The Message in a Bottle Romance Collection

by Joanne Bischof

  “Yes.” Cal had no wish to extend the conversation, so he left it at that.

  “Good to have a home,” the sailor said then shifted the rope and went on about his job.

  Cal watched him, wondering at the odd exchange. The sailor’s words had been few, but somehow they brought comfort. It was good to have a home.

  He was leaving sooner than he’d expected, but it would still take nearly three weeks to get to New York, even on such a sleek frigate as this. He preferred not to take a larger British or French vessel. Although that might promise a more comfortable passage, the two nations were picking at one another again. It wouldn’t do to get caught in a battle or stalled by privateers from one side or the other.

  New York City likely offered as many woes as the ones Cal was leaving behind in Saint Kitts, but at least it offered a deep sense of familiarity. His family was gone: his father and older brothers lost in the war, his mother having followed by sheer will and pneumonia that set in the first winter after the war. But he still had a variety of cousins left in New York, one of whom was caring for the home Cal had left behind when he’d gone to Edinburgh to study medicine.

  America didn’t pretend to be the kind of paradise Eden might once have been, the way all these islands did with their sparkling beaches and flowers and birds and sun. All of the sins and blemishes in America were as blatant as the freedom it offered. So long as a person arrived in freedom, America didn’t promise anything more than what could be earned.

  A peaceful home and the chance to heal others: that was all Cal wanted now.

  It was hard for Abigail not to blame Mindia for this sudden, unwanted turn in life. After all, if Mindia hadn’t been so chatty with Father last Sunday and invited them to her family’s country estate on the Hudson, Father might never have pondered sending Abigail there.

  It was, however, impossible to be angry with Mindia Pipperday. If Abigail had a thousand friends instead of only one, Mindia would still be her dearest. She was two years younger than Abigail, and kind and clever and pretty, too. It was no surprise she’d been proposed to four times since her parents had introduced her to New York’s elite last year. Indecisiveness was one of Mindia’s few flaws: She’d confessed to Abigail that whenever she was with a young man, she was sure it was he whom she should marry. Until a half hour later, when enjoying the company of another young man…

  “I think it’s positively magnificent that your father insisted you come, Abigail,” said Mindia as they sipped lemon tea on Mindia’s terrace.

  “Magnificent, Mindia? A sunset is magnificent, a work of art, a symphony. What my father did by banishing me is—well, it’s nearly unforgivable.”

  Mindia put on an exaggerated pout. “Thank you so very much for categorizing your visit here as banishment.” Then her pout disappeared in favor of one of her familiarly dazzling smiles. “Darling girl, I’ll tell you what is magnificent about your father’s action. He cannot talk to anyone five minutes without admitting how much he depends on your help. With your patients in the neighborhood, in his medicine room, or even at the hospital. You are, by his own admission, an extension of what he hopes to accomplish on any given day. Do you not see what a sacrifice it is for him to give you up for an entire summer? Since when is love not simply magnificent?”

  Abigail rolled her eyes. Another flaw of Mindia’s was her penchant for embellishment. “Please let me hold on to my anger just a little bit longer. It’s the way he’s gone about it, sending me here without considering my objections. I’d have gotten round to socializing in my own good time.”

  Abigail had barely finished the last word before Mindia laughed in a most unladylike manner, loud and guffawish. She reached across the table and grabbed one of Abigail’s hands. “Don’t you realize this is the life your mother expected her daughter to have? Her mother, your grandmother, would have been appalled that you never received proper training. I heard my mother say so.”

  Had Mother lived, Abigail’s life would have been far different; she knew that. She didn’t want to call being motherless a benefit, since she no doubt would have loved her mother. Father said she’d been the most wonderful woman in New York, and he’d always been grateful she’d let him marry her—a humble doctor marrying the daughter of a wealthy shipping magnate. That didn’t happen every day, he’d said.

  But Mother, and her parents, too, were long since gone, having left Abigail, her brothers, and her father with enough money to live like the Pipperdays. Instead, all of them went Father’s way: practicing medicine, living comfortably but simply.

