The Ocean's Daughter (Sequel to Sirene)

I know you were all guessing what Oceana was going to do, and that was why I didn't answer any of the comments, because I didn't want to give anything away :) I hope you will enjoy this chapter :)

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Chapter 25

Oceana crept into the house and ran like a frightened rabbit up the stairs and into the room. She sighed with relief once she had shut the door safely behind her. The last thing she wanted was to have Miss Patterson and Beth demanding where she had been all this time, and she certainly didn’t want them to start asking about Wesley and herself. Right now, the only thing she wanted was to get away from this horrible city. There was a reason why she never liked London, and now she was determined to leave it for good, leave and never come back.

Packing was easy; she had no use for all the fancy dresses that had been purchased for her. There was no place to wear them in the village. All Oceana took with her were the things she had originally come with, and that was precious little. She put on her old traveling dress and the long auburn hair was wound into a tight knot. When she was ready, she sat down at the table and wrote out a note, which was folded and sealed. Only one thing to be done now, inform the household of her departure; she had left this task for last because it was the most unpleasant of all. Taking a deep breath, Oceana left the room and went to the parlor. She was confronted at the stairway by Beth.

“Oceana McNeil,” Beth exclaimed in an exasperated voice, “where in the city of London have you been? You are very lucky that Miss Patterson has gone to a charity event the Ladies Aid Society is hosting and she isn’t around to panic at your long absence. I covered up for you as best I could in the morning and assured her you would be home for dinner. She left early because she is one of the organizers of the event. Robert is at a medical conference, and I was just waiting for him to return so I could send him out with Philip to look for you. You have a lot of explaining to do, young lady. Where were you?”

“St. Paul’s Cathedral.”

Beth blinked at Oceana, her eyes filling with surprise and dread. She was sure Oceana had gone to see Wesley in the morning and now the knowledge that she had just come back from a church put only one explanation in Beth’s mind.

“No, no,” Oceana quickly assured, “no, I was there all by myself. The church was just about empty today.”

“Why where you in the cathedral at all? And Oceana, why are you carrying your traveling bag?” Beth just noticed the carpet bag in Oceana’s hand.

“I’m leaving back home, Beth,” Oceana said in a sad voice, “I’m going back to Scotland.”

“Aren’t we all?” Beth was very confused. “We are leaving the day after tomorrow early in the morning.”

Oceana shook her head, “No, Beth, I am going now.”

“Why?”

“Because I have too.”

“Oceana, how do you plan to get there?” Beth was trying to grasp this sudden news that had been present to her.

“I shall take the midnight train. I’m sorry this is so sudden. Please give my deepest apologies to Miss Patterson, tell her something urgent came up and I had to leave right away. And please thank her on my account for her kindness and generosity. I was very happy staying with her this summer. And I hope when Emily comes to stay with her they will be very happy.”

“What really happened, Oceana?” Beth became aware of the tear stains on Oceana’s face and her general very sad countenance. Her worry and frustration had kept her blind to it before.

“Oh Beth,” Oceana fought to keep the tears in, “I wish I could tell you, but I can’t.”

“Why not? You have never kept secrets from me before?”

“If it were my secret, Beth, I would tell you in an instant, but this secret involves another person. I’m so sorry Beth, but I feel it would be best if for the time being I kept it to myself. Perhaps, when time has passed I will be able to tell you, but right now, I can’t. When you have settled into your new home, write me and I’ll bring Callum over to visit you.”

Beth wasn’t sure what to say, so she nodded her head.

“Oh, and would you do me one last favor? Could you make sure Lt. Chesterton gets this?” Oceana placed the sealed piece of paper in Beth’s hands. “Goodbye, Beth.” Oceana embraced her stunned friend, and placing a kiss on her cheek, hurried down the stairs to the front door.

“Do you want me to arrange for someone to take you?” Beth called after her.

“No, Beth, I want to be alone.” Oceana replied and stepped outside the house, leaving poor Beth standing on the staircase, perplexed and suspicious. She gazed at the paper in her hand.

“I wonder, Mr. Chesterton,” Beth spoke aloud as she placed the note in her pocket, “do you have anything to do with all this?”

***

The sky was beginning to darken as the sun set below the horizon. Oceana had plenty of time to get to the station, and she had taken a long detour route so she could pass by the orphan asylum that she had once lived in. Soon it came into sight, the grey building surrounded by a stone fence. How well Oceana remembered climbing the tree and then jumping down on the other side of the fence to freedom. Oceana smiled as the whole scene replayed in her head, how she and Beth had run barefoot across the lawn. It had also been a summer day then, and the sky had been just as clear, something quite rare for smoky, smoggy London. The only true difference was that back then Oceana had been a child, now she was a child no more, and the problems she was running from this time were quite different from the problems she had faced back then. With a sigh, Oceana turned around and made her way to the train station. Purchasing her ticket, she waited till the train would come.

At last it pulled in, huffing and puffing and sending up smoke into the sky. The conductor checked her ticket and let her in. Seating herself by the window, Oceana watched as the train pulled out of the station and chugged on its way north.

