Mr. Darcy’s clear and abrupt directions followed in a note soon afterward.
Miss Bennet, I have arranged passage for yourself and your sister on the afternoon tide this Thursday. Be ready to leave with your baggage packed and sealed by a quarter past eight of that morning. A carriage will take you to the docks with all of your trunks, boxes, and bags. Captain McDevitt has a cabin for you both at the stern of the brig ‘Aspire.’
I anticipate greeting you at Portland six weeks hence.
The young ladies scarcely had two days to pack and prepare and it was all to be done without help or even very much cooperation from Mrs. Bennet. None from the younger members of the household either, although they were generous with observations which they claimed were meant to be helpful.
On the appointed morning, when their baggage was loaded onto the carriage and Jane and Elizabeth were ready to climb aboard, Mrs. Bennet stood outside and sobbed uncontrollably. “My two best girls.” Her shoulders shook as she buried her face in her handkerchief. “What will I do when I have lost my two best girls?”
Jane and Elizabeth sat facing each other in the carriage for the ride to the docks. They smiled and held each other’s hands. As the view outside the carriage of their familiar home of Boston faded, to be replaced by the noisy bustle and clamor of the docks, their expressions turned more fixed and less animated. The scent of salt was in the air and mixed senses of anticipation tugged Elizabeth from within.
The carriage horses clopped to a halt and they pulled up alongside a two-masted ship. Jane declared her to be "magnificent," with a wistful breath. Men clambered high in the masts, shouting to each other with terms like, ‘fast,' and ‘ready.' Sailors carried crates, sacks, and trunks on their backs, up the bouncing gangplank and onto the ship. Ropes that were inches thick creaked and strained around huge bollards on the dock, holding the great vessel tight as she swayed against the side of the quay.
All of the men seemed very broad, short, stocky, and highly energetic. All around the quayside were piles of packages, large and small, waiting to be carried onto the brig. A steady wind blew Elizabeth and Jane as they stepped down from the carriage.
By the gangplank, their uncle Gardiner awaited, ready with open arms and a bright smile for each of them. Elizabeth hugged and kissed him, pleased and much relieved to see the light of a friendly face among the bustle and all the unfamiliar noise.
“I have met with Captain McDevitt and ensured that you fine young ladies will have the very best cabin and the finest food that the Aspire can provide over the length of the journey. He assures me that he will take care of you as though you were his own daughters.”
Elizabeth touched his arm. “Uncle, thank you. I am sure that our journey will be smooth and pleasant. Do not look so worried.”
"I would not pretend I am glad to see you go, girls. But I would not have you leave without a friendly face to wave you off." He gave them tiny pillows stuffed with lavender and herbs, sewn no doubt by Aunt Gardiner, and boxes of candies, cakes, and a cured ham for their journey.
After he gave some directions to their coachman about the luggage, Uncle Gardiner walked with them up the swaying wood plank. The wind rose and Jane and Elizabeth held tight onto the rope as they climbed and then stepped aboard. The deck was a boiling mass of activity and their uncle steered them though, past the sturdy main mast, across the pine timbered deck to their cabin at the farthest point of the stern. The cabin was small but it had two snug bunks, a table and chairs, and a tiny window that gave a view of the sea behind the ship.
Jane eagerly claimed the top bunk and Elizabeth said she would take the chair nearest the window in compensation. The three of them together made the cabin quite full, so Jane and Elizabeth had mixed feelings when their uncle moved to take his leave. They went with him to the gangway and on the way, he stopped the captain and introduced the sisters to him.
Captain McDevitt was a broad and heavyset man with thick gray whiskers over his cheeks, drawing together into a heavy mustache above his ruddy lips. His strong chin was unshaven. "Being as they're the only ladies aboard, I'll know them well enough," he gave Jane and Lizzy a bright smile, though Elizabeth held down her first feelings of apprehension.
