I tossed and turned as the wind rattled my window and moaned through the eaves of the house, scaring me straight out of threatening dreams. The clock downstairs chimed two times; I had only been asleep for three hours, yet the night dragged on.
I made myself a cup of warm milk and went back to bed. Still, I couldn’t sleep. I even tried reading, but my eyes continually lifted from the pages and out the window. The harbor in the distance was mostly dark, with the exception of the small inlet area where the taverns stayed open all hours. There a yellow glow traveled out toward Jasper Island, a signal to join them - the sailors and loose women.
After another hour, as the clock chimed three a.m., I decided to relinquish my quest for a good night sleep and join Ayden after all. He only had a few hours before sunrise, but I thought he would appreciate my company.
I took my time, holding onto the rail, making sure my footing was accurate. Though I had climbed those same steps since I was ten years old, I felt betrayed by them, as if they didn’t welcome me any longer. When I reached the top, I stopped to catch my breath. I was winded and tired, and my leg ached from the tedious ascent.
I heard voices, and instead of interrupting, I stayed back in the shadows, just the way I used to when Daddy and Momma were up there.
It was Sylvia who now kept Ayden company, entertained him with jokes, and brought him coffee. Something I often did.
Ayden appeared amused and appreciative of the company. My blood boiled, and I made an unexpected appearance.
“Lillian!” Ayden was surprised to see me.
“Where is James?” I sneered, looking straight at Sylvia.
“He stepped out to get himself a late night snack.”
“Don’t you think it’s past her bedtime?”
“That’s up to her father. She says she likes staying up most of the night.”
“Pa says if I weren’t with him telling him jokes, for certain he would fall asleep.”
“A keeper falling asleep while working the light?” My disbelieving tone mocked her response.
“I guess I should be getting to bed. Ma needs me up early to give Willard his bottle. Good night,” she sang and smiled widely at Ayden, then threw me a nasty scowl. When she was gone, I turned to Ayden.
“You came to see me after all,” he said and brought me close, ignoring my frown.
“I didn’t expect to find you alone with Sylvia.”
“She is really interested in the workings of the light. She reminds me of you,” he said with undisguised exuberance.
“I was never here with a stranger.” I muttered. “She should have only her father teach her these things.”
Ayden made me look up at him by placing his finger under my chin and lifting my face to meet his, just the way Daddy used to. “I’m not exactly a stranger. We are all like family here. You know how it is.”
“You’re not old enough to have a voluptuous thirteen-year-old daughter,” I said coolly.
“I could be her older brother,” he laughed. “This is silly. Let’s talk about something else. Or better yet . . .” Ayden began to kiss my neck, then worked his way down to the open neckline of my nightgown before I pulled away.
Ayden shook his head out of frustration, then coldly turned his attention back to the dark sea.
“Ayden . . .” I whispered with his back toward me.
“What, Lillian?” His tone was sharp.
“I love you . . . love you with all my heart,” I choked out. “I want to, I really do. It’s just . . .”
“It’s just what? I’m not good enough for you, not handsome enough? I’m not as dashing or debonair as Richard Parker?” he flared, spinning around and confronting me with eyes full of anger.
“Of course not! You are just as handsome, if not more so.”
Ayden grabbed me, pulled me against him, and demanded an explanation as to why I wouldn’t allow him to have me, his own wife. I began to whimper softly from his hostile interrogation.
“We have been married for months now, and you hide away. What do you expect from me? I have wants and needs like any healthy man! All I do is chase time; days and nights melt into one as I wait. Wait for storms, wait for you.”
“Does that mean you want to take a younger girl? Is that really what you are waiting for?”
Ayden’s face twisted with anger and he locked his fingers tightly around my arms. “I’m not interested in her. She is a kid for God‘s sake!”
“She is a flirtatious and precocious child. It’s obvious what she is after. She has only been here a short time and is enticing you. I know girls like her; I see the kind of women they grow up to be.”
“The kind you were?” he fired back.
