A Reluctant Bride Read online

  Joseph didn’t respond except to take another sip of brandy. He stared out the window, attempting to keep at bay the memories of his father. He had no wish to think on his father any more than he did his brother.

  “I hear you’re a ship’s surgeon,” Captain Hellyer said.

  “I’ve given it a go, yes.”

  “Did it suit you?”

  “Well enough.”

  “Enough to do it again?”

  Something in the captain’s tone drew Joseph’s attention away from the field. At the hopeful glimmer in the captain’s eyes, Joseph’s blood began to pump a little faster. “What do you have in mind, Captain?”

  “Lindsay and Stringer hired me to command the Tynemouth. She’s an A1, 1,500 tons, 600 horsepower.”

  “Sounds as though she’s a decent size.”

  The captain nodded. “She was a troopship in the Crimea. Survived a savage winter in the Black Sea when most of the other ships didn’t.”

  “Then she’s a sturdy ship as well.”

  “That she is. With the steam engines and her sails, she’s ready for the voyage to Vancouver Island and British Columbia.”

  “Vancouver Island and British Columbia?” Joseph set his glass down on the low table near his chair and leaned forward. Gold had recently been discovered in the British colonies on the western edge of North America and was apparently drawing immigrants from nearby California and Oregon. England was scrambling to keep the colonies populated with her own people, so the gold wouldn’t trickle down into the United States but would instead profit the motherland.

  Joseph didn’t need the gold, but he’d heard tales of the beauty and grandeur of British colonies in the Pacific Northwest and couldn’t deny he longed to voyage to the Western Hemisphere. With the unrest and war dividing the United States, British ships were steering clear of the conflict. As a result, Joseph hadn’t dared to hope he’d get an opportunity anytime soon to sail to North America.

  Was this his chance?

  The captain was watching him keenly, observing his every reaction. “First, we’ll cross the Atlantic to South America, stopping in the Falkland Islands for coal, fresh provisions, and water. Next we’ll head up the Pacific coast and dock again in San Francisco before sailing to Vancouver Island and eventually the Hawaiian Islands.”

  “I’ve heard the Falkland Islands are incredible, unlike anything else.”

  “Then you’ll want to see the place for yourself,” the captain said.

  Joseph hadn’t realized he’d shifted to the edge of his chair and perched there as if he were ready to jump up and leave today if possible. He forced himself to scoot back, pick up his glass of brandy, and relax his shoulders. “When do you leave?”

  “I’ll be loading the Tynemouth next week at the London Docks, and I’ll be embarking passengers at Dartmouth a few days after that.”

  A week. He could wrap up his business here in London, travel to Wiltshire, and make it to Dartmouth in a week. That was more than enough time.

  What of Bates? The conversation with his mentor yesterday had replayed in his head a dozen times since he’d ridden away from Shoreditch. Bates was in dire need of a new partner in order to keep the dispensary open. The work and the logistics of the mission were too great for one man to shoulder alone. That had been clear enough yesterday with both of them needed to treat all the patients.

  But surely his old friend would understand he wasn’t meant for the job, at least not now. Bates had to know Joseph wasn’t ready to live in London permanently.

  The very thought of returning home every night to the empty hallways and silent rooms of Arlington House draped a dismal veil across Joseph’s heart every bit as ghastly as the coverings that shrouded the mansion’s furnishings. Upon his return to London, the few servants who remained at Arlington House had begun the process of opening up rooms and removing the coverings. But he’d stopped them and instructed them to leave things as they were.

  He hadn’t told them he had no desire to use any of the rooms in the house, that he’d rather be anywhere but in his childhood home. Now, confronted with the possibility of leaving again, he couldn’t deny his wish to get away. Far away.

  “I’d be honored and obliged to have you as part of my crew.” Captain Hellyer finally said the words he’d been leading up to.