  Why was she the only one to be thrust into a way of life not of her choosing?

  “It’s just that I’m not comfortable with the kind of society my mother must have enjoyed. I’ve never been part of it.”

  After letting go of Abigail’s hand, Mindia patted it. “In three weeks we return to New York, and our house will be teeming with guests for our Independence Day gala. That gives us—me, you, my lady’s maid, and my dressmaker—three weeks in which to transform you from a first-rate physician to a first-rate lady. In fact, we might as well start right now, since we’re approaching the task several years behind schedule.”

  She grabbed Abigail’s hand again, running a thumb over her knuckles. Even Abigail had to admit they were rough and red, not smooth and white like Mindia’s. But following her father’s habit to wash them often demanded a price.

  “Come with me.”

  Abigail had little choice but to obey, since Mindia still held her rough hand captive. Upstairs in Mindia’s room, her friend introduced her to a new sort of medicine, even though many were of the botanical variety she and Father preferred. But these offered remedies she’d never considered: scented lotions for her skin, cool cucumbers for her eyes, flower fragrances for her pulse points, the right kind of oils for her hair. By bedtime, Abigail was afraid she would slip right out of the satiny bedsheets and land in a heap on the floor.

  Chapter Three

  For three exhausting weeks, Abigail succumbed to every beautification ritual tried or rumored from various schools and society clubs to which Mindia Pipperday belonged. Abigail suffered egg whites painted on her face at night, rather enjoyed the added herbs to her bathwater, but drew the limit at the extravagant wastefulness of milk baths. She giggled with Mindia over remedies they found in an ancient book from her mother’s library on Egyptian beauty secrets. The use of crocodile or nightingale dung made them both erupt into fits of laughter that would likely have invited censure had Mindia’s so-called school for ladies been real.

  In spite of Mindia’s happy company, Abigail missed her father. She found the pain of separation that much sharper whenever an opportunity to carry on the work she’d learned from him presented itself. A stable boy fell and broke his arm, something Abigail set before any other help could be summoned. Cook’s assistant burned a finger, and Abigail used one of Mindia’s beauty ointments in a far more practical manner, having noticed it smelled much like the salve she’d left behind in the city.

  Unexpectedly, dancing turned out to be Abigail’s favorite subject. Accompanied by Mrs. Pipperday at the pianoforte and one rather shy but skilled fiddler from the village, Mindia proved herself an admirable instructor. While the minuet was complicated but almost conquerable, Abigail found the contra dance outright fun. She was fairly exhausted by the end of each day but every morning woke so invigorated that she wondered if the fresh country air, regular meals, and unprecedented exercise weren’t the best prescription for good health.

  Seeing Mindia interact with her mother sharpened an ache Abigail had long tried to ignore, stirring thoughts of a mother she’d never known but somehow always missed. Yet it was hard to long for one kind of life if it meant giving up the other.

  She used to think of the marriage market as frivolous and of little benefit to women. But Mindia and her mother talked of marriage as more than just the fruition of flirtation, more than the fulfillment of a little girl’s wedding-day dreams. They wer
e alliances for a stronger future, the fabric of this new American life where generations to come would be nurtured and taught and equipped to meet challenges everyone faced; and to raise up the next crop of children to carry on under a government far less authoritarian than any other before it.

  “Mindia,” said Abigail on a stroll along the river, “you and your mother have opened my eyes to so much. But you know, don’t you, that for me to find a husband who would put up with me working with my father, carrying on after he’s gone, is a nearly insurmountable task?”

  “All you need is to be so irresistible that potential husbands will agree to your stipulations. It’s what you’ll demand of yourself that I see as the biggest challenge, not finding a man who will ‘put up with you,’ as you say.”

  Abigail sighed. “If all you’ve taught me these last weeks doesn’t help me to succeed, then I’ll just find a way to convince my father marriage isn’t for me. The future of America will be fine in the hands of women like you.”

  Mindia laughed. “Be the coquette I taught you to be, and you’ll have men lining up with proposals in hand. They’ll happily accept your aspirations, just wait and see!”

