Langley's Choice

by Kate Dolan

  “A–a candlestick…” Josiah combed his memory to think of the other objects they had collected during their frenzied afternoon. “A patch box, two snuff boxes, some thimbles…”

  “Worth six hundred pounds?” Edward said skeptically.

  “And…a chamberpot,” Josiah admitted with as little fanfare as possible.

  “A chamberpot?” Edward’s roaring laugh made Josiah color immediately. “What am I to do with a gold chamberpot, I ask you, sir?”

  Although Josiah decided he would like to see the pirate wear it jammed onto his head, he refrained from saying so. “It’s gold,” he eventually said. “It can be melted into a more…conventional shape. We found ourselves rather pressed for time this afternoon.”

  “I will have to inspect these items,” Edward announced.

  Josiah looked around nervously, certain that thieves waited on every corner to make off with the gold the minute it appeared in view. “Should we not go somewhere more private?”

  “My ship, perhaps?” Edward grinned.

  “Not exactly.” Josiah looked to the other side. “Let us move up there.” He indicated a point about a hundred yards up the street. “Between those two buildings.”

  “Fair enough.” Edward waved down the street to Hardey.

  A minute later, as they entered the alcove, Josiah turned back to make sure the collection of gold objects remained intact.

  “Eaah!”

  A short yelp made him turn around just in time to see Miss Carter step back in surprise.

  Edward gestured for Hardey and ducked back into the street, out of her sight.

  “Miss Carter! I–we–all of us have been searching for you.” Josiah stepped toward her, and she backed further away. “Are you ill?”

  Miss Carter looked at the other men who had followed him into the alcove. “I’m looking for someone. I need to speak with someone.” She ignored Josiah and continued to scan the faces of the men crowding into the small space.

  “Please, Miss Carter, do not fear. We will get you home safely.” Josiah took her arm in a gesture meant to be reassuring.

  “No!” She pulled away. Suddenly, a large piece of canvas descended over her head. After a brief struggle, the seamen who had come around the other side of the building succeeded in bundling her into the sail and hoisting her into the air. Muffled screams escaped through the canvas.

  “Bloody hell!” One of the seamen dropped his end of the bundle and kicked it. “She bit me!”

  Josiah looked at the sail; he saw no more signs of a struggle and could hear no more screams. He turned to Edward. “Sir, I protest! What are you doing to this poor lady?”

  “I will deliver Miss Carter to the place of exchange, as promised. This,” he gestured to the sail, “was the most expedient means of persuasion. Now, I need to make sure that your bundles contain enough to fill your end of the bargain.”

  Josiah stood aghast as he watched Edward quickly rummage through all the gold items they had so carefully collected during the afternoon. He really could not just leave Miss Carter wrapped up in a sail under the care of unknown seamen, could he? On the other hand, they did not have much time, and, for whatever reason, Miss Carter did not seem anxious to join them of her own free will. Perhaps this was the best means of “persuasion” after all.

  “Hmmn, yes, this will do.” Edward started to distribute the items to waiting crewmembers.

  “But, sir, we do not yet have the other men!” Josiah protested.

  “You will. Hardey, have the Maryland men brought out of the boat.” Edward turned to the seamen holding the bound form of Miss Carter. “And you men, take care with your cargo. It’s heavy, and I don’t want you to tear the sail.”

  Josiah thought this seemed all wrong, and yet he could not think how to set things to right. Still, the end result did seem promising. So, he watched to see that the gold and Miss Carter were carried safely from the alcove down to the wharf. Not long after, Charles caught up with the procession of bundles headed down the street.

  “What is happening?” the younger man asked. “I could not find Caroline at the inn—it was just as the man said. What are you doing?”

  “The exchange will go forward, Charles.” Josiah felt as if he were speaking from outside himself. His own voice sounded distant to his ears, and the whole proceeding suddenly seemed to be part of a dream.

  “What? Have you taken leave of your senses?” Charles reached out a hand to stop Josiah. “Caroline is—”

  “Miss Carter is here, and we are ready to complete the exchange.” Josiah continued walking.

