The Brideship Wife

by Leslie Howard

  Everywhere men, stripped to the waists, grunted as they dragged carts of coal from the hold in the foredeck to the bunkers aft. After dropping their loads onto the floor in front of the burner that fed the throbbing, percussive engines, they pulled their carts back to the hold for yet another load. I felt sorry for them, but the stokers had it worse, standing as they were in front of the open furnace. They endured the intense heat and backbreaking work of feeding the hungry engines.

  I had never seen anyone work in conditions like these. It seemed no thought had been given to the health and well-being of the men, and I wondered at those who had agreed to take it on. What drove them to accept such work? Was there no other option?

  Dr. Carson signalled to one of the stokers, who set his shovel aside and came to us. He was short heavyset man. His shirtsleeves were rolled to his elbows, revealing arm muscles that resembled the thick ropes used to tie the sails down. A bandage covered in coal dust was wound around his left arm.

  “This is Sam,” Dr. Carson explained over the noise.

  There was no real space to administer to Sam, but we made use of a few empty crates. Dr. Carson settled beside him and gestured for me to do the same, then set about unwinding the bandage on Sam’s lower arm. I gasped at the sight of the large, fluid-filled blisters, but the clamour in the room was such that no one heard me. Dr. Carson pointed to the bag I carried and I opened it.

  “A lance,” he shouted.

  I looked at the collection of instruments and reasoned that a lance would be some sort of piercing or cutting tool. Unfortunately, there were several that fit the bill. I held them up one at a time until Dr. Carson nodded. He indicated that I dip it in a jar of fluid. The disinfectant, I remembered. I did as he requested and handed the lance over.

  As he began to slice open each blister, the smell of putrid flesh filled the room. I swallowed the bile in my throat, thankful there was nothing else in my stomach after last night. This was not anything like assisting the veterinary surgeon back home on our estate, and for a moment, I wished I had never agreed to help Dr. Carson. Working with the animals had been a fun adventure. I helped make them feel better, and they rewarded me with licks and snuggles. This felt like I had ventured into a battlefield where men suffered dreadful injuries in nightmarish conditions. Then I remembered Harriet, and I pushed my self-doubts away and willed myself to carry on.

  A spasm of pain passed over Sam’s face. I placed a gentle hand on his healthy arm. “Does it hurt very much?” I shouted.

  “Nay, just a wee bee sting.” He tried to smile, but his eyes were wet with tears.

  “Dr. Carson,” I said. He looked at me, and I pointed at the laudanum. Wasn’t this the time to use it?

  “Save it for the really bad cases.”

  There are worse ones than this? I thought with a shudder.

  After dressing Sam’s arm, we headed down the hall to a tiny room—the sick bay, Dr. Carson called it. It was a hot, windowless area with three bunk beds jammed so close together they almost touched. The place was meant to be where the injured and ill crew sought refuge, the closest thing to a hospital on board the ship, and it was in miserable condition. For their part, the men seemed grateful to see a nurse in their midst and nodded respectfully to me as I passed by.

  Dr. Carson bent over one of the bottom beds, where a man was groaning in pain. I looked down to see his leg. While it was set firmly in a wooden splint, it was purple and swollen to twice the size of his good leg. Stiches had been sewn into the skin where it appeared a broken bone had once protruded.

  “Casper broke his leg during the storm,” Dr. Carson explained. The sailor had been at the animal pens, using a rope to secure the cow and prevent her from sliding across the deck with each roll of the ship, but the rope had become tangled around his leg. When a huge wave hit the vessel, the cow lost her footing and landed on top of him. “I set his leg last night, but he needs something for the pain. Can you pass me the laudanum?”

  “Of course.” I fumbled for the bag, my cheeks burning with shame as I realized just how badly these men needed the laudanum. I hoped Hari would be able to wean herself off quickly before Dr. Carson’s supply ran out.

  I handed Dr. Carson a vial, and he administered it to the seaman, and within seconds, he quieted. His eyelids briefly fluttered then closed, and I was glad we could bring him some peace.

