“I believe that credit belongs to God, for shedding light where I needed it the most.”
“Now there’s something I need to tell you. I hoped to meet up with Tristram in Salem, but I did not. Nor in Boston.” He put the envelope in his pocket and kept his eyes lowered. “He’s not here, by chance?”
Tristram! She’d forgotten! “On island? Nay.”
“Have you received any word from him?”
“Nay.” She bit her lip. “Where could he be?”
“I’m not quite sure.” He gave her a thin smile. “Probably looking at other shipwrights to see about expanding our fleet. I’m sure he is gainfully employed in the art of making money.”
As she turned back to stir the coals, she felt guilt roll through her body. These last few days, nay, weeks, with everything else going on, she had not given much thought to Tristram’s return.
In the morning, Hitty and Henry were dropped at Jeremiah’s, while Daphne, Ren, and Patience sailed to the Endeavour in her sloop. It was Ren’s idea. “Why wait?” he had told Daphne last night. “They can marry right away. A man’s freedom given and freedom taken, all in one day.”
She frowned at his jest. “But what is the need for the hurry?”
Ren gave her a look. “Because they are in love. Because of that, there is a need to hurry.”
His eyes were dancing as Daphne felt a blush creep up her cheeks. How childish she must seem to him. Quickly, she changed the subject. “Has thee married others?”
“Aye. Many a Nantucket sailor has a bride kept in another port. Sometimes, two or three.” When her eyes widened, he was quick to add, “’Tis not what you’re thinking. I would never agree to wed anyone whom I knew to be already married.”
“But does thee know which sailors are married and which aren’t?”
“I am trusting their word.”
“Ren, thy crew . . . they are not all Quakers!”
“And are Quakers the only ones who do not lie?” He laughed. “Daphne, I know my crew well enough to know if they are lying. Also, by the letters that are sent to them from the homefront.”
“And yet thee did not receive many of Jane’s letters.”
“True. Mail delivery at sea is not a perfect system.”
She walked to the window. “Are the rumors true? Was my father one of those who had another bride?” He didn’t respond, so she turned around to look him in the eye. “I would like to know the truth.”
“The truth?” He sighed. “The truth is, I do not know. But rumors have it that he had another woman.”
“The rumor I have heard is that she came from Nantucket. She was an Indian.”
“Aye.”
So there might be some truth to it. “Would thee happen to know anything more about her?”
He kept his chin tucked for a long time, then he lifted it with a sigh. “Ah, Daphne, why dig up an old, painful history? Your mother would be the one to suffer.”
“I just wondered . . . if mayhap I could understand more about my father. He was not partial to me. He favored Jane.”
“I remember.”
“I’d like to be able to discern why.”
“Mayhap . . . because thee seems more like thy mother’s daughter, while Jane’s temperament was more like thy father’s.” He gave her a wry smile. “Don’t look at me with such horror. There is much about Lillian’s character that is worthy of praise.”
Daphne marveled that Ren could be so charitable about her mother. “Such as?”
“Such as her strength, her determination. Her commitment. She is always so certain. Thy father was a kind and generous man, but he had none of those qualities.” He smiled. “All that is good in Lillian has passed to thee.”
Daphne glanced at him. She had two thoughts: Pleasure in Ren’s words, for they were not insights that compared her unfavorably to Jane, as Tristram often did, but compliments that recognized her for herself. And secondly, Ren had again sidled into the Quaker way with language, without even being aware of it.
The wedding on the Endeavour took place without a hitch. Abraham stood before Patience, holding her hands in his, and after Ren pronounced them husband and wife, Abraham looked around and his mouth widened with a smile as bright and glowing as a thousand lit lanterns. He looked down into Patience’s eyes with a gaze that bridged all kinds of hardships, and the look she gave back to him bespoke a promise.
How she loves him, Daphne thought. Then her eyes traveled beyond Patience and Abraham to the man standing behind them with his feet braced apart and his hands clasped at the small of his back, thoroughly at home on a quarterdeck.
