Buccaneers Series

by Linda Lee Chaikin

  Emerald was afraid to go upstairs to quiet Minette and to leave Zeddie alone with Pitt, but Mr. Pitt seemed to have had enough of Minette, for he turned on his heel and stalked to his gelding.

  “That’s it, run. Run for your life, Pitt. You just wait till Ty comes back, a pirate! He’ll get you good for the evils you did to us.”

  Pitt mounted and jerked the reins of his horse to ride to the fields. He glared up at her. “It ain’t over yet.” He rode away, dust rising.

  Emerald looked after him. Then she turned and went into the house to scold Minette for worsening matters. She could understand the girl’s frustration, but until Baret settled accounts, it seemed that Mr. Pitt remained a prowling mad dog on Foxemoore.

  Zeddie closed the door. “I’m thinking he has himself more cockiness than he would if he didn’t know somethin’ that we don’t, or think he does.”

  “He has most of the family on his side,” Emerald complained. “That’s what gives him confidence. Was Minette right? Did you move his things to the smokehouse?”

  “Aye, m’gal, ‘twas the first thing I did. The idea of him having things in Sir Karlton’s room was loathsome. Looks like the trunk was broken into and his desk drawer searched by a hungry rat. But I wouldn’t know if anything’s missing.”

  “Nor would I.” She sighed and looked up the steps. It was time to see what she could discover or learn what Pitt had destroyed.

  “Yolanda? Get Minette back to bed, will you?”

  “She’s behavin’ herself now, Miss Emerald. I done hauled her away from the window and paddled her good!”

  A phony yowl went up from Minette. Emerald smiled. She had the feeling that Yolanda had been with her all along, enjoying the upbraiding Minette had given Mr. Pitt.

  Her father’s room looked as though Pitt had torn it apart, even as he had her own. As Zeddie said, the trunk had been broken into and papers and maps were lying about in disarray. But surprisingly, Pitt had not seemed to have been interested in destroying them or searching through them. They were strewn into a pile on the floor, apparently untouched.

  Then she’d been right. It had been the jewels of her cousin Rafael that Pitt had foolishly thought might be hidden in the house. Had he bypassed the box her father had shown her as a child, the one supposedly containing a deed to a portion of Foxemoore? That seemed too much to hope for. The box had been ornate and would immediately draw Pitt’s attention as a place to stash jewels.

  She saw it then. The box was sitting on the old scarred desk, the lock broken open and its contents dumped out. Emerald’s anger arose as she picked up several old letters, one of them from her mother’s family in Tortuga. There was a broken locket, too, and a braided dark brown tuft of her mother’s hair. Gently she put them back, along with the cameo showing her mother at sixteen, full of life and hope. Then, to her utter amazement, she picked up a paper signed by old Earl Killigrew Buckington, awarding Karlton Harwick shares in Foxemoore sugar. The Lord had protected the deed—Pitt could have destroyed it!

  So. Her father had told the truth all along. She felt a surge of pride and a longing to see him again. Tears wet her eyes as she ran her fingers along the deed. He was alive, and Baret would find him. Surely, in the midst of all her trials and sorrows, the Lord Jesus had overshadowed her with His grace. He had good plans for her, and He would see them fulfilled in His time and in His way.

  Later that evening, Ngozi showed up at the back door of the cook room to assure Emerald he was doing well and that Pitt hadn’t taken revenge against him or the others.

  “Not that he don’t dream about it, but he cannot. He is walking like a butterfly on a fragile blossom, Miss Emerald. He don’t say so, but the man is afraid of Captain Buckington.”

  As the days passed, Minette grew healthier, and the two of them talked incessantly of the upcoming betrothal in the Great House. Emerald had heard that Lavender was back, as well as Sir Cecil Chaderton, Baret’s old tutor from his days in London and France. Geneva, too, was feeling better and, though often confined to bed, had seen to it that Lady Sophie sent out invitations for the betrothal. The servants were under orders to prepare a great feast as they had at Geneva’s wedding. And Earl Nigel sent his valet down to the manor house with a written message:

  Is Minette’s illness an excuse to hide in the manor house? I expect the betrothed of my grandson to behave like a future countess, which includes looking elegant in the dining room of the Great House. I will expect you to take up residence tomorrow.

