The Many Reflections of Miss Jane Deming

by J. Anderson Coats

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say, even though I wish she wouldn’t call him bad names when he’s probably busy on shore working out the last of the arrangements.

  We get to the place near the smokestack where Mr. Vane pointed, but there’s no ladder. There is a set of stairs, though, so we head down and find ourselves in a long corridor that’s dim and narrow. Smaller corridors lead away to the staterooms every few paces. The first door we come to that’s not occupied or locked is 143.

  “Finally!” Mrs. D mutters, and she throws open the door.

  The ceiling is low, and most of the room is taken up by two bunk beds against one wall. The floor has been hastily and halfheartedly scrubbed so it’s clean everywhere but the edges. Everything smells like damp wood and a wool dress at the end of laundry day.

  “Ugh!” Mrs. D groans. “How dare they call this a stateroom? Our room at Lovejoy’s was bigger. Nicer, too! Wait here, children. There’s got to be a better one.”

  Mrs. D sways up the corridor, peeking in doorways and rattling handles. After a dozen tries she stumbles back into room 143, looking like her new-baked cake just fell on the floor.

  “This’ll do,” she mutters. “They’re all the same.”

  “May I have the top bunk?” I ask, because it reminds me of the tree house in The Swiss Family Robinson, which my grandmother used to read out loud when she’d visit.

  “You may, but Jer can’t be up there.”

  “No up,” Jer agrees, climbing onto the bottom bunk and sticking his feet through the slats.

  There’s a knock at the door. A deckhand is waiting in the corridor with our trunk and Mrs. D’s carpetbags. While she’s fussing over where to put them, I climb the ladder to my bunk and promptly bang my head because the ceiling is so low. So I hunker down and pull Mr. Mercer’s pamphlet out of my own carpetbag. I open it to Reflections Upon the Foregoing and make an improvement: men AND GIRLS of broad mind and sturdy constitution.

  “Mama? We go boat? Mama? Mama?”

  “What a splendid idea, honeydarling. Jane will take you to look around the boat.”

  I peer over the side. Mrs. D is busy sorting through her stockings and petticoats in the trunk, ignoring Jer and his excited tugs to her skirts. She doesn’t even realize what he’s asking, so I climb down and reach for his hand.

  “We already had our turn,” I tell Jer as we walk up the little hall to where it meets the main corridor in the shape of a T. “We can watch other people getting on board.”

  Down the main corridor are more staterooms and two necessaries. One is for Ladies, the other for Gentlemen. Jer is neither, but I take him into Ladies with me. There are bathtubs and washbasins and chamber pots. Near the corner there’s a pump for water and a grate in the floor.

  Even Lovejoy’s didn’t have an indoor necessary. This voyage just keeps getting better!

  If there really are a hundred people set to board, chances are good there’ll be girls my age. Girls who have never seen my hands red and cracked. Girls who have never watched through a schoolhouse window as I trudge to the public pump. Girls going the same place as me, on the same ship, so we’ll always have something to talk about even once we’ve landed in Seattle.

  Jer and I go back up to the promenade deck and dodge passengers and sailors while we wait for the ship to depart. We watch the deckhands hauling lines—one of them hears me saying ropes and explains that at sea every rope is a line—and try to spot the dolphins the second mate swears will follow the steamer once we’re outbound.

  The mate hasn’t known Jer quite two minutes when he gives him a carved toy horse. Jer is the image of his small son back in Glasgow, the mate explains, and the ship could do with a few more boys just like Jer to make home feel that much closer.

  “Hoss! Hoss!” Jer hugs it and does a stumbly little dance.

  “Do you have a daughter, too?” I ask hopefully, but the mate thinks I’m joking and gives me a friendly wink before swaying off toward the foremast.

  Jer and I are counting gulls and working on our sea legs when there’s a low, deep chunkrumble beneath our feet.

  “What dat?” Jer crouches and pats the deck.

  “We’re leaving,” I whisper.

  The pier looks like toothpicks already, New York behind it chockablock with tall buildings, and Lowell somewhere beyond that with its relentless, clattering mills that almost swallowed us up.

