Lucy Read online

  It was an honest place with its scent of sawdust and salt air. On one wall hung a dozen or more wooden templates for drawing the sweeping elliptical lines of a hull. Beneath the templates was a bucket of colored chalk for making corrections on the blueprint that was spread out on the floor, and on one prominently placed shelf was the exquisitely crafted half model of the ship under construction. The master builder — in this case Phineas and not his father — had fashioned a hull form that was a scale model of the yacht to be built for the Van Wycks. The model was then cut down the center. One half was presented to the owner, the other kept by the shipbuilder. The varnished half model glistened in the sunlight, presiding over the lofting space like a sentry standing watch over the design. Stay true to my lines, make me what I am intended to be.

  “So Gus made these prints just for you?”

  “Yes, in his darkroom.”

  “He has his own darkroom?”

  “There is very little the Bellamys do not have.”

  “That’s what I don’t understand. He gave you these, but you were not invited to the Bellamy party.”

  “We can’t mix — native folk and summer folk. They never do.”

  “But you’re not a servant. You’re a yacht designer.”

  “Doesn’t make any difference.”

  “But it does!” Lucy’s eyes turned a stormy green.

  He took a step forward and slowly raised his hand, cupping her chin with his slender but work-worn fingers. She shivered and he wrapped an arm around her. “It makes all the difference.”

  Before she could say another word, she felt both his arms wrapping around her. His mouth was on hers, pressing softly. He ran his fingers through her hair, and when their lips parted, she heard him whisper, “You make all the difference.” She kept her eyes closed as they pulled away from each other. She kept her fingertips on his cheeks. There was a slight stubble. She ran her fingers over his skin and, finding his jawbone, traced it lightly. She felt them both enfolded by an intimacy she had never known or imagined, an irresistible intimacy that seemed rare and wonderful and that she wanted to explore more deeply. She turned her head slightly.

  “I hope we’re safe here?” She broke from his embrace to look around the lofting room, where the plans for a new yacht for the Van Wycks, even larger than the Bellamy yacht, had been drawn on the floor.

  “We don’t work on Sunday. Most people are in church. How did you escape?”

  “I did not escape entirely. I went for the morning service but begged off the afternoon one.” She smiled. “Headache, you know.”

  “Of course. Terrible, aren’t they?” He grabbed her hand. “Let me show you to the master’s cabin. All you need do is take off your shoes so you won’t smudge the drawing.”

  A minute later, in bare feet they both walked across the plans toward the blue lines that were drawn to show where Sterling Van Wyck and his wife’s bedroom would be built on the yacht.

  “Funny how these rich people live, isn’t it?” Lucy said as she sat on the floor of the Van Wyck bedroom.

  “Is it really that funny to you?”

  “Why, of course it is. Remember, I’m a reverend’s daughter. Reverends don’t have any money at all. We’re only included, brought along because … well …” She was stumbling. “Because of God!” she blurted out. “People fear for their immortal souls as much as their bank accounts.”

  “And although they love the sea, they fear drowning in it.”

  “What do you mean?” Lucy asked.

  “I must build sound ships to keep them safe on the high seas, and your father must minister to their souls to get them into heaven. We’re all servants, in a sense living on the edges of their world to make sure they are safe.”

  She tipped her head to the side and smiled. So he didn’t think of her as one of them, one of the tribe. That was both a relief and a joy. She turned and pointed to an area marked off with blue lines in one corner.

  “What’s this part?” Lucy said, pointing at the spot.

  “Mr. Van Wyck’s ‘office.’ Room for a desk and some books.”

  “And that door?” Lucy asked.

  “Mrs. Van Wyck’s boudoir.”

  “Her boudoir? On a yacht?”

  “Yes, of course. She can’t get undressed in front of her husband.” He made an expression of mock horror. “Nor can he. That’s how rich people do it. So on the port side, you’ll see another door to his dressing room. So they don’t have to see each other in their … well, altogether state.” He suddenly broke out laughing. “My goodness, Lucy, your face is almost as red as your hair.” He leaned forward and in the next second was pressing his mouth to hers.

