Lucy: Daughters of the Sea #3 (15 page)

“Yes,” Marjorie said. “I heard that as well. Did Muffy say anything to you, darling?”

“No,” Lucy replied. “We were concentrating on bridal matters.”

“Well, I have it on good authority that the Heanssler boatyard is said to be contracted,” the duke offered.

Percy turned to Lucy and said almost confidentially, “It’s really going to be quite amazing, I hear.” He turned to the others. “I think the royal family might be envious of the Forbeses. You know, the Prince of Wales just commissioned a new yacht. I don’t think his mother was too keen on it.”

“Why not?” Lucy asked.

“She’s rather frugal actually. It seems quite ridiculous, but that’s the way she is. And getting more so in her dotage.”

“I understand that she still dresses in mourning for her late husband, Prince Albert.”

“Yes. They were very devoted.”

His remark struck Lucy as odd. “Aren’t most married couples?”

Marjorie Snow shot Lucy a glance as if to demand, “
Why must you always question so?
”

“Well, yes, but the prince has been dead for years now, decades.”

“But if she still mourns him, perhaps dressing that way makes her feel most comfortable.”

“Yes, but as a monarch, her duty is to her country. It casts rather a pall, you know. When you have a title, you cannot think just of yourself but of the dominion of which you are the protector. Even mourning can become an indulgence when there is a realm to consider.”

“An indulgence, Your Grace?” Lucy turned to the duke in wonder.

“Quite right,” Marjorie Snow murmured. “Stephen often counsels grieving widows or widowers that it is God’s will that one get on with life.”

Lucy continued speaking despite the fact that her mother had given her a kick under the table. “I am having a hard time understanding how what the queen wears or how long she mourns really has to do with the average British citizen like yourself.”

The duke winced, then chuckled slightly. “Average, Lucy? I hardly think of myself as average.”

“I meant no offense, sir.” She could feel waves of discomfort radiating from her mother, but she could not stop herself from speaking out. The others at the table had fallen silent. Their heads swiveled first to Lucy and then to the duke, as if they were watching a tennis match. Yet she was not embarrassed at all. His sense of superiority with more than an irksome tinge of entitlement was insufferable. If he knew how “average” she truly was — at least in one sense — he would most likely dismiss her at once. She only wished she had the courage to tell him that her mother’s fanciful stories of their connections to Aunt Prissy were just that. But she dared not. They would all look like fools, then.

“I know you meant no offense. Nor did I.” He bent his head toward her slightly and she caught a whiff of hair oil. “As I was saying” — his voice resonated with a forced cheeriness — “the Forbes yacht will be even grander than the Van Wyck one.”

Lucy was dying to say, “Yes, I spent quite a bit of time in the master bedroom,” but wisely held her tongue. She began to make her excuses to leave, and was slightly alarmed when the duke insisted on escorting her from the table.

“These island people,” Percy continued as they stood on the veranda of the Abenaki Club, “are quite clever, you know.”

“You sound surprised, Percy.” It was the first time she had used his Christian name, and she saw his eyes dance with delight.

“Well, you know, they aren’t …” He seemed to search for a word.

“Aren’t what?” Lucy looked at him closely. Her chin jutted forward a bit. “Or are they just average?”

Percy Wilgrew scratched at the side of his head as if this required a great deal of thought. “They don’t have the advantages that some of us do. Our kind.”

“I’m not sure I take your meaning?” she said softly. She was feeling quite unsettled with this talk.

“You know.”

“I assure you, sir, I am not your kind, not in the least.”

“I am not just talking about titles, Miss Snow. Yes, I am a duke with a title, which is a custom in England and not here. But of course it is,” he laughed, “easily remedied. Such is the case with Matilda Forbes and the Earl of Lyford. She will soon be a countess.” Lucy could not believe what she was hearing. He was actually dangling titles in front of her like a sideshow barker at a carnival. “I believe that your mother’s dear cousin Priscilla Bancroft has visited Lyford Hall. As I understand it, Lyford Hall bears some resemblance to White Oaks, where you were practically raised.”

Practically raised? My mother’s cousin?
What had her mother been saying?

“Aunt Prissy?” Lucy said vaguely.

“Yes, I believe that’s the nickname your mother called her by. She is your godmother, correct?”

“Yes,” Lucy answered numbly, but she had fastened her eyes on her mother, who was engaged in an animated discussion with Muffy Forbes’s father. What yarns was her mother spinning? she wondered.

