Lightkeeper's Wife (19 page)

Cassandra Wainwright arrived in Dangerfield with all the pomp of royalty. Her sister Freda chaperoned the excursion, and they traveled in a black cabriolet with red piping and two yellow streamers trailing in the wind. The driver wore a black suit with a white blouse buttoned to the neck and held his hands before him in a formal posture, guiding the horses by flicking the reins lightly on their backs. Billy was in the southwest corner of the yard when she heard the wheels straining over holes in the road. The driver pulled back on the reins to slow the horses and keep from jostling his passengers and their cargo. Five trunks stacked in successively smaller sizes bounced on the back of the buggy, pressing against the leather straps and creating a precarious rumble. There had been some dissension among the girl's family about her making the trip without a chaperone. Cassandra, a fiery if sheltered twenty-three-year-old, had refused her mother's company, and after days of quarreling had settled on Freda, a spinster of twenty-nine years old, but a good companion for the long ride. She'd pay respectable attention to the goings-on between the couple but wouldn't stick her nose in where it didn't belong.

Billy stood from where she was bent over a long trunk of oak. Once it was planted six feet down into the ground, this would act as a mast to test the lifesaving rig. Standing over the pole where it lay on the ground, Billy tried to envision the ropes running up to a crossbar where Hannah would wait like a shipwrecked sailor. She laid two pieces of wood on the ground to form the crossbar, and then set supports coming in at an angle. She bent over the mast pounding nails.

Tom walked up and startled her from the swing of her hammer. He wore his best wool trousers and a fine cotton shirt beneath a black frock jacket. In his gray work overalls and fishing boots, he'd blended into the landscape. Now his life edged beyond the peripheries of their yards and past the town lying between the lighthouse and the harbor.

“I thought you were entertaining your lady friend,” Billy said. “How's she like the place?”

“Good enough,” he said, his lithe frame swaying in his clothes as if the sea rolled beneath him, but it was only nerves and the desire to move. “I painted some of the rooms, bought new linens, curtains, things like that. Hannah's mother helped choose fabrics. Of course it must seem pretty rough to Cassie, still.”

“It's a comfortable house,” Billy said.

“She's used to more company.” Tom eyed the mast, hands shoved deep in his pockets now. He hadn't worn an overcoat and his jaw clenched against chattering. “Hannah home? I want to ask her if we can come by for a visit.”

“Yep.”

“You'll let me know if you need a hand getting this thing in the ground?”

“There's something else I need.” She told him her idea for installing a ship's bell at the top of the stairs, with a rope handle running down to the beach that Hannah could use to signal that she was okay, or if she needed help.

“That's the best idea I've heard in a while,” Tom said. “You have a bell?”

“Yep.”

***

Billy washed her face and neck in the kitchen sink. She rubbed the dirt from her hands and dried herself before removing her sweat-soaked shirt and unwrapping the bandages that held her breasts flat. Once released, she stretched her back and the feeling returned to her breasts. Without the bandage her breath came easier, her ribs rose and fell in normal rhythms. Her reflection in the mirror surprised her, her pale breasts released from their wrap, the imprints of the cloth a lattice of smooth marks.

Since the wreck she'd gained weight so that she was no longer all muscle and bone, and her breasts began to look like a woman's again. Small, tiny even, but still a woman's. Only when she was naked did she feel completely like a woman, no confusion of gender in her small breasts or what lay between her legs. When she dressed and stepped into the world, her disguise not only compensated the privations of her sex, but also protected her most private self. She'd fought hard on the
Intrepid
for the privilege of working the sails and navigating the ship. She'd battled the men on the
Alice
K
for her survival until she proved herself one of them. William Pike had taken shape inside her as a means of survival. Now the swagger she'd learned with the pirate crew, and the men's clothes she'd donned in Jamaica, felt as much a part of her as the color of her hair or the blue veins that rose on the back of her hands. This strange tilting between sexes left her feeling like neither one nor the other, but a combination of both that she couldn't fully decipher, but it was her, the real her, William Pike.

