Liza

by Irene Carr

  ‘Good lass!’ the sailor panted. ‘Well done, the pair o’ you.’ And then, ‘Oh, Jesus!’ He clambered back to his post in the bow while the girls picked themselves up to sit on one of the thwarts amidships. Now they saw the reason for his exclamation. The sinking ship had listed still further, tilting away from them and towards the hole, on the other side and out of their sight, ripped open in the collision.

  A head showed above the rail now, an officer by his cap. ‘Cast off and pull clear!’ he yelled. ‘The rest of us are in the other boats.’

  ‘Aye, aye!’ the sailors chorused in reply. They unhooked the boat and used the oars to shove it away from the ship. Then the one in the stern said, ‘You lasses sit back here.’

  They obeyed and moved into the sternsheets while the sailors sat on the thwarts amidships to row, pulling the boat away from the ship. They stared back at her and saw that she did not have long. She was almost on an even keel again now but low in the water. A few minutes later the men rested on their oars and one said hoarsely, ‘She’s going.’ The Florence Grey rolled slowly on to her side and there was a roaring of steam instead of the banshee wail of the siren, which had not stopped until now. They heard a crash: ‘That’s her engines breaking loose and falling out of her.’ Then the roaring stopped and the ship sank. There was a swirl and spreading waves that set the boat plunging. Then the sea was quiet again. Liza thought bleakly that it had been like an interment.

  She was soaked to the skin and bitterly cold: this was a winter night. Cecily saw her shudder, found the rug and wrapped it round her.

  ‘Thank you,’ Liza said, through chattering teeth.

  ‘I suppose it will help a little.’

  ‘I didn’t mean just the rug. You pulled me out of the sea. I thought—’ Liza stopped. She could still picture herself in that valley of death between boat and ship with the sea closing over her. She could swim passably well but would not have had the chance: she would have been crushed first. She had lost both suitcase and handbag but was just glad to be alive.

  The men were tugging on the oars again, heading to join the other two boats, now just visible beyond where the ship had gone down. The fog drifted between them. They lived in a grey world only some two hundred yards across and littered with flotsam: a lifebuoy, a cushion, all manner of rubbish. But there was no sign of Liza’s suitcase. Another siren blared, long, loud and close. The girls clapped their hands over their ears. When it stopped they could see that the other two boats were crowded with men. One used a whistle to answer the siren. The piping seemed feeble after that bull bellow but it brought a reply.

  She came creeping out of the fog, at first just a huge, hulking shadow, which then took shape as a ship. She moved at walking pace so there was only a gentle ripple at her blunt bow where a man stood. As the girls saw him, he spotted the boats, turned and waved wildly, signalling to the officers on the bridge. The siren sounded again and the ripple at the bow faded to nothing as the ship stopped. In the boats the sailors bent to the oars and pulled towards the ship.

  ‘That’s a relief,’ Cecily said. ‘I wasn’t looking forward to spending hours in this boat. It’s most uncomfortable.’

  ‘I’m just glad to be alive,’ Liza said simply.

  Cecily gave her a calculating glance. She lowered her voice so the men could not hear. ‘Remember I asked you to take my place? Can’t you do a little thing like that for me? You would be well paid — and I did save your life.’

  Despite the rug, Liza was still shaking with cold and chilled to the bone, tired and afraid of what lay ahead. She was being offered money that would solve her problem in the short-term. ‘I could land up in prison.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to commit a crime!’ Cecily laughed. ‘No one can arrest you. You’ll be doing no harm. You aren’t stealing and you have my permission to do it. If you and I want to change places for a few weeks then it’s no one’s business but ours. I’ve never seen the inside of a prison cell and don’t believe I ever will. Five pounds now, five later. Will you? Please?’

  The water alongside was cold and glassy. Liza remembered the Florence Grey sinking beneath it without a trace, save for those few items of flotsam. She might have gone like that. She shuddered. ‘Couldn’t you just — go?’

  ‘No.’ Cecily shook her head. ‘They’re expecting me. If no one turns up they’d start to search, but when you arrive, why, they’ll accept you.’ And, almost pleading, ‘I’ll give you a jolly good reference, too.’

