The Voyage of Lucy P. Simmons

by Barbara Mariconda

  “Now, loves, hang on to one another tightly,” Addie shouted, “arm in arm! Otherwise I fear we might be swept clear away! I’ve never heard such a wind—it’s like the wrath of God, it is!”

  Mr. Mathers shook his head. “I shan’t be going in,” he hollered. “Poor old Gert is terrified. It’s best I get her settled.”

  “Take her round back,” I yelled, “to the garden shed. Until the storm passes!”

  The carriage door flew open and was nearly ripped off its hinges. Walter grabbed Addie’s arm, and we tumbled out. Curiously, the moon was still visible, casting an eerie light on the flying debris swept up by the wind—garden stakes, twigs and branches, the seat cushions from Mother’s wicker settee—all flipping and flying like ghosts in a moonlight dance, gyrating and hurtling to the tune of the wind.

  We proceeded together, Marni in the lead; Annie and Georgie in the center, carrying Mr. Pugsley; Addie, Walter, and I encircling them with a protective chain of hands and arms and elbows. As we moved toward the porch, the wind blew in such a way as to create a sort of safe tunnel for us—as though we were cloaked by the eye of the storm.

  We huddled together on the porch. The overhanging roof provided little protection from the rain whipping in almost horizontally. I wriggled from the clutches of our little band, grasped the door latch, and pushed. The door didn’t budge, so the six of us pummeled and pounded, demanding to be let inside. My aunt Margaret’s face peered through one of the small wavy-glassed windows set along either side of the entrance door. One moment her distorted, fleshy face filled the pane, and next, the dark, swarthy face of my uncle. Our eyes met before his face disappeared. The door remained locked up tight.

  I felt a tugging at my hand and looked down to see Annie gesturing frantically toward the path, eyes wide, mouth agape. Barely visible through the driving rain was the Brute, stumbling and crawling, fighting and clawing his way up the path.

  “Hurry!” screamed Georgie. “Bang on the door again. We have to get in!”

  We pounded and shouted, to no avail. My uncle obviously did not intend to allow us to interrupt his business with the judge. Once the papers were signed, it would be too late. My fate would be sealed.

  “I say we break down the door,” Walter shouted.

  There seemed no other choice. We lifted the long wooden bench that sat opposite the porch rail. Walter held up the front; Addie, the rear; Marni, Georgie, and I, the middle. Annie stood clear.

  “One, two, three, heave,” Walter yelled.

  We forged ahead, slamming the end of the bench against the door. It shuddered, but held tight. The Brute was closer now, crawling up the path on hands and knees. Annie whimpered, nervously scanning the distance between her father and the door.

  “Annie!” shouted Walter. “Don’t pay him any mind. We’ll be inside in a moment.

  “One, two, three, heave!”

  This time the crash of wood against wood caused a small splinter in the lower door panel.

  “One, two, three, heave!”

  The lower portion gave way, a ragged rupture out of which spilled light. “One, two, three, heave!

  “One, two, three, heave!

  “Heave!”

  The bottom of the door shattered. The top panels splintered and slipped haphazardly to the side.

  “Come on,” Walter commanded. “Careful!”

  We dropped the bench and crawled through the gaping hole, avoiding the savage wooden teeth that threatened to bite us.

  Aunt Margaret stood on the other side, red-faced, breathing heavily, her hands flying about her jowly face.

  “Good Lord, Victor,” she shrieked, “come quickly!” She turned toward us, her expression one of fear mixed with anger. “There was no need to break the door down, for heaven’s sake!”

  She dashed past us and positioned herself in front of the door to the study.

  “Victor!” This time it was nothing short of a scream. “They’ve gone and broken down the door!”

  Marni stepped forward and took my aunt by the arm.

  “Madam,” she said, “you’re correct in calling for your husband. This business going on here is not only immoral—I suspect it is illegal as well.”

  “Get your paws off me!” My aunt’s lips were pursed, her eyes wide with fear, or perhaps it was guilt. Her face was beet red. She shook her head rapidly back and forth. Her voice quivered.