  “We’ll check on him again later to see how he’s doing,” Dr. Carson whispered, then he beckoned me to follow him. We moved into a small private examination room next to the sick bay, where a young woman in a large cloak waited.

  I had seen her before when we were boarding—she was the woman from the Columbia Emigration Society who had stumbled on the upper deck. She was quite lovely, with dark hair and eyes, and a clear golden-brown complexion. I guessed her to be of French or Spanish ancestry, her family likely from Breton or perhaps they were Basque.

  Dr. Carson shut the door behind us. “You must be Sarah Roy,” he said. “I’m Dr. Carson and this is Miss Charlotte Harding.”

  “Hello,” I said. “I remember seeing you on deck yesterday. It’s nice to meet you.”

  As she turned towards us, her cloak fell open, revealing her late-stage pregnancy. I tried not to let my surprise play on my face.

  “Thank you for seeing me privately, Dr. Carson,” Sarah said. “You see, to get on the brideship, I didn’t tell the whole truth, and now the Burks are trying to make an example of me.”

  So this was what Reverend Burk was referring to at dinner. Was she unmarried? Or widowed? I wondered. I didn’t see a ring on her finger. A thought struck me. Perhaps she had been attacked like me but hadn’t escaped. I shuddered to think how close I had come to being in Sarah’s shoes—alone and pregnant headed for an unknown world. My heart went out to her.

  “How are you feeling?” Dr. Carson asked, bringing me out of my reverie. “Having any light contractions yet?”

  “Yes, a few,” Sarah said.

  I tied to appear nonchalant as Dr. Carson gently ran his hands across her belly. “Ah, there’s a fine kick. This little one’s getting ready to make an entrance—any time now.” He looked up at me. “Good thing I’ve got your extra hands.”

  I felt my knees weaken—I had seen Dr. Boyd birth foals on our estate, but I knew little about human births.

  Sarah gave me a small smile. “Thank you ever so much, ma’am.”

  She must be so nervous, I thought. I placed my hand on her arm. “Please call me Charlotte.”

  “Charlotte, then,” she said, and her shoulders relaxed.

  “Come here the same time tomorrow. I want to monitor you daily so you can be as prepared and comfortable as possible when labour starts,” Dr. Carson said. I nodded to Sarah and then followed Dr. Carson out and on to the next patient.

  By the time we got back to the surgery, I was hungry and exhausted, but I felt a warmth from within at the thought of all the men I had helped that day. This was honest work, and I got much more enjoyment out of tending to the patients than making polite conversation with ladies of society. I looked down at my dress—it was a bit dirty and creased. I hoped Harriet wouldn’t notice. All I wanted to do was find something to eat and crawl into bed, but waiting by the surgery door was John Crossman with a well-worn brown leather satchel in his hand.

  “Dr. Carson, Miss Harding!” He smiled, displaying a fine set of strong white teeth. “I didn’t expect to find you both together.”

  I felt my palms dampen and ran them across the folds of my gown, smoothing the lines and wrinkles. What if the reverend mentioned something to Lady Persephone at dinner one night? “Dr. Carson has been good enough to give me a few lessons, first aid and that sort of thing.”

  John’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m impressed. Everyone else in first class is having a good long lie-in after last night’s storm. You’re very serious about learning more about medicine, then?”

  “Purely as a point of interest,” I said. “I doubt I would ever be called upon to
put what I learned to practical use for anything other than a few scraped elbows and cut fingers.”

  “Well, I’ve stopped by with my smallpox vaccination supplies.” He tapped his bag. “Are you up for a demonstration?”

  “Definitely,” Dr. Carson said, still full of energy. I reminded myself he didn’t spend half the night spilling his innards into a washbasin. “How about you, Miss Charlotte? You did express a curiosity.”

  In spite of my exhaustion I didn’t see how I could politely refuse. John’s timing was terrible, but I really was keen to see the demonstration and I doubted I’d get a second chance. “Count me in.”

