Dreadful Sorry (27 page)

It was hard to see. The sky was covered with scudding black clouds, moving swiftly in the path of the wind. She hurried past the Holloway Company and down to the seawall. She hugged her hatbox and stared out into the blackness of the cove. The wind picked up, whipping her skirts against her legs and tugging at her coiled braids. The moon shone down, revealing the dark shapes of the fishing schooners bobbing up and down on choppy water. No one was there.

Tears came to her eyes and were blown immediately onto her cheeks by the brisk wind. Hob did not love her enough—he had not waited. But then she saw a figure, its back to her, leaning against the railing of the seawall, staring out at the windswept sea. Holding up her skirts with one hand, the other keeping a good grip on the hatbox, she walked steadily forward.

She recognized the long, thin back. He was wearing loose dark clothes and his feet were bare. The moonlight illuminated his fair hair and wind ruffled it into a yellow thatch.

"Hob!" she cried, running up to him, and he turned and caught her up in his arms, a great grin splitting his face.

"Clementine—you came after all! I was about to give up on you."

"Of course I've come, my love. I just had a hard time getting away. They locked me in, can you believe it? But now I'm here and all ready for our journey." She could feel the muscles in his arms like ropes around her. She gave him her best smile. "I can't wait to begin our new life together, Hob..."

He stepped back to look at her. He glanced at the sky, then shook his head. "Clementine, I can't wait, either. But I'm worried about this weather. It isn't a good night to be taking a boat out all alone. It looks to me like there's a storm brewing."

"Oh, Hob—you promised! And a promise is a promise!" She pulled away and gazed up at him, seething inside with anger that after all she'd been through, her plan might come to nothing. She made her eyes sad and round. "Don't you love me?"

"Of course I do! But, Clementine, must we go tonight? What about your aunt? I saw the doctor riding up the hill. If she's so sick, maybe you should be home with her—?"

She shook her head. "No, Hob, she'll be fine. This is my only chance to escape them. You don't know how they watch me! I spent the whole day locked in my room, all because my uncle doesn't want me to be with you. But once we're married, they won't be able to keep us apart. We need to go right now, tonight, before they come looking for me. I thought I could count on you!"

"You
can
count on me. You're my future, Clementine. But it's farther than you think across the cove." He reached to pull her back into his arms, but she stepped away and hugged her hatbox.

"If you want to marry me, Hob, we have to go to Benson this very night."

He frowned at her. "But I can't sail the
Undine
alone, and the waves are too rough for a smaller boat."

"You could handle her. You're big enough. And
so
strong. Stronger than other men."

He shook his head, but she could see he was flattered. "You're daft if you think that I can do the work of four men," he said.

"Then don't take the schooner. I can help you with a smaller boat. We'll be fine. You just tell me what to do." She walked along the pier, inspecting the small crafts tethered near the larger vessels. "Look, what about this one?"

"That's Sam Sawyer's dinghy! It's nothing more than a rowboat with a sail. It would never take those waves."

"Of course it will." She bent and lifted the heavy line tied to the iron mooring. "We just take this and—"

"Clementine!" He had to raise his voice as the wind whipped the words out to sea. "You stop that!"

She narrowed her eyes and peered down at the waves. "Hob Wilkins, you listen to me. If you want to marry me, you are taking me to Benson this very night. Or else I just might change my mind."

"You really
are
daft!"

"What's the difference between daft and desperate?" she asked him, tears spilling onto her cheeks. "I want to be with you for the rest of my life. But if I don't get away tonight, my uncle will find me and lock me away, and I'll never see you again!" Her tears—tears of rage and frustration—mingled with the salt spray.

Hob cleared his throat, clearly anxious at the sight of her tears.

She dropped the heavy rope and shifted her hatbox. Then she slipped one arm around his waist and leaned against him. "I trust you, Hob. There's no one like you. I ... I love you."

He looked away, down the pier to where the
Undine
was tied to the mooring. Clementine felt his arms tighten around her again as he pulled her against his chest. She could feel his heart pounding—or was it her own? Then he put his hand on the back of her neck and lowered his face to hers. His kiss nearly suffocated her; she couldn't breathe. She felt their hearts pounding together louder and louder until she thought hers must surely burst.

