Sailing home, p.14
Sailing Home, page 14
“Had he fallin’ out?”
“No, Marin,” she replied with an impatient and short breath. “He told me he was going to watch over Phoebe while we were gone. I doubt he trusts Phillipe.”
“There’s irony for you.”
“You know what he means by that, Marin. Besides, there seems some sort of connection between Jude and her.”
“Oh, they were connected alright.”
Opaline gave a neat nod, “I thought as much. So, Jude thinks there is a chance the child may be his?”
“Mister Prince is a player of long odds.”
Crossing Narragansett Bay from Newport to North Kingston was a three-part journey. First you had to ferry across to Jamestown, situated on Conanicut Island lying between Newport and North Kingston. Then you had to hire a carriage across the island in order to catch another ferry to complete the journey.
Arriving at the pier and finding no boat for hire, Marin coaxed Opaline back along the waterfront to Mister Walter’s fishing boat, The Merry Maiden’, tied up in the harbor. The soft glow of an oil lamp shone through a tiny window of the little hutch at the rear of the wooden scow, giving evidence of its captain’s presence. Opaline stayed ashore with the suitcases as Marin boarded the small vessel. He hadn’t taken but a few steps onto the deck when the cabin door flew open and Mister Walter appeared with a fishing spear in hand.
“Hold yer place and state yer business,” he yelled.
“It’s Marin Carpenter, Mister Walter.”
The old gentleman craned his neck out into the darkness before stepping out of the cabin door.
“Ya came within a step a becomin’ bate, Mister Carpenter,” he said.
“Sorry to board without permission, but a young lady and I need to get across to Jamestown, and the ferries aren’t running. We were wondering if you could take us across.”
Mister Walter squinted toward the bow of the boat and could just trace the form of Opaline standing on the pier.
“What takes you and the lady ta Jamestown by the thin light of the moon?” Mister Walter asked. “Ya wouldn’t be sneakin’ off ta marry, now would ya?”
“Would you ferry us across if we were?” Marin asked.
“Well, course I would,” and he called to Opaline, “Come on aboard Miss.”
“Opaline,” Marin added.
“Miss Opaline,” he called again.
Marin went to the side of the craft to give Opaline a steady hand aboard. The choppy waters gave the deck a clumsy footing, and Marin wrapped one arm around her waist to assist her. She braced herself a bit too stiff in reaction to his open hand laid full across her taught flat stomach, and so Marin pressed his fingertips into the silk material to secure her. She could feel his heat as if it were against her bare flesh.
“I’ve got you,” he assured her.
‘That is what I am afraid of,’ she thought, while attempting to relax. Her heart lodged in her throat as he pulled her closer to his side. As they began walking across the deck, the rhythmic massage of Marin’s hand, back and forth across her lower torso, further weakened her equilibrium.
“Wrap your arm around my waist,” he instructed, but she feared completing the bond. As they reached the entrance to the cabin, she grabbed hold of the door with one hand and pealed Marin’s arm from her waist with the other.
“I think I can make it from here,” she assured him, as she helped herself into the cramped little cabin.
Marin retrieved the two suitcases from the dock and placed them inside the cabin door. “Are you alright?” he asked her.
“I will be fine, thank you,” she said.
“Toss the line and gimme a hand with the mainsail, Mister Carpenter,” Mister Walter called out.
Marin closed the cabin door and went to the front of the boat to assist him.
“Why would ya be goin’ ta Jamestown ta get hitched?” he asked Marin.
“We are actually going to Providence. We are crossing the Narragansett to hire a carriage in North Kingston.”
“Well I could sail ya north ta Warwick. The winter flounder’s schoolin’ through there this time a year. Ya could just as easy hire a carriage there. No need goin’ so far east, only ta head north.”
Marin smiled and helped unfurled the mainsail. The wind caught the canvas and it puffed out, revealing a blue mermaid embroidered half the height and all the width of the linen sheet. Mister Walter pulled his index finger out of his mouth and pointed it straight up into the air.
“We’ve got a little luck what with a twelve-knot southwest wind in the month a December. She’s usually blowin’ from the north. We’ll be sailing broad reach, due north between Prudence an’ Hope Island, then swingin’ wide ‘round Patience Island. Should reach Warwick before noon.”