I snatched my arms away in disbelief and shock, infuriated at his crude remark. Ayden quickly regretted what he’d said and came to me, this time with warm affection instead of hostile animosity. “Can’t we stop all this foolishness? Don’t you trust me? I trust you, after all,” he whispered breathlessly into my hair as my head rested against his chest. “Don’t you think I get jealous, too?”
“Jealous of what?” I sobbed.
“Of your past loves, of Heath,” he murmured.
I ducked my head to stare up at him. Ayden’s pain was obvious; his hurt over my former infatuation for his brother still lingered.
“As you have told me, all of that is in the past. I have pledged my love to you. There is no other man whom I want or need. You believe me, don’t you Ayden?”
“I do believe you. Just understand that it’s hard to think of you with other men, especially since you deny me.” Oh, how painful it was to hurt Ayden; how selfish I was for denying him his rights as my husband. I was shameful, a sorry excuse for a wife, and I knew it.
Putting my promise to recapture my purity aside, forgetting about the young girl who infuriated me because she was attractive and fascinated with Ayden, I decided to give in and please Ayden in every way, to fulfill my duties and secure that he would never want or need any woman but me.
As he held me and brushed my tears away, I worked my lips up from his neck to his face, whispering how sorry I was, telling him that he was the most handsome man I had ever known. I slid my hands under his coat and unhooked one button at a time. Ayden stood stiff and uncomfortable; he didn’t respond the way I wanted him to. He wasn’t receptive to the advances he had been begging for earlier.
“I love you. I just want to make you happy,” I whispered as I brought my hand lower, to touch him intimately for the first time, when he snatched hold of my hand and abruptly stopped me. “Not like this; not this way,” he said hoarsely.
I stepped back and lowered my head in shame. Ayden was right. When the time was right, when the setting was proper, not after an argument. Then we would come together as husband and wife and consummate our marriage.
Intimacy, for me, had always been used after an argument, or as a tool to get what I wanted. It had never been for the purest form of love. It shouldn’t have been an ugly thing, as I had been accustomed to. I realized that when Ayden looked at me with tearful eyes. I could see that it all came together for him. It finally made sense. His expression told me he understood that I wasn’t holding out because I didn’t love him or want him. It was because I needed a fight, to be provoked, and to feel obligated. Ayden must have pitied me, just as all the other men before him had.
I ran from him and hurried down the stairs, risking a terrible fall, but I didn’t care. Just as I came near the bottom, I saw a fleeting shadow, Sylvia’s shadow, exiting a moment before me. She had been eavesdropping. She’d heard everything!
Day arrived to noises of children playing outside and Hazel’s booming voice shouting orders from the stoop. “Owen and Oliver, stay out of the water now! Get up here and sit down for breakfast! Polly, tend to Mary, would you? Have to get the food on the table. Don’t have time to be chasing after all you kids. Sylvia, Sylvia!”
Without having had a wink of sleep, I made my way into the kitchen and apologized for not
assisting with breakfast.
“Oh, it’s no big thing. You’re a newlywed; you want to spend time with your man up in the tower. Used to be the same with James and me. Not for long though. Had Sylvia nine months to the day after we were married. Ever since, been having more babies and giving them all my attention. Except for those nights James won’t take no for an answer.” She spoke matter-of-factly, not fazed in the least by divulging such personal details of their marriage. I realized that’s where Sylvia learned to be so exceptionally precocious for her years. She had most likely witnessed the makings of all her brothers and sisters.
“Where in heaven’s sake is Sylvia?” she grumbled, changing the subject with her next breath.
“She doesn’t want to get out of bed,” James, Jr. said, and sat down with the others. He had been up before dawn milking the cows.
“Polly, go wake your sister. That girl has no business sleeping in. I know she’s been up all night following her pa around. She’s a real night owl. Thinks she is going to be a keeper one day. Ain’t no life for a girl, I tell her. She needs to find her a good man, get married, and stay far away from the sea, where men wash up dead ashore more times than I can count.”
