Ahab's Wife (77 page)

W
E HAD ALL
been invited on the night of October 1, 1847, to a pleasure party, given by the Mitchells at their apartment in the Union Pacific Bank. Now that the town was quite restored physically, many people gave parties to try to heal the social wounds left by the selfishness unveiled in the Great Fire. The large-familied Mitchells could not house all of us from 'Sconset, but the judge was to stay there; Justice and I were housed with Mrs. Maynard, and Mary and Isaac stayed with friends from the Unitarian Church. Robben Avalon volunteered to do the lighthouse duties and keep track of Isaac's four children.

I admit that I had fussed over my dress. Nothing suited me, and it made me angry. Finally I ripped out the inner seams of my sailor trousers and contrived to turn them into a skirt. I sewed four brass buttons onto the front to insist on the association with sailor's clothes. Then I asked Mary if she had any spare lace and made with it a blouse so frothy and frilly that I looked as though a wave had just burst around my neck and shoulders. I thought of Daggoo's splendid gold hoop earrings and asked Robben to carve some wooden ones and gild them. It was quite a costume, but I didn't care. It was what I wanted to wear, and the Mitchells' party was just the place to allow such a getup.

So I came in like a sailor who had been too long at sea and sassy as a gypsy.

Maria hugged me warmly and said, “If my dusky skin could glow like yours, I wouldn't spend my life as a spinster.”

It was a surprising statement from her, and I laughed out loud. “I love you when you're droll,” I told her and hugged her again.

She grew confidential. “These large parties please my father very much, but I intend to slip up to the observatory later. You can come, too, if you like.”

“But I want to see people. I see stars aplenty at 'Sconset.”

“Not with this power of telescopic magnification,” she insisted. “Or with lecture.”

As my dear Maria spoke, my ear was gathering in the sounds of the party: many voices, perhaps twenty or more, speaking at once. A sound human and happy. Sociable. The accidental mixture of vowels and consonants suggested a small stream running or a breeze in high leaves—the slurrying of a prow pushing through water.

And the sight of them? Beautiful, all beautiful, men and women. Clothes of an interesting and fashionable cut—purple and jade—why, I hadn't even known what fashion was anymore! Jewelry on the women, and fine buttons on the men. I twisted the ivory bracelet on my wrist and watched the whales circle round. Why, I felt shy!

What to say to these people? “You should have seen Pog this morning barking at the waves. We thought there might be a shark out there.” They didn't even know Pog dog. “Is beauty enhanced or adulterated by utility?” But I did not see a Margaret Fuller among them. These were mostly people I knew, at least to some extent. Ah, some strangers. But what to say to them?

William Mitchell, like a kindly father, swooped down on me. “Come, Una,” he said. “You must meet the junior Walter Folger. He's invented a clock that tells time from second to century and also registers the phases of the moon and tides and locates the sun.”

I had sometimes thought that my judge resembled Benjamin Franklin, but the junior Walter Folger looked just like him. (In fact, a maternal ancestor of Franklin had been a Folger of Nantucket.) Walter Folger immediately began to talk my ear off with gears, counterweights, pendulums, escapes, and other innards of clocks, while William Mitchell
beamed and deserted me, he having assumed that I was now as royally entertained as he had been a quarter of an hour before. Just as I began to be interested, Folger's wife came and put her arm through his to lead him off; she had caught the gist of his conversation. “Why, sometimes I almost wish he didn't know any more than any husband,” she said.

Following her father's lead in introductions as well as in science, Maria promptly appeared with a dear friend of hers, the elderly and mathematical Phoebe Folger.

Of Mrs. Folger, Maria said, “She taught navigation to her husband, and he became, in consequence, the captain of a ship.”

“Do you know Lucretia Mott?” the old woman quaked. “You look as though you should.”

“I think that my cousin Frannie has met her,” I replied, “but I have not had the pleasure.”

“That's right,” she said, “it would be a pleasure for you to know her. Don't you have on sailor's breeches?” The question was sharp, but it smacked more of approval than disapproval.

“I do, indeed,” I replied. “And I have a right to 'em, having sailed and fished all summer.”

“I should say you do,” she stated. “Lucretia told me once that when she was a child she saw a woman flogged here in Nantucket. Can you imagine that?”

