by Lisa Norato
Long ago she had asked why such a beautiful ring was kept hidden in the bottom of a chest, and Mama had replied, “Because it holds no value to me, and yet I cannot seem to throw it away.” She had bid Iris to put it back and not touch it again. Seeing her mother’s upset, Iris had given no argument but remained curious. Still, she had been too young and active to dwell on any one thing for long, and so Iris forgot all about the ring.
Until this morning, when she’d seen one similar on Mr. Gregory’s hand.
Had he given this ring to Mama? It seemed incredible, and yet Iris felt she had to make room for the possibility her mother might have once loved another man.
Chapter 20
Early the next morning Johnny accompanied Captain Moon to the shipbuilding shed, grateful for the opportunity to be out and about and not shut inside like an invalid. Johnny walked alongside the man, holding onto his broad shoulder and letting the captain be his eyes. He learned to hearken to Snow’s padding feet to avoid tripping over her, for the Labrador had a habit of walking close on their heels.
He sat on a barrel, out of the way, listening to the rasp of the saw, pounding mallets and the scuffing of feet through sawdust. The noises echoed in the great, cavernous shed. The hiss of the steam box raised an aroma of well-seasoned wood, and he could visualize each task through the familiar sounds and scents. Though the men included him in their conversation, he battled feelings of isolation at not being able to join them.
He longed to see, and his hands itched to work.
Presently, the large shed door groaned on its hinges, just enough, or so it sounded, for someone slight to squeeze inside, as though they found it too difficult to open fully. The pounding, sawing and lively chatter ceased.
“To what do we owe this visit, Daughter?”
“I have come to ask Johnny if he would care to take a walk with me.”
“Ah, cousin, you would take him from us so soon? We’ve been enjoying his company, but as to whether he’d prefer yours … well, you’ll have to ask him yourself,” Lud teased. “There he sits, yonder.”
Although she moved quietly about the stacks of oak and pine timbers, Johnny knew the sway of her skirt and the soft crunch of her steps on sawdust. His hearing had sharpened, and his ears could perceive what his eyes could not. Beneath her congenial tone, he’d noted a slight nervous tremor. He had warned her not to go out alone. He hoped he hadn’t frightened her unnecessarily, but then again, he was pleased she had called on him.
He reached for his walking stick, when suddenly it was placed into his hand. His fingers brushed hers and he caught the scent of cinnamon and fire smoke that reminded him of the keeping room from whence she’d come. He smiled in gratitude. “I’d be happy to walk with you, Iris.”
“You were gone before I could collect you for a visit to the captain’s walk. I’m sorry I overslept. I know you want to keep watch for Salty.”
Johnny nodded. “Yes, I do. Thank you for remembering. And tomorrow I promise to wait for you.”
They stepped out to a crisp, briny breeze sweeping off the bay. Johnny heard the gentle rustle of tall reed grasses, as Iris led him toward the bluff. He gauged their direction by the slight incline and the sun’s warmth on the left side of his face.
“Something troubles you,” he said. “What is it?”
“I have to show you something, Johnny.”
“Show me?”
She continued to draw him away until the sounds of shipbuilding from the shed, steam house and forge faded behind them and the smell of the shore, seaweed and sponge grew strong.
“Johnny, feel this.” She took his hand and pressed something small and hard into his palm. Johnny tucked his walking stick under one arm and picked it up.
“I found it in my mother’s chest,” she said, “hidden away. It appears quite a valuable ring but one I never saw her wear, and one day when I discovered it, she told me put it away and never touch it again. It is identical to the ring Mr. Gregory wears. I am sure of it. What do you suppose it means?”
Johnny could feel the ring was fashioned for a slim, delicate finger. Though small, it was multi-jeweled with the largest cut being a square center. He needn’t ask to know that the center stone was an emerald. He had taken note of a similar ring on Mr. Gregory’s hand after pulling him from the Vulture.
He now knew the man’s true identity and his reason for coming to Duxbury.
He was Gregory Sutherland, the Earl of Treybarwick, and the ring Johnny held had once belonged to his wife.
