The Charm School

by Susan Wiggs

  “To us!” the men bellowed, clinking mugs.

  Ryan aimed a crooked grin at his companion, who had begun squirming suggestively in his lap. “Sugar-pie, my legs are going numb.”

  She screeched with laughter. “I hope that don’t affect the rest of you.”

  “We’ll see when we get to the stateroom.”

  Her hips ground down on him. “Who needs the stateroom?”

  He had a fleeting thought of privacy, but the rum—and the whore’s sly fingers—coaxed a dark, desire-filled laugh from him. With slow, teasing movements he plunged his hand beneath her skirts. He found the stolen flask but passed it right over in pursuit of richer treasures.

  No doubt the puritanical Mr. Easterbrook would be appalled to see such revelry on his ship, but Ryan banished the last of his scruples. No proper Bostonian would show up now. Anyone who strayed to the docks at this time of night deserved what he saw.

  “I feel quite wicked being out so late,” Isadora confessed to Lily Raines Calhoun. She leaned back against the burgundy leather seat of the hooded clarence. Her father, who always demanded the best, had had the carriage fitted with a curved glass, like a show window, in the front. Lily and Isadora sat side by side on the rear seat, watching the city through the glass.

  A waning moon cast the State House dome in pale gray; misty orbs of gaslight glowed along State Street, and shadows haunted side streets and Merchants’ Row.

  “Your driver looked a mite startled when we told him we wanted to go to the harbor,” Lily remarked. “I do hope this won’t cause trouble with your family.”

  “Believe me, Mrs. Calhoun, since the age of fourteen, I’ve done nothing but cause trouble for my family.”

  Lily turned, the light on her face flickering from pale to gold in the swinging glow of the carriage lantern. “Whatever can you mean?”

  Isadora toyed idly with the strings of her lace cap. “Until I was fourteen, I lived with a maiden aunt in Salem. I only saw my family once in a great while.” She thought back to the long, dreamy years with Aunt Button when nothing mattered more than spending a few hours reading a wonderful book. “It was an arrangement that suited all of us very well indeed. But when my great aunt died, I had to return to the house on Beacon Hill. I’m afraid I’ve been a trial to them ever since.”

  “I can’t imagine you a trial,” Lily said.

  “Yes, you can,” Isadora replied with gentle censure. “You’re too kind to say so. A plain spinster, awkward in conversation, clumsy on the dance floor—I’m a trial, especially to the Peabodys.”

  “We all have our own unique gifts. It is incumbent upon the larger society to discover them.”

  “And if they do not?”

  Lily Calhoun turned on the seat so that she was facing Isadora. The shifting lamplight glazed her face with fire. Very deliberately, with her dainty gloved hands, she reached out and removed Isadora’s small rectangular-lensed spectacles, letting them dangle from the black silk ribbon around her neck.

  “Why then, my dear Miss Peabody,” she said in her lazy, lovely drawl, “they aren’t seeing you at all.”

  It was something so like Aunt Button would have said that Isadora felt a sudden lump in her throat.

  “They are the Peabodys of Beacon Hill.” Isadora used her haughtiest accent, coaxing a smile from Lily. “They see the world as they think it should be seen.”

  “Perhaps you’re in the wrong world, then.”

  “It’s the only one I know, Mrs. Calhoun.” Isadora turned a rueful smile out the window. A newcomer—and a Southerner at that—couldn’t understand. In families like the Peabodys’, nothing changed, ever. It was the sacred mission of each generation of Peabodys to carry on exactly as their parents had before them, and so on until the end of time.

  Misfits like Isadora were culled from the herd. Put off somewhere until weariness and middle age rendered them harmless. In old age, they could actually become useful as Aunt Button had. They could watch over the misfits of succeeding generations.

  There had to be something else, Isadora often thought. But what? She yearned to fly away free, to escape. But what she wished to escape was her own life, and that was the one thing she couldn’t get away from.

  She wanted to slap herself for even thinking in such bleak terms. Willfully she pulled her mind away from depressing thoughts and turned back to her companion.

  Lily Calhoun stared straight ahead, her front teeth worrying her lower lip. “I’d best warn you about Ryan,” she said. “He’s the black sheep of his family, though I’ve never cared for that term.”

