He picked up a stick from the bundle of kindling Stephen had brought up from the beach, poked one end into the fire until it lit, then held it to his pipe and took in a deep draught.
And in that moment, I became keeper of a store. The first store on Nantucket Island.
21
3rd day of the twelfth month in the year 1767
Without Barnabas, the gaol felt darker and colder. The old man’s enthusiasm for candle making was a distraction for Matthew, and they had discussed methods and trials of the refining process long into the night. Barnabas might just be on to something, Matthew thought, yet it would require help from others to see it through. He sat cross-legged in front of the fireplace, pondering candle making, and the sorry reality that he would not be here to find out if a business venture ever turned out right for Barnabas. He hoped so, for he was a good man, Barnabas. Matthew stirred the cold peat ashes with his finger. He’d get no warmth from an empty fireplace, but still its presence brought comfort. He wished for a candle to dispel the gloom in this room, as he was overflowing with pity for himself.
Zacchaeus unlocked the gaol door. “Your attorney’s here.”
“My what?” Matthew craned his neck around.
Standing at the gaol door threshold was a skinny man dressed in an ill-fitting brown coat and black trousers. The man gazed around the dark room in wonderment, as if he’d never seen such a primitive gaol before, or any gaol, for that matter. Then his eyes adjusted and his gaze settled on Matthew. “Ah! Now I see thee.” He ambled into the room.
Who was this man? Not much more than a boy. He didn’t even have side whiskers yet. Something about him seemed vaguely familiar to Matthew.
“I’m Ezra Barnard, hailing from Cambridge. Phoebe Starbuck Foulger came to see me, asked me to be thy advocate.”
“Matthew Macy.” Rising, accepting the handshake, Matthew thought, She actually did it. Phoebe sailed to Boston. Hired an attorney for me!
But what kind of lawyer? He looked nearly as youthful and fresh-faced as Jeremiah. Matthew almost expected his voice to crack as he spoke. “Do I know you?”
“In fact, we are related. Distantly. Third or fourth cousins. Thy mother Libby is my mother’s second cousin. Something like that, I believe.”
“And you’re an attorney? Of the law? Criminal law?”
“Indeed. From Harvard College. Recently graduated.”
Matthew wondered if he might be better off defending himself.
Ezra Barnard studied Matthew for a full minute before he leaned close to him to ask, “Matthew Macy, did thee kill Captain Phineas Foulger in cold blood?”
Matthew fixed his eyes on this boy-lawyer and replied with a firm “Nay.”
Ezra leaned back. “Has thee any idea who might have done the dastardly deed?”
“Nay, I do not.”
Again, a lengthy silence. “Thee must have some suspicions.”
“Nay. None. Truly.”
“Was the captain admired by his crew?”
“Admired? I would not say admired. He was feared.”
“Then is it not possible that the crew mutinied?”
Matthew mulled the thought over, then dismissed it. “The crew was made up of boys, mostly.” Hardly younger than yourself, he thought but did not say aloud. “A few foreigners, but they had no quarrel with the captain, nor the first mate.”
“What about the first mate? How did he get along with the captain?”
“Hiram Hoyt is his name. He revered him. Carried out his orders without question.”
“And the second mate? The cook?”
“Old men, both. You see, this crew all wanted something from the captain—wages for retirement or whaling experience. They would not have reason to do the captain in—he was each man’s bounty, and he knew it.”
“Thee did not admire him, I take it?”
Matthew stiffened his back. “I had no respect for the man. For many reasons.”
Another lengthy silence that gave Matthew the impression that Ezra was puzzled. Matthew half expected him to decline the case, but Ezra surprised him again. He slapped his hands on his knobby knees and said, “Well, I don’t want thee to get thy hopes up, but I do believe in thy innocence.”
“Have you had many criminal cases?”
“Nay, actually thee is my first.” His lawyer beamed, as if that was a grand thing.
Matthew squeezed his eyes shut. Oh, boy. Again he felt the rawness of the noose around his neck . . . but then he stopped that line of thinking. Skepticism had done him no good.
