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Phillipe arose just before sunrise and his stirrings woke Marin from a peaceful sleep. After Phillipe had left the room, Marin remained awake watching the orange embers of the fireplace wash over Opaline as she slept.
Later, as she awoke, Marin feigned sleep while occasionally stealing a peek at her as she stood before the fire draped only in her nightgown, stoking the embers and adding fresh wood. As the fire bloomed, lighting the dim lit room, she remained facing the flames while warming herself. With the fire’s bright glow providing backlight, her silhouetted form was made visible through the gown. Marin printed the image in his mind’s eye before making stirring noises to draw her attention. She turned to face him, and caught in his stare, she watched his eyes journey the visual length of her gown, all the way to the floor and back again.
“You simply cannot help yourself, can you?” she commented, as if speaking to a mischievous child.
“No, Ma’am.” He confessed, “I cannot.”
She bent down, picked her robe up from the floor and wrapped it snuggly around her. “I’ll put the kettle on,” she said, retreating to the kitchen.
Marin, having slept in his clothes, threw off his cover and went to the front door to check the weather. As he opened the door, a four-foot drift of snow collapsed into the foyer burying him up to his knees. A heaping pile of rubble, that had just yesterday been the roof over the porch, lay in front of him blocking passage to and from the house. Looking out over and through the debris, all was still. A desert of snow covered the landscape, even as a fresh coating of the stuff continued to fall. He heard the bell of a ship calling out in the distance, but the bay itself was invisible through the dense falling powder. He tried shutting the door, but realized he would have to shovel the snow from the foyer floor before that task could be accomplished. He repaired to the kitchen to retrieve a small fireplace shovel.
Opaline stood at the kitchen hearth rebuilding the fire.
“We are going to need more wood before the day is out,” she said.
“We’re blocked in,” Marin said.
“What?”
“We’re blocked in,” Marin repeated.
“Well, unblock us. We have to have more wood.”
“Yes, Your Royal Highness,” he said, bowing low.
He was busy shoveling the snow from inside the house, one small scoop at a time, when Phillipe came to his side.
“Oh dear,” Phillipe said, noticing the pile of wood, snow and tile. “How did that happen?”
“Well,” Marin said without pause, “Opaline said we needed firewood, and since the path to the woodshed was blocked by snow, I thought I would tear down the wooden canopy over the porch and—”
“Your humor escapes me,” Phillipe said, going off toward the kitchen.
When Marin had removed most of the snow from the foyer, he grabbed an especially long piece of wood from the pile of scrap, pulled it free, and dragged it into the house. He tugged it into the kitchen and stood it before the fireplace at a slight angle, being as it was too tall to stand steep.
“And how am I to burn that?” Opaline asked.
“V-e-r-y carefully,” Marin said.
The jest at first escaped her, but as the absurdity of his response took hold, she released an amused laugh.
“I fail to see the humor,” Phillipe said.
“You always do, dear brother,” Marin laughed.
After breaking the long strip of wood into manageable sized pieces, Marin stood by Opaline’s side helping her prepare a deep skillet of bacon, eggs, peppers, onion and cheese, along with warmed bread and tea. As Phillipe watched the two working fluidly together, he took special notice of the occasional schoolyard tease, soft-toned laughter, and boy-touch-girl-touch-boy dalliance sewn into their every plural move, giving rise to a certain repugnant envy within him.
After the pleasant respite of a hearty breakfast, they sat in silence before the crackling fire.
“I think we’re going to have to block off the library as well,” Marin said. “I’ll gather the wood from the other rooms and bring it into the kitchen. I believe we are going to be huddled here for a little while.”
“I was hoping to prepare for my departure today,” Opaline said, with a slight sigh.
“Perhaps your guide bids you, ‘stay put’,” Marin said, as if checking her Queen.
“What guide?” Phillipe asked.
“That’s what we are trying to discern,” Marin said.
Phillipe shook off the cryptic remark, and addressed Opaline. “Opaline, I wish you to stay on and make this your home. I am, that is Marin and I, are prepared to finance a midwife service to be operated out of the house. There is plenty of room, and besides, we may be venturing forth in the near future, and someone needs to be here tending to the house. I beg of you, please do not leave without giving this a few days consideration.”
