A Shop Girl at Sea

by Rachel Brimble

  Amelia looked at Officer Murphy from the corner of her eye as she passed. The man smiled and laughed, clearly basking in such unashamed female attention.

  Considering the manner in which he’d spoken to her earlier, the way his bright blue gaze had so openly bored into hers, it seemed Officer Murphy had a blatant capacity for flirtation.

  She was not surprised in the slightest. His character had been laid bare for her when he’d approached her and suggested she might call on him for his help. Clearly the man thought himself irresistible to every female aboard. Well, he’d soon learn she was most likely more different than any woman he’d ever met.

  There would be no fawning and flirting from her… no matter what charms he might decide to direct her way.

  Forcing her eyes forward, Amelia walked on.

  Once she’d safely reached her room, she opened the door and stopped. ‘Oh, hello.’

  A woman in her late twenties turned from the chest of drawers where she was arranging her undergarments. She pushed her blonde hair from her eyes and smiled, her startling blue eyes friendly. ‘Good evening.’ She offered her hand. ‘It’s nice to meet you. I’m Catherine… Catherine Hill.’

  Amelia took her hand, immediately relaxed by Catherine’s gentle amiability. ‘Amelia Wakefield. Have you enough space? I can easily move some of my things around.’

  ‘Oh, I’m perfectly fine, thank you.’ Catherine walked to the desk and put down the novels she carried. ‘I’m glad to see a friendly face. It’s more terrifying than I thought travelling alone.’

  ‘You’re travelling alone? My goodness.’

  ‘I’m a widow, you see. I’m travelling to New York to stay with my aunt and uncle who have a farm in Ohio. They’ve assured me that I will be welcome around the farm and house. They run a very successful dairy and want me to help them.’

  ‘That sounds wonderful. I’m dreadfully sorry you have lost your husband.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Catherine turned towards her open suitcase, closed it and stored it under her bed. ‘I’m just going to have a little walk before I turn in. Would you like to join me?’

  ‘Would you mind if I said no this time? I’m exhausted and just want to climb into bed. But you are more than welcome to join me and Mr Weir for breakfast tomorrow, if you’d like?’

  ‘Mr Weir?’

  ‘My colleague. We’re travelling to America to study the department stores there. We work at Pennington’s in Bath.’

  Catherine’s eyes widened. ‘Goodness. I’ve heard of Pennington’s, but never been there. I’m from Devon. I’d love to tag along for breakfast, if you don’t mind. Thank you, Amelia.’

  Catherine left the cabin and quietly closed the door.

  Amelia quickly undressed. As she would be without dressing help, Mrs Woolden had been mindful in the Pennington’s outfits she’d selected for Amelia to take with her and, so far, she hadn’t had too much difficulty with clasps, buttons and laces. Relieved to be in her nightgown, Amelia wandered to the porthole and looked out into the darkness. The sky was spangled with stars and a half-moon shone amid a wispy covering of clouds.

  The longer she stared, the more a horrible sense of foreboding stole over her and Amelia shivered. Nothing seemed to move, nothing made a sound. It suddenly felt as though she was floating out here alone on the vast ocean. Even the corridor was absent of people coming and going. No laughter rang, no voices spoke.

  She briefly closed her eyes, willing her nonsensical apprehension into submission.

  Her feelings were little more than fear of the unknown. Her internal anxieties poking and prodding to the surface. Opening her eyes, she tightened the belt of her robe, inhaled a determined breath and sat at the small writing desk. She pulled her notebook towards her, pen poised and feverishly set to work.

  The information Mrs Carlton had given her poured onto the page, and Amelia’s excitement for what adventures lay ahead grew. Everything she saw, heard, tasted and smelled would be noted in this book. She would absorb every conversation, every piece of clothing, every accessory and piece of jewellery. Times were changing and Miss Pennington had given her the opportunity to be at the forefront of that transition.

  She would not waste a single moment. This trip was her chance to live. To experience. To challenge convention.

  And she would embrace every second of it.

