“Then who watch?” Lorna asked. “You mean there are still wreckers?”
“There are still shipwrecks, aren’t there?” Frazier answered with great reasonableness.
“A pilot like you, old man, is what’s needed,” Peter said. “An islander who knows the cays and the North West Channel as well as he knows Bay Street. I don’t suppose you’d like to ship with me the next time out — at a higher wage, of course?”
“Talk about piracy!” Ramon complained with an irascible glance to his friend. “Did your ancestors sail with Drake by any chance?”
As Peter merely grinned, Frazier said, “I reckon I’ll stay with the Lorelei, sir. She’s been a fine ship. But it’s times like these that I know this war between North and South is the best chance we’ve had here in ages to see the color of gold.”
“And others are taking advantage of it,” Peter declared. “Why just yesterday, in my innocence, I gave a laundress a dozen shirts to launder. And how many did she bring back? Eight! She swore I miscounted, but more than likely she made a tidy sum on them on the black market. There are entirely too many men in Nassau, and not enough tailors to go around.”
While Peter talked, Ramon had pulled up chairs for his friend and himself and signaled a waiter to bring drinks. He waved Frazier back into his chair and, as he took his seat, said to Peter, “You may be right about the tailors at any rate. Didn’t I see your coat circulating again last night at the government house reception?”
“You did indeed,” the Englishman said bitterly, “on three separate backs, along with the choice rosebud, one of the few on the island, that I had plucked from a garden wall for my buttonhole.” In an aside to Lorna, he explained, “My frock coat is one of the few of its kind in the islands and enjoys great popularity for formal occasions. I doubt I’ve spent more than ten minutes at one of the governor’s receptions since I’ve been here; somebody is always snatching me out of a window and stripping my coat from me, so they can pay their respects. My shirts are constantly being borrowed, too, as well as purloined. I dare say that by the time I get back to my lodgings I won’t have one to wear this evening, either!”
Ramon shook his head as he paid for the drinks he had ordered, then leaned back at ease in his chair. “You are too good-natured by half. Why do you lend them out?”
“It isn’t I,” Peter protested. “It’s my man. He will believe any story a British naval officer tells him, and my friends on leave here are some of the most outrageous liars the service has ever known! If this keeps up, my laundry bill will be astronomical, or else I, begging your pardon, Miss Forrester, will be walking around in the suit I was born in.”
“That should enliven Bay Street of an evening,” Ramon observed.
“Hah! You think they would notice on the waterfront among the dens, dives, and bordellos? I wouldn’t care to place my yellow boys on the chance!”
“You could always try your luck on East Hill Street.”
“The draperies and lace curtains would twitch like mad, but I doubt there would be any, uh, signals raised.”
Their banter continued in the same vein. Lorna was glad of it, for it gave her time to recover from the stiff embarrassment she felt in Ramon’s presence. She was aware of his dark gaze resting upon her, even as he exchanged quips with the other men, of his weighing her words as she was drawn into the exchange of easygoing insults. She wished that she could think of something light and amusing to say to him to banish the stiffness between them, but her mind was blank.
She turned her attention instead to Peter. She liked the Englishman more every time they met. His humor and self-deprecation were most attractive features. He was, in addition, a handsome man, in a smooth, refined fashion. His features were somewhat angular, but well-defined, with a strong nose and wide mouth. Despite the general preference, all too evident in the men that lined the veranda, for facial hair, he was, like Ramon, clean-shaven.
Lorna came in for her share of the teasing. Frazier told the others of the goombay singer’s descriptive verse, and the musicians had to be called closer and asked to repeat it. The lyrics were considerably embellished under the influence of a coin or two and a round of drinks. The Bahamians were beginning on a fifth, even more vivid, rendition against her laughing protest, when a gay hail floated up to the veranda from the drive below.
It was the Lansing sisters, sitting in an open carriage with a driver on the box. Charlotte was waving and calling, while Elizabeth tried in vain to restrain her. At the younger sisters’ imperious order, the vehicle drew to a halt before the hotel. Without waiting for assistance, Charlotte jumped down and entered the hotel. Elizabeth followed with greater dignity.
