by Susan Wiggs
The common seamen soon learned she was game for more active duties. On a balmy Wednesday morning, Ryan looked up to see her balanced in the shrouds and bent over a yardarm as she helped Gerald reefing a sail.
His heart galloping in his chest, Ryan sounded the whistle and bellowed, “Come down from there, Miss Peabody.”
“I’m busy,” she said.
“That’s an order.”
“You ordered me to ignore you, so that is what I shall do.”
And Ryan Calhoun, who knew better, released a lengthy stream of colorful invective in an obnoxiously loud voice.
Isadora looked across the web of rigging at Gerald. “Did you hear something? Or was it merely a great gust of wind?”
Ryan stalked off. In driving Isadora away, holding her at arm’s length, he had propelled her toward the others. Judging by her behavior in Boston, he’d formed the idea that she was a solitary sort, not one to seek company when a good book lay at hand. Now she enjoyed being around people. She liked to talk and loved to listen. And judging by the reaction of the crew, she was damned good at it.
Even William Click, the moody and secretive second mate, warmed to her. He showed her how to man the pulleys to bring water up from the sea, and sometimes they knelt side by side on the midships deck, doing their laundry. And Ralph Izard, generally circumspect about his personal life, often gave her a turn at the helm as he stood by, sharing his memories of his boyhood in New York City.
Day by day, man by man, she was becoming their friend, their confidante, their shipmate. She was coming to know them in a way Ryan, as the captain, never could. By virtue of his role, he couldn’t speak to Timothy Datty of the farm he’d left in Rhode Island, to Gerald Craven of his recent trip to New Orleans. Ryan had to hold himself apart from the crew, but Isadora seemed to blossom in their midst.
On quiet evenings after the supper hour, he would spy her skylarking with the men on the open main deck. She openly and good-humoredly despaired of her skill as a dancer, so the men were determined to teach her to curtsey and dance like an accomplished lady. At first Ryan tried not to pay attention, but lately she seemed to speak louder and laugh more frequently than she had before. She was becoming hard to ignore.
Chips had carved her a serviceable recorder flute. Before long, she joined in the makeshift ensemble consisting of Journey with his skin drum, Luigi with his fiddle and Gerald with his hornpipes. The music they made was so merry that even his mother and Fayette came above to sit beneath their blankets and tap their feet, trying to forget their persistent misery.
At least having his mother on deck gave him an excuse to draw close to the festivities. He greeted the ladies and Lily held on to his hand. “When will I ever get my sea legs?” she asked.
“You should be over the sickness by now.”
“I’m trying, Ryan. Really I am. We both are. Isadora brings us broth and bread, sometimes even a bit of egg and biscuit. She is an angel, I tell you. Purely an angel.”
Ryan shot a furtive glance at the “angel.” She held the recorder to her lips, eyes dancing as she picked out the melody of “The Bo’sun’s Wife.” Her slippered foot tapped on the oaken deck. The lowering sun burnished the loose curls of her hair. But Ryan’s gaze kept wandering to her mouth. Full and moist, her lips circled the mouthpiece of the recorder, and at the corners they turned up slightly as if in amusement.
He watched those lips and the way her nimble fingers played over the openings, making music. Unexpected heat rushed through him, and his thoughts wandered to dark, forbidden places scented by a woman’s musky perfume. He imagined, with startling vividness, the brush of bare silken skin and the softness of smiling lips beneath his own.
Ryan shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, trying to reel in his thoughts and feeling a tight discomfort in his trousers. When he realized what was happening to him, he muttered something about taking a sounding, and then he walked away.
Damn it.
He missed her.
Eleven
Aboard at a ship’s helm, A young steerman steering with care.
—Walt Whitman,
Aboard at a Ship’s Helm
“Tell me about your family, Journey,” Isadora said.
Seated across from her at the galley table, he looked up from mending a shirt. The soft blue fabric lay draped over his bony knees, and a faraway expression clouded his gaze.
