Lucy: Daughters of the Sea #3 (10 page)

T
HERE WERE SECRETS
and there were
secrets
, and this one almost hurt, Ettie thought as she crouched behind the trunk of a dark spruce tree that grew at the edge of the cove. It was a very high tide this evening, so the lavender rock from which Hannah always dove was completely awash. When Hannah dove, Ettie always felt this deep surge within herself, as if part of her own essence were rushing from her. And then with the first flash of the glittering tail that broke the water like a comet soaring from the very depths of the ocean, there came a crushing bitterness. Was it the secret that bothered her or, most likely, the envy and the fear that Hannah would leave one night forever?

There was another secret, of course, that was actually a lie. It was the secret of Lila, the oldest of the three Hawley daughters, who was in an asylum for the mentally ill in western Massachusetts. The lie was that she was said to be abroad studying art in a small village outside of Florence. It was not as if Ettie longed to blab this matter to the world at large. She only wanted to tell one person — Hannah Albury, who had been a servant in the Hawley household for almost two years.

Henrietta Hawley, or Ettie as she was called, at ten, almost eleven, was the youngest daughter of Horace and Edwina Hawley of Boston. Her best friend in the world was Hannah Albury. But the truth was that Ettie understood Hannah more than Hannah did her. Ettie knew Hannah’s secret. But what Hannah did not comprehend was that just as Hannah longed to escape the land world, Ettie, despite her privilege, her Brahmin pedigree by virtue of belonging to one of Boston’s oldest and most revered families, yearned to escape as well. Ettie found the world she was consigned to by her species and social rank stultifying, even smothering to the point of — yes — suffocation. And it would only get worse as she grew up.

Just that morning, she had been severely reprimanded by Miss Ardmore, her governess, for entering the drawing room barefoot. “No bare feet in the house!” Miss Ardmore had hissed.

“Why ever not?” Ettie had replied.

“It’s unsanitary.”

“Oh, hell’s bells,” Ettie blurted. Miss Ardmore had blanched.

“Ettie, you swore!”

“You call that swearing? I can do much worse than that. I know the word for the private parts of a bull and I can say —”

Miss Ardmore came up to her and clapped her hand over Ettie’s mouth.

Yes, thought Ettie, “suffocating” was what it meant to grow up into a proper young lady.

And every day it was worse, and Ettie seemed to be gasping for more air. She felt like a fish out of water. Though she hesitated to use this expression, for Hannah was no mere fish; she was a sea creature. Ettie was very disinclined to use the word
mermaid
. She detested the word
maid
. In her own mind, it meant either a servant or a rather witless young female. One of Ettie’s major problems in life was how people thought about half the human race — unfortunately, the half she belonged to: female.

At this moment, she saw the flash of the tail.
Where does she go when she swims?
Ettie always wondered. She knew she could not follow Hannah there. She was not mer, but fully human. What did it mean, however, to be human? she sometimes wondered. In Ettie’s world, it meant having half the fun, half the power. In Ettie’s world, fun was defined rather narrowly in terms of a set of expectations. Her cousin Matilda “Muffy” Forbes had become engaged this summer. She was seventeen and what she expected and what had been expected of her could be written on a short list:

What difference did it make? They were all maids — old maids, young maids, even the married ones called matrons were still maids consigned to an eternally witless state. Ettie looked out to sea and again wondered where Hannah went.
Where does she swim to?

As she swam out toward the cave to meet May, Hannah wondered if her life could get any more complicated. Stannish Whitman Wheeler’s angry words still echoed in her ears.

“You’re going to have to decide, Hannah. Soon. You can’t have it both ways. I can make a life for you here on land.”

“But I might die on land.”

“You won’t. You’ll adapt. We’ll be married.”

“Stannish Whitman Wheeler marry a servant girl? You’ll lose all your clients and I’ll lose the sea.”

They had been arguing like this for months and it had gotten them nowhere. But ever since the discovery that her and May’s third sister had arrived, she had become more outspoken with Stannish. Should she give up the family that was almost complete for marriage? Stannish had given up the sea for his painting, but was she willing to give it up for him? The worst was when Stannish would almost cavalierly say to her, “You’ll get used to it. You’ll see. At first you might miss it a bit, but then it’s just like an old scratch. It heals over very fast. A scar you won’t feel at all.”

That was just the problem; she felt everything because she was mer. It made the world around her more vibrant — and even harder to leave behind.

