by David Manuel
Nice put-down, Frenchie, thought Dan. Maybe, after all, he was a bit of a Francophobe.
It was not long before the guests became friends—not unusual at Sandys House, where the return rate was 95 percent.
More details began to emerge. Their host’s modified RAF moustache really was an RAF moustache. Barely 20, Flight Lieutenant Cooper-Smith had interrupted his Oxford education to fly with Transport Command in the Burma Theater. Ms. Brown, the stock broker from Anaheim, had anticipated every major downturn of the market—including the present one. Her grateful clients referred to her as “The Unsinkable Maudie Brown.”
Margaret Chalmers had rowed at Wellesley, as had her daughter. Her brother had rowed with Grace Kelly’s brother when they were members of Philadelphia’s Vesper Boat Club.
Ron Wallace told about his boat-swapping arrangement with Ian Bennett, to which St. John observed, “I went to school with Ian’s father.”
Dan revealed he was the Chief of Police of a village not much bigger than Somerset, which had become so quiet that he’d not thought about it once down here.
Jane MacLean was a birdwatcher with a life species list of more than two hundred, to which she’d added six entries in the short time they’d been here.
When attention shifted to her husband, he perked up and informed them that membership had increased 30 percent since he’d opened his fitness center four months before. But, as noted Dan in the window/mirror, the moment the spotlight was off him, the smile vanished. Indeed, in the past hour he’d begun sneaking glances at his watch.
Stop it, Dan chided himself; this is a vacation, not a stake-out! But it was no more possible for him to stop than for a bird-dog to ignore a scent. And Dan’s nose was telling him something was awry here.
Abruptly Buff got to his feet and announced, “I’ve got to—take care of something.”
“What, darling?” asked Jane, startled.
“Just—something!” He tried to smile, as if it might be a surprise for her, and departed into the night.
The others quickly resumed conversation, to minimize his bewildered bride’s discomfort.
Their host now turned their attention to Laurent Devereux, and Dan wondered what pearls the Frenchman might cast before them. But Devereux was saved by the bell, or more precisely, the electronic melody of Für Elise on his cell phone. Holding it to his ear and frowning at the poor reception, he excused himself and went outside.
“Why don’t people leave those things in their rooms!” exclaimed Maud.
“Look who’s talking!” jibed her cousin.
“What do you mean?”
“Maudie, dear, you took three client calls outside!”
“Well—that’s different!”
Everyone laughed, and the dinner party, for that’s what it had become, went merrily on. Dan was tired. He imagined others were, too, but no one wanted to miss the fun. It was 10:30 before they finally got up from the table.
He wondered if anyone else had noticed that neither Buff nor the Frenchman had returned.
13 once in love with amy
Alone at his end of the White Horse bar, Colin Bennett was slowly sinking into the slough of despond. Idly he watched the group in white, as one of them, the older one, detached himself and went outside to use his cell phone. In the mirror behind the bar, Colin could see him out there, making his call. No, he was no ocean sailor. In a few moments he came back in and rejoined his group, glancing at Colin, who quickly averted his gaze.
Colin signaled the bartender, Mike, for another; six ought to do it. But so far, instead of blurring the past and blotting the pain, the rum seemed to be sharpening the eight-year-old images.
There had been a succession of girls before Amy, each convinced that she would be the one to change him. Get him to give up his vagabond ways, settle down, raise a family, act responsibly. Put her before the boat. Each had given up in despair.
Amy Baxter was different. Fiercely independent, the daughter of a Georgia paper baron, she’d known nothing about boats. And turned out to be a natural. She’d gone with him up to Bar Harbor, where they’d whiled away the summer, and she’d become a first-class sailor. In late August, as the first tropical depression formed and began heading west along the Tropic of Cancer, they’d dropped down to Bermuda to see which way the wind was blowing, as it were.
