3
Captain Reynolds Macy gathered every ounce of stoic courage he could muster as he prepared to meet his wife’s mother. Fortifying thoughts ran through his mind: I have stood in the face of gales that threatened to topple m’ ship. I have speared mighty leviathans. Surely, I can face Lillian Swain Coffin.
But as he closed the door to Jane’s chamber, his courage faltered. His mother-in-law, although she had a striking elegance even he could not deny admiring, was a force unlike anything in nature. Her skin was markedly white, her eyes nearly black, her hair a flaxen blonde. She carried herself with an unmistakable patrician manner, amiable to those she considered peers, haughty toward inferiors. While it was true that many folk in Nantucket had long memories, unforgiving natures, and a deep suspicion of newcomers, Lillian nursed grudges like no one else. She was the reason he had bought the house on Orange Street for Jane, though he could scarcely afford it. Besides security, he thought it would provide well-deserved status for Jane as a whalemaster’s wife, and hoped it would appease Lillian.
He had not realized Jane would have had to face so much alone, though. To bear his children, all alone. To face her beloved father’s death, alone. He shook inside with fear and shame, and a wonder at himself. How could I have expected so much of my bride? How could I have given her so little in return?
He squared his shoulders, for he knew Lillian would find any apparent weak spot and drive a wedge into it. At the top of the stairs, he saw his cousin Tristram in the foyer, standing beside Lillian in her starched gray dress, white lace–caped shoulders, and stiff black bonnet. Closing the front door behind them was the native maidservant, a woman he vaguely recalled—what had Daphne called her? Patience. Ahhh . . . A timely reminder.
“Where is she? Where is Jane?”
A shiver went down his spine. Lillian’s voice was not shrill, but even still, it had always had that effect on him, like biting down on a piece of tin.
When Patience didn’t answer, Lillian looked up the stairwell and spotted Ren. She lifted a hand and pointed a finger at him, a confirmation to Ren that this would be a difficult reunion. There was no tie of blood or love to bind them, only a connection to Jane. “Thee! Thee brought this on! I told Jane, she never should have married thee! It would ruin her. I told her. Thee convinced her to elope and then thee ran off to sea! Thee has broken her spirit.”
Blame. Accusation. Condemnation. Woven together like three strands of rope. He expected as much from her, but guilt sent color rushing hot to his face. He cleared his throat and tried for a smile as he went down the stairs. “Hello, Lillian. If you can compose yourself to be calm and quiet, you may be escorted up to see Jane.”
“Escorted! To see my own daughter? I will not be told what to do.” She held up her skirts so she wouldn’t trip and started to climb the stairs.
Ren blocked her path. “I realize this is upsetting news. But Jane does not need to be distressed. She needs rest to recuperate.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized he had made an error in revealing too much.
Lillian froze. “Rest to recuperate?” She looked down at Tristram. “Thee said her corset was too tight and she had fainted!”
Tristram’s mouth tightened a little at the corners. “Apparently, I did not have all the facts.”
“What has happened to Jane?”
Ren hesitated. “She’s had a . . . nervous collapse.”
A gasp escaped Lillian’s lips and she swayed. Ren caught her before she toppled down the stairs. “William. He . . . he died of such a collapse.”
“This is nothing like William’s circumstances, Lillian,” Tristram said. To Ren, he mouthed, “He died in the arms of another woman.”
Ren stared at his cousin. Tristram lifted his eyebrows in such a way that spoke the truth.
Ren was shocked that Jane’s father was no longer, but not by those details. It was a poorly kept secret on Nantucket Island, that of William Starbuck Coffin’s transgressions. While Friends did not approve, most everyone pitied the man for his unfortunate choice of a wife.
Lillian had always confronted rumors of her husband’s mistress by refusing to acknowledge them. It was the second reason she objected to Jane’s marriage to Ren. She was convinced that all seamen had the same philandering tendencies. Certainly there were powerful temptations for seamen in exotic ports-o-call, where a man could find a woman and never worry he would see her again. But Ren fought those temptations and did not leave the ship when in port, for he loved his wife and had made a promise to her, to forsake all others.
