The Widow's Walk

by Robert Barclay

  Soon, now, my love, he thought. Soon the Intrepid will enter the harbor, and from our widow’s walk you will at last see your bright red pennant flying proudly from my mainmast. Even so, there is something that you do not know. When I return home I will tell you that this is my last whaling voyage, for I can bear this life no longer. It is not just my terrible loneliness for you that fostered this decision, but also my ever-increasing loathing for the awful things we do aboard these ships. I remain unsure about how we will live, but I will find a way. All I know for now is that I will never again leave your side.

  In truth, Adam’s disgust for his occupation had been growing for years. So much so that the grisly realities of whaling now seemed nothing more to him than a grotesque tragedy designed to slaughter God’s greatest of beasts with an arrogance that only mankind could muster. His mind made up, he would do no more of this. He believed that Constance would be overjoyed to hear of his decision, however that was small comfort, because his worries about their financial future haunted him day and night. But first, he thought glumly, we must again survive the rounding of Cape Horn. Just then Adam knew that something was amiss. Like any sea captain worth his salt, he sensed the impending danger well before being told about it.

  Perhaps it had been the oil lamps in his cabin swaying excessively, or the extraordinarily loud and sudden moaning of the mast timbers. Or it could have been the unusually swift rise and fall of the ship’s bow. In the end the reasons mattered not, because just as he realized the arrival of the impending gale, he heard the first mate shout out: “All hands on deck! Batten down the hatches!”

  After frantically donning his rain gear, Adam tore from the cabin and hurried topsides. The sky was pitch-black, and his crew was already scurrying about the deck and up the masts. His helmsman, a man he had known for some twenty years, was doing his best to hold the ship’s wheel steady against the growing storm. The sea was quickly turning into a black maw of ferocious power, its rising waves rivaled only by the terrible wind and stinging rain that now mercilessly pounded the ship. Without warning the masts shuddered horrifically again, and the Intrepid, her sails straining to their utmost, heeled dangerously to port as a huge sidelong wave nearly engulfed her. With her heavily laden hull groaning torturously against the pressure, she finally righted again.

  Mere moments later, the storm unleashed her full intensity and the Intrepid became totally ensnared in her power. Adam went to help the helmsman hold fast the wheel, but even then it was all the two of them could do to keep it from spinning out of their hands. Adam knew that there was but one prudent course of action during a storm of such ferocious strength. He immediately lashed down the rain-soaked wheel amidships with heavy rope. The only way to survive such a maelstrom was to keep the rudder neutral then haul in the sails and let her go where she will, hoping that she could ride out the storm.

  “Reef the sails, lads!” he screamed, trying his best to be heard above the raging storm. “And restrain all the booms, if you wish to survive!”

  Suddenly terrified that his navigation had been imperfect, Adam now feared that they were uncontrollably nearing the dreaded Cape. Holding fast to the gunwale as he made his way along, he struggled inch by torturous inch toward the bow so that he might survey the churning ocean lying ahead. Once there he grasped a line in each hand and then spread wide his legs, trying to peer through the gale-force winds and rain. The bow was now rising and falling so violently that it was all Adam could do to keep from being swept overboard. The Cape was known for spawning terrible storms, but this fatherless nightmare had seemingly sprung out of nowhere, and he had been totally unprepared for it.

  “Goddamn you!” he shouted defiantly into the violent darkness. “From which corner of Satan’s Hell were you spawned?”

  As Adam had hoped, with her sails reefed and her wheel tied off, the Intrepid nosed directly into the wind. However even this tactic was not without its dangers, as the now directly oncoming waves made the ship rise and fall with even greater ferocity, literally dumping wave after wave of seawater onto the bow deck. His position becoming ever more perilous, Adam nonetheless stayed his post, doing all he could to hold on while peering dead ahead. Without warning a halyard suddenly gave way, its block and tackle swinging dangerously past his head and nearly killing him outright. Then he heard a man scream.

