Lucy was distracted to the point of silence, scanning the crowd for a sign, I supposed, of her beloved, while Mrs. Westenra was content to sit quietly and tap her foot to the music. I occupied myself watching the passersby. Everyone was caught up in the magical combination of the clement weather and the lively rhythm. Men walked spryly, and the women on their arms swayed to the tunes. Some fathers waltzed along to the music with little girls standing on their feet, while one family-a father, mother, brother, and two sisters-held hands doing a kind of group polka, the mother leading the movements. She hopped to one side, and then to the next, with the others trying to keep up with her until the little boy tripped on her skirt and fell to the ground crying. A few of the spectators gave him a rousing hand of applause, which both embarrassed him and made him proud as his father carried him off to the lemonade line. I imagined that in years to come, Jonathan and I would be that family, dancing merrily on our holiday, a family of doting parents and children secure in their love.
It was then that I saw the red-haired writer watching me. He was strolling with a woman I assumed was his wife, a dark-haired, strikingly beautiful woman in the sort of detailed white lace and linen dress that fashionable London women wore to holiday places. A boy with soft blond hair who wore a crisply starched sailor suit, the sort of thematic clothing that a doting grandmother would purchase for a boy’s holiday to a seafaring community, walked between them. The lady was pointing a graceful arm toward the lighthouse, telling the boy something about it, or so it appeared. She looked regal, with her swan neck wrapped in white netting and her back as straight as a queen’s. I remember wishing that I could train my students to carry just a small portion of that gracefulness.
The red-haired man, I now saw, had a huge bump on his forehead that looked like a tumor, which prevented him from being called handsome. He had a closely trimmed beard that was just a shade lighter than his hair, which he wore parted on the side. It was thinning, forming a valley of scalp on the left side of his large brow. He was, however-due to his size, stature, and penetrating gray eyes that were staring directly at me-an imposing figure. I suppose that Lucy and I were worthy of the male gaze, what with her pale blond beauty shown off nicely in a peach summer frock, in contrast to my black hair set against light skin. Tonight I wore my favorite dress of pale green linen, which everyone said complemented my eyes, and a cotton bolero jacket perfect for a summer evening. In retrospect, he might have been staring at us only because we were two pretty young women, and he was taking advantage of his wife’s momentary distraction with their son. The more sinister implications of his engrossment came much later.
The band began to play a French song about cicadas that I knew, and I sang along, if only to have something to do while the man scrutinized me.
“‘
“What a charming song,” said Mrs. Westenra. “What does it mean?”
I sang the jolly lyrics in English, but the last stanza was not as cheerful as its predecessors. “Now all is dead, nothing sounds anymore but them, the frenzied ones, filling in the spaces between some remote Angelus.”
“What odd lyrics,” she said.
“Mina has to sing all sorts of nonsense to her pupils,” Lucy said, her first words of the evening.
I looked at the man to see if he was still watching me. When he caught my eye, he quickly turned away and became involved in whatever his wife and son were studying in the sea.
Suddenly I felt the temperature drop. The air was no longer balmy, as if the weather had pulled a prank on us while we were distracted by the music. The wind had picked up sharply in a matter of seconds, making the little awnings over the food stalls flap rowdily. Paper food wrappers flew off tables, skittering past our feet. Ladies held their coiffures in place with their hands.
“What a chill!” Mrs. Westenra exclaimed. “When will I learn to take my shawl with me? We should have gone to Italy. That is what Mr. Westenra would have wanted to do. I am lost without him, lost!”
“It is not so cold yet, Mother,” Lucy said. “Mina will give you her little jacket.”
I started to take off my bolero, but Mrs. Westenra stopped me. “I will never fit into that little thing you call a jacket. We must go.”
“No, not yet,” Lucy said. “The band is still playing.”
Thunder crackled in the sky, not once, but twice, and the band stopped in the middle of a song. The musicians looked up before putting their heads together in a forum on whether to continue. People around us slid their chairs back and stood, and parents dragged reluctant children away to try to beat the coming storm.
