Langley's Choice

by Kate Dolan

  This morning, though, even the covers and the feather pillow failed to satisfactorily block enough light to permit him to go back to sleep. He reluctantly admitted he should get up—he had much to do to prepare to leave the plantation in the hands of his overseer while he sailed the seven seas with that fool, Charles Carter.

  But when Josiah did get up, it was only to close the shutters to his window. He dove back into the bed, causing the cords supporting the mattress to creak alarmingly. Suddenly, he felt the middle part of his body sinking toward the floor. He tried to turn over and found it very difficult, as his feet were now elevated much higher than his torso. When was the last time Betty had tightened the bed?

  With difficulty, he pulled himself over the side of the bed onto the floor. The feather ticking sagged in the middle at a ridiculous angle. From his vantage point on the floor, Josiah could see that the cord holding up the featherbed had split into two sections. The knot had come undone from one of the split ends. What a sorry way to set up a bed!

  He noticed that a thick layer of dust had been disturbed by his footprints when he walked to the window. How long had it been since Betty had dusted his room?

  If the servants managed his affairs this poorly right under his nose, what would happen to the house while he was gone? And what about his tobacco fields? He needed this first crop to be a success. Now he would not be here for the harvest, and the all-important curing and prizing. His vanity refused to allow him to comfort himself with the reflection that he was essentially ignorant of the processes, while his overseer had been working on tobacco plantations for ten years.

  Josiah looked at the remains of his bed. There was no way he could go back to sleep. He had to face this day.

  Chapter Seven

  Edward paced the deck restlessly, failing to find refreshment in the salt breeze. His backers would be expecting something soon from this voyage. With the war over, his father and the associates who put up the money to buy and outfit the Osprey would know that all letters of marque had been called in. They would expect him back in Dublin soon with their share of the profits.

  Edward looked back on the accomplishments of the last year with no small amount of pride, but he understood his backers would expect him to return with more than just a few good stories for the fireside. All of the plundered cargoes had been sold, and although he had set aside a portion of the proceeds for his father and the others it wasn’t enough to reflect his success as a privateer captain. He could spin tales of bad luck for his backers and secretly keep the remaining proceeds for himself, but then he would appear a failure in the eyes of Dublin society.

  He simply needed more.

  His crew, too, needed an incentive. All this time at sea, the men had taken no salary. They earned only their share of whatever prizes the Osprey captured, and as of now, they didn’t have authority to capture any. It was not a healthy atmosphere for a ship—no common enemy as in a war, no prospect of riches or even wages. Men had turned pirate with less provocation.

  In fact, they technically were pirates now, all of them. Would it be so very difficult to…?

  Lord, no. Then there could be no chance of returning home to acquire an estate to rival that of his brother.

  He would obtain a new letter of marque, then, to hunt pirates instead of the queen’s enemies. Maybe he wouldn’t even have to go so far as the West Indies; one of the colonial governors on the mainland might grant such authorization. Perhaps one of these governors would be so anxious for his services he wouldn’t even expect Edward to pay for the letter.

  So, which colony should he approach? Virginia was closest, of course, but the colony was so tied to England he doubted her governor would dare to break wind without permission from Parliament. Edward smiled; he found that observation quite witty.

  Next would be North Carolina.

  “You there, boy.” The lad looked up after a pause and responded to Edward’s gesture with irritating slowness. “Send Mr. Hardey my compliments and ask if he would be so good as to meet with me in my cabin as soon as possible.”

  Edward hoped Hardey knew the capital of North Carolina.

  “Enter,” Edward replied to the knock on the door of his cabin a short time later.

  “Good mornin’, Captain.” Hardey stepped into the room with a smooth pace that contrasted sharply with his rough, angular appearance.

  Edward was leaning over a tattered chart spread on a small table. “Mr. Hardey, I need your counsel.”

  A smile tugged at the corner of Hardey’s mouth.

  “We need to plot a course for the capital of North Carolina,” Edward continued.

