Abner squatted beside her. ‘Breathe easy now, you poor dab. What were you up to?’
‘I was trying to get a bucket of water,’ Letty said in a small voice. She felt she must look very silly and weak to Abner. Lavinia’s dirty clothes were lying a short distance away, half-hidden in the dark.
Abner looked thoughtfully at her. ‘Aye-aye,’ he said eventually. ‘You must be needin’ it pretty bad. Let me do it now.’ Abner hauled the bucket up, hand over hand.
‘Some things,’ he said with a final pull, ‘a person needs help with. Don’t you be afraid to ask. Better to ask than suffer in silence.’
The bucket sloshed water over their feet. Thankfulness overflowed in Letty. Abner had not said she’d done the wrong thing, even though she’d nearly lost the bucket and fallen overboard herself. He was right, she thought, suddenly bold. She would ask. Although he was not a girl, or a passenger, or even English, she would ask him something big.
‘Abner,’ she said, ‘without you I would have drowned just now. I have nothing to give you in return, but – will you be my friend?’
Abner looked her in the eyes. ‘I’m thinkin’ that’s a serious question,’ he said.
Letty nodded. She hadn’t asked anyone to be her friend before. But she liked him, and she meant it.
‘I accept.’ Abner offered her his hand. She shook it.
‘I’ll be going back to my watch, then, Letty – else First Mate’ll be none too friendly with us both.’
Letty laughed. When he was gone, she got on with her washing. Her hands were still shaky. Partly it was the shock of nearly drowning, and partly it was pure surprise at her own daring.
For all Letty’s care, neither Jemima nor her mother were any better.The little boy improved and left the hospital. But Lavinia got worse. The Doctor said her heartbeat had slowed. He said the fever usually took a month to break, but she might not last that long. She was very thin. Letty wished she could do something, anything, to make her sister better, but she did not know what.
In the middle of one night, Lavinia began to twitch and call out. ‘Papa!’ she babbled. ‘No, Papa!’
‘Lavinia, it’s me,’ Letty turned her sister’s head to face her.
‘Help!’ said Lavinia. ‘Papa!’ Lavinia tossed her head desperately. Her beautiful curls were a tangled mess. Lavinia would not let Letty brush them because even that hurt her too much.
‘It’s me, Letty. Please, Lavinia,’ Letty pleaded.
Lavinia stared wildly past her. She didn’t know her sister. Lavinia was beyond Letty’s reach, in a wilderness between life and death. Letty felt her heart sink in fear and helplessness. Suddenly she couldn’t bear to stay there anymore. It was all too much.
Letty stumbled across the dark hold to the square of starlight falling through the hatch. As she climbed, she gasped and sobbed like a drowning person. Once up on deck she curled up in a corner of the focsle. A sailor came off the rigging and walked past, but Letty hid her face in her knees.
‘There’s a little girl outside, sobbin’ like we’re about to sail off the world’s edge,’ she heard the bosun tell his mates.
‘Which one?’ asked Abner’s voice.
‘Dunno,’ said the bosun, and shut the crew’s door.
Lavinia is going to die, said a voice in Letty’s head. I will be all alone.
‘Letty?’
She looked up. Abner’s square figure crouched in front of her.
‘It is you,’ he said. He sat down beside her. ‘How about you share you-er sorrows, then?’
‘My sister is sick,’ Letty said bleakly. ‘Jemima is too. They have fever. Lavinia’s had it for weeks. She can’t eat ship biscuit and I don’t have any money to pay for medicine. My sister was so beautiful and so strong. Now I think she’ll die.’
‘Ah. That’s a lot of heavy weather to sail through,’ said Abner.
‘She doesn’t even know me. I’m no use to her. I’m not even meant to be here,’ Letty confessed. ‘I’m going to Australia by mistake.’
‘Everyone is meant to be here, I’d say,’ Abner replied.
‘Really?’ said Letty doubtfully. ‘I’ve tried so hard to do the right thing, but it’s all gone wrong. I wanted to look after Lavinia, but I can’t. Now she’ll be gone and I’ll be nobody, all alone. Who will care for me?’ Letty couldn’t speak anymore, only cry.
Abner was silent for a long time, until Letty wiped her face.
