by Avi
“Faith, I’ve not the strength.”
“What about the children?” she was asked.
“They should go,” she murmured.
From the crowd of onlookers four men stepped forward and hoisted the awkward body bag to their shoulders. A way was cleared. Behind came the sailors and the three Faherty children. Others followed to make a motley funeral procession. Among them were Maura and Mr. Drabble.
Mr. Faherty’s body was carried to the main deck. Near the bulwark a board had been laid out. Under the sailors’ direction, the body was placed upon the board.
Mr. Murdock now appeared. “Is there anyone wanting to say a few words?” he asked. No one spoke.
“All right then,” he said, “do yer duty.” The sailors came forward, picked up the board with its load, and brought it to the top rail, feet forward. With a grunt and a sudden lift, they tilted the board up. The body slid off and plummeted over the side. There was a rush to see it descend, but too late. Mr. Faherty’s mortal remains had been swallowed by the sea.
Eager to get away from the deck and the greatly agitated steerage passengers, Mr. Murdock prowled about the cargo hold. Lantern in hand, he took note of the storm-wrought damage. Chests and barrels were strewn about, like so many ninepins struck by a bowling ball. While most were intact, there were a fair number destroyed. Their contents — from dishes to hats to toys — had been scattered about and broken or were now filthy from bilgewater. Indeed, the amount of wreckage was so great, Mr. Murdock realized it would not be possible to clean it up until they reached Boston.
As the first mate picked his way along the starboard aisle, he noticed four teacups and four saucers tucked tightly between two arching beams. For a long time he just stared at them. Something was wrong. The symmetry of the numbers alone — four and four — suggested they were not tossed there by the random pitching of the ship in the storm. Then too, not only were these dishes not broken, they appeared to have been carefully wedged one atop the other by someone. How else could they be there and in such good condition? The more Mr. Murdock considered, the more convinced he was that he knew who that someone was…. The stowaway.
Turning, the first mate plied his beam about the hold. He would search again.
Later — as soon as Mr. Murdock was gone — Laurence climbed up the luggage-room ladder and lifted the trapdoor just enough to see if the galley way in the first-class passenger compartment was empty.
When he saw that it was, he lifted the trap higher. A small light was burning. It was enough for Laurence — who in any case had grown very accustomed to the dark — to see the seven doors that lined the way. Behind one of them, he hoped, was the one-eyed man, and with him Lord Kirkle’s money.
Wanting to catch his breath and calm himself for the task ahead, Laurence rested on the edge of the trapdoor. He wished he was not alone. He had considered taking Patrick into his confidence. But that would have meant explaining everything to his friend. He had resisted that, fearful that if Patrick learned who and what he was, he might turn against him. For Laurence just the thought of that was unbearable.
For the moment, however, the only question was which door he would try first. One by one he considered them, but they told him nothing. He would simply have to take a chance.
Leaving the trap open — for a fast escape if necessary — Laurence crawled onto the galley floor. When he approached the nearest door, he grasped its latch and drew himself up.
Softly, he twisted the latch, but his heart was pounding so frantically, he had to pull back in order to regain self-control. Finally, he pressed his shoulder to the door and pushed. It opened.
The ship bell struck seven times, causing a tremor of nervousness to course through his body. When he was calm again, he edged the door open farther, leaning forward to try and catch some sound from within.
What he heard was regular rhythmic breathing intermixed with the ever-present shifting and creaking of the ship. The breathing continued evenly, and at last Laurence swung the door wider and stuck his head directly into the room.
The only light seeped in from the galley way itself. Laurence could make little sense of the room. It was smaller than he had expected. A lamp — not lit — hung from the ceiling and swung gently back and forth. He saw, obscurely, a washstand, a sofa, and a chest of drawers as well as what might be a writing desk.
To either side of the room were beds. Only one was occupied. Under a heap of blankets, the sleeper stirred. Laurence froze, then pressed a hand to his heart to keep it from beating so loudly.