“Look!” May said as Hannah swam into the cave. She was holding a piece of paper.

“What is it?” Hannah asked.

“Come up close and see. Don’t get it wet, though. It’s a watercolor.”

“What a lovely drawing,” Hannah whispered. “She wants to meet us. Can’t you see? It’s clear as anything, May.” Her voice cracked and she began to cry.

“Hannah, whatever is the matter?” May put her arm around her sister’s shoulders.

“He was one of us,” Hannah said, with tears trickling down her cheeks.

May felt a dread begin to stir deep inside her. She twitched the flukes of her tail, still suspended in the water, and tightened her grip around Hannah. “Who? Who are you talking about?”

“Stannish Whitman Wheeler.” Hannah spoke his name in a barely audible voice.

“The painter?”

Hannah nodded.

A coldness crept through May. She shivered and the scales on her tail scintillated darkly as fear radiated through her entire being. She sensed what Hannah was going to say next. It was something she had never mentioned to Hannah, had almost been afraid to mention.

“He mistook you for me one day in the village, didn’t he?” Hannah asked.

“Yes,” May said. Her voice was barely audible.

“In that alley, he saw only the back of your head, your hair, and thought you were me. You see, May, he is … is …,” she whispered. “My sweetheart.”

“But you say he is mer.”

“
Was
mer. He can’t go back.”

“Why not?”

“It’s the Laws of Salt, May. If he tried to return to the sea, he would drown.” May gasped. “We love each other so much. Can you think of anything worse?”

May bit her lip lightly. “Maybe.” She thought of Hugh Fitzsimmons, those lovely gray eyes that endlessly intrigued and charmed her. His funny, slightly crooked smile and how those eyes would sparkle when he laughed.

“I, too, have a sweetheart, but he was never mer. He never had a choice.”

I
T WAS LATE IN THE EVENING
,
and Lucy had just come from her bedroom to fetch a book she had been reading and forgotten to take with her. Both her parents were in the small parlor. Her father was reading, her mother sewing somewhat resentfully as she repaired a small tear in the reverend’s vestments.

“Lucy, when you met the duke at the Quoddy Club this morning, you really shouldn’t have — have —” She began to stammer.

“Have? Have what? Mother, I was perfectly friendly.”

“You were friendly but so mercilessly intellectual and then when you mentioned Oscar Wilde — that man is scandalous.”

“Mother, he is a playwright, a famous one, and the duke knows him, along with James Whistler.” She did not mention that he also knew Lily Langtry, a truly shameless beauty who was rumored to be having an affair with the Prince of Wales. The duke kept very exciting company in England. He went to every art opening and every play.

She flashed back to his eloquent description of the Elgin Marbles. “If you stand before them, Lucy, you cannot quite believe they are made of stone. It is as if you are transgressing some border where time and matter melt and you become part … part …” He had paused as if to search for a word.

“Part of a dream.”

“Exactly. An ancient dream that is on the continuum of eternity.”

“I just don’t understand, Mother. I was genuinely interested in what he was saying about his life in London and the museums, and I thought I was being friendly enough.”

“My dear.” Her father looked up from his reading. “Friendliness is not something that should be doled out in measured quantities like a cup of sugar.”

Lucy grew still and waited several seconds before answering. She dared not tell her parents about Phineas, for whom she had unlimited quantities of “friendliness.” She looked up at her mother and smiled. “I’ll try to be less intellectual, Mother, and more
friendly
.”

Marjorie Snow’s face relaxed. She picked up Lucy’s hand, pressed it to her midriff, and gave it a squeeze. “This is a chance. He is truly interested in you. He’s a duke. You could be a duchess. That, I think, outranks an earl. Like Muffy Forbes’s Earl of Lyford. She’d only be an earless, I think.”

“No, dear,” said the reverend, who at the moment had been reading a book entitled
Rank and Nobility: The Guide to Peerage of the British Empire.
“Muffy Forbes will be a countess. The Countess of Lyford. I find her quite charming. She has offered to join the altar guild and direct the arranging of flowers for Sunday services. She suggests native plants — lupine and the like, which is in season now, along with daisies. I told her that you would be happy to join the guild, too, Lucy. I think it would provide an invaluable contact for you.”

“Oh, yes, Lucy, invaluable,” her mother echoed. “Now don’t be stubborn.”

Joining the altar guild was easy, Lucy thought. It was a way to offer a modicum of instant gratification to her parents. “Oh, yes, Father, I would be happy to join the altar guild. Muffy seems lovely.”