Here in the White Horse, he’d tried to give her the option of not accompanying him further. “From here on in, it’ll be all work and no play. I’m at it, soon as there’s light to see by—a good hour before you even think about getting up. And I keep at it till the light’s gone. And it’ll be that way for three straight months.” He paused for emphasis. “I usually drop ten, twelve pounds.”
She’d listened solemnly, because he was being solemn. But it was obvious she wasn’t buying it.
He tried harder. “And getting there—wherever there is—will be no fun at all. I’m not hunting hurricanes exactly, but I do intend to ‘git there, fustest with the mostest,’ as it were.”
She smiled. “Nathan Bedford Forrest.”
He looked up, surprised. “How’d you know that?”
“I majored in history—Southron history,” she said, tilting her head. “What I want to know is, how’d you know?”
“I’m familiar with your Civil War. Or should I say, the War for Southron Independence?”
“Call it what my granddaddy did: the War to Repel the Northern Invader. But you didn’t answer my question.”
He closed one eye and squinted at her out of the other, like Robert Shaw playing Teddy Tucker in “The Deep.” In a rum-soaked brogue he muttered, “Aye, girl, Bermuda was the main rendezvous of the blockade runners.” He shrugged. “My granddaddies kept your granddaddies in the fight.”
“I never knew that.”
“Then you probably didn’t know how close Britannia came to intervening on your behalf. Had she done so, she would have based her Atlantic fleet here, at her wee outpost off the Carolinas.”
He shook his head. “But ye’ve distracted me, girl. I was telling you why you didn’t want to come with me on my next venture. If I’m going to where a hurricane’s just been, I’m going to have to cut close behind it—very close behind it.”
She was trying not to smile, but her round blue eyes were dancing at the effort.
“Look,” he acknowledged, a slight edge in his voice, “you’ve become a sailor. A fine one. But we’ve never gone through any heavy weather. Never had any reason to. Now….”
Her eyes narrowed. “Colin Bennett! Are you trying to send me home? ‘Cause if you are, I’ll be out of here so fast, it’ll make your—”
“Whoa, Nellie! I didn’t say that! I’m just trying to warn you what it’s going to be like. If you wanted to go home and see your family, this would be the time to do it, that’s all.”
She thought about that—for all of four seconds. “I’m coming.”
A slow grin spread across his face. “Good on ya, mate!” he’d exclaimed, imitating his Aussie friends. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
She never did. On their way down to Eleuthera, which had taken a direct hit, they went through some of the foulest weather he’d ever seen. Once they’d gotten there, instead of sitting around all day while he worked, she asked if she could help. He’d been reluctant, but she’d persisted, and he started showing her how to fix things. Funny thing, just as with her seamanship, she turned out to be a natural.
After Eleuthera they’d gone on to St. Kitts, Tortola, Martinique. Finally, around American Thanksgiving, they’d called it a season and returned here. And had come to the White Horse, famished for someone else’s cooking.
He’d been sitting on this very stool, and she next to him, when she’d told him.
“I’m pregnant.”
He’d stared at her. Then exclaimed, “Good on ya, mate!”
They’d both laughed.
Marriage was the only thing they’d never discussed—perhaps because neither wanted t
o risk what so perfectly suited them.
“How long have you known?”
“Two weeks. I kept hoping I was just late.”
“Well,” he said, taking her hand, “what do you want to do?”
She pulled the hand away. “What are you asking?”
“Not that!” he recoiled, hurt that she would even think—he pointed to her stomach. “That’s us in there!”
“Then what are you asking?”
He shrugged. “You want to get married?”
“What do you want?”
He laughed. “I asked first.” Then he grew thoughtful. “I’d like him to have my last name. Legitimately.”
“Him?”
“Well, if it’s a her, I suppose that’ll be all right—long as she takes after her mother.”
She looked at him, her head tilted. “I thought you were never one for commitments.”
“Thought so, too. But—I’ve never met anyone like you.”
Abruptly he slapped the table with his palm, causing the green empties to jump. “Then it’s settled!”
