Night Birds On Nantucket (5 page)

It proved a long, fiddling task, which occupied most of the day. Though aware that she was often watched, Dido pretended not to notice. She found it impossible to work all the time, for her fingers became stiff. Twice she broke off to make a tour of the room without touching the deck, each time attempting a new route. She also played several games of shuttlecock, and chalked herself out a hopscotch square on the chart table. Here she encountered a difficulty, however.

‘I wisht as how I had a pebble,' she remarked aloud. ‘Or a marble, or a penny, or even a button would do. Oh well,' heaving a deep sigh, ‘can't play hopscotch, that's all. Funny how I has a
fancy
to play hopscotch. Anyway I reckon it's dinner-time; I'll nip up to the camboose and see what's cooking.'

She took the empty plates and left the room.

All the time she had been working and playing part of her mind was occupied with the puzzle of the mysterious veiled lady in the blubber-room. Could she be a stowaway? Dido wondered. She might have been hidden in the hold and obliged to take refuge elsewhere because of the general turnout. But where could she
have come on board? What did she live on? Did none of the crew know about her presence?

‘Somebody must know,' Dido said to herself as she absently accepted two bowls of porpoise chowder from the cook, ‘
somebody
must know, and musta told her about me. Else how did she twig I was English? I wonder who told her?'

She returned to the cabin, ate her meal, and flung herself on the bed for a nap, burying her face in the pillow and letting out snores. For a long time there was silence; then she heard a cautious clink. She redoubled her snores, shutting her eyes so tightly that she saw red and green stars. Presently the hatch was heard to close with a gentle click. For good measure Dido lay five minutes longer, then, yawning loudly, she opened her eyes. The second chowder bowl was empty. Beside it lay a large leather button.

‘Well I never!' Dido exclaimed in astonishment. ‘Fancy my not noticing that there button afore! Jist what I needed for hopscotch! Now, can I remember the rules, I wonder?'

Having dumped the chowder bowls on the floor she climbed on to the table. Addressing herself as if she were a slow-witted pupil she proceeded to rehearse the rules of hopscotch. She was thus occupied when the door opened unexpectedly and she met Captain Casket's startled eyes.

‘Is – is thee all right, my child?' he asked.

‘Now look here,' said Dido crossly. ‘Let's get this straight from the fust. You gives me your cabin, right, then it's
mine
. See? I don't expect no monnicking and chissicking – no
interference
,' she explained impatiently
as she met his questioning gaze. ‘You keep outa here. Ain't you got the ship to look arter? You go watch for that pink whale o' yourn.
I'll
tell you if you're wanted here.'

She gave him such a fierce scowl that he retreated, gingerly shutting the door. ‘That's got rid o'
him
,' Dido said with satisfaction. ‘Now maybe we can tend to business.'

She practised hopscotch very enjoyably for an hour or so, then worked on her piece of whalebone. When this was completely hollowed out into a tube she made a mouthpiece at one end and a series of holes along it. If blown on hard enough it produced a plaintive sound, like the call of a hungry bird. After much labour Dido had several notes adjusted to her satisfaction, and was able to play ‘God Save King Jim' and ‘Who'll Buy My Sweet Lavender?' This was received with awestruck and flattering silence from the watcher behind the panel.

‘I wisht I knowed a few more tunes,' Dido said at length. ‘Seems as how while I'd been asleep I forgot most o' the ones I used to know. Ah well – maybe I'll remember some more tomorrow. I'll jist step out for a breath o' fresh air now, and then go to kip.'

She went in search of Nate, and found him sprawled on the main deck, weaving a rope mat in a rather inattentive and dreamy fashion while he tried over the words of a chanty.

‘Oh, hallo, chick,' he broke off, on seeing Dido. ‘I've got summat for you. Finished it as soon as old man Slighcarp went below.' And he brought out a beautiful little battledore, ingeniously made from woven strips of bone.

‘Coo!' said Dido. ‘It's naffy! Ain't you clever? I'll lay Dutiful Pen won't be able to hold off when she sees this! Could you make another one, d'you reckon?'

