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Marin awoke feeling ill at ease. Was it something he had dreamed? A gossamer like vision of his mother emerged in his mind’s eye as his dream came back to him.
He had dreamed he was attending the marriage of his parents. The words of the ceremony were garbled, and he had the strangest feeling that no one could see him, and yet he was an integral part of the ceremony.
Thinking about the dream for a moment, he realized he, had in fact, been at their wedding, albeit curled in a fetal ball in his mother’s womb.
He sat up in bed, rubbed his eyes, and noticed they were moist. The room was softly lit by the diffused sunlight drifting through the frosted window at the foot of his bed, making it difficult to estimate the time of day. A sense of panic came over him; Opaline and he had not set a time when they would meet. For all she knew, he had gone to Emily’s and spent the night, and if she believed that, there was no way of knowing what she would do next. He hastily put on yesterday’s clothes, grabbed his suitcase, and went down to the lobby. He looked at the tall clock behind the counter; it read 7:37.
“Excuse me,” he called out to no one, and then again, a little louder, “Excuse me.”
The desk attendant appeared seemingly out of nowhere and pointed to the small bell that sat on the counter. Marin looked at it, reached out and gave it a ring. The attendant gracefully dipped his head in recognition. “Could you tell me if a Miss Downing has checked out?”
“That would be the young woman in 402, and yes, she checked out about fifteen minutes ago.”
“Did she leave a message, or mention where she was going?”
“No sir.”
“Would you happen to know where the nearest medical supply store would be located?”
“I am afraid I am of little help, sir,” he responded.
Marin paid his bill, picked up his bag, and exited the inn.
As he walked by the adjoining tavern, he noticed Opaline sitting inside by the window. She looked up at him briefly and then turned her attention back to the eggs on her plate. Marin went back into the inn and passed through to the tavern. He stood by her table without words as she continued eating, as if he weren’t there.
“Do you mind if I sit down?” he asked, as one might ask a stranger.
“Why would I mind?” she replied.
“I can think of any number of reasons,” he offered.
“Well then, remain standing,” she said, looking up at him. “Have you had your breakfast?” she inquired, with a slow and deliberate delivery.
Marin, well aware of the real question in disguise, simply answered, “No.”
A waiter came to the table, asking Marin, “Would you care to order, sir?”
“No, thank you,” Marin replied.
“You must be hungry,” Opaline said. “Your last meal was yesterday at noon ...was it not?”
“And yet, I am not hungry,” Marin said to the waiter, as if it were a mystery.
“Is everything satisfactory, Madam?” the waiter asked Opaline.
She answered him with a wry smile.
“So,” she said, pushing her plate forward like a chess piece, “will you be accompanying me to order supplies ...or do you need to go see Miss Emily?”
Marin bent down to her ear and asked, “Why don’t you just ask me if I slept with Emily last night?”
“If we are going, we had better get started,” she said, swiveling to exit her chair.
***
Phillipe came into the kitchen as Jude was stirring up yet another pot full of cabbage and bacon for Phoebe. “Again? For breakfast?” Phillipe asked.
“What would ya think if the baby were to arrive on Christmas? You bein’ religious and all.” Jude asked.
Phillipe could find nothing in the sentiment that conformed to his narrative, as concerns Christmas, so all he could manage was a blunt, “Hmm. When you have finished with that ...concoction, could you help with the gathering of wood and the managing of the fireplaces? It’s freezing in here.”
“Of course,” Jude said. “You’ll find a cord of wood stacked on the porch. I was up at the call of the Woodpecker this mornin’. He was screechin’ ‘bout the storm that’s a-comin’. Phoebe’s room is nice and cozy if ya need to warm yourself.”
“Phoebe’s room?” Phillipe scoffed, walking from the kitchen to the front door. “Nice and warm, is it?” he asked, as he exited the house.
When Jude took the cabbage and bacon in to Phoebe, she was on her knees in the bed, hunched over, groaning into the pillow. He put the tray on the dresser and came to her side.
“Is there anything I can do for ya? Where does it hurt?”
“Where do ya think it hurts?” is what he thought she said, but coming through a pillow, it was hard to say for sure.
“You’re not ‘avin the baby, are ya?”
A loud muffled groan was her only reply. Jude interpreted it as a ‘yes’.