  I have never been happier to turn my back on anything.

  In just four short months we’ll be in Washington Territory. A place where things are carved out brand-new from an unspoiled land beneath starry-decked heavens, with no hint of anything that came before.

  I have that part of the pamphlet memorized. Mostly because it can’t happen soon enough.

  3

  AFTER ALL OUR WANDERING WE end up back in the ladies’ necessary, because Jer swears up, down, and sideways he has to make water. He’s only been in britches since we arrived in New York, and I pay him mind when he says he has to go because it means less washing. Now that he’s here, though, he just wants to climb in the washtubs and play with the pump.

  It does no good to rush him, so I point him at a chamber pot and hum a song about ol’ Cape Horn I heard the deckhands singing. Finally Jer starts peeing, only he misses the pot completely and it trickles down the wall toward the grate in the floor.

  “Good boy,” I mutter, but I wish he’d hurry, because I’ve never been in an indoor necessary, so I don’t know if other ladies will take kindly to him using the Ladies’.

  There’s a giggle and a clatter out in the corridor, then two girls burst in, throw the door closed, and lean against it.

  I wanted to meet other girls. Just not in the necessary while my brother is pulling up his britches.

  They’re older than me, but no older than the big girls back at school. The girl in the blue dress shushes her giggling companion and puts her ear to the door.

  “He’s in the corridor.” She grins wickedly. “Is he going to wait out there so he can catch us in the act?”

  The other girl squints like she’s listening. “No, he’s going away.”

  That’s when they start laughing like Violet and I did the day Elizabeth convinced Miss Bradley her pet skunk got loose beneath the schoolhouse, so we got extra recess while the big boys crawled under the building trying to find it.

  Back when we were all still laughing together.

  “We should play here.” The blue-dress girl has shiny chestnut hair like Beatrice’s and a no-better-than-she-should-be grin.

  “Ugh, we can’t play faro in the necessary!”

  “You could try the music room,” I say, and both of them turn as if they just realized I’m here.

  “We have a music room?” The blue-dress girl has a tilt in her words that isn’t New York’s or even Boston’s. It’s not pretty or foreign like some of the mill girls’, but she’s clearly from a place that’s as far from here as I’d like to be.

  “Peeeee-ano,” Jer speaks up, and when the blue-dress girl smiles and winks at him just like she might anyone, I risk a step toward them.

  “The ship was supposed to hold seven hundred girls,” I reply. “There’s probably one of every room.”

  The blue-dress girl opens the necessary door. “I’m Nell. That’s Flora. Come, show us the music room.”

  I hoist Jer onto my hip and head up the corridor. “Who are we running from?”

  “Mr. Mercer, of course.” Nell is wearing a hat Mrs. D would give her right arm for. “Old Pap thinks it’s improper for girls to play cards.”

  They shouldn’t talk about Mr. Mercer that way. If it weren’t for him, none of us would be going to Washington Territory.

  Nell grins and holds a door open for me. Flora gestures me through it. Both of them are right behind me. Like Elizabeth once upon a time. Like Beatrice and Violet. So I keep quiet and lead on.

  The music room isn’t much of a music room. It’s where the deckhands were able to fit the piano one of the passen
gers brought with her. There are some benches and a few padded stools, but not much else save portholes that let in circles of daylight.

  Nell produces a deck of cards and cocks them playfully at Flora. “You ready to lose at baccarat?”

  “Hey, we were playing faro!” Flora protests. “I’m terrible at—”

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Mr. Mercer charges through the doorway and rips the cards out of Nell’s hands. “I thought I made myself clear in this regard, Miss Stewart! There will be no impropriety from any of my charges. Your brother will be hearing from me. So will your mother, Miss Pearson.”

  Flora rolls her eyes, but Nell cringes and pulls in a deep shuddery breath.

  Like I used to when Mrs. D got angry and swore I’d be better off a mill girl in the care of the boardinghouse Mothers, before I knew she was only talk.

  I step forward. “They’re mine. The cards. Not Nell’s.”

  Mr. Mercer turns his disdain on me. “Yours? Miss . . .”

