Forget-Me-Not Bride

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘I’ve seen Miss Bumby and she doesn’t look as if she’d ever get a husband any other way,’ Lottie said starkly, ‘And Lettie says Miss Hobson isn’t quite right in the head and that Miss Rivere is fast and would marry anyone.’

  Lilli’s sleek eyebrows rose nearly into her hair. ‘You’re only ten years old, Lottie,’ she chided, genuinely shocked. ‘You shouldn’t be using words like fast – and you certainly shouldn’t be using them in the right context!’

  Lottie hadn’t known that she had done so. She did know, however, that nothing could be done to alter the situation until they reached their destination and that it was pointless discussing it further, especially when it was obvious Lilli was far more alarmed by it than she was allowing to show.

  She leaned her head against Lilli’s shoulder, knowing full well why she had taken the crazy step of becoming a Peabody bride. It was because she had been desperate to remove Leo from their Uncle Herbert’s care; because she loved her and Leo so much she would do anything, anything at all, if she thought it was in their best interests.

  ‘I love you, Lilli,’ she said huskily, forgiving her elder sister her rashness, knowing it had been prompted by the very best of intentions. ‘You’re the best big sister anyone could ever have.’

  ‘And I love you, pet-lamb,’ Lilli said, her arm tightening around Lottie’s slender shoulders, her eyes overly bright, her voice unnaturally thick. ‘And loving each other, and Leo, is all that truly matters.’

  ‘A nice lady gave me a stick of liquorice’Leo said minutes later as he and Lettie squeezed back into the cabin. He clutched his bounty with glee. ‘And another lady says there are gamblers and guns-slingers aboard!’

  ‘I don’t care if Billy the Kid is aboard.’ Wearily Lettie sat down on the edge of her bunk. ‘I’m ready for a little bit of shut-eye.’

  So was Lilli. It had been a long, long day. The longest she could ever remember. ‘Bed-time,’ she said to Leo, beginning to ease his arms out of his jacket sleeves.

  ‘Is Leo going to have the bottom bunk?’ Lottie asked, taking off her sailor-hat and standing on tip-toe to lay it carefully at the foot of the top bunk she had already decided was hers.

  ‘Yes.’ Lilli ignored Leo’s tired yowl of protest. ‘That way if it gets rough he’ll have less distance to fall.’

  ‘What do you mean “if it gets rough”?’ Lettie asked darkly, already ensconced, fully dressed, beneath an inadequate-looking blanket. ‘It’s rough already, or hadn’t you noticed?’

  Lilli had had too much on her mind to pay attention to the Senator’s increasing pitch and roll. Now that her attention had been drawn to it, however, she began to feel just the slightest bit queasy. ‘The sooner we’re all asleep, the better,’ she said, tucking Leo into his bunk as securely as possible and laying her box-coat on top of his blanket for extra warmth.

  ‘It’s going to feel funny saying my prayers when we’re moving,’ Leo observed sleepily. ‘Do you think God will mind? Do you think He’ll think it disres … disres … not good manners?’

  ‘Not at all, my love,’ Lilli said tenderly, brushing a lock of hair from his eyes. ‘We decided long ago that He doesn’t think it’s disrespectful for you to say your prayers in bed when its freezing cold, didn’t we? And there isn’t room to kneel in this cabin. There’s scarcely room to stand.’

  Reassured Leo closed his eyes. ‘Now I lay me down to sleep,’ he began, the familiar words muffled with tiredness. ‘I pray the Lord my soul to keep …’

  ‘If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take,’ Lilli finished for him softly as his breathing changed and he fell into almost instant sleep.

  Seconds later, as Lilli climbed into her own bunk, there came the sound of Lottie quietly saying her prayers, her feet curled up to her chest so that she wouldn’t crush her precious sailor-hat. ‘And God Bless Leo and Lilli and Aunt Gussie and Lettie,’ she finished, ‘And may we all reach Alaska safely.’

  In the now thick darkness there came a suspicious sound from Lettie’s bunk. It was almost like a stifled sob. Lilli leaned over the edge of her bunk and looked down but Lettie was laying on her side, facing the cabin wall, and all she could see was the shadowy outline of her back. She lay down again, succumbing to exhaustion. It probably hadn’t been a sob. It had probably only been a stifled sneeze. She closed her eyes, trying to acclimatise herself to the movement of the boat, every muscle in her body aching. How many miles had she walked since getting out of bed that morning? It must have been well over twelve for she had visited every single employment agency listed in the Examiner and more houses with rooms to rent than she cared to remember.

