Into this holiday mood came the Quinterra under Captain Johns. Captain Johns and his crew come to the island twice each year, and he and Joseph have formed a fast friendship. As captains, they have few outlets for conversation among equals. To make him welcome, Joseph suggested a dance with the garrison band making the music. Captain Johns kindly offered the use of the Quinterra for the festivities.
Oh, Peggy, you cannot imagine how we looked forward to getting off this teeming pile of brick and sand! I didn't know how much I longed to escape until the opportunity was presented. You would have thought I'd been chained in the dungeon itself, away from light and air for a hundred years. Tilly, at sixteen, couldn't have been any more excited than I. We would go out to sea only a mile or more-not even out of the sight of the battlements-but the women of the fort-including old Mrs. Farrow, the lighthouse keeper's mother-in-law-decided we were going to make the evening as fine as we could. Our officers needed a return to civility as much as we did, and while we pestered the laundresses with our skirts and fancy sleeves, they tried to bribe them away with money, rum or promises of love to get them to attend to their dress uniforms.
Molly, ever proper, saw to it Tilly was sent to Fort Jefferson with one good gown. It had lain in Tilly's trunk, folded in the tissue she'd used to pack it, there being no need for anything finer than ordinary day dresses. My gown was sadly out of fashion but, if noticed, it will be forgiven. Most of the women here are in the same situation as I, and a couple have been here longer.
My blue taffeta is cut well and drapes beautifully off the shoulder, and even at my advanced age I can customarily turn a head or two of the older-or more myopic-men, but once we'd completed our lengthy toilette I knew I could have gone in a pair of Joseph's old work trousers for all the attention I might expect.
Tilly was stunning. The dress, a rich bronze that carried light with it, exposed her shoulders and as much of her bosom as was decent. The browning of her skin, unavoidable in this climate, rather than making her look coarse as it would any mortal woman, coupled with the coppery tint of the dress, turned her to gold. Even I, who had witnessed the curling rags, the pins and the petticoats in need of repair, had my breath snatched away when she turned from admiring herself and curtseyed to me.
Knowing myself to have been effectively rendered invisible, I took those gold and lapis combs you gave me on my eighteenth birthday out of my hair and put them in hers and handed over my good fan. She was so lovely, even knowing it was Tilly with all her pouts and pets and passions underneath, one was moved to make offerings.
"Let's go show Joel and Dr. Mudd," Tilly said.
That, of course, was an exceedingly bad idea, but she'd asked it while I was still in thrall to her startlingly new and totally womanly elegance, and I simply followed her like lady-in-waiting to the queen.
My wits returned as I trailed her up the spiral stairs leading from the ground floor to the second, then the third tiers. The rustle of the taffeta as her skirts swept over the steps put me back twenty years-twenty-two-to my first grand ball. I doubt you'll remember, but I have forgotten nothing. My gown was of scarlet silk, and I met Joseph. Stumbled over him nearly. He was shooting dice with two other bored lieutenants in a dark corner of the upstairs veranda.
"Tilly," I called up to her. "Stop at the top of the stairs. I need to speak with you before we go any farther." The light rhythmic shush of her soft-soled slippers on the stairs increased. For a moment I thought she meant to run away from me-not in wickedness or disobedience but just in the playful way of girls giddy with the sudden knowledge that they are grown, gowned and gloriously pretty.
To my relief she did as she was bid. The climb was not long, but both of us were corseted as tightly as whalebone and Luanne's strong hands could make us, and we were in need of a moment to catch our breath.
I had recovered sufficiently to explain to Tilly why we must go back, meet the others at the dock, when I heard footsteps approaching. Though the usual ring of heels reinforced with iron was replaced with the gentle tap of leather-soled dancing pumps, the military stride gave his identity away.
"Joseph." I turned and, Tilly behind me, watched him come. The sun was near the horizon, the light burnished and saturated with color as though it passed through honey. Each of the brick arches separating the casemates threw its own shadow. Joseph passed from shadow to light, back straight, hair as shining and black as the day we married, the brass of his sword scabbard, buckle and buttons polished and gleaming, he looked very much a hero from one of the old books. Had he been on horseback, I believe I might have swooned.
As is his wont, he brought me back from my dreaming posthaste.
"And just what in hell do you think you are doing up here dressed like that? Where do you think you are, woman? I'll not have you-"
I believe he was sufficiently wound up with the excitement of the dance and his responsibilities for seeing that all came off in a way that would bring honor to both Captain Johns and Fort Jefferson that he might have gone on berating me for some time. Knowing full well I was every bit the idiot he took me for, I would have stood and taken it, too. Fortunately Tilly saved us from having to play out the entire scene.
"Uncle Joseph, it was my fault," she insisted and stepped out from behind me into the light of the setting sun.
Joseph abruptly fell silent. It wasn't her assumption of responsibility. Joseph knows better than I that ultimate responsibility falls at the feet of the man-or in this case, woman-left in charge. Seeing Tilly in her evening splendor and drenched in the fairy light that had my heart spinning when I saw him approach had struck him dumb.
