The keystone! ’Tis the essential piece. Christ is our Savior and King, that is the keystone to the theological arch.
Peter was trying to say that if the keystone is properly in place, we need not worry about the other stones.
7
In the days and weeks that followed his wife’s death, Reynolds Macy spent most of his time making repairs on the Endeavour. It was the only place he felt entirely at ease. He supposed it was a shock to the senses to be on land after six years of the sea providing her own constant rhythm, but he couldn’t sleep at the house. He’d slept so many years alone, and now he couldn’t seem to do it. So he would toss and turn through the night and leave at dawn’s first light. Abraham was always waiting for him on the house steps, no matter how early the hour. They would walk to the wharf, stopping briefly when they passed Jeremiah’s small house on Easy Street. The cooper was usually out front, puffing on his pipe.
“Son, you fine?” Jeremiah would ask.
“I’m fine, Dad. You fine?”
“Fine,” he grunted. “Just fine.”
That was the extent of their conversation, yet it said much. Side by side, father and son would walk to the dory, Abraham a few feet behind them, and row out to the Endeavour for the day’s work, staying there until it grew dark.
The first few days, he had tried to discourage both Jeremiah and Abraham from accompanying him. Abraham, Ren insisted, should be looking to sign on another ship. His father should be spending his time setting up the cooperage and hunting for business. There were many coopers on Nantucket, but the demand for casks always outpaced the availability. Jeremiah would have no trouble reestablishing himself. Both men ignored his protests. His father said that barrels could wait. Abraham said he only worked for Captain Reynolds Macy.
Unable to speak, Ren had to fight back a lump in his throat. He was grateful, more than he could possibly say, for such loyalty and devotion.
The hours of daylight were long in August, and they were easily filled up with repair tasks: cleaning and scraping every inch of her hull. Re-caulking seams, holystoning decks before slathering them with thick varnish. Checking each rigger to order new shrouds, sheets, and stays from the sailmaker’s shop. Measuring hemp to be woven by the ropemaker.
Ren had made it a point of pride that he could himself perform every task he asked of his crew. He had worked every job on a ship. He’d sailed since he was eight, serving as cabin boy, working his way up, and quickly became familiar with every creak and moan of any ship he sailed on. It was a ship’s way of breathing, inhaling and exhaling, he believed, evidence of her unique personality. The creak of her hull, the tap of her sails on the mast, the flutter of the mainsail’s leech when she turned up too close to the wind. If a sailor learned to listen, he could hear warnings that might save his life. It was like watching the sky and learning to read signs: certain clouds predicted certain weather changes.
The Endeavour was the first ship Ren loved; she had rewarded them trebly. And Tristram wanted to sell her off to the highest bidder, to toss her aside for a new, younger ship. She might be old, but her bones were still intact. An amazing little ship that had traveled so far, up and down the Atlantic Sea, had acted as home for the crew and seen them through a hundred storms. She was a living, breathing vessel.
Breathe. The very word turned his thoughts to Jane, of how she had struggled to breathe. Odd that he had always been attuned to the sounds of breathing; strange that his dear Jane would have died because she was unable to fill her lungs with enough air.
Jane was the first, the only girl, Ren had ever loved. She and the Endeavour would always be linked together in his mind. Trist had said he was eager to set a date for the next voyage, on the soon-to-arrive Illumine. But if Ren sold the Endeavour, left her behind for a new ship, would he not be leaving Jane behind too?
Tristram scolded that he was overly sentimental about the ship, that they must keep their heads clear of emotion. And there was some truth to that. A ship was made up of wood and nails.
And yet, and yet . . . Ren did not cast off his first loves so easily.
He grimaced. Too much thinking. He could not shake off the fantods. This was why he felt the need to spend his days on this ship, to stop thinking, grieving, berating himself for being such a poor husband. To make himself so tired from physical labor that he returned each night to Orange Street exhausted, ready to sleep.
Those were the best days, when the only pain he felt was a weary ache in his muscles and bones.