“Well, she, or no one else, will be going anywhere, anytime soon,” Marin was quick to add, “and where, pray tell, are you venturing off to?”
Phillipe folded his hands upon the table and addressed Marin directly. “I was hoping to accompany you on your voyage to Passamaquoddy Bay.”
“WHAT?” erupted Marin and Opaline simultaneously?
Phillipe looked first at Opaline. “What is your objection?” he asked her.
She said nothing, but with a look, deferred to Marin.
“Phillipe...” Marin began, in an attempt to sort through his many objections, “...you know nothing of the sea, and even less about sailing.”
“Everyone starts somewhere,” Phillipe rebutted.
“This is hardly the mission for a fledgling. I am to advise the lads who are still learning the ropes to stay ashore.”
“I needn’t serve as a seaman ...Captain.”
“Then why would I need you aboard?”
“As clergy to the crew.”
“Clergy?” Marin repeated for his own clarification.
Phillipe gave an enthusiastic nod of his head to confirm.
“Sailors are a superstitious lot, my brother. Clergy and women are not usually welcome aboard,” prompting Opaline to contribute,
“What woman in full possession of her sanity would want to be aboard a ship full of randy men, miles and miles at sea?”
“Precisely,” Marin said.
“Well that is not superstition, that is common sense,” she said.
“And yet, there are women who wish—”
“What does any of this have to do with the clergy?” Phillipe interjected. “These men, by your own admission, are setting sail on a dangerous mission ...and on a cursed ship, I might add. You tell me where my services are more in demand.”
Marin first responded to the ‘cursed ship’ remark with a stern look before addressing the rest of Phillipe’s plea. “On land,” Marin said firmly. “A sailor may well be in need of your services while in port, but while at sea he must believe himself to be in charge of his own fate. He is all too aware of the peril that surrounds him; he needn’t be reminded. His superstition is his guard against the demons that would claim him; much like your own, dear Phillipe. “
Phillipe smirked and asked, “And what of his soul?”
“Aye, and what of it? Reminding a sailor of his soul is to remind him of death. To be reminded of death is to make a man afraid. A fearful man is full of doubt, and doubt is a luxury no sailor can afford.”
“It is not doubt that I offer, but belief.”
“A sailor’s belief must be wholly invested in his Captain. You do your good work on land, Phillipe, and let me do mine at sea.
“I see. You wish to be God.”
“Nonsense ...we are both servants, Phillipe. The difference is, I don’t claim to have any privileged knowledge, nor position, as concerns,” and turning his gaze to Opaline, he added, “my guide.”
***
The temperature continued to drop throughout the day, and the sky turned a cold blue shade of grey, as the three of them nestled together around the old oak kitchen table.
Phillipe sat in his spot at the table, busying himself with his Bible in preparation for tomorrow’s sermon. Opaline sat beside him, as Maria had, scratching figures onto a piece of paper. Marin sat across from them, sorting through the family finances.
“We are in better shape than I thought,” Marin declared, glimpsing up in expectation of an appreciative audience. No one responded. “I say, it turns out, we are quite well off. Mother has tucked away a tidy little sum.”
Opaline continued to scribble. Phillipe murmured verse.
“Shouldn’t be too difficult to embezzle the booty out from under these watchful eyes,” Marin mumbled.
“What are you mumbling about?” Phillipe asked?
“Secular matters. No need to concern yourself, brother. What is it you are busy with, Opaline?”
She shook her head as if to shoo him away. As he reached across the table, making a move toward her piece of paper, she covered it with her arm.
Marin sat patiently watching, waiting. His patience unrewarded, he placed the tip of his index finger at the crest of the small furrow between the thumb and forefinger of her folded hand. With but a wisp of a touch, he gently moved the bare flesh of his fingertip back and forth along the silky fold. She looked across the table at him and her eyes widened as she gave way to his probing, opening the two halves of the crease just wide enough to accept his finger into the depths of her palm. She folded her lips inward as she tightened her grasp around his extended finger. Using the grip of her own hand, he slid her arm across the page to reveal two neatly laid out columns. On the left was a list of equipment and supplies she would need to start a midwife service. In the column to the right, an itemized, estimated cost.
