by Tom Murphy
My, but wasn’t she hungry? Used as she was to the beautiful food of Louise Dulac at the Wallingford mansion, Lily was prepared for the worst on board ship. That would be another regret: Louise’s food, and the fact that Lily hadn’t learned more about how to duplicate those wondrous soups and sauces and magical desserts. Well, there might be time enough for all that in California. In the meantime, the mission of the moment was to get to San Francisco alive and healthy and with her reputation intact, false as that reputation might be. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror just before she left the cabin: the new Lily, a matron, pregnant in the bargain. Well, at least the other passengers didn’t have to learn that most secret part of her deception. If the clipper made decent time, her full skirts could easily hide the bulge when it became a real bulge. She blew out the candle and closed the door of her cabin, locked it, and climbed the narrow stairs.
Sophie Delage was already in the captain’s wardroom when Lily got there, and had been thoughtful enough to save Lily a place at the long common dining table. Mrs. Delage seemed to know all of the passengers, and she introduced Lily deftly, but it would be days before Lily got them all sorted out.
They were as mixed a lot as you could ask for. There were Mr. and Mrs. Peabody from Gloucester, Massachusetts, and their small daughter, Dorothea. Mrs. Peabody had prematurely graying hair and a face like a winter apple in springtime, shriveled-looking, as though she were drying up from within for reasons best known to herself and her God. The Good Lord, as Mrs. Peabody liked to call him, was seldom far from her thoughts or her conversation. If the Good Lord permitted, they might be able to have something to eat soon. Mr. Peabody said very little. The child, Dorothea, was as fat as her mother was wizened, and showed every promise of becoming a little monster. Dorothea whined. Dorothea hated the soup when it came. Dorothea, Lily decided, would be lucky if she didn’t find herself floating alone in the wake of the Eurydice some dark night. Then there were the two foreigners—Herr Grundig, a traveling hat salesman from Munich, with scant English but much enthusiasm; and Mr. Gordon, an Englishman of implacable snobbery; and Mr. Harold Perkins, American from New Haven, Connecticut, nonstop talker and relentlessly boring. Lily wondered if by any remote chance Perkins might have run into Jack Wallingford at New Haven, but she quickly decided they would have nothing in common. Jack might be many things, but boring he was not, nor would he tolerate a man like Perkins for more than a few minutes.
So there they were, and not a sign of Captain Endicott. Lily wondered if, indeed, there was such a person. She also wondered how all three Peabodys fit into one cabin, if theirs was as small as her own cabin. And she decided that in Sophie Delage she had already discovered the most promising of the passengers. She hoped Mrs. Delage felt likewise. Mr. Parker poked his head in to see how they were doing. They were doing quite well. The food was simple but adequate: a vegetable soup followed by chops of mutton, carrots cooked in plain water, potatoes, also boiled, and a sweet custard with raisins in it for dessert.
Lily ate heartily. The sea air seemed to have improved her appetite, and the fact was, she had eaten very lightly these last few days, in all her excitement about sailing.
Sophie Delage set the pace of the conversation, led it easily at their corner of the table, which was, luckily, as far as it was possible to be from the garrulous Harold Perkins. The Peabodys said little except to each other and to the deity. Herr Grundig beamed and cheerfully fractured the language. The Englishman had obviously decided that all of the other passengers were beneath consideration. His conversation was limited to remarks like “Please pass the salt.”
Lily was glad of Mrs. Delage’s company. She was also glad she’d brought several books and plenty of sewing. When dinner was finished, Harold Perkins lit up a foul-smelling cigar. As if by a prearranged signal, Lily and Mrs. Delage got up and left the table.
The night was black as the devil, with only the thinnest slice of a crescent moon and a light dusting of stars. Lily and Mrs. Delage paused by the railing.
“I often think,” said Mrs. Delage, “that being on a ship is a bit like being on a star, that lonely, that much removed from the rest of the world.”
“A sailor’s life must be lonely, unless he is the captain and brings his family.”
“Captain Endicott, I am told, did not bring his lady on this voyage. He is closeted with his charts, plotting our little journey through the night.”
“I knew a girl once,” Lily said thoughtfully, looking not at Mrs. Delage but up into the star-sparked night, “who believed that each little star was the soul of a dead person, condemned to wander forever in the night and the cold. It always seemed to be a sad thought.”
“It is, at that. Are you feeling better, Mrs. Malone?”
“Much better, thank you.”
“I was worried this afternoon.”
“Thank you. I will be the better for your company.”
“It’s kind of you to say that, my dear. I do feel we will be thrown much together on this voyage, judging by our fellow passengers. Who do not. to put it mildly, strike me as being an especially promising lot.”
Suddenly Lily found herself laughing, and for the first time in weeks. There had really been very little to laugh about in Jack’s secret hotel rooms on Sixteenth Street. The laughter started as a small ripple and built, and might have gone on a bit longer than the joke warranted. It was the laughter of emotional release as much as amusement. But Mrs. Delage joined in, and in some small way this episode seemed to put the seal on their growing friendship. To share a secret, however tiny, to be partners in fun, however inconsequential—these things were new to Lily in her new role as Respectable Married Matron. And she was carrying it off, here was hard evidence of it.
