“Well, hadn’t you better?”
“Yes, of course.”
As she left, Franklin’s insides clenched. He braced for the information he had dreaded for months.
“Well,” Bellamy said as he put the shoe aside, a thick thread still dangling. “I suppose you’re suspecting this. Jane has a suitor.”
Franklin said nothing. The silence stretched out between them. “Can you,” Franklin said, “say more?”
“He’s a tanner here in town, Daniel Brewster. He and his brothers have a good business. Though they’ve married, he has not.”
“Is the matter settled? Between Jane and him?”
“Jane, as you perhaps recall, has her own mind on matters.”
“Yes, sir.”
“All matters.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If I was to speak to you more as an army comrade, and not as Jane’s father, I might say that matters are less settled in her mind than in Mr. Brewster’s.”
Franklin felt hope flicker. “Tell me, Captain. Did he fight? This other fellow.”
Bellamy looked surprised. “Why, no, he didn’t.”
Young Robert slammed into the shop with the second coffee and launched into a stream of questions about why Franklin was in Lynn, which allowed Franklin to start describing Margaret.
* * * * * *
Jane looked as poised and winsome as Franklin remembered, though more a woman and less a girl. She was friendly but not entirely warm. Franklin could detect no special light in her expression when she first saw him. She was now, he told himself, a woman with a suitor. And he had been away for many months.
Over dinner, Franklin regaled the family with stories about Margaret, and especially crusty Captain Corcoran, only slightly exaggerating the sea dog’s high-handed ways.
“So,” Jane asked with a serious look, “how would you compare Captain Corcoran to Captain Bellamy?”
“I would never compare them,” Franklin answered immediately. “I was blessed to serve in the Essex County company under such a fine man.”
“And,” Bellamy inserted, “to serve with Ben and Christopher Talbot.”
“Yes, sir, them too.”
The younger boy, James, jumped into the brief silence. “Will you fight on the ship too?”
Franklin smiled and shook his head. “I want to build ships now, not sail them. Maybe even build more fighting ships.”
“Did you see,” Jane said to him across the table, “that the Indian tribes of Maine have joined the Patriot side?”
“I heard that. We can use all the help we can get.”
“So, are you people in Maine now sorry to have killed so many of them?”
“Jane,” Mrs. Bellamy said after an awkward silence, “what’s got into you? Mr. Overstreet is our guest.”
“No, wait, ma’am,” Franklin said, “maybe I should speak on this.” He spoke to Mrs. Bellamy, not Jane. “It’s a sorrow that so many were killed, on both sides. Both happened in Waldoborough. It was frontier. For three years, we lived inside a wooden stockade with other settlers, afraid of being attacked. We were attacked once. I was little, I don’t remember it. My father and mother, they both fought. My father’s best friend was taken and hasn’t been seen since. It was war. But with the Indians our allies now, that feels like progress. Maybe someday we’ll be friends with the British again.”
“I hope so,” Mrs. Bellamy said. She looked around the quiet table. “It seems the rain has stopped. Seth, why don’t you men see if there’s anything outside that needs attention.”
“Perhaps,” the captain said to Franklin, “you’d enjoy seeing how your repairs to the barn have held up. Robert just repainted. And there’s the garden plot you and Marcus helped open up.” Jane made no eye contact with Franklin as she gathered dishes from the table.
Halfway across the yard, Franklin said, “I hope, sir, I’ve not given offense.”
“If you have, the fault isn’t yours. Jane will speak her mind. You should have no other expectation.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You have sisters?”
“Four, sir. One older and three younger.”
“So you are familiar with the sex.”
Franklin praised the barn’s paint and condition. They walked the rows of the garden, though everything but a few squash had been harvested. When Bellamy saw Jane coming across the yard, he said he needed to attend to matters in the shop. He called for the boys to follow him.
Franklin smiled as Jane approached. She had a shawl over her everyday frock and still wore her apron. She was as tall and straight and lovely as he remembered. She didn’t smile back.
“My mother says I’ve been rude.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“I meant to be.”
“Why?”
“Why!” She looked away quickly then back. “You go away for a year, just disappear. Never send a letter or a message. And then you come sashaying in here with your fancy wagon and your tales of privateering and you expect me to be thrilled about it.”
“Jane, you said no. You sent me away.”
“Are you so easily discouraged?”
He smiled. “I’m here now.”
“Franklin—”
“Aren’t I?” He took her arm and led her back toward the barn. “I know I didn’t write. I didn’t know what to say, the way things were. I didn’t want to argue with you in a letter, but I couldn’t write and just ignore what you said. So I didn’t write at all. But I was thinking about you, and what you said, the whole time.”
“You should’ve written.”
“That’s what my sister Hanna said.”
Jane looked over. “You told her about me?”
“And now I had to tell Alec McDonnell, my partner and owner of Margaret, which means that as soon as we get back, all of Waldoborough will know of my suit.”
“Is that what this is? Your suit? After a year of silence?”
He took a moment. “Some of the things you said then, they were right. About my leaving your father and the Talbots to fight the war for me.”