  I nod, then duck my chin and curtsy. I can’t have him angry at me. If I’m on this ship, it means he thinks I’m worthy of Washington Territory. We’re well clear of the harbor, but maybe he could still find a way to send me back to New York.

  Send all three of us back. Me and Jer and Mrs. D. There we’d be on the pier without a penny to our names while the ship steamed away without us.

  “Why you all di’ty?” Jer points at Mr. Mercer, and sure enough, his frock coat is heavily smudged and his red hair streaked with black as if he just loaded ten coal stoves.

  Flora slaps a hand over her grin. Nell’s still studying her tight-clenched hands.

  Mr. Mercer ignores Jer and shakes his head at me, slow and disgusted. “To think of the lengths I went to ensure that only the most respectable of feminine society would be introduced to Washington Territory.”

  I flinch, but Nell closes her eyes and swallows hard. She’s clearly worried about something other than how respectable Mr. Mercer considers her.

  When Mrs. D gets this way, there’s only one response. I lick my lips and say, “Beg pardon, sir. I didn’t mean any harm.”

  “There are pressing matters to which I must attend, but don’t think for a moment there won’t be consequences.” Mr. Mercer pockets the cards, turns on his heel, and stomps down the corridor.

  The moment he’s gone, Nell throws her arms around me like we’re long-lost sisters. Her hug gets Jer, too, and he squeals and swims in her skirts. “Thank you,” Nell whispers into my hair, fierce and breathy. “You don’t know how you just saved me.”

  When she pulls away, Flora takes my forearm with one hand and Nell’s with the other. “Don’t you worry, Nell. We’ll get your cards back. Even if we have to sneak into Mr. Mercer’s room.”

  I’m not sure I like the sound of that.

  But I do like the sound of we.

  Flora and Nell plan to meet on the hurricane deck at the front of the ship to work out how to get Nell’s cards back. They don’t exactly say that Jer’s not invited, but at two different times both mention how noisy he is, so I bring Jer back to the stateroom with a plan of my own.

  I feel a strong case of seasickness coming on. Mrs. D will have to take Jer while I recover.

  The stateroom is empty. Mrs. D is not the sort of person who’d be curious about the ship or the view from the rail, so she must have gone to the ladies’ cabin. It’s a little parlor next to the dining room where there are sewing machines and divans and settles under army-looking tarps and blankets.

  Sure enough, I find Mrs. D there surrounded by half a dozen married ladies and widows all chatting politely about things like dress patterns and the woeful condition of their staterooms.

  I put Jer down and he toddles over to Mrs. D, squealing, “Mama! Mama!”

  Mrs. D kisses him on the head, then turns to the woman mending next to her and asks, “Aren’t you terribly excited for the voyage? I have it from Mr. Mercer himself that the bachelors of Washington Territory are up-and-coming gentlemen flocking to a region rich with opportunity. There should be plenty of very suitable men to go around!”

  “Mama, up.” Jer is trying to climb her leg like a bug on a wall. “Up.”

  “He’s saying they’re going to meet us at the pier and—Jer! Oh, you’ve torn out a whole row!” Mrs. D untangles him from her yarn, then calls, “Jane, where are you going? Didn’t I ask you to take Jer?”

  I slump in the doorway. “Ma’am? I’m seasick. Bad seasick. I should really be lying down.” For about a minute. Then I’m off to the hurricane deck before you can say Jack Robinson.

  “You’re free to lie down, but you’ll need to take Jer with you.” Mrs. D nudges him toward me. “Honeydarling, go with Jane.”

  “It might be rather . . .” If I describe the seasick part too well, she’ll take me to task for being vulgar. If I don’t do it well enough, she won’t give in. “. . . messy. Ma’am.”

  “You can’t really think he can be in here.” Mrs. D sighs. “In a room full of sharp knitting needles and stray pins? Or expensive sewing machines? Honestly, Jane, use some sense.”

  Jer tromps toward me with his little cart horse steps.

  “Please? It’s just that I’m—”

  “Yes. Seasick. I heard. Get a chamber pot from the necessary if you need one.” Mrs. D waves me away swish-swish before turning back to her neighbor and continuing, “Mr. Mercer says there’s a lot of money to be made in the territory, and the gentlemen there have everything they need but quality female society . . .”

