Currents Page 8

  “DSS J. K.,” Bess said. “Duchess Julia Kent.”

  “You’ll look beautiful wearing it,” he said.

  “But not until I am eighteen,” Bess said, returning the cross to its box and then to Gertrude. “And not a day before,” she said sarcastically. She realized she must sound bitter and changed the subject.

  “Do you think you’ll live on the island for the rest of your life?” Bess asked Harry.

  “Well, I’m not really sure. I have so many things that I think I might want to try. Truth be told, I don’t know what I’m meant to be in this world. I only just turned fourteen. I have some time to figure it all out,” Harry said thoughtfully.

  “Your true north,” Bess said.

  “What? What’s that?” Harry asked, helping himself to another scone.

  “What you were meant to be,” she explained. “I used to ask my mother what she wanted me to be when I grew up, and she always told me she wanted to help me find my own true north. Not what people think you should be, but who you know you should be. Where your heart lies.”

  “And do you know your true north, Bess?” Harry asked, putting the last bite in his mouth.

  “I do. I’m certain that I am destined to be an explorer like my father.” She considered telling him about the bottle, but decided against it for now.

  “Can girls be explorers?” he asked.

  “I don’t think whether one is a boy or a girl has anything to do with exploring. Why don’t you meet me at the library tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock, and I’ll show you some of the books that I’ve been reading. You will be astounded at what there is left to discover on this planet. You might find them interesting, or you might find some other subject that you like better. Who knows? Many people have discovered their true north by reading books, Harry. I plan on—” Bess stopped short as Elsie entered the kitchen.

  “What is that dirty old hay cart doing out front?” Elsie interrupted, her long skirt swishing behind her. Bess felt her stomach clench.

  “This is Harry Fletcher, Mother,” Sarah replied. “He was one of the fellows who helped upright the horse cart when we were coming back from the village. We just ran into him out by our backfield. He’s helping with the fall haying here at Attwood.”

  Harry jumped up and politely bowed his head. “Good day, Your Grace. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Well, Harry needs a bath after his long day’s work,” Elsie said, sighing. “I’m sure his parents would want him to head home now.” It wasn’t a suggestion.

  Before Bess could open her mouth, Harry calmly nodded. “I’ll be going on now. Thank you for the tea. Bess, I’ll see you at church if not before.”

  “I hope to see you tomorrow,” she answered, both of them ignoring Elsie’s slow boil.

  “I’ll try, if I get my chores done in time.” He turned and walked calmly out the door, nodding to Bess at the last moment as he left.

  “Whatever do you girls mean,” Elsie said, “inviting the son of a stonemason into our house. Perhaps I should speak to your father about having hired him to work on the property. The likes of him does not belong in our kitchen. After all—”

  “If he’s good enough to work at the Queen’s estate, Mother,” Bess replied, squaring off, “he is more than appropriate to work at Attwood.”

  Elsie and Bess glared at each other until Elsie finally picked up her skirts and sputtering to herself, clomped up the stairs.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Bess headed out earlier than usual the next afternoon. She made sure to pack her library books in a larger-than-necessary bag and hurried down to Singing Beach. She was relieved when she reached into the rocky opening where she and Sarah had hidden the bottle. It was just as they’d left it. Pulling it out, she inspected it before tucking it into her bag and hurrying off to the library.

  The periodical section of the library had two large club chairs that faced each other with a long table in between. Bess returned last week’s books and checked out five new ones, then sat with Merry’s Museum Magazine spread out on the table. The magazine always arrived on the island a few months after being published in America, but the stories and letters were so exciting it didn’t matter how late she read them.

  She read a story called “The Chinese Wall.”

  There is not, perhaps, in the world a more stupendous work of art than the Great Wall, which marks the northern boundary of the Chinese Empire, dividing it from Tartary.

  She made a mental note to add the Great Wall of China to her list of places to visit.

  She would tell Papa every detail of the next story, “A Frightened Tiger.”

  You may talk about your lions—I have always said, and I always will say, that for pure blood-thirstiness and ferocity, the tiger is a far uglier beast than the lion. The tamest tiger that ever was, just let him snuff blood once, when he is hungry, and nothing can hold him!

  “To think,” she said out loud, “that my papa came face-to-face with such a beast!”

  “So this is where you think I’ll find my true north, do you?” Harry asked as he came up behind her.

  “Well, hello there,” she said. She jumped up, delighted that he came. “You might indeed find it here. You must read the stories in Merry’s Museum, Harry. They are nothing short of thrilling, I promise.

  “So now that you’re here,” she continued, “let’s see what else we can come up with to interest you. Have you ever been to this library before?”

  “Of course,” he said. “Just not for a while. Well, come to think of it, not for a long while. So you be my guide, Lady Bess. Where do we start?”

  He followed her over to the long rows of neatly sorted books.

  “A,” she pronounced, running her finger over the spines of several books. “A is always a good place to start. How about A for accountant?”

  “Oh, I’m not too keen with numbers,” he said, wincing.

  “Well, A is also for astronomer or architect or apple picker!”

  “Keep going,” he said.

  “Then you come, of course, to the letter B. Now there is baker.”

  “Well, I do like to eat,” he pointed out.

  “B also stands for beekeeper or butcher.”

  Harry cringed. “I’m allergic to bees and can’t stand the sight of blood. Shall we move on to C? Actually, why don’t you pick out a couple of books for me, and I’ll see how it goes this week?”

  She carefully chose a couple she thought he’d like—one about exploring and another all about London.

  “And this is one of my favorites,” she said, pulling out a biography of Marcus Aurelius. “I’ve read it so many times, I’m likely responsible for its worn cover.”

  Harry took it from her and opened the book to a random page. “Who is he?”

  “He was a Roman emperor,” Bess said. “But more importantly he was a philosopher. Read it, Harry, and I promise you will find at least one thing he said that will inspire you.”

  “‘Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be,’” Harry read, “‘be one.’ Hmm, I like that.”

  “See? You already found something!” Bess said gleefully and took the book from him. She slowly thumbed through it until she stopped and slapped the page she had been looking for. “This is one of Papa’s and my favorites.”

  She cleared her throat and read slowly, bestowing the words with the reverence she felt they deserved. “‘Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something, while you live and it is in your power.’”

  “I like that even better,” Harry said. “I guess we all should try to live by that.”

  “Easier said than done. But now,” she said, lowering her voice, “I’d like you to meet a friend of mine down at the dock. But I must have your word that you’ll keep to yourself what I’m going to discuss with him.”

  “S,” Harry said.

  “S?” Bess asked.

  “Yes, S. For secrets
. I’m excellent at keeping them. So let’s go meet your friend. I must admit I like the docks a bit better than the library.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chap 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.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chap 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 rebe
llion?” 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.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Even 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?