Cassandra Wainwright arrived in Dangerfield with all the pomp of royalty. Her sister Freda chaperoned the excursion, and they traveled in a black cabriolet with red piping and two yellow streamers trailing in the wind. The driver wore a black suit with a white blouse buttoned to the neck and held his hands before him in a formal posture, guiding the horses by flicking the reins lightly on their backs. Billy was in the southwest corner of the yard when she heard the wheels straining over holes in the road. The driver pulled back on the reins to slow the horses and keep from jostling his passengers and their cargo. Five trunks stacked in successively smaller sizes bounced on the back of the buggy, pressing against the leather straps and creating a precarious rumble. There had been some dissension among the girl’s family about her making the trip without a chaperone. Cassandra, a fiery if sheltered twenty-three-year-old, had refused her mother’s company, and after days of quarreling had settled on Freda, a spinster of twenty-nine years old, but a good companion for the long ride. She’d pay respectable attention to the goings-on between the couple but wouldn’t stick her nose in where it didn’t belong.
Billy stood from where she was bent over a long trunk of oak. Once it was planted six feet down into the ground, this would act as a mast to test the lifesaving rig. Standing over the pole where it lay on the ground, Billy tried to envision the ropes running up to a crossbar where Hannah would wait like a shipwrecked sailor. She laid two pieces of wood on the ground to form the crossbar, and then set supports coming in at an angle. She bent over the mast pounding nails.
Tom walked up and startled her from the swing of her hammer. He wore his best wool trousers and a fine cotton shirt beneath a black frock jacket. In his gray work overalls and fishing boots, he’d blended into the landscape. Now his life edged beyond the peripheries of their yards and past the town lying between the lighthouse and the harbor.
“I thought you were entertaining your lady friend,” Billy said. “How’s she like the place?”
“Good enough,” he said, his lithe frame swaying in his clothes as if the sea rolled beneath him, but it was only nerves and the desire to move. “I painted some of the rooms, bought new linens, curtains, things like that. Hannah’s mother helped choose fabrics. Of course it must seem pretty rough to Cassie, still.”
“It’s a comfortable house,” Billy said.
“She’s used to more company.” Tom eyed the mast, hands shoved deep in his pockets now. He hadn’t worn an overcoat and his jaw clenched against chattering. “Hannah home? I want to ask her if we can come by for a visit.”
“Yep.”
“You’ll let me know if you need a hand getting this thing in the ground?”
“There’s something else I need.” She told him her idea for installing a ship’s bell at the top of the stairs, with a rope handle running down to the beach that Hannah could use to signal that she was okay, or if she needed help.
“That’s the best idea I’ve heard in a while,” Tom said. “You have a bell?”
“Yep.”
***
Billy washed her face and neck in the kitchen sink. She rubbed the dirt from her hands and dried herself before removing her sweat-soaked shirt and unwrapping the bandages that held her breasts flat. Once released, she stretched her back and the feeling returned to her breasts. Without the bandage her breath came easier, her ribs rose and fell in normal rhythms. Her reflection in the mirror surprised her, her pale breasts released from their wrap, the imprints of the cloth a lattice of smooth marks.
Since the wreck she’d gained weight so that she was no longer all muscle and bone, and her breasts began to look like a woman’s again. Small, tiny even, but still a woman’s. Only when she was naked did she feel completely like a woman, no confusion of gender in her small breasts or what lay between her legs. When she dressed and stepped into the world, her disguise not only compensated the privations of her sex, but also protected her most private self. She’d fought hard on the Intrepid for the privilege of working the sails and navigating the ship. She’d battled the men on the Alice K for her survival until she proved herself one of them. William Pike had taken shape inside her as a means of survival. Now the swagger she’d learned with the pirate crew, and the men’s clothes she’d donned in Jamaica, felt as much a part of her as the color of her hair or the blue veins that rose on the back of her hands. This strange tilting between sexes left her feeling like neither one nor the other, but a combination of both that she couldn’t fully decipher, but it was her, the real her, William Pike.
She tossed the dirty water out the window and stood for a moment with the cool air on her skin, rubbing the feeling into her breasts, feeling them there so strange and forgotten.
