Kings of the Sea Read online

  At my father’s mention of his hand, Gideon’s good-natured expression was wiped from his face, which went dead-white. I have often wondered what would have happened if my father had not made that unfortunate speech, and I can only conjecture that my strong instinct to refuse Gideon’s offer of marriage would have saved all of us a great deal of grief. As it was, I was so infuriated by my father’s lack of Christian charity that I found myself feeling very protective of Gideon, so protective in fact that I threw myself wholeheartedly into his cause.

  “It’s no good protesting, Father — you see, I am in truth going to marry Gideon. With only one hand he is far superior to those other clods who have two. You of all people should view with kindness those upon whom God has seen fit to put an affliction. You have always taught me that God tests all of us according to our ability to endure suffering, and Gideon has overcome his handicap admirably, it seems to me.” I had the temerity by then to hold up a restraining hand when my father would have interrupted. “I have stated my intentions, Father, to which I mean to stick. You can, of course, stop me from marrying, but you must ask yourself honestly in that event what your motives would be.”

  This last was a shrewd thrust, for if I left, he would have to hire a girl to help out my mother, who could not possibly by herself see to the cooking and the cleaning and the vegetable gardening and the general upkeep of that mausoleum of a house.

  “I won’t be a party to this disgraceful scene any longer!” my father thundered. “Now that you have your shoes decently on once more, Emily, you will come with your mother and me at once and without argument. Now, I said!”

  Without a word, my mother and I followed him back to the picnic ground, but not before Gideon gave me an unmistakable wink and my mother a reassuring squeeze on my arm. Happily the Culps had already taken their leave, hastened no doubt by Gideon’s surprising bid and subsequent long absence with me. Sally alone, knowing how amiable Gideon could be, would undoubtedly have suspected that he was, from her point of view anyway, up to no good.

  Thus began a strange period when it was as if my mother and Gideon and I had entered into an elaborately concocted conspiracy, though in truth we said nothing to each other. I took to my room and refused to emerge as long as my father withheld his consent. He in his turn told my mother not to feed me until I came to my senses. Meanwhile, though my mother continued to seem busier than ever all day, the house rapidly became a shambles while my hunger strike of course continued, since my mother slipped me food whenever my father was away. During this time Gideon appeared all dressed up every night on the dot of eight asking to see me, apparently unfazed by my father’s refusal even to allow him inside the door. By some means I never knew, he also managed to smuggle encouraging notes to me through my mother. My father held out for a little over a week before finally capitulating.

  There were many moments during that week when I would have given anything to have been able to tell my father — and my mother and Gideon, too — that I had changed my mind, that I didn’t want to marry this stranger after all. For Gideon was indeed a stranger. Despite our afternoon of pleasant conversation and despite his affectionate notes, I knew no more about him than about the man in the moon. There was an aura of strength and force and confidence about him that had always made me think of him as arrogant, and that was frightening to me and certainly at odds with the ethereal young man I used to envision tentatively holding my hand while we read the Bible together. Though Gideon had done no more than hold my hand himself, I knew instinctively that he would never settle for handholding and Bible reading for long. I had no idea why he had chosen me, or even why he had so much as bid for my lunch, and I could only sit there in my room conjecturing with a shiver of dread what the future would hold and praying ineffectually to put time back to the morning of the picnic so that I could plead illness and refuse to go.

  Why then did I keep to my room and allow my mother and Gideon both to think that I was in favor or marrying him? I hardly know, except that I was a product of my times and a victim of the staunch belief that a woman’s only reason for being was to marry and bear children.

  Thus it was with mingled reluctance and relief that at last I descended the stairs once more in answer to my father’s summons. It was evening, not long before Gideon was due to arrive, and all of the lamps downstairs were lit, their warm glow making even that dreary old house seem almost welcoming. My father stood there staring at me silently for several minutes that seemed like several years, his face set like stone. It was easy to see that his surrender was hardly a wholehearted one.

