The Ghost of the Mary Celeste (38 page)

Tomorrow the crew arrives—four Germans!

This morning B. was in the registry office again, signing the articles of agreement. In the afternoon our crew came on, four young German men, as like each other as painted wooden dolls; fresh complexions, mops of flaxen hair, bright blue eyes, and strong jaws. They stamp people out from molds in Europe, or so it seems
to me. They are settling themselves in the forecastle as I write. They understand no English but officers’ orders. So I don’t envy Mr. Head, who will have to feed them and rouse them in shifts from their dreams of German girls and German beer and German songs to hot coffee and the call of duty. Oompah, Oompah, Oompah-pah.

The weather is ugly, rain and a chill wind, so we are stuck below. Sophy’s cold is better and she is eating well. She occupies herself with her doll and her blocks and in looking at the album, naming the absent. She asks for Arthur now and then, always with a note of anticipation in her voice, as if she expects him to come in at the door. The way she says his name sounds like “Otter.”

Otter must be missing her as well—he is fond of his little sister, who is as full of energy and joy as he is lacking in both. My poor, shy, serious boy. He wanted to come with us badly, and his father would have taken him, but he’s doing too poorly in school to miss a few months and, saddest of all reasons, there’s just no place to put him aboard ship. So he will stay with his grandmother at Rose Cottage, where there is perhaps too much room. B. insisted on paying his mother for her grandson’s board. I’ve no doubt she’ll soon have him doing chores, as Mother Briggs is great on chores, and perhaps that will give him an appetite and he’ll put on weight. He wept when we left and promised to write to me at least once a week. His grandmother will see that he does that too.

We haven’t left the harbor and already I am hoping for letters.

Our voyage begins by not beginning. We set out this morning in a freshening breeze, but it turned blustery, with such a strong head wind that B. determined we would only be beat about, so we anchored here, scarcely a mile from the city. Sophy is playing with her toys and talking to herself; she is a cheerful companion, and B. is writing a letter to his mother. I have written to Arthur and to my spendthrift brother William, who is squandering his small
inheritance in Philadelphia, though it does sound as if he’s finally found a position at a firm there. We had words after Father died and I attempted to give him some useful advice about handling his finances. He has never much confided in me, but now he is distant, though he did write a sweet note when I sent him a few mementos of our mother, especially a little “eye” box Father left, which Mother had made for him when they were courting. It is a black lacquer box, about the size of a pillbox, containing a perfect painted likeness of our mother’s left eye. I might have given it to Hannah, as she was fascinated by it as a child, but I know Father would have wanted William to have it, and also Mother’s eye might prove too disturbing a subject of contemplation to a nature as fantastical as my sister’s. I am thinking of her much, and never with an easy heart. After Father’s death, she was set on going off to Boston. She had an invitation from one of those awful Spiritualist ladies, who have so much money that they buy themselves young women to use in peddling their vicious religion—which is filling the madhouses, Father believed, and so I told Hannah. I talked her into waiting until we return from this trip, and I begged her to come and live with us then. She agreed to wait, but I fear as soon as we sail she will be in touch with what I suppose must be her preferred companions, both the living and the dead.

When B. and I were on our wedding trip, she ran off—she was barely fifteen. Father, through his contacts, found her within a week—she was staying in a judge’s house, of all things, in upstate New York. Father got on a train, went over there, and brought her home. She had lied to the judge, saying she had no family. Father said, “You may want no family, but you have a family, and one that loves you dearly and prays that you will come to your senses and return our love and trust.” She stayed home then, but not because she’d come to her senses. She just knew our father would find her and bring her back.

This afternoon when I stepped out onto the poop for a breath of rather too fresh air, I thought I must have lost my wits, for I heard a pretty tune drifting toward me from the forecastle. I thought it
must be a flute. When I mentioned it to Mr. Head, he said, yes, it was. One of the Germans had packed his flute in his sea chest and was practicing a few airs. It seems the fellow is bookish as well and has a stack of books in his chest. He plans to make a shelf for them at the end of his bunk.