  Isadora’s interest was piqued. Perhaps she and this Ryan Calhoun had something in common. “Is he a constant trial?”

  “A trial? My dear, he could charm a pearl from an oyster.”

  Isadora’s interest waned. She had nothing in common with a charming person.

  “I had hoped that coming north would instill in him a sense of responsibility. Instead, the first thing he did upon leaving Virginia was to set his manservant free.”

  “He had a slave?” Distaste coiled in Isadora’s belly.

  Lily nodded. “He and Journey were like brothers.”

  “And he freed his ‘brother.’”

  “He did indeed.”

  “Bravo,” Isadora said decisively.

  “Abolitionist?” Lily asked.

  “I am.”

  “Now we know what topics of conversation we must avoid if we’re to be friends.” Lily paused, then added, “It’s strange being here in the company of Yankees. Most of you regard me as a half-educated Southern slavemistress.”

  “I doubt that. Beacon Hill’s best families have made their fortunes milling cotton grown by slave labor. It’s considered gauche to bring the topic up—though that’s never stopped me from opposing it.”

  The clarence lurched around the corner to India Street. Like reaching fingers, the darkened wharves projected out into Town Cove and Boston Harbor. The masts and spars of clipper ships, brigs, sloops and schooners rose against the night sky.

  “Oh, my.” Lily gazed out at the dazzle of anchor lamps on black water. “It’s finally real to me. My Ryan really did run away to sea.”

  “Mr. Easterbrook was most pleased with the job he did.” Isadora felt the urge to defend Ryan Calhoun, a man who’d had the courage to free a slave. “He made a voyage in record time. I understand the next run is to Rio.”

  To Isadora, Rio de Janeiro was more than a place on a map. She and Aunt Button used to read stories of distant places. Rio had been a particular favorite, famous for its exotic carnivals. They had stayed up late, imagining the hot smell of roasting coffee and the sound of Latin tenors and samba music. When Aunt Button was too ill to see anymore, Isadora would sit and read aloud to her for hours. One of the last books they’d read together took place in Rio.

  As they neared the berths of Easterbrook Wharf, Isadora reached for the speaking tube to alert the driver. She looked forward to meeting this man who pleased Abel Easterbrook and earned a fortune, this man who freed slaves. A black sheep who had succeeded so soundly in his chosen profession would be an inspiration to her.

  Perhaps he was in his aft stateroom, resting after the fruitful voyage. Or perhaps he sat at the checkered counting table, doling out sailors’ bills to the common seamen. Perhaps—

  The sound of shattering glass caused the horses to shy. While the driver subdued them, Isadora leaned over the running board and looked out.

  The Silver Swan ran more than its anchor lamps. Bright Japanese lanterns swayed from her spars, halyards and outriggers, illuminating the decks. Every once in a while, someone set off a fireblossom that soared skyward with a whistle, then made a starburst of yellow sulfur light.

  When the coach rolled to a halt, Isadora didn’t wait for the driver to open the door. She descended on her own, lurching a little when she landed.

  Lily held back for the driver, then alighted like a butterfly on a flower. The tinny sound of pipes and the thud of a
drum issued from the high decks of the bark.

  “Carriage ho!” someone shouted, then loosed a braying laugh.

  “Where away?” yelled another voice.

  “Fine on the starboard quarter!” A shadowed shape came to the rail. Isadora tugged self-consciously at the knotted strings of her cap and patted her lacquered sausage curls.

  “More ladies! More ladies!” shouted a rum-roughened voice. “Welcome aboard!”

  More ladies?

  Isadora straightened her shoulders and offered her arm to Lily. “I suppose we should board, then.”

  Lily pressed her mouth into a flat line, and Isadora wondered what could be passing through her mind. The prodigal husband was supposed to humble himself and come home. Not force the wife to come to him.

  “Come spare us a favor, loveys,” yelled the rum voice. “We just swallowed anchor after three seasons at sea!”

  Lily paused. “I would suggest that you go back to the carriage. This will not be pleasant.”

