The Brideship Wife

by Leslie Howard

  All I could see in any direction was a vast cauldron of boiling, churning seas. There was no rhythm or organization, as if the gods were fighting, each one throwing a different set of currents, winds, and wave directions into the pot, each one trying to claim superiority over the others as they toyed with the mortals below. A few waves were splashing over the railing, sending a skim of foamy seawater scuttling across the deck, like dozens of scurrying crabs trying to find purchase before being sucked back over the side into the boiling ocean once more.

  I decided I could make a run for it. Just fifty feet on the outside deck, I figured. Once I was through the door to the dining room I could take the inside stairs down a deck to Dr. Carson’s surgery. The whole trip would only take a few minutes. As I stood there, still-larger waves began breaking and some washed up against the door to our cabin. I turned to have one last look at Hari, then stepped outside. I slammed the door behind me and ran.

  I gripped the handrail with all my might just as a giant wave hit me with shocking force. Fear numbed my limbs and kept me frozen there for a moment. A series of waves washed over me, threatening to whip my feet out from under me and send me skidding across the deck, but I held on to the railing for dear life, advancing forwards hand over hand.

  After what seemed like an age, I finally reached the dining room door, but with the wind billowing against me, I couldn’t open the heavy oak door with my one free hand. Taking a breath, I let go of the handrail completely and pulled with all my might on the door. When a breaker hit with what felt like the strength of the entire ocean, I lost my grip. I screamed for help as I fell through the air and the cold black water.

  Trapped in the churning wave I tumbled head over feet and flailed with both arms, trying desperately to find something, anything to stop me from being washed over the side. A sharp, intense pain rippled through my back as I struck something hard. My lungs demanded air as the wave began its retreat over the side of the ship, pulling me with it.

  Another huge wave hit. The urgent protest from my lungs became a silent scream. I tried to swim through the swirling water, kicking with my feet in the direction I thought was up. I snagged on something, or at least something powerful had me in a grip, and then I was being dragged. Gasping, I broke through the surface and opened my eyes to the angry face of John Crossman.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You were to stay in your cabin,” he bellowed at me.

  “My sister needs help!”

  Between coughing and crying, I said no more. My strength was gone. I could barely stand as he tethered us to the safety line. Then he threw me over his shoulder and, gripping the inside handrail, slowly inched his way along the row of cabins. He opened the door of one and unceremoniously dumped me on the floor of the darkened chamber, all the time cursing my idiocy in one long string of blasphemy.

  I cut him off. “My sister has taken an overdose of her medicine. She needs Dr. Carson now.”

  He stopped his berating and turned back to the door. “I’ll fetch him. Do not go anywhere.”

  Exhausted from my fight with the sea and from the fear of losing Harriet, I remained in a damp heap on the floor, whispering desperate prayers for all of us. The minutes dragged by. Where was John? Had he been lost? Finally, the door creaked open and I jumped to my feet and rushed over to him.

  “How is she?”

  “Carson’s with her now,” he said, running his hands through his dripping hair. He had a weary look in his eyes. “He’s given her something. She’s awake and breathing normally. He’ll stay with her until it’s safe for you to go back to your cabin.”

  “Thank God,” I said, my teeth chattering. “And thank you, John.”

  He threw me a fur-lined robe. “Get yourself out of those wet things and wrap up in this.”

  He pointed to the adjoining servant’s room, and I retreated there without another word. It felt wonderful to shed my sodden, seaweed-smelling clothes and wrap the plush fur robe around me. My red-chafed skin responded to its warm caress with instant pleasure, and my shivering ceased as warmth found its way to my extremities.

  Bracing myself against an extreme roll of the ship, I opened the door to the main room a crack. I peered out and found John wrapped in a blanket sitting on the edge of his bed. He had poured two whiskies. He took a sip of one and held out the other for me. Stepping with some hesitancy from the privacy of the servant’s nook, I moved into the room, accepted the glass of golden liquid, and took a sip. The alcohol sent warmth spreading through my chest, but it didn’t erase the shock I still felt at how close I had come to death. If John hadn’t found me…

  “How did you know I was there?”