‘See those stars?’ he said to her. The night sky was an unclouded galaxy of tiny diamonds.
‘They’re beautiful, but they don’t help,’ Letty said. She thought she should go below, but she didn’t want to, in case Lavinia had … She couldn’t finish her thought. It was too awful.
‘I heard some words, one Sunday,’ Abner said quietly. ‘ “He tells the number of stars, He calls them all by name.” And I said to myself, if the Lord God can tell them apart, He knows me too. And you, Letty.’
Abner was odd-shaped in his thoughts as well as his bones, thought Letty. She had always thought God must be a bit like the Doctor – too important to care who she was. But Abner saw things differently. She was glad he was there. She felt known and liked and cared about. His confidence gave her courage. Letty felt a little bit of the sky’s wide stillness trickle into her.
With it came another idea, this time of Letty’s own. There was one more thing Letty could try for Lavinia. One bold and risky thing. It might get her into trouble later, but she would face that when it happened.
‘I’m going now, Abner,’ she told him.
‘Right-o,’ he said, and gave her a hand up.
WHEN Letty returned to the hospital, everyone was deep in sleep. Letty picked up the stub of candle in its holder. Gently, she pulled out the ribbon strung around Lavinia’s neck. Lavinia’s fingers fluttered. But she did not wake up. Letty lifted the key over her sister’s face and eased the ribbon free of her knotted hair.
Letty shielded the candle flame with one hand and crept towards the luggage section of the hold. The entrance was boarded over, to prevent stealing. Letty told herself she was not stealing. She tried to pull one of the boards off with her fingers. They were firmly nailed. Letty’s fingernail split. She noticed there was a space beneath the lowest boards. She lay flat on the grimy floor. She pushed the candle in ahead of her, then poked her head through the hole.
Letty yelped – rats were scurrying in all directions. They scattered at the sound of her voice. Letty swallowed her disgust, then wiggled her shoulders through, and her hips. Her dress caught on a splinter. The cloth ripped a little. Whatever was left of the rosettes would be ruined by now. Letty hadn’t thought about them since Lavinia got sick. They weren’t important anymore.
Then she spotted Lavinia’s hope chest, right at the front of the luggage stacks. The candlelight shone softly off the brass patterns. A big fat rat perched on the lid.
Letty stood up and stamped her foot. ‘Go away, horrible thing!’ The rat leapt off into the darkness.
Letty took the key off her neck, her hands trembling, and opened the chest. Lavinia’s winter dress was there in a heap on the top. Letty held the ruffles against her face. She remembered how those skirts had billowed around Lavinia when she jumped off the coach in Gravesend. Underneath them was the linen, so crisp and new. She remembered how annoyed Papa had been when Lavinia spent all her money on them – how expensive they had been.
Letty put the dress aside. She lifted out all the clean linen and wrapped the heavy pile in her own petticoat. Then she returned the dress to the chest and locked it.
As the lock clicked shut, Letty heard muffled voices somewhere down the hold.
She blew out the candle. Someone must have heard me cry out, she thought.
‘I heard a noise down here,’ said a voice. ‘There’re thieves about.’
Someone else grunted, and began tapping the boards across the entrance.
Letty hardly breathed. She could hear rats rustling in the corners. She imagined they we
re running around her legs.
‘Still done up tight,’ said the second man. ‘Must’ve been the rats.’
‘Squeaky devils,’ agreed the first voice.
After the men left, Letty made herself count to one hundred, twice. Then she felt her way to the hole, crammed the linen through and slithered out after it.
Back in the hospital, she kissed Lavinia’s hot forehead and hung the key back around her sister’s neck. If Lavinia got better, she was going to be angry. But Letty wanted her better – tossing curls, swishing skirts, sharp words and all. If Letty didn’t do this, she was sure the fever would kill Lavinia.
Letty clutched the bundle of precious linen to her chest. She waited for first light.
When the cabin passengers took the morning air up on the poop deck, Letty approached the Doctor. She was always nervous of him. Passengers from the hold weren’t worth much of his attention, it seemed. But today, instead of avoiding him, she would make sure he saw Lavinia was worth his care.
‘May I talk to you, please, sir?’
‘Your sister?’ he said, frowning.
