-master bound for Shoalwater Bay for a load of oysters. It left San Francisco with some trade cargo and was supposed to call at Portland. Never arrived.”
Jesse crossed his arms, bracing himself for the news. He turned to look out at the sea, endless and infinite in its bounty—and in its power to destroy.
The story was all too common. The hungry maw of the Columbia River swallowed ships with great regularity, spitting out the remains like undigested skeletons along the beaches. “Do you have a list of passengers and crew?”
“Uh-huh.” Judson handed him a list. “Came over the telegraph wire.”
Jesse groped in his shirt pocket for his spectacles. Putting them on, he studied the list. Each time he did this, he was hurled back to the day he had stood on the river dock, frantically scanning a ship’s manifest, hoping against hope that a mistake had been made, then feeling the world explode when he saw his wife’s name.
“You all right?” Judson asked.
Jesse swallowed hard and glared through his spectacles. “All crew. No passengers?”
“Nope. That’s the entire list.”
He scanned the names, seeking something overtly Irish, like O’Malley or Flanagan. “You think she could be a seaman’s wife and they just forgot—”
“They never forget. Look at the name of the ship. At the shipping company.”
His gaze drifted to the bottom of the page. Jesse felt as if a noose were tightening around his throat. The noose of a past he wanted to forget. “It was the Blind Chance.”
“You remember it well, don’t you?”
“The Blind Chance is a ship-of-the-line for the Shoalwater Bay Company.”
“Your own company, Jesse. They never make mistakes on the ship’s manifest.”
“It’s not my company,” he said dully.
“Not anymore, I guess.” Judson took the list from him. “But it hasn’t changed much since you left. That partner of yours keeps everything shipshape. What was his name again? Flapp?”
“Clapp. Granger Clapp.” Jesse hadn’t thought about Clapp in years. But then again, he hadn’t thought about anything in years. Not Granger. Not his sister, who had married Clapp. Not his parents, away on a two-year grand tour of Europe. Not anyone.
Jesse wouldn’t let himself care.
“So,” Judson said, peering inquisitively at Jesse. “What do you think it means?”
“Either the woman was aboard unauthorized—”
“A stowaway!” Judson snapped his fingers. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“Or she wasn’t on the Blind Chance, at all.”
“She had to have been.” Judson showed him another page. “Look. The keeper at Cape Meares recorded seeing the ship’s stern lights at one-twenty in the morning on Sunday. She was logged in at Tillamook Light at four-forty. And you found the woman at what time, six? Seven?”
“Thereabouts.”
“She was on that ship. On the Blind Chance. Had to be. As a stowaway.” Judson shifted from one foot to the other. “Damn, this is a hell of a story.”
Jesse put away his eyeglasses. “We ought to let the papers make the most of it, then. I took her picture. Have Bert Palais run it. And send it down on the next packets to Portland and San Francisco.”
Don’t you do it, boyo.
He heard her words in his mind, her voice trembling with superstition. She was out of her head, he told himself. Not rational, or she’d see the sense in publishing her likeness. Her family was probably frantic with worry, waiting for word.
Jesse knew what that was like.
Circulating the photograph was the best way to spread the word about this woman. He fished it out of his breast pocket where it had lain against his heart. His hand shook slightly as he handed it to Judson, but he pretended it was just the wind.
Judson stared at the photograph for a very long time. Then he let out a low whistle. “Damn, she looks like a princess out of that fairy tale. You know, where she pricks her finger—”
“I don’t read fairy tales.”
Judson put the photo plate in his pocket. “This is one amazing catch.”
“You don’t know,” Jesse muttered, walking Judson back to his horse. “You don’t know the half of it.”
* * *
All that day, the new information and old memories haunted Jesse. Ordinarily, he kept the past in some dark corner of his heart, where he couldn’t see it, couldn’t feel it. But somehow, the arrival of the woman lit a candle in that shadowy place, shedding light on things he had kept hidden for years.
There was an almost eerie serendipity in the idea that the stranger had been borne into his life by the Blind Chance. In his mind’s eye, he could see the schooner-rigged ship as it had been the day they’d christened it fourteen years before. Jesse hadn’t known it at the time, but his future had been defined that day. He closed his eyes, letting the memories in....
The sleek hull of the ship gleamed with fresh paint, the brass fittings were polished to a sheen and the teakwood railings felt silky to the touch. The scent of ocean spray filled the air.
“Blind Chance,” Emily had teased, tugging at his sleeve. “What sort of name is that for a ship?” She looked as fresh and perfect as the ship, in lots of ruffles and lace, a bonnet shading her china-doll face. There was more to Emily than blond-and-pink prettiness, though. She had a streak of mischief in her that delighted, and a breezy charm Jesse knew he’d never tire of.
“Granger’s idea. He insisted on being the one to name it, since I got to name the Trident.”
“Oh, now there’s an original name.” Her laughter made a bright counterpoint to the melody played by the brass band on the afterdeck. Everything about the day glittered with a diamond brilliance. The ship’s rigging was hung with rows of ensign flags, each deck festooned with huge flower arrangements. Tables laden with sweets and hors d’o
euvres lined the pier.
Company officials and the crew and all their families had joined in the festivities. The ship, Jesse reflected, was a microcosm of his world—friends and family and business associates all united in commerce. He surveyed the scene around him with complete satisfaction.
“You’re grinning like the Cheshire cat,” Emily said, tapping her kid-booted foot in time to the music.
“And why shouldn’t I? As the luckiest fellow in all creation, I think I have the right.”
She leaned into him—discreet as always, for Emily was nothing if not a perfect lady—and said, “Do you think everyone will be surprised when we tell them our news?”
“I don’t see how. It’s been pretty obvious that I adore you, Miss Leighton.”
“Oh, Jesse.” A breeze off the bay caught her sigh. “It’s going to be so perfect. We’ll be so happy together.” She gazed down at the midships deck, where ladies were milling about, twirling their fringed parasols. More than one shot a glance toward the rail where Jesse and Emily stood.
“Such a shame, though,” Emily said.
“What’s a shame?”
“After we make our announcement, that deck will be positively littered with broken hearts.”
He grinned at her. “You exaggerate, darling.”
“Oh, heavens, don’t pretend you don’t know. Half my class at Saint Albans sleeps with some token from you under their pillows.”
“And what do you sleep with, Em?”
She winked. “Nothing but dreams, Jesse. Nothing but dreams.”
They watched in companionable silence, waving as Emily’s parents arrived. Gentlemen in seersucker suits joined the ladies, and the dancing began. “It’s men’s hearts that’ll be in pieces, Em,” said Jesse. He spotted Granger in the high bow of the ship. Together, he and Granger would take over the helm, leading the Shoalwater Bay Company into the future.
At the moment, Granger sat on an upended crate with his fair head bent, a thick rope in his hands as he demonstrated sailors’ knots to a rapt group of boys.
“No matter what else you think about Granger, he does love children,” Emily said, noticing where Jesse’s attention had wandered. “I always thought he would be the first of us to marry.”