The Heart that Truly Loves

by Susan Evans McCloud

  He flung a wrapped parcel onto the hard settle. It slid across the polished surface and came to rest against one of her mother’s embroidered pillows. Millicent wiped her wet hands on her apron, walked past him and picked up the parcel. It was wrapped in brown paper, tied with a length of hemp, and only her name was written in the upper corner. “This is addressed to me,” she said, her voice tight and controlled.

  “Yes, a young man left it with my mother to be delivered to you. Do you know what ’tis, Millie?”

  “Do you?”

  He had not the sensibilities to even pause at her words and the implications behind them. “Mother had her suspicions, and she was right. She knew who the stranger was, and so she took a look for herself.”

  Millie clutched the book and glared at Luther. “How dare she?”

  “How dare you? Do you know what that is, Millie, that you’re holding? ’Tis the Mormon book, the devil’s book. And what’s it doing with your name on it?”

  “That is none of your business, Luther.” Millie was trembling now.

  “ ’Tis my business, feeling the way I do for you. You’ve been seen with this Mormonite by the townfolk—talking with him, being right friendly! Have you gone mad, girl?”

  Words choked in her throat. She stood silent and frustrated, trying to express with her gaze the horror and loathing she felt. I will not explain myself to him, she thought.

  “Millie!”

  “Luther, do not make demands of me or try to bully me. I will not stand for it!”

  Luther’s features tightened. He seemed to dig into his position like a tenacious bulldog as he stared back at her. “Millie, you live among these people. They’re the only friends you have. You’d better care what they think. Have you no shame? What’s happened to you, Millie?”

  “Much has happened to me since you last saw me, Luther.” Millie drew herself up as she spoke the words. She saw an uncertainty enter his eyes. “I have my own life and my own ways, and I will explain myself to no one.”

  “It is unwise to talk like that.”

  “I have done nothing to be ashamed of—nothing even unseemly. Therefore, what right have you, or anyone, to question me?”

  “Come now, Millie.” Luther ran a hand through his straight brown hair, only causing it to fall limply across his forehead. He was disgusted, and never thought to disguise or soften the emotion. “You know better. You were seen in this man’s company—often!—walking the beach alone with him!”

  Millie sighed. Luther’s eyes had gone dark so as to appear almost black in their distress and intensity. She realized with a jolt what he was probably thinking, and what others might be thinking as well. She had been gone too long from the intimacy of a small, closely woven community. Under Judith’s tutelage, she had taken upon herself an attitude of freedom and individual determination that was unknown and certainly unacceptable here.

  “I tell you once more, I have done nothing to be ashamed of. That is all to be said on the subject.” She stepped to the front door and gave it a tug so that it stood wide open and waiting. “Good day, Luther. And next time will you kindly knock before entering my home?” She stood stiff and silent, waiting for him to pass.

  For a moment he made no move. The anger in his gaze had deepened, fed by the frustration and lack of comprehension he was feeling.

  “You’ve no business to offend those who care for you, Millie.” There was nothing in his voice but hurt and anger.

  “Good day, Luther,” she repeated.

  With a surly growl under his breath he strode past her. She shut the door so quickly behind him that it grazed the heel of his boot, and then leaned against the closed door, trembling, unable to sort her feelings. Why did this happen on the same day that she had struggled with Verity’s letter? It didn’t seem fair.

  At last she moved to the settle and tore the wrappings from the book she had been clutching. It was a Book of Mormon, all right. What possessed Nicholas to send it when she had so adamantly refused it before? With a sigh she opened the cover. A folded paper fell out. She retrieved it, and with vague misgivings read what Nicholas had written there.

  Miss Cooper—Millicent—Please accept this book and do not be angry with me. I could not with any peace of mind leave you without knowing you had it in your possession, for do you or I know what life will bring? You may well need the comfort or strength which this book alone could give you. Even light and knowledge—you may one day stand in need of these. Please do not discard it. And please do not despise me, but believe me to be, as I am, your most sincere and devoted friend,

  Nicholas Todd

  She folded the note and slipped it back inside the cover. She did not know what to think. Part of her realized that she might very well have spurned the book but for the stubborn pride Luther raised by his pigheaded ignorance and interference. She knew she would keep it, partly for the same perverse pride that would have made her reject it under different circumstances. She wanted to curse Nicholas Todd for bringing this trouble upon her. She wanted to hate him. But she could not. Try as she might, she was able to remember only the kindness in his eyes, his voice singing “My truly, truly fair” with the sigh of the sea like a countermelody woven into his words. She had not admitted to herself that she missed him, but she knew she could not forget him. Whether that be for ill or good, time alone would tell.

  She placed the book on her father’s shelf with the few precious volumes the household boasted, rolled up her sleeves, and went back to cleaning the vegetables that now lay muddy and wilting in the sink.

  * * *

  Millie awoke in the morning to the sounds of a squall blowing in from the northeast. A nasty one, she thought, looking out through the streaked glass. Seldom were storms so rough this early in September. She pulled one of her father’s gray wool sweaters out of the trunk and boiled up some oatmeal to eat hot. There would be no work in the garden this day; she would have to find something quiet and productive to keep her busy indoors.