After a few moments, he crept farther into the room, moving silently toward the occupied bed. He stared intently at the passenger, trying to determine if it was his thief or not.
Though the sleeper shifted, the face remained hidden. Laurence stood motionless, waiting. Nothing! Carefully he reached forward — his hand shaking — and attempted to flick the blankets away. Though he managed to do so, he also brushed a cheek.
The sleeper sat up abruptly. He was a heavyset man with a mane of flowing gray hair. His face was somewhat square with eyes — only barely open — set together closely.
In haste, Laurence took a side step out of the man’s line of vision. The man remained sitting for a moment before dropping back upon his pillow.
Breathless, Laurence waited for the sounds of regular sleep to resume. When they did, he inched his way toward the galley way and made his way out.
Deciding he had done enough for one night, he scurried back to the hold. When he reached his barrel, he removed the lid and climbed in. But instead of squatting down, he remained standing. With tongue and teeth he made a clicking sound.
In moments there was an answering squeak. Laurence called again. It brought the sound of scampering. The next moment a large brown rat was sitting on the barrel lid next to him.
“Good for you, Nappy,” Laurence whispered. He reached down and retrieved a bit of hard bread. “Here’s your dinner.” He held the bread bit out to the rat, who sat up on his hind legs to take it. “Let me tell you what I did,” Laurence whispered.
In the Shagwell Cotton Mill of Lowell, Massachusetts, Sarah Grafton — along with other women operatives — was almost two hours into her day at the drawing machines. Her long black hair, parted in the middle, was pulled behind her neck in a bun. She had tied an apron over her skirt.
The room in which she worked was vast. Just below the high ceiling, leather belts flapped, looking for all the world like gigantic looped brown noodles. The power to move them came from canal water turning a huge wheel at the basement level. The belts rolled and twisted through pulleys and gears that in turn drove the smaller belts that dropped down to run the machines.
These machines — second carders, drawers, and double-speeders — twisted and pulled raw cotton into thick thread, rocking and shaking upon their metal and wooden legs with such violence and loud crashing that the entire wooden floor vibrated. Clouds of cotton specks floated in the air, making it hard for the operatives to draw a clear breath.
The room, moreover, had its windows nailed shut to keep the humidity high. This made the cotton pliable and helped prevent the fragile fibers from breaking.
Sarah Grafton’s job was to take up four or five of the cotton strands from the carding machines — slivers they were called, each one thicker than her arm — and feed them into the drawing frames. These not only stretched the cotton slivers by means of a series of rollers, but gradually combined them into one finger-width cord, which was wound then onto large bobbins. Once full, the bobbins were taken to the double-speeding machines to make a finer thread for the looms on another floor. Each day Sarah Grafton was required to produce at least two hundred bobbins.
She worked standing, pacing up and down before the machines she was responsible for. Because the slivers kept breaking, she was continually obliged to stop the machine by pushing a heavy lever, then quickly twisting the broken ends of the sliver together. Then she started the machine again.
Sh
e also had to be sure the rollers worked at even speeds. To look away could mean disaster. The slivers would tangle or break or, worst of all, become lumpy. What was wanted was a single uniform cord spooled neatly on the bobbin.
For the most part, Sarah ignored her cough, though during the last five months it had deepened. But rarely did it keep her from coming to work in the predawn darkness. She could not afford to give in to it.
Behind her, striding up and down along the rows of drawing machines and their operatives, was Mr. Osmundson, the floor overlooker. He was making sure that the pace of the work was steady. A fat jolly fellow with a derby perched on the back of his head, he liked his operatives — girls he called them — and bestowed many a smile and word of encouragement upon them. If any of the machinery broke, he hurried to fix it. If he could not fix it, he called for help. And, if any of the women lagged at their work, he was there to remind them of their duty, calling out a rebuke as he saw fit.
“Sarah, my girl,” he shouted as he came down the line, “how are you today?”
“Fair enough,” she returned without looking around at him.
“And the baby?”