  “Victor! It’s the schoolmistress and she’s, she’s … threatening me!” She yanked her chubby arm out of Marni’s grasp and inched back toward the library.

  “They’re in yer father’s study,” said Addie. “It’s where they do their dirty business, isn’t it, missus?”

  Aunt Margaret didn’t answer, just blinked several times, her mouth pulled down in an insolent pout, arms crossed. Addie strode past her. Walter and I followed. “Open up, ye den of thieves!” shouted Addie. Walter pummeled the library door with both fists. Annie and Georgie huddled together, glaring at my aunt from the safety of Marni’s shadow. Mr. Pugsley squirmed and growled.

  Finally, the library door opened, and there stood my uncle, his black eyes narrowed, boring into me with a look of pure hatred. He turned his stare to Marni.

  “Is this the kind of behavior you’ve been teaching my niece at your school, miss? And who are these scalliwags trespassing on my property?”

  “You mean my property, don’t you, Simmons?”

  It was the judge, a sinister smile snaking across his lips, slithering beneath his large, curved mustache.

  Marni stepped forward. “We have reason to believe that Miss Lucy’s rights are being abused here, that Mr. Simmons forged the letter from his sister-in-law giving up her claim to her rightful inheritance and guardianship of her niece. We also have reason to believe that you, sir, have abused your office as a member of the court.”

  The judge chuckled. “I’m afraid that you, madam, are mistaken. There was a hearing, and I can assure you that Mr. Simmons here has his niece’s best interests at heart. Don’t you, Victor?”

  My uncle smiled. “But of course.” He looked at me with barely masked contempt. “You’ll be staying on with Miss Maude. Miss Maude, we will provide you with quite a hefty allowance for my niece’s care.” He raised an eyebrow and curled the side of his lip in disgust as his eyes took in her overalls, soaked and caked with mud. “It does seem you could use it to buy yourself something decent to wear.”

  “My silence about this fraud can’t be bought, sir, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” Marni said evenly. “Money means much less to me than justice.”

  “Is that right?” Uncle Victor snarled. “Well, in that case, we’ll just have to find another school for her then, won’t we? I’m sure there are any number of institutions that would welcome a handsome endowment.” He turned his attention back to the judge.

  “I believe the matter of payment remains to be dealt with; am I correct?”

  The judge held his leather satchel out toward my uncle. “Here it is, just as discussed.”

  My uncle hesitated, eyeing the satchel hungrily, a keen glint in his eyes, savoring the moment he’d no doubt been waiting for. At the same time the wind escalated again, and the house itself seemed to tilt and shift, throwing all of us off balance. The storm was fast becoming a hurricane. The house creaked and groaned. The wind screamed around its corners and railed against its walls. As the judge braced himself, the satchel tumbled from his grasp.

  Walter, recovering first, dived for the satchel, knocking Aunt Margaret onto her generous behind. She slid along the tilted polished floor like a sledder without a toboggan, screaming all the way. Mr. Pugsley leaped from Annie’s arms and took off after Margaret, yapping and nipping at her skirts, which sailed up around her like the billowing sails of a ship, exposing her fat sausage legs and thighs.

  A snarl erupted from my uncle’s lips as he lunged at Walter. Walter held on tightly to the satchel, stepped aside, and extended his foot. Victor, momentarily stunned and paralyzed with f
ury, flailed across the floor beside my aunt.

  “Hurry, Walter!” shouted Marni, who had pulled Annie and Georgie close. Her eyes had that distant look that told me she was seeing something the rest of us could not see. “Downstairs!” she shouted. “Everyone downstairs!”

  Addie and Walter rushed toward the cellarway. The judge shrugged, an amused expression on his face, and turned toward the front door.

  “I trust you will remove these people from my property, Simmons,” he said, “and that you yourself will vacate by week’s end.” He grinned at my uncle, who was scuffling to his feet. The judge ceremoniously turned the knob and pulled open what was left of the door.

  “And one more thing,” he added. “Be certain you have this door repaired before I move in.”

  My uncle still seethed with rage, hands shaking, his small eyes darting this way and that, searching for Walter.

