Yankee Moon — Chapter 3

Yankee Moon; Book 3 of Patricia MacPherson’s Nautical Adventures

Chapter Three (working draft)

Christiansted, St. Croix

November, 1765

 

The wind, barely a whisper, teased us, flirting with the sails and making us work the sheets to keep them filled. Everyone was on deck and I at the tiller, coaxing the crippled rudder as we ghosted into the outer reaches of Christiansted harbor, anchoring on the lee of Protestant Island. Launching the ship’s boat, George and Moses towed the schooner to back down and set the anchor in the rich black mud. Stripped of their shirts, they strained at the oars, their bodies glistening with sweat. Lord, it was hot.

I breathed easier now that we were at anchor, safe for the moment in this shallow, sheltered bay. With any luck we’d quickly fix our rudder – or make a new one – and be on our way before incurring too many fees. That is to say, Moses, our carpenter would make a new rudder; he worked as a shipwright at the Redbone yard. Meanwhile, I would check in with the Danish port officials and explain that we were just here for emergency repairs and not to trade. Then I would look up my old friend Rachel. The last I had heard from her she was leaving Nevis for St. Croix with her adventurer, whose two children she had born. It was Rachel who had discovered me washed up on the beach outside her home after the British hospital ship I was serving hit the reef and went down. It was Rachel who helped me carry off my new identity, and it was the absent Mr. Hamilton’s clothes I borrowed for the purpose. I never returned them. If I should find her here in Christiansted I would compensate her, for the clothes, along with her care and coaching, had got me back on my feet.

Dressed in my best going ashore attire, I climbed down into the boat and cast off, leaving the vessel in Mr. Lovelace’s care, rowing for the wharf in front of the yellow bricked Customs House, dazzling in the hot afternoon sunlight. Approaching shore, my spirits rose unaccountably, as if I were discovering a new and wonderful land. Every time I make landfall, I have this secret expectation. Maybe this time I’ve come back, found my real home, the place where all know me and accept me, the neglected house that I can re-inhabit, re-kindling the logs in the long cold hearth. Or would this be just another ravaged, plundered sugar isle? I was a child of sugar, my own father had been a Barbadian plantation owner, my mother, his Irish maid. When she died he sent me back to England to be raised by strangers where I was more or less forgotten. The profits of sugar sustained me now. I bought and sold the sweet gold, worse yet, foreign grown sugar. I made a profit trading with our former enemies, the French, the Spanish, the Dutch.

Slavery is not a sweet word, yet the Christian Bible does not forbid it and neither do the laws of this land. But these same men say that woman is the weaker vessel and that we are lesser beings than men, that we are incapable of rational thought –yet look at me, doing a man’s work. If they knew they would likely revile me. Maybe I should become a Quaker. Would they, who abhor slavery and war, accept me as I am? A woman in man’s attire? A woman making her way in this world as a man?

Almost to shore now, the breeze has died. I drop the little sail and pick up the oars, rowing the rest of the way, perspiration trickling down my back and pooling under my breasts, hidden beneath chemise and waistcoat. The crushing heat, the hard sparkle of sunlight on water drive all musings from my head. Must approach the authorities, find a cool tavern and slake my thirst before looking for Rachel.

After two weeks in a rough sea, walking on terra firma made my head swirl and my ears roared with the sound of the wind and the sea. I walked with the peculiar lurching gait common to seamen who become accustomed to walking across a constantly shifting deck. Land sickness, we called it – very much like sea sickness – and this too, shall pass.

The fort, customs house and warehouse all built of Danish yellow brick, brought in ballast, to this island, an island they purchased from the French. Everything is available at a price, the entire world is being discovered, conquered, plundered, settled, sold. Every time I stepped foot on land after being at sea, I had the same feeling of wonder, of homecoming. Here the streets are laid out wide and straight, covered with a thick layer of crushed coral and limestone. Not a thatched roof to be seen along the water front, all very tidy, very prosperous. Looking around like Robinson Crusoe washed up on a new shore, I tramped, making my way to the Customs House, ship’s papers tucked under my arm, weaving my way through a throng of hucksters, fishmongers, errant boys and militia men, stepping aside for the black men rolling hogsheads of molasses to the docks. A chatter of patois I couldn’t understand; the blend of French, English, Danish, and a dozen African tongues sounded like a great flock of starlings. Children of all shades of black, brown, and tan, chasing chickens and herding goats through the streets, hitting them with green sticks, shrieking at them like lieutenants. Women with dark, shiny, imperturbable faces glided along carrying baskets of laundry to the beach to be bleached in the sun. Barefoot beneath their brightly colored skirts, yet imperious as Bantu queens. I felt a sudden and inexplicable longing for my childhood home on Barbados.