“He’s got a new tooth.”
“I remember how that can keep you awake. Watch your third roller, darling. It’s balking!”
Sarah leaped forward to make the adjustment.
“And your husband, has he found work?”
“He’s all but given up.”
Mr. Osmundson shook his head in sympathy. “Once they’ve turned you off and marked you down, it’s awful hard on a man. Look there! You’ve got a thick spot on sliver number two!”
Sarah, coughing, reached out and pulled at the sliver, her thin fingers deftly teasing the lump until it melted away.
“Your cough is no better, darling,” Mr. Osmundson called to her. “You need to take good care!” With that, he moved along to the next machine and chatted with Betsy Howard, the operative stationed there.
At seven-thirty the breakfast bell rang. As soon as it did, Mr. Osmundson threw the floor’s main lever. Though the power belts still whirled above, all the machines slowed to a halt. On the instant, most of the operatives hurried toward the doors. They had no more than thirty-five minutes to eat.
Sarah did not leave with them. To save strength, she sat down on the floor, back propped against one of her machines. From the base of it, she took up a handkerchief, in which Jeb had wrapped her breakfast. The meal consisted of a piece of bread and a cold sausage. She ate slowly.
Betsy Howard came to sit next to her with her own small meal.
“How are you doing today, my dear?” she asked Sarah as she bit into her piece of meat pie and simultaneously began to brush the white cotton lint from her blouse.
“Good enough,” Sarah answered without looking around. No sooner did she speak than she coughed, then patted her mouth with her handkerchief. She inspected it.
“Blood?” Betsy asked softly.
Sarah shook her head. “Not yet,” she whispered.
“Cotton cough. What you need is some fresh air. That’s the only thing to make you better. Get out of the city somewhere, Sarah. Or go for that walk along the river. It’s good air there.”
“Perhaps,” Sarah said. “On Sunday.”
“You can take your baby.”
For a while, the two women ate without speaking.
“I think there’s been a speedup again,” Betsy said, keeping her voice low.
Sarah looked around. “I thought it was just me getting dull,” she said.
“It isn’t you. Considering, I don’t know how you can keep up.”
“Did you ask Mr. Osmundson?”
Betsy shook her head. “I’ve tried. He gave me a warning.”
“What kind?”
“Too much complaining will get me turned off. He was kind about it, but he meant it.”
“They wouldn’t do that to you,” Sarah said. “You’ve been here five years. More than most. And you’re too good.”
Betsy laughed grimly. “He said there’s plenty an Irish girl to take my place.”
“That there is,” Sarah said. Finishing her meal, she tilted her head back and closed her eyes. “My boy Jeb hates the Irish. Goes on about them all the time.”
“I don’t like them either.” Then Betsy Howard said, “Get some rest now,” and patted her friend on the arm. “Only five more hours till lunch bell.”
It was early evening. Partially hidden by the darkness, Jeremiah Jenkins stood across the street from James Hamlyn’s house, staring at it as if his eyes alone could blast the structure to bits. But since his look could not accomplish the task, he brooded the more on his anger and his cause.
As the wind scattered the gray snow at his feet, he watched the mill girls and women passing by, returning from work.
With a grunt of frustration, Mr. Jenkins spit and trudged off to another, more affluent section of town, coming to a stop at a large stone structure of three stories with a steeply pitched roof. A grand columned door stood close to the ice-rutted street so that one could step directly from a carriage onto the stone front steps.
Mr. Jenkins climbed the steps and knocked sharply upon the door. It was opened by a serving girl in a simple brown dress, mobcap, and apron.
“Has Mr. Shagwell returned from England?” he inquired.
“If it please you, sir, he’s not,” answered the young woman.
“Are you Irish?”
The woman smiled. “Only recently come over, sir.”
“Bloody hypocrite,” Mr. Jenkins mumbled.
“Would you be wanting the mistress?” the young woman asked.
Mr. Jenkins shook his head.
“I can only tell you the master is expected soon.”
“How soon?”
