Sea Jade

by Phyllis A. Whitney

Not all of this came out so exactly in the policeman’s rambling and somewhat apologetic words. But I could read well enough between the lines. It was, he said, his duty to inform me of the trend of such talk. Maybe only gossip, or maybe there was something to it. This he was here to find out.

  I sat on the edge of a chair with my hands folded in my lap and heard him in disbelief. What made the experience seem all the more dreadful was the fact that Brock should sit beside me in silence, watching, listening, yet never coming to my aid with so much as a word—though he was the one who must know the truth of my story.

  “I don’t understand what you mean,” I said when the roundabout account was finished. “If you think that I somehow ran the length of the ship and pushed Mr. Henderson off that ladder, intending to kill him, you must be out of your mind.”

  Brock stirred restively in his chair. “Just give him an account of what happened, Miranda. Tell your story—as you told it to me.”

  As you told it to me. Were those the key words? Did they mean that I was to mention nothing else I might have heard—such as footsteps sounding overhead? Or the betraying words spoken by a dying man?

  I did as I was told and the two men listened with so little expression on their faces that I could not tell whether I was believed or disbelieved. I explained that I had come aboard the Pride looking for Tom Henderson because he might have information about my father. Brock made a snorting sound that immediately stiffened my spine.

  “Tom Henderson was first mate on the Sea Jade’s maiden voyage,” I said with more spirit. “I might have learned something of value from the man if his tongue had not been silenced by his fall.”

  “Please go on with your account,” the officer said.

  I told him I had not gone forward in the ship until I heard the resounding crash of Tom’s fall. By the time I reached him he was gasping his last few breaths. Again I said nothing of hearing steps overhead, nothing of Tom’s mumbled words. But I did add somewhat heatedly that I knew nothing of the man that would make me want to injure him, that I was small and light, and would certainly lack the strength to push anyone so burly to his death.

  Officer Dudley eyed me soberly for a moment. “It’d take no great strength with a man so placed. Pretty easy, it would be, to push him off balance.”

  “I wasn’t anywhere near him when he fell!” I cried. “This whole thing is ridiculous. I had no reason to wish him ill. I’ve never wanted to injure anyone in my life.”

  The policeman sighed. “I told ’em you’d say as much.” He stood up and looked at Brock. “Guess you don’t need to worry none, since there ain’t a mite of evidence. While there could be those about who had no liking for old Tom, there’s no way of telling if one o’ them was down in that hold today. You sure you didn’t hear something while you were down there, Mrs. McLean?”

  “There was a lot of noise,” I hedged. “Some of the stones rolled after he fell. And I made some noise myself, running. Besides, the whole ship creaks and groans all the time.”

  “Not the sort of noise I mean,” he said.

  Brock showed the man to the door. I stayed where I was until he returned, my indignation surging hotly. The moment he appeared I hurled at him the angry words I had held back while the policeman was present.

  “Why didn’t you help me? Why didn’t you say your wife was incapable of murder? Why did you sit there and let him insult me with such horrible suspicions?”

  He stood in the doorway, waiting until I ran down. There was something of his mother’s look about him today—that opaque stare that gave nothing away.

  “You were doing all right on your own,” he said. “You needed no help.”

  “What if that policeman had wanted to take me off to jail?” I demanded. “What if—”

  “He didn’t,” Brock said curtly. “I knew he wouldn’t. Have you anything else to say to me?”

  In a moment he would be gone from my reach, and I hurried on, my words atumble.

  “Yes—yes, I have! Will you tell me, please, why no one has ever let me know that I was born here at Bascomb’s Point? Why no one has ever told me that it was in this very house my mother died?”

  His air of impatience lessened a little and he came a step or two into the room. “Perhaps you never asked,” he said reasonably. “Perhaps we never realized you didn’t know.”

  “Of course I didn’t know!” I told him. “Not a word has anyone ever spoken to me of these facts. And I don’t understand why. It would seem natural for you to speak of it. Certainly it seems strange that your mother has never brought up the subject.”

