“It is not the company; I find you intriguing.” She brushed Tommy’s hand with her finger tips. “The food is different.”
The waiter talked to the captain who in turn talked to the dining steward who came to their table and whispered to her. “Come, mon cher,” she urged Tommy, “come dine with me, it is all arranged.”
“Thank you but I’ll stay here with my sister,” Tommy said.
“Perhaps then I will see you later about the ship?” she asked.
Tommy rose to his feet. “Oui, madame. Bon soir,” he said, letting the little French he knew roll off his Scottish tongue.
She gave Belle a dismissing wave and waddled off.
An elderly gentleman at the next table tipped back in his chair and leaned close to Tommy. ‘‘Are ye a Scot, lad?”
“Aye, and proud of it.” Tommy grinned.
"And just where might ye be from?”
“The heart of Scotland. A town called Aberfddy in Perthsrure.”
“I’ve not been there. I hail from Portree, a fishing town on the Isle of Skye. A word to the wise, lad. From where I sit, I’d say the French woman fancied you. Disgraceful! She’s twice your age if she’s a day. I’d steer clear of that.”
“Tommy seems to affect women mat way,” Belle teased. “He’s such a lady killer.”
‘‘Aye, there’s no end to it. I am forever beating the women off,” Tommy said, giggling.
Belle stuck her nose in the air and sniffed. “Monsieur Mackay, would you consider a little tete a tete, in my stateroom, later?”
“But madame, I’m a Scot. I have my principles. I am straight as an arrow,” he said as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
"And eat like a pig.” Belle chuckled. “Pity you are not French.”
"Au contraire. The French are amateurs when it comes to making love. Have you ever been kissed by a Scot?”
“Monsieur, you can’t be serious. Frenchmen are the lovers of the world.”
“I dare not kiss you, mademoiselle, for if I do, you will never be satisfied with a Frenchman again.”
“Then kiss my hand," Belle said as she extended it. “Let me be the judge.”
Tommy took her hand, bowed over it and made a smacking sound. “That was more like a dozen piglets at a sow than it was a kiss. But it’s true, monsieur, you Scots have a way about you. The French be hanged.”
With that, they rose to leave, and their amused neighbors clapped. “Merci. Merci, mes amis,” Tommy said as he bowed from the waist. Belle threw a kiss as they strutted out of the dining room, arm in arm.
Outside, frigid wind beat against them as they explored the ship. The storm, more treacherous than before, pushed them with new force. As they went from leeward to windward across the aft, the gale made it difficult to stand upright. They clung to each other for stability, as they staggered. “This must be what it’s like to be drunk,” Tommy said, catching Belle as she started to fall.
A swabby stopped and said to them, “There’s danger of being swept overboard. Better go below. If you lie down, the ship’s rocking will put you to sleep like a babe in a cradle. There’s time enough to be topside after the storm.”
Belle was comforted with the thought that the sailor knew from experience the storm would come to an end. How did the crew manage to do their jobs while she could barely stand on her feet? She reached the rail in time to throw up. A gigantic wave broke against the windward deck where they stood and that sent them below.
Belle licked her lips as she squeezed the water out of her hair over a wash basin, the taste of salt thick in her throat. That swabby was right. Prone on the cot, she felt the sensation of being rocked like a baby. The boat’s heaving and rolling finally lulled her into an uneasy sleep.
The storm raged on into the next day. Vomiting and eating hard tack and vomiting again became the pattern of life. On the third day, a sliver of sunshine came through the porthole as Belle opened her eyes. She realized the ship was still rocking.
Unscrewing the lid on the metal water pitcher, she poured water into her washbowl and splashed it on her face in an effort to wake up. “Come on, let’s go topside, Tommy,” Belle called as she flung her brother’s cabin door open. “Wake up, sleepy head, rise and shine. It’s a new day. The sun is shining.”
“Go away,” he mumbled from somewhere under the bed covers.
“Out of bed with ye,” Belle said as she grabbed the corner of his blanket and pulled it from him.
Tommy raised on his elbows and looked at her through half-open eyes. “I don’t feel so good,” he grunted. “Go away and come back later. And give me my blanket. I’m cold.”
"All right, here,” Belle said. She wadded the blanket into a ball and threw it at him.
Quick to retaliate, he threw his pillow at her head. Belle caught it and held it in front of her. “Come on, please. Get up. Let’s go up to the observation deck and get out in the sunshine. It stinks down here. It’s worse than that cattle car. Besides I’m hungry.”
“You win, pest. But I don’t think there’s much sunshine.” Tommy grinned at her. He coughed and his eyes watered. He coughed again.
“Are you sick, Tommy?”
“No. Get out of here and I’ll get up.”
“Good. I’ll go get my shawl. Just knock when you’re ready.”
In the dining room they were served some oatmeal and a small bowl of stewed fruit. There were cold lumps in the oatmeal. “It’s been warmed over,” Belle said disgustedly. “But it’s not bad if you leave the lumps alone.”
Tommy agreed. “Doesn’t taste like home, does it?”
