The next morning, I made my way to the offices and had one of the wireless operators, Hugh Tenny, called in. He looked nervous as he opened the door, standing on the carpet before my desk. I looked up, taking in the sight of the boy practically quaking in his shoes. I gestured to the chair, "Sit, and breathe. You're not being fired." He sat, although his knees bounced. I took a breath, "How long does it take to learn to read and send a wireless message?"
"Beg your pardon?" He squeaked, his eyebrows knitting together.
"How long does it take to learn to read and send a wireless message? Translate it from code while it's coming in over the line, and sending a brief one out after."
He took a minute, "It took me six months to learn the whole system, sending and receiving. I suppose maybe three months for each."
"Can you teach me to at least receive within the week?" I looked over, "I will compensate you for it."
"It is quite a complicated system, Miss Dalian. I cannot guarantee that you will be able to transcribe a message within the week."
"Teach me, I will spend all week by your side." I looked at him over the papers strewn across my desk. "If I can receive the message that the Anastasia has safely arrived in Southampton and send back the message confirming the receipt, I will give you a hundred dollars."
"A hundred dollars?" His eyes widened, his Adam's apple bobbing. "But Miss, we don't even know when the ship will arrive. It may be late at night."
"Then I will be here late at night." I stood, pulling out a sheet of paper. "This is an order to our bank to transfer a hundred dollars to your account, contingent on the skills that you teach me. Do you agree?"
"I can teach you, Miss." He looked over at the bank order, his fingers reaching for it. I tugged it away, locking it in a drawer as he watched. "I'll send my textbooks from my training to your house, and we've got an extra set of telephones. Follow me." He waited for me at the door, leading me through the warren of offices to the wireless room. It was quiet, a few other men huddled over their machines, occasionally reaching over and scrawling out a quick message on a scrap of paper. Hugh grabbed an empty chair, placing it by his machine as he handed me a set of telephones to put over my ears. "Put these on, and try to listen closely."
Listening to the electric noise be cut apart by static and brief pulses of sound quickly gave me a headache, but I stayed by his side for hours. He wrote out an alphabet of dots and lines for me, and set me to translating messages into the code and back to English several dozen times before I could look at the code and not have to consult the alphabet to decipher it. That was intercut with him receiving messages, making me listen to them over and over. He slowly began to clue me in on the various codes and abbreviations that were used in the messages, and it felt like learning a whole different language, but easier than when my tutors had tried. At least all of these translated back into English.
My head was still pounding by the time I got home, and was confronted with the pile of books that Hugh had sent over. Wireless sets started to haunt my dreams over the next few days, electrical signals bounced from ship to ship, lines of dots and dashes twisting around me. By the fifth day I was declared passable, although barely, by Hugh. I could at least listen to a staccato series of electrical bursts and come out with the message on the other end. It took me far longer, Hugh would have fifteen messages written out by the time I'd finished one, but that was all I wanted. I told him to send for me when we heard anything about the Anastasia getting close to Southampton, and promised him to send the bank order once I had sent the message to them.
I took one day to myself, although I kept finding myself tapping out little messages as I brushed my hair. I was trying to find the best one to send, something short and simple enough that I would be able to do it. Message received, Ana, was what I had come up with so far. I was debating if something additional would be needed when Louise appeared in the mirror, standing behind me. "Miss, your mother has arrived. She requests that you join her for tea."
"I'll be down in a moment." I gave her a smile, setting my brush down. The wrapper I was wearing was appropriate enough to see her, all that I needed to do was to don a pair of slippers and hurtle down the staircase. The parlor had already been set up, a spread of sandwiches and sweets spread across the table around the tea service. I began pouring, "Mother, I wasn't expecting you."
"Yes, well, I figured I would stop in." She accepted the cup I handed her, black as she liked it. "And I wanted to see how you were holding up with Mr. Murdoch gone."
"I've been occupying myself." I shrugged, stirring in my sugar and cream. "I am having one of the wireless boys teach me how to use it."
She laughed a little at that, "French is useless to you, but a wireless system has your complete and utter attention."
"Everywhere we go in France has a staff that speaks English."
"Yes, well. I must admit that my concern for you extended a bit beyond what you are learning." Mother sipped her tea, and slowly set her cup back down on its saucer. I felt my gut begin to twist, dreading whatever she was going to say. Her fingers knitted together, she began to slowly speak. "Anastasia, I know this is a distasteful subject, but Reggie reported this to Peggy who passed this on to me. It appears Mr. Murdoch has been, how to put this delicately, indulging himself in certain acts. It is something men do, when they do not have a wife to come to. And I worry that he will tire of this method soon and begin to try and pressure you to permit him certain liberties before marriage."
