Night Birds On Nantucket Read online

  ‘Concern it!’ exclaimed Captain Bilger, slapping his leg in annoyance. ‘If I haven’t forgotten to bring over that blame bird!’

  ‘Bird? What bird?’ Captain Casket inquired.

  ‘Why, a bird belonging to that boy of yours, Nate Pardon. One of my men caught it flapping about the streets of New Bedford before we sailed and recognized it as his; we’ve had it aboard ever since. I’ll be thankful to see the last of it, I can tell you. That bird would talk the ears off a brass monkey. Now I come to think, I’ve another letter for you, as well. It got a mite damp, came unstuck, and I put it aside from the others. My memory’s fuller of holes’n a dip-net.’

  ‘No matter,’ said Captain Casket. ‘My men can call round by the Martha when they come back from provisioning and pick up the bird and the letter. Young Nate will be glad to see his pet.’

  The two captains went below to gossip and, an early tropical dusk falling soon after, Dido and Penitence also retired to their cabin to play hunt the thimble and speculate as to what sort of things Nate’s bird would be able to say.

  Pen was quite tired out by the fresh air and the excitement of being on deck; she soon went to bed and to sleep. Dido, however, was not sleepy; she returned to lean on the rail and gaze wistfully at the lights on shore. Presently she heard Captain Bilger taking his leave, and later still the men returned. Having been instructed by signals with a lantern they rowed round by the Martha and picked up Nate’s bird, but Dido heard Mr Slighcarp telling Captain Casket that Captain Bilger found he had been mistaken about the extra letter; it was after all not for him but for the captain of some other ship.

  Nate was overjoyed to recover his bird, which he had never expected to see again, and showed it off proudly to Dido.

  ‘His name’s Mr Jenkins. Ain’t he beautiful?’

  Dido admired the bird’s glossy black plumage and brilliant yellow bill.

  ‘What does he say?’

  The bird gave her a haughty glance and remarked:

  ‘Dinner is served in the small ballroom, your grace.’

  ‘Ain’t he a stunner?’ Nate said. ‘He goes on like that all the time. We reckoned as how he musta belonged to some lord or duke once.’

  ‘Order the perch phaeton,’ croaked Mr Jenkins. ‘A young person has called, your lordship. Tea is served in her grace’s boudoir. Ho, there, a chair for Lady Fothergill!’

  ‘You silly old sausage,’ said Nate, giving his pet a loving hug. ‘There aren’t any lords or dukes here.’

  Affronted and on his dignity, Mr Jenkins clambered out of Nate’s arms and ascended to the top of his head, where he suddenly shouted in a stentorian voice, ‘God save the King! Hooray for Jamie Three! God save our sovereign lord King James and DOWN WITH THE GEORGIANS!’

  Mr Slighcarp happened to be passing at that moment. He gave a violent start and dropped the telescope he was carrying. It fell with a crash.

  ‘Who said that?’ he cried.

  ‘It was the bird, Mr Slighcarp, old Jenkins.’

  ‘Well don’t let him do it again or I’ll wring his neck!’ the mate said with an oath. ‘Plague take the creature, you’d best keep him under hatches if he’s liable to go on like that. I won’t have it, see?’

  Much abashed, Nate hurried his pet below. Dido, who was still feeling wakeful, retreated to a patch of shadow against the bulwarks and curled up there, listening longingly to cheerful sounds of music and singing from the Martha.

  Presently Captain Casket approached her. He was a changed man; his eyes glittered feverishly and he walked with a rapid, excited step.

  ‘Ah, my child,’ he said cordially. ‘Is not this stirring news?’

  Dido thought he was referring to the mail he had received.

  ‘You fixed up what you’re going to do about young Pen, then, when you gets back to Nantucket?’ she said hopefully. ‘Someone offered to look arter her?’

  ‘Oh, that. No, no, Captain Bilger tells me that the pink whale has been sighted off the Peruvian coast. We shall see her! I feel certain that we shall see her soon!’

  ‘Oh, bother the pink whale,’ Dido said testily. ‘What about Pen?’

  ‘Ah yes. Dear Tribulation writes with true sisterly feeling, having just heard of my poor wife’s death. She will move to Nantucket and look after Dutiful Penitence and the house for me.’