  Liza suspected it might not be so easy, that Cecily was only concerned with her own priorities and would ride roughshod over anyone to have her way. But a reference would go a long way towards her securing a position, and she needed the money. It would keep her mother and Susan — and herself —for two months. Or buy ten fine dresses for Cecily. Besides, she had saved Liza from an awful death. How could she refuse her? She thought vaguely that it would be like playing a part in amateur dramatics, as at the Gresham house, or mimicking another as she had done so often. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said reluctantly.

  Cecily squeezed her arm. ‘Good!’

  They were alongside the ship and they could see the name on her bow: Wear Lass. A Jacob’s ladder, made of rope with wooden treads, hung down. The two seamen held it, eyes politely averted as first Cecily, then Liza, climbed up to the deck, only too conscious of their long skirts flapping up to show ankles and calves. Sailors, in old clothes for shipboard working, helped them over the rail and wrapped them in blankets. Two, one short, one tall, hurried them into the superstructure under the bridge. The taller opened a door: ‘This is the first mate’s cabin. He’s sharing with the second. You’ll be comfortable in here and there’ll be a cup o’ tea along shortly.’

  They entered, and he shut the door behind them. There was a small desk, a chair, a bunk and just enough room for both of them to stand together. It’s awfully cramped,’ Cecily complained.

  There was a rapping on the door. ‘Got the case of one o’ you ladies.’

  Liza, who was nearest the door, took in Cecily’s case and heaved it on to the bunk. She remembered again that her own suitcase and handbag were at the bottom of the sea. She had nothing now but the clothes on her back and they were wet. She really needed the money Cecily would give her. There was no mirror and she was glad of that. She could feel what her hair was like, knew it had come down and was hanging like rats’ tails.

  Cecily, head on one side, studied her and said, ‘You look awful. You really should get out of those wet clothes.’

  Annoyed, Liza snapped, ‘Anyone would look the worse for falling in the sea.’ She was about to do this girl a big favour and while she had saved Liza’s life it did not give her the right to make personal comments. Angered and emboldened, she asked, ‘Pass me that towel, please. And I will thank you to give me some privacy.’

  Cecily opened her mouth to scold her for this impertinence, but instead handed over the towel and turned her back disapprovingly. After all, Liza might still change her mind. So, to keep her up to the mark ... ‘You’ll need some dry clothes and I suppose you’ll have to take mine,’ Cecily said coolly. She bent and opened the case.

  Liza towelled herself. ‘How will you manage?’

  ‘I’ll be in London tonight and sleep in my underthings,’ Cecily replied, with a confident smile. Or without them.

  Liza recalled the waiting fiancé. Cecily and her money, clothes and inheritance! She rubbed furiously at her hair. But then the other girl said, ‘Here you are, try these.’ Liza felt the caress of silken underwear against her skin, then pulled on the day dress of red velvet with a low neckline and frilled skirt. She topped it with Cecily’s wide-brimmed straw hat and posed shyly. She had worked on clothes like these but never worn them, and felt pleased but also guilty, as if she were an impostor.

  Then she remembered that she was.

  ‘It needs an iron but it’s not a bad fit,’ Cecily said critically.

  That was true. While Cecily was an inch or two taller, Li
za was comparatively longer in the leg. The dress that showed off Cecily’s ankles was a more modest length on Liza. The tailored coat also fitted her well enough. She did not wholly approve of Cecily’s taste, thought she was a little fast, but said nothing. Shoes were the only problem: Cecily’s were a size too big and too wide so they slipped off Liza’s feet. Cecily shrugged. ‘You’ll have to wear your own but nobody will notice that.’ They packed the button boots with old newspaper they found on a shelf and left them to dry.

  There was another rap on the door of the cabin and Cecily opened it. The man outside was short, fat, bald and wearing a long apron over sea boots. He carried the lid of a biscuit tin, which served as a tray and held two mugs of steaming tea. ‘Here y’are, Miss. Drop o’ tea for you two ladies. Are you comfortable now?’

  Cecily took it. ‘Yes, thank you, Steward.’