When Hannah broke the spell of her privacy, Billy turned from the window. They watched each other, spry as cats. The air in the room weighed on them in spite of the cold breeze until finally Hannah stepped forward to break their silence.
“What is it like?” she asked. “Is it uncomfortable?”
Billy picked up the bandage and rubbed it between her fingers to show Hannah.
“It’s another kind of corset,” Hannah said. She took the strap but didn’t take her eyes from Billy’s taut stomach, her nearly flat breasts.
Billy turned to get her shirt. She folded the towel onto the counter by the sink and put the soap in the dish. Every one of her movements vibrated through Hannah, and she tried to not watch, but she was transfixed. Billy turned from the counter and shrugged her shirt on. She placed her hand on Hannah’s arm, as if to say I know.
“I need to feed the chickens,” Hannah said, and abruptly left the room. She didn’t know what she was feeling, this strange mixture of dread and desire. How could she have feelings like this for Billy? In the yard, she turned and stared blankly toward the barn. Oh yes, she needed to feed the chickens.
***
It was rare to get visitors from Barnstable. Hannah stood in front of the mirror and admired her fine skirt, rose-colored plaid on a background of sand, a burgundy velvet bodice with covered buttons. She ran her fingers over the ivory stitching as if to assure herself that every last thread was in place. Her dark hair spun easily into a bun, and the white nape of her neck shone pale against the rich colors and textures of her clothing. The last time she’d worn this dress was in Barnstable when she first met John, but it wasn’t the loss of John she felt. It was the loss of the possibility of a marriage to Tom. He’d given up on her finally and left her to contend with her feelings for Billy. She’d turned him down, but how could he choose Cassandra Wainwright of all people?
Cassandra had grown up in Barnstable not a mile from Hannah, but they had never met. Hannah was four years older and the difference in age kept them apart. Cassandra’s father, Charles Wainwright III, owned a fishing business with concerns as far-reaching as Boston and New Bedford, not to mention the fleet he ran out of Barnstable harbor. Hannah knew many of the men and boys who worked in the fleet, but none of the Wainwrights themselves bothered with the stink of fishing.
As Hannah pulled at the tight bodice of her dress, she realized that Cassandra would be a new neighbor, possibly a friend. Anyone who interested Tom had to be worth knowing. She would have news of Barnstable, and maybe of Hannah’s family and friends. Since John’s disappearance, her feeling of connection to her past had all but washed away. John had met her family and spent time with her in Barnstable, so that coming to Dangerfield had felt an extension of her world more than a departure. With John gone, the tie was frayed. She wanted to reach back and grasp her past firmly in both hands, but she didn’t want to give up anything of her life in Dangerfield.
Hannah chose a cameo necklace, the ivory silhouette of her maternal grandmother atop a faded ebony oval. She fastened the gold chain about her neck so that the pendant rested in the center of her chest, and she pressed her hand to it as if to calm her heart. Cassandra would know the story of John’s disappearance, that he was dead. Hannah didn’t want sympathy. She didn’t want to discuss John or wear a widow’s black attire. She was getting along just fine. That’s what Cassandra could tell people when she returned to Barnstable. Hannah Snow is getting along just fine.
She rubbed salve into her hands, wishing her skin wasn’t rough from work, the creases in her palms not stained with oil. What about Billy? What if Cassandra went back to Barnstable and told people that Hannah was living with a strange man in her house? Or what if Billy couldn’t pass as a man now that she’d filled out a little around the hips? She couldn’t help feeling that she was hiding a secret more frightening than the fact of a strange man living in her house.
Would the women sense the familiarity she had with Billy? What would they think? Why wasn’t she afraid of Billy’s naked body in her kitchen? She was more intrigued than frightened, and this troubled her. She shuddered at the thought of being found out. Billy sat in the front room with one foot propped on a chair as she spliced a piece of rope around the lifesaving ring, which looked huge in the middle of the floor. The swish of Hannah’s skirts preceded her, and Billy could not take her eyes from the lift of her breasts captured in the bodice, the shimmer of burgundy velvet, the soft sheen of fabric over baleen hoops. Hannah’s lips appeared fuller, the depths of her eyes brighter.
