The Story of Land and Sea. Katy Smith Simpson

      

      

       Copyright

      The Borough Press

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

      Copyright © Katy Simpson Smith 2014

      Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

      Jacket illustration by TK

      Katy Simpson Smith asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780007564002

      Ebook Edition © 2014 ISBN: 9780007563999

      Version: 2015-06-22

       Dedication

      FOR

       MY FATHER

       There is a land of pure delight

       Where saints immortal reign;

       Infinite day excludes the night,

       And pleasures banish pain.

       There everlasting spring abides,

       And never-withering flowers;

       Death like a narrow sea divides

       This heavenly land from ours …

       But timorous mortals start and shrink

       To cross this narrow sea,

       And linger shivering on the brink,

       And fear to launch away …

       Could we but climb where Moses stood

       And view the landscape o’er,

       Not Jordan’s stream, nor death’s cold flood,

       Should fright us from the shore.

      ISAAC WATTS

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

       Epigraph

Part One: 1793

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

       Part Two: 1771–1782

       Chapter 3

       Chapter 4

       Chapter 5

       Part Three: 1793–1794

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Acknowledgments

       A Conversation with Katy Simpson Smith

       Author’s Note

       About the Author

       Also by Katy Simpson Smith

       About the Publisher

Part One

       1

      On days in August when sea storms bite into the North Carolina coast, he drags a tick mattress into the hall and tells his daughter stories, true and false, about her mother. The wooden shutters clatter, and Tabitha folds blankets around them to build a softness for the storm. He always tells of their courting days, of her mother’s shyness. She looked like a straight tall pine from a distance; only when he got close could he see her trembling.

      “Was she scared?”

      “Happy,” John says. “We were both happy.”

      He watches Tab pull the quilt up to her chin, though even the storm can’t blow away the heat of summer. She is waiting to hear his secrets. But it is hard to describe how it feels to stand next to someone you love on the shore at dusk. He didn’t have to see Helen to know she was there. Something in her body pulled at something in his, across the humid air between them.

      “When you’re older,” he says, and she nods, familiar with this response.

      “Why don’t you ever tell about the ship?” she asks. “All the things you must have seen with her.”