  Her past would undoubtedly drift farther behind her, the closer she sailed to the place once called the New World. For the next three weeks, this voyage and America would be her new world. And, tomorrow, with or without Mr Weir, she would find a way to spend some time in first class. She wanted to report everything to Miss Pennington.

  Absolutely everything.

  Fifteen

  Samuel glanced at the clock in the control room and stretched the kinks from his neck and shoulders. He was halfway through his ten-hour shift and would soon be released to grab his evening meal. After that, he was expected to spend another four hours doing his duty throughout second class.

  Spending time with the passengers was proving to be unexpectedly enjoyable. Talking with so many different people, from so many different places, was interesting. Maybe even a little inspiring. He’d spoken to men chasing their fortunes, women wanting to make a difference for their gender and children who believed America to be a land of magic and mystery.

  The last forty-eight hours had put a fire in his belly for change and adventure; if his dream of staying in America turned out to be impossible, then at least he was starting to believe he would return to Bath a different man than the one who’d left.

  How that man would show himself, he wasn’t yet sure. All he knew was he could not go on any longer being so caged in by his family. Trapped and anchored in a role he could stand no more.

  His father’s face appeared in his mind’s eye and Samuel looked out across the ocean.

  Am I a disappointment, Pa? It’s only for you I’m working as I am. Looking after Ma and the girls. But I’m not sure I can go on as I have. Not anymore.

  Shaking off his melancholy, Samuel straightened his shoulders. He was working a grand job on a grand ship and he’d be sending money home as his dad would have wanted. Whatever else he might get up to while he travelled was no one’s business.

  They had made their final stop in Ireland the day before and were already making good time on the three-thousand-mile trip to New York. The captain was happy with the crew and the crew happy with the captain. The atmosphere in the control room was relaxed, the comradery tangible.

  He had a lot to be grateful for.

  ‘Hey, Sam.’

  Archie walked across the room with a tall, broad man who looked to be in his early twenties. ‘Have you met Harold? He’s working with me.’ Archie grinned. ‘Harold Buckley meet my good friend, Samuel Murphy.’

  Samuel shook Harold’s hand. ‘Nice to meet you.’

  Although beset with a slightly pockmarked face and a shock of bright orange hair sticking out in all directions from beneath his hat, Harold’s eyes were kind enough, his smile friendly.

  Archie nudged in between them and laid out a newspaper. ‘Have a look at this.’

  Samuel peered at a large black and white photograph of a construction site, the headline A Work In Progress but Progress Indeed. ‘What am I looking at?’

  ‘Tell him, Harold.’

  ‘That’s the new Grand Central Station in New York. They have hundreds of men building, laying track, constructing all kinds of amenities and Lord only knows what else. They reckon it’s going to be a train station like no other. A sight to behold when it’s finished.’

  Samuel frowned. ‘And why should this interest me?’

  Archie raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s all you’ve got to say?’

  ‘What else should I say? I don’t know the first thing about railways. I can’t be impressed by something I know nothing about.’

  ‘Blimey, Sam, you’re half blind sometimes, do you know that?’ Archie shook his head and nudged Haro
ld again. ‘Tell him.’

  Unsure if he wanted to know where Archie was going with this, Samuel crossed his arms. He and Archie had been friends for ten years despite their different personalities. Archie was impulsive, a risk-taker, a man who didn’t consider tomorrow until the sunlight broke through his bedroom window each morning. Samuel, on the other hand, had responsibilities that curbed any impulsiveness, swamped any risks and ensured he planned for his tomorrows. Whatever had lit Archie’s eyes like lanterns, Samuel was under no delusion he would most likely blow their flames out pretty quickly.

  He faced Harold. ‘Go on then. Tell me what hare-brained idea Archie’s dragged you into.’

  The other man shook his head, his gaze serious. ‘No hare-brained idea. Grand Central are calling out for workers. They aim to open the station as early as next year and want as many hands to the pump as possible.’

  Samuel looked from Harold to Archie’s beaming face and back again, as his suspicion about where this was going grew. ‘And?’