  “Where? Where is she?” Charles demanded, looking around.

  “She is ahead of us. And we will all be back on the Sea Lily soon. On our way home.”

  “Thank God!” Relief and exuberance showed in Charles’s face as well as his voice.

  I doubt very much that God had anything to do with this, Josiah thought dully as their strange procession neared its end.

  Chapter Nineteen

  That smell again. And her bed was moving, rocking like a cradle. With the sense of waking from a recurring dream, Caroline opened her eyes and found, to her surprise, that she could see. Red and orange beams from the early sun filled the cabin with a warm light, illuminating piles of books, papers and all manner of assorted objects in various states of wear. She was definitely on a ship, though not ’tween decks as she had been on the Osprey. The only cabin with light on that ship had belonged to the captain, so she was now likely in another captain’s cabin.

  Caroline sat up suddenly. So, where was this captain? Her head throbbed with pain, and she gripped it with both hands as if to squeeze the ache away. She noticed a large lump near her left ear. What had happened to her? Rum could not be the culprit this time; she had avoided the evil liquor with a fervency approaching religion.

  She tried to recall her movements to account for her present state. She had gone down to the waterfront, she had been looking for Captain Talbot and then Mr. Throckmorton had discovered her hiding place and…that was about all she could remember. Something had covered her, tried to smother her. She had screamed and felt hands on her body and something over her mouth, and she’d clamped down her jaw, like an animal trying to free itself from a trap.

  That was all.

  Caroline looked around the cabin. The covering, whatever it had been, was nowhere in evidence. Only a small shred of blanket lay on the cot at her side; it was barely enough to wrap up an ear of corn, let alone a grown girl such as herself. Or, rather, a grown lady.

  She felt a chill creep over her, and she lay back down on the cot, wincing as the tender spot on her head hit the ticking. Mr. Throckmorton must be responsible. He must have taken her and put her on this ship. Had he hit her? Had he forcibly dragged her inert body to the ship? No, certainly not. He would pay somebody to do those things.

  So, the ship must be headed home, and she would then be safe. Caroline turned her head to look out the windows in the stern. The light, still glowing orange and red, eased her sense of despair a bit. She tried to resign herself to her fate as an ordinary planter’s wife. After all, the freedom had been too good to last. She sighed.

  Then a picture came into her mind: Captain Talbot at the rail, coat undone, the wind ruffling his hair. She sighed again. A planter’s wife, in theory, she could perhaps be. But in actuality? After this, could she marry an ordinary planter? To wit, could she marry Mr. Throckmorton?

  Marriage had always seemed the way to escape the daily monotony of life at Hill Crest, and the means to freedom and adulthood. She had always known she would marry a gentleman with his own plantation, and then she would preside over functions at her own house and would not have to share servants with her sisters. When Mr. Throckmorton had arrived from London last year, the girls had been overjoyed by their good fortune, for everyone was certain he would wed one of them. As the eldest, Caroline had seemed the most logical choice.

  Though she’d been anxious to have her marriag
e settled, she had soon learned Mr. Throckmorton was not at all dashing or heroic. In fact, he had turned out to be rather awkward and shy. So, she had felt in no rush to spend all her time with him. She wanted to enjoy the role of the betrothed young lady, secure in her future yet free in the present.

  And she had enjoyed the freedom a great deal. Perhaps too much. The escapade at the Fall Inn had taken her far beyond what a lady should ever…and yet, if she had not…

  Caroline’s eyes scanned the planks above her head, but Captain Talbot’s face danced in her vision. Would she never see him again? What would she have to do to get back to him?

  Could she marry anyone other than Captain Talbot? Caroline closed her eyes. She did not think she could.

  After a minute, she opened her eyes. Would she, then, be doomed to end her days as a spinster, the unmarried aunt, forever a burden to her brother’s family? This prospect sounded equally bleak.