She didn’t have long to wonder where he had been in his daydream. He said, “I haven’t seen my Delilah or my babies in four years.”
Isadora felt each quiet, simple word like a velvet-gloved blow. She’d always known that slavery was an inhuman, unjust institution, but her conviction sprang from reading pamphlets and essays penned by educated men and women.
By contrast, Journey’s presence, his dignity, his quiet despair, illustrated the point with brutal clarity.
“Does it disturb you to talk about them?” she asked.
“Not any more than not talking about them.” He stabbed his needle into the seam of the shirt, a sturdy broadcloth garment commonly worn by all the crewmen.
Almost all, she reflected, shifting uncomfortably on the bench. Now that they had entered southern climes, she hadn’t suffered from the grippe in days. Yet her corset chafed more than ever. The soft broadcloth would feel wonderful.
Knowing her mother would call for smelling salts at the very thought of her daughter lowering her standards of dress, Isadora had removed one layer of petticoats. She felt wicked doing so, but much more comfortable. Each day, her attitude relaxed a little more. Her confidence grew a little stronger. It was a wonder, after so many years of trying to press herself into society’s mold, to suddenly suspect that the problem was with the mold, not with her.
Now, seventy-three miles north of the equator and a little east of St. Paul’s Rocks, she made up her mind to shed another layer or two.
“Then tell me about your family, do,” she urged Journey, feeling petty for dwelling on her own discomfort.
He went back to sewing, and his expression relaxed into the dreaminess she’d glimpsed earlier. “Delilah and me, we met at Sunday meeting. She was a sassy thing, always two steps from trouble. But nobody minded, ’cause she sang like a lark in church and had the face of an angel.”
He smiled, and Isadora wondered what it would be like to have a man smile that way at the thought of her. When he pictured Delilah as an angel, did he mean it literally, with a halo and wings, or was it the love in his heart that gilded her with a special aura?
She savored the fanciful thought. How singular it was to be a shipmate, she thought suddenly. How easy it was to get involved in their concerns. She found life under sail so absorbing that she ceased thinking about Chad Easterbrook for days on end. She’d added almost nothing to the letter she’d been composing to him, which she intended to send the next time they hailed a ship. Her reports to Abel were perfunctory. Aside from personally attacking her at every turn, Ryan’s behavior had been disgustingly exemplary.
“So you met in church,” she prompted Journey, eager for the rest of his story.
His polished, narrow face softened with memory. “Mr. Jared—that was Ryan’s father—always wanted me to marry up with a girl from Albion, but after I met Dee, I wouldn’t hear of it, even though I could only see her on Sundays—on account of her living at another place.”
Isadora understood what he wouldn’t say. Intermarriage among the slaves of the same plantation insured that a new generation of laborers would come along. The very idea was so outrageous that she could hardly comprehend it.
“So you were permitted to marry,” she ventured.
One corner of Journey’s mouth lifted. “Ma’am, one of these days you should ask Ryan how we were ‘permitted’ to marry.”
She didn’t ask Ryan anything these days. They were both being stubborn about staying out of each other’s way. She was determined that he would be first to breach the silence.
“We married up when I was sixteen.
Dee was fifteen, near as we can tell.” He sewed swiftly, the needle stabbing into the fabric and emerging with a deft rhythm.
He spoke so casually that Isadora took a moment to realize that slaves weren’t told their birthdays. Of course, she thought. A birthday would humanize a slave, and the system depended on keeping them on the level of chattel or livestock.
“Then the girls came along—first Ruthie and then Celeste. Ruthie, she’s the prettiest baby in the whole wide world, and no mistake. Celeste, too, I reckon,” he hastened to add. “But I ain’t never seen Celeste. Ain’t never seen my baby girl.”
He pulled his large hand from beneath the fabric. A dark pearl of blood glistened on the tip of his finger. He put it briefly in his mouth, then removed it to say, “Excuse me, miss. Best go clean this up before I ruin the shirt.”
