Night Birds On Nantucket Read online

Tally-ho! till she breaches, come, join in the fun

  We’re off on a Nantucket sleigh-ride.

  ‘It’s flurry and scurry, she bolts and she sounds

  And something and something tum tiddle tum grounds

  And something else ending in bounds or in rounds

  Hey ho! for a Nantucket sleigh-ride.

  ‘Oh, hallo, chick,’ he broke off, on seeing Dido. ‘I’ve got summat for you. Finished it as soon as old man Slighcarp went below.’ And he brought out a beautiful little battledore, ingeniously made from woven strips of bone.

  ‘Coo!’ said Dido. ‘It’s naffy! Ain’t you clever? I’ll lay Dutiful Pen won’t be able to hold off when she sees this! Could you make another one, d’you reckon?’

  ‘Guess so,’ Nate said agreeably. He started singing again:

  ‘Tum tiddle tum tiddle tum tiddle tum grounds

  Pull on! head to head as his noddle he rounds . . .

  ‘Can you think of a rhyme for sounds, chick?’

  Dido could not. ‘Does you make ’em up, then?’ she asked, much impressed.

  ‘Sure.’

  Finding Nate such a kindred spirit Dido showed him her whalebone pipe.

  ‘That’s cunning,’ he said, blowing on it. ‘Mighty smart work for a liddle ’un. Who learned you to do that?’

  ‘My pa,’ Dido said proudly. ‘He plays on the hoboy, so he learned me how to make a tootlepipe.’

  ‘Say, we’ll be able to have some fine concerts now when old Slighcarp’s under hatches.’

  ‘It’s time I was under hatches too,’ Dido remarked, looking up at the moon. ‘Night, Nate.’ And she added to herself, ‘I’ve a kind of a notion that Dutiful P might surface tonight, so I’d best be there.’

  It had been an energetic day, with the hopscotch, the shuttlecock, the climbing, and hard work on the pipe; Dido turned out the lamp as soon as she reached the cabin, flung herself on the bed, and went straight to sleep.

  About two hours later she found herself suddenly broad awake. The Sarah Casket was still speeding south before a following wind; Dido could feel the rush of the great seas as they lifted and drove past the ship’s sides. Every timber creaked, and even down here the hum of wind in the rigging could be heard. Moonlight came through the ports; a patch of it on the floor hardly shifted, so steady was the ship on her course.

  Dido wondered what had woken her.

  The she felt the clutch of little cold hands on her arm.

  ‘Who is it?’ she whispered.

  ‘It’s me. Dutiful Penitence.’

  ‘Ain’t you cold, jist? Best come under the quilt, hadn’t you?’ Dido said matter-of-factly. She felt a small shape huddle up against her under the patchwork. Just at this moment the steersman evidently altered course a point or so, and the oblong of moonshine slid round, revealing the visitor.

  She was a thin little creature, frail-looking as a cobweb (and no wonder, if she’s been living on plum jelly ever since Santa Cruz, thought Dido), with long silvery hair, not very well brushed. She stared gravely at Dido.

  ‘Are you really a girl?’ she asked after a while.

  ‘Yes, what d’you think? A mermaid?’

  ‘But where did you come from?’

  ‘Your pa picked me up, off the coast of England. I was in a ship what caught fire and sank. And I’ve been asleep for ten months – so Nate says – all the time you was in storage.’

  ‘You were in the sea? Didn’t you get scared?’

  ‘It wasn’t bad. I hung on to a spar.’

  ‘You must be brave! Are you English?’

  ‘Yus. And don’t I jist wish I was back in England,’ Dido remarked with feeling. ‘But your pa says he’ll put me on a boat from New Bedford, wherever that is.’

  ‘Near Nantucket. We may unload there before going home. But I don’t suppose I shall be going home now,’ Dutiful Penitence said drearily. ‘There’d be nobody to look after me except Aunt Tribulation, Papa says, and I won’t stay with her. Maybe Cousin Ann Allerton will have me in New Bedford.’

  ‘Who’s Aunt Tribulation?’ Dido asked. She had heard the name before. Could this be the lady in the blubber-room?

  ‘Papa’s sister. She’s dreadfully sharp and unkind. She lives in Vine Rapids now but she came to stay once and upset me and Mamma. Oh, she did upset us! She told dear Mamma that she was a fool, bringing me up to be a cry-baby. Papa wanted to leave me with her when he took Mamma to sea, but I heard Mamma say she wouldn’t dream of allowing it; she said Aunt Tribulation was a real dragon, and it was lucky she’d no children of her own, for her rough, slapdash ways would probably be the death of any child she had charge of. Mamma wouldn’t want me to stay with a dragon.’

