The Unmarried Bride

‘I don’t have a boat. We hired someone to drop us off here and I’ve hired him to come again in three weeks on the fifteenth to pick us up. I don’t need to check the lease,’ he snapped. ‘It’s all legal and above-board. I made sure of that before I signed it.’

‘My dad’s a—’

‘Harry, shut up!’

The boy clapped his hands over his mouth. ‘We ain’t s’posed to tell,’ he added in a little whisper.

‘I’m a lawyer. I’ve already checked the lease.’

‘I can see that you must have.’ Abby restrained a grin. It was fun to be talking to this—lawyer. ‘And who signed the lease?’

‘Miss Spencer,’ he said, and then sat up and looked at her suspiciously. ‘Miss Abigail Spencer?’

‘Did Miss Spencer sign it? A.L. Spencer?’ He nodded. ‘Was she a little old lady? White hair, a little thin on top? Stands about five feet three? Looks like a chipper little bluebird?’

‘Exactly. What are you trying to tell me?’

‘Nothing particularly important,’ Abby said, teasing him along. ‘As it happens, I’m the only Abigail in the Spencer family. You’re talking about my great-aunt Amaryllis Letitia. Too bad. Aunt Letty loves to play the horses. I suspect she and your money are already down in Florida, or wherever the ponies are running these days.’

‘Then you’re the one that—’

‘Inherited this place, lock, stock and barrel,’ Abby said. ‘My house, my island—’

‘An’ don’t forget the treasure,’ the boy said. ‘There’s a big treasure here, ain’t there?’

‘I haven’t any idea if there is any treasure. My uncle used to say there was but he wasn’t willing to let anyone come and dig for it. “My treasure”, Uncle Teddy used to say—’ A dull sound in the background interrupted her; the windows rattled in their frames. ‘He was a peculiar fellow, my uncle. But he left this island to me.’ Abby got up and went to the window. ‘Look, it’s getting pretty late, and from the looks of things there’s a storm brewing out there. Hadn’t you two better start thinking of how to be on your way?’

‘On our way hell,’ the man said. ‘You—at least your family—owes me three more weeks of living on this island, and I mean to have it.’

‘Sue me,’ Abby prompted.

‘I will,’ he returned. ‘We’re not leaving this island until our lease is up.’ A crash of thunder sounded from outside. Abby walked back to the window and pulled back the drapes. Low dark clouds were racing across the sky, bending the few island trees before them.

‘Looks like a north-easter,’ Abby commented as she dropped the drapes. ‘I wouldn’t put a dog out on a night like this. You can spend the night. Lord knows we have plenty of rooms. Tomorrow we’ll talk it over like sensible adults, and see what we can see.’

‘My boat isn’t coming back until September fifteenth,’ he reiterated. ‘We’re staying at least that long.’

‘I can take you back to the mainland tomorrow. I have a little runabout. And don’t shout at me. I don’t happen to be a lawyer, but I do know my rights.’ She dropped on to the old-fashioned ottoman and regretted it immediately. The thing seemed to have been stuffed with horsehair.

The boy squirmed around, a cherub smile on his full-fleshed face. ‘That oughta be fun,’ he chortled. ‘Do you own that little white boat with the yellow stripe on it?’

‘Why did you ask?’ Abby pulled herself up to her feet. ‘What is it about that little white boat with the yellow stripe that makes you so happy?’

‘Well, whoever left it in the cove didn’t tie it up very well. When I seen it half an hour ago it was drifting out in the channel.’

‘Drifting?’ Abby liked nothing better than a calm, peaceful life. Boats didn’t drift, not when they were the only means of getting off Umatec Island. Strange men didn’t appear out of the storm and declare themselves to be fictional characters. Women like me—all twenty-nine years of me—don’t find themselves marooned on a deserted island with a little boy and a pirate, she told herself.

Harry’s father looked down at him with a very suspicious look in his eyes. ‘The boat just drifted away?’

‘Well, it certainly got loose. The rope came all apart and it just drifted away.’

Abby looked at them both. ‘I tie my lines with good knots,’ she said. ‘The knot didn’t come out by itself.’

‘Harry,’ his father said accusingly. The little boy blushed and stubbed his toe on the floor.

‘Well, I just had to see what it was, you know. It had a engine and it was floating nice and I thought I could get in and maybe take a little ride. And—’

‘And what?’ his father asked in the tone used in a courtroom to ask the accused when he had stopped beating his wife.