“I really must be on my way.” Lucy turned to walk away. She was about to run.

“Please don’t go.”

“I’m quite late already.”

He reached out to grab her hand and caught the cuff of her dress. There was a rip and the sleeve tore halfway off.

“Oh, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to.” He was still holding the cuff. Lucy looked at her bare arm for several seconds. This was the same arm that had pulled her so powerfully through the water. She looked into the duke’s eyes.

“Sir, make no mistake. I assure you once again, I am not your kind.”

P
ERCY WAITED
in the shadows of the carriage house of the Abenaki Club, which afforded him a perfect view of the drive.

Why has she turned left, away from town? What possible bridesmaid’s errand could take her that way?
Percy Wilgrew thought. He would get to the bottom of this. By hook or by crook he was determined to get to the bottom of it. He had to. He had no choice. Every week, a cable arrived from his mother outlining the dire straits that had befallen Ashleigh Manor, the ancestral home that had been in their family since granted by Henry VII to Michael Percy in 1487.

The road out of the village of Bar Harbor was a winding one and, thankfully, lined with thick stands of trees. It was easy for him to follow Lucy undetected. He watched as she cut across the field. On the far side were the burnt-out ruins of the Grantmore Hotel. She seemed to be running now. He would have to walk quickly to keep pace.

Five minutes later, he reached the ruins, but Lucy seemed to have disappeared. Then he spied a path that led into the woods behind the hotel.

Percy Wilgrew heard them before he saw them. Heard the pronounced breathing, the rustle of leaves and twigs breaking. He closed his eyes and leaned against a tree.
So this is her bridesmaid’s errand!
He crept closer, careful not to make a sound himself. He first caught sight of her hair, loose around her shoulders. Someone was embracing her passionately. Who was it? He waited. Patience was one of the duke’s virtues. But soon the fellow got up and brushed himself off. He turned and would have looked directly into Percy Wilgrew’s eyes if it had not been for the thick trunk of the ancient oak. But Percy had seen him.
That boatyard boy!
He could hardly believe it.
She spurns me, spurns a title for that?
Percy felt a rage flare within him. He would not be made a fool of. Never!

The Duke of Crompton was not only a patient man but a careful one. He planned. He strategized. He continued to watch, perfectly still. Lucy’s shawl lay on the ground. The sleeves of her dress fell off her shoulders to expose a shocking expanse of skin. She raised her bare arms to twist up her hair. He was hypnotized by the slow languorous movement of her arms as she wound her hair. It was horrible and yet he could not tear his eyes from her. She was dangerous. She needed to be destroyed.

Percy wasn’t sure how much time passed before Lucy pressed her lips against the shipbuilder’s one final time and led him away, smiling. When he was sure they had left, Percy walked over to the patch of moss where Lucy and Phineas had lain entwined and spied something glistening on top of the moss. A pink pearl button. He bent over and picked it up. Folding his hand around it tightly, he smiled into the shadows of the forest.
This will be easy
, he thought. Now he had all he needed.

I
T WAS AS
M
AY
and Hannah had told her. She felt it as soon as they swam out of the current — an inexorable pull stronger than the stream that had sped them to the shoals. Like iron filings toward a magnet she was aware of every fiber of her body and mind driving toward this place that was unknown and yet so peculiarly familiar.

They had left for the shoals at dawn. Each of the sisters had made excuses to be gone for the day. Lucy had once again invoked her bridesmaid’s duties, though she had told Muffy it was something to do with Phineas. Hannah had worked two extra days and therefore arranged for a day off. May had the easiest time of all. She merely told her father that Hugh was coming up and they planned to hike Mount Abenaki, which they often did. Her father, Gar, wished her a good day and said not to worry about the lighthouse chores. He’d be fine on his own.

Hannah and May had never been to the wreck during the daytime, and today was particularly sunny. They usually saw the hulk of the sunken ship through the reflected light of the moon. But now the shadowy depths were latticed with sunlight and hovering amidst the shafts like a golden angel, a sea angel. Lucy saw a face so like her own, so like her sisters that she stopped swimming for a moment and held still in the water. Then she slipped slowly through the shafts of light toward the figurehead that extended from the bow of the ship.

“Mum,” she whispered in the watery language. Reaching out with her arms, she embraced the slender wooden neck.
If only you were flesh,
she thought.
And not hard wood.
What had it been like to be held by her, cradled in her arms?

