The Charm School

She said “Mah dee-ah” in the nicest way. As if she actually meant it. Isadora sensed she’d find an ally in Lily Calhoun.

Once they were all settled on the burgundy-striped chaise, the settee and the wing chairs before the hearth, Thankful served strong coffee laced with cream, and tea cakes heavy with honey and hazelnuts.

“And what is the name of your place in Virginia again?” Sophia asked sweetly.

Isadora held herself very still and secretly bit her tongue. Her mother knew more about the Calhoun family than Lily herself, no doubt. A number of not-so-discreet inquiries had informed her about the lavish plantation on Mockjack Bay, Virginia. Once it was established that the Calhoun family possessed only slightly less social status than the Lord Above, Sophia decided they were the right sort of people.

“Our place is called Albion. When my husband died, his elder son Hunter inherited it. Hunter is my stepson, and Ryan’s half brother.”

Isadora watched Ryan’s face carefully. A half brother. Did the two get along? Probably not, she decided, recalling Lily’s anecdote about Ryan disgracing himself by choosing Harvard over Virginia tradition.

He winked at her. Winked.

Heavens be, what was he up to now?

She pursed her lips and stared straight ahead, fighting a blush. Her mother and sisters were famous wits in conversation, but Isadora had never acquired the knack. She had no idea what to say to a man who winked at her. When she spoke her mind, she was considered offensive. When she echoed someone else’s opinion, she was denounced as boring. So whenever possible, she held her tongue and let her mind wander.

She knew she shouldn’t succumb to fantasy, but the murmurs of conversation lulled her, and before she knew it, she was a Southern belle at a place called Albion, where the sun always shone and the workers sang glad praises to the sky and the air was filled with birdsong and the scent of magnolias. Dressed in tulle flounces from a Paris couturier, she waited on the verandah while her favorite suitor galloped up on a white horse.

“Hello, Chad,” she would greet him demurely…except the man on the horse wasn’t Chad. He had flame-colored hair, a crooked grin, a provocative wink and…heavens be. What was Ryan Calhoun doing in the middle of her fantasy?

“…wouldn’t you say so, Isadora?” her mother was asking.

Jolted out of her reverie, Isadora nodded vigorously, having no idea what she was agreeing to. “Indeed I would, Mother.”

Ryan scowled at her.

“That is,” she hastened to add, “except that I also wouldn’t.”

Ryan rolled his eyes. What a hen-wit he must think her. She said, “And what do you think, Mr. Calhoun?”

“I think that sea voyages are dangerously unhealthy, particularly for a lady of delicate constitution,” he said. “If I may be permitted to agree with my hostess,” he added gallantly, inclining his head toward Sophia.

Isadora sent him a dagger glare. Didn’t he remember what Mr. Easterbrook’s letter said? Either he took Isadora along, or his position would be downgraded from skipper to second mate.

“I have been touring the Continent for years,” Lily said. “I’ve sailed from Gibraltar to Athens and suffered absolutely no ill health at all other than the usual mal de mer. Mr. and Mrs. Peabody, I was so hoping you would permit Isadora to go.”

Grateful for the support, Isadora perched on the edge of her seat. “You have always said that travel enhances a person’s character, Papa,” she reminded her father.

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen my dear sister,” Lily said.

“Rose is the widow of a Brazilian planter. She lives in a magnificent villa high in the forested hills overlooking Guanabara Bay. I’ve promised her for years that I’d visit.” She lifted her cup to her lips and took and unhurried sip. “Isadora would be such an asset to the voyage. Ryan needs her expertise as a translator, but if she spoke not a word other than English, I would beg to have her along as my guest and my companion.”

“Did I say I needed her?” Ryan asked with a laconic half grin. “I don’t recall that.”

“Mother, I simply must go,” Isadora said in a rush, deciding not to dignify his insolent remark with a reply. “I know how deeply I would grieve were I deprived of my own dear sisters’ company.” She managed to say this with a sincere expression.

“Mr. Peabody,” Sophia said, addressing her husband formally, “what say you?” She framed it as a question, though Isadora knew she had already made up her mind.

“Well, most certainly I approve,” Papa assured her. “You know how I feel about broadening our daughters’ experiences.”

“Does Miss Isadora need broadening?” Ryan Calhoun asked, the very picture of innocence. He stared at her, daring her to crumple before his insults. “Where?”

“Perhaps I need to learn to pity those with feeble minds,” she snapped, surprised to feel anger rather than humiliation, and further surprised that the anger felt…rather good.

“Sailing a ship is an unusual vocation for a Harvard man,” Mr. Peabody observed, ignoring the heated exchange. “Particularly for such a young man. Don’t most sailors spend years working their way up to skipper?”

“Indeed they do, sir. I was fortunate to win my first command early.” He savored a sip of his coffee. “I grew up on Mockjack Bay, with a view straight out to the Atlantic. I’d sit for hours on the end of our dock, watching the ships come and go, stowing away on the short runs to neighboring farms.”

“I couldn’t get him to do a blessed thing,” Lily said with fond exasperation. “He and Journey even built a lookout in the top of a tree by the water. After I discovered he’d been stowing away on the local barges, I decided to let him follow his heart. He learned seamanship from Captain Hastings himself of the frigate Carlota.”

“When I discovered Mr. Easterbrook was looking for a skipper, I decided it was Providence itself drawing me back to the sea,” Ryan said. “None of my schooling could take that desire from me.”

Isadora felt her anger melting into something else as she studied him. He looked so romantic in his colorful, finely cut clothes that fit his trim form so well. He had one arm draped over the back of a chair, a thick lock of hair adorning his brow. He might have been a poet, though he lacked the pallor and thinness of a man of letters. No, Ryan Calhoun was too vigorous and too vibrant to toil in private with paper and pen.

A sea captain. Isadora realized that she was looking at a man who had become what he was born to be.

What a gift that was. Few people ever achieved that.

She refused even to contemplate what she was born to be. Maiden daughter, keeping her elderly parents company. When her beautiful nieces and nephews were old enough, she might serve as their tutor or chaperon.

The very thought made her shudder.

She lifted her chin. She was going on a sea voyage. Like it or not, Ryan Calhoun was going to save her from a fate of obscure mediocrity.

But as he looked across the room at her, there was nothing but mocking laughter in his eyes as he said, “And as for your schooling, Miss Peabody, I pray you are prepared for its hard lessons.”

Part Two

The Bird of Passage

“You don’t understand me,” said the duckling. “I think I’d better go out into the wide world.”

“Do you think this is the whole world?” the mother duck asked. “Why, it extends on and on, clear across to the other side of the garden and right on into the parson’s field, though that is farther than I have ever been.”

“Say there, comrade,” the wild geese said to the duckling, “you’re so ugly that we have taken a fancy to you. Come with us and be a bird of passage.”

—Hans Christian Andersen,

The Ugly Duckling (1843)

Six

I have seen old ships sail like swans asleep.

—Herman James Elroy Flecker,

The Old Ships