The skiff bumped against the ship and the women were unloaded. One by one they plodded up the ramp, their chains clinking. The first, plump and disheveled, appeared to be in her thirties. The next two were close to Evangeline’s age. The final girl was much younger. She was ghostly pale, with unruly copper hair gathered in a loose bun against her neck—the only spot of color in the drab scene. Looking neither at Buck nor at the small crowd lining the railing above, she stared resolutely ahead, stepping carefully in her chains like a dancer to avoid the thick treads. She wore boys’ breeches, tied with a cloth belt, and was as fine-boned as a sparrow.
Buck, walking close behind her, thwacked the girl’s backside with his palm. She stumbled forward, barely catching her footing. “No dallyin’,” he said, kissing his fingers and winking at the men above, who whistled and clapped.
The girl stopped. He came up short, bumping into her.
She turned slowly to face him, her chin thrust forward. Evangeline couldn’t see her face or hear her words, but she watched Buck’s smug leer vanish.
As the girl turned back around and continued up the ramp, Buck’s expression changed again, from blank consternation to anger. Gripping the railing, Evangeline called, “Watch out!” but her voice was swallowed in the tumult.
When the girl reached the deck, Buck shoved her hard, and, tripping on her chains, she sprawled forward. She couldn’t raise her arms to protect her face, but at the last second she twisted to the side, closing her eyes as she fell with a sickening thud.
Someone gasped. The hooting stopped. The girl lay still. Evangeline watched Olive push through the sailors and prisoners gathered around the prone body, and, kneeling, lift the girl to a sitting position, one arm around her shoulders. One side of her head was matted with blood, deep red, staining her curls and running down her neck.
Buck jumped lightly onto the deck. “Such a clumsy one,” he said, nudging the girl’s leg irons with his foot.
A few sailors laughed.
The girl’s eyelids fluttered. With an arm around her back, Olive helped her to her feet. Evangeline could see the knobs of her backbone beneath her thin blouse and a small crescent moon tattooed in blue and black on her neck. She was quivering like an aspen. Olive’s dress was smeared with blood.
“What happened here?” the surgeon asked, coming toward them.
Wordlessly the sailors dispersed, avoiding his eyes.
“Mr. Buck?”
“Seems the prisoner lost ’er balance, officer.”
Dr. Dunne glared at Buck, as if wanting to reprimand him but not finding enough cause. He exhaled through his nose. “Get the locksmith.”
“Will do, officer.”
“Do it now, seaman.” Dr. Dunne motioned for Olive to step away. Crouching down in front of the girl, he said, “What is your name?”
“Don’t matter.”
“I’m the ship surgeon. Dr. Dunne. I need to know.”
She stared at him for a long moment. “Hazel.”
“Hazel what?”
“Ferguson.”
“Where are you from?”
She paused again. “Glasgow.”
“May I?” He held his hands up, as if surrendering, then reached toward her, fingers spread. She let him cup her face. He turned her head this way and that, inspecting it. “Does that hurt?”
“No.”
“The wound needs cleaning. As soon as you get these irons off, I’ll take a closer look.”
“I can take care of meself.”
Stepping forward, Olive blurted, “That sailor shoved her. Buck. We all seen it.”
“Is that what happened?” the surgeon asked the girl.
“Dunno.”
“You don’t know, or don’t want to say?”
She lifted a bony shoulder in a shrug.
“Did the same to me,” Olive said. “Savage as a meat axe, that one. Ye should throw him off the ship.”
Dr. Dunne gave her a sharp look. “That’s enough, Miss Rivers.”
“What d’ye know.” Olive grinned, nodding to the crowd. “He knows who I am.”
The surgeon stood and faced her, hands on his hips. “Do not mistake my solicitude for affinity, prisoner,” he said. “I am paid to know who you are. And to keep you alive. Though perhaps not enough to accomplish that feat.”
Evangeline didn’t see the girl again until after chores were done for the day and the convicts were herded down to the orlop deck to be bolted in for the night. As she approached her berth with a nub of candle she saw that the bottom bunk across the aisle was occupied. The girl’s narrow back was visible under the blanket, her curls spilling across it.