Uncle Gardiner turned back to the sisters and pressed some money on each of them. He turned quickly away to the port side when his eyes welled. They waved as he walked down the plank, but he only looked back up at the last moment as he climbed onto his buggy and snapped the reins. His arm raised aloft as he drove away and Jane held tight onto Elizabeth’s arm as his silhouette disappeared into the dust and the hubbub of the docks.
By the late afternoon, Jane and Elizabeth had put pictures and books and trinkets from their room in Longbourn around the little cabin and made it quite their home. Shouts of "All aboard that's coming aboard, all ashore that's staying ashore!" drew them, smiling and blinking back into the sunshine on deck. Aspire tilted to the right, the ‘starboard’ side, as she slipped her moorings. From above them, her sails snapped and she took the wind to cleave her way out into the wide sea.
Jane said, “Feeling the force of the wind harnessed into our propulsion is a thrilling experience, isn’t it?”
Seeing the captain nearby she called to him, “What company shall we have on our voyage, Captain?”
He made no move to approach them but called over in response. His voice was gruff, almost harsh. "If you mean from other passengers, the others are all berthed below decks. Men who are headed for the gold mines, the lumberyards or the docks for the most part. If you wish to keep company with them, the choice is yours, but I wouldn't advise it."
“Lizzy, there was a gleam in his eye that I did not like.”
“As he said, all of the passengers are men working in rough labor. We are aboard a working vessel. I think we shall not be dining at the captain’s table, Jane, and I wonder if we had best keep ourselves scarce for the duration of our time at sea.”
8
On deck on the second day in the blustering, salty air at sea, Elizabeth and Jane were peering, pressed against the rail at the side of the ship. The land that they knew was now only an irregular gray line, hardly above the far horizon. In every other direction, the ocean stretched endlessly away until it blurred into the sky. Both young ladies smiled at their great adventure but both were quiet. The ropes and timbers of the ship creaked and the sails flapped as the ship pitched and swayed on the uneven waves.
Turning back to return to their cabin, they found that a group of three broad swaggering sailors with chests like old barrels had cornered them at the very edge of the ship. Jane and Elizabeth’s backs pressed against the rail. The sailors spread themselves to leave no path of escape for the sisters.
The biggest and darkest of the men wore striped pants and an old frock coat. His eye gleamed and flashed as he stared without restraint at the two young ladies. Boldly, Elizabeth looked him in the eye. “Let us pass, sir, please.”
From behind him, a man in a sailor’s shirt and heavy blue pants laughed. He had on a flat navy hat with a long tassel. His laugh was a crude cackle and it sounded unclean to Elizabeth.
The man in the frock coat grinned wide, exposing black teeth and gaps. He asked, “Where are you in such a hurry to get to, pretty maids?”
The laughing man said, “We know all the corners of the ship, ladies.”
And the third one spoke with a leer in his voice, “We’ll show you around, pretties,” and they shuddered as he began to move toward them.
A bigger voice came from behind the men. “I’ll tell you what you’ll do, Jake.”
A man, the tallest, bulkiest, and roughest looking of them all stepped out of the shadows. His huge hands seemed as big as pickled ham hocks. A deep and jagged scar ran down the side of his face. One hand dropped on the shoulder of the biggest sailor.
“You and your boys will dedicate yourselves to giving protection to these fine ladies. You’ll do it for the duration of the voyage. It will be in silence and f
rom a respectful distance.”
“Oh, and why would we do that?”
The man towered over gap-toothed Jake and he snarled, “Because that way I won’t pitch you off the side of the boat in the Caribbean Sea for the sharks to make morsels of you.”
Immediately the three attackers stepped away.
The scar-faced man told Elizabeth, “Don’t be troubled, Miss. Those fools won’t bother you again and if you see them, they really will be there to help and protect you. I’ll see to it,” and he made a bow. “I’m Griffiths,” he said, and he wished them a good day.
From then on, the Bennet sisters kept to their cabin as much as they could. Time passed agreeably for the first weeks in reading and conversation, Elizabeth with her reading and Jane with embroidery. Out of the cabin, their nerves were troubled whenever one of the rough-faced men turned their gaze in their direction.
