Plundered Christmas (22 page)

No one will know the truth. They must not. For the sake of my grandmother and for the reputation of the Banet family, Anne Bonny has no connection to the honorable Anne Banet.

Grandmother told me, too, of a map to confessions and letters of hers scattered around the island. There, she told me, she had the real treasure buried.

I searched for the map to destroy it, but could not find it. I will have to trust its secrets to God.

Captain William Banet

When Margo heard that letter, she wept. “All this time, all this time…” She wiped her eyes. “So much pain could have been avoided if instead of hiding the truth, the Banets simply passed the letters down for Anne Bonny's children and grandchildren to read. Then we would know what the family stories meant by the treasure.”

Not content that the chest held only the two documents, I continued to look.

Josie and Justin did, too.

“Look, Mom,” said Josie. “The chest is bigger outside than inside.” She used her hand to measure. “See, it takes three of my hand to go to the bottom on the outside, but not a little under two on the inside. You know what that means!”

“A false bottom,” cried Justin. “Just like in so many of my pirate adventures.”

Mary, to my surprise, leaned in to help my kids. “They're right,” she said. Then she tapped on the bottom all the way around. Then she felt at the edges. “There's a catch over here of some sort.” She grimaced and tried to get it to move, but nothing happened. “My fingers are too big, and the lever is stiff. Can you try it, Justin?”

My thrilled boy knelt down next to her while she showed him what she'd found. He tried for a few minutes, unsuccessfully. “I think the documents weigh too much and keep it down. Can someone take them?”

Since I still had the gloves on, I assumed he meant me. I picked them up.

We all watched him while he struggled with the catch. Frustrated, he called in for reinforcements. “Josie, could you help me?”

She did. That little extra force did it.

We heard a click and the former bottom of the chest came up and away.

I gasped. Red glittered and glinted beneath the panel.

“Rubies!” someone shouted. I think it was Frank, but it could have been my dad.

I had never seen so much treasure in such a small space.

“What's this?” Josie asked. In and amidst the gems, she saw a rolled piece of paper.

Carefully setting the other documents on the free board, I took it up and unrolled it.

 

The year of our Lord, 1757, January 1

My James died today. This morning he complained of pain in his arm and back. Tonight, just after dinner, his breath caught and never returned.

Oh, my soul, I will miss him!

The children do not know as of yet. Most of them had returned to the colonies with their families after the Christ Mass. My grandson, William, remained behind. As Margo's eldest, he is my heir, and I asked to train him in the affairs of the island. Father Joseph, too, is with me still and a servant girl James hired to help me, but that is all. And Father Joseph is too old to do much more than pray. But he did promise to pray until I mend and the grief eases.

He has a long time to pray.

I will put this letter in the secret cache for whatever generation finds it. Please know that the rubies represent the blood of my Lord. When I was a sinner, so vile a murderer and adulteress, pirating the ports of Bermuda and the Caribbean, my Lord had already bled for me and claimed me as his own. How priceless!

I beg of you, do not spend the gems if you need not. James and I tried to invest wisely for our generations to come to hope that you would never suffer want. So, if our diligence and prayers did come to pass, give the rubies away. Give them as freely as Jesus Christ gave his blood.

And give them with the truth and the message of the Holy Word of God.

So while I grieve now, I know I will see my James again at the feet of my Saviour.

Domine salvet—

Anne

 

If I had thought Margo was choked up before, it had nothing over the last hidden missive of Anne Banet. In her final words and treasure, she showed what she'd learned to value.

“She loved Jesus,” Margo whispered. “Just like you do, Robert. And just like I wish I did.”

“Why don't we go talk about it then, dear?” With that, my dad took her arm, the good one, and gently led her away from the group so that he could lead her to the Lord.

I could hear Margo continuing, awe in her voice. “It was the faith in God that they found through the simple persistence of a Spanish priest who stowed away on their ship and decided to stay. That was the treasure.”

Mary leaned over and hugged my two. “Didn't I say my mom had no idea what she was getting into when she looked for a good Christian man?”

We could hear the now familiar sound of the Coast Guard helicopter. The adventure was over.

 

 

 

 

Epilogue

 

It only seemed fair that Margo come and have Christmas with us after everything wrapped up on the island.

We extended the same offer to Mary and Anne, but neither was ready to see a completely Christian Talbott and Jensen family Christmas.

Frau Schmidt would have come, but she had a lot to do to get her kitchen back in working order and find a replacement for Juliana.

“Next Jahre,” she promised. “You and I will cook together in your kitchen.” I smiled at the thought.

Frank was noticeably absent. He had elected to go visit Aimee. She still had to be tried, but since she had helped the authorities and had no part in William's murder, we were confident in a good verdict. Especially since a wonderful lawyer/future father-in-law offered to come out of retirement just to defend her.