‘Guess so,' Nate said agreeably. He started singing again:

‘Can you think of a rhyme for sounds, chick?'

Dido could not. ‘Does you make 'em up, then?' she asked, much impressed.

‘Sure.'

Finding Nate such a kindred spirit Dido showed him her whalebone pipe.

‘That's cunning,' he said, blowing on it. ‘Mighty smart work for a liddle 'un. Who learned you to do that?'

‘My pa,' Dido said proudly. ‘He plays on the hoboy, so he learned me how to make a tootlepipe.'

‘Say, we'll be able to have some fine concerts now when old Slighcarp's under hatches.'

‘It's time I was under hatches too,' Dido remarked, looking up at the moon. ‘Night, Nate.' And she added to herself, ‘I've a kind of a notion that Dutiful P might surface tonight, so I'd best be there.'

It had been an energetic day, with the hopscotch, the shuttlecock, the climbing, and hard work on the pipe; Dido turned out the lamp as soon as she reached the cabin, flung herself on the bed, and went straight to sleep.

About two hours later she found herself suddenly broad awake. The
Sarah Casket
was still speeding south before a following wind; Dido could feel the rush of the great seas as they lifted and drove past the ship's sides. Every timber creaked, and even down here the hum of wind in the rigging could be heard. Moonlight came through the ports; a patch of it on the floor hardly shifted, so steady was the ship on her course.

Dido wondered what had woken her.

The she felt the clutch of little cold hands on her arm.

‘Who is it?' she whispered.

‘It's me. Dutiful Penitence.'

‘Ain't you cold, jist? Best come under the quilt, hadn't you?' Dido said matter-of-factly. She felt a small shape huddle up against her under the patchwork. Just at this moment the steersman evidently altered course a point or so, and the oblong of moonshine slid round, revealing the visitor.

She was a thin little creature, frail-looking as a cobweb (and no wonder, if she's been living on plum jelly ever since Santa Cruz, thought Dido), with long
silvery hair, not very well brushed. She stared gravely at Dido.

‘Are you really a girl?' she asked after a while.

‘Yes, what d'you think? A mermaid?'

‘But where did you come from?'

‘Your pa picked me up, off the coast of England. I was in a ship what caught fire and sank. And I've been asleep for ten months – so Nate says – all the time you was in storage.'

‘You were
in the sea
? Didn't you get scared?'

‘It wasn't bad. I hung on to a spar.'

‘You must be brave! Are you English?'

‘Yus. And don't I jist wish I was back in England,' Dido remarked with feeling. ‘But your pa says he'll put me on a boat from New Bedford, wherever that is.'

‘Near Nantucket. We may unload there before going home. But I don't suppose I
shall
be going home now,' Dutiful Penitence said drearily. ‘There'd be nobody to look after me except Aunt Tribulation, Papa says, and I won't stay with
her
. Maybe Cousin Ann Allerton will have me in New Bedford.'

‘Who's Aunt Tribulation?' Dido asked. She had heard the name before. Could this be the lady in the blubber-room?

‘Papa's sister. She's dreadfully sharp and unkind. She lives in Vine Rapids now but she came to stay once and upset me and Mamma. Oh, she did upset us! She told dear Mamma that she was a fool, bringing me up to be a cry-baby. Papa wanted to leave me with her when he took Mamma to sea, but I heard Mamma say she wouldn't dream of allowing it; she said Aunt Tribulation was a real dragon, and it was lucky she'd no
children of her own, for her rough, slapdash ways would probably be the death of any child she had charge of. Mamma wouldn't want me to stay with a dragon.'

‘What does she look like?'

‘I can't remember – quite. I was only five when she came. I remember her scolding me, and saying I was a little wet-goose, because I was afraid of her dog.'

‘Hum,' said Dido. ‘For a sea-captain's daughter you certainly are a rum 'un, Dutiful. And, look here, whoever tied that handle to you musta been dicked in the nob and
I'm
not going to lay my tongue round it every time. I'll call you Pen. Agreeable?'

‘Yes, thank you,' Penitence said shyly. ‘No one ever gave me a short name before. How old are you, Dido?'

