Minding the Light

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  That was all it took for Abraham to make a beeline out the back door to help the women.

  “I didn’t break it,” Henry growled. “It’s old. It snapped. Hurry up and eat, Hitty. We have to go.”

  Ren remained by the door. “Where are you two off to?” He found himself increasingly curious about these two. They weren’t typical of children he’d been around, though he had to admit that most of the children he’d been around were street urchins in foreign ports.

  “Aunt Daphne is taking us sailing this afternoon,” Hitty said, and Henry frowned at her.

  Ren barely stifled a grin. He was shortening his days on the Endeavour, finding excuses to return to the Centre Street cottage more often. He was surprised to realize he liked coming home, even if Henry did greet him, more often than not, with a scowl. The snug little house was an inviting place, clean and tidy, full of tantalizing aromas that lingered all day from Patience’s cooking. As Daphne came through the back door and into the keeping room, they nodded to each other.

  Ren asked, “You’re taking them sailing this afternoon?”

  “I am.”

  “She promised,” Hitty volunteered. “She’s teaching us to sail. I’m an excellent sailor. Henry is not.”

  “I am too,” he muttered back, and gave her a kick under the table.

  “He’s not. He’s not at all patient. And he doesn’t listen to the wind.”

  “I do too,” he snapped in a tone that suddenly reminded Ren of his father, Jeremiah. Interesting, he thought. So that’s who Henry takes after.

  Between bites of bread, Hitty said, “Last time Aunt Daphne took us out, he nearly ran us straight into a fisherman’s dory.” She grinned. “The fisherman was so scared he dropped his net.”

  “That’s enough out of thee, Hitty.” Daphne gave her a look, then turned to Ren. “I’d promised them a sailing lesson on the next perfect afternoon. Today’s mild weather makes it the day to take advantage. ’Tis a perfect sailing day—blue skies and a steady, gentle wind.”

  “But on which vessel?”

  “I have a sloop. It’s moored to my mother’s dock.”

  Ren’s hand hovered over his hat on the wall peg. He turned to face the wall as he took off his overcoat. “Might you be needing the help of a sea captain with a bit of spare time this afternoon?”

  An awkward silence fell over the keeping room. He dared not turn around. He knew enough about his children to know that Henry was shaking his head no and Hitty was considering it and Daphne was frowning at both of them. He was fairly confident Daphne would win. And he guessed right.

  “We’d be honored to have the captain come aboard,” she announced in a nautical tone, and he heard Henry barely stifle a groan. “We’re hoisting sails at fourteen bells.”

  He spun around and grinned at her. “Aye, aye.” He glanced at the grandfather clock. He grabbed his hat off the wall peg and pulled on his coat. “I’ll see you all at the sloop at two o’clock.”

  “But where is thee off to now? If thee is late on the tide, we will leave without thee.”

  “I won’t disappoint. I’ll be waiting at the sloop.” He stopped, pivoted around slowly. “But what of your mother . . .”

  “What of her?”

  “What if she sees me on the dock?”

  “She isn’t home this afternoon. Something about wedding preparations.”

  This wedding.

  Ren learned of Tristram and Daphne’s plans to be wed through Jeremiah, of all people, who’d heard it from a sailor on the docks who was courting one of Lillian’s housemaids. At first, he didn’t believe it, so he asked Daphne and she colored red like a tomato. “I meant to tell thee,” she told him, brushing it off as if it was nothing. As if Ren was not family, but a casual acquaintance. “We decided last week, in a bit of a rush, just as Tristram set sail for the mainland.”

  While it was an expected event, hearing of it created a maelstrom of emotion within Ren. All kinds of conflicted feelings for Tristram swirled through him: old loyalty, new rivalry. Ridiculous! he thought, thrusting jealousy aside.

  But for Daphne? Confusion, disappointment, mingled with loss. A great loneliness overwhelmed him. Yet he had no claim on her, no right to discourage the engagement.

  He supposed it came down to change. He’d had too much of it, as had his children. He wanted things to stay the way they were. He liked Daphne’s presence in his home, he liked how comfortable the children were with her, he liked hearing stories of the day’s events of the Cent School. He liked . . . Daphne. She made him a better man.