  Image after image burned the backs of her eyelids. The spilt milk running in rivulets onto the Turkish carpet; her uncle demanding that she be out of the house, for good, before he returned to it; the abortive hunt for a suitable job and a room; her aunt’s anguished face when she had told her she was leaving and taking Leo and Lottie with her; the frantic dash for the cable car and the even more fraught hackney carriage ride. There hadn’t been time to think. From the moment she had entered the Peabody Marriage Bureau she had acted on instinct and instinct alone.

  There was a gentle snore from the direction of Lettie’s bunk. Leo murmured in his sleep. Lottie’s rhythmic breathing indicated that she, too, was deep in dreamland. With her every nerve and muscle longing for sleep Lilli remained awake. Had she behaved with crass rashness? And if she had, was the situation she had plunged herself into one from she would be able to extricate herself?

  Of all the images that burned against her eyelids, one, grey-suited and Homburg-hatted, predominated. Was he a gold-rich miner returning to his strike? Was he, perhaps, one of the men who had approached the Peabody Marriage Bureau in the hope that the bureau could find him a wife willing to endure the rigours of the pioneer north? Lilli’s tummy muscles tightened with fierce, desperate hope.

  She remembered the way he had looked at her when he had cautioned her to take more care crossing city streets. There had been amusement in his amber-brown eyes and there had been something more; an expression of open admiration. Merely remembering it sent the blood racing heatedly along her veins. No-one had ever looked at her in such a way before and even if they had, she was certain they wouldn’t have aroused such an extraordinary response in her.

  When she had seen him on deck she had felt as if Fate had directly intervened in her life. What other explanation could there be for the bizarre events of the last fifteen hours? Destiny had ensured she walked into the Peabody Marriage Bureau and destiny was responsible for their travelling on the same ship. Tomorrow he would see her as she leaned against the deck rails, watching the coast of northern California slide by; tomorrow he would speak to her and introduce himself to her; tomorrow would be the most momentous, most memorable day of her life. Happy anticipation replaced tension and Lilli fell into a deep, but not a dreamless, sleep.

  She woke to stark reality. ‘I’m going to be sick!’ Leo announced as morning light streamed through the porthole into the close confines of the cabin.

  Lilli swung her legs over the edge of her bunk and dropped to the floor. ‘Not yet!’ she said peremptorily. ‘Wait till I’ve got some clothes on!’

  Minutes later she was up on deck and Leo was leaning over a brass deck rail, retching up a vile black substance.

  ‘It serves you right,’ she said crossly as he moaned piteously for comfort. ‘You shouldn’t have eaten your liquorice in the middle of the night.’

  Across the heaving grey-green waves, hills and mountains could be seen, misty and insubstantial in the early morning heat haze. She had no idea how fast they were travelling and no idea if the land she could see was still California or if it was the State of Oregon or even, perhaps, the State of Washington.

  She leaned against the deck rail, trying to create a map of north-west America and Canada in her mind’s eye. She couldn’t think of any other large, coastal city between San Francisco and the Canadian border.
In America there was Seattle, of course, and in Canada, Vancouver. She wondered if the Senator would in stop off at either city for more passengers and for the first time wondered how long the voyage to Alaska would take and where they would eventually disembark.

  She didn’t know much about their eventual destination, which was Dawson City, apart from the fact that it was situated high on the Yukon River, perhaps too high for sea-going vessels to be able to reach it. If that were the case, presumably they would travel by train to Dawson from wherever they disembarked. That is, if there were a train line. Not for the first time she realized how criminally ignorant she was of where she was going and what she would find when she arrived.

  ‘I’m cold, Lilli’Leo said plaintively, interrupting her thoughts. He was still dressed only in his undergarments and the sea breeze had reduced him to goose-pimples.

  Reluctantly Lilli turned away from the view. The early morning, before the bulk of the world was awake, was her favourite part of the day and she would have liked to have remained where she was, staring out across the ocean, watching the distant coastline sliding by. She was certainly determined to spend as much time as possible on deck because only on deck was the Greek god likely to see her and renew his acquaintance with her.

