BY THE TIME the carriage turned down Ash Street toward the magistrate’s home, the sky over Nantucket had changed to an unerring beryl blue over the cobalt sea. The sounds of snapping halyards and creaking timbers had been left behind at the wharf, but the stiff winds and crisp ocean air followed the carriage through town.
Nantucket. A simple workaday settlement of weathered faces and thick-willed people who spent days by the hundreds waiting for sons and brothers and husbands to return from sea voyages. A place of little imagination, but great constitution. A place where folk worked hard and somehow thrived against nature’s back jaw—the harsh, unpredictable northeastern bite of wind, sea, rain, and winter chill, not to mention summer heat. Like the pioneers who went west and were determined to survive, these people’s parents and grandparents had ventured farther east than any other place, so far east that the ocean surrounded them. No less a frontier than any valley or range in Wyoming, this little island had been whipped into shape and made functional by those who settled it and meant to keep it. A good place. Abbey’s kind of place. She could deal with folk who knew what they wanted.
Whalemen. Whalemen’s wives. Whalemen’s children. That was Nantucket. It was a place where children knew their fathers more by telling than seeing, a place where whalemen came home to find their infants suddenly toddlers, their toddlers suddenly schoolgoers, and their wives older by years than the last time they had bedded together. A place where the men coming down the whaleship’s planks were etched in leathered skin and dampened spirits, no longer the soft-skinned boys who’d set out to sea to sight the elusive whale spout and ride the Nantucket sleigh behind a harpooned giant.
There was prosperity here, much more than Abbey expected. Dominic Nash took her through town slowly, the long way, to let her see the place where she would be living. It was a promising little place, this island, this town. He took the time to introduce her to the streets—Main to Federal Street, Broad Street to North Water Street to Ash Street—and Abbey was surprised by the strikingly civilized Quaker neatness of the town. Tight, too. Everything was very close together. Houses and stores were all very near each other. And quite a variety, too. Businesses of every sort, much more diverse than she had ever seen in a western town—not that she had been to so many towns. But here it seemed that everything a person could want was right within reach: optician, watchmaker, barber shop, auction house, grocer—several markets, in fact, and several tailors—boot and shoemaker, glazier, post office, boarding-houses and inns, an insurance company, cooper, block shop, and a particularly pretty bank. Nantucket Pacific Bank, with its Federal architecture—a style of building Abbey could see she’d better get used to—was decorated with big arching windows and Gothic iron railings on its rectangular vestibule, railings that swept out in graceful curves.
The people she saw on the streets of Nantucket seemed to have a cosmopolitan lacing over their Quaker foundation. While many of the buildings and houses were blocky, tall, and flat-faced clapboards with many plain rectangular windows, some of the bigger houses had pillars on their porches, parapeted cupolas, stone fences, and elaborate cornices to decorate them. Some of the stores had shelters over the sidewalks—definitely a sign of civilization, Abbey noted as the carriage bumped along over the cobblestone streets.
“There’s much more here than I expected,” she mentioned to the magistrate, careful of her tone. She wanted to appear impressed, but not sound like a bumpkin. Carefully she read the signs on the shops as Nash snapped the horse into a steady pace. “I’ll have to remember all this. Whittemore Furs . . . Simon Parkhurst Dry Goods . . . Gardener and Hallet Dry Goods, Easton and Sanford Watchmakers and Jewelers . . . Thomas Coleman Sail Loft—well, I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised to see a sail loft, should I, Mr. Nash?”
“Not at all, Mrs. Sutton. That is Nantucket’s stock in trade, after all—good morning, Mrs. Nichols, Mrs. Bates . . .”
Abbey looked in time to see two women leading several children along the street as they waved back at the magistrate. She noted that all the children waved also. Charming!
Nash went on after tipping his hat to the women. “Once upon a time, Nantucket’s biggest industry was sheep and sheepshearing. But I think we’ve found our destiny in the shipping business. We are quite an amalgam of sensibilities here, you’ll find. Nantucket sits on the edge of the outside world. All ships come home to Nantucket.”
A broad statement, Abbey thought, as she caught sight of a huge building at the corner of Federal and Pearl streets. Vast! It had Greek columns all the way to the sky, and pointed stained-glass windows. “Is that a church? Grief, it’s big!”
“Pardon? Oh, no, that’s no longer a church. That’s the Atheneum. It’s now a museum and meeting place for the arts. We have readings there and showings and various gatherings. It was deeded to the town by Charles Coffin and David Joy because they wanted to promote literature, the arts, and the sciences. A grand gift, all in all.”
“Well, I should say!” Abbey agreed, craning her neck as the carriage toddled past the massive structure. “My! I should like to go in there some time.”
“You would be most welcome to do so.”
“Mr. Nash?”
“Yes, Mrs. Sutton?”
“Why are there porches on top of some of these houses?”
“Hmmm? Oh, of course. Those are roofwalks, Mrs. Sutton,” he explained, looking up at a rectangular porch with a little railed fence right on the tip-top of a house they were passing. “From there you can see the ocean horizon. When a ship is expected—and I daresay sometimes when they’re not—wives like to stride about up there and watch the horizon for the appearance of a masthead.”
Abbey smiled and squinted up at the roofwalk. “In Wyoming Territory, all we have to do is stand outside our front doors and we can see everything from here to heaven and back.”