“Why was she flogged?”

“You know, I can't rightly remember. I believe they thought she was a witch, or some such.” At that Phoebe suddenly cackled so hard that she herself somewhat resembled a witch. “Can she calculate?” Phoebe asked of me, turning to Maria.

“Una is much interested in science, but she is more qualitative than quantitative in her approach.”

“Humph!” Phoebe sniffed, and I thought she was going to turn away. “That young man wants to meet you,” she announced. “He's a sailor, too.” With a crooked finger, she beckoned to one of the strangers to come to us. But he did not come. “I'd like something to eat,” Phoebe said, put out, and Maria politely guided her to the table.

I followed along; but though the man had not obeyed the summons, he had glanced at us, and I thought for a moment that I recognized him. As the evening moved along, I joined a circle which he was
entertaining with sea stories. Maria had long since assumed her “regimentals,” as her sister called them, taken a lantern, and climbed aloft to the observatory.

“The last time I told this story,” the sailor said, “I entertained some young dons in Lima with it. A priest was passing by and they made me place my hand on his Bible and swear that it was so. Is there a priest about? I believe there is nothing like swearing a story is true to whet the imagination.”

We all laughed. Several people urged him to begin. Already in his manner I had noted a strange smoothness. There was no doubt he was a skilled narrator, but there seemed something dark and rough beneath that smoothness.

To my surprise, I asked, “And does a good swig of rum also unloose the tongue?”

“It did that night,” he answered, looking directly at me. “Do ye have any?”

Again the group laughed. William Mitchell supplied him with a large snifter of brandy. He swirled it in his hand and then drank a deep gulp of the stuff. “No temperance folk here? Usually where there's abolition, there's temperance.”

“Tell the story,” folk urged.

“Well, let me ask, do ye believe a dumb beast can be sentient?” When there was no answer, he rephrased his question. “Do ye believe an animal can sometimes have a sense of justice?”

“Aye,” someone answered, “for I've seen a mistreated horse scrape off a master with a tree limb.”

“Good,” the storyteller answered pleasantly. “But might that not have been a coincidence? Good masters are also scraped off, I think.”

“I knew a man whose fighting cocks turned on him and ripped him to shreds,” Isaac said.

“Better,” our speaker said. “But perhaps they had not selected him particularly and would have vented their wrath on anyone who came to their enclosure.”

“His wife was standing beside him,
pleading
with him to give up his cruel practice with the birds,” Isaac said melodramatically. “And they didn't touch her.”

“Bring him the Bible,” the sailor called. “Bring the Bible and have the man swear to this cock-and-bull, or I'll not believe it.”

Nor did anyone else believe it. But we admired Isaac's quick and logical imagination.

“No,” the judge said stoutly. “Animals know nothing of justice. That requires rationality and impartiality.”

“Then you must hear the story that I heard faithfully, from the crew of the
Town-Ho
.”

“By all means,” William Mitchell urged. “Another brandy?”

“Aye. To sip, not to quaff. Imagine the
Town-Ho,
a whaling vessel like to scores ye have sent to sea. And aboard are men of all types, some brought up to the sea, some reformed farmers. Even preachers. Some have whaled before, but many have not, it being such a hard business that men come in and out of the trade as though it were a revolving door. Some men may have shipped a merchant ship a time or two, and then decided to try whaling. I myself was such a one.”

“On the
Town-Ho
?”

“Nay. Another ship. But that's another story. This very
Town-Ho
had the usual assortment of men, good and bad. One good and handsome man was Steelkilt, who'd learned sailing on the Great Lakes. One mean-spirited, vengeful fellow, lacking in natural respect for his fellow creature, was Radney. But the unfortunate circumstance was that Radney was over Steelkilt.

“The
Town-Ho
had a leak, stabbed perhaps by a swordfish, so the pumps were much put to use, and because Steelkilt was the strongest as well as handsomest man aboard, he was much put to the pumps, and pumped with all his heart and inspired others to, as well. He did it with hearty goodwill, I tell you, sure as if I'd seen him myself, for I know his type.

