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The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
The UNEXPECTED LIFE of OLIVER CROMWELL PITTS
Being an Absolutely Accurate Autobiographical Account of My Follies, Fortunes & Fate
Written by Himself
AVI
Algonquin Young Readers 2017
For Amanda, Cindy, Tom, and Willy
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Chapter NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
CHAPTER SIXTY
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ABOUT ALONGQUIN YOUNG READERS
England, 1724
CHAPTER ONE
In Which I Introduce Myself after Which I Immediately Plunge into a Desperate Situation.
On November 12, 1724, I, Oliver Cromwell Pitts, lay asleep in my small room at the top of our three-story house, when, at about six in the morning, I was shocked into full wakefulness by horrible sounds: roaring, wailing, and screeching.
Confounded by such forceful clamors, I was too frightened to shift from my bed. Even so, I listened hard, trying to make sense of what was occurring. It did not help that the room in which I lay had no windows, so I could see little. Then I realized that my bed—in fact, our entire house, an old wooden structure—was shaking. The combination of darkness and dreadful sounds made everything worse.
I dared not move, in hopes that by remaining still, I might diminish both noise and quivering. Yet as if to mock me, the uproar only grew louder and more frenzied, rising to a horrifying crescendo.
Desperately wanting to see something, the better to gain intelligence as to what was occurring, I reached toward the floor where I had placed my candle and flint box the night before, only to discover they were not there. The shaking of the house was so forceful it must have tumbled them away. The next moment I heard a slapdash thumping directly overhead, as if stones were hitting our thatched roof.
Midst all this confusion, I recognized the boom of crashing waves. Even this familiar sound was no comfort: My family home in the English town of Melcombe Regis was a tenth of a mile from the sea. I should not be hearing such near water. I had to investigate.
I crept from bed, fumbled for my clothing, and despite the darkness, dressed swiftly. As I was pulling on my boots, a ghastly splintering sound erupted directly overhead. I looked up. To my astonishment, a faint light appeared as a piece of our roof peeled away like a strip of orange rind, leaving a large and jagged hole. In an instant, a torrent of frigid water poured down, drenching me. What’s more, the wailing sounds grew louder, which I now identified as wind.
Tempests often struck the Dorset coast, but in all my twelve years I had never experienced one so violent. The storm must have hit the shore at high tide—under a full moon—a linking of meteorological conditions, which now and again brought flood. I truly wondered if the world was coming to an end. And if not the entire world, surely my world seemed to be collapsing fast.
Little did I know how accurate that notion would come to pass.
At that immediate moment, however, my concern was this: I must warn my sister of the danger. Charity—for that was my beloved sister’s name—had her room below mine. Yet no sooner did I think of cautioning her, than I remembered she—six years older than I—had thankfully gone to London two months ago to live with our uncle Tobias Cuttlewaith.
Good, I thought. She, at least, was safe.
It was only natural then that my worries turned next to my father, Mr. Gabriel Pitts—to give his whole name. A lawyer, he had his closet—which is to say his office and private room—on the first level of our house.
Wanting to make sure he was safe, I floundered about in search of the stairs. Ineptly, I found them, and then descended with great caution through the blustery, sodden darkness. The water, coming through the torn roof, was flooding the stairway, making it slippery.
After a brief descent, during which I guessed rather than saw my location, I reached the second level, where my sister had her room. It was a little brighter than my chamber, but such powerful gusts were whipping about that I became convinced a wind had smashed the lone window in.
“Father!” I cried, but the sounds that roared about me were louder than my voice. To find him I would have to go down another flight of narrow steps. Accordingly, I gripped the banister as tightly as I could. Halfway down I began to hear sloshing sounds. That suggested that the sea was nearer than I previously thought.
“Father!” I cried again, but received no more reply than before.
Where could he be? Was he hurt? Had he drowned? Could I save him?
As close to panic as I have ever felt, I picked my way down almost to the bottom step where I perceived shimmering liquid pooling below me. Clinging to the wet banister, wondering how deep the water was, I suddenly felt a gob of water on the back of my neck. It so startled me, my fingers slipped, and I plunged headfirst into the water.
In short, I was in grave danger of drowning right in the middle of my own home.
CHAPTER TWO
I Provide Some Vital Information about My Family.
No doubt it is unkind of me—the obligatory author of my autobiography—to leave myself—and you—in such a precarious predicament, possibly drowning and thus in danger of ending my life and my tale too hastily. But before I go forward, you need to learn something about the life I lived.
