by Rosie Thomas
‘I know now that I was a fool,’ Sarah told her audience across the Captain’s polished table. ‘But I loved him and I believed what he told me with all my heart.’
The young couple ran away to New York together. No more was heard of the elderly relative. Robert Hanner did not marry Sarah, and within a matter of weeks he abandoned her and disappeared. Sarah’s father and family had cut her off, and she was alone in the world. She had a very little money of her own, and used it to try to find her lover. In the end she had hired a private detective, who traced Hanner to a shipping office where he had declared himself ready to go a-whaling.
The Captain and Matthias Plant gravely nodded their heads. In their time they had encountered many a blackguard who had taken to sea as a way of evading enemies and creditors too numerous or too troublesome to escape by a less demanding route.
‘And then?’ asked Captain Gunnell.
Her voice was soft when she answered but from the flash in her eyes neither of the two men was left in any doubt of the steel beneath Sarah’s tender skin. ‘Why, I determined that I would follow him to whichever end of the earth he had chosen. And when I found him I would make him marry me, because for all that I am a fool and a lost woman I have my strength and my wits to depend upon. God help me but I still love him, and I believe that we would make a good partnership.’ It was only at the last words that her voice wavered and the tears started to her eyes once more.
‘I am sorry for you,’ said the Captain gently.
Sarah had travelled homewards again from New York, but only as far as Nantucket, from where she was advised by the shipping office that Robert Hanner had embarked. ‘I thought that once I was in Nantucket it would be easy to find him, or to discover which ship he had signed to. But I had no idea there were so many whaling ships and such crowds of sailors, or that the life they lived would be so rough and dangerous. By this time I had no money left nor anywhere to go, and so it seemed that my only course and the sole hope of finding him was to disguise myself as a man and follow the whales, just as Robert was doing. Even when this ship set sail I thought somehow our paths would cross, but I see now that I was mistaken.’
Matthias at last understood why she always scanned the faces of the crews when the Dolphin lay near other whalers and the reason for the deep sadness that had recently overtaken her. It was no brother she had been searching for. ‘But this is a bitter, cruel life,’ she added piteously. ‘I had determined that when we reached the next port I would slip away and try to make my way home again. Then I fell ill and you discovered me.’
From the manner in which Captain Gunnell cleared his throat before speaking Matthias knew that he was as affected as he himself had been by Sarah Corder’s story. ‘A whaling ship is indeed no place for a lady,’ he declared. ‘And I must put you ashore as soon as I can. My plan is to put in to port to take on water and supplies, then I shall place you in the care of the Consul at Rio de Janeiro. It is my only course of action, Miss Corder.’
‘I understand,’ she softly answered.
It happened that there was an empty stateroom next to the Captain’s quarters. On his orders it was rapidly cleared, a pair of his own sheets were placed on the bed and the young woman was allowed to rest there in some measure of comfort and privacy. The officers of the Dolphin saw to it that she was provided with what nourishing food their limited supplies permitted and were rewarded by her almost hourly improvement.
When she was somewhat recovered she thanked them with proper warmth. ‘The officers of this ship are true gentlemen and I am in your debt for ever.’ She had a pretty smile and modest ways, and soon the other men were as much under her spell as Matthias Plant.
The weather changed within a day of Sarah’s secret being revealed. A strong north-easter helped the Dolphin to landfall at Fernando de Naronha, where much-needed water and fresh food were taken on board, then a course was set for the mainland. For most of this time Sarah kept to her cabin, but from time to time she was persuaded to take the air up on the deck. Her behaviour when she met her erstwhile forecastle companions was a picture of modest goodwill.
