A Mother's Courage

by Maggie Hope

  Prue pulled herself away from Mary and the hairbrush, dashing the back of a grubby hand across her eyes before casting a resentful glance at Eleanor. ‘Aye, miss,’ she said sullenly and flounced out.

  ‘You weren’t at prayers this morning, Mary,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘I was tired, we both were,’ said Mary. ‘The air down here is foul an’ all, it’s worse than being in the coke ovens back home in Hetton. I don’t know why Prue and me can’t come up on deck more. The others do.’

  There were three families of emigrants sharing steerage accommodation with the Buckles, young Methodist families with small children, bound for Sydney, and it was true they were allowed up on deck when it wasn’t inconvenient for the crew. Of course, it was a part of the deck separated from the rest but it was in the open air.

  ‘I’m doing my best for you, Mary,’ said Eleanor heavily. ‘It’s the seamen, that’s the trouble. Mr Johnson thinks young girls are a temptation to them and Captain Molar doesn’t like it either. And now Mrs Johnson says you are too friendly with the boatswain. You’re not, are you, Mary?’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ Mary answered. ‘People like the Johnsons think pitfolk have no right to live, never mind owt else. I can’t pass the time of day with a man before they’re saying bad things about me.’

  Eleanor bit her lip. ‘Mary, the Johnsons haven’t even met any pitfolk, of course they don’t think like that. It’s just because you’re young girls, that’s all. And sailors have a bad name, I suppose. Come on, now, we’ll do our washing on the deck, it’s all right if you’re with me. And the fresh air will do you both good.’

  Up on deck the girls set to work with lye soap and seawater on the flannel petticoats that had been shed as they sailed into the warmth of the Tropics, and drawers and shifts odorous from the days of seasickness. Grudgingly the captain had detailed Jack Allan, the steward, to haul up canvas buckets filled with seawater and they set to work with a will.

  It was when they strung a line along the deck to hang the washing on that trouble appeared in the outraged person of Mrs Johnson at the head of a band of missionaries’ wives.

  ‘Mrs Tait! How could you!’

  At the scandalised tone Eleanor looked up from where she was soaping a grimy line on the inside of one of Francis’s neck cloths. Sighing, she laid down the article and dried her hands on her apron. ‘What is it now, Mrs Johnson?’

  ‘Hanging up your personal washing for all the men to gape at! No wonder they fall into temptation. Mrs Tait, take that line down at once!’

  Eleanor looked at the washing and then around at the deck. Not a seaman in sight that she could see, not at this end of the deck; they were hidden from the main part by the bulkhead. ‘There are no seamen here, Mrs Johnson,’ she said evenly.

  ‘What’s that, then? Or should I say, who is that?’ Mrs Johnson nodded her head in the direction of the rigging and there, right at the top, looking like a peg doll from that distance, was a man and he was indeed looking down at them curiously.

  ‘Mrs Johnson—’ Eleanor began, but when she was interrupted by Francis, who strode up to her with a face like thunder.

  ‘Eleanor, take down that line and go below, I wish to speak to you,’ he said.

  ‘But—’

  ‘Now, Eleanor. And bring those two with you.’

  The worst part about it was the way the missionary women stood back in a line and watched Mary and Eleanor collect their dripping washing and pile it into the canvas bucket. They carried it along the deck and down to the cabin, Prue trailing behind. And then just as they were about to disappear from the deck, the seaman in the rigging shouted.

  ‘Now then, Prue, me darlin’, keep your chin up and don’t let the holy joes get you down!’

  ‘Mr Rae!’ yelled Captain Molar from the wheel deck to the boatswain. ‘Bring that man to me at once! I’ll teach him a lesson he won’t forget in a hurry!’

  Prue, her eyes sparkling with fun and her cheeks flushed by the sun and the fresh air, was still grinning as they entered the tiny cabin, dripping water from the clothes all over the floor. Francis glared at her as he closed the door behind him and turned on them furiously.

  ‘Did a seaman bring rum down to the steerage last night and were you both drinking it with him? Now, tell me the truth, for I won’t have you lying.’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t,’ cried Prue, shaking her head vigorously at the same time as Mary looked stonily at him and admitted it.

