Currents (13 page)

C
hap was waiting for Bess when she reached the
Land's End
with Harry by her side.

“Permission to board, Captain,” she said. “Along with my friend, Harry Fletcher.”

Although they'd never met, Harry had seen the older man around the village. A black man with wild silver curls and one blue eye was a memorable sight anywhere. Chap liked Harry right away, with his easy grin and straightforward manner, and they talked boats for a bit before Bess reached into her book bag and pulled out the bottle.

She told them how she and Sarah found it wedged in the sand at Singing Beach. They were all quiet for a few minutes after she showed them the paper about the slave and the carved heart.

“The first thing I'd say,” Chap finally began, “is that there is nothing to indicate
where
this girl was born or lived. There is no way to even know if the paper is authentic.”

“Why wouldn't it be?” Bess asked.

“People have been tossing bottles in the sea for years,” he explained. “Sometimes with their name and address asking whoever finds it to write and tell them where it landed. It's a way to track currents, you see. And people on sinking ships sometimes write notes to a loved one and toss them overboard, hoping when and if it's found, the finder will send it on to the loved one. I don't know if that makes any sense for this one, though. A colored slave. Slavery has been illegal in Great Britain for years.”

“It's still legal in the United States,” Harry put in.

“It is.” Chap scratched his wild gray head of hair and nodded, his expression darkening. “Yes, sorry to say, it is.”

“Did you see or hear much about it when you were there, Chap?” Bess asked.

He touched the scar that ran like a jagged collar around his neck. “Seen it, lived it a bit. Hope never to have anything to do with it again.”

Both Bess and Harry were speechless. The silence sat among the three until Chap finally said, “Well, I'm sure you're curious. Why wouldn't you be?”

“You don't have to say anything if you don't . . .” Harry began, trailing off.

“No, it's all right,” Chap said, but his voice dropped. “It's not a secret. Maybe you should know—know about the way it is over there. I was born in New York a free black man. My father was an escaped slave, and my mother was Irish. That's where I get my blue eyes. Or ‘eye,' I should say.” He snorted with laughter.

“We lived on a farm near a lake where my father taught me to fish and farm. He's the one who taught me how to tie knots and to sail a boat. My ma made sure I could read and write. My father was so proud of that. He died when I was twelve, and my ma died the next year. I did my best to run the farm myself from then on till one day, out of the woods, come two white men with guns and ropes with their horse pulling a covered wagon. Got up close to me and something didn't seem right, so I started for my gun, but they jumped me first. That's when I saw what was in the back of their wagon. Black men. Each one chained to the other and to the floor of the wagon. The men were slave catchers. Come up North and took back as many blacks as they could snatch and sold 'em back South on the auction block.”

Bess gasped. “But you were a free man, Chap!”

He raised his eyebrows and laughed. “I wouldn't have been once they had me south of the Mason Dixon line. It wasn't uncommon for slavers to come north and grab free blacks, especially once slave boats stopped coming over from Africa.”

“Did they get you South?” Harry asked, his cheeks afire at the injustice.

“They had four men in the back secured with chains. They ran out of chains for me. So they took rope and hog-tied my left wrist behind my back to my neck. I screamed and hollered and cussed at them. One of them finally said he'd shoot me then and there if I didn't shut up, and he tightened the ropes so they cut through my flesh. So I lay there until that night when they'd had enough whiskey and fell asleep.”

“How did you get free?” Bess asked.

“No one can tie a knot—or untie one—better than Chap Harris,” he said, tossing his head back defiantly.

“Did you free the others with you?” Harry asked.

“I didn't have the keys to their chains. I've always been sorry for that, but I had no choice. I wonder sometimes where they are now.”

“Why didn't you go back to your farm?” Bess said.

“They would have just come back one day. Taken me again. I knew I couldn't go home again. Made my way to Boston and found work on the docks.”

“You couldn't have been more than fourteen,” Harry said. “Is that when you lost your eye?”

“No, that's a different story for another day,” he answered, smiling.

Bess imagined what Harry was thinking. He had never been off the Isle of Wight. Chap's history seemed incredible.

“About fourteen. Yes, that's about right,” Chap said. “Sort of stopped counting birthdays after my folks passed.”

“How did you know how to go about getting a job once you were there?” Harry asked.

“I'd heard about Boston and New York City. I knew enough that they weren't in slave states and that they were big cities. A man can always find some work in a city if he's not choosy.”

He shrugged his shoulders, his face like a tight knot. “And here I am.”

“Now,” he said, with no bitterness but as firm as Bess had ever heard him, “I don't mind telling you my story. But I don't want to tell it again. I'd be obliged if you didn't either. No one else's business, if you know what I mean.”

C
hap picked up the carving that had come out of Bess's bottle and twisted it toward the light.

“Now, so this little thing,” Chap said as he held up the carved heart and laughed. “I'd like to tell you it is made of some precious stone, but I believe it is the pit of some fruit.”

“Really?” Bess said, knowing that after Chap's story, her face must be as white as Chap's hair. She noticed that Harry's hands were trembling, and he tucked them under his arms. He was unable to stop staring at the scar gouged into Chap's neck.