She tossed the dirty water out the window and stood for a moment with the cool air on her skin, rubbing the feeling into her breasts, feeling them there so strange and forgotten.

When Hannah broke the spell of her privacy, Billy turned from the window. They watched each other, spry as cats. The air in the room weighed on them in spite of the cold breeze until finally Hannah stepped forward to break their silence.

“What is it like?” she asked. “Is it uncomfortable?”

Billy picked up the bandage and rubbed it between her fingers to show Hannah.

“It's another kind of corset,” Hannah said. She took the strap but didn't take her eyes from Billy's taut stomach, her nearly flat breasts.

Billy turned to get her shirt. She folded the towel onto the counter by the sink and put the soap in the dish. Every one of her movements vibrated through Hannah, and she tried to not watch, but she was transfixed. Billy turned from the counter and shrugged her shirt on. She placed her hand on Hannah's arm, as if to say
I
know
.

“I need to feed the chickens,” Hannah said, and abruptly left the room. She didn't know what she was feeling, this strange mixture of dread and desire. How could she have feelings like this for Billy? In the yard, she turned and stared blankly toward the barn. Oh yes, she needed to feed the chickens.

***

It was rare to get visitors from Barnstable. Hannah stood in front of the mirror and admired her fine skirt, rose-colored plaid on a background of sand, a burgundy velvet bodice with covered buttons. She ran her fingers over the ivory stitching as if to assure herself that every last thread was in place. Her dark hair spun easily into a bun, and the white nape of her neck shone pale against the rich colors and textures of her clothing. The last time she'd worn this dress was in Barnstable when she first met John, but it wasn't the loss of John she felt. It was the loss of the possibility of a marriage to Tom. He'd given up on her finally and left her to contend with her feelings for Billy. She'd turned him down, but how could he choose Cassandra Wainwright of all people?

Cassandra had grown up in Barnstable not a mile from Hannah, but they had never met. Hannah was four years older and the difference in age kept them apart. Cassandra's father, Charles Wainwright III, owned a fishing business with concerns as far-reaching as Boston and New Bedford, not to mention the fleet he ran out of Barnstable harbor. Hannah knew many of the men and boys who worked in the fleet, but none of the Wainwrights themselves bothered with the stink of fishing.

As Hannah pulled at the tight bodice of her dress, she realized that Cassandra would be a new neighbor, possibly a friend. Anyone who interested Tom had to be worth knowing. She would have news of Barnstable, and maybe of Hannah's family and friends. Since John's disappearance, her feeling of connection to her past had all but washed away. John had met her family and spent time with her in Barnstable, so that coming to Dangerfield had felt an extension of her world more than a departure. With John gone, the tie was frayed. She wanted to reach back and grasp her past firmly in both hands, but she didn't want to give up anything of her life in Dangerfield.

Hannah chose a cameo necklace, the ivory silhouette of her maternal grandmother atop a faded ebony oval. She fastened the gold chain about her neck so that the pendant rested in the center of her chest, and she pressed her hand to it as if to calm her heart. Cassandra would know the story of John's disappearance, that he was dead. Hannah didn't want sympathy. She didn't want to discuss John or wear a widow's black attire. She was getting along just fine. That's what Cassandra could tell people when she returned to Barnstable.
Hannah
Snow
is
getting
along
just
fine.

She rubbed salve into her hands, wishing her skin wasn't rough from work, the creases in her palms not stained with oil. What about Billy? What if Cassandra went back to Barnstable and told people that Hannah was living with a strange man in her house? Or what if Billy couldn't pass as a man now that she'd filled out a little around the hips? She couldn't help feeling that she was hiding a secret more frightening than the fact of a strange man living in her house.

Would the women sense the familiarity she had with Billy? What would they think? Why wasn't she afraid of Billy's naked body in her kitchen? She was more intrigued than frightened, and this troubled her. She shuddered at the thought of being found out. Billy sat in the front room with one foot propped on a chair as she spliced a piece of rope around the lifesaving ring, which looked huge in the middle of the floor. The swish of Hannah's skirts preceded her, and Billy could not take her eyes from the lift of her breasts captured in the bodice, the shimmer of burgundy velvet, the soft sheen of fabric over baleen hoops. Hannah's lips appeared fuller, the depths of her eyes brighter.