I shall begin, therefore, at my beginning.
My parents lived in an old three-story wooden house along the short alle
yway known as Church Passage near the corner of St. Mary Street in the ancient English town of Melcombe Regis.
Melcombe Regis exists in Dorset County, on the southern coast of England. It is linked to a sister town, Weymouth, by a sixty-yard-long drawbridge over the Wey River.
Mr. Daniel Defoe (the man who authored The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe) wrote that Melcombe was a “sweet, clean and agreeable town. . . . ’Tis well built, and has a great many substantial merchants in it, who drive a considerable trade and have a good number of ships belonging to the town.”
The two towns, Melcombe Regis and Weymouth, share a small, busy harbor, its ships trading with France, Spain, and the American colonies. Being an international seaport, it has endless legal complications requiring resolution: custom duties, taxes, foreign ships, rowdy seamen, and smuggling. Furthermore, ships, both English and foreign, are often tossed upon the stormy Dorset shore and wrecked, which created more legal difficulties. These legal entanglements—and the fees attached—attracted my lawyer father to move from London. Over time he would earn an income between fifty and sixty pounds per year, providing a comfortable life.
His wife, my mother, Hannah Cuttlewaith, left her family in London to come with him. Let it be known—for it is a key to understand what transpired—that my father refused her dowry, denouncing marriage settlements as a barbarous practice meant for the buying and selling of wives.
Consult the Melcombe parish birth records and you will discover that my sister, Charity, was born in 1706, I in 1712, both during the reign of Good Queen Anne.
Alas, I have the unhappy task of informing you that shortly after my mother gave birth to me, she died, an all-too-tragic occurrence of our times.
My father’s great shock and distress at the death of my mother, a woman he much loved, made him bitter, angry, and joyless, and filled him with the belief that the world had no sympathy for sorrow. “People care nothing for suffering,” he said to Charity and me so often it became a family motto. “To get on you must mask your heart with false smiles.”
Let it be said in these early pages that my father, a deeply unhappy man, never smiled. So it was that he named me after Oliver Cromwell, the unflinching Puritan from the previous century, whom my father admired for beheading a king and then becoming the ironfisted Lord Protector of England.
In matters of religion Father became a Nonconformist and in politics, an anti-monarchy man, holding resolutely that “The law is king,” a phrase he expressed to all people on all occasions whether relevant or not. He was ill-shaved, poorly dressed, and wore a dirty neckcloth and an ill-powdered wig. Big and heavy, he was reluctant to move in body or mind and thus came to be considered a clumsy, discordful, meddlesome man. All in all he was self-neglected, just as he neglected his children.
Although I chose to believe my father was fond of my sister and me, his ongoing belligerent melancholy was such that he preferred to spend his days with clients, men accused of crimes by wealthy tradesmen or Crown magistrates. As a result, my father had many enemies among the town’s establishment. This gave rise to another favorite saying: “A man should be known, not by his friends but by his enemies.” And known he was, for he had many a foe in both towns, his reputation being that of a radical, interfering hot-mouth.
Being a lawyer, Father constantly warned my sister and me not to become entangled in the law because of its extreme severity. To steal anything worth even a few shillings was punishable by death or transportation. I cannot tell you how often he told us about the nine-year-old London boy who broke a window to steal twopence worth of paint and hanged for that ghastly crime.
Father never got over the death of my mother and did not remarry. Instead, my father informed Charity—a child only six years old—that she must take care of me and our home. “I will have no servants,” he declared. “It demeans both master and servant.
“To be sure,” he informed my sister, “I will provide you with a house and a weekly allowance so you may feed us. The rest is your responsibility.”
Father spent his days working, while most nights he went off to an inn. Upon staggering home he often did a singular thing: He would dissolve into syrupy tears and to my sister and me announce, “I have not been a good parent. I promise to do better.”
Beware the sinner who continually repents; the more he repents, the greater his need for repentance. So it was Father often repented. He did not change.
Nonetheless, Charity did what my father asked of her—took care of the household. In contrast to him she often shared many a smile. She was prudent and cheerful; she cleaned with care and cooked. She kept our house and me neat as needles. She did it so well she was called “little mother” by nearby neighbors and by town folk in general. It was meant as a compliment. Indeed, the sweet, loving, and pretty girl that Charity was gave up her normal childhood to be mother to me.
