Maidenstone Lighthouse

by Sally Smith O'rourke

  And by moving up here I could eliminate the fierce expense of my New York apartment, which, now that it had been ransacked and held only sad reminders of Bobby, I had little desire to return to, anyway.

  I opened up my personal finance program and crunched a few numbers for rent, utilities and the like. The results were eye-opening. I saw that I could save almost $50,000 a year just by relocating to Freedman’s Cove.

  I was so excited by the whole concept that, even though it was nearly midnight, I decided to call Damon. I picked up my battered cell phone and punched in his number.

  Strangely, I again got no answer.

  Shutting down the computer and idly wondering where my unpredictable partner had gotten to, I went back out into the kitchen to warm up the last of my cocoa.

  I was standing over the stove when a particularly hard blast of wind rattled the entire house. I peered out into the yard and saw the huge oak bending in the high gusts. Because the old house is very close to the sea, my concern was more for possible flooding than wind damage. So I returned to the parlor and turned on the TV, hoping to catch a late weather report.

  CNN’s Boston affiliate was just finishing up a story about the early winter storm. But before I could get any details, the reporter switched to a related story about a commuter plane crash that was being blamed on the bad weather. Since a plane crash of any kind was the last thing I needed to hear about, I turned off the TV and went up to bed.

  My cell phone chirped as I was climbing the stairs. I switched it on, fully prepared for a tearful reunion with Damon. “Hello?” I answered. “Damon, is that you?”

  Static crackled through the earpiece and a faint, garbled voice said my name. Then the connection went dead. I frowned at the phone, assuming that the storm had interfered with the reception. I was certain the caller had been Damon, because, except for Bobby, of course, he was the only person who had my private cell phone number. Grinning with relief, I immediately dialed Damon’s apartment once more, but the static on the line was so severe that I heard only the first few words of his voice mail message.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” I shouted, then switched off the phone and went into my room.

  This would be my third night in my beloved turret bedroom. Twice before I had gone to sleep here, dreamed an awful dream about Bobby and then been visited by the sad ghost.

  Such unsettling experiences would ordinarily have encouraged me to sleep on the sofa down in the parlor. But strangely I was not afraid.

  In fact, I was almost hoping my gentle ghost would show herself again, though I could certainly do without the bad dreams. But I lit my blue fairy lamp anyway, then turned out the lights and climbed in under the covers.

  I lay there in my snug sea captain’s bed gazing up at the magical blue light tingeing the domed ceiling while the cold nor’easter howled outside my windows.

  As I waited for the ghost I believed to be Aimee Marks to appear, I decided that I would attempt to communicate with her this time. For it seemed clear that she was aware of my presence. And, I believed, she had even spoken to me.

  Sinking back onto my pillows I mentally composed a list of questions I wanted to ask her, beginning with why she haunted this room and this house. The wind in the eaves moaned and whistled. Pellets of freezing rain clattered against the windowpanes. The lighthouse beacon described endless circles of light and darkness across the leaping waves.

  Slowly my eyelids grew heavy and I slept.

  “Love me forever?” Bobby was whispering softly in my ear, his warm breath tickling the hairs on the back of my neck. “Mmmm,” I sighed and snuggled down farther into the covers.

  Chapter 13

  It was still raining early the next morning when I awoke, though the wind seemed to have lost much of its force overnight.

  Undeterred by the sloppy weather and anxious for some fresh air, I scarfed down a light breakfast of oatmeal and coffee. Then I dressed in warm clothes and an old yellow slicker I’d found in a closet and went out to the Volvo.

  After trying unsuccessfully to reach Damon several more times, I spent the rest of the morning driving around in the rain—to the telephone company, the post office and the hardware store, checking off items on my long To Do list. By the time I had disposed of the most pressing items it was past noon and I was getting hungry again. So I drove down to Krabb’s for lunch.

  At that time of day the restaurant was bustling with locals, and I thought I recognized several faces among the fishermen and shopkeepers clustered around the pink Formica tables. Fortunately, though, no one seemed to take any notice of me, which was the way I preferred it.

