Angel in the Mist

 

By

Laurie J. Edwards

 

Annie O’Brien hurried along the gangplank, hunger and fear clawing at her belly. A solid wall of wood towered before her, gleaming in the sunlight. How could such a huge steamer stay afloat, especially once the crowd, shuffling along behind her, boarded?

Yesterday this long-awaited trip to America had seemed an exciting dream. Had she, of all her siblings, been chosen to go? Annie had no need to pinch herself to be sure; her younger brother Seamus had administered a swift kick to her ankle, which still smarted. Now this morning’s tiny ration of cornmeal mush curdled in her stomach, and thoughts of Seamus filled her with homesickness.

On deck the freshening breeze stung her cheeks and snapped the flags against the poles overhead, jingling iron rings on the ropes holding them aloft. The clanging metal reminded her of gaol gates slamming shut, caging her inside a prison. Drawing in a ragged breath, she struggled to still the quivering that shook her body as they steamed out to sea.

Suddenly, being a housemaid in America did not seem a wonderful future. Annie longed to lay her head on Mam’s aproned lap, to feel the work-roughened hands stroking her hair. What if she never saw Mam or Da again? America was so far away. She tried to comfort herself that all the money she earned would buy food to keep her family alive. The shriveled, blackened potatoes could not. Baby Norah had died of hunger in Mam’s arms. Old folks, like Gran, hands gnarled, bodies hunched, lay curled on pallets in low-roofed cottages awaiting death. And she, Annie, was to be their savior. She would work hard, send her pay back to feed first her family and later the village. Grandiose dreams, yes, but Annie had a mission. And succeed at it she would.

As the gulf grew between ship and land, the emerald grass of her beloved Ireland hazed into the distance in a blur of tears. Annie imprinted every detail of the coastline on her heart. She clutched the rail, straining to make out the sliver of shoreline on the horizon. When not a speck remained, she stumbled below deck to find her bunk.

Never had Annie glimpsed such a room. The ceiling rose higher than the thatched roof of her house, and beds were stacked one above the other. If Annie stood with arms outstretched, she could touch both sets of bunks.

The first few women to enter spoke only in whispers, and the silence hurt Annie’s ears. The ship shuddering under her feet seemed a poor substitute for the laughing and squabbling of her brothers and sisters. Shortly, though, the room filled with mothers of squalling infants and whining toddlers, making Annie feel more at home. But that night, tucked under the coarse woolen blanket, Annie feared crashing to the floor as the ship dipped and rolled.

 

After breakfast Annie stood on deck, gazing back toward home. Then she strained forward to catch a glimpse of her future.

A shout startled her from her reveries. A red-faced girl holding a baby chased a runaway boy. The wiry, freckle-faced boy barreled into Annie, who caught him and twirled him around the way she did her younger brothers. He squealed and begged her to do it again.

“Thank you for catching him.” The girl, not much older than Annie herself, puffed out a breath as she reached them. “I’m Frieda, the Luddingtons’ nanny.” The baby she balanced on her hip stared somberly from one to the other.

The boy muscled his way between them. “She’s not our real nanny,” he informed Annie. “Papa only hired her to take care of us ’til we get back to New York. Bridget couldn’t come on this trip. She had to stay home on Long Island with Mama.” With his hands clasped behind his back as if he were a connoisseur studying a painting, he examined Annie. “I’m Joseph Luddington the Third. Who are you?”

“Joseph,” Frieda said sharply, “mind your manners.”

Annie hid her smile at the young boy’s aristocratic manner and made a mock curtsey. “Annie O’Brien, at your service.”

“You have red curls like our Bridget,” Joseph said. “Maybe Mama would hire you too.”

Annie smiled. “I already have a job. The Duvalls paid my passage, so I must work for them.” When Joseph’s brows drew together, she added, “Perhaps later I could come to live with you.”

Joseph studied her a moment longer. “Do you play marbles?”

“Sure, and don’t I play with my brothers?” Not often. Chores usually took up most of the day, but she could shoot with the best of them. 

Joseph took her hand and led her to a stateroom larger and more splendid than the chapel in her village. Two poodles raced toward them yipping. Joseph hugged each in turn. He dismissed Annie’s exclamations with a wave of his hand. “My daddy’s very ’portant. He went to England to ’stablish a new bank.”

