Page 32 of Miss Whittier Makes a List
“So is ourcurrentsituation, Hannah, and yet here we are. Who would have thought it?”
Without any more talk, Adam returned to the deck. As much as she liked her childhood friend, Hannah was not sorry toseehim go. I must think this through, she thought to herself as she watched his blond head get smaller and smaller as he descended. She clasped her knees to her chest and leaned back against the mast, wondering what it was she had done to get the captain so convinced that he was in love.
Othersat home had withstood her charms, she told herself wryly, thinking of the young men who came into the parlor there onOrangeStreetto sit and stammer and ask her how she did. Papa would talk of business, then leave her alone with one suitor or another, butnothing ever came of it. I must bespeaking of the wrong things, she would think,or perhaps it is the way I look. There were no mirrors in theWhittierhouse so she went to the pond in the back field, and stared into its reflecting depths,wondering what there was about her features to prevent the return, beyond a few visits, ofNantucket’s young men. She could see nothing in the reflection that would disgust a man intent up marriage.
She finally asked her best friend Abigail Winslow.“It is thattwinklein thy eye,”Abigail had confessed as they sat knitting once.“I suspect they think thee is a rogue at heart, Hannah. Is thee?”
She smiled at the memory, and her outraged reaction, and then her smile faded. Perhaps I am a rogue, she thought asshe scanned the ocean again. I trulywould rather be sitting barefoot in trousers in Captain Spark’s lookout, my knees wide apart and myshirtunbuttoned.
It was more than that,and perhaps there was something to what Abigail Winslow had so artlessly declared. Last night when Captain Spark kissed her, she had not wanted him to stop. She lowered the telescope, wondering why her cheeks burned, even up here where no one could see her. I wonder, she thought, has this man taken my measure?Doeshe know somehow that I truly am a rogue, and more to the point, does this knowledge not frighten him off, as it did the young men ofNantucket? She rested her chin on the eyepiece of the telescope.“If theeknows these things about me, Daniel,”she whispered softly,“then thee knows me better than I do.”
She watched all day and into the night, when Mr. Futtrell finally called to her and she came down, weary with watching. Captain Spark had ordered the running lights doused before he went below to snatch a few hours sleep. If only there was some way to stop the noise of the pumps, she thought as she went below deck, shook her head at Cookie’s attempt to feed her salt pork, and collapsed in her hammock. The thought of silent pumps made her sit bolt upright.“Oh, no,”she said.“Let them make all the racket they choose.”Silent pumps would mean that the voyage was over.
Each day passedinto another one, similar and unrelenting, and broken only by the smallest of incidents that would have been soon forgotten, except that Hannah planned to remember the last, desperate cruise of theDissuadefor her whole life. She brought coffee every morning to the captain, hiding her alarm at his hggard expression and the exhaustion that seemed to seep out of his pores. One morning he handed her a boat cloak.“It’s Mr. Lansing’s. I see you shivering every morning until the sun climbs higher.”
She took it, grateful for the warmth, remembering its owner. Another morning, there were two more bodies shrouded in their hammocks, which Captain Spark tipped over the side without a prayer. When she looked at him, a question in her eyes, he merely said.“I can’t address the Almighty right now, Hannah. I wonder if he cares.”Two days later, the forward pump broke, and all hands rushed to its repair. She watched from the lookout, wondering what was happening below, and then sighed with relief when the clanging began again.
Adam finished memorizing the dispatch, and it was her turn. She read over and over theletterin English from the governor of Antigua,with its traitorous catalog of ships and supplies of the Royal Navy in theCaribbean, destined for Napoleon. She knew it by heartat the end of a long day in the lookout, and returned it to Captain Spark when she saw him come on deck for the second night watch.
“Recite it for me, Hannah,”he said, and she did, striking a pose with her hands behind her back, much as when she had attended dame school at home and had recited whole chapters from the Bible for Dame Oldroyd.
“Very good, my dear Lady Amber,”he said when she finished, and applauded when she curtsied.“Now go get some sleep before you topple.”
There was nothing of the lover in his voice anymore. That was gone after the first week of watch and watch about, replaced now by a dogged determination to see the thing through that shone in his pale eyes. He rarely spoke to anyone now, beyond the necessary commands, as though tryingtopreserve his flagging energy.
“You’re the one who’s going to topple,”she protested.“I wish I could help.”
He surprised her with a reply, instead the usual noncommittal grunt that had become his latest mode of communication.“You can. Come on deck after Futtrell’s watch. I have a hardtime staying awake for that particular watch, and you can entertain me with stories ofNantucket.”
“Very well, sir, except that nothing exciting ever happens at home,”she said.
“Let me be the judge of that profound bit of infantile wisdom. Until then, Lady Amber. Or perhaps I should brushup on my rusty French and sayàbientôt.”
She came on deck in the early watch, when the stars seemed to be hanging just above the masts and there was no hint of welcome dawn on the horizon. The helmsman, his eyes bleary but his hands firm on the wheel, nodded to her as she tiptoed quietly to the quarterdeck and assumed her customary position.
“No, no. Come on deck,my dear.”
Captain Spark stood in the shadow of the weather side, hanging on to the rigging, keepinghimselfupright by sheerforce of will.
“You’re wearingLansing’s cloak, I see. Good. Good. I am definitely feeling the chilly winds ofEurope,”he said as he motioned her closer.
She came to his side, and he put his armaround her, gathering her into his cloak and leaning on her a little until he regained his balance. He let go of therigging and they stood, hip to hip,arms about each other’s waists. It seemed too close to Hannah, but the captain shivered, and she moved in closer.
“I swear I’m cold right to the bone,”he said, sticking his thumb into her waistband to anchor her more firmly tohim.“Hannah, you’re better than a hot water bottle.”
Hannah chuckled.“Mama wraps a rock in a towel for me at home. She doesn’t know, but sometimes I sneak in Hosea’s old dog, especially in January when everything freezes.”
“Tell me about your brothers, Hannah. Would I like them?”
“You would like Matthew,”she said after considering the matter a moment.“He is a whaler.”She laughed softly.“He and my sister-in-law have three children, each one born eight and a half months into his next voyage.”She stopped when he laughed.‘Oh, but I should not talk about things like that, should I?”
“It will keep me awake,”he replied with just a trace of good humor in his voice.“But why would I like Matthew?”
Hannah sighed and leaned against the captain, gratified that she fit just right under hisarm.“He is devoted to the sea.”She looked up at his face shyly.“I’ve watched you from the lookout,and sometimes you have such a dreamy expression as you watch the water.”
“What makes you so sure I am thinking about the ocean?”he replied,teasing her.
“Of course you are,”she insisted, even as hisarmtightened about her waist.“Matthew is restless when he is on land too long. But I know it is hard for him to get to know his wife and children all over again, after every whaling voyage.”