  ‘But, blame it!’ Dido said in exasperation. ‘Pen don’t want to live with her Auntie Tribulation! On account of summat her ma said she’s scared to death of the notion; it won’t answer at all! Can’t you get that into your seaweedy noddle?’

  ‘She suggests further,’ Captain Casket went on, dreamily looking out over the water and ignoring Dido, ‘that a companion, some other girl of her age, would be an advantage for Penitence, since my farm, Soul’s Hill, is situated in a somewhat lonely location. So if thee will accept the charge, my child, not for very long, of course, that will solve all our problems, will it not? Thy quick wit will soon smooth over any little difficulties between my daughter and her good aunt. And when Penitence is settled and happy, my sister Tribulation will no doubt see that thee is found a passage to England. Remember, too, that we rescued thee from the sea, my child, and that thee owes us a debt of gratitude.’

  Silenced for the moment, Dido scowled after him as he walked away. An hour or so went by and she was about to retire when she noticed the figure of Mr Slighcarp standing not far away. Something furtive and cautious about his manner attracted her interest and she watched him sharply as he made his way to the rail. Unaware of Dido, squatting motionless in the shadows, Mr Slighcarp looked quickly all round him and then proceeded to tear in tiny pieces some sheets of paper which he had carried hidden in the breast of his jacket, and drop them over the side.

  ‘What’s he doing that for?’ wondered Dido. ‘What’s so tarnation private about a letter?’

  Then she recalled that Mr Slighcarp had been asked to collect a letter for the captain, and that he had not done so. He had said Captain Bilger had made a mistake, the letter was for somebody else. Was it possible that he had lied? Could the letter really have been for Captain Casket after all? Suppose this was it? But why should he be destroying it?

  There seemed no answer to this puzzle, or none that Dido could supply. She continued to watch Mr Slighcarp attentively, however, and was somewhat astonished by what he did next. Making sure, as he thought, that he was unobserved, he produced a pair of boots from under his jacket, and brushed them long and carefully.

  Dido’s heart beat fast and she nodded to herself grimly.

  A brilliant tropical moon swam overhead and by its light, and that of a pewter lantern not far away, every detail of the scene was clearly visible. The boots that Mr Slighcarp brushed were no sailors’ brogans, but a pair of English ladies’ buttoned travelling-boots in dull bottle-green.

  At last, satisfied, apparently, with the appearance of the boots, Mr Slighcarp retired once more, in the same prudent and furtive manner.

  Dido remained on deck for a considerable time longer. At first she had half a mind to tell Captain Casket about the incident. But then she decided not to. After all, what had she to go on but suspicion; who could say that the letter was not Mr Slighcarp’s own? He had every right to tear up his own letter. Furthermore, if Mr Slighcarp realized that Dido had seen him tear it up, he would know that she had also seen him brushing the boots. He would be revealed as the accomplice of the stowaway lady in the blubber-room. Dido had not forgotten this lady’s fiercely whispered threat, ‘Keep a still tongue in your head. Otherwise your chances of ever seeing London River again are very, very small!’

  ‘I’ll keep mum,’ she finally decided. ‘After all, if I did tell Captain Casket, like as not he’d only gaze at me in that moon-faced way o’ his and start to talk about his everlasting pink whale. I dessay it wasn’t his letter. And I don’t want an up-and-a-downer with old man Slighcarp. I’ll keep a still tongue. But I’ll watch.’

  Nate, whose turn it was on the middle watch, came on d
eck at this moment, and passed the time of night with Dido. Mr Jenkins, sitting on his shoulder, gave a polite croak, and remarked:

  ‘Your lordship’s bath is ready in the tapestry room. I have warmed the morning paper, Sir Henry. Pray bring his grace’s bath-chair this way. Down with the scurvy Hanoverians!’

  ‘Best watch out for Mr Slighcarp,’ Dido said grinning.

  ‘No danger, it’s his watch below,’ Nate said. ‘That’s why I brought old Jenkins up for a breath of air.’

  ‘I wonder why he riles Mr Slighcarp so,’ Dido said yawning.

  ‘Don’t you know? Because Mr Slighcarp’s English too, but he was a Hanoverian, on the other side. He wanted to get rid of that king you got. So he don’t like it when the old bird says “Down with the Hanoverians”. He had to run abroad in a hurry or he’d a been clapped in prison, the militia was after him. Leastways, that’s what Uncle ’Lije said. Mr Slighcarp hasn’t shipped with Cap’n Casket very long, but he stayed in Nantucket a piece before that.’