Sometimes when Matthias had a spare hour they would pass it together in talk, for the good mate had no doubt that she was lonely. He learned much about her childhood and the friends and companions of those early days, but she would almost never speak of Robert Hanner. Yet notwithstanding her reticence, Matthias did not believe he was ever out of her mind for more than a minute at a time. He would come upon her when she was staring out to sea or down at the ruined skin of her hands, and she would be so lost in thought that his voice would startle her. He knew then that she was thinking of her betrayer and most likely still planning how she might discover him again. Matthias felt a dreadful weight of fear and anxiety on her behalf, yet there was determination and an iron will in Sarah, as strong as or stronger than any man’s, that in some way only heightened her very womanliness.
At Rio de Janeiro the Captain sent word to the Consul, and he soon received assurance that that gentleman and his wife would receive Sarah into their own home until such time as a passage home could be arranged for her.
The day came for her to leave the Dolphin. Her share of the oil taken amounted to some sixty dollars and this money the Captain arranged for her to have, together with a similar sum collected for her by the other officers and men, so she was at least not quite penniless. For his own part Matthias gave her his gold watch, and she put her arm around his neck and kissed him and sobbed that he had been kinder to her than any father or brother.
One of the boat steerers who was of similar height had given Sarah a white cotton shirt with a wide blue collar, and a pair of black broadcloth sailor’s pants, which fell smoothly to cover her low shoes. She had a broad-brimmed straw hat, tied with a black ribbon. She did not look like a lady of fashion, but she was neat and pretty in her makeshift clothes. The crew had gathered on the deck to see her off, and as the boat that was to row her ashore was lowered she shook the hand of each of them and whispered her thanks. Matthias waited until the last, except for Captain Gunnell.
When it came to his turn to say farewell he took her small hand between both of his great calloused ones. ‘Sarah, if you do find who you are searching for, what do you truly believe will happen?’
‘I will make him marry me.’
‘And if he will not? Or cannot?’
Her wide eyes never wavered. Matthias felt a shiver touch him like the first intimation of a fever. ‘Then I will kill him like a venomous snake.’ Her hand slid from his grasp and she was smiling. ‘Good Matthias, you must not be anxious on my behalf. I am truly grateful for your kindness and I will always be your friend. Goodbye.’
So saying, she kissed his cheek for the last time and turned to Captain Gunnell at the taff-rail.
The men stood together watching as the boat carried her towards the shore.
‘Do you imagine that she will find him?’ Matthias musingly asked.
‘I am certain she will.’
‘And then?’
‘I would not be in that man’s shoes for any money.’
News of the woman who had disguised herself in men’s clothing and sailed on the Dolphin had travelled fast. A crowd of people were gathered on the dock, all waiting to catch a glimpse of her. Sarah stepped out on to dry land, handed up by her boatman, and the press of people immediately closed around her.
She turned once to look back at the old Dolphin. She took off her straw hat and waved it, the black ribbons fluttering on the crowded dock.
That was the last glimpse they had of her.
May yawned and scratched the mosquito bites on her ankle. She liked books and she was quite interested in the sad and gory whaling stories, because of the remote connection with the history of Moon Island, but she couldn’t imagine that Doone would have read much of them by choice. From the plain sections of the diary she knew Doone didn’t exactly have broad literary or historical interests. Maybe Hannah Fennymore had offered to le
nd her the books and Doone had accepted out of politeness. Perhaps there had been no other suitable book to hand, so Doone had used the Dolphin book as the base for her code.
May flipped idly to the front and scanned the introductory pages that she hadn’t bothered to read before. She learned that the book’s narrative was based on Matthias Plant’s journals. The old whaleman had continued writing his journal for the rest of the Sarah Corder voyage and the three voyages that followed it, until he retired at last in 1848. Finally, in old age he set up home with his wife in the village of Wellfleet on Cape Cod, to be near one of his married daughters. After his death his books and papers were stored with the rest of his keepsakes in a tin trunk, and there they stayed until they were disinterred in 1902 by his grandson.