Evangeline motioned to Olive, just behind her: Look there.
Olive climbed up to her bunk and leaned across the aisle. “Ay, Hazel.”
Silence.
“I been to Glasgow once.”
The form shifted slightly.
“That cathedral. Big, in’it? Huge.” Olive whistled through her teeth.
Hazel twisted around to look at them. “Ye seen it?”
“I have. You’re a long way from home.” When the girl didn’t answer, she said, “I’m Olive. This here’s Evange-a-leen. I call ’er Leenie. She floats along with her head in the clouds, but she’s all right.”
“Olive.” Evangeline sighed.
“What? It’s true.”
“I’ve never been to Glasgow, but I read about it,” Evangeline told Hazel. “Rob Roy. I loved that book.”
“See what I mean?” Olive said. “She tries, god love ’er, but all she knows is books.”
Hazel made a grunt. A laugh, maybe.
“You’re pitiful young,” Olive said. “Ye must miss your mum.”
She snorted. “Hardly.”
“Ah, it’s like that, then. How old are ye?”
“Twenty.”
“Pah. If you’re twenty, I’m seventy-five.”
“Quiet!” a woman shouted. “And kill that candle, or I’ll do it for ye.”
“Mind your business,” Olive yelled back. “You’re not a day over twelve,” she said to Hazel.
In the glow of the candle Evangeline could see Hazel scowling at Olive. “I’m sixteen. Now leave me alone.” She leaned across the narrow aisle, looked Evangeline in the face, and blew the candle out.
The ship was at capacity. The day before they were to set sail, Evangeline heard voices from the water and saw the skiff coming toward the ship with three women, Buck, and another sailor in the middle, as usual, pulling on the oars. But this group was different. They were sitting bolt upright, for one thing, whereas convicts stooped; it wasn’t easy to stay erect in chains. And their clothing looked clean. Each wore a neat dark cloak and a white bonnet.
As the skiff pulled alongside the ramp, Evangeline realized it was the Quakers. She recognized the figure in front: the wisps of gray hair, the light blue eyes. Mrs. Fry.
In an uncharacteristic display of gallantry, Buck stepped out of the skiff and held it steady for the women to disembark. He took each woman’s arm as he helped her out of the boat: Mrs. Fry, then Mrs. Warren and Mrs. Fitzpatrick. The captain, who generally made himself scarce, had materialized at the railing in a formal uniform—a peaked cap with gold trim, a black tailcoat with gold buttons, braid, and epaulettes. The surgeon, in his navy blue uniform, was at his side. As the Quakers made their way up the ramp, the sailors below them hauled two large trunks out of the skiff. The sailors at the railing were quiet.
Evangeline had almost forgotten it was possible for women to be treated with such deference.
At the top of the ramp, Mrs. Fry spoke quietly to the captain and surgeon before turning to the small group of convicts nearby. “We’ll begin with those present.” Despite the creaks and clanks and the lapping of water against the hull, her voice was clear. Spying Evangeline, she beckoned her forward. “We have met previously, I believe?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“At Newgate.” When Evangeline nodded, she said, “Ah, y
es. You’re literate. Your father was a vicar.”
“You’ve a good memory, ma’am.”
“I make it a point to remember.” Mrs. Fry motioned to Mrs. Warren, who opened a trunk and brought out a small burlap sack, a book, and a bundle tied with twine. Mrs. Fry pressed the book into Evangeline’s hands. A Bible. “May this bring you solace.”
Evangeline rubbed the reptilian skin of the maroon cover with her thumbs. The sensation brought her back to the parish church in Tunbridge Wells, in the front pew, listening to her father’s sermons. All of his talk about sin and redemption that had seemed so theoretical at the time came back to her, painfully, now.
“Most of these women are illiterate. It is my hope that you will share the gift of reading,” Mrs. Fry said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I have some things to ease your journey.” Mrs. Fry picked up the bundle. “A knit cap for the cold—you won’t need it now, but you’ll be happy to have it later—an apron, and a shawl. Made for you by Quakers who believe in the possibility of salvation.” She set the bundle down and gave Evangeline the sack. “In here you’ll find all you need to make a quilt. For your child, perhaps.”