The worst days were when he felt a nearly overwhelming guilt from those last words of Jane’s. To not blame himself, that he was only trying to help.
He’d ruined her life. How could he not blame himself?
One morning, Ren planned to stop by the magistrate’s office before heading out to the Endeavour, so he was later than usual. He strode boldly into the kitchen to scrounge for bread and tea and stopped short at the sight of Daphne seated at the table with the maidservant. As soon as he entered the room, the maidservant jumped from the chair, headed immediately for the water pail across the room, grabbed it, and scooted out the back door. His very presence seemed to alarm everyone in his house. All but Daphne.
He watched the back door close. “Am I so terribly frightening?”
She nodded solemnly. “Very much so.”
His mouth quirked up at one corner, amused by her candor but then not at all surprised, and he felt himself ease. “My mother used to say that I could look downright ferocious when I was serious, which was all the time.”
Daphne laughed aloud at that, and he laughed a little too. It felt good, laughing did. “And yet, I daresay I don’t frighten you.”
“Nay, but then I was raised by Lillian Swain Coffin. Thee seems like a kitten after living with a lion.”
He chuckled. “Might a man help himself to a cup of tea?”
“’Tis already prepared. I’ll get it for thee.”
He lifted a hand. “Stay seated. I must learn to do these things for myself.” He filled a china cup with the lovely amber-colored liquid. Tea was a wonderment, he thought, as he took his first sip. It had a way of calming the soul. He sat in a chair at the small table, facing Daphne. He rarely sat in the kitchen. When he returned late at night, Patience served him in the dining room. It was rather cozy in the kitchen. He glanced at Daphne, scribbling on a piece of paper. “Am I interrupting you?”
“I was going over the household schedule with Patience.”
His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “The maidservant can read?”
“She’s very bright. I’m trying to teach her all I can about thy household.” She put the quill pen down. “Ren, I’m not sure how much longer Mother will let me stay at Orange Street. She’s terribly concerned what others will think.”
It hadn’t occurred to him what others would think. He took a sip of tea. He was no longer at sea, no longer the captain. He was living on an island, a small Quaker island, filled with rules and regulations. He had to start making some adjustments. “I understand.” Though, he really didn’t understand the narrow thinking of Lillian Coffin.
This would be the opportune time to tell Daphne that he had sold the house to Ezra Barnard. He should say something, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud. Not yet. Everything felt so raw, he couldn’t add another change to the children’s lives. Nor to his own. And the banker had given him two months’ notice. There was time. “You’re aware of this ship Tristram has commissioned?”
She lowered her eyes. “I am.”
“Tristram said Jane gave him her blessing to order its building.”
“That is the truth.”
He leaned forward on the table, watching her. “Daphne, you don’t approve of this ship, do you?”
She dipped her chin. “’Twas not a question they asked of me.”
He swirled his tea. “I have heard rumblings that Tristram and thee . . . might soon wed.”
She jerked her head up, her brows furrowed. “Then thee is listening
to nothing but idle gossip. We have no such plans.”
He felt properly scolded. She did not mince words, this girl. Nay, she was no girl. She was a grown woman, with thoughts and opinions of her own. He reached out for an orange, put it to his nose to sniff its fruitiness, put it back and selected another. From the pinched expression about her mouth, mayhap he should leave that particular topic alone.
“Usually thee is long gone by this hour,” she said.
“I want to pay a call on the magistrate. I am of a mind to make a charge against Dr. Mitchell.”
Daphne’s face went blank. “For Jane’s death?”
“Yesterday, as I returned the dory to its slip, I heard sailors talk of two stevedores who died that same week, of similar poisoning. Someone must be held accountable.”
“The doctor insisted he hadn’t given Jane that tincture.”
“He admitted he had given her laudanum. The silver flask had an engraved M on it, did it not?”
“’Tis not an uncommon flask.”