Oceana didn’t want to cry, she wanted to be brave and indifferent. Of course this was the best way to go about it, but still, the tears poured.

“You were right, McDuff,” Oceana softly whispered, “as soon as the Ocean’s daughter leaves the sea for the shore, her heart is destined to be broken. And I know my heart is broken, because I have left a part of it in London.”

***

Wesley was nervous as he walked up to the front door. He hoped Oceana hadn’t gone and told the whole house of their argument yesterday. Having to face just her was awkward enough, having to face an annoyed Miss Patterson and even worse, an angry Mrs. Blackwood wasn’t a pleasant idea.

“You are an officer and a gentleman, Wesley, so this is the only way to go about it,” he told himself as he took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

The door opened and Miss Patterson’s butler appeared. “Lt. Chesterton,” he gave a smile of recognition. His smile helped Wesley relax a little. “Please come in sir,” the butler went on. Wesley stepped inside.

“Follow me,” Philip stated, closing the door behind him. Wesley wondered if perhaps they were expecting him. From the way Philip was behaving it was as though he knew Wesley was going to show up. He led Wesley to the parlor. “Wait here,” he stated and left.

Wesley removed his cap and held it in his hands. Presently the parlor door opened and Beth walked in.

“Ah, Lt. Chesterton,” her voice was friendly, but had a sense of coolness to it. “I had a funny feeling you might show up.”

“I’ve come to speak to Miss Oceana,” Wesley explained the reason for his visit.

“I am afraid that is not possible, Oceana has left us.”

“Left?” Wesley couldn’t quite believe his ears, “where too?”

“To Scotland, she took the midnight train…which is ironic,” Beth said the last words as an afterthought.

“How so?”

“Well, it just crossed my mind that on the day she ran away from the orphan asylum, she also took the midnight train for Scotland. And I would certainly say that when she left yesterday, it looked like she was running away from something. The only difference is back then I knew why she was running, I just didn’t know where. This time I know there where, but for the life of me I don’t know why.” Beth fixed her eyes on Wesley, as though hoping he would be able to provide some sort of explanation. He wasn’t exactly in great hurry to give her one.

“You were around when Oceana ran away from the orphanage?”

A smile crept onto Beth’s face. “You are not the only one, sir, who doesn’t talk about his past. Yes, I am an orphan from the same asylum Oceana was placed in. Miss Patterson adopted me later, but because I don’t have much family or connections to speak of, we just let the whole world assume that I was some relation. Society is judgmental you know, and sometimes it is safer to keep something things hidden if you don’t want to be viewed as an outcast. I am sure you understand my meaning?”

“You think me from humble beginnings, Mrs. Blackwood?”

“Can you tell me you are not?” Beth gazed frankly at Wesley.

Wesley held her gaze for a little, then gave a low chuckle. “I am.”

Beth nodded her head.

“Did Oceana give the reason as to why she left so suddenly?” Wesley asked after a moment of silence.

“She said she couldn’t tell me because it was another person’s secret. I’m guessing that other person is you. That is why I have been expecting you; I was hoping you could tell me just what happened to make my friend so distressed.”

“We fought,” Wesley summed it up as best he could.

“Over what?”

“A sensitive subject for both of us.”

“Lt. Chesterton,” Beth’s voice became firm, “you caused my best friend to become very distressed, to the point that she fled to Scotland to get away from you. Oceana is the closest thing I have to a sister, so I demand that you tell me just what happened. The day before she came all joyful, and the next she is in tears.”

The word tears pricked Wesley’s conscience, had he really made Oceana cry?

“I don’t think you would understand, Mrs. Blackwood, it was a very personal subject.”

“Try me?” Beth challenged.

“It had to do with my father, not the Admiral, my real father.”

“And how is Oceana involved?”

“Well, she has been living with him all this time it seems.”

Beth gave a loud gasp as the truth dawned on her. “It cannot be,” she spoke in a stunned voice. “You…you…you are Callum’s lost son, the one who disappeared so long ago when his wife and daughter died. Good God in heaven, it cannot be true.”

Now it was Wesley’s turn to be surprised. “You know the story?”

“I do, Oceana told it to me.”

“All of it?”

“Yes, how Callum, your father, was a fisherman and how the fishing was going bad and they had little money and the only outlet he had was drinking and soon the drink got the better of him. He neglected his family and his wife and daughter came down with scarlet fever and though he tried to help them it was too late.”

“He never tried to help them,” Wesley cut in, “trust me, I was around when they took ill.”

“No, you disappeared at one point,” Beth kindly pointed out, “Callum returned home to find your mother and sister ill and you were gone. He called the doctor but it was too late and they both died.”

“Father…called a doctor?” Wesley hadn’t heard of this part of the story.

“Yes. And when his wife and child died he buried them himself in the fresh air, overlooking the sea.”

“Father buried them?” Wesley was getting more and more perplexed.

“Of course, who else could have done it?”

