Chapter Eleven

Amos’s good fortune sank in after he escorted two excited ladies back to the circulating library and Miss Cuthbert, who went into raptures over the news. She burst into tears and protested when Madeline, also in tears, told her that 500 pounds was coming her way soon for her unparalleled kindness through the years.

“But for you, we would have been on the street or in the poorhouse years ago,” Madeline reminded her, which meant more tears. Her simple comment made Amos’s blood run in chunks, because he knew she was right.

“I’ll be back later today,” he promised, and hightailed it to Number Fourteen, where he could close the door and weep. The awful burden of watching Foster Shipping sink closer and closer to ruin had been a bitter pill. His father died in his arms, but with trust in his eyes, as if his son could somehow stop the turmoil of war and make things right with his ships and crews. He felt himself relax, really relax, for the first time since war was declared, because that burden heavy as an anvil was lifted.

Amos could by no stretch of his imagination call himself a righteous man––no one swore better than a sailor, unless it was a dairyman. His was an admittedly odd kind of faith that seemed to lead back to one thing he had never found in reading the Bible. Nowhere did it say, “Things most generally turn out all right.”

As he sat in Grandpa Ince’s comfortable chair it occurred to him in a blinding flash that maybe that was the whole point; things most generally did turn out all right. He already knew that the Lord loved effort. That tenet had come with his birth, and earlier lifetimes of his Puritan and Separatists ancestors, who expended massive amounts of effort in all they did, for the glory of God.

He now had money to rebuild his father’s fleet, and then some. It was the “then some” that told him he could leave a little more with Mr. Clare for Maude and Madeline Tifton. Life could go on pretty well for them and he would not have to worry about people he had come to admire.

“Gadfreys you dope, admit it,” he said out loud. “You’re in love with Madeline Tifton.”

He was. The idea of leaving––he was free to go––smacked him where it hurt. The rational side of his brain told him this was not the time to court and marry, considering that she lived in England, and he in New England and involved soon in rebuilding a fleet, a years-long effort. When he wasn’t sailing, he had to supervise at the dry dock. Heavens, he could build his own drydocks with this largess, which would amount to more work. And yet…

The idea of life without seeing Madeline every day was a poor life, indeed. She was first of all lovely to look at––naturally that had caught his eye because he was a man. Then he saw her kindness, followed by courage and gallantry and every single quality he yearned for in someone he knew he must trust completely, because his work might take him away from home for months at a time.

He leaned back in Grandpa’s chair and closed his eyes. He had seen something in her face yesterday, before today’s reading of the will, that infinitely smoothed her path. He saw that she did not need him. He saw that no matter the challenges, things would most generally work out for her, too, and she understood it now. How, he didn’t know, but she did understand.

“That is the supreme irony,” he announced. “A seafaring man needs a wife who can stand on her own. She can’t be the clinging type. She doesn’t need me. I need her .”

He would definitely write to her. That would be a start.

He finished the packing he had started earlier. The beauty of a duffel bag meant he could cram things inside and there was always room. He looked long and hard at the box of letters and set it aside, because it belonged here in Number Fourteen. He wrote a note on the box. “Please take good care of these, as you took good care of my grandfather. Sincerely, Amos Foster.”

He returned the box to the sitting room and recalled one remaining letter, the only sealed one. He chuckled. Maybe it was something manly that his Grandpa didn’t want a tender woman to read. It went into his duffel. He shouldered it, looked around one last time, and locked the door behind him.

He dreaded stopping at the circulating library, but they needed to know he was leaving. When he opened the door, Miss Cuthbert looked up from the row of books she was perpetually dusting. “I’ll use my broom,” she said, her expression a study in sadness.

Three taps on the ceiling. Madeline came down first, followed by her mother. Her face fell when she saw his duffel. “I thought you would stay at least through Christmas,” she told him. “Christmas is tomorrow, after all.”

“I have much to do,” he said, and hated his cowardice.

Bless her heart. She let him get away with that, offering her hand and a bright smile. “I owe you more than I can say,” she told him. “What’s that expression? Fair winds and something else.”

“Following seas.” He gave her hand a good shake and writhed inside. “I promise to write to you.”

“I hope you have time.” She kissed his cheek. “Do look out for the French on your shipping line. They signed no treaty.”

“Napoleon is done. Your navy has’m,” he said, keeping it light, because she did.

“I believe he is headed farther away than Elba this time,” Madeline said, then blushed. “Miss Cuthbert insists that I read the newspapers.”

He could linger and make it worse, or leave. “I will be in touch. Good day and God bless you.”

Madeline opened her mouth to say something, and couldn’t. She fled up the stairs, her mother following more slowly.

Miss Cuthbert remained, glaring at him as if he didn’t measure up, which he didn’t.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said. It sounded so lame.

“Yes, you do,” she replied. Ouch. He headed for the door before she threw him out.

“Just a moment. Take this.”

She held out a folded note. “Maddie wrote this. You and she were teasing about what to get each other for Christmas.”

“I remember.”

“Thank goodness you remember something! She wrote this to you and stuck it in a book no one checks out. I am certain she meant to retrieve it, but forgot, in all this excitement.”

He put the note in his pocket by the sealed letter, and couldn’t leave the library fast enough. A quick walk took him to Mr. Clare’s office, where he picked up a packet of intimidating documents, specific directions, and an address. “Make this barrister your London agent, and you’ll sail through any release of funds,” Mr. Clare promised.