Abby winced in sympathy. There seemed to be very little compassion in that voice and Harry looked as if he needed very large doses of compassion and love on a daily basis. Even an amateur like Abby could tell that this little boy was on an emotional see-saw. He smiled and laughed and then was so serious and so angry. He bounced emotionally and it was very erratic. She didn’t think that Selby Farnsworth, no matter how good-looking, was the ideal person to deal with Harry’s problems.

‘The motor wouldn’t start,’ the boy replied firmly. ‘I untied the knot and the darn motor wouldn’t start. It’s all your fault, lady. It’s not fair, keepin’ a boat when the motor don’t start. There’s laws against that!’

The anger which had sparked his father’s face faded into a grin. ‘There probably is a law,’ he conceded. ‘Lord knows there seem to be more laws than people nowadays. So what did you do next?’

Zeus, Abby told herself. Sitting up there on Mount Olympus ready to cast a thunderbolt or two? Her eyes studied his face. Burned by the outdoor sun, smooth skin sporting a Roman nose, and a—dear God—a scar just under his left eye!

‘I—uh—just climbed over the side and swam back to shore,’ the boy said. ‘It was all because of that darn motor. It wouldn’t start. It ain’t my fault.’

‘Oh, boy,’ his father said. ‘It’s been a whole week of “one of those days”.’

Abby looked at both of them and swallowed her tongue. Out of the corner of her eye she just happened to see the look on the elder Farnsworth’s face. Glee? Anticipation? Satisfaction?

‘Well, Miss Spencer,’ he said. ‘That just about wraps it up, doesn’t it? None of us can leave without a boat. Your boat’s probably down off Cutty Hunk by now, and ours won’t be back for another three weeks or more. So, unless you’ve got some magic signal to summon help, I guess we’re all stuck here together, right?’

‘Now just a darn minute,’ Abigail Spencer said firmly. ‘Let’s not get carried away here. I’ve agreed that you can stay overnight. After that, well—’

The grin vanished from his face, to be replaced by a predatory look. His teeth gleamed in the soft light of the room. He’s looking for a place to bite, Abby told herself as she squirmed back in her chair, as far away from him as she could get.

‘Let me explain something to you,’ he said. Abby ducked away from the voice of doom. All her relationships with lawyers had been uniform—uniformly bad.

‘First of all,’ he continued, ‘if we don’t get occupancy of this island until September fifteenth, I will certainly file a civil suit against your aunt Letty. For triple damages, of course.’ He used a finger to mark an illusionary figure one in the air.

‘And then I think we might institute some criminal charges. Using the mails to defraud. Yes, that’s a nice one. Ten years in the slammer, as I recall. And then there’s the matter of embezzlement. Not to be overlooked, that. Probably another two years or so. And I’m sure I can think of a few more items, given a moment or two.’

‘You—you wouldn’t—’ Abby stammered hopefully. ‘She’s a sweet little old lady, and—’

‘And she’ll be a lot older when she comes out,’ he added. ‘No doubt about it. I’ll have her little posterior in a sling, lady, unless—’

‘Unless?’ Abby’s voice broke into a squeak.

‘Unless we get to stay here until September fifteenth.’

Abby choked on her own hurried breath. ‘So stay,’ she half whispered. ‘So stay and be happy. Aunt Letty’s too old for gaol sentences!’

‘How kind you are.’ That grin returned. ‘How about that, Harry? The lady wants us to stay.’

‘I don’t know that she means it,’ the boy returned.

‘She means it,’ his father assured him. ‘Or else! Now then, lady, we are all here together. Don’t you think that as our hostess you should start making us dinner?’ Mr Farnsworth had put the persuasive tone into his voice, as if to try and make her feel that she would either be obliged to cook or she would want to cook for his son and himself.

Abby had never felt that cooking dinner was a gender-orientated task. ‘I’m not hungry tonight and you aren’t really here at my invitation. So if you want to eat dinner the kitchen is down the hall.’

‘Harry and I have been surviving on peanut butter sandwiches and I’m sick of them,’ he said. ‘And you did invite us.’

‘Didn’t you bring anything else to eat?’ Abby forced herself to ask, trying hard not to offer any of the food she had brought over with her.

‘We brought only canned goods and, since neither of us likes washing dishes, we eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.’

