Beyond All Dreams (8 page)

It didn't take long for Mr. Ferris to come slinking into the map room later that day. Anna was standing over a stack of nautical maps that contained the fishing territories of New England.

“I gather you are quite friendly with the congressman from Maine,” Mr. Ferris said.

“Mr. Spofford assigned me to be Mr. Callahan's research assistant for a spell. I hope you don't mind?”

“I do, actually.”

She dropped her map and put her hands on her hips. “If you have any smutty accusations about my behavior, I'd like to hear them.” There was a time when she'd allowed people to bully her, but those days were over.

“It seems you are performing research for him that falls outside your duties as a map librarian,” he pointed out. “I find that odd.”

“I am perfectly capable of researching general information requests, and Mr. Spofford has asked me to do so. Most of the generalists are over at the new building, getting ready for the move.”

Mr. Ferris cleared his throat delicately. “I also thought you'd like to know that others noticed your tête-à-tête with Mr. Callahan in the reading room earlier today. I'm sure you don't need to be reminded how that appears to outsiders.”

“Correct. You don't need to remind me.”

He retreated after that, leaving Anna feeling annoyed as she paged through the maps, looking for historic taxation boundaries in the fishing beds.

Her annoyance didn't last long. It was too easy to become engrossed as she searched the oversized maps of the estuary bays along the rugged New England coastline. Home to some of the
most important shipping channels in the nation, the coastline had been well documented over the years, and she carefully peeled back each map, the paper warping and crinkling as she flipped to one portraying Narragansett Bay.

Her heart squeezed. It was a map drawn by her father.

In the course of her work, she often stumbled across maps her father had made, and the bittersweet rush was always the same. She smiled as she traced the coastline, noting the pale-blue hash marks that indicated brackish water. In her mind's eye she could see the thick brush of sea grass and smell the salty air.

Nevertheless, this map didn't contain the information she needed, and she stood to grasp one side of the oversized map and peeled it to the side, the paper rustling loudly in the silence of the map room.

“Nice seeing you again, Papa,” she whispered.

It was hard to concentrate after seeing that map. She didn't want to provoke Lieutenant Rowland's ire, but neither was she going to ignore the inaccuracies in the navy's report about the
Culpeper
. Her father had been trying to tell her something in his final letter, but for the life of her, she could make no sense of it.

Was it possible he had written a similar letter to Aunt Ruth? He always enclosed separate messages to her aunt and uncle, and if those letters still existed, there might be more clues to begin piecing this puzzle together.

Anna's monthly dinner with Aunt Ruth was due this weekend. The visits were a halfhearted attempt to preserve the only familial relationship Anna had left in the world, although she suspected her aunt only welcomed them because Anna handed over a portion of her salary during those visits. Aunt Ruth had countless techniques to make Anna feel guilty for Uncle Henry's death, but she tended to keep her claws sheathed in front of others, which was why Anna dragged Neville along for the visits.
Anna always used some excuse for Neville's presence, like checking to be sure Ruth's stove was in good working order. Since it was October, they could say he'd come to clear the gutters in preparation for winter.

With any luck, this week's visit would reveal another letter from her father that Neville could later help her decipher.

A
unt Ruth's town house was nestled into the close-knit seafaring community just a few blocks from the Potomac River. Elm and oak trees sheltered cobblestone streets worn from a century of foot traffic. The cold air smelled of autumn and woodsmoke as she and Neville walked toward Ruth's house, their feet crunching over scattered acorns and leaves.

“I'll have to be careful asking about my father's letters,” Anna said. “Aunt Ruth blamed him for my mother's death. He's never been her favorite subject.”

“Your mother died in childbirth
.
How was that your father's fault?”

Anna tried not to laugh. “Do you really need me to explain it to you?”

“Maybe we can skip that part,” he said with a grin, but then he sobered quickly. “Anna, why are you doing this? Maybe the
Culpeper
was farther south when it sank, but it's not such an important detail, is it?”

Anna paused. Overlooking
any
error in the historical record was aggravating to her, but it was much more than a fussy need
for accuracy. “My father explained it to me once. He said that in 1707, a tiny navigational error steered an entire fleet of ships off course as they approached the English Channel. In the middle of the night, the HMS
Association
smashed into the rocks because of that tiny error, and eight hundred sailors died. Our maps and reports can't merely be good, they need to be flawless. And I think the
Culpeper
report is full of errors.”