‘I've sorta lost count,' Dido admitted. ‘With the long nap and all. Round about eleven, I reckon. What did you do all the time shut in that cupboard, Pen?'

‘Oh, it wasn't bad. Come and see.'

They lit the lamp and Penitence showed Dido her little room. It was really a store-cupboard with shelves all round, but one of them had been turned into a bunk. There were a few lesson-books, writing materials, sewing-things, and rows and rows of empty jelly bottles.

‘I did lots of lessons,' Penitence explained, ‘and I read the Bible and learned a hymn every day. Shall I say one?'

‘Not jist now, thanks,' Dido answered promptly. ‘Croopus, ain't you
good
, though? Didn't you never get fed up?'

‘Oh no. I kept a journal – but it wasn't very interesting,' Penitence confessed. ‘And I worked on my sampler.' She held up an extremely large square,
embroidered in cross-stitch with a ship and whales and gulls and a long piece of poetry beginning, ‘Myfterious Magnet! Ere thy ufe was known, Fear clad the Deep in horrors not its own.' It was nearly finished.

‘I'd sooner have done roses and doves,' Penitence went on, ‘but dear M-Mamma thought it would please Papa if it had sea things. I began it when I was six.'

‘Well!' said Dido. ‘I'd ha' been blue-devilled in here. Specially when it's such prime fun on deck.'

Penitence shivered. ‘I couldn't
bear
to go on deck. That dreadful sea! I know I'd fall in! And all the cross, rough men, and the horrid smells and dirt. Mamma always said it was dangerous up there. You won't try to make me go, will you?'

‘Bless you, no. It ain't my affair. Anyhows we can have a bang-up time in the cabin now you've decided to come out and be civil.'

‘Will you teach me that game with the feathered thing? And play tunes on your pipe?'

‘Course I will. Us'll have rare fun.'

‘You don't think Mamma would mind?' Penitence said hesitantly. ‘She said playing games was a sin.'

‘
Croo
–' Dido began, but bit the words back.

Her own parents, as she recalled, had never seemed particularly kind or fond of her, but at least they were quite
sensible
; all that was said of Mrs Casket, however, seemed to suggest that the woman had been an utter fool. Musta been queer in her attic, Dido thought. ‘Reckon she knows better now?' she suggested gruffly. ‘Lawks, if you never played, what
did
you do at home?'

‘Helped with the housework.'

‘Well I done that too. But I played arterwards.'

‘After I'd done my tasks Mamma used to let me sit on her lap while she read the Bible,' said Penitence. Her composure faltered. ‘If – if I'd been extra good, she used – she used to sing a h-hymn –'

Here, breaking down altogether, Penitence threw herself on the bed, buried her head in the quilt and cried. She cried very much indeed.

Dido looked at her worriedly. There was little consolation to offer. Foolish, Mrs Casket may have been, but her daughter had plainly thought the world of her.

‘Don't take on so,' Dido said after a while, with awkward sympathy. ‘Want a hankersniff? I've got one.'

But as Penitence made no reply, just went on crying and shivering and choking, Dido sat down on the floor by her, feeling oddly grown-up and capable and protective, and put an arm round her.

‘Cheer up,' she muttered. ‘I'll keep an eye on you. It won't work out so bad. You'll see.'

The small silvery head rubbed against her.

‘Will you? Will you really?'

‘That I will.'

‘And when we get home to Nantucket? Will you stay with me then? So's Papa don't leave me all alone with Aunt Tribulation? I'd die if I was to be looked after by a dragon. Please?
Please!
'

The thin arms came round Dido's neck in a tight hug, so that she could hardly breathe.

‘Well – maybe,' Dido said reluctantly. ‘Just for a little while. You know, I dessay your Auntie Trib ain't so dragonish really. But till your pa gets you fixed up with somebody else –'

‘Oh, you are kind! You're so much braver than I am.
I'm scared of
everything
. But you've even been in the
sea!
If you'll – if you'll stay with me it will be much better. Will you promise?'

‘All right,' Dido said, sighing.