The Bride Takes a Groom

by Lisa Berne

  “Let me think.” Mrs. Penhallow was silent for a few moments, then said, a little doubtfully, “There is something. I’m so busy with these gowns! But I wonder if it might be tedious for you. Papa—my father—has written several letters of appeal to potential benefactors, and as he often does, has asked me to look over his drafts. He says his mind moves more quickly than his quill, and so quite often his writing isn’t as polished as he would wish.”

  “I’d be happy to do that,” said Katherine, and it was true. How infinitely better a task than sewing!

  “They’re on my little escritoire—do you see them? Please feel free to mark up any phrases or sentences you think aren’t quite up to snuff. Papa won’t mind. In fact, I’m sure he’ll be grateful to you.”

  At once Katherine rose and set aside the wad of fabric, and went to sit at Mrs. Penhallow’s escritoire. She heard, from outside, birds singing. The far-off voice of old Hoyt talking affectionately to one of the horses. Eliza, in the corridor, softly humming as she went. Katherine picked up the first letter. She began to read. A little later she lifted up the lid of the inkpot and into it she dipped a quill. Carefully, in the margins, she began to write.

  Hugo walked along Duke Street toward the harbor, whistling a little. His left leg, he noticed cheerfully, hurt him not at all these days. It was a bright, clear day and the wharves were busy and noisy, the sounds of human voices intercut with the loud, distinctive cries of the gulls.

  He stepped onto the old stone quay where two collier-boats lay at anchor, a dozen or so brawny men loading them with coal. Beyond the colliers, further out in the harbor, were several long, low smacks, back from a fishing run, and a successful one: the wells were crowded with mackerel. A flat-bottomed ketch was maneuvering its way out toward the open sea, and alongside the quay beyond that, two low hay-boats lay ready for departure, the tall stacks of baled hay well-covered with tarps.

  He looked over to the next quay, where a dry-dock floated. A new ship was in the process of being constructed, long, triple-masted, with a deep and capacious hold. He was eyeing it thoughtfully when someone said:

  “A beauty, isn’t she?”

  A stout middle-aged man had come to stand next to him, a little rumpled in his old-fashioned jacket and breeches, but his eyes keen and alert in his sun-browned face.

  “It is,” answered Hugo, “but there’s a problem with the rigging.”

  The other man’s look sharpened. “How so?”

  “Do you see how the spars aren’t precisely perpendicular to the keel and the masts? It’ll slow her down.”

  “By God, you’re right,” said the other man, frowning. “They’re not square.”

  “Which means the primary driving sails won’t function properly.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned. You’re a Navy man? You’ve the look of the military about you.”

  “Army,” said Hugo, holding out his hand. “Eight years in the Americas. Captain Hugo Penhallow, sir, at your service.”

  The other man shook his hand with a firm grip. “Will Studdart. Newly arrived, formerly of Liverpool. I’ve seen you around here quite a bit, Captain. Looking at the ships. Fond of ’em?”

  Hugo nodded. “Very.”

  “You live here, then?”

  “Yes. Whitehaven born and bred.”

  “Know the winds and tides?”

  Hugo nodded again. “I spent so much time here as a boy it’s in my blood, seems like.”

  “Looking to buy a sailboat, are you? For the summer months?”

  “That’s a grand idea, but no.” He smiled. “To own the truth, sir, I come here to daydream, I suppose. There were times, back then, when I’d have sold my very eyeteeth to become a sailor.”

  Will Studdart looked at him consideringly. Then he said, his voice casual: “So how would you fix those spars?”

  Hugo thought about it. “It would be tempting to try and leave them in and adjust them by the pin connections only, but you’d risk an inexact fix. I’d take them off and start over again. It would take longer, but it’s bound to produce a better result.”

  “I agree. What would you do if the keel started to overbalance once the masts were all in place?”

  “I’d take a hard look at its central timber and its relationship to the hull.”

  “And if it was faulty?”

  “Well, you could try to set it correctly again, using blocks, but if it’s not completely right you should dismantle it.”

  Will Studdart nodded, and continued to fire questions at him. How would he adjust the mainsail if the winds sent a ship toward the shallows? What would he do if the hull-to-deck joint began leaking? How many crew would he hire for a three-masted ship?