“You must tell my children all about it, Mrs. Sutton.”
“I certainly shall, Mr. Nash.”
She settled back on the leather carriage seat and watched the town go by. All at once she sat up straight again and said, “Now that must be a church!” She pointed accusingly at a big spired belfry on a stone building with tall Gothic windows and pinnacles on the buttresses.
Nash chuckled at her insistence. “Yes, that’s Trinity Church.”
“And where are we now?”
“Broad Street.”
Abbey sat back again and sighed, shaking her head at herself. “Mr. Nash, I think I’ll buzz in the head before I learn all these streets and all these buildings. Where I come from, there’s just one road, and it leads to everywhere else. And do you actually know all these people you’ve been greeting as we ride?”
“I know every person we’ve seen so far, Mrs. Sutton,” Nash said, turning to look at her for the first time since they had left the wharf. Crinkles appeared around his blue eyes as he grinned with sheltered pride. “That is the nature of this island.”
Abbey pressed her lips together. “There weren’t this many people in my whole county, Mr. Nash,” she said finally.
“You, too, will know them soon enough. At the moment, I’m only concerned with your being acquainted with my children—good day, Captain Fields! How did your voyage go?” he called spontaneously to a surly-looking bearded seaman.
“We took six right whales out of a single pod at Christmas, Mr. Nash,” the seaman called back, “and glad I am to be out of those Greenland waters. It was a profitable voyage, but a cold one.”
“Welcome back, Captain,” Nash said as they rode by.
Prosperity was here, Abbey decided, but a hardworking prosperity. Evidently, while the whaleman’s life was one of long and arduous voyages, each man would find profit in his trade if he could but find and take a few whales.
“Seems a bit brutal, Mr. Nash,” Abbey mentioned as the carriage turned down Ash Street. “Thrusting a barbed steel rod into a whale’s back.”
“Does it?” he asked, squinting as the sun cleared the clouds. “If a whale ship is very lucky, it might sight a pod once a month or once in two months, and it might take one whale from each pod. They go out in little boats and face the giant man-to-beast, deep inside swells as high as these buildings. The harpoons are flung by hand, if and when the beast surfaces near enough to the whaleboat. It takes—” He paused to tip his hat politely at three townswomen, who nodded a greeting back to him, eyeing Abbey curiously. “It takes many harpoons to do a whale in, and right glad I am that it’s not me in the water with such a monster so close by. Mind you,” he added, unintentionally nudging her shoulder as he leaned to make his point, “that’s if they’re lucky. I’ve known whale ships to go out for three years and come back with the oil and bone of no more than five whales. Three whole years, I say. The sea is a slim hunting ground, cold and wide and unforgiving. Many men never come home.”
“My,” she said. “The whales’ bones are used, too?”
“Oh, indeed. There’s hardly a part of the beast we don’t put to use. But the odds are with the whales, Mrs. Sutton.”
“I suppose,” she murmured, grasping the edge of the seat as the carriage bumbled over the hoof-sized rocks that paved the street beneath them. “These rocks make a bad road, don’t they?”
“Cobblestones,” he said. “Ballast.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Nash swept his hand, taking in the whole street. “Every stone you see served as ballast in a ship. Once here, the ballast is removed and replaced with whale products for the Continent.”
“Ah . . . very practical.”
Nash smiled, and his crusty image dissolved. “Yes, we’re practical on Nantucket.”
Practicality, though, didn’t fully describe the magistrate’s home. Yes, everything was useful, Abbey noted as Dominic Nash opened the ostentatious mahoghany door for her and motioned her into a charming brick Victorian home wedged tightly between cedar houses. Whitewashed latticework across the window glass provided, yes, practical decoration on the squarish Quaker architecture. As she had seen, the town was primarily made up of cedar houses and dock buildings, the cedar now turned mouse-colored by years of battering by northeastern weather. It made a strange beauty, this dominance of gray, especially where the doors and window panes were painted and the little gardens came into bloom, as they were now in late spring. There were roses everywhere—rambling roses, white, red, pink, climbing over trellises and up wooden poles, charming and surprising against the gray cedar.
But Abbey’s mind went back to the practicality—where was it? Where was the workaday feeling of rough little Nantucket? It dissolved the moment Abbey stepped inside the magistrate’s house. She found her boots incongruous against a lovely tufted rug with a colorful picture of a castle, something like drawings she’d seen of Europe. And that was only the beginning. There was nothing here like the bold buffalo-checked couch and tatter-backed chairs of her ranch house. Nothing like the homestead simplicity of the West, even if that simplicity had gathered decoration over the years. Spread neatly on these dark wooden floors were floorcloths, including a particularly beautiful one with creweled edges that led to the “good room”—a place where company was received. As the magistrate closed the door and fastidiously arranged his walking stick in a brass holder near the door, Abbey peeked into that parlor.
She clamped her lips against a gasp. If not a place of splendor, this was at least a place of worldliness. The first thing that caught her eye was a dollhouse, made with great detail in an exact miniature of the magistrate’s home. Three small tavern tables, polished to a gloss, reflected a black velvet couch and two heart-backed blue chairs with broad madeira arms. Elaborate lamps sat on every table, and a wall-long brick fireplace offered a heavy warmth. Through an archway she caught a glimpse of an eight-board cabinet that held a collection of New England redware—gleaming honeypots, mugs, bowls, and cups.
