The ship’s stays and shrouds fluttered in the warm breeze, putting Barbara in mind of the magnificent galleons of bygone days. What bliss it would be to sit atop the main mast’s crosstree. “We’d like to inquire about sailing on the Vigilant.”
“You must speak to Captain Jamieson about that. He’ll be back this evening.”
Barbara turned to her mother. “I’ll die if we can’t gain passage aboard her. She’s a real beauty.”
“Please don’t get your hopes up,” her mother said. “And we’ve already found a steamer that won’t cost us much.”
To kill time, they wandered Honolulu’s bustling Fort Street, as packed with vehicles as any modern American city, dined in a cubbyhole eatery, and returned to the harbor early evening. Settling on the pier beside the Vigilant, they dangled their feet over the lapping waters and admired the schooner. Or, more accurately, Barbara admired it. Her mother just fidgeted and repeated various versions of “There’s probably little chance of gaining passage on her.”
Come dusk, a towering man with a silver-gray mustache strolled down the dock and turned toward the ship’s plank.
Barbara sprang up to intercept him. “Captain Jamieson?”
“The very one,” said he.
“Barbara Follett at your service.” She shook his hand. What a fine specimen of a sailor he was. She could picture him standing wide-legged on deck, majestic as the captains of old, his white shirt billowing in the wind while he boomed out commands.
Her mother introduced herself and said, “We’re New Englanders, just landed here.”
“Always nice to meet a couple of Yankees,” he said.
“May we come aboard, Captain?” Barbara asked.
“Certainly.” He motioned them up the plank.
“We’ve been at sea nearly a year,” Barbara said, “visiting the West Indies, the Panama Canal, and Tahiti and Tonga, too.”
“All on steamer ships,” her mother added.
“But I love a square-rigger,” said Barbara. “I sailed on one two years ago and can’t get over the fever to do it again.”
“Would you like to see the chart room?” asked the captain.
Barbara clapped her hands together. “Oh, yes, please.”
Single file, they stepped down the stairs to the chart room, which smelled of pipe tobacco, tar, and timber. He motioned them to scoot onto the narrow bench beside a built-out table and pulled his captain’s chair up at the table’s end. When Barbara admired the large yellow-with-age map of the Pacific on the wall, the captain set off on tales of his travels. Barbara encouraged him, but her mother just sat there like a lump, her arms crossed.
After a round of seafaring parley, Barbara asked, “Tell me, Captain, is there any way we might sail with you to Washington? We need to get back to the States, and I can’t imagine a grander way to go.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t take any passengers. Owner’s rules.”
Oh, no, Barbara thought. “Is there no way? I promise we wouldn’t be a bother.”
Captain Jamieson scrunched his brow.
“We could earn our keep,” Barbara said. “I’m an experienced cabin boy.”
“Well, perhaps I could sign you on as crew.”
Her mother gave him a one-eyed squint. “With what duties?”
“Well, you could be stewardess and your daughter here assistant to the cabin boy. But only for a dollar each.”
Barbara’s heart skipped. How could her mother argue with that—no fare at all to pay!
Her mother braced her forearms on the table. “Would we need to pay for food? And what kind of quarters would we have?”
Captain Jamieson folded his thick, weathered hands over his belly. “Crew eats whatever the cook serves. It’s not fancy. There’s a room with one bunk you could share. But it’s small.”
He showed them the cramped room they might take, and Barbara turned pleading eyes on her mother.
“All right, Captain,” said her mother. “We accept your offer.”
✭
What great fortune: Finally, Barbara had discovered an old-style square-rigger as magnificent as any she could’ve imagined. Yes, she and her mother had to cram their belongings into two drawers and a cupboard and sleep head to toe on the narrow cot. But Barbara didn’t mind. She’d spend most of her time mixing with the sailors and helping on deck or in the galley. There was no better remedy for her sunken spirits.
