by DM Bryan
Then, Jo got off my trunk and went out into the passage, leaving the door hanging open behind him.
I waited, but nobody came to get me. Darkness in the shape of men flowed past the rectangular opening. I saw Jessup go by, his face grey, supported by a fellow under either arm. Shadows passed without a sideways glance, although I was clearly visible on my cot, with my skirts threaded through my fingers. On deck, the shouting mounted and then died away, and I could not distinguish cries from board-battering surf. I waited for Jo, but when his stunted form passed, he wouldn’t look in. More crew went by, and yet more. I could hear them gathering in the great cabin—the rumble of men’s voices growing into weather.
All my life I had been afraid: afraid of my father; afraid of my money; afraid of my solitude; afraid of my husband; afraid for my life; afraid for my child. Now, in the floating coffin of the Primrose, for the first time in my life I asked myself what fear had ever won me. In answer, I lit a taper and went out into the passage.
The great cabin glowed tar black in the lamplight. The men had pushed away the captain’s table and stood, backs to the door, in a sloping circle around something on the floor. I recognized the mutineers. I saw Greensail the carpenter, Johnson the boatswain, Foote the gunner, and many other crew members I knew by sight, from the proudest able seamen to the most stumbling of the landsmen. I did not see the captain, but in his place his green bottles passed from hand to hand.
I pushed my way between two broad backs and saw that every eye was turned to the floor of that room. Pinned at the centre was a large sheet of paper with two concentric rings drawn in ink. The names of Jessup, Greensail, Johnson, and Foote appeared at the four points of the compass, and as I watched, other men came forward, taking their turn to sign the curved spaces between. One by one, the men made their name or their mark, and then they drank, the ink and the wine falling in drops upon the page.
The pen came to the man next to me. He took the bottle of ink and dropped to his knees to scratch his name laboriously between two others, and as he did, I took his place in the circle and lamplight fell full upon me. One by one the mutineers saw me, shuffling back until I stood alone, the bilge stained tips of my satin shoes upon the page. The ink ring shone wetly, a circle of mutineers—a body with no head.
“Do you turn pyrate then?” I said to Greensail, whom I took to be the leader, but Jessup answered from under his bandages. Only his right eye showed, and the fleshy stuffing of his lips. Blood stained the linen over his left eye. Blood laced the kerchief around his throat. Blood trimmed the cambric of his shirt.
“We do,” he said. “Now, go back to your cabin.”
“What will you do with me?”
Jessup shrugged. He blotted the blood from his lips with his sleeve. Red bubbles formed in the corners of his mouth as he spoke. “You are in no danger, but you will be made a hostage.”
“I have no one to ransom me.”
“I’m sure you will find someone.”
“I have no money and less hope. All I have in England belongs to a man who hates me. And I have no friends in Virginia.”
“We do not intend to go so far.”
“That is my preference also.”
Could Jessup smile with those lips?
“I would rather sign your articles,” said I.
I thought they would laugh, but the ship creaked in the silence I made.
I said, “Let me sign. Let me take shares. My need is the same as yours.” And Jo, standing in the ring of pyrates, turned his back on me.
“She deserves something,” said Goss. “She never said aught to the captain. Jo said she heard us talking flags and held her tongue.”
I looked again to Jo. Knots, shellacked by lamplight.
“She’s almost past breeding,” said Greensail. “No point to her. Let her fight with us, if she can.”
“A woman sign articles?” said Jessup. Again, a bloody twitch of his lips.
“She wouldn’t be the first. There’s been others before her.” Johnson spoke, and Foote nodded.
“Aye, female pyrates, not lady ones.” Jo spat, carefully aiming away from the page of names.
But they all looked to Jessup. He spat too but with less energy, leaning his head between his knees to let the bloody spittle fall from his lips. When he straightened, he daubed at his mouth and nodded. “If you sign,” said he, “you’ll work, same as the rest.”
I nodded. Rough pyrate hands held out the bottle of ink, and I took the pen, dipping the nib. I struggled in my skirts as I bent down to the paper, but I signed my name between two others, and then a ragged cheer went up.
I rose awkwardly to my feet.
