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Abigail prefers to be on deck amid the sea spray and the breeze, taking in the way the cries of the pirates mingle with the calls of the gulls and the creak of rope and wood. Despite her previous ordeals with pirates, she is far less fearful of the Walrus crew — Flint’s word has held, and none of his men have tried to lay a hand on her or Mrs. Barlow. For now, however, they’ve been sequestered belowdecks in the Captain’s cabin, though Flint’s collection of novels proves a sufficient distraction, as does the ever-undulating white V of their wake through the grand aft windows.
A sharp knock sounds at the door, two quick beats. Abigail looks up from her book to Mrs. Barlow, who gives her a reassuring nod before placing her needlepoint aside and standing to let in whomever is outside. The lock slides open with a thunk and Abigail holds her breath — perhaps her fear has not been entirely assuaged by the apparent benevolence of the Walrus’ men — but it is only Flint himself who enters. He closes the door behind himself and Mrs. Barlow returns to her seat.
“Sails were spotted on the horizon,” he says by way of explanation. “British, by the looks of her, but we’ll make a wide berth and avoid the trouble entirely. In the meantime, you two ought to stay down here.”
“If you mean to keep us out of the crew’s way, you might simply say as much,” Mrs. Barlow replies, prim as ever, though Abigail catches the gleam of humour in her eyes.
Nothing in Flint’s hard, weathered expression seems to move, though there is some imperceptible softening of edges that Abigail only catches in the bright midday light. Two long strides take him across the cabin to Mrs. Barlow where he places a hand upon her shoulder and presses a kiss to her crown. “Only a half-day’s sail until Charlestown,” he swears, straightening and turning to Abigail, and in his demeanor she sees more of the man who met her in a Nassau tavern, disarmed and gentle-eyed, than of the uncompromising captain he is abovedecks. Which is the real Flint? she wonders as he makes his exit. Perhaps one is a falsehood to be discarded at whim, or perhaps there is no choosing.
Before, in Charlestown, she had heard of Flint, the tales of the near-mythical, bloodthirsty pirate whose greed was only matched by his wiles. She had never heard of New Lowe, yet it was Lowe who kidnapped her and stripped her bare before his men and Flint who treated her with kindness and posited her in the care of a gentlewoman. Cruelty bleeds through even the most impeccable of masks, and she believes that Flint treats her well for more reason than simply currying good favour with her father. All the same, reputations are more than words. They are spun from a lace of exaggeration and tall tales, but they are always rooted in a foundation of stone. James Flint’s hands are red up to the elbows, certainly, but he is still a man capable of kindness and humanity.
Mrs. Barlow is another piece of the puzzle, or indeed, a puzzle of her own. Abigail knows she comes from London high society; it is in her speech, her mannerisms, her acquaintance with the venerable Lord Peter Ashe, yet the name Barlow does not ring familiar. How does such a woman find her way to Nassau, and to a man like Flint?
“You look troubled, my dear.” Abigail looks up from the page she’s not been reading to see Mrs. Barlow studying her.
“I suppose I’m curious…” She trails off. Her mouth had once again begin moving ahead of her manners, something she’d oft been scolded for, and what she had been about to ask was neither polite nor proper.
“Come now,” Mrs. Barlow says with a smile, “no need to bandy words. I am sure whatever you’re curious about cannot be worse than half the things I’ve heard from the mouths of sailors.” Returning to her needlepoint, she busies herself, seemingly with no regard for whether Abigail ever speaks again. She’s sure it’s simply Mrs. Barlow’s way of giving her a chance to find her words, without goading, but it so reminds her of the silences she’s grown used to at home, the ones that echo the ringing in her ears and very pointedly remind her that whatever she has to say matters not a whit.
Anger surges, flushing her cheeks and pushing the words right out of her throat. “I wonder how you can love him.”
Mrs. Barlow looks up. Her eyes are wide with surprise, though a hint of a smile plays at her lips. She looks neither angry nor put-out, nor any of the other emotions Abigail might’ve expected after hearing the accusatory tone of her own voice. “I have waited quite a long time for somebody to ask me that,” she says, already waving away Abigail’s impending apologies. “So many people have wondered at the nature of our relationship, what we mean to each other, whether I’m a witch with my hands around his heartstrings or a poor fool being led on by the promise of a rich husband…” When Mrs. Barlow once again places her sewing aside, Abigail follows suit and closes her book around her finger. “I suppose I ought to begin with the simplest fact: Captain Flint and I are not married, nor will we ever be.”
