Wild Rose
Ruth Axtell Morren
Mills & Boon Silhouette
Critical praise for
RUTH AXTELL MORREN
DAWN IN MY HEART
“Morren turns in a superior romantic historical.”
—Booklist
LILAC SPRING
“Lilac Spring blooms with heartfelt yearning and genuine conflict as Cherish and Silas seek God’s will for their lives. Fascinating details about nineteenth-century shipbuilding are planted here and there, bringing a historical feel to this faith-filled romance.”
—Liz Curtis Higgs, bestselling author of Whence Came a Prince
WILD ROSE
“The charm of the story lies in Morren’s ability to portray real passion between her characters. Wild Rose is not so much a romance as an old-fashioned love story.”
—Booklist
WINTER IS PAST
“[This book] inspires readers toward a deeper trust in the transforming power of God…. [Readers] will find in Winter Is Past a novel not to be put down and a new favorite author.”
—Christian Retailing
“[The] faith journeys are so realistic all readers can benefit from the story. Highly recommended.”
—CBA Marketplace
Wild Rose
Ruth Axtell Morren
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Here’s to you, Dad.
A “down-easterner” in spirit if not by birth.
And to Mom, who probably rejoiced as much as I
did when I got “the Call.”
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
Prologue
Haven’s End, Maine, August 1872
Geneva felt the push from behind, a blow between the shoulder blades. The next instant she lay flat on her face against the rough, gray wharf, her toes caught in the spaces between the worn wood slats, her brimming baskets wrenched sideways. Helpless, she watched their contents scatter. The fruits and vegetables she’d taken such pains to arrange that morning in neat, concentric circles tumbled across the sun-bleached planks.
Heads of cabbage rolled like croquet balls off the edge of the wharf to land with a plop into the awaiting tide. The smaller items—the precious raspberries she’d handled so gently to prevent bruising and the bright green string beans—disappeared down the cracks to join the bobbing cabbages below. The shriek of gulls mingled with the cackle of laughter around her, as the birds were alerted to the treasures floating on the sea.
“Salt Fish Ginny! Salt Fish Ginny! How come you’re so skinny?” The teasing chant resonated above the laughter. “Salt Fish Ginny! Dirty as a hog, mean as her dog!”
Geneva glared at the trio of village boys stampeding by her, shouting the hated words that described her occupation, fishing for cod.
She forgot the boys as the thump of footfalls farther down the wharf reached her ears. Her glance passed the pranksters to the group turning down the wharf from the street. Rusticators! Her face flamed in humiliation as she watched the smartly dressed ladies and gentlemen on holiday, the very ones who bought her produce, stroll down the pier from the quaint, white clapboard village.
Before she could do more than pull herself to her knees, they had reached her, and stood hesitating as if looking for a way to pass through the mess. Wrinkling their noses, the ladies lifted their skirts to avoid soiling them.
Only one gentleman moved. His boots resonated against the wood, but as soon as Geneva saw who it was, her heartbeat muted the sound. She stared openmouthed as Captain Caleb Phelps came and knelt beside her. She had never been in such close proximity to him before.
Geneva found herself looking straight into the bluest pair of eyes she’d ever seen. They were the blue of the open ocean off Ferguson Point after the morning fog burned off and when the noon sun hung high overhead. Not a cloud diminished the hue of the vast, flat expanse of sea then, but its inky blue depths sparkled with a thousand lights and depths from the reflecting sun.
Captain Caleb’s eyes danced with a mixture of concern and amusement. It wasn’t the sly amusement of the onlookers, she realized, but a companionable sort, as if he and she were sharing some private joke. His eyes’ wry twinkle was telling her that he had been in a similar predicament in another time and place, long ago enough to look back with humor.
Geneva blinked to break the spell. Don’t be a fool. Captain Caleb didn’t care what she was thinking. His world was so far removed from hers, it might as well be across the sea. She needed to get back on her feet and quick. There’d been enough damage done already, and she had to see what she could salvage.
But her commands didn’t reach her legs. Geneva caught sight of the untidy patchwork on one threadbare knee of her overalls and suddenly became conscious of her appearance. She cringed in shame at the contrast between the man’s easy elegance and her own homespun looks. The seams of her pa’s old flannel shirt were visibly frayed, the color faded from numerous washings.
Geneva glanced down at the hand the captain placed on her forearm. Despite the tanned skin, it was the hand of a gentleman. His fingernails were clean and neatly trimmed. She curled her own hands into fists to hide the broken nails, traces of garden dirt still clinging to them.
“Are you all right, miss?” After a cursory glance over her as he asked the question, his gaze returned to her face.
Miss. It sounded so respectful. He might be talking to a fragile, young lady.
Geneva nodded and mumbled something, hardly believing what she was experiencing. For the first time, a man wasn’t undressing her with a look. No matter how oversized her pa’s old shirts or thick the bib of her overalls, they never did enough to flatten her bosom. Everywhere else she was bone thin, an unfortunate circumstance that only served to make the fullness of her chest more apparent.
Geneva flushed, meeting the intense indigo gaze focused on her. Captain Caleb scarcely gave her body a glance. He seemed to look beyond her features to the person within.
Although the captain’s face was one she recognized, she’d only seen it two or three times in her life, from afar. “Cap’n Caleb,” as he was known in these parts, hailed from Boston and rarely came to port in Haven’s End.
Geneva couldn’t help staring at it now, from the deep chestnut-colored hair brushed back from the bronzed forehead, to the strong jaw and rugged cleft chin, every feature in perfect proportion as if the artist’s hand hadn’t faltered once in executing his work.
Not like her uneven features: too-sharp nose, eyebrows arching like bird’s wings across her brow, stick-straight dark hair and eyes black as pitch, attesting to her half-breed status.
She broke away from his grasp and pushed herself to her feet. Taking a step away from him, she forced herself back to the situation at hand. Her heart sank as she contemplated the wreckage around her. Well, it would do no good to cry about it.
She stooped to gather her baskets, but was stopped by Captain Caleb’s firm grasp. He spoke with a tone of authority so different from the one he’d used with her, she had to look twice to make sure it was the same man speaking.
“Come here, lads, and rectify the damage you’ve inflicted on the lady.”
The boys hooted at this. “But, Cap’n Caleb, that ain’t no lady,” one of the boys protested. The others doubled over in amusement at the very thought. “That’s Ginny. Salt Fish Ginny!” Their laughter was joined by the discreet titters of the ladies and gentlemen still standing there.
Geneva wished the planks beneath her feet would widen enough to let her through so she could join her vegetables on the incoming tide. Of all the people to witness her disgraceful fall and hear that odious nickname, why did it have to be Cap’n Caleb?
“Young men—” the voice grew softer “—if I have to repeat my request, you’ll find yourselves floating alongside those lettuces down there.”
“Yessir,” the trio mumbled, shuffling forward.
“Wait,” he added. “Apologize to the lady first.”
Their eyes looked just about ready to pop out of their heads. Under other circumstances, Geneva would have laughed out loud at their amazement.
The boys bobbed their heads, each in turn. “Sorry, Ginny.” “Beg pardon, Ginny.” “No offense, Ginny.” Then, their natural exuberance restored, they bent to collect what remained on the dock. Geneva, stunned by what had just occurred, stood motionless. When she recovered from her surprise and moved to help, the captain’s grip tightened on her arm.
The boys finished quickly. Proudly, they handed her the two baskets, only half full now, the bruised and battered fruits and vegetables a jumble. Geneva took them without a word, anxious to be out of sight as quickly as possible. She’d forget her deliveries in the village today, and continue on up the coast, where no one would know of the incident.
But she wasn’t allowed such a quick retreat.
When everything was set to rights to his satisfaction, Captain Caleb turned to her and took off his cap. “Caleb Phelps, at your service, as you can see.”
He smiled, and the warmth of his smile gave her the sensation she was the only human being worth knowing on the face of the earth. Now she understood why everyone in the village thought so highly of him and had nothing but good to say about “Cap’n Caleb” whenever he came to port.
“Whom do I have the pleasure of assisting?”
He was asking her name! “Geneva Patterson,” she croaked, her throat so dry that she didn’t know how she managed the syllables.
By this time, a pretty young lady came to stand beside the captain, taking his arm as if it was her rightful place to do so.
He turned to her, his voice tender. “Arabella, may I present Miss Geneva Patterson? My fiancée, Miss Arabella Harding.”
The blond woman was dressed in a light blue suit that matched her eyes. “Pleased, I’m sure.” Her glance slid off Geneva before she turned her attention back to the captain. “Caleb, we must be on our way while the day is so pleasant.”
Geneva dodged aside before the captain could say anything more to her. But he reached out one last time, detaining her by holding the handle of one basket.
“I’d like to purchase these from you.”
Geneva stared down at the crushed raspberries staining the wilted radish tops and lettuce leaves.
“How much are the two baskets worth?” He was already reaching inside his jacket to pull out his wallet.
Geneva shook her head, horrified at the completion of her shame. She backed away, bumping against a piling just in time, before she toppled over the edge of the wharf like her produce.
“I don’t mean to offend you, Miss Patterson. I realize you won’t be able to deliver them wherever you had originally intended—”
“They’re not for sale. Thanks just the same, Cap’n.” She stumbled toward the ladder and, reaching it, scurried over the side, afraid the captain would insist further.
Geneva dropped the baskets into her boat, not caring what tumbled out now. When she climbed back up the catwalk to free her line, she saw the captain and his betrothed standing where she had left them, their backs to her.
Miss Harding’s cultivated tones reached her ears. “Caleb, sometimes your sense of chivalry goes too far. What possessed you to aid that creature? I could hardly distinguish whether it was a man or woman. She looked perfectly capable of picking up that dirty rubbish herself.” Miss Harding’s back shuddered.
Geneva watched the impeccably dressed young lady clutch the captain’s arm more closely as she propelled him back toward their friends. Miss Harding’s soft laughter floated to her. “That poor thing. She’ll probably dream of your attentions for weeks.”
Geneva didn’t wait to hear the captain’s reply, but slipped back down the catwalk, unable to bear it if she heard an answering chuckle. She jumped into the boat. Unmindful of its rocking, she set the oars in the pins, pushing one against a barnacle-encrusted piling to shove herself out into the harbor as quickly as possible.
The memory of Miss Harding’s words burned on Geneva’s heart like lye as she recognized the prophetic truth of them.
Chapter One
Haven’s End, June 1873
The door to Mr. Watson’s general store banged shut behind Geneva. She paused a few seconds at the door to give herself time to adjust to the dim light. The sweeter smells of spices, tobacco and new leather mingled with the more pungent odors of pickling barrels, hard cheeses and salted fish.
Three women leaned over one end of the long counter that ran the width of the store, examining lengths of ribbon and lace. At the sight of Geneva, they drew in their ranks, as if afraid of contagion in such close quarters. Used to such a reaction to her presence, Geneva ignored them and strode to the opposite end of the counter. She would state her business and leave as quickly as she had come.
Leaning her hands against the counter, she drummed her fingers lightly against the scarred, wooden surface.
“What can I do for you, Geneva?” Mr. Watson approached her with a smile.
Geneva didn’t smile back, lest she give the storekeeper any encouragement. Suspicious of the teasing look in his eyes, she deemed it best to keep him at a distance.
“I’ll take two dozen long nails.”
Mr. Watson slapped the counter with his palms. “Two dozen nails it’ll be.”
When he turned his back to her to rummage in the keg, Geneva could hear Mrs. Bidwell’s voice at the other end of the store.
“I hear tell he begged and pleaded with his intended to forgive him.”
Geneva glanced toward the speaker, whose bonnet nodded up and down, giving the impression she had been in the very room at the time, an eyewitness to the scene she was describing. Her listeners seemed to think so, too, the way they drank in her words.
“Poor Miss Arabella Harding must have been brokenhearted.” Young Annie Chase, who was engaged to one of Mrs. Bidwell’s boys, expressed this opinion. “Such a pretty woman. So ladylike.”
At the name, Geneva’s fingers stopped their drumbeat against the countertop. She’d never forget that name. Nor the way Captain Caleb had looked at its owner when he’d introduced her, as if she were an angel.
Annie was soft-spoken, and everything she said came out sounding tenderhearted. “I don’t know what I’d do if my Amos ever did anything dishonest like Captain Caleb.” She hugged herself. “But Amos would never dishonor his family name in such a despicable manner.”
“Of course not! Amos would never do any such thing,” his mother answered, aghast at the mere notion. “He hasn’t been brought up that way.”
Geneva could feel every fiber in her body poised to attack. What gave these biddies the right to pass judgment on Captain Caleb? She bit her lip, holding in her anger, when Mr. Watson set the nails down in front of her.
“These long enough?”
She glared at him, as if he, too, were guilty of blaspheming her sacred memory of the captain.
“Anything else?”
She shook her head, her reasons for being in his store pushed aside by the more pressing matter of Captain Caleb’s reputation.
“How could anybody be so foolish?” Mrs. Bidwell’s voice carried the clearest. Geneva knew she prided herself on her opinions, and she gave full voice to them now. “Embezzling company money! Didn’t he think he was going to get caught? He was Phelps’ heir. Had everything he could wish for. If anyone was ever born with a silver spoon in his mouth, it was Caleb Phelps III. To go and steal from his own father! Why, it’s wicked!”
The thudding between Geneva’s temples drowned out their voices. She was sick and tired of hearing the captain gossiped about. It seemed she couldn’t come into the village anymore without hearing the accusations hashed and rehashed. Didn’t people have anything else to talk about?
“He had to pay for that big, fancy cottage on the Point,” Mrs. Webb reminded the others. “The old farmhouse wasn’t good enough for him. Oh, no. He had to tear that down. He probably ran short of money to pay for it all.”
Mr. Watson looked toward the women and gave a chuckle. “I hear Phelps Senior’s a mite close to the bark. I figure he kept young Phelps on a tight leash with his salary. The young captain probably got impatient, wantin’ to give that pretty Miss Harding all that money can buy. After all, he had to fight off her other suitors. She was the belle of Boston, I hear.”
Geneva told herself to turn around and march out of the store, but her feet seemed stuck to the floor with spruce gum.
Mrs. Webb tapped the counter with a large knuckled forefinger. “That doesn’t excuse what he did. If he was short on money, he should have gone straight to his father. What did he do with all the money he earned as a captain? Look at our own captains—they live well on their shares the rest of their lives.”
Mrs. Bidwell sniffed. “They don’t squander their wealth on extravagant living. I saw the wagon-loads on their way to the Point to build that grand summer cottage of his. Cap’n Caleb only bought the best for his place. No hand-split shakes for his roof. Only slate all the way from Wales. And the glass! Enough panes you’d think he was going to live in a greenhouse. Mahogany shipped in from Santo Domingo. And that’s not sayin’ a thing about his residence in Boston. He overreached himself, all right!”
