Currents

by Jane Petrlik Smolik

  “I think she’s just jealous.” She stared up at him.

  “I think you’re right,” he said. “But remember, this is but one story, Mary Margaret. Louisa may never be able to write one as good as this one. But you, you can go on to write hundreds more of them for the rest of your life—stories that will move people. Maybe the story you wrote about our Tad and Johnny. Their lives and their deaths might touch people enough so they can see the tragedy our people are living, and be grateful for what they have, rather than fearing so much what we might take. Tad’s and Johnny’s lives could have meaning—a wider meaning than to just our family.”

  She reached up and began fiddling with a piece of the dried vine that hung down off the building, twisting it between her small fingers. Beacon Hill’s knotted cobblestone streets lay quiet under the piles of drifting snow. Up and down the street, the candles on adorned Christmas trees shimmered in bow windows.

  Da plucked two pods off the shriveled wisteria vine, popped them open with his thumbnail, and stuck one on each of his daughter’s ears. He leaned back and smiled at her delicate figure sitting quietly now in the cold silvery evening.

  “They should be diamonds,” he said.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  “Hear ye! Hear ye! TER-RI-BLE NEWS!”

  The town crier’s bell jangled, his long horn clasped tightly to his lips, as he strutted around Scollay Square. Da and Mary Margaret were coming back from the fishmonger’s with a pound of cod for the Bennetts’ dinner, and like several other people, stopped to listen to the crier.

  “Hear ye! Hear ye! The schooner Liberty crashed off Lovells Island last night, and all souls have been lost.” People rushed out of their shops and up the street as the crier nailed the notice with the list of passengers on the tavern door.

  “Da!” Mary Margaret grabbed his arm to steady herself. “Lucas Lowe is returning on the Liberty!”

  Just then, Mary Margaret saw Mr. Bennett exit a building nearby. He was one of the first to reach the list, and he scanned it quickly.

  “It’s Mr. Bennett, Da,” Mary Margaret said. “He’s looking at the posted list of passengers.”

  Mr. Bennett turned away from the list and the crowd and saw Da and Mary Margaret. He shook his head sadly. That’s all they needed. They knew. Together all three rushed up Beacon Hill.

  On the way Mr. Bennett gasped and said, “Aurelia told me that she sees people every day who are given more than they can handle. I’m not sure Frances Lowe can handle this.”

  At the very same time Mary Margaret, Da, and Mr. Bennett arrived home, a messenger from the Custom House whom Mrs. Lowe had paid to keep an eye out for the Liberty’s arrival approached her house. She was outside with her cape wrapped tightly around her, sweeping the latest snowfall from her walk.

  Mr. Bennett burst through his front door with Da and Mary Margaret behind him, and shouted, “Aurelia! Aurelia! Come quickly. I have dreadful news. The ship Lucas Lowe was on crashed and sank last night. No one survived!”

  Mrs. Bennett and Mary Margaret’s mother had been peering out the kitchen window at Mrs. Lowe talking with the messenger, and they made room for Mary Margaret, Mr. Bennett, and Da. A dread silence rose among the group as they watched the messenger speak to Mrs. Lowe, his head bowed. He passed her a copy of the notice.

  Mrs. Lowe swayed for a second and then slumped to the ground, sinking into her skirt as though she’d been shot through the heart. Mary Margaret watched through the window as Mrs. Lowe sat there on the frozen ground, casting the same shadow as always. But Mary Margaret knew Mrs. Lowe was different now. She would be different forever, just like Ma after she lost Tad and Johnny.

  Without a word, Mrs. Bennett and Ma rushed out the door, coatless into the frigid air, and knelt next to Mrs. Lowe, wrapping their arms around her. Mr. Bennett, Mary Margaret, and Da dashed out behind them.

  “Tomas,” Mr. Bennett said. “Go fetch Doctor Wiggins. Tell him to come immediately. Oh my Lord, tell him Frances Lowe has lost her boy.”

  Mary Margaret gently patted Mrs. Lowe’s back, then dropped her head and sobbed into her hands.

