The Brideship Wife

by Leslie Howard

  Sarah and Alice didn’t join us. Sarah had set off to the BC Express Company to buy her ticket for the next coach to Barkerville while I watched Jacob. Alice, having found a fiancé and set a wedding date, refused to come to the meeting and slept late.

  The spokesman introduced himself as Mr. Simms and gestured towards a matronly woman standing next to him. “Ladies, this is Mrs. Graham. She has arranged for all the girls younger than fifteen to be taken in as servants into good homes, and to remain there until they are old enough for marriage. For older women seeking such positions, we have a list of households who are in need. I suggest you make yourselves presentable and begin making calls.”

  Florence nudged me, and I handed a snoozing Jacob to her and got to my feet. “What is the compensation, please?”

  My apparent audacity at speaking was met with frowns from the men. Mrs. Graham answered, “Room and board, Sunday afternoons off, and a small monthly sum for spending money, to be determined by the employer.”

  The women around me began to mutter. Many hoped the robust economy in the New World would mean higher wages for all, but it seemed the servant class did not share in the new wealth.

  “For ladies with education,” Mrs. Graham continued, “we have several governess positions available from some of the best families in town. They pay room and board and one pound per month.”

  That wasn’t much better, I thought ruefully. “What about those seeking other employment?” I asked.

  Mrs. Graham turned to Mr. Simms, perplexed.

  “I have information on one or two other positions,” he said, referring to his notes. “Please see me after the meeting. I believe that’s it; thank you, ladies, and good luck.”

  Emma raised a timid hand. “Are we free to go into town? I want to shop and go to church.”

  It was a question that burned in all the women’s minds after months of being cooped up on the ship.

  Mr. Simms faced the crowd once more. “You must sign in and out of a logbook when you leave here to seek employment. Church is allowed but no other outings will be permitted. Gentlemen callers may only be received in the afternoon under the awning in the backyard. And in the interests of safety and propriety, we will be placing guards around the property.”

  The women groaned, and I heard a few angry comments, but the welcoming committee was gathering their things, ready to leave us behind in our near prison. Leaving Jacob with Florence, I managed to catch Mr. Simms, and he handed me a scrap of paper. It was a notice placed by the Royal Victoria Tea Society, an organization apparently devoted to “the preservation of the proper and decorous taking of afternoon tea,” according to the paper. They were seeking to hire “a genteel lady of quality” to greet and serve tea to the ladies of the highest echelons of Victoria society. The advertisement also mentioned that the position might be suitable for one of the newly landed, single emigrant women of middle or upper class.

  It was not at all what I hoped or imagined for myself, but it was that or a governess position. My body felt heavy as I took Jacob from Florence and shuffled back to my trunk to search for a suitable gown for an interview. After settling him in the wooden box we had made into his bed, I dug my dreaded corset out of my trunk and began airing out one of my best day gowns, a wide-skirted, red-and-white-striped cotton dress with puffed sleeves and a ruffled neckline. Before long, Sarah returned, a defeated look on her face.

  “What happened?” I asked as she sunk onto her cot. She peered over at her son, then turned back to me.

  “All the tickets for the last coaches of the season were snatched up before I even got to the counter. The men all pushed in ahead of me. No more stages will go north till spring.” She blinked back tears. “What am I to do? I have no employment. And if I did, who would watch Jacob? I’ll have to live on my travel money for the winter.”

  “Oh, Sarah, I’m so sorry.” I went to her and gave her a hug. Would nothing go our way? “Do you think your father can send another fare?”

  “I hate to ask him, but I’m sure he’ll find a way. Seeing me again—meeting little Jacob—it’s what he lives for, he told me so in his letters.”

  Her words made me think wistfully of my own father. If he had had his way, Harriet and I would have been provided for and life would have turned out much differently. Now, I had no one. But not Sarah. She had family and she needed to be with them.

