The Heart that Truly Loves

by Susan Evans McCloud

  She did not even remove her cloak before opening the letter and reading the words, written in a large bold hand across the page.

  Dear Miss Cooper,

  I am writing this onboard ship and shall post it at the first opportunity once we arrive safely in port. My companion fares well—better the first few days than I did, for I was made very ill by the motion of the ship, which troubled him far less than I fear it did me. There are few passengers on this voyage, and those poorly organized. Thus Elder Howlitt and I spend much time reading and writing in the journals we carry with us. Your food was a godsend, and we stretched it out to last as long as possible. The common fare consists of navy bread, rice, beans, salted pork, and potatoes, with oatmeal for breakfast. But to me it is quite tasteless and insufficient in quality to truly curb the appetite. How I miss your warm breads and pies, and your kindness to us!

  Millie paused in her reading. It was as if he were speaking to her. She could see the earnest cast of his face and the blue shine of his eyes, as though morning’s sunlight laughed through them. Here she was, eagerly devouring every word from him! Was she the most foolish of women? What would Verity say? Would she understand, or would she warn her against such error?

  The circled date in the margin of the letter indicated a week had passed.

  We make good time. The crew is disciplined and efficient and pleasant enough. Now that I am no longer sick, I find sailing full of interest and very pleasurable. I sit for hours on the forecastle and watch the vessel cut through the thick seas, churning them into a white foam about her. How graceful she is, despite the weight and bulk of her. And the moving water, with the play of light upon it, is never for two moments the same. It has made me wish for the power to write songs, like the ones we sang together, in praise of those things which I find beautiful and which I love—

  He had scrawled a dash at the end of his sentence. Millie felt his meaning, and it made her cheeks burn. Why was he drawn to her? And, even more horribly, why was she drawn to him? Why could she not remove herself from her own emotions and see things with the clarity that was required, the clarity that the wise must possess?

  She read on, mindful that the dates in the margin of the paper marked a long continuation of what he wrote over days and weeks.

  There is tedium to this business of ships. We are always at the mercy of sea and wind. Sometimes we wait day upon day for the idle breeze, wishing we could get out and push behind. Then the wind will come up with a vengeance, as though sorry for its aimless loitering, and we are cheered at the thought of making good time. Yet it has happened that we dash on at a great rate, tack to the right and then to the left for two hundred miles or more, only to find, as the captain takes an observation, that we are twenty miles behind where we were when the vessel had lingered, becalmed.

  There was another break, then a last entry where the writing was obviously careless and hurried.

  On a day of calm seas we have encountered a sister ship heading the opposite direction, back to Boston harbor. They had come to a standstill (or whatever the proper term might be) and were conducting a sad and somber sea burial of a five-year-old child. The bereaved mother, pale and thin, would not be comforted, unable to bear the thought of her little girl lying under these wastes of green water. It was awful to behold, and to be helpless to assist her when I had the power to do so! I have the truth, Millicent, which would have comforted and gladdened her heart. Yet, I must write quickly, for I have found a friendly seaman who knows Gloucester and has agreed to deliver this letter to you. He is to be trusted, I am certain. So I must bid you farewell for the time being, and trust both our futures to that kind Hand which guides the affairs of his children here below.

  Yours in fond friendship,

  Nicholas Todd

  Millie folded the letter and placed it back inside the envelope. What a peculiar young man to write such things. Without giving herself time to weigh or consider her own words, she drew out pen and paper and composed an immediate reply:

  How can you say such things of God when you had just observed the terrible ordeal of that innocent mother and child? Was God watching over them, Nicholas? I see little justice in the world, and less of mercy. Is this God’s way? I can accept it if it is, but I cannot have faith that he watches over all, yet allows some to suffer horribly and holds others up, secure and unscathed. That makes no sense to me. I do not understand this God you speak of.

  She wrote others things as well, caring not what he thought of them. Let him sort out his responses to her. Had they not both been singularly honest with one another? With care she added this new sheet to the one she had written, wrapped up the packet again, and walked back into town.

  Daniel Hawkins lived in the smallest cottage in Gloucester, which was tucked in under the eaves and seemed to rest against the walls of those on each side. He had never married, he had no family Millie knew of, and she could not even guess at his age. Her father used to tell her that he had seemed an old man to him when he had first signed on as a ship’s boy under Daniel’s tutelage. He still went out on the ships, and there wasn’t a crew around that was not happy to have him. She knew he would be going out with the Mary Anne in a few days’ time, and Liverpool would be the ship’s first port.

  When she knocked at his door he was there in an instant to open it, as sprightly on his short, bowed legs as most men many years his junior. He had no hair on his face, not even the suggestion of whiskers, and very little left on his head. But the thin, wispy strands remaining were faded yellow in color, with not one strand of gray. Chiseled on his face were the lines and wrinkles of a seaman, carved deep by the elements; no loose skin hung anywhere about them. Daniel’s face appeared much like a weathered crag, and his deep-set eyes appeared to have receded into their sockets; yet they gleamed like glittering bits of live stone. His eyes had frightened Millie when she was a child. They still held a strange, almost mesmeric power, undimmed by weather and age.

