The Night Mark(108)

27


The pretty young guide hopped off the gray church bus first and ushered the group of a dozen or so tourists toward the telescope. Pat shook his head. Here they were again. Didn’t that poor tour guide ever get sick of giving the same damn spiel every single day?

“This telescope is trained on the lighthouse at the Seaport Island, or what we locals call Bride Island. The island is privately owned, so this telescope is the best way to see it without chartering a boat...”

Pat picked up a clean brush and dipped it in his cup of water. He’d been painting nothing but the lighthouse for weeks now. Every night he dreamed of the lighthouse. Every morning he woke to the need to paint it again and again. He’d gotten pretty good at it. One of the better galleries in town had even offered him a show. This painting was shaping up to be the star of the show. It was the first one he’d ever done close-up of the lighthouse keeper’s daughter. She stood at the end of the long pier, the lighthouse small behind her, and she was smiling toward the sun with a hand on her pregnant belly.

“The Bride Island Light is very special to us here in Lowcountry,” the tour guide continued, and Pat still couldn’t decide if her South Carolina drawl was real or put on to get better tips out of the tour group. “Dorothy Rivers Holt, the first African-American woman to be featured in Architectural Digest for her home designs, was housekeeper at the Bride Island Light in her teens. Her interior-design company was partly funded by the Morgan family, who gave her ten thousand dollars as a wedding gift in thanks for her service at the Bride Island Light. And of course, the lighthouse keeper himself, Chief Carrick Morgan, was a highly decorated war hero who worked as keeper of the light from 1921 until 1937. In 1926, a fishing boat broke apart during a storm, and, thanks to Chief Morgan’s efforts, all fourteen lives were spared. He saved many lives during his tenure, including his own daughter, when she was swept out to sea by a rogue wave in June of ’21, and we thank God for that around here. Faith Morgan is easily our most famous Bride Island resident. At age twenty, the lighthouse keeper’s daughter married a sailor named Patrick Cahill, who promptly shipped out to sea, leaving her pregnant and alone.”

“What a scoundrel,” Pat said under his breath.

“This didn’t deter Faith from following her dreams, however. Her father gave her a camera as a wedding gift, and Faith used it to take pictures of the island, the island residents, the lighthouse keepers and their families. Her photographs are an indispensable resource. Not only did she preserve invaluable history with her pictures, but she helped raise awareness of the damage industrial pollution caused to the human and animal inhabitants of the island. In 1930, a photo series she did of factory pollution in the waters off the coast raised a national outcry. Laws were swiftly passed to protect and preserve Lowcountry’s fragile coastline. Thanks to Faith Morgan our beaches are still the cleanest in the world, which is why to this day she’s known as the patron saint of Lowcountry, or, as we like to call her ‘The Lady of the Light.’”

“That’s my wife,” Pat muttered as he added silver shadows to the water.

“Another one of our local heroes is sitting right over there painting. That’s Father Pat Cahill—no relation to Faith’s husband, obviously. Everyone wave at Father Pat.”

The tourists waved at Pat. Pat waved back.

“Father Pat was out painting the Bride Island lighthouse when he found a coffee can by the old seawall. In the can were ten rolls of Kodak film wrapped in oilskin. Those pictures, taken by Faith Morgan and never before published, show Bride Island and the lighthouse in all its original glory. This year the Preservation Society put together a very special calendar featuring those pictures. But not only those pictures. Faith Morgan’s granddaughter, Dolly Morgan Bryant, a Hollywood cinematographer, has re-created the photographs Father Pat found. You can see what Lowcountry looked like in the 1920s and compare them to today’s pictures. Thanks to those photographs, there’s been renewed interest in the Bride Island lighthouse. Ms. Paris Shelby, owner of the island, has donated the original four acres of land leased by the government to the town. In spring 2017, restoration will begin on the light. By 2019, the lighthouse will be fully functional again, and the lighthouse cottage will have its first lighthouse keeper and lighthouse family living in it in eighty years. All proceeds from the sale of the calendar will go toward restoring the lighthouse and rebuilding the keeper’s cottage, which will be furnished with much of the original furniture, donated by Dorothy Holt’s granddaughter Elizabeth. The fund-raising calendars are available in the gift shop at the end of the tour.”

“And my paintings!” Pat yelled to the tour guide.

“That’s right,” she said, laughing. “Father Pat’s paintings of the lighthouse are also for sale in the gift shop, and all proceeds will go to the lighthouse restoration fund. We all need a little light, don’t we?”

“Amen,” Pat said.

The tour guide continued, “Lowcountry, as we say around here—”

“Lowcountry is God’s country,” Pat said under his breath, reciting along with the guide. “And Faith Morgan’s photographs are proof God is keeping a close watch on us.”

Pat rooted around in his art bag and found exactly what he was looking for. His painting was almost finished. All that was left was to give Faye Morgan her dress and her eyes.