  “Nonsense. It was my idea to bring you here. If you’re going, I’m going.” Isadora took Lily firmly by the arm. They went aboard via the slanting gangplank, steadying themselves with the rope rails. The music’s tempo grew stronger; so did the laughter—and the syrupy stench of rum.

  Isadora frowned in confusion. Mr. Easterbrook had implied that Ryan Calhoun was a skilled and disciplined skipper. Surely he would not allow—

  “Oh, dear Lord above.” Lily stopped on the midships deck. Her grip on Isadora’s arm tightened.

  The whole deck resembled a Hogarth painting—the lowest of the low, engaged in the lowest of pursuits. The screeching whistle was piped by a sailor with a mustache. A Negro man with a skin drum and another with a mouth harp accompanied him.

  Isadora fumbled with her spectacles. Even in her imagination she could not have conjured up such a scene: jack-tars in loose trousers and striped shirts dancing with bare-legged women who kissed them in public. Chickens running willy-nilly around the deck. A huge bald man with a ring of gold gleaming in one ear stood drinking directly from an unbunged barrel, upended and balanced upon his bare shoulder.

  She brought her shocked gaze in a full circle around the brightly lit deck, and at the last she found herself gaping at an extraordinary man. Like a king on a throne, he sat upon a big armless chair. Backlit by burning torches, the laughing man appeared almost inhumanly handsome with a long fall of fiery red hair flowing over his broad shoulders and framing his chiseled face. He wore a garish green waistcoat that left too much of his brawny arms and chest uncovered. Draped across his lap lay a woman whose bosoms spilled from her bodice. His left arm supported her generous girth; the other—heavens be—was plunged deep beneath the tattered folds of her skirts and petticoats.

  Shocking as that sight proved to be, Isadora felt her attention captured by the man’s face and demeanor. He had not yet noticed them, for he was preoccupied with the woman. There was something darkly compelling about the way he kept his concentration riveted upon the lady, regarding her with total absorption as if he meant to lose himself in her.

  The man with the drum began to beat a tattoo that curiously resembled the nervous warning of a rattle snake.

  Finally the red-haired man looked up, raising his face from its fleshy pillow and peering over the woman’s bosoms. He studied Isadora for a moment; then, dismissing her, he moved his gaze to Lily. Giving a lopsided, beatific grin, he said in a smooth Virginia drawl, “Hello, Mother.”

  Three

  Why not seize the pleasure at once?

  How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!

  —Jane Austen

  (1798)

  The music stopped. Ryan felt the whore shift on his lap as she twisted to see the newcomers. She scowled bleary eyed at the tall woman with the corkscrew curls poking out from the rim of a bonnet. “The fat one’s your mother?”

  “No.” With as much poise as he could muster, he set the woman on deck and stood up, pressing the backs of his knees against the chair to steady himself. Chips, the carpenter, had the presence of mind to step forward and lead the whore away, pacifying her with a fresh flask.

  Ryan did his best to straighten out his crooked grin. “Mother, what an unexpected surprise.”

  “I clearly am,” Lily said.

  Drunk as he was, Ryan read the disappointment in her face. It pulled down the corners of her mouth, made her hesitate for a heartbreakingly long moment before she reached out and embraced him.

  He reeked of rum and cheap perfume. He pulled back quickly, not wanting to taint his mother. Nothing had changed since the last time he’d seen her, not really. At their parting, they had been standing together at Albion Landing in the south reaches of Chesapeake Bay. She’d warned him that eschewing the University of Virginia and going north to Harvard would demand more from him, far more than he could possibly imagine. Possibly more than he had within him.

  Drunk or sober, he was doomed to disappoint his mother, no matter what he did. He regretted being so public about it. He gestured toward the high aft deck. “Come to the stateroom. We can talk there—”

  “What in the name of Saint Elmo’s fire is going on?” demanded a furious voice.

  Ryan blinked his bleary eyes and groaned. Abel Easterbrook. Just what he needed. For the first time, apprehension touched his spine with ice. Tonight’s revels had put his whole mission in jeopardy. He and Journey were so close to their goal. One more voyage, and they’d have the money they needed. Now, thanks to his lack of restraint, he might have put the next voyage in doubt.