  Dr. Carson ushered us inside his small office and cleared a space on the desk for Reverend Crossman to work. John opened his bag and took out several small scalpels, glass plates, jars, and cloths, then set about demonstrating the latest vaccination technique.

  “We make the serum from the sores that cows develop from a related disease, cowpox. Much safer than using a live pox like in the old days,” he explained, tapping the glass jars. “I won’t open these here; we’ll just pretend I put some on one of these glass plates. Then we use a scalpel to cut slits in the patient’s skin and insert a small amount of the cowpox virus.” He demonstrated his technique with a roll of cloth. “Here, try practising.” He handed us the fabric.

  Dr. Carson went first, and then I took a turn.

  “Don’t make the cuts too deep,” Reverend Crossman said. I felt an odd fluttering in my chest as he reached over and guided my hand. “We don’t want the wound to fester.”

  I tried a few more times as he watched, then finally, he said, “You’re a natural.”

  “Thank you,” I replied, handing the cloth back. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really should be getting back to my sister.”

  “Just wait a moment,” Dr. Carson said, rummaging through his bag. “I’ll walk you out.”

  I turned to John. “Good day.”

  “Good day, Miss Harding,” he said. “I hope we meet again soon.”

  I felt myself flush furiously under his intense gaze. He was certainly charming, but I was not at all interested in idle flirtation. After my episode with George, I wanted a proper marriage to a very respectable gentleman. And I didn’t want word to spread that I had been working with Dr. Carson. I would try my best to avoid John Crossman in the future.

  Dr. Carson gestured to the door and outside he handed me a small vial of laudanum. He must have pocketed it when I was saying goodbye to John. “For tomorrow,” he said.

  I nodded, thankful for his discretion. “See you then.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Life on board the ship began to take on a sort of rhythm. The weather had calmed, and it was a relief to me that no one else in first class saw me working with Dr. Carson. I only saw Reverend Crossman at dinner or from a distance around the decks, but he hadn’t said anything, as far as I could tell. My secret was safe, and I hoped it would stay that way.

  Hari spent a good deal of her time in her room, exhausted and irritable as she slowly purged the drug from her system. But I was beginning to see an improvement in her health; her cheeks had a warmer colour to them, and the dark circles under her eyes had all but disappeared.

  When she was feeling well, her time centred as much as possible on Lady Persephone, which meant long lingering lunches, slow promenades along the first-class deck, and, sometimes on particularly good days, cards in the tearoom in the afternoons. She still took most of her dinners in our cabin as evenings were the worst time. I called them her witching hours—though not to her face—as her moods swings were extreme and she would often simply lie on her bed suffering chills and painful muscle spasms, sending me out of the room so not even I would witness her lowest point. But she was persevering, and I was deeply proud of her determination.

  When I wasn’t with Dr. Carson, I would take long walks on all three decks. Hari insisted I spend lunch with her and Lady Persephone, and each time, I tried my best to impress her by asking polite questions about her own interests and listening attentively as she talked of the important work the British were doing in the colonies, a favourite subject. Slowly, she seemed to warm to me.

  At one such luncheon, I met the elusive Sir Richard, who had finally gained his sea legs. He was around sixty, with a tall, regal frame, though he had begun to stoop with age. He had a beak of a nose and eyebrows so wild and overgrown that I imagined they’d make a fine residence for some small bird. Despite his reserved appearance, he was much more jovial than his wife, and was at times almost irreverent, which I noticed Lady Persephone frowned at, but said nothing. Conversations around the dinner table were quite lively. He took every opportunity to play cards with the other first-class passengers and had a charming devil-may-care twinkle in his eye whenever he did so.

  Pretending to be fascinated by the conversation at these lunches and dinners exhausted me to no end, and each day, I looked forward to the solitude of my walks. On one such stroll, I was delighted to find two animal pens on the second deck. They were well-hidden, set in the lee of the large smoke funnel that rose from the boiler room on the deck below. I couldn’t resist introducing myself to the fat rosy pigs, whose names were Hansel and Gretel, according to the sign on their cage. There were also several adorable piglets and a sleepy milk cow named Daisy. I looked into Daisy’s large, trusting dark eyes, stroked her soft, wet nose, and promised her many more visits. She made me think longingly of Hari’s dog, Belle—the only one who had escaped Charles’s wrath—and I dearly hoped Cook was taking good care of her as promised.

