Chapter Ten
To Dream A Dream
Captain Gregg walked slowly into Carolyn's bedroom through the open windows. He turned to close them with a flick of his hand. He'd been outside on the balcony for some time, pacing and thinking. Uncharacteristically, the moon and the stars held no interest for him this night.
The hour was well gone past midnight, but he was restless and couldn't find peace in any of his normal nightly habits. Of course, sleep had been impossible since his untimely death in this very room. But he couldn't settle for reading a book or making use of the telescope. He couldn't even think straight tonight.
He was all turned around and riding the edge of a rising squall of discontent. Lately, it had begun to feel as if the very core of his incorporeal form was on fire and slowly consuming him.
A deepening curiosity had dragged him back into the room. "Just exactly what is Carolyn up to behind my back that she couldn't share with me?"
He had to know. Her agreement to his schedule had been too quick and neat. He was convinced she was hiding something.
Scruffy was curled up asleep on the rug beside the bed. He raised his head from his crossed paws and began to growl, but the Captain commanded his silence and obedience with a sternly raised finger. He wasn't in the mood to play their game of spot-the-ghost tonight.
He pointed toward the half-open door. The dog whined as he rose and trotted from the room, obviously intending to seek more convivial company with the children.
"Confound it all…" The Captain settled moodily into the chair before the writing desk. "Just exactly what are you up to now, Madam? You spurn both my company and my help. I am trying very hard to maintain a decent distance between us for both our sanities…"
He sighed roughly as he frowned at the typewriter. From his vantage point above the room in the wheelhouse, he'd heard Carolyn typing away at something long into the night. But there was now no evidence of it on the cluttered desktop. It all appeared to be just as she'd left it this morning.
"But I know better…" The Captain shook his head as he gestured at the desk drawers and each one opened and shut obediently until he found what he was looking for in the bottom drawer. A stack of newly typed pages was carefully hidden beneath more blank sheets of paper.
"Now, just what do we have here?" He bent down to pick up the stack and placed it on the desk. "What have you been doing in secret that you do not want me to see?"
He glanced back at the bed and its sleeping occupant. "Oh, Madam. Do you not know you can trust me by now? I would never betray a confidence or a secret."
He shook his head as he settled back in the chair to read the new pages of the story he'd written last year in Carolyn's name. The one that had caused her so much trouble and angst. He was soon engrossed in the work and deeply curious as to the reason for this new burst of creativity.
After some time spent reading, he put aside the last page and looked back to the bed. "So, Madam, you would eschew my help with this new work for reasons of your own. I knew you were up to something when you agreed all too readily to my list of rules. But this…"
He waved one hand, and the pages magically shuffled back together into a neat pile and obediently returned to the drawer. It closed behind them. "Here you are, rewriting the story exactly as I told it to you on that day and making your own new additions and whole new scenes. There are pages of work here that I never dictated to you. I have to ask, why?"
He rose from his chair and walked slowly to the bed. "I've told you before that with my adventures and your writing talent we'd make the greatest team since Shakespeare. And yet, just like a woman, you quibbled and dithered. You put me quite out of all patience with your female stubbornness."
He sat down on the end of the bed and leaned back against the footboard. "But I forgive you. You really do need to take full advantage of a genuine ghostwriter. For some confounded feminine reasons of your own, you haven't seen fit to ask for my expert help."
He crossed his arms. "Yet, I shall give it because I sense there is more of a game afoot here than you're allowing me to know. And if it helps you to make the money that you so desperately need you and the children may remain here, in my house… with me…"
He shook his head slowly, raising one hand and moving it through the air like a conductor controlling an invisible orchestra. "I promise to keep you safe from all harm. But there is only one way in which I can help you where you will be quite unaware of the source of the information. All you have to do is open your mind and allow your vivid imagination to take flight…"
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Carolyn groaned as she stretched out one hand into the darkness of her bedroom, blindly searching for the bedside clock. It hadn't sounded, but she was sure it must be morning by now and she'd overslept. A faint light had touched briefly against her closed lids.
"Come on, get up, or you'll be late getting the children to school…" she murmured drowsily as she stretched out further.
But, to her confusion, her questing fingers encountered nothing familiar. There was only some kind of damp, coarse material and rough wood that abraded the soft skin of her knuckles when she tried to reach the errant clock.
She cracked open one disbelieving eye. "What on earth?"
The bewilderment of a strange kind of semi-darkness greeted her frowning gaze. She lifted her head and opened both eyes. There was nothing to be seen that was familiar.
There was no ticking clock, no bedside table and not a single curtained window. The bedroom seemed to be cloaked in a fetid darkness that was somehow illuminated from outside the room with an eerie glow.
