Luther came early. Millie could see the restlessness in his eyes when he first looked at her. She thought, If I were to give him his desire and marry him, how long could I hold him before his own restlessness drove him away from me?
“I cannot abide it,” he told her, with a vehemence that did not surprise her. “One day longer cooped up in that building and I’d have gone mad.”
“And you’re here for your answer?”
“Well, yes, Millie, that’s what I’m here for. But you need not be so blunt about it.”
“I’ve had all winter to think . . .”
He didn’t like the tone of her voice; she could see that in his eyes.
“And to get caught up in that schoolmarm business,” he growled.
With an effort Millie ignored his remark and the irritation it caused her. “If I were to marry you this spring,” she said, watching him carefully, “what would you do?”
“Do?” His eyes were as open and devoid of cognizance as a child’s. “Set up housekeeping and have some grand times together before I go out to sea.”
She knew what he meant, and just what he was looking forward to. “When would you go?”
“Billy Turner over in Medford is skipper of the Suzanna, an East India vessel. He’ll be working on her rigging ’til May, most probably. With my winter earnings I can buy third shares in a little Chebacco with Pinky Jones and Andrew Hawley. That means we’d be after haddock and cod out at Old Man’s Pasture and Spot o’ Rocks ’til the Suzanna was ready.”
“And then you’d go with her?”
“Course, Millie. Yes.”
He did not understand her. He probably never would. But she understood him—too well for her own good. She had grown up learning that understanding as she learned to walk and speak. She had nearly forgotten that this was part of the reason she had left Gloucester in the first place.
“The Chebacco boat—that’s nice, Luther. I’m happy for you. Go out with your friends and enjoy her. After you return from the Suzanna’s voyage, we’ll talk again.”
“That will be months, maybe a year from now.”
“Yes, I know.”
“And you’d rather sit home a lonely and barren thornback than the wife of a seaman?”
“Stop it, Luther! Don’t use that word! Don’t be cruel. I told you I wasn’t sure.”
“And I told you what I thought of that!”
“So it wouldn’t be wise for us to marry like this, Luther.” Millie placed her hand on his arm. It felt so firm and muscular, so warm with life beneath her touch.
“Millie, I want to take care of you. I want to be with you.”
She leaned her head against his great chest, suddenly weary. He made it sound so simple. Perhaps there was something wrong with her. But right now she could not help it. Right now she could not love him, not in the way he wanted, much least in the way that was essential for her.
“You’re a good man, Luther,” she said, her voice muffled against the rough cotton of his shirt. “More’s the pity that you’ve fallen in love with me and not some sane, normal lass.”
“ ’Tis you I want and no other,” he said, wrapping his long arms around her. “Those you speak of cannot hold a man’s interest. But you—you I could come home to for the rest of my life and grow old with.”
His arms were insistent, his heart beating against her cheek, the words he had spoken still soft in her ears. He kissed her once, hard. “There’s no other, is there, Millie?” He spoke the words roughly and, when she did not answer him, bent to kiss her again. But his question hung in the air long after he left her and, with the singsong persistence of a children’s rhyme, ran over and over again through her mind.
* * *
It was spring. Millie’s fingers were itching for the feel of needle and thread and the touch of fine cloth. For a long time she had been considering what she would do. Once she made up her mind, it took no time at all before her mother’s kitchen was transformed into a sewing room, with butcher paper patterns, threads and trimmings, and snippets of cloth scattered over the floor for the mice to find. Many of the children in Mr. Erwin’s school were poorly clad. Millie knew their families were struggling to make a living from land or sea. Now that warm weather was here she could not bear to see the little girls smothered in their heavy woolen skirts and stockings. She had brought yards of calico from Boston which she could make into small pantalets, and tinted muslins for aprons and frocks, with perhaps enough left to make shirts for the young boys.
Her fear was that the parents would be unwilling to accept such gifts from the teacher lady, or even be offended by what might look like charity. After some thought she determined to offer prizes for high achievement in spelling, history, and elocution, as well as rewards to those who would memorize the Declaration of Independence, Patrick Henry’s “War Inevitable” speech, or some of the wise maxims of President Washington. At the same time she planned to approach some of the parents with the request that they allow her to sew frocks for their children, as a means of advertisement in hopes of securing clients for her seamstressing skills—although she knew there was scanty call for such work in Gloucester, where the folk dressed simply and every housewife possessed the basic ability to clothe her own family. But Millie was pleased with her own cleverness, and with the apparent success of her scheme. As she cut and stitched and hemmed night after night, after her lessons for the next day were completed, she took great pleasure in watching her small creations take shape before her eyes. If she was occasionally struck with a qualm, wondering if she ought to be sewing her own wedding gown, she was able to put such thoughts aside. Instead she wrote to Verity, boasting a little at how handsome her new clothes looked and lamenting the fact that she was not there to sew for the baby that would be coming. She was a little worried about Verity and the others; she had not received a letter since long before Christmas, and heaven knew what sorts of things might be going on in that hostile wilderness where Judith had dragged them.
One midafternoon she walked to the post office to mail a letter to Verity. She carried one in her pocketbook for Nicholas as well. Ought she to post it? She had already answered the letter Daniel had brought her in February. Now the blustery days of March had drawn to a close, and she had not heard from either him or the girls. Would it be too forward to write him again?
She stood at the dusty counter waiting for Almira Fenn to come out from the back. Millie avoided encounters with Almira whenever she could, especially since Luther’s return. The woman had a sour soul to begin with, and now that Millie had offended Luther, who was the apple of her eye, there was little patience extended toward her. Indeed, Almira usually refused to even speak to Millie when they passed on the street. But today it was Amos, Luther’s brother, who came to wait on her. So Millie gave him both letters, asked politely after the family, and made her escape.