“I hear he up and left everything in Boston.” Mrs. Webb snapped her fingers. “Just like that. If anything’s proof of guilt, it’s running. Now he’s buried himself up in that mausoleum. Thinkin’ he can hide himself here.” She sniffed. “We’re honest, God-fearing folk. He’ll find that out in short order.”
Mr. Watson nodded. “What I always say is, money’s the root of all evil.” He wrapped up the nails in brown paper. “That’ll be twelve cents,” he told Geneva, then turned back to the ladies. “You know how rich folks think they can be above the law, but things have a way of catchin’ up with ’em.” He gave a final nod of emphasis.
Geneva slapped her coins onto the counter. Mrs. Bidwell opened her mouth to speak. Before she could draw breath, Geneva turned to the three women, hands on her hips, her back straight, her eyes narrowed.
“Poor folks seem to think they’re above mindin’ their own business. Guess they’ve never heard gossipin’s a sin just like stealin’. Nor ’bout hittin’ a man when he’s down, even though he’s never done nothing to them. I seem to recall just a while back, nothing but praise for Cap’n Caleb. Now he’s tarred and feathered with your tongues when no one knows what really went on down there in Boston. Why, he’s never treated any one of us but kindly and fairly, even some that don’t deserve it!”
She glared at each one in turn. They stared at her, their jaws slack. These women probably hadn’t ever heard her say so much all of a piece. Deciding the sooner she was away from these old harpies the better, she turned back to Mr. Watson.
Stifling the urge to tell him to wipe the smirk off his face, she picked up the parcel of nails. “Good day to you!”
She shoved away from the counter. It was then she noticed the silence. Not one of the women had said a word, not even the outspoken Mrs. Bidwell. In fact, they weren’t even looking at her. Everyone was staring at the door.
Slowly Geneva turned. There, his dark form silhouetted against the sunshine of the open doorway, stood Caleb Phelps. She couldn’t make out his features, but she could feel his gaze on her, as intense as it had been that day last summer.
Hugging the parcel to her chest as if it might conceal the workings of her heart, Geneva took a step forward, then another. The pounding of her heart was so loud, he must surely see the bib of her overalls flapping up and down clear across the store. She kept on marching until she reached the captain’s looming figure. She’d forgotten how tall he was, a good head above her, and she was as tall as several men of her acquaintance.
He moved aside just as she approached and tipped his hat to her as she passed. Touching her own hat briefly at the brim, she lunged through the doorway into the sunshine. She took the steps down two at a time, her boots clattering on the rickety wooden planks.
Why was it that every time she ran into the captain, she felt compelled to flee afterward, as if she were guilty of something?
Caleb Phelps turned toward the banging screen door, the only sound in the small village store. He watched the long strides of the overalled figure taking her rapidly away from the store and toward the wharf.
Only her voice gave her away as a woman.
In the couple of weeks he’d been back to Haven’s End, he’d felt a distinct chill every time he was in the presence of the villagers.
Funny how quickly bad news traveled. He had thought he’d become inured to suspicious looks—or worse, those self-righteous, smug expressions that said more clearly than words, Well, he got his just deserts! He’d certainly endured enough of them in Boston.
Somehow he’d thought this little village where he was scarcely known, but where he’d always had pleasant if superficial dealings with the residents, would welcome him differently.
The woman’s harsh words to the villagers rang in his ears. She’d expressed more clearly than he ever could exactly what he’d felt.
Strange, how belief in one’s integrity could come from the strangest quarters. What did she know of him or of events in Boston?
From her yard farther up the road from Ferguson Point, through the thin screen of hackmatack trees, Geneva watched her new neighbor with a frown. Ever since Captain Caleb had begun to turn the soil in a portion of his yard, she’d started to worry. When it became clear he was making a garden, her concern deepened. As she hoed her own young plants, she fretted that her neighbor wouldn’t have the same success, not knowing the land in these parts.
“If I was plantin’ a garden on the Point,” she told her black Labrador, Jake, “I’d make it on the other side. For one thing, it’d get sun there the whole day. I remember Pa telling me there used to be a chicken yard nearby, so the soil’ll be rich over yonder.”
She banged her buckets together. “Ain’t none o’ my business what he does. Even if nothin’ comes up, he won’t go hungry. Isn’t as if he depends on his garden to live, like most of us.”
But no matter how much she debated with Jake over the next few days, Geneva couldn’t help observing Captain Caleb each time she went outside. And the longer she watched him bent over his fork, the more she itched to offer her advice. He had helped her out of a mess once. She told herself she owed it to him.
Finally, making up her mind, she threw down the pump handle. “No, you stay here,” she told Jake. “Don’t need you scarin’ him before I can get a word out.” She wiped her hands down the sides of her trousers and headed for the dirt road. When she saw Jake at her heels, she stopped once again and shook a finger at him. “Now, do I have to chain you up, or are you going to obey?”
The dog whined, but after another stern look from Geneva, he stayed put. Her tone softened. “That’s a good fellow. I knew I could count on you.”
She walked down the sloping dirt road to the end of Ferguson Point, where a gate stood. The newly erected barrier, the lumber still raw and unpainted, matched the house beyond it. Together, house and gated fence stood out like intruders against the familiar landmarks of the Point. Geneva’s gaze swept the vista before her, never tiring of it. She’d always thought this the best location in all Haven’s End.
A large expanse of cleared land descended toward the sea. Below was a sheltered cove with dark, rocky cliffs curved around, protecting it from the open sea. Tall, ancient firs and spruce, their long, thin peaks looking black against the sky, grew down to the very edge of the cliffs, like multi-tiered sentinels standing guard against the sea.
Above the cove, where there had once been an old, abandoned house, now stood an imposing, new structure. Despite its freshness, there was something sad about it, Geneva thought as she observed the overgrown grass in the yard. It wouldn’t take long for the bright reddish-brown luster of the cedar shingles to take on the faded gray of her own shack. The curtainless windows stared back at her like empty eye sockets.
Shaking aside the morbid thought, Geneva opened the forbidding gate. Spying her target at the far side of the yard beyond the barn, she walked resolutely toward the new owner of Ferguson Point.
The captain squatted by the half-turned garden plot, a clod of dirt and grass held in one hand. He was studying this as if it held the answer to a mystery.
Already she regretted coming. What in the world was she going to say to him now? So she stood, not saying a word, until he raised his head. His initial glance was startled, but it quickly changed to one of suspicion.
He sat back on his heels, pushing his hat away from his eyes to observe her. The sun shone full on his face, and Geneva struggled to hide her shock. Was this the same gentleman who’d helped her last summer? It wasn’t just the absence of a smile, but the complete lack of welcome. His dark hair hung long and shaggy over his collar, his jaw shadowed with several days’ growth of beard. Sweat and dirt stained his shirt. Only the color of his eyes remained unchanged—the same hue of the ocean.
But now they were no longer crinkled at the corners with mirth, but narrowed in bitter distrust. They gave her no encouragement to proceed.
Well, she was in for it now. Best have her say and be done.
“Be lucky to get much of anything to grow here.” She kicked a clump of dirt with the toe of her boot.
After several seconds of silence in which Geneva wasn’t sure whether he was going to order her off his land or just plumb ignore her, he answered in a quiet voice, each word carefully modulated as if he was holding on to his patience with an effort. “Why is that?”
Geneva made an abrupt gesture with her hand. “Poor soil.” She jerked her head sideways. “Get half day’s shade from those trees.”
She watched him swallow as he digested her words. By the set of his unshaven jaw, she could tell he was having a hard time just being civil to her.
“Where do you propose I plant?”
She moved her chin forward. “Over yonder.”
The captain turned his head in the direction she indicated, his mouth a stern line.
“Why?”
“My pa used to tell o’ folks had a turnip patch there. Fine soil, full sun the whole day. Used to be a chicken yard right next to it. Lots o’ manure.” When he didn’t reply, she made another motion with her chin. “You’re late plantin’. Short growing season ’round here.”
He turned back to her, giving her a look that told her he welcomed her advice about as much as he would a skunk under a house.
“I’m certainly obliged to you for telling me at this late date that I should abandon one field for another that looks identical to it.” He threw aside the clump of turf he’d been holding and took a deep breath, as if continuing the conversation was an effort.
“I realize I’m nothing but a sailor who doesn’t know a spade from a hoe, but I didn’t have much choice about planting time.”
She’d been right—he didn’t know a thing about gardening. She kicked at the dirt again. “Awful shame. But ’twouldn’t take you long with two people. I’ve already planted my garden. Could come over here tomorrow morning and help you till up yonder.”
He let out a breath—whether in annoyance or amusement, she couldn’t tell. “Are you proposing to help me dig up a field of the toughest, most rock-ridden sod I’ve ever encountered in my life?”
She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “If we prepare the soil good, I can give you some o’ my seedlings. Have more’n I can use, anyway. That’ll make up for lost time.”
He paused as if considering. “That would be very generous of you.”
She hurried on, afraid he’d change his mind. “You can still plant carrots, taters, squash, beans, greens.” She nodded. “It’ll do you for the winter.”
“In that case, you’ll probably have to show me how to put them up as well,” he replied, the first hint of a twinkle beginning to thaw the chill in his eyes. Geneva felt something inside her begin to melt, too, and felt a profound relief that the man she remembered had not disappeared entirely.
A second later his eyes resumed their coldness. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready to plant.” He stood and, once again, she was conscious of his height.
He picked up a fork. “By the looks of it, I have a few days of hard labor ahead, so if you’ll excuse me…” Without waiting for her reply, he began to walk toward the field she’d indicated.
“I’ll come by tomorrow to help you with the tilling,” she muttered to his back.
He heard her and turned around. “I will not have a woman wielding a fork alongside of me.” He enunciated like a teacher to a stubborn pupil.
“Suit yourself. If you want to be a fool, ain’t no concern o’ mine.”
“No?” His voice reached her. “Seems to have concerned you the other day.”
So, he had heard. She could feel the blood heating her face up to the roots of her hair. She kicked at the tough grass. “Folks should mind their own business.”
“What they ought to do and what they do are frequently two different things.” He tipped his hat to her. “I want to thank you for your kind if unnecessary defense of me.”
Wrestling with something inside herself, Geneva gave an abrupt nod and turned to begin her trek back to the gate.
She’d spent too many years protecting her own hide to know how to reach out to anyone. The captain would have to learn to sink or swim on his own. She’d help him with his garden. That was all. She owed him that much.
Caleb sat on the veranda, staring out at the silvery sea, the hot coffee cup enveloped by his hands. He couldn’t see the horizon this morning. It was obscured by the milky white fog that lay offshore and high overhead.
The sun was already visible, its strong yellow orb promising to burn through the white film shrouding but not obliterating it. He listened to the movement of sea against rock, its sucking, rushing sound ceaseless.
He’d been listening to it off and on all night.
Finally the nausea he had felt since rising began to ebb. He took a cautious sip of coffee, feeling as if he were just finding his sea legs.
In truth, he knew his physical condition was the result of more than rising too early and sleeping too little over several days.
He ventured another sip of the scalding coffee, needing something—anything—to wash out the vile taste in his mouth.
Lost in thought again, the knock didn’t penetrate his consciousness the first time. It was only at the second knock that it intruded like something at the periphery of his vision gradually taking shape.
He got up slowly at the third knock, his head shifting like sand, his body weak and wobbly like one who hasn’t eaten in a few days.
Caleb walked back inside, following the echo of the now silent knock. His footsteps reverberated against the polished wood floor as he walked through the wide living room, into the dining room, and finally reached the kitchen. He approached the door leading out into the shed and opened it a crack.
The tall woman wearing men’s attire—denim overalls and a straw hat—was just turning to leave.
He opened the door wider. “Good morning,” he said, immediately clearing his throat as he heard the raspy sound of the syllables emanating from it.
She nodded by way of greeting. “Brought you some loam.”
He frowned. “Loom?” He repeated the word the way she’d pronounced it.
“Topsoil. And dry manure,” she added.
“Oh.” Was this supposed to mean something to him?
The way she waited, just staring at him, made him conscious of his appearance. His fingers touched the collar of his shirt, and he realized the top buttons were undone.
She shifted in her boots. “I’ll bring the seedlings ’round as soon as we work in the loam. Thought you’d want to get started early with the planting.”
He finally nodded in understanding, remembering her offer of seedlings. Somehow it had slipped his mind amidst the backbreaking labor of the last two days.
“And so I do.” He yawned. “Excuse me. I didn’t get to sleep until late.” When she said nothing, he asked, “What time is it anyway?”
He saw her blink at his question. She was younger than he’d imagined. In her men’s getup and her clipped sentences, she had seemed ageless to him.
Not waiting for her to answer, he pulled out his watch. “Eight o’clock. It feels more like daybreak.” He looked at her questioningly. “Don’t you have your own work to do? I don’t want to keep you from it.”
She shook her head. “Already weeded and watered this mornin’.”
He nodded. “Of course.” If her speech was anything to go by, she wasn’t a person to waste time. “I suppose if I am to accept your generous gift, I should at least know your name. You seem to know mine.”
All he understood of the mumbled words was “Neeva Patterson.”
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Patterson.” He took a last swallow of coffee. “Well, let’s be at it, then.”
He followed her out into the yard. The morning was still cool and he shivered slightly in his thin shirt. She marched ahead of him, straight toward the garden patch. Once there, she looked it over like a general reviewing his troops.
She turned to him. “What made you decide to turn your hand to gardening?”
“Sheer boredom.”
As if finding no response to that, she pointed to the wheelbarrow. “We’ve got to spread this over the garden and then use the fork to dig it in deep. I’ll empty it out and go bring some more. You’ll need to cover the garden good.”
As she reached for the handles of the barrow, Caleb came alive, realizing she’d meant what she’d said the other day about helping him. He got to the handles first and flipped the contraption over.
Then he turned toward the barn. “I’ll go get the shovel and fork,” he said over his shoulder.
It was after noon before Geneva judged the soil ready for planting. She stood back from where she had been working the manure into the soil with her fork. “Reckon we can rake it smooth now.”
The captain stopped his work at once, and she wondered whether he was as glad of the respite as she.
She hadn’t liked his pallor this morning. She’d kept telling herself it came only from lack of sleep, but being out in the sunshine hadn’t improved it. Now his paleness was overlaid with a sheen of perspiration.
