“Good. I am eager to put that old lady on the auction block. She’s nearly fin up.”
“I don’t think Ren considers her to be ready for the ships’ graveyard quite yet.”
Tristram grinned. “He’s got a sentimental streak. But when he sees the Illumine arrive in Nantucket under full sail, he will sing a different tune.”
That’s what worried Daphne. The Illumine would sail in, Tristram would outfit it, and Ren would sail away. A troubled look must have crossed her face, as he was peering curiously at her. “I am truly sorry, Daphne,” he said, misunderstanding her concern. “I know I should have let thee know I was away. ’Twas inconsiderate of me. After all, we are practically . . .” Before he could finish his sentence, Hitty spotted him, cried out, ran up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. She grabbed his hand and led him over the threshold and into the keeping room to greet Henry.
Watching them go, Daphne wondered how he was going to finish that sentence. After all, we are practically . . . what?
Mary Coffin Starbuck
22 October 1662
What are we?
If we’re not Puritans, and we’re not Baptists, then what are we? I asked Nathaniel that question last night and he said it did not matter because there was no church on Nantucket Island. All that matters is we are Christians, he said.
Of course he’s right. There is great resistance on the island to host any kind of clergy for longer than a fortnight. There was a heated argument in the store yesterday between Richard Swain and my father. Richard is campaigning to persuade clergy to settle here, but Father is vehemently against it. If a Puritan minister were to move to Nantucket, I fear Father would be either put in stocks immediately for saying too much of the wrong thing, or he would pack up and move Mother somewhere else. I could not bear that thought.
Nathaniel wondered why I thought it mattered to have a church here. I’ve been pondering that question all day, and I think I have an answer for him. While it is true that we can worship the Almighty with or without church or clergy, I wonder if a church is meant for even more than worship. At its best, it acts as the hub of a community, lifting standards of behavior, providing a means of help and support.
The problem of Nantucketers, I suppose, is that we have not seen many examples of a church at its best, and therefore, we reject it all.
8
Ren stopped at the bottom of the porch steps at 15 Orange Street and let his gaze roam slowly up the front gray-shingled siding of the house to the rooftop, to the walk. Off-islanders called them widow walks, assuming Nantucket wives spent their surfeit of spare time peering out to the harbor to see if their beloved’s ship had returned. Islanders scorned that term, knowing the women had no surfeit of spare time. They merely called it a walk, used to hoist buckets of water to the roof should fire break out.
The truth was somewhere in between, as it usually was. Ren wondered how many wives had stood on the walk as widows without knowing it. Whaling voyages and death tolls wove together.
He felt a pride well up inside him at the sight of this house. It was a modest home, but a gift of love to his bride. He had planned carefully so Jane would want for nothing.
Instead of providing her with security, he had unwittingly left her in a precarious position, without the community of Friends to support her. He had assumed Lillian would relent on reading Jane out of Meeting, the way mothers and daughters make up after a row. But Lillian, he should have realized, was not like other mothers. She was quite fond of her grudges, nursing them like little pets.
He breathed deeply as he entered the house, filling his lungs with the sweet scent that had grown familiar to him these last few weeks. It was the scent of Daphne, a trace of lemon verbena that she left behind. It made him think of warm spring days, when the whole world seemed full of expectation and promise.
He heard her before he found her in the sunroom, reading a book to Henry and Hitty. He smiled at the sight, each child nestled beneath one of her arms. The sunroom was beautiful, with windows on three sides that filled the room with morning light. Jane had declared it to be her favorite room. He cleared his throat and she looked up. Hitty gave him a shy smile, Henry scowled. “Might I speak to you a moment, Daphne?”
She frowned. “It will have to wait. We are right in the middle of a story about a pirate who is plotting to highjack a ship on the high seas.”
“Stories can wait.”
“So can sea captains.”
His eyebrows lifted. He was not accustomed to someone who did not instantly obey his request, nor someone who spoke back to him. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”
He was hoping a teakettle would be boiling on the hearth, but alas, the kitchen was empty, the fire gone cold. He was on his own. He struck a flint, cupping the flame until it flowered, and set it underneath kindling in the fireplace. Satisfied that the fire was under way, he filled the kettle with water from the pump in the yard and set it on its trammel. And still Daphne had not come.
