Uncle George took me to the New York quay this morning to board the Albion. There was what he called “a spanking wind” and he felt sure that the ship would sail in a few hours. He came on board with me and introduced me to Captain Williams, a tall man with blue eyes and a lined face, no doubt from confronting years of Atlantic winds.
Captain Williams showed us my cabin—which he called “a stateroom”—a tiny private space equipped with a narrow bunk, fresh linens, a washbasin, and a small chest of drawers. Uncle set my trunk in a corner, making sure that its lid was tightly closed and locked. “You may get some bad weather,” he said. The Captain laughed, and I shivered, remembering my voyage to England with Papa.
Since I had left home with nothing much but the clothes on my back, Uncle George and Aunt Elizabeth furnished me with a trunk they pulled down from the attic. Then my dear aunt put into it all the clothes she could spare from the huge walnut wardrobe in her bedchamber. She and I were about the same size, and I knew that her dresses, capes, hats, and shoes would fit me almost perfectly.
As we inspected my room, the adjoining saloon, and the upper deck, I was aware of the crew watching me and making comments to each other. I suspected that it was unusual for Captain Williams to give a private tour to one of his passengers. My generous uncle had paid for my voyage and now was making certain that I would be taken care of in my passage overseas. With the Captain’s supervision of my trip, I did not have to worry about the vicious gossip surrounding a woman who travelled alone.
All too soon, it was time for the dear man to depart. I hugged him. “Never shall I forget the kindness you and my Aunt Elizabeth have shown me,” I said, knowing that my face was wet with tears. I watched closely as he walked down the platform to the quay, a solitary figure facing a sea of oncoming passengers, most of whom seemed to be poor folk carrying bundles of provisions, mattresses, and bed coverings. As Uncle reached the bottom, he turned and waved for one last time. Though I was sad to leave him, I derived some comfort from knowing I had done the right thing in not departing on the Manhattan with the Robinsons.
The winds being favourable, we left the quay within three hours and were soon out of the harbour into the sea. It was a fine, agreeable spring day, and I had the pleasure of walking on the upper deck and watching the coastline fade out of view. In four weeks at most, I would be in Liverpool, alone and free.
Captain Williams was making a tour of the deck at the same time. “We shall be having a late dinner in a few minutes, Miss Powell,” he said. “You will join me at my end of the table, I hope.”
After hearing this news, I went back to my cabin, washed my face, and put my windblown hair in order. The door of my cabin opened directly into the saloon, a long narrow room with comfortable chairs for socializing and a mahogany table at one end for dining. Here sat Captain Williams and four passengers to whom he introduced me. “Mr. and Mrs. Samuel C. Ellis, and Mr. and Mrs. William Drayton Blackwell,” he proclaimed, no doubt expecting me to be bowled over by the grandeur of their names.
Truth be told, I had never heard of these people. They were elderly and richly dressed, and the wives, clearly adjuncts of their husbands, seemed to have no personal names. I nodded politely, though I believe I may have been expected to rise and curtsy. When they heard that I came from Upper Canada, they held forth on the glory of the victory of their country over ours in the War of 1812. Though I had my own views on this, I kept my mouth shut and made up my mind to limit my conversation to comments on the weather.
The food—curried chicken breasts with chutney—was excellent, and after several days of my relatives’ plentiful though sometimes strange meal offerings, I was hungry, but the smug certainties of my table companions invaded my enjoyment of the offerings, and I left the table early, pleading a severe headache.
Next morning, I rose early to walk about the upper deck and enjoy the sunrise over the calm seas. There were only two other people walking at the same time, a woman and a young boy. As we approached each other, there was a moment of mutual recognition.
“Oh, Miss Powell,” the woman cried, “I never thought I would meet you again!”
Who was she? I recognized her but could not remember where I had seen her. She was a plain woman wearing thick, sturdy boots and a wool dress covered with an apron. She was someone’s servant, no doubt. My immediate reaction was one of concern, for she was soaking wet and shivering. And as I was thinking of some way to help her, I remembered who she was.
“Maud,” I said, “it’s been ten years, hasn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am, and I be always remembering how you helped me through the birth of my son Henry, and how you gave me a silver bracelet so that I would have brass enough to return to my father’s house.”
She introduced me to her son, a handsome, fair-haired boy dressed neatly in knickers, stockings, a shirt, and a jacket. He offered me his hand, making a small bow as he did so.
It all came back to me in a flood of memory. Maud had been one of our servants in York, a relative of Cook’s. She had lain in misery for hours in a tiny room off our belowstairs kitchen, and Mama had no idea what was wrong with her. I recalled that she summoned my idiot brother Grant who visited her and declared that she had dropsy. When I saw her, I knew immediately that she was in childbirth and did my best to help her through the ordeal. When it was over, Mama called her a slut and a slattern and turned her out of the house with her babe in her arms. The bracelet I gave her had apparently enabled her to survive, and I was happy about that.
“Please come back to my cabin and change your clothes,” I said. “You are cold and wet. What has happened?”
“Oh, ma’am, I be in steerage. Going home, I am, to England to start life over again. My father’s relations, they say Henry and me, we can stay with them in Yorkshire. But it be filthy in steerage, so up I come in the early morning, and the sailors turn the water on me when they clean the deck. Please not to worry about me, ma’am.”
But I could not leave her shivering on that deck. I took her back to my cabin, gave her towels to dry herself and one of Aunt Elizabeth’s dresses to wear. Henry, seeing that it was to be a private moment, waited outside the cabin door.
From my earlier voyage with Papa, I had some idea of the wretched conditions in steerage, but Maud seemed cheerful. “The food be tasty,” she told me, giving me details of the fare, supplied apparently by the Captain: oatmeal, biscuits, rice, molasses, salted beef, and tea. They did their cooking in a communal space, and then, because of the crowd, took their plates back to their sleeping berths where they ate on their bunks.
There was a drawback, however. “Everybody be tipsy most of the time,” Maud said. “Captain sells grog, and he don’t care how tipsy we get. But I keep an eye on Henry, I do, and he be a good lad.”
Mother and son left then to prepare their breakfast, and we promised to meet again.