Minding the Light

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  It was his father, cooper Jeremiah Macy, who stepped into the void. “I’ll help thee move thy things to the officers’ cabin, Mr. Abraham.”

  And with that one show of respect by Jeremiah, Abraham was accepted by the other crew, even if grudgingly, as an officer. His keen eye and superior skills with the harpoon brought in two sperm whales without incident, one right after the other—the most prized whale of all for the waxy spermaceti oil in its large head. Spermaceti oil candles burned brighter and were odorless. Sperm whales were difficult to hunt, able to dive deep and hold their breath for long periods. Afterward, Abraham had told Ren he’d counted ninety minutes between blowhole spotting of a particular sperm whale he’d been tracking.

  The voyage was finished at last as the hold was finally full—no captain worth his pay returned to the home port without a chocked-off hold, regardless of how long a journey took—the tryworks was broken apart, its bricks thrown joyfully into the ocean, and Abraham had secured his place in the crew’s eyes. That, and a greasy voyage, a full hold, and not a single injury or death of a crewman the entire time. They were on their way home. Home to Nantucket, home to Ren’s darling Jane.

  Ren drew himself back to the present with a squaring of his shoulders. He turned to his second mate, mustering up a tired smile. “What did the countinghouse have to say?”

  “They are saying they want to talk to you, Captain, before the lays are distributed.”

  “There is a problem?”

  “They will not talk to me.”

  Ren nodded. That did not surprise him. Free men of every color lived and conducted business in close proximity to their Quaker neighbors on Nantucket, yet there were invisible lines that were not crossed. Just like the one on the Endeavour. “Tristram can manage, can he not?”

  “They say they want to talk only to you, Captain.”

  Odd. Tristram had been the one to deal with the business end of the Endeavour for the past six years. “I’ll try to get over there this afternoon.”

  “The day is spent, sir.”

  Ren ran a hand through his hair. How late was it? He’d lost track of time. It was a strange feeling for a man who was so conscious of time that he was aware of the earth’s fifteen degrees of rotation throughout each hour. He had an innate awareness of such precise details in order to calculate the ship’s position. Time was something he knew intimately. He felt disoriented, as if he’d walked off the ship into another universe, one that careened him off-kilter.

  A rapping on the front door startled Daphne. She heard the door open, the murmuring of voices, then heavy footsteps starting up the stairs. Tristram had come. She knew it was he bolting up the stairs because he ran everywhere. He was always in a hurry, always eager to move on to whatever was next.

  She closed the journal and tucked it back in the nightstand drawer. She would like to know more of Mary Coffin Starbuck. She wasn’t sure what she had expected to learn of her, but so far she was thoroughly surprised by Mary’s revelations. How genuine she was, Daphne supposed, how authentic.

  Tristram’s face poked through the doorway. “Is Jane awake?”

  “Nay, not yet.” Daphne put a finger to her lips. “Hush. Thee makes more noise coming up the stairs than Hitty and Henry at full gallop.”

  He made his face go all soft and wounded-looking. “I just had to escort thy dear sweet mother here and then back again . . . and this is how I’m greeted? Why, thee has had no idea of the torment I’ve endured—” He stopped abruptly when he caught sight of Jane’s face, heard her labored breathing. He came into the room and went to Jane’s bedside, taking one of her hands in his. A stricken look overcame him. “So what did the doctor declare to be the cause of Jane’s ailment?”

  Daphne glanced at her sister. Jane was both sweating and shivering. “He will return later, he said, for a more thorough examination.”

  Tristram gazed at her. “’Tis more serious than first thought?”

  She nodded, then looked at her sister, whose breaths came in slow, shallow intakes of air.

  He lifted Jane’s hand and turned it over, kissing her palm tenderly. “Jane, dearest Jane, come back to us.”

  Oh do, Jane. Please come back. Daphne added one more plea. Don’t leave me. I’m not sure I can do life without thee.

