The Charm School

by Susan Wiggs

  “You of all people know my imperfections, Mama,” he said. “Did you think I was taking Miss Peabody on a pleasure cruise?”

  Lily studied him solemnly, her expression loving yet wary. “It could be, you know.”

  “A pleasure cruise?” He snorted. “Such a thing as pleasure has been outlawed in Boston.”

  “According to the navigation log, we are presently a very long way from Boston,” Isadora said, arriving with a wooden tray.

  Ryan stood, chagrined that she had overheard his comment. “And how far are we from pleasure?” he couldn’t resist asking.

  “Everything was very pleasant indeed,” she said, “until a few moments ago.” She handed Lily and Fayette each a thick china mug. “I added a touch of lemon and honey. If that agrees with you, we’ll try some broth and bread later.”

  He glared at her, but instead of feeling contempt, he caught himself wondering what she was like under all that black-and-brown armor. Did her impressive height come from long legs? Were her breasts full and round, crested with dusky rose peaks? Was her skin soft and smooth to the touch…? Christ. He’d been too long at sea.

  “I hope you find the morning…pleasant, ladies,” Ryan said, exaggerating his drawl and his formal bow. “For me, duty calls.”

  A few days later, below the jibboom, he found that someone had repaired the rigging. He picked up the broad web of rope, noting the precision of the knots.

  “I’ll finish that now,” Isadora said.

  Wordlessly, he handed it to her. Damn. The woman was like a bad rash. She wouldn’t go away. Everywhere he turned, he nearly collided with her.

  “Luigi showed me how to do the mending,” she explained, though Ryan hadn’t asked.

  “It’s a useful skill,” he admitted. What he didn’t admit was that he had noticed her growing camaraderie with each member of the crew. Each one seemed drawn to her, if not charmed by her then at least engaged enough by her natural curiosity to share something with her—a skill, a tidbit of sea lore, a useful turn of phrase. He didn’t know why this was so, but it was. Probably because he was as small-minded and immature as his mother claimed.

  He cleared his throat. “Thank you for looking after my mother and Fayette.”

  For the first time in days, she regarded him directly. She had nice eyes, he realized, now that they weren’t peering over the unneeded thick-lensed spectacles. The color shifted between warm brown and vibrant green.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d admired a woman’s irises.

  “It’s my pleasure to look after them,” Isadora said.

  She was that sort of person, he realized. One who understood human need and derived satisfaction from tending to it. One who would make a wonderful mother.

  A scowl darkened his brow. She had set her cap for Chad Easterbrook, who had no idea what sort of mother she would make. He had no idea what sort of person she was, for that matter.

  “Captain Calhoun?” she said.

  “Since I’ve decided to address you as Isadora, I think you should call me Ryan,” he said.

  “It won’t matter. Because what I was going to say is that it’s clear we don’t get along.” Her hands tightened on the rope. “I bullied my way onto your ship and I refuse to be sorry for that. You, in turn, have been bullying me since we set sail, and you’re not sorry, either.”

  “When you state it that way—”

  “I think it would be better for all concerned if you and I simply stayed out of one another’s way, don’t you?”

  For some reason, he chose that particular moment to remember the way he’d touched her in the galley. She’d struck him as so alone and bereft that he hadn’t been able to help himself. He’d rested his hands on her shoulders, then stroked her arms, and her softness had pleased him. He’d touched her face—this very face that now watched him impassively—and had been terrified that she was going to cry.

  No, this woman wasn’t a weeper. That much was clear.

  “You think we should steer clear of each other.”

  “As much as possible, given the fact that we’re confined to this ship.”

  “I see.” He knew she was right. She was absolutely right. He hated how right she was. “I will agree to this request, but on one condition.”

  “What is that, Cap—Ryan?”

  “That you keep yourself safe. No tottering around on inappropriate shoes, no testing the waters like an old salt, nothing of the sort.”

  “I’m not accustomed to following orders,” she said.

  “Yes, you are. You’ve followed every order and dictate of Beacon Hill society all your life.”