“So, here’s where you have been hiding, Ramon!” Charlotte greeted him as she emerged from the stairs and tripped out onto the piazza. “We were worried when you did not come for dinner last night.”
“Charlotte, if you please,” Elizabeth said, joining them, “one does not take an invited guest to task for not putting in an appearance.” With meticulous grace, she spoke a cool greeting to the others, giving her gloved hand to Lorna and also to the men who had risen at the approach of her sister and herself. She turned last to Ramon. “Charlotte is correct, however; we were concerned. There is so much illness in town these days, with so many ships coming from foreign ports.”
It was almost certainly true. “Yellow Jack,” the dread yellow fever, and also Asiatic cholera, typhoid, and a half dozen other less virulent diseases were always a danger in a tropical port, especially among people who were not acclimated. Since they had arrived, there had been signs of the burning of sulphur in the holds of vessels, one of the means used to prevent the spread of contamination.
“How pleasant it is here,” Charlotte said artlessly. “One can see everything that is happening, all the ships and the people coming and going, and, of course, everyone knows all the captains congregate here when they finally summon the strength to leave their beds of a morning.”
“Charlotte,” Elizabeth began.
“Won’t you take my chair?” Frazier invited, his gaze admiring as he eyed the younger girl’s flaming curls, which could be seen under the brim of her bonnet. “I was about to leave, have to get back to the ship to see to materials for the carpenters working on her.”
“Perhaps you ladies will join us?” Lorna invited at the same time.
It was Elizabeth who, abandoning yet another admonition, answered before Charlotte could sit down. “I think not. We were just on our way to visit the shops.”
Charlotte gave Frazier a pretty, apologetic smile, then, as he left them, swung back with animation to the others. “The most marvelous thing! You will never guess. We are to have a cotillion in two weeks’ time. I will tell you the theme, though you are all to promise you will not breathe a single word. It is to be a dark-of-the-moon ball and will be held on the night the moon changes its phase. Isn’t that a wonderful idea? It was my very own!”
“With so little time, we have many errands to run,” Elizabeth said.
“And we must order our gowns,” Charlotte, irrepressible, added. “Something mysterious to suit the occasion, we thought. We would value your opinion, Ramon, if you would care to give us your escort?”
With a quelling glance, her elder sister said, “And you also, Peter, and Miss Forrester. We will expect to see all of you at the ball.”
Peter lifted his hands in a fighter’s gesture of fending off a hit. “No shopping for me, though I will venture the dance. The last time I advised a female on what she should or should not wear, I was struck over the head with a parasol.”
“You must have been more maladroit than usual,” Lorna murmured.
“The soul of tact, I assure you. I merely said I had never seen a sorrel mare yet that looked good in a magenta blanket!”
Ramon, ignoring them, turned to pick up his glass, lifting it in a small salute as he answered. “You will accept my excuses too, I hope; I’m much too comfortable here to stir, but perh
aps Lorna would find a round of the shops entertaining?”
“Oh, but Ramon,” Charlotte cried before she could answer, “if you do not come, we will have to keep the carriage, for Papa will not allow us ‘to walk unescorted through the streets.”
“Very wise of him, though any man stupid enough to attack three such Amazons as you will be would have to be desperate indeed.”
“Ramon,” Charlotte pouted.
“Ramon!” Elizabeth remonstrated.
“Besides,” he said ruthlessly, “you will need the carriage to carry the packages.”
Lorna sent him a speculative look that he returned with a bland smile. Swinging to Elizabeth, she said, “Though it sounds delightful, you must excuse me from both cotillion and shopping excursion. I did not come prepared for such merriment, and I fear I must practice economy as well.”
“Gone through your allowance again?” Ramon queried, then went on without giving her a chance to answer. “Never mind. For a special occasion such as this, I don’t think your uncle would mind if I advanced you enough to cover whatever you may choose.”
She turned her head to stare at him, a frown between her winged brows. “You are too generous. I couldn’t possibly accept.”
“I insist.”
“No, really, it isn’t necessary.”