They sat crosslegged beside the marble sunburst on the foyer floor. Annie, who had only ever played with gray clay pellets, stared open-mouthed as Joseph poured a swirl of rainbow-colored glass from a leather pouch. But as she often did with her younger brothers, she let him beat her occasionally.

 

A splintering crash followed by a clanging bell startled Annie from sleep. Feet pounded up the stairs on the other side of the wall. Doors slammed. Screams and shouts echoed in the metal passageway. Clad only in her sleep shift and clutching her reticule, Annie struggled down from her upper berth as the ship floor lurched first one way, then the other. Hanging tightly to the handrail, she pulled herself up the stairs after the stampeding crowd.

A man seized Annie as she rushed onto the deck. He shoved her through the crowd. “Here’s another young one.”

Rough hands grabbed her and pushed her right arm into a boxy cork vest. Her reticule dropped to the deck when a man grabbed the other side of the life vest and thrust her left arm through the hole. Annie’s stomach roiled, and she shivered in the wintery air.

She sucked in a breath so she wouldn’t cry out as a deckhand held her over the side. Waves lapped against the hull, sending the lifeboat below bobbing. What if she missed and went plunging into the ocean?

A baby’s cry startled her. Annie looked over her shoulder. The nanny, clutching baby Sarah to her chest, hustled Joseph along. “Please,” she pleaded, “let us through.”

“It’s too late. This boat is full. One more person could sink it.”

The nanny’s voice shrilled in fear, “The next one then.” 

“That’s the last one, miss,” the cabin boy’s tone was somber. “Ain’t no more.”

Frieda’s scream pierced through Annie. She looked deeply into the boy’s eyes. Joseph—the one she’d played marbles with yesterday. And the baby. What if it were Seamus and Norah?

“Wait!” Annie struggled with the strings holding the vest together. Each second counted, yet her fingers fumbled. The boy needed a vest, and this was the only one.

“Stop!” The man who held her aloft shook her hard. “What are you doing?”

The stern of the steamer tilted deeper into the water. Passengers stumbled. Some fell. The man holding Annie slammed against the railing. Her feet dangled over it, her body swaying. The contents of her stomach crested and sank with each wave that battered the ship. Still, she tore at the fastenings.

“Give it to him.” Annie pointed to Joseph. “He and the baby can take my place. They don’t weigh as much as I do.”

“Hurry!” The man set her on her feet and snatched at her loosened vest.

The nanny pushed Joseph toward them. He stood stoically while they adjusted the vest around him, his gaze fixed on Annie.

Annie scrambled on the floor for her reticule so he wouldn’t see the sobs that threatened to overwhelm her. She groped through her purse for the postcard she’d addressed to Mam and Da. She reached over and shoved it into Joseph’s chubby fist. “Send it to my mam, my family,” she pleaded, “and tell them…” She choked back a cry as the crew lowered Joseph into the place that would have been hers. She bent over the railing and prayed that her words would not be lost in the wind. “Give them my love.”

A sailor elbowed past her and shinnied partway down the rope, baby Sarah tucked into the crook of one arm. He tossed the toddler toward waiting hands. After a woman clutched Sarah close, the sailor let go of the rope and plunged into the sea. He reappeared, head bobbing as he stroked through the waves toward a fallen mast.

Tears rained down Annie’s cheeks. Mam and Da. She’d never see them again. But Mam would understand.

Frieda clutched Annie’s hand as the small ship rowed out of sight. “Bless you, miss.”

They remained hand in hand as the liner groaned and creaked under their feet. The stern tilted, and the ship sank deeper into the waves.

 

All through the night, Joseph clutched the postcard. Water splashed into the lifeboat, dissolving the edges of the thin cardboard. Whenever he awoke, Annie’s sorrow-filled eyes stared at him. When he slept, he dreamed of her.

For almost two days the boat drifted on calm seas. The chilly night air bit through his damp sailor suit. People in the lifeboat huddled together in small groups for warmth and comfort, careful not to tip the boat. His lips cracked and swollen, Joseph slipped the postcard under his thigh. He cupped his hands to sip from the puddle on the floor of the lifeboat.

A woman smacked his hands, causing the precious water to dribble down the front of his shirt. “It’ll kill ye, lad, for sure.”

