“A tempest I can do without,” Lucy exclaimed. “D’ye recall the last? ’Twas when I first came to the almshouse. Hail the size of turkey eggs!”
“I recall a massive sandbar lay in the Chesapeake when there’d been naught before. A great many ships ran aground. Did the crew say what needs to be done in preparation?”
“Batten down everything outside we can. Bring in more firewood to keep it dry. Secure the poultry and such.” Lucy bent and added another log to the hearth’s fire. “I do fret about our men at sea. What’s to become o’ them in a storm?”
“We shall keep praying for them.” What more could they do? “One of my favorite biblical stories is Jesus calming the wind and the waves.”
“Can ye read it to me tonight, Miss Shaw? After ye mind the light?”
“A lovely plan. Count on it.”
CHAPTER
fifty-two
Esmée sat by the parlor window embroidering, carefully alternating between stem stitch and satin stitch, tiny leaves and vines unfolding before her unwavering eye in different hues of brown and green. Dear Mama had taught her well. Lucy’s exclamation was proof.
“I’ve ne’er seen the like, Miss Shaw. And so fetching a fabric!”
“’Tis silk damask. I’m flowering a waistcoat for the wedding.”
“The captain’ll make a handsome groom, he will.” Smiling, Lucy pulled up a chair and took out her own handwork. “I’m knitting more stockings. Seems like I’m ne’er warm enough even with the fire blazing night and day.”
“There’s a chill on the island with the wind coming from all directions.”
A bob of her capped head led to a grimace. “I keep pondering what’s been said about a tempest. Best prepare for such by dressing warmly, aye.”
“Thankfully, all is well today. A mild south wind. Clear skies.” Esmée looked up from her work to gaze through the glass. The lighthouse seemed to watch over them, casting a long shadow in the sun. “You should come up in the light on a starry night.”
“Yer a brave soul climbing all those steps.” Lucy busied herself with her needle. “A bit like a jack-tar climbing aloft to the lookout.”
“Surely iron steps are better than a rope ladder.”
Lucy chuckled. “Those jacks have a bit o’ Hermes in them, they do, monkeying to the top.”
“Howisthe mischievous creature, I wonder?”
“Livelier than a lamb in spring, no doubt.” Lucy’s thin frame shook with mirth. “He’s missing Mistress Saltonstall by now. Or Cyprian, who had care of him till sailing.”
Esmée plied a few more emerald-green stitches, finishing a leaf. She startled when Lucy rose abruptly from the table, jarring it and bringing their peaceful interlude to an end.
“By Jove ... Is that yer father, Miss Shaw?”
Esmée looked again to the window as a small vessel drew up alongside the pier. Two jacks were tying up Father’s Bermuda sloop, favored for its agility and speed. Had he news of Eliza?
Abandoning her embroidery, Esmée grabbed her cape hanging near the door. Lucy was on her heels, the cold air seeded with questions. By the time they reached the water, her father was helping a caped woman onto the main deck from the stern cabin below. Alice? An infant’s cries shattered the stillness, startling a charm of finches in the near beach grass.
Esmée’s insides turned to ice. With Father’s help, Alice—her arms full of two bundles—stepped onto the pier. Her face was pale as frost, one arm jostling a crying babe. Father’s strained face only added to Esmée’s angst as he took one of the infants. She’d expected him at some point but not with babies. Nor Alice.
“Father, what has happened?” Esmée’s voice sounded overloud. A bit breathless.
He simply stared back at her, unsmiling. When Lucy took one infant the blanket fell away, and they saw it was Alden. His fat fists punched the air and his round face was puckered, but he gave no cry.
While Alice and Lucy hastened to the cottage with the babies, Father came to a standstill on the dock. “Your sister, racked from a hard birth, lies gravely ill with the pox. One of the kitchen maids in theiremploy has died of it. Now ’tis spreading through Williamsburg like fire and has reached York. Quinn is also ill, though not as ill as Eliza. He begged me to bring the babe to you straightaway for safekeeping. You know how hard the pox is on children.”
Dismay nearly stole all speech. “Girl or boy?”
“A girl.” His eyes glittered. “Your niece, Ruenna Cheverton.”