“I’ll run for the doctor,” Jude said.
Phillipe watched as Jude ran out the front door, down the drive and up the street. Dropping an armful of firewood, he scurried back into the house to check on Phoebe. As he entered the bedroom, he came to an immediate halt at the sight of her ass, pointed like a ship’s cannon, directly at him.
“Are you alright?” he shouted, She answered with that unmistakable sound of two butt cheeks flapping rapidly together to announce the release of copious amounts of pent up gas from the alimentary canal ...she farted an uninterrupted blast of wind lasting five long seconds - not that anyone counted.
“A-h-h-h,” she said, flopping over on her back. Looking between her knees, with a heavenly blush gracing her face, she asked Phillipe, “Would you mind passing me that plate a cabbage and bacon from the dresser?”
Phillipe’s face gathered into one giant wrinkle between his eyebrows and upper lip, his mouth agape in shock and disgust. “Do you think you should be eating more cabbage?” he lectured. She let out a long moan, and he turned on his heels, seeking refuge in the kitchen.
A little while later, when Jude returned with Doctor Myers, the two of them paused at the room’s entrance. Phoebe was asleep, but her gastrointestinal functions were wide-awake.
“I doubt she was in labor,” the doctor said, drawing his handkerchief over his nose. He walked over and put his ear to Phoebe’s belly.
Phillipe came alongside Jude. “It was the cabbage,’” Phillipe announced to the doctor, and pointing his thumb at Jude, he added, “He has been feeding it cabbage.”
Doctor Myers gave a wide smile and said, “You may want to take it easy on the cabbage. Where is our midwife?”
“She has gone to Providence with Marin to order midwifery equipment and supplies,” Jude answered.
“WHAT?” Phillipe gasped.
The doctor asked, “Why would she go all the way to Providence for medical equipment and supplies when she could have gone to Pritchart’s over in the Harrison Avenue? Surely she would have known that.” Phillipe’s, expression foreshadowed his exclamation, “Is that so?”
“Makes little sense,” the Doctor said under his breath, before leaving.
“Why did Marin lie to me?” Phillipe asked of Jude.
“Which lie are ya askin’ about?”
“That Opaline was going along to keep him from debauching Emily.”
“And why would ya think that’s a lie?” Jude responded.
***
As the carriage pulled up in front of Bernard’s Medical and Sick Room Supplies, the horse seemed antsy, as if wanting to continue on. As the buggy jerked back and forth, Marin sat fast in his seat, waiting for the coach to settle. Opaline stared at her gloved hands and spoke in a soft, hesitant cadence.
“Will you be coming in with me?” she asked. Marin only smiled in response, prompting Opaline to look over at him, and say, “It is a simple question; are you, or are you not, coming in with me?”
“Do you want me to come in with you?”
Hoping he had not yet seen Emily, Opaline replied,
“Not if you have more important things to do.”
“I can think of nothing more important right now than making sure you get everything you need.”
Opaline looked away. Kind words never hurt so badly.
“Can you please stop the rocking of this carriage?” she yelled out to the coachman.
Marin stepped out of the buggy and circled around to assist her. With her eyes focused past him, she held her hand out, palm down. Marinn took her hand and assisted from the carriage. But as soon as both feet were planted on the ground, she pulled her hand away and marched into the store without him. Marin instructed the coachman to wait for him.
As he entered the store he saw Opaline standing at the counter, arguing with a young man who was attempting to assit her.
“I am sorry, Madam, but the law forbids us to open an account in the name of a woman,” the young man said.
Marin walked up beside her and said to the gentleman, “I would like to open an account with your firm.”
“Excuse me sir, but I am attending to the lady,” he answered.
“I am with the lady,” Marin informed him. The man looked at Opaline and she gave a brief, single nod.
“You will have to speak with Mister Vance,” the clerk said. “Right this way.”
As Marin was setting up an account, Opaline began wandering about aimlessly. The clerk approached her and asked if he could be of any assistance. She apathetically handed him the list of equipment and half-heartedly followed him at a distance as he went from one item to another. At each suggested item, she would give a nod of approval, but her thoughts were elsewhere. She was waiting to see if Marin was going to go see Emily now, ...or had he already been? The longer the passage of time, the more she convinced herself he had already been to Emily’s and spent the night. At one point Opaline’s slowing pace came to a halt, even as her assistant continued on. As soon as he realized she wasn’t behind him, he walked back to her.
