The Promise Keeper: Sea Heroes of Duxbury

by Lisa Norato

  She entered the old keeping room at the back of the house behind Hetty and found her father in his nightshirt and bare feet standing before the opened door. Snowflakes swirled inside, riding on a bitter, icy draft. Uncle Alden, cousin Lud, and two of her father’s workers, Seth Thomas and Benjamin Bliss, filled the entry, dressed for the heavy weather in their cloaks and great coats. A retired sea captain and landowner, these days Father occupied himself in the construction of small craft in a shipbuilding business he operated with his brother-in-law.

  With a shiver, Iris pulled her dressing gown more tightly about her.

  “Step within, my good sirs, I beg you,” said Hetty, “and close that door.”

  The red-cheeked fellows stomped inside, and as Lud shut the old batten door behind him, he explained in a breathless rush. “A barque has run aground on our Nook shores.”

  “I shall leave now with the men to organize a rescue, Daughter.” Her father’s booming captain’s voice filled the large workroom to the dark, hand-hewn oak beams overhead. “Get yourselves dressed, both you and Hetty, and prepare the house to receive survivors. We’ve no idea how many poor souls are aboard that desperate ship, but they will need care. Warm blankets, hot food and drink.”

  Iris didn’t need to be reminded of the urgency. “Yes, Father.”

  Mr. Bliss pressed forward and removed his snow-dusted hat. As farm manager, he lived inland with his family on the Moon farm. His wife Alice served as their cook. “Ladies, my son Peter is at this very moment knocking on neighboring doors to alert the townsfolk. He will join you here shortly to lend a hand. Don’t be afraid to put him to work. He is strong and willing, but I have forbidden him to assist with the rescue. He is not an able swimmer. I know you will look after him, Iris.”

  “Of course I shall.”

  “Keep Snow indoors with you also,” Father added. “Alice and your Aunt Mary are gathering blankets and every available bit of extra clothing they can find. They shall soon join you. And now I must hurry upstairs to change.”

  “Father, don’t forget your woolen waistcoat,” Iris called after him, as he exited the keeping room. “Hetty, gather his muffler and cap, and I shall fetch his great coat.”

  It was all they could do to hold him back long enough to button up his coat and wrap a warm muffler about his throat. He filled the doorway, the top of his head barely clearing the lintel, for Father was a large, robust fellow, somewhat thick in the middle, but in such a fashion as to add to his ruggedness rather than making him appear rotund. Merry round cheeks, pink from the cold, thick, snowy white hair and beard, precisely-trimmed, he presented quite the attractive, masculine figure in her opinion.

  As he departed into the storm with the others, Iris held tightly to Snow, who struggled to dash out the door after him.

  When they were gone, Iris wanted nothing more than to scurry back up the stairs and climb to the rooftop with her father’s old spyglass for a look. She knew Hetty would never allow her on the captain’s walk in this weather. And even if she could manage to open the trap door under the heavy weight of the snow, what could be seen in the dark? She accompanied Hetty upstairs, but before getting dressed she slipped across the hall to what had once been her parents’ room.

  A cold draft greeted her in the doorway, for some time had passed since a fire last burned in the grate.

  The room had been deserted for more than a year, since Mama (from infancy Iris had adopted her mother’s British pronunciation — Muh-mah) had died in her bed of a sudden illness, leaving behind memories too painful for her father to withstand.

  “I cannot sleep in that room without my Eleanor,” he insisted. “I shall not.”

  And so, he now occupied a room across the hall, sparsely and plainly furnished as to his taste, reminiscent of his old sailing days when he was but a bachelor sea captain who required only the barest of necessities on land, because, before Eleanor, the sea was his home.

  He took only a sampler she’d embroidered to hang on his bedroom wall.

  Iris opened wide the floral chintz draperies to reveal the twelve-twelve paned, sliding sash windows. Her view faced south toward the bay, but presently, only the black, shadowy shapes that formed the forested hills and bluffs of Duxbury were visible along the coast. No sight of the wreck from this angle, though Iris could hear the roar of the heavy surf below. The storm had subsided into a gentle, blustery snowfall. Across the bay, flames continued to burn at Pilgrim Light. They had been burning around the clock these last four days.