Mr. Head brought us some nice apples baked with honey and a walnut inside. He makes an excellent hash, which Sophy adores.

B. says he believes we will get outside tomorrow.

Another day spent lolling about at anchor, while the wind and rain have evidently agreed to blow us back to the city to find if we have any mail. It makes me groggy not to walk about, but it makes Sophy more energetic, and she has one fixed idea, which is to get out of our cabin and explore the ship. After dinner I thought to let her wear herself out running the length of the companionway and climbing up and down the steps to the hatch, which she can do handily now. As I opened the door, she shot out past me, and as Mr. Richardson was lying in his bunk with the door open, she burst in upon him, crowing at her own cleverness.

I followed, calling after her, but of course she didn’t answer. When I looked in, Mr. R. was sitting up, having laid his book aside, and Sophy was attempting to crawl up on the chair at his desk. He was smiling at her, somewhat bemusedly, and when I apologized for her intrusion, he said, “Not at all. She’s a welcome visitor,” which I thought a nice bit of politesse. I went in and picked her up, rather hoping she wouldn’t make a fuss about being carried away. “Shall we go and play on the steps?” I said. She knows the word “steps” and nodded in the vigorous way she has, reaching her arms out toward the door, so I set her down and out she ran.

“She’s easily distracted,” observed Mr. R., and I said something to the effect that this was true. I, too, was distracted, because I was looking about the cabin, taking in various bits of information. There
was a letter addressed to Fanny Richardson on the desk. He’d laid the book with its spine turned away so I couldn’t read the title, he had a hole in one of his socks, but most interestingly, as I turned to follow my wayward child, I noticed a round clock screwed to the wall—the oddity of it was that it had no hands and was hanging upside down.

I looked out the door to find Sophy up the steps and trying to shove the hatch open, so I bolted out, waving gaily to Mr. R., who lifted a few fingers from his knee in reply.

Why would anyone hang a clock upside down, even one with no hands? Was it some sort of joke?

At last we have set sail. The Sandy Hook pilot came on early this morning. I scratched off a quick letter to Mother B. and another to Arthur, just to say we were finally off, and the pilot took them when he left us. I should have written to Hannah, but hadn’t time. Mother B. will tell her we are outside. We have a steady breeze and are plowing along nicely. Only two thousand miles to go! B. is in fine spirits, as he always is at the commencement of a voyage, and I noted at dinner that even Mr. Gilling had a bit of color spanked into his cheeks by the fresh air above deck.

The usual duties of the captain’s wife at the beginning of a trip include a thorough scrubbing of the cabin, but that won’t be necessary as this one is as clean as a whistle. I bless the previous owner, who outfitted our quarters with his own family in mind, sparing no expense. The carpet is thick, the windows are tight, the skylight is large and lets in a nice slab of sunlight—Sophy never wearies of looking up at it. The bed is wide enough for us all, and the settee deep enough for a nap.

B. and I are all in all to each other at sea, crammed in a small space with little privacy. It suits us, for if ever two were one, we are one. We grew up almost as brother and sister; in fact, until I was
three Benjamin’s family lived in our house. He held me in his arms when I was a baby. Much that I loved as a child, B. taught me to love, the woods at the back of the cemetery, the walk to the old wharf, the picnics to Ram Island. He was my earliest confidant, and I was conscious that he looked out for me and was always willing to talk with me and calm my babyish fears. When we were older, we were separated. Captain Nathan built Rose Cottage, and B. went to sea when he was twelve. I remember how empty my world was without him, how poorly everyone, save possibly Olie, who loved him as I did, compared to him.

The world intervened, the sea kept us apart, and when we met again, we were shy of each other. He brought me presents from his travels—he brought everyone presents—a silver thimble, the one I still use, a sandalwood tray, a cashmere shawl, a red leather box—for my treasures, he said—a roll of fine French lace to trim my collars. When he was at home, I found excuses to go to Rose Cottage, and many an evening B. strolled over to the parsonage with some message from his mother, which, Father observed, was seldom news to him. Yet, beyond the familial, I wasn’t sure of his affection. He liked to tease me, but never cruelly, and he grew so handsome, so much a man, while I was still a girl, that I was awed by him. When he was twenty, his brother Nathan died at sea and four years later his sister Maria was lost at sea, along with her husband, and then a year after that their little son Natie left this world in his sleep. So B. had that sadness and loss sobering him just as he came of age.

