The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan

by Cynthia Jefferies

  ‘I know it,’ I said. ‘We sometimes spoke of our lack of family and how ill winds had blown us to the same ship. He was like a father to me.’

  Mr Chepstow nodded. ‘Very like, I dare say.’ He looked over to where Jack sat quietly on a stool, waiting in his innocence for me to finish my business. ‘Before we go further may I ask what business this young person has in your affairs?’

  ‘He is actually the reason I am here, though I have not told him of it. He is an intelligent boy who knows his letters and is adept at assisting me in some of my lighter surgeon’s duties. I fear a life such as mine is full of danger and I would prefer him to have a safer trade.’ I smiled encouragingly at Jack, but Mr Chepstow looked unimpressed.

  ‘I have money,’ I continued, signing Jack to return to his stool, from which he had risen, looking most anxious, ‘to pay for his lodging and apprenticeship if honest employment can be found for him.’

  Mr Chepstow looked scathingly at me. ‘I would have thought,’ he said ‘that Mr Ptolemy Moore would have taught you better. Honest employment is best suited to an honest person who does not dress herself in a boy’s clothing to take advantage of a poor fool.’

  I stared at him, unable to take in what he meant. At that moment Jack rose again from his stool and without a word to me sped out of the room.

  ‘Jack!’

  ‘I would advise you to let her go.’

  I barely heard him. I raced to the open door and caught a glimpse of Jack weaving deftly between two laden donkeys. I gave chase. The narrow street was crowded and slippery underfoot, but if it was hard for me to move fast the throng must also slow his progress. Surely I would catch him. Him? It was impossible to think of him as a girl. It could not be. But trickling into my mind were questions I could do nothing to stop. Thinking, not looking, led me to run right into a woman with a basket of fruit on her head. I fumbled for my purse and threw her a coin, apologising profusely, but by the time I had renewed the chase Jack was nowhere to be seen.

  Port Royal was a dangerous place. For someone so young, unarmed and with nowhere to go it could be desperate. I looked everywhere, even down some dark alleys I would not usually dare to venture. Several times I thought I had him, only to find it was some other dark-haired, pale-brown-skinned boy, a real boy, ragged of clothing and dirty of face, as most were in this place. Eventually, as it got dark, with leaden steps, I made my way back to Mr Chepstow’s office, hoping he would still be there. I felt sick. I didn’t want to go back to my ship. There was no one I desired to confide in. I didn’t want to admit to Rowan that I’d lost my mate, nor did I want to know if I was the only one who thought him a boy. Had the whole crew been hiding their laughter behind their hands? I very much feared it must be so. Well, I would not go back to the ship to be met by their derision. If that was the way they purposed to treat me, they could do without their surgeon. Perhaps Mr Chepstow would know of a respectable inn where I might sleep. In the morning I would search for Jack again and take him to task for deceiving me.

  Mr Chepstow was on the street, locking up for the night. When he saw me, he scowled, but put his key back in the lock and beckoned me in. He stood his lantern down and relit several candles before sitting once more at his desk.

  I halted at the door and glared at him. ‘You have it wrong! He is a good, honest boy. He had good reasons for his … deception … and would have told me when he thought …’

  ‘Then why did she run?’ The lawyer sighed. ‘You must know you would not be the first to be tricked by a girl in boy’s clothing.’

  ‘It’s impossible!’ Even as I blustered to save my dignity I thought of ways in which Jack could have kept the secret of his sex. I had teased him about his modesty in never disrobing in front of me, especially once, when we needed to wash after performing a particularly bloody operation. But I had thought it a result of the way he had been used in a debauched manner in the past. That would be enough to make any boy try to keep himself safe. But that could also have been a story to take advantage of me. I could see the argument, but I could not see the person I knew as Jack being other than honest. And yet, he … she … had run when discovered.

  I felt … I knew not how: bewildered, yes, and I admit it, hurt at not being trusted, even bereft. But while I reeled from the knowledge that I had been tricked I still fretted after Jack’s safety. I went to the lawyer’s desk and sat down. ‘What should I do? If I can find her, I should still like to set her to gainful employment. A safe place for her is what I need.’

