Stars Across the Ocean

by Kimberley Freeman

  Agnes stroked her hair away from her forehead. ‘This heat must be hell for you.’

  ‘It’s all quite hellish, really,’ Gracie said.

  Agnes picked up Gracie’s book of children’s stories, and began to wave it like a fan, stirring up the warm, dead air.

  ‘I wish we would move,’ Gracie said. ‘I feel …’ She trailed off, but Agnes had heard the urgency and frustration in her voice.

  ‘Hush now. Perth isn’t so far away.’

  ‘But we are stranded so far out to sea. Oh, don’t stop fanning me please, Agnes; that is the smallest comfort.’ She sighed. ‘I wish Cole had taken me with him to Perth. If he were here I would feel better.’

  ‘I’m here,’ Agnes said.

  ‘Yes, and you are a dear. Life is so dark just now, Agnes. I shouldn’t have left Perdita Hall. I should have stayed. Even you stayed until you turned nineteen, and you’d told me often enough that the place felt like a cage to you! But you are sensible, and you knew to wait until you’d finished your apprenticeship and had all your papers so you could be independent … I was a good lacemaker, Agnes. I might have made something of myself.’

  ‘There’s no changing the past,’ Agnes said gently.

  ‘Do you still have that shawl I made you?’

  ‘I left it back in London.’ Agnes thought of Marianna, and felt a pang. Had Julius received the letter? Had he told her where Agnes really was? Agnes hated the idea of Marianna thinking she’d abandoned her. ‘But it’s in safe hands. And you are in safe hands too, Gracie, for I am here and I will take care of you.’

  Gracie started crying. ‘Oh, I had the most terrible dream last night.’

  Agnes laid the book down and leaned forward to grasp her friend’s hands. ‘Hush, now. Don’t upset th’self.’

  ‘I was back at Perdita Hall, and I was in our old dormitory looking for something, but I couldn’t remember what it was. All was hollow and shadowy, and finally I remembered I had forgotten about my babies! I ran downstairs and across to the infirmary as fast as I could, but when I got there, the infirmary had grown a mile long and I had to look under beds and in cupboards. When I finally found them, they were both dead. Just two tiny cold bodies.’ She took a big gulp of air between her sobs. ‘They looked like dolls.’

  Agnes repressed a shudder. ‘It was only a dream.’

  ‘I know, but it has left me feeling so low. What will I do with two babies, Agnes? How will I cope? I’m not even sure how to find Cole.’ She palmed tears off her face. ‘It’s a disaster.’

  ‘I will come to Perth with you and help you find him,’ Agnes said. ‘Or you can leave him behind and come to Melbourne with me. Either way, I will stand by you.’

  This shocked Gracie’s tears away. ‘You would do that for me?’

  ‘It’s only what you would do for me and no more,’ Agnes said.

  ‘You had nous enough not to get th’self into such a mess in the first place,’ Gracie said. ‘I can’t let you do that. You are nearly at the end of your quest.’

  ‘Genevieve and I have done without each other for nineteen years, another year or so won’t matter,’ Agnes said.

  ‘But what about Julius? You love him, don’t you?’

  ‘He is a good man and he will understand,’ Agnes said, and she both knew it was true and hated that it was true. If he were passionate or jealous he would demand she return and she could simply say to Gracie that she must go back to London. ‘The important thing is that you are not alone with a baby. Or two.’

  Gracie nodded. ‘Well, then. I will ask you to come to Perth with me, just for long enough to find Cole. It will not take too long, and then you can continue on your journey.’

  Agnes didn’t point out that she was almost certain Cole had disappeared on purpose. But if they did find him, then good. She would punch his oily face.

  Gracie rolled onto her back and gazed up into the dark, hot air above her. ‘I am so tired.’

  ‘The heat makes you so. That and the upset.’ Agnes stood. ‘I will get you a tonic from Doctor Angel. Once we start moving again, you will feel better. I promise it.’

  Gracie smiled up at her. ‘Do you not think God put us on the same ship, Agnes? So you could look after me? I might pray all day. I haven’t prayed properly since I left Perdita Hall. Maybe that is why my luck has gone so badly.’

  ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ Agnes said. ‘We can pray together.’