  He shrugged. “I was checking on the animals and heard a scream.”

  Neither of us spoke for several minutes until John broke the ice. “All I can say is you’re the strangest-looking mermaid I’ve ever plucked from the sea.”

  He pointed to the wall-mounted mirror. I gasped, then began to giggle at the sight. My hair had dried into an odd cone shape, sweeping across my forehead and spiralling up into a knot at the top of my head with a crown of broken coral protruding at the apex. My attempts to fix it only made it worse. The coral crumbled into tiny bits, and my hair remained hopelessly knotted.

  My giggle turned into loud guffaws from the depths of my belly, and I didn’t even try to collect myself. I just let go. It felt wonderful, a great purging of weeks of stress. John stared at me and then began to laugh himself until we were both lost in helpless mirth. When we regained our composure, the mood in the cabin had shifted. There was a hum of something new, something amorphous. We were suddenly very aware of the closeness of our bodies. John leaned forward and touched his lips to mine. They were soft and gentle, and I lost myself for a moment until I remembered how inappropriate it all was—us sitting alone together, drinking, in a state of undress. My mind flashed back to the night of Hari’s party, and panic prickled my skin.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, pulling away.

  “No, I am,” John said, getting up and walking over to the servant’s room. “You have my bed, I’ll bunk in here.” He shut the door firmly between us.

  I lay awake listening to the howling storm and thinking of John just on the other side of the door. An hour or so before a dim grey dawn, the wind diminished, and I finally nodded off. When I awoke, I could tell by the roll of the ship that the storm had subsided. John was still sound asleep. In spite of feeling sore from head to toe, I hurriedly dressed and slipped from his room.

  When I got back to our cabin, Hari was sitting up in bed, a sheepish look on her face, and Dr. Carson was packing up his medical bag. A worried look passed between us. I knew what he was thinking. Where had Hari gotten the drugs and how could we prevent another overdose? I had no answers but resolved to get some, and soon.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  By the time the seas were completely calm again, Harriet had regained most of her strength and I made a point of confiscating her vials of laudanum, but not before demanding she tell me where she got them.

  “You are guileless, aren’t you, Char?” Harriet said wearily. “So trusting. Once I found out you were working with Carson, I knew he would have given you keys to the surgery. It was easy enough to find it in your trunk, the trunk you rarely remember to lock.”

  My face reddened in shame. It was my lack of forethought that had caused this. I went to my trunk and rummaged for the keys, which I then tucked into my pocket. I wouldn’t make that mistake again. There was still something that was bothering me about Harriet’s actions.

  I stood in the doorway of the main room and studied her lying on the bed. “After all you did to overcome your dependency, why slip back?”

  “I’ve needed help to cope with the divorce.”

  “I know it’s been hard, but burying your pain in drugs is not coping.”

  “I had no other way. I’m not like you. I have nothing else in my life. Being Charles’s wife was everything. It was who I
was, my identity. You have your books, your love of animals, and your interest in medicine. You could be perfectly happy as an unmarried woman.”

  I detected a note of jealousy in her voice, and I sat down on the edge of the bed. “Hari, you once told me that women define themselves through marriage. That’s not true. The emigrant women taught me that. They are single and have endured hardship we’ll never know, and yet they have made lives for themselves. They’ll arrive in the New World with nothing but the spirit and resolve to start fresh and make the most of the opportunity.”

  Hari’s eyes welled up with tears, but I wasn’t through.

  “You have more than most. It’s time to forget Charles and your old life. You have me, and together we can create a good future for ourselves.” I held up the keys for her to see. “These are going back to Dr. Carson today. You won’t be getting any more laudanum from me or Dr. Carson.”

  Harriet sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “I don’t even want it anymore. It doesn’t comfort me like it used to.”