As they slipped out of the harbor toward Goat Island, the wind picked up and shifted a little more southern. Within half an hour the boat was clipping along at eight knots.
Marin went to the cabin to check on Opaline and found her lying down on the stowaway bench, looking a little off-green in the cheeks.
“Feeling poorly?” he asked.
“Will this boat ever stop rocking?” she gasped.
“Probably not.” He grabbed an old mop bucket and placed it at her side. “But look on the bright side. You’ll only be tossed about for another six hours.”
“Marin...” she urged, followed by a hard swallow, “I am in no mood for your humor.”
“Sometimes a little fresh air and looking to the horizon helps. Why don’t you come out onto the deck and sit astern?”
“I have no idea what that means, and I am afraid if I leave this bench, I will die.”
Marin held back a laugh and told her she would probably be feeling better soon. “I’ll be back to check on you in a little while,” he said.
Returning to the deck he told Mister Walter about Opaline’s condition.
“There’s an unwelcome chill in the air,” Walter said. “I’m afraid the bays ‘bout to turn dicey.”
Back at the house in Newport, Mister Prince was up making buckwheat cakes when Phillipe came into the kitchen.
“There’s a fresh pot of tea and I’m whippin’ up some breakfast should ya be hungry,” Jude said.
Phillipe poured himself a cup of tea and sat at the table without responding.
“How many cakes should I put ya down for?” he asked.
“Have Marin and Opaline left?” Phillipe asked.
“Well past an hour ago.” Jude replied.
“And you spent the night?”
“Yes, sir. If it’s alright with you, I thought I’d stay and help with Miss Phoebe.”
Phillipe pondered for a moment. “No, of course I don’t mind ...we don’t even know her last name, do we?”
Jude flipped a large pancake onto a plate and handed it to Phillipe. “And neither of us know the first thing about tending to a lady ...woman, in her condition,” Phillipe added.
Jude set a plate of butter and a jar of sorghum on the table, and handed Phillipe a knife and fork. “I don’t imagine she’ll cause us much trouble,” Jude said, pouring more batter onto the griddle. “Besides, it’s only for a couple-a-days.”
“Jude,” Phillipe proceeded with caution, “does it bother you that she is ...how should I say, a lady that sells her favors?”
“A whore? Why would that be botherin’ me? I’m not exactly a monk in chains, mind you. No point in the left foot cursin’ the right.”
“No, of course not. Let me ask you this, do you think Marin knows the young woman ...as it were ...in the Biblical sense of the word?”
“Are ya askin’ has he fucked her’?” Jude asked as he lifted up the edge of a buckwheat cake to examine its underside. Phillipe turned his face to the wall. “If he has, it’s none-a-my business,” Jude continued. “Besides, he seems to favor Aja.”
“Asia?” Phillipe asked with a turn of his head, “What in the world are you talking about?”
“What?” Jude asked.
“Are you saying Marin prefers Asian women?”
“Prefers? No. Marin doesn’t care where they’re from. There’s a girl in Martinique that ...well, never you mind that. I’m the one that called on Phoebe.”
Phillipe placed his fork on the plate, leaned back in his chair, swallowed his half-chewed bite, and asked, “So that may be your child?”
“No way of knowing, is there?” Jude said.
Phillipe looked around the room as if he had lost his bearings. He wrapped his hands around his teacup, mooring himself to the familiar. “And that doesn’t bother you?” he begged.
Jude tilted his head in a questioning manner for a moment, and then flipped the buckwheat cake onto a plate, took it to the table, buttered it carefully, covering the entire surface before pouring sorghum over the top until it oozed down the sides. He grabbed a fork, slid it under the cake and said, “At this point, what does it matter?” and he left the kitchen to deliver the hotcake to Phoebe.
As the Merry Maiden approached the tip of Prudence Island their advance had slowed due to a shift in the wind, and the roughing of bay waters. Both men were wearing their fair share of the brine, and the same cold wind that carried them along, exacted a toll in comfort. A fog had closed in and blocked their view of either shore and the intermittent clapping of the sail with each shift of the whistling wind, kept both sailors busy.
