Katherine's Story Read online

  All of them were crowded in the combination living room/dining room/kitchen. A short hall led to Ma and Papa’s bedroom. Kat’s tiny room was upstairs next to her brothers’, tucked under the attic eaves.

  It was so different from Lizabeth’s house, where there was a separate room for every single thing, even a parlor that the grown-ups used only on special occasions and the children weren’t allowed to enter. The parlor had shining parquet wood floors, a grandfather clock, a tufted crimson velvet couch, and a big potted palm.

  What was the sense of a room that was just for show, Kat wondered. Anyway, she had the lighthouse tower—it was her special haven where she felt completely at ease. And it had a round room, surely the only one in town.

  Ma was wrestling the laundry through the wringer in the big kitchen sink. Her feet were firmly braced against the stone floor and Kat could see the strain in her back as she worked. “I’m just about done. I’ll hang it up to dry later. There’s coffee on. And Kat, please get the muffins out of the oven.” Ma dried her hands on her apron and embraced Aunt Sue.

  They looked alike, with the same ash-blond hair. Aunt Sue was five years older, Kat knew, but she looked younger. Ma’s hands were rough and chapped; Aunt Sue’s hands were soft, white, and sparkling with jewels.

  Kat was careful at the wood-burning stove; sometimes an ember sparked up suddenly. She popped muffins out of the baking tin and put them on a big blue-and-white enameled plate. “Where’s Papa?”

  “At the docks helping to tie down the boats. They say there’s a squall coming in by morning.” Ma raised her eyebrows. “You could rebraid your hair, Kat.”

  Kat shrugged. What was the point? It was certainly too late to impress Aunt Sue.

  Hard work had lined Ma’s face, but Aunt Sue had the pampered look of a banker’s wife with lots of servants. Two sisters, starting off together—it wasn’t fair! Papa had once been the captain of his own whaler. But the ship had been lost in an accident at sea, an accident that injured Pa’s leg and kept him from working on the slippery deck of a boat. He had a bad limp when he was tired. He tried to hide it but Kate noticed. She felt a special closeness to Papa and she wouldn’t trade him for anyone, but she wished Ma had an easier life.

  “Come on, let’s go to the lighthouse,” Lizabeth said.

  That’s where they always went as soon as Lizabeth and Amanda arrived at Durham Point. Up in the tower room it seemed as if the rest of the world, with all its rules and judgments, fell away. That’s where a peaceful stillness came over Kat. That’s where she painted and felt most free to dream.

  Ma put some muffins on a separate plate. “Here, take them up with you.”

  Amanda held the muffin plate and Kat carried her package and a jar of water. She was going to paint today for sure!

  They rushed to the lighthouse. Even Lizabeth forgot about taking dainty steps, Kat thought. They hurried up the three wide stone stairs at the base and then climbed the ladder going straight up the dimly lit stone shaft. At the top of the ladder, the sunlight suddenly streaming into the tower room was dazzling.

  The small round room, just under the second ladder to the light itself, was their special place. There was just enough space for a few high-back chairs, a low three-legged table, a faded rag rug to warm the stone floor, and a coal-burning stove. Deep windowsill shelves held supplies: a kerosene lantern, a sack of coal, some of Papa’s tools, packets of wire and cord, rags and cleanser, a few dog-eared books, and Kat’s art supplies.

  The room was plain as could be, but the big windows curving all around made it extraordinary. The ocean below stretched as far as she could see. Waves crashed with furious sprays of white foam on the strip of sandy beach. Huge rocks, some half-hidden in the water and some jagged on shore, were as shiny-wet and black as seals. Kat gazed out at miles and miles of sky. This is how it must look from the very top of the world, she thought.

  “It’s so beautiful,” Lizabeth breathed.

  “Every time I come here, it feels sort of like I’m coming home,” Amanda said.

  “Me, too,” Lizabeth said. Then she giggled. “If lighthouses could talk, this one would be saying ‘Welcome back, girls,’ and ‘Come on in.’”

  Amanda flopped down cross-legged on the rag rug. “Want to play jacks? I bet I can get up to sevensies.”

  “Not today,” Kat said. “I want to try my new colors.”