He adopted his Shaw/Tucker brogue. “Reckon ah’m gonna do the right thing, m’am. Make an honest woman of ya. And the bairn?” He bent over close to her midriff and spoke softly to it. “Aye, yer not gonna be born outa wedlock, and that’s fer sure, matey!”
They went to Georgia to see her parents, tell them their news, get married as quickly as possible, and enter into happily-ever-after time.
Only one person was unhappy with this Princess Bride ending—so unhappy, that he would have preferred Colin do the wrong thing. In fact, he would have even preferred his daughter do the hideous thing. It would have been preferable to her tying herself down for life to this winsome loser.
Amy’s grandfather, who had gone to the Citadel and retired from the Army as a colonel, had left everything to his only son, Avery, who so liked the sound of “Colonel Baxter” that as soon as his daddy died, he instructed the servants at Live Oaks, the family’s shooting plantation in Thomasville, to call him that, too.
Amy’s mother loved her, but not enough to stand up to her father. Nobody stood up to Colonel Baxter. After years of being abused and neglected, Mrs. Baxter had developed a quiet but enduring fondness for the attentions of a gentleman caller, a White Russian nobleman named Stolichnaya. In the privacy of her sewing room, he would come calling every afternoon about four. If her husband was aware of the Russian’s existence, he didn’t care. It kept his wife manageable—and in his mind justified the things he did with a certain lady over in Valdosta.
Avery Baxter had another daughter, Agnes. Four years older than Amy, she did not bother to hide her dislike of their father. As soon as she was out of Randolph Macon, she married a biologist who taught there. Her husband might not be the brightest bulb in his department, but Agnes didn’t care. They lived comfortably on the income of the trust that her grandfather had set up for her, and returned to Live Oaks as infrequently as possible. Agnes did love her mother though, and on those occasions she would slip away at teatime to the sewing room, where together they would enjoy the pleasure of the Russian gentleman’s company.
Having no sons and a daughter who despised him, Avery Baxter’s hopes for the future centered on Amy. Having already instructed her in the ways of the family business, he intended to turn over much of the running of it to her, once she graduated from Randolph Macon. And then she had thrown her future away on Colin.
14 amy’s story
Amy’s mother, delighted at her news, had immediately begun planning the wedding one afternoon, while Live Oaks’ manager was showing Colin around. “We’ll invite all our plantation friends—”
“Mother,” Amy gently cut in, “those people are not our friends. We hardly know them.”
“Well, they will be after this wedding,” her mother went blithely on. “And you’ll wear your grandmother’s gown. Did you know the veil has a thousand seed pearls sewn into it?”
Amy nodded and smiled. “You’ve told me many times.” Then she frowned. “Should I—be wearing white?”
Her mother chuckled. “Honey, you have no idea how many of my sorority sisters’ first-born children were ‘premature.’”
They both laughed.
Her father saw nothing amusing about her condition—or any of the rest of it. When her mother had gone up to “do some sewing,” he asked her to come into the den—and close the door behind her.
He took the captain’s chair behind the great oak desk, and waving her to the chair opposite, got right to the point. “I’ve had your lover investigated.”
“Daddy!” she exclaimed, staring at him in disbelief. “That is so—tacky!”
His knuckles whitened as he gripped the edge of his desk. “As I suspected, he has no visible means of support.” He indicated the manila folder in front of him.
“I could have saved you the money,” Amy declared, nodding at it. “He fixes boats. He’s good at it, so he works when he feels like it. He’s a gypsy of the sea.”
“Mighty fancy name for it,” her father muttered, opening the folder. “He’s been kicked out of some excellent schools,” he observed, reading the file, “and has never earned a regular paycheck.”
When she did not respond, he looked up. “You’ve heard of ski bums and tennis bums? Well, honey, your fiancé’s a boat bum. That’s all he is.”
Leaning forward, she glared at him. “That may be, Daddy, but he’s my boat bum, thank you very much!”
“You really ought to read this,” he went on, unperturbed. “There’s been a regular procession of young ladies who’ve been—guests aboard his boat. Were you aware of that?”
