Miss Whittier Makes a List

by Carla Kelly

  She lay there, her hands in tight fists, willing herself dead. In a terrible flash, she understood finally why Andrew Lease could drop a lighted match in his medicine satchel filled with gunpowder. Love gone was deadly pain, and she groaned as it bowed her to the ground. She waited for death to release her, but it did not. After a time, the pain was augmented by the most exquisite urge to flee from Daniel Spark’s house, even if she had to walk all the way to Portsmouth.

  She was out of bed then and in the dressing room, reaching with numb fingers for her dressing case. She only needed a few dresses, a nightgown, and a cloak for the journey. In a moment, she was dressed warmly and the dressing case was full, but not too full. She could carry it across the fields until she came to the village and the mail coach that stopped early in front of the inn.

  She started to draw on her gloves, then looked around the room again and stopped to make her bed. Thee is not entirely dead to duty, Hannah Whittier, even if thee is silly and impulsive and a dreadful nuisance. Shark chum. She covered her mouth with her hand, wishing she were outside so she could throw up into the bushes and be done with it. She fought down the nausea and pulled on her gloves.

  She left her door open, fearing to make any more noise than needful. She knew the stairs well enough to skip the squeaky treads. She had trouble lighting a candle in the bookroom because her hands would not stop shaking, but she finally managed to put the match to the wick. Using the tiny light, she found the pile of coins that Daniel was accumulating in a jar by the window. It would be enough for the mail coach, and he said he had already booked passage, so she need not fear that expense.

  Dawn was coming as she let herself out of the house. She traveled the lane swiftly, looking back once, and then turning away as tears finally blurred her eyes. Thee cannot cry, she told herself over and over, and it became the cadence that got her across Daniel Spark’s fields ripe for harvest, to the village, and onto the mail coach bound for Portsmouth.

  To her inexpressible agony, Portsmouth next day was full of naval officers in uniform. To her further distress, one of them was Mr. Futtrell. The distress lasted only long enough for him to call her name in surprise. For the second time in her life, she fell into his arms, but this was different from Lisbon. Her tears wouldn’t come, and she could only shiver and shake her head at his questions. She finally managed to gasp, “He told me he doesn’t love me.”

  Mr. Futtrell stared at her, his eyes wide with disbelief, then gathered her close. “I told him it was no life for a woman,” he said finally, his voice filled with remorse. “I am sorry. Hannah.”

  She stood in his embrace until she felt strong enough to remain on her feet by herself. “I am to sail on the Bonny Jean. Can you take me there?”

  He took her dressing case in one hand and tucked her hand under his elbow. “I always seem to be rescuing you from docks,” he said, and she was aware enough of what she owed him to manage the wan smile he was so desperate to see. “There you are, my dear. Come on. It’s not much farther.”

  She almost gasped with relief to hear the stringent Yankee accent so like her own as Mr. Futtrell introduced her to Captain Josiah Trask from Boston. She must have looked as sick as she felt, because the captain took her right on board, barely giving her time to say goodbye to Mr. Futtrell.

  “We’ll sail tomorrow, Miss Whittier,” Captain Trask said. “Tide’ll be right then.” He rubbed his jaw as he walked her along the dim companionway. “I can’t say I’ll be sorry to kiss this place goodbye. Here you are. If you need anything, just ask.”

  She dropped her dressing case and sank onto the narrow berth. The blanket smelled of ship’s mold and wood, and very faintly of tar. The tears came then.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Hannah Whittier celebrated her eighteenth birthday at sea, wrapped in her cloak and sitting on the deck grating, watching the mountainous waves throw the Bonny Jean up and down its troughs. The other passengers were below, suffering through various levels of seasickness, and she knew the crew wondered at her endurance. She said nothing to enlighten them on her own late career with the Royal Navy.