  She lit the wick of an oil lamp on the table before the window and hung one of her mother’s filmy scarves from the curtain rod. It would create a visible scarlet glow from without, that hopefully Keeper Mayne would take note of and be comforted in the thought of someone keeping a light burning for him.

  Meeting him had done nothing to sate her interest, and he continued to occupy her thoughts. All Iris knew for certain was that Jonathan Mayne had once shipped as part of her father’s crew, and he had fallen on hard times when Father recommended him to the Massachusetts District Superintendent for the keeper’s post.

  Her cousin Lud was acquainted with Keeper Mayne, being Pilgrim Light’s relief keeper, yet he’d refused to submit to her interrogations.

  “What concern is it of yours whether he has family,” complained Lud only last week. “Being alone suits him, and his duty is to tend the light. I shall be bringing him a big, fat slab of bacon with his supplies, and he shall be very happy with that. He’s got a taste for bacon, I daresay. Though he’s grateful for whatever I bring and never complains, bacon’s the one thing he always asks for. If there’s something you want to know, Iris, why do you not ask your father?”

  She had. Her father refused to discuss Keeper Mayne. Of all the possible candidates, why had he chosen to rally behind Jonathan Mayne? Father told her it was none of her business. He repeated she should respect their keeper’s privacy.

  Iris had learned one thing about the fellow — the reason why Keeper Mayne favored bacon.

  Returning to her own room, Iris forsook a corset and donned an older winter gown. She tucked a white modesty into the wide neckline and covered the gown with a black calico apron. Her undressed hair she left loose about her shoulders.

  Downstairs, she found Hetty gathering ingredients by the buttery glow of the lamps.

  The old woman gave Iris’s appearance a sharp perusal. “Pin up your hair now and fetch your little turban bonnet, my Iris, if you expect to help me make a clam broth.”

  “Oh, are we making clam broth, Hetty?”

  “Captain Moon and his men will surely welcome a hot broth when they return, they will. And we’ll need something to warm what poor survivors they pull from the barque. When your Aunt Mary and Alice arrive, I’ll start them to baking bread, and we shall toast slices to serve in the soup bowls.”

  Iris did as she was told, returning moments later in her small work cap. Aunt Mary and their cook Alice Bliss were arriving with Peter. His soft brown hair hung limp before his eyes as he cried, because he’d been forbidden to join in the rescue attempt.

  Alice’s son was nearly as old as Iris’s twenty-one years but not quite as tall as she. Pity, the young man’s mind had never developed past the innocence of a five or six year old. Silky, mink brown hair grew wildly about an attractive, slightly feminine face. Still, Peter had bulk and strength, both of which he employed in his passion for the soil, for he loved the earth and all nature. He farmed alongside his father who managed the Moon fields and livestock. Wintertime, Peter cared for the animals and sometimes joined her father’s shipyard workers, fetching tools and hauling buckets. He was an industrious sort. Come to think on it, Iris couldn’t ever recall seeing Peter idle or lost in a daydream.

  She accepted the blankets and clothing Aunt Mary had brought and left to deposit them in the borning room. Father and Aunt Mary had been birthed there. Long ago, when Father brought his bride home across the sea from Cornwall, England, he rebuilt his old family home
but left this rear section intact. The keeping room was where meals were prepared and his family gathered, especially in winter, while the children completed their schoolwork by candlelight.

  Iris found its dark character spooky. Sunlight did not shine as brightly through the leaded, diamond-paned windows as it did in other parts of the house, and she could hear the wind behind the walls as it seeped through the cracks of Nook House’s original structure.

  As she laid her articles down upon the feather bed, she heard Alice address her whimpering son, “I won’t have it. Stop that sniffling and start a fire blazing in the hearth. Then you can ignite the coals in the cookstove and light the house fires. Quickly now, Peter, so we can get to work. There’s no cause for your tears.”

  “Aye, you’re needed here,” added Hetty. “There’s much for you to do. Once the fires are roaring in the hearth and in the sitting room, you must fetch more firewood. And then, Peter, I’ll need you to haul in several buckets of snow. When it melts, we shall use the cold water to bathe the frozen sailors and bring down their temperatures.”