“Permit me to know what is necessary and what is not. This affair has all the earmarks of the entertainment of the season. You would not want to miss it.” He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a fistful of gold eagles. Reaching for her hand, he placed them into it.
She tried to withdraw from his grasp, but could not without an undignified struggle that must make them both conspicuous without guarantee of gaining her release. A quiver ran along her nerves, and she was still. She stared at him with resentment in the depth of her gray eyes, wondering why he was doing this, longing to ask what he thought he was buying. In his dark gaze, she saw his determination to prevail allied to amusement for her plight, and something more that made her catch her breath.
“Goodness, Ramon,” Charlotte exclaimed brightly, “would you like to be my guardian?”
Elizabeth’s lips tightened, though her narrowed eyes were upon Lorna. “Since it appears you are coming, would you care to bring your parasol? The sun is bright indeed today, and Charlotte and I never go out without ours.”
“Yes, you will need a parasol,” Ramon said, “and a purse.” Having had the last word, he reached to take the guitar from the goombay player and, cradling it in his arms, began to pick out a soft and sensuous tune.
The Lansing sisters may have been forced to include her in their shopping expedition, still, once they were in the carriage, they made good use of that circumstance.
“What an exciting voyage you must have had with Ramon from New Orleans,” Charlotte said, her eyes wide. “Do tell us about it.”
“There isn’t a great deal to tell,” Lorna began with caution, briefly sketching in the events.
“How I would have loved to have spent so much time with him upon the seas. So romantic, being all alone on the ocean.”
“We were not alone. There were the other officers and the crew.”
“But, there must have been time that you could spend together? He is so charmingly foreign, by far the most interesting man in Nassau. Don’t frown at me so, Elizabeth. You know you find him so yourself! Don’t you, Miss Forrester, or may I call you Lorna?”
Agreeing readily to the use of her name in exchange for freedom with theirs, she replied, “Ramon is certainly attractive, though not particularly foreign to me. It’s Peter I find rather different.”
“Peter?” Charlotte crowed. “Oh, no!”
Elizabeth smiled, suggesting, “Perhaps Ramon does not seem strange to Lorna because she has known him for some time?”
The probing, direct from one sister, more delicate from the other, went on, interrupted only briefly while they stopped at a millinery shop, a perfumer, and a warehouse specializing in feminine falderals. At the last, they inspected scarves and fans, delicate little aprons of silk and lace, glove tops to decorate the obligatory kid gloves, fichus to fill in the necklines of gowns, and miles and miles of ribbon to set off an ensemble. Lorna could not resist a pair of undersleeves and a collar of neutral-colored Brussels net trimmed with a double fall of point Duchesse, the set to be used to change the appearance of the gown she was wearing. But she could not be persuaded to buy the necktie of cherry-colored silk embroidered with gold braid and spotted with gold beads and bugles that Charlotte pressed upon her; nor would she look at muslin nightcaps, evening coronets with stars and feathers on buckram, a Zouave jacket and Garibaldi shirt, a short nightgown, coming merely to the knees, or an embroidered pen-wiper. Charlotte herself made no attempt to resist, nor did Elizabeth. It was almost better to endure more questions than to watch the thoughtless extravagance of the Lansing sisters.
As they were returning to the carriage, Charlotte suddenly caught Lorna’s arm, dragging her to a halt. “Look, there!”
Lorna turned in the direction indicated and saw a small, dainty woman dressed in black, wearing a black bonnet hung with veiling on her chestnut hair. She was just going into an apothecary shop.
“Yes?”
“That is Sara Morgan, or so she calls herself. They say she was a courier for Mrs. Greenhow and rode with messages between Washington and General Beauregard before the Battle of Bull Run.”
Rose Greenhow was a heroine revered throughout the South, a woman now imprisoned in Washington as a dangerous spy because of her activities.
“Miss Morgan doesn’t look well,” Lorna said.
“Perhaps it was the crossing. She has only just arrived from England, and they say she is looking for passage on a fast runner going to Wilmington. Can you imagine riding by yourself through enemy territory in the middle of the night? I think it’s the bravest thing I’ve ever heard! How I would adore to do the same, carrying messages rolled up in my hair.”