  ‘For the love of God.’ Archie glared at Samuel. ‘Can’t you see what’s right in front of you?’

  Harold puffed out his chest and grinned. ‘I, for one, won’t be coming back to Southampton. I’m staying in America to work on the station and make my fortune.’

  ‘Ah, I see.’ Samuel faced Archie. ‘And you’re telling me this because I might have mentioned about staying there myself.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Archie nudged Samuel’s shoulder. ‘This is your chance. You’d get a job there, no problem. You should do it. Stay in America.’

  Samuel’s gut knotted with possibility and he looked at the station photograph again. For all his words and bravado, never returning home still didn’t sit well in his conscience. He might have hopes and dreams but could he ever really abandon his family? Abandon his promise to his father? His mother was fragile at the best of times and to desert her could result in her falling ever deeper into depression or worse.

  He shook his head, regret coiling inside of him. ‘I’ve got responsibilities. You know that, Archie.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean you have to stay right in the thick of them. This is your chance, Sam. I just want you to bloody well take it.’ Archie slapped his hand to Samuel’s shoulder, staring hard into his eyes. ‘You don’t have a woman waiting for you at home. No kids. And no set-in-stone reason to go back. Harold is a seaman, a sailor, same as you. Except he’s taking his life in his hands and living it. He wants more than he has right now, Sam. Sound familiar?’

  Samuel’s heart picked up speed, excuses and reasons to stop Archie on his optimistic path battling on his tongue. Cowardice to do what he really wanted in his life caught in his throat so painfully, Samuel found it hard to swallow. Maybe he should’ve kept his mouth shut about what dreams he had; how much he sometimes resented the role that had been dropped on him from a great height. His friend never failed to want the best for him, but Archie was a man without commitment or ties to anything other than what he wanted. A man who would never know, God willing, what it was to have a family that became his duty to care for, not by love or marriage, but by death.

  ‘Look…’ Archie sighed. ‘We have a few days before we reach America, just think about it. You’re not happy, my friend and I don’t want you carrying on as you have.’ He smiled. ‘Rightly or wrongly, I care about you. This could be your way out. I know it.’

  Claustrophobia stole through Sam igniting a simmering irritation. Was he just a mug everyone thought they could order around? Tell him what he could and should be doing? He had enough of that at home. If Archie thought he could start acting like his damn mother while they were aboard this ship, he had better think again.

  He shrugged Archie’s hand off his shoulder. ‘I might not have a woman or kids, but I have got a family. Bloody hell, Archie, don’t you think I would’ve got out before now if I could? I shouldn’t have said anything to you.’

  ‘You haven’t said anything to me you haven’t been saying to yourself. And, for your information, I don’t think you would’ve got out before now because when has such an opportunity come your way before?’ Archie crossed his arms. ‘There’s no reason you can’t stay on in America. Find work at the railway. With your mechanical expertise, they’d take you on, no questions asked. There’s nothing to stop you sending money home and, in return, you get a life. One of your own making, where you make the decisions. You get to have some fun instead of your sisters. Isn’t that what you’re hankering? Imagine not having to answer to the women in your life, Sam. Christ.’

  Samuel stared at his friend and then at Harold, who shrugged and picked up the newspaper before walking away, one hand raised in surrender.

  Samuel faced Archie. ‘Why did you say all that in front of a bloke I don’t even know?’

  ‘Because Harold isn’t thinking about what he hasn’t got, he’s thinking about what he wants, that’s why. My life is in Bath, Sam. I’ve got a woman I love who I fully intend to ask to marry me when I get back. I don’t want out, you do. We’re working for White Star on a casual basis. If you don’t want to be on the Titanic on the return trip, you don’t have to be. That’s all I’m saying.’

  Archie squeezed Samuel’s shoulder before heading across to the other side of the control room. Samuel stared after him, his mind reeling and his heart beating fast. Not return home? Just send word with his latest pay packet that he wasn’t coming back?

  The idea was little more than a pipe dream.