This young man read the whaling diaries with the utmost fascination and passed them to a college friend who worked as an editor for a New York firm of publishers. So it happened that more than fifty years after they were written, the story told in Matthias’s memoirs was published by Charles Scribner & Sons under the tide Voyages of the Dolphin. When she looked at the front of the book again, May saw that Hannah’s book was the second reprint, dated 1909. Hannah must have owned the book for a long time. Or perhaps, May thought, she had found it on the second-hand shelves of the Bookhouse, Pittsharbor’s only bookshop. Her name was written on the blank first page in blue ink, but there was no date.
‘May?’ She looked up. John was calling her from the foot of the stairs. ‘Are you coming to watch the fireworks?’
May swung her legs off the bed, noticing as she always did the ugly way the flesh quivered inside the loop of her shorts legs. ‘Yeah, okay.’
John and May walked down the Pittsharbor road together. They hadn’t even waited for Ivy to materialise, knowing that she would have her own plans for the evening.
‘It’s a wonderful evening. We’re lucky,’ John said. Darkness was settling over the bluff and the first stars pricked the sky.
May wrestled with what she should say. The image of her father on the sofa with Leonie Beam remained obstinately stuck in her head. It jarred like a misshapen jigsaw piece with other graphic sexual images. A scene from a video she had seen long ago with Ivy. Ivy herself with Lucas. The old people, Elizabeth and Aaron long ago in the Captain’s House. Doone’s numbered words conjuring thick passion out of the pages of an old-fashioned book. They were images she didn’t want to see but they attacked all her senses. Sex was everywhere, roping around everyone but herself.
It was impossible to tell her father any of this. Disgust and shapeless longing possessed her in equal parts. ‘Yes.’
After a moment’s hesitation John asked, ‘Can we talk about the other evening?’
The cuts on her hand were healing. The new tissue puckered and crawled under the antiseptic tape. ‘No.’ She heard how her blank monosyllable disconcerted him. Miserably she added, ‘Can’t we just forget about it? I’d rather we did. Truly.’
‘It’s just…’
‘Please,’ May begged.
Her desperation silenced him. ‘If that’s what you really want,’ John murmured. They walked on to the harbour without speaking.
At the moment of their arrival the first firework exploded overhead in a mushroom of sparks and a cascade of blue and emerald fireballs. The sparks drifted down, turning scarlet until they were blotted out in the sea, and another rocket streaked upwards.
Ivy was in the crowd, with her arm draped around the shoulders of Sam Deevey. She waved when she saw them. Leonie Beam was there too, with Sidonie on her shoulders. The bursting rocket illuminated her profile for an instant and May knew that her father’s eyes stayed on her.
Lucas came out of a group and greeted them. It was clear that he had been drinking. ‘Hi, Maysy. Happy Pittsharbor Day, guys.’
Nine
The driftwood fire on the beach facing Moon Island held a core of pure red heat within a cage of branches. Every so often part of the latticework collapsed and a column of sparks went shooting upwards like a tiny echo of the Pittsharbor fireworks. Even now from the direction of the harbour an occasional rocket streaked into the darkness, followed by the peppery explosions of firecrackers. Freelance celebrations were continuing in the town long after the official ones had ended.
Food had been barbecued and eaten around the bonfire by the bluff families and a loose group of guests, mostly friends of the Beam children. Everyone had drunk wine or beer, and a fragile gloss of cordiality slicked over an undercurrent of tension, which seemed to dull the fire and thicken the already stifling air.
In an effort to lighten the atmosphere Marian and Marty had talked too much from opposite sides of the group. Now one of the boys was picking at a guitar and an uneasy calm settled. Figures moved in the firelight, to pick up a bottle of wine or fetch more wood, and an umber glow halved their silhouettes.
Murmurs of conversation threaded the groups; the evening had reached the point where the young people would begin to drift away and the older ones might safely collect up the debris of the barbecue and move towards home.
Ivy was still sitting hip to hip with Sam Deevey, her lovely neck bent so she could whisper into his ear. The shifting of her favours was obvious, but no one had audibly remarked on it. John frowned a warning at her but she ignored him and Marian’s displeasure was only revealed in sharp glances. Lucas merely looked on in silence and tipped his head back to swallow another drink.
