by Jody Hedlund
Mercy was tempted to hang her head in further shame, but she forced her chin back up so she could meet Mrs. Dotta’s gaze directly. “If I’m not good enough, ma’am, then just say so now and we can stop wasting each other’s time.”
Mrs. Dotta’s brows rose, and something akin to remorse flitted through her eyes before she dropped her attention back to the list. “Before you leave, we’ll provide you with an outfit. We’ve had donations from those wishing to support our program, and I’m certain we can find something your size.”
Mercy wanted to tell the woman she didn’t need the charity. She wished she didn’t have to depend upon anyone else for her survival, that she could make it without help, that she had the means to protect everyone she loved. Yet in some ways she was as vulnerable as sweet baby Paul. She’d had to rely upon the charity of the baker, the doctor, Twiggy and Ash, and others for her survival. And if she stayed, she’d have to transfer her reliance either to a husband or the workhouse—neither of which she wanted.
She longed for the chance to finally stand on her own. This trip, this voyage, might be the only possibility she’d ever get to do that. If only she could find a way for Patience to go too.
“You said something about another group?” Mercy asked tentatively.
“Yes, the Robert Lowe is scheduled to leave by summer’s end.” Mrs. Dotta wrote something on a sheet in front of her. “But as we have a place for you now, Miss Rye wants you to be ready to leave in three days.”
“Could my sister go on the next ship?”
“The Robert Lowe?”
“Aye.”
“Is she single?”
“Aye, and she doesn’t have any children either.”
Mrs. Dotta didn’t look up from her paper. “Tell her to come to the office at the beginning of July, and we shall conduct an interview to see if she qualifies.”
“Her name is Patience Wilkins, ma’am.”
“Very well.”
Mercy suspected Mrs. Dotta wouldn’t remember the name in five minutes, much less in five weeks. Even so, Mercy wanted Patience to be on the next Columbia Mission Society ship. She had to be.
If Mercy didn’t find a way to get her sister out of the workhouse and onto the Robert Lowe, she suspected Patience wouldn’t last until she saved up enough money to send for her.
Mercy pressed the cool cloth to the babe’s feverish forehead. “Keep dipping it in the cold water and reapplying,” she said to the young mother.
The woman did as Mercy instructed without question.
Mercy crossed the room to the medical-supply chest and dug through it until she found the syringe she’d seen Dr. Bates use to inject fluids into the mouths of infants too young or too weak to drink for themselves.
After entering the Shoreditch Dispensary a short while ago to find a line of sick people stretching down the hallway and out the door, she walked directly to one of the vacant rooms and began helping as many as she could. With her limited knowledge, she couldn’t do much. But she figured she could at least pass out cool cloths and cups of fresh water.
Her stomach growled long and low, and she pressed her fist against it to keep the hunger from getting the best of her.
She’d come straight to the dispensary from the Columbia Mission Society building. Mrs. Dotta had explained she needed a reference—a short note that said Mercy was all she claimed to be—and had told Mercy to get the letter and return it to her by the end of the day.
Of all the people Mercy knew, Dr. Bates was the only gentleman. His reference letter would hold the most weight. And she aimed to beg him to include a reference for Patience too. With a man like Dr. Bates vouching for them both, how could the Columbia Mission Society turn them away?
“Mercy,” said Dr. Bates as he entered the room. “I thought I saw you.” His white hair was sticking on end as usual, and his suit was wrinkled as though he’d been moving nonstop for hours—which likely he had been.
“’Tis me just so.” She pulled the syringe apart and began to fill the tube with water.
In spite of his busyness, Dr. Bates offered her a smile. Behind his thick glasses, his eyes filled with the compassion she’d come to expect from him. “And who did you bring today?” he asked, starting toward the woman and child.
“Only myself, Doctor.”
He halted and turned to study her, lines creasing his brow. “Are you ill, my child?”
“Not at all. I’m just hoping you’ll write me a letter stating my character is right well enough to sail with the Columbia Mission Society group.”