  One eyebrow arched slightly upward in surprise, but otherwise, Hardey remained still.

  “This chart is not as much help as I had hoped. It refers simply to the colony of ‘Carolina.’” Edward moved aside to allow his first officer to examine the chart.

  Both men studied in silence, each hoping for the other to display some knowledge of exactly where, along this unpromising coastline, they would have to try to land.

  Finally, Hardey spoke. “I must admit I am not familiar with the coast of the Carolinas at close range. I know it by reputation to be treacherous in large portion, and I believe the northern colony lacks a good deepwater port. Without such an obvious center of trade, I have no idea where they’d put their capital.”

  Edward pushed the chart away in disgust. “Frankly, Mr. Hardey, I’m not sure there is a capital of North Carolina.”

  Hardey looked as though he wanted to ask why his captain had chosen that ambiguous destination, but as usual he held his tongue.

  “We will seek a letter of marque from the governor of North Carolina to take pirates in his coastal waters,” Edward explained. “The coastline is full of shallow inlets, but the Osprey is…” He paused to think of a word that would convey a sense of small size without betraying a lack of significance. “…maneuverable enough to weather the coast well. With no cargo, we have a shallow enough draft, and I’ll trust you can keep us off any sandbars that come our way.” He smiled reassuringly.

  Hardey did not return his smile. His face took on a grim expression as he looked down at the chart once more.

  “And, of course,” Edward continued, “once we have the authorization from the governor we can really hunt wherever we choose. We’ll report, from time to time, what we’ve taken, and he will never know whether the brigands came from his waters or someone else’s.” He smiled again. “The best part, of course, is that we shall have an honest claim to all that the pirates have taken, and any reward money that may be offered. We’ll return to Dublin as heroes. Very wealthy heroes, at least you and I.”

  Edward would have enough to keep a mistress in town and one in the country, as well. And perhaps he could downplay the actual success of the venture; it would reduce the appearance of his success, of course, but it would enable him to reserve a larger portion for himself without the knowledge of his backers.

  Hardey did not look convinced.

  With a small sigh, Edward brought himself back to the present and rolled up the frayed chart. He took a couple of paces to the rear of the cabin, ducking slightly to avoid smashing his head on the beams above.

  “The drills yesterday, Mr. Hardey, were not what I had hoped. But, they were, frankly, what I expected. You’ve left them skylarking around on deck when they should be drilling. Even the experienced crewmen are woefully out of practice with the guns.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “The new men?” Edward left the question open.

  “Only two of them from the Canary, Captain. Both seamen. The other eight, all from plantations.”

  “Any skilled labor?” Edward hated the sound of forlorn hope that had crept into his voice.

  “No carpenters or coopers,” Hardey replied, “although one man says he knows some carpentry. And no surgeons.”

  “Damn.” Edward grimaced. “I didn’t expect all of our new recruits to be experienced seamen, but I
had hoped to acquire at least one man with carpentry skills.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “We should never have allowed that carpenter we hired at Annapolis to leave the ship.”

  Hardey looked at him sharply but said nothing.

  “This man who says he knows something of carpentry,” Edward continued, “get him to work with Adams fixing the worst of the storm damage. As for the others, you may assign them to the posts you think fit best. We will begin more drills in a half an hour. No guns, today, though. I first want to make sure our new seamen won’t run us aground on the godforsaken coast of North Carolina.”

  They would leave tomorrow. Josiah had packed a trunk with what he could only guess he would need during the next several months. Who knew how long they’d be gone? He stood looking at the contents spilling out over the sides. Two trunks, perhaps? He chewed on his thumbnail absently. He really didn’t need to bring four waistcoats. And while he wasted time fretting over details of his wardrobe, he should instead be finishing the instructions for Ellis, his overseer.