  After three weeks away, Abigail returned home—just a few days before her first Independence Day ball. Father was as glad to see Abigail as she was to see him, until, after dinner, a familiar, concerned light reappeared in his eyes.

  “You know, don’t you, darling,” he began tentatively, “that it’s best for you to continue staying with the Pipperdays? Even here, back in the city?”

  She’d half expected this, since Mindia hinted her mother’s understanding was that Abigail was to be their guest for the entire summer. But Abigail had hoped her father would be so happy to see her he’d have changed his mind.

  “You haven’t discovered you can do without me, have you?” she asked.

  His gentle laugh warmed her heart; she’d pined for it these past weeks. “I do miss you, of course. But this is for your own good. How can you attend a ball unescorted? You know I cannot accompany you, at least not regularly. At the Pipperdays’, you’ll be one of the family, escorted as Mindia will be.”

  Abigail tilted her head to regard her father. He’d avoided looking in her eyes before speaking, but now, seeing her study him, he returned her gaze in earnest. In that moment, she believed what Mindia had said all those days ago, that her father was sacrificing more than she knew. “Magnificent,” she’d called it.

  Well, maybe so.

  “I’ll find a husband, Father, if it’ll please you. But only if he’ll let me work at your side.”

  “Now, Abigail, no sense putting limits on your choices. You must follow your heart where it leads. Perhaps you’ll find marriage will keep you busy enough without working all day.”

  “I am following my heart by only considering a marriage that will allow me to carry on at your side.” She dabbed the corner of her mouth with her napkin. “Tomorrow night is my first test, a smaller soiree at the home of a Pipperday acquaintance, as practice for the larger Independence Day ball the night after. You will accompany me tomorrow night, won’t you?” She didn’t dare ask him to attend the Pipperday gala on the night when their medicine room fairly bustled with emergencies every Fourth of July.

  He nodded. “Yes, darling. Tomorrow night, no matter what, I’ll fill the role that I should have before now.”

  Just inside his old front door, Cal dropped the seabag he’d carried from the Battery Park docks. He placed his small medical satchel on top. He’d hadn’t brought much with him from the tropics, leaving behind many of his books, most of his equipment, even some of the light-weave clothing so well suited to hot weather. The man who’d taken his place would have far more need of all that than Cal would; whatever Cal required he could replace easily enough here in New York.

  He hadn’t bothered to knock—this was, after all, his home. He was only a little surprised to find the front door unlocked. Back when he’d lived here, just after the war ended and the Brits had been cast out from their occupation of the city, he’d heard his mother say she was weary of hiding behind locked doors. Perhaps his cousin had carried on with his mother’s sentiments.

  Noise of his arrival did, however, summon a butler. Not the one Cal remembered, but the man could only be a servant based upon his manner of dress.

  “I beg your pardon?” the man inquired, looking not exactly alarmed, but wary.

  “I’m Calvin Tallery,” he announced. “Owner of this home. Is my cousin here? Early Goodwin?”

  “Mr. Goodwin is not at home, sir. He’s on commission at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Pierpont.”

  Cal lifted a brow. “Is he now? So he’s gained success with his art, then, since I’ve last been home?”

  The butler’s gaze shifted away, and he smoothed a lapel that needed no attention. “I shall let you be the judge of that, sir, according to Mr. Goodwin’s account of himself. Now, is there any way I can be of assistance to you? My name is Hogarth, and I’ve been in Mr. Goodwin’s—er, should I say, your—employ for two years now.”

  “I’d like a bath in my room, the clothes in this satchel laundered—all but the linen shirt and gray trousers, which I will wear after my bath. Also, have Mrs. Downing send up something for me to eat. She is still here, I hope?”

  “Oh, yes sir. I’m sure she’ll be pleased at your return.”

  Cal was three steps up when it occurred to him he might need to know another thing or two.

  “Cousin Early—that is, Mr. Goodwin—which bedchamber is he using?”

  “The master’s suite, sir. He finds the light pleasing for his painting.”