  For the next two days, the storm continued to pummel Boston and what was left of the Liberty. The tossing sea swallowed up most of the ship and its doomed passengers. On the third day, bodies and debris began to wash up around the city and near the docks. Mary Margaret heard her father tell Ma that three boats had sailed out to salvage what they could, plucking suitcases and floating bodies out of the water for most of the day. When they found Lucas Lowe, he was facedown, fully dressed with full pockets, but the water had pulled off his shoes, and his stocking feet had come up first when they fished his body out.

  After being identified, his body was delivered to his mother. Ma told Mary Margaret that he would be laid out in Mrs. Lowe’s parlor for two days before he was taken away to be buried next to his father in the springtime when the ground had thawed.

  The Bennetts helped her with the burial arrangements. The Caseys didn’t need to be told that it wouldn’t be appropriate for Irish Catholics to attend the service. Ma baked tea breads and wrapped them in warm towels and had Mary Margaret deliver them to Mrs. Lowe’s back door.

  “In Ireland, laying out a corpse is woman’s work,” Ma told Mary Margaret. “When someone passes, we open all the doors and windows to let out any lingering evil spirits and cover up the mirrors to hide the dead person’s image.

  “We scrub and tidy up the corpse for the wake, then be careful to tie together the departed’s hands and their two big toes to keep them from returning as ghosts. And we all carry around a pinch of salt in our pocket to ward off any evil spirits that might be hanging about hoping to steal the dead person’s soul.”

  “Poor Lucas!” Mary Margaret cried. “Should we tell them they need to do all that for him? Mrs. Lowe surely wouldn’t want any evil spirits hanging around her Lucas.”

  “No, no. Don’t say anything,” Ma said. “They have their own curious ways of doing things here. Not that I agree with them.” She sighed. “But still, they have their own ways.”

  Da made sure Mrs. Lowe’s walkway and steps were clear of snow and ice, and Mary Margaret took over a prayer card, and a little note written in her own hand, saying she was sorry for Mrs. Lowe’s loss and that she would include Lucas in her prayers every night. She went back to work at Mr. Eaton’s and made sure that she always greeted him with a cheery hello. But when she was alone, behind the velvet curtain, she couldn’t help crying some days as she ironed. Louisa was so distraught to lose Lucas that she stayed home from school for two days. While Ma kept her thoughts to herself, Mary Margaret knew she was thinking of Lucas, too, since she found a few grains of salt sprinkled in her pocket every day.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Less than a week later, Mary Margaret was helping Ma clean up the Bennetts’ first-floor rooms. As she gathered up a pile of newspapers next to Mr. Bennett’s chair to discard them, she saw an article on the front page.

  The Boston Examiner

  December 30, 1856

  This winter is turning out to be one of the most severe ever seen in Massachusetts. During the night of the twenty-third a particularly violent snowstorm extended over most of New England, sweeping through Massachusetts with fierce, piercing winds. A church steeple in New Bedford blew down, and there were reports of trees falling across houses. But the gale was particularly disastrous at sea. Several ships were grounded, driven into surrounding rocks and shores.

  The schooner Liberty, so close to its destination, hung on through most of the night until the main sail, encased in ice, snapped in the wind and came crashing down, tearing the canvas sail to shreds. From then on it is assumed the hapless ship drifted across Massachusetts Bay and was tossed helplessly by the violent winds, finally driven into the shoal off the northwest end of Lovells Island, tearing out her bottom. Once grounded, the foaming sea must have rushed over the sinking ship, sweeping passengers overboard.

  Any survivors would have drown
ed as the vessel smashed into pieces against the rocks. Any cries for help would have been lost in the howling gales, as the last of the passengers would have disappeared beneath the cold, black water.

  She couldn’t bring herself to throw it out. Instead, she carefully folded it, and when she went back home, she tucked it into one of her old journals.

  Mary Margaret appeared from the apartment carefully carrying a steaming cup of tea and waited on the sidewalk while her Da sipped it. She looked up at Mrs. Lowe in her window watching Da bent over, working. She had lost track of how many times he had quietly gone in the early morning to remove the snow from Mrs. Lowe’s walk.