Johnny thought it best he hold on to the ring and left Iris with reassurances but no answers. He insisted on being the one to take their discovery to Captain Moon and waited for the shipyard workers’ morning break to speak privately with him in his sitting room.
“At first it was understandable, this need for secrecy,” he told the captain. “But so many years have passed and Lady Moon has gone to be with the Lord. Why not tell Iris the truth about her mother’s bravery? She escaped her fate to find true happiness. Still, her ancestry is nothing to be ashamed of, and Iris is now a woman grown. Indeed, I believe she would find the risks you and Lady Moon took to be together romantic and heroic. To be honest, sir, I have never understood your insistence on shielding her from the truth.”
Captain Moon tightened his fist around the small jeweled ring. “Lady Moon lived a full life, far removed from the man’s influence, yet she never completely lost her fear of the earl. She traveled the seas with me as long as she could, but even then, she insisted the old staircase remain hidden within the walls of the new construction when I enlarged Nook House. Fear is a terrible thing, Johnny. A crippling thing. I could rescue Eleanor, give her my name and a new home far from England. I gave her a joyful life. I kept her safe, but I could never fully banish her fear.”
Johnny tapped his stick against a chair or table leg and stepped around it, closer to the sound of Captain Moon’s voice. “I do understand, sir. But why keep Iris in the dark? She is a strong, independent woman. The life she’s lived has been far different from Lady Moon’s upbringing. She can handle the truth.”
The captain’s boot heels pounded the carpet, only slightly muffling his heavy stride as he began to pace. “Eleanor vowed her daughter should never experience such fear and bade me promise not to enlighten Iris of her past or that she lived in fright of it. It was hardly an issue when Iris was young, but as she grew older I thought it appropriate she should know her mother’s ancestry. Eleanor would not hear of it. Her fears might have been irrational, but they were real to her and controlled her life. And now, Iris is all I have left of Eleanor. I can’t help but feel my wife’s fear transferred to me. I admit I was scared when we sailed into that narrow river behind Sutherland Hall to steal Eleanor away, but you never were, Johnny. You were an admirable spy. A boy who accomplished a man’s mission. That is what I admire most about you. You never let fear stop you. You joined my crew without hesitation and journeyed with a ship you didn’t know.”
Johnny winced. What had happened to that boy? In truth, he knew fear well. He had experienced its stronghold. Most recently because of his blindness.
“I feel undeserving of such praise, sir.”
“Nonsense,” said Captain Moon. “You showed your bravery every day you kept the lights and in saving the men of the Vulture.”
Sunlight from the window bathed one side of his face and Johnny turned into it, seeking its warmth. He was beginning to realize that his fear of never being able to see again was, in fact, more debilitating than actual blindness. Fear was a thief. It had exploited him at his most vulnerable, torturing him with images of what once was and what would never be in an effort to destroy his future. It had robbed him of peace and stolen his hope. But fear was not of God.
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
Into Johnny’s thoughtful silence, the captain spoke. “Eleanor bade me on her deathbed not to tell Iris. I gave her my promise. I�
�d no choice. I wished her to die in peace. But now I wonder if the day is coming I may have to break that promise. But not today, Johnny. I shall shield Iris and let her keep her peace for one more day.”
“And what are we to do about the earl?”
“The time has come for me to confront Treybarwick,” Captain Moon said. “I suppose it was inevitable he’d find us eventually. I’m grateful it happened later rather than sooner. He has traveled an ocean only to discover his rule over Eleanor has ended forever more. No doubt he’s been seething with the knowledge Eleanor escaped him all those years ago. There is nothing left for Treybarwick but to hear from me the story what became of Eleanor once she left Cornwall. Perhaps that is all he seeks, to know what happened.”
Johnny turned from the sunlight toward the direction of the captain’s voice. “But he’s made no effort to contact you, sir. And yet he approached Iris.”
A moment passed before Captain Moon responded. “There’s no denying the strong resemblance she bears to her mother. I don’t want the man anywhere near my daughter, but I truly believe Treybarwick poses no threat. His presence in Duxbury is more annoyance than anything. He has no business here, and it is high time he departed from our little town. I’m determined to set out immediately to find and tell him so.”