  The wind carried a high wet whine, and she fancied she could hear the voices of young children weeping. Such a wind always distressed her. She buried her nose in the rough pile of the sweater, drawing in the musky odor of sheep’s lanolin and the richer, almost heady fragrance of her father’s old calfskin trousers, which were also packed away in the trunk. She thought of the men fishing in the small Chebacco boats. This gale would force them to leave their moorings and head for a safe port. What of her father’s ship plying homeward?

  As the day wore on the constant battering of wind and rain ate at Millie. She felt cooped up and restless, and a vague apprehension ate at her spirit. The storm was noisy and the sky was dark, and all the earth seemed troubled. She ought to answer Verity’s letter, but she could not under this brooding weight. She warmed up some fish balls to eat with what was left of her bread and tried to read a little, but the lethargy borne of fear and solitude stifled nearly every impulse.

  By early afternoon she had lit the lamps. When night descended in earnest there seemed to be little difference to her. She shivered, thinking of the countless days and nights such as these that her quiet mother had endured through the years. An old verse came to her mind. With a superstitious reluctance she whispered it under her breath:

  For men must work, and women must weep,

  And there’s little to earn and many to keep,

  And the harbor bar is moaning.

  She felt she could hear the sifting of the sand under the force of water, pounding at it from the heavens and dragging at it from the cold, foaming tides. She knew the harbor bar could moan beneath the force of a tempest. She trembled at the thought of ships floundering in the shoals of Georges Bank or in the jagged reefs of Norman’s Woe, where rain hissed in the brine and the billows frothed up like beaten egg whites.

  How bleak the night was, and how weary the watch she kept; now hopeful, now overtaken with nam
eless, faceless shadows and fears. She sought bed early, hoping to drown out the whine of the wind and the weeping of the rain. But the plaintive sounds followed her into her dreams and she slept fitfully. The night seemed endless, and her dreams were filled with ghosts and nightmares of the lost, the suffering, and the dying, crying out to her in their plight.

  In the morning the skies were still gray and wet, but the wind had ceased blowing and the sea had settled. Millie took inventory of the damage done to her garden and, with frustrated resignation, began repairs. There was no sun to dispel the gloom of the previous day and the unrest of the night. Work was her only vent. She was grateful for it but found herself working doggedly, without her usual enthusiasm.

  She did not see the Swallow slide quietly past Mussel Point and Rocky Neck into the inner harbor, almost limping, it seemed, her flag at half-mast, her men grim-mouthed and sober. But later she did see Norman Pope, captain of the vessel, walking with heavy stride down the center of the road toward her cottage. She put her hand to her mouth and bit hard on her lip to stifle a cry. She could not take her eyes from his solid figure rolling steadily toward her. She stood and brushed the damp soil from her hands. No! Dear God, this can’t be!

  He approached slowly, like a man moving in a dream, his eyes straight ahead. When he reached the stone walk she was there to meet him. He could not meet her eyes, but reached for her hands and cradled them gently in his, which were rough and cold still from the chafings of rope, canvas, and weather.

  “Where?” she breathed.

  “Grand Banks. You know how wicked the currents are there, the seas steep and short.”

  Millie drew a ragged breath. She knew.

  “A fog settled in. We lost two others besides your dad, Millie. Mark Flynn and Louie Bell—aye, he that had a sweetheart waiting to set a date for the wedding.” He shook his head. His eyes, narrow slits below a brown, lined forehead, regarded her with the patience borne of gazing for years on end at a wilderness of sea and sky, gazing and watching, gazing and listening, gazing and waiting. He did not attempt any awkward expressions of sympathy or apology. What had happened was part of life as they knew and accepted it. His being there was enough.

  “I’ll send some of the womenfolk down to you,” he said as he left her. That, too, was the way. Millie did not protest. Right now she was part of them—more part of their ancient, ongoing life than of her own.

  The sea has taken him at last, she said to herself as she gathered up her garden tools. The sea has taken him home. There was no comfort in the thought, and no horror. Just the weary acceptance that was her ordained and unquestioned part.

  Her father’s death made all the difference. Luther came to her, all thought of disagreements aside. They were integral to one another again, in the only world he had knowledge of. Her grief was his own. All Gloucester mourned with her. She was no longer a stranger.

  The sea, as terrible and mysterious as she had been since the beginning of time, had once more pulled them all together: they were one in submission to her, fear of her, awe of her. They lived under her power. As Millie stood beneath the fine morning drizzle and looked at the pinched, lined faces around her, she wondered how many of these men and women, even for a moment, ever forgot that fact.

  As they lowered her father’s coffin into the sodden ground she experienced a moment of panic. What madness was this to bury a seaman in the dank hold of the earth? He who could not live without the salt spray sharp on his face, the cold heavens and all the stars of the universe spread out to his gaze. He who was tuned to the wild voices of the wind and the water spirits, lovely or loathsome, that spoke to his ears alone. Here, all would be darkness and silence.