Then, how did it happen? He was at sea. He sent me a drawing; I wrote a foolish poem. When he came home from that trip, my heart was in my throat and his, God bless him, was frankly on his sleeve. How well I remember that first kiss at the garden gate. I raised up on my toes to receive it. I felt his arm about my waist and I shivered. I thought, he loves me; he has always loved me.

Once he told Arthur, “I fell in love with Mother when she was born.”

We were innocents in love, ready to be tested by the world. I had no mother to tell me what to expect on my wedding night,
and I certainly had no wish to consult Benjamin’s, though my poor father—his face crimson with embarrassment—recommended I might. I trusted Benjamin to show me the way. And he did, and so amusingly. How vividly I recall that night.

We faced each other in the bridal chamber, next to the bed neatly made by his mother, covered by the quilt Hannah and I spent the summer finishing. The embroidered pillowcases were Hannah’s wedding present. The long-sleeved cotton gown folded at the foot of the bed was of Mother Briggs’s manufacture.

Benjamin fixed me with his penetrating eyes, carefully unfastening his necktie. “Thus saith the Lord,” he said sententiously. “Remove the diadem and take off the crown.” His expression made me giggle. I pulled the pins from my veil and let it slide to the floor.

“God loveth a cheerful giver,” he said, solemnly removing his shirt.

“Does he?” I said, unfastening the buttons of my bodice.

He pulled off his belt and began removing his trousers with one hand, holding the other before him with the index finger pointing up, in just the way Father does on the pulpit. “Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.”

This bent me over with laughter. “Have you been scouring the Good Book in preparation for this night?” I asked, setting to work on my skirt buttons. When I looked up he was in his woolens.

“Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.”

I dropped my dress to my ankles and stood up in my chemise and crinoline, struggling to keep a straight face.

“Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness.” He pulled his woolen shirt briskly over his head.

“So will I stand,” I said, feeling confident, even saucy. I unlaced the ties on the crinoline and stepped out of it, smiling up at him. Then I unfastened the hooks down the front of my corset and pulled it away.

My husband put his hands on my shoulders, gently pushing
down the straps of my chemise, leaning over to whisper close to my ear, “Let love be without dissimulation.” And then he lifted me up, laid me upon the quilt, and climbed in beside me. “At last, Sallie,” he said, turning to me. “Wedded bliss.”

How many brides, I wonder now, pass their wedding nights convulsed in laughter.

Sophy and I like to walk around the skylight on the house deck, or run around in her case. I could wish the rail were less appealing to those with climbing instincts. I have to watch her every second. If she could, she’d be up in the rigging with the Germans. The wind is brisk and B. says we’re running along nicely at eight knots. I know nothing about the daily business of sailing, though there are some captain’s wives who make quite a point of fiddling with the sextant, taking positions, or offering their views on the trimming of sails. In Havre we met a lady whose husband encouraged her to plot the course, and at Messina we encountered a portly British dame who insisted on pulling lines. My interests do not that way lie, and B. allows that he finds such carrying on repugnant. I can keep pretty busy with looking after Sophy, supervising the pantry, sewing, and playing songs.

Mr. Head is an excellent young man, and I discovered yesterday, when the main cabin and hatches were all open, that he has a fine voice. He sings as he crosses the deck with our dinner. His song was one of Olie’s favorites, “Beware,” and so it made me think of him and wonder where he is—perhaps just behind that last wave aft of us for all we know. We had planned to meet in New York, but his ship was delayed. We kept a lookout for him when we were stuck near Staten Island, but to no avail. We are to meet in Messina, God willing, and have a fine meal at one of the restaurants in that sunny port. It’s a lovely town. We had Arthur with us when last we put in there, and
I recall his hooting with joy at a lady carrying a basket of fish on her head. He thought it was a hat!