Phoebe's Light

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  “God be praised.” The captain inhaled his pipe and blew smoke out. “What have you in mind?”

  “With the captain’s permission, I want to fashion a cuddy and use a small portion of the upper deck. I’ve heard of one ship outfitted with such a cuddy, with small windows on each side to allow for fresh air. It helped a seaman afflicted with chronic seasickness.”

  “Cured it?”

  “Not sure. Helped it, that I recall.”

  “Where would it sit?”

  Matthew pointed through the door. “In the middle. Out of the way.”

  “Build it. Today.” The captain sighed. “I cannot tolerate another day.”

  “Aye, she has been quite ill.”

  “It’s not her I’m concerned about. It’s the gripes from the entire crew. Especially from the cook. He is running out of clean pots. She keeps using them to retch into.” The captain glanced at Matthew. “Don’t misunderstand. I but wish my wife well.”

  Sure you do. Matthew tried not to dwell on the noticeable lack of empathy the captain revealed about his bride.

  It took the better part of the day to create the little place of solace, but when he had finished the cuddy, he was pleased. He’d even fashioned a bunk for her to rest in, low to the ground for when waves rocked the ship.

  When he showed Phoebe what he had made for her, she burst into tears. “A place of my own!” she kept repeating, as if he had built her a fine palace.

  Mary Coffin

  28 February 1661

  Late most afternoons, if the chilly gray fog doesn’t creep in, I have made a habit of walking along the beach. I listen to the waves lap softly on the shore, and watch the birds seek their evening meal.

  After a squall, interesting flotsam and jetsam often appear on the shore. The sea floor gets churned up, and releases its treasures from old shipwrecks. My afternoon walks after a squall are especially enjoyable.

  I feel a twinge of conscience at benefiting from someone’s misfortune, but such is the plight of island living. All kinds of things float up and we use every bit of whatever happens to land on or off our shores. Many’s the story of who got what from which wreck around Nantucket, from coconut oil to brass fittings to army boots to bottles of whiskey to compasses. If it isn’t used up, it would go to waste.

  And the island rule is that he (or she) who sees it first lays claim to it.

  1 March 1661

  Peter Foulger has come to make a home on Nantucket Island and I am greatly cheered by this news. He is a fine man and provides wise counsel to the other proprietors.

  12 March 1661

  I have not seen Nathaniel in a month’s time. He spends all his spare time with the Indians, learning how to go whale hunting.

  15 March 1661

  I had an interesting conversation with Peter Foulger today. He came to the house seeking Father, but as he had gone fishing with James, I encouraged Peter to come inside and wait for their return. I wanted to make the most of the rare opportunity to speak with him, to ask questions that have been swirling in my mind. He does not seem to mind conversation.

  Peter welcomed the invitation to stay for a spell, so I made him mullein tea and served him a ginger cake, and then I peppered him with questions. “What are they like? The Indians, I mean. They come to our settlement as hired workers, but what are they like in their own village?” I am aware of some characteristics of the Indians. They are very curious about us English settlers. But they are quiet people, or perhaps they fear my father and are quiet around him.

  “They are God’s children,” Peter said, “as are you and I.”

  “You consider them to be Christians?”

  Peter’s bushy eyebrows lifted. “What is a real Christian, Mary?”

  “A real Christian attends church and obeys rules. Oh . . . and reads Scripture.”

  Peter looked at me with such sadness in his eyes. “Oh, Mary, Mary. There’s much more to the Christian life than obeying rules and going to church and reading the Bible. So much more.”

  What more is there? I felt a burning in my heart to find out more from this wise man, but Father and James appeared at the open door, holding up three large fish, and our conversation came to an abrupt halt.

  The unanswered question continues to burn in my heart.

  25 March 1661

  I have discovered something else about Peter Foulger. He considers each person as an individual. He looks me right in the eye, and he asks me questions about what I think of living in Nantucket. He listens carefully to my answers. ’Tis a wonderment!

