|
|
Romance
in a Whitehall Skiff Bert heard her voice, but her words got swallowed by the wind. He was thrilled that she'd actually noticed him. He cupped his hand to his ear and shouted back, "Caint hear yah!" She tried again to no avail, so Bert climbed in his boat and rowed across the harbor, his back to her. By the time he was in hailing distance, his heart was fluttering from the nerves of shyness. He stood and turned toward her, rowing from a standing position. "What is it you were saying?" he shouted. Lilly stood from her bench and approached the water's edge. "Can I buy a dozen of your clams?" she called out. "No ma'am," he called back. Lilly was a little shocked. And she was surprised at how handsome the clammer was. He looked older than she'd imagined. She'd thought from a distance he was only a boy. She could see he could handle a boat with skill and fluid grace. She was reminded of her late husband, first mate on a schooner taken by a guano explosion during a nor'easter eight years ago that very month. He and seven men were never seen again even though a week later thousands of charred grapefruit washed ashore up and down Cape Cod. Their schooner was carrying guano and grapefruit. The boys at the tavern speculated that the nor'easter stirred up St. Elmo's Fire that lit methane bubbling up from the guano like a baby's burp shook loose by a slap on the back. Kaboom and Corpo Sancto. Bert grinned now as he approached Lilly. He could see the surprise in the crinkle of her forehead. She was a handsome woman, he thought. From a distance she'd looked like just a girl, but she wasn't. Not at all. Part of him was disappointed because she was surely married; part of him was relieved because she was surely married. "But you can have as many as you want, ma'am. Enough for the whole family," he said more softly now, pulling onto the shore and stepping onto the firm sand, dropping his anchor. "A dozen will do fine," she said, smiling at his refusal to take her money. "I'm a childless first mate's widow, and I don't eat much. "Quahogs? Steamers? Or both?" he asked, nervous again because she was a widow, a top mate's no less. "Quahogs!" she said brightly. "And do you have any oysters?" "I do, indeed. I'll give you a dozen of each, steamers too, and if you don't want 'em, drop 'em off theah at the rest home. Someone always takes 'em." "I work there," she said. "I'm a nurse. Call me Lilly," she said smiling, holding out her hand. Bert's hand was cold, wet, and muddy. He wiped it as best he could on his wool trousers, and shook her warm little hand, trying to be gentle. "Pleased to meet yah," Bert said. * * *
Bert worked anyway, and on the third day waded out into the choppy harbor and hauled in a swamped Whitehall skiff, a lovely pulling boat built for gentlemen, undoubtedly torn loose by the storm and set adrift from God knows where. Bert bailed the boat and towed her home. Being an honest man, he registered with the harbormaster for salvage rights and paid for a notice in the Hyannis Patriot describing the boat in case she had an owner. Meanwhile he went to work each day rowing his old clamming skiff, not knowing that Lilly Nickerson was taken down by a fever and confined to bed. No one claimed the Whitehall skiff, so Bert repaired her leaks and caulked her with cotton. He had thought the boat had been an omen, a gift from Davy Jones that would allow him to give Lilly Nickerson a proper rowing tour during which she could enjoy her lunch. But she stopped coming to the beach, so Bert thought maybe the skiff was a message from her drowned husband that Bert was no gentleman and not worthy of a mate's widow. Winter came as did flows of sea ice and a string of nor'easters that dumped seven feet of snow along shore, burying Lilly Nickerson's bench at Hyannis Harbor. Bert took a job in the boat yard repair shop until the weather broke. * * *