I greedily slurped at my tea, hiding my burning face. "What liberties, Mother? He seems to have been content with kisses so far." Oh God, we had been so careful. Damn Reggie and his attention to detail.
"Men can only want kisses for so long." She sighed, looking down. "I am concerned that when he returns from his crossing he will be quite, oh how to put this, amorous and that he will try to convince you to do things for him. Things that will bring him pleasure, but only serve to degrade you."
"Are they distasteful?" I looked anywhere but at her, terrified she would be able to see the truth of it written on my face. I was also horrified that Mother was trying to discuss bedroom activities with me. She lacked the openness of Morgan, it felt as if she was pulling a tooth out through my stomach the way she was trying to approach this. I twisted my hands in my skirt. "Will has always told me that he would never force me to do anything that I would find distasteful, I can't imagine he would force me into these acts. They must be quite horrible."
She immediately looked away, "Within the confines of marriage, no they are not. But to indulge in them before vows have been sworn, it would make you no better than a lady of ill repute."
I tried to affect a gasp, "Mother, I would never want to lower myself to that." Thank God she didn't know what I'd done with Will. If she knew about everything, his house, my sitting room, the lighthouse, the boat house, not to mention my bed, she would die to hear it. God, Will and I had done practically everything but the final act. But I'd never tell her, I'd take that secret to the grave.
"I know, Anastasia. You've sworn it to me, and I believe you." Mother turned her attention to a small sandwich. "As has Mr. Murdoch, but a man in love, and in a certain mood, can be very persuasive. You must be the one in control."
"I am in control of myself, Mother. I promise."
"I know," She sighed, "Now, when you are married, Mr. Murdoch may decide to approach you at seemingly any moment to engage in marital relations. Anastasia, you must urge him to control himself, you must be the one to limit these acts until the appropriate time. And not only once you are married, but now. I caution you to not indulge in your kisses too often, for he may feel that he can begin to lead you to indulging him in further acts once you have begun to give him kisses whenever he wants." Mother fiddled with a cookie, "I would not want anyone to write about you and him getting carried away. You've seen the papers when a bride is a little too large on her wedding day. They're ridiculed."
"I know Mother," I tried to focus on putting a sandwich on my plate. "You don't have to worry about that."
"I'm your Mother, it's my job to worry about it." She sighed, "It's not that I don't trust you to control yourself, but I trust you in these matters more than I trust him." She took a moment to consider the teapot, the silence stretching. "But let's discuss some more pleasant matters. Paul has the embroidery designs ready, he'd like you to come in next week to see them."
"Oh, that sounds lovely." I tried to keep myself from thinking back on what she had discussed earlier, and we spent the afternoon talking about the wedding. Mother agreed with Jeanie's sentiment about including some light colors with the white, peach roses and forget-me-nots would go well together we decided. We had just begun to speak about the style of invitations when Peggy came in with a card that she passed to me. Ship approaching Southampton, come to office immediately if you want to use wireless. I looked up, "I have to go Mother, the Anastasia is almost to Britain."
"Not like that." She looked me up and down, "Go change, I'll take you over in the auto. It's faster." I barely paid attention to the suit of clothing I threw on, almost pitching myself into the car and practically bouncing on the seat as it began to pull away for the docks. Mother watched me, an amused smirk on her lips. "My word, you really are excited."
"He's safe," I almost crowed as the car entered the docks. "They're all safe."
"Anastasia," Mother reached over, placing a hand on mine. "What happened is not how things are. You've seen Morgan when Abe's out, she doesn't worry herself sick. He's a capable man, she knows that. And your Will is capable too, there's no reason to doubt him." The car pulled up in front of the offices, the driver opening the door to let us out. I almost flew up the stairs, worming myself in next to Hugh in the wireless room. He wordlessly handed me the telephones, pointing to the key to begin sending when I needed to.
I closed my eyes, concentrating. My entire world narrowed down to the bursts of electric noise that were coming over, trying to sort through them to hear the message. I could feel Hugh next to me, listening as hard as I was. I watched him as I began to write out the message, holding my breath for his nod of approval. It was a fairly short message, almost all in the code that the wireless boys used. DSH to DSNY, ANS docked. Written out longhand it would have been, Dalian Shipping Southampton to Dalian Shipping New York, the Anastasia has arrived. I scratched out what I wanted to send, and getting a nod from Hugh began to press lightly on the key. He strained, listening closely, and shook his head. He pointed to one of the letters, I had messed it up. My second round went better. DSNY to DSH. MSG REC, ANA.
