Little Jane Silver

by Adira Rotstein

  Captain Madsea announced his entrance with a coughing fit.

  “You may leave now,” Lewiston told Darsa, who exited thankfully. The captain undid his wrap and took up his position, chest bare, kneeling with his face over the tub. Doc Lewiston put the blanket over the captain’s head to help trap the healthful vapours rising up. This was an ancient method of treatment that never failed to clear Madsea’s lungs. Yet Doc Lewiston could not help but observe that the span of relief it granted was growing shorter with each passing week, and from where he sat now, he could see every knob of the captain’s spine under the skin as clear as the knuckles on his own fist.

  “You know, I’ve been meaning to take this up with you,” the doctor said in the direction of the captain’s blanket-covered head, “but I don’t think that man in the brig is the real Long John Silver.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Lewiston, warming to his theory. “And I know, you see, because I took my training at Edinburgh College. One of my instructors was this delightful old chap by the name of Heronimus Livesy — an absolute trump of a man. You know, he was a teetotaler, never took a drop of alcohol except—”

  “And the point of this is?” asked Madsea testily.

  “Sssh … just keep inhaling those vapours. Anyway, this Dr. Livesy said he knew Long John Silver. Said he’d went halfway around the world with him along with some oily tick of a boy and a half-brained squire ages ago, which means the real Silver should be much older. That chappy in the brig couldn’t be more than forty-five summers. I’d wager my watch if it wasn’t so.”

  “And this is your big news?” Captain Madsea stuck his head out from under the cloth, accompanied by escaping curls of noxious steam. “Your fantastic revelation?”

  “Sir?”

  “Of course, he’s not the original Long John Silver! How the blazes could he be? I knew him back when he was plucking chickens for a living!”

  “Captain?”

  “Tell me to stick tar to me boot heels, why don’t he? No wonder I nearly went down with my first ship! Near as I was stuck to the bleeding boards! The devil! ”

  Lewiston edged cautiously away. “Captain, I think perhaps you’ve had enough inhalations for today, sir.”

  The captain rose wearily. “My apologies, Lewy, I don’t mean to rail at you. It’s just nothing good ever came to anyone from that man — how could it, when the very name he calls himself by is a lie? Brother? Ha! Traitor, more like. I mean, look at this blasted tattoo he gave me!”

  Lewiston couldn’t help but notice how alarmingly Madsea’s ribs stood out from his scrawny chest as he impatiently tapped the faded ink. “You see — he said he knew how to do this. Ha! I should’ve tossed him overboard then and saved myself the sorrow. Mermaid! Pah!”

  Actually, it did remind Lewiston a little of the enchanting creature more expertly carved into Captain Silver’s peg leg. He’d examined the broken wooden appendage in his cabin at length the previous evening and discovered that there were words on it, too. The meaning of JIM + MARY = LOVEseemed clear enough, but what to make of the mysterious MASTHEAD EAST LAMP VEGALOO IN NAKIKA, he didn’t know.

  He wanted to ask Captain Madsea if he knew, as he seemed to know just about everything else about the two pirate captains, but Lewiston had no desire to agitate him further at the moment. It was only bound to phlegm up the poor man’s lungs again. He sighed and called Darsa back in to drain the tub.

  A half-hour later, the captain’s vapour treatment done, Doc Lewiston repaired to his closet-sized cabin to sleep. From the round porthole above his hammock he could see the expanse of black ocean below, glinting white and silver where the wavelets caught the reflection of the moon. The hammock rocked as he got in and wrapped the covers around him.

  Through the thin wall between their cabins, he listened to the captain coughing. Though he jammed his flat little pillow around his ears, trying to block out the sound, it seemed to reverberate all the more through the material. It won’t be long now, his professional instinct told him. Resolutely, Lewiston ducked his head under the blankets. Not if I can help it, he thought. Not if I can help it.

  Across the ship and several levels below the doctor’s cabin, in the foul environs of the brig, Long John contemplated the slumbering figure of his wife. How does she do it?

  Enviously, he watched Bonnie Mary snore away, oblivious to all care, and sighed. He took another swig from the laudanum flask Lewiston had given him for the pain, trying to see if he could trick his mind into believing it was really helping. He toyed with the idea of eating the rest of the highly unappetizing dinner the guard had left for him, but noticing that a rat was busy gnawing on it, thought better of it.

  With a pang in his heart he was reminded of Little Jane and her stuffed toy rodent, Seurat. She’d told him a story once about how Seurat was captain of a ship crewed entirely by other rodents called the Cheeses of Eight, sailing the sea in search of edible morsels to nibble on.

  Somehow, at the thought of her story, Jim Silver began to cry as he hadn’t cried when Madsea broke his wooden leg nor when the doctor spoke to him of his busted kneecap nor as his ship went down to the depths in flames.

  Poor Little Jane! Was she sleeping tonight, too? What was happening to her? He imagined her clinging to a spar, bobbing up and down in the freezing water, numb fingers slipping, sinking — No! Think of something else. Little Jane at the point of a bayonet, the metal shining as it pierced — No, no, no! Little Jane at the bottom of the ocean, drowning — No!