  ‘He’s English? Mr Slighcarp?’

  ‘Sure. You’d think he’d a taken a bit more of a shine to you,’ Nate said, ‘seeing you both come from the same part.’

  It was a long time, almost dawn, before Dido fell asleep, and when she did so her slumbers were soon broken short by a sudden and violent disturbance.

  The whole ship seemed to give a tremendous bound, like a startled horse; there were loud and prolonged cries overhead; feet thudded on the deck and Dido heard the crash and rattle as sails were shaken out and the anchor was dragged bodily from the bottom.

  ‘What’s the matter, what’s happened?’ Pen cried fearfully – she had been jerked out of bed by the ship’s unexpected movement and was whimpering on the floor. ‘Is it a hurricane?’

  Dido held up a hand for silence. She was listening attentively to the shouts overhead.

  ‘No,’ she said drily after a minute. ‘It ain’t a hurricane; a little thing like that wouldn’t get your pa so stirred-up. Oh, well, one thing, it’ll help us on our way home at a rattling good pace. That is, allus supposing the old gal plays her part and don’t go skedaddling off to Timbuctoo or Tobago.’

  ‘How do you mean? What old gal?’

  ‘Why,’ Dido said, ‘the pink ’un. Rosie Lee. Hear what they shouted? We’re a-chasin’ after that there sweet-pea-coloured whale of his’n.’

  The days and weeks that followed were fierce and rugged. Careering after her quarry through the South Pacific Trades, the Sarah Casket flew along under every sail that she would take. Main-tops, top-gallants, and stunsails were set, the rigging thrummed like a banjo, and often, as they drove through the southern seas, their mainmast was bent over so far that Nate declared they might as well use it for a bow, if they ever got close enough to the pink whale, and fire off a harpoon from the mainstay.

  Nothing would persuade Penitence on deck now, and even Dido, when they reached the wild easterlies and heavy squalls in the straits of Magellan, was glad enough to stay in the cabin playing pachisi.

  At first Dido was inclined, like the others, to believe that Captain Casket had merely imagined his glimpse of the pink whale at Galapagos, until one evening, south of Cape Horn, she saw something between two wildly blowing williwaws that she at first took to be a momentary view of the setting sun – except that it lay to the east. It was like a rosy, iridescent bubble balanced amid the black, leaping seas. Then the storm came down again and they saw it no more. But Captain Casket, with a frantic, exultant light in his eye, kept the ship under a full press of canvas, heedless of danger, clapping on new sails as the old ones ripped away. Without regard to tempest, tidal wave, or terremoto, he fought his way round the Horn, making a record passage of it, while his men served four hours on and four off, becoming haggard and thin from wear and tear and lack of sleep. The captain himself never seemed to sleep at all and his eyes were red from scanning the horizon.

  There were few chances for Nate to come down to the cabin now; he was kept busy all the time as a lookout, or taking soundings, or mending the tattered sails. Sometimes he could be heard singing as he sewed, with Mr Jenkins (who had acquired a wholesome respect for Mr Slighcarp) supplying the chorus in a subdued croak:

  ‘Stow your line-tubs, belay tail-feathers,

  It’s rough, it’s rugged, it’s blowy weather.

  Make your passage and follow the moon –

  Dinner is served in the blue saloon.

  ‘Slush the spars and splice the rigging

  Leave your scrimshaw and grab your piggin

  Bail, boys, bail! for your wage and lay –

  Her ladyship’s carriage blocks the way.’

  Mr Jenkins spent a good deal of this time with the girls in the cabin; Nate was glad to know that his pet was in a safe spot, and the girls were glad of the company, particularly as Mr Jenkins made an extremely civil guest. He would play tiddlywinks (if ever they struck a long enough patch of calm weather), flipping scrimshaw counters into a cup with great dexterity and enjoyment; while his grave observations about life in high society kept Pen and Dido amused for hours.

  Past Trinidad they chased, past the Brazilian coast, through the Sargasso Sea (which slowed down the pink whale a little, for she got weeds caught in her flukes), past Bermuda, past Cape Hatteras, and so home. But the pink whale, unfortunately, seemed disinclined to stop, and mutterings were to be heard among the men that at this rate they’d likely be skating past Newfoundland before they discharged cargo and had their pay.

