Chapter Text
~1712~
Long Island crawled with pirates.
Most respectable local children learned this early, because their parents either warned them staunchly against such villains, or else were involved in the trade. Or, as in the case of the Nolans of King’s County, both.
The Earl and Countess Rivers (so they styled themselves) had a most impressive fortune that was, as all their neighbors’ were in those days, made so impressive through a charitable willingness to overlook the niceties of British trade law. However, once that fortune was secure, they turned on the industry: retreating into what society New York colony could provide, and into the all-engrossing task of educating their two children into ornaments to said society. The children, similarly engrossed in receiving this education, ignored their parents’ sermons against associating with pirates as ably as they ignored the backroom deals that funded their regiment of tutors, governesses, and fencing masters.
At the time these young people became interesting to us, they were just leaving that stage of childhood in which one ornaments society merely by smiling prettily when one is told how very like one’s mother or father one is becoming. In this new and concerning stage of nigh-adulthood, one must Make Use of oneself to be properly ornamental.
John Nolan was nearly twenty, and had made no use of himself in all that time. He was a plain, pale, thin-limbed thing, with an angular face occasionally rendered handsome by a look of petty disdain he was wont to put up as if it were a shield. The young man had little interest in business, politics, or war. Whether he had talent in any of these, it was impossible to tell. For John, to do a thing against his will and to do it poorly were the same.
He remained, nonetheless, a social favorite for his habit at parties of speaking to no one—a charming trait, for he could never then give anyone offense!—and occupying himself at the pianoforte till the carriages were called, playing beautiful pieces of his own composition and saving his hosts a small fortune in hired musicians. A careful observer might also catch the rare, true smile that broke over his face, like the sun through clouds. In those moments, he was truly handsome. But it is the function of such musicians that they are not observed carefully.
Whatever favor John won with his hosts, his parents were less charmed. After all, it is acceptable to have a reclusive composer for a second or third son, but in an eldest, these quirks may only be tolerated insofar as they are tempered with more productive habits. Despairing of the boy, Lord Rivers suggested John take a living in the church, where his music might at least edify the body of Christ. This episode was comically disastrous. John returned before the year was out with a completed symphony and a cheerful atheism, and the matter was never spoken of again.
John’s sister Mehitabel was a magnetic girl of nearly eighteen who was, in her own estimation, entirely overqualified for marriage. (Lady Rivers said a lady could never be any such thing. In light of the bachelors this good woman was eyeing for her daughter, we may amend Mehitabel’s calculation thus: she was entirely overqualified for all her prospective grooms.) Mehitabel’s features were very like her brother’s—except perhaps a comelier mouth and larger, more luminous eyes—but her manner was infinitely more inviting. Since John was unlikely to prove useful as an heir, she was much petted by her parents. In her seventeen years, she had learned and enjoyed (though, perhaps, not mastered) all arts, music, and languages customarily studied by ladies, as well as equestrian affairs, the styling of wigs, gymnastics, fencing, Greek and Latin, complex mathematics, astronomy, and cartography.
These last had combined neatly into a special interest in navigation, to which she attached herself with unparalleled devotion. It was in service of this study that she accosted her mother one day at tea.
“Maman,” she said sweetly, “you have been so good to me, and I have never wanted for anything in pursuit of the muses of learning.” John, hunched over a mahogany writing-desk, scoffed to himself, knowing whatever favor Mehitabel was about to ask would be exorbitant indeed. Lady Rivers, however, was appropriately mollified—until her only daughter declared a desire to go to sea.
One hand pressed to her heart, she leaned back in her chair as if she might call one of the upper maids to bring smelling salts. “My dear girl, whatever for? No, no, my girl, I shall have a nervous attack if I even consider it. What would possess you to go to sea? We just had a lovely holiday to Southampton last summer.”
“It would not be a holiday, Maman, but for educational purposes. I believe—and Master Hale agrees—that I’ve learned all I can about navigation while trapped on dry land. Gaining practical knowledge is a most necessary next step in becoming a well-rounded young woman.”
Lady Rivers, though a fervent champion of education, protested that young women could be marvelously well-rounded with only a theoretical knowledge of deep-sea navigation. She also privately resolved to replace Master Hale with a less indulgent tutor. However, during his daughter’s impassioned plea, Lord Rivers had come in from his morning inspection of the stables, and as he removed his gloves, throwing them to the tea table with a loud smack , he said, “Let the girl go to sea, Mary.”
