Northern Lights Trilogy (75 page)

She made her aching fingers open the front iron gate. As she approached, she could see a family around the dinner table, a fat golden turkey at its center and Scandinavian dishes surrounding it. She identified Elsa, and a boy who must be her son, then paused. She stepped closer to the window, feeling as if she were a phantom, invisible to the people inside. There was Kaatje, with a girl to her left who must be Christina, and to her right

“O God,” she whispered.
O God
. She felt as if she could not breathe. Sitting there was Jessica, so beautiful, so perfect. Her Jessie. The pain of a thousand nights flooded her soul, and Tora sank to her knees in the wet snow underfoot. The movement drew Kristian’s attention, and he pointed her way. Ducking as if avoiding a snowball, Tora rolled from the window and on aching legs ran for the gate. The front door opened behind her and Elsa called, “Wait! Can I help you? Miss! Tora? Tora, wait!”

But Tora kept running. It was enough for now. It was enough just to see them.

January 1887

E
lsa sighed into the mirror as she watched Kaatje pull out long sections of her golden blond hair to wrap into an elegant coiffure. “I do not know how you do this to your own,” she said despondently. “Another reason why you can’t leave. I’ll be left to my same old outdated chignon.”

“It’s beautiful any way you do it,” Kaatje said with a small smile.

“Perhaps. But if all the ladies in town saw me without an elaborate hairdo and pearl comb, they’d deem me unworthy of any invitations.”

“Really, Elsa! Such a thing to say!”

“I cannot help it. They’re all so catty, the way they talk and talk of nothing.”

“I’m probably fodder for their rumor mill,” Kaatje said. “The poor relation come to visit.”

“I don’t care. I have half a mind to invite old man Yessler’s wife over to tea. The women have practically ostracized her. She wouldn’t be invited to anything if she weren’t married to a founder of the city—whose business is it that there’s such an age disparity between the two of them?”

“My goodness, who put a bee in your bonnet today?” Kaatje asked, stopping to stare at Elsa in the mirror.

“I suppose it is Tora,” Elsa said, idly picking up a pearl-handled brush from Japan and twisting it in her hands. “I cannot get her out of my mind.”

“We have scoured the city. She’ll have to come to you when she’s ready.”

“And you,” Elsa added.

Kaatje nodded and continued her work on Elsa’s hair, adding delicate ringlets around her face after the knots were done.

“Well, now you have my hair ready for a ball,” Elsa said. “But I can’t get into anything but my shift. Mrs. Hodge says there’s no room to let out my dresses anymore.”

“Showing more with this one, are you?” Kaatje asked, gesturing toward Elsa’s waistline.

“I think it’s twins.”

Kaatje dropped her hands to Elsa’s shoulders. “I know what would cheer you! Let’s visit the dressmaker. Get her to make you some decent maternity dresses! The girls will love it. You remember how they played with her scraps and buttons for hours?”

“While Kristian moped about.”

“Perhaps Kristian can find another playmate for the afternoon. Come, Elsa, you need to get out. I need to get out, for that matter.”

“Very well. I believe you’re right,” Elsa said, rising to try and find something suitable to wear about town.

Kaatje breathed a sigh of relief as the carriage pulled up outside the house and the girls and Elsa climbed in with her. Since the elation of Christmas had faded away, they had all slowly succumbed to a “funk” as Mrs. Hodge called it, withering like the pine swags about them until everyone felt a bit brittle and irritable. The constant, drenching rain, so common this time of year, did not help matters. Getting out was just what they all needed. And new dresses for Elsa might raise her spirits as well.

Elsa was stunning, Kaatje admired from across the carriage. Despite
her hardship, mourning, and pregnancy, she was still one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen. Even in black.

She looked out the window and thought about her own appearance. Despite Elsa’s generously purchased dresses, she still felt like a brown church mouse next to her dearest friend. If she had only been a bit prettier, perhaps Soren would never have gone. Yet some days when she awakened, she half expected to hear that he had arrived, tracking them down from the Dakota Territory to the valley. But he remained absent as ever, and she fought off her disappointment and faced the new day.