‘Yes, sir.’
The Doctor chewed on his moustache. ‘Has she …?’
‘She’s the same, sir. She’s very weak. She needs medicine and something to eat. Ship’s biscuit and salt meat make her sicker.’
‘I haven’t got enough medicine for the whole ship,’ said the Doctor. ‘There’s no cure for typhoid anyway. I only have nourishing tonic. It’s very expensive and you can’t afford it, little girl.’
‘How much is it?’ Letty asked.
‘One pound per bottle.’ The Doctor turned away.
‘Wait!’ said Letty. She unwrapped the old petticoat from around the linen. ‘These were worth more than that in England. They’re new. You can have them, to pay for the medicine and some fresh bread.’
The Doctor took the sheets, pillowcases and handkerchiefs. He felt them between his fingers.
Please, please, please, thought Letty.
The doctor pursed his lips. ‘Very well.’ He told her to wait outside the cabin berths.
Later, Letty returned to the hospital, cradling a thick glass bottle of brown liquid and two fragrant rolls. Jemima’s eyes fixed on her as soon as she entered.
‘Lavinia!’ Letty shook her gently. ‘I have medicine.’
Lavinia blinked.
‘And smell these!’ Letty cupped a roll in her hand and held it under Lavinia’s nose.
Lavinia took a deep breath.
‘They’re for you,’ Letty said encouragingly.
Letty gave her sister one spoonful of brown medicine, exactly as the Doctor had instructed. She made herself wait an hour, for Lavinia’s stomach to settle down. All the while she sat watching Lavinia, she felt the eyes of the other patients watching the bread rolls. When the ship’s bell rang again, Letty pulled off a little piece of roll and put it in Lavinia’s mouth.
‘Mmm,’ said Lavinia.
Letty fed her half the roll, morsel by morsel, over the morning.
‘Letty,’ Jemima’s mother called to her in a croaky voice. Letty went over with a cup of tea.
‘Thanks, dear girl,’ said Jemima’s mother, after one sip. ‘Spare a little bread for my Jemima, won’t you?’
Letty’s hands tightened around the cup. The bread had been bought with Lavinia’s things. Lavinia would not want to share it with Jemima. But Letty knew that she could spare some. So she broke the other roll in half. She handed one piece to Jemima’s mother and took the other piece to Jemima.
Jemima’s hand was hot and dry.
‘You are so lucky not to be sick, Letty,’ she whispered.
Letty hadn’t thought of it that way. But Jemima was right.
‘This bread is the best,’ said Jemima. ‘You’re my real friend.’
‘If you need anything when we get to Australia,’ her mother added, ‘you just ask.’
Letty smiled at Jemima and bit into the last half-roll. It was soft and delicious. Letty knew she had got something right this time, all on her own.
For three days, Letty couldn’t tell whether the food and medicine made any difference to her sister. Jemima and her mother were looking better, but they had not been so ill as Lavinia. Letty’s head began to spin from tiredness. Early on the fourth morning the seas were wild. When Letty struggled up the ladder to get tea, she was met with waves washing across the deck and down the hatch. Abner yelled to her to get below.
Letty sloshed through ankle-deep water, back to the hospital. The ship was swaying too much for her to pour medicine. Letty pulled off her soaked boots and curled up on the dark corner bunk opposite Lavinia. She thought she’d just have a little rest. She began to dream she was a glass bottle, bobbing on a sea of brown medicine …
Plink … plink … A dripping sound woke her up. Letty looked around.
Water was leaking through the boards above, onto Lavinia’s bed.
Lavinia’s bunk was empty. The drops fell on bare wood.
Letty was stunned. She knew what that meant. When a passenger died, they were wrapped in their bedding and lowered into the ocean. Lavinia was gone.
Why did I fall asleep? Letty thought desperately. I wasn’t even there to hold her hand. If only I’d taken better care of her … Letty felt useless, lifeless, and lost.
Then she waded out to the flooded hold, straight into First Mate.
‘Where is my sister?’ Letty sobbed. ‘Is she in the sea already? Don’t do it, please! I have to see her.’ Letty clung to his shirt as the ship rolled.