  Mary Coffin Starbuck

  21 June 1662

  I have learned something about myself in this season of adjustment. I find limitations trying and I crave variety. Growing up in Salisbury, I had been accustomed to the mingling of foreigners, with the coming and going of ships. There was always something different to see, new faces and strange accents to ponder.

  I think that’s what I enjoy about keeping a store and why I spend most of my time over at the shop Father built for me near Capaum Harbor. While weather obliges this summer, schooners sail in from the Cape or from Boston. Some bring supplies, some bring curious onlookers who are making preliminary visits with the purpose of moving here. When they come into the store, I study their clothing and listen to their talk about politics or the weather or the condition of their crops, or what the foolish governor of Massachusetts has done now.

  These interactions make my mind spin with new ideas. I feel so vital. Dare I write it here? I feel valued. Important. Rather than the unwanted extra, as I do so often in the Starbuck household.

  My shop does a brisk business when a ship arrives. I am quite pleased, and have started to draw up plans for Nathaniel to enlarge the shed at his earliest convenience.

  I have not yet mentioned these plans to him. Timing is everything and today is not the day to bring up such a request. ’Tis summer solstice and Nathaniel’s heart is downcast. Winter will soon be upon us, he said in a doleful tone. I laughed and laughed at his gloomy forecast—he’s troubled about something that he cannot control, and it is six months away!—but he did not appreciate my amusement at his expense.

  28 June 1662

  It is unfortunate that Esther and I did not get off to a good start. I hear her whispering to Catherine about me when they are working together in the small kitchen. Catherine does not defend me. Just the opposite. Catherine agrees with Esther’s assessments! She does not approve of me sharing opinions on politics with Edward, nor that I speak in such a straightforward way to Nathaniel.

  I am baffled by Catherine’s complaints. If my candor does not bother Edward or Nathaniel, why should it bother her?

  1 July 1662

  Last night Nathaniel asked me if I could set aside time each week to help his mother, and not go to the store quite so often. I explained that my time is much better spent in the store, that it is a bustling place, and how I long for bustle! For lively conversation, for friendly faces. (I didn’t add that part.) He said that he felt some effort toward preparing for winter in the Starbuck household would go a long way in his mother’s eyes.

  Preparing for winter? ’Tis barely July!

  I reminded him that when I did try to help his mother, that first month after we were married, it did not go well. “Mary, m’ love,” he started and gave me his tenderest smile that instantly swept my upset away, and suddenly I agreed to set aside two afternoons a week to help Catherine winterize.

  This morning dawned particularly hot and humid, the air still and heavy, with hardly a sea breeze. Catherine has set me to task on mending moth holes in quilts to “keep everyone warm and snug as a bug in a rug on a cold night,” and all I can think is that ’tis only July!

  4

  The next day was more of the same. Sitting beside Jane’s canopied bed, watching her struggle to breathe. After the doctor dropped by to check on her, Ren wanted to press him: What now? What next? Surely this couldn’t go on indefinitely. Surely Jane would turn a corner soon and revive, get well. Yet he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the doctor’s answer.

  Tonight, he watched the Indian maidservant slip sugar water through Jane’s lips, massage her throat to get her to swallow, wipe the drips that rolled down her cheeks. She cared for Jane as if she
were but a babe and not a grown woman, uncommonly devoted to her. She was a blessing to them, that woman, so quiet, so calm. Patience was her name, and patience was her gift.

  There were other gifts, as well. Jane’s sister, Daphne, hadn’t left Orange Street. She stayed close to Jane’s bedside and slept in the spare bedroom to be available for the children.

  Children.

  Ren still couldn’t grasp the notion that he was a father. While what he had said to Daphne was true—that the oceans were large and ships were few—still, how could his letters have made their way to Jane, and so few of hers to him?

  It wasn’t that fatherhood was out of his scope. He had a hope that raising a family was ahead for them.

  Yet to be presented with two six-year-old children and told they belonged to him? That thought alone made him flounder. And in the very next moment his Jane, his darling Jane, collapsed like a rag doll onto that filthy dock. If he thought he had floundered by the news of fatherhood, his keel had run aground by Jane’s collapse.