“She is, and a very good catch for the earl,” her mother replied.

“But, Mother, don’t you see? Muffy is very wealthy.” She did not want to quote Gus Bellamy verbatim, but she also did not want her parents to be misled in any way. They surely could not be so benighted as to not be aware of the value of a substantial dowry.

Their contrivances to move into “the thick” had seemed innocent enough at first. Of course it would be lovely if her father could become the bishop of New York. But she realized clearly now that he was not the only candidate for higher office. Their designs extended to her. And in the brief days since the Bellamy party, her mother had plunged into a vigorous pursuit of the Duke of Crompton. She had contrived another meeting at the Abenaki for tea and had also managed for Lucy and herself to have an “accidental” encounter with the duke in the card room at the Quoddy Club.

“You know we aren’t rich like the Forbeses.”

“That shouldn’t make any difference,” her mother said firmly. “You are much prettier than Muffy.”

“Mother, these titled young men are not looking for beauty. They are looking for money.”

“Not necessarily, my dear,” her father said. “They are impressed with background, culture, position. I don’t want to spill any beans here, but there is buzz about the office of the bishop. Vanderwaker’s resignation is expected by the end of the month.”

“And,” Marjorie Snow chimed in, “the young duke was quite impressed with our connections with the Bancrofts.”

“Aunt Prissy?”

“Yes, Aunt Prissy. He knows all about her family and you see, dear, unlike the Bancrofts with those onerous entailments, the duke’s family has none, no entailments.”

“Entailments?” Lucy asked.

“Yes, entailments. That’s what they call it when property or a fortune can only be inherited by a male.”

“But I am not a male.”

“Of course not.”

“Nor was Aunt Prissy.”

Marjorie Snow turned to her husband in frustration. “Oh, Stephen, explain all this to Lucy. It’s too complicated for me,” she said, petulantly jabbing the needle through the cloth.

Stephen Snow, upon rising from his chair, bumped the side table. There was a small thud as a Bible slipped off. Lucy quickly picked it up and restored it to its place with the other reading matter. Her father was still holding the book of peerage as he spoke.

“It is not all that complex. In England, entailed property is usually inherited by the eldest male in the family.”

“But Aunt Prissy isn’t English.”

“Lucy, don’t interrupt when I am speaking,” the reverend said, rather sharply.

“Sorry, Father.”

“Now may I continue?” Lucy was irritated by this disingenuous request. A spark of rebellion flared within her.
What if I said no?
The very thought caught her off guard. This defiance, these mutinous notions, where did they come from? She took a deep breath to dispel her anger. “You see, Lucy,” her father continued, “Percy Wilgrew, the Duke of Crompton, has no older brothers. Nor any male cousins. The coast is clear, so to speak. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Father,” she replied with appropriate docility, a docility she did not feel in the least. There was so much more she wanted to say.

“You are a special girl, Lucy. I think the duke sees that.”

“He does?”

“He came to afternoon services last Sunday. He was surprised you weren’t there, but we told him that you had a headache, and do you know what he said?”

“What?” Lucy’s heart raced. This was exactly the time she had been “suffering her headache” in the arms of Phineas.

“He said it was probably from all that reading you do. That he had never met such a well-read young lady.”

“Look, she’s blushing, Stephen. See, every girl loves a compliment.”

Lucy was indeed blushing. Her parents looked so happy. She wanted so to please them. She thought of the adoption papers she had discovered in her father’s desk years before, the haunting words
mother unknown
. And here was a mother known, right before her. A mother and a father who had sought her out, chosen her. She imagined babies lined up in little crates like fresh produce in the market. She pictured her parents walking along and examining each one, picking it up as one might pick up an apple to see if there were any bruises, and in fact she did have a “bruise,” her turned foot. But nevertheless they had chosen her. They wanted her and they wanted the best for her. They considered the duke the best and perhaps he was. She had been captivated by his description of the Elgin Marbles and his estate with a lovely winding river that passed not a quarter of a mile from his home.

“Oh, and, Lucy darling, would you do me the greatest favor?”

“Of course, Mother. What is it?”

“I have a note for you to deliver to Mrs. Van Wyck thanking her for those extraordinary lilies she sent for the altar. Might you deliver this to her?” She held out a small cream-colored envelope.

“I would be happy to, Mother.”

“That’s a good girl.”