Days of Gold Read online

  When Mrs. Harcourt stood on tiptoes to look over the side of the ship, both the captain and Mr. Jones held their breaths. She looked so small and she was leaning over quite far. She must have worried Mr. Harcourt too because he put his hands on her waist and held her so she wouldn’t fall. When she turned and said something to him, he shook his head no. She spoke again and he shook his head more vigorously. When she frowned at him, Mr. Harcourt’s shoulders slumped for a moment, but then he lifted her up so she could see farther over the side. She held her arms straight out for a moment and let the wind hit her in the face.

  When Mr. Harcourt put her down on deck again, the captain and Mr. Jones let out their pent-up breaths.

  “She does get her way, doesn’t she?” Mr. Jones said.

  “I think perhaps that young man would do anything in the world for her. Walk into fire, throw himself in front of a cannon. Whatever she needed, he might do it.”

  “So would I,” Mr. Jones said. “If I had a wife who looked like her I’d—”

  “Mr. Jones,” Captain Inges said, “I’m not talking about looks, I’m talking about love.”

  “Yes, sir,” Mr. Jones said. “Excuse me, sir.”

  The captain left the deck and went below.

  “My wife told me that she can sing but I’ve never heard her,” Angus said to the captain as they sat at the dining table with him and Mr. Jones.

  “Haven’t heard your own wife sing?” Mr. Jones asked in astonishment, and looked at the captain.

  “We married quickly,” Angus said.

  “Yes,” Edilean said. “Our first meeting was memorable and our second was explosive. We’ve rarely been apart since then.”

  Angus put his napkin to his lips to cover his smile at her words, and his eyes twinkled. In spite of his misgivings and apprehensions—none of which he’d told Edilean—he’d done well at the captain’s dinner. There were just the four of them, the kindly captain, young Mr. Jones, and Edilean and Angus. He had been concerned about holding up his end of the conversation and being able to keep up the English accent he was using. Sometimes he forgot himself and lapsed back into his natural Scottish burr.

  But he needn’t have worried, for Edilean kept the talk going. As he watched her, he saw that she was adept at drawing people out. It had been his experience that pretty girls came to think that they didn’t have to do anything but sit still and be seen. And due to some extensive traveling he’d done in his youth, he’d seen several lady hostesses.

  He watched her as she got Mr. Jones talking about himself, then pulled the captain into the conversation. Angus was sure that by the end of the meal both men knew more about each other than they had before they sat down.

  And Edilean didn’t forget him. She could hardly go three sentences without saying “my husband.” “My husband knows about horses.” “My husband has spent a great deal of time in Scotland.” “My husband is quite good at that.”

  Angus couldn’t help it, but every time she said “my husband” he found himself smiling.

  By the end of the meal—which was excellent—she started talking about the plans she and her husband had. “We want to buy some land and build a house,” she said.

  “Then you’re going to the right country. The soil is rich and fertile,” the captain said. “Leave a plow in the earth for two weeks and it will sprout leaves.”

  “That’s what we want to hear, isn’t it?” she asked Angus.

  He blinked at her. “My...” He hesitated over the word. “My wife is the gardener, not me. I don’t know a weed from a stalk of wheat.” Did they grow wheat in America? he wondered.

  “True,” Edilean said. “My father died when I was young, so I was at the mercy of my school friends when I was growing up. If they didn’t invite me to their houses for the holidays I had to stay at the school with whichever teacher was made to stay behind with me. I lasted through one of those holidays and I can tell you that after that I learned how to make friends.”

  Mr. Jones and the captain laughed at her story, but Angus stared. Maybe what had happened to her was the reason why, even though she was so beautiful, she knew how to make an effort to be liked.

  “You must have had many invitations,” the captain said. “I can’t imagine that you were left behind very often.”

  “Not after that first lonely time. No one has a worse temper than a young teacher who’s had to cancel her own holiday to stay with the only girl in school who has nowhere to go. But after I learned to be a friend, I got to visit some of the best houses in England. I loved the gardens and used to sketch them in the hope that someday I’d have my own land to design.”

  “And will you give it to her?” the captain asked Angus.

  “Yes,” he said quickly. “I plan to give her her own town to create.” He smiled as he said it, but when he bent his head, the smile left him. What did he have to give Edilean? If she hadn’t given him jewels, he wouldn’t even be able to buy himself some land.

  “And your house?” the captain asked.

  “I shall design that also,” she said. “I know exactly what I want. Tell me, Captain, have you seen much of America?”

  Angus noted that she never let the conversation stay on herself for too long before she started asking others for information about themselves—and her interest made them feel comfortable. Angus listened as the captain told about his own life and how he and his wife used to sail together.

  “But after the children came, she stayed home with them. Next year I expect her to be back with me.”

  “How wonderful for you!” Edilean exclaimed. “You must miss her so very much.”

  “I do. And seeing you two together has made me miss her even more.”

  Edilean put her hand on Angus’s and held it for a moment. “My husband and I want to spend all our time together too. Isn’t that right, dear?”

  That’s when Angus interrupted by saying he’d been told that Edilean could sing.

  “Now you’ve done it,” Mr. Jones said. “Captain Inges loves to play his mandolin and he laments the fact that I can’t tell one note from another.”

  “What music do you like?” she asked the captain, and her eyes seemed to say that she’d never heard anything more interesting than that he could play a mandolin.

  “I’m afraid I’m not much of a musician,” he said. “I just pick and strum to entertain myself.”

  “He’s being modest,” Mr. Jones said. “Sometimes he plays with the men and we dance on board.”

  “And now you have the women to dance with,” Edilean said, and the three men looked at her blankly. “The women downstairs.”

  “Oh.” Mr. Jones looked at his plate.

  The captain straightened his shoulders. “This is the first time I’ve had prisoners on board. I’m not quite sure what to do with them.”

  “Let them have some fresh air,” Angus said instantly. “They can’t stay below for the entire voyage.”

  “When they recover,” Captain Inges said. “Now all but two of them are under the weather.”

  “Seasickness,” Mr. Jones said.

  “You seem to be a good sailor,” the captain said to Edilean. “No sickness? Either of you?”

  “We’re too happy to have escaped to be sick,” Edilean said, then when they looked at her in question, she said, “I mean we’re happy to have escaped our well-meaning friends and relatives who never hesitated to call at our house in London to wish us well on our marriage.”

  “Ah,” Captain Inges said, “am I right in guessing that this is your bridal tour?”

  “Yes,” Edilean said. “A belated one.” Again she reached for Angus’s hand.

  “Perhaps, Mrs. Harcourt, I could persuade you to sing for us,” the captain said. “And I will try my hand at the mandolin.”

  “I would love to,” she said, pushing back her chair as the steward came in and began to clear the table. “What would you like? Psalms? A bit of opera? Or perhaps a folk song from the English countryside?”