The Mermaid Collector (13 page)

Tess reached out to the crease between his brows, the groove so severe in the shadows of dusk, like a scar. She rubbed the line gently with her fingertip.

“You should really do something about that,” she said.

Then she was gone.

“I DON’T HAVE TO GO
, Lydie.”

Lydia licked mustard from her fingers, the thick slices of baked ham she’d cut for her husband’s lunch tucked neatly between two pieces of bread. It was nearly seven. Banks’s carriage was due to arrive by eight so the men could set sail by ten.

“Of course you have to go,” she said, as calmly as she could, even as her heart thundered to imagine him on the water again.

“It’s not as if I haven’t been out recently,” Linus had patiently reminded her in the weeks leading up to this day. “I go out on the boat to take soundings all the time.” It was true; he did. Yet somehow those regular trips to check the channel markers in the inlet never worried her. But this would be different. This was a sailboat, and he’d be the only one on it who knew what to do if conditions grew rough. And it had been months since he’d sailed.

But as anxious as it made her, Lydia knew her husband needed the distraction. It was now their fourth month in their new home, and it seemed the fresh landscape had done nothing to further their plans to start a family. Once she’d suggested they meet with a specialist in Boston, someone who might advise them, but Linus had bristled so terribly at the idea that she’d dropped it at once, the look of perceived failure on his face so crushing, Lydia had wanted to cry.

She wrapped his sandwich in paper, trying to focus her nerves on the crisp edges, setting it inside a basket with a tin of Indian pudding, shortbread, and several wedges of hard cheese. “I’ll be fine here,” she said. “After all, it’s only a day.”

Linus crossed the room to her, his coat not yet buttoned all the way. “Trying to be my brave girl, I see.”

“I don’t have to try,” Lydia said proudly.

“I know you don’t.” He glanced through the kitchen window to the tower, something he did compulsively as of late she noticed, as if a chance existed that it might not be
there. He pulled her into his arms. “It’s not even one day. I bet we’re back before three.”

“You’d better not be,” she teased. “I didn’t go to the trouble to wash this old thing for a half-day show.”

“Fine, I’ll wear it to bed tonight,” he whispered. “How does that sound?”

“Itchy.”

Linus laughed loudly at that and kissed her, tasting the blueberries she’d scattered in their pancakes that morning.

DESPITE HER JESTING
, despite the flawless ceiling of blue that hung over the Point, Lydia felt a keen sense of fear the moment Linus left. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have things to do. There were her gardens to weed, bread to bake, beans to soak, two pairs of trousers that needed repairing, wash that needed hanging. Yet she couldn’t manage to finish any of it. The house seemed stifling to her, but when she dropped to the ground to weed her gardens, she couldn’t get through a single row before she climbed to her feet again and looked around the property. She knew Angus had arrived—she’d seen him cross the walkway to the lighthouse a few minutes after Linus had left. When the young man emerged again just before lunch, Lydia waved to him from the clothesline where she struggled to hang sheets in a fierce wind. When one escaped the line before she could pin it and tumbled across the yard, Angus raced
for it, catching it after a short chase. He returned, winded but smiling.

“Slippery things, aren’t they?” Lydia teased, taking the sheet from him. “Thank you.”

Angus glanced up at the sky. “Perfect day for a sail. I’m sure Mr. Harris is enjoying Mr. Banks’s new boat.”

“I’m sure he is. Do you like to sail?”

“Oh, I wish. The only time I’m on the water is to help my brother fish for herring.”

“I’m sure your nephews help too?”

“The older one does,” Angus said. “He’s practically a fish himself.”

“My husband can’t have children.”

Lydia didn’t know what made her say it, what made her give up this terrible truth to a total stranger so abruptly when she couldn’t summon the words to her sisters in three years. She knew only that it felt good, so incredibly freeing, to have said them.

She turned slowly to Angus, wondering what he could be thinking. His expression was not as she expected. She’d been so sure he’d shake off her words; that he’d look to the horizon, mention the sun or the clouds, anything to bury her impossible confession. Instead, he looked upon her with such compassion, such sadness, that she cried at once.

DUSK CAME AND WENT
.

Lydia could see the glow of the lantern in the tower
room from her post at the kitchen window, growing brighter as the sky darkened. Surely Angus couldn’t stay there all night.