But there was also a distinct and odorous smell. The combined stench of wet wood, damp cloth and greasy tar. Carolyn couldn't prevent a sudden sneeze even as her outraged stomach heaved with dismay.
"I don't understand…" she muttered as she pushed herself up onto one elbow to look around.
She could see that the Captain's telescope was missing from its usual place. All the familiar furniture was also completely absent. Carolyn pushed her body up higher on her elbow to look around.
It was then that she realised she was moving. Or, more correctly, the bed was. A subtle movement up and down and then there was the confusing chuckle of running water and the murmured sound of distant voices. None of which she could identify.
Then stark memory made her gasp. Her mind immediately raced back to the chaos in the household when a sudden downpour of heavy rain had caused the roof to start leaking badly. "Oh, God, no! Not again! I'm coming, Martha!"
She tried to push back the bedcovers and leap up out of bed, but instead, she hit her head on that same coarse material her fingers had encountered, which gave to a certain point, before trapping her inside the cloying darkness.
"Surely, this must be some kind of nightmare…" she complained as she fought to sit up, pushing her arms above her head in an effort to free herself.
But, once again, the damp, musty material above her refused to budge beyond a certain point. She reached out sideways to grope around the edges. Beneath her seeking fingers, it seemed to be tied down to the rough wood all around her.
"This is crazy…" She stopped fighting and dropped her arms, trying to understand this strange prison her vivid imagination had inexplicably created. Whatever she was now lying on was hard and unyielding. It was no longer the comfort of a deep mattress.
"All right. If I lie down again and close my eyes, maybe it will all go away," she decided. "Then I'll wake up in my own bed in my own room." She sighed as she relaxed back onto her pillows and hit the back of her head on a plank that seemed to now run across the bed behind her.
" Ow!" She felt actual pain shoot through her, making her gasp with shock. "Oh, now, come on!" she remonstrated severely, sitting up again and banging her head once more on whatever it was above her that was trapping her inside whatever she was now lying in.
"Too many 'whatevers'," she decided crossly.
It was then that she realised she was no longer clothed in the sensible, sleeveless cotton nightdress she'd pulled over her head before getting into her bed. But she wasn't naked either, which was a heart-stopping relief.
A rigid tightness seemed to grip her midriff and chest, making it very difficult for her to breathe. It almost felt as if she was heavily corseted into her clothing. And now that she was aware of it, there was also something covering her head.
"I wish I could understand what on earth's going on…" she muttered as she ran her hands down over her body.
Her blindly questing fingers found a great deal of heavily embroidered cloth. Whatever garment she was tied so firmly into, several layers of it clothed her completely from ankle to neck. She held out both arms and could make out some kind of dark material that ran to her wrists and ended in falls of creamy lace. She was also wearing a tight pair of black kidskin gloves that had seen better days.
"Okay…" She tried to rationalise the strangeness of it all. "It must still be a dream. It can't possibly be real…"
She put up one questing hand to her head and felt what could only be a lace-trimmed bonnet tied securely over her hair with ribbons knotted beneath her chin. Long curling tresses of fair hair hung down around her shoulders.
Beside her, she was sure she could feel the bulky shapes of several bags and boxes. "My luggage?"
She frowned before she breathed with relief. "Of course, now I see. It's all because of the manuscript I was working on. It's ' Maiden Voyage…' I must be dreaming about it, somehow. But, how… It all seems to be very real…"
She sat up again, carefully, feeling all around her. "That must be it. What else could it be? I'm dreaming I've stowed away aboard the Mary Anne."
She frowned then, belatedly realising that the tone of her voice had somehow been changed to a soft Irish brogue. "But why am I talking like that?" she wondered. "How strange. I didn't know she was Irish." The Captain had neglected to mention the lady's origins.
Her troubled attention was distracted by the faint chink of moving light that had awakened her. It now shone in through an open corner of the canvas where it hadn't been tied down properly.
"It seems I'm just like Colleen Ryan," Carolyn decided, frowning over the exact details of the story. "Back in eighteen-fifty-six, she stowed away in a lifeboat aboard the Mary Anne, sailing out of Boston Harbour and bound for Bristol. She needed to get to Dover to be reunited with her betrothed…"
An intense feeling of relief flooded through her. She couldn't help laughing at the absurdity of it all. She just knew she was going to wake up any moment now and find it was all a very vivid, imaginative dream.
Her fingers itched to get back to the typewriter to flesh out the story which was playing out inside her mind just like a movie. She wanted to remember as much as she could. Her heart thumped with renewed excitement.
