The Sea is a Thief

by David Parmelee

  One day at supper, as the door squeaked on its hinges, a thought occurred to Edmund Bagwell. “Let’s have the young sailor from Captain Sharpe’s boat come in to fix that blasted thing,” he proclaimed.

  “A fine idea,” agreed Arinthia. “You said he did excellent work elsewhere. Why not here?”

  A request was sent to Captain Sharpe. A reply was returned promptly, and early the next morning, as his companions dispersed to other parts of Chincoteague, Sam Dreher stood at the large front entrance to the Bagwells’ home, tools in hand. He was concerned about what the day might bring. His concern was well justified; it was Nancy Bagwell’s home.

  Of course Sam could offer no objection to Captain Sharpe’s directive. As far as the Captain knew, Sam worked at a different home each day; why not for his new friends Edmund and Arinthia? The Captain understood the value of a favor returned. His dinner with the Bagwells had been pleasant and his warm reception among the villagers had inspired confidence. He was most agreeable to the modest proposal that the Ship’s Carpenter should spend a day or two at Bagwell’s personal residence. The Captain had gone even further, offering the carpenter’s services for as long as he might prove useful.

  That was unsettling to Sam. Carpentry was carpentry wherever it was done, but he was uneasy spending so much time with such a well-known family. So far he and Anna had enjoyed privacy and freedom; this assignment might endanger both. He did not want to imagine what would happen if they were discovered.

  When Nancy Bagwell answered the door on that cool morning, Sam’s fears took wing. Her smile was menacing in its very pleasantness. “Mr. Dreher!” she cried. “We have been expecting you.” Nancy, for one, had very high expectations. Her planning had begun the moment she found out that Sam was coming. That morning she arranged her hair carefully, covering it at the back with a clever silk cap. Perfect little curls framed her forehead. Her outfit was well chosen: an emerald-green daytime dress with ivory trim, brought last spring from London, with matching dark-green patent-leather shoes. Their high gloss would not survive ten minutes on Chincoteague’s muddy main street. On her father’s thick oriental carpets, however, they were perfectly appropriate.

  For a girl of barely sixteen, Nancy’s sense of style was keenly developed. She could thank her father’s connections to international shipping for that. It was more difficult to say how she had come by her sense of social intrigue. It might simply have been a gift. Any town harbored its share of gossip and rumor about its eligible young men and women. On Chincoteague, most of it could be traced back to Nancy Bagwell. Parlor politics were her passion. Someday she hoped to be the mistress of a fine home and family; her search for the man who would share it was already underway. So far it had not been fruitful. The truth was that no one actually liked Nancy very much. As attractive as her family’s rising fortunes might be, each boy who caught her eye soon retreated from her persistent advances.

  That included Beau Daisey. Though his circumstances were unfortunate, something about him held a powerful allure for the young girl. Others found his dark and moody nature alarming; to her, it was captivating. Her parents cautioned her strongly against him. That doubled her attraction to him. Her overt flirtations seemed to annoy him. That doubled it again. In most things, Nancy got her way, usually because of her powerful parents. The money and reputation of the Bagwells had the opposite effect on Beau; it served only to drive him away. He coldly resisted her every advance. Eventually he managed to discourage her by making it his business to stay out of her path.

  Nancy was a strong-minded young woman. Still, when Beau rejected her, she was hurt. Shortly she recovered, and resolved to do even better for herself, but whenever she saw him she felt a little pang in her stomach.

  Her search continued.

  Today she would venture into more exotic territory: the handsome young officer of whom her mother and father had spoken so well. True, he was a Yankee, but she had met many northerners and liked them. There was the additional problem of his service with the Navy. She was confident that her father could deal with this problem as well, should the need arise. One sailor could not possibly be indispensable to an entire Navy. There was no point in fretting over future obstacles. The first order of business was to get to know the young man. After that, she would take matters one step at a time.

