Phoebe's Light

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  Silo held up two fingers and rubbed them together.

  Matthew threw up his hands. “Of course! He silenced them with money.”

  Ezra whirled around and pointed at Matthew to be quiet. Then he turned back to Silo. “And thee, Silo? Did he provide thee with any money? Anything at all?”

  Silo shook his head.

  Ezra thanked Silo and dismissed him. After he returned to sit next to Libby, the bailiff called, “The defense calls Phoebe Starbuck Foulger.”

  Phoebe tried to keep her voice from quivering as she repeated the affirmation. Ezra helped her onto the witness stand. He circled for a while, asking her a few standard questions—when was she born, where, her wedding date to the captain. She wasn’t sure how necessary were the questions, as everyone in the room knew the answers, but she suspected he was trying to help her nerves settle. Unfortunately, Ezra took so much time that the jurors grew restless. Finally, Ezra got to the point. “Why was Silo, in particular, not given any money to keep information about the Pearl to himself?”

  Phoebe opened her drawstring purse and pulled out a letter. She handed it to Ezra, who handed it first to the judge. The judge read it, handed it back to Ezra, and in a solemn voice, said, “Inform the jury of its contents.”

  Ezra read the letter from Lindeza aloud. He leaned into the jury box, making eye contact with every single juror. “Captain Phineas Foulger had another wife. A legal, binding marriage that preceded the one on Nantucket Island to Phoebe Starbuck.”

  In the rear of the courtroom a gasp was heard from Sarah Foulger, then a chorus of shocked ohhs from the jury. Phoebe saw the color drain from Sarah’s face. She saw the perpetual pipestem slip out of Hiram Hoyt’s mouth and drop onto the floor as his mouth opened to a surprised O.

  The courtroom erupted again. The judge did not bang his gavel this time.

  That nagging will-o’-the-wisp feeling returned. Pipe? Pokeweed tobacco?

  Suddenly she remembered where she had seen ash on the floor, where she had smelled it! Her house, after it had been ransacked.

  The judge let the murmurs settle down of their own accord.

  Phoebe was dismissed from the witness stand, and again, Ezra called Silo up.

  Ezra stood in front of the witness stand, hands clasped. “Silo, the letter mentions that Lindeza wants the captain to bring Quiet with him.”

  Silo nodded.

  “Is Lindeza thy mother?”

  He nodded again.

  “And Silo, is thee the ‘Quiet’ she meant?”

  Another nod.

  “Silo, is thee the true son of the captain?”

  Another nod. From the back of the courtroom, Sarah Foulger let out a whimper.

  “Silo, did thee witness the captain, thy father, being mortally wounded?”

  Silo reached into his bag and brought out another scrimshaw piece. It was of two men, locked in battle. The captain was one of the men.

  “Is the other man in this picture the one who killed the captain?”

  Silo nodded.

  “Is he in this room?”

  Silo’s gaze shifted over the entire courtroom, from the judge to the jury, over all those who sat in the courtroom. He shook his head. Phoebe’s heart fell.

  Mary Coffin

  14 December 1661

  I have not said no to Eleazer, which makes him feel greatly encouraged. Nathaniel has not stopped by the store in weeks, which makes me feel greatly discouraged.

  15 December 1661

  I saw Nathaniel and Elizabeth together today, walking toward the Macy house.

  I have decided to accept Eleazer’s proposal. ’Tis a wonderful thing to be loved and admired by a man.

  20 December 1661

  Today Eleazer happened to mention that we will have to wait thirteen months before we can marry. I asked him why, and he said that his father wants him to wait until his sixteenth birthday.

  Mercy!

  I had no idea he was younger than me. By three years! He is so tall and smart and amusing and full of plans and ideas, and besides, he is growing side-whiskers. I knew he was young but I did not think he was that young.

  A boy has much growing up to do before he pledges his life to another. Eleazer says he would never regret it, but I do not feel peace about saying yes. How can I pledge my life to a boy-husband? He wants me to think on it and pray on it. And then to say yes.

  Here I sit in the quiet of my store, trying to think of a way out of this mess I am in.

  23 December 1661

  Nathaniel Starbuck found out that Eleazer wants to marry me. I don’t know how he found out, but I suspect Mother was the source. She fears Eleazer will turn me into a Baptist.

