Hawaii - James Michener [135]
"Do captains' wives ever get seasick?" Whipple asked.
"A little, at first," Hoxworth boomed. "But on a bigger ship, like this, they get over it quickly."
"I'd like to see Amanda and Jerusha as captains' wives," Whipple laughed.
"Did you say Jerusha?" the captain asked.
"Yes. Jerusha Hale, Abner's wife."
"Excellent!" the big man cried. "It's Jerusha I'm marrying, too."
And he reached out to grab Aimer's small hand. "Where's yours from, Reverend Hale?"
"Walpole, New Hampshire," Abner replied, unhappy at mentioning his wife's name in a whaling cabin.
"Did you say Walpole?" Hoxworth asked.
"Yes."
Big Rafer Hoxworth kicked back his chair and grabbed Abner by the coat. "Is Jerusha Bromley aboard that brig out there?" be asked menacingly.
"Yes," Abner replied steadily.
"God Almighty!" Hoxworth cried, shoving Abner back into his chair. "Andersonl Lower me a boat!” With fury clouding his face he grabbed his cap, jammed it on the back of his head, and stormed aloft. When Abner and John tried to follow he thrust them back into the cabin. "You wait here!” he thundered. "Mister Wilson!” he bellowed at his mate. "If these men try to leave this cabin, shoot "em." And in a moment he was on the sea, driving his men toward the brig Thetis.
When he swung himself aboard, refusing to wait for a ladder, Captain Janders asked, "Where are the missionaries?" but Hoxworth, dark as the night, roared, "To hell with the missionaries. Where's Jerusha Bromley?" And he stormed down into the smelly cabin, shouting, "Jerusha! Jerusha!" When he found her sitting at the table he swept all the other missionaries together with his giant arms and roared, "Get out of here!" And when they were gone he took Jerusha's hands and asked, "Is what they tell me true?"
Jerusha, with an extra radiance now that she was both recovered: from seasickness and in the first happy flush of pregnancy, drew back from the dynamic man who had wooed her four years ago. Hoxworth, seeing this, slammed his powerful fist onto the table and shouted, "Almighty God, what have you done?"
"I have gotten married," Jerusha said firmly and without panic.
"To that worm? To that miserable little . . ."
“To a wonderfully understanding man," she said, drawing herself against a small section of the wall that separated two stateroom doors.
"That goddamned puny . . ."
"Rafer, don't blaspheme."
"I'll blaspheme this whole goddamned stinking little ship to hell before I'll let you ..."
"Rafer, you stayed away. You never said you would marry me ..."
"Never said?" he roared, leaping over a fallen chair to grab her to him. "I wrote to you from Canton. I wrote to you from Oregon. I wrote from Honolulu. I told you that as soon as I landed in New Bedford we'd be married, and that you'd sail with me on my ship. It'll be my ship soon, Jerusha, and you're sailing with me."
"Rafer, I'm married. To a minister. Your letters never came."
"You can't be married!" he stormed. "It's me you love, and you know it." He crushed her to him, and kissed her many times. "I can't let you go!"
"Rafer," she said quietly, pushing him away. "You must respect my condition."
The big captain fell back and looked at the girl he had been dreaming of for nearly four years. It is true that he had not, on that first wild acquaintance, asked her to marry him, but when the whales were good and his future known, he had written to her, three separate times, cautious lest any one letter not be delivered. Now she said that she was married . . . perhaps even pregnant. To a contemptible little worm with scraggly hair.
"I'll kill you first!” he screamed. "By God, Jerusha, you shall never remain married . . ." And he lunged at her with a chair.
"Abner!" she cried desperately, not knowing that he was absent, for she was certain that if he were aboard the Thetis, somehow he would rescue her. "Abner!" The chair crashed by her head and the wild sea captain was upon her, but before she fainted she saw Keoki and the old whaler leaping down into the cabin with