Ahab's Wife (67 page)

T
HE AFTERMATH
of the story of Ahab conveyed to us by the
Samuel Enderby,
put in for repairs, brought no lightness to Justice. The next day Justice went down to the wharf, which was all abuzz with the latest news of Ahab (a native son and thus of much interest), told probably not so much by Captain Boomer as by the crew (who all witnessed Ahab's froth for the whale, adding that Ahab's own crew resembled a pod of yellow Manila tigers, even possessing long cat whiskers) and embroidered by Dr. Bunger, who struck me, even indirectly met, as a foolish fellow to offer Ahab's arm his lancet.

On the wharf, Elijah, who despite his prophetic hauteur also listened to the gossip, stepped into Justice's path. He had never before accosted the boy. Perhaps he had not known his identity, though many remarked his resemblance to Ahab, notwithstanding my dark curls on his forehead.

This scoundrel Elijah began to degrade Ahab. He called him a vile sinner and the brother of Beelzebub and other such nonsense, and it so upset Justice he burst into tears. Then Aunt Charity came along and quickly saw what the problem was. She heard Elijah say, “Thy father shan't come home. He lodges at the bottom of the sea with the White Devil Whale. He likes it there.”

“I'll have no such jabbering nonsense told the boy,” Aunt Charity said, and she backed Elijah to the edge of the wharf with her wrath.

“Jezebel, Jezebel,” Elijah began on her. “A consort sure for the wicked Ahab.”

Charity, her maidenly honor besmirched, shoved Elijah off the edge of the wharf. He sank like a stone. Not so much as a bubble arose. When Charity saw what she had done, she screamed, “Run, Justice, run for help, lest I've drowned the devil.”

Help came speedily. Many sailors were about, but none came speedily enough. Charity had indeed drowned the devil.

 

H
IS DEATH
was not so sad as the aftermath. Though Judge Austin Lord quickly settled the matter as an accident, Charity went about for weeks and months entirely dejected. She had never meant to take a
human life. All her days had been devoted to making life more comfortable for her fellow creatures who went to sea. People said she spoke of herself most unforgivingly many times at the Quaker meeting. All who knew and loved her spoke most reassuringly to her. Certainly I did, for it was in her trying to protect Justice that the accident had ensued.

Out of concern for Charity, some of the lethargy and suffocating numbness, as it had in response to Susan's letter, left me. But I was even more shaken by my concern for Justice. The old crackpot's message that Ahab would not return greatly disturbed the boy, for Elijah had commanded among the children a certain mysterious power.

“But my father shall come home!” Justice declared to me. “I shall make him!” For hours and hours each day, he retreated to the cupola, his eyes fastened on the sea, his brow furrowed in concentration. Here was young Ahab willing a thing to be so. And I thought of Kit willing the sun to stand still.

One morning I stood in my son's way, at the foot of the stair.

“Mother, I will go up,” he said, and brushed past me.

It was anguish for me to see his state of mind—both defiant and terribly afraid; sometimes his eye flashed at me the way I had seen Ahab's eye flash at others (but never at me). I could not soothe my son's terror at night, nor interest him in wholesome activities in the day. I asked many folk for advice—my friend Austin Lord advised me to be patient, that the melancholy was natural and would naturally run its course. But they did not know Ahab a fraction so well as I did, and they did not know how Ahab's blood, at least partly transmitted to Justice, could seethe with intensity and singleness of purpose, undiluted by time.

One day the judge sent for Justice to come visit him, by himself, and the boy reluctantly crossed the street. I knew the judge was trying to help, though I could not imagine in what manner he might be able to do so. Yet Justice came home all smiles.

“He has such chocolate, Mother, as you've never eaten before. He has cherries and nuts and raisins, all dipped in chocolate. There's light chocolate and dark chocolate—that's the best. The dark is a little bitter. I love the bitterness. Here—it's pecans inside, and caramel.”