  ‘It was a bit of fun, that’s all,’ she said. ‘I haven’t signed the pledge even if you have.’

  ‘You have the gall to stand there and say you were drinking strong liquor and worse, with a seaman and in the place where you sleep?’

  ‘Aye, we did. Well, it’s good for you when you’re at sea, all the seamen say it is.’

  Eleanor shuddered as she looked at the girls; she was quite bereft of words. They were in for it now.

  Chapter Seven

  Francis stood at the rail of the main deck of the ship as the Liberator edged its way into dock at Capetown, the first landfall since leaving England. For the moment he was on his own; Eleanor and the Buckle girls were still below, preparing for the trip ashore. He sighed as he thought about the Buckles, bitterly regretting agreeing to Eleanor bringing them with her.

  He stared out over the bay at Table Mountain with its ‘tablecloth’ of low cloud and the castle, its flagpole flying the Union Jack. Eleanor should have been up here with him; they should have been enjoying the magnificent sight together and instead she was below, no doubt chattering with Mary Buckle. Oh yes, Mary Buckle had been a mistake; he should have put his foot down from the start. Eleanor was too close to the girl; she treated her, if not exactly as a friend, not as a servant either. It just wasn’t right.

  At least there had been no more trouble with the crew. Francis shuddered as he remembered that morning when Mr Johnson had brought to his attention the gossip about Mary and Prue and the seamen.

  ‘The emigrants in steerage are decent family folk, Mr Tait,’ Johnson had said. ‘It’s not right that they should have to witness licentiousness and drinking, not right at all. It is a great pity you agreed to the Buckles coming on the journey. It’s my advice to you to send them back on the first available ship from Capetown.’

  But even if Eleanor agreed to it, where was the money to come from for the girls’ fares? Even with them travelling in steerage it had taken a lot of money to bring them in the first place – no, they couldn’t go back. Of course, he was master in his own family and if he should insist then Eleanor would have to let them go. If they had the money. As things were, the Buckles would have to go on with the rest of the missionary party but thank goodness the Johnsons were getting off at Capetown.

  ‘Francis?’

  He had been so lost in his own thoughts that he jumped when Eleanor’s voice sounded close to his ear. The passengers were all coming on deck, he saw, ready to go ashore, dressed in lightweight summer suits and dresses as they had been advised by the Missionary Society, though the colours were dark grey and black as befitted Methodists.

  ‘Francis?’ Eleanor said again. ‘Mary and Prue are going ashore too, I told them that would be all right. They want to go on their own, just to have a look around. After all, they may not get another chance to see Capetown.’

  If Francis had a few misgivings about allowing the girls to stroll about a strange town on their own, he soon overcame them. He would be with Eleanor and only last evening Mr Gibson had suggested they make up a party with him and his wife. Eleanor was looking at him in her direct way, waiting for his answer. Well, he would forget the Buckles today, let them do what they would.

  Excited anticipation rose in him as he took his wife’s arm and led her towards the gangplank, a feeling that was shared by the rest of the party, an eagerness to leave the confinement of the ship. They took a carriage up Adderley Street, Mrs Gibson and Eleanor chatting together happily. Thank the Lord for the Gibsons, the only ones who hadn’t turn
ed a little cold towards the Taits on account of the goings-on of the Buckles.

  Francis kept glancing at Eleanor as she sat there, looking all around her at the sights, her face alive with interest as she exclaimed at the mountain and the coachman told the tale of Mynheer van Hunk and his fight with the devil and how he was spirited away to Hades.

  ‘Superstitious nonsense,’ murmured Mr Gibson and Francis nodded his head gravely. But the talk of legends and ghosts had led naturally to a discussion of the famous Flying Dutchman and how he was condemned to try to round the coast for ever because he had cursed the Almighty. ‘God is not mocked,’ said the older minister.

  They saw the castle and heard the noon gun boom out over the town and Eleanor was enthusiastic about everything. If only he could get her away from the Buckles, what a perfect minister’s wife she would be, mused Francis.