The noonday sun burned down on their backs. They’d spent the morning carting manure and compost from her yard and forking it into his newly tilled garden. The captain hadn’t even stopped to drink a dipper of water. The back of his shirt was wet, and every so often he’d stop to swat at the blackflies that hovered around him in a cloud and remove his hat to wipe his brow with a handkerchief, or just straighten up, as if his back pained him.
He worked steadily, almost as if he was trying to prove something, but she couldn’t fathom what a gentleman like himself wanted to prove by bending over a garden patch.
Whatever the reason, she admired him for it. He had grit. Not like her pa, who’d bullied her ma all the time she was alive, but when she was gone, he’d just given up. Not all at once, but gradually, taking to the bottle until he was no longer fit to carry out the logging work that was his livelihood. One day they’d carried his body home after he’d slipped from a log into the rushing river on a spring log drive….
Geneva shook away the memories and sneaked another peek at the captain. She bit her lip to keep from voicing her concern. She’d had long years of practice keeping silent. The captain had made it clear this morning that he was not interested in chitchat.
Her own throat felt parched and her belly empty. She leaned against her rake. “I think we oughtta quit for dinner.” Before he could refuse, she added, “We can plant the seeds this afternoon, but it’s not a good idea to plant the seedlings in full sun. Best thing is to set them tomorrow morning, early.”
He considered a moment, looking over the neatly tilled plot. Finally he gave a short nod, and Geneva breathed her relief.
She gave a doubtful look at the seedlings. “I don’t like setting everything out all at once, but guess it can’t be helped, it being so late for your first planting.”
“What do you mean?”
“All your stem vegetables should be planted when there’s a moon, and all the root crops, ’cluding your taters, when it’s dark.”
He gave the little plants, which were already beginning to droop, an uninterested look. “I don’t think it’ll make much difference to these plants one way or another. They should be grateful just to be planted.” He gave one of the pots a kick.
Instead of showing outrage, Geneva smiled. The contrast between the sweat-stained man before her and the polished gentleman who’d helped her on the wharf was too great.
He caught her smiling at him and frowned. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.” She pinched her lips together. “I’m just glad those seedlings are hardy things.”
He looked at her for a second without reacting, then slowly he smiled. Her own lips relaxed in answer. Suddenly she felt like his partner in the garden.
“You’ve helped me more than I had any right to expect,” he said. “The least I can do is offer you some dinner.”
She stared at him, too startled by his invitation to answer.
“What’s the matter? Have I offended you?”
She shook her head. How could she explain it to him? To eat at someone’s table was truly to be accepted as his equal. He didn’t know what he was offering. Captain Caleb Phelps III, son of a Boston shipping magnate, dining with Salt Fish Ginny, pariah of Haven’s End? No, she’d spare him the humiliation. He was suffering enough at the hands of the villagers with his own troubles. She wouldn’t add to them.
With a heavy heart she said, “Much obliged, Cap’n, but I better be getting back. Got to feed Jake.”
“Jake?”
“My dog,” she added.
“Certainly. Well, perhaps another time.” He began picking up the tools, as if the invitation was already forgotten.
She hurried to help him, dumping the smaller items into the wheelbarrow. “I’ll just keep my things in your barn, if you don’t mind. That’ll save hauling everything back tomorrow.”
“You won’t need them yourself?”
She shook her head. “Not for a couple of days, anyhow.”
He pushed the wheelbarrow while she carried the long-handled implements toward the open barn door. He showed her a space inside where she could set the things, then went back to the garden for the remaining tools. Geneva took a turn about the barn while she waited for his return. She wanted to thank him again for the invitation.
She shook her head. No one in Haven’s End had ever invited her to eat. Even when her ma died, and then her pa, her nearest neighbor had brought a few covered dishes, but no one had invited her over.
They’d tried to force her to the Poor Farm when she’d been left with no living relatives, but she’d had none of that. She’d fended off the town do-gooders with the help of her pa’s rifle and hounds. Since then, she’d been pretty much left to herself.
Geneva kicked at the wisps of hay on the wooden floor, trying to understand how Captain Caleb could treat her the same as he would one of his own world.
She reached the doorway leading to the shed that connected the barn to the house. There in the dim corridor sat a wooden crate. Its yellow slats of new wood made it stand out.
Geneva stepped back when she saw what it contained.
The crate was filled with empty bottles, stacked every which way, right side up, upside down, sideways. The sickly sweet smell of liquor reached her nostrils. She knew that odor well. It had lingered for months in her own one-room house after her pa died. Geneva held her stomach, feeling as sick as if she’d drunk the contents herself.
Chapter Two
Caleb swung the scythe back and forth across the lawn at the side of the house. It had taken him the whole morning to learn to wield it properly, but now he began to see some progress on the grass that reached his knees and gave the house a derelict appearance. Just like its owner, his mind echoed. He glanced down at his work clothes—denim trousers and rough cotton shirt, its sleeves rolled up on his forearms, revealing the undervest beneath—what would his father say of him now?
Nothing that he hadn’t heard his whole life.
Caleb abandoned that line of thought and concentrated on his strokes. He hadn’t had such a workout since he’d climbed the ratlines of a ship. He turned to look with pleasure at the swath behind him, ignoring for the moment the much larger portion that remained to be cut.
Just then, he saw his neighbor coming down the road toward his property. Caleb wiped his brow with his bandanna, wondering what the strange Miss Patterson was coming to see him about now. He hadn’t spoken to her in over a week. Occasionally he’d glimpsed her at her tasks, up beyond the field and trees that separated their two properties or out on her boat, but she’d made no more silent ventures into his territory since the day she’d helped him prepare the soil for planting.
The two of them had worked hard that day. Caleb chuckled, remembering how he’d felt when she first appeared at his door. He’d about forgotten her promise of seedlings.
Working in a field in the full sun was not a remedy he’d recommend to anyone after the amount of alcohol he’d consumed the evening before. But he didn’t let on about his physical condition, though he suspected her sharp black eyes didn’t miss much.
He watched his neighbor open his gate now and wondered what sage advice Miss Patterson was going to offer him on this occasion. At least he knew her name properly. He’d found out the last time he’d been to the village.
She was making her way toward him with her purposeful stride. Did she ever wander aimlessly?
She’d probably take one look at his garden and make a dour prophecy of doom. At least the seedlings had survived his inexperienced planting; several rows of seeds and the quartered potatoes with their eyes had sprouted as well. Except for that one row of beans, everything had looked promising to him this morning. Now he wasn’t so sure. His plants began to take on a thin and sparse appearance as he tried to picture them through Miss Patterson’s experienced eyes.
“Morning.” She wasted no excess words in greeting.
Caleb leaned against the scythe and touched his hand to his hat brim. “Good morning to you, Miss Patterson.” She gave him a sharp glance, as if his words held some double meaning. He returned her look blandly. “What can I do for you?”
“Came to see how the seedlings were doing.”
“Just getting around to worrying about their fate?”
She flushed at that and looked away from him. “I been busy. Couldn’t make it back the other day.”
“You were under no obligation. I am grateful enough for all your help.”
“Still, it wasn’t right. I should’a finished what I begun.”
“Shall we have a look?” He invited her to go before him with a gesture of his hand.
Giving an abrupt nod, she turned and led the way to his garden, saying along the way, “You can set out seeds every week for another couple o’ weeks. That’ll give you crops right through the summer and into the first frost.”
When she got to the plot, she walked the length of it, silently inspecting the inch-high rows of peas, the tiny pairs of leaves on the sprouted radish and beet seeds, the feathery carrot tops, the pale gray-green of the cabbage and turnip sprouts. She nodded at the taller seedlings she’d given him to transplant from her own supply, which showed a few new leaves. Caleb hadn’t felt so nervous since holding out his slate for his tutor’s scrutiny.
“You water ’em when they’re dry?”
“Yes, miss.”
She gave him another glance, then bent down to pull out a thin weed Caleb could have sworn hadn’t been there that morning. “Hoe around the bigger plants after it rains?”
“I will now.”
Then she came to the pole beans. She squatted down beside them and took one little stem between her thumb and forefinger. It was thick and green, but where its two first leaves should have been was a shriveled, brown stump. Before Caleb could offer any explanation, any denial that he’d treated these seeds with any less care than the others, she pronounced her verdict.
“Cutworms.”
The word conjured up an image of a pair of shears going through all his rows, hacking the tender plants to shreds.
“We’ll have to replant ’em. This time we’ll sprinkle some wood ashes all along the rows. If that don’t do it, I’ll mix up a mess of cornmeal and molasses. That should keep ’em off. Lucky they haven’t gotten to your other plants.” She stood once more, thrusting her hands into her back pockets. “Everything else is coming up fine. You did a good job planting,” she acknowledged.
She didn’t give him much chance to enjoy the sense of victory that filled him.
“If you notice anything else eating the leaves, let me know.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered automatically.
Again she narrowed her eyes at him, as if suspicious of his tone. When she didn’t say anything more, Caleb tried to think of something to add. For some reason, he didn’t want her to leave just yet. Up to now, he’d avoided all company.
But he was intrigued. Perhaps it was because she seemed as content to leave him alone as he was to be left alone. Or perhaps it was the fact that she’d defended him that day in the store.
He still wanted to know why.
When she started walking away from the garden patch, he spoke up. “I’m thinking of buying a boat. Know anything of Winslow’s Shipyard?”
She nodded. “Don’t think much of old man Winslow, but young Silas’ll build you a good craft. He’s got a gift.”
“A gift?”
“It’s in his hands.” She looked briefly down at her own dirt-stained ones. “Anything he builds is light, easy to handle, seaworthy. He won’t charge you much for a small vessel. What are you looking at?”
“Nothing too big. Something I can handle myself. I noticed your little craft. She serves you well. Where do you take her?”
He couldn’t tell whether she was pleased or not by the compliment. “Up and down the coast. She’s just a double-ender, but that’s all I need.” She nodded. “Silas built her for me. In his spare time.” She made a sound of disgust. “Winslow wouldn’t let him waste his time on a little peapod for the likes o’ me. Farmers usually build their own. Folks use ’em for fishing and some lobstering.”
“I’ll have to see him. I don’t believe I’ve ever met him, although Phelps Shipping has commissioned the Winslow Yard for schooners.”
“Silas has been with Winslow for a long time. Ever since he was a boy. Apprenticed with him. He isn’t from these parts. Comes from one of the islands—Swans or Frenchboro.”
Another pause. Silence filled the space between them like a physical presence. Caleb still didn’t want her to leave. Maybe it was just boredom. He felt as if he had all the time in the world on his hands.
“You wouldn’t have any extra seeds?” he asked on impulse.
“Seeds? Oh, sure, I’ll see what I have.”
“Mind if I come along?” Now, why had he said that?
But she just shrugged. “Suit yourself. I have a little bit o’ everything.”
Caleb walked beside her across the lawn, but as they neared the gate, he heard the sound of a wagon coming down the road toward them. He shaded his eyes against the sun, trying to see who would be coming out to the Point.
It was old Jim, the man who’d driven him out the first day, with another man beside him. Caleb felt his gut tighten as soon as he recognized Nate, his former first mate, now a captain on a Phelps bark.
What did Nate want? Was he bringing a message from Boston? Caleb steeled his features to betray nothing, but he couldn’t silence his heart as it began to hammer in anticipation.
He stood, bracing himself to face the man who was like a brother to him. The only one who’d believed in him throughout. If anyone knew him, it was Nate. If it hadn’t been for his friendship on Caleb’s first voyage, he didn’t think he would have survived the trip in the forecastle of one of his father’s square-riggers.
How would Caleb stand up to the coming encounter? Could he really convince his friend all was well with him at Haven’s End?
As the horse and wagon ambled slowly forward, Caleb glanced over at Miss Patterson. She stood, silently watching the two men, nodding a greeting to Jim when he drew up.
Nate thanked the driver and descended, retrieving his bag from the back.
Before Caleb had a chance to introduce her, Miss Patterson muttered, “Be seeing ya,” and walked off.
Caleb’s glance flickered briefly to her, but he made no move to stop her, his attention centered on Nate.
The two men stood watching the horse and driver depart. When they were alone, Caleb turned to Nate. “What are you doing here?”
Nate removed his blue cap and scratched his head. “I’m glad I wasn’t expecting a warm greeting, otherwise my feelings might be hurt.”
Caleb looked hard at his friend. “I thought I made it clear I didn’t want you or anyone else feeling obliged to come and check up on me.”
Nate ignored the remark. “How was your journey?” he asked himself, then answered, “The seas weren’t too rough.”
Caleb crossed his arms and remained silent.
“We had a good passage. Would you like to come in? Yes, thank you kindly, I’ve had a long journey. Can I get you some refreshment? Why, yes, if it wouldn’t presume on your hospitality.”
Caleb turned on his heel, ignoring Nate’s soliloquy, and walked toward the house, knowing his friend would follow.
Once inside, Caleb left Nate in the living room and went to the kitchen to fetch him something to drink. When he returned, Nate stood with his back toward him, admiring the view from the rear windows.
“I can see why you came here.” He turned around with a smile. “Ahh! Just the thing for a parched throat.” He smacked his lips after the first long sip of the cold tea. “Wonderful.” He looked around. “Would you like to have a seat? Why, thank you.” Seeing only the one armchair in the room, he raised an eyebrow. Caleb fetched a straight-backed, wooden kitchen chair and gestured for Nate to take the armchair.
“Now, are you ready to tell me why you’ve come? Or do you need some food first?”
Nate smiled. “Perhaps a little later, if it’s not too much to ask.” He set his glass on the wooden crate beside the armchair. Then he looked straight at Caleb, his expression serious for the first time since he’d stepped down from the wagon. “Your father needs you.”
“Did he send you?” The words were out before Caleb could stop them.
“You know him better than that. He wouldn’t send for you even if he were gasping his last breath. That doesn’t change the truth. He needs you. The firm needs you. Not to mention countless others. Your mother, for one.”
When Caleb made no reply, Nate stood and raised his voice. “What is it going to take to get you back? This place is beautiful, I’ll grant you that,” he said, motioning toward the ocean view, “but what are you doing here? You don’t belong here. You belong in Boston, taking over the reins of a shipping empire, not in some tiny harbor hardly visible on a map.”
Caleb rubbed his hand against his jaw, holding his emotions in check. He’d made his decision and was not going to defend it to anyone. Not anymore. “If you don’t understand why I won’t go back, you who know me, then I can’t explain it to you.”
His friend continued in a more reasonable tone. “I know how these little villages work. The people living here don’t accept outsiders. Their families have been living here for centuries. It’s all right for summering, but to live here…You have everything waiting for you in Boston. You can’t just walk off and leave it all!”