Hugh looked over as I took off the telephones. "Well done, you although you need to watch your sending. Your E's are a bit too long."
"Thank you." I nodded, "I'll send the bank order tomorrow."
"Bank order?" Mother spoke up, almost laughing. "You're paying for your training?"
"It seems appropriate." I looked over my shoulder, "Isn't that what you do when someone provides you with their services?"
Mother snorted, "Mr. Tenny, how much did my daughter promise you?"
"Mrs. Dalian," Hugh's eyes cut between the both of us as he gulped, "She is paying me a hundred dollars."
"Anastasia!" Mother snapped, making me cringe into my seat a bit. "We are going to have a long talk about appropriate spending of your money on the way back."
"You would have no issue with me spending it on a dress!" I started as I stood, following her back down. "I'll get you your money Hugh, don't worry about it."
"Oh, he is getting his payment, but you are on a limited budget." Mother stood in the door, watching me march past. "For the next month. Enough to cover expenses only." Her lecture continued all the way to the house, and she made sure that Peggy knew I was not to spend a cent more than was necessary for the next month. No new books, no little trinkets, I felt like I was being ordered to be a pauper.
I was still miffed the next day when Morgan came calling, and I had her come up to my sitting room. She was smiling when she came in, seeing me sitting dejectedly on the chaise as I poked at a new embroidery project. "Sounds like your mother cut your purse strings."
"My mother needs to realize that a hundred dollars is nothing with what I've got." I groused, tossing my embroidery aside. "She's acting like I decided to give him a thousand dollars for a day's work."
Morgan snorted as she sat down, "You are unbelievable, you know that?" She waited while a maid brought in some refreshment and left before she set to. "Your mother was quite upset when she called me last night. And not just about the money. How did you let Will get so careless that his valet noticed?"
I blanched, "We weren't, at least I thought so."
"Well she certainly knows what he's been doing."
I sat up straight, terrified. "Morgan, she knows that Will at least was doing things. She doesn't know that I was doing them to him. My God, she's disown me if she knew what I was doing!" I brushed a hand through my hair, "And she sees me as the one with the most control here. It's Will that has the control, my God I was begging him to ravish me in the carriage at Newport one night."
"A carriage," Morgan raised an eyebrow. "Was a roll in the hay not romantic enough?"
"Morgan, the last thing I need is your sarcasm." I rolled my eyes at her expression, "It was probably your comments at the dinner that set her off!"
"Well, if Will didn't turn such a delightful shade of red." Morgan trailed off, her face falling. "Anastasia, I'm sorry. You really don't need to worry though. Your mother is just concerned. All she wants is you to not have your belly swelled up when you walk down the aisle."
"I told her I won't, but she still feels like she has to tell me all about how I shouldn't give Will too many kisses because he's going to take that as an invitation to sweep me off to bed." I sighed, settling back against the chair. "Why is she so concerned that I'll give myself to him before the wedding?"
"You mean aside from the fact that you've pretty much done everything but that? And that you've told me you wanted to go all the way?" She chuckled, "Anastasia, your mother's family was so prim and proper that they didn't tell her what to expect on her wedding night. And I only know this because she had a bit too much to drink on night when we were younger and swore me to secrecy. She was terrified when your father came to her, they spent their wedding night with him telling her the ways of a man and a woman."
My face was burning. "Morgan, I do not need to hear this." The last thing I wanted to picture was Mother and Father, in bed. I wished I had a glass of brandy to burn the image from my mind.
"No, you do." She came to sit next to me, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. "She doesn't want you to have the same experience she had, that's why she taught you what men and women do to each other after a wedding. But she doesn't understand how it would be for the two of you to not have some way to release this desire you have. If I hadn't taught you, you would probably have a swollen belly at your wedding." She gave me a squeeze, "So cut your mother some slack, she's just worried."
"Please tell me you don't talk to Ezekiel about stuff like this." I buried my head in my hands, my eyes shut as I tried to force the red on my face to vanish.
She laughed, "Oh, never. That's all for Abe to handle. Now when the girls reach a marrying age, well, I'll be the one for it." She stayed for only a short while longer, and I quickly found myself counting down the days until Will returned. The message that the Anastasia had departed arrived only a few days after the one saying that she had docked, and the house and offices quickly began to feel like a prison. I paced endlessly around the windows, constantly looking to the horizon. I wanted him back, as soon as I could have him. Desperate for any distraction, I took up Will's idea of calling Liz and arranging for a carriage ride through Central Park.