‘I like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,’ Harry contributed to the conversation.

‘Well, there you are. Enjoy your meal, gentlemen. I’ll see you in the morning.’

Before either of them could tell her anything more that she didn’t want to hear, she scuttled out of the room and back up the stairs. Cleo paced along behind her. The dog was older than anyone cared to think, and running upstairs was difficult. As Abby ran she could hear the sound of their male laughter, and no amount of holding her hands over her ears could shut it out.

She almost tripped over her trailing robe, but managed to catch herself on the smooth oak banister. She thought for a moment that the man was surely going to blister the boy’s bottom; instead the laughter rolled on. And I, she told herself bitterly, am the butt of it all. Well, we’ll see about that.

Her door slammed behind her, almost amputating Cleo’s tail. A very satisfactory slam. Just enough to relieve her tensions. Just barely enough. And how would your Sunday-school class react to all of this? It was a thought somewhat stronger than she could bear. She walked over to the bed and fell across it, peering towards the half-open window. The boy she could understand. She had ten of them just like him in her Sunday-school class. But the father?

He was more than she could handle, even on her best day, this Selby Farnsworth. He wasn’t handsome, not on your life. Too rugged. Too outdoorsy for a girl who spent most of her life among books. Too darn sure of himself. And a lawyer to boot? Lord protect us! she thought. But maybe—only a couple of weeks? Just long enough to teach him a lesson? Hit him in his ego, the way I handle my brothers. That ought to do the trick!

A lawyer, she mused; that ranked him just below used-car salesmen and just above politicians on her personal list. She giggled at the idea. The curtains swayed in the wind, and a thin spray of water reached as far as the bed.

‘Oh, hell,’ she muttered, and dashed to close the window. Oh, hell? ‘Yes,’ she said firmly as she eased the window down. ‘Oh, hell! A girl is entitled to at least one swear word now and then. Especially in the privacy of her own room.’ Cleo, who had been lying down in the corner listening, made a funny noise, almost like laughter.

There were a few of her things piled at Abby’s feet. She looked down. A suitcase, a bag of fruit, and a— She gulped. It was decision time already. ‘So, unless you’ve got some magical signal to summon help, I guess we’re all stuck here together, right?’ he had said, and then that funny laugh and that leer.

‘Well, we can call for help,’ she said, giggling. ‘But you’ll never know, Mr Know-it-all Farnsworth. Not until I’m ready to tell you.’ With a very large grin on her face she picked up the leather case containing her portable cellular telephone and her big battery-operated AM-FM radio. She made sure they were both turned off, then stored them on the upper shelf of her wardrobe.

With this happy thought she took a piece of fruit from the bag and one of the manuscripts she had to read with her to bed. She would just read a while and then she’d have to go and wash her hands. The orange was a particularly juicy one.

‘Yes, Mr Selby Farnsworth, now we play the game my way,’ she murmured.

CHAPTER TWO

ON THE way back from the bathroom that evening, Abby passed by Selby’s door and heard a familiar ‘tap, tap, tap.’ There was a light under the door and inside a typewriter was being used. She knew the sound well.

‘Selby Farnsworth. If you aren’t Selby Jones, the author of my favourite hero, I’ll be darned,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve come all the way up here to write a book. There’s no doubt about it. Is there no limit to your cleverness? You’re a lawyer and a writer, perhaps something else as well? I wonder what?’

Quietly, so as not to give the whole show away, she stole back to her own room and walked in, closing the door behind her. Cleo was already coiled up on the throw-rug by the bed. Abby had to climb over the dog to get into the bed and once she was in she knew she would have difficulty getting to sleep. It was too early for her to go to bed! Besides, there were too many secrets to be analysed. Nevertheless, in the middle of her argument, sleep came quietly over her and in just a few seconds she was out.

It was the noise that woke her up. What was it? Someone was crying just outside her door. Someone who was trying to smother the noise. Cleo was awake as Abby pulled herself out of bed, awake and shuffling to the door to sniff at whatever might be outside. Haunts? Abby asked herself. Of course not! That was one thing which Uncle Teddy would have never allowed in his house.

She unlocked her door and pulled it open. Little Harry Farnsworth was sitting on the top step of the stairs, nestled hard up against the newel post of the mahogany banister. He was crying, a soft, muted cry as if he wanted to ease his agony without letting the world know he was hurting.