  The scent of sawdust swirled in the air. He pressed her harder and folded her in his arms. Then he pulled away and took her face in his hands as if he were holding something fragile. A shadow fled across the blue of his eyes.

  “What is it?” she whispered.

  “I’m afraid I’m never going to see you again.”

  “Don’t say that!” Somehow she sensed that this had nothing to do with the rigid social order of this island world. It concerned a world that was only hinted at but neither really could grasp. Lucy felt shuddering dark fear sweep through her.

  THERE WERE SECRETS and there were secrets, and this one almost hurt, Ettie thought as she crouched behind the trunk of a dark spruce tree that grew at the edge of the cove. It was a very high tide this evening, so the lavender rock from which Hannah always dove was completely awash. When Hannah dove, Ettie always felt this deep surge within herself, as if part of her own essence were rushing from her. And then with the first flash of the glittering tail that broke the water like a comet soaring from the very depths of the ocean, there came a crushing bitterness. Was it the secret that bothered her or, most likely, the envy and the fear that Hannah would leave one night forever?

  There was another secret, of course, that was actually a lie. It was the secret of Lila, the oldest of the three Hawley daughters, who was in an asylum for the mentally ill in western Massachusetts. The lie was that she was said to be abroad studying art in a small village outside of Florence. It was not as if Ettie longed to blab this matter to the world at large. She only wanted to tell one person — Hannah Albury, who had been a servant in the Hawley household for almost two years.

  Henrietta Hawley, or Ettie as she was called, at ten, almost eleven, was the youngest daughter of Horace and Edwina Hawley of Boston. Her best friend in the world was Hannah Albury. But the truth was that Ettie understood Hannah more than Hannah did her. Ettie knew Hannah’s secret. But what Hannah did not comprehend was that just as Hannah longed to escape the land world, Ettie, despite her privilege, her Brahmin pedigree by virtue of belonging to one of Boston’s oldest and most revered families, yearned to escape as well. Ettie found the world she was consigned to by her species and social rank stultifying, even smothering to the point of — yes — suffocation. And it would only get worse as she grew up.

  Just that morning, she had been severely reprimanded by Miss Ardmore, her governess, for entering the drawing room barefoot. “No bare feet in the house!” Miss Ardmore had hissed.

  “Why ever not?” Ettie had replied.

  “It’s unsanitary.”

  “Oh, hell’s bells,” Ettie blurted. Miss Ardmore had blanched.

  “Ettie, you swore!”

  “You call that swearing? I can do much worse than that. I know the word for the private parts of a bull and I can say —”

  Miss Ardmore came up to her and clapped her hand over Ettie’s mouth.

  Yes, thought Ettie, “suffocating” was what it meant to grow up into a proper young lady.

  And every day it was worse, and Ettie seemed to be gasping for more air. She felt like a fish out of water. Though she hesitated to use this expression, for Hannah was no mere fish; she was a sea creature. Ettie was very disinclined to use the word mermaid. She detested the word maid. In her own mind, it meant either a servant or a rather witl
ess young female. One of Ettie’s major problems in life was how people thought about half the human race — unfortunately, the half she belonged to: female.

  At this moment, she saw the flash of the tail. Where does she go when she swims? Ettie always wondered. She knew she could not follow Hannah there. She was not mer, but fully human. What did it mean, however, to be human? she sometimes wondered. In Ettie’s world, it meant having half the fun, half the power. In Ettie’s world, fun was defined rather narrowly in terms of a set of expectations. Her cousin Matilda “Muffy” Forbes had become engaged this summer. She was seventeen and what she expected and what had been expected of her could be written on a short list:

  1. Make a proper marriage. The intended groom in this case was to be an earl from England with large estates. He needed Muffy’s money and she wanted a title. She would become a countess.

  2. Muffy would have her “dozens,” her dozens of dozens, the requisite twelve pairs of everything that were ordered for every bride.