“May I?” Marin asked, reaching for the paper.
Opaline sat up in deference to his request, still holding onto his finger.
He smiled as he turned the paper around and read the numbers in the right-hand column. “So, can I presume you are beginning to warm to the idea of our ...coming together?” he asked.
Opaline continued to gaze at him far past the time of a considered response. Her eyes drifted down and settled on her hand, still squeezed firmly around his finger. She gradually relaxed the enclosure and slid the hollow of her hand down, removing his enwombed finger.
“I am merely feeling out ...that is, considering the feasibility,” she said, placing the aforementioned hand in her lap.
“Well, financially speaking, this is indeed feasible,” he said, turning the paper back around and pushing it in toward her.
“I am going to hell,” Phillipe announced.
“What in the world are you talking about, Phillipe?” Opaline was quick to ask.
“Please take that book with you,” Marin chided, as he slammed shut the Bible on Phillipe’s left hand.
Phillipe defiantly flipped open the Bible and began to read from Leviticus: "’If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.’”
“Where does it say you’re going to hell?” Marin asked in a comedic tone.
Opaline gave Marin a ‘you’re not helping’ look, and queried Phillipe. “Phillipe, have you, in that sense, laid with another man?”
Phillipe drew back, astonished at the question.
“Well?” Marin contributed.
“No. Of course not.” Phillipe declared.
“Well then, why are you worried?” Opaline inquired.
Phillipe surrendered his full attention to Opaline, and said, “If I am not attracted to a woman as beautiful as you, then what does that...” and he stumbled into silence, unable to complete his self-indicting question.
Opaline wrapped her arms around him, and Phillipe buried his head into her shoulder. “Perhaps you are to remain celibate, Phillipe,” she offered.
Marin watched for a moment as she comforted Phillipe, and as she began to run her folded fingers down the side of his pale white cheek, Marin left the table to attend to the ebbing fire in the hearth. As he poked through the ashes, sorting those gone cold from those still burning, he felt a small degree of warmth rise from the hearth and spread across his face. Then, stoking the fire with the bellows, a great flame hurled forth pushing him back with its heat.
“Careful,” cried Opaline.
“I should know better than to get too close,” Marin said, stepping away from the fire.
“Are you alright?” she asked, releasing Phillipe from her arms “Come, let me have a look at you.” Marin came to her side and bent over to face her. A giggle escaped her restraint. “You have singed your brow,” she said, running her finger lightly across his forehead, “and your face is a little red. Does it hurt?” she asked, trailing her folded fingers down the side of his face.
“It’s such a gentle pain,” he replied, closing his eyes.
***
Later that morning, Marin suited up against the elements and stepped outside, clearing as much loose debris from the porch as he could. He then forged a path to the barn to check on the horses before gathering firewood from the shed. Coming back into the house with an armful of wood, he said to Phillipe,
“We’re going to have to bring the horses into the house.”
“Pardon?” Phillipe challenged.
“I’m afraid if we don’t bring the horses into the house they will freeze to death. It is bitter cold out there,” Marin said, breezing past Phillipe.
“Horses in the house?” Phillipe called after him, as if Marin’s sense of humor had once again escaped him.
“Either that, or purchase new ones come the thaw,” Marin said from the kitchen.
Realizing Marin was serious, Phillipe said to himself, “I have never heard of such a thing.” As Marin re-entered the foyer, Phillipe asked him, “And where in the house would we contain them?”
“In the storage-way at the back of the house.”
“Marin, it is full of stuff.”
“We can empty it out into the back room, lay a tarpaulin on the floor. It will only be for a little while, until the temperature warms.”
“I want no part of this,” Phillipe said, walking away. “No part of what?’ Opaline asked, coming into the foyer.
“The horses,” Marin replied. “I want to bring them into the house.”
“Horses in the house? You must be joking.” she said, looking about. “Where might you put them?”
“Follow me,” he instructed.
He led her down the long hallway leading from the foyer toward the back of the house. About halfway down he paused before a door to his left.
