“It was a bad reef the Arrow got hooked on,” Molly continued. “Though Captain Leverett thinks they might be able to pull the ship off once she’s lightened of cargo. They’ve been bringing in stuff out of the hold since last night.”
“Wreckers!” Persis sniffed.
“We was right glad to see them, Miss Persis. It’s these wreckers as save ships, lives, too. And Captain Leverett, he’s a proper gentleman. Gave orders to get the doctor for Mr. Augustin. There’s a real doctor living here, though he don’t do much doctoring anymore. Seems he’s more interested in planting things to watch ’em grow, or so Mrs. Pryor says. But he ain’t forgot his doctoring when there’s a need for it. He said as how Mr. Augustin has had a bad shock, and the wetting didn’t do him no good neither. He looked at you, too, Miss Persis. Seems like when you fell into the boat you got a knock on the head. But he said that was no great matter—just to let you sleep it off.”
“I—” Persis pushed impatiently at her tangled hair. The past few days had been a bad dream. First the awful seasickness which had kept her captive in her cabin in spite of all her will to conquer it—then the terror of being tossed about in the storm—the final shuddering crash—
“You’ll be all right, Miss Persis. And Miss Lydia, the Captain’s own sister, is lending you some clothes. I’ll go and get ’em. That there dress you had on is ruined. But first—” Molly went out to get a tray on which was a mug, with a saucer set on top of it, and alongside a respectable silver spoon.
“They’ve a real good cook here,” the maid announced. There was satisfaction in her praise, for Molly and Uncle Augustin’s cook were old enemies, enjoying a feud Persis sometimes suspected was highly satisfactory to both. “This broth has real body to it. You get that inside you, Miss Persis, and you’ll feel a lot better. You look washed out.”
Persis averted her eyes from the mirror. Washed out was a very mild term for what she saw there now.
“I look worse than that,” she agreed with dismal frankness as she picked up the spoon. The liquid in the mug did smell good and, for the first time in days, she felt hungry instead of squeamish.
“My trunk is down there—” she gestured to the window. “Can you get them to bring it up? I’d rather wear my own things.”
She had fretted so over those dresses since Uncle Augustin had suddenly decided to make this trip to the Bahamas where it was supposed to be so very much warmer, that the heavy silks and woolens one needed in New York would not be proper. She had had such a difficulty shopping for muslins, a light silk or two at the beginning of the fall season. The whole contents of that trunk were the result of much time and effort. And she had had to be very careful in the cost of her selections because Uncle Augustin’s affairs were in such a muddle after the disastrous fire last year when half of the city had gone up in flames.
“Them things’ll all need washing and tendin’ to,” Molly announced. “So you’ll have to wait on wearin’ ’em.” She eyed her mistress measuringly. “Miss Lydia, now, she’s a might fuller at the waist—for all her lacing—but not too much.”
Persis sighed; now she was going to hear Molly’s standard comments on her own deficiencies.
“I know I’m as thin as a rail. But I’m just made that way, Molly, no matter how much I eat. All right—it’s plain I’ll have to wear something and if Miss Leverett is kind enough to offer, I must be gracious enough to accept.”
But she was not. Persis hated the thought of wearing someone else’s clothing. Such a small thing to trouble her when she ought just to be glad they were safe. One thing she was sure of—to go to sea again (if the Arrow was ever patched up or they were offered other transportation) was going to require all the fortitude she could summon.
Two hours later she was more at ease with herself and her world. A slim black girl brought in cans of hot water and Molly had washed all the salt stickiness out of her hair, brushing and toweling it dry. She was laced into a muslin far more elaborate in trimming than any from her own trunk. In fact, suited for at least a formal tea drinking.
The gown was lemon colored (to compliment her own brown hair and rather sallow skin) with the fashionable full sleeves, tight from shoulder to elbow and then billowing out in twin puffs of undersleeves of lace. A cobweb-fine lace edged the cape-wide bertha. And the neckline had a turndown collar finished off with a bow. There was even an apron of sheer muslin with a deeply ruched border.
Molly had skillfully braided her hair into the upstanding loops on the top of her head, though her side curls in this humid damp were more flyaway wisps than proper ringlets. Yet this time Persis faced the mirror with hardly any more assurance. She did not think all these frills became her. Her face was too thin, her high-bridged nose too sharp. Yes, she had the look —the slight look—of a schoolmarm.
“Uncle Augustin—” Duty nipped her again.
“Still sleepin’, Miss Persis. Shubal is sittin’ there right beside him should anything be needed. But no harm your lookin’ in on him.”
Molly opened the door of the chamber and pointed to another directly across the hall.
“Miss Lydia and Mrs. Pryor—they are down on the veranda. You go down them stairs and straight ahead -”
Persis nodded, tapped lightly on her uncle’s door.
Shubal peered out at her, his gray whiskers a disorderly fringe about his meager face. He waved her in, but set his finger to his lips in warning.
Here was another huge bed with netting falling from the tester above. Against the pillows which supported his head and shoulders (her uncle had to sleep nearly upright since his illness) the old man’s face was clay-white. His thin hair stood up like the crest of one of those strange birds sailors sometimes brought home, and his mouth hung open a little as he breathed in shallow puffs. His eyes were closed.
And it was the eyes which had and did make Uncle Augustin so alive as a person. Their bright, inquiring blue had been the first thing Persis had noticed when he had brought her to live with him after he retired from traveling in foreign parts.
Somehow she had never thought of him as being old, though he had been the eldest of a long family and her father was the youngest of the lot. Now when she looked at that pinched and weary face, the eyes shut, a stab of fear chilled her. She could not believe in a future which did not include Uncle Augustin—his wry humor, his keen wit, and his always interested mind. Though he had also had a reserve, so that her affection was born of duty and appreciation, not love.
Not many men of his age would have taken an orphaned niece of eight into their house. He had given her every comfort but had always kept her at a distance, forging a barrier Persis never tried to pierce.
However, her situation was hardly different from that of Sally Madison or Caroline Briggs, who had shared her studies at Miss Pickett’s Academy for Young Ladies and had been her closest friends. For both Sally and Caroline seemed to fear their fathers and hold all older gentlemen in awe.
But Uncle Augustin, as remote as he was, was always there. He shared no confidences, of course. She had been astounded when he had first told her of his decision to sail to the Bahamas. Though she had guessed that the situation of Rooke and Company, as a result of the fire, had been a worry which had brought on his first attack.
He had appeared to recover so well from that. Then he said a voyage to a warmer climate was all he needed to put him on his feet again. Persis suspected that more than his health had occupied his mind during the past few months. Mr. Hogue, the lawyer, had come so many times to the house.
And there had been that hunt through the attic storeroom for a certain box. Which, when found, contained little more than a packet of old letters. Yet Uncle Augustin had been delighted with those.
Shubal touched her arm and motioned to the door. She nodded and went out, the manservant following her. He had always been as silent as Uncle Augustin, but his lips were trembling now and he kept glancing back, which added to Persis’ uneasiness.