  “Wait just a minute,” he shouted, waving his finger angrily at the judge. “Without that satchel, the sale isn’t complete! The boy’s gone off with the payment—and you’re going to help me recover it!”

  The judge laughed. “The satchel is no longer my responsibility. The papers were signed, the title of the property stands in my name, and as far as I’m concerned, the payment was received the moment I was relieved of my satchel. The fact that you allow your household to be overrun by a band of hellions is a problem you’ll have to deal with on your own! Or perhaps you could call in the authorities for an investigation!”

  He laughed at the unlikelihood of that occurrence and turned cavalierly on his heel. As he stepped through the doorway, the entire house began to pitch back and forth in the wind, creaking and groaning like an oversized rocking chair. The judge was thrown back inside, and with him the Brute, sprawling and cursing, sliding across the floor as though swimming on dry land! He knocked them all over—the judge, Uncle Victor, and Aunt Margaret, who had barely managed to get back on her feet from her last fall. They toppled this way and that like an odd collection of human bowling pins.

  Aunt Margaret screamed, as did Annie. Marni pressed us on toward the cellarway.

  “Downstairs, do you hear me?” she repeated. “Lucy, downstairs!”

  There was something in her eyes and in the steely tone of her voice that frightened me to the center of my being. Suddenly nothing seemed as important as going down to the cellar. I skirted past my stunned aunt sitting propped against the wall, past my uncle embroiled in a scuffle between the Brute and the judge.

  The sound of crashing glass in Father’s study stopped me in my tracks. I dashed to the doorway, peered inside.

  The sea, its huge waves crashing against the side of the house, was pouring in through the window. Though it was impossible—impossible—for our house stood far above the high-water mark—the waves crested, the tide swelled and flooded the shoreline, overtaking the house! Water rippled across the floor, streaming over the rug, swirling in angry currents around the legs of Father’s desk.

  “Lucy! Down to the cellar! Lucy!”

  Marni’s shouts accompanied the next wave that shattered what remained of the beautiful leaded-glass windows. Water surged across the room and about my ankles.

  I turned, ran toward Marni, and the two of us fled, hand in hand, toward the cellar door.

  It wasn’t until we approached the precipice of the cellar stairs that I wondered why in heaven’s name we were rushing to lower ground as the water was rising.

  I passed through the doorway, Marni in front of me on the stairs, pulling me down …

  down …

  down …

  As the water rose, knee deep, I heard a cavernous, haunting aria that could only be one thing: the siren’s song. The tone wrapped around me, and my soul surrendered to its call.

  I began making my way calmly, deliberately, down the cellar stairs and into the dank darkness below.

  20

  I stopped on the first landing, my heart racing. I was vaguely aware of all of them at the bottom of the stairs, urging me to continue down into the cellar. Surprisingly, it was only Marni who let me be, searching me with her sea-green eyes, serene and calm in the face of the crisis.

  The voices of my aunt and uncle, the judge, and the Brute mingled with the shrieking of the wind to produce a cacophony that raised the hair on the back of my neck. It seemed that the judge, upon seeing the intensity of the storm, and its threat to the house, had decided to retrieve his bag of money.

  Once again the house shuddered and bucked. Marni and I were thrown backward against the wall of the stairwell. A crash upstairs on the main floor was immediately followed by a huge sloshing that traveled from the back of the house to the front. The motion of the water rocked the house, top to bottom. The entire structure tilted forward as the tumult rushed along the upstairs hall. Marni and I were tossed, face-first, against the side of the stairwell and, as the wave receded, back again. When the house settled, it leaned precariously backward, the angle of the floor beneath our feet on a great slant.

  That was when I realized the house might not withstand the battery of the storm. The others stood below at the foot of the stairs, beckoning with hands and voices. I watched their anguished expressions in a kind of slow-moving, silent dream. Addie and Walter fought their way toward us to pull us to safety, but the floor shook violently, making their ascent impossible.

  Water seeped through the ceiling beams, spilling onto my head, back, and legs. Salt stung my eyes. My soaked clothing hung weightily, dragging me down, encumbering my limbs.

