Amber House: Neverwas (26 page)

“We remodeled just last year,” Robert said. “Claire knocked

some walls down, lightened things up a bit.”

“Didn’t knock down
too
many walls,” Claire said. “But Father did some ghastly stuff to the place back in the sixties. I tried to

revise
the revisions, really.”

“It’s very subtle,” my mother said.

The four adults gravitated to the sideboard, where a nice

bottle of wine was already breathing. Glasses were poured

and clinked together. “To the success of the exhibit,” I heard

Robert say.

“To the success of the purpose
behind
the exhibit,” my father amended.

Richard gestured for Sammy and me to follow him to the

large color-coordinated Christmas tree. He crouched down and

found a small green package that he handed to my brother. When

I nodded permission, Sam tore the paper off, revealing a small

wooden box.

“Wow, Richard,” Sam said, “I love it!”

Richard laughed. “No, bud,” he said, using the pet name I

always used, “you have to open the box.”

152 O

Inside, nestled in tissue, was a perfect little black horse made

of cow hide, fully fitted with leather riding gear.

“
Wow
,” Sam said.

“This was the first old thing I ever owned, Sam. My mom

gave it to me when I was your age. I wanted you to have it now.

It’s
almost
as old as Amber House, give or take a century, so you have to be
gentle
with it.”

Sammy took it out of the box as if it were made of glass. “I can

be gentle, Richard.”

“It’s not really to play with, just to put on a shelf to look at,

but I hope you like it anyway.”

“I
love
it,” Sam insisted. Then he looked stricken. “But I didn’t get anything for you.”

“Yes, you did, Sammy,” I intervened. “Are you forgetting?”

Sam looked confused. “Maybe.”

“You go get that really
heavy
package you helped me wrap.” I pointed helpfully. “The red one.”

Obediently, Sam trotted toward the side table near the front

door. He popped back a minute later, straining under his

burden.

“Wow,” Richard said. “What’s in it, Sam?”

Sam shrugged his shoulders. “We can unwrap it and find out.”

“What Sam means,” I said, “is just open it.”

“Yes!” Sam said. “Open it!” He plopped it heavily in Richard’s

lap, and Richard let Sam help him unwrap it. It was a com-

plete illustrated history of sailing — about twenty-five pounds’

worth.

Richard started to flip back the cover, but I shot out my hand.

“Give it here first.” He passed the book over. “Got a pen?” I said.

He handed me one from a side-table drawer. I opened the flap

and added another five words to the message I’d already written

on the flyleaf. I capped the pen and handed the book back.

o153

He reopened it and read aloud, “ ‘For the guy with the second-

prettiest sloop on the river, Merry Christmas, from Sarah. . . .

And her first mate, Sammy.’ ” He looked up and smiled. “I have

to admit: eighty years old, handcrafted by a sailor — your
Liquid
Amber
is hard to beat for beauty. Now, if we were talking

speed
—”

“Is that a challenge, Hathaway?”

“I believe it is, Parsons,” he said. I was grinning at him and he

was grinning at me.

Sammy stepped in between us. “Where’s Sarah’s present?” he

asked.

I sighed and shook my head.

Richard reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small

package. “I got it right here, Sam. Shall I give it to her?”

I let Sam pull off the paper, but I flipped open the velvet-

covered box myself. It held a little Victorian snowflake necklace,

worked in gold and hung from a black ribbon. On its back, an

etched quote:
Not a snowflake escapes His fashioning hand.

“Wow,” I said, echoing Sammy. “Thank you.” Richard gave

me one of his patented just slightly crooked smiles.

It was beautiful — a wonderful gift, but I could not shake the

thought that I should be holding a gold leaf.

N

Mrs. Hathaway came in to tell us, “Time for dinner.” She smiled

when she saw I was wearing Richard’s gift.

Claire called it just a “family meal,” but two maids in match-

ing long-sleeved dresses brought the courses out on silver trays.

