Chapter Fourteen
Haven Point, Maine
ANNA
Anna sat on a blanket on the little beach, laughing immoderately, as Mr. Lockwood, in a pretentious, scholarly tone, entertained Anna with a rigorous analysis of the game the girls were playing.
“It is simply not credible that Buckskin Bill, a Rough Rider, would be in cahoots with Frontier Frank, a contemporary of Kit Carson’s, whose epoch was nearly a half century earlier.
” He shook his head sorrowfully, as if terribly disappointed in Maudie and Julia, the respective actors.
“I am pained by the historical inaccuracies.”
Anna, mirthful, added, “Not to mention geographical!” She pointed to Louisa. “How did the Mad Ranchero of Texas happen to kidnap the Phantom Princess of the Everglades?”
“And terrible casting. A tiny, fair Irish girl as the Mad Ranchero?” He sighed and added, “And the costumes … I am not sure where to begin.”
“They clearly didn’t either,” Anna said.
Julia and Maudie had assembled whatever items they could locate that remotely suited the theme.
Maudie had a fur pelt over her shoulders and a bandana around her neck.
Julia wore a beaver hat and a leather holster.
The cowboy hat they found for Louisa was so large it covered her eyes, and she had spent much of the day quite blind.
“Perhaps we should credit them for encompassing such a great swath of the country,” Anna said. “I believe they have California, Montana, Texas, and Florida covered.”
“Well, all right, then. We shall award points for regional ecumenicism.”
Anna chuckled again. The day was warm, but there was a pleasant breeze, enough to stir the branches and make gentle ripples on the surface of the cove.
Though Louisa was quieter than the other girls, she seemed game for anything.
Mr. Lockwood had said that he and Eugenia agreed that the child was the happiest she had been since her mother died.
Mr. Lockwood was such easy, amusing company, Anna had struggled to maintain her resolve to be wary of him. The island felt like such an escape that even her anxiety about the possibility of Mrs. Howland discovering her identity had ebbed.
When Anna heard the sound of an outboard motor, she did not think much about it until it came into view, and she saw William and Owen Graham. They approached the shore, in clear view of the girls, who unfortunately had just picked up props: long branches, which they were using as guns.
William stood up in the boat, his face red with fury. “Those are my clothes, Julia!”
“Man the barricades!” Julia yelled. The girls lifted their fake guns and pretended to fire at the intruders.
“They seem to have skipped over the manning of the barricade,” Mr. Lockwood said.
William continued shouting, and at some point, Julia evidently decided it was growing tedious. “Get out of here, William Demarest, or I’ll break every bone in your unlucky carcass!”
“The cast has expanded,” Mr. Lockwood said. “An Irishman has entered from stage left.”
Julia, fascinated and endlessly amused by Louisa, was forever mining her for colorful turns of phrase. Yesterday, Julia came down to the breakfast table and announced she was “hungry as a saint’s dog.”
Amusing as the confrontation was, Anna worried that the timing of this spy mission was very inauspicious. Lillian, always a sympathetic audience for William’s complaints about Julia, would arrive tomorrow for a week’s visit on Haven Point.
Unfortunately, he now had plenty of fresh material.
As it happened, the first days of Lillian’s visit passed without incident. The weather was good, so Anna had the girls on the island during the day, and Elizabeth kept Lillian busy, visiting her various friends on Haven Point.
On Saturday, Anna was in the dining room with Elizabeth and Lillian, when Rosemary brought Julia and Louisa home from the beach. She ushered them upstairs, but they did not escape Lillian’s notice.
“Who was that child with Julia?”
“An orphan from the settlement house in South Boston,” Elizabeth said. “Harley and Eugenia Lockwood have brought her to Haven Point because she is sickly.”
Anna braced herself, but while Lillian’s brow was wrinkled, it seemed to be as much in consideration as consternation, as if she was deciding how to react.
“Well, perhaps it will be good for Julia to attend to a sick child,” she said (unaware that she was citing one of Julia’s least favorite themes in children’s literature).
Monday again brought rain, and Anna and Elizabeth were by the fireplace when Lillian came and stood over them, looking even more imperious than usual.
“Elizabeth, I should like to speak to you.”
“All right,” Elizabeth said. She set aside her magazine and folded her hands in her lap.
“I have been informed about what the girls have been doing on that island with your sister.” Lillian cast Anna a narrow-eyed glance. “Running around like little savages, dressed in all manner of inappropriate costume, shrieking and generally behaving like little barbarians. I am truly appalled.
“That child is in desperate need of a civilizing influence. I have told you repeatedly that a girl, particularly one as wild as Julia, should be tethered to her mother’s side, learning how to go on,” Lillian continued, as usual making Julia sound like a colt that needed to be broken.
“As you seem unwilling to take on that responsibility, it must fall to me. I would like to give you one more chance to change your mind about Newport.”
“Julia does not wish to go to Newport this summer,” Elizabeth said. Her tone, though as mild as ever, suggested that Lillian had already been informed of this.