  CHAPTER 22

  Agnes was asleep on the deck when the weather finally broke. She woke to the sound of rattling ropes and sails, the shouts of sailors. A cool, damp wind ran over her body and she sat up and shook Jack and they watched the sails fill under the stars.

  Agnes expected Gracie to feel better now they were moving, so was alarmed to see her looking worse when she went to check in on her after breakfast.

  ‘You’re very pale,’ Agnes said, putting her hand to Gracie’s forehead. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘The pain is worse.’

  Agnes smiled down at her. ‘At least it’s cooler. Do you think you can come up to see Doctor Angel with me?’

  ‘Must I, Agnes? Do you think it is bad?’

  ‘Give over with your fretting. I don’t like you being in pain, so you must come to see him.’

  Gracie sat up, with difficulty, and Agnes helped her to her feet. She was aware of how much both of them stank of sweat, and made a resolution to get them both baths and clean clothes as soon as possible. With the wind high, laundry would dry quickly.

  Dr Angel helped Gracie up onto the examination table, and she clung onto Agnes’s hand as he – rather roughly, Agnes thought – examined her. Gracie’s expression was muted pain and unbridled shame all in one. Then Dr Angel smoothed down her skirts and turned to Agnes with an expression of regret she recognised. Julius had worn it when he’d spoken to her of having to give up on sick children: regret and helplessness. It chilled her blood. ‘These babies can’t be saved,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ Gracie cried.

  Dr Angel addressed her. ‘You are in labour. The babies are far too little to survive.’

  ‘But we are sailing again? Can we not make it to land? They would be safe on land.’

  He was shaking his head long before she finished her volley of questions. ‘No matter where you have these babies, it is far too early for them to live. I am very sorry.’

  ‘How soon will they come?’ Agnes asked.

  ‘It’s impossible to say. My strict advice is for her to stay in bed. Her body will do the rest. There is nothing anyone can do.’ He strode to his desk and sat down, then opened the drawer. ‘Stay with her when you can, Agnes. Take some extra linen for the blood.’

  Agnes embraced Gracie. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.

  Gracie cried a little, then said, ‘Perhaps it is better this way. I wouldn’t have been able to look after them. Perhaps that is the reason God put you on my ship, so I wouldn’t be alone when it happened.’

  Agnes helped her down. ‘You won’t be alone,’ Agnes said. ‘I promise it.’

  •

  Jack smuggled some books out of the captain’s cabin while taking him breakfast, and Agnes read to Gracie in the dim little room. Gracie endured the pain bravely, though every now and then she would cry and say she felt sorry for the poor little mites, that they didn’t even get a chance. Jack brought them meals and didn’t make a single dark joke in front of Gracie.

  Even though Agnes missed the stiff breeze on deck, the cabin was not so stuffy as it had been. She climbed into the spare hammock and slept with Gracie the first night. They fell asleep telling stories about their schooldays, and Agnes was glad to hear Gracie sounding more cheerful.

  •

  Agnes was woken in the early hours of the morning by the violent rocking of the ship, and the sound of the boards creaking and moaning. She sat up. Even from deep inside the ship where they were, she could hear the wind roar. Objects rolled about on the floor between the berths, and somewhere a child cried in
fear.

  ‘Gracie, wake up,’ Agnes said, climbing down.

  Gracie mumbled, ‘What is it?’

  ‘We are in a storm—’ Agnes’s stomach lurched as the ship seemed to fall and slam into the water. She grasped the edge of her hammock but it didn’t stop her from falling over. When she climbed to her feet, Gracie was up. ‘We are in a storm, and I do not want to be this far down in the ship.’

  ‘Why? Are we not safer down here away from it all?’

  ‘We will certainly drown quicker if she goes down. Come on. I’m taking you up to the surgeon’s office.’

  With one arm around Gracie’s waist, and the other feeling her way from one berth wall to the next, Agnes got Gracie to the ladder.

  ‘You go up first. I’ll catch you if you fall,’ Agnes said.

  A shudder thundered through the ship and Gracie cried out.

  ‘Go!’ Agnes said. ‘Don’t lose your nerve.’

