The Stolen Heart (5 page)

 

 

Maybe he was just getting to the limits of his loneliness, he
thought as he took stock of the chessboard while his opponent slowly
puzzled out his next move. He loved being with women, when he got a
chance with someone relatively respectable at home or in a foreign
port.

 

 

But the idea of paid companionship filled him with dread of the
tawdriness of the act. Not to mention the possible appalling
consequences which plagued sailors who shared women in the brothels.
Better to marry than to burn, as the phrase went, but in his case,
he had never really even considered it until Dare had married
Samantha Chase.

 

 

But she was a rare jewel. Most of the women he had come across had
either proven fairly average in intelligence and scruples, or so
high above him that they considered him beneath them. He was proud
of his wealth, and how it had been made. He considered himself the
equal of many of the women who had snubbed him, certainly in terms
of education and decent Christian principles.

 

 

He knew he was not perfect, but he did try to live his life
according to the Good Book. Most of the women he had met dwelled
more in the realm of the Seven Deadly Sins.

 

 

His one failing had been lust, and he had been trying to tamp it
down ever since his sap had first started to rise. His main source
of experience in his youth had been a warm and willing widowed
friend of his mother’s.

 

 

She had not been young or pretty, but there had been something so
needy about her that for a time he had been flattered and pleased to
oblige. She had taught him things he had never imagined anyone would
wish to do, let alone enjoy doing.

 

 

For a time it had been fun, thrillingly forbidden, but she had
become more and more immoderate in her demands upon him. He could
see now why lust was considered a sin—both of you fell, fell hard,
and were quite content to wallow in the mire of sensuality, instead
of tread the lofty plains of spirituality.

 

 

Faced with her increasingly lascivious and obsessive behavior, and
his own sense of wrongdoing, Jared had finally confessed to his
mother what had happened. What had been going on for months.

 

 

He had expected a round scolding, perhaps even ejection from her
home like Adam from the Garden of Eden. Yet she had handled things
with quiet dignity, and apologized for sending him on so many
errands to the woman’s house without thinking of the damage she
could have caused.

 

 

Jared was never sure exactly what had been said or done, but he had
kept his promise to his mother to sin no more, and never gone back
there again.

 

 

The widow moved away shortly thereafter, and he heard later that she
had started her own house of ill repute in the next port, and was
one of the most dedicated career women there.

 

 

Jared shook his head as he moved the wrong piece and lost his
castle. That had been a lucky escape from a most unsuitable woman.
But now he was confused about how he felt about his new work
colleague. He felt a hypocrite, discouraging anything he saw as a
worrisome friendship on board the ship, while still seeking out Al
himself.

 

 

But there was just something so soft and vulnerable about the boy.
It was like looking at Dare’s son little Edward. He got the same
tight feeling of tenderness in his chest whenever he watched Al
struggle to perform some particularly difficult chore.

 

 

Was this an unselfish, paternal love? He supposed so. He had loved
his mother, his brother Morgan, his aunt, Dare, and had come to love
and respect Samantha, and adore Edward.

 

 

But love for a child? The desire to protect and nurture, cherish, in
an unselfish way? That had to be far different from the mindless
lusting he had experienced with the merry widow. Those rampant
fleshly urges had had nothing to do with even
liking
the
other person. Nothing even to do with reason or common sense.

 

 

Lust, desire, it was just a biological fact, like other bodily
functions. But one which he could avoid, resist. And one which he
refused to let get the better of him. He was a rational being, in
control.

 

 

No, Al and he were friends, congenial companions, he decided. Humans
were not meant to live alone, but in society. Even most animals in
the world paired, or gathered in supportive groups, so far as he had
read in the fascinating Mr. Darwin's works.

 

 

There was nothing sordid about having good friends. He and his
second mate Mr. Perkins had been friends for some time, ever since
Jared had gone from second to mate to captain himself. He liked
being with him, but there was nothing physical about his attachment
to him.

 

 

He felt relieved, as if he had solved a knotty problem, and nodded
over at Al, who grinned as she lost graciously at checkers to Bob
and put down her math problems.

 

 

“Story time?”

 

 

They talked about their childhoods, their families. Some of them
even shared dreams that they had had recently. Many of the sailors
were superstitious and believed that dreams presaged the future.

 

 

“What do you dream about last night, Al?” Tom asked.

 

 

“Believe it or not, I had a dream we were being chased by a pirate
ship.”

 

 

Some of the boys laughed.

 

 

Jared silenced them sternly. “Don't make fun. It does happen. Our
cargoes are worth a lot of money. People who don’t want to trade
with us fairly will buy a stolen cargo cheaply, and then will sell
the ship on to another country.”

 

 

He thought of Al’s father as he said this. But no, Jed had been an
experienced captain. He couldn't imagine being duped easily.

 

 

Still, if the pirates were well organized and knew a ship’s or a
captain’s habits, it was fully possible. Old Jed had been at sea
nearly thirty years. Like himself, he had taken the same trips to
the same favored whaling grounds season after season. Someone might
have been lying in wait for the famously greasy captain, as they
deemed a man who had a great deal of luck on the seas.

 

 

But of course, any number of other things could have happened to Jed
and his ship the
Calypso
. For one thing, shipworm was a
notorious destroyer of ocean-going vessels. He had had his own ship
fitted out with special wood called
totara
the last time he
had been in New Zealand. It had meant unloading all of the cargo and
turning the ship on one side and then the other, hoving it down, and
sheathing the hull with it, but it had been well worth it. The
Trident
hull was not even barnacled, the wood was so impervious to harm.

