by Susan Wiggs
Especially now, Isadora thought wryly.
She lifted her hand in a final farewell. And then she turned away, keeping her chin high and her gaze to the sky as she boarded the Silver Swan.
She knew better than to expect any sort of civilized welcome here. This was a working vessel, its entire purpose to make money. The decks swarmed with running sailors and porters, customs officers and agents and others she did not recognize. What a marvel it all was to her, the hogsheads and bundles that entered the belly of the ship in an endless parade, the eager agility of the sailors scrambling up through the rigging, readying her for the voyage.
The very idea of all these goods being sent to distant places captivated her. When something went abroad, did the experience change it in some fundamental way? Would that bolt of Framingham broadcloth somehow be transformed into something vibrant, something its creator had never imagined? Would the giant blocks of Vermont mountain ice, wrapped in a thick insulation of straw and burlap, be used to cool foodstuffs no Vermonter had ever dreamed of tasting?
She heard a clucking sound. A swaying stack of crates came lurching toward her. She could only see the cutoff duck trousers and bare feet of its bearer. When the column leaned precariously, she quickly stepped forward and pressed her hand against the top crate. “Careful, there,” she said.
“Thank you.” A head peeked out from behind the crates, showing a friendly, gap-toothed grin and a wizened African face. “Wouldn’t want to spill our dinner before we even set sail.” He had a vaguely melodic accent, light inflections lifting his words.
She peered over the top of her spectacles. “The chickens, you mean,” she said awkwardly.
“Some are layers, some will be for the stew pot.”
Keeping a hand on the crates, Isadora moved along the deck with the little African man. “You must be the cook, then.”
“Aye. Samuel Liotta from Jamaica, but they call me the Doctor, and so shall you. You must be the lady idler.”
“I will be serving as Captain Calhoun’s interpreter and clerk. My name is Isadora Dudley Peabody.”
“Welcome aboard, Missy,” the cook said brightly.
She helped him set down the crates. Peering into the pen, she discovered a small goat and a piglet.
“Alfredo and the pig, I calls them. One for milk, one for meat.” He dusted his hands on a canvas apron. “Come, then. Time to meet more members of the crew.”
The cook had, for whatever reason, decided to take her under his wing. With considerably better manners than she expected from a seaman, he introduced her to her shipmates.
Ralph Izard served as chief mate, which put him in charge of just about everything. As he rushed past, he had no time to talk, but he smiled cordially enough. She noted a certain sad resignation in his eyes.
William Click, the second mate, spoke with a Cockney accent and wore a short-handled quirt in a hip holster at his side. Chips, the carpenter, was tall and skinny; Luigi Conti, the Italian sail maker, was tiny, with merry eyes and a huge black mustache. Gerald Craven, the jibboom man with tattoed arms and a gold hoop earring, gave her a curt greeting, then hastened off to help Timothy haul down a tangle in the rigging.
Isadora brought her carpetbag to her assigned quarters. Here, she would spend her last night in Boston, and in the morning they would sail with the tide.
According to the Doctor, the Silver Swan was an unusual vessel. Sloop-rigged in order to carry less sail and thus a smaller crew, she had been built for a sea captain who insisted on traveling with his wife and four children. That accounted for the grandeur of the captain’s stateroom and for the snugness of the two side staterooms, which had once housed the children. Lily Calhoun and her maid would occupy one of the rooms, Isadora the other.
She found a single bunk, too short to accommodate her height, a single portal to let in the daylight and a single washstand with a lavatory and chamber pot. The cabin had the austere air of a monk’s cell, and she found that she rather liked the feel of it.
Lily and Fayette greeted her cheerily when they arrived. She accompanied them to their cabin, which was larger, with two boxlike bunks and a sitting area below the portal.
“Are you terribly excited?” Lily asked, helping her maid with a stubborn latch on a case.
“I hardly slept a wink all night.”
“It’s a little frightening, isn’t it?” Lily asked.