“No, Papa, no!” a little boy insisted, wriggling in his father’s arms.
Lucy joined the chorus of protesting children. “I believe the sky will clear soon enough. This will pass.” As if to make a liar of her, clouds of white mist drifted in from the sea, settling all around us.
I looked behind us where the red-haired man had been standing with his wife and son, but now a crowd had gathered around them, and I could no longer see them. Everyone was staring out to sea and pointing.
“I am going to see what’s happening,” I said.
“Mina, don’t go. We will all catch our deaths in this weather,” Mrs. Westenra said, looking frantic now. Lucy too darted her wild eyes back and forth. “Let her go, Mother. She won’t be long. We can wait here.”
“Don’t worry over me,” I said. “I will just go see what the fuss is about and I will meet you at home shortly if you decide to leave.”
“Don’t be long, Mina. This isn’t the sort of weather to take lightly,” the older lady warned.
Lucy started a second round of protestation, and I left them to their argument. I ran to where people were gathered, standing on tiptoes to see over one another. Men from the coast guard had joined them, pushing their way to the front of the crowd, where waves thick with foam crashed against the pier. I followed their gaze into the distance. Beyond the harbor, a large sailing ship bobbed up and down in the upsurge. I snaked my way deeper into the crowd so that I could hear what the coastguardsmen were saying.
“She’s going to hit the reef,” said one man to the other.
“Why does the captain not head for the mouth of the harbor?” The red-haired man asked the question in a deep voice tinged with an Irish accent. I recognized it because it sounded like my own when I was lax in my speech-from the west coast of Ireland, but mostly lost after many years in London.
“He’s got his hands full with that crosswind. It came from nowhere,” one of the men answered.
“It came from the bowels of hell,” said another. “Though the captain at the helm is steering like a drunk.”
The wife of the red-haired man had her son by the hand now and was dragging him away, but the father remained engrossed by the vessel bobbing up and down in the brutal waves like a prop in a puppet show. Behind us on the East Cliff, a crew turned on the searchlight, sending a bright, bluish beam out to sea.
“That will guide her safely into the harbor,” a coastguardsman said.
“Only if she avoids the reef,” said another.
The light skimmed over the peaks of water as they convulsed into the sky. I saw a glimpse of the illuminated vessel before a large wave broke over the pier, sending us reeling backward into one another as we tried to avoid it. I fell backward and into strange arms that caught me in a strong, sure grip.
“Miss Mina!”
Morris Quince had me by the arms. He put me upright. “Let’s get you out of this storm.”
I was not surprised to see him; throughout the evening, I had guessed that he was the hoped-for object of Lucy’s searching eyes.
“I want to see what happens,” I said.
I turned back to the sea and the unfolding drama. More people crowded onto the pier despite the crashing waves that threatened our safety. I did not want to leave, though I had always been one to avert my eyes from the sight of a disaster. I would walk out of my way to avoid watching the aftermath of an overturned carriage or a collision of carts. I had no stomach for such things, and yet I wanted to stay on the pier and find out the fate of the crew and passengers of the ship even if it meant being drenched to the bone in my favorite frock.
“Please don’t be stubborn, Miss Mina, or I’ll have to throw you over my shoulder. Americans have no compunction about these things. We are the savages that people claim we are.”
I had no doubt that this outrageous man would do precisely as he threatened, though I could not help but smile at his self-mockery. Still, I had an aversion to him because of what he was doing to jeopardize Lucy’s future. “Have you seen Lucy and Mrs. Westenra?” I asked.
“I paid a man with an umbrella to take them up to the inn at the top of the hill. They’re waiting for us where it’s nice and dry.”
Another wave convulsed out of the sea, crashing over the pier, but we were able to duck the worst of it. Morris laughed, as if he were a boy playing a sport and had just scored a winning point. The searchlight swept over our
