“Very much so.”
It was quiet where they were, sitting under the bent tree, the sun shining on the old house site.
“Valentina Montgomery was an off-islander,” Jared said. “She came here in the early 1800s to visit an old aunt who’d married a Nantucket sea captain. The aunt was a widow and an invalid, and Valentina took care of her.”
Jared went on to tell that young, handsome Captain Caleb Kingsley had been away when Valentina arrived. He’d been on one of his four voyages to China where he’d made a name for himself by bringing back exquisite goods and selling them for top prices to stores all over the East Coast.
“He had taste,” Jared said. “That’s what set him apart and made him rich.” He explained that the others who went to China brought back the cheapest things they could find so they’d make the most profit. But Caleb had gone for beauty, and as a result, by the time he was thirty-three he was wealthy. He was the prize catch on an island that had many widows.
“He and Valentina fell in love and they were going to get married,” Jared said, “but Caleb wanted to go on one last voyage.”
“Didn’t those trips last for years?” Alix asked.
“Anywhere from three to seven years.”
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“So they agreed to wait until he got back?”
“Yes.” Jared smiled. “But they didn’t wait for everything. When Caleb left, he didn’t know it, but Valentina was expecting their child.”
“Oh, my,” Alix said. “What did she do?”
Jared couldn’t tell Alix that he’d heard this story all his life and no matter how many times his grandfather told it, it was always with passion—and anger.
“Valentina married Obed Kingsley, Caleb’s cousin. No one knows why for sure, but it was assumed that she did it to give her child the Kingsley name. Or maybe it was so she could stay on the island and raise her child here. Or …”
“Or what?”
“Maybe she was blackmailed or threatened in some way. You see, Valentina had the recipe for Kingsley Soap. She’d found a way to use glycerine to make a mild, transparent soap—and this was in a time when lye was used as the base.”
“Even the thought of that makes my skin hurt,” Alix said.
“Valentina had been making the soap for a couple of years and she sold it in Obed’s store. After they were married, he began making the soap on a large scale and sending it off-island to be sold. Whatever else he was, he was an excellent businessman.”
Alix noted the sneer in Jared’s voice; it was as though he were talking of recent events. “He just needed a product to sell,” she said, encouraging Jared to continue. From his tone Alix could tell that the story was leading to tragedy. But then having to marry a man you didn’t love just to give your child a name was already tragic.
“The soap …?” she began, but then hesitated. Again she thought of her mother’s novel about a soap empire. It had been a clear soap scented with wild jasmine that had started the family on to great wealth. But hadn’t that novel been told from the point of view of a second wife? “What happened to Valentina?”
“We don’t know,” Jared said. “She gave birth to a son, named him Jared Montgomery Kingsley, and—”
“He was the first one?”
“He was,” Jared said.
“What happened when Captain Caleb returned and found his girl married to his cousin?”
“Caleb didn’t return. He was in a port in South America with a damaged ship that was going to need months for the repairs, when his brother showed up on another ship.”
“Nantucketers owned the oceans.”
“They did.” Jared’s face was serious. “Caleb’s brother, Thomas, was on his way home and docked to see his brother. They exchanged news and Caleb was told that Valentina had given birth to a son six months after her marriage. Caleb knew the child was his and he had an idea of why she’d married Obed. He wanted to go home immediately, so he talked his younger brother into exchanging ships. Thomas’s ship was much faster than Caleb’s and it was ready to leave right then. Caleb wrote out a will leaving everything he owned to Valentina and their son, then he headed home on his brother’s ship. But it hit a storm and went down with all the crew on board. It was almost a year later when Thomas got home with Caleb’s ship full of valuable goods from China, all of which belonged to Valentina and their son. They moved from here to the new house on Kingsley Lane, and a year later, Valentina was gone. She’d disappeared. Obed said she ran off and left him and her son. But no one saw Valentina leave the island. Some people had doubts, but then no one had any reason to disbelieve Obed. Everyone felt sorry for him, and a few years later, he remarried.”
“So the child inherited it all.”
“Everything. And Obed and his second wife had no children, so Kingsley Soap went to the boy too. He was a very wealthy young man.”
“But with no parents,” Alix said. “Not so wealthy, after all.”