  Joseph met the captain’s gaze and realized the conversation was more than simply crossing a bridge. It was an invitation to another journey, a journey he couldn’t wait to begin.

  four

  Mercy stood in the long line of tenants waiting for a turn at the water spigot at the back of the building. The house agent switched on the water only once every other day and only for thirty minutes, hardly enough time for everyone to fill their buckets and pots. Still, Mercy made a point of getting her family’s share every opportunity she could.

  With the blackened pot in one hand, Mercy adjusted the tiny squirming bundle in her other arm, sweet baby Paul, her newest sibling. At two weeks old, he was plump and rosy-cheeked and could squall louder than a hungry tomcat. All good signs he was thriving, all the more reason not to complain about the extra work, and all reminders to be grateful and pray he’d survive longer than the last babe.

  “Hold tight to my skirt, Charity,” Mercy admonished her youngest sister. “And stop splashing in the dirty water, d’ye hear me?”

  At four years old, Charity was growing more independent—and more belligerent. When her hair was clean, it was the same shade of blond as Mercy’s. But most of the time, the layer of dust and soot turned the autumn gold to winter gray. As with baby Paul, Charity’s energy and attitude were preferable to the listlessness of some of the neighborhood children, who were either too hungry or too sick to make trouble.

  Like Clara.

  Mercy tried to shove aside her thoughts of the girl. She’d done what she could but had failed. After she’d carried the lifeless body home, Clara’s mother hadn’t been surprised and hadn’t shed a tear.

  Was death so common a visitor in these parts that people expected it, maybe even welcomed it as the only true savior from their pain? Or had they, like her, closed off their hearts to the pain in order to continue on?

  Charity stomped her foot again in the nearest puddle, sending a spray of mud so high that some of it splattered Mercy’s face.

  Dirty was too mild a word in describing the puddles. After the recent downpours, the kennels had overflowed into the streets. Added to that, piles of trash remained from the winter months, along with the rotting privy that served the several hundred people who lived in the old houses surrounding the stone courtyard.

  The sour reek of human waste and rotting garbage was ever present. And now that the days were becoming warmer, the stench was growing. By summer it would be an enormous, invisible beast that twisted and slithered through every corridor, suffocating them with its noxious fumes.

  “Charity Wilkins, I daresay,” Mercy said in her sternest voice as she wiped her sleeve across her cheek. “Twiggy will set you sniveling once she gets home from work after I tell her you’ve been naughty.”

  “Mum’s already home.” Charity pointed past the line behind them to the courtyard entrance.

  Sure enough, their mum stood with several other women who worked with her at the rag factory. Somehow, in spite of the long hours, Twiggy always managed to look pretty. Maybe it was her long thick hair, or her smooth skin, or her curvy figure.

  Mercy glanced at the patch of sky visible above the crowded rooftops. She couldn’t see the sun behind the clouds to tell what time of day it was, but certainly it was too early for Twiggy and the others to be home from work.

  When Mercy had last heard St. Matthew’s church bell toll, she figured she had plenty of time to make beef broth from the bones she’d found earlier in the trash behind the butcher shop. With the onion and the biscuit pieces she’d hoarded, she hoped to surprise Twiggy with the fine meal when she arrived home from the factory, tired as always.

  As tho
ugh sensing Mercy’s questions, Twiggy looked their way. People told Mercy she was pretty like Twiggy, that she had her mum’s blue-green eyes, yet Mercy couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked into a mirror to see for herself.

  Now a sadness in Twiggy’s eyes dulled the beautiful blue-green, a sadness that clawed at Mercy’s insides.

  Charity broke away from Mercy and skipped through the muddy yard toward their mum. Mercy wanted to break out of line too and run over to Twiggy the same way, skipping along without a care in the world, trusting that the one who’d birthed her would always love and protect her.

  But Mercy couldn’t run to Twiggy with her problems any more than she could run to God. Both had abandoned her long ago.

  Twiggy snatched Charity up into a hug, one that seemed tighter than normal, which scratched at Mercy’s insides all the more. Something was amiss, and Mercy wasn’t sure she wanted to find out what.

  She finished waiting her turn in line, filled her pot from the trickling spigot, and slowly made her way across the courtyard, bouncing sweet Paul as his hungry grunts and squeaks grew louder.

