After the dinner and impromptu entertainment, I pushed back my chair and rose. Papa immediately got up, too, caught my arm and said, “I shall accompany you back to your cabin.”
“Thank you,” I replied, “but I have an errand that I must carry out alone. I shall see you at breakfast. Please enjoy your slumber now that we are in peaceful waters.” And having uttered that necessary cliché for the benefit of our dinner companions, I pulled my arm from his and made my way towards the door from which the serving people had emerged. I knew Papa would not make a fuss in front of the gathered diners—he would not want them to see that he could not control me—and I smiled to myself as I contemplated his chagrin.
I paused just inside the doorway of the steamy little room where a few members of the crew were scraping the remnants from our dinner plates into a bucket. A man in a greasy apron rushed towards me. “Ma’am, ma’am,” he said, “you have lost your way. Let me take you out into the dining area.”
Realizing that my blue silk frock with its “indecorous neckline” had caused some consternation, I hastened to apologize. But I had come for a purpose and I needed to state it. “Please give me some rolls and butter and some pieces of fowl,” I whispered to the man. “I have not eaten solid food for many weeks, and I shall need to rebuild my strength.”
I waited while the crew piled the requested items into a basket. Then, putting the handle of the basket over my arm, I slipped along a narrow corridor just beyond the sight of the dining area and found my way down a steep, narrow staircase into the quarters of the steerage passengers. Here, below the prow, were twenty people (according to what the Captain had told us) crowded together into one cabin.
I could hear music and loud laughter as I descended. In the doorway, I saw several men and women dancing a reel while an old man scraped out a tune on his fiddle. The stench of unwashed humanity assailed my nostrils, but I pushed myself forward into the melee.
“Please forgive my intrusion,” I said, “but I seek the family or the friends of the Irishman who fell overboard a few days ago. Please show me where I may find them.”
One of the dancers, a woman with wild yellow hair, pointed towards the narrow berths stacked one atop the other. I looked in each bed in turn, finding in the fourth row, bottom berth, the family who had stood beside Mr. Forbes and me on the day the man fell overboard.
The three of them were asleep, lying side by side in a space that could have been no more than six feet long and three feet wide. In the murky light shed by the candles in sconces on the wall, I saw their pale, starved faces and their tattered clothes and inhaled the stink of the children’s pantalets and dirty bodies.
I did not try to wake them. For a few hours at least, they were oblivious to their troubles. I placed the basket of food under a ragged blanket that lay rucked up at the bottom of the berth. But as I moved the blanket, I touched someone’s foot. The young woman stirred immediately and opened her eyes. “Shh,” I said, bringing my forefinger to my mouth, “I have brought you some food from the dining-room. I shall just leave it with you and head back upstairs.”
The girl stared at me. “You . . . you are the lady who was standing with the clergyman on the day that . . .” Her voice broke.
“I heard your cries. I wanted to tell you how sorry I am . . .” I could think of no more to say.
“He was our friend,” the girl said. She pointed upward. “He had the bunk above us, and he used to let my young son sleep beside him so that I would have more room for myself and my small daughter.”
I glanced up into the bunk the girl indicated. Its occupant now was a woman of middle age. She was asleep on a dirty pillow, her mouth wide open as she snored. Her swollen, blood-soaked gums and foul breath indicated some dread disease. I drew back.
“Scurvy,” the girl whispered. “After our friend died, I and the other steerage folk decided to give her a bunk to herself. She had been sleeping with her husband—he is the old man who plays the fiddle for our dances—and we all wanted her to be comfortable in her last days. She will be dead before we reach Liverpool.”
I kissed the young mother’s cheek, tasting the salt of her tears. “With all my heart, I hope you find happiness in a new land, my dear.”
* * *
The next morning brought a fair, fresh wind followed by a day of smooth sailing, a red sunset, a starry night, and by dawn, the sight of land. I stood on deck beside Mr. Forbes watching as the sailors brought a canvas-wrapped body up the stairs. They placed it at the port side of the deck and laid a ladder in front of it.
“Who has died?” I asked.
“One of the steerage folk, I’m told,” Mr. Forbes said. “Scurvy, they say.”
It was certainly the unfortunate woman I had seen in the berth. I took out my reticule and counted my coins. Yes, there was just enough.
I placed the coins in Mr. Forbes’s hands. “Will you be so kind as to find the husband of the woman who died of scurvy and give him these? He is an old man and he probably will be carrying a fiddle. I want to assist him in providing a decent burial for the poor woman.”
Around us, passengers had begun to drag their trunks on deck in preparation for debarking. Children ran about, and there was much bustle and laughter. Mr. Forbes departed on his errand, and I stood alone, staring at the Liverpool harbour. Soon I, too, would have to ready myself for departure. In a few hours Papa and I would be making our way to London.