“You’re emigrating?” He spoke the question as if it were the last thing he’d ever expected her to do.
Once again, Mercy couldn’t keep from wondering, as she already had a dozen times since leaving Mrs. Dotta, if she was doing the right thing.
In the silence that filled the room, her stomach released another ravenous growl. She again balled her fist and pressed her abdomen to subdue the noises. From the rise of Dr. Bates’s eyebrows, she had the feeling he wasn’t having any trouble figuring out her predicament.
“I got no other choice, Doctor,” she explained, trying not to let her desperation show. “I’m real lucky the Mission Society had a spot open up for me.”
Dr. Bates watched her for a moment longer, the sadness in his eyes telling her more than his words could.
She ducked her head and focused on putting the syringe back together. For once she hadn’t come to him needing help with someone else. She’d come because she needed it. She was hungry, homeless, and had no one else to turn to. At the realization, her hands shook.
Thankfully, Dr. Bates didn’t question her further but set to work helping the young mother with her sick babe. All the while he tended the infant, he gave Mercy directives in assisting him. And when they finished with the mother and babe, Dr. Bates asked her to start on the next patient.
Mercy was grateful for something to keep her mind off her hunger. By midafternoon, Dr. Bates called Mercy into the room he used as his office. He took a seat at his cluttered desk and began to unwrap a brown paper package, revealing thick slices of bread, cheese, and ham.
“Thank you for your assistance today.” He spread out his meal.
Mercy glanced away from the food to the boarded window. “I’m much obliged to you for letting me stay and help, as I can’t go home now and got nowhere else to go until I leave for Dartmouth.”
He was silent as he arranged the food on the desktop. Finally he said, “Since I cannot pay you properly for your assistance today, will you at least allow me to give you part of this meal? My kitchen maid always sends too much along.”
Mercy swallowed hard. “Thank ye, sir, but I’ll be right well.”
“Come now, Mercy. Sit down and have some of this. It’s the least I can do for you.”
She couldn’t keep from glancing down at the desk. He’d pushed half of the food toward her. As he took a bite of his own portion, he picked up a blank piece of paper. “Now eat while I write this letter for you.”
Her stomach gave an angry utterance as though demanding that she obey Dr. Bates. She couldn’t tear her attention from the thick slices of bread slathered in butter. Maybe just a few bites . . . that wouldn’t hurt any. Maybe it would be enough to tide her over until she left London.
She sidled over to the desk and lowered herself into the chair he’d positioned opposite him. As she picked up the bread, she was embarrassed that her fingers trembled with eagerness. But when she chanced a look at Dr. Bates, he was busy dipping his pen into the inkpot.
For several moments she ate in silence, relishing every bite. She couldn’t remember ever eating such fine bread or cheese or ham. It was a feast, and she soon found she’d consumed every morsel.
“I was hoping you might also put in a good word for my sister, Patience,” Mercy said, dabbing at the crumbs left on the brown paper. “I’d be right happy to have her come on the Robert Lowe, the next ship the Columbia Mission Society is planning to send o
ut to Vancouver Island and British Columbia.”
Dr. Bates paused in his writing and peered at her through his spectacles. His eyes were wide and full of questions. “Why can she not travel with you now?”
“She’s sick. But she’ll get well soon enough to join the next ship, that she will.”
“Why don’t you bring her into the dispensary? I’ll have a look at her and see if I can help.”
“She’s at St. Matthew’s Bethanl Green Workhouse. If she leaves her work, the master will kick her out and she’d have nowhere to go.”
Dr. Bates turned back to his letter, his hand poised above it as though deciding whether to write any more.
“She’s a right nice girl,” Mercy said. “You’d like her, Doctor, if you met her.”
“If she’s anything like you, I have no doubt I would.”
Mercy warmed at the praise. But she trained her attention upon her hands in her lap.
“However, I think you know as well as I do that most sick people at the workhouses don’t get better.”
“Patience will get better,” Mercy insisted. “You’ll see.”