Abbey touched her finger to her lip, holding in a giggle as she thought of her ranch house again. As she gazed, she remembered her own kitchen with its beehive oven and the big wooden preparing table, the hand-thrown stoneware she’d used to serve dinner. Why, this house even had an aroma! What was it—ginger-glazed ham, yes . . . and warm marmalade—
As her mouth watered she remembered, rather fondly, the vaqueros who had guarded her husband’s cattle, Mexican cowboys so dedicated that they would go without food for days rather than slaughter even one of their employer’s stock. And when they did eat, it would never be ham and marmalade, but rather hardtack and corn meal, red bean pie and sourdough bread.
“Mrs. Sutton, wait here, if you will,” Nash said, drawing her back into the whitewashed foyer. He plucked up a tiny brass bell and rang it.
Abbey grinned. Such a silly wee sound! Hardly a birdcall.
But it was enough. Three whirlwinds appeared at the top of the polished stairs and pounded their way down. When the smoke cleared, there were three round faces looking sternly up at Abbey. Three faces, carrot-topped and strikingly alike. The two eldest—both boys of about nine years old—had barely stopped moving when Abbey discerned they were twins, identical down to their dimples.
“Mrs. Sutton, my children,” the magistrate said. Abbey couldn’t quite tell if he said it with pride or with reluctance. He placed one hand on the shoulder of the nearest boy. “This is Adam. There is David, and down there, hiding, is—”
A smallish girl of about five stepped forward boldly and announced, “I’m Luella. I’m the one that’s not twins.”
“She can see that,” David complained.
Abbey bent down to look the little girl straight in her blue eyes. “You mean there’s only one of you?”
“Only one.”
“That makes you a rare diamond.”
“Oooooh!” Luella howled. “I’m the diamond! Papa, I’m a diamond!”
The magistrate nodded patiently, but without a smile.
“Are you going to be our nanny?” Adam demanded. “Because we like to fish and you have to know how.”
“And we climb trees.”
“And nobody can tell us apart. Just try.”
“What do you think of us?”
Abbey laughed at the last question—David’s, if she’d attached the right name to the right boy. “What do I think of you? I think you’re precocious.”
“Watch this,” Adam yelped, and as if they were well practiced both boys suddenly disappeared into the good room, out of sight. They scuffled for a moment, then reappeared, side by side.
“Which is which?” they demanded in a chorus.
“Oh, simple,” Abbey said. “You’re Adam, and you’re David.”
“Lucky guess!”
“Try it again.”
Once again they disappeared, and once again scuffled. Dominic Nash folded his arms and frowned.
The boys reappeared a second time and made the same demand.
“I told you it was simple,” Abbey said and pointed at each one. “David . . . Adam.”
The twins’ mouths fell open.
“That’s amazing,” Nash said, narrowing his own striking blue eyes. “Can you actually tell them apart?”
“They seem quite different to me,” Abbey said, playing it up a bit for two boys who probably had never had the privilege of being different.
“Excellent! Perhaps you’ll be able to avoid their—”
“Papa!” Adam whined.
“—trickery,” the magistrate finished sternly. “Children, this is Mrs. Sutton. She is in charge of you. Never forget it, lest you answer to me.”
“Yes, Papa,” the boys chimed.
“—Papa.” Luella’s little voice came in like an echo, just a beat behind her brothers.
“Up to your rooms,” Nash said immediately, barely waiting for the children’s answer. “Mrs. Sutton and I have business to attend to.”
“About us?”
“Of course about you. What did I just say? Your rooms, now.”
The children took one more long, expert glance at Abbey, then hammered up the polished staircase—racing, of course.
“Mrs. Sutton, this way, please.” He gestured her into the good room and onto one of the plush velvet chairs. When she was settled, he stood over her for a moment—could it be indecision? she wondered—then said, “About your actions on Straight Wharf—”
“Yes, Mr. Nash. I apologize.” She heard herself say it, and knew perfectly well that although she was apologizing, her tone said she wasn’t sorry.
He knew that, too. She saw it in his eyes.
“Regardless,” he began again. “I prefer you to understand. We don’t care for slavery, of course. But we must keep the peace with the southern states and the federal government. Once runaways are discovered, there’s no alternative but to expedite their return to the South. If Nantucket doesn’t cooperate, there’ll be pressure to search and forestall ships, which would slow the whaling trade to a crawl. It’s federal law, Mrs. Sutton. An island so far at sea must show its willingness to work within the law if it hopes to be protected by it. I am the magistrate of this island, after all. I must represent lawfulness at its height.”
Abbey nodded, this time genuinely sorry for embarrassing him on the wharf. “I understand, Mr. Nash. It was just the whipping for no reason that disturbed me.”
“The lashing was uncalled for,” he admitted. “And I plan to speak to the slaver myself. However, as the primary visible law on this island, I must ask for a certain decorous behavior from members of my household. You must curb your . . . Bohemian ways.”
Abbey let her lip curl in question. “Bohemian ways?”
“You can’t beat up men in public.”
“Oh. Those ways.”
He sighed with relief. “Yes. Meanwhile, we must define your duties.”
