“Can I . . . can I help in any way?”
“You?” Fisk said with incredulous scorn. He turned away.
“Mr. Fisk, you must believe me. I want to help.”
“You are the lady passenger, Miss Doyle. The informer.”
My tears began to fall again. “I had no idea . . .”
Now angry, he swung about. “I find Miss Doyle mistaken. You did have an idea. You had it from Zachariah. I know you did. He told us he tried to convince you. ‘Oh, Miss Doyle believes in honor,’ he’d say. ‘She’s the very soul of justice!’” Fisk spat on the floor. “Honor! What you mean to say, Miss Doyle, is that you didn’t choose to heed his words because Zachariah was an old black who lacked the captain’s graces!”
I bowed my head.
“Can you cook?” he growled. “Reef sails? Turn the wheel? I think not, miss. So you’d do best keeping the place you have. When you reach Providence you can walk off free and, I warrant, you’ll think no more on us.”
“That’s not true!”
“Go to the captain, Miss Doyle. He’s your darling master.”
“Mr. Fisk,” I begged, my voice as small as my pride, “the captain will have nothing to do with me.”
“No, he’ll not forgive you so soon. Beware your friend, Miss Doyle, beware him!”
“I didn’t mean—”
He cut me off abruptly. “Gentlefolk like you never mean, Miss Doyle. But what you do . . .”
I could not bear it anymore. I retreated to my cabin. Once again I gave myself up to guilt and remorse.
That night I remained in my cabin. I couldn’t eat. Now and again I slept, but never for long. There were times I fell on my knees to pray for forgiveness. But it was from the crew as much as God that I sought pardon. If only I could make restitution, if only I could convince the men that I accepted my responsibility.
Close to dawn an idea began to form, at first only an echo of something Fisk had said. But the mere thought of it was appalling and I kept pushing it away. Yet again and again it flooded back, overwhelming all other notions.
At last I heaved myself off the bed, and from under it brought out the canvas seaman’s garments Zachariah had made for me. Some roaches skittered away. I held the wrinkled clothing up and looked at its crude shape, its mean design. The feel of the crude cloth made me falter.
I closed my eyes. My heart was beating painfully as if I were in some great danger. No, I could not. It was too awful. Yet I told myself I must accept my responsibility so as to prove to those men that it had been my head that was wrong, not my heart. Slowly, fearfully, I made myself take off my shoes, my stockings, my apron, at last my dress and linen.
With fumbling, nervous hands I put on the seaman’s clothing. The trousers and shirt felt stiff, heavy, like some skin not my own. My bare toes curled upon the wooden floor.
I stood some while to question my heart. Zachariah’s words to Fisk, that I was the “very soul of justice” echoed within me.
I stepped out of my cabin and crept through the steerage. It was dawn. To the distant east, I could see the thinnest edge of sun. All else remained dark. I moved to the galley, praying I would meet no one before I reached it. For once my prayers were answered. I was not noticed. And Fisk was working at the stove.
I paused at the doorway. “Mr. Fisk,” I whispered.
He straitened up, turned, saw me. I had, at least, the satisfaction of his surprise.
“I’ve come,” I managed to say, “to be one of the crew.”
Part Two
Chapter Thirteen
For a second time I stood in the forecastle. The room was as dark and mean as when I’d first seen it. Now, however, I stood as a petitioner in sailor’s garb. A glum Fisk was at my side. It hadn’t been easy to convince him I was in earnest about becoming one of the crew. Even when he begrudged a willingness to believe in my sincerity he warned that agreement from the rest of the men would be improbable. He insisted I lay the matter before them immediately.
So it was that three men from Mr. Hollybrass’s watch, Grimes, Dillingham, and Foley, were the next to hear my plea. As Fisk had foretold, they were contemplating me and my proposal with very little evidence of favor.
“I do mean it,” I said, finding boldness with repetition, “I want to be the replacement for Mr. Johnson.”
“You’re a girl,” Dillingham spat out contemptuously.
“A pretty girl,” Foley put in. It was not meant as a compliment. “Takes more than canvas britches to hide that.”
“And a gentlewoman,” was Grimes’s addition, as though that was the final evidence of my essential uselessness.
“I want to show that I stand with you,” I pleaded. “That I made a mistake.”
“A mistake?” Foley snapped. “Two able-bodied men have died!”
“Besides,” Dillingham agreed, “you’ll bring more trouble than good.”
“You can teach me,” I offered.
“God’s fist,” Grimes cried. “She thinks this a school!”
“And the captain,” Foley asked. “What’ll he say?”
“He wants nothing to do with me,” I replied.
“That’s what he says. But you were his darling girl, Miss Doyle. We take you in and he’ll want you back again. Where will that put us?”
So it went, round and round. While the men made objections, while I struggled to answer them, Fisk said nothing.
Though I tried to keep my head up, my eyes steady, it was not easy. They looked at me as if I were some loathsome thing. At the same time, the more objections they made, the more determined I was to prove my self.
“See here, Miss Doyle,” Dillingham concluded, “it’s no simple matter. Understand, you sign on to the articles, so to speak, and you are on. No bolting to safe harbors at the first blow or when an ill word is flung your way. You’re a hand or you’re not a hand, and it won’t go easy, that’s all that can ever be promised.”
“I know,” I said.
“Hold out your hands,” he demanded.
Fisk nudged me. I held them out, palms up.
Foley peered over them. “Like bloody cream,” he said with disgust. “Touch mine!” he insisted and extended his. Gingerly, I touched one of them. His skin was like rough leather.
“That’s the hands you’d get, miss. Like an animal. Is that what you want?”
“I don’t care,” I said stoutly.
Finally it was Dillingham who said, “And are you willing to take your place in the rigging too? Fair weather or foul?”
That made me pause.
Fisk caught the hesitation. “Answer,” he prompted.
“Yes,” I said boldly.
They exchanged glances. Then Foley asked, “What do the others think?”
Fisk shook his head and sighed. “No doubt they’ll speak the same.”
Suddenly Grimes said, “Here’s what I say: let her climb to the royal yard. If she does it and comes down whole, and still is willing to serve, then I say let her sign and be bloody damned like the rest of us.”
“And do whatever she’s called on to do!”
“No less!”
With no more than grunts the men seemed to agree among themselves. They turned toward me.
“Now what does Miss Doyle say?” Grimes demanded.
I swallowed hard, but all the same I gave yet another “Yes.”
Foley came to his feet. “All right then. I’ll go caucus the others.” Out he went.