  Emerald frowned over the imposing stationery signed by the earl of Buckington. She and Minette were seated in the cook room, where Yolanda, for the noon meal, had fried a chicken that Zeddie claimed he had stumbled across while out hunting. Emerald had the notion the hen had come from Lady Sophie’s personal reserve, penned behind the Great House.

  “Not bad news again?” Minette groaned, seeing Emerald’s frown.

  “Earl Nigel expects me to move into the Great House tomorrow. Next week’s the betrothal, and the family is getting things ready.” She looked across the table at Minette. “You’re coming with me. I’ll insist.”

  Both Minette and Zeddie looked up from their chicken legs.

  “You too, Zeddie,” said Emerald firmly. “You’ll have a room in the back of the house with old Henry and the others.”

  “Now, m’gal, I’d rather sleep here in your father’s house. I’m taking no pleasure in the fancy ways of nobility.”

  Emerald smiled sweetly. “Zeddie, I want you near. If I needed you for some reason, it would take too long to send for you. Anyway, I don’t trust you here alone where Pitt can reach you.”

  “I’ll go, but I’m not thinkin’ I like the notion none. But Captain Buckington would expect me to stay nigh at hand.”

  Minette’s eyes shone with excitement. “You mean you really want me with you in the Great House?”

  Emerald laughed. “I wouldn’t stay without you. And just wait until you see the dress I have for you to wear to the betrothal ball.” She looked at Zeddie munching his chicken. “We’ve got to find Captain Farrow and invite him.”

  Minette scrambled to her feet, wringing her hands. “Ty will know where he is.” She looked at Zeddie. “Ty’s got to be in Port Royal. You’ve got to find ’em both. Oh, what a grand event!”

  Zeddie cocked his eye from Minette to Emerald and cleared his throat. “I’m thinkin’ Ty’s made a beeline for Tortuga.”

  Yolanda turned from the big woodstove. “No, he ain’t. He’s in Port Royal. Him and Captain Levasseur both. They was seen by ol’ Henry at the Red Goose. They’s all making big plans to sail with Morgan.”

  Emerald didn’t like the sound of it.

  “Then Captain Farrow must be in Port Royal too,” said Minette. “Emerald, you’ll write the invitation so Zeddie can deliver it tonight?”

  “Yes, of course,” Emerald said absently, now thinking of Levasseur. The fact that he was in Port Royal might mean trouble. And what of Ty? He was still considered a runaway slave by the family. Could Baret do anything?

  The next day, while preparing for the move to the Great House, Emerald was surprised to hear a horse and buggy pull up in front, carrying the dignified and friendly Sir Cecil Chaderton, Baret’s friend and staunch Puritan tutor. He had come, so he told her, to escort her home in the style Baret would wish, even if he had to do so himself.

  Sight of the godly Cambridge scholar with his sharp, sanctified gaze brought new confidence to Emerald. Here at last was one friend in the house, who not only thought well of her but who would see to Minette’s care.

  Despite the heat, he was impeccably dressed in a black frock coat and a wide-brimmed scholar’s hat absent the plume of the king’s dashing Cavaliers. His jaw-length silver hair was neatly paged against a lean, hawklike face, toughened and browned by the Jamaican sun, and he wore a well-groomed, short, pointed Sir Walter Raleigh beard.

  “Well, my dear Emerald, I congratulate you. You have Lady Sophie up in arms about the remo
val of Mr. Pitt. I assume, that upon Baret’s arrival, the justice of your decision will be determined.”

  “I hope you’re right, Sir Cecil, unless Mr. Pitt alters his ways considerably, but I think he’s hopelessly bound and cannot change.”

  “You’re right. The man is an odious creature. Quite in danger of losing his soul to the devil. I am profoundly amazed that the refined gentry in the house could stubbornly attest to his usefulness.