Johnny nodded. “Then I am coming with you, sir.”
*
The keeping room was still abuzz with hungry shipbuilders when Captain Moon led Johnny from the house, slipping away before Iris noticed what they were about and asked questions. Johnny walked a step behind, following the captain’s lead as he held onto the taller man’s shoulder.
By the sun’s warmth, he could tell they headed west down Nook Road.
From shore, it was a short walk to the town center, known as Duxbury Town. This was where the meetinghouse and burying ground stood and where the earl had last been seen. They would check the inns and taverns until they found him.
“What did you say to the others about where we were going, sir?” he asked.
“I left my brother-in-law in charge and told Alden only that I had a small matter of business to attend to in town and was taking you with me.”
Captain Moon had also made a point of leaving a disappointed Snow inside the house with the women as a precautionary protection.
They walked in silence, Johnny holding his stick and keeping pace with the captain’s determined stride. Tension charged the air along with a sense of uncertainty. The country road grew unusually quiet as they traveled further from shore, leaving behind the sound of surf and hawking gulls. A gentle downwind breeze carried scents of warm sunshine, melting snow and muddy earth.
Johnny could only imagine what the captain was thinking. Was he wondering, as Johnny was, whether the earl, in his distorted sense of entitlement, believed he had a claim to Iris? Did he desire to know her? His presence here would suggest he had never gotten over the loss of Lady Moon, not because of any love for her, but because he had treated her as a possession. Or had he, in his own warped way, cared?
Many years had passed. Could time and loneliness have mellowed the earl? Had age thawed his coldness? Was he a threat or just a harmless, old English goat? Johnny remembered the frightened fellow he’d pulled off the wrecked barque and then dragged up the beach. A man of obvious wealth, but one who traveled alone with no servant to attend him as one would expect of an aristocrat. He’d thought Mr. Gregory quite ordinary — vulnerable, solitary, soft-spoken.
Lost in his musings and the rhythmic crunch of their boots over the cold ground, Johnny didn’t notice it at first — a stir in the air, movement from the trees, rustle in the grass, footfalls. He released the captain’s shoulder and searched about, not with sight but with a keen sense of alertness and sensitivity to sound. “Sir, is someone here?”
“Yes, Johnny,” Captain Moon said. “He was hiding within the trees like a snake in the grass. How long have you been following us … Mr. Gregory?”
There was a moment of expectant silence. Johnny felt a chill that ran deeper than the December clime. The atmosphere crackled with animosity, and he envisioned the two men exchanging deadly stares.
Presently, a smooth Cornish voice called back, “Captain Ezra Moon. You might address me more correctly as Lord Gregory Sutherland, the Earl of Treybarwick. You see, you are not the only one with a talent for secrecy.”
“Why are you here, Treybarwick? What do you want?”
“You have a beautiful daughter. For a moment I thought I’d found Eleanor, but how could that be when she hadn’t aged a day? Upon closer inspection, it became clear. Ah, Eleanor’s daughter. The differences are obvious in her coarse Yankee accent and lusty figure. Iris is more of a raw, country girl, really.”
Johnny found the captain’s cool calm vastly more dangerous than the earl’s taunts, and he almost feared for the older Cornishman as Captain Moon replied, “You are not to go anywhere near my daughter again. Do you understand?”
The earl continued speaking as though unaffected. “Eleanor was a delicate English beauty of superior lineage, born and raised for a match of fortune. Her marriage was to ensure the continuance of the family name and increase its holdings, but you … you, captain, cost me a dear fortune when you stole her away from me.”
“She couldn’t wait to get away from you,” Johnny cried with all the rage and impulsiveness of the ship’s boy he’d once been. Anger seethed in him in defense of Lady Moon, but from what he could tell, Captain Moon gave no reaction. “It was you, wasn’t it, who penned that awful note to Iris?”
“That halfwit lad seemed so desperate for a friend. I was most happy to oblige him.”
“What’s he talking about, Johnny?”