  Yet, as he looked out over the ocean, the sun sparkling on its surface, the sky meeting the sea, America suddenly felt like the promised land it always claimed to be.

  Archie was right.

  There wasn’t anything stopping Samuel from staying in New York now that he’d finally broken free. His mother couldn’t keep him in England through words of guilt and responsibility because, in his heart and mind, he was already gone.

  Everywhere he looked on deck, people’s faces were alight with happiness and excitement. As though everyone else had something to look forward to during and after this trip. Was there any reason why he couldn’t have that, too?

  Sixteen

  Ruby slid some eggs onto Tommy’s plate and then her own, before laying the crockery on the kitchen table, its surface forever sticky no matter how much she scrubbed it. She glanced at her mother who, of course, had been served first and now happily shovelled the food Ruby had prepared into her mouth.

  Repulsed, Ruby sat down next to her brother and forced a smile as she picked up her fork. ‘How was school today, Tommy? Did your teacher like the sums I helped you with?’

  ‘He said—’

  ‘No talk about school at the table,’ their mother snapped, speckles of food spraying out of her mouth. ‘You’ll put me off my dinner.’

  Hatred burned like a hot coal in the centre of Ruby’s chest as she glared at her mother’s bowed head. She sent up a silent prayer for the means to take her and Tommy away from this godforsaken house. To find somewhere for them to live where the windows didn’t rattle in the winter, and paper didn’t peel from the walls in the summer. Somewhere with a garden, no matter how small, rather than a concrete yard that stank of rubbish and rot. A place where Tommy might speak freely about the school he loved, and the dreams he shared with Ruby whenever she spent a few precious moments alone with him each night.

  ‘Why are you so quiet, girl? More scheming going on in that head of yours, I’ll bet.’

  Ruby raised her eyes to her mother’s. ‘Haven’t anything to say. There seems little point if you don’t even want to hear about your son’s schooling.’

  ‘Whatever you two have to say bores me senseless.’

  Ruby speared some potato as the need to rile her mother grew. Provoking her temper might be a senseless thing to do, but Ruby’s need to vent, to rant and rave, bubbled dangerously. ‘Well, what about you, Ma? How was your day?’

  ‘How do you think it was? I spent most of it cleaning the bloody house while you pissed away your day at
that place you call work. You, my girl, wouldn’t know hard work if it upped and slapped you in the face.’

  ‘I work hard. You know I do.’ Ruby looked at the dirty tea towels hanging from the cupboard door handles, the soup pot still unwashed on the counter from two days past and the pile of paper and ashes in the grate that had been there since yesterday. Resentment burned. ‘And, for your information, Miss Pennington has been so complimentary about my work on the Titanic window, I might have the confidence to try for a higher position someday soon.’

  ‘She was complimentary, was she?’ Her mother squeaked the word in spiteful, upper-class mimicry. ‘Look at Miss Fancy Pants using her big words. You have a screw loose if you think that high and mighty trollop thinks any more of you than I do.’

  Ruby gripped her knife and fork tighter. ‘Wouldn’t you welcome me bringing home more money?’

  ‘Anything you bring home will be an improvement on what you’re earning. I have a mind to go to Pennington’s and accuse Miss Pennington of child labour. It’s criminal what they pay you. Not enough to feed me, let alone you two.’

  ‘I don’t want you setting foot near Pennington’s.’ Ruby glared as she fought to keep hold of her brewing temper. ‘Not ever.’

  Time stood still. Even the ticking of the wall clock seemed to stop. The only sound Ruby heard was her heartbeat pulsing in her ears. Her mother’s eyes bulged in their sockets, her mouth twisting into a tight line.

  Adrenalin washed through Ruby and she braced, ready for whatever came next. With her eyes still locked on her mother’s, she said, ‘Tommy, go upstairs.’

  The legs of his chair scraped across the tiled floor as he scrambled from the table and raced from the room. His feet thundered up the stairs, followed by the slam of his bedroom door and the scuffle of a chair being moved across the floor. Ruby prayed he’d properly lodged it under the door handle as she’d taught him.