  At the courtyard entrance, Twiggy took the babe from Mercy, snuggling into Paul’s neck and breathing in deeply of his downy hair that was as black as coal, unlike Twiggy’s or Ash’s.

  Mercy never said anything about the landlord climbing up to the garret room with Twiggy whenever he came into the neighborhood in his fancy hackney. Mercy never said anything when Twiggy shooed everyone out of their home while her boss from the rag factory came calling. And Mercy never said anything when Twiggy had new babes who didn’t look like Ash. Mercy understood well enough how Twiggy came by the occasional extra food or the additional lumps of coal.

  But that hadn’t stopped Mercy from silently chastising Twiggy. Twiggy wasn’t being fair to Ash, who worked long and hard for their family. She wasn’t being fair to the children she already had by bringing more babes into the family. And she wasn’t being fair to the babe, knowing the child would eventually go hungry and wear castoffs that weren’t fit for the rag factory. They didn’t have any more space in the garret room they rented. And besides, a new babe only gave the housing agent another reason to increase their rent.

  “He’s as smart as a sixpence, ain’t he?” Twiggy whispered as she kissed Paul’s perfect nose.

  “He’s a right dear lamb,” Mercy agreed. It wasn’t the babe’s fault he’d been born. What was done was done, and there was no changing it now. They’d have to make the best of things, which was why Mercy hadn’t let up on her job search even though she’d exhausted nearly every possibility.

  It was all the more reason Mercy had made up her mind never to get married and have babies. This wasn’t the kind of world to bring a child into. Besides, if she ever got a hankering for a child, she only had to walk a city block to find a homeless orphan living in an alley and needing a home.

  “The mill let us go.” Twiggy said the words so softly that Mercy almost missed them.

  “You mean let you go early?” The question was a plea followed by a quaking deep inside.

  Twiggy lifted her face away from Paul and met Mercy’s gaze directly. “I mean let us go, go.”

  “But why?” Mercy couldn’t keep the desperation from her question.

  “Don’t rightly know since there be plenty of rags piled high for sorting. But some are a-saying the need for paper ain’t what it used to be.”

  The nearby paper mill employed women to do the dirty work of sorting through rags, pulling out the cloth that was too grimy and stained to be recycled, cutting away buttons, clips, and other small items, along with sorting out the garbage.

  The women worked long shifts while standing on their feet all day, setting aside the usable rags, which were later taken to a different part of the factory where the fibers were broken down, bleached, and beaten. The pulp was eventually turned into the brown paper shopkeepers used to wrap everything from butter and tea to pins and sewing needles.

  While being a rag girl was dirty work and rumored by some to spread disease, it was one of the few jobs women could get, one Twiggy had been lucky to have.

  “You’ll be able to go back again right soon,” Mercy said. “You’ll see.”

  Paul gave a disgruntled cry, this one louder than the previous. Twiggy bounced him. “Hush-a-bye now. Guess I can feed you myself this time.”

  Twiggy wouldn’t need her to take care of Paul anymore. And she wouldn’t need her to watch over the other little ones or make dinner or stand in line for water.

  With her waterpot bumping against her leg and Charity in tow, Mercy followed along as Twiggy made her way through a dark alley to the front of the building. Like the terraced houses in Shoreditch, the Nichol’s homes were just as aged, hardly able to hold themselves up under the weight of the masses who squeezed into every nook.

  You’re adding to the burden, Mercy Wilkins, said a nagging voice inside, the one that had started as soft as a newborn’s breath but was growing into the clatter of a dozen coaches over cobblestone. And now that Twiggy’s out of work, she won’t need you—if she ever did—and you’ll be just another mouth to feed.

  Another mouth to feed. That was why her older sister, Patience, had left over the winter and why two of her younger brothers had long since moved out and now lived on the docks. At fourteen and twelve, the boys could fend for themselves. That still left five children at home, including Mercy, with never enough food to go around.