Not every day, but many days, the judge unpredictably sent for Justice and gave him candy. Eventually the treats expanded to my
beloved jams and jellies, and finally we were invited to a dinner with the entire Mitchell family. The younger Mitchell boys, as clear-headed and balanced as their oldest sister, soundly ridiculed any idea that Elijah's prophecies were anything but humbug. It was an excellent tonic, provided by my friend the judge.

Nonetheless, that night Justice returned to the cupola, though it was too dark to see the ocean. “I want to think strong thoughts,” he told me. I thought again of Kit's rhetoric, and a hand seized and squeezed my heart. “I'd like to be alone,” Justice added, but gently.

A week later the Mitchell boys came to visit us with a large gray dog. Not a pup, but a creature over a year old and beautifully schooled to sit and shake hands. Justice was much taken with his obedience. “He's not a dog,” Justice said, “he's a prince.”

“You could name him Pog,” Billy said. “That's a combination prince and dog.”

“His real name is Fog,” Michael said, “but that's so near to Pog he'd probably come.”

“Here, Pog,” Justice called, and the dog came, wagging his shaggy gray tail.

“He's so big,” I exclaimed admiringly. I had not owned or wanted a dog since my father shot King.

“Maria says he's part Irish wolfhound. They're the tallest dogs. They guard castles.”

“Maria says you'll have to walk him a long way every day because he's so big.”

“
I
should walk him?” Justice questioned.

“He's a present!” the boys all exclaimed. “We want to give him to you.”

Justice patted Pog's head quietly. “That's nice,” he said. “But I don't think I could keep him. I need to be in the cupola.”

The Mitchell boys exchanged disappointed glances.

“I couldn't walk him enough,” Justice added.

“Well,” Billy said slowly, “if you ever do want to walk him, you can. Just come over.”

 

A
S THE WEEKS
passed, Justice seemed gradually to be a bit better. He was quieter, at least seemed less angry. But he spent many, many
hours in the cupola, even in the heat of the day. When he came down, his face was unnaturally pink. One day he asked me, “Mother, couldn't you have asked Father to stay home? Did you ever think about doing that?”

“Indeed, I did.” I felt myself accused of negligence. “He looks for the white whale with the same persistence that you watch for him.”

The boy smiled ruefully.

'Twas then that the pineapple knocker fell against the brass plate, and we opened the door to Mary Starbuck and Jim her boy, some few years older than Justice. When Justice learned that Jim, too, had a father aboard the
Pequod,
he took a great interest in him, and they went up to the cupola together.

No sooner had they left the room than Mary said frankly, “Una, the boy's not well.”

“You heard of Elijah's drowning off the wharf?”

“Yes, and his poisonous prophecy as well. I've come to give you advice.”

“Oh, please,” I said. I nearly wept in response to her practical sympathy. The braided coronet across her head gleamed in the sunlight.

“There is a cottage close to us at 'Sconset, for let. I think you should rent it for the summer. The cottage is humble, but I'm sure you'll like it. And I am sure that Justice will do better away from the town and the cupola. I think you should also rent a pony or horse—the boys can care for it and ride it.”

I had to laugh. “Mary, your plan is so well thought out, so complete. I will love being your neighbor.”

“It's time we were friends.” She smiled in a lovely, wise way.

The boys came rattling down the steps. What a healthy sound!

“It's too hot for me up there,” Jim announced casually. “I don't see how he stands it.”

“Mother,” Justice asked, “did you know that 'Sconset sees the ships come in long before we do?”

“And you can go up on the roof walk, if you like,” Jim said. “It's open and breezy up there.”

“I'd like us to go to 'Sconset,” Justice said.

“So we shall!” I replied, thinking: All the better that Justice believes it to be his idea.

G
IDDY WITH ADVENTURE
,
we four clip-clopped out the Milestone Road, straight for 'Sconset. Our good spirits were contagious even to the mare, and she pranced along. It being a distance of, Mary said, something over eight miles—I had thought it shorter—we stopped about halfway to have a picnic. The boys clamored to go to Altar Rock, and so we left the main road to drive north to the foot of the highest hill. As we tethered the horse, I could not help but remember the winter day I had climbed this hill—a snow hill like a whale hump—to pray for Ahab. How cold and restless I had been.