  ‘I’m not the steward, Miss. No stewards aboard here. I’m the cook, Archie Godolphin.’ He tapped his chest importantly. ‘I’ve just give the skipper his tea and he said, “Don’t forget to give them lasses a cup, and tell ‘em we’ll be in the Wear in three or four hours.” And I said, “Righto, Billy,” so you can sit easy and sup your tea.’

  Liza cradled the warm mug in her hands and smiled at him. ‘Thank you.’

  He went away then, and they sat on the side of the bunk and sipped the tea. Cecily stretched out a toe and stirred the damp clothing lying on the deck. ‘We’ve got to get rid of these,’ she said.

  ‘No!’ Liza said sharply. That offended her sense of thrift, which had been dinned into her all her life. She folded the clothing neatly, and made a package of it tied inside the dress. She hung up her coat to dry. ‘You’ll want this. Take the other things and let me have them back ... afterwards.’ The die was cast.

  Cecily opened her purse and put five sovereigns into Liza’s hand. ‘There you are. And there will be five more when I come north in four weeks.’ She delved in her suitcase. ‘You’ll need these.’ She handed Liza the telegrams received from the solicitors and an old letter from Edward Spencer. There was another, addressed to the solicitors, from her aunt Alexandra Higgins, with Cecily’s birth certificate, which the old lady had had with her for purposes of identification.

  ‘Oh!’ Cecily paused to take from her wrist the gold and jewelled watch. ‘And this. My guardian gave it to me —it’s engraved on the back.’ She turned it over to show the inscription: ‘To Cecily Spencer on her nineteenth birthday’. Liza slipped it on to her wrist.

  ‘Tell them that any other documents they want will have to wait until Aunt Alex is back in Hampshire,’ Cecily went on. ‘Now, you’ll need to know that my father’s name was Charles ...’ She reeled off details of her family history, tore a page out of her diary and wrote them down. ‘You must try to memorise them, but if you forget one or two just say you’ve forgotten. I did lots of times — and said so. I couldn’t be bothered with relatives.’ She put the documents back into her suitcase, locked it and gave the keys to Liza. ‘There are duplicate keys in that bunch for my heavy baggage, too. The trunks should arrive in a few days.’ Finally she tucked her purse into the front of her dress and gave her handbag to Liza. It was a smart affair in velvet with a metal chain. Cecily yawned. ‘You should be all right now. I’m going to have a nap.’

  They squeezed on to the bunk together, a blanket over them, and Cecily was asleep within minutes. Liza was awake for some time, trying to commit to memory the names and details on the scrap of paper, or staring at the rusty bulkhead, with its beads of condensation, worrying over what lay ahead. But she knew it was the only option if she was to feed her daughter. In the end she slept fitfully.

  When Archie Godolphin called them they struggled off the bunk and opened the door to him. Now, then, ladies. We’re just running into the Wear. Which one o’ you is Miss Cecily Spencer, please?’

  Still only half awake, Liza felt a finger jab into her back and answered, ‘I am.’

  ‘Ah! Will you come with me, Miss, if you please? The captain sends his compliments and he’d like to see you on the bridge.’

  Liza heard Cecily’s whisper: ‘See? Easy. I told you so.’

  She pulled on her still damp boots, but asked, bewildered and suspicious, guilty again: ‘Why does he want to see me?’

  Archie shrugged. ‘Blowed if I know, Miss. I went up to collect all the mugs off the bridge and he said, “One of those ladies is Miss Cecily Spencer. Give her my compliments and ask her to come up here.” ’ He stood aside. ‘This way, Miss.’

  He accompanied her to the bridge. Liza was nervous and apprehensive, but the fog had gone and the fresh breeze played with her hair. It was good to be out of the stuffy cabin. It was evening, come early in this winter month. She saw the ship was steaming slowly up a river that ran in a steep-sided gorge, sprinkled with lights. Shipyards lined it on either bank and vessels rode to moorings out in the channel or lay alongside quays. Feathers of smoke trailed from chimneys and funnels. It was very like the Tyne and she felt as if she was coming home.

  Then she remembered she was not.