  ‘You’re now going to have the pleasure of meeting Misses Bumby, Salway, Hobson and Rivere,’ Lettie said darkly as, an hour later, they made their way towards the dining saloon for breakfast.

  ‘And Miss Nettlesham,’ Lilli reminded her as they squeezed along dark narrow gangways.

  Lettie shook her untidy mane of hair. ‘I doubt we’ll see Miss Nettlesham in the public dining-saloon. She’s the kind to have breakfast in her cabin.’

  Lilli felt a flash of anxiety. Would the Greek god also be spending most of the voyage in his cabin? The Senator was a large boat and there were easily two or three hundred men aboard her. What if she never saw him again? Even worse, what if he wasn’t going to Dawson after all but was only travelling as far as Seattle or Vancouver?

  ‘Does the Senator stop off anywhere for more passengers?’ she asked Lettie as she followed her into the crowded dining-saloon. The noise level was so high that Lettie didn’t hear her. Unable to see anything but a mass of bearded faces and nearly overcome by the smell of human sweat and bacon grease she ploughed on in Lettie’s wake, Leo clinging to her skirts; Lottie close behind her.

  In a far corner of the saloon a table flanked by benches had been set aside for the use of ladies. As Lettie unceremoniously slid onto the end of one of the benches the young women sitting around the table shuffled closer together to make room for her, and for Lilli and Leo and Lottie.

  ‘So you’re the late arrival,’ one of the young women said to Lilli in a husky voice thick with amusement. ‘When we heard you were bringing two kids with you we thought you must be in your dotage. What were you? A child-bride?’ The speaker had an odd, almost monkey-like face that couldn’t, in a million years, have been described as beautiful. The eyes were too big, the nose too short, the mouth too wide. These deficiencies had, however, been spectacularly overcome. Unnatural-looking fox-red hair was piled high, tumbling forward in a frizz of curls over her forehead. The lemur-like eyes danced with laughter. The wide, dazzlingly smiling mouth was painted as garishly as a chorus-girl’s.

  ‘No,’ Lilli said with an answering grin. ‘Lottie and Leo are my brother and sister.’

  ‘I don’t think anyone will choose you as a bride when they know you have a family in tow,’ a heavy-featured girl with an unfortunate dark line of hair on her upper lip, said doubtfully.

  Lilli sat down and hoisted Leo onto the bench beside her. ‘I’m the one that’s going to be doing the choosing,’ she corrected, keeping her voice friendly.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not quite how it …’ the girl began, a slight frown drawing thick eyebrows together.

  ‘For goodness sake, we should be making introductions, not getting pickety.’ It was the husky-voiced girl. She stretched her hand across the table towards Lilli. ‘My name is Marietta Rivere and I’m very pleased to meet you.’ It was a small hand, almost paw-like.

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you, too,’ Lilli said warmly.

  Leo had been gazing at Marietta in almost mesmerized fascination. Now he said admiringly, ‘I like that coloured stuff on your mouth. Does it taste nice?’

  There was a snort from a pale-looking girl sitting on Marietta’s left-hand side. Marietta ignored it. ‘I think it must do,’ she said, a chuckle in her voice, ‘Because I’ve never had any comp …’

  ‘I think you should remember Leo’s age,’ an auburn-haired girl sitting at the top of the table said quickly, her voice gently reproving. She turned her attention to Lilli. ‘I’m Miss Salway. Kate Salway.’

  ‘Lilli Stullen,’ Lilli said as the moustached girl next to her passed her three enamel plates.

  There was a large dish of crisp bacon rashers in the centre of the table and as Lilli began to fork rashers onto the plates the girl said bluntly. ‘Bumby.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Lilli said, startled.

  ‘Bumby,’ the girl said again. ‘Miss Susan Bumby.’

  ‘And I’m Miss Nettlesham,’ the almost albino-looking girl sitting on Marietta’s left-hand side said, not proferring her christian name, her intonation indicating that she regarded herself as being of far more consequence than Miss Bumby or Miss Salway and certainly of far more consequence than the outré Miss Rivere.

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you,’ Lilli said politely, hiding her amusement, understanding all too well why Lettie had taken such a dislike to her.

  ‘Edie hasn’t introduced herself,’ Marietta said as she poured a mug of milk for Leo.