“For God’s sake, give her some breeches,” said Jessup.
[
Glossolalia paused in her tale. The room had grown chill, and now she called for the girl who kept her company to build up the fire. When the task was done, the lady spoke gently to the child, and put out a hand to straighten the little girl’s mob-cap, which had slipped to one side. Then, in the leaping light of the flames, Glossolalia turned anew to Sarah, saying, “madam, you will now understand the cause of my tears when I first gazed upon Mr. Hogarth’s Marriage-a-la-mode. In innocence, I went with the crowd to view his work, and I did not expect to see myself shown in happier times.”
“Your sorrow is only too natural, under the circumstance,” said Sarah, “and I confess you bear a resemblance to the paintings’ principal female, chiefly in shape of face and generosity of expression. But, forgive me if I cannot see a pyrate queen in the well-mannered person who has kept me company this last hour.”
“Whether you see that personage or not,” said Glossolalia, “everything happened just as I have related. My story is not edifying, but it is a true history, and the rest can be briefly told, if you wish to hear.”
Sarah inclined her head, and Glossolalia resumed her story.
“I dressed myself in breeches,” said that lady, “and learned to sleep in a hammock packed head to toe, so many fish in a barrel. My cabin went to Jessup on account of his wounds, which festered and added to the stink of the passageway. When Jessup was dead, Greensail found himself elected pyrate captain, and we soon came upon a merchant sloop, the Triumph, out of Bristol, bound for Boston. When the fighting began, I did not disgrace myself, serving Israel Foote on one of his guns. I had but to take orders—a task for which I had trained my whole life—and no one was neater or quicker when Foote cried, “load the charge.” With nimble fingers, I popped the bundle of gunpowder into the barrel, like a bit of biscuit in the mouth of a willing infant. Goss rammed the charge home, and when the fire from the touch hole spat brightly, we ducked as flames belched forth from the gun. A cheer went up when we hit our target, and I mopped out the barrel with a rag on a stick to prepare the next charge. After a few such blasts the sloop lowered its colours, and we had our first prize. Greensail took me in the bumboat with him to negotiate terms with the other captain.”
“You?” Sarah asked.
“Who better to intercede than a woman?”
“What did you tell them?”
“That our ships floated above the void, and no country’s soil lay beneath our feet. That law began with God, and if we acknowledge God to be just then every man must have an equal right to freedom and a fair portion. That a man had a right to rule his household—whether a kingdom or the meanest hovel in Britain—only to the degree he imitated God’s compassion. That the usurpation of that duty by inferior men—whether captains or husbands—invoked that superior law that allowed men to restore whatever order ambition and pride had put asunder. And that if the men aboard could honestly acknowledge their captain free of those failings, we would sail away and leave them in peace, for peace they surely deserved. That’s what I told them, and when so addressed, every ship willingly made terms with us, the men coming aboard to sign our articles and join
our crew.
Those captains who were liked by their crew survived. Other captains we made governors of their very own islands. The worst their own men put to the sword. A captain’s fate made no difference to me. Remember that I had my own tyrant to overthrow, and this I plotted as we cruised for richly laden pinks or shallops heaped with linen. With each victory, I saw sailors saved from cruelty, and I hoped to preserve myself with my share of the takings. I longed to see my daughter, and I believed every packet of powder rammed home, every sword thrust at an enemy, every prize sent to port for ransom brought us closer.”
“In your daughter’s name you raided and kept the spoils?” said Sarah.
“I returned with no spoils.”
“Ah, then you did not benefit from your pyracies.”
“Benefit? How should we reckon benefit? When I negotiated terms aboard the Triumph, our crew heard what I said and approved my words. When next I spoke in the Primrose’s great cabin, the men listened with greater care than they had before. Before long, they made me their quartermaster. Then came a ship, running in cold waters off the coast of Nova Scotia, first glimpsed across a sheet of shifting foam. I helped to take her, but I never guessed she would be mine. She came on, main and fore and infant mast, mizzen-wrapped. Taking her was butchery, and seas ran wintergreen with streaks of cream where bodies sank. Greensail gave me her command under my own flag. Black ground. White hourglass. I named the snow Ice Queen, and I reckoned her a benefit.”