You would have laughed to see his face. Years fell away. His lips, often a bit cruel these last years, softened to the sensuous line that so captivated me as a girl, and his eyes widened like a child's. The transformation was so quick as to be comical. It made me want to cry rather than laugh, though I cannot tell you why.
"My lady?" he said and held out his arm. Tilly took it and he escorted her back to the stairs.
My lapse in judgment had brought us to no harm, and Tilly's new gown saved me from having to withstand a tongue-lashing, however deserved. I told myself to be grateful; count my blessings.
Despite the inauspicious start, the evening was everything our joint wishes and those of the officers and crew of the Quinterra could have wished. We dined in the crew's mess (the captain's being too small to seat us all). The ship had been cleaned and buffed till the fine old wood of the hall looked rich rather than tired, and the tables had white linens. The food was good enough, and by fort standards, excellent. Captain Johns provided the wine. It was from New York State but surprisingly good.
We danced on deck. The crew had hung lanterns from the rigging. The night was clear and full of stars, and the band in excellent form, making our makeshift ballroom more romantic than any well-appointed hall lit with candles. As she deserved to be, Tilly was the belle of the ball. I watched her carefully but I needn't have. She was having far too good a time being admired and fawned upon by thirty adoring swains to sneak off with any one of them. And, too, Joseph never took his eyes off of her and cut in a time or two when a partner held her too closely.
The men outnumbering the women five to one, none of the rest of us had reason to begrudge Tilly her conquests. We were all danced off of our feet, and, near three in the morning when time came to go back to the tort, all but the youngest and strongest among us were ready to do so.
Night had grown so still it was decided that rather than raise sail and bring the ship back into harbor, the party from the fort was to be rowed back in the Quinterra's dinghies. There were but twenty-two of us in all, and we fit snugly in three boats along with crew to row us home.
But for Tilly's misguided enthusiasms the trip would have been a lovely and peaceful end to a wonderful evening. I was sandwiched between Mrs. Dicks, the lighthouse keeper's wife, and her mother, Mrs. Farrow. Mrs. Farrow is a trial at the best of times. This night she'd stayed out
late and drunk too much of the captain's good wine. One might have hoped this combination would have sedated her and the most we'd be called upon to do would be to keep the old harridan from falling asleep and tumbling into the sea. Unfortunately being tipsy and overtired only served to agitate her nerves. She fidgeted so the boat rocked, and actually pinched me twice to make me move over as though her derriŠre hadn't already claimed a good half of the seat we three shared.
Tilly and Joseph sat on the bench in front of us. The moon was very low-near to setting-but there was still much light from stars and sea. The moon had the effect of turning Tilly from the shimmering golden girl of sunset into a lovely silver statue. Well, not a statue. Miss Tilly was as vivacious and lively as she had been when the evening began.
At first her chatter was of the ball and the sailors with whom she danced, the clever things said and witty rejoinders made. As she was the youngest in our lifeboat by a good twenty years, all but Mrs. Farrow seemed to enjoy the girlish babble. Tilly was already well on her way to being a pet of the officers and their wives. Even Joseph, usually stony faced, was looking at her now and again. In profile I read an indulgent smile on his lips, and he kept his arm protectively about her waist lest her excessive reenacting of the waltzes hurl her over the gunwale.
I thought it a pretty picture of avuncular devotion, but Mrs. Farrow, not satisfied with merely savaging my upper arm with her bony pinches, leaned close and whispered: "I'd watch out if I were you. In some societies it's considered the man's duty to marry the sister if his wife dies."
I was so furious, wondering if anyone would really mind if I pushed the old witch overboard, that I didn't notice the turn Tilly's prattle had taken till it was too late to stop it with a few well-placed pinches of my own.
It was the cold that brought me around. Joseph's voice had gone from honey to ice, and it penetrated the fog of my self-absorption. "The man conspired to murder our president," he said softly. Tilly, unaccustomed to reading my husband, must have heard only quiet reasonableness in the words and not felt the crippling chill underlying them. Either that or her youth and innocence led her to believe there is such a thing as a friendly argument when discussing politics.
Whatever the delusion, the little fool went on: "But he didn't," she insisted. "Dr. Mudd had nothing to do with Mr. Lincoln's death. Oh Joseph, if only you'd talk to him." Tilly turned sideways the better to clutch Joseph's arm and make her plea. He turned as well, and I could see the warm and doting look was gone; the glitter was that of rain turned suddenly to ice.
Tilly did not notice.
"Dr. Mudd was only following his Hippocratic oath to help people, like he's helping Joel. He is really the most wonderful man. If only you would-"
Joseph started working his jaw the way he does just before he chews someone up into tiny pieces. "Oh, Tilly, look! A flying fish!" I said. I know it was silly. I don't even know if they fly at night, but it was what came into my mind. She didn't even hear me.
"-get to know him. I know you would come to love him as I do."
At this I resorted to Mrs. Farrow's tactics and gave Tilly's shoulder a good hard pinch.
"Ouch. What is it, Raffie?"
"A flying fish," I repeated, my poor wine-sodden brain able to come up with nothing new. It succeeded in distracting her. She's been wanting to see one of these wondrous creatures since she arrived. We spent a few minutes gazing out at the calm surface of the sea where I had pretended to see the phenomenon.