  Lizabeth perched on a chair near the stove. “Let’s just talk; it’s so nice without brothers and sisters around. Tracy is such a pest!”

  “I think she’s sweet,” Amanda said.

  “That’s because you don’t have to live with her. She gets into all my things. I need a lock on my door. And then there’s Christopher. He teases me too much!”

  “Well, that’s what big brothers do,” Kat said. Her cousin Chris was pretty nice and some of Lizabeth’s prissy ways almost begged for teasing.

  Lizabeth shrugged and nibbled at a muffin. “Mmmm. I love cornbread.”

  Kat pulled the little table next to her chair and arranged her supplies on it, sniffing at her new tubes when she opened them. She loved that distinctive paint smell. She squeezed spots of paint onto the old plate she used as a palette.

  “I’m almost finished with Jane Eyre,” Lizabeth said. “Who wants it next?”

  “I’ll take it after Amanda,” Kat said. “I want to do nothing but art this week.”

  “Anyway, I’m a fast reader,” Amanda said.

  “You’ll love it. There’s an orphan—that’s Jane—and she becomes a governess for Rochester—he’s mean and grumpy but she falls in love with him and then he—”

  “Stop, don’t tell us the whole story!” Amanda said.

  “Oops, sorry.”

  Sometimes Lizabeth is so nice, Kat thought. She buys all the books she wants at the Pelican Street Bookshop and then she gives them to Amanda and me as soon as she’s finished.

  “Well, I’m not going to read it twice,” she’d say whenever Kat tried to thank her for a book. “I already know what happens.”

  “There’s a big public library in Boston.” Kat gathered some paint-covered rags. “You can borrow books for free, whatever you want. Oh, I’d love to go there!”

  “Why bother?” Lizabeth asked. “We have the bookshop right here and they’ll order for you if the book isn’t in the store. Anyway, who wants a book that’s been handled by strangers? Maybe someone who just wiped his nose! Yuck!”

  Kat dipped a brush in the jar of water and gave it a little shake. It came to a nice, satisfying point. “Amanda, let me paint your portrait.”

  “Do I have to sit still? I hate that.”

  “You can still talk.” Kat balanced her block of watercolor paper on her knees. It was thick and solid enough to support her brushstrokes, but what she wouldn’t give for an easel!

  “Come on, Amanda, I need a model to practice on. Please, please.”

  “All right.” Amanda settled into a chair.

  “Turn your head to the side just a little. Don’t move.”

  Kat studied Amanda as she mixed the colors. Amanda’s shoulder-length hair was light brown but there were many shades mixed in—bits of gold shining in the brown. And maybe violet highlights?

  Most people would notice Lizabeth first, Kat thought. She had elegant clothes and blond hair, blue eyes and rosy cheeks. But Amanda was beautiful; pale skin, hazel eyes, a straight classic nose, a soft, gentle mouth. It took a second look to see her quiet beauty.

  “I keep wondering who’s going to live in the Reynolds house,” Amanda said.

  “They’ll have to go to my father’s bank for a mortgage,” Lizabeth said. “So I’ll find out.”

  “Then that’s your mission for this week,” Amanda said. “I hope it’s a family with children,” Kat said. “It would be nice to see some new faces in school for a change.”

  “A lot of summer people are buying cottages down the coast in Shorehaven,” Amanda said. “Maybe Cape Light will get some vacationers, t
oo.”

  “We could meet interesting people from big cities,” Kat said.

  Lizabeth shook her head. “No, they won’t come to Cape Light. Father says our shoreline is much too rocky. We only have that little strip of beach down below, hardly big enough for one boat to come in. That’s not what summer people want.”

  “Then they don’t know what they’re missing,” Amanda said. “Cape Light is beautiful!”

  “Amanda, stop moving! You’re changing the shadows!”

  “I hate being your model,” Amanda said. “You get so bossy.”

  “Sorry. It’s just, well, it’s confusing when the shadows on your face shift.” Kat had captured Amanda’s nose pretty well, but the eyes were all wrong. She had to clear her mind and concentrate on light and dark. Paint what you actually see, not what you think something looks like, she told herself.

  “My neck hurts,” Amanda complained.

  “One more minute,” Kat begged. “Please.”

  “Let Kat finish.” Lizabeth got up for another muffin. “I want to see how it turns out.”