How could water kill him? Perhaps she only wanted to save it for herself. He was so thirsty. The sky and waves blended into one shimmering mass that stung his eyes and made him dizzy. Some people sprawled on the floor of the boat, others leaned back, eyes closed, their sunken eyes corpselike. Even shouts of a rescue ship barely shook Joseph from his stupor. He snatched up the postcard, toddled a few unsteady steps, and collapsed into the arms of a rescuer.

 

Joseph Luddington III stood beside his mother as his father’s casket was lowered into the ground. Then Uncle Clyde supported his mother to the carriage, where the coachman opened the door. Heavy veiling trailed from her large black hat, hiding her face from view. When she reached for Joseph’s hand, he quickly transferred the scrap of paper to his other fist. Then he clasped his mother’s hand and, with a boost from the coachman, climbed onto the padded leather seat beside her.

In the trees at the edge of the cemetery, a girl stood watch, her red hair the brightest memory of that night. Joseph uncurled his hand slightly so she could see the tattered postcard before the coachman shut the door.

He was still fingering the postcard when they entered the house.

“What is that?” His mother’s sharp voice startled him. “Throw away that filthy paper.” She tried to snatch it from his hand, but Joseph squeezed it into his palm.

“You have no idea what kind of diseases it may carry.”

Mama called for Bridget, who pried his fingers open. Bridget tossed the scrap into the fireplace. The postcard fluttered to the back of the stack of crumpled papers on the hearth.

Across the room, her body as transparent as smoke, the girl hovered over the hearth, glancing first at the scrap and then at him. Joseph squirmed. Surely she could see he’d had no choice.

After Bridget tucked him in bed, Joseph lay still, pretending to sleep. He forced his chest into a slow up-and-down motion. When Bridget retired to her room adjoining the nursery, Joseph tiptoed to the hearth and tried to spear the cardboard with the poker, but only succeeded in burying it under the ashes.

A breath on his cheek made him jump back. The girl caught the poker before it clattered onto the brick. She returned it to its place. Then she bent and scooped up the postcard. She blew the dust off it and handed it to him. He padded to his room and secreted the cardboard in his toy box. He’d made a promise that night, and he’d keep it.

That postcard was the only thing he had left from the ship. Everything else was gone. They’d forced him to leave it all behind. His toys, his dogs, his Papa.

The girl’s eyes haunted him. Night after night she came to him, begging him to help her family.

Several months later, when his mother had gone to take the waters and Bridget had her half day, Joseph told the cook, who had been charged with watching him, that he would join the coachman in the stable. In one fist he clutched his pocket money, in the other, the paper he had unearthed from his toy box.

Joseph cleared his throat. He tried to imitate his father’s commanding tone. “I must go to Papa’s bank today. I have some business to attend to.”

The coachman gave a half bow and hooked up the horses. On the way to town, Joseph sat stiff and straight beside the coachman as the horses plodded along the streets.

Again, he used Papa as an example when they pulled outside the bank. “I won’t be long.”

Joseph entered the bank where he had often accompanied his father, and several tellers greeted him. He went to the cage and reached up to set his pocket money on the counter.

“So sorry for your loss, son. Your Papa was a good man and is greatly missed.” The teller counted the money. “Did you wish to deposit this in your account, Master Luddington?”

Tears stung Joseph’s eyes as he stood on tiptoe to push the tattered cardboard across the marble shelf. “Send it to that address.” Then remembering his manners, he added, “please.”

The teller pursed his lips as he picked up the worn scrap. A frown creased his brow. “And shall I discard this then?” He pinched the cardboard between the tips of his fingers as if it might soil his hands.

Joseph gasped. “Oh, no. I need it.”

That night the girl smiled at him, and the constant weight crushing his chest lifted. From then on, he made regular trips to the bank with his pocket money whenever Mama was away. Sometimes the girl floated along beside him when he walked, but he had to take care not to speak with her when others were watching.

If no one was around, she told him tales of her family. Her da’s hearty laugh and the smoke curling from his pipe, her mam stooped over the heavy soup pot that bubbled over the fire. Her younger brothers tumbling together like a den of cubs, the older ones exhausted and blackened by coal dust. Her mam and married sisters hunched in the garden, digging up one shriveled blackened potato after another, cutting out the few useable bits to toss in the soup pot. Most nights the watery broth contained less than a handful of greens, potatoes, and meat. Sometimes only grass floated on its surface. Eight people sat down to a meal that would barely feed a small child, with little but charity cornmeal to plug the hollowness the rest of the day.