  Mr Chepstow looked impatient. ‘Doubtless she is a runaway slave,’ he opined. ‘And as such not legally yours to dispose of.’ He scratched his head. ‘Depending on your proclivities I would say the safest place for her would be with yourself, but it appears she doesn’t like that option.’

  ‘He’ – I corrected myself – ‘she … didn’t like the idea of being sent away, but there must be someone …’

  He looked at me with something approximating contempt. ‘She didn’t want to be sent away so she left? And why should there be someone?’

  I had no answer for him.

  ‘Mr Morgan?’

  I looked at him wearily.

  ‘There are other matters to discuss.’

  I tried to pay attention, but I was tired and sick at heart. I berated myself for being such a poor judge of character but could no more feel anything but care for my Jack. ‘What other matters, sir?’

  ‘Financial matters pertaining to you and Mr Moore.’

  I tried to gather my thoughts and pay more attention. ‘Well, Mr Moore did tell me he would invest my few pennies when he came to see you, but I doubt they are worth considering. I earned very little as his mate.’

  ‘Indeed. In fact, I have to tell you that Mr Moore neglected to invest anything in your name.’

  His words got my attention. ‘Really?’ I felt stunned. It seemed that I was no judge of character at all. Not only had Jack deceived me, but the man I had thought of as a second father had done the same. Was this lawyer he had recommended to me also not to be trusted? How could I tell? I sighed. It was too late and too long ago to remonstrate with Ptolemy, even in thought. The best I could do was probably to hear Mr Chepstow out and then politely take my leave. ‘Well,’ I said. ‘No matter. Ptolemy has been dead for a long while and I will not speak ill of the dead. Besides, I am no longer a pauper.’

  Mr Chepstow cleared his throat. ‘As to the matter of investment …’

  I set my face to look mildly interested, although I would not be giving him care of my gold and I did not feel very patient.

  ‘It appears that Mr Moore … neglected to invest any sum of money in your name whatsoever, but …’

  ‘Yes?’

  Mr Chepstow raised his hand. ‘The surgeon invested no money in your name,’ he said in a level voice. ‘That is correct. However …’ He shuffled some documents on his desk, and then reached over and pulled another from a shelf. ‘He did name you as his only heir.’

  I sighed. ‘Well, that was kind of him. I must confess, knowing he had no heirs, that I took his chest and his instruments for my own use. His few books too. I am heartily glad my action would have had his blessing.’

  Silence filled the room, apart from the street noise that entered from the open window.

  Mr Chepstow held the document like a weapon and shook it at me. ‘This is his will. All his possessions, property and land he left to you without condition or mortgage.’ A slight smile turned his mouth. ‘Unlike his shipmates, your surgeon was a cultured man with great presence of mind. He was not, I think, inclined to drink his wealth.’

  ‘That is as he told and advised me,’ I said. ‘I really have no complaints about him. He treated me very well. His wise instruction gave me a profession and his instruments are both payment and interest for the small amount of money he had of me.’

  ‘You see,’ said Mr Chepstow, leaning his elbows amongst the papers on his desk. ‘You had such a little quantity of coin that I advised
putting it with his to get a better return. We didn’t purpose to fleece you.’ He looked at me as if he could tell that I doubted him. ‘You are, as a consequence, a very wealthy young man.’

  I was in no mood to hear a lecture. ‘Indeed, I do consider myself such. I did not have to pay for my apprenticeship and my calling has served me well. I do not wish to make a complaint.’ My mind kept wandering back to Jack, wondering what she purposed to do now and feeling sad that she had not felt able to fully confide in me.

  Mr Chepstow looked exasperated. ‘You do not understand me, Mr Morgan. Mr Moore’s will leaves you a fine stone house in Port Royal, at present rented out, several other houses and offices also rented out, a large plantation with over a hundred slaves bringing in a healthy income from sugar, with many fine valuable trees which would find a ready market as building timber. In addition, he wrote an account of his life for you to read, as his adopted son.’ He cleared his throat. ‘There was, of course, the matter of his … um … surgeon’s income, which I have done my best to disguise so as not to admit it coming from privateering.’