But Lillian’s primary objection to Reynolds Macy was that he was not a member of the Society of Friends held in good standing. Nor did he care to be.
Lillian’s hands still gripped the banister. She looked up to find Ren watching her, and she lifted a hand to her forehead. “I fear a spell is on its way. I must return home at once.” She recovered herself, smoothing out her skirts, and darted back down the stairs. “Tristram, let us be off.”
Lillian’s words so shocked Ren that for a moment he couldn’t speak. Could the woman not put aside her own self-interests for a single moment, even when her own daughter may be at death’s door? “But what of Jane?”
“Thee said she needs her rest. I will return another time.” She swept straight to the door like a ship under full sail.
Tristram looked up at Ren, baffled. “What would thee have me do?”
“Take her home.” Unfortunate, but illuminating. Lillian would be of no help during this time of need. “Tristram, after you get Lillian settled in, please return here. We have things to discuss.”
As the door closed, he squeezed his eyes shut. Was this God’s way of testing him, of reminding him that he was not in control of his life? It was a lesson he had been schooled in many times at sea, and now on land. When he opened his eyes again, the servant girl stood at the base of the stairs, her chin tucked down, her eyes peeping up at him.
“Patience, is it? I do recall meeting you at Lillian’s house, long ago. I am Reynolds Macy.”
She dipped in a small curtsy. “Yes, Captain, I know. There is a man in the kitchen who says he needs to see you.”
Abraham! “Thank you. I’d forgotten.” It was a gift to return to a normal task, to oversee the unloading of the Endeavour. Another reminder from God, he pondered, as he walked to the kitchen at the back of the house. Life must keep going.
Abraham jumped up from the kitchen table when Ren entered the room, as if he’d been caught sleeping on watch. Hardly the case. Ren smiled at Abraham, or tried to, anyway. “You bring good tidings, Abraham?”
The sailor bowed his head a little. Humble, Ren thought. So unusual for a whaler. Any whaler, low ranking or otherwise. Seamen were a proud bunch, especially on land.
“I am bringing word from the countinghouse. As you asked of me, Captain.”
“Yes, yes. Sit down, Abraham. Tell m’ what they have said. Did the barrels match with our accounting?”
Abraham did not sit, but Ren did not expect him to. He refused to sit in Ren’s presence—the only order he did not obey.
Ren glanced at Patience. “Would thee take a turn at m’ wife’s side?”
Patience gave a brief nod, filled a teacup for Ren, served it to him, and quietly slipped through the door. Abraham’s eyes remained fixed on the maid. Ren noticed.
Interesting. It would please Ren if Abraham found himself a lass from Nantucket. That would keep him island bound.
Abraham was the finest crewman Ren had ever captained—smart, quick, a cool head under pressure. He’d found him last year in the Barbados and took him on as boatsteerer, a position of skill, intelligence, and keen importance. Abraham was the first Negro employed as crew on the Endeavour. Ren had known of Abraham’s capabilities, though under another captain’s flag. He had little regard for that captain, a cruel and selfish man. That first day, Ren observed the excellent skills of Abraham during a whale hunt. Not only had he made the killing lance, but he had saved the life of another sailor, a foolish lad whose foot had gotten tangled in the rope. After the whale had been caught and butchered, and the oil rendered—a lengthy process—Ren learned that the crew had refused to allow the Negro a bunk or hammock in the forecastle. Abraham had slept his first few nights on the open deck of the Endeavour, its boards still slimy, reeking of whale blood and oil.
When Ren rose unusually early one morning and found Abraham asleep, tucked under the bow, he quickly surmised what had gone on and was outraged with his crew. He called all hands to the upper deck to commend Abraham for his fine work, then promote him to second mate. Ren remembered the silence that fell over the upper deck as shock registered on the faces of the crew. The only sounds were the slapping of the sails above them and the waves below. No man of color had ever advanced further than boatsteerer on a whaling ship.