Leonie had reorganised the plate of food Marian had pressed on her, but had eaten none of it. She could only think how her way ahead had narrowed to the vanishing point where there was no possibility but to leave. She wrestled in her mind with the question of where to go. Not back to the apartment in Boston, filled with the possessions Tom and she had accumulated together over the years.
But if not there, then where else? To rent somewhere, that would be the answer, but the practical difficulties of doing even that seemed all but insurmountable. Leonie knew it was unhappiness that was disabling her. She must move, before the paralysis became complete.
Tom was sitting on the opposite side of the fire, with Judith Stiegel and Spencer and Alexander. They were talking, but Leonie couldn’t hear what they were saying because the low murmur of the sea amplified itself in her ears. The firelight shone on her husband’s face, casting unexpected shadows, turning him into a stranger.
Marian’s bulk interposed itself. ‘Do you suppose anyone would like more blueberry pie?’
There was a surplus from the bake stall.
In translation the question meant Get up and offer second helpings, but Leonie disregarded it. ‘If they do I expect they’ll manage to help themselves.’
A corner of gipsy skirt whipped her knee as Marian swept on by. I’ll pay for that, Leonie told herself, then remembered that she wouldn’t have to because she would be gone. The idea of such an upside made her mouth curve in a sudden smile and she saw that John was watching her.
Aaron and Hannah had not come down to the beach and their house at the end of the bluff was in darkness. Elizabeth had joined the party only for an hour. Spencer jumped up to escort her when she stood up to leave. She was relieved that Pittsharbor Day was at last over and she had done all that could possibly have been expected of her. On her way around the circle she thanked Marian, although there was no reason for Marian to have appointed herself hostess of the evening.
The last person Elizabeth came to in her circuit was May. She was attached to the group of teenagers without in any way being a part of it. Elizabeth patted her shoulder and wordlessly May took hold of her wrist. Her hand was burning. For a moment Elizabeth felt that there were wires criss-crossed tight between too many people in this circle, red-hot where they passed through the heart of the fire, cold and invisible on the margins.
May’s fingers dropped away. ‘Good-night,’ she said.
Ivy and Sam and Gail and the others were also making ready to go. The boy stopped strumming his guitar and pulled Gail to her feet. She
gave a mock stagger and almost fell into his arms.
Ivy stood in front of Lucas. ‘You coming?’
‘Nope.’
‘Right.’ She walked off without a backward glance, with Sam close behind her.
The rest of them stood up too, hoisting bags on their shoulders and murmuring their thanks in Marian’s direction, before melting away across the crescent of sand. May knew they were making for a more secluded part of the beach, or maybe someone’s bedroom where they would not be interrupted. They would drink and smoke some more draw, and talk and snigger, and while she longed to be included she despised them at the same time for the repetitive dullness of their pleasures.
The young people moved away in a dark mass. The diminished group of eleven adults remained, plus Lucas, sitting alone. May shot a glance at him. His arms were wrapped around his knees and he stared into the fire. Now, May thought, if I am ever going to.
She had drunk two bottles of beer and she couldn’t remember how much red wine, covertly, while her father’s attention was turned elsewhere. The mixture lay uneasily in her stomach, but it had the effect of dividing her thoughts from the rest of her weighty self. She felt clear in the head and quite untroubled, with the knowledge that whatever she did or whatever happened wouldn’t matter much. Not enough to worry about. Not enough to care about.
She slid across the sand to Lucas’s side. ‘Hi.’
He rolled his head on his knees to look at her. ‘Oh. Hi.’
She waited a minute or two, giving him a chance to get used to her being there. No one else was looking at them. ‘She can be like that you know. She doesn’t mean to hurt people, not really. It’s like just sometimes she has to be a bitch. Kind of a power thing.’
The fire was dying into dull crimson embers. Flakes of ash twirled like snowflakes and settled on the sand. May raked and sifted sand through her fingers, looking anywhere but at his face.