  It was a relief to hear her say that, and I wanted to believe that she was coming out of her depression, but I would have to wait and see.

  * * *

  In the following days, I didn’t have much time to spend with Harriet as the storm had wreaked havoc on the rest of the crew and passengers, and Dr. Carson needed my help with injuries and unsettled stomachs. I ignored my own aching limbs and soldiered on while my bruises healed. I was relieved that Sarah and little Jacob had made it through all right. But there was no denying that everyone was desperate to be on land once again. Fortunately, we didn’t have too long to wait. Within the week, we would be in Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands and its coaling station, the first of two more scheduled stops on our journey, and then we would finally be allowed to leave the ship.

  We smelled the land before we saw it. It was mid-July, so winter in the southern hemisphere. It was cool but sunny, and after a month and a half at sea, the intoxicating smell of earth, grass, and newly overturned fallow fields rejuvenated our tired bodies like a tonic.

  When someone cried out that they had spotted the lighthouse at Cape Pembroke, I ran to my cabin for my opera glasses.

  “Harriet, we’re nearly there,” I cried. “Shall we go ashore together? I’ve written Wiggles, and I should like to post the letter.” I also was eager to see if there was any news from her. She would have heard about Charles and Harriet by now, and I longed for her advice.

  Harriet nodded, but she took her time dressing properly before joining me on deck. That didn’t bother me. The fact that she was taking pains with her appearance once more was a good sign.

  Excited chatter and anticipation reverberated through the crowd as the ship rounded a jut of land and we beheld the vast, busy harbour of Port Stanley. Under engine power alone, we glided past the many anchored vessels in the outer harbour and made for our mooring buoy closer to shore. I trained my opera glasses on the long dock running along the shoreline ahead of us. It was alive with all manner of commerce and trade, as crews from the many oceangoing vessels purchased goods from the locals. With arms waving wildly, they bartered for baskets of fruits, nuts, fresh and dried meats, water, and what looked to be luxuries, like alcohol and tobacco. I could only guess at how they made their purchases, likely an odd mixture of languages and gestures.

  As Hari and I stood in line to go ashore, I searched the crowd for Sarah and the other emigrant women, and saw Lady Persephone and Sir Richard preparing to board the tender, but the women were nowhere in sight.

  “You and your sister are going to town unescorted?” Mrs. Burk asked, appearing at our sides.

  “Yes,” I replied curtly. “And where are the emigrant women?”

  “Oh, my husband won’t allow them to go. So many corrupting influences on shore. But perhaps you and the former Mrs. Baldwin are not troubled by these things.” She watched our faces for signs of distress, and when we showed none, she huffed and shuffled away.

  In truth, I cared little for her pointed comments about us, but my heart was pained for Sarah and the women. They had suffered more than most, confined to windowless rooms on the lower deck and with only a small outside area to catch a few breaths of air, and I knew they were looking forward to getting off the ship, just like the rest of us, and I said so to Hari.

  “Why don’t you ask them if you can purchase anything on their behalf?” she suggested. “From everything you’ve told me, they deserve a bit of kindness.”

  “That’s a lovely idea,” I said, delighted that she had thought of it herself. I told her I would be right back and ran to the steerage deck.

  Sarah was trying to take the news as stoically as possible, but she couldn’t stop a few tears from escaping. Alice was quick to point out that the Burks themselves were happily going ashore. She declared the women should stand up for their rights and not be pushed around by the likes of “a two-faced blowhard preacher and his fat, stupid wife.”

  I commiserated with them, then offered to make purchases on their behalf and quickly put together a list of their needs and headed back to the debarkation point. Just as I reached the first-class queue, I bumped into John, who was carrying a large black bag with one hand and a well-worn leather satchel with the other. The sudden closeness made my lips tingle at the memory of our kiss.