“Are you feeling alright ma’am?” he asked.
She begrudgingly shook her head and said, “I feel faint.” The man led her to the nearest chair. “I must apologize for taking up your time,” she said. “I am not at all certain I will be needing any of this equipment.”
Marin came back out onto the main floor and saw Opaline sitting in the chair with her head bowed and the sales clerk standing, nonplussed, at her side. As Marin approached, the young man eagerly departed. Marin started to ask what was wrong, but chose instead to venture a guess. He stooped down in front of her, laid his arms in her lap, and calmly revealed, “I am afraid I must leave you now if I am to discover what it is dear Emily wishes to discuss with me. I won’t be long. Will you be alright?”
She looked up at him with glistening eyes and a quivering smile.
“I love you, Opaline,” he whispered, and she threw her arms around him and pulled him down closer to her, but said nothing.
***
On the carriage ride to Stimson Avenue, Marin was less concerned with his upcoming meeting with Emily than his return to Opaline. While there was no mistaking her heartfelt embrace upon hearing him say, ‘I love you’, there was also no denying she hadn’t replied in kind, at least not in words. The circling game was over. The glances across the room, the perfumed hints and glints of romance that had sparked between the two had come to an end–he had asked her to dance.
Marin was deep in thought as the carriage came to a stop in front of Emily’s home. When Marin turned and saw the beautiful rose and white, three-story house set against the depth of a sea blue sky, and its blonde oak door set back in the shadows, making for such a bewitching entrance, speculation gave way to spectacle, and he gave the vision a long glance before discharging the coachman.
He walked up the two sets of steps into the small, shaded entranceway. A large stained-glass window set in the middle of the door depicted a young woman with outstretched arms, her two cupped hands overflowing with crystalline water. For a moment Marin felt as if the tip of his tongue had become dry and the urge to swallow welled up in his throat. The door swung open, and a well-cured gentleman in black and white attire addressed Marin with a simple,
“Yes?”
Marin, somewhat startled, said, “Yes ...hello ...I am Captain Marin Carpenter. I am here at Miss,” and he fumbled to recall her last name, so he simply said, “Emily’s request.”
“Please wait,” the butler said, and he closed the door in front of Marin.
‘There seems to be a conspiracy of protection surrounding this girl,’ he thought to himself, although why was not apparent, at least not to Marin; he couldn’t recall anything approaching naïveté in her mien.
The door reopened and there stood Emily, her pupils expanding to all but fill the blue of her eyes. Her smile lifted her soft blushed cheeks and formed a tiny dimple on either side.
“Marin,” she said, half-spoken, half-whispered.
He stood outside the open door taking her in. Something about her appearance was different, as if his memory of her had betrayed him.
Did you come simply for the view, or are you going to come through” she asked.
“Excuse me,” Marin replied. “I didn’t mean to stare.”
“I didn’t expect you quite so soon,” she said, escorting him down a long, wide corridor. “Walton,” she said to the butler, “we will have tea in the Garden View Room.”
Seeing into several rooms as they coursed through the house, Marin marveled at how spacious and yet sparsely decorated each room appeared. There was a Billiards Room that was approximately half the size of his mother’s house, adorned with nothing but the billiard table; a Drawing Room that spanned three large windows and curved around to accompany four more. In it, a large red velvet couch, three small chairs and a small round, ornately carved table. The high ceiling echoed the sound of Marin’s boots on the marble floors, giving the house an even more palatial ambience. One room he was passing by brought him to a pause. It was about forty feet deep and over half as wide. Deep inside the mostly empty room was an elaborately crafted mahogany desk with a high-back chair. The two items appeared to be floating atop a lavish Persian carpet. How small a child must feel, approaching a parent seated in that chair, he thought to himself.
“Daddy’s room,” she said.
Entering the Garden View Room, she offered him a chair at a small table for two. “I am so glad you could come,” she said
“Yes, well, I had to come to Providence anyway,” he said.
“Oh? How long will you be staying?”
“I had planned on returning to Newport this afternoon.” Her disappointment was easy to read on her rarely disappointed face. “Is it just you and Aunt Belle in this huge house?”
