Part Seven
THE STEAMSHIP departed in the early evening with the tide; despite the rain, the sea was calm. A day away from the Canary Islands they woke to a bright sunlight and blue sky. The warm temperatures reminded Indigo of the desert; the peaks and troughs of the ocean waves made her think of odd barren mountains and hills of salt water. As they neared land the seagulls floated on the ocean’s surface and caused Indigo to mistake them for big sea flowers. Rainbow squawked and made no mistake of their identity — they’d kill him and eat him if they could, Hattie explained.
The voyage past Gibraltar was calm and quite lovely. Edward remained in the cabin with his hand in a basin of hot salts the cabin boy changed once an hour on doctor’s orders. Hattie and Indigo with her parrot enjoyed the fresh air and sun on walks on the deck. Edward joined them for the evening walk. He continuously squeezed a small latex rubber ball in the injured hand to limber the tendons as Hattie described the schools of flying fish they counted; Indigo had a good head for numbers.
The tedious daily regimen of the hand soaked in steaming water subdued the infection, and the wound was nearly healed. When they were not counting seabirds, Hattie and Indigo practiced spelling the words from the story of the Chinese monkey. Hattie felt relieved to be fulfilling at least a part of the agreement Edward made with the boarding school superintendent — to continue teaching her to read and write.
For geography they accepted the ship captain’s invitation to visit the bridge, where he showed them the maps and charts that guided them toward Gibraltar. On the wall chart of the Mediterranean, Hattie pointed out Italy and the town of Lucca, where they’d visit Aunt Bronwyn’s friend; here was the island of Corsica they were bound for. The captain expressed surprise Americans would risk a visit to such a lawless place (the mountains were full of bandits and revolutionists!), a place with so little to offer the traveler. Hattie stepped back from the chart at once; she regretted the mention of their final destination, but thanked the captain for his concern about their safety. She signaled Indigo to follow her, though they’d only just got there.
Was it her exhaustion that left her so enervated and short-tempered? She fully intended to discuss dangers in the hills of Corsica with Edward after they reached Lucca and she had time to rest.
Indigo’s spelling list for the week included words like “wicked,” “hundred,” “scriptures,” and “scoundrel” because the Chinese monkey was in a lot of trouble. She enjoyed the assignment to use each of the spelling words at lease once in a sentence she made up herself. Hattie was surprised at the sentence in which a policeman was called a “scoundrel” by the Messiah.
Edward locked the cabin doors at night because he feared Hattie might sleepwalk, but she slept soundly every night except the last night before they reached Genoa. That night she dreamed she was awakened in her berth by a soft glow in the corner of the cabin, a glow that seemed to spread even as she watched it. She recognized the glow as the light she saw in Aunt Bronwyn’s garden, and when she sat up in her berth she was shocked to see Edward’s empty berth.
Where could he be? As she leaned over to get a better look at the little antechamber where Indigo slept, she caught a glimpse of him that set her heart pounding. He was standing by the small writing desk in the dark with a bundle in both hands. She was shaking so badly she had difficulty finding her voice. She did not want to wake the child or disturb the other passengers, so she whispered his name loudly; but the figure in the shadow did not respond. Surely Edward did not sleepwalk! She watched transfixed by the luminous glow that emanated near the figure. Suddenly the radiance increased now as bright as a gas lamp and she saw it was the tin mask from the sacred spring.
She tried to call out to Edward but she could not seem to get the words out. The mask began to advance with the light through the darkness until suddenly it covered the face of the figure in shadow. “Edward!” she called out, and woke herself and Edward. She assured him it was nothing, a nightmare, and he turned in the upper berth to go back to sleep.
Hattie listened to the sounds of Edward’s breathing and the beat of her heart, and concentrated on slowing her heartbeat to match the rhythm of his breathing. Certain thoughts sent her heart racing and had to be locked out; all the old feelings swept over her if she permitted herself any thought of her thesis. Somehow the news of the authentication of Dr. Rhinehart’s old scrolls only made her feel worse about her rejection by the graduate school.
She concentrated her thoughts instead on the gardens of the Riverside house, aging and neglected, in need of a great deal of attention. She looked forward to the Italian gardens for ideas for plants and shrubs suited to the dry hot climate of Riverside. As she drifted off to sleep, she imagined a pink garden entirely of roses and bougainvillea set off with the rich jade greens of aloes and agaves and large cacti.
Just before dawn, Hattie awoke with a pounding headache and rising nausea; in her haste to the lavatory, she bumped into a chair. The startled parrot flew against the side of the cage and woke Edward and Indigo.
She had never seen Hattie’s face so white — poor woman! What was wrong? Indigo dampened a washcloth to wipe her face, then helped her walk back to her berth, while Edward rang for a steward, then rushed off to find a doctor.
Hot pulses of pain expanded behind her eyes until they filled with tears and even her nose dripped. She felt hot, then suddenly she shivered. If she opened her eyes, the room spun so fast she felt she had to grip the sides of the berth to keep from falling. Only the coolness of the damp cloth Indigo placed on her forehead gave any comfort.
Edward returned alone, anxiously rubbing the bandage on his injured finger. Through the pounding pain in her temples Hattie had difficulty understanding Edward. He said something about the ship’s doctor with a woman in childbirth, but not to worry. He’d met a good Austrian doctor the night before in the casino; his new acquaintance would be there at once.
Indigo retreated to her bed in the alcove to play with Rainbow, though she listened closely in case Hattie needed her again. She heard Hattie moan; Indigo wished she had Grandma Fleet’s little clay pipe and the crushed blossoms of the healing plants they smoked for nausea or headache. When she or Sister Salt got sick, Grandma Fleet used to recommend someone sit in the darkened room to sing softly or tell stories to the patient, but Hattie behaved as if she wanted to be left alone.
The drumming pain in her head did not permit sleep, but Hattie did not feel entirely awake either; part of her brain whispered the word “delirium.” Her thoughts raced out of her control. Over and over she saw the print of the newspaper page, but greatly enlarged — it was the London Times article about the authentication of the Coptic scrolls. Giant typeset words were printed in oily black ink on odd paper the texture of the old scrolls themselves. Instead of elation over the news, she felt a lingering sense of futility and loss. She had been right all along, but now it didn’t matter.