“The back room,” he said, easing open the creaking door leading into a large walnut paneled room. As he lit an oil lamp sitting on a small mahogany table at the entrance, Opaline put her hands to her chest and drew a deep breath. Her eyes beheld a spacious room filled with exquisite pieces of French, English, Spanish and Russian furniture, placed in no particular decorous order. The walls were adorned with paintings of people long gone from this world, staring with fixed eyes into the room full of once precious belongings, now left unattended. A long bench spanning the entire length of the back wall contained an unbroken line of dolls. They appeared to be waiting for the return of a little girl, the little girl who had already held each one of them for the last time.
“Mother’s belongings,” Marin said, picking up the lantern and walking to a door at the right side of the room. Opening the door, he shined the light into a space a scant eight feet deep and spreading out about twenty feet wide.
“Clean this out, and there is plenty of room for a couple of horses,” he said.
Opaline smiled with approval.
“I’ll not have it,” Phillipe called out from the entrance to the back room. “I’m putting my foot down, Marin. No horses in this house. If MaMa had not already passed, this surely would have done the job.”
“Phillipe, it is only for a couple of days. This weather will not—”
“NO,” shouted Phillipe, and startled by his own outburst, he calmly added, “The Lord will provide.”
“Well he’s doing a damn poor job of it,” Marin said, storming past Phillipe and filling the house with his voice. “God’s horses are freezing to death, Phillipe.”
Opaline offered, “Perhaps the Lord is requesting our service.”
Phillipe stiffened as if insulted, and asked, “Why then would He speak through Marin?”
Opaline, aghast at the statement, and without thinking, let loose, “Why, you sanctimonious little piss-pot. How dare you place yourself in God’s favor over your own brother? Much is revealed in such moments,” she concluded, leaving Phillipe in her wake.
Opaline found Marin in Maria’s room stripping the woolen blankets from the bed. She watched as he emptied his mother’s storage trunk and closet of similar items.
“What are you doing?” she asked, as he gathered the bundle, and juggled the load toward the front door.
“I am staying with the horses,” he said, and he paused at the front door, awaiting Opaline’s assistance, until she reluctantly came forward and opened the door for him. He squeezed through the opening, turned his head, and asked, “Would you mind slamming the door for me?”
She watched as he edged sideways to negotiate his way through the gathered rubble on the porch, marched through the narrow pathway he had previously forged through the snow, and rounding the side of the house, disappeared from view.
Phillipe, bearing a large kettle, came to her side and said, “Help me fill this with snow, and let’s prepare dinner.”
After placing the kettle full of snow over the fire, Phillipe stood at a preparation table beside the hearth, trimming a piece of salt pork, while Opaline sat at the table chopping vegetables.
“Do you think he will actually spend the night in the barn?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t be surprised. When he was young, MaMa took after him with a switch, and Marin climbed atop the roof and yelled down to her that he would not let her punish him for something he had not done. MaMa said, ‘You’ll have to come down from there sooner or later, and the longer you stall, the more severe the punishment that awaits you.’ He spent the night on the roof.”
“And when did he finally come down?” Opaline asked.
“The following morning. I went to MaMa and confessed that it was I who had broken, ‘The Fortuna’.”
Opaline laid her knife aside, and turned to face Phillipe. “You broke it? And you let him sleep all night on the...what is a Fortuna?”
“It was a crystal replica of a ship upon which Erik had sailed.”
“And you broke it?”
“Yes.”
“And you waited until the following day to confess?”
“I was afraid. Besides, Marin was always getting punished, even if I was at fault. MaMa would say to him, ‘You should have been attending to your little brother’, and he would be sent to his room; which wasn’t much of a punishment, because he spent most of his time up there anyway.”
Opaline picked up her knife, grabbed a large onion, and began to peel off the thin protective skin. “I take it you and Marin were not close as children.”
“No.” Phillipe answered, without so much as a thought.
Opaline said nothing.
“I blame MaMa,” Phillipe stated, surprised by his own words.
Opaline stopped peeling the onion and looked at Phillipe, waiting for an explanation.
“MaMa forced us to choose sides,” he said, and he cut the ham in half with one swift blow of the cleaver.
“Between her and your father?”