Presenting my papers to the Danish official, I explained as best I could about the broken rudder, and was granted permission to stay long enough to make repairs. I then quenched my thirst at a nearby tavern where I obtained an address for the Hamilton family. Now I walked along Company Street, looking for the tile marked 34. And there it was, with a prim little sign hanging above the door. Faucette Dry Goods. Would she recognize me? Expectantly, I entered the shop, the bell on the door ringing as I opened it.

“Hallo?”

“Good afternoon, sir. May I help you?”

I couldn’t see her – my eyes had not yet adjusted to the dark interior – but her voice I remembered well. The French creole accent, the musical inflection. Her voice reminded me of a woodwind instrument, distinctively mellow as an haut bois.

“Rachel.” Her name burst from my mouth.

She moved from behind the counter in a rustle of taffeta. I smelled her before I could clearly see her face.

“Have we been introduced? Tell me sir, what is your name?”

“Ah, what good are surnames, Madame? They are never our own.”

Yes, it was Rachel, and I had clearly caught her off guard. “T’was what I replied when you first asked me my name on Nevis after you rescued me, a castaway, on the beach. Took me in and nourished me. Dressed me in your husband’s clothes.”

Another brief silence as she came from behind the counter and stood directly before me. “Patricia? Is it really you?”

A great guffaw escaped me. “Yes. But please, call me Patrick. It was you who helped me become Patrick. Patrick MacPherson.” I removed my hat and made a flourishing little bow. “I kept my late husband Aeneas’s name.”

Her hand, a white tern, fluttered to her décolletage. Her lovely décolletage. “What joy! Can it be?” She approached me, her dark eyes wide, taking me in, enveloping me in a sisterly embrace. We both laughed, tears in our eyes.

“Let me look at you.” She held me at arm’s length to examine me, her dark eyes bright with curiosity and concern, then drew me close again, more fiercely this time. “Oh, Patricia.” I could feel her heart beating against my own and her own particular scent enveloped me. I had forgotten how she smelled but now remembered but cannot adequately describe it. Warm milk and irises, the oil from her hair, hair gone silver at the temples.

“But what brings you here to Christiansted? Why didn’t you write and tell me you were coming? And how do you fare? How does a man’s life suit you?” Her lilting voice, her laugh, bright as the tinkling bell over the door, lit up her face – a face beginning to show its age by the fine lines at the corners of her dark eyes and around her mouth, like delicate parentheses. An exquisitely expressive face.

“You are as beautiful as ever, Rachel.”

“And you, sir, are…” She held me at arm’s length to study me. “You are absolutely original.”

I laughed but found myself close to tears.

“Pray tell me, what brings you here? I cannot believe my good fortune.”

“I’m a shipmaster, can you believe it? Part owner of a small trading vessel out of Newport, Rhode Island.” It all sounded quite unbelievable as I spoke it aloud.

“A shipmaster? I thought you were a medical man. A ship surgeon.”

“Ah, but there was little profit in bleeding and cupping. Fewer bones to be sawed, with the war over and the treaty signed. Newport is filled with medical men, besides. Filled with merchants too. The trading business is profitable, Rachel. Risky but profitable. And you –you are minding Mr. Hamilton’s store?”

Her face clouded, the furrow between her eyes deepened, then vanished in a proud smile. “This is my store. My own business. I will tell you the details over supper, and you must relate your adventures. You will stay for supper, won’t you?”

“I’d like nothing better, but I must see to my vessel. We’ve damaged our rudder and stopped here just to repair it.” Oh, but I wanted to stay for supper. I missed female companionship – Rachel’s in particular. She and I had developed a close rapport during those weeks I stayed under her roof.

“Go see to your ship, Captain MacPherson, of course.” She grasped both of my raw, red hands in hers, squeezing them. “But do come back and join us. If I can be of any help, if you need any materials at cost, do let me know. I have connections with the chandler. Oh, Alexander will be so pleased to see you again, and you’ll meet James who was with his father when you stayed with me on Nevis. We have so much to catch up on, so much to say to one another. Please do say you’ll sup with us, and stay the night.”