  She shivered. Luther put his arm around her shoulders and the warmth of his body, hard and seasoned like her father’s, reached out to her. And yet, how fragile he was. He stood beside her with the strength of a thick, straight mast that could withstand any storm, yet he could be broken, hewn down in a moment by a whim of the mistress, the mighty sea, that he served.

  They were dropping clods of earth onto the coffin, these men who had ridden the seas with her father, whose eyes were veiled and whose faces revealed none of the vulnerability they felt. Whose turn was next? Who would be missing when they gathered once more in this gloomy place to bid yet another farewell?

  Was she growing morbid? She moved away from Luther. But, feeling suddenly weak and giddy, she leaned against him again. The wind had worn itself out. The air about them was heavy with silence. Not even a bird spoke to pierce the thick gloom. She would go home now. The man who had been her father would never return. His shell, useless to him, heedless of the skills with which his mind and will had imbued it, lay here at her feet. She had not been able to see him, talk to him, listen to the sound of his voice. After two years of separation she had been waiting and hoping. But it was not to be. He was gone. Perhaps he was with her mother. She wanted to believe that he was. She wanted to believe that it all made sense somehow. Is that how the others, silent and stoic, felt too? Was courage, then, nothing but terror denied expression?

  The people were moving slowly, huddled in small groups together, out of the cemetery and along the sea road that led back to town. Always the sea—beside, around, within you. She hated the sea. But not half as much as she loved it.

  Luther got her back to the house. He stayed with her until she could no longer keep her eyes open. Then he tucked her in bed. Why was everyone afraid of leaving her alone? She needed no solace in the daylight; it was the darkness she feared.

  “Leave a lamp burning,” she told Luther.

  “Right here on the table, Millie.”

  She heard the scrape of the wooden runners along the floor as he moved her mother’s rocker into the bedroom.

  “I’ll be with you,” he said. “I won’t leave you alone in the murk.”

  Had he read the fear in her eyes? Had she been that transparent? She was too tired to think about it, exhaustion seeping like a paralyzing fluid through every inch of her body. She could not move her head. She could not raise her hand to pull up the bedclothes. Her eyelids closed, like a heavy barrier shutting out all feeling. Against her will, she slept.

  Chapter Ten

  She could not say why she did it. For two weeks after they buried her father Millie did little at all, performing by rote the daily tasks required of her, walking the blank line of the shore, or sitting for long hours on the knoll above the cottage, her mind empty and untroubled, if not at peace. Then one morning she got up and, without thinking, sat down to her father’s old, scarred desk and wrote a letter—a long, detailed one telling all that had happened and much that she felt, or at least, as much as she was able, for the first time, to identify and put into words. She placed it in an envelope and wrote Nicholas Todd with the Liverpool address he had given her. “Anything you send here,” he had said, “will eventually find me.” Next she wrapped the envelope in a piece of burlap and bound it with string. Over the black dress she was wearing she tied the long gray shawl she had purchased in Boston, pulling the hood over her head, for the weather was still wet and raw.

  She carried no shopping basket over her arm, only the small parcel tucked under the folds of her cloak. She was heading for the cottage, bent and narrow, that stood at the point end where Essex Street nearly ran into the sea. But as she passed the post office she suddenly paused. It would do no harm to ask.

  She stepped inside. Almira Fenn’s face registered surprise when she saw her. Millicent smiled, regarding the older woman who was a thin, wizened, shrunken version of Luther himself: the same dark eyes, like deep pools, with no lights in them; thin, common brown hair; pencil-fine eyebrows that looked as if she had drawn them across the line of her brow; a narrow, beaklike nose; and a mouth that was too small for her face. Somehow with Luther the same features, expanded, lent character to his appearance. But his mother was not flattered by her looks, and her pers
onality did little to make up the difference.

  “ ’Tis good to see you out and about, Millie. But you’ll take a chill, all considered, if you’re not careful.”

  Millie proffered no real response but asked simply, “Has any mail come in for me, Almira?”

  “Mail?” She spoke the word as if it were foreign to her. With her long, thin fingers she began sifting through a stack of envelopes on the counter before her. Squinting, she looked up at Millie. “You just had a letter from your Boston friend, now, didn’t you. But postmarked from some wretched place in the West . . . I don’t rightly recall . . .”

  Millie stood with her hands inside her cloak, patiently waiting. She would not be put off, even if she had to sort through the pile of letters with her own hands.

  Perhaps Almira saw that. She searched again, more carefully. To her own surprise she pulled out a thin brown envelope with Millie’s name written across it. She held it out, examining it closely. “There’s no postage. Must have been hand-carried on one of the ships—not your father’s.” She spoke the words matter-of-factly. “Most likely from the week before.” She turned it over in her hands. “I’d say the Hartley out of Liverpool. Passed through here last week.”

  Millie held out her hand. Reluctantly Almira gave her the letter.

  “You know somebody in Liverpool, do you, Millie?” The older woman could not forbear the question; such was not her habit.

  Millie did not reply. “Thank you, Almira. A good morning to you.”

  She scurried out the door before Almira could stop her, retracing her steps in the way she had come. A strange excitement throbbed within her. A letter from Nicholas! She would read it first, and perhaps add some reply along with what she had already written.