The ship’s clock above the mantel ticked in the silence. “Are you finished?” Caleb asked, his calm tone belying his inward turmoil.
Nate scowled at him in outrage for a second. Then he grinned. “Yes, sir. Are you ready to talk?”
Caleb sighed. He’d been foolish to think he’d be able to draw a line between everything in his previous life and his reclusive existence now in Haven’s End. “None of what happened in Boston matters anymore.”
“In a pig’s eye.”
“Maybe,” Caleb conceded, “but I’m settled here now. Whatever goes on back in Boston is no concern of mine.”
“Your father is sorry for not trusting your word. He realizes he shouldn’t have condemned you out of hand on the basis of circumstantial evidence. But you know him. He’ll never be able to tell you that. But let him show you. He’ll never doubt your word, nor your loyalty, again.”
Why was it too little, too late? Caleb stood, unable to contain himself within the confines of a chair.
“It won’t work, running away.” Nate’s tone was soft, persuasive.
“It’s called renouncing,” Caleb said quietly.
“Is nothing I say going to make any difference?”
“No.” The one syllable conveyed finality. He had thought long and hard about his decision.
Nate took up his glass and tilted it, watching the circle of liquid around its edge. He met Caleb’s gaze over its rim. “I’m not giving up, you know.” Without allowing the other a chance to reply, he changed the subject as if he hadn’t just thrown down a serious challenge.
“So, what do you find to do in this place?” He looked around the sparsely furnished room and added, “What do you do when the fog rolls in?”
“I sleep.”
Nate threw back his head and laughed. He took another sip of his drink before placing it on the crate and rising to stroll the perimeters of the room. “Glad to see you didn’t renounce every last remnant of your past life,” he said, stopping by the sea chest and picking up the spyglass sitting atop it. He focused it out the window.
“At least you shall never be bored with this view before you. I envy you that.”
“How reassuring there’s something you find redeeming about my new home.”
Nate lifted his brow at the word home. He replaced the spyglass and continued his perusal of Caleb’s belongings, fingering sextant, chronometer, compass—those tools by which a captain located his position at sea.
At the bookcase he examined Caleb’s pitiful collection of books, which filled only half a shelf. Leafing through Becher’s Navigation, he said, “Arabella has set a date for her marriage.”
The news hit Caleb like an unexpected blow to the gut. His muscles hadn’t had a chance to tense and form a wall rigid enough to withstand the assault.
Well, it was done. He should have known it was coming. Now he could get on with his life, knowing this chapter was irrevocably closed. What life? a part of his mind countered, taunting him with the emptiness of his days.
As if in reply to a question, Nate continued. “August twenty-fifth. Three o’clock. At the Congregational Church. Reception to follow at the home of the bride’s parents.”
Once again, the only sound in the room was that of the clock. “There’s still time to do something about it. She continues in ignorance of Ellery’s role.”
Caleb turned to look beyond his back lawn, beyond the cove, to the sea. Cloud cover gave the ocean a silvery green appearance. A small whitecap here and there signaled the stiff breeze blowing in from the Atlantic. A few islands lay directly in front of his cove, outcroppings of rock more than real landmasses. The larger one was flat, like an old man lying half submerged by water.
He watched a wave curl against one side of its forbidding gray rock, then slip back down into the ocean in defeat. His soul felt like that rock. Assaulted. Barren. Alone.
Knowing Nate waited for him to say something, he asked, “Why shouldn’t Arabella continue in ignorance about Ellery? What went on in the firm has nothing to do with her.”
Nate slammed the heavy tome shut and turned to Caleb. “Nothing to do with her that the man she’s planning to marry is the man who did everything in his power to make you look guilty? Nothing to do with her that the man who could have cleared you with one word was silent throughout the whole ordeal? And that you’ve done nothing to make her see the truth? Caleb, why do you insist on continuing the martyrdom? Wasn’t it bad enough when you had no choice? Now you’ve got your father behind you.”
Caleb tightened his hands into fists against the windowsill. Hadn’t he had the same discussions in his head over and over?
“Arabella made her decision.”
“She made a mistake.” Nate’s voice softened. “We all make mistakes. Is that a reason for condemning her to a lifetime shackled to a weak, envious, backstabbing—”
Caleb turned toward the room once more.
“You forget, Ellery is my cousin.” When Nate made a sound of disagreement, Caleb held up a hand. “I made the decision to leave.” He looked steadily at Nate, reminding him of his promise not to interfere. “My decision was final. What Ellery chooses to tell Arabella, or anyone else, is no longer my concern. It’s not the reason I left Boston. You and I both know why I did that.”
Nate replaced the book on the shelf. The care he took in putting it back exactly where he’d taken it told Caleb that his friend was using the time to compose himself. When he faced Caleb once again, his tone was calm.
“You’re still letting your father rule you. Even way up here, where you can’t see him or hear him, he continues to be a tyrant over you. I just wonder how long it’s going to take you to figure that out.”
Caleb awoke and looked up at the whitewashed ceiling, orienting himself. His mind was permeated with a feeling of anticipation, and he had to think a minute, wondering at its origin.
Nate had stayed until the day before, when he’d left on a schooner to Eastport, where he’d catch the overnight steamer to Boston. Caleb spent the two days of his visit showing him around. They had hiked and explored the coastline the same way they’d done as young sailors exploring the various ports of call.
Caleb stretched, reaching his arms up behind him, wondering at the sense of purpose he’d awakened with. He lay back on his pillow, the sunlight streaming in through the bare panes, until it came to him. The seeds!
Like an interrupted conversation that needed to be picked up where it had broken off, Caleb felt the need to follow through on his last encounter with Miss Patterson. She’d offered him seeds, and he was going to see about getting them.
Caleb threw back his sheet and blanket and jumped up from his bed, glad he no longer had to pretend that everything was all right, or weigh each word to make sure his faithful friend wouldn’t pounce on it, ready to use it as ammunition for Caleb’s return to Boston.
Glancing outside, he saw the sun shimmering off the blue Atlantic. Suddenly he felt a desire to plunge into it. He needed the cold, clear water to wash his mind of all the debate Nate’s visit had threatened to resurrect.
Grabbing a towel, he headed outside in his drawers and undervest across the remaining knee-high grass of his back lawn, down the rickety wooden stairs to the beach below. He flung the towel onto the round stones, stripped off the undervest, and began walking toward the surf. Immediately, he had to slacken his pace, his feet finding it hard going over the stones. They were as round and smooth as ostrich eggs, originally a slate hue but now bleached almost white by the sun.
When he first entered the water, the cold almost made him turn back, and as he went deeper, his ankles and feet grew numb. The rubbery rockweed covering the stones beneath the surf made walking precarious. When the water reached his thighs, Caleb braced himself for the impact and plunged in.
He swam straight out against the tide, then, turning, he veered to the side, swimming parallel to the shore, up and back, until his body recovered from the shock of the icy water and the exertion made him impervious to the cold.
He emerged from the water, feeling a release from the past. Thoughts of Arabella’s impending wedding could no longer threaten the equilibrium he’d achieved for himself.
Equilibrium? Since when? Certainly not since coming to Haven’s End, when he’d tried to drown his sorrows in drink. As he rubbed himself vigorously with the towel, he tried to pinpoint the moment he’d begun feeling a semblance of peace.
Since beginning the garden.
A gust of breeze raised the gooseflesh on his skin, so he turned his feet away from the cove and back toward the stairs.
After shaving and dressing, he headed up the road to his neighbor’s. She’d disappeared the day Nate had arrived, and Caleb hadn’t seen her since.
He proceeded in a leisurely way up the slope toward her place. A row of hackmatack trees, their sparse needle-clad branches interlocking, created a windbreak between his land and hers. A thicket of low-growing wild rosebushes clustered along the edge of the road, but they had not yet blossomed. The sound of the wind was constant, offering today a soft, steady sifting through the fir trees.
Miss Patterson’s front yard was edged by a crumbling stone wall, which was almost buried in wild rose and blackberry vines. Beyond this barrier, the yard was neat, the grass short and green, with a profusion of flowers blossoming around the well and at a window box. The house itself was a small, weathered shingle-box, surely not containing more than one room.
The first thing that greeted Caleb was the loud bark of a dog. As soon as he’d stepped onto the path of crushed, bleached white clamshells that led to the front door, his neighbor’s large, black dog bounded toward him. He was a black Labrador with enough other traits to deny any purity in his lineage. An old wound crumpled one ear, and an ugly pink scar disfigured the fur of one of its haunches.
Stopping a mere foot or so from Caleb, the dog kept up his barking. Caleb stood still, speaking to the dog in soft tones. Each time Caleb attempted to take a step forward, the dog dodged in front of him, his black eyes trained on Caleb.
Geneva walked around the side of the house, an empty pail swinging from each hand, heading toward the well. She stopped short at seeing Captain Caleb. What was he doing here? And Jake!
Recovering, she rushed toward the dog. “Down, Jake. That’s enough! I said hush!” When the dog continued barking and running back and forth, Geneva turned to Caleb. “Don’t pay him no mind. He won’t hurt you.”
The captain looked dubious. “Are you sure he knows that?”
“He just acts fierce. You won’t hurt the captain, will you, boy?” She bent over and rubbed Jake’s neck, seeking to ease the tension she felt in his muscles.
Caleb took a few cautious steps toward Jake and held out his hand for the dog’s inspection. “Your mistress is right. I won’t hurt you.” Jake would have none of it, but continued his incessant barking.
“He don’t take easily to strangers,” she explained, wanting so much for Jake to take to the captain. Her fingers continued running down the dog’s black hair in long, soothing strokes. “He had some bad times ’fore I got him, and he’s still not over them—are you, Jake?” She bent her head over her pet.
She could feel the captain watching the rhythm of her fingers down the dog’s haunches and she struggled to maintain their steadiness.
“Did his owner neglect him?” he asked gently.
Relieved that his focus was on the dog, she answered with a short laugh. “He probably wishes he had. No, his owner liked to take a stick to him and beat him ’til he could hardly stand.” She gave him a sharp look. “The man liked to drink.”
He didn’t react to her pointed reference, but said, “You ran off the other day.”
With a final pat, she straightened and picked up her buckets. “I didn’t ‘run off.’” She threw the words over her shoulder as she walked toward the well. “You had company. Figured the best thing I could do was stay out of your way.”
She set the pails down on the wet slats and began pumping the handle. When she’d filled each, she took them up and headed back around the house.
“Here, let me.” The captain reached her, ignoring Jake’s immediate menacing bark, to grab one of the pails.
Surprised at the gesture, she didn’t let go of the handle, but gave it a tug toward herself, sloshing water over the side of the rim. Jake immediately stood beside them, giving the captain a low-throated growl.
“Hush, Jake.” Geneva took the bucket from the captain’s loosened fingers. “Don’t worry, Cap’n, I got it. I’m just taking it to the garden. It hasn’t rained in a few days. Soil’s getting dry.” She heard the sentences coming out one atop the other in an effort to overcome her confusion at his gentlemanly gesture. Why did he treat her like a lady? Didn’t he see she was more like a man than a woman?
When she realized he hadn’t followed her, she had to swallow a sense of disappointment. She began watering her plants and was startled again at the sound of a whistle behind her.
The captain stood staring at her garden, a bucket in his hand. “Everything looks twice as high as in my garden.”
She shrugged, hiding her pleasure. “Yours will catch up.”
“Where do you want the water?” He held up the bucket.
She blinked. “You don’t have to help me with this.”
“You’ve helped me. And I’m sure to need your help again.”
For a moment she looked at him, then finally turned away. “Suit yourself.”
He took the bucket down another row of plants, watching and listening as she explained which way she watered what, taking care not to wet the leaves of some plants, not worrying about sloshing others, and crouching low to inspect the underside of a leaf here and there, looking for hungry caterpillars.
“By the way,” he said when they’d each emptied their last bucketful, “you said something about seeds the other day. Do you still have any to spare?”
“You still want ’em?” she asked doubtfully.
The captain nodded. “You told me to plant something every week, didn’t you?”
“Yep. I just figured since then—” She shook her head, falling silent.
“You figured what?”
She could feel a flush covering her cheeks. “Nothin’—you having company and all.”
“Nate? He just stayed three nights.”
She turned away, saying with a shrug, “Thought you’d be heading back to Boston by now.”
Leaving him, she headed toward the lean-to attached to her house. She unlatched the door and entered its shadowy interior. Firewood lined most of the walls, floor to ceiling. The air was redolent with the spicy scent of drying spruce and balsam. She turned to the shelf holding gardening implements and took down a jar. From it she extracted a folded paper. Inside it were minute specks. She refolded the paper and handed it to the captain, who had followed her into the shed.
“You can bring me back what you don’t use.”
He nodded absently and took the paper. “What did you mean—you thought I would be returning to Boston the first chance I got?”
She continued uncorking jars and extracting folded packets of paper. “It’s where you’re from. Didn’t think you’d stick it out here if you didn’t have to.”
The captain thrust out his hand to stop the motion of her hand on a jar. “I chose to come here. I didn’t have to. Do you understand the difference?”
She raised startled eyes to him. For a second their gazes met and held. The sunlight sliced through the open doorway, cutting a path across her face, leaving her feeling exposed, yet helpless to look away. His eyes traveled across her face, almost as if he were seeing her for the first time.
“I jus’ thought—I mean—I didn’t think anyone’d come here to live. Not from Boston, anyway. Ain’t none of my business, anyhow.”
His hand still held her wrist. She jerked it away, and he immediately let it go.
He looked at the seed papers in his other hand. “How do I tell what is what?”
Again he’d caught her off guard. “Uh, I jus’ know by looking at ’em.” She unfolded one and said, “This here’s lettuce. It’ll grow quick. You should get enough through the summer if you plant some now, and then again in a week or so.”
“I should write the names of each on the papers.”
She bit her lip. “Uh, sure. I don’t have a pencil with me.”
He took one from his breast pocket. “Here.”
She looked at the pencil distrustfully. “You write. I—I’ll tell you what they are.”
“Good enough.” He unfolded the first paper and showed her. Then he refolded it and wrote the name she gave him on the paper. They continued until they’d labeled all the packets, though she gave him only the seeds she thought he should plant.
When they finished, he thanked her and left. She watched him walk back down the path to the road. Shame engulfed her.
What a fool she felt, not even being able to do so simple a task as write down the names of the seeds.
Chapter Three
Caleb walked down the dirt road that descended into the village. He’d hiked the three miles into town from the Point, enjoying the droplets of mist on his face the entire way, and now his clothes and hair felt damp.
Gradually the number of white clapboard houses increased until he was in the center of town, which consisted of a post office, a small store, a newly opened hotel, and a few warehouses along the three piers jutting out into the harbor.