It was a critical moment for a sea captain. If Ren’s crew walked off, he would be in a dire situation. No doubt they knew it. They would put off in the Azores and find work at the next whaling ship that came through, of which there were plenty. But they’d be losing out on their share of profits as well, a substantial lay. The ship’s hold was nearly full. Nearly, but not quite. He needed each one to remain and bring the ship back to Nantucket Island.
It was his father, cooper Jeremiah Macy, who stepped into the void. “I’ll help thee move thy things to the officers’ cabin, Mr. Abraham.”
And with that one show of respect by Jeremiah, Abraham was accepted by the other crew, even if grudgingly, as an officer. His keen eye and superior skills with the harpoon brought in two sperm whales without incident, one right after the other—the most prized whale of all for the waxy spermaceti oil in its large head. Spermaceti oil candles burned brighter and were odorless. Sperm whales were difficult to hunt, able to dive deep and hold their breath for long periods. Afterward, Abraham had told Ren he’d counted ninety minutes between blowhole spotting of a particular sperm whale he’d been tracking.
The voyage was finished at last as the hold was finally full—no captain worth his pay returned to the home port without a chocked-off hold, regardless of how long a journey took—the tryworks was broken apart, its bricks thrown joyfully into the ocean, and Abraham had secured his place in the crew’s eyes. That, and a greasy voyage, a full hold, and not a single injury or death of a crewman the entire time. They were on their way home. Home to Nantucket, home to Ren’s darling Jane.
Ren drew himself back to the present with a squaring of his shoulders. He turned to his second mate, mustering up a tired smile. “What did the countinghouse have to say?”
“They are saying they want to talk to you, Captain, before the lays are distributed.”
“There is a problem?”
“They will not talk to me.”
Ren nodded. That did not surprise him. Free men of every color lived and conducted business in close proximity to their Quaker neighbors on Nantucket, yet there were invisible lines that were not crossed. Just like the one on the Endeavour. “Tristram can manage, can he not?”
“They say they want to talk only to you, Captain.”
Odd. Tristram had been the one to deal with the business end of the Endeavour for the past six years. “I’ll try to get over there this afternoon.”
“The day is spent, sir.”
Ren ran a hand through his hair. How late was it? He’d lost track of time. It was a strange feeling for a man who was so conscious of time that he was aware of the earth’s fifteen degrees of rotation throughout each hour. He had an innate awareness of such precise details in order to calculate the ship’s position. Time was something he knew intimately. He felt disoriented, as if he’d walked off the ship into another universe, one that careened him off-kilter.
A rapping on the front door startled Daphne. She heard the door open, the murmuring of voices, then heavy footsteps starting up the stairs. Tristram had come. She knew it was he bolting up the stairs because he ran everywhere. He was always in a hurry, always eager to move on to whatever was next.
She closed the journal and tucked it back in the nightstand drawer. She would like to know more of Mary Coffin Starbuck. She wasn’t sure what she had expected to learn of her, but so far she was thoroughly surprised by Mary’s revelations. How genuine she was, Daphne supposed, how authentic.
Tristram’s face poked through the doorway. “Is Jane awake?”
“Nay, not yet.” Daphne put a finger to her lips. “Hush. Thee makes more noise coming up the stairs than Hitty and Henry at full gallop.”
He made his face go all soft and wounded-looking. “I just had to escort thy dear sweet mother here and then back again . . . and this is how I’m greeted? Why, thee has had no idea of the torment I’ve endured—” He stopped abruptly when he caught sight of Jane’s face, heard her labored breathing. He came into the room and went to Jane’s bedside, taking one of her hands in his. A stricken look overcame him. “So what did the doctor declare to be the cause of Jane’s ailment?”
Daphne glanced at her sister. Jane was both sweating and shivering. “He will return later, he said, for a more thorough examination.”
Tristram gazed at her. “’Tis more serious than first thought?”
She nodded, then looked at her sister, whose breaths came in slow, shallow intakes of air.
He lifted Jane’s hand and turned it over, kissing her palm tenderly. “Jane, dearest Jane, come back to us.”
Oh do, Jane. Please come back. Daphne added one more plea. Don’t leave me. I’m not sure I can do life without thee.