The bell above the door tinkled as a customer entered – an older gentleman who greeted her in accented English. Tipping my hat, I bid Rachel a good afternoon, and stepped out into the street, squinting against the late afternoon sunlight. Back to my ship where Moses was at work making a new rudder with a slab of oak we had aboard. He was confident it would be finished in a few days’ time.

*

I went back to Rachel’s at dusk, bringing with me two gifts – a small cask of stone-ground Rhode Island flint corn and a pamphlet of essays from the Goddard’s print shop. The smell of pepperpot wafted from the apartment overtop the store.

Close around the table we sat, the heat, the spices, and the warm red wine flushing our faces. My head swam pleasantly, I could hear the waves lapping against my ears as if I were still at sea. Toying with a piece of gristle left in my bowl, I listened to Alexander and James recite their lessons, at their mother’s insistence. She was eager to show me what good students they were.

“James starts his apprenticeship in a few weeks. He’s to learn carpentry.”

“An excellent trade, James. I have a great respect for woodworkers, ashore or at sea. Andromeda’s carpenter is making us a new rudder, to replace the one that broke during the storm.”

The boys were eager to hear a death-defying tale, yet what was there to say? It had been exciting, yes. But also monotonous. Miserable. Exhausting. But I couldn’t disappoint them, so I told them the story they wanted to hear, a story of man against nature – and man winning.

“What do you carry in your ship?” Alexander asked.

“Whatever we can fill our hold with. This voyage we have corn meal, cobblestones, candlesticks, and Rhode Island rum.”

“Rum to the Caribee? Isn’t that like shipping coals to New Castle, Mr. MacPherson?”

I smiled. “It would seem so. But Rhode Island makes very good rum. And Spain is rebuilding her forts – rebuilding the city of Havana itself. They don’t grow enough cane in Cuba yet, to meet the need, though that is changing with all the Africans the English are bringing in for labor. But right now all of the engineers, the soldiers, the artisans, they’re thirsty for our good Newport rum. It fetches a high price in Havana right now, but the opportunity won’t last forever. The world is changing rapidly.”

“Perhaps,” Rachel said, with a wry little smile. “But not fast enough for me.”

After eating, Rachel and I left the boys to their reading and went for a walk about town. The land breeze was welcome, after the heat of the day.

“Walking is good for the digestion.”

“Spoken like a true man of medicine,” she teased, pushing back her chair. “Ah, but now you’re a shipmaster, not a ship surgeon.”

“I am an opportunist, madam. That’s what I am. And you? You’re a woman of business. And a mother of sons.”

“I’m an opportunist as well, Patricia. We’re adventurers, you and I. I trust your luck has been better than mine.”

Now, away from her sons, the cheerful mask dropped away, the lilting voice flattened. I tried to lift her spirits, to make her smile. “What will people thing, a strange man come to dinner, then strolling the waterfront with you, with your husband gone?”

She laughed, but it was a hollow sound. “People think the worst of me as it is. My name is ruined, I have nothing to lose. My only goal in life is to make a better life for James and Alexander.”

“Every mother’s goal, I’m sure. But what of Mr. Hamilton?”

“It appears he has sailed out of our lives forever.”

“What? But you were to be married, here on St. Croix. When I saw you last on Nevis, you told me yourself.”

“I hoped so, but when we arrived, the Danes, and the church, forbade it. Mr. Lavien remarried, yet I was denied the right to remarry. Oh, it wouldn’t have suited Mr. Hamilton anyway. Not to mention, he’s lost what money I gave him from my little inheritance. Lost it all in bad schemes. He has neither the head nor the luck for speculating – and too much pride to admit defeat. He’s a wanderer.”

“But to leave his family –

“We manage well enough.” There was a hint of pride in her voice.

Three seamen stumbled down the street, exuberant in their liquor and oblivious to our presence. Out in the harbor a hundred lanterns glowed, their light dancing on the dark water. An orchestra of blocks tapped and hemp rope slapped against masts in the night breeze sliding down from the hills. The sound, heard in every port I’ve ever been to, made me restless to leave.

Ahead, the stone fort. A sentry leaned against the wall, waiting for his watch to be over. Rached stopped.

“Years ago I was jailed there, for adultery. Lavien branded me a harlot.” Her mouth twisted into an ugly smile. “But I’ve told you all this before, back on Nevis. My reputation is ruined – except as a merchant. The men of Christiansted do business with me. One man in particular whom I count as my particular friend.”

