Northern Lights Trilogy (49 page)

“I am simply curious, darling. Why was there no reunion between
you two? I would think we would have dined with Trent and Tora by now, in that you two have so many things to talk about.” Her tone was innocent. Her look was not. Alicia was onto something like a cat and would never let it go.

He would not be the mouse. Karl smiled apologetically at Trent. “Tora and I have a shared background, but we have little in common.” He glanced at Tora, but she seemed confused. How much laudanum had Alicia given her?

Trent apparently shared his concern because he bent down and said a word in Tora’s ear, to which she shook her head.

“Forgive me, sir,” Karl said to Trent, “and my fiancée for her impolite manner this evening. Excuse us.”

With that, he pulled Alicia to the doorway and down the hall to a private alcove.

“It is over,” he said to her.

“What are you talking about?” Alicia asked, looking bewildered.

“We are wrong for each other, Alicia. It is over,” he repeated, pacing before her.

“Yes, it is,” her father said, striding through the deep shadows of the hallway. He exhaled, smoke dancing in the air about his face, which remained hidden in the relative darkness.

Alicia sputtered, indignant, but Karl could not keep his eyes off of John.

It had been a long time since Karl had feared anything.

But suddenly he was very afraid.

“I am hurt and discouraged that you were less than honest with me, Miss Anders,” Trent said the next morning. “That was why you dropped the coffee that first day in my car, was it not? You recognized Karl Martensen. Why hide your association?”

“I thought it improper,” she pleaded. “And then it was awkward. What were we to do? Please, Trent. I did not know you would take it this way.”

Trent handed her bag to the porter and pressed a coin into his hand. “I want Miss Anders settled into your finest, cleanest stateroom,” he directed.

“Yes, Mr. Storm.” The man disappeared.

Trent turned back to Tora. “What was there between you two? Were you in love?”

Tora laughed. “No. He was in love with my sister.”

“The one who died?”

She shook her head. How was she ever to get through the web she had woven? Trent was angry now. What would he do if he ever found out the truth? “Trent, I …” The train whistle blew, and she lost her courage. “There’s something I need to say. Something I have not told you.”

“Say it.”

“You see, I uh … Well, I wanted to … Oh, never mind.”

“Say it, Tora. Tell me now.”

The train whistle blew. “Miss Anders?” the porter said from behind her. “May I show you—”

“In a minute!” she interrupted. Leaning out the doorway, she kissed Trent full on the mouth, in front of anyone who looked their way. But Tora saw only Trent. “Trent, whatever happens, remember this. I love you, Trent. I never knew it could be this way, and I never meant to hurt you.”

His jaw was slack, and his eyes filled with pain. Did he know? Did he have an inkling of the secrets she held within? The train whistle blew again, and the engine began its slow churning. Trent walked beside her, holding her hand.

“I’ll come to see you soon, Tora. We will talk more then.”

“Until then, Trent.”

“Until then, love,” he said, so softly that she wondered later if he had ever really said it at all.

T
he
Sunrise
entered New York’s busy harbor on a day in late November, barely making it before a northeaster ransacked the upper East Coast. It seemed to Elsa that the entire town had been waiting for their arrival, since as soon as Peder brought the
Sunrise
to dock, they were inundated by reporters.

“What on earth—” she began, emerging from their cabin with her valise. Peder was shouting and directing his men to hold the crowd back, and when she came out, the crowd went wild.

“Mrs. Ramstad! I wanted to talk to you about—”

“Mrs. Ramstad! Tell us about the Horn!”

“Mrs. Ramstad! We want to hear—”

Peder came striding back to her, his face a mixed mask of concern and delight. He handed her an edition of the
New York Times
, turned to a page that had her image, sketched as if she were looking heroically over a ship’s bow like a figurehead. The headline read “Heroine of the Horn to Return Home.”

“What on earth?” she repeated, dumbfounded. She looked back to the crowd, and even that glance set them all yelling again.

“You are a celebrity, it seems. The first woman to captain a ship around the Horn. News must’ve spread overland from San Francisco. Remember when Riley spoke with that reporter there at the dock? They have been waiting on you for weeks.” Peder laughed as if enjoying an inside joke.

“It’s not funny, Peder! What are we supposed to do about … Well, about
them?
” She waved at the reporters as if gesturing toward a pack of wolves.

“Think of it as making it past the Horn,” he said, picking up her valise and taking her by the arm. “The only way through it is through it.” And with that he led her toward the gangway. Sailors pulled the crowd apart like Moses parting the Red Sea. The high mood was contagious, and Elsa was soon laughing along with Peder. They hurried across the pier and through the shipping terminal, anxious to get to a carriage before the sailors could not hold the reporters back any longer Peder looked over his shoulder. “Uh oh,” he said, “we’d better move a bit faster.” They hurried outside.

“Cabby!” Peder yelled, hailing a coach. But the driver went right on by, apparently otherwise employed.