  Jane’s chest lifted as if she were suddenly drawing back in all the breath she had lost.

  Breath.

  He could see how she struggled to get the oxygen she needed into her lungs. It reminded him of the time he had nearly drowned when he’d fallen overboard, how his lungs had burned like fire within him, had felt close to exploding. Is that what Jane is feeling now?

  Her lips had an increasingly husky blueish tinge to them, as did her fingernails. He reached out to take her hand in his, entwining his fingers through hers like the strands of a rope. She was always a tiny thing, his sweet Jane, yet she had such vitality, such determination. He remembered how her eyes would sparkle like diamonds when she had something to tell him.

  He released her hand and sat back in the chair to stretch his legs. How well had they really known each other when they married? Hardly at all. Though born in Nantucket, Ren had signed on as cabin boy to a ship to accompany his father, a cooper, and never looked back. At that point, his mother, Angelica Foulger Macy, finally decided to return to the Bahamas to live with her elderly mother and her brother, as she had never felt she truly belonged to Nantucket and doubted she ever would, especially without a husband and child on land. She concluded she might see more of her husband and son passing through the Bahamas than she ever would in Nantucket.

  For many years, Angelica had guessed correctly. Jeremiah purchased an old whaling schooner, the Endeavour, and appointed himself captain, with his able son serving as first mate. They made frequent passes through the Bahamas, as the whales they chased were minke whales, plentiful in the Atlantic. And then an epidemic swept through the islands of the Bahamas, brought in from the ships, one that was particularly vicious for the vulnerable natives. Angelica was half native.

  After burying his wife, Jeremiah Macy felt that perhaps he’d had enough of the seagoing life, that it had taken too much from him. He said he was returning to Nantucket to pick up where he’d left off, as cooper. Ren, he announced, was ready to captain the Endeavour on his own. “After all, you’ve been more of a captain for this old hulk than I’ve been.”

  It was a rare word of encouragement from his father but for one thing: Ren did not have the kind of capital needed to outfit a ship for a whaling voyage. Nor did Jeremiah, for the Endeavour had cost him most of his life savings, and Angelica’s extravagant taste for fine living had taken the rest. Guilt ridden that he had loved the sea even more than he had loved his wife, Jeremiah had never begrudged her a cent.

  And that was where the partnership with Tristram began. As third cousins once removed, both only children, the two boys had shared a special kinship over the years. Once or twice, Tristram had signed on as crew for the Endeavour, and proved his seaworthiness to Ren and Jeremiah. Trist had a persuasive way with people, and Ren knew he could muster investors to back the ship. Jeremiah was skeptical; he thought Tristram had a tendency to sail too close to the wind, defying rules and pushing limits. Ren felt his father had a bias against all shipping agents and considered them to be rabid extortionists. But Tristram had already built a reputation as a shipping agent, connecting investors to syndicates—owners of ships. So he went forward and proposed the idea of a business partnership. It took no longer than a half second for Tristram to agree and thrust out his hand. “Consider it done, cousin!”

  Ren had wanted to seek out an experienced captain for this first voyage, despite his father’s intent to pass it into his hands, for he had not the confidence that the investors would overlook his casual religiosity. He understood the thought process of Friends, and suspected they would only provide funds to outfit a ship if a devout Quaker was at the helm. But Tristram was the one who nixed that notion. “Thee is more able than any Nantucket captain, cousin. Watch and see. The investors will be the judge. They care only about the safe and generous return on their investment.” He patted Ren on the back. “Watch and see.”

  Tristram called that one correctly. Investors heartily backed the Endeavour with Ren serving as captain. Such assurance gave Ren the confidence he needed, for it was no small thing to captain a ship for the first time. He was only twenty-six years old when he assumed command.