“They're going to be here soon. You can't do that in the house,” she said, gathering discarded clothing from the furniture and piling it in her bedroom. “I've been giving it some thought.” Hannah adjusted the cameo back and forth on her chest, though it sat perfectly centered. “Cassandra and her sister are expecting a widow in mourning.”

“You're not even wearing black. You're dressed to impress someone you don't really know.”

“I do know them. They're Barnstable women, and they won't understand how we live. They'll gossip.”

“What are you saying? You want me to leave?”

“It's just for a little while, so I don't have to lie or make up explanations. You have to be Billy, my hired man. Keep your place when they're here and don't be too familiar.”

Billy left the life ring half finished on the floor. She grabbed her coat, slammed the front door, and stepped into the cold like she meant to do it harm.

***

Cassandra and Freda arrived at Hannah's in the cabriolet with Tom sitting up high with the driver. He swung himself down off the seat before the buggy came to a full stop, the flaps of his jacket in flight behind him, birdlike. He held the buggy door wide and raised a hand for Freda as she balanced on the narrow step, pulling along the cage of her skirts as she stepped to the ground in her white-buttoned boots.

Hannah walked straight to Freda and offered her hand in friendship. “I'm Hannah Snow, the lighthouse keeper and Tom's friend. How kind of you to visit.”

“I'm Freda, Cassie's eldest sister and chaperone.”

“Nice to make your acquaintance,” Hannah said. Freda was a big woman with a square, handsome face that gave her a brutish look, perhaps because of the scowl that seemed a permanent aspect of her countenance. She had thick arms and a large waist but moved rather lightly, and her melodious voice was as unexpected and lithe as her gait. Everything physical about Freda existed in direct contrast to the delighted sparkle in her olive green eyes. What at first appeared a scowl turned out to be nothing more than worry and a bookish sort of shyness that she tried to shield behind wire-rimmed spectacles.

Cassandra stepped out of the buggy as if onto a stage and waved as she took Tom's hand. Her pale blue dress and pale skin gave her the sheltered look of a child. She was pretty in an impractical way.

“This is Cassie. Cassie, this is Hannah, the lighthouse keeper here at Dangerfield.”

Hannah stepped forward to take Cassie's arm. “You must come in and see the lighthouse,” she said. “Tom has told me so much about you.”

“I brought you a little gift,” Cassie said. “A package of tea from China. Daddy got it on one of his voyages.”

“How lovely. I'm going to save it for a particularly cold night.”

Inside, the women settled themselves around the table, and Hannah set the pot on the stove. She poured boiling water into the white china pitcher with tiny yellow flowers on it, a gift from her mother.

“How many years have you been living at the lighthouse?” Cassie asked. Tom sat beside her, gazing at her as if seeing her for the first time, then glancing to Hannah to see if she noticed, but Hannah couldn't look at him.

“Over six years now. My husband John had been here for several years, and once we married, I joined him. He built sections of the house that you see here with lumber salvaged from shipwrecks.” Hannah nodded toward the far wall. “That crossbeam that holds the roof up came from a ship's deck, and the cornice here also washed up on the beach. My husband made good use of what he found.”

“Like Tom's lovely tables,” Freda said, sipping her tea.

“Tom's turned practicality into an art form. We can't claim to be anywhere near as creative or clever as that,” Hannah said.

Tom went to the fire, uncomfortable now that the attention had turned to him.

“If you ride out to the harbor, you'll see there are fishnets used for chicken coops,” Hannah said, “and oars for fence posts and salvaged block and tackle hanging from over the barns to lift and lower bales of hay.”

“Yes, Tom took us on a ride in that direction earlier today. Quite interesting,” Freda said. She spoke as if the world was an object placed before her for intellectual consideration.