How I love Ren.
Mary Coffin Starbuck
30 March 1663
Nathaniel and I have a daughter, a baby girl. She is the most beautiful baby ever born to any woman, and I am humbled by the thought that I am her mother. She was born as the sun rose, which seemed like a moment of poetry.
My first labor pain came on yesterday morning. I was kneading bread dough in the kitchen when my lower back felt as if a knife had been jabbed into it. The pain curled around my abdomen and squeezed like a vice. Catherine came upon me and sent me right to bed, before she asked Nathaniel to fetch my mother. ’Twas a long night, and labor is aptly named. Nathaniel stayed by my side for all but the birthing time. Mother said she never knew labor to progress so steadily and thinks I will have many more children. I cannot think of that right now.
Nathaniel insisted on naming our daughter after me. Thus she will be christened Mary Starbuck. She is tiny and perfect, with all ten fingers and ten toes, silky wisps of dark hair, and a very loud howl when she is unhappy.
She is the first white child born on Nantucket Island. Imagine that.
And she is mine.
1 May 1663
Today was my first time at the store since little Mary had been born. I’ve been wanting to go and check on a few orders, and the sun was shining today. Nathaniel cautioned me that I was doing too much, too soon, but I am eager to get out of the house and have a change of scenery. Finally, he relented but insisted on driving me with Jethro’s pony, and my little darling bundle. It was a wonderful, wonderful day.
27 May 1663
Jethro is dead.
I had asked him to help me move a shipment into the store, and as he was carrying in a heavy box, he tripped, dropped the box, and startled his pony. The pony reared, broke away from its tether and bolted, dragging its heavy cart. It ran right into and then over Jethro. The cart crushed him. He died instantly.
I saw it all happen, fast and slow, all at the same time. I cannot stop my mind from replaying that horrible moment. If only I had not asked him to help me at the store today. If only I had gone with him to carry the box. If only, if only. Nathaniel tries to stop me from such futile thinking.
My heart feels weighted down with a thousand stones.
29 May 1663
Catherine is inconsolable. She won’t speak to anyone, or accept comfort or sympathy. She has remained alongside Jethro, in the dark, cold root cellar where his body is laid out.
Tomorrow is the service to bury him in the Founders’ Burial Ground. I am ready for it, and yet I am not. How must his mother feel? ’Twill be the last chance she has to gaze upon his dear face.
30 May 1663
The pouring rain today made Jethro’s burial all the more difficult to bear. It felt as if angels were weeping.
5 June 1663
Esther blames me for Jethro’s accident. She says I treated Jethro as if he was my servant, ordering him to do my bidding, that he would be alive today if not for me and my “precious store.”
Her accusing words shocked me, less for their boldness—it was typical of Esther to speak her mind with supreme confidence—than for the fact they so exactly echoed the guilt weighing down my own heart.
But she did not stop there.
She said I did not care about Jethro, that I never shed a tear for him. That was true, as I am not a woman prone to tears.
Nathaniel’s defense, while well intended, was like a needle pricking a boil. It burst, and I began to cry. Big, painful, heaving sobs.
All of them just stared at me for what seemed to be the longest time. And then Esther rose and walked across the room, with her hand held out to me, eyes filled with tears. I opened my arms to her and she rushed into them. We cried together, and soon Catherine joined us, and Nathaniel, and Edward. All of us stood in the kitchen in a big huddle, all of us weeping over our dear Jethro.
It was a healing moment. Nay. ’Twas a holy moment.
18
It never occurred to Ren that Tristram had not planned to return to Nantucket until he finally tracked down the skipper who took him to Boston on his schooner. “When did you last see him?”
“In Boston Harbor.” The skipper was an old salt, whose left eye permanently squinted and left cheek remained rounded, to accommodate a pipe in the corner of his mouth. He took the pipe out of his mouth and tapped it on his palm. “He left his sea chest on my ship, then came back for it later that night.”