But now it was good summer. That very boy whom I had carried inside me now walked beside, and we were adventuring genteelly with friends. The air was fragrant with the blooming heathers and heaths. After we had eaten and Mary and I had sipped some ruby port, I let my eye circle the summery land that lay all about us like a favored skirt. Centered in this landscape, the goodness outside and inside seemed almost enough.

When we arrived at 'Sconset—what a bright booming of water! It burst against the shore with the joy of free running. The horse tossed its head and nickered.

Across all the distance from Portugal the water rushed to us, and still it snorted and billowed, indefatigable, and sent flashing plumes into the sky. With the sky-splashing water, fountainlike, plumed with joy, my spirit climbed higher and higher. Lifting my hands above my head, I clapped them together, rippled my fingers like fringe tasting the air. And so did Mary and Jim and Justice clap their hands above their heads and tickle the sky. From our seats in the stopped buggy, we mimicked and saluted the sea.

The sea, the sea defined me!

Excitement and fresh resolve almost made speech impossible, but I had to tell Mary—and as soon as the boys had slid out and begun to run the beach, I spurted, “I shall live here all the rest of my life!”

She smiled and said nothing. Perhaps she was incredulous at the absoluteness of my declaring.

“Not for Justice,” I said. “For me. Whether he wills it or no.”

I could hardly contain myself. I wished to return immediately to
town and tell the judge that I must buy the property that was now for let. And I would buy two ponies as well, one for each of the boys, and have a stable built. But I bit my lip, for I did not want Mary to think that I had taken leave of my senses.

“Don't you want to see the houses?” she asked.

(Houses, of course! We must have them. But it was light and sky and spume of sea I wanted to buy!)

“Mine is over there.” Mary pointed. Her plain, gray cottage was caught in a mesh of roses.

What could I do but gasp, and then weep a bit, joyfully. “It's like the house on the Lighthouse Island. Like home.”

“Yours is up there.” She pointed to a somewhat higher bank, where there were several houses. “Yours is the small one closest to us, set back from the road. The one of that group closest to the beach.” A tall hedge stood between my cottage and the neighbors beyond so that I was curtained from the houses to the north.

“There is no house between you and me,” I said, pleased, but I also felt a bit disappointed, for my house was not bedecked with roses, as Mary's was.

“It doesn't take long to grow a quilt of roses,” Mary said. “Our houses are almost twins.”

So they were, both of gray shingles in the typical Nantucket manner, both with roof walks. Mary's yard had a low stone wall like a loose necklace for the cottage.

“I built the wall,” she said. “With my own hands. It's a windbreak for the ocean breeze, to protect the flowers in the lee.”

“It's a beautiful wall. Without mortar. The Shakers in Kentucky build walls thus.”

“Shall I tell you how I laid its circumference?” She shaded her eyes with her hand, regarding her work. All the time the sea surged and tossed, and its wildness sang a counterpoint to me, under Mary's gentle words. “For the first voyage when my husband was gone,” Mary went on, “I placed a stone, one for each day, on the ground. He was gone almost three years, and the bottom course of stone numbers one thousand and one, laid end to end.”

“And did you tell yourself a thousand and one stories?”

“No. I sang myself to sleep. The buggy is borrowed from the last house in the group. We'll drive there and walk to see your place.”

M
Y PLACE!
Because I had discovered and chosen it myself? A place in the middle way—not so small or crude as a one-room cabin in the woods of Kentucky; yet a place far from being so grand as even one floor of my house in Nantucket. In size and convenience my place reminded me again of the stone house on the Island.

When we entered my house, the space seemed to have been waiting for us. On the ground floor were a large room for keeping and two smaller rooms; one was a bedroom with a double bed made up with a white candlewick counterpane, but the other room, unfurnished except for sunshine, jutted out toward the ocean and had windows on three sides.

“I envy you this room,” Mary said. “It is the only house at 'Sconset with so much glass and view. In winter, it must surely be cold.”

