Sail Away Read Online Free PDF

you are a fine young woman!"
    Exasperated, Cynthia suppressed the reply that sprang to her lips. What would you expect him to say, Papa? ‘No, sir, your daughter is a podgy baggage and I would not have her as a gift!' “Papa, naturally Mrs. Humboldt would say that. I expect she would say that she herself is fond of me! But fond is not the same as enamored. "
    "You read too many books,” he said irrelevantly.
    "Tell me, sir—how would you have felt if your father-in-law had ordered you to marry my mother?"
    "Immoderately blest!” He father set his bundle of papers down, and faced her squarely. “I would have said ‘Yes, sir, immediately, sir!’ Now, daughter, I realize that you are—"
    "'—not the beauty your mother was, but a fine young woman nonetheless',” Cynthia finished bitterly. How many times had she heard those words? “No, I am not beautiful, Papa. But am I so repulsive that you must force a man to marry me in order to keep his employment?"
    But he had regained his composure, that rock-solid conviction of his own correctness. “Let's have no more of this hysteria, Cynthia. You are over-wrought about the move, and must allow yourself to be guided by my experience. You have little knowledge of the world, and no way of knowing what is best for you."
    Cynthia took a deep breath in the face of his obduracy. “Perhaps not, sir. But I do know in my heart what is worst for me, and if Evelyn Humboldt proposes marriage, I promise you I shall refuse him."
    He looked at her as though realizing for the first time that she was no longer the dutiful young girl who had taken up the reins of the household after her mother's death, the anxious child to whom her father's approval meant everything in the world. “You cannot be serious."
    "Never more so. Papa, I am sorry."
    He stood staring at her, then his eyes went to the portrait of her mother that hung over his desk. Forever young and beautiful, she smiled down at them both, benevolent but distant. “If only your mother had lived, she would have talked some sense into you,” her father said at last.
    Cynthia had been thinking the very same thing herself. Surely her mother would have understood! “Please, Papa—let us not fight over this."
    "I have no reason to fight with a chit of a girl,” he said. “If you mean to be disobliging, please do not invite the Humboldts to dinner this evening. You and Evelyn will be in each other's company often enough on the voyage to Nova Scotia. I am certain you will come to appreciate his worth.” He gathered up his papers and left the study, leaving Cynthia staring at her mother's exquisite face, beautiful, remote, and completely out of reach.
    * * * *
    "Miss Lancaster?"
    She jumped in surprise and Paul apologized for startling her.
    "Oh, it is I who should apologize, sir. I was speaking with my father before he left, and the conversation turned to—to old family memories.” She indicated the portrait with a nod of her head.
    "Your mother?"
    "Yes. She never wanted to come to America, you know. It broke her heart to leave England, and she never recovered. Was she not beautiful?"
    "Indeed, quite beautiful.” The lady in the portrait had ethereal blue eyes and very fair hair, arranged atop her head with wisps escaping to form a halo. Her dress, too, was of some gauzy stuff, giving the impression of an angel floating off to heaven. She had a delicate beauty that was utterly perfect and dreadfully fragile. “But I'd hate to have had her on any ship of mine."
    Cynthia gave him a look of utter shock—and then burst into laughter. She quickly clapped both hands over her mouth, and gave her mother's portrait a guilty look. “Oh, dear—I feel I should apologize to her for laughing."
    "I'm terribly sorry,” he said. “I meant no disrespect, it's only that—if the portrait is true to life, she does not look as though she had much endurance.” Unlike her daughter, who glowed with the bloom of vigorous youth. “If she were on a