  He looked at me as if awaiting my comments, but in truth I could think of none, being too astonished for words.

  ‘If you want my advice …’ He got up and closed the window onto the street before regaining his seat and leaning towards me over the desk. ‘You would do well to leave your employment this instant, change your name and live quietly on the plantation. On the high seas, pirates may feel like kings, but things are changing here. As a surgeon you may never have killed a man …’

  ‘I—’

  He shook his head slightly. It was obvious that he didn’t want to know. ‘But that will count for little if you have been profiting from plunder. Men once welcomed here are now being hanged and their wealth confiscated. Mr Moore made you a rich man. Don’t squander your life before you have had time to enjoy it.’

  I struggled to understand this new revelation. ‘But Port Royal has always been a haven for pirates!’

  Mr Chepstow shook his head. ‘You people come with your booty and go with sore heads, not seeing how the wind blows on this island of ours. Your namesake, Sir Henry Morgan, has recently been charged with ridding our seas of pirates and buccaneers. He goes about his business here with the same zeal he last employed in plundering his prizes. No one is immune. Three days ago, he hanged several of his old shipmates for doing what he used to do.’

  He looked at me with such intensity I could not doubt the shocking truth of what he said. Seeing he had my attention, he nodded. ‘Yes, even a young surgeon’s mate who has never killed. Even you should beware the admiral’s reach. I fear he becomes rapacious, even to his own kind.’

  I swallowed. ‘What should I do?’

  ‘Do nothing to connect your person with any sort of questionable activity. On no account go back to your ship. Do not associate with any of your former shipmates. Change your name. Shed your old life as a snake discards her skin.’

  ‘But I should warn them!’ My heart was hammering in my breast. ‘And my instruments! My sea chest. All I have …’

  Mr Chepstow held up his hand to quell my protestations. ‘It may be that your shipmates will enjoy their carousing tonight and will live to sail once more, but I cannot counsel you to search for them.’ He lay his hand back on his desk. ‘Mr Moore asked me, if he died, to be your guide away from the life he had and into the one he wished for you both. He did not live to enjoy the life of a plantation owner, but you can, if we take care. You are very young. Mr Moore wanted you to live and prosper.’ He smiled. ‘Do not regret your sea chest. You will have all you need in your new life if you will be guided by me.’ He hesitated. ‘Even to surgical instruments if you so desire.’

  I took a deep breath to try and still my pounding heart and racing mind. Should I put my well-being in this man’s hands? I had sworn to be my own man after Ptolemy’s death, but Mr Chepstow was offering me his professional advice, based on what Ptolemy had wanted.

  I was adrift in my thoughts. Life was crammed full of what was known and what was not. In the space of an hour or two I had discovered that a boy was not a boy, that I could not trust what Ptolemy had said, although he had done more for me than I had ever imagined, and that I was totally unqualified to make any sort of decision about the man in front of me. This was not the first time my life had been completely altered by others. Was it even possible to ever be in control of my own path? I felt like a child in a sea of fancies, without the ability to tell what was imagining and what was real. More than anything I wished Ptolemy were here so I could thank him. It was melancholy to think that he had planned to take me with him when he retired to his property on this island but had never thought fit to tell me of it. Was it that he didn’t trust me to keep the knowledge to myself in case the pirates got wind of it and held us against our will? Or perhaps he feared we would not live to enjoy the idyll he had planned, as it had in fact turned out for him.

  I tried to push thoughts of self-pity away from me. They had no place in the mind of one who had just been given so much. But I couldn’t help thinking of my losses as well as my gains. My poor, sad father, dead on the floor of his cellar. Ptolemy, dead in the act of practising his calling, and Jack, the child I had thought to help in turn, but who I had also lost. How many buildings, how much wealth would it take to make me forget these losses?

  I hauled in my bitter thoughts and forced myself to be in the present. I owed it to my benefactor’s memory to fall in with his wishes and count my luck. Besides, what Mr Chepstow said made sense.

  ‘I will, in memory of Mr Moore, do as you suggest,’ I said.