“Yes, Daddy,” she said acidly. “He’s told me about all of them.”
“And you don’t mind being the next in line?”
“I intend to be the last.”
He tapped the file. “I wonder how long you two would have lasted, if he hadn’t knocked you up.”
She stood up. “This conversation is over! Colin and I are getting married, here or in Bermuda, and you can be part of it, or not!” And before he could reply, she left the den, slamming the door behind her.
They held the wedding in Thomasville, because it would have broken her mother’s heart if they hadn’t. Agnes came down from Chapel Hill to help with the preparations, and the three of them immersed themselves in the details with abandon. Pam and Aggie would be Maid and Matron of Honor, and three sorority sisters would be bridesmaids. Colin’s brother Ian would be Best Man. Anson, his racing mate from Marblehead, was coming down, and Stuart, Stevie, Daniel, and Geoff were coming over from Bermuda to be his ushers.
Amy’s mother had such a good time with her girls that she seemed to grow younger and more vivacious with each passing day. Her husband went the other way, balking at the astronomical wedding expenses, until Aggie invited him into the den for a little close-the-door-behind-you talk. She simply told him that unless he wanted all of Thomasville and Albany to know exactly what he was up to over in Valdosta, he was going to put up and shut up.
It was a perfect wedding. Everything went off as if it had been planned for weeks, not days. After the ceremony, the dancing, graceful waltzes at first, grew quite spirited, fueled by a punchbowl of Dark ’n Stormies, courtesy of the White Horse Troop, as they called themselves. It was such a good party, in fact, that the bride and bridegroom were loath to tear themselves away, though they were flying to Rome that night.
When the grandfather clock chimed six o’clock, Amy realized that they really must be going. Where was Colin? No one seemed to know. Then she noticed her father was also absent, and with a sinking feeling she went to the den. The door was closed, but not tightly; she could hear what was being said inside.
Her father was speaking in a light, bantering tone. “You’re the first boat bum I’ve ever met. What a pity that’s all you’ll ever be.”
“It’s all I want to be, sir,” replied Colin, matching his easy tone.
“Yes, and that�
�s the pity of it. My grandson will have you as his role model.”
Colin laughed. “As it happens, we are hoping for a boy. Of course a girl would be fine, if she turned out like her mother.” He paused. “It’s amazing how Amy turned out, considering she had you as a role model.”
Her father was no longer amused. “Best be on your way, lover boy.”
“Mr. Baxter—forgive me for not calling you Colonel, but you didn’t earn that—you’ve made a big thing out of my having no money. But money’s all you do have. No friends. No one who’s glad to see you. No way of supporting yourself, if you ever had to.”
“Get out of here!”
“Now me, on the other hand,” Colin went on, “I take what nature or man’s carelessness has broken and put it back together again. Which means people are always glad to see me, and I’ll always be able to support my family. And—I have mates who would go through fire for me.” He laughed. “So, I wonder which of us is really the richer.”
At that, Amy burst in and took Colin’s arm. “Come on, Mr. Bennett,” she said, her eyes shining, “we’re out of here!”
As they left the den, she refused to say goodbye to her father or even look at him; in fact, she fully intended never to set eyes on him again.
In subsequent months and years, Amy would hang up when her father called, throw his letters away unopened. To her, he was dead. And so he reciprocated, disinheriting her and leaving her—them—with only the income from the trust that his father had set up, which he was powerless to revoke.
They regarded the trust money as emergency funds and lived off what Colin made in the hurricane season. He did extend his work time an extra month, but he didn’t mind. Indeed, it truly was happily-ever-after time aboard Care Away.
Four months after the wedding, Amy’s mother died of liver failure. Amy was able to get to Live Oaks two weeks before she passed away. Aggie was there, too, and the three of them would spend the afternoons together in their mother’s bedroom, having as much fun as they could, until she was too tired.
The Russian gentleman was there, as well—there was little reason to exclude him now—and he was a boon companion, inviting them to call him Stoli, as his friends did.