Maybe that was why God was calling her north. So the nagging question of where her husband was, what Soren wanted from her in the future, was laid to rest.
Alaska
, she thought, visualizing the word written on paper. It seemed terribly wild and untamed to her. An unlikely place for a farm maid from Bergen. But if she had made it this far, could she not go farther?

“Kaatje? Kaatje!” Elsa was saying. “Are you with us?”

“Oh. Yes. Sorry. A little daydreaming, I’m afraid.” The girls giggled at each other, happy to see their mother caught for once.

“I was saying we ought to have luncheon out. Just us ladies out and about on the town.”

Kaatje smiled. “That would be lovely.”

“Then it’s settled. We’ll get some suitable clothing for my increasing girth and then go fill my stomach with some delicious eats!” she said, tickling Jessie.

Kaatje looked back out the window. As they passed through downtown, past Our Lady of Hope, an old woman caught her eye, and Kaatje struggled to place her. Where on earth had she seen her before? When she finally knew, they were several blocks past, and Kaatje decided not to stop the carriage. “Elsa,” she said, still thinking.

“Yes.”

“I’ve had a thought. Tomorrow, let us check in with the good sisters at Our Lady of Hope. Perhaps we and the girls could do some
charity work there. Helping prepare food, serve, whatever the need.” She stared into Elsa’s eyes, making her understand her true purpose.

Elsa nodded, clearly comprehending. “It is a good idea. Today we play. Tomorrow we get to work.”

“This is just wonderful,” Elsa scowled into the mirror as Madame de Boisiere took her measurements. “Could not bustles be out this year? That’s just fine, madame. Simply give me a bustle in back,
and
in front.”

Kaatje covered a smile and moved to face her friend. “You’ll look lovely, I’m sure.”

“Then add to that every shade of black one can imagine and I’ll look like a rotten potato.”

“My, you’re cantankerous!” Kaatje chided. “If Madame de Boisiere cannot make you the most beautiful expectant mother in town, then no one can.”

Madame de Boisiere smiled demurely and went on measuring. “You will be a pleasure to drape, Madame Ramstad, with child or no. We will merely add more ruffles up front.”

“No, please. I prefer long lines to help disguise my stomach, or soft drapes of fabric.”

“Good,” the dressmaker replied. “We will do as you suggest.”

The woman had a soothing manner, and Elsa relaxed as the session went on. Jessica and Christina, dressed in their own finest frocks for the outing, were deep into a pail of buttons, wrapping scraps of material about their heads in what appeared to be their attempt at an elaborate coiffure. It did feel good to be out, Elsa admitted to herself, and to be doing something about her desperate clothing situation. None of the maternity dresses she had worn when carrying Kristian were suitable, since none were in black. She didn’t know if she could’ve borne the idea of wearing them again anyway. Each dress would remind her of Peder, of where they had traveled together, of the way he had looked at her in it, anticipating their first child.

Ever since proclaiming to Kaatje that she had no sense of
place
as Kaatje obviously did in the Skagit Valley, her words had come back to pound at her like heavy waves upon the beach. It wasn’t completely true. While she enjoyed her time in Seattle and Camden, she had been happiest on the ocean. She missed the sea. It was where she was meant to be, just as it had been for Peder. But the thought of traveling alone frightened her. Peder had been her protector on the waters, her captain. She had simply gone along for the ride. She couldn’t imagine how she would do it without him, but she knew she needed to. For herself.

“I am going back to sea,” she said, abruptly voicing her thoughts.

Kaatje sat down and smiled. “I had wondered when you would come to that. When?”

“This spring, I suppose. When I get the nerve up to try it on my own. Truly on my own again.”

“What about the baby you’re expecting?”

“I’ll wait until she is born. Or he.”