“You had your own ship. Surely now you turned for home.”
“Never. I was one of Greensail’s men, and I had signed articles. He had a flotilla under his midnight banner, and at his command we took a cruise along the coast of the Americas. Off New York we took two pinks, one of which carried fourteen Negros. I hoped to sell them, but Jo More, that thorn in my side, reminded me of my own fine words, and so I offered the black men shares. I didn’t think they’d understand, but to my chagrin they accepted, putting out their hands to me. Then I looked hard at my own crew. Saw Henry Virgin with straw-lashed eyes, flesh pale as gin. Saw Edward Salter, all black and blue. Joseph Philips was red as a lobster, Will Ling a length of sycamore. Jo More stayed small, nutbrown, and impossible to crack. In a port of call, they were useless. When pulling hard, they were worth a fortune. In battle or in a storm, they were worth my life. And so we sailed on, up and down that coast.
Off the Carolinas, we took a sloop, the Barbados. Thomas Read was the master, and she was laden with sugar and rum and more Negros. This time I knew better than to regard men as chattel but set them as a prize crew in the ship that had been their prison. I bid them come raiding with us, which they did, but first I laid the sugar and the rum snug in the Ice Queen’s hold.
At an islet off North Carolina, we careened our ships, taking on fresh water and what supplies we could find. Turning north, our superior numbers helped us take a merchant brig, the Probity, fresh from Chesapeake Bay, her hold full of tobacco, twenty-four hogsheads of sugar, one hundred and fifty bags of cocoa, indigo in a barrel, and cotton in bales besides. Other ships we took too. A snow straight out of Bristol delivered us crates of boots, gloves, and pouches made of leather. We found barrels packed with straw and filled with Dutch glass engraved with leaves and fruit, pewter plates, candlesticks, brass ladles, and three-tined serving forks, all bound for Philadelphia.
With so much good fortune, we grew braver and bolder, and the governor of Virginia, hearing of our success, sent out two men of war, the Pearl and the Lime, to take us. The ships flew after our flotilla, laying on so much canvas they glittered in the sun. At last, we’d met our match, and when they drew close enough to loose their guns, they fired the Probity to her waterline. She sank with all on board. That took the heart out of us, to hear those poor men left to choose between burning or drowning. After that, Greensail drove the Primrose as hard as he dared, but an unlucky blast of dismantling shot from the Pearl tore his sails and destroyed his rigging. Then, the Primrose proved as ill-starred as we knew she was, and soon the Pearl boarded her and much was lost. Robert Johnson lost an eye; Israel Foote lost a foot; but Robert Greensail lost his life by trying to save it. The sloop with the Negros out-sailed us all, disappearing over the horizon, and I wished them well. Caught, we faced the gibbet, but they faced the manacle, the fetter, and the collar, and truly I cannot puzzle out the worse fate.
My end was settled, for the Lime hulled my Ice Queen, and we put off in our launch and our bumboat. I saw my snow founder, her decks subsiding in a ragged rose of blue foam. But harder to bear was Jo More’s treachery, for when the sailors from the Lime wrestled us aboard, he would not own me captain, and with looks and signs he made my other men follow suit. In vain, I showed the officers my breeches, my bared teeth, my pyrate tongue. I swore at them and spat at them, but I found myself amongst civilized men once more, and they would no more believe me captain of my Queen than believe a Bedlam lunatic King of England.”
Glossolalia looked about the room, at the fire in its grate and the flickering light upon the walls. She appeared to have reached the end of her tale. Her companion watched her carefully for a minute or two before speaking.
“And is that the end?” said Sarah at last. “Forgive me but your tale breaks off rather suddenly, without the satisfaction of some concluding event.”
“Indeed,” said Glossolalia, “that both is and is not the end. I have myself been waiting some time for the right conclusion to my story, but alas, I have not found it yet. Perhaps I shall one day. Then she bent forward and touched the teapot, which was now cold and empty. The little girl in the mob-cap came forward from her corner and curtseyed, taking the vessel from her. She looked to her mistress, who nodded.