In spite of Ezra Barnard’s youthful appearance and complete inexperience in trials of accused murderers, he had confidence in his defendant. His first defendant.
Plus, Matthew had no other options.
It took a few days for Horace Russell to reverse the defaulted loan for the Centre Street house. When Phoebe was allowed to move back in, she took Silo with her, and only Silo. Jeremiah and Libby had work of their own to do, her father said he was on the verge of a breakthrough and did she mind terribly if he continued his work at Zacchaeus’s office? She minded not a bit.
The house was in terrible condition, worse even than she had expected for it being boarded-up. It had only been closed for months, yet there were dead mice in the corners, dead flies and bees on the windowsills, mold growing on the ceiling and windows. The two worked side by side, sweeping and scrubbing each room. At one point, she went outside for fresh air, and when she returned, she found Silo in the back room, scrubbing the rust off those iron pots her father had bought to sell. After Silo’s scrubbing, they looked good as new. She pulled out a wooden box and opened it. Rusty iron horseshoes. She opened a sack. Rusty iron nails. With rumblings of skirmishes brewing between England and the colonies, anything made of iron would be highly valued.
She looked at all the . . . flotsam and jetsam . . . her father had collected. Everything in it could be cleaned up and sold, if marketed right.
A thought tapped Phoebe. Tapped and grabbed. Mary Coffin had started a store.
Hands on her hips, she gazed around the small room, mentally measuring its width and length. There was space enough for a table. She envisioned shelves against the walls. She envisioned the shelves stocked with neat piles of wares—pins, needles, buttons, coffee, tea, herbs, and spices. Mayhap fabrics and threads. Assorted dry goods. She could see it, could imagine it! The Centre Street Shoppe.
Why not? There were other women who kept shops. Catherine Hussey sold baked goods from her home. Leah Mitchell had a haberdashery. There were all kinds of ship chandleries, but no shops for a woman’s everyday necessities. Like iron pots! How had it never occurred to her before?
“Silo! I have an idea.” She gave him a broad smile. “I am going to support myself—and my father—by becoming a shopkeeper. The first store on Centre Street, run by a woman!”
He crinkled his face in puzzlement.
“Thee doesn’t approve the idea?”
He pointed to the chest they’d brought over from Libby Macy’s, hidden under blankets and buckets and brooms.
“Ah, I see what thee is thinking. Why don’t I just use the Spanish silver? Is that what is running through that fine mind?”
He grinned and dipped his head in a single nod.
She wondered if anyone had ever told him he had a fine mind. For he truly did. “The silver was buried to help others in need. Oh, I know what thee is thinking. We are in dire need!” She looked around the dusty, dirty house. A window had been broken, and the loose shutter had finally fallen to the ground. One could argue that repairing the home could be considered for the betterment of the family, but it didn’t feel right. “I did use the silver to lift the debt off the house and free my father from debtor’s gaol. Using it to defend Matthew is a valid use for it. But if Mary Coffin and Eleazer Foulger didn’t use it to provide needs of daily life, and they were the ones who found the chest on the beach, then I am going to follow their example.” She sighed, contentedly, hands on her hip
s. “And Silo, I do not want to be a seamstress! I’ve always hated to sew. It’s too lonely. But . . . I think I do want to be a shopkeeper. Nantucket needs it. And I think I need it too.”
One week later, with help from Libby Macy, Jeremiah, and Silo, and much advice from Barnabas, Phoebe opened up the Centre Street Shoppe. Customers would need to come to the front door and through the keeping room, so she set the table with mugs of cold lemonade (and she paid a dear sum for lemons from a ship on the docks that had just sailed in from the Caribbean—worth the price, she felt). Libby made her famous shortbread cookies, shaped like stars.
Her father helped himself to lemonade and cookies. “Daughter, thee has always had a head for business. I sense a great endeavor has begun today. Thee might be naturally cut out as an entrepreneur.”
Oh, she hoped not. But to Barnabas she smiled, kissed the top of his head, and flittered nervously around the back room, dusting and adjusting the stock. She started to feel greatly satisfied. It was a new feeling for Phoebe.