  And so Nancy Bagwell, as meticulously prepared as any general on the eve of battle, positioned herself strategically at the door to her home when Sam Dreher rang the bell that morning. She knew that her father would be off attending to business. That left only her mother and the Broadwaters to be dealt with. Nancy handled that problem by sending a message for the butcher to make his regular delivery just before the hour when Sam Dreher was expected. She was sure the Ship’s Carpenter would arrive exactly on time. A delivery from the butcher a few minutes beforehand would ensure that her mother and her staff would be occupied in the kitchen. Nancy would hover in the foyer, ready to greet Sam.

  Thus far, her plan was working well. There stood Sam, an intoxicating sight in his blue Federal uniform. His shoulders were broad, his posture tall and straight. The embroidered Louisiana cap sat purposefully askew on his head, framing his thick hair and resolute brown eyes. For a moment Nancy Bagwell was at a loss for words. She recovered quickly. “Please do come in, Mr. Dreher,” she continued, stepping aside as Sam entered the Bagwell home. “Allow me to show you the subject of my father’s message.” He followed the young girl towards the pantry. She was far smaller than he, but moved with authority. With any luck, she thought, they could converse for quite a while before anyone noticed that he had arrived.

  While Nancy told Sam about the difficulties with the pantry door, her mother entered, followed closely by Ruth Broadwater. It seemed to Arinthia that the conversation had lasted only a few moments. So Nancy had intended. Actually, a remarkable amount of information had already changed hands, most of it in her direction. Nancy knew, for example, that Sam hailed from a little town in Pennsylvania, which she imagined to be very near Philadelphia. She told him that her father did a great deal of business with Philadelphia merchants; Philadelphia loved oysters and purchased huge quantities of them. Many of the best-loved items in her closet had come from there. Sam attempted to describe the distance between the thriving city of Philadelphia and the tiny village far northwest of it on the Little Schuylkill River, but Nancy was undeterred. Both were in Pennsylvania. That was good enough for her.

  Nancy also knew that Sam was an experienced carpenter who would have no difficulty repairing the pantry door. She would have to find other things to keep him busy if she wanted to keep him around longer than a day. She was already calculating what those things might be. When she inquired about which other families on the island Sam had visited, he grew suddenly quiet and had little to say. How odd, she thought. She filed the moment away for future reference. Nancy also noticed that Sam seemed very uncomfortable around her, especially for a sailor who was several years her senior. How intriguing that was! Surely there had to be a reason for his uneasiness, but she could not put her finger on just what it might be. In time it would become clear.

  After an exchange of pleasantries, Arinthia excused herself and her daughter. “We will leave you to your work,” she offered breezily. How many times she had stepped in to end conversations between her daughter and a young man at the appropriate point. Nancy had no sense of timing in such matters. Off the two went upstairs, Nancy somewhat annoyed at her mother’s usual attempt to manage her social life. In a few more minutes, the conversation might have become even more interesting. She knew better than to defy her mother’s wishes openly; she would find some pretext to return later.

  Left in peace, Sam Dreher surveyed the pantry. It hardly measured up to the finery of the neighboring rooms. Its plain cabinetry and trim was in keeping with its purpose as a work area for the household staff. The pantry seemed built as an afterthought by a carpenter who preferred to hide problems rather than solve them. Sam applied his level
and carpenter’s square to several points around the room. He found nothing either level or square. The door frame was the worst offender. In order to fit closely in its off-kilter opening, the door itself would have to be rebuilt in an irregular shape.

  He could see the marks left by plane and chisel where someone had tried in vain to adjust it. It would be better to remove and rebuild the door frame square and true from the ground up; then the door, or a new door that he could construct, could be made to match. He began to stack his tools on the floor. This would take some time.