The boys at the shop knew many things about the yachting set and told Bert to sell the Whitehall for twice its value. So upon their advice he began towing it on his way to Great Island. He fashioned a large sign that he inserted on a pole in the rudder gudgeon: "Whitehall Yacht Tender and Pulling Skiff, $200," the sign said. Bert had begun forgetting about Lilly Nickerson, and then one week en route to working a mid-day tide, he heard her call out to him as he rowed the outgoing out of Hyannis Harbor. "Mr. Peckham," she called, hurrying to the shoreline, sandwich in hand. "I'm so pleased to see you again." Bert turned and looked over his shoulder. He was so glad to see her, his oar popped its lock, and he had to fumble to recover it. By the time he had reset himself, his boats had turned toward her, and so he kept rowing right into shore. He was glad he'd showered and shaved that morning, and when he shook her hand this time, he wouldn't give offense. "Now why would you be selling that lovely boat, Mr. Peckham?" she asked, wandering back to the Whitehall and brushing her fingers along its gunwale. "Why if I had $200, I would snap it up in a heartbeat." She was so glad to see him again that her mood brightened right to the brim. "I wouldn't sell you a boat you didn't try first," Bert said. "So would you like a ride in your new Whitehall skiff?" he asked. Before she even answered, he'd borrowed the oars from his clam skiff and tossed the anchor into the sand. He set the oars in the Whitehall's forward locks and held out his hand to help her. "Well I don't have $200, Mr. Peckham," she said, placing her left boot over the gunwale onto the stern thwart. "But you can take me for a ride." "Let me help you here, ma'am," he said, grasping her waist in both hands and lifting her into the skiff. "We'll talk about price if the boat pleases you." She could feel the strength in his two hands. She felt feather light but sat quickly before she rocked the boat and fell in a clumsy heap. Bert pushed off and climbed in, careful to nudge the oars up and out without touching her thighs with the blades. He pulled hard, rocking her backward, causing her to tighten her grip on the gunwale as the boat darted forward. He checked over his shoulder every third pull, but otherwise had a full, close-up view of Lilly Nickerson's creamy face and slender neck tensing ever so little with each pull. "This is lovely," she said with a cautious smile and surprise in her voice. She was startled by the speed as they rushed past the naked black ribs of an ancient brig sunk by a hurricane, a relic now mostly buried by a half century of drifting sand and mud. "This here's a fine boat, ma'am," Bert said. "But I don't have a place for a boat...." "Oh, I can take care of that for yah," Bert said, peeking back over his shoulder. "I got a slip in my boat house." "And I don't row myself," she said in a voice very nearly flirting. "Well I can do that. Sail her, too. Or I can teach you, or you could hire a man," he said, his voice trembling now with wish. "I would like that so much," she said. "Which?" he asked with such desperate suddenness she tipped forward with concern burrowed in her brow. "I would say the former," she said with a caring smile she often reserved for distressed patients. "Which is the former?" "You. I would hire you to row me about," she said. She loved the surge of the boat as he set the oars and pulled. The waves licked quietly at the soft pine hull. "Then it's done," he said. "You've got yourself a boat, ma'am." "But I have no money," she protested. Bert pulled harder and harder as the excitement rose and the fear she would say no churned in his belly. He stopped looking back over his shoulder and fixed his eyes on two half-moon creases on her creamy neck. "I really can't," she said mournfully. "It's your boat, ma'am. It's done." "But..." "I found this boat, and I'm giving it to you for what I paid. No less and no more. And if you cook me one batch of stew a month, I'll row you to the end of the rainbow if that's where you want to go," he said. He was panting now, sweat trickling down his temples. He stopped and gasped for breath. "In the future, we don't need to go quite so fast," she said
with a playful grin. "There are few greater pleasures in this life than the first day you own your own boat," he said quietly. She turned to him, "Indeed," she said wryly. "Better than hot stew on a freezing night curled up by a warm fire?" she asked with a quiet smile. "No, Ma'am," he blurted, color rising warmly up his face, hoping he hadn't given offense, wondering if by some distant chance? No, he thought quickly to himself, she could not possibly be flirting, not a mate's widow with a lowly clammer.
Last revised: 1-26-2005 Copyright Peter Owens 2004-2005
|