Caleb entered Mr. Watson’s store and carefully shut the door behind him. He was glad to be out of the fog. The woodstove radiated heat throughout the store’s interior. A group of men sat around it, their eyes turned to him.
He nodded to them before turning to the storekeeper. “Afternoon.”
“Afternoon, Captain,” Mr. Watson answered.
Caleb ventured in a few feet. One woman looked at him over some bolts of fabric spread out before her. He removed his hat, acknowledging her. With a quick little duck of her head, she turned her attention back to the calico prints.
The men leaning back in their chairs by the potbellied stove continued eyeing him with undisguised interest, their boots propped against the fender of the stove. Although none of the men said a word, their mouths weren’t still. Two moved in rhythm working over plugs of tobacco and the third sucked on the stem of a pipe.
Caleb gave his list to Mr. Watson.
“Good summah we’ve been havin’ up until today,” one man in bib overalls commented.
“Yup,” another answered, his plump fingers interlaced atop his stomach. “I seen summahs the sun didn’t come out atall.”
“Was gettin’ a bit dry for the plantin’, though,” Mr. Watson put in from across the room.
“I seen you got a garden started down at the Point.” One of the three by the stove turned his light blue eyes on Caleb. He stood out from the other two by his neater appearance. His red beard was trimmed and his hair slicked back. He wore a suit and string tie in contrast to the others’ overalls and open collars. “It’s been quite a few yeahs since anybody’s tried to grow anything up theah.”
Caleb nodded, wondering when anybody had been by his place to notice his garden.
“Didn’t evah get your house finished, did ya?” the red-bearded man asked when Caleb didn’t volunteer any more information.
“No.” Caleb moved to examine the fishhooks at one end of the store. “But it’s fine for myself.”
“Ain’t too lonely for ya, after Boston?” one of the men in overalls asked from around his pipe.
Caleb shook his head without offering any comment.
“You could always knock on your neighbah’s door if you’re hankerin’ aftah some company,” the man with plump fingers laced atop his belly suggested. He seemed the boldest of the three, if the angle of his tilted chair was any indication.
The other two chuckled. “Hankerin’ after a bullet in his chest, you mean,” Bib Overalls put in.
“’Less, o’course, she was particularly ornery that mornin’ and aimed lowah,” Red Beard added, punctuating his remark with a well-aimed stream of tobacco juice at the spittoon.
All three men, as well as Mr. Watson, laughed at the implication.
“First he’d have to get past Jake,” Bib Overalls warned.
“Ain’t as if no one around here hasn’t tried to get past ol’ Jake.” Plump Fingers angled a sly look at Red Beard. “Remembah the time Elijah tried to sneak into her shack after dark? Wasn’t long aftah her pa passed on.” The others nodded, chuckling at the story to come. “Came back out in short ordah, a hole shot clean through his straw hat. We ribbed him some about that hat.” Plump Fingers slapped his knee, and the others laughed at the memory.
“I think ol’ Elijah learned his lesson,” Red Beard said with a nod of his head, shifting the tobacco from one side of his mouth to the other.
“I’ll wager not everyone’s learned his lesson.” Plump Fingers lifted his sandy-haired fingers and stared at them, then looked across at Red Beard.
“I ain’t heard o’ no man who’s snuck past ol’ Jake at night, though it ain’t been for lack of wantin’,” Red Beard answered placidly, but with a gleam in his eyes that testified of his own desires in that direction.
“Gotta be careful o’ Ginny. Her ol’ man had a mean streak a mile wide and I think she inherited a good portion of it,” Mr. Watson explained to Caleb.
“She probably needs it, by the sounds of things,” Caleb said quietly, looking at the three men around the stove as he spoke.
All three chairs stopped rocking and hung tilted in midair as the men stared at Caleb. He could hear the murmur of the lady and Mr. Watson behind him die down.
Bib Overalls’ chair was the first to resume its rocking. “I think Genevar’s just waitin’ for someone who’s man enough to tame her,” he said, pointing his pipe first at Red Beard and then at Caleb. “What do you think, Cap’n?”
Red Beard’s smile had something nasty in it. “The cap’n has already lost one good woman. Just think, if he was to get turned down by Salt Fish Ginny, how’d he be able to lift his head up in public?” He slapped his knee and chortled. The other two men laughed more guardedly, awaiting Caleb’s reaction.
“It’s been my experience that the more a man boasts about his conquests, the less they exist in truth,” Caleb commented, leaning his back against the counter.
All the men except the red-bearded one laughed heartily.
When their laughter subsided, Mr. Watson smiled. “We’ve got some fresh eggs. Would you like me to add a dozen to your order?” he asked Caleb.
Caleb turned back toward the shopkeeper. “Half a dozen will do.”
“It’ll cost you more that way. Two bits a dozen, but fifteen cents for half.”
“I’ll take the half,” Caleb repeated.
When he faced the room at large again, he discovered the topic of Miss Patterson was by no means exhausted.
“You mustn’t blame Geneva for the way she’s turned out,” the woman from the other end of the counter piped up. “She used to be black and blue from the beatings her pa give her. It’s no wonder she’s unfriendly.”
Deciding he’d had enough village gossip, Caleb moved away, hoping that would end the subject. Looking at several stacks of denim overalls, he began to finger through them until his order was filled.
“Those are fine quality denim. Just the thing for gardenin’. Is there a particular size you’d like to look at?” Mr. Watson came to stand behind the stacks of trousers.
“Is my order ready?”
He watched the friendly expectancy on the shopkeeper’s face turn to surprise and end in frosty politeness. “Yes, of course. Is there anything else you be needin’ today?”
Caleb shook his head and walked back to the center counter.
“The way ol’ Jeb Patterson kept her out of school, it was disgraceful,” the woman said. “We tried to reason with him, but anytime anybody would come by, he’d wave that shotgun at us from the doorway, and all his hunting dogs would bark something ferocious. There was nothing to do but leave him to his own devices.”
Caleb watched Mr. Watson add the column of numbers on a piece of paper. He didn’t want to hear anything more about Geneva Patterson. The men’s conversation sickened him. He’d been curious about her. He’d realized the other day that she wasn’t as self-assured as she’d first appeared to him. She was also kinder-hearted than her gruff manner suggested. It was evident in her manner toward her dog.
He’d been intrigued about why she dressed like a man and hid any feminine charms she might possess. Now he understood why.
“And her mother, poor woman, Canuck—”
“Half-breed,” Bib Overalls put in. “Woman could barely speak English.”
Caleb ignored their talk. He paid his bill, aware of the silence that had returned to the store, knowing everyone was just waiting for him to leave so they could begin commenting on his past.
He put his hat back on at the door, tipping it to the general company. “Good day.” He heard the door bang behind him as he walked down the worn steps.
After he had arrived home and put everything away, he felt at loose ends. The fog had lifted but the day remained cool and overcast. Without a conscious decision, he found himself directing his feet back up the hill toward Miss Patterson’s. He’d seen her working in her front yard when he’d passed. He had no valid reason for visiting, but something drew him.
Jake started barking the moment Caleb came in sight. As he came up the path, the dog ran up and down alongside him.
“Hello, boy. Whatcha got there?” He examined the old buoy Jake had brought him.
Miss Patterson, her back toward him, was sawing a board on a sawhorse. Caleb went up to her and pushed her gently aside. “Here, let me do that for you.”
She jumped when she felt his touch. “Hey, what’re you doin’?” she demanded when his hand touched the handle of the saw.
“I can finish it for you.”
She scowled. “I can do it fine myself.”
“Give me that,” he insisted, trying to pry the handle away from her. Her fingers only tightened on the handle as she attempted to continue the sawing motion. They began a brief tug-of-war for the saw, but when Caleb realized how ludicrous it was, he let go and stepped back.
“Did anyone ever tell you you’re about as stubborn as a mule?”
“When they bother to talk to me, yes,” she answered shortly above the rasp of the saw.
At the words, Caleb felt a curious link with her. He knew how it felt to be singled out. He shook his head, never having imagined in Boston that one day he’d find something in common with a person such as Geneva Patterson. Taciturn, ornery, proud…
Caleb thought about what he’d heard at the store. He found it hard to fathom the men’s salacious gossip. If there was a spark of femininity in Miss Geneva Patterson, he couldn’t see it. He stepped back and watched her finish sawing the board. Without a word she carried it past him, to the front stoop, where she’d already pried off an old plank.
Carefully she placed the new board over the hole and lined it up with the rest of the steps. She took some nails from a piece of paper and picked up a hammer from the grass. As usual she was wearing that beat-up old hat, so Caleb couldn’t see much of her profile. Her eyes were fine, really, not black as he’d supposed, but deep brown, as he’d seen the other day in the light, like polished mahogany, and fringed with inky black lashes. They were about the only feminine feature she possessed, besides the braid that fell down her back like a black rope.
She had on her habitual flannel shirt, buttoned to the very top. His gaze wandered farther down. The bib of her overalls curved over her bosom. The baggy pants didn’t reveal much of her legs; he imagined they must be long and slim, like her arms and fingers. He remembered her gentle strokes over Jake’s fur.
The only woman he could really compare her to was Arabella, and the two were so different it hardly seemed a fair comparison. Caleb watched Miss Patterson’s long fingers position a nail and grip the hammer. Whack!
When she’d pounded in the first nail, she suddenly took off her hat and wiped her forehead with a sleeve. She didn’t put the hat back on, but proceeded to line up another nail on the board.
Her hair was pulled straight back into that one long, thick dark braid, giving credence to the gossip that her mother was a half-breed. She had high cheekbones, as well. But her looks were just as much Gallic—pale skin and dark hair and eyes—reminding him of the women he’d seen at the ports of Bordeaux and Marseilles.
The only thing relieving the sharpness of her features was the widow’s peak above her forehead. It occurred to Caleb that she used her entire mode of dress to hide behind. With those men hanging around like a pack of hungry wolves, she probably had no choice.
Caleb’s eyes narrowed as a memory teased the edges of his mind. Suddenly it came to him—a young woman tripping at the wharves, spilling all her vegetables, the last time he’d come to Haven’s End. On that occasion he’d played the gentleman, coming to her aid.
Before he could recollect further, Miss Patterson spoke without looking at him. “What’re you starin’ at?”
“Nothing. I’m just admiring your work.”
“If you’re so all fired to do some carpentry, why don’t you finish that mausoleum of yours?”
Her words brought him up short. “An apt description,” he said, glancing at the house he had planned with such enthusiasm. “Is that what they’re calling it around here?”
She didn’t look at him from where she was kneeling at the steps, but he could tell he had her attention. She took a nail out of her mouth, her eyes focused on some point on the steps, and replied in a mumble, as if she were ashamed to admit it. “I just heard the word used once. Folks were sayin’ as how you’ve buried yourself in the place.”
He said nothing, but watched her position the nail on the board. Above the intermittent whack of the hammer, he heard her words. “They say your lady—” bang! “—broke off the engagement.” Bang! “What’s the matter?” Bang! “She decide—” bang! “—she preferred someone else—” bang! “—after you run into your troubles in Boston?”
Silence.
To his own surprise he found himself answering as he watched her pick up another nail from the paper. “As a matter of fact, she did.”
He wasn’t sure if she could hear his quiet words, but her immediate reaction told him she had. She looked up at him, hammer and nail forgotten, her expression stunned as if that was the last thing she’d expected to hear.
“You’re serious.” Her words were as quietly spoken as his own. At his nod, she remained silent a moment, as if truly stumped for the first time.
Finally she just shook her head. “Don’t fret, Cap’n,” she said softly. “The woman’s clearly got no sense.” With those words she turned back to her work.
Caleb was amazed to feel no resentment at her tone of sympathy. In fact, he actually felt comforted. He didn’t have the foggiest idea how some rustic, uneducated woman’s simple words could reach him. Perhaps because for the first time in his life he felt someone’s complete acceptance of him. Even with his friend, Nate, Caleb had struggled to prove himself since the day they’d met. Caleb had been a lad of eight, and Nate, at thirteen, had appeared to him a hero. Caleb had been playing catch-up ever since.
But with the woman kneeling at the steps in front of him, there was no censure, no judgment, and no expectations he had to fill. It didn’t seem to matter to Miss Patterson what his background was, whether he was innocent or guilty of wrongdoing. She accepted him just as he presented himself. No past, no gossip, no stories that had reached her ears seemed to affect her opinion.
Caleb had never experienced this kind of acceptance, and he didn’t know quite what to make of it.
The next day Caleb was thinning his thriving seedlings when he heard Jake’s bark. He turned, amazed to see the dog bounding across his yard making straight for him. The bark sounded exuberant, and Caleb sat back, curious to see what his neighbor and her dog were coming for. Geneva walked more slowly behind her pet, slower than Caleb had ever seen her walk. She always seemed so purposeful, and today, he’d venture to say, she approached hesitantly.
Caleb had begun calling her Geneva to himself. He liked the sound of it. It suited her.
Jake ran around Caleb, and Caleb turned, afraid the dog would step on his new plants, but Jake didn’t even touch the edge of the soil. Caleb glanced up at his mistress, realizing, despite appearances, how well trained the dog must be.
Geneva was carrying a basket in one hand. When she stopped, still a little distance from him, Caleb pushed his hat back. “Good morning. Come to inspect your little ones?”
She looked surprised at his remark. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He made a motion with his head toward the row of plants. “You’ve got a stake in these crops. I expect you want to see how they’re doing.”
She flushed. “’Course not. They’re yours.”
After a short silence, he said, “I wish there was something I could do for you in return. You’ve helped me immeasurably. If you hadn’t come over that first day, I’d have nothing but a big weed field by now and a sore back.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t do nothin’ special.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” he answered. Their gazes met, and he realized she was the only villager who hadn’t once looked at him as if he were guilty. “Thank you.”
She gripped the handle of her basket with her two hands, clearly uncomfortable with his gratitude. He knew he’d offend her if he offered her money in payment for her help. “What have you got there?” he asked to distract her.
“This?” She looked down at the basket before holding it out to him. “Brought you some strawberries. They’re wild, my crop’s not ripe yet. But these are better anyway. Sweeter.”
To ease her obvious embarrassment, Caleb stood and took the basket from her. Inside, nestled in some hay, sat a dish full of the reddest, tiniest strawberries he’d ever seen. He popped one into his mouth, smiling at the burst of sweetness and juice. “These are good. Where did you pick them?”
She motioned off to a field up the road. “Up there by the edge of the woods. I’ll show you, if you like.”
“They probably make good jam,” he added, still hoping to put her at ease.
She nodded and looked toward the ocean. “I just picked ’em this morning. Thought I’d bring you some.”
