A Matter of Time (12 page)

She was trying not to smile, but her round blue eyes were dancing at the effort.

“Look,” he acknowledged, a slight edge in his voice, “you’ve become a sailor. A fine one. But we’ve never gone through any
heavy weather. Never had any reason to. Now….”

Her eyes narrowed. “Colin Bennett! Are you trying to send me home? ‘Cause if you are, I’ll be out of here so fast, it’ll make
your—”

“Whoa, Nellie! I didn’t say that! I’m just trying to warn you what it’s going to be like. If you wanted to go home and see
your family, this would be the time to do it, that’s all.”

She thought about that—for all of four seconds. “I’m coming.”

A slow grin spread across his face. “Good on ya, mate!” he’d exclaimed, imitating his Aussie friends. “But don’t say I didn’t
warn you.”

She never did. On their way down to Eleuthera, which had taken a direct hit, they went through some of the foulest weather
he’d ever seen. Once they’d gotten there, instead of sitting around all day while he worked, she asked if she could help.
He’d been reluctant, but she’d
persisted, and he started showing her how to fix things. Funny thing, just as with her seamanship, she turned out to be a
natural.

After Eleuthera they’d gone on to St. Kitts, Tortola, Martinique. Finally, around American Thanksgiving, they’d called it
a season and returned here. And had come to the White Horse, famished for someone else’s cooking.

He’d been sitting on this very stool, and she next to him, when she’d told him.

“I’m pregnant.”

He’d stared at her. Then exclaimed, “Good on ya, mate!”

They’d both laughed.

Marriage was the only thing they’d never discussed—perhaps because neither wanted to risk what so perfectly suited them.

“How long have you known?”

“Two weeks. I kept hoping I was just late.”

“Well,” he said, taking her hand, “what do you want to do?”

She pulled the hand away. “What are you asking?”

“Not that!” he recoiled, hurt that she would even think—he pointed to her stomach. “That’s
us
in there!”

“Then what
are
you asking?”

He shrugged. “You want to get married?”

“What do
you
want?”

He laughed. “I asked first.” Then he grew thoughtful. “I’d like him to have my last name. Legitimately.”

“Him?”

“Well, if it’s a her, I suppose that’ll be all right—long as she takes after her mother.”

She looked at him, her head tilted. “I thought you were never one for commitments.”

“Thought so, too. But—I’ve never met anyone like you.”

Abruptly he slapped the table with his palm, causing the green empties to jump. “Then it’s settled!”

He adopted his Shaw/Tucker brogue. “Reckon ah’m gonna do the right thing, m’am. Make an honest woman of ya. And the bairn?”
He bent over close to her midriff and spoke softly to it. “Aye, yer not gonna be born outa wedlock, and that’s fer sure, matey!”

They went to Georgia to see her parents, tell them their news, get married as quickly as possible, and enter into happily-ever-after
time.

Only one person was unhappy with this Princess Bride ending—so unhappy, that he would have preferred Colin do the wrong thing.
In fact, he would have even preferred his daughter do the hideous thing. It would have been preferable to her tying herself
down for life to this winsome loser.

Amy’s grandfather, who had gone to the Citadel and retired from the Army as a colonel, had left everything to his only son,
Avery, who so liked the sound of “Colonel Baxter” that as soon as his daddy died, he instructed the servants at
Live Oaks
, the family’s shooting plantation in Thomasville, to call him that, too.

Amy’s mother loved her, but not enough to stand up to her father. Nobody stood up to Colonel Baxter. After years of being
abused and neglected, Mrs. Baxter had developed a quiet but enduring fondness for the attentions of a gentleman caller, a
White Russian nobleman named Stolichnaya. In the privacy of her sewing room, he would come calling every afternoon about four.
If her husband was aware of the Russian’s existence, he didn’t care. It
kept his wife manageable—and in his mind justified the things he did with a certain lady over in Valdosta.

Avery Baxter had another daughter, Agnes. Four years older than Amy, she did not bother to hide her dislike of their father.
As soon as she was out of Randolph Macon, she married a biologist who taught there. Her husband might not be the brightest
bulb in his department, but Agnes didn’t care. They lived comfortably on the income of the trust that her grandfather had
set up for her, and returned to
Live Oaks
as infrequently as possible. Agnes did love her mother though, and on those occasions she would slip away at teatime to the
sewing room, where together they would enjoy the pleasure of the Russian gentleman’s company.

Having no sons and a daughter who despised him, Avery Baxter’s hopes for the future centered on Amy. Having already instructed
her in the ways of the family business, he intended to turn over much of the running of it to her, once she graduated from
Randolph Macon. And then she had thrown her future away on Colin.

14
  
  
amy’s story

Amy’s mother, delighted at her news, had immediately begun planning the wedding one afternoon, while
Live Oaks’
manager was showing Colin around. “We’ll invite all our plantation friends—”

“Mother,” Amy gently cut in, “those people are not our friends. We hardly know them.”

“Well, they will be after this wedding,” her mother went blithely on. “And you’ll wear your grandmother’s gown. Did you know
the veil has a thousand seed pearls sewn into it?”

Amy nodded and smiled. “You’ve told me many times.” Then she frowned. “Should I—be wearing white?”

Her mother chuckled. “Honey, you have no idea how many of my sorority sisters’ first-born children were ‘premature.’”

They both laughed.