“Yes, but we're not talking about a map sailors rely on for navigation. That old naval report is only a historical curiosity—”

“Stop right there,” Anna said, turning to block Neville from walking any farther on the cobblestone path. “We don't know how people in the future will use that report, but because it was written by the navy within a few months of the disaster, it will
always
be the most important record people will rely on. Who knows how people in the future might use that report. I know it is full of errors, and they must be fixed. If Aunt Ruth still has any of my father's old letters, I need to see them.”

“Okay, I get it,” Neville conceded.

They had arrived at Ruth's house, a two-story Colonial of ruddy brick with shiny black shutters that had once belonged to her father. After her mother died, Aunt Ruth and Uncle Henry moved in so they could look after Anna while her father was at sea. The house now belonged to Anna since inheriting it after her father died. It contained terrible memories, though, and Anna never wanted to live here again. Still, she could hardly evict her widowed aunt just so she could sell the home.

Aunt Ruth opened the front door wearing a threadbare work smock, her faded hair twisted into a loose bun. “Oh, you've brought your friend,” she said flatly. “I hope the meal will stretch.”

“Don't worry, I brought a shank of smoked ham,” Anna said.

Ruth's eyes lit up. “Meat! Oh, I haven't been able to afford meat in weeks.” She accepted the wrapped cut of ham.

Anna was pleased to see Ruth's mood brighten, especially since discussing her father was always a delicate topic between them. She followed her aunt back to the kitchen, where a small pot of lentils sat simmering on the stove. A loaf of brown bread was the only other food in sight. Anna always brought extra food when Neville came, but Ruth put the ham inside the icebox, clearly not intending to share.

“I'll step outside and have a look at your gutters, shall I?” Neville asked.

It would give Anna a few moments to bring up the subject of the letters. Her father had always posted two letters at a time—one for her and another discussing “grown-up business” addressed to her aunt.

Anna grabbed a knife and began dragging it through the loaf of bread, careful to cut uniform slices. “Do you remember the letters father sent us?”

“How could I forget? Always full of instructions and worrying over you.”

“Do you still have any of them?”

“I'm not a librarian who thinks every piece of paper with a word scribbled on it needs to be saved for posterity.”

The glimmer of hope inside Anna grew smaller. “You don't have them anymore?”

“Of course not. I usually tossed them out with the next batch of trash.”

Anna set the knife down and drew a careful breath. Whenever she delved into the past, she was liable to touch raw nerves and awaken the firestorm of bitterness and regret that simmered between her and Ruth. After all, Uncle Henry's winter coat still hung from the hook on the back of the kitchen door, as though
he might return any moment, when the man had been dead for fourteen years. All because of Anna.

“Were Papa's letters to you only about instructions for my care? Or did he sometimes . . .” How could she frame this question? She didn't know what her father had been trying to communicate in that final letter, so it was difficult to probe Aunt Ruth's memory. “The last letter I received from Papa, dated just a week before the
Culpeper
sank, seemed very strange. Do you remember if his final letter to you was also strange? Did he go into unusual detail about anything?”

The pot banged as Aunt Ruth moved the lentils to the far side of the stove. “All his letters were the same: rules, instructions, and nonstop worrying over his precious Anna. You'd think he didn't trust us, the way he worried over you.”

It wasn't an entirely misplaced fear. Ruth and Henry had never had children of their own and weren't particularly affectionate people. It had been a lonely household to grow up in.

Anna's shoulders sagged. It seemed that as her curiosity about the
Culpeper
grew, the likelihood of finding more information dwindled. Feeling deflated, she walked over to the small jar tucked amid the tins of flour and tea. Lifting the lid, she tilted the jar to peek inside. Only two dollars and a few coins rattled in the bottom. Without a word she reached into her pocket and slipped a small wad of bills into the jar—the unspoken routine they'd been practicing for years. While there was little familial affection between the two of them, Aunt Ruth took it for granted that Anna would support her.

There were so many things Anna could do with the money that went to Ruth each month. All her adult life she'd wished to buy herself a typewriter. Or perhaps a private room in O'Grady's. Not that she needed a typewriter or her own room, but it was fun to dream all the same.