  I happily accepted a booth beside one of the plate glass windows overlooking the harbor. And, after consulting the simplified daytime menu, I ordered a fresh lobster salad and a bowl of fish chowder and busied myself buttering a cracker. The sky outside was growing lighter by the minute.

  As I ate, several fishing boats chugged past my window, headed for the channel leading out to the open sea, a good indicator that the weather would soon be clearing.

  “Nice view, huh?”

  I looked up to see Dan Freedman standing at my table, watching a departing lobster boat.

  “That’s how you started our last conversation,” I reminded him. “A conversation,” I added, “that left me feeling like a complete idiot.”

  “That wasn’t my intention at all,” he said, looking not at all remorseful.

  “Well, you did lead me to believe you were a house painter,” I countered somewhat accusingly.

  He shook his head and a mischievous grin creased his deeply tanned features. “No,” he said, “you reached that conclusion all by yourself.”

  There was a long pause while a waitress delivered my salad. Then Dan leaned closer and said in a low voice, “Would you have considered our conversation any less satisfactory if you had thought I wasn’t a house painter?”

  “That’s a trick question.” I laughed.

  “Well,” he said, eyeing my plate, “I’ll let you get on with your lunch.”

  “No, please sit down,” I insisted, remembering how easily we had conversed that afternoon out on the island.

  “Are you sure?”

  I nodded enthusiastically. “I’m sure,” I said, realizing that I really did want someone to talk to. Not someone like Tom Barnwell, but someone like Dan, who would not be particularly interested in the intimate details of my life, or in hustling me off to bed.

  So Dan Freedman sat down and we had lunch together. He ordered a gigantic hamburger with fries and we joked about cholesterol levels and house painting, and generally had a great time just chatting.

  By the time our coffee arrived I’d told him a little about the antiques business. And I had learned that he had indeed joined the marines after leaving Freedman’s Cove, that he’d become interested in painting while serving as an embassy guard in Brussels, and that he’d gone to art school there following his military service.

  “I’d always had a thing about the old lighthouse and the Victorians,” he explained. “So after I finished school I came back here to spend a summer painting them before I went looking for a serious job.” He shrugged. “That was seven years ago.”

  “And somewhere along the way you just happened to become rich and famous,” I said with a hint of sarcasm.

  “People liked my stuff,” he admitted frankly. “First a couple of the local galleries started buying. Then a sharp business manager from New York took me on and talked an investment group into backing me.” He smiled and a note of affection crept into his voice. “Her name is Heather,” he said. “And she’s really the one who’s responsible for the success. Believe me, nobody was more surprised than yours truly.” Dan grinned boyishly. “I just like to slap paint on canvas.”

  “And the name Freedan? Where did that come from?”

  For the first time since he had sat down with me Dan looked slightly uncomfortable. “Well, that was sort of accidental,” he replied.
“See, I wasn’t really all that convinced of my talent that first summer back here. And I didn’t want to embarrass the family.”

  He swung his head to indicate a group of grizzled fishermen joking and drinking beer at a nearby table. The men waved and Dan waved back at them. “Those guys are my uncles and cousins,” he confided. “Lobstermen, mostly. And a tougher bunch you’re unlikely to meet anywhere.

  “Anyway, I figured if I put my name on a bunch of what they would have regarded as fruity pictures of old houses, they’d take a lot of ribbing around town. So I started signing my work Freedan.”

  Dan shrugged and a flush of color tinged his cheeks. “By the time my pictures started selling and drawing some good reviews it was too late to change the name. So it just stuck.”

  He looked at me like a schoolboy who’s just explained to the teacher that a bear ate his homework. “Pretty lame excuse, huh?”

  I shook my head and laughed. “How do your cousins and uncles feel about your pictures now?” I asked. “Or have you let them in on your secret yet?”

  “Those guys?” He grinned. “Naw, they all still think I’m a house painter.”