"All right. I'll try." He indicated a boat twice the size of Sam's little rowboat, fitted with a mast and also with oars for rowing. "Your uncle owns the
Undine,
but this little lady belongs to my pa, every beautiful inch of He. We can take her, I think, if we hurry across before the rain starts." When the moonlight gleamed down through a hole in the thick cloud cover, Clementine could read the name painted on the bow:
Grace.

"She's perfect." Clementine climbed aboard the
Grace
before he could change his mind. "Oh, thank you, Hob!"

The
Grace
was about twelve feet long, with a single mast. Its deck was crowded with dozens of wooden lobster pots and carefully folded nets. Hob lit the oil lamp that hung on a hook at the bow. Then he untied the heavy rope from the iron mooring and cast off from the pier. He hoisted the sail up first, then pulled the ropes tight as the sail filled with the brisk night wind. "Hold the tiller steady while I get this up," he ordered. Clementine stood at the stern and gripped the wooden tiller. As the heavy sail flapped hard, the vessel turned in the water. "This is crazy," he said. But his eyes glowed at the sight of her. "Pa always says it's bad luck to bring a woman on board a ship." He was grinning now. "Bad for the day's catch."

"Well, good thing we're not planning to catch anything," she replied, smiling at him.

"Oh, we'll catch it all right, when people find out what we've done!"

They laughed together as he raised the mainsail. "They'll be happy enough to welcome such a nice couple back to Hibben after our wedding tomorrow morning," Clementine told him, raising her voice to be heard over the flapping of the heavy cloth. "We'll have to be as respectable as they come to make up for this adventure."

"What a great story this'll make for our children," added Hob, tending to the myriad of lines and pulleys. "Not to mention our grandchildren!"

She held the tiller steady, caught up in the story— for a moment almost believing that they would marry in the morning and return to Hibben. "We'll go back to Benson every year for our anniversary celebration," she said. "And take all the children and grandchildren along!"

The mainsail and jib filled with wind, and the
Grace
moved silently out over the water toward Benson. Clementine sat next to Hob as he took the tiller. The wind that filled the sails also blew the clouds away for a few minutes, and the moon was bright. Far across the water she could see lights twinkling on the cliffs. When the water grew even more choppy, Hob competently luffed over the waves. He scanned the sky.

"We'll make good time if the wind keeps on this way," he said. "Maybe you're not so daft after all, Clementine Horn!"

Then he frowned as the cloud cover rolled back across the sky.

"Is it going to rain?" she asked. She didn't really care, just as long as the boat kept on its course away from Hibben. Freedom! She would never see Uncle Wallace again—not if she could help it. And the children ... well, they would get along fine without her. She resolutely pushed all thoughts of Aunt Ethel from her head.

"I hope it'll hold off until we dock," he said. He shifted course slightly to ride the waves more smoothly. "As long as a fog doesn't come up, we should be fine." She sensed that despite his worry, he was enjoying this challenge. She touched his arm gently.

"I like a man who can master the elements," she said. "That's the kind of husband for me." In the light from the lantern, she saw his ears turn red.

He was a nice boy, and she hoped it wouldn't take him long to get over her once she escaped him in Benson. He'd go home again and apologize to his pa for taking the
Grace
without permission, then start work again with the fishermen. He'd marry a nice girl in another year or so. He'd spend his whole life in Hibben, with fishing filling his days and family filling his nights. She supposed he would look back on this night as an exciting high point in an otherwise humdrum life.

She,
on the other hand, would be working somewhere, earning money for college. She would get a degree. She would travel the world and think only sometimes of Hibben and her old life there. From time to time she might drop Hob Wilkins a line from far-off lands. That would cause a little excitement!