“It’s a lot frightening,” Fayette said, casting a suspicious glance at the door. “Only time I ever went somewhere with Mr. Ryan in charge was a day of fishing. We ended up in the middle of Mockjack Bay in a skiff, and he didn’t have no idea how to get back. No idea at all.”
Lily caught Isadora’s eye. “I believe Ryan was nine years old at the time.”
“He and that Journey. Always trouble.” Fayette shook her head mournfully and began filling a drawer under the bunk.
Lily smiled wistfully. “He was always a willful boy.”
“You spoiled him, and no mistake,” Fayette muttered.
“I suppose I did. His father paid him so little attention. I was Jared’s second wife,” she explained to Isadora. “With his first, he had Hunter, and Ryan seemed almost an afterthought. Jared wore me as an ornament on his arm, but he hadn’t the first idea what to do with a boy like Ryan.” She bit her lip. “Oh, dear. I mustn’t speak ill of the dead.”
Fayette chuckled. “Sweetie, that ain’t nothing we ain’t all thought of.” She glanced up at Isadora. “Beware the man who values you for your pretty face.”
“It’s not a worry that plagues me,” Isadora said wryly, pushing her spectacles up the bridge of her nose. “And surely love grew with familiarity.”
“You are so very young, my dear,” said Lily. “As young as I was when I was raising Ryan. He grew up wild and free, and I fear I indulged his every whim, trying to make up for his father. Ryan was attractive, impulsive and charismatic, and he knew how to get what he wanted—from everyone but his father.”
“There’s always been a hole in that boy’s life,” Fayette said. “But it ain’t your place to patch it up. Let him find his own way, Miz Lily.”
Isadora felt a prickle of discomfort. People in her family never spoke of such intimate matters, particularly not with the servants.
“I think I shall go out on deck,” she said. “I don’t want to miss a thing.” She left the cabin and returned to deck, finding a spot beside an aft companion ladder where she seemed to be out of the way.
Captain Calhoun was in his stateroom with a shipping agent. She could hear them speaking, but couldn’t make out their words. She contented herself with watching the work go on, exchanging a word or two with the crewmen as they passed. She couldn’t believe how swiftly the hours had gone by as she made the acquaintance of the men who would be her only company for months on end.
Oddly, she didn’t feel as ill at ease with the sailors as she did in social situations on dry land. For the first time, Isadora started to believe that she might actually achieve something on this voyage. What it was, she couldn’t be certain, but she dared to hope that when Chad Easterbrook found out how well she had discharged her duties aboard the Silver Swan, he’d be very proud indeed.
Then, as if her fervent hope had conjured him, Chad Easterbrook boarded the ship along with his father.
Isadora bustled forward to greet them, nearly tripping over her hem in her haste.
“Mr. Easterbrook!” she said to Abel. And then to Chad: “Mr. Easterbrook!”
“How about that, they have the same name,” Ryan Calhoun observed, coming out of his stateroom. He still wore his shore clothes, and rather grand ones at that—kelly green breeches and a yellow silk waistcoat. He also still wore his insolent expression, his clear-eyed gaze promising a rough time for the clerk he didn’t want.
Isadora turned away from him, fixing a welcoming smile on her face for the newcomers. Together, Chad and Abel made a dazzling pair. Abel’s shock of white hair contrasted sharply with Chad’s dark Byro
nian curls, and they both wore long, caped coats of charcoal wool.
Like the hero of her favorite novel, Chad strode across the deck, his flinty gaze held aloft as he surveyed the final preparations. Sadly, the unfortunate movement of a yardarm tackle spoiled the effect. The large length of wood swung out on its way up the mast, catching him in the midsection—or perhaps lower.
Making a terrible oof sound, he doubled over, clutching his father’s shoulder.
“Have to watch your step on deck, son,” Abel said with gruff concern. “One eye for the ship, and one for yourself.”
Isadora came up short, almost quivering to stay the impulse of reaching for Chad, of actually touching him. “Oh, Mr. Easterbrook,” she said. “Are you all right?”