“Daphne, I need to pursue this. For Jane’s sake.” Ren drew a circle on the top of the table. He might have been a poor husband, but he was not responsible for the death of Jane. Dr. Mitchell was, though the man would not admit it. He’d tried twice to seek out the magistrate, but his office was always shut tight. The last thing he could do for Jane was to make sure this fraud of a doctor brought no harm to anyone else.
But from the look on Daphne’s face, she did not agree. He thought she would say that he must forgive the doctor, that to err is human. But what irked Ren was that the doctor wouldn’t even admit that he’d made a mistake. Dr. Mitchell denied any wrongdoing, absolved himself, and kept doling out grains of laudanum.
But apparently that wasn’t at all what was running through Daphne’s mind.
“Thee will have to wait. The magistrate is on the mainland. I believe he isn’t due back for a week or so.”
“Blast.” Justice would have to keep waiting. But Ren was a patient man. There was a time for all things, that much he had learned from a life at sea. He took a sip of tea, and changed topics once again. “Why has thee helped Jane with this Cent School? I doubt Lillian would approve.”
“Mother doesn’t know. Well, that’s probably not true. There are few secrets on Nantucket Island.”
“Don’t tell me that you’ve been lying to your own mother?” He grinned. “I thought Quakers did not lie.”
“We don’t. There’s been no need to lie. Mother never asked where I was going. She doesn’t want to know.”
A laugh burst out of Ren. That sounded more like Lillian. He tore into the skin of the orange, peeling it off. The sweet scent drifted up. He handed a piece to Daphne with a half jest, “To fend off scurvy,” and then began sectioning the rest. He lifted a crescent of orange to his mouth, biting into the sweetness. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”
Daphne stilled. “I suppose . . . ” She ran a finger along the pen quill’s feather. “Jane had a saying: ‘Love and attention make all things grow.’ I suppose the answer is that I want to work in the garden Jane planted.”
At that, Ren sobered, and he studied Daphne’s face.
The garden Jane planted.
He tipped his head. “The children in the school . . . they are all white. Do not African mothers need help with their children? Wampanoag mothers?”
She frowned. “Jane tried, but it was not feasible.”
He arched his eyebrows. “Jane wanted to allow colored children?”
“She did. But too many complained and threatened to disenroll their children. She couldn’t afford it.”
“And yet the Friends are united in believing that enslavement is wrong.”
“True.”
“But far from united in what action they should take about the matter.”
Daphne stiffened. “’Tis not such a simple matter.”
“Indeed. I have noticed that most Nantucketers benefit from products of enslavement.”
He could see her temper flare. “I do not wear cotton clothing.”
“Nay, but you do shop at the Dry Goods store. You buy cotton thread, do you not?”
She looked away.
“And what about sugar for your tea? And as I recall, your father enjoyed tobacco in his pipe.”
She crossed her arms. “Nantucket abolished slavery in 1773.”
“And where do the Negroes live? In a cluster called New Guinea, far from the white community, near the NewTown Gate, where the barrier is meant to keep the sheep out of town. And immediately adjacent is Gallows Field. And where are the Negroes buried, Daphne? In the Colored Cemetery, far from the Friends cemetery.”
He could tell from the look on her face that he was pushing her too far. “I don’t mean to place blame on you, Daphne. I know ’tis not a simple matter. I do.” Out the window, he saw Abraham help Patience peg wet laundry on the line, smiling as he told her something. Whatever it was, it made her laugh. Ren felt a strange longing well up, and realized he envied Abraham at that moment. Envied his untroubled life.
“He is a good man, this Abraham? He seems quite devoted to thee.”
“He is the finest seaman I have ever sailed with.” He leaned back in his chair. “He saved my life.”
Daphne looked at him. “What happened?”
“We were caught in a tempest, one of the worst storms I’d ever faced. All hands were on deck, trying to keep the Endeavour’s rigging in one piece. The deck was icy, tilting and pitching the men. Then a boom broke loose, swung round to hit me from behind and knocked me right over the edge. Abraham was the only one who saw me go overboard and helped me get back to the ship. ’Twas a defining moment for me.”