  Mrs. Lowe came outside carrying the red mittens with the white stars around the cuffs that she had told Mary Margaret and Louisa she had knit for her Lucas. She put them in Da’s hands.

  I knew she had good in her , Mary Margaret thought.

  “Aw, Mrs. Lowe,” he protested. “I don’t expect anything. Sure I can’t.”

  “You can. Please, Mr. Casey. My Lucas would want his gloves keeping a good man’s hands warm, not sitting useless in the parlor.” She turned and disappeared back into her home. Mary Margaret was sure that somehow, Lucas knew his mother was “being good for something, while it was in her power.”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  The first week in January, early in the morning, Mary Margaret found an envelope addressed to her on the floor just inside the door to the Caseys’ apartment. Inside was a letter.

  Dear Mary Margaret,

  Please accept the enclosed silver dollar that Papa gave to me for having a story published in Merry’s Museum Magazine. I have no right to it, and it is burning a hole in my conscience as surely as if it were a hot coal. It is your story of the day we spent with Lucas and his brave defense of you. He was a fine boy, and I know your heart aches as mine does at the thought of never seeing him again. It is your story, as is the splendid talent you have for telling a tale that spellbinds the reader. If you don’t mind, I would like to keep your journal for a few more days. I am almost finished reading it, and it has given me more pleasure than I can say.

  Please forgive me for what I did. I have learned my lesson from this unfortunate event that I brought upon myself. I have confessed to my parents who are woefully disappointed in me. They agree that this silver dollar belongs to you.

  Sincerely,

  Louisa

  P. S. If you can come for tea someday soon, I’ll show you all the latest things I have learned at school. I hope you’ll come.

  Mary Margaret had already forgiven Louisa. After Lucas Lowe was killed, one magazine article didn’t seem so important anymore. Although she did want her journal back, her parents had forbidden her from mentioning so much as one word about it.

  When Mary Margaret showed the letter and silver dollar to her parents, her father said, “’Tis good to forgive your enemies, and even better to forgive your friends.”

  Her mother agreed, but—always the practical one—added, “Good to know we have a spare dollar. We might be needing it.”

  “What will we use it for, Ma?” Bridget asked.

  “I don’t know yet. But there is always something that we need. The money we got for the cross won’t last forever. When it runs out, this will buy more medicine for you, if you still need it. But both Da and I think you already seem quite a bit better,” Ma replied hopefully. “Don’t you agree?”

  “Yes, Ma,” Bridget said, exasperated. “I keep telling you and Da that I feel better every day but you still keep asking me.”

  Her mother laughed. “I guess Da and I just can’t hear it enough, that’s all.” She fluffed the back of Bridget’s hair and made a funny face at her.

  “Help me start supper, Mary Margaret,” her mother said.

  Ma cut turnips and potatoes into chunks and slid them into a big pot while Mary Margaret peeled carrots.

  “Mary Margaret!” Ma cried. “You’re going to peel those carrots down to nothing. What’s wrong with you?”

  She stopped peeling and began instead to chop them.

  “I said, what’s wrong with you?” Ma put her knife down and turned to her daughter.

  “It just doesn’t seem fair,” Mary Margaret finally said.

  “What are you talkin’ about?” Ma asked.

  “For the price of a doctor’s visit and some pills, Bridget could have been better a long time ago. If Louisa had been sick, don’t you know the Bennetts would have had her at the finest doctor in Boston straight off. It’s wrong, Ma. And what about people who don’t happen to find a gold cross floating by the docks?” she said mockingly. Tears streaked down her cheeks. “Well, I guess they just won’t get well, aye? It just doesn’t seem fair, that’s all.”

  “Oh, I see,” Da piped up from the table. “It’s fair you want. Well, life is not fair. No one ever told you it would be.”

  “Quickest way to break your heart,” Ma said quietly, wiping her daughter’s tears with the edge of her apron, “is to think life is going to be fair. Don’t waste your time complaining about it. Take my word for it, it won’t change a thing.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  “How many hours do you work today?” Ma asked Mary Margaret the next morning as her daughter pulled on her coat and wrapped her thin scarf around her head, tucking it neatly into her coat.