“Yes,” Chap continued. “People have made an art of carving fruit pits for centuries. You should see the intricate work I've seen some sailors do when they're at sea for months and have a lot of time on their hands. I'm not sure which fruit it came from. But I'd bet that's what it is. Not valuable, but an amusing little trinket. Lots of times they've been used like a worry stone. Know what that is?”

Bess and Harry looked blankly at him.

“Well now, that began back in ancient Greece. Take

a little something about this size,” he said, holding the heart between his index and thumb, “and you rub it. It's supposed to calm your mind and relieve your worries. Sometimes they were made out of precious stones and sometimes . . .” He held it up to make his point. “. . . sometimes they were made from the pits of fruit.”

Bess carefully rolled the paper back up and dropped it in the bottle. But she tucked the carved heart in her pocket before plunging the cork back in the bottle. With Papa off traveling so much and having to deal with Elsie, Bess decided a worry stone would be a fine idea. She held the bottle up to let the sunlight flitter off its curves and said, “If Agnes May Brewster is indeed a colored slave in America, can you imagine how thrilled she might be to know her name has traveled all the way across the ocean? Maybe she is somewhere dreaming about where her name has been and where it might be going! Free as a bird.”

“More like a fish,” Harry said, shaking his head. “You're a hopeless romantic, Bess.”

But Chap bit his lip and said, “She may find out for herself what it's like to be that free. Word is that in America the North is fixing to fight the South if they don't make slavery illegal.”

“A rebellion?” Bess asked, incredulous.

“Well,” Chap went on, “most folks think it'll probably never come to that. But they're dead serious about freeing all the slaves. There was a lot of talk about it even a few years ago when I was still in Boston. There are many people fired up about it being against God's will and all.”

“I don't know how I feel about a war, but it would be wonderful to think that my friend—” Bess hesitated, knowing it sounded a little silly to refer to a name on a piece of paper as her friend, “that Agnes May Brewster would be free!”

“And the moon,” said Harry, “is made of green cheese, Bess.”

“See here, Bess.” Chap pointed at the bottle. “That cork won't be enough to protect the paper from the moisture on the island. You can see where there's wax still stuck around the lip of the bottle. That's probably why it made it from wherever it came from in such good condition.”

“I know,” she said, nodding. “It was sealed when I found it. I cut off the wax. If I leave it outside much longer, I shall seal it up again.”

“D.” Harry looked at Bess.

“D?” She asked.

“Yes, D. D for detective. Perhaps that should be the subject of your next book.”

Bess stopped at Singing Beach on her way home and hid the bottle back in the alcove in the rocks, making a mental note to return soon with a candle to reseal the cork with wax. She kept the carved heart tucked in her pocket.
I think I'll need this
, she decided, rubbing it between her fingers.

E
ven this late in August, the air rolling in from the English Channel still blew warm over the island some days. But no one at Attwood Manor's long polished dining table could mistake the frosty air that hung between the duke and Elsie. “For the first time in months there were more people at the dock leaving the island than coming,” the duke said as he finished his breakfast. His daughters sat on either side of him at the table, with Elsie at the opposite end. “It seems we've had more tourists this summer than ever before, don't you think?

“Not going to be this lovely weather much longer. What do you say we go off for a sail today, girls? Are you up for that?” he asked. “Probably the last chance we'll have this summer.”

“Yes!” the girls both quickly agreed.

“May I invite Harry Fletcher, Papa?” Bess asked. “I don't see why not.” Despite Elsie's opinion, her father rather liked Harry Fletcher, who was spending more and more time at Attwood.

Elsie moved her food around her plate with little enthusiasm. She was subject to seasickness and never joined them on the boat.

“Would you like to give it another try, Elsie?” the duke asked.

“You know the answer already,” she mumbled into her eggs and toast.

“Very well.” The duke cleared his throat and waited while the maid poured him another cup of tea before making an announcement.

“I was in touch with the Royal Geographical Society when I last visited London,” he began. “They have asked me to head up an important mission for the Crown.”

“What is it, Papa? You're not going to India again, are you?” Sarah asked, practically popping up out of her chair.

“No, darling, not India. I have been asked to go to Africa. It is an enormous honor and an adventure. Perhaps the last great mystery on earth is to discover the source of the Nile River. Men have tried for centuries.”

Elsie's spoon dropped into the middle of her plate. “Have you said yes?”

“Indeed. Yes, I have,” he said firmly.

“Without even consulting me? Am I to be here alone with all the responsibility for
your
children and this home?”

“The staff is well equipped to take care of Attwood Manor. I leave next week from Portsmouth,” he said. “We sail to Zanzibar off the east coast of Africa. It is imperative that we go now before the rains come. I'm told that when it floods it is impossible to travel there.”

“How long will you be gone, Papa?” Bess missed him already, and the thought of more long weeks alone with Elsie gave her no comfort. “Oh, Papa, won't you please at least consider taking me? I forgot to tell you that I have been reading all about Africa and India in
Merry's Museum Magazine
at the library. I've read that tigers are far fiercer than lions. I would be safe with you. Oh, please?”