After they reached the rolling North Sea, Turner insisted he be left there, tied to the mast. He stayed that way for several hours, oftentimes closing his eyes, his mind turned inward and from time to time looking up toward the sun like some sort of mystical man of the cloth. After they had safely lowered him to the deck, he spent the rest of the voyage to Portsmouth immersed in his watercolors and sketchbook. While Turner was scratching and painting away in his book Eliza gave Morgan the first hint that change was in the air in their relationship. She had turned to him, her face thoughtful and pensive, and said how sorry she was to leave London.
“Do you ever wonder, Ely, what it would be like to have a home of our own like the Leslies?”
He had looked at her with surprise. The comforts of the Leslie villa had been a welcome palliative for Eliza after each passage. When in London, she could always look forward to a crackling fireplace, a warm meal at a dining room table, and the sound of the Leslies’ laughing children. Now it seemed those simple rewards of domestic life had taken root and Eliza’s nesting instincts had sprouted. He had sighed, “I don’t know, Eliza. We’ll have to see.”
Eliza hadn’t raised the topic of a house since they left the English Channel, but he knew that she would soon bring it up again. As the skies lightened with dawn, the wind veered to the northwest. Morgan could see powerful crosscurrents swirling off to the starboard, signaling a possible shoaly area. He ordered the helmsman to steer a few points to the south. He guessed that they were not far from a shallow area of sandbars fanning southeast from Nantucket Island that extended more than forty miles.
He was thinking once again about his wife’s request and what his response should be. It had caught him by surprise. A home in New York would certainly change things. He knew what it would mean. She would want children, and she would make fewer and fewer trips with him. He thought about their time together this past year. Having her on board had proved to be an unexpected asset in the packet-polite world of the cabin passengers. She catered to their many demands with a woman’s gentler touch. She had become the perfect hostess, working closely with Lowery and Scuttles to prepare the menus. She had made sure that his table manners improved and given him useful tips about initiating polite conversation. He had become used to her glowering at him whenever he tried to take too large a bite of food. Her skills on the piano were also much admired. Several of the passengers on this voyage had complimented him on his wife’s soft touch with the ivories, particularly with Bach’s keyboard Partitas and Schubert’s Impromptus. He thought to himself that he’d never been happier. But he knew change was in the air. Eliza was a woman who was ready to have a home that didn’t move under her feet.
His thoughts were interrupted by a loud trumpet blast. A thick bank of cold fog now enveloped them, robbing them of good visibility. Several sailors on the foredeck began yelling, “Fall off! Fall off!”
The fog trumpet blew and blew again. Morgan climbed up the ratlines so he could better see over the fog-shrouded bow of the ship. Before he could even react, the big packet flew by a cod fisherman in a large, open dory. A stooped older man and two young boys dressed in oilskins were pulling in long lines loaded with cod into their open boat. That sight of what looked like a father and two sons working together caused him to swallow hard. He thought of his old family home. Last year’s planned visit to introduce his parents to Eliza had not come to pass because of the pressing needs of the shipping line.
It was more than just demands from the shipping company that had kept him from taking time off last year. He’d almost lost his job. He’d had a fiery altercation with Mr. Griswold and some of the other owners as soon as he got back to New York. They’d already heard the news about the storm and they had taken him to task for jettisoning most of the cargo, most particularly the valuable mahogany clock cases. They had grumbled at their losses. “Why couldn’t you have thrown out something of less value,” Mr. Griswold had asked brusquely in the business meeting. The others, Jacob Westervelt, Christian Bergh, and Robert Carnley, all wealthy shipbuilders and part owners of the Philadelphia, had nodded in agreement. Morgan’s mind had shot back to the high seas crashing over the ship, the sight of Eliza’s fear-stricken eyes, and his own near-death experience. Something clicked. He exploded and told them all to sail the ship themselves. “I wish you gentlemen would try your hand at ocean sailing. See how you do in a hurricane.”
He had stormed out of the meeting. His request for family time was denied. At first he’d been disappointed about not going home, then relieved. Now with the passing of several months, tempers had cooled. At last the company was granting him extensive shore leave. He and Eliza were planning to travel to Lyme over the Thanksgiving holidays. His family would meet his new wife, and after thirteen years of being away from home, he would return to the Connecticut River like a wandering salmon finally coming in from the ocean.