  To push those thoughts from her head, Caroline rolled out of her cot to a stooped standing position and moved unsteadily over to the windows to contemplate the comforting red sky. She shivered in the strong breeze and for the first time regretted wearing a fashionable gown. The borrowed laborer’s clothes she had worn aboard the Osprey would have better protected her from the surprisingly fierce wind ripping in gusts through the open windows.

  Josiah yawned and stared blearily into the mug of brownish liquid that passed for coffee on the Sea Lily. From a certain angle, it looked just about like coffee, but if he lifted the cup anywhere near his nose the illusion vanished. He sighed and wrapped his hands tightly around the scratched sides of the mug, determined to enjoy at least the warmth of the strange brew sloshing around inside it.

  Why was air so chilly this morning? They had left Charles Town feeling the same sluggish heat he had known in Maryland, and once at sea all had relaxed in the cooler, fresh sea air. But now that air had changed from refreshingly cool to uncomfortably chilly. His alleged coffee seemed to grow cold even as he held it.

  Josiah decided to toss the contents over the side and headed for the lee of the sloop so he would not have the liquid blown back into his face. When he turned back from the rail, the sensation of the wind full in his face nearly took his breath away. It was just a gust, but a discomfiting sensation, nonetheless.

  As he moved to a more sheltered part of the deck, he noticed another disturbing feature of the weather. The sky glowed with an unnatural red light. Josiah shivered slightly. He remembered a sailor on the passage from England saying that a red sky in the morning was some sort of bad omen. Or was it a red sky at night?

  He started to walk, but in the small space he could really only take one or two steps before turning. He felt like he was spinning in a circle, so he made himself stop. Perhaps the red sky omen was simply another tale told to frighten passengers.

  But he thought not. The sailors, he noticed, also watched the sky with unusual interest. And they seemed uncommonly silent this morning—no whistling, and no skylarking.

  This silence made the whistled tune he suddenly heard behind him seem spooky, and he whirled around almost expecting to see a ghost.

  “A pleasant morning, Josiah, is it not? Look at that sky. Only the hand of God could paint with such a vibrant palette.”

  Leave it to Charles to find beauty in such a sinister omen. “Or on such a large canvas,” Josiah responded, looking overhead warily. “I believe, Charles, that we may be in for a storm.” As he grabbed a rail to steady himself, he thought back to their earlier conversation and hoped Charles would be content to have seen the hand of God paint the sky and not desire to see the divine hand stir up a fantastical storm.

  Charles laughed as the pitch of the deck suddenly shifted, knocking him into Josiah. “Yes, it does appear to be getting a bit rough!”

  The angle of the deck reversed, and both men scrambled to keep out of the way as the sailors shouted orders about reefing the lug fores’l and other nautical mysteries.

  “No rain yet, though,” Charles continued.

  Josiah turned to look into the wind and saw the sky had grown noticeably darker in just the last few minutes. He felt a drop of water hit his cheek. Spray from the sea? Looking over the side, he could see the waves were, indeed, almost coming close enough to reach them on deck. Should they go below? He felt another drop hit his face, then another. It was still hard to tell if the drops were of rain or spray, since the wind whipped from the side with such ferocious gusts. They should go below.

  “All hands! All hands on deck!” The voice swept through the dark, cramped spaces ’tweendecks, and the few crewmembers who were not already on deck rose wearily from their berths and headed for the gangway.

  “I think we came down just in time,” Josiah announced, pushing a damp lock of hair from his forehead.

  “Sirs.” A figure paused respectfully before Josiah and Charles as they sat on a crude bench. “The cap’n has asked for your presence on deck, as well.”

  “What?” Josiah wondered if he had heard the man correctly. Did the captain expect them to go outside in the storm?

  “Please, sirs.”

  “What? Why? Is this some kind of a sailor’s joke?”

  The seaman’s voice grew apologetic. “If you please, sirs…we have not enough hands for this storm.”

  “You what?” Josiah still could not believe his ears.

  Charles’ eyes widened briefly, but he stood as if to demonstrate readiness for the challenge. “Yes, of course.” He gave Josiah that searching look he always found so unnerving. “Shall we, Mr. Throckmorton?”