  And then Tristram happened to point out a stunning young Quaker woman named Jane Coffin to Ren, a woman with the kind of beauty that made men stop to stare at her. Trist was an earnest and devout Quaker; Ren, if generously assessed, would be considered a lapsed Quaker. His father, Jeremiah, had become spectacularly unconcerned about conforming to Friends’ expectations after seeing how his wife, because of her Bahamian blood, had been excluded from Nantucket society. He raised Ren with a heightened sensitivity to Quaker hypocrisy, and they saw plenty of it among sailors on the sea.

  Yet Ren had something of his mother in him too, apart from olive skin, dark hair and eyes. Angelica’s spirituality ran deep, an unwavering belief that God had a purpose for each life, and she had been influenced by the Friends to seek the Light within each individual. His parents’ separate outlooks shaped Ren’s personality. He was tolerant and accepting of others, but only after they proved themselves to him.

  Jane’s legs twitched, startling him out of his musings, and he sat up in the chair.

  Darling Jane.

  When he’d first laid eyes on her, he remembered feeling as if the axis of his world tilted a few degrees. He’d always heard of the beauty of Nantucket lasses, but she was like a delicate orchid among common daisies. He was a changed man, everything looked different. She was the one for him, the woman he’d been waiting to meet. As soon as possible, he insisted Tristram introduce them. From that day on, he pursued Jane the way he pursued whales—singlemindedly. He spent every possible moment with her when he wasn’t at work preparing the Endeavour to make voyage. As the day of departure loomed large, he knew he could not leave this island without knowing Jane would be waiting for him when he returned. He asked Jane to marry him, to be his wife, she said yes without any hesitation. But there was a serious glitch. Lillian Coffin, Jane’s mother. She would not allow the marriage, not with Ren’s poor standing, and threatened to disown her daughter. Despite her mother’s firm resolution, Ren convinced Jane to sail to Boston to elope.

  When they returned to Nantucket, Jane’s belongings were packed and deposited at Tristram’s loft. By day’s end, she’d been read out of Meeting for marrying a lapsed Quaker. It was all her mother’s doing.

  He would never forget the hurt in Jane’s eyes; it was palpable. It made him realize what he had taken from Jane when he persuaded her to elope with him. Her life had been ordered and without surprise, and he had thoroughly disrupted her. He had swept her off her feet, thereby causing a wedge between her and her mother, and her church.

  So Ren scraped together everything he could to purchase the Orange Street house for her to live in, a substantial cost, as her mother refused to allow her to return to her childhood home. He had a hope that Jane’s father, a reasonable and sympathetic man, would have influence to soften the Friends’ st
ance, if not Lillian’s.

  He squeezed his eyes shut. He had assumed incorrectly. Her father, with his great flaw of adultery, had no such influence among the pious Friends.

  The whistle of a teakettle pierced the silence. Ah, a cup of tea was just the thing he needed right now. He tucked a lock of hair behind Jane’s ear and left her for a brief moment.

  When he came into the kitchen, he saw Henry was at the table, sitting with Daphne. “Why is the boy still up?”

  “He had a nightmare, so I thought a cup of warm milk might help.”

  “He should be asleep.”

  Daphne stiffened. “And he will. But first he is having some warm milk.” She frowned at him. “He is worried about his mother. He needed some reassurance.”

  “He needs sleep.” He tipped his head toward Henry like a schoolteacher. “Off with you, then, lad.”

  Henry jumped out of his chair and bolted through the kitchen door.

  “Too harsh, Ren. Thy voice—it can sound too harsh.”

  Ren glanced at her, then watched the boy go. He set his elbows on the tabletop and rubbed his temples. He dropped his hands. “I . . . I will be more mindful of the tone of my voice.” The frown left her face, which relieved him. “I just came down to get a cup of tea. I’ll head back up to stay with Jane.”

  “I will take a turn. Get some rest. Thee must be exhausted.”

  “And you? You must be just as tired.” Just as frightened, just as uncertain of what the future held. “I don’t know how long this will go on. Dr. Mitchell had no answers for me.” He’s a quack, Ren thought. A charlatan. He was convinced the doctor had provided the tincture for Jane, despite his protests.

  “Tomorrow, I plan to take the children out for the morning. They don’t need to be waiting vigil.”