  Fixing yet another lopsided smile on his face, he hid his thoughts and bowed to greet his employer. The sweetness of rum pushed ominously at the back of his throat. He swallowed hard, hoping he wouldn’t disgrace himself even more than he already had. “I was conducting a small celebration in honor of our safe return, sir.” He exaggerated the enunciation of each word, hoping the long, slurred vowels would simply be attributed to his Southern upbringing rather than all that rum. “I thought a bit of levity would be good for company morale.”

  “You’re not paid to think.” Easterbrook’s stormy gaze swept the decks, taking in the half-clad couples crumpled in the shadows, the men clustered eagerly around the keg, the chickens poking through spilled crumbs. “I am shocked. Shocked, I say. Small celebration indeed.”

  “It is, sir. You see, where I come from…” Ryan paused. He’d made up so many lies to get Easterbrook to hire him that he had to stop for a moment to recall them. “Uh, aboard the Twyla of famous memory, it was considered a grievous error to send the crew ashore sober. There was the danger, you see, that the men would take landlubber jobs and wouldn’t sign on for the next voyage.”

  With a grand gesture, he encompassed the deck, littered with motley drunkards and coarse bawds. “These are the men who have given the Silver Swan her place in the record books. They have earned their reward.” He caught the eye of Ralph Izard, the chief mate. At his skipper’s pleading look, Izard clapped his hands, sending people lurching and stumbling belowdecks.

  Ryan stepped back with a gallant point of his booted foot. “Mr. Easterbrook, allow me to introduce my mother, Mrs. Lily Raines Calhoun and her companion—” He broke off, eyeing the dark-clad woman in the spectacles. She stood with gloved hands clasped tightly as if praying for his immortal soul.

  If she knew Ryan Calhoun at all, she’d realize her efforts were for naught. He was doomed. It would take more than a lady’s fervent prayers to save him.

  Easterbrook bowed over Lily’s extended hand. Then he turned to the other woman. “Shiver my timbers, Miss Isadora. What in the name of Davy Jones are you doing here?”

  “You know each other?” Ryan staggered against a hatch coaming, putting out a hand to catch himself.

  “I was summoned from a social gathering at her father’s home, damn your eyes. I have no idea what she’s doing here.”

  The woman called Miss Isadora cleared her throat. “Well, I th
ought—that is, Mrs. Calhoun happened to ask about her…son, and since you’d mentioned that he was here with the Swan I thought, er, that is, Mrs. Calhoun was a guest at our party tonight, as were you, sir. Only she was a guest of the Hallowells—the groom’s family, you see. She seemed so eager to locate Mr.—er, Captain Calhoun, so I deemed it reasonable to suppose we would find him aboard.”

  Ryan wondered if the lady had been at the rum, so garbled was her explanation. He eyed her downward sloping shoulders, her twisting, praying hands. Christ, the woman was terrified.

  “Mr. Easterbrook.” Lily’s voice slid like warm molasses into the conversation. “Miss Peabody was kind enough to conduct me here when she learned I was looking for my son.”

  The timbre of her voice coaxed a puppy-dog smile from the old codger. Lily Raines Calhoun had that way about her. She was a sorceress with her voice, her accent, her intimate inflections. With the softest of comments, she had the power to mesmerize her listeners. Only Ryan could discern the steel beneath the gossamer silk of her voice. Especially when she said the words “my son.”

  He was in trouble. He was in terrible trouble.

  And as always, he didn’t give a damn.

  “And now, thanks to you,” Lily continued, sending a lovely, supplicating smile at Abel Easterbrook, “I have found him. Perhaps you would be so gallant as to drive us home, Mr. Easterbrook.”

  “It would be my honor,” Easterbrook said. “I can conclude my business in a moment or two.” He turned to Ryan. “I was shanghaied from a dancing party by my houseman. It seems Rivera is being sought by the police for questioning.” Clasping his hands behind his waist like an admiral, Easterbrook paced in agitation. “Police are on the trot for runaway slaves these days.”

  During Ryan’s absence, the Fugitive Slave Law had gone into effect, making it illegal to abet or harbor runaways. “Rivera’s not involved in that,” he said quickly. “He’s got more games than a ship has rats, but none of them involve fugitives.”