AT 29 (16 page)

Melba and her mother planned the celebration carefully. Much of the food was brought in from Boston. The flowers, hard to find once summer passed, had been gently preserved since spring, but most important to Melba was the music she had chosen. It was comprised entirely of Nathan's creations.

Apart from the captain and his family, along with the sailors who had shipped with Nathan over the years, no one had ever heard his music. True, there were whispers among the islanders about the beautiful sounds coming from the parlor in the house, but few linked the music to this tall man from far off Australia who spent occasional winters with them, waiting for the next voyage. As the day passed, his enchanting songs dominated the festivity.

To the young composer, so happy to be married to the only woman he could ever love, hearing his songs played by others was a humbling experience. He found himself bewildered as he was paraded onto the parlor floor to dance with his new bride. Even as they moved gracefully among the other dancers, he was engrossed in his music. It seemed to him that these could not be his songs. Until then they had only been heard on a single instrument, his fiddle or her piano, or sometimes, just on his flutes. Now, they were arranged among ten different instruments, blended together. It was not an orchestra, yet the room filled with a sound so breathtaking to his ears that he almost lost his composure. Melba looked into his eyes as they glided through the room, suddenly afraid that she had made a mistake. She sensed his emotion and feared that he was angry with her for the first time. He quickly saw the uncertainty on her face and summoned a smile.

That evening the captain took his wife's hand and gathered everyone together, encircling the bride and groom at the center of the room. In halting words filled with emotion, he described how Nathan had come onto his ship, an unskilled boy that he never expected would one day become a part of his home and family. He explained that Nathan had learned more about whaling in a few short years than even he, the captain, had learned in the same time. He carefully avoided mentioning that day in Amsterdam when the boy's strength and courage won the respect of his fellows, but he alluded to it in a glowing tribute to Nathan's skilled leadership as first mate. He looked upon his daughter with a hint of tears and talked about her stunning beauty. He catalogued all of the attributes that made his little girl the joy of his life, her smile and laughter, her enthusiasm, fair mindedness and devotion to all that was good. Then he announced that he was retiring from the sea, his wedding gift to Nathan and his daughter to be his ship. Nathan would take his place as captain on the next voyage and many more to come as he
sought his fortune so that one day he could build his own great house on Nantucket Island.

Four months later, as spring approached, Nathan Whitehurst took the helm as the youngest whaling captain ever to set sail out of Nantucket. Unable to bear the thought of separation, Melba packed two trunks with her most cherished possessions. They were delivered to the ship by carriage and carefully hauled upon deck. For weeks she had argued with her mother and father who staunchly fought her intention to join her new husband on the perilous sea. In all his years as a whaler, the captain had never taken a woman aboard ship. It was no place for the fairer sex. The work was dirty, odorous and grueling. The oceans did strange things to people, not just physical ailments like the sickness, but mental tortures, driven by long days of empty boredom and loneliness.

Nathan had his misgivings as well, but in his heart he felt the same desire to be with her as she with him. A few short months of married bliss was not enough to keep his passion in check. In the absence of strong opposition from her husband, Melba would not be dissuaded.

As the ship moved out of the harbor, the newlyweds stood at the stern and watched the town gradually fade. The night before Melba had stayed alone in the parlor for hours. For as long as she could remember her piano had been her dearest possession, her consolation and her joy. She caressed its keys, knowing that she faced many months before she would make music from it again. Nathan stayed apart from this ritual. He understood her thoughts, and he vowed to bring her back to that room and her most cherished pursuit, safely. The captain stood at the dock, hand in hand with his wife, motionless as the ship rounded Brant Point. Both couples felt a strange uncertainty about this farewell, so unlike any that had come before.

By mid-voyage, eight months later and somewhere south of the equator, Melba confided in Nathan that she was pregnant. She had not adjusted well to the sea. Accustomed to good food and steady legs on shore, she was immediately taken with seasickness that reduced her weight and brought a gray hue to her formerly immaculate complexion. Nathan worried over her day and night, even hugging coastlines where the water was calmer and putting into shore more often than was common when hunting whales.