“They’re going to be here soon. You can’t do that in the house,” she said, gathering discarded clothing from the furniture and piling it in her bedroom. “I’ve been giving it some thought.” Hannah adjusted the cameo back and forth on her chest, though it sat perfectly centered. “Cassandra and her sister are expecting a widow in mourning.”
“You’re not even wearing black. You’re dressed to impress someone you don’t really know.”
“I do know them. They’re Barnstable women, and they won’t understand how we live. They’ll gossip.”
“What are you saying? You want me to leave?”
“It’s just for a little while, so I don’t have to lie or make up explanations. You have to be Billy, my hired man. Keep your place when they’re here and don’t be too familiar.”
Billy left the life ring half finished on the floor. She grabbed her coat, slammed the front door, and stepped into the cold like she meant to do it harm.
***
Cassandra and Freda arrived at Hannah’s in the cabriolet with Tom sitting up high with the driver. He swung himself down off the seat before the buggy came to a full stop, the flaps of his jacket in flight behind him, birdlike. He held the buggy door wide and raised a hand for Freda as she balanced on the narrow step, pulling along the cage of her skirts as she stepped to the ground in her white-buttoned boots.
Hannah walked straight to Freda and offered her hand in friendship. “I’m Hannah Snow, the lighthouse keeper and Tom’s friend. How kind of you to visit.”
“I’m Freda, Cassie’s eldest sister and chaperone.”
“Nice to make your acquaintance,” Hannah said. Freda was a big woman with a square, handsome face that gave her a brutish look, perhaps because of the scowl that seemed a permanent aspect of her countenance. She had thick arms and a large waist but moved rather lightly, and her melodious voice was as unexpected and lithe as her gait. Everything physical about Freda existed in direct contrast to the delighted sparkle in her olive green eyes. What at first appeared a scowl turned out to be nothing more than worry and a bookish sort of shyness that she tried to shield behind wire-rimmed spectacles.
Cassandra stepped out of the buggy as if onto a stage and waved as she took Tom’s hand. Her pale blue dress and pale skin gave her the sheltered look of a child. She was pretty in an impractical way.
“This is Cassie. Cassie, this is Hannah, the lighthouse keeper here at Dangerfield.”
Hannah stepped forward to take Cassie’s arm. “You must come in and see the lighthouse,” she said. “Tom has told me so much about you.”
“I brought you a little gift,” Cassie said. “A package of tea from China. Daddy got it on one of his voyages.”
“How lovely. I’m going to save it for a particularly cold night.”
Inside, the women settled themselves around the table, and Hannah set the pot on the stove. She poured boiling water into the white china pitcher with tiny yellow flowers on it, a gift from her mother.
“How many years have you been living at the lighthouse?” Cassie asked. Tom sat beside her, gazing at her as if seeing her for the first time, then glancing to Hannah to see if she noticed, but Hannah couldn’t look at him.
“Over six years now. My husband John had been here for several years, and once we married, I joined him. He built sections of the house that you see here with lumber salvaged from shipwrecks.” Hannah nodded toward the far wall. “That crossbeam that holds the roof up came from a ship’s deck, and the cornice here also washed up on the beach. My husband made good use of what he found.”
“Like Tom’s lovely tables,” Freda said, sipping her tea.
“Tom’s turned practicality into an art form. We can’t claim to be anywhere near as creative or clever as that,” Hannah said.
Tom went to the fire, uncomfortable now that the attention had turned to him.
“If you ride out to the harbor, you’ll see there are fishnets used for chicken coops,” Hannah said, “and oars for fence posts and salvaged block and tackle hanging from over the barns to lift and lower bales of hay.”
“Yes, Tom took us on a ride in that direction earlier today. Quite interesting,” Freda said. She spoke as if the world was an object placed before her for intellectual consideration.
“Sailors are resourceful. They have what they have and they put it to good use. Fishnet on a chicken coop makes perfect sense to them,” Cassie said, delighted, and without taking a breath, she continued. “I’m so sorry to hear about your husband. How are you getting on?”