“Oh, Father! ” Mehitabel exclaimed in delight as John looked up sharply and said, “Really?” and Lady Rivers gasped, “My lord, whatever for?”
He stretched out in the larger of the parlor chairs. “We’ve always said our children’s education should spare no expense. I see no reason to quibble over sea versus land. Yes, my girl, get thee to the sign of the three-eyed wench; join a crew; sign their articles; begone.”
Here, Mehitabel faltered. The Inn at the Three-Eyed Wench was a by-word between the Rivers for calumny, piracy, whoring, and all other evils. She could not be sure, but it seemed she recalled her father once saying he would feed his children to lions before he would have them known at such a place. “I beg your pardon, sir—I thought you might arrange something with one of your partners’ ships.”
“Impossible,” he said coolly, buttering a slightly burnt muffin. “Their voyages are far too long for your constitution, and I don’t believe in exploiting my old friendships so. No. You find yourself a kindly fishing vessel or some such and go up the coast for a few days. Then we may discuss deep sea voyages.”
If he was joking, it was in a new style; there was not that heat in his voice his children were accustomed to. If he was not joking, perhaps he had forgotten what all these words meant. Mehitabel resolved to exploit the miscommunication until he corrected his error (which, she hoped, would not be till she was several leagues out to sea). “Thank you, Father.” She stood and straightened her skirts to a strangled, distressed noise from her mother.
“Oh, Belle?” Lord Rivers gestured toward the writing-desk. “Take John with you.”
“I can’t possibly—” John protested, but his father stood and silenced him.
Lord Rivers was sharp at all points like a lancet, and his glare was just as cutting, the full force of which he now turned on John. “ You can’t possibly, my young Mozart?” John flinched. “No: an inapt metaphor. Mozart was twice world-renowned by your age. And you are—what? Get your coat and mind your sister as I told you.”
John, perhaps wisely, bit his tongue, only nodded stiffly and brushed past his sister to leave the room. Mehitabel threw their mother a reproachful look as she followed, which Lady Rivers cast likewise on her husband, though for her own reasons.
“How could you think of letting Mehitabel go to sea?”
“She won’t get past the dock,” he replied. “I’m shocked she even agreed to try, but the minute she sets foot in that inn, she’ll be mocked out of the room by every captain worth his salt—the ones who don’t try to molest her first.” His wife shrilled in protest, but he only smiled meanly. “John will dirty his soft hands defending her, Mehitabel will lose this ridiculous sailing notion, and they will both receive an education in the real world—a subject their tutors have clearly been scanting.”
~
The Inn at the Sign of the Three-Eyed Wench lurked exactly where one might expect such an inn to lurk: far down the harbor’s end, nearly underneath the docks. A constant chorus of beggars and prostitutes traded in its alleys, and (though, in truth, this must be said of every shop so near the water) it was overpowered by the smell of rotting fish.
For all that cheerful environment, it was still frequented by the middle class of captain, perhaps because they could lord it over the place as they could not at the higher class of inn. So John and Mehitabel did not stand out quite as much as one might expect. This is not to say that they did not stand out. Of course they did. They had dressed down as best they could for the occasion, Mehitabel in a silver-grey mantua and John’s coat also of grey, though even if they had mimicked the sailors’ getup perfectly, their wide eyes and turned-up noses would have marked them out as a novelty in that rarified air. But when they pushed open the heavy, creaking door beneath the heavy, creaking sign, the various crews hunched around their tables merely glanced up, assessed the newcomers, and assumed they were lost rather than any kind of mark to be bullied.
John, who had been braced for the latter, was left on his back foot when no one came barrelling up to him, demanding his business and his purse.
“How shall we go about this?” he inquired.
“Let us split up,” said Mehitabel confidently. “We can canvas the inn more quickly that way.”
John was not entirely convinced his parents would count this arrangement as “looking after” his sister. But after three conversations, he was convinced of something else: they would never get to sea. The first men he approached, on being asked if he might speak to their captain, told John he could have the next chat after the captain finished with his lady upstairs, though they hoped John didn’t charge as much. The second gestured with a laugh to a pile of coats in a corner that gave of bubbling, rum-scented snores at irregular intervals. The third simply said, “Fuck off, princeling.”