  She eyed the lookout several times, wondering what they would think if she climbed the rigging and sat there. It was far above the deck and away from everyone—not that her mind would be any clearer for its distance from others. Even after a month at sea, she could not put consecutive thoughts together without hearing Daniel Spark’s carefully spaced words, “I do not love you.” She dreaded sleep, because it only meant the words repeated endlessly, the articulation so relentless that it woke her, shivering, into a night sweat.

  Hannah stared out at the gray water, deckled with white caps that marched in endless rows across the whole face of the ocean. I have learned so much since June, she thought. I can pick oakum, climb a rigging, spy for ships, help patch broken bodies, and I discovered that I love a man’s touch. I have also learned that it may be entirely possible to die of heartbreak. She welcomed the idea, knowing it was far superior to living another sixty or seventy years without Daniel Spark. She bore him no ill will for his declaration. Obviously she had mistaken the depth of his feelings for her. He couldn’t have been more plain in his rejection of her love.

  And now she was eighteen. “Happy birthday, Hannah Whittier,” she said. If she were home, she would have her birthday dinner served on the special red plate, and it would be all her favorite foods. She frowned. What was the mealshe used to like so much? She could not remember. Papa would honor her by reading the Bible verses that told of Hannah, beloved wife of Elkanah, and mother of Samuel. Beloved wife. “Oh, God, I cannot bear it,” she said, her voice loud. She looked around quickly, to be sure that no one heard, but her cry was carried away by the wind that blew toward England.

  She followed her usual pattern and did not go below until dinner, which she ate in silence, or pushed around her plate, depending on whether she remembered to tell herself to eat. She must have forgotten to remind herself that night because Captain Trask shook his head at her. “Miss Whittier, you will waste away before we raise Boston, if that is the best you can do.”

  She managed a smile. “Oh, I am as healthy as a horse. I have it on good authority.”

  “Not if you continue your present course,” he argued. “And we have another month at sea.”

  She went to her cabin then, grateful to close everyone out once more. Ordinarily she would go to sleep as soon as she could, hoping to outwit the nightmares. Sometimes it worked; other times she woke before light, her cheeks wet with tears. Tonight would be different, she told herself. She had planned a special event for her birthday.

  The letter from Daniel Spark had come just before the Bonny Jean prepared to tack from Portsmouth Harbor. Someone pushed it under her door as she lay in the berth, staring with dull eyes at the deck above. She recognized Daniel’s precise handwriting, small and up and down from years of writing cramped log entries. She made no move to pick up the letter; several days passed before she did more than walk over it on her way to and from the main deck. When she finally retrieved the letter, she debated one entire evening whether to throw it overboard, then decided against it. That would require the effort of going on deck again, and she was weary. She tucked it in her dressing case under her clo and out of sight. Perhaps in years distant from this one she would look at the envelope and use it as a good lesson in not making mountains out of molehills, if she really needed any reminders. She knew she would never open it. That kind of pain went beyond anything she had the stomach for.

  But as each day dissolved into another one like it, her curiosity grew. She felt anger at first, rage so strong that it left her shaken, when she considered that he felt it necessary to smite her again, this time with words on paper. This emotion was followed by sorrow that he thought her so dense that she needed further explanation. As her birthday neared, she decided she would read the letter, reasoning that it was impossible to feel any worse than she already did. Perhaps if she could begin to make fun of her
own folly, she would recover eventually.

  She took out the much-trampled letter and placed it on her pillow, then turned away, her hands over her eyes, as she remembered his head on her pillow once. After a few minutes, she took a deep breath, sat down in the berth, and picked up the letter. The wax seal was already shattered from all the times she had trod on it. She drew out the letter and held it until the cabin grew so dark that she had to light the lamp.

  By the unstable tight of the swaying lamp, she opened the pages and spread them out. Her heart stopped in her breast as she stared at the salutation. “Daniel, what has thee done?” she whispered. She held the letter closer, reading out loud.

  “Beloved,” she began, her lips scarcely able to form the word. “If I know you as well as I think I do, you are somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic right now, and you have deliberated for some weeks on whether to read this.”