Hob was singing as he changed direction by shifting the sail so the wind struck the other side. They must keep clear of the rocks. The boat tacked a zigzag course across the cove, and Hob sang louder, shouting out the words to be heard above the wind: "
Oh my darlin', Oh my darlin', Oh my darlin', Clementine. You are lost and gone forever—
"

She laughed, and the wind whipped her laughter up into the sails. It seemed for a moment that her laughter, derisive and careless, filled the sails and sent the boat skimming along even faster. She joined in his song, shouting her excitement.
Gone forever! Hooray!

Keeping a hand steady on the tiller, he reached his other around to hug her. "But you won't be gone at all, sweetest girl. We'll be together forever!"

"Forever!" She laughed harder, drunk now on the wind and spray, on the danger, on the night. What an adventure this was! She grew more and more giddy with the sense of her own power over this boy. And her power made her careless. "I'll be sending you postcards from Africa, Hob!" Her words were swept out over the choppy water. They were halfway across the cove. She could see the lights of Benson each time the wind blew a hole in the fog, and she threw caution, as it were, to the wind. "I'll write whenever I have time. I'll never forget my darlin' Hob."

"What was that about postcards, Clementine?" shouted Hob over the roar of the wind. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, I'm just a silly girl," she giggled, nuzzling his cheek. Then she pulled her shawl tightly around her shoulders and mentally kicked her own shin.
Shut up!
she told herself.
Do you want to give it all away so soon? He'll learn quickly enough once we dock in Benson that the marriage is off.

After a while she grew cold in the wind and huddled low on the polished deck. She was surprised that the deck had been scrubbed so clean. She would not have thought that the burly fishermen cared how the floor looked. But then she remembered how Uncle Wallace once told her that the simple fishing folk believed each vessel had a soul and must be treated with respect by the men who sailed her. Clementine wedged her hatbox under a net beside her so it would not slide with the motion of the boat, then drew up her knees beneath her long skirt and wrapped her arms around them. She sat there thinking about the reactions of Hob's wife and children when they received picture postcards from exotic places.

The boat dipped sharply, its starboard side lifting high before slamming down into the water again, and Clementine peered up at the dark shape of Hob, struggling to hold the lines as the wind buffeted the craft. She would help him if she could—but no use both of them getting cold. She closed her eyes and tried to blot out everything but the thought of her future. She planned to ditch Hob as fast as possible once they docked, then head for the depot. In Boston or New York or wherever the first bus took her, she could sell her mother's necklace and live on the money until she found work with a family who could pay her well. There would be books and books and books, and a new atlas to replace the one Uncle Wallace had burned. She tasted the bitter anger again as she thought of all the times she'd lain across her bed, poring over the maps in her father's atlas, and she hated Uncle Wallace with fresh vigor. How dare he!

She closed her eyes, lulled by the rising and falling of the boat as it made its way across the waves toward Benson. But then the boat rose sharply again, smacking hard on its port side, and she heard Hob shout. Her eyes flew open as the spray showered her, dousing the lamp. Now she could barely see him at all.

She struggled to her feet and was thrown against the mast by the choppy dance of the
Grace.
"Hob!" she called, kicking aside the nets and hanging on tightly to the boom.

"Sit down!" he yelled back. "It's blowing too hard." The roaring wind tossed his words to the sky. "We're turning back. We'll never keep clear of the rocks in this weather."

"Oh no! You mustn't turn back, Hob! I thought you would take care of me!"

"Believe me, I'll be taking care of us both if I can just turn her around!" She saw now he was standing on deck, pulling frantically on the lines to lower the sails. "Help me! We have to get these down!"

"But why?" she cried, fighting against the wind to reach him. The first hard drops of rain began to fall. His hair was already wet from the sea spray, his shirt plastered to his chest. "We must keep on!" Across the cove lay Benson, though she could no longer see the lights of shore through the fog and darkness.

"Hold the tiller while I reef the mainsail!" he shouted, hauling on the line to shorten the amount of sail exposed to the wind.

"You promised!" she wailed, wanting to strike him, seeing all her dreams disappearing into the clouds that now covered the water. She would be her uncle's prisoner forever, slave to him and his motherless brood. She grabbed the tiller. "You promised!"