  Jer winds his arms around my knees and grins up at me.

  I’m not out of plans yet. I walk Jer up and down the promenade deck till he’s worn out. By the time I’ve made up the beds in the stateroom with the bedrolls and blankets we brought, then tucked Jer and Hoss into the bottom bunk for a nap, Nell and Flora are nowhere to be found. They’re not on the hurricane deck or in the music room or the dining room or even the necessary.

  Of course they’re not.

  They must think I didn’t want to help. Maybe they think I’m too nose-in-the-air virtuous to sneak into a gentleman’s room and steal something, even something taken unfairly.

  “Jane?” Flora’s coming up the deck. Without Nell, she seems younger somehow, like Jer when he’s lost a toy. “Good, you’re all right. Thank heavens.”

  “Where’s Nell?”

  Flora studies her feet. “She’s . . . resting.”

  The way she says it makes me think she’s lying, but I haven’t been acquainted with either of them long enough to argue, so I say, “Did your mother get angry? About the cards?”

  “Nahhh.” Flora shrugs. “My mother’s too intent on getting to Washington Territory and seeing my father and my sister. I could run off with the third engineer and she’d barely notice.”

  “Your family’s already in the territory? Did they go because of the war?”

  Papa should have packed himself and me and Mrs. D onto a steamship in 1861 the moment the rebel states started seceding. There’d have been no Vicksburg to tip my family toward ruin. No looms to finish the job.

  Flora shakes her head. “My father and sisters went a few years ago with the first boatload of girls brought by Mr. Mercer.”

  “That—really happened?” I gape. “My stepmother thought he made that story up so we’d trust him and his motives.”

  Flora laughs. “The newspapers did rake poor Mr. Mercer over the coals, didn’t they? No, there were eleven girls who went that first trip, and my father went along as part chaperone and part fellow-traveler. Now he keeps a lighthouse along with my sister Georgie. I’m to take over for him once I arrive.”

  “Huh.” I follow Flora up the ladder onto the hurricane deck. “You can’t be much older than me. Can you really be a lighthouse keeper?”

  “I’m fifteen,” Flora says. “My sister was that old when she started keeping the light with my father.”

  I try to think of a good question to keep her talking, so she doesn’t ask how o
ld I am and I don’t have to admit I’m only eleven.

  “Now my father wants to make a homestead claim,” Flora goes on, “and to do that you have to live on and clear the land you mean to claim. It really takes two people to keep the light, so he thinks I’d be perfect.”

  I lean against the rail. “Did your sisters have any trouble . . . you know. Settling in? When they got there?”

  “Josie got a good teaching job right away,” Flora says, “but she always had a bad heart and died not long after taking it. Georgie taught for a term, but now she’s keeping the light with my father. She’s got a sweetheart, and I imagine they’ll get married before too long.”

  The gray choppy water stretches out like a promise, and the engine rumbling and chuntering under my feet is taking me to a place even better than the one Mr. Mercer promises in his pamphlet. A place where two girls can run a lighthouse and teaching jobs are so unremarkable, there must be schools everywhere.

  “The best thing about the voyage for both my sisters was always the other girls,” Flora adds. “Even now, Georgie’s letters are simply packed with tidbits about who’s teaching where or who’s engaged to which young man and where each one is setting up house. They’re all still the best of friends and probably will be till they die. Honestly, by now the other girls are almost like my sisters too.”

  “I always wanted a sister,” I say, mostly to the rushing spray and flappeting sails.

  Flora frowns. “But . . . who is that you’re traveling with?”

  “That’s my stepmother.”

  “Your—I thought she was your sister!”

  If I had a penny for every time I heard that, I could buy back the farmhouse and pretend it was still 1860.

  Flora is quiet for a moment, then she bumps me playfully with her shoulder and says, “Will you settle for a friend who’s like a sister? Or maybe two? If you can keep up with the whirlwind that is Nell Stewart?”

  It’s not settling. Not when you get something you want, even if it’s not quite the way you thought you’d get it.