The Night Mark(82)

“Marshall.”

“Lieutenant Marshall J. Carlyle of the Carlyle Steel fortune. He was forty years old when he married Faith, and she’d just turned eighteen. Marshall and Chief Carrick Morgan had been buddies in the war, served on the same ship. They kept each other sane, Carrick said. Kept each other alive. They were very close. Then the war was over and they returned to their civilian lives. Carrick took a job at the Boston Light. Marshall Carlyle finally decided to get married and have children. He wanted a young girl, and he wanted a pretty girl, and he had enough money he could snap his fingers and get both. Millie fit the bill. Carrick said Marshall caused a minor scandal by inviting him to the wedding. Rich, old-money socialites didn’t usually invite poor-as-dirt Irish Catholic sailors to their weddings, especially not the society wedding of the year. Carrick went, though he didn’t want to. Had a soft spot for Miss Scarborough himself.”

“He loved her a little bit,” Faye said. “He said something about wanting to stop the wedding. He saw her crying before the ceremony.”

“No stopping that wedding. Not with a fortune spent and another fortune to be gained or lost. She married him—God help that poor girl. Her husband ruled the house with an iron fist.”

“She ran away from him. I know that. How did she get to the island?”

“Train from Boston to New York. Hid in the big city a couple days, then hired a driver to take her to South Carolina. Marshall and Carrick had stayed in touch, so I assume that’s how she knew where to find him. She didn’t tell him she was coming, though. I don’t think she told a soul. Just walked out of her house and disappeared. Turned up on Carrick’s doorstep one night. She told him her husband had tried to kill her. So Carrick took her in, told everyone she was his daughter who’d come to stay with him now that she was out of school. A believable enough story then. People still think she was his daughter to this day. No need to correct them and cause a scandal. Might as well let sleeping dogs lie.”

“How did she come to be ‘Faith’?”

“Old nickname her grandmother had given her. She and her two sisters all had nicknames as little girls—Faith, Hope and Love. Millie was Faith.”

“Is that why you painted her? Because you knew you saw her the night she died?” Faye asked.

“She didn’t die that night. She died later in the storm. So strange,” he said, raising his hand to his forehead. “I remember both.”

“I had a dream about her. I dreamed I was running away from my husband. I wore a black dress and a black veil. Widow’s weeds. It was Faith’s dream. Or maybe one of her memories she let me see.” Faye leaned her head back, looked at the darkening sky. “Why is this happening, Pat? What does it mean? Is it reincarnation? Was Will really Carrick in a past life? Was I Faith?”

“Catholics don’t believe in reincarnation.”

“Then what do you think it is?”

“You lost Will in a tragic accident. Carrick lost Faith in a tragic accident. Reconciliation, maybe? Restoration? Hell, it could be reincarnation. All I know is that I don’t know.”

“You’re a priest. You’re supposed to know these things.”

“There’s nothing in the Bible about time travel, my dear. Seeing visions, yes, but not...not anything like this. We are in deep water here.”

“It’s not much of a restoration with me in this time and Carrick back in 1921. I can’t stand the thought of him thinking I’m dead. He’s there right now, broken the way I was when Will died.”

“But he’s not, Faye. Carrick’s dead. Has been since 1965. I can take you to the cemetery right now and show you his grave. It’s right next to...”

Pat choked on whatever he was about to say next. He simply stopped speaking and could not go on.

“Mine,” Faye said. “Right? His grave his next to mine.”

“Next to Faith Morgan’s.”

“The Faith Morgan who died in the storm?”

Pat nodded. “She’s buried here in Beaufort. Anything with her real name on it was buried with her. Even after she died, Carrick wanted to protect her from her husband.”

Faye’s heart tossed and twisted like wind chimes in a storm. Her own grave was here in Beaufort. Strangely, it didn’t bother her, the thought of seeing her own grave. But Carrick’s? She couldn’t bear to see Carrick’s. She hadn’t even allowed Will to be buried in the ground under a headstone, fearing that if she buried him in the earth and put up a monument to him, she would never leave his tomb. If she saw Carrick’s grave...

“Pat... I refuse to believe I went back in time ninety-four years by accident. Of all the people to go back, it was me—the widow of a man who looks just like Carrick. The one woman on earth who would want to be there and stay there. Me. And I was the one who went. I won’t know why unless I go back.”

“Go back?” Pat faced her, stared at her, eyes wide and stunned. “You can’t possibly mean that.”

“I can mean that. I was happy there. Do you know what it means to be able to say I was happy anywhere?”

“You were there six days. Six. That’s a vacation, Faye. You know what they say—nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. You don’t want to live in 1921. Penicillin hadn’t even been invented yet.”