Her father saw nothing amusing about her condition—or any of the rest of it. When her mother had gone up to “do some sewing,”
he asked her to come into the den—and close the door behind her.

He took the captain’s chair behind the great oak desk,
and waving her to the chair opposite, got right to the point. “I’ve had your lover investigated.”

“Daddy!” she exclaimed, staring at him in disbelief. “That is so—tacky!”

His knuckles whitened as he gripped the edge of his desk. “As I suspected, he has no visible means of support.” He indicated
the manila folder in front of him.

“I could have saved you the money,” Amy declared, nodding at it. “He fixes boats. He’s good at it, so he works when he feels
like it. He’s a gypsy of the sea.”

“Mighty fancy name for it,” her father muttered, opening the folder. “He’s been kicked out of some excellent schools,” he
observed, reading the file, “and has never earned a regular paycheck.”

When she did not respond, he looked up. “You’ve heard of ski bums and tennis bums? Well, honey, your fiancé’s a boat bum.
That’s all he is.”

Leaning forward, she glared at him. “That may be, Daddy, but he’s
my
boat bum, thank you very much!”

“You really ought to read this,” he went on, unperturbed. “There’s been a regular procession of young ladies who’ve been—
guests
aboard his boat. Were you aware of that?”

“Yes, Daddy,” she said acidly. “He’s told me about all of them.”

“And you don’t mind being the next in line?”

“I intend to be the last.”

He tapped the file. “I wonder how long you two would have lasted, if he hadn’t knocked you up.”

She stood up. “This conversation is over! Colin and I are getting married, here or in Bermuda, and you can be part of it,
or not!” And before he could reply, she left the den, slamming the door behind her.

They held the wedding in Thomasville, because it would have broken her mother’s heart if they hadn’t. Agnes came down from
Chapel Hill to help with the preparations, and the three of them immersed themselves in the details with abandon. Pam and
Aggie would be Maid and Matron of Honor, and three sorority sisters would be bridesmaids. Colin’s brother Ian would be Best
Man. Anson, his racing mate from Marblehead, was coming down, and Stuart, Stevie, Daniel, and Geoff were coming over from
Bermuda to be his ushers.

Amy’s mother had such a good time with her girls that she seemed to grow younger and more vivacious with each passing day.
Her husband went the other way, balking at the astronomical wedding expenses, until Aggie invited him into the den for a little
close-the-door-behind-you talk. She simply told him that unless he wanted all of Thomasville and Albany to know exactly what
he was up to over in Valdosta, he was going to put up and shut up.

It was a perfect wedding. Everything went off as if it had been planned for weeks, not days. After the ceremony, the dancing,
graceful waltzes at first, grew quite spirited, fueled by a punchbowl of Dark ’n Stormies, courtesy of the White Horse Troop,
as they called themselves. It was such a good party, in fact, that the bride and bridegroom were loath to tear themselves
away, though they were flying to Rome that night.

When the grandfather clock chimed six o’clock, Amy realized that they really must be going. Where was Colin? No one seemed
to know. Then she noticed her father was also absent, and with a sinking feeling she went to the den. The door was closed,
but not tightly; she could hear what was being said inside.

Her father was speaking in a light, bantering tone.
“You’re the first boat bum I’ve ever met. What a pity that’s all you’ll ever be.”

“It’s all I want to be, sir,” replied Colin, matching his easy tone.

“Yes, and that’s the pity of it. My grandson will have you as his role model.”

Colin laughed. “As it happens, we are hoping for a boy. Of course a girl would be fine, if she turned out like her mother.”
He paused. “It’s amazing how Amy turned out, considering she had you as a role model.”

Her father was no longer amused. “Best be on your way, lover boy.”

“Mr. Baxter—forgive me for not calling you Colonel, but you didn’t earn that—you’ve made a big thing out of my having no money.
But money’s all you do have. No friends. No one who’s glad to see you. No way of supporting yourself, if you ever had to.”

“Get out of here!”

“Now me, on the other hand,” Colin went on, “I take what nature or man’s carelessness has broken and put it back together
again. Which means people are always glad to see me, and I’ll always be able to support my family. And—I have mates who would
go through fire for me.” He laughed. “So, I wonder which of us is really the richer.”

At that, Amy burst in and took Colin’s arm. “Come on, Mr. Bennett,” she said, her eyes shining, “we’re out of here!”

As they left the den, she refused to say goodbye to her father or even look at him; in fact, she fully intended never to set
eyes on him again.

In subsequent months and years, Amy would hang up when her father called, throw his letters away unopened. To her, he was
dead. And so he reciprocated, disinheriting her and leaving her—them—with only the income from the trust that his father had
set up, which he was powerless to revoke.

They regarded the trust money as emergency funds and lived off what Colin made in the hurricane season. He did extend his
work time an extra month, but he didn’t mind. Indeed, it truly was happily-ever-after time aboard
Care Away
.

Four months after the wedding, Amy’s mother died of liver failure. Amy was able to get to
Live Oaks
two weeks before she passed away. Aggie was there, too, and the three of them would spend the afternoons together in their
mother’s bedroom, having as much fun as they could, until she was too tired.

The Russian gentleman was there, as well—there was little reason to exclude him now—and he was a boon companion, inviting
them to call him Stoli, as his friends did.

Amy’s father was never part of their gatherings. Aggie told her sister that after the wedding he must have said or done something
so horrible to their mother that she moved into one of the guest rooms and seldom came downstairs again.