“At the present moment, it is only you and I,” she said, with a smile that raised her eyebrows. “Oh, and Walton, Fanny and Beatrice; the butler, maid and cook,” she added as an afterthought. “Father and Mother are in Philadelphia. He has a few legislative duties to attend to.” She paused, and her voice softened as she said, “I don’t expect them back for quite a while. As I mentioned in my note to you, Aunt Belle has gone to Boston.”
“Is her trip to Boston the reason you wished to talk to me, or...?”
“In part. I felt...” The Butler’s appearance brought her comment to a pause as he approached with a tea service. “Thank you, Walton, that will be all,” she said, and sat silently waiting for Walton’s footsteps to fade. She placed her hand atop Marin’s and said, “You have been in my thoughts since we parted. I do not believe the look we shared in Newport last week was only my imagination.”
“No,” he concurred.
“I am sure you remember Aunt Belle mentioning that a Mister John Henry Eliot had proposed marriage to me.”
Marin looked down at her hand as it gently squeezed his, and he gave a light nod of confirmation.
She reached out with her other hand and tipped Marin’s chin up so that he was facing her. “I have refused his proposal,” she said, leaving room for Marin’s reply.
Marin said nothing.
“I thought you would be pleased ...was I mistaken?” she asked.
“Emily,” he said, with a long blink of his eyes, “I am about to set out on an ominous journey. That is all I—”
“Yes, well, I wanted to talk to you about that as well. Aunt Belle informed me about your situation. My father, in his role as Senator, may be of some assistance to us. He stands opposed to this senseless military build-up, and he is making inquiries into your situation.”
Marin gave a slow and doubtful nod.
“So, you see, you may not have to go on this mission after all,” she concluded with a flutter of her hand.
Marin drew a deep breath before saying, “Emily, I appreciate your concern in this matter, but I fear the die is cast. Unless your father has some jurisdiction over the United States Navy, I am certain the Magister Maris will set sail for Passamaquoddy Bay before the year is out.”
“Oh, Marin, don’t say that. I have a feeling everything is going to work out for us. Come, I have something to show you.”
She escorted him back through the house, up a curving staircase and into an eloquently decorated, and especially effeminate room, containing a spacious canopy bed and several chairs occupied by a variety of dolls. She pulled a piece of paper from the center drawer of a small desk and placed it neatly on top, as if it were a legal document awaiting Marin’s signature.
“This is a verbatim copy of a missive Aunt Belle received from the United States Coast Guard,” she said. “I thought you may find it interesting.”
The writing was in the hand of someone well acquainted with paper and pen, and Marin asked, “Is this your handwriting?”
“Yes,” she answered in a curious tone.
“Does Aunt Belle know you copied this?”
Emily tapped on the letter, directing him to read it.
Marin sat down and read the copy.
TO: Miss Anna Belle Carpenter
RE: Your Inquiry
FROM: The United States Revenue Marine
Date: December 14th, 1811
We have in our files a letter from you, dated October 12th in the year 1801, requesting that we look into the disappearance of a ship then known as The Coriolis.
You stated that the ship disappeared sometime during the second week of October in 1781.
A ship by that name was discovered in the waters off Sable Island, Nova Scotia on November 11th of this year, 1811. The records indicate that First Mate Erik Carpenter, whom you described as your nephew, was aboard The Coriolis on its last known departure from Newport, Rhode Island.
The salvage recovered from the find is now located in the United States Revenue Marine Salvage Yard, located in Boston, Massachusetts. All inquiries should be made in person to: Commander Jonathan Lester Chessman, 402 Lexington, Boston Massachusetts.
Marin paused before reading it again. After the second read, several thoughts were swirling around in his head, each one competing for exclusive attention: Why was Aunt Belle the only one notified? Why hadn’t she notified Phillipe and him? What would be revealed in the salvage, and most intriguing of all, why did they refer to his father as ‘First Mate’ Erik Carpenter?
“I have to go to Boston,” Marin said, rising from the chair and tucking the copy into his vest pocket.
“Now?” staggered Emily.
“Yes ...now.”
He placed his hands upon Emily’s shoulders and she stepped in toward him. He responded by taking a half-step back.
“Emily, I must admit, a large part of my intent in coming to see you was to pursue those feelings that sparked between us when we first met. But my intentions were not completely honorable.”