As he lowered into the other chair, his glossy red hair and ruddy complexion took on a glow from a shaft of sunlight that struck his face. He drew a pair of spectacles from his waistcoat and arranged them on his face, then drew out a folded piece of paper that Abbey recognized as the letter she’d sent to him three months ago.
“My duties?” she asked, trying to recapture the prim attitude she’d so thoroughly tossed away on the wharf.
His blue eyes flicked up over the spectacles to catch her. “Of course. Why do you ask it that way?”
“I thought I knew my duties. Take care of the children.”
The hand holding the letter fell to rest on his knee. “And you think this is a simple thing? Have you ever taken care of children before?”
She fidgeted, then broke into a broad smile and lightly claimed, “Well, I’ve taken care of cattle, sheep, and cowboys. Can it be very different?”
But her bunkhouse humor clattered to the floor under Nash’s cold glare.
Abbey dropped her grin and shrugged openly. “Truly, Mr. Nash, can there be? I’ll see that they’re cleaned and fed—”
“And properly dressed and schooled and exercised and taught good manners and—”
“Mr. Nash, they’re children, not parade horses.”
“Madam, you are the one who compared them to animals,” he pointed out without losing a breath.
“I stand corrected,” she admitted.
“And there will come a time when Luella will have to be taught the . . . facts about womanhood.”
“Mr. Nash, she’s five years old!”
“She’s nearly six, Mrs. Sutton.”
“Oh, six, I see . . .”
“Mrs. Sutton . . .” Nash put the letter down on a nearby table and took his spectacles off, holding them thoughtfully for several seconds. He gazed down at them and didn’t look up as he spoke. “Mrs. Sutton, I am a man. I don’t know these things. I don’t know when . . . women . . . I don’t know when they should be taught . . . these things. If I had only Adam and David to raise,” he said, and now he did look up, “I may never have considered the prospect of hiring a governess. My housekeeper could easily handle the getting up and getting dressed and getting to school and getting home. But your offer to come here in my service . . . I confess relieved me greatly. Not only can you suffuse the judge’s debts to me about the ranch loan, but you will fill a great emptiness in this home.”
Abbey watched him, her heart warm with a sudden understanding of Dominic Nash. He couldn’t say it, she knew—indeed he was having difficulty even saying this much—yet she saw him forcing himself to be open with her from the beginning, and she felt the endearing nature of that effort.
He stood up slowly, disturbed by his own words, and went to stare out over the curving cobblestone street and the neat little houses. His back was to her now.
“Since Mrs. Nash passed away, there has been a terrible gouge in our lives here—mine, my children’s . . . we need a woman about the house who can make decisions and listen to the troubles of the boys and little Luella. Even boys need a woman nearby. They need to see how a woman walks and thinks and feels and speaks. There are things a woman . . . knows.”
Suddenly he stiffened, as though hearing himself say things he had never meant to say, things that embarrassed him, damaged his image.
Abbey sat quietly. Something had told her not to interrupt him, and she followed that instinct. Now, though, as she saw and sensed his embarrassment, she wished she’d spoken up—anything at all to make him feel better, to cut off the thread of guilt she heard. Somehow he felt responsible for his wife’s death, or at least responsible for not providing his children with a mother. Yes—that was it. The last part—he couldn’t bring himself to be with another woman, and he felt guilty about it.
“Yes, well . . .” Nash brought himself back from a sad reverie. “I want you to go shopping. Purchase yourself an appropriate wardrobe and charge it to my household account. I’m not afraid of color, but would prefer that you avoid the gaudy. Do this as soon as you’re rested. Stand by. I’ll summon Mrs. Goodes.”
He escaped through the house. Unlike the longish ranch houses of Wyoming Territory, this house was piled on top of itself and Abbey could hear every footfall. She could easily tell where Nash was, how many rooms away, and knew that he was bringing another person with him as she heard him return. Sure enough, he reappeared with a dark-haired woman about thirty-five years old, rather petite and plain-faced. Her hair was parted in the middle and pulled severely back into a tight bun, but her eyes were dancing with welcome.
“Mrs. Sutton, may I present Mrs. Cordelia Goodes, our housekeeper and cook.”
Cordelia Goodes rubbed her palms on her apron, then stepped forward and offered a hand to Abbey somewhat awkwardly. “Mrs. Sutton, good day.”
“Mrs. Goodes, my pleasure.”
Nash shifted uneasily. “I have business at the town hall. Mrs. Goodes, if you would please see Mrs. Sutton to her room and see that she’s settled—”
“Yes, sir, I’ll do that smartly.”
“And after so long a journey she’d probably be glad of a helping of tea and johnnycake.”
“I’ll do that, too, sir, yes, I will.”
“Very well.” He couldn’t help giving a last glance at Abbey, and turned it into a nod of farewell. He then crossed the parlor, stiff-lipped, snatched his walking stick from the holder in the foyer, and wrenched the door open. The door slammed, and he was gone.
Cordelia Goodes sighed. “The mistress came up, did she?”
Abbey tipped her head. “Did you know Mrs. Nash?”
“Sure did not. I came here three months ago, is all. The lady died a while back. Wish I had known her, the way he acts about her. Your room’s upstairs, missus.”
“Please, call me Abbey.”