  We chatted for a while longer, enjoying the sight of the sun breaking out of the clouds and lighting up the harbor. Throughout the conversation we each carefully avoided probing too deeply into the other’s life beyond our respective work. And though a few natural opportunities arose to bring them into the conversation, the names of Debbie Carver and my old beau Tom Barnwell were not mentioned.

  All too quickly the coffee was gone, the check had arrived and lunch was clearly over. We got up to leave and went out together into the bright autumn sunshine. A few eager seagulls were wheeling and screeching overhead as we walked to my Volvo.

  “Looks like the rain is gone for a while,” Dan observed, squinting up at the clearing sky.

  “Then I suppose that means you can start painting again,” I said, intending it as a joke.

  “Yeah, I was painting the old lightkeeper’s cottage before the storm,” he replied seriously. “So I guess I’ll go on out to the island and finish up.”

  “When is the museum open?” I asked, thinking of Aimee Marks. Though I hadn’t been inside the converted lightkeeper’s cottage in years, I knew that it contained many newspapers and books about the town and the Victorians, as well as the history of the Maidenstone Light itself.

  Dan looked interested so I explained. “I’m doing a little research on a couple of skeletons in the family closet,” I said. “And I thought the museum might have some useful information.”

  “Well, after Labor Day the place is only open to the public on Saturday afternoons,” he said, reading the disappointment in my face. Then he grinned. “…Unless you happen to have a key.”

  “Which, of course, you just happen to…”

  He dug into his jeans and produced a ring of shiny brass keys. “What’s the use of being a local celebrity if you don’t have the keys to the town museum?” He laughed. “I’ll be out there all afternoon, painting. Drop by anytime.”

  Chapter 14

  By midafternoon the rain clouds had disappeared entirely. The heavy northeast winds had been replaced by a mild breeze that rippled the glassy surface of the sea with the little rough patches that old-time sailors refer to as cat’s-paws. Since it was unlikely that I would have many opportunities to enjoy the moped once winter set in, I rolled it out of the carriage house and fired up the eager little engine. To my great satisfaction it caught on the very first try.

  This time I was prepared for the breezy ride out to the island. I had found an old ski jacket to wear and with a bike helmet on my head and heavy sunglasses protecting my eyes, the trip was even more enjoyable than it had been the first time.

  From a distance I saw Dan’s Toyota beside the lightkeeper’s cottage. So I rode into the parking area expecting to find him posed theatrically behind an easel. The sight that actually greeted me when I spotted him caused my jaw to drop.

  Because Dan Freedman was standing at one corner of the old cottage, slapping thick white paint onto the weathered clapboards from a big plastic bucket. He turned at the sound of my approach and cheerfully waved his brush at me.

  “I was wondering if you were going to show up,” he called out over the buzz of my engine.

  “You really are painting the lightkeeper’s cottage.” I laughed, not sure if he had arranged the whole thing as a joke for my benefit.

  Dan raised his eyebrows mischievously and wiped his paint-soiled hands on a rag. “Well, that is what I said I was going to be doing, isn’t it?”

  I turned off the motor, parked the bike on its stand and pulled off my helmet and glasses. “That’s what you said,” I admitted.

  “One of the duties of an honorary museum curator,” he explained, “is helping to keep the old place shipshape. In fact, I suspect that’s the only reason the town council gave me the job, though I’ve recently done a bit of redecorating on my own. Come on inside and I’ll show you around.”

  He carefully replaced the lid on the paint bucket and led me around to the open front door of the cottage. “Welcome to the Maidenstone Island Maritime Museum and Lighthouse Tour,” he said, ushering me into a cozy room with a large stone fireplace.

  “Prior to full automation of the beacon in 1967, the cottage was the residence for a succession of lighthouse keepers and their families,” Dan announced, sounding like a tour guide. “Based on old photographs and journals of the time, I’ve tried to restore this room to approximately what it would have been like in the late 1860s. At least,” he added sheepishly, “this is my idea of how it might have looked.”