Mister Walter sang out to Marin, “Take the boom, Mister Carpenter. I’m gonna fetch us some slickers.”
Marin took the boom and found it more difficult to hold steady than he had imagined. No wonder Mister Walter’s forearms took on the bulbous appearance of two large New Jersey eggplants.
Inside the cabin, Mister Walter found Opaline asleep atop the lid of the storage bench where the rain gear was stored. He tried prying it open far enough to pull out a couple of slickers.
Opaline came to with a start, and demanded to know,
“What are you doing?”
Mister Walter jerked back and let close the lid with a clap. “Beggin’ yer pardon, Ma’am. I’m simply trying ta gather a little rain gear for the Mister an’ I.”
Opaline grabbed a breath, and said, “Oh. Forgive me. I am not quite feeling myself. How much longer...” but she stopped midstream, finding it difficult to finish the question.
“We’re approaching Prudence Island, Miss.”
“I am not sure what that means,” she spilled out.
“It means we’ve a-ways ta go, I’m afraid. The waters should calm a little by the time we glide past Hope Island. If ya don’t mind, Miss, I need ta get a few items from the bin.”
Opaline braced her arm against the wall of the cabin, doing her best to stand upright. Mister Walter grabbed a pile of shiny yellow items and four black rubber boots, and let the lid slam shut. He dropped the gear onto the floor and pulled a couple of covers and a pillow from an overhead compartment. He doubled one of the covers over the top of the lid, and fluffed the pillow before laying it at one end.
“There ya go, Miss. That should provide a little more comfort for ya.”
Opaline gave him a nod of thanks and, teetering short of falling, slipped back into a full recline on the bench.
Mister Walter drew the other cover over her, and said,
“Ya should be feelin’ quite regular before long, Miss; wouldn’t want ya too queasy at yer weddin’.”
“Wedding? What are you talking about?” Opaline asked.
“Mister Carpenter let it slip that the two a ya were ta be married in Providence.”
Opaline pushed her head toward him, and in short, soft breaths, aided with a couple of abbreviated swallows, managed to say, “Would you please inform Mister Carpenter ...that weddings were never meant to be a surprise ...and that it is only fitting and proper ...that he offer a lady a choice in the matter?”
Mister Walter gathered the rain gear and returned to the deck. He threw Marin’s coat, boots and hat at his feet, and exclaimed, “So ya lied ta me?”
“Sir?” Marin said.
“Ya tol’ me ya were goin’ to Providence ta marry the lass. She says otherwise. I don’t know what yer schemin’, Mister Carpenter, but if it weren’t for the lady, I’d be of a mind ta put ya ta shore on Despair Island.” Mister Walter hurriedly put on his rubber gear, and grabbed the boom from Marin.
Marin, struggling to put on his boots, said, “I didn’t quite say we were going to be married. What I said was, if we were to marry, would you take us to Jamestown.”
“Yer Erik Carpenter’s boy alright,” the old fisherman cackled, “same slippery tongue glidin’ ‘round the truth.”
“Wishing isn’t lying,” Marin muttered into the wind.
“Do ya mind if I smoke me a bowl,” Jude asked Phillipe.
“Do it by the fire,” Phillipe answered, buried behind his morning paper. “How is our guest?”
“Sleepin’ peaceful like. She’s got quite a journey in front of her.”
“I wonder if she will return to ...her previous occupation?” he asked casually, as if he were just making conversation. “Do you think, after the child is born, that she might repent her tangled life and return to the straight and narrow?”
Jude took his time puffing rapidly on his pipe, pulling the flame from the end of a small stick of wood deep into the bowl of freshly packed tobacco.
Phillipe, wondering what happened to the answer to his question, folded down the top half of newspaper and asked, “Well, do you?”
Jude exhaled a long stream of smoke, and replied, “You have a knack for the knotted question, don’t ‘cha lad?”
“I am afraid I don’t quite follow you.”
“Have you ever come across a knot that you can’t untie?”
A smile sculpted itself on Phillipe’s face as he recalled, “Marin use to tie knots and challenge me to untie them?”