“I’m Cordelia. It’s a mouthful, but my mama liked it,” the housekeeper added as she grasped one of Abbey’s travel cases and hauled it up the stairs, gesturing Abbey to follow.
The house’s tight upstairs corridor was long, but a loomed carpet runner muffled their steps.
“This is yours,” Cordelia said, wrestling Abbey’s travel case through a narrow doorway.
Abbey stepped in, and fell in love.
A massive canopied bed, built of dark Jacobean beveled wood, was the first thing she saw. Chunky and dark, it was nothing like the pine pencil-post bed she’d shared with her husband in Wyoming. This bed was draped with a wispy lace canopy and covered with a fat quilted coverlet. Nearby were a pair of comb-backed Windsor chairs and one lovely old rocker, sitting in the same shaft of sunlight that had fallen on Dominic Nash when he needed it most.
Opposite the bed, near an open window, was a big crawly dresser of what looked like mahogany.
“It’s lovely! Oh . . . this is magnificent,” she said, approaching a gently sloped fainting couch tucked against the wall, where she hadn’t seen it right away. It was somewhat worn, made of soft-grained leather in a beautiful shade of burgundy, and the stuffing seemed to have shifted a little. But it still looked very comfortable. Its high, sloping, wing-shaped back looked inviting.
Cordelia hoisted the travel bag onto the top of a walnut dresser, careful not to bump a very large and ornate beveled mirror. “Don’t touch the recamier,” she said.
Abbey glanced at her. Since Cordelia was nodding toward the fainting couch, Abbey figured that was what the funny word meant. “This?” she asked. “Why?”
“It belonged to the wife. He’s particular about it. That’s why it’s in here instead of in the master’s room. If you want to unpack, I’ll see about the tea and cake.”
“Yes, I do. Thank you. Oh, Mrs. Goodes—”
“Cordelia.”
“Cordelia . . . may I ask a question?”
The housekeeper clasped her hands and appeared accommodating. “Go right ahead.”
Now came Abbey’s turn to be uneasy. Her spine tingled, recalling a certain touch. She turned toward the thick-silled window and gazed out, down over the street. From here she could see a corner of the wharf through the nearby trees. She saw—or maybe imagined?—the people milling around there, the sailors and their wives and families gathered for hellos or good-byes, the business dealings, the . . . yes, everything.
“There was a gentleman I saw at the docks. He made me curious. I wonder if you know who he is.”
From behind her, Cordelia said, “Describe him.”
Those two simple words opened a floodgate of impressions in Abbey’s mind. She remembered not only his appearance now, but everything about him. The strength in his arms, the flash in his eyes, the faint aroma clinging to his sea coat—
“He was a little taller than Mr. Nash, but less husky. He wore a sailor’s wool jacket, dark green, and plain britches, and—”
“His face. His hair.”
“His hair was . . . blond.”
“Like yours?”
“Mine? Oh, no, mine’s almost brown. His was very light. Like wheat. Like sunshine on the sand.”
“Hmmm . . . that’s light, I’ll agree.”
Abbey felt the sun work its warmth on her face through the delicate lace curtain, drawing her into the memory until she thought she would fall completely in. “His face . . . it was pale around the eyes . . . rather startling brown eyes. Eyes like pools of molasses. You could fall into them and be caught. His cheeks had a peach color about them that turned flowery when he got angry at me. Flowers—yes! He smelled of wildflowers. But that’s impossible. I’m sure he was a sailing man. His clothes, his arms, his hands . . .” Her voice trailed off. She looked down at her own hands, saw her stubby nails and roughened knuckles, and felt once again the iron pressure of his arm around her and the hardness of his body against hers.
A sudden flush of self-consciousness overcame her then, and she turned. Sure enough, Cordelia was staring at her.
“You took some note of him, I reckon,” Cordelia said, making Abbey blush.
God! How long had it been since she’d blushed?
Cordelia’s lips curled into a smirk. “That would be Jacob Ross. And he’s not a sailor.”
Abbey had to clear her throat. “No?”
“No. He keeps the lighthouse at Great Point. He’s part owner of a pub in town as well. His two cousins run it. He’s been on the island but a year now. Not much for keeping company. Mighty unusual that you saw him. He has no reason to be on the wharf.” She busied herself fluffing the pillow on the bed that would be Abbey’s from now on, then straightened up and headed for the door. “Come down when you’re ready for cake. I’ll set about brewing some tea. Welcome, again.”
“Thank you,” Abbey said, but the housekeeper was already down the hall.
Jacob Ross . . . Jacob Ross . . .
Abbey let Cordelia Goodes slip out of her mind almost immediately, once again turning to the window and searching out a glimpse of the wharf. Over the housetops she saw the mastheads of half a hundred ships, Nantucket’s links to the outside world. Those were the harbingers of survival for the island settlement, the angels whose spread wings carried Nantucket’s whale products to a waiting world, and made for a lonely life for whaling men and the women they left behind. How magical the reunions must be, she thought, when the ships return after so long.
Ships. Daily they skimmed the ocean surface that hung like a ceiling over the remains of their forebears, the countless sunken vessels whose bones lay on the sea floor. None rested far from the mouth of the angry ocean that had swallowed them, sails and all, crew and all, into the unmatched blackness. Today ships laced the seas over that silent fleet, hoping never to join it, never quite forgetting. Yet, too much of remembering losses only makes martyrs, she reminded herself vowing not to be swallowed up by the past.