  Amused, Hugo answered to the best of his ability, feeling as if he was back at school again, but as a student being examined on a subject he loved rather than loathed.

  Finally Will Studdart said, “Come have a drink with me,” and Hugo agreed. Together they made their way to the Blue Dolphin where, seated at a table near a window, open wide to admit the summer breeze, Hugo and Will each had a tankard of ale. Hugo wondered if his new friend could afford to stand him a drink and said:

  “Let me pay for it, sir.”

  “Nonsense. You’ve pointed out a problem which will prevent me from making a costly mistake.”

  “You, sir?”

  Will Studdart smiled. “Yes. She’s my ship. The Arcadia. A fast merchant clipper, fourteen hundred tons when complete. We’ve lost so many ships to the war, and trade’s been suffering. Liverpool’s all for naval vessels these days, which is why I came here to build my ships.”

  “Utilizing also, unless I miss my guess, the proximity of the brickworks, coal mines, and salt works,” Hugo said, nodding. “And the raw wool. All needing to be shipped out.”

  “Yes, that’s right.” Will finished off his ale, and set down his tankard with a thump. “I’ve asked you a lot of questions, Captain. Now I have just one more.”

  “My dear Katherine, this is wonderful,” exclaimed Mr. Mantel, looking up from the letters which she had annotated with care. He sat at his desk in his study at the parsonage, an unpretentious, cluttered room in which Katherine at once felt at home, no doubt in part, she thought, to simply being around all those shelves and shelves of books. But also because of how warmly Mr. Mantel had greeted her, and ushered her to a seat across from him.

  “My notes are helpful to you, sir? I was worried that I overstepped myself.”

  “Not at all! It’s brilliant work. You’re right about that second paragraph in this letter to Felix Cobb, for one thing, its constructions were quite awkward, and how nicely you’ve altered the closing. And in this letter to Lady Denniston, you’ve reworked the opening paragraph to much better effect. The appeal for their support is much clearer now.”

  A glow came over Katherine then, and into her mind floated up a little snippet from her conversation with Livia that day at breakfast at Surmont Hall. Livia had been talking about her busy life there. I enjoy it. For one thing, we’re all working together as a family. Then, it had been an unfathomable concept. But here, now, was something she had enjoyed very much indeed. For what was better than words and sentences, paper and ink? And she and Mr. Mantel were working together; she had been helpful to him. Katherine looked at her hands—on the fingers an ink-stain here and there, the nails still short but not quite as gnawed-upon as they had been—and she found herself admiring their strength, their capableness. She said:

  “I’m so glad, sir. Would you like me to write out clean copies of the letters for you?”

  “That would be marvelous, my dear! But only if you include all your changes, alter ‘I’ to ‘we’ throughout, and sign the letters also. You are truly my coauthor.”

  “You’re—you’re certain?”

  “Yes indeed! You’ve helped me immeasurably.”

  “Then I will. It’s an honor, sir.” Katherine smiled back at him. “I’ll get started right away.”

  After dinn
er, the family gathered, as it always did, in the library. As she crossed the threshold Katherine looked around as if seeing it for the first time, as if her vision had been dulled during her first weeks here, so consumed had she been by the anger roiling within her. What a pleasant room it was, with its books and paintings and comfortable chairs and sofas, a big soft rug underfoot, and heavy drapes left open to admit the still-bright summer sun.

  The dogs, in their own now-familiar ritual, had gathered on the hearthrug, and Gwendolyn knelt there too, playing with the puppy which was noticeably less thin thanks to her tender ministrations. Hugo was sitting on one of the sofas, his long legs stretched out on an ottoman, and nearby was Mrs. Penhallow, sewing yet another blue gown for the charity home; Bertram was here, too, curled up in an armchair and deep into a great thick book about metallurgy.

  A book.

  What a good idea.

  It seemed like forever since she’d last held one in her hands.

  Katherine turned to look at the shelves crowded with volumes of all sizes. Why, there were hundreds of them. And she was sure that Mr. Mantel would let her borrow from his extensive library too. That lingering ache at having to relinquish so many of her books when in London, that abiding sorrow, vanished. She went closer to the shelves.