“It’s not for me to be saying for certain, sir. Might you like to leave your card?”
“I don’t have a card,” Mr. Jenkins said.
“You could be leaving your name, sir.”
“Just tell him Jeremiah Jenkins called. On urgent business.”
“I’ll do so, sir. Mr. Jenkins.”
Angry, the man set off again, entirely unaware that Mr. Tolliver — as had become his habit — was following him.
Midnight. The Robert Peel’s sails fluttered and whipped in the wind. A salt spray — soft and cool like an angel’s wings — floated across the deserted deck. High in the southwestern sky, the moon cast a golden road of light across the rolling waters, a road that ran directly from the ship to the edge of the sea and beyond. It seemed to be the road the Robert Peel was following.
The helmsman, his two large red-raw hands grasping the spokes of the great steering wheel, stared straight ahead along the moonlit way. The second mate rang the ship’s bell eight times. Now and again he examined the compass with a lamp, gazed up at the sails and stars but found nothing to say to the helmsman.
The door from the steerage deck opened. A sailor emerged, looked about to make sure no one was watching, then beckoned to someone. Quickly he was followed on deck by four men carrying a long closed sack. They bore this to the bulwarks, where, in hasty unison, they hurled it into the sea.
Their task done, the sailors rubbed and blew on their hands for warmth, then hurried off to their forecastle bunks.
The helmsman, who had heard the splash, asked the second mate, “How many is that?”
The other man shrugged. “Thirty-two, I should think.”
The helmsman spit over his shoulder.
“I heard say a whole family went. First the father. His wife and two sons too. Just a young girl left.”
The helmsman shook his head and gripped the wheel spokes a little tighter. Save for the sound of the ship sliding through the sea with a consistent hiss, all was quiet again.
’Ow am I doin’?” Mr. Grout asked Mr. Drabble across the table. The two men were in the first-class dining room. After the lunch had been served, Mr. Drabble had been called there from steerage to give the young ma
n another reading lesson. On the table were the cluttered remains of Mr. Grout’s lunch: plates of meats, pickles, boiled eggs and assorted meat pies, bread, and drink.
“You are a good student, Mr. Grout,” a hungry Mr. Drabble replied. Feeling as though he’d not eaten for weeks, he was distracted by the food. “And though you have a considerable way to go, you progress rapidly.”
“I’m wantin’ to progress,” Mr. Grout said with solemnity. “I’m needin’ to progress. I’ve been told to progress.”
“Have you now,” the actor said casually. “By whom?”
Mr. Grout looked about furtively. “Can yer keep a secret?” he asked.
“As well as any man,” Mr. Drabble returned.
Mr. Grout leaned across the table and fixed his one good eye on his teacher. “I’ve ’ad a vision,” he revealed in a hushed voice. “From the other side.”
Mr. Drabble drew back. “Why … what do you mean by that?”
“Right ’ere. On this ship. A spirit came to warn me of me sinful ways.”
Mr. Drabble, suddenly uncomfortable, pushed the hair out of his eyes. “It’s nothing I should make sport of, Mr. Grout,” he cautioned.
The one-eyed man put a hand to his heart. “Mr. Drabble, accordin’ to me lights, yer gets these warnings but once. If yer don’t ’eed ’em, yer doomed.”
“Then you had best heed it,” Mr. Drabble replied, having no desire to contradict his benefactor.
“I intend to,” Mr. Grout said loudly, as if he wanted the spirit itself to hear. “And yer a part of my ’eedin’. I’ve never ’ad much in the way of schoolin’, not so much as yer little finger’s worth, do yer know. But now … I can read some. Ship,” he proclaimed. Then haltingly but proudly he said the letters. “S-H-I-P. Is that right?”
“It is.”
“Yer’ve helped me, Mr. Drabble, and I’m thankin’ yer. Sometimes I think I might set up as an innkeeper. I’d get to ’elp people that way. I can see meself lookin’ rather decent dolin’ out the victuals.”