“They were married when she was twenty-one and he but sixteen. She was very domineering, and he, for the most part, ignored her. After a while, they simply stopped speaking to one another, and it was that unbearable silence that caused Marin and I to take sides. We became surrogate communicators for the two of them; I for MaMa, Marin for Erik.”
“You call your father, ‘Erik’?”
“Yes. Marin called him, ‘Father’.”
“Why the discrepancy?”
“Because MaMa, when talking to me, would refer to him as Erik; ‘Go tell Erik, dinner is served’. When addressing Marin, she referred to him as, ‘your father’; ‘Go tell your father, dinner is served.’”
“And did you not find that odd?” Opaline asked, returning to the peeling of the onion.
“Very much so. Marin and I both found it puzzling.”
“Did no one ever ask her, why?”
“No. Marin use to tease me, saying it was because I was actually the preacher’s son.”
“What did Erik ...your father, think of all of this?”
“I think he considered me, MaMa’s possession; she owned everything else,” Phillipe replied, in a surprisingly salty tone.
“...and Marin?”
“Marin was, in every way, his father’s son, and MaMa professed as much. ‘You are just like your father,’ she would say, mostly when scolding him.”
“Do you believe that your MaMa ...loved Erik?” Opaline braved.
Phillipe appeared to consider the question before answering, and Opaline wondered if he was probing the indelicacy of her question, or the complexity of the answer.
“I would imagine she did ...yes.” He walked over to the kettle and dropped half of the ham into the hot water. “I know she was devastated when he failed to come home from his last voyage. She has insisted we place a lantern in the stairway window every night since.” Phillipe walked back to the preparation table and picked up the other half of the ham. “I wonder if I need to add this?” he asked, and shrugging his shoulders, he added, “but that may have been from guilt. I think MaMa wondered if she hadn’t driven him to spend so much time at sea.”
“And what about Marin?” Opaline had to ask.
Dropping the other half of the ham into the kettle, Phillipe said, “Marin is just like his father.”
Opaline shook her head, and muttered, “What does that mean?” as she gathered up the vegetable and placed them into the stew.
***
After the sun had set, and the light from the crescent moon cast only the faintest of shadows across the snow-covered landscape, Phillipe and Opaline lie before the glowing warmth of the hearth. What seemed a comfortable silence to Opaline, felt like a suffocating hush to Phillipe.
Phillipe felt he had to ask, “Opaline, does it bother you that I saw you...” and he paused for delicate emphasis, “exposed?”
“No, it was innocent enough. I am, however, less than pleased that your reaction was one of nausea,” she said, ending with a courteous laugh.
“Oh no, please, I think you are beautiful ...it is just that...” but he could not complete the sentence.
“Why, ‘exposed?” she asked curiously. “Is that somehow a less sinful expression than, say, ‘naked’?”
“That is such a shameful word.” Phillipe replied.
“Naked? Shameful? Not in the least. We are all born, ‘naked’, Phillipe.”
“We are all born in sin,” he said.
Opaline turned to face him. “How could anyone believe that?’
“It isn’t something I arrived at on my own, Opaline. It is written in the Bible. So yes, I believe it.”
“Simply because it is written in a book?”
Phillipe struggled under his tightly wrapped covers to turn and face her. “My dear Opaline, the Bible isn’t, ‘just a book’. It is the indisputable word of God.”
“Everything is disputable,” she professed.
“Is it? Do you dispute your own birth? Do you dispute your continued existence? Do you dispute your eventual demise?”
“Of course not, Phillipe. But—”
“Then everything is not disputable. So, accepting that you were born, are at this moment alive, and will, sooner or later perish, do you ever wonder to what purpose?”
“Of course. But that does not mean that there is a purpose, or giving that there is a purpose, anyone knows what that purpose is.”
“How absurd,” Phillipe exclaimed. “We are simply here? We are born, we live, and we die, without any purpose under heaven?”
“Perhaps we each select our own purpose.”
“Do we? And what, pray tell, is your purpose?”
She was silent for a reflective moment. “I wanted to be a doctor.”
“And?”
“And that opportunity is not afforded a woman. So, I became a midwife.”