  This afternoon Nathaniel marched into the store and said to me, “Are you going to marry that boy?”

  I told him that it was none of his business. He has made that perfectly clear to me.

  He puffed out his chest and said that it certainly was his business. He said that there was no way I could consider marrying a man I did not love, not when I loved another man.

  I told him that it wasn’t so much about whom I loved, but that I wanted to BE loved. I wanted a man to love me the way Sachem Autopscot loved Wonoma. He looked very confused. I sighed and explained that I wanted a man to love me with his whole heart.

  “But, Mary Coffin,” he said, in a loud voice, the loudest I have ever heard him, “I do! I do love you with my whole heart.”

  “You have an odd way of showing it,” I said, in just as loud a voice. “I would not think you cared a lick for me, the way you treat me sometimes. Ignoring me. Seeing Elizabeth Macy . . . and don’t think I don’t know.”

  His eyes got glassy and his cheeks went red. “Mary,” he said. “I am not like you. I don’t have the words you have.”

  “You have plenty of words when you have something to say.”

  He shook his head. “Not those words. Book words. I never learned how to read. I struggled as a boy and I struggle now. I fear it’s too late. I’ve been trying to learn. Elizabeth Macy has been trying to teach me. But I can’t seem to learn.”

  Hold on. My mind started racing. “That’s why you’ve been spending time with Elizabeth?”

  He nodded. He looked miserable. “I know you deserve a husband who can read and cipher. I can’t do either.”

  “But you tried?”

  “I’ve been trying for over a year. Ever since that day on the beach. The day when a ship went down, and the sailor had me rescue his reading pigeon.” He took a step closer to me. “Do you remember it?”

  “I remember.”

  He reached out for my hands and squeezed them. “Don’t marry Eleazer. I’ll keep working at reading, Mary. I’ll keep trying.”

  In that moment, I realized that Nathaniel Starbuck did love me the way Sachem Autopscot loved Wonoma. I don’t think there’s anything more dear to a man than his pride, his dreadful affliction. Nathaniel may not have risked his life for me, but he has risked his pride. And that is enough for me.

  I think, nay, I know, ’twill be a wonderful new year ahead.

  24

  20th day of the twelfth month in the year 1767

  The door to the courtroom opened and in walked the burly constable with a firm grip on Hiram Hoyt’s arm. Zacchaeus marched Hiram Hoyt up to Judge Coffin and whispered something to him.

  “I was getting the information of the barrel count from the countinghouse for the little lawyer, ’tis all!” Hiram said, loud enough for all to hear.

  Ezra’s clear voice filled the room. “Silo, I ask thee once again, is the man who killed the captain in this courtroom?”

  Silo stood up, lifted his thin arm, and pointed right at Hiram Hoyt. A hush fell over the entire courtroom.

  Phoebe’s heart began to thunder with excitement. Matthew turned to catch her eye. His entire face lightened with hope.

  Hiram Hoyt charged the witness stand. “God’ll strike thee dead!” Reflexively, Silo cringed and covered his head with his arms. The
constable leapt forward and grabbed Hiram before he reached out to choke Silo.

  “’Twas an accident!” Hiram spun around to look at Sarah, whose face was ghostly white. He blinked three times, opening and closing his mouth. “Sarah, m’ love, ’twas an accident! I was trying to get his blessing on us!” He whirled to face the judge, panic in his voice. “We want to be married, Sarah and me, and I figured the time was right to tell the captain after he abandoned that one”—he pointed to Phoebe—“but the captain, he refused me! Said he’d never allow it. I wasn’t good enough for his daughter, said he. Said my skin color was all wrong. But I knew what he’d done with that one”—again, pointing to Phoebe—“I knew about Silo, I knew about the other wife, about the Pearl. This Lindeza—she lives like a queen down there in the Bahamas. Lives in a mansion, has servants. She wove some kind o’ spell on the captain. He went barmy over her, wasn’t thinking clearly. He gives her everything she wants, but she keeps after him for more. She’d threatened to tell Sarah about the two of them, about Silo. That’s why the captain took Silo on as cabin boy. To keep an eye on him, y’ see.”