  The young woman in question, sitting on Marietta’s right-hand side, blushed and bit her bottom lip in an agony of shyness.

  Marietta handed Leo the mug of milk and then said, ‘Edie’s full name is Edith Hobson. She’s only sixteen and is the baby amongst us. Or she’s the baby gold-rush bride-to-be amongst us, because I don’t suppose Lottie is looking for a husband yet and I’m not including young gents, like Leo here, in my reckoning.’

  Even though the very expression ‘gold-rush bride-to-be’ filled Lottie with panic on Lilli’s behalf, Marietta’s fizzing effervescence was so contagious that Lottie found herself giggling. Leo, highly flattered at being referred to as a ‘young gent‘ positively preened himself.

  ‘If Edie’s the youngest, I must be the oldest,’ Miss Bumby said gruffly, a gleam of bacon fat trickling down her chin. ‘I’m twenty-eight,’ she added, so that there would be no need for speculation.

  ‘And I’m twenty-six,’ Miss Salway said, doing her bit to break the ice between them all.

  It was Lottie who truly broke the ice. ‘Why are you all going to Alaska to marry men you’ve never met?’ she asked ingenuously.

  There was a sharp, shocked intake of breath from Miss Nettlesham. A peal of husky, unchained laughter from Marietta. Susan Bumby had flushed scarlet. Kate Salway looked discomfited. Edie looked bewildered.

  ‘You’re forgetting your manners, Lottie,’ Lilli whispered to her with unusual sharpness, aware of the embarrassment that had been caused.

  ‘No, she isn’t.’ The speaker was Kate Salway and everyone looked towards her. From the moment she had introduced herself to Lilli, Lilli had been aware of the auburn-haired young woman’s inner calmness and quiet authority, an authority even Marietta seemed to pay heed to. ‘It’s a very reasonable question,’ Kate said, looking around at them all, ‘and I don’t mind trying to answer it, though I’m afraid it won’t be easy for me.’

  ‘Well, I have no intention of baring my soul to a child, or to the rest of you,’ Miss Nettlesham said chillily, rising to her feet. ‘Nor do I think I shall be joining you for meals in future.’

  ‘Who are you goin’to sit with instead?’ Marietta asked intrigued, ‘a nice respectable gun-slinger or a decent, hard-working card-sharper?’

  Lettie hooted with laug
hter and even Miss Bumby’s mouth twitched.

  ‘If Mrs Peabody had had the slightest inkling of your true character she would never have countenanced your travelling with us!’ Furious spots of colour burned Miss Nettlesham’s pale cheeks. ‘You’re not a respectable young woman at all! You’re a … you’re a floosy!’ She flounced on her heel and marched away, leaving Leo gazing at Marietta with even more avid interest than previously.

  ‘Miss Nettlesham’s going to have to lose her high and mighty airs when we reach the Klondike,’ Susan Bumby said knowledgeably. ‘I’ve lived there and I know.’

  ‘Are you a gold-prospector?’ Leo asked, his eyes rounding. ‘I didn’t know ladies could be gold-prospectors …’

  ‘I’m a kindergarten-teacher. In another few weeks I might even be your kindergarten-teacher.’

  ‘And you’ve lived in the Klondike?’ There were so many questions Lilli wanted to ask Susan Bumby she didn’t know where to start. ‘You’ve lived in Dawson City?’

  Susan nodded. ‘I most certainly have and if you have any questions you want to ask about Dawson, I’d be happy to oblige.’

  Before Lilli could inundate her Marietta said, puzzled, ‘If you’ve lived in Dawson, why’d you travel to ‘Frisco to ask Mrs Peabody to fix you up with a husband? Why didn’t you find a rich stampeder while you were livin’there?’

  Susan Bumby’s almost masculine face coloured. ‘No-one ever asked me,’ she said with brutal honesty. ‘I thought this way someone might.’

  There was an embarrassed silence and then Kate Salway said warmly, ‘I’m sure they will. Everyone has something special to offer in a married relationship and nothing is more important than kindness. Look how you won Leo’s heart when you gave him a stick of liquorice. Please tell us a little about what we can expect when we reach Dawson. Is the weather freezing cold? Is the town full of saloons and dance-hall girls in big hats and pretty dresses? And if it is, why is there such a demand for marriage bureau brides?’