  As he sharpened his chisel on a whetstone, his thoughts flew to Anna. What would she be doing at this hour? Washing dishes from the morning meal, or perhaps helping her mother in the sewing room? He pictured her hands turning a hem. He saw her gazing out the window that he had repaired. He hoped that a fire burned in the stove to keep her warm. He wanted with all his heart to go to her, but he could not. There was a great deal of work to be done here, for an extremely important family with an exceptionally inquisitive daughter, all of whom knew the Daiseys very well. Sam Dreher could not afford to jeopardize his situation by displeasing any of the Bagwells. He removed the door from its hinges.

  On the first day, Nancy managed to slip downstairs on several occasions to strike up conversations. To be distracted by small talk during a complicated job was among the things Sam Dreher despised most. It tested his patience when know-nothings insisted on hovering over him while worked, commenting and questioning. It happened all the time when he repaired canal boats. The pilots, suddenly finding themselves with lots of time on their hands, would saunter over to his workbench with mugs of beer in their fists to chat while he wrestled with the timbers of their boats. He had to tolerate them. They were all far older than he; some had been traversing the river for decades, and he couldn’t offend his uncle’s most loyal customers. Slowly he learned the art of appearing to listen, even talking a bit, while saying nothing. This usually satisfied them, and they went away happy, their boats made whole once again.

  Not so Nancy Bagwell. She was unrelenting. A remark that would satisfy a grey-bearded old river pilot merely brought a little smile to her lips. Sam would offer some vague answer to a pointed question, and she would dig right in. “Is that so, Mr. Dreher,” she would comment, tilting her head. “Now, what exactly do you mean by that?” There was no avoiding her. She would speak, for example, about Chincoteague’s excellent oysters. He would say that he did not much care for oysters. She would take the opportunity to ask him just what sort of food he did care for. He did not want to tell her, but felt for some reason that he must. At each turn he feared where the conversation might lead.

  Each of Nancy’s questions carried a certain amount of risk. He was supposed to be working on a different section of Chincoteague each day, doing the most good for the reputation of the Union Navy. Instead, he was spending every day in the blissful company of Anna Daisey. In the meantime, Ethan was covering his friend’s tracks, and every evening Sam reported to the Captain on all the activities in which he allegedly had participated.

  He had no choice but to maintain the charade with Nancy. He spoke in the vaguest of terms about the work he had done and the people he had met, affecting a poor memory and a difficulty with names and details. When he had no idea what to say he would chisel some piece of lumber, setting up a noisy rhythm to buy himself a few precious seconds to think.

  His impression was that Nancy was never deceived for a moment. He was right. This was the sort of conversation at which she excelled. She had not figured out what Sam was attempting to avoid, but she was certain he was trying to avoid something. She was delighted. An inquisitive woman held terrible power over a guilty man, and Nancy relished it. Sam was a guest in her home and could not refuse her questioning; in time she would find out more about this handsome young sailor.

  The first day’s work revealed that door frame was no one-day job. Undoing bad carpentry was far slower than doing good carpentry to begin with. As Sam packed up to join his shipmates on their return to the Louisiana, he pledged to return promptly the next day to finish. Alas, the second day revealed even more problems, and it stretched into a third. Arinthia Bagwell was overjoyed to see all that Sam was accomplishing. She began to make mention of other things in the house that needed attention. Sam’s heart sank. Captain Sharpe was quite happy with his reports. It pleased him very much that the Bagwells were taking advantage if his offer. For Sam, each day was a test that he feared he might fail.

  When it became clear that he could not escape from the Bagwell residence anytime soon, Sam decided to risk sending a note to Anna. He could not say much; there was every possibility that it might be seen by the wrong eyes. The note was brief and unsigned:

  I write to tell you that I am engaged elsewhere, I do not know for how long. Perhaps we can meet again in a short time.

  He wrote in such a way as to conceal the identities of both sender and recipient. He hoped that a casual reader would not suspect any strong connection between them. He was sure that Anna would see his purpose and understand his tone.

