Nightbirds on Nantucket

by Joan Aiken

  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.

  "By the way, has thee heard anything of the pink whale?" Captain Casket inquired. "I was on her track at the beginning of this voyage, but we lost her while rounding the Horn."

  "Pink whale? Old Rosie Lee? I should just about think we have," Captain Bilger said laughing. Evidently, all his friends knew of Captain Casket's fancy. "A batch of Indios told my first mate she'd been sighted off the coast of Peru—only they called her the Great Pink Sea Serpent. Maybe she's on the watch for your ship, old friend—heard that you were looking for her. But it's my belief those Indios had taken a drop too much prickly-pear juice."

  "Thee did not go after her?" Captain Casket's tone betrayed anxiety.

  "No, no," Captain Bilger said. "Not I. To tell truth, I reckon your pink whale is more of a wild goose. I don't believe in her above half."

  "But I myself am nearly certain that I saw her—off Madeira. Only I never drew close enough to be sure—"

  "Indigestion," Captain Bilger said. "Too much pepper in the lobscouse!"

  He waved cheerfully and went over the side in the captain's chair, still laughing.

  Later on, the men returned. Having been instructed by lantern signals, they rowed round by the Martha and picked up Nate's bird, but no extra letter. Dido heard Mr. Slighcarp reporting that there had been a mistake over this: Captain Bilger had found that the letter was addressed to the captain of some other ship.

  Captain Casket nodded vaguely, hardly troubling to listen to this explanation; he seemed excited and preoccupied. But Dido, squatting on the quarterdeck, thought Mr. Slighcarp's manner very odd: he had a sly, pleased look, as if something had turned out very much to his advantage. And just before reporting to Captain Casket he had thrust some white object under his jacket. What could it be? What was he up to?

  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. "He's naffy! Where'd you get him, Nate?"

  "Bought him off'n a British sailor in Fayal. I've had him three years."

  "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. I reckon as how he musta belonged to some lord or duke once in England, and someone maybe stole him. I'm right pleased to get him back. A cat scared him when I was carrying him in New Bedford and he flew off my shoulder; I couldn't find him before we sailed."

  "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 was 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 since hearing tidings of the pink whale; 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 about young Pen, then, when you gets back to Nantucket?" she said hopefully. "Someone offered to look arter her?"

  "Oh, that. No, no I was referring to the news 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. I had a letter from dear Tribulation. She 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! That won't answer at all! Pen's ma said Aunt Trib was a Tartar, and it's my belief Pen thinks that's summat that eats children for breakfast."

  "Tribulation 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."

  "Oh, for the love of fish!" Dido exclaimed. "Don't you know young Pen's scared to death of her aunt? Settled and happy? That wouldn't be till pigs went on roller skates. I'll never get home at that rate. There must be someone else in Nantucket as'd take her. Don't you know of nobody?"

  Captain Casket fixed his large eyes on her and said, mildly but with dignity, "I know that my sister Tribulation is a good, devout woman."

  "Endowed with every Christian virtue," muttered Dido.

  "And I know, also, that we rescued thee from the sea, my child, and that thee owes us a debt of gratitude."

  Baffled and silenced, Dido knit her brow as he walked away. "Never mind how devout Auntie Trib may be," she said to herself. "That won't cut much ice if she frightens the poor little brat. Still, it's true Pen's got some rare, rummy notions and hasn't seen the old girl since she was three. Maybe Aunt Trib's not so bad as she's painted. We'll have to see, I reckon." She sighed rather despondently.

  An hour or so went by and Dido 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 that he don't want no one to see it?"

  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. But he had stuffed something white under his jacket in a stealthy, suspicious way. Could it have been the letter? Had he lied about it and kept it, instead of giving it to Captain Casket? Suppose this was it? But why do such a thing? And why should he be destroying it now?

  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 unde
r 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 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 traveling 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, or 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 daresay 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 deck 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? It's because Mr. Slighcarp's an English Hanoverian himself. D'you know about them?"

  "Oh, yes," Dido said. "My uncle's a Hanoverian, I know all about 'em. They don't like the king we got on the throne, Jamie Three. They want to push him off and have a prince that lives over in Hanover, the one they call 'Bonnie Prince Georgie,' instead. There's a song about it: 'My bonnie lives over in Hanover. Oh, why won't they bring that young man over?' Some calls 'em Hanoverians, some calls 'em Georgians. They keeps plotting away, but they're allus caught afore the plan comes to anything. Then they're sent to jail unless they can get away overseas."

  "Yes, that's it," Nate said. "Mr. Slighcarp wanted to blow up your King James III, Uncle 'Lije told me, and he was nearly caught and had to run abroad in a hurry or he'd a'been clapped in prison. The militia was after him. So that's why he don't like it when the old bird says 'Down with the Hanoverians!'"

  "Fancy Mr. Slighcarp being a Hanoverian," Dido said. "Has be shipped with you long?"

  "Only this trip. But he stayed in Nantucket a piece before that. You'd think he'd a taken more of a shine to you," Nate remarked. "Seeing you both come from the same part."

  But Dido was hardly attending. She said goodnight and went below, plunged in thought. What was the connection between Mr. Slighcarp and the stowaway lady, who had spoken with an English accent too? Was she another Hanoverian, escaping overseas?

  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 tumult.

  "No," she said dryly after a minute, "it ain't a hurricane; a little thing like that wouldn't get your pa so stiffed up."

  "Oh! We're sailing!" Pen said in dismay as an unexpected pitch sent her sliding across the floor. "I hoped we were going to stay here at anchor for several days."

  "So did I. We was wrong, warn't we?" Dido agreed, picking Pen up and shaking her to rights before putting her back on the bed. "Steady there, Dutiful! I guess you'd better stop where you are till things ease off, while I go and rustle up a bit o' prog. Shan't be long."

  When she came back, with some slices of breadfruit and a bowl of lemon syrup, she nodded grimly to Pen's inquiring look.

  "Jist what I thought," she remarked. "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 Tobaygo."

  "How do you mean? What old gal?"

  "Why," Dido said, "the pink 'un. Rosie Lee. Your pa's fancy. We're a-chasin' after that there sweet-pea-colored whale of hisn."

  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. Maintops, top-gallants, and stun-sails 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 to come 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 parcheesi.

  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 terremote, 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 in the cabin. The girls were glad of his company, as he made an extremely civil guest. He would play tiddly winks (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 the Falklands 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 mut-terings 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 London. It wouldn't 'a taken him but a few more weeks."

  She glared with disfavor at the trim roofs of the town climbing the hill above the harbor. "Still," she admitted in acknowledgment of the forest of masts, "I will say there's plenty of 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 alongside 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 harbor 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.