Caleb’s eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion. “You wouldn’t be taking pity on me now, would you, after what I told you yesterday?”
Her reddened cheeks made her look so guilty, Caleb felt sorry immediately. Clearly she wasn’t used to offering a person comfort.
Her denial came swiftly, cutting off any chance Caleb had of making amends. “Ain’t none of my business why you’re here or what your lady done to you.” She stuck her hands in her back pockets and looked down at the toes of her boots.
“Forget about all that. It doesn’t matter anymore anyway.” Caleb set the basket down on the ground, then straightened, rubbing his two hands together, deciding it was better for both of them if he changed the subject. “I’d like to repay you for all the help you’ve given me with the planting. You seem bound and determined not to let me help you with any physical labor. Isn’t there anything I can do for you, in return for all you’ve done for me?” He laughed ruefully and gestured toward the basket. “Including these beautiful berries you picked for my breakfast?”
“You don’t have to do nothing for me.”
“I know that. But neither do I want to be in your debt. I’ll never feel I can ask you another favor, not even to show me exactly where you picked these berries—”
“You could teach me to read,” she blurted out before he could finish persuading her.
“What?” She’d said it so fast, he wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.
She continued looking stubbornly at her feet. “You heard me.”
Caleb hid his surprise and said in a neutral voice, “I thought I heard you say I could teach you to read.”
“That’s right.” She began tapping one foot, as if at any moment she’d be off.
“I’m not sure whether I could teach anyone to read or write,” he said carefully.
She finally looked at him, jutting out her chin. “What’s the matter? It’s not too difficult, is it?”
Her tone was belligerent, but that didn’t fool Caleb. He realized what treacherous ground he was treading on. “No, it’s not too difficult. It’s just that you have to be specially trained to teach someone to read.”
Her focus returned to her feet. The toe of the boot that had been tapping now began to dig into the dirt. “You think I’m too stupid to learn.”
Caleb held back a sigh. Whatever he said would probably be wrong. “I think you’re very intelligent.”
At that she looked at him.
“I’m the one who’s probably too stupid to teach you. It’s like planting. Did you think it would be so easy to teach an ignorant seaman to plant a garden?”
She considered, then shook her head. “But I did, didn’t I?”
Poor example, he said to himself. To her he said, “Yes, you did, and you did a fine job. Except for neglecting to warn me about those cutworms.” He let out a breath at seeing her reluctant smile, a smile that transformed her from dour farmer to fresh-faced lass.
Against his will, knowing it would probably end badly, he said with a sigh, “If you’re willing to risk it with me, I shall try to teach you. Only, I don’t guarantee anything. You must promise me that if I can’t teach you, it doesn’t mean you can’t learn, just that I’m not a very good teacher. Is that agreed?”
She nodded.
“I only have a few books and they wouldn’t be suitable—technical things on sailing.”
“That’s all right,” she interrupted. “I have a book.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“It was my ma’s.”
He wondered what kind of woman her mother had been. He’d heard about her father from the villagers, but he hadn’t heard much about the maternal influence in her life. Whatever it had been had made an impact, judging by the reverent tone of voice she used when she mentioned her mother’s book.
“Good enough,” he agreed. “It’s settled.” He held out his hand.
After a second’s hesitation, she brought forth her own hand. He felt the long, slim fingers wrap around the edge of his palm, and he remembered once again their soft touch upon her pet.
“Bring the book this afternoon and we’ll start with our first lesson.”
Geneva took the cloth off the rough-hewn chest and lifted the lid. The pungent smell of cedar brought back a sharp reminder of her mother. Geneva had knelt at her feet whenever her ma had opened the chest. Geneva’s pa had made the chest for his bride, and in it she’d kept the few items of her former life. Over the years, her mother had added the quilts she’d made. Geneva lifted those out first, remembering her mother’s hands as she’d sat in her rocker and sewed the squares together. Bits of pale yellow and lavender and moss green formed a pattern of flowers against a white muslin background.
Next came a couple of woolen sweaters her ma had knitted for herself and her husband. Geneva often wore them in winter now. There at the bottom of the chest lay her mother’s few personal possessions—some old dresses, the cloth worn thin from so many washings. Geneva had never been able to bring herself to cut them up for rags.
Geneva’s hand smoothed the brown wool skirt of her mother’s best dress, the dress she’d been married in. She and Pa had married in November. The sisters at the convent had made the dress for her. That was the last thing they’d given her before sending her back out into the world. They’d received her as a little girl, from her Indian father who’d just lost his white wife.
Geneva set the dress aside. Below it was a thick roll of fabric, which her mother had purchased for a new dress. She remembered her excitement as a little girl that last spring before her mother had become bedridden, as her mother told her she’d bought enough fabric to make a dress for the two of them for summer. She’d told Geneva they’d be like twins instead of mother and daughter. The fabric had remained in one piece and would probably stay that way until it began to crumble at the folds with decay.
Geneva pushed aside the fabric and uncovered the object she’d come to get. A soft, brown, suede-bound volume with gilt letters. Geneva opened the book upon her crossed legs. Neatly printed letters in black upon white. She could recognize most of the letters, but could make nothing of the groupings. She’d tried and tried over the years.
What had made her think that this time it would be any different? What had possessed her to ask the captain to teach her to read? She could feel the heat suffusing her face as she thought once again of her request. The captain had acted so cordial. He’d seemed practically like his old self, the man she remembered on the wharf, so genuinely interested in doing something for her. But to spill out her most shameful secret? What had possessed her?
Having already spent the day agonizing over her behavior that morning, Geneva gave herself a shake and replaced everything in the chest, except the book. She stood and straightened her shoulders. She’d already washed her hands and face and combed her hair and changed her shirt. There was nothing left but to face the situation head-on. She gripped the book and marched to the door.
The afternoon sun was still high in the sky, causing the ocean at the end of the Point to shimmer in a thousand brilliant lights. Geneva could list a dozen things she should be doing instead of whiling away the afternoon poring over a book.
Jake started to follow her. “No, boy. You’d best stay home,” she told him, giving her yard a look of longing. How much she’d give to take her foolish words back and spend the afternoon on her soil, with the things she knew. “Your mistress has got to have all her wits about her this afternoon.”
Jake was no longer listening to her words. He turned his head away from her and began to bark. Geneva followed his gaze.
She stifled a sigh of annoyance at seeing her neighbor, Mrs. Stillman, bearing down her way, carrying a bundle wrapped in a dishcloth.
“Geneva!” Mrs. Stillman’s shrill voice reached her from the road.
Geneva sighed again and walked to meet the woman.
“Good afternoon.” Mrs. Stillman’s voice was breathless from her hike down the road.
“Afternoon.” Geneva remembered too late that she was still holding her mother’s book. She didn’t know whether to rest it on the stone wall in back of her, or just hang on to it, hoping it would go unnoticed. She decided the less movement she made with it, the better.
“You haven’t been by to collect any milk.” The farmer’s wife readjusted one of the pins in her abundant gray roll of hair. “I brought you some fresh butter. Sarah just churned it this morning.”
Sarah was Mrs. Stillman’s oldest daughter and Geneva’s age. Geneva had detested her since the two had walked to school together and Sarah had whispered things to her sisters, pointing and giggling at Geneva the whole way.
“Thank you,” Geneva mumbled, reaching out to take the proffered butter, laying the book on the stone wall in the process.
Mrs. Stillman smoothed her starched apron. “Is everything all right with you? You haven’t been by the farm.”
“Right as rain. Been busy with the garden is all.”
Mrs. Stillman nodded.
Geneva shifted the covered crock of butter from one hand to the other.
“Your new neighbor hasn’t been botherin’ you, has he?”
Geneva glanced at her. “Who?”
Mrs. Stillman’s glance strayed down the road to the Point. “The captain. I’ve seen you over there.”
Geneva started. “What’s wrong with giving him a hand?”
“Now, Geneva, I know you don’t like anyone interfering with what you do, and land sakes, you don’t live the kind of life I’d like to see any of my daughters live, but listen when I tell you, that man’s not someone you should get friendly with.”
Geneva straightened her shoulders. “There’s nothing wrong with Cap’n Caleb. He’s a decent, honorable gentleman.”
Mrs. Stillman’s lips tightened. “A woman’s got only one reputation and she’d better do her best to keep it spotless.”
“I ain’t doin’ nothin’ to be ashamed of. That’s more’n I can say for the rest of Haven’s End.”
“Don’t get your dander up. I’m not saying you are. But the less time you spend over there, the better.”
Geneva glared at her but decided she’d said enough.
When Mrs. Stillman saw that Geneva wasn’t going to say anything more, she sighed and smoothed down the front of her apron once more.
“Well, I’ve spoken my piece. I’ll leave the butter with you. You make sure you come by and get a pail of milk. Need to put some meat on your bones.” Her neighbor looked her critically up and down. She’d long ago stopped admonishing her to wear a dress, but never managed to hide her looks of disapproval.
“What’s that you got there?” Mrs. Stillman’s chin jutted toward the book perched on the flat stone.
“Just a book.”
She chuckled. “Where are you going with a book?” Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You aren’t going…to lend it to a neighbor?” Her gaze traveled down the road toward the captain’s house.
Geneva looked down at the broken clamshells at her feet, noticing how green and damp the grass was along the edges of her path.
“A young woman oughtn’t be visitin’ a man alone. It’s not proper.”
Geneva wished she could just walk off and leave her nosy neighbor, but she didn’t want to do anything to cause harm to the captain. People were condemning him enough as it was. She thought of the way he’d told her that Miss Harding had broken the engagement and gone with another man. He had stated it so simply, but Geneva had sensed the pain behind the admission.
The captain didn’t need her adding to his woes. He needed her protection from the villagers’ gossip.
She cleared her throat, looking Mrs. Stillman in the eye. “Cap’n Caleb hasn’t done nothin’ that wasn’t proper and decent. I just offered some help to start his garden. There hasn’t been any more to it than that.”
“Well, you take care, my dear. I know you have no one in the world to speak for you. I feel it’s my bounden duty to look after you as if you was my daughter.”
“Yes’m.” Geneva looked at the butter. “Well, I’d best get this out of the sun.” She gave her neighbor a final nod. “I’ll be seein’ ya. Thank you kindly for the butter.” She turned back toward her door, hoping that by the time she came out, Mrs. Stillman would be gone.
She could feel her neighbor’s gaze on her until she closed the door behind her. She waited, peering through her curtain until the older woman climbed back up the hill, before venturing out again.
Captain Caleb was nowhere to be seen outside his yard, so Geneva headed toward the kitchen door, forgetting about Mrs. Stillman as her thoughts turned to her impending reading lesson. Her heart began pounding with each step she took closer to the house.
She heard the captain’s voice immediately after her knock, bidding her come in. She turned the doorknob and entered his kitchen. It was a large room, larger than her entire house including the lean-to. Not as large as the big hotel kitchen down at the harbor, but larger than any other kitchen she’d seen.
“Come on in. I’m back here.”
Geneva followed the captain’s voice through a dining room and into a long, airy room at the back of the house. Her first impression was space. So much empty space. Space and light. The room had a clean, swept feeling. It contained very little furniture. The walls that faced the windows were lined with empty bookcases. She ventured farther along the shiny wooden floors. Two framed pictures hung one atop the other on one wall. Square-rigged ships. She wondered whether they were from his father’s line.
The focal point was the windows, a whole row of them overlooking the sea. It was exactly what she’d imagined it would look like, the view from a house right at the end of the Point.
“That’s the reason I bought this piece of land.”
Geneva jumped at the sound of the captain’s voice behind her.
He came and stood beside her. “I took one look at the view from the old house that used to stand here, and knew this was where I wanted to build my home.”
Geneva just nodded, too awed by the fact that the captain’s thoughts and hers had coincided so perfectly. “It’s the most beautiful spot in Haven’s End.”
He glanced at her. “You’re just up the hill.”
“I look out onto the bay. I like it well enough. But this is the wide-open sea.”
He nodded in understanding. “I imagine the gales blow fierce in winter.”
“You keep a good fire goin’, you’ll be all right.”
He motioned to her book. “Shall we get started? Come, I’ve set up a table out here on the porch. As long as the weather is so nice, I thought we might as well be outside.” He led her through a glass-paned door to a veranda.
Geneva sat and looked from the captain, seating himself so close to her, to her mother’s book in her hands, and finally to the shimmering sea beyond the two of them. Mrs. Stillman, the rest of Haven’s End and Miss Harding were all somewhere far behind them. Only she and the captain existed in this world. Suddenly, she felt as if she were tasting a little bit of heaven.
The captain held out a hand. “May I?”
She nodded and handed him the book.
He laid it on the table and opened it. She saw him frown and began to worry that something was wrong.
He looked at her. “This is in French.”
She stared at him, her thoughts tumbling around, but all pointing in one direction: once again she’d failed.
When she didn’t speak, he asked her, “Do you understand what that means? It’s written in another language. It wouldn’t do you much good to learn to read in French.”
“It was my ma’s. She spoke the language.”
“Your mother was French?”
“Only half. But she was raised in a convent, in Québec. I reckon that’s all they spoke to her up there.”
The captain smiled at her. “You say it like a native. Did your mother teach you her native tongue?”
Geneva shook her head. “No. I heard her say a word now and then, but I didn’t understand it. Pa made her speak English whenever he was around.” She looked beyond him toward the sea. “I remember she’d call me chérie. And she gave me a long, funny-sounding name.”
“Your name is not Geneva?”
She shook her head. “Geneviève.” She pronounced it just the way she used to hear her mother say it, with the airy g sound and the last syllables all running together like a softly expelled breath. “Trouble was, Pa couldn’t say it right, and ended up deciding it should be plain old ‘Geneva,’ but Ma always said it the French way. Geneviève,” she repeated. She turned to see the captain looking at her in wonder. She felt the heat steal into her face. “What’s wrong with that?”
“You say your name exactly as a Frenchwoman would. Your accent is impeccable.”
Her chagrin turned into pleasure. But she just shrugged. “That’s about all I can say.”
The captain closed the book, resting his hand atop it. She remembered his hands, large and capable-looking, from the first time he’d touched her, back on the wharf. They were not so much the gentleman’s hands as they had appeared then, but still appealing, probably more so now that they were toughened by the soil.
“It’s a Bible, you know.”
She pulled her gaze away from his hands. “What? Oh.” She focused on her mother’s book again. “I should have figured. She was always reading it. Especially once she was bedridden.”
“Was she ill very long?”
“Just a year.”
“I’m sorry. How old were you when you lost her?”
Geneva shrugged. “Eight, nine, near as I can reckon.”