The first morning out, Barbara made the rounds, asking the cabin boy to divvy up chores with her and inviting the cook to call on her whenever he wished—“I’m a darn good pot scrubber, and I actually enjoy clean-up duty.” Once wind filled the sails and set the Vigilant on a clear course, she regaled a party of seamen lounging on the deck with tales of her Norman D adventures. Over their first dinner, she positioned herself across from the first and second mates and recounted the tasks she’d mastered on the varied vessels she’d traveled on.
The sturdy second mate, Ethan Anderson, studied her quietly, leaving the first mate to carry the conversation, though he did ask a few questions along the way, such as “How did you find steamers after first sailing on a square-rigger?” and “What sort of sea life did you encounter in the Atlantic?” Oh, how she loved sailor talk!
On their steamer trips, Barbara and her mother had occasionally slept topside, for Barbara loved losing herself in the night’s starry sky. Their second evening on the Vigilant, Barbara begged her mother to sleep on deck: “Nothing can equal the spectacle of stars dancing about the mast, Mother.”
As the moonless sky darkened, Barbara and her mother brought their sleeping gear up to the deck and discussed where to pass the night. The open area behind the jiggermast seemed a suitable spot.
“Yes, the view’s clear enough here,” said Barbara, dropping their blankets and pillows.
“I have to get my journal,” her mother said, trailing off toward the companionway.
Barbara scanned the deck and noticed second mate Ethan Anderson stationed at the stern taffrail.
“Good evening to you,” she said.
He answered in a hushed tone. “And evening to you.”
Barbara stood a dozen paces from him, debating whether to speak. Should she emulate his meditative bearing or draw him out? Over dinner, she’d pegged him for a pensive soul, given mostly to listening, with a habit of scratching the back of his neck when he spoke. He was of solid build, around six-two, with wavy blond hair and questioning blue eyes.
“Are you on first watch?” she asked.
“Till eight bells. I don’t mind, though. It’s quiet. All you can hear besides the wind and water are the ship’s groans.”
This was as many words as she’d heard him utter at once. “Yes, I missed that on steamers. With their engines perpetually grinding and growling.”
“This is a ship you can appreciate. You can be a part of her.”
“She comes alive when you work her sails, doesn’t she?”
“There’s mystery in her,” he said. “In all the sailors who’ve crewed on her, cargos she’s carried, and waters she’s crossed.”
Barbara ambled toward the stern, to a position at the taffrail five feet from him. She guessed him to be in his mid-twenties, but he sounded like an old soul of the sea. “How long have you known her?”
“Six years. Can hardly imagine any other work.”
“You have the sea madness, then, like me?”
He chuckled softly. “Yes, I suppose I do.”
They stood silent for a minute, studying the skies.
“I missed the North Star, all those months in the South Seas,” Barbara said, tracing the stem of the Little Dipper to Polaris.
“I’d like to read that Norman D book you wrote.”
“I’ve also written a poem about pirates, with a mysterious map and wild deeds. It was nearly published in Vanity Fair. You might like that, too.”
“I’m sure I would.”
“Do you find much time to read at sea?”
&nb
sp; “Yes, and in port, while the crew’s off carousing.”
“You can’t have much room for books on board.”
“I bring as many as I can. Conrad, mostly.”
Oh my, she thought, a sailor who reads Conrad. A philosophical sailor. She studied his silhouette—the forward thrust of his chin, a nose as straight as honesty, and willful coils of blond hair. “Last Conrad I read was Heart of Darkness.”
“A disquieting book, isn’t it?”
Might he be someone she could discuss Heart of Darkness with? The ship lurched over a swell, and she gripped the taffrail. She asked, “When Marlow said, ‘The mind of man is capable of anything,’ do you think he meant dark things?”
Ethan grasped the back of his neck and stared out at the sea. “I like to think he meant the virtues of the heart as well.”
Barbara hesitated about asking a question Conrad’s Lord Jim had provoked in her: When a man has committed a dark deed, can he be saved from himself? Then she saw her mother step up onto the deck and swivel around looking for her.
“I’m here, Mother.”
“Well, come along,” her mother said.
Barbara turned to Ethan. “Good night to you.”
