Northern Lights Trilogy (11 page)

“Please,” Kaatje said, holding up her hand for him to stop. “It sounds terrible.”

“It says here that it cures seasickness,” he tried.

“I do not think we’re interested,” Astrid said wearily. “Thank you very much for thinking of us, though.”

“I would fear for my child,” Kaatje said, leaning back against her pillow.

I’m afraid your child is going to get hurt in other ways
, Karl thought, but shrugged and nodded. “You women know best. I’m going to send
Cook down with more broth. You really do need to get something down very soon.”

“Thank you, Mr. Martensen,” Astrid said. She closed her eyes. Yes, she was undoubtedly in bad shape. His eyes raced to Kaatje. She too was fading.

“I will leave you two to rest, then. Good night.”

Both women mumbled a soft good-bye.

He tiptoed out of the cabin and shut the door with as light a touch as possible. He was making his way up the passageway when he almost ran into Elsa. He reached out to steady her and had to remind himself to remove his hands.

“I’m sorry, Elsa. I did not see you.”

She laughed, her smile shining in her eyes. Karl dragged his own eyes away, concentrating on the bottle in his hand. “I just brought them fresh water. Tried to give them this. They’d have none of it.”

Elsa took the bottle from his hand, lifting it to the light to read the label. Karl stole the moment to study her. What would it be like to hold her? His body ached from the effort of restraint. What if he lifted her chin right then and brought his lips to hers?
Dear Jesus, God, help me!
he cried silently.

“I must go,” he said briefly, determined to get this madness under control. “I’m going to send Cook with some broth. Try to get them to drink. As much as possible. Their lives and their babies are in grave danger.”

She nodded up at him with an earnestness in her eyes that drew him like iron to true north. He wrenched his eyes from hers and fairly ran down the passageway and into the cleansing, cool air of the Atlantic night.

E
lsa took up her position on the deck above the captain’s cabin, as she had for the past week, and sat down with a contented sigh. On her first day aboard, Stefan, the steward, had placed a wooden chair there for her after pointing out that the spot had one of the finest views on the
Herald
. She wished for the ease of a hammock, but knew that Peder would frown upon such an unladylike seat. Still, this was quite nice.

Below her, she could see passengers walking the perimeter of the deck, the ladies’ parasols bouncing in the wind. Little Knut, hiding from Mikkel Thompson’s wife, Ola, ducked behind a barrel. Elsa watched as Ola called for him, obviously concerned. He laughed and she grabbed for him, but he ran away, apparently thinking that she was playing with him. Ola, a rather straitlaced woman in her sixties, did not appreciate his antics as Nora or Elsa might—or as Tora could, if she would cease her pouting and help care for the child. Elsa looked beyond them to her sister. Having refused Kristoffer’s offer like a petulant child herself, Tora leaned over a rail, peeling potatoes for Cook.

Elsa turned her attention to more pleasant matters. Even ten days out to sea, the excitement aboard ship was palpable. Everyone hoped they were going to something better, and they were not yet far enough away from Bergen to be homesick. She thought of the towering mountains of Bergen, picturing the seven snowy peaks above granite hills, which, in turn, shot up from the deep fjord below. Yes, Bergen was beautiful. But the sea … the sea was an incredible vista itself. Miles and miles of water stretched before them. Yesterday Europe had faded from view, leaving her feeling like a gnat on an elephant, tiny aboard a moving, breathing giant. Yet there was something exhilarating in riding the wind and the water. It felt as if in some small way they had tamed the elephant just by being a part of it.

As she pulled out her sketch pad, she thought of the story Riley had told her yesterday about what the gold miners had called seeing the elephant.

“It was an ol’ joke, ya see,” he had said in his characteristic Cockney accent. “When a farmer heard the circus was comin’, he loaded his farm wagon with produce and hurried to town. On the way, he met the circus parade, led by an elephant. His horses bolted at the strange sight, tipping over the wagon and spilling vegetables all over the road. ‘I don’t give a hang,’ the farmer said, ‘for I have seen the elephant.’ ”

Elsa looked up at the wizened sailor who had once been a forty-niner, still fit at what she supposed was well over fifty years of age. “What does that mean, Riley?”