She tried to busy herself with dinner, but her hands shook so badly while she poured the cornmeal that more fell over the side of her bowl than went in. With every crackle or crunch that she heard outside, her eyes flew to the door, sure as she was that it was Linus returned home.

At eight thirty, Angus came by. He stood in the doorway, his hands in the pockets of his canvas jacket. She had wanted to appear calm, as if she hadn’t given much thought at all to Linus’s lateness, to the blackening of the sky, the quickening of the wind off the water. But Angus had only to look at her face before he offered, “I can stay on, ma’am. I’ve no one at home waiting.”

Linus would want him to, Lydia told herself. After all, she couldn’t possibly resurrect the flame on her own if the lamp went out.

“You don’t mind?” she asked, her voice thin with fear.

“Not at all. I can sleep in the tower. I’ve done it before.”

“Don’t be silly. You’ll stay here, in the house.”

Angus shook his head firmly. “No. I couldn’t.”

“That’s nonsense. Why should you sleep on a cold floor when there’s an extra bedroom?”

Lydia knew why, of course, and she could see he wouldn’t be swayed. He agreed to wait while she brought him a pillow and a stack of quilts.

“One’ll do,” Angus said, taking only the top quilt. “It stays plenty warm up there.”

Lydia walked him outside. “If you need anything,” she said. “Anything at all.”

“They probably just pulled in somewhere for the night. Maybe they needed a repair. I’m sure Mr. Harris’ll be back first thing.”

She smiled gratefully, forcing her smile to remain until she’d closed the door behind him and collapsed against it.

WHEN SHE WOKE
, Angus was in the yard, chopping wood, already with an impressive pile behind him. She pulled on one of Linus’s coats, bracing herself for the early-morning chill. Angus heard her approach and lowered his axe, tipping his cap.

“I noticed you didn’t have much kindling in the shed,” he said.

“Shouldn’t you go back?” she asked, squinting against the bitter air. “Your brother must be worried.”

“It’s all right. He knows I’m here. He knows…”

That Linus is missing,
Lydia thought. The whole of the Harbor knew. They were all missing—Linus and Eli Banks and two other men whose names she didn’t even know. It seemed outrageous to her now, this lack of knowledge.

“I should go into town, find out what news there is,” she said, looking around, thinking the blades of grass
looked so stiff and cold, as if they would surely snap off like icicles if touched.

“Let me go,” said Angus. “If I take the boat, I can be across the bay in a half hour. Save you hitching up the horses.”

No, she thought. She couldn’t bear to be here alone with this knot in her stomach, this weight against her temples, this racing heart.

Nothing could be worse than this fear, she decided.

“I’ll go with you,” she said.

Angus frowned at her. “Then you want me to hitch up the buggy?”

“No,” Lydia said, seeing his eyes fix on her with confusion. “I’ll go with you in the boat.”

SHE SAID NOTHING AS HE
rowed them across the bay. She wasn’t even sure she could have made a sound come out if he had requested one. She’d lost feeling in her hands—not from the cold, though it was brisk on the water—but from the terrible way she’d crushed them between the folds of her skirt and kept them there, as if doing so might contain her panic at being so close to the ocean. It helped some to keep her eyes down, to focus on the puddles of seawater that rocked back and forth at their feet. Angus had set a log under her shoes to protect them. The leather of his boots glistened wet, the toes a dark brown.

“If it helps,” he said, “you can look at me.”

Lydia studied the lines of his face, the shape of his nose, trying to decide if his hair was chestnut or just a very deep chocolate. If he minded her study, he didn’t let on. Occasionally he glanced at her as he rowed, his smile slight but steady.

THERE WAS A GREAT DEAL
of activity on the wharf when they arrived, so much that their small boat was steered to the side, though as soon as someone recognized Lydia, their passage was reinstated.

Two men helped Lydia out and led her up the landing while Angus stayed behind with the boat. The scene on the street was chaotic and loud. The town manager was there. Though she’d met him only once during their first week at the Point, when he’d come by with his wife to welcome them with a pie, Lydia recognized him right away. She didn’t, however, recognize the woman beside him, dressed in a fitted jacket of burgundy patterned velvet and standing stiffly with her gloved hands at her sides as if bracing herself for a terrible gust of wind.