  She followed Gracie slowly up the ladder, noticing that the back of her nightgown was flowered with dark blood. Once up on the next deck, Agnes held Gracie again, one hand on the railing, and took her to the surgery. She unlocked the door on the third try, the violent swaying of the ship continually threatening to send her over again. A sudden sound of running water caught her attention and she turned to see seawater pouring through the crack around the hatch. She looked at the floor around her feet, and realised she was standing in half an inch of sea.

  The door opened, and she got Gracie inside and up on the examination table. With the lamp lit, she went to the cupboard and pulled out two long bandages. ‘Hold still and lift up your arms,’ she said to Gracie, and then she lashed her friend to the examination table, under the table’s legs, around her chest and hips. The boat shuddered again, with a violent cracking sound. The wind roared monstrously, and Agnes heard men shouting to each other on deck. She felt her way to the grimy porthole and pressed her face against it. At first it was all black, but then a bright bolt of lightning illuminated everything. For an instant, she saw a flash of a topsy-turvy world, with the ship on a wild angle and the waves seeming to stand higher than it, but then it was gone. She returned to Gracie, busying herself so she wouldn’t panic. Her feet slid about in seawater, her balance was pulled from under her again and again. She held on to whatever she could, to get towels and linen for Gracie’s bleeding.

  ‘Are we going to die?’ Gracie asked in a tiny voice.

  ‘One day,’ Agnes said. ‘But storms at sea are common, are they not? Imagine th’self telling this story one day. About how Agnes had to tie you to the bed.’

  This made Gracie cry. ‘I won’t have any children to tell it to.’

  ‘You may. Take heart. There may be more babies. Dozens, if you want them.’

  ‘If Cole wants them.’ Her mouth turned down in the shaking gas-light. ‘If Cole wants me.’

  Once again came the horrible sensation of the ship being lifted up and then falling and slamming. Agnes clutched her stomach. ‘Hell fire. I may be named after a ship, but I can do without that.’

  ‘I’m named after a ship too,’ Gracie said. ‘The HMS Badger. Do you know what happened to it? They broke it up when I was ten. Captain Forest told me.’ She shivered. ‘I hope I don’t get broken up.’

  The cupboards all rattled and more water sloshed into the surgery. Agnes hung tight to the examination bed. A cupboard door opened and jars and bottles tipped out, some of them smashing on the floor. She would be busy tomorrow, cleaning up but also tending to minor injuries. There wouldn’t be many that survived the night without a cut or a scrape of some kind, and Dr Angel was probably even now treating fainted ladies up in the saloon. She wondered if Jack was all right, then told herself that Jack had probably survived a dozen such storms and would chide her for worrying.

  Then another shudder moved through the ship and this time they tilted so violently that the lamp fell on the ground, shattered and extinguished in the seawater. Gracie let out a little yelp of fear, and Agnes ended up on the floor, her elbow in a mess of broken glass and oil. She cursed and tried to stand, but slipped and fell again. Gracie called out to her. The ship pitched again. Agnes put her hands around the leg of the examination table and held on as hard as she could as a series of violent shudders shook the ship and seawater sloshed around her. Men’s voices swirled on the wind above them. Gracie called out again.

  ‘It’s fine, Gracie, I’m fine,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not!’ Gracie cried. ‘I’m not.’ Then she let out such a cry of pain that Agnes would almost have believed there was a wild animal in the room. She scrambled to her feet as Gracie again howled in pain. She had pulled up her dress and Agnes could see her white thighs in the gloom but little else.

  ‘Is it the babies?’ Agnes asked.

  In answer, Gracie took a deep breath and howled again. With no light, the sea sloshing at her feet and the ship pitching violently, Agnes closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. It all seemed a nightmare, everything moving slowly and darkly around her. But nature wouldn’t wait, and her friend was frightened.

  ‘Gracie?’ she said, opening her eyes and taking her friend’s hand. ‘I’m here. Just let me get another lamp.’