By midafternoon, after not a single customer had crossed the threshold, she started to feel greatly distressed. (Not a new feeling, not at all.) When Libby arrived to check on how things were going, Phoebe nearly cried. “What if no one comes?”
“Oh, Phoebe, thee is just frightened!” Libby’s motherly arms surrounded her, dragging her close.
Jeremiah and Silo interrupted, appearing behind her with shortbread cookies in their hands. “I heard Sarah Foulger has warned others not to frequent the store.”
“She’s a vile woman,” her father said. Everyone had crowded into the lean-to. Everyone but customers.
“I expected there might be some of that,” Phoebe said, fully aware of the icy reception she’d been given by Sarah’s relatives and friends. “But Nantucketers are practical people. They appreciate a good deal.”
“But do they know of it?”
Phoebe looked at Libby blankly. Then she grabbed her bonnet and cloak and told everyone to stay put and watch the shop, that she would return within the hour, and she hurried down the street to find the drummer and pay him to drum through the streets: “Fine quality kitchen wares for bargain prices at the Starbuck house on 35 Centre Street!” The drummer cried out the chant, over and over, between rolls on his drum, quite literally drumming up trade.
Lo and behold. It worked!
At three o’clock, in came Leah Mitchell and her sister Lydia. They bought a cast-iron pot—the first sale. Phoebe gave the coins to Silo, for it was his fine polishing that made the rusted pot salable. Not ten minutes later, Obed, an old fisherman who spent most days sitting on a bench on Main Street, came in and had a cookie and lemonade with Barnabas. Then he shocked Phoebe by asking to buy all her extra lemons. “Name thy price,” he said. “I need them for m’ grumbling gut.”
She named a ridiculous amount to Obed and he didn’t even blanch. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the coinage, and dropped them on the table, then scooped up the lemons.
Phoebe had learned her first lesson in shopkeeping: advertise, advertise, advertise.
Mary Coffin
6 October 1661
My store is under way. In fact, I am overwhelmed. I have created a greedy monster.
Keeping a few things in stock for neighbors who needed them has now created a growing expectation on their part that I can be relied on to provide them with anything and everything they might need. I am quite perplexed by the variety of things, many of which I do not have but must arrange to procure.
I expected these items to be in demand: goose grease, corn seed, cloth, needles, thread, buttons, herbs and spices, nails, axes, hammers, chisels, flints, powder, shot, fishhooks, and sinkers.
I did not expect these whispered requests: rum, grog, ladies’ unmentionables. Some men’s unmentionables, too. I blushed after asking what those particular items were and the men laughed and laughed. I did not know such items existed.
Through trial and error (mostly errors), I have found the balance of bartering. Thomas Macy wanted gunpowder and had too many goose feathers. I traded gun powder for feathers (an odd pairing!) and then traded the goose feathers to old Rachel Swain for her lumbago, and in return, she gave me four red hens. The hens were wanted by an Indian, who was willing to trade them in exchange for labour: three plowed acres.
It all worked out quite nicely, but that is not always the case. Last week, I ended up with too much fresh fish and fowl (the Indians fish and bird hunt), milk and butter, on a too-warm day in which no one seemed to require anything perishable, and the produce soured. The house smelled to high heaven and Mother was furious.
12 October 1661
The store has been removed from the house. Mother has tired of having men and Indians in the kitchen, as they tarry too long. The store is now in a small shed formerly used for the horse and cow.
6 November 1661
I have been too busy to write of late.
There is so much activity in the store that I am losing track of who wants what and who owes me what. I traded away the last package of tobacco and Father was quite miffed. He does enjoy his pipe at the end of a long day. For the last two nights, he has sat by the fire with a frown on his face, feeling quite pitiful.
I wonder if an account book might help me keep track of the things I provide for different settlers and Indians, and of their time and manner of repayment.
15 November 1661
Each time I resolve to turn my thoughts aside from Nathaniel Starbuck, to face the truth that he feels nothing for me, he does something to turn my resolution upside down.
He had been on the mainland last week, and took with him a load of tanned sheepskins to trade. He went to a printer’s shop and purchased excess paper. Then he created a book for me. It is eight-and-one-half inches by twelve-and-one-half inches, with a sheepskin cover and leather clasps. An accounting book. For me to use. For keeping the store.