  “She wouldn’t,” he said. “Though I remember the time well enough. I was a boy of fourteen when they brought your mother here.”

  He was silent for a moment, as if remembering, and I saw the tight lines about his mouth loosen surprisingly. When he spoke again a touch of the Scottish burr had come into his speech.

  “I remember what a bonny wee babe you were. Not wrinkled and red, but a rosy babe who knew how to laugh from the beginning. Your disposition was better then—though I’ll admit you could raise the roof with your yelling when something annoyed you.”

  I heard him, amazed—more astonished by this unexpected softness toward me than by his words.

  “What of my mother?” I prompted.

  “Matters did not go well with her—the birth and afterwards. But you were the darling of all our hearts for a time. Captain Obadiah doted on you and envied Nathaniel his fathering of you. He brought in not one doctor, but three to attend your mother, though nothing could be done to save her. She faded quickly and three days later she was dead. So we kept you with us until your father came home from his voyage and took you away. Perhaps knowing you as a babe helped to influence the captain’s feeling of responsibility toward you later.” Brock’s face darkened as though some memory troubled him. “Especially since you suffered a mishap in this house.”

  “A mishap? What do you mean?”

  “Do you perhaps have upon your person the scar of an old injury?” he asked.

  Taken by surprise, I clapped a hand to my shoulder and he saw the gesture.

  “It could hardly be otherwise,” he said, and the new gentleness went out of him. Once more he was about to turn away.

  “Wait, please! Will you tell me how it happened?” I pleaded.

  “I will not,” he said and the dark look was upon him again.

  “Then I’ll talk to your mother,” I told him and started past him through the doorway. “I want to know more about the time when my mother lay ill in this house. I want to know—”

  He caught me by the arm and whirled me about so that I stood close to him in the doorway. “You’ll do nothing of the sort, my lass! You’ll say nothing at all to my mother. The shock of what has happened aboard the Pride has upset her sufficiently as it is. She is in her room with a headache and I won’t have all that’s old and painful dredged up to hurt her again. She has enough to bear.”

  I tried to pull out of his grasp, but he held me with both hands and shook me a little, so that my head fell back and I looked into angry eyes that commanded my own until I went limp, ceasing to fight, ceasing to resist him. Incongruously, held like that, I felt an unexpected and disturbing desire to go into his arms and be comforted there. If only he would be gentle with me, if only he would be kind. But he set me away from him and went out of the house, his eyes still clouded with some inner fury, his jaw set and stern.

  I leaned my head against the door jamb and tried to right my dizzied senses. I did not like what could happen to me with this man. How could I hate him so thoroughly, and with such good reason, yet be drawn to him so that in the midst of anger I was conscious of the touch of him and wanted to be held close in his arms? So that I looked at his mouth and wondered how it would feel to be kissed by him? Despising myself, feeling that such thoughts betrayed my father, I drew the parlor door shut and went into the quiet haven of the library where I could be alone and think about the revelati
ons that had been made to me. I did not want to think more about my own intense reaction to Brock McLean.

  I was sitting there in the gloom, without fire or candle, with only lamplight from the hall faintly penetrating the darkness, when Ian hurried into the house and came looking for me. He found me there at once and lighted a lamp. Then he came to me and took my hands in his.

  “You are all right, Miranda? I’ve just heard what has happened. I went over to the village for something to eat and learned about Tom Henderson.”

  “Then you’ve also heard that I pushed him off the ladder on purpose and that the town policeman came here to question me?”

  “Miranda—don’t. This absurdity will die down quickly enough. People like something new to gossip about and they say things they are sorry for later. Why did you go seeking the fellow? You could only ask for trouble.”

  I told him I had felt I must see Tom and find out anything he had to tell me. My love for my father, my loyalty to him would not allow me to accept as truth the dreadful accusation that still stood against his name. But not even to Ian did I utter the words that continued to stop on the tip of my tongue—what Tom had said before he died. And of the frightening sound of running I had heard overhead. I could not tell anyone. And still I did not understand why.

