“Reading the Good Book, I see.”
“It anchors my day, sir.”
“As fine a habit as any I could name.” Captain Micah had a seaman’s gaze, clear and far-reaching. “You have on-board experience, I take it.”
“I entered the service at age twelve.”
“What is your age now, if I might be so bold?”
“I shall be thirty this coming winter.”
“I would have taken you for much older.” He studied the younger man. “Command of a vessel ages a man swiftly.”
“That it does, Captain. That it most certainly does.”
“How old were you when you walked your first quarterdeck?”
“I was twenty-five, sir. A truly foul day.”
“A battle?”
“With nature and with man.”
“A storm.” Captain Micah nodded somberly. “You lost your skipper?”
“Washed overboard by a wave so large it snapped his lifeline like it was made of spider webbing.” Falconer could still hear the man’s shrill cry. “Took our mizzenmast and six good mates as well.”
The captain had the sense to turn from the raw emotion on Falconer’s features. He pointed south and east, the quarter from which a squall approached. “What say you about the gauge of this wind?”
Falconer studied the approaching squall line. The sea was a legion of waves, marching in massive unison. The troughs were as deep as the ship was high, but there was no danger to their size. The distance between each was a constant valley, broad enough for the ship to rise and fall in steady rhythm. “The squall will pass by noon, is my guess. The afternoon will blow clear and steady.”
“And farther out?”
“A storm far to the south. A big one.” Falconer took a deep breath. “I can smell it.”
“Aye, I agree with you, sir. I warrant there are sailors praying their last, down below the horizon.” He wiped his eyes clear of the salty mist. “Were this your command, sir, what orders would you give?”
“North by east,” Falconer replied instantly. “Put more miles between us and whatever the nights may hold.”
The captain wheeled about and used a shipboard bellow to reach the lieutenant standing duty by the steersman. “Barnes!”
“Sir!”
“Set a new course ten points north! Send the men aloft!”
“Ten points it is, sir! Bosun!”
“Sir!”
“Pipe the men aloft!”
Falconer assumed the captain would dismiss him then, and made ready to depart. Instead, Captain Micah observed, “I find it uncommon strange that a former shipboard commander would find himself as a landlubber’s manservant. No offense intended.”
“None taken, sir.” Falconer tested several responses before saying, “God’s directions are difficult to fathom at times, Captain.”
“Indeed. Indeed.” Micah fumbled with a loose button on his greatcoat. “Langston’s has a policy that all who command their vessels must be Christians. Most are elders within their home church.”
“I did not know that. But having met Reginald Langston, I am not surprised.”
“I count it an honor to serve the man and the house,” the captain went on. “He told me to pass along to other skippers I meet that we are to aid you if the need arises.”
“I am deeply grateful, both for the man’s offer and your acknowledgment, Captain.”
“Don’t mention it.” He continued to worry the button. “You may have noted that we have no priest nor pastor on board this voyage.”
“I found your Sabbath message last week most inspiring, sir.”
“I was wondering, that is . . .” Micah managed to pluck the button free. He made a business of stowing it into his pocket. “Would you offer us the Sabbath message on the morrow?”
“Sir.” A blow from an unseen foe could not have shocked Falconer more. “I am not good with words.”
“You are a Christian and a sailor. You have known command, and now you serve. All aboard have observed your manner of Scripture reading and prayer.” The captain hesitated, then added, “I would not ask this, sir, except that it came to me as a strong impression in my own morning reflections.”
Falconer felt stricken by the news. “You think God spoke of this?”
“I am certain of it.”
“Then I can hardly refuse.” His entire body felt weighted down. “You will excuse me if I take my leave?”
The rain stopped as predicted just after midday. Falconer carried Hannah upstairs and settled her into a sheltered alcove rimmed by water barrels. The kitten thrived on shipboard life, as did its young mistress. Ferdinand had learned to endure its ribbon leash, save for the occasional bursts of protests when it sought to claw the thing off its neck. The ribbon had to be replaced every few days. Sailors were notoriously fond of cats and had taken to competing with one another to offer the next bit of leash. But it was not merely the cat that had charmed them. Within minutes of Hannah being settled into her blanket-covered corner, she was visited by two midshipmen, the bosun, the second mate, six seamen, and an off-duty lieutenant. Falconer tolerated their chatty ways and held himself removed from the discourse.
Hannah waited until the last seaman had been sent aloft. “Something is troubling you, I can tell. Is it Papa?”
“No, he seems to be making solid progress.”
“I don’t see how you can say that. All he does is sleep.”
“He is resting well, which is far more than could be said while ashore. His color is good, he eats everything put in front of him.”
“Shouldn’t he be up here taking in the air?”
“Rest,” Falconer repeated. “I heard it any number of times from the doctor. Rest and more rest. If your father can sleep, that is the best thing he can do for himself.”
Hannah nuzzled the kitten to her cheek. “Do you see how Ferdinand is growing?”
“He is becoming a truly fine little beast.”