After a moment’s consideration, Abby padded over to the head of the stairs and sat down beside him. He stirred a little—just enough to give her sitting space. She put her arm around him. His head lifted away from the newel post and leaned on her. A soft, sweet head was resting on her breast, crying softly.

‘What’s the matter, Harry?’ she murmured.

‘I don’t know,’ the boy said. ‘I was dreaming about—about—well, you wouldn’t care about that. You don’t have to sit with me. You could go back to bed. I’m all right.’ There was a large amount of pride in his voice, more than his age or size should have contained.

‘I’m sure you are,’ Abby said. She applied a little pressure and pulled the boy against her until the whole length of him was resting against her body. The sobbing gave way to intermittent tears. ‘Do you want me to call your dad?’

‘No!’ said the boy sharply. ‘Not that! He’d be awful mad.’

The crying had stopped completely. He rubbed his nose with one hand and poked at his eyes with the knuckles of the other, still leaning against her. She could feel the muscles in his body relax. Silence played across the room. Nothing but the sound of the storm could be heard.

As the wall clock struck the quarter-hour he lifted his head out of the warm, soft nest between her breasts.

‘You know, you’re awful soft. My daddy is hard, like iron. I think my mommy used to be soft like you.’

Wordlessly, Abby stroked his shoulder and brushed his hair out of his eyes. She maintained the pressure that kept him against her and waited. By the next striking of the quarter-hour, he was asleep. His features were marked by tears but there was a little smile on his face.

‘What do I do now?’ Abby muttered.

She almost jumped out of her skin when a deep voice behind her said, ‘Now you pick him up and put him back in bed.’

She turned around and looked over her shoulder. Selby Farnsworth, dressed in the bottom half of an old pair of pyjamas, was staring down at her, brooding over the pair of them. She looked back at him for a moment or two and then sighed. ‘I can’t—he’s too heavy for me.’

He stepped down a stair or two to position himself in front of them and reached down gently to pick up his son. As his arm encircled the child the back of his wrists touched and then caressed her breasts. Abby took a deep audible breath as all her systems snapped to attention, and then he was gone.

She trailed after him into the boy’s room. He put the child down gently, arranged the blankets over him, checked the window to make sure it was shut and then tiptoed out into the hall. Abby took a moment to lean over the bed and kiss Harry’s forehead. He stirred uneasily, which made her back up hurriedly.

‘Go’nite, Mommy,’ Harry murmured.

Abby moved quietly out into the hall, and in the darkness ran into Selby. His arms came around her, perhaps to steady her, or perhaps—oh, stop that, she told herself angrily, stop romanticising.

‘Does he always have nightmares like this?’ she whispered.

‘No,’ he said bitterly. ‘I almost had him over these dreams. Thanks for your help.’

To be totally honest, it didn’t sound as if he really meant any thanks at all. It was almost as if he was embarrassed to have his son be the centre of such notice, Abby told herself. And he’d said dreams, not nightmares.

‘I couldn’t just leave him there, crying,’ she snapped, just barely remembering to keep her voice down. ‘Any woman would have gone to comfort him.’

‘That’s what you think,’ he said disgustedly. ‘His mother wouldn’t.’ And he marched smartly down the hall towards his own room.

As she stood watching him move away from her, her hands doubled into fists. ‘I could give you such a whack,’ she whispered. But the lessons on ladylike behaviour which her mother had drilled into her as a child all came to mind and so, with only some mild swearing under her breath, she returned to her room.

Sleep, this time, did not come quietly, or gently. She finally fell asleep and wrestled with her own terrible dream, which lasted until morning. In that dream she was chasing Selby Farnsworth with a big stick and she finally caught him. But before she had the satisfaction of whacking him the dream came to a halt, and then went back to its beginning, like a recorded tape whose end had been spliced to its start to make a circle. She never did get to whack him—hip and thigh, as the Bible would have it. It was frustrating, it was tiring and it was totally unsatisfactory!

Abby opened one eye and looked out of the window at a weak sun trying to rise over the hills of Martha’s Vineyard island. Time to get up, she grumbled to herself. Her sheets were all in twisted skeins around her legs. She had to unwind them before she could set a foot on the floor.

If I don’t get up and make a real breakfast he’s going to make some of those peanut butter and jelly sandwiches he threatened me with last night. And that, my girl, is something up with which you shall not put! she told herself.

