“Chard and Waters kept secret their hidden treasure and hatched a plot with Captain Robert Davies of the Plough to smuggle the ambergris on board and then so on to England, and it was Davies who recruited Edwin Kendall, a man privy to Governor Moore’s council, to join the conspiracy. As all such plots, it was spoiled by their greed and fear, and they were turned in by Kendall and made to give over their treasure to the Virginia Company.”
“While Davies was forgiven upon his promise to sin no more, Chard was sentenced to the gallows. A scaffold was erected, but it was a ruse by the governor to ensure that order be kept. Chard was let off without severe punishment, and the ambergris was sent back to England upon the Plough, though truth be told, Mr. Davies and Mr. Kendall managed to steal some little chunks and sell them for 600 sovereigns, and though a warrant was writ for their arrest, Davies escaped to Ireland and Kendall to Scotland and then to Nova Scotia with settlers of 1622.”
Shaking her head, Dolly exclaimed, “Men.” And then she spat on the floor. “Whatever happened to the real rogues?”
“Carter and Waters were named to the council of Governor Moore, and after Moore departed for England three years later, Mr. Carter was one of the leaders of the colony. Mr. Waters left for Virginia and built a farm, only to perish on Good Friday of 1622 at the hands of the Powhatan.”
The old man asked, “What became of Mr. Chard?”
“Moore kept him in hard labor till 1615, and then he went off to the West Indies on a pirate ship, plundering in the Caribbean and as far east as Tunis. A mate of his, a Frenchman named du Chene, killed him one drunken night for coveting a girl he had taken from west Africa.”
I offered a bromide at the conclusion of her tale. “A kind of poetic justice, don’t you think?”
In two strides, Jane reached the corner by the toilet and grasped the pole of the harpoon, brandishing the broken end like a battering ram. “Justice?” She reared back as if to poke the ragged splinters through my chest. “What justice can you possibly see in the life of a young girl cut short by the greed and envy of one man?”
Had not my protector stepped between the two of us, she would have impaled me on the stick, but the old man stopped her with a gesture and soothed her with a word. Her purple face paled to pink as the blood rushed out of her head, and dizzy, she again handed over the harpoon and collapsed to sit on the toilet.
“My friend.” The old man took me aside. “Perhaps your temporary absence would diffuse this tempest. What say you, ladies, that we retire for the time being?”
Dolly and Jane sidled up to him, hooked an arm in the separate crooks of his two elbows. They took turns whispering some startling words into each ear.
“Do you have a place where we might enjoy a private interlude?”
My first thought was of my bedroom, but then I remembered the various women still slumbering, presumably, on the bed. I suggested my office two doors down, but he seemed wary of leaving the ladies behind, and instead, sequestered them in the bathtub behind the shower curtain. He spoke once more to me in a low, suggestive tone. “They are going to teach me … certain things.”
“Certain things?”
“You know.… Certain things of a delicate nature. Certain things suggested by her story. Discreet matters.”
“I see. Certain things.”
“Not all of us are men of the world, like you.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I come from a very respectable family. I’ve often speculated, however, as to other certain things.”
Completely baffled by his reasoning, I could only nod.
“Be a good lad,” he said, “and fix us something to eat while we are indisposed. We are bound to be famished.”
“Do you have anything particular in mind?”
He stroked his chin as if contemplating a small Vandyke beard. “I am not picky, though if you had some turtle soup.”
“I think not.”
“Any slumgullion will do. A little dejeuner to take the edge off, eh?” And with that, he pushed me from the room.