My heart sank. Perhaps Sylvia’s intentions for spending time up in the tower weren’t to flirt with Ayden like I’d thought. Maybe she had a genuine interest, as I did at her age, just as Ayden tried to explain. I had spoken before I knew the facts, said things about her I now regretted. She’d overheard me telling Ayden that she was a vixen. The poor girl, no wonder she ran off.
I had to make amends, ask for her forgiveness right away. She was only a child. She didn’t intend to steal my things or my husband. Curious was all. About me, Momma, the lighthouse. It was all just innocent curiosity! How ridiculous was I?
“I will fetch her,” I volunteered.
“That’s kind of you. Say thank you to Mrs. Dalton,” she ordered Polly.
“Thank you, ma’am,” she replied with a sweet smile.
Sylvia was just rising when I came in. She had been sleeping on the floor in one of the makeshift beds. There was a large white sheet strung across the whole length of the room to separate the boys from the girls, and blankets were carelessly scattered about the floor. Clothes were thrown in makeshift piles, and the room smelt stale. I hadn’t knocked, but entered after easing the door open to make certain she was decent.
“Sylvia, it’s me, Mrs. Dalton,” I announced and waited for her to invite me in. She was stringing up her corset, struggling to get it tied. The corset was at least two sizes too small.
“Can I help you?” I offered.
“Yes, thank you,” she said in an unusually polite manner. I grabbed the strings and pulled them in, taking away most of her breath.
“I have a corset that might just fit you. You can have it if you would like,” I said with a genuine smile.
“That’s kind of you to offer. I suppose I could use another one more my size. Ma says all she does is let out the hem in all my dresses, and that my breasts are the largest ones she has ever seen, even on a grown woman.”
“There, all done. Your mother is calling for you to eat.” I said, and chose not to give my opinion, which she seemed to be seeking.
Sylvia allowed me to help her lower her dress over her head, then she stepped before the small tabletop mirror and hastily brushed her long silky hair.
As she brushed, the reflection revealed that her eyes had locked onto me and followed me to the door.
“I think you and I can be good friends, don’t you Sylvia? I can help you with schoolwork and teach you how to bake, if your mother hasn’t already. And your mother says you have ambitions to be a keeper one day, like your father,” I said with lifted spirit.
I caught sight of her smirk, which caused me a sudden chill. Then she spun around, her expression cold and detached. “Sounds like you and I will be close friends, Lillian. Can I call you Lillian?” Sylvia asked in a hushed voice. “I never had a girl kind of friend before. Most of my friends were boyfriends. Not beaux, though they wanted to be. Teased them all the time but never gave in, ’cause Pa won’t hear of it; says I can’t have a beau until I’m at least fourteen. Then again, what Pa doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” she cynically laughed to herself.
I strained to smile through my recurring suspicions, and alarmingly felt that I was playing with fire . . . that this little girl was indeed older, wiser, and more callous than her age would imply.
“Yes, I would like you to call me Lillian.”
“I’m starving, aren’t you Lill-i-an?” She emphasized my name by slowly sounding it out, using each syllable at a time.
My smile faded as her blue eyes shot me a stabbing look of malicious intent. I was right about her all along. She was exactly what I’d believed her to be: a cunning, astute, voluptuous young lady who knew what she wanted and just how to get it.
With no appetite left, I declined to sit and have breakfast with everyone. Instead, I stayed inside and ironed Ayden’s shirts. I was grateful for the heavy rain, the dark, murky day that was only good for staying indoors. Ayden slept the morning away and James worked the light. The Cooper children remained in their quarters, and I was relieved to have some quiet time to myself, though my thoughts were overcome with concerns about Sylvia and her intentions to capture all of Ayden’s attention. It seemed ridiculous to be jealous of this young girl. How could she compete with me - his wife, the woman he was born to love? Yes, she was pretty, she possessed an eye-catching beauty much the same as mine. The difference was that I didn’t flaunt it and tease men with my curvy, voluptuous body the way she did. That only happened when I was on stage, and then it was all an act. For Sylvia, this was real life.
