Bidding her goodbye, Esmée stepped from the shuttered cottage into bright noon sunlight. The snow had melted as January progressed, the wind banished with it. She sensed spring. Or was it only her woolgathering about her coming wedding?
With a last look at the lighthouse, she turned her back on it and began a slow walk to the beach. The tide was out, the water so flat it looked like a painted blue floor. She breathed in the salt air, thankful the time they’d been back on the island had seen no tempests nor foundering ships.
Her thoughts skipped forward, drawing her to the boundary stones. They were just as she and Henri had left them. She walked the perimeter now, envisioning the parlor and hall, the staircase leading to bedchambers and the upper portico. They’d decided the most basic details. Potomac River sandstone. Gambrel roof. Milk-paint walls. Balustraded verandas like those Henri favored in the Caribbean that tempered summer’s heat.
She took in the view they’d have from the front of the finished house. A lone sloop sailed into her line of sight, relying on the current instead of the wind and heading toward York. She missed town not a whit. Solitude suited her just as society suited Eliza.
She walked back onto the beach, eyes on the sand, the smallest of breezes stirring her petticoats. Father always said the best shelling happened at low tide after a storm. The tide was now turning, the sea coming a little closer. Spying something purple, she bent and shook the sand from a pansy shell, as Mama called them—or mermaid coins, said Father. It was round and white with a petal design on top. Sadly, Eliza had never shared her love of shelling.
Esmée walked in the direction of her cottage, wishing it were warm enough to remove her shoes. For a time she forgot all about winter, lost in the pleasure of the beach. A few shells later, she all but ran back home, as carefree as a child. Into the parlor she went, the warmth of the hearth nearly suffocating after her outing. Three loaves of bread sat on the kitchen table. Had she been away so long?
Lucy’s expectant face greeted her, a dab of flour on her chin. “What have ye there, Miss Shaw?”
“Treasures of the deep.” Esmée held out a conch shell, pink and glossy. “If you place it to your ear you can hear the sea.”
Lucy did so, eyes wide. “I do, aye!”
Esmée held up another shell. “Look at this scallop, orange as a persimmon.”
“The mantel looks magical with so many shells.” Lucy set the conch, the largest of them all, on one end. “Whilst ye were away, two of Captain Lennox’s crew rowed here from the tavern. The peg-legged Tomkins and an African.”
“I’m sorry I missed them,” Esmée replied, removing her cape. “Is all well on the island’s opposite end?”
“Tomkins said his old bones foretell a tempest.”
“A tempest?” Seasoned mariners were often able to predict the weather. Esmée was doubly glad for her beachcombing ahead of rough seas. “Two of the most able-bodied men will be quartering in the captain’s cottage come any storms. Captain’s orders.”
“A tempest I can do without,” Lucy exclaimed. “D’ye recall the last? ’Twas when I first came to the almshouse. Hail the size of turkey eggs!”
“I recall a massive sandbar lay in the Chesapeake when there’d been naught before. A great many ships ran aground. Did the crew say what needs to be done in preparation?”
“Batten down everything outside we can. Bring in more firewood to keep it dry. Secure the poultry and such.” Lucy bent and added another log to the hearth’s fire. “I do fret about our men at sea. What’s to become o’ them in a storm?”
“We shall keep praying for them.” What more could they do? “One of my favorite biblical stories is Jesus calming the wind and the waves.”
“Can ye read it to me tonight, Miss Shaw? After ye mind the light?”
“A lovely plan. Count on it.”
CHAPTER
fifty-two
Esmée sat by the parlor window embroidering, carefully alternating between stem stitch and satin stitch, tiny leaves and vines unfolding before her unwavering eye in different hues of brown and green. Dear Mama had taught her well. Lucy’s exclamation was proof.
“I’ve ne’er seen the like, Miss Shaw. And so fetching a fabric!”
“’Tis silk damask. I’m flowering a waistcoat for the wedding.”
“The captain’ll make a handsome groom, he will.” Smiling, Lucy pulled up a chair and took out her own handwork. “I’m knitting more stockings. Seems like I’m ne’er warm enough even with the fire blazing night and day.”
“There’s a chill on the island with the wind coming from all directions.”
A bob of her capped head led to a grimace. “I keep pondering what’s been said about a tempest. Best prepare for such by dressing warmly, aye.”
“Thankfully, all is well today. A mild south wind. Clear skies.” Esmée looked up from her work to gaze through the glass. The lighthouse seemed to watch over them, casting a long shadow in the sun. “You should come up in the light on a starry night.”
“Yer a brave soul climbing all those steps.” Lucy busied herself with her needle. “A bit like a jack-tar climbing aloft to the lookout.”
“Surely iron steps are better than a rope ladder.”
Lucy chuckled. “Those jacks have a bit o’ Hermes in them, they do, monkeying to the top.”
“How is the mischievous creature, I wonder?”
“Livelier than a lamb in spring, no doubt.” Lucy’s thin frame shook with mirth. “He’s missing Mistress Saltonstall by now. Or Cyprian, who had care of him till sailing.”
Esmée plied a few more emerald-green stitches, finishing a leaf. She startled when Lucy rose abruptly from the table, jarring it and bringing their peaceful interlude to an end.
“By Jove . . . Is that yer father, Miss Shaw?”
Esmée looked again to the window as a small vessel drew up alongside the pier. Two jacks were tying up Father’s Bermuda sloop, favored for its agility and speed. Had he news of Eliza?
Abandoning her embroidery, Esmée grabbed her cape hanging near the door. Lucy was on her heels, the cold air seeded with questions. By the time they reached the water, her father was helping a caped woman onto the main deck from the stern cabin below. Alice? An infant’s cries shattered the stillness, startling a charm of finches in the near beach grass.
Esmée’s insides turned to ice. With Father’s help, Alice—her arms full of two bundles—stepped onto the pier. Her face was pale as frost, one arm jostling a crying babe. Father’s strained face only added to Esmée’s angst as he took one of the infants. She’d expected him at some point but not with babies. Nor Alice.
“Father, what has happened?” Esmée’s voice sounded overloud. A bit breathless.
He simply stared back at her, unsmiling. When Lucy took one infant the blanket fell away, and they saw it was Alden. His fat fists punched the air and his round face was puckered, but he gave no cry.
While Alice and Lucy hastened to the cottage with the babies, Father came to a standstill on the dock. “Your sister, racked from a hard birth, lies gravely ill with the pox. One of the kitchen maids in their employ has died of it. Now ’tis spreading through Williamsburg like fire and has reached York. Quinn is also ill, though not as ill as Eliza. He begged me to bring the babe to you straightaway for safekeeping. You know how hard the pox is on children.”