  She looked up from the words. Daniel, thee knows me too well. She looked back at the letter and continued. “Of course, any other woman would have thrown this overboard. Hannah, I am relying upon the fact that you are not like any other woman.”

  Of course I am not, she thought, a wooden smile on her lips. Any other woman would not have flung herself so trustingly at thee. Any other woman would have known better than to believe thee. Put it down to my youth.

  “My conduct last night was inexcusable,” she continued, and nodded in agreement, “but if it had not been dark I could not have said such hurtful things to you. You would have known I did not mean them.” She paused again, feeling an odd buoyancy that bumped against the wall of pain that had formed around her heart. She pulled the letter closer to her eyes, wishing that the sea would be still for a moment so the lamp would stop swaying.

  “As I went about refitting the Clarion in Portsmouth, you were never far from my thoughts. In fact, you consumed me. It’s hard to argue with a harbor master over kegs of salt beef when all you want to do is hurry home and make ferocious love to the woman there.”

  “Daniel,” she said out loud. Her hands started to shake and she could not read the words until she composed herself. “My dilemma is this, beloved. I began to think about your list again, especially that part that seems to be causing us such grief right now. Do I need to write it? He will place my welfare above his own.”

  Why did I ever tell him about that? she asked herself for the thousandth time. Why did I ever think that I could list the qualities of the man I would marry? Was I so stupid once? She returned to the letter.

  “Late one night, when I should have been reconciling the ship’s manifest, it occurred to me that you had created, with that single, innocent stipulation, a dreadful conundrum. It is this: if you place my welfare above your own, you will marry me, because I need you so badly. But if I place your welfare above my own, I will not marry you.”

  “My God!” The words were torn from her lips as she leaped to her feet and threw the letter across the cabin. Just as quickly she dropped to her hands and knees to retrieve it, sitting on the deck because her legs had not the strength to help her rise.

  I belong to the most suicidal of professions, even in peacetime,” she read. “You know, as few women do, how doubly dangerous it is during war. I’ve already outlived the normal life span of a man so long at sea. Every voyage now is like fluttering a red flag in the path of death. I cannot be so callous with your heart, my love. It is because I love you so much that I cannot marry you. I have truly placed your welfare before my own, and this, I believe, is what any woman needs.”

  “Then I was a fool, Daniel,” she whispered. “Why can’t thee be selfish, like other men?”

  She dragged her eyes back to the page. “I hope you will marry someone else, Hannah,” she read. “Whatever you do, and wherever the years take you, please know there was a man who loved you too much to marry you. Yours, now and always, Daniel.”

  Hannah sat where she was, far beyond tears. “Thee has met the only stipulation that matters,” she said, staring down at the letter, “and look what it has done to us!”

  The Bonny Jean docked in Boston’s crowded harbor a month later, in the middle of a snowstorm. She allowed Captain Trask to escort her to Charleston to the house of her uncle, who stared at her as though she had risen from the dead, and then held her in a tight embrace. “My brother will be so pleased thee came to thy senses and did not remain in England,” he said when he could speak. She was up most of the night, telling them the story of the Dissuade, the fight with the Bergeron, and her narrow escape from matrimony. She had not the strength to tell the whole story; that uld keep for Mama’s ears alone.

  In the morning, in a thicker cloak, and with a footwarmer at her toes, she kissed the Whittiers goodbye and went on to Nantucket, where she arrived as night was falling. She was the first person off the ferry and had to be reminded to return and retrieve her dressing case. She smiled her thanks to the ferryman, crossed the gangplank, and found herself on firm ground again. Where I will stay, she told herself, ignoring the pain that washed over her because she was used to it now.

  She thought she would remain unnoticed as she hurried through the snow toward Orange Street, but one man on horseback—was it the postmaster?—recognized her and spurred his horse ahead. When she turned onto her street, Mama was running from the front door, her arms open wide, Papa right behind. With a cry of her own, she dropped her dressing case and was swallowed up in their embrace.