  A deputation waited on Captain Casket and pointed out to him that they were low on stores and water, that there wasn’t a single unmended sail on board and that what hardtack was left would walk away from you along the deck if you let go of your ration for a moment. With great difficulty he was persuaded to put in to New Bedford.

  And so it was that, almost seven months to the day after she had first opened her eyes on board the Sarah Casket, Dido had a chance to set foot on solid ground.

  ‘New Bedford!’ she said ungratefully. ‘Where’s that, I ask you? Land sakes, Cap’n Casket mighta just as well nipped across to Dover, it wouldn’t a taken him but a few more weeks.’

  She glared with disfavour at the trim roofs of the town climbing its hill above the harbour. ‘Still,’ she admitted in acknowledgment of the forest of masts, ‘I will say there’s a-plenty o’ shipping here; maybe I’ll find some bark as’ll take me on to England.’

  ‘You promised you’d come home with me first, you promised,’ Pen reminded her anxiously.

  ‘All right, all right, I ain’t forgotten,’ Dido growled. ‘I’ve said I’ll see you right and I will – if we can only get your pa to tend to your affairs for two minutes together. You know you had a notion your cousin Ann Allerton might put you up.’

  Captain Casket hardly even attended to the business of getting his ship safely docked. His eyes were constantly turned back towards the open sea, and his thoughts were all with the pink whale, who had unfairly taken the chance to nip off round Cape Cod and into the Gulf of Maine. Would he ever catch up with her again?

  It was dark before the Sarah Casket was alongide the wharf and made fast. Penitence begged to go ashore then and there, but Captain Casket wouldn’t hear of disturbing Cousin Ann Allerton so late in the evening, and left them to spend one more night on board. Dido stayed awake for hours, sniffing the land-smells, listening to the shouts and the splash of oars in the harbour and the cry of gulls, and the music coming from the sailors’ taverns. She dragged a chair to the port and squatted there looking out at the lights as they gradually dimmed and died along the wharfside and in the streets above the warehouses.

  Strangely enough, although she was now nearer home than she had been for the last year, she felt more lonely and homesick than ever before.

  ‘Pen!’ she whispered after a while. ‘Hey, Dutiful! Are you awake?’

  The only answer was soft, even breathing. Dido sighed, and was about to climb down from her perch and go to bed, when she heard a fain
t splash, close to, and the creak of oars. Turning back, she was just in time to see Mr Slighcarp, his foxy features visible in the light of a lantern, help a tall, veiled woman over the Sarah Casket’s side into a dory, and row quietly away across the harbour.

  * * *

  1 Actually Sankaty Light was not built till 1850, but for the purpose of this book I have brought it into existence thirty years earlier.

  Part Two

  5

  Trouble with Cousin Ann – Captain Casket slips his cable – arrival in Nantucket – the Casket farm

  ‘WE CAN’T STAY with your cousin Allerton,’ Dido said glumly, ‘and that’s for sure.’

  It had taken her less than ten minutes to reach this conclusion. After ten days she was of the same mind.

  Cousin Ann Allerton was a frail, erect old lady dressed in black silk with a white bib and cap. She almost fainted when her snapping black eyes first took in the untidy appearance of the two girls – even Pen’s dress was fairly bedraggled by this time with oil and tar on its frills. And as for Dido –!

  ‘Don’t stand on the clean doormat!’ Cousin Ann said frantically. ‘Keziah! Keziah! Fetch an old sheet directly and put on a pail of water to heat. Mercy! Just look at that child’s feet! And her hair! Bring some towels, every stitch they have on will have to be burned. Get out the tallow and kerosene, gracious knows how we are going to get that grease off. Fetch the sulphur and calomel, I don’t doubt they need a good dose after eating dear knows what foreign truck on board ship. And when you’ve done that, run down the road and ask Miss Alsop to step up, they’ll have to have everything new, I can see that – furs, flannels, merinos, poplins, and tarlatans. Bonnets, of course, and boots; mercy on us what a pair of little savages.’

  ‘I’d ruther keep my britches,’ Dido said scowling.

  ‘Quiet, child! The idea! Pass me the bath-brick, Keziah, till I give them a good scrubbing.’