“But when he finished his Herculean labor, this Radney sees him no sooner seated and panting than he orders him to sweep and scrub the deck. Now I ask ye, ye being a sea-wise town, whose job is that, rightfully?”

“The boys,” I answered quietly.

“Indeed,” he said, almost winking at me. “The boys can do that light work, and they do do it, every blessed evening. Why, I've seen the boys wash down the deck in a typhoon, so well established is the practice.”

“Did Steelkilt obey the order of his superior?” the judge asked.

“He did not.”

“ 'Tis mutiny.” Judge Lord enunciated the law on the matter.

“So it is, and to mutiny it led. But not at first. Steelkilt refused, but he did it as one gentleman to another who had made a mistake. There was no defiance as such in his voice. He spoke rationally and well. This very calmness enraged the ugly Radney, and he grabbed up a hammer and shook it beneath Steelkilt's nose.

“Now Steelkilt was not the man to be threatened. As I have said, he was the strongest and most athletic man aboard, and you would likely not find his match among the crews of twenty whaling ships. He was an extraordinary man. Golden-haired and as fair as your liar-and-inventor of cock-tales there”—he indicated Isaac, who blushed as the crowd laughed. But I thought,
Now he has put this Steelkilt before them palpably, for they need but gaze on Isaac to see in the flesh the very appearance whom he would create in words
.

“Steelkilt warned him, ‘Shake that hammer not one more time, or ye shall regret.' But Radney did threaten again, and while he brandished his hammer, Steelkilt drew back his fist, which Radney could not see, and delivered such a blow as drove Radney's jaw back from its sockets, with blood bursting from his nose.”

“Now when is the animal coming in?” It was Phoebe Folger's quaking voice.

“Too much blood, eh? Yes, this be a pleasure party including ladies. I'm not in South America among the young dons; let me remember that. Quickly, to the animal. Can ye guess what animal this story leads to?”

A silence fell, and then I said, “A whale.”

“Indeed, a whale. But let me quickly run over the steps before ‘Enter the Whale.' Mutiny followed assault. Steelkilt and his sympathizers against the captain and mates. Steelkilt and sympathizers locked below-decks. Steelkilt and sympathizers hung among the yards and flogged. Enough of that, though. And eventually, Steelkilt and sympathizers restored to the crew, when from the mastheads it comes, ‘There she blows,' but no ordinary whale. No, it is the white whale, and the captain of the
Town-Ho
is determined to have the glory of his taking. Now quickly, listen, for Radney is mad with the desire to kill the whale, Radney, who has wronged Steelkilt, and who is it the white monster dashes from the whaleboat? One man, only one man?”

He paused, and though we all knew what the answer must be, we would not say it, for we had our own woe of Moby Dick, of the
Jeroboam,
the
Delight,
and of the
Pequod
. We were silent.

The storyteller supplied the answer. “It was Moby Dick who served as jury, judge, and executioner. It was the white whale.”

“How could the whale possibly have known?” the judge replied. “It was but a coincidence, as you yourself pointed out in the tales of horses and fighting cocks.”

People laughed politely and began to turn away. I saw Mary Starbuck pale as a ghost. Involuntarily she put her hand on her belly, and I thought,
They're going to have a child together
.

“Young man, I suspicion you could tell your own tale of Moby Dick,” Phoebe quaked.

“Nay,” the man answered. “What if I could? That is not a tale for a pleasure party. Especially not one at Nantucket.”

He glanced at me, and I saw in his eye that which was identifiably familiar. He was the sailor whose eye I had encountered in the passageway of the
Alba Albatross,
the merchant ship that had plucked Kit and Giles and me from the open boat. I saw him only once, when, directly before leaving that ship for the
Pequod
and marrying Kit, I had gone to Sallie's cabin to get a few items of clothing, to leave a gift under her pillow of tatted lace.

But that was not the only reason for familiarity. Then, in that short gaze in the passageway within the
Albatross,
I had thought him the most interesting, the most unfathomable man I had ever met.
Memorable,
he had become, in a glance. Yes, lifting a brandy snifter in the Mitchells' apartment of the Union Pacific Bank, Nantucket, it was the merchant sailor of the
Albatross
. My heart quickened within me, but like the rest of the group, I turned away from him. In an instant I felt his hand on my shoulder.