  So, as the men shouted above the deck, the two women shared the first and last journey of Gracie’s babies. By lamp-light, Agnes whispered calming words to Gracie as two tiny infants, no bigger than Agnes’s palm and without a breath or sound, slid out of her body onto the bloody linen between her legs. Much blood and other matter followed, and Agnes stumbled back and forth in the dark for water from the pump to clean up the mess. She folded the tiny bodies in a towel and handed the bundle to Gracie, who clung to it in shock. The wind had started to die down, but the ship still swayed ferociously. Agnes wanted to fetch Dr Angel, but it was too dangerous to do so in such dark and savage conditions, so instead she bundled bloodied sheets and cleaned Gracie, and restored order as best she could. Gracie still bled, so Agnes tied a towel between her legs and smoothed her skirt back down and kissed her forehead.

  ‘I am so sorry, Gracie,’ she said.

  ‘It’s fine. This is a dream. I will wake up soon.’ She nodded. ‘Don’t worry about me. A dream can’t hurt me.’

  Then she began to cry, and Agnes’s heart was sick with sorrow.

  •

  The storm passed as dawn glimmered, and Agnes finally went to find Dr Angel. He was with the first-class passengers in the saloon, where they had all gathered to be near the life boats. Everywhere she went, there was mess; food and clothes and other items littered across the decks and hallways, shredded sails hanging from the masts, seawater sloshing about. Some of the crew were already up with mops and buckets. The captain, a large silver-haired man whom Agnes had only seen from afar – she certainly had never been invited into the saloon before – greeted her by name and put a weathered hand on her shoulder, promising her better conditions for sailing today.

  Dr Angel had begun to gather the injured passengers and crew in the saloon. Against a wall covered with a mural of Poseidon, turquoise seas and beautiful sailing ships, all of the chairs and tables had been stacked up and chained into place. Behind this, the walking wounded were gathered.

  ‘Agnes, I was just about to come and get you,’ Dr Angel said. ‘We’ll be busy today. Can you start by cleaning up some wounds while I go to fetch my case?’

  ‘I … Gracie Badger had her babies this morning. Both were born dead. She’s still bleeding.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘She’s in your surgery.’

  ‘I see. I see. Well, I will check her over and give her a dose of ergot then send her back to her berth.’

  ‘She doesn’t see very well. You’ll have to help her back to her berth.’

  He indicated the row of people. ‘Agnes, we are busy.’

  She couldn’t bear the thought of Gracie having to find her way back on wet and uneven ground after the horrible shock of losing the babies. At that moment, Jack ducked her head i
nto the saloon.

  ‘You’re still alive, then?’ she called to Agnes.

  ‘Jack! Can you go with Doctor Angel? Gracie’s had her babies and she needs help getting back to her berth.’

  ‘Right you are,’ Jack said. ‘Come on, Doctor. I hear you’re in need of a Scotswoman to keep you in order.’

  Agnes watched them go, wishing she could be there for poor Gracie. In front of her were half a dozen wealthy people with cuts and scrapes; they couldn’t possibly need her more than Gracie did now.

  ‘Nurse!’ a thin, well-dressed woman said sharply.

  Agnes turned without smiling, and got to work.

  •

  Dr Angel put Agnes in charge of all the stitching, and for hours, she worked. Around them was a whirl of motion and sound as the ship was put back to rights. Agnes missed it all: the cleaning up, the hanging of new sails, the untangling of ropes. She heard snatches of tales about the young man nearly washed out to sea, only saved by the captain’s iron grasp; about the fear that the mast would split under the power of the storm; and the brave sailors who had hung on to ropes and each other, even as the deck was awash with sea and the wind had torn the sleeves from their shirts. She didn’t have time to think about herself, about how she hadn’t slept or eaten; she barely had time to think about Gracie, who, Dr Angel had said, was ‘sad but fine’ on his return. Sometime around midday the young lad who assisted Jack in the scullery came by with a slice of pie for her and the doctor, and they ate in seconds before turning to the next patient. Most of the injuries were cuts and abrasions. One was a fracture and one seemed to be entirely made up in the passenger’s head: in his extreme fear he had begun to believe he was dying. No matter how many times Dr Angel told him he was fine, he continued to beg for medicine, until Dr Angel gave him an anodyne and told him to go to bed for twenty-four hours. Finally satisfied, he left. Dr Angel had muttered to Agnes that the ‘anodyne’ was really just a finger of his brandy, which he kept close by during the whole crowded day.