Emily said nothing at first, and Marin couldn’t tell if he had offended her, or merely shocked her, with his candid remark. She cleared her throat, looked up into his eyes and murmured, “I see.” She continued to explore Marin’s deep blue stare and asked, “And what were your intentions?”
A wave of thrilling terror stirred in Marin’s stomach. He felt the delicate distance between them begging for closure, and yet he dare not move so much as a thought closer.
“To make love to you,” he confessed.
Her eyes opened wide to him, she drew in a quick breath, and said, “Oh my! I hardly know what to say.”
“You need not say anything.”
“I admit I found you, I mean, I find you, attractive, and I ...well I—
“No, no, no ...it’s alright, you needn’t explain,” Marin said, talking over her fumbling.
“I must admit,” she continued, “you stirred certain feelings in me that I, well, that I found difficult to control, and those feelings were cause for me to reevaluate my relationship with John Henry, and perhaps I was, as Aunt Belle informed me, a bit flirtatious, but I didn’t mean to imply a salacious intent, although I feel—”
Marin pulled her to him and kissed her moving lips shut. She surrendered a passionate breath, and as she wrapped him in her arms, he pulled away.
With her feelings in disarray, and confusion splashed across her face, she awaited any word from him that might explain what had just happened.
“To what may have been,” he said. She stood mystified, statue-like, as he added, “I will see myself out.”
***
Marin began walking the long mile back to Bernard’s. He needed time to think. The cold December air had helped to sober his carnal desires, but the scent of Emily’s perfume still fresh upon his collar remained a powerful elixir, slowing the pace of his retreat to Opaline. He stopped for a moment at an intersection on Hope Street, pulled his collar to his nostrils and breathed in deeply, filling both lungs full of Emily. He considered turning around when a carriage pulled up beside him and paused.
“Are you a carriage for hire?” Marin asked.
“No sir, I am not. Are you in need of conveyance?”
“Yes,” Marin said, “I need to get to Washington Street as quickly as possible.”
“I was only going as far as Brown University, but I can deliver you to the foot of Washington Street,” the man said.
Marin thanked him and climbed aboard. “Do you teach at the University?” Marin asked him.
“Yes. I teach courses concerned with the origins and practices of morality and ethics.”
“Morality and Ethics? What, in your opinion, is the difference between the two?” Marin asked.
“That’s an interesting question and not a simple one to answer,” the man said, urging his horse onward. “Both words are from the Greek language. The word morals, ‘mos’ in Greek, means custom, usually relegated to what is customarily considered to be right or wrong behavior. Ethics, ‘ethikos’ in Greek, means ‘character’, or ‘in keeping with what you personally believe to be right or wrong ...although that hardly solves the matter. However, I would imagine as long as your character is in keeping with the customs, perhaps there is no distinction,” he said, quite pleased with his summation.
“And when it isn’t?”
“Then you have to decide. You could say, for example, that killing someone in certain situations is, ethically, the right thing to do, but morally you find it abhorrent. Or, you may believe that lying is ethically wrong, but you feel it to be a moral imperative in certain situations, say, to spare someone unnecessary grief.”
“So then, everything is situational?” Marin posited.
“Well,” laughed the professor, “we are in dangerous territory there, are we not?”
Both men took a silent journey into their own personal thoughts.
When they arrived at the foot of Washington Street, Marin, appearing quite perplexed, thanked him, and added,“Perhaps situational is the wrong word.”
“Perhaps,” the professor replied. “But it is my belief that a man of character can stand firm against custom, whereas a man of custom is often brittle against character.”
***
When he arrived back at Bernard’s, the clerk anxiously approached him and informed him that Opaline was with the proprietor, Mister Vance. Marin walked back to the office and stood outside, peeping through a small window smudged with the dust of many-a-day. Opaline was sitting with her back to the window, right arm raised, and index finger, armed, aimed and firing across the desk at a battle-weary Mister Vance. Through the thin makeshift walls of the office, Marin heard her exclaim,
“...and we both know I can get every one of these items at Pritchart’s in Newport, cheaper and quicker, so then, what was the point of my coming all the way to Providence?”
