Siren's Call
by
Kassandra Alvarado
Copyright 2015
Cover Art Designed by Author
The shores of New Haven were beautiful.
Before this great sorrow of mine, I had never known another world beyond quiet drawing rooms, polite tea and my dolls at play. That world seemed another lifetime, another heartbeat away from the holystoned deck of the Maida, a clipper ship in the private hands of a man close enough to almost call himself my kin.
At dusk, I walked with the captain, who with some deference to my recent bereavement, chose a fine black coat over a starched white ruffled shirt. His breeches were black satin and his stockings a pure white. I kept my shawl tight about my shoulders, white linen over a common dress of drub coloring.
"I wish you'd stayed on land, Miss."
I looked past the docks with the scent of salt lingering in the back of my throat. The wooden buildings of the watering holes lined the docks at a farther distance, music spilled from the flimsy doors and a woman in satins and painted lips leaned against a post watching the footpath. Indignation stirred in my breast for though I respected his counsel, instinctively I also rebelled.
"We've both lost someone, Robert." The clipped tone matched the heavy thud of my gray leather kid shoes, mother of pearl buttons fastened them tightly to my small feet. The top of my carefully coiffed ringlets barely reached the elbow of the man I walked beside, yet I was seventeen years on this earth...Jessamyn, my elder.
"I only meant to keep you from harm's way, Pippa."
I bristled at this. Jessamyn had acted as my guardian since the death of our parents. She'd protected me for years, yet also taught me to be wary of the ways of the world. In return, I'd loved her fiercely as any mother that my youngest memories had rubbed raw like a wound. In their place, my sister had been there, soothing my fears during storms, placing cool rags to calm my fevers. Her voice had lulled me to sleep when we'd left our home never to return.
"No, Captain Cathcart, my mind is set. I mean to find her...,"
He sounded strangely foreboding, "if she wished to be found, wouldn't she have left her trail clear for us to follow?"
I refused to take his words to heart. It was no simple matter of my leave-taking. There was the cat to be left with old Mrs. Goss down the muddy road. My few clothes packed up by the maid in a patched steamer trunk, carried dockside along with my personage by carriage. Everything about it felt a lark, a chance to escape the stifling confines of the Capitol during a humid summer. I'd experienced adventure most of my childhood, living it out through fantasy, books opened my mind to other lands, foreign cultures.
Many days, I'd practiced in our drawing room with the faded Tearose walls; the stance for proper sea legs. A queer sort of walk, actually. One most immodest for a young lady in skirts! These things of course were in the minds of my caretakers, Mrs. Raynott and Mrs. Goss. They were two old widows charged with teaching me needlework, the harp, and other pleasantries that I didn't subscribe to.
None of it changed my mind.
Not the roughness of the sea, the pitching of the deck that nauseated me so much so that the first two days I had cook brew me a strong cup of herbal tea to soothe my stomach at meal times. Captain Cathcart had been always cordial with his little calling cards sent around to my quarters, always properly addressed with my maiden name, inviting me to sup with him. This evening, I felt well enough to tie a ribbon in my hair, attiring myself in my mourning dress. His personal steward was a man named Howard Jarsdel, a portly balding man with a convivial spirit that never seemed shaken. Jarsdel escorted my reply in the form of my person to the captain's door, who after a perfunctory knock, spoke his acceptance. Jarsdel turned the brass knob while the sconces flickered and the floor beneath us gently rocked. The voices of the rough men at supper reached us along with the clink of silverware.
"Pippa, my dear."
The Great Cabin was easily the largest room in the officers quarters, carved wooden arm chairs were bolted down around two small tables. Further seating was provided by the low window seat situated against the back wall of windows. Cathcart was sprawled in one of these chairs beside an unfurled map of ivory colored parchment. Shyly, I swept into a curtsy.
"Come now, no formality needed." He gestured to the chair opposite. "We are very nearly family."
"But, not quite."
I glanced at the map, my hands fidgeting nervously with themselves. Cathcart and I had only ever dined in the presence of an elderly chaperone, Mrs. Raynott, and my sister. Her absence felt a palpable wound when I looked upon the empty chairs around us. "I suppose we shall search the ports where the Seneschal was known to call."
"Yes, that should be our intended course." He took great pains to disguise his sea dog accent. I forced my hands to cease their nervous dance across my lap. "But...," the depths of courage in my heart seemed boundless, I summoned them forth, staring him in the eye. "I should think that our course be set for another location." Still trembling, my hand slipped inside my shawl where the rustle of paper was heard. My fingertips seized upon the flimsy edge of ratty paper, withdrawing it slowly. Cathcart watched me unevenly, as if not quite sure what to make of my sudden boldness.