“It means ya go for the seeing of it as much as the doin’ of it, ma’am. Least to me, anyway. I come up short when it came to gold, but I was never sorry to have gone. That’s why I’m a seaman now. I’ve been a miner and a shop clerk. A man of the fields. But the sea. The sea is where I will spend the rest o’ my days.”

“I understand,” she said, nodding. And she did. The ocean all about her was magical; thousands of nautical miles stretched beside them, before them, beyond them. It reminded her of what the desert
might feel like, with a whole lot more water. “Is this what you felt like, Moses?” she whispered, facing the wind and feeling it caress her face. “I like it now, but forty years of wandering at sea might seem as intolerable as your own decades in the desert.”

She looked up into the burgeoning sails and spotted a sailor in the crow’s nest. Yancey, she thought he was called. The wind billowed his shirt as fiercely as it ripped at the sails, but he looked happy. His eyes scanned the horizon, and occasionally he would shout an announcement like “Bark on the port quarter!” to indicate another vessel was in sight and its location.

“Bark ho!” Karl would answer from his station at the wheel.

Shifting her chair and taking up her pencil, Elsa sketched the man in the crow’s nest from her point of view. She got lost in her drawing and it was two hours before she looked aside again. When she did, Peder was behind her and stole a quick kiss before looking at the sketch in her lap.

“What is this?” he asked, taking the pad from her fingers. “Why, Elsa, this is very good.” He looked from the pad to Yancey and back again. “I never knew you were such a talented artist.”

She felt shy under his scrutiny and praise. “It is merely a hobby.”

“It is more than that,” he said, leveling his mossy green eyes at her. He was clearly delighted with his discovery. “It is much more than that. Do you paint too?”

Elsa shrugged and squirmed under his penetrating gaze. “I have never attempted it.”

“You should. This is a gift. We should nurture it.”

She smiled. She loved the way he embraced life. Another man might find a woman’s talent something to deride, but not her Peder. There was her husband, encouraging her to take it on and better her skills. “I used to want to be a shipwright.”

His eyebrows rose in surprise. “You did? I never knew that.”

“Papa frowned upon it. Said I should just focus on a woman’s duties of being a wife and a mother.”

Peder laughed. “Well, I appreciate my father-in-law’s aspirations for you. But I do not take so much time to care for, do I?”

“No. Especially since Stefan cleans up after you in the cabin and washes your clothes.” She waved at a clothesline that was quickly drying several of Peder’s white shirts. Their underclothes were pinned demurely on a line inside their cabin.

“And what of your desire to be a shipwright?”

Elsa raised an eyebrow and looked at him. Did he think it was all right to have such aspirations? Suddenly Ola emerged at the ladder that scaled the captain’s cabin, looking for Knut. “Have you seen the little urchin?” she asked in exasperation.

“Let me dispatch a couple of sailors to help flush him out, Mrs. Thompson,” Peder intervened.

As the woman nodded once and disappeared down the ladder, Peder turned back to Elsa. He leaned over and raised her chin, drawing her eyes to meet his gaze. “I appreciate you and all you will be, Elsa,” he said in a low voice. “I should have married you years ago.”

His intensity embarrassed her. “When I was all of Tora’s age?”

“Perhaps. You were a different young woman than Tora. But I wanted to be captain before I returned for you.”

Elsa nodded and glanced over the ship. Peder’s mention of his role drew her attention to Karl. “Have you told him yet?” she asked.

Peder followed her glance and frowned slightly. “No.” He paused, changing the subject. “There is an artist in New York I want you to meet,” he said. With that, he departed, obviously not wanting to discuss further the secret he still held from his best friend.