"Who needs the Captain's help," she decided, shaking her head. "I can do this by myself. All I have to do is dream…"
She closed her eyes and lay down again. "Of course, there's no Captain Joshua Webster or any motley crew of water rats drawn from the stews of Boston. Men who signed on for the voyage rather than face the gallows…"
A sense of peace washed over her. "The next time I open my eyes…"
"I told you I heard somethin'…" a rough voice stated close to where Carolyn was lying. "It was a woman's voice, and I heard it comin' from this 'ere lifeboat whilst I were emptyin' the slops bucket overboard. I swear, I'm sure of it."
"Well, I cain't see how," another rough voice replied. "But, since the captain ain't now watchin' us like a hawk, let's take a quick look-see. Just in case ya're right."
The man sniggered. "Who knows, we might uncover some sweet treasure that be more to our likin' than the captain's blasted cat-o'-nine..."
Suddenly, there was a lot of noise and movement both above and around Carolyn's hiding place. The moving chink of light became a large lantern held high as the canvas cover above her was swiftly unhooked and thrown back. Several dirty and hard male faces leered in at her and there was a lot of pushing and shoving to get a better view.
"Well, looksee in 'ere, then, lads. There be very sweet, sweet treasure, indeed…"
"Let me go!" Carolyn's heart leapt into her throat with consternation as more than one set of rough and calloused hands were thrust inside the lifeboat to snatch at her arms and clothing…
"Let me go!" Carolyn jerked her arm aside as she sat straight up in her bed with her heart pounding and her hand clenched and raised to strike.
She opened her eyes wide. It took her a breathless moment of utter confusion to orientate herself to reality. "Oh, thank goodness!" she breathed.
She could see that she was safe in her own bed, and she had only been dreaming. Still shaking with reaction, she heaved a long and gusting sigh of relief.
"Well…" She looked around the room, seeing everything that was familiar back in their rightful places. The telescope, clock, side table, chair and desk. "That was a truly incredible dream…" She lowered her hand.
Her heartbeat slowed and she drew several more steadying breaths to calm her rattled nerves. She turned her head to frown at the bedside clock. The hands showed her it was almost half past five.
"Another whole hour…" she breathed, settling slowly back onto her pillows.
She closed her eyes and then opened one again just to be sure all was well. The familiar confines of her room remained. She glanced up at the telescope in the window embrace.
"What a truly amazing dream. It was all so real. It felt real too. Oh, I can't wait until the kids have gone to school, so I can write everything down," she murmured as she closed her eyes once again and composed herself for sleep.
She hadn't noticed the Captain, who was standing silently in the deep shadows that hung in the far corner of the room. He smiled with satisfaction as he raised two fingers to his temple in salute.
"I swore that no real harm would come to you, and it never will. It was only a dream, but it was necessary. Good morning, Madam…." he whispered, as he blended back into the surrounding shadows. "May you have many more such revealing and profitable dreams until our ravishing tale is finally told…"
※※※※※
"It was all so amazing, I can tell you," Carolyn confided to Martha over their morning coffee. "I mean, it was so vivid and seemed incredibly real. I'm glad it was only a dream. Those seamen had such a rough and rude manner, and they smelled."
She'd just seen the children off on the school bus and she was about to return upstairs to begin writing again. But she had to share her dream with someone. The Captain was off-limits until after the children had given him his surprise party. Martha was the only one she felt she could talk to.
"And it was all just like it was in that story you wrote?" Martha questioned and then shook her head. "I must say, if I had a dream like that I wouldn't want to wake up. Not if that gorgeous Captain Joshua Webster was about to come along to rescue me!" She fanned one hand in front of her face.
"But he wasn't in it…" Carolyn replied, trying to push back the disappointment in her tone.
"Well, that was very disappointing of him," Martha said severely. "What else is such a hero good for, if not to rescue the fair maiden?" Her eyes twinkled wickedly. "I'd have a word with him when you finally see him."
"Well…" Carolyn frowned down at her coffee. "I guess my dream didn't get to the point of my needing to be rescued."
"Oh, ho…" Martha approved with a smile. "Are you expecting to dream some more, then? Do you think the good captain will appear in the next one?"
"I honestly don't know," Carolyn replied slowly. "I don't seem to be in any kind of control of my imagination when I dream. I guess we'll just have to see tomorrow morning."
"Maybe you dreamed because you're reading the story again and making something of it. The sooner you get back upstairs and get started typing it all up, the sooner we'll find out," Martha said with decision as she stood up to collect their empty cups. "You've really got me wanting to know just how this story ends. You know how much of a sucker I am for happy endings."