“As to that, you would have to inform me, Madam,” he suggested, and advancing his point one more time, he directed her attention to the invoice, and said, “Again Miss, our prices are competitive; the difference is the delivery charge. If you can arrange—” and when he noticed a blurred image outside the window, he stopped short. Hoping it was Marin, he leapt to his feet, charged past Opaline and opened the door, eagerly enlisting Marin into the campaign. “I was just explaining to Miss Downing—”
“Yes, I overheard,” Marin interrupted. “Whatever the charges, I am sure they are fair. If you will bill me at the shipping address I have given you, we will be on our way.”
Marin reached out his hand to Opaline, but she did not surrender her hand in kind. She left the establishment unaided.
The walk to the nearest coach for hire was a silent one. Marin wanted her to answer her own question, ‘What was her real motivation for coming all the way to Providence?’ She longed to ask Marin the same thing.
***
Leaving Phillipe alone with Phoebe, Mister Prince left the house early that morning to check on the progress of repairs to the Magister Maris.
Out of Christian courtesy, Phillipe came into MaMa’s bedroom and asked Phoebe if there was anything she needed.
“I think I should like to have a soak in the tub,” she said, as if ‘Her Royal Highness’ were requesting a pillow.
Phillipe’s blank stare could not penetrate her lack of social grace. He cleared his throat in a guttural protestation.
“Not too hot,” she said, smiling appreciatively.
He returned to the kitchen, mumbling a jumble of vowels.
***
After Jude had fetched Mister Oscar, the two of them arrived at the dry dock and inquired about the ship.
“She should be back in harbor by Friday afternoon,” the foreman told them.
“That’s impossible,” Mister Oscar declared, turning a perplexed look toward Jude.
Taking a defensive stance, the man replied, “Come Friday, we will have easily performed every item on the work order given us by the Department of the Navy.”
“And can we have a look-see at that order?” Jude more demanded than requested.
“No sir, you may not.” The man stiffened and continued, “That is the property of the United States Navy.”
“And the ship is the property of Captain Marin Carpenter,” Jude shot back.
“Of that, I have no knowledge and even less concern,” he returned dismissively. “I take it you are Captain Carpenter?”
“No sir, I am not. I am his First Mate, Mister Jude Prince; and this is the Magister Maris’s carpenter, Mister Oscar.” With a change of tone, Jude appealed to the man, saying, “You look to be a sailin’ man. We are about to take her out into the North Atlantic in the dead of winter, so I’m sure you can understand our concern about the work order.”
The foreman tilted his head as if its contents had shifted to the left, and while flicking his look back and forth between Mister Prince and Mister Oscar, he said, “Look, I don’t know if you gents are drunk or crazy, each of you would have to be both to take this heap of lumber out into the North Atlantic. She’s a shore hugger at best. Good day, gentlemen.”
***
After a short distance in a long silence, Marin and Opaline both looked up at one another from opposite sides of the coach, and simultaneously said the other’s name.
“You first,” Marin said. Opaline offered only a quick shake of her head. “Very well,” said Marin. “What is the real reason you came to Providence?”
“I think you know the answer to your own question,” she said.
“I want to hear it from you.”
Opaline looked out the coach window at the Providence River. A sailboat was keeping pace with the coach as they each headed south toward Narragansett Bay. “Did you mean what you whispered into my ear back in Providence?” she asked.
Marin waited for her to turn toward him. She didn’t.
“I am still waiting for an answer to my question,” he said, addressing the side of her head.
“I was hoping to keep you from Emily,” she confessed. “Your turn,” she added, turning now to look at him.
A smile bloomed on his face as he looked into her eyes. “Opaline Downing, I am in love with you,” he said.
Her eyes clearly gave way to his words ...but she said nothing. When the silence could no longer hold, she confessed, “I am so cautious of you.”
Marin fell to his knees before her, placed his arms in her lap and asked, “Opaline Downing, will you marry me?”
She bent in toward him, but without saying anything, kissed him on the lips. When their lips parted, she reached out and pulled him up beside her. As the coach rocked rhythmically on the road back to Newport, Opaline placed her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes.
***
“Your bath is prepared,” Phillipe announced, and he briefly closed his eyes and shook his head at the sight of Phoebe lying in his MaMa’s bed, gnawing on a raw potato. She placed the uneaten portion on the bedside table and reached out her hand to Phillipe. He looked first at the potato, then back at Phoebe. “Are you in need of my assistance?” he asked.