Each night as Joseph drifted off to sleep, lines of people with bloated bellies and sunken eyes, bones poking sharp angles under parchment-thin skin, empty bowls outstretched, crowded his dreams. They disappeared only on the nights he sent his pocket money to the address on the postcard.

 

When he turned eighteen, Joseph came into his trust fund. After leaving the lawyer’s office, he booked passage on a ship sailing to County Mayo. The strange mewling his mother made when he told her reminded him of an animal in pain. Joseph almost gave in and promised to stay. But the girl appeared, staring at him with somber eyes.

“I’m going. I’m going,” he assured her, waving the scrap of paper so she could see it.

His mother buried her face in a lace handkerchief, her shoulders heaving. Joseph laid one hand on Mama’s shoulder and squeezed, then turned and walked away before her heart-rending sobs changed his resolve. He remained brave until he reached the gangplank.

Memories of his last walk up this slope tightened his throat so that he could barely swallow. Moisture clouded his vision as he returned to the tangled forest of trousered legs and billowing skirts of years ago. He’d clung tightly to Papa’s hand, but leapt up and down to see the water. The same waves now slapping the boat made his stomach churn, his muscles tense. He stumbled back a few steps, but the press of people waiting to board hemmed him in. Panic constricted his chest, making each breath painful.

And then she stood before him, trembling. He reached out and drew her toward him. He clasped her cold hand in his own sweaty one while they boarded and then led her to his cabin. People around him shrank back, whispered behind his back as he passed. But he cared nothing for their opinions.

In the cabin, they huddled together on the edge of the bed as the whistle blew and the ship shuddered. Once the liner steamed away from the shore, she slipped from his arms. Her outline grew fainter.

The panic that had engulfed him as the ship left the dock could not compare to the terror of losing her. “Don’t go.” He grabbed for her, but his hands slid through empty air. “I can’t make this trip alone.”

“You must.” She hovered a few feet from the ground, then swooped down, and touched icy lips to his cheek. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

Joseph pressed his fingers to the chilled spot, trying to hold the moment in his heart. Before him, she shimmered and dissolved.

To stem the tide of loneliness and fear, during the day he wrote feverishly. Each night he stood on deck, staring out to sea, one hand caressing the side of a lifeboat, pleading for her return.

As the ship neared the coast of Ireland, the seas whipped up a storm. Gale-force winds snatched his breath, blew him across the deck, and pinned him to the rail. Metal pressed into his gut as waves rose higher, splashing his trousers, his coat. Frigid water soaked through the wool until it clung to his skin, setting him shivering.

The next wave slapped him in the face. It left him gasping for air, a coating of brine on his tongue. Afraid to let go lest he slide across the deck into the sea, Joseph clenched the rail as the boat rose on the swells, then slammed into the troughs. Water poured over the sides, dragging him with its relentless pull. He came up spluttering after each onslaught, clinging to the rail. Then an anvil of water hammered against his chest, engulfing him. A white flash exploded around him. Water gurgled into his lungs, and he lost his grip on the rail. A dark liquid tunnel sucked him into the depths of the sea.

Annie came to him then, hands outstretched to greet him.

 

Three weeks later a trunk arrived in County Mayo. Inside a tattered scrap of cardboard bore the cottage’s address. Under that lay stacks of paper. The scribbled story of Annie and the two lives she’d saved so long ago. Below that, tied in oilcloth, a will signed by Joseph Luddington III, leaving his entire trust fund to the family of Annie O’Brien.

On the hillside above that village now stands a carved marble statue of two angels, hands entwined, facing out to sea.

 

After careers as a teacher and children’s librarian, Laurie J. Edwards moved into editing and writing, where she freelanced for a variety of publishing houses. She also writes for both children and adults under several pseudonyms. In addition to more than 2000 magazine and educational articles in print, her most recent publications include Pirates through the Ages (Cengage, 2011), Rihanna (People in the News) (Lucent, 2009), Summer Lovin’(Wild Rose Press, 2009), and the 5-vol. UXL Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes (Gale, 2012). She is also ghostwriting an MG action-adventure series and a YA historical fiction series.