  He cast a disparaging look at the trunk and headed downstairs, nearly tripping on the narrow winding stairs as he did about half of the time. He passed through the main room of the house and into a smaller room he referred to as “the Library.” This small, unheated parlor was actually too uncomfortable to be used for much of anything, other than storage. It was cold in winter, obviously, and had so little ventilation as to be unbearably hot and a damp haven for mildew and insects in summer.

  Nevertheless, it was a second room, and Josiah was determined to use it. He pulled out the instructions he had started for his overseer and sat down to write.

  After a few minutes of staring at an ominous dark patch that appeared to be growing on the baseboard, Josiah began to examine his pen and decided it needed sharpening. For that matter, his knife needed sharpening, too—he couldn’t very well run off in search of pirates with a dull knife. He called for Betty; and when she arrived, wiping her blackened hands on her apron, he handed her the knife and asked her to sharpen it “at once.” She fairly glared at him, and he thought of the heavy whetstone in the yard with some guilt. Then he waved her off.

  After she left, with mumblings of protest and ill will surrounding her like a cloud, Josiah resumed staring at the dark blob on the baseboard. He started to turn his attention to a fingernail then instead picked up all of his papers to move to the comfortable table in the main room. Since Betty now did the cooking in the new kitchen outside, the main room was relatively neat and quiet. Still, Josiah hated the thought some visitor might come and find him working in the same room where meals were taken, like a common planter.

  He looked again at the instructions for Ellis. He certainly hoped the man could read. It had never occurred to him to ask before. Good God, what if no one in the household could read? Josiah stood suddenly and looked out the window to the nearest fields, as if he could detect literacy at two hundred yards.

  Calm down, he told himself. Ellis could at least read a little—he had been making entries in the account books as long as he had worked at Hanset. After dinner Josiah would take a leisurely stroll to the fields and would broach the topic of the instructions with his overseer. It was not seemly for a gentleman to get too anxious, and as he prepared for his present adventure, he was most desirous of retaining the demeanor of a gentleman in this forsaken wilderness.

  A sharp knock sounded on the door, followed by the cheerful voice of Charles Carter.

  “Mr. Throckmorton, are you at home, sir?”

  There was no time to retreat to the other room. Josiah hastily shuffled his papers into one haphazard pile in the hopes of making it look at though he had merely set the work down on his way to his library. Without Betty, he realized he would have to open the door for himself.

  “Ah, Mr. Carter. What a pleasant surprise.” It was a surprise, at least. Josiah invited his visitor to take a seat on the bench across the table from where he had been sitting. “May I get you some refreshment?”

  “Thank you, no.” Charles had taken one step into the room and remained standing, with the door open. “I’ve only come to tell you that Captain Johnson desires to leave at daybreak, so you may wish to send your luggage along this afternoon to be stowed on board.”

  “Oh. Ah, thank you.” Josiah tried to hide his displeasure at this development. The captain’s plans had originally called for a departure on the later tide, and Josiah had counted on the extra time to finish ordering his affairs. A heavy sigh escaped before he was even aware of it.

  Charles stepped back to the doorway, then turned and smiled. “‘Be not afraid; neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.’”

  Josiah looked at him strangely.

  “The Book of Joshua, Chapter 1, Verse 9. The Book will make a good companion on our journey. Good day, Mr. Throckmorton.”

  Josiah remained frozen in amazement even after Charles had gone. The boy was quoting scripture to him? And what was this, “be not afraid?” He was not afraid. Certainly not. He was merely…anxious…concerning the preparation of his plantation.

  Josiah sat back down at the table, sifted through the pile of papers to find a clean sheet then picked up his quill. “Last Will and Testament of Josiah Hanset Throckmorton,” he wrote.

  Writing to his sister and brother would be the most difficult task of all. Naturally, Josiah saved this job until the very last, and it was late at night as he watched the candles burn lower and tried to compose a satisfactory-sounding letter for what seemed like the four-hundredth time that day.

  Fatigue finally forced an uncustomary bluntness upon him.