“I’m grateful for my duties here. Keeping our home and keeping the lights going is what John would’ve wanted.”
“You’re very brave, very brave indeed,” Cassie said. “I don’t know anyone who would hold up so well under the circumstances.” She broke off a piece of orange cranberry bread from her plate and popped it into her mouth. Something in the tone of her voice triggered a nagging feeling that Hannah should appear to be more undone by her grief. Any woman who truly cared about her husband would simply not be able to go on.
“I have difficult days, of course,” Hannah said. “But the demands of the lights keep me focused on my responsibilities as a lightkeeper’s wife.” Hannah knew they would not understand how she could step into John’s role as lighthouse keeper, or how she could live with a strange man she’d rescued from the sea.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Cassie said. Tom nodded, brushing crumbs from his jacket. He stroked his sideburns where they grew long near his jaw. Hannah noticed his new riding jacket, the pressed cotton shirt, the slicked-back hair, all of it reaching for something just above him, whether it was money or status, she couldn’t tell. Maybe it was to impress her or maybe it was the love of this woman he sought with his finery.
She understood his attraction to Cassie. Even her casual dress had been sewn from a polished fabric, an exotic floral design of green and gold cut to accentuate her tiny figure and show her delicate wrists. Her hands pale and soft, the fingernails smooth and clear as tiny pieces of glass, reminded Hannah of a child’s hands not yet put to work. And her face captivated with a freedom of expression and delight that animated her brown eyes. She was likable, she deferred to her audience while maintaining her own opinion, she could take a joke, she could listen. When she gazed at Tom, her eyes widened, and she nodded in agreement with most of what he said, not out of a dim-witted womanly duty but with a real like-mindedness that made Hannah envious and lonely.
“Where’s Billy? I thought he’d be here,” Tom said.
Hannah smiled. “Tom loves to include the help. It’s one of the things I like about him. He doesn’t see himself above anybody.”
“Billy’s more than just the help,” Tom said. “He’s—”
“He’s gone down to the harbor for supplies,” Hannah said, giving Tom a look meant to keep him from saying anything further.
“Yes, well. I suppose Cassie will meet him another time,” Tom said.
“Has Tom told you of his success? He’s become quite the sensation in Barnstable with a reputation as a fine furniture maker. He’s considered an artist. Father thinks he can make a name for himself in New York City. Go ahead, Tom, tell her.”
“Well, yes, ah, Cassie’s father, Charles, he’s a fine man, very helpful, a mentor to me really. The furniture has done so well that the limited supply has driven the prices up very high. Because I can only produce so much furniture by myself, Charles suggested a manufacturing model. I could build the furniture with a crew of men, and we could produce more pieces. In fact, we could have many pieces of furniture in the works at any one time. The key, he said, and this is fascinating, really, is that we need to find the exact point where the supply of furniture does not exceed the demand so that the prices stay high and people still feel that they are buying something unique and special.” Tom became especially animated, pacing back and forth as he spoke and looking into Hannah’s eyes to make sure that she was following his logic. “That’s what they’re paying for, the story, the handmade quality, the attention to detail. If too many pieces of furniture were to make it to market, they would not command the same prices. If the prices go down, or if too many people acquire the furniture, buyers lose interest. The key is to find the balance.”
“Sounds like you will be making the trip back and forth to Barnstable quite often,” Hannah said. “To gather wood and build and whatnot.”
“We hope to keep two homes,” Cassie said.
“We’ll have to see how our business plans shape up,” Tom said. “It could very well work.”
“Yes,” Cassie said, turning to Hannah. “So how about a tour of the lights for a couple of town ladies?”
Hannah rose and escorted the women to look out the kitchen windows and into the bedroom, where she explained the historic features of the keeper’s cottage, the arrangement of the windows at awkward intervals along the wall to allow a wide view of the coast.
“How quaint,” Freda said, stepping carefully over uneven floorboards. “You sacrifice so much in order to carry out your duties.”
“I don’t see it as a sacrifice, though, Freda. I enjoy this view the way you might enjoy a wonderful library filled with your favorite books.”