  “I’m not sure, Ma,” she snapped, still too angry to look at her parents. “We don’t have as much work this week. Seems everyone wanted their shoes and boots spiffed up for the holiday. It’s quieted down a bit now.”

  “Well, if you have the chance, stop in and thank Mr. Hamilton again for advancing us the money on the cross before he’d sold it. He didn’t have to do that. You were right—he is a fine man.”

  Mary Margaret didn’t have to be reminded to check in with Mr. Hamilton. She was curious to learn if the man had come back with the rest of the money.

  She stopped before opening the door to leave and still staring straight ahead, said, “I’m not angry at you, Ma. I don’t know who to be angry with. I just know some things are not right.”

  “There are a lot of things in this world that aren’t right, lassie,” Ma said softly. “You’ll either learn to live with that truth, or life will break your heart.”

  Mary Margaret was relieved to see that Mr. Hamilton’s Pawn and Jewelry Repair Shop was open when she arrived a few minutes early to work.

  “Ah, Mary Margaret! Do you have any other treasures to sell today?” Mr. Hamilton greeted her when she entered.

  “No, sir. My ma wanted me to stop in and thank you again for giving us the money before you even knew if you could sell the cross.”

  “Oh, I was sure I would eventually sell such a lovely piece. And sell it I did!”

  “The fellow came back, then?” Mary asked, lighting up.

  “He did indeed. Just about to close up when he came rushing in counting out the money and asking me if I could send it out for him. Said he didn’t have a return address, and if it got lost or damaged he wanted to be sure it would come back.”

  “No return address?” Mary Margaret asked.

  “Not so surprising,” Mr. Hamilton said. “The city is becoming filled with a lot of temporary workers, and they rest their heads at night wherever they can. I was happy to do it. He paid me extra to send it off for him and to enclose a note.

  “I’ve been busy and haven’t sent it yet, but I have everything right here.” He reached under the counter and pulled out a box neatly wrapped in brown paper with the address written on it.

  Mary Margaret examined the carefully printed address and wished she could open it and read the note, but she knew Mr. Hamilton would never allow it. The address read:

  Lady Bess Kent

  Attwood Manor

  Isle of Wight, Great Britain

  “A lady, Mr. Hamilton! Do you think she lives in a castle?” Mary Margaret asked.

  “I wouldn’t know,” he said, chuckling. “The note he asked me to include made it clear
that the necklace is important to this Lady Bess, though.”

  Mary Margaret looked at him, amazed.

  “I thought you’d feel better about selling it,” he said, “if you knew it was off to someone who seems to hold it so dear.”

  “Oh yes, I do,” she said softly. “Is the fellow who bought it a young man?”

  “Yes, fairly so. Looks to have had a bit of a hard life, though. His hands were rough and calloused. Looks like he might have been a fine-looking fellow if he’d had it a bit easier, if you know what I mean.”

  “That I do,” she said, folding her own hands, red and chapped from the cold and the iron’s steam. “Did you get his name?”

  “No, no. I didn’t ask, and he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to offer it. And he paid in cash, so there’s no way to trace him.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Mary Margaret hummed an old Irish tune she’d learned from her da, rolling the silver dollar over and over between her fingers before dropping it into the bottle with the piece of paper about Agnes May Brewster’s birth. Such an adventure this little bottle must have had. If only it could speak! She wondered what it would be like if she were tiny enough to slip into the bottle and be cast out on the ocean currents to who-knows-where. She imagined a story about a magic bottle that could talk if a secret phrase was spoken. Ah! That will be part of the next story I’ll write, she thought.

  Too much cluttered her thoughts to sleep well at night. She worried about poor Mrs. Lowe. Streaks of white had suddenly begun sprouting in her hair almost overnight. And Mary Margaret had dreams about the mysterious Lady Bess. At first she dreamed she was an old dowager dripping with royal jewels. Lately she had become a princess, held captive like Rapunzel.

  From the windows high on the walls in their basement apartment, Ma and Mary Margaret watched the feet and legs of people walking past. They recognized the tiny boots of Mrs. Bennett and the long, black shiny dress of Mrs. Lowe as the two ladies carefully picked their way down the Caseys’ icy steps and rapped on the door.