“I don’t suppose there was much danger,” Elizabeth said. “It’s doubtful in the extreme that a young and attractive lady would have been stopped, much less searched.”
“That doesn’t matter, though I can’t think it is entirely true,” Charlotte protested. “Only look at Mrs. Greenhow. And if there were no danger, it would not be half so romantic.”
“Get into the carriage,” Elizabeth said, her voice astringent, and do not be ridiculous.”
Their petty quarreling and quibbling did not cease until they drew up before the dressmaker’s. As the carriage came to a halt, Lorna knew a moment of trepidation; it was the shop of Mrs. Carstairs, the same she had visited with Ramon. She need not have worried, however. The woman greeted her as a valued customer on a footing equal to that of the Lansing sisters and without reference to the circumstances of her last visit to the shop.
Bolts of material were brought out, as were back issues of Godey’s Ladies Book and the Parisian journal La Mode Illustrée. Much time was consumed in choosing fabrics, styles, and colors, but finally it was done.
Charlotte was leafing through one of the fashion magazines as Mrs. Carstairs made careful note of their choices. The young girl gave a small leap in her seat, crying, “Elizabeth, Lorna, pray look. I must have it!”
The gown was of Swiss muslin strewn with dots made of copper thread. The style was simple, with a square neckline filled in with plain, gathered muslin, a buttoned bodice, ruffled sleeves to the elbow, and a gored skirt. Neckline, sleeves, skirt, and a matching shawl were banded with copper ribbon, and a copper satin sash finished the waist.
“Very nice,” Elizabeth conceded.
“It’s perfect!” Charlotte enthused. “So cool, so light, and marvelous for my coloring. Only think how divine it would be for a picnic.”
“If you are suggesting—” her sister began.
“Think what fun it would be! It’s been an age since we had one.”
“But, so close to the ball, remember! Mama will never agree.”
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“It need not be elaborate, only four or five couples. We could ride out to the caves. It will be so pleasant this time of year, and later may be too hot. Say you will help me persuade her, Elizabeth. Say you will!”
“Well, perhaps,” Elizabeth conceded, a speculative gleam in her eyes. “A picnic would be amusing; the gentlemen prefer the informality. And, as you say, we need not go to a deal of trouble.”
The parade of carriages left for the caves five days later. They were preceded by three wagons carrying provisions for the meal; the china, crystal, and silver utensils; the linen, tables, and baskets of food and wine; also, canvas chairs for lounging, large sun umbrellas, and the equipment for lawn croquet-and-roque and for badminton. There were also three footmen and a maid for serving and clearing away, and the Royal Victoria’s goombay musicians for entertainment. Behind the wagons, traveling a safe distance back to avoid the dust, came the carriages. Seven in number, each bore at least two ladies, sometimes three, with here and there a gentleman to keep them company. The other men of the party had elected to ride. A few kept pace with the carriages, exchanging comments and raillery with the occupants, while others raced from one end to the other of the slow-moving cortege.
Lorna rode with Charlotte and Elizabeth in the forward seat of the landau. What had at first seemed a trial, since she had to ride with her back to the horses, had turned into an advantage; she could face Ramon and Peter as they rode on either side, speaking to them without having to crane her neck to see them around the wide brim of her leghorn hat. Charlotte had not foreseen the difficulty when she had chosen her own bonnet of white chip straw with an extra wide poke. Elizabeth was in a better position since, depending on her parasol for protection from the sun’s rays, she wore only a Stuart cap of lace that came to a point on her forehead, failing in a graceful, lightweight cape over her shoulders.
It was a bright day, one of a seemingly endless series on the island. Lorna was glad of her hat, which shaded her eyes from the sun’s glare. She had bought it from one of the island women who displayed their wares in the arcade. Lightweight, but strong, with a muslin band and ties, it had cost a fraction of what she would have had to spend at a milliner’s. Though it was not fashionable, it was immensely practical, since it allowed the circulation of air through its loosely woven crown, and was not unbecoming with her simple muslin gown. Ramon and Peter wore similar headgear in the planter’s style, from the same source.
Love and Adventure Collection - Part 2 Page 20