Phillipe forged on, “And what does a midwife do? She brings others into this world. Correct?”.
“Among other things.”
“And to what end? So that they may find their purpose?”
“I suppose,” Opaline gave way. And while her answer may have sounded removed by a certain distance from the question, it is doubtful Phillipe noticed.
“So then, what does the whole thing mean? What is the purpose of all these people finding their purpose, only to perish, forever unto forever? There must be more, a purpose to our purpose, if you will. I can think of nothing so void of meaning as a life that simply ends.”
Having made his point, Phillipe rolled over and laid his head back down, basking in what he believed to be victorious silence.
“And what does your Good Book have to say about flowers?” Opaline wanted to know.
“What?” Phillipe asked, as if the moment had been stolen from him.
“Do flowers go to heaven?” she asked. “Or do they simply wilt and feed the soil to nurture the seeds they have left behind, so that the earth may bloom beautiful with the forever return of spring flowers? I would think that would be, purpose enough.”
“You sound like Marin,” Phillipe scoffed.
“What is it you mean by that?”
“I mean nothing more than, ‘you sound like Marin’.”
“And that, in your opinion, is a misdoing?”
Phillipe took his time in saying nothing.
“Phillipe? Answer me.”
“I feel God’s pain for my brother,” he said.
“I see,” she said, turning away from him. “In other words, ‘He is going to hell’.”
“That judgment is reserved for God, and God alone. No one can know the mind of God,” Phillipe proclaimed, and he closed his eyes and began to whisper his evening prayer.
“And yet, you know how God feels.” Opaline said, closing the conversation.
***
After Phillipe had fallen asleep, Opaline quietly stood up, gathered her covers around her, laced up her shoes and tiptoed out of the house. She trudged through the snow channel Marin had forged leading to the barn, and gingerly opened the barn door.
“Marin?” she whispered.
Just beyond the scant moon glow slipping through the doorway, she saw a flickering light, and from that dimly lit area she heard,
“Opaline?”
She walked into the light and saw Marin sitting in a bed of straw, holding a book in his lap.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked her.
“I could ask the same of you,” she replied.
“I’m keeping the horses company,” he said, turning his attention back to his book.
“I was hoping to keep you company,” she said, shifting about from foot to foot in an effort to stay warm.
“Without Phillipe between us?” Marin countered.
She walked over to the horses and adjusted the blanket on one of them, and then walked back over and stood before Marin. He made no move to look up at her.
“Well, I see you are involved in your reading, so...”
Putting his book aside, Marin asked, “You have my attention ...what is it you want, Opaline?”
“I am not sure what it is you are asking me,” she said, wrapping her arms even more tightly around herself.
Marin thought for a moment, reached down and picked up his book again, and while he may have been staring at the page, he didn’t read a word. Looking as if he had read a passage that had befuddled him, he quizzed her.
“Why would a woman, wearing nothing but her night clothes under a couple of loosely wrapped blankets, leave a nice warm house and venture out into the cold dark of night, simply to keep a man company?”
‘What is he implying?’ she wondered. Her honest answer, her only answer, was, “I would think it is because ...she enjoys his company.”
“That much?” Marin led, followed with an enticing smile.
Opaline lowered her eyes and suddenly felt shy and vulnerable, standing before Marin wearing nothing but her nightclothes under a couple of loosely wrapped blankets. She began to shiver.
“As long as you’re here, we may as well keep each other warm,” he said, lifting his blanket. She looked up at him while hesitating to approach.
“Marin...” she said, as tenderly as she had ever offered his name, “...I must confess ...I am fearful of your warmth.”
Marin gave a doubtful chortle. “I believe,” he said, inviting himself into her eyes, “you are afraid of your own fire.”
Her eyes were aimed directly into his, but her stare was fixed somewhere in the air between the two of them. She had stopped shivering.
Marin held out his hand to her, and said, “Opaline, it has been a drawn out and turbulent week. I am cold and passion-spent. I am only in need your comfort.”
She stepped forward, reached out to take his hand, and they lay down beside one another. Marin blew out the lantern, and enveloped in the cold darkness, they wrapped themselves in each other’s warmth, and fell fast asleep.