  Oh, so many friends, and strangers, delightful strangers, here! Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake. Jane Porter’s The Scottish Chiefs. Immanuel Kant’s Logik. Anne Louise Germaine de Staël’s De l’Allemagne. Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. William Wordsworth’s Guide to the Lakes. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Zastrozzi. The complete works of Shakespeare, unedited, how marvelous, and here was La Divina Commedia, in the original Italian, and even one of Maria Edgeworth’s famous novels. She pulled it from the shelf and lovingly ran her fingers across the worn burgundy binding. “The delicious Castle Rackrent! With that horrid Sir Kit! I haven’t read this in ages. I must reread it.”

  Quickly Gwendolyn looked up. “I was going to do that.”

  “Oh, were you? Never mind then. Here’s The Lay of the Last Minstrel. I’ll read that instead.”

  “That was a gift to me from Grandpapa,” said Gwendolyn. “I was going to bring it up to my room.”

  “Gwennie darling,” Mrs. Penhallow said, but Katherine moved away from the shelves, saying pleasantly, “I’ve changed my mind. Bertram, may I read your Journal of Natural Philosophy?”

  “Certainly,” said Bertram, not looking up from his book, and Katherine picked it up from a side table and went to sit next to Hugo, noticing, as she did so, the little frowning sideways glance which Gwendolyn gave her. Why was she doing that?

  Hugo said, “I stopped at the parsonage on the way home and Grandpapa was full of praise for how you helped him.”

  “What did she do?” asked Gwendolyn.

  “Katherine made emendations to letters Grandpapa had written to some philanthropists he’s hoping will help support the charity home. And she’s going to help him with an essay he’s writing for the Eclectic Review.”

  “I could do that,” Gwendolyn said. “Grandpapa says I write beautifully.”

  Hugo looked a little fixedly at her but said nothing. She lifted her chin and went on:

  “You promised to go riding with me today, Hugo, and you didn’t.”

  “He didn’t promise,” said Bertram without raising his head. “You asked him, but then I started talking about John Locke, and Eliza came in to take away the plates, and Aunt Verena didn’t want us to go swimming in the ocean.”

  “Which reminds me.” Gwendolyn gave him a belligerent look. “I saw you at the beach last night with Hugo and Katherine.”

  “Yes, and what of it?”

  “Nobody invited me.”

  “Nobody invited me, either, but I just went. You could have come too, you know. Katherine and I had the most ripping conversation about the Gulf Stream.”

  “Of course you did,” said Gwendolyn, then abruptly burst into tears. She moved the puppy from her lap onto the floor, shot to her feet, and fled the room.

  “Oh dear,” Mrs. Penhallow said, her hands stilled at her sewing. “Katherine, my dear, I’m so sorry. Fourteen is such an awkward age, isn’t it? I remember how I used to blurt out the most dreadful things and feel so awful afterwards.”

  “There’s no need to apologize, ma’am,” Katherine answered. “I only hope I haven’t offended Gwendolyn in some way.”

  Mrs. Penhallow looked rather startled. “How could you have?”

  Cook came in then, through the door Gwendolyn had left open, advancing with her usual magisterial bearing and in her hands a platter of her delectable almond biscuits, redolent of cinnamon and mace. “Miss Gwendolyn’s run off next door, madam, to the Becks’ house,” she remarked to Mrs. Penhallow. “Thought you ought to know.” She set the platter on a low table near the sofa on which Katherine and Hugo sat, surveyed her handiwork with a kind of doleful satisfaction, added, as if at random, “Butcher’s wife says Brooke House has been sold,” and left the library.

  There was a brief silence.

  “Almond biscuits,” said Bertram, “how jolly,” and took three.

  “Oh, Katherine dear,” Mrs. Penhallow said, “I am so sorry.”

  “Don’t be, ma’am.” Katherine leaned forward to pick up the platter which she held out to her and then to Hugo. They each took a biscuit, she took one for herself, and put the platter back on the table. “It was a ghastly place. I don’t miss it in the least. If you could have seen my bedchamber! It was like being trapped in a mausoleum.” She leaned back against the sofa and nibbled on her biscuit, then jumped when a little, sharp voice said from below:

  “Bring the spring upon ’er, matey.”