She had to be Mrs. Banks, Lydia thought. She’d called all of the men in town to find her husband. She might not even know that Linus was missing too. And where were the wives of the other men? Before Lydia could seek them out, she felt a hand on her arm.

“Lydia.” She looked up to meet the worried features of
Annabeth Owen’s husband, Merrill. “I was on my way to the Point. Did Linus say anything to you about changing course?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Why would he?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s Banks’s wife, isn’t it?” Lydia asked.

“Yes. Come on. I’ll get you to her.”

A few moments later, the woman in burgundy turned her attention to Lydia. “You are?”

“Lydia Harris. My husband, Linus, sailed with your husband yesterday.”

“Oh.” The woman’s face drained of its color. She reached for Lydia’s hands, clasping them in hers and giving them a firm shake. “Don’t you worry for him, dear. They’re all fine, I’m sure. My husband is wicked and often extends his trips this way. I’m not worried. Really, I’m not.”

If she wasn’t worried, then why all the commotion? wondered Lydia. Why the news of a search party that had already been dispatched?

“We’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything,” a man in a coast guard uniform told Lydia. “In the meantime, we’ll send an officer to tend to the lighthouse.”

“That’s not necessary,” she said. “My husband left someone in charge.”

This news seemed to startle the man. “Why did he do that? Did he expect to be away longer than just a day?”

“No,” Lydia said quickly, feeling suddenly as if she
were guilty of something, as if she’d said something wrong. “It’s just that I can’t manage the lamp when he’s gone. I’m afraid of the water, you see.”

But he didn’t see; Lydia could sense that well enough. The man frowned at her a moment, then nodded for Merrill to escort her away from the crowd.

“You really should let them send someone down,” Merrill Owen said, stepping so close, Lydia could smell the sandalwood of his shaving soap.

“No,” she answered dully, searching past his shoulder for a glimpse of Angus. “It’s fine. Angus knows what he’s doing.”

Behind her, men mumbled in a crowd.

“It doesn’t make sense,” she heard one say. “There’s just not that many places they could go.”

“And the weather,” said another. “It’s been nothing but calm.”

Lydia wanted to clap her hands over her ears. She couldn’t bear the cacophony of theories, or bewilderment. Finally, like something shining, Angus appeared. She pushed past Merrill, pressing through a crowd that was curved around the dock, and reached him at the edge of the landing.

“I can’t be here,” she said. “Please take me back.”

SHE COULDN’T EAT
.

She sat at the table, staring at the bowl of soup she’d
ladled. She’d served one for herself and one for Angus who had insisted on taking his dinner to the lantern room, sure he would catch a glimpse of Banks’s boat before the sun dropped completely. Nothing seemed real. She picked up her spoon and turned it in her fingers as if to hope this moment, this nightmare, wasn’t flesh and bone. But the utensil felt heavy and cold in her hand, and she set it back in her bowl, letting it sink into the thick, milky broth.

When Angus appeared, she knew she couldn’t bear another night alone in the house. She decided she would beg him if she had to, but there was no need. Maybe he saw the terror in her eyes when she met him at the door; maybe he saw something else. Whatever the reason, Angus agreed to make a bed for himself in front of the hearth.

Lydia stared at the linens she’d given him, tinted gold from the fire. “I’m not entirely sure I can live without him,” she whispered.

“They’ll find your husband,” Angus said. “Mark my words. They’ll find him safe and sound.”

Try as she did to believe him, Lydia couldn’t sleep. Her mind tumbled with the certainty of something ending, something closing up. And it was in those moments of panic that she rose from her bed and padded down the stairs. She could hear Angus’s breathing in the darkness, and she paused a moment in the doorway, the last embers of the fire just enough to outline his shape. If he shunned her, she would pretend to have been walking in her sleep. But when she came beside him, when she nudged the
quilts open enough to slide in, he didn’t hesitate to draw her against him. When she slipped her hand through the gap in his trousers, he didn’t stop her.

She told herself this would bring Linus back. If she carried a child, he would know it. Wherever he was, her beloved husband would gather his strength, and he would return to her. And she would make things right the only way she could now. There was no one else she wanted to raise a child with, no other man she wished to spend the rest of her life with, but she could not live without a child. If they waited too long, all could be lost. Never again would she have this chance.