Round after round, they circled the table soundlessly, holding

the trays as each of us served ourselves. First an appetizer, then

a salad, and finally roast beef and mashed potatoes.

154 O

Just before dessert, I realized I’d been watching Claire

Hathaway for most of the meal. The way she held her knife. The

way she chewed her food. The way she tossed her head when she

laughed. It all reminded me of my mother.

Richard seemed to notice my staring. He said with a low

voice, “They move a lot alike, don’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Your mom was three years ahead of mine in high school and

then again at Notre Dame College. Freshman-senior awe, I’m

thinking.” He smiled. “I doubt she’d appreciate my ratting her

out, but she’s always been fascinated by your family history, the

history of Amber House.”

“Seems like a lot of people are, just because we’ve been here

so long. Too bad we’re not a little odder to justify all that interest.”

“There’s still time, Parsons,” he said. “Keep working at it.”

After dinner, Robert asked my parents to his study to show

them the draft of a press release on the exhibit. Richard pulled

Sam to a telescope to look at the “man in the moon” through a

break in the clouds. I was following after them when Claire

called to me. “I want to introduce you to someone, Sarah,”

she said.

I trailed Claire to the living room, wondering if someone had

just arrived.

Claire gestured to a pair of mirror-image portraits mounted

above the mantel. The man was dark and angular, with a pair of

old-fashioned muttonchop whiskers. The woman was fair and

fragile-looking, dressed in pink silk. A husband and wife, I

guessed. “Relatives?” I asked.

“My ancestors. Gerald Fitzgerald, and his wife Camilla.

Portraits painted three years after her presentation at the Royal

Court.” Claire walked over to stand before them. She and the

woman shared the same blond beauty — marble planes set with

sky blue eyes and a full mouth.

o155

“She’s beautiful,” I said.

“She resembled her father. There was a portrait of him too —

he was invited to sit for a famous painter, in honor of his loyalty

to the Crown during the 1776 uprising.”

“What happened to it?”

“Some of us are not so lucky as you, my dear. Our pasts are

scattered, like ice in a river. These” — she gestured to the man-

tel with a long, white hand — “are all I have.”

She touched the pink satin shoe of Mrs. Fitzgerald. “Her

mother, Lydia Crawley, was an heiress, English, titled. But Lydia

eloped with a naval officer of no standing, and was disowned.

The couple fled to the Colonies. Lydia’s husband tried to restore

his beloved wife to her life of privilege through a bold gamble,

but his ship was seized, and it took more than a year for him to

return to Maryland.

“Lydia had died in childbirth, and their daughter, Camilla,

had been sent to a pauper’s orphanage. It was amazing the girl

was still alive when her father finally found her.”

“What happened to them?” I asked.

“He learned the waters of the Chesapeake and the Atlantic

seaboard, and rose to the rank of captain. And one day he was

approached by a man — Thaddeus Dobson — who needed a

partner. Someone clever enough to smuggle cargo from Africa

to the Americas.”

“Cargo?”

“The two things of greatest value stolen from the dark conti-

nent: people and diamonds.”

“He was a slaver,” I blurted.

“Indeed. So he made his fortune. Eventually, he married his

partner’s daughter, although by then Dobson had died. Her name

was —” She smiled at me. “Can’t you guess?”

I could. “Deirdre.”
Who married Captain Foster, and bore him two
more children
— the twins, Sarah-Louise and Matthew.

156 O

Claire nodded. “You and Richard are cousins,” she said.

“About a hundred times removed.” Richard had snuck up

behind me. “We’re practically family.”

I grinned. “If we start counting cousins that far removed, I

expect we’re ‘family’ with half the Confederation.”

“Not to mention to the Queen of New England” — he

grinned back — “but I still get to call you coz, right?”

“Not in public,” I said. I turned back to Claire. “How did you

find all this out?”

She led me to a glassed-in display case set before a window.

