Amy's Story

Chapter 9:

Albert Allan Cooper hadn't been too terribly upset with Phyllida's excuse the night before not to share a bed with him. Afterall, well brought up young women were naturally frightened of physical intimacy with a man, it had been a long, tiring day and the incident with the painting and her mother's injury had to be quite upsetting. But now it was the next afternoon, the cook, the maid and the man-servant of their new home were unpacking their own things in their rooms and he hadn't yet seen his new bride. Perhaps it was time to take matters into his own hands -gently of course- and speak to her in her rooms.

At the other end of town, Red Secor was wondering about Amy Whitman as the two of them took a walk through the cold and snow-covered town. He liked her and he liked walking hand in hand with her. It made him feel warm and comfortable inside. After more than thirty years on sailing ships, he knew about male urges and the women in the various ports that took care of them. He might not be the smartest barnacle on the hull, but he had known enough to save up some money to visit these "fancy" women every once in a while and he had enjoyed it. Now that he was older, it didn't seem to be a need that surfaced as much anymore. Still, with Amy talking for weeks about nothing but marriage, his thoughts did stray every so often to the thought of the two of them under the covers of a warm bed. But of course, Amy was a lady and the sister of a preacher, no less. He really shouldn't think those thoughts, difficult as it was becoming to lock them away. This was a dilemma that was too much for him to work out without some help. But who could he go to?

He held her hand tightly as they crossed the icy lanes on their way to the main street of town. They both enjoyed looking into the windows of the stores, even if nothing ever seemed to change. They stopped in front of Elmer Exeter's Emporium which carried a selection of dry goods, cloth, notions, writing materials and other assorted items. If they looked closely they could see new merchandise in the store every time they passed by and they made a game of guessing what these half-visible items were. They stood there, noses almost pressed up against the glass, trying not to fog it up so they could play their game and not succeeding in the cold air. Laughing at and with each other, Red and Amy stood back from the window, still hand in hand. Red thought Amy looked particularly pretty with her cheeks a cheery red from the cold and a few strands of hair blowing about. Without even thinking, he bent down and gave her a kiss on the lips. She was startled, but not upset. In fact, she stood on her toes to pull him back down to her for another kiss, one that she participated in fully.

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Albert Allan knocked on the door to his wife's little parlor. With a quiet sigh, she told him to enter. Yesterday had started so well. She had been a beautiful bride and the center of attention. Her mother had sat her down the evening before the wedding and had explained what her marital duties to her husband would be. Fortuna hadn't much cared for the physical aspect of married life and disliked pregnancy and birth even more. Phyllida had been her first child, then Honor and thank goodness Harold had come next so that she could stop having to come to Thaddeus' bed. After that little talk, it was no wonder that Phyllida looked to find any excuse to avoid intimacy with her new husband for as long as she could. And then the damn picture had fallen off the wall, and everyone was murmuring about it being a bad omen. No one in their right mind would blame her for not wanting to surrender her virginity under these circumstances.

However, her new husband was bewildered by this change in her behavior. During their courtship, she was eager for his kisses and caresses and returned them in kind. Now she sat at her desk, her carriage erect, cold, and distant. What had he done? What had he said?

Eventually, after staring at each other for many minutes, Albert Allan pulled up a small stool to his wife's side and took one of her small hands in his two large and semi-rough ones.

"Darling, won't you tell me why you've been avoiding me?"

She hung her head to avoid him seeing her reddening cheeks, but to little avail. "Dearest?" he asked again, craning his head to look at her directly, but she turned to look out the window, into the far distance.

"I'm sorry A.A. If I had only known what really being a wife meant….if what Mother had explained to me the night before the wedding a little bit sooner…I wouldn't have agreed to the marriage."

"What?!" her husband exploded. "What exactly did your mother tell you? The whole story, darling. Don't be afraid to tell me."

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The weeks passed and finally the cold and snow receded. Carolyn looked forward eagerly to her weekly letter from Junius, as he looked forward to hers. She planned to travel to Boston the first week in April and Agnes and Amy Whitman would accompany her on her shopping expeditions as well as act as chaperones. She still had not seen Daniel Gregg since the wedding and his enjoyment of throwing down Figg's portrait. She had tried to call him to her and even apologized to him, but there was no response. Nate assured her that the Captain hadn't left the premises and still looked after them all. He didn't tell her that he had argued himself with Daniel. Colonel Porter was a good man and they all liked him. The other men and Martha, not knowing of the presence of the Spirit of Gull Cottage assumed that the romance between Mrs. Muir and Porter was a run-of-the-mill situation and were steeling themselves for a wedding that would take their beloved nurse and friend from them.

Nate, however, knew better. More than once he had sharp words for the Captain, telling him that his "nobility" at engineering the romance between the two mortals was a crock of fish-guts.

"You just want her to turn her back on Porter and swear undying love and devotion to you! In the meantime, you're toying with the emotions of two people who might make a happy married life if you weren't in the middle of it!"

"But, I'm not in the middle of it. I haven't spoken with Carolyn for months now. And she seems to be developing a fondness for him. It can't be laid at my door that she met me first and am more dashing than Colonel Porter."

"Hmmmmm," replied Nate, being quite aware of Daniel's very sturdy ego. "No. Of course no one could be more dashing and heroic than you. But you pushed her into his arms. You didn't think about this dilemma that you are causing, both to her and to us, did you? Do you think that we will be able to find anyone as perfect as Mrs. Muir to run the home? Do you? Do you think that she might marry Porter because she will see it as the last chance for the respectable, boring, and conventional middle-class life she was raised to expect? Even if her feelings for Junius never grow beyond companionability? Or that she will always remember the passion she felt with you until her dying day?" Nate leaned in more closely to Daniel, feeling his ectoplasmic energy coldly pricking at his skin. "Have you considered that the rest of her life will be waiting for her death so that she will be reunited with you? Or that she might 'unnaturally' hasten her end? No, you haven't thought of any of those things."

Daniel look chastened. "No, I admit that I had not."

Nate shook his head in a mix of sadness and anger. "I think you've gotten quite selfish in your afterlife".

"Yes, I suppose I have…Carolyn is the one woman created for me and it seems that I have been somewhat unaware of what I was doing. Still, if she can really fall in love with Porter and live a happy and full life with him, I would truly celebrate that."

"Well," replied Nate, "she likes him and finds him charming, but a deep, passionate love? No. She is your soul-mate, and nothing will change that, and you've gone and ruined everything!" He stomped off, leaving Daniel for once without words.

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Slowly, ever so slowly Albert Allan Cooper wooed his wife to his side. First he got her to sleep in the same bed with him, through the use of a bundling board. After two weeks that was gone, and she allowed him to caress her face in bed. Then they advanced to a chaste kiss "goodnight", and so on, so that by the beginning of April they had gotten to the point of full body caresses and deep, passionate kisses, but had not yet consummated their marriage. A.A. felt like he was ready to explode and that he deserved some sort of an award for his patience. He was particularly angry at his mother-in-law and one afternoon spoke to her in language so shocking that Fortuna refused to speak with him ever again. In retaliation, he forbid her to speak to Phyllida, and promised that if they were ever fortunate enough to have children, no one in the Grover family would ever see them. On his way out of the parlor of the Grover mansion, he picked up the display box with the medals of Captain Horatio Figg and threw it at Fortuna's head. While it did not make contact with her, it did smash against the wall with such force that the case was blown to wooden smithereens and glass shards. As he stormed out of the house, those who might be listening could hear another ghostly laugh.