Ruth Axtell Morren - Wild Rose

“Come on in. I’m back here.”

Geneva followed the captain’s voice through a dining room and into a long, airy room at the back of the house. Her first impression was space. So much empty space. Space and light. The room had a clean, swept feeling. It contained very little furniture. The walls that faced the windows were lined with empty bookcases. She ventured farther along the shiny wooden floors. Two framed pictures hung one atop the other on one wall. Square-rigged ships. She wondered whether they were from his father’s line.

The focal point was the windows, a whole row of them overlooking the sea. It was exactly what she’d imagined it would look like, the view from a house right at the end of the Point.

“That’s the reason I bought this piece of land.”

Geneva jumped at the sound of the captain’s voice behind her.

He came and stood beside her. “I took one look at the view from the old house that used to stand here, and knew this was where I wanted to build my home.”

Geneva just nodded, too awed by the fact that the captain’s thoughts and hers had coincided so perfectly. “It’s the most beautiful spot in Haven’s End.”

He glanced at her. “You’re just up the hill.”

“I look out onto the bay. I like it well enough. But this is the wide-open sea.”

He nodded in understanding. “I imagine the gales blow fierce in winter.”

“You keep a good fire goin’, you’ll be all right.”

He motioned to her book. “Shall we get started? Come, I’ve set up a table out here on the porch. As long as the weather is so nice, I thought we might as well be outside.” He led her through a glass-paned door to a veranda.

Geneva sat and looked from the captain, seating himself so close to her, to her mother’s book in her hands, and finally to the shimmering sea beyond the two of them. Mrs. Stillman, the rest of Haven’s End and Miss Harding were all somewhere far behind them. Only she and the captain existed in this world. Suddenly, she felt as if she were tasting a little bit of heaven.

The captain held out a hand. “May I?”

She nodded and handed him the book.

He laid it on the table and opened it. She saw him frown and began to worry that something was wrong.

He looked at her. “This is in French.”

She stared at him, her thoughts tumbling around, but all pointing in one direction: once again she’d failed.

When she didn’t speak, he asked her, “Do you understand what that means? It’s written in another language. It wouldn’t do you much good to learn to read in French.”

“It was my ma’s. She spoke the language.”

“Your mother was French?”

“Only half. But she was raised in a convent, in Québec. I reckon that’s all they spoke to her up there.”

The captain smiled at her. “You say it like a native. Did your mother teach you her native tongue?”

Geneva shook her head. “No. I heard her say a word now and then, but I didn’t understand it. Pa made her speak English whenever he was around.” She looked beyond him toward the sea. “I remember she’d call me chérie. And she gave me a long, funny-sounding name.”

“Your name is not Geneva?”

She shook her head. “Geneviève.” She pronounced it just the way she used to hear her mother say it, with the airy g sound and the last syllables all running together like a softly expelled breath. “Trouble was, Pa couldn’t say it right, and ended up deciding it should be plain old ‘Geneva,’ but Ma always said it the French way. Geneviève,” she repeated. She turned to see the captain looking at her in wonder. She felt the heat steal into her face. “What’s wrong with that?”

“You say your name exactly as a Frenchwoman would. Your accent is impeccable.”

Her chagrin turned into pleasure. But she just shrugged. “That’s about all I can say.”

The captain closed the book, resting his hand atop it. She remembered his hands, large and capable-looking, from the first time he’d touched her, back on the wharf. They were not so much the gentleman’s hands as they had appeared then, but still appealing, probably more so now that they were toughened by the soil.

“It’s a Bible, you know.”

She pulled her gaze away from his hands. “What? Oh.” She focused on her mother’s book again. “I should have figured. She was always reading it. Especially once she was bedridden.”

“Was she ill very long?”

“Just a year.”

“I’m sorry. How old were you when you lost her?”

Geneva shrugged. “Eight, nine, near as I can reckon.”

“You don’t remember exactly how old you were then?”

“Not exactly. Pa didn’t believe in celebrating things like birthdays.” She gave a bitter laugh. “If I could read, I’d know exactly how old I was. Ma wrote it all down here.” Geneva reached for the Bible, and Captain Caleb pushed it toward her. She opened it to one of the front pages where she knew her mother’s handwriting appeared. She flattened the pages and turned the book back toward the captain, beginning to feel the excitement of uncovering a long-held secret. He leaned over it, seeming as eager as she felt.

“Geneviève Samantha Patterson. Née 5 Mai, 1850.” He looked at her triumphantly.

“You speak French,” she said.

“Just what I learned in school.” He smiled at her. “You, Miss Patterson, were born on May fifth. You just turned twenty-three last month.”

She nodded slowly. “I knew it said five, but I wasn’t sure of the rest.”

“Now that we’ve solved that mystery, we still have the problem of how we’re going to find you something to read. Did you never have any schooling at all?”

“Just a couple of years. Then Ma got sick, and Pa took me out of school to tend to her.”

“You must have been rather young for such a burden.”

“She was no burden. I was glad to do it.” Geneva looked down at the painted wooden table. “Wish I coulda’ done more.”

The captain’s hand covered hers. For an instant she felt an overwhelming desire to turn her hand over and receive his comfort, but she held back. Life had taught her not to rely on anyone or anything.

So she pulled her hand away and clasped it rigidly on the tabletop with her other hand. “When’s this lesson going to begin?”

Captain Caleb withdrew his hand with a chuckle and sat back. He lifted a stone paperweight from the center of the table and removed a sheet of white paper from a small stack. “Let’s see what you remember from your school days.”

Caleb looked at Geneva’s departing back as she climbed up the slope to her house. He didn’t know which of them felt the more exhausted, pupil or teacher. He tried to look on the bright side. At least she had mastered the alphabet back in school and could form the letters fairly well. She recognized several one-syllable words, though anything more complicated was beyond her. He felt sorry for her, seeing her struggle.

He felt almost as helpless, not sure how to approach teaching her. He tried to remember how he’d been taught in school. School! Like Geneva, he’d only had a couple of years of formal schooling before being yanked out and shipped off to sea. But at least his father had provided a tutor on those journeys. A man who was quick to rap an eight-year-old boy on the knuckles at the slightest sign of fidgeting. And who was fonder of sitting in the captain’s quarters over a glass of brandy than of overseeing a boy’s lessons.

He smiled, understanding the frustration Geneva tried to control but which was so evident each time she missed a word or copied his example incorrectly. It was going to be an uphill struggle—but worth it.

He could feel something stirring in him at the effort to help someone. She was obviously bright, but had suffered nothing but disadvantages since her youth. From the little she’d told him, he could form a vivid picture of the rest. A little girl struggling to nurse a dying woman, left at the mercy of a hard, unfeeling woodsman. No wonder she’d rejected Caleb’s offer of sympathy so emphatically. She probably didn’t know how to accept anyone’s helping hand.