  3. Muffy would have children and they, too, would have titles — and if they were girls, Muffy would arrange their weddings and their dozens of dozens.

  4. Muffy would over the years grow slightly fat, for the Forbeses had a tendency toward avoirdupois — a fabulous word for fat that she had learned from her governess.

  5. Summers would be in Bar Harbor. Autumns in London for the season. Winter on the earl’s estates in the countryside. Spring in Paris. Except now that there was money enough, Muffy was sure she could convince Morfit (horrible name! Ettie thought) to go to Paris for longer.

  6. And then when she was a ripe old age, Muffy would simply keel over dead — hopefully, and not wind up like Big Adelaide, with her locked eyes, being hauled around in a wheelchair mute as a stone with her cranky old sister.

  What difference did it make? They were all maids — old maids, young maids, even the married ones called matrons were still maids consigned to an eternally witless state. Ettie looked out to sea and again wondered where Hannah went. Where does she swim to?

  As she swam out toward the cave to meet May, Hannah wondered if her life could get any more complicated. Stannish Whitman Wheeler’s angry words still echoed in her ears.

  “You’re going to have to decide, Hannah. Soon. You can’t have it both ways. I can make a life for you here on land.”

  “But I might die on land.”

  “You won’t. You’ll adapt. We’ll be married.”

  “Stannish Whitman Wheeler marry a servant girl? You’ll lose all your clients and I’ll lose the sea.”

  They had been arguing like this for months and it had gotten them nowhere. But ever since the discovery that her and May’s third sister had arrived, she had become more outspoken with Stannish. Should she give up the family that was almost complete for marriage? Stannish had given up the sea for his painting, but was she willing to give it up for him? The worst was when Stannish would almost cavalierly say to her, “You’ll get used to it. You’ll see. At first you might miss it a bit, but then it’s just like an old scratch. It heals over very fast. A scar you won’t feel at all.”

  That was just the problem; she felt everything because she was mer. It made the world around her more vibrant — and even harder to leave behind.

  “Look!” May said as Hannah swam into the cave. She was holding a piece of paper.

  “What is it?” Hannah asked.

  “Come up close and see. Don’t get it wet, though. It’s a watercolor.”

  “What a lovely drawing,” Hannah whispered. “She wants to meet us. Can’t you see? It’s clear as anything, May.” Her voice cracked and she began to cry.

  “Hannah, whatever is the matter?” May put her arm around her sister’s shoulders.

  “He was one of us,” Hannah said, with tears trickling down her cheeks.

  May felt a dread begin to stir deep inside her. She twitched the flukes of her tail, still suspended in the water, and tightened her grip around Hannah. “Who? Who are you talking about?”

  “Stannish Whitman Wheeler.” Hannah spoke his name in a barely audible voice.

  “The painter?”

  Hannah nodded.

  A coldness crept through May. She shivered and the scales on her tail scintillated darkly as fear radiated through her entire being. She sensed what Hannah was going to say next. It was something she had never mentioned to Hannah, had almost been afraid to mention.

  “He mistook you for me one day in the village, didn’t he?” Hannah asked.

  “Yes,” May said. Her voice was barely audible.

  “In that alley, he saw only the back of your head, your hair, and thought you were me. You see, May, he is … is …,” she whispered. “My sweetheart.”

  “But you say he is mer.”

  “Was mer. He can’t go back.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s the Laws of Salt, May. If he tried to return to the sea, he would drown.” May gasped. “We love each other so much. Can you think of anything worse?”

  May bit her lip lightly. “Maybe.” She thought of Hugh Fitzsimmons, those lovely gray eyes that endlessly intrigued and charmed her. His funny, slightly crooked smile and how those eyes would sparkle when he laughed.

  “I, too, have a sweetheart, but he was never mer. He never had a choice.”

  IT WAS LATE IN THE EVENING, and Lucy had just come from her bedroom to fetch a book she had been reading and forgotten to take with her. Both her parents were in the small parlor. Her father was reading, her mother sewing somewhat resentfully as she repaired a small tear in the reverend’s vestments.