Evangeline peered inside: a thimble, spools of thread, a red cushion pricked with pins and needles, a pile of patchwork pieces tied with string.
“Remember, my dear: we are but vessels,” Mrs. Fry said. “You must labor to keep yourself humble, meek, and in a self-denying frame, that you may be fit to follow the Lord Jesus, who invites such to come to Him. Only through sorrow do we learn to appreciate kindness.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Evangeline said, though she hardly needed to labor, these days, to keep herself humble and self-denying.
“One last thing.” Reaching into the trunk, Mrs. Fry pulled out a flat disk on a red cord and held it on her palm.
The disk appeared to be made of tin and was as wide as her thumb. A number was stamped into the metal: 171.
“From now on, you will be known by this number,” Mrs. Fry said. “It will be printed on, or sewn into, every item you possess, and kept in a ledger that will be passed from the ship surgeon to the warden of the prison. You will wear this ticket for the duration of the journey. With God’s blessing.”
Evangeline frowned, feeling a flash of defiance. After all she’d been through, all she’d had to accept.
“What is wrong, my dear?”
“To be known by a number. It’s . . . degrading.”
Touching Evangeline’s hand with her fingertips, Mrs. Fry said, “It’s to be sure that you are accounted for. That you are not lost to the winds.” Holding up the necklace, she said, “Bend your neck, please.”
Evangeline felt like a horse resisting a bridle. Resistance, she knew, was pointless; the horse always ends up in the bridle. And so would she.
Medea, 1840
Early in the morning of June 16, the Medea shifted off her anchor and lurched forward, towed down the Thames by a steamer. Seagulls circled above the ship, cawing and squeaking; a Union Jack fluttered from the stern. Sailors shouted to one another above the lapping river, the heaving deck, the flap and slither of the canvas sails, the creaking masts. They scrambled hand over hand up the ropes to the wooden platforms four stories in the air and to the top of the yardarm, swinging like squirrels.
Standing at the railing with the other convicts as the Medea reached the Thames estuary, Evangeline rubbed the tin disk between her fingers, running her hand along the cord, worrying the metal hook in the back. She watched the brick buildings, carriages, and mud-roofed huts recede, the people on shore turn to specks. All of them going about their daily lives without so much as a glance at the departing ship. She’d been on the ship for nearly ten days. In Newgate for three and a half months. In service to the Whitstones for almost half a year. She’d never ventured farther than forty miles from the village of her birth. She reached a hand into the mist: England was literally slipping through her fingers. A few lines from Wordsworth drifted into her head: Turn wheresoe’er I may, by night or day. The things which I have seen I now can see no more. As a young woman she’d been stirred by the poet’s lament that when he became an adult he was no longer attuned to the beauty of nature; he saw the world through different eyes. But it struck her now that metaphysical melancholy was nothing compared with physical displacement. The world she knew and loved was lost to her. In all likelihood she would never see it again.
Evangeline found Olive near the bow, sitting in a circle of women who were ripping apart their Bibles, folding the pages into rectangles to make playing cards and twisting them into curling paper for their hair. Olive looked up, holding her tin disk between her fingers. “From now on ye can call me one twenty-seven. My new friend Liza says it’s a lucky prime, whatever that means.”
A lanky woman with jet-black hair beside her grinned. “Number seventy-nine. Also a lucky prime.”
“Liza’s good with numbers. Managed the ledgers for a boarding house. Though how good are ye if ye get caught cooking the books?”
The women in the circle laughed.
Evangeline spotted Hazel sitting alone on a wide wooden crate, leafing through the Bible on her lap, and went over to her. “This cord around your neck feels strange, doesn’t it?”
Hazel squinted up at Evangeline. “I’ve got used to worse.”
Within the hour Evangeline’s skin was clammy, her mouth full of saliva. Bile rose in her throat.
“Keep your eye on that line.”
She turned.
Beside her was the surgeon. He pointed toward the horizon.
She followed his finger but could barely focus. “Please—stand away—” she said, before heaving the contents of her breakfast over the side. Glancing down the railing, she saw other prisoners leaning over, retching streams of liquid down the side of the ship and into the choppy water.