‘Damn passengers!’ First Mate growled. ‘She’s that way, where it’s drier. Doctor’s orders.’ The Mate pointed to a curtained bunk.
Letty pushed the curtain aside and threw herself on Lavinia.
‘Ugh, you’re sodden,’ Lavinia said. She lifted one hand and pinched Letty’s cheek affectionately.
Lavinia was alive! And at last, her fever had broken. The Doctor’s stuff had done it. Letty’s heart surged with joy.
The Duchess surged too, over the southern seas, hurrying them all towards Australia.
LAND to starboard!’ Abner shouted from the top of the main mast.
‘All hands on deck!’ yelled First Mate.
All the passengers came up too, as the Duchess entered Sydney Harbour.
Lavinia was still pale and thin, but she was on her feet. Letty thought she looked more beautiful than ever, like the delicate ladies in watercolour pictures. She put an arm around Letty’s waist as the ship swung round and they got their first good look at Sydney Harbour.
It wasn’t just one little beach. It was huge. They passed a series of coves, and inlets disappearing into the unknown lands of New South Wales.
Abner had said it was winter here now. He must be wrong, Letty thought. Sydney was not grey like Gravesend. Above creamy orange cliffs, the shores were covered with trees. The forests were an ancient silver-green, not at all like the dark trees of English winter.
‘Look!’ Jemima jumped up and down, pulling on Letty’s arm. ‘Houses!’
On top of a headland, they could see a line of big, white buildings.
‘Don’t they look grand,’ said Jemima’s mother, approvingly.
The men began to cheer and throw their hats in the air. Some of the hats fell overboard.
‘Pity to bring your hat this far, only to lose it,’ Lavinia said.
Letty laughed. Then she remembered the linen Lavinia had lost, though Lavinia didn’t know that yet. Letty pushed the thought back into a corner of her mind, a corner like the luggage section of the hold, where she did not want to go.
‘Furl the main, mizzen and foresails! Ready the anchor!’
Sailors raced aloft. Letty saw Abner tying up the mainsail.
With almost no sails out, the ship began to slow. She drew level with the big, white buildings. Now Letty could see into another cove, filled with boats of all sizes. A sprawl of buildings dotted the shore. Most of them were not so grand. To Letty they looked as i
f a toddler had been playing with them, dropping the buildings out of its pocket and sprinkling them over the hills.
‘That’s Sydney?’ said Jemima’s mother. ‘It’s not very big.’
It was not a great, smoky city like the one Letty had come from, that was true. But the sunlight winking on the water made it seem friendly.
‘I think it’s pretty,’ she said.
‘Cast anchor!’ First Mate ordered the crew.
‘Heave-ho!’ Teams of sailors pushed the ship’s big anchors overboard. They hit the water with a huge splash. The anchor chains rattled out furiously. With a jerk, the anchors struck the bottom and held the Duchess fast.
A cheer went up from all the passengers. Letty hugged Lavinia. They’d made it! They’d sailed all the way across the world!
As soon as the Duchess came to rest in the harbour, rowboats headed for the ship like a stream of ants.
‘Passengers may not disembark,’ announced the Doctor.
‘But I so want a bath,’ groaned Lavinia.
‘I’d like a pot of ale,’ said Jemima’s mother.
Jemima giggled. ‘I want pancakes with jam and cream. And I want to see my father.’
‘Passengers must wait for the ship to be inspected by the proper authorities,’ the Doctor explained. ‘Baggage will be brought out after that.’
The rowboats were full of Sydney people. They had vegetables, baked goods and mounds of mouth-watering things for sale. The Duchess’s sailors let down rope ladders so the locals could climb aboard.
‘Fresh meat, Miss, fresh meat!’ the rowboat sellers declared. ‘Nothing out of a barrel.’
Letty looked at Lavinia.
‘Why not?’ said Lavinia. ‘Let’s spend our last shillings. We don’t need to save. I’ve got work to go to. We’ve starved long enough.’
Lavinia emptied her purse and bought a round, golden pork pie. She and Letty took turns in biting it from either side.
‘Hey, Miss, you got lodgings?’ A man was asking all the female passengers. ‘Come and stay at the Whalers Hotel. It’s the most comfortable place in town.’
Meet Letty Page 4