“How so?”
“I should not have survived it. I felt as if I’d had a calling from God in that experience, that he had spared me for a reason.”
“For what reason?”
“That, I do not know. I had an overwhelming sense that I was saved for a purpose. I don’t think it had ever occurred to me to question what God thought of me, not until that moment in the sea, when I was cast overboard and the ship was sailing away from me.” He swirled the tea in his cup. “I was alone, yet I wasn’t alone. I can’t explain it, but something . . . Someone was there with me. That presence . . . it took away my fear.” He looked away. He hadn’t meant to bring up such an intimate topic. There was something about Daphne that made him reveal more than he intended. Her careful listening, he supposed. He heard Patience’s low laughter through the open window. “I have been wondering about a household matter. With the finances in peril, how did Jane afford to pay the maidservant?” When Daphne didn’t respond, he leaned forward and said, “Ah. Now I see. You’ve been her benefactor.”
She rose from the table and picked up her half-empty teacup. She stood before him straight as a mast, her face calm and resolute. “I’m not doing anything Jane would not have done for me.”
On that point, she was right. Jane adored her younger sister. The two didn’t resemble each other, never had. Daphne was taller than most women, sturdy, curvaceous, with thick blonde hair and dark, dark eyes that snapped—they truly sparkled—while Jane was brown-eyed, petite, with a beauty that took a man’s breath away. Daphne wasn’t beautiful in the classical sense, not like Jane, but Ren had to admit she had a striking face. Her dark eyebrows were thick and uncompromising. Her mouth was wide and a bit too full. It was her bones, he thought, those high cheekbones and squared jaw that gave her such a look of strength, of determined resolve. It was a warrior’s face, he realized. She was tougher, stronger than he remembered her to be.
“Hitty and Henry, they are my niece and nephew, Ren. I love them nearly as much . . . ,” and she choked up on the words, “. . . nearly as much as Jane loved them.”
As she crossed the room, he reached out to stop her. “You are a wonder with them, and I know I haven’t thanked you properly. I haven’t thanked you at all.”
She looked down at his hand on her forear
m, covered it quickly, and said, “We are family. No thanks is needed.”
Daphne finished reading a story to the children and set them to work drawing pictures on their slates. The morning was warm, so she opened the door and there stood Tristram Macy. “Well, look who it is! Where has thee been?”
“I’ve been back and forth between here and the Salem shipyard. Just returned on last night’s tide.”
“But I haven’t seen thee since . . .” She stopped abruptly. She was going to say she hadn’t seen him since Jane’s memorial service, but his eyes suddenly seemed to glisten with tears.
“The weather,” he said, looking away. “Summer squalls held me up on the mainland.”
The weather had been terrible these last few weeks, wet and stormy, churning the seas. Even the fishermen were complaining, and that took some doing. She moved toward him, first one step and then another. She turned and looked back through the open door. “Would thee like to come inside? Hitty and Henry would be delighted to see thee. They’ve missed thee. They’ve asked after thee.”
He paused a moment, as if he’d become lost in his thoughts. “Mayhap another time. I have some business to attend to this morning.”
“I can imagine. When will the Illumine arrive in Nantucket Harbor?”
“Soon.” Then he flashed her a flirtatious smile, that smile that belonged only to him, the one that made Nantucket matrons’ and maidens’ knees turn to water. “I am sorry, Daph. I should have let thee know I was going off island.”
Should he have? He never did consult her in his plans, so she didn’t expect him to.
“Jane’s passing . . . it shook me. I needed to get away. Have some time to think. To grieve. She was like a sister to me.”
She was my sister, Daphne thought. I am grieving too. So is Ren, so are the children. What about us?
“I stopped by to see if thee might know where Ren is. I went to the house but no one answered the door.”
Oh. So Tristram hadn’t stopped by the Cent School to see her, but to locate Ren’s whereabouts. “Ren spends his time on the Endeavour. Doing repairs, he says.”
Minding the Light Page 9