Nathaniel made this for me. Nathaniel? I did not think he gave me any thought. I am confounded.
22
13th day of the twelfth month in the year 1767
Early one morning, Jeremiah and Silo came to the gaol with a pot of rabbit stew made by Matthew’s mother. Jeremiah walked around the room, showing it off to Silo as if he were lord and master. “Can I bring my school friends over?”
“Nay, not a good idea,” Matthew said. “I think you are taller, Jeremiah.”
Jeremiah squared his shoulders at that compliment, and rubbed his chin hopefully.
“Still whiskerless, little brother,” Matthew said, smiling. He appraised Silo, who seemed more of a boy around Jeremiah, less of a sad little man. ’Twas his brother’s happy nature, he thought. He has the same influence on me. “So you two have become friends?”
“He’s teaching me to carve scrimshaw.” Jeremiah showed him the little piece he’d been carving.
“What is it?”
“Can’t thee tell? It’s a whale.” He frowned. “Mama thought it was a dog.” He stuffed it back in his pocket. “Thee should see some of his.” He gave Silo a nudge with his elbow. “Go on. Show him.”
“I remember seeing some of your work on a piece on the Fortuna.” Matthew noticed a large scrimshaw tooth sticking out of Silo’s trouser pocket. “Can I see what you’ve made?”
Silo took the scrimshaw tooth out of his pocket and handed it to him. Matthew looked at it closely, marveling at the artistry and intricacy of his carvings. Then his eyes caught something small, and he went to the window to look at it more closely. “Silo, is this what you saw? On the Fortuna’s last voyage, is this the sight you saw?”
The silent boy nodded.
“Have you more of these?”
He nodded.
“Zacchaeus!” Matthew bellowed. “Zacchaeus, get in here!” He clattered his tin cup against the bars of the window.
“Hold your horses,” came a voice from the distance.
“Hurry up, Zacchaeus!”
“I’m comin’, I’m comin’.” T
he constable opened the door. “What is it?”
“Go get Ezra Barnard. Tell him I need to see him. Now!”
“Who? Oh, that lawyer-laddie. I don’t know where he is.”
“Phoebe will know. If she doesn’t, then my mother will know.” When Zacchaeus hesitated, Matthew turned to Jeremiah and Silo, both wide-eyed, watching the exchange. “Boys, remember this moment. Nantucket’s constable is unwilling to help justice prevail.”
Zacchaeus cursed. “I’ll get word to Ezra Barnard.” Then the door slammed.
At the end of the day, just as Phoebe was turning the closed sign on the door, Ezra Barnard arrived with a request she had not expected. “Matthew seems to think thee might know something more about the captain that could help his case. Something to prove that the captain had enemies?”
“Enemies? But I don’t know of enemies.”
“Secrets, then?”
She bit her nail.
“Matthew would not reveal more. He said it was up to thee.”
She came this close to telling Ezra she had discovered the captain had another wife—this close—and he must have sensed she was withholding something vital. He waited a long while, watching her, but the words would not come. They were clogged with shame. If others found out, especially if it were just based on her word, without any proof, she would be the laughingstock of Nantucket. Her store—barely begun—would be finished, she would have to move far, far away to start a new life.
“Phoebe, remember that Matthew’s life is at stake.” Ezra went to the door. “I must prove that others had a motive to do the captain in. Right now, evidence is pointing right at Matthew Macy. I need something. Anything. To prove the captain had other enemies than Matthew.”
After he left, Phoebe paced the keeping room, biting her nails. There was proof. Lindeza’s letter. She had to get onto the ship and into the captain’s cabin. She knew Hiram Hoyt remained on the ship while it was being repaired as acting guardian of the ship for investors. He was hoping, she believed, to be offered the chance to captain it. He would never allow her access to the ship, much less the captain’s cabin. But she had to retrieve that letter from Lindeza that was hidden in the shipbox. How, how, how? If she couldn’t get onto the ship, who could?
Phoebe's Light Page 22