She nodded in the affirmative.
“Do you think you could gather the manners to ask?”
“Phillipe, will you assist me?” she replied.
After a mock bow, he came to the bedside and helped her to her feet. Having escorted her to the little back room off of the kitchen, he turned to leave her to her privacy.
“Will you help me into the tub?” she asked. Phillipe froze in place without turning around to face her.
“Please?” she pleaded.
When he turned to face her, she was standing completely naked with her arms draped straight down at her side. Phillipe’s eyes roamed her naked, pregnant body. To his surprise, he didn’t feel as squeamish as he had upon seeing Opaline - ‘in the flesh’. His eyes came to rest on her extended stomach, and his thoughts turned to his mother and how she had at one time carried him inside of her. He marveled at the round, firm contours of her torso, and found himself wishing he could see through her stretched, pale white skin.
“Would you like to touch it?” she asked.
Too shy to answer, he took two gradual steps toward her, reached out his right hand, and placed the tips of his fingers on her pregnant belly. At first, they shook, but slowly they came to a calm rest.
Phoebe placed her hand on top of Phillipe’s and nudged his hand full across her stomach. She noticed a pronounced glistening of his eyes and, looking a little closer, she wondered if he was about to cry.
“Will you stay and wash my back?” she asked.
***
Coming back from the dry dock, Mister Oscar asked Jude, “When is Captain Carpenter returning from Providence?”
“Should be back this evenin’,” Mister Prince replied.
“We need to have a long chat about things with the Captain,” Ozzy said.
Jude gave a slow, agnostic nod.
“What’s turnin’ ‘round in that head of yours, Mister Prince?” he asked.
“I agree, there are some things the Captain needs to know ...but there may be others...”
Ozzy slowed his pace as if to aid his hearing.
“What if...” Jude continued, pausing in his tracks, as well as his thought.
“What if ...what?”
“What if the Magister Maris were to sink in the harbor?”
***
Arriving in Warwick, Marin woke Opaline from a deep sleep.
“Where are we?” she asked, closing her eyes again while remaining fixed at his shoulder.
Marin paused for a moment before answering. The question was both literal and figurative; she had yet to respond to his proposal. “We’re halfway there,” he said, answering both questions. “It will take a little while for them to change out the horses. Are you hungry?”
She sat upright, straightened her attire and said, “At the moment, I simply need to get out of this coach and stretch.”
There was a quaint little tavern squeezed between a chandlery and an apothecary along the Post Road, and they stopped in to get some lunch and a glass of wine. Opaline was quite taken by the cozy confines and the simple décor of this cuddlesome pub. As they dined, Marin picked at his food while Opaline ate hers at a hearty pace. When she had finished, she asked him,
“I would have thought you ravenous. When was it you last ate?”
Marin looked as if he were trying to recall.
“Did Emily...?” she began, but paused and took a sip of her wine.
“Did Emily, what?” Marin asked.
“No, I mean, did you and Emily ...eat?”
Marin reached out for his glass of wine, and in one smooth move brought it to his lips and drank the entire contents. Without setting the glass down, he hoisted it into the air, catching the eye of a passing waitress.
“We had tea,” he said, after wiping the residue of red wine from his lips. “And the leaves were quite revealing.”
Opaline tilted her head inquisitively.
As the waitress placed another glass of wine in front of Marin, he continued, “We discussed the possibility of her father, Senator Wallace, being of assistance in this matter between the United States Navy and the Magister Maris. Unlikely, it turns out. And then there was this.” He pulled out Emily’s hand-written copy of Aunt Belle’s letter from the United States Revenue Marine and handed it to Opaline.
She read the letter, looked up at Marin, and read it again. The ornate handwriting puzzled her, but she left that at bay. “This must be quite a shock,” she said, handing the letter back to Marin. “Do you wish to talk about it?”
“Not at the moment, no.”
Opaline released herself from the moment. “I feel terrible for questioning Emily’s motives,” she allowed.
Marin swallowed his second glass of wine, turned to find the waitress, and said to Opaline, “I wouldn’t if I were you.”
“Oh?” she reacted.
Marin turned back to Opaline and gave himself enough time to find the words. The waitress brought another glass of wine. After she had departed, Marin disclosed, “Emily also wanted to tell me, in fact it was the news she was most eager to tell me, that she had turned down a standing proposal of marriage.”