  Mercy quickened her pace until she was practically stepping on Twiggy’s heels. “Maybe Ash can find more night-soil work until the factory hires you back.”

  “The poor man hardly sleeps now.” Twiggy opened the main door. “You don’t expect me to ask him to do more, do you?”

  Mercy didn’t answer as she trudged up the sagging staircase behind Twiggy. All she had to do was picture Ash’s exhausted face when he arrived home in the wee hours of the morning, threw his reeking body onto the floor, and fell asleep in an instant.

  While the rest of the city slept, Ash spent hours crawling through privy seats into underground cesspools that were built into basements or back gardens away from homes. He shoveled the solid waste into baskets that were later carted off to the countryside.

  The stench from cleaning the cesspools was too disturbing for the daytime, and so men like Ash made a little extra money doing the foul work at night on the side.

  Whenever he cleaned cesspools, he managed to sleep for an hour or two before rising and heading off to his day job collecting coal ash from houses and businesses around the city. He and a partner hauled load after load to the yard along the River Thames where the ashes were then sold to brickmakers.

  Ash was one of the lucky ones who hadn’t been let go after the market had collapsed several years ago. He and Twiggy had celebrated their good fortune the way they did on most occasions, by lots of hugging and kissing beneath the blankets.

  Those were the times when Mercy felt the sorriest for Ash and most ashamed of Twiggy. Surely he questioned where Twiggy got the extra food and coal. And yet if he did, he never let on. He just kept on loving Twiggy and every babe she bore.

  “Maybe it’s time for you to think about getting yourself a husband,” Twiggy said breathlessly as they reached the top landing. “When I was your age, Ash and me were already married.”

  Mercy froze in the hallway, letting the heavy pot of water dangle at her side. Twiggy would never ask her to leave, would never demand it of her. But Mercy knew that was what her mum was implying. The truth was, Twiggy adored her babes but outgrew her older kids, especially when they were no longer useful.

  Twiggy ducked into the tiny room with the slanted ceiling and soot-blackened walls. She lowered herself into the room’s only chair and set to nursing Paul, kissing the babe’s head and humming as she did so.

  Charity, who’d lagged behind, finally stomped up the last few steps and bumped Mercy from behind, causing water to slosh from the pot.

  The nagging voice s
pilled over too. See, Twiggy doesn’t need you anymore. And she doesn’t want you either. Maybe long ago, when you were a pretty little babe, she loved you. But now all you are to her is a burden. A big burden.

  Mercy folded her hands around her sister’s. Not only were Patience’s hands little more than skin and bones, but her fingers were blackened and full of sores that came from picking oakum all day.

  The tedious work was required of all who lived at the workhouse, mostly old men and women who could no longer survive on their own. The large facility also housed widows and their children along with other young women like Patience who’d decided they’d rather die in the workhouse than sell their souls on the streets.

  They spent their days unraveling, unpicking, and uncoiling old pieces of rope until all that remained were thin fibers called oakum. The oakum was then mixed with tar to create a caulking that was applied to ships to make them watertight.

  “There’s a dear,” Mercy said as Patience bit off another piece of roll. “If you don’t eat every little last crumb, I’ll throttle you, that I will.”

  “Bless you, Mercy.” Patience chewed slowly, her once-delicate features now gaunt, her thick hair now stringy, her womanly form now emaciated. “I’m just trying to savor each bite.”

  Although her sister never complained about her food rationing at the workhouse, Mercy heard tales about the gruel, that the gray liquid was so thin and distasteful that even ravenous dogs turned their noses up at it. Even so, the workhouse residents were given two servings of the gruel morning and night and licked their bowls so clean they hardly needed washing.

  “You’re as thin as a chimney sweeper,” Mercy teased, hoping for a smile.

  Patience gave her the ghost of one, which was soon chased away by a fit of coughing that wracked the young woman’s body. Even though people told Mercy she was as pretty as Twiggy, Mercy always thought Patience was more beautiful. Even now in her sickly condition, she radiated a beauty that contained all the loveliness of her sweet spirit.