Although for Elizabeth, the rolling and pitching motions of the brig on the seas were soothing, the sounds on board ship were often alarming or distressing to her and so her nightly rest became unpredictable and irregular. Broken slumbers left her weary and dull of mind and more so each day as the journey went on. Other than that weariness, though, the journey was not disagreeable. Occasional sightings of land stirred her interest and her supply of books was more than sufficient.
Jane suffered the hazards of the voyage much more than her sister. She ate little and was unable to take pleasure in the food she did consume. She ran frequently to the side of the ship, bent over the rail, then swayed and rocked in great discomfort. It pained Elizabeth to see her sister suffer so and she was grateful that, apart from her lack of sleep, she was physically untroubled. That way, at least she was able to help and comfort Jane.
Jane’s lack of nutrition and her exertions took a toll and drained her until she was pale and weak. When she took to her bunk for a day, Elizabeth set about finding clean water, which she then strained repeatedly through muslin before she gave it to her ailing sister. She found plain and simple ingredients for porridge. From the ship’s cook she begged a supply of wafers that were sealed fresh before the ship’s departure.
Her brief turns around the deck for air were all the time Elizabeth spent away from her sister’s side, except for quick forays for food and water. On the third day, Jane was quiet and barely woke at all, save for when Elizabeth roused her to eat or drink.
That night Elizabeth did not sleep. She hugged herself, close to despair, thinking of the danger that she had brought her sister into. Softly, to be sure not to wake her, Elizabeth spoke to Jane.
"Look what I've brought you to, Jane. What have I done, sister? I was foolish and vain, thinking I could have a great adventure and save the family with some show of sacrifice. I didn't truly understand the hard practicalities of it at all."
By a flickering candle flame, she took out the picture of Mr. Darcy. Wanting to focus the real blame upon him, she took the fragment out with her teeth clenched. Her brow knotted in anguish, but the sight of his dark stare lit her up inside.
Could this ordeal could turn out well? If only her sister would recover it might. A long moment of emptiness followed and she wished she had never heard of this idiotic enterprise. With not enough light to read by, she sat, dozing and watching over as Jane's breath grew shallower.
On her morning stroll around the deck, two of the rough sailors approached her, Jake and the one in the frock coat. Politely and from a few feet away, they asked after Jane. Their inquiries seemed kindly enough, almost tender, but Elizabeth was too unsettled and distressed. She could not compose herself to speak, she only pursed her lips and shook her head and hunched to hurry by.
“Miss,” the frock-coated sailor spoke softly as he extended his hand. He pushed an envelope toward her. “We take these for a fever at sea. Not too many, only two or three each day. They’re mild and they’re most effective, Miss.” He extended the envelope nearer to her. Elizabeth thanked him and took the packet and the sailors left her, quite courteously.
She got ship’s biscuits from the galley and some oats for Jane’s porridge and hastened back to the darkened cabin.
Jane was upright, dressed and stretching, drowsy. Although her face was still drawn, some color was returning.
“Oh, Jane!” Lizzy almost sobbed as she hugged her sister.
9
Richard Fitzwilliam found Darcy in his study, brooding over the drawings and watercolors of Miss Bennet.
“Richard, when I saw these pictures, they made me think that I would marry the young lady in an instant, even if it were not for the accursed will. Now I am starting to wonder how I will find her when she actually appears.”
“Believe me, Darcy. I know you well and I spent a very agreeable time with Miss Bennet. She will be suitable, I am certain of it. I think when the business is done, you will want to keep her on.”
Darcy protested, “But, Richard, your drawings make everything look wonderful. You remember when we were children, you made that picture of an old boathouse by the lake. The thing was obviously a wreck but you gave it such romance that I wanted to go and live in it immediately. I insisted that we go there straight away.”
“Yes, and I couldn’t understand why you were so taken with it.”
"It was your drawing that I was taken with. The pencil lines that described the rugged planks and shingles curved so gracefully and in the background was the soft hint of the mountains through the mist, reflected in the glassy lake. Long afterward I realized that, to me, a beautiful drawing must mean that the drawing was of a beautiful place. At that age, I did not have the judgment to separate the two things."