Joseph's jaw stopped clenching, but I knew the disaster had not been averted but merely postponed. I had seen the flash in his eye when Tilly said she loved Samuel Mudd and knew my husband well enough to know this was not over.
15
Anna had seen cavers use the exhalation trick in tight places. They'd expel all the air to shrink their lung cavity in hopes of squeaking through. She'd believed them insane. Now she hoped there was at least a grain of method in their madness.
The last of her air dribbled out. Her lungs, mind, every cell in her body was screaming. With all the power she possessed, she shoved her right arm toward her face. Three inches were gained. It was enough. Fingers scrabbled on the smooth rubber, grabbed and the regulator was shoved back into her mouth. Air rushed in, and for that moment life was good. Closing her eyes, she sucked on the regulator like a kitten at its mother's teat, at peace to feel the stuff of life flowing in.
Joy was intense but short-lived. An odd memory of her husband playing Rosenkrantz-or was it Guildenstern?-in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. "Life in a box is better than no life at all," the character had said. Anna didn't agree.
Again she waggled the fingers of her left hand and her neon-flippered feet to let Mack know she was alive. This time she was not even tempted to laugh.
An ugly thought bloomed in her brain-given her situation, she'd believed it couldn't get uglier. She was wrong. The engine had not been precariously balanced. Had that been the case, wild sea horses could not have dragged her underneath it.
The instant before she'd become entombed in coral and cast iron she'd been shaken by a harsh grating sound, sharp, metal on rock; a pry bar, maybe, levering the engine from its seating, causing it to shift and fall on her. Who but Mack? Surely there were not marauding aquamen with crowbars stalking the ocean floors in hopes of finding idiot women in compromising positions.
She stopped kicking. Perhaps it was unwise to let Mack know she lived. Her lifeline, the air hose, was a fragile thing, easily pinched or cut.
A tapping on her thigh broke her from this miserable reverie, and she kicked. Maybe Mack was a murderer-if he was she was a dead woman-but he was the only game in town.
The tap turned to a pat probably meant to be reassuring. Pretending it worked, Anna lay still, letting the bubbles she breathed out rise through the maze of internal combustion parts to signify her continuing life. In some peculiar way it was a relief to realize she was completely and utterly helpless. There was nothing she could do: no trick, no act, no cleverness of mind. If she was to die, no fault could be laid at her door. It could not be said she had not been quick enough or strong enough or smart enough to save herself.
To her surprise, she relaxed. She enjoyed each breath wondering if it was to be her last, if Mack even now reached for his knife to cut the air hose. Death, so close, was seductive, welcoming. Perhaps Death was the true possessor of the phenomena attributed to vampires: if one looked into its eyes one became entranced, eager for union with darkness.
She was still breathing.
It seemed she lay in this otherworldy peace for an infinity. When she was jerked back to awareness by the clamor of metal stakes pounding on her iron coffin lid, she woke with something very like anger. It faded, quickly to be replaced by a more corrosive and dangerous emotion: hope.
Someone-presumably Mack-was banging about. Working, maybe, with his pry bar to finish the job, lever the engine off whatever small ledge had saved her life, so she would be crushed.
That made no sense. Thumb and finger on the air hose for a few minutes would do the trick, take less energy and leave no clues. Mack was trying to save her.
That made no sense either. Why try kill to her, then try to save her? So he could look the hero?
Don't worry about it, she told herself. The rescue attempt will probably kill you just as dead. Lifting a massive weight wasn't easy, even underwater. Should the load shift or slip, she would be pate for the fishes. The hypnotic pull of death had been broken, and now Anna was afraid. Her body pressed and cramping, the engine cutting where it mashed against the back of her hand, immobility, the small half-lighted space before her eyes, all this crawled into mind and bone till she wanted to fight, to scream and flail. She could do none of these and watched inwardly as panic turned to acid and tried to melt her resolve not to fight.
Clanking near her head grew louder. Sound coming through iron and skull to join with the shriek of soul and cells. Above her face motes in the water moved. The cast-iron ceiling of h
er world began to shift, lift ever so slightly. Before she could move or breathe, strong hands clamped around her ankles. Grind changed to a shriek. Her claustrophobic world kaleidoscoped. Anna had an instant to wonder if she was dying or going mad. Black sky moved. Her back and sides scraped over the coral canyon forming her shroud. The regulator was ripped from her mouth. Vision swam in bubbles and particles of once-living plants and animals. Caught in this vortex, she didn't fight to keep the scrap of rubber that fed life to her one lungful at a time but let the world change, watching it with a timeless fascination.
Then light. She was out. The engine rolled, teetered, then crashed back down on the place from which she'd been so abruptly delivered. A hand was on her arm, Mack's face close, his thumb jerking upward.
Newborn and free, Anna came back into herself and kicked for the surface to erupt into sun and air. Ripping off mask and snorkel, she let them sink away from her. Though it was foolish, she could no longer bear to have anything covering her face. She kicked off her fins, and they, too, fell away. Then her weight belt, unbuckled, sank like a stone.
Nevada Barr - Anna Pigeon 11 - Flashback Page 20
