The Watery Part of the World by Michael Parker Read Free Book Online

fire.
    â€œPardon?”
    â€œA financial arrangement. For my hand. I can’t say I was not given to the idea of marriage, or that there were not qualities in Joseph I admired, but my father was in trouble. He has always lived as if he were rich. He is not wise in business. We were going to lose Richmond Hill—the estate we used to own on the Hudson—and my father agreed to allow Joseph my hand if he would help out with the mortgage.”
    â€œA dowry,” said Whaley in a way that made it clear he thought there was nothing terribly unusual there.
    â€œNo, not a dowry. An arrangement. A dowry is a onetime payment. This was not that. I have a bad habit of sneaking looks at people’s ledgers. I saw the payments to my father, and they continued for some years after we were married. In fact, they continued far longer than the initial arrangement called for, as I finally confronted Joseph about it, and he told me that he’d continued to keep my father afloat out of pity.”
    â€œHe lost the house anyway?”
    â€œYes,” she said, turning to Whaley, who had cleaned the fish and was rolling them in meal to fry for breakfast. “But there were motivations, I am certain, other than financial ones. Political clout in the Southern colonies, where my father’s enlightened stance on slavery doubtless cost him the presidency.”
    â€œPower changes a man. Even if they’re not claiming to have heard women in pictures talking or moving their eyes, they lose touch with the rest of the world.”
    Feeling her face grow warm, she put down her tea, moved back from the fire. What angered her the most about his comment was the way he could have been either talking to himself, about someone else—Daniels, obviously—or listening, and understanding, all too well.
    â€œIf you’re going to talk about my father, you could at least call him by name,” she said.
    â€œWhat your daddy’s done or ain’t done don’t concern me nor anyone else on this island. You need to get used to that, or you’ll drive yourself mad.”
    Whaley laughed at his joke so loudly that she nearly smiled herself. And of course he was right. Her father’s illustrious career wasn’t even news here, for the news, when it came, was months late and had no effect on the lives of the islanders. She wondered if, in fact, her father meant nothing to the rest of the country—wondered if she hadn’t imagined the stares as she sat in the Alston family pew of the St. James Episcopal Church inCharleston, or exaggerated the threat of shameful treatment that led her to choose, despite Joseph’s protestations, to travel to her reunion with her father by sea instead of overland, which would have taken less than a week, opposed to the two weeks it would have taken her had there not been a light tied to the head of a nag. The thought of six days cooped up in a coach with strangers who would just know by looking at her who she was had led her to choose the ocean.
    That she associated the ocean with indifference amused her now that her life—and the lives of everyone on this island—was so dependent upon what the sea delivered. Whaley’s lodgings might be aesthetically lacking, but its roof kept the both of them dry and warm.
    â€œOkay,” she said, “I’ll try not to drive myself mad. In the mean time, you’ll help me build my manor?”
    â€œImagine I could lend a hand from time to time.”
    â€œAnd that portrait? You’ll help me get it back?” She saw no need to mention the papers, for how could she trust this man she’d just met? Such a treasure might cause a good man to change direction. As he said, power changes a man.
    When she looked up at him, his affable demeanor had darkened.
    â€œMight as well take a knife to both our throats.”
    â€œI want it back.”
    â€œIf that portrait went missing he’d search ever inch