  She caught her breath as if he’d struck her. “You see what I mean?” She shook out the knot. “We must begin our campaign of mutual indifference at once.”

  He sent her a mocking smile, hiding a sense of loss he hadn’t expected to feel. “As you wish.”

  But as the days passed, he found it impossible not to notice her. In fact, his attention sought her out the way a tongue seeks out a sore tooth. He saw her seated on the foredeck with Timothy Datty, patiently repeating sounds and words with him to break his habit of stuttering. At sunup, she and the Doctor were wont to be found at the aft balcony, their lines cast out to troll for fish. Sometimes she helped Luigi with his sail making, insisting that he drill her in lessons to improve her command of Italian.

  The common seamen soon learned she was game for more active duties. On a balmy Wednesday morning, Ryan looked up to see her balanced in the shrouds and bent over a yardarm as she helped Gerald reefing a sail.

  His heart galloping in his chest, Ryan sounded the whistle and bellowed, “Come down from there, Miss Peabody.”

  “I’m busy,” she said.

  “That’s an order.”

  “You ordered me to ignore you, so that is what I shall do.”

  And Ryan Calhoun, who knew better, released a lengthy stream of colorful invective in an obnoxiously loud voice.

  Isadora looked across the web of rigging at Gerald. “Did you hear something? Or was it merely a great gust of wind?”

  Ryan stalked off. In driving Isadora away, holding her at arm’s length, he had propelled her toward the others. Judging by her behavior in Boston, he’d formed the idea that she was a solitary sort, not one to seek company when a good book lay at hand. Now she enjoyed being around people. She liked to talk and loved to listen. And judging by the reaction of the crew, she was damned good at it.

  Even William Click, the moody and secretive second mate, warmed to her. He showed her how to man the pulleys to bring water up from the sea, and sometimes they knelt side by side on the midships deck, doing their laundry. And Ralph Izard, generally circumspect about his personal life, often gave her a turn at the helm as he stood by, sharing his memories of his boyhood in New York City.

  Day by day, man by man, she was becoming their friend, their confidante, their shipmate. She was coming to know them in a way Ryan, as the captain, never could. By virtue of his role, he couldn’t speak to Timothy Datty of the farm he’d left in Rhode Island, to Gerald Craven of his recent trip to New Orleans. Ryan had to hold himself apart from the crew, but Isadora seemed to blossom in their midst.

  On quiet evenings after the supper hour, he would spy her skylarking with the men on the open main deck. She openly and good-humoredly despaired of her skill as a dancer, so the men were determined to teach her to curtsey and dance like an accomplished lady. At first Ryan tried not to pay attention, but lately she seemed to speak louder and laugh more frequently than she had before. She was becoming hard to ignore.

  Chips had carved her a serviceable recorder flute. Before long, she joined in the makeshift ensemble consisting of Journey with his skin drum, Luigi with his fiddle and Gerald with his hornpipes. The music they made was so merry that even his mother and Fayette came above to sit beneath their blankets and tap their feet, trying to forget their persistent misery.

  At least having his mother on deck gave him an e
xcuse to draw close to the festivities. He greeted the ladies and Lily held on to his hand. “When will I ever get my sea legs?” she asked.

  “You should be over the sickness by now.”

  “I’m trying, Ryan. Really I am. We both are. Isadora brings us broth and bread, sometimes even a bit of egg and biscuit. She is an angel, I tell you. Purely an angel.”

  Ryan shot a furtive glance at the “angel.” She held the recorder to her lips, eyes dancing as she picked out the melody of “The Bo’sun’s Wife.” Her slippered foot tapped on the oaken deck. The lowering sun burnished the loose curls of her hair. But Ryan’s gaze kept wandering to her mouth. Full and moist, her lips circled the mouthpiece of the recorder, and at the corners they turned up slightly as if in amusement.

  He watched those lips and the way her nimble fingers played over the openings, making music. Unexpected heat rushed through him, and his thoughts wandered to dark, forbidden places scented by a woman’s musky perfume. He imagined, with startling vividness, the brush of bare silken skin and the softness of smiling lips beneath his own.