He could only imagine the indignities his sister was facing. Just as he turned to rescue her from them, she called, “John!” in a tone that implied little need for rescuing.
“John,” she repeated, rushing to his side and tugging him toward the back corner of the dining-room whence she had come. “There’s a gentleman I would like you to meet. This is Captain Edward Reyes . ”
“Captain Reyes,” said John, shaking the man’s hand.
“Mr. Nolan,” replied the captain.
The correction was on the tip of John’s tongue, but he bit it back, realizing she gave the man their least assuming name on purpose.
Captain Edward Reyes was a barrel-chested man just as tall as John’s shoulder, dressed very rustically. John knew that a captain’s clothes did not always match his wealth; he had spied on enough exchanges between his father and the captains who traded for the Rivers family that he knew a man simply dressed might be frugal—or stingy—and a man swaggering around with much gold on was likely wearing all he owned. Even still, the plainness of Captain Reyes’ dress, as well as that of the young men around his table (and young they were—John was not sure how many were even his age), suggested that perhaps his ship did not operate at the caliber of their father’s aboveboard partners.
Still, he found in the captain a perfectly amiable conversationalist, as able to hold sway at a table as any middling-wealth baronet, and several charming acquaintances among the crew. Captain Reyes particularly commended his gunner, a tall boy with prominent ears and a goofy smile called Mark O’Connell, and the ship’s cook and surgeon, a friendly little man who shook John’s hand vigorously with a “Shaun Cooper, sir, at your service!” Compared to his previous conversation partners, John thought he could chat with this crew for some time.
The captain leaned back in his chair, which was brave, considering their quality. “This young lady says you’re looking for berth.”
“I’m looking for employment,” corrected Mehitabel.
“You’re hired already.”
“Is she?” asked John in some amazement.
Captain Reyes shrugged. “I’m able enough at navigation, but I’ll never say no to an extra hand at the helm. Some might say there’s no place for book learning at sea. They say it leads men astray in a crisis. It fouls up the chain of command. It…” Captain Reyes’ list of reasons that book learning had no place at sea went on so long Mehitabel grew half afraid he would convince himself by the recitation. But he smiled thinly and concluded, “But I say fuck ‘em.”
Mark O’Connell thought that sentiment good enough to drink to.
The captain addressed himself to Mehitabel in a stage whisper. “Does he want to work too, or is he just pleasure cruising?”
“Oh, I’ve never wanted to work,” John said before he could stop himself.
Captain Reyes burst out laughing pahahaha! and the rest of his crew joined in. “Neither have we, sir,” he said, wiping his eyes. “Neither have we. Isn’t that the rub? But we poor men have to make do for ourselves.”
John, unsure whether we poor men included or excluded him, chuckled along awkwardly. He shot Mehitabel a look that said if he was about to get press-ganged into swabbing poop decks or whatever it was that talentless men did at sea, he was going to throw something of hers overboard at the next opportunity.
“My brother is a very able-bodied musician,” Mehitabel said proudly. Best of sisters! He wouldn’t dream of throwing anything of hers anywhere.
Captain Reyes went on to explain that their ship—a pretty little sloop by the name of Summer Stars—was bound next day for the Dutch West Indies trading cloth goods, and if the Nolans had no troubles about it, they could draw up articles right there.
“Oh, articles,” breathed Mehitabel, so quietly only John could hear. She was not asked to sign many things in her day-to-day life, other than letters to elderly relatives and the Eisley sisters.
Perhaps the Nolans ought to have shown a more modest hesitation. Perhaps they ought to have treated Captain Reyes’ offer with the sort of diffidence that young ladies are taught to use to make suitors jealous. But John was never taught such things, so he was not practiced in weaponizing the awkward diffidence he naturally possessed. And Mehitabel, who had been taught such things, assumed that was only for proposals of marriage, and that proposals of sea ventures could be entered into whenever one’s fancy was struck.
So two of the Summer Stars’ crew pulled up additional chairs for John and Mehitabel—dumping their occupants onto the dusty floor to squawk indignantly—and poured them ale (which neither of them really enjoyed). Meanwhile, Captain Reyes busied himself with ink and paper until, breezily reassuring them that everything was perfectly standard, he slid the final document across the table. It read thus:
ARTICLES ON BOARD THE SUMMER STARS
- That every Man shall obey civil Command; the Captain shall have one full Share and a half in all Prizes; the Master, Carpenter, Boatswain, & Gunner shall have one Share and a quarter.