  “I’d like you to know I’ve taken a great interest in Mathias’s first work in establishing a singing school. And if you wouldn’t mind my involvement, I would like to stand with you in getting it built and functioning on Foxemoore. Jette tells me it was wondrous indeed. So have those two rascals of his, Timothy and Titus, who have been boasting of it since I arrived.”

  Emerald’s surprise turned into a smile of joy. “Would I mind if you were involved? Sir Cecil! Your attentions would be received as an answer to my prayers—and those of Mathias before he died. I couldn’t think of anyone more qualified.”

  “I’m pleased you feel that way, my dear. And I thought we might take a buggy ride out to the old spot where it was burned down in the slave uprising and rededicate the ground to His work.”

  The day was fresh with promise as they drove toward the burned-out bungalow that had once doubled as Great-uncle Mathias Harwick’s singing school and living quarters.

  Emerald remembered back with affection to her first meeting with Mathias. She’d been a child when he had come to Jamaica to start his missionary work among the indentured servants of various races on the plantations. They had first met on a Saturday morning at the manor house, when he came to tell Karlton that Emerald must be brought to his Sunday gathering. Hearing Mathias arrive, Emerald had come running down the steps—wearing pirate’s drawers.

  Uncle Mathias Harwick had turned pale. “An abomination,” he breathed to her father.

  Emerald had not known what an “abomination” might be, but she learned soon enough while attending her uncle’s Sunday gatherings. The Puritan code of ethics condemned the wearing of anything masculine by women, and men’s wearing feminine clothing. “It’s all there in the Scriptures,” he had told her. “In Leviticus and Deuteronomy.”

  As they drove on, Sir Cecil leaned back in the buggy seat and told her of his interest in renewing the singing school work.

  From the time she had told him about translating the slave chants into the message of Christianity, making it more understandable for the slaves brought from their tribes in West Africa, he had been touched by the Spirit of God to become involved. Because he was a lover of languages, the translation work appealed to him. And once he had firsthand knowledge of the miserable, destitute life of slaves, he felt called to spend his years on Foxemoore seeing that they heard about the grace and love of the Savior of the world.

  “I’ve already mentioned it to Baret. He heartily approves. It will mean, however, that I’ll not be able to go with Jette to attend his schooling in London as I first intended. Yet, I feel it’s more important to work with these people who have no hope at all. Jette, of course, is already favored. I am sure Nigel and Baret both will see that the boy receives the best tutorage available in London.”

  She wondered if he knew yet that Geneva and Felix hoped to take Jette with them to Porto Bello. She didn’t think he would approve any more than Baret would when he found out. She hadn’t told Baret in the letter she’d sent him through Zeddie, thinking it best to explain when she saw him on Foxemoore.

  “I have all of Uncle’s notes,” she told Sir Cecil. “It’s been my hope these months to one day have the time to continue his work, but there’s been one closed door after another. But now my heart has been made light. I know that your scholarly efforts will be far better than anything I could do.”

  “We will both strive to get the work done.” He took her arm and walked her to the scarred ground that still bore marks of the burned rubble. “Tell me more about Mathias,” he said. “I feel I should know this saint better before I deign to pick up his fallen mantle.”

  As the tropic wind blew warm and soft, Emerald poured out her heart about the elderly man who had first taught her to trust in the Scriptures as the infallible Word of God. Mathias had led her in prayer to receive the Savior. He had taught her to bring all her worries to Him and, later, to worship Him not for what God could give her but because of His incomparable goodness and greatness.

  Prior to coming to Jamaica, she told him, Mathias had often preached repentance to the pirates in London before they were hanged on Execution Dock.

  “He was in no way a cold and hard man who bore a scowl for wretches, but he was a worthy representative of Christ, kindly showing forth the compassion of God and proving his concern for the buccaneers by his fair deeds.

  “Sometimes his days consisted of twelve-hour vigils in which he treated sick slaves and indentured servants on many sugar and cocoa plantations here on Jamaica, receiving no remuneration from the planters and little encouragement from the families. Now and then, certain slaves would bring him gifts of lemons or plantain bread, trying to show their appreciation.”