Her pregnancy brought terror to his emotions. After two more months of watching Melba grow weaker and weaker, even losing interest in the music her husband brought forth from his flutes and fiddle, Nathan gathered his crew and announced his intent to bring her to a safe harbor. He told the men that he would pay them what they were owed and he promised to find other ships for them to join. Then he set course for the closest destination where there were two people he trusted to care for his wife, Apollo Bay.

The ship arrived six weeks later, laden with the spoils of a good hunt. Nathan was an able negotiator and quickly found buyers eager to take the oils and bones that had accumulated. Most was simply hauled aboard other ships bound for Japan where the Far East market was best. He didn't care. His prime concern was Melba who had become so weak that she could barely walk. He dispatched one of his crew to his stepfather's farm with instructions to return with a carriage. When it arrived Nathan carefully carried his wife from her berth and, with the aid of his stepfather, gently placed her on the carriage seat where his stepmother took her into her arms and held the pregnant woman's feverish head to her breasts. All three feared for Melba's life.

A doctor was brought in from Geelong, a larger nearby town, to examine her condition and make certain that all was well with the baby. He left instructions for fresh fruits and vegetables to be consumed as often as possible. Rest, better food and the soft air of Australia worked wonders and four months from giving birth, Melba rallied. Color returned to her face and she regained the vivaciousness that so many found captivating. Nathan's stepparents were enthralled with the girl from Massachusetts. His stepmother doted on her every whim, even demanding that Nathan purchase a piano from Melbourne. Three weeks later, it was transported to the cottage so she could play again. Nathan finally relaxed, knowing he had done right to halt his hunt. Soon, they were back at work on his music, happy again as they awaited the baby's arrival. From her trunk, Melba took out the packet of songs. There were many others in her husband's mind. She set a goal to put each one to paper by the time the baby was born. She intended to play them for their child.

Each evening after dinner, they labored on the music. Nathan sounded out the notes on her piano as Melba vigorously drew their symbols on musical bars and graphs that only she and others who were properly trained could read. No matter to Nathan. His only interest in this exercise was Melba. He reveled in making her happy. And, as her spirits lifted, he was overjoyed. His mind brimmed with inspiration. In the afternoons when Melba napped, he took his fiddle and ventured into the field where he found a comfortable place to sit and sound out new tunes.

Once each week he returned to his empty ship moored in the bay. Despite his comfort with the decision to bring Melba to his home in Australia, he was restless. The captain had underwritten this voyage with the understanding that he would be paid back with some of the spoils of the hunt. He knew Melba's father awaited the ship's return to Nantucket. Nathan, for his part, was intent upon devoting his earnings to the construction of a house, like the captain's, on Nantucket. He and Melba had already selected the tract of land they would buy high on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic in ‘Sconset'.

He surveyed every inch of the whaler, inspecting it for improvements that must be made. He noted other ships as they came and went. Many were under sail like his, but he was intrigued by the increasing number that chugged in and out of the bay under the power of steam. Occasionally, he'd come across one of these ships out at sea in the whaling grounds. His vessel could not match their speed and maneuverability. He knew that for every whale he took, these new powerful ships took three. He worried that this new technology was making his barque obsolete.

He spent part of his time in the little village that rose above the bay. Here, he joined with other sailors whose ships were holed up in the water for repairs or simple layovers until it was time to move on. Whenever he encountered the captain of a steamship, he carefully queried him about engines and fittings. Some of the ships were not new, resembling his own, but somehow fitted with the technology he increasingly deemed essential for the future. Many of the comments he heard were complaints about the constant noise and grit that enveloped the vessel. Still, those he engaged spoke glowingly of the freedom to move across the seas regardless of wind. Wood was the primary fuel, but a few ships, mostly from America, were fired by coal. Nathan gave considerable thought to what he learned. Whaling was his livelihood and he meant to stay current.