  ‘What does she look like?’

  ‘I can’t remember – quite. I was only five when she came. I remember her scolding me, and saying I was a little wet-goose, because I was afraid of her dog.’

  ‘Hum,’ said Dido. ‘For a sea-captain’s daughter you certainly are a rum ’un, Dutiful. And, look here, whoever tied that handle to you musta been dicked in the nob and I’m not going to lay my tongue round it every time. I’ll call you Pen. Agreeable?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ Penitence said shyly. ‘No one ever gave me a short name before. How old are you, Dido?’

  ‘I’ve sorta lost count,’ Dido admitted. ‘With the long nap and all. Round about eleven, I reckon. What did you do all the time shut in that cupboard, Pen?’

  ‘Oh, it wasn’t bad. Come and see.’

  They lit the lamp and Penitence showed Dido her little room. It was really a store-cupboard with shelves all round, but one of them had been turned into a bunk. There were a few lesson-books, writing materials, sewing-things, and rows and rows of empty jelly bottles.

  ‘I did lots of lessons,’ Penitence explained, ‘and I read the Bible and learned a hymn every day. Shall I say one?’

  ‘Not jist now, thanks,’ Dido answered promptly. ‘Croopus, ain’t you good, though? Didn’t you never get fed up?’

  ‘Oh no. I kept a journal – but it wasn’t very interesting,’ Penitence confessed. ‘And I worked on my sampler.’ She held up an extremely large square, embroidered in cross-stitch with a ship and whales and gulls and a long piece of poetry beginning, ‘Myfterious Magnet! Ere thy ufe was known, Fear clad the Deep in horrors not its own.’ It was nearly finished.

  ‘I’d sooner have done roses and doves,’ Penitence went on, ‘but dear M-Mamma thought it would please Papa if it had sea things. I began it when I was six.’

  ‘Well!’ said Dido. ‘I’d ha’ been blue-devilled in here. Specially when it’s such prime fun on deck.’

  Penitence shivered. ‘I couldn’t bear to go on deck. That dreadful sea! I know I’d fall in! And all the cross, rough men, and the horrid smells and dirt. Mamma always said it was dangerous up there. You won’t try to make me go, will you?’

  ‘Bless you, no. It ain’t my affair. Anyhows we can have a bang-up time in the cabin now you’ve decided to come out and be civil.’

  ‘Will you teach me that game with the feathered thing? And play tunes on your pipe?’

  ‘Course I will. Us’ll have rare fun.’

  ‘You don’t think Mamma would mind?’ Penitence said hesitantly. ‘She said playing games was a sin.’

  ‘Croo–’ Dido began, but bit the words back.

  Her own parents, as she recalled, had never seemed particularly kind or fond of her, but at least they were quite sensible; all that was said of Mrs Casket, however, seemed to suggest that the woman had been an utter fool. Musta been queer in her attic, Dido thought. ‘Reckon she knows better now?’ she suggested gruffly. ‘Lawks, if you never played, what did you do at home?’

  ‘Helped with the housework.’

  ‘Well I done that too. But I played arterwards.’

  ‘After I’d done my tasks Mamma used to let me sit on her lap while she read the Bible,’ said Penitence. Her composure faltered. ‘If – if I’d been extra good, she used – she used to s
ing a h-hymn –’

  Here, breaking down altogether, Penitence threw herself on the bed, buried her head in the quilt and cried. She cried very much indeed.

  Dido looked at her worriedly. There was little consolation to offer. Foolish, Mrs Casket may have been, but her daughter had plainly thought the world of her.

  ‘Don’t take on so,’ Dido said after a while, with awkward sympathy. ‘Want a hankersniff? I’ve got one.’

  But as Penitence made no reply, just went on crying and shivering and choking, Dido sat down on the floor by her, feeling oddly grown-up and capable and protective, and put an arm round her.

  ‘Cheer up,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll keep an eye on you. It won’t work out so bad. You’ll see.’

  The small silvery head rubbed against her.

  ‘Will you? Will you really?’

  ‘That I will.’

  ‘And when we get home to Nantucket? Will you stay with me then? So’s Papa don’t leave me all alone with Aunt Tribulation? I’d die if I was to be looked after by a dragon. Please? Please!’