  His father had a sage response for such nettlesome, complicated matters in life. “It is what it is,” Jeremiah would sigh, and Ren felt that just about summed up this situation.

  This wedding.

  Lillian, a devout Quaker, had shrugged away constraints for modesty to spin it into the social event of the season. Daphne rarely spoke of her upcoming wedding without embarrassment.

  All those thoughts ricocheted through his mind as he walked down Centre Street and increased his stride on Main Street to hurry to the magistrate’s, waving to his father as he passed him. He was seated on a bench in the sun next to an old salt, exchanging fish stories. Jeremiah looked . . . quite content.

  The magistrate, Linus Alcott, had sent word that he would like to meet with Ren at his earliest convenience. “Come in, sit down,” he told Ren, extending his hand for a shake. “I believe we have a case to pursue here, and everyone on Nantucket will have thee to thank for it.”

  It made Ren slightly uneasy, though he couldn’t say why. “Really? You’ve studied the evidence?”

  “Solid facts are what I found. I’m going to draw up a warrant this very day and send the sheriff after the doctor.” Alcott brushed the palms of his hands as if dusting off flour. “Off to gaol, where he can do no more harm to the citizens of Nantucket.”

  Ren stilled. Into the Nantucket gaol? It was a grim place, dark and dank, the stuff of local lore. “Surely you’ll set an amount for bail.”

  “I certainly will!” Alcott scoffed. “Too high for him to pay, at least without doing some serious scrounging.”

  Ren rubbed the back of his neck. “Could not the charges be drawn without arresting him?”

  “Not for homicide.”

  Murder? Ren shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Even if it was accidental?”

  “That’s for the court to decide.” Alcott rose from his chair, a signal Ren recognized as dismissal, and reached a hand out. “This is an important case for the island, Captain Macy. Thee is brave to pursue it.”

  That was too easy, Ren thought, as he left the magistrate’s office. It shouldn’t have been that easy. He left the meeting both confused and disheartened. What was it Daphne had said? He was grasping a nettle. The sting made its way all through him.

  As he hurried toward Lillian’s house, far up Main Street, he decided not to say anything to Daphne about Dr. Mitchell, not quite yet. He needed time to think this through, to ponder why the magistrate seemed almost eager to arrest the doctor. Ren wanted justice for Jane, but he wanted it done for the right reasons. There was something—dare he think it?—too ambitious about this magistrate.

  He picked up his pace. He wanted to be waiting on the dock for the children, to keep proving his word to them. Last evening, Hitty asked him when he was sailing away again. When he told her that he wasn’t going to leave, that Uncle Tristram was going to captain the new ship, she didn’t believe him. She told him that Uncle Tristram insisted men were made for land, fish for the sea.

  Daphne was right—these two children were not easily fobbed off. They weren’t going to give him their hearts if they thought he wasn’t a permanent fixture in their life.

  Despite Daphne’s reassurance that Lillian was off island, he still felt jumpy as he walked past her grand house, down the quahog-shell path toward the dock that jutted into the cove. He hadn’t seen Lillian but for Jane’s memorial service, where she ignored him as he tried to politel
y speak to her. Most likely she had been avoiding him. He would be easy to identify on the island. His clothing was not the typical garb of a Quaker man, but that of a whalemaster.

  He prepared the sloop, untying its cleats and unfurling the sails. Sunshine beat down on his head from a hazy sky. The air was thick and still, the few sailboats out on the cove bobbing like fishing corks. The wind was picking up as the sun warmed the air. A perfect day for sailing. He lifted his head and sniffed, to see—nay, to feel—which direction the wind was coming and felt a return of well-being flood through him, of healing. How he loved being on the water.

  He wondered where Daphne and the children were, for by now it was well past two. Finally, he walked down the road to the turnaround and saw figures approaching from a distance. He squinted to get a clearer view: Patience was with them, as was Abraham, who carried a hamper in his arms. As they came a little closer, he could see Henry’s head tipped up, no doubt peppering Abraham with questions. A few nights ago, he overheard their conversation in the keeping room while he was at the top of the stairs. Henry was asking Abraham about harpooning a whale. Ren could not deny that it irked him, hearing his own son asking whaling questions to another, when he obviously had an interest in it. It wasn’t Abraham he was jealous of, it was his son’s attention, even admiration, that he would like to have. Was that such a bad thing? Most every son he knew on Nantucket had an admiration, even an awe, of their seafaring fathers. But not Henry.