  He kicked out in frustration and a jet of pain shot through his bad knee as it struck the floor. He gasped in a spasm of agony, but at least the pain kept him from thinking about Little Jane for a moment.

  By the wan light of the moon that drifted in through the ceiling slits above him, he focused on the sleeping face of Bonnie Mary. He tried to mimic the placid attitude of her slumber, but though his body was at rest, his mind tumbled about in a frenzy of thought.

  You fool, you ain’t taught her nothing at all and now Little Jane’s out there all alone! It’s true, he thought with mounting horror. I never told her the truth about a single thing and now it’s too late! Now she was tossed out on that awful grey sea — the sea whose cruel-hearted mercilessness he knew so well, and she with nothing but frivolous stories and a smattering of sailing skills to rely upon.

  Why, she didn’t even have her “How to Be a Good Pirate” notebook. He’d found it in the pocket of his own coat after Doc Lewiston’s departure, a stub of a pencil still stuck between the pages. He had read some of it while the light had been strong enough. He held it in his hands now, fingering the bit of pencil, for all the scant comfort that provided.

  “Cuss and shout a lot,” the logbook had said.

  Questionable advice if there ever was any, he thought. Some legacy I’ve left her. Marginally better than the one left to you by your own natural father, true, but then that ain’t saying much.

  Now there was a story, a true story he should have told her. He’d always meant to. Why hadn’t he then?

  He’d always told himself it was for lack of a suitable moment. But really, he supposed he never told her because he didn’t want to disappoint her; after all, he wasn’t much of a hero in the real story. The truth of it was, he was a little worried she’d laugh at him if she knew the truth.

  How circumstance had now rendered that worry ridiculous!

  All he could think about now was how much he wanted to see Little Jane — just to know she was all right. Who cared how much she respected him! If he could just see her again! Had the Devil appeared in a burst of sulfur before him right there in the brig, and demanded his other leg for the chance just to speak with her, to hear from her own lips she was safe and unhurt, he would’ve given it to him with change.

  Little Jane couldn’t think any worse of him than she probably did now anyway, now that he’d gone and lost the ship, now that he had nothing left in the world but a wonderful wife whom he didn’t dese
rve and a handful of silly stories. He probably wouldn’t even have them for much longer either, he realized with a pang. As sure as he’d ever known anything in his life, he knew Madsea wouldn’t stop until he’d destroyed every last bit of Jim Silver. His bonny Mary might make it off the Panacea, but Fetz would never let him survive.

  He thumbed through the pages of the book, feeling the grooves of Little Jane’s writing where she’d pressed the pencil to the paper.

  He remembered Little Jane sitting on the porch of the Spyglass in an old swing chair, this very book upon her knees, a look of deep concentration on her face, braids brushing the pages as she wrote. Though he hadn’t asked what she’d been writing, he had felt right proud of her just watching. Even as a child, he had never written much of anything on his own and unprompted like that. Not that he couldn’t, of course. He just wasn’t sure the proper way of going about it. To his mind, it was much easier and more rewarding to tell a story and shape it to the reactions of his audience rather than painstakingly writing one down, not knowing, what, if anything, another person might make of it. But now, here he was, with a story in desperate need of telling and not a wakeful soul to tell it to.

  Nothing for it.

  He picked up Little Jane’s stubby pencil and began to write:

  Little Jane

  Your grandpa used to say, the night-time’s the right time for getting a fellow to talk. He was right about that, and a great many things.

  I’d like to talk to you now, but seeing as how I’m chained up to this sodding ring on the floor and can’t go much of anywhere, this book’ll have to do.

  I never told you where I come from and maybe you don’t want to know. If that be the case, you can go on and chuck this book in the bin and I swear I won’t begrudge you, but

  He hesitated a moment, then scratched the last part out and wrote: This is the true story of your Grandma and Grandpa and how I come to them.

  He paused again to take a breath before plunging on. It was difficult to know where to start. He worried that he would go too far back and lose her interest, however he felt it best to tell it in its entirety and let her make of it what she would.

  See, I weren’t really born a Silver. Your Grandma Thesely and Grandpa John Silver were married a long time before I come along, through “winter and rough weather” as the old saw goes. Your grandma was born of plantation slaves in Louisiana, but once she were old enough, she run away and hid among the Creoles in New Orleans. It was there she met your grandfather, the notorious pirate, Long John Silver. He charmed her and married her and when he got his wages, took her home with him to England, where no one could ever make her do nothing against her will again.

  However, after many years they got into a spot of trouble with the law in old Blighty, so’s they left England and come to Smuggler’s Bay, where they opened the Spyglass, named after an inn they’d once owned back in Bristol. It was your grandma what ran the place, while the Captain was kept busy, taking what minor smuggling runs and privateering commissions he could.

  Though your grandpa were a rough man in his way, one thing were sure, he loved your grandma with all his heart. But that weren’t enough to make them a child and so they grew old and grey alone.

  Then one evening, while the Captain were away at sea, a man in fine clothes arrived at the Spyglass in the thick of a storm asking a berth for him and his wife. His wife were so thick bundled in cloaks against the weather that her face could scarce be seen, but she looked ill and much in need of rest and your grandma gave them a berth without question.