A light sea wind carried the sounds of the wharf through the treetops and into her window. Voices calling, timbers creaking, carriage wheels rolling, horses clopping. She smelled the fresh aromatic breeze coming in the open window, and suddenly wished she were still on the wharf.
Jacob Ross . . .
For many long minutes her travel bag remained on the top of the dresser, longing to be unpacked, but she did nothing about it. Even the scent of spiced tea drifting up from the kitchen did nothing to shake her from her thoughts and imaginings. She continued gazing out the window, looking over little Nantucket.
And she knew he was out there.
Nantucket was a welcoming place, Abbey discovered as she strode through town. Several times she took wrong turns on the little streets, and folk were anxious to set her on the right track to the shops where she might buy a dress or two and some hats, and certainly some warm stockings for the chilly New England nights. This town was many things, she was finding out, but poverty had nothing to do with any of them. In fact, it was the opposite. Shop windows were neatly decorated with European lace and ruffled curtains, porches had railings of exotic woods from faraway places or wrought iron in styles she’d never seen before. In fact—yes, that was it—everything on Nantucket smacked of foreign places. Even with the domestic artifacts she’d seen, like the endless array of items made of whalebone and whale tooth ivory, there was a sense of distance—a feeling of connection with cultures very far away from this small island.
As a matter of fact, there seemed to be nothing that couldn’t be made out of ivory. Dominic Nash’s ivory walking stick, she now discovered, was only the beginning. Just on this one little walk through town she’d already seen laundry hung with whalebone clothespins, men smoking whalebone pipes, a ladle with a whalebone handle, children with whalebone buttons on their jackets, whalebone yarn spools, whalebone sewing boxes and doll’s beds in a store window, sitting beside whalebone pickwicks, and whalebone knitting needles beside a whalebone rolling pin.
She paused at one of those shop windows and found herself gazing down at more of this stuff. Ivory mortars and pestles, pie cutters, jagging wheels, and corset stays loaded this particular shop window. The corset stays, in fact, were virtual works of art. Not only were they shaped perfectly and even scalloped sometimes along the edges, but there were elaborate rural scenes, exotic birds, hearts, stars, spirals, and every other manner of design carved into them and colored with ink. The detail was amazing. Even the Indians of her home prairies hadn’t been so consumed with perfection.
She sighed.
Poor sailors. How lonely they must be on the high seas. She could tell that they were thinking of home, of the women and children they longed for just by looking at the things they had made. Every kind of household thing and every kind of toy, all made with painful detail from the bones of dead whales. Practical things for the house and kitchen, yes, but not made with practicality in mind. These were artwork more than tools and toys. And the hours upon hours it must have taken to make even one of these things. . .. What kind of place had she come to live in?
She shook her head briefly, realizing she had lapsed from looking into blank staring, and that her thoughts had taken over. With a deep breath she cleared her head. As she regained control of herself and prepared to stride away, a reflection in the window suddenly held her fast where she stood.
Across the street—she saw clearly in the sunlit glass—was an oval sign painted with stark red, blue, and black paint and sharp lettering. THE BROTHERHOOD. FOOD, BED, AND GROG. GOOD COMPANY.
Was that it?
She whirled around, now staring fully at the sign and the simple slat building with its single door. Was that the pub?
Perhaps after she was settled, she would just have a look inside there. Then again . . . how were such things viewed here? In Wyoming, she came and went as she pleased, wherever she pleased. What were the mores here? Would her new neighbors frown and glower if she were to step inside? And if he was there, what excuse would she give?
Jacob Ross.
The name was beginning to echo within in her mind, take over her thoughts. Every time her memory spoke it she remembered his eyes glaring down into hers, and the firm grip of a man she had called a coward.
“You’re no coward,” she muttered, remembering his eyes and the flash she’d seen in them. “There was something else holding you back . . .”
She pressed her lips together and turned down the street again, resisting the urge to poke her head inside that pub.
Two doors down from the shop with the ivory trinkets in the window was the Geary Hat Store. Several of the ladies she’d asked had pointed her straight here, and here she was, with her hand about to touch the doorknob—
Crash!
She jumped back from the door as it clattered furiously. There was a terrible shriek from inside, and the glass in the door rattled. Bam! Scrrrrape!
And a voice now—
“Bloody thievin’ flea-rode ’airy brute! Come back ’ere so’s I can bash yer! Flamill’ vile woodchuck! God ’ad ’is ’ead on wrong whenee made yer kind, wicked rat!”
Bam!
Abbey stared at the doorknob. Stay out, she thought. Probably safer. But then she’d never know what was going on. What if someone was being assaulted?
Safety be damned. She twisted the knob and shoved her way in, past what appeared to be a toppled dress rack. The door was pressed shut behind her by the rack, but that was her last concern. Something was actually climbing her!
She let out a yelp of surprise, and a broom came down on her head.
“Don’t move! I’ll ruddy get the black-hearted pest!” a fierce, high voice rasped from behind her.
The broom came down again, but this time it was beside her, and it chased a whirlwind of brown fur. The bundle of fur dashed around the room like a cyclone on a wheat field, except that this cyclone was scampering up the shelving, across the mantel, through lines of stacked hats, chittering wildly as it ran.