  “You are Captain Reynolds Macy?”

  Ren whirled around to face a man—tall and burly, with greased black hair beneath his dirty hat—standing in front of him, his hands on his hips. “I am.”

  “I’m on the hunt for a fugitive slave.”

  Ren stiffened. “You’re on the wrong island. Nantucket has no slaves.”

  “Doesn’t matter where I am. I have a valid legal claim to bring him back to his master.”

  Ren appraised the man. A white scar slashed from his forehead down across his cheekbone, causing one eyelid to droop, adding to his look of malice. He reminded Ren of a sailor who once had been a prison guard. He’d not been a reliable sailor, as he didn’t like taking orders from anyone. “And . . . you are . . . ?”

  “Moser. Silas Moser.”

  “Bounty hunter.” He knew of him. Everyone did.

  He grinned. “That’s right.” He pulled out a paper and unfolded it. “You recognize him?”

  Ren looked at the paper. It was a sketch of a black man, advertising a reward for his return. Wide, brown eyes, a broad nose, a round loop earring on each earlobe. He turned it over and saw it was torn from a Boston newspaper. Ren’s jaw flexed. “Why are you asking me?”

  “Word is you got a black man on your ship. That you picked him up in the Barbados, a year or so ago.”

  “Where would you have heard such a thing?”

  “Don’t matter where.”

  Exactly what Ren thought he’d say. Though, it was hardly a secret. Any sailor on the Endeavour could have seen the advertisement, could have sought out a bounty hunter to receive a cut of the reward. “So you’ve come to the island to find him? That’s quite a distance.”

  “He’s a valuable slave. Skilled. His master was a seaman.”

  “If the master was a seaman from Barbados, I assume he takes part in running the Triangular Trade.” It was a deplorable practice to Ren. He’d seen many such ships sailing on the Atlantic. Enslaved Africans would be imported to the American colonies as the labor force was needed for cash crops, which were exported to Europe in exchange for manufactured goods.

  “Don’t matter what he does. He wants this boy back. Supposed to be a real smart boy. Right there, in the paper, it says that.”

  “Too smart, mayhap, to be enslaved by another man?”

  Moser narrowed his eyes. “Not too smart for me to find him and haul him back to his master.”

  Ren folded up the paper and handed it back to him. “Moser, you’ll have to keep looking.” As Moser dipped his head to fold the paper back up, Ren glanced over his head to see Daphne and the children approaching.

  Abraham and Patience were no longer with them.

  Ren seemed preoccupied as he hoisted the sails and cast off from the dock, as did Henry. Something had happened to change this outing from a lighthearted afternoon, just moments ago, to a gloomy one. Daphne sat in the cockpit with her hand on the tiller and tried to think of a way to lift everyone’s spirits. “Captain Macy, would thee like to take the helm today?”

  He looked at her as if he’d forgotten she was there. “I would. But I need the help of two small helmsmen, if you happen to know any.”

  A tiny smile lifted the corners of Henry’s mouth.

  Ren noticed.

  “I’ll take the rudder,” Hitty said.

  “Hold on. Do the two of you know basic commands of sailing?”

  “I know them all,” Hitty said.

  “She doesn’t,” Henry said, adjusting his glasses. “Like what commands?”

  “Such as . . . have you noticed the ‘lay of the land’”?

  They peered at him. “If you don’t know the lay of the land, you’re in danger of foundering the ship.” Ren pointed to the shoreline. “If the land is flat and sandy, like it is there, it means the seabed is shallow and sandy too.”

  Henry nodded. “Give us another.”

  “An easier one,” Hitty added.

  “Hmm.” Ren rubbed his beard. “How about, ‘All hands on deck.’” When they looked curiously at him, he explained. “The seamen must hurry to their positions.”