  “Come in, my child. What brings you down to the water?”

  Millie gave him the letter and explained her request while Daniel poured a cup of hot tea for her and set out a plate of hard cookies and Scottish shortbread. Millie sipped the tea, letting it warm her insides.

  “This young man to whom you are writing—what does he mean to you?”

  It was a question Millie had not anticipated. She gazed at the silent, gentle face.

  “So, you care for him. But he is not one of our kind, Millie.”

  Does Daniel know, too? Millie wondered with a start. Has all the talk reached so far? “Does that matter so much, Daniel?” she asked in a small voice.

  He rubbed the smooth skin of his chin with a gnarled finger. “It may not matter at all. That is up to you to decide.”

  What strange talk. Millie sank back against the hard wood of the chair. “I believe he cares for me deeply, but I’m not certain why.”

  Daniel did not move, but his eyes and face were listening.

  “Strangely enough, I care for him, too, though I fear what he stands for. And there is much in his life I am unable to understand.”

  “Then there is Luther.” The old man startled her again with his words.

  “Yes, then there is Luther. I know him inside and out. For many years our lives flowed in the same currents, and that ought to matter immensely, that sameness and understanding. But Luther doesn’t really know me at all.”

  “That’s because true knowing comes from deep in the heart, and many live and die incapable of it, ignorant of what they have missed.”

  His strange words led her to ask, “Did you ever love, Daniel?”

  He did not hesitate to answer. “Long ago. She was a Gloucestermaid, one of the fairest, with eyes like the brown nuts in autumn and hair like your own, with every shade of sun and moonlight laced through it. She was very young, but I didn’t know that. A man in love never does. We promised ourselves to one another and exchanged th
e most sacred of vows. I went out that season to the whaling a happy man, for I knew how rare were her gentle virtues and what a fine wife she would make. Indeed, that trip was the first time I experienced the sensation of loneliness, and it stunned me entirely. The companionship of my comrades had always meant everything to me, seeing as I had been at sea since the age of ten.”

  Millie leaned forward, entranced by the tale she was hearing, yearning over the lives it was unfolding before her gaze.

  “But now that I had tasted that rare mystery of love between a woman and a man, all else left me feeling unsatisfied and unfulfilled. I came back eighteen months later . . .” He paused. His cheeks seemed to have sunk, and a hollowness had come into his voice. “I came back to find she had been six long months in her grave. Died of a fever, with my name on her lips.”

  Millie marveled at the strength of the pain his voice carried. How many years must it have been? Yet for him it had happened yesterday—for him it happened each day.

  “Like a true woman she left me a note of comfort, urging me to remember her with gentle feelings and to go on with my life. ‘I will remain a sweet memory,’ she wrote, ‘a soothing melody in the back of your mind.’ ”

  Millie made a small sound of anguish deep in her throat.

  “Yes, yes, it was hard,” Daniel said, penetrating her eyes with his own. The force of his suffering kindled an agony of sympathy within her. “It was about as hard a thing as a man ought to be called on to bear.”

  He was sitting rigidly, every muscle in his body taut and aware. She knew the memory was stronger than the moment’s reality as he struggled with it.

  “Wasn’t ’til the following summer that I learned from her younger sister how she really had died. I found the girl stretched out by Lucinda’s grave, weeping bitterly. Her family missed her sorely, being the tender, lively lass that she was.

  “ ‘She is at peace now,’ I said, trying to comfort her sister.

  “ ‘No, she isn’t!’ she cried. ‘She did not want to die. She lay all that last night crying, begging God to spare her and let her be your wife.’

  “I think my heart broke with those words. Truly, Millie, from that day on I was never the same.”

  Millie, clutching the arms of the chair, realized that her fingers were aching and loosened her hold.

  Daniel continued his story. “ ‘She worried for you,’ the child said. ‘Dear God,’ she cried, ‘my Daniel will suffer so if I die! How will he bear to come home and find I am cold in the grave?’ ”

  Millie buried her face in her hands. She was trembling. “Stop! Please!” she moaned. “I cannot bear more.”

  “Yes, ’twas hard, mortal hard. Grieve not, Millie, God has given me strength to bear it these many years—”

  “How can you say that?” Millie cried. “It was God who took her from you.”

  “No, lass!” There was a force in the old voice, a rich timbre that made Millie stare at him. “You must never say that. Death took her from me; death regards no loved one’s sufferings, as well you know. But in the end God restores all.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “I do.”

  “So does someone else I know.” Millie mumbled the words as she wiped at her wet eyes.

  “Your young man.” Daniel was sharp. He tapped her letter against his empty tea cup. “That’s to be considered, then,” he mused. “Never make the mistake of mocking those who have found their way to a truth, just because you are still blind to it.”