  Ethan Platt managed to deliver the note, keeping it out of the hands of Beau Daisey, as Sam warned him. He was supposed to be fetching water, and went a good quarter-mile out of his way to the Daisey home. He had no time to watch Anna read the letter. All he could tell Sam was that the note had found its target. Sam was reassured.

  Had he seen Anna’s face as she unfolded the scrap of paper in her bedroom, he would have felt differently. To Anna's eyes, Sam's letter was brief and cold. It could only mean that something was very wrong. The young man who had so recently revealed such warm feelings for her could now express nothing but a cool disdain. What could he be doing, and where could he be so strictly detained, that he could not find some means to see her for a few moments? He had managed to spend so many days with her, almost without interruption. Suddenly a mere hour was not possible. Why were his words so meager, and why did he provide so inadequate an explanation? He had not even signed his name! Tears welled in her eyes as she concealed the small folded paper in a drawer. It was only a little while ago that she had invited him to Assateague, and her heart had leapt at his acceptance. He would meet Elizabeth, and they would ride. Now, in a single dark moment, foreboding had pushed aside all other emotion, as though the sun had gone behind a cloud. She tried to calm herself. Foolish girl, she thought. All will be revealed soon. When his meaning becomes clear, you will laugh at your own fears.

  In just a short span of days, Sam's meaning did become clear, but Anna Daisey did not laugh.

  The sound of someone splitting wood struck Anna's ears as she approached her home carrying a basket of eggs. She walked quickly to the rear of house. It could surely not be her mother, and the sound, rapid and explosive, did not resemble any that Beau would make splitting wood. He did work the woodpile in cold weather, but only under duress, usually when only one day’s fuel remained. He was resentful and lethargic about it, too, taking far longer than he needed to, stopping to smoke, coming inside periodically to warm up and stare out the window at the unsplit wood that awaited him.

  Turning the corner, she was surprised to see that is was her older brother at work. He stood with his back to her, sleeves rolled past his elbows, poised over the chopping block. His ropey forearms gripped a heavy splitting maul. He raised it over his head in a smooth arc and brought it to bear on the iron wedge that he had set in the thick log in front of him. He drove the wedge in one blow, and the stout cylinder of oak fell to the ground in two clean semicircles. In an instant he had cast them aside and plucked another log from the jumbled pile beside him, planting it on the block in a single swift motion. He tapped the wedge into place, swung, and connected again, with the same violent result. The two halves of the log flew left and right. He moved like a man possessed; certainly he was not the brother Anna knew.

  Knowing he could not hear her approach, she stepped very widely around the circle of logs where he worked, well outside the swee
p of the maul. As she came into view he lowered the heavy hammer, his chest heaving, small beads of sweat glistening on his face. He scowled. She stepped closer.

  “What is it, brother?” He scowled again, shaking his head.

  “What has happened?” She set down her basket of eggs.

  Though she was younger, she knew him too well. He didn't like it. He would rather not be known by anyone.

  “Something has happened to put you in this temper.”

  He wished he could pretend otherwise. He picked up the splitting wedge and banged it firmly into the block.

  “I shouldn't care. I don't care! But she makes me angry nonetheless!”

  “Who makes you angry, brother?”

  He paused, eyes downcast. His chest still rose and fell deeply with each breath. He was settling now, becoming calm. Anna had no idea how long he had worked at this furious pace. She looked about her at the pile of split wood. It rose to Beau's waist. Two weeks' worth, easily.

  He wiped away the sweat with his sleeve, leaving little flakes of bark in the curls that hung over his forehead. He spat onto the ground.

  “Nancy Bagwell.”

  Anna had to suppress a smile. She knew that Beau did not take the matter lightly, but this was nothing new. Nancy and Beau had sparred for more than a year. Anna knew all the details of Nancy's pursuit of her brother. It wasn't too long ago that the girl had given up the chase. Nancy was unaccustomed to being denied anything she really wanted; it had taken her quite a while to admit the possibility that Beau simply would not be cooperating.