“Captains keep meticulous logs, you know. Joseph Foster chron-

icled his entire life, whether on sea or on land. All in notebooks

identical to that one.” I saw a leather-bound volume, its pages

tipped in faded gold. Beside the notebook lay an ancient pistol.

“The gun also belonged to Captain Foster,” Claire said. “An

unusual piece because it is double-barreled. It was the first gun

Camilla ever owned, and was the start of her interest in weap-

ons. But even though she became a famous marksman, she never

fired this gun. She preserved it just as the Captain left it, with

one shot still loaded. It has been sealed in this case for two hun-

dred and fifty years.” She smiled. “Did you know it will also be

a part of the exhibit? Because, after all, Camilla was once a part

of Amber House too.”

The gun was a work of amazing elegance — golden-red wood

inlaid with etched silver, all of it done in curving sinuous lines

except for a single darker silver circle set into the sloping rounded handgrip. I stared at the circle, unable to quite make sense of its

crevasses of tarnish, until they suddenly resolved into a face

embossed in the metal.

“You’ve noticed the coin?” Claire said.

“It’s an ancient cheat,” Richard said, “a two-headed coin.”

“I hardly think it was a cheat,” Claire said. “It was the Captain’s

good luck piece.”

o157

“Very good luck,” Richard said. “He lived and the other

guy died.”

“How do you know it has two heads?”

Claire smiled. “I peeked. Is something wrong?” she asked me,

touching the back of my wrist. “You have gooseflesh. Someone’s

walking on your grave.”

Yes, I realized, something
was
wrong, but I couldn’t identify what it was. I wondered who the gun had killed.

My parents entered the room with Robert following behind

them. Claire shifted her attention to them. “Are we meeting you

at St. John’s for Midnight Mass?”

Once again my future being planned for me without my

input. “Um,” I said, and instantly wished I hadn’t. All eyes

turned toward me. Waiting.

Claire purred helpfully, “What is it, dear?”

What had possessed me?
“There’s this — service tonight in

Severna. . . .” I trailed off. “Well, you know how you guys are

always talking about the theme of the Amber House exhibit —”

“Yes?” my father prodded.

“I thought maybe we all ought to go by the Good Shepherd

Church tonight instead of St. John’s. They’re having a kind of

Christmas remembrance for some of the men who led the black

equality movement around here.”

“Sarah,” my mother said, “maybe you ought to run those kinds

of ideas past me before you —”

The senator cut her off. “I think that’s a wonderful idea,

Sarah.” And Richard nodded, smiling, approval in his eyes.

A half hour later, we all climbed the gray steps of the little

clapboard church.

There was something of a stir when we walked in. Seemed

like everyone in the church had turned around to stare, and then

to nod and to smile. Jackson turned around too, and noticed me

standing close to Richard.

158 O

I could see the question on his face, and I almost shook my

head no to answer it, but just then Helen tugged his arm so she

could whisper something in his ear. I found myself tucking my

hand into Richard’s arm. Which made Richard turn toward me

and smile. I stood there, trying hard to listen, while meditating on how many emotions one person could feel almost simultaneously:

jealousy, romantic pleasure, gratitude, vexation, awkwardness,

self-disgust, amusement and embarrassment. And I was proba-

bly missing a few.

“Diane Nash,” Richard said with surprise and respect. I nod-

ded. Everyone knew Miss Nash, who had worked bravely and

tirelessly for the cause of civil rights since the 1970s.

She was a small woman, in her mid-sixties. A photo near her on

the stage showed her as she had been when she’d begun her life

of activism — slim, fine-boned, with large solemn eyes. Her voice

was deep for a woman, and smooth, strong. I stopped thinking

about Jackson or Richard, caught, finally, by the power of this

woman’s words:

“. . . Mr. Valois was, like me, from New England, but deeply

committed to his adopted country and to the cause of bringing

change.” I realized she was talking about Jackson’s grandfather.