“Sea chest? You mean his satchel.”
“Nay. He had a sea chest. I remember it. ’Twas heavy.”
A sea chest? A sea chest. Why would Tristram have taken a sea chest with him just to go to the mainland for a few nights’ stay?
Later, he relayed the conversation to Daphne. “Is that such an odd thing?” she asked.
“We planned to outfit the ship when it came into harbor. He wouldn’t have needed it.”
“But thee knows Tristram. If he is to captain the ship, I can imagine that he would like to make himself at home in the cabin.”
“I suppose.” He gave her a deep look. “I am going to go back to the loft and have a look through his desk. Mayhap there is something that will bring light to the situation.”
At the loft, he combed through files, paperwork, and then rummaged through Tristram’s desk drawers. When he came to a locked drawer, he looked for a key, couldn’t find it, so he jimmied it open. There were only two items in that drawer, a letter addressed to Captain Reynolds Macy, on top of a silver flask engraved with the initial M. He broke the seal of the letter as he sat down in Tristram’s leather chair.
My dear cousin,
If thee has found this letter, then thee knows I am not returning to Nantucket.
For, ’twas I who gave Jane the tainted tincture. I did not know it was tainted—I hope thee will believe me for that much. She was suffering greatly from anxiety and Dr. Mitchell would not provide her any additional laudanum.
Let me begin at the beginning. After commissioning the ship Illumine and committing all funds to it, I found myself increasingly squeezed by finances. To make ends meet until the Endeavour returned to Nantucket, I came across a way to fill the gap of income: importing powdered opium from England, mixing it with alcohol, and supplying it to those Nantucketers in desperate need of it. It was a perfectly legal import, though Dr. Mitchell would not have approved. He has a strict policy that all medicines be doled out by him, through supplies that come only via Boston.
I perceived him as being tightfisted and anti-Tory. In hindsight, I realize that Dr. Mitchell was trying to protect the integrity of the medicine.
I cannot ask thee to forgive me, for I cannot forgive myself. My grief is extensive. My only hope is that thee will believe me when I say that my intentions were to help Jane.
I know I have left thee with quite a mess to untangle.
Quakers do not lie, and yet I do not have the courage to tell the truth. I know I cannot remain in Nantucket and face what I’ve done. To thee. To Jane. To Daphne. To Dr. Mitchell. To those two stevedores and their families. To Lillian, from whom I recently borrowed twenty thousand dollars. She provided it with the intention of outfitting the Illumine, as her soon-to-be son-in-law. I am not the man thee is, Ren.
Do not waste time looking for me. I have cut and run. Gone west to start afresh, with a new name, a new destiny. I hope that thee can begin again, as well.
With great remorse,
Tristram
P.S. As for Daphne, thee can handle the situation as thee sees fit. I did not love her the way she deserved, for the simple truth was, I was in love with her sister.
Ren read the letter again, then a third time, then a fourth. He picked up the silver flask and leaned back in Tristram’s chair, closed his eyes, stunned, stricken by lightning. Never had he felt so keeled over. How could this be? How could he have missed so many signals? So many.
He slammed the flat of his hands down hard on the partner’s desk. “Hypocrite!” he yelled, though no one was there to hear him. The room grew painfully silent, all but for the perpetual background sounds of the island: the cry of seagulls, the toll of mournful bells, the slap of water against wharf pilings.
He leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. Was nothing on this island like it appeared to be?
When Ren finally left the loft, he lifted his eyes to the sky and noticed the mist had burned off and the day was blue, intensely blue, with small white puffs of clouds. How long had he sat in that chair, reading and rereading Tristram’s letter? Hours. He still felt as stunned, as confused, as ever.
No wonder Tristram had been so reluctant to propose to Daphne—he was in love with Jane! Mayhap with a hope that Ren had indeed been stricken down at sea, never to return.
Had Jane loved Tristram in return? Had she been unfaithful to him?