We turned on the tree. It glittered and warmed the room. I could see on it the ornaments James and I had gathered over the years. On one branch hung the painted candy cane Justin made when he was five or six. Prominently displayed on it was a picture of him at the time—complete with missing front teeth. Another branch held Josie's first attempt at needlepoint; it simply said “Noel.” The stitch work wasn't perfect, but she made it and gave it to us so we loved it. While our tree was much smaller than the one in Margo's living room, it matched our living room.

The room we sat in now was cozy and filled with love. A few days ago, I might have envied all the things Margo had. Especially the staff! Even until yesterday, I think. But at this moment, I realized that I was far more blessed than she had yet been. She lived in a lineage of secrecy that had no purpose. It wasn't what James and Anne Bonny wanted or intended for their offspring.

“Why don't you pick which carol for us to sing?” I asked Margo.

She looked at me in a way that I would almost call shy. “You really want me to?”

I nodded.

She looked off into the distance as she thought. “Do you have any favorites, Robert?”

He chuckled. “No, my dear. This is your choice. You might as well act like part of the Jensen clan as soon as possible. It's not like we have hundreds of years ahead of us.”

She leaned into him on her good shoulder. The other one, as well as we had doctored it without help from medical professionals, would heal. A trip to the hospital this morning had repaired as much as they could and made certain that the area was free of infection. However, it would never look perfect again. With so much tissue missing, even plastic surgery would only be able to do so much. But I had a feeling the new Margo wouldn't care so much about that.

“Not on this side of eternity, anyway,” she answered Dad, and then beamed up at him just as she had at Thanksgiving. But now the expression seemed more heartfelt and less contrived.

As we waited, I heard her softly humming. At first, I couldn't make out what it was. It sounded somewhat classical. “It was my father's favorite,” she said. “I hadn't thought about it in years. “ She paused. “It seems rather appropriate now that I have made the Child's acquaintance.”

Then, I recognized the tune of “Greensleeves.” “What Child is This?” I exclaimed. “OK, Josie, find it in the book.”

She opened a carol book to the page and put it in front of me on the piano. Fortunately, for me, Margo had chosen a carol I could play with both hands.

“It's on page twenty-one,” Josie told everyone.

While they looked for the page, I played the intro. We sang about the birth of the Lord that few recognized. He did not come into the world in the way that Israel expected. They looked for a king. They wanted someone to conquer the Romans and drive out the oppressors. But that wasn't the way God had planned it.

It was fitting. As I sang the words, I thought about my soon-to-be stepmother. She did not come into this family in a way that I expected. Frankly, she was not the kind of person I would have planned for my father. However, I was beginning to realize, they needed each other. Both of them had suffered a lot of personal pain in their supposed golden years. Together, those wounds would heal, and they'd be all the more golden for it.

I looked over at Margo as I played the final chord. The joy on her face was easy to read, open and honest. After years of living behind a false front, it would be hard for her to live openly, but I imagined my dad would help her.

After Margo's song, we sang several others chosen by those present. I took my turn at the last to end with “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”

Josie won the draw to be our Santa for the year. She put on the special Christmas hat with red stocking and white pompom and one by one, rescued presents from under the tree and delivered them to the appropriate recipients.

While she did that, I served coffee and dessert to those who wanted it. In addition to my usual brownies, I had some special offerings of pie and cookies that Mrs. Folger had given us as our Christmas present from her. No one could say that we had a shortage of choices.

The conversation was comfortable and homey. We spoke of the schedule the kids had for the rest of the school year. We shared tales of Christmas and favorite traditions. We talked about friends at church, co-op, and friends from long ago.

Margo told us about her childhood, some of the good parts “without all the Banet history.”

“Dad never understood why it was so important to my mother that I marry a Banet and get back to the family island. She was rather obsessive about it. But as long as he was alive, he was a good father and made sure I had a real childhood.” She paused and looked long and intently at Dad. “Tell them.”

“After our wedding,” Dad said, “Margo's moving back with me to the cabin.”

If James was at all surprised by that, he didn't show it.

“Yippee!” said Justin. “That means I can teach Miss Margo how to stuff a squirrel so she could have her own Twinkle.”

She gave my dad a knowing look, stood and walked over to the chair Justin sat in. “I would love that, Justin,” she said. “On one condition.”

His face dropped. Usually when an adult expressed “conditions” about Justin's chosen hobby, they were trying to find a way to get away from it. “What condition?”

She put a finger under his chin and lifted his face until he was looking directly at her. “You must call me Grandma Margo.”

He smiled. “You've got a deal. Grandma Margo.”

In the circle of chairs around our tree, it didn't just feel like home. It felt like the best of family and fellowship. I was learning to love the woman my dad had chosen.

“Does that mean,” I said, my voice quavered in spite of itself. “That I can call you Mom, Margo?”

She didn't answer. At least not with words. As we looked at each other, tears streaming down both of our cheeks, I knew we both had received the best Christmas present God could have given us this year.

Someone else to call family.

 

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