Free The Ghost of the Mary Celeste by Valerie Martin Page B

me.”
    “I may as well, then,” she said wearily. “If you do tell him, he’ll make me stop. He’ll snatch the letters from the box and lock me in my room, so I may as well give in.”
    And with that agreement, unsatisfactory as it was, we went into the house.
    There was such a fierce storm last evening, it seemed the heavens were in a rage. The thunder rolled, the lightning flashed in jagged bolts, and the rain poured down all at once as if a tub had been turned over. The west wind drove it in horizontal sheets. Father, Hannah, and I sat in the parlor, he reading, we pretendingto embroider, and at each boom of thunder my sister raised her eyes and lifted her needle with a faint smile.
    In the morning, Benjamin came calling, and we walked out to the graveyard to refresh the flowers on the markers of the Briggs and Cobb families. Of course he wanted to know what I’d learned from Hannah, but, perhaps for shame, I felt unwilling to say more than that she had agreed to cease all correspondence with the gentleman from Boston. “Well, what manner of correspondence was it?” he asked frankly.
    “I’m not at liberty to say,” I replied. “Her promise that it would stop was very clear and final. I think we need worry no more about the subject.”
    “Sallie,” he said, laying his hand on my arm as we arrived at the grave. “You’re so serious. Of course I won’t press you.”
    I smiled. “I appreciate that,” I said. “I just can’t say more, not yet.”
    Benjamin took up the old bouquets much pummeled by the storm. The stone vases were full of rainwater, so we had only to replace the flowers and we were done. At Mother’s marker, I pulled a few weeds that had cropped up among the columbine I planted there some years ago, which has done well there, being shade tolerant. The blooms are fading now, but the plants are healthy. Then Benjamin and I stepped back and gazed at the grave that contains the remains of my mother and the two boys I never knew. I couldn’t help thinking of Hannah’s remark, that Mother was pleased about my engagement. Well, she would have been, had she lived. Benjamin remembers her well; he was eighteen when she died and she was fond of him. He had his heart set on following the sea and she teasingly called him “shipmate,” and “sailor boy.” As if he read my thoughts, Benjamin said, “Your mother was light at heart. She always brightened a room when she came in.”
    “She did,” I agreed. “When she could no longer leave her bed, she claimed her illness was a grand opportunity to read frivolous novels.” Whereas, I thought, Mother Briggs will still be chewing over the Bible at death’s door.
    “Well,” he said, “I wish she was with us now.”
    And oh, I did too. I need my dear mother to tell me what to do about my sister.
    “By their fruits, ye shall know them.” That was a favorite saying of Mother’s, especially when her children were idle. She took her religion to be a practice, not a test, and she was an active, not a submissive, Christian. She wanted her children to be alive to the possibilities of life, to show in our actions our moral engagement with our fellows. And, of course, we were her fruits and by us she would be known; I do think that was implied in her remark. I’ve been thinking of her so much today, though, unlike my sister, I haven’t seen her lurking about the house. Does she watch over us here? Does Father believe that? After her death he said, “She will always be with us.” Presumably he meant in our memories and in our hearts.
    I confess that there is a shred of jealousy in my conflict with my sister. Why wouldn’t Mother show herself to me, if she could? That is a thought not worth pursuing.
    But what I’ve been thinking about Mother is how she would feel, and what she would say, if she were here to guide Hannah past this crisis in her young life. She never gave orders or forbade actions, unless we were rude in public, which merited a frank