  As he turned around to look, he saw that his bosun mate had slipped down onto the rain-soaked deck. Mere moments later, a rushing wave clambered its way up the starboard hull and burst aboard, the angry seawater exploding everywhere. The ferocious wall of water slammed into the poor man and suddenly propelled him overboard, his plaintive screaming fading away as he tumbled into the dark sea. Then the terrible ocean assaulted the decks yet again, this time also from starboard and taking another precious man with it.

  The rain was lashing Adam’s face so hard that he had to squint through the pain, and he could barely see ahead. The only respites from the blackness were the abrupt lightning flashes that came crackling out of the night sky like fiery bolts hurled by angry gods. As he stood holding on to the lines for dear life, Adam quickly realized that he had never before experienced a storm of such ferocity, and that only a miracle could save them from this ruthless tempest. While the lightning flashed and the thunder roared, he did his best to stand his ground atop the pitching deck and peer out into the fathomless blackness, hoping to see nothing lying before them but the open sea.

  And then, incredibly, he thought he heard a woman’s voice. It was as if someone, he knew not who, was screaming at him, trying to warn him of his ship’s impending doom. Then the woman’s voice was again lost to the raging storm, its tremolo fading as quickly as were the Intrepid’s chances for survival.

  But such a thing cannot be! Adam realized as he again focused his gaze upon the churning sea ahead. I have heard tales of the sea winds blowing through a ship’s rigging and sounding like a woman’s plaintive voice, and now I have heard it for myself!

  After a time the woman’s voice came to his ears yet again, her warnings now even more strident, and for a split second he could have sworn he was hearing his beloved Constance, warning him of the rocks that lay dead ahead.

  Like brave Ulysses, I too am being seduced! But unlike Ulysses’s temptresses, mine is not real, nor am I tied to the ship’s mainmast to keep me from joining with her! Ignore what you are hearing, for she does not exist!

  No sooner had the woman’s voice faded away again than did Adam spy the one thing that every seaman fears the most—a rogue wave. The Cape was a breeding ground for such monsters, which seemed to come out of nowhere. They could tower as high as thirty or even forty feet, easily reducing the strongest of ships to matchsticks.

  Before Adam could shout out a warning to the others, the great wave slammed into the Intrepid’s port bow, washing Adam overboard and directly into the churning sea. Screaming wildly and gasping for breath, he tried his best to ride the waves but then a broken mast spar and some of the Intrepid’s torn sailcloth were driven his way, entangling him and sending him under. At first all he could think about was how cold it was. Unbelievably cold, and with an all-encompassing darkness that he never knew existed.

  As the churning seawater at last invaded his lungs, Adam’s final thoughts were of his beloved Constance.

  Chapter 1

  New Bedford, Massachusetts

  Present Day

  His name was Garrett Richmond, and he had always wanted to live alongside the ocean.

  Garrett pulled his black Jeep Wrangler to a stop then turned off the engine. For a time he ignored his passenger and looked lovingly out the window at the ramshackle old house he had just bought.

  “You’ve really lost it this time,” his friend and business partner Trent Birch said. “Do you know that? I can’t understand why you want some dump that’s going to take years to put right! You’ve gone crazy!”

  Garrett realized that everyone thought he was nuts. But in his heart he knew better. He had exp
ertise in classic American antebellum architecture that few others of his profession could claim, and he’d easily seen the promise in this house. But Trent was right about one thing. Without question, the impending restoration would be both difficult and costly.

  He turned and smiled.

  “Crazy?” he asked. “Maybe . . . but it’s my funeral, right?”

  Garrett got out of the Jeep then reached behind the driver’s seat and opened a cooler. He pulled out two bottles of cold champagne, a couple of Styrofoam cups, and a small box. He next produced the two folding chairs he had also packed. When Trent saw the cold champagne, he smirked.