  “Well, Emily,” he said at last, unconsciously tugging on his graying beard as was his wont, “I can see that you seem to feel you’ve won a great victory.”

  I felt nothing of the kind, but then my father had never had much idea of what was going on inside me. I remained silent.

  “All right, you have my consent,” he went on, “but just don’t count on coming whining here when everything doesn’t work out for you. Gideon Hand is a godless scoundrel and ne’er-do-well, and once you are married, I do not wish him to cross this threshold again.”

  I could hear my mother gasp from behind me. “But Elias —” she started to remonstrate.

  “But nothing!” he roared. “I may have been forced to give my consent to this unholy contract, but I won’t have that knave in my house, do you understand? He is only after your money, you know.”

  I gave a bitter astonished laugh, for I had never had more than a few coins in my hand at a time, and those few given me only to purchase some item for the table or the house. “What money, Father?” I asked.

  “Never mind,” my father replied darkly. “It’s what he believes that counts.”

  “Elias, there are times I really don’t know what to make of you,” my mother ventured.

  “Further,” my father continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “my consent is contingent upon the wedding’s not taking place until the middle of September.”

  “But that’s over three months away,” my mother protested.

  “If they’re determined to go through with this,” my father explained smugly, “they won’t mind waiting, and if the betrothal doesn’t survive the wait, then it should never have taken place anyway.”

  I knew all too well what was going on in both their heads. My mother was afraid that Gideon would change his mind, because she could not imagine how I could have captured so exotic a prize. My father wanted the three-month delay because he was sure that Gideon would change his mind, once he’d made clear there was to be no fortune as a result of the marriage. All right then, I thought wearily, let there be three months’ grace, and I would place my destiny in the hands of the Lord.

  When Gideon’s knock sounded not long afterward, it was I who went to the door. His mouth stretched into that charming boyish grin of his.

  “So we won,” he said confidently. “I really thought the old boy would hold out longer than that.”

  I suddenly felt tired, more tired than I ever had in my life before, and I paid no attention to his disrespect for my father, who had after all only been serving what he thought were my best interests. This cheerful grinning red-haired creature standing before me with his animal magnetism and unshakable confidence might just as well have been a being from another planet for all he seemed then to have to do with me. It was simply beyond the bounds of my imagination that I would ever find myself living with him for the rest of my life, cooking and serving his food, cleaning his house, and yes, sleeping in his bed as well.

  “My father says we have to wait until the middle of September.”

  “Oh well,” he answered with relief, “that’s all right then, because I was going to propose the same thing. We’re launching the Andromeda for Poulson’s consortium next week, and we’re already well started on Stuart Saxnay’s Melinda. By September we should be in a lull, though, unless another commission comes up, the good Lord willing, and even if it does I’ll take time off. Say, ar
en’t you going to ask me in, lass?”

  I nearly drowned in my confusion, for I had been staring at him openmouthed much the same way I had at the picnic, only this time I was trying to comprehend that I might one day be married to this man. I hastily opened the door wider and stepped back. “I — I’m so sorry,” I murmured in a low voice.

  He squeezed my shoulder reassuringly as he passed by, and his touch burned there for a long time after. It wasn’t long after he had made his entrance to the parlor that he had my father’s complete attention, for he was listing his assets and telling my father his plans for further enlarging the shipyard with the next commission and buying or building a house here in Evanston large enough to accommodate his mother as well. Fortune hunter indeed! Even my father had the grace to look a bit sheepish, though he was obviously still far from enthusiastic.

  I shall never forget how Gideon sat there with his hair flaming in the lamplight, thoroughly at ease as he made some quite intelligent suggestions concerning raising money for the new church building. My mother was obviously entranced, and she brought a seemingly endless procession of tea and chocolate, cookies and cakes and homemade candy, offerings from which Gideon selected gravely, as gravely thanking her. By the time the evening was over and Gideon had come to his feet as an announcement of his departure, even my father was won over and had aired his side of the famous Cemetery Squabble.