  Then his face grew purple and he choked out disconnected words. “And then”—he looked at Phoebe—“he takes another wife! It might’ve worked if this one would’ve stayed in Nantucket, but no, she sweet-talks him into sailing along on the Fortuna! He thought he could manage it all, could get away with it. He’s the captain, after all. I warned him, time and time again, the sea always wins. The sea always wins. She’s a jealous mistress.

  “And then that one”—pointing right at Phoebe—“he said she’d be easy to manage, being so young. But she weren’t. If she wasn’t hurling into Cook’s pots, she was trying to reform the crew. ’Twasn’t long before the captain realized he’d made a terrible mistake, letting her tote along. That’s why he left her on the island.

  “I just held my tongue. I’d been nothing but loyal to the captain, all through the years. I did all his bidding. All his dirty work. Never questioned his orders. But then, when he refused me his blessing to marry Sarah—I told him I would tell it all, back in Nantucket. I was trying to . . . to . . .”

  “Blackmail him,” Ezra volunteered.

  “Nay! Nay. I was trying to make the captain hear me. But he wouldn’t! Wouldn’t even look at me. Told me to get off his ship and stay off. I grabbed him . . . just to scare him . . . and we wrestled, and then he tottered and toppled and . . . and fell . . . hit his head on the corner of his desk. And then he . . . he lay still, blood oozing from his ear. I didn’t mean to kill him! ’Twas an accident!” Hiram looked to the judge, pleading. “Judge, y’ have to believe me.” His voice drizzled to a whisper. “’Twas just an accident.”

  Ezra didn’t let up. “And yet thee accused Matthew Macy of the crime. Right here, under affirmation, thee said he was the murderer, that he fled the ship. That thee would see him hang at Gallows Field.”

  Matthew stood up, anger pouring out of him. “After stealing from the Pearl! The ambergris! Every last barrel! Over two years of the crew’s hard work . . . and you helped yourself to it all and sailed away.”

  Ezra pushed Matthew back down in his chair.

  “It weren’t like that!” Hiram looked at Matthew in utter shame. “We’d had dreadful poor luck on the voyage, hardly more than a few whales caught and captured, and then we came across the Pearl, foundering. Listing on her side. She was going under at high tide, that was clear. The captain didn’t plan on stealing from the Pearl. In a way, your own father gave us the idea. Your father, he refused to leave the ship. He told us he would rather die on the ship than abandon it and leave this earth as a coward, for his boys to think their father a lowly coward. Here was the Pearl, a belly full of barrels”—he lifted one palm, then another—“and then there was the ambergris. The ship was deserted, there was no sign of the crew, and your father wouldn’t come with us. It was too good to be true.”

  Phoebe’s hands clutched Libby’s.

  “Pride, pride, pride,” Libby whispered, tears running down her cheeks. “That stupid, prideful, wonderful man.”

  Ezra wasn’t finished. “Hiram Hoyt, I ask thee . . . did Matthew Macy kill Captain Phineas Foulger?”

  Shame-faced, Hiram Hoyt looked up at the judge. “Nay. Matthew Macy did not kill the captain.” He hung his head. “I did.”

  Phoebe stopped breathing. The entire courtroom fell in a hush, all eyes fixed on the judge.

  The judge banged once on his gavel. “Constable, take Mr. Hoyt out of the courtroom and lock him up.”

  Before Zacchaeus reached the door with Hiram in his grasp, Hiram stopped and turned to look at Sarah, who was sobbing steadily. “I always thought the captain was a little barmy over women. Risking everything for them.” He let out a deep sigh. “But then, I’ve gone and done the same thing.” Sadly he added, “The sea, she always, always wins.”

  The judge turned to Matthew. “Because of the confession of Hiram Hoyt under affirmation, thee is declared innocent in the court of England of the death of Captain Phineas Foulger.”

  And with that, the bailiff presented a pair of white gloves to the judge. A Nantucket tradition, signifying the purity of a court having no criminal cases on the docket.

  Pandemonium broke loose. Matthew spun. Phoebe clapped her hands over her mouth and started crying. She had a single thought . . . to reach him.

  Phoebe woke before dawn to head up Cliff Road to the great live oak tree, Granny Joan’s sacrosanct tree, in the Founders’ Burial Ground. Although it was First Day, a day meant to be set apart from physical labor, she took a shovel with her, along with the treasure chest of Spanish silver. She did not think God would mind so very much if she bent the rules, just for today, for a very good reason.