  “Don’t tell me, let me guess!” Trent exclaimed. “You’re going to christen this dump, aren’t you? But why two bottles? It seems like one would be plenty.”

  After handing the box and chairs to Trent, Garrett smiled and carried the bottles toward the front porch of the house.

  “Simple,” he replied, with Trent in tow. “One bottle to christen the house and the other one to drink. What’s the matter, anyway? You like champagne, right?”

  “Sure,” Trent answered as he followed Garrett. “That’s not what’s bothering me.”

  “So . . . ?” Garrett asked.

  “The champagne is worth more than the damned house is. Not to mention that the entire place might collapse!”

  Garrett snorted out a short laugh. “Truth is you could be right on both counts.”

  Pausing in his walk, Garrett stopped to admire his recent purchase. For once, Trent knew when to be quiet and let his friend enjoy the moment.

  Built in 1835, the large home had had many owners on its long and convoluted journey to Garrett Richmond. He’d closed the transaction only yesterday, but while growing up in New Bedford he had always loved this property. So much so, that he’d often pass by to both admire it and to mourn its condition. Something about this old house by the sea had fostered an irresistible attraction within him. And it was that very enticement, he had long known, that had led him to a career in architecture.

  The two-story directly faced the Atlantic. Garrett had always thought that the original builder put it a bit too close to the ocean, but so be it. It rested on an elevated, scrubby clump of land that ended where the rocky shore began sloping down toward the ocean. As a result, the continual sea air and wave spray were constant enemies, and even once Seaside was restored, Garrett knew that he would have his hands full keeping it that way.

  Despite its distressed condition, one could tell that it had once been an impressive and stately residence. Four high, Doric columns graced the front and supported the overhanging roof, which extended forward from the second floor. A long, open veranda shaded by the roof stretched all the way across the face and extended down along each side of the house. The side verandas also had columns that supported two more side balconies with railings, and doors that allowed entry into each of the first-floor side rooms. Another large, elegantly curved balcony extended from the front of the house at the second floor, providing an open sitting area off the master bedroom.

  An ornate railing ran along the entire roof edge. The roof itself was flat, with a raised area toward the front that supported an extremely weathered widow’s walk, its roof and railings warped with the passage of time. Twin chimneys in bad disrepair exited the roof, one at the far left-hand side where the parlor had once presumably been, and the other one on the right, in the dining room. The front of the house had been sided with bricks. The sides were covered with clapboards that had once been painted a bright white but that had long since faded to a dull and tired gray.

  Despite all the obvious damage, Garrett smiled. To his way of thinking, every problem was a welcome challenge, its completion bringing him one step closer to his goal. His eyes saw a diamond in the rough that he couldn’t wait to polish. But for Trent, each of those flaws only reaffirmed that Garrett had made the mistake of his life. Like Garrett, Trent was an architect, but he lacked the vision and the wonderful eye for detail that were Garrett’s trademarks.

  “Let me guess, professor,” Trent said. “Once upon a time, this shack was an antebellum, Greek Revival style. It’s been a while since school, but I’m correct, right?”

  Garrett laughed a little. “Not completely,” he answered. “It’s really Gothic Revival, with some Romantic style embellishments that someone slapped on her, somewhere along the line. And do you see the widow’s walk? That’s called Italianate, as you should know.”

  “If that’s the case then I’m even more surprised you bought it,” Trent replied, “especially since you’re always lecturing your students about ‘Frankentechture.’ So why did you make an exception?”

  Garrett began walking toward the front porch again.

  “To be honest, I don’t know,” he replied quietly. “And you’re right—I do hate the mixing of respected architectural types. It’s like wearing sneakers with a tuxedo, but as for this particular house—well, I’m not sure why I like it so much. There’s just always been something about it that . . .”