  The thin arms came round Dido’s neck in a tight hug, so that she could hardly breathe.

  ‘Well – maybe,’ Dido said reluctantly. ‘Just for a little while. You know, I dessay your Auntie Trib ain’t so dragonish really. But till your pa gets you fixed up with somebody else –’

  ‘Oh, you are kind! You’re so much braver than I am. I’m scared of everything. But you’ve even been in the sea! If you’ll – if you’ll stay with me it will be much better. Will you promise?’

  ‘All right,’ Dido said, sighing.

  ‘Would you – would you sing something now? That song you were singing before?’

  ‘All right,’ said Dido again. She began to sing in a small gruff voice:

  ‘Who’ll buy my sweet lavender?

  Three bunches a penny!

  Fresh picked in Sevenoaks this morning,

  Three bunches a penny!’

  She stroked the tousled head. It lay heavily on her shoulder, and before long drooped in sleep.

  Dido sat and stared at the lamp, which they had forgotten to turn out. Presently its yellow flame swelled and wavered in a blur of tears. Resolutely she blinked them away. It was stupid to be homesick when she knew her family wouldn’t be missing her much anyway, if at all.

  4

  Encouraging Pen – the Galapagos – gamming with the Martha –

  Mr Slighcarp’s strange behaviour – round the Horn and back to New Bedford

  ‘PSST! HEY! CAP’N – Cap’n Casket! Will you step this-away?’

  Captain casket started, as Dido’s voice roused him from his usual sad reverie; he turned and saw her standing behind him.

  Making sure that no one could overhear she came close to him and hissed conspiratorially:

  ‘I’ve done it! She’s out!’

  Captain Casket appeared thunderstruck.

  ‘On deck?’

  ‘No, no, no, gaffer. Not yet. Give us time. But she’s out in the cabin eatin’ of plum-duff and a-playin’ hopscotch. I’ll have her on deck one o’ these days, though, s’long as you don’t come creating and badgering.’

  ‘Thee is a remarkable child,’ Captain Casket said solemnly.

  ‘I say though,’ Dido went on, ‘what ’bout this Auntie Trib, then? She fair gives young Pen the horrors. Pen thinks she’s a dragon. It’ll be all my work for Habakkuk if Pen finds Auntie Trib’s going to have charge of her in Nantucket; she’ll snib herself up in the pantry again before you can say whale-o!’

  Captain Casket looked harassed. ‘Sister Tribulation is really a most estimable character,’ he murmured. ‘She is endowed with every Christian virtue.’

  ‘You allus says that,’ Dido interjected.

  ‘My poor Sarah – my poor wife never understood her. But I am sure that thee could persuade Dutiful Penitence to like her aunt, my child.’

  ‘That’s as maybe,’ Dido said drily. ‘Anyhows, you better consider if there ain’t somebody else as could do the job. I’m a-warning you, see? Blimey, on an island the size of Nantucket’ – Dido had found it on the map by now – ‘there must be somebody else as could have charge of her. Now, I’m a-going to teach Dutiful P to play shuttlecock; lor, I don’t wonder the poor little tyke’s so mopish. She ain’t had no upbringing at all!’

  It took several weeks of Dido’s company and encouragement before Penitence could be persuaded on deck. Dido was too shrewd to hurry her. They played endless games in the cabin, sang songs, asked riddles, and talked, each telling the other the whole story of her life. Penitence was quite amazed by Dido’s tales of the London streets and could never hear enough about the fairs and the fights, the street markets, Punch and Judy shows, glimpses of grand people in their carriages, and the little Scottish King James III, against whom the Hanoverians were always plotting.

  ‘Fancy living in such a great city!’ Penitence said dreamily. ‘Why, where we lived in Nantucket it’s almost five miles to the next house.’

  ‘Wouldn’t suit me,’ Dido said. ‘I likes a bit o’ life and company.’

  ‘My mamma didn’t like it either. She came from Boston. When Papa went to sea,’ Pen confessed, ‘she used to take me for long visits to Cousin Ann in New Bedford. We didn’t stay in Nantucket much.’

  Dido had become quite fond of Pen by now – there was more in the funny little thing than met the eye – but none the less it was a relief to run up on deck now and then, to talk to Nate and joke with the sailors; after a few hours of Pen’s company she felt she wanted to shout and jump and climb into the rigging. Pen had grown absolutely devoted to her and, Dido considered, was coming out of her mopey ways very well.