“The fruit is awful.” She screwed up her face, wrinkled her nose. “It’s been sweetened with sorghum molasses.”
“Guess I’m just not hungry,” Tommy said, pushing away from the table. “Are you still seasick?”
“A little, but better than last night. How about you?”
Tommy shrugged.
“Let’s go up on deck and get some air,” Belle said.
An icy-cold gale blew off the Atlantic. Once they walked out of the wind, weak shafts of sunlight squeezed between low clouds and glanced off puddles of water on the teak deck mirroring the intense greyness. The ship rolled, then jerked as if it had hit a rock in the bottom of the sea. “If there’s a pattern to it, and you could anticipate which way the ship is going to move next, it would be easier to walk,” Belle said.
“There’s no pattern. You’ll have to learn to walk like the swabbies. Watch them. They bend their knees a wee bit and walk with their feet apart. “
With her knees bent and her legs bowed as if she were astride a horse, she wobbled down the deck in front of Tommy. “Pretend that you don’t know me,” he shouted after her. She turned and bounced, kicking a leg high in the air. In all the cold, Belle felt wonderfully warm. She was with her favorite brother and they were embarking on the adventure of a lifetime.
“Think I’ll go put my head down for a while,” Tommy said as she came back to the place where he was standing.
“But we just got here. The fresh air will do you good. Don’t go yet,” she begged.
“I’ve got to, little sister. Come get me in a couple of hours.”
Tommy disappeared and Belle continued her walk around the deck. En route, she ran into Mme. Du Cartier. The French woman, stunning in another fashionable ensemble, was possessively holding the arm of a tall young man. When she saw Belle, she waved. “Where is that handsome brother of yours, Mademoiselle Mackay, still sleeping at this hour?”
“Good morning, Madam. Seems he’s a wee bit under the weather.”
“What a pity. Mademoiselle Mackay, may I introduce Monsieur Robert Dunlop?” Mme Du Cartier said. Belle smiled and nodded and Dunlop returned her gesture.
“With a name like Mackay you must be a Scottish lass?”
“Aye, that I am."
“So what takes you to America?”
“I am accompanying me brother. We are going to family friends in Idaho.”
/> “Idaho? I know the states well but for the life of me, I can’t recall hearing one blessed thing about Idaho,” he said knitting his eyebrows together.
Mme. Du Cartier fidgeted and tugged at her escort’s sleeve as though she were bored with the conversation and wanted to move on. “Ta, Ta,” she said, giving Belle an artificial smile over her shoulder as she steered Mr. Dunlop toward the railing.
“Good day to ye,” Belle called after them. How could Idaho be so insignificant that a gentleman like Mr. Dunlop would have no knowledge of it?
It was almost noon before Belle awakened Tommy. She sat on the edge of his bed looking down at him. Handsome, he was, with their father’s firm jaw and their mother’s beautiful red hair. Some lucky woman would someday fancy him and Belle knew she would be a little jealous of her. When he had children, Tommy would have less time for his sister. Oh, well, Tommy was only sixteen and it would be years before he had made his fortune and could take a wife. She had plenty of time to worry about that later. “How do you feel? Better?” she asked.
“I’m all right.” He was coughing again. Belle poured him a cup of water. He held it, took a sip and handed it back to her.
“Ye feel a wee bit hot,” she said touching his forehead with the back of her hand.
“I’m all right, I told you.”
“Then get up and let’s do something. Ye can’t just lie around all day."
Tommy swung his feet down to the floor, stretched, and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “What do you want to do?”
“It’s almost twelve o’clock. Likely they are serving the noonday me al.”
“I’m not hungry. Go on ahead. I’ll eat later.”
“Tommy, ye have to eat when they’re serving, not when the spirit moves ye."
“Go on without me. I don’t think anything would stay down just yet."
“Then, how about a walk around the deck or maybe a game of cards in the lounge?”
“All right. I’ll go up to the lounge but you’ll have to eat alone.” Belle left the dining room and found Tommy in the lounge where she handed him a hard roll spread with jam. He nibbled at it without much interest. The lounge was a nice reprieve from the compactness of their cabins. It was an elegant room that stretched the width of the ship with generous portholes and a high ceiling. The chairs and davenports were surprisingly comfortable.
They played a game of whist with the Martindales, newlyweds on their way to New York City where Daniel Martindale had employment with the railroad. Matilda, his wife was not a pretty woman. Yet, when she spoke, her quiet eloquence redeemed her in Belle’s eyes. When the Martindales left the lounge for their afternoon promenade about the deck, Colin Campbell, the old Scot from the Isle of Skye, took Daniel Martindale’s chair while it was still warm. He reminded them that they had met in the dining room their first day at sea. He was the one who had offered fatherly advice to Tommy concerning Madame Du Cartier. In his younger years, Campbell told them, he had lived mostly on fishing boats that sailed out of Portree. He knew all about sea monsters--first hand. “I’ll tell you things not many people know. They’re a natural progression,” he said in his thick brogue. “Those hairy monsters hatch from dinosaur eggs that have lain dormant for centuries in the depths of the lochs. They abide in the lochs until their passion for brine gets the best of them and drives them out to sea. Me matie and me harpooned one once. It pulled our sixty-foot craft into the Outer Hebrides in a wink of the eye. We were spun across the water until the hair on our heads stood on end. To be honest, mine has never laid down proper since.”