She swung herself up out of the bed, sleepily staggered over to the window, raised the blind and threw the window open. There was a fine wind coming in from the east, bringing with it the flavour of sea and shore and all the world of fishing. Gulls haunted the stern of one of the passenger ferries which ploughed the waters north of them from Woods Hole to Martha’s Vineyard and back again. Here and back and the birds followed along, having learned long ago that the best of food came off the stern of one of these vessels after the breakfast or dinner meals.

Resolving to get going, Abby looked around her, found her robe and slippers, gathered up her underclothes, and padded down to the ornate bathroom. There was not a sign of life from either of the other two bedrooms. Which is just as well, she told herself. The last thing I need is to have two strange men following me around while I’m showering.

So she went as quietly as possible into the bathroom and started the shower. The quick response of the electric generator soon gave her hot water with enough to spare. She soaked under the pleasure of it and then was reminded by a movement outside the bathroom door that her time was fast fleeing. She stepped out, dried off, climbed into her undies and slipped into a pair of blue jeans and a light yellow blouse. Her hair was more than she could handle so she left it the way it was. Raggedy Ann, she told herself and laughed. Raggedy Ann looking for Raggedy Andy. Stop this, Abigail, she chided herself. There is more to this whole family set-up than you know. Something is seriously wrong and you may not wish to be dragged into this whole mess. But a little voice in her subconscious whispered that if there was trouble ahead little Abby Spencer would be among the first to offer to help. She blamed her mother for this affliction of hers—offering to help. Along with the ladylike lessons, her mother had been, and still was, big on simple kindness and the proverbial helping hand.

She picked up her night things and went out into the hall again. Her dog was waiting with her yellow tennis ball clenched between her teeth.

‘Come on, girl,’ she said softly. ‘Downstairs. Breakfast. If you don’t put that darn ball away you won’t eat.’

Breakfast—that was the magic word. The dog lifted up her ears, hiked herself up to her feet and raced, if that was a word that could be used about Cleo, to the head of the stairs. She turned, looking for praise. Her play-ball dropped out of her mouth and went merrily bouncing down the dark stairs. They both could hear the ball bouncing at least partway down the staircase. They made their way down, with Abby holding tightly on to the banister on one side, and Cleo’s collar on the other. Neither she nor Cleo could find the yellow ball. Cleo sat down at the foot of the stairs and mourned.

‘I didn’t throw it,’ Abby said. ‘Don’t expect me to go fetch it for you. Come on.’

Her ‘woman’s best friend’ offered a little growl. Abby stamped her foot on the dull linoleum. Complaining was acceptable; threatening was prohibited. They both knew the rules, but Cleo was standing up for her own principles.

‘Breakfast,’ Abby announced heartily. Cleo wavered. Caught between principle and practicality, the dog gave up and followed her mistress down the hall. It had been almost twenty-four hours since Cleo had eaten and any word having to do with food was welcome and eagerly anticipated.

Breakfast? Abby asked herself as she led the way down to the kitchen. What in the world have we got to eat?

There had been something nagging her all night, despite the bad dream with Selby Farnsworth. She had brought enough food for herself to last ten days. There certainly wasn’t enough to last for three weeks, especially for three people. Unless there was some way to call for a boat, the food was going to be getting scarce after a few days. But she’d keep her secret for at least a couple of days.

There was a propane refrigerator in the far corner of the kitchen, fed through a flexible tube that ran out to the back of the house. When she had first come in the day before, she had packed all her perishables in it, fired the cooling pilot light and then had gone off and forgotten it.

Now she opened the door carefully. A blast of cold air struck her face. Inventory: two dozen eggs, a rasher of bacon, sausages galore, bread for toasting. That last was a problem. The only way she could make toast was over the flames in the fireplace, and that fire was now only a glowing ember or two. After a ten-minute struggle Abby gave up.

She had been a girl scout, but as she recalled she had only been awarded the badge for sewing, and had to get her mother to sew it on for her. While she pondered on the problem of toast, Harry wandered into the kitchen. He looked hungry and just a little intimidated by the presence of Cleo. Abby smiled at him because he was really just a little boy. He was in the process of growing in his adult teeth; there were a few missing from the line up. There has to be a way to get on his good side, she told herself. With all of the training I’ve had there must be something I can try.