Dr. Bates put his pen to the paper. “I’ll do what I can, Mercy. You know I will.”
“Thank ye, sir. I’m in debt to you, that I am.”
“Now, Mercy, the only one you owe anything to is God. He’s already using you, and I know He still has much more for you to do.”
Mercy nodded but didn’t say anything. Whenever Dr. Bates talked about God, she didn’t know how to respond. He spoke as if God truly cared about her. Yet if God cared, she hadn’t felt it, hadn’t felt His nearness, hadn’t felt His directing her. If anything, she’d always felt as though her life hadn’t mattered.
Maybe it never would amount to much. But she had to try. It was the least she could do for Patience.
six
Joseph kissed his aunt’s cheek. “Good-bye, Aunt Pen.”
“Oh, Joseph.” Penelope Colville dabbed at the corner of first one eye, then the other with her lace handkerchief. “Must you really go? You’ve only just arrived.”
The coachman had already loaded the trunks and now stood by the door, ready to open it upon Joseph’s approach. Beyond the waiting coach and team spread Wiltshire’s lush yard with its manicured hedges interspersed with small ponds and gravel walkways.
In May, with the warmth of sunshine pouring over the estate, the scent of damp grass and soil hung heavily in the air, and the songs of warblers and sparrows rose throughout the garden. Joseph took a deep breath and could almost find beauty in his boyhood home.
Almost. But not enough to make him want to stay.
“I must be on my way to Dartmouth,” Joseph said. “I’d like to board the ship and make sure I have all my supplies at the ready before the passengers arrive.”
“Oh, my dear, dear boy,” Aunt Pen lamented again, her eyes glassy and her lips quivering. Joseph had seen enough dramatics from women to know when their tears were genuine and when they were manipulative. And he could tell that his aunt was truly sorry to see him go.
“I shall write often.” He squeezed her plump hand. His father’s only sister had never married. In her younger years, she’d devoted her life to caring for her father—Joseph’s grandfather—after he’d been injured in a hunting accident. At the time of his death, Aunt Pen had been considered a spinster, too old to find a suitable husband. Years later, after the death of her brother, she’d found a new cause in caring for Joseph.
In front of the wide veranda with its towering portico and the sprawling stone spreading out like an ancient palace, Aunt Pen appeared somewhat small, even dainty, although she was a stout woman.
“I thought for sure this time you’d be home for good,” Aunt Pen said again as she already had multiple times since he’d told her he’d accepted another ship’s surgeon position.
Joseph hadn’t known how to explain to the dear woman why he couldn’t stay. He couldn’t explain it to her any more than he’d been able to do so to Bates. At hearing the news, his friend’s eyes had been sad but not surprised.
Thankfully, Bates hadn’t asked him any more questions about what God wanted from him. And he hadn’t pressured Joseph any further about joining him as a partner at the dispensary. Instead, he’d clamped his shoulder and wished him the best.
If only his exchange with Aunt Pen had been as easy. She’d already reminded him that his father would have wanted him to stay, find a wife, and produce a Colville heir. She then went on to lecture him on the dangers of travel and the pernicious temptations awaiting him in foreign lands.
Now as he bent to kiss her cheek one last time, she gave a half sob. “I was hoping to spare you the rumors, but it cannot be helped.”
Joseph had half a mind to bound down the last few steps and jump into the coach before his aunt could say anything more. It was his training as a gentleman that held him firmly in place.
“At church yesterday, Lady Carlyle informed me that your ship, the Tynemouth, is being called a ‘bride ship.’” Aunt Pen dabbed at her eyes again.
A bride ship? Like the ships carrying young women that had been sent to Australia to help populate the colony? He’d heard tales about such women, that many had come from overcrowded prisons. Surely the Tynemouth was more civilized. “That’s nonsense,” Joseph said.
“Lady Carlyle heard it directly from one of her friends, who is on the board of the Columbia Mission Society. Apparently, the committee received a letter from Reverend Lundin Brown, a missionary in British Columbia, asking the society to send good Christian women to marry the men there. With the influx of miners and other settlers, there simply aren’t enough women in the colony for the men to marry.”