“You had thought Seattle would bring you comfort.”

“And it has,” Elsa said, turning to face her. “As you have. But over the last few days, I’ve realized that my future is where I found my foundation with Peder. At sea. I need to travel, to discover new sights, to uncover new business opportunities on my own. Start building new memories.”

“You’ll sail with Riley?”

“I’ll captain my own ship.”

Madame de Boisiere paused almost imperceptibly, then resumed her work.

Kaatje’s eyebrows shot up. “With Riley as your mate?”

“Riley has his own ship now. I will find a suitable, trustworthy first mate.” Her tone brooked no discussion.

“Already the captain,” Kaatje commented wryly.

Elsa ignored her comment. “You think it unseemly that I go to sea myself?”

“I think it irresponsible if you don’t have someone at your right hand whom you would trust with your life.”

“Of course. I will choose my mate, and the others, very carefully.”

“What would Peder say?” Kaatje asked quietly.

“He would be glad I was on the waters he loved so well. And he would be furious I was out there on my own.” She turned toward Kaatje. “But he never did understand—truly understand—that I loved it nearly as well as he. And I learned so much! By the time we docked here, I felt I could round the Horn myself, should the opportunity ever arise again.”

She turned back to her mirror image as Madame de Boisiere went on measuring and draping fabrics. “In some ways it would be carrying on Peder’s legacy. Teaching Kristian the art of seamanship. Exposing our children to new lands, new cultures. Could there be a better education for them?”

“You sound as if you are arguing with yourself.”

“I’m thinking aloud.” She smiled for the first time, looking mischievous. “Do you think I have the tenacity to actually go through with it?”

“No doubt, Elsa,” Kaatje said with a grin. “There is no doubt.”

Later that evening, poor Kristian was paraded through the parlor, the victim of the girls’ attempts at their own dressmaking. Kaatje and Elsa laughed until they cried, until Kristian cried himself at being the target of their good humor.

“Forgive me, darling,” Elsa said, gesturing him toward her and unwrapping him from the faux dress, and wiping her eyes. “We so appreciate the laugh, though. Let me give you a big kiss for bearing it.” Kristian grimaced and scooted away from his mother, not at all appeased by a buss on the cheek for his tolerance.

“I’m going to play in my room,” he announced regally. “With my
trains.
”

The women could barely hold in their laughter until he had exited.
They returned to a small table and their game of chess—a game each endeavored to master. Peder had taught Elsa the basics aboard ship and Elsa had taught Kaatje. “That’s yet another good reason to return to the sea,” Elsa said. “Kristian will need male influences in his life.”

“But of what caliber?” Kaatje asked delicately.

“Well, I see your point,” Elsa said, studying the board before making her next move. “But there are many fine men aboard Ramstad ships. Some are more coarse than others, but most have a good heart. I believe it is good for a child to be exposed to all kinds of individuals—within reason, of course—to prepare them for this great big world we live in.”

“And what about men like Mason Dutton?”

Elsa glanced up at Kaatje quickly, then back to the board.

“They never did catch the man, did they, Elsa?”

Elsa shook her head ever so slightly.

“Are you ready to encounter him again? On your own? Without Peder or Karl at your side?”

Elsa’s mind flew back to Honolulu, to spotting Mason in the mercantile. Simply seeing him had struck terror through her heart. Even Peder had run. And since her column had been printed, the American and British navies had doubled their efforts to catch the vagabond.

“I read he is not truly an officer of the Royal Navy.” Kaatje had obviously been keeping track of the news too.

“No,” Elsa said, finding her voice again. “He was, once. Then went astray. Apparently, the uniform simply helps him get what he wants.”

“I read that he has been operating like the pirates of old,” Kaatje pressed on. “Slipping through the law’s fingers time and again. He has raided more than five ships this year, Elsa.” She waited until Elsa looked her in the eye. “You have made a powerful enemy. To expose his enterprise to the entire English-speaking world—”