✭
This sailor Ethan intrigued her. She wanted to draw out more of his musings and linger over their meaning. But his quiet manner evoked an uncharacteristic shyness in her, and reticence overcame her whenever she passed him in the alleyways or on deck. Still, as she observed his comings and goings, she couldn’t resist angling for another occasion to speak with him.
Two days after their evening encounter, she spotted him seated against the foremast, the corner of a sail strewn over his lap and the rest of it wafting in the breeze. Needle in hand, he bent intently over the sail, mending away. The cook’s black and white kitten pounced on a sudden billowing of the sail and then eyed the thread Ethan tugged through the fabric.
Her heart raced at the sight of him. Part of her wanted to turn away, but she knew she wouldn’t. She strode up to him. “Hello, mate, may I keep you company?”
“Yes. You might help, in fact.” He elbowed the kitten away from the thread. “Can you restrain this rascal?”
Barbara scooped up the kitten and, seating herself against the railing, nestled it onto her lap. She glanced from aft to stern: at the first mate manning the helm; at the masts soaring overhead; at the clutch of crewmen on the poop deck chattering away. They made her smile—the way they laughed and bantered.
Barbara stroked the kitten’s cheeks. It twisted onto its back and batted its paws at her. “Thirty days to Hoquiam, Captain says. Figure he’s right?”
Ethan finished a stitch and glanced up at her. “Most likely. He and the first mate compare sextant readings every day.”
“Well, I’m hoping for a good long journey.” Barbara looked out over the shimmering ocean. “This is my idea of paradise.”
Ethan smiled. “You’re a romantic of the sea, aren’t you?”
“And you? You say you can’t imagine anything else.”
“It’s true. The sea’s magic has me in its grip, though on snowy winter nights, I like nothing more than a blazing fireplace, a book, and a cup of tea.”
Barbara looked down. The kitten had fallen asleep on her lap. “Where is home for you?”
“Born in Hoquiam. Washington. Just like this ship.”
The wind had died down. The sails merely rippled, and the ship sloshed aimlessly. “Not moving more than a knot or two, are we?”
“No, see those clouds on the horizon?” He poked his chin starboard. “A storm is moving in.”
Barbara twisted around for a look. Billowy cumulus clouds crowded the horizon, with gray streaking their bottoms and bright blue expanses shimmering over them. “Ah, yes. But nothing serious.”
“Your sailing ways are showing.”
Barbara grinned. “Are you reading anything just now, mate?”
“I’ve taken up Lord Jim again. It’s my favorite among all books.”
“Why, it’s my favorite, too.” Her heart fluttered, but shyness warned her off belaboring the commonality. “How do you find life on the Vigilant?”
“Much sunnier than that on the Patna. I feel safe aboard her.”
Barbara pressed her back against the rail, relishing its firmness. She studied Ethan’s broad shoulders and the way he hunkered over as he worked. The sight of a husky man sewing—so earnestly, even contentedly—amused her. “A ship doesn’t disappoint the way people do. It gives you its all.”
“You’ve found just the words for my feelings.” He paused in his sewing to rub his neck in that uneasy way of his. “And said them better than I could have.”
It struck Barbara then: He suffered the same bashfulness with her as she did with him. It made her ache with sympathy. As he took up his sewing, she studied the sure grip and thrust of his tanned hands. “The Vigilant satisfies in the most profound way, doesn’t she?”
He stretched out of his hunched position, rolling his shoulders back. “Yes, both the senses and the soul.”
Something about him called forth her most cosmic reflections. He said he felt safe aboard this ship. She understood. The strength of its masts, the cut of its prow, the lovely arch of its ribbing—it all lulled her into a state of dreaminess as if sea time ran on its own course and this ship were the center of another universe. As if the two of them, like the whales lumbering through the depths and the shiny-backed porpoises flirting with waves, belonged to the sea. Ethan, in some mystical way, became an extension of the Vigilant, sturdy and unassuming, full of the glory of the moment. Leaning toward him, she caught his gaze, and an orb of warmth shot up her torso. “We’re of our own world now, the world the Vigilant has created for us, here in the middle of the ocean.”