  He didn’t seem to be suffering from any such memories. His eyes were alive with a new excitement. “Charlotte, I’ve received permission to visit the prison and vaccinate the inmates,” he said. “Finally, I get to put my medical supplies to good use.”

  “That’s wonderful, John. Good luck with it.”

  He smiled, and a small part of me wished I could accompany him and finally test my vaccination skills on more than just a piece of cloth, but I had promised the emigrant women, and besides, Hari was with me and I excused myself to find her now.

  Once ashore, I could see the place was alive with people in all manner of dress and clothing style, representing the four corners of this vast world. A group of men who appeared to be of Eastern European descent wore billowy shirts trimmed with embroidered sashes, brightly coloured knee breeches, and high black boots. Kilted Scots and elegant English gentlemen mixed easily with swaggering voyageurs with their jaunty neck scarves and wide sashes tied around their middles. There were naval uniforms of every fashion and colour representing most of the seafaring nations of the world.

  And there were women everywhere. Spanish ladies in vivid red and gold gowns, their hair shrouded by black lace, sat together off to one side of the open-air market, sheltered from the sun by their parasols while maids brought them samples of the merchants’ wares. On the opposite side of the market were the women of East India. The sun danced off their gold headdresses and jewellery every time they moved.

  Harriet and I sought out the Royal Mail office and I mailed my latest letter to Wiggles. Harriet asked if there was anything for her, to which the clerk shook his head. But there was a letter from Wiggles waiting for me. Feeling bad for Harriet, I tried to suppress my excitement and quickly tucked it away in my pocket, and we dutifully went about buying what the emigrant women had requested. My shopping basket quickly filled with all sorts of everyday things that had become unimaginable indulgences during the voyage. Sweet-smelling bars of lavender soap, beeswax hand cream, hair wash made with goat’s milk. And then there were the teas and sweets.

  Hari seemed content to trundle along after me, occasionally making a purchase for herself, but her heart wasn’t in it, and when I suggested we stop at a quiet little spot for tea, she readily agreed.

  Over tea I opened Wiggles’s letter and began to read it out loud, thinking it might lift Harriet’s spirits, but I stopped short when I saw Charles’s name.

  “What is it?” Harriet asked, studying me over her teacup. “Something about Charles?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “We don’t have to do this now.” I began folding away the letter, which was when I noticed there was a separate sheet of paper. It was th
e monthly bulletin from our church. Wiggles had circled a small announcement at the bottom of the page. I looked closer. It was a notice of the upcoming marriage of the Honourable Charles Baldwin to the widow Mrs. Mary Sledge. Charles had clearly lost no time moving forward. I looked up to see Hari holding out her hand.

  “Show me,” she said. “It’s all right. I can take it.”

  Reluctantly I passed the notice to her.

  “No doubt his title will follow soon,” she said calmly after she had read it.

  “He may be sorry if the Committee of Privileges rejects his appeal to let the oldest boy be next in line for the title.”

  “No, he won’t.” Hari took a sip of her tea. “He’s counting on Mary to provide a legitimate heir. She’s produced three healthy boys already.”

  She was right. Of course. I just hoped she realized that despite what she’d lost, she’d gained so much freedom. “Good riddance to Charles. He’s well out of our lives. You have no one’s expectations you have to live up to anymore.”

  “It’s a curious feeling and strangely liberating to hear this.” She raised her chin and met my gaze. “For so long, I’ve felt trapped in a life that was not of my own making. I married for wealth and position, certainly not love. In some ways, having Charles divorce me feels like I’ve sloughed off a huge burden. For the first time I’ve started to think about what would make me happy.”

  I reached across the table and put my hand on hers. She smiled and did not try to pull away, and then began to talk about what she might do in Victoria, open a fashionable dress shop or, maybe hats and gloves were more the thing in the colonies.

  “It’s a new beginning and this time it’ll be on my terms. Perhaps I’ll marry again, but if I do, it’ll be for all the right reasons.”

  “Hari, you don’t know how happy it makes me to hear you say that.”