  “I hope, sir, that you will allow me to escort Emily out to the shipyard tomorrow afternoon. We should be honored if you and Mrs. Holder would accompany us as well. You see, Captain Poulson would like Emily to do the honors when the Andromeda is launched next week.”

  The day of the launching was downright hot, though it was only the beginning of June. Gideon and Elam, his perfectly enormous foreman, helped me up on the makeshift platform to be occupied by Gideon, myself, my father and mother, and Captain Poulson and his associates, along with the mayor of Evanston and his wife and several aldermen. The Andromeda was a beautiful ship even bare-masted, and I could imagine her cleaving swiftly through the waves under a cloud of white canvas while gentlemen and ladies promenaded sedately on her polished decks. Someone handed me a large bottle of wine bedecked with ribbons and fastened to the ship with a long line.

  A fair breeze ruffled the river and sporadically carried to us the smell of the warm tallow used to grease the ways. Gideon had told me that this ship had taken an unconscionable time to build because the shipyard had had to be refitted first, and all this during the worst winter in years. Yet now it was hard to conceive that the weather had ever been anything but like this golden velvety day with the soft breeze fluttering the pennants and the ruffles on the ladies’ dresses.

  After endless speeches of congratulation, I took hold of the bottle with both hands and swung it with all the force 1 was able to muster, for Gideon had warned me that bottles were notoriously difficult to shatter when you were trying to break them. “I christen thee Andromeda!” The bottle left my hands and almost majestically, its red, white, and blue streamers flying prettily out behind, sailed through the golden afternoon and smashed against the wooden prow, spraying the figurehead of a bare-breasted woman with white foam.

  “Oh, well done, my girl!” Captain Poulson exclaimed at my shoulder. “Very well done indeed! She’ll be a lucky ship, I know it.”

  The remaining blocks were knocked out by men with heavy mallets, and the ship began to slide down the ways, gaining speed rapidly so that by the time she hit the water with a great silver splash she trailed tendrils of smoke from the friction-heated tallow. The large crowd collected around the ways, mainly families of the shipyard workers and townsfolk from Evanston, gave a collective gasp of appreciation and broke into thunderous applause as the lovely ship glided gracefully out onto the river, a distorted image of her spars and hull shimmering in the almost still water.

  Gideon asked my father if he and my mother would like to come along to Evanston to a party to celebrate the launching.

  “Will there be liquor served, sir?” my father asked ominously.

  “Of course there’ll be liquor,” Gideon said, standing up to him, “but it won’t be a drunken brawl, if that’s what you’re thinking, reverend. The good Lord put grain and grapes on this earth, and he’d never have given us the knack of using them for spirits if there were anything intrinsically evil in it. I’m taking Emily, and Captain and Mrs. Poulson here have kindly agreed to chaperon us home again. We should be back by nine. If you change your mind, reverend, you’re welcome to come, remember. You’ll find it all innocent enough, I assure you. After all, these are businessmen and shipmasters of substance, not drunken louts.”

  I could see my father was now torn, for it was indeed difficult to imagine someone like the elegant Mrs. Poulson ever being tipsy. “No later than nine, then,” he remonstrated to save face, and he and my beaming mother made their way off through the crowd toward Hamilcar and their buggy. Pleading that he had to settle something with Elam, Gideon left me standing for the better part of half an hour while the rest of the crowd scattered to their various houses or began the trip to Evanston.

  “Now then,” Gideon said as he helped me into his buggy with the sorrel gelding Dasher already pulling at the bit, “we’re ready for a nice leisurely drive to town.”

  It was only at that moment that I noticed we were by this time entirely alone, the yard deserted and the road empty. Before I could take alarm, however, he clucked to Dasher and we set off at a smart trot. Gideon had never looked so handsome. His new frock coat and snowy stock showed off nicely his red hair and beard, and his top hat sat jauntily on his head. I admired his skill with the horse, who was fresh and obviously wanted to run, and was just thinking what a perfect day this was when, several miles from the yard, Gideon suddenly turned off on a country lane and shortly thereafter onto a lumber track that led off into some woods. Once again I smelled the fir resin that would always conjure up for me the day of the picnic, but this time I also smelled my own fear.