On a hot January morning, Melba gave birth to a healthy baby boy. The initial appearance of the crying child matched more with Melba than Nathan. His hair was light, almost white with hints of the fiery red that would eventually become its color. His feet were large for a tiny infant. The midwife announced, confidently, that he would grow to be a big man like his father.

Within days, Melba was up and about, tending to her child with the same devotion she gave her husband. Both parents were filled with happiness, although for different reasons. Melba gloried in her motherhood. She was deeply proud that she could give Nathan a healthy child. She intended to have more and certainly a girl in the future, but she was thrilled that their first child was a boy. Nathan knew little about children, having had no friends as a child and encountering few, except for Melba's younger siblings. He expected the bond with his son to come when the boy was older. Nathan's joy came from watching his precious wife every time she took the baby into her arms. That was more than enough for him. They named the child Aaron.

With his wife and son healthy and safe, Nathan earnestly turned his attention to his interrupted voyage. He had money from the first leg out of Nantucket. He determined that its best use would be to outfit the ship with a steam engine so that it could compete with the other vessels. In truth, it was becoming harder to find whales in the traditional hunting grounds. Two centuries of whaling had brought the populations down, even as more and more ships set to sea. He knew he must go farther south and north to find his prey. Steam could get him there faster, not to mention bring him quickly back to Melba and Aaron.

He found an engine when an old merchant ship limped into the bay after a severe storm. With its main mast broken and debris littering the deck, the wrecked vessel's captain and crew disembarked, vowing never to return to the sea again. Onlookers marveled that the cracked hull held long enough to bring them to safety. Even as the ship was tied to its mooring, it began to list slightly at its stern, water slowly seeping into the hold. Bidding for salvage began immediately.

Nathan, being bigger than others who sought the captain's attention, pulled the man aside to make a deal for the engine. In the village he was directed to the vessel's machinist mate. The sailor was already drunk only hours after arriving onshore, but Nathan communicated well enough to hire him to disassemble the engine and install it on his own ship moored not far away. With the proper tools and a sober machinist, the job was done in a month.

Aaron Whitehurst was three months old when his father gently kissed him good-bye in the makeshift nursery on the first floor of the farmhouse. Melba left the baby with Nathan's stepmother so she could accompany her husband to the dock and see him sadly off. She was not superstitious, but she distrusted these engines that propelled all the newer ships. Growing up on Nantucket, she had heard stories of mysterious explosions. She had an uncomfortable feeling.

Nathan was excited. He and his new crew had taken the ship into deeper waters more than a dozen times. There, among the waves, they put the exotic engine to test, making sure its fittings were secure and the old timbers comprising the hull could withstand the increased pressures of the belching machine. A smokestack had been pieced together, reaching upward through a hole just aft of the square-rigged sails. He
located a source of coal twenty kilometers inland and several tons were carted to the ship by wagon.

He pressed Melba's hand as they kissed good-bye. Her lips lingered on his with the understanding that it would be many months before she would feel them again. Their love had grown stronger since the departure from Nantucket. Melba felt secure in the man she had accepted. She knew that his devotion to her was unbounded. He saved her life by cutting short his voyage to bring her here to Apollo Bay. In all of their time together he had never shown anger. Instead, he grew more steady and, most of all, loving. True, she was sad to see him off, but she glowed with happiness in her love for him.

The ship moved out of the bay quickly under its new power. Once in the broad sea, Nathan set a course past Van Dieman's land and beyond to the straits south of New Zealand, among the roughest seas in the world. It was late in the season, but he hoped to find whales in the passages as they headed north from the Antarctic. His new crew needed seasoning. Few were experienced whalers with only one harpooner who had successfully withstood the recoil of a powerful bomb lance gun and killed a whale. Nathan knew he would need to descend into the boats with his green hunters if there was to be any chance for a good hunt. He didn't mind because he liked the thrill of trailing these great beasts as they gracefully swam through the water, only yards from the tiny boats that followed.