  It was when they returned to the ship, tired but happy, full of the sights and sounds of Capetown and Francis was paying off the driver, that they saw a strange man, dressed outlandishly in checked trousers and pale-grey frock coat and sporting a large-brimmed hat on his head, approach the ship and bound up the gangplank at a rate of knots that showed his unlimited energy. The missionaries and their wives in their sober dark clothes stopped talking and all four followed his progress with varying expressions of surprise.

  ‘He must have the wrong ship,’ said Francis at last.

  ‘Extraordinary,’ murmured Mr Gibson, though they had seen and even spoken to a bewildering diversity of human beings during their day in the town.

  Eleanor made the first move. ‘Well, if he has boarded the wrong ship he’d best be getting off pretty quickly, it’s almost time for sailing. Come along, we must board ourselves if we don’t want to be left behind.’

  There was no sign of the stranger on deck and Eleanor wasted no time in looking around for him; she was anxious to discover whether Mary and Prue had returned safely. She excused herself to the Gibsons and hurried below but there was no sign of the Buckles either in their quarters in the steerage or anywhere else she could think of. She hurried back to the cabin she shared with Francis and found him sitting at the tiny table writing up his impressions of Capetown while they were fresh in his memory. He regarded Eleanor gravely as she told him the girls were missing.

  ‘But what can I do about it?’ he asked and calmly went back to his writing.

  ‘But, Francis, supposing they miss the boat? What will they do, two girls on their own in a strange city?’

  ‘If they miss the boat it will be their own fault,’ he said, privately thinking that it might be a good thing if they did; it would certainly solve a lot of problems.

  ‘Francis! That is just not Christian!’ cried Eleanor and ran from the cabin and up on to the deck where Captain Molar and his men were beginning to prepare for sailing. She approached him and began talking all in a rush but he waved her aside impatiently.

  ‘Get off my deck if you please, ma’am,’ he said, brushing past her and almost knocking her off her feet.

  Eleanor recovered herself and tried again. ‘We can’t go yet,’ she cried. ‘My maids are not aboard yet, we can’t leave them here.’

  ‘Time and tide wait for no man, no, nor maid either,’ snapped the captain, ‘now I’ve told you, ma’am, get out of my way or I will have you removed.’ His tone altered to a bellow as he shouted to a seaman on the quay. ‘Get ready to cast off!’

  Eleanor despaired. She ran to the rail and peered down at the shore in the gathering gloom – was that them coming? A group of people were hurrying along, waving urgently at the Liberator.

  ‘Wait!’ she cried but the captain ignored her. Seamen were already moving towards the gangway, ready to draw it on board. Frantically, she ran to them, pointing out the two girls, for now it could be seen who they were.

  If a seaman had not noticed that one of the men with Mary and Prue was the steward Jack Allan, they would have been left behind, but the sailors hesitated for the minute it took the group to reach the ship.

  ‘Oh, thank you, God, thank you,’ Eleanor breathed as they hurried up the gangplank and gained the safety of the deck.

  ‘Put that man in irons!’ roared the captain, the moment the gangplank was secured. ‘I’ll deal with him tomorrow.’ And Prue’s face crumpled as she began to wail.

  ‘It wasn’t his fault!’ she cried. ‘It was me that got lost, he was looking for me.’

  The captain merely roared, ‘Take that squalling brat below or God help me, I’ll have her in irons too!’ and turned back to the business of getting the ship under way.

  Eleanor watched as Mary dragged a sobbing Prue away, thankful that the two girls were aboard at least. She would have to punish them, or at least give them a good talking to, she determined.

  ‘Well, Eleanor!’

  At the sound of Francis’s voice, Eleanor turned to confront the row of missionaries and their wives, all on deck to watch the departure from Capetown and all of them staring at her unsmiling. Her heart sank.

  ‘I think I’ll go below, Francis,’ she said. ‘I feel a headache coming on.’

  Chapter Eight

  It was not until next morning when the passengers assembled for breakfast that they saw again the man who had come aboard the evening before. They were now twelve hours out of Capetown on the last leg of their journey to Sydney and though it was only seven o’clock the sun was hot in the sky and the Englishmen and their wives looked hot and uncomfortable in their sombre clothing.

