“No,” James said slowly as he took Badger’s hand and pulled him up. “He would have used something—a long pole, perhaps, with a scoop on the end of it. Something like that.”
Badger said, “It seems that Mr. Sampson’s correct in his deductions. He thinks the treasure must be inside something metal, so the nasty marsh water wouldn’t get to it. He thinks this metal casket is tied securely with chain to the ballast rocks.”
“Yes,” James said. “That’s what Jessie and I think, too. We need to come back at low tide. In the meantime we need to make a pole sturdy enough and long enough to get the job done. Once the pole touches the metal casket, it’s got to be strong enough to bring it up without breaking the pole.”
“It’s a start,” Jessie said, hugging James to her side as they walked back into the Warfield house, which now didn’t look quite so decrepit. “It’s exciting.”
“Nearly as exciting as you filled with my child,” he said. He looked at the scythed lawn, the front door that stood open, looking inviting, not threatening, and said, “I think your father just might like to come back here to visit. It’s a beautiful place, different from any place I’ve ever seen.”
“Riding horses on the beach is fun, too,” she said. “ Perhaps now, with you, it would be more than fun.”
“I would hope so. We must do it before you’re too fat to sit behind me with your arms around my waist. I don’t want you falling off the back of the horse.”
She laughed, poked his arm, and they went into the house to the nearly overwhelming scent of Badger’s oysters, simmering in wine, rosemary, and onions. “I hope he knows what he’s doing,” James said. “Oysters! They’re slimy ugly things. What man in his right mind would drop one in his mouth?”
But they all did. If Jessie and Spears didn’t care for them, Marcus and James waxed eloquent on the way they slid down the throat. The Duchess threw an oyster at her husband, who peeled it off his chest, wiped it with a napkin, and handed it ceremoniously to James. Oysters, the majority of the party decided, weren’t at all a bad thing—as long, Spears announced, as Mr. Badger was there to prepare them.
The next morning Jessie arose full of energy. She met Badger, who was cursing under his breath, coming from the kitchen.
“Whatever is wrong?”
“I broke my special wooden spoon. I’m going to Mr. Gaskill’s store to see if he has something I could use.”
“I’ll do it. I know you want to build the pole with the other men.”
Badger nodded, clearly distracted, and took himself to the small overgrown garden in back of the house where all the men were gathered, their hands filled with tools, their heads filled with ideas, each different from the others’. She heard Marcus shout, “Dammit, Spears, you’ve got lumps in your brain! The prongs won’t give us enough strength. The pole will break.”
She called out, “Why don’t two of you go to the marsh, stick the pole in, and see how long it needs to be before you find the ballast stones? I guess you just might want to make two poles, to give you more leverage.”
She heard ferocious muttering. She shook her head even as she was grinning, as unrepentant as a child who’d stolen a forbidden sweetmeat.
“Men,” Maggie said fondly, shaking her head as she came up behind Jessie. “That was a reasonable suggestion but since none of their exalted highnesses had thought of it, well, there must be something wrong with it.”
“They’ll go,” Jessie said. “Won’t they?”
“It’s an even chance,” Maggie said. “Your streamers are a bit on the edge, Jessie. Hold still. You must remember to straighten yourself up after James fondles you. He’s exuberant, isn’t he? That’s nice.”
Ten minutes later, Jessie picked up her parasol, for the morning sun would be fierce overhead soon enough, and headed for the village, but a mile away. She was humming, knowing that soon, one way or another, they’d know if old Blackbeard did indeed bury some treasure in that marsh. She hoped so, she surely did.
She was singing one of the Duchess’s ditties about the troubles in his majesty’s navy, what with all the beans and scurvy the poor sailors had to endure. It was sung everywhere, Marcus had told her, and the Foreign Office hated it. They’d been forced to find lemons, and that cost too much money. He’d grinned then and said his wife was a rabble-rouser and wasn’t it fun.
She was utterly surprised when Compton Fielding, the bookstore owner from Baltimore, suddenly stepped into her path.
“Mr. Fielding! What a surprise! Whatever are you doing here in Ocracoke?”
He smiled at her and offered her his arm. “I am enjoying a well-earned week of pleasure,” he said. “Shall I escort you to the village, Jessie? I was just on my way to see you and James. And here you are, right in front of me.”
She took his arm, smiling up at him.
“You’re very happy with James,” he said, as thoughtful as a man with two bills to pay and enough money for only one of them. “I’m surprised. The two of you were always fighting. It amused me. Actually,” he continued, looking up at a royal tern who was flying just overhead, “for a while I was convinced that you were one of those curious females celebrated by Sappho, the Greek poetess.”
“Who was Sappho? She must not have written a diary, or else you would have given it to me. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of her.”
“No, you wouldn’t have. You’re a Colonial, you’re a female, you’re horse mad, and there’s no need for you to know that so many hundreds of years ago women celebrated their love for one another. She lived in the sixth century before Christ on an island named Lesbos. There were only women on the island, it is said. Fragments of her poetry remain today. It is passionate stuff, not poetry that a normal woman would pen. Stop looking so stupid, Jessie. We’re not speaking of just spiritual love, as a daughter could have for a mother, or a sister for another sister, but carnal love, two women caressing each other, kissing each other, their bodies straining against each other.”
Jessi
e knew she’d turned pale. She knew Mr. Fielding was trying to shock her but she couldn’t think why. “I don’t understand you,” she said slowly. “Why are you saying these things?”