  Amanda’s eyes could change from gray to gray-green in a minute. Kat couldn’t get the expression right. She thought she saw sadness in them, even when Amanda was smiling. Six years was a long time to mourn, but maybe when it was your mother, the sadness never went away. Amanda’s mother had died in childbirth with Hannah.

  Kat remembered when Amanda, who was only seven, came back to school afterward. Everyone rushed to her to say sympathetic things. Amanda looked cornered. Kat could see she was trying not to cry. Kat went to her and took her hand without a word. Amanda gripped hers very tightly and they didn’t let go for a long time.

  “Kat, I have to move!”

  “Just one more second. I promise.”

  Kat tilted her head back and squinted at the paper. The eyes didn’t look anything like Amanda’s. She added small flecks of green and a dab of pale yellow to catch the light. Hopeless. They were still flat and expressionless. There were no do-overs with watercolors. This was too hard! But Kat loved the way the white of the paper showed through the translucent colors, the way a spray of water could soften the outlines and get interesting effects—if she was lucky. She didn’t know enough. Her little instruction book was too limited. If only she could get some real training.

  Kat sighed. “All right, you can move. It doesn’t matter.”

  Amanda stretched. “Let me see.”

  “No, it’s awful.” Kat crumpled the paper before Amanda and Lizabeth could look over her shoulder.

  Lizabeth picked up some of Kat’s old paintings on the shelf. “Why do you paint the same thing over and over again?” she asked.

  “You mean the seascapes? Because I’m trying to get it right. Anyway, the sea is never the same. It’s always changing. Green or black or blue. Peaceful or churning and angry. Tides reaching for the moon….” She gazed out of the window. A tremendous feeling that she couldn’t name swept through her. If only she could get it on paper! “Sometimes I feel—I feel as if this is almost a holy place. Even more than church.”

  Lizabeth nodded.

  “I know,” Amanda said. “I do love church, though,” she quickly added.

  “Your father’s sermons are always good. I wasn’t saying anything about that.” Kat grinned. “But I know why you love church so much lately.”

  Amanda looked down at her hands. “There’s no special reason.”

  “What about that boy who’s always staring at you?” Kat teased.

  “I don’t know that he’s looking at me,” Amanda said. “He might be looking at someone in the row behind me.”

  “I’ve noticed, too,” Lizabeth said. “His head swivels when you go up to sing with the choir.”

  “And don’t think I haven’t seen you sneaking looks at him,” Kat added.

  “I don’t know him to talk to, but—don’t you think he looks like a nice person?” Amanda blushed. “I do think he’s wonderfully handsome.”

  “Amanda, he’s nobody. I bet he’s just a deckhand,” Lizabeth said. “Probably came to town to work at the docks.”

  “How do you know? You don’t know him at all!” Amanda said.

  “That Sunday suit he wears to church? It has shiny worn spots,” Lizabeth said.

  Kat wished her cousin’s snobbishness wouldn’t keep slipping out.

  “So what?” Amanda’s eyes were fiery. “He’s still handsome!”

  “He must have quit school already. That’s why we don’t know him,” Lizabeth said.

  Lots of their classmates quit by age fourteen. Especially the girls. The high school for all the surrounding towns was in Cranberry; there weren’t enough continuing students in any one town to fill a high school. Todd would go on for sure—maybe even to college! Papa wanted Kat to have more schooling too, even though she was a girl. Maybe it was Papa’s unusual attitude that gave her the courage to dream of something more than being married at sixteen.

  “I’d discourage him if I were you,” Lizabeth continued.

  “You’re not me!” Amanda snapped.

  Kat was surprised to see even-tempered Amanda flare up. She had to be really sweet on that boy, whose name they didn’t even know.

  “Well, I’m going to marry someone very rich and important,” Lizabeth said.

  “I believe in marrying for love,” Amanda said.

  “So do I, but you can decide who to love,” Lizabeth said. “A woman has that one chance to have a good life. You want a man who can take care of you, don’t you?”

  “I don’t need anyone to take care of me,” Kat said. “I’m going to make my own good life. I’m going to do things and go places and when I’m a famous artist, I’ll fall in love with someone different and exciting. Someone I’ll meet in a great city.” She half-closed her eyes. She could almost see it, discussing techniques with other artists in cafes, one of her paintings in a Boston gallery…

  “Only men are famous artists,” Lizabeth said.