I loved Charity deeply. I turned to her—not Father—when in need of anything, be it food, comfort, or advice, or any of the forms of love a mother provides.
As to my appearance, which readers seem to want to know so as to gain a better sense of a book’s hero—whom I humbly believe is me—my curly brown hair was more often than not an unruly mop, which gave an impish quality to my generally merry face—or so my sister claimed. Despite my powerful namesake, I was a small, delicate child. Even as I grew older, people thought me younger than my true age so that they would consider me inept while my constant cheerfulness was taken as simplicity. My diminutive stature, winsome, polite habits, and willing smiles generally induced people to have a protective attitude toward me. Those that didn’t protect me bullied me.
Let it be said that I grew up well enough, content with my life in Melcombe. I went to the St. Thomas Street Free School for Boys until I was eleven. I learned to read and write and gained some skill with numbers. I played with other boys along the fine, sandy bayside beaches or in the old fort at the Narrows.
We boys also liked to linger by the river docks, watching ships unload their cargoes while observing the intricate tar-coated rigging, the ropes and gear of seafaring work. I was particularly taken by the sailors who traveled to the American colonies, Chesapeake Bay, in my mind, being a most glamorous place. We wanted to be sailors, or as we boys called them, water-dogs.
When I turned eleven my regular schooling came to an end. Father made me his apprentice so that I might follow him into the legal profession. I spent my mornings studying legal books, though I understood very little of them. Afternoons I would follow my father about when he met with clients or stood before magistrates. While I found it boring, my familiarity of the law—which will be mentioned on these pages—came about by attending Father when he practiced his profession.
But then, in the early fall of 1724, when I was twelve years of age, Charity made a shocking announcement.
CHAPTER THREE
In Which I Tell You What Charity Did.
The day after her eighteenth birthday, Charity announced to Father that she wanted more in her life than to be a “little mother” to her younger brother in a small seaside town.
“But what would you do?” said my father, altogether aghast.
“I intend to go to London,” she said.
“London!” cried my father. “London is the most monstrous of cities. Half a million in population. Full of riches, yes, but fuller yet of poverty, corruption, and crime. A place where public hangings are popular entertainment. How could you, an eighteen-year-old girl, go there alone?”
“I won’t be alone,” returned Charity. “I wrote to my mother’s brother, Mr. Tobias Cuttlewaith. Our uncle replied to say that he and his wife would welcome me into his home—as near relatives should—and provide me with protection and employment. He has a well-established gentleman’s business.”
“You wrote to him?” cried my father. “And he wrote back? Why did I never see these letters?”
“I offered them, but you were too engaged with your enemies
and told me to leave you alone.”
“Humph. May I remind you I have the legal right to prevent you from leaving. And the law is king.”
“Father,” replied my sister, “I’ve spent my youth taking care of you and Oliver. While I love you both, I’ve had little of my own youth. I wish to see and experience more of the world before I become older. As you say, London is a city of half a million. Melcombe has but four thousand souls.”
“You mean you wish to find a husband,” said my father with unashamed anger. “Marriage only leads to sorrow.”
“That’s your experience,” Charity returned with a saucy smile, which, as I looked on, surprised me much. “You,” she said to Father, “are so disliked in both towns, and have made so many enemies, I’m not likely to find an attractive suitor here. If anyone did ask for my hand in marriage, you most likely would chase him away.”
“What about your brother?” my father asked.
“He’s old enough to care for himself.”
The more my sister spoke, the more astonished I became. But then, is anything more startling than to observe your sister or brother—your playmate—suddenly turn into an adult?
“London is very far away,” my father protested.
“It’s but one hundred and twenty-eight miles.”
“How do you know that?”
“I inquired. In any case, I intend to take the stagecoach.”
“That will cost a whole pound.”
“I have saved money from the allowance you have given me.”
Father frowned. “All I can say is that if you go, it shall mean hard times for me and your brother.”
“The world cares nothing for suffering,” Charity reminded him. “To get on you must mask your heart with false smiles.”
I smiled, although my father did not.
Father frowned and said, “You are right. I have not . . . been a good parent. I promise to do better.”
“I have heard that many times before. I am going,” said Charity.
“Let me see the letter from your uncle,” he demanded. “It has been years since I knew the man. He was an untrustworthy rascal then. I doubt he has improved.”