  “We will find a way to get you to Barkerville, don’t fret. Come spring, I will go with you to the office and demand the first ticket be sold to you.”

  She wiped a tear away. “Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “We’ll have each other for a time yet.”

  I filled her in on the meeting and my potential teahouse job. I tried to be optimistic, but so far the colony was not what either of us had expected.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  The next morning, Sarah wished me luck as I signed out and left for the teahouse. Without the crowds, I could really see the town and was buoyed at the sight of a library. I needn’t starve for reading materials in the coming winter. Outside the library door, a schoolteacher shepherded a group of rosy-cheeked, uniformed children. There seemed to be a lot of young families here, and I smiled at the thought of the emigrant women’s children being among them in the future.

  But my smile left me as I rounded the corner and saw a small group of forlorn Native children dressed in ragged shirts and trousers. They were thin, and some of their little faces bore scars. Smallpox, I realized. One poor boy looked blinded in one eye. I guessed they were survivors of the recent epidemic John had spoken of, and I wondered what had happened to their parents and relations. My thoughts turned to John and his unfinished work here, and his vaccination materials packed in my trunk.

  When he had rushed to leave the ship, he had left them with Dr. Carson, who passed them on to me. “John thought you could find a use for these in the colony,” he had said. “He didn’t want them to go to waste.”

  Guilt tugged at my heart at the sight of these children. How different their lives were from the happy brood I saw at the library. I wanted to help, but I just didn’t know how. I didn’t even have enough money to buy the cowpox serum that I needed for the vaccinations. Nor did I know where or how to find those who needed the medicine the most so I could pass it on to them. But more than that, I knew that I was part of the greater problem, that I and those of my kind had forever changed this land so that the Native peoples struggled for a decent life, even to survive.

  I hurried on towards the teahouse, a Tudor-style building that would not have been out of place in the centre of London. Inside, I met with Miss Hardcastle, a humourless, greying, middle-aged woman, and told her I was interested in the job posting.

  She nodded. “As the volunteer director of the society, I never set foot in the kitchen or serve patrons, thus the need to hire.”

  She guided me to a sitting room with a commanding view of the ocean. In the distance, I could see vague outlines of islands.

  “Which islands are those?” I asked.

  “The San Juan Islands,” she replied, taking a seat.

  The name rang a bell. They were the source of an angry dispute with the Americans over sovereignty that had culminated in the Pig War just three years earlier. I remembered reading about it in a book back home in England. It all seemed so long ago. I felt a lump in my throat at my first twinge of homesickness.

  “Now, why don’t you tell me about yourself?” Miss Hardcastle asked, tucking her ankles under her.

  I took a breath and explained my situation, leaving out the scandals, of course.

  “How very shocking for you, my dear, that you are forced to take paid employment,” she said when I had finished. “I count myself blessed by the Almighty that I was born into a family of substance. Such a shame it is not the same for you.”

  I was beginning to see the sort of person Miss Hardcastle was, and while I wasn’t impressed, I needed this position, so I kept a poli
te smile on my face.

  Oblivious to any offense she may have caused, she carried on. “The mission of the society is to preserve the traditions and lifestyle that made Britain and her empire the greatest in the world. We are of the view that the fine etiquette and class distinctions of England need to be maintained here in the colonies, and what better way to do that than through a proper English tea? You are new to this part of the world. But once you have become acquainted with its customs, you will no doubt be quite shocked at the lack of the locals’ understanding and concern for the relative positions of class.”

  I thought of the poor children I had seen outside. What class did they belong to? Were the glories of the great British empire only for the privileged few? Perhaps there are far more important things to be concerned about than class distinction, I wanted to say, but I swallowed my words.

  Miss Hardcastle accepted my silence as agreement and got down to business, explaining my duties and terms of employment. I was to greet the patrons appropriately as to their station in society, to engage in polite chat, and of course to serve food and pour the tea. For this, I would be paid the grand sum of two pounds per month. It wasn’t much, but it was more than governess work, and for that, I was grateful.

