Twice Loved (copy2) by Lavyrle Spencer Page A

piece of furniture he had pictured his mother, sitting, working, resting, her presence felt as much now as it had been when she was there in the flesh.
    His first meal at home was an improvement over ship’s fare, but fell far short of the tasty stews his mother or Laura would have prepared. His boyhood bunk, though larger than that on the  Omega,  was a sorry substitute for the large rosewood featherbed he’d thought to be sharing with Laura tonight. When he lay down, his body expected to ride the sway and swell it had known for five years; the steadiness of the bed beneath him kept Rye awake. Outside, instead of the whistle of wind in the rigging, he heard hooves on new cobbles, occasional voices, the crack of a whip, the closing of a street lantern’s door.
    Not disturbing sounds—just different.
    He rose from his bunk and padded to the window facing south. Were it day-bright, he could have seen the tip of his house, for trees here on the island were stunted things, pruned by the wind so that few grew taller than the edifices built by man.
    But it was dark, the hill obliterated by a near-moonless night.
    Rye imagined Laura in the bed he’d once shared with her, but lying in it now with Dan Morgan. He felt as if a harpoon had been thrust into his heart.
    In his bed nearby, Josiah moved restlessly, then his voice came through the dark. “Thinking of ’er will do y’ little good tonight, lad.”
    “Aye, and don’t I know it. She’s up there in bed with Dan this very minute, while I stand here making wishes.”
    “Tomorrow is time enough to tell her how y’ feel.”
    “I needn’t tell her—she knows.”
    “So she put y’ off, did she? ”
    Rye leaned his elbow against the windowframe, frustrated anew. “Aye, that she did. But the lad was there, thinking Dan is his father, lovin’ him as if he is, the way she tells it. That’ll be somethin’ t’ reckon with.”
    “So she told y’ about the boy?”
    “Aye.”
    The incessant sound of the ocean seemed to murmur through the rough walls of the building while Rye remained as before, studying the dark square outside the window. When he spoke again it was quietly, but with inchoate pride nearly making his voice crack. “He’s a bonny lad.”
    “Aye, with the look of his grandmother about his mouth.” Rye faced the spot where his father’s bed was, though he could not clearly make him out. “Y’ve lost your grandchild just as I’ve lost my wife. Did she never bring him around for the two of y’t’get acquainted? ”
    “Aw, she has little business in the cooperage, and I doubt the lad lacks for grandparents’ love, with Dan’s folks playin’ the part. I’ve heard they love him like their own.”
    The entanglements of the situation were ever increasing. Remembering days when he felt as free to run uninvited into the Morgans’ house as he did into his own, Rye asked, “They’re still well, then?”
    “Aye, sound as dollars, both of ’em.”
    Silence followed again for a moment before Rye asked, “And Dan ... what does he do t’ keep her in such fancy furniture up there?”
    “Works at the countinghouse for old man Starbuck.”
    “Starbuck!” Rye exclaimed. “You mean Joseph Starbuck?”
    “One and the same.”
    The fact stung Rye, for Starbuck owned the fleet of whaleships that included the  Omega.  How ironic to think he himself had gone in search of riches only to lose Laura to one who stayed behind to count them.
    “You see those three new houses up along Main Street?” Josiah continued. “Starbuck’s buildin’ them for his sons. Hired an architect clear from Europe to design ’em. The Three Bricks, he’s callin’ ’em. Starbuck’s had good times. The  Hero  and the  President  came home chocked off, too, and he expects the same of the  Three Brothers.”
    But Rye was barely listening. He was ruing the day he’d set out after riches—and riches he’d have, for his lay at one-sixtieth a share, would be close to a