- That every Man shall maintain his Arms clean and fit for an Engagement, or else suffer such punishment as the Captain and Company shall think fit.
Herein followed several articles about general upkeep aboard ship, forbidding the crew to carry lighted candles in the powder magazine, and other such wise prohibitions. While the punishments listed seemed harsh to the Nolans’ young eyes, they assumed this was standard practice at sea and read on.
- That if any Man shall steal any Thing in the Company, to the value of a Piece of Eight, he shall be maroon’d or shot.
Mehitabel’s lips moved silently over the word marooned. John glanced at her. Surely this was not standard. Marooned was a word from novels. And not novels about the respectable adventures of the British navy.
- That in the capturing of Prizes (here her fingers began to tap anxiously against John’s leg under the table), the Boarding Party to be chosen by Volunteer, that every Man might have his fair turn. Furthermore, that those in the party are allow’d a Shift of Clothes and a Pistol from the taking, over and above their Share.
- That no Prisoner shall be killed or maimed without the will of the Captain or a Majority Vote.
Mehitabel smiled the winning smile she usually used to disguise when she was about to cheat at whist and begged a moment alone with her brother. This granted, she and John hurried out of earshot of the crew.
“John, don’t be cross, I did not—”
“—realize they were pirates?”
“No!” she said in an agonized whisper.
“I’m not cross,” said John truthfully. “I think it’s just our luck.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the pirate crew with whom they had just been drinking most convivially. “They are the only ship that will have me. And I would not be doing acts of piracy.”
“Just navigating toward them.”
“Don’t tease, John!”
An itching somewhere deep behind John’s ribs told him he could do little worse than go home to his father’s withering, greying remarks and his mother’s nothing-reassurances. “If I don’t tease, we’ll have nothing to talk about on this long voyage.”
She looked up sharply. For all that she prayed John might come along, and that he had seemed to get on with Captain Reyes, it was another thing to hear in his own words that he was going, and she exclaimed so with such delight that John’s conscience was pricked at his reluctance. “All right. So we’ll risk it. If it’s very dreadful, we can mutiny!” And with that, she returned to the table. “I have a concern here,” she said, pointing to an article: “That no Woman shall be allow’d in Disguise. The punishment 30 lashes for her and any Man found to have carried her aboard.”
“You wouldn’t be disguised,” pointed out Captain Reyes reasonably. “You would be hired. It’s the sneaking we take issue with, see.”
“But could I disguise myself to others, supposing you knew it was me?”
This the captain granted as a useful artifice. And with that matter settled, nothing else remained but for John and Mehitabel to sign on the lines provided and join the pirate crew. John noted with interest that Mehitabel signed her name Michel Nolan , but there was no opportunity to comment on it, for hand must be shaken all round and farewells-for-now said. Captain Reyes told them to be ready to sail at first light. Thus they parted.
The walk back to the carriage began in silence, as if they were waiting for the pirates to get out of earshot. Finally, John tested something aloud.
“Michel Nolan.”
“Do you like it?”
“He sounds like a devout French peasant.”
“You’re teasing again,” protested Michel (for, as the young lady took great pleasure in the name, and it was the one her new companions would know her by, we shall grant her the choice and call her so too).
John protested in return that Michel Nolan would make a very fine pirate, once the good man gave up going on pilgrimages or whatever. Reassured, his sister looped her arm through his. Over the course of the walk, her shyness slipped away and by the time they alighted at home, John had to hush her lest her chattering about how excited she was to set sail alert one of the less secret-keeping servants.
Perhaps it needed not be such a great secret, since their father had told her to do precisely what she had done. Still, when they parted on the stairs, it was with a whispered intent to meet again in the morning with whatever they might pack discreetly. Michel, however, had precious little that would serve, especially when it came to practical shoes, so she ended up in John’s room as well, filling her smallest trunk with the smallest of his clothes, retiring to her own at last for a few hours’ sleep.