  Iris rejoined the others in time to see Peter’s soft, comely features relax. Already his tears were beginning to dry.

  Once the clams had been boiled and shelled then left to simmer in their own juices in a huge stewing pot, and as the hearth fire sizzled and the coffee bubbled, and whilst the bread rose in loaves on the long worktable in the warm room, Hetty sent Iris to the rubblestone cellar with Peter for sausages.

  A narrow door by the hearth accessed a stairwell built against the chimney that led below and upwards throughout the house’s original structure. Peter slid away the heavy wooden plank that barred its entrance, and the door squeaked on its rough-hewn, strap hinges as Iris eased it open. She shone a lantern into the darkness below, and a steep, narrow passageway appeared beneath its yellow glow. Shadows fell on the battered, winding stairs.

  She stepped inside the steep stairwell and picked her way gingerly down, one hand holding up the lantern, the other braced against the cold chimney wall. Peter followed directly behind her, clutching the puffed upper sleeve of her gown. He was much stronger than he realized, and Iris found it difficult to keep her balance at the same time she was forced to pull him along.

  When he halted suddenly, she nearly lost her footing. “What’s up there, my lady?”

  Iris turned around to shine her light up the old, winding stairway. Father had left it intact when he had the house enlarged and furnished with wider, grander stairs featuring polished railings and balusters that resembled nautical halyard.

  No one knew of the existence of the hidden stairwell, which was as Mama had insisted it remain. Should Father be away at sea and a danger present itself, she, Hetty and Iris could escape to the secret stairs and hide within the walls of Nook House. Of course, Iris never understood what her mother thought they might need to hide from, and she debated explaining its existence with Peter. But Mama was gone, and Iris knew the young man could be trusted with a secret. She thought it might boost his spirits were she to take him into confidence.

  “Shh, Peter,” she whispered. “That is a secret stairwell that leads upstairs. It is not common knowledge. No one knows about it, and the only reason I share this with you now is because you are my friend.”

  His soft, brown eyes widened in the lantern’s light. “Shh,” he echoed softly. “No one knows.” He stared up the dark, narrow passage in wonder.

  Iris had to drag him away and down with her into the old stone cellar. Frigid drafts rose up to meet them the further they descended, creating a hollow, mournful sound. The beaten stair treads and posts rattled, and with no where left for the wind to go, it banged at the closed hearth door above like an intruder demanding entrance.

  They reached the sanded floor of Nook House’s original stone foundation to find bouquets of dried herbs hanging upside down from the wooden beams of the low ceiling. Their woodsy fragrance mingled with the smells of must and cold and that of dried, cured meats. Depending upon the season, the cellar served as a summer kitchen, laundry room or winter storage. Holding the lantern aloft, Iris pointed to an area in the back. “Cut down some sausages, would you, Peter? I expect we shall need a hearty few.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “I wish you’d return to calling me Iris. I’m not Lady Moon. You know I’m not.”

  “You look like her,” he said. Distress clouded his naturally sweet, innocent gaze. He stared, a lock of dull brown hair hanging limp over one eye.

  “And yet I’m not her.” She frowned worriedly. “I’m Iris.”

  “Lady Moon loved shells. I brought her shells. The prettiest shells.”

  “You did indeed, Peter, and she admired them so.”

  “She’s not ever coming back, is she?”

  He asked the same question over and over. Iris’s throat grew tight. “No.”

  With head bowed, Peter stood in reverential silence, until, at length, he muttered, “That makes me sad.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “And now it is you who shall be ‘my lady’.”

  Iris didn’t have the heart to contradict him further. Peter had adopted that form of address listening to Hetty call her mother “milady.” Mama would scold, “Hetty dear, we are Americans now. Call me Eleanor.” But Hetty wouldn’t dream of it. To her way of thinking and English upbringing with its strong distinctions of social class, she felt it would have been disrespectful.