“And you’ll remain my agent here,” Amos said. They shook hands.

The mail coach was on time, so he only had a brief word with the innkeeper, who took considerable delight in telling him that his daughter Susan, who worked at Tifton Manor, had a story about vases thrown, and Mr. Tifton making a quick retreat by post chaise to Brighton for a repairing lease.

“Dunno if he’ll return,” the keep said. “I wouldn’t! Susan said Mrs. Tifton looked angry enough to chew on the carpet. G’day now, Captain. Come and see us again.”

To his infinite relief, the mail coach was not crowded. He shared it with an old couple who woke up, looked around and returned to sleep.

Amos debated a stupid amount of time whether to read the folded note that Miss Cuthbert had thrust at him. Are you a man or a mouse , he thought. A mouse was the answer, but he took out the note finally.

What beautiful handwriting. He had commented on it to her when he started reading the letters Grandpa Ince had dictated to her. Madeline’s note made him stare out the window for a long, long time: Captain Foster, my gift to you is the sure knowledge that wherever the sea takes you, there is someone of no importance who is always going to wish you well. Sincerely yours, Happy Christmas .

“I’m doing the right thing,” he muttered under his breath, which made the old man wake up, looked around, fix him with an owlish glare, and return to sleep.

Amos didn’t even debate on whether or not to read the last of Grandpa’s letters. He needed a soothing letter from a man he wished he had met, had things been different. He opened the letter, mindful that it was the only one of the box that had been sealed. He chuckled to himself. Keeping secrets from your pretty scribe?

He was. As he expected, the letter was in Madeline’s writing, but he read Grandpa’s longing in it for more life, even as his aches and pains increased. Amos sighed to read, I wish I could have met you, lad , and then, With love, Grandfather.

All of that was in Madeline’s now-familiar handwriting. What Grandpa must have added after she left for the day was not. A scrap of paper remained to be read.

I suppose he knew it was his last letter, Amos thought. He had only a little challenge deciphering Grandpa Ince’s scrawl. The letter was simple and to the point, with no chance to misinterpret or cavil about. He understood why Grandpa had sealed it, which must have been his own wishful thinking. How would he know if his correspondent ever received it? When peace comes, get your sorry carcass here, you American, and marry my Madeline . She’ll make a better man out of you than you probably deserve. WI

Grandpa was right. Peace had come. He was here. Life would be busy. Madeline would make all of the work worth it and all of the long-overdue joy not only possible, but certain. No one but a fool would think otherwise.

He left the mail coach at Hemphill and promptly paid for a ticket back to Ashfield. “Didn’t ye just come from there, laddie?” the agent asked. “Forget something?”

“Aye, sir, I did.”

Back in Ashfield, Amos left his duffel at the inn, surprised that the innkeeper made no comment about his unexpected return other than, “I thought you forgot something. Happy Christmas.” And this hint: “Pretty much everyone is at church except us sinners.”

He sat in the back of the Anglican church, only a little appalled at the incense and other evidences of high church so foreign to his upbringing. He wondered what Madeline would make of the New England economy of words and simple music of his Congregational Church in Groton, when he was in port for a more lengthy time. Madeline might like Groton better than Boston. He knew he did, but she could decide for them both.

Sitting at the back, he was the first one out the door when the service ended and the night air filled with bells pealing to signal Christmas Day. He had seen the love of his life sitting closer to the front with Maude, because he knew Maude was hard of hearing. He still didn’t know what he was going to say to his future wife, if she was of the same mind as he.

There she was, her eyes wide and mouth open at the sight of him, standing there hat in hand like a penitent. He said nothing, but held out Grandpa Ince’s last letter, with its immortal postscript.

“I understand why he sealed it,” she said, after she read it. She laughed softly. “’Sorry carcass.’ He had a way with words.”

His heart lifted when she put her hand on his chest, the gesture intimate. “He seemed to know you better than you knew yourself, Amos Foster. Welcome back.”

He didn’t care who watched, even if it was most of nosy, gossiping Ashfield. He gave her a scorching kiss right there in the church yard. She returned it with similar vigor, and they stared at each other as if wondering, What in the world was that?

He didn’t let go of Madeline, but he held her off. “You don’t need me. Be honest now.”

He saw momentary confusion on her face, and then she understood. “No, I don’t need you. I would have managed, no matter what happened.”

Better and better. “You realize that makes you the ideal wife for a seafaring man,” he said, as his confidence grew. “And by the way, I do have riverfront property in Groton, Connecticut. Good Lord, it’s even called the Thames River. But you don’t need me.”

She put her face close to his until he grew almost cross-eyed looking at her. “Captain Foster, there are needs and there are wants, and they are not the same thing. If you don’t propose to me right now, I will.”

There was snow on the walkway, much like the snow she had swept so meticulously through the years at Number Fourteen. He knew he was going to soak his trouser leg, but he went down on one knee. To his amusement and undying affection, Madeline Tifton promptly sat on his knee. The parishioners still leaving the church laughed and he proposed.

She nodded. “Well done, Captain,” she whispered in his ear. “The answer is aye.”

He kissed her again, to general applause this time and whispered back, “Yours sincerely, Happy Christmas.”