Was he to make his own tea? He hadn’t made a cup of tea since he was a cabin boy. He couldn’t remember how it was done! Drumming his fingers on the tabletop, he waited for Daphne to join him. When the water started rolling in a boil, he gave up waiting. He scooped tea out of the container and put it in a mug, then poured water over it.
He looked up when the kitchen door opened. “Better plan for rain tomorrow,” Daphne said, as if he had asked. “There’s a strong west wind blowing, and a west wind always brings wet weather.” She caught the puzzled look on his face and peered into his mug. “What has thee done? It looks like thee is drinking tea leaves.”
He swirled the concoction in his mug. “I have not had much experience in the kitchen.”
“Clearly not! ’Twill taste much better if the leaves are strained.” She took the mug from him and dumped it out in the swill bucket.
Strained! That was the step he’d forgotten. He leaned far back in the chair and crossed his boots.
He cleared his throat, produced a smile, but Daphne didn’t smile back. He wondered what had made her so tetchy tonight. “Look here, Daphne, there’s a more pressing concern at the moment than thickly brewed tea. I’ve had to . . . the house . . . this house . . .” He took a deep breath and spit it out. “I’ve sold the Orange Street house.”
She froze, mid-pour, and pivoted around to face him. “Thee has done what? Why?”
“The banker offered me a price that . . . I could not refuse.” There was both a truth and a lie in that statement, for Ren could not have refused any price.
She finished pouring water through the strainer. Without looking up at him, she asked, “Where will thee go?”
“I will find a place to let.” He should have been scrounging the island. Ezra Barnard’s two months notice had begun weeks ago. His father had offered his house on Easy Street, but Ren declined. His father’s small house was near the wharf, redolent with the pungent odor of rendering whale oil, and more of a cooperage with a bunk in the corner than a home. It was no place for two small children, plus him, plus the maidservant. He hoped Patience would remain with them, but he wondered. She was a fine servant, quiet and competent, and would have no trouble finding work elsewhere.
Daphne set the teacup in front of him, and he glanced up at her, then took a second look. Her eyes were glistening with tears. “Why? How? How could thee sell the children’s home? Jane’s house?”
“Please don’t look at me that way.” It surprised him. Daphne struck him as a practical woman. “I know your sister was dear to you, but her memories will stay in your heart.”
She nodded her head, but the tears kept coming.
Oh no. He wasn’t accustomed to handling tears, or women. Especially not women with tears. “Try to understand.” He set his teacup down. “Daphne, I must be wise about my circumstances. I don’t know how much Tristram might have told you, nor if Jane was aware of this, but Tristram used the Endeavour’s haul as collateral to commission a new whaler. There have
been unforeseen delays.” He blew out a puff of air. “I could not pay my crew their lay. No investor will consider providing additional funds to outfit the new ship until it is complete. And of course there is one delay after another.” He looked away as he added, “I had no choice but to sell the house.”
She slipped into a chair at the end of the table and wiped tears off her cheeks. She kept her head dipped when she spoke. “Tristram stopped by the Cent School this morning, looking for thee. He told me that thee plans to captain the new ship as soon as it is outfitted.”
“Aye, well, apparently that’s the plan.”
“Don’t tell me thee has considered taking the children along.”
His eyebrows shot up. So that’s what was troubling her. The thought of the children leaving the island. “Nay. If anything . . . I suppose . . . mayhap you could . . .”
She lifted her head in defiance. “Raise thy children for thee? While thee is jousting with whales?”
Her voice had a sharp edge to it. This wasn’t going well. He should have brought Tristram along with him for this conversation. Trist could speak of difficult matters in such a way that women didn’t end up mad at him. He sighed. He was not blessed with the gift of conversation like his cousin.
She leaned forward, hands clasped together on the table. “Ren, when thee told me about the time thee fell overboard, that thee nearly died—should’ve died—thee said that God spared thy life for a purpose.”