I took a deep breath, recalling the conversation between Ayden and me. He told me it was silly to be worried or jealous. “Of course Ayden is faithful to me,” I said aloud, and smiled to myself. A wave of relief swept over me, and for the remainder of the day I worked with a liberated smile that came from letting go of all the harebrained worries I had let beleaguer me.
When Ayden woke, he got straight to work, after greeting me with an undemanding kiss, and took over for James, who was set up in the fog signal house. The rain had subsided only to let in a thick, soupy fog, which enclosed the island. The children had escaped their quarters to play in the dense fog just before supper - games of hide and seek, just as Ayden and I used to play when we were children.
Hazel wasn’t feeling well; a bout of evening sickness had her running to the outhouse to release the contents of her stomach. I offered to complete the meal, and as I predicted, she refused. “Ain’t nothing I’m not used to. Comes and goes. Should disappear by the end of my third month,” she told me, while cooling her brow with a freshly soaked cloth.
“Ayden’s mother, Opal, never had much sickness when she was expecting,” I said.
“She’s one of the lucky ones,” Hazel grunted. “Hope when your time comes you will be too.”
“Ayden and I don’t have any immediate plans for children.”
“Why, girl, it’s nothing you plan for,” she laughed, seeming amused at what she believed was my unawareness. “When you lay with your man, a baby coming nine months later is almost a sure thing.”
I thought about all the times men came to me and loved me. There was never once a baby on the way, growing inside me. Possibly there was something wrong with me. I welcomed the idea.
“I’m sure hoping this is my last one. I’m nearing the age where I can’t bear any more children,” Hazel said, then called for Sylvia.
“That won’t make you just a little sad?”
“Ma is tired of having babies,” Sylvia chimed in as she came to retrieve the bottle of milk set out for Willard.
“That’s the truth,” Hazel added.
I refused to acknowledge Sylvia and went to set the table, along with Mary and Lizzy. I gave the little three-year-old the forks and showed her how to place them in proper fashion, then handed
Lizzy the spoons. As we worked together, their eyes followed me, taking mental notes on how to properly set a table. The dishes were plain and simple, nothing like the Van Dorn’s fine antique Louis the XVI plates and bowls, but I managed to set them up as if we were serving royalty that evening. The girls were amazed how I made the napkins into the shapes of swans.
“I learned this from the maids of one of the wealthiest families in all the States,” I said, though I was aware they didn’t quite understand what that meant.
“I stayed in the finest homes, some as grand as the most elaborate European castles. There, everyone dressed in pricey custom-tailored clothes and wore priceless jewels on their ears and fingers. But no one was happy. All their money didn’t bring them happiness,” I sighed.
“Were you the fairy princess of the castle?” Lizzy asked in her quiet, unobtrusive little voice.
“No, I was no princess,” I said solemnly.
“Lillian is the princess of Jasper Island,” Heath announced as he casually strolled in, just in time for supper. “She is as pretty as any princess I have ever seen. Don‘t you agree, little Lizzy?”
Lizzy smiled up at me in clear agreement as Heath lifted her and Mary both onto his lap.
“It will be a little while longer before supper is served,” I said bashfully. Heath had never before acknowledged that I was pretty.
“How about you and Mary bring me a book, and we’ll read before supper,” he suggested.
The girls excitedly leapt off his lap and ran together to retrieve a book.
“Lizzy reminds me of our Elizabeth,” I said, without looking up from the last napkin I was shaping.
“Only she has straight hair and not Elizabeth’s wildly curly hair.”
“Your wildly curly hair,” I said softly, and flicked my eyes over to him.
“It’s rather tame now.” Heath chuckled, red-faced, while patting it down with his gloved hands.
“We found this book, Doctor Heath!” Mary chirped in her babyish manner.
“Ah, a Christmas book. You found this upstairs?”
Lizzy nodded yes.
“This used to be mine when I was a boy. It’s called The Night before Christmas. One of my favorites,” he said, and winked playfully at me.
Box Set: The ArringtonTrilogy Page 81