“Let me help set the table,” Anna said. She began removing bowls from the cupboard. If there were any other clues left by her father, she would not find them in this house.

As usual, the meager food at Aunt Ruth's could not be comfortably stretched to feed three people, which meant Anna and Neville paid a visit later to a cozy pub overlooking the waterfront. The excellent Maryland clam chowder, with spicy stewed tomatoes and lumps of fresh crabmeat, was the only thing either of them missed about this town.

Neville started in on the chowder the second the bowls were set before them. For being so slim, the amount of food that disappeared down his throat was remarkable. Anna, meanwhile, toyed with her spoon, drawing swirls in the chowder as she recalled the sight of Uncle Henry's coat hanging on the back of her aunt's kitchen door. Perhaps someday she'd visit the house to see that Aunt Ruth had finally put the past behind her, but she doubted it. She sighed.

“You need to quit feeling sorry for your aunt,” Neville said as he polished off the last of his chowder and pushed the bowl aside. “After I finished cleaning her gutters, I took the leaves to her dustbin, where I saw the bones of a fine rib roast. A chicken carcass as well. For a widow who hasn't been able to afford meat for weeks, it has a strange way of getting into her rubbish.”

Anna rocked back on the bench. She could barely afford the shared room with Mrs. Horton, all so she could keep funneling money to her aunt. She had suspected Ruth sometimes exaggerated her poverty, but a rib roast and a chicken all in one week? She slid her untouched bowl of chowder toward Neville.

“Here, you can have this. I'm too annoyed to get it down.”

Neville smiled and grabbed his spoon again. “Wow. I wish you got angry more often. This is really good chowder.”

Anna had to smile. Neville could always make her laugh, even when she didn't want to. She was so amused watching Neville devour the chowder that she missed the entrance of a nattily dressed couple into the pub.

“Why, look who it is,” a silky voice called from across the room. “‘Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou.'” Neville stiffened at the old taunt as a blond woman in a canary-yellow walking suit approached their table. It was Eliza Sharpe, an old classmate from their school days.

In a school with students who ranged from harmless to downright vicious, Eliza always floated along the spectrum depending on shifting schoolyard alliances. During one year, Neville developed an unrequited crush on Eliza. It faded, but not before Neville had been dubbed with a nickname he despised to this day.

The moment Neville saw Eliza waving at them, his affliction got worse, blinking so hard his whole face twitched with the spasms he was helpless to stop. Beneath the table, Anna reached for his hand. He clasped it like a lifeline.

Neville was able to calm a bit by the time Eliza ambled to their table, leading a portly gentleman alongside her. A cap with a dazzling display of white feathers perched atop Eliza's coifed hair.

“Hello, Eliza,” Anna said. “What's that, a snowy egret on your head?”

The snowy egret had been driven almost to extinction by the popularity of its milky-white feathers and was the subject of a hotly contested bill before Congress to outlaw the slaughter of endangered birds for their plumage. Eliza preened as she touched the feathers with dainty fingers.

“Yes, aren't they pretty?”

“At least they aren't bald eagle,” Neville muttered.

The comment flew past Eliza. “Are the two of you married yet? I always thought you would be perfect for each other.” She glanced down at Anna's ringless hand. “Oops! Guess not,” she said, then leaned over to pat Anna on the shoulder. “Don't worry. You'll probably find someone soon.”

Why did the whole world think she and Neville ought to get married? She adored Neville, but he was like a brother to her. Even the thought of kissing him made her fight back laughter.

Eliza prodded the portly gentleman beside her to step closer. “Have you met my husband? Walter works at the Postal Department, and someday I expect he'll be the postmaster general. Walter, these are my two old friends from school, Anna O'Brien and Neville Bernhard. Except we always called him Romeo. It was the funniest thing. He used to let me peek at his paper during math tests. Do you remember?”

Neville's infatuation with Eliza began when Anna had been absent from school for a month to have the operation on her throat. That left a vacant seat beside Neville, which was eagerly filled by Eliza Sharpe, who was extremely kind to him. Neville, being neither stupid nor blind, knew Eliza's sudden need for his friendship was entirely dependent on the help he gave her in mathematics, but he didn't mind. Without Anna, he was friendless, and there was no worse torment for a fourteen-year-old boy than to be alone amid a throng of meanspirited schoolmates.