Ain’t never seen my baby girl.
His words haunted the galley like mournful ghosts. After he stepped outside, Isadora walked over to the table and picked up his work. The seam was perfect, with stitches so fine she could barely see them. She ran her hand over the fabric, and somehow she knew that Dee—a woman she didn’t know and would never meet—would give her very soul to mend this shirt.
When the Silver Swan lay-to a few miles north of the line, a full-moon calm settled over the bark. Yet the seas were rough with Atlantic combers that had been gathering muscle for thousands of miles, all the way from the coast of Africa. Lily and Fayette, who had enjoyed a few days of comfort, descended again in seasick misery to their cabin.
Isadora, Ryan observed from his splay-legged stance at the helm, seemed to be getting on better than ever. She spent a lot of time on deck or in the galley or chart room, absorbing knowledge and sailor lore like a sea sponge. She moved less awkwardly around the decks, having learned to steady herself with one hand on the rail or rigging.
She haunted him, appearing out of nowhere and pretending he wasn’t there. As they approached the equator, Ryan stood at the helm once again. He saw her making her way aft, clearly unaware of his proximity.
She paused to stoop down and scoop up the cat, draping it over one arm and stroking its fur. The new assurance in her movements and posture made a dramatic difference in the way she appeared. Her clothes were not so fussy and fine as those she’d worn in the Beacon Hill drawing room of her parents. Her short hair spilled untidily around her neck and shoulders.
Yet for all her dishevelment, she looked…different. She carried herself with a new posture and attitude. He found that he preferred a woman in tatters and bare feet who would look him square in the eye to a humble, perfectly groomed female who shrank timidly from the slightest slant of a glance.
He was annoyed at her for ignoring him, but at least he respected her.
At the moment she stood unguarded, pausing to lift her face to the summery sky filled with the lofty billows of high clouds. Lately she hadn’t bothered with bonnet or parasol and she seemed not to notice the effect the wind and sun were having. Her pale skin had taken on a honeyed hue; her hair bore streaks of gold. It was a look Ryan knew her strait-laced mother would term common.
Yet he had another word for it.
A high-pitched squeal pierced the air, startling both Isadora and Ryan. She dropped the cat, who scampered under a bumboat. Looking aft, Ryan spied the Doctor with the pig held under one arm, a broad, curved knife in his other hand.
“Heavenly days,” Isadora murmured, rushing past Ryan. “He’s going to slaughter Lydia.”
Ryan followed her. “Lydia? You call the pig Lydia?”
She ignored him. “Doctor! Oh, Doctor, please stop, do!” she called down the decks.
The cook turned. “What is it, Miss?”
“You can’t—you mustn’t kill the pig.”
The Doctor glanced at Ryan. “Porker’s all fatted up. I figured it’s time. Skipper?”
Ryan looked at the snuffling, struggling creature under the cook’s arm. He looked at the horror and grief on Isadora’s face. “I suppose we could grant the beast a reprieve,” he said offhandedly. “We’re decently close to Rio, and stores are good.”
“But—”
“Leave go, Doctor. She grieved for three days over that last chicken you stewed. I can’t abide a whining woman.”
The next day Ryan spied Isadora shading her eyes to watch Click and Craven tarring the mainmast. The men swung in saddles, their bare legs and bare chests smudged with tar. They paused in their work to wave at her and, grinning, she waved back.
It wasn’t proper, Ryan thought, her seeing barechested men wherever she turned.
Ducking under a shroud, she didn’t notice him until she was almost upon him.
“Oh,” she said, “Captain Calhoun.”
“I thought I’d take a turn at the helm.” He spoke with elaborate indifference.
She eyed him nervously, as if she did not quite trust him—or herself with him. “I wanted to be topside when we cross the equator. Will you say when?”
He was ridiculously happy to oblige. Perhaps that was the virtue of Isadora. Perhaps that was why the crew indulged her whims. Her wide-eyed curiosity about everything relieved the monotony of the long days at sea.