“I was sure the villagers did.”

“The villagers would have buried them in the graveyard, who else but a grieving husband and father would make the lonely grave over the sea, far from the village? After their death he went off to try and find his son, but his search led him nowhere and he lost all reason to live. It was then that he met up with a Frenchman and soon the two of them began smuggling together. The Frenchman was Chandler of course and the rest is history.”

Silence hung about the room after Beth had finished the story. Wesley wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do now. He had come with the purpose of apologizing to Oceana and maybe getting her to remain in London until the summer was over, he had hoped by then he could persuade her to not bother going back to Scotland or his father at all. Now things had just taken a very different turn.

“I probably should be going,” he said at last, rising from his seat. Beth nodded and followed him out the door.

“Before you go, Lt. Chesterton,” she said as he was already standing in the doorway, “Oceana asked me to pass this on to you.”

Wesley took the note with a nod. “Thank you, Mrs. Blackwood,” he said, tipping his cap to her. He kissed her hand and walked down the three steps into the street.

“Do you know what McDuff told me,” Beth softly called after him. Wesley halted and looked back at her. “That the tears of the Ocean’s Daughter are priceless because when the touch the ground, they turn into pearls. This is why sailors seek to make her cry.”

Wesley found himself at loss for words after this statement, and Beth gave him a sad smile before shutting the front door. Wesley stared at the closed door for a few seconds, before turning his attention to the note in his hands. He broke the seal, unfolded the paper and read the following:

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended—

That you have but slumbered here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream,

Gentles, do not reprehend.

If you pardon, we will mend.

And, as I am an honest Puck,

If we have unearnèd luck

Now to ’scape the serpent’s tongue,

We will make amends ere long.

Else the Puck a liar call.

So good night unto you all.

Give me your hands if we be friends,

And Robin shall restore amends.

 Wesley was confused by this note, he read it several times, trying to make sense of it. Oceana had written him a quote from Shakespeare? That was…odd. He flipped the paper several times, but except for Robin’s ending speech, there was nothing written. He guessed it was some sort of farewell and he was probably supposed to read in between the lines of the poem to get what she was really trying to tell him, but her secret code was a mystery to him.

 “I guess there is only one thing left to do,” he told himself, “talk to the Admiral about all this.”

***

The front door burst open and Callum nearly fell off his seat when he saw Oceana walk through it.

“Where on earth?” He asked, rising to greet her. “Lassie, are ye gonna make a habit ay this? Appearin’ when I least expect ye? I was sure ye was gonna come in aboot three or four days. What brings ye here now?”

Oceana looked at Callum wondering what to say. During the entire journey, and the walk from the station, she had contemplated how much she should tell. Should she break the news that Wesley was alive? How would she tell him? Your son is alive and he hates you? I met your son, we fell in love, but he wants me to break all contact with you? How would Callum react? Would it break his already shattered heart? And as she stood there, looking and the surprised eyes, eyes that were always filled with sadness and regret, she found she didn’t have the heart to tell him. Call her a coward, but she just couldn’t tell him the full truth. So all she did was rush up and throwing her arms around his rugged shoulders, burst into tears.

Callum was very taken back by this behavior, Oceana only cried if something was really wrong, and her flooding his shoulder with her tears was enough to make him very worried.

“Lassie, what happened?” he gently asked, stroking her hair in an effort to calm her down. “What was it that made ye so distressed?”

It took Oceana some time to gain control of herself, but at last she looked up at him and gave a weak smile. “I’m alright.”

“Are ye now?” Callum didn’t believe her, “I dinnae call such behavior ‘alright’. Why are ye here so suddenly? Why are ye crying?”

“A failed romance, that is all,” Oceana summed it up. “I must go and wash, the journey was long. It is good to be home, Callum. Did you miss me?”

“Aye, I did?” Callum slowly said.

“Don’t worry, I am never leaving again. I shall never return to London, never ever.” Oceana picked up her bag and went to her room. Callum sat back down in his chair, trying to comprehend all that had just happened.

 Oceana was very quiet the entire day and retired early to bed. Closer to midnight, the door to her room softly opened and Callum walked in, holding a candle in his hand. He leaned over and gazed at her sleeping face. “Ye cried yerself to sleep, lass,” he whispered to her. Reaching out, he brushed away the slightly damp strand of hair that had fallen over her face. “Who was it that broke yer heart, my little mermaid? Was it the navy fellow ye was writin’ to me aboot?” Callum straightened himself, but continued to watch Oceana as she slept. Oceana was the one thing he had left in this world, what was more, Chandler had trusted her into his care and he knew for a fact that Chandler was holding him responsible for every tear Oceana cried. Whoever had dared to hurt his Pearl was in serious trouble. “Poor little lass, and ye was so afraid of having yer heart broken, and that is exactly what happened to ye. Dinnae worry, once the school year starts, and the little ones flood you again, ye will forget whoever it was that hurt you. And I pray to God that he never comes up here, because if he does, I swear I’ll kill him.”