  I find myself wondering what Peter Foulger’s wife is like. How fortunate she is to be married to a man who sees her as a whole person, with thoughts and feelings that are valuable and worth listening to.

  That is the kind of marriage I want to have. That is the only kind of marriage I will consider.

  28 March 1661

  Peter Foulger is teaching me some Algonquin greetings to say to the Indians who are helping Father build fences. They seem pleased when I use their words instead of ours.

  Peter told Mother and me a charming story about the local Indians: Many years ago, there was an Indian girl named Wonoma. She was the daughter of the sachem of the Squam tribe, which lived at the eastern end of the island. Wonoma was wise and beautiful and kind, and she was a skilled medicine woman. One day, a runner came from another sachem, named Autopscot, the chief of a tribe to the west, near Miacomet Pond. Many of his people had fallen ill and their medicine men could not cure them. They knew of Wonoma’s skill, and begged her to come and help them.

  But there had been conflicts between the two tribes. Wonoma’s father called his council together. They decided to allow Wonoma to go to Miacomet with the runner. Indeed, she cured the sick ones in Autopscot’s tribe.

  Sachem Autopscot was a young man, wise and handsome, and he and Wonoma fell in love and wanted to marry. They knew their love would not sit well with the Squam Indians, so they kept their love a secret.

  And then, one day, some men from the western tribe were found hunting on the eastern lands. This was a serious offense. Sachem Wauwinet, Wonoma’s father, called a council of war, and made plans to attack the Miacomet tribe. Wonoma could not bear the thought of her tribe going to war against her beloved Autopscot. She hurried to warn Autopscot. Alarmed by her news, Autopscot made a plan. With Wonoma’s help to seek out her father, he would offer to punish the two young braves who had trespassed on the Squam tribe’s lands. And then Autopscot told of his love for Wonoma and asked permission to marry her. Wonoma’s father looked at her, astounded. “Father,” she said, “it is my wish.”

  The courage and love of the two young people were enough to overcome the reluctance of Wonoma’s father to forgive the trespassing and to enter into friendly relations with the Miacomet tribe. The two were happily married, and since then the tribes have lived in peace with each other.

  I got teary at this story. Mother thought I was being overly sentimental. “They are only heathens,” she scolded. But that’s not why I was crying. I cried because Sachem Autopscot was so brave and willing to risk everything because he loved Wonoma. And because Nathaniel Starbuck does not love me like that.

  14

  26th day of the tenth month in the year 1767

  Matthew scanned the sky. Gray clouds lay heavily, threatening rain. Captain Foulger had set a southerly course, hoping to avoid the thick band of storms they’d sailed straight into. The captain was tense, distracted, and the crew unsettled. Under normal conditions, days at sea were long and monotonous. The idle crew had time to practice whaling drills when the sea was quiet, as well as keep the ship cleaned and repaired. Unfortunately, the Fortuna had not faced normal conditions but one squall after another. The ship grew filthy, maintenance and repairs went untended, and the inexperienced crew remained unseasoned.

  The captain was the one to blame. The Fortuna had left Nantucket too late in the season.

  Matthew walked around the bulky tryworks and up
the steps to the forecastle. Silo was tucked into a corner where he was out of the wind, scraping into a large whale’s tooth with a sail needle. An ink-stained rag sat beside him. The art of scrimshaw, a pastime of sailors.

  “Can I see what you’re working on?” Matthew crouched down beside him and held out his palm.

  Silo held up the large tooth, bigger than a man’s hand. He had scratched out a picture of a woman and rubbed black ink into the engravings, so that the picture appeared in outline form. It was remarkably true to life.

  “Why, ’tis Phoebe. Well done, Silo. You’ve quite a skill in the making.”

  Silo smiled.

  Lowering his voice, Matthew added, “Better not let the captain see it.”

  Silo nodded.

  Speaking of Phoebe, he saw her walking along the deck toward the forecastle, hand over hand on the railing. He studied her face while she was concentrating so intently. Poor girl. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright. Too bright. And she was thin! So thin. Was she not able to keep anything down?