  Josiah closed his mouth, wondering just how long he had sat there with it gaping. “After you, Mr. Carter,” he finally said, lurching wildly in his attempt to stand up.

  “All hands! All hands on deck!”

  Caroline heard the distant summons several times and tried to enjoy the fact that she could ignore it. As a prisoner, or, at most, passenger, on whatever vessel this was, they could not expect her to report on deck for duty.

  But what vessel was it? What if Captain Talbot had taken her, moved her to another ship to confuse Mr. Throckmorton and her brother? Or what if Captain Talbot had been taken prisoner as she had been. Either way, he could be aboard at this very moment.

  If he were, she could prove her worthiness to him by coming out on deck to help in the storm, even though she owed no official duty.

  In the creaking darkness, Caroline climbed carefully up the ladder then braced herself before pushing up the hatch. Water immediately filled her eyes and she wiped them frantically, trying to see. With her eyes closed, she pulled herself out onto the wet, heaving deck. For several minutes, she remained curled up on her knees, too unsteady to try to gain footing in the blinding rain and spray. After a time, she found she could keep her eyes open without pain, and she scanned the deck, looking for Captain Talbot.

  Was that Mr. Throckmorton near the rail? He was not looking at her, fortunately. What was he pulling on? Why was he out on deck in this storm? And was that Charles with him?

  A seaman of some apparent authority shouted orders to them then moved farther astern. Caroline would talk to the sailor, volunteer for duty and try to find out whether Captain Talbot was aboard. She stood up and carefully picked her way across the debris on deck. It was slippery but steady enough so she did not have to grab hold of anything to keep her balance.

  Then, suddenly, the world flipped upside down. Caroline felt herself tumbling through air and water. Once, twice, she bumped on something solid but could not grasp anything. She caught a breath that was half-seawater, and felt herself choking. She kicked but could not scream. And then she realized she was in the water.

  Clinging to the stays, Josiah stood frozen in horror. One moment, Miss Carter had been coming toward them. Then the ship had pitched wildly and a wave had crashed across the deck, sweeping her over the side.

  “Caroline!” Charles screamed, his voice instantly carried away by the wind.

  Both men could
see her head emerge from the water about twenty feet away, then a wave tumbled over her and she was lost to view.

  Charles scrambled across to the other side of the deck, climbed up onto the bulwark and dove into the sea. This action seemed to free Josiah from his paralysis; he ran to the sailor at the wheel.

  “Stop the ship! We need help!” Josiah pointed to where Miss Carter and her brother had disappeared into the sea.

  “What?”

  “Help, we need help. They’ve gone over. You must go and get them!”

  “Are ye daft, man? If they’ve gone over, they’re gone.”

  “No! They’re out there, and someone must go out and save them.”

  “We’re none of us goin’ out into that. We’ve our work cut out to keep the ship from goin’ over.” The helmsman turned his face away.

  Josiah could see no one else who might help. What could he do by himself? In desperation, he pushed the helmsman aside and grabbed the wheel. “Stop the ship! You must help me get them!”

  “Heave to!” A voice ordered from behind him. “All right, sir, if ye want to try, ye go yourself.”

  Josiah looked at the captain then moved to the rail, suddenly feeling quite sick as though his insides were being squeezed with a vise.

  With the rising of the next wave, he could just see one head in the water. But it did not make sense to just jump in; he would be no better off than they. Josiah looked around and spotted a coil of thin rope. Seizing it quickly, he uncoiled it and tied one end to the rail. He kicked off his shoes and tore off his coat, then fumbled frantically on the deck for the other end of the rope. This he tied twice around his waist. Then he gripped the rail, pausing to look down at the gray waves pounding furiously on the side of the ship.

  Be not afraid.

  Josiah heard the words in his head almost as though Charles were standing next to him, reading nightly devotions into his ear. He looked out—was that Charles in the water or Miss Carter? Be not afraid. Josiah closed his eyes and jumped.