“In the hopes of...” Opaline said, as an attempt to prime further comment.
Marin let the obvious do its job in silence.
“And how did you respond?” she asked at length.
“I changed the subject,” Marin said.
Introducing her reply with a scoffing snicker, she said, “So, she broke some poor boy’s heart on the gamble that you would become her suitor?”
“Well,” Marin said, poising the glass of wine before his lips, “at least the poor boy’ got an answer to his proposal,” and he downed the third glass of wine.
***
Jude Prince and Mister Oscar, convinced that the Magister Maris would not be worthy of the voyage that lay before her, agreed to meet later that day to brew a plan wherein she would take on enough water to sink in the bay. Jude then returned to the house to check on Phoebe. Finding her bed empty, he went to the kitchen and heard her voice through the door of the small adjoining room.
“Oh, that feels so good,” she said.
He opened the door to find a startled Phillipe, arms deep in the water, washing Phoebe’s back.
“Hi Jude,” Phoebe said with a giggle.
“What have we here?” Jude asked, addressing Phillipe.
“I was only washing her back,” Phillipe said, timidly.
“Well,” Jude huffed in a faux bellow, “see that ya get it properly clean, then,” and he closed the door before laughing to himself.
***
Marin and Opaline sat across from one another in a still pool of darkness, as the coach continued on through the cloud covered, ink-black night. They were still a few chilly hours shy of Newport.
Marin stared into the deep void concealing Opaline, and but for the occasional hint of her perfume, and a wraith-like sense of her presence, he may as well have been left to his own company. The silence pained him. Several times she had started to say something, but couldn’t find the sentence for the words.
“I asked Phoebe if she is keeping the baby,” Opaline said at last. Then, in a voice weakening with each word, she added, “She said, ‘I hope to, no mother wants to give up her baby’.” After a pause, she cleared her throat, sniffled twice, and cleared her throat again. Marin turned his ear toward her, trying to discern if she was crying. “I told her...” and she paused again, this time to gather the strength it takes to surrender the truth, “I doubt my mother gave it a second thought.”
Marin reached out to find her, and placing his hands upon her knees, he asked, “What are you saying, Opaline?”
The wounded child replied, “Marin, it is past time I tell you ...my mother was a whore. She abandoned me. I have no idea who my father is, and I have told myself my entire life that I simply do not care ...but that is a lie.” She paused once more in a failed attempt to regain her composure. “I have hated men most of my life and prided myself in my ability to play cat to their mouse ...and then I met my match.” If Marin smiled at the thought that he might be her match, she could not have seen it. “How could I have been so stupid as to believe he actually loved me?” she continued. Marin’s smile had dissolved by the end of the sentence. “I have sworn to never let someone abandon me again. I simply...” and without concluding, she fell forward into her own lap, and the cradle of Marin’s hands.
Marin drifted forward and pressed his lips into her torrent of hair, kissing the crown of her head. “I will never abandon you,” he whispered.
***
Marin and Opaline arrived back in Newport under the darkness of a new moon and a dome of snow clouds hovering overhead. A scattering of large flakes danced in a swirling wind, winding their way to the ground.
An ever so faint gold glow peeking through the stairwell window whispered, ‘welcome home’. Once inside the house, they followed the glimmering light into the kitchen, where the hearth glowed through the ashes with patches of deep orange embers. The two chilled and weary travelers huddled around the dormant smoking remnants, gathering what little warmth was available to them.
Marin stirred the cinders, and a brief flame appeared. He grabbed a handful of kindling and wove it into the hot belly of the flame’s source. There was a crackling sound as the kindling released the moisture that had been locked inside. Marin bent down and blew into the heart of the matter as if he were whispering encouragement; a flame gushed forth, and the kindling caught fire.
Opaline handed him a few of the smaller pieces of wood and he placed them on top of the tinder. They stood witness as the fire grew confident and hungered for a more sustainable and enduring source of nourishment, capable of warming a home.
They each put a log on the fire and positioned themselves comfortably before the hearth, watching as the flames enveloped the two logs in a patient dance that would soon join them together to form a single flame. The radiating waves of heat melted Marin and Opaline together, and they drifted off in the embrace of one another’s warmth.