She was not sure how long she had been holding her, but she felt stirrings in the water as her sisters approached.

She turned to May and Hannah. “How does one cry underwater?”

“Look,” Hannah said softly. “Look at the figurehead’s chin — the small dimple is the same as ours.” Hannah touched Lucy’s chin as Lucy looked up at the face of her mother.

“Do we know her name?” Lucy asked.

Hannah and May shook their heads.

“How do you think she came to be on this ship? Were we born here?”

The girls shook their heads again. “These questions,” May began, “seem almost impossible to answer. We have pondered all of them. It is all so mysterious. We can only half guess at the answers. We know the name of the captain. Captain Walter Lawrence.”

“Do you believe he could have been our father?” Lucy asked.

“Maybe,” Hannah said.

“Was he mer?”

May shrugged. “It’s really hard to know much for sure,” she said.

“But the mystery in a way begins with this ship. The
Resolute
. We’ll show you through her,” Hannah said. “We’re always looking for clues. Something to tell us more about our mother and the captain.”

They swam through a rent in the vast hull.

“This is the captain’s quarters,” May said as they swam close to an upturned navigation desk.

“It’s where we found the scallop shell comb, the shell like May’s. She said I could have it since she already had one. Maybe we can find another one for you.”

“If not I know where we can dive for one. Same place I found mine. A ledge down deep near Matinicus Rock.”

But Lucy was not paying attention. She had found something else. The small cubbyholes above the bed.

“There’s a chambered nautilus in one of those. He hates being disturbed,” Hannah said.

“But what’s this?” Lucy asked, drawing out a rock fragment.

“Oh, that! We almost forgot,” Hannah answered.

“It’s lovely,” Lucy said as she held the fragment up to a ray of sunlight and studied the feathery design.

“We think it’s a keepsake of our mother’s,” May said.

“So why didn’t you take it with you? I mean, if it is our mother’s keepsake, wouldn’t you want it? And couldn’t it be a clue?”

May and Hannah looked at each other, genuinely puzzled. “I think perhaps we were waiting for you,” May said slowly. “We can take it back to the cave now.”

“Its design looks like a broken flower — a lily,” Lucy said, quietly tracing it with her fingertip. “It must be a fossil. I’ve seen them in the natural history museum in New York, just like this.”

“Really?” May said. “You’ve seen true fossils?”

“I’d love to go to a museum,” Hannah added. “Never been to one myself.”

“Me, neither,” May said.

“But you know,” Lucy continued, looking at it more closely, “it’s not just that it looks like a lily. There is a flow to it. It could almost be a picture of a current. The marks look like water streaming.”

Something stirred in Lucy’s memory, a recent memory. “It reminds me of something else as well.”

“What?” Hannah asked.

“Something I’ve seen or heard or read about.”

“Or dreamed about?” Hannah said.

“Maybe. But I just can’t remember it right now.”

“It’ll come to you,” May said. “But we’d best be swimming back now.”

As Lucy swam, she thought of the sea-polished face of the figurehead, her mother. There were dim traces of the colors that had been — the rosiness of her plump lips, a thin veil of green in her eyes hinted at a deeper green scrubbed by the sea, and the shadow of what once had been the brilliant red of her hair. It took very little imagination to see what had been there nearly eighteen years before. Lucy grasped the rock fragment tightly in her fist and began wondering not so much about the color of her mother’s eyes or her face but her voice. It was then that the memory came back. Echoes of another voice — that of Dr. Forsythe, whom she had listened to on that spring morning in the Museum of Natural History.

“A man in a sealskin boat, enshrouded in his sealskin parka. A seal man, they began to call these people who came across the sea with not a mortal wound, a trace of violence, but who had died in the icy embrace of the winter sea when blown from their course…. The selkie legends, the mythological shape-shifting creatures, seal folk, who are said to be seals in the sea but humans upon the land.”

“A kind of mermaid?”

“Lucy are you talking to yourself?” May had swum up beside her.

“Selkies!” Lucy said. “But we’re not seals.”

“Whatever are you talking about?” Hannah asked. “Have you remembered something? The rock — you know what it reminded you of?”

“Yes, in a sense. It’s all coming together for me. And it’s not a dream!”

“No?” May asked.

“No, it’s as you say. The Laws of Salt,” Lucy replied.