He straightened up and nodded, his nostrils pinching as he inhaled deeply. “Quite…quite,” he said with a decided lack of conviction.
She caught Ryan studying her with a discomfiting keenness. “Perhaps,” he drawled, “you should go ashore and visit your tender mercies upon him.”
She sniffed. “I’m needed here. I’ll not shirk my duties.”
“I shall remember that, Miss Peabody.”
The laconic promise in his eyes created an odd havoc in her. Flustered, she hoped the brim of her fanned silk bonnet concealed her blush. Dipping a brief, formal curtsy, she said, “How pleasant to have this chance to say farewell,” measuring each word and taking care to address the elder Easterbrook as well as the younger.
“We wish you fair winds and a safe voyage,” Abel said, his kindly face crinkling with good humor. He nudged Chad with his elbow. “Don’t we, son?”
“We do indeed.” Debonair as a fairy-tale prince, Chad bowed from the waist. “Safe winds and a fair voyage.”
Isadora savored the gentle warmth he inspired in her. “I shall write a letter daily, telling you of all my adventures.” She caught a merry, conspiratorial look from Abel; they had agreed that each letter would contain a private report on the conduct of the skipper and crew. She took an awkward step back, praying no yardarm would sweep her away. “I know you and Captain Calhoun have business to discuss, so if you’ll excuse me…” She took another step back. Kiss me goodbye, her heart begged him. Kiss me goodbye.
But of course, the mad fantasy had no place on a deck aswarm with sailors. She lifted her gloved hand and offered a lame wave. And then it happened. Chad looked at her, and he smiled a smile that promised so much more than a kiss…. Someday, please God, someday.
Awash with pleasure, she hurried away, getting her foot tangled in the hem of her dress, then almost stumbling. But she didn’t. She caught herself and stood leaning against the pinrail, thinking of Chad and how perhaps this voyage would transform her in his eyes.
Father and son finished their conference with Ryan and returned to the wharves. She watched them until they were mere specks in the distance, one light head, one dark, finally blending in with the crowd.
“And now,” said a voice behind her, “one question remains.”
Startled, Isadora turned, knocking her glasses askew with the abrupt motion.
The chief mate shouted orders, and the second mate repeated them. A rush of running feet pounded the decks.
“And what remains, Captain Calhoun?” Self-conscious, she straightened the spectacles.
“To assure myself that you aren’t having second thoughts.” He stepped toward her, took her hand and gave a gallant, mocking bow that made her insides churn with nervousness. A light breeze lifted the fringe of hair that showed beneath his cap, and the afternoon sunlight put a sparkle in his eyes.
She narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “Why would I be having second thoughts?”
He stared straight into her eyes, and she had the strangest feeling that he could see inside her to the matters that whirled through her mind. “Most women do,” he said.
Seven
I must go
Where the fleet of stars is anchored and the young
Star captains glow.
—Herman James Elroy Flecker,
The Dying Patriot
“You know what’s curious?” Ryan asked, standing back from the captain’s table and watching Journey expertly pour the claret.
“Your taste in neck cloths?” Journey ventured, looking askance at the hibiscus-and-lime paisley cravat Ryan had donned for supper.
Ryan ignored him. “When I was in school, I could no more remember a Latin declension than the table of the elements. Yet on this ship I can keep every fact and figure as keenly in my mind as if God himself whispered them into my ear. Why do you suppose that is?”
“Maybe because Latin declensions don’t help you deal with dishonest stevedores.”
Ryan vividly recalled the endless hours of stumbling through lessons at Albion. “Why can’t I learn something simply for learning’s sake?”
“You’re starting to sound like your daddy.”
A chill slid through him. It was true. He recalled all those humiliating times he’d stood before Jared Calhoun, squirming inside while his father quizzed him mercilessly about Horace and the gospel and the price of tobacco in Richmond.
If you constantly have your head in the stars, his father used to demand, how are you going to keep your feet firmly on the ground?
“There’s no need, if I go to sea,” Ryan murmured.