Abigail’s gaze drops to Mrs. Barlow’s hands. They look strong, long-fingered, elegant yet calloused from work. They are perhaps the only part of her that does not bear the look of aristocracy, and her ring finger is indeed bare. Following Abigail’s eyes, Mrs. Barlow smiles sadly. “I was married once. It was all quite the scandal in London society, though you would have been quite young at the time and I suspect your father is discouraging of any such gossip.”
All Abigail knows of Flint and Mrs. Barlow’s friendship with her father has come from their mouths, and that is little enough. “I have never heard of you nor Captain Flint,” Abigail says, feeling almost apologetic. “He’s not one to admit to friendship with pirates.”
“No,” Mrs. Barlow says on an exhale that is almost a laugh, “I suppose he wouldn’t be. But ten years ago, I was still known as Mrs. Miranda Hamilton and he was one Lieutenant James McGraw.” Her voice has grown heavy, and even the bright sunlight in the captain’s cabin cannot chase the shadows from her eyes. “The story goes that James and I had an affair which, upon discovery, drove my husband to madness.”
An old memory echoes in a murky place in Abigail’s mind, and she grows sure that she’s heard such a story before. Perhaps whispering servants or visiting ladies told this tale while she lingered, listening, up past her bedtime, or perhaps it is simply a story told time and again about a thousand different people. “I suppose the rumors aren’t the half of it,” she says as gently as she can.
“They never are. I loved my husband as he loved me, and neither I nor James ever acted in betrayal of his trust.” Mrs. Barlow pauses, takes a deep breath. “Thomas and James were joined together in an effort to bring Nassau to heel…” Here, she brings herself to a halt. “Abigail, you must understand that this story is as much Captain Flint’s as it is mine. There is too much pain here, too much hurt that is so long hidden, and to bare it all now would be a betrayal of trust.”
This, she understands, is the making of Captain Flint. This is where the bloodshed began, and it is not something she may be privy to. “I understand.”
“Good.” Silence falls again, a great, vast thing that swallows up the sounds of ship and sea surrounding them. Finally: “There was great affection between James and my husband. They were like-minded, dangerously intelligent, yet James was the pragmatist to Thomas’ idealism. Should their plan have come to fruition, Nassau would be a pirate haven no longer.”
“What happened?”
“Progress,” Mrs. Barlow says, “Or some facsimile of it. There were many men, Thomas’ father among them, who believed that pardons were not an acceptable path to peace. Thomas was admitted to an asylum under accusations of insanity and James and I were forced to flee. Your father offered us sanctuary, but James would have none of it. They had taken Thomas, stripped James of his rank, defiled my name…He was determined to pay such losses back tenfold.”
“And thus, you made a home in Nassau,” Abigail sums up.
“Flint is a man of violence, but I was there upon his making. I hated them too, raged at what they’d taken, gave birth to ideas of vengeance that Flint still carries. The blood on his hands is mine, too, and if I have wearied of it before he has, that is through no fault of his own.” Mrs. Barlow’s smile is a strange thing, full of ghosts, and Abigail feels a sudden chill down her spine. “To answer your question, Abigail, I love James because the man he is now was born of smothered love and light. Every time I look at him, I see through Thomas’ eyes what could have been, were it not for the stubborn cruelty of a few old men.”
Later, when the harbours of Charlestown are appearing in the distance, Abigail goes to her journal and writes, on the bottom corner of the very last page: Smothered love and light. Thinking better of it, she tears that piece out, folds it over on itself so tightly that the damp ink smudges and tucks it away in a hidden pocket of her skirts.
Later, when Mrs. Barlow’s blood has been scrubbed from the parlour floor and the rubble of Charlestown still smokes with Flint’s fury, she reaches down and rubs her thumb and forefinger against that little piece of paper before marching into her father’s study. He’s not there, of course, but his man Ludington is, still covered in dust and drying blood that is not his own. He’s been a faithful right hand to her father for over a decade now, and he knows all that her father never told her.
“Tell me about Captain Flint,” she says. Reading the dismissal already forming upon his lips, she drops into the chair opposite him, summons up every ounce of the nobility in her blood, and orders, “Tell me what my father died for.”
He does reluctantly. He uses lots of words like perversions and unvicilised, but underneath the hatred are all the ugly truths about her father, and England, and what passes for civilisation. A world that would condemn three lives for nothing more than love is one she wants no part of.
Abigail packs her bags and buys her way out of Carolina with money from her father’s lockbox. The moment the ship clears the harbour, sails filling with a wind that would carry it to St. Augustine, then Nassau, she digs into her bag for the large, flat piece of rubble she’d stowed at the bottom. Miranda Barlow it reads, poorly etched by her own hand, and below that: Smothered light and love.
The stone sinks into the green depths, carrying with it a little piece of the pain that was born this day in Charlestown.