The kitten leaped out of her lap and pounced on Ethan’s thread. Their laughter erupted, as spirited and abandoned as that of children. Barbara somersaulted onto the rippling fabric and snatched the kitten up, holding it overhead.
“Just in time,” said Ethan. “Nearly sewed her into the sail.”
Barbara drew the kitten to her chest and tickled its tummy. “What a mischief-maker.”
Ethan turned serious and asked, “Can you help me fold this sail and take it down below?”
They bundled up the sail, and Barbara trotted down the rear stairs behind him, balancing the kitten on her shoulder.
“Here,” he said, standing in the alleyway by a shelf atop a cabin door. “It gets tucked in this cranny.”
Barbara stood on tiptoes and reached up. The kitten dug its claws into her shoulder. “Ouch.”
Ethan swung toward her, and the sail unrolled over them. Barbara snatched the kitten from her shoulder. As Ethan held up the sail, they came face to face beneath its folds.
Barbara lifted her eyes to him. How solemn he looked. She stroked a hand over his cheek. He leaned over and softly touched his lips to hers, then pulled away, his eyes wide, as if he were unsure—or embarrassed.
She curled her hand around the back of his neck, pulled his face to hers, and gave him a long kiss, a kiss full of conviction.
As she pulled back from their embrace, she lifted and touched the kitten’s nose to his—in a kitten kiss. They broke into laughter, and the shyness between them evaporated.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
HELEN
Hoquiam, June 1929
As they neared land, the sky turned gloomy and quickened with drizzle. Helen gazed over the prow of the Vigilant at the little tug hauling it toward Grays Harbor. Tips of firs and pines materialized in the mist. She buttoned her jacket against the damp chill.
How sad it was—the end of their nine-month idyll. She should’ve enjoyed it more: the warm tropical breezes; the quaint communities that sprung up on ships; the luscious fruit and exotic ways of the islanders—my God, what an adventure. The idea of turning around and making the whole journey over again—in reverse—flitted through her mind. That’d give her time to weave her notes
into an engaging and panoramic story.
For it must be a book—a book to prove she was an author in her own right. It’d be a different kind of story, about a mother-daughter expedition full of adventure and discovery. Of course, there’d been trials: her nagging depression; Barbara’s painful breakdown; filthy conditions and swarms of flies and mosquitoes; and the challenges of finding inexpensive housing and managing postal deliveries.
But the book needn’t recount these problems or expose their agonies. Nor reveal her most private and edifying recompense: For the first time in her life, she’d had Barbara to herself. She’d not say why that intimacy was so precious nor explain it was made possible by the sundering of their family. Instead, her book would capture the delight she took in witnessing Barbara’s vivacious ways and partaking of her joy. Let Wilson choke on that—as well as her publishing success!
She and Barbara had spoken sparingly of her father during the trip, and perhaps that was for the best. Why torment themselves? His treachery was a millstone to bear and dwelling on it would’ve only foiled their efforts to escape it. Not that they hadn’t suffered from it: Their anguish always lurked beneath the surface.
But when Barbara floundered, she’d ministered to her and, in the process, submerged her own misery. Yes, they’d had their fights and struggles, but they’d also had periods of calm. Only not at present. The last two weeks, there’d been nothing but antagonism and bickering between them.
The afternoon before they were to put in at port, Barbara had opened a new line of pleading: “Can’t we at least stay the week and explore Washington’s lush forests? Until the Vigilant sets sail again?”
Helen sat on their cabin bed with her legs stretched out, organizing her typewritten notes. “No, we’ve barely enough money for the bus to California.”
Barbara stood looking down on her with clasped hands. “But I have no idea when I’ll see Ethan again.”
“You can write to each other.”
“That’s not the same. And you know it.”
Helen surveyed the stacks of papers. She’d need some long stretches of time and plenty of quiet to turn them into something coherent. “We can’t afford to stay.”
The Point of Vanishing Page 13