  Just as well. Cal wouldn’t have taken his parents’ bedroom anyway. Still, it would be hard to return to the room he’d shared with his two brothers, knowing he’d never have their company again this side of heaven.

  “You’re positively the most beautiful girl in attendance tonight.”

  Her father’s words couldn’t be true, but he’d always had a way of convincing Abigail he was sincere. That was enough for a cloud to slip under her feet so she practically floated into the room, just behind Mindia and her parents.

  By the fourth dance of the ball at the home of a Pipperday associate, Abigail forgot to worry about steps still new to her. Mindia was right; movement came naturally if she listened to the music. During the course of the evening, she discovered a part of her she never knew existed: one who knew to laugh at just the right times, who could send the blood rushing to an attentive gentleman’s cheeks with the bat of her eye, who could feign feminine weakness to sit out a minuet in favor of lighthearted conversation or refreshment.

  Before the midnight supper was served, Mindia pronounced to Father that Abigail wasn’t only a success, she was a much finer pupil than Mindia herself had ever been. She cast Abigail an excitedly conspiratorial wink.

  “You’re the talk of the night! Everyone is impressed and intrigued. What a perfect prelude to our Independence Day gala tomorrow where we introduce you to all of our friends!”

  Abigail was almost looking forward to it, if she didn’t let herself ponder the possibility of failing to catch a husband—that was, after all, the whole idea. What a waste of time this summer would prove to be if she failed! Even if this party was more enjoyable than expected and dancing fun, she couldn’t help but think how busy her father must be without her.

  Mindia must have sensed her wandering attention, because she tapped Abigail’s wrist with her fan. Then she leaned closer to whisper, “I can name three gentlemen who will likely ask for your hand before the end of this year.”

  Abigail followed Mindia’s gaze. She saw three men in the vicinity, each of whom she’d danced with at least once. Reginald Marks, Ordell Lebsock, and Montague Barteau.

  “Montague Barteau!” she fairly hissed. “He can’t tear his gaze from a lady’s form to speak to a woman eye-to-eye.”

  Mindia flipped open her fan to hide a giggle, no doubt hoping no one heard their whispers.
“Not him, silly. There is Reginald, Ordell, and DeWitt Henshaw. He’s a bit old, but that could work in your favor. He’ll likely be so grateful for your hand he’d let you spend your days as you wish.”

  Abigail sighed. Marriage to any one of the three didn’t make her heart so much as flutter. Wasn’t there supposed to be some of that when it came to marriage? According to Mindia, a heart could flutter faster than any fan could cool her. Oh, to feel that way, at least once, as if her heart had wings…

  Yet Mindia might be right about her choices. For being so indecisive, she was being surprisingly sensible on Abigail’s behalf.

  “What about you, Miss Fickle?” she asked Mindia. “Many young men here tonight would ask for your hand if you winked their way, including the three you seem to want to share with me.”

  Mindia gave a swift, feminine shrug—a movement that vanished quickly enough to avoid the attention of her mother, who stood nearby with Abigail’s father. “I have plenty of time,” she said. “My father hasn’t set a deadline, after all. Besides, you have more stipulations than I do. Your marriage will be fairly unconventional. That means one thing: you must choose someone who will fall so madly, hopelessly in love with you that he won’t hesitate to let you do as you please.”

  Now it was Abigail’s turn to use her fan to hide a barely suppressed chortle. “That should be easy!”

  Mindia narrowed her eyes. “I’m not jesting, Abigail. Don’t doubt yourself. Finding a man who won’t keep you too close to home is no laughing matter.”

  “And it’s likely not a realistic matter, either,” she said. “Where am I to find such a generous husband?”

  Mindia closed her fan then grinned. “Not to worry, my dear. This is only the first of many parties for you. Wait until tomorrow night! We’ve only begun.”

  That evening, bathed, shaved, fed, and with his legs becoming more accustomed to New York’s terra firma, Cal sat at the writing desk in the parlor. He composed a note to Dr. Daniel Van de Klerk, letting him know of his arrival and that he would be available to work with him as soon as possible. Cal had never been one to put off working.