“Don’t you get lonely, Hannah?” Cassie asked. “Don’t you miss the parties and the friends you grew up with? Do you remember Evan Pierce? He’s a lawyer now. He works for my father now and again.”
Hannah did feel her loneliness then, listening to Cassie talk. She was ready for them all to leave, ready for Billy’s return.
Hannah led her guests along the passageway to the lighthouse, and they looked up into the column at the curving stairs. Cassie looked straight up the middle at the black steps forming concentric circles that got smaller and smaller toward the top. “My, that’s a long climb.”
Freda watched from the side, as if the mere suggestion of heights was enough to make her nauseous. “How do you get up those stairs in your skirts?”
“Well,” Hannah said, “it’s difficult. With John gone, I realized that men wear trousers for good reason. This may sound ridiculous, but as I stepped into my husband’s role as lighthouse keeper, I found it convenient to step into his trousers as well.”
Cassie slapped Freda on the arm. “Hah! Did you hear that? Hannah Snow, you are outrageous. Men’s trousers indeed. Wait till I tell—”
“Oh no. Please, if my mother hears of it, she’ll never leave me alone. Please don’t speak of it, Cassie.”
“All right, if you insist. It will be our secret. But it’s going to be hard to resist. You’re quite the outlaw, Mrs. Snow.”
Hannah laughed, leading them back to the house. “No, not really. I’m just practical.” In the living room, she pulled the curtain back and peered up the road for Billy, but there was no sign of her. What would she think of this curious girl that Tom was going to marry? She felt tired now, and bored with these women. Where was Billy? She’d been gone for hours. Her visitors talked, but their voices sounded far away. Billy had been so angry. Had she forgotten that Hannah was keeping her on for the winter even after her lies and her foolish drinking? Couldn’t she see that Hannah needed her help? Didn’t that mean anything?
When Hannah turned her attention back to her guests, Cassie had settled into a chair, her dress rustling around her. Tom stood to one side of her. Freda wiped her seat cushion fastidiously with her handkerchief before sitting down with her spine straight, her hands folded on her skirt. They were waiting politely for her.
“Hannah, Cassie was just saying how she remembers you from Barnstable,” Tom said.
“You don’t remember me because you were one of the older girls and I was just a little one, but I remember you out on the boat with your father. You didn’t care about anything but fishing. You went everywhere with your father. My mother used to say you were that man’s shadow and if you wanted to grow into any kind of lady you were going to have to stay home. That’s how she was. But all the girls admired you. We wanted to spend time with our fathers. All we did as little girls was play house, play with dolls, and run from boys. Oh, and take piano class. It was all so dull.”
Hannah smiled and looked at Freda, certain that Freda had never admired her. Tom couldn’t keep still. Hannah watched him poke the fire, stack kindling, and gaze around at the women as if they would tell him what to do next.
***
Twilight lasted forever that evening, a silver light stretching along the horizon, bladelike. Billy kicked through some rubbish behind the grocery store. Millie didn’t have anything for her, and she shouldn’t be buying anything from Millie anyways, but her mind was in ruins. Not the cold wind, not her heart beating hard enough to crack her ribs, not the scraping in her gut, nothing eased the underwater feeling she moved through like a swimmer with rocks roped to her boots. She realized her desire for Hannah in the utter ache that permeated her body. Hannah had kicked her out, like some kind of expendable hired help. She slogged up the alley and back around to the front of the grocery store.
All these people in town with their friendly faces, all these people who waved hello and knew each other, had known each other for years, had lost husbands and sons and brothers together, survived winters and fished together. Their warmth and camaraderie exaggerated her own loneliness. She headed toward the docks, where there had to be some sailors on shore leave with a pint to spare. She needed a drink. The clouds broke apart now, streaked with light from the disappearing sun. Finally, dark swept over the street like a blanket.
