Read What Is Visible: A Novel for Free Online Page B

his—hold him back, paragon of noble usefulness or not. He’d have his own children, and Laura would too. No, she probably wouldn’t, unless some violence was done, but she would have her own life. Perhaps. He had boarded her and fed her and taught her language and would continue in his loyalty, albeit with a fractured heart. What more could God expect of him?

Chapter 4
Julia, 1844
    H er first glimpse of the RMS Britannia , the ship that would carry her into her future, into the whole rest of her life. The docked steamer presided serenely over Boston Harbor, flanked by two enormous paddle wheels, the late-day sun swatting the forty-foot steel funnel painted the signature Cunard orange-red banded in black. The Britannia would have dwarfed all other ships, but there were none with which to compare her majesty, because Cunard had constructed their own wharf when they’d launched her four months earlier.
    Chev helped her from the carriage; he knew how tired she was after the long trip from New York after the wedding. They would have stayed over at Perkins, of course, but Julia was so loath to deal with Laura that she’d insisted they not stop the night there. Chev was irate until she showed him the letter that she’d received at her New York address from Laura the week before. Dearest Julia, it read, I humbly ask your permission to hide in the closet to surprise Doctor after you set sail. I will be your maid for the journey, and you needn’t even feed me. It was signed Your beloved sister, Laura . Even Chev was shocked by the request, and so arranged that Laura and Oliver should tour the ship early in the day and be gone long before the happy couple arrived.
    And happy they were, though they were saving their crowning moment for their first night aboard ship. They had spent their wedding night, by agreement, not only in separate rooms, but in separate houses: Julia with her family downtown on Bond Street, and Chev at the Astors’ mansion, where the reception had been held. The wedding had been all that the bride had dreamed of and more: hundreds of the best of New York and Boston society all watching her walk on the arm of her father down the long petal-strewn aisle of the church in her ivory Indian lace, the floor-length, seed pearl veil covering her face. But when she had looked toward her groom, regal in his bespoke morning cutaway, his hat high on his dark curls, all the glitter, all the eyes, fell away until his face was the only thing that filled her vision. She had never wanted anything more, and she was, of course, used to getting all that she wanted. The next hours passed like the gossamer currents of a dream, everyone touching her, telling her how beautiful she was, when all she wanted was his touch, his voice, now and forever after. Not until they finally stood on the foredeck of the ship could she really believe she was about to be his. She let the wind blow the spray into her face and inhaled the fresh salty smell of her life to come.
    They had arrived early for the press interview, and the writer and photographer from the Evening Transcript took to their business immediately, arranging them against the railings, the silhouette of the harbor in the background. Then they took a picture of the new bride alone, and Julia lifted slightly the brim of her pale blue cottage bonnet, the traveling outfit she’d chosen from her ridiculously large—even to her—trousseau. She wanted that look, that radiance she knew she now possessed, to be recorded for posterity. Not that she didn’t think it would last—no, it wasn’t that at all—but today was the last glow of her girlhood. Any photographs hereafter would show a woman full in the knowledge of the ways of love. She left Chev to contend with the reporter’s questions. Doubtless he would mention Sumner, who’d stood up as his best man, the only blot on the ceremony. He’d towered over them all in the moment when Chev should look the king, but the worst was his