Seabound

The sounds of the sea calmed Leah Everly since she was a little girl. Hearing the sounds of nature were all that would soothe her. The tradition started in 1705 after her mother was killed during the Salem Witch Trials. Her mother had been accused of being a fortune teller and had been the last of the innocents burned at the stake. After her funeral, Leah had gone to the seashore. She had been too overwhelmed with grief; the aftermath had been too silent, and she hated silence worst of all. In 1705, when Leah was five, her mother had perished and her father took what was left of their belongings. They moved to a small town in Massachusetts that had not even been established yet. They had spent many years travelling, working as servants, Leah as a servant and her father as a butler.

Provincetown was smaller to the naked and untrained eye. The mixed unpleasant smell of horses and the sea had been nauseating. It had been paradise compared to the nightmares that had haunted Leah at night. Burning red-hot embers had clouded her vision when dusk came. The reoccurring nightmare resulted from a guilty conscience. Had it not been for her mother, she would have lived in Salem. Had she not been so ecstatic during her mother’s readings, then would she still be alive? What calmed her fury was the calming sound of the ocean crashing on the sand. The sound of the waves fluctuating on the sand were nothing compared to her fears.

She had heard from her friends and neighbors that the trials had ended the month after her mother died. If they had waited one more month, then maybe her mother would have come with them.

To Leah the town had been a way to express herself, the carnivals, the balls and the parties had always been a way to numb herself from the pain of past memories.

When years passed, she had made friends with Cassandra Whitby and was often entertained by gypsies, telling their stories and their predictions. Cassandra came from a long line of them. Her brown colored skin caught the attention of several people questioning her family’s methods. This had been years of superstition, and it had not had gone away yet. Leah came into their abode to visit them. This had become a habit since they were children. Before it had just been her stepmother and father, and for a while Leah didn’t even dare to visit them, after her stepmother died during childbirth.

The home had a short ceiling, the smell of damp water and mold filled Leah’s nose. She didn’t mind one bit; it had reminded her of when she and her father used to work at the inns further into the town. It reminded her of home.

The woman, called Clara, had humbly thanked Mrs. Whitby. “Thank you, Mrs. Whitby.”

“Your welcome, congratulations on the little one to be,” Mrs. Whitby called out behind her.

Leah curtsied to Clara as she greeted Cassandra, embracing her warmly. “Leah, you’re here.”

“Yes I am, how are you?”

“Clara was just told that she will have a baby soon. She was so ecstatic, poor woman had already lost two children, maybe this one with survive.”

“I’m glad to hear of it,” Leah replied as Mrs. Whitby poured her tea. She gratefully accepted it, letting the warm liquid run down her throat, filling her from the breeze of the ocean air.

“Were you by the seashore again?” Cassandra asked. Her clothes smelled of the seaside, the salty air was embracing her.

Even without telling her, Cassandra can see right through her. They had known each other for so long, that they had this non-verbal communication between them. “You’ll get sick one day, come rain or snow, you’d always be standing there. Seabound.”

“Yes, I was, but I am never cold by the seashore,” Leah replied.

“I’m ready to go into town and get a nice cup of coffee, I heard that the mayor’s carriage will be coming by the streets,” Cassandra said, changing the subject. “His son, Albert Deighton, will ride with them with his new fiancee by his arm.”

“Showing her off, I assume,” Leah teased.

“Be back before dark, please,” Mrs. Whitby called out to her daughter. “dark energies hide there.”

“Yes, mom,” Cassandra replied, taking the forewarning seriously.

Walking farther ahead of her, Leah caught up with her as a carriage drove by them. Cassandra had whispered to her that it was the mayor’s family coming in. Standing on the side of the road, the mayor’s family had waved at them. It was a family of four, the mayor and his wife, and Miss Pamela Clayton and Albert Deighton in the second carriage. Albert had been a fair-looking man, with olive tan skin and dark tinted hair, he had hazel eyes and a curious smile. He looked at Leah for a moment and then abruptly turned away. Albert, that had been in the carriage, peered out of the window and surveyed all that he saw with a critical eye.

“He is a very acute observer,” Leah remarked.

“A very handsome one at that,” Cassandra replied bluntly with a sly smile.

“Yes, but I fear that’s all there is to recommend him,” Leah admitted.

“Leah, do not prejudge him too quickly. You are too cruel.”

“It is a great source of amusement to me to see you laugh at my rude comments,” Leah replied.