  She was too tired to tell the story all over again, but she did, tucked up in her own under the eaves with Mama holding her hand, and Papa seated close by on a stool. “He broke the engagement, so I came home,” she concluded, looking at her father. She knew better than to look at Mama, who would know there was more, much more, to the story. Papa was content that she had come to her senses. Trust him, by the end of the month, to set forth any number of ideas on a more suitable husband, she thought as she watched the relief settle over his features.

  “My little daughter has returned,” he said and kissed her cheek. “Mama, let us leave her alone to sleep now.” He touched her under the chin, in a familiar gesture from her childhood. “Think how many people will want to hear this story again!”

  She sighed. “Is Adam Winslow about?”

  Papa shook his head. “He is in the Caribbean serving as number one on his uncle’s brig.” He rubbed his chin. “Whatever deficiencies Captain Spark may have as a lover, he certainly taught Adam seamanship! I think if you send Hosea a letter, he will see that Adam gets it when they return from Barbados.”

  “I will do it tomorrow.”

  Mama kissed her fingers, but did not let go of her hand. “Thee will do it when thee feels like it.” She looked up at her husband. “My dear, I will be along in a moment.”

  He left them then, closing the door quietly. Hannah stared straight ahead until Mama took her by the chin and gently turned her face toward the light.

  “I do not believe for a single instant that what thee has told us any resemblance to the actual facts,” she said, her voice soft, her eyes concerned. “Adam told us how much the captain loves thee. What has happened? Can thee tell me?”

  Hannah shook her head. “It can wait until morning, Mama.” She down in the bed and closed her eyes. “I am not going anywhere.”

  When Papa left for the store in the morning to sell a little merchandise and spread the news of her return among all his customers, Mama climbed the stairs to Hannah’s bedroom and refused to leave until Hannah had poured out her whole misery into her lap. Mama’s fingers shook, too, as she read Daniel Spark’s letter. A thoughtful look on her face, she set it aside and took herself to the window.

  “Thee must write to him, Hannah. Thee must tell him font>….”

  “Tell him what, Mama?” Hannah interrupted. “That I cannot live without him? I was willing to give up everything I hold dear for him, and it was not enough. No, Mama, I will not write to him. I will forget him.”

  “Can thee?” Mama asked. I do not think the
e can.”

  “I have to,” Hannah replied.

  Mama looked at her for a long moment, then kissed her. “Very well, Hannah. Thee can try.”

  She did try, and it was a wonderful act that fooled almost everyone. Hannah made herself eat, but it all tasted the same. By sheer force of will she put on weight until her clothes fit again. While Mama was pleased by this outward sign of recovery, she was not content, and told her so one snowy day in January while they kneaded bread on the kitchen table. “Hannah, thee could almost pull off this deception but for one thing,” she mentioned casually as Hannah greased the bread pans and stared out the window at the icicles that hung just above the ground.

  “Thee said something?” Hannah asked, and then realized that her mother had caught her.

  “Precisely, my dear. Thee hears not above one word in ten, and if thee does not go to the east window to stand all evening tonight, as thee has done since returning, I will be amazed!”

  Hannah said nothing.

  “Why the east window, my dear?” Mama asked. ‘The view is nothing but Godspeed Wilkins’ front door.”

  Hannah set down the bread pan. “Because it faces toward England. And if I turn a little south, then I can imagine Daniel cruising off France or Spain. I know it is cold on the blockade. I hope he is warmly dressed.” Her voice was breathless, as though she disclosed too much for her own comfort. Without another word, she lifted her cloak from the hook by the back door and let herself out into the snowy afternoon. She walked to the end of the kitchen garden, ragged now, snow-covered, empty of fruit, bereft of yield. Almost like me, she thought as she stared at the empty cornstalks and listened to them crackle against each other. If thee had married me, Daniel, I would probably be carrying thy child by now. I would have taken such care of this evidence of thy love, and when thee returned from the blockade, we would have such joy.