“Will you take more tea?” said Glossolalia to Sarah.
“It is not tea I am wanting,” said Sarah, “but adventure. Your story has put me in mind of the romances written when we were both girls. Such works are sorely out of favour now. These days, novels turn out plain and everyday. In place of the glittering Atlantic, they give us the dirty Thames. A horse-ferry must replace the Ice Queen, and the whole pyrate crew performed by a toothless ferry-keeper.”
Glossolalia smiled and said, “You have very neatly laundered my tale. That is indeed a different kind of work. I can see you have a knack for novel-writing—shall I trust you to write me the end I’m missing? But be certain of this: you must include the finding of my lost girl, for without her—”
And then, that lady could speak no more.
The little serving girl in the mob-cap ran for more tea, but what can mere hot water do in such a case? Glossolalia’s sorrow was an established fact with her, and no quantity of steeped bohea might suffice to rinse it from her soul.
Sarah did not like to see any once-upon-a-time pirate captain laid low, let alone one she liked so well as Glossolalia, and on such short acquaintance too. At the sight of her new friend’s tears, Sarah was moved for a second time to generous commiseration. Her sympathy for the lady was genuine, although in all honesty, she couldn’t say if she thought the other woman’s tale true in every particular. Nevertheless, Sarah firmly believed there was a marooned corsair in the heart of every woman over forty. One might make a novel of that, she told herself, lending Glossolalia her handkerchief on the grounds that it was drier. And despite her companion’s distress, Sarah could not but wonder how she herself might set the scene. In her mind’s eye she held her pen, its trimmed nib black as blood. She set that tip to the absorbent page, and the words that blossomed forth honoured her new friend’s fighting spirit, regardless of her tear-stained condition.
Then a silence fell over the little room, save for the cackling of the fire.
Chapter 8
“ … I am, like most Biographers, a little partial to my hero … ”
Sarah Scott’s The History of Sir George Ellison.
Batheaston, 1762.
Sarah Scott sets down her pen
and surveys what she has written. Inked pages amount to a good morning’s work, although as she rereads, she wonders if she has put into the mouths of her characters too many reflections on the condition of the novel—she must decide later. Pushing herself away from the table, Sarah gathers up her pages and tidies them away. Then she takes up the bundle of linen for the girls’ sewing and calls for Meg, the serving woman, to help her. Sarah gives Meg a rolled, oiled cloth, which fills the woman’s arms, spilling over her elbows and falling almost to her knees. Meg accepts her burden and says nothing. Sarah approves the woman’s silence. No one could accuse Lady Barbara of volubility, but Sarah values Meg’s wordless, efficient communication. Time with Meg helps staunch the wordy busyness inside her own head.
The house at Batheaston sits in a green cup, and the garden holds everything Sarah loves best. Lady Barbara has ordered that the tent be erected beneath the willows, with a view of the river, and this is now Sarah’s destination. Through the jade peace, she and Meg walk. Sarah’s workbox dangles somewhat awkwardly from her hand. When she received it as a gift from her father, she was no older than the charity girls whose practical education she now superintends. He meant it as a possession of her own, to take with her when she married. Her new husband would smile fondly to see her bent over her plain sewing. Not her actual husband, of course, but the one Matthew Robinson, her father, imagined on her behalf. Sarah Scott can see a phantasm of that husband’s back as he saunters confidently down the path before her. Dark broadcloth stretches taut. Flint-coloured hair. A stone hand to beckon her onwards. Short, clean fingernails.
“Off with you,” she says aloud. Meg, who comes behind her, cannot see her mouth and does not know she has spoken. Sarah stops, turns, and smiles her encouragement.
They reach the tent. Inside, a wasp lies on the floor stinging the canvas while it dies. Sarah sets down the pile of cloth and steps on the creature with her shoe. Then she goes outside to wipe her sole clean on the grass. Smoke rises from the farmhouse chimneys. The river folds itself over stones and rattles wetly. Inside the tent, Sarah hears Meg begin first to lay out the oil cloth and then the linen for cutting. As the woman leans forward, the shape of her rear impresses itself against the canvas. There. And there. The tent shakes and its wooden poles sway.