  That night a fierce monsoon blew in off the coast, a storm such as only these isles could endure, with rain pounding down the tin roof loud as the march of all the King’s riflemen and thunder like to raise the dead. But your grandma, being long used to noisy squalls, slept sound as a log.

  Too bad the noise of the squall drowned out other sounds as well, more sinister than blind nature, and the next morning when the maid woke your grandma Thesely, she saw that it weren’t only the rain done gone, but the man in fine clothes, too, and him without paying his tab. The woman what’d come in with him, she were still there, though. She lay up in the room, pale and dead. The maid trembled by the doorway and crossed her chest. But your grandma, now, she’d seen the yellow fever epidemic down New Orleans way and the cholera sickness on the plantation and she weren’t scared. She march right in there and plucked the bloody sheet away to see if there were anything she might do for the poor soul.

  But the sight what met her eye was more than just the one body — for a newborn infant’s head, small as a green coconut, lay with eyes tight shut, there on the dead woman’s chest, looking like nothing so much as a little ratling, slimy and pink, half covered by the sheet.

  “Poor little thing, it ain’t never had no chance,” say your Grandma Thesely, for she thought the baby was dead, too. But before her eyes could look away from the awful sight, she saw … just the slightest twitch from beneath the sheet, so small the maid ain’t even noticed. She moved it aside, and the cold air made the baby cry. It were weak and feeble, but still, it were alive.

  Right away then, she sends the kitchen girl out to fetch the midwife and a bottle of brandy. Awestruck, she picks the babe up, enfolding it in her strong arms. She took it downstairs to the empty tavern and sat by the warmth of the fire, and slowly the heat returned to the wee bairn’s body.

  Your Grandma Thesely looked at the little scrunched-up face by the glow of the fire as the baby squirmed about. Though the little thing were still slippery as all get out, she held it to her bosom, close and safe. But her shawl, what was now stained with newborn baby slime, she let the baby kick to the floor, as was its pleasure.

  With the shawl now gone she saw that the baby was a boy, who held his tiny arms and legs folded up like the wings of a baby bird. She put down her little finger, and the babe grabs it in his fist, kicking out again in a strong, if lopsided motion. Lopsided, I says, ’cause the baby had only the one foot to kick with. I suppose you can guess who that babe was now.

  No one knew how I comes by such a misfortune so early in life. Maybe it were a consequence of me own rough birth like what done in me natural mother or something to do with the man what left in the night. I’ve heard tell that some folk are born into this world afore they’ve taken full shape, like bread took too early from the oven. I’ve never been able to figure it. The only person might have an inkling as to how I got to be as I am is six feet below ground and she ain’t telling.

  But that ain’t what signifies about my story. What does good to remember is your grandma and what she did for me. She were a loving woman what took me to her heart and there ain’t a day goes by I don’t think on her, even though she’s long passed now.

  My first year of life I spent affixed to her hip as she moved among the patrons of the tavern, fetching them their food and drink. See, I listened to them chatting over this and that, and soon I gets to picking up some words for meself. I could talk afore I could do anything else and I don’t think I’ve stopped gabbing since then. I grew up troublesome as all get out, always up to mischief, and without an ear for anything anybody said, save for doing things me own way. I used hear folks in town say, it was right charitable, your grand-folks sacrificing their peace to take on a little hellion like me, but if you asked your grandmother she’d tell you straight it weren’t like that at all.

  She used to tell me, your grandma did, of how she’d prayed for a child, only to have her earnest supplications flung back in her face, like the cold spray of the sea. And then, how she’d snuck off, back to Louisiana, at risk to her freedom, to an old witch-woman she knowed there, who’d sacrificed three frogs and half a goat, then buried a hundred guineas in the ground, all in an effort to get her with child.

  She tried till she grew too old and told her husband she’d gave it up. Still, when no one were around sometimes she prayed ’cause (despite occasionally trusting in witches) she’d read up on her bible, especially those storie
s about women getting pregnant when they was already old and grey.

  So you see, when I showed up, in the one-legged shape of her husband, no less, she saw it as a sign that the Lord had answered her prayers. Oh, your grandma wasn’t stupid, don’t be thinking that. She knew I were the issue of that other woman’s womb, and that your grandpa had two good legs when first she met him, but the heart don’t need to dwell on what it don’t profit it to remember. As for the good Lord working in mysterious ways, I ain’t so certain, but I were her child, as much as I been anything in this life.

  It was your grandpa, though, not her, what named me. He comes home one day from a smuggling run to find me in a cradle by the bar and he says to your grandma, “What’s this then? Who’s babe we got here?”

  Of course, your grandma tells him that I’m her child and his, too, now, and this took some bit of explaining, it did.

  Long John Silver the First weren’t happy, as he liked whatever decisions was made to go through him first. Then he tells her right bluntly, I was like as not some out of wedlock child and your grandma was a fool to think I’d be anything more to them than trouble, and what did she want with some sickly, deformed little half-witted thing, anyway, he says.