The night land breeze felt refreshing to me but my friend shivered and pulled the light muslin wrap draped around her shoulders closer, grasping it in both hands. I put my arm around her and drew her close, knowing it wasn’t just the cool night air that caused her to tremble. She stiffened, shaking her head. Rachel wasn’t seeking my comfort, rather she was unburdening herself. It was a sensitive and sympathetic ear she needed, more than a strong arm.

“For three months I was held there, behind bars. And the guards, they have their way with women said to be whores. They bound and gagged me so no one could hear my rage against them.”

I had heard her story before when we first me, but I listened again as she relived it again.

“It was then Lavien took Peter from me. Peter, my first born, and Lavien’s own. He poisoned his mind against me.”

“Is there no hope of reconciliation?”

Her thin nostrils flared. “Peter is lost to me, I fear. Only in the next world might I know his love and he, mine. But in this world I still have James and Alexander’s welfare to consider.”

“Mr. Hamilton’s children.”

I felt her bristle and realized my gaff. It sounded like I was questioning their parentage. “I didn’t mean to imply –I just meant, well, does he not support his own offspring?”

“Mr. Hamilton claims them as his own, yes, but he’s not a dependable means of support. He never has been. James isn’t a bad man, he’s just…” She sighed. “Ineffectual. He was never a provider. A schemer and a dreamer. Still, he took me in and protected me when I fled from Lavien and I shall always be grateful to him for that.”

“But the store you manage? Is it not profitable?”

“The store is my own venture.” I thought I heard a note of pride. “A friend, Mr. Stevenson, loaned me the capital. My sister’s brother pays for my lodging – at least, for the time being. And yes, the store keeps us fed. But I want a better life for my sons. James starts his apprenticeship soon. Next year Alexander will apprentice as a clerk with Mr. Stevenson. The boy had a quick mind, he’s good with figures, have you noticed? He is very close to the Stevenson lad – the two are fast friends. As close as brothers. In fact, Mr. Stevenson thinks of Alexander as his own.” She gave me a quick look, freighted with meaning but I dared not pursue her insinuation.

“Which one is your ship, Patricia?”

“She’s way out there, just to the right of the island. A schooner. My Andromeda.

“I see her, yes. She looks rather small from here.”

I felt a blooming of pride in my chest, like a parent might feel for a child. “Oh, she’s a very stout vessel, very weatherly. And because of her size we don’t require a large number of men to manage her, leaving most of the available space for goods. Which is profitable. As a woman of affairs yourself, you can appreciate the advantage.”

It was good to feel her shoulders soften, and to hear her laugh in agreement.

“Can you stay, Patricia? A fortnight? ”

“No, I must sail as soon as the rudder is repaired. Every day sitting in a harbor is costly and cuts into the profits.”

“Profits, I understand. But I hope you’ll come back some day.”

“If only we could do business, you and I…But I’m afraid the Danish duties are prohibitive.

“There are ways around that.”

That, I well knew for my living depended upon it.

We walked along the waterfront, hand in hand. The docks were mostly quiet now; those that had come ashore for the evening were ensconced in the taverns and pot houses, leaving just a few low women as there are in any port town looking to make a krone, a peso de ocho, or whatever bit of currency she could get.

“Tell me, my dear Patricia, how is it, being a man? I’ve often wondered.”

A laugh burst from me and I squeezed her hand in mine. “It’s very much to my advantage, I must say.”

“Always?”

“Most always. It can be lonely.” My chest swelled, my throat thickened with feelings seeking release. Being here with her, not having to pretend, not having to prove myself, made me realize how lonely I was.

A three-legged beagle hobbled across the street in front of us; a bitch dog, heavy with milk. We paused as she passed, limping down a dark passageway.

“And is it to your liking?”

I shrugged. “Mostly. Being a man has its advantages.”

“Yes, but don’t you ever tire of it? The pretense? The burden? Don’t you ever just want to be yourself?”

The breeze from the hills enveloped us. After the stultifying heat of the day, it made me shiver.

“I am myself, Rachel. This is who I am.” I turned to face her, holding my arms open as if to say, behold. She slipped her arms around my waist and pulled me close.

“You are strong and proud but you’re not content. I sense your loneliness. Is there anyone who knows your secret? Is there anyone who knows you and loves you?”

“There was one man. A man I served with aboard the frigate Richmond. He loved me, and I him.”

“Was is a sad word. Past, gone,” she murmured.

“Will you write me, Patricia?”

“I will,” I said. “If you will answer.” I buried my face in her hair, glad for the darkness, glad for her arms around me.

— from Yankee Moon copyright 2016 Linda Collison