“Aye, I said as much. But I have not yet discerned the purpose.”
She lifted her hands in the air. “This! This is thy purpose!”
“What is this?”
She squeezed her eyes shut as if astounded by his obtuseness. “To be a father to thy children. A true father. Not an absent one.”
“Am I not trying?” he snapped. By the look on her face, no, he wasn’t trying. Not hard enough. More gently, he added, “And how does one go about that with a lad and lass who will not speak to me?”
“Start by taking meals with them. Here, in the kitchen. As their mother did.”
Such a thought shocked him. “Did Jane not eat separately in the dining room?”
“Nay. She ate here, with the children.”
“In the kitchen?” Like a servant?
“From the start. She preferred it. And then . . . later on . . . she closed those rooms off in the winter.”
Later. Ren’s stomach tightened. Later meant after Tristram used Jane’s stipend to commission the ship. His own wife did not have the fuel to warm or illumine this house during a bitter Nantucket winter . . . while he was chasing down that very fuel across the oceans.
Daphne smoothed her silk skirt and the rustling sound snapped him back. “I have another thought. Take them to the Endeavour. Show them thy ship. Tell them what it’s like to chase a whale on the open sea. What boy or girl would not want to hear such a gory and gruesome story?”
“Gory and gruesome? Why, ’tis nothing of the sort. ’Tis a hunting expedition, skillful and practiced. A harmony of movement between man and beast. Why, ’tis a magnificent moment for a man, to sight a pod of great slow-moving creatures, making their way north to the cold seas they love.” He caught her smiling at him. “I see thy point, Daphne.”
The Endeavour.
He would do it! Soon.
It was so simple! How had Daphne not considered it the moment Ren told her that he had sold the Orange Street house? She woke before dawn, dressed quickly, and hurried downstairs to catch him before he left for the morning. Even still, she nearly missed him. He had his hand on the front door as she came down the stairs.
“Ren! Hold on a moment. I think I have the perfect solution to thy problem.”
He spun around at the sound of her voice, surprised to see her. “What problem is that? I should say, which one? For there are many.”
She hid a smile as she came down the stairs, amused by his stance. He stood dark and tall against the white door, with his shoulders thrown back and his legs splayed wide, as if he was on a rolling deck of a ship. “Hear me out. There’s a house to live in . . . and it already belongs to thee.”
“I’m listening.”
“The Centre Street house! Father gave it to Jane after thee set sail. He wanted to provide some insurance for her because he knew Mother had cut off her inheritance. That house, ’tis yours to use.”
“The place where Jane’s Cent School is housed?” Interested, he leaned against the door. “But Lillian . . . surely she would object . . .”
“It was Father’s to bestow. My mother would never consider living in it. Too small, too humble.”
He gave her a wry grin. “Not too humble for a poor sea captain and his two children.”
“Thee might want to see it again. It has no kitchen, only a keeping room. Bedrooms are upstairs, but they are small. There is a lean-to in the back. ’Tis old, Ren. The original part of the house was built nearly one hundred years ago.”
“Sounds grand compared to the captain’s quarters of the Endeavour.” He folded his arms against his chest. “You’re confident that your mother would not object? Raise a ruckus?”
“Leave my mother to me.” She smiled. “I’ll tell Patience. We’ll start packing today.”
“Hold on, hold on. What of Jane’s Cent School?”
“What of it?”
“I wish it to continue. How did you put it? To keep Jane’s garden growing.”
“If thee does not mind sacrificing thy keeping room after breakfast each morning, then Jane’s Cent School shall continue.”
He nodded. “I do not mind in the least.”
“Consider it done then.”
He reached out to take her hand, covering it with both of his palms. “Daphne, I . . . am most grateful.”
Their eyes met, perhaps a beat too long, until Ren dropped her hand as if he’d touched a hot stove.