She tossed fitfully, hair splayed against her several pillows, until she was convinced the clock was refusing to strike midnight out of particular spite. Perhaps God was keeping her awake because she was not fully prepared for the morning. She rose, dressed herself in an old riding outfit of John’s, and returned to bed, boots and all. It did no good. She resigned herself to hours of counting the sounds of the town-house settling, the breeze rustling the leaves outside her window—and John’s door opening down the corridor. A terrible and unfounded fright struck her, and she rushed to intercept him.
Meanwhile, John paced fretfully until he also assumed the clock was spiting him. When he could bear it no more, throwing his bags over his shoulder, he descended, having struck upon the notion of going—he knew not where.
“John?” Michel’s whisper above arrested him. She leaned over the banister.
“I—I thought I’d go out. For a walk, or something.”
“Oh, good.” She hesitated before admitting, “I thought you might be going without me.”
John smiled. “I hardly want to go with you!” he said, which was a moving reassurance.
Michel shifted from one foot to the other at the top of the stairs. “Can I—”
“Come on.”
So the young Nolans left the home of their youth. They left a pair of letters for their parents to discover in the morning:
My dearest Mother and Father,
I have booked passage on a lovely ship known as the Summer Stars. The captain and crew are perfect gentlemen, and the captain is most encouraging about the opportunities I will have to improve myself at navigation. When I return, I expect I shall be the most accomplished young lady of the season! I imagine none of the Eisley sisters have been to sea, and you may tell Mrs. Eisley so. Though the girls are my dear companions, I feel their mother has never shown you the deference you are due, and it is unkind of her.
(Michel continued in this vein for the whole front of the page and most of the back, before signing off with many effusions. She considered whether the drop of a tear on the signature might make her goodbye seem more earnest, but John pointed out that since she was not sad in the least, it would, in fact, be less earnest to do so.)
My lord.
According to your wishes, I accompany my sister abroad. You will hear from us some time in the fall.
Your obedient son,
John.
At first, John thought they might only walk in the unwholesome night air, but they veered toward the stables, and without discussing the matter, saddled their horses.
When they were children, their governesses used to take them to an untouched stretch of coastline not far away to splash in the waves, identify wildlife, and stop troubling their mother, who always took ill in the summer. John led them there; a steady remembrance of the paths, even in the dark.
The tide was out, and they walked such a distance to reach it. If you, dear reader, have ever been so bold as to walk the coast at night, then you remember, as they do, the constant trudging through sand that makes one lose all sense of where the land ends, far behind in the darkness. John could only tell Michel was still beside him by the crunch of sand beneath her too-large boots. At last, they reached the black water, and without discussion—as with everything since they shut their grand front doors—they sat in the sand and helped one another pull off their boots.
It used to be a game. They would stand, hand in hand, four and two, or five and three, and jump the tiny waves that rolled in one after the other, John taking a great four-year-old pride in how much deeper he could go before a really huge wave knocked him over (the same depth that now only lapped at the cuffs of his pants) or until Michel cried because her clothes were too wet. They stood there in the tide, John’s arms crossed, Michel’s hands clasped in front of her. She repressed the impulse now to give a little hop as each wave brushed against her ankles.
The full moon sent streaks of white fluttering across the surface of the water, but it only made the rest of the expanse deeper and more inscrutable. The West Indies were somewhere before them, so they had been taught, where the water did not bite with spring chill, as it did here. Michel thought of diving in. John thought of lying down and letting the foam cover him. They simply stood, staring out.
They crossed the ocean once, so they had been told, not long before they began wave-jumping at this very shore. Presumably, they could do so again. After all, they were so much older. So much more capable.
A bird squalled behind them, startled by a snake moving in the grass, or whatever startles birds. The bird, however, startled the humans, reminding them how dark and lonely this beach really was. John shuddered; Michel shook her hands like shaking off cobwebs; their gazes finally broke, and they hurried to their horses, leaving the sea behind with the unspoken promise that it would have them back soon enough.
There were hours yet till sunrise, but they could not go home after such a solemn leave-taking. So they went early to the Three-Eyed Wench, braving the stares of the scattered drunks who also frequented such a place at such an hour. When the crew of the Summer Stars found them come morning, it was at a dark corner table, fast asleep, curled into each other like puppies. Captain Reyes smiled and shook John’s shoulder. “To arms, messmates. We’ve got a long way to sail.”