Read Online Lightkeeper's Wife by Sarah Anne Johnson - Free Book Online Page B

and her body braced against the lean of the boat, Annie was surprised by the weight of water against the ship’s rudder.
    â€œYou steer with your whole body, ma’am, like this,” Donovan said, leaning his weight in the direction he wanted the wheel to turn, using his legs and arms and torso to guide the vessel through the wind. “Now take us two points into the wind and keep her as close to the wind as you can get her,” he said, relinquishing the wheel.
    Annie took the steering pegs in her hands, braced her legs, and leaned her body into the wheel, her eyes shifting from the compass, up to the sail to check for a luff, back and forth, until she held the ship’s position as Donovan had requested.
    â€œFine job, ma’am,” he said.
    â€œYou get the heading from the navigator, who gets it off the charts, is that right?”
    â€œYes, ma’am,” he said.
    Annie learned to handle the sextant, how to balance it against the horizon and take a mark, how to look up the figures in the tables and locate the ship’s position on the chart. When Daniel ventured belowdecks one afternoon, he discovered her bent over a book containing columns of numbers, her finger running up and down the page as she wrote on a piece of scrap paper. “What have we here?” Daniel asked. “I’ve not allowed you to steer the ship, so you’ve found another way to direct our course?”
    â€œI thought I could teach myself some navigation to pass the time, Daniel, then we could talk about it over dinner. You could instruct me.”
    â€œI’ve told you how I feel about you working on the ship. It undermines my authority with the men. I’ll not have it.”
    â€œWhat are you so afraid of? That I might be good at this?” she asked, glaring at Daniel, her eyes a hot beam of light. Then they heard the noise overhead, a scuffling on deck as a group of eavesdroppers dispersed.
    â€œThere, now you’ve done it,” Daniel said. “I’ll not have you talk to me like that again!”
    Daniel’s anger didn’t discourage Annie from steering the ship and watching the crew in the rigging as they tied a yardarm off in rough weather. She asked the men questions about the rigging and learned which line hauled which sail. After mastering the differences, she watched the sailors on deck and bribed them with Daniel’s money into teaching her how to tie a square knot, sheet bend, bowline, and to tell her what each knot was for. It was clear that some members of the crew resented her presence among them.
    â€œThat was my wife I’d swat her right back into the kitchen. She don’t like her fancy cabin, I’d put her to work scrubbing the decks. Who does she think she is?”
    â€œNothing but bad luck.”
    â€œLadies on ships always are. I’ll not go near her for any price.”
    Annie stepped out from behind the foremast where she’d been eyeing the halyards and glowered down at the two men weaving monkey’s fists into the ends of frayed lines. “I could have you cowards banished to the bilge to sleep with the rats for the rest of this journey. You dislike my being on this ship and trying to make myself useful, then speak to me directly.”
    One of the sailors, a man named O’Malley, leaned back to take in the length of her. He was a tall Irishman from Dublin, freckled and weathered by thirty-one years of life, nineteen of them at sea. She knew from Daniel that he was discontented with his position among the crew and wanted a promotion with higher pay, but he wasn’t going to get either. Daniel had taken a natural disliking to the man, and there was nothing to be done about it. “We’re not to speak to the captain’s wife.”
    â€œShe just gave you permission,” Annie said.
    â€œWe’re hired men, ma’am, paid to do our job, nothing else,” the other, called Nickerson, said. She knew he