“Cabby!” Peder urgently yelled again. The reporters were running now, determined to catch up with them. A grand state coach pulled up before them, handsomely painted a deep blue and pulled by a matched span of white horses. “Get in!” shouted an elegantly dressed man within, opening the small door for them to enter.

Elsa looked at Peder, who shrugged slightly and then followed her in, just as the reporters surrounded them and shouted more questions. The man tapped the roof with his cane, and they were off.

Elsa breathed a sigh of relief, still not quite able to believe that what had just happened was real.

“We owe you a debt, sir,” Peder began.

“Nonsense,” said the graying man with a wide, engaging smile. “Why, it was a coup! Allow me to introduce myself. Alexander Martin, editor in chief of the
New York Times
.”

Elsa laughed in surprise. “Out of the frying pan and into the fire, I’d say.”

“Hardly, my dear. I intend to put you two up in the finest suite the Marquis Hotel has to offer. For a day, for a week.”

“We only intend to—” Peder began.

“In exchange, all I ask is that you give me an exclusive for my paper.”

“Perhaps, sir,” Peder said firmly, taking charge again, “we wish to keep our stories to ourselves.”

“Nonsense!” Martin said jovially. “Your wife’s picture is on every paper across the country. She’s the Heroine of the Horn! Isn’t that a fine headline? Came up with it myself. Anyway, our readers are clamoring for her story. They want to hear what it was like to be there, to
be
her. Now be a good sport and let her tell me the details.”

Peder shook his head, obviously as flabbergasted as she. “It is up to my wife. If she agrees, I will go along with it. If not, I will thank you to allow us to leave your presence without further ado.”

Martin studied him silently for a moment. “Agreed.” He turned back to her. “My dear?”

“But why
…
why on earth is my story so fascinating?”

“You beat the Horn! A woman!
And
lived to tell about it. Captained the
Sunrise
when your husband was incapacitated and the mate was in irons! Think of it, Mrs. Ramstad. You are beautiful,” he said, turning to Peder. “If I may be as bold to say so, sir.” Then back to Elsa, “And strong. You embody the American spirit. Our people want to hear more!”

“But I am Norwegian.”

“You are an American now,” he said. “You, my dear,
are
America.”

Elsa shook her head and touched her brow. “It’s all so much to take in …”

“There’s more.”

“Listen,” Peder interrupted. “Perhaps this is not such a good idea.”

“I’ve spoken with a dear friend, Fergus Long. I believe you know him?”

“Fergus! Of course!” Elsa relaxed a bit in the presence of someone with whom they shared a mutual friend. If Fergus liked him, Alexander Martin must be trustworthy, she thought.

“Fergus tells me that you are a talented artist and anticipate traveling with your husband on future ventures.”

Elsa glanced at Peder. “It is my hope, if Peder agrees.”

Peder scowled as if pushed into a corner. “This is a private issue.”

“Of course, of course,” Martin soothed. “I only wished to offer Mrs. Ramstad a unique opportunity.”

“Which is?” Peder asked.

They all leaned as the coach turned a corner.

“I would like a firsthand account of her travels by your side, sir. With illustrations, of course.”

Elsa laughed, incredulous. “You want me,
me
, to do that for the
Times?
”

“Yes, my dear. I think it is a delightful concept.”

Elsa shook her head, unable to believe it. She looked at Peder, and he smiled at her.

“It sounds like something you would wish to do,” he said quietly. “Are you sure, Elsa? This is it. Are you sure you do not want to stay at home in Camden-by-the-Sea? Is there nothing about that idea that is welcome?”

Elsa gripped his hands in hers and looked deeply into his eyes. “I want nothing more, Peder, than to travel with you. Past the Horn, wherever. I only want to be with you.”

“Then it’s settled!” Alexander Martin enthused. His expression was immediately cowed by Peder’s warning look.

Peder turned to Elsa as she held her breath. His eyes softened. “I guess it is,” he said quietly. He laughed. “I never knew the Heroine of the Horn would be sharing my cabin,” he teased.

“Enough of that,” Elsa warned. “So tell me, Mr. Martin. Tell me exactly what your expectations are.”

A week later her unexpected interview with Alexander Martin was fading in memory, but the impact of their decision was not. Elsa left Peder in their bed and rambled about their Camden cottage in her nightdress. She eventually settled up in the turret, watching the starlight dance over the frigid Atlantic on a moonless night. She was unable to sleep, thinking about her next voyage with Peder. Where it would take them, what she would draw, how she might write a story for the American people that captured their imagination
…

What if they could go home again? Perhaps in the spring Peder would consider a voyage to Norway. How grand it would be to see Mama again! And dear Carina. Elsa’s thoughts went to Tora then back home to Papa. What would it be like to go to Bergen and not have him waiting there with open arms? How she yearned to speak with him, to tell him of her adventures and lessons of the last year! Despite his own desire to see her safely lodged at home, Elsa believed that Amund Anders would have grudgingly agreed that she could walk no other path than the one to which she had been led.