She shook her head as she walked to the sink. "I'll bring you up your coffee and sandwiches at noon. Until then, I want to hear nothing but lots of typing. It's such a happy sound. Besides, tomorrow's Saturday. I can take care of the kids so you can sleep in if you work too late into the night."
She waved an admonishing finger. "Remember, I've got a big stake in this too. I'm in line for a nice, fat raise, if you manage to sell this first one as a novel. Then I'll be able to say that I knew you before you were famous."
"Thanks, Martha. You'll be the very first to know," Carolyn replied with a smile as she left the kitchen and walked slowly up the stairs with Scruffy at her heels. "But before I write anything, I have something I need to get done while I'm alone."
She entered her bedroom, looking all around for any sign of the Captain. But everything was quiet. She crossed her fingers and hoped he was now keeping to his rigid schedule. Which meant he was barred from the room for the rest of the day until after the children had returned home from school.
"But I don't trust him. You make sure and keep watch," she instructed the dog as she crossed to her dressing table and opened the top drawer.
The dog jumped up onto the dressing table stool and stood looking around the room. "Good boy, Scruffy." Carolyn patted his head.
She pulled out a white cardboard box and some wrapping paper. The gift had been something she and the children had finally agreed would be very appropriate for the resident ghost. She bought the contents on her last trip into town.
She wrapped the box quickly. She was just trying to tie a length of ribbon around it when Scruffy suddenly began to growl. He pointed into the room with one raised forepaw.
"Well done…" Carolyn looked down at the dog before turning to face the room. "Captain, I believe if you check your schedule I think you'll find I'm on my own time in here." She waited but he didn't appear. "I have a lot of work I need to do."
She turned back to the gift, adding for good measure, "And you're trespassing. I might not have been decent."
The ghost suddenly materialised across the room. "Oh, I'm sorry to interrupt you, Madam..."
"Blast…" Carolyn muttered under her breath as she jerked back around, trying to hide the half-wrapped gift behind her.
The beguilingly sweet memory of his invisible kiss on her cheek the day that Madame Tibaldi left, still made her skin warm. In her dreams, there had been other such intimate moments. She wanted to be awake for the next time. If there was one.
She'd always longed for them to become closer than dreams or invisible pecks on her cheek. She stared at him, wondering what he would do or say if she approached him now and tried to discuss that seemingly forbidden subject of stolen caresses.
Was it even possible for her to kiss him in return? So many questions swirled inside her mind.
But, again, the children's deep need to keep their party a secret stymied her urge to ask the Captain for the truth. Again, like the poem Tim Seagirt had returned to her, she feared the answer would be something she didn't wish to hear.
"Madam…" Her unwelcome visitor studied her for a long, fraught moment before turning away. It was almost as if he had read her mind and found the hunger that lived there.
He made a pretence of hunting around the room. "It's just that I can't seem to find the ship's log anywhere. I need it to enter my daily calculations of wind and tide. It appears to have gone missing."
"Ah, well…" Seeing his back was turned, Carolyn tried to shuffle the gift back into the open drawer behind her, dropping the reel of ribbon to the floor. "The last time I saw the ship's log was in the attic…"
She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. "Which, according to your rules, is off-limits for me unless it's four o'clock on a Monday afternoon. And you're with me the whole time then."
Despite the betraying warmth in her cheeks, she tried to appear casual. "So, you can know that I haven't touched your precious log nor moved it elsewhere. Now, if you'll excuse me…"
The Captain turned back to her and advanced quickly. "Well, would you like me to rescind the rules?" he asked. "You know that I'm always open to compromise. I know how irksome you women often find rules and regulations to be."
"Oh, most certainly not! I really want to ensure your privacy." Carolyn pushed the drawer shut behind her. "You said you needed some peace and quiet. Well, that's what you've got. After all, you do have two years to catch up on. You may go on pretending we're not even here."
"Do I detect a slight note of hysteria in your voice?" The Captain frowned as he folded his arms. "Why are you fidgeting so, Madam? Are you unwell?"
"Fidgeting?" Carolyn demurred, smiling at him as she searched for something to say. "It's just that I'm just rather busy, that's all. I… um, the children are taking part in a school play next month. I have so much I need to get done for it. I won't have much time to talk."
She knew she was being a coward, but she couldn't help it. Surely not knowing was better than knowing and forever killing off all her hopes and dreams?
"Very well, I see…" The Captain looked her up and down with deepening concern. "Well, since I'm here, what about a nice game of chess?"
Carolyn shook her head and folded her arms. "Ah, no, thank you. It's only ten o'clock. I really don't have time for games either."
The Captain took a step closer. "What about some acey-deuce, then?"