“Mr. Datty, at the helm, sir,” he called to Timothy.
“Aye, sir.” The boy arrived with a sharp salute that amused Ryan.
He gave the helm to Timothy and his free hand to Isadora. She hesitated, eyeing his hand as if it were a venomous serpent.
“It’s made of flesh and blood like any other man’s,” he said lightly, hiding his annoyance. Color misted her cheeks, and he laughed. “Unless that’s precisely the problem.”
Almost defiantly, she put her hand in his. Hers felt…surprising. Yes, that was it. Women of her station were supposed to have soft, moist skin. Isadora, by contrast, had a sturdy grip and…calluses.
“You take your lessons in sail making and seamanship seriously, I gather,” he said, leading the way to a companion ladder and reaching to help her up.
“I take everything seriously, Captain.”
“I noticed. Why is that, Isadora?” They came to the bow of the ship and he turned to study her.
“I have no idea.”
“There!” Ryan said suddenly, shading his eyes. “There it is!”
“There what is?”
“The equator.” He took out his spyglass and handed it to her.
She closed one eye and peered through it. “What am I looking for?”
“The equator. Isn’t that what you came here to see?”
“See? But—”
“Keep looking.” Furtively, Ryan plucked a hair from his head. On the pretext of adjusting the focus, he held the hair crosswise over the lens. “Now can you see it? The equator?”
“Why, yes,” she crowed, clearly elated. “I do believe I can.” Her mouth curved into a smile that had a disquieting effect on him. “How fascinating. And isn’t that an elephant walking along the line?”
He took the spyglass from her and put it away. “I was fairly certain you wouldn’t fall for that.”
She regarded him with her usual prim disapproval, though her eyes still danced with humor. “I am not in the habit of ‘falling’ for things, Captain. I’ve no idea why you would attempt such a prank with me.”
“To see you smile. You don’t do it often enough, and you should.”
She regarded him somberly. “Why should I?”
“Because…” Ryan began to feel foolish. “Because I order you to, and I’m the captain.”
She rewarded him with a grin. “Then I suppose I have no choice.”
He grinned back. “No, ma’am, I don’t guess you do.” He leaned back against a timber head. “We’re about nine hundred miles out from Rio.”
“It sounds like an unbearably large number.” She shaded her eyes and gazed at the nothingness that surrounded them.
“The briny blue. As far as the eye can see. That’s why I like the crew to get along.”
“They seem to. Even Mr. C
lick has been quiet this past week. When do you think we’ll make Rio?”
“Within the week. There’s a premium of a hundred dollars a day for each day under average for the whole trip.” He reached up, running his hand along an awning. “This looks good. Is it new?”
“I doused it with salt water,” she said, meeting his puzzled gaze. “Luigi says it prevents mildew.”
“So it does,” Ryan said, and though they spoke of mundane matters, he felt a beat of emotion that had nothing to do with awnings or deadlines or anything but the woman standing with him on his ship.
This was new to him. She was new to him. In the past he’d been drawn to women whose beauty outweighed their brains, whose idle chatter rang louder than their common sense—in short, women who didn’t make him see himself for what he was—a spoiled, shallow young man who hadn’t grasped the importance of social conscience until it was too late. He used to prefer women who didn’t challenge him to be more than he was. But not anymore. He wasn’t certain exactly when or why it had happened, but at some point he had started to feel something soft and new for Isadora Peabody.
“Look,” he said, nervous with the sensations churning in his gut, “I realize we haven’t been getting on—”
“Not for lack of my trying.”
He gritted his teeth to stifle a retort. “Don’t ruin my graciousness by being infuriating.”
“I was not—”
“Only because I’m stopping you. Now, hush up and listen. I was angry about the way you made yourself a part of this enterprise. You used your connections with Abel Easterbrook to your advantage.”
“It’s no more than men of commerce do.”