  Yet despite her frailty, he still recognized the vigor, that inner steel and determination, that had always captivated him. Even now, here she was, forcing herself to take a turn on deck for fresh air when he knew what the sight of the endlessly churning waves did to her spirits. And her stomach.

  “Thar she blows! Thar she blows!”

  Matthew craned his neck and shielded his eyes to look up at the crow’s nest, as did Silo. The sailor in the crow’s nest was pointing to the eastern horizon, hollering the same words over and over. Deckhands appeared out of nowhere and were suddenly crawling all over the ship—some up the rigging, some lowering the boats, grabbing harpoons and hooks, ropes and oars, tripping over cleats, pulling off their shoes and tossing them on the deck.

  “It’s too soon,” Matthew said to himself as he watched their clumsy efforts. “It’s too soon. They aren’t ready.” On his father’s ship, the Pearl, preparing for a chase was like watching a finely tuned mechanism. Each part knew its role. This was like watching a riot take shape.

  Matthew jumped off the forecastle deck in one leap and reached Phoebe, pulling her out of the way of two rushing sailors. “Get back inside the cuddy and stay there.”

  She yanked her arm out of his grasp. “I’m not afraid of the chase.”

  He forced her to turn and face him. “Do as I say, Phoebe. It’s for your own good.” He practically shoved her into the cuddy and slid the door shut. As cooper, he would remain aboard as a shipkeeper, along with the captain, Cook, and the cabin boy, but he knew to get out of the way when the chase was on.

  It was great fun to watch. Matthew went to the forecastle deck and leaned over the railing to watch the crew climb down the rigging and into the three whaleboats, arguing over who sat where, clasping oars, dropping them in the water, retrieving them—finally, organized enough to row hard out to where the whale had last broken the surface. He hoped it was a sperm whale, the most valuable of all whales, but he doubted it. Most likely, in these warm waters, it would be a right whale, slow and easy to catch, rich in blubber and baleen.

  An experienced sailor in the crow’s nest could have identified the whale by its spout. Each species had a unique size and shape of the spout. A sperm whale’s had a single blowhole, spouting forward and to the left. A right whale had two blowholes and a V-shaped spout. But the sailor in the crow’s nest was a fifteen-year-old boy whose experience in whaling had been limited to gathering scallops from the shore.

  Matthew watched until the boats were nothing more than dots on the horizon. He would need a spyglass to see anything more. He walked down to where the captain stood with one eye peeled to a spyglass. “Any sign?”

  The captain handed him the spyglass. “Have a look. ’Tis a sperm?”

  Matthew focused and refocused, surprised the captain would have even thought it a sperm whale. “Nay.” Clearly not. “Nearly flat.” He handed the spyglass back.

  “Blast. The elusive sperm whale.”

  “Unlikely in these waters.” But the captain should know that. Sperm whales gathered near the Azores, off the coast of Portugal.

  This blowhole indicated a minke whale, the smallest of the baleen whales, with a spout that is low and barely visible. “A minke will give the crew needed experience.”

  The captain lowered his spyglass and sighed, passing it to Matthew for another look. “A man gains experience through experience.”

  Matthew doubted it. He’d never seen such a skittish, immature crew. On a daily basis, fights broke out; Hiram ordered an overuse of the cat-o’-nine in an effort to subdue them. They alternated between being frightened of Phoebe or provoking her—either way, they did not show proper respect due the captain’s wife.

  Then again, neither did the captain.

  Phoebe thought she had grown accustomed to the smell of rendering whale oil in Nantucket, but nothing compared to this stench. The decomposing whale fastened alongside the ship worsened her seasickness. How was it possible to get any worse? She tried to stay in the cuddy that Matthew built for her, but it was too close to the cutting. Even if she could avoid the sight, the sounds and smells overwhelmed her.

  Matthew brought a sack of coffee and opened the top of it. “A barrel broke open. I thought the smell of coffee might wipe out the stink of blubber.”

  “How long will it take to . . . butcher . . . the whale?”