  Millie did not like his words. She felt she would perish from grief in the close, small room. “Daniel, I must be leaving,” she said, not surprised at how weak her legs felt when she rose to her feet. She walked over, bent down close to him, and kissed his cool cheek. She longed to say something, but no words would suffice. At last, she leaned her forehead against his and stood silently, loving him, yearning toward him and the gentle girl he had lost.

  Outside the cool air felt sharp, stinging her cheeks and making her eyes water as she made her way home. She felt exhausted, overwhelmed, and friendless. And as night descended, the feeling grew worse. She longed for some escape from the oppression within her. When she heard a knock at the door she opened it eagerly and was happy to see Luther’s large, solid form filling up the space.

  “Will you walk out with me, Millie?” he asked. “There’s a little shop on the pier that stays open late. We could get something to eat and a nice warm cider to drive off this chill.”

  She grabbed her heaviest cape and the fine calfskin gloves she had purchased in Boston. As they walked she held Luther’s hand tightly, glad for the strong, warm feel of it, giving herself over with a sort of desperation to the saving forces of life.

  * * *

  “I do not understand . . . I do not understand you, Millie! I thought you and I were getting on fine.” Luther leaned forward in his chair, his hands on his knees.

  “Getting on fine is different from being married.”

  “These past weeks we have been together almost daily, and you have encouraged me!”

  Millie knew he spoke the truth. Ever since that night at the end of September, when she had visited Daniel Hawkins and had been so upset by his tale, she had received Luther’s attentions with a warmth that surprised herself. What did she fear? What was she running away from? She looked over at Luther’s square, strong-jawed face. His brow was dark, and his eyes were brooding. One thing she knew: She did not wish to be married for the rest of her life to Luther. How unkind she had been to lead him, even unwittingly, to this moment.

  He mistook her silence and edged closer, placing his big, lean hands on her shoulders. “I have loved you these many years, Millie, as well you know. It is time.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not ready.”

  He moved to kiss her, and she pulled away.

  “Curse it, Millie, but you treat a man poorly. I am thinking of not going on a trading voyage this winter, but only over the road to Beverly and hiring out to one of the ‘ten-footer’ shops.”

  “You mean you would peg and cut shoes rather than fish?”

  “ ’Tisn’t so bad from what I hear tell, and the money is good. Weekends I could go out for haddock off Cape Cod, and there’s always the smelt along the mouth of the river.”

  It was a good argument he made. Her silence encouraged him again.

  “The money from both would be sufficient for a man to support a wife.”

  He had to stop saying that! “Luther, please! You must try to be patient. I cannot tell you yes.”

  “And why not?” The brooding had darkened his face and hardened the lines at his mouth and around his eyes. Could Luther ever be harsh with a wife if provoked sufficiently? The thought made Millie recoil inwardly and gave her the courage to lift her head and say plainly, “I do not love you as yet.”

  “You love me more than you know. You always have.”

  She blinked at him in honest wonder. Good heavens, he saw only what he wanted to see!

  “It’s only that you are loathe to give up the freedom of your own ways. ’Tis a shame, for your years spent in Boston did you no good in that.”

  “You do not know what you speak of. You do not understand me as well as you think you do, Luther.”

  “I understand that you must marry me, Millie. Live in my house with me, sleep in my bed, bear sons—”

  “To go down to the sea with you?”

  He shook his head, like some great, shaggy bear, in bewildered pain. “Millie!” He spat out her name like an oath. He had grown too angry to be reasonable. “What madness has gotten into you? Was it your brush with that Mormonite? Mother said he sent you a letter and you seemed most pleased to receive it. You must promise me to have no contact with him. Millie!” He cupped her chin in his hand and turned her to face him. “Do you hear me, Millie?”

  Millie had grown
angry herself at his overweening impertinence. She wrenched away from his hold. “Do not presume to tell me what to do with my life, Luther. You have no right!”

  “Not yet, Millie. Not yet!” He put his hands on either side of her face and drew her closer to him, forcing his lips over hers, kissing her with a tenderness that surprised her, kissing her until she softened enough that he could leave her with some vestige of pride.

  “I leave the first part of November, just over a week from now,” he told her. “I want an answer by then. We could wait ’til spring to be married. In spring there are flowers, things a girl likes for a wedding. And we’d have some time before I had to fit out for another voyage.”

  He spoke these last words at the door, with the smell of the sea raw and cold at his back. She let him go. She had wanted to say, “You have your answer, Luther.” But she let him go. The autumn sea broke on the shore with a sound as lonely as all eternity. What was it Daniel Hawkins had said at her father’s wake? “The world is the less for every good soul who goes out of it.” She sorely missed her father. What advice would he give? Would he see things the way Luther saw them? He had seemed to understand her need to get away, go to Boston, strike out in a life of her own. Would he have understood this? Would he have been able to help her now?

  She would never know. She was alone in the world, with no one to counsel her. How she longed for the feel of her mother’s arms around her once more. She secured the latch on the door and blew out all the lamps except one, which she set on the low table beside her mother’s rocker. She would read for a spell before trying to sleep. A book was quiet company, but she was grateful to have it; she would have made poor company for herself this night.