  “My Dearest Eleanor,” he wrote, “I am writing to inform you that my affairs in Maryland require me to travel at some length and I will be out of correspondence for an unknown period of time. Should you need to contact someone on my behalf, you may write to John Carter of Hill Crest Plantation. You recall that I am engaged to marry his daughter, Miss Caroline Carter, next year.”

  He sat back and read it. Not bad. He had included the necessary message with no hint of the scandal that was likely to erupt from the incident. He had been so concerned about how to describe the reason for his departure but now saw it was not necessary to mention that fact at all.

  “I do hope that you and Sir James are well and that my lords at Whitehall do their duty and appoint him to the position you find most desirous.”

  He probably should have put that earlier in the letter, or at least the general wish for their health, but it was too late. He had not another piece of paper left on which to start anew; indeed, he had written his sister’s name and address on the top of this page earlier in the day and was now forced to use it even though a large grease stain now outlined the left margin. His fastidious sister would not be pleased, but he was past caring.

  Josiah copied the same text onto the page he had addressed to his brother and folded and sealed both letters.

  He was ready.

  Chapter Eight

  Captain Talbot had beautiful dark eyes. Caroline had noticed his eyes when he’d called her to deliver a message to Hardey, the big coarse sailor who had made fun of her so many times. "Mr." Hardey, as she was supposed to call him, apparently held a position of great authority on the ship, and everyone did what he ordered without asking questions. Even she had stopped asking questions. The first couple of times, he had merely laughed and said something disparaging about her being a little mouse. Then one time, he cuffed her across the face so hard she had spun into the deck rail. He warned her then that questioning an order was a flogging offense. Caroline did not know what flogging was, but she assumed it was not pleasant. Not much on this ship was.

  After telling Mr. Hardey the captain wanted to see him, Caroline returned to the section of the deck she had been scrubbing with holystone and seawater. She hoped Captain Talbot was still on deck; she wanted to see his eyes again, just to be sure. She thought they were probably dark brown, but they could
be a very deep blue.

  He was nowhere to be seen. Caroline sighed and plopped down to her knees then looked at her hands. As rough as those of any slave in the fields. Since she had left home so many days ago, she had not seen her reflection, other than as rough shadow cast in the cloudy salt water of the ocean. She guessed that by now she must surely look the part she was learning to play as a sailor boy. The skin on her arms was red and freckled, even though she kept her sleeves rolled down as much as possible when out in the sun. Her face must show even more evidence of the sun, for her hat seemed to provide little coverage. Her lips were dry and cracked, and sometimes even bled a little. She tried not to think about her hair, which was clumped into dry, hard strands. It was pulled back out of her sight, but she could see what the sun and salt water had done to the hair of the men around her.

  She looked around for the captain one last time. He had dark eyes and a very fine nose, she decided. Rather patrician. He must be of noble lineage to have such a distinguished profile and such delicate hands. Those hands, which moved in eloquent, flowing gestures when he spoke, were so unlike everyone else's on the ship—even hers, now. That meant he had never been a common sailor or laborer.

  Caroline knew that officers in the queen's army came only from good families, and she assumed the same must be true of officers in the navy. But, though this ship flew the British flag, it was not a naval ship. The crew seemed to be some type of pirates, or perhaps smugglers. Why else had they kidnapped her and the men at Elkridge Landing? And surely men of good family did not command pirate ships!

  So how, then, did this noble-born gentleman end up in such suspicious circumstances? Caroline began to imagine all sorts of tragedies befalling his family in Ireland—she'd heard enough to know most of the ship's crew had been assembled in Dublin, and assumed the Talbot family to have, at one time at least, possessed an immense estate in the Irish countryside. Perhaps an evil uncle had assumed control of the family holdings during his father's absence in King William's war. Or perhaps his father had died of fever and his mother remarried an evil man who forced him (and maybe brothers and sisters) to fend for themselves on the streets. This might explain taking to a pirate's way of life—he was doing it to support his poor younger brothers and sisters back home.