They said little more, but remained at the rail for perhaps ten minutes longer, just enjoying the dark beauty of the night, and the quiet, and the comforting feeling of shared companionship. Finally Mrs. Delage said she must retire. Lily followed her down the stairs.
“I’m nothing like unpacked, my dear, or I would invite you for a sweet. Perhaps tomorrow.”
“Thank you anyway. And for saving me a place at the table, for it’s bashful I am with strangers.”
“Well, my dear, we won’t be strangers with each other now, will we?”
“No, and thank heaven for that.”
“Good night, then, Mrs. Malone, and sleep well.”
“Thank you, and the same to you.”
Lily closed the door of her cabin and found the match box. Once again the orange flame filled the little space with warmth and brightness. It was tiny, it looked like the inside of a violin, but it was hers. Home! A floating, rocking home, but Lily’s own. Undressing slowly, quietly luxuriating in the fact that here at last was a room of her own, no orphanage dormitory, no garret at the Wallingfords’ to share with Susie, no lover’s couch on which to quench the fire of Jack’s passions. She must do something with the room. Suddenly, on impulse, Lily opened her big trunk, burrowed into it, down deep, trying to remember.
And she found it. Out of the bottom of the trunk, wrapped in tissue paper and looking quite the worse for wear, was the rag doll, Hortense. If Mrs. Delage sees Hortense, she will think I’ve gone mad. Still and all, Lily placed Hortense on top of the chest of drawers, as reverently as any priest ever set the chalice on the altar. And there sat Hortense, resurrected from the past, surveying the tiny cabin with button eyes and a slightly crooked smile. Hortense would sail around the Horn, and keep her company, and be a friend. Lily looked at the doll, then reached slowly out and touched Hortense’s cheek. She undressed then, blew out her candle, and climbed into the narrow bed.
The ship’s bell struck eleven. No light at all came through the small round porthole. Lily’s last thought, as she drifted down into sleep, was that she must set about making a set of curtains for the porthole. Yes, and for Mrs. Delage, too. That would be a good thing to do, friendly but not presuming. Then Lily closed her eyes and let the ship’s
rocking motion soothe her into sleep.
18
Lily had expected, and feared, many things from the voyage of the Eurydice. But she had not anticipated the dominant feature of the journey, which was boredom.
Except for changes in the weather, which generally held fair, one day was very like the next, with no real work to do and little entertainment beyond what the passengers and crew might devise for themselves.
The men took to playing cards all day long: spinado or euchre or whist. Dominoes were much in evidence too, and their syncopated clicking could be heard most afternoons on deck. And there was singing. The sailors had their chanties, as much a part of the great clipper as her ropes or canvas, and it was a rare hour that did not include one of the rhythmic chants. And often at night some sailor’s voice would overflow with song, to the tinkling strains of a banjo or the mournful wail of a mouth organ. The rousing stanzas of Stephen Foster rode south with the Eurydice, and so did the older favorites, sea songs and river songs so ancient no one could say where they came from.
Lily’s mood changed as often and as unexpectedly as the shifting wind. Now she’d be brave, now timid. In one frame of mind she wanted nothing to do with any man, ever again. In another mood, she turned all soft and romantic. There was a young sailor on board, a Norwegian no older than herself, who had hair exactly the color of Brooks Chaffee’s hair. Every time Lily saw him she felt her knees go weak, and she forced herself to look at the boy with no sign of emotion. Sure and if the color of a lad’s hair can do that to me, then it’s trouble I am heading for unless I do something about it right this minute, and let what can never be go to rest. Still her moods came and went, and her struggles to control them were only intermittently successful.
Once, on deck in the moonlight, Lily found herself on the verge of tears because somewhere in the stern a young sailor’s voice rose clear and sorrowful as he sang the ballad of a trapper who loved the Indian chief’s daughter: “Oh, Shenandoah, I love your daughter! Away, you rolling river: for her I’ve crossed the rolling water. Away! I’m bound away! Across the wide Missouri…”
Well, thought Lily, glad for once that she was alone, that Sophie had gone below earlier, and aren’t I crossing the rolling water, too, and a lot more of it than that old trapper. But not for love, she couldn’t claim it was for love, even though that was part of her lie, part of the tale she’d told Sophie, that she was prepared now to tell anyone who might ask, even knowing as the false words crossed her lips that she’d be damned to hell for it.
And why was a simple song from an unknown sailor bringing her so close to tears? She, who had saved her tears so long, and through so much sadness.
Lily turned to the rail and gazed out through misted eyes at the moon. It was so near to full as made no difference, and it turned the sea to polished pewter capped with foam, with a shimmering path of moonlight that seemed to stretch all the way to the end of the world. Lily watched, dazzled, and as she stood there a school of five big dolphins came leaping and dancing by, jumping high in the moonlight as though they had no purpose in life but to entertain Mrs. Fergus Malone on her long, dull voyage. She could not help but smile at these delightful creatures, and her sadness disappeared to whatever dark place had bred it. Suddenly tired, she went below.