_____

Albert Deighton was an owner of a tobacco and sugar plantation. He invested the money from a small sum that had been given to him as his inheritance. His family had bought a piece of land and endeavored to make it a town. With Pamela by his side, he believes in anything with certain restrictions. Albert had always believed himself to be a grounded man and was loyal to his family. Pamela was the daughter of a slave owner who had been a huge investor in the town, and had often agreed with her father’s views, Albert did not. He often regarded her comments with a tight smile, agreeing with her as to not cause suspicion on his end of the bargain. He was marrying her and there was nothing he could do but honor her and try to show the respect she deserved. They were sitting across from each other, as Pamela with a discontented sigh had held her nose holding in the odor.

The countryside, England, which Albert was so used to the smell of the animals and the burning wood that he was used to the smell.

“How smelly this town is, it’s quite atrocious, I hope your father is intended on doing something about it.”

“Pamela, the smell is something that cannot be changed,” he replied with his usual tight smile.

“The streets are so small. The colors are so dull, your father makes the housing too cheap.”

“We are just getting settled as it is, it’s insensitive to ask so much of our residents if we have very little money building housing ourselves. I’m imploring you to go through with your bargain and pull through the money.”

“You know I can’t until we’re married, that’s what we agreed together.”

“That’s what your family agreed upon,” he replied acutely.

“My father is a tyrant, if we would rule a country he would, and he rears us as if we were his nobles. He would do something to harm your reputation.. harm your business if you don’t comply.”

“That’s heartless,” he replied.

“I know we don’t like each other, but perhaps in time we could become fond of each other even.”

It was the first time that he saw her crack a genuine smile. “I haven’t given my heart to anyone, and I don’t plan too.”

She inhaled sharply as she looked out the window, and Albert knew she hadn’t given her heart to anyone either, or probably had never known love. If her father was a tyrant, like she said, he might have been heartless and cold. His own father had been acrimonious in his manner, ravenous for power and increasing ill. What it had been, no one knew, only that he had difficulty breathing and had days when he was better and other days when he was bedridden.

When his father’s eager letter arrived, he paid for his way to America, leaving a jilted lover and a bastard. He changed his ways, eager to make his way. He obeyed his father and met the Claytons. Their daughter Pamela was loyal to her family and agreed to an impending marriage. The girl, impressionable at twenty-two, when she heard the opportunity of an impending marriage she had agreed to be his wife one day with alacrity. She wore atrocious colors, and her enthusiasm was thinly veiled by marrying into Provincetown.

Looking out to the window, he noticed that the carriage had been coming closer to the manor. He saw, in the corner of his eyes, two young women walking together. They were both in their twenties, fair-haired, smiling and laughing at each other. Making eye contact with one of them, he felt something he thought had died a long time ago. Attraction, perhaps? He went back into the comfort of the carriage chair. Pamela herself had been a city girl, spent in her entire childhood there before living with her brothers when their parents died. “Oh dear, there’s sand everywhere.”

“We are at the beach,” Albert blatantly pointed out. Albert opened the door and said politely, “Be careful on the way out.”

There was an enormous pile of sand between the stairs and the carriage. “There is sand there, I hope it won’t get in my shoes.”

“Better to take them off,” he said as he did so himself.

“Are you serious?” she said, taking a large step to the manor of the house. “No, I will not!”

Albert rolled his eyes as he helped her out of the carriage as she took a large step over the sand. He rang the bell as his mother answered. When she saw Pamela, she only saw the fortune that she had carried with her.

“Sand! I shall never get away from it,” she declared bitterly. “Leave me alone here. I have a headache. Go and explore, be with your friends and meet some of your tenants.”

“As you say,” he replied indifferently and kissed her hand, leading her first up to Deighton Place.

He walked away as she waved him off, seeming to get rid of him as much as he was hoping to get rid of her. His mind had now become engaged with the image of that girl’s blue eyes. They had danced with mirth and amusement, refreshing compared to the hour he had spent with Pamela. Determined to find her, Albert walked around the small town and finally coming to a cliff he breathed in the sea air. There was no felicity compared to the sea air, then the smoke and overcast skies in London.

Peering down, looking at the people, and saw her. The girl had thick brown golden hair hitting in the sunlight at such an angle that had almost become blonde. She had been walking with a much older man that Albert had only assumed was her father and a dog. It had been a greyhound, friendly and obliging. The dog had affectionately rubbed on the girl as she took a piece of wood and let the dog drag her into the ocean. She laughed as the dog barked at her. Albert smiled at her and even dared to laugh, but he doubted she saw him. He was a silent admirer.