“Motion sickness,” he said. “You’ll get used to it.”
“How?”
“Shut your eyes. Put your fingers in your ears. And try to move with the ship—don’t fight it.”
She nodded, shutting her eyes and putting her fingers in her ears. But his advice didn’t do much good. The rest of the day was miserable, and nightfall brought little relief. All around her in the darkness of the orlop deck, women moaned and retched. Olive, above her, muttered curses. Across the aisle Hazel was silent, curled like a shrimp toward the wall.
Evangeline had thrown up so many times she felt faint with exhaustion, yet could not sleep. Once again, she sensed the roiling in her gut, her mouth filling with spittle, the sudsy wave rising in her throat. She’d been aiming into her wooden bowl, but now it was full and sloshing. She didn’t care anymore. Leaning over the side of her narrow bed, she emptied what little remained in her stomach in a thin stream onto the floor.
Hazel turned over. “Can ye not control yourself?”
Evangeline lay there dully, without will to speak.
“She can’t help it, can she?” Olive said.
Hazel leaned across the aisle, and for a moment Evangeline thought she might slap her. “Put out your hand.” When Evangeline complied, Hazel put a small knobby bulb in her palm. “Ginger root. Scrape the skin off with your teeth and spit it out. Then take a bite.”
Evangeline held it to her nose and sniffed. The scent reminded her of desserts at Christmastime: glazed cakes and hard candies, gingersnaps and puddings. She did as she was told, breaking the skin with her teeth and spitting it on the floor. The chunk of root was fibrous and tasted sharply sour. Like vanilla concentrate, she thought: seduced by the smell, betrayed by the flavor.
“Chew slowly ’til nothing’s left,” Hazel said. “Hug the wall. And give it back. It’s all I got.”
Evangeline handed her the root. Closing her eyes, she put her fingers in her ears and turned to the wall, concentrating only on the nub of ginger in her mouth, which softened and mellowed as she gnawed it. In this way, finally, she drifted to sleep.
By the time Evangeline emerged
from below decks the next morning, a few hours after breakfast, the Medea had left the Thames and was heading into the North Sea. The water was choppy and white-capped, the sky above the sails a dull white. A thin finger of land was visible in the distance. Evangeline gazed out at the vast, glistening ocean. Then she sat carefully on a barrel and closed her eyes, listening to a cacophony of sounds: a woman laughing, a baby fussing, sailors calling from mast to mast, the squawk of gulls, a bleating goat, the slap of water against the hull. The air was cold. She wished she’d brought her blanket upstairs with her, stained and reeking as it was.
“How was your night?”
She blinked into the brightness.
The surgeon was staring at her with his gray-green eyes. “Feel any better?”
She nodded. “I did what you said. Fingers in my ears and all. But I think it was ginger that made the difference.”
He gave her a quizzical smile. “Ginger?”
“The root. I chewed it.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“That redheaded girl. Hazel. But she took it back. Do you know where I might get some more?”
“I don’t. In the cook’s galley, I suppose.” His mouth twitched. “I’ve always considered it an old wives’ tale. But if it seems to help, by all means continue with it. I tend to be skeptical of miracle cures.”
“Well, I don’t know if it’s a miracle cure, but I do feel better,” she said. “Maybe those old wives knew what they were talking about.”
At times through strong headwinds, at others carving smoothly through the waves, the Medea journeyed the rough waters. The convicts gathered on the deck as the Medea passed the chalky Cliffs of Dover, as cleanly sliced as almond nougat, before heading into the lower Channel.
The cell at Newgate had been so crowded that all Evangeline had wanted was distance from other people. But now, to her surprise, she realized she was lonely. Every morning she rose with the clanging of the bell and lined up with the other women, who joked and complained and cursed as they stood with their dented cups and chipped spoons. She gulped her tea and gnawed hardtack, scrubbed the deck on her hands and knees. On temperate evenings, after her chores were finished and before the women were herded down to the orlop deck, she often stood alone at the railing and watched the sun drop in the sky and the stars appear, faintly at first, as if bubbling to the surface of a vast lake.
The Exiles Page 9