  “That’s not so!” Kat protested.

  “Then go ahead, name a famous woman artist,” Lizabeth challenged.

  “I will!” Kat’s mind raced through all the artists she’d ever heard of. Sargent. Whistler. Rembrandt…. Not one woman’s name came to her. Not one!

  “I’ll think of someone later,” Kat mumbled.

  Maybe Lizabeth was right. Kat’s shoulders drooped. And maybe she was only good enough to be the star artist of a one-room school because she’d managed to draw good Easter bunnies in kindergarten. And judging by the way she’d botched Amanda’s portrait…. Maybe my dreams are just hopeless, Kat thought. Is there really any way I can make them come true?

  three

  Kat watched her brothers grab apples for dessert. They were rushing to their room to work on the telephone they were making out of baking powder boxes, drawing paper, and string. “It says how to do it in the Handy Book,” Todd insisted. So far, their telephone didn’t work at all. But the Handy Book was usually good; Todd had made a nifty war kite following its instructions.

  Kat couldn’t understand how a real telephone worked, much less one made out of boxes. Cranberry already had telephones and switchboard operators called hello girls. The mayor promised that telephone lines would come to Cape Light soon. Wouldn’t that be wonderful! Her friend Laurel in Cranberry said her house telephone had two short rings and one long. There were eight parties on a line and you weren’t supposed to pick up unless the call was for you, but Laurel listened in anyway. She said it was so funny sometimes.

  “Todd, did you clean the glass around the light?” Kat called as he was about to disappear into his room.

  “Yes!”

  Sunshine curled under the table, with his head resting on Kat’s feet. Kat moved her spoon around the last of her chowder. At the end of the month, when money was tight, it was chowder for dinner every night. James and Todd would go clamming at the rocks and come back with a good haul. Sometimes Ma made it with potatoes and milk, sometimes with tomato
es and parsley. She tried every which way to vary it, but it was still chowder and Kat was tired of it.

  Ma was at the sink scrubbing the pots. “It’s almost time for your watch.”

  “It’s still daylight,” Kat said, though she knew darkness could sweep over Durham Point almost without warning. She had the first watch at the lighthouse, from twilight to ten. Papa had the long night watch, then Ma took over for the early morning hours until dawn. “Ma, come sit for a minute.”

  “Your father will be back soon. I should reheat—oh, I guess that can wait till he gets here. I do want to just sit.”

  Ma smiled, dried her hands with the dishtowel draped on her shoulder, and sank into a chair across from Kat. “Sorry about dessert. I didn’t have time to bake a pie, with Sue visiting this afternoon. I’ll make one tomorrow.”

  “That’s all right, I like apples plain.” Kat took one from the bowl in the center of the table and bit into it with a crunch. “Ma…whenever I see Aunt Sue…”

  “She looks wonderful, doesn’t she? And Tracy—she’s growing so fast, the picture of health with those cute rosy cheeks. She’s such a bright little girl.” Ma laughed. “Though she does bedevil our James.”

  A log toppled in the fireplace and made a shower of sparks.

  “I was thinking…about you and Aunt Sue. Ma—are you ever sorry? I mean, about being stuck in a lighthouse.”

  “I’m not stuck! I can’t imagine a more wonderful place than Durham Point!”

  “I know, I love it too, but—” Kat turned the apple around and around in her hand. “You work so hard and there’s no end to it. Ma, didn’t you have dreams?”

  “Of course. Everyone does, Kat. Do you want to know what my dream was when I was your age?”

  “Tell me, Ma.”

  “Well, I was just fourteen when I first saw him. I thought Tom Williams was the best-looking, strongest, wisest…He had such a smile! He still does, doesn’t he?”

  Kat nodded. Papa could light up a room.

  “Anyway, he was courting someone. That just about broke my heart. I was so young. He’d say hello to me and maybe tousle my hair—you know how your father is, friendly to everyone. But I had the impossible dream that someday, somehow, he would really notice me. Well, that dream came true! Of course, I helped it along by being underfoot almost any place he went.”