“What’s that?”
Ryan shook his head. “Nothing. You know, I keep the stars up here, too.” He touched his temple. “Ever since we were lads, I’ve been able to read the stars as easily as most boys read their scripture.”
Journey put a cut glass stopper in the crystal decanter. The Silver Swan’s previous skipper had been a man of excellent taste and terrible business practices. When Abel Easterbrook discovered the extent of his cheating, he’d had the man hauled off in chains, leaving behind a salon full of his ill-gotten gains. Ryan had inherited comfortable quarters indeed.
Built into the wall of the cabin, invisible behind a false panel and snug against the hull itself, was the purser’s till, a safekeep of steel with a combination lock. Other than Abel himself, only Ryan knew the combination. When he sold the cargo in Rio, he’d receive payment in pounds sterling. It would all go into the till, never to be opened until Abel did the honors once they returned.
“I remember,” Journey said, “when we were lads we’d climb to our lookout on a clear night and navigate our way to the Spanish main.”
Ryan smiled, picturing the two of them lying side by side on the rough wooden planks of their tree house, hands clasped behind their heads, gazes turned to heaven. The breeze had stirred the poplar leaves, but to the boys’ ears it was the shush of the great deep Atlantic rushing past the hull of their ship. Their destination was a place he and Journey had conjured up from their imaginations. They had built it on their own boyish dreams, endowing the perfect island with everything a boy could want: gumdrop trees, geysers that spewed sarsaparilla, crystal clear freshwater pools for swimming. A pond in which the fish leaped for joy, grabbing right onto the end of their fishing poles. No chores, no schoolroom, no lessons, no stern tutor or disapproving papa, no mammy with a hickory rod.
“Did we ever actually reach that place?” Ryan checked the buttons of his cuffs. “I don’t remember.”
Journey set down the salt cellars, a thoughtful, distant expression on his face. “We’re still looking, Skipper. We’re still looking.”
A light knock sounded at the door, and in came his mother, attended by Fayette, her maid. He greeted the ladies with the Southern gallantry that had been bred into his very bones: a courtly bow, a charming smile, a sweep of his arm toward the table.
Then he spied Miss Isadora Peabody standing uncertainly in the companionway. A twinge of exasperation nagged at him. If she felt awkward, it was her own doing. She had used her influence with Abel to muscle her way aboard this ship. Ryan had resolved to use his position as skipper to make her regret it.
“You’re a crew member,” he said. “You’d b
est eat in the galley with the men.” He started to close the door.
“Oh, Ryan, for heaven’s sake,” his mother said, grabbing the door before it slammed. “Miss Peabody is my companion. I won’t hear of her eating hard tack and ale in the galley.”
“Truly,” Miss Peabody murmured, “if the captain orders me to go elsewhere, then I must obey.”
“But I’m the mother,” Lily said smugly. She elbowed Ryan aside. “Come in, and we shall celebrate our last night before departure.”
Isadora didn’t look at Ryan as she edged into the stateroom. He couldn’t quite bring himself to banish her. The painfully arranged hair, the trussed-up style of her black dress, the way she squinted behind her spectacles caused him to feel an unaccustomed tug of…of what? Annoyance, yes, and something perhaps akin to pity.
He tried to figure out why his mind kept clinging to thoughts of her. He’d always been a man who attracted pretty women, and Miss Peabody was not pretty. He enjoyed the charm of female company, yet she was not charming. He liked the inanity of lighthearted conversation, yet she was neither inane nor lighthearted.
So why did she plague him?
Perhaps it was the secrets she guarded within the hazel-and-gold depths of her eyes. In spite of himself, he wanted to know what thoughts hovered there, what ideas. What hopes and dreams.
Of course, he didn’t want to hear about her misguided passion for Chad Easterbrook, but other things about her—who she was and what she wanted, what she loved and hated, what surprised her, what delighted her, what angered her.
Immediately he pulled back. The only reason he wanted to discover her inner being was so that he could control her, keep her in line and keep her out of his affairs.