Daughters of the Summer Storm by Frances Statham (best sci fi novels of all time .TXT) 📗

see her now. What a different appearance she made from the hoyden Shaun had dragged from his bed.

But he was not apt to see her again. Shaun had washed his hands of her and left her to find her own way to the wharf. He was no gentleman, she fumed. A gentleman would have left a carriage at her disposal, rather than force her to walk all the way in the hot sun.

Marigold heard the steps along the hall, and Crane, coming into the room, held up the tickets in his hand. "We're lucky," he said. "These are the last two tickets for the performance tonight. The man behind me was turned away. If you're ready, Marigold, we will go. The carriage is on the street."

As Marigold walked through the lobby of the hotel and down the steps to the street, heads turned to look at the young woman dressed in white. Marigold did not notice the stares and approving looks, but Crane did.

She kept her silence as they traveled in the carriage to Queen Street. It did not take long to arrive at their destination. Marigold, stepping from the carriage in front of the theater, recognized many of the people waiting to go inside. In answer to their nods and tipping of hats, she inclined her head discreetly, keeping her proud bearing, for she remembered her near disgrace because of Shaun Banagher.

Despite the rumors of cholera that had swept from Europe to New York and Albany and that was reportedly on its way to Charleston, the theater was filled. Already late, Marigold and Crane had no more than found their seats before the lights lowered and the curtain went up. An excited murmur of approval moved through the audience at the opulent scene before them, and the roar of applause greeted the beginning drama.

At intermission she saw him—Shaun, dressed in elegant evening clothes, and with one of the insipid Henley sisters at his side, with her wispy hair, her childish figure disguised by the oversized sleeves, the ridiculously wide skirt, and her parents hovering approvingly in the background.

How dare he embarrass her this way! Marigold was furious. But then, her anger turned to chagrin. Shaun had every right to escort the girl. Marigold was the married one—not Shaun.

She smiled at Crane as he returned with the glasses of sherry, and for the first time during the evening, Marigold began to converse animatedly with him, while turning her back to Shaun Banagher and his party. Soon the signal sounded, and Marigold and Crane went back to their seats for the final act.

Marigold, now aware of Shaun's eyes on her from the nearby box, took an exaggerated interest in the happenings on stage, laughing daintily behind her fan at some of the more amusing elements, and leaning over to comment to Crane off and on.

But then, she became engrossed in the exotic scene before her. Marigold gripped her chair as the drama rushed to its breathtaking ending. The dark-haired woman on stage, dressed in a minimum of clothing, teetered over the cataract. The audience gasped, but the heroine was suddenly dragged to safety by her dark-skinned lover. And Marigold, with the others, gave a sigh of relief.

The final curtain went down on the embracing lovers, and there was complete silence in the theater. Then the applause began, mounting higher and higher, until the whole theater shook from the intensity of the applause.

The crowd swarmed from the theater, and on the pavement outside, Marigold, clinging to Crane's arm, passed by Shaun without speaking. Into the waiting carriage she stepped, and through the darkness she sped, with Crane at her side, and her heart left with the man she had deliberately snubbed.

That night, Marigold slept in the sitting room, while Crane retired to the bedroom. He was pleased with Marigold's behavior toward Shaun Banagher. He had known they would meet someday but was not sure how Marigold would react. Now he knew he could rely on her pride to keep them apart.

Marigold tossed and turned in her sleep. And her troubled dreams awoke her—the vision of her twin Maranta, hanging precariously over the cataract of the Ganges. But no. That was the dark-haired actress in the theater—not Maranta.

She sat up, feeling the heat of the room closing in on her. Creeping to the window, she raised it higher for the cooling breeze of the sea. And the stars in the sky beckoned to her.

Could Maranta see those same stars on the coffee plantation where she lived? What was it like for her in Brazil? Marigold wished she had paid more attention to the geographer at Miss Denison's Seminary.

She left the window and crawled back onto the sofa, where she remained for much of the night, thinking of her twin and their separation from each other. And her heart was sad.

The next morning, Marigold packed her clothes in the new valise and was ready to leave when Crane came into the sitting room.

"We will have breakfast downstairs," he stated, "and then it will be time to take the boat."

All at once, Marigold remembered Jake. He would be coming with the repaired carriage—to the house on the battery.

"You go ahead, Crane, and order for us. I will be down in a moment."

"Make sure you don't dawdle. The boat won't wait."

As soon as he left, Marigold searched for writing paper and pen. At the desk in the sitting room, she sat and quickly penned a message to Jake—and addressed it to the black man in care of Shaun Banagher. She could do nothing else.

The messenger boys that hung about in the streets were congregated around the shoeblack in front of the hotel. Taking one of her meager coins from her new reticule, Marigold pressed the money and the letter into one of the outstretched hands, and she watched the boy running down the street before she joined Crane for breakfast.

Azure blue—with the sparkle of gold sprinkled over its white-tipped edges—the sea that Marigold loved surrounded her,