  I still had to push myself every morning to wake up and get out the door of our cabin. The suffering I witnessed on my daily rounds was heartbreaking. But more and more I found myself anxious to check in on the men, to see them progress towards recovery. I knew I was helping to make life easier for the crew—some even started to call me Florence, after the famous nurse Nightingale—but I was increasingly troubled by the inequity of the whole thing, how some men enjoyed the spoils of the empire while others toiled mightily in harsh environments to provide it.

  Today, as I was looking for the right opportunity to slip unnoticed into Dr. Carson’s surgery, my attention was drawn to a demonstration set up on the forward deck. There were often music recitals and presentations offered by fellow passengers and I took in as many as I could when I wasn’t belowdecks tending to patients. I stopped at the back of a small crowd and rolled up on my tiptoes so that I could see what was going on.

  Two gentlemen adventurers were offering a lesson on panning for gold, and they had set out their large flat tin pans, filled with loose sand and gravel, on a low table by a pail of water. I stifled a gasp when one of the gentlemen opened a tiny glass jar and tipped two nuggets of gold into a pan. With a great dramatic flourish, he asked the crowd, “Who would like to try their luck at panning for gold and recover my nuggets? Which one of you will be the next Cariboo Pete?”

  I was curious myself, but didn’t want to attract attention, so I stayed where I was as an older man volunteered. He was shown how to grasp the pan with both hands and to gently swirl it in a large circular motion, dipping it regularly into the water pail and letting the sand and gravel particles that collected on the top get washed away.

  “That’s the way to get the heavier gold to sink to the bottom,” a deep voice next to me said.

  I turned my head to see John Crossman smiling down at me.

  “Oh, hello,” I said, taking a step back in surprise. I accidently bumped into the woman behind me, flattening the front of her very large hat. She glared at me as she adjusted it. I flushed. “Sorry.”

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” Reverend Crossman said, his eyes twinkling.

  “No, you didn’t,” I said quickly.

  “But I’m glad to run into you like this,” he continued. “We really haven’t had a chance to talk since that day with Dr. Carson. How’s the first aid training coming along?”

  “Oh, I gave that up a
while ago,” I lied.

  “That’s too bad.” He studied my face. “I would have said you had a calling.”

  I looked at him, forgetting myself for a moment. I was not used to this kind of encouragement, but I caught myself before I said the wrong thing. “It wasn’t really appropriate work for me. It’s frowned upon for a lady with my background.”

  “It’s a shame that society puts such restrictions on women. I’ve never really understood it. It serves no one.”

  I had never heard such a thought expressed by a man, and it gave me pause. Was it possible we could be kindred spirits? No, I told myself. Do not even think that. I knew my duty, and John Crossman didn’t figure into it. I changed the subject, nodding at the gold panning. “I recall that you have done this before.”

  “Nice to know you were listening. I usually bore everyone with endless stories of my adventures.”

  In front of us, the volunteer combed his fingers through the bottom sediment and produced the two gold nuggets, displaying them in his outstretched hand. The pea-size lumps sparkled in the light, as if winking at me. When the crowd cheered and applauded, I murmured an excuse to the reverend and slipped away to Dr. Carson’s surgery. But the image of those glowing gold nuggets stayed with me for the rest of the morning. Was gold the reason the men belowdecks worked so hard in unspeakable conditions and why the emigrant women were willing to leave their loved ones and travel halfway around the world? Perhaps the goldfields of British Columbia offered them a real chance to leave a life of hardship and poverty behind.

  When I pushed open the heavy oak door of the surgery, Dr. Carson was already busy with two patients. He looked relieved when he saw me and motioned me forward.