An hour later, when Millie was bent again over her sewing, Almira Fenn stood sorting her letters. When she saw the one for Far West, Missouri, she weighed it in her hand a moment, considering. “Better not tamper with this’un,” she muttered under her breath. She tossed it into the mail sack. But the one following, addressed to Liverpool, England, she snatched with an exclamation of glee.
“I knew it!” She rubbed her thin, scratchy hands together. “The nerve of the hussy! For the life of me, I don’t know why my Luther wants her!”
But she did know. She knew Millie was keen and clearheaded, and well trained in womanly skills. And she was pretty, the prettiest girl in Gloucester by far. If she had traveled to the city and put on fancy airs, well, even that added to her unspoken mystique and probable superiority—that is, granted that Luther could make her his wife.
With her thin, strong fingers Almira tore the envelope and the sheets it contained into little pieces and threw them into the fire, where they curled and charred and were consumed in a matter of seconds. Then she went on with her work.
* * *
Millie heard the happy peal of the church bells before she opened her eyes. They would sing out continuously for the next two hours until the schooners, white and shining, pulled away from the harbor. The Suzanna had been made ready in good time, and today Luther was to sail out on her, eager as a boy for the adventure ahead of him.
By the time Millie was dressed and ready the fish horns were blowing, a deep, throaty counterpart to the high, piercing clang of the bells. The wharves were crowded with families, the women and children sporting their best hats and pinafores. With a sense of satisfaction Millie noted several of her own creations among the bright throng.
They that go down to the sea in ships, Millie thought as she watched men gently tear themselves away from the clinging hands of wives and children. She noticed one little boy who would not release his tight hold round his father’s leg, so his father allowed him to ride there, halfway up the gangway, before letting him go. Surely the bells and flags, and the pipes Blind Billie was playing from his seat on the pilings—surely all this was but to cover the fear and the anguish of parting.
Luther’s family was here, crowded about him, Almira smoothing his shirt front and collar. He left them when he caught sight of Millie, walking with slow deliberation until he stood very close to her. The sea breeze lifted the light strands of his hair. The skin of his face was tanned a warm golden color by his weeks spent out past Eastern Point, and Millie could see the sea in his eyes.
He placed his big, warm hands on her face and pulled her toward him. He kissed her a long time before releasing her. She noticed several young boys snickering as they watched. She saw a line of white gulls dipping and rising from the glassy blue surface of the water.
“When I come back,” Luther said, “there won’t be any more asking.” They were a seaman’s bold words. But then he parted her hair and placed his lips against her ear and the soft skin of her neck. “When I come back I will marry you, Millie, and that is that.” She closed her eyes and he kissed her again. She thought of her mother and wondered how many times this had happened for her and what she had thought when she sent off her man—they that do business in great waters—and walked back in silence to the emptiness of her house and the emptiness of her life.
Millie turned and walked all the way home as soon as Luther boarded his ship and was lost to her sight. She did not wish to see the lilting, graceful vessels file out of the harbor, round Mussel Point and Eastern Point, and head out to sea. She did not wish to be drawn into conversation with the other women who, seeing her with Luther, would assume that she felt as they did. Millie had no idea what she was feeling. But at least her life was not quite empty, thank heavens. She had the school, and books to read, and her garden. If she was aware that despite all these things she was still alone, with no child, no friend, no mortal soul to hold close to her, she did not acknowledge it. Only the foolish and thoughtless acknowledged such things.
Three days after Luther left, Thomas Erwin, the schoolteacher, returned, earlier than he had expected. He had buried his mother and was prepared to resume his duties. Millie was not prepared, but she had no choice in the matter. The immediate emptiness in her life was not of hours only but of purpose and pleasure as well. She was suddenly reduced to the bare essentials: herself and her garden. That was no longer enough. Last year at this time she was just returning to Gloucester. Last year at this time a stranger stopped to ask her directions, a stranger with eyes the color of the sea and hair like a raven’s wing. But he existed no longer. The sea had borne him away from her, just as it had borne Judith and Leah and Verity away from her. Yet she dwelt cradled in the arms of the sea, knowing no other life, wanting no other life than this.
One week to the day after Luther’s departure a letter arrived. It was postmarked “Liverpool” and addressed to “Miss Millicent Cooper.” Almira Fenn set it aside until the place was clear of customers; then she tore it into small pieces and stuffed it into the cooking stove fire. She had promised Luther she would look after Millie while he was away, but she and the girl had never got on well together. She didn’t know exactly what Luther had in mind when he asked her, but this was her idea of keeping her word to her absent son. That doing so brought Almira pleasure and a sharp awareness of her power was simply a bonus thrown in.
* * *
By early April Millie had planted sweet peas and spaded and prepared the ground for her various gardens. The soft spring rains had already coaxed out the fragile white snowdrops, with their delicate sea-green markings. By May the daffodils, jonquils, and tulips, the long purple bubbles of the crocuses, and the crimson splendor of the peonies all splashed the dull, sandy landscape with color and promise. As Luther left, the barn swallows and martins came, the bobolinks laughed in the spring sunlight, and the sandpipers called, “Sweet, sweet, sweet,” in the still, tide-brimming coves. Millie had always loved the cool days of May, full of work and warm possibilities. But Luther was out harvesting the sea, Nicholas was harvesting souls, and Judith and the girls were harvesting the bitter fruits of hatred and jealousy, while Millicent planted and tended, waited and hoped.