  He pulled up the horse and turned to look at me. A band of sunlight shafting through the trees splashed across his hat, which he slowly removed, still looking into my eyes. The sun struck sparks and flames from his bright sorrel hair. I have never seen any blue like the blue of his eyes under their dark-red eyebrows and lashes, deeper than the sea on a summer day, a deep, intense, blinding blue that seemed to look through me into my very soul.

  I was truly mesmerized and made no move to turn away as he leaned forward and kissed me on the mouth, a tender, chaste kiss like that of a brother for a sister, a kiss that raised no alarms, no frights. He put his left hand on my shoulder then, and it felt warm and comforting through the cloth of my dress.

  “We’ve been engaged now for nearly three weeks, and except for the picnic I’ve never been alone with you,” he said, smiling.

  “I thought the Poulsons were supposed to be chaperoning us,” I said a little nervously.

  “I said they would chaperon us home,” he corrected. “Don’t worry, your honor will remain intact.” He reached up then, removed my hat, and deftly took out the four or five bone hairpins that held my hair in a tight bun in back. Released, it fell halfway down my back.

  “Oh, Gideon, you shouldn’t! How will I ever get it back without a mirror?” Though I had had no experience of such matters, I knew that things were getting out of hand, and I began to feel panicky.

  “Dear Emily,” he said gently, “don’t be afraid. You should know I’d never hurt you.” He reached around behind me and brought the hair over my shoulder so that it hung between us. He bent his head and laid his cheek on the brown strands streaked with gold.

  “Gideon, really, we must go. What will they think of us when we arrive so far behind the others?”

  He looked up at me with his cheek still against my hair. “At worst they’ll think we’re lovers, and aren’t we?”

  “Gideon, please —”

  He didn’t let me finish. I felt his lips on mine as the first time
, but now they pressed hard and he held me tight against him. Unbelieving, I felt his mouth open, opening my mouth with it, and suddenly his tongue was there inside my mouth! I could feel it wet and warm against my own tongue. I cried out and flinched away from him as if I’d been burned, and then I started to cry. He was immediately contrite.

  “There, there, little love,” he soothed me, stroking my head tenderly. “I’m sorry, truly I am. I forgot that stricken deer have to be gentled along.”

  I buried my head in his shoulder then and wailed. “I’m so afraid, if only I weren’t so afraid!”

  He thought I meant of kissing, not of the whole marriage idea, and he went on stroking my hair. “I’ll teach you slowly, love, I promise. I’d never force you, you know that. You’ll come to like it all, you know.”

  I didn’t tell him that I didn’t want him teaching me obscene things like that. I was sick at heart, for I saw that all this was going to be worse even than I had thought, and I was in such a state of nerves by the time we arrived at the party at the alderman’s house that Mrs. Poulson made me drink a glass of wine and lie down for a bit with a wet cloth over my eyes.

  “Poor dear, it’s all the excitement. Do you know that I fainted three or four times before Dick and I were married? Long engagements should be outlawed.”

  I might have confided in her and, who knows, perhaps been saved a great deal of misery, but she was so obviously under a misconception as to the cause of my upset that I simply hadn’t the nerve to put her straight. The wine helped, though, and before the evening was over I had had two more glasses and felt quite well. I was pleased and surprised at the ease with which I found myself conversing with perfect strangers, and Gideon seemed pleased and surprised himself at my unexpected social success.

  When the two carriages had pulled up at our gloomy old house, I thought my father was unnecessarily curt and inhospitable not to ask anyone in, but naturally said nothing. When he said goodnight, Gideon bowed and kissed my hand, making me blush again. The vehicles were hardly out of sight before my father slammed the door and took me by the shoulders and shook me.