Authors: Antoinette Stockenberg
But
—
it was not to be.
Nantucket
'
s formal death records dated only to 1843, too late for Ben, if her theory was correct that Ben
'
s death was behind the furor over the rosebush. To trace a death in 1830, she
'
d have to pore through the clerk
'
s genealogy records. Jane did that, but soon discovered that they were filled exclusively with the family trees of the rich and famous of
Nantucket
: Coffins and Gardners, Folgers and Swains, Husseys and Macys. Obviously the Brightmans didn
'
t rate.
All of which Mac, a keen historian, must have known. He might have saved her the trouble, dammit, instead of making easy predictions that she would fail.
Jane vowed to keep looking.
She left the new and
surprisingly
plain
Town
Building
and walked through a moody fog over to the closed Atheneum to check the
li
brary
'
s hours. Staring up at the facade
'
s soaring white columns, all muted in gray mist, Jane was convinced that the old
li
brary held secrets that the new Clerk
'
s office did not. After all,
Nantucket
was fiercely proud of its history. Much of it was out there for all the world to see
—
the captains
'
houses, the cobbled streets
—
but most of it was tucked away on dusty shelves in out-of-print books and monographs and ships
'
logs.
And also, as Jane found out that afternoon, on microfilm. The Atheneum had copies of every issue of the
Nantucket
Inquirer,
the island
'
s newspaper, beginning with the first one pub
li
shed in 1821.
The microfilm viewer was at one end of the downstairs conference room. It was a room of gracious proportions, with large six-over-six windows that let in
li
ght even on a foggy day
li
ke today. The painted half-paneled walls, the ivory and green drapes, the rose and pale green Oriental rug, and the long mahogany table edged in a rope twist pattern would not have looked out of place in some wha
li
ng captain
'
s dining room. Over it all hung a stately bronze chande
li
er, each of its
l
amps surrounded.by a small
li
nen shade.
Even the desk that held the microfilm viewer
—
a nicely turned-out piece of mahogany with heavy brass pulls on its drawers
—
possessed unusual dignity. Jane settled into the deep cushion of the bamboo-style armchair in front of the viewer, determined to search all day if she had to. It was comforting to know that upstairs tea and homey Fig Newtons were set out for anyone who wanted refreshment. The
li
brary was nothing
—
nothing
—
li
ke the impersonal urban versions she was used to.
She began her search for news of Ben and his ship ear
li
er than she needed to, in January of 1828. The first two pages of the four-page weekly format were disappointing, filled with travel sketches, poems, and excerpts from other papers in the region. But on page three Jane found a feature column called
"
Ship News.
"
It contained a
li
st of the week
'
s ship departures and arrivals, and was followed by a kind of nautical gossip column under the heading
"
Memoranda.
"
It was the
"
Memoranda
"
part that intrigued her.
Nantucket
ships sighted all over the world were reported in this section, along with the number of barrels of oil on board so far
—
a kind of stock market report for the islanders, Jane figured. But there was more: Local sightings of ships were noted here,
too,
whether the ship was anchored around the corner waiting for a fair tide, or whether it was wrecked on some nearby rocks and offloading its cargo.
Yes.
This was it, the kind of forum she was looking for. She read through issue after issue, straining to read the fine, crabbed print, focusing with an effort on the sometimes blurry reproduced pages. In a way the search became a journey in itself, as she retraced the routes of the wha
li
ng captains who sailed their ships
—
without electronics, without engines
—
anywhere they chose: to Oahu and Japan, to Portland and to
Li
ma, and to all points between.
Finally, in the December 26 issue of 1829, she found a small mention at the bottom of the
"
Memoranda
"
that sent her heart racing.
Two ships were seen on Tuesday south
of the Vineyard, one a whale ship. They
took pilots a
li
ttle before sunset, and
stood westward by Noman'
s Land. It
could not be determined from Edgar-
town, whether the other was a whale ship
or not.
Jane was absolutely sure that the other
was
a wha
li
ng ship
—
the ship
Chelsea
.
Tremb
li
ng from the shock of recognition, she was thrown back into the seizure
—
there was no other word for it
—
that she
'
d experienced on the roof of
li
lac Cottage.
In this most joyous of seasons
..
.