  It was Señor Rodrigo, staring up at her with his beady black eyes.

  Katherine looked back at him. Then at her biscuit. She broke off a piece and with extreme caution, recalling Aunt Verena’s comment about how Rodrigo had almost taken off her finger, held it out to him. Visibly mellowing, Señor Rodrigo accepted it in one of his sharp claws and greedily ate it. Then he climbed onto the toe of her slipper and demanded:

  “Kiss me, you saucy wench.”

  Katherine smiled. “I won’t. But you can have some more of my biscuit.” She gave him another piece, and when he had finished that, bravely held out her finger to him near his claws. He chuckled and stepped onto her finger, allowing himself to be borne upwards and established on her lap. They looked at each other.

  “I once had a hat that was trimmed with a green feather,” she told him. “It reminded me of you. Why don’t you have more feathers, pequeño amigo?”

  Señor Rodrigo only chuckled again, and so the subject was dropped. They shared another biscuit, the dogs lay huddled in a drowsy mass on the hearthrug, Bertram turned a page in his book, Hugo smiled at her, looking more handsome than ever, and it occurred to Katherine, then, that the bees were gone.

  My God, she thought in wonderment.

  Gone, gone, gone.

  Inside her was, instead, a kind of . . .

  It took her a little while to come up with a word for it.

  Peacefulness.

  Inside her she felt . . . peaceful.

  Bertram said, “How fascinating. The earliest known use of copper smelting is at a site called Belovode, in Russia. They found a copper axe that’s believed to be six thousand years old.”

  He turned another page.

  “Dearest Hugo,” said Mrs. Penhallow, “you seem great with news.”

  He looked at her, smiling. “I am. I’ve got a job.”

  Chapter 17

  “A job?” his mother echoed in surprise, and Hugo nodded.

  “Why are you taking on a job, Hugo?” Bertram said. “I thought you had an income thanks to your marriage settlements.”

  “Oh, Hugo, is there not enough money?” exclaimed Katherine, looking anxious.

  “We’re fine. An offer came my way today rather unexpectedly, and it sounds like such a lark I had to
say yes.”

  “What kind of job is it, Hugo dearest?” Mama asked.

  “I’m going to be helping build some merchant ships.”

  “Helping?” repeated Katherine. “How, Hugo? And where?”

  “Here in Whitehaven. There’s a fellow come from Liverpool, and I’m to oversee the work.” He laughed. “I may climb a rigging yet and fulfill an old ambition.”

  “Blimey,” said Señor Rodrigo, and looked at Hugo with such bright-eyed alertness that he laughed again.

  “You’re going to enjoy it, Hugo, do you think?” asked Katherine.

  “A great deal, I believe. I can’t sit about, as you know. And it’s not about the money, either—I asked for stock in Will Studdart’s firm rather than payment. Oh, and I’ve invited Will to supper on Thursday, if that will suit you, Mama.”

  “Of course it does. Has he any family to bring as well?”

  “No, none. He lost his wife several years ago, and they’d no children.”

  “Poor man! We’ll do our best to make him welcome.”

  “I know you will,” he said, and Katherine asked:

  “When do you begin, Hugo?”

  “Whenever I wish.”

  “There’s something I’d like to do tomorrow, if you’re able to join me.”

  “Of course. What is it?”

  “I want to go see Brooke House. Not to go inside, naturally, but just to look at it.” Katherine’s voice was calm, even casual, and so Hugo merely nodded, as if this was but a routine, everyday request, and said:

  “Shall we ride there?”

  “Oh, is it too long a walk for you?” In her voice was now a teasing note.

  Hugo grinned. “A great walker, are you?”

  “I believe I am. I find I do some very good thinking while I’m walking.”

  “Aristotle,” said Bertram, “was apparently such a proponent of walking that he used to lecture his students while strolling around the Athens Lyceum. That’s how his school of philosophy got its name, you know—the Peripatetic School, derived from peripatêtikos, which is Greek for ‘given to walking about.’” He took two more biscuits. “I say, these are good, aren’t they?” And then he went back to his metallurgy book.