On the dock a fiddler played and men sang around lanterns that splashed light across the dark water. Billy leaned against a post and listened. The plaintive fiddle, joined now by a mandolin, eased her sadness and for a moment she was not a stranger. How could Millie be out of liquor? She regretted leaving the lighthouse in a rage. A drink would ease her back. But Hannah might kick her out for good if she got drunk. It was probably exactly what Hannah was expecting. She would sniff the air around Billy. No. Not this time. She wouldn’t smell of it this time. How could she return to the lighthouse? Where else could she go? She pushed herself forward and toward the road. She felt weak on her way up the hill that led out of the village. When a wagon pulled alongside, she hopped onto the back and sat with her legs dangling. The driver coughed and spat over the side, coughed and spat again. His breath rasped loudly in the still air. She slid off the wagon when they reached the main road, and she watched as the driver headed north toward Provincetown, his figure fading into the dark. There was the lighthouse beam flashing through the trees. Her heart lifted. If only she could harden herself against longing, but she was tired, desperation had ground her down, and there was the light, calling her back.
***
Hannah changed back into her work clothes, relieved to be free of the constrictions of her bodice and polite company. As much as it interested her to hear news of Barnstable, the familiar family names she’d known growing up—Cobb, Hutchinson, Worthington, Collins—she tired of the talk. Her responsibilities kept her from the whorl of emotions eddying within her. If she could climb the lighthouse stairs, those names would echo and quickly recede, as if Cassie had never come and spoken them in her house. What did people think about her living at the lighthouse now that John was gone? She’d been too self-conscious to ask Cassie outright. Still, she wondered as she stood at the sink. Was that Billy coming up the porch? Hannah tipped her head to listen for footsteps, but it was only the wind pushing a wood chair across the boards.
Hannah went out to the barn, lantern swinging from one hand. The pale light swirled about the expansive dark in the barn. Only emptiness, a rock in her stomach. The ropes Billy had used the first time they tested the lifesaving rig hung coiled on the back wall. Hannah remembered how she had trusted Billy to guide her down to safety, and how she trusted Billy now to help her with the rescues. She should’ve let Billy stay, but she was afraid of what the women would think. She was a coward, and she regretted her decision. Nellie rustled in her stall, the heavy clomp of her hooves reassuring. “Are you out here?”
She turned in a circle, shining the light along the walls and then walking into the corners where the shadows thickened. She searched each stall and climbed up to the loft. What if Billy was gone for good? There was nothing keeping her here. She could take this opportunity to move on to whatever awaited her on her route north. If Billy didn’t come back, it would be Hannah’s fault.
“You can’t stay out here forever,” Hannah said, her voice tiny in all that dark.
***
In full stride from the road, Billy rattled the floorboards on the porch. She entered the room like a northeast wind. On the table, the remnants of tea, a half loaf of cranberry bread and empty teacups, reminded Billy why she’d been asked to leave, and the disorder of her longing and her fear ruined her. Hope was a fool’s dream.
Hannah met her at the door. “I’m sorry,” Hannah said.
Billy held up her hands to stop Hannah’s words. “It doesn’t matter.” The gaunt look, the squint in her eye that wouldn’t look at Hannah directly.
“I want you here. It was a mistake to ask you to leave. Do you hear me?”
“I’m too tired to listen to this, Hannah.”
But Hannah stepped through the gravelly sound of Billy’s voice. The way Billy’s body moved like a blade, her forehead knotted and strained, didn’t frighten Hannah. She took Billy’s face in her two hands and spoke, even as Billy’s eyes looked into the corner of the room. “I need you here. It was a mistake. I’m sorry.”
Billy couldn’t resist the feel of Hannah’s hands, nor her insistent need to pull Billy back. “But you asked me to leave. I’m not good enough for your friends.”
“That’s not it. I was afraid.” The pleading, half-desperate look in Hannah’s eyes confused her. She shook herself loose, stepped back.
“You’re not afraid of anything, Hannah.”
“That’s not true. I was afraid what they would think of us if they sensed our friendship. What they would say back in Barnstable. Then I was afraid you were gone, and that was worse.”
Billy didn’t respond. Hannah grabbed her by the upper arms and shook her. “Can you forgive me? Will you stay?”
With the relief of Hannah’s plea, all the grief she’d carried down to the harbor fell from her like a heavy coat. “I was never going to leave,” she said.