“Oh, Franklin, that was a stupid thing I said.” She reached over to the hand he held on her elbow.
“No, no, it was what I was feeling. I needed someone to say it.”
“But what did I know? When my father came home, and I saw how sick the war made him, and you with your poor head, of course. You all had fought while I sat here in my safe home—I know I had no right to say that. I don’t always think before I speak. Mother’s forever telling me that.”
Franklin stopped and took both her hands. “And another thing you said. This one you weren’t right about. You mustn’t think I have the least care that your mother is Indian. It’s you that I care for, just as you are, every part that makes you dear. That has only grown stronger through our separation and won’t change. It will never matter to me, nor to anyone who’s my friend.”
The moment, looking into her dark eyes, felt electric. He pressed on. “Your father said there is a man here, named Brewster, who also feels in this way. About you.”
She looked down and nodded, then looked at him directly. Her eyes were troubled. “He’s a good man.”
“If you say I should, I’ll go back to Waldoborough.” He tried to pour into her the emotions that welled inside him, holding her hands more firmly and holding her warm, dark eyes in his gaze.
One corner of her mouth lifted in a trace of a smile. “And what would you tell your partner, the one with the big mouth?”
“I’d think of something.”
“Perhaps that I died?”
He grinned. “That might work.”
They began to walk again, hand in hand, no longer aware of exactly where they were. Franklin took a deep breath. “There was one more thing you said.”
“Yes. I know.”
“About moving to Waldoborough with me.”
“Yes.”
“Jane, I have no answer for that. It’s where I must be.”<
br />
After a silence, she said, “I see.”
He stopped. “Do you have tasks this afternoon?”
“My mother has released me, on condition that I conduct myself so as not to embarrass her further and determine once and for all whether I have a future with this unpolished frontier type from the far reaches of Maine.”
“Excellent. We should get started. I thought we might ride over to Salem wharf and I could show you the ship.”
She brightened. “I must meet Captain Corcoran, the angry midget who presides over the ocean.” She laughed merrily. “He sounds irresistible.”
“And perhaps supper at an inn before we return?”
“I’ll fetch a lantern for the ride home.”
* * * * * *
At the Sailor & Mermaid, over bowls of overcooked stew, Franklin could only shake his head as Jane pronounced Captain Corcoran a perfect gentleman.
“You will admit,” she insisted, “that he was nothing but courteous and winning today?”
“To you, yes. Did you hear how he snarled at Alec?”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. You plainly have the power to charm snakes from their lairs and soften the hardest of hearts.”
“All very flattering, sir, but I think you take a harsh view of that sweet little man. He even offered to take all of us on that cruise tomorrow. My brothers will be thrilled.”
“I’m not sure you appreciate how remarkable that is. He complains at having Alec and me on those cruises. Insists we’re in the way. I can’t wait to see what he makes of your brothers.”
“He’ll probably terrorize them into good behavior, and bless him for it. Besides, don’t you realize that the way he was with me, and the cruise tomorrow, are his way of trying to advance your suit?”
“Well,” he smiled, “is it working?”
She took a breath. “There is that last thing.”
“Waldoborough.” She nodded. “Can I tell you more about it? About my family?”
“Please.”
He tried not to paint too rosy a picture. He admitted it was small and far from Boston. She said she’d been to Boston twice and that was quite enough.
He described his cottage at the shipyard. She pronounced it cozy, but allowed that it might stand some improving. He agreed that improvements could be made. Whatever she wanted, he said, then caught himself. Within reason, he added. She smiled.
He talked about his family, Walther and Hanna and the younger ones. They could be no more unruly or burdensome, she answered, than her own brothers.
Waldoborough held many German families, he added, like the Overstreets. “German,” he warned, “is spoken. Often.”
“Not to me, surely.”
“Oh, yes. Many women have no English.”
“I doubt that. I imagine they know more English than you think.”
Franklin smiled. He told her how Hanna had been listening to English without letting on that she understood it.
“See?” Jane said, then cocked her head. “Hanna’s the one you told about me?”
“Yes.”
“She’ll be our friend.”
“Yes. She’ll love you.” He sat up straighter. “Your family, I know, is the hard question. We would come here every year, for long enough for you to know their lives.”
“Franklin, how long is that? And if they get sick and they need me for the things a daughter should do? You see how my father looks now. What will I do? I won’t even know that they need me.”
“News can find you in Waldoborough, and then you may return here.”
“That could be weeks or months. In the winter, when ships cannot get through the ice.”
He waited a moment. “I have no answer for that.”
They were mostly silent during the ride back to Lynn. Jane rested her head against his shoulder. When they arrived, he saw that her eyes were shining. A tear formed at the corner of one eye. His heart leapt. “So, you will?”
She nodded and whispered, “I think I’ll be sad sometimes. I won’t be able to help that. But I’ll be more sad if I’m not with you.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
†
When Franklin stepped off the mule at Mayflower Hof, Liesl came running. She grabbed Oatmeal’s reins.
“Have you seen,” she asked excitedly, “the chest of drawers that Papa made for you and your new wife?”