"This map...," I flattened it out across my skirts. The inking was done hastily, the ports of call shaded portions of green surrounded by blue wavy lines. "Shows an island chain to the south from Prolm Cay." I traced my stubby forefinger from the prominent outcropping of s-shaped rock to the expanse of blue sea. Cathcart's blue eyes followed my motion; I was intensely aware of his gaze when it flickered to my face. "The sea route here will take us to the doorstep of Nuhl Ait."
"You must be mad," he hissed, intake of breath of sharp. He straightened and rubbed at his unshaven jaw vigorously. I swallowed thrice, shaking my head in the negative. "Not at all. I was told this was the place where the Seneschal foundered! Blown off course by a fierce squall....these islands...oh, Robert! I cannot bear the thought that she is there, perhaps waiting for us to discover her whereabouts!"
"What you speak of is madness!" He shouted causing me to flinch, shrinking back against the chair.
"No!"
"Yes! No sane man would venture near those accursed shores!"
"Then...you are like them? An irrational man guided by foolish fancies?" The map crumpled to the floor as I stood hastily. "We were mistaken, my sister and I! I believed you a rational man not swayed by foolish superstitions!" Our voices raised and warred with one another. Robert rose to his full commanding height and I fully believed he might strike me down were, I a man.
"Where do you get your information from? What reason do you have to think that she might be there?"
I trembled head to foot, sorely frightened. "A-A-A psychic that Mrs. Raynott took me to see before we left London." Seers were all the rage in fashionable circles of the Capitol. I, myself, had been skeptical of the dark gypsy woman's supposed visions. She'd been housed in a modest two story townhouse in Mayfair where iron gates separated the districts between affluence and abject poverty. Mrs. Raynott had kept a firm iron grip on my upper arm steering me through the narrow streets until a young boy with a cleft lip and a smart plaid cap let us in through a back way to see the "Madame."
Under Cathcart's derision, I felt my cheeks flame with humiliation. "It can't all be false," I mumbled."The things....she knew."
Robert tried to smile."You, poor innocent. You've been duped like so many." I blinked back surprising tears for I didn't like to think myself a fool. "What can seers tell us that isn't already engraved upon our hearts?"
I looked
down at the hard won map and choked back the tears. It felt silly to be crying over something so fragile but deep down, it felt a mountain of hope had crumbled at my fingertips. My sister felt so much farther away from my reach. As if sensing my withdrawal, Robert respected my need for quiet. Ringing the bell pull for the steward, Jarsdel soon came and set about serving our table with goodly victuals. First came trenchers in large white platters, smothered in a specialty of the sea, slumgullion. Jarsdel served wine in crystal goblets. The taste of which made my head quite giddy. A variety of cheeses and musty sunshine scented oranges from Valencia accompanied a fluffy duff sprinkled with brown sugar and pecans.
I overate a great deal, a minor sin Jessamyn accused me of constantly at parties. Twice, I looked up from my pudding bowl to find Cathcart smiling faintly.
"What is it?"
"Forgive me!" He chuckled and using his own napkin, wiped a splotch of sauce from my cheek.
"Oh! The pardon is all mine. I am a terribly clumsy eater. My sister--has always warned me in society."
He laughed even more, "Consider yourself a fair guest, Pip."
I warmed at the appellation; doubtless he'd heard Jessamyn refer to me by my nickname in the past. "Why do you say that?"
Cathcart leaned closer to me, his blue eyes twinkling. "Don't you know, my dear, that seamen are atrocious eaters? Pirates as well."
I could feel my facial muscles twitch longing to widen. "No, I did not, sir. Pray tell how you came upon this startling piece of information?"
The captain then proceeded to spin a yarn involving brigands, gentlemen pirates and other chicanery he'd gotten himself into at Tortuga, that den of iniquity that good ladies pretended to faint upon hearing the name of.
At the close of the evening, I permitted him to escort me to door of my cabin down the narrow companionway with its swinging light and shadows. "I want to make you smile again, Pippa."
I sighed, averting my gaze, "you will, Robert. When Jess is restored to us."
"Of course."
He spoke with little conviction, repeating the words felt a useless gesture of comfort. I went to bed that night with a full stomach soured by the realization that perhaps I was the only one who still had hope.