“This is a decision for a responsible parent, not a child!” Lillian said shrilly. “I gather you have no intention of budging on the matter. I did not wish to take this up with Jerome, but I am afraid I will have to do so.”
Elizabeth, whose cheeks flushed, clearly did not relish this prospect. But she merely nodded. “He will be here Friday, not long after you return from your night in Portland.”
“I think you will regret this,” Lillian said, and stormed up to her room.
The next afternoon, Rhinelander and Vesta Sears arrived on their yacht, along with a group of friends from Bar Harbor, all of whom were heading to a big society wedding in Newport.
Ambrose and his friends were invited for cocktails and to tour the yacht that evening.
Again? Anna thought. (Evidently there were many improvements.) Serena had seemed anxious for her friends to join, so Anna and Elizabeth had accepted.
Mr. Lockwood had been invited, too. “Will I see you on the yacht this evening?” he asked Anna that morning on Jumaru.
Anna was unable to suppress a sigh. “Yes, I’ll be there.”
Mr. Lockwood laughed. “I take it you’re not itching to tour the craft?”
“As it happens, I had the pleasure years ago. I recall a riveting discussion about how they kept the sails so white.”
“Perhaps I will come late,” he replied. “I agree with whoever said yachts were ‘holes in the water, surrounded by wood, into which one pours money.’”
“Oh, but speaking of wood,” Anna said, with faux earnestness, “if you miss the tour, you will not learn of the many, many species represented on the interior.”
He shuddered. “I will definitely come late.”
After enduring the tour, and the company of the Searses’ superficial friends, Anna could not help being pleased when she spotted Mr. Lockwood and a few other latecomers on the launch, heading toward the yacht.
Then, from a few feet away, Anna caught the voices of two friends of Vesta’s.
“Did you see Harley Lockwood?” one of them remarked, evidently surprised. “What’s he doing here?”
“He was visiting Ambrose, and then took a cottage,” the other replied.
Anna could not see them, but she practically heard the mystified shrug.
The woman tittered and added, “I suppose the poor man must absent himself from Boston occasionally, if only to escape Mrs. Fairchild and her constant importunities.”
“She does pester him so, does she not? I suppose it’s not surprising that he simply gives in from time to time.”
Anna felt a rush of heat to her face. Praying she did not appear as frantic as she felt, she looked around, desperate for escape. She moved toward the stern, away from the tables, from the people, and stood gripping the rail, looking out at the water.
Anna had known she was naive and inexperienced, and she had continually reminded herself about Mr. Lockwood and Mrs. Fairchild, but some part of her had stubbornly refused to believe it.
How could someone so dedicated to a young orphan girl, so kind to Anna and engaged with Julia and the other girls, possibly be involved with such a horrible, hypocritical woman?
You foolish, foolish girl, Anna scolded herself.
“Miss Bradley!”
Anna turned to find herself face-to-face with Mr. Lockwood. He seemed genuinely pleased to see her.
“I have been looking for you. I was afraid you had begged off.”
“Hello,” she said coldly. She glanced at him, then looked away.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“No,” Anna replied, feeling childish.
“You seem angry. Have I offended you in some way?”
“Not … not exactly,” Anna said. She crossed her arms over her chest, her cheeks burning.
“Have I … have I inexactly offended you?”
Anna’s mind was in such a muddle, she had no idea what to say, or what she even could say.
It was not safe to mention Judith Fairchild’s name.
The woman was already too attuned to the tension in Elizabeth’s family, and far too eager to make further trouble.
Anna felt too hurt and humiliated, though, to speak to Mr. Lockwood with equanimity.
“There is something I had known about you, Mr. Lockwood,” she said, unable to look him in the face. “We were to be thrown together so much, I pushed it from my mind for the sake of the children, but I was reminded by a chance comment I overheard a moment ago.”
“Would you tell me what it is that you heard, or what you believe you know?”
Hearing a new stiffness in his tone, Anna finally glanced at him.
His expression was inscrutable, and she suddenly felt irritated.
Even in the unlikely event that the rumors about him and Mrs. Fairchild were unfounded, it strained credulity to think he had never heard them!
If such gossip had reached Anna’s ears, when she was barely in society and had no obvious interest in the matter, they had certainly reached Mr. Lockwood’s.
Even that ridiculous Mr. Wimborne had spoken of the two of them.
He needed only to acknowledge that he was aware of the rumors, and to say that they were unfounded. He would even be within his rights to tell Anna that it was unjust of her to have believed the gossip! That he was brazening it out instead told her all she needed to know.
“You must excuse me, Mr. Lockwood,” she said. She left him then, snaked her way through the crowd, and slipped into the teak-paneled deckhouse. Not ten minutes later, she saw Mr. Lockwood on the launch, speeding away toward Haven Point.
She felt a tear form. Just one tear. You’re allowed to let one fall.
It slid down her cheek; then she pulled a handkerchief from her reticule, dabbed at her eyes, and prepared to pretend.