“You don’t remember exactly how old you were then?”
“Not exactly. Pa didn’t believe in celebrating things like birthdays.” She gave a bitter laugh. “If I could read, I’d know exactly how old I was. Ma wrote it all down here.” Geneva reached for the Bible, and Captain Caleb pushed it toward her. She opened it to one of the front pages where she knew her mother’s handwriting appeared. She flattened the pages and turned the book back toward the captain, beginning to feel the excitement of uncovering a long-held secret. He leaned over it, seeming as eager as she felt.
“Geneviève Samantha Patterson. Née 5 Mai, 1850.” He looked at her triumphantly.
“You speak French,” she said.
“Just what I learned in school.” He smiled at her. “You, Miss Patterson, were born on May fifth. You just turned twenty-three last month.”
She nodded slowly. “I knew it said five, but I wasn’t sure of the rest.”
“Now that we’ve solved that mystery, we still have the problem of how we’re going to find you something to read. Did you never have any schooling at all?”
“Just a couple of years. Then Ma got sick, and Pa took me out of school to tend to her.”
“You must have been rather young for such a burden.”
“She was no burden. I was glad to do it.” Geneva looked down at the painted wooden table. “Wish I coulda’ done more.”
The captain’s hand covered hers. For an instant she felt an overwhelming desire to turn her hand over and receive his comfort, but she held back. Life had taught her not to rely on anyone or anything.
So she pulled her hand away and clasped it rigidly on the tabletop with her other hand. “When’s this lesson going to begin?”
Captain Caleb withdrew his hand with a chuckle and sat back. He lifted a stone paperweight from the center of the table and removed a sheet of white paper from a small stack. “Let’s see what you remember from your school days.”
Chapter Four
Caleb looked at Geneva’s departing back as she climbed up the slope to her house. He didn’t know which of them felt the more exhausted, pupil or teacher. He tried to look on the bright side. At least she had mastered the alphabet back in school and could form the letters fairly well. She recognized several one-syllable words, though anything more complicated was beyond her. He felt sorry for her, seeing her struggle.
He felt almost as helpless, not sure how to approach teaching her. He tried to remember how he’d been taught in school. School! Like Geneva, he’d only had a couple of years of formal schooling before being yanked out and shipped off to sea. But at least his father had provided a tutor on those journeys. A man who was quick to rap an eight-year-old boy on the knuckles at the slightest sign of fidgeting. And who was fonder of sitting in the captain’s quarters over a glass of brandy than of overseeing a boy’s lessons.
He smiled, understanding the frustration Geneva tried to control but which was so evident each time she missed a word or copied his example incorrectly. It was going to be an uphill struggle—but worth it.
He could feel something stirring in him at the effort to help someone. She was obviously bright, but had suffered nothing but disadvantages since her youth. From the little she’d told him, he could form a vivid picture of the rest. A little girl struggling to nurse a dying woman, left at the mercy of a hard, unfeeling woodsman. No wonder she’d rejected Caleb’s offer of sympathy so emphatically. She probably didn’t know how to accept anyone’s helping hand.
After the lesson and once Geneva had disappeared over the ridge, Caleb watched a buggy come down the road. It held a lone woman, Maud Bradford. He felt mixed emotions at seeing another acquaintance from Boston.
He’d forgotten she summered at Haven’s End. She was an old friend of his mother’s. Part of him yearned for news from Boston, yearned to see a friendly face. But just as strongly, he wished to put everything from Boston behind him. He didn’t want to be reminded of all he’d left behind, to question his decision to leave. Still, he’d survived Nate’s visit. Surely, this would be easy in comparison.
The horse clip-clopped to his gate, and Caleb took his time walking toward it.
Mrs. Bradford waited patiently for him, her face wreathed in a smile as he approached. Despite her gray hair, her face was unlined and held a serene quality that Caleb found hard to resist.
“Hello, Caleb.”
He nodded to her and proceeded to open the gate. When the buggy pulled up at the house, Caleb helped Mrs. Bradford down from her seat.
She looked him up and down. “You’re looking well, Caleb. I must confess I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.”
It was impossible to feel any resentment toward this elegant lady who was his mother’s age, and whom he’d known since he was in short skirts. She’d always spoken her mind, but in such a simple, gentle way that it was impossible to take offense.
“And I must confess,” he told her, “I’d forgotten you summered here in Haven’s End.”
She chuckled. “Am I welcome? I heard from Nate that you weren’t entertaining.”
Caleb smiled at the understatement. “You’re always welcome, as long as you don’t expect too much.”
She gave him a look of sympathetic understanding. “I won’t expect you to do or say anything you don’t feel inclined to.”
“Good. Now, can I invite you in for a cup of tea?”
“That sounds most welcome.”
They walked together into the house, and Caleb guided her toward the back. After he’d brewed a pot of tea, the two sat in two chairs overlooking the sea.
Mrs. Bradford sat back with a sigh of contentment. “I didn’t mean to put you to any trouble, my boy, but this tea is just the thing after my ride out here.” She stirred the spoon around in her cup.
“No trouble at all.” Caleb wanted to ask her about his mother, but held back, reluctant to bring up anything pertaining to Boston.
“Your place is lovely. Lovely, indeed.” She looked around with a smile, not appearing to notice the scant furnishings. She gestured toward the view outside. “The location is simply breathtaking.”
She took another sip of tea. When Caleb made no effort at small talk, she replaced her cup in its saucer. “I promised your mother I’d look in on you.”
He appreciated her directness. “How is she?”
“Don’t you know?” Her clear gray gaze made him feel uncomfortable.
“I haven’t received any news.”
“Nor have you sent her any.”
He rubbed his cheek. “I’ve tried to write on a few occasions. Truly. But the words don’t seem to come.”
She smiled sadly. “I understand. I think she does, too. That’s why she’s giving you time. And that’s why she sent me. I shall give her a full report. It will ease her burden. I’ll say I found you fit and in good spirits, living in a very salutary location.”
“Thank you. It will help knowing she’s not worrying.”
She lifted her eyebrows in a look that said more clearly than words that keeping his mother from worrying was another matter.
They continued drinking their tea. After a few moments, Mrs. Bradford spoke again. “Your father’s firm has issued a formal statement to the press that any allegations against you were completely unfounded. Investigations are continuing to uncover the real perpetrator.”
She looked down at her cup and saucer. “Details were very sketchy, however, to explain how there could ever have been a breath of suspicion surrounding your name. Errors in judgment…hasty accusations…”
Caleb sat still, not sure how the news affected him. So, his father had respected his wishes and not exposed his cousin’s part in the calumny against him. At least Caleb could be grateful for that.
The only thing he felt was the same hollowness he’d experienced from the moment his father had revealed how little he believed in Caleb’s integrity. “Errors in judgment…hasty accusations. How awkward for the firm.”
“It is unfortunate that your father’s formal statement only succeeds in raising more questions than it answers.”
Caleb leaned his head back against his chair. “People will say old man Phelps is covering up for his only son.”
“Oh, no. Surely not. And whatever you may think to the contrary, most people, after having had a chance to consider it well, don’t really think you had anything to do with any irregularities at the firm.”
Caleb raised an eyebrow. “No? I beg to differ. You weren’t the recipient of their looks.”
“Oh, I know it must have been dreadful for you.” She raised a finger to her mouth, touching her lip gingerly. “But don’t you think it made things worse by leaving Boston? Coming here might have helped you in many ways, but it gave the impression to people who don’t know you very well that you were…well, running away from something.”
“At the time, I no longer cared how my actions would be construed.”
“I know you suffered a terrible disappointment.”
Caleb didn’t know whether she was referring to the one with his father or the one with Arabella. Most likely the latter. For all her friendship with his mother, Mrs. Bradford didn’t know him very well. He hadn’t been around Boston for much of his youth, thanks to his father.
“You could return to Boston now, you know,” she continued calmly. “It might be a little difficult at first, but eventually you could pick up where you left off.”
“Pick up where I left off?” Caleb turned to the window, no longer wishing to discuss his life. “It’s beautiful here, isn’t it?”
Mrs. Bradford followed the change in subject without missing a stride. “Yes. That’s why I’ve been rusticating here every summer for the last twenty years. Phineas discovered it with me, although he wasn’t able to enjoy it long thereafter.”
“I’m sorry.” He’d hardly known her late husband.
“Don’t be. He’s in a better place. And I shall join him again someday soon.” She smiled as if in absolute tranquility at the inevitable eventualities of life.
Caleb had achieved no such equanimity as yet. He got up from his chair, suddenly restless.
As if sensing his change in mood, Mrs. Bradford set down her cup and saucer. “Who was that person walking up the road when I drove up? He seemed to be coming from here.”
Caleb turned back to his visitor in surprise. “That was my neighbor. Miss Patterson.”
“A woman?” Mrs. Bradford looked puzzled. “How strange. The way she was dressed…from a distance…that hat shading her features…” She shook her head with a chuckle. “You see a lot of odd characters in these parts. I should be used to that by now.” She tapped her finger against her lip. “Patterson…Patterson. That’s a common family name around here. Wait a minute. She isn’t Big Jeb Patterson’s little girl, is she? He was a woodsman who lived down this road.”
“Sounds like the one, from your description,” Caleb answered.
She shook her head. “My, my. I remember her as this quiet, shy little thing, always looking underfed, wearing faded calico dresses and going around with dirty, bare feet. What was she doing here?”
For some inexplicable reason, Caleb didn’t like the way the conversation was going. “She’s my neighbor. From time to time she’s offered me advice on my garden.” At the question in her eyes, he smiled. “I have to do something with my time, so I thought I’d try my hand at gardening. I enjoy it, actually.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Gardening can be soothing to the soul. How nice that your neighbor has proved helpful.”
It was on the tip of Caleb’s tongue to ask Mrs. Bradford’s advice about some primers for Geneva’s lessons, but he stopped himself before voicing the question.
Perhaps as a reaction against having undergone Mrs. Bradford’s gentle, yet discerning, probing of his own affairs, he felt suddenly protective of Geneva. Her secrets were her own, and he respected that.
He was also getting tired of hearing only negative things about Geneva every time her name came up. Mrs. Bradford’s recollection brought to mind a hungry, unwashed young waif.
He’d order the reading books through the company’s agent in New York, bypassing any questions that would come up through the shipping company’s Boston office. Yes, that was what he’d do.
Jake’s barking alerted Geneva before she heard the crunch of wheels or the clip-clop of hooves, telling her that Captain Caleb’s visitor was departing.
“Hush, Jake,” she said automatically, though she knew he wouldn’t be still until the buggy had passed. Geneva went on with her task, picking off the dead pansy and marigold heads from the flowers she had planted in her front yard. The sweet smell of pinks mingled with the pungent odor of the broken flowers in her hand.
When the sound of buggy wheels stopped and Jake stood stiff-legged by the road, barking for all he was worth, Geneva finally looked up.
She rose at the sight of the buggy at her entrance and dusted off her knees. The woman handling the reins was clearly a lady. Geneva went to Jake and took him by the collar. “Hush, boy. Sit.” Although he obeyed her, she could feel the tension in his body. He was itching to be up again. She soothed him with her hand, running it down his neck, while observing the elegant-looking lady in the buggy. Her dun-colored jacket and skirt were simple, almost mannish, yet they looked well tailored and did not detract from the lady’s femininity.
Geneva watched her loop the reins around the whipstock. When she stood to descend, Geneva stepped forward, holding out a hand to help her down. At the sight of her leaf-stained fingers, and the thought of what they would do to the woman’s hand, Geneva pulled them back.
But the woman held out her hand with a smile, and slowly Geneva reached out once again. The woman was as tall as she was. Geneva always felt awkward, dwarfing most of the women she talked to, yet this woman exuded elegance rather than ungainliness.
“You have a fine watchdog,” the lady said, eyeing Jake approvingly.
It was the first time anyone had ever given Jake a compliment. “Always raising a racket,” Geneva answered, “but he don’t mean no harm.”
“What pretty flowers you have growing,” the lady continued, smoothing down the lapels of her jacket.
“Just ordinary flowers.”
“They make a pretty effect, nonetheless. You have an eye for color.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” she mumbled.
The woman looked at her with frank curiosity. “You wouldn’t be Jeb Patterson’s daughter, would you?”
“Yes’m,” she answered in surprise, unable to imagine this lady acquainted with her father.
“He used to bring me some fine trout. I remember you as a young child.”
Geneva shook her head, still amazed. “Sorry, ma’am, I don’t recollect.”
“No, I don’t expect you do. My name is Maud Bradford. I’ve been coming up here for a good many years during the summer months. I have a house in the village, the yellow one up on a hill, up past the hotel.”
Geneva nodded. “I know it. If you ever be needin’ some fresh fruits or vegetables, I supply some of the summer folks with produce once a week.”
“That would be lovely. Come around anytime.” She looked back down the hill toward the Point. “I was just paying a call on your neighbor, Caleb Phelps. I’m an old friend of the family.”
Geneva looked at Mrs. Bradford, hoping she’d continue talking, yet afraid to make any comment lest the lady think her curiosity unseemly.
“He seems to be doing well here. He mentioned you had helped him with his garden.”
He had talked about her? To hide her surprise, Geneva shrugged. “I didn’t do nothin’ much. Guess he’d never done any gardenin’ before, and it’s not easy up here.”
“No, I imagine not. He appreciates your help.” Mrs. Bradford smiled. “I’m glad he’s found a good neighbor.”
Geneva returned the smile, feeling accepted by the lady as she never had by any of the village women. At the enormity of the thought, she stepped back. She must be imagining it! She shoved her soil-stained hands in her pockets and looked away.
Mrs. Bradford didn’t seem to notice the motion but continued speaking. “Growing up here, you’re no doubt well acquainted with the woods and trails, as well as the seashore?”
“A fair amount, I’d say.”
“I enjoy bird-watching. But as I’m growing older, my family back in Boston tend to worry, thinking of me out alone anywhere.” She smiled, her gray eyes crinkling at the corners. “It doesn’t matter how many times I tell them I’m not alone, that the good Lord is ever present.” She sighed. “At any rate, to ease their minds, I’ve decided to hire a companion, a guide of sorts. I suspect you’d be too occupied in summer to consider such a position?”
Geneva’s mind had ceased taking in much of the conversation. When she realized Mrs. Bradford was looking at her, expecting an answer, she could only say, “Beg pardon?”
“I said you were no doubt too busy to consider any sort of additional occupation during the summer months.”
“I fish during the summer months mainly, but I’m always lookin’ for ways to make a few dollars. The winters are mighty long, without much chance to earn anything.”
“Would you consider acting as a guide a few times a week, the weather permitting, for my expeditions?”