“Keeper Mayne,” the earl greeted as his slow, calculated footsteps drew closer. “You are the talk of Duxbury Town. Such a shame you lost your sight after you fought so valiantly to save those aboard the Vulture, including me. Life is cruel, is it not? Now tell me. What does a light keeper know of Lady Eleanor Sutherland?”
“He knows nothing. He is not a part of this.” With a firm hand to Johnny’s chest, Captain Moon halted his advance. A silent way of saying, Let me handle this.
Johnny stilled, his fingers tightening around his walking stick.
“Very well,” said the earl. “Keeper Mayne is of no concern to me. My complaint is with you, Captain Moon. Footprints were found leading to the river and it was thought she’d drowned. That was the story I told, and yet her nurse had gone missing, too. Though it was naturally assumed that with Eleanor gone she had been dismissed from her post. Imagine my surprise to learn that Eleanor did not die, but ran off with an American sea captain she fell in love with during one of our travels to America. I remember you especially for the attention you showed my Eleanor while we sailed aboard your ship. I was quite accustomed to her catching young men’s eyes, but thought I’d put a stop to your flirtations. Apparently you carried on behind my back. Meek, gentle Eleanor — I didn’t think she had it in her. How did you do it, Captain? How did you give her the confidence to deceive me?”
Love, Johnny thought. Captain Moon’s love had given her the courage to change her fate. It had given her hope and a boldness she’d never known. Once Lady Eleanor had returned to England, the couple had corresponded through Nurse Hastings’ sister. Nurse Hastings would collect Captain Moon’s letters on her weekly visit and then have her sister post the lady’s replies. But Johnny didn’t expect the captain to inform the earl of that. He didn’t expect him to reveal much of anything at all.
Johnny heard the captain step forward. “Eleanor was deeply loved here in Duxbury. She had family and friends. She was well-respected in the community and active in church and social affairs. Never a day went by that her smile didn’t bless someone. None of that would have been if you had your way. You never cared or protected her as you should have. And you weren’t above using physical force if she dared defy you. She was only a possession to you, something to be used for your personal gain.
With me, she lived every moment fully, and died at peace with God and with her family around her. There’s nothing for you here, Treybarwick. I won’t ask how you found me or discovered our home. I no longer care. I just want you gone. I can accompany you to town and find you quick passage back to England.”
The captain made his desires known in a firm and commanding voice. He wasn’t asking nicely. He was issuing an order. But though the earl was considerably older and unequal to Captain Moon’s bulk and hale strength, Johnny did not sense compliance in the strained silence that ensued.
A brisk wind whistled down Nook Road and stirred the pines.
“How long you must have been planning to deceive and trick me,” came the earl’s cold, refined voice. “As you know, a great banquet was held in Sutherland Hall that night. An elegant feast had been prepared in celebration of the upcoming nuptials. It was our small country crowd in attendance, and we had music and the finest of wines. I was never more proud of Eleanor than I was that evening. She played the perfect hostess, though come to think of it, she did give special attention to making sure the wine flowed freely and the guests’ glasses were kept full. Naturally, I believed she had accepted the impending marriage like a good, obedient girl, but no, that was all part of a rouse to get us drunk, was it not?”
Precisely, Johnny thought. He grinned, but sensed no such mirth from Captain Moon. He imagined him piercing the earl with a narrow stare.
“Your silence is answer enough,” said Lord Treybarwick. “I’m sure you already know this, but we men retired to the drawing room afterwards for cigars and port. Eleanor escorted the small group of ladies present into the music room to enjoy the harpist. Eleanor requested he play something soft and soothing, like a lullaby. After a bit, she excused herself to check on refreshments. No one thought it odd she should go herself instead of sending a servant. Indeed, between the wine, soft music and late hour, the ladies had grown quite sleepy. Most of them were of advancing age, you see, and failed to notice Eleanor’s delay in returning. We searched the house but found nothing amiss. Nothing seemed to be missing or disturbed in her room. And no one had seen her after she left the music room. She had simply vanished. And still, I did not suspect foul play until one of the servants was sent to wake her nurse and discovered Nurse Hastings’ bed lain with pillows to look like her sleeping form.”