She dangled and twirled her slender gold necklace for the kitten to bat about. “Will you tell me what it is that bothers you?”
Falconer took a two-handed grip upon the railing. “The captain has asked me to speak at tomorrow’s Sabbath gathering.”
Hannah did not even need to think about it. “You will do wonderfully.”
He stared at the waif. “How can you say such a thing?”
In the wind and the sunlight, Hannah’s smile provided its own warmth. “Because it’s true.”
“I am not good with words.”
“Then you will ask God to speak for you.”
Falconer squatted down beside her. “Lass, I am a sinner and a wastrel. God’s mercy keeps me alive. Nothing more.”
“Then that is what you will tell them.” She settled her hands into her lap. Falconer had the sudden image of Hannah having learned the tone and the mannerism from her mother. “I know what Papa would say.”
“What is that?”
“He is always talking about the book of Acts. He loves how the disciples simply explained who they were. Before, without God. Now, with God. They spoke of how God changed them.”
Falconer found no strangeness in confessing to this little child, “I’m afraid.”
She smiled. “What did you tell me in the carriage about fear?”
“You have an answer for everything.”
“No I don’t. Not really.” She brushed the hair from her face. “I’m little and I’m weak and I’m . . .”
“You’re what?”
“Nothing.”
But the bond between them was growing enough for Falconer to suggest, “You’re not alone, lass. Not anymore.”
Her gaze had the radiant quality of daybreak. “And neither are you.”
Falconer did not sleep that night. The next morning he arose with the sense of facing a battle he could not win. The day broke clear, a steady wind blowing from their fairest quarter. The waves were enormous but steady, their progress constant. Over a mug of sailor’s tea,
Falconer tried to tell himself this was a good sign. But his pounding heart could not be convinced.
By the time the sailors had rigged the benches and stretched a sail over the foredeck as a canopy, Falconer’s blood thundered in his ears. He doubted he had strength to rise. The captain came over and spoke words Falconer could scarcely make out. The captain patted him on the shoulder and departed.
Falconer wrestled through the jumble his mind had made of the man’s communication. The captain would offer a Bible reading. Falconer would then speak. Two minutes or an hour, it did not matter. Falconer would do fine, so the captain had said. Falconer looked over and realized the crew and passengers were gathering. He needed three attempts to rise from the water keg he was using as a stool.
He seated himself on the front bench and bowed over the Book in his hands. Falconer remained as he was when the others rose and sang. He tried to beg for guidance, for inspiration, for wisdom. But his mind was so blocked with anxiety he could not even shape a proper prayer.
The first words that made any sense whatsoever were from the captain’s reading. Falconer knew the Bible passage well. Captain Micah had a bark of a voice, even when standing at the front of a Sabbath gathering. He had spent too many days shouting his words against wind and storm and hail to soften them now. The passage battered its way through Falconer’s dread, from the second chapter of Jonah: “They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.”
The captain stepped aside and looked down to where Falconer sat. This time Falconer’s legs obeyed when he tried to stand, yet there was no strength to his walk. Instead he let the ship’s swaying motion carry him forward. He gripped the forecastle railing with one hand, and with the other he clenched the Bible to his chest.
He looked up and out. But not at the gathering. Instead he studied the storm-tossed sea. And he uttered the first word that came to his mind.
“Murderer!” He did not mean to bellow. But the strength it took to speak at all left him using the same storm-laden voice as the captain. “Slaver! A cruel and hard man! A man you’d best never allow on your lee quarter! A man you can never trust! A man whose only friends are the dagger and the blade!
“That is how I was known. And that is who I am!”
The vessel shot down the face of the next wave. It plowed through the watery gorge and bucked like a steed of wood and canvas. Sea spray blasted Falconer’s face. He did not bother to wipe his eyes. “The accusations were true then, they are true now. I stand before you convicted of all the wrongs one man can commit. True! Guilty! I am that man!”
He balanced himself against the ship’s rise and opened the Book. His hands trembled so hard he could scarcely turn the pages. Finally he gave up, for the words were far more clearly visible inside his mind. “Now let me say to you the words that go before what the captain read: ‘I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.’ ”
A pair of seamen slipped down the rope ladder connecting the mizzenmast to the main deck. They padded across the deck upon hardened bare feet and stood at the back of the last bench. Falconer felt for them. He too had once come crawling forward, seeking what he could not even name. If only he could speak with the same force as Felix. If only he had that blessed man’s ability to make God’s invitation live.
But he would try. For those two seamen and for the third who poised upon the mainmast’s yardarm, some fifteen feet above Falconer’s head. He spoke not to the gathering. He spoke to these three. His brothers. He knew them well. Them, and their needs.
“God has brought me from corruption. Me, the least worthy of all. He has drawn me from the pit of my own making. And what he has done for me, he can do for you! All you need do is fall to your knees! See your claim to live without God for what it is, a lie! The worst lie of all. A lie that leads to the grave!”