  She paused, and Sir Cecil looked toward the plot where Mathias was buried.

  “He used to say his labors were trifles in comparison to the bounty of blessings the Lord had bestowed upon him,” Emerald continued. “He would as readily treat the leper in Christ’s name as any sick of gout or dysentery, and he used to bemoan the fact that he couldn’t gain the approval of the governor-general. A leper colony on Jamaica is forbidden, and so is teaching the slaves to read and write.”

  “Yes, so Baret told me. We need planters elected to the Council who will rewrite the laws,” he said. “Who knows? One day Baret himself may settle on Jamaica and stand for the Council himself.”

  She told him about another building Mathias had developed, a rambling structure made of palm trees near Chocolata Hole, the pirates’ “sweetest cove,” as they called it. Mathias had managed to hold some teaching services there without incurring the wrath of the planters, but there were many Sundays when he’d preached to only one or two. Once, only Hob, the retired pirate who sold turtles to the buccaneers in Port Royal, showed himself. And even his motives were suspect, for he always brought a turtle or two to sell to her uncle. Hob didn’t know it, but Uncle Mathias would return the turtles to the beach.

  But though ministry to the Brotherhood went ignored, the singing school for indentured servants and slaves did not. Teaching Christian music and trying to form a choir was considered unusual and on the borderline of apostasy, because at this time hymns were not sung in the churches. Mathias’s unusual music ministry eventually kindled the wrath of the inland planters.

  “They told him he was piling up wood for the fires of insurrection. They complained to the governor-general and the Council, several of whom were planters themselves. Uncle Mathias’s music was swiftly condemned. They accused him of learning voodoo music and said that if he persisted in his meddling they could arrange for a public whipping for witchcraft.

  “Geneva used her influence to protect him, but the matter was far from ended. The turmoil persisted, and a few from inland rode to confront him, threatening to put him in Brideswell. They relented as long as he kept his work confined to Foxemoore.

  “Geneva was willing to wait and see if the conduct of the slaves improved, and at one time she was considering building a brick structure to replace his thatch church—‘a terrible eyesore,’ so said Lady Sophie. But it wasn’t any worse than the slave huts.”

  “What happened to the work at Chocolata Hole?”

  “It must have ended when he died, but I can’t really be sure, since at that time I went aboard the Regale.”

  “Ah, yes … how we both remember that sprightly adventure.” The corner of his thin mouth turned down with wry amusement. “Since pirates are considered scum of the earth, no one is likely to care about the church out there. Maybe I’ll look into that as well.”


  Emerald turned to him, her eyes bright, thinking of the time she had been at Brideswell. She told him about her vow to have a minister come at least once a month to hold a meeting there.

  “We’ll certainly do something about it,” he said.

  Sir Cecil told her that Mathias’s work was truly original. “I suppose you know that Protestant missionary work in the West Indies is unheard of. Before the buccaneers came, it was forbidden by Spain’s Jesuits. These men first brought Christianity to the Main, but unfortunately they disbursed it with cruelty toward the Caribs and Africans. Mathias was a rare individual,” he continued. “He has left us good footprints to follow, but it is a very lonely path he trod—there has never been a Protestant missionary in Jamaica.”

  She looked at the energetic old scholar as the breeze touched his silver hair and saw in him a man equal to Mathias in many ways. Emerald smiled and looped her arm through his.

  “Baret thinks a good deal of you. Now I know why.”

  Sir Cecil reached into his frock coat and brought out a King James Bible. As they stood on the spot where the singing school had been born, he opened the worn pages and read from Luke about the Lord Jesus beginning His ministry:

  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”

  Afterwards they prayed, dedicating the new singing school to bringing the redeeming message of God’s love and forgiveness to those bound by the iron chains of slavery.

  Thank You, Father, for sending Cecil Chaderton to take the place of Uncle Mathias, she prayed silently. Thank You for what You are going to do in the future in the lives of these people on Foxemoore.

  Then Sir Cecil put his arm about Emerald and prayed aloud for her and Baret, thanking God for bringing them together and asking that He use them both to further His kingdom. “In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”