No wonder. It was being chased by a little portion of hell itself—in the shape of a tiny woman.
“Malicious swine! Come back ’ere, y’bugger! I’ll ’ave yer stuffed! Bloody man-eatin’ porcupine!”
It wasn’t a porcupine. Actually, it was a ground squirrel. At the moment, it obviously thought it was a dead squirrel. In its blind panic, it was disemboweling the hat store shelf by shelf, rack by rack, its sharp nails scratching furiously on the wooden framework as it tried desperately to escape from the broom that chased it.
The whirlwind behind the broom—who seemed to be a young woman from the glimpses Abbey got of her—suddenly popped up from behind a pile of fabric bolts and tossed a second broom to Abbey. “Take this an’ ’ead ’im off! Little villain’s molestin’ me ’ats!”
Abbey found the broom in her hands. She dumped her shopping bag and took a dive toward the action. “Open the door!” she cried, shooing the terrified squirrel down the window sill as it chittered its rage at her.
The little woman plunged for the door, but the squirrel took a sudden leap and crashed into the fabric bolts, which collapsed beneath its skittering feet. The bolts collided with a stack of hat boxes, and down came the boxes, all around Abbey. She dropped the broom and grabbed the biggest box.
“This way!” She stumbled over the fallen fabric bolts, her dress catching on the wooden edges of the bolt. Her hair was once again in her eyes—she hadn’t had this much trouble keeping it neat even during roundup!
“Goin’ yo’ way! Keep the oys open!”
“What?” Abbey squinted, trying to see through hanks of tawny hair. She caught a glimpse of a fur bundle dashing past her. She lunged forward, hatbox ready. “Hah!”
She landed full-length across the fabric bolts, and there was a yelp of victory as another body landed beside her. Together the two women held the hat box firmly to the floor, in spite of the frantic hammering from inside.
“’Old ’im! I got ’im! I got ’im!” The small woman made a long, uncomfortable reach for a hatbox lid that looked as if it might fit the box, and sure enough it served the purpose. Carefully she slid the lid under the hatbox, in spite of a black rodent’s nose that kept trying to push through the bottom. “Got it! Slow, now!”
Working together, they lifted the box, Abbey carefully holding the lid under the makeshift trap. She felt the weight of the squirrel and its scraping claws on the thin wood of the box lid, but forced herself to keep control as they inched toward the door. The squirrel threw itself against the interior of the hatbox, and twice they almost lost him, but a little muscle and a measure of determination got them to the door.
With her foot Abbey forced the door open, shoving aside the fallen dress rack, and the two women nudged their way outside.
“Roun’ this-away,” the young woman said, moving toward the side of the building. “’Ang on! Almost there! ’Ang on—oh, nooo—”
The squirrel, thoroughly panicked, went wild inside the box, and they lost their grip.
“Down! Let it down!” Abbey cried, but the box was already falling. Box, lid, and squirrel hit the cobblestones, and the squirrel streaked off toward a nearby elm tree. In an instant, it was nearer the sky than anything without wings.
Abbey and the young woman jumped up and down, pummeling each other and laughing in victory, then they fell together onto the neat little red bench on the store’s porch.
“Goo’ riddance, yer rum ’earted ’edge’og!” the girl shouted to the treetop.
Abbey sucked in a breath of relief and tried to make sense of the half words she was hearing. What kind of speech was it? Certainly nothing she’d heard so far in New England.
She took the moment to survey her newfound partner in extermination. The girl was younger than Abbey had thought, hardly more than eighteen. Her eyes were an unadorned green, her hair wispy and red, and her face freckled. Her hair was even more disarrayed than Abbey’s, but she huffed her victory and leaned back on the porch bench.
“No’ a bad mo’nin’s work, eh?” she drawled.
“Uh . . . yes,” Abbey said, wondering if she was interpreting the words right.
A narrow hand appeared before her. “Lucy’s the name. Lucy Edmonds.”
“Abbey Sutton. Do you own this shop?”
“Naw, I work ’ere. Got married t’a sailin’ bloke, thought ee’d bring me t’America, but I never got no farther than old Nanny.”
“Nanny? Oh, Nantucket, you mean.”
“Oh, righto, mum. New ’ere?”
“Just got off the boat today,” Abbey said, brushing back her stray locks. “I’m caring for Magistrate Nash’s children from now on. Well, for a while, at least. However long it takes to pay off his loan to my husband.”
“Married? Where’s the ’usband, then?” Lucy’s bright eyes crinkled with girlish conspiracy. “Scootin’ out on ’im, are yer?”
Abbey laughed. “No, no. Nothing like that. He’s dead.”
Lucy’s whole face suddenly shed its light. Every emotion the girl felt evidenced itself on her face without the slightest restraint. “Oh, sorry awf’ly, mum. I didn’t mean nothin’.”
“Oh, it’s all right. He died honorably.”
“Died ’ow?”
“Pardon?”
“ ’Ow? ’ow did ee die?”
“Oh, how? He was killed by rustlers.”
Lucy’s narrow eyes grew narrower. “Wot’s rufflers?”
Abbey laughed again. This girl had that effect—a chuckle at every turn, even just by her manner of expression. “Those are criminals who would steal a rancher’s stock.”
