The Ghost of the Mary Celeste by Valerie Martin Page B

another battalion of plums at the table. Benjamin ducked away to the parlor, where we found him when we were done at last. There was casual talk on the most banal subjects. I did my best not to meet Benjamin’s eyes, which I felt steadily upon me, because I knew if I did, I would be too flustered to speak coherently. It was very torture until Dinah came up from the kitchen, brushing down her apron with her palms, and announced that we must set out forhome to serve the reverend his dinner. “I’ll walk out with you,” Benjamin said, and off we went, all four, but we had not gone far before Benjamin, who was walking strangely slow, took my hand and drew me into the shade of a chokeberry tree. Dinah hustled along without pause, but Hannah turned back and cast me a look of perturbation, though she didn’t speak.
    I couldn’t think of her, though I knew I would have to, and soon. Benjamin bent down to pick a few wild phlox, which he then presented to me. “What did you think of my poor poem?” he said.
    “Not poor at all. And an interesting proposition.” I kept my eyes upon the sweet flowers, turning them between my fingers. They won’t last, I thought.
    “Would you like to go to sea, Sallie?” he said softly.
    “With you?” I asked, ridiculously, and he nodded. “I wish I could,” I said. “But how could I?”
    In the annals of courting was there ever a more transparently leading question?
    “You could if you were my wife.”
    “I didn’t know you were thinking of marrying.”
    “Nor did I. The idea first came to me that evening, when you played …”
    “ ‘In the Starlight,’ ” we said together.
    “Yes, it was then. And it’s been with me ever since.”
    “It was the same for me,” I confessed. A pause came between us, as we each considered what had just been revealed.
    “Then your answer is yes,” he concluded.
    I looked up from the flowers into my cousin’s inquiring eyes. “It is,” I said.
    “Lord, how I love that song!” he exclaimed.
    I felt my heart literally swelling in my chest, and for some reason our childhood rambles came to mind, and I recalled how we would wander off from the others and make up games or play out Bible stories and pirate adventures. The final line of the song danced in my head:
Let us wander gay and free
. Benjamin had taken my handand pressed it to his lips. “Sallie,” he said softly. I felt the impress of his lips brightly on my fingers and my face flushed with heat.
    “What adventures we will have,” he said, leading me now to my father’s house. We had walked a little way without speaking when he said, “I’ll come and talk to the reverend in the morning. Do you think he’ll be pleased?”
    Father, I thought. Left with Hannah. “I think he will be,” I said.
    We walked on to the gate at the street, where Benjamin released my hand and turned to me. For a moment we looked into each other’s eyes, both of us smiling. Benjamin brought his fingers to my chin, and lifting it, leaned down to kiss my lips.
    Merciful heaven! That kiss. In school, sometimes, boys stole kisses, little pecks, and once a brutish boy I disliked amused himself by forcing a kiss upon me in the church cloakroom after service. But this kiss was something of an entirely different order. Part of the pleasure was knowing it to be the first of many. Benjamin’s arm came about my waist, but loosely; he didn’t press me in any way, only our lips lingered together so deliciously. I blush to recall it. At last we parted and I stood, my head swimming with delight, a look of stupefaction on my face, I’m sure.
    “Well, Sallie,” he said. “I guess you’d best go in.”
    “Yes,” I said, sobering myself by lifting the latch on the gate. He stood watching me to the door, where I turned and blew him a kiss. Then he strolled off, humming to himself. “In the Starlight,” of course.
    I stepped into the hall to find my sister, her back against the table, her face in her raised