“Her name is Jane. You’ll meet her in just a bit more than a week now, after the wedding.”
“Have you seen it, the chest?”
“I have. I think it was supposed to be the Stoningtons’ until very recently.”
“Papa says it’s yours and Jane’s now. Papa says it’s too good to go out of the family.”
He and Liesl led the mule into the shed. “You’re right, Liesl. It is beautiful. And Papa’s right to keep it in the family.”
“What will he make for me when I get married?”
“Something very special, I’m sure. Perhaps he will help me build you a boat.”
“Would you?” Her face was bright.
“Of course, I would,” he said. “Perhaps a small one.”
Franklin had been back from Lynn for eight weeks, mostly frantic ones. The improvements to his cottage had proved time-consuming, and Alec was pressing to start on the next ship. This one would be named for Jane.
“Where is everyone?” Franklin asked when they found only Hanna in the kitchen.
“Church supper tonight,” Hanna said. “You were told.”
“I’ve been told so many things. I can’t remember them all.” He fell into a chair and rested his head on folded arms. Liesl sat next to him. “And why,” he asked his little sister, “aren’t you at the church supper?”
“Hanna and I had to work on her dress and bonnet for the wedding. You’re leaving the day after tomorrow, you know.”
“Ah, I do remember that.”
“Liesl,” Hanna said, “why don’t you get the bonnet with your needlework, to show Franklin.”
When she was gone, Hanna sat next to him. “Is something wrong? Has something happened?”
He sat up. “Mostly I’m just tired.” He looked around the kitchen. “But also, we have bad news.”
“Yes?”
“There’s been a storm, up in Nova Scotia. They say Margaret broke up on some rocks.”
“How do they know?”
“There was another ship that just missed the rocks. They couldn’t get close enough to save anyone.”
“And the sailors? Did they get to shore?”
He shook his head. “We don’t know. We’re not even positive it was Margaret. But Alec’s worried. He could find no insurance when we were in Boston, because of the war, so if it was Margaret, the loss is his.”
“Does that affect you?”
He shrugged. “Alec hasn’t paid me all the cost of Margaret. I took some of the payment in a share of the profits.”
“Oh, dear.” Something in his expression caused her to add, “What else?”
“Well, we won’t go ahead with the new ship until we know for sure what happened. If it really is gone, I’ll need to find another buyer for the next one. Alec won’t have the money. And some folks might decide Margaret’s fate was because it wasn’t built right.”
“I’m sorry, Franklin. It’s a bad time for such troubles.”
“Worse for the poor men on board.” He gave her a thin smile. “I can always build other men’s ships if I have to. Let’s leave it for now. I have a wedding to celebrate.”
“Look, Franklin,” Liesl said as she came in. She turned so he could admire the pale blue bonnet that sagged slightly on her too-small head.
“Ach, Liesl flower, it is perfect! Your sister will be the center of all attention at the wedding.”
“That,” Hanna said as she stood, “will be your bride. Catherine left some bread and cheese and ale. Let’s have it.”
Franklin explained that he’d come to borrow his fath
er’s scorper to engrave the headboard of the new bed which he and Walther had finished just that day. “You know,” he said, “how Papa refused to help us. He said he would be ashamed to have sons who couldn’t build something as simple as a bed.”
“I wish I was going to the wedding,” Liesl blurted out.
“Papa can’t pay the fare for everyone,” Hanna said. “Just for him and me. And Catherine needs you to help prepare for the party when Franklin and Jane return. Everyone will come for that.”
“Why does Hanna get to go?” Liesl asked Franklin.
“Because she’s my oldest sister,” he said, “and because she’s taken such good care of you and me that she’s entitled to some fun.”
“Imagine that!” Hanna said with a smile.
After supper, the girls showed off Hanna’s dress. Tomorrow, she was planning to bake bread for the Bellamy family.
It was nearly eight when the others returned from the church. For the third time, Johann showed Franklin the craftsmanship of the chest of drawers. When the young ones were going off to bed, Franklin started back to his own home.
Oatmeal worked carefully along the uneven road. He seemed not to trust the shifting light of the lantern that bobbed on the pommel of the saddle. After nearly half a mile, Franklin cursed to himself. He’d forgotten the scorper. He was forgetting everything. With a groan he turned around the uncomplaining Oatmeal.
A single light burned in the front room, but Franklin didn’t need to disturb anyone. He went back to his father’s darkened workshop. Dismounting, he heard voices speaking German in the shop, which was odd. It was a cold November night for sitting in the dark. As he neared the door, the voices fell silent. Across the yard, trees blocked most of the moonlight. Franklin could see nothing through the shop window.
With a knot in his stomach, he knocked, then opened the door. “Papa?”
“Franklin, yes. What is it?”
“I wanted to borrow your scorper.” In the light of his lantern, he could make out a form huddled on the far side of the shop. Something was wrong. “Papa?”
“Yes.”
“What’s going on? Who is this?”
Johann sighed. “There’s nothing going on. Close the door.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
†
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