  “Another,” Henry said. “Give us another. Aunt Daphne didn’t teach us these.”

  Daphne was flabbergasted. She had tried so hard to pound proper sailing terms into those two . . . and it seemed all for naught! Though she had to admit there was something romantic about ship’s jargon compared to a tiny sailboat’s.

  The corners of Ren’s eyes crinkled. “I see we’re going to need to take some time to learn the ropes.”

  “I know that one,” Henry said. “It means learning how to tie a knot.”

  “Partly. On a ship, it means to learn the use of many ropes. Like this one.” He neatly tightened the main sail. “For now, I’m securing the sheet and centering the boom. We don’t want the boom”—he pointed to the spar on the after side of the mast—“to swing back and forth. That’s how I went overboard once. Hit by a jibing boom.”

  “Was that when Abraham saved thy life?”

  “Aye. ’Tis something I’ll never forget.”

  Daphne was just about to ask him a question about it when Hitty pointed out another sailboat. “Oh look! There’s my friend Mattie and her papa. Can thee sail close to her boat so she can see I’m holding the rudder?”

  “Nay, lass. There’s no room for pride in sailing.”

  Hitty scowled, pulled her blouse down over the pudgy roll of her waist. She let out a sigh as if life was hardly worth living under such a condition, and Daphne could see by the confused look on Ren’s face that he was wondering if he’d said the wrong thing.

  “You might have noticed by now that Hitty can be a wee bit dramatic,” Daphne whispered, and he gave her a grateful smile. “Do not worry. It will pass soon.”

  And just as suddenly, Hitty’s mood lifted and she was jumping up and down as a gust of wind filled the sail and the sloop started to skim along the water. Her head tipped up at the bloated sheet. “Oh Papa, ’tis a butterfly’s wing!”

  Suddenly the sloop had tilted so far over, the sails seemed to be skimming along the white-capped water. Daphne hauled hard on the jib sheet as the sloop came about, cleating the line fast with expert hitches. The wind blew strong and steady, and they sailed up into it, close-hauled and nicely trimmed. When she sat back down, she realized Ren had been watching her.

  “Well, Daphne, I am duly impressed. You’ve a deft hand. I would hire you for my crew.”

  A smile stole over Daphne’s face, although she carefully kept that face turned away
from him. She’d had to take her bonnet off because of the wind, and most of her hair had come loose to blow about her. She coiled her hair in a knot and pinned it with a stray pin, hoping it would stay tucked in.

  They stopped for a picnic at Tuckernuck, a small island off Nantucket where there were more sheep than people. Patience had filled the hamper: bread slathered with thick butter and jam, sliced apples, cold lemonade, and shortbread cookies. The children ate quickly and ran to explore the inlets.

  “Who taught you to sail?” Ren said. “As I recall, Jane was not a sailor.”

  “She never enjoyed it. But I loved it. Father had me out on the water as soon as I could walk. I was sailing my own little dinghy by the twins’ age. Father used to say I had salt water in my veins.” She handed him a slice of apple. “What about thee? When did sailing become thy great love?”

  Ren leaned back on an elbow, stretching his legs out, crossing his ankles, and told her of his first position as cabin boy. “I was eight years old,” he said. “My father was cooper for a ship and lied about my age so that I could join the crew, as long as I told no one we were related.”

  “Did not thy mother object?”

  “Indeed. She objected loudly, as I recall. But ’tis no easy thing to change the direction of two Macy men when their minds were made up.”

  “But thee was only eight years old!”

  “An eight-year-old boy can do the work of a man.”

  “But every child deserves a childhood. Surely, thee will not expect as much from Henry.”

  He smiled. “Worry not.” He shielded his eyes to watch a sandpiper run along the water’s edge. “And then there are some men who prefer to remain a child.”

  “Such as Tristram,” she said and he laughed.

  Sitting on the beach with Ren felt nothing like sitting next to Tristram. Daphne found herself acutely aware of Ren: every remark, every toss of his head or roll of his shoulders or flick of his wrist. She had never been self-conscious around Tristram. Truth be told, she had never paid such close attention to Tristram as she did to Ren.