Summer Seasonings
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The House of Four Seasons
By Atonia Walpole
Part 6:
“You’re okay…both of you?”
“Of course my pet. Why should you think otherwise? And my brother here acquitted himself well.”
“Terry?”
“I’m fine, Toni…it was fun.”
Toni pressed her lips together and sat down on the lockers.
“Now that you’re through…and I take it you are…playing war, might you take us home?”
“As soon as we transfer the prisoners and put a crew on the brig I promise you I will take you home, Max.”
Killick had the ship's carpenter fashion two walking canes for Auntie so that she could make her way around the cabin. Jack carried her up on deck one day so that she might see it all. Toni wandered around the cabin and, not being nosy but it was there in plain sight, noticed a letter to Sophie, Jack’s wife. She’d forgotten he was married. How could he have married her? She was very confused about it all. This was Jack’s world and he was a married man, but he came to her in her world. She was kneeling on the lockers, resting her arms against the window sash, when Terry came into the cabin with a cup of coffee he’d gotten from Killick.
“What’s upsetting you?” he asked quietly behind her.
“Oh, Terry, sometimes I get so confused. I just saw a letter Jack’s been writing to his wife. I didn’t read it. I’d forgotten he’s married.”
“So is John.”
“I know in his world but not in mine, in the real world.”
“What’s real, Toni? Am I real?”
“What do you mean? Of course you are.”
“Are you real?”
Toni sat back on her heels and looked into his eyes. “Where are you going with this?”
“I don’t think any of us are real. We got on an imaginary ship in the middle of a busy naval yard. We were invisible, the house is invisible. We don’t really exist.”
“Terry, we just laid my grandmother to rest. We were all there. We talked to people. I know I had a grandmother. I have an Auntie up there right now with Jack. How can you say we don’t exist? We interact with other people.”
“Do we? I’m not so sure it’s not all an illusion.”
“I don’t like this, Terry. I’m not an illusion. I’m a real person.”
“Are you? When was the last time you cut your nails or had your hair trimmed?”
“It’s , it’s the magic, Terry…magic.”
“That’s what I mean, luv. That’s what we are now.”
“Terry,” she began tearing up.
He sat beside her and put his arms around her. “I’m sorry, Toni. I shouldn’t have said anything. Forget it.”
“No, no, I won’t forget it. Why are you saying these things?”
“You told me one time not to lie to you, that you might not want to hear what I say but that you’d rather know the truth.”
“Wha…when did this happen? It hasn’t always been this way.”
“No, it hasn’t, not when you first came here, but you bought into it and now you are it. You’re happy, aren’t you?”
“Yes…I am…I think at least I was…I wish you hadn’t told me.”
“Somebody needed to, luv. It doesn’t matter, does it? Nothing changes.”
“Nothing changes…are you sure about that?”
“Not until you want it to.”
Toni took his coffee from the locker and drank from his cup. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Come on, let’s go up where the air is fresh and the sun is shining.” He pulled her to her feet. “Toni, one thing does not change. I love you.”
She couldn’t look at him. It wasn’t his season. She couldn’t so she lay her head on his chest. “I love you, too, Terry. That’s never going to change.”
He moved away from her. “Come with me up on deck.”
She still had questions. They could wait.
“Hello, love. I wondered where you were?” Max, leaning on the railing, took her hand and pulled her over. Terry leaned on the other side of her.
“You should have come looking for me,” she said, staring down at the water.
Max looked over at Terry, who was also gazing at the water. “Something wrong?”
“No, nothing has changed,” Terry answered him.
Toni moved from between them and went over to where her Auntie was sitting talking to Dr Maturin.
“You bloody well told her, didn’t you?” Max said evenly.
“She needed to know, Max. Why let it hit her when the next thing comes, eh?”
“You could have waited until September.”
“I could have kept my mouth shut like the rest of you. You started it with the ring, Max.”
Max looked down. “I wanted her to be mine.”
“Yeah, what were you going to do…go back and throw your girl out of the chateau?”
“Pretty hard, aren’t you?”
“I’m a realist.”
“You’re a bloody Aussie.”
“That, too.”
It was late at night but Toni couldn’t sleep. She kept thinking about what Terry had told her. She got out of the bed, went into the cabin and poured a glass of Jack’s port. She had on one of Jack’s nightshirts that came nearly to her ankles. The door opened quietly and she turned. It was Jack.
He spoke quietly so as not to wake her Auntie, who was sleeping in the dining alcove. “I thought you’d be abed. Why are you still up?” He also poured a glass of port.
“I couldn’t sleep. Can I talk to you?”
“Of course you can, my pet. What’s keeping you awake?”
“Why did you not tell me what I’ve become?”
Jack took a swallow of his drink. “Terry told you, I know. He told me he had. I didn’t want to tell you, Toni, because I think I may lose you.”
“Why, why would you think that?”
“Shall I tell you what he didn’t? Do you really want to know all of it?”
“I’m not sure I do…but, yes, I’d rather know what I am facing.”
“At a time of your choosing, you must make a choice. Nothing need change for a long time but eventually it will come or it can come tomorrow if you wish”
“What choice are you talking about?”
“You’ll have to choose between us, only one…and leave the house forever, taking him with you.”
“What…what was all this eternity we pledged?”
“It will be eternal, Toni. True love is eternal.”
“Leave the house…and the magic behind?”
“I’m afraid so, my dear. Out into the world as a mere mortal.”
“But not now…I don’t have to make this decision now…oh, God, how could I even…no…oh, no, Jack!”
“Are you happier now that you know? Wouldn’t it have been better to live without this knowledge until the time would come many years from now?”
“Not happier no, no…but this isn’t something I have do do now…I’m not going to think about it.”
Jack took another drink. “One will emerge above the rest…let it happen.”
Toni met his eyes here in his cabin, wearing his shirt, the unfamiliar scents surrounding her, the golden glow from the hanging lamp reflecting on his moist face. He held her eyes, she knowing the raw emotion and desire that must be in hers. She didn’t know who moved first but she was in his arms, her face against his neck, drinking in his scent. It hadn’t been that long, only been three weeks since they were together. His hands moved up and down her back and he kissed her. Hand on her breast, he picked her up and put her in his bed and backed against the wall of the sleeping alcove, breathing heavily.
He had himself under control. “I will send Max to you.” He left the cabin.
Toni curled into a ball and cried softly and that is how Max found her. He lay down with her and pulled her to him. “He didn’t, did he?”
“No,” came her muffled reply. Her nails dug into his arms. She felt as though she were about to split in two.
Max took her face in his hand, kissed her deeply and she melted against him. He finished what Jack had started.
“I’m feeling a bit ashamed, Max.”
“There is no shame for you, Toni. He’s one of your seasons.” Max kissed the top of her head. “Go to sleep now.”
Max was beginning to wonder if this voyage would ever end, would he ever get her home again. He would not leave her alone again. Hell with sleeping arrangements. She was his wife. It was his season although he felt it would never be quite the same again now that she knew the whole of it.