Geneva nodded, not quite certain to what she was committing herself.
“Good, then. Shall we say, a week from Thursday, in the morning, if the weather is clear?”
“I’ll be there next Thursday morning. I’ll come around to the harbor in my boat.”
“A boat? How lovely. Perhaps we could go for a sail around the coast. Maybe we’ll spot a few eagles?”
“Sure. I’ll take you to Seal Island and you can see the puffins nesting.”
The woman gave her such a gracious smile, Geneva couldn’t help smiling again in return.
“You have a lovely smile, my dear. I shall see you on Thursday.” Mrs. Bradford turned to climb back into the buggy. With a final wave, she was on her way. Geneva watched her until the buggy was out of sight, wondering at how much had occurred in the space of a few short minutes.
She patted Jake. “What do you make of all that, boy? Your mistress has gone and gotten herself a job without even trying.”
Geneva knocked on the captain’s door but received no response. He’d told her, after their first lesson, to come over after lunch the following afternoon, so she knew he expected her. Today, she’d brought Jake with her.
To keep him from pawing at the door, Geneva turned the knob and pushed it open. She’d just glance around in the kitchen, give a holler if necessary.
At the sight of the silent kitchen, she paused. Entering it without the captain present was like catching a glimpse of him without his being aware of it. Although her mind told her to retreat the way she’d come, a part of her heart urged her forward until she stood in the center of the room. His abode.
Everything looked bare and clean. A lone teacup and saucer stood on the counter by the soapstone sink. The curtainless window above it was a quarter of the way open and the sound of waves came up from beyond the backyard.
She wondered how the captain managed his meals on his own. She knew he had deliveries made from Mr. Watson’s store every few days. But how did a gentleman’s son survive all by himself? Although he called himself a sailor, she was certain he knew nothing about sea life below the rank of captain or first mate.
Geneva grabbed Jake’s collar in an effort to suppress the temptation of nosing around in the captain’s cupboards. She tore her gaze from the kitchen and headed toward the veranda.
“Cap’n Caleb?” she called out. “It’s me, Geneva.” When nothing but silence greeted her, she said, “Anybody home?” By then she was in the large living room. “Cap’n Caleb?”
Seeing the door onto the veranda ajar, she walked toward it. Jake broke away from her and reached it first, shoving the door open and bounding joyfully toward one end of the porch. Geneva was quickly after him. She saw the hammock and Captain Caleb lying in it, but wasn’t in time to reach Jake as he jumped up to it, barking, and set it to rocking violently.
“Hey! What—” The captain’s hands came up around Jake’s head. “Hey, boy, down.” Captain Caleb looked up at her as she reached the hammock.
“Jake! Down! What’s the matter with you? Get your paws off the cap’n.” She spoke to Jake more harshly than she had intended, trying to hide what she felt at seeing Captain Caleb lying there. It was clear he’d been sleeping.
This impression intensified when he smiled up at her. “It’s all right. He meant no harm. At least he’s warming to me.” He patted Jake’s head as he talked. Long, sun-browned fingers ran over Jake’s ears and down the sides of his neck, large palms cupped the sides of his head. “What are you doing here, boy?”
Geneva could feel the heat rise in her face as she observed the captain. Thick, wavy hair swept back untidily from his high forehead. His face, just wakened from sleep, had a freshness and an openness that she hadn’t seen since he’d come back to Haven’s End.
“Uh, I jus’ came in by the back. Shouldn’a brought him, I guess—I thought you’d behave yourself, Jake.” She fixed her eyes on her dog.
“No more scolding. There, that’s a good boy.” The captain continued talking to the dog, rubbing his head and neck all the while. “I’m glad your mistress thought fit to bring you. It gives us a chance to get acquainted.”
“Thought it was time, you know, for the lesson,” Geneva explained, shoving her hands into her back pockets.
The captain pulled out his watch. “So it is.” He smiled at her again, transfixing her. “I just lay down a minute after my lunch to watch the sea, and must have fallen asleep. Went to bed too late last night, I guess. Come on, get your dog off me, and help me up.”
Geneva swallowed and took hold of Jake’s collar, ordering him to sit. Not sure whether the captain had meant it seriously, she stuck out her hand. He grabbed it firmly and held out his other hand. Geneva offered hers more tentatively, but he clasped it readily. When both her hands were ensconced in his, she felt joined to him in a way more profound than the simple touch warranted.
She pulled him forward.
“Thanks.” Once he was standing, the captain held her hands an instant longer before letting go. Geneva stepped back to dispel the feeling of abandonment.
He ran his hands through his hair and then smoothed his shirt down. Geneva just stared. He was wearing a white cotton shirt with a barely visible, blue line threaded through it. Geneva thought she’d never seen any material so fine. His collar was open, revealing the brown skin of his neck.
Her own collar felt constricting. Giving herself a mental shake, she walked toward the worktable. Her hand trembled as it reached for a pencil. The captain seemed so at ease; clearly he had no idea what he did to her.
During the lesson Geneva felt more ignorant than she’d ever felt during her short time up the road at the schoolhouse. She couldn’t seem to make sense of anything this afternoon. She mixed b’s and d’s, m’s and n’s. She stumbled over words of more than three letters.
It was worse than when she’d had to trudge to school each morning, wearing the same dress, until Mrs. Stillman’s daughter, Sarah, started spreading the rumor that she had fleas. After that, no one wanted to sit with her.
She vowed never to set foot inside the schoolhouse again, but then Pa demanded to know why she was hanging around at home. When she told him she wasn’t going back, he hauled her up the road to the schoolhouse, vowing no offspring of his was going to grow up into a lazy, worthless, good-for-nothing.
By the time they entered the schoolroom, she was late, everyone else seated and quiet. All the children turned around, staring at her, then shifting their gazes to follow her father. His black hair and beard always spooked the little ones. The older ones said he’d probably been sired by one of the black bears he always hunted in the fall.
She’d hated her father for the shame he caused her, especially when he’d gone and pulled her out of school himself the following year.
Captain Caleb’s sigh jolted her back to the present. “Let’s try this word again. Ap—” he began sounding out for her.
“Ap,” she repeated, then struggled with the other letters his fingers had formed on the paper. Another p. “Puh,” she expelled the sound. That other letter, what was it? Two sticks. L. “Lll.” Then e. What did that sound like again? “Eee.” Now, to put it together. By this time she’d forgotten how the beginning sounded.
“That e is silent,” the captain corrected.
“Why’d they put it there, then?” she asked in annoyance. She looked at Jake sleeping so peacefully on the gray porch floor, his tail thumping every once in a while, while she was strung so tight she was afraid she’d spin around like a top if the captain so much as touched her. Why’d she ever get herself into this?
“I don’t know why it’s there. Usually if there’s an e at the end of a word, it’s silent. So, let’s begin at the beginning. A-P-L.” He said it more quickly, “Apl. What is it?”
“Apple!”
The captain sighed with relief. “Good. Maybe this will help to remind you of the sound.” He took the pencil and began drawing a little circle beside the word. When he added the stem on top, Geneva recognized it as an apple.
“An apple,” she guessed, looking in awe at the neat little picture.
He nodded, continuing to draw. “This should help you remember the a sound in apple. A makes a whole lot of other sounds, but we’ll worry about those later. There.” He put the pencil down and moved the paper toward her. She saw he’d added a little worm coming out of the apple. She looked up to find him grinning at her.
“I don’t know why you bother with me,” she said with a shake of her head. “If I haven’t learned this stuff by now, I don’t think I ever will.”
“Nonsense. People learn new languages every day, and it’s the same thing. It takes a lot of practice and patience. Now—” he took the paper back and began forming a new word “—B comes next. Ball, that’s easy to draw.”
Geneva watched his fingers curve around the pencil, and knew exactly why nothing would come to her that afternoon. She could think of nothing but him sitting there so close to her. Her gaze traveled up to his head bent over the paper. The dark hair glinted reddish gold in places.
She was going to have to stay up real late every night poring over those letters he was writing to make up for her wandering thoughts during lesson time.
As if reading her mind, he said, “I shall have to get you a slate so you can practice making these at home. Now this one’s easy.” He finished printing the letters and moved the paper toward her.
She stared at the letters, willing her mind to concentrate. “Kuh…Kuh,” she repeated. “Uh…rr…ll.” Then she tried putting the sounds together as the captain was teaching her. “K-uh-r-l. Cuhrl. Curl!” She looked at him in triumph, meeting the look of satisfaction in his eyes.
“Good.” He wrote another word. “This should be familiar.”
She looked at the three-letter word. “D-d…” She took a stab at the vowel, “aw…guh. Dawg. Dog!”
“All right. Let’s try something harder.” Again he took the paper back and bent over it.
That night she took out the list of words and copied them out on a separate sheet of paper by the glow of her kerosene lamp. She wrote each one and read it over and over until she knew it perfectly. As she sat on the edge of her bed in her nightgown, she took one last look at the paper, smiling at the captain’s pencil drawings. A curl of hair, a little dragon, its spiked tail curved upward, a flame coming out of its mouth. She traced the drawings with her fingertip. An oblong circle for an egg, a squatting frog. Silently she mouthed the words, vowing she’d master each lesson, if it meant receiving the smile of approval the captain had given her this afternoon.
Chapter Five
“Hello there, Geneva. You must be pleased about somepin’.”
Geneva jumped at the sound of Lucius Tucker’s low drawl. Her knife nearly sliced off her finger as it slid through a stalk of rhubarb. She scowled up at the red-bearded man, annoyed that he’d caught her kneeling.
Despite his new suit and starched shirt, something about Lucius Tucker reminded her of her father. Ever since he’d been appointed overseer of the poor at the last town meeting, he thought he was somebody.
She placed the stalk of rhubarb in the basket at her side but kept the open jackknife in her hand as she stood. Meeting him at eye level, she no longer felt at a disadvantage.
She’d been so wrapped up in thinking about the captain, she hadn’t heard Lucius approach. Where had Jake gone off to? She made out her dog’s bark off in the meadow, but didn’t take her gaze off Lucius.
She glared at him. “What do you want? I got work needs doing.”
Lucius just smiled and pushed back his hat. “Sure sounded pretty what you were hummin’.”
Her scowl deepened as she felt the heat rise up to the roots of her hair. She’d been humming to herself, anticipating the captain’s pleasure when he saw how well she’d learned her lessons over the past week. “Ain’t none o’ your business what I was doing.”
“You gotta learn to curb that tongue o’ yours.” He pushed his hat farther back on his head. “If I told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, I jus’ want to help you out.”
“You don’t have a charitable bone in your body, Lucius.”
“Now, there you go again, lettin’ that tongue o’ yours loose.”
Lucius eyed her up and down, his pale blue gaze coming to rest on her chest. “Look at you. Grubbin’ around in the dirt. Coverin’ yourself up so a body can’t hardly tell whether you’re a man or a woman. But ol’ Lucius can tell. You’re all woman, Geneva. It’s time you began showin’ off your assets ’stead o’ hiding behind those clothes o’ your pa’s.”
“You better watch your mouth,” she answered shortly, keeping her knife poised.
Lucius ignored it. “Look at you slavin’ away here. I been offering to take care of you since your poor pa passed away. He’d be grateful to me, I know, if he knew my intentions.”
“Your intentions! There’s nothing decent about your intentions.”
“Now, Ginny, just because I don’t offer you a wedding band don’t mean I wouldn’t if I could. You know how it is—”
“Quit your whinin’ around me. You got a wife and three kids. She’s doing her duty to you. I’m sick of your pestering me with your filthy offers. Callin’ yourself an upstanding member of the community.”
“I don’t call it filthy, offerin’ you a snug little cabin up on Whittier’s Lake. I’d come up to see you when I was huntin’. No one’d know a thing.”
“I’ve told you before, no. You deaf as well as stupid? No means no.”
Lucius just rocked back on his heels, his smile never wavering. He removed his hat and scratched his head with a thumbnail. His pale red hair was combed back in wet strands, revealing a pink scalp beneath.
“The selectmen voted at last night’s meetin’ to set aside the money raised at the Fourth o’ July celebrations for the widows and orphans of this town.” He chuckled, continuing to scratch his head. “Widows and orphans.” He paused and let the significance of the words sink in. “I have sole discretion over those funds.” He winked at her. “Seems to me you’re an orphan.”
Geneva looked at him in disgust. “You better get off my property.”
“Now, Geneva, simmer down. You know I only want to help you out. You don’t have no man to lean on. It breaks my heart thinkin’ of you holed up here all winter. Up to the cabin, I’d see you every day when I’d come up to cut timber. You could cook me dinner then.” He sidled up closer.
“We’d cozy up in the afternoon. I could ease your toil if you’d jus’ let me. The ride’s much pleasanter if two enjoy it.”
She brought the knife up to chest level. “You step back. I don’t need no man to lean on, least of all the likes o’ you.”
His blue eyes hardened. “I told you, you better watch that tongue o’ yours. I’m a patient man, but…” His finger snaked out to grab hold of the buckle of her overalls.
Geneva pushed the knife against his hand, but before she could free herself, he’d twisted her wrist and sent her knife spinning away from her.
“Careful you don’t push me to my limits.” His breath was hot against her face. “You might jus’ find yourself on the losin’ end.” He considered her. “You’re about tall as I am. I wouldn’t mind puttin’ your strength to the test. I think I might just enjoy a contest with you.”
His eyes challenged her. “I hear tell some women like a man who can beat them.” He smirked. “Maybe your ma was one of ’em—”
“Why, you low-down skunk!” Geneva lunged at him. Lucius took advantage of the moment to grab her around the waist and pull her to him. For a while, she held her own, but then he did a fancy move with his foot and had her on the ground. He lay on top of her and grabbed one of her breasts. She yelped at the pain.
The next thing she knew, Lucius was being hauled up by the collar and pitched on the ground like a forkful of hay. Geneva pushed herself up on her elbows and stared at Captain Caleb, towering over her.
“What are…you…doin’ here?” she gasped out. At the same instant, she heard Jake’s barking as her dog bounded over the fields.
The captain didn’t look at her. “Mister, if you ever show your face around here again, you’ll wish you hadn’t. I can promise you that.”
The fallen man pulled himself up, dusting himself off in the process. “Me an’ Geneva wuz havin’ a private conversation. I’ll thank you, Captain—” he spit the title out “—to keep outta what don’t concern you.”
Jake stood growling at Lucius.
Lucius turned back to Geneva. “You think about my offer. It’s more’n generous. It’s downright magnanimous.” He said the word as if he’d just learned to say it and enjoyed the exercise it gave his mouth. His eyes narrowed at the threatening dog.
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