Carolyn finally found a reason to smile. "Captain? Are you, by any chance, lonesome? They are your rules, remember? You commanded us to stick to them." She felt her tension beginning to ease.
The Captain straightened, dropping his arms and looking offended. "Don't be ridiculous. I thought you might be. You seem very preoccupied and secretive."
"Oh, no!" Carolyn stood quickly away from the dressing table. "As a matter of fact, I find I'm getting a great deal accomplished during these hours." She glanced behind her. "I'm really enjoying the marvellous solitude. It's so… so peaceful."
"Peaceful, you say…" The Captain looked lost for a moment, frowning darkly at her response. "If you need my assistance with the planning for this play. We rubbed along rather well over that dismal failure of Claymore's. I stand ready to assist you in any way possible, my dear. Just say the word."
"Thank you and I'll let you know," Carolyn replied quickly. "But right now, Captain…" She arched her brows at him.
"Thank you, Madam." He studied her again, seeming to be seeking any weakness in her argument.
Carolyn smiled at him as she silently begged him to disappear again. She was itching to get on with the work of transcribing her dream.
"So, if that's all, Captain," she said sweetly. "I really must be getting on. There are only so many hours of daylight. You'll have to excuse me…"
"Good day, Madam…" the Captain replied frostily as he vanished.
Carolyn breathed a sigh of relief as she bent down to pick the roll of ribbon up from the floor. She began to pull the drawer open again to finish her gift wrapping.
Beside her, Scruffy stiffened on his stool, growling into the room. Again he raised a pointing foreleg and barked.
" Blast!" the Captain's disembodied voice complained.
"Good boy, Scruffy," Carolyn told her pet. "Now, you keep watch while I finish this and then I have some writing I need to get done." She glanced around the room. "While I'm being left alone…"
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"Dinnertime call…" Martha said four hours later, as she entered the bedroom carrying a laden tray. "I've made your favourite cheese and ham sandwiches with mustard and a nice, big pot of hot, black coffee."
"Thanks, Martha…" Carolyn looked up from her typing. "You're a lifesaver. I'm starving."
"Then I'm just in time." The housekeeper nodded as she placed the tray on the corner of the desk. "How's it all going?" she asked in an encouraging tone as she came around to look over her friend's shoulder. "Good, I hope…"
She began to read the page in the typewriter. "Well, it's looking good…" She continued to read avidly. "Wow, this is very good. I didn't know Miss Ryan was Irish. Makes sense, I guess. A young woman leaving everything behind to look for a better life in the New World. A lot of that went on back then and they were often very poor."
"Yes, I think that's why Colleen stowed away on board the ship. She couldn't afford to pay for her passage. I'm managing to get a lot of it down," Carolyn replied, dropping her fingers from the keys. "Well, as far as I can remember everything that happened in my dream. It's strange. It's all still so very vivid in my mind and I can still smell those awful men."
Martha nodded. "Yes, memory is a funny thing. Here then, have some coffee…" she encouraged as she poured a cup and held it out. "It'll loosen up your thinking even more." She picked up the plate of sandwiches. "You'll need to eat something, too."
She went back to her reading and then whistled softly as she reached the end of the typed words. "Well, that was going so well, but where's the rest? What happened next after those men found her in the lifeboat?"
She grimaced. "I mean, I know what happened, it was in your story. But I want to know what really happened since you're sort of seeing it all, first-hand. This is so much better than the original story. It even seems more real."
She reached out to tap the page with the tip of one finger. "Miss Lacey is going to love this. It's almost like you were there instead of just dreaming it."
"Yes, it even feels real. I'll have to wait to find out what happens next," Carolyn admitted, drinking her coffee before she consumed the sandwich. "I'm having to type everything out again from the beginning. It all takes time."
"Well, you've got me hooked," Martha replied, shaking her head. "Like I just said, I know what happens next because I've already read the article." She waved one hand at the page in the typewriter carriage. "But this…"
She shrugged as she blew a low whistle. "This is something else again. I truly think you're onto a certain winner here. It seems so much more real and authentic than before."
She laughed softly. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you'd lived in those times."
"Oh, Martha…" Carolyn laughed, trying to make light of the idea.
The housekeeper walked away toward the open door, still chuckling. "Which we both know is absurd."
She turned back with one hand on the door handle. "But don't you dare stop there. Keep right on dreaming, too I want to know the whole story. Meanwhile, I got chores that need doing." She left the room, still shaking her head in wonderment.
"That good, eh, Scruffy?" Carolyn asked the dog who was lying faithfully at her feet beneath the desk. "Let's hope I can make it all work. I wonder if I'll dream some more of it tonight." She shrugged as she fed him a share of her next sandwich before she went back to work.
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