  Without further ado, she handed me a white apron and told me that lunch would start in one hour. As she requested, I began setting the tables with a full lunch service—three forks, two spoons, butter knife, one side plate, one large plate, teacup and saucer, water glass, and sherry glass.

  “One more thing,” she said. “This table by the window is for Mrs. Douglas’s tea. I wouldn’t normally seat her at the best table, but she is the governor’s wife and etiquette requires it.”

  I was puzzled. “Why not?”

  Miss Hardcastle leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “Those women think they’re special because their husbands are rich Hudson’s Bay fur traders, but I’ll never accept them as equals. They’re Métis.” When I didn’t respond, she clarified, “Amelia Douglas is half French, half… you know.”

  I kept my face open and unruffled in an effort to show her that the information didn’t affect me. “I’ve only heard lovely things about her,” I said. It was a lie, but I didn’t care. I remembered what John had said about the governor and his wife’s marriage. It had been a union of two powerful families where each had much to gain. Amelia, the granddaughter of a Cree chief and daughter of a successful fur trader, and James Douglas, an up-and-comer in the Hudson’s Bay Company, had been clearly destined for great things together.

  Miss Hardcastle let out a guffaw, and as she bustled away, I vowed to make Mrs. Douglas feel very welcome when she arrived.

  As the ladies began gathering, it quickly became apparent that there was little for upper-class women to do in the colony other than to take luncheon or, I presumed, afternoon tea. The tables began to fill at twelve o’clock and I was hard-pressed to keep up with the basic demands of the patrons and soon gave up on engaging any of them in polite talk. Each table had a small hand-rung bell to summon me when a need arose, and it was not long before the tearoom began to sound like Chichester Cathedral on a Sunday morning.

  I ran from table to table, refilling teapots, serving food and beverages, clearing and resetting tables, and bouncing in and out of the kitchen at an exhausting pace. Numerous times I spilled tea into the saucer as I poured, but I found it almost impossible to avoid it. My face flamed relentlessly, but after a couple of hours, I was too tired to care anymore about shaming myself. Miss Hardcastle checked in on me regularly, but all she did was frown severely, then leave me to muddle through on my own.

  When the lunch crowd drifted away, I wearily settled at a table and helped myself to a generous portion of cucumber sandwiches. I had just taken a bite when Miss Hardcastle accosted me. “The tea crowd will be here shortly, and you’ve not cleared and reset all the tables.”

  I wolfed down the rest of my sandwich, and, dragging myself to my feet, I began restoring the dining room to its former order. By four o’clock, another onslaught of women filled the room. The end of the day could not arrive soon enough. I was dog-tired, and all I wanted to do was head back to my little cot and rest until dinner. Near the end of the tea hour, two women walked in and sat at the reserved table by the window. Mrs. Douglas, I deduced. And a friend.

  I pasted a fresh smile on my face and approached the table.

  “Mrs. Douglas?” I asked.

  She nodded. She was a small, plump woman with determined dark eyes and a practised smile. At my greeting, her guest, a tall woman wearing a large white hat with a veil, turned her face to me.

  “Miss Harding? Is that you?” The woman removed her veil.

  “Lady Persephone!” I wanted to sink into the floor.

  “I never expected to find you here,” she said. “At least not as part of the staff.”

  “I have little choice…” I glanced at Mrs. Douglas.

  “We had looked forward to hosting you at the residence,” she said. “But I’m sure you’ll do very well here.” There was something in her eyes. I sensed that she understood what I was going through, how hard it was to fit into a strict society, trying to hold on and not let go.

  “You and your sister. What a pair you turned out to be,” Lady Persephone scoffed. “To think I once thought you the perfect bride for dear George Chalmers—that I was set on promoting the marriage.”

  “Perhaps George is the one you have misjudged,” I said lightly.