“But you do now, Darcy.”
“Do I, Richard? Sometimes I wonder.”
To lighten the mood, Richard said, "Darcy, I had the most extraordinary letter." Darcy looked up at his friend without much hope of being cheered. Richard went on, "It was sent from the mother of the Bennet sisters who are traveling here. I should show it to you." Richard stood by the window of Darcy's study with his imposing profile lit by watery evening sunlight.
With a letter in his hand, his expression was quite like an orator about to give voice. But Richard was a commanding fellow.
He would have done well for himself if he had stayed on in the army, or he could probably have gone far in politics. Darcy was glad to have him remain in Oregon, though. As well as being Darcy's trusted legal counselor, Richard had been a strength and had given wise and solid advice in troubled times, especially in his guardianship of his sister Georgiana.
Darcy sat back in his dark corner as Richard went on, “She has written, as she says, in the most urgent of terms, advising that I must alert you, Mr. Darcy, that on no account are you to marry her daughter Elizabeth, and you should send her back as soon as she arrives.” Richard looked up with a smile that was bright and amiable.
He continued, “She says, here, I’ll read it to you, ‘For she is needed at home very much indeed and is quite indispensable for my well-being. So, please, sir, if it is all the same to you, would you be kind enough to marry my eldest daughter, Jane, who is accompanying her. She is by far the prettier as you will immediately see, and is perfectly suited to marriage. She is agreeable and accomplished and will, I am quite sure, make for you exactly the kind of wife that you need and desire, whatever that may be. Only, please, sir, send me back my Elizabeth. She is far too much required here to be away from me and from the family home for any length of time at all.’ What do you think, Darcy?”
Fitzwilliam Darcy saw that his friend intended to lift his spirits and he meant well enough by it but the tone of the letter only brought him more concern and discomfort. He rose from his chair and stepped smartly to Richard, saying, "What do I think? I think I've arranged my marriage into a family of imbeciles. Give it here."
He snatched the letter from Richard's hand saying, "At least she wrote it to you and it was not delivered here. Heaven knows what might happen if a document such as that were to found by a casual visi
tor here."
“Miss Bingley in particular, you mean.”
Darcy paced the length and breadth of the study as he read the letter.
10
For the remainder of their time as passengers on the Aspire, Jane was weakened. Her spirit recovered more quickly and fully than her body did. Her complexion kept the paleness and her appetite was slight but it did seem to Elizabeth that she gained in strength every day.
The ship’s last port of call before Portland was San Francisco. By the time they had docked, and the ship had been unloaded, loaded, and untethered and departed again, each port looked to Elizabeth like all of the others. Arriving at each one, when the ship berthed, though they all seemed as harsh, bustling and inhospitable as the docks in Boston had, she wanted to get off the boat and flee.
After every departure, she thought she could not bear the endless sky and sea for another leg of the voyage.
Most of the passengers from below had disembarked at San Francisco and Elizabeth found herself missing even the company of their raucous noise. The Aspire seemed almost deserted now. The creaking sway on the roll of the tides felt like the roll of a gutted hulk. A ghost ship, adrift and unguided.
She knew that her mood was only from the wearing effect of the weeks of unchanging sea, but she could not make herself appear jolly, other than in the afternoons in their cabin when she would read to Jane as long as the light held. For those hours, at least she had a purpose.
Many days she forgot even to look at the ink and watercolor picture, the man whose proposal had lured her over all of these endless, identical waves, and tides, and seas. Always different, always the same. The sound of the wind, the snap of the sails in the rigging, the rush of ocean waves against the hull.
They were just a few days out of California when she was walking with her arm in Jane’s, taking a turn around the deck in the dark mist of the early morning. A light on the horizon could only have been a lighthouse beacon. They knew the beacon meant danger as they were placed to warn of jagged and treacherous rocks. As they had learned, though, a lighthouse also meant something else.
Urgently, Darcy Page 4