  “’Tis called ‘flensing.’ It should take all day. Then starts the trying out of the blubber. The smell will get worse, especially with the heat from the fire. You might be better off in the captain’s cabin.”

  The sight of his deep-blue eyes, brows knitted with concern, overwhelmed her. Against her will, tears sprang up and spilled over.

  “Ah, Phoebe. I’m sorry this voyage has been such a trial for you.”

  She wiped away her tears and managed a weak smile. “’Tis not the adventure I had expected.”

  After he left her, she put a cloth around her face and went to the captain’s cabin to lie down. As she walked down the deck, she slipped on a puddle of whale blood. She stood, her hands covered in blood, and rushed to the side of the ship to empty her stomach of its meager breakfast. As she leaned over the ship’s railing, she saw a sight that made her legs go weak. She felt her head start to spin, as if she might faint. Far below, tied to the ship, was what remained of the whale, and shark fins circling the carcass.

  A taunting voice came behind her. “I’ll be serving up greasy whale blubber soup for midday meal.” She turned to face Cook, a sour smile on his leathered face. And worse still . . . there were two of him! Double vision. Phoebe walked away from Cook—both Cooks, each one vile—to make her way to the captain’s cabin. She looked for a towel or rag to wipe her hands of the whale’s blood, and saw one lying under the captain’s outer coat on the teak desk. He was a surprisingly untidy man, the captain. He regularly threw his discarded clothing about the cabin. Using her elbow, she moved his coat to grab the towel, and the coat slipped to the ground. She wiped her hands and reached down to pick up the captain’s coat, remembering the key to the shipbox was in the pocket. Perhaps just a grain of Sea Calm could help her cope with her nausea. She felt inordinately weakened, shivering and sweating, after experiencing the flensing of the whale.

  She stuck her hand into each pocket and found the key in the last one. She locked the door behind her—the captain had a temper; he would be outraged if he happened upon her in his shipbox—and sat at the small table, fitting the key into the lock. A small corner of paper caught her eye and she realized there was yet another compartment in the shipbox, below the vials of medicine. Curious, she carefully lifted the box and found an envelope addressed to the captain, its seal broken. She opened the envelope, struck a match to light a candle, and held the letter up to read it. The script went steeply uphill, the hand studiously rounded.

  Nassau

  Bahamas

  1 August, anno domini, 1767

  My dearest Husband, />
  I am praying each day, that you be safe and you return soon to me. I am imploring you return before year’s end, as another Child will be born to us. Also, I am in need of more Provisions. What remains is running fast out.

  I am thinking you bring Quiet with you.

  If you do not come soon, then I am thinking I will come to Nantucket in the springtime. I will bring our baby to meet your beloved Sarah.

  I am longing for you.

  Your loving wife, Lindeza

  Phoebe let the letter flutter down from her hands.

  Her heart began to thud and then to pound and then to palpitate so wildly she could think of nothing else. She felt no pain, mental or physical, merely intense surprise. No, not surprise. Shock.

  How foolish the captain must find her, he with a life she knew nothing of!

  She paced, she bit her nails, she prayed. Her eyes kept returning to the shipbox. She pulled out the vial of Sea Calm but kept the letter. She locked the shipbox and returned the key to the captain’s overcoat pocket.

  She sat at the chair of his teak desk, waiting for the captain to return. And then she would . . . she would . . . she did not know precisely what she would do, but she was naïve no longer.

  When he finally came into the cabin, he startled to see her waiting for him. “I thought you’d be long asleep by now.”

  She stood and held up the letter to the candlelight. “Who is Lindeza?”

  The captain didn’t flinch, but she saw the color drain from his cheeks. The captain took a long draw on his pipe.

  The sweetness of the smoke burned the back of her throat. That infernal smoking! It made her nausea worsen and he knew it. “I asked thee a question.”

  “Lindeza is a word for ‘beautiful woman.’”

  She looked directly at him. “She signed the letter as ‘your loving wife.’”

  The captain merely puffed on his pipe.

  “Thee has another wife? Other children besides Sarah?”