Daphne hurried upstairs, trying not to think about the pressure of Ren’s touch on her hand. She filled her mind with tasks to speed the move to Centre Street, first of which was to find Patience and make a plan. The door to Jane’s bedchamber was open and she stopped to close it. She did not want the children to see the empty bed as they came downstairs.
Grief was an odd companion. At times, Daphne was so busy she hardly thought of Jane. Then a quiet moment would arrive and a wave of grief would roll over her, almost buckling her. The mornings at the Cent School were blessedly busy, for it was there that she was most keenly aware of Jane’s absence.
With her hand on the doorknob, she paused. The room was dark, with curtains drawn to keep the sun from fading the rug. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she saw that Patience had been in here recently. The bed linens were gone, the room had been swept and dusted. She wondered how Patience had the fortitude to come in here without being asked to. She knew how devoted Patience was to Jane.
Patience had been a house servant to the family for as long as Daphne could remember, and a minder to both girls, at least until Jane’s marriage. Prior to her elopement, Jane was also considered to be Daphne’s minder, “and a poor example at that,” Mother often said since.
At the time, Daphne was fifteen. Patience would never admit her true age, but Daphne thought they were closer than she wanted to reveal. Patience wanted Daphne to think she was the minder, but the truth was that they had a mutual understanding: managing Lillian.
Daphne discovered that truth one day when she had been at 15 Orange Street. It was not long after Ren had sailed off, mayhap two or three months later. Jane was horribly nauseated with her pregnancy and Daphne stayed with her all day long to hold a cold cloth to her head, or empty her buckets, and keep her company in that big empty house. When Daphne finally went home, she smelled awful and looked worse. Mother took one sweeping appraisal of her and erupted. “Where has thee been?”
Daphne stared back at her, at a loss for what to say. Jane had sworn her to secrecy, convinced their mother would assume they eloped only because she was with child.
Mother’s irritability instantly tempered. “Well, go bathe before thee spreads illness throughout the household.”
“Of course,” Patience and Daphne said at the same time and then passed each other a little smile.
From that moment on, Daphne knew she had an ally in Patience. If Daphne was over at Jane’s, she could count on Patience to make excuses for her. “I believe Miss Daphne went down to market to buy you those fresh oranges you like so much, madam,” she would say when Mother asked for her and, magically, oranges would appear from the kitchen. Or . . . “Did not Miss Daphne say something about delivering quilts to the Wampanoag village?”
Mother did not dare question Daphne’s charitable activities, because she was delighted that her daughter was doing something noble, something she could brag about at gams and gatherments. Something to distract other Nantucket hens from asking about Jane and her embarrassing elopement to the lapsed Quaker sea captain.
From Daphne’s point of view, it was delicious to have someone to keep secrets with after Jane left home. But it wasn’t just skirting around Mother. It was wonderful to have Patience, wise beyond her years, someone who looked at Daphne and loved her just the way she was, who saw purpose to her life beyond bringing prominence to her socially minded mother. Patience gave her all that.
But then her father died, suddenly and dishonorably, and on the same day Lillian Coffin fired Patience. No reason, no explanation.
Daphne helped Patience pack her few belongings, followed her outside to the street, rehired her, doubled her salary—Daphne’s entire monthly allowance—and sent her off to Jane’s house to live. Not a moment too soon, either, for the twins were born six weeks early—causing additional mortification for Lillian Coffin.
Something changed after that tumultuous time. Unlike Jane, Daphne was no longer afraid of their mother.
Daphne walked inside Jane’s bedchamber and turned in a circle in the middle of the room. Mayhap it would be best to leave this house, filled with memories of Jane. The children would start fresh with their father at Centre Street, a home they already felt comfortable in. Her eyes landed on the nightstand, to the drawer that held Great Mary’s journal. Each day, she had found a quiet moment to come in and read a few entries from the journal. She probably should have started at the very beginning rather than the middle, but she was caught up in Great Mary’s current story. The journal brought her comfort, and helped ease the sorrow she felt about losing Jane. She let out a deep sigh, opened the nightstand drawer, took the journal and slipped it into her pocket. She certainly did not want it misplaced in the move to Centre Street.
Minding the Light Page 10