  Ryan shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, trying to reel in his thoughts and feeling a tight discomfort in his trousers. When he realized what was happening to him, he muttered something about taking a sounding, and then he walked away.

  Damn it.

  He missed her.

  Eleven

  Aboard at a ship’s helm,

  A young steerman steering with care.

  —Walt Whitman,

  Aboard at a Ship’s Helm

  “Tell me about your family, Journey,” Isadora said.

  Seated across from her at the galley table, he looked up from mending a shirt. The soft blue fabric lay draped over his bony knees, and a faraway expression clouded his gaze.

  She didn’t have long to wonder where he had been in his daydream. He said, “I haven’t seen my Delilah or my babies in four years.”

  Isadora felt each quiet, simple word like a velvet-gloved blow. She’d always known that slavery was an inhuman, unjust institution, but her conviction sprang from reading pamphlets and essays penned by educated men and women.

  By contrast, Journey’s presence, his dignity, his quiet despair, illustrated the point with brutal clarity.

  “Does it disturb you to talk about them?” she asked.

  “Not any more than not talking about them.” He stabbed his needle into the seam of the shirt, a sturdy broadcloth garment commonly worn by all the crewmen.

  Almost all, she reflected, shifting uncomfortably on the bench. Now that they had entered southern climes, she hadn’t suffered from the grippe in days. Yet her corset chafed more than ever. The soft broadcloth would feel wonderful.

  Knowing her mother would call for smelling salts at the very thought of her daughter lowering her standards of dress, Isadora had removed one layer of petticoats. She felt wicked doing so, but much more comfortable. Each day, her attitude relaxed a little more. Her confidence grew a little stronger. It was a wonder, after so many years of trying to press herself into society’s mold, to suddenly suspect that the problem was with the mold, not with her.

  Now, seventy-three miles north of the equator and a little east of St. Paul’s Rocks, she made up her mind to shed another layer or two.

  “Then tell me about your family, do,” she urged Journey, feeling petty for dwelling on her own discomfort.

  He went back to sewing, and his expression relaxed into the dreaminess she’d glimpsed earlier. “Delilah and me, we met at Sunday meeting. She was a sassy thing, always two steps from trouble. But nobody minded, ’cause she sang like a lark in church and had the face of an angel.”

  He smiled, and Isadora wondered what it would be like to have a man smile that way at the thought of her. When he pictured Delilah as an angel, did he mean it literally, with a halo and wings, or was it the love in his heart that gilded her with a special aura?

  She savored the fanciful thought. How singular it was to be a shipmate, she thought suddenly. How easy it was to get involved in their concerns. She found life under sail so absorbing that she ceased thinking about Chad Easterbrook for days on end. She’d added almost nothing to the letter she’d been composing to him, which she intended to send the next time they hailed a ship. Her reports to Abel were perfunctory. Aside from personally attacking her at every turn, Ryan’s behavior had been disgustingly exemplary.

  “So you met in church,” she prompted Journey, eager for the rest of his story.

  His polished, narrow face softened with memory. “Mr. Jared—that was Ryan’s father—always wanted me to marry up with a girl from Albion, but after I met Dee, I wouldn’t hear of it, even though I could only see her on Sundays—on account of her living at another place.”

  Isadora understood what he wouldn’t say. Intermarriage among the slaves of the same plantation insured that a new generation of laborers would come along. The very idea was so outrageous that she could hardly comprehend it.

  “So you were permitted to marry,” she ventured.

  One corner of Journey’s mouth lifted. “Ma’am, one of these days you should ask Ryan how we were ‘permitted’ to marry.”

  She didn’t ask Ryan anything these days. They were both being stubborn about staying out of each other’s way. She was determined that he would be first to breach the silence.

  “We married up when I was sixteen. Dee was fifteen, near as we can tell.” He sewed swiftly, the needle stabbing into the fabric and emerging with a deft rhythm.