Weeks went by. They crossed the equator, with much fuss and festivity, and the most dignified officers made themselves ridiculous, all dressed up as King Neptune and his court. Occasionally they passed another ship, and traded news, and this was a big event in their otherwise uneventful day. Once someone sighted a whale, but Lily was below, and she missed it.
Lily was very glad of Sophie Delage’s continuing interest in her, for with Sophie she could relax a little from the rigid decorum she imposed upon herself in her public performance as Mrs. Fergus Malone. They had long been on a first-name basis, and for the first time in her life Lily found herself sharing the company of a grown-up, worldly and obviously quite prosperous woman on something like an equal basis. It was an uneasy but delicious sensation.
The Eurydice skimmed down the coast of South America past exotic lands where paintbox birds and snakes big around as a man lived in emerald jungles; but all Lily saw was an immense circle of water that they seemed to drag with them wherever they went. To hear they’d gone nearly two thousand miles now, that they were off the coast of Brazil, that they’d see no more land until they’d rounded the Horn and put in to Valparaiso—all of this interesting information made little impression on Lily, for one ocean wave looked much like another, and she was by now so familiar with the ship and its occupants that there seemed to be no surprises left in it.
The food deteriorated, and the water supply was now meted out by the first mate, one quart per person per day. They did their laundry by dragging it behind the ship in nets, and the results, while better than no washing at all, were far from satisfactory, for there was always a stiff residue of salt in everything. Lily sewed and read and practiced her still-unfinished handwriting in the secrecy of her little cabin.
And she talked to Sophie Delage. They talked of many things, and Lily found her new friend to be both humorous and perceptive and altogether amused by the follies and pretensions of the world in general, and certain of the other passengers in particular. Lily was flattered by the older -woman’s attention, and tried to learn what she could from her. Yet there was always a reserve about Sophie, a certain guarded quality when the conversation approached anything to do with her private life. Lily never heard Sophie speak of friends or family, husband or children, church or business. That, of course, was her privilege, and Lily thought this reticence becoming, and in fact used Mrs. Delage’s discretion as a model for her own.
It was somewhere off Rio that they ran into the great calm.
The calm came sneaking on them in the night, and when Lily woke she sensed something was very wrong, although at first it was impossible to tell just what. Then she realized they weren’t moving, and there was no sound at all. Gone was the flap of sail, the straining of hemp, the rhythmic pounding of the clipper’s bow cutting through the waves. For there were no waves.
Lily made her way on deck and saw a sea flat as glass. The sails drooped with the dispirited lassitude of wilted flowers, and a strange silence hung over the Eurydice like a portent of doom. Lily had heard sailors talk of calms that lasted for weeks. She stood on the deck and slowly turned so that she could see the full circumference of the horizon. It stretched out around them, miles away, a thin flat line curving as slick and precise as the rim of a China plate, remote and unattainable as the moon, charged with danger and undisturbed by even the smallest ripple. Suddenly Lily felt the fear rising in her, for if they were to be delayed, what would happen to her baby?
The long day dragged on, and the sea stayed flat. In the afternoon, Captain Endicott had a longboat lowered, and himself in it, standing in the stern as a crew of husky sailors rowed three times around the ship, chanting at the top of their lungs.
“Why, pray,” Lily asked the mate, “are they doing that?”
“’Tis a custom, Mrs. Malone, old as the sea. To break the spell.”
“And does it work?”
He smiled. “Let me ask you this: can it do any harm?” He bowed slightly and turned from her. Lily went below to find her sewing, and to calm the fear that gnawed at her insides like some cruel fish of prey.
Caroline Ledoux looked at Brooks with the full intensity of her great dark eyes. “You are a silly boy,” she said softly, “if you don’t take the slave states seriously. You Yankees seem to derive all your political knowledge from the speeches of the Reverend Mr. Henry Ward Beecher, and you all think that right and justice will just automatically prevail. And you are wrong, Brooks, wrong as wrong can be! It will surely be at the peril of everyone if we don’t take these people—my people—seriously. They will fight and they will kill to keep hold of their way of living. If they become desperate, and I believe they are desperate, every one of us may be in danger.”
Brooks looked at her and smiled. He loved his fiancée when she was serious—loved her frivolous, calm, angry, and at every way station in between. And he knew her observations were shrewd ones, and in some distant corner of his mind Brooks did take heed of them. For wasn’t she a New Orleans girl born and bred, all but a hostage here in New York, about to risk all by marrying a bonded, blooded, deeply connected Yankee?
“If I haven’t been thinking enough about politics,” he said, taking her hand, “you know what I have been thinking about instead.” He leaned forward playfully and kissed her cheek.
“Hush now!” She laughed, but there was an edge to the laughter. “You are like a tiny child, if I do say so, always wantin’ to be kissing and having larks. Down home, boys your age and younger are out drilling, that’s for sure. And when the war comes, they aim to have a good head start. And the war will come, Brooks, mark my words.”
“A war wouldn’t dare happen now, not on the eve of our wedding.”
“It may please you to think so.”
“Oh, they’ll grumble and make speeches, but it’s all talk, darling. Secession’s just a dream. Anyone who thinks about it knows the South couldn’t exist as a separate country.”