  “Lucy, when you met the duke at the Quoddy Club this morning, you really shouldn’t have — have —” She began to stammer.

  “Have? Have what? Mother, I was perfectly friendly.”

  “You were friendly but so mercilessly intellectual and then when you mentioned Oscar Wilde — that man is scandalous.”

  “Mother, he is a playwright, a famous one, and the duke knows him, along with James Whistler.” She did not mention that he also knew Lily Langtry, a truly shameless beauty who was rumored to be having an affair with the Prince of Wales. The duke kept very exciting company in England. He went to every art opening and every play.

  She flashed back to his eloquent description of the Elgin Marbles. “If you stand before them, Lucy, you cannot quite believe they are made of stone. It is as if you are transgressing some border where time and matter melt and you become part … part …” He had paused as if to search for a word.

  “Part of a dream.”

  “Exactly. An ancient dream that is on the continuum of eternity.”

  “I just don’t understand, Mother. I was genuinely interested in what he was saying about his life in London and the museums, and I thought I was being friendly enough.”

  “My dear.” Her father looked up from his reading. “Friendliness is not something that should be doled out in measured quantities like a cup of sugar.”

  Lucy grew still and waited several seconds before answering. She dared not tell her parents about Phineas, for whom she had unlimited quantities of “friendliness.” She looked up at her mother and smiled. “I’ll try to be less intellectual, Mother, and more friendly.”

  Marjorie Snow’s face relaxed. She picked up Lucy’s hand, pressed it to her midriff, and gave it a squeeze. “This is a chance. He is truly interested in you. He’s a duke. You could be a duchess. That, I think, outranks an earl. Like Muffy Forbes’s Earl of Lyford. She’d only be an earless, I think.”

  “No, dear,” said the reverend, who at the moment had been reading a book entitled Rank and Nobility: The Guide to Peerage of the British Empire. “Muffy Forbes will be a countess. The Countess of Lyford. I find her quite charming. She has offered to join the altar guild and direct the arranging of flowers for Sunday services. She suggests native plants — lupine and the like, which is in season now, along with daisies. I told her that you would be happy to join the guild, too, Lucy. I think it would prov
ide an invaluable contact for you.”

  “Oh, yes, Lucy, invaluable,” her mother echoed. “Now don’t be stubborn.”

  Joining the altar guild was easy, Lucy thought. It was a way to offer a modicum of instant gratification to her parents. “Oh, yes, Father, I would be happy to join the altar guild. Muffy seems lovely.”

  “She is, and a very good catch for the earl,” her mother replied.

  “But, Mother, don’t you see? Muffy is very wealthy.” She did not want to quote Gus Bellamy verbatim, but she also did not want her parents to be misled in any way. They surely could not be so benighted as to not be aware of the value of a substantial dowry.

  Their contrivances to move into “the thick” had seemed innocent enough at first. Of course it would be lovely if her father could become the bishop of New York. But she realized clearly now that he was not the only candidate for higher office. Their designs extended to her. And in the brief days since the Bellamy party, her mother had plunged into a vigorous pursuit of the Duke of Crompton. She had contrived another meeting at the Abenaki for tea and had also managed for Lucy and herself to have an “accidental” encounter with the duke in the card room at the Quoddy Club.

  “You know we aren’t rich like the Forbeses.”

  “That shouldn’t make any difference,” her mother said firmly. “You are much prettier than Muffy.”

  “Mother, these titled young men are not looking for beauty. They are looking for money.”

  “Not necessarily, my dear,” her father said. “They are impressed with background, culture, position. I don’t want to spill any beans here, but there is buzz about the office of the bishop. Vanderwaker’s resignation is expected by the end of the month.”

  “And,” Marjorie Snow chimed in, “the young duke was quite impressed with our connections with the Bancrofts.”

  “Aunt Prissy?”

  “Yes, Aunt Prissy. He knows all about her family and you see, dear, unlike the Bancrofts with those onerous entailments, the duke’s family has none, no entailments.”