  “It’s lovely,” I said, looking around with an appraising eye. The small front room was filled with sturdy but comfortable country furniture of the period, and a gaily colored rag rug covered the polished oak floorboards. There was a blackened iron cooking pot on the hearth and a magnificent polished brass barometer on the mantel.

  “Except for a few exhibits in dusty cases the cottage was practically empty when I took over as curator,” Dan said as I walked around the room. “It was my idea to try to re-create the original feel of the place by furnishing it. I gathered up this stuff from antique shops around the area.”

  I smiled approvingly. Though the furnishings were authentic I was more impressed by the little touches that Dan had added to his re-creation of the lightkeeper’s living space. Small items like a 19th-century child’s reading primer lying open on the hearth and a half-finished wood carving beside a rack of well-chewed pipes gave the impression that the room’s Victorian-era occupants had stepped out just a moment before.

  “You’ve got an artist’s eye for detail,” I said, which brought a broad grin to his face.

  When I had finished admiring the parlor, Dan led me into an adjoining room, which really did look like a museum. The whitewashed board walls were filled with photos of shipwrecks, storms at sea and portraits of generations of lightkeepers and their families.

  Ranged beneath the pictures were glass cases containing small mementos, pieces of nautical gear and journals kept by the lightkeepers over the years.

  “These are wonderful pieces,” I said, leaning over to inspect a display of exquisite scrimshaw carvings beneath the glass.

  “The lightkeeper’s life was a pretty lonely one,” Dan explained. “Before the raised causeway was constructed out here to the island in the 1940s the lighthouse was frequently cut off from the mainland by high seas. Creating handicrafts like that scrimshaw helped pass the long, stormy nights, and the objects produced were often sold in the village as a means of supplementing the lightkeeper’s small salary.”

  “Too bad they didn’t know what scrimshaw would be going for in today’s collector’s market,” I commented. “All of their descendants could have been rich.”

  Dan halted and smiled ruefully. “My great-great-grandfather would have been very happy to hear that,” he said, pointing to a picture of a white-bearded old salt sta
nding before the cottage. “Old Ben Freedman there was the first keeper of the Maidenstone Light.” Dan touched the photo affectionately. “Unfortunately, the poor old guy died nearly penniless.”

  Like every other child in Freedman’s Cove I had heard the story of Ben Freedman many times while I was growing up. The town’s name had been changed from Southport to Freedman’s Cove to honor the lightkeeper after he had heroically risked his life rowing a tiny dinghy into murderous surf to rescue the victims of an 1875 shipwreck.

  But I also recalled the whispered stories about the Freedmans, which Aunt Ellen had repeated often when rebellious young Danny had come to cut our lawn. Aunt Ellen had always said it was a disgrace that the town hero’s descendants had turned out to be nothing more than a collection of poor drunks and lobstermen, and she hoped poor Danny wouldn’t turn out the same way.

  “Your ancestor must have been a remarkable man,” I commented diplomatically while trying to read the flinty-eyed gaze of the grizzled old codger in the photo.

  “Well, you won’t find it in the official historical record,” Dan replied, “but I’m afraid my luckless ancestor actually ended up as the town drunk.”

  I raised my eyebrows but said nothing, for that was exactly what I had heard.

  “According to his journal,” Dan continued, “Ben Freedman originally became a lighthouse keeper because he never could get along with people. So when the rescue turned him into an overnight celebrity he just couldn’t handle it. Though he didn’t write it down, Old Ben is reported to have once told my great-grandmother that he only took to the bottle because it made the people tolerable to him.”

  I nodded, not sure what to say.

  Dan ended the awkward moment by taking my hand. “When was the last time you were up in the lighthouse?” he asked.

  “When I was about twelve,” I answered uneasily. I had gone into the tower on a dare and I vaguely recalled a long, dizzying climb up the winding iron stairway, followed by an even more dizzying view from the round glass cupola on top. I think I may have gotten nauseous afterward.