  As Garrett’s words trailed off, he realized that there was no concrete answer to Trent’s question. Many had been the time when he asked himself the same thing. Although he had purchased this foreclosed house on a short sale from the bank, most still thought that he paid too much. But for him, this was not a question of money. Rather it was about restoring what to his discerning eye had once been a magnificent place where people lived and loved during quieter, more genteel times.

  Moreover, the chain of title had also intrigued Garrett. Coupled with some research he had done on his own, an interesting early history of the house had emerged. It had been built for a well-respected New Bedford lawyer. Soon after its completion, the lawyer lost his wife to what was then called “consumption.” His despair was so great that he decided to sell the house and leave, never to be heard from again.

  The next owners were Adam and Constance Canfield, and it seemed that their circumstances were no less tragic. Adam had been a whaling captain lost at sea. Strangely, his wife, Constance, seemed to have also disappeared around that same time, never to return. As a result, the bank had foreclosed and sold the property at public auction. In those days the house was called “Seaside,” a name that had supposedly been bestowed upon it by the Canfields. Garrett liked the name, and from the moment he signed the papers he had resolved to call it that.

  “Seaside . . .” he said quietly to himself as he again began walking toward the house.

  “What did you just say?” Trent asked as he followed along. He never could keep up with Garrett’s long legs.

  “Seaside,” Garrett repeated. “That’s the name given to it by one of the previous owners. I like it, and I’m going to call it that.”

  Quickening his pace, Trent caught up to Garrett again while still juggling the chairs and the small box.

  “Seaside, huh?” Trent asked. “Wow . . . how original.”

  Garrett laughed again as they neared the porch. “Go ahead,” he replied. “Criticize all you want. But when this place is done, you’re going to be amazed.”

  They climbed the rickety steps, walked across the porch, and put down their things. Garrett set up the chairs, and the two old friends sat down beside one another and quietly looked out at the ocean.

  “I’ve never really doubted you before, Garrett,” Trent said, after a time. “But now you’ve got me scratching my head. You do realize that this place is so rough you might not finish it until you’re an old man, right?”

  Garrett smiled. “Maybe,” he answered. “But there’s so much promise here. Even Tara once needed a complete overhaul, you know.”

  Trent leaned back and gingerly put his feet up on the porch rail, as if the entire thing might collapse at any moment. “True,” he answered. “But you don’t have Rhett Butler’s money.”

  “Can’t you find one good thing about this place?” Garrett asked jokingly.

  “The view,” Trent answered.

  When Garrett didn’t
respond, Trent turned to look at his best friend. They had known each other since they were roommates during their first semester at architecture school. Garrett had been born and raised in New Bedford; Trent was originally from Boston. Although they were diametric opposites in some ways, their strong and enduring friendship was something upon which each could always rely.

  While Garrett was tall and lean, Trent was darker, shorter, and broader. Garrett’s hair was a sort of dirty blond, parted on one side and always seeming to fall down into an irrepressible wave on his forehead. But the first thing anyone noticed was his penetrating, crystal blue eyes, which upon studying anything that particularly intrigued him somehow became even more intense. Upon first meeting him, there were few people who did not mention those eyes, and they had long since become a standing joke between him and Trent. Dressed today in tan cargo pants, a black polo shirt, and a pair of deck shoes, he exuded a calm sense of purpose that Trent had always envied. Both Garrett and Trent were still single.

  After graduation from architecture school, the two friends had scraped together all the money they could and formed Richmond & Birch, LLC, a New Bedford architectural firm specializing in the design of houses. Garrett was the majority shareholder and thus technically Trent’s boss, although neither of them looked at it that way. Their business had struggled mightily at first and nearly gone bankrupt twice before finally gaining some traction. Despite the recent economic downturn, Richmond & Birch had now become prosperous enough to allow Garrett to secure a mortgage for Seaside.

  During that time Garrett had also gone to night school and acquired his Ph.D. in architectural history, specializing in historic American schools of the nineteenth century. As much for the love of doing it as his need for the extra money, he now taught night classes in architectural history at Boston College.