  ‘Captain West,’ the newcomer introduced himself to the Taits. ‘Morgan West, at your service, ma’am, sir.’ He looked cool and elegant in his white calico suit and thin-leathered boots; he was broad-shouldered and lean-hipped with eyes startlingly blue in his tanned face and straight dark brows contrasting with his sun-bleached hair.

  All this Eleanor noticed in the few seconds it took Francis to say who they were and as Captain West took her hand in a cool, firm grasp. She looked up into those surprising eyes and stood quite still until Francis cupped her elbow and moved her forward towards the table where the Gibsons were already sitting. As she sat down she saw that Captain West was greeting Miss Tookey, the schoolteacher, and that lady was curtseying awkwardly, the tip of her long nose glowing pink.

  ‘American,’ murmured Mrs Gibson in her ear. ‘I wonder how he gained passage on this ship.’

  America, of course, thought Eleanor, that’s where his strange drawl comes from, his free yet courteous manners. She glanced at Francis and saw he was wearing a slight frown as he gazed at the man.

  ‘What is it, Francis?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know, just there’s something about Captain West,’ he replied. ‘I’m sure I’ve heard his name mentioned somewhere.’ But Captain Molar had entered the room and was taking his place at the head of the company. There were fresh exotic fruits on the table and the water supply had been replenished at Capetown so it was no longer stale on the tongue. After a short grace, the company became more interested in breakfast than in Captain West.

  There were mangoes and bananas, and oranges that tasted nothing at all like the oranges that Francis or Eleanor had been used to receiving in the toes of their Christmas stockings, so fresh and full of juice they were. And limes of course; they had all been instructed to eat limes as a guard against the dreaded scurvy.

  Later the upper-deck passengers were joined by the ones in steerage, the emigrant families and the Buckles. The two girls took up their position to the side of Eleanor and Francis, though slightly behind, both looking pale and subdued after the censure they had received the evening before from Francis and the downright bawling out from Captain Molar.

  Prayers were about to start when Morgan West approached the group and casually joined them, nodding a greeting to the steerage passengers. Seeing the position of the Buckles, part of the circle yet not quite in it, he took Mary’s arm and led her and her sister forward.

  ‘Come now, ladies, I’m sure these good folk will make m
ore room for you,’ he said and the congregation had perforce to do so. Francis felt put out; it was as though he and his fellow missionaries had been taught a lesson in manners but he managed to smile politely at the man.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘All are equal in the sight of God.’ And the way that he said it implied that it was not necessarily so in the eyes of Englishmen, not even English clerics.

  Francis opened his eyes once between the prayer that the ship might avoid all perils on its voyage to the Antipodes, and the prayer that the company would be blessed by the Lord and carry out His will as good and faithful servants in their mission to convert the heathen, and his gaze fell upon Prue. Her hands were clasped in front of her as piously as her sister Mary’s but she was smiling her dimpling, red-lipped smile and her small face was turned bewitchingly to one side.

  She was gazing at Captain West, using all her wiles on him. If Mr Gibson wasn’t at that moment beseeching the Lord for guidance in all they did this day he would—Morgan West caught his eye and grinned, nodding at Prue as though sharing a joke, and Francis hastily closed his eyes and concentrated on the words uttered by Mr Gibson. He had allowed the minx to distract him, he thought savagely. Dear God, the wickedness of women! For Prudence Buckle was a woman in spite of her years and well on the way to being a harlot, he was sure of that. And yet again he bitterly regretted allowing Eleanor to bring the Buckles.

  Mary herself was beginning to wish the same thing as Francis. Oh, how excited she had been at the prospect of leaving the coal-ridden county of Durham and travelling to the opposite side of the world, what a life she could carve out for herself in a new country, a country where a person could climb out of her class and make something of herself without the need to be a servant to anyone. Not that Eleanor had been mean to her or her family – quite the opposite really; she had helped them when they were in desperate need and Mary was grateful to her, she really was. But still, there was no getting away from the fact that Eleanor was the mistress and she was the skivvy. Though how could she have brought up Prue without Eleanor’s help? At least she wasn’t like her grandmother, the viewer’s mother. Mrs Wales’s father had worked at the coalface himself, Mary had heard it muttered many a time in the village when the old lady acted as though she were the lady of the manor.