  Now the words were out I felt a sudden panic in case my decision was too late. ‘I need a safe place to stay tonight!’

  Mr Chepstow looked relieved. ‘Yes, you do. There is the plantation house, but I would not suggest you ride there in the dark through country you do not know. There is a quiet, respectable inn a little way along this street. With luck, you should be safe there tonight.’

  He snuffed the candles. Once the outer door was locked, he pointed the way. ‘A few steps that way is an inn called the Sugar House. Tell them I sent you. If you are agreeable, I will call for you early in the morning and take you to your plantation.’ He touched my sleeve. ‘Take my advice and spend a sober night. Do not draw attention to yourself. It would pain me after all the care I have taken, to see Mr Moore’s wealth forfeit because his inheritor is hanged for a pirate. My house lies in the opposite direction, so I will bid you goodnight. Oh! And consider your new name, what it is to be. I will have documents for you to sign.’

  In an instant he was gone with his lantern and I turned my face the other way, my mind in turmoil. So, it seemed I was wealthy, though it was hard to comprehend it. But what use was wealth without a soul to share it with? I was to abandon the pirates, had lost my young mate and could hardly call Mr Chepstow a friend.

  I wondered, as I tried to master my feelings, was it common for men to feel like children, although they were grown and should be confident in all they did? Was adulthood a thing of dusty mirrors? If so, I was indeed grown.

  As I set my feet in the direction of the inn I felt a tug at my sleeve. I pulled my arm away and put my hand to the sword I wore when on shore. I was not a competent swordsman, but I felt safer wearing it and I was not about to let a beggar or cutpurse take advantage of me. An anger that must have been simmering in me since I had learnt of Jack’s deceit burst out of me and I rounded furiously on the person who had dared to touch me. I was confronted by a face that had been recently sliced open by what must have been a very sharp blade. The voice came faintly.

  ‘Mr Morgan, sir.’

  ‘Jack!’

  Her eyes fluttered in her head. As she fainted I caught her in my arms and lifted her up. I carried her the few steps to the inn and called for the landlord.

  ‘A room. The best you have. And water in a basin, soap, linen. Ho there!’

  The pot-boy stared at us and fled.
A woman with tangled hair came from behind the bar and stood with arms akimbo. ‘Who makes a disturbance here? This is a good house.’

  ‘Mr Chepstow sent me,’ I told her, calming my voice. ‘He is my lawyer. Now show me to the best room you have. Make haste!’

  The most imperious voice I could muster while appearing calm seemed to convince her. She glanced at the blood weeping on the wounded cheek and made up her mind. ‘Follow me,’ she said.

  As I carried Jack up the wide stairs I was thinking what I must do to tend the wound. I was praying the knife had not gone too deep and that the palate and tongue were safe, but my hands and arms were not listening to my professional thoughts. They were telling me without doubt that under the ragged clothing a young woman lay unconscious in my arms.

  ‘Put her on the table. I will not have so much blood on my sheets.’

  ‘I will pay for the bedding,’ I said as I laid her gently down. ‘Now bring me warm water and cloths as I have asked.’

  The woman left us, grumbling as she went, but soon a boy appeared with what I had asked for.

  As the door closed behind the boy, my Jack’s eyes fluttered open. She began to rise, but I pressed her gently back upon the bed. ‘Rest easy. I must look at your poor face.’

  Knowing her trade, she mumbled awkwardly, ‘There is no blood in my mouth.’

  I satisfied myself that she was right and then bent to the wound, cleaning it gently so I could see the extent of the damage. She had been lucky, if such a cut could be deemed fortunate. It had been made with a very sharp blade and ran in a curve from beside her mouth to the outer corner of her eye. It was more than a scratch, but not a bad wound and should heal well enough.

  She struggled to speak again. ‘I thought … if it needed stitching I would rather you did it than any other …’

  I felt tears prickle behind my eyes. Ptolemy’s gift, the fear of arrest, Jack’s true gender, her departure and the manner of her return for my help – so much change had come tumbling, one thing after another. It was as if the earth had carried me away on a fantastical earthquake and returned me into a different geography. I sat myself down on the bed against the trembling in my body and took her hand.