It was a sickening thought to consider.
Nay, nay, he did not believe it of her. Daphne had told him that Jane was inconsolable when rumors came in that the Endeavour had gone down. That was but a year ago.
As he walked down Main Street, a sudden thought darted through his mind and brought him to a standstill. Jane had left a deathbed message for him, one that cut to the quick, wounded him down to his very core.
He remembered the moment as if he were watching it unfold in front of him, down to the rustle of Daphne’s taupe-colored silk skirt. Jane had died while he was at the bank, and Daphne had waited to tell him on the porch steps of Orange Street. He had asked her if Jane had left a word for him.
Daphne had dropped her eyes to her lap; the silk of her skirt rustled as she shifted her feet. “She did,” he remembered her say, aware that she was not comfortable with what Jane had to say, but that she would tell him the truth. That was—is—Daphne’s way. She could not lie. “She said thee must mind the Light and relinquish past grievance. If not for thy sake, then for the children. And she said . . . to not blame thee. That thee was trying to help.”
Mind the Light . . . that much he had understood. He knew what Jane had meant, as well as the part of “relinquishing past grievance.” That was for his stormy relationship with Lillian. But the part that hurt Ren so deeply was the part about blaming him. He assumed she had meant he was to blame for leaving her these six years, alone, without support.
It just now dawned on him that Jane hadn’t intended that message for Ren. She had meant it for Tristram. For giving her the tainted tincture.
Ren pivoted on his heels and went straight to the magistrate’s office, where he walked straight into the small office and announced to him that he wanted to formally drop the charges against Dr. Mitchell.
Linus Alcott looked up from his desk, baffled by Ren’s pronouncement. “Thee gave me an impassioned plea, not so long ago. What has changed?”
Ren spoke the truth. “All men are capable of a mistake. I should not have been so quick to accuse and slow to forgive.” At the door he stopped and turned. “Please give the doctor my sincerest apologies. Tell him . . . somehow I will make it up to him.”
As he reached the Centre Street cottage, he looked in the window before going inside. Daphne’s back was to
him. She was seated at the long table in the keeping room, reviewing some paperwork with the children. His eyes followed an unfolding scene: Henry poked a quill feather into his ear as Hitty reached for a biscuit in the middle of the table. Without missing a beat, Daphne put one hand on Hitty’s forearm, grasping it until she released the biscuit, and with the other hand, she yanked the quill from Henry.
Such an ordinary moment he was observing, nothing unusual, but he was filled with a sudden fondness for this old cottage. He remembered how dismayed he had been at the shabbiness of the Centre Street house, how simple and plain it was, how commonplace after 15 Orange Street. He remembered how concerned he had felt when he realized there was no separate dining room, only a central keeping room where, it seemed, all activities took place. Now, he viewed that keeping room as the most welcoming part of the house, oozing a warmth and well-stocked feeling that encouraged lingering. Patience kept an abundant cupboard with shelves full of breads, pies, biscuits, apples. It was a comfort that spread through the entire house. He corrected himself. It was no longer a house, but a home, filled with those he dearly loved.
He reached a hand into his pocket, heard the crinkle of Tristram’s letter, then decided he did not need to read it again. What more could it reveal? Everything about it disturbed him. More than anything—that Tristram, a man he considered to be near a brother to him, would cut and run. Leave him to pick up the shattered pieces he’d left behind. A man he’d trusted implicitly had betrayed him in every possible way. Every single way a man could betray another man.
Should he tell Daphne the truth? Should he not? He wondered. Daphne would say that the truth was always the best course, but what if the truth hurt others? What if the truth left someone with pain that could never be resolved? He closed his eyes for a moment, pressed a hand against his churning stomach, took in a deep breath, let it out, then stepped inside.
Hanging his hat on a wooden peg, he said in the kindest tone he could manage, “Hitty and Henry, might I speak privately to Daphne for a moment?”
Minding the Light Page 23