Belle glanced at his heavy shock of white unruly hair as discretely as she could. “We finally cut the line and freed ourselves but it was not without bloodshed.” He held up his three-fingered hand for all to see. “Me matie lost his leg right up to the knee. No telling what would have happened to us if we hadn’t cut the line. I could see that monster diving to the bottom of the sea and taking us with him.”
“What did he look like?” Tommy asked.
“Dragon-like, with wings, and a forked tongue that lashed like a lizard’s. Hairy, he was, and scaled. Purple and green. Eyes the color of fire.” The old salt stretched back in his chair and rolled his eyes from one of them to the other and then smiled with satisfaction at their incredulous expressions for which he was responsible.
"Another time,” he went on, “I drag-netted a small one and chained him to the wharf in Portree. The chain as big around as your arm. He gave me a terrible fight and gouged my face.” The old man tilted his head so Tommy and Belle could appraise his scar. “When townsfolk came to have a see, all that was left was a piece of chain cut clean through by his sharp teeth. And he was only a little fellow, less than a quarter the size of the one we harpooned. I’ve watched those devils snag unsuspecting sailors right off a ship’s deck,” he went on. “They’re nocturnal and bewitched, ye know, and only prowl about the sea when the moon is full. Strange how these creatures devour all but the eyes of their victims. In the morning, after they’ve raided a ship, I’ve looked down into the water and seen eyeballs staring up at me amongst the seaweed.”
Belle was fascinated by Colin Campbell’s wild tales; he was a marvelous story teller. Yet she wondered if there was a grain of truth in what he had to say. She couldn’t wait to ask Tommy what he thought. It had been a lovely afternoon but before it was over, Belle realized that Tommy had sneezed and coughed his way through it. She shouldn’t have pushed him out of bed the way she had. The setting sun streamed through the lounge portholes making Tommy’s skin look transparent and pale. Beads of perspiration dotted his temple.
“I’m going below for a while,” he whispered. This time she didn’t encourage him to stay.
Belle followed Tommy below as soon as she could gracefully excuse herself from Colin Campbell.
“What did ye think of that old salt’s tall tales, Tommy?”
“Entertaining to say the least. He’s got a knack for it. As for the truth, I’d say he stretched it a mite.”
The bizarre image of human eyes looking up from where they floated amongst the seaweed made Belle gag, made her giggle.
It was obvious Tommy was running a fever. His clothes were saturated with sweat and he chilled from the dampness. The single blanket on his bed didn’t seem like enough. When Belle returned from fetching the blanket off her own bed, Tommy had dozed off.
As the light disappeared from the porthole, she sat in darkness and listened to him breathe. He would be better in the morning. There was nothing she could do for him. She found a steward who agreed to give her another blanket and she slipped into her flannel nightgown and crawled into her own bed.
In the morning, Tommy was no better. Belle hovered over him as he retched with a chest pain. She wiped his brow and offered him water. “I’ll get the doctor,” Belle said.
“No, I don’t need a doctor. I’ll be all right. Just let me sleep,” Tommy insisted. Belle perched herself at the bottom of his bed all morning except for the few minutes she disappeared into the dining room for a quick breakfast. She listened to his breathing; his chest was rattling; he was wheezing with every breath. It was then that she realized how sick he was.
In panic, she tried to find a doctor, only to learn that down below, in steerage, an epidemic had broken out and the only doctor on board had more than he could handle. The steward assured Belle that the doctor would come as soon as possible.
She spent hours trying every possible thing she could to revive him. He mumbled incoherently. She dripped water from a spoon onto his parched lips, wrapped him in a dry blanket, held a cold cloth on his forehead, held his limp and delirious body against her own.
In the late afternoon, a man appeared at the cabin door and introduced himself as Dr. Ellsworth. Tommy lay gray and unconscious. The doctor worked over him a long time before he stood looking down at Belle, the sorrow of failure filling his eyes. “Your brother, dear child, has left his body and gone to a better place. I am sorry.” He sho
ok his head remorsefully. “There was nothing I could do. Such a fine, young laddie.”
Tommy dead? No! Tommy was her brother, and they were on their way to invade America. How dare this doctor say Tommy was dead. The doctor held his arms out to Belle but in her anger she refused his fatherly gesture.
In the horror of the moment, Belle bolted from the cabin and into her own where she buried her face in her bed pillow hoping the darkness might absorb her anguish but it only clarified what had happened. On her feet, she bit hard into her lip until the taste of blood was deep in her throat. Her legs propelled themselves against her will back to Tommy’s cabin door. She opened it and looked in to discover the doctor was gone and cold greyness hovered in the room. A bed-sheet covered Tommy’s body, face and all.
She had so willingly followed him away from life’s certainties because he was the one person in the whole world who really understood her. Only Tommy, surely no one else, could have given her the desire, the courage to leave home.
Out of Innocence Page 3