Joseph shook his head. “You cannot believe everything you hear, Aunt Pen.”
“But I have it on good word, Joseph, that the Tynemouth is taking aboard sixty single women. Why else would they be going, if not to become brides?”
Sixty single women? If his aunt’s gossip was true, why hadn’t Captain Hellyer mentioned it?
“If no other reason will persuade you to abandon your plans to set sail, you must let this one change your course.” His aunt laid a steadying hand upon his arm, her expression grave. “The situation is positively scandalous, and you cannot involve yourself in it.”
By scandalous, his aunt was referring to the nature of the women involved, likely those drawn from the lowest strata of society and of the basest nature. Surely Captain Hellyer wouldn’t agree to command a ship containing thieves and prostitutes?
All the more reason to arrive in Dartmouth ahead of the passengers, so that he could clarify with the captain the precise makeup of their transport.
“You see,” Aunt Pen went on, taking his silence as confirmation that he was as appalled as she, “you’re meant to stop running away and stay home.”
“Not you too.” Joseph tried to lighten the conversation with a smile.
“So I’m not the first to accuse you of running away from all that happened to you?” she said softly, reaching up to cup his cheek.
Her motherly touch opened a painful abyss inside him. He stood at the precipice and tottered, longing to give in, to let himself fall into the darkness.
“I have to go.” He moved down a step, breaking free of his aunt’s gentle hold. He didn’t want to consider her accusation of running away any more than he had Bates’s.
Once again, tears welled in her eyes.
“You have no need to fret,” Joseph assured. “I’ve been informed that the Tynemouth will carry close to three hundred passengers. If sixty of them are single women, they’ll be of no more consequence to me than any of the other two hundred passengers and crew.”
“I pray you are right,” she replied.
Whether the ship was full of single women or not, he wouldn’t be swayed. Whether he was running away or not, he didn’t care. Nothing would keep him from being aboard the Tynemouth when she set sail next week.
Mercy waited for Pati
ence to tuck the blanket about the old widow’s frail body. The workhouse infirmary in the gable was icy cold even though warmth lingered in the evening air after the exceptionally warm May day.
“I’ll come back to check on you later,” Patience said as she stroked the woman’s sunken cheek.
“I’m so cold,” the woman replied in a plaintive whisper.
Patience looked longingly at the coal stove in the corner, which stood empty and unlit. The overseers of the workhouse doled out coal as sparingly as they did gruel.
All the beds in the infirmary were full, with many patients lying in the aisle on the floor upon straw with naught but ragged blankets to cover them. The sour acridness of urine permeated the room, and Mercy guessed some of the invalids were so ill that they had no choice but to lie in their own filth.
As Patience straightened, she was overcome by a fit of coughing that hunched her back and shook her thin body.
Dr. Bates’s words from two days ago crept into Mercy’s thoughts and taunted her. “Sick people at the workhouses don’t get better.”
Not Patience. Patience wouldn’t die.
Her once-vibrant sister straightened to reveal the ghost she’d become, her face skeletal, pasty, and lifeless. All except her eyes, which now met Mercy’s and were filled with peace.
Whenever she’d asked Patience about how she could be at such peace amidst the hardships threatening to drown them, Patience said that whenever she started to feel sorry for herself, she’d think about all those who were worse off. Then her problems would shrink in comparison.
“I must be a-going, Patience.” Mercy looked to the small, circular window, the only source of ventilation in the squalor. The darkness of night was creeping in, and she had yet to say farewell to Twiggy and Ash and her other brothers and sisters before she headed to the train station.
She’d already spent most of the day saying good-bye to all the children and neighbors who had come to rely upon her for assistance. She’d given them food and advice and as much love in a day as she could. She hated leaving them on their own, but she’d made arrangements with Mr. Hughes, the baker, and several other shop owners, hoping they would continue their kindness to the children in her neighborhood.