  Ian heard me with pity in his eyes and I knew he thought hopeless my quest for a truth that would exonerate my father. Nevertheless, he tried to comfort me and raise my hope for the future.

  “You are in a position to take hold now, Miranda. You can do anything you wish. Accept the fact, then learn how to live with it. Use it. You can begin a new life for yourself any moment you choose.”

  “I don’t want to live with it,” I insisted. “I will stay for a little while until everything is settled. Then I will go away. Nothing will stop me.”

  He released my hands and took a turn or two about the room. “Perhaps this is the way it must be. Perhaps this is the wiser, safer way. But while you are here, will you pose for me? First we will finish the figurehead.”

  “You want that very much, don’t you?”

  I saw his face come to life. For an instant the shadows were wiped away.

  “Yes, I want it. I’ve never had this feeling about a piece of work before. It is as if my hands already know every phase of the carving. I can sense that this will come right for me. Perhaps if I can create this one thing and do it well, I will find freedom too. Perhaps the only future that exists for either of us is to get away from Bascomb’s Point.”

  “Then we’ll begin tomorrow,” I promised him.

  With his hand beneath my chin, he tilted my face to the light as he had done once before. Then he bent to kiss me lightly on the cheek. “Thank you, Miranda.”

  It was as if I had bestowed a gift upon him, and he upon me. I think he did not understand how much I needed that anchor to windward. Often in my thoughts I found myself turning to Ian for advice and reassurance. Yet when I was with him I was never drawn by that dominant attraction which nearly mastered me when I was with Brock.

  For the second time in that long day it was Laurel who broke in upon us with a summons. Since there was no fire in the library grate, the door stood ajar and she appeared in the opening abruptly. I noted that she had not removed the ribbon from her hair or allowed it to relapse into its wild state.

  “Lien wants to see you, Miss Miranda.” The echo of Lien’s formal manner of speech sounded in Laurel’s voice. “She humbly beseeches you to visit her as soon as it is conveniently possible.”

  I looked at Ian, but he merely shrugged.

  “Did she say what she wants?” I asked Laurel.

  The child’s eyes were agleam with anticipation. “She’s angry with you! But she didn’t say about what. She took out the captain’s pirate blade again this afternoon and looked at it. Maybe she would like to chop you up in pieces.”

  “No friend of mine talks to Miranda like that.” Ian spoke so sternly that Laurel looked faintly abashed. “I’ll come with you, if you like,” he said and drew me from his chair. “If she has that sword out again, perhaps we’d better see her together. No telling what is going on in her mind.”

  Laurel trailed after us without invitation as we went through the door into the old house. Captain Obadiah’s room seemed strangely changed without his lusty presence.

  A fire had died to banked red coals in the grate and only candles burned upon the mantel. The captain’s chair stood empty in its place beside the hearth and without him the room had become an empty shell that the small woman from China could not fill. She came toward us out of the gloom, a ghostly figure in her white garments. Today no pin of gold filigree shone in her coil of black hair, though she wore rose jade upon her fingers.

  Even as she gestured us humbly into the room, the look she turned upon me showed no meek humility. Behind us Laurel stole in unreproved and perched herself upon a hassock in the corner, as if she attended a play.

  At Lien’s insistence I took the captain’s chair. Sitting in his place, my brief memories of the old man flooded back and I wished vainly that I could have come sooner to Bascomb’s Point. If only he and I had talked this problem out. If only there had been time, perhaps none of these present difficulties would exist. But such musing was vain and it was Lien who now commanded my attention.

  She invited Ian to sit down, but he refused, standing a little apart from the two of us, as though he knew that whatever battle was to be joined lay between Lien and me. But I think not even Ian expected what was to come.

  Lien had learned enough of abrupt Yankee ways so that she could on occasion shed her oriental courtesy and elliptical phrasing. Now she came to the point without evasion.

  “I have learned of the death of the seaman, Tom Henderson. I hear that you are the one to find him, Mrs. McLean. You will tell me about this, please.”