  The cold embrace of the water and the bizarre rocking of the house transported me back aboard the sloop with Mother and Father. I shut my eyes tightly, but this could not block the memory of the gray water overtaking Father, swallowing up Mother. Still, I followed Marni down. Water surged past us in a vicious cascade. Down to the next step. And the next. I looked back.

  Above us in the cellarway was the Brute, clinging to the doorframe. Water splashed about him, holding him captive. His eyes rolled and flashed. He cried out, reaching for me. “Save me! Somebody save me!”

  I recoiled. Turned abruptly. Hesitated. The wind and water roared. Below me my friends gestured wildly. So certain did they seem of their safety, so blindly confident in Marni’s authority, that I took a step down, then another.

  “Help! Help me, for God’s sake!”

  The Brute reached out with one hand, grasped the doorframe with the other, water crashing around him.

  Marni, two steps below me, turned. “Lucy! Give me your hand!”

  A collective cry went up as the stairwell began to vibrate. A number of steps tore away. The buckling of the staircase caused a giant rupture, the step separating Marni and me now a gaping hole. Marni was thrown down as the next several steps collapsed like dominoes.

  “Jump!” shouted Walter. “Jump! We can catch you!”

  I stared into the black space beneath the stairs. The hungry, churning hole would swallow me up.

  “Lucy, love, please,” Addie shouted, her voice shaking with the vibration of the house. “Miss Marni said we’d be safe here, and I believe ’er! Jump, why don’t ye—’tisn’t that far! Save yourself, love!”

  And still I could not move.

  And then, the voice behind me … “You there … m-missy! Y-you can help me!” The Brute reached toward me. “I’ll get ya down those stairs if ya just lend me a hand! Come on now, missy! Now I say!”

  His eyes shone feverishly. He clenched and unclenched his fist.

  Maybe he could help me cross the divide. All he’d need was a sturdy yank to pitch him into the stairwell and out of the torrents in the treacherous hallway above.

  “Don’t risk it, Lucy!” shouted Walter. “He isn’t worth it!”

  I shook the notion out of my head. Look what had happened to Father trying to help the man, and for what? I inched toward the black hole. Ventured a look down. Perhaps I could clear it.

  The house shuddered, tilted even farther back, then forward again. I was n
early lying against the wall of the stairwell, the wall pitched to where the floor had been just moments before.

  “Straight to hell with the lot of you!” screamed the Brute. “Can’t a single one of ya help me?” He sputtered, flailed, water crashing past him. “Walter, you good-for-nothing little cuss, what about you? Get your arse up here, boy! That much you owe me!”

  “No, Walter,” Annie howled. “Don’t … please!” Walter wavered at the edge of the precipice of the stairs, looking desperately between his sister, his father, and me.

  A feeling of utter dread came over me. I finally understood Father’s terrible dilemma out there on the sloop that day. I forced the voices of my friends and the voice of reason out of my head—in fact, pushed all logical thought aside.

  I pulled myself upright and slowly, torturously, dragged myself up to what was left of the perilously tipped staircase, one slippery step at a time. I ignored the insistent cries of my friends. Only Marni remained silent. Her eyes followed me, negotiating each step.

  The Brute fought to hang on. His eyes filled with a savage glint. He might panic, overtake me, sending us careening down the hallway and out the door into the torrents outside.

  Another wave crashed on the floor above, and a surge of water exploded past, cresting over us. I shook the water from my eyes, shamefully hoping the wave had overtaken him, thus relieving me of my terrible responsibility.

  But no, as the water receded I spied him, seven or eight steps up, gasping for air and shaking the water from his mane of wild black hair.

  I forced my feet forward, upward, one step, two, a small rest … three steps, four, five … a deep breath and a prayer … six steps. He reached out, and I leaned against the wall, catching my breath. I had no plan other than to anchor myself against the stairwell and grab him. It was not about strength, but faith. He had strength. I willed myself to have faith.

  One more step and I could touch him. I could still turn back. No one could fault a person for saving herself, after all.

  There was a sudden jolt. A tremendous roar. Screaming upstairs.