“Stock, eh? Best start at the ole beginnin’, eh?”
“Hmmm? Oh. All right.” Abbey sat back and took several moments to rearrange her hair more securely. “My husband was a county judge in Wyoming Territory, and he also opted to be a rancher of cattle. Stock, we call it there. To begin his ranch, he gathered loans from a few old acquaintances, Mr. Nash being one. However the judge was a poor businessman, love his soul, and the ranch failed. But not before he died defending his herd from rustlers who tried to steal them. I repaid most of the loans, but we have an outstanding debt to the magistrate, and Mr. Nash was kind enough to invite me to work away the debt by serving as governess to his children. It’s all as simple as that. So, here I am, and here, evidently, I’ll stay for a bit.”
Lucy leaned forward suddenly and clapped Abbey’s knee. “And a fine story it is, mum. Was a goo’ man, this judge?”
“Oh, he was a fine, kind man, yes. Older than I am, though, by quite a few years.”
“ ’Ow old are yer, then, mum, y’don’t mine me askin’?”
Abbey controlled her urge to grin at Lucy’s halting dialect, which, she found, she was getting used to. “I’m twenty-seven. The judge was fifty when he died.”
“Blimey, that is a jump!”
Nodding sedately, Abbey asked, “What’s your story, Lucy?”
“Mine? ’ardly anything, mum. I were workin’ the docks in Liverpool when I met me a fine sailor lad. ‘I promise t’take yer away from ’ere,’ says ee. Take me ee did, an’ ’ere I am too, jus’ like you. Never got no farver than ole Nanny Bucket. Me goin’ west an’ you goin’ east, and ’ere we be togevver.”
“Then I reckon we’ve got something in common, don’t we, Lucy?”
“Does indeed, mum. Friends?”
“Friends,” Abbey said with a committing nod, and suddenly she felt in place. “Where’s your husband now?” she asked, phrasing the question tenderly, for one never knew.
“Out to sea, mum, whalin’.” Lucy’s round, pink face buckled into a delightful smile. “Don’t worry, mum. Ee loves me, ee does. Name’s Billy Edmonds. Ee comes back pretty regular, an’ ee brings me things from such places! Spain an’ Greece, Bolivia an’ Peru—wot names these places got! Oh, aye, mum, ee always comes back. Ee can’t stand to be wivvout me.” An edge of pride danced across her smile, giving Abbey no doubt of that last claim. Then she leaned forward again in that intimate manner and confided, “Ee don’t know it yet, mum, but I’ve got me a surprise for ’im. I’ll show yer, mum—’ang on!”
The girl bounded up from the bench and disappeared into the shop. Abbey heard Lucy clunking around inside, and didn’t hear anything for a few moments. Then once again she heard the girls hard boots on the wooden floor, and Lucy once again appeared on the porch. This time, though, she cuddled a round-faced, wide-eyed baby of four or five months.
Abbey sat straight up. “Lucy! She’s beautifull”
Lucy brought her baby to the bench and sat the child down between them, holding the baby up in a sitting position. “Me wee mate, Wilma.”
Wilma craned her short little baby neck to look up at Abbey, her eyes round as bright grapes. She broke into a gummy grin that made both women laugh.
“Wilma, Wilma,” Abbey cooed, playing with the infant’s moist fingers. “Your husband doesn’t know?”
“ ’Ow couldee, mum? Been gone now over a year. Wait’ll ee sees this little face peepin’ up at ’im when ee gets off the whaler! Won’t he croak!”
Caught up in the girl’s genuine delight of her secret, Abbey felt a burst of happiness—perhaps even envy—within herself. “Oh, Lucy, I’m so happy for you! She’s a shining baby, that’s plain to see. Did you want a girl?”
“Oh, mum, I wants wha’ever I gets, and a ’aff dozen more.” Lucy sighed happily, then got to her feet and smoothed her skirt. She scooped up her baby as though all she’d ever done was scoop up babies. Wilma squealed and widened her silly toothless grin. “Pardon, mum,” Lucy said. “Time I got to pickin’ up that mess inside.”
“I’ll help you,” Abbey offered, getting up.
“Wouldn’t ’ear of it!”
“and I wouldn’t hear of having you do it alone.”
As the baby rode on her hip, Lucy wobbled her head back and forth comically. “Mum, I’d be a liar and bum-brained at that if I turned yer down,” she admitted cheerily.
“What a precocious thing you are,” Abbey sighed. “I’m surrounded by precocious people all of a sudden. I never imagined Nantucket would be such a lively place.”
Those words, falling as they did from her own mouth, struck up a memory. The docks. Jacob Ross.
Abbey let herself look again across the cobblestoned intersection at the door of The Brotherhood. “Lucy . . .” she began, not sure of what the question would be.
“Aye, mum?”
“Do you know a man named Jacob Ross?”
“Runs the Great Point light, mum. Quiet sort of bloke. Came just after I got ’ere. ’Bout a year past.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Why’dee ask, mum?”
Abbey puzzled over her feelings, and found she couldn’t isolate them yet. How could so fleeting an encounter embed itself so solidly in her mind? Perhaps the man . . . something about the man . . .
“Why?” she echoed, barely above a whisper. And she gazed at that pub door. “I don’t know. I don’t know. . ..”