I hadn't expected Oscar to be there though, grinning as he handed me up into the open carriage. He took the seat next to me, calling out to the driver to set off. I could see him lean back, his smile wide. "Ah, Anastasia. It's been far too long since we took a carriage ride out together. In fact, it's been far too long since I've seen you."
"Oscar, I saw you a few weeks ago at dinner." I rolled my eyes, his usual flirting a nice distraction.
"As I said, far too long." He chuckled, raising an eyebrow at his sister. "Don't you think so, Liz?"
Her eyes flashed under the brim of her hat. "I think you're far too pleased with yourself."
Oscar placed a hand to his chest as if he'd been struck, "Me? Pleased with myself? My dear sister, you must be joking." He turned to me, leaning close and whispering loudly. "I think my sister's a bit jealous, don't you?"
"Jealous?" Liz sniffed as the carriage turned into Central Park, the horses slowing to begin ambling through the shaded paths. "Of what? Your new trips to the Reichster house? I think I'd rather load cargo onto one of Anastasia's ships."
I turned to Oscar, shocked. "You've been visiting them?"
"I had an idea." He grinned, leaning into the cushions. "Unfortunately, it involves pretending to get close to them to accomplish it." He held out his hand, "I'll need you to promise not to let them know though, and shake on it."
"What are you planning?"
"I can't tell you, just know that it will benefit the both of us in the end." He lifted his hand, although when I clasped it he swiftly kissed my knuckles. "I'm glad that I still have your trust, Anastasia."
"You never lost it." I smiled, bringing my hands back to my lap. "Although, I would trust you a lot more if you could see your way to bringing some food over. I'm absolutely starving." He was kind enough to bring us both some popcorn from a vendor in the park, and I quickly set to on the salty, crunchy pieces. I still had a few left when the carriage approached the house, although I was startled by Peggy racing out from the front before the carriage had stopped.
She was rather breathless when she got close, "Miss, the ship is in. They sent word from the offices, I can have the carriage brought up."
I was about to speak when Oscar cut me off, "No need, I can see her to the docks." He looked back to me, "If you approve, Anastasia."
I grabbed his arm, "Oh please Oscar, as fast as we can."
"You heard the lady!" Oscar called to his driver, resuming his seat next to me. "To their offices, as fast as you can manage." I heard the whip crack above the horses's heads, and they set off at a trot back into the streets. The driver kept the pace up, only slowing to direct us around the heavier traffic near the docks. Wagons and trucks were trundling along, and we slowed to a crawl the closer we got. Oscar looked up to the driver, "Let us out here, we'll walk."
"Oscar," I started, feeling him tug me after him as he got out of the carriage. Liz was right behind us, and he quickly took her hand in his while keeping mine on his arm. "You don't have to do this."
"You want to see him." He shifted our trio around a wagon, bulling his way through a group of men loitering on the sidewalk as they waited for their cargo. "I can get you to him quicker than you could on your own." He laughed, rushing through an opening in the line of trucks to bring us to the docks. I could see the Anastasia, no worse for wear, sitting grandly as she was tended to by her crew. Cranes strained underneath the weight of cargo, porters tending to nets of crates as they brought them down to the docks.
And her officers, standing on the bridge and monitoring it under their watchful eyes.
"Anastasia, no." Oscar gently tugged on my hand as I started forward. "Let him come to you, you'll just get knocked around if you try to get to him." I was almost bouncing on my feet as the officers slowly began to vanish from the outside of the bridge, and it seemed an age before I saw some of the crew begin to disembark. I could never have mistaken any of them for Will though, and when I saw an officer with a double row of gold around his cuffs emerge and begin to walk down the docks, I almost began to weep. Oscar kept a hold on me though, letting Will approach us.
He looked happy, a smile on his face and his blue eyes shining as he set his bag down once he reached us. "Ana-"
I rushed into him, wrapping my arms around him and cutting off whatever he was going to say. "You're safe, you're safe. Thank God." I held him close, breathing in his scent. Salt air, coal smoke and the slight must of wet wool. It was more precious to me than anything else at the moment. "God Will, I'm so glad you're back."
I felt his arm wrap around me, his voice low. "I told you I would return, there's nothing to worry about. And don't you dare cry Ana, I won't have it."
"No Will, no." I sniffed, trying to fight back the tears of happiness that were threatening to spill over. "I promise, no crying."