  She dug and dug in the soft sandy soil, dug to bury the treasure deep, as deep as Mary Coffin and Eleazer Foulger had once buried it, in the very same spot. There it would remain, save a few coins that had arrived in a timely manner, until the next descendant of Great Mary was in need. She had tucked a note in an envelope, to lie along with Mary and Eleazer’s notes:

  A bit of silver was used in the year 1767 to protect the innocent.

  ~Phoebe Starbuck

  It had puzzled her for a long while why the captain was so eager to find this treasure. It wasn’t until Hiram Hoyt filled in the missing gaps about Lindeza and her lust for finer things, coupled with Sarah’s appetite for opulence, that she realized the captain’s extravagant lifestyle was all smoke and mirrors.

  Last night, she had wrapped the journal up snug and tight in a linen sack and set it in a barrel in the cellar. It had served its purpose for her, and she felt satiated. The rest of Great Mary’s story could wait for some other wisdom seeker. But before she set it deep in the barrel of sand—to keep it from deteriorating—she had held it close against her and whispered thanks to her great-grandmother. “Mary Coffin, thee has become a Weighty Friend to me.”

  As dawn lit the sky, she tamped down the sod and prayed for rain to cover it up. Even better, snow. She would need to rush home to dress for Meeting. She did not want to risk tardiness today of all days. For today, Matthew Macy was going to officially apologize for his irreverence and be reinstated back into the Friends’ membership. He was ready to swallow his pride. “Apart from dyspepsia,” he told her wryly, “it brings me great peace.”

  Phoebe hurried back down Cliff Road as the sun started to rise over Nantucket Island. It was a new day, a new year, a fresh start, and her heart felt full to bursting.

  Epilogue

  Silo Foulger set sail for the Bahamas, to join his mother Lindeza and his new sibling, after the court of Nantucket Island awarded him half of the estate of Captain Phineas Foulger. It did not end up to be much more than his fare to Nassau, as the court reimbursed the crew of the Pearl for the stolen ambergris and oil, and sold off 28 Orange Street to pay off creditors. However, true to his nature, Silo had expected nothing, thus was very content with his inheritance.

  His departure w
as a sad day for all, particularly Jeremiah, for they thought they would not see Silo again. It turns out they were wrong, as Silo’s talent for scrimshaw became world renowned, thanks to help from Ezra Barnard. Seven years later, he returned to Nantucket Island as a famous Island scrimshander. He purchased 28 Orange Street. He brought with him his little sister, Angelica Foulger. Their mother, Lindeza, chose to remain in the Bahamas.

  Greatly helped along in the legal process by Ezra Barnard, and in the science of refining by Matthew Macy, Barnabas Starbuck was able to take out a patent for his process of refining spermaceti oil into making candles (’tis all in the pressing, they discovered). Barnabas and Ezra partnered to build the first chandlery on Nantucket Island. It was, at long last, a success for Barnabas.

  For the remainder of her days, Sarah Foulger made her residence with one relative to another to another—a large circle, as she quickly wore out her welcome. She would not leave the house except for First Day Meeting. Hiram Hoyt, after confessing to the murder of Captain Phineas Foulger, was hanged at Gallows Field. Sarah chose to never acknowledge her half-siblings, Silo and Angelica.

  One year after the hanging of Hiram Hoyt, on a sunny First Day in June, Phoebe Starbuck and Matthew Macy were married at the meetinghouse. They lived in the Centre Street saltbox where Phoebe had grown up, and raised a large family—three boys and four girls. Matthew continued to work in his cooperage, teaching the art of barrel making to his sons. His brother, Jeremiah, joined him in the business, until he turned sixteen and set off on a whaling voyage of his own. A bittersweet day for Matthew. A bitter day for Jeremiah’s mother. She knew she would not see her boy again. Unlike Silo’s return to Nantucket, she was correct in her prediction.

  Phoebe never set foot off the island again. Not even in a dory. She ran a dry goods store out of her home. Other women took hold of Phoebe’s example and ran shops and businesses on Centre Street while their husbands were off chasing whales around the world. It wasn’t long before Centre Street became known as Petticoat Row.