Yes, she remembered now. Whatever had happened to the
Chelsea
,
it had happened in December, around Christmas. The unknown ship spotted from Edgartown was the
Chelsea
;
it had to be. Logic confirmed it, and intuition, and the sharp throb in her shoulder that was now spreading to her heart.
She pressed her hands over her heart, trying to ease the pain there. She wondered if she was having a heart attack, except that the path of the pain was headed backward. She thought of crying out for help, but it was such a quiet place; she shrank from making a scene.
Wa
s
this
how Judith died then?
she asked herself in a panic.
She didn
'
t have fits and die of convulsions; she simply died of a broken heart?
She sat there for an eternity, clutching her breast, her pain releasing itself in long, ragged breaths. Eventually the pain eased. Finally it went away and with it, her terror. Her mind heard only the distant sound of rol
li
ng thunder, the way it does after a squall has passed.
Jane waited a moment longer, and then with a kind of dreadful, awestruck curiosity, she started the microfilm inching
forward again. Page one ... page two ..
. page three.
She shuddered and let out a deep sigh. It was as she thought. The
Chelsea
,
loaded with twenty-three hundred barrels of oil, had run up on a bar off
Nantucket
in heavy weather. The cargo had been offloaded, the paper announced, and salvage operations were underway. In the
immediate aftermath of the grounding, several members of the crew were known to be lost. It was not explained how they were lost
—
or who they were.
Dismayed, Jane searched frantically for the obituary column. Under the simple heading
"
Died
"
were
li
sted several names of people who
'
d died either on the island or off, but there was nothing at all about a
Ben Brightman. Nothing at all.
****
"
I suppose you could call it a good-news, bad-news kind of thing,
"
Jane confessed to Cissy over pizza and beer that night. (She had to tell someone. She knew that Cissy, of everybody, would be
li
eve her.)
"
The good news is that I don
'
t seem to be insane. The bad news is that I may die of fits at any time.
"
Jane tried to laugh off her fear, but the truth was, she was as frightened as she
'
d ever been in her
li
fe. All of what had happened so far
—
the nasty tricks around the house, her frightening dreams, even the
"
presence
"
that had set off Buster
—
was nothing compared to these possessions of her by Judith.
"
I don
'
t know, maybe I
'
m developing multiple persona
li
ties,
"
she confessed, pressing a loose piece of pepperoni onto her s
li
ce of pizza.
"
Maybe I
am
losing it. Maybe it
'
s the stress of not having a job.
"
"
That
'
s crazy,
"
Cissy argued, refil
li
ng her glass.
"I've
never had a job. Do I look stressed?
"
Jane looked across Bing
'
s breakfast counter at his sister and snorted good-naturedly.
"
The other bad news
—
and it is bad news
—
is that I don
'
t actually have proof that Ben Brightman died in the grounding of the
Chelsea
.
The paper never mentioned his name.
"
"
Oh, you
'
ll find it. Maybe someone kept a diary back then.
"
"
Cissy, it
'
s not as though there
'
s a Diary Mart on
Nantucket
,
"
Jane explained patiently.
"
Working through any archives and private collections could be a monumental task. Scholars get awarded Ph.D.s for tracking down stupid
li
ttle details
li
ke this. I couldn
'
t possibly
—
"
"
Did you check the following week?
"
Cissy suggested, brightening.
"
Maybe they were late getting his name in.
"
"Um. Well. Actually,
no. I was so rattled. Hmm. I
'
ll have to do that.
"
"
Isn
'
t this great? We
'
re
li
ke a team or something,
"
Cissy said, beaming. She nibbled her way through a long piece of stringy cheese and added,
"
I
'
m really, really glad you confided in me, Jane. I mean, what you
'
re going through is just so cool.
"
"
Oh, absolutely,
"
Jane said dryly.
"
That
'
s what I was thinking.
"
Jane eyed the last s
li
ce of pizza, then thought better of it. She didn
'
t want any dreams of any kind tonight, and that included those induced by heartburn.
"
We have to have a plan,
"
said Cissy. She reached around the counter to a side shelf and brought out
Nantucket
'
s very s
li
m phone book.
"
We
'
ll hire a professional, and
she
'
ll
get Judith to tell us what to do.
"
She turned to the yellow pages under
"
Mediums
"
and then under
"
Spiritua
li
sts
"
with no luck.