  She shook her thoughts free of the past and was struck with an idea that might distract the young man. “Peter, once we bring Hetty the sausages, perhaps she can spare us long enough to step outside and watch the rescue from the bluff. If you hold onto my hand and promise not to run off, perhaps your mother shall allow it. Will you do that for me? Would you stand by my side?”

  Their eyes met and Peter beamed with delight then quickly caught himself and averted his gaze with a fiery blush. He addressed the cold, sanded floor. “I shall stand beside you, Lady Moon. I will.” He hurried off to collect the sausages.

  “A person could hide very well down here and who would know of it,” Iris called after him as she shone the lantern’s light. “There’s food and a place for a fire.” The cellar door opened to the farmyard, where the barn, milking stalls and a carriage shed stood. A low, stone wall enclosed a kitchen and flower garden.

  Peter peered nervously into the cellar’s dark corners. “Is anyone there?” His tremulous voice echoed. “Who’s here?”

  “There’s no one here. I was making an observation.”

  “Don’t tell frightful stories, my lady. It makes me fearful.”

  Several minutes later, Iris, dressed for the elements in her mother’s fur-lined, scarlet cloak, stood on the snowy bluff that was Nook House’s front lawn. Peter’s strong, calloused hand held hers over her knitted, white mitten.

  Dawn had brought with it a fair measure of visibility. All across the Nook, forests lay frosted and white, tree boughs dipping with their snowy burdens. Thick flakes gathered in the corners of windowpanes like glistening spider webs. Duxbury citizens could be seen on Captain’s Hill and throughout the community, some watching the scene from a distance, others lumbering closer to shore bearing blankets and expressions of deep concern.

  The clouds had moved off, sweeping the sky just clear enough to allow the sun to shine upon the distressed barque, run aground on the beach. Listing slightly to one side, she glittered with ice that thickly coated her fallen mast, ropes and rigging. Her sails had split, their tattered remains snapping in the cold wind with the sharp report of cannon fire. Some had blown away and floated on the bay. Freezing, foaming, salt waves battered her sides, washing over the rails and onto the deck, drenching it with fresh spume that glazed over almost instantly.

  Iris watched with horror the men clinging to the frozen rigging. Their pitiful screams echoed over the roaring surf, and with an aching heart, she fretted over how much longer they could withstand the punishment of a glacial sea.

  Peter released her mitten-clad
hand to clap his own hands tightly over his ears.

  “I apologize for bringing you out here,” she said. “This is horrid, scarier than dark stairwells and shadows in the cellar. Go inside to your mother, Peter. Perhaps Hetty will give you a taste of her fresh clam broth.”

  “You must come with me.”

  “No. I cannot.” Iris turned her gaze back to the coastline. Despair and helplessness charged the frosty brine air, but selfishly her greatest fear was for her father’s safety. Together with the hardiest of Duxbury fellows, he’d repeatedly tried to man a rescue boat to no avail.

  With a combined, great effort, they waded into the heavy surf, shoving the boat against tide and winds. But no sooner had they managed to push it past the breakers and into the deep, when it was flooded by a wave and capsized.

  Drenched and frozen, their movements hampered by numbing cold, the men dragged the craft back to shore, while her father stood in the raging surf and hailed the barque through a speaking trumpet.

  “Captain and crew! Rise up! Stir yourselves and take heart! Despite the heavy sea and bitter cold, you’ve landed in a safe position. I fear the loss of life if we continue our attempts to launch a boat, but if you can endure the hours until low tide, with our help, you shall be able to walk through the surf to shore. You will be safe. We shall have all in readiness to receive you in our homes.”

  Iris trembled, though not from the biting cold. The barque’s name was Vulture.

  She saw it as a bad omen.

  Chapter 6

  By daybreak, the snowstorm had ceased and the skies once again began to open. After battling fatigue for four straight days, Johnny launched a rescue. Low tide was his only hope of navigating through such a dangerous sea.

  He had debated which to take — the Moonbeam or Pilgrim Light’s own lifeboat. Both had been built in Captain Moon’s yard, both were well-made, worthy crafts, constructed for sturdiness in a rough sea, yet Johnny reasoned that if the captain were to put the full excellence of his craftsmanship into any boat, it would be the one he’d built for his only child.