  “I hardly think so. He is Pam’s handpicked successor.”

  I felt a burn in the back of my throat. I’d put up with so much, taking everything with a smile and a brave face. Something in me snapped.

  “George is a man with no moral compass,” I said in a low, hard voice. “He is lascivious and cunning, certainly not fit to hold high office. Nothing could have induced me to marry him, no matter what you said or did.”

  A sliver of recognition passed over Lady Persephone’s face. She’d heard this kind of talk about George before.

  “How dare you slander him in this way. You’re not fit to scrape the mud off his boots, let alone marry him.” She turned to Mrs. Douglas, who was looking with distaste at her guest, and then resettled her features into her usual porcelain mask. “I believe I’ve lost my appetite. Do you mind if we have tea another day?”

  Mrs. Douglas cast a glance at me, then turned back to Lady Persephone. “Certainly,” she said. As she gathered up her things, part of me thought she seemed relieved to have a reason to cut short the outing, and I wondered what she thought of Lady Persephone or even me.

  After the two women left, the anger in me evaporated and my exhaustion returned in full force. I slumped down into Mrs. Douglas’s vacated chair. What had I just done? Would I never be rid of my past? The few remaining ladies in the tea shop gave me curious looks and talked behind their hands. Hari would have known how to handle that, I thought. And then I was flooded with the reminder that she was gone, that I was on my own, and that maybe I had just made a huge misstep.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  I had expected an early winter with snow and ice in the northern colony, but the seasons here were not as harsh as I predicted. Autumn deepened, the air cooled, and the leaves changed colour and began to drop. A dusting of frost made them crunch under my feet when I went to work each morning, but I was warm enough in my wool cape. Once inside, I didn’t have much time to think of the weather, and as the branches of the evergreens hung low with dew, as if wrapping their arms around themselves for comfort, each day became a mindless routine of waking, working, and sleeping, with a few snatched moments of enjoyment with Sarah and Jacob each night.

  After Miss Hardcastle was satisfied that I was getting by, I made some small adjustments to ease my work. I set fewer dishes for each place—less to clear and clean—and one night, I took a pair of shears and decommissioned the handheld bells the patrons used to summon me. Fortunately for me, Miss Hardcastle’s role as director meant she rarely
ventured into the tearoom. Mrs. Douglas came in a few times, nodding pleasantly to me, and I kept an eye out for Lady Persephone, but so far she hadn’t returned, and I was relieved.

  The barracks were cold with nothing other than a potbellied stove at one end for heat. As women went to live with their employers or got married, our group dwindled, and by mid-October there were only twenty of us left. Alice’s wedding had been as her groom had promised; a lavish affair that we were all invited to. Later she had confided in me that marrying Timothy—Mr. Pioneer’s real name—was the best decision of her life, as she had quite fallen for him, and he for her. He worshipped the ground she walked on, and in her eyes, he could do no wrong. Sarah continued to look for work, but she struggled.

  “It’s as I feared. Everyone’s working, and I can’t find anyone to watch Jacob, so I have to bring him with me. No one wants a mum with a babe in her arms,” she told me with a heavy sigh one evening while we sat playing cribbage. I had taught her a few card games, and it helped pass the time as the days grew longer and night came on sooner. “But there’s more to it. One lady told me she’d hire me to do the laundry, but I couldn’t expect to be paid the same as the others.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Sarah kept her eyes on her cards. “Because I’m black. She saw Jacob’s curls and she guessed. She said my people had been slaves not long ago and shouldn’t expect the same pay as others.”

  “Oh, Sarah, I’m so sorry. She’s an ignorant fool. Miss Hardcastle told me the other day that Governor Douglas’s heritage is part black. I hoped there would be more tolerance here. Have you heard back from your father about sending money for another ticket to Barkerville?”

  “He’s promised to send it soon. I just hope it comes in time for the first spring coaches.”