  * * *

  Below in the cabin, Cecily hastily put on Liza’s coat, wrinkling her nose, and picked up the bundle of wet clothing. Then she paused. She had remembered the ship’s captain who had come with Edward to Hampshire, whom she had pretended to try to seduce — as she thought of it now. But he was unlikely to recognise her because of the garish makeup she had worn. Anyway, it was too late now — and he was probably sailing on the other side of the world. She shrugged.

  * * *

  On deck, Liza heard the engines stop, then resume briefly as the propellers thrashed and the ship went astern, then stop again. Two tug-boats came fussing to nudge her in alongside a quay with their stubby bows. ‘Up you go, Miss,’ Archie urged. ‘The skipper’s up there on the bridge.’ Liza climbed the short, steep ladder and stepped on to the bridge. She felt giddy, was sure that now, already, she would be found out. If this captain knew Cecily Spencer’s name he probably knew a lot more about her. Was she about to be unmasked already?

  She saw him at the front of the bridge, a bearded man in his forties in a blue uniform with gold braid and a peaked cap, standing next to the seaman at the helm. Another sailor stood on the wing of the bridge, tall and broad, his back to her, but she could see he held a mug in one big hand. He was laughing, head back. Liza barely glanced at him in passing, took a deep breath and approached the officer. ‘You wished to see me, Captain.’

  He turned, still smiling at some joke, saw her and grinned more broadly. ‘I’m John Harley, captain of the Florence Grey. Yon’s the captain of this ship.’ He nodded at the tall seaman on the wing of the bridge.

  He faced her now and he had stopped laughing. His hair was tousled, thick and black like the stubble on his jaw; he had obviously not shaved for some days. Liza had to tilt back her head to look him in the face, which was expressionless now but she could sense his hostility. She expected to be denounced, but remembered to speak in Cecily’s accent. ‘I’m sorry, sir.’

  * * *

  Has she done it again? William wondered. He remembered when he had met Cecily in Hampshire years ago, how she had tried to anger him by belittling his station in life. It seemed she was still an ill-natured snob. Had two years changed her in other ways? For the life of him he could not tell. He had been close enough — too close, when he had put her out of his room — but the paint and the wig had distorted his view of her. He admitted she was improved without them. And he was not going to mention Hampshire.

  ‘Truly, sir, I meant nothing derogatory,’ Liza went on. ‘I was told the captain was here and I assumed ...’ She gestured helplessly at the captain of the Florence Grey, exposing the watch on her wrist. William remembered that, too, and Edward giving it to her. He hoped she now appreciated the gift, but doubted it.

  Harley came to her aid. ‘I met neither of the passengers.’ That was common on small tramp steamers like the Florence Grey. ‘I spent most of the voyage on the bridge
.’

  William fingered the stubble on his chin. ‘So did I.’ He thought the Spencer girl looked contrite — pale and nervous, too. He was surprised by her. He wondered cynically if the wetting had cooled her down, if soon she would revert to the hoyden he knew, cross-grained, tart and rude. Or had these last years changed her?

  * * *

  ‘Your error was understandable,’ he said. ‘Captain Harley looks the part more than I do.’ Liza did not like this talk of playing parts, but he was going on: ‘I’m William Morgan. The captain of the Florence Grey told me he had two ladies aboard, and their names. I was surprised but not overly so when I heard yours, because I knew you were on your way.’

  ‘I see,’ Liza said, although she did not see at all.

  ‘I am — was — partner to Edward Spencer,’ he explained, ‘your late guardian. He asked me to care for you until you came of age and inherited. I’ll take you up to the house as soon as I’ve completed a few formalities. I believe you have a suitcase?’

  ‘No — yes,’ Liza corrected herself, remembering that although her case was at the bottom of the sea he was referring to Cecily’s. It’s in the cabin.’

  Archie was standing on the deck forward of the bridge now, peering at the quay as they closed it. William called down to him, ‘Fetch Miss Spencer’s case up from the cabin, Archie, and put it by the gangway.’

  ‘I’ve got my galley to square away before I finish,’ the cook protested. Then, as William glanced down at him, he said hurriedly, ‘Aye, right away,’ and hurried aft.