 

 

Copper was usually used to combat the huge shipworm problem, but it
could easily be scraped off if they ran up against anything like a
coral reef or a gravelly bottom.

 

 

Jared knew that some of the busiest harbors in Japan were actually
so polluted as to be devoid of sea life and fit drinking water
because of the copper salts from the ships’ hulls.

 

 

Since he had discovered the
totara
wood, he had never had
trouble. Dare’s own father had lost his ship to shipworm, and it was
something that haunted any responsible captain.

 

 

At the thought of his uncle, Jared sighed. Dare had told him the
last time they had spoken that he believed old Edward Starbuck had
had enough, and shrugged of his mortal coil willingly.

 

 

The new theory he had formulated, that Uncle Edward had been ill,
dying in fact, had made his decision to go down with his ship more
bearable for them both.

 

 

As for Jared's own father, well, he had been fortunate enough,
retiring at home for a short time, before he had had a stroke and
passed away a few days later. His mother had passed away last year,
proud of her sons and nephew until the end.

 

 

Now his younger brother Morgan, just finishing school, would be
shipping out with Dare and starting a whaling career of his own on
their next voyage.

 

 

Jared wondered again how lonely his mother and his aunt must have
been. How lonely his father and uncle had been so many miles away
from home, with little or no congenial company for months at a time.

 

 

Jared had to admit that he had hoped Morgan would find another
career. With Samantha and her cousin Roland Chase’s contacts, they
had tried to get him into shipbuilding and victualling. But he had
been adamant about wanting to go to sea. Perhaps it would not be all
he wanted and hoped.

 

 

On the other hand, it would be good to have another Starbuck captain
in the fleet. Roland would make four, for Dare had all but adopted
the young man into his family.

 

 

As the youngest of five sons, even though his parents were most
excellent people, Roland Chase worshipped Dare like a hero, and
wanted to emulate him in every respect. Even, he would not be
surprised, in getting himself his own seafaring wife.

 

 

But Jared could not imagine a woman joining in their little happy
group as they clustered around the small brazier he lit to warm the
cabin, and told ghost stories around the flickering flames. No,
females had their own interests, gossip, tea, gowns and such. There
was no room in his life for a woman.

 

 

A bell chimed in the distance.

 

 

Jared rose and stretched. “Time to turn in, lads, and for some of
you to go on watch.”

 

 

“Yes, sir. See you tomorrow, sir. Thank you, sir,” they all said as
they filed out, leaving Al to tidy up the cabin.

 

 

She carefully put the brazier out. When she turned around she saw
him reading her slate in the light from a single lantern.

 

 

“Excellent, Al. I’m so pleased with your progress. We’ll make a
master mariner of you yet.” He clapped her on the back.

 

 

Almira offered him his coat back.

 

 

“Oh, thank you.” He draped it over his shoulders as he helped put
the rest of the items away.

 

 

Then Al went into the smaller cabin, and climbed into her hammock.

 

 

Jared hesitated, and turned toward the companionway door instead.

 

 

“Not coming to sleep, sir?” she asked in surprise.

 

 

It was a calm night, not one he would normally worry about standing
watch for.

 

 

“I'm going to take one more turn about the deck. I feel a bit
restless. I think I’m getting like my cousin Dare. They say he can
smell a whale miles off.”

 

 

“Let’s hope we see some tomorrow then,” she said, thrilled at the
prospect of seeing her first whale of the journey at last.

 

 

“Amen to that. We need some oil, and soon.” He smiled at the boy,
and headed up on deck.

 

 

 

CHAPTER FIVE

 

 

Jared got his wish, for the very next day, as Almira stood taking
her turn in the lookout rings high atop the fore mast, she could
have sworn she saw a spouting off the starboard bow. She looked
again over the sparkling blue waters, shading her eyes against the
bright sunlight with her hand.

 

 

Jared had taught her that the right whale spouts were like two jets
which shot straight up into the air like a geyser. Sperm whales were
a single stream which spouted off to the side at an acute angle.

 

 

There it was again.

 

 

She said to George in the ring behind her, “Look my way, three
points off the bow. Is it a sperm whale, do you think?”

 

 

George looked and looked, and then his face lit up. “Sperm it is. Go
on, you saw it, you shout it.”

 

 

“Thar she blows! She blows!” Almira shouted down at the top of her
lungs, completely elated.

 

 

But Mate on the deck blow began to grumble. “Damned greenie. Don’t
know a whale from a hole in the ground.”

 

 

“She blows! She blows!” she shouted again, wondering why no one had
asked, “Where away?” or was scrambling for the boats, as she had
been taught they should.

 

 

“Mate, what's that noise?” Jared asked, coming out of the aft
companionway, a towel draped over his bare shoulders, shirt in hand.
He had been in the middle of shaving when he had thought he heard
Al’s voice.

 

 

“Only yon fool cabin boy of yours thinking he’s seen a whale.”

 

 

Jared looked aloft, to see Al and George both pointing left to
starboard.

 

 

“Did you ever stop to think he might have?” Jared demanded angrily.

 

 

He grabbed his telescope from its case at the helm. “Where away,
son?” he called up when he reached the base of the fore mast.

 

 

“Two points off the starboard bow, sir,” Al called down through
cupped hands.

 

 

He focused his telescope, his breath halted in his chest as he
followed his young friend's bearings.

 

 

Sure enough, there they were, a pod of about fifteen sperm whales so
far as he could tell.

 

 

“Boats, men, boats, move, move, hurry!” he roared.

 

 

Then he cupped his hands and called up the fore mast, “Make sure you
keep an eye on them. You know the signals. With your help, I’m
coming back with a whale, and we’re going to get some oil!”