Kaatje was getting better, and she was able to manage a brief trip around the deck, leaning on Soren’s arm. The fresh salt air felt wonderful against her skin and seemed to clear her head. She returned to the cabin reluctantly, but eager to check on Astrid. She seemed to be better too and had been able to hold down a cup of broth yesterday and again today, giving her hope. Soren set down the pail of fresh
water near the bunks and left Kaatje with a tender smile and a pat to her stomach. Kaatje, feeling happier and more content than she had in the last year, pulled up the one chair in the cabin and sat down beside Astrid’s bed.

She took her friend’s hand. “Still feeling all right?”

“It comes and it goes,” Astrid said wearily. “One moment I think I am past it, the next I worry that things have gotten worse. The good news is that this baby is soon due. I think it will be all right if she’s born early.”

“You think it is a girl?”

“I hope so. Can you imagine living with three men?”

Kaatje giggled, happy to hear Astrid attempt a joke. Her smile soon faded though as Astrid wearily closed her eyes. “Kaatje.”

“Yes?”

“Can you bring Knut to see me today? Kristoffer keeps him away. He worries that he’ll tire me. But I miss him. It would do me good to feel his small arms about my neck.”

“Yes. Certainly. Should I go see to it now?”

“Perhaps in a while. Just after I take a brief nap. I should have the strength for the little terror then.”

“You’re a good mother, Astrid. I hope I do as well as you have.”

Astrid waved away her praise. “It is a natural thing, to love your child. I would do anything for Knut. You will do anything for yours. It is a God-love you come to understand. Suddenly, you realize how God feels about you when you look at your baby. I look at Knut and there’s such love … ah, look at me,” she said in disgust, wiping away sudden tears. “Just thinking about him makes me cry like a baby.”

Kaatje smiled at her friend. She was so delicate, so thin … and such a good mother.
Please, God
, she prayed silently.
Please let her get well
.

“Tell me a story, Kaatje,” Astrid said. “Tell me how you and Soren fell in love.” She moved her pillow, settling in.

“There is not much to tell. I had been in love with Soren for years.
Since I was twelve years old, I think, when he used to come to our farm to milk the cows for my father. Later, when my parents died of the influenza and I stayed with an aunt on her farm, he would leave a flower on the doorstep each morning. I got up very early one morning and caught him. When I asked him about it, he said, ‘I thought you might be sad. Flowers seem to make girls happy.’ Oh, how he stole my heart!” she said with wide eyes and a big smile, remembering.

Astrid opened her eyes and smiled gently back at Kaatje. She took her hand and said softly, “I understand that he steals the hearts of many.”

Kaatje withdrew her hand, feeling her face fall to a frown. “That is behind us.”

“I hope so, my friend. It must pain your heart.”

Kaatje searched Astrid’s eyes. There was nothing but compassion in them. Kaatje had not spoken of Soren’s indiscretions to anyone but Elsa, and even to her in limited fashion. Obviously, her secret was known to others. She nodded, quick tears welling at the corners of her eyes. “It does.”

Suddenly, Astrid took her hand again, closed her eyes, and began praying. “Father God, we pray that thou wilt take Soren in hand. That thou wilt give him eyes for no one but his wife. And, Father, we also pray for Kaatje. That she can find forgiveness in her heart and trust in thy ways. Be a lamp to her feet, Father God, as she tries to find thy path.”

“Amen,” Kaatje whispered.

“Amen,” Astrid echoed. “Kaatje, would you get down my Bible and read some verses to me?”

“Certainly.” She rose and took the old black leather Bible from the shelf above Astrid’s head.

“Do you have a Bible?” Astrid asked.

“No. I always love hearing from the Good Book, but I never have owned one. There never seems to be enough money.”

“We must remedy that situation. Once in America, I’ll see to it.”

Kaatje widened her eyes in surprise. “That is very generous, but—”

“No, do not argue with me, Kaatje,” Astrid said gently. “Every believer needs a Bible. It is how we get to know God.”

Kaatje wondered again at how close Astrid sounded to the Lord. How did she get to that point? Kaatje longed for the comfort the other woman seemed to take from her faith. “Where do I begin?” she asked.