  Whatever I had expected of her, it was not this and I was tired of telling the story.

  “What does it matter? He fell down a flight of stairs. I found him. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Is it perhaps that you were searching for something aboard the Pride?” Lien asked.

  “I didn’t go there to search,” I told her. “But I found some interesting old sea charts in the captain’s cabin. Charts with the mark of a whale upon them.”

  I could sense the quickening of Ian’s attention and recalled that I had not yet told him of the charts.

  “This is all?” Lien inquired.

  “Why do you ask?” I countered. “Is there something else he might have kept there?”

  The silken shoulders moved in a faint disavowal of knowledge and I suspected that the gesture concealed more than she was telling. Lien, I realized, had not come enough into my reckoning.

  “I went down to the ship to look for Tom Henderson,” I continued. “He had hinted to me that he might have information to divulge.”

  Lien heard me without expression, her face a pale mask, her lips for once lacking their carmine. “This man comes also to me. He seeks money for his lies. I tell him no—he has frightened the captain and done much wickedness. I do not wish to hear him.”

  From the corner of my eye I caught Ian’s faint movement and turned my head to see that he watched Lien intently.

  “I’m not sure all he had to tell was lies,” I said.

  Her dark foreign eyes continued to hold my own, but she said nothing more. Laurel wriggled on her hassock and Ian went to a window and looked outside. He had not yet entered our talk, but left it between Lien and me.

  “Perhaps you will return to China now,” I said to her. “With the captain’s inheritance you can live comfortably in your own country.”

  Beneath the white silk her bosom rose and fell in quickened breathing and I knew that I had said the wrong thing. She did not speak of her plans, but slipped away to another subject, clearly of importance in her mind.

  “The figurehead that Mr. Pryott is carving—” she began, “—you are to model for this?” />
  I recalled that Lien had thought of posing for it herself, and I remembered as well the thing Laurel had told me and which I had shrugged aside—that Lien was in love with Ian, that she wanted to marry him.

  “Perhaps the choice of a model is for the sculptor to make,” I said gently.

  For the first time she seemed agitated. Her fingers intertwined and the jade stones she wore shone softly pink in the candlelight. She seemed to strive for words, but before she could speak Ian went to a table and picked up a long-stemmed pipe with a tiny metal bowl. He brought it to her with a grave smile and she took it from him gratefully. When she had filled the bowl with a pinch of golden brown tobacco from a pouch, Ian lighted the pipe for her and she sat for a moment puffing. There could have been no more than three or four fragrant puffs in the bowl, but they seemed to soothe and calm her. When she laid the pipe aside, she was in better control of her emotions.

  “Please forgive me,” she said, addressing us both. “The moment of weakness has passed. It is not for me to say what face is to be used.”

  Ian spoke gently, persuasively. “We have to remember that the original carving was modeled with an occidental face. This was part of the charm and strangeness of the Sea Jade’s figurehead. I believe it signified a meeting of East and West on the seas.”

  I tried to help. “Since it’s possible that the Sea Jade may be brought home to Scots Harbor and that the new figurehead may be used to replace the old when the ship is refitted, it seems only natural that the new figurehead should be as much like the old as possible.”

  We had forgotten Laurel in her shadowy corner, so still and rapt had she been in attending our small drama. Now she came whirling excitedly into our midst.

  “Miss Miranda! Is it really true that you will bring the Sea Jade home? How wonderful that would be! Captain Obadiah would be pleased. He would be glad.”

  We looked at her in some astonishment and I sensed that her sudden outburst had broken the tension that had risen uncomfortably in the room.

  Lien did not smile, but when she spoke whatever hostility she felt was hidden from view. “I am sorry if I have offended you, Mrs. McLean. For this I am sorry. It is you, the captain’s heiress, who is alone in this house with every hand turned against you. You are a young person and inexperienced. This will change. But youth is difficult to endure while it is upon one. It seems unfortunate when a girl so young is given power she cannot handle and when she is without friends.”