This time he managed to find his place in the Scriptures. “It was a seaman who spoke the words you heard the captain read. A sailor tossed upon the great open waters, swallowed by the beast of darkness and doom. Hear now what happened after Jonah spoke to the Lord his God: “ ‘And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.’ ”
He held the Book aloft. The hand that had become molded to a sword’s hilt. The hand that had done so much wrong. But Falconer saw not the Book, only the hand. And the shame of it clenched his throat up so he could hardly speak his final words. “Salvation comes from the Lord.”
He stumbled back to his place.
Chapter 15
On Monday the English country sky was the shade of old pewter. But the colors of the surrounding trees and blossoms shone defiantly joyful at summer’s presence, regardless of the cool day and the overcast sky. In the daylight Agatha’s stone cottage held a solid serenity. One corner of the roof sagged somewhat, as though time’s hand had weighed too heavily upon it. The chimney at the other end was crumbling. The gate was rusted and stuck halfway open. But the front garden was a brilliant and tangled profusion of summer blooms.
After a breakfast she was forced to eat, Serafina moved about her aunt’s house with no recollection of time’s passage. She had barely slept but was not so much exhausted as numb. Later two young men arrived from the manor and helped prepare boxes and bundles for Agatha’s coming move. Agatha sent Serafina out on several errands. Serafina completed her tasks and returned to the house, scarcely aware of where she had just been.
She carried her basket up the flagstone walkway into the cottage and found the table in the front parlor piled with dark dresses. Her aunt asked in greeting, “Do you wish to eat a bite before leaving for the manor house?”
Serafina stared down at the dresses. Ever since she had been told the terrible news about Luca, information would not come together for her in any logical manner.
“Look at me, child.”
Serafina forced her focus around to where her aunt sat in a high-backed chair. “I can’t go on.”
“You must.” Agatha pointed with her cane at the dark pile. “These are old but usable. You and I were once of a size. I held to a bit more weight before the illness. The lads are off fetching a wagon. Let’s see if any of these clothes fit you.”
Slowly, reluctantly, Serafina did as she was told. Her aunt selected two from the pile that fitted her well enough. They were a simple charcoal gray, long sleeved, with high white collars that could be removed and exchanged for washing. The buttons up the front were covered in the same gray material.
Her aunt indicated several folded white scarves upon the table beside her chair. “Take one of these and do up your hair. No, don’t knot the scarf under your chin. You’re not going to market. You’re entering service at a great house. Bend over and let me show you.” Fingers no longer deft but skilled from years of practice placed the scarf low on Serafina’s forehead, then reached around behind and knotted the kerchief tight against the back of her neck. “That’s it. Excellent,” Agatha said. “There’s a mirror above the sideboard. Go have a look at yourself.”
The dress material felt coarse against her skin and made a swishing sound as she crossed the room. She stared at a stranger’s reflection, a young woman in a servant’s garments, with eyes that stared back at her without any expression at all.
Her aunt moved in her slow, careful manner until she stood behind Serafina. She did not reach out to hold her, but the sympathy was clear in her voice. “Sometimes the only way to survive is by taking the first day, then the next, one step at a time. Just get through this hour, this day, the night, and then the day after. And almost without your realizing, you will find that things have changed.”
“They haven’t for you,” Serafina replied. She did not recognize her own voice.
The words sounded empty of everything, almost shapeless. “You’re still sick and alone.”
“Some matters do not change,” Agatha agreed, her tone holding none of its usual sternness. “Inwardly though, where it counts most, things have altered remarkably. My faith has become a rock. I can say these words with certainty for the first time in my entire life. God Almighty reigns on high, above all the traumas and sorrows this world has cast my way. That is one great truth, is it not?”
Serafina found herself recalling the young vicar on board the ship and the way she had dismissed his words. The space where her heart beat burned even more painfully. The image in the mirror blurred somewhat.
If Agatha noticed Serafina’s reaction, she gave no sign. “The master of Harrow Hall has granted me a place where I can live out my days, surrounded by people who care for me. That is a great blessing. And soon enough I shall join my beloved Jacob in heaven. There to dwell with our Lord for all eternity.”
Agatha turned and began her slow retreat to the chair. “Now, let us speak of more practical matters. Jacob and I had a bit of money saved up. We used most of it to buy this house. The rest was lost to his illness. Now there is nothing. Do you understand what I am saying?”
“Yes.” Her aunt had spoken the same words to her yesterday, though their implication was clearer in this repetition.
But Agatha pressed on, no doubt wanting to be absolutely certain she was being both heard and understood. “I cannot offer you what I don’t have. So I have made the only arrangements for you that I can. You shall enter service at Harrow Hall. The letter I wrote to your parents yesterday will go off to Bath this afternoon, and from there to America. No doubt in time they will send funds and instructions. But that could take months. Either you will join them there or return to Venice. That is for them to say. Come help me into the chair, please.”
Serafina crossed the room and took hold of her aunt’s arm. The woman weighed almost nothing. Slowly Agatha lowered herself, sighing as she came to rest. “That’s better. Thank you.”
Heirs of Acadia - 03 - The Noble Fugitive Page 15