“U-m-m ...and could ya?”
“Some of the easier ones. But there were a few that I deemed impossible.”
“But Marin could untie it, ay?”
“Of course, he’s the one that tied it.”
“Exactly,” Jude said, leaning back in the chair and committing himself to his pipe.
Sailing past Hope Island, the water in the bay turned a deeper blue and the water flowed glass smooth, reflecting the morning sun back to from where it came. The fog had lifted and the shoreline was again visible from both sides of the boat. The sail took on a bellyful of warmer southwest wind and pushed the Merry Maiden at a good clip toward Warwick, about five miles out. With Mister Walter at the boom, Marin gathered up the weather gear and headed to the cabin. Opaline was sitting upright writing in her diary as Marin opened the door.
“Well, catch a glimpse of my fiancé,” she mildly scoffed. “No, wait ...how presumptuous of me ...perhaps you are my beau. No, silly me ...I seem to be counting crow. Who might you be, then?”
“I’m sorry about that,” Marin offered, “it was a simple misunderstanding.”
“Was it? How fortunate for me.”
Marin stood entangled in the comment, arms full of dripping wet rubber gear. “Why do you say that?” he asked in earnest.
Rather than stand up and allow Marin to stow away the gear, Opaline curled her legs up onto the bench and went back to writing in her diary. She paused a moment to say, “You should air things out before tucking them away.” The double entendre was not lost on Marin.
“Glad you’re feeling better,” he said, on his way out the door.
He spread the wet gear out on the deck behind the cabin and returned to the helm.
“If our luck holds, we should be ashore within the hour,” Mister Walter said above the whoosh of the wind. “Can’t be too early, ay?’
Marin did not reply.
Jude sat beside the bed while Phoebe devoured her buckwheat cake; she had a forkful of sorghum-coated pancake halfway to her mouth even as she was swallowing the last mouthful. This pleased Jude, and he said so. When he asked how she liked the flapjack, she didn’t respond, at least not verbally. When she tucked the last bite safely into her tummy, she picked up her napkin and patted her round puffy lips in a self-conscious manner.
“Can I get anythin’ else for ya?” Jude asked, taking the tray from her. She had an answer ready for him, but it stayed lodged in her throat. “Miss Phoebe?” Jude asked again, “is there anything ya might be a-wantin’?
“Bacon and cabbage,” leaked from her lips.
“Ba-con an’ cab-bage,” Jude deliberately pronounced, skeptical of the combination.
Phoebe nodded her head.
Jude scratched his neck, and said, “Might take a while.”
Returning to the kitchen, he asked Phillipe if there was any bacon and cabbage in the house.
“I canned some cabbage last fall, and there is a slab or two of bacon in the cellar ...why?”
“Phoebe’s cravin’ some bacon an’ cabbage.”
“Oh, is she now?” came Phillipe’s haughty response, spoken precisely as he had learned it from Maria.
“Could be the baby a-wantin’ it,” Jude offered.
“Well please inform our guest, the kitchen is closed.”
“Her and the baby are hungry just the same.”
“Take her some crackers and cheese,” Phillipe said, dismissively, and then muttered one of Maria’s old saws, “Better to feed a beggar than create a thief.”
Jude returned to the bedroom, and said, “I’m afraid the bacon an’ cabbage is goin’ ta take some doin’, but I’ve brung ya some cheese and crackers.” He pulled a chair up beside the bed, and asked Phoebe, “So, what are you plannin’ ta do after the little one comes along?”
Phoebe placed a short, shy silence in front of her response. “Haven’t any plans,” she said.
“Will ya be goin’ back ta Ruthie’s?”
“Where else would I go?”
“Dunno. I thought with the baby an’ all...”
“No place for a baby,” she conceded.
“No, I wouldn’t think so.”
While Phoebe sat wondering where this conversation was heading, Jude sat wondering the same thing. He noticed a book on a table beside the bed, titled, A Mother’s Guide to Infant Care. He picked it up and began to peruse through it. Phoebe watched him from the corner of her eye. After a few minutes, Jude laid the book on his lap and said, “Phoebe...”