  He spoke so casually that Isadora took a moment to realize that slaves weren’t told their birthdays. Of course, she thought. A birthday would humanize a slave, and the system depended on keeping them on the level of chattel or livestock.

  “Then the girls came along—first Ruthie and then Celeste. Ruthie, she’s the prettiest baby in the whole wide world, and no mistake. Celeste, too, I reckon,” he hastened to add. “But I ain’t never seen Celeste. Ain’t never seen my baby girl.”

  He pulled his large hand from beneath the fabric. A dark pearl of blood glistened on the tip of his finger. He put it briefly in his mouth, then removed it to say, “Excuse me, miss. Best go clean this up before I ruin the shirt.”

  Ain’t never seen my baby girl.

  His words haunted the galley like mournful ghosts. After he stepped outside, Isadora walked over to the table and picked up his work. The seam was perfect, with stitches so fine she could barely see them. She ran her hand over the fabric, and somehow she knew that Dee—a woman she didn’t know and would never meet—would give her very soul to mend this shirt.

  When the Silver Swan lay-to a few miles north of the line, a full-moon calm settled over the bark. Yet the seas were rough with Atlantic combers that had been gathering muscle for thousands of miles, all the way from the coast of Africa. Lily and Fayette, who had enjoyed a few days of comfort, descended again in seasick misery to their cabin.

  Isadora, Ryan observed from his splay-legged stance at the helm, seemed to be getting on better than ever. She spent a lot of time on deck or in the galley or chart room, absorbing knowledge and sailor lore like a sea sponge. She moved less awkwardly around the decks, having learned to steady herself with one hand on the rail or rigging.

  She haunted him, appearing out of nowhere and pretending he wasn’t there. As they approached the equator, Ryan stood at the helm once again. He saw her making her way aft, clearly unaware of his proximity.

  She paused to stoop down and scoop up the cat, draping it over one arm and stroking its fur. The new assurance in her movements and posture made a dramatic difference in the way she appeared. Her clothes were not so fussy and fine as those she’d worn in the Beacon Hill drawing room of her parents. Her short hair spilled untidily around her neck and shoulders.

  Yet for all her dishevelment, she looked…different. She carried herself with a new posture and attitude. He found that he preferred a woman in tatters and bare feet who would look him square in the eye to a humble, perfectly
groomed female who shrank timidly from the slightest slant of a glance.

  He was annoyed at her for ignoring him, but at least he respected her.

  At the moment she stood unguarded, pausing to lift her face to the summery sky filled with the lofty billows of high clouds. Lately she hadn’t bothered with bonnet or parasol and she seemed not to notice the effect the wind and sun were having. Her pale skin had taken on a honeyed hue; her hair bore streaks of gold. It was a look Ryan knew her strait-laced mother would term common.

  Yet he had another word for it.

  A high-pitched squeal pierced the air, startling both Isadora and Ryan. She dropped the cat, who scampered under a bumboat. Looking aft, Ryan spied the Doctor with the pig held under one arm, a broad, curved knife in his other hand.

  “Heavenly days,” Isadora murmured, rushing past Ryan. “He’s going to slaughter Lydia.”

  Ryan followed her. “Lydia? You call the pig Lydia?”

  She ignored him. “Doctor! Oh, Doctor, please stop, do!” she called down the decks.

  The cook turned. “What is it, Miss?”

  “You can’t—you mustn’t kill the pig.”

  The Doctor glanced at Ryan. “Porker’s all fatted up. I figured it’s time. Skipper?”

  Ryan looked at the snuffling, struggling creature under the cook’s arm. He looked at the horror and grief on Isadora’s face. “I suppose we could grant the beast a reprieve,” he said offhandedly. “We’re decently close to Rio, and stores are good.”

  “But—”

  “Leave go, Doctor. She grieved for three days over that last chicken you stewed. I can’t abide a whining woman.”

  The next day Ryan spied Isadora shading her eyes to watch Click and Craven tarring the mainmast. The men swung in saddles, their bare legs and bare chests smudged with tar. They paused in their work to wave at her and, grinning, she waved back.