  Pen still kept her quiet tastes, though; she liked to spend several hours a day doing lessons and sewing; she offered to read the Bible or hymns to Dido but this, for the most part, Dido politely refused.

  ‘Tell you what, though,’ she suggested. ‘How ’bout asking your pa if we can invite Nate to come down and sing you some o’ his songs? He knows a rare lot, and on top o’ that he’s allus rattling off new ones. Wouldn’t you like it, eh?’

  Penitence looked doubtful. ‘Is he very big? He isn’t rough? He wouldn’t tease me or hurt me?’

  ‘Now, Pen! Don’t you know me better’n that by now? Would I ask him if he was liable to do such blame-fool things? I’m surprised at you!’

  Pen apologized, Captain Casket’s permission was obtained, and Nate, rather bashfully, came down to the stateroom with his zither. At first Penitence trembled a good deal at the close presence of such a tall, lanky, red-headed creature, and was quite speechless with shyness. But when Nate sang:

  ‘Oh, fierce is the Ocean and wild is the Sound

  But the isle of Nantucket is where I am bound,

  Sweet isle of Nantucket! where the grapes are so red,

  And the light flashes nightly on Sankaty Head!’1

  she was quite delighted, clapped her hands, and exclaimed, ‘Oh that is pretty! Sing it again!’

  Nate sang it again, and many others. Dido, curled up under the chart table, hugged her knees and congratulated herself. From that day, Nate was a welcome visitor in the cabin; in fact he was with them, singing a song about the high-rolling breakers on the south shore of Nantucket, and the brave fishermen who launched their dories through the foam, when a sudden shout from the deck startled them.

  ‘Land! Land-ho!’

  ‘Must have sighted the Galapagos!’ said Nate, scrambling to his feet. ‘Blame it, why wasn’t I up aloft? Cap’n Casket allus gives half a dollar to the first one that sights land. See you later, gals!’ And he bolted out.

  ‘How about it, Pen?’ Dido said carelessly. ‘Coming up for a look-see? Nate says there are giant tortoises on the Galapagos, as big as tea tables.’

  Pen hesitated, in an agony of indecision; at last she agreed.

  Dido was quite glad of the chance to bring Pen on deck when Mr Slighcarp would be ashore, buying fresh fruit and vegetables; the rest of
the men were kind and friendly to her but the first mate always had a scowl and a harsh word; she had been rather anxious about the effect of this on Penitence. Luckily the deck was quite empty when, clutching Dido’s hand in a tight grip, Penitence timidly followed her up the companionway and came blinking into the sunshine.

  ‘Oh,’ she breathed in astonishment. ‘Isn’t it bright? And warm! I thought we were in the Arctic.’

  ‘We left that behind weeks ago,’ Dido said kindly. ‘Sit down on a coil o’ rope, you’re all of a tremble.’

  Penitence sank down obediently. In the bright sunshine her face seemed as pale as a primrose, and contrasted strangely with Dido’s healthy tan. At first she was pitiably nervous, her great blue eyes widened and she clasped Dido’s hand violently whenever a wavecrest broke near the ship.

  Unfortunately the land was too far away for much to be visible except a low-lying mass with some scrubby trees on it. But they were excited to see another ship, the Martha, anchored not far off.

  Presently Captain Casket wandered along towards them. He started uncontrollably when he saw Penitence, but Dido gave him such a fierce scowl of warning that he tried to conceal his astonishment and only said:

  ‘I am glad to see thee out in the fresh air at last, Daughter. Thee must get some roses into thy cheeks like those of thy little friend.’

  Penitence made an awkward bob, and answered, ‘Yes Papa,’ in such a subdued tone that it was hardly audible; she seemed greatly relieved when he walked away along the deck.

  Soon there came a hail from the Martha, and a boat was lowered and rowed towards them; a cheerful red-faced man called: ‘Jabez! Cap’n Jabez Casket! Are you there? Can I come aboard for a gam? I’ve some mail for you, only eight months out o’ New Bedford.’

  ‘Come aboard and welcome, Cap’n Bilger,’ Captain Casket called, and the skipper of the Martha was swung aboard. He handed over a batch of letters for the Sarah Casket’s captain and crew, and asked if they could spare any ship’s biscuit as most of his had been spoiled by a leak; he offered coffee and Lemon Syrup in exchange (which the cook was glad to accept since Pen had eaten all the jelly).