But the sunny room shared the fireplace with the main room; I bent and looked through the opening back into the main room. I hoped that the empty room might be warm enough in winter, for here I would have my books, my desk, my sewing cabinet. Before the hearth I imagined a braided rug, dyed with cranberries like Mr. Starbuck's on the
Pequod,
but larger.

Upstairs, two small rooms were tucked under the eaves, each with a large window in the end. When Mary and I climbed the narrow steps to the roof walk, I saw that the platform embraced the chimney and extended out a way over the gable of the sea-view room. I could sit here in winter with my back against the chimney and look out to sea.

The inside walls of the house were finished with a soft gray plaster. The two bedrooms upstairs were so small that they would hold little more than a bed, a chest of drawers, and a chair, but the downstairs bedroom was somewhat larger, the keeping room was spacious, and the window room was beautifully proportioned as well as large and full of light.

“The house is unusual,” I said. “Built in its own style.”

“It suits you, doesn't it?” Mary asked.

“I love it already. It crimps a bit, here and there, but it expands just where space is most welcome. A wise little house.”

Justice liked only the big keeping room, at first glance, and announced that we would both sleep in there, or in the window room,
and I decided I would humor him on the point. “When we know the house better,” I said, “we may want to rearrange.”

As we walked back to the Starbucks' cottage, we crossed a little dell which would be just right to shelter the stable I intended to have built. It would be halfway between the boys, and far from the neighbors without stables. The buggy people at the end had also considerately built their stable north of the settlement. “Except for the man next door to you,” Mary said, “these are summer people.” She added warningly, “They all say the wind is too strong out here in winter.”

“It wouldn't be too strong for me or Jim,” Justice asserted.

“It's not,” Jim replied.

Our visit was entirely happy, and when Justice and I returned to town, we were both itching to be at 'Sconset.

 

W
HEN
I
TOLD
Mrs. Maynard of the migration to 'Sconset, she said, “There's nobody there. It's a wasteland.” And my friend the judge was not at all pleased to hear that we were moving. “Just rent,” he counseled. “That's all Mary ever suggested.”

“I am going home,” I said. “And home is at 'Sconset. I want to buy it free and clear. I want a stable big enough for winter chickens, a nanny goat, and four horses.”

“Four!”

“Who knows? Mary and I may take up riding.”

“What about this house?”

“Rent it for a year, rent it for five years. Sell it.”

“Oh, no.” The judge grew pale. “I am sure Ahab wouldn't want you to sell it.”

“No, I suppose not. He loved this house.” I glanced around the pretty parlor. “It was the only one he bought. But now I must do what's best for Justice and me.”

I decided the furniture I owned was far too polished and elegant for 'Sconset, so I bought new furniture, all made by folk living on Nantucket. I ordered new china, though, from Boston; each plate had a large scallop shell in the middle. Pointing at the catalog illustration, I explained to the judge, “The shell is the sea's handprint. I don't want ever to forget, even at the supper table, that I am next to the sea—the sea, the glorious sea.”

And so it was, after two impatient weeks, we rode with three wagons full of furniture out to Our New Home, the lumber for the stable and the animals to arrive later. The judge came with us and watched dolefully as the rented furniture was carried out and I had my furniture placed first here and then there. I did bring to 'Sconset Ahab's and my polished cherry bed.

In the late afternoon, when the judge said he must return to town, he suddenly took both my hands in his at the door. “My dear neighbor, you have no idea how lonely I shall be without you across the street.”

“You must come to visit often,” I said, seeing his pain.

“I think you have done right. I see the boy is happy here.” He peered down at me through the spectacles bridging his long nose just over his nostrils. “I've left Justice a new box of chocolates. I hope he doesn't forget me.”

“Of course not.”

“I've often thought, Una, how well you named him. What is justice but some combination of singleness of vision wed to compassion, of Ahab's intense focus and of Una's quick heart? And I like to think, too, that in his name there is an honoring of my profession, if not my person.”